Government Explained

DEMOCRAT
You have two cows.
Your neighbor has none.
You feel guilty for being successful.
Barbara Streisand sings for you.

REPUBLICAN
You have two cows.
Your neighbor has none.
So?

SOCIALIST
You have two cows.
The government takes one and gives it to your neighbor.
You form a cooperative to tell him how to manage his cow.

COMMUNIST
You have two cows.
The government seizes both and provides you with milk.
You wait in line for hours to get it.
It is expensive and sour.

CAPITALISM
You have two cows.
You sell one, buy a bull, and build a herd of cows.

DEMOCRACY
You have two cows.
The government taxes you to the point you have to sell both to support a
man in a foreign country who has only one cow, which was a gift from your
government.

BUREAUCRACY
You have two cows.
The government takes them both, shoots one, milks the other, pays you
for the milk, and then pours the milk down the drain.

AMERICAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You sell one, lease it back to yourself and do an IPO on the 2nd one.
You force the two cows to produce the milk of four cows.
You are surprised when one cow drops dead.
You spin an announcement to the analysts stating you have down sized and
are reducing expenses.
Your stock goes up.

FRENCH CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You go on strike because you want three cows.
You go to lunch and drink wine.
Life is good.

JAPANESE CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You redesign them so they are one tenth the size of an ordinary cow and
produce twenty times the milk.
They learn to travel on unbelievably crowded trains.
Most are at the top of their class at cow school.

GERMAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You engineer them so they are all blond, drink lots of beer, give
excellent quality milk, and run a hundred miles an hour.
Unfortunately they also demand 13 weeks of vacation per year.

ITALIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows but you don't know where they are.
While ambling around, you see a beautiful woman.
You break for lunch.
Life is good.

RUSSIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You have some vodka.
You count them and learn you have five cows.
You have some more vodka.
You count them again and learn you have 42 cows.
The Mafia shows up and takes over however many cows you really have.

CALIFORNIAN
You have a cow and a bull.
The bull is depressed.
It has spent its life living a lie.
It goes away for two weeks.
It comes back after a taxpayer-paid sex-change operation.
You now have two cows.
One makes milk; the other doesn't.
You try to sell the transgender cow.
Its lawyer sues you for discrimination.
You lose in court.
You sell the milk-generating cow to pay the damages.
You now have one rich, transgender, non-milk-producing cow.
You change your business to beef.
PETA pickets your farm.
Jesse Jackson makes a speech in your driveway.
Cruz Bustamante calls for higher farm taxes to help "working cows."
Hillary Clinton calls for the nationalization of 1/7 of your farm "for
the children."
Arnold Schwartzenegger signs a law giving your farm to Mexico.
The L.A. Times quotes five anonymous cows claiming you groped their
teats.
You declare bankruptcy and shut down all operations.
The cow starves to death.
The L.A. Times' analysis shows your business failure is Bush's fault.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
I have to laugh. Despite the overwhelming saddness I feel about Senator Kennedy's illness, I have to find a way to laugh. Despite the frustration I feel that the two remaining Democrats continue to have a slugfest, I have to find a way to laugh. Myanmar refuses to accept US Naval aide to the cyclone-ravaged Irrawaddy River delta region, which boggles my mind, but I have got to find a way to laugh.

Because if I don't find some humor somewhere, I will become buried in grief, anger and frustration. Senator Kennedy will fight with all he's got to live his life to the fullest. We cannot eulogize him yet, he's still among the living. Yes, it is a terrible prognosis, but he's still very much among the living. I expect he will move forward with courage.

Eventually, we will have a Democratic Party nominee for President. It will be either Obama, or Clinton. And I have got to find a way to laugh because this is waltzing into the realm of the surreal. We're in at an extraordinary historic juncture. For the first time, the United States will nominate EITHER a Woman, or a Black - and this means that the White House is no longer the exclusive domain of White Male Protestants (or the one Catholic). This is exciting. But what do we do? Obama supporters demonize Clinton; Clinton supporters demonize Obama. And the McCain supporters sit back and let us do their job for them. If that's not hilarious, I don't know what is. Okay, maybe not hilarious. It's black humor, though, please give me that much.

As for the military junta in Burma - I mean WTF! Aid is aid, and to refuse the US Navy because they don't LIKE us is tantamount to murdering their own people.

But if I do not find a way to laugh, I might begin to sob and never stop. Right now, I feel I could drown in a sea of my own tears.