| RANDOM QUOTE | I'd had enough political and theological discussions by the time I was nineteen to figure out that they are functionally inert. No-one convinces anyone of anything, everybody just heaps their baggage on the table and gestures at it wildly.
-tycho | |
| |
| |
| | |
| |
|
| glitch13.com :.::.: ..:.::. :.:::...
Home | About | Feedback | Archive | RSS
Page: 1 2 3  | Politics |
| ISRAEL VS HEZBOLLAH |  | Category: Politics
Thursday, July 27th, 2006 @ 03:02 pm
|
 So, incase any of you have been living under a rock recently, World War III is well on its way to starting so I figured I'd throw my hat in the ring and offer up my two cents. And then I'd execute another cliche to round it off at three.
For starters, I've always been quite conflicted with the entire Israel debacle, seeming as I can't say that the Jews actually have any right being there. Sure, it was their land at one point, but hell, America was the Indian's land at some point, but I don't see anyone telling Americans and Canadians to pack it up and get the fuck. You can't just kick people out of their homes because you used to own it. Land belongs to the winners, not to people who really want it bad.
Of course, on the flip side of that coin, the Jews kind of are the winners now, as witnessed by them kicking the mother loving crap out of everyone who "fronted on their shit" during the Six Day War. But then again, they wouldn't have even been in a situation to win anything if it wasn't for the rest of the world helping them recreate their state.
Of course I'm going to come off sounding like an anti-semite to people who are so inclined to toss that accusation around at anyone who criticizes Israel, but hold your horses there, I said I was conflicted, not pro-Palestinian.
The one fact that makes this a cut and dry pro-Israel decision for the majority of the free world is the same reason I'm conflicted: Israel is a democracy and the Palestinian states and militias against it are horrible theocracies run by despots with archaic views of the world. They have no place in the global community and they exist solely to piss in everyone's cheerios. That, and one more thing: I hate Islam. Hate.
I hate Islam like people on the far left hate Christianity. I hate burkas, theocracies, riots over cartoons, the stoning of married women who were raped, suicide bombings at shopping malls, fatwas, etc, etc. I hate them all. Israel on the other hand, seems to have a pretty good handle on their religion. I don't even associate Israel with Judaism, I associate Israel with a kick ass military that doesn't take guff from anyone. What else can you expect from the people that made the freaking Uzi.
As far as Hezbollah is concerned, that's where I see World War III coming into play. Israel is having an open conflict with a militia that is openly backed by Iran who has also openly stated that it would like to see the destruction of Israel. Iran, who has ties to Venezuela and North Korea. North Korea who has ties to China. Israel on the other hand has ties to pretty much every industrialized nation on the planet. Starting to sound familiar? All this thing needs is the spark of having an actual country outside of Israel getting involved and from there it's downhill.
I've actually been made to realize recently that the possibly of China getting involved in any global conflict is a lot smaller that I had imagined, but that's beyond the scope of this little brain dump.
|
| NET NEUTRALITY | | Category: Politics
Wednesday, July 5th, 2006 @ 02:23 pm
|
 If you haven't been paying attention to the Internets in the media as of late, some vague and autonomous Senate committee, that cares about as much for your rights as I care about pocket lint, failed to squeeze in a net neutrality amendment into a telecommunications bill.
For the uninitiated, Net Neutrality is pretty much a blanket name for the idea that the internet should be a place where people's ability to get to your site, and your ability to get to other sites, shouldn't be hindered by sweetheart deals between ISPs and individual sites. For example, AT&T receives money from yahoo.com, and in return AT&T restricts all Internet traffic going over their lines to allow yahoo.com to be the only search engine people can access (For a better description, the ninja from AskANinja.com does a much better job than I: linky-poo).
Now, I've been on the fence about net neutrality for a while now. Sure, it's government mixing with business, which always causes problems, but such is the case with all utilities (and if you don't agree that the Internet has become a utility then you're not using it right). Will the government fuck things up? Of course, that's what they do best, but it's the lesser of two evils as far as I can tell.
Anyway, this d-bag of a Senator who voted against the amendment went on to explain how the Internet works and why this amendment would be bad:
"I just the other day got, an internet was sent by my staff at 10 o'clock in the morning on Friday and I just got it yesterday. Why?
Because it got tangled up with all these things going on the internet commercially."
Um, yeah. Read the entire brilliant diatribe here.
Anyway, I took one of his more eloquent comparisons and made that image you see up there. Maybe one day it will grace T-Shirts and the like but for now it's just a funny picture on the Internets. You can see a larger version here and the original vector based SVG here.
But you should seriously read his little spiel, it's priceless. You should also seriously watch every episode of Ask A Ninja for I believe it to be the next evolutionary step in funny.
|
| DEMOCRATS | | Category: Politics
Friday, November 5th, 2004 @ 12:36 pm
|
 Most
of you all know my political views, for the most part, but I feel sort
of obliged to say something out loud about the Democratic party.
I'm worried about it. Really worried.
If they can't pull off an election in today's climate, much less not get
their asses handed to them in the house and senate as well, then
there's trouble. When every person with even a semi-public life, from
the Dixie Chicks to Eminem to Ben Affleck, can't energize the media elite
enough to oust what some would call the worst President ever, then what's going on?
Many of you are probably wondering what I'm smoking to cause me to
worry about the left, but, this is how I boil it down:
we are constantly hearing about how our country is divided, which is
apparently supposed to be a bad
thing. Why is it all that bad?
Want to see a good example of an undivided country? Try Iran.
Yep, they're all in agreement that the Americans (and Iraqis) must
die, Jews are holy land stealing devils incarnate, women must be
beaten for talking to a man she doesn't know, religious leaders should
run the country, and if you steal a loaf
of bread you get your goddamn hand chopped off. Isn't it great
when people share a single unified vision without any room for dissent?
How does this apply to my view of the Democratic party? Simple, with
this miserable failure of an election laying at their feet I fear that
their only option to build a formidable base capable of winning is to
take a hard
turn towards the center; to "McCain" the party up if you will. If
you currently can't stand the fact that the two major parties have the
same view on the war on drugs, just wait till they have the same
opinion on gun control, abortion, terrorism, homosexuality, the
UN, globilazation (or isolationism), the enviroment, public schooling,
the death penalty, etc. We have a voting population so dependent
upon getting their stances on issues from only two parties, what
happens when they begin to meld together, or one of them simply fades away? We might as well
install a dictator at
that point.
There is of course a small chance that their reaction will be to take
an even harder turn to the left. This would probably please the
democratic "values voters" a lot, but I think it may also be a boon to
third parties due to the fact that the centrist voters that would be
turned off by a idealistic Democratic party, yet clinging to the center
too much to vote Republican, may look for viable third parties such as
the Libertarians to champion their cause. This, of couse, will almost definately not happen, but a man can dream.
|
| THE COMEDY POLITIC | | Category: Politics
Thursday, September 2nd, 2004 @ 11:00 am
|
Every couple of nights or so, the planets align themselves in such a way that I'm in front of the television when The Daily Show happens to be on, and I happen to be watching Comedy Central. I used to love the Daily Show, now it's almost unbearable to watch.
|
| THE RUSSIAN STATE | | Category: Politics
Saturday, July 10th, 2004 @ 04:28 pm
|
John has heard this schpiel by me before, so to everyone else, this is new...
I am sometimes disappointed in myself when I realize how little I know about the world outside of my country. I debate friends on their ignorance of the world around them, then suffer these same flaws myself. In particular, I was watching a PBS documentary the other day on the state of the press in Russia. I had always, as I guess many of us have, assumed that since the fall of communism, that Russia's political and social environment was much like our own here in America. Boy was I wrong.
In America we have the First Amendment. It's the fucking first, as in more important than the others. We are protected, by law, to have the ability to say whatever we want, in whatever forum will allow us, to speak our mind as we see it.
In free, democratic Russia, they have what's called Glasnost. Literally translated this means, "In a state of being public." After decades of soviet/communist rule, Gorbachev created an initiative to let information about the state public and let the world at large hear what was going on internally. The first and largest example of this doctrine was when the country publicly stated what happened at Chernobyl.
Glasnost is a major step forward for Russia and a wonderful change, but what people don't realize is that it is not a law, it is a doctrine. Our right to say what we want is protected by a court, the judicial branch of the government which is disconnected from the actual executive branch, that allows us and maintains this right for us. Glasnost is a doctrine that is not written in law, and is not protected by the Russian courts, which is lawfully and inexorably tied to the Russian government.
So, the situation as it is now, you can say what you want in the press, but it's probably better that you didn't. The courts won't protect you from the government, and organized crime, which has be prevalent in the government, and which is the target of many journalists, are not investigated for the crimes and murders they commit against journalists investigating their actions.
The strange thing is, as I write this and bounce from my computer to fridge to tv, I see on the news that the editor for Forbes magazine in Russia has just been assassinated by organized crime for his stance against the organization's ties to government. It is grave situation indeed.
I write this "article" for two reasons: 1) I don't like people arguing world politics in any forum without actual knowledge of what is going on in the world and 2), I think, even if you don't vote, being informed and educated actually skews public opinion due to conversations you get it and people around you that you influence with your lack of ignorance.
Thank you, and have an informed day.
|
Page: 1 2 3 |
 |
