Roman Around

There are myths, misconceptions and fallacies peppering the American landscape that linger like holiday-season in-laws. Contrary to popular belief, Charles Manson did not audition for the Monkees television show in the 1960s; Channel “One” was not left off of VHS television set dials because it was reserved for military use; and marking “Jedi” as your religion on a census form will not force the federal government to grant it official status.

Another fable being spun regularly these days relates to the enormous, unprecedented success of Barack Obama’s all-rescuing, all envigorating Stimulus Bill, which, as of last count, has created somewhere between nine and eighteen billion new jobs in the United States.

So efficacious has the Stimulus Bill been in creating jobs that people have been actually been put to work in districts that don’t even exist.

Talk about “community organizing.”

From Rob at the great Say Anything Blog:

Here’s a stimulus success story: In Arizona’s 9th Congressional District, 30 jobs have been saved or created with just $761,420 in federal stimulus spending. At least that’s what the website set up by the Obama Administration to track the $787 billion stimulus says.

There’s one problem, though: There is no 9th Congressional District in Arizona; the state has only eight Congressional Districts.

There’s no 86th Congressional District in Arizona either, but the government’s recovery.gov Web site says $34 million in stimulus money has been spent there.

In fact, Recovery.gov lists hundreds of millions spent and hundreds of jobs created in Congressional districts that don’t exist.

Oh yeah, and Mikey from the Life cereal commercials of the early 1970s did not die from ingesting a deadly combination of pop rocks and soda.

However, it is absolutely true that the theme from the original Star Trek TV series did have lyrics.

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