Friday, December 12:
DO-IT-YOURSELF CRUISE MISSILE BUILDER UPDATE: HE DID IT.
Ref: Weblog, June 4, 2003
If you were thinking of buying a Cruise Missile Kit for your child this Christmas, better think twice. Bruce Simpson, the New Zealander who took on the challenge that the U.S. Government threw at him, has completed his Cruise Missile and all for under $5,000 as promised.
U.S. Tomahawk Cruise Missile. Price: $575,000.
He has since been bombarded with people wanting to know more about his project. Some of those interested in his X-Jet Technology have not been of the very savory type. He's had serious offers from Iran, as well as Pakistan, China, and Lebanon.
Now comes the reality part, New Zealand refused to let him export his technology, and went further when it brought in the New Zealand Inland Revenue Department, the U.S. equivalent of the I.R.S., which brought the cash-strapped engineer to bankruptcy for Non-Payment of taxes. Yet he plodded on, as any dedicated inventor would, and was stymied further by the New Zealand Government forbidding him an export license for his technology, even though he had passed up the unsavory offers for an offer from a U.S. firm that would have set up a research and development plant not far from his home in New Zealand.
Read, in Mr. Simpson's own words, what has transpired when he embarrassed the U.S. Government: Beware of Big Brother.
He Ping ("Peace" in Mandarin Chinese),
Charlie
Charles B. // 10:21 AM
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Tuesday, December 9:
CONGRESS' CHRISTMAS "WISH LIST." BIZARRE!! AND, OH (HO,HO,HO!) YES, THE AMERICAN PEOPLE FOOT THE BILL.
Let's start off easy. The entire 2004 spending bill Congress has before it totals $820 Billion. Congress likes to have real-dollar (i.e. cash) amnesia when it comes to the fiscal budget, however. Let's take a glimpse at a few of the pet projects jammed into this Bill.
Illinois needs money for the restoration of a historic mule barn, Texas, of course, wants an oil museum. Now lets go to two real bizarre funding projects proposed.
My favorite comes from Nevada's Congressman, Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nevada. He's a highly decorated combat pilot from both the Vietnam and Persian Gulf Wars, yet he still feels guilty about a prank he and his friends pulled when he was a rambunctious kid. Seems Rep. Gibbons and his friends were responsible for clogging the drain at his local swimming pool with, and this is for real, Tadpoles, causing the pool to temporarily shut down in the 1950's. He expects Congress to approve $225,000 to repair the old pool in Sparks, Nevada where he grew up. Here's a direct quote from the Congressman, " I have enormous guilty conscience for putting frogs in the swimming pool..." OK, it's not billions, just bizarre. Couldn't Rep. Gibbons just as easily gone to see a psychiatrist to straighten out his problem, like the rest of the world? Congress does vote themselves beaucoup medical benefits.
Also in the bizarro department is Senator Charles Grassley's (R-Iowa) request for $50 Million to build a Tropical Rainforest in Iowa. Too complicated to explain this one, but it comes with a Million Gallon Capacity Aquarium. At least it wasn't a billion gallon aquarium. Sometimes Congress gets lost in the zeros. Grassley's spokesman said last Friday, when questioned about the rainforest, that "He (the Senator) doesn't like to comment on things that aren't finished yet." Good an explanation as any.
So, as America goes shopping this Christmas season, some in Congress have their own strange idea of what Christmas shopping is about.
Warm holiday wishes,
Charlie
Charles B. // 10:35 AM
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Thursday, December 4:
SEXY, STEAMY LINGERIE PRODUCTION WINNING OVER COCA FARMERS IN COLOMBIA.
I knew this Colombian Lingerie Model Would Grab Your Attention!
Rather than another picture of old St. Nick., the above Colombian lingerie model kicked off the catwalk festivities in Colombia on November 26, 2003. Carrrefour, a major retail chain known by anyone who's visited France, was lured to the steamy jungles of Colombia to find about 800 women, many heads of their families, willing to make lingerie, rather than farm coca for the drug cartels. And this is all due to, and backed by, the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).
Realizing that Colombia produces 70% of the world's cocaine, UNODC was stumped on how to get the farmer's out of the business of coca growing, since the coffee growing market had collapsed. UNODC could not find adequate jobs to lure the farmers away from their coca production until Thierry Rostan, the UNODC representative in Colombia came up with the lingerie idea, and then proposed it to the local cooperative, Integrated Industries. With idea in hand, Mr. Rostan convincingly hooked up (no pun intended) Carrefour of France, and "Voila" a new, thriving industry was born.
Salaries are now about $280/month, or double the minimum wage, and the cooperative now includes health benefits and paid vacations. In comparison, coca growers make about $70 more per month, but need to pay off illegal armed groups to keep their crop.
Carrefour's underwear label Symphony is what the eye-catching model above is wearing as she paraded , with other models, at Bogota's French Lycee in front of business executives, politicians (of course), lawmakers, and the French Ambassador to Colombia, the Honorable Daniel Parfait. Those tickets were surely the hardest to land in the entire country for the event!
Paix ("Peace" in French),
Charlie
Charles B. // 12:25 PM
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Tuesday, December 2:
T'S THE SEASON TO BE JOLLY, BUT DON'T GET CAUGHT UP IN A HOLIDAY DRINKING COMPETITION!
Too Jolly A Santa.
Seems that during a recent vodka-drinking competition in a southern Russian town, the winner of a drinking competition ended up Dead, and several Runners-Up were put into intensive care. The "Competition" only lasted about 40 minutes and the winner, don't forget he's six feet under now, downed Three Half-Liter Bottles of Vodka during the 40 minute binge.
Even in Russia there's down to earth justice, since the shop owner who organized the crazy competition was charged with manslaughter.
The Dead Winner was to receive 10 liters of vodka, perhaps now inherited by his family for the upcoming holidays.
The stranger than fiction part is that the survivors of the competition showed up the next day at the liquor store looking for another drink (those not in intensive care, that is).
Vrede ("Peace" in Dutch & also Afrikaans),
Charlie
Charles B. // 12:58 PM
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