Bill's Comments

"It will be of little avail to the people that the laws are made by men of their own choice, if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood; if they be repealed or revised before they are promulgated, or undergo such incessant changes that no man who knows what the law is today can guess what it will be to-morrow." --Federalist No. 62

.....but we keep forgetting that lesson.

[We have to pay attention to whom we elect and what they are doing and why.]

Let's see, Brown wins in Massachusetts--the message is that government has to become more fiscally responsible. So President Obama comes on TV and announces that he will not let contractors that have not paid taxes bid on government jobs--it will recover $5 billion supposedly to enforce laws already on the books. Of course we are 12.8 Trillion (That's over 2000 times greater) in debt already and heading upwards. So where does the other 1999/2000 come from?

Gates of Vienna , which has specialized in blogging on the Islamist attempt to overtake the world, has reporting on the trial of Geert Wilders, a Dutch Parliamentarian, for remarks he made speaking as a member of Parliament. This is the final outcome of so-called Hate Speech Law, the suppression of honest discussion of issues important to the political health of a country. Go to the website and read the first few posts.

.........Be afraid, be very afraid.

The existence of God can be neither proven nor disproven. In a series of essays, I tried to show that whether the universe is deterministic or not also cannot be proven or disproven. Additionally, I showed that one could put constraints on the problem and reduce it to a question of whether the universe is infinitely continuous at any microscopic level, or not, if it were then it was deterministic. Analogously I can argue that though we cannot prove or disprove the existence of God, we can put constraints on what His nature must be if he does exist, given the knowledge we have of the world today and our existing concepts of God.

Generally God is considered an immaterial being that lives somewhere called Heaven. As commonly conceived, He is the ultimate dualism problem, in that being immaterial, He can still affect the material world. One of the implications of my saying God only works through people, is that we can find a way around this dualistic problem. More on that below.

The first constraint that I would argue for is that God does not break the rules of nature. In another essay where I first stated this I discussed its implications on the possibility of miracles. That is outside this discussion but will be covered at another time. What is important, however, is the question of a friend of mine who is a Lutheran lay pastor. He and I had some interesting discussions, and when I said that God does not break the rules of nature, his response was, “Is it because He will not break them, or because He cannot break them?” Further on in this essay, we will see that this has a major impact on the theodicic question. For now let’s look at how traditional Christian belief approaches this.

According to the Biblical tradition, God created everything, the Heavens and the Earth. Today we would generalize this to the Universe. Accordingly then, He also had to have created the laws by which it operates. Since He created the Laws of Nature, then He should be able to use or not use them as he sees fit. Many Christians today, think that God is directly involved in all events on earth, both natural and human-caused. They truly believe that He controls the weather, or can if he wishes, and other natural disasters as well as human-caused evil. They ascribe to a God that is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent.

This belief leads them into some very serious difficulties when faced with the apparent success of evil or a natural disaster. The immediate question is, “How can God let this happen?” This is often met with the response, “It is not for us to know God’s ways,” or some equivalent. According to an excellent book on the history of evil in philosophic thought, this question was first asked in a meaningful way after the great earthquake in Lisbon, Portugal, in 1755. The answers all amount to, “I don’t know.”

No matter how we unpack the trio of omniscience, omnipotence, and omnibenevolence, it is internally self-contradictory. It’s like the old sales saying, “Faster, cheaper, better, pick two.” In this particular essay, we will approach the problem as if omniscience and omnibenevolence are valid.

To justify this choice we can point out that, if God exists, he should be in a position of being able to know so much more than us, that whether or not His knowledge is truly infinite (the ultimate meaning of omniscient), it is so far ahead of ours that we can take it as a working example of omniscience. How could His knowledge be greater than ours? This is another implied ability of God, to know all that we know and more. If we constrain His knowledge just to that which we as humans collectively know, it is much vaster than what any one person knows. This is not just academic knowledge but all knowledge of life under all circumstances of human living. It is fairly simple to assume that He is able to sort and analyze this knowledge, removing contradictions, recognizing similarities and patterns, and defining gaps, given that He is able to acquire it. Generally, God is given greater knowledge than this, so we can take as an operational definition that God is omniscient.

Also we can point out that if God is not omnibenevolent, then why should we worship Him or respect Him? If his motivation is not our best interests, then there is no reason to have Him as God, other than to bribe him to be nice to us, to bend His ends to ours, or at least let us survive and hopefully prosper. There are some other implications of this question when we consider omnipotence.

Let us first examine the consequences of true omnipotence. First of all, if God is truly omnipotent, then He must have omniscience. Otherwise, He has power that he cannot correctly apply or perhaps even use for a failure in the knowledge required to do so. Anything less than omniscience immediately implies less than omnipotence. But if he is omnipotent, then he has the ability to alter anything, change the forces of nature, even, in principle change time. If he can do this, then why do bad things happen to good people, to quote a book title? The problem is that by our moral standards, he is letting evil happen[1] when he could prevent it, and is therefore culpable of being a part of it. One might make a utilitarian argument that says more harm would occur if He did not let it happen, but considering we posit God as a deontological being not a utilitarian being, this is a contradiction of Christian belief. It also contradicts the omnibenevolence attribution, or rather reduces it to a utilitarian calculation as well.

Does He follow the laws of nature out of the respect for our intellectual strivings to understand them? After all, if He changes and alters them willy-nilly, we would never understand them. But then again, why should it be in His interests for us to do so? Why should He want humans to be the cantankerous, ego-driven, independent creatures, that we are? For that matter why should he want us to have free will? These last two questions are obviously rhetorical, but they touch on much of the mystery that comes with the omni-triad.

From my perspective, the idea that God is not omnipotent is the easiest way to deal with the contradiction. God follows the laws of nature, because He cannot do other. At the same time this absolves Him of the problems of theodicy. He allows evil to happen only because He cannot prevent it. But what does that leave us then? He can still be omniscient and omnibenevolent and be unable to do all that He wants to help us.

But if He cannot disobey the laws of nature, just as we cannot, what is His value? What can he do? After all we define him as not material in our world. For that matter, if He is not all powerful, how do we know He is there to start with? Why should we have any belief in Him or His efficacy? If we expect physical demonstration of Him, there is no reason. The example of the professor that says, “If there is a God, let Him strike me dead in the next 20 seconds,” and twenty seconds later says, “I’m still alive, there is no God,” is cheap theatrics not valid philosophy or theology. It also happens to be massive arrogance to consider oneself so important among all the people of the world that God would take the time to strike one person dead just to show His existence. For that matter, it also runs against the omnibenevolence idea, because God is not benevolent to just believers, but to all.

There is a means by which God can be effective on earth, people. God communicates with people.[2] In the Old Testament it was often in dreams or visions. There are stories of direct conversation, e.g. Abram and God over the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. My own thoughts are that it can be dreams or visions but also something known in a moment of quiet openness. It is not necessarily a voice or vision, but knowledge, and it is conveyed as a choice. In one sense this seems more impotent than potent, but humans are the biggest show on the planet for better or for worse. And regardless of the historical theories that times make the man, history is full of people that single-handedly made a difference either by their own efforts or by recruiting people to help.

We as humans effect the world around us by creating physical objects to change it. We become more effective by recruiting other people to help us do this. From this activity come our societies and cultures. It is not a far stretch to consider that God would do the same thing by asking people to do things that they might not think of themselves, but once having considered it, subscribe to the effort with all their will. And yes, one can look at it like a numbers game just as sales people do, out of so many candidates will come prospects, and out of so many prospects will come closures. The only thing I would think is that with God’s greater knowledge, He has a higher success ratio.

Again however we still must consider that using people is not perfectly efficient. Some evil is so great that only large groups of powerfully motivated people can overcome it. Hitler’s Nazi Germany, Stalin’s USSR, and Mao’s Red China come to mind. The first fell by the force of the Allied Armies. The other two fell from the combined Cold War efforts and their own internal contradictions. Also not all good seems to be rewarded, but that is another topic.

After first admitting our ignorance of whether God exists or not for certain, if we accept His existence as a belief, then what value is that belief? First it is the North of our moral compass. All morality to theists, at least those that believe that God is more than the First Watchmaker of the Universe, starts with what they think God wants as moral standards. (It is not the place to discuss here that most of those standards can be arrived at from non-theistic belief systems.) Most Christians take it much further, ascribing to Him all the power we discussed above, and then asking for various blessings, assistance, and forgiveness. That discussion is for another time. Second, it may be a source of comfort in times of trouble—God is watching out and will help as He is able. Third, He may indeed “talk” to people when they are open to it and He needs their assistance. It is not a forceful “Du wilst,” but “I would like you to….,” or “Have you considered….”

[1]It is evil as opposed to bad because having the power to control it makes Him responsible for it, therefore it can be considered intentional.
[2]It becomes highly speculative physics, but gets around the problem, if we hypothesize that God exists as some sort of field complex in the dimensions other than our own three. Since speculative physics now hypothesizes that the universe is composed of many dimensions, then all things may inhabit more than just the three dimensions we are used to. God would interact with humans through their nervous system’s electrical fields, via the non-spacial dimensions.

Gates of Vienna is following the trial of Geert Wilders on hate speech grounds closely. Go read their posts and see what happens to free speech when hate speech becomes a criminal offense.

.....is the suppression of free speech. It sounds so good on the surface until you look at what it is used for.

One of my favorite cooking activities is making stock. Let's be very clear, stock is NOT broth. Broth comes from cooking meat and is primarily the juices from the meat in the cooking water. Broth is often delicate and has salt in it. Stock on the other hand has been to body-building school and has taken steroids. Stock requires bones, some fresh meat, and vegetables. The techniques and principles of making stock can be adapted to enrich the flavor of many things, including giblet gravy.

Basic stock is very simple, but requires time. I have made ham, chicken, and turkey stock. They all have the same basic approach with some refinements as desired. Bones, onions, celery, carrots, bay leaves, thyme stems, peppercorns and water are the basics. Generally I make between 3 and 6 quarts of stock in a 10 quart stock pot.

For the bones from two hams or the carcass of a 10+ lb turkey, I use two large onions, peeled and cut in half, four large carrots in 3 inchs pieces, four or five stalks of celery in 3 in pieces. I then take cheese cloth and wrap 3 bay leaves, several stems of fresh thyme, and 10-15 peppercorns inside and tie it securely. That makes the spices easy to remove later. I put it all in the stock pot, and if the bones have already been cooked once, cover with hot water with two inches or so above the starting surface. I bring it to a boil and simmer gently, uncovered or partly covered, adding boiling water as necessary to keep everything covered. Skim the foam as it forms. For ham and turkey there won't be much. I boil turkey about three hours, and ham about four to five. When you are through boiling, take it off and filter it through two layers of cheese cloth in a colander. Chill or freeze as soon as possible, stock is a great medium for bacteria. Remove the fat from the stock after it is cold and settled.

If you want to save the meat from the ham or turkey bones, (which has little or no flavor, but still has texture) then pick out the spice bag and the pieces of vegetable. Remove as many bones as possible, then start filtering the stock. You will have to pick the meat from the remaining bones. This is very tedious for turkey, as the necks and backs disintegrate, and there are many fine bony leaders in the remaining leg muscle material. Note: Turkey skin adds nothing to the stock, so discard it with as much fat as possible before making the stock. The same for any skin or fat on the ham.

Though the principles are the same, there is some variation in the chicken stock I make. I use fresh bones if I can get them, and never the bones from cooked chicken. If I know I will be making stock in the future, I will buy breasts with bone in, or whole chickens and bone them, freezing the bones until I want them. Along with the chicken bones, I will add a package of necks and backs and a package of legs with thighs. Usually I take a cleaver and cut the necks, backs, thighs, and legs in half. I want to expose more bone in the fresh chicken. I may use relatively more thyme with chicken, though that is optional. Again, don't use the skin from chicken in the stock. It doesn't help and can add an off flavor to it. I only cook chicken stock about two to three hours. I filter chicken stock and never save the meat--it has no flavor; it is all in the stock.

NEVER put salt in stock. Often stock is concentrated for sauces and the salt will concentrate with it. Only add salt at serving time, or after any reductions.

If you read major cookbooks on stock, they will all have their own variants on the basic. This is where stock is so much fun. You can vary the proportions, or add other flavors to it. Most professional cook books make very basic stocks, reduce them and then make sauces. The variations are at the sauce level not the stock level.

Common stocks include fish (a very fragile stock, only cooks for an hour, and fish bones are hard to find) chicken, veal, lamb, beef, and vegetable. This latter apparently takes some skill and effort to produce a flavorful brown stock, starting with roasting the vegetables. I have not tried it, though it is on the list of to dos sometime.

For making soups, stock is essential to many recipes, and chicken stock shows up in places I never realized.

I think the reason I like making stock is that it is like a large-scale organic synthesis, and much of the operation is like large-scale chemistry. It is also a very free-form event. Within very large ranges, you have a lot of freedom to change the proportions of ingredients and still have a good-tasting product. However, if you want consistency, it is best to write down what you put in by weight, e.g., five pounds of bones, a pound of onions, 1/4 lb each carrots and celery, etc.

If you haven't tried stock and consider yourself a serious cook, then do so. The results are the foundation of many wonderful dishes.

I have been playing three games in FaceBook, FarmVille, Treasure Madness, and Castle Age. In each case one of my friends, a different one in each case, got me interested and started. In effect, they are electronic board games in the way they are played, only more complex in the rule and interaction sets. All have some limiting item to be obtained that can be obtained over time, or by purchasing it via a third-party financier, eg. PayPal. I have read that these games are actually excellent money-makers for their originators. A few dollars gets considerable advancement, and with millions of players, only a few dollars per player are needed to create considerable cash flow.

FarmVille is the simplest of all, plant and harvest crops and interact with neighbors, giving them gifts, receiving gifts, visting their farms and helping out. The result is a monotonic advance in status. It requires both earning dollars and experience in planting and harvesting crops to advance. Buying things with dollars provides experience, planting and harvesting require the investment of dollars followed by at least a doubling with the harvest in a few hours to a few days, real time. In addition to crops, one can plant and harvest trees, raise animals, build buildings, and decorate with hedges, fences, lawn ornaments, etc. One builds a farm in the image one wants. Actually, it is a fair amount of fun, just about what a board game would produce, only protracted over weeks and months with an indefinite number of players. The key here is it is non-competitive, only cooperative. In addition, it is continually enhanced with new reward ribbons, new crops, new gifts to give one another, and new decorations to purchase, mostly with the dollars you can buy not the coins you earn in the game.

Treasure Madness is also monotonically increasing, but in a different way. It is built around an archeological theme, excavate and find the treasures of past civilizations. It is the perfect game for someone slightly obsessive like myself. One can systematically work through the maps, which are imaginary islands laid out on a grid, either finding nothing, finding coins, gold, or jewels, all worth Gold Points, finding food items, bananas, kiwis, coconuts, or melons, or finding an archeological treasure. If it is an archeological treasure, then it is necessary to win a simple game first to obtain it. Games include two versions of Tetras, a couple of different tile movement games, a memory game, and what is called pearl drop, which I usually avoid by paying the price of one Health Point and switching games. Time is more generous in this game than in the next in rewarding Health Points, which can also be purchased. The goal is to complete maps and complete collections of five related artifacts. The developers also offer "crates" which have undisclosed contents that can be purchased to complete collections.

It appears that the overall discovery of treasures is controlled by random number generation. At thirty-five seconds recovery of a health point, it only takes about an hour to recover a very significant number of health points, and one expends ten to thirteen HPs for each tile on the grid that is explored. Thus for a dedicated player, the largest of maps may be completely explored in a few hours. Besides HPs the limiting factor is Gold Points, and these can only be obtained from the game. It is sometimes necessary to discontinue the exploration of one island for want of gold, and go to another one with more than average gold to obtain the necessary funds to purchase things like anti-venom, bat nets, anteaters (yes, anteaters, and they are very expensive.), and dynamite. Again, for board gamers this can be a fun game.

The most complex of the lot is Castle Age. Based on a Dungeons and Dragons like environment, one pursues quests with game characters as generals, hires various mercinaries, purchases weapons and land. One advances by experience points, and these are obtained on quests and by battle.

This latter means requires a certain ruthlessness. One selects unknown players of similar skill and battles them. The results are controlled by the program's calculation of relative strength, and some randomness. The winner receives battle points, maybe dollars, if they are not stashed in the keep, and experience points. At particular levels of total battle points, one receives game-valuable awards, and rank. At particular level of experience points one moves up a level. The key is to find an enemy to do battle with that one can beat and then fighting until one has either run out of stamina, or has completely defeated the character. A completely defeated character will simply wait and have all the health restored or else purchase it with stored income.

The game requires the constant exercise of judgment for success, as well as careful tactics and strategies. One learns to time level advances because they completely replenish health, energy, and stamina. Health is required in battle, as is stamina. Energy is required in questing as well as dollars to purchase the needed mercenaries. This latter becomes very expensive, and early investments in land are quite useful later, as many of the necessary mercenaries and weapons have on-going upkeep that requires constant income, which is provided by the purchase of land.

There is one feature of Castle Age that bemuses me. All the male characters are dressed in massive armor and carry large weapons in their pictures. All the female characters are in their early twenties, and are dressed relatively seductively, certainly not for battle. Yet the game rules require the leading of troops as generals by these female characters on given quests. It is almost as if they are a version of Stupifyin' Jones in the old comic strip, Li'l Abner. One look at her and men were paralyzed.

Regardless, of the visuals, it is possible to develop an approach that is limited only by time to recover energy and stamina. Once one has a reasonable treasury, health is recovered simply by spending dollars. When one has used up all ones energy on questing, one can still go battling with stamina. It is in the battling that the ruthlessness comes out. One can beat up on one opponent until they are "killed" or reduced to too low a strength to fight. At the same time one takes available money from the victim. It is the ultimate Might Makes Right. I have discovered that I am not as ruthless as I could be, generally quitting sooner on a victim when they are losing dollars than if all they are losing is health. Knowing the value of the dollars to me, I get sympathetic of the victim somewhere during the battle and ease off.

Because of its complexity, Castle Age is my favorite of the three. However, it is also the most time limited. It takes five minutes to recover a unit of energy, and the same for a unit of stamina. Generally, stamina is less limiting in the game. It is possible to indirectly purchase either energy or stamina with real money. Once one has over 100 units of energy, it takes all night or all day to replenish it completely unless one gets a level upgrade. That can make a significant bottleneck for someone who is impatient. Like the old song says, "My God, how the money rolls in."

So that is the somewhat dissociative world of FaceBook games, where I play and have fun and at the same time observe and analyze.

From this article (thanks to Drudge for the link) the latest bomb attempt on NW 283 will probably lead to greater employment of the latest technology--chemical sniffing and whole body scanning. However, there is a counter statement quoted:

Using technology for every threat may cost more and reduce risk less than measures such as increasing visa reviews in “high-risk” countries, said David Schanzer, director of the Triangle Center on Terrorism and Homeland Security at Duke University and the University of North Carolina.

“Every time we have an episode, we should not rush to judgment and spend billions of dollars deploying the newfangled technology that will meet a very narrow sliver of the threat,” said Schanzer. “That’s not a satisfying response that politicians can make. Politicians feel an urgent need to respond to the threats today.”

But the current administration is trying to play "let's be friends" with high risk countries. God forbid we should offend someone by suspecting them or denying a visa.

UPDATE: From Pundita comes this comment:

I've been seeing reports that only a full body scan could have caught the explosives AM had taped to his body, and that those scanners cost $250,000 each. This news has been accompanied by hand-wringing on the part of officials about the expense of installing the hi-tech scanners. But Kurt's mention of a bomb-sniffing dog is a reminder that there's a low tech full-body scanner on four paws that doesn't cost much in room, board, and flea powder. So maybe as a stopgap solution airports should make greater use of bomb-sniffing dogs.

....is always easier than thinking and using judgment.

From Drudge comes a link to this story:

...Holiday air travel already has been badly disrupted by two deadly winter storms which paralyzed much of the United States over the past week.

A blizzard struck the US midsection on Wednesday and Thursday, blanketing parts of the country in up to two feet (61 centimeters) of snow and grounding hundreds of flights.

....and we did everything we could to kill the passenger train.

Christmas in the US is an amalgam of three different holidays, Winter Solstice, St Nicholas’ Day, and the birth of Jesus. Of the three the commercialization of St Nicholas’ Day has become the most obvious, with the carols inspired by both the Solstice and the birth of Jesus, second. The ideas in this essay are quite preliminary and are subject to further expansion and revision over time. These are first thoughts on the topic.

The focus of this essay is the incorporation of the birth of Jesus into a holiday. Looking at the source materials in context for the birth story, they come from two of the four Gospels, Luke and Matthew, and neither tells the same story. The Christmas story as is done in both church and, at one time, school pageants, is a forcing together of the Matthew and Luke birth stories.

Both Matthew and Luke state that Mary was a virgin when she gave birth to Jesus, and Luke gives a lot of additional detail such as John the Baptist being the cousin of Jesus. Matthew has the Magi, and Luke has the manger, shepherds, and angels. Matthew has the flight to Egypt, but Luke simply has them going home to Galilee.

Of greater interest to me is that Mark makes no mention of Jesus birth. Mark is the oldest of the Gospels, with Matthew and Luke coming 25 to 30 years later. In that time Paul had done a large amount of his evangelizing and creation of a Christology—Jesus as savior and Messiah, not just as a rabbi and teacher. It crosses my mind that, by the time Luke and Matthew started creating their versions of the story of Jesus, additions to the oral tradition had been created. The motivation would be similar to: a person as important as Jesus would have to have a day of birth in keeping with the significance.

In addition to the virgin birth, Matthew apparently obtained a story concerning astrological events. No one in over a hundred years of astronomical attempts has been able to explain the “star” of Bethlehem. Furthermore, one cannot literally take it that the star, if it were a heavenly body, would lead them to the manger or to Judea. In fact, from a parsing of the text, the Magi did not arrive until Jesus was about two years old, hence the Herodian decree that all male children under the age of two were to be put to death. Actually, I think the historicity of this is also in question. So the standard vision of three wise men giving gifts to Jesus in the manger is a modern myth.

Luke, on the other hand, uses an entire chapter to describe the pregnancies of both Esther and Mary and establishing that John the Baptist was a cousin of Jesus. He also states that there was a tax on the Roman world, causing Mary and Joseph to go to Bethlehem. Luke also gives us the angels announcing the birth to shepherds, who leave their flocks to go see the baby. Luke has them go live in Galilee. As with the Matthewan story, the historicity is lacking, as is a certain lack of knowledge about sheep herding. Luke in his desire to illustrate the humble beginnings and the humble audience for early Christianity makes a serious error in stating the shepherds left their flocks.

One of the characteristics of Christianity is that it co-opts the prophecies of the Old Testament or Hebrew Bible, as being the prophecies of the coming of Jesus. The evangelists that wrote the gospels set the pattern for this as did Paul, relating Jesus and the events of his life to fulfillment of prophecy. It begins with the birth story’s fulfilling the prophecy of Micah 5:2-5a. However, it is notable that 5b puts the lie to the passive peaceful image usually portrayed for Jesus. The Jews were looking for another David, not a spiritual messiah.

Part of the appeal and the tremendous staying power of the Christmas story as it has come down to us, is the desire for it to be so. It feels so good. It is an affirmation of absolute goodness in the world. The story is so powerful that it can cause us to suspend our judgment on it and the larger contexts of it. Ex-bishop Shelby Spong did make a valid observation that we tell this wonderful story of the birth of a baby that in thirty-some years will be murdered in the most horribly violent way that the society of the day could devise. The cognitive dissonance is more than we can handle, so we focus on how wonderful this baby is to us, and ignore how he will become important.

It also shows what happens when we do not understand the way in which the Gospels were written. Many if not most Christians, and at one time myself, take them as historical documents, which in fact they are not. They are selective telling of the events the evangelist considered important in telling his version of what the life of Jesus meant to him and should mean to others. The “rules” by which they wrote allowed the attribution of their own ideas to other people’s dialog, and a conflation of both fact and fiction in the telling of the story. We then read this literally and create what is a fantasy.

Despite all the fantastic and a-historical nature of the story, rather than its being derided, it needs to be seen for what it does, stimulates the benign feelings of good-will among people. Even if the effect lasts only for the season, it provides something that does not seem to occur any other way. As such regardless of our intellectual assessments and judgments, emotionally it is valid and should be accepted as such.

From this link from Drudge:

A conservative activist and Illinois comptroller candidate was escorted from the Illinois State Capitol building Wednesday when he tried to remove a sign put up by an atheist group.

...

"It doesn't matter how we feel about the message on a display," Haupt said. "Our obligation is to protect the property within the state Capitol building, and we would do the same for any other display."

Much as I decry the attempts by atheists to stifle Christian messages, this attempt by a Christian to remove an atheist message is just as wrong.

Free speech is exactly that, unfettered speech, save certain exceptions carefully carved out in Constitutional law, e.g., you can't arbitrarily shout "FIRE" in a crowded theater, or deliberately libel or slander someone. If Christians want a hearing for their ideas, they have to allow a hearing for atheist ideas, otherwise it is simply a version of might makes right.

From the National Center for Policy Analysis came a daily digest entry that pointed up a problem with the way we do military acquisitions.

Technology created for military use has gone on to become widely used by civilians. As gizmos become smaller and cheaper -- and they invariably do -- they are then able to percolate from the soldier on the battlefield to the man in the street. But lately some kinds of technology have been moving in the other direction, says the Economist....

--Global defense spending, at about $1.5 trillion a year, far exceeds sales of consumer-electronics, at around $700 billion a year; but only a small fraction of defense spending is devoted to developing electronics.
--The consumer-electronics industry can therefore outspend the military in research and development, and spread out those costs over a far larger market.
--Electronics firms also move much faster than the slow, multi-year grind of military procurement programs. [emphasis mine, bk]
--The emergence of open standards and open-source software makes it easier to repurpose off-the-shelf technologies or combine them in novel ways.

Of course, there are limits to this off-the-shelf approach: it is no way to procure tanks, helicopters or missile systems. But the selective use of existing technology allows military planners to focus their spending on the development of new technologies, rather than reinventing the wheel.

But it still crosses my mind that this twenty-year cycle of weapons development is wrong. By the time a new system is developed and production started, the system it replaces is obsolete, so that by the last units to be upgraded will have been fighting with obsolete equipment for years. This may satisfy politicians and generals, but it does nothing to create a strong, responsive military force and protect our soldiers.

Some systems have been almost legendary in their effectiveness and useful life span, the M-1, and the 45 Automatic, and some of the heavy armor systems. But others don't seem to do so well, the Humvee when faced with IEDs, etc. Systems such as airplanes that can become obsolete rapidly, need a different kind of procurement cycle, one that allows for continuous upgrade and trickle down of weaponry to units based on their priority of need.

The analogy is the automobile market. Models are continuously improving, year to year. The improvements start with the top of the line, and as they become well established move to lessor models. There are new, improved models every year. Last years models are either sold to new users or eventually traded in a few years as the owner sees fit. So a top of the line fighter plane would be built, with each year seeing improvements. The units most likely to face combat get the newest and best, and the older models filter down to reserves and finally scrap. Worked right this could lead to much more rapid improvement of equipment and also newer, more effective equipment at the reserve level.

We have to remember that the purpose of the military is to provide for our security, not provide pork barrel projects for Congressmen and Congresswomen to distribute to their constituencies, nor to be subjected to the latest social engineering fad. When you are faced with a big, nasty guy with a club, gun or knife, who do you want on your side, some slick-talking, fancy-dresser, that has never had to fight for anything, or a rough-looking guy with an automatic, laser sights, and training to take on anything. Right now we have the former, when we need the latter.

From Belmont Club, this excellent essay on the legal background of terrorist "rights".

.....Terrorist have no rights, the President and the ACLU not withstanding.

I have commented on the failure of our government to show the proper priorities and provide adequately for our defense and the safety of our soldiers. This article (thanks to Drudge for the link) gives underlying facts showing what the lack of an adequate military budget and a ostrich-like foreign policy translates into.

Soldiers are being issued a rucksack made of plastic that is not comfortable or effective in combat situations,...the plastic straps cut off circulation to their hands and arms, "making it virtually impossible to fire their weapons...

The M4 carbine, a shorter, lighter version of the M16 rifle, was also criticized. ...a study by a military historian found the rifle failed at critical moments during a July 2008 firefight in Afghanistan that left nine U.S. soldiers dead.

"Even though these weapons routinely rank lower than other military weapons in testing, they are still being issued as the Army's weapon of choice," the letter says.

There were also complaints about the camouflage pattern of the combat uniforms they wear, the lawmakers say. The current pixielated pattern of green, tan and gray doesn't work well in Afghanistan and "does more to put our soldiers in harm's way than to protect them," they said.

The uniforms also aren't durable enough to handle Afghanistan's harsh environment, according to Skelton and Ortiz. That means soldiers again have to dip into their own pockets to buy multiple replacements, they wrote.

A soldier's life is not worth protecting, but an illegal immigrant gets medical benefits, and known terrorists are being brought to the US to be treated as criminals not what they are--viscious animals.

This is certainly change, but not much hope for our soldiers.

via Drudge, I found this article, with this headline:
Copenhagen climate summit: 1,200 limos, 140 private planes and caviar wedges

This is not a congregation of true believers, it is a collection of free-riders--riding on the gullibility of the public. These are worse than Orwell's pigs.

Here is a quote:

Ms Jorgensen reckons that between her and her rivals the total number of limos in Copenhagen next week has already broken the 1,200 barrier. The French alone rang up on Thursday and ordered another 42. "We haven't got enough limos in the country to fulfil the demand," she says. "We're having to drive them in hundreds of miles from Germany and Sweden."

And the total number of electric cars or hybrids among that number? "Five," says Ms Jorgensen. "The government has some alternative fuel cars but the rest will be petrol or diesel. We don't have any hybrids in Denmark, unfortunately, due to the extreme taxes on those cars. It makes no sense at all, but it's very Danish."

The airport says it is expecting up to 140 extra private jets during the peak period alone, so far over its capacity that the planes will have to fly off to regional airports – or to Sweden – to park, returning to Copenhagen to pick up their VIP passengers.

Read the whole article. It is fascinating in its underlying cynicism of government and its attempt to salvage a positive spin. A real case study in political journalism.

...not a way to prevent disaster.....a way to obtain power.

I have been a road warrior for over 10 years. I will be retiring in the next year and a half, and think the things I have learned over time may help those who still have years left to go.

-flying• loyalty gets status Pick the airline most likely to be flown and fly it consistently. It is usually possible to argue a difference in fare of less than $200 and sometimes more. If you are flying on your time vs. the company time it should be a no-brainer. If the company insists on the cheapest fare on your time, start looking for a different company---they don't care about you or your loyalty.

• Use your status Once you fly enough miles you get status. I have had all ranges and each has some advantage over no status.
1 upgrades--depending on your status they can be requested sooner or later. Believe me it is better in first than cabin.
2 request as soon as possible--This is automatic usually now, but watch it.
3 always go for them--at lower levels of status you may not get them but never fail to try
4 check to see when they clear and get the seat you want--watch the signs in the loading area. They will list cleared passengers including upgrades. POLITELY ask about getting the upgraded seat you want. Often this can be done online.
5 seating--pay attention to the notices you receive from the airline. They often give you the upgrade information early so you can change your seat to what is wanted (aisle vs. window)
6 plan to keep feet clear--the big challenge is bulkhead seating. The upside is more leg-room, the downside is all luggage has to be overhead. I personally dislilke bulkheads for that reason. I like having my books at my feet.
7 get a window unless you never plan to look out--I love windows because they have shown me the great diversity of the US. This is a personal preference.

• arrive early--there have been many times when arriving and checking in early prevented my getting bumped from an overbooked flight. However, if you don't care when you get home, taking a bump will get you credits with the airline for other flying on your own time. I simply never wanted to wait to get home.

• make travel down-time--If you are a road-warrior, I don't know how to emphasize this enough. It is easier to get burned out than to prevent it. I have had an explicit arrangement with my manager for years that when I am in transit, I am not working on company issues. I may check in for email at an airline club but that is it. It may differ with your particular situation, but travel time is company time regardless of when it occurs on the calendar or the clock. Play whatever corporate games you have to, but hold that time as reserved.

• try to get taken to the airport--I found out that having a cab or private car take me to and from the airport makes a big difference in my fatigue level, especially coming home. I spent the first year driving myself, and then got into a situation where I had to leave the vehicle at home for my wife. The difference in my stress levels was astounding. Figure out an excuse, but let someone else drive you.

-motels
• loyalty gets free rooms, privileges are less--The biggest advantage of staying with the same hotel chain every time is the accumulation of points towards free rooms. I am partial to Hilton, because I like their website; their phone people are extremely pleasant and easy to work with, and they give both points and frequent-flier miles as an option.

• move in--I can't emphasize this enough. If you have to be in the same motel room for more than one night, put everything away in the dresser drawers and the closet. Yes, it means more time to pack when you leave, but the sense of settlement more than compensates for the extra work. When I had to have recurring trips to the same location, I left a packed bag there and just came home with my carry-on and my PC. This helped a lot also. On one engagement, I could justify keeping a room for six weeks straight as cheaper than checking in and out every week. This was the best--I didn't even pack, just left on one day and came back another.

• tip the housekeeper daily, a dollar or two under the pillow is appropriate—sometimes it leads to much better service than the standard. Leave the tip the first day as an advance on the work, and always leave one when you leave.

• If something doesn’t work tell someone--the biggest problem hotel management has is keeping track of the negatives. Housekeepers won't tell them, and customers won't either but won't come back. If I like a hotel, and I usually do, I will politely inform them of ANY deficiency and provide a suggested remedy if I have one. They may not be aware of the problem or may not have any idea of how to fix it. You can provide that and in the process be considered a preferred customer. This doesn't necessarily give you monetary perks, but often translates into better service.

• If you have a bad experience write the chain. If the manager of the hotel doesn’t get back about it, consider whether it is the specific motel or the chain. (Many motels are franchises, not company-owned). Owners can lose their franchise if they don’t meet standards.

-restaurants
1 find good one and repeat--This is a personal issue. I am not adventuresome with respect to restaurants. I used to be. I have found if you find a reasonable restaurant and return frequently, you get to be known and appreciated. This provides social life, something that is greatly lacking for road warriors.
2 restaurants – get to be known--see item 1.
3 think about what you eat--It is very easy to gain weight on the road. Restaurant food is more calorific than what you eat at home, is different, and is limited only by the expense account. It is not what you are used to, and will require thinking to keep from becoming a blimp.

-rental cars
• Repeat status gets free upgrades--This makes a big difference over time. I have had some really nice and fun cars because I always use the same rental agency.

• Go for the intermediate if possible, it is only a dollar or two a day more and makes a big difference in amenities, especially when it gets upgraded to full or luxury

-general
1 Repeat visits—leave luggage at motel
2 Getting enough sleep--this for me was a big challenge. Especially if you are going overseas. Ask your doctor for Ambien. It is not habit-forming and will help you to get your clock synchronized much faster. The other challenge is to avoid the temptations to "grab the gusto" and do all the things you think you should do while away from home. All it does is make you sleep-deprived and less effective on the job.
3 manners count--As in really big-time. Regardless of how upset you are, if you are polite about what you are saying and keep from being personal about it, miracles can happen. At the very least, you will not engender resentment.

4 alcohol--This can be big challenge for some of us. It is for me. Delta airline clubs serve free alcohol, and so do first-class seats.
4a get sober before you get there--unless you have a car or shuttle waiting for you, you will have to drive, and it takes and hour for each drink, beer or glass of wine to get it out of your system. Drink accordingly to be sober by the time you arrive.
4b Don’t get completely snockered during the trip--recovery from alcohol is non-linear. It takes longer to recover from a big inebriation than a small one.

5 write complementary letters and also offer advice for improvement—don’t sound like you are complaining, even if you are.

6 Receipts and paperwork--For every business trip this is the hair shirt we all wear.
6a Folder--I have found that a single folder with company insurance information, policies where they might apply, and itineraries is a real plus. Everything I need is there in the folder. I have also been known to add the adhesive pockets that are sold for holding floppies or CDs to the covers of the folder to hold information such as location of airline clubs or free-drink coupons.
6b Envelopes--I keep envelopes in the folder and use them to segregate the receipts for each expense report I will have to fill out. Sometimes it is simply a week's receipts in an envelope, and sometimes a week may be split across several envelopes, depending on the cost assignments for the travel.

7 Headphones--believe it or not, over time your hearing will be degraded by the noise on jet airplanes. It is a worthwhile investment to purchase a set of noise-cancelling headphones. I have a set of Sony's but Bose supposedly has the best. They have adapters so they can be used for the airplane headphone plug-ins.

-health supplies
1 Band-aids
2 Antihistamine--my favorite is diphenhydramine, or Benadryl. It will make you groggy, but is the most effective one I have found over the counter and will act within an hour.
3 Imodium--diarrhea is no fun.
4 Acetaminophen--also known as Tylenol.
5 Ibuprofen--also known as Advil or Motrin
6 Multivitamin--I recommend this all the time, but when traveling and not having a set eating schedule, it becomes essential
7 Prescriptions in daily dispenser--if you are an older person like me, (OK, old-fart) don't take your bottles of medicine with you. Use one of the week-at-a-time dispensers and count them out ahead of time. It is very helpful for keeping track when your routine is disrupted.
8 Fleet’s enema--the opposite of #3. Constipation can create problems as much as diarrhea.

-away from home
1 plan weekends--I have found a weekend away from home is not particularly fun. It helps to plan things to do ahead of time and stick to the plan.
2 get home on weekends when possible--some accounts or companies will pay for going home every weekend and some won't. Sometimes it just doesn't work out. Be very reluctant to remain in a remote location over the weekend. It is both emotionally and physically disruptive.

Not all of these will apply to all of you out there. Please take what you can use. I have had a very good career these last ten years, but part of it is because I was aware of the risk of burnout and used all of the above to prevent it. The above suggestions kept me healthy, sane and effective one year for 40 weeks on the road out of 52 weeks in the year. They do work.

There are few or no modern real-life heroes these days, at least in the media, only PC idiots that are afraid to say anything the least bit disruptive and ready to accuse anyone of being "nasty". [bunch of wimps]

Here is a description from one of my favorite WW II authors, Alistair Maclean:

It had cost him considerable effort to asssemble this team. There was Mallory, who before the war had been a mountaineer, world-famous for his Himalayan exploits, and conqueror of most of the unclimbed peaks in the Southern Alps of his native New Zealand. Mallory had spent eighteen months behind enemy lines in Crete with the man sitting next to him: Andrea. The gigantic Anderea, strong as a team of bulls, quiet as a shadow, a full colonel in the Greek army, and one of the deadliest irregular soldier ever to knife a sentry. And then there was Corporal Dusty Miller from Chicago, member of the Long Range Desert Force, sometime deserter, goldminer, and bootlegger. If it existed, Miller could wreck it. Miller had a genious for sabotage equalled only by his geniuis for insubordination. [I think I like Dusty Miller the best of the lot.]

This is from the third book in the Navarone series, and one I have just started to read for the first time. Following these fictional characters is to see what the image of heroism was when I was growing up. Not some supernatural X-Person, but a flesh and blood human with the upper side of the bell-curve capability in some form.

They still exist, but we don't hear about them because they are doing non-PC things well. They are not the elite people, not the celebrities, not the wannabe famous, wannabe powerful, wannabe the center of attention people. They are those who live their lives to their own principles, and say F*** you to the rest of the world. If the US ever needs saving, and it will, they are the ones that will do it.

I am currently in the Sky Club for Delta/Northwest, waiting to take my second leg to Ottawa, Canada. While I was sitting here, a young man started talking loudly on his cell phone to his kids. He was in the next section, but his voice carried. When I got up to get a snack, I asked him as politely as I could if he could talk a little more softly, as his voice carried all over the area. He started talking more softly but made a point of saying that an old man asked him to talk more quietly.

First of all, if he wanted to insult me, "old man" doesn't cut it. I am old enough to be considered an old man. But what takes the cake, is he came to my chair after he finished his phone call, and told me that there was plenty of room elsewhere in the club I could move to, and that he was talking to his kids.

I was simply gob-smacked by that statement, but after a moment I said that I understand talking to kids, but that he had a very interesting perspective. He thought that what he wanted to do was more important than inconveniencing me or intruding on my area. He once again said that there was plenty of room to move to. I pointed out that I was here first. He beat a retreat.

I have never run up against such self-centeredness before. I once was talking too loudly to my wife on a train in France, and upset one of the passengers. My response was to beat a retreat to the between-cars area. This guy plain got pissy over it.

My concern is not the particular instance this describes, but the implications for our society. If this guy is a typical late-20's/early-30's, then we are in deep trouble. One of the hingepins of civilization is manners and consideration. When it was simply "what I want" then the rule becomes might makes right. But this same sort of ego-centricism is so evident in our President. Look at the gifts he gives foreign leaders, and his behavior towards them. It is not about the US, but about him. He thinks no further than his speeches or a Sham-wow.

I have read about the apparent self-centeredness of the last two generations. This is the first I have directly encountered it--my own kids seem to be at least somewhat mannerly and considerate. The encounter is troubling. I would never have expected someone to defend themselves when they were being rude.

Scary.