Broke as hell
-Sending the wrong message-
The US Navy plans to spend $600k on renovations and landscaping to hide the fact that a Coronado, CA Seabees barracks looks like a swastika from the air. Wait, did I say "looks like swastika?"
I guess I meant to say "is a swastika." Scott Sutherland, the deputy public affairs officer for Navy Region Southwest said, "We don't want to be associated with something as symbolic and hateful as a swastika."
The navy plans to use rooftop photovoltaic cells to "disguise" the buildings' shape from the air, effectively changing the visual message from "white power!" to "solar power!"
Good on them. (Raw Story)
-Nobody loves you when you're down and out-
The fundraising committee responsible for winning Republican seats in the House of Representatives is going broke. According to the report, "The National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) reported $1.6 million in cash on hand and $4 million in debts as of Aug. 31."
"If there's no money in the bank, it's going to be hard to take seats away from the Democrats," said Massie Ritsch of the Center for Responsive Politics, a fundraising watchdog group. Never being people to live in reality, NRCC spokesperson Julie Shutley put things differently.
"We believe we are going to have every resource that we need to be competitive," she said, adding that we're on the verge of glorious victory in Iraq, that global warming's all taken care of, and that President Bush can run around the Earth three times without getting winded. Seriously, these people are nuts -- and poor. (ABC News)
-Is this actually a problem?-
Authorities in the nation of Nepal are calling for a ban on nudity on Mount Everest. Apparently, this whole thing began when a climber set the record for the "world's highest display of nudity" at the summit -- with the temperature at about 14 degrees Fahrenheit.
"There should be strict regulations to discourage such attempts by climbers," said Ang Tshering, president of Nepal Mountaineering Association. Locals worship the mountain as a god and standing naked on top of a god is understandably offensive.
I'm a little confused about what the enforcement mechanism would be, though. What cop's going to want that beat? (ABC News)
