Pizza Pie Cafe

This blog is solely for the purpose of neutralizing (not entirely negating) the bad rap the Pizza Pie Cafe in Provo has with the few reviews there are online.

The biggest "beef" I have with the reviews of Pizza Pie Cafe online are the people who are "disappointed" with the quality/taste/whatever of the food. People, you are paying $7. You are paying only slightly more than a Little Caesar's pizza with one topping. What exactly is it that you expect? I don't by any means intend to convey that the pizza is, as they claim, comparable to "iffy frozen pizza from a grocery store".

The food is good. It's not great or amazing, but it's definitely worth what you pay. I'd go back. The moral of this pointless blog is: don't expect California Pizza Kitchen if you pay for a $7 buffet.

fawk_novat0

Let the poor help themselves

Ok, so I finally finished my English paper tonight and submitted it... It freaking sucked. I had no time to make sure it wasn't just rambling, so it was one big ramble about letting poor people help themselves. Here is a copy if you would like to read it.

Taking Care of Our Own

“Does everyone on earth have an equal right to an equal share of its resources?” (Hardin 360).

One of the largest conflicts between morality and science is the one given the least amount of debate in the public forum. Should we allow human beings to die? To what extent are we morally obligated to preserve the lives of others? They are questions that are now thought to be ridiculous, as the human mentality has shifted from pragmatism to humanitarianism. Attempting to help the poor is a dangerous, unethical practice.

Arrogant human beings have created the popular beliefs that man is somehow above all other animals, and therefore more noble and deserving of all other species. Few would argue that in the animal kingdom all resources ought to be equally divided to assure a long life to all animals. In fact, human practice is to eliminate members of a specific population of animals as it nears it carrying capacity. Nonetheless, the belief remains widespread that all men are entitled to an equal share of the earth’s resources.

Thomas Malthus wrote in An Essay on the Principle of Population, “The constant effort towards population, which is found to act even in the most vicious societies, increases the number of people before the means of subsistence are increased. The food therefore which before supported seven millions must now be divided among seven millions and a half or eight millions.” (313). As Malthus illustrates, man tends to increase much faster than resources. Most would agree that there is a limit to the number of people the world can sustain. Despite this knowledge, many continue to justify efforts to help sustain those who cannot provide for themselves. This assistance to the poor violates one of the most basic laws of nature.

Charles Darwin wrote about natural selection, which most of us know as survival of the fittest. Darwin argued that the animals most fit for survival (i.e. faster, smarter, stronger) are favored by nature. If this is so, why can we not say the same for humans? Man is careful to monitor the number of animals and control the population. When a population grows too big for the resources of the environment, hunting licenses are issued and animals are killed. Rarely is effort made to import food to change the region to be more suitable for the animals. When the human race is faced with the same dilemma, the problem becomes the environment rather than the species to which it is home. The thought of allowing humans who cannot be supported by their own forces to die is instantly considered inhumane. Humans have the mentality that they have a right to live. Man finds himself incapable of abstaining to intervene on behalf of those who cannot provide for themselves, but has no such problem acting against other organisms to benefit the species as a whole.

One major problem of assisting the poor is that they take much more than they could ever give. Thomas Malthus wrote that man’s reasoning, “Asks him whether he may not bring beings into the world for whom he cannot provide.” (312). Aiding the poor appears to take this consideration out of the mindset of those who reproduce in poor countries. Garrett Harden establishes this argument in his essay, Lifeboat Ethics: The Case against Helping the Poor, by using a metaphor of a lifeboat in the decision to aid the poor. He compared the rich people to those inside of a lifeboat, and the poor people to others drowning outside of the lifeboat. He wrote, “The people inside the lifeboats are doubling in numbers every 87 years; those swimming around outside are doubling, on average, every 35 years, more than twice as fast as the rich.” (361). This shows the negligence of the poor in choosing to bear offspring that cannot easily be supported. Hardin draws from this information that, “since the world’s resources are dwindling, the difference in prosperity between the rich and the poor can only increase.” (361).

Noting the dilemma, we must wonder what the proper solution is. Should we attempt to increase the availability of resources to a level that will easily sustain rich and poor alike? Sadly, many have chosen this option as desirable. Proponents of helping the poor often argue that since the rich can afford to do it, they should do it. Nothing is said of the poor’s ability to change life patterns to benefit themselves. One who suggests that poor people should remain poor is labeled conceited by society. It is much easier for the rich to give of what they have to help the poor than it is to accept that the poor must do something to help themselves. Again, were it any other animal, it would be commonly held and believed that the animal that could not provide for itself must inevitably die. By simply being more conservative in reproduction, changing location, or working a little harder, some of the problems of those considered poor might be lessened or even solved, but to acknowledge that poverty may be fault of the individual is politically appalling.

If we evaluate the costs of attempts to provide the poor, we see that it is neither environmentally or fiscally beneficial to do so. Desire for an increased crop yield has lead to a new enterprise of developing and applying pesticides that are harmful to human health to fields across the United States. One such chemical, DDT, was so controversial that Rachel Carson took it as the subject of her book Silent Spring. Carson’s book examined the many harms to the environment and even to human beings themselves by using pesticides. In Silent Spring, Carson wrote the following, “Yet is our real problem not one of overproduction? Our farms, despite measures to remove acreages from production and to pay farmers not to produce, have yielded such a staggering excess of crops that the American taxpayer in 1962 is paying out more than one billion dollars a year as the total carrying cost of the surplus-food storage program.” (424). In addition to the fiscal costs of increasing production, she touches the environmental and physical dangers of the pesticides used to boost crop yield. Carson classifies pesticides as poisons and says, “If the Bill of Rights contains no guarantee that a citizen shall be secure against lethal poisons distributed either by private individuals or by public officials, it is surely only because our forefathers, despite their considerable wisdom and foresight, could conceive of no such problem.” (426).

Examining the costs of helping the poor, as Carson has, sheds a new light on the subject. People that live in rich countries are expected not only to give of their money, but also to damage the environment where they live. This leads us to the conclusion that the poor cannot be helped without also harming the very people who are doing so. The only logical reason to help the poor, then, is to redistribute wealth slowly until all resources and wealth are equitably divided between all people. As Hardin points out, “We cannot safely divide the wealth equitably among all peoples so long as people reproduce at different rates. To do so would guarantee that our grandchildren and everyone else’s grandchildren would have only a ruined world to inhabit.” (368). Hardin also warns that, “To be generous with one’s own possessions is quite different from being so generous with those of posterity.” (368). Therefore, even with purely humanitarian intentions, the poor could not be helped at the expense of our own prosperity. The question about ethics is to be answered, whom do we give from and whom do we take from? Since no one of us is in a position to decide who among many should be the recipient and who should be the giver, we cannot determine who is more deserving.

We are thus placed in the same situation we are placed in when deciding how to deal with wild animals. Before we give of our wealth and resources to people in poor countries, we must decide whether we would rather guarantee a high quality of life to our children or guarantee them a lower quality of life in a more populated world. The amount of resources and wealth are fixed. We cannot give without taking from another. Is there enough evidence to suggest that man should truly give of his own possessions to provide to another? Many cite morality or religion, which all include non-scientific abstract ideals. The prudent way to act is illustrated in the biblical story of Joseph and the famine of Egypt. “And the famine was over all the face of the earth: And Joseph opened all the storehouses, and sold[1] unto the Egyptians; and the famine waxed sore in the land of Egypt.” (Genesis 64:56).

The Egyptians had previously built up storage of food in preparation for a famine. This created a “safety factor” the likes of which Hardin explains in his metaphor of the boat. He assumes a boat with a capacity for 60 people, with 50 on board already. He states:

“Since the boat has an unused excess capacity of 10 more passengers, we could admit just 10 more to it… If we do let an extra 10 into our lifeboat, we will have lost our ‘safety factor,’ an engineering principle of critical importance. For example, if we don’t leave room for excess capacity as a safety factor in our countries agriculture, a new plant disease or a bad change in the weather could have disastrous consequences.” (361).

The Egyptians understood this principle well. They built their reserve specifically to have a safety factor. The Egyptians also understood that something cannot be given for nothing. In a time of dire need, they used their reserves not only to feed themselves, but also to profit from their opportunity.

Proponents of assistance to the poor argue that we should not deny them the help we can provide because they cannot help the circumstances under which they are raised. To them, my reply is, “Get out and yield your place to others.” (Hardin 361). Take upon yourself the circumstances of their poverty and allow them to live with what you have. Give of your own rather than taking from others who understand that there is no such obligation to help the poor. We must understand that, “Nothing wastes so rapidly as liberality, for even whilst you exercise it you lose power to do so, and so become either poor or despised.” (Machiavelli 133). Helping the poor is just that, liberality. Our power to do so is decreased in the very commission of the act. We must not destroy our safety factor by allowing more people into our boat, for, as Machiavelli would say, our space to do so becomes less each time. In accordance with Machiavelli, Hardin also warns that if we admit everyone outside the lifeboat, “The boat swamps, everyone drowns. Complete justice, complete catastrophe.” (360).

Attempting to help the poor is a dangerous, unethical practice. It assumes that man is the judge of which life is more valuable, rather than nature, or chance as some would believe it. It forces man to choose between his own posterity and that of a distant stranger. As illustrated by the many authors, it is indeed harmful to rich nations to give of their own money and environment in order to advance that of the poor. The only ethical way to solve the problem is as the Chinese proverb: “Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day; teach a man to fish and he will eat for the rest of his days.” We must help the poor by refusing to help the poor. We must return to Darwinism for the answer. Nature’s laws, not man’s, ought to determine who lives and who does not. Natural selection must be applied equally to humans as it is to all other organisms on this planet. Failure to do so may give complete justice, but cannot do so without bringing complete catastrophe.

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[1] Italics added for emphasis

MOVE

The KSL comment boards here in Utah serve many purposes. Some use them to launch their comedy writing career, some try to offer arguments for or against a certain issue (until here we're good), and some choose to use it as a forum to complain about Mormons in Utah.

To all of those who use the KSL boards to gripe about Mormons, I'll let you in on a little secret... You live in the wrong state. Utah was founded by... You guessed it... Mormons. Incidentally, most of them stayed and had children. If you don't like Mormons, or have a beef with the church itself, maybe you should seek residence elsewhere. I can name 49 states that have less members of the LDS church than Utah, so you will have a plethora of options.

So please, stuckinutahmiserablebecauseihatemormons, log off KSL, pack up your computer and find a new place to live where you can dedicate your time to a job, hobby, or maybe even a family and feel obligated to complain about the predominant religion in the area.

Brainwash

I am going to make one very ridiculous and abusive comparison to start things off. There are two men, political leaders to be more precise, who have managed to completely brainwash enough of their followers past the point of logic to accomplish their goals: Adolf Hitler and Barack Hussein Obama.

Yep, I said it. The large majority of Obama supporters who have come out of the woodwork follow blindly and without question much as the supporters of the National Socialist German Worker's Party. The promises made and plans laid out by President-elect Obama fall just barely short of creating a National Socialist American Idiot Party.

I suppose you could call me old fashioned, I believe in what the founding fathers believed in. At the founding of the nation if you did not work, you starved. I believe in the constitution, and the constitutional process. I believe in fairness and equality; of opportunity, not of results.

I am sick of hearing that the economy is Bush's fault. Let me educate those of you who have said this. Our national government is built with a system of checks and balances, giving each branch of government only a portion of the power. The executive branch was purposefully created as the inferior, and given the least amount of influence in lawmaking. Any legal decisions as to the economy or tax code is made by the legislative branch, which I would remind you has been controlled by the Democrats in these last two years, which not coincidentally have been the steepest part of the plunge.

Do not misinterpret that to mean that I blame all economic problems on Democrats, that would be ignorant. The increased gas prices have nothing to do with any politician, they are a direct result of Hurricane Katrina and the refineries that were put out of commission. The housing crisis has nothing to do with Bush, it is the responsibility of those who passed legislation encouraging lending to those who could not pay it back simply to avoid being "discriminatory." The loss of jobs in the United States IS, however, definitely traceable to our legislators and the increased tax burdens on large corporations that make it increasingly lucrative to operate offshore.

There has been much complaining about the "unfair" tax burdens and claims that the highest income bracket should pay more money in taxes. Once again, the large majority of US citizens have no idea what is going on tax wise, and as a parrot mimic that which they hear come from one they trust from his extensive political career as a community organizer. Even after the bush tax cuts, the highest income bracket was paying 8 percent more than any other bracket, and 18 percent more than most of the families considered to be "Middle class." To say that they have got it easy is a lie. Their cut was only 3 percent total of what they normally paid, leaving them still to pay double the percentage of a working-class family. It is the highest income bracket that shoulders the large majority of the government's income from taxes.

Health care has emerged as a large issue also, with Obama rallying support for a national [socialist] health care system. Senator Obama is so generous with taxpayer money that he will force all insurance agencies to accept all persons regardless of pre-existing conditions. With all due respect, if it is that important to him, why does he not take a portion of his 4.2 million dollar income from last year to start an insurance agency that does what he proposes? Simple, he knows that it will not be profitable, so he is going to roll it out nationally so that you and I can pay the bill on every one's health care. What a generous fellow.

To conclude, I would like to address the comments made by countless numbers of US citizens that we should rally behind Obama and support him. I find it quite funny that now that Obama is going to be at the helm it is time to come together. It wasn't time to come together when we went into Iraq, it wasn't time to come together when the surge in troops was proposed, and it wasn't time to come together to reform social security. Only now, that the democratic party is in charge, is it time to come together. Only now, that one of the least experienced politicians in history is leading the policy decisions, is it time to put aside our differences; and it is only now, that a man who served as senator for 35 years who did not know that the Vice President of the United States had the constitutional mandate to preside over the Senate at all times (rather than just in time of a tie vote) has been elected vice president, that it is time to be united.

Barack Obama has the same opportunity that I give any politician to disappoint me. It is my belief, based on the information he has provided in his blueprint for change, and his lack of substance in a presidential campaign that he will be quick to deliver in the realm of political shortcoming.

I plead to those of you on both sides of the political arena who talk without knowing any facts or even what those you claim to support say, to please shut up. It would be especially wise of you not to try to argue with someone without knowing any facts, opting instead to spew back illogical political rhetoric.

fawk_novat0

Way to go down

If I were a murder suspect, this is how I would go down.
Congratulations Raymundo, you are my new anti-hero.

Social networking sites... And the people that ruin them.

My latest rant is triggered by no more than a few minutes jumping between facebook and myspace. People, please follow these guidelines for your profile:

1. Keep your clothes on. If you want to be naked on the Internet, buy a domain and at least make money off of it.

2. Hold the camera at a right angle. If I have to turn my head to look at your picture, it means you didn't take it the right way. I will grant you a few degrees of leeway, but if it is clearly crooked and you post it, you are a moron.

3. Don't say you are down to earth. If you have to go out of your way to mention that you are a really down to earth person, you obviously aren't.

Immediate compliance is requested. Thank you.

fawk_novat0

Give me a break

Ok, this just pissed me off.

Fast Food Moratorium

Apparently the people of Los Angeles cannot decide on their own what they should and should not eat. Thank goodness we have the government to intervene in our eating habits. Who the hell are these people? Do they seriously believe that if they do this LA is all of the sudden going to be not fat? Ridiculous. Someone should storm that meeting and throw vegetables at these high and mighty retards. God bless America, the only place in the world where people THAT stupid are granted political power.

fawk_novat0