Now, this is what I'm talking about

The title of my blog is born out by the fact that many sports stadiums now have a service where complaints about fans behaving poorly can be texted to security and that person will be observed and removed if necessary. Seriously, it might actually become nice to go to games soon if this keeps up.

Pay no attention to the timber in my eye

Does it strike anyone else as hypocritical that so many people in the US argue that we have to go to any means necessary to stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons when we're the only country on the planet to ever actually use nuclear weapons? I mean, in the interest of full disclosure, I still think that America did the right thing, faced with an insanely militaristic Japan and possessing a very limited nuclear arsenal, if they were ever going to be used, that was the time to use them. The thing that gets lost in all this talk about how Iran shouldn't have nuclear weapons is the question of why any of the rest of us should have them.

In a perfect world, Superman would exist and he could fly around the world with his x-ray vision and take all the nukes in the world and throw them into the sun (ok, maybe not a perfect plan since I have no idea what this would do to the sun). But, crappy movie plots aside, the elimination of nuclear weapons should be a serious topic of discussion for the whole world. With Russia rising from the ashes of the end of communism and China chugging towards a spot at the hegemon's table we seriously risk going back to the days when the end of the world could be any day. The idea, to paraphrase JFK, that a few men hold in their mortal hands the power to end all life on this planet is scary. I barely trust Obama with this power, let alone people I didn't vote for and don't know. I don't even trust our allies with nukes. Its just a bad idea overall. The problem is, can we ever close pandora's box?

Let's say that after years of negotiations and political arm wrestling the world finally rids itself of nuclear weapons (how they would get rid of them, I don't know, I say launch them into space and hope for the best). What stops some country from deciding that if they can create nuclear weapons before its enemies realize what they're doing that they can conquer the world? Then a nuclear arms race begins anew or most of the countries in the world are just charred craters leaving billions dead and most of the world uninhabitable. That's a bright sounding future. Is our safest option really to keep all our nukes around for mutually assured destruction? Doesn't that plan rely on everyone involved being rational? Doesn't the fact that George W. Bush was once President of the USA prove that that is not always the case? This whole issue makes me depressed. When do we get to have Gene Roddenberry's awesome rational future people with their space ships?

In Defense of the Jedi

I'm writing this because I think that the Sixth (or third) film in the Star Wars Saga, Return of the Jedi, is unfairly maligned. Sure, it, like every other George Lucas film, has its flaws, but overall it is a good movie with fewer flaws than people think. I'll tackle what people usually complain about one at a time.

The DeathStar again?
Sure, the Deathstar already showed up in the first movie and it is a bit of a cop out to do it again, but in this case I mostly feel bad for George Lucas. The movie he originally wanted to do was too long to every be filmed, so he had to break it up into three parts. Of course, that left the first part without an ending. Since Lucas never thought people would let him make a sequel to his crazy movie and he probably believed that audiences would want a real ending to the first movie, the Deathstar was moved up. Its hard to think of another setting for a showdown between the Rebels and the Empire. Just try to ignore the fact that it apparently took them twenty years to build the first one and built the second in like six.

Teddy Bear Picnic
Harrison Ford famously called the last segment of the movie a Teddy Bear Picnic because of the party involving the Ewoks. People's problems, however, go much deeper than just the party to the very involvement of Ewoks. I loved the Ewoks as a kid, hated them as a teenager, and have turned back around to them as an "adult." First, if the people of the forest moon of Endor (not Endor itself as many people mistakenly believe) had been scarier than midgets in bear costumes the Empire would have picked somewhere else to park their moon sized space station. I mean, really, what did the Empire have to fear from a bunch of teddy bears? I think that is the ultimate reason why I like the Ewoks once again, it shows how cocky the Empire was. They got so full of themselves that they ignored a technologically unadvanced people, let the Rebel Alliance bring all their ships to a "trap," and took their two biggest players out of the fight (more on that later). The Empire got cocky and they ended up getting screwed because of it. Also, everyone complains about how rudimentary the weapons used by the Ewoks were in taking down Imperial Forces. If you really think about it though, the Empire has marched across the galaxy, stamping out resistance from people who shot at them with blasters and had space ships. Do you really think they spent a lot of time in basic training covering what to do if your AT-ST gets logs rolled in front of it? I don't think so either.

Luke was basically useless
Some people like to claim that Luke was basically wasting his time during the last act of Jedi. I have a different take. Those saying that Luke wasted his time point to the fact that the Deathstar was going to blow up soon anyway as proof that Luke really didn't do anything. However, if the Skywalker saga doesn't take place, do things really unfold the same way? First, Luke is one of the main reasons that the Emperor decides to set his "brilliant" trap for the Rebellion in the first place. I mean, he has to be sick of hearing Vader talk about his kid all the time. He also probably heard about Vader's offer to Luke about joining him and overthrowing the Emperor (which, coming from a Sith is not that surprising, but still couldn't have been pleasant to hear about). Also, I'm sure he would be more than happy to trade Vader in for a younger, less messed up model. Anyways, the Emperor decides to spend his and his right hand man's time during the biggest battle of the Rebellion dealing with one boy who isn't even a Jedi yet. Can you imagine what might have happened had he set Vader loose on the Battle of Endor? Do you really think that the shield generator gets blown up if Vader is guarding it personally? I mean, lightsabers work just as well on Ewoks, you just swing a bit lower. What if Vader had hopped into his TIE fighter? Do you really think that Lando flys the Falcon into the Deathstar with Vader flying around? Luke took the Empires two biggest pieces out of play for the Battle of Endor, which was certainly valuable. Less valuable was when he threw away his lightsaber after defeating Vader. Did Luke think the Emperor would just let him go?

Anyways, that's my defense of Return of the Jedi. Maybe soon I'll try to defend the prequels.

It seemed like a good idea at the time

America needs to seriously consider legalizing all drugs. It needs to consider it for five minutes then just do it.

Nothing is gained by making narcotics illegal. The number of people who refrain from using them because they're illegal has to be tiny (and even among those people most would try pot or coke at most, not hardcore drugs if they were legal). The one issue I foresee is people driving while doing legalized drugs. I have to wonder, though, just how many people are doing that now anyway. I doubt worker productivity would go down at all (also, most businesses would still be allowed to prohibit drug use if they wanted, they'd just have a smaller pool of workers to draw from if they wanted to make pot verbotem at their work).

Here is what is gained by making drugs illegal (not just this paragraph, I'm assuming I'll need more): Mexico, Columbia, Afghanistan and others get to stop being failed states. Two of those countries are locked in a brutal civil war between two factions: the governments and the cartels (though the governments are rarely anything more than just glorified cartels). Removing the billions that Americans ship there for the illegal drugs would cripple these people. Afghanistan would certainly be better off if farmers didn't have to worry that American helicopters were coming to burn down their poppy fields every time they heard an American chopper. Who cares if that's the only crop they can grow there? If its really that good, maybe Afghanistan will become to opiates what Russia is to vodka.

The American police could go back to be a police force instead of a paramilitary unit. Have you seen police forces recently? They all have body armor that would make Robocop jealous. And they cops up in Philly are practically at war with the drug dealers, and its not really clear who is winning. If you can walk into any local store and buy drugs, the drug empires crumble. Just as prohibition made the Mafia the powerhouse that it was, drugs make the modern criminal empires function (they also put the Mafia on life support when the liquor money dried up). These people will be put out of business by corporations so fast it'll make their heads spin.

American's get their civil liberties back. Most of the roll back on civil liberties (thanks to the Burger, Rehnquist and Roberts courts) have been because of drug related cases. Thanks to drugs, the police can pull you over in your car, arrest you, put you in the back of their police car, and search your car (trunk and locked glove box included) all to "protect the safety of the officer" (read: to find drugs). If they don't need to find drugs, we might actually give our civil liberties back (I say might because we're still in the early stages of the Roberts courts).

American farmers get to grow crops people actually want. You don't think American farmers would jump at the chance to grow new cash crops? I'm sure tabacco farmers would love to have something to replace their ever shrinking crop. Also, this could mean the end of having to pay subsides to farmers to cut back on food production since this plan could see them making money.

The tax revenue would be awesome and considering the amount of money this move will save us, Republicans will cum in their pants when they see the numbers. We'll be going from spending billions to stop something from happening to making billions taxing it. We're already paying for the results of drug addiction, why not profit off it too? (that may be a little callous, but I'm ok with that)

Any other problems or suggestions can be left in the comments.

Wow, just wow

So, apparently, Chuck Norris has lost his mind. No this isn't the start of some sort Chuck Norris joke, those were not funny almost as soon as they started. This is far more frightening than another internet joke gone mainstream. Norris was on Glen Beck's show the other night and joked about running as the President of Texas. Now, certainly, for a ten year period, Texas was a republic that had its own sovereign government (until Mexico started a war with them and they ran to the US government like little kids to their mommy when a bully comes after them). Unless some of the very unfunny things people say about Norris are true, he has no ability to travel through time, thus he must be expecting Texas to be an independent republic again. He confirmed this is what he meant when he went on Beck's radio show today and spoke about the future where Texas would succeed from the Union (didn't they do that once already? How'd that end up turning out?). Just to make sure there were no misunderstandings, Norris went on his own blog and said that he didn't mean to imply that Texas would be the only state with enough balls to leave the USA, just one of many.

To be fair, rebellion is what our nation was founded on. We're the upstarts who wanted a vote before we got taxed. So we started our own government, that then taxed people without giving them a vote (in the beginning of our nation, only landholders had votes). That being said, fuck off Chuck Norris. He is complaining because the government wants to take away his guns. First off, not a lot of people care if Chuck Norris has guns. Liberals care if criminals have guns. Specifically, we care if guns that can do a lot of damage end up in the hands of criminals. Secondly, bragging about your ranch full of guns makes you sound creepy, not like a Patriot.

Look, I get that the Second Amendment grants people a "right to bear arms." I'm not going to mention the unmentioned portion of the second about militias (oops, just did). That right is protected just like the right to speech, the press, and religion (same language and everything). Try expressing your speech with child pornography or talking about how much you'd love to kill the president (for the record, I am a huge fan of the President and even if I wasn't, I would never harm someone I disagreed with, that's what votes are for, so I would request the Secret Service use lube during my cavity search). Every right needs to be regulated. I would love to know what Norris would say about our right to nuclear weapons. Those are arms. There really is no way to draw a line between muskets, handguns, shotgun, machine guns, tanks, and nuclear weapons. As soon as you draw the line, that's regulation. But that's ok, because regulation is a part of life, regulation is why we need government. I like living my life, secure in the knowledge that the odds are good that the stuff I own will remain mine, even if the guy walking down the street next to me is bigger or better armed. If men were angels, there would be no need for government. I have absolutely no desire to live in a world were there is no government.

I hate people who wax philosophical about civil war. The American Civil War was one of the bloodiest wars ever fought and cost America quite a bit. Hell, if you look at the electoral map you can see that we're just starting to get over it. Look at other countries around the world who are engaged in civil war, do those situations really seem appealing to you? If so, you really need to find a good shrink.

Where were all these nutjobs when President Bush was illegally detaining American citizens and people from around the world? Where were they when torture was being oked? They weren't rebelling then because they were cool with everything that was going on. The majority of the country was not and that's why we have a new President. So, you lost at the ballot box and now you want to rebel? Sounds more like what happens in failed states than in a country where every four years there are real elections.

Basically, what I'm trying to say is this: Shut the fuck Chuck Norris. Go back to Texas and play with yourself while you look at your gun collection. We promise not to take your guns if you'll just shut up and leave us alone.