Thursday, July 31, 2008

Racial Double Standards

Back when the Jena 6 story was still news, it was next to impossible not to hear anything about it. The fact that several black teenagers were so much as jailed for attacking a white classmate after a few racially tense months had people protesting in the streets, demanding that the attackers be released. The media was having a field day talking about the so-called racist-against-blacks government of Jena itself.

It seems that quite a few otherracially motivated incidents occurred earlier this summer, but with one key fact changed: in all these more recent attacks, whites were undeniably victimized instead of blacks. The comment section of the linked-to article contains many other stories of racial violence, some even more disturbing than the original story. One that stuck out in particular was a story of a white woman attacked and robbed by a group of youths in Oregon, youths who were reportedly shouting racial epithets. When interviewed, the woman who had been mugged was too scared to even release her name to the public, fearing retaliation from the mob of all-black teens who attacked her.

And yet I have heard no media outcry over these or any of the listed incidents; I have not seen any of these stories being broadcasted on any TV news show; I doubt one person has taken to the streets demanding justice for the victims of these attacks, some of which have been out-and-out brutal. Sounds like blatant double-standarding to me.

However, I cannot support all of the points made in the comment section that is linked to above- while some people are merely pointing out the racial inequality, others state that these attacks are simply the result of blacks acting like blacks. I know from first hand experience that this is just not true - I have met plenty of blacks who are not racist and would not commit crimes like the ones listed, and making generalizations about an entire race because of the ghetto culture of certain parts of this country is wrong. However, I can understand why those who live in the more dangerous and racially divided areas of the U.S are starting to think in this way. As one commenter stated, he is put down nearly everyday for being white in the area that he lives in, and has stopped going to certain public places altogether to avoid the racists. Especially when living in a politically correct climate where you are unlikely to get anyone to help you for fear of being called a racist themselves, one can see why some whites are getting fed up, angry and even desperate.

Monday, July 28, 2008

Candidate Bashing

It's struck me recently that I've done very little in the way of ranting on the race for the American presidency. Probably because I haven't yet taken a side...both McCain and Obama have the tendency to disgust me a bit on occasion. McCain does this even more than Obama, simply because despite the fact that he is running as the Republican candidate, he seems to me to be more liberal that anything. (Where are my conservatives? I WANT MY CONSERVATIVES).

I also find the ad campaigns being waged by both sides a bit disgusting. A pro-Obama flyer was recently dropped of at our door. The reasons that it listed as reasons that I should vote for Obama included:

*The fact that he was raised by a single parent and worked his way through college. (So what? What are his policies? How would that make him a better president?)
*His personal values include self-reliance, accountability and treating others the way you want to be treated. (Again, why do I care? Unless you pull that 'self-reliance' thing around in some way to make it look like he's going to fix the welfare system, I don't give a damn about his personality, I want to know about his POLICIES.)

I've also seen a lot of McCain supporters talking about McCain's military experience, mostly the fact that he was a POW. Again, that does not mean he's going to make a better president than Mr.Changehopechangeandhopeandchange. Even more trivial still, they also harp ofnthe fact that Obama smoked pot when he was younger. That's not a good thing, of course, but, yet again, I. Do. Not. Care. In yet another example of how it seems this election will be decided by completely irrelevant non-information, I saw an entire news article today devoted to the fact that McCain has recently had a spot removed from his face. Sigh.

The fact that I want small government and closed borders means I'm pretty much guaranteed to be unhappy with the outcome of this election,(pandering liberal #1 or pandering liberal #2?) but the fact remains that if we want a good president, we need to vote for him/her for reasons other than their race/gender/amount of babies kissed/whether or not they have a happy marriage/whether or not they have freaking spots on their faces.

Sunday, July 27, 2008

Would You Like Burned Hijab With That?

I really hope these women don't win this case. It appears that two Muslim women are suing a McDonalds in Detroit for refusing to employ them - full story here. The McDonalds in question, of course, has a required uniform which employees need to wear, but these two applicants were demanding to be allowed to wear headscarves and long sleeves while on the job. The fast food joint obviously couldn't comply with health and safety standards and let that type of clothing be worn in the kitchens, so they told the two ladies that they could work there only if they wore clothes that met safety standards. The two women have filed a suit for ten million freaking dollars, claiming that the management of the McDonalds was discriminating against them because of their religion.

Discriminating? Really? First of all, working in a McDonalds kitchen would involve being near deep fryers, stoves, and other such hot things, making it not only unsafe but unlawful for kitchen employees to wear long sleeves/loose clothing, which would greatly increase the risk of fire. Second of all, as stated in the full article, health codes prohibit the wearing of long sleeves/dragging clothing while preparing food, lest fabric fibers/germs on the fabric end up getting into the food itself. Lastly, it doesn't matter what religion you belong to- if you pose a threat to public health, you shouldn't be preparing the public's food. I wouldn't call that thought 'discrimating', I would call it, maybe, common sense, you money-grubbing dolts?

Honestly, $10M? As a commenter on the original article pointed out, these two ladies would have to work at this particular McDonalds for 381 years to make that kind of money, so I really don't know why they think they have a reason to demand so much cash.

Monday, July 21, 2008

Not Very Ranty On This Post, Am I?

Any one for depressing poll results?* The link goes to an article about an ongoing survey/study thing on honor killings being done by a team from someplace called Dicle University in Turkey. I'll let you read the thing yourselves, but the results are, as stated, depressing for anyone hoping mankind will one day drag itself out of the tribal, primordial, uncivilized craziness which seems to come so naturally to us.

*Dunno why, but the link only shows up if you move your cursor over the words "depressing poll results".

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Diversity Down-Throat Cramming

I don't keep up with these local things usually, but even I have managed to learn that the Iowa State Fair will be happening somewhere in the state of Iowa at some point during the near future. Normally I wouldn't have had any interest in an article about said fair, which seems to be a big showcasing of all the rural aspects I don't particularly like about this state with some corn dogs thrown in, but I just had to rant on this when I came across it.

In summary, the article talks about the fact that there are too many white people at the State Fair. Iowa itself is about 97% white, so people are predicting that the attendants at the fair will be about 97% white. Therefore, we must bring in more black people.

Would anyone ever dare to suggest that an event that would have mostly black supporters needed more white people? No way in hell, not unless you were dying to be labeled a bigot. All this multi-culti stuff about bringing diversity into the fair boils down to one thing for me; the white race is an inferior one, needing to be improved by minorities.

If people in an area are mostly Asian, that's FINE. If people in an area are mostly black, there's nothing wrong with that. The same rule applies to any other race. Because the people that settled this area of the country where mostly German/Norwegian, their descendants here are therefore white. And there's nothing wrong with that either. Are minorities being forbidden to attend the Fair? No. Is the Iowa State Fair racist? No. Nothing wrong has been done here, people.

Plus, bringing in performers who are black Americans will not increase the cultural diversity of the Fair, because their culture is basically the exact same damn thing as any white American's. Even if it weren't, how is the celebration on Iowan culture, which has its roots in Europe, a bad thing? The celebration of African, Asian, Hispanic is considered a good thing, as it should be, but all Things European are not evil, people, no matter what the liberals want you to think.

Monday, July 14, 2008

Global Dumbening

It seems like half the books I end up reading these days come from a friend who delights in foisting off her library on me. A while back she gave me the first three books in the Maximum Ride series, a generic young adult action-adventure affair. Not really anything I'd recommend, but I went ahead and read the fourth book after this friend of mine shoved it on top of the latest pile of books she's assigned to me. The first three books in the series seemed to stick to an original story line, but this fourth book completely went of the environmental propaganda deep end.

The storyline in the fourth installment of the series completely abandons the Down- with- the- large- corporations- playing- God- with- genetic- experiments- angle and instead adopts a highly irritating We're- all- going- to- die- (because- the- U.S.- didn't- sign- the- Kyoto-Treaty)- unless- genetically- enhanced- fourteen- year- olds- save- the- world- from- global-warming! thing.

Even more irritating is the fact that a strong hurricane, which was rather crudely stuck into the story to show the effects of global warming, is used not only to prove global warming is happening, but also that all hurricanes of our era are the fault of said warming, plain and simple. This is should irk anyone who's informed about the topic of global climate change, but it is especially irking to someone who spent three very boring months researching hurricanes and global warming for science class, spent several weeks bugging local professions for info on this topic, and who had to give a very boring, very LONG presentation about ocean temperature and hurricanes- a.k.a. ME.

There are several things I'd like to point out to the author of this overly dumbed-down, intelligence-insulting piece of propaganda about hurricanes and global warming. I'm anything but an expert on this topic, but while researching I did pick up a few facts about this topic.
A) Hurricanes need an ocean's temp to be about 89 degrees before they can form. Therefore, I would agree with the conclusion that a warmer climate would increase hurricane frequency.
B) Hurricane frequency and intensity are two very different things. There is a good deal of controversy over things that cause hurricanes to become stronger, but several experts have stated that overall temperature most likely doesn't increase hurricane strength. Katrina could have turned out to be a small Cat.1 affair even if it formed at very high temperatures, and if New Orleans had better luck. On the other hand, other research shows that higher temperatures do increase hurricane strength. Neither side has been proved correct yet.
C) In my amateur opinion, ocean temperature is a very small factor when it comes to the dozens of factors that create hurricanes. The wind shear factor is a very important, if not more important, factor. For those of you who don't know, more wind shear = no hurricane...usually. Less wind shear= hurricane...maybe, in the right circumstances. It's VERY complicated.
D) The amount of hurricanes we're experiencing now is not surprising when you look at natural oscillation patterns. The 80's and 90's experienced a sharp drop in hurricane activity, a dip we are now coming out of. Also, long before all this global warming hysteria reared its ugly head, we were experiencing hurricane seasons even more violent than recent ones in the 1920's and 1960's. Roughly. Someone check the exact dates for me. Plus, hurricane data for even a few decades ago is very iffy, and once you go back in time farther than this century, accurate hurricane data is nonexistent.
E) As for the whole global warming side of things, WHY DOES NO ONE NOTICE PARTS OF THE WORLD ARE COOLING DOWN? Like the Pacific? The South? Like parts of North America? Even here in Iowa, our winters are getting warmer, yes, but our summers are getting cooler. In conclusion - the climate has gone screwy, and no one can really say why. We're all grabbing at straws here.

Lastly, while it is all well and good to raise awareness about pollution and conservation, I sat down with Maximum Ride's fourth book expecting some explosions, some flying, and some teen angst that would take me about 45 minutes to read cover to cover. I was not looking for even more of the Mother Nature BS that I get the media throwing at me every day. What ever happened to the plot of the series?

Wednesday, July 9, 2008

Canadians, Swastikas, and Disgusting People on All Sides

Canada is really starting to bug me. And this time it's not even a Human rights Commission that's doing the bugging.
This link takes you to a summary of the story of a Canadian mother who sent her 7 year old daughter to school with a swastika drawn on her arm. The child's teacher promptly scrubbed the thing off, only to have the girl return the next day with the swastika redrawn in marker.

In the end, the mother lost custody of her two children to the government, and has yet to go to court to try to win them back.
Okay, disgusting people on all sides here. Firstly, we have a woman who believes displaying a swastika is equivalent to being proud of your European heritage (Yes, that's how she's defending herself) and then we have a government taking away people's children because their parents have political beliefs that the state does not agree with. Soviet-esque, no? The Manitoba Child and Family services stated that the main reason the children were removed was that the state feared that living with racist parents could damage the "emotional well-being" of the two kids. Ha!

Since when in a free Western country was it considered acceptable or moral to have the government barging into people's lives because of their opinions and beliefs? What's next? No matter how deplorable a person's beliefs might be, the government is not here to raise our children or run our lives, and in a free country we are free to hold any belief we choose to.

As for the mother of the swastika-girl, I think she is a worst at racist and at best just plain ignorant. I'm starting to think she's more ignorant than anything, because she stated that she was only displaying white pride and using the swastika to represent the family's Scottish background. Alright, first of all;
*The swastika originated in ancient times somewhere around the Indian subcontinent, you dolt;
*The swastika was never associated with Scotland; might I suggest you try something like a Scottish flag next time you start feeling 'proud of your heritage'?
* The swastika has nothing do with white 'pride'- In the modern day, it is a symbol of Aryan supremacy associated with the demeaning and brutal slaughtering of millions of people deemed to be of an inferior ethnicity. What the hell were you thinking?
* Did you honestly think your daughter's school WOULDN'T mind a child walking around with a swastika on her arm?