Hamas and Israel: Take no sides

As most of you well know, it has now been over 48 hours since Israel retaliated against Hamas's continued barrages of mortar and rocket attacks with air strikes, killing over 300 and injuring over 600 palestanians as of this moment. Hamas, of course, has publicly and officially vowed to retaliate with more mortar and rocket attacks in return, and the 70-something attacks on Israel over the last 2 days are proof that he is dead serious. The UN, as well as many individual countries, have been urging both countries to cease the violence and find a peaceful solution.

I don't know about you, but this situation has me quite aggravated. The reason I am writing this today is because of a PBS interviw I saw with both Hamas and Israli representative officials. Instead of making genuine efforts at acheiving peace, all they cared about was establishing a situation in which their country(?) held the upper hand. Other than the blatant selfishness and unwillingness to compromise, what has me so aggravated? Well, let look a little deeper in to the situation here (from my point of view, of course.)

The situation started a few years back, when Hamas decidedly took over the Gaza strip area.

Currently, Palestine is divided in to two areas, known as the Gaza strip and the West bank. Interestingly enough, the West bank is actually on the east side, while the Gaza strip is on the west side, with Israel occupying considerable space between the two. Israel also controlls the sea and air space surrounding the Gaza Strip. Why?

Well, before Hamas controlled the Gaza Strip, it was under the rule of a united arab government which disbanded later when Egypt decided there was no point to it. It was this power vacuum that allowed Hamas to take controll. But what's important here is not that, but who had control of the region before the Arab government. Can you guess?

Israel. That's right. According to some agreement that I am not very knowledgeable about, the arab government allowed Israel to excersie control over the region until recent years, when Israel pulled its forces out in accordance with the agreement.

So what's the deal? Well, the Gaza strip area was and still is a highly disputed area, and Israel is reluctant to relenquish control of that area to the Palestinians. The entire area is walled and sectioned off, and there are guards surrounding the entire perimeter. I gather it's not as bad on the side that borders Egypt, but most of it borders Israel, so you can only imagine how strict they are being in maintaining control. Israel does not recognize Hamas as a government and insists they step down, and are willing to impose significant sanctions on the country to achieve their goals. Since Israel controls the sea and air space, as well as most of the borders, this isn't too hard to achieve.

The problem here is that Palestinians, and of course the the extremist Hamas government, are extremely unhappy with Israel to begin with. In fact, unless I'm wrong, Hamas actually doesn't recognize Israel as a sovereign entity. To understand this, we need to look a little in to the history of Israel.

Israel as we know it was founded in 1948, after WWII. How? Well, in a nutshell, the Jews basically used other wordly super powers that they had significant influence on such as Great Britain and the US to kick out Palestinians from what is "supposed to be" their land. Of course, it's actually much more complicated than that, but you get the idea. Israel wanted to have it's own country, and it did what it had to do to get it. Palestinians weren't particularly happy about the idea, but what could they do? And so began the hate-hate relationship, and it continues to this day. This is what underlies the current conflict.

Israel knows the hatred that palestanians and Hamas has for them, and it is a threat to their sovereignty. Of course they want to get rid of the threat, especially if it keeps shooting rockets and killing civilians every day. On the flip side, Hamas wants to get rid of these parasites that came in at took over it's peoples land. See a solution? Because I don't.

So, back to what aggravates me! I see a couple possible solutions that can make the situation better, since a permanent solution doesn't look possible at the moment. Problem is that I also know they aren't realistic. For example, I believe the situation could be alleviated greatly if Israel gets down on its knees and apologizes to everyone for taking over their land, causing them great discomfort and inconvenience, and promising to do everything they can to make up for it in any way possible. But we all know that's not happening. Another is for Hamas to grow up and deal with reality by making a deal with Isreal that he plans to stick to. Againt, not likely.

So, what does that leave? Probably a UN proposed resolution with no real good permanent solution.

Gas Prices: Come on....seriously?!

I recieved my electricity bill today, and it was $76.38. It was about the same as last month, so I just thoughtlessly wrote the check and enclosed it in the envelope. And then I saw it: My usage profile for the last year. And guess what? Exactly ONE year ago, I used the exact same about of electricity (8.4 KWH/DAY) and yet I paid 26 dollars more than that time! The number of days in the cycle was 3 days more for this cycle, but 26 dollars?! What the hell?

The answer was pretty easy to figure out. While it was $1.74 a days a year ago, this time it was $2.39 a day. That's over a 37% increase in just a year. Can you guess why? Yes, good job! It's GAS PRICES!!!!!! Because electricity in the US, as well as pretty much anywhere else, is mostly produced by burning gas and coal, rising gas prices are driving up electricity prices as well. Obviously that's not the only cost it's driving up, and that adds to the problem too. Let's take coal. Where do we get most of it? Overseas, of course! Well, how do we get it? By boat. What does the boat run on? You guessed it! GAS!!!! And the list goes on. So...is anyone doing anything about it?

Not much, as far as I know. Yeah, Bush gave out like a few hundred dollars per tax payer, big deal. That's nothing compared to what the rise in crude oil prices is costing us overall. Just the affect of the rising cost of SHIPPING alone is already a huge problem. If companies aren't able or willing to absorb the rising cost of shipping, then the cost falls directly on us. And of course production also costs more, from rising shipping, raw material, and electricity costs. That means less money for the companies in terms of profits, since they can't make the customer take all of the rise in costs or they would lose business, and that means SOMEbody is going to get fired, or maybe more. Every person fired or not hired means less money for those people, add those people up and we've got a whole new population of people moving down the already disproportionately bottom-heavy pyramid. Rising costs, less money for the people....sound familiar? Right, it's called inflation and depression. The value of the dollar versus products are dropping, but the people are getting the same to less income, and unable to compensate for the depreciation of their money. Keep that cycle up, and we've got the Great Depression looming ahead of us.

So...what can we do to save ourselves from this situation? Well, it's really not that easy. Let's take a look at the simple solution of lowering gas prices. Why can't we do it? We can all just agree to buy crude oil at lower prices, and then everybody would win, right?

Unfortunately, for various reasons, but mostly because of selfishness, this can't happen. There's a limited supply of crude oil being produced, while demand is shooting up, thanks to developing countries such as India and China. And then let's not forget that America is still a major consumer, meaning demand is already huge even without the other countries. Many different people from different companies and groups need crude oil for different reasons, and they will do whatever it takes to get the job done. Obviously, that means obtaining crude oil at higher than desired prices if necessary. Otherwise, entire operations could be delayed or shutdown, which would result in a LOT more loss in profit than would just spending a few more bucks on crude oil.

And once prices go up, it's hard to get it back down. Because the producers of crude oil know what kind of money people are willing to pay, they will only ask for the same or higher prices, not lower. They are profit-seeking corporations, following the business ethics of "Maxmized profit for shareholders", and also of course the ethics of "As much money as possible for me and not you", so let's not even dream about asking them to lower prices.

Oh, and did you know a lot of crude oil producers don't even take the dollar as a form of payment anymore? Yeah, they don't like us very much over there, and plus since the dollar has been on the drop for quite a while, they feel that it is not a stable standard compared to the Euro. That means that even if the cost of crude oil stays the same against the Euro, it can still rise for the dollar if it depreciations against the Euro. Isn't economics awesome?

And even if we somehow managed to have ALL American buyers to lower their buy limit, that would do NOTHING except shut our country down, because I guarantee the developing countries will buy everysingle barrel that we don't. Countries like India or China are fast on the rise, builing a new factory everyday and new coal-powered electricity facilities every week. They need every ounce of oil they can get their hands on. So be assured that they would NEVER agree to work with us in order to lower the gas prices, since that's not exactly the first thing on their minds right now. With their economies blooming at such a rapid pace, they're just concerned with increasing growth, and if high gas prices is the price to pay, so be it.

Well, then what about alternatives? Can't we use alternative energy resources to offset the rising costs and reduce oil usage? Well, you see, that's not really that simple either. Unfortunately, alternative energy sources are a great idea, but to produce the amount of energy to significantly impact our oil usage would cost a thousand fold or more. Solar, wind, and geothermal power and the like are great sounding, but the truth is that they are just not as efficient, and the base cost is just astounding. I'm not going to go bother looking for exact numbers, but you can guess pretty easily. Think of the resources we'll need to produce all the equipment. Not only is it uber costly, it is also far more harmful to the environment than just buring oil/fossil fuels. We'd be paying tens or even hundreds more for electricity if we were to switch over to alternative power as they are now. But wait, there's ONE alternative power source that is less costly, efficient, AND better for the environment. Want to know?

It's NUCLEAR POWER!! That's right. The amount of energy we can extract from nuclear power is literally thousands of times more than we would from the same amount of fossil fuels. It is also a lot more environmentally friendly, since the only side product from the energy production is WATER VAPOR. The nuclear waste produced can actually be recylced to the point that we can extract 60% of the potential energy, which is a LOT more than we can say for any other energy source we can think of. And once the extraction is done, they are stored safely inside sealed drums in a mountain somewhere far from civilization. And just ONE nuclear power plant can produce about 0.15% of the power the country needs. Sound small, but that means just 1000 nuclear power plants can supply the entire country with cheap and clean energy! Already, only about a 160 nuclear power plants supply about 20% of the country's power. Compared to the thousands of fossil fuel plants....that's not much, is it?

But of course, no one actually wants nuclear power. It's got a pretty bad reputation, and for good reason too. SHOULD something go wrong, we could have total destruction and chaos. Want some good news? It won't happen. It's happened twice, once in the US and once in Chernobyl. But the thing is, the one that happened in the US didn't really do anything, there was an emergency, they let out some steam to prevent the place from, blowing, game over. No effect on the environment whatsoever. And Chernobyl? Sorry for them, but we don't have the design flaws that they did. Each Nuclear reactor has like 3 to 4 different systems designed to operate independantly of each other to shut down the reactor before anything happens. And terrorists? Don't worry, these places are REALLY heavily guarded. If you don't believe me, try to break in to one yourself. And call me if there really is a heaven.

But alas, stigma is a bitch, isn't it. I doubt that we will ever achieve a much higher ratio of nuclear power. People are just too damn scared of it, and I understand it too. So the other solution?

Government. That's right. Pull money out of unneccessary places, and use that money to help finance crude oil buyers so that they'd actually be buying at something like 85 or 95 instead of 115 per barrel. That's a lot of money you say? Well, go to google search and find out how much the war in Iraq is costing us. You'll understand a bit more of why we need to get the hell out of there as soon as possible. But of course, it's not really that simple over there either...

Now, I could go on and on. But the truth is that for everything there is 100 more things connected to it, and then I'd just die of old age before I can discuss everything. The truth is that there is only one TRUE solution to all of this, all these problems that are interlocked with each other. Wanna know what that is? It's simple. All that needs to happen, is for all the people in the world, especially the ones in power but also those would could be doing something but aren't, to PULL YOUR GOD DAMN HEADS OUT OF YOUR ASSES.

But we all know that's never happening, don't we. Ah, life is so sweet.

Hawaii's Voting Fiasco

A few days ago was the Democratic Caucus. My girlfriend and I took time out of our day to go vote, even though the Caucus isn't quite as important as the primaries. We were not yet registered to vote in Hawaii, so we got there about 15 minutes before they said they would start allowing people to register, which was 30 minutes before the actually polling started. And that's how the nightmare began.

We arrived at about 6:15ish, give or take. We had read on the democrat party's website that registration would begin at 6:30, so we arrived a little early to ensure that we were signed up in time for the start of the polling. And what we saw when we actually got to our polling station was unbelievable! There was a line so long it was almost like waiting in line for a ride at Disney Land. It was starting from the school's cafeteria, coming out all the way to the road, and then wrapping around back to the other end of the road. We were lucky that we had gotten there when we did, because the line grew longer and longer with every passing second.

And then the waiting game began. I believe it took us about an hour and a half from where we were to leaving the building. And the confusion was just unbelievable! By the time we got out, we were ready to never return to a voting place ever again. I will describe to you the main problems we experienced.

1.Lack of consideration for voters

I seriously do not understand why they thought they could just jumble everyone in to one huge line, when they could easily have set up a seperate space for people to register to vote, so that the actual polling process could be much faster. Making everyone wait for everyone else was just a waste of everyone's time and energy.

2. Lack of organization and problem solving

As you may know, the turnout of voters for this caucus was about 4 times the previous caucus's number. That's over 20,000 people. Apparently, the democrats had not anticipated this huge number and ran out of supplies such as voter registration forms, actual voting forms, and even name tags, although I never saw the necessity for those. And of course, because the voting stations were prepared according to anticipated voter numbers, most places had huge lines because they just couldn't accomodate that many voters in an adequate time. At which point I must wonder: If they saw that there were so many people, why not open up another classroom or something for registration purposes only and save everyone a lot of hassle? Or perhaps first have everyone pass through the cafeteria and then be sent to appropriate class rooms for registration or polling? There were so many different ways they could have handled it, but they just decided to stick to cramming everyone in to one place. And of course, that led to stress and frustration for everyone, and shady practices such as not checking ID during voter registration, or going by the honor system in dividing districts. Good job in boosting everyone's confidence in your party, democrats.

Yup, that was our first experience as caucus goers. It seems at this point that we will not be attending one again. Maybe those people were spies from the Republican side sent to dirty the reputation of the Democrats? Either way, they certainly lost whatever confidence I had in them.

Please stop embarassing your people!

Today, when I was coming back home from the lab, I had an experience that has become all too frequent ever since I have moved here. And what is that? Well, foreigners (Japanese, Chinese, and Koreans, mostly) who talk way too loudly in the bus, that's what it is.
I don't mean to be a jerk, and I'm not saying that I am getting annoyed because they aren't talking in English. I mean, to be honest, that is definitely a part of it, but what really annoys me is the fact that they talk so LOUDLY!! I had my earphones on and the volume on max, and I could STILL hear them!
They were sitting across from each other and talking really loudly when they could just sit next to each other, but nooooo, they had to just shout out their words instead! And what was worse was that I could understand what they were saying....ugh.
The stupidity of their conversation just made it that much worse. I won't describe it, but trust me, they sounded completely phony and just plain stupid. And because they were so loud, people in the front of the bus (they were in the back) were turning their head to see who's being so obnoxious. *Sigh*

Now, it's not just these people. I have noticed that a disturbingly large number of people from Japan and Korea have a tendency to be incredibly rude, inconsiderate, obnoxious, and grossly lacking in public etiquete. I am well aware that these people are not a majority, and probably a misrepresentation of their nationalities, and it's not only the people from these countries that have the same ugly personalities. However, because they look the same as I do, I feel that every person that acts like that just makes life harder for me, since people will think the same of me as they do of these mannerless people. I would prefer not to be branded with the same negative image.

So please, to all of you out there who will be traveling at some point....for the love of god, behave yourselves! Know before hand what is considered rude and what is not in that country, and mind your manners more than ever when you are in public space! You may not give a damn because no one knows you, but the people who see you won't see just you but whatever race, ethnicity, and nationality you are, and your actions will speak for all of your people. Please don't make life hard for the rest of them/us.