Shannon Larratt is Zentastic

I'm off to process experiences in a few minutes (probably for Sunday's update), but before that I thought I'd mention a few news stories. On the BME feed, check out the one from Japan (funny street commentary about tattoos), and the one from Lebanon (a longer article about the tattoo “fad”).

Let's take a quick look at Bush finances. When King Bush I left power, he'd smashed the economy into having a $290 billion deficit — the worst on record. Then Clinton managed to rebuild things, and in 2000 had a $236 billion surplus, the best ever. Then King Bush II seized power, and is now expected to push the deficit to a record setting $350 billion — many analysts are predicting that annual defense spending could soon reach a half TRILLION dollars a year.

Yes, America is very rich by global standards, but it's not that rich. There is no way America can spend this much money and maintain a first world standard of living for its citizens.

Something else that Bush has cut — condoms. When Bush came into power, the US donated about 800 million condoms to the third word anually. But now, since this is a “Christian” government, those donations are down to 300 million. I'll let you decide whether they're doing that do destabilize Africa, or whether they're doing it for some misguided holy war reason.

In further bad news, Canada may join the “axe of evil”.

So, the US says it “knows for a fact” that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction, and that it shouldn't have to provide evidence to invade, even though the UN flatly denies US claims. America can't seriously expect the international community to believe it. The fact is, if you have a history of being a deceitful and warmongering nation, people just assume you're lying. So you have to provide evidence… and saying “we have lots of evidence that we can't show you” just doesn't cut it.

PS. Remember North Korea? Recent quotes from the government include “Korean war will finally lead to the Third World War” and “let's see who will win and who will be defeated in this standoff” and the news recently warned North Koreans about “reckless military moves of the US warmongers”. In addition, it's planning on restarting firing missiles, and has said it will “mercilessly wipe out” any nation that confronts it.

Rob took this picture of me about ten minutes after breaking my wrist on Phil's ATV. Well, on the ground to be precise — the ATV just helped me get there faster, and in style. But I'll say again: I'd do it again. Or to put it better: I will do it again*. While I look pretty damn unhappy in the picture, I was fun.

When that picture was taken I was in pretty enormous amounts of pain (that's why I look weird in it, plus the mud of course), although because of the endorphin rush it didn't really bother me… And in hindsight, it's probably the pain rush that got me so drunk. By the end of the night I was utterly trashed, even though I'd drank not even a dozen bottles (at the previous summer's BBQ I drank a 24, including strong 8% – 9% beers).