7/29/2009 – Editorials
By Richard Peterson
No attribution is given to the questions which follow, but they sure sound like something that came from the mind of comedian George Carlin:
Why do you need a driver’s license to buy liquor when you can’t drink and drive?
Why isn’t phonetic spelled the way it sounds?
Why are there Interstate highways in Hawaii?
Why are there flotation devices under plane seats instead of parachutes?
Why are cigarettes sold in gas stations when smoking is prohibited there?
Do you need a silencer if you are going to shoot a mime?
Have you ever imagined a world with no hypothetical situations?
How does the guy who drives the snowplow get to work in the mornings?
If 7-Eleven is open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, why are there locks on the doors?
If a cow laughed, would milk come out her nose?
If nothing ever sticks to Teflon, how do they make Teflon stick to the pan?
If you tied buttered toast to the back of a cat and dropped it from a height, which would land down first?
If you’re in a vehicle going the speed of light, what happens when you turn on the headlights?
You know how most packages say "Open here." What is the protocol if the package says, "Open somewhere else?"
Why do they put Braille dots on the keypad of the drive-up ATM?
Why do we drive on parkways and park on driveways?
Why is brassiere singular and panties plural?
Why is it that when you transport something by car, it’s called a shipment, but when you transport something by ship, it’s called cargo?
You know that little indestructible black box that is used on planes; why don’t they just make the whole plane out of that same substance?
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The health care debate continues. Nothing much will come of Obama’s tinkering around the edges of the health care system. There will be no savings. The cost of insurance will continue to escalate until eventually only a minority of Americans can afford it. We don’t need tinkering. We need a complete change in the system.
The conservatives love the present situation in which the insurance companies have a death grip on health care and they’re determined to kill any reform, no matter how inconsequential.
They love the insurance companies being deeply involved in the health care system. The insurance companies have milked the system pretty well with exorbitant profits and multi-million dollar salaries for executives and ever-rising premiums. Why do we need the insurance companies involved in the health care system at all? How much good do sick people get out of billions going to the middlemen, the insurance companies?
Other industrialized nations have rid themselves of insurance companies milking the system. Health care in France is half the cost of health care in the US.
The conservatives whine that we don’t want socialized medicine. They say they don’t want a government bureaucrat making decisions on health care. I’d much rather have a government bureaucrat making decisions than an insurance company bureaucrat whose primary motive is profit.
I’ve never met a Canadian who would change the Canadian system for ours. That says a lot.
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Here are some bumper stickers for the ladies:
Coffee, chocolate, men . . . some things are just better rich.
Don’t treat me any differently than you would the Queen.
Warning: I have an attitude and I know how to use it.
Of course I don’t look busy . . . I did it right the first time.
Do not start with me. You will not win.
All stressed out and no one to choke.
How can I miss you if you won’t go away.
Don’t upset me! I’m running out of places to hide the bodies.
If you want breakfast in bed, sleep in the kitchen.
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This came from Jason Nordmark’s column in the Turtle Mountain Star:
Negotiations between union members and their employer were at an impasse. The union denied that their workers were flagrantly abusing the sick leave provisions in their contract.
One morning at the bargaining table, the company’s chief negotiator held aloft the morning edition of the newspaper. "This man," he announced, "called in sick yesterday."
There on the sports page was a photo of the supposedly ill employee who had just won a local golf tournament with an excellent score.
A union negotiator broke the silence in the room. "Wow!" he said.
"Just think of what kind of score he could have had if he hadn’t been sick!"