"SIMPLE Economics"

It is the month of August, on the shores of the Black Sea. It is raining, and the little town looks totally deserted. It is tough times, everybody is in debt, and everybody lives on credit.

Suddenly, a rich tourist comes to town.

He enters the only hotel, lays a 100 Euro note on the reception counter, and goes to inspect the rooms upstairs in order to pick one.

The hotel proprietor takes the 100 Euro note and runs to pay his debt to the butcher.

The Butcher takes the 100 Euro note, and runs to pay his debt to the pig grower.

The pig grower takes the 100 Euro note, and runs to pay his debt to the supplier of his feed and fuel.

The supplier of feed and fuel takes the 100 Euro note and runs to pay his debt to the town's prostitute that in these hard times, gave her "services" on credit.

The hooker runs to the hotel, and pays off her debt with the 100 Euro note to the hotel proprietor to pay for the rooms that she rented when she brought her clients there.

The hotel proprietor then lays the 100 Euro note back on the counter so that the rich tourist will not suspect anything.

At that moment, the rich tourist comes down after inspecting the rooms, and takes his 100 Euro note, after saying that he did not like any of the rooms, and leaves town.

No one earned anything. However, the whole town is now without debt, and looks to the future with a lot of optimism.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how the United States Government is doing business........

Ditto "Canada" (The best of the e-mails)

Climate What ?

I’ve had it with climate change, and so have the birds, as far as I can tell. The long cold winter period of 08/09 has frayed my nerve endings, and this spring period would benefit only Polar bears, to my way of thinking!
It’s the first time the Sears Fall & Winter catalogue is in sync with the season. Now, just that fact should have tipped me off . I can’t recount any normal, bright, spring-like days - except days when I had a medical appointment. The days are longer, but you can’t sit out at night to enjoy them without a Buffalo robe. I’ve put in my bedding plants between frost, showers, and strong wind gusts. The plants are screaming “Take us back to the greenhouse,” and I can hardly blame them. They fear the frost warnings as I do! If this continues, I’ll be looking for a Clinic that can inject me with some Inuit genes, so I can survive the upcoming summer.
Yes, I know Calgary was blanketed with snow and freezing temperatures, but I have no empathy to spare for other regions of Canada at this moment. We're all in this together.
Last Friday I volunteered at the local Threshermen’s Heritage Day, only to be awakened by the furnace fan kicking in. Looking out, I viewed kids and adults wearing winter garb ... (probably from Sears).
Here we are, with the year almost half over, and no B.T.U. to be had anywhere. It has affected and delayed local seeding, bedding plant operators, golf courses, garage sales and the like. I’m not totally ungrateful for residing in this country, because in the BIG scheme of things, this is merely a speck of sand in the ocean of issues.
I just realize that I don’t have the patience of Job.

"Mikhail Lennikov

“I have a simple, straight forward, democratic solution regarding the “Mikhail Lennikov” issue. We Canadians like to consider ourselves a fair minded people, and in that light, I propose we have a VOTE on this matter as to whom we would prefer to have as a true Canadian citizen, and who to drop from the following group of 4.

1. Steven Harper - Prime Minister

2. Janson Kenny - Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism

3. Peter van Loan - Minister of Public Safety

4. Mikhail Lennikov - landed immigrant

In the spirit of the Reform/Conserative movement, I feel this is a fair and equitable solution that a public vote could determine. Along with the cold weather in many parts of the West, it seems Mr Harper also wishes to resurrect the Cold War of yesteryear with Russia. His two cabinet ministers, ages 41 and 46, would only have experienced cold Cokes during this period. Slim on cold war events but adept at attack ads and U.S.S.R. tactics borrowed from the 20th century, they forge blindly on. So it is up to the remainder of us who felt the effect of the Cold War period to sort this matter out for these young bumpkins. Mr. Kenny has to stop hiding behind the Court order he can sidestep, and Mr Harper must cease and desist using K.G.B. tactics to discredit Michael Ignatieff, just because his parents were Russian immigrants.

Cast your ballots, folks!