Bumper sticker of the week: Never wrestle with a pig. You both get dirty and the pig likes it.
Quote of the week: ''The point is that it doesn't really matter which religion you are. God has a thousand faces and you only need to have one of them smiling upon you. In fact, the Hopi Indians say that being smiled upon by more than one of God's faces is very confusing and can lead to alcoholism.'' Oh, The Things I Know, Al Franken
The Catholic bishops seem to be having a hard time deciding what to do with priests who abuse children. This should not be a real hard decision. If you do something against the law, a collar should not protect you. You should face civil authorities to establish your guilt or innocence, and be removed from the priesthood if guilty. It's very easy and exactly what they would do for all the rest of us.
Number of days a cockroach can live without a head: 9. Number of days a politician can live without a heart: forever.
Just exactly how many law enforcement agencies do we need? We got the FBI, CIA, INS, ATF, XYZ, State Police, local police, Secretary of State Police, neighborhood spies, auxiliary police, mounted police, undercover police, drug police, campus security, airline security, military police, and now they want to give us Homeland Security. This is the Republican administration that hates big government. Add another level of bureaucracy to this already huge heap of mumbo-jumbo, and you wonder why people are buying more guns than ever? Most of these jokers are more dangerous than whoever it is they're suppose to be protecting us from. Anymore, you don't know who's going to arrest you for what. After sitting in the slammer for 8 months, they'll explain to you why you shouldn't have mailed that powdered donut to your son for a birthday joke. Most of these people ain't got a clue what's going on. They're too busy trying to figure out when they can retire, which of course we pay for with our tax dollars. I'm tired of all this nonsense. I'm proposing a Department of Peace. No more of this ''I Spy'' crap. No more clandestine meetings or hiding in caves. No more breaking down the doors of would-be drug dealers who turn out to be grandma and grandpa. All of these agencies and paranoid rah-rah are tied into The Great American Nightmare. The Department of Peace will advocate using fewer guns and more brains, which will obviously make it unpopular with the present Congress and administration. Mediation instead of liquidization. Diversity instead of divisiveness. Leadership instead of cowards. Participatory democracy instead of monarchy. Non-military leaders instead of war mongers. Above table instead of under table. Compassion and forgiveness instead of revenge. Human life over the profit motive. And a chicken in every pot.
One day at a time:--
Today I got up and went to the bathroom. Some days you can't ask for much more than that.--
I stuck to my diet today. I only ate a half of a pie and two pieces of fried chicken. That's pretty good.--
The weather today is beautiful. Rain. The world needs rain. Otherwise, Culligan would have to fill an awful lot of orders.--
I quit drinking today. Again.--
Getting up and going to work is no way to start a day.--
Yesterday is behind us, tomorrow is ahead of us, but today is today. At least for today.--
Today is the first day of the rest of your life. What the hell is that supposed to mean?
The Illinois tax system: Our tax system is regressive. That is, it requires lower and middle income taxpayers to pay a higher share of their incomes in taxes than the very well-off pay:--
The poorest fifth of Illinois taxpayers, with incomes less than $15,000 per year, pays 13.8 percent of their income in Illinois taxes.--
Families in the middle of the income scale pay 10.4 percent of their income in Illinois taxes.--
The wealthiest one percent of Illinoisans, with an average income of $1.2 million, pay only 8.4 percent of their income in Illinois taxes.
One more Republican governor in Illinois, and the wealthy won't be paying anything, and the rest of us will be poor. I suppose that simplifies things.