Not quite fitting in with the thread, but nonetheless amusing…
When I was about 14 I was out with a friend, and we met this guy about our age. We started talking about Black Sabbath. There’s a song on the album Vol. IV where there’s a guitar riff, then during a rest you can hear Ozzy saying “yeah” in the background.
So we’re taling to this guy, and he says “And you can hear Ozzy saying ‘sack.’”
Um, sack, Gracie?
“Yeah! He says sack! Because he’s insane! You know that song ‘Am I Going Insane’? Ozzy is insane. That’s why he says sack.”
‘Sack’ is a word I use in place of a vulgar term. A FOAF introduced me to the usage, saying that ‘sack’ sounds vulgar but it is only a paper or burlap bag. (i.e., not a scrotum.) ‘The freeway was sacked!’ ‘The sackin’ thing fell apart!’ ‘Aw, sack!’
Bill Engvall. He does the Blue Collar Comedy Tour with Jeff Foxworthy, Ron White, and Larry the Cable Guy (who I do not find funny AT ALL, but I could listen to Ron White read the yellow pages and make comments.)
I was at one of our local “hot rod” shows with a friend. He had his (then new and somewhat unique) Honda Insight hybrid parked with the hood up, so people could marvel at the technology. I guy wanders by, and we get into a discussion about fuel efficiency and peak oil. The guy says “Oh, we’re never going to run out of oil” my friend and I go :dubious: Oh, why not?
He says “Just look at how many gas stations there are - there’s no way we could ever run out.”
One gal showed up an hour late today because she thought we were going to be in the library. I told her we’re not going until Wed. (which I mentioned in class last week, and she was present at the time, and it was on her syllabus as well–because it had to be arranged in advance; you can’t just show up any time and ask for a research orientation).
Oh, well. At least she went too soon instead of too late.
Sadly, here you are both clueless. Not using the water won’t make rates go down (in fact, they usually go up). Not using gas does make the cost go down.
Oil is a pretty standard commodity. There are a couple grades, but other than that it’s exactly the same. It can be transported because, while heavy, it doesn’t ever go bad. And there are lots of oil companies with little to distinguish them: they all mostly operate the same and have no competitive advantage. The gas is jsut the next stage in the chain, but operates mostly the same. What does this mean? It’s nearly perfect competition. Reduce the supply or increase demand: price goes up. Reduce the demand or increase supply: price goes down. It’s a little messier because oil spot price tends to jump with other economic fluctuations, but that’s a seperate issue.
Water is different. In America, water and power are almost always guarranteed in the market region to anyone who pays. The market region is a state-enforced monopoly. The provider must sell the product at locally-approved rates, and it is guarranteed a certain rate of profit, period. What does this mean? It means that if you consume less, no matter what, you will not lower rates. The provider is guarranteed their cut, and the government will raise rates to give it to them. This has happened frequently when the government encourages people to use less water. Competitively, they should reduce rates if less water is consumed. That doesn’t happen. The company has no reason to become more efficient or cut consumers a break.
This is why utility deregulation was once a favorite issue for certain policy wonks. It certainly should be better off in theory, at least in the competitive markets. Sadly, the only place I (off the top of my head) know about which tried was California, who created a nonsensical monster compromise system with no oversight and badly-written rules. Then they got reamed by Enron.
I hear you. The point I meant to make is that we could all eventually stop using so much gasoline, but we can never stop using water–and the water situation isn’t looking too good globally, not to mention here in So Cal.
I’ve had this conversation several times with people from several different religions:
Me: I’m an atheist.
Them: No you’re not.
Me: Yes, I am.
Them: No, everyone believes in god.
Me: I do not believe in god.
Them: That’s ridiculous, everyone believes in god.
Me: No, I am an atheist, I do not believe in god.
Them: You’re just saying that, everyone believes in god.
Me: Nope, I do not believe in god. I know other atheists. There are countries where the nonreligious are in the majority.
Them: No, that’s not possible, everyone believes in god, really.
etc.
Yeah, actually, in Florida, the tourists pay all that revenue in car rental fees, hotel taxes, and toll roads. The sales tax is slightly higher than in some other places, but really… residents really do get “a raise” when moving in from another state, assuming the same salary. The state’s sales tax is 6.5%, but each county has the option to add to that. In my home county, sales tax is 7.5%.
When I moved here from SC, I actually took a pay cut of about $2K per year, but because I paid no income tax to FL… I ended up taking home the exact same amount in my paycheck. I think it’s likely that your friend actually did the math on this one.
This was almost certainly a language issue, but still funny:
A friend’s boss, a Chinese man, went with my friend to a diner and saw that eggs were offered Any Style. When asked how he wanted the eggs, he kept saying he wanted them Any Style. The server asked which style. “Any!” (Apparently, he thought this was a style, not unlike Poached, Over Medium, Scrambled, etc.)
It was a Who’s On First variation.
When I lived in FL, I paid higher gasoline taxes, higher property taxes, higher sales taxes, higher insurance on my home and my cars, heck, even more for a gallon of milk, than I pay in Maryland. In reality, considering everything, it was pretty much a wash. Don’t know if that’d be true for everyone and every place…
Even better: even if the total tax bill is theoretically the same, people can be more flexible about when and where they pay with a non-income-tax system. This can be hugely to your advantage if you don’t wish to consume wealth, but rather intend to save it. This is one reason I hugely support ridding the world of the income tax.
My friend J. wants to lose weight but doesn’t want to stop eating whipped cream, ice cream, sodas, candy, refried beans, starchy foods, etc. And she stuffs herself although it makes her feel uncomfortable later. Still, every day she says she wants to shed some pounds. I sugget tasty lighter fare to her but she says it all sounds gross. We just keep going around in an endless circle.
