Current Events, currently
filed in Uncategorized on Dec.19, 2002
Another 9.5 billion reasons to hate the Bush administration. That’s how much they’re budgeting for the proposed missile defense system that is “better than nothing.” What gets me is how none of the media is talking about why we never built one of these before. The technology has been around a long time. Reagan had the star wars program. The problem is, they just don’t work. It’s basic game theory. All they have to do is fire enough missiles at the same time, most of which can be decoys, and they can get one through. But it’s better than nothing. Better than reducing the defecit, stimulating the economy, fighting illegal immigration, or anything worthless like that.
Trent Lott. What a dick. Is he a racist? Probably. Was he just trying to make a hundred year old man happy on his birthday? Probably. Should we just get on with our lives and vote out the Republicans in a couple years? Probably.
Saw The Two Towers on Tuesday. It was good. Saw Nemesis on Saturday. It was not as good, an unsatisfying end on some levels, satisfying on others.
December 19th, 2002 on 4:12 pm
Good luck with the voting republicans out. Just hope you know that the democrats are just as bad in the stupid-asshole-who-makes-bad-decisions category.
They’re fucking politicians – embarrasing themselves while making ill-thought decisions is kinda what they do. I got over that when I was 16.
December 19th, 2002 on 4:36 pm
Its the entire group. Old guard out. New generation in. When will this be? Soon I hope. I can’t wait.
December 19th, 2002 on 4:37 pm
You always put it together so nicely. Thanks.
December 19th, 2002 on 6:54 pm
I’m impressed if anyone was suprised about trent lott.
December 19th, 2002 on 7:42 pm
No, no, no. You seem to forget that the politicians are first selected by exactly the wrong criteria: how bad they want to be in office (this is for them to actually get into politics in the first place). The new generation is the same sort of garbage as the old; it just hasn’t started to stink yet.
December 19th, 2002 on 7:48 pm
As a side note, I do believe in voting, with the goal to balance power between the parties. The hope is that with the opposites clashing so hard, only the stuff that ought to be done gets done.
Of course this never really works – bills that a few high-powered people want get passed via the almighty Large Piles of Cash – but at least it’s better than the other methods of government that have been available (just ask if you want my reasoning for that).
December 19th, 2002 on 7:48 pm
I don’t see it that way. Regardless of the possible stereotypical politician personality traits, we are still a different generation. A generation that has grown, at least a little. There are definite differences. Definite tolerances. Changes. All the problems aren’t gone; that’s for sure. But we’re getting there. That’s all we can ask for.
December 19th, 2002 on 7:54 pm
While I agree with you that this method is the best, I would still love to hear your reasoning, given the lack of faith you seem to have.
December 19th, 2002 on 11:46 pm
I’ll elicit the development of my whole point of view (long post ahead).
There are reasons for certain stereotypes, and the job-related ones are the most true, in a general sense. The conditions that allow for one to enter politics are those surrounded by greed, corruption, and a general distaste for the public, even if – no, caused by the fact that – it is public service. Just as the high school janitor becomes irritated with the students, the politician deveops a sense of superiority over its charge.
If you’ve ever attended a good political session, you know what I mean. They assume – quite rightly so, actually – that the general populace is stupid.
It’s nice to have ideals; to think that a change from the status quo is necessarily a good thing. However, replacing the milk in your fridge and expecting it not to spoil is a bit naive. Similarly, replacing your politicians with a new generation of idealists, and not expecting the political world to break them down into the same guys who are there now requires a bit of belief-suspension.
As with any good system, the requirement for an abstract concept over static knowledge is evident. Where there is a natural failure in the way a system is designed – corruption derived from power, for instance – logic submits that the best course of action is to have the elements of the system cancel each other out as best as possible.
For example, when one party or the other is in power, the legislative output of Congress is raised, and the likelihood of damaging bills is increased. However, when Congress is “deadlocked”, a select few bills actually pass, and those are normally the ones that everyone can agree on.
This is not always true, and does not always work, but as with any statistical theory, it’s a good rule of thumb, and is true for most reasonable situations. Currently, the primary topic where this does not apply well is in laws concerning technology, as the majority of federal politicians are ill-informed on high-tech matters.
For this, I too await the new generation. But considering the number of stupids floating about, I’m not holding my breath.
December 20th, 2002 on 12:10 am
My reasoning is purely economic.
Republicans pander to big business, and democrats squander tax money. The happy median to this is that we get the social programs that are absolutely necessary, and businesses get the laws passed to allow them to operate at a greater efficiency.
Which is good. The poor get richer, the rich get richer – which, statistically, is historically true.
But I’ll define. Any social program makes the poor richer, essentially because it spreads wealth about, even if it’s not actual cash. Any time something gets spread about, those with less of it end up with more.
The rich get richer. This is an assumption that everyone makes, and there’s a good reason for it. They dump a lot of money into researching how to get richer, and if it’s not happening, it’s a “the economy needs work” idiot light.
Why is everyone getting richer good?
On many levels, including ecologically, socially, and in terms of criminal activity, a better economy means that things improve.
For example, there’s a statistical paper done by Bjarne Lundborg (sp?) that illustrates a correlation between pollution levels and GDP in industrialized nations. Apparently, as GDP rises, pollution increases for about 25 years, then slowly drops off.
The explanation for this is that pollution is waste. The more economically efficient an industry is, the less waste they produce; the waste product ends up being either eliminated in the process of advancement in industrial technology, or a use is found for it.
As for socially, people are generally nicer when they have more cash; there’s less for them to worry about. It also improves heatlh (lower stress levels and better healthcare), and quality of life.
On the subject of crime – I refer only to violent deaths; nicer people, the decrease in poverty, and better (and earlier) psychological treatment equates to fewer murders.
How is more money bad?
Major paradigm shifts, such as the advent of the internet and high technology cause great booms in the economy. This makes people get complacent, and forget that there may have to be changes made for these new abilities to get properly integrated into our legal structure. A policy window has to be created by a major negative event to cause these changes to be made.
Read: How September 11th may have been a good thing.
Whether you like it or not, the governments actions in relation to the events that occured on The Day Everyone Is Fucking Tired Of Hearing About have been unpleasant, but necessary. When times are good, we tend to forget that our past actions have generally pissed every other country off, and we end up letting our defenses down.
And if you think defense is a waste of time, let me ask you this: What’s the best way to befriend a malicious cat?
Wrap it in a towel that smells of you, and make pleasant cooing noises until it falls asleep.
I will repeat that. Wrap it in a towel (defense) that smells of you (our media) and make pleasant cooing noises (foreign policy) until it falls asleep (Canada).
Essentially, we have to prove to every other paranoid nation (read as “every nation”) that we are NOT trying to take over their country, and quite frankly, haven’t been trying to since before WWI. We’re not imperialists. We’re american. We’re the laid back, pot-smoking teenagers of the world, and we could care less what you do, so long as you’re not killing people, attacking us, or trying to smoke our weed.
Wow, but that got off topic.
December 20th, 2002 on 12:23 am
Reelect nobody.
December 20th, 2002 on 12:27 am
No kidding. A Republican senator from the south who is over fifty years old is racist? Can’t be.
There is a reason that the Democrats don’t carry the southern states anymore, and it’s not because the south got more tolerant.
December 20th, 2002 on 12:28 am
If you want to get technical, they’re selected based on how much money they can spend on TV ads and dumb media events to buy votes.
December 20th, 2002 on 12:37 am
“Essentially, we have to prove to every other paranoid nation (read as “every nation”) that we are NOT trying to take over their country, and quite frankly, haven’t been trying to since before WWI. We’re not imperialists.”
Yes, that’s what we should be doing, but our current administration isimperialist and will get us in a heap of trouble. That’s why I say vote out the Republicans. I know the Democrats aren’t much better, but they are slower to war. Which is what is needed now. It will be too late in two years though, unfortunately. What an interesting time for our election system to have broken down.
December 20th, 2002 on 12:42 am
The big problem is that our elected officials are so overworked they rely very heavily on their staff and lobbyists, who are not elected. When we elect someone new, the staff stays the same. This means that the people who are really writing the speeches, scheduling the meetings, even advising on policy, will not change no matter how many angry voters turn out.
Essentially we elect figureheads for the real people in charge, who we can’t touch.
December 20th, 2002 on 6:11 am
At the very least, things are getting done. Slowly. Very slowly. Let’s hope we can survive to see it through.
December 20th, 2002 on 6:14 am
We’re the laid back, pot-smoking teenagers of the world, and we could care less what you do, so long
If we can keep that in mind, we’ll be fine.
December 20th, 2002 on 6:33 am
Sure we can. We do it from the inside. We do it ourselves. But we don’t. That’s what really worries me. The lack of desire and/or motivation. Why aren’t we in there, working to fix this?
December 20th, 2002 on 6:35 am
I really don’t have much of a response, as I agree with your appraisal of our system. And of our people. My only difference is my little more idealistic, perhaps naive, view of society.
December 20th, 2002 on 11:58 am
There’s a sale at Gap!!
December 20th, 2002 on 6:43 pm
Indeed.