What Should We Do Differently?

When well meaning anti-war protesters voice their opinions about the debacle of the Iraq War the pro-war group shouts back the platitudes of the Bush administration. They shout: “Stay the course.” They shout: “Remember 9/11/2001” These shouts make no sense to any thinking person. People are dying and we are not making any progress in Iraq. The new constitution basically assures that Iraq will be another Islamic Republic, just like its neighbor next door. But, they also shout back a question that actually makes sense. They shout, “What should we do differently?”

Unfortunately we can not turn back time. We are stuck in the mess that was created by the Bush administration. Or, are we?

The major flaw of the Bush administration is that they do not listen to anyone. The Bush administration has determined what WE should do in Iraq and they have determined that we should hunker down and follow the course. Working hard and following the Bush plan is the Holy Grail that the Bush administration tells us is our only choice. They tell us that we can’t pull out our troops, because that would result in chaos. In the typical Republican rhetoric we are told that there are only two choices, the Bush plan and the wrong plan. But, the world is not black and white. Choices are not only A or B. There are always C, D, E, and more. So, how does one go about creating the alternative plans of C, D and E? One might begin with listening to the Iraqi people.

If the Bush administration actually listened to the Iraqi people and thought about what they are saying the Bush administration could have been able to do the right thing. You would think that a good Christian that George W Bush professes to be would realize that listening to people and creating relationships is the key to building trust and understanding. Once someone understands the people he is trying to help, then he would be able to know what the “right thing” is. And, once he knows what they “right thing” is he can take the US forces and muster the resources to make it happen.

So, what is the right thing? What should we be doing that the Iraqi people actually want us to do?

First of all we need to listen to the Iraqi people! I said this already, but I it can’t be repeated to often, because it is the key to fixing the mess in Iraq.

Second we need to understand what the different groups in Iraq want from us and what they understand about what we are planning to do. I’ve also said this once already, but it also needs to be repeated. Repeating the obvious is the only way to counter the repeated lies of the Bush administration.

Well, I have listened to several Iraqis who are frustrated by the US occupation of Iraq. Some were Sunnis and some were Shiites. It actually turns out that only the Kurds actually support what we are doing in Iraq, because they want to retain the autonomy that they already have. The Sunni group wants us out and surprisingly the Shiite group wants us out. The first group of course is actively fighting against the US with suicide bombers and the like. But the surprise is that the Shiite group believes that the best thing for the US to do is to withdraw and turn the law enforcement activities over to the UN, or a group of nations that had nothing to do with the invasion.

The common understanding of the common Iraqi is coming to the conclusion that the US occupation is doing more harm than Saddam did. This is because there is a growing sense of urgency among the Shiite group. People are beginning to say things like, “at least under Saddam we had 22 hours of electricity per day. Today one is lucky to have 2 hours of electricity per day. The US doesn’t understand the needs of the people and the lack of concern is only making things worse. The resentment among the very large group of non-Kurdish Iraqis is making the vision of America as the occupier and the enemy.

Well, you may say to yourself that it’s fine, because at least the Kurds support us. It turns out that the Kurds represent less than 20% of the population of Iraq. So, if we were to go with the democracy idea that is being pushed by the Bush administration you would have to admit that 80% of the population is against the US occupation of Iraq.

If the Shiite population doesn’t like what is happening in Iraq do the elected leaders of Iraq have the option to tell the US to leave Iraq? Yes, George W Bush has told us all that Iraq can tell the US to leave. But, as it turns out the Shiite leaders have a need for the US to stay, mainly it is because the Shiite leaders currently have the political power in Iraq and while the US is there they won’t lose that power. Even though the Shiite main population is becoming more concerned with the US occupation they care about getting hot water and electricity more than they care about the Iraqi constitution. Even though the US military is working hard at making this happen, 150,000 soldiers that are more concerned about road side bombs are not going to make the lights turn on any time soon.

The only hope that we have is that the lights need to turn on in the minds of the Bush administration. If this happens, then the Bush administration may begin to ask the Iraqis what they want, and maybe they will actually listen for a change.







Iraq, War, politics

Teaching Religion in Public School

Should schools teach religious explanations for creation in addition to Darwin's theory of evolution? Is the concept of "intelligent design" religion or science?

In order to answer this question we need to revisit the reason we have public education in the first place. The people of the community believe that an educated citizen will produce an educated electorate and an educated electorate is needed to produce a fair and free democracy. The people also believe that there should not be a state religion. The fine distinction between using universal overarching religious ideals and using faith specific dogma is where most of the argument lies.

People want a government that is moral and ethical. People also tend to tie their ideals of moral and ethical behavior to the specific faith that they follow. People actually tend to go further than wanting a moral and ethical government to the generalization that they would like to have a moral and ethical society. Religious people tend to believe that morals and ethics are tied to their religion, finding it hard to believe that people could choose to behave morally or ethically without God telling them to. Non-religious people do behave morally and ethically without the fear of God’s wrath. Most non-religious people are convinced that moral and ethical behavior will keep them out of jail. And, non-religious people that are higher on the development scale actually believe that moral and ethical behavior makes the society a better place to live.

So, are morals and ethics taught in public school? This question does not have a clear-cut answer. If you believe that giving rules to children and punishing them for not following the rules is a form of moral or ethical education, then yes morals and ethics are taught in public school. However, if you believe that teaching morals and ethics consists of taking down the Bible and going over the Ten Commandments and the Book of Leviticus, then morals and ethics are not taught in public schools.

From this description of how morals and ethics are taught in public schools we should get a glimpse of how other issues with religious components should be taught. The overarching ideals of morals and ethics are taught in school without pointing to the specific implication to ones specific faith. The child is not taught that stealing is specified in the Bible, but rather stealing is not allowed at school. Similarly hitting, spitting, chewing gum and a list of other things are also forbidden at school. Does the school defend its position on gum chewing from a Biblical reading? No, gum chewing is simply not allowed, because the discarded gum often makes a mess.

Similarly, inside the school halls students are expected to learn what scientists have learned from their years of observing our Universe. Science is simply the collection of observations organized in a way to understand our world. All of the observations need to fit together without contradiction. When two observations contradict each other, then a new way of looking at the evidence could be needed to explain the discrepancy. Some questions hang in the air for years before they are understood, but the experimental observations still remain observations.

One simple example of this is the way in which light can behave like a particle or a wave. Similarly and electron can behave like a particle or a wave. This observation has been demonstrated over and over again in experiments, but it not completely clear WHY this observation is always made under the different conditions. Not knowing WHY does not stop scientists from making new observations and designing new experiments.

Similarly, the observations of evolution have been made over the last hundred years. The fact that these observations are made in our Universe is a fact. All of these observations fit together in the context of the Theory of Evolution. The Theory of Evolution is a scientific Theory, which means that all the observations fit into the theory. When a well-studied piece doesn’t fit in the current theory, then the theory can be modified in order to maintain consistency. The theory never addresses why the Theory explains all of the evidence, only the fact that it does.

“Intelligent Design” is an attempt to answer the question “Why” the evidence from all of the scientific observations fit together in the context of the Bible. The Bible tells the religious person how the creation happened and these people feel the need to fix the discrepancy between their religious understanding, and the scientific observation. The problem with getting specific about reconciling religious teaching with scientific fact is that not all religions agree with the premise of how the universe was created. The “Intelligent Design” premise assumes the Judeo-Christian story of creation. This story tells the reader that there was an organized creation. But, there are creation stories from the Greeks and Romans that claim the creation was the result of a war between the Titans. Native American stories of creation tell how man was created as a result of a tragedy. Some religions explain how people morphed out of other animals. Therefore, offering “Intelligent Design” as an explanation of scientific evidence ignores the “Random Design” theory of other religious creation stories.

I would suggest that “Intelligent Design” could be taught in school as one of many creation stories. But, having “Intelligent Design” stand as the only explanation for the scientific observations would be wrong and would not be an over arching religious ideal. The options would be to teach multiple creation stories from a world religion point of view, or to leave teaching the reconciliation of Evolution with religion to the parents or churches. After all, since “Intelligent Design” concerns the mostly religious sector of our society, the issue should be resolved within the religious community.



religion, evolution, politics

Talking to Myself

Seven years ago I found a couple of notebooks from high school. I transcribed them in order to preserve them and share them with the world. But, it also offered me the opportunity to talk to myself. I wrote some things during study hall in High School, and I answered them 23 years later. Of course my earlier self could never know what my older self had written, but the conversation is interesting none-the-less. And, teenagers never listen to adults anyway, so it isn't much different than if I were standing there talking to myself in reality.

November 20, 1975 "Thoughts, the will to think" MF

I started this book because many times I have had exciting thoughts and if I wrote them down on a single piece of paper they would be lost for sure. To start this book I will have to tell you a little about myself if you are to understand any of it.

I live in Mentor, Ohio on Hayes Blvd. off Ohio St. off 306. I go to Lake Catholic High School. I swim on the West End "Y" Swim Team. I enjoy Math and Science mostly advanced but not too advanced. I usually make predictions, fantasize and create drawings of strange objects or mechanical devices. I design houses. I love to figure out unproved facts (or if they're proven, I don't know about them). My hobbies are collecting coins, listening to rock albums, raising fish (or any other pet for that matter), shooting off rockets (when I feel like doing these things, but not all of the same things at the same time), playing Monopoly, Swimming (as I mentioned before) and that's about it. Oops I like to read Science Fiction, and this writing may show it in some places.

April 1998

Thoughts, the will to think. That's a very nice comment on something most people take for granted. Yes, beings on this earth have the ability to reflect on their actions. One must pray that that reflection will influence growth and development of each individual. In fact, your comment strikes me as being a bit odd to be presented as a revelation. In any case, I am glad that you have discovered self reflection, and I hope many others will be introduced to this concept.

I too like to swim, read, write and listen to music. Perhaps we can discuss this further at a later time.

November 21, 1975

Here I sit in study hall, no homework to do, so here I sit writing in this notebook. I am straining my brain to think of something interesting to write in it.

(10 Minutes later)

OK, Thought of something!!

1) If you have an arc can you find the size of the circle and the degrees of the arc by some arithmetical equation?

Find the length AB by the use of ruler. Use metric. Do you know the answers? I am going to work on this one at home where I can use a compass, protractor and ruler.

2) If a rocket that weighs so many grams, has so many newtons of thrust, aimed at some angle. What is the equation used to figure out where the rocket will land if the wind factor is zero and the air resistance is A.

If additional information is needed or if the information doesn't make sense (It should, there aren't many numbers used) I will make corrections later.

3) Theory: Einstein said that nothing but light can travel at the speed of light (c). But I say light or radio waves are made up of electrons, protons, etc... So is matter. You may have to change matter radio waves to make it go that fast but it will be possible. My problem is how can the radio waves be converted back into matter?

April 1998

1) If you draw two perpendicular lines, one from two different points on the arc they will intersect at one point, the center of the circle.

2) If you sum all the forces acting on the rocket, Thrust, Air resistance, Gravity and areo dynamic lift, the resulting vector will yield the force applied to the rocket.Taking this the initial position of the rocket and the initial velocity the trajectory and the timing can be calculated.

3) Oh, to dream. In my youth I had such dreams. I always dreamed the world would be the way I wanted it to be. It wasn't until much later that I learned the restrictions placed on us actually provide many of the challenges presented to us every day. These challenges make life very exciting.

November 24, 1975

At this time my worry is that Bill Dunn (our swim coach) doesn't even know what's going on in the effect of our swim team. He thinks that we are great, but he has a surprise coming. He thinks that AAU doesn't exist, but you look at all the good swimmers and they compete in AAU. He would have never get a team even worthy to compete in Regionals.

April 1998

Some people believe competition is meant to be fun. Maybe he doesn't think winning is the worlds greatest lesson, there are others. Team cooperation, getting along with one another and learning how to lose gracefully are important as well. Just remember to try your best.

November 25, 1975

Nothing to say.

April 1998

That's a very interesting comment. I believe you felt something in your heart and you wanted to express it, but when you attempted to write it down you couldn't think of a way to express yourself.

Stereotypes

Stereotypes are created when a group of people gathers together to support an issue, purpose or even a culture. These people come together and a casual observer will notice the things that are common about the group of people gathered.

That’s a generalized statement, but the specific example might be the Scottish Games. People who go to the Scottish games have some interest in Scotland and the culture of Scotland. Most of them are likely to be of Scottish descent. If you casually observed the group as a whole you might come to some generalities of the people who profess to be Scottish and how the general Scot behaves at these games. Some of the stereotypes might be valid, like the strange contests that they hold. You couldn’t argue that a stereotypical young Scotsman longs to toss the caber, a long log about the size of a telephone pole. Of course, not all young Scotsmen have trained to toss a caber, so it would be wrong to generalize that all young Scotsmen toss cabers at these events.

The point that I am trying to make is that the reason for the gathering certainly has an effect on which people are drawn to an event. Some stereotypes are certainly valid when talking about the gathering of people. Other stereotypes certainly are not valid, but they get propagated anyway.

So, when I read the Sunday morning San Jose Mercury news I wasn’t surprised by this little incident.

“At the pro-Bush rally, there were some heated moments when two members of Protest Warrior, a group that frequently holds counter protests to anti-war rallies, walked in with a sign that read "Say No to War - Unless a Democrat is President."

“Many Bush supporters only saw the top of the sign and believed the men were war protesters, so they began shouting and chasing the pair out. One man tore up their signs. When Will Marean of Minneapolis kept repeating that he was on the Bush side and tried to explain Protest Warrior's mission, one Bush supporter shook his hand and apologized.”

It is “funny” that a group of people would gather together in the name of violence, with a pre-emptive strike mentality and that mentality plays itself out in this manner. A guy that is certainly lacking in the skills of communication created a sign that required a bit of extra thought to understand. The group of people reading it became outraged before they thought about it. The poor guy is pleading that he is on the pro-War side of the argument, and he is forced into a battle with his like-minded colleagues. This incident seems to be a metaphor for the conflict that they are supporting.

The US didn’t spend time considering the situation, just like the pro-War group didn’t spend time thinking about what was written on the sign. The Bush administration cut off communications with Iraq, just like the pro-War group decided not to talk to the guy with the poorly written sign. The Bush administration decided to attack preemptively, just like the crowd decided to attack this guy and rip up his sign. The results in bot cases were the same. The reasons for the attack were nonexistent. The lesson in both cases is that a little communication goes a long way…




politics

Satire Strikes at Right Wing Bloggers

Scapple Face, a News satire blog has pulled one over on the right wing bloggers. In a satire piece that announced that George W Bush has done several things that he hasn’t really done. They say that he has written the Iraqi constitution, ordered a congressional fitness program, and written an answer to Cindy Sheehan. Apparently one of the conservative bloggers out in the blogosphere who doesn’t understand the purpose of the blog has begun circulating a leaked letter to Cindy Sheehan. Obviously the letter says things that only the right wing radicals would agree with. If the letter were truly written by him, moderates would leave him in droves.

Actually, moderates have left him in droves based on the latest polls. So, it really doesn’t matter if he wrote this letter or not, because the effect is the same. Former moderate Bush supporters will read it and say, “See I was right, Bush is a right wing radical and he doesn’t represent my views. It’s too bad that I fell for what he said during the election and voted for him. That was truly a mistake. God, I wish that I could have November back to do over again…”

Well, it just goes to show that you need to check your sources when you read the blog…




politics

Gaps Create Terror and More

Gaps Create Terror and More

In an story that doesn’t seem to be making much press in the US the United Nations has reported that the worlds wealth gap continues to widen. The wealth gap is the amount of money the wealthy earn as compared to the amount of money the poor earn.

This should be an important story that everyone should understand. This is because the cause of most of the radical uprisings in the world today are antagonized and justified by this gap between the rich and the poor. Even in the famous “War on Terror” the Islamic extremists are able to recruit suicide bombers from the large numbers of poor who believe that their cause will be able to make the lives of future generations better by their sacrifice today. As the gap between the rich and poor grows, so does danger.

The conservative comeback to this issue is two fold.

1) The conservatives believe that economic growth creates a tide that lifts all boats. That means that if money pours into the economy the poor will reap benefits as well as the wealthy. This is the argument used to give tax cuts to the wealthy, because it will benefit the economy in general and help the poor.
2) The second conservative comeback is that people who work hard deserve to have the money the have acquired. Helping the poor results in rewarding the poor for not working hard enough. They consider this redistribution of wealth, which is meant to evoke the fear of communism many conservatives have.

The truth is actually much different than what they say here. The conservatives truly believe that people who have wealth should take advantage of it because they deserve their special status. By calling attention to the gap between the wealthy and the poor they may be forced to actually do something about this, and that would effect the status of their personal wealth. Ignoring the gap between the wealthy and the poor benefits the conservative special interest group - The Wealthy. How else could the Bush administration get away with tax cuts for the wealthy?

The UN report is getting little press in the United States because it says one more thing that flies in the face of the conservative comeback to this issue. It says that rising economies do not narrow the gap between the rich and the poor. In fact, it actually makes the gap wider. The effect has now been studied in many countries, because of the rising economies of so many countries. India has benefited from the growth of the software industry. China has benefited from the relaxation of government control over businesses. Eastern European countries have benefited from the New World order. Other countries have benefited from oil revenue. Each of these systems can be studied in great detail and the results have been compiled in this new report.

So, the results of the United Nations study is that a rising tide doesn’t raise all boats unless the government steps in and makes sure that the wealthy don’t steal an extra piece of the wealth.







politics

Focus Factor

(This is actually a re-post from last year. Strangely enough I was thinking about deception and marketing and this popped back into my head. Instead of writing something like this again I'm just posting the old post, which I still like very much.)

When one watches late night TV all types of strange products are advertised. Focus Factor is one of those products. The claim is that this product increases your focus power. Somehow the commercial allude to the fact that people have extremely short attention spans and they need to take a drug that will increase their ability to focus their attention.

This was quite humorous for me when I first saw the commercial.

First of all, if all these people with short attention spans suddenly were able to focus their attention on something what would they be focusing their attention on? Well, we already have an experiment that was done in the 1960s that will tell us what these people will focus their attention on. Most likely they will focus their attention on sex, drugs, music and more TV. Well, maybe if these people are the group of people that are watching late night TV they will probably focus on watching even more late night TV.

What was this experiment that was done in the 1960s? It was the mass smoking of marijuana. It turns out that we now know that one of the major effects of marijuana is how it decreases ones distraction factor. What I mean by distraction factor, is that it is difficult to distract one who smokes marijuana. In fact, we now understand this system quite a bit more than we did in the 1960s. So, when you think of the stereotype of a pothead as a person that sits and counts the hairs on the back of his hand, or listens to music with incredible concentration, or stares into space contemplating the universe the marijuana has decreased the distraction factor. The pothead is sitting there contemplating one idea for an extended period of time. These long periods of contemplation have lead to bizarre ideas, but it had also lead to creative imaginative ideas and new music. But like anything moderation is the key. If one continues concentrate on music for twenty years then the person in this deep concentration may never be distracted from it enough to get a job and grow up.

So, it’s really funny how this Focus Factor is being sold to do something that marijuana has been doing for quite a while. However, the people who purchase Focus Factor may not even use it to concentrate on anything useful if the supplement actually works.

It’s all in the marketing....




lies, deception, politics and marketing

News From the Front

As some of you may recall, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia dissented from the Supreme Court’s decision striking down state laws against sodomy, calling it an unjustified intervention in the culture wars. For a few weeks everyone was talking about the culture wars. Who is winning, was the common question. The explosion of right wing talk radio shows and the lack of similar shows to the left was often cited as proof that the right was winning the latest battle. The Republican majority in congress and George W Bush’s reelection were also cited as further proof of dominance of the right in these culture wars. Things were certainly looking bad for the revolutionaries of the 1960s that started the culture wars.

Well, like in any war, winning battles is great, but the goal is to win the war. It certainly seemed as if the right was picking up a few battle victories with the recent elections and the dominance on the radio waves. But these victories have apparently reinvigorated some of the people on the left.

One microcosm of the culture wars may be Minnesota. Maybe this one market is foreshadowing a future trend along these lines. Deborah Caulfield Rybak of the Star Tribune tells us that Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hanity among other have lost enormous market share in the Twin Cities.

Well, if a trend were to start somewhere my guess would be that it would start in the middle of the country. If you recall the 2004 elections, Minnesota was one of the Battle States. This is because there were a large number of right wing radicals influencing the moderates. This group was devout radio listeners who would cheer and applaud every right wing cause and make the moderates feel like they were way off base when they questioned the radical direction the country was going. This group of radicals would listen to right wing radio to get talking points and then spread their message throughout the community. Judging by the demographics of the radio listenership these radicals were largely 18-34 year-old white males.

Its hard to say exactly why this group had such a fervent following of the radical right, but at least in Minnesota the tide is beginning to subside. From the recent radio ratings it is clear that this group isn’t swarming to the left. But, instead the group is moving over to the sports talk shows instead. It is clear that these guys are not changing their political ideology. But, they are certainly changing their influence on both the radio market and the people they talk to. Judging from these number in this one small market it seems that these guys are going to be talking about sports in the local bars and workplaces rather than politics.

Obviously the culture wars will continue for quite some time. No one will be declaring victory any time soon. Battles will be fought, and both sides are bound to have their share of both victories and defeats. The only thing that will determine who has won will be in the culture that out children and grandchildren continue to pass down to future generations. I can only pray that the culture will be one of love and tolerance of your neighbor.




politics

No Wonder the Red States Are Red

If one doesn’t have the truth, then how can one make a good decision?

Of course no one can make a decision without the true facts.

Sometimes the facts are not that clear. People will argue about the description of a robber, even if they were all at the scene of the crime. People will argue about the relative need and the priority of an action. In these cases the access to facts may be the reason for disagreement. However, it could also be the light in which one views that fact which alters one’s opinion.

This is why freedom of speech was included in the Bill of Rights. If one is able to control the communication, then one is able to frame the way people will “see” the facts. Control of the media can lead to control of the government.

So, this particular story frightens me.



Cindy Sheehan tried to air a television ad that asks the president questions about the Iraq War. It should be her right to voice her opinion. In fact, conservatives tend to pride themselves on the fact that soldiers are dying to protect the American right to exercise their right to free speech. But, when she tried to air a commercial in Idaho which she was willing to pay for she was told that they wouldn’t allow it to be aired because “There Is “No Proof” Of Absence Of WMD In Iraq...” The absence of “proof” could be considered a debatable fact. And, the last time I heard debate should be a public forum where people are asked to draw their own conclusion.

All I can think is that other TV stations in the “RED” states must have similar policies. How else could these people be so intent on fighting an illegal, unjust and unnecessary war in Iraq? Well, if the evidence never gets to the people they are bound to continue to believe the lies of the administration. And the evidence will never get to the people if the local affiliates continue to censor the airwaves.

In an update to this post at 7:30 PM Eastern Time I would like to add that Pat Robertson’s 700 Club is broadcast by the Disney Corporation. The Disney Corporation has no problem with what Pat Robertson said about his Fatwa on Hugo Chavez yesterday on this show. But, the Disney Corporation will not air the newly created Cindy Sheehan anti-War ads. How are the people in the “Red” states going get a fair and balanced view? What is the deal with the Disney Corporation?


politics

Robertson Doesn’t Know How to Apologize

Reuters is reporting that Pat Robertson is backing off on his claim that he was urging the assassination of Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez. So, this is what backing off means to Pat Robertson:

"I said our special forces could take him out. Take him out could be a number of things including kidnapping," Robertson said on his "The 700 Club" television program.

"There are a number of ways of taking out a dictator from power besides killing him. I was misinterpreted," Robertson added.

So, I’m guessing that he would be OK with al Qaeda kidnapping George W Bush. As long as they don’t kill him, right? Maybe they could just put him in a cave in Afghanistan.

In his effort to make things right, Pat Robertson can’t even be nice. He calls the democratically elected leader of Venezuela a dictator. Does that mean that we should refer to George W Bush as a dictator?



politics

Prayer

I thought that I would leave politics today and think a little bit about prayer. Many people won’t like what I am about to say, because I just saw the Newsweek story on spirituality that came out this week. The story included a poll asking Americans about their spirituality. And, a couple of the questions in the poll had to do with prayer.

The poll suggested that I may not feel the same way about prayer as many Americans do.

The question I like to ask is, what is the purpose of prayer? If I remember my Religious education, there are three purposes for prayer.

1) To thank God
2) To praise God
3) To ask God for help.

Obviously others may have been taught differently, and I don’t doubt that there are other ways of looking at prayer, but for the sake of discussion I am going to use this list.

It seems obvious that if you believe in God and you pray you would start every prayer with a thank-you. It just seems to me that that would be common courtesy. Perhaps it could be something like, “Dear God, thank-you for allowing me to experience life.” But, the Newsweek poll published in the magazine says that only 23% of people actually thank God when they pray. Well, actually that isn’t the way the question is worded and that is obviously the key to getting the right answers - asking the right questions. The survey asks for the most important purpose of prayer.  That should be a no-brainer, to praise God! Right?

Which of the following do you think is the most important purpose of prayer?

    RESPONSES                                   WEB     NEWSWEEK / Beliefnet     
        
    To seek God's guidance                    32%     27%     
    To thank God                                   16%     23%     
    To be close to God or the divine        26%     19%     
    To help others                                   3%     13%     
    To improve a person's life                   6%     9%     
    None of these/Other                          13%     4%     
    Don't know                                        4%     5%     

Actually, praising God isn’t even on the list. The astute survey taker would think “praise God” and check in none of these, right? So, maybe 13% of the web sample figured it out, but only 4% of the original Newsweek sample checked none-of-these.  This likely says more about the people who constructed the survey than it does about the people taking the survey.

Then we get to the third purpose for prayer, asking for God’s help. Obviously the people who constructed the survey were thinking along these lines, because they broke the category up into “asking for guidance,” “asking to help others,” “asking to help improve one’s own life,” and the “asking to be close to God.” If you think about it for a second, “asking to be close to God” is actually the same as “asking to improve ones life” on the spiritual level. But, we will assume that the survey creators actually meant material gains and spiritual gains in these two options.

So, basically the Newsweek survey assumes that people pray mainly to get something, rather than to thank or praise God. And, they were mainly concern with what people prefer to ask for when they pray. This seems to be a bit sad for the state of our culture, and maybe that’s why the religious radicals have been able to get a stranglehold on our country.

In the final few paragraphs here I was going to point out that the strength of prayer isn’t in it’s power to acquire material possessions, or even to get material possessions for another person. Prayers don’t change the physics of the Universe. But, the power of prayer lay in something that we don’t understand outside of the ability to experiment. We know this, because experiments on prayer have shown that praying has no effect on physical process.

But, we shouldn’t be dismayed at this. As a scientist I know that we should accept what we measure as part of the Universe that God gave us. But God also gave us free will, and this is the one thing that does not behave the same way with the same conditions. We think and we decide as we go along. If prayer has any effect in the world we live in it surely has it in the area of free will.

So, a prayer for peace, for example is a prayer to influence the free will of a leader to choose the path of peace. Even a prayer for fewer abortions is a prayer appealing to the free will of a woman to choose against having an abortion. These types of prayer may actually do some good for the world we live in and I would encourage every one to pray for peace, because it may just effect the free will of leaders who have choosen wrongly for so long.





prayer,politics and religion

Orwellian Deception

George W Bush is the poster boy for George Orwell’s 1984. If you haven’t read the book, then you owe it to your country to do so. George Orwell described a time in the future, from the late1940s when he wrote his prophesy, 1984. Unfortunately if he were to tittle it 2004 he would have been right on the money. The word orwellian has become an adjective to mean deception through the art of word selection. George W Bush and his cohort in crime Karl Rove have mastered to art of orwellian deception.

Of course, the main objective of using orwellian language is to make the listener believe what the speaker says is not only the truth, but it is the comfortable truth couched in the belief that we all know the comfortable truth. Maybe that sentence was orwellian in itself, but that is the whole problem with trying to describe the problem of orwellian Deception. Every explanation seems to be complex and difficult to understand. But, George Orwell creates a series of examples through the story 1984 in which Winston Smith the main character shows us how this language is used to control the masses.

Apparently Karl Rove or George Bush not only read 1984, but they mastered the whole creation of alternative reality in such a way that the general public accepts the policy of murder, invasion and occupation as the best US foreign policy in Iraq. The American public not only accepts the idea that George W Bush is a moral person, but they voted him into office using these criteria when the truth is the exact opposite. Even when the truth about Karl Rove’s treasonous outing of Joe Wilson’s wife as a CIA agent in order to retaliate for Joe Wilson exposure of the truth about Iraqi nuclear capability has come out the Orwellian deception continues.

Changing vocabulary to describe problems in order to make them sound less problematic is only one aspect of orwellian deception. Another aspect is to smear the opposition with lies so often that the lies sound like the truth. Another aspect of orwellian deception is to ignore the facts and misdirect with answering questions with answers that don’t really answer the questions. Karl Rove and George W Bush are professionals when it comes to this deception.

Karl Rove and George W Bush have used this strategy of smearing the opposition so effectively that it has become their first choice lately. They smeared John McCain in the 2000 primary campaign by spreading rumors about his stability, and ethics. They told the rumor mill that he had become unstable as a prisoner of war in Vietnam. They smeared Max Cleland, a triple-amputee Vietnam veteran in the 2002 Georgia Senate race. And most famously they hired the Swift Boat Veterans to lie about John Kerry’s record in Vietnam. Both Karl Rove and George W Bush know the power of lies and deception, because they have profited by them throughout their careers.

So, it isn’t surprising that Karl Rove and George W Bush are back at it again. Cindy Sheehan won’t go away from her stand down the road from George W Bush’s vacation retreat in Crawford, Texas. So, the deception duo of Rove and Bush has drummed up the smear tactics again. They began by calling for “unorganized citizen outrage” through their network of right wing talk show hosts. These impromptu groups showed up in Crawford, Texas across from Cindy Sheehan’s group. This was obviously a stall for some time in order for them to organize other efforts, like the caravan from California to Texas, which will arrive this weekend. They have organized a group calling themselves “Soldiers Mothers for Truth.” (Notice the Orwellian language in the name.)In order to smear the heart felt pain that Cindy Sheehan feels for the wasted effort her son made for George W Bush's unnecessary War in Iraq this group plans to protest Cindy Sheehan’s efforts. And we should expect more effeort to smear her by calling her crazy or an extremist. These tactics suceeded in the past, so the deceptive duo will march the orwellian deception out.

However, the question remains: Will Karl Rove and George W Bush succeed in the Swift Boating of Cindy Sheehan? Let us hope and pray not, because the orwellian deception knows not where to stop!




politics

Christian Jihad

I am sick and tired of religious extremists using God as an excuse to use violence to get what they want.

I am not thinking about the Taliban or al Qaeda this time. I mean Pat Robertson.

Pat Robertson the Preacher from the Radical Religious Right has imposed the Christian equivalent of a fatwa on the President of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez. The New York Times has reported that Pat Robertson suggested “that American agents assassinate President Hugo Chavez.”

It is quite strange that Americans in general and conservatives more fervently oppose fatwas when they are declared by Islamic Clerics. However, I have yet to hear any indignation against Pat Robertson for the announcement of his fatwa.

A couple of weeks ago I brought up the fact that Pat Robertson and his 700 Club were preparing our country to go to war in Iran. Notice, I said Iran, not Iraq. We are already in Iraq. The 700 Club was not only preparing us for War in Iran, but they were telling us that it was going to be a nuclear war and we should consider striking first. If this isn’t the talk of a power hungry mad man I don’t know what is. If we were to compare what Osama bin Laden tells his followers to what Pat Robertson tells his viewers in an objective way we might wonder why Osama is running from cave to cave in Pakistan while we allow Pat Robertson to preach his hate speech on TV.

Let’s look at Hugo Chavez and see why this man deserves death. Did he write a book like “Satanic Verses” or invade a country? These are reasons that Islamic Clerics use to support the issue of a fatwa. No, Hugo Chavez was elected president of Venezuela in a Democratic election, just like George W Bush was elected President of the United States. In fact, he won in a landslide victory in 1998, not by the slim margin that George W Bush won by. By George W Bush’s standards Hugo Chavez has a mandate that surpasses anything that President Bush could claim.

So, why does Pat Robertson feel justified in issuing a Christian fatwa against this man that was loved by the people and elected by such large margins?

Maybe it had something to do with the meeting between Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro this last weekend. The US mainstream media covered this event in all its glory - NOT! I discovered that these two leaders had met when I was practicing my Spanish on Sunday night. I would listen to the TeleMundo news broadcast and see if I could recognize any words that I knew. My Spanish isn’t that great, but practice makes you a little better at understanding Spanish. So, when I saw that they had met I was curious to know what they had said to each other. I strained my Spanish ear to understand that they said that the United States was the root of all the problems in Latin America. Wow, I could have guessed that, but does such a statement really demand the death penalty?

Why in the world does a man, who claims that he reads the Bible and obeys the Word of God, believe that it is just fine to violate the commandment, “Thou Shall Not Kill?”

Obviously it goes back to the Cold War days. When we were up against the Evil Empire the threat of nuclear war was the gravy train for the 700 Club. The mantra of the 700 Club was, “The End is Near, send all your money to us.” The hated enemy was Communism. This is because Communism tells the rich to share their wealth with the poor, just like Jesus said. But the threat of Communism is that the government tells you to share instead of Jesus. The argument was that people would not decide to share with each other if they had free choice and elections. The only way that people would share is if radicals took over the government, killed lots of people and forced the people to share with one another. You can’t force people to follow the words of Marx or Lenin. You need to force people to follow the words of Jesus Christ!

Now that Hugo Chavez has been elected by a huge majority of the people and he is trying to make things fair for all the people in Venezuela the wealthy minority and the American business owners who have property in Venezuela are worried that they could lose some of their wealth and power and Pat Robertson wants to make sure that that won’t happen. After all, Pat wants the money for himself.



politics

Cheerleaders for War

War needs popular support in order to be successful. It only goes to say that is the reason that governments go to such extremes in order to win popular support for war. Even the Germans during both world wars went to extreme measures of propaganda to win popular support for the war they chose to pursue. Before and during World War II, the Japanese taught their children a tail of Japanese manifest destiny. This idea became so ingrained into Japanese culture that the public supported the expansion of Japan into China and the Pacific.

This is why American popular support is also important in a Democracy like the United States. In general it isn’t difficult to get popular support for any military action at the beginning. This is because every country has established a large amount of national pride through tradition and patriotism. People elect their leaders in a Democracy and the have the naïve notion that their leaders really care about the country. People fall behind their leaders and support them without even trying to understand the leaders argument for war. Understanding an argument is for the intellectual crowd, the common man doesn’t have time to think about such esoteric things. “Tell me what you want me to do, and I’ll be there,” is the mantra of the common man.

As we should know by now, the momentum for war doesn’t continue on indefinitely. As the dead soldiers come home and the progress in the war looks meager at best people begin to ask if the price for war is worth the progress. There will always be people who believe that questioning the government policy is unpatriotic, and they would never raise these questions. Of course, the group that would never consider supporting a war for any reason at all counters this group. But, the people in the middle, those who understand the need for “just war” and understand the price that is paid for a “just war,” need to support the government policy on war if the government is going maintain the popular support for a war. And, when popular support wanes the government needs to bring out the cheerleaders for war.

Cheerleading puts a happy face on a violent situation. Think of cheerleading, which happens during a football game where the cute girls put a pretty face on the pain that is happening on the field. When the team is down and out, loosing by twenty-one points in the fourth quarter the cheerleaders yell and shout in a futile effort to make everyone happy. The cheerleaders for war do exactly the same thing.

It was fortunate for the American people that George W Bush has the experience of being a Yale cheerleader, because he is using that experience today as he goes out to win the hearts and the minds of the American people. Actually he isn’t actually asking anyone to understand or believe what he is saying. Like the football cheerleader knows, it isn’t the words in the cheer that matter it is the attitude. George W Bush is going on a five-day cheerleading tour to bolster popular support for the Iraq War. George W Bush wants his cheers to be louder than Cindy Sheehan’s cheer against the war. In essence George W Bush is saying, Who do you want to support? Do you want to support a mother who is grieving over the loss of her son, and knows the cost of war? Or, do you want to support the President of the United States, who didn’t plan for the aftermath of the invasion, has no clue what people who have lost loved ones are feeling, borrows money to pay the financial price and has no idea when we will bring our soldiers home?

And, George W Bush knows that if he says it enough times with the right attitude the American people will fall in behind him and cheer for War!



politics

Judy Miller Waits

We already know that Karl Rove and Lewis Libby were involved in leaking top secret information in order to discredit Joe Wilson. Back in 2003 the reason to preemptively attack Iraq was to rid Iraq of their weapons of mass destruction. If the US Congress and the American people knew that Iraq didn’t have Weapons of Mass Destruction then George W Bush would have had a much more difficult time getting support to invade a country that posed no threat.

Judy Miller was one journalist that helped to prop-up the Bush administration’s argument that Iraq had Weapons of Mass Destruction. She wrote a series of articles using Ahmed Chalabi as the source, and not requiring a second source to verify any of his assertions. Well, actually Miller most likely used the Bush administration as a second source, but seeing that Chalabi sold the same information to these guys you would expect the stories to match.

But, Judith Miller was proven wrong as every WMD site was shown to be empty. And we knew this back when Jack Shafer wrote this story back in July 2003.

But as I have written before, lies take a long time to be cleansed from the system. There are bloggers who continue to write about weapons of mass destruction being moved out of Iraq before the invasion just in time to get away. However, no one has ever proven that the weapons ever existed during the run up to the war, let alone that they had been moved.

The New York Times never retracted Judith Miller’s stories, but apologized to its readers on May 26, 2004 on page A10 that its coverage of the WMD issues were ‘problematic.’ This is 10 months after it was common knowledge that there were no WMDs in Iraq. Unfortunately the New York Times was afraid to admit it was wrong. This late apology was so far removed from the issue in time that it had no effect on the re-election of George W Bush. If the NewYork Times had covered the story in 2003 with the truth about Ahmed Chalabi and Judith Miller the Bush administration would be seen in the light of truth and could have lost the election. But, instead Judith Miller continued to be in bed with the administration. That very July when Robert Novak published the name of Joe Wilson’s wife as a CIA operative Judith Miller was getting the same story from her source in the White House.

Judith Miller won’t tell who her source in the administration is. She would rather sit in jail than give up her source. So, this should tell us something about her source. First of all, if it were Rove or Libby why would she remain in jail? Everyone already knows and Rove and Libby don’t have a problem with their identity being revealed. Could it be another underling below Rove or Libby? If it were, would anyone care? Rove and Libby are quite high up in the organization, so who would care if one of their underlings leaked the same information? Not only that, but not many people were even privy to this classified information. So, who is Judith Miller’s source? Well I would guess that it must be someone at least at the same rank as Karl Rove, or higher, because the revelation that someone that high up is a leak is the only thing that can politically damage the administration. But who is in the administration that ranks higher than Karl Rove and has the gall to expose a CIA agent for political gain? There aren’t many people to choose from at that level. We have George W Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Condi Rice and who else? I am guessing that it would be policy not to let the President do something like this just for deniability reasons. Rumsfeld is to busy waging war to be so political and Condi Rice is supposed to be a diplomat and not a political animal. My money is on Cheney.

So, I’m guessing that Judith Miller is rotting in a jail cell in an effort to protect Dick Cheney from being revealed as another source in the Plamegate affair.

Of course this is only for fun, please no wagering….




politics

The Slow Trickle of Truth

I feel like I am repeating myself, but I’m not. Even though the truth about the build up to the Iraq War has been out in public for years now, this evidence isn’t accepted as the truth among those who continue to support the President’s vision of pre-emptive invasion. This is because the American people in general put trust in our nation’s leader to defend the United States of America and to uphold the Constitution. For some people it takes an enormous amount of evidence to convince them that their leader could act for personal gain prioritizing it over national security. This is because it would take an enormous amount of hubris, an extreme degree of evil intention, or a large amount of stupidity for an American leader to commit these acts of selfish behavior bordering on treason.

Not everyone places the same degree of respect and expectation on the office of the President of the United States of America. Some people allow their political ideology to cloud their vision of the truth. For example, extremists on the right were eager to impeach Bill Clinton when it was discovered that he lied about a sexual encounter. The politics clouded rational thought on this issue. Similarly, on a much more serious issue, the reason for taking our nation into war, the politics has once again clouded rational thought.

Obviously the crowd on the left who was first out with this evidence also reacted with a clouded view as well. This group had called for impeachment before an investigation. It simply makes more sense to do these things in order and not to jump to conclusions. Unfortunately, an investigation without cooperation leads to stonewalling and little information.

The evidence that is required to prove a crime is often difficult to find even if there is a strong suspicion of guilt. This isn’t unusual when a criminal wants to hide his crime they don’t tend to make it easy for the investigators. Police tend to catch the stupid criminals, but the smarter ones often get away with their crimes. In even worse cases organized criminals are able to get away with a multitude of crimes because of their ability to coordinate their efforts. Therefore it isn’t difficult to imagine that if organized crime is able to cover up it’s crimes, then an organization within the government that actually has its hands on the levers of power would be even more effective at covering up its crimes.

Sources of evidence in the form of documents within the government are concealed by classifying them as secret or top secret. Even when documents are released to journalists or investigators they are often redacted in such extreme ways that takes away the ability to trace relationships and interactions. This means that the administration has a great deal of influence over which documents are released and what is redacted from the documents that are released. These actions take time and the truth is only able to leak out slowly as the release of a document travels through the court system or bureaucracy of government. The hope of the criminals is that the information is delayed and by the time it is released people no longer care, because the people already believe that they understand the “reality” based on the lies that the criminals have spread.

Documents from other governments are not subject to the same control as the documents within the US government. This is why the Downing Street Memo is so significant. The Downing Street Memo tells us that the Bush administration was “fixing intelligence” in order to increase public support for a pre-emptive War in Iraq. But, the Downing Street Memo comes from another government not controlled by the criminals.



To add to the evidence that the Bush administration mislead the public into support for the pre-emptive War in Iraq are a set of newly declassified documents released yesterday August 17, 2005. These documents support the Downing Street Memo. These documents support what many people have told us about the run-up to the Iraq War. These documents tell us that “planning for post-Saddam regime change began as early as October 2001.”



Wait a minute, planning for post-Saddam regime change began right after 9/11/2001? If they planned this so early why was post-war Iraq so screwed up?

As the new documents continue to trickle out they all tend to confirm the conjecture that the War in Iraq was planned long before the claims of the Bush administration. Additionally, the criteria for the war was created out of thin air in order to deceive the American public into supporting an unnecessary, unjust and illegal War.






politics,
Iraq and
Downing Street Memo

Moderation is the American Way

When I was young my parents taught me a lesson about moderation. They taught it to me over time on several occasions. For example, when we got home on Halloween night with a big bag of candy and treats my mother might say something like - candy is good a little at a time, but if you eat a lot you will be sick as a dog; moderation is the key. When I got older she would say that drinking alcohol is OK in moderation, but drinking too much is dangerous. She would comment on the new fads as they came out and talk about how extreme some may be. For example, she may have commented on the height of the platform shoes or the gaudiness of the jewelry or the brightness of the colors. The point was always not to go to the extremes, because moderation was the key to success.

When I moved out of the house I remembered this among the many other wise things that my parents taught me. When it came to fad nutrition, fad diets, fad exercise, and even fad clubs I always kept in mind the ideal or moderation. And, moderation has served me well. For example, when everyone was cutting salt out of their diet people began experiencing problems with maintaining a high enough blood pressure. When people cut fat out of their kid’s diets it was later discovered that kids actually need fat in their diet for proper brain development. Just because a little is good it doesn’t mean that a lot is better.

In politics I have always been in the middle of the road. I have been a little to the left on social issues, and I have been a little to the right on fiscal issues. In that vein I am a moderate libertarian. Shutting down the government would be an extreme measure, but minimal government is not a bad thing. The government needs to justify why it is spending my money, but a good infrastructure makes for a good economy. The government should leave the moral issues to the churches and the churches need teach their congregations what they believe to be right and wrong. Obviously the government needs to make laws against behavior infringes on the operation of society like theft and murder, but it needs to remove itself from behavior that is less harmful like drinking, gay marriage, or even abortion. People need to be responsible for themselves, even if they need to be encouraged from time to time to do what is best for society.

So, when I received the following comment I realize that my mission isn’t to convert every last neo-conservative to my way of thinking. He said, "I am never going to agree with you on your stance on Bush. Don't ever assume you will convert someone like me because you won't." Obviously I know that it can’t be done. People are free in America to believe in whatever they want to believe in. There are people who believe in UFOs and the coming of the anti-Christ. There are also people who wear tin foil hats because they believe that people are trying to read their minds. When a country allows its people to have freedom of expression there is bound to be a few that will go to the extremes. The current neo-conservative fad that began as a reaction to the liberal extremism of the 1960s is just another fad.

I read his comment again, "I am never going to agree with you on your stance on Bush. Don't ever assume you will convert someone like me because you won't."

And, I thought, that's fine! What I write is not for you. What I write is for an audience who thinks and is willing to look at both sides. I write for an audience who cares about the United States of America and not for a personal ideology. I write for the people in the middle of the political spectrum, because that is where I stand. I can see that moderate conservatives can make a sensible point and I can agree with it when it makes sense. But, I also write for people who care about the direction that the radical right wing of the Bush administration is taking our country. I write so those moderates will realize that we can't let the country be fooled into following these idiots down another rabbit hole like Iraq. Only the moderates will be able to protect our country from the extremists on either side.



politics