Olympus

So it appears that China is going to take the Olympic torch on a whirlwind tour of the universe. I shouldn't say it appears, because that's what they're doing, and we've known about it for a while now.

But it does raise a question: what next? I don't mean for China. I mean for the torch. Frankly, once you've been up Mount Everest, what else can you do?

I guess next time the Olympics rolls around, whoever the country is will have to take it to the Moon. Or perhaps Mars. Maybe they can put it on a submarine and take it deeper than any torch has ever gone before. I guess the risks to the flame would be fairly great underwater, but then, I'd hate to be the poor bastard mountaineer who has to haul a torch up what is certainly not an easy climb to the summit of Mount E (I went to school with her cousin-in-law, so it's okay if I use the familiar name).

Actually, the question it raises isn't so much the snide one I was asking, but rather a twofold problem of symbol. First off, it's a flame, people. Flames do not exist as physical objects, and therefor cannot be carried anywhere. The burning material can go places, but unless you carve out a hunk of wherever in Greece and haul it up Mount E, the original material stayed right there with the original flame. But I accept that it's a symbol and that people don't really care about scientific fact, so I just felt the need to say it and then move on.

The bigger problem is one of the Olympics. Sure, I guess they're a fine symbol of world togetherness. I guess. Because the thing is, they don't bring the world together. They make us compete nationally, and no matter how they try to sell it, it's an exercise in rampant nationalism. It used to be an occasion where people from different countries could meet without killing one another, but we've moved beyond diplomacy-as-sporting-event in our dealings with others in the world. Besides, most of the time, the people who really should be getting together even though their countries are bitter enemies don't get together anyway.

So it's basically a big national pissing contest. And it's expensive. It's not just the competition between athletes any more; oh no, now countries and even cities within the same country compete over who will get to blow their wad on the biggest, most spenderific games yet. If it wasn't a competition, why would China take the torch up Mount E? Why would London bankrupt itself to have several weeks of tepid entertainment. Why would mouldering stadia dot the globe, testament to the disposable culture of the Olympic spirit?

I'm glad that people who have nothing better to do have an outlet. Since there's no Professional Gymnastics League to pay millions of dollars (don't tell me there is, I don't want to know), I'm glad that little gymnasts the world over have a place to go to win medals that are the tip top. I'm not down on sports entirely. But when you consider the amount of money we spend versus the payoff we get, I'm not sure they're cost-effective. It's very easy for me to say that, sitting here anonymously on the internet, home of the friendless, jock-hating loser. But I still think it deserves a closer look.

Sanctions

I am not, you may have come to realize, a warmonger. I am, perhaps, the exact opposite. So when I say what I'm about to say, you'll need to brace yourselves, because it might sound like I'm calling for massive airstrikes and ground assaults and all that other crap that people who say what I'm about to say usually call for after they get done saying what I'm about to say.

If it didn't work the first two times, it's not going to work the third time. And by that, I mean that, to distill my thesis, sanctions don't work.

My first comment was addressed to the fact that the UN has apparently decided that a third round of sanctions on Iran will undoubtedly do the trick. Guess what? I bet it won't. I'm sure that the Iranian government is just quaking in its boots about a third round of things of which they already have two rounds, which certainly did the trick in the stopping them department, didn't they?

Sanctions are a nice idea, sure. But what they essentially boil down to is that either they just make people pissed off or they make everyone but the actual targets of the sanctions poorer, sometimes both. They usually result in a diplomatic climate hardly conducive for constructive talks, and they tend not to have much of any effect on anything because not everyone supports them.

You want to see a case of "sanctions" really working? Try the Battle of the Atlantic in World War II. I mean, Germany sanctioned the living hell out of England. They were sinking any ship they came across. That was a sanction with teeth. And in the end, it pissed the British off, and a case could be made that it brought the United States into the war. Sure, there was some belt-tightening. But the only reason it came even close to working was because the British Isles are, get this, islands, so it was fairly difficult to get goods in in the first place.

Or how about Japan? The great powers sure showed them in the 1930s. We sanctioned them all the way up the tree. We sanctioned them so hard that they decided they needed to prove to the world that they were just as big and strong as everyone else, so they invaded China. And we sanctioned them for that too. Helped a lot on December 7, 1941. Helped the Philippines a heap. Helped all the Chinese in Nanking. And then, during the war, we cut the Japanese off. We took away every source of raw materials they had, cut them off from the rest of the world, and they were contemplating meeting us on the beach with sharpened sticks and hand grenades. Starving them out did precious little.

I could go on. North Korea. Iraq. Iraq again. Cuba. Burma, or whatever the hell they're calling it now. Iran. Lybia. And so on. Sanctions have worked so well in those situations, haven't they? Cuba is celebrating 50 glorious years of sanctions in a few years or so. North Korea is hurting for food, but they're not hurting for plutonium. Iran is just getting more and more radical.

Again, you can also see how the use of force to solve these little problems doesn't work either. But I dread the day when we live in a world where the only two options are siege or pitched battle. Sounds like a bad video game to me.

But go for it, UN. Why not? It's not like anyone will talk to one another, and it has to beat the pitched battle alternative. Maybe if it doesn't work, you should try a fourth round.

Health Care

Okay, you know what, I've said it before but I'm going to say it again. Health care and health insurance are not the same frigging thing!

I know that the small brains of your typical voters have a hard time working this one out, so I'll speak in small words. Health care is when a doctor... sorry, healing guy, fixes your owie. It's when you go to the hospital... sorry, doctor place... sorry, healing guy building, and they make you all better. It's when the healing guy prescribes you medication... wait, I can't think of a dumb way to say that. Okay, the healing guy writes the stuff you don't understand on a little slip of paper and you go to the place with all the bottles that isn't a bar and hand the little slip of paper to the person behind the counter and you get pretty pills to take. That's health care.

You want to argue about the efficacy or relative superiority of the health care system in this country, be my guest. I think there are probably a few things which could be made better. But you know what? It's a totally different argument from whether the health insurance situation in this country is bad.

Let me put it to you this way. There are various laws which say that a lot of health care must be universal. For instance, if you show up at an emergency room with a bullet in your chest, they aren't allowed to throw you out because you're black, a woman, or of the wrong religion, to my knowledge anyway. Maybe they do, but they're not allowed to. And guess what, they're probably not supposed to throw you out if you don't have the money to pay them right now. I still don't know if that's true, and if it isn't, that's a problem with health care, not insurance. But let's just assume that emergency care cannot be denied. That's universal health care right there.

Not only that, but I'm fairly certain that if you show up at a plastic surgeon with a fistful of cash and want them to give you a nose job, they aren't allowed to kick you out because they don't like the cut of your jib. That's pretty universal there too. So this talk of "universal health care" is bogus. There's already universal health care. If you can pay for it and you need it done, brother, the doctor will be right with you.

But see, if you can pay for it yourself, you don't need health insurance. It might be cheaper if you had it, but if you're independently wealthy, you can pay your entire doctor's bill in singles if you'd like (say, if you happened to be a very popular stripper). Health insurance is insurance, not "you can't get medical attention without this." It covers the expenses you can't afford to pay for yourself, in exchange for a regular fee. It's not in insurance companies' best interest to insure people who are going to take out more than they put in.

But that's beside the point. The point is that health care is different from health insurance. If your doctor accidentally cuts your leg off, that's a problem with health care. If your insurance company raises your fees 200% and you can no longer afford them, that's an insurance problem. That's why people go to Mexico for medical attention; they don't have insurance, and as a result, they cannot afford to pay for their health care. That's not a problem with a lack of universality of health care in the United States, it's a problem of money, and to a lesser extent, insurance. The health care is still universal, and what's more, it's universally expensive.

So I'm tired of hearing people bitch and moan about "universal health care." We've got it. Universal insurance, on the other hand, we don't have. And a cost-effective health care system, universal though it might be, we also don't have. And those problems have very little to do with simple issues. Health care costs too much because of insurance, specifically malpractice insurance. Drugs cost too much because we like them to be regulated. Sure, you can go to Mexico, where if a doctor cuts your leg off or your aspirin is tainted with lead, you have very little recourse. And it's cheaper. Ponder that, melonheads.

Oh Dear God

I really thought it couldn't get much worse. Let this be a lesson to you kids to never think that, because it can always get worse.

Specifically, I refer to this gem of an article from the BBC. I don't make it a habit of simply linking to articles and saying, "Oh dear God!" but I had no choice. Yes, it's one of those.

As is my usual practice, I shall quote the relevant passages below, although the whole thing is so screamingly... annoying isn't really the right word, but it'll have to do... screamingly annoying that it's worth a read.

Thousands of people have gathered in Louisiana for the christening of a US warship built partly from steel salvaged from the World Trade Center.

The twin towers in New York were destroyed in the hijacked planes attack of 11 September 2001.

Friends and families of 9/11 victims were among those at the ceremony for the new amphibious assault ship, the USS New York, in the base of Avondale.

The bow contains 7.5 tonnes of steel taken from Ground Zero.

It also bore a shield with two bars to symbolise the towers and a banner with the slogan Never Forget.

Where to begin? Well, I'll take a cheap shot at the BBC for starters: exactly to whom is this story addressed? I take it from the second paragraph (I use the term loosely, since the BBC apparently believes in the "new school" of internet journalism where every sentence must be a new paragraph to emphasize its importance) that this story was written for people living on Mars under a large rock with their fingers in their ears. Because you know what, everyone else already knows that "The twin towers in New York were destroyed in the hijacked planes attack of 11 September 2001." No kidding, BBC. Okay, cheap shot over.

Let's move on to more substantive fare. One: I hate "Never forget." I've made that pretty plain. Two: according to another part of the article, "In the US Navy, state names are normally reserved for submarines, but former New York Governor George Pataki had asked for the ship to carry the name." What, he couldn't wait for a submarine? No, sorry, because amphibious assault ships are bigger and better, and New York deserves bigger and better. Never mind that it could have been the USS September 11th or something like that. No, it had to be the USS New York. Seems a bit unfair to New York City, lumping them in with the rest of New York State. I feel deeply for them, understand, because I think New York City is just the greatest place on Earth and deserves to have, at minimum, a space shuttle named after it. Possibly every single ship in the Navy should be renamed USS New York City Kicks Every Other City's Ass Never Forget Bald Eagle Weeping.

Okay, I got a bit carried away. Because the part I really wanted to talk about was the bit with the steel. See, steel is funny. It tends to stop being strong in certain circumstances, like those during September 11th. It would be a supreme irony if this ship was sunk because of weak, recycled steel used in its construction. Unless, of course, it was reforged, in which case it's a meaningless gesture. Which, of course, it is.

I am not against America. I do not think that September 1th was a great day. I am filled with sadness by the thought of September 11th, for many reasons. And because I was not a part of it, nor do I have anything more than a passing connection to it, I can't say how it should be commemorated. But I can tell you that using steel from wreckage to build a warship wouldn't be high on my list.

Lee Ielpi, president of the September 11th Families' Association, told Associated Press: "We're sending a message that we're standing strong. This ship, as it cuts through the water, is going to send a ripple. That ripple will say, 'We cherish our freedom'."

You know what Lee? I cherish my freedom, specifically the freedom I have to say that that quote is the biggest load of crap I've heard in months. I want my freedom-cherishing to be said by something other than a ripple, thank you. But I'm not a September 11th Family, so I guess I can't be part of your association. If that's the kind of thought that's coming out of it, I'm sort of glad.

And I'm sorry for your loss. I hope the prospect of weak steel, which doubtless played a major roll in the demise of your loved ones, riding out to the open sea, driving before it a ripple of freedom (not to mention a whole lot of things which are basically only useful for killing other people) gives you closure.

Muslims Don't Rule the World

Hey, I know this may come as a shock to many people out there, but all the fear-mongering about Islam is largely crap. There are quite a few people who seem to think that there are so many Muslims in this country (apparently hiding out somewhere) that we're in danger, somehow, of being overrun by a massive wave of unassimilated Muslims (if the Mexicans don't breed us out first).

The problem with that brilliant thesis is two-fold: one, it's hard to judge how many Muslims there are in the United States, but even if you take the largest estimates, we're not talking about half the population; and two, part of the reason why it's hard to figure out the Muslim population is because they've assimilated so well. So either you believe that there are millions and millions of hidden Muslims out there, in which case they're hardly likely to be a threat in terms of assimilation, or you believe that no Muslim in this country has assimilated and never will. In either case, you are, politely-speaking, a moron.

I'm not defending terrorists. Lordy no. Nor do I really feel like stepping up to the plate for Islam, since I'm pretty much down on organized religion in general. But Islamophobia is racism, plain and simple. I don't care if Muslims flew the airplanes into the World Trade Center. I don't care if most terrorists we hear about (and that "we hear about" is an indication of something, too) are Muslim, or at least identify as Muslim. It is racist to believe that Muslims are somehow worse people, just as it is racist to believe that African Americans are worse people, or Arab Americans are worse people, or Asian Americans are... wait a minute.

See, when people say, "Muslim," they usually mean, "arab, or possibly black, or maybe in a pinch asian." Because if you're a European-type person, you're either not a Muslim, or you converted which means you don't need to be assimilated. So when we worry about "Muslims" what we're really worrying about is race.

Well guess what? Jews hate Muslims, right, and they can't both rule the world. And we've been scared of Jews ruling the world for much longer than we've been scared of "Islamofascists" (a word I cannot stand because it means something completely different than either of its root words).

So which will it be, wackos? You can't have the Elders of Zion and Barrack Obama the Secret Muslim. Those two are pretty much mutually exclusive. You could posit that one really controls the other (my money's on the Elders of Zion, personally, but it's an easy bet for me to make since I don't believe any of it) but then only one really rules the world and you only need to worry about one of them. So which will it be?

In case you were wondering, I'm back, bitter, and sarcastic, and I hope you're smart enough to recognize sarcasm when you read it.