Political Rants

"British historian David Irving has had his conviction for denying the Holocaust upheld by the Austrian Supreme Court... The historian was also on trial for claiming the November 1938 Kristallnacht pogrom, when Nazis attacked and torched thousands of Jewish businesses and synagogues, was not the work of Nazis but of others who had dressed up as stormtroopers."(Cite BBC News)

I've talked about this before, but making it illegal to question history is THE MOST fascist thing possible. I don't agree with this mans views, but imprisoning him simply because he doesn't believe something is completely ridiculous.

I had a conversation with Andy Borne a while back where I said something to the extent that the only way to keep America on top was to keep china poor by any means possible.  He called this Malthusian and frankly I have to agree with him, and more so with Malthus.  While his equations may not have been correct, there was no way he could have predicted the advances of the late nineteenth and twentieth century. Don’t give me any of that optimistic “we’ll find a way” bullshit, we are draining the topsoil at a staggering rate, and as if to add insult to injury we are beginning to use food to power our vehicles (think ethanol)?  Do you have any idea how many calories it takes to power a car? By pure food value a gallon of ethanol has 244,939 (cite: http://reddit.com/info/drah/comments) That’s enough to feed 122 people for a day or more… to get you what? 25 miles? Blasphemy. I’ll come back to why I hate ethanol in a later post.  Anyway, back to china.  Simply put they need to be kept poor for the worlds sake.  Think of the energy demands that would be put on the world if 2 billion Chinese suddenly lived the extravagant American lifestyle.  The world simply couldn’t take it.  America needs to stop importing Chinese goods, for import is undeniably dragging down American Business,  and a huge piece of the Chinese import is from Wal-Mart (despite me liking their anti-union policies) and they need to be stopped.  As much as I enjoy the utopian idea of a completely free, self regulating market, we’re not ready for it, theres too much imbalance, and buying things from china puts American companies out of business, or worse yet sold to China.  In example, RCA’s Television Manufacturing Division.  Well that was random, but it’s a post.

Love and Kisses
Jesse Donat

As many of you are aware, the British Intelligence Service and Scotland Yard disrupted a major plot within the last few days to blow up ten commercial airliners traveling between London and the United States. President Bush is right to indicate that this plot is proof that we are a nation at war. The Democrats on the other hand have crawled back into their little ball of nonsense. The right honorable gentlemen Sen. Edward Kennedy was quoted by the BBC saying: "It is clear that our misguided policies are making America more hated in the world and making the war on terrorism harder to win" (link). The left actually believes we are fighting an enemy that would just leave us alone if we "played nice." Instead of acknowledging that we face an enemy more determined than any we have ever faced, the Democrats care little about the truth and more about bashing the President. Al-Qaeda has been determined for the better part of two-decades to bring America to its' knees. I'm highly skeptical that they're just going to stop because we leave them alone.

As long as there are terrorists who desire the US?s demise and countries that harbor and promote terrorism against the United States, we are a nation at war. Diplomacy must always be the first recourse when dealing with a dangerous regime but the 1990's were proof of Iraq and Afghanistan's refusal to deal the US and the UN in good faith. Approximately 10 different Security Council resolutions (I have an earlier post documenting this) were passed during that decade that called for negotiations and then military action should Iraq defy the resolutions. Each time Iraq violated a resolution, instead of taking the promised action, the Security Council simply passed another resolution telling them they had been "bad." In the case of Taliban ruled Afghanistan, they simply refused to negotiate in good faith all together. Diplomacy was given 10 years and nothing in the way of progress was made. The world simply has a weak stomach for leaders who follow through on their promises. This is why the world hates President Bush, and why I have no regrets about voting for him.

I promised Paul a post so here it is.

Quoting The Superficial (link) (not the best source, I know)

Democratic Assemblyman Ted Lieu has introduced a bill that would prohibit the selling, leasing, or distributing of an ultrasound machine by California manufacturers to anyone other than licensed medical professionals, after it was publicized that Tom Cruise had purchased one for use at home with Katie Holmes.

"If someone sees Tom Cruise buy one, they think this is the thing to do," Lieu said. "This is a public safety measure. There's really no medical reason for an untrained person to use this machine."

Despite this, quoting Wikipedia: "There are no substantiated side-effects documented in studies."

Why make something illegal that has no harm? That?s not freedom, that?s not capitalism, that?s totalitarianism. Laws are to be kept to a minimum, and there to protect us, not there to keep us in our place. They want to take away our rights, one by one.

I'm sorry, but if I see one more 24 hour news network anchor pretend like they know how to solve some unsolved mystery I'm going to lose it. These people masquerade around like security guards with an Oedipus complex. For the last time oh mighty 24-hour news anchor, you aren't a detective so report the damn news already and stop speculating. You know what a good way to identify when some news anchor is blowing bullshit 20 feet in the air? When every other word out of their mouth is "could" or "might" or "possibly." Why don't they just cut to the chase and admit that they have absolutely no bloody idea who killed Jane Doe and why. There's this pesky thing called police, and it's about damn time that news anchors leave crime solving to the people who are actually accountable for what they say and do. Because as far as I know, Greta Van Sustren or Geraldo haven't solved too many double homicides (though Geraldo did really blow the lid off Al Capone's Safe).

This is just something of a rant, but I think the 20 dollar bill should be eliminated and replaced with a 25 dollar bill so our paper moneys increments match our coinages increments. What?s more I think the $25 bill should feature Ronald Regan rather than Andrew Jackson, on the grounds that Andrew Jackson was not at all a good president with the 'Indian Removal Act' of 1830 and what not.

Bonjourno,

I'm here today to speak to you all fine citizens about the banes of my existence: Mr. Bill O'Riley of Fox News and Lou Dobbs of CNN. I understand and respect the desire both of these men have for bringing important news topics to the attention of the American public. Each of these men speak of topics that often will have substantial impact on the way you and I live our lives, and they believe in what they do.

This being said, Lou Dobbs and Bill O'Riley have come to embody the essence of all that is contemptible about 24 hour "news" networks. I believe it was the great man Louis Black who put it best when he said: "it takes these guys a month to bring you 24 hours of news."

And this all brings me to why Lou Dobbs and Bill O'Riley are the banes of my existence. Each of these gentlemen in the hopes of diffusing their respective viewpoints into the American consciousness literally dramatize issues to the point at which I just can't take it any more. Of the endless news stories these fine gentlemen present to you, many are very important and need to be discussed. However Bill O'Riley and Lou Dobbs would rather do that discussion for you. Almost without exception, 24 hour news network hosts cant seem to find more than 10 minutes of actual news to report so it'd be a grand idea if everyone became so paranoid about a particular issue that they never went outside, as opposed to giving people the information and letting them make up their own minds in a calm, rationale manner. While most network host do this, Bill O'Riley and Lou Dobbs are especially guilty parties. I challenge any one of you to try to sit through an entire broadcast and one of three things will happen. One, you physically won't be able to watch an entire show (personally I'm lucky if I last five minutes). Two, you will notices how ridiculously overdramatic these gentlemen are. Or three, you will get incredibly bored and change the channel after 20 minutes of mind-numbing analysis by these two fine gentlemen. (Note: It is entirely possible one or more of these things will happen). In the unlikely event none of these things happen than I strongly suggest you take a vacation and lighten up. About the only news network host I enjoy is Keith Oberman on MSNBC. His show is both informative and enjoyable, probably because he's not trying to shove his point of view down your throat (see Bill O'Riley and Lou Dobbs). Keith is what a news anchor is supposed to be, Bill O'Riley and Lou Dobbs could do well to take pointers from him.

Now I don't see the world through rose-colored glasses. We do live in a incredibly complicated world that has grown ever more connected through our advances in technology. Much of our world is deeply troubled and there is nothing worse than sweeping the bad news under the rug. That being said, how bout coming up with some reasonable solutions instead of doing nothing but repeating what's wrong with the world for an hour. Or better yet, maybe take five minutes out of an hour-long program to show people where progress is being made. I mean is that too much to ask, five minutes about where things are coming together, and I don't mean the kind of 30-second spots that you have at the end of local news broadcasts. You know, the kind about fluffy the surfing squirrel. I mean take five minutes or so at the end of the broadcast so people realize that not everything they hold dear is going to hell in a hand basket as the 24-hour news networks would have you believe. Heck by putting it at the end of the broadcast, CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, etc. could still make sure that, 'if it bleeds, it leads.'

On Saturday morning (today) I was meeting my group for an accounting project on the bottom floor of the Carlson School of Management (one of the Midwest's top business schools). There's an anti-war conference going on at the school and a socialist group has a table set up. I can't help but think that maybe the socialists could be looking for a more likely audience than students who are studying for the sole purpose of profiting off of capitalism! Obviously they did not take any marketing classes, maybe because they wouldn't want to take any of those evil business classes, but who knows. Anyways, it made me somewhat upset, and Jesse wants me to post, so it is what it is.

Welcome to the A-times Mayank! Im sure you'll have plenty to say, and maybe i'll be posting regularly sometime soon!

There has been a lot of talk about Bushes unwarranted line tapping, which has been allowed under the patriot act. I am not a fan of the law personally, but I'm not sure of its illegality, and am therefore not going to blindly call the president a criminal as Al Gore did slanderously today. It may just be similar to the national governments right to taxation where a law overstepped its constitutionality (which oddly enough, though has been proven unconstitutional has not been overturned)

I've had a number of conversations on the topic and here is what I can say for sure. Whether or not you believe the phone line to be an extension of the home owners property (Which I personally do not believe,) the Fourth Amendment allows for unwarranted search of "any open space other than the land immediately surrounding a domicile" (wiki quote) which the phone line at the phone company could easily be considered. The obvious thing here though is that they still should either need the consent or a warrant for the phone company unless that has become public domain which I do question.

I welcome talkback on this, as I am not even sure on my stance any more.