Hugo Chavez is such a poser.

Ajazeera English Article.

He is. He goes on, and on, and on about Democratic reforms when what he really wants is to be a dictator. The people voted, Chavez. In 2007 Venezuelans voted and said that no - you are not to be in office forever. Even Putin at least changed his title while hanging on to power. Suave, Putin is. If you want to hang on to power, take power, dammit. Or, if your real fear is watching the opposition ruin your reforms and reverse your process then nominate someone for the next election who you think will do a good job. Not a puppet - those never work, but someone who can keep you in power.

You have to remember that if you want this democracy to last, you're not going to be in power forever. Eventually you will die (if you pass this referendum), and the country won't be able to move on. There will be a power vacuum. Those suck. So, Chavez, if you really want the democracy to succeed think about the future, not about the now.

Israel...are you serious?

Israeli elections land the country in a stalemate.

It's times like these that I think our blatant, polar, two-party system has some ups on others such as Canada or that one half of Europe. At least we have a clear majority in most elections (we'll ignore the electoral college for now). But is the security of our government and not having warring factions really worth the loss of alternate political ideas?

You ponder that. I go bed now.

Opening to Iran

YAY!!!!!!!!!

I really, really, really approve of this new foreign relations thing the Obama administration has going.


I mean TALKING people and trying to work out problems instead of assuming-we're-awesome-enough-that-ignoring-them-will-make-them-sad-and -not-enhance-uranium-that-might-or-might-not -be-used-in-atomic-weapons!? WOW!!!

So, Iran is like the really smart, depressed kid that has plans to blow up to the school mostly because he hates the jocks and their stupidity/ culture. I mean...those jocks are really what's wrong with this society. motherfuckers.
In case you didn't follow my metaphor, America is the jock, and if the jock's body voted to give him/her a new brain then the jock might show that he/she is not a total jackass, but only a mere douche bag. So, let's find out what the emo creeper is up to so he at least feels a little guilty about the notion of blowing us up...maybe he'll think twice about it.

Ok. Shut the fuck up.

[rant]

Way to take non-partisanship and shove it the country's ass. Thanks.

Of course we're spending money. Our country needs people to spend money. And because the whole of America is scared shitless, most people aren't going to spend all that money they would save on their taxes, just like they didn't spend the money they got from Bush's stimulus bill. By putting money into renewing roads and things we're making new jobs for the around 14% of adult America that is either unemployed or part-time looking for full-time positions. And giving money to companies and things is now a more sure thing than giving it to consumers now a days.

And STOP bitching about pork. Like you've never stuck a little something-something into an appropriation's bill. hmmm? That's basically the same thing. I don't like pork either, but just stop complaining about it. please? I also don't understand how you can support a war that drowned us in debut which, originally, had very little to do with American security (damn you Woodrow Wilson) and then so strongly oppose using other money we don't have to help bring America out of a economic hole. Which might potentially help the wolrd too, since we're the ones that brought them down in the first place. So let's unite as a nation and ruin our credit score together for ourselves.

[/rant]

We Need Science

How awesome is this!?

This technology is now barely surfacing. We can create better technology; faster computers! Since we've created the spear, man kind has constantly advanced their technology to take that next step forward, and has made new discoveries in the world around them to better society (usually). But you're never going to get that faster processor to play badass video games without people getting the funding to make these discoveries. And it's not like we knew what the hell we were going to use electricity for when Ben Franklin (dumbass) was electrocuting himself.

Here, I'll let "The West Wing" Explain:

SAM SEABORNE (Rob Lowe. Hot SOB. Deputy Communications Director.)
Look, Congress isn’t gonna fund your damn Superconductor, all right?

MILLGATE (Sam's old physics professor from Princeton who wants to do something meaningful before he dies shortly)
Supercollider. Superconducting Supercollider. This is exactly what I’m talking about. A 54-mile tunnel, 150 feet below ground in which protons and antiprotons would be flung …
It’s a machine that reveals the origin of matter.

By smashing protons together at very high speeds and at very high temperatures, we can recreate the Big Bang in a laboratory setting, creating the kinds of particles that only existed in the first trillionth of a second after the universe was created.

SAM
Okay, terrific. I understand that. What kind of practical applications does it have?

MILLGATE
None at all.

SAM
You’re not in any way a helpful person.

MILLGATE
There are no practical applications, Sam. Anybody who says different is lying.

SAM
I need to be able to show him I can paint him against something. Children, baseball, campaign finance. What does it mean to be against the Supercollider?

MILLGATE
I really don’t know where to start.

SENATOR ENLOW (Asshole who wants to spend a bunch of money in an upcoming appropriations on a highway named after him rather than on something important and awesome. bitch.)
I’m a Democrat, Sam. How’s a 20 billion dollar astronomy lecture gonna help the President get elected?

If only we could only say what benefit this thing has, but no one’s been able to do that.

MILLGATE
That’s because great achievement has no road map. The X-ray’s pretty good. So is penicillin. Neither were discovered with a practical objective in mind. I mean, when the electron was discovered in 1897, it was useless. And now, we have an entire world run by electronics. Haydn and Mozart never studied the classics. They couldn’t. They invented them.

Politics has become too much about the vote and not as much about doing the right thing; about bettering our society and pushing forward. How did we put men one the moon in 10 years and then decide science had no bearing on normal people? As our world has advanced our government (at least over the past 8 years) has thrown progress to the side. I really hope Obama does raise science to it's proper place, as he promised in his inaugural speech. At least after he gets the country out of this shit-hole of a mess we made for ourselves. But let's not be a country full of Prof. Unbridges'. Progress for progress's sake must, by all means, be encouraged. The status quo has never really remained the same. You've gotta make new time. You've gotta make the world better.

I couldn't find a video clip of this, but this chick on youtube has a bijillion clips up of random awesome things from the show. You should watch it. All of you.

Spending Less, Creating Less

For Realz?

As I kind of mentioned at the end of my last post, if we want the economy to succeed we're going about it the wrong way. Completely. By spending less money people are just making this economic crisis worse. Look at this thing from the beginning: dip-shits loss their homes. Okay, we popped the housing bubble. But now everyone is wetting their pants, and not spending their money or taking out loans because looked what happened to those poor, poor (fiscally irresponsible) people. And we all know how the economy is "these days". We tried that stimulus thing this past summer. Everyone gets $600, they spend it, stores make money, people keep their jobs, more money is spent, etc. etc. Upward spiral. It looked like a good idea. But if you ask the scared American populous, most of the of them are going to say that they saved that money.

They saved it out of fear. To me it seems like America got totally wasted on our "awesomeness" and wealth and now we're waking up the next morning and have vowed to never drink again. That's one bitch of a hangover. But America - now all the bars are going out of business. Think about what sort of effect that will have? The bartender will loose his/her job and so will the truck driver, the janitor, the bottler, the distiller, the hops grower, and everyone involved in those processes. What you should've learned from this night of frivolities is not to stop drinking, but to drink more responsibly. Don't take out loans you can't pay back, and don't know what the interest rates are. (WTF, dude?) Have a little fun, spend a little dough. By purging ourselves of all our sins we're also fucking ourselves over.

A penny saved is not a penny earned, Mr. Franklin. A penny saved is a job lost.

In Soviet Russia...

DISCLAIMER:I've never taken an econ class, so I'm going off my self-taught knowledge here. If Something is fundamentally flawed, and obviously so, I apologize. Thank you for understanding :)


Well, I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that thanks to the fiscally irresponsible, the morally irresponsible, and the American Dream, our economy is totally fucked. Or, if I'm Vladamir Putin or Wen Jiabao, it's all the capitalists' fault. I mean, if the majority of governments in the world operated under the pseudo-communism that now exists in their two countries this crisis would be invisible to the public never had happened. At the World Economic Forum's annual meeting happening in Davos, Switzerland these past couple days there has been talk of the failure and end of the capitalist system. Is that what this recession really means? That Free Enterprise has failed?

I think not. As history has showed us, capitalism usually recovers better than communism. Communism isn't a terrible idea in principle. Everybody gets their fair share and what not, but... people end up sucking and ruining it for everyone else. But, the thing is that people, in general, want to make as much money as they can, and I think we've found a nice balance at this time of letting people succeed as much as they can, while limiting it so it doesn't really hurt others. Okay, Okay, capitalism is all about hurting the competition and getting more bang for your buck. I was talking more along the lines of J.P. Morgan and those other turn-of-the-century crazies. We also must remember when we're talking about capitalism and free markets that they have their ups and down. ups. <--key word. If you've ever taken a U.S. History class you may recall we've had about a bizillion "Panics of such-and-such a year". Overall, though, I think we can say capitalism has worked out pretty well for us westerners so far. So, Russia. China. Stop gloating and being douches. Just because at the moment you happen to be fairing a bit better than your cold-war nemeses doesn't mean you should forget all the times your fun revolutions totally failed. The position of "you suck, but let's focus on how awesome we are" is...a little juvenile. Maybe it's because the lack of international trading and lending that you're not as effected by a international crisis begun by ummmm.... trading and lending? So sush.

We can all see the trend of economics heading towards socialism. Europe's doing it, and formerly hard-core communist countries have learned to conservatise (not a word) a little bit. We all have things to learn from each other about how to best balance free-market and government, but at the moment we really don't know which way is best. For now, though, my large, red friends - let's give free market a chance (pseudo-communism is not the obvious solution), and learn to be a bit more responsible. But not too responsible. Come on, people. If you want you're fellow country-men to keep their jobs start spending a little. If you want the stock prices to go up, buy stocks. Just not from dumbasses you lend money to people they won't get it back from.

NY Times article on Russia and China the the World Economic Forum

In Soviet Russia...(Encyclopedia Dramatica)