Actions and Consequences
It's funny how money seems to affect what people consider acceptable behavior. For instance, if you're rich and have children, you can still party it up. Normally I wouldn't comment on somthing like Britney partying it up with Paris and what not but I had to talk about Paris's comments. Here she tries to defend Britney's behavior, “For people to call out her parenting skills on behalf of her partying ethics is appalling. Britney loves her kids to death, and I know for a fact that it truly hurts her when she sees these cruel things being written about her. She goes home every night to her babies and partying has not come in the way of her parenting." Can your partying ethics possibley reflect on your parently skills? Absolutely. How many responsible parents do you think let it all hang out, literally, when their children are not around? Being a parent isn't just a part time job and just because you have a nanny to had your kids off to doesn't mean you stop being a parent. Once you become a parent you become a role model for your children. Rich or poor, once you have children your partying days are over. If and when you get to go out you're expected to keep your clothes on and have responsible fun.
Same Sex Marriages
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness" It's obvious that the founding fathers did not have gay marriage in mind when they wrote the Declaration of Independence, and that they were referring to the ideals and concepts that form the basis of a social contract that each population has with it's government. However, can we in our day in age tell two intelligent, consenting adults that they cannot be married? Who are we to make their decisions for them? The limits of one's actions are within the boundries of what is ethically and legally allowed within a society. What collective morales can we hold that will keep two consenting adults from marrying? The two arguements I hear the most are either 1) It's against God's will, or 2) It will ruin the foundations of the family unit.
The first arguement, that it's against God's will has no basis for limiting or allowing behavior in our society. We are not living in the Dark Ages. We have an elected government to, and a legal system to determine what we can and cannot due and both are to act independent of each other and any religious influences as defined by the constitution. We are not soley a country of christians or puritans. There are many budists, hindus, atheists, etc. that live within our country and due not share the same religious beliefs as christians and puritans. They are protected by the constitution so that they do not have to live by religious laws. I find this arguement rather humorous since most of these people would also argue for a democratic nation in Iraq as opposed to a governement based on the Islam religion.
Gay marriages will ruin the family unit in Amercia- bullshit. There is no better answer for this arguement. There is no evidence that gay couples cannot raise healthy, well adjusted children. Nor will these families ruin "heterosexually maintained" households. What do these people expect to happen? "Mommy, the buttfucking brady bunch just moved in next door, I'm going to worship satan and kill someone." These people will argue that letting gay couples get married and raise children will corrupt the morals of our society. The morals that dictate what consentin adults can and cannot get married in a "free" country? If gay people are so dangerous to us why don't we just lock them up? Lets put them in "re-education camps" so as to protect overselves from their corrupt influences.
Our country was based on the beliefs that one person cannot dictate to another what he or she can or cannot do. The idea of singling out a portion of our society and settting laws in place to limit their personal freedom is revolting. I am disgusted by the bigotry and fear that is running rampant accross the nation.
Iraq is all about Oil
There are people who say that this war is about nothing more than oil. Then, there are those who say that's a bunch of conspiracy theory bullshit. The truth of the matter is while the war may not have been started for oil, tit has always been in the best interest of the United States to maintian a stable Iraq nation for the sole pupose of keeping a steady supply of oil. Iraq was formed after WWII by Winston Churchill. The man took the tedious task of drawing a square on a map- for the sole purpose of maintaining a stable, oil producing country. Suddam was on the CIA payroll when the CIA was headed by Bush Sr. - for the sole reason of maintaining an oil producing country. Some people will say we funded Suddam because we were worried about the Islam fundamentalist Iran nation next door. Why would we be afrain of Iran? Because they started playing hardball with their oil. Lets face it, the only reason why anyone gives a damn about the Middle East is because of their oil. If they had nothing but sand do you think we would be worried about what type of governments they had? Would we really care if they lived in a Democracy or a Fundalist Muslim nation? Our interests in the Middle East always come back to oil.
Bush completes is Idiotic Quest
After every person in the world, including republicans, realized that our efforts in Iraq were going nowhere, Bush continued to preach his "stay the course" bullshit. Now, after a bipartisan Iraq Study Group released a grim report on the situation, Bush has finally dropped his stay the course speech. We can all look forward to a coherent, and well thought out strategy to stop the violence in Iraq and continue to work towards a self ruling, peacefull, and democratic state. Unless of course Bush had this to say about the report, "There’s some very good ideas in there," Bush said about the report after meeting Wednesday afternoon with lawmakers. "Not all of us around the table agree with every idea, but we do agree that it shows that bipartisan consensus on important issues is possible." Uhhh, so basically it means, we now know we can't lie about the civil war that's going on and will do something other than repeat ourselves. The idiot just said we agree that it shows we can agree. If we're lucky, there will still be some way to salvage the situation by the time this moron leaves the presidency.
Financial Problems
I was reading today that lately more Americans have been getting behind in their payments. As a consequence, centers that offer free financial consulting and offer help in consolidating debt and working with creditors to reduce payments have been at an all time high. Even most companies that are in the business of lending money offer some sort of easy to go payment reschedueling. This is a national trend that has been on the rise. Most experts blame the current economic trends or individual problems or poor planning on today's generation in general. I have my own theory. Today's generation has a lot more bills to pay. Fifty years ago there was no cable bill, no internet bill, less people owned cars and there were no cell phone bills and roaming charges. In addition, America has lost most of it's manufactoring jobs which were good paying jobs leaving most factory workers to find lower paying work. If you want a good job in today's society secondary schooling, which is free in most European countries. The cost of college is going up leaving most college graduates with large student loans to pay off. Finally, the job market just can't support the population. Lets face it, in a capitalist economy it would be impossible to employ 100% of the population. It may be impossible to employ 100% of the population with any monetary based economy. I'm tired of hearing that the financial problems people are facing are their own fault of the fault of the current interest rates or the "current state of the economy." The answer is simple: the system sucks and this is probably as good as it gets.
Fog of War
Here's another interesting movie. It's an interview with Robert S. McNamara the secretary of defense under Kennedy. He begins by talking about mutual annihilation. He goes on to say that the mix of human error and the power of nuclear weapons will lead to the destruction of nations. I really enjoyed listening to what he had to say over the Cuban missle crisis. It wasn't until the 1990's that he learned, when he went to visit Cuba, that the Soviets did have nuclear missles on the island. He asked Castro three questions, 1)Did you know they were there at the time 2) Would you have recommended to Krustchev that he use them if Cuba was attacked and 3)What would the consequences be? Castro responded, Yes I knew: I did recommend he use them: It would have meant the destruction of Cuba. He uses this point to say that rational people will not be able to stop nuclear war. Where does that leave us now? A shoot from the hip Texan in charge of our nuclear weapons. A crazy recluse in North Korea egging him on. Hmmmm, I don't like this one bit.
To the City of North Adams
Here's a big thanks for nothing. Thanks for making my family along with thousands of others to sit and wait for the start of the 4th of July fireworks only to be left sitting in the rain. Unlike years passed, the fireworks would start on time with the citizens able to sit in the stands of the Joe Wolfe baseball field. Not able to leave well enough alone, we now have to wait for the end of a baseball game before the fireworks can be lit off. I don't know who came up with this ridiculous idea. Somebody thought that since people like baseball and since they like fireworks, baseball + fireworks would be even better without running the logistics of an 11th inning game and late night downpours. Go back to the old system. The Steeple Cats can play an afternoon game or none at all. When the fireworks don't start until 10:30pm when they were schedueled for 9:15pm it's parents and children that suffer. I can't expect my 5 year old, let alone my 2 year old to stay awake until 10:30pm. My son fell asleep in the car on the way home- we didn't wait for the fireworks to end once it started raining, and we weren't in the car for more the five minutes. I was hoping to share a great evening with my family and what should have been the first time my son was able to see fireworks and know what was going on, but instead I come home wet and irritated at poor planning.
Estate Tax
The Democrats have so far managed to filibuster the Republican's attempt to lower the current estate tax to almost nothing. Estimates on the loss of money the treasurey will recieve ranges from 612 billion to 900 billion over 25 years. The Republicans are doing what they're good at- serving the interests of our nation's elite while eliminating the funds for services for the poor. The way the common person should look at this law is that it will take away money from our social services programs. The elite will not suffer from these services becuase they don't need them. What the republicans are saying while they are trying to pass this bill is, "Why should we pay these taxes? We're rich." I'm happy to see the Democrats killing this bill the only way they can and I'm happy to see the general support they have recieved.
