Remember Ted Stevens?

It makes sense that Palin would attempt to remove anything linking herself to Ted Stevens from her website. I still think it's funny that she erased this commercial.

A commercial for me

As a frequent flyer (not happy about that, to be honest) this commercial really spoke to me:



Ugh, I never thought I'd see the day that I would share a commercial. Anyway, I like southwest as a company. They've impressed me with their business model.

Genesis 3

This here is a tough chapter. It's one of the chapters that were instrumental in leading me to a long stint of militant atheism (starting age 12 or so). It's the Original Sin chapter. In its standard reading, the reading I was taught, it places the blame mostly on Eve and partly on Adam and the serpent. But when I read it I thought it was impossible to blame anyone but God himself for what happened. Observe:

1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any other wild animal that the Lord God had made.

Verse 1 of the chapter begins like this. And by this very way, it reminds me that God was to have made the snake and, by logic, must have made him crafty. Furthermore, is crafty being used as a pejorative here?

He said to the woman, ‘Did God say, “You shall not eat from any tree in the garden”?’ ²The woman said to the serpent, ‘We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden; ³but God said, “You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden, nor shall you touch it, or you shall die.” ’ ⁴But the serpent said to the woman, ‘You will not die; ⁵for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.’

Here, the crafty serpent implies that God lied. Eve took his "you shall surely die" comment literally and the serpent explained that she will not die but that she will become more knowledgeable. This is a continuous problem, especially in the new testament: God, or Jesus, says something, people take him literally, hilarity/tragedy/misunderstanding ensues. If God and/or Jesus say something that is not intended to be taken literally, they should have had the foresight to make themselves more clear, better understood. Knowing what we know after reading Genesis 1 to 3 we must assume that God was not being literal about eating from the tree of knowledge leading to death, otherwise it would make him a liar. But EVE TOOK HIM LITERALLY! Why didn't God see this coming?

So, back to the event. Who's at fault here for the fall? The snake, maybe, for enticing Eve. But God made the snake, God knew the snake had the mental capacity to trick Eve, God was certainly watching all of this transpire. Maybe Eve is at fault, but God made Eve, God knew Eve had some obedience issues, God gave her one rule and it took her all of one conversation with a serpent to break it, God knew this would happen when he created Eve, God must have made Eve with very little will power, and God simply watched our simple Eve be swayed by the crafty serpent.

⁶So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate.

Again, the desire to make yourself wise is also responsible for man's fall. When I read verse 6 I cringe, I want to cry. Because there is no arguing a literalist on this point: Wisdom brings sin. As a student or academic, I perpetuate the problem (see the Amish for more illumination on this point). By extension, a critical reading of the bible is frowned upon as it will only lead to trouble. Also, Adam was hanging around watching all of this. He didn't even have the will or foresight to say anything, he just went ahead and ate. Is it his fault? It's clear to me that God made Adam even dumber than Eve.

⁷Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made loincloths for themselves.

Thus, knowledge made us prude.

8 They heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.

God is omnipresent. He is everywhere and he is watching. God may be walking in the garden but he already knew all that had happened and all that will happen. Why is God being coy?

⁹But the Lord God called to the man, and said to him, ‘Where are you?’ ¹⁰He said, ‘I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.’ ¹¹He said, ‘Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?’ ¹²The man said, ‘The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit from the tree, and I ate.’ ¹³Then the Lord God said to the woman, ‘What is this that you have done?’ The woman said, ‘The serpent tricked me, and I ate.’

God continues to be coy. He pulls out a confession as would a parent with a child covered in chocolate. "what did you do?" -- "nuffin" -- "tell me the truth, did you eat the cookies?" -- and so on. Furthermore, the interaction presented here, where God asks "Who told you that you were naked?" hints to me of a very strange relationship between God and his creation.

The question always lingers: Why would God create us/anything? It's one of those unanswerable questions, but my best guess given his interactions with humans throughout the old testament is that we are his simple playthings. Whether he observes us for entertainment or as some weird experiment gone awry, the old testament, beginning with Genesis 3:11, makes me feel that he created us simply as a means to feel something: anger, dismay, joy, laughter, depression. Before we came along, God had no reason to feel anything. He created us silly creatures so that he could feel something. As the old testament progresses we'll see him experience all kinds of emotions on account of our actions.

¹⁴The Lord God said to the serpent, ‘Because you have done this,
cursed are you among all animals
and among all wild creatures; upon your belly you shall go,
and dust you shall eat
all the days of your life. ¹⁵I will put enmity between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and hers; he will strike your head,
and you will strike his heel.’ ¹⁶To the woman he said, ‘I will greatly increase your pangs in childbearing;
in pain you shall bring forth children, yet your desire shall be for your husband,
and he shall rule over you.’

Genesis 3:16 == HARSH. Especially the "he shall rule over you" bit.

¹⁷And to the man he said, ‘Because you have listened to the voice of your wife,
and have eaten of the tree about which I commanded you,
“You shall not eat of it”, cursed is the ground because of you;
in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life; ¹⁸thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you;
and you shall eat the plants of the field. ¹⁹By the sweat of your face
you shall eat bread until you return to the ground,
for out of it you were taken; you are dust,
and to dust you shall return.’

Let me explain in more detail my BIGGEST problem here (in case you haven't deduced this yourself). God creates man. He knows he has created a creature wich is stupid, has no will power, can't even follow a simple rule, a FLAWED creature. Even worse, in God's omniscience (he knows EVERYTHING) God was aware, even before creating him, that man would betray him. Yet he plays the game, goes through the motions, and punishes him for his sin.

This is like a baker, baking a cake, he forgets to add the eggs or the sugar. Out of the oven the cake looks or tastes horribly, so what does the baker do? He gets mad at the cake and tosses it down the stairs. Excuse me, baker, but you forgot the eggs (or, in this case, you intentionally left them out).

This is a simple deduction. I know that people have argued about this for a thousand years. This very story leads us to our 'free will' argument: The idea that God gave us free will and, with it, we can surprise him and do things he did not expect. Well, that's fine if you want to believe that God does not know our intentions, but then you have to concede that God does not know everything. If God does not know everything, then why is he God and not god or that guy, sam, who happened to put us together and hoped for the best? Anyway, this is Philosophy 101 stuff, so let me move on.

I feel that God can only be worthy of our praise if he is a super genius, if not omniscient. God's behavior in Genesis 3 is so far below super genius that it shames me. How can anyone read this chapter and assume God is a fair, nice person? I suspect that the only way to do this is to make excuses, attempt to dig through what is written and try to find an explanation that would allow God to come out of this tale looking a bit less like an overemotional, bipolar amnesiac and more like a caring, loving nurturer.

20 The man named his wife Eve, because she was the mother of all who live. ²¹And the Lord God made garments of skins for the man and for his wife, and clothed them.

22 Then the Lord God said, ‘See, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil; and now, he might reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever’— ²³therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from which he was taken. ²⁴He drove out the man; and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim, and a sword flaming and turning to guard the way to the tree of life.

So that was how we were punished by God. Some denominations believe that this original sin is a source of continued punishment. Some believe that if we are not baptized before death, regardless of how good we'd been in life, we would still go to hell because of what Adam and Eve did. As if there is some legal, techincal loophole that God won't fix forcing the continued suffering of mankind because of something our incredibly ignorant ancestors did 5000 years ago.

At 12 years old, after reading and re-reading this chapter, asking my Chatechism teacher about it and receiving no response, I lost faith in my fellow roman catholics. How can you not have a response to Genesis 3 for a 12 year old? How can you read this chapter literally and go on with your happy worshipping? How can you, after reading this, deduce that the acquisition of knowledge is a reason for punishment? How can you not blame the creator for the flaws of the creation?

And it isn't just the roman catholics:

Genesis 3 is a chapter that demands the reader to understand God. People read chapter 3 and without a thought move on to chapter 4. Why? Because, chances are, you heard the story of chapter 3 when you were 6 and it made complete sense to you.

"Of course God would be mad, that's what happens when you don't listen to rules. I know from experience! Yesterday when I ate the cookie even though mom told me to wait till after dinner I got a spanking! God is just spanking Adam and Eve..." and so on.

I want everyone who believes in the infallibility of the bible to stop and pay attention to Genesis 3. Read Genesis 3 and pay attention and don't assume that the reason you don't understand the problems is because you didn't major in theology. When human beings say horrible things like "Gays are going to hell" or "Women shouldn't have the right to vote" we are saying them because of literal interpretations of the old testament. But what happens when we follow the logical, literal interpretation of Genesis 3?

What a move!

Congratulations GOP. Sweet move. Give yourselves a round of applause.

Holy shit.

The DNC

What's the purpose of a political convention?

Is it just a big party, a celebration? Is it supposed to rally support for the party? Does it create revenue for the candidate's campaign? Is it supposed to educate the voters, give them fodder or good lines to use in their arguments with undecided voters in their social circles? Is it a pissing contest with the opposing party's convention?

I've never really understood the purpose of the convention process. But one thing that this DNC has made clear to me is that I loathe the speeches.

The speeches aren't informative. Sometimes the speaker throws out some facts like "McCain voted 90% with Bush" without any citation or explanation as to where this number came from (How the hell did McCain vote 90% with Bush when Bush DOESN'T VOTE, he VETOES bills or signs them into law!!!). It's really not possible to provide well supported facts in a speech because it would make for a very boring speech. I would warn anyone who expects to be using any new information learned by DNC speeches to make sure they check the facts and understand what they mean before parroting.

All the cable news pundits want Barack's speech to be full of content about his policies. THIS IS NEVER GOING TO HAPPEN. Why? Because a political speech to a general audience is going to be dull and incomprehensible if it's full of details about ins and outs of policies. The best a candidate can do is give an outline of the plan: "I plan to make oil companies give back a bit of their profits, and that money is going directly to the poorest 25% of taxpayers." but that's about as detailed as a political speech can get about windfall profit tax. If the speech continued with a plan about how exactly the law would be worded such that the oil companies would be forced to pay no one would be rivited, the speaker would be boring, and they'd lose the audience. Then, of course, pundits from Fox news would jump on your quote and yell about how your ideas are childish because A) oil companies are already paying a ton of money in taxes, B) there's no way to broadly define "windfall profit" since each oil company operates under different business plans and different uses of those profits, and C) no similar law has ever been passed which was free of loopholes.

For any candidate, a speech about policy is a lose/lose situation.

I've realized this year that political speeches are not inteded for audience members like me. I'm not motivated by inspirational messages. I hate to hear the phrase "god bless america" (not because I don't want america blessed, but because it is a meaningless phrase used to get a reaction or simply proclaim one's paitriotism). I'd rather get my policy information from a hard source (like the candidates' web sites) where detailed information is available. I don't think a policy maker should be judged on the quality of their public speaking (yes I know that the art of persuasion is linked with the art of speechmaking, and that the ability to persuade is critical in the highest offices, but I think a good president or senator is made from her empathy and ability to understand complex problems from multiple perspectives. I don't want a fantastic speaker with poor judgment to lead the country into a terrible decision just because she's good at giving a speech.) And I think clapping, cheering, ballons, and streamers should be reserved for rock concerts, circuses, or stage acts.

Our politicians are our leaders. They will be the people who decide things like whether the death penalty will be abolished or whether a war will be waged. These are serious issues and when I think about what the political process actually leads us to and then compare it to the extravaganza that has been the Democratic national convention (or the republican one coming up) it's incredibly unnerving.

We cheer for Obama or McCain as if we believe either of these men are going to be flawless presidents. Whoever makes it come January, I guarantee that they are going to do something to piss you off (if you're paying attention). That's simply because they won't share 100% of your opinions regardless of whether you are a republican or democrat. Knowing this should lead one to believe that we should ALWAYS question authority. We should always remind the people we allow the honor of leading us that we are watching, that we won't always agree with what they have to say, but that we give them the benefit of the doubt.

Cheering at them like mullet wearing ladies cheer at bon jovi is totally undermining the relationship we should be having with our elected leaders. Screaming and waving banners doesn't not provide the apporpriate amount of skepticism, the reminder that we are not giving away our right to disagree.

Yes, we support. No, you are not flawless and we'll be watching.

So, what's the purpose of a political convention? Who's being educated? Do you win the presidency by showing the rest of america that your supporters cheer the loudest?

Politics and the tv

Preaching to the choir.

You're going to vote based on preconceived notions of party lines or what you see on TV because you, like most americans, don't have the time or the patience to really research both candidates (you probably don't have enough time to research either candidate).



But if you're watching Fox news, you're probably already going to vote conservative, whereas if you're watching anything else you're more likely to vote liberal. There's not such thing as a swing vote.

Genesis 2 (switching to the NRSV)

¹Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all their multitude. ²And on the seventh day God finished the work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all the work that he had done. ³So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God rested from all the work that he had done in creation.

I've heard people complain about the first three verses of Genesis 2 because they imply that God gets tired. The problem is that an omnipotent God wouldn't be tired. This interpretation makes a lot of sense -- even people who aren't critical bible readers seem to think that the reason God rested was because he was tired (they don't seem to have a problem with imagining a tired God). But there is another sense to the word 'rested', that is 'a pause from doing something', not necessarily taking a nap. Thus, I will assume that God rested not because he was tired but because he just wanted to take some time off to check things out. If he really wanted to he could have kept going, of course.

4 These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created.

Another Account of the Creation

In the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens, ⁵when no plant of the field was yet in the earth and no herb of the field had yet sprung up—for the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was no one to till the ground; ⁶but a stream would rise from the earth, and water the whole face of the ground— ⁷then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being.

5-7 have always confused me because they directly contradict Genesis 1. In G1 we get plants created (then animals) then man. Here, we get man coming before plants of the field were yet in the earth. I know there's lots of ways to interpret this, such as "God had created a bunch of plants but no corn or soybeans or other 'field plants' as in 'tilled field plants'." I guess that's ok, but why be so obtuse about it?

⁸And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east; and there he put the man whom he had formed. ⁹Out of the ground the Lord God made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food, the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

I very strongly DISLIKE the name of that tree. It typically gets truncated as "the tree of knowledge" and then labeled as the tree that caused the fall of man. The illogical but unfortunately common interpretation is that knowledge (or the persuit of knowledge) is tangentially responsible for the fall of man. This interpretation may not be much of an issue in the 21st century, but I'm convinced it was at least partially responsible for the 'dark' ages. More on that later.

10 A river flows out of Eden to water the garden, and from there it divides and becomes four branches. ¹¹The name of the first is Pishon; it is the one that flows around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold; ¹²and the gold of that land is good; bdellium and onyx stone are there. ¹³The name of the second river is Gihon; it is the one that flows around the whole land of Cush. ¹⁴The name of the third river is Tigris, which flows east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates.

I wonder how many people in the United States realize that the Iraqi people live near the location of the garden of Eden.

15 The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it. ¹⁶And the Lord God commanded the man, ‘You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; ¹⁷but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die.’

If you eat of the tree you shall die. This can mean a couple of things:

A) if you eat from the tree you will immediately fall dead.

B) if you eat from the tree you will no longer be immortal and will become able to die

C) if you eat from the tree you will be metaphorically dead (or you'll wish you were dead)

If God meant A then, given what we know happens later in the story, he was lying or wrong, neither of which is a quality we like to ascribe to God. So he meant either B or C. I'm going to assume C, however, if he really told Adam this how was Adam to know what God literally meant?

18 Then the Lord God said, ‘It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper as his partner.’ ¹⁹So out of the ground the Lord God formed every animal of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name.

Here we have another continuity problem. God makes the birds after he already made man here but in Genesis 1 it was reversed.

²⁰The man gave names to all cattle, and to the birds of the air, and to every animal of the field; but for the man there was not found a helper as his partner. ²¹So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then he took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. ²²And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man.

While it may be true that most people don't take the old testament as literal truth, here we have evidence that events from the old testament are used as a tool to corroborate falsities in our everyday lives. I personally know people (more than 2) who believe/believed that men have one fewer rib than women do. When asked why they believe this they say that it was something they learned in church was the result of Eve's creation. Even after being shown evidence that men and women really do have the same number of ribs they refuse to believe it. It took me much cajoling to get them to finally accept that men MIGHT ACTUALLY have the same number of ribs as women. They refused to let go of this fundamental belief that man's missing rib is evidence of the creation account. To set the record straight: Men and women have the same number of ribs. Do look it up.

²³Then the man said,
‘This at last is bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
this one shall be called Woman,
for out of Man his one was taken.’
²⁴Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh. ²⁵And the man and his wife were both naked, and were not ashamed.

Here we have one of my favorite lines in Genesis. I take it to mean that, in our most natural state, we are naked and unashamed. Genesis 2:25 is about as clear as the bible can get regarding how we might get closer to paradise: Get naked! I, myself, am a big fan of Genesis 2:25 :)

Genesis 1

I begin with the assumption that god is omnipotent (can do anything) and omniscient (knows everything). Also I must assume that the bible is literally true. If the bible were not literally true then it is open to various interpretation. If it is open to various interpretation then there can't be one truth since any single passage can have an infinite number of interpretations and thus would be useless as a guide onto itself. Lastly I must also assume that the translation into English of the KJV is absolutely flawless, meaning that every verse and collection of verses lost and gained nothing in translation from the original Greek, Hebrew, Latin, and/or Aramaic. This is the most problematic assumption because any good translater knows that something is always lost (or gained) through translation.

It begins like this:

[1] In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
[2] And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
[3] And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
[4] And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.

My first issue is with the way verse 4 is written. God saw the light, that it was good. But if God is omniscient then he knew the light would be good before he created it. This oddness of this wording appears again and again (verses 10, 12, 18 and so on), where we are told that after God sees a thing is good then he can move on, the intended assumption being that if God didn't like what he saw he would try again or maybe just stop there.

[5] And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.
[6] And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters
[7] And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so
[8] And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.
[9] And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so.
[10] And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good.

It was always confusing to me that water was always there before anything else. These passages above seem to imply that the earth must have been a ball of water and land appeared after the water bits were separated from the sky bits.

[11] And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.
[12] And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
[13] And the evening and the morning were the third day.
[14] And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:
[15] And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so.
[16] And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.

It was always difficult for me to understand what exactly is meant by two great lights. We know that the sun is a great light, but the lesser light to rule the night can't be the moon because the moon does not produce its own light, it simply reflects the light of the sun. Furthermore, the moon is actually in the daytime sky as often as it is in the night time sky. So this second light can't be the moon, it must be the light of the stars. But as we now know, starlight is actually the amalgamation of billions of lights, some actually brighter and more powerful then the sun, only more distant. Also, the stars are mentioned separately at the end of verse 16. So the stars are ruled out and the question is "what is this second great (but lesser) light?"

[17] And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth,
[18] And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good.
[19] And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.
[20] And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.
[21] And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
[22] And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth.
[23] And the evening and the morning were the fifth day.
[24] And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so.
[25] And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

According to these passages, God made apes before he made man. This is interesting to me because apes really resemble human beings. We share so many features that it almost seems like no accident. Thus, this would lead me to believe that God was already making creatures in his image before he moved on to Adam. I'm not saying God looks like a chimpanzee, but a chimpanzee looks a little bit like a human, and a human is made in God's image so by transition a chimpanzee must look a little bit like God. So when God was creating a chimpanzee was he simply being inspired by his own image or was he practicing for the human form?

[26] And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

Why is God using the plural "us" here? Does us refer to God and the angels? Were the angels created already at this point?

[27] So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

We're back to singular "his" rather than "their"

[28] And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

I don't understand what it means to have dominion over something. Does that mean that we have God's permission to dominate a creature once we figure out how to dominate them or once we develop the technology to dominate them? Or does this mean that, in the garden of eden or in heaven we had the power to dominate all creatures, but we lost that power after being expelled?

[29] And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.
[30] And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so.
[31] And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.

So like that, in 6 days everything came to be. Now we have plenty of evidence that new stars are being created all the time. The implication then is that after initial creation, the universe continues to create on its own.

The reason for the blog

One of my many goals in keeping this blog has always been to keep a record of my adventures reading the king james version of the bible.

When I was a high school student I would often wonder through my student's version of the bible but I always had a difficult time sticking with it, for various reasons. One of those reasons was that the passages that needed the most explanation were left completely unexplained (in the annotations of my student's version). Shortly after making my way through about 10% of the old testament and all the way through MARK in the new testament I had come to the conclusion that anyone who had read the whole bible and was not completely befuddled was simply not paying enough attention. So I gave up with the impression that the only way the average person could read the bible and not be left with millions of questions was with close guidance from a parishioner or completely uncritically.

Several years ago, after gaining a little more theological background through outside reading and a little more practice in literary criticism (and logic, and philosophy) I tried going through the King James Version (KJV) on my own once again.

I couldn't even make it through Exodus.

I spent too much time searching the internet for theological explanations regarding the problems of free will and God's omnipotence. None of the explanations I found were satisfying but i trudged on. When I eventually quit I did so with the intention that I would come back to it but with a better method of note keeping, such that I would be able to come back to my issues and discuss them in a more open forum.

So one of my goals is to slowly take notes on the blog as I slowly read and analyze each book, chapter, or verse. There are over 30,000 verses in the KJV so if I went at about 500 verses per week I could finish in a year. It's easy to read 500 verses a week but it's hard to read them AND pay attention AND critically analyze and extract meaning.

We'll see how it goes.

Also, I realize that there exists something called "bible study" which is, presumably, exactly what I need. I've tried "bible study" and I have a few problems:
A) I have not been able to find a bible study group that even attempts to check out the old testament. I've been told that the old testament is too complex, that it takes several years of background knowledge to interpret accurately. To that, I say phooey. Why would God send his message to us in a language that required years of training to decipher? More importantly still, why is it that so many people justify their political actions on chapters and verses which they don't have the skill to understand?
B) The more complex explanations provided by the bible study leader I've encountered have been oversimplified and logically flawed. The idea, I suppose, is to keep things simple and digestible. I need more detail, I can handle it.
C) As a bible study participant, you are not allowed to press issues or question the logic of the explanations. In theory, of course, you are allowed, but when the flawed logic of an argument is made evident the leader tends to move things along and you get evil eyes from the other bible study participants.
D) In the last bible study I attended, one of the other attendees commended me for bringing up good points and suggested I not return to the next session, all in one sentence. To be fair, he told me that the class was not at my level of analysis yet and I should wait for a more advanced class. But his message was pretty clear "pointdexter is messing things up for the rest of us".

Placebo

I've typically operated under the assumption that the placebo effect is ubiquitous, pervasive to the extent where not a thing happens in our minds that does not directly affect our entire bodies. I'm talking about 90% of our individual physical realities are completely mental.

When I was just a teenager, having just learned about the placebo effect, I was convinced that simply thinking about the destruction of my cold virus was more effective in speeding up my recovery than chicken soup or any other remedy available. I've never since had a horrible, debilitating cold.

I just stumbled on this NYT article here, found via metafilter, which seems to provide evidence that, regardless of the amount of physical exercise you actually do, what really influences how fit you are is whether you think you're getting exercise.

And the evidence piles up.

Exhibit A

McCain is just not up on the issues. In order to win this election he's going to depend heavily on his advisers and will only be able to open his mouth when they say he can. Here's example A:

McCain wants to ask Colorado for more water. That sounds innocuous enough until you realize that:

1. Colorado already feels like it is getting shafted in the current water deal
2. Colorado already feels that California is more politically powerful and thus constantly worried that the national government is going to step in favor of California.
3. Colorado is a battleground state.

I'm sure that when McCain said that he wanted to renegotiate the water deal he wasn't thinking that his comment would be a big deal, but as senator to Arizona, a state that would benefit from taking more of Colorado's water, this can make him look like a bad choice for leader of the bunch.

Kurt

Some day, when I'm old and all out of compassion I hope to be able to ramble like Mr. V:

Cold Turkey

By Kurt Vonnegut

Tags politics

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Many years ago, I was so innocent I still considered it possible that we could become the humane and reasonable America so many members of my generation used to dream of. We dreamed of such an America during the Great Depression, when there were no jobs. And then we fought and often died for that dream during the Second World War, when there was no peace.

But I know now that there is not a chance in hell of America’s becoming humane and reasonable. Because power corrupts us, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Human beings are chimpanzees who get crazy drunk on power. By saying that our leaders are power-drunk chimpanzees, am I in danger of wrecking the morale of our soldiers fighting and dying in the Middle East? Their morale, like so many bodies, is already shot to pieces. They are being treated, as I never was, like toys a rich kid got for Christmas.

————————————-

When you get to my age, if you get to my age, which is 81, and if you have reproduced, you will find yourself asking your own children, who are themselves middle-aged, what life is all about. I have seven kids, four of them adopted.

Many of you reading this are probably the same age as my grandchildren. They, like you, are being royally shafted and lied to by our Baby Boomer corporations and government.

I put my big question about life to my biological son Mark. Mark is a pediatrician, and author of a memoir, The Eden Express. It is about his crackup, straightjacket and padded cell stuff, from which he recovered sufficiently to graduate from Harvard Medical School.

Dr. Vonnegut said this to his doddering old dad: “Father, we are here to help each other get through this thing, whatever it is.” So I pass that on to you. Write it down, and put it in your computer, so you can forget it.

I have to say that’s a pretty good sound bite, almost as good as, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” A lot of people think Jesus said that, because it is so much the sort of thing Jesus liked to say. But it was actually said by Confucius, a Chinese philosopher, 500 years before there was that greatest and most humane of human beings, named Jesus Christ.

The Chinese also gave us, via Marco Polo, pasta and the formula for gunpowder. The Chinese were so dumb they only used gunpowder for fireworks. And everybody was so dumb back then that nobody in either hemisphere even knew that there was another one.

But back to people, like Confucius and Jesus and my son the doctor, Mark, who’ve said how we could behave more humanely, and maybe make the world a less painful place. One of my favorites is Eugene Debs, from Terre Haute in my native state of Indiana. Get a load of this:

Eugene Debs, who died back in 1926, when I was only 4, ran 5 times as the Socialist Party candidate for president, winning 900,000 votes, 6 percent of the popular vote, in 1912, if you can imagine such a ballot. He had this to say while campaigning:

As long as there is a lower class, I am in it.
As long as there is a criminal element, I’m of it.
As long as there is a soul in prison, I am not free.

Doesn’t anything socialistic make you want to throw up? Like great public schools or health insurance for all?

How about Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes?

Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the Earth.

Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God. …

And so on.

Not exactly planks in a Republican platform. Not exactly Donald Rumsfeld or Dick Cheney stuff.

For some reason, the most vocal Christians among us never mention the Beatitudes. But, often with tears in their eyes, they demand that the Ten Commandments be posted in public buildings. And of course that’s Moses, not Jesus. I haven’t heard one of them demand that the Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes, be posted anywhere.

“Blessed are the merciful” in a courtroom? “Blessed are the peacemakers” in the Pentagon? Give me a break!

————————————-

There is a tragic flaw in our precious Constitution, and I don’t know what can be done to fix it. This is it: Only nut cases want to be president.

But, when you stop to think about it, only a nut case would want to be a human being, if he or she had a choice. Such treacherous, untrustworthy, lying and greedy animals we are!

I was born a human being in 1922 A.D. What does “A.D.” signify? That commemorates an inmate of this lunatic asylum we call Earth who was nailed to a wooden cross by a bunch of other inmates. With him still conscious, they hammered spikes through his wrists and insteps, and into the wood. Then they set the cross upright, so he dangled up there where even the shortest person in the crowd could see him writhing this way and that.

Can you imagine people doing such a thing to a person?

No problem. That’s entertainment. Ask the devout Roman Catholic Mel Gibson, who, as an act of piety, has just made a fortune with a movie about how Jesus was tortured. Never mind what Jesus said.

During the reign of King Henry the Eighth, founder of the Church of England, he had a counterfeiter boiled alive in public. Show biz again.

Mel Gibson’s next movie should be The Counterfeiter. Box office records will again be broken.

One of the few good things about modern times: If you die horribly on television, you will not have died in vain. You will have entertained us.

————————————-

And what did the great British historian Edward Gibbon, 1737-1794 A.D., have to say about the human record so far? He said, “History is indeed little more than the register of the crimes, follies and misfortunes of mankind.”

The same can be said about this morning’s edition of the New York Times.

The French-Algerian writer Albert Camus, who won a Nobel Prize for Literature in 1957, wrote, “There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide.”

So there’s another barrel of laughs from literature. Camus died in an automobile accident. His dates? 1913-1960 A.D.

Listen. All great literature is about what a bummer it is to be a human being: Moby Dick, Huckleberry Finn, The Red Badge of Courage, the Iliad and the Odyssey, Crime and Punishment, the Bible and The Charge of the Light Brigade.

But I have to say this in defense of humankind: No matter in what era in history, including the Garden of Eden, everybody just got there. And, except for the Garden of Eden, there were already all these crazy games going on, which could make you act crazy, even if you weren’t crazy to begin with. Some of the games that were already going on when you got here were love and hate, liberalism and conservatism, automobiles and credit cards, golf and girls’ basketball.

Even crazier than golf, though, is modern American politics, where, thanks to TV and for the convenience of TV, you can only be one of two kinds of human beings, either a liberal or a conservative.

Actually, this same sort of thing happened to the people of England generations ago, and Sir William Gilbert, of the radical team of Gilbert and Sullivan, wrote these words for a song about it back then:

I often think it’s comical
How nature always does contrive
That every boy and every gal
That’s born into the world alive
Is either a little Liberal
Or else a little Conservative.

Which one are you in this country? It’s practically a law of life that you have to be one or the other? If you aren’t one or the other, you might as well be a doughnut.

If some of you still haven’t decided, I’ll make it easy for you.

If you want to take my guns away from me, and you’re all for murdering fetuses, and love it when homosexuals marry each other, and want to give them kitchen appliances at their showers, and you’re for the poor, you’re a liberal.

If you are against those perversions and for the rich, you’re a conservative.

What could be simpler?

————————————-

My government’s got a war on drugs. But get this: The two most widely abused and addictive and destructive of all substances are both perfectly legal.

One, of course, is ethyl alcohol. And President George W. Bush, no less, and by his own admission, was smashed or tiddley-poo or four sheets to the wind a good deal of the time from when he was 16 until he was 41. When he was 41, he says, Jesus appeared to him and made him knock off the sauce, stop gargling nose paint.

Other drunks have seen pink elephants.

And do you know why I think he is so pissed off at Arabs? They invented algebra. Arabs also invented the numbers we use, including a symbol for nothing, which nobody else had ever had before. You think Arabs are dumb? Try doing long division with Roman numerals.

We’re spreading democracy, are we? Same way European explorers brought Christianity to the Indians, what we now call “Native Americans.”

How ungrateful they were! How ungrateful are the people of Baghdad today.

So let’s give another big tax cut to the super-rich. That’ll teach bin Laden a lesson he won’t soon forget. Hail to the Chief.

That chief and his cohorts have as little to do with Democracy as the Europeans had to do with Christianity. We the people have absolutely no say in whatever they choose to do next. In case you haven’t noticed, they’ve already cleaned out the treasury, passing it out to pals in the war and national security rackets, leaving your generation and the next one with a perfectly enormous debt that you’ll be asked to repay.

Nobody let out a peep when they did that to you, because they have disconnected every burglar alarm in the Constitution: The House, the Senate, the Supreme Court, the FBI, the free press (which, having been embedded, has forsaken the First Amendment) and We the People.

About my own history of foreign substance abuse. I’ve been a coward about heroin and cocaine and LSD and so on, afraid they might put me over the edge. I did smoke a joint of marijuana one time with Jerry Garcia and the Grateful Dead, just to be sociable. It didn’t seem to do anything to me, one way or the other, so I never did it again. And by the grace of God, or whatever, I am not an alcoholic, largely a matter of genes. I take a couple of drinks now and then, and will do it again tonight. But two is my limit. No problem.

I am of course notoriously hooked on cigarettes. I keep hoping the things will kill me. A fire at one end and a fool at the other.

But I’ll tell you one thing: I once had a high that not even crack cocaine could match. That was when I got my first driver’s license! Look out, world, here comes Kurt Vonnegut.

And my car back then, a Studebaker, as I recall, was powered, as are almost all means of transportation and other machinery today, and electric power plants and furnaces, by the most abused and addictive and destructive drugs of all: fossil fuels.

When you got here, even when I got here, the industrialized world was already hopelessly hooked on fossil fuels, and very soon now there won’t be any more of those. Cold turkey.

Can I tell you the truth? I mean this isn’t like TV news, is it?

Here’s what I think the truth is: We are all addicts of fossil fuels in a state of denial, about to face cold turkey.

And like so many addicts about to face cold turkey, our leaders are now committing violent crimes to get what little is left of what we’re hooked on.

Kurt Vonnegut is a legendary author, WWII veteran, humanist, artist, smoker and In These Times senior editor. His classic works include Slaughterhouse-Five, Breakfast of Champions, Cat's Cradle, among many others. His most recent book, A Man Without a Country, collects many of the articles written for this magazine.

Yes or No

Good old internet, always ready to ask the tough questions:

http://www.YesNoGod.com

Interesting (though questionable) results:
US of America is at 57% no, which is much higher than I would expect (though the population of internet users is not a very good sample of the american population as a whole)
Even more surprising is Australia coming in at 73% no.
The Scandinavian nations are averaging at about 73% no as well, but that's much less surprising. The largest no percentage is 76 coming from Finland (the country with the smartest kids by some measures)

... with the guns and the shootin' and the horses...

Over the past two years I've developed a fondness for 'westerns' or, as I like to call them, 'cowboy movies'.

So I'm excited about this film called Appaloosa.

Free will and fMRI

I don't believe in free will. I believe that the decision I will make today about whether to cook pasta or rice for dinner will be a result of millions upon millions of factors, none of which I have control over. These factors might include: the amount of potassium in my blood stream, whether I ate pasta or rice 18 days ago, whether I know a person named Rick and whether I've kept in contact with him over the past 10 years, my entire child hood experience with pasta and rice, whether I stub my toe on the office chair near my desk in a few minutes, whether there is any pre-made pasta sauce in my cupboard, and whether I dreamt about running a marathon last night. There's some room for error, or 'probability', due to the uncertainty principle of quantum physics, but it is a countably infinite probability.

Thus, because of what I know about physics and what I know about how our bodies and, more specifically, our brains appear to function, I'm very confident that when I finally make the decision to cook pasta (or rice), the very idea that I had any control over that decision will be an illusion. And it will be one of the greatest illusions mankind can experience.

However, despite my certainty that our brain operates under the simple quantum mechanical laws which physicists are currently studying, I'm also pretty confident that we are very far away from understanding even the basic functions of the brain as a system.

I'm very skeptical of brain imaging techniques such as fMRI because I have a hard time understanding how brain region activation leads to the wondrous conclusions scientists make whenever they get consistent measurements from people's brains. For example, let's say that when you look at a picture of your mother and regions X, Y, and Z light up in the visual cortex. Then you look at a live fish in a tank and regions X, A, and Z light up instead. Now let's say that this happens pretty consistantly with 9 out of 10 people that show up to participate in the experiment. We then use logic to try to deduce something about regions A, X, Y, and Z. We'll say things like "regions X and Z are all purpose regions that light up whenever you see something familiar, bur region Y lights up whenever you see something familiar and specific (or photographic/static) and region A lights up when you see something familiar but generic (or live/dynamic)". Then you go and devise another experiment to try to pull those possibilities apart.

My problem is that the brain is a pretty complicated object. Trying to figure out what's happening in there when I see a picture of my mom is like trying to figure out how it is that dreaming about running a marathon is going to influence my desire for pasta or rice. So a good hypothesis for the experiment explained above is that "A combination of activity in region X and Y is a result of recognizing the features of a familiar nose, but region Z is where the memories of my mother's voice lies. and back when I was an infant I learned to associate the sound of my mother's voice (one of the first things I learned about my mother in utero) with the sight of a prominant facial feature (my mother's nose). However, upon seeing a moving thing, regions X and Z light up simultaneously because, when combined, these regions help me predict the trajectory of a moving object. Region A is my fish visual memory region and it lights up anytime I see something recongizable to me as a fish."

Of course, occam's razor tells us that we should prefer the simpler explaination over the more complex one. That's a very useful axiom, but when it is applied to over-simplistic data like the activity cloud on an fMRI image I think we're always going to fail reconciling the big picture with the details. But science, being the way that it is, and people, being the way that they are, will combine to make all kinds of interesting and/or impotent predictions. Those are going to be interpreted by the popular press and digested by the masses. When we later find out we were wrong, the new material will propagate while the old material sticks around for a while in the consciousness of the populace who will continue to make claims like "Did you know that Fish and Mothers are actually the same thing in your brain?"

I don't want to be misunderstood, so let me just say that I am happy that people are doing brain image research. We have to start somewhere with any new technology. People should go ahead and use those MRI machines and try to figure out what's happening, preferably not stating their opinions and hypotheses as facts, and write and inform others of the results as carefully as possible.

Until recently, I always thought that the reason why I am skeptical about brain image research's more amazing claims was because I only had a basic grasp of the brain imagine methodology. But as I learn more about what the data actually looks like and what the hypotheses being concocted are I'm actually becoming more skeptical. And then I come across this article which provides me the first concrete evidence that imagining researchers are actually growing weary of the direction their field is heading, in part because of the same issues I have.

I still think that I have no free will, and that the cells in my brain are deterministically leading me on and on to a conclusion which is predictable by anyone with a complex enough computer. But I think that our ability to really figure out which parts of my brain are currently calculating my choice of pasta over rice is about 200 or more years off.

The trouble with overestimating our importance in the big picture

Consider this little problem:

Forest "balds" are patches of forest that are inexplicably devoid of trees. The more general term for this is "clearings" but we usually use that word to also refer to forest regions which were cleared via human causes such as logging.

The great smokey mountains of the Appalachian mountain region have a bunch of these balds, which exist naturally. It has been hypothesized that these balds are remnants of lightning fires but nobody really knows. What naturalists/biologists do know is that there are several dozen species of wildflowers which exist nowhere else except these smokey mountain balds.

Now, as forests grow naturally, the balds are being overrun by encroaching conifers. As the balds disappear so do the rare species of flowers. In a short couple of decades most, if not all, of these wildflower species will be extinct.

The national forest service is currently the steward of the majority of the great smokey mountain range. Here is the problem: Should the forest service build roads to these balds to allow loggers access to the trees and then push them back a bit thereby postponing the disappearance of the balds and, subsequently, the disappearance of the wildflower species?

If you say YES then you will preserve several species of wildflower at the expense of a large road cutting through several miles of forest and access to pristine forest region by the evil(?) logging companies. If you say NO then you will allow the extinction of dozens or more of a natural species. But let nature take its course.

This is actually a real problem and, by default, the cash strapped forest service is doing nothing, which is probably a good thing.

But this puzzle gets at the heart of my problem with the endangered species act and endangered species activism in general. Rather than create laws that protects a certain SELECT group of animals from going extinct (no one cares about the north american fresh water muscles, which are dying at an alarming rate, because they are barely recognizable as animals and are hidden under fresh water streams out in the mountains) it would make more sense to me to force governments and corporations to learn how to make educated decisions about encroaching on nature. Species come and go at amazing rates in most of the planet's ecosystems and we're missing the forest for the trees when we're trying to micromanage the lives of individual species. The bigger problem is that people responsible for making the kinds of decisions that destroy species are not aware of the consequences of those decisions.

We quibble about which animals belong on which list while mother nature is creating and destroying species at a whim, with a vulcanic eruption here and a meteorological shift there. In the meantime the act's resulting legislation, while saving certain creatures from potential doom, also confuses and angers CEOs, legislaters, and citizens who can't build garages on their own property because it would disrupt the environment of some speckeled bluetit on the endangered species list which happens to be nesting on a tree in her backyard.

Of course, one could argue that we should try to save the species which is endangered directly as a result of acts performed by humans. That seems like a noble endeavor but it assumes that, in our infinite wisdom, we know how to bring a speicies back from the edge of extinction. Typically, all one would have to do is preserve the environment of that species. But, then again whole new species have evolved in large part due to us building barns or concrete skyscrapers or sewer systems. Nature is hardy (hearty?) and it learns to make due with whatever environment it comes across (for a really good example of this, read about the cool new fungus living in the heart of the Chernobyl power plant: We messed that place up pretty bad but living things, previously unknown to science, have figured out how to live there. If we hadn't had a nuclear containment accident there would that species of fungus ever have come to exist? Maybe not.)

If I was in charge of things I would attack the bigger problem: people just don't think about their effect on society. The first step to doing this is to teach everyone that the environment is an incredibly complex system and when we have the power to affect that system, even slightly, we can make some big changes to it (positive and negative). Those changes might result in an environmental system which could be much worse for human sustainability. So when you have that kind of power (like, if you are in a government position, or have several million dollars to invest in new infrastructure) you need to make it your job to know/consider the consequences of using ddts, clear-logging a swath of the jungle, or opening/closing a large area of nature to hunting and fishing. Then, rather than using the law to prevent poor decisions from being made, you use the law to force poor decision makers to use their resources to make things right.

Maybe this method would lead to better self-regulation while shrinking the role of government. But then again, I'm pretty convinced that our ability to create problems infinitely surpasses our aptitude for solving them, so we're screwed no matter what.

Get your war on!

Back when I was an undergraduate I enjoyed 'get your war on'. (It's from the website "my new fighting technique is unstoppable" which has the best website name ever)

Today I learned that someone is animating it in short bursts.


I am pleased.

Today's politics

Here are some of my current political thoughts

• Consider this argument: Although the left wing arguments for items such as immigration reform, universal health care, legal abortion, or energy independence seem tenable - useful in theory - the 'demographic makeup' of our beloved country would make the liberal plans completely useless if not harmful in practice. In other words, the liberal plan will typically fail because the country is too full of irrational ignoramuses (drug addicted 6th-time mothers, high-school dropout People's Court defendants) and amoral scumbags (millionaire CEOs, personal injury lawyers) who are waiting to ambush and/or take advantage of the system.
  
  This argument is one I've been hearing a lot more often coming from my conservative acquaintances who (I think) are attempting to redefine themselves from some of the right wing failures of the current conservative administration.
  
  I would say to this argument that, while it is always a possibility that a plan like affirmative action or tax-payer funded health-care will have holes that might be exploited, there are two reasons why they should still be attempted:
  
  1) While the Democratic position is an attempted solution, the Republican position on these issues is NOT a solution at all: It simply ignores the problem. Quite often the 'conservative everyman' position on most issues is "pull yourself up by your bootstraps." If you work hard and diligently, you'll be able to afford good health insurance (like mine) and then your kids will have better opportunities. If you are from south or central america and you want to try out your luck in this great country of ours you should first work hard in your country and save up the 3 thousand dollars for the admittance fee, then wait the requisite 2-10 years for the application to go through and then you can join us in the land of opportunity (like my parents did?). In the meantime we'll build a fence to keep the illegal immigrants out (despite the fact that most illegals enter legally and simply overstay their visas)
  
  Well, after spending thousands of dollars of education which involved learning a bit of social psychology, gaining a deep understanding of statistics and how they are calculated/manipulated, reading lots of literature on the subject of at-risk individuals and laissez faire governmental policy, I've come to the conclusion that, while this philosophy sounds tenable - useful in theory - in the long run it causes more problems than it solves.
  
  It basically leaves a great majority of the population into a continued decline while continuously rewarding those few lucky enough to have been born in a decent environment. So anecdotal evidence you'll hear from middle class americans might make you think that the conservative way of looking at these types of problems works, stepping back and looking at the big picture shows you that, while a very small number of tenacious youth does manage to live a more successful life than their parents, the vast majority fails to do so because despite what the rich white republicans keep telling them, they don't have the role models or life experience available to see that it may be possible for them to better their situation.
  
  On a personal side note: If I hadn't received financial aid through my undergraduate career it would be very likely that I would not be in the extraordinarily great position that I am now. I would like to, therefore, admonish George W Bush and Gov. Schwarzenegger for directly and indirectly cutting funding to the aid and loan programs of their respective governances.
  
  2) I hate to quote Obama on this issue but he said it all when he said in a speech last week "It's like they[the McCain campaign? the republican party?] take pride in their ignorance". He said it with respect to McCain making fun of Obama's reminder/suggestion that we could all save on gas if we remembered to keep the air pressure up in our tires.
  
  But my point is this. So much of the conservative issues rely on what seem to be ignorance about the reality of a situation (like the border fence building fiasco). Take for example opening up off-shore or ANWR drilling. A conservative estimate of when we would see an effect on gas prices resulting from drilling in new locations here at home is 10 years. If everything goes according to plan and we get incredibly lucky with respect to finding the oil, getting it pumped and turning it into gasoline, in the best of all possible worlds we might see some kind of decrease in fuel costs in 2 to 3 years (assuming people start surveying today). In addition, drilling for more oil does very little to stop our oil dependency. In a time when we should be investing more money in researching for better energy alternatives I don't think that we should allow energy companies the freedom to postpone that research by funneling cash to off-shore drilling rigs or building roads into Alaskan wildlife. But the details don't matter. What matters is that drilling off the coast of California SOUNDS like it would lower gas prices with the additional benefit that we aren't giving our money to those middle easterners whom we don't seem to like so much. And that seems to be enough incentive for a bunch of Americans to get behind the plan.
  
  A simpler case of a conservative policy wrought with ignorance is the stem cell research issue. I did a little impromptu quiz with some conservative friends and asked each of them how they felt about stem cell research. 6 of 6 were against it. 4 of 6 couldn't tell me why they were against it. 2 of 6 told me that stem cell research is bad because it's research being done on dead fetuses. When I asked all 6 whether scientific research on dead bodies was acceptable if the body agreed, when it was still alive, to donate itself to research after death, 5 of 6 said this was acceptable. After informing the 4 participants regarding what stem cells were, I also asked whether stem cell research would be acceptable if stem cells could be retrievable from a source other than a human zygote (such as an animal zygote or a human placenta or through genetic engineering). 6 of 6 weren't sure. My understanding of these results is that the average conservative voter doesn't know very much about the issue of stem cell research, doesn't care enough to find out more about it, but is completely willing to vote against it.
  
  Why? Because just like it's easier to check the republican party box on the ballot rather than to spend your days reading the newspaper and trying to figure out who should be the state comptroller or the senator, it's easier to listen to your president (or your dad or your mom or your favorite cable news pundit) and think "I'm a republican, so I must agree with all the other republicans on these issues that I know nothing about".
  
  Admittedly, many liberals are just as guilty of this logic as conservatives, but in my experience the proportion is much smaller.
  
  
• Interestingly enough, I think the problem of gun control in this country is equivalent to this new conservative argument described above. In my life I've known several responsible gun owners: friends, family, neighbors. When you have an intelligent, responsible, and friendly gun owner (who happens to be a very good marksman/woman) living next door it becomes very easy to feel a little safer in the event that a mad gunman comes to our neighborhood and starts shooting (or in the event that our government oversteps its bounds). Neither of these events is likely to occur but, in conjunction with my libertarian leanings, they provide me with some reason to support free and legal firearms.
  
  The problem, as I see it, is that I also know many irresponsible and ignorant people who own guns and would be happy to own more, especially those guns which could only be useful for destroying hundreds of human beings in short bursts of rapid fire. Why do they want these guns? Well, when I asked (and I ask repeatedly) the worst answer I got was "because it would be cool" the best answer I got was "because I can".
  
  I think the only way we can keep guns free and legal while reducing the amount of gun violence and 'accidents' in a society is to require all gun owners to be over-educated. One of the several pre-requisite for owning a gun (among being a high school graduate or equivalent and/or passing a simple intelligence test in order to qualify as normal or above) should be to know and UNDERSTAND COMPLETELY all of the firearm statistics relating to misuse, death, and theft. This would be easier if we included statistics lessons at the 3rd grade math level. In this era it would be much more useful for the average american citizen to know and fully understand statistics as opposed to calculus. But that's a rant for another time.
  
  Bottom line? I'm pro-gun but I'm anti-gun-owning-fool and I'm pretty sure that gun-owning-fools make up a large bulk of gun-owners in the world simply because fools tend to make up a big chunk of humanity.
  
  
• I don't see much footage of Obama fumbling on a reporter's question. It happens once in a while, and possibly more when the cameras aren't rolling, but for the most part I can only recall 2 times from memory when I saw Obama befuddled by some question and really not knowing what to say. Unlike many politicians, even when Obama doesn't have a good answer to some question he can dodge it while sticking to the subject such that the dodge is less obvious.
  
  On the other hand, McCain seems to be a lot more like the traditional politician. It seems that he is much more often stumped (at least on video). I suspect that much of his speechlessness is due to his age and his discomfort with much of the party line. He is called a 'maverick' because, unlike Bush, he has sometimes strayed from the prototypical conservative viewpoints (which I think can be a sign of good political character). However, now that it's time to win the votes of that party's members, he's forced to educate (or re-educate) himself about what his constituency believes. And with the times changing so fast it's hard to remember what 20-something conservatives feel about the environment or contraception, especially for a man as old as McCain.
  
  So when reporters ask him a question that he has never been asked before, a question about a topic that isn't as important to him, I'm sure that his first intuition is to try to remember what his advisers told him, then try to recall his understanding of his constituency. If he can't remember then he'll say "I don't know about that" or "I don't have enough information about that to give you an answer". In a way, this is better than having him ramble on with a non-answer, and I appreciate that from him. But it does make him seem like a bit out of touch with his party and a little ignorant on key issues.
  
  However, at a recent event sponsored by the saddleback church (a mega-church in california) Pastor Rick Warren was asking some pretty tough questions about religion and faith to both candidates. Obama went first and did a pretty good job. When McCain came up he was actually better at answering these curveball questions than he's usually been in so many of his other events.
  
  Interestingly enough, Rick Warren asked the same questions to both candidates, but stated that, while Obama was on live answering the questions, McCain would not be able to listen to the questions and answers since he was waiting in a "cone of silence". Well, it turns out that he was actually in a limo/motorcade on his way to the church. That limo could actually receive the cable channel on which the event was being televised, live. So it is actually possible that McCain was watching the questions and Obama's answers in his car. Or maybe McCain simply did his homework.
  

Basia Bulat

Basia Bulat

She's from Canada and she rocks.

In no particular order (please listen to entirety):

	Basia Bulat - The Pilgriming Vine
	Found at skreemr.com

	Basia Bulat - Little Waltz
	Found at skreemr.com

	Basia Bulat - In The Night
	Found at skreemr.com

	Basia Bulat - Snakes and Ladders
	Found at skreemr.com

	Before I Knew
	Found at skreemr.com

I've been having a hard time finding her cd at brick and mortar shops. I don't want to buy online. If you people in the US fall in love, please tell others so that she may develop a fan-base here and come play for us

Airplaneing

Having recently taken a few pretty rough flights I was beginning to compile a list of things that I really really wished that everyone was forced to learn before they board the plane. But then I realized that the wikihow website already did that: How to practice airplane etiquette.

But just to highlight a few things that are important to me:

1. Passengers should never touch the back of someone's seat. Whether you are walking down the aisle of the plane and need to support yourself, or whether you are trying to get out of your seat and need to pull your center of gravity forward, you should never pull or push the seat back. Those things are not sturdy and you absolutely will annoy the person sitting in that seat. I know when I was an inexperienced flier I was guilty of doing this. But that all stopped the day that I had the displeasure of sitting in front of another inexperienced flier who did it to me 50 times in a 2 hour flight. I would hope most people quickly learn how annoying it is to be sitting comfortably or even napping quietly only to be suddenly jolted out of your meditative state by the pull-and-slingshot that results from someone supporting their whole weight onto your seat-back.
2. When you are in a rush to get off the plane, and you leap out of your seat to get your carry-on after the taxing stops, you should really heed the warning "contents may have shifted during the flight." Don't fling the overhead compartment open. I know that it's usually ok and nothing happens, but I've been hit in the head twice by items set free by an overzealous rusher. Furthermore, when people are still seated and your bag has a loose strap, you are very likely to hit the seated passenger with it if you don't grab that loose strap before pulling out your luggage.
3. If your carry-on is too big for you to lift over your head either don't bring it on the plane or ask someone to help you stow it and collect it. I'll gladly help you if it means that I won't take a dirty wheel to the face.
   
4. No one should ever be crossing their legs in economy class, especially if you are over 6 feet tall. This is because (A) you'll likely drive your knee into, or kick, the seat in front of you or (B) you'll be constantly touching your neighbor's legs with (the sole of) your shoe. On yesterday's flight someone from the row behind me, across the isle was actually kicking my elbow for a good 5 minutes until a flight attendant told him that he couldn't block the aisle with his enormous legs.
5. If you want to leave the armrest between you and a stranger in the up position and your stranger neighbor doesn't mind, then go for it. However, in the absence of that physical barrier, you should still make sure that you are not invading said neighbor's personal space. I want to nap and it's really hard to do that when your purse is literally in my lap and you are constantly ruffling through it to find a tissue.
6. If you want to watch the movie and your sound jack isn't working, please ask your neighbor before you commandeer his, even if he's not using it and especially if you can't seem to find it and are searching around for it for a while.
7. Flush the toilet.
8. Don't reach over me to open the window, ESPECIALLY when it's daytime and I have my eyes closed. If you really want to look out the window you can nudge me awake and ask me. I won't be an asshole about it.
   
9. 99.99% of the time t's just turbulence, planes can often quickly lose altitude. But if we were really crashing, screaming is not going to help. Just like getting in your car, when you step on a plane you should really have your affairs in order. If you are older than 15, please don't scream when the plane shakes.
   
10. Using your laptop on an economy class seat tray is not easy, it can require dexterity and flexibility very much unlike when you are using it at a desk. Just because you need to finish that report today doesn't mean that you can put your elbow into your neighbor's kidney. And if you are a hunt and peck typer, you're actually constantly jabbing him with your elbow everyimte you reach for that shift key. You should be aware of that or stop capitalizing letters.