Randomness

Well. It's been awhile since I posted, and for that I'm (sort of) sorry. Life has been nuts for me. ^.^ My mom and I attended a Students for Liberty conference in Austin, Texas on the 6th, which was awesome...except for the eight-hour drive to get there. Thank God for iPods and big books. (In addition, I'm participating in NaNoWriMo, and planning for another missions trip next year...and trying to raise money....but that's a whole 'nother subject, and we won't go into it.)

In any case, I figured I'd be a good blog author and post some stuff, just because I think that would help make my blog more interesting...and stuff.

The Pentagon has decided that repealing DADT would do practically nothing to the nature of our conflicts overseas and the makeup of the military. Really now? How surprising. Imagine that..."people are people, no matter how..." uh.... "strange." There we go. There are some pretty strange people in the world, let me tell you. Anyway, I don't think this study comes as a surprise to much of anybody except people who think gays are a literal abomination and that they should all be railroaded out of the military, along with Muslims.

In other news, a couple people in Washington are beginning to see that, hey, if we want to cut spending...we're going to have to give up some stuff! Like, we might have to stop handing out money like it grows on trees, or something. Huh, imagine that. That's...weird. I'm wondering when more people will catch onto the truth that we're not going to be able to have a utopia where we spend tons of money and reduce the deficit. Sorry, folks, it doesn't work that way. So, future retirees, buckle up and start saving money, because you're going to need it if you want to retire. Kids, save for college. Single mothers, find a good guy and settle down. Because this isn't going to be pretty, and people are going to be hurt in the short term. Loss and having to live a less exorbitant lifestyle sometimes is part of life. Get used to it.

However- and this is a big however- it would be far better to both cut $200 billion (or more) from our budget....but not increase taxes and "squeeze" an extra $100 billion out of Americans. Because people aren't going to like it. It's not going to go over well. "Yeah, we're cutting spending...but we need more money to do it!"

....Right.

My favorite quote of this whole article? "It would stabilize borrowing within the next three years, balance the budget by 2040 and bring the debt more in line with historical norms."

We're going to stabilize borrowing. Not stop borrowing. Stabilize it. Yeah. We're going to stabilize the Titanic after that.

Oh, and don't forget this one: "Spending cuts outweigh revenue increases by about three to one, a ratio Sen. Richard J. Durbin (Ill.), the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate, called lopsided."

Wait. Isn't that...the point? That...you don't have enough revenue. So you're cutting spending. Yeah. Wouldn't that be sort of the purpose of this venture?

Well, there you go. Your daily spurt of cynicism.

In other news, today is Veteran's Day! In the spirit of the holiday, I thought I'd copy my Facebook status from this morning relating to it:

A thank-you to all our veterans. Your sacrifice is appreciated, even if our politicians are dingbats and have put you (and are putting the current generation) in unnecessary danger.