The Internet is Awesome

Free speech is an amazing thing, is it not? In large sections of the world you can be fined or even go to jail if you say or write something that the government does not like. I'm not just talking Cuba or North Korea here, I'm also talking about Europe and even Canada. But I digress.

The Internet is a fantastic enabler of free speech. From Neal Boortz to Amy Goodman, and everywhere in between, Americans are free to express their opinions without fear of government reprisal. Social, community, employment, and spousal reprisal is a different story, but that's a topic for another blog.

The dark side of all this great free speech is that the hockey-helmet wearing, short-bus riding kids get to express their opinions also.

Take this special child here for example. I Stumbled upon this gem today, and the magnitude of the moronity is mind boggling. Let me point out some of the larger WTF statements made by our special friend Timmy here:

"Global Warming (ie, the Ozone Layer depleting)"
"That's because it's fucking cold in space."
"what's not up for debate is that the temperatures lowering is a result of the Ozone Layer going away"

There's some others, but I think you get my point. The problem with every one of these statements is that they are wrong.

Let me briefly address each one of these statements:

1) Global Warming is most commonly associated with rising CO2 levels, not ozone layer depletion.
2) Space is not cold. Space is a near perfect vacuum, and as such is an excellent insulator.
3) The recent temperature decrease was very likely caused by decreased solar activity, not ozone layer depletion.

The saddest part of this fellows diatribe is that he thinks he's pretty smart and anyone that disagrees with him is an idiot. Regardless, his post is an example of the level of discourse too prevalent on the Internet today.

Or maybe his post is meant to be sarcasm and I just don't realize it.

Funny, True, & Sad

Between the little bit of world traveling I have done and from having met many people from different cultures I can say with absolute certainty that humor is relative. A joke that's funny to me and my friends won't necessarily be funny to someone else. In fact, they may even fail to realize that it's even humor.

So with that said, I still think that the joke below is funny, true, and also sad.

"Dan Rather, Katie Couric, and an Israeli sergeant were all captured by terrorists in Iraq. The leader of the terrorists told them that he would grant them each one last request before they were beheaded.

Dan Rather said, "Well, I'm a Texan, so I'd like one last bowlful of hot spicy chili." The leader nodded to an underling who left and returned with the chili. Rather ate it all and said, "Now I can die content."

Katie Couric said, "I'm a reporter to the end. I want to take out my tape recorder and describe the scene here and what's about to happen. Maybe someday someone will hear it and know that I was on the job till the end." The leader directed an aide to hand over the tape recorder and Couric dictated some comments. She then said, "Now I can die happy."

The leader turned and said, "And now, Mr. Israeli tough guy, what is your final wish?"

"Kick me in the ass," said the soldier."

"What?" asked the leader? "Will you mock us in your last hour?"

"No, I'm not kidding. I want you to kick me in the ass," insisted the Israeli. So the leader shoved him into the open and kicked him in the ass. The soldier went sprawling, but rolled to his knees, pulled a 9 mm pistol from under his flack jacket, and shot the leader dead. In the resulting confusion, he jumped to his knapsack, pulled out his carbine and sprayed the terrorists with gunfire. In a flash, all terrorists were either dead or fleeing for their lives.

As the soldier was untying Rather and Couric, they asked him, "Why didn't you just shoot them in the beginning? Why did you ask them to kick you in the ass first?"

"What?" replied the Israeli, "And have you two assholes report that I was the aggressor?!""

Which Villian Are You?

http://dl.net.hr/webcafe/flash/villain_quiz.swf

I took a short quiz and it told me which movie villain I was.



Interesting. I don't really think I'm that focused on money, and I'm pretty sure my penis isn't all that small. Still, it could have been worse; I could have ended up as Golem.

It's the end of the world as we know it

I don't consider myself a reactionary. My friends might say that I can get excited about certain topics of conversation, but I'm certainly not the type to start picking up pitchforks and torches every time someone shouts "Monster!"

But since 9/11 I've been paying attention to Islam and how the world reacts to it, and I really think that unless something or someone comes along and makes a big change, the civilized West as we know it is done for.

I don't think it will be a quick, sudden change. It will take decades. But slowly, surely, unless the West can muster the strength to fight back, in a hundred years my female descendants will be wearing burqas as they go out in public on Main Street, USA.

What is the driving force to this? Population demographics; the Muslims are simply having more babies than anyone else at the moment. The West has an abysmally low fertility rate; consider Saudi Arabia at an estimated 3.94 births per woman, and then consider Spain or Italy at 1.29. Now consider that the referenced fertility rate for Spain and Italy actually includes a large number of Muslim immigrants who are having considerably more than 1.29 children per woman, and you can see that the fertility rate for "real" Spanish and Italian women is much less than indicated. Spain and Italy will very likely still exist in a hundred years, they will just be very different places than they are today. Oh, one more thing; the fertility "replacement rate" is 2.1 births per woman. Below that and population numbers decline, above that and population numbers increase, assuming no immigration or emigration. The population numbers for Spain and Italy are actually increasing.

Europe is already seeing the results of the Muslim invasion, a result of their Socialist policies needing a constant supply of young, cheap labor to prop up their ever expanding welfare system. Europe in my opinion lacks the political and social willpower to fight the changes that are happening to them. There is already a word for the new Europe; Eurabia.

I fear that America too lacks the social and political willpower to resist. It will just take longer for America to be vanquished.