What is wrong with our country?

Undoubtedly this question has a myriad of answers, not the least of which would be our (read: our president's) penchant for war and unnecessary spending. I don't have the exact figures for how much we've spent on war under the Bush adminstration, but I'm fairly certain it's in the billions somewhere.

Recently I was doing some morning reading online and I decided to read more about Honda's humanoid robot, ASIMO. For those of you that don't know, this is a robot that is so advanced it can recognize up to 10 human faces, even if those humans are in motion, and remember them by name. Furthermore, it can connect via a network (wirelessly, I presume) to get more information about them - perhaps this person's schedule, or other handy information. In other words, Honda has already created a viable personal robotic assistant. Sounds like science fiction, doesn't it?

Over the last couple of decades, Japan has been a leader in all things technology. With companies like Sony, Toshiba, Pioneer, and Honda, they have literally dominated the new technology market as well as spearheaded innovative research.

It seems as though Japan has almost become a Utopia for what human life should be. Nonstop technological innovation without concentrating on what the rest of the world is doing and what they can do to play international babysitter. They are making the worlds of Isaac Asimov and Stanley Kubrick a reality while we've been building the next missile to rain destruction by remote control.

Japan hasn't had a war in half a century. America hasn't stopped getting involved in wars since then. I want to get a figure on how much America has spent on wars in the past 50 years and compare it with how much Honda has spent on developing ASIMO. I bet it would be staggering to see how much we put into the destruction of life versus technological innovation.

I think it's damn embarrassing that we have shown that we can put a robot on Mars for $230 million, yet we plunge billions into our war efforts. I can only hope the next president we elect will have a new vision for this country.