Sam may be in a position to be THE guru on the economy

Sam may be in a better position to know the real state of the economy than the government's economists. This article in the Wall Street Journal says that waste disposal volume is a better measure of consumption, and therefore economic activity, than the government's statistics.

http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2009/07/17/using-garbage-to-measure-consumption/

And, in other news, congress and President Obama want to have the government take over the whole health care system. They're going to recruit really competent career bureaucrats to decide what doctor you go to, and what drugs he's allowed to prescribe for you, and whether you are worthy of getting a new hip, and what drugs the pharmaceutical companies are allowed to produce and what research into drugs is permitted and how many nurses to hire for each ward of each hospitals all over the country, and how many minutes of break time those nurses get. . . and, and, and. . . everything to do with health care, including who lives and who is unworthy to live.

Perhaps President Obama and his pals will be able to find bureaucrats as smart as the government rocket scientists who taped over the original pictures of the first landing on the moon.

http://webmail.aol.com/43792/aol/en-us/Suite.aspx

You cannot make this sort of stuff up

Rocket scientists have almost perfected a laser system for killing mosquitos. Once they make it safe for humans and beneficial insects they plan to install it in African villages to help in the fight against malaria. I wonder how many opthalmologists Doctors Without Borders has available to treat blindness in the event there are some minor systems glitches.

I hope they're working on a version to target those nasty green biting flies at the beach. And I also want a battery powered version I can mount on my hat to eliminate those annoying gnats when I go out in the woods in summer. Come to think of it, such a system could also be programmed to protect cross country skiers from Great Horned Owls that swoop down. And wouldn't it be the bomb to have a system that hikers, bicyclists and cross country runners could wear to protect them from grizzly bears and mountain lions.

It would probably be good idea to program the system so it won't kill endangered species or else the environmentalists will have a problem with it.

Surely it would be okay for such a battery powered system to automatically target and kill those big fat tomato worms. Grandpop and Pop used to squish those worms between their thumbs and forefingers; but I have never been able to make myself do that. So I toss them as far from the garden as I can and the damn things probably spend all night crawling back.

Come to think of it, such a laser system could also be scaled up to protect the gardens of African villages from elephants and hippos, or it could be programmed to protect villages from marauders with machetes. Maybe the system could even shoot the machetes out of the marauders's hands the way Roy Rogers and The Lone Ranger used to shoot the guns out of the bad guys' hands.

Think of how many more useful scientific discoveries will be flowing out once President Obama's stimulus money hits the labs.

http://www.comcast.net/articles/finance/20090314/SB123680870885500701/

Update: I hope someone is keeping an eye on the spread of this technology. If some bad guy ever thinks of mouting frikkin' lasers on the heads of sharks those SOBs could attack people at the beach even if they aren't in the water.

And: in other related news, The United Nations has put Libya, Iran and Cuba in charge of the soon to start World Conference on Racism. That's like putting sharks with frikkin' lasers on their heads in the performance pool at Sea World so they can zap the spectators. I think we should install a laser system in New York and program it to fry anyone who comes out of the U.N. building.

I'm going to take my Prozac now.