United Nations Fire Wonder Woman

Here's a chain of stupidity:

It starts with the United Nations voting on a new Secretary General and electing António Guterres of Portugal to the position. This enraged some people of the "what about us" crowd, of course. You see, it had been noted that the U.N. had never - in the nine times the role had been appointed previously - chosen either a woman or an Eastern European.

Indeed, here are the past Secretaries-General:

Gladwyn Jebb, U.K. (Western Europe), 1945-1946.
Trygve Lie, Norway (Scandinavia), 1946-1952.
Dag Hammarskjöld, Sweden (Scandinavia), 1953-1961.
U Thant, Burma (Asia-Pacific), 1961-1971.
Kurt Waldheim, Austria (Western Europe), 1972-1981.
Javier Pérez de Cuéllar, Peru (South America), 1982-1991.
Boutros Boutros-Ghali, Egypt (Africa), 1992-1996.
Kofi Annan, Ghana (Africa), 1997-2006.
Ban Ki-moon, South Korea (Asia-Pacific), 2007-2016.

So, uh, if we're going by "everyone should have a turn", it's missing members of the LGBT community, the Caribbean, and a North American. Also, of nations with Independence Movements in their midst: Canada (Québec), Spain (Catalonia), Russia (Chechnya), or even Czechoslovakia (Slovakia) pre-Annan.

Now, of that list, Jebb can be taken off because his term was merely the inception of the brand, he was there until someone else was officially appointed, which means no one from the G-7, G-8 or G-20 had ever held the position before Ban Ki-moon, and even then, when he took the position, the G-20 did not actually exist - the G8 stood as the world's economic summit until 2009, when it was deemed smarter to include emerging countries to the list.

Just to recap, the G-20 encompasses: Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Turkey, United Kingdom, United States and the European Union, which was founded/conceptualized in 1993 but only got its traction and recognition when it was decided in 1999 that it would have its own currency, the Euro, effective in 2002.

So, in summation: there was outrage that out of eight (8) elected appointees in history, two groups out of possibly five or more had never held the position. One said group represents half the population of the planet, while the other one has had a pretty harsh 20th century and likely deserves a shot of optimism.

But not thinking it through, the U.N. bowed to a relatively low amount of pressure and instituted, for their 2016 selection, public nominations. Five candidates emerged: two men from Eastern Europe (Vuk Jeremić from Serbia and Miroslav Lajčák from Slovakia, who ran on the "zero tolerance policy on sexual violence and abuse by peacekeepers against civilian populations is a must; such violations must be fully investigated and perpetrators brought to justice" platform) and two women (Irina Bokova of Bulgaria, and Helen Clark of New Zealand), in addition to Guterres.

And though technically, Bulgaria is in Eastern Europe, the Southeastern part is often seen as having had less suffering than, say, Serbia or Poland. Of course, the four "minority" options split the vote and Guterres won.

Guterres, by the way, is highly qualified. He was the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees between 2005 and 2015, Prime Minister of his country (which doesn't have a poor Human Rights record of late) from 1995 to 2002 and President of Socialist-International from 1999 until 2005; we're talking about a guy who has always been about equality, rights, and protecting the little guy.

Again, of course, there was outrage. Limited, Twitter-storm-type outrage, but still, some angry voices were heard, and the U.N. created a new position, that of "honorary ambassador for the empowerment of women and girls". Instead of appointing one of Clark or Bokova, or German chancellor Angela Merkel, Hillary Clinton, Françoise David, Madonna, Kathie Sarachild, Shamima Shaikh, Annie Sprinkle, Oprah Winfrey, Geena Davis, Naomi Wolf or even the actresses who famously played the part - Lynda Carter and Gal Gadot - the U.N. chose to name the character Wonder Woman to the position.

It wasn't wrong per se: famous feminist publisher Gloria Steinem had put the character on the front page of Ms. magazine in 1971. "She" is a powerful, strong-willed character who would never back down from a fight or a challenge, yet she is also a diplomat who would rather negotiate than wield her power, a lover of peace who strives to never escalate a conflict because she wants to give her opponents a chance; if a conflict does arise, she will prevail - with the utmost authority. You know, like the fucking U.N. is supposed to.

But hey, an online petition was started by a bunch of fucking idiots and the idea was canned, because she "dresses too sexily", among other reasons. That's right: the U.N.'s "honorary ambassador for the empowerment of women and girls" - a fictitious character - was fired because of how she chooses to dress. I'm guessing it's suits like this one that led to one person being shocked enough to start the petition:

Which conveniently forgets that she has also been drawn as follows by Jim Lee, the guy who made all five of these drawings:

Wonder Woman is an Amazon Princess, a warrior, and a diplomat; she's Pocahontas, Mulan and Angela Merkel all rolled into one, when most other characters in her medium are one-dimensional.

Some people - particularly on the left side of the political spectrum, the one I identify with the most - just don't know how to pick their fights. That's why we can't have nice things, because everything has to be so fucking watered-down that it doesn't mean anything anymore, making sure no one gets offended by any of it (which is impossible for anything of substance), and no victory but the ultimate one (well, the translucent and aseptic victory devoid of taste, anyway) is ever good enough. The same short-sighted fuckers who want to fight for everyone's equal rights one minority at a time instead of the more efficient FOR ALL at once.

One More Reason To Be Ashamed Of Canada

Supreme Leader Stephen Harper has done it again - this time, withdrawing Canada from the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (examining solutions to the increasing droughts that have been spreading across the world and destroying valuable farmland) at the last minute, joining the ranks of... absolutely no one.

He shut down scientists just a few weeks ago, he's pushing the Alberta tar sands harder than Nino Brown did crack, he forgoes meeting Aboriginals who had walked 1600 kilometers to Ottawa (opting instead for a photo-op with a panda who will cost $10M yearly in rental costs to China...), has reformed unemployment benefits programs to make it a hassle and a pain enough to discourage folks from even applying for it... and that's just since the snow has started to melt. He's been in power for 7 years, and he's been that active for 6 of them.

The fact that he understands politics better than anyone before him - and plays it nastily with a mean edge, not just to further his ideology but also just because he loves kicking the shit out of those who oppose him - will ensure he remains in power for as long as he wants to. Not just that, but since he's muzzling his own ministers and deputies, he is fully aware he doesn't currently have anyone lined up to take his place as the face of the party when he does decide to retire, so he may hold on even after he's had his fun, just so that the country doesn't flow back to the center or - gasp! - the left.

We used to be the Voice Of Reason, internationally; the country that kept the peace in war-torn countries (until and/or after the U.S. went in-and-out, guns a-blazing), who would have everyone else listen when we spoke at the U.N., be it about poverty, economics, science, the environment, solving conflicts and bringing forth solutions to world problems that respected each country's customs, traditions and values.

Canada was fucking Gandalf, now it's barely Gollum, holding onto its precious fucking dirty oil.

In 2001, when it was time to go to war, Americans were saying that Afghans were ''retarded'', living in caves like it was 1647, uneducated barbarians; Canadians love saying how ''ass-backwards'' the U.S. is for neglecting education and health for economics, how the fight for equal rights (first women, then people of all races, now marriage equality, soon so-called illegal immigrants) seems like a constant through their history - well, folks, Harper is George W. Bush, twice as worse: instead of being a dumb redneck following God blindly, it's the smartest guy in the room and he's got no compassion for anyone. He wants to make us uneducated cavemen stripped of any rights, but only so his friends can use us as slave labour and get richer.

That beacon of hope, morality, soul and innovation once known as Canada not only died around the time I turned 5, its corpse has been raped, napalmed, pissed on, shat on, left to re-ferment, and fed back to us all, so that we can, in turn, die, get raped, napalmed, pissed on, shat on, left to re-ferment, and fed back to our kids, so they too can die, get raped, napalmed, pissed on, shat on, left to re-ferment, and fed back to people in foreign lands who will then die, get raped, napalmed, pissed on, shat on, left to re-ferment, and fed back to the robots who will take their place on the factory lines.

In a desert land because desertification will have taken away all the farmland. Because who needs real food, anyway?

Against The Institution Until The Need For Said Institution

Conservatives in general have a nasty habit of being against ''big government'', subsidies, taxes/services... until the need to use them, themselves, arises. We witnessed that in the wake of Hurricane Sandy when a few of the Republicans who denied expediting relief aid to New York and New Jersey victims were the same who'd received it in the past for other natural disasters.

This time, irony caught up with famed Libertarian and former Republican candidate Ron Paul, who had said this about the United Nations in 2003:

The UN increasingly wants to influence our domestic environmental, trade, labor, tax, and gun laws. Its global planners fully intend to expand the UN into a true world government, complete with taxes, courts, and a standing army. This is not an alarmist statement; these facts are readily promoted on the UN’s own website. UN planners do not care about national sovereignty; in fact they are actively hostile to it.

Yet, Paul registered a grievance this week to the UN's World Intellectual Property Organization to obtain the rights to to websites created by fans, RonPaul.com and RonPaul.org. The owners of the domain names - obviously fans of free enterprise - are willing to sell him the rights, but he wants them for free.

I guess he wants to use their ''courts'' to win an exemption from his ''domestic trade laws'', under which both sites' names were rightfully purchased, and fails to acknowledge the ''labor'' the webmasters have put in it - obvious thousands of hours of it, filling the website with content and managing a 150,000-strong mailing list...

And that's the main problem with these failed politics of the Right, in general: by lacking the foresight to legislate/prevent/save, they're always caught back-tracking when Life hands them a curve ball.

This is a relatively cute, unimportant subject for which the loser will just be left empty-handed, but when it's applied to big stuff, like health, hard individual economics (bankruptcies), the quality of food and water, crumbling infrastructures - stuff that can be of ''life and death'' importance at the end of the day, then their politics become dangerous.

Conspiracy Theory: The Gulf Of Aden Vortex

What did you do this past Saturday? I spent it reading about the Vortex in the Gulf of Aden, subject of one of the most popular conspiracy theories out there today.

First things first: the Gulf of Aden is situated in the Arabian sea, (now part of the Suez canal sea route), between Yemen and Somalia - where once upon a time the Arabian peninsula was locked into the African continent. When they separated, a body of water was created, enabling a passage connecting Europe, Asia and Africa via sea. That was millions of years ago.

In the past decade, an unknown magnetic force has created a vortex in the Gulf of Aden, which has increased dramatically in size in the past 3 years.

Of late, we have also been hearing of Somalian pirates taking over merchant ships, despite being (relatively) poorly armed and manning what can only be described as weak motor boats and bona fide life rafts. The U.S. has sent part of their Navy to escort ships, and many NATO countries have since followed suit, dealing a hard blow to the Somalian pirates.

Last year, Wikileaks released a ton of diplomatic cables, including some from Russian Admiral Maksimov about the U.S.' Combined Joint Task Force - Horn Of Africa base, where many nations have assembled to monitor the vortex: the United States, Russia, Canada, Great Britain, Norway, Bulgaria, Australia, Belgium, China, Denmark, France, Germany, India, Japan, Iran, Italy, South Korea, Malaysia, The Netherlands, Pakistan, Portugal, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Thailand, and Turkey. It is the largest naval force ever assembled in human history.

And that's where it gets interesting. There is no way in fucking hell it gathered just to fight off a few armed skinny guys with AK-47s while so many of the countries above are involved in so many actual wars elsewhere (Afghanistan, Iraq and Congo, to name just three...), and to have the U.S. there alongside Iran, China and Russia, given all their diplomatic disputes and tensions about other war fronts opening eventually just adds to the mystery.

But wait, there's more!

On December 9th, 2009, a giant spiral briefly appeared in the skies of Norway, as can be seen in this NBC Nightly News video. Some say that roughly a month after this event, the vortex also sported a spiral-like shape for some time, which led many observers - both casual and professional - to associate both events.

Stranger still, when the spiral appeared in the Norwegian skies, American authorities rushed President Barack Obama and Defense Secretary Robert Gates in a secret military bunker called 2012 Alice. That's right, 2012 - as in ''the end of the world''. Adds to the mystery, doesn't it?

One piece I was not able to sit through was the documentary/interview with one Aaron McCollum,  a 90-minute video shot with a single camera featuring a tattooed-and-pierced alleged former U.S. soldier who claims to have witnessed secret American bases in the Gulf of Aden first-hand; he seems as credible as an opossum on crack, but he seems to have convinced himself, at least.

And if you can withstand a few spelling and grammatical errors, the conspiracy theory-infused blog Attainable Mind has an interesting take on these events.

Funny Thing: People Are Tired Of Dying For No Reason

Weird, huh?

By now, you've undoubtedly been made aware that Israel has launched yet another attack on the Gaza Strip for the Holidays, a Boxing Day Special, if you will.

Part of their usual ''attempt to defend themselves'', these strikes are explained as being retaliation for members of Hamas shooting rockets into Israeli territory, which had caused 4 deaths. The death count on the other side has surpassed the few hundreds now, the injured are in the thousands, too many to count, and because Israelis are targetting police stations and hospitals as well as pre-determined 'terrorist harbors' - and they are still running after apparently very specific people that they cannot seem to find.

Which makes me think of two things... first: while they're at it, maybe they should keep an eye out for Osama Bin Laden...

Also... we should change the rules for cases like these to prevent ''accidental genocides'' as collateral damage, something along the lines of asking the invading/attacking country for a prelimiray list of suspects they intend to capture or ''accidentally'' kill, with a secondary list of perhaps a dozen more 'bonus' targets that they don't know names of but have a vague task description of what they do and how they could be a threat to your country and have it all be U.N.-approved - then they could be allowed a 10-to-15% margin of error on the total amount of kills; if they go over it, too bad, be more precise next time, and you're booted out of the country for at least 3 years.

I don't know. But they have to find a way to keep civilians out of it; it should be the goal of the 21st Century, to keep civilians out of wars. And leaders who order wars should be obligated to be right behind the front lines, too, like the leaders of old (Napoleon, good to remember you), and take direct responsibility for their stupid decisions.

Another thing: I went to a rally/march/protest last Sunday to show solidarity for the people of Gaza and Palestinians in general but quickly left it because it was getting too heavy, too intense. I was enjoying some of the metaphores used both vocally and on posters, such as ''You Can't Fight Terrorism With Terrorism'', but it seemed that for every street corner we were passing, the discourse was becoming more and more direct, violent, racist; going from ''Israeli Terrorists, Stephen Harper Accomplice'' to ''Jews Are Terrorists'' was not going to help anything, and I jumped ship right away.

We're in 2009 according to the Gregorian calendar. We have 5000 years of evolution, at least, from living to 25 years old, naked, hunting for our food, and having no manners. Women are treated as equals in most places, we're working on racism, we can write and count and invent things. We're also bordering on being too many, we can't even feed everyone decently, but at least we cry when we see starving children on TV.

And we're still fighting over the tiniest piece of fucking land that an imaginary being in the sky promised to two peoples. Take a quarter, have a draw; best of three. ''Winner'' gets to stay put in the desert. ''Loser'' gets Labrador, tons of readily available water and usable soil, a view of the ocean, and free winter jackets - decent compensation for losing God's gift.

We're all going to die anyway. There should be no fucking reason to make it quicker for some on purpose.