What's the Matter with Israel?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/7790781/Gaza-ship-attack-analysis-Israels-bad-timing.html

http://www.mediaite.com/online/israeli-military-attacks-gaza-bound-flotilla-pm-netanyahu-cancels-us-visit/

I don't even know how to say it properly. This is retarded. This is horribly retarded. I've already posted my humble opinion on Israeli policy, and I now see that the problem is worse, much worse, than I'd originally thought. They're just not serious about any of it. They're not serious about punishing the terrorists - not when they're trading 1150 prisoners for 3 soldiers and 65 prisoners for the remains of one dead soldier. Worse, they're not serious about peace, international law, or securing real living conditions for their neighbors, the Palestinians (after all, what could be better for your stability than to be right next door to a madhouse of poverty and extremism?), as can obviously be seen by this knuckleheaded raid on the Freedom Flotilla, in addition to ruining Biden's visit by announcing more construction in the West Bank.

I'm not saying this because I'm particularly sympathetic to the Palestinians, who, had they been rational and not insane in 1948, could've ended up with a state occupying up to 3/4ths of what is now Israel. I'm not saying this because I'm particularly sympathetic to the Freedom Flotilla, a collection of morons who thought the Gaza Strip (a great name for a strip club, now that I think about it) would be an ideal spot for a summer holiday and who thought that attacking fucking Israeli commandos with crowbars would be a good idea. I'm not sympathetic to them at all, the damn idiots. Who am I sympathetic to? The portion of Israelis who are reasonable, who want to live their damn lives without the two camps of extremist nutjobs blowing everything around them up, who don't think religious promises from thousands of years ago trump international conventions and common sense.

In any case, what does Israel even want to do? It has four options: go on some sort of genocidal rampage against the Palestinians; become an apartheid state on the shining South African model (it's even partially taken this option already, which is frightening); keep the status quo by doing nothing worthwhile at all and bleed credibility and strength while making sure that birthrate disparities generate an increasingly large, angry, impoverished, and desperate mob aligned against them; or drop the idiotic and racist pretense of "the Jewish State", withdraw from the West Bank, and become a proper damn republic. What we need is an Israeli F. W. De Klerk or Charles De Gaulle, some politician who understands the sheer danger that Israel is putting itself in and engineering, from the top down if necessary, a real end to the madness in the region. And if the nutjobs in the West Bank want to stay, well, they're free to discuss it with the Palestinians.

Deportation and Good Ol' American Values

Just as food for thought: if you're a religious right-winger who believes that people 'belong' in certain places (i.e. if you're not white, you don't belong in America) and ought to be deported there, doesn't that imply that a lot of people in America ought to be deported to Hell? Thanks for believing in American values, guys. I'm sure "kill the heretics" is in the Constitution somewhere.

Also, to the Confederate-flag-waving wingnuts (you know, the kind of people who would totally read my blog - with this kind of blog, it's impossible NOT to preach to the choir), congratulations on your embrace of true American values, you know, like TREASON. It's gladdening to see that the 'real America' is truly strong in its faith to American values and virtues.

You Can't Not Spend Your Way Out of Recession

I just came across a famous quote about how economic policy should work, a famous attack against the Keynesian system that is generally accepted as the way governments should deal with recession:

"You can't spend your way out of recession"

Although I understand the sentiment at a gut level (if your personal earnings went down, you're best response is probably to tighten your belt some), I genuinely don't understand the economic concept here. A recession is a period of time in which the economy shrinks, in which GDP goes down. GDP equals the amount of stuff produced in the country that somebody bought. Thus GDP is directly correlated with buying, which is really the same thing as spending. To quote Wikipedia, "In contemporary economies, most things produced are produced for sale, and sold. Therefore, measuring the total expenditure of money used to buy things is a way of measuring production." It's not like the productive capability isn't there - remember that since the economy is shrinking, it used to be bigger, proving that we have the productive ability on hand - so what's lacking is a willingness to spend. So the only way to get out of a recession is to spend, by definition, if only to get the wheels of production rolling again and to get the public to spend as well. Spending is a civic virtue, thanks to economics; we might as well accept that. You can't not spend your way out of recession. Which raises the question: why are so many politicians and members of the general public against recession expenditure increases when you can deduce that they are a good thing just from a few definitions and a little logic?

The Best Counter-Argument Yet

http://www.butimleaving.com/2009/10/atheist-douchebags.html

This is by far the best counter-argument to my views yet. I currently have no good response to it whatsoever, but I can't just ignore it since clearly I'm one of these "Atheist Douchebags" he talks about. However, before I start discussing this in earnest, please, for the love of the God that doesn't exist, read the damn article, and don't think I'm surrendering my position to a theistic viewpoint. God that would be terrible.

Anyways, the article makes a damn good point, and that is that I'm not helping the atheist/rationalist agenda with my blog as it is pure preaching to the choir and fuel for the theistic extremists. I am compelled to agree with him. Am I helping the rationalist agenda with this? Hell no! Of course not. I'm doing this purely to entertain other rational atheists, especially those with an extremist bent like myself. However, I hope that I am making up for this little guilty pleasure of mine with my personal interactions. After all, I live in America, a heavily Christian country. 2 out of 3 of my roommates next year are very Christian. My best friend is a Christian. I discuss religion openly and logically, and even though I do insult religious ideas on a regular basis, I feel like I'm at least respectful of the people themselves, if not the beliefs. A terrible atheist (I know several) is worse than a reasonable Christian (I know many), although better by far than a terrible Christian (the whole damn religious right).

In any case, if you read some of my posts, such as "My Offer", I hope I convey the fact that I am okay with reasonable religious people, i.e. those religious people who DON'T want to impose their religious values on the American people and for whom religion is personal. I still hate evangelists - it's indescribable how much damage they do to humanity. But scientific, rational people with a few irrational beliefs (like, again, my economist best friend) aren't harmful in the least - at least until he betrays me, as an evangelist once hilariously predicted.

In any case, I still plan to be angry. It's my thing, really, and I'm much better at anger (reasoned anger - using reason as a tool to express exactly why I'm so damn angry at [insert irrational belief here]) than I am at non-anger (even reasoned non-anger). I'm an entertainer (or try to be), not a crusader. So yes, I'll still blast theism and other crazy beliefs. Yes, I'll still work myself into a tantrum so that I'll be at risk of bursting a blood vessel. But I won't pretend I'm really helping so much. That, again, is for later. And maybe, just maybe, one day I'll win a convert, like I came so close to during high school. And then Hell will freeze over, and I'll ride away on my winged unicorn leaving a trail of fairy dust in my wake.

The AnthEmmys

If there's one form of music that I truly respect, it's the national anthem. All the patriotic pride and national power you can muster stuffed into one rousing tune. Which is why it totally sucks balls when we have preschoolers and pop stars singing our anthem. I feel no patriotic pride when I hear our anthem before baseball games or whatever with a pop star belting out the lines - where's the sense of unity you get with a choir, the sense of strength you get with a military choir? For crying out loud, I want to feel proud of our country, and Beyonce just doesn't make me feel like that (I feel something different when I see and hear Beyonce, but let's not get into the details of that). And, worst of all, although our anthem isn't bad per se, it's far and away not the best, so I figured I was bored enough to write a post detailing the all-time winners for anthems in various categories:

Category 1: Music:

The criteria for this are simple: does the music inspire pride in the members of that country and envy in outsiders? Does it convey a message of monolithic strength and unity? When I hear it, do I wish that I was a citizen of that country?

The Nominees are:

Germany - the iconic tune sung to "Deutschland, Deutschland, Uber Alles / Uber Alles in Der Welt" is inspiring enough for me to forget that that was the music under which my people were exterminated, and that is a huge damn feat for that music. Damn awesome tune.

South Korea - a rousing tune set atop a strong baseline; the result is a feeling of hope atop a basis of strength.

Russia - the tune that won WWII. Replaced the kumbaya-style Internationale with a strong dose of pure Russian manhood. Goes well with vodka.

Serbia - another song of slavic power. A massive thunk-thunk-thunk baseline to let you know that you're just inevitably going to be squashed like a bug, and that's it.

Honorable Mentions:

Israel - a stirring tune but too sad to achieve the 'bastion of strength' feeling you get from the above anthems.

Poland - the same as Israel, only in the opposite direction; while Israel's anthem was slightly too mournful to make the list, Poland's is too upbeat, and thus also misses the solemn "we will crush you" strength of the nominees.

North Korea - although a song fit for their "Dear Leader", it's too cookie-cutter and boring after the first few stanzas to stand up to the nominees.

The Internationale - amazing, but was replaced by something even better (see above), so it's unable to make the list.

And the winner is... (highlight next line to see answer)

RUSSIA. A tune deliberately composed to win a war, and does the job admirably. Bonus points especially for being sung by the manliest musical group ever to exist, the Red Army Choir, enough to eke out a victory over the still-fucking-amazing German anthem.

Category 2: Lyrics:

The criteria for this are simple too: do the lyrics motivate me to go out and crush some enemies of the state? Are they filled with a blood-curdling pride? If so, they win.

And the nominees are:

France - Come on, seriously? "They came and slit the throats of our female companions, so we'll water our fields with their fucking blood!" Fucking awesome. Don't mess with the hookers of the French, they'll kill you.

Poland - "Bonaparte showed us how to be victorious... March, March, Dabrowski, we're going to conquer all of Europe! We're going to fucking march all the way to Italy!" I've never seen a country declare in their lyrics that they're going to subjugate all their neighbors, less a country whose history is actually one of being dominated by everyone around them, but hell, what a spirit there.

USA - Summary: "You blew the hell out of our fort, but we didn't give up and you lost the war, so suck it Britain!" That's badass.

Soviet Union - Starts badass and gets better from there: "Unbreakable union of freeborn republics / great Russia has welded forever" and goes on to describe how they kicked the ever-living shit out of the Nazis.

Honorable Mentions:

California Uber Alles - Not really an anthem, but badass all the same: "Hippies won't come back you say / Mellow out or YOU WILL PAY! / Mellow out or YOU WILL PAY! / California, Uber Alles! / California Uber Alles!"

Borat's Kazakh Anthem: "Kazakhstan is the greatest / country in the world / all other countries / are run by little girls". The more shameless insults thrown at other countries, the better, and Borat understood this damn well.

And the winner is (highlight next line for answer)...

FRANCE. Come on, they explicitly declare that they'll water the fields with the blood of their enemies, and their chorus is a call to arms. No way anyone can top that.

Category 3: All-around:

Criteria: the best all-around anthem.

The nominees are... everyone nominated above.

And the winner is (if you don't know how to view it this time around, you're hopeless)...

SOVIET UNION. A badass tune with badass words from a badass country sung by a badass choir makes this anthem the best anthem ever.