CHALLENGE ME, I CAN PROVE IT.

There is no god. Please stop using your fairy tale to justify discrimination.

Thinking about Saddam... and how he was better.

I was thinking back to a cigarette break a few weeks ago when I was debating the Iraq war and whether it was good or bad and whether or not we should leave. I immediately jumped on the IT WAS A MISTAKE boat. The "Saddam Hussein was a horrible dictator" card was thrust in my face, but I still hold that Iraq was better off when he was in charge. All we have done is caused more pain and death while we started a civil war.
It is pointless for me to say that the war in Iraq was a mistake, because I am fairly sure that almost everyone feels that way now. While I believe that Saddam in a genuinely bad human being, I think that it was a mistake to take him out of power. Yes, Saddam is responsible for numerous deaths, but now that Bush is in Iraq the same things are happening, only more so. Saddam Hussein killed about 600,000 Iraqis over a period of 23 years while Bush is responsible for killing about 100,000 people in just over a year. Now instead of an evil dictator Iraq has a higher rate of death, chaos, and a seemingly endless civil war. Because America took it upon themselves to take out Saddam thousands of people are dead - thousands of them are civilians. These civilians are not just being shot in the head, but they are being suffocated, strangled, and burned; they are being terrorized. It's ironic that we are terrorizing Iraq while at the same time we are supposedly fighting the "War on Terror." It is plainly obvious to me that the "War on Terror" is terrorism. Not only that, but this has cost us billions of dollars - maybe this money could have been used to help people instead of kill them? Even Hans Blix, the former UN chief weapons inspector believes that the Iraqis were better off under Saddam. Now, the Iraqi people have to follow early curfews and the women of Iraq are no better off; Saddam's oppression has been replaced with murders sexual abuse, and rape. Women still face legal discrimination. Maybe there is something that I am not taking into consideration... I'm not sure, but for now I will say that the whole thing is a huge mistake.

The Annual Turkey Slaughter (aka Thanksgiving)

Yesterday was Thanksgiving. All over the country Americans marked this holiday with their ritual turkey sacrifice. It's a disgusting tradition, and it must stop. We live in a country where meat consumption is unnecessary for our health and survival, and therefore, immoral. What you might not have known is that turkeys are excluded from federal animal protection laws. Many turkeys raised in factory farms have their beaks removed to avoid aggression caused from overcrowding, but this process causes lifelong pain to the newly-disfigured bird. The process of debeaking and detoeing (I assume these terms are self-explanatory) do not involve anesthesia and can cause bleeding, infection, and death. Overcrowding presents other problems, too; the birds are forced together with very little room to move around while the breathe in ammonia and dust. The dust these turkeys breathe in causes many of them to develop respiratory diseases while the ammonia fumes burn their eyes. They are also know to develop food ulcers and breast blisters, as they are constantly given drugs to make them large in time for the holidays. Also, a good question to consider is why Americans mark this holiday with a turkey sacrifice instead of murdering a deer, a duck, or another animal. There is no record that indicates a turkey was eaten at the first Thanksgiving feast. In addition, Thanksgiving didn't become a large American holiday until 1863.