I'm from the Government and I'm here to.....

A cowboy named Bud was overseeing his herd in a remote mountainous pasture in Dakota country when suddenly a brand-new BMW advanced out of a dust cloud towards him. The driver, a young man in a Brioni suit, Gucci shoes, RayBan sunglasses and YSL tie, leans out the window and asks the cowboy, 'If I tell you exactly how many cows and calves you have in your herd, Will you give me a calf?' Bud looks at the man, obviously a yuppie, then looks at his peacefully grazing herd and calmly answers, 'Sure, Why not?' The yuppie parks his car, whips out his Dell notebook computer,connects it to his Cingular RAZOR V3 cell phone, and surfs to a NASA page on the Internet, where he calls up a GPS satellite to get an exact fix on his location which he then feeds to another NASA satellite that scans the area in an ultra-high-resolution photo. The young man then opens the digital photo in Adobe Photoshop and exports it to an image processing facility in Hamburg , Germany. Within seconds, he receives an email on his Palm Pilot that the image has been processed and the DA at stored. He then accesses a MS-SQL database through an ODBC connected Excel spreadsheet with email on his Blackberry and, after a few minutes, receives a response. Finally, he prints out a full-color, 150-page report on his hi-tech, miniaturized HP LaserJet printer and finally turns to the cowboy and says, 'You have exactly 1,586 cows and calves.' 'That's right. Well, I guess you can take one of my calves,' says Bud. He watches the young man select one of the animals and looks on amused as the young man stuffs it into the trunk of his car. Then Bud says to the young man, 'Hey, if I can tell you exactly what your business is, will you give me back my calf?' The young man thinks about it for a second and then says, 'Okay, why not?' 'You're a Congressman for theU.S. Government', says Bud. 'Wow! That's correct,' says the yuppie, 'but how did you guess that?' 'No guessing required.' answered the cowboy. 'You showed up here even though nobody called you; you want to get paid for an answer I already knew, to a question I never asked. You tried to show me how much smarter than me you are; and you don't know a thing about cows... This is a herd of sheep. .. . . Now give me back my dog. It really is getting this bad....

"Danger, Will Robinson, Danger!"

ATTACK by rampaging robot: “Man is apparently no match for machine. Although the worker tried to defend himself, he suffered four broken limbs and nearly lost his life. The company was fined 25,000 kronor ($3,000) for negligent safety precautions, but the robot managed to evade assault charges.”

Good thing-thanks to America's entrepreneurial spirit--there's insurance (via instapundit)

It's Not the Economy, Stupid

Max Borders writes:

Is it overly cynical to use the Political Power & Government Expansion Hypothesis above as our working assumption about what this government is up to? If we do, instead of arguing that all this is bad economics, we'll realize that this is Machiavellian politics of the highest order. It's the politics of "just scare the public and demonize the opposition." Only then will we begin to expose this unprecedented power grab for what it is, and save our Republic from inevitable decline; whatever the intentions of our leaders.

When will we learn:  Government's the problem, not the solution.

Tea Parties Coming to North Dakota

The Tea Party Protests are coming to North Dakota

The NORTH DAKOTA TAXPAYERS ASSOCIATION has been asked to help.

The following is from an email they are circulating.

Good Afternoon Taxpayers,   By now, you may have heard about the Tax Day Tea Parties that have been happening around the country.      (See a video montage of news reports from around the country by clicking here.)     The North Dakota Taxpayers' Association has been asked to help with these efforts here in North Dakota.     Radio talk show host Scott Hennen will be serving as Master of Ceremonies for these events around the state.  (Currently scheduling events in Fargo, Bismarck, and Dickinson.)   But we need your help in making this happen!   If you are not already a member of the North Dakota Taxpayers' Association, please do so today by clicking here.   It's only $50 to join!   Stay tuned for updates in the coming days.   -Dustin Gawrylow, Executive Director North Dakota Taxpayers' Association

Flash Mobs, Tea Parties and Tocqueville

Austin Bay connects current technology, political protest, and democracy's best analyst:

Tocqueville wrote: "It cannot be denied that the unrestrained liberty of association for political purposes is the privilege which a people is longest in learning how to exercise."