OMG, are they serious?

On Friday morning, Random wrote in her blog:

my gut reaction: OMG, are they serious? They applied for more government money without showing any progress on the private donor front? And they expect us stupid Iowans just to look the other way? Yet, I shouldn't be surprised. They've been condescending at best from the beginning.

Great point. I'd enjoy reading a further analysis.

I am still intrigued by Dr Ted Stilwell's acid flashback whereby he suggested that people might want to pay $42 a night to camp out in that rainforest dome thingee.

# 1 - You have to be pretty loony to think that the rainforest is going to be built for only $180 million and that the 4000+ people, on average, per day would shell out $15 a pop in order to make this beast pay for itself over the long term.

# 2 - You have to be even crazier to think that once the thing is built that there would be an appropriate amount of mature staff on hand to let groups camp out under that dome. I mean, shoot, if I got the chance to sleep in a dirty, humid, bug-and-bird infested rainforest, I'd definitely be bringing some cold ones and certainly some spliff. And I'd be peeing all over the rhododendrons in the middle of the night. Maybe even running around naked and beating my chest while chirping like a monkey.

# 3 - You have to be totally insane to get to the place where you've come up with a dollar figure for such an experience. $42 is the price point. You've got to wonder how many hours weeks were spent coming to that figure. They probably called every motel up and down First Avenue in Coralville, got the regular posted room rate that nobody ever pays, avearged it out, and then made it a dollar less.

The thing is that Dr Ted Stilwell was once the Director of the Iowa Department of Education. This is the kind of person put in charge of Iowa's public schools at one time: a complete friggin idiot.