Buzz Man's Ideas:

I never have really liked eating pickles, olives or most ice cream or other frozen desserts or drinking tap water. I do like K.C. Masterpiece Lay's potato chips - very tasty.

I don't like music from any of the following:

I do like the following:

I like playing the guitar and realize I too could become a great guitarist if I devoted my life to this wonderful instrument. I play mostly blues-related stuff. My favorite guitar (that I own) is a Fender Classic Series '50's Stratocaster. I want a Classic Series '50's Telecaster, but my wife won't let me get one. I love using my Korg ToneWorks hyperformance processor & PX3 Pandora - phenomenally super-dooper tools for the budding guitarist.

I don't like guns - I used to be an avid gun nut - my dad brought me up that way & I enjoyed guns for many years. Never did a lot of hunting - mostly, collecting & target practice. Lately, within the last few years, I've changed my mind about guns - I think the US should adopt a law similar to the one used in Canada - make it illegal for anyone to own a handgun.

I throughly enjoy going really, really fast on my motorcycle ('99 Honda CBR9000RR) but I know someday, if I keep this up I will either probably get hurt really bad or die from riding that thing. What can I say - it's a lot of fun - dangerous, the way I do it, but too much fun to really be concerned about.

Lobbyism is simply legalized bribery. Republicans & Democrats both utilize this fiendishly acceptable method of "cash legislation". Why does a corporation "donate" money to a campaign fund? Obviously, the recipient of the cash will vote for legislation in favor of the donor. Bribery, by any other name is still bribery. Republicans & Democrats both succumb to this diabolical method of lining their pockets with gold. The average freshman congressman comes into office owing over $300K in PREVIOUS campaign debt. This means, of course, he or she will have to "generate" about $4K/week for each week they're usually on Capitol Hill. Pathetic.

We pay WAY too much in taxes. Think about it - the Federal Government borrows money to pay interest on money they've already borrowed. If you or I were in the same financial situation, we'd be tossed out of the bank when we showed up to get a loan for these purposes. Of course, our future tax-paying generations will have to pay for these mistakes.

If you think you're only paying 7.15% of your gross pay for FICA, you're wrong. This has to be one of the biggest scams in political history ever demised. If I decided to hire a new employee, I would determine an amount of money I would use to pay for that worker. Let's call this amount "X" - the amount set aside from the company to compensate for work performed - what the worker actually earns. If the worker is a contractor, he/she will pay for all of their expenses individually, but if they are an employee, some expenses will be paid by the employer - either way, the money all comes from "X".

Let's consider scenario #1 where the employer pays $1000 for this employee:

Let's take scenario #2, the employer pays $1000 for this contractor:

So, what's the point? An employee check statement "appears" like the employee "only" pays 7.15% for FICA, but they actually pay DOUBLE that!!! EVERYBODY pays 14.3% for FICA - AND then we all pay Federal & State taxes. Let's don't forget we also pay sales taxes, gasoline taxes, & property taxes too. If you could take just HALF of everything you've "invested" into FICA & put it in a marginal mutual fund via an IRA, you'd be rich when you were 65 years old.

We should all pay a flat tax. It's simple & it works best for everyone - no deductions, everyone pays the same % of your gross pay and we get on with our lives. I don't think the government will ever allow this to happen because so much of our income tax is "hidden" (as described previously).

We should be fair with our import policies - if a country won't allow our products to be sold in their country, or if they tax our products being sold there excessively, we should simply do the same with the products we import from them.

I think most doctors are simply quacks. I think the U.S. method of health care is outrageous. Three of my medical peeves:

Heart attacks are the #1 cause of death in our country. Did you know that 98% of heart attacks are preventable? Wake up & live! Eat right & exercise.

I think cigarettes should be illegal - how many people die each day from smoking? 400,000 annually, so that's about 1096 per day. How much do I pay for the BILLIONS of tax dollars spent on letting folks with self-induced life-threatening diseases die slowly. Too much!

Alcohol IS a drug. One of my ultimate peeves is when people use the term "Drugs & alcohol". That's like saying "Automobiles & Chevrolet's". Alcohol IS the world's biggest drug problem. Why should we live in a society where some drugs are legal and other, less harmful drugs aren't? It's crazy. Why do we allow thousands to die each year from alcohol-related accidents? It's crazy. In 1999, over 27 thousand people died in alcohol-related traffic deaths.

I think our educational system is designed for the masses - again, most government systems are simply inefficient and weak, compared to what they should & could be. I think our educators are some of the most important, yet ironically, some of the most underpaid members of our society. Same with the police & military forces as well.

I think there should be mandatory prison sentences for prisoners - without any form of parole. I think prisoners should be provided with a minimum amount of food & other necessities in order to sustain a healthy life. If prisoners are able to work, they should work - to provide products or services for others - they should contribute to our society instead of just costing the taxpayers more & more money. They should earn enough money to pay for their incarceration, or they should remain behind bars forever.

I think there are many ways to make money - one idea I had was to take criminals on death row and turn them into gladiators. A choice would be given to the inmate: die now, or take your chance to postpone your sentencing by fighting another death row inmate to the death. Can you imagine the money generated from pay-per-view? The spin-offs would generate money as well. I'm sure Hasbro & Mattel would jump in with action figures of the most popular & longest living gladiators.

And what if the inmate keeps winning? He naturally carries out the sentence for another death row inmate while he keeps postponing his sentence. He could always choose not to fight & have his sentence executed. Ultimately, nature would take its course and the inmate would get too old to fight competitively & would die. Seems like a perfect system to me.

And another inmate-generated fund raising idea: Why don't we strap ol' bubba to the chair and attach two meters on the top of his "chair". The meter on the left would indicate "anti-amps", and the meter on the right would indicate positive amps. See, callers would "buy" amps if they wanted this guy to fry and callers would buy "anti-amps" if they were against the death penalty. Either way, if you didn't call in your amps, or anti-amps, you'd feel guilty. After an allotted time period expired, the tally would end with the execution of the scumbag - another pay-per-view opportunity, of course - and another way for us all to pay less taxes.