So, I’ll throw out a couple of points, then I'll move on to the meat of things.
A) Tom Tancredo is a douche.
B) Mitt Romney is a panderer.
C) Ron Paul will never win the nomination, or the general election.
D) Holy Jumpin' Jesus Christ - "do you believe what the Bible says?"
D) Tom Tancredo is a douche.
All I got out of Romney all night was that he wants to be the Republican nominee. I say that because his performance was a performance, and that it was Hilary-esque. He seems to spew out focus group commentary and positively-polled tidbits more than he speaks his mind. Maybe I’m bowled over by the flip-flopping… who knows. I do know that I’m not going to vote for any of these clowns, with the exception of perhaps Guliani or Paul, and it has to do with their stance on marriage equality as much or more than it does with anything else. If the God to which you pray dictates inequality, then he/she/it is… well… hateful and divisive.
AND we’re back from that digression to point out that Romney took some random ass question and steered it directly into support for Iowa’s burgeoning energy sector. I dislike few things more than panderers. I want a grown up in the Oval Office—not some electoral taint-licking ass-kisser. (Somewhat redundant, I know, but ‘taint-licking’ doesn’t really slam home the ass-kissing element I wanted to get in there.)
NOTE: I’m low on coffee, so this is going to be a tad muted and slightly less witty than it otherwise would be.
CNN and Youtube are dumb for letting that twit show up with her lead-in-toys question. Who doesn’t support consumer protection? (Well, as Republicans have the schlongs of big business in their pockets, they are less inclined to than the Dems, but I don’t think either is out to choke, poison, or otherwise harm your children.) Thanks, guys. If you were worried about the mommy/wifey-not-interested-in-real-politics being bored and changing the channel then maybe you scored. If you were looking to increase my scorn for the political activity of mommy/wifey-not-interested-in-real-politics, then you really did score. I want my government to govern, not to explain minutiae to erstwhile-ignorami. (That is a real word… I did have to check though.)
Tom Tancredo, the afore-labeled douche, did make a good point with that whole buy-Chinese-and-they’ll-arm-themselves-to-the-teeth bent he went off on. Cheap shit comes from China. Americans like, and buy a lot of cheap shit. China is a rising military power. The government puts the money they get from the toys (both leaded and unleaded) into building up their military. The rate of increase of military spending is kind of scary, but we still outspend the hell out of them and we’re technologically more-than-a-tad better off than they are.
Regarding the whole employers of illegals discussion, I’ll go ahead and say that they’re all a bunch of pansies who are afraid of scaring off the Latino vote. There should be a national database (um, like one administered by the Social Security Administration perhaps) of… let’s say “Tax IDs”… and employers should have near-instant access to them. You apply for a job, you shit an ID. The ID is cross referenced with data from this fictional database and you hire or REPORT the applicant. Yes, I did say REPORT. To just say “um, you’re illegal and I can’t hire you” is kind of a bunch of bullshit.
Now Jed Bartlett told me that the ACLU is a noble organization, and almost solely for his reasons I agree. I’m a big fan of the Constitution (at present) and a huge fan of the Bill of Rights. That being said, I don’t identify with the privacy concerns raised in protest to this little ditty of an idea. I mean, if what the SSA does now is legal, then how is this any different? I know it’s not too far off from a “Papers, please” stance, but I get carded for a lot of shit. I trust those monkeys running things to safeguard my information and to not abuse it. That doesn’t always work out for me, but I have to trust them to a point (or join the revolution, and I’m not up to that at this point).
I don’t know the full breadth and depth of immigration policy and law. I do know we let people in, and we let people become citizens. I’m not going to put out my entire stance on immigration, but I will say that given that there are legal means, I have little to no patience with those who elect to employ illegal means. Simplistic: yes. The whole story: no. But I’m not going to go into that right now.
I say this mostly because I have more ridiculousness to wade through. Romney is an idiot. He’s running for the Republican nomination in America, and he chokes on whether or not he believes every word in the Bible. Clearly, his pre-debate coaches thought that the response he threw out worked. Hell, they probably polled it out and had to have been happy enough with the numbers to let him choke it out on international television. This particular moment in the debate is one of the reasons why Romney was the loser.
Guliani kind of nailed what I think a reasonable, rational person would think. Whether that plays with the Konservative Kristian Kfolks (um… bad, I know) or not remains to be seen. He’s not Jesus-enough for a lot of people, but life goes on.
Do you believe this book (bible)? Romney chokes. Guliani gets it good. Christian Conservatives should like what Huckabee had to say.
McCain and torture is still an emotional experience for me. I didn’t break down with the sniffles or succumb to outright bawling, but I’m 100% behind him on this one. I’ve never been tortured. I’ve been brainwashed a little here and there [this is the part for those who might be inclined to put their mental two cents in… okay, playtime’s over] but never tortured. In theory, I’m all about subjecting murderers, etc. to bad things to make them spill plans, confess, divulge contacts, and so on. There are problems with this. 1) Not everyone who we think is guilty is guilty. B) Coercive methodologies we employ are somewhat justifiably viewed as legitimate means to the bad guys themselves. iii) In the eyes of some people, we are the bad guys, so how can we argue with them when they do the same to ‘guilty’ soldiers and marines they capture? To me, it’s kind of a catch-22 type situation, so the math tells me that we just shouldn’t torture. That and some hard core soldier-defender-of-freedom guy thinks it’s a bad idea too.
The Panderer went off about not defining torture. There is some legitimacy to that line of argument, but he screwed up his presentation and came off as a boob. I don’t think we should publicly define what torture is, but I think it should be defined. Um, wait, I think it is. McCain said something about a field manual or something like that. If he’s cool with that little book, I am too.
Ron Paul will never be president. Too bad, in some ways. He’s making some good points, and the following is one of my favorites. Get out of Iraq, because if somebody came over here and threw down a bunch of armored vehicles, guns, and soldiers, if they set up checkpoints and their privately contracted security agencies gunned down innocents on an apparently regular basis, if the theoretical version of L. Paul Bremer came in and screwed up our government, if they set up checkpoints and curtailed the shit out of our activities, if they did all this and more, we’d probably fuck them up pretty bad. We’d have an insurgency, you know, like the one we threw down in the latter part of the 18th century. I’m all for spreading freedom and democracy, but The Idiot Boy King has really botched that one up. He’s diplomatically incompetent, and courtesy of him, Uncle Dick, and W.C. (War Criminal) Rumsfeld we’ve pretty much hosed the forceful spreading of it too. Let’s take off the training wheels and let Iraq ride their wobbly bicycle of freedom off into the sunset.
Finally, Keith Kerr. Tom 'the Douche' Tancredo definitely proved the worth of his candidacy on this one… candidacy for taking a long walk off a short bridge. This asshat said that we shouldn’t expose the largely conservatively valued military to the deviance and debauchery of homosexuality. You know, because we shouldn’t ask them to compromise their morals by having to serve with dirty gay people. I guess he’s right there, because we’ve already asked them to compromise their morals enough by telling them to kill people. Or, they’re just fukt-in-the-head homicidal maniacs so killing people isn’t a big deal, but God-help-them if they have to serve with homos.
Surprisingly, Biblical Mike came out with the most valid viewpoint of the candidates. He offered that as homosexuality is perceived by the ranks to be less and less an "unacceptable risk to the high standards of morale, good order and discipline, and unit cohesion," that homosexuals be allowed to serve openly as to who they are. Caught me off guard with that one...
I don't know what the numbers are, but being gay is used as an out. Pacifism/religion having become increasingly hard to use to the same end, service-members looking to welch out on their contractual obligations are turning towards members of the same sex for relief.
McCain, in a demonstration of the narrow view plaguing so many in power, said that some panel of generals thought the policy was going well. Well, hum-dee-doo! A bunch of old, white men thought that a needless, discriminatory policy reinforcing their sense of morality was working! Put that one on the wires! To be fair, I'm sure that there were studies and surveys and all of that clap-trap. (Why waste a chance to eat up some tax-payer dollars, especially when you can blame it on the homos!) What was the margin between intolerance for other than heterosexuality and women? Minorities? People with crappy English? (Yes, there are more than a few in the service.) Officers? Senior enlisted? People with college-educations? Smokers? People with smelly feet? People who don't bathe as frequently as often as they should, or are able? People who snore? In-your-face Christians? I bet there was a lot less tolerance for these than for marital infidelity. Hmm. So is that how we're going to make the determination of the policy-driven course of morality in this country? Yeah, back in the fifties I'm sure that de-segregation polled well too.
All in all, there's a good candidate in the bunch, IMHO. Unfortunately, you'd have to hack and saw at individual policies, outlooks, and beliefs to get him put together. White, male, elder, heterosexual, (mostly) (publicly) Christian him. Oh well. Wait... I wonder if it's considered torture to do that?
-S.W. America
28 November 2007
27 November 2007
Hope.
Make sure you have the audio on. Click here. I haven't read The Audacity of Hope. I figure it's a 'blah blah blah (vote for me) blah blah blah', and I have better things to do with my time than peruse some emotional appeal to my vote. That and I'm illiterate, so I can't read it.
Let me paint you a picture. Africa. It's not all jungles and huts, people in loincloths or 20 year old used t-shirts. It's cities. It's townships. It's paved roads, dirt roads, some electricity. It's a land where 'party lines' are still the mode of telephonic communication in a lot of places. Yes, some places don't have a phone.
Find some previously starry-eyed idealist that spent a time in their folly-filled youth trying to better the world by spending some time teaching in the peace corps. Hell, even ask someone who spent some time doing missionary work. If they give you a bunch of claptrap about the heathen masses and the wonder of their conversion to this random loving God or another, listen through it, then ask about what life is really like.
It's life. It's different. In some ways it's better. It's simpler in a lot of ways, even though there are some things you might not be able to comprehend. It's worse in some ways too, and some of the simplicity falls into that category too. A great deal of the educational system falls into that realm of worseness. Africa is the dark continent when it comes to education. Southern Asia is getting better by leaps and bounds as far as I can tell, dragged upward by local and regional economies (yes, a tacit statement of belief in some aspects of trickle-down theory).
By and large, Africa doesn't enjoy the same experience. In a round of new colonialism, this time economic, nation-states are being pillaged by countries hungry for raw materials. Like the countries molested for oil in the forties and fifties and given disadvantageous, long-term contracts with giant big-oil multi-nationals, African nations today effectively piss away their apparently best source of capital due to a lack of human and physical infrastructure. Big-bad-evil China has swung in and turned a blind eye to conditions that the civilized world pressures its multi-nationals to stay away from--by one means or another.
The moral of this part of the story is that what revenues these countries do get are spent on other needed (and not needed) budgetary items of interest. In most cases, it's just self-serving to the administration of the day (reference: Venezuela), and in a way very American. It's short-sighted.
Step to the page linked above. I didn't even watch the whole thing. I got to the picture where the teacher is holding a laptop up in front of the class with a page about the human eye on it. I was struck. I'd like to end that sentence with a 'with...' but I don't have the words. To borrow from Hollywood: they should have sent a poet.
I went to school in Africa. I lived in a relatively affluent country (excluding oil-rich states) yet the textbooks were, for the most part, ancient. They were remnants and cast-offs of the imperial mother (England) and better off (more advanced) countries (South Africa). While the text-book industry in this country makes me nauseous, being the racket that it is, it's a behemoth. It's a lot of money and a lot of experience. (It's also a lot of vested interests, back room negotiations, and payoffs--but we're not here to talk about that.) There's just not sufficient market pressure (and the socio-political climate for the market to work its majiks, in some cases) to make it happen.
Enter the $100 laptop. Throw it together with some sort of satellite internet (DirecWay Africa?) or other connectivity, a solar charging station, a LCD projector, and a few laptops--the thought of what could change in a generation makes me want to cry (tears of happiness). I can't say that I've ever been as hopeful about the world as I am in the face of this. Think of the change of the state of education in a generation. With Wikipedia alone, errors notwithstanding, classrooms across the continent-indeed the world-all jump to essentially the same level of access of information as US classrooms. Even peasant farmers in some backwater province of central and eastern Asia... their children herd goats with switches cut from trees by morning and learn about the wide world of ruminants... and what a ruminant is... by afternoon. In a generation... think of the expansion of their worlds.
Arguably, it may be an expansion into an appreciation for all the things they can't have, and probably won't have in their lifetimes. To this: p'sha! Ideas can lead to dreams, and dreams can lead to realities. Think of the cultural revolution in America in the sixties and the wideness of the world we live in today. Again, the DAs out there could and should point out that not all of it has been great. There's some study out there that demonstrates a positive correlation between high GDP per capita and dissatisfaction and anxiety concerning life in general. I sure as hell don't trust the government, and wonder if I have any say in the evility it skulks around perpetrating on a daily basis.
Yes, yes, yes. It's a big, mean world we live in. It's a wonderful one too, and though we often do-we shouldn't forget that. I think it is human to want what others have that one does not have-to be envious-but I think the pervasiveness and legitimacy of envy is more American a concept and identity than we might be aware, and might like. The American Dream lives, obviously, or we wouldn't have this immigration clstrfck thing going on right now. It's more living here-being poisoned by madison avenue and sleek, glossy mediums of media telling you how ugly you are and how your stuff is a bunch of crap-that takes that starry-eyed-ness away from you.
Give them a chance to know, and give them a chance to dream. If you have $400 to spend on a gift this year, buy a $100 laptop--see the site on how that particular piece of genius works out. Do without the TV or computer or whatever other thing you or some giftee doesn't need that you're going to get anyways.
Log on, and buy some Hope.
-S.W. America
Let me paint you a picture. Africa. It's not all jungles and huts, people in loincloths or 20 year old used t-shirts. It's cities. It's townships. It's paved roads, dirt roads, some electricity. It's a land where 'party lines' are still the mode of telephonic communication in a lot of places. Yes, some places don't have a phone.
Find some previously starry-eyed idealist that spent a time in their folly-filled youth trying to better the world by spending some time teaching in the peace corps. Hell, even ask someone who spent some time doing missionary work. If they give you a bunch of claptrap about the heathen masses and the wonder of their conversion to this random loving God or another, listen through it, then ask about what life is really like.
It's life. It's different. In some ways it's better. It's simpler in a lot of ways, even though there are some things you might not be able to comprehend. It's worse in some ways too, and some of the simplicity falls into that category too. A great deal of the educational system falls into that realm of worseness. Africa is the dark continent when it comes to education. Southern Asia is getting better by leaps and bounds as far as I can tell, dragged upward by local and regional economies (yes, a tacit statement of belief in some aspects of trickle-down theory).
By and large, Africa doesn't enjoy the same experience. In a round of new colonialism, this time economic, nation-states are being pillaged by countries hungry for raw materials. Like the countries molested for oil in the forties and fifties and given disadvantageous, long-term contracts with giant big-oil multi-nationals, African nations today effectively piss away their apparently best source of capital due to a lack of human and physical infrastructure. Big-bad-evil China has swung in and turned a blind eye to conditions that the civilized world pressures its multi-nationals to stay away from--by one means or another.
The moral of this part of the story is that what revenues these countries do get are spent on other needed (and not needed) budgetary items of interest. In most cases, it's just self-serving to the administration of the day (reference: Venezuela), and in a way very American. It's short-sighted.
Step to the page linked above. I didn't even watch the whole thing. I got to the picture where the teacher is holding a laptop up in front of the class with a page about the human eye on it. I was struck. I'd like to end that sentence with a 'with...' but I don't have the words. To borrow from Hollywood: they should have sent a poet.
I went to school in Africa. I lived in a relatively affluent country (excluding oil-rich states) yet the textbooks were, for the most part, ancient. They were remnants and cast-offs of the imperial mother (England) and better off (more advanced) countries (South Africa). While the text-book industry in this country makes me nauseous, being the racket that it is, it's a behemoth. It's a lot of money and a lot of experience. (It's also a lot of vested interests, back room negotiations, and payoffs--but we're not here to talk about that.) There's just not sufficient market pressure (and the socio-political climate for the market to work its majiks, in some cases) to make it happen.
Enter the $100 laptop. Throw it together with some sort of satellite internet (DirecWay Africa?) or other connectivity, a solar charging station, a LCD projector, and a few laptops--the thought of what could change in a generation makes me want to cry (tears of happiness). I can't say that I've ever been as hopeful about the world as I am in the face of this. Think of the change of the state of education in a generation. With Wikipedia alone, errors notwithstanding, classrooms across the continent-indeed the world-all jump to essentially the same level of access of information as US classrooms. Even peasant farmers in some backwater province of central and eastern Asia... their children herd goats with switches cut from trees by morning and learn about the wide world of ruminants... and what a ruminant is... by afternoon. In a generation... think of the expansion of their worlds.
Arguably, it may be an expansion into an appreciation for all the things they can't have, and probably won't have in their lifetimes. To this: p'sha! Ideas can lead to dreams, and dreams can lead to realities. Think of the cultural revolution in America in the sixties and the wideness of the world we live in today. Again, the DAs out there could and should point out that not all of it has been great. There's some study out there that demonstrates a positive correlation between high GDP per capita and dissatisfaction and anxiety concerning life in general. I sure as hell don't trust the government, and wonder if I have any say in the evility it skulks around perpetrating on a daily basis.
Yes, yes, yes. It's a big, mean world we live in. It's a wonderful one too, and though we often do-we shouldn't forget that. I think it is human to want what others have that one does not have-to be envious-but I think the pervasiveness and legitimacy of envy is more American a concept and identity than we might be aware, and might like. The American Dream lives, obviously, or we wouldn't have this immigration clstrfck thing going on right now. It's more living here-being poisoned by madison avenue and sleek, glossy mediums of media telling you how ugly you are and how your stuff is a bunch of crap-that takes that starry-eyed-ness away from you.
Give them a chance to know, and give them a chance to dream. If you have $400 to spend on a gift this year, buy a $100 laptop--see the site on how that particular piece of genius works out. Do without the TV or computer or whatever other thing you or some giftee doesn't need that you're going to get anyways.
Log on, and buy some Hope.
-S.W. America
26 November 2007
Oh My A***h!
Holy crap. I mean I'm all about seeing through another man's eyes, walking a mile in his shoes, etc, but this is pretty freaking retarded.
The Beeb reports that a British woman teaching at a school in Sudan has been arrested. No, she didn't sleep with a student. No, she didn't draw a cartoon of Muhammed/Mohammed/wossisname taking it in the pooper, or even picking a flower. She didn't try to convert people to another religion. She, um, named a teddy bear. No... WAIT! She didn't even do that. She allowed her students, 6 and 7 year old children, to name a teddy bear after the great prophet. No... WAIT! She didn't even do that. She allowed them to name it Mu/Mo/Me/Mi/Mahommed... reportedly a popular name in them thare parts. So she's possibly going to be sentenced to lashes or six months in jail or a fine.
Holy crap that is dumb. I hate to be culturally insensitive, but COME ON! I mean, the word is out on that alleged harlot over there in the land of oil (trans: Saudi Arabia), that she was having an affair and all that. So, lashes for infidelity works for me more than lashes for being-with-a-non-familial-male. It wouldn't be my punishment of choice, but I identify with a punishment being... well... you know... being deserved. That's a personal call on my part--others are more tolerant of infidelity and all that jazz, as is their right. I'll side with, you know, the rest of the world and all them, by saying that lashes are a little bit excessive. But I digress.
Cultural insensitivity: my thoughts range from nuke-them-all-to-hell to live-and-let-live. You will find conspicuously absent from that list the live-and-let-them-nuke-us-all-to-hell mindset. The contest of global domination that is raging and/or sputtering on between religions, sects, denominations, et. al. is kind of sickening. Well, the raging part is. The sputtering is more my flavor. I personally do not care to tell you what my specific beliefs are, as is my right. It's a right I wish a lot more people would exercise these days. There's be a lot less of that raging crap. I'm insensitive to cultures that are insensitive to me. If there's not at least a good chunk of the live-and-let-live ideal in a cultural identity, well then it can just go rot.
There has to be tolerance. We DO all have to get along, to one degree or another. Right now in the great ol' United States of America we're getting along to the tune of the $$$ we see. There are cultural blocs, but they have fuzzy edges and overlap with a great many other blocs. One can't ignore the fact that we draw unity from those overlaps as well. Post September 11th we (mostly) all fit into the 'God, Bless the USA and Damn the Terrorists' bloc so we (mostly) all got along really (mostly) well. That bloc isn't as big as it used to be, by a long shot, and has fragmented into the unconditional and a million different degrees of conditional. But still, whether you hate Hilary or Rudy, the donkey or the elephant, you're still (mostly) American.
Nobody's got it perfect. The UN's Declaration of Human Rights is noble enough, but doesn't see enough practice these days, at home or abroad. The UN OFFICIALLY supports tolerance and all that jazz, but it finds itself busy with genocide and a plethora of other crimes against humanity. The more fanatical of God's followers out there are working hard to ensure there's more bedlam around the corner to consume the time and resources of the would-be good guys of the particular moment.
On top of that, as long as there's oil in southwest Asia (and in Russia), and cheap labor and a hunger for raw materials in China there will be too many nefarious types tying the hands of the same erstwhile do-gooders, preventing them from trying to better the human condition on a global scale. It's hopeless and there's hope. Depends on which side of the coffee mug you drink from. As long as your coffee mug doesn't have a teddy bear with any possibly remotely offensive name on it.
I always liked Paddington. Does that translate into Arabic?
-S.W. America
The Beeb reports that a British woman teaching at a school in Sudan has been arrested. No, she didn't sleep with a student. No, she didn't draw a cartoon of Muhammed/Mohammed/wossisname taking it in the pooper, or even picking a flower. She didn't try to convert people to another religion. She, um, named a teddy bear. No... WAIT! She didn't even do that. She allowed her students, 6 and 7 year old children, to name a teddy bear after the great prophet. No... WAIT! She didn't even do that. She allowed them to name it Mu/Mo/Me/Mi/Mahommed... reportedly a popular name in them thare parts. So she's possibly going to be sentenced to lashes or six months in jail or a fine.
Holy crap that is dumb. I hate to be culturally insensitive, but COME ON! I mean, the word is out on that alleged harlot over there in the land of oil (trans: Saudi Arabia), that she was having an affair and all that. So, lashes for infidelity works for me more than lashes for being-with-a-non-familial-male. It wouldn't be my punishment of choice, but I identify with a punishment being... well... you know... being deserved. That's a personal call on my part--others are more tolerant of infidelity and all that jazz, as is their right. I'll side with, you know, the rest of the world and all them, by saying that lashes are a little bit excessive. But I digress.
Cultural insensitivity: my thoughts range from nuke-them-all-to-hell to live-and-let-live. You will find conspicuously absent from that list the live-and-let-them-nuke-us-all-to-hell mindset. The contest of global domination that is raging and/or sputtering on between religions, sects, denominations, et. al. is kind of sickening. Well, the raging part is. The sputtering is more my flavor. I personally do not care to tell you what my specific beliefs are, as is my right. It's a right I wish a lot more people would exercise these days. There's be a lot less of that raging crap. I'm insensitive to cultures that are insensitive to me. If there's not at least a good chunk of the live-and-let-live ideal in a cultural identity, well then it can just go rot.
There has to be tolerance. We DO all have to get along, to one degree or another. Right now in the great ol' United States of America we're getting along to the tune of the $$$ we see. There are cultural blocs, but they have fuzzy edges and overlap with a great many other blocs. One can't ignore the fact that we draw unity from those overlaps as well. Post September 11th we (mostly) all fit into the 'God, Bless the USA and Damn the Terrorists' bloc so we (mostly) all got along really (mostly) well. That bloc isn't as big as it used to be, by a long shot, and has fragmented into the unconditional and a million different degrees of conditional. But still, whether you hate Hilary or Rudy, the donkey or the elephant, you're still (mostly) American.
Nobody's got it perfect. The UN's Declaration of Human Rights is noble enough, but doesn't see enough practice these days, at home or abroad. The UN OFFICIALLY supports tolerance and all that jazz, but it finds itself busy with genocide and a plethora of other crimes against humanity. The more fanatical of God's followers out there are working hard to ensure there's more bedlam around the corner to consume the time and resources of the would-be good guys of the particular moment.
On top of that, as long as there's oil in southwest Asia (and in Russia), and cheap labor and a hunger for raw materials in China there will be too many nefarious types tying the hands of the same erstwhile do-gooders, preventing them from trying to better the human condition on a global scale. It's hopeless and there's hope. Depends on which side of the coffee mug you drink from. As long as your coffee mug doesn't have a teddy bear with any possibly remotely offensive name on it.
I always liked Paddington. Does that translate into Arabic?
-S.W. America
10 November 2007
Spend 'em if you got 'em!
I haven't even read it yet. I don't know that I will... today...
Again, the Washington Post fuels the alternative energy pyre with an article about how oil producing countries are getting richer off of you, me, and your creepy neighbor down the street. Of the countries who produce oil, how many of them are our 'friends'? How long will they willingly and happily remain our unconditional 'friends' as their wallets fatten?
This begs one to look into 1) why we are the economic superpower we are and 2) whether or not we'll stay that way in the next century. The answer to the former is something I'm not going to ramble on about right now, and the answer to the second is: um, no... well, not definitely anyways.
We buy a lot of shit. Where we get the money from is a complicated concept, but it comes from (gasp) global trade. Again a complicated topic, our trade deficit is running around a trillion bucks a year. There's good, bad, and a whole hell of a lot of grey to that particular subject, but money out of the bank leaves the bank with less money. And the bank can then buy less shit.
We're in trouble. More trouble than you or I know. There is some possible bright future but it isn't inevitable. It'll take conscientious action on the part of policy makers, and couldn't be hurt by changing some spending habits at home. I'm not talking about refusing to buy foreign made goods and services, or any silly shit like that. It's complicated, and you're not paying me to tell you what I think we should do, so I'm going to save myself the time and just grumble to myself about it while I'm on the jon and leave it at that.
So cuddle up with your dollar bills and share a hot toddy by the fire with your cherished notion that we're in charge of the global economy. Neither may be around for long.
-S.W. America
PS - If you want to know what Iran's doing with it's newfound oil-money-funded power, check out this.
Again, the Washington Post fuels the alternative energy pyre with an article about how oil producing countries are getting richer off of you, me, and your creepy neighbor down the street. Of the countries who produce oil, how many of them are our 'friends'? How long will they willingly and happily remain our unconditional 'friends' as their wallets fatten?
This begs one to look into 1) why we are the economic superpower we are and 2) whether or not we'll stay that way in the next century. The answer to the former is something I'm not going to ramble on about right now, and the answer to the second is: um, no... well, not definitely anyways.
We buy a lot of shit. Where we get the money from is a complicated concept, but it comes from (gasp) global trade. Again a complicated topic, our trade deficit is running around a trillion bucks a year. There's good, bad, and a whole hell of a lot of grey to that particular subject, but money out of the bank leaves the bank with less money. And the bank can then buy less shit.
We're in trouble. More trouble than you or I know. There is some possible bright future but it isn't inevitable. It'll take conscientious action on the part of policy makers, and couldn't be hurt by changing some spending habits at home. I'm not talking about refusing to buy foreign made goods and services, or any silly shit like that. It's complicated, and you're not paying me to tell you what I think we should do, so I'm going to save myself the time and just grumble to myself about it while I'm on the jon and leave it at that.
So cuddle up with your dollar bills and share a hot toddy by the fire with your cherished notion that we're in charge of the global economy. Neither may be around for long.
-S.W. America
PS - If you want to know what Iran's doing with it's newfound oil-money-funded power, check out this.
03 November 2007
Of Politics and Money
(Sigh.) Oh, how I wish I could smite!
I have a couple of things to blather about after reading a Washington Post article on some legislation currently getting kicked around congress.
Synopsis: politics is a dirty game, run by money and for money, with a little bit of power thrown in for flavor. While reading the article the anger came to a good rolling boil, and after the article I simmered down to mostly nausea, where I remain. This condition is due mostly to my lack of smitage powers, but also involves being torn over a very strong desire to move to Canada or some Scandinavian country in the face of my sense of nationalism.
Into the fray… So, domestic sugar producers are bilking American taxpayers out of millions of dollars a year, and American consumers for billions. Yes, they provide jobs. Yes, they produce a ‘vital’ agricultural/commercial good. Yes, I believe in the strategic necessity of domestic production (to a point). That being said: screw those bastards.
I believe in globalization and supporting the welfare of all mankind a lot more than I believe in supporting the welfare of a minuscule percentage of mankind at the expense of that of a vastly larger percentage. I believe in the use of sugar for ethanol production and taxing petroleum-based fuels out of mainstream existence, both for environmental and geopolitical/national security reasons. I don’t believe in relying on domestic sugar production to do it.
Somehow relying on the benevolent industriousness of an industry already putting us through the wringer to meet the challenge of alternative energy investment and production seems a little stupid. Then again, I don’t have that derned money I was talking about earlier.
For those who would justifiably and correctly argue that I don't have sufficient education or experience to 'get' the 'big picture,' I say they can kiss my ass. I may not know what chartreuse is, but I know green when I see it.
Yeah.
I guess my somewhat deflated point is that if we look to industry and government to sort out the whole damn energy mess independent of constant nagging on the part of a apathetically diligent citizenry, not a whole lot will get done. Well, a lot of people will get richer, and a few people will get more powerful. Not you or me though.
-S.W. America
I have a couple of things to blather about after reading a Washington Post article on some legislation currently getting kicked around congress.
Synopsis: politics is a dirty game, run by money and for money, with a little bit of power thrown in for flavor. While reading the article the anger came to a good rolling boil, and after the article I simmered down to mostly nausea, where I remain. This condition is due mostly to my lack of smitage powers, but also involves being torn over a very strong desire to move to Canada or some Scandinavian country in the face of my sense of nationalism.
Into the fray… So, domestic sugar producers are bilking American taxpayers out of millions of dollars a year, and American consumers for billions. Yes, they provide jobs. Yes, they produce a ‘vital’ agricultural/commercial good. Yes, I believe in the strategic necessity of domestic production (to a point). That being said: screw those bastards.
I believe in globalization and supporting the welfare of all mankind a lot more than I believe in supporting the welfare of a minuscule percentage of mankind at the expense of that of a vastly larger percentage. I believe in the use of sugar for ethanol production and taxing petroleum-based fuels out of mainstream existence, both for environmental and geopolitical/national security reasons. I don’t believe in relying on domestic sugar production to do it.
Somehow relying on the benevolent industriousness of an industry already putting us through the wringer to meet the challenge of alternative energy investment and production seems a little stupid. Then again, I don’t have that derned money I was talking about earlier.
For those who would justifiably and correctly argue that I don't have sufficient education or experience to 'get' the 'big picture,' I say they can kiss my ass. I may not know what chartreuse is, but I know green when I see it.
Yeah.
I guess my somewhat deflated point is that if we look to industry and government to sort out the whole damn energy mess independent of constant nagging on the part of a apathetically diligent citizenry, not a whole lot will get done. Well, a lot of people will get richer, and a few people will get more powerful. Not you or me though.
-S.W. America
02 November 2007
Armageddon
No, not the movie that made me fall in love with Bruce Willis all over again (sigh).
I'm talking about WW IV. (WW III is reserved for our "war on terror" and whatever cataclysmic end it finds.) Russia is a once again rising power. I'll get more into it over the next few posts, but I just wanted to jump on here and add WW IV to my list of predictions. Well, up until recently it was a list of prediction--that prediction being that we're going into a recession... Fed be damned. I called it over 2 years ago, before the housing hemorrhage we've seen of late.
War. Russia. They've taken to some serious saber rattling in the last year or so. There are those who'd like to play ostrich and say that oil prices will fall and Putin, the less friendly parts of south-west Asia, and Venezuela will get their come-uppance when their economies crash. Um, I think not. We're energy pigs. By we I mean the US and most other industrial nations. There's some feller out there who opined (that word courtesy of Poppa Bear Bill O'Reilly) that nations who have staved off their energy consumption have eventually died off. I didn't look into his blatherings any more because I have a hard time stomaching the idea that yearning for a more resource-efficient lifestyle will lead to a particular society's downfall. I don't view fondly the idea of raping and pillaging the earth until our very last working breath is spent on keeping us in existence... at this point a failed endeavor.
Point: oil prices aren't going to go down until fusion and/or hydrogen power gets all up in the marketplace's face. Solar's coming around, but that won't lead to gas pumps being worked any less. And at this point flying cars will be widespread before electric cars are... which leads me to a digression into the evils of coal, that I won't make today. Russia's going to get louder and meaner and play more unfair as its treasury fills fatter and fatter. We're not going to like what they're saying and what they're doing. We're a bunch of lilly-livered mama's boys who don't even like hard soft-power... regardless of our inability to engage with a sustained, coherent soft-power scheme. They're going to meet us at the flagpole at noon and throw sand in our eyes so we can't see, then beat the shit out of us, with China kicking us while we're down... while they both continue to buy our t-bills. Yay.
We're all gonna die. Again.
Armageddon.
-S.W. America
I'm talking about WW IV. (WW III is reserved for our "war on terror" and whatever cataclysmic end it finds.) Russia is a once again rising power. I'll get more into it over the next few posts, but I just wanted to jump on here and add WW IV to my list of predictions. Well, up until recently it was a list of prediction--that prediction being that we're going into a recession... Fed be damned. I called it over 2 years ago, before the housing hemorrhage we've seen of late.
War. Russia. They've taken to some serious saber rattling in the last year or so. There are those who'd like to play ostrich and say that oil prices will fall and Putin, the less friendly parts of south-west Asia, and Venezuela will get their come-uppance when their economies crash. Um, I think not. We're energy pigs. By we I mean the US and most other industrial nations. There's some feller out there who opined (that word courtesy of Poppa Bear Bill O'Reilly) that nations who have staved off their energy consumption have eventually died off. I didn't look into his blatherings any more because I have a hard time stomaching the idea that yearning for a more resource-efficient lifestyle will lead to a particular society's downfall. I don't view fondly the idea of raping and pillaging the earth until our very last working breath is spent on keeping us in existence... at this point a failed endeavor.
Point: oil prices aren't going to go down until fusion and/or hydrogen power gets all up in the marketplace's face. Solar's coming around, but that won't lead to gas pumps being worked any less. And at this point flying cars will be widespread before electric cars are... which leads me to a digression into the evils of coal, that I won't make today. Russia's going to get louder and meaner and play more unfair as its treasury fills fatter and fatter. We're not going to like what they're saying and what they're doing. We're a bunch of lilly-livered mama's boys who don't even like hard soft-power... regardless of our inability to engage with a sustained, coherent soft-power scheme. They're going to meet us at the flagpole at noon and throw sand in our eyes so we can't see, then beat the shit out of us, with China kicking us while we're down... while they both continue to buy our t-bills. Yay.
We're all gonna die. Again.
Armageddon.
-S.W. America
28 October 2007
We're all gonna die
I read the news. Well, I read the news that's put in front of me. There was a Washington Post Article that mentioned soldiers' perspectives on the difference between Baghdad now and Baghdad post-"liberation".
While I'm not one to not provide summaries, today's not going to be an instance. The article led me to believe that there is a good chance that insurgent/Islamist/asshollic-bad-guy groups might possibly be selectively deploying their forces into areas where American forces have recently arrived, and then set them about raising hell.
The citizenry draw a correlation between the arrival of US forces and what our apathetical worldview perceives as general mayhem and sectarian hellish hatefulness. So, America = bad guys. Well, I think we are, but that's for another post that I can't write because I don't have sufficient resource material immediately at hand to STFU those who might disagree.
I will say here and now that we didn't go in wanting to be the bad guys. Don Rumsfeld, Uncle Dick, and your local village's missing idiot (W) botched the ever-living-hell out of what might have been a noble endeavor. Now we're hated, our GI's are viewed as legitimate targets, and we're no safer as a result of our illegal invasion of a sovereign nation. Indeed the ranks of multi-national hate groups perpetrating malfeasance around the globe have only swelled as a result… and, dare I say, with arguably good reason.
I, as always, digress. Those who oppose the American empire and our ever-loving (foolishly perceived) one-size-fits-all freedom and democracy are probably a lot smarter than we think. They’re not all in the fight “because they just don’t know better”. There are doctors and lawyers, mothers and brothers, and your third-grade crush. Their hatred of what we apparently represent is only a few degrees of separation away from home-spun, good ‘ol militia style hatred of some aspects of this country. And that hatred is separated by fewer degrees than we’d like to admit from our founding fathers’ hatred of the crown of their day.
The divide and conquer (slash) politics of fear that have become the standard of American political culture have brought legitimacy to the ideas that your freedom isn’t my freedom, and that your sociopath is my patriot. Life isn’t as simple as it used to be for many a reason, probably mostly because of Al Gore’s internets and the rest of that technological clap-trap. Churchill said, "For with primacy in power is joined an awe-inspiring accountability for the future." Bepimpled, defaultedly chronic masturbators across the world met a simpler version: “With great power comes great responsibility.” Technology is power, and we have yet to even come close to living up to the responsibility.
Of course they hate us. We’re all gonna die.
-S.W. America
While I'm not one to not provide summaries, today's not going to be an instance. The article led me to believe that there is a good chance that insurgent/Islamist/asshollic-bad-guy groups might possibly be selectively deploying their forces into areas where American forces have recently arrived, and then set them about raising hell.
The citizenry draw a correlation between the arrival of US forces and what our apathetical worldview perceives as general mayhem and sectarian hellish hatefulness. So, America = bad guys. Well, I think we are, but that's for another post that I can't write because I don't have sufficient resource material immediately at hand to STFU those who might disagree.
I will say here and now that we didn't go in wanting to be the bad guys. Don Rumsfeld, Uncle Dick, and your local village's missing idiot (W) botched the ever-living-hell out of what might have been a noble endeavor. Now we're hated, our GI's are viewed as legitimate targets, and we're no safer as a result of our illegal invasion of a sovereign nation. Indeed the ranks of multi-national hate groups perpetrating malfeasance around the globe have only swelled as a result… and, dare I say, with arguably good reason.
I, as always, digress. Those who oppose the American empire and our ever-loving (foolishly perceived) one-size-fits-all freedom and democracy are probably a lot smarter than we think. They’re not all in the fight “because they just don’t know better”. There are doctors and lawyers, mothers and brothers, and your third-grade crush. Their hatred of what we apparently represent is only a few degrees of separation away from home-spun, good ‘ol militia style hatred of some aspects of this country. And that hatred is separated by fewer degrees than we’d like to admit from our founding fathers’ hatred of the crown of their day.
The divide and conquer (slash) politics of fear that have become the standard of American political culture have brought legitimacy to the ideas that your freedom isn’t my freedom, and that your sociopath is my patriot. Life isn’t as simple as it used to be for many a reason, probably mostly because of Al Gore’s internets and the rest of that technological clap-trap. Churchill said, "For with primacy in power is joined an awe-inspiring accountability for the future." Bepimpled, defaultedly chronic masturbators across the world met a simpler version: “With great power comes great responsibility.” Technology is power, and we have yet to even come close to living up to the responsibility.
Of course they hate us. We’re all gonna die.
-S.W. America
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