O M G - AWESOME

NATIONAL PARK QUARTERS!!!!!!

I am so excited.  Look here.  America's National Parks are so awesome.  I would love it is every national park/reserve/marine/tree had a quarter I would so collect them all.

I have visited every national park I can.  Whenever I am on a trip and we pass a national park we have to stop.  Even at one I never knew existed: Minuteman Missile National Park.  (Which by the way it totally worth it if you are driving across South Dakota.)  Whenever I plan a road trip or trip in general the first thing I do is pull up nps.gov and see all the parks on the way.  Then I pull up the national grasslands, national marine reserves, national forests, etc. then I plan my trip.  (National Volcanic sites are cool too.  I even visited a small national park in Seattle, I was walking down the road with my wife and we saw the national park shield and I was like WTF.  There is a national park in Seattle.)

My favorite National Parks:  (Not in order.)

• Yellowstone
• Death Valley
• Olympic

I do have one complaint though.  (I know surprise surprise.)  I feel frustrated that like 5 government departments run the 'National '.  For instance there is no place to go to research National Parks, Grasslands, Volcanic Monuments, Monuments, Marine Reserve, Forest, Historical Place, etc.  I feel like they should all be under the same umbrella.  If the government ever listens to me I would like to add that I would call it, "United States Department of AWESOME".  :-)

A Rare Point of Clarity

So in all the mess of Health Care the democrats have done something semi-respectible: abandoned 'Deem and Pass'.  What a stupid way to legislate.  However it has brought to the forefront that this has been used multiple times.  Maybe now that the public is more aware of this there will be more outrage in the future over its use.  What is amazing to me is through all of this I have learned how many stupid rules there are that can be bent to ones will when making laws.  Anyway looks like the vote is soon but in the mire of this crap at least some form of intelligence has shown through.  (I say that about both sides of hte debate.  Both sides have done stupid things.  We really need reform just not the current 'reform' which isn't really reform at all.  However we can't keep the status quo because it is really hurting people.)

The Earthquake Map

So I have a great website for you to visit:  here.

This is such an awesome mash-up of information.  It is amazing how well presented it is.  Additionally all of this information is online.  Yes.  Here, from the government no less.  I know it is a common perception that I think the government can do nothing right.  (Which is wrong.)  I just believe the government should do as little as possible.  This is an example of something that society can benefit from.  Here is a website about earthquakes that can be used by scientists and scholars for years to study earthquakes.  So here you go, an example of good government spending (however I won't comment on whether the cost is worth it, but) at least $0.00001 of my money is going to something I enjoy using.