Media Rant #1 - Oil Spill

The first of many to come. Yes, I'm also touching on BP again. Apologies.

So, the first thing about the media which irks me is the lack of sense that half the people spew. It may reflect human senselessness, but honestly, do we really need so many commentators? And commentators who comment on commentators? It's all quite legal and in line with rules, which only serves to annoy me further. But this time, what's set me off have been all these commentators attacking Obama for not being mad at BP, and not going down the to Gulf to see the damage caused by the spill. (Yes, this is old news, but the bomb which is my anger also has a long fuse.)

I've got a couple bones to pick with these people. I won't call them idiots, because I don't know if they really believe this, or are doing it for the ratings. Gah. The whole rating/publicity thing in itself is enough to set me off. But I'm not willing to assume either way, so I'll call them people, as loath as I am to do such a thing.

First, why the hell are you calling Obama a bad president for not getting pissed at BP? When does anger do anything? I'm sure that BP execs will piss their pants when they see Obama go into a rage, and will hustle down to the gulf at once to clean up the spill by imbibing all the oil. Or perhaps the oil will be frightened by Obama's mad face, and hightail it back down that pipe, back into the oil well. Perhaps the oil will even rebuild the destroyed rig! The hot air coming from Obama's mouth would also clean off all the oil off the various sea animals, and heck, it'd probably send the Dow Jones up a thousand points, just because of the power of Obama's anger.

Yeah. I'm sure his anger would do all that. Honestly, what use is his anger? Apart from clouding his judgement, anger would do nothing for him.

Second, does Obama really need to make trips down to the gulf? Does he really need to make five? At the same time political commentators are calling Obama to go down to the gulf and attend to the problem and show he cares about American people, they're bashing him for....what? Spending taxpayer money needlessly? Like on flights down to the Gulf of Mexico to take a few publicity pictures, shake a few hands, and nothing else?

And then they attack his foreign policy. Hm...you're saying our relations with China are strained? That wouldn't be because Obama put off an appointment with the Chinese to respond to your requests to go down to the gulf, would it? No, never!

Finally, commentators bash and bash Obama for not getting anything done. And then bash him more once he passes a six month deep-water drilling moratorium. The main argument against it is that it will kill so many jobs. Well, these commentators obviously realize that Americans need jobs. Which is why they shouted down Obama's job creation bill. Because there's no way in hell a job creation bill could, you know, create jobs!

And I suppose Obama really was looking to kills jobs. As opposed to preventing another disaster until some reform could be made, or until we could deal with this current disaster fully. Nope, no way. Obama is out to kill us all! Don't you understand?

Maybe I'm being unrealistic about this. Can we expect the media not to contradict itself? Perhaps it's alright if the media feeds the public loads of bull (then turns around, and says that steak increases your chances of heart disease by 12%). I mean, there's no law against it. So, maybe my guff with this whole thing is wrong.

I've got an inkling it isn't, though.

But that might be my self-righteousness kicking in. Feel free to express yourself.

Jail & Death

Well, yesterday at 11:00 PST, Ronnie Lee Gardner was killed by a firing squad, the death penalty inflicted upon him. There needs to be more of this.

Harsh penalties, that is. As I see it, jail currently doesn't provide enough weight to be used as punishment. Sure, you're taken out of the workplace for however long you're in the slammer, but you're given work there, and chances are that you were unemployed before you entered. I mean, the facilities provided in jail are just overboard.

Really, it's like, "Oh, no! I just shot a man and now I'm going somewhere where I will have Wifi, 3 hot meals, a bed, and a job! For five years? How will I ever survive?" Jail is supposed to be a punishment, not a better life. For those homeless folks who commit some crime, they're living better in jail, not worse. And they're living at our expense. That's what really pisses me off. No! I do not want to pay an extra $50 (Okay, fine, it's my parents, not me, paying taxes) to give every inmate at the county jail access to cable TV. It may be inhumane to make inmates eat off the floor, but it sure as hell isn't necessary to give them everything you are.

Let me reiterate. Jail is supposed to be a bad place to be. Not a place where you get paid for the labor you do and get room and board for free. Honestly, if I'm paying some inmate to do manual labor, I'd rather that labor not get done, and not pay him. No, they should not have a new basketball court installed, why are you putting that as higher priority than the city court? Which will make you more money? Which will conform more to what jail is supposed to be?

I'm not asking for anything inhumane done to the inmates. Just stop feeding so much money into the jails, and take away the unnecessary amenities. Simple enough. Maybe that will help you get some more budget for other things, hm?

Now, I'm betting some of you are asking, "What about labor laws?", and "If the people getting out of jail have no money and no job, how will they not end up in jail again?"
For the first question, for a majority of those landed in jail for the long run - I'm talking five, ten, twenty-five years here, not a month - they did something pretty goddamn bad. Murder, rape, arson, fraud. You know what? You think I want to pay someone who could have killed my niece? Let's take Christopher Monfort into account. For those of you not in Seattle, he was responsible for the murder of a cop. If you were the brother or sister of the cop, would you want to be paying for Christopher's job in jail? Would you want him to enjoy a swimming pool, internet access, and fresh meals (All for free) at your expense? I think not.

Going to the second question, I honestly have no full answer for that. Part of me wants to say, "Screw them, they made that decision, they have to live with the results., but the other part of me knows that some things were unintentional, and people should be able to redeem themselves. But then that other part rebuts with, "If they want to become a working member of society again, they'll pull themselves up."
But honestly, the chances of you being employed after a prolonged stay in jail are next to nil.
This presents a pretty large dilemma that I'll avoid for now. I'll give it some thought, and get back to all of you later on.

This is getting pretty long already, so I'll make a few last points, then wrap it up. And by a few last points, I mean another 1,000 words. (Exactly 1,111, believe it or not.)

In Washington State, there is no "guilty by means of insanity" ruling. Yes, people cannot control their actions while insane. But they can control if they go nutters. What I mean is, people who have some sort of mental disease have drugs to suppress it. If they purposefully go off those drugs, anything they do after should be pinned on them. My reasoning is, if they took one course of action (Not taking your pills) all directly resulting consequences (Something which lands you in the grey-bar hotel) are your fault. You can't blame it on some astral entity who told you to do it, or that you didn't know what you were doing. Please, someone pass a "guilty by means of insanity" bill...

And finally, lawyers, this one is on you. Stop making getting the death penalty so dammed expensive. I don't give a rip that you could make two million by saving this guy. He's raped fifteen women. He should have died after the first. (Or the third, if you're going off the three strikes rule) Check this place out for the exorbitant prices states pay for the death penalty. I mean, wow. What. The. Hell. It should not cost that much to remove someone from the realm of the living. And the amounts of political correctness injected into how we kill them makes me want to vomit. The only way we can kill them is by injecting them with lethal chemicals, and they can't take longer than X minutes, or it's too much pain and inhumane? Don't you think they were put a little less than human when they killed five members of society? Or when they nearly starved a fifteen year old girl to death? Or when they beat and raped over thirty women? (The last two have definitely occurred; I don't remember the exact cases. The first probably has, though I don't know any exact event for it.) Yeah, I'm thinking they can take a little pain given how much they caused. While I'm at it, good on you Utah, for the firing squad. Cost-effective, and quick.

As a parting thought, remember. Jail is supposed to be a penance. You're supposed to atone for your crimes, or at least, pay for them by giving back to society. You're hardly giving back to society if you're playing basketball and reclining using a computer to surf the web on the taxpayer dime. Jail is way too lenient, at least in the USA. Think about a world without rape, murder, or fraud. Is that achievable when it costs so much to sentence someone to death, and jails are so posh? No.

NOTE: I realize I may sound like an Uber-Conservative/heartless person at parts. That's my opinion on the subject. Take it up with me if you like.

Protesting Laws

Protests are all good and fine with me. Usually.

Politicians, while not the most esteemed people in my eyes, are the same.

But at times, I get to the point where I just want to nuke the offending person, usually when they're in the midst of shooting something down.

Recent examples include Obamacare, Cap And Trade, and the Arizona racial profiling law (I'm going to receive a fair amount of flak from a certain ginger for mentioning this...), to pull from both parts of the Left-Right spectrum. Well, that is, examples which annoyed me.

Politicians attacking bills which do something they don't like is fine. Protesting obviously unfair laws is also fine. For example, repealing the DADT bill. This prevents completely idiotic things from passing, or if they are somehow passed, from remaining in effect.

What gets me is when bills are presented to solve a huge problem that exists (as opposed to say, providing for something that isn't a problem at all), and they are attacked, and (yes, run-on sentence, I know....I hear the pained screams of a hundred grammar nazis...) the attackers do not have a better alternative, or an alternative at all, for that matter! It is better to solve a problem badly than to leave it unsolved. Better to get a 58 on a test than skip it and get a 0, no?

When you attack something just to deny another political capital, or because it wouldn't sit well with your voters, you better have a damn better solution than the one being presented. Filibustering something which is an attempt to solve a problem will only increase the pain to those suffering, and is especially pointless if the bill will inevitably be passed. Being the House of No just puts you out there as total pricks fishing for votes. (Rant to be posted later on career politicians...) I'm pretty damn sure that your voters wouldn't stay if they would unplug their ears and uncover their eyes to see that you're hurting them by delaying a solution you have no alternative to. So if you're going to protest something that solves a problem (or attempts to) such as the economy, the environment, or illegal immigration, come prepared with your own plan to counter with. Don't make some page read a bill whose pages number in the thousands just to delay it. Pull your crap together and make your own solution.

Just to delve further into this, when you run out of arguments against a bill you don't have a counter to (or even one you do), stop arguing, and formulate more arguments. Or accept that the bill is a solution, and pass it. Don't worry, you won't lose votes once your voters realize that the bill will help them. What you don't do is attack the people presenting the bill. No, Obama is not a socialist Nazi. And even if he was, that does not mean everything he does is aimed towards killing the Jewish communities, or promoting socialism. Obama wrote out a March Madness bracket....does that mean we should all stop watching college basketball during March? No. Does it make said basketball Nazi, or socialist? Hell no.

On the same page, a few days ago I saw a protest at the UW against Arizona's newly passed law. What did the signs they were holding mostly consist of? Insults. Personal attacks. Wow. Real mature guys. (And this is coming from a teen who can't suppress a smirk when certain words are mentioned...) Among the signs? "Boycott Nazi-zona!" and a cactus shaped like a middle finger, are the only two I clearly remember. And their chants were none too nice, either. (Except for "Si se pueda", which really, doesn't fit, when you think about it. Also, forgive me if I mangled the Spanish.)

So, just in case this was a tl;dr for some of you, my message is...

If you're going to attack a solution to a freaking huge problem, you better have an alternative, damn it. And if you run out of arguments, personal attacks are a sign of your inability to compose an argument valid by even the lowest standards. So please, shut your mouth until you bring back something of substance.

How Far Is Too Far?

DISCLAIMER: THIS POST CONTAINS FATAL LEVELS OF RANT! READ AT YOUR OWN RISK!

Alright, yes, there are times when being politically correct (will be referenced as PC later on, as I am very lazy) is preferable, or even necessary.

Today's society has taken it a few hundred steps too far. As a populace, we are too easily outraged by comments that, if we were in that politician's position, we would make as well. You're getting mad at him for publicizing an opinion different than yours? Well, *you* clearly haven't been on the Internet. Otherwise you'd be getting no sleep.

There are certain situations in which it is, as mentioned before, alright to be PC. Trying to get votes is one such thing (although even that can be overdone). But the situations which are brought up by various talk show hosts and news reporters for a lack of PC far outnumber the possible situations in which representatives should be expected to be PC.

Do we really expect our elected officials to be uptight, unprejudiced, and over-PC 24/7? Can you expect the same of yourself, or any other? I'm sorry, but we've taken it too far as a society. Oh, yes, it is totally worth impeaching the president for an off-handed comment he made in his personal bedroom while drunk out of his mind. Why do you have wire taps there in the first place?

Wait, don't answer that. You're the press. (Yes, I have problems with many mainstream "news" - acceptable use of quotations there - stations as well. I will go into that at a later time)

Alright, so expecting too much of politicians was the first sign of an over-PC society.

And now, we can see this non-PC-intolerant society interfering in everything.

Oh, I'm sorry for not having a picture of a paraplegic in this language arts textbook! Do we really need to have the percentages of different ethnic names used in this math book exactly equal? Or do we have to use names nobody in their right mind would name their kid? No, we'd probably get sued for not having "normal" names!

And....you're shutting down the South American Culture class for....what reason exactly?

Because it doesn't take North American culture into perspective? What? And you're shutting down European studies because it doesn't go in depth enough into Africa? I suppose, by World Language Arts, we have to underrepresent American and European authors to appease you, as well. And you're firing your top history teacher and replacing him with an illegal immigrant from Algeria because you're trying to increase teacher racial diversity so you don't get sued? Your school is located in an all-white neighborhood in Alaska!

All these are signs of an overly PC community. I'm sorry that this math book has no questions about how long it would take for a sherpa to guide his llama pack through the Himalayas, but I'm sure that those sherpas are particularly offended. I'm also sure they'll find solace at being referenced in every other textbook in the United States.

What's the worst part about free speech being limited by oversensitivity (And I mean way over) and being too PC? Well, there are two parts. One, you can't combat it (If you haven't noticed, most of the communities crying foul are minorities, such as the comatose Armenian Ex-Nazi karate masters) as if you accuse the other party of over PC, they will claim, against you, that you are being racist, or elitist, or somethingist. People have opinions. Some of them are prejudiced. That doesn't mean every opinion is prejudiced. Second, many OPCPs (err, over politically correct people. Not some sort of drugs.) are hypocrites. Again, something one is unable to point out. They will attack something for being racist/classist/etc., then turn around, and say something similarly racist/classist/etc.

So, how do we stop this PC-plague? It's too late for prevention. The media (again, to be ranted at at another time) has already, in its attention-grabbing attempts, seized control of too many Americans, and turned them into OPCPs. It's like a zombie invasion. All you can do is fight back, and eliminate (or in this case, convert) them one by one. Teach them that they do not need to sue that bar for being 10 seconds late with your drink, even though you're sure it was because your jeans were sagging.

Oh, and just to appease those overly PC readers of mine, if any (you are probably no longer readers, as of this post) I have represented all ethnic communities equally, or tried my best. Did I leave out the native tribes of Siberia? So sue me.

/endrant

I shall try not to rant again for a while. Or at least, make it funnier if I do.

Teacher Unions

WARNING! RANT AHEAD!

So, what good are teacher's unions?

I mean, yes, they protect teacher's rights, but honestly, take a good look at what teachers do. They prepare kids for the world. They prepare the next generation. It is in the government's best interest to get the best teachers for the kids, then, isn't it? I mean, will any politician ever even attempt to pass something like, "Make all the teachers work for 15 hours a day and pay them minimum wage"? And even if the politician in question is suicidal enough, would that ever pass Congress? *coughcoughcoughNO!coughcough*

What do teachers have to fear? I mean, those who teach. Are you seriously going to lay off a teacher whose students come out knowing a good deal more on whatever subject is being covered than they did going in? Are you going to cut the salary of a teacher who is known among both students and colleagues as a hard worker and dedicated to the students' cause and risk that teacher quitting?

I think not.

The way the current system is set up, or as far as I know, schools whose students do better get more money for books, equipment, technology, teachers, pay raises, bonuses, etc. So, obviously, it's an incentive for schools to do better, hm? This would also involve keeping teachers happy, and having competent (I use this word as one cannot expect every teacher to be exemplary) teaching staff as well.

So, what benefit is there in keeping a teacher who does not do their job well on the staff?

There is none. That's where the unions come in. I have little doubt that these teachers realize that they are not doing their job well. Complaints to the school make this quite impossible not to be true. So they turn to the unions, who in turn, keep them there. Using what as a reason? Seniority.

"Oh, you've been here longer, so you deserve to stay. We have to fire a teacher, so we'll fire this one who we just hired, instead. Even though this teacher has better than results than you."

Woah. Nuh-uh. That logic is faulty. If you've had a computer for ten years, (1.1 Ghz processor, 512 mbs RAM, 60 Gb hard drive, no USB ports) do you keep it in favor of a new computer (3.4 Ghz Quad-core, 8 Gbs RAM, 540 Gb hard drive) just because it is older? I would seriously question your sanity (not mine) if you did.

The same thing goes for cars. Do you keep the 15 year old rust bucket which has clocked more than twenty-thousand miles, or buy the new Tesla? Real tough choice.

And it's not like you don't have the money. In the above two examples, a lack of money might limit you. In the case of teachers, firing a senior teacher for a fresh one who is better not only EARNS you more money (you don't have to pay the fresh one as much) short-term, it earns you more long-term too, in that the better teacher, well, teaches kids better.

So, why do the unions exist? One might ask, shouldn't the leaders be for the benefit of the students? Nope. They're there, in all probability, because it makes money. Teachers in the union pay dues. The teachers more likely to be in the union are those with more seniority. Teachers with more seniority are paid more, in general. So they have more money to pay for dues to the union. And guess who gets a good chunk of those dues?

Yup. The leaders. What do they do? Keep the senior teachers from losing their jobs. That in itself is not such a bad thing. Except when it is to the detriment of the students. Id est (yes, snobbish latin here), keeping teachers who cannot teach. And the schools can't do jack because of the unions. And the schools do try. Because they want more money (or perhaps, they truly are motivated by the need to truly educate students). Money is the highest motivating factor, or at least, it's up there with fame, power, and respect.

There are several possible solutions.

1- Disband the Unions - What do they do anyways, apart from keep senior teachers on? Have teachers go on strikes (during recessions, to boot). May I mention this as well?

Strikes by public employees in Washington state are expressly prohibited. In the words of one candidate running to become the state's next attorney general, the law is "unequivocally clear." - http://www.effwa.org/highlighters/v14_n19.php

Hm....now, what does that say? Oh? That it is illegal for teachers to go on strike? Well, then...

2- Be Harsher to the Unions - The teacher unions have become a bit too used to this "cash cow" of sorts. They go on strike (see the link above) and it takes multiple weeks for a judge to warn the union that the action is illegal. What? Yup. It took weeks for a warning. No penalty. Zip. Nada. Nil. The unions would be a little less comfortable if you stuck them with a fine, and reminded them what their job is, and who they represent. And don't be slow about it either.

3- Lump Bad Students with Bad Teachers - The possibly most controversial alternative I can think of. Take those students who don't give a rat's ass about school, and give them to the teachers who don't teach. Instead of having those kids disrupt the learning of others by taking up the time of other teachers, and just be nuisances in general, let them waste the time of a teacher who won't teach in a classroom of like-minded kids. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink. Don't leave it there until it drinks....most will die of thirst before they drink. And, with any luck, the teacher will quit. Until then, you've just killed two birds with one stone. Possibly three; you might get less complaints too. Meaning your school does better, meaning....more money. Eh?

Don't punish those who truly wish to learn in an attempt to make everybody have the same score or whatever.

As I conclude, I'm left with other thoughts about having too many administrators, the school boards, and student rights. But that's for another time.

RANT OVER....FOR NOW....