President's Day Massacre

Ah yes, Monday is President's Day, and with it the stock market is closed. Therefore, I do not have work on Monday, and will not be posting anything until Tuesday. This week went by fast, and it seemed like a busy week in the world. Today I'm just gonna ramble on, hit upon a few topics, then go home and have myself a weekend.

First up, anyone out there planning on getting fast food this weekend, take a gander at this article. Turns out the ice at fastfood restaurants contains more bacteria than the toilet water at those same restaurants. Basically what that means is that when you order a Coke, you would be better off having ice cubes made from the toilet water than with the ice that you get. That my friends, is pretty disgusting.

Next up is everybody's (least) favorite president, George W. Bush. It seems that he and his administration had been keeping a scientist who has new information on global warming from going public. So Bush, after the U.S. was one of the only countries to refuse to partake in a recent global warming initiative, is now trying to silence scientists who have concrete proof about the effect global warming is having. Sounds pretty suspicious to me, especially since we all know that he has been bending laws and shaping events to maximize the profit of every business partner he can. If the U.S. had agreed to cut back on the proccesses and industries causing global warming, billionaires would lose billions, and we sure as hell can't have that.
Here is one disturbing story that makes me feel good that even though this country is going to hell in a handbasket, at least it ain't Zimbabwe. You know its not enough that their economy struggles like my brother talking to women. Now since inflation is currently spiraling out of control at 613%(!!!), there has been a breakdown of all public services. 20 tons of sand are removed from the sewers daily, not to mention the corpses of 20 fetuses and new born babies. Yes, thats true. Sand, dead babies and fetus's clog the sewers of Zimbabwe. They are also washing pots and pans with sand and brushing their teeth with salt. Good God.

I'm still trying to make sense of this story. For the second time in less than 3 months, a girl in California had two prosthetic legs stolen from her. She is only missing one leg, but has one prosthetic she uses for sports, and one for regular use. They each are valued over $10,000, which is the only reason I could think of for someone taking them. Maybe there is a lot of interest for these things on the black market. I really hope there isn't some deranged mad-man somewhere building a human spider. But I feel bad for the girl. Not because she has to use a prosthetic, but because some dooshbag(i know how to spell it) took them twice. She sort of depends on them to get places. Thats the difference between riding a bike to work or taking a unicycle.

And finally, in tribute to President's Day, I thought I would start and end with the current president. Here is an article that relates to Bush's plan for outer space and human exploration there. Now, after reading this article, I'm reasonably sure that he did not consult a living soul when he was drafting up his space budget and his goals for the program. He says he wants to do things, like put man back on the moon, that go against what NASA is doing. I would bet a week's paycheck that Bush doesn't know what NASA stands for. He probably got a few sci-fi books on tape (he can't read), rented Independence Day, and decided what he wanted to do. The Bush administration's budget request for NASA in 2007 is $16.8 billion dollars. Let's see what NASA's Chief Administrator has to say about the president's budget: "Our human spaceflight program is not an optional program...We are already strained to the limit." The chair of the House of Representatives Science Committee, a Republican named Sherwood Boehlert, added this: "I am extremely uneasy about this budget...This budget is bad for space science, worse for Earth science and possibly worse for aeronautics."

So, Mr. Bush, whats up with the space budget? Is it a P.R. campaign or are you that stupid? You presented it at a peculiar time, when you were catching heat for the war you made up in Iraq. Maybe you thought it would help your approval rating, which looks like some of my test scores when I attended Umass Amherst (south of 40%). The head of NASA, and the chairman of the committee overseeing science spending, both find your plan for space and your budget to be alarming. Maybe you should listen to these people instead of being a fucking moron. The people in these positions know alot more about what they are talking about than you. Why wouldn't NASA's proposed budget come from NASA? They know what they need to accomplish their goals. Maybe it is this sort of decision making that had led us from the moon in the 60's back to Earth where we can barely get into space without blowing up astronauts. Our technology has expanded exponentially since then, and we still can't get by the moon. For Christ's sake, by the 70's calculators had barely been invented, and the ones that were were the size of a desktop computer.
If I wanted to, I could fill this blog every day of every week with stories of how Bush is an incompetent leader, a liar, and worst of all, a horrible, horrendous, indescribably inept president, the likes of which have rarely been seen in this country or any other. He gets off on a lot of things because he is protected by the U.S. government, and who is going to go against that? So as I sit at home on Monday, I doubt I will spend much time thinking about the president. Instead I might go to church and pray for the President's Day when we have a moral, powerful leader, one who does the job as it should be done, and not for personal gain. Happy President's Day George W. Bush. I hope you take the time to realize that most people in your country hate your fucking guts, and wish you would retire and take your whole corrupt administration with you.

P.S. Condoleezza Rice is a piece of shit.