Thursday, November 24, 2005

Got oil?

Have you seen the ads for the upcoming movie "Syriana"? They make it clear that the filmmakers are unaware of a few ageless, unchangeable laws of economics. First, that rising oil prices cause an increase in oil exploration, discovery, and extraction technology development, because the greater expense will be paid for by the higher price, as per the law of supply and demand. (We are not, as stated in the ads for the movie, "running out of oil.") When there's a larger supply of oil, caused by the increased exploration, discovery, and extraction, the price will then start to drop to levels relatively close to where they were before they started to rise in the first place due to the "world oil shortage" scare... as per the law of supply and demand. (We are not going to pay "$21 per gallon [for gasoline] at the pump" as stated in the ads for the movie. Not without massive inflation, which is caused by government, not by oil companies or Arabs.)

I guess I was wrong. I guess the filmmakers of Syriana aren't unaware of a few laws of economics, they're unaware of one simple, easy-to-understand, basic law of economics. Supply and demand: keeping the world's known oil reserves pretty much steady (or rising), regardless of how much we use, since the nineteenth century.

SRS

Monday, November 14, 2005

No draft = better military

Some say that the current situation in Iraq proves that we need a military draft, so as to balloon the numbers of our armed forces. This prompts the question: "What's so bad about Iraq that we need to reurn to the good old days of Vietnam, Korea, etc.?" To put the argument against the draft as simply as possible: do you really want our military filled with people who don't think they should be there? Do you really want to bring back slavery? (That's what a draft is.)

There you have it: the military draft is an immoral concept, and besides, our most prominent military leaders say our military is better off without it.

SRS

Monday, November 07, 2005

Good man/bad president?

I've heard friends, including conservatives, say that Jimmy Carter was a bad president, but a good man. He did bad things for the economy and was inept at foreign policy, they agree, but they maintain that he is still a good person. Some even agree with leftist media assessments that he is a great ex-president, whatever he may have done in office. They are wrong. Obviously, it takes a bad ex-president to undermine his own country's war effort by publicly opposing the war while it is still going on. But is he a good man, though misguided?

Well, Jimmy Carter accuses - without evidence - Americans of routinely torturing prisoners around the world. He lies about Guantanamo Bay, portraying it as a hellhole, when in reality the worst accusations made about the interrogation techniques there are things like "turning the air conditioning way up" and "playing really loud music" at the prisoners.* He pretends to be very morally superior to those who disagree with him, when really he lies when it suits him, and defames his own country.

Don't get me wrong. I encourage everyone to oppose policy decisions of the president if they think there's just cause for doing so. That doesn't make you a bad person, even if you're wrong. But to accuse American soldiers of war crimes they didn't commit, while they are still at war? That gives aid and comfort (and a recruiting tool) to our terrorist enemies, and that is evil. I will say it again, so you don't misunderstand. Former United States president Jimmy Carter is depraved, and his words and actions are evil.

SRS

Sunday, November 06, 2005

Fox Propaganda

Sorry I didn't post for a while there; I was at my parents' place, and their web access isn't working. So I was helping my dad watch some college football. During one of the commercial breaks, he flipped to Fox, where there was an episode of Stargate: Atlantis. The scientists had just invented some serum or whatever, and they were right about to test it on a captured alien or sea creature or whatever. But then a State Department official pointed out that performing science experiments on prisoners is a violation of the Geneva Convention. "That's odd," I thought. "I guess the alien/sea creature/whatever went back in time to become a signatory party at the Geneva Convention."

SRS

Thursday, November 03, 2005

Got logic?

I was catching up on my Ted Rall, and I came across this in a piece of... commentary from October 26. I know he's an easy target, but this was just too funny.
[A New York Daily News article] says that George W. Bush knew about Karl Rove's scheme to blow CIA agent Valerie Plame's cover for years, that he was Rove's partner in treason from the start, that his claims of ignorance were lies. The News article is anonymously sourced but we know it's 100 percent true because the White House won't deny that Bush is a traitor.
I guess by that "logic" we know allegations that Hillary Clinton shot Vince Foster in the back of the head were also "100 percent true" because the White House at the time never denied that Mrs. Clinton was a murderer.

By that same line of reasoning, we know that Ronald Reagan sneaked out of the White House at night to go steal a can of beans from a homeless person, and cooked it and ate it so he could laugh at the suffering he had caused. But then again, Mr. Rall probably believes that. Oh well.

This just goes to show that logic should be taught in our schools (and it probably would be if there were no government schools). People wouldn't vote for candidates like Kerry and Bush in the primaries, so the rest of us wouldn't be stuck with choices like that in November. We would probably be much closer to adhering to the constitution in our government. In fact, if he had learned how to reason, Ted Rall wouldn't make himself look like a moron by posting articles like this on the internet - on second thought, maybe it's not such a bad thing that people don't know how to reason.

SRS

Tuesday, November 01, 2005

Never judge too quickly

I don't know all that much about Judge Alito (except that he's a "conservative" and his name is a little reminiscent of the O.J. judge). He seems like a great nominee from what little I know of him, but something may turn up that demonstrates otherwise. If you think you've found that something, and it's his opinion in a strip search lawsuit, read more about it here. Don't judge until you've heard both sides.

SRS
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