NASA to Dump Billions into Space

WASHINGTON DC -- The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is preparing a plan to send three billion dollars in hard currency into space. Using a couple of spare booster rockets and some jet fuel, the space exploration organization wants to send up the money in denominations of $10 and $20 to see how the paper reacts to a low gravity environment.

“We think it might show us new things about ourselves and the planet on which we live,” explained NASA Administrator, Micheal D. Griffin. “By scattering greenbacks in lower earth orbit, we could make any number of beneficial discoveries from improved counterfeit controls to ozone layer protection.”

$3 billion represents more than 15% of NASA's annual budget, but that hardly phases Griffin. “It's for a good cause,” he intones, adding that as long as the shuttle fleet is taking its time becoming obsolete, the space agency needs to have some place to put its money. “Congress is perpetually willing to increase our budget if we feel we need more funds and another appropriation is likely just around the corner; this money isn't lost.”

Griffin is not the only space explorer happy about the money dump. Richard B. Virgin, an entrepreneur from the Silicon Valley in California and founder of SpaceTwo, a shuttle fleet that already has endorsements from Wal-Mart, Starbucks and Honey Oats, sees a great business opportunity. Virgin has a plan to send “resource harvesters” into low earth orbit to harvest NASA's “donation;” he feels that as long as he launches before any competition has a chance to clean out the “stash,” he will make a good profit.

Nigeria's Science and Technology Minister Turner Isoun wants to beat Virgin to the chase, using his country's new shuttle technology. “This is a great thing for America to do for the impoverished people of Nigeria,” Isoun said in a written statement. “It is so much better for us than public and private food aid, debt relief, infrastructure assistance, medical aid, golden rice drops or any of the other many things America has given us over the decades. I only hope we get there before those evil capitalists do.”

NASA, meanwhile, is concerned that treasure hunters may ruin the experiment. “The idea is to see how much money we can pump into the solar system,” said NASA's Deputy Administrator Shana Dale. “If private enterprise is removing it just as quickly, it kind of defeats the purpose.”

Not every proponent of the dump has scientific motives. Ziggy Lennon, a space rights activist from Eugene Oregon who cultivates his organic hair to waist length, wants to use the funds to appease aliens. We caught up with Lennon for a sit down interview where he told us, between puffs of a brown leafy substance that did not smell like tobacco, that “if we are going to be attacked, and all the signs say we will, we should try to buy off their weaker members. NASA's decision is exactly what we need. I've waited all my life to see this money go up. A great defense posture.”

NASA is making final inspections on the rockets and launch pad to ensure that there are no malfunctions on takeoff. Said Griffin with the kind of seriousness only a NASA Administrator can muster, “we wouldn't want that much money to go to waste.”

Little people in fur coats

The lady from whom we adopted our cat looked devious enough to make David Copperfield look like honest Abe. She told us, "this little ball of fur is just one big bundle of fun. She'll be more fun when she gets fur." And the amazing part is that we believed her. Sure, a few weeks later, she had a little fuzz, but she wasn't any more fun. The only difference between then and now is the amount of destruction she causes. We still rue the day we adopted the little monster. As feline lovers say, cats are just little people in fur coats.

When we first brought her home, she was litter box trained. Sort of. After the first three accidents, we decided to lock her in the bathroom at night. Of course, SOMEONE had to leave the seat up. Apparently cats don't see as well in the dark as the experts claim. The next morning we had a very wet, stinky kitten. An easy explanation was immediately apparent, but an investigation is ongoing. Obviously even the fuzzy little people aren't always as observant as they need to be. As they say, cats are just little people in fur coats.

We named the cat "Tess" because Bessie is too traditional and Tessie sounds like a kind of axle grease. Anyway Tess loves to drink out of the faucet. She'll hop on the counter and meow and meow until someone comes and turns on the water. Even after we give her a drink, she will countinue to purr and rub against the faucet. A few months ago, after showing our off our cat's "drinking skills," a friend told us that letting cats drink out of the faucet allows them to get air bubbles in their stomach, which will eventually cause them to become sick. No worries we said. After all, she never gotten sick before. Apparently, my friend jinxed us. A few day later Tess left a gift for us at the top of the stairs. We haven't let her drink out of the faucet since. She didn't handle the withdrawal so well. Even now, she still sits on the counter staring at the silvery faucet. Apparently, even the fuzzy little people have trouble breaking addictions. As they say, cats are just little people in fur coats.

Although you wouldn't know from the outside of our house, our family is very big on Christmas decorating. We don't drown our yard in lights, but we do enjoy putting up our indoor decorating in celebration of Christ's birth. Apparently, Tess does not. On her first "decorating day" a few years ago, she watched in horror as we exchanged her soft couch blanket for a itchy Christmas quilt. We then moved her scratching post (which also happens to be our end table) and replaced it with our tree. On top of that, we took away her favorite blue food dish and put a snowman bowl in its place. Happy with our work, (and completely oblivious to our cat's malcontent) we high-fived one another and went to bed. That night we awoke to the crash of a falling Christmas tree. After turning on the lights, we realized how unhappy our kitty was with the new house arrangments. After much careful cleaning up of the broken ornaments, torn garland and chewed snowmen, we went back to bed. We decided to give kitty her way, and we did not replace any of the Christmas decorations that year (with the exception, of course, of the tree).

Yesterday was "decorating day." Last night the Tess confusion returned to our otherwise peaceful household. You can fill in the blanks. After much careful cleaning up of the broken glass balls, torn tree beads, and chewed angels, we realized that tolerance, would not come with our cat's maturity. Tomorrow we plan to replace the broken Christmas decorations, although we will probably keep the three wise men high on the mantel, and the snowmen and angels out of her reach. Even the fuzzy little people need to learn to accept change. As they say, cats are just little people in fur coats.

My family has learned a lot from Tess's mistakes. Even the fuzzy little people aren't perfect.

An Apology

A torrent of readers have contacted us since we posted our press release about the Bureau of Savage Affairs, to demand an apology. Most have reached us through email to complain about the “racist” and “hegemonic” outlook this site is propagating against savage indians. The emails got to be so many that we weren't able to conduct normal correspondence. One FCN member even lost an email from his girlfriend in the mess and has since taken extraordinary measures to rectify his relationship, including forcing me to write this apology.

I lost my temper while writing the news story. I was in class trying to write and I got heckled and I took it badly and went into a rage and wrote some pretty nasty things about Native Americans; a lot of trash talk.

You know, I’m really busted up over this and I’m very, very sorry to those people in the reading audience, the blacks, the Jews, the Hispanics, the Indians, the Chinese, the whites – everyone that took the brunt of that anger and hate and rage and how it came through, and I’m concerned about more hate and more rage and more anger coming through, not just towards me but towards a red/white conflict. There’s a great deal of disturbance in this country and how savages feel about what happened in Little Big Horn and in the late 1800s, and, you know, many of the writers and reporters have tried to handle this and for this to happen, for me to flip out and write this crap, you know, I’m deeply, deeply sorry.

And I’ll get to the force field of this hostility, why it’s there, why the rage is in any of us, why the trash takes place, whether or not it’s between me and the folks at the BSA or between this country and the Indian nation, the rage...

You know, I’m a writer. I push the envelope, I work in a very uncontrolled manner. I do a lot of free association, it’s spontaneous, I write in my bathrobe. I don’t know, in view of the situation and the hubbub in the press conference, I don’t know, the rage did go all over the place.

It went to reach everybody who read the post. But you can’t – you know it’s, I don’t – I know people could, Indians could feel – I’m not a racist, that’s what so insane about this, and yet it’s said, it comes through, it fires out of me, even now in the passion that’s here as I confront myself.

Oh yeah, and I'm sorry for saying “crap”

Correction

A recent post about the 1 month anniversary of LLFCN had two notable errors:

First, yesterday was not the 1 month anniversary. Today is.

Second, LLFCN does not have one hundred and forty-three members. To be honest, we only have one.

We realize that this is the second time in as many weeks that Funny Class Notes has had to make a severe retraction/correction/apology, and we also realize this puts us in the Very Unreliable category. In fact, it puts in the Shameless Liars category.

But we also want to say that we know we've been bad, and we are really, really sorry about it. We wouldn't blame you if you closed this window right now and walked away from FCN forever. And we realize you have no reason to trust us when we say this, but from now on, we're committed to greater transparency and accountability with our posting. Starting today, for instance, we will have a public hit counter so it will be impossible to lie about our traffic.

Again, we want to stress that we are really, extremely, super-sorry. We've been bad little boys and we promise not to do it again if you give us one last chance.

Drink Responsibly

While we don't condone heavy drinking, the fact that this is the 73rd anniversary of the repealing of prohibition is noteworthy. Plus we're two years from the diamond anniversary.