According to the second annual Global Peace Index (GPI), USA is ranked at 97th in the world, one place LOWER than last year and considered MORE violent than Kuwait, Nicaragua, Libya, and Costa Rica. Steve Killelia, the international businessman who collaborated with the Economist Intelligence Unit to create the GPI, said of the U.S.'s position: "The U.S. does so badly because it has the highest proportion of jailed people in the world. And it has high levels of homicide and high potential for terrorist attacks," Killelea said. "Its overall score is a reflection of that. The index is not making any moral statements by the ranking."
It deserves mention that this experiment ranking is the first study "of its kind" to rank all 140 states by peacefulness.
"The ranking uses 24 indicators, including the number of external and internal wars fought, the level of respect for human rights and trade in major conventional arms, in an attempt to provide a quantitative measure of peace that is comparable over time."

~information taken from The Japan Times
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20080522a3.html

So my question is: even though Steve McCormack, US State Department rep, said:

"A lot of the time, in order to realize a more peaceful, a more stable, a more prosperous world, you have to do hard things. A lot of times people don't agree with those things.

"Sometimes you fall down these kind of lists, but at the end of the day it is in the defense of democracy and the way of life that we have enjoyed over the past several decades."

Has the world reached the point of being "more peaceful," "more stable," and "more prosperous"? Should we trust McCormack's explanation of such a low ranking?
What's interesting to me is that the US has the highest proportion of jailed people in the world. Here's the percentage breakdown of the jailed population:

Most serious offense	Percent of sentenced State inmates
	1995		2004
Total	100	%	100	%
Violent	47		52
Property	23		21
Drug	22		20
Public-order	9		7

Bureau of Justice Statistics

Granted that these are not the most up-to-date numbers on the prison population, but I think it's interesting to see exactly how large the drug-related offenses are. Drug related offenses include: possession, manufacturing, trafficking and other. I think this demonstrates how well US public sector is responding to the War on DRUGS.

Here's a personal invite to you to start a discussion. You don't have to find reliable sources, this isn't an essay. I'm just interested in hearing, or reading, what you think. All of you amazing law-abiding friends, you.

YES! I'm SO effing tired of writing that Only the Ring Finger Knows fanfic...It's 20 actual chapters (and a chapter that's me rambling) long and nowhere near finished. I just kind of want to leave it where it is and never ever finish because I'm so tired of it. But I can't do that. Not when the main character has been kicked out of his house for being in a relationship with a member of the same sex. You just can't leave things like that. There has to be SOME resolution. So I'm stuck writing it until I'm finished. Damn.
Then there's the collection of oneshots for Ouran. I love this pairing so much that I'm seriously considering taking the most important one (Ch. 4) and writing an actual story around that. But I don't want to do that because I'm still not finished with the effing OTRFK one. Once again...Damn.

At least I'll get to vote in the primaries. It's one of the few things I'm actually looking forward to. I've changed my candidate from Barack Obama to Dennis Kucinich. I don't think I've ever agreed more with a politician in my life. And I really liked Bill Clinton...I absolutely abhor Hillary though. I'm curious about the California propositions on Indian gaming. Apparently four rather large "Indian" casinos want to expand and according to a 1999 law, they can't. So now it's up to us, the voters, to decide whether they can expand. I'm all for Capitalism in this instance, a potential 44.5 million will go to the government annually. That's a hell of a lot of money. It'll boost California's economic standing from 10th in the world, most likely.

Also, I start classes on Monday again. Finally Winter quarter begins. And finally for the first time in two years, will I get to take a Spanish class. Since JUNIOR YEAR of high school have I been without my beloved Spanish classes. I'll have to email J.Lo. No not the singer. A teacher that we call J. Lo. I am so frickin close to being done with the pre-major requirements for Global Studies. Actually I'm even closer to being done with the pre-reqs for Comparative Lit. Awesome. I'm still not sure if I'm going to do the double major for Global Studies, but I'm pretty sure that I'm doing Comp. Lit. oh well. I guess I'll find out this quarter since I'm taking Global Studies 2.

I also have to look for an apartment for next year. Great. Damn. I'm not really looking forward to the search, but I AM looking forward to not living in a dorm and having to watch my parents fork over $1300+ for room and board every month. Now I'll just be forking over around 600 for rent a month and the 30 a week for groceries. I'm really doubting it'll be 30 dollars a week, but given how much I eat when at school...it's pretty accurate for the moment.

I have a present for anyone who wants to read this journal. The latest chapter of Brighter than Sunshine. Since ff is being stupid, I'll post it here until the server isn't "busy" anymore. :D
Ch. 11
Paring: Mori x Haruhi
Rating: PG
Summary: Cute little drabble.


   

I just re-watched the Iowa Democratic Debate that took place on December 13th. I wish that all of these candidates could go be our presidents. They all have a lot of similar viewpoints, which is finally something that the Democratic party has. Democrats have always been extremely divided, but now it seems that the opinions are flowing together and coming together in a cohesive manner. This debate was much less a debate than a group press conference but I'm not as angry about it as I thought it would be.
Anyway, the top performers were:
John Edwards
Barack Obama
Hillary Clinton
Joseph Biden

That leaves
Chris Dodd
Bill Richardson

Now, Chris Dodd is actually standing alongside Joseph Biden regarding their stances on different policies.

Really the one stinker was Bill Richardson.
His views are so unrealistic! Here's an example:
The candidates were asked what they would, realistically speaking, try to accomplish in their first year as president. Richardson said he would completely end the war with Iraq, leaving no residual troops at all, he would reform the school system, start reforming the healthcare system, reform the environmental issues at hand, etc. Basically he said that he would try to do everything in his first year. Now, I'm an advocate for reform and an advocate for ambition but this is just too much. First of all, it is impossible to completely remove our troops from Iraq within the first year of a presidency. It's a lovely and beautiful ideal, but it's still ideal. We don't live in an ideal world. there are so many troops that are in Iraq and there is so much going on that he clearly doesn't know about, that it is probably going to take around 2-3 years at least to remove most of the troops. Now, I don't know anything about what's going on. I'm not saying I do, but clearly, if he thinks he can get them out within a year, he lives under a rock. Next there's the school system. I fully believe he can start reforming the school system but with all of the issues he wants to address...uh uh... Not going to happen in a year. He wants to give teachers more pay, I respect and support that. He wants to completely reform curriculum. I respect and support that. He wants to add universal pre-k and start kids earlier on education. I respect and support that. He wants to do it all at the same time. I don't support that.
Mainly he wants to start everything all at once. Taxpayers can't support all of it. Where else would he get the money from??? It will take so much money to pull troops out, even more to reform healthcare (especially since he wants to universalize it), and even more to reform a small portion of the school system. That's a lot of money that's got to come from somewhere. Other government programs can't have their funding taken away, we're already in a deficit. Oh that's another thing... He really wants to balance the budget. HA! HAHAHAHA! That's not possible. It's not even that beneficial for the economy. What needs to happen is that the economy needs to grow and only by growth will the economy begin to stabilize. That's what we need to focus on. Balancing the budget does nothing for growth and expansion... it just...balances the budget. And considering the deficit...it's impossible. It's just WAY too much money. He says he has had to worry about it as governor...but here's what Richardson fails to realize: a state/province budget is much easier to balance than a federal budget. Because it's a much smaller government.

Anyway, I'm done with Richardson.

On to Edwards: He was extremely consistent. He's constantly attacking the large corporations and corporate greed in the US. And I'm so down with the corporations. They effing get tax cuts while the rest of the country otherwise known as the middle to lower classes are paying obscene percentages of their salaries to the government. Forget that shit, man. Make those corporations pay for their shit. They're just outsourcing and getting rid of Americans' jobs...so much for helping our economy. Full employment is the ultimate sign of development.

And Obama: OH HOW I LOVE OBAMA. I just...I can't even say how much I love him. I want him to be president. And that's all I'm going to say.

Hillary Clinton: I'm ....undecided. I need to do more research.

same with all of the other candidates.

I'll be back with more info about each candidate's platform and eventually with Republican candidates' platforms...maybe. actually i'm really curious about what they have to say about the Bush administration.

I couldn't resist making a sex joke. Now I feel bad, though. God is probably sitting up in heaven adding me once again to the  "Going to Hell" list after removing me for listening to and enjoying Christian Rock. I worked so hard to get on his good side too. Oh well. I'll be able to pack light. See, kids? This is what happens when you go off to college: you start making sex jokes about Christmas. The supposed birth of Christ. Even though Jesus was actually born sometime in April. I really dislike that the Catholic Church went all capitalist on the birth of Jesus and decided to make it coincide with the birth of Mithra and the winter solstice. It just shows that Catholicism will do anything to be evangelical. It's kind of like the Mormons knocking on your door and bugging you about buying a Bible and accepting Christ into your heart. So really, Christmas is the anniversary of religious perversions. Enjoy your gifts everyone.

I found out today that Christmas became a federal holiday in the 19th century...along the time when Jews first started heading towards the not yet formed Jewish state of Israel in national Palestine. Could there be a correlation? And notice how I say "national" Palestine. You see, kids, you've got the definitions of "state" and "nation" wrong. It happens to all of us. I only got them straight a few weeks ago. So a nation is basically an ethnic group, a group of people tied together based on customs and culture. A state is synonymous with country. So Palestine was, in fact, a nation. Israel is the state that was formed in the UN with the majority of voting countries coming from Western Europe. Almost no Middle Eastern Countries were given a vote since they were all colonized by European countries. Palestinians, the people most affected (and David Ben-Gurion, Golda Meir, and Menachem Begin were wrong when they stated that there were no such people as Palestinians where Israel was created.) were not even given a vote!!!! Grr. I understand the need for a Jewish state, but the fact that they displaced so many Palestinians is SO wrong. And they did displace them. Not only that, but the fact that it's not a secular state affects all of the Christians and Muslims that weren't kicked out. It's supremacist. Israel's laws make Christians, Muslims, Palestinians in general, out to be second-class citizens. Another thing: the Jewish population that lives there? Yeah...they're almost all of European descent. And their population is steadily decreasing. And the only reason that they have large concentrations of Jews in the state is because they place them all together in pockets that inflate percentages. No joke.
And why is the West allowed to decide the fate of the Palestinians? They believe so much in self-determination yet they gave no vote to the Palestinians as I mentioned earlier in my rant.
And I hate you David Ben-Gurion, Golda Meir, and Menachem Begin. You have no right to deny the existence of another group's identity.
Like I said before, I support the idea of a Jewish state. I do. It's a necessary safe haven for a people who've been persecuted for most of the people's existence. I truly understand the need. I just have a problem with divvying up a section of land that your people haven't lived in since essentially before the common era. The majority of the Jewish population lived in Europe. In fact, here's an interesting statistic, by 1000CE, 70% of the Jewish population lived in Islamic controlled Spain. Go figure...they're native language was Arabic. Gasp! And it's thanks to Arabs that Hebrew poetry is so damn amazing. Jewish culture adopted the strict meters of Arabic poetry in the same century.
What Europe should have done is sectioned off a portion of Europe for Israel. It made a hell of a lot more sense than giving them a part of land that didn't belong to them. Better yet, talk to Ethiopia, there's a significant population of Jews living there.
Oh here's something interesting about the current state of Israel. All of the areas that are designated as Jewish majorities are places with decent water supplies...Guess how the water supply is for the Palestinians: they got almost entirely barren areas. How's that for Jewish supremacy? Palestinians have truly become a second-class nation.

I'm done with my rant. It just makes me really angry.

Back to Christmas Season:
I figure that it's a good idea to start getting in the spirit since there's a little over a week left until Christmas. So tonight when I got home, I put on the Christmas mix that I made for my Mutti since she loves Christmas. And she loves me. So it's like the perfect thing, she'll love the mix even more than she loves regular Christmas.