Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Life is Good.

I haven't been on top of my 80% watch lately. Obviously, I'm just too happy and contented here in Israel. Everything is perfect, and it's not the Paxil talking. You see we have a new government, and they're marvelous. Not only do we have more Ministers costing more money than ever before, we have "Honest Bibi" running the show.

Yesterday while driving back from my archeology class (I realized many of the other participants are so old, they saw the destruction of the first temple live), I heard an interesting show on the radio, where they went over Bibi's campaign promises. You know what! He Lied! I can't believe it! He promised not to raise taxes, yet our VAT will be going up 1%. He promised to cut government spending, but guess what, there is a 3% increase (last week this was 1.7%).

The pope is in town. I thought he came to see Depeche Mode - that they're still performing is some sort of miracle. He went to visit the "Wall", and not just the one in Jerusalem. No, he went to visit the security barrier where he told us "it's tragic" seeing walls being erected. It is. But Dude! Don't you think that the whole anti abortion, anti gay marriage, anti birth control, anti ordination of women thing is like a wall between you and the real world? When are you going to tear that down? And those guys are not even trying to blow you up on buses.

But, on the positive side of things, Bar Refaeli, Israel's excellent physical specimen, was ranked the third "hottest" woman in the world by Maxim magazine. She came in right behind Megan Fox ad Olivia Wilde in the top 100. Hey that's 98 percentile. So there is one thing about Israel better than the 80%.

6 comments:

Georg said...

Hi Blackypetey,

There is that saying you might appreciate:

"There are only two things certain in life: death and taxes".

There are most certainly enormous differences between your life over there and mine here, but I am thrilled to read that you have VAT.

Georg

blackpetero said...

Our VAT is now 16.5%, what's yours?

Hi Georg it's been a while.

Georg said...

Hallo Petero,

Here in France, TVA is 19,6 pc and in Germany MWSt. is 19 pc.

Thus 16,5 VAT is reasonable as this tax hits everybody.

It should be said however that in France we have a second type of VAT 5,5 % for certain foodstuff and for the work of craftsmen, plumbers and so.

Georg

blackpetero said...

Wow, you have some serious taxes.

John Deuel said...

I hereby award you the "best pope-visiting-israel comment I've heard yet" award! Go bpo!!!!

Jozie said...

I agree with John. ditto.