What’s In The News? Thursday, Jun 28 2007 

Commentary Thomas Nikl 7:32 pm

This is what I’ve been seeing in the news all day today, and yesterday, for some, too. Oh, any my two cents, of course, too.

1. Paris Hilton was a stupid, fake bore on Larry King Live.

Is anyone surprised? Really? I’m not. And why is this on the news? This should be mocked in stand up comedy routines or on ‘The Soup’, not on the major news outlets.

2. Bush’s Immigration Bill Killed in Senate.

This is news. I want to hear more about this. Anytime the Senate gives Bush the finger I want it on the news.

3. The Wrestler who killed his family and himself.

Could not care less. Don’t get me wrong- tragic and sad- but news worthy all day today and yesterday? No, sorry.  Seriously, didn’t anything else happen in the world?

4. The Democratic Talk at Howard University.

I don’t need to see any of this because I watched it, but, I would greatly enjoy recaps on the major news networks- we’ll see.

 

“Iraq For Sale: The War Profiteers” Tuesday, Jun 19 2007 

Commentary and Movies and Politics and War Thomas Nikl 6:28 pm

Usually I try and keep this blog as amusing as I can. Even the political entries usually aim for some kind of entertainment value. This won’t be one of them. Tonight I watched a documentary titled “Iraq For Sale: The War Profiteers”. This is one of many documentaries I’ve watched on Iraq (including: Gunnar Palace, Iraq in Fragments, Control Room, Why We Fight) but this one is by far the most horrific. There’s no blood (that I recall), no violence, no death- not like the others- this one is about sheer greed. Greed on a scale that makes even someone like me sick to my stomach, so for those of you who know me, that’s somewhat of a statement in and of itself.

I have loved, and do love, Capitalism, but more and more I realize that capitalism just simply doesn’t belong in markets that involve human lives. War and Health both come to mind as markets where corporations have failed the people far more than they have helped. For the sake of this blog I’ll stay focused on war and this documentary. As much as I may love capitalism, I’ve always had a great deal of admiration for the Armed Forces of this country. They’re the ones that allow us the freedoms we usually take for granted, and now, today, it seems like we value them less and less.

“Iraq For Sale” is about corporations in the US who are being awarded HUGE contracts in Iraq. A lot of these contracts result in a few common themes:

1. Soldiers lose their jobs doing what they were trained to do, so a consultant can do it instead.
2. Contractors are hired en mass, without training or testing, for jobs ranging in logistics, to linguistics, to translation, to interrogation, to fighting, to protection, to intelligence… and so it goes, almost forever, into a black hole of corruption.
3. Contractors essentially treat their employees as a means to a profit, disregarding their safety to make more profit.
4. Further, contractors purposely and wastefully spend, and perform incompetently, knowing that the government will pay their bill without any measures or checks of efficiency or insurance against scandal.
5. These companies make massive contributions to political parties as compensation for contracts and what basically equates to amnesty.

I can’t summarize here for you the impact- or importance- that this film covers. It’s as appalling as it is shocking to think that this is happening. And why? So that the administration can pay back friends for donations and past assistance, and so a few CEOs can make in excess of 40,000,000 dollars a year. If I were an American I would be disgraced. I am an American. I am disgraced.

President Eisenhower warned us against a Military-Industrial complex. President Roosevelt said amidst World War II “Also, our present emergency and a common sense of decency make it imperative that no new group of war millionaires shall come into being in this nation as a result of the struggles abroad. The American people will not relish the idea of any American citizen growing rich and fat in an emergency of blood and slaughter and human suffering.”

Heed the wisdom of these Presidents, and acknowledge the great injustice that is going on in these corporations, under this administration, and that which is effecting so horribly our troops, our war, and our dignity. As Americans-Republican or Democrat or Green or Independent- we should be collectively outraged at what is going on here today, and do all that we can to see that it stops, and that those responsible are punished accordingly.

Below is a clip of the film and a number of links. Rent the film and see how you feel about it. Copy this message and paste it on your blog. Plagiarize it if you want- just spread it- It’s a worthy cause.

http://iraqforsale.org/

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0815181/

 

Man Sues for 54 Million Dollars over lost pants Thursday, Jun 14 2007 

Commentary and News Thomas Nikl 3:12 am

Yes, you read that correctly. A man is suing a dry cleaner for 54 million dollars because they lost his pants and that violated the dry cleaners ‘customer satisfaction guaranteed’ sign. The man who is suing? Yeah, he’s a judge, too. I really can’t believe the jerks that sue over stuff like this and waste tax payer money over their pety, idiotic grievances. And how could any judge not throw this out immediately?

When I am President I’m going to implement the “STUPID LAWSUIT” department in the DOJ. All lawsuits filed in the country- state or federal- will be reviewed by people in this department. If a lawsuit is deemed “stupid”, the lawsuit will be dismissed permanently, the filer will be banned from filing lawsuits for the remainder of their life, and will be fined 10% of the damages of they were seeking in the case. This 10% fine will be put towards the legal system. Especially idiotic lawsuits will have an additional penalty of deportation to Antarctica.

Our friendly judge here would currently be on a boat to Antarctica.

 

Just a Few Thoughts… Monday, Apr 23 2007 

Commentary and Politics Thomas Nikl 2:06 pm

1. I think what happened at VTU was horrible and my sympathies go out to all the people who were affected by it. I read a really good article in Time about the causes of these school shootings- not music, movies, video games, etc- but delusional narcissism. It was an interesting read. Here is a link if you’re curious. “It’s All About Him”

2. What also troubles me is that everyone in our country was of course upset and horrified by what happened at VTU. I glimpsed down at a newspaper and saw the usual Iraq headline “100 killed in Iraq in 4 car bombs”. To see how 1 day of horror effected us here, I really can’t imagine what it’s like to have that same event occur daily- every single day- in Iraq. It kind of gave me a difficult perspective on the Iraq War.

3. I have an Armenian friend who is troubled (to some extent) that Turkey has never really acknowledged the Armenian Genocide that they are responsible for. Though not personally effected by this genocide or any other genocide, it’s kind of sad– more pathetic– that the world in general hasn’t learned ANYTHING from genocides of the past. How many do we have to have before we do SOMETHING in Africa?

4. What 30% of the country still supports George W. Bush? Is there a 30% margin of error in the polls or something? Or maybe 30% of the country hate gays just enough to ignore all the ways Bush has failed merely because he’s a bigot, too. But it just boggles my mind. I used to defend him just to play Devil’s Advocate because it entertains me. But now I cannot even do that. He’s just so bad in every way. Everything an American President should not be- stubborn to the point of stupidity (and stupid in general), lacks most connections to reality, religiously overbearing, doesn’t care at all about the will of the people as a whole, doesn’t listen to anyone, appoints friends not experts, couldn’t handle a flooding bathroom let alone New Orleans, doesn’t trust his Generals to run a war so he and Karl do- and do a crap job of that, I might add- has scandal after scandal each week, doesn’t know of, listen to, or understand science or technology, doesn’t separate church and state, and can’t even speak well in public. Even if you chalk HALF- a FULL HALF- of all this up to partisan politics or news media bias, that still leaves a huge list of failures. Complete and utter failures.

George W. Bush truly is the worst President that I’ll ever remember personally- and I hope History is equally cruel- because I feel like in the last 6 or 7 years I’ve had a country I love ripped away from me by a man who doesn’t understand anything about anything. Not that I have any moral objection to getting “naughty” in the oval office like Clinton, but if I did, I still can’t imagine wanting the longest list of Presidential failures ever MORE than a President who gets freaky in the oval office. And if you told me Bush had never, ever, been promiscuous, I’d call you a liar, anyway.

There we go. That’s what is on my mind at the moment. Not enough people comment on this blog. I admit I am biased because, well, I enjoy comments, but I want to hear your opinions. What do you think? What are your thoughts? Why do you agree with me or why do you disagree with me? This is a censorship free blog so leave a comment and tell me how you feel. Keep it clean, but speak your mind. Any opinion is welcome here.

 

An idea for compromise. Friday, Apr 13 2007 

Commentary and Politics Thomas Nikl 3:52 pm

President Bush wants money for “The Surge” (Rated R) and the American people (mostly I think) want out.

The American people want things cured, and want stem cell research to progress to some degree, but President Bush does not because it’s “Un-Jesus-Like”.

Here would be my compromise. For every federal dollar President Bush gives to stem cell research, I would give him a dollar for the War in Iraq. An equal match. This way for every day the disaster in Iraq continues, we could at least be researching ways to help people- including injured soldiers- from his dastardly little experiment.

That’s just what I would do if I was a Senator.

 

Couldn’t Al Sharpton be doing something truly worthwhile with his time? Thursday, Apr 12 2007 

Commentary and Politics Thomas Nikl 10:20 am

I’m really exhausted with everyone being up in arms the second anyone in the world says something that could be even slightly offensive. When did everyone in this country become such a sissy? When did everyone decide to fight over semantics- individual resignation battles- instead of fighting for real issues? So the NCAA women’s basketball team could use a decent hair cut? BIG FREAKING DEAL. I’m not Al Sharpton’s biggest fan, but if he’s going to fight for something, why not head down to New Orleans and do a little more work there, I’m pretty sure Katrina still needs a hand. Stop wasting everyone’s time with your petty battles against petty people for petty comments.Not to mention that if we start firing anchor after anchor, pretty soon there won’t be any left. And whose going to be the moral authority on speech on the air- the NAACP? PETA? CIA? NSA? Where does it stop? Not like news networks on TV are the stellar outlet of wisdom that they may have been decades ago, but pretty soon Ryan Seacrest is going to be hosting your news because he’s “fresh and clean and doesn’t use potty language”. Even though Imus’ one comment (out of thousands) was stupid, and possibly even offensive, or insulting, the overall effect is still a constant dumbing and watering down of the people that are supposed to give us news and commentary on the air. If we fire one, pretty soon we’ll fire them all, and eventually all that we’ll hear on TV will be a deafening silence.

It seems like ultimately there are two arguments you can make here without being a hypocrite: ban everything, or everything is freedom of speech and if it’s stupid ignore it. I take the latter, because the former means you’re too weak to deal with reality, too beyond your prime too be taken seriously otherwise (ahem Sharpton), or too bored to do anything else. For instance, how can Sharpton condemn Imus for saying something as trivial as “nappy headed ho” and yet not condemn every rapper that abuses “The N-word” and every other slur known to man? Believe it or not that wasn’t rhetorical- it’s because Sharpton, and anyone else who fights these semantic wars, is guilty of being a hypocrite, plain and simple. Publicly commenting that you disagree with what someone has said is fine, but demanding resignations and firings- come on, get a grip already, and realize that one day you too may say something to offend someone, and your own wrath may come back to haunt you. What goes around comes around.

I support Freedom of Speech- even stupid speech, racist speech, ignorant speech, annoying speech, etc. But I shouldn’t have to tell you that, because as an American, you should have already known that’s what the 1st amendment was for in the first place. Maybe Sharpton should take a civics class quick before his next resignation demand. So, Al, and everyone else calling for Imus’ resignation, and everyone else who has ever thrown a hissy fit over something someone else said that may have rubbed you the wrong way, I encourage you to play frequently with water and forks by electric sockets, and I can only hope that natural selection does its thing.