Welcome to Fat America! There's certainly no denying it, that's for sure. I guess I'm fortunate to not be a part of it, although an astounding 64.5% of Americans are over weight. There's a very interesting (and long) article "The Way We Eat Now" over at Harvard Magazine that explains a lot about it. How we got here, where we're going -all Americans overweight by 2040 or sooner! Quite fascinating stuff. So waddle your (likely) fat ass over and take a look.
If you or someone you love (or better yet hate) are in need of a full cavity search, just go dig up some Area 51 Road Sensors. Although apparently that in and of itself might not be enough. But if you decide to walk off with one, well… it seems you just might get a visit from the Men in Black. But what the heck, if you are going to dig them up, why not document it and put it on the World Wide Web! Talk about sealing your fate.
It's hard to say what the outcome of all of this was, because the guy who "allegedly" did it -Chuck Clark doesn't seem to be talking anymore. At least not since his case was resolved. Although, he did report a few month ago that he got his stuff back that the Feds took during the raid. Hmmm…be right back, someone's knocking on the door…
For once it is nice to see grant money going into something of extreme importance! You've got to be happy to see $20,000 going to develop a "portable method for keeping beer kegs cold indefinitely". Is this a great country or what? Go Adam, go!
In a previous job I used to travel a lot for work. And a good deal of my travel was to Japan. So when I came upon the Vending Machines of Japan, it definitely struck a chord with me. These things are everywhere over there. To quote a frequent travel companion at the time, "You can't swing a dead cat without hitting one of those!".
Most of the time where we worked was quite a ways from our hotel. So a taxi was generally the way to go. But occasionally we would forgo the taxi and walk back to the hotel. Our Japanese host always thought we were crazy for walking. But they weren't aware of our "game". A little something we called "Vending Machine Hopping". It was very simple. Every time you passed a beer vending machine you had to stop and drink one. Needless to say we were pretty jovial by the time we got back to the Hotel!
Update: 05-12-2004
Okay, I can't say I ever saw this sort of thing while in Japan. But I can say from being there that this would definately fit in!
Well, according to this article apparently the drug war seems to be losing ground. Gee, I'm shocked. We should probably pump a few million dollars more into this pointless pursuit. Wake up and smell the coffee people, because it doesn't work! Spend as much as you would like and preach the ills of it, but it's not going to stop it. It's escapism the same way alcohol is for even more people. So why isn't that illegal? DOH! Thus I guess you have a choice. Reinstate prohibition, or legalize pot. Looking at the national debt you shouldn't have any trouble seeing where my vote is going.