October 21, 2007
Making progress on the dollar coin experiment
Spent a bunch of dollar coins today in various businesses explaining the cost of the paper dollar vs. dollar coin programs.
People are pretty blown away at how many were minted this year. $700+ million worth and the cost to produce dollar bills $500 million.
The kids like them too, one commented to me today that they were like gold dubloons. He wanted to use those instead of paper money.
So there is a little bit of a pirate in all of us.
Posted by Peter at 01:09 PM
October 10, 2007
NWFF Loves the Dollar Coin
Spent $3 at the Northwest Film Forum during a break at my screen writing class.
The concessions staff loved the coins and the idea behind the social experiment to educate people about the coin dollar.
Success!
Posted by Peter at 07:27 PM | Comments (0)
My ongoing story of the dollar coin experiment
Went to get some more dollar coins from a Washington Mutal bank in Seatle today. They had several $25 rolls of the Thomas Jefferson coins, so I bought $25 worth.
One of the things I have been wondering about is how many of these coins are in actual circulation being used as currency vs. just being collected.
Here are the 2007 numbers:
Washington $340,360,000
Adams $224,560,000
Jefferson $203,610,000
Almost $800 million. Not bad all this considered.
I'll let you know where I spent some of these Jefferson's in upcoming posts
Posted by Peter at 02:30 PM | Comments (0)
August 18, 2007
Spinning hunks of metal and magnets are so 20th century, so are $1 bills.
Spinning hunks of metal and magnets are so 20th century - JeffB
This was a quote from one of my co-workers last week, while talking about using solid state drives(SSD) in our project.
It got me thinking about other things that are 20th century.
Dollar Bills - Dollar bills are a real anachronism. They represent a wasteful use of resources. If the US stopped making $1 bills, it would save $500 million a year according to the US GOA.
I am doing a 6 month experiment to use the $1 coin.
Today, I went to Washington Mutual in the market in Stanwood, Wa to see if I could find any. To my surprise, they had $25 worth on site, I took $10 and spent $1 at Starbuck's.
Nobody got upset getting me them, Starbuck's took it without a blink of an eye. The only person who gave me grief was my wife. She hates them.
I'll keep blogging on my adventure with the $1 coin.
Posted by Peter at 03:18 PM | Comments (0)
July 24, 2007
CNN/YouTube Democratic Debates
Watched a bit of the CNN/YouTube Debates last night.
The questions were good, funny and to the point. The answers were predictable.
It was representative of many generations and demographics.
My big takeaway was how small the response was.
Despite all the CNN and YouTube hype, only 2984 people uploaded a video question for consideration from the millions of YouTube members. Pretty weak response rate. I would have expected 10's of thousands of questions.
Is this what democracy in America has come to?
Here is hoping the Republican CNN/YouTube response will be better.
Or some enterprising political groups mobilize to assist to get more questions submitted.
I was part of the millions that didn't bother to upload a question, so I'm guilty as well.
Stay tuned for my many uploads.
Posted by Peter at 05:31 AM | Comments (0)
October 28, 2005
The Traitors - Scooter, Karl and Uncle Dick
Scooter Libby was indicted today on obstructing justice and perjury in the investigation of leaks to the media of a CIA agent's identity, not for treason.
Karl Rove is still under investigation.
What about Dick Cheney?
By all accounts, the Vice President told Libby that former Amassador Joseph Wilson's wife was an agent. Cheney would be in a position to know this kind of infomation as Vice President.
So the question is, why wasn't it illegal to disclose this agent's identity to Mr. Libby? Did he really have a "need to know" as part of his job responsibilities and security clearances.
Other than for political revenge against Ambassador Wilson, what was the national security reason for the VP to come know this bit of CIA personnel information?
The three of them hatched this thing up, the of them should be held accountable to the people of the United States.
Oh and the other untouchable is Robert Novak. They don't call him the "Prince of Darkness" for nothing.
Posted by Peter at 02:50 PM | Comments (0)
January 06, 2005
Constitutional Crisis today?
When the joint session of Congress meets today to certify the Electoral College votes that gave President Bush his second term, several Democratic House members are expected to contest the results.
Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., will participate under congressional rules that would then require senators and representatives to recess to their respective chambers to debate certification.
Go Barbara!
Ok, I know this is just polical theater and the Republicans have the votes to over-ride the challege. But revolution from time to time is good.
If nothing else, it will wipe the Tsunami story off the news cycle for about a day, maybe? I hope not.
Posted by Peter at 08:16 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack