Our Minds Are Marvels of Engineering

For Steven Pinker fans.

My Contribution to the War On Christmas

Happy Newton Day!

Holiday Book Recommendation

I recommend that you rush over to your friendly bookseller, find this book in the science section, take it out, and then walk it over to the science fiction section and return it to its correct place.

Feel free to do this to any book by Behe as well.

Merry Christmas.

What's Going On?

What are Americans thinking about?

What about African Americans?

Medicare and Medicaid

Social Security is not the problem. There is no Social Security crisis. Social security was fixed in 1983 (thank you President Reagan). The true crisis in the Federal Budget in the coming years is soaring Medicare and Medicaid spending. It can be addressed by comprehensive health care reform. Also, the graph above excludes debt service, which is also a huge problem. Which of the presidential candidates are honestly addressing the actual problems?

For more detail and an even better graphic that includes debt service, check out page nine of this pdf report.

Be wary of those who tell you that "social insurance" costs are spiraling out of control (that's true, due to Medicare and Medicaid), and then propose to slash Social Security benefits as the solution. It is dishonest.

Sing Along

Who Is It?

What person said . . . .

Here in America we are descended in blood and in spirit from revolutionists and rebels - men and women who dare to dissent from accepted doctrine. As their heirs, may we never confuse honest dissent with disloyal subversion.

I like to believe that people in the long run are going to do more to promote peace than our governments. Indeed, I think that people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of the way and let them have it.

In most communities it is illegal to cry "fire" in a crowded assembly. Should it not be considered serious international misconduct to manufacture a general war scare in an effort to achieve local political aims?

The world moves, and ideas that were once good are not always good.

Things are more like they are now than they ever were before.

It's All Good

The Three Big Ideas Of Life
are
Creation. Evolution. Grace.



Being a solid evolutionist, with a long time scientific fascination and hunger for witnessing great breakthroughs (what a great time to be alive!), I never had a problem with believing the impenetrable, bizarre, mysterious fact of our Creation, always hoping for some answers.




We were created. No doubt. How can I know this? We exist, like everything else that is, like all that has ever been. How could this be? I don't really have that answer, but it is.


By the way, let's not mix this up. I'm not conceding Creationism - something different. Creationism was itself created of course, but in this case, we know who the creators (and perpetrators) are. The Creationism idea, over time, took one particular path (among many paths that potentially pop up) that eventually evolved into Intelligent Design, the great modern surviving beast. ID strategically goes to battle against great ideas like Evolution and Archeology and History and myriad other fields of science - all of these are great legendary ideas that humans also created that don't want to be bothered to have to fight such a stupid pipsqueak of an idea such as ID. But fight they must. Sigh.



Ironic. Both of these, the earlier and later generations of theories that waste time attacking established truth - and there's surely more to come - evolved, in the same way that Evolution predicts it could. Good and bad genes evolve - are created - and good and bad ideas survive and evolve, in many of the same ways as do our genes. There's always a good variety of genes and ideas circulating out there, but rest assured, the useless and destructive ones (like ID, or flu epidemics) will eventually get weeded out. And on and on we go. So long as we stay successful - surviving. If we don't ultimately (and timely too) prevail over the bad ideas that have evolved, then there could be a big stress imposed on society, and we may or may not (if we adapt) perish. Communism was successfully created, and it has mostly been successfully destroyed. Islamic jihadism has successfully been created, and we are so far unsuccessful in destroying it. I have faith we will. History is full of former good ideas. This is the way it works, whether it makes us upset or not. But, c'mon, have a heart.


So there's Creation. Sounds so holy, but there are no doubt things created, however you think about the mystery of Creation. And it's wonderful to think about.


Then there's Evolution. Genes, and memes, the genetic proteins and cultural ideas that pass down through the ages to form us and inform our society. Our species and our culture are always evolving. Always have. Always will, as long as we are successful.


Which brings me to . . . .


Grace. However you define it. Successful Life? Love? Bliss? Purpose to our lives? Is it already created for us? Or do we decide of our own free will? What is it to you? Heart? Love? Knowledge? Seated at the right hand of the Father? Nirvana? Contentment? Removal of desire? In this life? In the next? What is grace, what is best, for you? Is it what is best for us?

Great questions. Many of us have many different answers. Between Creation and Grace alone you have enough to build whole religions. Oh, wait.






It so happens that I think the subject of Grace is more important than either the subject of Creation or Evolution.



Certainly, we shouldn't forget about Evolution. By Evolution - a particularly important understanding for us to have due to the fact we are now so much our own creators - I mean the process by which humanity (and all life) is able to keep chuggin' along.



So, it boils down to the big three ideas of life:




Creation. The mystical source of it all. We just don't know. We have ideas, though. Many ideas.



Evolution. How it all works. We really have the basics pretty much dialed in. But it's so early in our era of knowledge, so we are still learning rapidly.



Grace. What we decide to do with it all.

Our awareness, our morals, our understanding, our customs, our history, our destiny, our lives. What do we do? Individually, and collectively over time, what should we do? Do we agree to work together toward some shared purpose? If so, should it be a broad enough purpose to permit us to realistically include everyone in an agreement? Or do we form factions, with cross-purposes? Sometimes, clearly, that it required. Should our purpose simply be our survival? Do we all have different ideas about how much control we can or should exert in achieving Grace? Good questions. Let's talk about it.

If fact, it's all good, and all are the possible subjects of big breakthroughs in our understanding, our morals, our history. Time would be well spent enjoying and studying and talking about all of the three big ideas of life.

Supply Sadism

I ran across an old article by Krugman, from over 4 years ago, that provides some useful perspective on one thing that is bothering me these days.

As all the Republican presidential candidates get my blood boiling by blinding asserting the myth that tax cuts are the cure for any problem and will pay for themselves, it's not enough to simply refute the lie that is the supply siders mantra - cut tax rates and revenue will go up. Giuliani is the worst offender lately: "I know that reducing taxes produces more revenues. Democrats don't know that. They don't believe it."

BS. Find me an economist that believes that. But why, then, besides the easy political hit of crack for their devoted followers, do politicians continue this line of rhetoric? What is this BS really about?

Krugman explains how the tax-cut for everything crowd really has two fronts, the happy, political one of all-gain, no-pain and the ideological one of "starving the beast" so that a fiscal crisis will eventually result in voters hating the goverment, and then force huge spending cuts. Small government is the goal. The dishonest way they have of getting there is what pisses me off.

Krugman:

"A look at who the supply-siders are and how they came to prominence tells the story.

The supply-side movement likes to present itself as a school of economic thought like Keynesianism or monetarism -- that is, as a set of scholarly ideas that made their way, as such ideas do, into political discussion. But the reality is quite different. Supply-side economics was a political doctrine from Day 1; it emerged in the pages of political magazines, not professional economics journals.

That is not to deny that many professional economists favor tax cuts. But they almost always turn out to be starve-the-beasters, not supply-siders. And they often secretly -- or sometimes not so secretly -- hold supply-siders in contempt. N. Gregory Mankiw, now chairman of George W. Bush's Council of Economic Advisers, is definitely a friend to tax cuts; but in the first edition of his economic-principles textbook, he described Ronald Reagan's supply-side advisers as ''charlatans and cranks.''"

Why can't more folks see through the BS? If you want a smaller government, then campaign based on telling us what you will cut. Otherwise, quit promising a free lunch, when all you are doing is running up the tab.

Rob

Rob Boyle.





Singer/Songwriter, entertainer, crowd pleaser. It's about the music, and the people, you know? It's really OK if music is sometimes a spiritual thing for you. "Ordinarily", you make some money.

Bah.

Just Gravy.

What is lasting is . . . .

Connections.

Let it go.

Beautifully human.

Music.

I understand.

"All of this will probably take years . . . . "

. . . . working through all the new problems (that have arisen the last few years) will take some time, just like the current problems.

Important Government Business

Resolved, That the House of Representatives-- (1) recognizes the Christian faith as one of the great religions of the world; (2) expresses continued support for Christians in the United States and worldwide; (3) acknowledges the international religious and historical importance of Christmas and the Christian faith; (4) acknowledges and supports the role played by Christians and Christianity in the founding of the United States and in the formation of the western civilization; (5) rejects bigotry and persecution directed against Christians, both in the United States and worldwide; and (6) expresses its deepest respect to American Christians and Christians throughout the world."

There is a War on Christmas, after all.

Source

What Is Reality?

This is one result (other more serious results are misplaced hatred, fear, war, people die, etc.) that happens when some in our government and media seek to mislead and most of the rest of the media only say, he said, she said, you decide:

"I have now received three (3) student papers that discuss Iraq's attack on the Twin Towers on 9/11. All three papers mention it as an aside to another point. I've had two papers on the virtue of forgiveness that argue that if we had just forgiven Iraq for the 9/11 attacks, we wouldn't be at war right now. I just read a paper on the problem of evil which asked why God allowed "the Iraq's" to attack us on 9/11. The thing that upsets me most here is that the the students don't just believe that that Iraq was behind 9/11. This is a big fact in their minds, that leaps out at them, whenever they think about the state of the world."

For some folks, it's a close enough approximation of reality.

Sciencedebate2008

A Call for a Presidential Debate on Science and Technology

I've submitted my question (about the health of the world's oceans). Won't you?

War Is Over!

If you want it.

Two Means To An End

What do nuclear war and global climate change have in common?

From an interview with Jonathan Schell:

You know, when I wrote The Fate of the Earth, back in 1982, I said that, first and foremost, nuclear weapons were an ecological danger. It wasn't that our species could be directly wiped out by nuclear war down to the last person. That would only happen through the destruction of the underpinnings of life, through nuclear winter, radiation, ozone loss. There has been an oddity of timing, because when the nuclear weapon was invented, people didn't even use the word "environment" or "ecosphere." The environmental movement was born later.

So, in a certain sense, the greatest -- or certainly the most urgent -- ecological threat of them all was born before the context in which you could understand it. The present larger ecological crisis is that context. In other words, global warming and nuclear war are two different ways that humanity, having grown powerful through science, through production, through population growth, threatens to undo the natural underpinnings of human, and all other, life. In a certain way, I think we may be in a better position today, because of global warming, to grasp the real import of nuclear danger.

I hope to get an outraged comment from reader DS.

Ozark Music Plus Weird Fiddle Stuff

The Ozarks look beautiful from my perch in Chesterfield. The original music is great here as well. Last Friday, Webster Jim and I traveled to Washington MO to see Big Smith. I recommend them. Watch this:



Now, after you take some serious drugs, watch this weird, but uniquely American, band, called Uncle Earl (homage to Earl Scruggs):



Recognize the piano player? Yep, it's John Paul Jones, from Led Zeppelin. That's all.

We Don't Torture

Tapes? There were tapes, after all? Don't worry, though. Nothing to see here, move on now.

?????

"Freedom requires religion . . ."

I don't get it. If you believe that God is the ultimate authority, and since most religions are fundamentally authoritarian in their doctrines, I don't understand how Freedom requires Religion. I think I know what he really means, though. In America, athiests aren't free to run for public office. It's just that folks don't usually say this out loud.

Whatever. He's certainly no JFK, whose approach to this issue is beautifully and uniquely American. The POLITICAL role of faith and religion in America was perfectly set forth by Kennedy, thus providing a precedent for all to follow. Until now.

Big Mouth

Some say I have one. Who am I to argue?

As Gunter Grass said, "The job of a citizen is to keep his mouth open.”

Imagine . . .

. . . that he kept his word, no more, no less.







At the time, Bush's approval rating soared to 86%.

America was united. Now, not so much.

Q.E.D.

Click To Play

Geneva Schmeneva

This is nice.

"Non-compliance with the Geneva Conventions remains official US Policy, according to leading Habeas Corpus lawyers from the Center for Constitutional Rights. Systematic denial of Red Cross access to prisoners remains."

Philosophy of Fundamentals and Taking Liberties

It would not be called fundamental if it were not believed to be always true. A condition is fundamental because it is basic, a premise, understood to be the case, always. Like supply and demand. Like how to read. Like simple mathematics. Like trust. All are fundamental. Until there is a major paradigm shift, or the sun starts rising in the west, the fundamentals are always required.

I believe I barely qualify in calling myself a musician. In fact, I’m a drummer. A drummer is to musician as a kicker is to football player. No respect. But I am a musician nonetheless.

As a drummer, and as a musician, there are certain fundamentals to be respected. You have to stay on the beat. You have to respect the dynamics of the song. You have to please the listener.

I occasionally play in a duet with an acoustic guitar player on Fridays nights at a small bar and restaurant in St. Louis county. On a recent Friday night, during a break, I got into an interesting discussion with the guitar player about the fundamentals of musicianship.

He was complementing me on both my fundamentals and my musicality. I was playing within myself and I was pleased that he noticed. I took this as an opportunity to explain my philosophy of drumming. I told him that I believed that it all starts with the fundamentals: I have to fit in with the music, I have to maintain a steady beat and I have to be a pleasing performer. That is my fundamental job as a drummer. I could be flashy, I sometimes am flashy, but I feel that I first have to earn it. If I am playing, doing my job, sticking with the fundamentals, then I may sometimes earn the right to take some liberties. By liberties, I mean an interesting, different, creative and yes, sometimes flashy, fill. I may not have the best skills, the fastest hands or the fanciest equipment, but if I am getting the job done, and can continue to get the job done by respecting the fundamentals, then I can sometimes show off a little. Be creative. Do something to make the audience swoon. Have a drum solo. But I can only do this if I continue to remember the fundamentals.

By contrast, a drum machine is steady. A drum machine is programmed to stick with certain fundamentals. Some drummers are not as good as a drum machine. Some are better. But the bad drummers fail the fundamentals, no matter how fast and flashy they play. So what can make me preferable to a drum machine? Because I am human. I can do more than a drum machine. I can be creative. But it only works if I never forget the fundamentals. Otherwise, just go with the drum machine.

Why should anyone care about the philosophy of drumming, or guitar playing (the guitar player completely agreed with me)?

Because what is true for music is true for internet stocks, the housing market and the supply and demand for tulips. It’s fine, and beautifully human, to take some liberties with the regulations and the financial structures that frame those markets. It's great to make the people swoon. It's great to take liberties and be fast and flashy. But it only works if the fundamentals are respected. When they are not respected, the fundamentals don’t go away. Rather, they come crashing back into our reality and people get hurt. It’s not nice to mess with the fundamentals.

Where Have All the Really Good Enemies Gone?

This one does not appear to be quite the threat that we were told. We are at war after all. We need a new good enemy. Is North Korea still scary?

We need fresh fuel for the fear.