Things That Have Been Annoying Me Lately (Updated):
Yeah yeah, I know, I know…it’s been awhile hasn’t it? Well get used to it, until this semester from hell is over my bloggins are going to be as frequent as helpful information appearing on cable news. You should all be thankful I post at all, it’s not like I’m getting paid for this rant-fest. No, I am doing this only as a public service to you, the Cranky, so you have more than endless blogs about how cool a piece of thread is from David. You should count yourselves lucky that David’s rearranging the store for the seventeenth time in a row, he’s been itching to blog about some sort of piece of trash he found by the river that sort of looks like Jimmy Carter (old Jimmy Carter).
Anyways, enough about people I know personally that get on my nerves; let’s discuss some things that have been jamming themselves into the very anger center of my brain.
The recent bio-fuels hysteria:
Bio-fuels are not making that big of an impact on food prices, yet. I am sure some of you news-geeks have already heard about food riots occurring all over the world. The left and right wings have both been jumping on this startling “new” development and placing a portion of the blame on the recent trend towards bio-fuel production (ethanol from corn, soybeans, and other naturally grown products).
First off, I already stated before that using bio-fuels as our main source of fuel without significant reductions in car-use would cause food-prices to rise. However, to jump on bio-fuels as one of the causes (significant) of the current level of global hunger (as if we didn’t already have it) is a bout of uninformed hysteria. In no cases do the people pushing this “bio-fuels are helping to cause the current hunger crisis” B.S. present any sort of facts or data to back them up. They are going with the following logic:
Bio-fuels can force food-prices to rise because they use food stuffs for fuel, thus increasing the demand.
Bio-fuels are starting to be turned to as an alternative.
Therefor, people are starving because we are starting to produce bio-fuels.
Apparently, having no data to back you up (only vague inference) allows you to label the practice a “crime against humanity”. Of course, the real reasons, the substantial reasons behind the rise in food stocks probably have something to do with the dramatic rise in oil prices and the fact that our global population has been increasing at the rate of a billion every half century. Secondly, the west wastes and eats up a substantial amount of food; buffets are probably killing more people than bio-fuels at this point.
Oh, let’s not forget global climate change, which is turning vast areas of the world into deserts and wasteland.
Most of the articles do state that the reasons behind the rising food prices are due to the things I mentioned above, but mentioning bio-fuels alongside the major causes of the problem has allowed many propagandists to seize this news and run with it screaming down the streets (of the internet).
Here’s another interesting tid-bit: Most bio-diesal is produced from corn, which is mostly used in animal feed, not direct human consumption. So, not only is the trend towards biodiesal occurring in areas where the fuel is usually not used for human consumption or for main sources of food (corn, soybeans, sugar cane) but we aren’t using enough to make an impact even if we did use staples such as rice, wheat, or potatos.
Now, by the time bio-fuels have the potential to significantly influence food prices we’ll have the technology to take most of our bio-fuels from agricultural byproducts, not main sources of food. Of course, we’ll also have policies and people aiming towards demand reductions; but if not we will see food price rises on quite a large scale (unless subsidies and increased production manages to suppress such a predicament). It’s complicated, I know, and it’s irritating how people like to take extremely complicated issues, boil them down, and find something they can demonize and blame everything on instead of rationally addressing the problems.
The 2008 elections:
I was so hopeful this year, I thought the Democrats had this thing in the bag. Little did I know the dumbest people on earth had secretly taken control of the Democratic party and the media. Seriously, what on earth is with you guys? John McCain is polling ahead of both Obama and Hillary according to some organizations, how is that possibly possible? John McCain’s economic policy is “tax cuts”, his foreign policy is “blow them up”, and his healthcare policy is “I am too busy cutting taxes and blowing people up”.
Let me send a few messages to the groups and individuals that are making this disaster of a government continue in perpetuity:
To the supporters of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama:
Your candidates are not that different from one another, quit pretending that one is god and one is satan. If any of you dare vote for McCain because you’re candidate didn’t win you are whiny babies who apparently didn’t get the memo that in reality you don’t always win. That’s right everyone, about 30% of Hillary’s backers say they’ll vote for McCain if Obama wins the nomination and 20% of Obama’s supporters will do the same if the opposite is true. That means about 50% of partisan Democrats are complete idiots. That means 50% of partisan Democrats are such sore losers that they will vote for a pro-war, anti-poor, anti-everything they value candidate because the one they supported lost to someone a little different than them.
This is why I am hesitant to join the Democratic party, and will never speak of myself as a Democrat; Democrats are just as bloody dumb as Republicans, they’re just nicer sometimes.
To Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama:
There are two things I wanna see happen here:
A) One wins and makes the other their Vice President.
B) One wins and the other kisses their ass for like seven months. I want to see you two making out as if you’ve been in love for your entire lives. You and your supporters have bigger fish to fry. Like, you know, those people who want to take over the world and kill everyone that stands in their way?
To the news media:
You’re fired, pack up your things and go. We all make mistakes, and we are glad you admitted how stupid you were during the Iraq War; but you had your chance to show some competency in this election and you blew it, big time. You decided to focus on some of the dumbest aspects of all the candidates and puffed up McCain as if he’s some sort decent human being. You asked ridiculously and biased questions towards the Democratic candidates and openly kissed up to the Republican. You presented information that was horribly out of context and made a terrible candidate look better, on purpose.
Do….do you believe in the flag? What on earth does that mean? Do I believe the flag exists? Do I believe it’s telling the truth when it says it couldn’t attend class because its grandmother died? How many people actually wear flag lapel pins? I mean, why the hell wasn’t SHE wearing a flag of some kind when questioning Obama? I am so confused….I am so horribly confused. Does ABC actually think anyone cares about whether Obama is wearing a flag pin? The only people I can think of are Republicans who want to use it to paint Obama as unpatriotic….and…and usually they don’t vote in Democratic primaries.
Well, I have plenty of more things to rant about but my fingers are tired and I need a cup of Strawberry Marshmallow milk to calm myself down. I encourage you all to do the same, then spread the word. At ease Crankies *slurp* at ease.