Why do people care so much about having the latest version of everything?!

The I-phone 5s recently went out on sale, and Apple reported they sold 9 million of them in 3 days.
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/sep/23/iphone-5s-5c-apple-record-nine-million

Today is going to be a rant against people's wasteful and self-hurting spending habits that hold them back from moving up in the economic ladder. I'm using the I-phone as an example, but it can be used in a variety of situations where people habitually, routinely spend hundreds and thousands of dollars on luxuries a year, which adds up over time.

Let's see what I'm talking about. The I-phone 5s is currently selling for anywhere between $400 and $800, https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&tbm=shop&q=iphone+5&oq=i&gs_l=products-cc.1.2.0l10.1574.1574.0.4757.1.1.0.0.0.0.63.63.1.1.0...0.0...1ac.1.QerQhbyll6k#hl=en&q=iphone+5s&safe=off&tbm=shop

Apple comes out with a new I-phone or improved platform for an I-phone every 6 months to a year. But there are many people, many poor people, who are obsessed with having the latest version of the I-phone as soon as they can possibly get it. They HAVE to have it ASAP, otherwise they aren't "hip" and their whole world is shattered. So every year, they blow $800-$1200 on a new phone. Every year. That is a huge chunk of their earnings, a huge chunk that could be used for much better purposes.

First of all, they can flat out just save that money. Put it in a bank. Save it for an emergency. Currently, 67% of Americans have little to no savings. They live paycheck to paycheck, http://www.bizjournals.com/sanantonio/news/2013/09/18/majority-of-americans-still-living.html
That is partly due to the crappy economy, but it is also augmented by peoples' incredibly poor spending habits. It wouldn't be a problem if someone splurged and got a new phone as soon as they could get it just once. But I know many people, whose finances are not so good, who do this every time a new I-phone or upgrade comes out. Just over 3 years that could be $2400-$3600 they spend. And that's not even counting the early contract termination fee, or data plan per month, etc. Do you really need a new phone every 6 months? Can you not wait for your two year contract to expire? Is there really that much of a difference between the I-phone 4 and I-phone 4S to warrant such an outrageous expense??

You could use that money to pay for a college class at community college. You can make a much needed car repair. There's a whole list of things your money could be better spent on.

Now, this wouldn't be a huge financial burden on people, if this was the only thing they put a lot of money down on. Like, if they were financially smart in all other areas of their life, to make up for this big splurge. That's not a problem. What's a problem is when this is coupled with several other constant luxury spending binges. Again, I know many people who do this. They're mostly young people, anywhere from 17-upper 20's. In addition to spending that much money on a new phone every 6 months, they spend dozens of dollars on alcohol, every week, and dozens of dollars on cigarettes, every week, dozens of dollars on gas for their car on trips that are not necessary, etc, etc, the list goes on and on. At the end of the month, they've spent all the money that they've earned, so they save nothing, and they stay being poor.
Several months and/or years of smart spending and saving can yield thousands of dollars in your bank, that can help you make purchases to move you up on the economic ladder. You know can qualify for a loan to get a new car, because you have enough money to make the down payment. You can afford to move to a nicer apartment, you can pay medical bills, buy school supplies, etc.
That's all I'm advocating. I'm not advocating not buying any luxuries, I'm advocating spending your money wisely. Indulge a bit, but not to the extreme where you're blowing hundreds of dollars every month on luxuries. I like to party hard as much as the next guy, probably even more. The more craziness there is, the better. But I'm also not an idiot. (Aren't those two sentences an oxymoron lmao?!) I know I can only afford to do this once a month. So that's how often I do it. I don't do it every weekend like some of my idiotic friends do, because then I would be even more poorer than I already am. You'd be amazed on how much you can save by limiting a few luxurious expenses.      

The one thing that will lessen the number and severity of mass shooting sprees

By now, the top story in every national media across the country is about the mass shooting at the Navy Yard in Washington D.C., in which Aaron Alexis killed 12 people before being killed in a shootout with police.Of course, the usual solutions are thrown around by all sorts of politicians and media pundits: more access to mental health services, better security, better background checks, stricter gun control, stricter access to violent video games and movies, etc, etc. These may change the number and severity of mass shooting sprees by 2, maybe 3%, (gun control is the only one out of the group that won't do anything). So we're not going to talk about those concepts, because their effect would be minimal. We're going to talk about the elephant in the room that people just don't want to talk about, because their liberal brainwashing demands that they look at this concept as a violent, right-wing nut job concept that is evil and would never work, statistics, examples, and logic be damned. The one rule that would lessen the number and severity of mass shooting sprees more than all the other ideas combined would be:

If all adult Americans, who can legally get their carry conceal permit, be allowed to carry conceal anywhere in the U.S., excluding obvious places like places of worship and the White House.

(Liberal butthurt haters coming in 3..2..1..)

There is a reason why most of these mass shooting sprees happen in "gun free zones." The shooters are not stupid. They know that at those locations, the vast majority of people will be helpless to stop them. The only people who can fight back are people that stand out: policemen, guards, etc. The shooter knows exactly what and where his threat is. This allows him to kill faster.

On the flip-side, let's say everyone at the Navy Yard was allowed to carry conceal. Alexis wouldn't know who is a threat and who isn't. At any moment when he is firing, someone could whip out their pistol and shoot him before he would know that he/she is there. Consider this statistic:  

There are less deaths in shooting rampages stopped by civilians because 1. They are closer, 2. The shooter cannot identify who is a threat and who isn't.  

When you do not allow someone to carry and conceal, you are taking away their right to life by taking away their right to defend themselves. You are making them near helpless and a target for any crazy person to just walk in and start shooting fish in a barrel. I work at a theater. They do not allow anyone to carry a gun in the building. If a shooter walked into the theater and started shooting up the place, I would have to take him out with my pocket knife, which would be very hard to do. Why? Because I would have to get up into him before he saw me and shoot me. Even though I am very fast, that's still next to impossible to do in a wide area such as a theater. Having a pistol on me would make it a lot easier, and, in turn, make it easier and faster for me to save lives. Even though I do not agree with the rule the theater has in place, I am a law-abiding citizen, (like the vast majority of carry conceal permit holders), and therefore, I follow it anyway. 

The notion that carry conceal makes people more aggressive, more prone to killing, or that they're just itching for a fight, is simply untrue. When I carry conceal, I don't bother anyone. I don't want to fight anyone. If a shooting occurs, you better believe that I'll fight to protect myself and other people, but if there isn't one, then I continue throughout my day as normal. How is the want to protect other innocent people viewed as itching for a fight? Are security guards itching for a fight when they carry their weapons on them? Why is it that as soon as it is a civilian carrying a weapon, suddenly our views on their intents change 180 degrees?

The notion that letting people carry conceal in a mall, for example, would make it easier for psychos to commit a mass shooting spree there is also simply untrue. If a psycho wants to bring a weapon in, he's going to, whether the law says he can or not. The law is the last thing on his mind. The only thing that permitting carry conceal will change is whether someone like me will bring one in or not, because I, unlike the criminal, follow the laws. 

In conclusion, if people were allowed to carry conceal in 99% of places around the country, that would be a real deterrent to psychos who want to commit a mass shooting spree, because it will deny them the thing that they want: to kill a bunch of people in a blaze of "glory" and be all over the newspapers. But instead, he'll think "Wow, the last 3 attempted shooting sprees have been stopped at 3, 1, and 2 victims. That might happen to me too. I guess I won't do that if there's a high chance I won't get what I want!" This will stop some of the criminals, others will still attempt no matter how many shooting sprees have been stopped quickly. But that is the reason for carry conceal; the statistic above speaks for itself: for the shooting sprees that still will happen, carry conceal drastically lowers the number of deaths.     

  

Why the hell are we still in Afghanistan? Let's get the fuck out!

     With Syria and Egypt dominating the headlines in recent weeks, it's easy to forget that we're still fighting the war in Afghanistan. I mean, it's only the longest war in U.S. history. It's been going on for so long that people just take it for granted that it will always be there. It's been going on for the majority of my lifetime. I remember when it started, when I was in 6th grade. It seems like an eternity ago. And yet we're still there, wasting American lives and money, for what?!

Afghan kids killed by a NATO airstrike

      Osama Bin Laden has been dead for over two years. Al-Qaeda has mostly moved on from Afghanistan and into Pakistan, Yemen, and Northern Africa. It makes no sense that we still have tens of thousands of soldiers and mercenaries in Afghanistan, and thousands of civilian workers risking their lives for the rich American oligarchy that has America in it's greedy vice. In fact, this whole war has NEVER made any sense. It's not like it was a good idea at the beginning and then turned bad, no, it was rotten from the very core, the very beginning. I will make this argument by listing the reasons the U.S. government gave for invading Afghanistan back in 2001, and go into each reason individually and say why each one of them is complete bullshit.

1. To go after Al-Qaeda: You don't send hundreds of thousands of soldiers halfway across the world to go after a couple of dozen of people. Wait, what's that you asked? Al-Qaeda was only several dozen people at the time of 9/11? Yep, that's right: http://blogs.reuters.com/afghanistan/2010/09/16/how-many-al-qaeda-can-you-live-with/  Al-Qaeda was only 200 members at the time of 9/11. That's 200 worldwide, total. Who knows how many of those 200 were in Afghanistan, but even it was the majority, like 101, you don't send hundreds of thousands of soldiers to fight 101 people. Anyone who knows anything the military, policing tactics, counter-insurgency, would know that is a HORRIBLE idea. You would be much more effective if you did small scale counter-insurgency operations with a small force of elite units like a SEAL team or the Army Rangers. They would do home invasions, disrupting operations, infiltration, drone strikes, etc. If you send a whole bunch of troops over, they end up dealing and wasting time with other people that are not Al-Qaeda. Which is exactly what happened. The insurgency against the US is not an Al-Qaeda insurgency, it's a Taliban one. We ended up fighting the Taliban, who had nothing to do with 9/11, and who offered to give us Bin Laden, but we rejected that offer: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/20011014/aponline135016_000.htm Why did we reject that offer? Because we wanted to go to war!!!!
2. To deny Al-Qaeda the space needed to plan another attack against us: That's an impossible task to deny any group, because you only need one house to have the resources and space needed to pull off an attack like 9/11. Remember, 9/11 was committed by only 19 people. To deny people that such a small amount of space, you would need to have a soldier in every house in the world, and we have an Constitutional amendment against that, motherfuckers. 
3. The Taliban, by allowing Al-Qaeda and Bin Laden to be in Afghanistan, were guilty of the crimes of 9/11 just as much: No, just because you know someone, or have someone over to your house, does not mean you are guilty of all the crimes they may have done. That's like if a radical French group attacked the US, so then we respond by invading and occupying France. It wasn't the French people's fault, they aren't responsible for the crimes of a few. It wasn't the French government's fault, they didn't do anything. So it makes absolutely no sense to invade and occupy Afghanistan for the crimes of a couple of dozen people. 

     So if it wasn't for any of those reasons, then why did we invade Afghanistan?

• To establish a base of operations that is strategically located in Central Asia, i.e. to better run operations in Iran, Pakistan, etc. That's right, we invaded an innocent country to better our military and political standing in the world. This is something that we should leave back in the 18th and 19th centuries. That's something straight out of a video game or a board game, not real life. To be civilized people, we don't invade other countries just to strengthen ourselves. The government and its media lackeys made up this whole narration listed above to make our invasion sound legitimate, when in fact it was only launched to benefit the military-industrial complex.
• To get the vast amount of mineral resources that are in Afghanistan, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/14/world/asia/14minerals.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0  Again, we only did it to better ourselves, our own fat pockets. The government didn't care about protecting us or saving Afghan women. No, they did it for wealth.

        So there you have it. The entire Afghan war narrative that we have been fed, some from childhood, has been ONE ENTIRE STINKING FUCKING BULLSHIT LIE. Every person in the Bush Administration who was for the Afghan war should be hanged for launching a terrorist war against a people who were minding their own fucking business. So, 12 years later, what can the average American citizen do to try and bring this phony war to an end?

1. Write to the president and your elected officials, saying, in more politer terms of course: "BRING THE FUCKING TROOPS HOME."
2. Look at the voting record of any elected official running for office that you can vote for. If he/she voted to go to war or voted at any time to keep being in the war, do not vote for that candidate. That will send a message to the government that the American people are sick and tired of going to war to benefit the 1% and the military industrial complex. 
3. Explore the platform of the Libertarian party. Both Republicans and Democrats are addicted to starting long wars that kill hundreds of thousands of innocent people who didn't do a single damn thing, just to line their pockets with more money and power. But Libertarians offer an alternative to the "two party" system that is ruining our country, primarily because it is no longer a two party system, but rather an elitist oligarchy. Their official website is:  http://www.lp.org/  
4. Speak out against the war, just like I'm doing now. It can be over social media, it can be a protest in front of the White House, it can be a petition, etc. Get the word out, start people talking about this, because silence is compliance. If we're silent, that gives our jackass government the red light to continue this illegal, immoral, terrorist war.       

 

We Should Not Attack Syria

     One can go through my past posts and see how much I support the Syrian rebels and their fight against a dictator for freedom and liberty. These rebels are some of the most bravest and most steadfast fighters I have seen in years. They're taking on not only the Syrian dictatorship, (who is being supplied and financed by Russia, <--- fascist assholes,) but Hezbollah and Iran also, as well as fighting against extremist rebels who wish to turn Syrian into an al-Qaida playground. That's a lot to go up against, especially when they are receiving minimal support from anyone else.

     So if I want the rebels to win, why would I not support a U.S. strike against the Syrian dictatorship? At first glance that would see counter-intuitive. In a sentence, a U.S. strike in the manner that President Obama described would not help the Syrian rebels, it would actually hinder them in the long run by emboldening Bashar al-Assad's dictatorship.

      Obama wants to launch a limited cruise missile attack from our Navy against Syrian government installations. Here are the things wrong with that:

1. Since he already announced he was going to do it, (like the blundering idiot that he is. Who publicly the exact time they're going to attack? Honestly?), the Syrian government has already moved lots of its personnel out of government and military installations and into civilian areas, http://tech.mit.edu/V133/N34/long1.html. So any attack on those installations would cause minimal causalities. That defeats the whole purpose of attacking. And if we wanted to cause massive causalities, we would have to bomb civilian areas, which defeats the whole point of wading into this civil war to save civilians' lives in the first place.   
2. Obama says he wants to bomb Syria to punish them for using chemical weapons against their own people and to deter them from doing it again. But if a limited cruise missile attack is all that's going to happen to Assad for doing that, that's not going to deter him at all. It will only hurt him in the slightest bit; it'll just be like a fly momentarily annoying him. There's no incentive for him to not do it again.
3. If Congress doesn't approve and nothing happens, it'll embolden Assad even more. He'll think "The Americans said they were going to punish me, but yet they ended up doing nothing. Oh, better gas civilians again then!"
4.  An American strike would strengthen Assad's narrative that he is fighting against Western imperialism and their NATO-trained rebel death squads. 
5. As bad as Syria has been for decades, they still have not attacked us. So why should we attack them? They didn't do anything to us. We're already like in 10 different wars, do we really want to get involved in another one? When will we stop wanting to kill so many people around the world who aren't even doing anything to us?!
6. The US is in no position to be the enforcer of using no chemical weapons. The US used depleted uranium in Iraq that is just as harmful as the chemical weapons Assad used, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/craig-considine/us-depleted-uranium-as-ma_b_3812888.html and continuously gives billions of dollars to the apartheid regime known as Israel, who has used chemical weapons against the Palestinians, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/25/israel-army-white-phosphorous_n_3157604.html. How can we have the moral high ground if we do the exact same thing Assad does? It's like a murderer trying to stop a murderer from murdering. It doesn't work.  

     Instead, the Obama administration should do these steps. These steps would help the rebels out a lot more and quicken Assad's downfall:   

• Give the moderate secular rebels weapons and medical supplies. It really is that simple. Our intelligence gatherers can determine which brigades are moderate and which ones are religious extremists. Contrary to what some racist, bigoted Americans say, not all the rebels fighting against Assad are al-Qaida. They think if they repeat that lie enough times, it'll become true. Sadly, reality does not work that way. Our intelligence analysts, CIA, etc, are good enough that they can determine which brigades are in line with our American values, and who truly want a free and fair Syria.  
• Politically prop up these moderate rebels and their political counterparts, while politically isolating the extremist rebels. The fact that the government controls most of the big media corporations makes it all the more easier for them to get these facts out.   

These two steps is all we would need to do to ensure the moderate rebels would overthrow Assad. Really, that's all. The rebels are already a very effective guerrilla fighting force with the small amount of firepower they already have. If we multiply their firepower, that multiplication would result in more government soldiers' deaths and more territory claimed by the rebels.
If that's all we need to do to overthrow Assad, then why hasn't Obama done that yet? Because, contrary to what he says, Obama wants Assad in power. Why? Because Assad is a coward who talks a big talk but when it comes to walk, he doesn't. Obama wants Assad in power because he knows Assad is too much of a pussy to attack Israel, even in self-defense. When Israel bombed Syria's nuclear facility in 2007, Assad railed on and on how he was going to attack Israel and he was the great champion of the Arabs, etc, etc. What did he do?
Nothing.
Obama loves to support dictatorships and fascist oligarchies around the world, (see 8/30/12 article). Syria is no different. Obama wants Assad in power. If a democratically elected government came to power in Syria, and truly wanted what was best for their people, that would be a much harder government to deal with. They would stand up for themselves more often. Assad just bends over and lets anyone attack him and doesn't lift a finger. America can't have an Arab country who looks after it's peoples' rights, so they would rather deal with a dictatorship.

The world's really fucked up, isn't it?