Multiple Choice Questions Make You Smart…Or do they?

Think back to your days in school. You are scared of the upcoming exam. Then your professor announces that the exam is going to be Multiple Choice. You are instantly relieved. You were scared to death that you might not know anything but now there is hope because you now have a guesser’s chance and you might actually get credit for knowing something, even though you don’t.

If you read this blog posting as my taking sides on this issue, you read me wrong. I’m just pointing out that “they” promise anything before the vote and then they do not do anything about what they promise after they get our votes.

I am probably being too cynical...Or am I?

In 1986 & 2006 & 2013 there was/is much consternation in the Halls of Congress about Immigration Reform. In each of these years an Immigration Bill was passed (only through the Senate so far in 2013).

Golly gee, they look very similar...

These are words written about the 1986 & the 2006 & the 2013 Immigration Reform Bills. Do you know which was which? Relax. It is Multiple Choice. You may guess right...

The amendment approved aims to construct a border fence and install high-tech surveillance and other equipment to detect illegal border crossings.

or

The Act aims for operational control over U.S. international land and maritime borders by improving surveillance through personnel and technology as well as physical infrastructure enhancements to prevent unlawful border entry and enable U.S. Customs to control border access.

or

Solemn promises were made by politicians and reform proponents that the border would be secured.

The Smartfella Modus Operandi is that he dances around and comments on the foolish parts of weighty issues. He does not contend that he is smarter than Members of Congress. He simply thinks he makes more sense than Members of Congress.

If you are one of those of us who is concerned about Border Security you need only look at the results of the first two Immigration Reform Bills to become very uneasy about the promises this most recent Immigration Reform Bill makes.

I don’t claim to be able to forecast the future. I do absolutely contend that, I am able to see the past and this “ability” makes me very uneasy about the future.

Fool Me Once Shame On You

Fool Me Twice Shame On Me

Fool Me Three Times Shame On Me For Being Stupid

Would I kid u?

Smartfella

Lagniappe... In all of the pontificating about the 2013 bill I have not heard any discussion about what you are about to read below...

Actual Headline on a news article from 2011:

Homeland Security Chief cancels costly virtual border fence

By the CNN Wire Staff

January 14, 2011 8:15 p.m. EST

Think About It.

Flickr Tags: Immigration,Border Fence,Multiple Choice

Too Much Pride Ain’t Good For You

How many times have you heard someone smarter than you on TV (you must admit they are smarter than you because they are on TV) say...

We must have these immigrants in our workforce because Americans will not do the jobs that they are willing to do.

It might better be said that Americans can’t afford to do these kinds of jobs. Let your mind wander with me for a bit...

American Child to American Father, “What do you mean I can’t have a Smartphone like all of my friends have? It’s your fault that we can’t afford the basic necessities of life. We were doing just fine when we were living off of the government. Then you decided that you had too much pride just because your father had too much pride to be on the dole. You completely lost it and went out and got a job. Now our family income has fallen by $1,158 per month. Just because you have scruples, why do I have to give up things? What kind of provider are you!”

OK, I admit it, I made all of this up...Or did I?

Would I kid u?

Smartfella

LiveJournal Tags: Pride,Dole,Jobs Americans will not do

Don’t Tell Congress

I give you fair warning. This one is complicated. You better pay attention. You better read slowly. This posting is not for people who are skim readers. You hear that, Penny?

Years ago I was wandering through the halls of congress when, to my complete surprise, I saw a long-time congressman is a corner behind a statue in a fetal position crying uncontrollably.

At that time in my own political awareness I was still admiring of members of congress, so I went over, got down on my hands and knees, and asked if there was anything I could do to relieve his pain.

It took him a moment to get over his anguish and he stammered out, We can’t spend enough money. We are spending billions of dollars as fast as we can but it is not enough. Billions and billions just won’t do but, since it is the biggest possible bunching of money that there is, our hands are tied. It is so awfully frustrating!

In my naiveté I tried to console him by saying, You are not limited to billions. Beyond billions are trillions. A trillion is 1,000 billion. The best part is you do not have to tell your constituents (folks back home) that you spent 1,000 of anything. When you spend one trillion you can look them right in their gullible faces and say you spent one. They will thank you for being frugal and keep electing you till the cows come home.

Boy, did I make a big mistake! He face lit up and he sprang to his feet and ran off down the Hallowed Halls of Congress shouting, Eureka! Eureka! I’ve found it! I’ve found a trillion and it’s only one!

Senator Archimedes has been reelected many times since. I see his smiling face on CSPAN all the time. As for me, he never even sent me a Thank You Card.

Since you, my dear reader, are sly, cunning and alert you are saying to yourself, What does all of this have to do with the Subject of this Blog Posting... “Don’t Tell Congress”?

Please allow me to explain...

The other day I was watching TV and I heard mention that our rulers are building a facility in Utah to store all the information that they are gathering about everything we say to each other. The report said that the facility would have the capacity to store 5 Zettabytes.

Never having heard the word Zettabyte before I wrongly assumed it was the next step above Terabyte and that would make it 1,000 Terabytes.

Boy was I wrong! Here is how it lays out...

• Above a Terabyte (12 zeros) is a Petabyte which is 1,000 Terabytes.
• Above a Petabyte (15 zeros) is an Exabyte which is 1,000 Petabytes.
• Above an Exabyte (18 zeros) is a Zettabyte which is 1,000 Exabytes.

You guessed it. A Zettabyte is 21 zeros. Or for those of you who want to confuse the rest of us even more, a Zettabyte in 1 million Terabytes, I think.

Long before we get to 5 Zettabytes we have bitten off more that the Good Ole USofA can chew.

I looked up the Monetary Equivalents of Computer Byte Bunches...

• A Megabyte would be a Million expressed in Dollars
• A Gigabyte would be a Billion expressed in Dollars
• A Terabyte would be a Trillion expressed in Dollars
• A Petabyte would be a Quadrillion expressed in Dollars
• A Exabyte would be a Quintillion expressed in Dollars
• A Zettabyte would be a Sextillion expressed in Dollars

Do you get my drift? More importantly, do you get my concern? Do you understand why the Smartfella is downright scared?

Please Don’t Tell Any Of Your Representatives In Congress That There Is Such A Thing As A Sextillion!!!

Can’t you just hear Senator Foghorn looking surprised because someone objected to him spending 5 Sextillion Dollars. Why, son. Look here, son. Don’t get so hot under the collar. It’s only 5.                         

                                 

Would I kid u?

Smartfella

Technorati Tags: Congress,Sextillion,Zettabyte

I Don’t Mean To Be Picky...Or Do I?

Headline in my newspaper...

TSA Scraps Plan To Allow Small Knives on Planes

The Transportation Security Administration head has decided to NOT loosen rules that have been in place since 911.

Are these people a dim as they appear to the rest of us? Here are the changes they were on the brink of making before people started shouting at them...

• OK to carry Hockey Sticks.
• OK to Golf Clubs.
• OK to carry Billiard Cues.

How in the heck did they come up with the above list of permissables? Is there really a lot of demand to cuddle up with such items as these on passenger flights?

Actually there was another item that I did not put on the above list. It requires the Special Smartfella Treatment...

Allowed To Carry Knives with Blades of 2.36 Inches Or Less

Would such a blade be able to wreak as much havoc with one’s throat as a Box Cutter?

How did they come up with 2.36 inches? Is 2.36 inches harmless and 2.37 inches dangerous?

Would our Crack TSA Agents have had a government issued measuring tool to be able to quickly ascertain that your little 2.36 inch knife is not a dangerous 2.37 inch dagger?

Look on the bright side. The terrorist are probably too busy laughing at us to make bombs.

Would I kid u?

Smartfella

BuzzNet Tags: TSA,Transportation Security Administration,911,2.36 inches

The Freedom To Associate Is Running Amok

There appears to be an Association for darn near everything under the sun. We are all familiar with the likes of...

• American Cancer Society
• Mothers Against Drunk Driving
• National Geographic Society

There are many other associations that make the Smartfella say to himself, “Self, is this really necessary?”...

• American Restroom Association (I wonder if the hold their annual convention in the restrooms of major hotels in Las Vegas?).
• The Association for the Gifted (Does not sound Politically Correct to me).
• Guide Dog Foundation for the Blind (Is this so the blind can get guide dogs or is this association run by the guide dogs?).
• Girls Incorporated (Precursor to National Organization for Women?).
• National Muzzle Loading Rifle Association (Must have their annual convention in the back of very small hotels).
• Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (Robots are people too!).
• Overeaters Anonymous (Here is one that certainly must be expanding in Super Size Everything America ... Pun intended) These people might think they are anonymous but we can tell who they are without their Convention Name Badges.

Think I made these associations up? When will you begin to trust me? ... http://www.weddles.com/associations/

There is one Association that is much needed but does not seem to be on any list. There really ought to be an Association of Smartfellas.

Oh, silly me! There already is such an organization and I actually mentioned it above... The Association for the Gifted.

Would I kid u?

Smartfella

43 Things Tags: Associations

A “That’s Not News” Headline

I saw a headline in my newspaper that read as follows...

Room for Savings Found in Medicare

The people who feed us news think this is news. A better headline would be...

Anywhere You Look in Medicare Expenditures You Can See Money That Could Be Saved

Saying there is “room for saving” in Medicare is as nonsensical a headline, as these are...

• Magic Johnson Knows How To Bounce A Basketball
• Cancer Is Not Good For Your Health
• People Who Make Millions Of Dollars A Year Have A Lot Of Money

Just where does the article say we are going to save money? It says we are going to force labs that are paid through Medicare to accept less money and this will supposedly save close to $1 Billion a year.

I will agree that there are probably overcharges by the labs but can’t you just see the finders of this money saving idea saying to themselves, “We don’t have to look for savings any more because we have done such a good job of plugging this hole. Where is my Plugging Wasteful Spending Bonus money?”

If the head guy at Medicare would call me and ask for input, I would point him to Waste, Fraud & Abuse. I’m sorry to say he would probably respond to me, “What’s that?”

The same day I saw the headline that got me cranking on this posting, I saw this on TV...

• Last year $32.7 Billion was lost to Waste, Fraud & Abuse in Medicare.
• Last year $19.2 Billion was lost to Waste, Fraud & Abuse in Medicaid.
• My TV said this kind of money wasting has been going on for decades.

Does it make you wonder why our government can’t stop the Waste, Fraud & Abuse, if they know exactly how much was wasted, frauded & abused? They did not say that a whole bunch of money was wasted, frauded & abused. They very precisely say $32.7 & $19.2 Billion. That’s pretty specific. If they can tally it up, they must know where the Waste, Fraud & Abuse is happening. Go Get ‘Em, Guys!

I heard a member of Congress say this about the $32.7 & the $19.2 Billion...

Because things in the economy now are tight we are paying more attention to this kind of thing. In the past we were fairly indulgent.

The Smartfella has this to say about that...Thank heaven things are tight!

If you are like me, you stared at “fairly indulgent” for a long time.

There you go thinking the Smartfella made up the Congressman’s silly utterance. I swear on my little-bought book that this is what I heard him say.

Would I kid u?

Smartfella

Lagniappe: Special message to Upa. Don’t add a comment to this blog posting telling me that “frauded” is not a word.

IceRocket Tags: Waste Fraud and Abuse,Medicare,Medicaid

I Have A New Hero

If any of you knew what’s in my head, and none of you know what’s in my head until it comes out of my mouth, this posting would not be a surprise to you.

What’s coming out of my head today is that I have new hero. He is Bill Belichick the Coach of the New England Patriots.

Several years ago, the New England Patriots NFL Football team was caught secretly taping upcoming opponent’s supposed to be secret practices. Their coach, Bill Belichick was reprimanded and fined and talked harshly to by an NFL Official or two. There is no recorded evidence that Coach Belichick paid any attention during the harsh words.

He was then sent back to his team and, based on his recent “Tim Tebow Is a Patriot” press conference; the football world is fairly certain he did not immediately launch into a standup comedy routine when he got back to the practice field.

Those of you who have been reading my Foolishness...Or Is Its over the years know that I am not a fan of the News Media. My unfondness for the News Media includes the Sports News Media.

I have come to feel this way because of the inane questions they ask. Have you ever been confronted by a young child who is going berserk trying to interrupt adults (who are trying to ignore the little interrupter) and when everyone stops, and looks at the little fellow to see what he has to say, they and he find out that he had nothing to say. He just wanted to get into the middle of what’s going on.

Sports News Reporters are much the same way. Here are a few examples to prove this point...

• Question to the coach who is beating his head against the wall: “Are you feeling disappointed because you just lost The Big Game on a 103 yard pass on fourth and 65 yards to go with no time left on the clock?”
• Question to the coach whose team had just won the Super Bowl using a second string quarterback who replaced the first string quarterback with more that half the regular season to go: “Coach, when the season started did you foresee that your first string quarterback was going to get hurt with more than half the regular season to go, be replaced by your second string quarterback and you would win the Super Bowl?” (I did not make this one up.)
• Are your players feeling badly because they just lost The Big Game to their Arch Rivals?

My Boy Bill just did his best to frustrate a clutch of bug-eyed reporters clamoring for controversy about the signing of Tim Tebow during a press conference that would be in my Hall of Fame if I there were such a thing as the Smartfella’s Drive The Sports Media Nuts Hall of Fame. The questions are not important but some of his answers are beautiful. Other answers were longer (not much) but still did not give the panting reporters any info...

• Tim is a talented player that is smart and works hard. We’ll see how it goes.
• None, we try to do what’s best for the team.
• We’re going to try to get better as a football team, individually and collectively, and that’s what we’re going to do.
• We’ll try to do what we think is best for our football team.
• I don’t know, we’ll see.
• We’ll see, I don’t know.
• He’s a talented guy, he’s smart, he’s works hard.
• He can do a lot of things – we’ve seen that.
• No.
• Yeah, I like Tim. I have a lot of respect for Tim.
• I’ve already said that.
• I’ve answered the question twice. He’s a talented player who is smart and works hard.
• Everybody has a job to do and I’m sure he’ll try to do it the best that he can.
• We’ll all try to do our jobs the best that we can.
• I think we’ve already talked enough about him. We’ll see how he does and just go from there.
• I think I’ve covered it.
• I haven’t talked to Vinny in a couple years.
• I don’t know.
• Four weeks, it’s four weeks. A week of training camp is a week of training camp. A regular season game is a regular season game. It all adds up every day. You do the math, I don’t know.
• He’ll do what he can do.
• They are.
• I don’t have anything to add.
• Whatever conversations I have with anybody would be between myself and that person anyways. I don’t think that’s anything that would be shared publicly.
• We’ll see how it goes.
• I don’t know.
• There are a lot of people in the organization that contributed in all decisions, like there usually are. I couldn’t put a percentage on it, if that’s what you’re looking for.
• I don’t know, you’d have to talk to them about that.
• You’d have to talk to them. I don’t want to represent what somebody else said or thought.

What a Guy! My Hero!

Would I kid u?

Smartfella

Flickr Tags: Bill Belichick,Tim Tebow,New England Patriots,NFL

Bring Back The Good Ole Punch In The Mouth

My newspaper just told me about someone who said something insulting to someone else and the Someone Else person is suing the Someone Said It Person.

Whatever happened to Freedom of Speech? Whatever happened to the Freedom to Insult Your Fellow Man? Now anytime anyone says anything that could be construed as an insult, the insulted person’s brother-in-law files a law suit on behalf of the insulted person. (Don’t tell me that we need to outlaw Brothers-In-Law when you know full well that they are a necessary evil.)

In the old days here is what would have happened when someone insulted someone...

• The Insulted Someone would have punched the Insulting Someone in the mouth.
• If the Insulting Someone would have gotten up, a crowd would have gathered to watch the fist fight.
• If the Insulting Someone did not get up, the crowd that did not gather would have continued shooting pool.
• If things really started getting out of hand, John Wayne would have ridden in and restored order.
• If ole John had a hankering he would have punched one or the other of the antagonists in the mouth.
• There would have been no law suits because the We Got Too Many Lawyers America had not been invented yet and, of course, no one dared to sue John Wayne.

In Modern Day Litigious America some or all of the following lawsuits would be filed...

• By the Insulted Person against the Insulting Person.
• By the Insulted Person against any bystander who chuckled when he overheard the insult.
• By the other brother-in-law of the Insulted Person who is suing because he was not given this case to handle. He was overheard to say, “My Insulted Brother-In-Law retained his other Brother-In-Law the last 3 times he tried to take advantage of our Judicial System. Don’t I get a turn? What am I, a potted plant? I can just as unscrupulous as the next guy.”

Would I kid u?

Smartfella

Lagniappe: It is my sad duty to report that in recent days I have asked a young waiter and, on another occasion, a young waitress if they ever heard of John Wayne. Both of them answered, “No”. I’m not going to ask this question anymore because that’s just too depressing.

LiveJournal Tags: Law Suits,John Wayne,Litigious,Freedom of Speech

I Am More Interesting Than You Are

I entertain myself because I notice things. You probably don’t notice the things that I notice. Some say I am sick and I am wasting my time. They do not understand how interesting it is to be interested in things.

Did I just hear you say, “OK, smart guy. Just what have you noticed lately that makes you so interesting”? OK, not as smart guy, I did hear you say that and here is what I noticed...

I started taking notice how the Entertainment Industry is saving us from having really high unemployment in the Good Ole USofA. After I have enlighten you, you will start looking for what I am about to tell you and only then will you give me credit for being the interesting person that I am...Or will u?

In looking at the credits after a particular very popular TV Show I took note of the fact that the wonderful people who work so hard to keep us constantly entertained appear to be employing extra unnecessary people to produce their shows.

They must be doing this for the purpose of holding down the Country’s Unemployment Rate because it is not possible that they need this many people to produce their shows, especially since it is beyond most of us exactly what it is a Producer does.

Here is a single example of the Producers that are employed to make this particular TV Show, which I took note of because I am a Noticer. The credits for the show listed the following...

• 5 Executive Producers
• 1 Co-Executive Producer
• 1 Producer
• 1 Co-Producer
• 3 Consulting Producers

It is really possible that they really need this many Producer Kind Of People?

Without getting my calculator out, I can make a wide guess that, when you consider all the TV Programs & Movies we are subjected to, our national unemployment rate would be considerably higher if our Entertainment Industry were not so patriotic and was not producing so many producer people.

Don’t forget to check out my keen observation revelation at the end of future TV Shows (be sure to wake up in time for the Credits.) You will be amazed and very thankful to our Patriotic Entertainment Industry.

Would I kid u?

Smartfella

Technorati Tags: producers