just ignore and let this one die

who's envious?

ugh. try some steaming lemon water.

I was thinking of gulping down a Hot Tody or two:

bit of whiskey (makes u sleepy)
squeeze of lemon
spoon of honey (soothes the throat)
cup of hot water

and it tastes better than just plain lemon water

you're right, hot honey lemon water with whiskey sounds better. LOL

No honey!!!!

Pep,

You can't buy stock in my company, and you probably wouldn't want to if you could…I work for the Government.

Let me explain why my spending time on the Forums is a Good Thing for the American People. To do so, I'll have to give you all a little lesson in How Government Works.

Most of you know that the American Government is divided into three branches: the Executive, the Legislative, and the Judicial. In recent years, the Executive and Judicial branches have been taking over more and more of the work of the Legislative branch. This is because the legislators don't have time to do their jobs. They spend 90% of their time and attention on merely *keeping* their jobs by getting re-elected. But that's a lesson for another day. Today, we're going to talk about the Executive branch.

The Executive branch is headed by the President. It has many departments, but for simplicity we can consider it as being made up of just four: Collections, SaveMyAss, Bread&Circuses, and Busybodies.

The Collections Department consists of the IRS, plus numerous other smaller agencies. They're responsible for sucking money out of the wallets of taxpayers to fund their own department and all of the others.

The SaveMyAss Department consists mainly of the military. The job of this department is to protect the citizens from threats and enemies within and without. The military is occasionally assisted in this by agencies such as the FBI, CIA, and NSA. For a number of years, I worked in the SaveMyAss Department, and was proud to do so.

Bread&Circuses is responsible for doling out cash. Their job is to do so in such a way that nobody notices that they are paying a lot more to the Collections Department than they are getting back from Bread&Circuses. At this, they have been completely successful.

Busybodies is a large conglomeration of agencies, bureaus, and administrations. Their job is to say "No" in as many ways as possible. They do this by writing regulations and enforcing them. They are the people who make sure it takes eighteen months, six trips to different offices, twenty phone calls, and the submission of twelve different forms in triplicate to get permission to cut down a tree on your own property. If you ever *get* permission.

I work for the Busybodies Department. If I were not spending time on the Forums, I would be spending it writing new regulations, or making sure that people were following the ones we have on the books, to the letter. I think the taxpayers would be much better served if they paid me to leave them alone, instead of paying me to harass them.

God bless America.

I'm just going to sip on her a little



A random cute pic sent to me:

Titled "How to be Cruel to Old Men":

My grandmother kept a similar concoction on hand in her medicine cabinet.

LMAO @ Lindal (I'm copying this and sending it to many friends)

You non-US folks read her writeup carefully. She does a very good job of describing this bloated US institution. I work for a city government, so my being in the forums is good for a much smaller group of people - but it still holds true.

LOL

@ Lindal: Brilliant description.

can we get *that* as a check box on our 1040s? I want to donate a dollar to the Keep the Busybodies Busy Doing Nothing and Out of MY Busyness Fund!

damn, I must be getting old.

Thanks

Related - I just found out that the illness is stress related. I've had a lot of stressful situations erupt in my life, but this is the only illness I know of that has occurred because of them. Part of stress lifted, so I know realize stress induced illness.

*thinks happy thoughts, trying to distract self into thinking well and stressfree*


whoa, is that what that was? A hello to the thread? Thanks for decoding that for us (or maybe just me)

I work for the department that either sues you for breaking the regulations, and the like, or defends the USA Government when it is sued. I work on the defense side. Though I work through a contract, not directly. I think the contract runs through the rest of my natural life. I could be wrong.

Oh, and by defense - take the above: Say the land owner finally gets the permission to cut down the tree on their own property. The tree is cut down. The tree lands on a car. The car owner sues land owner/head of Busybody department (strange how you get lawsuits against, say, Attorney General Ashcroft, instead of USA, though it is, in the end, USA being sued). I work for the department that handles the defense of said lawsuit. Some lawyer that seems to be more myth than reality represents the Busybody department, but, again, more myth than reality. Department of Screaming, my department, is the one that handles the case.

My personal experience, though, involves the government failing to do something, and/or changing their minds and doing something else that adversely impacts a company. I haven't been paying attention, but I've seen certain things in the paper, headlines, about Government changing mind about bailout, and changing what they are doing, and all that. I foresee some lawsuits might pop up thirty years from now. 30? Well, the first series of cases I worked on involved the *censored* crisis of the '80s, and the court cases didn't begin until late '90s. Still some cases still active there, I think. Second series of cases involved the *censored* storage *censored* issue of the '80s-'90s. Those court cases didn't start until the 2000s. Third case being handled by the company in the same building involves New Orleans and Katrina. Yes, the government was sued over that. I have no idea what is going on there, so I do not censor that one.

I figure if you're moving your body to the music, its dancing.

Good night, threadies..I hope everyone has a great weekend.

Night peeps .. i had a fantastic night!










Night- I iz dead... enjoy the weekend- hugs and kisses all ... zzzzzzz

We have a similar arrangement, except we've been doing it for considerably longer.

I used to do contract project management work for the UK Government, but they stopped using me after a while because I got things done.

Well, I suppose I still work for the Government two days a week; the Department of Taking Away Money You Earned get 40% of my salary anyway.

Pep (That's how I justify spending 40% of my workday here)

It was that Department of Taxing the Crap Outta Tea that lost yous guys a few colonies way back when. You should declare your independence.

Don't tell anyone, but threatening to charge the indolent kid for board and lodging was the only way we could get him to leave home. We are hoping that one day he'll make something of himself, but for the time being he is still getting involved in fights and can't manage his money terribly well.

Pep (Annually, my taxes are less than the cost of the books I get free from libraries)

I'll see your Busybodies and raise you an EU Commission.

--
Aes

Good morning, threadies...Amara, those are lovely pictures; it indeed looks as if you had a marvelous night.

I am a bit freaked this morning, though

My PC is on all the time (goes into sleep mode after 30 mins of inactivity). Last night I turned off the monitor (as usual) and went to bed.

This morning, I went in, turned on the monitor...and nothing. Pressed the space bar as usual to reactivate..nada. The power button was blinking, so I pressed that, and the pc began to restart.

And then I got the window" We're sorry but Windows did not start successfully" etc.

It's been trying to start for an hour!!

help....(on a laptop right now...)

Ugh Mo....sorry to hear that, wish I could help you.

Today is our family's Thanksgiving, so I'll be heading out around noon and won't be back until tonight...bleh, I'd rather pass.

Hope everyone has a terrific day!

Seems the SL Competition just got thinned out:

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/11/lively-no-more.html

Wow. If a giant like Google can't make a Virtual world work, it makes you wonder what makes SL stick around so long.