So, first blog and all. Guess I should make it something witty and special and all that. So here's hoping, though whether anyone actually will be reading this, I rather doubt. But it's a nice way to have someplace to vent when necessary and sort through things. And I apologize in advance, but this is going to rather stream-of-thought and bounce around a bit as I try to get to a couple of really big issues I want to address while I'm thinking about them.
Anyway, the big news of the day of course is that today was election day. Halla-fucking-lluaha, that means the TV and radio waves will go back to the usual level of innane and mind-numbing drivel instead of being filled with all this garbage masquerading as campaign ads. The sheer absurdity when you stop and consider now many millions upon millions of dollars are spent on campaign ads nationally in an election cycle is enough to make you want to pull your hair out.
The Chamber of Commerce, for example, was reportedly spending $1million per day for a full month on campaign ads. So that's $30 million spent in 20-second intervals in a month's time. Can you imagine just how much good could be done with $30 million dollars? I looked up the tuition rate for the top rated school in the US, which is Harvard. According to a report in the US News, the 2010-2011 price for tuition and fees per student is $38,416.
I don't know if that includes room and board as well as books, but we will assume that it does since it says "tuition and fees". Now, if people instead donated their money towards creating a scholarship program rather than giving it to the Chamber of Commerce to fund attack ads, that would provide a complete 4-year scholarship to 780 students. And they have been running campaign ads for how many months now?
This is why our education system has gone downhill. Many famous scientists have coined it a "brain drain" and the reason is that no one in public office wants to give education the proper funding. They would rather spend $720 billion on the Department of Defense, while giving only $50 billion to the Department of Education. They spend $560 million per Abrams tank, or $4.5 billion per Nimitz-class nuclear powered aircraft carrier. You could slash our defense budget in half, and we would still be spending more on our military industrial complex than the next 4 countries combined (China, United Kingdom, France, and Russia are the next on the list, for those curious). And suddenly, you have an additional $360 billion dollars that could be put towards things that actually matter. Things like health care (and I mean real health care, not that weak-ass bullshit that they passed and tried to pat themselves on the back for), educational reforms, infrastructor repair and upgrades, clean energy...But no. We continue to elect people that would rather build another bomb or missile than build 4 or 5 schools with the same amount of money.
And the reason why is because our politicians are bought. Lock, stock and greedy little barrel, special interests snap their fingers and our supposed representatives trip over themselves trying to get in line to curry favor. Take the oil industry for instance. In the wake of the largest environmental disaster in American history, plus the greatest economic disaster since the Great Depression, the oil and gas industries continued to post record breaking profit reports each quarter. Gas locally is hovering around the $2.80 - $2.90/gallon range, companies like Exxon, BP and Chevron are making quarterly profits in the billions...and they are still recieving government substities put in place after World War 2 that have never been removed. So we as tax-payers are giving money to the companies that fuck us over each time we go to the pumps. And no one in Washington or any of the states will say anything because the oil companies are one of the largest if not the largest contributor to politics.
I have more I want to rant about, but it's late and I need to get to bed. So I'll finish up later.
Anyway, the big news of the day of course is that today was election day. Halla-fucking-lluaha, that means the TV and radio waves will go back to the usual level of innane and mind-numbing drivel instead of being filled with all this garbage masquerading as campaign ads. The sheer absurdity when you stop and consider now many millions upon millions of dollars are spent on campaign ads nationally in an election cycle is enough to make you want to pull your hair out.
The Chamber of Commerce, for example, was reportedly spending $1million per day for a full month on campaign ads. So that's $30 million spent in 20-second intervals in a month's time. Can you imagine just how much good could be done with $30 million dollars? I looked up the tuition rate for the top rated school in the US, which is Harvard. According to a report in the US News, the 2010-2011 price for tuition and fees per student is $38,416.
I don't know if that includes room and board as well as books, but we will assume that it does since it says "tuition and fees". Now, if people instead donated their money towards creating a scholarship program rather than giving it to the Chamber of Commerce to fund attack ads, that would provide a complete 4-year scholarship to 780 students. And they have been running campaign ads for how many months now?
This is why our education system has gone downhill. Many famous scientists have coined it a "brain drain" and the reason is that no one in public office wants to give education the proper funding. They would rather spend $720 billion on the Department of Defense, while giving only $50 billion to the Department of Education. They spend $560 million per Abrams tank, or $4.5 billion per Nimitz-class nuclear powered aircraft carrier. You could slash our defense budget in half, and we would still be spending more on our military industrial complex than the next 4 countries combined (China, United Kingdom, France, and Russia are the next on the list, for those curious). And suddenly, you have an additional $360 billion dollars that could be put towards things that actually matter. Things like health care (and I mean real health care, not that weak-ass bullshit that they passed and tried to pat themselves on the back for), educational reforms, infrastructor repair and upgrades, clean energy...But no. We continue to elect people that would rather build another bomb or missile than build 4 or 5 schools with the same amount of money.
And the reason why is because our politicians are bought. Lock, stock and greedy little barrel, special interests snap their fingers and our supposed representatives trip over themselves trying to get in line to curry favor. Take the oil industry for instance. In the wake of the largest environmental disaster in American history, plus the greatest economic disaster since the Great Depression, the oil and gas industries continued to post record breaking profit reports each quarter. Gas locally is hovering around the $2.80 - $2.90/gallon range, companies like Exxon, BP and Chevron are making quarterly profits in the billions...and they are still recieving government substities put in place after World War 2 that have never been removed. So we as tax-payers are giving money to the companies that fuck us over each time we go to the pumps. And no one in Washington or any of the states will say anything because the oil companies are one of the largest if not the largest contributor to politics.
I have more I want to rant about, but it's late and I need to get to bed. So I'll finish up later.