INDEX
Donkey Raffle
Management Rules
Taxing Effort
The US Tax system
Good Dam Letter
What Proof
Inland Revenue - USA
Too Much Governmentium
Job Applications
Gas Bill
Smithsonian Letter
TEXTS
A city boy, Kenny, moved to the country and bought a donkey from
an old farmer for $100.
The farmer agreed to deliver the donkey the next day.
The next day the farmer drove up and said, "Sorry son, but I have
some bad news, the donkey died."
Kenny replied, "Well then, just give me my money back."
The farmer said, "Can't do that. I went and spent it already."
Kenny said, "OK then, at least give me the donkey."
The farmer asked, "What ya gonna do with him?" Kenny, "I'm going to
raffle him off ."
Farmer, " You can't raffle off a dead donkey!" "Sure I can. Watch
me. I just won't tell anybody he is dead."
A month later the farmer met up with Kenny and asked, "What
happened with that dead donkey?"
Kenny said, "I raffled him off. I sold 500 tickets at two dollars a
piece and made a profit of $998."
"Didn't anyone complain?"
"Just the guy who won.So I gave him his two dollars back."
Kenny grew up and eventually became the chairman of Enron.
SICK DAYS: We will no longer accept a doctor's statement as
proof of sickness. If you are able to go to the doctor, you are
able to come to work.
SURGERY: Operations are now banned. As long as you are an employee
here, you need all your organs. You should not allow anything to be
removed. We hired you intact. To have something removed constitutes
a breach of employment.
PERSONAL DAYS: Each employee will receive 104 personal days a year.
They are called Saturday & Sunday.
VACATION DAYS: All employees will take their vacation at the same
time every year. The vacation days are as follows: Jan. 1, Mar 29,
April 1 & Dec. 24-25
BEREAVEMENT LEAVE: This is no excuse for missing work. There is
nothing you can do for dead friends, relatives or co-workers. Every
effort should be made to have non-employees attend to the
arrangements. In rare cases where employee involvement is
necessary, the funeral should be scheduled in the late afternoon.
We will be glad to allow you to work through your lunch hour and
subsequently leave one hour early, provided your share of the work
is complete.
ABSENT DUE TO YOUR OWN DEATH: This will be accepted as an excuse.
However, we require at least two weeks notice, as it is your duty
to train your own replacement.
RESTROOM USE: Entirely too much time is being spent in the
restroom. In the future, we will follow the practice of going in
alphabetical order. For instance, all employees whose names begin
with 'A' will go from 8:00 to 8:20, employees whose names begin
with 'B' will go from 8:20 to 8:40 and so on. If you're unable to
go at your allotted time, it will be necessary to wait until the
next day when your turn comes again. In extreme emergencies
employees may swap their time with a co-worker. Both employees'
supervisors must approve this exchange in writing. In addition,
there is now a strict 3-minute time limit. At the end of three
minutes, an alarm will sound, the toilet paper roll will retract,
and the stall door will open.
LUNCH BREAK: Skinny people get an hour for lunch as they need to
eat more so that they can look healthy. Normal people get 30
minutes for lunch to get a balanced meal to maintain their average
figures. Fat people get 5 minutes for lunch because that's all the
time needed to drink a Slim Fast & take a diet pill.
DRESS CODE: It is advised that you come to work dressed according
to your salary. If we see you wearing $350 Prada sneakers &
carrying a $600 Gucci bag we assume you are doing well financially
and therefore do not need a raise.
Thank you for your loyalty to our company. We are here to provide a
positive employment experience. Therefore, all questions comments,
concerns, complaints, frustrations, irritations, aggravations,
insinuations, allegations, accusations, contemplations,
consternations, or input should be directed elsewhere.
Dear Mr. XXXXX,
It has come to the attention of the Department of Environmental
Quality that there has been recent unauthorized activity on the
above referenced
parcel of property. You have been certified as the legal landowner
and/or contractor who did the following unauthorized activity:
Construction and
maintenance of two wood debris dams across the outlet stream of
Spring Pond.
A permit must be issued prior to the start of this type of
activity.
A review of the Department's files shows that no permits have been
issued.
Therefore, the Department has determined that this activity is in
violation of Part 301, Inland Lakes and Streams, of the Natural
Resource and Environmental Protection Act, Act 451 of the Public
Acts of 1994, being sections 324.30101 to 324.30113 of the Michigan
Compiled Laws, annotated.
The Department has been informed that one or both of the dams
partially failed during a recent rain event, causing debris and
flooding at downstream locations.
We find that dams of this nature are inherently hazardous and
cannot be permitted.
The Department therefore orders you to cease and desist all
activities at this location, and to restore the stream to a
free-flow condition by removing all wood and brush forming the dams
from the stream channel.
All restoration work shall be completed no later than January 31,
2002.
Please notify this office when the restoration has been
completed so that a follow-up site inspection may be scheduled by
our staff.
Failure to comply with this request or any further unauthorized
activity on the site may result in this case being referred for
elevated enforcement action.
We anticipate and would appreciate your full cooperation in this
matter.
Please feel free to contact me at this office if you have any
questions.
Sincerely, NNNNN.Y.ZZZZZ
Dear Mr. ZZZZZ,
Re: Your certified letter dated XX/XX/01 has been handed to me to
respond to.
First of all, Mr. XXXXX is not the legal Landowner and/or
Contractor at the address mentioned.
I am the legal owner and a couple of beavers are in the (State
unauthorized) process of constructing and maintaining two wood
"debris" dams across the outlet stream of my Spring Pond.
While I did not pay for, authorize, nor supervise their dam
project, I think they would be highly offended that you call their
skillful use of nature's building materials "debris."
I would like to challenge your department to attempt to emulate
their dam project any time and/or any place you choose.
I believe I can safely state there is no way you could ever match
their dam skills, their dam resourcefulness, their dam ingenuity,
their dam persistence, their dam determination and/or their dam
work ethic.
As to your request, I do not think the beavers are aware that they
must first fill out a dam permit prior to the start of this type of
dam activity.
My first dam question to you is:
(1) Are you trying to discriminate against my Spring Pond Beavers
or
(2) do you require all beavers throughout this State to conform to
said dam request?
If you are not discriminating against these particular beavers,
through the Freedom of Information Act, I request completed copies
of all those other
applicable beaver dam permits that have been issued. Perhaps we
will see if there really is a dam violation of Part 301, Inland
Lakes and Streams, of
the Natural Resource and Environmental Protection Act, Act 451 of
the Public Acts of 1994, being sections 324.30101 to 324.30113 of
the Michigan Compiled Laws, annotated.
I have several concerns. My first concern is - aren't the beavers
entitled to legal representation?
The Spring Pond Beavers are financially destitute and are unable to
pay for said representation - so the State will have to provide
them with a dam lawyer. The Department's dam concern that either
one or both of the dams failed during a recent rain event causing
flooding is proof that this is a natural occurrence, which the
Department is required to protect.
In other words, we should leave the Spring Pond Beavers alone
rather than harassing them and calling their dam names.
If you want the stream "restored" to a dam free-flow condition
please contact the beavers - but if you are going to arrest them,
they obviously did not pay any attention to your dam letter, they
being unable to read English.
In my humble opinion, the Spring Pond Beavers have a right to build
their unauthorized dams as long as the sky is blue, the grass is
green and water flows downstream. They have more dam rights than I
do to live and enjoy Spring Pond.
If the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Protection
lives up to its name, it should protect the natural resources
(Beavers) and the environment (Beavers' Dams). So, as far as the
beavers and I are concerned, this dam case can be referred for more
elevated enforcement action right now. Why wait until 1/31/2002?
The Spring Pond Beavers may be under the dam ice then and there
will be no way for you or your dam staff to contact/harass them
then.
In conclusion, I would like to bring to your attention to a real
environmental quality (health) problem in the area.
It is that bears are actually defecating in our woods. I definitely
believe you should be persecuting the defecating bears and leave
the beavers alone. If you are going to investigate the beaver dam,
watch your step! (The bears are not careful where they dump!)
Being unable to comply with your dam request, and being unable to
contact you on your dam answering machine, I am sending this
response to your dam office.
Sincerely, DDDDD
A journalist is asking George W Bush, "What proof do you have
that Iraq has
weapons of mass destruction?"
Bush replies "We kept the receipts."
A bright, young, fresh-out-of-school auditor had just joined the
IRS, excited to begin tracking down high-powered offenders-just as
the Enron or WorldCom guys. Anxious for his first high-powered
audit, he was a bit dismayed when his assignment was to audit a
Rabbi.
Looking over the books and taxes were pretty straightforward, and
the Rabbi clearly very frugal, so he thought he'd make his day
interesting by having a little fun with the Rabbi.
"Rabbi," he said, "I noticed that you buy a lot of candles."
"Yes," answered the Rabbi.
"Well, Rabbi, what do you do with the candle drippings?" he
asked.
"A good question," noted the Rabbi. "We actually save them up and
when we have enough, we send them back to the candle maker.
And every now and then, they send us a free box of
candles."
"Oh," replied the auditor somewhat disappointed that his unusual
question actually had a practical answer.
So he thought he'd go on, in his obnoxious way..."Rabbi, what about
all these matzo purchases?
What do you do with the crumbs from the matzo?"
"Ah, yes," replied the Rabbi calmly, "we actually collect up all
the crumbs from the matzo and when we have enough, we send them in
a box back to the manufacturer and every now and then, they send a
box of matzo balls."
"Oh," replied the auditor, thinking hard how to fluster the
Rabbi.
"Well, Rabbi," he went on, "what do you do with all the foreskins
from the circumcisions?"
"Yes, here too, we do not waste," answered the Rabbi. "What we do
is save up all the foreskins, and when we have enough we actually
send them
to I.R.S."
"The I.R.S.?," questioned the auditor in disbelief.
"Ahh, yes," replied the Rabbi, " the I.R.S. " ..and about once a
year, they send us a little prick like you."
A major research institution has recently announced the
discovery of the heaviest chemical element yet known to
science.
The new element has been tentatively named Governmentium.
Governmentium has 1 neutron, 12 assistant neutrons, 75 deputy
neutrons, and 224 assistant deputy neutrons, giving it an atomic
mass of 312.
These 312 particles are held together by forces called morons,
which are surrounded by vast quantities of lepton like particles
called peons.
Since governmentium has no electrons, it is inert. However, it can
be detected as it impedes every reaction with which it comes into
contact. A minute amount of governmentium causes one reaction to
take over 4 days to complete when it would normally take less than
a second.
Governmentium has a normal half-life of 3 years; it does not decay,
but instead undergoes a reorganization in which a portion of the
assistant neutrons and deputy neutrons exchange places. In fact,
governmentium's mass will actually increase over time, since each
reorganization will cause some morons to become neutrons, forming
isodopes.
This characteristic of moron-promotion leads some scientists to
speculate that governmentium is formed whenever morons reach a
certain quantity in concentration. This hypothetical quantity is
referred to as Critical Morass.
1. "I demand a salary commiserate with my extensive experience."
2. "I have lurnt Word Perfect 6.0 computor and spreasheet progroms."
3 "Received a plague for Salesperson of the Year."
4. "Wholly responsible for two (2) failed financial institutions."
5. "Reason for leaving last job: maturity leave."
6. "Failed bar exam with relatively high grades.
7. "It's best for employers that I not work with people."
8. "Let's meet, so you can 'ooh' and 'aah' over my experience."
9. "You will want me to be Head Honcho in no time."
10. "Am a perfectionist and rarely if if ever forget details."
11. "I was working for my mom until she decided to move."
12. "Marital status: single. Unmarried. Unengaged. Uninvolved. No commitments."
13. "I have an excellent track record, although I am not a horse."
14. "I am loyal to my employer at all costs ... Please feel free to respond to my resume on my office voice mail."
15. "I have become completely paranoid, trusting completely no one and absolutely nothing."
16. "My goal is to be a meterologist. But since I possess no training in meteorology, I suppose I should try stock brokerage."
17. "I procrastinate, especially when the task is unpleasant."
18. "Personal interests: donating blood. Fourteen gallons so far."
19. "As indicted, I have over five years of analyzing investments."
20. "Instrumental in ruining entire operation for a Midwest chain store."
21. "Note: Please don't misconstrue my 14 jobs as 'job-hopping'. I've never quit a job."
22. "Marital status: often. Children: various."
23. "Reason for leaving last job: They insisted that all employees get to work by 8:45 am every morning. I couldn't work under those conditions."
24. "The company made me a scapegoat, just like my three previous employers."
25. "Finished eighth in my class of ten."
26. "References: none. I've left a path of destruction behind me."
What a world? (country NSW)... On Thursday, 24 January 2002, Derek Guille broadcast this story on his afternoon program on ABC radio.
In March, 1999, a man living in Kandos (near Mudgee in NSW)
received a bill for his as yet unused gas line stating that he owed
$0.00. He ignored it and threw it away. In April he received
another bill and threw that one away too.
The following month the gas company sent him a very nasty note stating they were going to cancel his gas line if he didn't send them $0.00 by return mail. He called them, talked to them, and they said it was a computer error and they would take care of it.
The following month he decided that it was about time that he
tried out the troublesome gas line figuring that if there as usage
on the account it would put an end to this ridiculous predicament.
However, when he went to use the gas, it had been cut off.
He called the gas company who apologised for the computer error once again and said that they would take care of it. The next day he got a bill for $0.00 stating that payment was now overdue.
Assuming that having spoken to them the previous day the latest bill was yet another mistake, so he ignored it, trusting that the company would be as good as their word and sort the problem out.
The next month he got a bill for $0.00. This bill also stated that he had 10 days to pay his account or the company would have to take steps to recover the debt.
Finally, giving in, he thought he would beat the company at their own game and mailed them a cheque for $0.00. The computer duly processed his account and returned a statement to the effect that he now owed the gas company nothing at all.
A week later, the manager of the Mudgee branch of the Westpac Banking Corporation called our hapless friend and asked him what he was doing writing cheque for $0.00. After a lengthy explanation the bank manager replied that the $0.00 cheque had caused their cheque processing software to fail. The bank could therefore not process ANY cheques they had received from ANY of their customers that day because the cheque for $0.00 had caused the computer to crash.
The following month the man received a letter from the gas company claiming that his cheque has bounced and that he now owed them $0.00 and unless he sent a cheque by return mail they would take immediate steps to recover the debt.
At this point, the man decided to file a debt harassment claim against the gas company. It took him nearly 2 hours to convince the clerks at the local courthouse that he was not joking.
They subsequently assisted him in the drafting of statements which were considered substantive evidence of the aggravation and difficulties he had been forced to endure during this debacle. The matter was heard in the Magistrate's Court in Mudgee and the outcome was this:The gas company was ordered to:
[1] Immediately rectify their computerised accounts system or show cause, within 10 days, why the matter should not be referred to a higher court for consideration under company Law.
[2] Pay the bank dishonour fees incurred by the man.
[3] Pay the bank dishonour fees incurred by all the Westpac clients whose cheques had been bounced on the day our friend's had been.
[4] Pay the claimant's court costs; and
[5] Pay the claimant a total of $1500 per month for the 5 month period March to July inclusive as compensation for the aggravation they had caused their client to suffer.
And all this over $0.00.
The story behind the letter below is that there is this nutball
in Newport, RI named Anonymous who digs things out of his backyard
and sends the stuff he finds to the Smithsonian Institute,
labelling them with scientific names, insisting that they are
actual archaeological finds.
This guy really exists and does this in his spare time!
Anyway...here's the actual response from the Smithsonian Institute.
Bear this in mind next time you think you are challenged in your
duty to respond to a difficult situation in writing.
___________________________________________________________________
Smithsonian Institute
207 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, DC 20078
Dear Mr Anonymous,
Thank you for your latest submission to the Institute, labelled
"93211-D, layer seven, next to the clothesline post...Hominid
skull."
We have given this specimen a careful and detailed examination, and
regret to inform you that we disagree with your theory that it
represents conclusive proof of the presence of Early Man in
Charleston County two million years ago.
Rather, it appears that what you have found is the head of a Barbie
doll, of the variety that one of our staff, who has small children,
believes to be "Malibu Barbie." It is evident that you have given a
great deal of thought to the analysis of this specimen, and you may
be quite certain that those of us who are familiar with your prior
work in the field were loathe to come to contradiction with your
findings. However, we do feel that there are a number of physical
attributes of the specimen which might have tipped you off to its
modern origin:
1. The material is moulded plastic. Ancient hominid remains are
typically fossilised bone.
2. The cranial capacity of the specimen is approximately 9 cubic
centimetres, well below the threshold of even the earliest
identified proto-homonids.
3. The dentition pattern evident on the skull is more consistent
with the common domesticated dog than it is with the ravenous
man-eating Pliocene clams you speculate roamed the wetlands during
that time.
This latter finding is certainly one of the most intriguing
hypotheses you have submitted in your history with this
institution, but the evidence seems to weigh rather heavily against
it. Without going into too much detail, let us say that:
A. The specimen looks like the head of a Barbie doll that a dog has
chewed on.
B. Clams don't have teeth.
It is with feelings tinged with melancholy that we must deny your
request to have the specimen carbon-dated. This is partially due to
>the heavy load our lab must bear in its normal operation, and
partly due to carbon-dating's notorious inaccuracy in fossils of
recent geologic record. To the best of our knowledge, no Barbie
dolls were produced prior to 1956 AD, and carbon-dating is likely
to produce wildly inaccurate results.
Sadly, we must also deny your request that we approach the National
Science Foundation Phylogeny department with the concept of
assigning your specimen the scientific name Australopithecus
spiff-arino.
Speaking personally, I, for one, fought tenaciously for the
acceptance of your proposed taxonomy, but was ultimately voted down
because the species name you selected was hyphenated, and didn't
really sound like it might be Latin. However, we gladly accept your
generous donation of this fascinating specimen to the museum. While
it is undoubtedly not a Hominid fossil, it is, nonetheless, yet
another riveting example of the great body of work you seem to
accumulate here so effortlessly.
You should know that our director has reserved a special shelf in
his own office for the display of the specimens you have previously
submitted to the Institution, and the entire staff speculates daily
on what you will happen upon next in your digs at the site you have
discovered in your Newport back yard.
We eagerly anticipate your trip to our nation's capital that you
proposed in your last letter, and several of us are pressing the
director to pay for it. We are particularly interested in hearing
you expand on your theories surrounding the trans-positating
fillifitation of ferrous ions in a structural matrix that makes the
excellent juvenile Tyrannosaurus rex femur you recently discovered
take on the deceptive appearance of a rusty 9-mm Sears Craftsman
automotive crescent wrench.
Yours in Science,
Updated 15 January 2004