ihollywoodchina.com

I know it may be alittle long..but please help me, I really appreciate it! Thanks to all the kind people on Yahoo Answers!

Totals: 1972 Start-up through FY 2000*
Total Lottery Ticket Sales $25.12 billion
Net Revenue to Aid Education $9.83 billion
Retailer Commissions $1.68 billion
Prizes to Players$12.86 billion
*http://www.Michigan.gov/lottery

The Big Game is a multi-state lottery game with BIG Jackpots.Seven states participate in The Big Game: Georgia, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey and Virginia. By teaming up together, the member lotteries are able to offer players jackpots that start at $5 million. The jackpots grow until someone wins. Jackpots can grow as high as $200 million or more. In fact, The Big Game holds the record for the largest lottery jackpot ever in the United States: $363million! This jackpot rolled 18 times since last being hit! Two winning tickets — one sold in Michigan, and one sold in Illinois — matched all six numbers in this Big Game drawing, each worth an annuitized value of $181.5 million. The winners were Larry and Nancy Ross of Shelby Township, Michigan, and Joe and Sue Kainz of Lake County, Illinois.The Michigan Lottery can pay Big Game jackpot winnings inone of two ways: as an annuity or in one lump-sum/cash-option payment for the present cash value of the jackpot share. When a winnerselects annuity payments, the jackpot is paid out in equal installments over 26 years. When a winner selects the cash option, the Lottery paysthe winner the present cash value of the announced jackpot in onelump-sum payment, which is typically about 50% of the publishedvalue. In effect, the Lottery takes all of the money that would have been invested to fund the 26-year annuity and turns it all over to the winner, retaining absolutely none of the prize. Regardless of which option thewinner selects, the Michigan Lottery is required by law to withholdestimated income taxes for federal (28 percent) and state (4.2 percent), on any prize over $5,000. These amounts are estimates only, and the winner is required to satisfy any further tax liability for the year inwhich the prize award is claimed.

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Q1) Why do most winners select the cash option plan when given a choice?

Q2) If Michigan Lottery would like to give the annuity option an equal chance of being selected, how would it have to structure its payments?

Answer for Q1, you choose the lump sum option because you’ll have the cash in your hand immediately…. im not gonna answer it anymore because its a really basic accounting/finance question.

Dear Red States:

We regret to inform you that we have decided to leave. We intend to form our own country and we are taking the other Blue States with us. In case cannot follow this line of logic, just know that these include California, Hawaii, Oregon, Washington, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois and the entire Northeast. We believe this split will be beneficial to both new nations, especially to the people of the new country of New California.

To sum up briefly: You get Texas, Oklahoma and all the slave states. We get stem cell research, the best beaches, and the Statue of Liberty. You get Dollywood. We get Intel and Microsoft. You get Enron and WorldCom. We get Harvard. You get Ole’ Miss. We get 85 percent of America’s venture capital and entrepreneurs. You get Alabama. We get two-thirds of the tax revenue which means you get to make the red states pay their fair share.

Since our aggregate divorce rate is 22 percent lower than the Christian Coalition’s, we get a bunch of happy families. You get a bunch of single moms. Please be aware that Nuevo California will be pro-choice and anti-war. Accordingly, we expect all our citizens to return from Iraq at once. If you still need people to fight, just go ask your evangelicals. They seem to be willing to send to their kids to their deaths for no purpose, and they do not care if you refuse to show pictures of the caskets coming home. We do wish you success in Iraq, and we do hope that the WMDs turn up, but we are no longer willing to spend our resources in Bush’s Quagmire.

With the Blue States in hand, we will have firm control of 80 percent of the country’s fresh water, more than 90 percent of the pineapple and lettuce, 92 percent of the nation’s fresh fruit, 95 percent of America’s quality wines (you can serve French wines at state dinners), 90 percent of all cheese, 90 percent of the high tech industry, most of the U.S. low-sulfur coal, all living redwoods, sequoias and condors, all the Ivy and Seven Sister schools plus Stanford, Cal Tech and MIT. With the Red States, on the other hand, you will have to cope with 88 percent of all obese Americans (and their projected health care costs), 92 percent of all U.S. mosquitoes, nearly 100 percent of the tornadoes, 90 percent of the hurricanes, 99 percent of all Southern Baptists, virtually 100 percent of all televangelists, Rush Limbaugh, Bob Jones University, Clemson and the University of Georgia. We get Hollywood and Yosemite, thank you.

Additionally, 38 percent of those in the Red states believe Jonah was actually swallowed by a whale, 62 percent believe life is sacred unless we’re discussing the death penalty or gun laws, 44 percent say that evolution is only a theory, 53 percent that Saddam was involved in 9/11 and 61 percent of you crazy bastards believe you are people with higher morals then we lefties. Please take them with our compliments.

Peace out,

The Blue States

By the way…I did not write it. I just wanted to pass it along. I think it is the funniest think I have read in the past month.

Yeah, but you gave them 90% of the best college football teams.

Dear Red States:

We regret to inform you that we have decided to leave. We intend to form our own country and we are taking the other Blue States with us. In case cannot follow this line of logic, just know that these include California, Hawaii, Oregon, Washington, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois and the entire Northeast. We believe this split will be beneficial to both new nations, especially to the people of the new country of New California.

To sum up briefly: You get Texas, Oklahoma and all the slave states. We get stem cell research, the best beaches, and the Statue of Liberty. You get Dollywood. We get Intel and Microsoft. You get Enron and WorldCom. We get Harvard. You get Ole’ Miss. We get 85 percent of America’s venture capital and entrepreneurs. You get Alabama. We get two-thirds of the tax revenue which means you get to make the red states pay their fair share.

Since our aggregate divorce rate is 22 percent lower than the Christian Coalition’s, we get a bunch of happy families. You get a bunch of single moms. Please be aware that Nuevo California will be pro-choice and anti-war. Accordingly, we expect all our citizens to return from Iraq at once. If you still need people to fight, just go ask your evangelicals. They seem to be willing to send to their kids to their deaths for no purpose, and they do not care if you refuse to show pictures of the caskets coming home. We do wish you success in Iraq, and we do hope that the WMDs turn up, but we are no longer willing to spend our resources in Bush’s Quagmire.

With the Blue States in hand, we will have firm control of 80 percent of the country’s fresh water, more than 90 percent of the pineapple and lettuce, 92 percent of the nation’s fresh fruit, 95 percent of America’s quality wines (you can serve French wines at state dinners), 90 percent of all cheese, 90 percent of the high tech industry, most of the U.S. low-sulfur coal, all living redwoods, sequoias and condors, all the Ivy and Seven Sister schools plus Stanford, Cal Tech and MIT. With the Red States, on the other hand, you will have to cope with 88 percent of all obese Americans (and their projected health care costs), 92 percent of all U.S. mosquitoes, nearly 100 percent of the tornadoes, 90 percent of the hurricanes, 99 percent of all Southern Baptists, virtually 100 percent of all televangelists, Rush Limbaugh, Bob Jones University, Clemson and the University of Georgia. We get Hollywood and Yosemite, thank you.

Additionally, 38 percent of those in the Red states believe Jonah was actually swallowed by a whale, 62 percent believe life is sacred unless we’re discussing the death penalty or gun laws, 44 percent say that evolution is only a theory, 53 percent that Saddam was involved in 9/11 and 61 percent of you crazy bastards believe you are people with higher morals then we lefties. Please take them with our compliments.

Peace out,

The Blue States

By the way…I did not write it. I just wanted to pass it along. I think it is the funniest think I have read in the past month.

Yeah, but you gave them 90% of the best college football teams.

http://www.bobbarr2008.com

Barr is a former Republican Congressman who was among the leaders in the movement to impeach Bill Clinton. After the Democrat-controlled legislature in his home state of Georgia redistricted him out of Congress, he left the Republican Party out of disgust with their support for Iraq and opposition to civil liberties. Bob Barr is a social conservative who sat on the board of directors of the NRA from 2001 to 2007. He is a member of the American Conservative Union and the ACLU and was a founder of the American Freedom Agenda. On economic issues, he supports significant cuts in government spending and the FairTax (though with a much-lower rate than the revenue-neutral rate of 23% that is commonly proposed). He opposes illegal immigration and wants to secure the border.

A recent poll showed him at 7% despite only 36% name recognition ( http://blog.bobbarr2008.com/2008/04/11/barr-polling-7-in-potential-presidential-bid/ ).

Would you vote for Bob Barr?

I would vote for Bob Barr before I would vote for McCain, most definitely. He would make a far better President than either McCain or Clinton. But I would pick Obama over Barr.

Note, also, that Mike Gravel is also seeking the Libertarian Party nomination, and I’d support Gravel over Barr.

http://www.bobbarr2008.com

Barr is a former Republican Congressman who was among the leaders in the movement to impeach Bill Clinton. After the Democrat-controlled legislature in his home state of Georgia redistricted him out of Congress, he left the Republican Party out of disgust with their support for Iraq and opposition to civil liberties. Bob Barr is a social conservative who sat on the board of directors of the NRA from 2001 to 2007. He is a member of the American Conservative Union and the ACLU and was a founder of the American Freedom Agenda. On economic issues, he supports significant cuts in government spending and the FairTax (though with a much-lower rate than the revenue-neutral rate of 23% that is commonly proposed). He opposes illegal immigration and wants to secure the border.

A recent poll showed him at 7% despite only 36% name recognition ( http://blog.bobbarr2008.com/2008/04/11/barr-polling-7-in-potential-presidential-bid/ ).

Would you vote for Bob Barr?

I would vote for Bob Barr before I would vote for McCain, most definitely. He would make a far better President than either McCain or Clinton. But I would pick Obama over Barr.

Note, also, that Mike Gravel is also seeking the Libertarian Party nomination, and I’d support Gravel over Barr.

I don’t understand why people get pissed off by it-mainly in the local media. The cost of tickets for some schools is more than professional teams’ and when you are at (basketball) Duke, UNC, Kansas, UCLA, Arizona, etc. or USC, Ohio St, Texas, Oklahoma, Michigan, Florida, Bama, Tennessee, Georgia, Miami, FSU (football) you are basically SEMI-PRO to me. You aren’t a pro, but whenever your team is bringing in millions and millions in revenue and your coach is making millions, you are not truly a collegiate team. To me, lower D-1, D-2, Jucos, and NAIA schools are the only real collegiate teams.

the players are 18-22

A new study out of Yale University confirms what argumentative liberals have long-known: Offering reality-based rebuttals to conservative lies only makes conservatives cling to those lies even harder. In essence, schooling conservatives makes them more stupid. From the Washington Post article on the study, which came out yesterday:

Political scientists Brendan Nyhan and Jason Reifler provided two groups of volunteers with the Bush administration’s prewar claims that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. One group was given a refutation — the comprehensive 2004 Duelfer report that concluded that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction before the United States invaded in 2003. Thirty-four percent of conservatives told only about the Bush administration’s claims thought Iraq had hidden or destroyed its weapons before the U.S. invasion, but 64 percent of conservatives who heard both claim and refutation thought that Iraq really did have the weapons. The refutation, in other words, made the misinformation worse.

A similar "backfire effect" also influenced conservatives told about Bush administration assertions that tax cuts increase federal revenue. One group was offered a refutation by prominent economists that included current and former Bush administration officials. About 35 percent of conservatives told about the Bush claim believed it; 67 percent of those provided with both assertion and refutation believed that tax cuts increase revenue.

In a paper approaching publication, Nyhan, a PhD student at Duke University, and Reifler, at Georgia State University, suggest that Republicans might be especially prone to the backfire effect because conservatives may have more rigid views than liberals: Upon hearing a refutation, conservatives might "argue back" against the refutation in their minds, thereby strengthening their belief in the misinformation. Nyhan and Reifler did not see the same "backfire effect" when liberals were given misinformation and a refutation about the Bush administration’s stance on stem cell research.
MOST OF YOU JUST PROVED THE POINT THE STUDY IS MAKING. Congratulations

I’m certain you haven’t read the report. Because if you had, it stated the evidence of activity of WMD as well as evidence of other UN banned activity existed. That means 35% believed it before they had any proof whatsoever, but once truth of activity was verified by multiple nations, 67% then believed the evidence. Spin, spin, spin little fly.

As many people know the current BCS Bowl games are NCG: Ohio State-LSU, Orange Bowl: Kansas-Virginia Tech, Fiesta Bowl: Oklahoma-West Virginia, Sugar Bowl: Hawaii-Georgia, Rose Bowl: USC-Illinois. Personally other then the Kansas-Virginia Tech game (although I expect Kansas to win), all the games look like locks to me (LSU will crush Ohio State, Oklahoma will crush West Virginia, Georgia will crush Hawaii, and USC will crush Illinois). All these bad matchups are why the system is largely flawed, I think that, if the BCS can’t have a playoff (although I would be quite happy with one) then they should not lock the BCS winners in to certain bowls. Thus we could have (with an adjusted BCS formula) NCG: Oklahoma-LSU, Orange Bowl: USC-Georgia, Fiesta Bowl: Ohio State-Missouri, West Virginia-Hawaii, and Virginia Tech-Kansas. All these matchups will bring in more revenue to the schools, and give exciting well fought games to the fans.

The current BCS games suck. No game is going to be competitive. I like ur match ups better.

For example. I’m a business in Illinois. I make a sale to georgia. Do I have to pay the IL dept of Revenue sales tax on this item? (I didnt collect any). My accountant sent me this link (http://tax.illinois.gov/TaxForms/Incm2007/Business/Partnership/IL-1065-Instr.pdf) page 8 and says I need to pay tax on ALL sales even those outside of Illinois. I think he is wrong What do you think? I appreciate it

We are a ND business. We deliver to MN and SD also. We collect sales tax for all 3 states and remit the proper tax to each state. If its shipped to SD, no ND tax is owed. When we applied for our sales tax license, they made us contact the neighboring states and get tax id numbers for those states. So we have to remit tax to each.

We do buy parts from WI that is shipped to ND and no tax is being asked to be paid by us to that vendor. HOWEVER, we have to remit that as USE tax to our state.

Each State Tax Dept has different rules and regulations. I would THINK if you make a sale to a state that is not neighboring IL, then no tax needs to be collected. But that receiver of the product has to pay use tax on it.

Contact your State Tax Commissioners Office ASAP and get this straightened out. We just went thru a tax audit last year and besides being a nightmare…..it lasted a month…….we ended up owing thousands of dollars. If you are new business, they will be likely to do an audit to make sure you are doing things correctly. Least that’s what we were told…….the state wants to make sure you understand everything and are collecting and submitting the tax correctly.

http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/stories/2007/07/15/tags_0716.html?cxntlid=homepage_tab_newstab
Jose Genao sells used cars for a living, but lately he’s had to turn away customers from his Smyrna dealership.

Genao used to sell about 15 vehicles a week, mostly Ford F-150 or Silverado pickups to a Mexican clientele. Now he sells only two or three.

Half a dozen customers have returned cars because they can’t register them.

"They bring the key and tell me, ‘Jose, I’m leaving,’ " Genao said.

Genao is feeling the fallout from a new state law, effective July 1, that requires a valid Georgia driver’s license or ID card to register a car in Georgia.

The law is cutting deep into traffic for many auto dealers and tag and title services catering to the state’s growing immigrant community. Illegal immigrants can’t get driver’s licenses because to do so, they must prove they’re in the country legally.

The law also has the potential to cut into sales taxes and county ad valorem tax revenues, though metro area counties say it’s too early to measure that effect.

The bill’s sponsor, Sen. Chip Rogers (R-Woodstock) said he did not target immigrants.

"Yes, this will impact people who are here illegally, but my biggest focus is public safety," he said.

"If [car dealers and tag services] have built their business on people who are here illegally, I’m sorry

I think that is a very valid and necessary law. The guy who said that they are dangerous isn’t just talking to hear himself yammer. It’s the truth. In my hometown, quite a few years back, a crowded van full of illegals went the wrong way down an interstate (more than likely because they could not read english). If i remember correctly, they killed themselves plus an oncoming vehicle.