Here's some fun facts about trendy diseases of the past few years: - Anthrax attacks: 22 infected (according to Wiki... sorry).
- SARS in the United States: at the most, around 70-something per year (according to WHO).
- Avian Flu: in a report from 2006 "since 2003, fewer than 200 human cases have been laboratory confirmed" (from WHO).
- West Nile: "during 2007, a total of 3,630 cases of WNV disease in humans were reported" (from CDC). Since the population of the United States was around 304 million in 2008 (according to the census people), that means a whopping .00001 percent of the population got infected. With a mortality rate of 4%, that made this a particularly dangerous disease on this list.
- Swine Flu: 20 cases (according to WHO)
Wanna know some diseases that are more deadly, far spread, and/or communicable than all of those diseases combined? The ACS reported 1,437,180 new cases of cancer in 2008 (that's 7,185 times the amount that got Avian Flu in 3 years), 44,084 new cases of AIDS in the US according to avert.org, and a bullet to the face with 12,785 deaths in 2006 according to the CDC!
Tom reviews American censorship priorities (Part 1)
Here's a picture from AP:
Here are some pictures from various news outlets in 2004:
Here's what the big deal was that they avoided showing:
Of course, the above picture is terrible, abhorrent, a sign of an impending cultural downturn that will envelop all of God's country, America. Or, maybe the picture is just of someone's tit popping out.
Seriously, though... I'm not even talking about sex yet. I'm talking about an instance where someone is walking around, unaroused, naked, and not trying to arouse anyone else. I'm talking about this:
But let's have a chat about the Janet Jackson picture and the picture of the Asian man with the bullet wound in his face that, just so you know, is not a zombie. I know with all the blood he kind of looks like one, but I assure you we'll get to the subject of zombies later.
I know you Americans are saying "What's to chat about, Tom? One is clearly a picture of something indicative of how disgusting humanity can be and the other is a picture of a dude that got shot." To you, I say this: "Look closer."
The picture of the Superbowl incident is simply a picture of Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake. Literally, that's all you're seeing.
The picture of the man who got shot was the reaction of the red shirts against the yellow shirt protesters in Thailand. Now, I don't know much about the Thai protests, but I do know that it is a culmination of quite a lot of civil unrest and the rights being stripped away from the people of Thailand by a military coup. That picture is symbolic of many types of injustices leading to that man being unjustly shot. Someone attempted to kill that man.
Janet Jackson has breasts.
Guess which one caused the House of Representatives to raise the maximum fine for "indecency" from $27,000 to $500,000?*
Again, don't get it twisted: I'm not talking about sex. I am talking about breasts. Because I fear that most people won't get what I'm talking about if they live in America: A breast
Fucking
Both
But... violence! :-D Warning: You just saw a Lost spoiler if you didn't see Season 4.
I couldn't find the picture of Kiefer Sutherland kneecapping that dude's wife in 24, but whatever.
All of the above pictures were shown on television at some point or another, all of them between 5pm and 10pm.
I think, before I go further, I should explain my views on censorship. Well, actually, I should have done it a while ago... but I am too lazy to change anything.
I believe that censorship should only be applied to things that you can't control seeing or hearing, like commercials, billboards, magazine covers, packaging, etc. etc. etc. But, the second that you have control over it, you have a responsibility to not be a bitch about what you see or hear.
And to answer everyone's next question: "Yes". I believe racists, homophobes, and other general idiots should be able to say whatever they want on television. The Stupid Fucking Stormfront Nazi Hour should be a show if they want it to be. I think the fact that they are censored is part of their appeal to stupid, malleable minds. Think of how many minds get sucked in by the tantalizing "it's what THEY don't want you to hear".
Sometimes "they" don't want you to hear it because it's fucking stupid.
But, if censorship is going to happen anyway, I think there should be some basic guidelines. One of these guidelines is that you can't censor something that's part of a human. The first rule is that the only things eligible for censorship are human actions, not humans. Censoring tits, cunts, cocks, and asses is about as arbitrary as censoring wide bridge noses, blue eyes, red hair, and feet with a longer second toe than the first one.
Although I believe that's a good place to start, it still leaves quite a bit to be able to be censored. At that point we, as a society, have to ask what we want our children to be imitating (since Americans love to finger-point and say that everything children do is imitation of pop culture as opposed to giving parents or, god forbid, the fucking children themselves, credit).
There will be at least one more part to this... but I think this is good enough for now. Oh, there's no arbitrary number because that will come when I'm done talking about censorship.
In these hard economic times, I have to confess that I have no clue about money, which really hinders my saving ability. Actually, here are a few things I have no concept of: - Money - Time - The "unnatural" or "supernatural" - God
Now, some people are shocked at this. "No concept of money?!" they say, "Well, then how can you measure worth?! Or live? Or laugh? Or love?!!" [Editor's note: the last "live, laugh, love" bit is said a la Sideshow Mel from The Simpsons].
Let me tell you WHY I have no concept of money: because it doesn't make any sense. Someone, one day, looked at a chunk of gold and said "that much equals one". Everyone else said "one what?" and the man in question said "one dollar". That's the story of money in my mind.
Since we measure everything in dollars, it should make sense, right? But it clearly doesn't. I mean, one foot is one foot is twelve inches is one-third of a yard, right? For those of you that have a measurement system that makes sense: a centimeter is 10 millimeters is .01 meters. But does one dollar equal one dollar? Absolutely not.
You know why? Because measuring it via gold made no sense. You know why? Because gold is fucking useless. It's pretty, and that's all. Anything gold can do, something else can do just as well, or better. The only thing it can't do better than most things (except maybe diamonds) is make stupid people shoot other stupid people... and make rap beefs more entertaining.
So, humans began using something with no intrinsic or applicable value and made it the thing that determines worth. Neato. Now, we can't even measure money by the gold standard anymore! So, now, money is based on.....
....
...fuckall.
So, back to a dollar equaling a dollar.
This is going to be very hard to explain, so bear with me. If I have some electrons, protons, and neutrons. I can use one proton and one electron and make hydrogen. If I put two of those hydrogen atoms together and add some neutrons, I get helium. Right? No matter what I do, those electrons, protons, and neutrons are still equal to each other no matter where they go, right?
Oh, by the way, I'm not talking about inflation or currency equivalencies. I'm talking about just spending money today, right now, and that money becoming something completely different.
Okay... I have a better example that involves money.
Theoretically, this next picture is true:
In the weekly adverts for a grocery store, milk was advertised at $1.99.
And, let's just say that the new PS3s are about $350, since that's what they seem to be going for on Google shopping.
Can I, right now, go out and buy 200 gallons of milk for $1.99 (which would be $398), bring that milk to GameStop, and use it to buy a PS3? No.
Now why in the fuck not? Those gallons of milk cost me $1.99, your PS3 costs $350. I have 200 gallons of milk. I should, in fact, get change in the form of actual money. I know that 200*1.99 is more than $350, making the picture wrong, but I'm lazy and don't want to change the picture to say "greater than" instead of equals.
Well, apparently a PS3 is worth more than any amount of milk, even though the measurement we use to dictate value says that the values are the same. But, picture the reverse, where I walk into the grocery store with a PS3 and asked someone if I could trade the PS3 for milk. Assuming there was no risk of anyone losing their jobs and all that, they'd probably take the PS3.
That "measurement" doesn't make any sense.
I understand the barter system. Someone wants a sandwich and is willing to give a handjob for it. The sandwich-maker feels that this is a fair deal. Everyone is happy. Someone wants dental work done, that person is able to give the dentist a pack of taquitos and a pair of sunglasses. The dentist wants that and a pack of cigarettes. They agree on dental work and some nitrous for the taquitos, sunglasses, and cigarettes.
These scenarios I understand since everything has relative, subjective value that changes with the person perceiving the object, when it is, and the situation of the traders. Not some arbitrary number and pieces of paper.
But clearly I'm stupid.
Onto inflation and all that. Oh, by the way "artificial inflation" is a bullshit term. You can't have an artificial concept within an imaginary field. It's like the number i. An imaginary number that's inside of something fake anyway. Fuck that noise. I can conceptualize imaginary cheese or an imaginary barrel. But, can you conceptualize an imaginary unicorn? No. You can't. You think you can because you're imagining a unicorn, but, in the same way that fake numbers are different than other numbers, imaginary unicorns are different (and probably more imaginary) than the regular type of bullshit, fake unicorns. That's the problem with "i" and "artificial inflation".
Anyway, because there is too much money in circulation, it apparently loses value, causing the price of things to go up. This doesn't make any sense to me. Clearly, things not making sense is the prevailing theme of this review.
Okay, shouldn't the value of things directly correlate to the amount of money in circulation, if one causes the other? So, in theory, everything should constantly be level because of that.
Also, if this is the case, that there's simply too much money being circulated, shouldn't the government just collect all the money periodically, wipe everyone's credit clean, stack the majority of the cash in a big pile and burn it, while saving just enough to give each family one dollar? Then, apparently, we would be rich as fuck and houses would cost ten cents.
But of course that idea is stupid because of a new rule they just made up.
The big question to me is this: why does more money in circulation mean that it is worth less? I mean, the simple problem with this is that one no longer equals one and that fat man in the red suit that I had above was wrong. The only answer I've ever gotten was because of supply and demand theories. If there is more of something, there's less demand for it. That's bullshit when it comes to money because most wants as much money as they can get, no matter how much they already have.
If you don't believe me, think of this: 50 Cent used to say whatever he wanted on a record because he was poor. THAT got him rich. Once he got rich, (to the point where he could have quit and supported him and his family for the rest of their lives), he decided he wanted more money so he started shilling Vitamin Water, condoms, Right Guard, and Reebok sneakers. He didn't NEED more money and he would have gained more than he needed just by saying whatever he wanted and continuing to do what he did. But, the fact is, he wanted more than that. He wanted to be beyond filthy, stupidly, unnecessarily rich. So, he said, "Hey, my personal integrity is worth more money than I could ever use in my lifetime." Thus, 50 Cent, the brand, was born:
Well, I'm getting tired of writing this. I wrote it in one shot and made the pictures as I wrote... so... really... yeah. This was all garbled stream of consciousness.
Etc.
Here's my arbitrary number for money...
5%
I even gave it that many because it does buy some cool shit... that and it makes stupid people shoot other stupid people for stupid reasons (and that, my friends, is entertainment you can't buy).
UPDATE (21/04/2009): A co-worker of mine reminded me of the only two ways that the economy has ever made sense to me... South Park.
"...space cash is only worth what you as a planet decided it was worth." - Baby Fark Mcgezyx
