Retirement funding

A new thought on the illegal alien issue. A huge portion of illegals get work by purchasing fake social security numbers to show to employers. These millions of workers then get jobs and pay their FICA of 7.65%. This is then matched by their employers. These illegals will never be able to collect social security, but they pay in how many hundreds of millions of dollars(or billions of dollars or tens of billions of dollars) each and every year? So what happens to all of the money streaming into social security system? Cha-ching! It goes to retiring american citizens. This is quite a contribution to our social security system that many fear will fail in the coming decades. Just another facet to this complex issue. One that I don't think anyone else has thought about.
In the meantime with this retirement windfall , I feel secure enough to buy myself a beach house.
In Baja , Mexico.

Solving the immigration issue

During the past year there has been a great deal of debate on what to do about illegal immigration to this country primarily from Mexico.
Proposals have ranged from "Round 'em up and throw them out" to "make 'em pay $5000 to become citizens(yeah a lot of illegal immigrants making minimum wage will be able to plunk down that kind of cash). None of the proposals can make everyone happy. With this in mind I have come up with a new plan that should satisfy all americans.
Fact - nearly all local and state governments as well as our federal government have spent vast sums of money making the United States nearly bilingual. Everyone calling a large company or government agency has heard this "Para Espanol press numero dos". And Spanish is a very easy language to learn.
Fact - more than 13% of our population is Mexican
Solution - Make Mexico part of the United States. Think of all the land and resources that could be developed with US money from both business and the government.
Think of the billions of dollars saved by not having to guard borders. Now our borders would extend to central america. The rest of our borders would be water. It would certainly be easier to patrol the tiny border with central america than the entire southwest USA.
I think most mexicans would welcome the opportunity to become part of the USA.
What do you think?

Hey Brainiac - get Brainetics

Everyone should go to www.brainetics.tv and order this item. Whether you get it for your child or yourself it's amazing exercise for your brain. You can develop math skills you could never imagine you were capable of achieving. It also seems to help memory and critical thinking and it's also a lot of fun.
The creator, Mike Byster, is a truly remarkable person. He has gone to countless classrooms to teach and motivate students to learn math skills (at no charge).
I've known Mike for more than half of my life and he genuinely cares about having a positive impact on people's lives.
And just so you all know, I'm not telling you this for any personal gain. I haven't even gotten a discount on Brainetics for myself and we were college roomates. Six of us lived in an old house together at 59 E. Chalmers in Champaign, IL and I distinctly remember him telling me that I was his seventh favorite roomate (after axelwoman). You would think that would count for something.
Seriously though, I don't believe you will ever find another product that will enhance your life or your child's life as positively as this intelligent and fun set of DVD's.
So go to www.brainetics.tv and see what I'm talking about.

Einstein

If it's true that you learn from your mistakes then I'm a genius.

The 1st Annual Prescription Drug Awards

With the boring Academy awards approaching I have taken it upon myself to create a truly entertaining awards show. The Prescription Drug Awards. The award statue will be syringe shaped. I have not yet named it and welcome your suggestions.

The first category is:

Best side effect for a prescription drug.
The nominees are:

1 - 4 hour erection

2 - temporary blindness

3- Kidney failure

4 - Rectal Bleeding

5 - Genitals fall off (known as gonadal leprosy)

Any reader of this is automatically a member of the academy and must place a vote.

Ramming speed

Recently, I took a drive from home (Buffalo Grove) to Milwaukee. I was driving comfortably on the tollway. I was driving 70 miles per hour in the middle lane. I had my Joe Bonamassa CD playing and Sharon was reading the paper. It should have been an enjoyable drive, but soon it turned ugly. Cars in the right lane were passing me and giving me dirty looks. Cars in the left lane were honking and flipping me off as they passed by. Meanwhile a truck pulling a 53 foot trailer was 6 inches from my bumper flashing its lights at me. Not wanting to be road kill( and refusing to become an "old man with a hat") I quickly sped up to match the "flow" of traffic at 93 miles per hour. As I rocketed down the highway at Clark Kent speed my mind drifted back to a simpler time - memorial day weekend 2007. We were in Seattle, WA driving down the expressway in our rented PT cruiser. This, by the way, is a vehicle that requires a three point turn to make a simple right turn. It's turning radius is about 983 feet. Anyway we were driving this vehicle at 70 miles per hour (probably the cruiser's top speed) in the middle lane and also got many dirty looks. But this time we were passing everyone else. I quickly slowed down to 60 as I realized that everyone was actually driving the posted speed limit.
In Illinois and Wisconsin we know that the posted speed limit is really more of a suggestion or perhaps a polite request. Why bother putting up signs at all? The state of Illinois could probably save enough money on useless speed limit signs to fund Metra for 3 years.
In spite of the lack of enforcement, I always told my sons to drive the speed limit or within 5 mph of the limit. Recently my son came home with a speeding ticket for going "only" 2o over the speed limit. He complained that he was just going with the flow of traffic and he was the only one pulled over. Not wanting to make him feel any worse about the $75 ticket and $40 traffic school I didn't say "I told you so". Until the next day. When I also sang him the "speed racer" song.
By the way, being able to say "I told you so" is really very gratifying.

Penny for your thoughts

While thinking about money (or lack of said substance) I came across some interesting facts about our coinage. For instance , our penny, is not made of copper. It is actually 97.5% zinc and only 2.5% copper. If you want something made of copper try the quarter. The quarter is 91.67% copper and 8.33% nickel. Speaking of nickel, our nickel is only 25% nickel with the other 75% being copper. As for our dime, it is made of exactly the same mixture as our nickel - 75% copper and 25% nickel. It seems kind of strange that the dime, which weighs less than 1/2 of the weight of a nickel is worth twice as much. Maybe we should swap the names. It certainly would correct the coin size to coin value symmetry theorem which clearly states"The larger the coin the larger the value". The dime really messes that up.
On a slightly related note the police officer nickname "cop" (short for copper) came about because the buttons on the police uniform looked like copper pennies. Still no word on where the nickname "the Fuzz" came from. If someone has that information please let me know.