Fairness or Freedom?
Saturday, January 23, 2010
Saturday, January 9, 2010
Command Performance
Some time ago, I wanted a photo-viewing program and couldn't find one with the features I wanted, so I wrote one myself. It's called Command Performance, and I've just tweaked it and posted it as freeware. If you want to try it out, you can download it here: http://www.exabyte.net/ElfInkSoftware.
I'd love to hear what you think of it.
Ciao!
Thursday, December 24, 2009
HOPE
There is hope.
There is hope for those wounded by the loss of loved ones.
There is hope for those who have been hurt by loved ones.
There is hope for those frightened for their loved ones.
There is hope for those worried about their livelihoods.
There is hope for those struggling with their health.
There is hope for those facing their own death.
There is hope for those sent into harm's way.
There is hope that is greater than other hopes.
The greatest hope is not in weapons of war, nor in the valiant soldiers who wield them.
The greatest hope is not in persuasion, nor in politicians who attempt to persuade.
The greatest hope is not in science, nor in scientists who examine and reason.
Military might has defended the innocent, but it has also tortured and executed them.
Political fight has produced the heights of freedom, but has also sunk to the depths of genocide.
Scientific sight may master the subatomic and interstellar How, but by definition ignores the Why.
Thousands of years of war, and peace is still fragile or missing.
Thousands of years of laws, and inalienable rights are still questioned.
Hundreds of years of science, and the world still groans.
But we can still hope.
Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed, and so became the father of many nations.
Abraham hoped in a God who created us, who loves us, and who is faithful to us, even when we are unfaithful.
Like Abraham, we can hope, even when everything seems hopeless.
And our greatest hope is that God is a God who condescended to humanity, covered our sins, and invites us to fellowship with Him.
Long lay the world in sin and error pining, 'til he appeared and the soul felt His worth...
A thrill of hope...
A weary world rejoices...
Oh holy night...
It is the eve of the dear Savior’s birth.
Monday, December 7, 2009
Who Pays For Our Freedom?
It is the soldier, not the reporter,
Who has given us freedom of the press.
It is the soldier, not the poet,
Who has given us freedom of speech.
It is the soldier, not the organizer,
Who has given us the freedom to demonstrate.
It is the soldier, who salutes the flag, who serves beneath the flag,
And whose coffin is draped by the flag, who allows the protestor to burn the flag.
-- Father Dennis Edward O'Brian, USMC
Saturday, December 5, 2009
We, the Religious People...
Thursday, December 3, 2009
Placebo Effect in the Bible?
Thursday, November 26, 2009
A Plea for Rational, Responsible Economic Environmentalism
Monday, November 23, 2009
United Nations Inquiry
Okay, it's not quite Thanksgiving yet, but if someone's wondering what to get me as a Christmas present, here's something I'd like:
Please list all the good things the United Nations has accomplished, excluding all the good things where the United States alone was responsible for 90% or more of the good thing (by dollars or people), and total up all the United Nations has cost, adjusting for inflation and breaking out the costs borne by the United States as a separate number.
I'm not someone who thinks the U.N. has never accomplished anything good, but I also don't think we should keep it if it's not producing more value than it consumes.
Here's my analogy #2,357: If you have a car that gets you to work sometimes, that's a good thing. But if it fails to get you to work most of the time and if repairs and maintenance cost more than a new car, how long would you keep the old car?
I just want to be honest about the U.N. and determine it's real worth.
Any takers?
Saturday, November 21, 2009
Global Warming FAIL
For all my non-Twittering friends, "FAIL" is shorthand for disapproving or disavowing something. No, I don't Twitter either, but I'm familiar with some of it.
So, Global Warming. It's common knowledge that real scientists have formed a solid, near-universal consensus that global warming is fast approaching irreversible, catastrophic damage to Earth's climate due primarily to human activity and we should do everything and anything we can to reverse our activities, even if it ruins national economies, for the sake of human survival. Wow. And it's common knowledge because most reporters and commentators in the mass media believe that, and keep repeating it in articles and on TV. Movie writers and producers reinforce it by weaving it in as an underlying assumption or outright plot-points. And they usually have lots of quotes from "scientists" who earn their livings from the grants they get, and the more dire their predictions, the more funding they're given.
Too bad the consensus isn't true. It's not even close to true. Follow this link to an article citing a petition signed by over 32,000 scientists, including over 9,000 Ph.D.'s and scores of Nobel laureates, all of whom are not part of the alleged consensus.
So if your elected representatives support the idiotic Cap & Trade legislation, you might want to point this out to them. If they have functioning intellects.
Saturday, November 7, 2009
"Whatever You Need, We'll Give It To You"
I've been listening to the pontificating on C-SPAN as the House prepares to vote on Pelosi's health insurance (not health care) reform bill, and must conclude that some of our national politicians are ignoramuses themselves or they're intentionally pandering to an ignorant constituency.
Do the ignorant ones think that an insurance company is a stingy rich uncle with unlimited money and everyone can have anything they want if they can just convince the uncle to be more generous or if they can take the uncle's money by force of law?
Modern insurance works on one fundamental principal: Each insurance program must take in more money in premiums than it pays out in benefits. This is true regardless of whether the organization behind it is for-profit or non-profit, and certainly includes civil governments. Insurance is a means of allowing a group of people to share financial risk, not a magically infinite source of money.
Some have said, "We're making health care a right." Oh, really? You're going to make something with a price tag a civil right? You're going to put it on the same level as the right to life and the right to liberty? And what will you do when the well runs dry? And when the group of patients need two dollars worth of health care for every dollar paid in insurance premiums, what will you tell those who complain that their rights are being denied?
The truth is they're not talking about improving health care. They're talking about changing health insurance in a manner by which the civil government will control how health care is rationed, rather than allowing freedom of choice.
And some of these folks are claiming, with a straight face, that the Federal bureaucracy is going to cover hundreds of billions of dollars worth of the increased costs by making things more efficient and reducing fraud? Oh? Like they have with Veteran's health care, Medicaid, and Medicare?
Here's my two cents' worth of opinion: make the VA, Medicaid, and Medicare effective, efficient, and fraud-free, and then I'll have a basis to believe the Federal government can do a better job with public health insurance than the free market and non-profits are doing now.
Friday, October 30, 2009
Imprecision and Bogus Econ
Just read a couple of different articles. One about evolution and one about how many jobs the most recent U.S. Federal stimulus program has created. They both annoyed me a lot, and for the same reason. What do these topics have in common?
Evolution: The author used the term repeatedly, but never specified when he was talking about evolution within species or among species. They aren't the same thing, but this author, and many others, seem to think they are.
Jobs: The author of the article I read, the interview subjects, and the reports cited estimate how many jobs have been created by the Federal government passing out tax money. In this article and in others, there's little or no talk about what kind of jobs.
For one thing, there's a big difference between creating a minimum-wage job and a job for a highly-skilled person. For another, there's an even bigger difference between a temporary job and a permanent job.
So, the Federal government takes $15,000 in taxes from you and I, then passes $12,000 to a company that will create jobs. (I don't really think the Federal government would have such a low administrative overhead, but I don't want to get into that issue here.) That company hires 12 people for one month each. Some reports were initially claiming that the Federal government's actions had created 12 jobs, but then people started catching on, so some folks started adjusting the counts to equal full-time employees for one year, making the example above equal one job created. Except that those were temporary jobs. When the handout money ran out, the jobs ran out. That might not be so bad if the Federal government could keep taking enough money from taxpayers to keep shoveling money at companies and organizations to keep people employed, but they can't. So, the Feds have "created or saved" X number of jobs. Please. They created or saved X number of temporary jobs. Does anyone think a very short-term temporary job is as good for the economy as a permanent job? Of course not.
But, a temporary job is better than nothing, right? Well, what was the cost of that short-term job? Money taken from taxpayers, both individuals and companies. What might that money have been used for, if it hadn't been taken as taxes and redistributed? Most individuals would have used their extra money to buy things. Which would have... wait for it... stimulated the economy! Except that this is longer-term stimulation. Most companies would invest their extra money. In what? Primarily raw goods, services, and payroll. Which would have... you got it: stimulated the economy! And again, with much longer-term repercussions.
These ignorant folks waxing eloquent about the success of the Federal stimulus package may have been some of the same folks who claimed that the cash-for-clunkers program was a great success. Well, if success was subsidizing car purchases for a month or two, then it was successful, alright. However, many of those purchasers were enticed to purchase a new car to replace their old car sooner than they otherwise would have. The secondary impacts include this: For each one of those people who would have otherwise purchased a car next year, now they won't. All the cash-for-clunkers did in these cases was to shift a small number of future purchases to current purchases, weakening the future economy.
Sigh. Sometimes I wonder if any of our bone-headed politicians have even read an economics textbook?
Monday, October 12, 2009
Political Global Warming
Many of our glorious politicians declare repeatedly that global warming is a crisis, and they must do something to save us all. Even if it means spending all our money and all our children's money. But that's okay, because they base their rhetoric and fear-mongering on cold, hard science, right?
Thanks to their intrepid fund-raising, uh, I mean campaigning to educate we ignorant masses, everyone now knows the truth that global warming is caused primarily by rising levels of atmospheric carbon gas. And the rises in atmospheric carbon gas have been measured very carefully, and have indeed been going up and up, for the last 20 years and beyond.
So, then, what do you think is the warmest year in modern recorded history? Last year? This year? If atmospheric carbon gas causes global warming, and it has been going up every single year the last 2 decades, then you would reasonably expect...
1998.
1998 was the warmest year in modern recorded history. Despite that nasty continuous growth in gaseous carbon. Huh. What could possibly account for that incredible anomaly?
Could there be some other factor at work? Could carbon gas be a non-decisive factor after all? Of course not, that would mean the impossible, that our politicians weren't basing their agitation on scientifically established facts.
I guess we'll just have to wait another century or so, and let our great-grandkids figure it out.
In the meantime, does anyone know where I left my sunglasses?
