a defense of george bush

Hear me out...

First of all, I have been an anti-Bush since the first election and much more passionately when the speak of war first arose. I was also against the war in Iraq from it's beginnings and not because I am anti-war. I fully supported the Afghan war per the initial intelligence provided after the 9-11 incident. I also am claiming to have known about all of the lies that led us to Iraq before the war even started, because I actually read both sides and took the time to do the research, while the majority of the population read the headlines and fell for the White House press releases like sheep. I used to debate daily and passionately, trying to make people aware of how silly it is that we are leading a war into a country, which our own federal intelligence repeatedly insisted were not causing us any problems. I do take a bit of pride in my early analysis of the situation. Not that I was the only one, but we were few and far between (at least, in the US where the propaganda soared); however, it has been quite validating to see the world slowly come to the understanding that I had 6 years ago.

I remember the day the war started. I was sitting at a bar with a friend of mine, whom was in the Air Force and would shortly ship off to Germany. We got into the usual heated debate, and I finally came to the most positive perspective I could: there must be something that we are not being told, because there is no way that the top elected officials of our country could literally be so stupid to go against all of our allies, and all of the publicized intel, and just be running into Iraq on what seems to be an angry whim. I still held to my beliefs although I left a little room for that off-chance that there was some darker secret that we just weren't ready to be told. Years have gone by, "official" reports have laid open the truth about WMD's, links to al Qaeda, etc., but the question still arises daily, in the News, on Talk Radio, Magazines, Blogs, Web Forums, and so on "Why are we still in Iraq?"; "Why are we sending in more troops?"; "How is the Bush administration still supporting this war, despite overwhelming opposition?" Nobody is answering this question, except to say we are stabilizing Iraq so that a democracy might arise for the people.

I can guarantee the only reason there is instability is because we are still there. We leave; democracy and stability might just flourish. And really, why the hell do we care so much about Iraq's democratic infrastructure? What about the civil warring states of Africa, what about Israel/Palestine, what about China's Tibet? I know I'm leaving a whole lot of other more reasonable humanitarian causes than this costly and deadly fight for democracy in Iraq. Anybody who has watched the documentary, "Bush's War" can see the administration, clearly duped the population into supporting the war. So why? Are these people evil? Is there a personal gain? Will this be looked upon as one of the biggest blunders in U.S. history? Were they just stupid?

I'm not much for conspiracy theories, so I've always chosen the latter, the simplest answer, pure stupidity. So finally for my defense (you were starting to wonder?): What if there was something deeper, darker? A conspiracy right? If something is reasonable and has simple, sensible arguments, I say it doesn't fall into the category of conspiracy. Peak oil? I noticed another thread was hashing the points of peak oil, and it is something more and more on my mind these days, as I watch the price of gasoline rise rapidly, while the other dominoes fall in their predicted orders: food prices soaring, economy falling into a recession, the sudden surge of propaganda to go green and look at alternative energies, enormous consumption and waste, and now the rest of the world following our lead, and so on. People keep talking as if gas prices are going to eventually drop again. What's going to happen? Is the demand for oil going to lessen? Are we going to find new oil? Will China and India decide to just return to their days of old or will they continue to compete with us for an oil supply that will only lessen year by year, while demand sky rockets?

Prices will not go down. Prices of everything will sky rocket, food supply will lessen, the economy will fall into shambles. Populations around the world will starve while we subsidize our food crop to produce ethanol, and buy food cheap from other countries that can’t afford to compete with our buying power. Eventually the problem will reach every home, even in our own industrialized country. They will continue to increase to the point where the normal consumer won't even be able to afford gasoline, let alone anything transported using gasoline (which is everything you own, btw). The few top industries that can afford the $30 a gallon fuel, will eventually make the move to hydrogen. Thank god for hydrogen, right? We might be alright, but wait, where do we get hydrogen? There's a ton of it on our planet somewhere. The Ocean, right? But how do we get the hydrogen out of the water? Electrolysis is a process used to separate H2O to hydrogen and oxygen. Not only is this an inefficient process, it also requires a form of energy to make it happen. Luckily the U.S. has the largest deposits of coal in the world. We are already using it for electricity; why not use it to produce a new form of mobile energy, hydrogen? We will then run into the same wall of Peak Coal, and not long after when you calculate the growing population, then the doubly growing demand for electricity, the inefficiency of electrolysis, and the enormous growing requirements for a mobile fuel, while Oil is $2,000 a barrel, and $50 a gallon.

So how do we support the 10 or 11 billion people on this planet, when we suddenly hit that final brick wall: NO MORE EASY ENERGY! The world will plunge into a sudden crash of starvation and panic, the likes of which has never been seen. Is it real? Of course, it’s real. The only question is how long? What Bush is doing in Iraq(the second largest reservoir of oil in the world), we will soon be doing in Iran, then Saudi Arabia, etc. The only difference is, we will not be fighting just the Middle East at that point, we will be fighting with the world for the remaining drops of easy energy. Fossilized sunlight from hundreds of millions of years of plants and animals has provided this short burst of easy energy that has given civilization a short ride of efficiency to support the 7 billion people on this planet like nothing else can, or ever will be able to. Simple entropy.

So does George Bush have my support to lead us gently into the future of a “kill or be killed” world? Absolutely!

The alternative is only to crash really, really hard! Blah, blah, blah, nuclear energy, solar energy, geo-thermal, etc. None will be near capable of supporting the enormous energy sucking infrastructure that oil, coal, and other hydrocarbons have brought us to. Please argue some sense into me!

a beautiful thing is religion

religion has been an enormous sore spot with me for years since I painfully lost my own. it is only in recent reflection that i have discovered the enormous beauty of religion and it's practicality. i have gained a kind of respect for religion and it's great offerings to the masses. this has lead me to almost feel a blessed tie with the elite of this world in not being constrained by such.

i have a great deal of pride in being allowed into what i feel is the elite group of atheists inhabiting this dear planet earth. please do not take my reference to "elite" as a lack of modesty; it is more a fortunate happenstance that we, atheists, probably have some biological neuro-aphasia to the god-piece that has allowed us the clarity to see beyond. i consider it elite only because it is so much more beautiful a vision than any religion could ever project. i tend to believe that the belief in god has huge evolutionary advantages over the lack of the belief, and that is why it is so enormously fortunate and paradoxical to have my current perspective.

please don't mistake my pride as lack of modesty either. i am very aware, as are most true atheists that anything is possible, and even an exact semantical argument like a god/creator archetype could be valid. the problem of arguing your point as an atheist is that your debater will never understand until they are allowed to see the same perspective, which is an extremely hard conclusion to come to. it actually requires hearing out many different perspectives to their fullest extent. at the end of the day, we, the atheist, believe that there is just not any valid reason to either need a "god" or to prove a "god's" existence, by any common definition of the word. as the word atheist breaks down, "a-" none, or lacking; "theist" belief in a god, i simply lack this belief. more specifically, per the school of David Hume, i have followed a statistical form of skepticism, in which all things have possibility, some just have higher probability than others. as a great peer once told me, please add a question mark to the end of every statement i make; some just have smaller question marks than others.

as a last argument, i must admit that it is absurd to the normal human being to not follow a religion; to not believe in a god. it is truly absurd. when i first gained my understanding, i found it so hard not to argue with every person i met that the belief in god was silly; how could they believe in such a ridiculous concept. ironically, i had only grown up believing it whole-heartedly myself for 21 years. why did i really think it was so silly of a belief? i just wanted others to join me on my beautiful deserted "atheistic" island. the takers were few and far between, and i have since come to believe that we are a small congregation of human beings on this planet. the few that can handle such a truth without malfunctioning. i have also found that the issue is not a problem of intelligence, but maybe an intense fear of the unknown. intelligence and logic seem to break down in the face of losing all that propagates the stability of one's mind. those that i have talked with that grew up with this atheistic world-view have no impedance to the problems it provides the "believers". it is merely impossible to change the basis of your entire structure of reality after it has settled for so many years, without completely dismantling and questioning everything you have ever been told or believed. by the way, i had to do this, and it was not convenient, nor easy; however, i am so much better for doing so.

the downside is i am alone in this world. no sense of solidarity or commonality with anyone i meet. i find it incredibly hard to find anyone that shares my beliefs, and that is sad to me. i enjoy discussion of the religiously derived questions , "where did i come from?", "why am I here?", and "where am I going?" just as much as any other human being; yet I have no one with my world-view to discuss with. where are all of you at? i have read about you in articles and books many a time, but here in Atlanta, GA, i seem to be all alone.

for those of you are ready to take the leap, here is the punchline: "god is merely the easy answer to all of your unanswered or difficult questions." in effect, the "god" answer allows you to merely pass over the difficult questions, and pass on all of your fears to the hope that someone else has got it all worked out.

water!

this is the source of the majority of the worlds drinking water. the off-flow of mountain glacier waters into rivers, dams, and lakes.

Top (1968) / Bottom (2007)











water. without it life cannot continue. have you ever been thirsty?

we have been in a drought for a couple of years now. I haven't thought much about it until recently. I have taken care to go easy on water consumption, short showers, efficient toilets, no lawn watering, etc. however in the last week, we have just been informed that our water supply is projected to have only 4 months left of water. our lakes will actually be dried up! the same lakes that I used to go boating and water skiing on. the rest of the Southeast United States are also in drought although I'm not sure of their particular standings.

4 months left of water! so what exactly does that mean? we need rain badly. unfortunately weather patterns over the years are showing that water fall is dwindling. (maybe global warming? I don't know.) it is cyclical, however, and we will have rain again when the rainy season returns but as for now we are looking at possibly a time where we will not even have enough water for showers, etc. maybe even drinking water will be gone temporarily.

I can always go to the grocery store and buy bottled water, but hydration is not the only thing I'm worried about. our businesses, power plants, agriculture, and food industry cannot perform without water. I am looking at potential chaos in my own back yard and it isn't that far off. there are 6 million people in Atlanta and it's surrounding suburbs. this could cause a total infrastructure meltdown like I have never seen in my lifetime.

I may be overreacting, and we may pull through this year with some crafty engineering and some extreme water conservation, but what about next year? the year after? it will continue to get worse.


please read the following facts:

• - few of us realise how much water it takes to get us through the day. on average, we drink no more than five litres. even after washing and flushing the toilet, we usually consume no more than 150 litres. but when we add in the water needed to grow what we eat and drink, the numbers soar.
• - it takes between 2,000 and 5,000 litres of water to grow one kilo of rice, over 1,000 litres for a kilo of wheat, between 2,000 and 11,000 litres to grow the feed for enough cow to make a quarter-pound hamburger, and between 2,000 and 4,000 litres for that cow to fill its udders with a litre of milk.
• - every teaspoonful of sugar requires 50 cups of water, and every cup of coffee 140 litres. Hoekstra calculates that his fellow Netherlanders require the virtual-water equivalent of 4% of the flow of the Rhine to produce the coffee they drink in a year. to feed and clothe a typical meat-eating Westerner for a year takes around 1,500 cubic metres – rather more than half the contents of an Olympic-size swimming pool.

source: United Nations Educational Scientific & Cultural Orginization

why is all of this happening?! overpopulation! the world population is now growing exponentially and we don't have the resources to support it. now, I realize this is nothing new and we have seen this coming, but for me this is the first time I have had the honor of it hitting home. I personally will not have water.

and for you that live outside of Atlanta, keep in mind, you're next. it is projected that in 2025 (this is only 17 years from now), 1 in 3 people will not have enough water to survive on this planet. I am guessing that could be an over-projection. it might be 2015 or earlier. the wars of the future will be fought over water . . .

what will you do?

get to know your candidates

here a few websites that will give you a good profile of each candidate. I've always found it hard to get a good understanding of any candidate from the debates, which just give you blurbs of the most popularized response, and the advertisements are obviously not even worth paying attention except for a good laugh.

Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_candidates%2C_2008

Washington Post
http://projects.washingtonpost.com/2008-presidential-candidates/

CBS
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/09/18/politics/main3273013.shtml

Environmental Profiles
http://presidentialprofiles2008.org/

Interesting Article on the Essential Negatives of Each Candidate
http://wonkette.com/politics/2008/why-everyone-will-lose-in-2008-238064.php

no apologies from technology

so, I've decided to become a ranter, rather than express anything of utility.

pure and simple.

technology can not keep up with itself!

it is no longer a simpler more efficient means to an end. technology has become a means to a means to a means to a means to a means, and so on and so forth, but no END.

there was a time when a man would work for years upon years doing what he had to do to survive. at some point he would stumble upon a more efficient solution to that work. the man needed to pick fruit from the tree to feed himself and his family. he would climb the tree, pick the fruit, and drop it to the ground. some of the fruit would be damaged from the drop, and it would become more and more difficult to get to the higher fruits. *lightbulb* as he fell from the tree one day, a long branch came tumbling down with him. if i use this branch to reach the fruit, i SAVE myself much effort, energy, and trouble. suddenly technology emerged. a more efficient means to an end. less energy in a closed system by adding an external factor.

technology has always contained this simple formula. in the last 20 to 30 years, it is seeming to get out of hand. of course this is due to the exponential growth in technology. the explosion since the invention of controlled electricity has been amazing and still is! but i am seeing, first hand, an issue that is causing the very nature of technology to implode upon itself.

a man creates a complex system that makes life easier. no man better understands that system than its creator, and even he cannot maintain the understanding that he had as he was creating it. so the system is put in to use on a large scale level. however, rather being handled with the care and delicacy that should be required of a system that so many people will be reliant upon, it is put into production as quickly as possible, to avoid being beat out by competition.

here in lies the problem. the early and impatient release of the technology exposes the consumer to its steadfast failures, which requires the need for repairs, which requires the need for technicians, which requires the need for training, which requires the need for manuals, which requires the need of the creator to document, which he didn't, because he was to busy getting the product to the public before the competition, and he can't do now, because he's too busy creating version 2.0 due to the enormous amount of problems of 1.0.

and it continues and continues.

i am a technician and see this first hand every day. i nor does anybody else have time nor resources to keep up with learning version 1.0 well enough to support it, let alone 1.1, 1.2. 1.3 ... 2.0, 3.0, 4.0, etc.

it's a never ending cycle and everybody suffers! consumer, repairer, users, sellers, etc. how have they suffered? we've lied to them! the technology has said "look at me, i'm pretty... and I promise to make your life easier and even more FUN!"

first and foremost, when it ends up taking more energy to support the technological advancement, than it does to do it "the OLD way", your purpose has FAILED! the consumer could have picked their fruit with their branch in a matter of minutes, rather than the remote controlled super duper fruiter picker, that they were told they could use from the comfort of their couch (hmmm ... this brings to mind my next rant, COUCHES & LAZINESS!!!)

the REAL scenario: the consumer had to go to the store, buy the remote controlled super duper fruiter picker, come home, unpack it, build it, go back to the store, buy the batteries, back home, turn it on, ... , pick up the pieces, pack it back up, bring it back to the store, where they are told to take it to the repair shop, to the repair shop where they shell out nearly as much as the remote controlled super duper fruiter picker was originally worth to have it repaired, only to bring it back home, and watch it pick a fruit and break again, destroying the single fruit that it even picked.

no thanks, i prefer the branch method!

another point that needs to be made, is that this is not always the case. some people have realized that doing something slowly and correctly the first time, resolves all of the potential problems down the line. they may not be the first to market, or the fanciest product, but stability, adhering to standardized protocols, efficiency, and quality always win.

and marketing is evil!!!!!!!!! this could all be resolved if we could control the lying consumer marketing. "We stand by our Quality!" sounds good to me, i'll take it! a couple of days later, "I bought this thing, and ummm... it doesn't work..." the committed reponse "well let one of our Highly Trained Technicians resolve that for you!" "ummm... it still doesn't work, and they don't know how to fix it!"

why???!! because they were never trained, and there are no manuals, and no one ever documented anything, and it was quickly stuffed into a cannon and shot into a crowd of unsuspecting, easily swayed consumers.

LESSON LEARNED: If you want to make your life easier, buy the technologies that have stood the test of time, don't require maintenance, and make sure that it IS actually saving you effort or time in some SIMPLE manner.

kick the nic!

my mind wants to vent but there is nothing that it contains to say. maybe it is empty today. maybe not, I feel something coming.

so I have decided once again to drop the mindless habit of inhaling the byproducts of burning tobacco. i have been chewing on the cheap Walgreen's flavorless nicotine gum for 3 days without a single desire for those little white cylindrical devices. unfortunately it tastes like pure disgust, but I must say it is totally worth not smelling like pure disgust and not knowing it.

such a strange apparatus is the nose and its counterpart the olfactory cortex. as for anyone that may have once been a smoker and quit for any period of time, you know this phenomena. when the brain is constantly bombarded by the same olfactory signals, it grows a tolerance to alerting you of the smell. after only a short period of time you no longer have the ability to percieve that specific chemical's 'smell tag'. such an amazing phenomena, yet dangerous if you stink and don't know it.

so back to the smoking of cigarettes. i had a discussion with a roommate recently about my quitting. under his circumstance, he smokes occasionally and is not addicted to the nicotine. how absurd is it to do something that is terribly distasteful, unhealthy, and can provide you with a slow and painful death, if you are not in an addictive state. now maybe he just does not realize he is addicted, but unlikely as he has never ritually smoked as I do. why people, do you smoke at no benefit whatsoever to yourself?! of course, there was a time when I smoke unnecessarily but I blame it on youth and ignorance. as an adult, you should know better!

smoking really upsets me! i need something to calm my nerves. i'm gonna go chew some gum.