Disturbing

I wanted to come up with a clever title for this post, but I'm speechless. Well, sort of.

I just watched a VERY disturbing video. I'm wishing that it's not true, just one of those things that are exaggerated by conspiracy theorists. But I have a feeling it's not...a STRONG feeling.

I know some Australians hate Americans, and that annoys me. Some of us are decent people, and it's not nice to lump us together with the crappy folks. It's rude.

But I do think Australians have every right to hate the American government, or at least the Ryan Kwanten look-a-like government. And while they're at it, they might want to also spit venom at Bush's Aussie mate, John Howard.

The video clips I watched come from a 2005 documentary called Blowin in the Wind. The first clip I watched is about the health dangers of weapons using depleted uranium. It shows how the American government is dishonest about all of this. Then I watched the third clip which shows that America uses Australia to test these bombs. AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH (that's me screaming in disgusted anger).

Okay, I've heard vague things about America testing bombs in Australia before. I didn't pay much attention. But I guess this video helped it all sink in a bit more.

Lord Wiki has a lot to say about depleted uranium. I don't want to read it all, because I'm not scientific-minded enough to understand it. I skimmed it a bit though, and the basic idea is you have some scientists saying it's BAD stuff, and other scientists saying it's fine. Which side do you trust?

I get the sense that Lord Wiki isn't trusting those who say it's NOT unhealthy for humans. From what I AM reading in his post, he seems to be taking a side here.

There is some belief that the cause of the Gulf War Syndrome may have been caused by the uranium. But then there's some belief that there is no Gulf War Syndrome, that the symptoms experienced by veterans are no worse and no more prevalent than symptoms experienced by veterans of other wars.

One day I was browsing around at the bookstore. I picked up this book written by a very pro-science person. He was writing about the awful people like me who question science...the ones who annoyingly ask, are we sure vaccines are safe? Are we sure it's okay to take that medication? What if doing this makes us feel worse instead of better? This guy who wrote the book believed there's a group of anti-science people gaining momentum, and that they were wreaking havoc on society.

I WANT to trust science. I really do. I want to have buttloads of faith in it. It would make my life much easier. But how can we trust science when one study says one thing, and another study says another thing? How do we trust science when we're frequently assured an ingredient in our food is FINE, and we shouldn't trust those fringe weirdos who say otherwise. Then years later, science comes out and says well, guess what. Those fringe weirdo loud-mouths were right.

I'm not anti-science. I do try to keep up to date on the latest studies....especially health-related ones. I think scientific studies have SOME validity. But I think it's incredibly foolish to believe something is safe just because a government health body assures you that it is. On the other hand, it's also foolish to assume something is dangerous, and should be avoided just because radical conspiracy theorists are against it.

There are no easy answers.

There's just a lot of questions.

Is the American government evil, or just greedy and stupid? I don't know.

Are the Democrats just as bad as the Republicans? I hope they're not, but they might be.

Life sucks. It really does. But it has it's nice people and nice moments. We should enjoy them, because you never know when you're going to end up being the victim of awfulness. And then some scientists might come along and insist you weren't really a victim of awfulness. It was all in your head, or just a random coincidence. Maybe they'd be right. Maybe they'd be wrong. Who knows.