A Lovely Letter

Dear Nouri al-maliki,
The best way to make yourself not seem like an autocratic leader is to not crack down and silence the media when you don't like them calling you authoritarian.

Love,
Braden

I know I'm very late on that. Shut up.

Jumping On the Indian bandwagon

Seems Obama finally has the sense to acknowledge India as a world superpower. He invited Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to the White House Tuesday. My favorite part was this quote from Singh:

"India and America are separated by distance, but bound together by the values of democracy, humanism, rule of law and respect of fundamental human freedoms."

Can I just say, I love how world leaders always kid themselves. This meetng was supposed to be used to discuss trade, counterterrorism (in reference to the Mumbai attacks), the long-delayed India-US nuclear agreement and technology. Yes. The Indian PM did just visit, and they are talking about all of those, but will they honestly make any progress with any of it? Probably not. This is all just to satisfy the people. The two leaders are discussing current issues, so something is going to be done about them, right? WRONG.

A Victim of the Corporation

I know I haven't exactly kept to that one post per week idea, but I've been busy...

Walking through Kohl's earlier, I realized something. Looking around, I saw nothing but bright, flashy colors and big, attention-grabbing letters. I remember being a child, and falling victim to the cool little animations and pictures plastered on everything down the toy aisle, and being subjected to the idea that having one of them would make me just as awesome as whoever was in the picture on the box. Looking back on that, a thought came to me.

Advertising sucks.

I know I'm not the only one who was fooled by fake images and the false messages they convey. Everyone was. And because if that, we've wasted more money, more time, and more resources than we care to remember. So maybe it's time to cut back on it, you know? Force advertisers to send a more realistic message with more creative means. It's doable. Plenty of companies have done it. Why not every one of them?

And Now They See It!

What am I talking about? Why, the new report from the European Union that states Georgia provoked Russia in the 2008 South Ossetian conflict, of course!

Not a lot of people took the time to do any research during the mini-war to find out exactly what happened. I did, and I've been trying to tell people this for months. Basically, Russia was supplying small guerrilla groups and rebels in the breakaway region of South Ossetia, which declared independence from Georgia a while back. Mikhail Saakashvili, the President of Georgia, didn't like this, so he invaded the capital of Tskhinvali, killing 1400 civilians. Russia called an emergency session of the UN after the attack, which was denied. Once word of the invasion reached the major news outlets, all hell broke loose. mainstream media placed all the blame on Russia, saying that it was in fact the Russian army who was invading Georgia and trying to retake the lost territory. However, reprts from eyewitnessess sprouted up all over the internet saying the truth: the Russians sent in troops to protect South Ossetia (losing ten soldiers in the process). I would post a link to one of them, but I can't find the URL I'm looking for.

This is a testament to the anti-Russian feeling spread about by the media. When something bad invloving Russia comes up, they're immediately the ones to blame. Why? Is this still a continuation of the propaganda started during the Cold War? Are Americans still predjudiced against the "Reds?" How can you people be so stupid as to believe one of the world's greatest superpowers with wonderful foreign relations would actually invade two soveriegn nations? It's blasphemy.

For the first time ever, I'm going to thank Fox News for something that the other networks should have done: bringing in an eyewitness. After the invasion, a twelve year-old South Ossetian girl was brought on and interviewed. She said Georgia started the whole thing, and the Russians deserve to be thanked. It's a shame Fox News has such an idiotic base of viewers and such a bad reputation, or someone may have actually paid attention to this.

Good Times

Obviously I have been very excited and happy all week because of two things:
1. The meeting of the 64th UN General Assembly, and
2. The G20 Summit, which is conveniently being held in Pittsburgh this year.

The General Assembly has turned out to be both enlightening and hilarious so far. If you hadn't heard anything of Muammar Qaddafi's ridiculous speech (and I'm sure you have), here are a few highlights:
-George Bush should be investigated by the UN and put to death because he started the Iraq War.
-Swine flu was made in a laboratory by the companies that make the vaccine as a large capitalization scam, and the "fish flu" is next.
-The proposed two-state solution regarding Israel and Palestine should be thrown out and the new state should be called "Isratine."
-Mines make a great defense tool. His argument: If you invade then you die, but that's okay because you're invading me. He also mentioned his website.
-The Taliban is okay.
-The General Assembly should be moved from NYC, because he suffered from jet lag on the trip.
-If the European nations do not pay reparations of exactly $7.77 trillion, Africans will come to Europe and take the money from them.
-Obama is a "son of Africa."
After the speech? Well, the American diplomats who watched mainly sat with shocked and stunned faces. However, one Chinese diplomat was cracking up in laughter. I wonder why.

The G20 Summit has pretty much gone as planned. Now, you may be wondering why the G20 is beginning to replace the G7 and G8. Simply put, the G7 and G8 are too small; they consist mainly of the most powerful western nations, and do not include some of the biggest emerging economies. Twenty is just a better number. The G7 and G8 will be used primarily as a political forum rather than an economic one. By doing this the G20 has supposedly helped balance the world economy by giving emerging nations greater say. Is this true? I guess we'll have to find out during the next two G20 Summits in Canada and South Korea next year.

There weren't a lot of particularly new or interesting things that happened at the G20. One thing popped out a bit, though. With the recent discovery of TWO nuclear facilities in Iran, Obama was reluctant to say much at the General Assembly. At the G20, however, Obama, Nicolas Sarkozy and Gordon Brown decided to take a stronger stand. This is what he said:

"Iran's decision to build yet another nuclear facility without notifying the IAEA represents a direct challenge to the basic compact at the center of the nonproliferation regime."

Technically, Iran does not have to alert the International Atomic Energy Agency about their nuclear enrichment facilities until at least six months before they start up. Ahmadinejad says there are 18 months left until become functional, i.e. Tehran has a year before it is required to say anything. The problem here is that the plants apparently do not contain enough material to produce energy, but do contain enough to produce a weapon. Also, according to Obama, the structures do not fit the description of a peaceful nuclear power facility. This may turn out to be a major inhibitor of peace talks between the US and Iran.

Aw well. Not like we're doing anything right on that front anyway.

Why Are We There?

"Afghanistan has been known over the years as the graveyard of empires." -David H. Petraeus

There is no better way to put it. Afghanistan is and always has been an unconquerable land. Genghis Khan couldn't do it, Britain couldn't do it, the USSR couldn't do it, so what makes the US government so confident that change can be brought to one of the poorest and war-torn nations in the world? Donors and foreign investors pour money into the country, but do it such an inept way that it all goes to those at the top of the food chain. The citizens with the least education and wealth are forgotten. In a country where only one-third of the population is literate and half of the GDP comes from opium exports (Afghanistan singlehandedly set and broke the record for the most amount of heroin produced in the entire world... ever...), it should be obvious that any real change has to come from an organized central government, which doesn't exist. When foreign nations intervene a conflict of interest arises; we become interested in the resources and economic opportunities available, rather than the establishment of a functioning government.

I feel a bit sorry for poor ol' Karzai. His country has gone to Hell because of the exact countries that supposedly try to assist him. Can anyone honestly say that they would appreciate armies bombing their nation, even if it is for a good cause? Quit trying to destroy the Taliban; they aren't the problem. Afghanistan is filled with rogue warlords who set up their own spheres of influence and control their own parts of the nation, and with a small, untrained army, there's not much Karzai can do about it. When other nations target the wrong enemies and cause innocent deaths, it leads to more people wanting to join the resistance. This is simple logic, people. C'mon now.

Maybe we should try something we gave up on not too long ago: compromising with the Taliban. We never had a problem with them before, and they used to be considered a friendly force. Now with the rumors of al Quaida* and other Middle Eastern threats, our government is trying to eliminate anything that even ranks as a low-level threat. Of course, if we compromise then the Taliban, which happens to hold a fairly strong influence in Afghanistan, could fight the warlords for us. Problem sloved.

*Just a little fact: al Quaida is nowhere near the threat it's made out to be. The organization has been around for years, and spans worldwide, yet they rarely actually do anything that classifies as a terrorist act. The entire group is completely disorganized; there is no central leadership, and it's not as if members of al Quaida hold meetings or anything like that. By the time a plan actually does go underway, the communication has taken long enough for the authorities to have been tipped off. Quit worrying about them.

Shortest Post I'll Ever Do

So today I rediscovered the genius that is the Wendy's hamburger. It blew my mind, and it tasted divine.

Get Over Your Idealism

Somehow I've gotten over my iPod. I don't know how, but I did. Perhaps it was the idea of getting a brand new phone! Yep.

On with the post. I feel like making a quick point today:
Every day we wake up. We are hopeful and optimistic in the fact that we want the day to turn out exactly the way we want it to. So, we pull ourselves through and expend so much energy in attempting to perfect our pointless lives, that when it doesn't work out, we are crushed. People need to realize that we are born and we die. What happens in between is not important. Go about your lives doing what you want, but don't try to make it overly idealistic; that ends solely in disappointment and regret.

That's it. Until next time.

Apple Needs a Reality Check

Lo and behold, my iPod Touch was stolen today. Oh joy. I just might go insane.

I realized after it was stolen that I have one heck of a security breach on my hands. Yeah, I locked it with a passcode, but what if they get past that? Then the thief will have access to my email, contacts, Facebook, MySpace and various other sites. This person could also charge up a massive bill in the App Store (thank God that has a seperate password, which I gurantee is invincible). So, after spending two hours going around the internet changing my passwords, asking my friends if they know anything about this and probably viewing too many Cyanide and Happiness comics, a thought came to me.

Apple does nothing to help detect a stolen iPod. They keep a database of serial numbers that match stolen items, and know when those devices connect to the internet, seeing as how all transactions initially go through Apple's database. The company seems to make a big deal about it being too difficult to do, but in reality it's quite easy. So, why do they not do anything to help their poor customers? Perhaps Apple realizes that a stolen device can still make purchases, and with 59% of the company's revenue coming solely from the iTunes store, it is understandable that they would think this way. Leave a stolen item unchecked, and rake in the dough. But is this really the answer as to why one of the most consumer-friendly corporations in the entire world refuses to help retrieve stolen property? I certainly hope not.

Religious Freedom? Yeah Right...

I hate how in the United States, a presidential candidate can have all the answers and all the solutions to every problem, but if they said they didn't believe in God or they weren't a Christian, they would instantly be shunned by most voters. How is this even remotely fair? Isn't the USA supposed to be a land of possibilities? Apparently not.

I'm not going to use this post as a rant against religion... well, not entirely, anyway; that'll come later. All I have to say is that people need to get some freaking perspective. Not everyone is going to believe what you want them to. Just because they don't believe what you do doesn't make them immoral, evil or stupid. No, it's quite the opposite. If you can honestly feel prejudiced like that, you are the one who needs to change your beliefs.

A Stupid Move, or a Smart One?

Russia has developed a reputation for wasting money and making bad business deals, and it looks like they may have done it again. Norman Foster, who is known in Russia for the reconstruction of New Holland Island, is proposing a 56-story, diamond-shaped building to be built... in the middle of Siberia. The town is called Khanty-Mansiysk, and only has a population of about 60,000 people. The town has hosted the Biathlon World Championships and the Chess World Cup, but aside from big events like these, would the building really get any use? Maybe, maybe not. Only time will tell.

This incident vaguely reminds me of the business deal between Russia and Nigeria, in which the Russian gas giant Gazprom and Nigeria's state oil company were meant to lead a joint venture in Africa. The name of this venture was Nigaz. Good job.

Heck, there are a lot of mishaps that come to mind now. Such as the Ford Pinto, which in Brazil means small penis, and the Pepsi slogan "come alive with the Pepsi generation." In Taiwan this motto translated as "Pepsi will bring your ancestors back from the dead". Or KFC's motto of "Finger-lickin' good," which translated to "Eat your fingers off" in Chinese. There's also the famous branding of the Chevrolet Nova, which never caught on becuase it translates to "doesn't go" in Spanish. The same is true for Colgate, which translated to "Go hang yourself." Oh, the blunders of modern franchises.

On the Road to Fame?

I have to admit that this situation was a rather small thing before I say anything else.

I am a frequent listener of a podcast called "Don't Worry About the Government." You can find it on iTunes, and they also have their own site. The point is, I was recently featured on one of the episodes (Ep. 44), and had the last eight or nine minutes of the show all to myself. Sure, the show doesn't have a lot of listeners, nor is it particularly popular, but something about having my name mentioned by people I've never met and having them talk about me at the same time puts a smile on my face. Perhaps I'm just vain.

Now would be a good time to say that if you enjoy politics like I do, and particularly if you are very left-leaning, it's worth checking out.

The Awesomeness is Revealed

It is a well-known fact that Chuck Norris, Mr. T and Judge Mathis are awesome. One man is always left out, though: Bruce Lee. Bruce lee is not only awesome, but he did what few people have ever done. He killed the Chuck. Not even Mr. T has killed the Chuck. That being said, it is possible that the levels of awesomeness would go in this order:
1. Bruce Lee,
2. Chuck Norris,
3. Mr. T,
4. Judge Mathis.

You may be wondering why Judge Mathis is included. Well, Judge Mathis can see through the lies of all the idiots that come to him. He's like a lie detector. People like Judge Judy don't even compare to this man. He lets people get caught up in their own lies, and then screws 'em over like nobody else can. But I digress.

To Bruce Lee!

A Dreadful Weekend

This weekend I was forced to watch three children, full time. It's painful, and I almost felt like downing a bottle of bleach, but that's beside the point. I got to thinking that instead of hiring babysitters, children should be able to stay home alone at a younger age. Maybe eight or nine would be a good threshold. Children younger than that would need someone to watch them, of course, but anyone older than that can pretty well take care of themselves, no? I could.

Also, I woke up this morning to the sound of my older nephew and niece arguing. Ten mintues later, my niece was laughing and my nephew was crying. This made my day.

Blogging is Easy

After spending about fifteen minutes setting up an account and perfecting the layout of the site, I suppose I'm ready to start now. Seeing as how the purpose of this blog is subject to change due to the fact that I did this out of spite, it's possible I may need (or want) someone to assist me or possibly even lead a multi-author blog. If I remember correctly, I can add up to 100 people, so trust me when I say there will be no shortages.

If everything works out, I should be able to succeed in writing a new post every week, so check back often.