This is too true to be funny . The next time you hear a politician use the Word 'billion' in a casual manner, think about whether you want the 'politicians' spending YOUR tax money . A billion is a difficult number to comprehend, But one advertising agency did a good job of putting that figure into some perspective in one of its releases. A. A billion seconds ago it was 1959. B. A billion minutes ago Jesus was alive . C. A billion hours ago our ancestors were living in the Stone Age. D. A billion days ago no-one walked on the earth on two feet. E. A billion dollars ago was only 8 hours and 20 minutes, at the rate our government is spending it. While this thought is still fresh in our brain... let's take a look at New Orleans ... It's amazing what you can learn with some simple division. Louisiana Senator, Mary Landrieu (D) was asking Congress for 250 BILLION DOLLARS To rebuild New Orleans . Interesting number... What does it mean? A. Well .. If you are one of the 484,674 residents of New Orleans (every man, woman and child) You each get $516,528 B. Or... If you have one of the 188,251 homes in New Orleans , your home gets $1,329,787. C. Or... If you are a family of four... Your family gets $2,066,012. Washington, D.C. HELLO! Are all your calculators broken?? Building Permit Tax CDL License Tax Cigarette Tax Corporate Income Tax Dog License Tax Federal Income Tax (Fed) Federal Unemployment Tax (FU TA) Fishing License Tax Food License Tax Fuel Permit Tax Gasoline Tax Hunting License Tax Inheritance Tax Inventory Tax IRS Interest Charges (tax on top of tax) IRS Penalties (tax on top of tax) Liquor Tax Luxury Tax Marriage License Tax Medicare Tax Property Tax Real Estate Tax Service charge Taxes Social Security Tax Road Usage Tax (Truckers) Sales Taxes Recreational Vehicle Tax School Tax State Income Tax State Unemployment Tax (SUTA) Telephone Federal Excise Tax Telephone Federal Universal Service Fee Tax Telephone Federal, State and Local Surcharge Tax Telephone Minimum Usage Surcharge Tax Telephone Recurring and Non-recurring Charges Tax Telephone State and Local Tax Telephone Usage Charge Tax Utility Tax Vehicle License Registration Tax Vehicle Sales Tax Watercraft Registration Tax Well Permit Tax Workers Compensation Tax (And to think, we left British Rule to avoid so many taxes) STILL THINK THIS IS FUNNY? Not one of these taxes existed 100 years ago... And our nation was the most prosperous in the world. We had absolutely no national debt. We had the largest middle class in the world. And Mom stayed home to raise the kids. What happened? Can you spell 'politicians’! And I still have to Press '1' For English. I hope this goes around the U S A At least 100 times What the heck has happened to our Country?

A UFO FLEET IN HAWAII!? THIS MAY BE PROOF

Just pondering!

Wizard of Odd

An engineer, a physicist, a mathematician, and a mystic were asked to name the greatest invention of all times. 

The engineer chose fire, which gave humanity power over matter. 

The physicist chose the wheel, which gave humanity the power over space. 

The mathematician chose the alphabet, which gave humanity power over symbols. 

The mystic chose the thermos bottle. 

"Why a thermos bottle?" the others asked. 

"Because the thermos keeps hot liquids hot in winter and cold liquids cold in summer." 

"Yes -- so what?" 

"Think about it." said the mystic reverently. That little bottle -- how does it know?"

A Gentleman Pioneer Dies

Howard H. Scott, a Developer of the LP, Dies at 92

By BEN SISARIO

Published: October 6, 2012 Howard H. Scott, who was part of the team at Columbia Records that introduced the long-playing vinyl record in 1948 before going on to produce albums with the New York Philharmonic, Glenn Gould, Isaac Stern and many other giants of classical music, died on Sept. 22 in Reading, Pa. He was 92.

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Howard H. Scott, right, with the composer Aaron Copland in 1974, also had a significant career as a classical music producer.

The cause was cancer, said his daughter, Andrea K. Scott.

In 1946, Mr. Scott was 26 and just discharged from the Army when he got a job at Columbia Masterworks, the label’s classical division. He was soon assigned to Columbia’s top-secret project: developing a long-playing record to replace the 78 r.p.m. disc, which could hold only about four minutes of music on each brittle shellac side.

The project had begun in 1940 and was nearing completion. But its engineers needed someone with musical training — particularly the ability to read orchestral scores — to help transfer recordings from 78s to the new discs, which played at 331/3 r.p.m., could hold about 22 minutes a side and were made of more durable vinyl.

Howard Hillison Scott fit the bill.

Born in Bridgeport, Conn., on May 31, 1920, he graduated from the Eastman School of Music in 1941 and had just begun graduate piano studies at Juilliard when he was drafted the next year. Back in civilian life in July 1946, he was hired by Columbia as a trainee.

In the days before magnetic tape came into wide use, the process of transferring music to the new discs (soon to be known as LPs) was complex. Long pieces of music, split among multiple 78 r.p.m. records, needed to be stitched together on the new discs without interruption.

To do that, Mr. Scott and his colleagues lined up overlapping segments of music on 78s, and — with Mr. Scott snapping his finger in coordination — switched the audio signal at just the right moment from one turntable to the other. As the industry began to use magnetic tape, beginning in the late 1940s, such work was no longer necessary.

As a staff producer at Columbia, Mr. Scott worked on hundreds of recordings by most of the major orchestras of the United States, including those of Boston, Cleveland, Philadelphia, St. Louis and Cincinnati in addition to the New York Philharmonic. He had a particularly close association with Gould, beginning with his historic recording of Bach’s “Goldberg” Variations in 1955.

Mr. Scott left Columbia in 1961 and worked at MGM Records, RCA Red Seal, the publisher G. Schirmer and the Rochester Philharmonic, where he was executive manager in the 1970s. He won a 1966 Grammy Award as the producer of the classical album of the year: Charles Ives’s Symphony No. 1, performed by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Morton Gould conducting, on RCA Red Seal.

From 1986 until his retirement in 1993, Mr. Scott worked for Sony, Columbia’s corporate successor, as a producer, once again transferring old albums to a new format: the CD.

In addition to his daughter, Mr. Scott is survived by a son, Jon; two sisters, Carol Ruth Shepherd and Elaine Silver; and two granddaughters.

In a 1998 interview with The New York Times, on the 50th anniversary of the introduction of the LP, Mr. Scott remarked about the durability of the format, and took note of a small renaissance taking root at the time.

“They lived from 1948 to 1978, when the CD came in,” he said. “Now they’re coming back. Small companies are issuing them. I’m still an LP fan.”

Thought U Should Know

The following eight Senators were called the "Most 99 Percent Friendly Members of Congress":

Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio

Dick Durbin, D-Ill.

Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.

Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I.

Olympia Snow, R-Maine

Susan Collins, R-Maine

Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska

The following 17 Senators were called the "Most One Percent Friendly Members of Congress":

Ben Nelson, D-Neb.

Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn.

Kay Hagan, D-N.C.

Mark Pryor, D-Ark.

Jon Tester, D-Mont.

Jim Webb, D-Va.

Roy Blunt, R-Mo.

John Boozman, R-Ark.

Richard Burr, R-N.C.

Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga.

Michael Enzi, R-Wyo.

Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.

Dean Heller, R-Nev.

Johnny Isakson, R-Ga.

Mike Johanns, R-Neb.

John McCain, R-Ariz.

John Thune, R-S.D.