Marriage Is So Gay

I predict in 10-15 years time after same-sex marriage is legalized in all fifty states the data will show the divorce rate among gay men as being the lowest of any arrangement. Straight couples will still lead here, but lesbians will be quickly catching up. The reason for this is simple, when it comes to domestic arrangements such as these men simply have more experience shall we say "cohabitating." This is largely in part because of thousands of years of military service. Men have been living together in this way quite a bit longer than women and have even managed to form some relatively successful institutions on this basis, such as; Rome, Prussia, and all of Greece. If reality TV is any guide we already know women have far more trouble forming and maintaining cooperative arrangements together.  

We're Fucked Let's Go To Space!

Hey kids want to try a fun little experiment? Gather up a few people and lock them in a room, make sure the room is airtight and there is not enough food to keep everyone alive for a longer than  a few months, then record your findings. If you have trouble finding people to volunteer for this just tell them there will be caught on camera, then you should have no trouble finding people to participate in this nonsense. This is the six billion dollar project a private space exploration firm and a Dutch reality TV producer is putting together. They're going to send people on a way one-way trip to Mars so we can watch them die here on Earth. Now that's great TV. Some of the best and brightest have volunteered to be shot off into space and one of them, a student of astrophysics had this to say; "The future of humanity is in space." The implications of this statement are staggering. Ok, the Earth is in trouble. Actually it's screwed and since we live here we are too. So the idea behind this future failure is we need to colonize space and we need to do it fast!  Here's the problem we'll never colonize space. Doesn't anyone understand what a hairbrained idea it is to leave a habitable, well at least habitable for now planet for the cold embrace of a dusty red rock with no atmosphere? That's like saying we'll I burned down the Amazon so I'm just going to try my luck out in Death Valley. Its not going to work. It's not just me saying it's not going to work either. All the people who actually signed up for this trip already know they're going to die! Hey, guess what people die in space did you know that? Well, a few billion is being spent to figure that out. Just think about that when you're family can't get food because a biblical drought wiped out agriculture in half the country.

The denial here is staggering. The solutions no longer even need to make sense. Instead of facing our problems rationally this species has decided to throw away its future on a ridiculous fantasy. It's like the radical Muslims who believe they'll get 72 virgins after blowing themselves up. These people are sacrificing themselves for the even more ridiculous idea that humanity has a future in space. 

22 Reasons Why The Huffington Post is Fuck

I really hate the Huffington Post. If  you needed any proof liberalism in America is a joke just take a gander at the Huffington Post. Their work has about the same journalistic value as a buzzfeed article. In fact their content of count downs and animal videos often mirrors buzzfeeds. Sometimes I wish armed radicals would shoot their editorial staff, but then I remember if that happened people would somehow confuse them for freedom fighters when they're not even really journalists. Fuck the Huffington Post.

ISreal

I've been thinking about IS (the Islamic state) so far the caliphate as it were, consists of a sizable chunk of Iraq and some of Syria, at least for now. This caliphate was born in a land in the grips of chaos thanks to a failed occupation by an impotent imperialist power, they are a theocratic state and a self-proclaimed Muslim homeland that recruits internationally by appealing to defenders of a faith whose membership seems to be facing persecution in most other parts of the world. They are unrecognized by most, supported with arms and money by a few who hope to use them to further agendas of their own, and are under attack on all sides. Sound familiar? Sounds a bit like the humble beginnings of another Middle Eastern upstart. Can you guess which? I'll give you a hint. Big blue star

It's On Us!

Last night at the Grammys Obama decided to announce the launch of a new campaign against domestic and sexual violence. Well, there's an idea. This is a very pervasive problem in our society. So what's the plan?? 
 The strategy here seems to be a long term shift in cultural values, designed to bring about a society where that kind of violence is "not tolerated" (drones are still ok though) To achieve this the president enlisted the help of the country's most popular performers. 
The idea here is if popular entertainers spend long enough telling us this is bad eventually we'll get the message and phase this out of our society. In the meantime, you can take an online pledge. Yep, take the pledge, not to be a violent womanizer.
 How many future rapists do you think signed up? Well, if he reached MTVs target demographic probably quite a few. Because where are rapists congregating these days? In our universities, it turns out, but who knows maybe Katie Perry's seal of approval on this message will change the mind of a lot of drunk, overly aggressive, insecure, college males. 
What about domestic violence though, you know the wife beaters? Some counties in the United States are so bankrupt they no longer prosecute these cases due to lack of funding. Are we going appropriate funds for this? Of course not all that money has been spent on the pentagon and given to Wall Street. As soon as the president said we're celebrating "artists whose message and music shape our culture" we should have known some bullshit was about to follow. If these so-called culture shapers are wielding their influence on the culture then how come there has been a consistent uptick in rape and domestic violence among the MTV demo? 
What Obama did here was unbelievably crass, but also rather clever. He's a politician, theoretically a very powerful one so wouldn't it make more sense to put forward some kind of policy or legislation to solve a problem? No, because this is simply a problem that is not solvable by any social media campaign or the office of the president. Hey, though he told us its bad we were told to knock it off so if it continues it's on us right? Never mind the continuation of policies that have bankrupted whole cities, never mind the culture of violence he is helping to cultivate with endless wars.
 This is a campaign where there are no results and there is no measure of accountability for its success or failure. We can try harsher punishments for these crimes, and I would be ok with that. After all justice is something that is delivered in one form or another after an infraction has occurred to it is really closer to revenge, and revenge for something like rape is quite ok in my book. I'm sure things like "education" and "prevention" will take a back seat to punishment once the prison system in places where domestic violence is most pervasive, poor communities is privatized then it will present a nice business opportunity to political donors.

Clintons, Bushs, and Measles

This is our third trip into Iraq, we're poised to elect a second Clinton or a third bush as President, and to top it off people aren't getting vaccinated because jenny McCartney told them it's bad. So fuck it clearly this America thing is not working. It's a failed project destined for the dustbin of lost civilizations. At this point, you may as well just drink till it's all over. What will future generations scavenging the irritated wastes thing if they're able to piece together this country started being stricken by childhood plagues once thought eradicated because a woman famous for showing her tits got in her head vaccines cause autism? I imagine they'll be a bit disappointed. You deserve what you're gonna get America you deserve what you're gonna get

That's So European!

People will use the term European to describe something chic, which is annoying, but not as annoying as the word chic which is totally European. They will say things like; "I love those glasses they're very European." Or "We just spent the evening drinking red wine and sample cheese. It was very European." So sure all those things are European, but when I try and tell people the government pays for my health insurance it's not European at all its just me being impoverished, and that my friends is a double standard.

That's Terror-Able!

Terror as a tactic has been largely discredited over the years. It has proven to be so ineffectual to the point of being counterproductive in the long term. Hey, hindsight's always 20/20. Unfortunately, this seems to be a lesson lost on most policy makers, but for the rest of us in the real world it is something to keep in mind. Especially as we watch the results of the United States failed terror campaign in the Middle East beginning to sow the seeds of its own future failures. A few prominent example of failed terror campaigns would be Nazi Germany's genocide on the eastern front. It may seem strange to a people raised on John Wayne and Saving Private Ryan but there were a number of countries, particularly in the east where rather large segments of the population initially saw the Germans as liberators. Well, at least preferable to the Russians anyway.
 That is until they released the death squads and the hapless Nazis found out mass shootings and gassing children is really not the way to win people over. Given Germany's shortage of manpower later in the war this seems like a real lost opportunity. Another glaring example would be the United States conduct in Vietnam. It turns out dropping millions of tons of ordinance on people kind of makes them angry and so rather then bend to Washington's will the united states, the world's premier military power was defeated by a nation of rice farmers. Well, here we are a few decades later and it seems not much was learned from that whole experience and now a decade of failed policies in Iraq and the greater Middle East has culminated into Isis.
 For a long time the US military believed they could suppress any opposition to occupation with terrorism. This manifested itself into night raids where people would be carried off to secret prisons and often never heard from again. Another method utilized was the bombing of anywhere military aged males might gather. This policy resulted in many ruined social gatherings. It turns out drone operators and apache gunship pilots have trouble distinguishing a soccer game or a wedding from an armed uprising. Live and learn I guess.
 Now they are finding out people tend to get mad when they're routinely massacred and in a country where there are no jobs, plenty of guns, and even more angry men relieved of family responsibilities by a hellfire missile problems may arise. So here comes Isis which for now has the convenience of having the western militaries around keeping the relatives of the people they massacre busy. Once that situation changes what seems like a relatively cohesive fighting force will eventually fracture and the Islamic state will most likely be left wondering where they went wrong.