Chewin in the Chung

This is the bastion of Productivity that Karl and Aaron's Friday afternoons entail:

Aaron:
To: Karl Smith
Sent: Friday, September 24, 2004 2:24 PM
Subject: But is it tax deductible?


http://polls.yahoo.com/public/archives/57019568/p-quote-367

Karl:
Question is, how much money does the U.S. government spend each year to run the 'Bureau of the Public Debt'?

Aaron:
Damn. That makes me want to cry.

Didn't Charles Dicken's books always have spinsters leaving their money to pay of the national debt?

Karl:
Haven't read Dickens, and don't know if there WAS a national debt when he was alive. I thought the debt was a post depression wwII thing.

Aaron:
Great Expectations
Charles Dickens
Chapter 7
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AT the time when I stood in the churchyard, reading the family tombstones, I had just enough learning to be able to spell them out. My construction even of their simple meaning was not very correct, for I read `wife of the Above' as a complimentary reference to my futher's exaltation to a better world; and if any one of my deceased relations had been referred to as `Below,' I have no doubt I should have formed the worst opinions of that member of the family. Neither, were my notions of the theological positions to which my Catechism bound me, at all accurate; for, I have a lively remem- brance that I supposed my declaration that I was to `walk in the same all the days of my life,' laid me under an obligation always to go through the village from our house in one particular direction, and never to vary it by turning down by the wheelwright's or up by the mill.

When I was old enough, I was to be apprenticed to Joe, and until I could assume that dignity I was not to be what Mrs Joe called `Pompeyed,' or (as I render it) pampered. Therefore, I was not only odd-boy about the forge, but if any neighbour happened to want an extra boy to frighten birds, or pick up stones, or do any such job, I was favoured with the employment. In order, however. that our superior position might not be compromised thereby, a money-box was kept on the kitchen mantel-shelf, into which it was publicly made known that all my earnings were dropped. I have an impression that they were to be contributed eventually towards the liquidation of the National Debt, but I know I had no hope of any personal participation in the treasure.

http://www.literature.org/authors/dickens-charles/great-expectations/chapter-07.html
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Oh look! It's almost 5:00 already! Better call Brett about poker.