I've come to several conclusions.
First, making fun of things that everyone knows are badly written is kind of a waste of time. I'm going to keep doing it because it's fun, I'm just not going to pretend it serves a purpose.
Second, my best writing is autobiographical. I think this is because the stupid, stereotypical pissed off voice I insist on inserting into everything I write makes the most sense when it's something I actually did, because it's just what I was thinking at the time, not just some crap I stuck in hoping you'd be my friend because I'm mean to strangers. Because of this, I'm going to start attending any political event I can and taking notes, and blogging the results.
Third, oddly enough, people who aren't me read this site, yet I haven't seen any e-mails or comments. If you are reading this, you have to e-mail me or comment. I won't ask you again.
Thursday, April 29, 2004
This is insanely interesting. In fact, I strongly recommend you read http://whitehouse.gov on a regular basis, if only because when faced with someone who tries to pull a "Bush never said that, my position is consistent, I swear" you can go to google and do something like this, point at the result, and ignore everything they say in response because you've already won.
But beyond, that, the press briefing I linked to shows us a lot of interesting things. Most importantly, that our press isn't a bunch of total wusses. This came as a shock to me, but there's no other way to explain it. Honestly, read this:
Q How would you describe exactly what it is that the Iraqis will get on June 30th? Is it sovereignty? Is it limited sovereignty? Is it the exercise of the principles of sovereignty? I'm not quite exactly sure what they're going to get.
MR. McCLELLAN: Sovereignty will be transferred to the Iraqi people on June 30th. That is what was agreed to with Iraqi leaders under the November 15th agreement, and we are moving forward to meet that commitment. The Iraqi people want us to meet that timetable. And we anticipate that, in accordance with the oft-expressed preferences of Iraqi leaders, that the Iraqis, themselves, will impose some limits on the authority of that interim government. But sovereignty will be transferred to the Iraqi people on June 30th.
Q But it doesn't seem to fit the true definition of sovereignty, because they will not have control of the country, they will not have control of security --
MR. McCLELLAN: Well, let's keep a couple of things --
Q There's some thought, even, of collapsing the --
MR. McCLELLAN: Let's separate out sovereignty and let's separate out authority and let's keep this in context. This is an interim represented body that we are talking about. The precise structure and composition of the interim government are being worked about among Iraqi leaders and Mr. Brahimi, in consultation with the Coalition Provisional Authority.
Are those the kind of questions you see in a mainstream newspaper? Think about how badass it would be if newspapers actually published articles consisting of some journalist forcing an official spokesperson* of the Bush administration to admit that things they tell you are totally misleading over and over. I, personally, would piss myself with delight if this happened. But it doesn't. Why not? Well, I really wasn't a big fan of the "oh no! corporate control of the media!" theory, but someone on some level is stopping some awesome people from accurately portraying this administration, and that's worth thinking about.
Oh, and it also answers my questions about those who support the draft that I asked earlier. When they become sovereign, we'll need to send more of our soldiers to occupy their country. Suppose I'll have to get shot at for more than a month.
*I'm not actually sure who Scott McClellan is, but that seems like a reasonable guess.
But beyond, that, the press briefing I linked to shows us a lot of interesting things. Most importantly, that our press isn't a bunch of total wusses. This came as a shock to me, but there's no other way to explain it. Honestly, read this:
Q How would you describe exactly what it is that the Iraqis will get on June 30th? Is it sovereignty? Is it limited sovereignty? Is it the exercise of the principles of sovereignty? I'm not quite exactly sure what they're going to get.
MR. McCLELLAN: Sovereignty will be transferred to the Iraqi people on June 30th. That is what was agreed to with Iraqi leaders under the November 15th agreement, and we are moving forward to meet that commitment. The Iraqi people want us to meet that timetable. And we anticipate that, in accordance with the oft-expressed preferences of Iraqi leaders, that the Iraqis, themselves, will impose some limits on the authority of that interim government. But sovereignty will be transferred to the Iraqi people on June 30th.
Q But it doesn't seem to fit the true definition of sovereignty, because they will not have control of the country, they will not have control of security --
MR. McCLELLAN: Well, let's keep a couple of things --
Q There's some thought, even, of collapsing the --
MR. McCLELLAN: Let's separate out sovereignty and let's separate out authority and let's keep this in context. This is an interim represented body that we are talking about. The precise structure and composition of the interim government are being worked about among Iraqi leaders and Mr. Brahimi, in consultation with the Coalition Provisional Authority.
Are those the kind of questions you see in a mainstream newspaper? Think about how badass it would be if newspapers actually published articles consisting of some journalist forcing an official spokesperson* of the Bush administration to admit that things they tell you are totally misleading over and over. I, personally, would piss myself with delight if this happened. But it doesn't. Why not? Well, I really wasn't a big fan of the "oh no! corporate control of the media!" theory, but someone on some level is stopping some awesome people from accurately portraying this administration, and that's worth thinking about.
Oh, and it also answers my questions about those who support the draft that I asked earlier. When they become sovereign, we'll need to send more of our soldiers to occupy their country. Suppose I'll have to get shot at for more than a month.
*I'm not actually sure who Scott McClellan is, but that seems like a reasonable guess.
Wednesday, April 28, 2004
Today I picked up a copy of The Redwood Review, the local shitty free newspaper that alternates between articles about how God hates fags, and articles condemning terrorism, in the hope that you'll get confused and think that hating fags is morally equivalent to condemning terrorism. Their website is here, but I wouldn't bother.
Point is, I was reading an opinion piece in The Redwood Review. It was pretty coherent, assuming it was true, but then the writer actually said "spending cuts [are] always an unpopular solution."
Now, this is the kind of reality disregarding propaganda technique crap that gets me super pissed off. In fact, conservatives' use of the word "spending" pisses me off. You'll never hear any of them say what the "spending" was actually spent on - implying that somewhere, there is a mysterious Fund For The Inserting Of Money Into Jeff Bingaman's* Anal Cavity and that's the reason schools aren't properly funded. If we just got rid of all the spending, we could probably afford up to date textbooks in our schools!**
*I went to senate.gov and picked a Democrat at random. I have no idea who he is.
**Here, I almost went on to say something along the lines of "Now we can go on to spend on the important things, like nukes to fight terrorists with and debt and ruining the economy because we're conservatives and that's what we like to do!" It's a good thing I caught myself before the irony killed anyone.
Point is, I was reading an opinion piece in The Redwood Review. It was pretty coherent, assuming it was true, but then the writer actually said "spending cuts [are] always an unpopular solution."
Now, this is the kind of reality disregarding propaganda technique crap that gets me super pissed off. In fact, conservatives' use of the word "spending" pisses me off. You'll never hear any of them say what the "spending" was actually spent on - implying that somewhere, there is a mysterious Fund For The Inserting Of Money Into Jeff Bingaman's* Anal Cavity and that's the reason schools aren't properly funded. If we just got rid of all the spending, we could probably afford up to date textbooks in our schools!**
*I went to senate.gov and picked a Democrat at random. I have no idea who he is.
**Here, I almost went on to say something along the lines of "Now we can go on to spend on the important things, like nukes to fight terrorists with and debt and ruining the economy because we're conservatives and that's what we like to do!" It's a good thing I caught myself before the irony killed anyone.
Sunday, April 25, 2004
Ok, so apparently some people think it's a good idea to bring back the draft. Now, this obviously makes me nervous for lame, selfish reasons, but it appears that I'm not gonna die gonna die gonna die for my government, and I guess I'm happy about that.
But I've got a more legitimate, less wussy objection to this argument.
Let's say the draft passes, which if it is introduced immediately I assume will take at least a week or so. Let's say I get drafted within seconds of this happening. Obviously, I can't go to Iraq immediately, because I have no military training. I also have no idea how long we train our people for, but I'm assuming, since we've got the best army in the world, that we do a reasonably good job. So, a minimum total amount of time between now and my actually going to Iraq of slightly over a month.
Now, consider that we're supposed to hand over power to the Iraqis by June 30. Now, I know that "sovereign nation" doesn't necessarily mean "not occupied by thousands of foreigners" but still, I assume this means we have fewer people in Iraq. So, I'll be of pretty limited genuine use in Iraq. I realize that we're sending people home, but still.
So, basically, any argument for a draft is an argument for continuing to spread ourselves even more thin, and ignoring actual terrorists. I know it's not very mainstream now, but since spreading ourselves too thin to do anything useful seems to be official policy, how long can it be before this idea gets a lot more support?
But I've got a more legitimate, less wussy objection to this argument.
Let's say the draft passes, which if it is introduced immediately I assume will take at least a week or so. Let's say I get drafted within seconds of this happening. Obviously, I can't go to Iraq immediately, because I have no military training. I also have no idea how long we train our people for, but I'm assuming, since we've got the best army in the world, that we do a reasonably good job. So, a minimum total amount of time between now and my actually going to Iraq of slightly over a month.
Now, consider that we're supposed to hand over power to the Iraqis by June 30. Now, I know that "sovereign nation" doesn't necessarily mean "not occupied by thousands of foreigners" but still, I assume this means we have fewer people in Iraq. So, I'll be of pretty limited genuine use in Iraq. I realize that we're sending people home, but still.
So, basically, any argument for a draft is an argument for continuing to spread ourselves even more thin, and ignoring actual terrorists. I know it's not very mainstream now, but since spreading ourselves too thin to do anything useful seems to be official policy, how long can it be before this idea gets a lot more support?
Saturday, April 24, 2004
Wednesday, April 21, 2004
Ok, please forgive me in advance if you can, but I'm going to write something that isn't particularly up to date or original. To compensate, I'm going to use the phrase "giant bulldozer robots," so read carefully.
Has anyone not heard of The Project for a New American Century? If you haven't, just imagine the villains from any cartoon in the 80s, and it's them. I swear, if the people at the PNAC gets any more evil they're going to move on from their current goal of "American world leadership" and just send an army of giant bulldozer robots to cut down all the trees in the land, then use said trees to power a giant laser that they use to shrink famous landmarks around the world.
Don't take my word for it, though, look at their statement of principles. Be sure to read the list of names at the bottom. If you can and do read a newspaper occasionally, a few should look familiar.
Now, read this. Pay attention to the date.
My point is, Iraq had nothing to do with the war on terror. You can debate whether it was a good idea all you like, but stop pretending it had anything to do with anything.
Has anyone not heard of The Project for a New American Century? If you haven't, just imagine the villains from any cartoon in the 80s, and it's them. I swear, if the people at the PNAC gets any more evil they're going to move on from their current goal of "American world leadership" and just send an army of giant bulldozer robots to cut down all the trees in the land, then use said trees to power a giant laser that they use to shrink famous landmarks around the world.
Don't take my word for it, though, look at their statement of principles. Be sure to read the list of names at the bottom. If you can and do read a newspaper occasionally, a few should look familiar.
Now, read this. Pay attention to the date.
My point is, Iraq had nothing to do with the war on terror. You can debate whether it was a good idea all you like, but stop pretending it had anything to do with anything.
Monday, April 19, 2004
I was talking with one of my friends a few days ago, and the conversation led to one of my better ideas. I read so many terrible persuasive essays, and I'm tired of them. Therefore, I have decided that from this day forth, all persuasive essays of any kind are required to include a simple flow chart showing the facts that lead to their conclusions. This really isn't too much to ask. It takes about a minute to do in MS Paint, and it's an easy way to prove that your logic is sound. If anyone tries to argue with you, point at your chart and wait for them to disprove a connection you made, which they won't be able to, because you looked at it too and made sure you wrote something that made sense.
The hidden danger to the chart system, of course, is that this mysteriously popular article could never be written. Imagine you were to criticize this article without using the chart system. You'd probably say things like "hey, should we really base our countries policies off an empire that spent all of it's time declaring other civilizations inferior and then invading them and enslaving people?" or "I'm no expert, but I don't think you can declare everyone in a city sub-human and then say you have no problem with them," and you'd never really get anywhere. But imagine that the following chart is next to the article.
All you have to do is point at the chart and wait, and at most, Dr. Jack Wheeler manages to mumble "Fallujah delenda est" before stumbling away crying. Then you're done and you can go take a nap. The only down side is that you can't use horrible writing to get incredibly angry for a while, but there's still TV.
If I can get enough support for this idea, I'd also like to require politicians to end any statement they make in an interview by repeating the question and then giving a one sentence summary of their answer.
The hidden danger to the chart system, of course, is that this mysteriously popular article could never be written. Imagine you were to criticize this article without using the chart system. You'd probably say things like "hey, should we really base our countries policies off an empire that spent all of it's time declaring other civilizations inferior and then invading them and enslaving people?" or "I'm no expert, but I don't think you can declare everyone in a city sub-human and then say you have no problem with them," and you'd never really get anywhere. But imagine that the following chart is next to the article.
All you have to do is point at the chart and wait, and at most, Dr. Jack Wheeler manages to mumble "Fallujah delenda est" before stumbling away crying. Then you're done and you can go take a nap. The only down side is that you can't use horrible writing to get incredibly angry for a while, but there's still TV.
If I can get enough support for this idea, I'd also like to require politicians to end any statement they make in an interview by repeating the question and then giving a one sentence summary of their answer.
Sunday, April 18, 2004
Saturday, April 17, 2004
So, I've had this for three days and I've already failed to update regularly. This is a good sign.
Todays horrible article on newsmax is actually a paid advertisement. At first, though it was really terrible, I didn't want to do write about it. After all, newsmax doesn't technically control what ads they run, and ads definitely don't count as political content. Then I changed my mind, because if you look at the front page for articles, and you scroll down, you'll see ads mixed in with the articles. Newsmax is definitely trying to fool you into confusing advertising with content. So, I was fooled. The following link and everything in it was created by newsmax, and everything in it was newsmax's idea.
Apparently, John Kerry is a communist who hates America. You can tell because he's been in two pictures with Jane "People Like To Call Me 'Hanoi Jane' For Reasons That Are Somewhat Unclear To Me Because I'm 19 Years Old" Fonda, one of them fake. This seems somewhat questionable to me, especially because the main page of the store is full of articles about Kerry, all of which fail to connect him with any actual America hating or terrorism. Then again, the Vietnam War is in that fuzzy area of time too recent for me to have learned about in history classes, and not recent enough that I know about it from reading newspapers. So, for the moment, I'm going to assume everything that this site implies is true.
I want you to believe, for right now, or permanently if you like, that these accusations are all true as well. Jane Fonda is a communist America-hating terrorist. John Kerry, by being photographed near her, admits to sharing these qualities with her. This, while a good start, is only a tiny fraction of the conclusions we can draw. I've made a list to help you get started discovering the secrets of Jane Fonda and John Kerry.
-Jane Fonda is a bearded man wearing sun glasses
-John Kerry had the title role in the science fiction/boobs classic, Barbarella: Queen of the Galaxy
-Jane Fonda is out of focus
-John Kerry is a chubby, dorky guy with a peace sign on his hat
-Jane Fonda is a red arrow with "John Kerry" written over her in white letters that points to John Kerry
You can keep going forever! It's fun!
UPDATE:
Turns out that they write "Adv:" next to advertisements. They didn't the last time I checked, but that was a while ago.
Todays horrible article on newsmax is actually a paid advertisement. At first, though it was really terrible, I didn't want to do write about it. After all, newsmax doesn't technically control what ads they run, and ads definitely don't count as political content. Then I changed my mind, because if you look at the front page for articles, and you scroll down, you'll see ads mixed in with the articles. Newsmax is definitely trying to fool you into confusing advertising with content. So, I was fooled. The following link and everything in it was created by newsmax, and everything in it was newsmax's idea.
Apparently, John Kerry is a communist who hates America. You can tell because he's been in two pictures with Jane "People Like To Call Me 'Hanoi Jane' For Reasons That Are Somewhat Unclear To Me Because I'm 19 Years Old" Fonda, one of them fake. This seems somewhat questionable to me, especially because the main page of the store is full of articles about Kerry, all of which fail to connect him with any actual America hating or terrorism. Then again, the Vietnam War is in that fuzzy area of time too recent for me to have learned about in history classes, and not recent enough that I know about it from reading newspapers. So, for the moment, I'm going to assume everything that this site implies is true.
I want you to believe, for right now, or permanently if you like, that these accusations are all true as well. Jane Fonda is a communist America-hating terrorist. John Kerry, by being photographed near her, admits to sharing these qualities with her. This, while a good start, is only a tiny fraction of the conclusions we can draw. I've made a list to help you get started discovering the secrets of Jane Fonda and John Kerry.
-Jane Fonda is a bearded man wearing sun glasses
-John Kerry had the title role in the science fiction/boobs classic, Barbarella: Queen of the Galaxy
-Jane Fonda is out of focus
-John Kerry is a chubby, dorky guy with a peace sign on his hat
-Jane Fonda is a red arrow with "John Kerry" written over her in white letters that points to John Kerry
You can keep going forever! It's fun!
UPDATE:
Turns out that they write "Adv:" next to advertisements. They didn't the last time I checked, but that was a while ago.
Thursday, April 15, 2004
I've been thinking about getting one of these blogs for a long time. The main thing stopping me was a feeling that I wouldn't have enough things to say to justify it, and that I would update once a week or so, and lose interest after about two. So for a long time, I didn't bother getting a blog. Then I remembered this one time that I wrote a letter to some guy on Newsmax. He never responded, probably because he wrote an essay consisting of literally nothing but logical fallacies, and the letter I wrote him used sentences in a coherent way. My point is, newsmax is a practically limitless source of material for me, and now I have a blog.
If you think I'm setting my standards a little low, you're probably right. Let's face it, I can write so many updates that can be summarized as "stop hating middle eastern people and using misleading quotes" before I get tired. You should give me some more difficult sources of material through my e-mail in the links section.
That's it. I suppose I'll start updating regularly tomorrow.
UPDATE:
Looks like Blogger really likes it when the mailto link is the same color as the background. I took it off the links section. This is my mail and if the link turns out the same color as the background I'm not going to take it well.
If you think I'm setting my standards a little low, you're probably right. Let's face it, I can write so many updates that can be summarized as "stop hating middle eastern people and using misleading quotes" before I get tired. You should give me some more difficult sources of material through my e-mail in the links section.
That's it. I suppose I'll start updating regularly tomorrow.
UPDATE:
Looks like Blogger really likes it when the mailto link is the same color as the background. I took it off the links section. This is my mail and if the link turns out the same color as the background I'm not going to take it well.
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