inherently different

Archive for April, 2007

I was reading one of my favorite bloggers… Frankly Speaking, and he, being the good Republican patriot, was railing against the many people who support the bill being pass around washington of late… a bill providing new war funds while setting a timeline for the withdrawal of all U.S. combat troops from Iraq. In essence, it is a fund being created to pay for a timely withrdrawl from Iraq.

Now I love Frank to death… the guy pulls no punches and believes strongly in God and Country. He may think more often with his heart than his head, but that doesn’t make him wrong. It just makes him much more human than a lot of people I tend to run with. We differ on just about all topics to some degree, but that doesn’t mean I can’t truly appreciate Frank for what he brings to the table. He has long supported both the Bush presidency and the war against terror and the war in Iraq (I separate them because they are not the same thing… one is justified and a direct result of 9/11 and the other isn’t justifiable or a direct result of 9/11). Let me first say that I really don’t have a problem with the war in Iraq. Even the way the US managed to start the war doesn’t really bother me… bigger lies have been told throughout time. I don’t even mind the fact that the bush presidency has driven a wedge so firmly between the American people, that the population of the United States is aguably more divided now than at any time during the civil war…

No, the only real thing that bothers me about the war is that the money being spent will saddle future generations with a tab so high, it may never recover. As it stands, China could call in its markers and bankrupt the US treasury in a New York Minute. Does this sound like sound economic planning? Let’s break it down for the slow kids. I am a bottom line kind of guy.

Cost of the war so far: (estimate) $420,308,950,134 (and that number grows by about $200 million per day)

But what do we measure it against? Since there isn’t a readily tangible benchmark that illustrates the success or the failure of the war machine, we have to choose something that is more easily proven, or verified at least… enemy kills. For the sake of this piece though, I am not distinguishing between “good” iraqis and “bad” iraqis, or really even “iraqis” since at this point a good number of the people actually dying IN COMBAT are probably not even Iraqi… (thats just how good this war is! So much fun, neighboring enemies are jumping into the fray!) So, all kills are considered… If I didn’t and only used the numbers of provable enemy combatant kills, the numbers would just be much much worse. So.. total number of “Iraqis” killed in the war by direct contact with the US military…

Number of Iraqis (arguable) Killed: (estimate) Low 62417, High 68428

Cost per kill: (estimate) $6,733,885.80

Think about that for a second… let that number roll around in your head for a bit… like a fine wine, it can’t be appreciated if you rush it. Granted, my math is simple, it uses numbers readily available on the Internet and as such, they may be grossly inflated or grossly under-estimated, but still… if we allow for a swing of +/- $2 million, the numbers are still staggering. Everything to me is based on Return of Investment. If I invest x into z, I want my return to be vastly higher if not at least break even… right, aren’t we all like that? Don’t we want to see that the money we spend is being spent responsibly and that we are assured of getting value for value? So, if we view the war as something that can be “won” either by a announcement of surrender by enemy combatants or by killing ALL the enemy until there are no shots fired, the cost of the war can be summed up simply as costing roughly $7 million per kill… so far. So to anyone who thinks the war is not only justified, but worth it… please stop whatever you are doing and enroll in a consumer math class at your local high school.

Ahhh, Alec Baldwin has a set of brass balls on him. No, not for berating his pre-teen daughter in a voice mail message. But for doing something so freaking brutally honest and not thinking that it would get out to the media.

Before I get to the meat of the matter, let me first say that talking to children when you are upset is not always the best course of action. Even if your intentions are in the right place (reprimanding your child to ensure there is no repeat of bad behavior), you will always say things you may regret. The whole “pig” accusation was a bit over the top, especially in a world that covets beauty and weight. But the message was still valid. If he is to be believed, and I don’t see why he shouldn’t be, the child was mind-fucking him at a time where he is being manipulated by his ex wife.

We can’t possibly know how difficult the road has been for Alec during the divorce and custody litigation. The justice system, especially family and divorce courts, lean heavily toward mothers. As such, these courts tend to err on the side of caution and side with the mother in all but the most extreme cases. From what I have read, Basinger has pulled out all the stops in an effort to totally ruin her ex-husband. Whether that is justified or not, once you pull your children into the battle to destroy your ex, you lose any and all sympathy with me (having gone through that with my parents, I know there are no winners in that war… just shattered, empty shells of the people you were and could have been). It isn’t clear who leaked that message, but I am gonna go out on a limb and say it wasn’t Alec and probably not his daughter… which leave Basinger and her lawyer. If that is the case, then she willfully released evidence of a closed-court case, thereby committing a criminal act. And keep in mind, this wasn’t done to protect the child, this was done to humiliate the subject of her ire. Whatever Baldwin did to Basinger, nothing justifies using your children to get back at your ex.

As far as the content of Alec’s message to his daughter, I don’t think it was all that bad… I mean, granted, my experiences with my mother make that message seem like a love note in comparison. Aside from the language, his message was in essence, “Hey, look, you have forced me to work within your schedule and now that I have, you still think so little of me that you don’t even bother to meet up to your obligations and that is a sign of disrespect that I cannot abide!”

Is that so wrong? To teach your children that their are repercussions to even the most trivial actions? It may not have been the most kindly worded lesson, but I would hope that everyone took something from the experience. But on a scale of 1-10, 10 being the most honest, I would give Alec’s performance a 10.

Proving my point about IQ is the guy in my comments from the previous post. He can’t read, yet he thinks he should be able to own a gun… tsk tsk. It is people like this winner that make it difficult to have a differing viewpoint… not because we disagree, but because they can’t be bothered to actually read content… This winner is now on ignore… he can comment all he wants, but until he gets a literate adult to read him what I write before he comments, I won’t respond to this “genius.”

But if Frank cares to reply, I will be happy to discuss our differing viewpoints as always… and Frank, perhaps you should institute an IQ test for your blog… I may not pass it, but at least I won’t ever again draw the ire of a complete retard who likes cooking, tractors and illiteracy.

EDIT: I couldn’t resist mentioning his animal sex fetish… ok, now i am done.

I won’t comment on the VT shootings. What I can say on the subject won’t ease the pain nor offer solutions on how to prevent such tragedies from occurring in the future. I don’t believe gun control laws would prevent someone from killing large groups of people if they are intent on doing so, just like I don’t believe allowing concealed weapons on campus would have prevented it either (in fact, I think the death toll would have likely been higher… simple math, more guns, more bullets, more likelihood that strays and ricochets find an innocent bystander).

I commented on a post Frank wrote on his blog about VT. Here is what I wrote:

I don’t believe there is anything wrong with owning guns… they are a hobby, albeit a dangerous one.

The problem in the US isn’t the readily available weapons, but the ignorant people who use them to force their will on others. Criminals, militants, etc. If the government said, “You want to own a gun? You must first pass this IQ test!” I seriously doubt the problems that are normally attributed to a lack of gun control would ever take place.

Guns don’t kill people… ignorant people kill people. If I had to guess, I would say the average IQ of a gun owner hovers in the low 80s. Not stupid, but not exactly the top ten percent of the countries intelligencia.

Frank, quite obviously, took offense to my comments. His stance was that I was offending gun owners, perhaps going as far as to think I believe all gun owners are morons. Of course, I don’t believe they are morons. A moron has an IQ of roughly 51-70 and is a step up from “imbecile” (IQ of 26-50) and two steps up from “idiot” (IQ of 0-25). I admit I posted a number (the low 80s) based on nothing more than a personal experience with gun owners. Clearly, if my math is accurate, and that math is based on numbers that I was able to dig up, the average gun owner has an IQ of roughly 92. Clearly my original estimate was off by as much as 12 points (given low 80s would mean an IQ of 80-85). But still, the average of 92 is still lower than the national average of 98. How did I arrive at this number? Keep in mind that this is by NO MEANS a scientific study on the correlation between IQ and gun ownership. I made a generalization and I am using available data to substantiate my belief. Don’t get bent all out of shape or you will force me to postulate that people with low IQs also have a low sense of humor.

Well, first we try to get an idea of the average IQ of each state population. I used the information gathered here.

Then we try to get an idea of where gun owners live. Based on available data, in 1994, 44 million Americans owned 192 million firearms, 65 million of which were handguns. Although there were enough guns to have provided every U.S. adult with one, only 25 percent of adults actually owned firearms; 74 percent of gun owners possessed two or more. Thirty percent of all handgun owners had an unlocked, loaded handgun in the house at the time of the survey.
I got my numbers here.

Upon studying that piece of information, I surmised that a preponderance of gun owners (not all, but on the average, MORE) live in southern states. This is arguable, but for the sake of this piece, we will take it on merit that it is RELATIVELY ACCURATE. So, if this is relatively true, and more gun owners live in southern states than they do in northern states, then we can begin to harvest data for how I arrived at my belief.

Based on the information, southern states had the following IQ statistics on average:

State                              Avg IQ
Florida                              98
Missouri                            98
Tennessee                         94
North Carolina                   93
West Virginia                     93
Arkansas                           92
Georgia                              92
Kentucky                            92
New Mexico                       92
Texas                                  92
Alabama                              90
Louisiana                             90
South Carolina                     89
Mississippi                           85

14 states with an average IQ of 92 (add up all the averages–1290– and divide by the number of states–14– and arrive at the average IQ for those states). Again, not scientific, but close enough to shoot in the head with a handgun.

So, if the average IQ of those states is 92, then we can postulate that the average IQ of gun owners in those states is commensurate with those statistics. If those statistics are fairly accurate, you can then, with a reasonable level of accuracy, further postulate that the national average of gun owners across the US is around the same. Not science, but at least enough to begin a discussion on whether or not gun owners are the smartest tools in the shed. Clearly, my original statement, “Not stupid, but not exactly the top ten percent of the countries intelligencia,” isn’t as offensive as one may think.

We can further explore the IQ by addressing certain facts about gun owners in general. In a survey of 800 gun owners, more than 20 percent reported keeping a firearm both loaded and unlocked in the home. Smart? Arguable.

I honestly do not believe gun laws will change the American gun culture. Our culture was built on violence on every level of our history and as such, it isn’t something that is easily forgotten or abandoned. The right to bear arms is a fundamental right that shouldn’t ever be curtailed, but the fact that we are quicker on the draw than other countries belies a much deeper problem than just a lack of intelligence on the part of gun owners. We glamorize guns and the culture of violence and until we stop doing that, guns and violence will continue to be accepted as just a part of being American.

So, to Frank I apologize if all you got from my comment was that gun owners are dumber than the rest of the population. A lot of times the way I communicate my ideas tends to overshadow the content of my ideas. If you ignore everything else, and focus instead on this perceived slight to you as a gun owner, then you are clearly missing the point. My point was that most gun owners (and here the stats at least partly justify my beliefs) are not the brightest bulbs in the box and allowing them to make decisions for rational human beings isn’t exactly the safest bet.

The fact that guns are available has nothing to do with crime. Just as having a gun for protection is NOT insurance against having a crime committed against you. Their is no correlation between any of these ideas. I would imagine that comic book evil geniuses nonwithstanding, most criminals are on the lower end of the IQ bar. Yet, they are still able to get guns. And if you think having stricter gun controls will prevent them from getting guns, you are clearly not very bright either.

I have a bad case of reef rash. I would post a picture, but it isn’t pretty. It looks like raw hamburger that has been left in the sun.

How did I get it? My shoulder scraped a reef and what would normally be a simple, small scrape, healing in a few days, has become a war of attrition between the white blood cells responsible for attacking foreign bodies in my system and the persistant nematocytes that coral use to protect themselves. So far, the nematocytes are winning and my shoulder, while the scrape itself is almost free of scabbing, is still angry and red.

If you have never had reef rash, I think you should run out to your nearest salt water aquarium, break off a piece of live coral and run it up and down your arm as forcefully as possible. You know, just for the sake of experience and science. We can be reef rash buddies!

Jason Whitlock is a sports writer for the Kansas City Star Telegram, but he was also a prominent fixture on ESPN.com and ESPN televsion for the last five or so years. He speaks often about a variety of topics as they relate to sports, but frequently, race has become a big part of his platform. Recently when Don Imus made his remarks about Rutger’s women’s basketball team (called them nappy head hos to be exact), Whitlock took little notice because he knew the guy was an idiot and left it at that after Imus apologized. But then Vivian Stringer, the Rutger’s coach, hosted a press conference and Whitlock came out firing. Personally, I read Whitlock regularly, at first on ESPN, but then directly in the Kansas City Star once he left ESPN.com for AOL Sports. The guy is not only whip smart, but among the most rational, level-headed sports journalists out there. The guy runs rings around the other hacks on ESPN on both cultural and athletic topics.

Whitlock believes, as I and a lot of other folks do, that hip hop culture has long been the aspect of the black experience that has prevented true economic and cultural equality. It presents black americans as simply thugs looking to pimp and ho for bling… of course, that is 5% of the black population setting the table for the other 95%. It is ridiculous to think that glorifying gangsta or thug life is elevating the culture, but there are some people who do believe that and we as a society are the worse for it.

Whitlock once said in an interview:

What’s even more dangerous, the Ignorant 5 are telling black kids, “It’s cool to be locked up. It makes a man out of you. And don’t embrace education. Dealing dope and playing basketball are better career choices.” The Ignorant 5 is the new KKK and twice as deadly. That�s why you don’t hear ’bout the KKK anymore. The Klan is just sitting back letting 50 Cent and all the other bojanglers do all the heavy lifting.

He is amazingly perceptive and unfortunately he is constantly being maligned by people who want to obscure the issues simply because it goes counter to their agenda.

Thanks to Frank for reminding me how cool Whitlock is.

As you can see, this is a new site and a whole new publishing system. I am going to put all the proverbial eggs in one basket so to speak and make one site that holds all the varied activities I enjoy participating in.

This obviously is the blog, but inherentlydifferent.com also holds my photographs, mp3 files, and anything that I decide to dabble in.

Get ready to rock, because I am no longer going to censor myself.

You know what crushes my nuts in the vice of life? Elitists. Doesn’t matter what kind or what discipline… anyone who knocks anything (and here I am knocking something so the irony is not lost on me) that they feel is beneath them down is an elitist. I began my unrequited hate of elitists around the time I entered college… in case you didn’t know, I attended an art college.

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