* Count backward from ten. If you get to eight, you're not so bad.
* Do you know who the President of the United States is? If so, you're likely to soon be depressed.
* If you have more than one person living in your body, kick out all but one. I would keep the one who claims to be God.
* If you are seeing things that aren't really there, don't get excited. Just double up on your meds.
* If you are hearing people talk to you when no one else is around, get out of the confessional.
* If you cuss people out for no good reason, or want to shot them, either find a psychiatrist or get a job at the post office.
* If your best friend is Mr. Coffee, well, it's time to start getting out more.
* You should know the year, month, and day. If you don't, you're either having sanity issues or you're retired.
* You're pretty much insane if you're not normal. You're pretty much not normal if you're reading this. Sorry.

Bill Gates is no longer the richest person in the world. Warren Buffett took over, with a fortune estimated at $62 billion. Poor Bill fell to third, with a mere $58 billion. Here are some facts to ponder about a billion:
* A billion seconds ago it was 1959.
* A billion minutes ago Jesus was alive.
* It would take 31 years, 251 days, to count to one billion at one number per second.
* A tightly packed stack of $1000 bills totaling $1 billion would be 63 miles high.
* A billion dollars ago was only 8 hours and 20 minutes.
* Our current debt: Over $9 trillion.

* Many sociopaths are salesmen. If it don't bother you to take money from a person who can't afford what they are buying, guess what?
* Lying and cheating are second nature to a sociopath. Refer to number one as an example.
* One of the diagnostic criteria for a sociopath used to be if a person had over two tattoos. Now it's 22.
* If a person is charming, but has a criminal record, go figure.
* A lot of sociopaths like to live on the edge. Rather than finding that enticing, you should push them over.
* I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Sociopath.
* Secretive, authoritarian, cunning, manipulative, a liar, incapable of real human attachment, extremely narcissistic and grandiose, drinks too much, lacks empathy, lacks remorse and feelings of guilt, possesses superficial charm, and may state readily that their goal is to rule the world. Remind you of anyone? Hint: He lives in a white house.

Dubya wants to take democracy to Iraq, as though we have a surplus of it here. Ends up being the perfect tragedy, with 4000 U.S. soldiers dead, estimates of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians killed, and the current cost placed somewhere in the neighborhood of half a trillion dollars. It's the war stupid!

* We slept on our bellies in lead painted cribs.
* There were no child-proof lids on medicine bottles.
* We had no car seats, no air bags.
* Riding in the back of a pickup was a treat.
* We ate homemade cake, drank koolaid with a gallon of sugar in it, and had white bread with butter. There weren't many kids overweight.
* We left home in the morning and sometimes didn't get back until dark. No one ever bothered us.
* We got BB guns for our birthday, played ball all day with a rubber ball and bat, and fought like cats and dogs. Hardly anyone ever got hurt. There were few injuries.
* Not everyone made the Little League team, but no one shot anyone or sued or otherwise made much of a commotion. Maybe a few tears. You had to learn how to deal with disappointment. Not everyone was athletic.
* The town cop took care of minor infractions of the law. And our parents backed him.
* We drank water from the well, the sink, or a garden hose, not from a bottle.
* We spent hours raising pigeons, building go-carts, playing basketball and baseball, fixing our bikes, hiking, swimming in the creek. We hardly ever sat on our butts. We entertained ourselves.

Somehow, we made it. Maybe we were lucky. There were not tons of regulations and laws. I guess as we begin turning 60, we should congratulate one another. By God, we made it.