It Just Doesn't Make Cents!

Here's an interesting little fact. It costs 1.4 cents for the US Mint to produce a single penny. How is it feasible to have a currency in circulation that costs more to produce than it is actually worth? That's the question that Representative Jim Kolbe is asking. He's introduced a bill (again) to do away with the penny. I hope the push works this time. Pennies are a nuisance. Aside from providing excitement to children who put them on the railroad tracks to flatten them, they serve no useful function. I typically throw them away by the handful when cleaning out my pockets or my car. Down with the penny!

The Grim Reaper Wears a Shower Cap

So I finally figured out how I’m going to die. I am going to be that old lady you hear about who falls down in the bathtub. I’m not sure if I am going to knock myself out in the fall and drown in two inches of tub water, or if I’m going to break a hip, rendering myself unable to move and therefore end up simply starving to death in the bathroom. (Of course, I’ll have purchased that Life Alert/”I’ve fallen, and I can’t get up” system to guard against the later possibility, but much like my car keys, I’ll have long-since misplaced the transponder.)

This prediction regarding the circumstances of my demise isn’t the result of a morbid fascination with my own death. It’s simply the result of pattern recognition and the application of probability. Since March of this year, I have actually fallen down in the shower twice and slipped once (but caught myself before ending up on my ass). If these events occurred in the same tub, I’d blame the tub. But it’s now happened in two separate tubs so I can only conclude that the tub has nothing to do with it. I’m just a klutz who doesn’t know how to stand up in two inches of water. Probability tells me that given the number of showers I will take in my lifetime, more falls are sure to occur. It’s just a matter of time before one of the tumbles results in a fatal injury. There is only one sure-fire way to avoid meeting ye ole grim reaper while sprawled out on my naked butt in the shower, and that’s to stop showering. Not a very hygienically appealing option, so I’m open to suggestions.

"Made by, for, and with Assholes"

Looks like I’m not the only one who’s noticed little cans of “potted meat food product” on grocery shelves. Another guy found Ralph's brand. (Mine was Libby's.)

Check out Vol. 1 of “Steve, Don’t Eat It” at

http://www.thesneeze.com/mt-archives/cat_steve_dont_eat_it.php

(I really don't recommend reading any of the other volumes to Steve's drama. They sort of make you nautious.)

That's One Crowded Apartment!

OK, let me get this straight. This woman whose carpet-layer husband “wanted many children” had IVF after already having two children naturally. The IVF gave the couple triplets, bringing the family size to 7. Then, proving there was no need for IVF intervention in the first place, the woman conceives again naturally. This time with quadruplets! Here’s the kicker: the family of 11 lives in a one-bedroom apartment in LA.

I may be going out on a limb here, but a couple with even just two kids living in a one bedroom place should be looking more into tubal ligation than into IVF. It’s cheaper than IVF and they can use the money they save to get a bigger apartment. Now they have 9 children to support on a single carpet layer’s salary. Are all the kids just going to sleep in the living room? Bet their folks can’t wait until they all need braces and start driving. Can you even add an additional 9 people to your auto insurance?

This type of thing just irks me. First of all, in most circumstances the whole IVF things seems unnecessary, and borderline selfish. With all the thousands of children in foster care waiting to be adopted how can people still justify the expense and ordeal of IVF, particularly when they already have their own healthy, biological children? Secondly, what was wrong with having just two kids? Especially given the couple’s financial and living situation. I’m not promoting one-child policies like China’s or anything, but I do believe it’s everyone’s ecological and societal responsibility to keep family sizes small. Very few couples have the monetary resources to raise 9 children and be able to give all of them what they would otherwise like to. And though I don’t doubt each child in a large family is loved, I do question the availability of the parents’ emotional resources.

Many environmentalists concede that the largest threat to human kind is not air pollution or global warming per say. Rather these things are all symptoms of a larger problem: overpopulation. We have a finite amount of resources at our disposal (quite literally) and already we are facing a situation (in this country) in which many people don’t have what they need to live comfortably. It is not simply a matter of inequitable resource distribution, though that does confound the problem. There wouldn’t be such fierce competition for resources were they not finite.

Back to the couple with the 9 kids…I wish them luck. They’re gonna need it. As for any other couple wanting a large family, check out an organization called Adopt US Kids There are countless foster kids out there looking for a loving home.

Eeewwww...

If you spend time really looking around a grocery store, you'll find some pretty gross meat items. Who eats beef brains, or pickled pig feet anyway? Well, what I saw on the shelf today may just take the cake for being the most disturbing meat item I’ve found in a supermarket. (An American market anyway. I’ve seen some pretty nasty things at the Vietnamese market.) On the shelf next to the Spam were cans of “Potted Meat Food Product.” First of all… “potted”? Don’t the Libby people mean “canned”? Then it is “meat food.” Not simply “meat.” And the “product” part scares me a bit too. Still, what I saw when I started reading the ingredients list was even scarier. Apparently this can contained pork, turkey, chicken, and beef. It was like the arc of the “food product” industry. “Bring me bits of each of your tastiest animals.” Gross!