If you're reading this, you're not Christian. You probably don't even recognize that Jesus ever existed.
Anyway, I was thinking maybe a bunch of us could get together next year and every Christmas after that and do something. The Christians are having their fun and we have absolutely nothing to do, so why not?
BTW, apparently Facebook has a daily wall post limit of about 350. I was trying to write "Merry Christmas!" on the walls of every single one of my 697(last time I checked) Facebook friends. After two long hours I got to the letter L in the alphabet (last names) and I got warning messages saying my account will be suspended if I keep posting on people's Walls because I'm almost past the limit. First of all, why does Facebook even HAVE a wall limit. And second, yes, it does take two hours to copy and paste on the Walls of 350 people (even with Firefox tabs).
I'm sure all of you know about how messed up the country's healthcare system is. I won't talk about that. There are plenty ways of fixing it, but I won't talk about that either. Instead, I will talk about WHY healthcare is a problem and WHY it gets worse every time somebody tries to do something about it.
What's the biggest problem with healthcare in the world? Rather, what is the only problem? The answer is simpler than you may think: people are selfish! All other problems branch off of that one simple fact.
Just look at this list...
--Doctors want to keep making ridiculously high sums of money without doing anything. Thanks to direct to consumer drug ads, sick people (who are in no position to make any health decisions because they don't know anything and sickness could impair their judgment) demand that the doctor prescribe a drug. The well-trained professional who should be making all the hard decisions is just writing names of pills on pieces of paper and getting paid a lot of money from both the patient and the drug company to do it.
--Insurance companies give us wonderful plans to choose from like HMO's. You don't have to watch Michael Moore's documentary to understand why HMO's are awesome.
--Lawyers want to keep suing for malpractice because they know it's a great way to make money. If you're not a lawyer because you want to get rich, you'll be one of those public attorneys or something, and they get neither money nor respect.
--The drug companies want to keep selling you overpriced magic pills that you have to take every day for the rest of your life even though an overwhelming majority of them are extremely dangerous if used long term.
--Even though the business press has said countless times that only a tiny percentage of the rise in malpractice coverage rates are due to the increase in lawsuits in recent years, of course the insurance companies will hide behind malpractice as an excuse to raise doctors' rates.
--The hospitals want you to go to the ER for little things so they can essentially do nothing for you and then charge a ridiculous amount of money. For example, a few years ago my brother started throwing up in the middle of the night for no apparent reason so my parents took him to the ER. The doctor examined him and disappeared and the nurse gave him a few OTC pills. He was in there for about an hour and a half and then sent home. What was the bill? About $900. This was only a few days before our new insurance policy took effect. My brother was fine the next day and he didn't throw up again. The problem turned out to be food poisoning.
--These days, hospitals see themselves as so competent that they feel that any mistake they make is probably somebody else's fault. For example, they routinely make all kinds of mistakes and give their patients infection. These mistakes are often paid for by either the insurance company or the patient.
--In inner city areas, there are plenty of hospitals and clinics that give everyone living in the city unlimited free healthcare services. Who picks up the bill?
--The Food and Drug Administration is supposed to regulate all those nasty drugs, but why are they so biased in favor of the drug companies? Because the people working for the FDA are either ex-pharma employees or vice versa. Can you say, "conflict of interest?"
--Your elected politicians want to keep getting lobbying money from all of the above special interest groups, so of course they won't do anything that will result in them getting less money. People who run for office do so to get elected, and once they're elected, they'll do everything they can to make sure they hold that seat.
--You benefit from this system too. You don't want to eat and live healthy because that's too much work. Why bother when you can swallow magic pills that will cure everything for you? And if you can't pay, the government will pay for things for you.
--When you start a retirement fund, what do your brokers speculate on? Drug companies and insurance companies! Why? Because everyone knows they're guaranteed to make ridiculously high sums of money no matter what happens to the economy. Also, when doctors make even the slightest mistakes, you sue and get enough money to live in Beverly Hills for the rest of your life. Who wouldn't want that?
Over the past couple decades, any attempt at fixing healthcare (Medicare in 2002, CHIP in 2007) has ended up being a complete disaster, raising the costs of EVERYTHING related to healthcare for EVERYONE.
Compared to every other country in the world, our system is a disaster. Socialized healthcare would be better. Free market healthcare would be better (we don't have that). Even a managed care would be better if the government made it work properly.
There you have it folks. ANY system would be better than the one we have right now. So why hasn't there been a big change? Because nobody wants to change. Everyone's too selfish. The problem with healthcare is not whatever people say it is. It's YOU, America. YOU are the problem.
I know, I'll piss off a lot of people who read this. If you're one of these people, blame Andrea for encouraging me to write this.
The other day I was watching one of those Bible movies on TBN (because I was sick and bored and I couldn't think of anything else to do). It was portraying men who died in holy wars as these noble heroes who will go to heaven. Depending on what you believe, that may or may not be true.
So what happens when you die fighting in a holy war? You die, of course. However, you're guaranteed a spot in heaven. You also get a page in the religious texts about what a noble thing you had done. Your wife and kids get to brag about how you were such a holy man and all that. Gee, dying must not be so bad after all, right?
What do you do when you go on a suicide mission? You disappear from this world and leave everything behind. By everything I mean your wife and kids (not husband because women with families are smart enough not to do this kind of thing). So you die in some holy war over who has the better god. Back home, your wife and kids have to fend for themselves. One less person providing for the family means the mother has to take over both roles. The kids have to grow up with no father figure and that can also cause a lot of problems. Why put them through this kind of torture?
I believe in God, and I have faith. However, I will never accept most of the things that religious people do. Holy wars, I believe, are insignificant arguments over who has the better imaginary friend. What's the point? If you ask 1000 people, you might get 2500 answers on what their religious beliefs are.
Also, what if you're following the wrong religion? Then being a martyr will just get you into a deeper circle of hell.
TO MY FEMALE READERS:
The males are always killing themselves in holy wars for some noble cause. It's always so easy to die, isn't it? When they do die, they leave their wives behind to do everything that they used to do together, especially raising the kids. Is that honestly the right thing to do? Would you be happy if your husband killed himself for some meaningless war so you would have to be all alone for the rest of your life? Maybe if you hated him, but in most cases, I think you would say no.
I know. Nobody wants to pay taxes. After all, the evil government eats away your hard-earned money and funds stupid special interest groups with your blood money.
If you're a financial institution who is looking to loan out more money, of course you hate corporate taxes. They mean less money in your reserves, which translates to you being able to lend out less money and therefore make less profits.
If you're a middle class American, you hate taxes. You're not poor enough to get all kinds of government aid programs. You pay taxes to take care of the Baby Boomers who are retiring, other people's kids, other poor people, big businesses (I'll explain later), etc..
If you're poor, you hate taxes. You already live paycheck to paycheck. The unskilled job you have at the local factory isn't economically viable anymore thanks to globalization. Globalization means that factory job that you're getting paid for minimum wage will either get shipped to some third world country you didn't even know existed or it will be given to the next lowest class on the totem pole (illegal aliens, anyone?). Because you're not economically viable, you can't afford to pay any taxes. Stupid government should be helping you instead of collecting taxes from you.
If you're rich, you have every reason to hate every kind of tax ever imposed on anyone. After all, you're filthy stinkin' rich! You're on top of the world! Of course you don't want to help out everybody who's beneath you. It's their fault they can't be as rich as you are.
If you're a politician, you hate taxes. You hate taxes because you know that saying you need to raise taxes (even if it's inevitable because of the economic situation) will automatically cost you any hopes of winning.
If you're a Reaganite, you hate taxes. You know that lower taxes will guarantee that the economy will grow regardless of current and prospective circumstances. That's why you say that lower taxes will always result in higher tax revenues in the long run no matter what.
So why do taxes suck so much? Because you give away your hard-earned money to help somebody you hate that you don't want to support.
Then one day something bad happens. An economic recession hits. The lenders lent out all the money they could lend, and nobody can pay them back. Who do they go to? They go to the GOVERNMENT to give them blank bailout checks.
The middle class shrinks and many of its members join the poor class. The poor stay poor or get poorer. The poorer, more numerous poor demand more tax dollars for social services like Medicaid and food stamps.
The rich argue that none of this is their fault. Well, they were affected by the economy too. In fact, they lost all of their millions of dollars in corporate shares. With the reduced payout, they want the government to give them more tax breaks to make up for the loss in capital gains.
While the federal politicians have some leeway, the state and local politicians know that they can't have budget deficits. However, even in the Federal government, you can only sustain a budget deficit for so many years before a real crisis forces you to balance the budget. That means during a recession, the politicians have to raise taxes or cut spending to make up for the lost revenue. They scramble trying to figure out how many programs they have to cut or how many taxes they have to raise before they commit political suicide. Why did George H. W. Bush lose to Bill Clinton in 1992? "Read my lips: no new taxes."
If you're a Reaganite, you have no idea what the hell you should say about any of this. Oh, I know: damn all the stupid Liberals for ruining everything!
This is where we are right now. If you're stuck in a tough situation and you want any help from anyone, shut up and pay your taxes. You heard me. If you don't want to pay any taxes, you're a freeloader. EVERYBODY benefits from tax dollars in the form of social services. The only discrepancies that exist do so because some people pay higher taxes than others and some people benefit more from tax dollars than others.
If you don't think you benefit from tax dollars, go live a self-sustaining life in some remote jungle somewhere.
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I'm not saying that the New Deal (which didn't get us out of the Great Depression) is any better than Supply-Side Economics ("Reaganomics"), it's clear that Reaganomics don't work. If it did, we would have a trillion-dollar budget surplus right now, even with the ridiculously high amounts of military spending.
The Olympic Torch is under high security right now because of the massive protests all over the world against the Chinese control of Tibet. China is an evil Communist country that deserves to not exist, and there is no reason why Tibet should be free.
While protesters all over the world are all "FREE TIBET," what kind of freedom are they referring to? Just ask the Dalai Lama.
You see, the Dalai Lama is just a fancy name for a Tibetan monarch. The current Dalai Lama is the next in line to rule over Tibet. Because China is such an evil country, the Chinese took over Tibet and enslaved the masses. China also provided with horrible things like electricity, running water, and a prosperous economy. I know. It's horrible, isn't it? The poor Tibetans.
What does the Dalai Lama have to gain with a free Tibet? A restore to the throne, of course! While the Dalai Lama ruled over Tibet, the Tibetans had to live in lifelong servitude. Disobeying the Lama would result in cruel and unusual punishments like eye gouging, pulling out tongues, and disemboweling.
Why is this fraud getting such international attention from peacekeepers everywhere? Because he's a politician. He has nothing to lose (he lost the throne, so what more could he lose that's of any value to him?) and a country to gain. The worst part of it is that everybody's in on it: from the Nobel family to the CIA.
I don't care what China does. If you ask me, the Tibetans are better off under Communist rule, because under Communism, at least everyone's well provided for. From the looks of it, China's better off getting rid of Tibet. If they let the Dalai Lama do whatever he wants to with Tibet, maybe then he'll finally shut up and rule over his stupid country. That's highly unlikely, though. China's other option would be to ignore protests and do nothing, which is downright impossible because of current circumstances.
No matter what China does, the overwhelming majority of Tibetans won't see any significant improvement in their lives.
Remember folks. The lesser of the evils is still evil, and the enemy of my enemy is not my friend.
"Free Tibet" my ass. The protesters deserve nothing for their ignorance in this issue. Give them no support.
Watch this video before you read. It's funny, but the issue is pretty serious.
Big wholesale retail chains like Costco and K-Mart are really bad for business. Yes, I know that goes against all conventional forms of thinking, including the ideas drilled into our heads in AP Economics class. After all, isn't it a good thing that they cut down costs and increase profits? Aren't people better off with the lower prices?
Not always.
Companies legally have only one responsibility, and that's to increase profits. They'll do that any way they can, and they'll make sure it's legal by manipulating all the politicians through lobbying. Gee, I wonder why lobbying is also legal? If it's not legal, have fun taking on their lawyers. Did I mention the media is also on their side?
I'll use Wal-Mart for my example because Wal-Mart does it better than anyone else.
You go to Wal-Mart to buy a lot of crap for rock bottom prices. This goes on for several years as the amount of junk in your storage space accumulates. One day you find out that your job is being outsourced to sweatshop labor in some third world country you didn't even know existed. They have to do this to stay competitive, because the stuff you make at your company is too expensive to compete with Wal-Mart.
You lose your job. Tax dollars are paying for your unemployment benefits while you look for another job. You see that the jobs that are open won't pay as much as your old job did and these new jobs have almost no benefits. You take the job anyway because you need the money and there's nothing better for you to do.
With the reduced pay and tough economic times, you really have to be careful about how much money you spend. You have to give up improvements on your house, so the contractors lose work. You can't afford to eat out anymore, so all the family restaurants lose money.
Because you don't have any money, you have to go shopping where it's cheap. Good old Wal-Mart. Thank God it always manages to lower prices no matter how bad the recession or how high the inflation is.
You were working at a golf course. That closed down because people couldn't afford to go golfing anymore. You take some more unemployment checks and find another job. This one pays below minimum wage and has deplorable working conditions. Still, you work here anyway because you need the money.
With the reduced pay, you have to get rid of your health insurance; it's too expensive. It's also too expensive to do just about anything else and you keep going deeper and deeper into debt. Thankfully, you can still shop at Wal-Mart for all of your daily needs.
From here, you lose another job, your wife needs a kidney transplant, and the bank forecloses on your house because you can't pay the mortgage. Then you continue the downward spiral into oblivion.
Everyone who has ever shopped at these kinds of stores deserves at least some of the blame. As I said earlier, the only responsibility that corporations have is the increase profits. They'll do this any way they can. That's why they outsource. They're not evil greedy fat cats. Well, they are, but there's nothing immoral or wrong with what they're doing. Businesses are supposed to increase their profits any way they can.
Trying to stop the companies from laying people off and outsourcing won't work. No matter how many tax breaks and subsidies you give them, they'll go wherever they can make the most money.
If you want to change the system, don't whine and complain and then expect the government to take care of everything. Do something about it. Stop buying stuff from these stores. Yeah, the things in small stores may be more expensive, and maybe you won't find a year's worth of supplies in one store. Still, every time you buy from a small store, you pay for goods and services than you do when you buy wholesale. Also buy things that are made in your own country.
Politicians suck. Believe me, I know. If you want them to represent your interests, do something about it. If they're not acting based on what you want, vote for someone better. Politicians wouldn't be so corrupt if an overwhelming majority of the population turned out to vote in non-Presidential years and constantly scrutinized their every move.
Columbine. Virginia Tech. That one Amish school in Lancaster, PA. The most recent incident in Illinois. All involving guns. [Some crazy high number] of people die every year from being shot by guns. Why, then, do we have these horrible things, and what is our government doing to help? As usual, nothing!
Actually, we have all kinds of anti-gun laws in the books. Every time another shooting tragedy happens, Congress write up another law restricting gun ownership. It's working, right? If they can't get guns, they can't shoot people with guns, so everyone will be happy.
Unfortunately, we don't live in a perfect world where there aren't vicious criminals out to get you. We also don't live in a world where the goverment putting restrictions to deter crime will actually deter criminals from doing nasty things. I'm talking about gun control.
The idea behind gun control goes something like this:
Guns are horrible instruments of terror. The only reason they exist is to kill something. Why should we have these? They should only be given to law enforcement officials so they can protect us from terrorists. The Second Amendment is only a collective right because ordinairy people can't handle guns; only law enforcement officials can use guns for good. Also, kids can steal guns from their parents and shoot people with them.
When Texas first legalized concealed weapons, there was an enormous public outcry. The ignorant masses thought the concealed weapons would drastically increase the number of violent crimes and make the state of Texas an awful place to live in. Around the same time, the District of Columbia banned all handguns from the city residents. The move was praised all over the country because the number of violent crimes would go down.
If you know anything about gun control, you know that's not what happened. The number of violent crimes in Texas actually went down as more people started carrying guns. Now, people could protect themselves if somebody would try to mug them. The muggers were also deterred because they had no idea if the person they were trying to mug had a tiny pistol in the inside pocket of his coat.
Meanwhile, in DC, the number of violent crimes skyrocketed and the people had no way of defending themselves. Fortunately, the gun ban was lifted recently. The mayor gave a speech saying that now that gun ownership restrictions were lifted, there would be even more violent crimes in the nation's capital. Actually, violent crimes go down when you let more ordinairy people carry firearms.
The fact is that guns don't kill people. People kill people. Seriously, people suck. Guns are just a way of satisfying people's sick desires. If they can't get guns to kill you with, they could use something that kills more people: prescription drugs, cigarettes, hamburgers, and even CARS, just to name a few. Does that mean we should ban all automobiles just because 45,000 people die every year from car crashes? Absolutely not!
Apparently we learned nothing from prohibition (which I will write about in the near future; stay tuned). If banning alcohol won't stop people from having hangovers, banning guns won't stop people from getting ahold of them and shooting people dead.
No matter how strict the laws are, there is always some way to get around them, and you can't really stop that. The two boys involved in Columbine obtained guns ILLEGALLY, and their gun dealer sold them the guns ILLEGALLY. What would more restrictions do to stop that? Whether or not shooting people dead is legal, people will still do it. That's just how people are.
That's why you have to protect yourself. I'd love to be in a world with no sadistic bastards out to destroy your life. Unfortunately, we don't. That's why we have to protect ourselves.
What about the police? Aren't they supposed to protect you from these awful criminals? They can, but they don't have to. The police are not constitutionally obligated to protect ordinairy citizens from criminals. Check the books. There are laws saying this to some extent in every state. That's why 9-1-1 dispatchers and cops don't get in trouble if they mess up, no matter how loud the public outcry is. Police exist to protect the government from the mob. They're there to stop anarchy and mobocracy. They don't care about you.
Why does the CIA have secret torture prisons in Uzbekistan? It's to serve the government's own selfish interests. NOT to protect you from terrorist attacks. If the CIA really was trying to protect you from terrorists, it would follow its own advice and not torture anybody. I already explained why torture doesn't work.
And no, Borat's from Kazakhstan. Either way, that was a disgusting movie that I will never watch again.
Similar laws regarding police duties exist all over the world. Why do you think some people never get arrested no matter how many crimes they commit? People are not equal under the law, so of course protection under the law won't be equal, either.
The government doesn't have to protect you if it doesn't want to. However, it will sometimes attempt to stop you from protecting yourself. That's why you have to fight back.
The American Revolution would never have happened if the colonists listened to King George. George III wanted to seize all the guns from the colonial militia. If the Yankees didn't have guns to protect themselves, the Lobsterbacks could harass the ungrateful children of England into submission.
The gun control debate was settled once and for all in the Battle of Lexington and Concord. British troops tried to seize colonial weapons in order to stop future rebellions. Thankfully, they did not succeed. That's why we have Article II of the Bill of Rights:
[
A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.
]
It means that although the states are allowed to have militia, the right of of the People (capitalized for a good reason) to have weapons can't be taken away. There is another version, but this is the one ratified by the states so it's the amendment.
The Founding Fathers didn't want their elaborate experiment to make the same mistake as its contemporaries, so they allowed an amendment letting people own guns. They knew the government would start acting up again and get too powerful, so they wanted to give people a way to protect themselves.
Again, we don't live in a perfect world with no crime and competent police that are required to protect us. That's why we have to defend ourselves when others won't. I'd like to live in a hypothetical world with no guns, but we don't. That's why more ordinairy people should own guns.
Generally speaking, most people would never intentionally hurt anybody with a gun. That's because even though everyone has sadistic thoughts, most people would never act on them, even when their sanity is questionable.
The best way to protect yourself from people who want to hurt you is by learning self-defense. This self-defense can be anything from verbal to karate and even guns. Learn how to protect yourself. Remember, sharp-shooting lessons won't ever hurt you. However, they will help you in that one moment when your life depends on what you do in the next few seconds.
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Concealed weapons are legal to some extent in almost every state with a few exceptions. If you live in New York or New Jersey and you're reading this, tough luck. You can't carry concealed weapons. You can't defend yourself against shooters.
There are some psychological and societal factors that you should consider before you make any judgements about the notorious school shootings. I will write about this in the future.
Yes, kids can get ahold of guns that their parents own. This is as much their parents' fault as when parents don't tell their kids everything about sex until it's too late. Again, I will write about this in the future.
[4:07 Keith Olbermann talking to Robert Baer]
(video removed by YouTube)
Should we torture our prisoners? I mean, after all, they provide us with valuable information and countless leads on the war on terror. Right?
If you want to see just how effective torture is, think about what you would do if someone tortured you. You would get captured by foreign government officials who are hell bent on getting information from you about something. About what? Who knows? Why are they questioning you on something you don't even know anything about?
You would then get dragged into a prison cell and they would start doing all kinds of things to you. I don't need to explain the types of torture in graphic detail, but I will tell you what waterboarding is because it has been all over the news lately.
[
Waterboarding is a form of torture that consists of immobilizing a person on his or her back, with the head inclined downward, and pouring water over the face and into the breathing passages. Through forced suffocation and inhalation of water, the subject experiences the process of drowning in a controlled environment and is made to believe that death is imminent. In contrast to merely submerging the head face-forward, waterboarding almost immediately elicits the gag reflex.
Although waterboarding can be performed in ways that leave no lasting physical damage, it carries the risks of extreme pain, damage to the lungs, brain damage caused by oxygen deprivation, injuries (including broken bones) due to struggling against restraints, and even death. The psychological effects on victims of waterboarding can last for years after the procedure.
]
Eventually, you give in to their demands and tell them whatever they want to hear just so they would leave you alone. If they want you to say you were a mastermind in 9/11, you tell them that. If they want you to confess to killing 50 million Jews in Nazi Germany, yes, you will tell them that, too.
Everyone has a certain threshold of pain. When you reach yours, you'll do anything to make it stop. ANYTHING.
A huge chunk of information we have about 9/11 came from Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. He said all those things while he was being tortured. Even the CIA said this information is unreliable, but this kind of torture-led information is the foundation for our Middle Eastern foreign policy. No wonder we're losing both the nonexistent war on terror AND our credibility among the rest of the world!
The fact is that torture doesn't work. It's that simple.
I'd like to find one good example of excessive torture that gave any significant leads in the war on terror. You can't because there is no good example of excessive torture ever working. None.
But what about police interrogations? Don't they give you valuable information about criminals and their crimes? No, not at all. This is pretty much the same thing, but done on a much smaller scale. If the cops manage to make you upset, you'll want to confess to whatever they accuse you of doing, even if it's not true. You hear it on the news all the time: people confessing to something under interrogation and then recanting it later in court.
This isn't really an American issue but it has been getting a lot of bad press so I figured I'd say something about it.
What
the
fuck
...?
Politicians have affairs all the time. That's not such a big issue, especially in this age where our president can get a blowjob from a fat brunette in the office and get impeached for it by a speaker of the house who is also cheating on his wife.
The politicians with brains who do this kind of thing either repent or leave their political office to fix their personal lives. President Clinton eventually came around. Governor McGreevey did the right thing by resigning and getting divorced, but he has turned into a complete nutjob who needs some serious therapy (not because he's gay, but he has some really serious issues). Newt Gingrich saw opportunity when he found out about the Lewinsky scandal and the President's attempt to hide it, but he was smart enough to resign before people found out about his extramarital affair.
And then you have the idiots. Strom Thurmond was raised in a strict racist WASP background, so he got over it by having a kid with a black woman (his daughter's still alive). He saw that it wasn't as bad as people made it out to be, but he couldn't believe the truth so he unleashed his wrath on the Black population, running as a States Rights candidate for President and holding a one man filibuster for over 24 hours against the Civil Rights Act. What a shameful figure of American history.
Larry Craig's not much better. We all know he's gay, so he should just try to come to terms with it so we can all move on. Instead he ruthlessly attempts to hide it while trying to maintain his seat in the Senate. You're gay. That wouldn't be a big deal if you didn't try to solicit sex in the men's room. Just shut up, quit, and fix your personal problems. I'm sick of hearing about you in the news.
And then there's Nick. He was having an extramarital affair for a long time and people finally found out. He had a very dramatic, public divorce. Now he's showing off his supermodel girlfriend and taking her with him to meet all the other world leaders. He's also begging the paparazzi to keep following him even though nobody cares about him. The French people want a president, not another Charlie Sheen (this is the first name that I could think of because I can't stand him). The French are complaining about not being able to pay their bills but he's too busy fucking his supermodel whore all across the world.
Let's hope Peter's wrong, but I have a feeling he's right.
Anyway, I'm sure every single one of you here knows about the situation. If you don't, now's your chance to learn.
The stimulus program proposed by Bush and Congress won't help us. What it does is it forces the government to find money that doesn't exist and give it to the American people. The government is going bankrupt. What we have to do to get this money is either borrow more from China or print more dollars. If we borrow more money, we'll just be deeper in debt. If we print more money, the value of the dollar will go way down.
If we keep inflating the money (which we have to do to compensate for our current fiscal policy) and the value of our money goes down, we'll just suffer in both the global and the domestic markets. Yeah, that will do us a lot of good. The stimulus will only add to this problem. Because the dollar will be devalued, the money that families will get will be worth less than their money was worth BEFORE they got the money, because inflation is so high.
The Republicans want lower taxes. We can't afford lower taxes if spending levels are so high. The democrats want a bigger stimulus. I just explained why that's bad.
Why are oil prices so high? Actually, they're not. The rise in price of oil in terms of gold has been 20-30%. In terms of US dollars, however, it's approaching 400%. Oil is traded in US dollars so it looks more expensive than it actually is on the world market.
Lowering interest rates right now will just encourage people to borrow more and get deeper into debt. Do you really want to owe more money during an economic depression? Everyone loses out when this happens, even the major financial institutions.
While we will have a major economic depression compared to the one seventy years ago, the rest of the world will only have a minor setback. This will actually be GOOD for the other countries because we consume more resources than anybody else. If we crash, the resources we used will go to other countries like India and China and help them tremendously.
This should have happened decades ago but it didn't because we were the economic bullies of the world. Now that living beyond our means has finally caught up to us, we can let the free market work its course in the world while we suffer the consequences of our imperialistic jingoism.
Canada and Europe are all "IN YOUR FACE, AMERICA! WE TOLD YOU SO!" I don't blame them.
New research suggests ‘abstinence-only sex education’ does little to dissuade teenagers from having sex. Just saying no may not be an effective strategy in keeping kids from having sex, a newly released study reports.
The evaluation, conducted by Mathematica Policy Research Inc. on behalf of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, examined the impact of the abstinence-only-until-marriage programs funded under the 1996 federal welfare reform law.
Through the study, more than 2,000 children were randomly assigned to groups that received abstinence-only counselling and those that received no counselling. Over the next four to six years, numerous surveys were done to determine the impact of these programs on the behaviour of the kids.
Researchers found no evidence that these abstinence-only programs increased rates of sexual abstinence.
The study also showed that the students participating in these abstinence-only programs had a similar number of sexual partners as their peers not in the programs, and that the age of first sex was similar for both groups too.
"The basic takeaway message is that there are no differences between the two groups on any behavioural outcomes," says lead study author, Christopher Trenholm, a senior researcher at Mathematica Policy Research.
Debate Continues Over Effectiveness
Some sexuality experts say the study only confirms what most sexuality researchers have already known that abstinence-only programs simply do not work.
"The data coming forth now is simple proof, solid, unassailable evidence to back up what many of us have known from the get-go," says Joy Davidson, a certified sex therapist in New York City. But the debate still continues on which is the most effective way to help particularly the youth to abstain from sex till marriage since sex has become a very normal element in most relationships. Even the religious principle of not fornicating before marriage is now totally ignored by most. So what’s the way forward? Is abstinence even possible for most of today’s youth? What do you think?
IOWA: Democrats
It was a three-way tie between the top three candidates. No surprise there. John Edwards got the rural vote (I said why in the last Note). Obama got the Not Hillary votes. Hillary got the rest. The others didn't really get anything.
IOWA: Republicans
Huckabee won for some of the same reasons why Edwards won, but with a Bible Belt twist. Romney campaigned obsessively and still got second place. Take that, Rudy.
WYOMING: Republicans
Romney won, but who really cares? In fact, what was the point of this?
NEW HAMPSHIRE: Democrats
Hillary won because she turned all emotional after losing Iowa so she brought her husband. She won because people still think she represents them and not the establishment.
NEW HAMPSHIRE: Republicans
It's always more interesting on the Republican side. This primary was proof that they don't have a clear frontrunner. I have no idea why McCain won. Romney was disappointed AGAIN, but who cares? Giuliani beat Ron Paul but what difference does that make? Fred Thompson got some ground but he won't hold out much longer. Why the fuck is FOX trying to censor Ron Paul? That'll just gain him more supporters.
MICHIGAN: Both parties
Pointless and won't affect the general outcome.
NEVADA: Democrats
It appears that Obama has a lot of support among casino workers. I wonder if that means anything. Hillary won again, but just about everyone who didn't vote for her hates her guts. Edwards is losing ground. Bill Richardson would have done well in this state.
NEVADA: Republicans
Romney won because he's a Mormon, but the win won't mean anything in non-Mormon states. Ron Paul got second so he must be gaining a lot of ground. His supporters are becoming even more rabid.
SOUTH CAROLINA: Republicans
McCain and Huckabee are involved in a fierce battle similar to the one in 2000 with McCain and then Governor Bush. This time, it's less nasty and McCain seems to be winning.
JOE BIDEN
Biden had a lot of integrity and experience. Looking back, I think he would have done better if he stayed for a few more primaries. He has more experience in foreign policy than any of the other candidates and can bring Democrats and Republicans together. I don't understand why he quit so soon.
CHRIS DODD
He was really scary. His voice was too harsh and neck fat bounced when he talked, so he always creeped me out.
MIKE GRAVEL
Why is he still in the race? He won't ever come out from last place because all of his potential supporters are with Ron Paul.
DENNIS KUCINICH
He won't have much better luck.
DUNCAN HUNTER
I'm not sure if he even exists anymore...
BILL RICHARDSON
Like Biden, he also has a lot of integrity and experience. He would also have done better if he stayed. I would expect him to get a third place in Nevada.
John Edwards the populist candidate for President. You might remember him from 2004. If you don't, you're clueless about politics.
Anyway, I have no idea why this guy is still running for president. He'd make a good senator or somebody who sticks up for the little guy, but not President. He has almost no experience and nothing to run on except that the rich are oppressing the poor. The rich ALWAYS oppress the poor. That's just life.
Besides that, he has nothing else going for him. NOTHING. His stance on issues don't stand out from a typical Democrat. He's a trial lawyer. He has almost no political experience. He had the worst attendance record in the Senate in recent history. Worst of all, he sticks up for the poor people. That doesn't sound like a bad thing if you don't see how he lives. He recently built a huge million dollar mansion in Florida as his vacation home. Also, who in the right mind would get a $300 haircut, anyway? My hair doesn't look as good as his but I could get the same look at a local barber shop for less than $30. Without depleting my campaign funds.
Practice what you preach, Johnny boy. You always whine about how the rich live lavish lives while taking away precious resources for poor people, but you're doing the exact same thing.
The only reason the Democrats keep him is because he's a Liberal Democrat from the old South. The South has gone Republican ever since Strom Thurmond ran for president (a shameful moment in American history) and they need all the votes they can get. He's just there to get the rural poor to vote Democratic. He himself won't win the presidency.
BTW, John Kerry endorsed Obama. That means Edwards definetly won't win. Back in 2004 Edwards had the same purpose he does now: to get more votes from the rural poor, which wasn't enough to earn him a spot in the White House.
