Tag: nation

Hello…you’re waving the wrong flag

flagI have this thing about flags. Specifically, despite all my criticism of our current government policy and leaders, I really hate it I see people protesting here waving another country’s flag. It doesnt matter which other country, it just drives me nuts that people are waving another nations flags in our streets.

Obviously I am not without reason on this, these people feel motivated enough to carry and demonstrate something that symbolizes their goals and/or outrage.

When I see the flags of other nations flying with thousands of people in the streets, I simply get the impression that these people are so effing unhappy or angry that they would raise another coutry’s flag. The impression to me is that they are saying they support another nation over our own…and I suppose this is where I draw the line.

Yes…we’re just talking about symbolism, but to me it’s a very big statement. Not insomuch that people are rallying against the US within it’s own borders, everyone should have that right, but to confront our own people, law enforcement, and/or military waving another country’s flag just makes my arse twitch. Why? Because i’ve always had the impression that that flags symbolism held enough meaning and hope that people would use it as their symbol when they want change or desire greater freedoms. To use another flag suggests a huge lack of confidence in your own country.

This is the impression I get when I see it, and it makes me want to lecture these people on why exactly this isn’t solving their problem/cause as much as it likely to be segregating it from what everyone that isn’t protesting feels.

Anyhow…end small rant. And yes, I am going to be writing lots more…there is simply too much stupid in the world for me not to comment on it. 😉

-Tony




Shocking - Tonytown.com

The truth about the U.N. Arms Treaty – RTFM or STFU

Shocking - Tonytown.comSo I’ve been hearing about this off and on for over two years….that the UN Arms Treaty is signing away our right to bear arms. If you want the really short version: not in the least does it restrict U.S. citizens the right to keep and bear arms, it’s that simple.

Now if you need more truth…I’m going to summarize the UN Arms Treaty a bit so we can all rest easy and stop reading all the crazy articles that are telling you our freedoms have just been signed away.

1. In the very first page of the treaty it reads:
“Reaffirming the sovereign right of any State to regulate and control
conventional arms exclusively within its territory, pursuant to its own legal or
constitutional system,”

2. Our trade restrictions and regulations for arms trade are already very strict, however the effort is made relatively moot by the existence of international brokers that are able to maneuver around U.S. trade restrictions legally. This treaty effectively obligates US states to participate in adopting trade regulations on par with the U.S. to prevent arms from being traded where member countries dont want them traded internationally, this is a good thing for countries whose citizens already have the right to keep and bear arms…but for the countries that don’t, this will choke the shit out of criminal organizations looking to reload and/or stock up.

3. The treaty places a trading oversight process that is ALREADY in effect in the U.S. but will be far more useful for other countries that are seeing human rights violations due to excessive access to arms. The treaty does not cover individual states commerce with its own people, with the exception of people already about to get their ass hung out for human rights violations.

4. There is a loser in all this. It’s the gun manufacturers, because even if new venues are found by the brokers, it will cost lots more to dodge multiple countries that just the U.S. regulations.

4. I totally understand if you don’t feel my words are enough, so I’ll just link the treaty here and leave you with some very sound words of advice:

RTFM OR STFU.

Oh, and have a GREAT Day

http://www.un.org/disarmament/ATT/docs/ATT_text_(As_adopted_by_the_GA)-E.pdf




How the Mighty Are Falling-Is our IQ really falling?

Seriously…are we getting dumber? Our kid’s IQ is worse?!

Just thought about something, our IQ’s and education…

The Roman Empire survived well over a thousand years by reinventing themselves as the center of civilization, and in it’s venerable years, the center of control for the Catholic Church, which in its later years was actually for more powerful than the empire itself. I mean we’re talking like 1700 years. that’s 3 times longer than almost every other government in history (that we have real documentation of). They were among the most educated people on the planet for their time. Many many great thinkers were a part of the empire and contributed to it’s success. The idea

Now the U.S., we’re just a little over 200 years in and barely cohesive. UK isn’t much further and isn’t much better off. I see countries that invested heavily in their education system may have lived a little poorer, but are now completely showing us up. What’s worse is I feel like we’re ignoring it. We have these half-assed programs that are supposed to have a huge impact on our educational system when we’re completely ignoring the fact that we haven’t been adequately educating for decades.

What does it take to get people to see the problem here?


The article above is saying that for the first time in our existence, the average IQ of next generation in the US will not be smarter than the previous generation. How the hell does that happen? Is our education system so poor or entrenched that we cant reverse this trend? How is it that people in charge of our education system didn’t see this coming?

TonyTown - Hold No Virtue - IQ - Education in Finland might be getting it rightThis scares me. I mean, what happens in 20 years when it’s our kids in charge? I mean personally I haven’t actually seen examples of this per se, but wow how does this pan out?

By the same token, I’ve been reading about the “Flynn Effect” where our IQ’s are showing an increase, but because the generation gap is statistically affected by relative age this notion is less severe than the media it portraying. The problem in this is that most of the statistics are showing that we are not keeping up with systems in play throughout the rest of the world. However this same idea would also depict our great grandparents as being mentally retarded by today’s standards of intellectualism. So is the beauty of the increase is in the eye of the beholder? Do we have to stay competitive with other nations or continue on our path to creating a huge division in our population intellectually?

On that note, I REALLY love what has been done in Finland. They have made education a positive part of their society rather than a problematic half successful tax on their population. I put some links below if you’re interested in reading them.

/rant over.

LINKS
Great Article on where we are educationally from the ETC blog.
Article about the Flynn Effect and details on this from Smithsonian.com
Why are Finland’s schools so successful?
Heavy Details on why Finland’s education system works so well.
Another article on differences in Finland’s Education System