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Money can change everything -- even your toilet-handle covers
Minneapolis Star Tribune ^ | May 8, 2008 | JAMES LILEKS

Posted on 05/09/2008 10:42:22 AM PDT by Caleb1411

No doubt you felt a surge of Gopher Pride when you learned that a Waseca couple hit the Powerball. The big lottery jackpots always seem to go to people in far-away Cooter County. Bufus! Put down the banjo and git out of the tree, your daddy done won us some Britney-size money!

They end up blowing through $150 million in a few years, which isn't surprising: You take an ordinary feller, give him unimaginable wealth, and he will justify building a catapult that throws Ferraris in the air so he can shoot them down with a shoulder-mounted missile launcher. Sure, he'll have an accountant who begs him to do this once a month, twice tops, but you know, Ferrari Skeet is like eatin' peanuts.

A local winner piques our interest. First, where did they buy it? Because that store's luck is all tapped out. Second: Is it one of those 16-ladies-at-a-pork-plant deals, where everyone gets enough to buy a car and send a kid to college?

Because that's about as inspirational as learning that someone found a 3-ton bale of unused Gold Bond stamps.

Most important: Will they keep their jobs? We cannot imagine why they would. It's like being given the gift of flight and announcing you'll still fly coach.

You could understand if the person had some incredibly cool job. "Johnson, who sprays body glitter on supermodels at fashion shows, has said he will keep his job." But no: the winner in Waseca is a heavy equipment operator, and says he'll keep doing it.

You can understand why he thinks he will, of course. We are what we do.

(Excerpt) Read more at startribune.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; US: Minnesota
KEYWORDS: powerball

1 posted on 05/09/2008 10:42:22 AM PDT by Caleb1411
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To: Caleb1411
The big lottery jackpots always seem to go to people in far-away Cooter County. Bufus! Put down the banjo and git out of the tree, your daddy done won us some Britney-size money! They end up blowing through $150 million in a few years, which isn't surprising: You take an ordinary feller, give him unimaginable wealth, and he will justify building a catapult that throws Ferraris in the air so he can shoot them down with a shoulder-mounted missile launcher.

The 'elite's' disdain for the common man.....

2 posted on 05/09/2008 10:48:14 AM PDT by expatpat
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To: Caleb1411

It’s well known that the lottery is a tax on stupid people.

So it comes as no surprise when stupid people do stupid stuff with their earnings.


3 posted on 05/09/2008 10:50:09 AM PDT by Responsibility2nd (Typical White Person)
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To: Caleb1411
You take an ordinary feller, give him unimaginable wealth, and he will justify building a catapult that throws Ferraris in the air so he can shoot them down with a shoulder-mounted missile launcher.

Well, yeah. Crew-served weapons are extravagant. IMHO.

4 posted on 05/09/2008 10:58:56 AM PDT by Billthedrill
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To: expatpat
The Survival Research Labs guys were lefties. And they bought army surplus to make robots. Remote controlled machines that they built to destroy each other (decades before it became a tv show).

But somehow people like that in California are just considered “eccentric” and “artists”.

5 posted on 05/09/2008 11:17:07 AM PDT by weegee ("I didn't kill innocent people." - Bill Ayers, Weatherman. Terrorist. Obama's comrade.)
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To: Responsibility2nd

And then there was that spinster woman in Florida who dropped out of sight as she continued to live quietly in her paid for brick house with her cats.

After she died, at a memorial service held by her family, hundreds of people stood and testified to the help she had quietly given them to ‘get over a speed bump’ in their lives and how they had taken the five talents she gave them and made five more.

Just because someone else won and not you, don’t assume that everybody who does win is “stupid”. Some winners are very quietly smart.


6 posted on 05/09/2008 12:10:29 PM PDT by Appleby
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To: Appleby; Responsibility2nd

People who play the lottery are, by definition, not smart. I think that’s the point Responsibility2nd was trying to make.


7 posted on 05/09/2008 2:01:05 PM PDT by MinnesotaLibertarian
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To: MinnesotaLibertarian
The Lottery is a sucker tax any way you slice it.

The Poor suckers with no ability of ever making a million dollars any time soon can give up on working hard, saving, and investing, and blow their meager savings on a shot at the big money.

Then there are rest of the suckers who know better than to buy tickets but didn't fight the lottery because they weren't smart enough to see they'd be left totally supporting the nanny state that supports the other suckers.

And then there are those of us who saw it all coming and have to pay for the rest of y'alls collective ignorance,...just like the other suckers. ... BOHICA!

8 posted on 05/09/2008 5:31:40 PM PDT by ME-262 (Nancy Pelosi is known to the state of CA to render Viagra ineffective causing reproductive harm.)
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