Shannon Larratt is Zentastic

Let's start with a map of the quality of education across America.

I mention this because in parts of Kentucky, which is pretty low on the list, they're talking about schools cutting back to four days a week (with days slightly lengthened) because Bush's “no child left behind” budget is so inadequate in paying the schools' bills. Kentucky has an education budget of $3 billion a year. To put that into context, if the Iraq war could be stalled for two weeks, the education budget for the entire year could be doubled. Good to know the money is going where it's needed most.

It's interesting to contrast the priorities of the (incompetent*) federal government, made up of illegally appointed officials representing the very richest — and certainly most corrupt — people in this world to the priorities of the common man on the street. For example, there were just two rallies in Washington.

* Hell, they even tried to appoint a male veterinarian as the director of the Office of Women's Health. Are we living in some kind of crazy alternate-galaxy rap world where women really is bitches?

The “anti-war” rally drew as many as 200,000 people (with plenty of new faces), whereas the silly Republican “pro-war” rally managed to draw only 200 people… For every thousand people publicly speaking out against the neocon agenda, only one was willing to support it. Ah, modern democracy.

Speaking of insane ratios, did you know that for every 250,000 bullets fired in that hell-hole of Iraq by American troops, only one rebel is killed? Maybe that explains why the US military is putting in bulk orders for anthrax… Maybe they should just start gassing regions?

So, most Americans think the plan to rid Iraq of its WMDs rid Iraq of terrorists bring democracy to Iraq is a failing battle (as Mr. George “deja vu” Bush demands “more sacrifice“), and local officials describe Iraq as “headed for disintegration“. I worry though, because this means that we've taken a relatively secular progressive Middle Eastern country, broken it and allowed invasion by Iranian Islamic extremists. Islam will continue to spread across the region, and continue to threaten America both culturally and via direct terrorist action. Keep on killing those reporters if you want to see America adopt the Koran…

I suppose my problem is that I have fundamentally conservative ideas about the world and government and have a pathological hatred for organized religion, coupled with a pathological love for sex, drugs, and rock'n'roll. Why, oh, why, do the conservatives of the world have to be of the Jesus-freak no-sex-no-drugs-no-dancing sort? Why couldn't they just be some kind of Thoreau-tinged libertarians? We have so much technological might as modern humans that we could easily all live wealthy fulfilling lives, without all this bullshit about forcing each other to live the way we think is morally correct and imprisoning and killing each other when we fuck the wrong way… What a waste…

I desperately hope that aliens will come and say “hey, ya dumbasses, god's not real” or at least “god is for everyone, and he doesn't care what you call him!”

Anyway… back in America, international reporters unsympathetic to the Bush administration are being denied entry at the border, kids that ask too real difficult questions at school are getting punished, casinos are getting tax breaks, pro-choice groups are being branded terrorists, and even with the occasional protest, by and large the American public is unwilling to entertain the notion of removing Bush from office or even resisting. Take a note from this Aussie surfer — if he can punch out a shark, surely someone can figure out a way to deal with the problem in the White House.

While we're taking advice from other nations, asexuals, take a note from this new Dutch television show that explores, among other things, who gives better head — a guy or a girl? Now that's what I call investigative journalism. (Feel free to wear multiple condoms around your ailing banana).

So the US has launched a new satellite that attacks other satellites… While I think that's probably a pretty decent strategy, in more far-out conspiracy tech-land, either the US or the Japanese Yakuza used weather control technology to direct this latest bunch of hurricane “attacks”. If a hurricane is a WMD, then do we have to declare war on Terra? Oh, and South Korea is building front-line combat droids (and they're seriously goofy looking).

God bless the USA.

Oh, and did you know that by eating transfat-free potato chips you're killing orangutans?
Goddamn. I'm out of here.