Glenn Beck vs. Keith Olbermann: Watching either of their shows brings us uncomfortably near the absolute epitome of douchebag, but alas, when push comes to shove, only one can be the victor. Here I will discuss their individual merits and try to determine who can rightfully claim the throne in all of its douche-filled glory… But when the chips are down, we all know that it is either Keith Olbermann or Glenn Beck who will hold the crown of greatest douchebag in the history of the world.

Back in the Middle Ages, the Catholic Church and some other unaffiliated snake oil salesmen, sold what were called indulgences. These indulgences offered penance for a variety of sins and could either commute or completely eliminate one’s arduous trip through Purgatory. Today, we have a similar situation; we have an entire market of carbon credit traders. Basically, you buy offsetting carbon credits (for someone, probably in a third world country, to plant trees or something like that) to make up for your “carbon footprint.”

Statistics about non-economic matters can be manipulated as well. One of the most disturbing is regarding war casualties from Iraq. The government has a great incentive to downplay the number of Americans who have died in Iraq as to make the cost of the war look smaller and not surprisingly, they’ve taken full advantage of it.

As seen in Part 1, political terms, such as liberal, conservative or libertarian, are muddled enough. Unfortunately, political organizations, popular terms and ideologies have many of the same issues. The political parties in the United States have gone through whole sale shifts in political ideology. Republicans used to be the party of tariffs and protectionism, now they are avid free traders. Democrats were the party of slavery and Jim Crow, before becoming the party of Civil Rights and Affirmative Action.

…from what I have gathered, our current president believes we need to change a few things. Well, I agree with him. I thought President Bush was a disaster. Unfortunately, though, other than the ridiculous hero worship and cult of personality that Obama’s got going, it really doesn’t seem like much of anything is changing.

We fell right into our enemy’s plan. We executed it to a “T”. Osama Bin Laden knew very well he couldn’t defeat the United States militarily. What he did know was that he could get us stuck in the Middle East, throwing money away fighting endless insurgencies.

War is horrible… but it’s good for the economy. I cannot, for the life of me, think of a more dangerous myth than that. This facade has become so prevalent in the national conscience that it’s simply taken for granted… Seriously though, why would anyone actually believe this without at least a little skepticism? Wars are enormously destructive and shift resources from human needs, to human destruction.