Odracirys

My mindset appears to be in a void where few other minds venture.  Knowing people with similar mindsets on Google+ is comforting, but I am still aware that my way of thinking is extremely rare. You see, in many ways, I am a super-liberal.  I am a vegetarian, an environmentalist, and an atheist, among other things.  I support marriage equality and of course women's equality.  So far, so good.  However, there are some things that mark me as very different from many liberals.  I call things as I see them.  I am objective and do not tailor my response to somebody based on that person's race, sex, or class.  I glorify mockery when it is warranted.  I am respectful towards things that are not worthy of ridicule, but I am not politically correct simply for the sake of it. I am definitely not on the conservative side of the spectrum, but there are times when I agree with some conservatives over some liberals.  And the kinds of liberals who a...

For a while now, I have been wanting to correct some things I said on one of  's posts a while back on Google+.  Most of what I said in the comments of that post were correct, and I stand by them, but the following is something I would like to revise.  I wrote the following to Heather and  : "Many Japanese people actually admire American students, because they can (both regulation-wise and culturally) ask questions.  In Japan, teachers prepare full lectures (which is probably what a lot of that time is used for) and basically just read the lesson out, and the students take notes.  It is rote memorization.  They are excellent at it, and if it involves memorization (including of math concepts), they can beat nearly anyone else in the world.  However, if they are asked to go outside the script, they stumble.  For example, ask what year a war started, and they will know it (for the test, at least...then forget later on), but ask why the war ...

Muslim perpetrators of the most heinous crimes you can imagine love their victim mentalities, and hold onto their delusions of victim-hood at all costs. This can be seen in nearly every fanatic Muslim's words and interactions.  We can go over numerous examples, but since it is fresh in my memory, let me use the example of the Islamist murderer in the Sydney Hostage Crisis at the Lindt Chocolate Cafe.  I will not use his name to give him more notoriety, but you can look him up if you need to.  While raping and murdering right and left, he never for a moment thought that he might be the perpetrator instead of the victim.  It was always the evil West against poor him. This is a man who sought political asylum in Australia in 1996 and was granted asylum by a welcoming and tolerant people.  (It is not clear if the Australian authorities knew that he fled Iran because he stole $200,000 from customers.)  Upon arriving in Australia, he became a Sunni "spiritual...

If someone comes across my Google+ page or my blog and only views one of my posts, that person could determine from that post that I am a tree-hugging liberal, an über-nationalist, or a supporter of foreign dictatorial regimes, among other things.  The reason for this is that I call things as I see them.  80% of the time, I may support one group, but I may not support them that other 20% of the time when I think they're wrong.  I try to be as objective as possible.  My views sometimes confuse those around me, but the thing to remember is that I am consistent with what I believe to be the best position based on the evidence I have at hand, instead of merely latching on to one group and mindlessly accepting every position they advocate. You may remember my recent posts, " Propaganda in the West " and " More Propaganda in the West ".  Those were both about how the United States is messing things up and actively trying to create enemies out of nations that ar...

In case you missed my first installment of "Propaganda in the West", here is a link: http://odracirys.blogspot.com/2014/06/propaganda-in-west.html If you read that, you will notice that I'm not saying that the West has the most propaganda.  Far from it.  However, it does exist and I often notice it.  Therefore, I like to call it out once in a while. This installment focuses on the article, "Pentagon cites 'dangerous' Chinese jet intercept". ( http://news.yahoo.com/pentagon-cites-dangerous-chinese-jet-intercept-165354051--politics.html ) This was a news story about China, and even before I read it, I knew that it was going to be an American overreaction to something either trivial, or something that would have been called a Chinese provocation if the tables were turned.  The US media loves making China into the bad guy, no matter what the truth of the matter is.  Sometimes, China is the bad guy and deserves the criticism it gets.  However, that do...

My previous post on Google+ contained the video "If Slaughterhouses Had Glass Walls".  Below is a link to that post, and below that is a link straight to the YouTube video. My Post:  https://plus.google.com/u/0/100881434227795038077/posts/a3uEEBomwDE YouTube Video:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2UMp9fsAJo The post outdid all of my expectations and became by far my most viewed post on Google+ up to this point.  I am extremely happy about that, because it is a post about the most important issue for me, which is animal rights.  Below are some statistics as of the time I am posting this on August 22nd. +1s:  1178 Reshares: 304 I sincerely thank everyone who +1ed and/or shared my post!  It really shows the power of a post.  I am sure that on top of those who +1ed it, there were other people who saw it and didn't do anything, either because they didn't like the idea of showing that they "liked" such a violent video, or for oth...

  What a horrible tragedy!  You probably know by now that a passenger jet full of approximately 300 passengers was shot down over eastern Ukraine.  Although this article states that non-state actors don't usually have access to missiles that can go up past 10,000 feet, I wouldn't be surprised if Russia gave rebels in Ukraine some advanced weaponry.  (If it is true that this was shot down by a military, then that is completely outrageous.) If Russian-backed rebels are the culprit, then this is one more reason why rebels should never be supported by any side in (nearly) any conflict.  Rebels are not like states.  Rebels can do as they please without the consequences that would befall a national government.  This goes for almost all rebels everywhere.  Of course, Russia is trying to dictate what Ukraine can and can't do.  On the other hand, the United States is supporting rebels in Syria because Russia has its only Mediterranean military port...