I’d like to hear a rational argument against healthcare reform

Unless you have been living under a rock for the past week or so you are surely aware of the passage of the vaunted healthcare bill. Equally prominent in this debate is the response from conservatives, fueled by such “amazing leaders” as Sarah Palin. Throngs of angry tea-partiers recently flocked to tiny Searchlight, Nevada, home of Senate Majority leader Harry Ried in an act of protest. My question for them is, what are they protesting against?

What these protestors don’t seem to realize is that this bill does not hurt them in the slightest. All it does, in effect, is take some of the power away from the insurance companies so they can’t drop you once you get sick or deny you coverage for a preexisting condition. What these protestors are speaking out against is a bill that is a shadow of its former self. America has the most inefficient healthcare system on the planet, and this bill won’t fix it, but it is a step in he right direction.

What we should be working towards is a system like Canada‘s, a government run plan. However, change that productive will be precluded by so much political red tape that it won’t get passed in the foreseeable future. But at least we got something….

Healthcare got Passed!!!

xD for healthcare!  Its still not as good as it could have been, but at least it got passed!  I’m not going to analyze this right now, I’m just emoting my excitment!

Texas School Board Approves Radical Curriculum Changes

Texas: the state in which 23% of the citizens believe that Obama is a secret communist.  If that doesn’t make you feel unsettled, I hope that the following blog/wall-o-text rant will.  The mega-conservative Texas Board of Education just approved new changes to the curriculum that will change the way that history class is taught.  Among the most radical changes:  Thomas Jefferson will no longer be in the curriculum (replaced by religious leader John Calvin), Reagan will be taught in-depth, McCarthyism and the Red Scare will sound justified, and the “Conservative resurgance of the 80′s and 90′s” will be covered, leaving out studies of Liberal or minority groups.  The omissions: Hip-Hop and sexuality will no longer be cited as cultural movements, the students will not be taught of the seperation of church and state or that the constitution prevents the government from promoting one religion over all others, and a refusal to acknowledge that Tejanos were among those that died defending the Alamo.

I shouldn’t have to break this down for you to form this conclusion: the Texas Board of Education has completely and utterly lost its mind!  Thomas Jefferson, our founding father, our 3rd President, is being replaced by some religious nutcase from France?!  Did they have some problem with the fact that he supported Dieism and challenged the existence of a God?  So now instead of free thought, they’ll be getting Calvinism and Christianity shoved down their throats!  These changes will be churning out evangelical, theocratic religious crazies by the hundreds!  This kind of censorship is exactly what the founding fathers came to America to avoid. Now our religious freedom is being challenged and the principles of the 1st amendment are being trampled!  All of these changes conviently leave out any viewpoint other than the conservative one.  On a particularly ironic note, the bit in this proposal about the promoting of the glories of McCarthyism seems kind of ironic, doesn’t it?  They talk of the evils of Communism and they’re the ones censoring books.  Before you know it, this kind of thing will infect the other states of the deep south, and may somehow creep elsewhere.  Will this cause a theocratic resurgance if this truly comes to pass in a big way?  Probably, and I sorely hope that it doesn’t adversly effect our nation.

Leaving out Hip-Hop and sexuality as major cultual movements is simply denying reality.  These kind of uber-conservates think that they can hide in their world of religion and faith, and all of these so called “evil” movements will just go away.  They’d rather push away those of other faiths and beliefs, and those who don’t conform to their religious ideal of a “good person”, and not let all of our wonderful differences unite us.  If you agree with what the Texas Board of Education has done, I beg you, open your hearts to those around you and open your minds to reality.  In a country as diverse as the USA, you must embrace those different than you; praying to God won’t make it go away.

I sorely hope that all of you reading this will be inspired to speak out against this atrocity as I have been.  I’m done ranting (for now).  KC98, out.

Why James Cameron’s “Avatar” sucked

About a month or so ago, I saw Avatar.  This movie was supposed to be one of the greatest movies of all time, a movie that would “redifine movie making forever”.  I thought just the opposite.

First off, Avatar is completely mindless.  The story is painfully simplistic, revolving around a simple “Army bad, Na’vi good” formula with no ambiguity on the topic whatsoever.  The 3 or 4 protaginists are the only humans who aren’t portrayed as mindless, evil drones.  The Na’vi (the indiginous inhabitants of the planet “Pandora” where the movie takes place) bear a none-too-suttle resembelance to the Indians of North America.  The story isn’t worth explaining in full, but basically, its the battle of Little Bighorn except this time, the Indians win.  The ending is perhaps the biggest copout, none of the protaginists die execpt for Sigourney Weaver’s character (who was minor at best).  You would think that the director who let Jack die at the end of “Titanic” might make a movie with a little less predictable of an ending.

I will grant “Avatar” that it does look good, but all it comes out in being a cacophony of explosions and sexuality.  If those are the reasons for which you watch these kinds of movies, why don’t you go for the best of both worlds and buy firecrackers and porn?  I don’t really mind the tree-hugging message of the movie, but it hardly adds to it.

I put this movie in the same abysmal class as Transformers 2.  The movie can’t accomplish anthing beyond looking good.  This movie didn’t revolutionize movie making, it set it back.