Simply Observations

Here in my local area....the DC folks have the most stringent gun laws in America.  One of the city councilmen finally stood up and has offered a change to the city's law.  They would dump the vision test required.  I sat and paused over this.  There are various reasons why you need to have a gun.....but here they are....basically saying a blind guy could buy a gun....with the new change.  If I had to pick out any law that was necessary....the vision test would be number one.  So why toss it?  My guess is that a couple of local citizens came to the city councilman involved and said they couldn't pass the current vision test (extremely bad vision).....so to make these folks happy....he'd write up a deal to toss it.  Pretty odd deal, but this is DC.

Some scientists came up and have found this planet, where they are fairly confident there is life.  Course, it'd take over a hundred years for us to travel there....at present conditions.  The key feature they think....LOTs of water.  Most folks have come to this conclusion that there are a thousand linked "threads" which lead to us existing on Earth today.  Each one had to occur....with sequence being of some importance.  The odds of a repeat?  Well....if bacteria exists here....it has to exist on other planets, and in the end.....there has to be some common theme for the evolution of bacteria.  Statistically, it's kinda like walking in Vegas with $100 in quarters, and figuring that one slot machine over the next five hours will win (even if it's just a quarter in winnings).  So we are in a pretty hopeful phase.....to find Alien Al somewhere, and hope that he's friendly.

Finally, there's a research company called Apco Insight, who decided to poll Occupy DC, and tell us lots of fascinating things about the "boys".  There's a curious thing....with two groups existing....for some odd reason, they picked the young punk group....not the older, more settled, hippy group.  So we learn: (1) most are 34 years old or younger, (2) most of the DC crowd are less educated than the Occupy Wall Street crowd, (3) the biggest criticism of the group?  No organization, and (4) ten percent admitted they were Republican.  I sat there for a while....pondering the last item.  So out of a hundred-odd folks....you had ten Republicans.  Course, maybe they were lying....you can't tell.  But if they weren't.....should we suspect they've done so much in drugs.....that they can't comprehend anything much, and being a Republican as a Occupy guy is ok?  Well....I'd hate to suggest that.  The sad thing is that we could dope up a hundred Republicans, and they'd likely all vote for Ron Paul, but never remove anything the next day when we bring up what they did.  The Occupy guys might be of the same variety.

The Spanish Problem

I read British newspapers almost daily.  Occasionally, you come across one of those oddball stories that you need to analyze a bit.  The Telegraph featured this story.

There's a Spanish county out there....which has gone over its school budget and they are frankly in a worried state of mind.  So much so.....that they need to cut back on some things....to ensure a balanced budget.  So one of the things they picked out....was excessive use of toilet paper by kids in the school.  So they've come to issue a limit on consumption.  You, as a student, get approximately 80 feet of toilet paper use per month (actually 25 meters, but it comes out pretty close to 80 feet).

I did some checking.  A standard quilted Northern double roll has 352 two-ply sheets and runs about 117 feet long.  So you'd get approximately three-quarters of a roll for the whole month, or around 240 sheets (more or less).

That means over the course of twenty days of school.....per month.....you'd get 12 sheets per school day.  My guess is that the average kid uses double that....typically. Some adults might even use forty sheets a day.

I see two possible solutions to this.  First, you could just say adios to the school providing any toilet paper and force everyone to bring their own rolls to school.  Course, then everyone would be sharing, and tossing various diseases back and forth as they shared their roll.  It'd be kind of comical as you asked Johnny Junior each morning if he had a fresh new roll of toilet paper in his backpack, and then dad would eventually add up the excessive toilet paper being used by the whole family.

My second solution would be to add some items to the diet of the kids.....so they didn't use the bathroom but once every two days.  Course, you can imagine some 4th grader sitting in the school bathroom for sixty minutes with a pretty complex problem bothering him, and the teacher wondering if he'd ever come back to class.  The positive is that he'd cut his toilet paper consumption in half.

Hopefully the Spanish folks don't get around to analyzing their water bill and figure out that Johnny Junior is flushing twelve times before he leaves the bathroom.

The 51 Percent

For weeks, there's been this continual mention with the Occupy folks and the media over the term "99 Percent" and "1 Percent".  The Occupy guys are wanting the public to side with them in this media war of sorts....in that 99 percent of America are the regular people who ought to be running America.

I came to realize something last night....the real percent number to pay attention to.....is fifty-one percent.  That's the magic number who determines your Senators, your Representatives, your City Council, your Governor, your President, and even taxes.

It take fifty-one percent to win any election, so it's pretty simple.  Your entire life is determined by this magic fifty-one percent....and it has been that way since the day you were born.  Tax payers don't vote (check out Wal-Mart, Pennys, and Texaco).  Citizens vote....including wealthy citizens and poor citizens.

The sad thing about fifty-one percent is that the Occupy guys probably don't fall that many times into that category.  It's true in 2008 with President Obama, but after that point.....the fifty-one percent crowd went into a vastly different direction.

I'm guessing around November of 2012....some Occupy guys will come to discover fifty-one percent and how it really fits into life. Then the Occupy guys will go home.....get jobs with Pizza Hut or the local parks department, and go back to trying to pay off their $70k loan to the government for those stupid college classes they took.