Doing the jobs no one else will do

Mexico set to join space race:

Flying Burrito Brothers

Mexican lawmakers are in the process of setting up a national space agency, according to Reuters. The lower house in Mexico City has given the green light to a proposal that could see rocketry in development within the year.

Must be some spare change south of the border.

The initial outlay would be just $2m, about enough for an inflatable globe and a bottle rocket, but it's a start. The early days of the agency will concentrate on developing technology and working with universities and industry on satellite launches.

Not everyone's keen on the idea. Ruling group the National Action Party voted against the move, saying the cash would be better spent on trying to tackle widespread poverty.

Explain to 'em how they could use rockets to deliver illegal aliens over the border and they'll come around.

Send for some professional educators - we're having a lineup down at the jail

Interested-Participant lately has been chronicling the news of what passes for education in today's American schools and that, of course, wouldn't be complete without reports on teachers, er, "getting it on" with their students. A couple recent faves:

Teacher Accused of Sexually Abusing and Piercing Students

A 32-year-old special education teacher at McHenry West High School, Laura Sieradzki, has been accused of having sex with a 17-year-old male student and piercing two female students' bodies in an "inappropriate area." I'm guessing it wasn't the cafeteria.

Arkansas Teacher Accused of Sex with Boy

A spokesperson for the Malvern Police Department said Henderson and the boy met at the school and subsequently had sexual intercourse. At first, Henderson denied the accusations but changed her tune when police let her listen to some recorded telephone messages she left for the boy. Her response was a simple, "Damn!"

It's all Bush's fault, but no word on women and minorities

Huge dip in U.S. deaths startles experts:

In what appears to be an amazing success for American medicine, preliminary government figures released Wednesday showed that the annual number of deaths in the U.S. dropped by nearly 50,000 in 2004 -- the biggest decline in nearly 70 years.

The 2 percent decrease, reported by the National Center for Health Statistics, came as a shock to many, because the U.S. is aging, growing in population and getting fatter.

And there's more pollution, more junk food, more global warming, more tainted water, more dead fish, more SUVs. and more general willfullness on the part of the American citizenry in not listing to their betters who really know what's good for them. Gotta love it.