New 2-23-08

           As many of you may already be aware of, Park Center has recently eliminated the widely used and appreciated ketchup dispensers. The ketchup dispensers made sense because students were able to squeeze the appropriate amount of ketchup needed to complement their lunch, rather than suffer through the already sub-par lunches with mere ration amounts of ketchup. The "squeeze as you please" dispensers have been replaced with an unacceptable offer of three, yes three, miniscule ketchup packets. Yeah, the kind you get at McDonalds and take like 15 of them to dip your fries in or whatever.

           This switch is unresonable, and only occured (I assume) because a select few got greedy and covered their plates in ketchup or something... but if you think about it, most students only take what they need and aren't ketchup-gougers. Has Park Center really sunk low enough to value product costs over the environment? Obviously, yes. Three ketchup packets per student almost certainly produces at least 100x more waste at the end of the day than a few giant containers of the sweet stuff.

           Obviously this isn't enough ketchup to dip your fries in AND have enough to fully drown out the flavor of the cheeseburger; don't even get me started about trying to top a hotdog with that amount... This abrupt change is an outrage and will not be tolerated by us students. If you haven't heard already, there is a strike planned for Monday, February 25th. Bring your own lunch, or better yet starve yourself (hunger strikes are more manly) in protest of the lack of ketchup. Don't forget to bring plenty of ketchup, in rememberence of the days when ketchup was plentiful in high school calfiterias.

- Robert Nelson

New 5-06-07

            A few recent articles I’ve read have suggested that we should reconsider pursing the clean, efficient use of wind turbines as a power source because the spinning blades “pose a threat to birds and bats”. Oh don’t get me wrong, I’m completely in favor of trying to save some wildlife here and there. But shouldn’t the world be a bit more concerned with trying to reduce fossil fuel emissions in order to preserve the world as a whole, not just some birds?

“…killing birds and bats that fly into turbines. Among birds, the most frequent turbine fatalities are nocturnal, migrating songbirds, probably because of their abundance, the report says. However, the committee saw no evidence that fatalities from existing wind facilities are causing measurable changes in bird populations in the United States”

No measurable changes in bird populations have occurred, but apparently we should still be concerned enough to “evaluate possible environmental impacts” of harvesting wind. One of the articles also mentioned that newer turbines are larger and slower than their predecessors so they pose a significantly less threat to wildlife, so why all the fuss about a supposed bird slaughter now? Perhaps big oil companies (ExxonMobile, BP, Texaco, etc.) are trying to propagate against the use of cleaner fuels in order to keep a stranglehold on the entire economy of the world that we live in. I’m not saying, I’m just saying.

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=69879
http://news.bostonherald.com/national/view.bg?articleid=198383

New 08-29-06:

Recently, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) convention in Prague decided that Pluto no longer qualifies as a planet but is a “dwarf planet”. This pisses me off. Why would they demote Pluto so that we now only have eight planets in our Solar System? Thousands of textbooks are going to have to be changed in the near future, not to mention the countless acronyms that are going to have to be read learned by many small children! The downgrading of Pluto will become a drain on the entire world’s economy. Many schools will not be able to afford new textbooks, thus, creating generations upon generations of children who become mildly confused to whether Pluto is a planet or not. These children will then grow up doubting whether the information from textbooks is accurate! This lack of trust in textbooks will stupefy them and also spill over into real life, leaving them cowardly and with no self-confidence for the rest of their lives. All because a bunch of jerk scientists decided that Pluto wasn’t “cool” enough to be a planet.

Update 08-31-06: 

Pluto was also the only planet discovered by an American, coincidence? I think not.

New 08-31-06: Kenny's Response

In response to Pluto being demoted from planet to random chunk of ice and rock in space, I have uncovered yet another conspiracy. I believe wholeheartedly that if one digs to the bottom of this “investigation” into what a planet really is you will find that the people who are pushing for this demotion are Hughes-Hallett, Prentice Hall and McMurray. That's right, the monopolies that publish and then promptly gouge college students to buy textbooks. Why, because they can put out a 14th edition of “Introduction to University Astronomy.” Thus reducing the buy back value and ending the market for that used textbook.