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Summit Up

Summit Up

Good morning and welcome to Summit Up, the world’s only daily column inviting everyone in Summit Up Land to a party – tonight, at Tiger Run RV Resort. Bring all the beer, women and Twister game mats you can get your hands on.(Sorry, this is a sort of personal joke here. Ma and Pa Summit Up, who wander the world in one of those big, honkin’ RVs – the kind you always seem to get stuck behind on Swan Mountain Road or Hoosier Pass – are in town visiting. And (we hope) they’re reading our column since they’re here. So we just thought they’d appreciate us inviting all of our readers to a wild, blow-out party at their rig. We won’t even have to tell you which one it is; you’ll notice it’s the one rockin’, with Snoop Dogg blasting on the stereo inside.)If you can’t make it to the shin-dig, tonight, don’t worry. They’ll no doubt just keep on partying all week.***OK, let’s talk about something all of our readers (and not just our parents) can relate to. Like penal colonies.No, we’re not talking about those e-mail spam things you keep getting about increasing your size, we’re talking about, well, places like Australia. Well, how it used to be anyway.See, we were discussing these news reports lately about how Martha Stewart is going to have such a hard time in prison, and how all sorts of people are using her impending incarceration to point out the fact that our nation’s correctional facilities are understaffed, dangerous places, and how we need to reform them, etc., etc., blah, blah, blah.To which we respond: Hey, it’s a prison. Do your best not to get sent there.But this got us thinking about something you just don’t see anymore: penal colonies.Instead of all us good, law-abiding taxpayers footing the bill to feed, house, clothe and medically care for some of these ne’er-do-wells, why aren’t we just dropping them on an island? Everybody loves to spend their evenings watching these crappy reality TV shows where the contestants get plopped on an island and have to learn to deal with each other. Why not up the stakes a little bit by A) sending people we never plan on taking off the island and, 2) sending people who may very well end up eating each other? That’s what you call entertainment, are we right?But are our elected leaders coming up with brilliant ideas like this – the kind that save taxpayers money and provide them with quality television programming? Noooooooo. What were Edwards and Cheney debating about last night? The economy, national security, health care. Blah, blah, blah. Nobody wants to talk about the real issues. Like penal colonies.***We’re out getting scolded by Ma and Pa Summit Up …


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