Survival of the fattest?

It was once thought by population experts that by this time the amount of food produceable on earth would be far surpassed by what was needed by the exponentially growing population. It turns out that through the use of science, food production has actually remained in step with the continued growth in population.

On a slightly unrelated subject there is one main reason that world trade and globalization have shown so much success in the twentieth century compared to previous centuries. That reason is that "The world is shrinking" or in more literal terms innovations in transportation have made world travel a nightmare of the past. It is no longer a problem to manufacture something in one part of the world and ship it all the way over to the opposite side.

So can someone please fucking explain this to me?

Just think... Everyday the world is becoming more open to free markets. For every fat kid, how many kids starve to death in countries who can't keep up? Survival of the fittest is for animals, not us.

P.S the photographer of the second picture commited suicide shortly after returning to the states. I wonder why.

Honey I love you, but ooooh that porno!

I really started to pay attention to this thing a couple months ago when I was watching a special on the life of Reverent Billy Graham, the world renowned televangelist. They were telling the stories of peoples lives he had touched. One such story was about a man, with a problem, an addiction, and addiction to something so unholy and sinful that it nearly tore his marriage apart. His addiction? Porno. Yes when they were showing blurbs of what was to come later in the show "the addiction that nearly tore a man's marriage apart", I admit it, I was thinking heroin. Oh boy was I wrong, it was something much worse.

Since then I have noticed that many church groups are raging against the porn industry for spreading sin and destroying our very natural monogamous relationships. Yes marriage is natural, and lust is a sin. As an alternative they could keep their noses out of where they don't belong, but obviously that's not an option. If they can't control what their sheep do, then they go after the ones that supply them with a reason to sway. Or is it because us porn loving, lust wielding criminals are the reason that God allowed the terrorist attacks? (Oh yes Jerry Falwell went there.)

To get back to the story of the man addicted to porn, the problem was that he couldn't control his lust, he had a big collection of porn hidden in the basement, and when he drove by cute girls jogging he had to look. His wife's reaction to finding out about the porn, and catching him looking at other girls? Something to the effect of 'I started to think that I wasn't pretty enough for him.'

My verdict? She's and idiot, and he's a lying asshole. If she really believes that her husband is not going to look at other girls, flirt with them sometimes, and fantasize about other women then she better take that rock that her head has been under all her life and slam it down. She's in for a rude awakening.

As for him, a little honesty goes a long way. Some people just have high sex drives. They think about sex more often. They need to go look in other places. If he loves his wife then he should tell her that, but explain to her his situation. He shouldn't have to stunt his sex drive just because he's married, it's bad enough he has to remain monogamous.

Now I'm no marriagologist, but porn doesn't tear marriages apart, dishonesty and unrealistic expectations do. People need to be open, honest, and educated on sex. People need to know about sex, because everyone has some desire for it.

These groups however continue to harp on the ridiculously unrealistic view of human sexuality. Expecting people not to watch porn? Not to fantasize? Masturbate? They teach children to abstain from sex, thinking that it is the best method. Not for nothing, they are obviously not paying much attention. The God damn priests of the catholic church can't keep their hands off the alter boys! Trained religious scholars who have committed their lives to God, and taken vows of celibacy can not handle it. (I am in no way advocating pedophilia, simply going on the assumption that the high rate of it within this group practicing celibacy group is probably due to a build up of sexual desire that in time becomes uncontrollable.) How on earth are teenagers then expected to do it? Their hormones are raging, drives are multiple times higher, are at a time of body experimentation, and have peer pressure. Yes nice choices idiots. Are you even paying attention?

Politics.

It's not supposed to be a bad word, but why is it? A definition of politics is as follows "The art or science of government or governing, especially the governing of a political entity, such as a nation, and the administration and control of its internal and external affairs." That certainly seems friendly enough. I'm a political science major, I learn about politics, a very necessary set of actions that allow us as human beings to coexist (or not, upon their failings). Why is it then that most of you upon reading this title probably let out a sigh of annoyance.
"Ooh great, p o l i t i c s"

I think it might have something to do with the fact that defining politics on paper and implementing it into the real world, with real people (ahem assholes) become two very different things. Granted the job of a politician isn't easy, distributing finite resources to infinite hands (another definition) is not a job easily undertaken. If we gave the job to a computer it would freak out like Rainman trying to figure out who's on first and probably blow up.

If debating and making decisions on who gets what, when, and how was all that the modern politician had to do, their time would be pretty filled up. Instead they leave this decision making to about 25% of the time and spend the rest mudslinging each other. (Oh yeah and they manage to get ridiculous vacations) And it's getting worse as we get nearer to the next presidential election.

I heard two such mudslinging comments today on the news, equally stupid, misleading and sad. They both came straight from the horses ass. George Bush today referring to an ad placed by moveon.org stating "General Patraeus or General Betray Us" said that it was "disgusting" and a "sorry deal" and went on to explain that it was not only a strike on the governor but a strike on the whole military. Strike one and two, It's a god damn free speech advertisement by an organization, cant get much more free speech than that. And there is no mention of the military, helloooo many of the people in the military don't agree with what their generals do. And for strike three he took it upon himself to condemn the democrats for "being more afraid of irritating a left wing group like moveon.org than the american military." Nice mudslinging tactic dickface, like it's their job to silence free speech. Strike three you're out.

Oh but he wasn't out, he still managed to find time to "take the offensive" on the democrats who were apparently trying to build up the national child health insurance program, which Bush would obviously have to veto, which would make him look bad. Yes make the president with a 30% approval rating look bad. Why would it be so necessary for him to veto it? Well because when you increase the funding for a program, while simultaneously allowing more children in (ones with moderately higher parents' income) it will obviously hurt the poor children already on it. Oh yeah totally makes sense, shame on you democrats for wanting to harm the POOR CHILDREN...wait a minute....Allow more children in AND increase funding, that would help more children.........

Yes mr. bush you managed to invent a story of dirty politics from the other side and trump it with your own. Damn it must feel good to be gangsta.

Nu-uh! Am not!

In reaction to a recent comment that I received I feel as though there are some misconceptions of me that I should clear up. Do not take this in any way to mean that I do not want comments, to the contrary I love them and would like to receive many more, I am simply disheartened when I am accused of being someone that I am not, and in this case truly strive against.

1.This site is not by any means solely an Anti-American government blog. I thought this was quite clear even by a quick scan of my titles but apparently not. Do not try to tie everything I write into being against the american government, I try to critique every part of human interaction including government, society, beliefs, religion, faith,education, democracy, philosophy....

2.A formalized mass religion is not a belief. At least from the perspective that I am looking at. Getting mad at me because I attacked “your beliefs” is silly. If they were “your beliefs” I would try my hardest to leave you personally alone. They are not your beliefs you are borrowing them from the authors of the bible, koran, and other holy books. I will put out my opinion on a lot of things, and if I think you are wrong I will tell you that. However as long as you have a personal belief and you are not following faith blindly I will at least respect you. I only lack respect for those who follow the heard blindly.

3.My purpose in writing is not not to be a jackass. I realize I come off negatively very often. I also however promote the ideas that I feel are right. I do this because I think it is important pool ideas to come up with answers. It's a concept of a collective individual who absorbs and radiates ideas and personality which anyone who has read Walt Whitman's poems will recognize. One of these days I will write a little something about it.

4.I'm not “liberal” or “leftist.” And I am definitely not a democrat. I strive to be as close to a humanitarian as I can, and attempt to do and promote things that are best for people. Sometimes I'm wrong, I try to admit those times. Please though, help me realize when I am. But on the flip side don't be afraid to be enlightened or corrected yourself.

5.I am not stupid. My mom said so.

Fascism, Ignorance, and Religion

In Italy and Germany before WWII there were no questions. What Hitler or Mussolini said was right, duh. People were murdered by the millions, lands were concurred, armies were built up larger than ever seen before, police states were created. There were to be no questions.
In religion class I was taught to have faith, everyone was unsure sometimes, but I should have full faith in God. If you question the bible you are a sinner. It is against the very moral fabric of religion to question that religion.

I hope it's not to hard to find the similarity between these two stories. Religion is Fascist. It's a disgusting institution that has been built around keeping itself alive because it falls short of the very thing that it promises. Religion is supposed to give us the answers to the questions of the world. It doesn't, it give us the answers to the obvious things and tells us the rest either isn't important, or maybe that we'll find out after death. Great, that'll do the world a lot of good now won't it. So since religion doesn't do what it is supposed to, in it had to be created a self-protection mechanism so that people get mad if you ask questions.

If we don't ask questions we don't learn. If we accept the answers from yesterday we don't learn more. Without a constant quest for truth the world becomes stagnant and hateful. If we are going to have a chance we can't be held back by these old ideologies. We no longer think that the world is flat but we feel that without marriage a couple shouldn't be living together. And god-forgive that couple be of the same sex!

Religion is a haven for ignorance, choke on that when you're wearing you expensive easter dresses with your pretty flower hats, so you can “impress god.” The world is having a hard time stepping forward with ¾ of the population standing with their heads up their asses.

Fuck your easter.

The pull-out method

So it’s commonly known that there is an ideological problem with democratizing Iraq. Commonly known to everyone but George Bush, and his millions of followers. It seems safe to say that democracy is a better system in the protection of individual rights than Authoritarianism. Just by the very fact that our standard of living is much higher and freer than any authoritarian state, at least yet. There are of course (I repeat) ideological and religious reasons that democracy is unacceptable, but lets not forget that there was a time when the separation of Christianity and the state was considered ridiculous. There are obviously Muslims today that are living under democracy, so as George understands, it is possible for Muslims to democratize. Anything is possible… with time and energy. Time in Iraq is not being considered. Energy is, but its type is certainly questionable for the effect being striven for.

Lets first look at the need of time. Iraqis are not democratic and they never have been. There is a political theorist named Harry Eckstein who developed something called the congruence theory. Without getting into great specifics, for those of you who aren’t theory nerds, the basic premise is, for a democracy to succeed there must be a congruency or sameness of institutions all through society (from government, to schools, small governments, clubs, families and down to the people.) All of these things need to be somewhat democratic for a democracy to work. It really makes sense, if all parts of a society are organized democratically, it is a sign that the people of that state are thinking democratically (they feel that they have the right to influence their own future.) This is not the case in Iraq. We can not expect to stop and old authoritarian government and have a democratic one take its place overnight. Even if everyone in the state wanted it (they don’t) it still wouldn’t work because the people don’t know how to be democratic. How to educate people is a question that I and anyone else is hard pressed to answer. The only thing known is that democracy seems to be learned better by example than by schooling. Since the U.S (a democracy “ish”) has invaded Iraq and occupied it very undemocratically it can be safely assumed that the example we are showing is not a very good one. I would go so far as to say this might be the worst way to try to democratize Iraq. Which leads me into the next section, “energy.”

It takes energy to make a democracy, but who should do it, and how should it be done? The biggest problem with democratizing is that it seems nearly impossible to jump start it without the use of violence (is it?). Saddam was not going to one day say “ok make a democracy” to his people. People are most likely going to die, and war may ensue. I will leave it up to you to decide whether you think war for freedom is moral. I might venture to say that it is more moral if it is for your own freedom. This isn’t for the U.S’s freedom. The greater problem in Iraq, more so than moral (wow, more than moral?!?) is the strategic problem of outside force. The prospective citizens of a new democracy first of all must want to democratize, it cant be decided for them, (that’s undemocratic!.) The force that we use against the Iraqis will cause them to run from democracy, not internalize it. You can’t force someone to not want to be forced anymore.

I’m obviously looking at a very narrow section of the Iraq situation, there are many more variables effecting it. I think however that it is important to point out these problems. I think it shows that what the U.S wants and what they are actually doing in Iraq are counter-intuitive and counter- productive. Iraq isn’t our toy. It’s a state full of people that are going through a lot of shit. They have been going through shit for a long time, but we have changed what kind.

Now that we have changed things should we really pull out and leave them to settle it themselves? Yes and no. That’s my opinion anyways. We’ve done the harm, we’ve put the country into shambles, we can’t leave it that way, look into the U.S history of war, when we do that, it's not so good for the other country. On the other hand we would really like to see Iraq democratize, and its fairly safe to assume that in time they will want it too, but that transition has a much smaller chance of occurring if a democratic state is enforcing a will on them violently. We need to stay there but change our course. Demonstrating democracy while helping stabilize and re-build the country wold seem to be a better sort of operation.

The cause to pull out our troops now, is backward. (sorry Cindy) It’s a nice concept but doesn’t make a lot of sense. Certainly leaving completely now would save American lives, but if we are truly to be moral beings we must weigh consequences pan-nationally. Us leaving now would cause more death to the world. If America is going to use its army to help other countries liberalize (this is considering that this is not simply an excuse) then we are going to have to update our military. Our old methods are not going to be able to appropriately manage our new goals. If we want to liberalize countries we are going to need a peaceful, democratic army that expresses those very attributes which we wish other countries to emulate. That is something to strive for. I would join that army. It’s too late to pull out, the damage has been done, now we have to do what we SAID we were going in for.

Traditionalists are lower than Gonorrhea discharge

My intention is for this to be a short essay, about a small subject, that is causing a big aneurysm to form in my brain. We'll see if it ends up that way, can you now see that editing is really not important to me at all? Yeah I don't read these things after I write them, big surprise. Anyways the problem that I am having, albeit a recurrence a thousand times over, is tradition. The circumstances which have prompted this particular aneurysm are the protest of Keith Ellison, the first Muslim congressman's wish to say his oath accepting his position with his hand on the Koran rather than the bible.

The funny thing is that Ellison has another thing going for him in this quest, he wishes to say his oath on the Koran which belonged to Thomas Jefferson. The argument is that this will break tradition, but it doesn't get more “american tradition” than Thomas Jefferson. So representative Virgil Goode of Virginia I say to you, you're an idiot.

Honestly though my rejection of his tie to tradition isn't based on the fact that it was Jefferson's Koran, Come on, you know me better than that, my gripes go much deeper. My problem is with this fact of tradition in general (I know I alluded to it earlier) Honestly though was swearing on the bible ever supposed to be a tradition? I'm not even going to bother looking this up, I'm going with my gut feeling, you know, truthiness* on this one. Anyways, hear me out. The idea of swearing on the bible is to say that if you do so, and you act against that oath you would be, in essence acting against that thing that you swore on. So maybe the first group of people who did so were Christians, I guess it would then make sense for them to swear on the bible, if its close and dear to their hearts, that's what I want them swearing on. But what about the people who are not Christian? I don't want them swearing on a bible, because to them its like swearing on a turkey sandwich, they have no ties to it, so swearing on it means nothing. If you're a Muslim I'd rather have you swear on the Koran because obviously it means something to you otherwise you wouldn't call yourself a Muslim. If you are not a part of a religious organization, such as I, I would rather you picked something else which is close to your heart. I would swear on a picture of my mother for instance. To me swearing to the Koran or the Bible would be like swearing to Green Eggs and Ham.

So to you Mr. Good, take your head out of your ass. Your dissent seriously just makes you look like a fucking idiot.

Anyways this essay obviously has no relevancy, because swearing an oath to serve and protect those that you represent is really just a silly formality, right american government?


*Truthiness is a word created by Steven Colbert, who is one of my few heroes