The Headlines (not verbatim): American Obesity costs the US Government & US Health System $75 Billion US/year: Obesity rates are on the rise in the United States, with over two thirds of Americans are now over-weight or obese. Health officials blame the Bush administration for ignoring American health issues and cutting programs their were set in place to reduce obesity and reduce the costs of obesity. The programs Bush cut would have reduced costs by half. Obesity now costs the American taxpayer $400 US per year. Street violence is also on the rise the United States: In the year 2003, the United States had a record number of deaths from drive-by-killings, car-bombings, murders and assault. The number of fatal shootings alone is 12% higher than last year. Police officials blame cut-backs by the Bush Administration which limits the number of police officers that they can hire, meaning that officers are retiring and they are not being replaced. The violence is escalated by a record number of "racial attacks" on Arabs & Muslims. The US National Debt has now reached over $7 Trillion ($7,010,615,780,938.84). The debt currently rises approximately $2 billion per day: In contrast, Bill Clinton paid down the US National Debt by $360 billion to the level of $5.4 Trillion US, and managed to create an economic boom at the same time with positive changes to the market. Upon leaving the White House, Clinton also disclosed that the United States was on its way towards a $1 trillion budget surplus, but Bush wasted this surplus by giving tax-cuts for the rich. George W. Bush increased the debt by over $1.6 Trillion with tax cuts for the rich and two major wars, both of which have been unjustified with actual evidence of wrongdoing (the Taliban didn't have Osama bin Laden and there is no proof that he was in Afghanistan (indeed he is likely in Turkey, America's ally country), and Iraq still doesn't have any weapons of mass destruction). If you divide that debt by the population of the United States, then every US man, woman and child effectively has a $24,000 US debt. At the current rate, by the time Bush leaves office (or is re-elected) the US National debt will rise to $7.37 Trillion (which will bring that personal debt up to $25,000). Bush's administration will have added $2 trillion in debt by that time. Lastly, over 3 million Americans have lost their jobs since Bush took office and are now on some form of social welfare: So lets get this straight, the United States is going to be filled with out-of-work, trigger-happy violent fat people with over $25,000 in debt. So what GOOD things has Bush actually done? Well, he opened the flood-gates for Latin-Americans immigrating to the United States. This is a good thing in the long-run, because it will increase North-South American trade and increase the economies of countries like Brazil & Argentina. And if he gets funding from Congress, the United States is going to send astronauts to Mars (which will cost Americans another $3 trillion and bring the national debt to over $10 trillion). Which means Bush will have DOUBLED the National Debt in only 4 years. I am certainly in favour of this, despite the fact that the US economy will suffer because of it. Space exploration is something all mankind should endeavour towards. And to think, Bush promised to pay down the debt... He promised to create jobs. He promised to boost the economy. He promised to fight terror with war. He promised to capture Osama bin Laden. He promised to find "weapons of mass destruction". So the question is: Is Bush stupid? Is he just incompetent? Or does he lie about everything, including his motives for war? In other news, the cost of oil is now $51.01 per crude barrel (as of October 6th/2004).