last post until i get back to dallas

being in india has really made me think about the alarming problems in the world today, particularly overpopulation. her are some stats that i found:

The U.S. Census Bureau reported that hunger is a daily concern for 13.8% of Americans

There will be 125 million births in the world this year. By the time this group is ready to start school, there will have been another 625 million births.

Every 20 minutes, the human population grows by about 3,000. At the same time another plant or animal becomes extinct (27,000 each year).

According to the U.N., if fertility were to stay constant at 1995-2000 levels, the world population would soar to 244 billion by 2150 and 134 trillion by 2300.

The population of the U.S. tripled during the 20th century, but the U.S. consumption of raw materials increased 17-fold.

US Census Bureau, UN Population Div, conservation.org April , 2004 Population Connection

i don't know about you, but i consider that to be pretty scary stuff. i have this theory, it might be naive or misinformed, but it's a theory i have nonetheless. it's that education is the cure-all elixir for all problems. ignorance causes suffering. awareness relieves suffering. here's a quote from a blog i like:

"It is a fact that wherever women are educated in the world, the birthrate drops dramatically. This has been proven again and again in many different countries. Italy has a high literacy rate and a corresponding birth rate of 1.2. The birth rate in Bangladesh was reduced once women were allowed to receive an education. The same is true for many other countries. You can find more info about that on the net. In fact one researcher for the UN declared that the danger of over-population had a very simple solution: allow women to receive an education on the whole planet! Bingo! That's all we need to do."

18 years closer to death!

today is my 18th birthday. i guess that means i have to register for the draft when i get home. well, at least i can celebrate by legally buying porn and cigs, and gambling.

finally, an update

sorry i haven't updated this blog in over a week. it's mostly because of laziness, but also partially because i was sick for a little while, a stomach infection of some sort. i had a very high fever and other not fun symptoms. but i'm much better now.

not again

ok, i know you're probably getting tired of hearing about my political opinions, but this is just too good. i highly suggest you check this out. if you consider yourself conservative, then i think you will like this.

"it is not that i am a liberal who hates conservatives. i truly, sincerely, in my heart of hearts believe BOTH parties, in their HEALTHY forms, play indespinsible roles and bring much to the table. as with any apparent "opposites", they're actually complementary, but again, the critical qualifier is "HEALTHY" form. what we have, in general, (and it goes without saying that everything you read in this blog is my opinion) are two PATHOLOGICAL forms of left and right, and yes, to be honest, the right is currently without a doubt the more dangerously, insidiously ill."

sorry, more politics

i don't mean to get overly political with this blog, but i resonate with this too much not to share it.
here's an excerpt from the above link:

"government" is woven into this phenomenon seemlessly, and i DO mean left and right here (lest we forget that Clinton de-regulated radio, and gave us the fucking shit circus of companies like Clear Channel buying up 5,000 radio stations and programming our culture right into FLAT land, assuring that no real variance, innovation, or imagination could occur anywhere- a company that went so far as to BAN John Lennon's song "Imagine"- a move that sums up their regard for humanity quite succinctly). now all the radio stations, t.v. stations, newspapers, and magazines are a homogenous fucking WEATHER FRONT designed to TELL you what you think, and a great portion of this ingenious programming occurs through the Lie Of Omission. keeping us in a trance means exluding all the agents and properties that would spark an awakening in us.

i also think this is a good time to share my favorite website: http://www.integralnaked.org