<RANT>

What's up with spending $40,000,000 for a party?  Really, do you have any idea how much money that is?  If I was going to give you $40 million (Spin doctors always write it this way when they don't want you to notice what a huge number it is) and I paid you $500 every day it would take me 220 years to finish paying you out.  If I had $40 million in $100 bills that would be something like 2,000 lbs of money.  I'm glad I don't have that in silver dollars, that would be 1250 tons.  Back in the day they had fighting ships to find and sink submarines and escort cargo ships across the Atlantic Ocean.  They weigh about 1200 tons.

Of course we can't complain since this was privately raised money.  That is what we're told to think.  But I think we can complain about the $12,000,000 price tag for the security needed at the party.  Not quite the weight of a ship in money any more, but it would still take 65 years to pay that out as above.  Why in the world would it cost that much for security?  How much must someone be hated to need this kind of protection?  Al Capone had to worry about all sorts of threats from rival gangs and police, but he never spent even 1/100th that amount on security.  I didn't read through all of this to find a security budget, but I'm sure Bush has them topped as well.

I don't think it is inapropriate to say that spending $12,000,000 on security for one night of optional play is criminal misapropriation of funds.  Such a crime at the top of Federal Government is nothing less than treason against the people of this nation.  Those responsible for executing this plan should be brought up on charges, but I think that in this case it may not be serious enough to enforce the fact that high treason is a capital crime punishable by death.  I also am not convinced that we should enforce some of the new Bush policies and stip the perpetrators of their U.S. citizenship.  I think life in a federal prison would be enough.

You're milage may vary.  Offer void where prohibited by ignorance.  If you disagree you're wasting my oxygen.

Get your A.C.M.E. Weapons of Mass Destruction!

Why does the word Guantanamo remind me so much of the word Gestapo?  Oh, yeah!  Because the place is run by Nazis.  Just a thought that occured to me while watching Dr. Noam Chomsky lecture at MIT.  College towns have neat local TV.

</RANT>