Why Alex Zhao is wrong

So Alex Zhao just posted a travesty of an article. Not only does it support Ralph Nader for president, but it’s about a paragraph and a half long. And that paragraph and a half is all wrong.

Let’s break this down piece by piece. First, let’s assume that everything Zhao has said was correct. Let’s say he is the best candidate for president. Let’s say that, if elected, he would solve the world, in general. Well, this is why even if he was the best candidate ever, he would be horrible to vote for: 2000. In the year 2000, Ralph Nader took a small percentage of the votes in many different states, totalling about 2.5% of the popular vote. Not only does this show that, even WITH the backing of the Green Party, which he may not align himself with (IE, the 2004 election), but more importantly, his involvement was the REASON that Bush is the President of the United States right now.

Nader: Why the hell not?

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So it appears that Ralph Nader is making his fourth run for President, though no doubt this will be the least successful of his runs. After all, both parties have managed to put out candidates that (at least seemingly) offer substantive change. Even the fringe folks have someone to back in Ron Paul. What could Ralph Nader possibly offer?

The answer is simply that he will offer us the same thing he always has: the voice of the Democratic Party that continuously gets silenced. The people who were backing John Edwards, Dennis Kucinich, and anyone else who actually believes in true liberalism will finally have someone to at least point to and support. And with Romney out of the race, not a single candidate (or if you’re a Ron Paul fan, not a single sane, intelligent candidate) can provide fiscal responsibility anyway, so you might as well go with the one whose policies would best help the nation.

Basically, only Nader is willing to both reduce our military spending and implement a single payer health care system, and that’s enough for me.
By Alex Zhao, who is foxchasefive’s self-appointed expert on nuclear proliferation, fascism, the US government, the War on Drugs, US Presidents, immigration, President Bush, children who are sick, the environment, and elections.

New theme

Hello foxchasefive readers! Yes, you three, in the very back! Please move up to the front so it looks like there is more of you! No? Well, okay.

Anyways, I have decided to try to move the foxchasefive design you know and love, to this new minimalist design that is a little easier on the eyes. Just an experimental update to the design, the tone of the blog shall stay the same.

We would love to hear your comments, yay or nay.

That is all.

-Andrew Olanoff “Editor-in-chief” “Head Honcho” “Photographer of Plants”

American economy and now

We’re boned. Now what?

The fact of the matter is that we’re going into a recession. It’s not going to feel good, but its going to happen. We will have problems finding a job. We have global warming around the corner. Israel is aiming to air strike Iran. Something about the world ending in 2012, etc. etc. etc. Doesn’t sound good does it? However, our economy is not entirely boned. A recession is bad, but not a depression. And hopefully after awhile, it will pick up. Unfortunately, I believe the Fed is doing nothing but pushing off the problem. Recession was always around the corner. It sort of sucks, but that’s true. To understand this, we must understand why the economy went from mere bad economy to holy crap recession!

Once

The title of this post is actually apropos to its content for the first time in the history of Vman-ic prose, a phrase that rhymes with demonic prose, perhaps not accidentally. I am, of course, referring not to the heartwarming movie about Irish street prostitutes or is it musicians? I cannot recall due to intoxicating effects of Apple Nantucket Nectar; to all of those who saw my Richard Nixon after a few too many shots of Nan Nec at Baja Fresh last saturday, the checks are in the mail.

A strike, a narc, and a sunday night spent pretending to study

The Writer’s Strike is dumb.
Apparently our school has a narc.
This physics will never be studied.

The writer’s strike is dumb. The writer’s strike has been going since my childhood (that is an estimate). The end does not seem to be in sight (unless you are George Clooney). It has been way too long since my eyes have been transfixed on new episodes of The Office (a definitive fact). I believed, at first, that this call for the writer’s to get their deserved cut of the internet profit , was a justified one, and that I could go a few weeks without my favorite shows, because, hey, they deserve what they are not getting, money for their hilarious/thought provoking work.

On the Failings of Consumer Society and the Spectacle

The current consumer society has many problems. It has abused workers, put people out of work, or created an enormous gap between the rich and the poor. However, these problems are not as serious as they seem, because all of them can be fixed with legislation. The bigger harm of consumerism and capitalism in general, however, can never be fixed. It is an intrinsic problem, one that threatens to entirely supplant human nature as we know it. On the surface, this problem might not seem obvious. It’s not because the problem itself doesn’t exist, but because it’s hard to quantify. The problem comes through slowly, in the form of the typical annoyances of the day.

Education, Administration, Board of Education, and the Sexualization of Today’s Youth

That title may seem like a mouthful, and I am here to tell you, yes it is. There are two words that need go together in that title, can you find them? And there are two words that need to be left out of that discussion, can you find those two? Here lies the basic problem, many people who are in involved with the different areas mentioned in the title, cannot answer either of those two simple questions.

It was close to the end of 5th period and it dawned on me that for the next hour, I would be spending my time, in a room below the surface I stood, and that room was Hell. Well it was actually Health Class, you know the 1/4th-of-your-year-afterthought-where-you-either-do-other-homework-or-sleep? Are you with me so far?

In the news again…Just can’t wait to be in the news again.

Oops. It happened again.

As all of you know, I spent some time in Washington serving as a Congressional Page. Sigh. In the past two years the page program has experienced more scandals than [insert name of generic politician and/or celebrity]. This time the pages were caught stealing third in the dorm elevator, a contraption which I personally rode (pun intended). Apparently, there were spectators to the stimulating show. Also, two pages were caught stealing from a nearby shopping center. Two members of the newly constructed scandal-proof page board resigned as a result, quite justifiably in my mind. However their criticism is unfortunately misplaced, highlighting one of the problems with the congressional page program. The issue is not inadequate supervision; this occurs with sometimes overabundant zealotry. The problems results from an inadequately scrupulous admissions process and too much idle time.

I, For One, Welcome Our Natural Disaster Overlords

Congratulations global warming skeptics. You’ve won. The world is yours, and the arguments of the global warming believers have fallen away. All of their predictions are wrong: sea levels will not rise, natural disasters will not occur with greater frequency, and global climate change will not harm any of us.

Well, I’m being dishonest. Global warming skeptics haven’t won in the traditional sense. Rather, they’ve managed to cast enough doubt that no effective action has been taken against global warming, and the predictions of those who warned us are no longer predictions, they’re reality. As the sea levels rise, wiping island nations, as natural disasters flood through Mexico, the United States, Europe, China, Australia, and beyond, and as the loss of farmland, marine life, fisheries threatens our world’s basic ability to feed the population, everyone can thank those skeptics who’ve “won” the debate.