actually, let’s let the United States Mint director’s cost analysis explain:
• Cost to mint a penny: 1.26 cents
• Cost to mint a nickel: 7.7 cents
• Cost to make a dollar coin: 16 cents
• Cost to make a dollar bill: 4.2 cents
In case you need it spelled out for you, it costs MORE to mint the penny and the nickel than the coins’ actual worth. And, if you forgot fourth-grade American history, your taxes pay for minting. Does this upset you? Well, now you finally have a good reason to smash that piggy bank!
That stupid annoying little penny… it and everything below the quarter needs to go away. Let’s start dissolving as many as we can in bottles of Coke. And besides, except for buying a hotdog at the ball game, who the hell uses cash anymore? The U.S. Mint says 33 percent of all transactions use cash. That seems a bit high. The mint must be including all of Washington’s untraceable private escort transactions in its statistics.
Anyway, if you haven’t already, start lobbying your congressman and the March of Dimes. And be sure to max out your credit as often as possible to deter coin usage. I am sure we will experience some resistance from the bleeding hearts and conservatives. But don’t worry—just tell them we can still use coins for circuit breakers and weddings, instead of throwing rice. Rice does kill birds, you know. And the next time you see Obama, tell him to fight for NO CHANGE!
A side note: Someone please tell the $1 bill to wipe that smirk off its face, because it only has a life expectancy of twenty-one months. So it can go away too. In fact, if it were replaced with the $1 coin, taxpayers would save over $500 million per year, since coins last at least thirty years!
I wonder how long it takes a dollar to dissolve in Coca-Cola.
№007
Abdulla Ahmed Ali
For allowing only three ounces in planes.
Abdulla Ahmed Ali was one of the British Islamists arrested in connection with the 2006 transatlantic aircraft terrorist plot in the United Kingdom. He was the apparent mastermind of a terror cell that plotted to blow up airliners using liquid bombs disguised in drink bottles. Twenty-four men were arrested in Britain, but only three men, Abdulla Ahmed Ali, Assad Sarwar, and Tanvir Hussain, were convicted of conspiring to commit mass murder.
More than a thousand flights were canceled in the aftermath, and many countries imposed tight restrictions on carry-on baggage for several weeks. To this day, all travelers are still restricted to bottles that hold only about a thimbleful of liquid.
Due to the liquid bomb plot, we are only allowed to take three-ounce bottles on a plane. Not to mention the much more enjoyable chaos of going through a “heightened security” screening. I comply with these laws, but it’s such a nuisance. Air travel is no longer an adventure; it’s a hassle.
Let me take you back down memory lane… I remember going to the airport to drop my dad off for a business trip. Back then, we would stay at the gate, our noses pressed to the window, fogging up the glass, until his plane was nothing more than a speck in the sky. Even when we picked him up, we would go inside an hour early and giddily wait for his face to pop through the long human tube. However, those days are gone. Wake up from nostalgia, everybody: We are in a new era of “safety.” Nowadays a drop-off is nothing more than a kick to the curb, and a pickup usually involves a cab ride. I really feel we lost something.
But there is nothing we can do about it now, so wipe that tear from your eye, because TSA might not let you carry it on.
№008
Tropicana
For making OJ NOT taste like oranges.
Ever notice that your local grocery store will sometimes have an incredible deal on strawberries? I am sure you already know why; it’s because they are “in season.” It was the best time to harvest a few weeks prior to the sale and the grocery store overbought, so they try to force-feed you with crazy-good deals. Well, all fruits and vegetables have an optimal harvesting season. The popular, and best-tasting, Valencia oranges grown in Florida are certainly not exempt from this rule. The primary picking time for this tasty citrus fruit is from March until June. So how do Tropicana and other orange juice companies make consistent-tasting juice year round? Well, they cheat by using “flavor packs.” These flavor “enhancers” are made by flavor and fragrance companies, the same ones that make your perfume, soap, and deodorant smell good. You will not find these ingredients printed on the juice box, since they use orange essence and oil and are technically part of the orange. However, chemically altered orange peel is certainly NOT nature intended juice to be made of.
More than six hundred and twenty million gallons of orange juice are sold every year in the U.S. Unfortunately, 99 percent of it does not taste like real squeezed oranges. If you were drinking “real” orange juice, the flavor would vary with the seasons (and you would also get the benefits of 30 percent more vitamins).
In the eighties, Tropicana ruined it by convincing everyone that “not from concentrate” meant “fresher.” And then it changed from “concentrate” to “pasteurized,” which was another marketing ploy. “Pasteurized” simply sounds even more fresh, but, ironically, it doesn’t make it fresher; it only means the liquid content has not been removed. Here’s what they do: They rapidly heat the juice, remove the oxygen, and then store it. This process strips the juice of most of its flavor. After that, the juice is stored for up to a year before fake “flavor” is added, and then the juice is sold.
Do yourself a favor—take a Valencia orange, squeeze it, and then do a taste test with store-bought, pasteurized, not-from-concentrate orange juice. Your taste buds will be angry. So don’t forget to drink your morning dose of vitamin C. And remember, the “C” stands for Conned!
№009
Gordon Dancy
For replacing paper with plastic.
Indirectly, Mr. Dancy is responsible for the question “Will that be paper or plastic?” In the late 1970s, Gordon Dancy invented the plastic grocery bag for good reasons. At the time, people were concerned about saving trees. As in most circumstances, fixing one problem inevitably created another. Unfortunately, this quick fix was NOT thought through:
• Plastic bags are not biodegradable, and less than 5 percent are recycled.
• Americans throw away twelve thousand plastic bags per second.
• U.S. consumers use one hundred billion plastic bags each year, which equals twelve million barrels of
