Thursday, September 30, 2010

Roses


Most beautiful explanation of death I've ever heard.







~ A sick man turned to his doctor as he was preparing to

Leave the examination room and said,

'Doctor, I am afraid to die.

Tell me what lies on the other side.'

Very quietly, the doctor said, 'I don't know..'

'You don't know? You're, a Christian man,

and don't know what's on the other side?'

The doctor was holding the handle of the door;

On the other side came a sound of scratching and whining,

And as he opened the door, a dog sprang into the room

And leaped on him with an eager show of gladness.

Turning to the patient, the doctor said,

'Did you notice my dog?

He's never been in this room before.

He didn't know what was inside.

He knew nothing except that his master was here,

And when the door opened, he sprang in without fear.

I know little of what is on the other side of death,

But I do know one thing...

I know my Master is there and that is enough.'









TAKE TIME TO SING AND DANCE AND TO SMELL THE ROSES EVERYDAY.........








It's a funny world

I won'tsay a word!




A DEFINITE ENTREPRENEURIAL SPIRIT?








IT'S GOOD TO FOCUS ON WHAT'S IMPORTANT..






CONSIDER YOURSELF WARNED!









LET'S GET ALL BASES COVERED.









CLEARLY, YOU'RE NOT WANTED ON THIS PROPERTY!,








LIKE, HOW MANY WAS THAT?





Sounds fair to me!






AND, FINALLY, THE MANY SHADES OF MEANING.



 




Tuesday, September 28, 2010


Potatoes







Well,
 A Girl Potato and Boy Potato had eyes for each other,



And finally they got married, and had a little sweet 
Potato, which they
 Called
'Yam.'




Of course, they wanted the best for Yam.





When it was time, they told her about the facts
 Of life.




They warned her about going
 Out and getting 
Half-baked, so she wouldn't get accidentally mashed, and 
Get a bad name for herself like 'Hot Potato,' and
 End up with a bunch of tater tots



Yam said not to worry, no Spud would get
Her into the sack and make a rotten potato out of her!





But on the other hand she wouldn't stay home and become a Couch Potato either.




She would get plenty of exercise so as not to be skinny like her shoestring cousins.




When she went off to
Europe , Mr. And Mrs. Potato told Yam
To watch out 
For the hard-boiled guys from Ireland and the greasy guys from France called the French fries.


And
 When she went out West, to
Watch out for the Indians so she wouldn't get scalloped..





Yam said she would stay on the straight and
Narrow and wouldn't associate with
 Those high class Yukon Golds, or the ones from the other side of the tracks who advertise their trade on all
The trucks that say,
'Frito Lay.


'

Mr. And
Mrs. Potato sent Yam to Idaho P.U. (that's
Potato University ) so that when she graduated she'd really be in the Chips.




But in spite of all they did for
 Her, one-day Yam came home
And announced she was 
Going to marry Tom Brokaw.




Tom Brokaw!





Mr. And
Mrs.
Potato were very upset.


They told Yam she couldn't
Possibly marry Tom Brokaw because he's just.......




Are you
Ready for this?







Are
You sure?





*




*






OK!
Here it is!





*




*


*





*






A 
COMMONTATER



























Now I didn't write this but I think I should be rewarded for posting it.....


Maybe something like this ....














I Didn't Know That!


I TRULY DID NOT KNOW THIS!


LasVegas Churches accept gambling chips







THIS MAY COME AS A SURPRISE TO THOSE OF YOU NOT LIVING IN
 LAS VEGAS , BUT THERE ARE MORE CATHOLIC CHURCHES THAN CASINOS.




NOT SURPRISINGLY, SOME WORSHIPERS AT SUNDAY SERVICES WILL GIVE CASINO CHIPS RATHER THAN CASH WHEN THE BASKET IS PASSED.






SINCE THEY GET CHIPS FROM MANY DIFFERENT CASINOS, THE CHURCHES HAVE DEVISED A METHOD TO COLLECT

THE OFFERINGS.




THE CHURCHES SEND ALL THEIR COLLECTED CHIPS TO A NEARBY FRANCISCAN MONASTERY FOR SORTING AND THEN THE CHIPS ARE TAKEN TO THE CASINOS OF ORIGIN AND CASHED IN.




THIS IS DONE BY THE CHIP MONKS.






YOU DIDN'T EVEN SEE IT COMING DID YOU? --







Monday, September 27, 2010

Pay Back for Lefties

Payback for lefties.

I generally avoid political issues for this blog and prefer something more light-hearted. However, some time ago I had a blog,”For my Righty Friends” that was quite funny. At that time I promised my lefty friends a payback. I haven't found a good funny one despite searching quite a bit, but I did run across this article from 2004. It's quite interesting, but it is a lefty article---so you guys on both sides—have fun with it. Since it is an “overkill”, I have added another “righty” at the end.



Published on Friday, October 22, 2004 by CommonDreams.orgThe Bush Budget Deficit Death Spiralby Robert Freeman Lenders talk about a �debtor�s death spiral.� It occurs when borrowers get so far in over their heads they begin borrowing money just to cover the interest payments on past borrowings. The borrowers have to do this to keep the lending flowing but they can no longer plausibly pay down the principal. As new debt compounds on old, bankruptcy becomes imminent. Further lending is foolhardy. Foreclosure is only a matter of time.

The U.S. is starting to look like it is entering just such a death spiral. It is foretold not simply by the large and growing deficits, nor by the fact that their carrying costs will rise quickly as interest rates rise. Rather, it is the fact that these trends are becoming irreversible, a structural part of the U.S. economy.

When the ultimate collapse will occur, whether it comes with a bang or a whimper, how it will be triggered, and how severe it will be are as yet unknown. But as Herbert Stein, Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under Richard Nixon was fond of saying, �Things that can�t go on forever, don�t.�

The first signs of impending trouble are the exploding budget deficits themselves. They began, of course, under the parlous economic stewardship of Ronald Reagan. Reagan cut the marginal tax rate on the wealthiest of Americans from 70% to 38%. He promised it would spur an orgy of investment and rocket the economy to new levels of production and prosperity. Instead, his �supply side economics� did the exact opposite. It produced the deepest recession since the Great Depression.

Output fell 2.2% in 1982 while budget deficits soared. When Reagan took office in 1981, the national debt stood at $995 billion. Twelve years later, by the end of George H.W. Bush�s presidency, it had exploded to $4 trillion. Reagan was a �B� grade movie actor and a doddering, probably clinically senile president, but he was a sheer genius at rewarding his friends by saddling other people with debts.

Bill Clinton reversed Reagan�s course, raising taxes on the wealthy, and lowering them for the working and middle classes. This produced the longest sustained economic expansion in American history. Importantly, it also produced budgetary surpluses allowing the government to begin paying down the crippling debt begun under Reagan. In 2000, Clinton�s last year, the surplus amounted to $236 billion. The forecast ten year surplus stood at $5.6 trillion. It was the last black ink America would see for decades, perhaps forever.

George W. Bush immediately reversed Clinton�s policy in order to revive Reagan�s, once again showering an embarrassment of riches on the already most embarrassingly rich, his �base� as he calls them. He ladled out some $630 billion in tax cuts to the top 1% of income earners. In true Republican fashion, they returned the favor by investing over $200 million to ensure Bush�s re-election. Do the math. A $630 billion return on a $200 million investment: $3,160 for $1. I�ll give you $3,160. All I ask is that you give me $1 back so I can keep the goodness flowing. Do we have a deal? Republicans know return on investment.

But the cost to the public has been a return to the exploding deficits of the Reagan years. Bush blew through Clinton�s surplus in his first year. The 2004 deficit reached $415 billion, a record. Still, its real size is masked by the fact that Bush has shifted $150 billion from the Social Security trust fund in order to make the shortfall look smaller. It�s like pretending you�re richer when you move money from one pocket to another. Both sums have to be repaid, so the real amount borrowed is the $415 billion �nominal� deficit plus the $150 billion from Social Security or $565 billion.

This shell game with federal trust funds taints all official forecasts about Bush�s deficits going forward. For example, the Congressional Budget Office estimates Bush�s cumulative ten year deficit at $2.3 trillion, to be sure, a breathtaking shortfall from the $5.6 trillion surplus he inherited from Clinton. But as with the yearly number, this one ignores the trust fund sleight of hand, an omission of some $2.4 trillion. When this is added back in, Bush�s ten year deficit leaps to $4.7 trillion, $10.3 trillion short of Clinton�s number.

But even that number is understated because the CBO forecasts are based on current law. Bush�s tax cuts have not yet been made permanent. If Bush is re-elected and the cuts are made permanent, that would add another $3.2 trillion to the shortfall. It was not too long ago that a $3.2 trillion increment to anything would have made sober people�s noses bleed but such figures are mere accounting details to the Big Thinkers in the White House, especially since it will not be their constituents who are paying it back.

Add it all together�the �nominal� deficit, the stealth siphoning from Social Security, and the permanent effects of Bush�s tax cuts�and the 10 year deficit explodes to a mind-boggling $7.9 trillion. Within ten years, the government will owe more than $15 trillion. And this, at precisely the time the government needs fiscal solvency to begin paying the Baby Boomers their Social Security.

This run-up in debt represents the most rapid, predatory looting of public wealth in the history of the world. The interest costs alone will consume the government and, soon, the entire economy. In fiscal 2004, interest costs came to $321 billion against a deficit of $415 billion. So three quarters of all the current year borrowing is spent paying interest on past borrowing. This is the most immediate symptom of the deficit death spiral.

And the situation will only get worse when interest rates rise, as they must. The U.S. has enjoyed an unprecedented period of low rates, the lowest in 50 years. The only direction they can go is up. And they will rise quickly once foreigners, who are more and more the buyers of U.S. debt, become saturated with dollars and begin to eschew additional lending.

This is effectively what happened in the early 1970s when the Arab oil sheikdoms realized that Nixon had decoupled the dollar from gold redemption but was still paying for oil in dollars�essentially paper. The sheiks tripled the price of oil in 1973 and again in 1978. The OPEC �oil shocks� wrought havoc on the American economy, putting a death to the halcyon days of post-World War II economic growth. Today�s oil at $50 a barrel is the modern day enactment of the same implicit disdain for dollars.

The Japanese did the same thing in 1987. For years they had funded Reagan�s massive supply side budget deficits but had been made fools as the dollar was losing 15% a year in value, more than wiping out the 5% return they were receiving on their treasuries. They wisely stopped buying in October 1987, precipitating the greatest one-day U.S. stock market collapse since the Great Depression.

The �dollar overhang� problem caused by Bush�s record budget deficits is compounded by record U.S. trade deficits. Every month, the U.S. economy buys some $50 billion more from the world than it sells, in the act flooding the world with private dollars. These are on top of the public dollars from the budget deficits. The total trade deficit for 2004 will amount to some $680 billion. As recently as 1992, the amount was only $34 billion, a twenty fold increase in just over 10 years, another sign of the spiral.

These �twin deficits��trade and budget�combine to well over $1 trillion a year of borrowing. Their effect is to bury the world�s economy in dollar debts, dollars that increasingly buy less and less. As mentioned above, no one knows when the world will say, �enough.� Japan holds a reported $1 trillion supply of dollars, China, more than half a trillion. Both have bought dollars�in effect loaning equivalent sums to the U.S.�in order to keep the value of their own currencies low and therefore make their own goods cheaper in American markets.

The Bush administration claims that both countries will continue to buy dollars so that their own currencies will not rise. But the danger is that once one major player declares it doesn�t want any more dollars there will be a rush for the exits. Demand for dollars, and with it, the dollar�s price, will plummet. The last player holding dollars will be stuck with the bag, a multi-trillion dollar stash of dollar holdings that are worth only a fraction of what they were just a month before.

In other words, there are structural incentives biasing the descent toward chaos rather than order. Already, the dollar is down 19% over the past year, an eerie harkening of the Japanese experience of the late eighties. Its decline is being cagily �managed� by the U.S. Treasury which has muscled foreign central banks into picking up the slack since private foreign buyers have begun to refuse further dollar purchases. Foreign central banks now hold some 40% of total U.S. government debt.

The only way the U.S. government can prevent a stampede is to raise interest rates�the return for holding dollars. And Alan Greenspan has begun this process. But this, of course, increases the carrying costs of the national debt. As if a $7 trillion national debt funded at 4% isn�t bad enough, envision a $15 trillion debt at 10%. Instead of $300 billion a year in interest costs, think of $1.5 trillion. Instead of interest amounting to 3% of GDP, imagine the carnage as it approaches 10%.

The higher rates will put a knife in the heart of an already tenuous recovery, undermining the only process by which payoff might ever be accomplished. It will suck all of the oxygen out of the economy. Economists call this the �crowding out effect� when lending to the government gets priority over private lending. After all, government has the power to tax in order to fulfill its obligations whereas private borrowers do not.

But the market rations shortages by raising prices�interest rates�forcing private borrowers to pay ever more for scarce capital. In this way, markets for private debt mirror markets for public debt. Investment, the foundation of future growth, will be savaged. New roads, hospitals, factories, schools and research will be sacrificed to escalating interest rates borne of stratospheric debt.

This occurred during the deficit-burdened 1980�s when investment grew at an annual rate of only 2.5% versus 6.9% in the surplus-graced 1990�s. And not surprisingly, productivity suffered as well. It grew at a meager 1.4% per year during the 1980�s but almost 50% faster, 2.0%, during the 1990�s.

This is the perverse, inescapable cycle�the death spiral�that comes part and parcel with too much debt. Its relentlessly rising carrying costs steadily erode the possibility of getting out from underneath it. Higher debt loads lead to higher interest rates, which lead to lower investment which leads to slower growth and, ultimately, diminished prosperity. And it develops a runaway, recycling dynamic all its own.

Finally, it is not only the high absolute levels of debt, nor their rapid expansion, nor even the imminence of much higher interest rates that consign the U.S. to the certain oblivion of a deficit death spiral. It is that this toxic combination of circumstances has become structural, irreversible, locked into the very nature of government economic policy. It is like a driver hurtling down a cul de sac and gluing his foot to the accelerator.

The very purpose of the Reagan supply side tax cuts was to funnel more of the nation�s wealth to those already wealthy. This is what David Stockman, Reagan�s Budget Director, meant when he called them a �Trojan Horse.� And they did their job wonderfully.

In 1980, the top 20% of income earners captured 43.7% of all national income. By 1992, at the end of the first Bush administration, their share had risen to 46.9%. Today it is over 49%. Meanwhile, the lowest four fifths of all income earners have seen their share of national income decline. The lowest quintile�s share has shrunk from 4.2% to 3.5%. The second lowest quintile has fallen from 10.2% to 8.8%. The middle quintile has seen its share fall from 16.8% to 14.8%. And the second highest quintile has suffered a decline from 25.0 to 23.3%. It is empirically the case that the rich are getting richer while everyone else is getting poorer.

The problem this holds for national economic management is that the rich consume a much lower percentage of their income than do those who are not rich. How many cars can you drive at one time, anyway? The rich are also the most likely to spend what money they do on foreign luxury goods, take foreign vacations, make investments in foreign countries, or just let the money sit in the bank.

The poor, working, and middle classes, on the other hand, spend virtually everything they earn. The car needs new tires, the kids need new shoes, the washing machine needs fixing, they�re two months behind on the rent and three months behind on the credit cards. In all of these ways, income shifted through the tax code to middle and lower quintile earners is quickly spent while income shifted to the wealthy is not. This is not class warfare. It is Economics 101.

It is personal consumption�spending�that generates 67% of GDP. If more of the nation�s income goes to those who do not consume its output, while those who do consume it have less and less income, a structural shortfall emerges where there is simply not enough purchasing power to sustain GDP. GDP will ratchet steadily downward in mirror image to the rate at which national income is transferred upward.

The only recourse is for the government to step in to pump up demand. This is the role the deficits play in sustaining GDP. This is why deficits exploded under Reagan, Bush I, and Bush II, all of whom cut taxes on the rich, but declined under Clinton who raised them. Rising public deficits are necessary�in fact, indispensable�to sustaining GDP because so much of the nation�s wealth has been transferred from those who, as a matter of necessity, spend it to those who, as a matter of taste, do not.

Supply side economics (and that includes Bush�s ill-disguised variant) rests on the repeatedly disproved faith that investment and prosperity are caused by giving ever more of the nation�s wealth to the already wealthy. As long as this lunacy continues to drive tax policy, the government will keep expanding federal deficits. Eventually, possibly soon, this will cause a collapse of the dollar that can only be reversed by raising interest rates. But that will explode the carrying costs on the by-then mammoth debts, vitiating private sector investment. And that will kill all future prospects of meaningful growth.

This is the essence of the Bush budget deficit death spiral. To be sure, the debts are an unequalled bonanza for those few who lend the money, for they get to do so at ever-higher rates of interest. But it is a death sentence for all the rest of the economy.

Robert Freeman writes on economics, history and education. He can be reached at robertfreeman10@yahoo.com.

You know the honeymoon is over when the comedians start.....

The liberals are asking us to give Obama time. We agree . . . and think 25 to life would be appropriate.--Jay Leno



America needs Obama-care like Nancy Pelosi needs a Halloween mask.--Jay Leno



Q: Have you heard about McDonald's' new Obama Value Meal?

A: Order anything you like and the guy behind you has to pay for it. --Conan O'Brien



Q: What does Barack Obama call lunch with a convicted felon?A: A fund raiser.--Jay Leno



Q: What's the difference between Obama's cabinet and a penitentiary?

A: One is filled with tax evaders, blackmailers, and threats to society. The other is for housing prisoners.--David Letterman



 Q: If Nancy Pelosi and Obama were on a boat in the middle of the ocean and it started to sink, who would be saved?

A: America !--Jimmy Fallon



Q: What's the difference between Obama and his dog, Bo?

A: Bo has papers. --Jimmy Kimmel



Thursday, September 23, 2010

Bright Lights At Tan Son Nhut


Bright Lights at Tan Son Nhut


During, my 30 day stints in Vietnam, I generally carried a 38 revolver in a shoulder holster every where I went, particularly traveling back and forth by bus or cab to Tan Son Nhut Airbase, in Saigon. One morning when I got off duty, as Operations Officer for in-country C-130 flights, I was advised that there would be a dusk to dawn curfew, so I decided to return to work early that afternoon, to relieve my counterpart while it was still light. Since I would be traveling both ways during daylight hours, I decided not to take the 38. Bad decision.




C-130


About midnight things got unusually quiet. Normally, it was quite noisy inside of our trailer, on the ramp next to the runway, because of the constant roar of 130 engines and the sound of their loud high pitched ground power units. However, at this time we had five 130s shut down on the ramp, while loading, and another had just taxied away towards the runway. Suddenly, there was a sound of "whump" and the trailer shook. I thought someone had bumped into the trailer. This happened frequently. Then there was another whump and shake, and I looked over at Sgt. Langston, a good ole boy from Punta Gorda, FL,who was my helper, and said, "Langston, that sounded just like---" I was cut off by a loud explosion and violent rocking of the trailer. Langston and I looked at each other for a second, then he said, "It was." I immediately regretted not having the 38 and knew Langston didn't have a weapon. I told him to check the back of the trailer for one, while I went to the door and looked out. It was bright as day, because the large (five story) fuel tank located a couple hundred yards away, had been hit with a rocket, and there was a stream of burning fuel arching downward from the hole. About that time, the 130 that had just left the ramp radioed in and said that they were ready for take off but couldn't contact the tower for clearance to take off. (The people in the tower had wisely bailed out at the first shot.) I asked the pilot if he had seen any rounds hit the runway and he said “negative”. Then I told the pilot he was cleared to take off, recommend lights out. He said “roger taking off, lights out” then thanked me and was gone. I worried a little that he might get hit on take off, but felt he was a sitting duck out there, with engines running. Langston came back up front with a M16 carbine, and we headed for a sandbagged shelter about 100 yards behind the trailer. Just as we rounded the back of the trailer, a mortar round went off in front of the bunker. Two GI's, watching the show, were hit, and others dragged them into the bunker. Langston said, "Wrong way", did a 180 and headed for the pallets of cargo on the ramp in front of the trailer. As I was following him another mortar round hit some distance away, but I could see sparks from the shrapnel skipping across the concrete ramp. One small piece caught me in the leg. I knew it wasn't serious because I didn't even break stride. When we "hunkered down" among the pallets I checked and there was only a puncture wound. When I pulled the hot four inch sliver of shrapnel out, Langston was elated and said, "Hey, you get the purple heart". I was very lucky because that piece of metal could have done serious damage, if I had been closer to the burst.


For a while, we sat there and watched the show, thankful that the little guys in black pajamas were not over-running the base.


Viet Cong

Pretty soon, "Puff the Magic Dragon" appeared. Puff was a C-47 with three Gatling Guns mounted on the left side of the plane. The pilot would bank the aircraft and point the wing at the target, then pull the trigger. All three guns would fire simultaneously. Tracer bullets made it looked like a river of fire, or a dragon's tongue reaching from the plane to the ground.


Puff the magic dragon AC-47

Most of the activity appeared to be at the other end of the airfield where the fighter aircraft were, but there didn't appear to be much damage. After about 15 minutes the firing tapered off.


One of the 130 pilots, who had taken shelter in the bunker, came to check on us and his plane. I told him that I was concerned about the five 130s parked on the ramp because of the burning fuel still pouring out of the damaged fuel tank. Three months earlier we had to clear the ramp because that tank was leaking, but not on fire. He agreed we had a problem and returned to the bunker to get some more help. He found three more pilots and crew chief. Each of the pilots and the crew chief took a plane and I took the fifth plane (after the crew chief started it for me) across the runway to the bomb dump. It was fortunate that we were able to move the planes, because the burning fuel did eventually reach the area where two of them had been parked.

We were quite lucky that night. It turned out that three fourths of the mortar rounds that had been fired that night were duds, one. The VC had apparently buried the ammunition in caches, for years, and then dug them up for the attack. One of the mortar sites was within 100 yards of the front gate of the base. The Vietnamese QCs (guards) were immediately and permanently replaced by Air Force MP's. That was the first attack on Tan Son Nhut. I got to watch the second one a year later from the top of our villa, 3 miles away. Taking it easy while sipping martinis!




I will never forget how very fortunate I was, to be able to come home from Vietnam,----------------and will always remember the 58,000 heros—that didn't.




God Bless America


Wednesday, September 22, 2010

I Didn't Know That!


You're gonna say "I didn't know that!" at least 5 times. Really neat stuff here:


Alaska


More than half of the coastline of the entire United States is in Alaska .







Amazon



The Amazon rainforest produces more than 20%
Of the world's oxygen supply.


The Amazon River pushes so much water into the Atlantic Ocean that, more than one hundred miles at sea off the mouth of the river, one can dip fresh water out of the ocean. The volume of water in the Amazon river is greater than the next eight largest rivers in the world combined and three times the flow of all rivers in the United States ..





Antarctica



Antarctica is the only land on our planet that is not owned by any country..
Ninety percent of the world's ice covers Antarctica .
This ice also represents seventy percent of all the fresh water in the world.
As strange as it sounds, however, Antarctica is essentially a desert;
The average yearly total precipitation is about two inches.
Although covered with ice (all but 0.4% of it, ice.),
Antarctica is the driest place on the planet,
With an absolute humidity lower than the Gobi desert.





Brazil





Brazil got its name from the nut, not the other way around.





Canada





Canada has more lakes than the rest of the world combined. Canada is an Indian word meaning ' Big Village '.





Chicago




Next to Warsaw , Chicago has the largest Polish population
In the world.




Detroit



Woodward Avenue in Detroit, Michigan, carries the designation M-1,
So named because it was the first paved road anywhere.





Damascus , Syria



Damascus, Syria, was flourishing a couple of thousand years
Before Rome was founded in 753 BC,
Making it the oldest continuously inhabited city in existence.





Istanbul , Turkey






Istanbul, Turkey, is the only city in the world
Located on two continents.





Los Angeles


Los Angeles ' full name is:
El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reina de Los Angeles de Porciuncula
-- and can be abbreviated to 3.63% of its size: L.A.





New York City



The term 'The Big Apple' was coined
By touring jazz musicians of the 1930s
Who used the slang expression 'apple' for any town or city.
Therefore, to play New York City
Is to play the big time - The Big Apple.

There are more Irish in New York City
Than in Dublin , Ireland ;
More Italians in New York City
Than in Rome , Italy ;
And more Jews in New York City
Than in Tel Aviv , Israel .







Ohio






There are no natural lakes in the state of Ohio , every one is manmade.





Pitcairn Island





The smallest island with country status is Pitcairn
In Polynesia , at just 1.75 sq. Miles/4,53 sq. Km.




Rome





The first city to reach a population of 1 million people
Was Rome , Italy in 133 B.C.
There is a city called Rome on every continent.




Siberia

Siberia contains more than 25% of the world's forests.





S.M.O..M.


The actual smallest sovereign entity in the world
Is the Sovereign Military Order of Malta (S.M.O.M).
It is located in the city of Rome , Italy ,
Has an area of two tennis courts
And, as of 2001, has a population of 80
-- 20 less people than the Vatican ...
It is a sovereign entity under international law,
Just as the Vatican is.







Sahara Desert





In the Sahara Desert , there is a town named Tidikelt , Algeria ,
Which did not receive a drop of rain for ten years.
Technically though, the driest place on Earth
is in the valleys of the Antarctic near Ross Island .
There has been no rainfall there for two million years.




Spain



Spain literally means 'the land of rabbits'.





St. Paul , Minnesota




St. Paul , Minnesota , was originally called Pig's Eye
after a man named Pierre 'Pig's Eye' Parrant
who set up the first business there.





Road






Chances that a road is unpaved:
in the U.S.A. . = 1%;
in Canada = ...75%





Russia



The deepest hole ever drilled by man is the
Kola Superdeep Borehole, in Russia .
It reached a depth of 12,261 meters
(about 40,226 feet or 7.62 miles).
It was drilled for scientific research
and gave up some unexpected discoveries,
one of which was a huge deposit of hydrogen
- so massive that the mud coming from the hole
was boiling with it.





United States


The Eisenhower interstate system requires
that one mile in every five must be straight.
These straight sections are usable as airstrips
in times of war or other emergencies.





Waterfalls






The water of Angel Falls (the world's highest) in Venezuela
drops 3,212 feet (979 meters).
They are 15 times higher than Niagara Falls .



I have always said, you should learn something new every day Unfortunately, many of us are at that age where what we learn today, we forget tomorrow.


But, give it a shot anyway.