Shannon Larratt is Zentastic

Before I get started on the experience update, let me mention a little news. When you look at that $87 billion dollars that Bush has requested, 78% of it is going to military operations, with only $15 billion of it going to “rebuilding” Iraq (more), arguing that the Iraqis should have to pay for their own reconstruction — I'll also mention that six month ago or whenever the first request was for this money, they said it would only take two and a half billion to rebuild Iraq… oops… Which means that either a lot more money has to be asked for, or Iraq will stay a total mess (and very angry and firecly anti-American when they finally do rebuild).

In any case, goodbye tax cuts (more).

I don't know what the factors are, but at least the American people are starting to very publicly say “holy crap, what the hell is our country doing?” As I mentioned yesterday, Bush's approval rating is at his lowest ever, and the majority of Americans now believe both that US foreign policy is overly aggressive and increases terrorism (more). That said, the poll also shows an increasing “black and white” phenomena — people either absolutely trust the President's “this is because on September 11th, 2001, four hundred planes crashed into the Empire State Building, and we can't let that happen again” malarkey, or they see through the lies totally and are completely losing trust in the system.

In “Crazy North Korea” news, it continues its escalating bluff or no bluff game, promising to continue its nuclear weapons development (more), including a 3,400 mile range ballistic missle (more) capable of carrying their nuclear bombs. For those that have no idea where North Korea is, that means that their weapons systems can take out most of the continental West Coast of America, as well as bases in Alaska, Hawaii, Japan, and Guam. Oh, and North Korea has a larger standing army than the US as well.

I should also point out that North Korea sells its weapons on a “first come first served” basis on the open market… so assuming they really develop or have developed this tech, you can bet that the new extremist government of Iraq, which you can also bet will desperately hate America if not all of the West, will be well armed with nuclear ICBMs. Yay for the apocalypse.

Then of course there's economic war as well as Europe starts to truly unify with the underlying goal of taking out America's dominance (more)…

First, I almost forgot to credit the “very promiscuous” model from the previous entry, Nick. Anyway, here's my computer. Yes, it's less powerful than everyone else's I know. Yes, it's probably less powerful than yours too. And yes, it's rather mundane looking. But it does what I need and my extravagence goes into my body and my cars, not my computers. I admit I almost bought an Alienware 51m Extreme, but buying top of the line equates with getting ripped off. So…

It's a PIV-2.66Ghz machine with 768 meg of RAM and 240 gig of drives (yes, that is a lot for a portable, but that's something I need). It has decent dual monitor support, so it makes for a solid portable workstation for me for both programming, writing, and BME development. I've owned a number of Acer's before and I've always been happy with their quality, plus it has a smaller formfactor than the competing Dells and Toshibas — although this is still by far the physically largest portable I've ever owned.

The images below are actually of a navel undergoing some heavy play… For those of you who want heavier play there are pix of this navel (and others) being stuffed full of matchheads and ignited in the fireplay section of BME/HARD (“don't try this at home”).

"The President has been unable to produce evidence that this war was fought over weapons of mass destruction. It is not too late for him to prove that it was not fought over oil. That can be done by returning control of the oil to the Iraqi people."

- Dennis Kucinich

Now, unfortunately Kucinich probably doesn't have a chance next to warmongers like Howard Dean who have promised to increase military spending, but I wanted to mention one thing. As you know, Bush has asked for $87 billion more for the war on Iraq (for now). As a point of trivia, if that money was spent domestically instead it could:

• Solve the school budget problems in every community in America.
• Provide health insurance for every uninsured American child for the next fifteen years.
• Feed every child that dies of hunger worldwide for the next seven years.

So do you really think that Bush, Dean, Clinton (what, you thought this was a Democrat vs. Republican thing?), and the rest of the warmongering Presidents and Presidential-hopefuls are making the right decision? Are the above items really less important than war? Apparently most people think so, which is sad.