NAS votes for common sense

It's sad that the National Academy of Sciences had to devote valuable resources in order to produce a comprehensive position paper explaining science and evolution, and debunking creationism, but it's welcome. Now can we move on? Please.

Mr Three Percent

The number of points that Bill Clinton got in the 1992 Iowa Caucus. What does it all mean?

Vote for common sense

I'll blurt this right out - I can't vote for anyone who doesn't believe in evolution. Phew.

Creationists tend to hang on the word "Theory" as if it means "Guess" - Darwins' Guess At What's Going On - and saying things like "Well, the jury is still out on Evolution, and it is only a theory after all". They don't seem to consider the fact that science is generally split into Laws and Theories. A Law is something proven beyond reasonable doubt - if you do this, the result will be this. Many Laws started out as Theories. The Theory of Evolution is unlikely to become a Law because there are too many variables - if you do this, the result, based on observation, evidence and testing will likely be this, although it's not certain. Meanwhile, as with Laws, we'll continue observing, tracing evidence and testing, and refining the theory as we go. Or we could sit back and say it must all have been created a Designer.

Now, back to the opening statement. I don't know that I could trust the running of a country to someone who rejects out of hand scientific evidence, observation and testing in favor of mythology, even if that candidate pledges not to interfere with science education. It amounts to impaired judgement to me.

In a test, which one of the following would make you pause and question the candidates judgement?

I believe....

• Santa Claus
• The Earth is flat
• The Sun orbits the Earth
• Mbombo vomited the sun. moon and stars
• A god named Pangu, born inside the egg, broke it into two halves: The upper half became the sky, the lower half became the earth.
• Gaia brought forth Ouranos, the starry sky, her equal, to cover her, the hills, and the fruitless deep of the Sea, Pontus, "without sweet union of love," out of her own self.
• An omnipotent being created the heavens and earth in 6 days
• Zeus is king of the gods and god of the sky and thunder
• "Conjecture about [the origin, etc., of] the world is an unconjecturable that is not to be conjectured about, that would bring madness & vexation to anyone who conjectured about it."
• All animals and humans have a divine element in them that is covered by the ignorance and illusions of material or profane existence
• Global Warming is caused by the declining number of pirates.
• Natural selection is a process that causes heritable traits that are helpful for survival and reproduction to become more common, and harmful traits to become more rare. This occurs because organisms with advantageous traits pass on more copies of these heritable traits to the next generation.
• Natural selection is a process that causes heritable traits that are helpful for survival and reproduction to become more common, and harmful traits to become more rare. This occurs because organisms with advantageous traits pass on more copies of these heritable traits to the next generation, with the exception of humans because God created us in His image, and therefore we're exempt.

All but two are fairy tales. Just vote for common sense, not myths and superstition.

Ron Paul and the dissolution of the United States

If you've taken any time to look beyond Ron Paul's stance on Iraq and examine his positions on a wide variety of other subjects it becomes clear, to me at least, that he is for the dissolution of these here United States of America. His position, on things such as the IRS, Federal Reserve, Intelligence Agencies, Environment, Education, Social Security etc etc, is that there should be little or no Federal Government or Federal oversight and that all such governance should be left to the States. Dissolution may not be his stated aim, but it would obviously be one possible outcome. Apart from having a joint defense system, what would be left that could be called "United"?

It also strikes me that such a break up of the Union would after a pretty short time result in mini-Unions because wide diversity of policies, such as taxation and social services, between the States, as shown in Europe, doesn't work in the long term. To avoid unbalanced trade patterns or population migration between States, strategic alliances, agreements and entities will be formed. The first form of this would likely be an East / West division, with Pacific coast states forming an alliance while the Atlantic states do the same, leaving the "Heartland" States with a decision to make as to where their economic interests lie. Texas will likely run it alone for a while. The upshot of all of this is that the "United States" will eventually reform along with all it's governing institutions. Could the intermission include revolutionary wars and wars of independence? Possibly but hopefully unlikely, although with the Red / Blue divide so prominantly promoted by our media I wouldn't exclude any possibility.

Netflix Recommendations are crap

I've been using Netflix for years and don't think I've ever had a good recommendation from them, but today just blew my mind. They proudly recommend "The Looney Tunes Golden Collection" because I enjoyed the Sergio Leone classic "Once Upon a Time in the West". Anyone have any idea how their recommendation algorithm works?

Compare and Contrast

Today, the National Intelligence Estimate detailed the assessment of 16 different intelligence departments regarding Iran's nuclear weapons program.

In the headlines of the mainstream media, see if you can spot the odd one out:

CNN:

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Iran halted work toward a nuclear weapon under international scrutiny in 2003 and is unlikely to be able to produce enough enriched uranium for a bomb until 2010 to 2015, a U.S. intelligence report says.

MSNBC:

WASHINGTON - Iran halted its nuclear weapons development program in the fall of 2003 under international pressure but is continuing to enrich uranium, which means it may still be able to develop a weapon between 2010 and 2015, senior U.S. intelligence officials said Monday.

Fox News:

WASHINGTON — The intelligence community has high confidence that Iran had a covert nuclear weapons program that it never acknowledged and continues to deny, National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley said Monday, but the program is currently halted although perhaps not indefinitely.

ABC News:

In a stunning reversal of Bush administration conventional wisdom, a new assessment by U.S. intelligence agencies concludes Iran shelved its nuclear weapons program over four years ago.

CBS News:

(CBS/AP) Iran halted its nuclear weapons development program in the fall of 2003 under international pressure but is continuing to enrich uranium, which means it may still be able to develop a weapon between 2010 and 2015, senior intelligence officials said Monday.

BBC:

Iran appears "less determined" to develop nuclear weapons than previously thought, US intelligence officials say.

Man shoots wife, wife doesn't remember a thing

This is very sad. In Tuscany today a 77 year old man shot his 82 year old wife dead while she lay in her hospital bed. She had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease eight years ago and the man told police that he could no longer bear to she her suffer. While this is tragic and an extreme example of someones anguish, I'm actually in favor of euthanasia as I feel that the continuing strive to keep many humans alive no matter their circumstances has gone too far. We often keep our "loved ones" in conditions that we would not subject animals to. Quality of life should outweigh quantity of life in my opinion. Obviously the "patient" should have the last say in this, which makes it extremely difficult in the case of degenerative mental illnesses unless the illness is diagnosed early enough and the victim is judged to be compos mentis enough to indicate their wishes. While this poor man broke the law, it will be interesting to see how justice is served. Maybe if they had children, it is they who should be the jury.