link Taliban Mocks Shutdown: Lawmakers ‘Sucking The Blood Of Their Own People’ « CBS DC.
You know it’s not good when the widely acknowledged scourge and enemy of the western world makes fun of you…and it’s accurate. Somewhere in the middle eastern moonscape, Taliban leaders must be huddling together after suddenly reaching an epiphany. They conclude that if they do nothing, the U.S. will destroy themselves from within! No need to send suicide bombers and mount expensive terror campaigns, unless of course it’s for amusement.
As the U.S. government ‘shuts down’ because of congressional impasse, stories of hysteria and woe, many absurd, are making the media rounds. By now we know that the furloughing of government employees has ‘forced’ the shutdown of heretofore public facilities. Even the war memorial in DC was closed to the public, which is amusing because it’s essentially a plaza. It’s unclear why a large public standing area needs to be closed. It’s unclear why national parks like the Grand Canyon need to be closed. Is the government operating the views? Does someone have to turn on Old Faithful at Yellowstone? Trying to rope off the Atlantic ocean in Florida is the best one.
If you think about it, the fact that the government shutdown even matters at all is scary; after all, why should the government be involved in so many aspects of people’s daily lives anyways? This is the issue that no one is playing up. If you can’t operate through a day without having to navigate some kind of government bureaucracy, THAT is the problem. Over successive generations, much of what should be private sector stuff has been ceded to government oversight. The notion that the government makes a citizen a law breaker just for trying to access something that the public owns is outrageous. Instead, all media coverage is spent finger pointing at (mostly) one side or the other.
The flashpoint for all of this recent kefuffle is The Affordable Care Act, affectionately dubbed Obamacare. If the government is prepared to deny people access to things they already own such as parks and monuments, what makes anyone think that government control of healthcare is a good thing? What if you needed a mole removed and someone at the clinic turned you away under threat of tazering? As usual, low information voters think they are getting something for nothing. They need Obamacare like they need a third nipple, but since they’re giving them away, may as well get one.
The Taliban may as well sit back and smoke hookah pipes until the U.S. just collapses from their citizens’ own collective stupidity.
link Hunger Seen Worsening by Oxfam as Climate Change Heats Up World – Bloomberg.
They might have been able to get away with this back in the ’60’s when access to information was scant. Images on TV of emaciated children holding bowls of milk would send people scurrying to write generous cheques to Oxfam. Marketing to Americans’ natural compassion was an easy sell. The current program of selling the idea of pervasive world hunger by tying it to the spurious cause of our day is either thinly veiled crappy marketing or simply pandering to the new generation of gullible people in America.
There’s probably somebody hungry in the world somewhere, but the chance that it’s linked in any way to global warming is as likely as a fat chicken in Ethiopia as one of my good friends is fond of saying. People who count these kinds of things claim that Americans ( and that means Canadians too ) throw away over 400 pounds of food per person per year, so there’s no shortage here in North America or indeed most Western countries. Unfortunately, this wasted food can’t just be transferred like a journal entry to those in the world who could legitimately use the food. Indeed, in this part of the world, the people who are actively in the food distribution business such as McDonalds and KFC are demonized for providing too much cheap food.
According to Oxfam, ““The changing climate is already jeopardizing gains in the fight against hunger, and it looks set to worsen,” In addition, Oxfam said. “A hot world is a hungry world.” The people who penned this little slogan have obviously never spent any time in the tropical Amazon rainforest where it’s hot 365 days of the year and yet things still grow there like body hair at a lesbian convention. They must also have never considered that in Saudi Arabia, where the average temperature is over 100 degrees for half of the year and yet few are starving there either. The heat=hunger argument looks iffy.
So how is it that global warming only affects people in some parts of the world whereas in others, people have so much food that they’re throwing it away? This disparity of reality can be solved by looking closely at exactly which constituencies are served by Oxfam. Their website claims ‘over 90 countries’, but when you look at the list: http://www.oxfam.org.uk/what-we-do/countries-we-work-in The Philippines, Egypt, South Africa, Russia and the UK are probably not their main focus spots. The vast majority of those countries served by aid are in continental Africa. Interestingly, many of those countries listed are in the midst of on-going tribal and religious wars. Anyone in the farmer business in any of those countries is not going to be interested in farming or ranching if someone is likely to plant a bullet in them.
The issue of hunger in these countries is one of security and political stability not one of a few hot days ’caused’ by someone driving their SUV. Adding more tax to a gallon of gasoline will no more alleviate hunger than would taxing Listerine in America solve halitosis worldwide. It’s all hot air.