My two cent or making it hail on the next Rocky and Bullwinkle

Look around your home, gather up all of the coins you have there, count them up. How much money do you have and what percentage of coins not the amount are pennies. When was the last time you actually spent a penny. How many pennies do you return to the economy or spend as currency compared to the number of other coinage you spend and receive. If you are like most people once you get that penny it is forever removed from the economy and serves no purpose at all. Look in fountains, rivers, streets and land fills and you will find pennies tossed away like so much rubbish. Turn to any DIY site and you will find pennies being used for flooring, lamp shades and various other surfacing material but not for the intended purpose for which they exist, which is to be used in the exchange of goods and services. No one knows exactly how many pennies actually are out in the world but the estimate is two hundred billion. TWO HUNDRED BILLION. The percentage of them used in actual commerce is so low that the US mint has to make millions of pennies to replace the ones that fall out of circulation every year. Millions of new pennies every year. The cost of production for a penny is estimated to be over twice what it is worth, while others will state that it is slightly less than twice. Either way it costs more to make them than they are worth. The division of our currency will always be down to the single cent, and in many cases percentages of a cent. However we don’t have half pennies any longer and as far as I have been able to determine the half penny is the smallest value coin made by our minting. You know why you don’t see half pennies, because we stopped making them. They outlived there function which the penny is well beyond a reasonable lifespan and should be put to rest. The penny is only around in day to day commerce out of nostalgia and serves no purpose. Don’t even say taxes. Our system of collecting taxes from the consumer and seller is misused. I am not saying that we should not pay taxes. We should they serve a valuable function to pay for infrastructure which makes living in a nation this vast workable. However tacking the tax on at the pay out point complicates things and is ultimately misleading leaning toward fraud. The taxes should be in the price that the consumer sees when making the purchase and any accounting to sort our revenue from taxes collected need to be done by the seller after the transaction. The accounting is done this way regardless if you price something with or without the tax in the price. I have work in businesses that have done this both ways. Prices including the taxes and with out the taxes included. Transactions moved much more speedily when the taxes were included. Less change had to be made and fewer errors occurred with taxes in the price than when compared to when taxes were not included in the price. The penny should be eliminated from day to day transactions but kept for bank transactions only. Most people do not even use cash at all but eliminating is not a viable option at this time either. There are studies by economist in the US that say the poor loose in the elimination of the penny however very little evidence in countries where the penny has been eliminate exist to support that claim. The rounding that is done works in the 1 and 2 cent transactions go down to 0 and 3 and 4 cent transactions go up to the 5 and the same for 6 and 7 down to 5 and 8 and 9 up to 0. Certainly there will be businesses who will price everything to be rounded up. However in a free market economy with competition in pricing those businesses will begin to see their customers moving to businesses which price fairly and do not attempt to gouge or bilk the customer. Any use of money serves the purpose to encourage commerce and spending which drive the economy. However it should also be governed in such a way that is economical and sound. Throwing away millions of dollars to produce a coins which are not used and on bills which have no viable life span is wasting money collected in taxes that could be better spent in other ways. Additional waste accumulated in the millions of dollars is the printing of one and five dollar bills. These bills have the least longevity in the economy and each one printed has to be replaced as unusable in less than 5 years. Coins however will remain usable in the economy for 30 years or longer. Replacing all one dollar and five dollar bills will save so much money that the printing of all currency may actually operate at even rates, that the money produced with worth what was spent to produce it. Of all the government offices which exist, this one should not operate at a loss or have as little loss as possible. To say that the use of one dollar and five dollar coins will not work is just a load of propaganda against change. Every other nation in the world with a workable coinage system use coins worth 1, 2 and 5 increments of their currency without difficulty. We say we are the greatest nation on earth yet we can’t figure out how to use coins? Come on it isn’t exactly tough stuff here. It even further speeds transactions and encourages small amount purchases. Having lived in Europe while serving in military I used coins for most of my purchases and paper money for easily less than a third of the transactions I made off the base. The use of coins just worked more easily. The US has attempted to adopt the dollar coins in less than enthusiastic ways in my life time. The Susan B Anthony dollar was too similar in size, weight and visual to the quarter it quickly fell out of favor and disuse. Other dollar coins were not distributed widely enough and even when asking for them in change often times. Businesses did not have any. Only the Post Office regularly had them available. We should be doing things that save us time and money rather than just sticking to the ways things have been done because that is the way that they are done. If things never changed you would still need an ox and a few chickens to buy stuff. Then there is the identity theft issue. How many times a day do you pull out a banking card to make a purchase for something that is under ten dollars, in a month. If you could cut those monthly transactions in half you would be cutting the risk of theft of your card info in half and also reducing the cost your bank spends on managing your accounts. If every person in the US cut their electronic transactions in half the time and money saved by every business would be substantial but they would still be making money. How many times have you had a bill that wouldn’t go into a vending machine because it wasn’t crisp, that problem is gone if you have a coin that works. Or how many times have you not even had a one dollar bill and only a 5 and not one has enough single or change. That isn’t a problem with a coin. Sure the stripper industry would take a hit because throwing dollar coins is more like making it hail than making it rain. That’s all for now, other stuff tomorrow most likely Happy Birthday if it is your birthday and a very merry un birthday if it is not your birthday Thank you for reading, please subscribe, Have a great day and play nice in the neighborhood. Ciao, Gamer Tag: invisible don PO Box 4425 Roanoke VA 24015

When did trash talking become an Olympic event

In any sport there is going to be some division on what is good and what is great. Certainly there will always be those who are un happy about how things turn out from how the game is play, who play, and how things end. Now I am not so naïve to think that trash talking has not been a part of sport from the very first Olympic games in ancient Greece; You call that a tribute to Apollo that is not even worthy to feed to Cerberus. Remembering the Olympics from the past years that I’ve watched both summer and winter I can not say I recall the amount of negativity as is being expressed about these games in Sochi, Russia. Building an infrastructure is a very difficult thing and Russia isn’t the first to face such problems, Vancouver and Salt Lake both had issues, and for every negative thing being said I am sure there are a lot of positive things going on that are not getting as much attention and exposure in the media. Putting aside the flaws with the readiness or lack of readiness of the physical sites and even the lack of winter conditions is the troubling lack of sportsmanship in these games, especially on Team USA. Now before you start filling your glasses of hater-aid and calling me a long hair hippy commie let me explain and then by all means hate away. Team USA across that board regardless of sport or event have been talking shit about other athletes; they don’t deserve to be here, they are too old, too young, too exposed, too stuck up, no talent and on and on. Part of the problem may be that with social media and so much access to world wide publicity of statements which in the past would have remained in lockers or private journal to be never read again or if they were years later and not in the moments as the events are unfolding. Do not tweet when you are emotional. Additionally the mainstream media wants to keep as many people tuned into sporting events which do not have widely followed professional circuits so they find controversy to keep people watching. However, a bigger part of it too is un sportsmen like behavior or what ever the gender neutral term is for not having poise and dignity when things do not go your way as related to sport. Some of the most widely fed controversy is that of snowboarders blasting Shaun White. Now this was not just Team USA other teams including members of Team Canada were involved. Their complaints were all over the place that Shaun White is too old, a sell out, there is a judging bias in his favor. The trash talk went on and on. The first thing which is related to Shaun and other athletes is that he did not need to be on the team in the first place. Well that has little or nothing to do with any of the competitors desire to be on the team as it is up to Team USA and the US Olympic Committee and any governing body of a particular sport. Which may be part of the problem if the selection process is corrupt this isn’t really any one athletes fault as it is a symptom of a bigger problem. I offer that money is the problem. It costs a lot to travel, train, and televise the Olympics. The winter games are not widely followed sports when compared to other sports so selling advertising becomes an issue but if you can sell ads by having a well known competitor on the team as opposed to a slightly better athlete who is unknown it can make a difference. More work certainly could be done by the governing bodies to secure funding for their sport without the athletes tided to the sponsors. Even if the selection process is corrupt that does not excuse bad behavior and being poor sports. Shaun White has done more good for snowboarding and to erase all the bad that the legions of snowboarders in the world bring on themselves. Crashing into skiers, being rude and offensive around families and then being ruder when confronted about the bad behavior, in short many in the snowboarding world are their own worse enemies. Sorry if you are a boarder and are offended but if you are not that type of boarder you know there are a lot who are not considerate of other on the slopes. There are skiers who fall into this category as well but not in as large percentages. I do not speak as an outsider I worked for years as a profession ski instructor and have skied in Europe as well as North America. I’ve seen the poor behavior first hand. I will say there are fine and decent people who snowboard but the bad apples do get a lot of attention. Shaun did decide not to compete in one event he was selected to participate related to injuries. I can not fault any person for deciding not to go forward and compete if they are not feeling 100% healthy. Team USA has doctors those questions should have been asked and then teams selected based on this. It is not like Shaun White was injured privately and then did not disclose his injuries. These were known and the team made the choice to name him over others. In practice he fell aggravated the injury and dropped out. Why fault him for not taking an unnecessary risk with his body. He will have a life after his competitive days are over and would probably like them to be as pain free as possible. Snowboarding has a lot of injuries every year and some deaths. Again from personal experience with the people with whom I worked with in the skiing industry many of them have injuries which cause them pain and limit or adversely impact their mobility on and off the snow. Because Shaun did not finish well does not mean he did not earn his spot, most of the competing athletes do not finish well. Of the 15 different sports and 98 events and nearly 3000 competing athletes only 98 are going to win gold. Ok it is slightly more with the team sports but the point is that is close to only 5 percent of the athletes are winning. Lolo Jones is another getting a lot of guff about being there. If the Team USA picked her because she is well known that is on them not her. Lolo is driven to compete. She did have very fast push times in all of her runs. Her push times were as fast as any other teams. Her driver did not do so well. There were more bangs against the wall on any single run by her driver than some teams had in all four of their runs. And not to say she is a bad driver. She made mistakes. Mistakes on this level of competition when winning is decided by hundreds and thousands of a second, making the smallest misstep can mean you don’t win. Lolo and her driver still qualified for the finals in their event and a lot of teams did not. So for the men’s bobsleigh team to completely shun the women’s events because of Lolo being chosen to be on the Olympic team was petty and childish. The examples continue into most of the events and I’m left saddened and wondering why. The thing is that the Olympics are supposed to be the height of athletic competition, sport for the sake of sport, sport regardless of political, religious or other ideological beliefs, sport for the love of the game and the challenge of competition. Nothing exists in a vacuum and the Olympics are no exception. Athletes still compete under the flags of Nations and personal ideology shapes how they compete and how they behave. Perhaps I am too idealistic and believe that we can be better as people. It is understandable too that the investment that is preparing for the Olympics in training and time and then not making a team for a particular sport is a huge let down on a personal level. It certainly would be a hard pill to swallow especially if there is corruption in the selection process. Take that out on the selection committee and not the individual athletes. For any one person to say that they deserve to be on a team over someone else perhaps they should consider that there are tons of talented athletes that do not even get a chance to train or even be considered for the Olympics for a myriad of reason. I grew up with skiers who if they had the best coaches would have been world class competitors and possibly Olympians. They did not have access to these services. I know a swimmer who could have been on an Olympic team and most likely would have won medals but did not complete because as a minor his parents refused to allow him to put off school for a year to train. There are also those who simply choose not to compete but who are far and away better than those who show up for trials and make the teams. Because the Olympics are on the world stage does not mean that you are actually in competition against the very best athletes in a sport. It is a sampling of people who have had access and a desire to compete in the games. Perhaps the athletes on Team USA need to consider some humility and reflect on why the Olympic Games were revived. The other problems are not going to go away by attacking the athletes, the organizers and governing bodies need to be taken to task by the athletes who complete in the various sports. Maybe these people would also benefit from some reflective time about why the games exist. That’s all for now, other stuff tomorrow most likely Happy Birthday if it is your birthday and a very merry un birthday if it is not your birthday Thank you for reading, please subscribe, Have a great day and play nice in the neighborhood. Ciao, Gamer Tag: invisible don PO Box 4425 Roanoke VA 24015

Was that a bees nest?

Generally I try to avoid controversy just because I don’t like to respond to the backlash that tends to follow making a religious or political statement in my blog. However, as I think about it by not adding my voice I’m censoring myself or allowing those who may disagree with me to censor me. I’m reminded of the poem from world war two regarding the Nazi party taking various groups away and remaining silent and then when they came for me no one was left to speak out. I would include the poem but I think it’s better if you are interested to look it up on your own. I read it; I got something out of it and it has inspired me to speak up. Although I’m not without my voice I vote even in municipal elections when voter turn out is abysmal. However I don’t always speak up when the squeaky wheels are making noise and it is just nonsensical what they are saying. I think surely others realize that this is wrong. It doesn’t always appear that many others do know or if the do they aren’t saying anything either. So controversy shall from time to time enter my blog, feel free to disagree with me. I am okay with that however I am also free not to respond or delete any notes that I feel are inappropriate, vulgar or are not related to the topic. Here in Virginia a few years ago a popular election passed an amendment to the state constitution defining marriage as a man and woman only. Virginia did this well in advance of North Carolina passing some similar piece of law. Unlike North Carolina, Virginia somehow avoided the national firestorm and controversy that plagued North Carolina following the laws passage. In my classes where I teach, I predicted that sometime soon someone would challenge this new piece of the VA legal world as being in violation of the US Constitution specifically the 14th amendment. The 14th amendment states that equal protection / due process applies to the states that does means you OHIO, and no state shall pass laws which make arbitrary distinctions between citizens and their rights. Sorry if you are in or from OHIO but you all really push the limits of what that means all of the time. This is fine because there is a thing called States right from the Bill of Rights (10th amendment) which says that those powers not specified to the federal government or prohibited to the states are reserved to the states. Not the point today So does defining who can marry who qualify as an arbitrary distinction between citizens. Well some would argue because the law does not say it is opposed to gay marriage. Gay being the key word it just says all men and all women can marry so long as they marry the opposite of their own gender. So every one is included… Not arbitrary However the semantics of that word play is that the spirit of the law is to prevent a specific kind of marriage, same gender marriages. I say same gender because sex is an act and a lot of marriages are void of sex. Gender refers to being male and female in the parts department not how you choose to use the parts when you play. With the intent or spirit of the law it certainly makes a distinction between the happiness of citizens and rights that come with the State recognizing a marriage. Differing tax rates, inclusion on employee benefits, insurance qualifications, inheritance and the list of rights goes on and on. One simple law closes the door on all of these other things in an arbitrary fashion. However this isn’t over because the first amendment also says that the government shall not pass any law that infringes upon the free exercise of religion. So the government can’t simply say your churches have to marry these people regardless of your beliefs in regard to this type of union. There is no way around this the churches are free to choose who they marry and who they won’t marry. Churches will refuse to marry some men and women to one another and they are allowed to do that too. It gets even trickier because there is some thing in the government which restricts the recognition of official churches. This has more to do with people declaring everything a church and defrauding the government and attempting to qualify for tax exempt status and other benefits of being a church as opposed to some other type of organization. The rub is that no matter who married you or how your religion sees your union to your spouse is a marriage or what ever you call it; as far as the government is concerned the ceremony that unionized you to your true love is a civil union. Sure they call it a marriage license but that is the semantics everyone is caught up on and no one is using common sense. Here is the argument that shows your what ever to whom ever is only a civil union in the eyes to the government not matter what you call it. Even when atheists marry one another it is called a marriage and there is not religious backing to these unions but they are the same thing. Most religions do not allow divorces and will not remarry anyone who has a divorce. However who ever joined the two of you in the “Holy State of Marriage” is undone in the eyes of the government if you go through the court process to dissolve that marriage in a divorce. The government doesn’t care what your church thinks then. 9th amendment your rights end where mine begin. It would be unconscionable to force men or women to remain in marriage if they were in danger or at risk of any sort of ruin with only the church to grant the divorce. Adultery gambling, domestic abuse, incompatibility, mental illness, lots of reasons that people get divorced and the state dissolves those civil unions and frees those people to live their lives apart again without a connection to the other person. Does your church have to recognize your divorce? Nope, not at all, not ever, it is still a legal divorce regardless. So restricting who can be in a civil union is an arbitrary distinction of rights and like it not businesses, other people, churches don’t really have a say in it at all. I include other people in that list of no matters because I’m sure lots of sons and daughters marry people other people wish they did not marry even this doesn’t make it any less valid. The language is merely semantics marriage or civil union it is the same thing. So we don’t have the right to restrict same gender marriages from happening. However if you are someone who wants to be in a same gender marriage you don’t have the right to make your church perform that ceremony or to recognize it as valid. However, businesses do have to recognize them and provide all the rights they would to any other couple who is married. Hopefully the court here is VA will strike down the marriage amendment and allow same gender couples to enter into these marriages. Marriage works for those who make it work and fail for those who don’t make it work. Going to church doesn’t give it some secret mojo to keep it from failing. Because it that were true our divorce rate wouldn’t be at over 50 percent for first marriages and over 80 percent of second and subsequent marriages. Like I said in the front you are free to disagree with me and if you base your objection in your religious faith that is fine I support your right and your church doctrine the right not to recognize it but I do not support the government’s right to deny it to citizens Well, that’s all for now, other stuff tomorrow most likely Happy Birthday if it’s your birthday and a very merry un birthday if it isn’t your birthday Thank you for reading, please subscribe Have a great day and play nice in the neighborhood. Ciao, PS 3 Gamer Tag: invisible don PO Box 4425 Roanoke VA 24015