Merry Christmas

Thursday September 29, 2005 - 11:56AM EDT

The recent spat of natural disasters has really exposed congress and their pathetic leadership and decision making ability. If people weren't so blindly angry after the terrorist attacks on the WTC then they would have seen the pretenders in congress exposed then. If there are decent members of congress out there they don't make themselves known. Maybe they are blocked, maybe they are scared, maybe they just have no moxy. The unended compromises in legeslative government is spooky. It is one thing to compromise to mediate disputes but compromise is some kind of currency in congress. From the outside it seems that internally there is a lack of reason or logic in dealing with issues. To get what you want you simply conceed something else (usually that which has little affect on you). I don't know where I'm going with this. Revist later.

I don't know how that No Child Left Behind education bill got passed. Besides the fact that every educator in the country was essentially opposed to it, it is such an ignorant piece of legislation. It is based on punishing schools that don't perform. It seems odd that you would punish those who don't perform when they never did well in the first place. It is the same as saying the problem is that "your just not doing a good enough job" and ignoring any factors that lead to it. Forget that schools are underfunded and teachers are undertrained your just not good enough.

What I still don't get is how education is still not seen as the most important pillar of society. Spending on education should dwarf anything else. Of course it should be real education not religious dogma or crackpot science. Lets get something straight first. The media sometimes likes to portray the "scientific community" as some kind of disjointed beast warring against itself. The media likes to add whoever they please to the "community" to sell a story. The "scientific community" by comparison to any other "community" is probably the most stable, organized and coopertive group out there. Which is fuunny becuase their fuel is the chaos of the universe. Have you seen how many religious denominations there are? Christians haven't been united since that man they call Jesus was alive.

I also don't understand why there is even the hint of conflict between nations anymore. Dali Llama just gave a speech at Rutgers and said the same thing. Framed it in the context that there is nowhere else to go on this planet so attacking someone else is an attack on yourself. Why in the hell would there ever be any thought that China and the US would go to war. It makes no sense. I don't know why large nations continue to build up national armies for "defense". Fuck, the recent terrorist attacks and natural disaters should have taught you that large armies are the weakest form of defense in this modern age. Men with guns can't handle computer crime, corruption, they can't handle earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes. Men with guns can only handle other men with guns. I still imagine the armed forces becoming the foundation of learning and science on the planet. The only people who want to war are the leaders of countries and a couple of crackpot citizens. The everyday joe doesn't want to go fight somebody on the other side of the planet. They just want to go to work, have some dinner and relax. What I don't understand is that the leaders are regular joes too. How do they live in this vacum where sending your army of joes is as simply as signing a piece of paper. I think about whether if the US declared a complete diarmament and pledge their troops entirely to the UN and as a planetary force what would happen. Is the populace really scared that having no national army would make it vulnerable to attack. Attack from who? Who the "communists" suddenly start dropping bombs. The US is way to important to the world economy to ruin the country. Everyone is so intertwined that if the US attacked China the price of goods in the US would skyrocket. Shit, probably 90% of what we buy wouldn't be available anymore. That would be an amazing step if China just announced that is was disarming and commiting itself to pacifism towards all nations or something along those lines. They have to know their real power is in their economics. Anybody can drop bombs but economic strength is difficult to achieve. How in the fuck does China try to assert itself in taiwan as part of the mainland. How much sense does that make? None. I can't even think of logical reasons to go through the hassle they are by proclaiming them a rogue nation. And the Tibet thing is even more senseless. India and Pakistan have made progress in their squabbling. But again I don't understand what they were fighting over. I'd also like the congratulate both countries in the accomplishment of duplicating the 50-year old technology of the a-bomb. Bravo!

I remeber my ethics class at Villanova and over the "just war" theory by that wonderful thinker Augustine. I can't belive our teacher had the nerve to even consider that nonsense valid reasoning. Maybe he was just being compliant with curriculum requirements but he should have at least called it out for what it is. Bullplop. I did have a teacher in another class point that out later on.

I'm tired. Too much ruminating this morning.