Many Different Ways to Skin a Cat?

when i read articles these days, i wonder how many different ways hezbollah, hizballah, hizbollah, can be spelt. not that it helps folk pronounce it correctly cos when i am watching television, during a single interview i have heard hezballah pronounced in, oh, many different ways. i guess it is kinda like the libyan leader - qaddafi, ghadafi, kadhafi... when writing, the standard is that you pick one spelling and stick with it for the entire article. apparently there is no pronounciation standard - you just do what feels good. so, does that mean i could just make it up and, as long as i stick with it, it's okay? could i write about president boosh?

oh, and zimbabwe came out with a new monetary policy that involves a new currency. people are to bring to banks their cash and for every $1,000 they receive $1. that's what happens in a super-hyperinflationary economy. the inflation rate of over 1,000% is next to none. the next highest inflation rate is in iraq and that is around 50%. i mean, can the mind even get its way around 1,000%? i have images of post world war I germany and people carting around wheelbarrows of cash. but, i digress... the point here is that there are limits on how much cash each person is supposed to have. so, if an individual has more than $100 million or a corporation has more than $5 billion cash, they have to explain where it came from and, if the explanation is unsatisfactory, the government will confiscate it and hold it in a money laundering holding account for a year or two while investigating (at 0% interest, a number we can all understand).

so when my friend was telling me this, i asked - is this british billion or american billion - to which she asked - is there a difference? and, well yes there is. it is easier to be an american billionaire at $1,000 million than it is to be a british billionaire which requires a million million and pounds sterling to boot! (more of a stronger currency! darn!!!) i am sure the corporations in zimbabwe are hoping that the former british colony still adheres to the british counting standards.

an american trillion = british billion
so, is a british trillion an american...quintillion??? (thinking about 1,000% inflation earlier blew some fuses in my brain).