Finally Americans addressing the real problem of Tradition!

I’ve long had a problem with the answer of because tradition to the question of why we do something that’s clearly not working. For me, this response is only good for anyone who is making money off of said tradition. Weather it’s political or religious tradition, it only seems to exist because of the rich and powerful who want to keep hold to said power. Along with the rumblings of a coming civil war in the USA, I’m beginning to feel like a revolution is about to take place and perhaps worldwide.

Texas Paul is tired of the religious hate mail and his response is perfection!

As an atheist, I really appreciate the way this man broke down the subjects here. Even if you’re a religious person, I think you’ll have a tough time picking this apart. Not every person from Texas is a republican who wants to take away your rights, ladies and gentlemen and Texas Paul is living proof of that. Using a white board, a’la Katie Porter ,he lists all of the main issues that the two sides can’t find common ground upon and then figures out which side Jesus would be on and which side is more Satan. I didn’t even mind suspending my disbelief for this. I invite you to share this video with your religious friends and family . Although, I warn you that this makes sense.

Boxing fans should be paying attention to the news. Putin should put up or shut up.

So, if you’ve been with me since March of 2012,you might recall a post I wrote entitled the sweet science in which I confess my love of heavyweight boxing. This post includes an image that is very interesting today, politically.

As I’m sure you know, Russia has attacked Ukraine. And as I found out this morning that the mayor of the largest city in the Ukraine, Kiev is someone known to me, in Canada as one of the world’s best heavyweight title holders. Ironically, I was recently wondering what ever happened to the Klitschko Brothers and it turns out that one of them is the mayor of Kiev. Here he is in his official mayoral portrait,

Vitali Klitschko

And here he is with his brother as I very fondly remember them

If we could choose the ones doing the fighting. Klitschko vs Putin is a fight I’d pay to see. Man to man. Gloves off!

AOC being my spirit animal for 2 minutes and 9 seconds.

Put up or shut up. The best war ever.

Liberal MP Trudeau and Conservative Senator Brazeau fight during their charity boxing match in Ottawa

Canadian Members of Parliament, Justin Trudeau and Patrick Brazeau boxing for charity.

Someone once suggested that, instead of sending young men and women to war, we should round up all of the world leaders, put them in a field somewhere and let them duke it out among themselves. Sadly, this suggestion, while a good one, won’t solve the issue that war is profitable. The above photo is from a boxing match that took place last year between Canadian MPs Justin Trudeau and Patrick Brazeau. This match raised $230,000 for Ottawa Regional Cancer Foundation. If this kind of cash can be raised with just one local match lasting just 2 and a half rounds that didn’t even air on pay per view, imagine how much could be earned by a world leader boxing tournament.

We could separate the world into 4 quadrants, using the equator and the International date line as our lines in the sand. Each quadrant would have their leaders fight each other until there were two winning fighters left, then both leaders would enter the quarter final round, boxing the winning rulers from other quadrants until there were just 4 heads of state left to enter the semi finals, then the winning 2 would fight each other in the final match for all the marbles. The United Nations could oversee the matches and negotiate the terms that each match would be fought over… free trade, oil etc. I can just see Don King salivating at the thought of all those dollar signs.

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Putin the Punisher.

I would pay big bucks to see Vladimir Putin taking on Recep Tayyip Erdoğan of Turkey or Angela Merkel taking the piss out of David Cameron. In North America, it would be a tough call for the Vegas odds makers between Barack Obama, Steven Harper (the commonwealth countries would have to put up their heads of government, though it would be funny to see the Queen in the ring with her crown and knighting sword!) and the young Mexican president, Enrique Peña Nieto. Every country would participate, except, of course, Switzerland, who would get an automatic bye.

Of course, we’d need an undercard. What better way to whet our appetites than to have the religious leaders of the world (aka the other war mongers) beat each other senseless?

I would be glued to my sofa to see this guy,

DalaiLamamad

pounding on this guy.

popemad

The election of a new Pope would sure be a different proposition if he had to put up his dukes.

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Terry Crews as the American President in the movie Idiocracy

This might really separate the cowards who hide behind 18 year old kids, doing their dirty work for them from the real leaders who are willing to get punched in the face for their convictions. Unfortunately, we would likely end up with a world akin to the one in the movie, Idiocracy where we elect the strongest and not the smartest, although its not like the smartest are in power now, so maybe it wouldn’t be so different after all.

The Harder They Fall

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Nero fiddles while Rome burns

It seems that whenever people talk about a fallen empire, they invariably discuss the fall of the Holy Roman empire, but there have been a plethora of fallen empires throughout history and they all share a common thread. It has been said that Pride goeth before a fall, but it is not only pride, or even arrogance that preceded the fall of some of the world’s most powerful empires. The real culprit is a different deadly sin… greed.

A lot has been made of late about income inequality and for good reason. When the haves, who make up less than 1 percent of the population of a country, own more than 90 percent of a country’s wealth and the vast majority are the have-nots, who share the last few percentage points, the fall of that country is not far off. The masses will only put up with so much before there is a revolution, just look at the French Revolution (what happens when you have a pair of entitled 15 year olds ruling a country), or more recently the Arab Spring. Whether it’s a royal aristocracy, a dictatorship or capitalism run amok that keeps the people down, it is only a matter of time until the people will realize that all they need to do is band together and revolt in order to stop the madness.

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Mmmm Cake!

Sir Edmund Burke once said, “Those who do not know history’s mistakes are doomed to repeat them.” He was right. It’s easy to look back at the causes of the declines and falls of each and every former empire and make direct comparisons to current world powers. The writing is on the wall. It is not enough to make sure that the have-nots have almost enough to live on and dangle the carrot of a lottery win, a singing career, a reality show or a game show as hope that they too can become rich. There are only so many times that a shiny object (celebrity) can be used to distract the people from the erosion of their rights. A country must provide more than just welfare and food stamps for its poor. It’s not just the impoverished, though. If a country has successfully eroded away its middle class, by union busting and outsourcing jobs to other countries, all in the name of saving a buck, they have then joined the middle class (which should be more populous than the poverty-stricken) with the poor, thereby strengthening their numbers and making themselves that many more new enemies.

China used to be a powerful empire and is the only country that actually has a chance, and a good chance, at that, of becoming a powerful empire for a second time. This time, they are building their economy by educating their children in fields like technology, science and agriculture. They are studying the success and failures of other countries and learning from them. They are buying the debt of countries that have a lot of unpopulated land, as they are quickly running out of land of their own. They are forward thinking, all the while looking to the past.

Thanks to global warming (or climate change) Russia is poised for power as well. It wasn’t that long ago (1917) that the Russian Revolution happened and Putin is ruling like he has never heard of it. The arctic will be a major resource in the coming decades and Russia owns the lion’s share of the region. It is imperative that they have a forward thinking party in power and soon if they want to be a major player in the near future.

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 Canadians; apologizing our way to the top.

There is a country that is on the threshold of becoming a world power player for the first time for much the same reason. The country that owns the second largest share of the arctic, Canada. Yes, quiet, polite Canada with our wealth of natural resources and our vast amounts of unpopulated land, really could be a super-power in the, not so distant, future, if we play our cards right. When it comes to social issues like healthcare and human rights, Canada is on the forefront. Canada is one of the best countries in which to live if you are a minority or a woman. The quality of our education system is excellent and not so overpriced that only the wealthy can access it. Yes, Canada is indeed a great place to live, which is why as we look forward by protecting our arctic land, we must also look around, like the Chinese are doing, at the successes and failures of others, both past and present and learn from them, so it will continue to be that great place to live. We do not want to see our rights eroded due to complacency on the part of the voting public. It is important that the people of Canada keep a watchful eye on our elected officials, so that they continue to act in our best interests and not succumb to the one thing that will spell our downfall… greed.

Can’t win for losing

melissa-nelson-cnnMelissa Nelson

This week brought us two seemingly different, yet surprisingly similar, court cases involving women. The first case is from south of the border in Iowa where a dental hygienist named Melissa Nelson was fired for being so attractive that her boss couldn’t trust himself around her. She did the only thing she could do. She sued on grounds of gender discrimination and the all male Iowa supreme court sided with her boss. Apparently it’s entirely understandable that her hornier than thou boss fired a long time employee and married mother of 2, who, from all accounts, he was in no danger of sleeping with, rather than act like a professional and keep his pants zipped. Sadly, the boss’s wife also plays a major role in this drama. When she found out that the dentist and his hygienist had sent text messages to each other, she demanded that Melissa be fired. I have news for you, lady. If he can’t be trusted around one woman, he can’t be trusted around any of them. And just exactly what does he mean that he couldn’t trust himself around his employee, who, by the way, had worked for him for 10 years? Does he mean that he can’t help but flirt with her? Or perhaps he means he can’t help but verbally harass her. Or maybe he means that, even if she says no, he won’t be able to stop himself from having sex with her. So this woman, who had done nothing wrong, gets fired because nobody bothered to consider that she actually had a say in who she decided to sleep with… or, in this case, not sleep with.

Then there was a case from this side of the 49th parallel where a Muslim woman wanted to testify while wearing a niqab.

Nahla Hashad N.S., a woman who wants to testify in court, while wearing her niqab.

The Supreme Court of Canada released their decidedly ambiguous ruling last week, basically saying whether or not a niqab would be allowed in court would be decided on a case by case basis. As a feminist, the niqab fills me with all sorts of anger. The niqab, is a garment used to cover the face of women (because the burqa didn’t cover enough) so that Muslim men are less likely to be distracted by a pesky erection in their daily lives. As much as I am entirely against the wearing of a niqab, in this case I find myself with mixed feelings. N.S. is charging her uncle and her cousin with sexual assault. She wants to wear her niqab in court. The lawyers for her attackers want her to have to remove it saying that they should be able to face their attacker in court. This seems to me to be purely a power move designed to stop N.S. from testifying. If she removes her niqab in a court room full of male strangers, she will be ostracized and humiliated by her community and branded a whore, which, to me, is basically akin to raping her all over again. Because the Supreme Court’s ruling passes the buck, N.S. might still have to remove her niqab.

There have been many countries who have banned the burqa and the niqab, including France, Belgium and even Syria. If the Canadian government had the balls to follow suit, instead of kowtow to a religion… a religion, whose text, I might add, does not say that a woman must cover her face, unless she is the wife of the Prophet, then this wouldn’t even be an issue. Even a Canadian Muslim group is calling for a ban.

So because these men won’t take responsibility for their own erect penises, two more women must pay the price.

Obsessed