A description of my blog. http://www.my-site.com 1933687025288106231 All In Favor of a Heliocentric Solar System Say "Aye!" 2008/06/#1933687025288106231 2008-06-18 It always puzzles me when someone talks about the conflict between science and religion. I’m a religious person and I also believe in the value of science, yet I’ve never experienced any conflict. I feel like I must be doing one of them wrong.

As I see it, there are five main systems that shape the Western world. These are: Science, democracy, capitalism, religion, and American Idol. Everybody seems to think that the world is headed toward more of all of these things – all of them, that is, except for religion. Religion, for some reason, is always seen as the runt of the litter, doomed to lose out to its more robust siblings. And yet, if I were to pick the two systems that are most likely to come into conflict (putting aside American Idol), it wouldn’t be science and religion. It would be science and democracy.

Think about it: Science is all about facts. Facts are brutal and unyielding. They are what they are, regardless of how anyone feels about it.

Democracy, on the other hand, is all about opinions. You don’t have to have a shred of evidence to support your choice at the ballot box. And once you vote somebody in, they are in no way bound to act according to reason, facts or logic. They just do whatever feels right to them, based on any number of possibly completely irrelevant factors. It seems inevitable that these two systems will butt heads. The EPA is a case in point.

Science IdolWhere it gets really weird is when people start combining the two systems. For example, when you ask somebody how they know that global warming is a serious problem, they will most likely rattle off some statistic about how many scientists agree that it’s a serious problem. Huh? I thought science was about presenting facts and testing hypotheses. Now we’re favoring scientific theories based on sheer numbers?

It reminds me of the old joke about the kindergartener who brought a puppy to school for show and tell. The class couldn’t decide whether the puppy was a boy or a girl, so they voted on it.

The problem, of course, is that voting doesn’t do a damn thing to change the facts of the situation. If the people voting don’t have any basis for voting one way or another, all you’re getting is a collective guess. Well, hell, I can do that. Who needs scientists?

Remember those Trident commercials about how “four out of five dentists we surveyed recommended Trident for their patients who chew gum”? What a ringing endorsement that was, huh? They preselected a bunch of dentists and basically said to them, “Well, yes, we know gum is bad for you, but if one of your patients insisted on chewing gum, would you recommend chewing sugarless gum, such as, say, Trident?” And they still couldn’t get the fifth guy to buckle! That dentist had some balls, I tell you. In the seventeenth century, four out of five dentists thought the sun revolved around the earth. Too bad the fifth one was a guy by the name of Galileo, bitches.

ScientistIf we’re really serious about the science-democracy mashup, we should make it into a reality show like, well, American Idol. You start out with ten thousand scientists from across the country, each with competing views on global warming, and gradually eliminate them by, um, denying them tenure or something. We can work out the details later. But the important thing is that the winner will get to determine our policy on global warming. Hopefully it will be someone with a good head on his or her shoulders, who is also cute as a button, much like Kelly Clarkson. But if the winner is the scientific equivalent of William Hung, then we’ll just have to deal with it, even if it means living in aluminum huts and driving coal powered submarines for a year.

Asking ten thousand scientists what to do about global warming is like asking ten thousand lawyers what to do about Roe versus Wade. Where do you even find ten thousand scientists? I think you probably have to lower the bar to anyone who owns a white lab coat to get those kinds of numbers. I mean, there’s no independent qualification of scientists, is there? Anybody who spends their weekends mixing hair gel with silly putty in the garage in an attempt to make Flubber can call themselves a scientist.

Which brings me to my point: These so-called “scientists” have far too much power in our society. We need to level the playing field a bit. To that end, I’m starting a scientific institute called, um, the Mattress Police Institute for the Advancement of Scientific Missions of Awesomeness, also known as MIASMA (the ‘P’ is silent). To work at MIASMA, you must:
1) Own a white lab coat, or intend to buy one when you have the money
2) Believe in the advancement of Science through Scientific Missions of Awesomeness
3) Believe that no list is complete without at least three items

MIASMATo apply to MIASMA, simply leave a comment below. Once you are accepted into MIASMA, you are considered an official Scientist, and may weigh in on important matters such as global warming, global cooling, and global staying-about-the-same-ing. Together, we can ensure that science gets the injection of pure democracy that it needs in order to keep our interest. I look forward to working with you to make/keep our planet a comfortable temperature.

Long live science! Death to the unbelievers!

(Oh, and I’ve made another banner. You don’t have to use the banner to be a staff scientist at MIASMA, but it will look good on your review. I know, you already have the Huey Lewis banner, the Humor-Blogs banner, the Antisocial Commentary banner and the Grundir banner, but you really need this one too. Because it’s all sciencey and stuff.)



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4678289594029530918 Uncle Sam (and the Gecko) Want You! 2007/12/#4678289594029530918 2007-12-10 Are we headed for an economic meltdown? Probably not, but that made for a much better opening sentence than the one I had before.

It is true that there are signs that indicate the American economy may be in for a rough patch. We've seen a weakening dollar, a housing bubble and a credit crisis -- and all the while the threat of a Spice Girls reunion tour hangs over our heads like a black cloud.

What alarms me the most, however, is the state of advertising in this country. As everyone knows, our economy is based largely on consumer spending, and consumers would have no idea what to consume if it they weren't constantly being told what to purchase by reliable authorities such as Sam Waterston or an animated gecko. Powerful, emotionally resonant advertising is the team of malamutes that pulls the giant, unwieldy sled that is our economy.

The typical American consumer has become fairly jaded regarding the choking miasma of advertising that envelopes him from cradle to grave, but a well-executed ad campaign can pierce that fog like a night watchman with a big flashlight who taps you on the shoulder and says, "Friend, you NEED this product or service." And you see that in the night watchman's other hand is a thing of Cheetos or a thing of Axe body spray or something else that until that moment you hadn't realized you needed, but now you can't live without. Then, as required by my previous metaphor, the night watchman transforms into a team of well-fed malamutes. And once again you are alone in the whirling fog, having realized too late that what you really needed was not so much Cheetos but one of those big flashlights.

My point is that today, more than ever, effective advertising is vital to the health of our economy. Without compelling advertisements, you and I would simply slog along, living within our means while the great economic sled runs aground, the malnourished malamutes tugging listlessly at their reigns.

For example, if you're like me, you've grown so accustomed to Google ads that you don't even see them any more. I mean, do you see that block of Google ads over to the right there? Just to the right of this text. No? Really? See, that's exactly what I mean. They're right there, plain as day, but you can't even see them any more. You have Google Ad Blindness (GAB). Frightening, isn't it? Don't worry, it's not fatal, and there is a cure. Just take one of these and you'll be fine.

See, now that was effective advertising. You actually hovered your mouse over the link for a second to find out whether I was once again shamelessly hawking my book. That's what we need more of. Advertising that grabs you by the lapels and won't let go until you admit to being a shallow, materialistic sop trying to find happiness at the bottom of a Target bag. And don't try to tell me that you're one of those people who isn't affected by advertising. Next time President Palmer comes on your TV and asks you if you're in good hands, tell me you don't feel a nagging sense that you really need to get your shit together.

But now -- when we need pithy, eye-catching advertising the most, I'm seeing signs that the advertising industry just isn't up to the task. And I'm not even talking about the commercials where you can't figure out what they are selling, or the ones that seem to be promoting a drug that allows you to take nice walks on the beach but you should really ask your doctor first. I'm talking about the trend of lowered expectations that seems to be infecting the advertising world.

The first sign of this were the Budweiser radio ads featuring a rousing Bob Seeger-ish pseudo-rock song that climaxes with the refrain "This is Budweiser... this is beer." I mean, what is up with that? I half-expected someone to chime in at this point, "Now do you see the difference?"

But that's all there was to it. "This is Budweiser... this is beer." Their ad campaign comes down to stating that their product does, by some technical definition, qualify as beer. Good work, guys. Take the rest of the week off.

Yesterday I drove past a billboard advertising a housing development which read "Great homes you won't find anywhere else." Well, that's an interesting feature to highlight -- The fact that your new home will exist in precisely one location. If anything, that seems like a drawback to me. I wonder if they have a competitor who offers homes that are located in two places at once. Their slogan could be "If you lived 20 miles away, you'd be home by now."

Then there's the local crappy pop radio station, which recently introduced the tagline, "The music you've come to expect." No, not the music I've come to love. Not even the music that I've grown to grudgingly accept after an unrelenting campaign of endless repetition. Just the music I've come to expect. Again, their entire marketing campaign basically consists of saying, "So, you've heard the kind of crap we play, right?" (To be fair, a competing radio station was already using their preferred slogan, "Yes, we're playing that f***ing 'Umbrella' song again.")

Still, as uninspiring as these ads are, they'll never top "Beef: It's What's For Dinner." What was up with that? Evidently the beef industry was so unsure of any positive aspects of their product that they decided to just go with a thinly veiled threat. I understand that the other slogans the beef industry considered included "Beef: Deal With It", "Beef: Resistance is Futile", and "Beef: I'm Not Making Anything Else So You And Your Stupid Vegan Friends Can Just Starve."

What next? I'm half-expecting taglines like: "McDonalds: Once a Week Doesn't Make You a Bad Parent." Or maybe "Daimler-Chrysler: Well, That Could Have Gone Better."

What happened to promising me sex, love and happiness if I buy a Big Mac/Bud Light/Dodge Caravan? This is America, people! Dream big!

Sam Waterston and the gecko are counting on you.


Humor-Blogs.com: Because laughter is the best medicine... for erectile dysfunction!

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8096888922369727302 Talk Like a Man 2007/04/#8096888922369727302 2007-04-23 Note: I've read that one way to increase the popularity of your blog is to write "topical" posts. According to the dictionary, topical means:
pertaining to, or applied externally to a particular part of the body
While I was trying to figure out what body part this blog post should be applied to, 2 weeks went by and the the expiration date passed. I think you can probably still use it, but its effectiveness may have decreased significantly. Which may be a good thing, as I have no idea what its intended effect was. But whatever you do, don't take it internally.

So everybody is talking about this Don Imus guy, and what a shame it is that after being on the radio for 40 years, he accidentally slipped up and said something offensive and got fired for it. The remarkable thing to me is that he evidently avoided saying anything offensive for nearly 40 years. Can you imagine talking for three hours a day for 40 years and never saying anything offensive? You should get some kind of medal for that. Even Moses lost his temper after 40 years of shtick on the wilderness circuit.



On the other hand, imagine being one of Imus' faithful listeners, anxiously awaiting the latest G-rated words of wisdom from their beatific role-model, only to be subjected to hate-filled epithets such as "nappy-headed hos." Can you imagine the shock these listeners must have felt? I mean, it's bad enough to refer to a group of respectable young women as "hos." Having lived in a deep well on an Amish beet farm for the past 18 years, I have never heard such language. I have never, for example, heard a man refer to his girlfriend or wife as a ho. I've never heard a woman refer to her friends as hos. I've never heard a white woman refer to a black woman as a ho, nor a black woman refer to a white woman as a ho. I have never heard two women of mixed race jokingly calling each other hos, nor a pair of conjoined twins referring to their adopted lesbian parents as hos. And I most certainly never heard six Chinese women calling seventy-eight Pakistani midgets and their albino monkey hos. And if I had ever heard the word "ho" used in any of these contexts, I would have been outraged each and every time, because if there's one thing I can't stand, it's intolerance.

Anyway, a lot of people seem to be ready to pull the plug on talk radio and replace it with something less offensive, like rap music. But being the high-minded and judicious person I am, I decided to find out what the fuss was all about. So I listened to some "talk radio" for a few hours one day. The show I found most interesting talked about the "homosexual agenda." Have you heard about this? It was a real eye-opener for me. I mean, I know that they tend to be detail-oriented, but who knew they had an actual agenda? That's just cool. I wish straight people had an agenda. As far as I know, the only thing we've agreed on is to split up boy/girl. If there's any kind of schedule for where or when we're supposed to do this, nobody's shown it to me. Let me tell you, if they had, it would have spared me some awkward moments in college.

The radio show didn't go into specifics, but several items on the gay agenda are evidently related to corrupting the youth and destroying America. For my gay readers: I hope you don't mind me saying this, but it seems like you're going a bit beyond your charter with stuff like this. I mean, it's every person's right to want to corrupt the youth and destroy America, but I just don't see what any of that has to do with being gay. I pictured the gay agenda being something like this:

4:30 hair appointment
5:10 buy new shoes
6:00 Drinks with Steve!

I know you're probably not supposed to do this, but if you're gay and you're reading this, I'd really appreciate it if you could send me a copy of the agenda. Don't worry, I'm not going to post it or anything. I'm just hoping to get some ideas for the straight agenda. Also, I'm wondering what the timetable is for abolishing the nuclear family and gayifying all of us breeders. Because if I'm going to be turned gay like next week, I really need to start doing some situps or something.

Maybe I should start a radio show. I could raise concerns about all kinds of groups that I find a little suspicious. Like, what are those Shriners up to exactly? I mean, we all love kids, but doesn't it seem like they love kids a little too much? And the weird little cars. Sure, they claim that they're just for parades, but how long before you're stuck behind one of those damn things on I-5? You see where I'm going with this. What's the Shriner agenda?

The key to the show's success would be to never actually talk to any Shriners. Or, if I did talk to one, it would only be to demonstrate how the Shriner agenda is Wrong for America.

Diesel: Isn't it true, sir, that the Shriners want to destroy all that is good and decent about America?

Shriner Dude: Actually, we're a charitable organization that funds --

Diesel: Silence! What about the allegations that your group is an offshoot of the secretive order of the Knights Templar?

Shriner Dude: Well, originally the purpose of the Shriners was to protect the --

Diesel: I've heard enough of your lies! I'm only going to ask you this once: WHERE ARE YOU HIDING THE HOLY GRAIL?

Shriner: The Holy... I'm sorry, but I didn't expect this sort of Spanish Inquisition.

Michael Palin: NO ONE EXPECTS THE SPANISH INQUISITION!


I have some more stuff worked out, but I'd better not go into details before I've confirmed the availability of Graham Chapman. So for now, I can only offer a very rudimentary outline of the show. I'm thinking something like:

4:30 News update
5:10 Weather and traffic
6:00 Drinks with Steve!


Humor-blogs.com wants to corrupt the youth, destroy America, and prevent unsightly hard water stains.

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5462291563278296466 Semi-automatic 2007/04/#5462291563278296466 2007-04-17 This isn't the post I had planned for today. I had written some nonsense vaguely related to the Don Imus story, but suddenly nobody is talking about that any more. Funny how quickly our idea of what's truly offensive can change so quickly.

There aren't many things more offensive than a red-hot chunk of metal the size of your smallest knuckle traveling 800 feet per second. I was thinking about this a few days ago as I was firing a 9mm Glock semi-automatic pistol into a target. Well, near a target. If you're a bad guy, you don't have much to fear from me. But if you're the bad guy's dwarf henchman standing to the left of the bad guy's leg, watch out. Apparently my "grouping" is excellent, which is a nice way of saying that I miss the target in an extremely precise way.

It had been a while since I fired a gun, and I was struck by how incredibly powerful those things are. First of all, guns are LOUD. My neighbor came over after firing a few rounds to ask if I minded the noise. His house is about 200 yards away, but even inside my house I could have easily heard the sound over the TV. "Not if you let me shoot," I told him in all seriousness. Which is how I got invited to this little target practice outing. He handed me the gun and gave me some basic instructions. There's no safety on a gun like that, which means that it's about 16 times easier to release a barrage of bullets than to open a bottle of children's vitamins. Point and shoot. BANG! It was loud even with a headset on. Without it my ears would have been ringing after three shots.

After every shot the gun recoils. I couldn't hit the target even on the first shot, and without taking five seconds to re-level after every round my aim would have gotten wilder and wilder. After emptying two clips my index finger felt raw. Imagine holding a heavy metal rod in your hand. Then imagine someone whacking at the rod with a hammer. Over and over and over. That's what it feels like to fire a gun. BANG! BANG! BANG!

My point is this: When you fire a gun, you feel it. It's not like the movies, where the hero sails through the air, gun in each hand, firing round after round as the bad guys fall. I can hardly imagine directing that power at another human being. Even a human being that I really, really didn't like. Even a human being who was stealing my TV. I'd rather let him have my car and my wallet and whatever else he wanted rather than feel that explosion in my hand and know that I had directed that force at another person.

Now imagine directing that kind of force at a person, taking a moment to level the gun -- calmly, deliberately -- and taking aim again. And again. And again. Over and over, until the gun is empty and your ears ring and your hand starts to hurt. Then reloading, and doing it all over again. Not at bad people, not at people who are taking your stuff or hurting your children. Just people. Young, intelligent people with loving parents and their whole lives ahead of them. This is not a tragedy. A tragedy is a plane crash or an earthquake. This is something far worse. The only word that comes to mind is atrocity, and even that word has been cheapened by atrocious overuse.

"It was like something out of a movie," the witness says. Survivors said the same thing after 9/11. And so we come full circle, the reality of the horror overwhelming our ability to take it in. To those in the middle of it, trying to make sense of what is going on, the only point of reference is something completely unreal: the movies.

Ironically, it does not seem at all like a movie to those of us on the outside. I was in the waiting room at the doctor's office with my 7 year old son shortly after it happened. He was supposed to be getting a cast put on to replace the temporary splint they had given him after his treehouse fall, but the doctor was apparently a little backed up. Funny how scheduling appointments every seven minutes has that effect.

CNN was playing on the TV. We sat there for two hours -- the length of a movie -- listening to the same repeated sketchy accounts. I bet I heard the phrase "at least 22 dead" fifty times. And we were trapped there, listening to this soundtrack over and over. Sartre's No Exit came to mind. Hell is CNN Headline News, I thought.

This is an admittedly self-centered way of looking at these events. My suffering was hardly on the same level as that of the students and professors in the middle of it. And yet, as anyone who has lived through a tragedy knows, the worst part is what happens afterward, when you try to go on with life. Everything is the same, yet completely different. You feel like you're living a pantomime, a kind of cheap mockery of your previous life. All the little details are the same, but you've somehow lost the thread of the story. Life has become a tiresome sequence of events without meaning.

The question facing all of us, whether we are on the inside or the outside, is this: Is life a movie, complete with a central theme, problems that must be overcome, and a satisfying resolution? Or is it simply CNN Headline News, endlessly repeating the same horrific and meaningless events, without context or explanation? Or is it somehow both? Is the horror and meaninglessness the very thing that we are here to overcome?

Kurt Vonnegut, one of my literary heroes, just died. I'm glad he didn't live to see this, because it would have been more evidence for his theory that mankind is "evolution's greatest mistake." Vonnegut saw life as a pointless succession of events. His characters were forever being yanked around by forces so far beyond their understanding and control that even their most valiant attempts to determine their own destiny were rendered absurdly comical. Vonnegut insisted that his writing was not motivated by any great artistic yearning, but simply by his need to make a living. And in case you are thinking, "Aha! So at least he valued living. He must not have thought life was completely pointless!" -- remember that he once tried to kill himself with booze and alcohol and continued to smoke unfiltered cigarettes right up to the end, not caring -- and probably hoping -- that they would hasten his demise.

And yet... I don't think that Vonnegut really believed to his core that life was hopeless. Implicit in the word "mistake" is the idea that things should be different than they are, and perhaps could be different than they are. Vonnegut obviously believed in the value of humor, which is the sentient being's way of simultaneously acknowledging one's powerlessness in the face of circumstances beyond one's control and of claiming mastery over them. It's like Vonnegut was saying, "Look, I know the universe is beyond my control, but the universe can't stop me from being pissed off about that fact."

When something like this happens, it's an unmistakable reminder of just how much is beyond our control. But that doesn't mean we have to simply sit back and let the death toll wash over us. Life isn't a movie, with a tidy resolution, but it doesn't have to be CNN Headline News either. If I believed that life was a meaningless sequence of events, I'd be no different from that gun-toting loser (I refuse to use the word "gunman"), trying to at least make it into the news before my time is up. There is meaning in life, and it can't be eradicated by one sociopath with a handgun.

I believe that, and the universe can't stop me.

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8090159105241962486 World's Worst Dictator 2007/02/#8090159105241962486 2007-02-18 Recently my wife was reading an article in Parade about the world's worst dictators. (Yes, this is the second post over the past week prompted by Parade magazine. I'm also reading a 700 page book about artificial intelligence, ok? It's called being a Renaissance man. Look into it.)

Like many people, I rely on Parade to provide me with some geopolitical perspective, not to mention hearty halftime meals for my Super Bowl party. (Actually, I rely on my wife for both of those things, but she in turn relies on Parade. And just because I couldn't tell you who played in the Super Bowl to save my life doesn't mean I don't need a hearty halftime meal, so get off my back.)

Anyway, it turns out that the world's worst dictator is some dude named Omar al-Bashir. He runs a little country club and spa called Sudan. You may have heard something about it in between Anna Nicole Smith's breasts. Er, in between stories about Anna Nicole Smith. And her breasts. Her non-biodegradable breasts.

------------------------------------------------
Interlude: 3007 A.D.

Archaeologists are excavating Anna Nicole Smith's grave.

Archaeologist 1: "Hey, I found something."
Archaeologist 2: "What is it?"
Archaeologist 1: "Guess."
------------------------------------------------

So this guy, this "Worst Dictator in the World," has killed at least 180,000 civilians in Darfur and driven 2 million people from their homes. My question is, what exactly are they looking for in a dictator? I mean, this guy's no Hitler, but who is? Except Stalin, I mean. Stalin was pretty much Hitler.

But those two guys really skew the curve for the rest of the dictators. I think that you'd have to say, all things considered, that this Omar al-Bashir character is a pretty good dictator. I can see how he'd lose some points for limiting himself to sub-Saharan Africa, but you play the cards you're dealt. Give him some time.

You know who's a lousy dictator? Al Gore. First of all, he's kind of whiny and non-threatening. Second, he doesn't really run anything. Third, he keeps trying to "build consensus" and win people over with "appeals to reason." Let me tell you, Earth in the Balance is no Mein Kampf. And Davis Guggenheim is no Leni Riefenstahl. And, uh, Tipper is no Eva Braun. That's what I've heard, anyway. You know how guys talk.

Al Gore missed a key opportunity when he claimed to have invented the Internet. He should have claimed to have invented the Spanish Inquisition. Or something even worse, like syphillis. Tell me you'd risk crossing the guy who's in charge of syphillis.

"Dude, you look terrible! What happened to you?"

"Oh, man. I voted against Kyoto and Al Gore gave me syphillis."

And now he's gone and gotten himself nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize. I know, I know, Yasser Arafat got the Nobel Peace Prize and he was a murderous terrorist bastard. But still, there's a cachet of pacificism that goes with getting the Nobel Peace Prize. It's unfair, especially since Al Gore doesn't deserve all the credit for preventing the Great Global Warming War. I mean, shouldn't some of the credit go to the millions of individuals on both sides who aren't fighting? There's no way that Al Gore could have singlehandedly prevented the war if all those people refused to work within the political process to find a solution.

Ah, but history doesn't want to hear about the faceless men and women who are ignorant of the conflict they could be participating in. Besides, the faceless are notoriously poor combatants. History remembers the Great Men with Faces, like Al Gore and what's his face in the Sudan.

Oops, gotta go. Anna Nicole's boobs are on!


You will submit to the iron fist of humor-blogs.com.

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8159640512661113823 Psych-Geist: Michelle Manhart 2007/01/#8159640512661113823 2007-01-16 Once again I'm guest posting over at Central Snark, so head over there to read my revelations regarding the uncanny synchronicity between Apocalypse Now and the Huey Lewis album Fore! Really.

What? You're still here? Well I guess I need to give you something for your persistence. I had so much fun with my USC Song Girl Ass the last time I filled in over at the Snark that I'm thinking of doing a regular feature called the Psych-Geist. It's like the Google Zeitgeist, but with fewer empty calories.

The search term of the moment seems to be "Michelle Manhart." Who is Michelle Manhart, you ask? Well, she's an Air Force Sergeant who got in trouble for the following picture:

Michelle Manhart

Well, not that picture exactly. The Air Force doesn't want you to see the real picture of Michelle Manhart, because she's not wearing body armor in it. In fact, as you can see, she doesn't even have working fasteners on her combat shorts. I couldn't bear to show you the real picture, because her t-shirt is in even worse shape. It's all torn and sweaty and clearly does not offer adequate support for lifting weights or other Air Force-related duties. It's pathetic. We can pay $15 Billion for an invisible airplane that can vaporize a nickel from outer space, but we can't fork over another whatever it costs for a decent uniform.

Poor Michelle Manhart. Poor, poor Michelle Manhart.

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