::Shebytches::

Unemployment is an evil thing. I sit at home all day and watch TV news, listen to the radio news and read web news (the newspapers just don't do it for me...plus they cost money). From each of these sources, I've heard the most bizarre stuff in the world. I've heard about how greenbelts to prevent urban sprawl are bad (they prevent farmers from selling their farms to developers). I've read that porn is as addictive as heroin (it stimulates the same brain area). I've seen and read about a high school that has canceled a long-standing homecoming tradition of cross-dressing because it promotes "the homosexual agenda" (they've replaced it with "Dress in Army Camouflage Day" --- much more macho/butch). All this is making my head hurt. And it's making me believe that the world is so messed up that any opinion, no matter how boneheaded, is valid. It doesn't matter that there's no scientific validity to a claim, nor does it matter if it defies all logic. If you believe it, it must be true. If I hear one more insane illogical argument, I think my brain is going to explode!

My latest pet-peeve is how people deal with "saving lives." I'm sick of hearing how some aborted fetus could have grown up to cure cancer, or how some random dead smoker could have lived to a ripe old age and done wonderful things, if only he had quit smoking before the cancer consumed his lungs. And, finally, I'm tired of hearing about how all victims of car accidents were somehow either the bestest parent in the world or the bestest kid in the world. Come on! One of these accident victims must have been a dilwad. I know it's not nice to speak ill of the dead, but seriously, by the law of averages, one of these people had to have been a colossal ass.

The other day, I had to listen to this radio show where someone was going on about how dead smokers could go on to great things if they had just quit in time. How do people know this? How do these radio pundits know that all these dead smokers would have been nice people and done good things? Maybe a whole bunch of them were schmucks who kicked dogs, parked in handicapped spaces and double-dipped chips. If I take a random sampling of the people I've met over the course of my lifetime, the dog-kicking double-dippers vastly outnumber the peace-loving cancer-curers. In fact, the one cancer-curer I met was also a smoker and a double-dipping dog-kicker. Go figure.

Similarly, if I'd have to bet whether an aborted fetus will grow up to be an AIDS researcher or to be a courier for an illegal gambling operation, I'd bet on the courier job. If someone doesn't want a child so much that they're going to abort a fetus, they probably won't give them a fantastic life. And orphanages aren't what they used to be either. Abandoned babies now get punted from one foster family to another, becoming more and more disillusioned and angry as they grow up. Of course, these kids might end up staying a while with -- and maybe even getting adopted by -- a really dedicated, caring foster family (and I know one really great foster family who did, in fact, adopt their foster child), but, as TV news has taught me, not all foster families are this nice. So eventually the orphans end up in Youth Court where they hone their criminal skills so they can graduate to a federal penitentiary. (Seriously. I know this youth lawyer who says that the kids she sees in Youth Court are the same kids she saw in Youth Protection Services in the past.)

Meanwhile, by some bizarre logic malfunction, the same people who are into saving fetuses are into the death penalty. They'd rather have some woman have the baby and then kill him once he's an adult. It makes sense. I'm sure. Somehow. And what's even funnier is that these same people like to make life difficult for inmates. They don't want them to smoke. In fact, they also want to make it difficult for kids to smoke. This makes no sense to me. Wouldn't it make sense that they should be for smoking in prisons and juvenile detention? I mean, think about it, if you allow these ne'erdowell unwanted children to smoke while in juvenile detention, they'll cut their lives short. They'll put less of a strain on the penal system not only by committing fewer crimes (because they're dying young), but also by dying in jail sooner and thus not filling up a cell for as long and eating as much food. They'll also save on the number of executions (they're already dead). But better yet, if you're in Canada, where there is no capital punishment, these inmates still end up dead! Ta-dah! Indirect capital punishment!

Ouch. I think I just caused my brain to explode.