Colosso, Day 9. Miltia Division begins.

So, we begin a new division today, Miltia Division. Remember:

IMPORTANT NOTE: This weekend, I shall be away, but will probably still be able to update the contest battles. However, I will not be able to update the leaderboard from Friday night thru the weekend. The leaderboard will recap everything on Monday night.

We begin with Battle 1, which starts off with KOS-MOS from the Xenosaga games, the first of which released on the PS2 in 2003 (US). She will face Mallow, from an SNES classic: Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars, which released in 1996.

VS.

Miltia Division, Round 1, Battle 1
	(1) KOS-MOS (Xenosaga)
	(32) Mallow (Mario RPG)
Free polls from Pollhost.com

Battle 2 consists of Roy, from the Fire Emblem series from Nintendo, facing off against Ryu from the SNES release of Breath of Fire.

VS.

Miltia Division, Round 1, Battle 2
	(17) Roy (Fire Emblem)
	(16) Ryu (Breath of Fire)
Free polls from Pollhost.com

Tomorrow (hopefully): (9) Serge (Chrono Cross) vs. (24) Dehuai (Shadow Hearts); (25) Wu (Jade Empire) vs. (8) Eirika (Fire Emblem).

Fresh head!

Usually I don't get political on the ol' LJ, but I feel that this warrants such an occasion. While I don't like our current president, I had some tiny glimmer of hope that he would do something that would please the American public for once--back something that most of us support.

So the man uses his first veto to kill funding for continued stem-cell research. Apparently the man doesn't care about curing chronic and terminal illness, is what I glean from it. Reading up on stem-cell research, I came to realize that it was a wonderful thing--the embryos are donated (because they're going to be thrown into the trash anyway) and scientists figure out what can be done with stem cells, which could mean finding ways to cure illnesses that have no cure yet.

Ah, the joys of mixing religion and politics--the man is opposed to it solely on moral ground, no scientific backing at all. Every time someone wants to do something positive for society, it gets shot down because of reasons that are totally unscientific or have no real practical backing--take the Cape Cod Wind Farm project, for example. A group in Massachusetts wants to set up a series of windmills off Nantucket Island to provide electricity for nearly the entire Cape. Scientifically speaking, it's very sound and very plausible. The reasons why it's facing such stiff opposition: Senator Edward Kennedy complained that the windmills will destroy and obstruct his view from his Nantucket summer home. Some people claim that it will kill tourism. BULLSHIT. I'd go to the Cape specifically to see them in action. People claim that it will kill off countless birds. Fossil fuels kill more birds than windmills. Here's a chance for Cape Cod to save over $25 million a year from the oil they wouldn't have to use, and people are complaining that the windmills will destroy their views from their rich summer homes. Bastards. Religion and politics usually are having sex with each other, and often times, it never turns out good. If faced with a decision where I had cold, hard scientific fact over a possible faith-based deity that may or may not exist, I'd go with the facts.

It's very sad that our President, in essence, said fuck you to the American public, to the scientific community who is nearly unanimous in supporting the research. He's done it so many times before, but the fact that he used his first veto to kill something that most of see as positive just makes him an asshole. Even more so. It's also sad that our Congress couldn't override said veto, the House falling 50 votes short of the 2/3 majority needed to send it to the Senate for overriding.

And the funny part? We (in the general, all-encompassing sense) voted for each and every idiot in office. Alas, we have no one to blame but ourselves. We voted them in, and here's the mess it brings us. We voted them in, and now we bitch and moan about every fuck up they have done, every time they ram the proverbial pole up the ass of the American public--that's a pretty big pole to ram up 300 million peoples' asses. Yet, it's being done on a daily basis. This is an election year for many representatives of the House--I hope we are wiser this time around, because clearly, we weren't on the last go-around.

[/end political rant]