Rumblings

Current Events:

- North Korea has threatened to "wipe the U.S. off of the map"

- Iran is under martial law in the wake of a highly-suspicious election

- the economy is still pretty much in the shitter

- the Obama administration supports the Bush administration's illegal wiretapping and executive power grabs, including "indefinite detention" for accused terrorists

- the polar ice caps are apparently showing signs of melting faster than anticipated

- WHO has declared H1N1 a pandemic

It's the goddamn 21st century of the Western Gregorian Calendar. To say this stuff is crazy doesn't begin to cover it.

Okay, the rest of the world really can't do much about Iran. I don't see any profound wisdom with the hard-liner advice to President Obama to have him chew out Ahmadinejad's government. Unless the world plans to invade Iran (and Iraq has adequately demonstrated the lack of wisdom in that plan) folks are just going to have to suck it up. Pissing off that country even more isn't going to do loads of good.

Melting ice caps? Hell, climate change as a whole is just one big problem. Is it human-caused? Is it human-exacerbated? Maybe governments should try listening to the scientists studying the matter instead of paying sock puppets to deny there's an issue?

North Korea... yeah. They apparently have nukes. These jackasses are actually doing missile tests to piss off their neighbors. I'm puzzled why China is okay with an unstable thug-state having nukes. I'm less diplomatically-minded with North Korea, so it's a good thing I'm not a diplomat.

The economy... seems to me that the U.S. is doing more in terms of putting bandages on the problem than trying to fix the underlying issues by putting more regulations and controls in place. A free market economy is a lovely fiction, but it makes certain assumptions about human nature that are proven to be false. Markets don't self-regulate when larger corporate interests can influence legislation to adjust policy to essentially screw the rest of us over. I read a lot of nonsense about President Obama being a "socialist". Blah blah blah... he's pretty intensely moderate. I think his administration could stand to step up a bit more. Public opinion seems to more-or-less back him.

While I'm a fan of President Obama, for the most part, I'm disappointed and disgusted that he's backing warrantless wiretapping, just as Bush did. I'm astounded that he (or any American) think it's okay to have any form of indefinite detention for anyone without representation or trial. Doesn't matter if it's a U.S. citizen or not... keeping anyone without charge or the opportunity to defend one's self is something only a fascist would consider to be correct behavior. If they're "bad guys", prove they're "bad". It's that simple. Otherwise, what's the point in having laws at all?

Oddly enough, the whole H1N1 pandemic thing is kind of not-news. It's terrible that people are getting sick and that some have died, but it is the flu. The flu does kill people. Sure this version is hitting different - and traditionaly resistant - groups, but the numbers aren't ginormous. I'm personally more scared of North Korean nukes.

Bah. My opinions. I'm not bothering to cite references or anything, 'cause all of my takes on these things are just my opinion and most people shouldn't give a crap about my take on things.

Just seems to me the world should be better. We, as a species, should know enough to be in a better place. Why aren't we?