The Benefits of Sitting on the Fence 

I've spent most of this week reading about GM food and immunization. The two topics are often in the news these days, and I've recently started reading more about them because my brain aches every time I log onto Facebook and read the endless inanity that haunts the worlds most intellectually vapid social networking site. Merely sticking the words "like" and "share" underneath a badly edited photograph seem to magically imbue an image with validity, and then lo and behold, something obviously wrong and factually ridiculous to all but the most slowed high-school student is plastered all over my wall by some enthusiastic sharer, and I am forced to gnash my teeth and berate people that alas, I once called friend. 

They teach you how to process this nonsense at a very young age In high-schools back in England. My teachers expertly displayed the power of propaganda to me at a very young age in fact, by showing my class an anti-abortion video in one lesson of Personal and Social Education, a mandatory hour long life lesson that we were forced to sit through each week because presumably many parents don't have the brains to teach their kids not to be idiots. After only ten minutes watching said video, I was indeed anti-abortion, because I was convinced that an 8 week old fetus was capable of defeating me in a game of Connect 4. Indeed, according to the video I had just seen, the unborn children of the UK were patiently sat inside the wombs of the nation reading novels and tapping their feet to the music on Mom's Ipod. 

Totally True Fetus at 6 weeks

Well, it was more of a battery devouring cassette player with headphones that weighed two kilos back in 1990, but you get the idea. 

A week later, the class was made to watch a different video, one that was aggressively pro-choice. I recall finding it somewhat amusing, because if you watched that video on its lonesome you could perhaps be forgiven for thinking that heading for an abortion was a pleasurable experience, and children are so devoid of life that any parent with a particularly moody teenager should be allowed to perform a retroactive abortion by legally drowning their kids in the bathtub before their eighteenth birthday. 

I'm not sure if they teach PSE these days, but it appears that the lesson has been entirely lost on today's youth. The message was an obvious one, and its painfully simple to put it into practice. 

If you see a picture of something on the internet, check the source. If there is no source, Google the "fact" and see for yourself. If you have never heard of the source, check that out as well. There are numerous well known groups and factions that are politically active today, and countless thousands of not well known ones. Obviously nobody can be expected to know them all, but here is a hint, if the groups title infers an obvious choice, then you should treat their message as suspect and take the time to check things out for yourself.

If you are capable of using a computer, you are capable of thinking for yourself. If a group is called something clearly inflammatory like "Gays Cause Hurricanes" or "Blacks and Jews Wreck Your Week" it should set some alarm bells ringing. The BBC is a pretty good source for news, but its still got a slant, so does the much maligned Daily Mail. Here's the rub though, Greenpeace don't sit on the fence either, neither does The Guardian, or groups called "If you don't recycle, you are practically a baby raper"  

Every publication is written by a fallible human being with a word processor, few of them will be as fallible as the writer of this particular blog, but the message is clear to anyone with even a basic understanding of how information works. Check the left, check the right, and then somewhere around the middle you will probably arrive at something like an answer, because everybody is desperate to sway you to their cause.

If you spend half an hour reading about either of the aforementioned topics, its painfully obvious that there is a sensible answer to both, so long as you are even remotely impartial about things. Choosing whether or not to have a termination is a painful decision, often a heartbreaking one, and always a difficult one, but there are a plethora of experts and scientists that have decided that a fetus is incapable of feeling or knowing anything at all before 20 weeks. Smarter people than you or I have decided such a thing, and funny thing, I like to ask an expert. Just because you have an opinion, it doesn't make it a valid one. 

I often point this out when I am being lectured about science by a scientific illiterate. Would you ask your dentist for psychiatric advice? If the flush isn't working in your bathroom, do you toss the plumbers number away and demand that the gardener take a look at it? How about asking the guy in Starbucks how to fix the gear box on your 1975 Austin Allegro? 

If in every single aspect of your life you are more than happy to follow the advice of those in the know, why would you allow your emotions to cloud your judgement and cause you to make absurd decisions on really important decisions, such as the health of your kids or your own personal well-being? This principal can be applied to almost all of the big issues of the day. 

Why not ask a geologist about fracking? Why not ask a General what he thinks of the war in Afghanistan? Why not ask a seismologist when he thinks "the big one" is going to hit California? 

The Facebook generation seems to think that all of the above is bad advice, and they should take all of their advice on myriad complex and confusing topics from people that are charismatic but entirely ignorant of the subject in question. I saw a guy talking about how 9/11 was an inside job which was actually carried out by Freemason affiliated Muslim Ninja's who secretly love George W. Bush even though he gave billions of dollars to Israel. He wasn't a world renowned scholar with long experience in economics and geopolitics though, he was a hippy with a loud shirt and a matted beard, and I'm pretty sure he was giving the interview in his mothers basement. 

To sum up, please don't listen to me, I may well have been typing in jest, but that is the pivotal point. Don't listen to anybody. Read several different sources from across the political spectrum and then sit down in solitude and make your own mind up. If you think you may be leaning unfairly in one direction, perhaps take a moment to ask yourself why. Nothing is black and white in reality, and almost everything is more complicated than it first appears if you take the time to learn about it. And remember, sitting on the fence can be boring and thankless, but it beats jumping down and putting your foot in dog-shit.

Oh and for the record, I eat GM food because I ate it for two decades before all this fuss started and It didn't seem to do me any harm, I will Immunize my kids, and I will always allow my missus to make her own decisions when it comes to her ovaries regardless of my feelings on the matter.

They are her ovaries after all...  

UK military cuts mean 'no US partnership', warns Robert Gates

One of the standout headlines on the BBC website today was a piece airing the views of Robert Gates, a former secretary of defence for the United States. Mr Gates says that because he "laments" American defence cuts, he also has concern for the cuts currently being directed towards the British armed forces. It may be a somewhat controversial thing to say in a nation that is so obsessed with having an overt military presence, but I find it difficult to be concerned about such a trifling issue.

Why is it a trifling issue? Well, lets look at the facts and figures. Currently the United Kingdom has the fourth largest military budget in the world, despite having the eighth largest economy. Britain spends more on the military than almost every nation on earth, and most amusingly, far more than all of the nations named as part of "the axis of evil" by George W Bush. Indeed, the combined military spending of the most belligerent states in the world today is still less than what the British spend on the armed forces, and I, along with many others, believe this sum is more than ample. 

Do the Dutch worry about their military spending? Do the happier, slimmer, fitter, more relaxed people of Austria, Switzerland, Denmark or New Zealand sit around worrying themselves silly about the fact that they can't muster a terrifying war host to barnstorm across the globe bringing flaming death to their perceived foes? 

Of course they don't. And according to the Mercer Quality of Living Survey from 2012, not one of the best cities to reside in on planet earth sits inside the borders of the militarily powerful nations of the earth.

And on a personal level, sit and think about it for a while, do you really care about how powerful the military of the nation who happen to inhabit is, as long as you are happy? Surely things like access to good jobs, health care, and schools, are far more important. As long as you and your children are prosperous, happy, healthy, and well educated, what does it matter if you can't drop napalm onto the heads of illiterate goat herding peasants halfway across the world? 

We don't live in the colonial era anymore, gone are the days of slavery and outright theft. Trade is the way of the modern world, and the easily available technology of the modern world is the ultimate force multiplier. As such, It has taken the world's only military hyperpower and her allies 13 years to fight the Taliban to a standstill, so where is all of this expenditure getting us? 

As long as your nation has enough military bite to police its own borders, and act as a deterrent to wantonly aggressive foreign powers, then the military of your nation is completely fit for purpose. As such, I believe that the United States could happily shave 20% from its military spending, scale back its operations accordingly, and still be fit for purpose, allowing American citizens to sleep safe in the knowledge that their nations military expenditure still more than trebles the spending of all of the nations combined which could be deemed to be even remotely hostile. 

So should the British Government carry on with military cuts despite the warnings of the esteemed Mr Gates? 

Of course it should.

Release those endorphins! ..... and those bowels. 

I had an amusing day at the gym recently when a random but very fit looking young man who appeared to be harbouring a secret desire to pummel an unsuspecting and slightly overweight member of the public into submission handed me an impromptu challenge.

 I had never seen the guy before in my life, but he stepped onto the treadmill next to mine in 24 Hour Fitness and wordlessly threw down the gauntlet. The whole affair started innocently enough as I stepped onto a free machine and began an easy loping run to warm up. Two minutes after stepping onto it however, a much taller, leaner, and frankly far more energetic looking young chap about 10 years my junior got onto the treadmill next to mine. Nothing strange about that, but he then proceeded to ape my movements speed identically, and when I sped things up a few minutes later copied the exact same speed and elevation of my machine. At this point I gave the dominant male to my left a quick questioning glance, and he inclined his head slightly towards me in a movement which seemed to wordlessly state "Now we must battle for ownership of the virile females in this building." 

Ten minutes later I had ramped things up and added another kilometre an hour to the speed, and my unnamed challenger proceeded to do the exact same ten seconds later, clearly the gloves were off. My would-be destroyer had ceased any pretence of coincidence, and this sudden and unexpected attack went on for another 30 minutes of soul crushing effort. Regardless of the settings I was choosing on what was supposed to be a relaxing run, my leaner, obviously fitter tormentor would match me on both speed and elevation. And so began an unspoken battle of wills, where neither man spoke, but both silently acknowledged they were savagely butting heads in a battle that first began when mankind's ancestors first crawled from the primordial ooze eons ago.

At the 40 minute mark I was running up a treadmill that was so savagely inclined it was like a rubber version of the steep side of K2, and I was smashing my feet so hard into the treadmill that my teeth were threatening to vibrate out of my skull, but still he pursued me. My shirt was so wet it looked like I had been blasted off my feet with a riot hose before entering the gym, and my already bushy eyebrows were proving inefficient at keeping the sweat from my painfully itchy eyeballs. At this point, heart hammering against my ribcage but unwilling to do the smart thing and concede, I attempted to send my mind to a better place, took my eyes off the timer, and grit my teeth against the pain. Approximately 4 and a half minutes later, with a strange tingling up my spine and an odd buzzing sound reverberating around my skull, my foe finally gave his head a slight shake, and then knocked 5 or 6 kilometres an hour off his own machine. I carried on as best I could, desperate to try and show that I was above such a childish display of machismo. Surely because he instigated the whole thing I could plead ignorance? I could simply pretend that I regularly went for a leisurely jog and proceeded to run at such a pace that my shins were blasted to bits and I thought I was going to defecate in my shorts?

It was no good however, and I was forced to knock the speed down to a brisk walk only 30 seconds after him as I had started to see stars blinking across my vision and feared losing consciousness at great speed. This would be less of an issue if we were running outside, because such an act here would see my vomit and blood soaked body thrown across the gym and into the free weights area forty feet away. When I slowed my machine down, the sadist to my left gave me a grin, shook his head slightly, and then stopped his machine. He grabbed his towel and his keys, leapt from the machine in a sprightly fashion, and made his way towards the exact with a fair sheen of sweat but looking none the worse for wear. 

 The same could not be said for me however, and things went from bad to worse as soon as I stopped the treadmill a few minutes later. Despite feeling merely light headed and a little bit sick as I got off the machine, I suddenly felt extremely ill when I stood upon still earth once more. I somehow began staggering while simultaneously looking like I was clutching a pencil between my arse cheeks, and made my way to the changing room. Not wanting to faint or vomit in-front of any of the other men present, I made for the bathroom as swiftly as my recently liquified kneecaps would allow. Mercifully it was empty, and on shaking legs I locked myself into a cubicle and proceeded to collapse next to the porcelain and spewed acid and bile into the pan. I then started shaking uncontrollably, and bizarrely, found myself immensely drowsy. I drifted in and out of consciousness for about ten minutes before I finally had the strength to operate the flimsy handle on the door.

As I passed the large mirrors on the way to the exit on unsteady legs, I caught a glimpse of my pallid, green tinged reflection, and found myself wondering two things. First of all, if I was the victor of this impromptu battle, why did I feel so demoralized and dejected? And secondly, if exercising is apparently so good for the health, why did I look like a recently reanimated corpse? 

I never look that rough when I'm sat in the pub.....