Love From The Desert

2016-11-30T18:57:00.000-07:00

2016-11-30T18:55:00.000-07:00

A link for all my 2nd amendment buds ...
<A HREF="http://www.gunauction.com/">Guns For Sale at GunAuction.com</A>

On the soapbox ... screaming, as it were

2016-11-19T11:52:00.001-07:00

   It's been a while since I have been on here ... sorry. I handle 'most' of my thoughts on Facebook small amounts at a time. The longer ones I send out in my 'Sunday Letters'. But "furor scribendi" [Latin for - the rage to write, ... a malady I sometimes am afflicted by] has arisen and here I am.
   The election has passed and the cry-baby Liberals are out in force. Nothing pleases them more than a opportunity to rape, pillage, burn and generally raise holy hell for injustices both real and imagined. Besides, what better time to loot stores than just before Christmas ... helps put a dent in those gift buying woes. Get a few dozen pair of high priced sneakers, a TV or two, and that new video game player for cousin Joe. Hell ... better than spending money. Besides, they may have to get a job after the election, or move to Canada, or go back to where-ever they came here from.
   Now ... before you get your fruit-of-the-looms in a tizzy ...
I am not a racist, a homophobe, or a woman beater. I am a conservative white man certainly ... but my wife, my ex-wife, my children, and my grandchildren are mostly Hispanic, as are a majority of my friends, and many of my friends/family are Liberal. I am heterosexual, but two of our dearest best friends are not and they are two of the greatest people I know. My (late) nephew Marco was gay and had a really great companion whom I really liked. My granddaughter Jasmine (whom I love dearly) is gay. I am not bragging or complaining ... merely stating facts. I am a practicing minister (have a wedding in Amado, Az. today in fact), but I hold no animosity against any other practitioners of any religion (or atheists, agnostics, humanists, druids, et al). I do draw the line when it comes to them attempting to force their life choices on me, or trying to change the laws, attitudes, and/or customs of my country to suit themselves. I do not get along well with Jehovah's Witnesses, radical Muslims, or Mormon missionaries. Believe what you want, but DO NOT try to convert me or tell me what religion, political party, or ideology I should subscribe to.
There are people out there crying for folks to get guns and kill white people, cops, and our President-elect. What would those same people think or say if I (or anyone) called for people to get guns and kill blacks, Hispanics, or our current President? The proverbial shoe would be on a different foot then I guess!
   I belong to the only group in America that it is politically correct to laugh at, make jokes about, and want to kill. Poor white, Republican, gun-owning, work-every-day, redneck, Americans.
   I read in the paper that a designer, who dresses the current First Lady, is refusing to dress the upcoming First Lady and is calling on all other designers to do the same. Wait a bleeding minute there heifer ... aren't you the same people who drove a mom and pop bakery out of business because they would not decorate a "gay" wedding cake? Are there different standards for you guys on the Left than for us poor, uneducated slobs on the Right?
   I hear that we Republicans are the descendants of slave owners and we were/are responsible for the Civil War. That is a fallacy ... Lincoln was a Republican, as was U.S. Grant. Am I a southerner? Yes, Scots-Irish Virginia born to a cotton mill working mother who raised her boys to think for themselves. I was a Kennedy Democrat in 1960 because they believed what I believed. Now, I am a Trump Republican ... because he believes in the things that I do. I believe in "LEGAL" immigration, a strong military, the draft, limited Federal government. I believe that if you come to the United States to live and work, you should abide by our laws and our customs. If you want Sharia Law ... live in a place that has or agrees with Sharia Law. If you think that my Social Security is a 'hand-out' when I have paid into it all my life (in fact, although I am drawing Social Security, I still have to pay into it when I work) ... you are delusional. If you think that non-working, dope dealing, gang-bangers deserve hand outs so they can live better than I do ... you are delusional. If you think that birth control is abortion and not just choosing not to have sex or using birth control, ... you are delusional.
    I fought for my nation, as did both my brothers. I came home to the U.S. in 1970 and got spit on in the airport. I was shunned in most bars/clubs in Tucson because I was in the military. I didn't need a 'Safe Place' to cry and/or mourn like these folks who cannot get over the fact that their candidate lost. I sucked it up and got on with it. I have not agreed withe the current POTUS for 8 years ... but I did not burn down businesses or cars or call for murder or assassination ... I sucked it up and got on with it. In a way, I am glad that I am 71 years old and my days are numbered. Life in these old United States ain't what it used to be.

MY 2 cents ... for what it's worth !

2016-07-09T07:37:00.001-07:00

In wake of all the violence abounding in America of late, I thought that I'd get my two cents in ... it is MY blog after all. After the Dallas shooting of Law Enforcement officers ... I must comment. There is NO excuse for this. This is NOT an act of protest!!! This is an act of terrorism and is cold blooded murder. Anyone who thinks that is a backlash of recent "officer involved" shooting is seriously deluded ... up to and including our Muslim Commander-in-Chief. And ... listen up people ... GUNS DID NOT CAUSE this violence, and stricter gun laws on law abiding citizens will not quell these incidents of violence. There are numerous shootings and deaths (the greatest amount of them are Black-on-Black shootings) ... DAILY ... in this country. Would you care to make a guess on how many involve citizens who have LEGALLY purchased a firearm? Gun Control laws do not affect a criminal's ability to possess firearms, they only inhibit the law abiding citizen from possessing a means of defending himself and his family (and other potential victims). Look at Nazi Germany, Stalinist Russia, and all other totalitarian governments ... their success DEPENDED on an unarmed populace, and that is where our present leadership is attempting to take us! I own a gun and, if I could afford it, I would have a huge stockpile of larger guns and a huge stockpile of ammo ... to protect myself and my loved ones from my government and the ones whom my government protects.
μολὼν λαβέ (MOLON LABE !!)

The Future ???

2016-05-17T14:27:00.001-07:00

THIS IS A VERY INTERESTING ARTICLE - WORTH YOUR TIME TO READ.

In the 1990s Ray Kurzweil, MIT Professor, wrote "The Age of Intelligent Machines" and "The Age of Spiritual Machines". In these works he gave us a glimpse of the future. What he described was amazing but also, as time has shown, true in many ways. The short narrative below goes one step further and describes a near term future that we can see unfolding right now. Please take a moment and read this overview. For some it will be terrifying!

In 1998, KODAK had 170,000 EMPLOYEES and sold 85% of ALL Photo Paper WORLDWIDE. Within just a few years, their business model disappeared and they went bankrupt. What happened to Kodak will happen in a lot of industries in the next 10 years - and most people don't see it coming. Did you think in 1998 that 3 years later you would never take pictures on paper film again? Yet digital cameras were invented in 1975. The first ones only had 10,000 pixels, but followed Moore's law. So as with all exponential technologies, it was a disappointment for a long time, before it became way superior and got mainstream in only a few short years.
It will now happen with Artificial Intelligence, health, autonomous and electric cars, education, 3D printing, agriculture and jobs. WELCOME TO THE 4TH INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION.

Welcome to the Exponential Age. Software will disrupt most traditional industries in the next 5-10 years. Uber is just a software tool, they don't own any cars, and are now the biggest taxi company in the world. Airbnb is now the biggest hotel company in the world, although they don't own any properties.

Artificial Intelligence: Computers become exponentially better in understanding the world. This year, a computer beat the best Go player in the world, 10 years earlier than expected. In the US, young lawyers already don't get jobs. Because of IBM Watson, you can get legal advice (so far for more or less basic stuff) within seconds, with 90% accuracy compared with 70% accuracy when done by humans. SO IF YOU STUDY LAW, STOP IMMEDIATELY. There will be 90% less lawyers in the future, only specialists will remain. Watson already helps nurses diagnosing cancer, 4 times more accurate than human nurses. Facebook now has a face pattern recognition software that can recognize faces better than humans. In 2030, computers will become more intelligent than humans.

Autonomous cars: In 2018 the first self-driving cars will appear for the public. Around 2020, the complete industry will start to be disrupted. You don't want to own a car anymore. You will call a car with your phone, it will show up at your location and drive you to your destination. You will not need to park it, you only pay for the driven distance and can be productive while driving. Our kids will never get a driver's license and will never own a car. It will change the cities, because we will need 90-95% less cars for that. We can transform former parking space into parks. 1.2 million people die each year in car accidents worldwide. We now have one accident every 100,000 km, with autonomous driving that will drop to one accident in 10 million km. That will save a million lives each year. Most car companies might become bankrupt. Traditional car companies try the evolutionary approach and just build a better car, while tech companies (Tesla, Apple, Google) will do the revolutionary approach and build a computer on wheels. I spoke to a lot of engineers from Volkswagen and Audi; they are completely terrified of Tesla. Insurance companies will have massive trouble because without accidents, the insurance will become 100x cheaper. Their car insurance business model will disappear.

REAL ESTATE WILL CHANGE: Because if you can work while you commute, people will move further away to live in a more beautiful neighborhood. Electric cars will become mainstream until 2020. Cities will be less noisy because all cars will run on electric. Electricity will become incredibly cheap and clean: Solar production has been on an exponential curve for 30 years, but you can only now see the impact. Last year, more solar energy was installed worldwide than fossil. The price for solar will drop so much that all coal companies will be out of business by 2025.

WATER: With cheap electricity comes cheap and abundant water. Desalination now only needs 2kWh per cubic meter. We don't have scarce water in most places, we only have scarce drinking water. Imagine what will be possible if anyone can have as much clean water as he wants, for nearly no cost.

HEALTH: The Tricorder X price will be announced this year. There will be companies who will build a medical device (called the "Tricorder" from Star Trek) that works with your phone, which takes your retina scan, your blood sample and you breathe into it. It then analyses 54 biomarkers that will identify nearly any disease. It will be cheap, so in a few years everyone on this planet will have access to world class medicine, nearly for free.

3D PRINTING: The price of the cheapest 3D printer came down from $18,000$ to $400 within 10 years. In the same time, it became 100 times faster. All major shoe companies started 3D printing shoes. Spare airplane parts are already 3D printed in remote airports. The space station now has a printer that eliminates the need for the large amount of spare parts they used to have in the past. At the end of this year, new smartphones will have 3D scanning possibilities. You can then 3D scan your feet and print your perfect shoe at home. In China, they already 3D printed a complete 6-story office building. By 2027, 10% of everything that's being produced will be 3D printed.

BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES: If you think of a niche you want to go in, ask yourself: "in the future, do you think we will have that?" and if the answer is yes, how can you make that happen sooner? If it doesn't work with your phone, forget the idea. And any idea designed for success in the 20th century is doomed in to failure in the 21st century.

WORK: 70-80% of jobs will disappear in the next 20 years. There will be a lot of new jobs, but it is not clear if there will be enough new jobs in such a small time.

AGRICULTURE: There will be a $100 agricultural robot in the future. Farmers in 3rd world countries can then become managers of their field instead of working all days on their fields. Aeroponics will need much less water. The first petri dish produced veal is now available and will be cheaper than cow produced veal in 2018. Right now, 30% of all agricultural surfaces is used for cows. Imagine if we don't need that space anymore. There are several startups who will bring insect protein to the market shortly. It contains more protein than meat. It will be labeled as "alternative protein source" (because most people still reject the idea of eating insects).

There is an app called "moodies" which can already tell in which mood you are. Until 2020 there will be apps that can tell by your facial expressions if you are lying. Imagine a political debate where it's being displayed when they are telling the truth and when not.

Bitcoin will become mainstream this year and might even become the default reserve currency.

LONGEVITY: Right now, the average life span increases by 3 months per year. Four years ago, the life span used to be 79 years, now it's 80 years. The increase itself is increasing and by 2036, there will be more than one year increase per year. So we all might live for a long, long time, probably way more than 100.

EDUCATION: The cheapest smartphones are already at $10 in Africa and Asia. Until 2020, 70% of all humans will own a smartphone. That means, everyone has the same access to world class education. Every child can use Khan academy for everything a child learns at school in First World countries. We have already released our software in Indonesia and will release it in Arabic, Swahili and Chinese this summer, because I see an enormous potential. We will give the English app for free, so that children in Africa can become fluent in English within half a year.

The Danger of the “Black Lives Matter” Movement

2016-05-10T13:10:00.000-07:00

This is a MUST-READ article for anyone concerned with the matter of Black Lives Matter, and for any who support our nation's Law Officers. It is from a publication called imprimis which is published by Hillsdale College. All Bold type is mine.

Heather Mac Donald is the Thomas W. Smith Fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a contributing editor of City Journal. She earned a B.A. from Yale University, an M.A. in English from Cambridge University, and a J.D. from Stanford Law School. She writes for several newspapers and journals, including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The New Criterion, and Public Interest, and is the author of three books, including Are Cops Racist? and The War on Cops: How The New Attack on Law and Order Makes Everyone Less Safe (forthcoming June 2016).

The following is adapted from a speech delivered on April 27, 2016, at Hillsdale College’s Allan P. Kirby, Jr. Center for Constitutional Studies and Citizenship in Washington, D.C., as part of the AWC Family Foundation Lecture Series.

For almost two years, a protest movement known as “Black Lives Matter” has convulsed the nation. Triggered by the police shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, in August 2014, the Black Lives Matter movement holds that racist police officers are the greatest threat facing young black men today. This belief has triggered riots, “die-ins,” the murder and attempted murder of police officers, a campaign to eliminate traditional grand jury proceedings when police use lethal force, and a presidential task force on policing.

Even though the U.S. Justice Department has resoundingly dis-proven the lie that a pacific Michael Brown was shot in cold blood while trying to surrender, Brown is still venerated as a martyr. And now police officers are backing off of proactive policing in the face of the relentless venom directed at them on the street and in the media. As a result, violent crime is on the rise.

The need is urgent, therefore, to examine the Black Lives Matter movement’s central thesis—that police pose the greatest threat to young black men. I propose two counter hypotheses: first, that there is no government agency more dedicated to the idea that black lives matter than the police; and second, that we have been talking obsessively about alleged police racism over the last 20 years in order to avoid talking about a far larger problem—black-on-black crime.

Let’s be clear at the outset: police have an indefeasible obligation to treat everyone with courtesy and respect, and to act within the confines of the law. Too often, officers develop a hardened, obnoxious attitude. It is also true that being stopped when you are innocent of any wrongdoing is infuriating, humiliating, and sometimes terrifying. And needless to say, every unjustified police shooting of an unarmed civilian is a stomach-churning tragedy.

Given the history of racism in this country and the complicity of the police in that history, police shootings of black men are particularly and understandably fraught. That history informs how many people view the police. But however intolerable and inexcusable every act of police brutality is, and while we need to make sure that the police are properly trained in the Constitution and in courtesy, there is a larger reality behind the issue of policing, crime, and race that remains a taboo topic. The problem of black-on-black crime is an uncomfortable truth, but unless we acknowledge it, we won’t get very far in understanding patterns of policing.

Every year, approximately 6,000 blacks are murdered. This is a number greater than white and Hispanic homicide victims combined, even though blacks are only 13 percent of the national population. Blacks are killed at six times the rate of whites and Hispanics combined. In Los Angeles, blacks between the ages of 20 and 24 die at a rate 20 to 30 times the national mean. Who is killing them? Not the police, and not white civilians, but other blacks. The astronomical black death-by-homicide rate is a function of the black crime rate. Black males between the ages of 14 and 17 commit homicide at ten times the rate of white and Hispanic male teens combined. Blacks of all ages commit homicide at eight times the rate of whites and Hispanics combined, and at eleven times the rate of whites alone.

The police could end all lethal uses of force tomorrow and it would have at most a trivial effect on the black death-by-homicide rate. The nation’s police killed 987 civilians in 2015, according to a database compiled by The Washington Post. Whites were 50 percent—or 493—of those victims, and blacks were 26 percent—or 258. Most of those victims of police shootings, white and black, were armed or otherwise threatening the officer with potentially lethal force.

The black violent crime rate would actually predict that more than 26 percent of police victims would be black. Officer use of force will occur where the police interact most often with violent criminals, armed suspects, and those resisting arrest, and that is in black neighborhoods. In America’s 75 largest counties in 2009, for example, blacks constituted 62 percent of all robbery defendants, 57 percent of all murder defendants, 45 percent of all assault defendants—but only 15 percent of the population.

Moreover, 40 percent of all cop killers have been black over the last decade. And a larger proportion of white and Hispanic homicide deaths are a result of police killings than black homicide deaths—but don’t expect to hear that from the media or from the political enablers of the Black Lives Matter movement. Twelve percent of all white and Hispanic homicide victims are killed by police officers, compared to four percent of all black homicide victims. If we’re going to have a “Lives Matter” anti-police movement, it would be more appropriately named “White and Hispanic Lives Matter.”

Standard anti-cop ideology, whether emanating from the ACLU or the academy, holds that law enforcement actions are racist if they don’t mirror population data. New York City illustrates why that expectation is so misguided. Blacks make up 23 percent of New York City’s population, but they commit 75 percent of all shootings, 70 percent of all robberies, and 66 percent of all violent crime, according to victims and witnesses. Add Hispanic shootings and you account for 98 percent of all illegal gunfire in the city. Whites are 33 percent of the city’s population, but they commit fewer than two percent of all shootings, four percent of all robberies, and five percent of all violent crime. These disparities mean that virtually every time the police in New York are called out on a gun run—meaning that someone has just been shot—they are being summoned to minority neighborhoods looking for minority suspects.

Officers hope against hope that they will receive descriptions of white shooting suspects, but it almost never happens. This incidence of crime means that innocent black men have a much higher chance than innocent white men of being stopped by the police because they match the description of a suspect. This is not something the police choose. It is a reality forced on them by the facts of crime.

The geographic disparities are also huge. In Brownsville, Brooklyn, the per capita shooting rate is 81 times higher than in nearby Bay Ridge, Brooklyn—the first neighborhood predominantly black, the second neighborhood predominantly white and Asian. As a result, police presence and use of proactive tactics are much higher in Brownsville than in Bay Ridge. Every time there is a shooting, the police will flood the area looking to make stops in order to avert a retaliatory shooting. They are in Brownsville not because of racism, but because they want to provide protection to its many law-abiding residents who deserve safety.

Who are some of the victims of elevated urban crime? On March 11, 2015, as protesters were once again converging on the Ferguson police headquarters demanding the resignation of the entire department, a six-year-old boy named Marcus Johnson was killed a few miles away in a St. Louis park, the victim of a drive-by shooting. No one protested his killing. Al Sharpton did not demand a federal investigation. Few people outside of his immediate community know his name.

Ten children under the age of ten were killed in Baltimore last year. In Cleveland, three children five and younger were killed in September. A seven-year-old boy was killed in Chicago over the Fourth of July weekend by a bullet intended for his father. In November, a nine-year-old in Chicago was lured into an alley and killed by his father’s gang enemies; the father refused to cooperate with the police. In August, a nine-year-old girl was doing her homework on her mother’s bed in Ferguson when a bullet fired into the house killed her. In Cincinnati in July, a four-year-old girl was shot in the head and a six-year-old girl was left paralyzed and partially blind from two separate drive-by shootings. This mindless violence seems almost to be regarded as normal, given the lack of attention it receives from the same people who would be out in droves if any of these had been police shootings. As horrific as such stories are, crime rates were much higher 20 years ago. In New York City in 1990, for example, there were 2,245 homicides. In 2014 there were 333—a decrease of 85 percent. The drop in New York’s crime rate is the steepest in the nation, but crime has fallen at a historic rate nationwide as well—by about 40 percent—since the early 1990s. The greatest beneficiaries of these declining rates have been minorities. Over 10,000 minority males alive today in New York would be dead if the city’s homicide rate had remained at its early 1990s level.

What is behind this historic crime drop? A policing revolution that began in New York and spread nationally, and that is now being threatened. Starting in 1994, the top brass of the NYPD embraced the then-radical idea that the police can actually prevent crime, not just respond to it. They started gathering and analyzing crime data on a daily and then hourly basis. They looked for patterns, and strategized on tactics to try to quell crime outbreaks as they were emerging. Equally important, they held commanders accountable for crime in their jurisdictions. Department leaders started meeting weekly with precinct commanders to grill them on crime patterns on their watch. These weekly accountability sessions came to be known as Compstat. They were ruthless, high tension affairs. If a commander was not fully informed about every local crime outbreak and ready with a strategy to combat it, his career was in jeopardy.

Compstat created a sense of urgency about fighting crime that has never left the NYPD. For decades, the rap against the police was that they ignored crime in minority neighborhoods. Compstat keeps New York commanders focused like a laser beam on where people are being victimized most, and that is in minority communities. Compstat spread nationwide. Departments across the country now send officers to emerging crime hot spots to try to interrupt criminal behavior before it happens.

In terms of economic stimulus alone, no other government program has come close to the success of data-driven policing. In New York City, businesses that had shunned previously drug-infested areas now set up shop there, offering residents a choice in shopping and creating a demand for workers. Senior citizens felt safe to go to the store or to the post office to pick up their Social Security checks. Children could ride their bikes on city sidewalks without their mothers worrying that they would be shot. But the crime victories of the last two decades, and the moral support on which law and order depends, are now in jeopardy thanks to the falsehoods of the Black Lives Matter movement.

Police operating in inner-city neighborhoods now find themselves routinely surrounded by cursing, jeering crowds when they make a pedestrian stop or try to arrest a suspect. Sometimes bottles and rocks are thrown. Bystanders stick cell phones in the officers’ faces, daring them to proceed with their duties. Officers are worried about becoming the next racist cop of the week and possibly losing their livelihood thanks to an incomplete cell phone video that inevitably fails to show the antecedents to their use of force. Officer use of force is never pretty, but the public is clueless about how hard it is to subdue a suspect who is determined to resist arrest.

As a result of the anti-cop campaign of the last two years and the resulting push-back in the streets, officers in urban areas are cutting back on precisely the kind of policing that led to the crime decline of the 1990s and 2000s. Arrests and summons are down, particularly for low-level offenses. Police officers continue to rush to 911 calls when there is already a victim. But when it comes to making discretionary stops—such as getting out of their cars and questioning people hanging out on drug corners at 1:00 a.m.—many cops worry that doing so could put their careers on the line. Police officers are, after all, human. When they are repeatedly called racist for stopping and questioning suspicious individuals in high-crime areas, they will perform less of those stops. That is not only understandable—in a sense, it is how things should work. Policing is political. If a powerful political block has denied the legitimacy of assertive policing, we will get less of it.

On the other hand, the people demanding that the police back off are by no means representative of the entire black community. Go to any police-neighborhood meeting in Harlem, the South Bronx, or South Central Los Angeles, and you will invariably hear variants of the following: “We want the dealers off the corner.” “You arrest them and they’re back the next day.” “There are kids hanging out on my stoop. Why can’t you arrest them for loitering?” “I smell weed in my hallway. Can’t you do something?” I met an elderly cancer amputee in the Mount Hope section of the Bronx who was terrified to go to her lobby mailbox because of the young men trespassing there and selling drugs. The only time she felt safe was when the police were there. “Please, Jesus,” she said to me, “send more police!” The irony is that the police cannot respond to these heartfelt requests for order without generating the racially disproportionate statistics that will be used against them in an ACLU or Justice Department lawsuit.

Unfortunately, when officers back off in high crime neighborhoods, crime shoots through the roof. Our country is in the midst of the first sustained violent crime spike in two decades. Murders rose nearly 17 percent in the nation’s 50 largest cities in 2015, and it was in cities with large black populations where the violence increased the most. Baltimore’s per capita homicide rate last year was the highest in its history. Milwaukee had its deadliest year in a decade, with a 72 percent increase in homicides. Homicides in Cleveland increased 90 percent over the previous year. Murders rose 83 percent in Nashville, 54 percent in Washington, D.C., and 61 percent in Minneapolis. In Chicago, where pedestrian stops are down by 90 percent, shootings were up 80 percent through March 2016.

I first identified the increase in violent crime in May 2015 and dubbed it “the Ferguson effect.” My diagnosis set off a firestorm of controversy on the anti-cop Left and in criminology circles. Despite that furor, FBI Director James Comey confirmed the Ferguson effect in a speech at the University of Chicago Law School last October. Comey decried the “chill wind” that had been blowing through law enforcement over the previous year, and attributed the sharp rise in homicides and shootings to the campaign against cops. Several days later, President Obama had the temerity to rebuke Comey, accusing him (while leaving him unnamed) of “cherry-pick[ing] data” and using “anecdotal evidence to drive policy [and] feed political agendas.” The idea that President Obama knows more about crime and policing than his FBI director is of course ludicrous. But the President thought it necessary to take Comey down, because to recognize the connection between proactive policing and public safety undermines the entire premise of the anti-cop Left: that the police oppress minority communities rather than bring them surcease from disorder.

As crime rates continue to rise, the overwhelming majority of victims are, as usual, black—as are their assailants. But police officers are coming under attack as well. In August 2015, an officer in Birmingham, Alabama, was beaten unconscious by a convicted felon after a car stop. The suspect had grabbed the officer’s gun, as Michael Brown had tried to do in Ferguson, but the officer hesitated to use force against him for fear of being charged with racism. Such incidents will likely multiply as the media continues to amplify the Black Lives Matter activists’ poisonous slander against the nation’s police forces.

The number of police officers killed in shootings more than doubled during the first three months of 2016. In fact, officers are at much greater risk from blacks than unarmed blacks are from the police. Over the last decade, an officer’s chance of getting killed by a black has been 18.5 times higher than the chance of an unarmed black getting killed by a cop.

The favorite conceit of the Black Lives Matter movement is, of course, the racist white officer gunning down a black man. According to available studies, it is a canard. A March 2015 Justice Department report on the Philadelphia Police Department found that black and Hispanic officers were much more likely than white officers to shoot blacks based on “threat misperception,” i.e., the incorrect belief that a civilian is armed. A study by University of Pennsylvania criminologist Greg Ridgeway, formerly acting director of the National Institute of Justice, has found that black officers in the NYPD were 3.3 times more likely to fire their weapons at shooting scenes than other officers present. The April 2015 death of drug dealer Freddie Gray in Baltimore has been slotted into the Black Lives Matter master narrative, even though the three most consequential officers in Gray’s arrest and transport are black. There is no evidence that a white drug dealer in Gray’s circumstances, with a similar history of faking injuries, would have been treated any differently.

We have been here before. In the 1960s and early 1970s, black and white radicals directed hatred and occasional violence against the police. The difference today is that anti-cop ideology is embraced at the highest reaches of the establishment: by the President, by his Attorney General, by college presidents, by foundation heads, and by the press. The presidential candidates of one party are competing to see who can out-demagogue President Obama’s persistent race-based calumnies against the criminal justice system, while those of the other party have not emphasized the issue as they might have.

I don’t know what will end the current frenzy against the police. What I do know is that we are playing with fire, and if it keeps spreading, it will be hard to put out.

Imprimis is the free monthly speech digest of Hillsdale College and is dedicated to educating citizens and promoting civil and religious liberty by covering cultural, economic, political, and educational issues. The content of Imprimis is drawn from speeches delivered to Hillsdale College-hosted events. First published in 1972, Imprimis is one of the most widely circulated opinion publications in the nation with over 3.4 million subscribers.

The opinions expressed in Imprimis are not necessarily the views of Hillsdale College.

An Opinion Piece

2016-05-01T09:29:00.001-07:00

It is Better to be Blind, Than to See Things from One Point of View (Chinese Proverb)

This is for most fundamentalist Christians, especially evangelical Christians, and most Protestants in the U.S. … who believe that the Bible is the divine word of truth, and that it can/does function as an authority for all Christian faith and practice, and who want to support a coherent position that justifies and defends that belief.

What follows IS NOT an attack on any Christian faith, any faith-based authority, or the Bible itself. It is, rather, a critical questioning of certain aspects of one specific account of biblical authority that reason and evidence show is impossible to defend and/or employ with integrity … Biblicism, the LITERAL reading of and usage of the Bible. My goal is NOT to detract from the reliability, plausibility, or authority of any Christian faith or from the scriptures … but to persuade people that one particular theory of Christian reliability, plausibility, or authority is inadequate to the task.

I contend that what characterizes the thinking and practice of most of American evangelicalism, indeed most American Protestants, is not wrong but impossible, even taken on its own terms. It does not work as it is proposed and cannot function in a coherent way. Those who believe in their particular faith need to be selective in their choosing or using any particular text from the Bible, they also need to contort, somewhat, other pieces of scripture and in the end they violate the Bible’s intention.

I DO NOT mean to downplay the very important role that the Bible does, and must, play in the daily lives of Christians and their separate churches. And … I AM NOT a theological Liberal. Those people are extremely naïve and are espousing, in most cases, unfortunate and objectionable social and political expressions.

Actual practices of Bible reading and interpretation in various churches tell us a great deal about the adequacy of our theories about biblical texts. In many various churches throughout our country, well-meaning and educated men (and women) in their best efforts to understand the Bible say and teach many different things about very significant ideas and beliefs. Charles Hodge, who taught theology at Princeton in the 1800’s said “… if the scriptures be a plain book, and the Spirit performs the functions of a teacher to all the children of God, it follows inevitably that they all must agree in all essential matters in their interpretation of the Bible. …” [Bold type is mine]

Do you think that the Methodists, Episcopalians, Lutherans, Presbyterians, and all the many types of Baptists (and many other denominations) agree on any/many important matters of faith? I have belonged to many of these denominations over my lifetime … as well as being Catholic and Ba’Hai. They are all so far apart on so many aspects of Christianity as to make you think that they are reading different books. Having studied the Bible myself over lo these many years … I do not claim to be an educated man or a Biblical scholar … I know that there are many sections of the Bible that NO ONE is going to live by no matter how dedicated a Christian they are. There are parts of the Book that are strange, and parts that seem to contradict other parts, and other parts that modern Christians try to explain away as cultural mores in that time and place … although no guidelines exist to tell when that argument is to be used, or not used.

In my lengthy studying … I remember the many debates about the teachings of John Calvin, Jacobus Arminius, Huldrych Zwingli, Martin Luther and the Anabaptists. All were Protestant reformers, all were against the Catholic Church and yet they were so far apart on many ideas, some very critical, as to what the Bible says and doesn’t say. In the United States alone there are 62 (that I know of) separate Baptist groups/denominations alone, about 15 different Calvinist churches (Presbyterian derivations). You have Methodists, Episcopalian (Anglican Protestants, although in 1979 … I think … they voted to remove Protestant from their official name). Well … you can see what I am driving at.

All of these separate theologies read the same book and come to very different conclusions. So Hodge was wrong! The Scriptures “be not” a plain book that can be understood by all. In point of fact … it seems to be a confusing set of books that can very easily be misunderstood by many/most.

This is NOT because of the book, which is thought to be God’s thoughts inspired in and written down by men.

Men not only wrote all the texts which we call the Bible, they also translated them from Hebrew to Aramaic to Greek to English, et al. A good book to read (that describes the dangers inherent in this, but also describes how words from one language do not always translate the exact meanings in the other language) is “The Bible in Translation” by Bruce M. Metzger. It will widen your view about the problems involved.

Man also decided which texts were to be included in “The Bible” and which would be excluded. There are many which for many reasons were excluded. Politics, self-serving ideas among the priests, bishops et al. Some of these books are called apocrypha, which means “things put away” or “things hidden” and comes from the Greek through the Latin. Chief among these in my mind is “The Protevangelion”, which is ascribed to James … brother of Jesus and Chief Apostle and First Bishop of the Christians in Jerusalem. I say chief, because it is referred to / and was being used in the years after the Resurrection in many churches throughout the areas around Israel.

In the Council of Nicea … many learned men tried to come to a conclusion as to agreement on basic articles of faith. The First Council of Nicaea was a council of Christian bishops convened in Nicaea in Bithynia by the Roman Emperor Constantine I in AD 325. This first ecumenical council was the first effort to attain consensus in the church through an assembly representing all of Christendom, although previous councils, including the first Church council, the Council of Jerusalem, had met before to settle matters of dispute. Its main accomplishments were settlement of the Christological issue of the nature of the Son of God and his relationship to God the Father, the construction of the first part of the Creed of Nicaea, establishing uniform observance of the date of Easter, and promulgation of early canon law.

There is no record of any discussion of the biblical canon at the council. The development of the biblical canon took centuries, and was nearly complete (with exceptions known as the Antilegomena, written texts whose authenticity or value is disputed) by the time the Muratorian fragment was written.

In 331 Constantine commissioned fifty Bibles for the Church of Constantinople, but little else is known (in fact, it is not even certain whether his request was for fifty copies of the entire Old and New Testaments, only the New Testament, or merely the Gospels), but some scholars believe that this request provided motivation for canon lists. In Jerome's Prologue to Judith he claims that the Book of Judith was "found by the Nicene Council to have been counted among the number of the Sacred Scriptures", which suggests that the Nicene Council did discuss what documents would number among the sacred scriptures.

The main source of the idea that the Bible was created at the Council of Nicea seems to be Voltaire, who popularized a story that the canon was determined by placing all the competing books on an altar during the Council and then keeping the ones that didn't fall off. The original source of this story is the Vetus Synodicon, a pseudo-historical account of early Church councils from AD 887.

The Council of Nicea is a subject that many volumes have been written about. I do not mean to dismiss it so quickly in this article, but if I gave it … and many other subjects coverage in this short op-ed, it would become a book (at least).

What the major gist of this piece is, is that Biblicism … which I talked about at the beginning … is only one way to read the Bible. I (among others) do not think that we should look to the Bible for word-for-word meanings. The Bible, according to Jewish philosopher Martin Buber (1878-1965), witnesses to God’s presence at times when he seems absent. Exegesis should never stand still, since the Bible represents an ongoing dialogue between God and humanity. The study of the Bible must lead to a transformed lifestyle. When we open the Bible, we must be ready to be fundamentally changed by what we hear/read. The rabbis called scripture a migra, “a calling out”. It is a summons that does not allow readers to abstract themselves from the problems of the world but allows them to stand fast and listen to the undercurrents of events. Franz Rosenzweig (1886-1929), believed that readers must respond to the migra in the same way that the prophets did, crying: “Hinneni” … “here I am” - all ready, all soul … to the reality at hand. Reading the Bible is an introspective process, we cannot respond to it the same way that people in earlier generations did. The text must be appropriated and interiorized in patient and disciplined study and translated into our daily actions. Exegesis could/should help us to retrieve the idea of a sacred text. For example … Many of the Christians who oppose Darwinism today are Calvinists, but Calvin insisted that the Bible was not a scientific document and that those who wanted to learn about astronomy or cosmology should look elsewhere.

The Protestant Reformation (which started when Martin Luther hung the famous Ninety Five Theses in Wittenberg in 1517) made sola scriptura (scripture alone) one of its most important principals. However, Luther learned from Erasmus some translation errors/problems. One of which was that mentanoia, which the Vulgate had translated as “do penance” actually meant “a turning around” of the Christian’s entire being … thus reflecting that ‘confession’ was something you didn’t have to do, or actually shouldn’t do. The Bible has been translated from many forms into many languages by many people and groups. There have been many times when the words were translated but the meanings were skewed. I have seen/see that often in the southwest when it comes to translating words instead of ideas from Spanish to English. Man has taken the inspired Word of God and changed it in slight but very meaningful ways over the centuries, but it remains the inspired Word of God. We should remember that fact.

I agree with the famous Rabbi Dov Ber who said that the way to read the Bible/Tanakh is “ … not to feel conscious of oneself at all. Be like the listening ear that hears the world of sound speaking, but not speak itself. the exegete must make of himself a vessel for the divine presence. The Bible must act upon him as though he were its instrument …”! I think that the reader should stand before the Bible like Moses stood before the burning bush … listening intently, and preparing for a revelation that will force him to lay aside any former preconceptions that he had. The Bible IS NOT a book of science, nor of literature, nor of philosophy … but of salvation. The object of our faith IS NOT the church, nor even the scriptures, nor even our experience of Jesus. It is Christ himself who is the object of our faith. The Bible’s internal unity and harmony derives from the central purpose in divine revelation of telling us about Jesus Christ. It prepares us for the coming of Christ.

The Bible IS NOT a self-help book. There are many book titles on shelves in the library and bookstore that claim to tell you how to start a Christian business, make money the Christian Way, how to learn Christian dating, et cetera ad infinitum. That is all from authors/experts trying to use this verse or that to prove a point (so they can make money). That is NOT what the Bible is about, or what it is for.

The Old Testament recounts the history of the Jewish people, [the Jewish Tanakh contains three books: The Torah, which means The Law, the Neviim which means The Prophets, and the Kethuvim which are The Writings.] For us as Christians, all of these lead us to the Coming of Jesus, his death and his resurrection. The Bible only comes alive when it is read in light of the cross of Christ. As Jesus says in Luke 24:44-48, “ these are the words I told you when I was with you: Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms”. Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures. He told them, “this is what is written: The Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerisalem. You are witnesses of these things”.

Reverend W. A. ‘Antonio’ Rigney Tucson, Az. 2016

For those of you who would like to study further and do your own exegesis. Besides approaching the Bible from a new perspective, there are many books out there … Dewey Decimal code 200. If you go to the library … or Google and Wikipedia are close at hand. I would also suggest Biblehub.com, a site that gives you side by side readings in different versions of the Bible, as it is an interesting tool.

I also suggest reading as much as possible of the following: (a longer list would take many pages, but these are a great starting point)

John Calvin/Jehan Cauvin: Institutes of the Christian Religion and Google info on his ideas

Martin Luther: google info on his thoughts, ideas, teachings

Baruch Spinoza/Benedict de Spinoza: Ethics

Charles Hodge: read for his Calvinist idea

Wilfred Cantwell Smith: What is Scripture? A Comparative Approach.

C.S. Lewis: any and all of his writings on Apologetics

Joseph Lienhard: The Bible, the Church, and Authority: The Canon of the Christian Bible in History and Theology (1995)

Peter Enns: Inspiration and Incarnation: Evangelicals and the Problem of the Old Testament

for discussion on the writers of the Pentateuch, see -

Jean Astruc (1684-1766)

Johann Gottfried Eichhorn (1752-1827)

Johann Severin Vater (1771-1826)

Wilhelm DeWette (1780-1849)

Hermann Hupfeld (1796-1866)

Karl Heinrich Graf (1815-1869).

Jordon Spieth ... (not my reporting)

2016-04-20T05:41:00.002-07:00

I thought that anyone who ventured by my site should read this. Impressed me!!

Jordan Spieth believes in God. And if you meet him in person, you’ll quickly realize that despite his great success — he remains very humble.

But Spieth doesn’t claim to be a perfect Christian. In a recent interview, the second-youngest man to ever win the Masters shared that he desperately needs Christ, and thanks his family for keeping him grounded.

Last year, Americans fell in love with the 22-year-old golfer hailing from the good ole’ state of Texas. In 2015, Spieth placed first in the Official World Golf Ranking, tied the 72-hole record set by Tiger Woods in 1997, and became the second youngest to win the Masters, behind Woods. He then won the U.S. Open with a final score of 5 under par.

To say that Jordan Spieth’s career is something quite remarkable, would be the understatement of the century. His winnings last year alone totaled $23 million – not bad for a 22-year-old. But there’s no obnoxious athlete ego here, Spieth is as humble as they come.

Jordan Spieth was born on July 27, 1993, and raised in Dallas, TX, alongside his two younger siblings, Steven and Ellie.

Little Jordan Spieth got into golf when his mom bought him plastic clubs as a toddler so he could occupy himself, while his younger brother could be looked after without distraction.

Growing up, baseball was Spieth’s first love. A left-handed pitcher, he gave it up at age 12 to focus on golf, and he quickly became one of the most impressive junior players.

It didn’t take long for the world to recognize Spieth’s God-given talent. Even as a young player, Spieth’s laser-like focus enabled him to cancel out all other distractions and perfect his skill.

But Spieth doesn’t pretend it came easily. He recently joked, “There’s a reason I have a hairline like this right now, and that’s because it’s stressful what we do on a daily basis.”

At only 14-years-old, Spieth dreamed of winning the Masters. Little did he know, what an incredible ride it would be — and just how that “dream” would happen 7 years later.

According to the pro-golfer‘s website, at age 16 while a high school junior at Jesuit College Preparatory School of Dallas, he was invited to play in the Hewlett-Packard Byron Nelson Championship, and gained national attention when he tied for 16th place. Among other accomplishments as a junior, Jordan was selected to the victorious 2011 Walker Cup team, where as a 17-year old, he held an undefeated record.

Upon graduating from Jesuit, Spieth enrolled at the University of Texas, where he helped the Texas Longhorns win the 2012 NCAA Team Championship in his freshman year and was named First-Team All-American. His sophomore year, Spieth decided to pause college and go professional, and the rest is history.

But despite his world-renowned accomplishments, Spieth doesn’t worry himself with showing off or blowing his money. Instead — and unlike many other golfers of his day — Spieth makes time for Bible study, his longtime high school sweetheart, and his family.

Spieth is a humble man, and his actions reflect it. With every sincere and gracious post-win speech, Spieth’s first thank-you’s always go to the volunteers and staff. Spieth is so down to earth, in fact, that he still drives the same car he did in high school.

The pro golfer explained, “No, I’m driving the same car I drove when I was heading into college after senior year. It’s just a Yukon. Honestly, my dad’s very good at keeping me grounded with that, putting it away, growing it. I don’t have a desire to go out and just buy stuff.”

The young golfer isn’t concerned with putting on a show or impressing anyone. After winning the Masters, Jordan Spieth set himself apart (yet again) when he politely declined to have a celebratory reception in one of Augusta’s swanky restaraunts. Instead, the young man requested a private dinner with his family and closest kin — at the local Chick-fil-A.

Spieth often shares that his 14-year-old sister, Ellie, who has autism, is one of his biggest inspirations. Ellie’s life is what keeps him grounded and her fearless example is what keeps him going.

Spieth told CBS This Morning, “She is our motivation. She’s my biggest fan. It puts things in perspective when you look at the big picture and the struggles that she goes through each day just to do simple tasks that we take for granted.”

While other famous golfers pose for pictures with supermodels in skimpy swimsuits, Spieth takes photos with his little sister.

“She’s my inspiration,” Spieth told the UK’s Telegraph. “She’s the funniest member of our family. I really love spending time with her. It is humbling to see her and her friends and the struggles they go through each day, which we take for granted. They are the happiest people in the world.”

After every trip, Spieth brings home a keychain, souvenir, or small trinket for his little sister. Spieth is so proud of Ellie, he often invites her on stage with him.

To Spieth, people are far more important than golf. Inspired by his sister, Ellie, Jordan fulfilled a lifelong dream by launching the Jordan Spieth Family Foundation. Spieth has made it his personal endeavor to encourage and support underprivileged kids, military families, and children with special needs.

Additionally, Spieth is a loyal man. He doesn’t waste his time clubbing or getting drunk. And unlike most celebrity men, Spieth has remained by his lady — Annie Verret’s side since high school.

We’ve come to find out that Spieth’s girlfriend is much more than just a pretty face. Annie Verret works at The First Tee, a youth development organization that focuses on impacting the lives of young people by providing educational programs that build character, instill life-enhancing values and promote healthy choices through the game of golf.

Perhaps the most inspiring thing about young Spieth, is his love and devotion to his Savior, Jesus Christ.

Spieth’s lifestyle shows that the young man is wise beyond his years. To guard himself against the temptations of fame and fortune, Spieth has surrounded himself with like-minded men who love God, like Bubba Watson.

Watson shared that young Spieth makes time to invest in his relationship with God and other believers, he said, “He goes to Bible study with us on the Tour here.”

Jordan’s former athletic director in high school shared, “Jordan is just very genuine. He says what he believes. He believes in supporting others, taking care of others before he takes care of himself.”

Spieth’s actions reflect his Faith. His very life is a testimony. He doesn’t brag. He loves God. He goes to Bible study. He honors his family. He lives humbly. He encourages and supports those around him.

Despite the thousands of adoring fans, Spieth knows who alone is worthy of adoration — his Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. While listening to Jordan Spieth’s inspiring story, I just couldn’t help but think of James 4:10, which reads,

“Humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord, and He will exalt you.”

Thank you, Jordan Spieth, for allowing your life to be a living testimony and example! America needs more men of Faith like you! Please share if you agree!

2016-04-12T07:39:00.000-07:00

Lovely walk this morning, overcast with a slight drizzle ... the desert is coming alive with our spring rains. Should be about 76 later in the day though, and mostly sunny. I have to take Ms. Hilda to her endocrinologist this morning at 1100, then lunch, and then looking at a new (firmer)mattress ... gathering prices at this point. Is there a day in the year when mattresses ARE NOT on sale?
The Catalinas (the mountains that loom over Tucson) have been so well defined lately ... you can see where the canyons divide the various sections ... I never tire of gazing at those peaks. We, here in the city are at 2000 ft. above sea level and the mountains rise to over 9000 ft. above sea level.

I am continuing my religious studies, when I have time here in my "Man Cave", and I read books on the subject for about an hour before I sleep. At the present time, I am studying how translation problems affected the message and the meanings of some Biblical texts and how some interpretations may be slightly altered. I only wish that I could read Greek and Aramaic ... but, alas, I must go with studying the confusing list of books available. One of the best that I am reading at the present is "The Bible in Translation" by Bruce M. Metzger. I have read it twice and am now studying it (which is totally different than the reading of it).

On a more secular note ... got a fresh box of Black Abyss Banshees in yesterday ... shall have one (or two) at the Wednesday Poker Game!

I know, I know ... Cigars are bad for you! But I'm 70 1/2 and I enjoy the occasional one. Besides ... because of my elevated A1C levels and possible diabetes, I have reduced my consumption of beer to a level unseen since my teen years. Need to resume my trips to the gym though.

An April Sunday

2016-04-10T09:10:00.001-07:00

A young Palo Verde tree in our neighborhood

The beautiful Catalina Mountains that rise 7000 ft above our city

I have been a busy little bee this AM. It is 0830 and I have washed and folded two loads of clothes, taken my morning walk ... which was great. The birds in the neighborhood were especially cheerful (and noisy) this morning, the skies were overcast, and the temperature was about 61. Doesn't get any better than that for a 0630 walk. I put bacon in the oven, sliced the cantaloupe for breakfast, took my shower and trimmed my beard. Now for some computer time before the ever fetching Ms. Hilda awakens.
I have to take some business cards and flyers to a "Wedding Show" at the Radisson this morning, we have to pick up Hilda's mom and take her to Northwest hospital to see her latest Great-Grandchild ... Hilda's niece Amy Ramirez, had a 9 lb. girl last night.
We here in the desert hope that all of you are enjoying your April as much as we (I) am enjoying our Tucson April.

This is not what easterners think of when they think of the
desert, but this is our neighborhood.

The Prickly Pear outside of our apartment is sporting new growth

2016-04-08T09:02:00.002-07:00

I just returned from my morning walk through the neighborhood. I thoroughly enjoy these walks ... and at 70 years old, they help keep my legs in somewhat better shape. I really enjoyed this mornings walk, as we had a desert rain last night and the air was intoxicatingly fresh, the birds were simply giddy, the plants appeared so refreshed, and my beautiful Catalina Mountains were well defined and topped with clouds ... God is Great!
However, the early AM trek was marred by one of my main peeves, a car ... didn't see the occupants, but judging by the car I suspect they were youngish ... dumped a bag containing their left over McDonalds breakfast (and the paper products that entails) out of their car window into the street. You should be able to shoot assholes like that ... without fear of recrimination!!!
Other than that ... it was a great walk. Now, for a shower and some breakfast. And ... here are some of the things I enjoyed seeing this fabulous morning here in the desert! :-)

Yucca blooms on 8th Street

My favorite tree here in Arizona,

the Palo Verde (Green Stick or limb),

all the limbs are green

I adore this half walk nest to the carport

The prickly pear are blooming nicely

How Does/Did a 47 Year Catholic Become a Protestant Minister?

2016-04-05T17:13:00.000-07:00

As most of the people who know me know … I was a Catholic for 45+ years. I became a Catholic in Vietnam, the reasons are still hazy … as are most of my in-country (Vietnam) memories from that period. Anyway, having a predilection for women who are/were of Latin/Hispanic ancestry … I remained Catholic for many years. I began … seriously … studying the Bible, along with many other facets of Christianity … and of other religions … 10-12 years ago. I had been reading about those subjects for many years haphazardly as they had always piqued my interest. Anyway, over the last few years as I became wiser, … or more jaded - take your pick … I began to feel ill at ease. A lot like Martin Luther (more about him shortly) I began to feel the frustration at the utter fallacies of “my” religion. Although I still loved the pomp and circumstance as it were, I no longer felt at ease with the trappings and teachings.

*** Martin Luther ~ was a German composer, theology professor, former monk, and a priest. He is (was) 462 years and 3 days older than ME … 10 November 1483. Anyway, he came to reject several teachings and practices of the Catholic Church. He strongly disputed the claim that freedom from God's punishment for sin could be purchased with money. He proposed an academic discussion of the power and usefulness of indulgences in his Ninety-Five Theses of 1517. His theology challenged the authority and office of the Pope, the Pope’s (and Priest’s) ability to forgive sins, by teaching that the Bible is the only source of divinely revealed knowledge from God and he opposed sacerdotalism ~ the belief that propitiatory sacrifices for sin require the intervention of a priest. That is, it is the belief that a special, segregated order of men, called the priesthood, are the only ones who can commune directly with God ~ by considering all baptized Christians to be a holy priesthood. ‘nuff said!!!

Anyway, as I was saying … reading Luther, John Calvin, the Kabbalah, the Midrashes and various other religious texts made me rethink my Catholicism and the more I studied the Anglican / Episcopal Church … the more I was fulfilled. And though I have chosen (freely) to remain non-sectarian at this juncture of my learning curve, I acknowledge my sources. I would also like to thank the folks at Hillsdale College, Christian University, Free Will Baptist Church and the National Association of Christian Ministers for their contributions.

So, I guess that is how a 40+ year Catholic became … and is still becoming … a Protestant Minister.

My Religious Beliefs ... sort of

2016-04-03T08:17:00.000-07:00

   I have been (of late) trying to explain what my beliefs are ... being an ordained minister ... to some people who I converse with on-line.
   I am a Christian ... nominally Episcopal / Anglican, and believe in Christ, baptism, and the forgiveness of sins. I believe that we, as humans can have the occasional drink, cigar, et al and still be Christian. I believe that we are forbidden to "over-indulge" ... in anything.
   As a younger man ... before my being called to do what I do ... I taught my kids my three rules for alcohol (which some never learned, although it was repeated) ...
1) Never spend money on alcohol that you need for other things
2) Never allow alcohol to cause you to miss school or work (or to alter your performance at either)
3) Never let alcohol change the way you treat family or friends (indeed, anyone)
   I also think this list applies to many things ... if they interfere with your life ... such as golf, work, hobbies of many types.
   I have never been, nor expect to be perfect (in any way or in any sense of the word). I have been ... in my lifetime ... Presbyterian, Methodist, Catholic, Baptist, Ba'Hai, Agnostic ... et al. I, like so many (MOST) of us, have done/said/been things that I am not proud of. I have been attempting to learn as much as possible about a lot of different religions, not just Christianity in it's many and varied forms, so as to be certain in my belief system ... as it exists now. If I am to perform religious rites such as weddings, Celebrations of Life (I cannot call them funerals) and baptisms, and if I am to teach others ... I must be confident in my thoughts and I cannot know what another religion preaches if I do not understand their religion as a student of same.
   I do not have, nor want, a church ... in the modern sense of a building / edifice / et al. I believe that a church is a group of people, not a building. This holds true to the thoughts that Paul stated in his Epistles to the Ephesians and others.
   I am (still) studying and attempting to understand these things myself. I am an exegete ... one who indulges in exegesis/hermeneutics. I am especially interested, these days ... especially since my religious inclination is Episcopal / Anglican ... in the study of the deuterocanical texts. I am making a study of the differences in thought between the Arianism (NOT TO be confused with Aryanism ... that racial oriented, pure race, doctrine of the Germans) of Arius and the conflicting thoughts of people like Athanasius of Alexandra.
      I am also studying ... as my study of deuterocanical texts denotes ... the Apocrapha and other "discarded" religious texts.
   Now, if this doesn't make much sense to you ... you can disregard or you can Google or Wikipedia the terms.

A VERY HIGHLY RECOMMENDED READ

2016-03-26T08:26:00.004-07:00

A VERY HIGHLY RECOMMENDED READ ... Politics by Soros
FROM STEVE KROFT ("60 Minutes")

… and when you read this, remember that George Soros is a major supporter and funder of Hillary Clinton's campaign. Steve Kroft (born August 22, 1945) is an American journalist and a longtime correspondent for "60 Minutes". His investigative reporting has garnered him much acclaim, including three Peabody Awards and nine Emmy awards, one of which was an Emmy for Lifetime Achievement. You can understand what is happening to our America after reading this. May God have mercy upon our nation.

Glen Beck has been developing material to show all the ties that Soros has through the nation and world along with his goals. This article is written by Steve Kroft from "60 Minutes". It begins to piece together the rise of Obama and his behavior in leading the nation along with many members of Congress (in particular the Democrats, such as the election of Pelosi as the minority leader in Congress).

If you have wondered where Obama came from and just how he quickly moved from obscurity to President, or why the media is "selective" in what we are told, here is the man who most probably put him there and is responsible. He controls President Obama's every move. Think this is absurd? Invest a few minutes and read this. You won't regret it. Who is Obama? Obama is a puppet and here is the explanation of the man or demon that pulls his strings. Its not by chance that Obama can manipulate the world. After reading this and Obama's reluctance to accept help on the oil spill you wonder if the spill is part of the plan to destroy the US?

"In history, nothing happens by accident. If it happened, you can bet someone planned it." ~ Franklin Roosevelt

Who Is George Soros? He brought the market down in 2 days. Here is what CBS' Mr. Steve Kroft's research has turned up. It's a bit of a read, and it took 4 months to put it together. "The main obstacle to a stable and just world order is the United States of America." ~ George Soros"

George Soros is an evil man. He's anti-God, anti-family, anti-American, and anti-good." He killed and robbed his own Jewish people. What we have in Soros, is a multi-billionaire atheist, with skewed moral values, and a sociopath's lack of conscience. He considers himself to be an elitist world class philosopher, despises the American way, and just loves to do social engineering and change cultures.

GyÃrgy Schwartz, better known to the world as George Soros, was born August 12, 1930 in Hungary. Soros' father, Tivadar, was a fervent practitioner of the Esperanto language invented in 1887, and designed to be the first global language, free of any national identity. The Schwartz's, who were non-practicing Jews, changed the family name to Soros, in order to facilitate assimilation into the Gentile population, as the Nazis spread into Hungary during the 1930s. When Hitler's henchman, Adolf Eichmann arrived in Hungary, to oversee the murder of that country's Jews, George Soros ended up with a man whose job was confiscating property from the Jewish population. Soros went with him on his rounds . Soros has repeatedly called 1944 "the best year of his life." 70% of Mr. Soros's fellow Jews in Hungary, nearly a half-million human beings, were annihilated in that year , yet he gives no sign that this put any damper on his elation, either at the time or indeed in retrospect.

During an interview with "Sixty Minute's" Steve Kroft, Soros was asked about his "best year."

KROFT: My understanding is that you went out with this protector of yours who swore that you were his adopted godson.

SOROS: Yes. Yes.

KROFT: Went out, in fact, and helped in the confiscation of property from your fellow Jews, friends and neighbors.

SOROS: Yes. That's right. Yes.

KROFT: I mean, that sounds like an experience that would send lots of people to the psychiatric couch for many, many, years. Was it difficult?

SOROS: No, not at all. Not at all, I rather enjoyed it.

KROFT: No feelings of guilt?

SOROS: No, only feelings of absolute power.

In his article, Muravchik describes how Soros has admitted to having carried some rather "potent messianic fantasies with me from childhood, which I felt I had to control, otherwise they might get me in trouble." Be that as it may. After WWII, Soros attended the London School of Economics, where he fell under the thrall of fellow atheist and Hungarian, Karl Popper, one of his professors. Popper was a mentor to Soros until Popper's death in 1994. Two of Popper's most influential teachings concerned "the open society," and Fallibilism. Fallibilism is the philosophical doctrine that all claims of knowledge could, in principle, be mistaken. (Then again, I could be wrong about that. :-) ) The "open society" basically refers to a "test and evaluate" approach to social engineering. Regarding "open society" Roy Childs writes, "Since the Second World War, most of the Western democracies have followed Popper's advice about piecemeal social engineering and democratic social reform, and it has gotten them into a grand mess."

In 1956 Soros moved to New York City, where he worked on Wall Street, and started amassing his fortune. He specialized in hedge funds and currency speculation. Soros is absolutely ruthless, amoral, and clever in his business dealings, and quickly made his fortune. By the 1980s he was well on his way to becoming the global powerhouse that he is today.

In an article Kyle-Anne Shiver wrote for "The American Thinker" she says, "Soros made his first billion in 1992 by shorting the British pound with leveraged billions in financial bets, and became known as the man who broke the Bank of England. He broke it on the backs of hard-working British citizens who immediately saw their homes severely devalued and their life savings cut drastically, almost overnight."

In 1994 Soros crowed in "The New Republic," that "the former Soviet Empire is now called the Soros Empire." The Russia-gate scandal in 1999, which almost collapsed the Russian economy, was labeled by Rep. Jim Leach, then head of the House Banking Committee, to be "one of the greatest social robberies in human history. "The "Soros Empire" indeed.

In 1997 Soros almost destroyed the economies of Thailand and Malaysia. At the time, Malaysia's Prime Minister, Mahathir Mohammad, called Soros "a villain, and a moron." Thai activist Weng Tojirakarn said, "We regard George Soros as a kind of Dracula. He sucks the blood from the people."

The website Greek National Pride reports, "Soros was part of the full court press that dismantled Yugoslavia and caused trouble in Georgia, Ukraine and Myanmar [Burma]. Calling himself a philanthropist, Soros' role is to tighten the ideological stranglehold of globalization and the New World Order while promoting his own financial gain. He is without conscience; a capitalist who functions with absolute amorality."

France has upheld an earlier conviction against Soros, for felony insider trading. Soros was fined 2.9 million dollars. Recently, his native Hungary fined Soros 2.2 million dollars for "illegal market manipulation." Elizabeth Crum writes that the Hungarian economy has been in a state of transition as the country seeks to become more financially stable and westernized. Soros deliberately driving down the share price of its largest bank put Hungary's economy into a wicked tailspin, one from which it is still trying to recover.

My point here is that Soros is a planetary parasite. His grasp, greed, and gluttony have a global reach. But what about America? Soros told Australia's national newspaper "The Australian." "America, as the center of the globalised financial markets, was sucking up the savings of the world. This is now over. "The game is out," he said, adding that the time has come for "a very serious adjustment" in American's consumption habits. He implied that he was the one with the power to bring this about."

Soros: "World financial crisis was "stimulating" and "in a way, the culmination of my life's work."

Obama has recently promised 10 billion of our tax dollars to Brazil, in order to give them a leg-up in expanding their offshore oil fields. Obama's largesse towards Brazil came shortly after his political financial backer, George Soros, invested heavily in Brazilian oil (Petrobras). Tait Trussel writes, "The Petrobras loan may be a windfall for Soros and Brazil, but it is a bad deal for the U.S. The American Petroleum Institute estimates that oil exploration in the U S could create 160,000 new, well-paying jobs, as well as $1.7 trillion in revenues to federal, state, and local governments, all while fostering greater energy security and independence."

A blog you might want to keep an eye on is SorosWatch.com. Their mission: "This blog is dedicated to all who have suffered due to the ruthless financial pursuits of George Soros. Your stories are many and varied, but the theme is the same: the destructive power of greed without conscience. We pledge to tirelessly watch Soros wherever he goes and to print the truth in the hope that he will one day be made to stop preying upon the world's poor, that justice will be served."

Back to America. Soros has been actively working to destroy America from the inside out for some years now. People have been warning us. Two years ago, news sources reported that "Soros [is] an extremist who wants open borders, a one-world foreign policy, legalized drugs, euthanasia, and on and on. This is off-the-chart dangerous. In 1997 Rachel Ehrenfeld wrote, "Soros uses his philanthropy to change or more accurately deconstruct the moral values and attitudes of the Western world, and particularly of the American people". His "open society" is not about freedom; it is about license. His vision rejects the notion of ordered liberty, in favor of a PROGRESSIVE ideology of rights and entitlements.

Perhaps the most important of these "whistle blowers" are David Horowitz and Richard Poe. Their book, "The Shadow Party", outlines in detail how Soros hijacked the Democratic Party, and now owns it lock, stock, and barrel. Soros has been packing the Democratic Party with radicals, and ousting moderate Democrats for years. The Shadow Party became the Shadow Government, which recently became the Obama Administration. Discover The Networks.org (another good source) writes, "By his [Soros'] own admission, he helped engineer coups in Slovakia, Croatia, Georgia, and Yugoslavia. When Soros targets a country for "regime change," he begins by creating a shadow government, a fully formed government-in-exile, ready to assume power when the opportunity arises. The Shadow Party he has built in America greatly resembles those he has created in other countries prior to instigating a coup."

November 2008 edition of the German magazine, "Der Spiegel," in which Soros gives his opinion on what the next POTUS (President of the U. S.) should do after taking office. "I think we need a large stimulus package." Soros thought that around 600 billion would be about right. Soros also said that "I think Obama presents us a great opportunity to finally deal with global warming and energy dependence. The U.S. needs a cap and trade system with auctioning of licenses for emissions rights." Although Soros doesn't (yet) own the Republican Party, like he does the Democrats, make no mistake, his tentacles are spread throughout the Republican Party as well. Soros is a partner in the Carlyle Group where he has invested more than 100 million dollars. According to an article by "The Baltimore Chronicle's" Alice Cherbonnier, the Carlyle Group is run by "a veritable who's who of former Republican leaders," from CIA man, Frank Carlucci, to CIA head and

ex-President George Bush, Sr. In late 2006, Soros bought about 2 million shares of Halliburton, Dick Cheney's old stomping grounds. When the Democrats and Republicans held their conventions in 2000, Soros held Shadow Party conventions in the same cities, at the same time. In 2008, Soros donated $5,000,000,000 (that's Five Billion) to the Democratic National Committee, DNC, to insure Obama's win and wins for many other Alinsky trained Radical Rules Anti-American Socialist. George has been contributing a billion plus to the DNC since Clinton came on the scene.

Soros has dirtied both sides of the aisle, trust me. And if that weren't bad enough, he has long held connections with the CIA. And I mustn't forget to mention Soros' involvement with the MSM (Main Stream Media), the entertainment industry (e.g. he owns 2.6 million shares of Time Warner), and the various political advertising organizations he funnels millions to. In short, George Soros controls or influences most of the MSM. Little wonder they ignore the TEA PARTY, Soros' NEMESIS. As Matthew Vadum writes, "The liberal billionaire-turned-philanthropist has been buying up media properties for years in order to drive home his message to the American public that they are too materialistic, too wasteful, too selfish, and too stupid to decide for themselves how to run their own lives." Richard Poe writes, "Soros' private philanthropy, totaling nearly $5 billion, continues undermining America's traditional Western values. His giving has provided funding of abortion rights, atheism, drug legalization, sex education, euthanasia, feminism, gun control, globalization, mass immigration, gay marriage and other radical experiments in social engineering." Some of the many NGOs (Non-Government Organizations) that Soros funds with his billions are: MoveOn.org, the Apollo Alliance, Media Matters for America, the Tides Foundation, the ACLU, ACORN, PDIA (Project on Death In America), La Raza, and many more. For a more complete list, with brief descriptions of the NGOs, go to DiscoverTheNetworks.org. Poe continues, "Through his global web of Open Society Institutes and Open Society Foundations, Soros has spent 25 years recruiting, training, indoctrinating and installing a network of loyal operatives in 50 countries, placing them in positions of influence and power in media, government, finance and academia."

Without Soros' money, would the Saul Alinsky's Chicago machine still be rolling? Would SEIU, ACORN, and La Raza still be pursuing their nefarious activities? Would big money and lobbyists still be corrupting government? Would our college campuses still be retirement homes for 1960s radicals? America stands at the brink of an abyss, and that fact is directly attributable to Soros. Soros has vigorously, cleverly, and insidiously planned the ruination of America and his puppet, Barack Obama is leading the way.

The words of Patrick Henry are apropos: "Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the

price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but as for me,

give me liberty, or give me death!"

Above information researched by CBS' Steve Kroft

2016-03-24T08:53:00.005-07:00

I was on my morning walk between 7:00 and 8:30 this AM and some things caught my eye, that I just had to photograph. I love living in Tucson, although it's not everyone's cup of tea ... I have loved Arizona the entire 46 years that I have lived here.

♥ ♥ ♥

This guy must have "2" favorite NFL teams ...
AZ Cardinals license plate and Redskins plate holder

I loved this bumper sticker

This is our apartment complex


Notice we still have monkey bars for the kids to play on ... and they love them, like we did!

2016-03-24T06:54:00.000-07:00

All praise to Fred !!!

Posted on March 23, 2016 by Fred Reed ... down in Mexico

Once upon a time there was a fairy kingdom that lived inside a place called The Beltway, and was surrounded on all four sides by a land called America. The Beltway was aligned with another kingdom called Manhattan, inhabited by disembodied heads that spoke from the walls of bars, and with yet another closed kingdom called Hollywood, the abode of half-educated narcissists. These kingdoms were in eternal political synergy, and spoke not with the people of the surrounding lands, of whom they knew nothing. The following is a chronicle of what befell them, and why.

After years of peace, the Kingdoms were taken greatly aback by the rise of the Trump Monster, their surprise being proof that they knew nothing of the surrounding lands. They knew nothing for good reasons, of which there were two. The first was that they passed their lives with each other and among each other and talking to each other and writing about each other and reading about each other behind the high walls of their kingdoms. In organs like National Review and The Weekly Standard they endlessly wrote stories of the form “A soothsayer in Manhattan replies to what some other sayer of sooths said about yet another’s attack on someone else.”

They had all dwelt in monasteries called Harvard and Princeton, where they learned that they were the wisest of men, and inerrant. They had no idea that they were hated in the strange lands without the walls, which on their maps were drawn as fog with notations such as “Here dwelleth dragons.” They did not know that there were people who agreed not with them. For were they not right about all things?

The other reason for their puzzlement was a powerful spell called “Political Correctness.” This strong magic prevented the outlanders from saying anything that the Three Kingdoms did not want to hear. Anyone who engaged incantations called “slurs,” which were truthful thoughts about sacred tribes, or who said Inappropriate Things about a certain little country whose only importance was being that little country, was thrown into durance vile. Thus the Three Kingdoms never heard anything they didn’t like, and so believed that almost everyone without the walls loved them. They had scarce an idea what furies were roiling and boiling and stirring under the surface of the Outer Realms.

Now, until the Trump Monster appeared, the America was ruled by a pseudo-democracy of one bicephalous party with two names. The Only Party consisted of blackguards and Quislings and pickpockets bought and paid for by the plutocratic oligarchy of large corporations, AIPAC, and the. very rich. These told the two halves of the One Party what to do. Every four years there was played a great tournament in which candidates of the Two Names of the One Party engaged in the most savage combat imaginable. This was to distract the people outside the walls . Afterwards nothing changed and all went on as before, though the division of the spoils shifted a bit.

And in their ignorance and pride the Three Kingdoms engendered a monster called Trump, and it bit them.

The Only Party had always controlled the villains because it controlled the choice of pretenders to the throne. A pretender gained the Presidency by buying it, and the rich who provided that money controlled as vassals those who accepted it. The pretenders were as straw and melons sold in a market.

Furthermore, the scribes and oracles of the Kingdoms said aloud only those things that were meet for the surrounding peasantry to hear. The puissant spell of Political Correctness amounted to a societal mute button and prevented the Holy Orders within the Three Kingdoms from noticing what stirred without.

Until the Trump Monster came raging, slouching toward Bethlehem, with which the Kingdoms confused themselves.

And there was a fright and desperation and rending of teeth and gnashing of hair for many were the rice bowls threatened.

The darkest of horrors was that the serfs might come to choose the manner of their government. For long years the Bicephalous Party had presided over that most desirable form of democracy in which the people had no power. This laudable state they had maintained by never talking about anything of substance, such as unending wars in remote lands beyond the edges of the maps, or the importation of slaves from curious and unwholesome countries or the manufactures of all things by foreign dwarves.

A great broil ensured. The people saw for the first time a chance to manage their destinies and rose up for the Trump Monster. Inside the Beltway, the Wise and Good–for did they not so denominate themselves?–were greatly astonished. “What manner of vileness can this be?” they asked in wonder. They said that the Trump Monster was beguiling fools, the cracked, and those who represented the worst in America. And the scribes and oracles were sore afraid, for most of the outlying populace appeared to belong to these tribes.

One of the Two Names of the One Party, the Democrats, sent forth a dreadful creature called Hillary to fight in single combat with the Trump Monster. Her very visage turned men to stone, it was said. She was held to be of one blood with Boadicea, Jean d’Arc, Lucretia Borgia, and Bonnie Parker.

The Three Kingdoms were at one with her, as she was corrupt, mendacious, criminal, and ugly, as well as suffering coughing fits and dizzy spells. Surely, said the scribes and oracles, any monster must fly screaming from her mere presence.

Yet it seemed that the Trump was no common monster. Every time he was beset by the scribes and oracles of the Beltway, he grew stronger, and a sulfurous smoke breathed from his mouth. With drawn swords the Trump Monster and the crumbling ruin of Hillary circled each other.

And beyond the parapets and crenelations of the Three Kingdoms the sky grew darker. Inside the Beltway and in Manhattan, the disembodied heads railed and raged, but with every blast the helots jointed the Trump Monster in larger numbers, for they hated the Insiders. In Hollywood the Half-Educated Narcissists said ever stupider things, but these had not their usual effect.

In their pride the Three Kingdoms had engendered Nemesis, and they watched in terror behind the ramparts as the sky grew darker and strange shapes twisted in the looming clouds and the Trump Monster strode ever nearer, breathing fire.

2016-03-22T15:34:00.003-07:00

For those who are interested, I have stopped the "Sunday Letters" and have started re-posting to my BLOG ... which has been dormant almost two years. I have, as you all know "furor scribendi" ... a rage to write ... and I hope the muse returns since I am doing it this way, instead of my semi-regular letters. I still get to write my thoughts, but I no longer clutter up your in-box. PEACE !!

Just thinkin'

2016-03-22T13:25:00.000-07:00

   I was reading the obituaries today (as I do daily) and thought to myself "I don't know any of these people". I don't know why I think I should ... in a metro area of over a million people ... other than, I lived in a town of 2000 for over 20 years where everyone knew everyone (just about). My mind runs in funny directions at times.
   I have resigned my Chaplain position with VFW Post 549, as I have difficulty making time for the Saturday meetings because of duties here at our Casita with Hilda and associated stuff. I will really miss the position, but hopefully I can return to some sort of action with the Post in the future.
I am trying to get some household chores done today. Already finished the laundry (3 loads) and visited the grocery store, readied the meat for tonight's dinner, etc. Tomorrow is my "Poker" morning, Thursday I take her for a haircut and Friday is a work day.
I am constantly amazed at what drivers on our streets do and what else they attempt besides driving. It is getting where nothing they do startles me ... I am getting jaded at their capacity for stupidity and lack of concern for any other living beings. And the pedestrians are as bad as the drivers, just not as mobile or as large.
   I am still studying (various things) as time permits. I am in the middle of three rather large books at the present time, History / Politics / Religion ... strange bedfellows huh? I just finished my second U.S. Constitution course on line with a 92.7%. Not bad for an old fart with fast approaching Alzheimers.
My doctor says my A1C (diabetes sugar level) is highly elevated so I have to cut back on sweet stuff and carbohydrates. No Problem ... right? The items that are high in carbohydrates are beer and bread. I LIVE on bread (Bagels, English Muffins, toast, et al).

2016-03-20T11:30:00.002-07:00

Sunday mornings are my time for thinking, and playing on the computer, studying and other 'alone' activities. I had written something down (probably years ago) that someone had written and I was re-reading it and thought that I would post it.
The Rules for Being Human
1. You will receive a body: You may like it or hate it, but it will be yours for the entire time you are around.
2. You Will Learn Lessons: You are enrolled in a full-time, informal school called life. Each day in this school, you will receive the opportunity to learn lessons. You may like the lessons or you may think them irrelevant or stupid.
3. There are NO mistakes, only Lessons: Growth is a process of trial and error ... experimentation. The "failed" experiments are as much a part of the process as the experiments that ultimately "work".
4. A lesson is repeated until learned: A lesson will be presented to you in various forms until you have learned it ... then you may go on to the next lesson.
5. Learning lessons DOES NOT end: There is no part of life that does not contain lessons. If you are still alive ... there are lessons to be learned.
6. "THERE" is no better than "HERE": When your there becomes a here, you will simply obtain another 'There' ... that will again ... look better than "Here".
7. Others are merely a mirror of you: You cannot hate or love anything about another person unless it reflects to you something that you love or hate about yourself. 8. What you make of life is up to you: You have all the tools and resources that you need. What you do with them is up to you. The choice is yours. The answers lie within you. All you need to do is ... Look ... Listen ... and Trust.
9. You will forget all of this: Unless you stay focused on the goals you have set for yourself, everything you have just read won't mean a thing.

Especially for 'my son' Sam Adams, all my other kids, Lee Ann ... and for ME!!

2016-03-14T14:40:00.006-07:00

I have never had strong views about human evolution. But in recent years, I got a chance to look at hundreds of articles making claims for it. A summary of what I learned might be useful:

1. Real (and imagined) "human evolution" is now so integral to our culture that demand outpaces authenticity. The disappointing history of Sahelanthropus, Orrorin, and Ardi, all hailed in 2001 as human ancestors, attests to the frustrating search for missing links." Sediba, another supposed ancestor, fared no better in 2013. A science writer at ‘Wired‘, not known for intelligent-design sympathies, derides the ceaseless buzz as "ancestor worship." One outcome is that many "separate species of human ancestors" may never have really existed and "may now have to be wiped from the textbooks."
2. There are signals in the noise! As it happens, they are not the signals many hoped to receive. The half human creature we were originally seeking continues to elude us. From surprisingly early periods, we encounter special respect for the dead and a sense of the divine, along with familiar artifacts and organized activities.
3. Early human religion seems like a 747 built in the basement with an X-Acto knife. No one predicted anything like the Gobekli Tepe find in Turkey: It consists of about twenty stone wall circles (only a few of which have been excavated). Two megaliths face each other in the middle of each ring. The rings are also surrounded by huge, T-shaped stone pillars, some adorned with carvings of dangerous animals. The tallest pillars are about 16 feet and probably weigh seven to ten tons. All of this is done with Stone Age techniques. No one knows for sure what prompted this enormous sacrifice of piety because, of course, no documents survive from nearly 12,000 years ago. Some think that the dramatic appearance of the star Sirius near the moon caused people to wonder. For sure, no animals wondered much or for long.
4. The field is infested with competing trivial explanations. Barbara J. King explains at NPR that human religiosity was primed by the meaning-making, imagination, empathy and rule-following of other primates (primates with whom we shared a common ancestor in the past, or those common ancestors themselves). Other primates never built anything like Gobekli Tepe (or even a village shrine). But such events must nonetheless somehow be accounted for by our kinship with them? In other recent accounts, we are also told that human behavior stems from lower testosterone levels 50,000 years ago. So why did such a fall in hormone levels (by accident, we are expected to suppose) never lead to great achievements in any of the many other thousands of life forms? In yet another account, telling stories makes us human. If what makes us human is simply a description of some things humans can do, we are not looking at an informative explanation.
5. No one seems to want to confront the obvious difficulty: If chimpanzee behavior was any use in understanding human attainments, why did those attainments never happen for chimpanzees? No one wants to accept the obvious fact that humans are different. On top of that, the claim that humans are chimp-pig hybrids has been taken seriously. No, this isn't a feminist denunciation that men are pigs. It is a literal but impossible claim. But it is still "science," according to naturalism.
6. There is also a constant need for different human species that died out, leaving only ourselves, evidence for which would support Darwinian theory. "Flores Man" is an example. Supposedly, a new diminutive species of humans (discovered in 2004) arose, flourished, and died out from earlier than 18,000 years ago: To get a sense of the breadth of positions in the controversy, see "Is the Hobbit's Brain Unfeasibly Small ?" (maybe not); "Compelling Evidence Demonstrates that 'Hobbit' Fossil Does Not Represent a New Species of Hominid"; "Researchers offer alternate theory for found skull's asymmetry" (malformed individual); "'Hobbit' Was an Iodine-Deficient Human, Not Another Species, New Study Suggests." The latest article I'm aware of charges that "Homo floresiensis" is an invalid species classification, and the principal skeleton may have been of a woman who suffered from a genetic disorder, Down syndrome. It hardly sounds like settled science to an observer.
7. The original "new species" was the "not-quite-modern-human" Neanderthal (first noted in 1856). The accepted Darwinian interpretation of humanity requires a long, slow transition from a rodent-like primate to us. No one has observed anything of the kind happening. But, fortunately, Neanderthals weren't around as a distinct people group to complain about what was said about them … so for many decades, they stood in for the not-quite-moderns. Current humans have some Neanderthal genes and it is unclear that the group lived differently from the rest of ancient mankind. So any decisions about them are bound to be political or theological at this point. Commenting on a dispute over a supposed human ancestor, Smithsonian paleoanthropologist Richard Potts told the Wall Street Journal, "Evolution is wonderfully messy." Few would dispute it, but a multitude of conflicting speculations does not add up to progress. Maybe that is too challenging a way to put the question. How about, it comes down to what we can responsibly believe. More to the point, who are we? One thing's for sure: There is no reason, based on any of the above, to abandon a typical traditional religious or

philosophical teaching on the origin, let alone the honor and dignity, of human beings. If anything, the sheer vacuity of claims made on behalf of "modern science" (not, in this case, to be confused with actual science) suggests the opposite.

2014-06-23T20:31:00.001-07:00

I read this a few years ago … interesting don’t you agree?
(I also read two translations of the Koran about 7 years ago, and there are at least 17 passages teaching true believers to kill infedels, if they cannot convert or inslave them ~ and it is no sin to kill either slave or infidel. There is also a passage that teaches that anyone who believes Jesus was born of a virgin and is the son of God is a demon and a servant of the devil. Islam is not a "peaceful religion."! Read your history!)

This is a true story and the author, Rick Mathes, is a well-known leader in prison ministry.
The man who walks with God always gets to his destination. If you have a pulse you have a purpose.

   The Muslim religion is the fastest growing religion per capita in the United States, especially in the minority races!! Last month I attended my annual training session that's required for maintaining my state prison security clearance. During the training session there was a presentation by three speakers representing the Roman Catholic, Protestant and Muslim faiths, who each explained their beliefs.
   I was particularly interested in what the Islamic had to say. The Muslim gave a great presentation of the basics of Islam, complete with a video.
After the presentations, time was provided for questions and answers. When it was my turn, I directed my question to the Muslim and asked: 'Please, correct me if I'm wrong, but I understand that most Imams and clerics of Islam have declared a holy jihad [Holy war] against the infidels of the world and, that by killing an infidel, (which is a command to all Muslims) they are assured of a place in heaven. If that's the case, can you give me the definition of an infidel?'
There was no disagreement with my statements and, without hesitation, he replied, 'Non-believers!' I responded, 'So, let me make sure I have this straight. All followers of Allah have been commanded to kill everyone who is not of your faith so they can have a place in heaven. Is that correct?'
   The expression on his face changed from one of authority and command to that of a little boy who had just been caught with his hand in the cookie jar.' He sheepishly replied, 'Yes.'
   I then stated, 'Well, sir, I have a real problem trying to imagine The Pope commanding all Catholics to kill those of your faith or Dr. Stanley ordering all Protestants to do the same in order to guarantee them a place in heaven!'
   The Muslim was speechless! I continued, 'I also have a problem with being your friend when you and your brother clerics are telling your followers to kill me! Let me ask you a question: ‘Would you rather have your Allah, who tells you to kill me in order for you to go to heaven, or my Jesus who tells me to love you because I am going to heaven and He wants you to be there with me?' You could have heard a pin drop as the Imam hung his head in shame.
    Needless to say, the organizers and/or promoters of the 'Diversification' training seminar were not happy with my way of dealing with the Islamic Imam, and exposing the truth about the Muslims' beliefs. In twenty years there will be enough Muslim voters in the U.S. to elect the President! I think everyone in the WORLD should be required to read this, but with the ACLU, there is no way this will be widely publicized, unless each of us sends it on! This is your chance to make a difference...
    Please, for Christ's sake, send it on!

2013-11-17T10:21:00.001-07:00

I post this as a public service ... it is very long, but well worth the read. ~ Antonio

The Bugs in Darwin ... And Other Raptures by Fred Reed ~ November 18, 2013

This is atrociously long by internet standards but I post it anyway. My childhood made me do it. Apologies.

A Preamble

The intent of this essay is not to debate with the ardent of evolutionism, which is the Political Correctness of science. To do so would be pointless. The greatest intellectual divide is not between those who believe one thing and those who believe another, but between those who have an emotional need to believe something fervently and those who can say, “I don´t know.” The former group comprises those tedious Darwinists and Creationists who robotically hurl imprecations at each other like fans of rival football teams. Each blockheadedly refuses to concede the slightest possibility that its doctrine might be other than infallible. To my mind they constitute the best evidence that we did not descend from monkeys, but have not yet ascended to them. Stupidity beyond a certain point is intractable.
I write here for those who can look at the world with curiosity and calm, divining what can be divined and conceding what cannot, without regarding themselves as members of warring tribes. To judge by the writing on evolution in the public prints, there may be as many as three of these.

On Arrogance

"The universe is not only queerer than we suppose, it is queerer than we can suppose."
J. B. S. Haldane
“Queer”: Exactly the right word, suggesting more the world of Alice in Wonderland than the crisp, clean-edged, perfectly ordered and causal world of physics.
Humans today are a puffed-up and overconfident species. We know everything, we believe, or shortly will. We have a sense of near-omniscience equaled only by that of teen-agers. For do we not have have smart phones and Mars landers and PET scans, and do we not all speak wisely of DNA? We are, if not gods, at least godlings on the way up. If you don’t believe this, just ask us.
It was not always so. A thousand years ago, mankind cast a small shadow on the earth and lived in a dark and mysterious world. Little was known, about anything. Gods of countless sorts walked the earth. Spirits inhabited sacred groves. Lightning, the moon, the stars were…what? We had no idea. This brought humility.
We now believe that that nothing is or can be beyond our powers. A contemplative skeptic might advert to a few remaining details: We don´t know where we came from, why we are here, where “here” is, where we are going, or what we ought to do. These are minor questions. We only think about them when we wake up at three a.m. and remember that we are not permanent. We are kidding ourselves.
When people become accustomed to things that make no sense, they begin to seem to. Though we no longer notice it as we peck at tablet computers and listen to droning lowbrow shows about the conquest of nature, we still live in a weird and inexplicable universe, an apparently unending emptiness speckled with sparks of hydrogen fire. It is wicked mysterious. More things in heaven and earth, indeed.
We are not as wise as we think. I reiterate Fred´s Principle: The smartest of a large number of hamsters is still a hamster.

Impossibility Theory

If you look at evolution from other than the perspective of an ideological warrior who believes that he is saving the world from the claws of snake-handling primitive Christians in North Carolina, difficulties arise. Chief among these is the sheer complexity of things. Living organisms are just too complicated to have come about by accident. This, it seems to me, is apparent to, though not provable by, anyone with an open mind.

Everywhere in the living world one sees intricacy wrapped in intricacy wrapped in intricacy. At some point the sane have to say, “This can´t be. Something is going on that I don´t understand.”
Read a textbook of embryology. You start with a barely-visible zygote which, (we are told) guided by nothing but the laws of chemistry, unerringly reacts with ambient chemicals to build, over nine months, an incomprehensibly complex thing we call “a baby.” Cells migrate here, migrate there, modify themselves or are modified to form multitudinous organs, each of them phenomenally complex, all of this happening chemically and flawlessly. We are accustomed to this, and so think it makes sense. The usual always seems reasonable. I don´t think it is. It simply isn´t possible, being a wild frontal assault on Murphy´s Law.
Therefore babies do not exist. Quod erat demonstrandum.
Unless Something Else is involved. I do not know what.
Complexity upon complexity. In virtually invisible cells you find endoplasmic reticula, Golgi apparatus, ribosomes, nuclear and messenger and transfer RNA, lysosomes, countless enzymes, complex mechanisms for transcribing and translating DNA, itself a complex and still-mysterious repository of information. Somehow this is all packed into almost nowhere. That this just sort of, well, you know, happened is too much to believe. It began being believed when almost nothing was known about the complexity of cellular biology, after which, being by then a sacred text, it could not be questioned. And cannot.
The foregoing is only the beginning of complexity. The many organs formed effortlessly in utero are as bafflingly elaborate as cells themselves. Consider (a simplified description of) the parts of the eye: The globe of three layers, sclera, choroid, and retina. Cornea of six layers, epithelium, Bowman´s membrane, substantia propria, Dua's layer, Descemet´s membrane, endothelium. Retina of ten layers. Lens consisting of anterior and posterior capsule and contained proteinacious goop. The lens is held by delicate suspensory ligaments inside the ciliary body, a muscular doughnut that changes the shape of lens so as to focus. An iris of radial and circumferential fibers enervated competitively by the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems in opposition. A pump to circulate the aqueous humor. On and on and on. And equally on and on for all the other organs, which last for seventy years, repairing themselves when damaged.
I can´t prove that this didn´t come about accidentally. Neither can I believe it.

The Details (Wherein Lurketh the Devil)

At every level, complexity mounts. The following simplified description of the biochemical functioning of the retina is from Darwin's Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolutionby Michael Behe. The book, which I recommend, is accessible to the intelligent laymen, for whom it is written. The author includes the following technoglop to give a flavor of what is involved. The sensible reader will skip through most of it.

When light first strikes the retina a photon interacts with a molecule called 11-cis-retinal, which rearranges within picoseconds to trans-retinal. (A picosecond is about the time it takes light to travel the breadth of a single human hair.) The change in the shape of the retinal molecule forces a change in the shape of the protein, rhodopsin, to which the retinal is tightly bound. The protein’s metamorphosis alters its behavior. Now called metarhodopsin II, the protein sticks to another protein, called transducin. Before bumping into metarhodopsin II, transducin had tightly bound a small molecule called GDP. But when transducin interacts with metarhodopsin II, the GDP falls off, and a molecule called GTP binds to transducin. (GTP is closely related to, but critically different from, GDP.)
GTP-transducin-metarhodopsin II now binds to a protein called phosphodiesterase, located in the inner membrane of the cell. When attached to metarhodopsin II and its entourage, the phosphodiesterase acquires the chemical ability to “cut” a molecule called cGMP (a chemical relative of both GDP and GTP). Initially there are a lot of cGMP molecules in the cell, but the phosphodiesterase lowers its concentration, just as a pulled plug lowers the water level in a bathtub. Another membrane protein that binds cGMP is called an ion channel. It acts as a gateway that regulates the number of sodium ions in the cell. Normally the ion channel allows sodium ions to flow into the cell, while a separate protein actively pumps them out again. The dual action of the ion channel and pump keeps the level of sodium ions in the cell within a narrow range. When the amount of cGMP is reduced because of cleavage by the phosphodiesterase, the ion channel closes, causing the cellular concentration of positively charged sodium ions to be reduced. This causes an imbalance of charge across the cell membrane that, finally, causes a current to be transmitted down the optic nerve to the brain. The result, when interpreted by the brain, is vision. If the reactions mentioned above were the only ones that operated in the cell, the supply of 11-cis-retinal, cGMP, and sodium ions would quickly be depleted. Something has to turn off the proteins that were turned on and restore the cell to its original state. Several mechanisms do this. First, in the dark the ion channel (in addition to sodium ions) also lets calcium ions into the cell. The calcium is pumped back out by a different protein so that a constant calcium concentration is maintained. When cGMP levels fall, shutting down the ion channel, calcium ion concentration decreases, too. The posphodiesterase enzyme, which destroys cGMP, slows down at lower calcium concentration. Second, a protein called guanylate cyclase begins to resynthesize cGMP when calcium levels start to fall. Third, while all of this is going on, metarhodopsin II is chemically modified by an enzyme called rhodopsin kinase. The modified rhodopsin then binds to a protein known as arrestin, which prevents the rhodopsin from activating more transducin. So the cell contains mechanisms to limit the amplified signal started by a single photon. Trans-retinal eventually falls off of rhodopsin and must be reconverted to 11-cis-retinal and again bound by rhodopsin to get back to the starting point for another visual cycle. To accomplish this, trans-retinal is first chemically modified by an enzyme to trans-retinol— a form containing two more hydrogen atoms. A second enzyme then converts the molecule to 11-cis-retinol. Finally, a third enzyme removes the previously added hydrogen atoms to form 11-cis-retinal, a cycle is complete.

I can perhaps imagine an Airbus 380 assembling itself. I cannot begin to imagine the foregoing evolving on its own.

Worse Than Intelligent Design: Layers of Impossibility

If in an unexplored region of the Amazon Basin you find a grass hut next to a dugout canoe, you may not know who made them, but you suppose that someone must have. This is the theory of Intelligent Design. When you find in nature systems of unfathomable complexity that nonetheless work flawlessly, it is not unreasonable to suspect that they were designed, and perhaps sustained, by someone, or something. I have no idea who or what or why.
Equally mysterious—equally impossible, I would say—is how biological systems can function at all, no matter how they came into being. The workings of every detail of, say, a human body can indeed be explained mechanistically, and this is the result that comes out of experimentation. In the laboratory you can show, or seem to show, that enzyme A binds to enzyme B, activating enzyme C and allowing enzyme D to do whatever enzyme D does. (You can show that a massive federal program makes sense in detail. But does it work in pactice?)
But to believe that 180 pounds of infinitely complex, interacting chemical reactions (me, for example) can go on for seventy years without utter collapse requires powers of belief beyond the wildest imaginings of religious faith. The whole is less possible than the sum of its parts. Something is going on that we do not understand.

Domain Bloat

Consider a plane geometer. He deals with a limited domain of planes, lines, points, and angles, and nothing else. These produce elegant mathematics and useful results. He cannot deal with volumes, momentum, or tailgate parties, because these cannot be derived from the elements of his domain. They are beyond the scope of his subject.
The domain of the sciences is physics, its elements being space, time, matter, and energy. Everything in science ultimately reduces to physics. There was the (putative) Big Bang, which produced subatomic particles obeying the laws (more correctly descriptions) of physics. Chemistry then appeared, which is roughly the physics of interactions of atoms. Next came biochemistry, a subset of chemistry and thus of physics. Evolution is the physics of interactions of biochemical systems with their physical environment over time, and thus also is a subset of physics. Nothing can happen in evolution that does not derive from and follow the laws of physics.
Just as a baseball game cannot be derived from or be explained by plane geometry, which does not contain matter, energy, time, or space of three dimensions, neither can such things as thought, consciousness, morality, volition, or exaltation be explained by physics. The desire to strangle your mother-in-law does not fall out of the equations of motion. When evolutionists try to explain behavior such as altruism in terms of physics (which is what they are doing, though most of them don´t know it) they are like a plane geometer trying to explain a cheese soufflé in terms of lines and angles in a plane. It can´t be done. The trouble with the sciences (though not of all scientists) is exactly this, that they try to explain within the domain of physics things that are outside of its purview.

Studying Us: Explaining the Explainers

The sciences get into particular difficulties when they try to explain the explainer, which is to say us. Consider the brain which, we are told, is just an electrochemical machine. Everything that happens in the brain, we are told, follows the laws of chemistry and physics.
And this certainly seems to be the case. For example, neurotransmitters diffuse across the synaptic gap: pure chemistry and physics. They bind to receptors on the other side: pure chemistry and physics. Enzymes like acetylcholinesterase clear the residue from the gap: pure chemistry and physics. The resulting nervous impulse sails down the distal fiber as it depolarizes, sodium in, potassium out: pure chemistry and physics. It is as mechanical as a 1901 typewriter.
Which means that the brain cannot, and thus we cannot, make choices. Physical systems cannot choose what to do. A bowling ball dropped from the top of the Washington Monument cannot decide to fall up, or sideways, instead of down, nor choose how fast to fall, nor how far. Similarly, the end point of chemical reactions is determined by starting conditions. A molecule of a neurotransmitter binds ineluctably to a receptor because of stereochemistry and charge. It cannot not bind.
It follows then that we cannot choose one action over another. Our thoughts are predetermined by the physicochemical states of our brains. We think what we think because it is phhysically impossible to think anything else. Thus we cannot think at all. QED.
Unless Something Else is going on. I don´t know what.
Paradox is a consequence of domain bloat. Descartes famously said, “Cogito ergo sum.” Ambrose Bierce less famously but more insightfully said, “Cogito cogito, ergo cogito sum. Cogito.”

Survival of the Survivors

Most peoople think that, "fitness" meaning “suitability for a purpose,” survival of the fittest means that the smarter, stronger, and faster survive and reproduce. It does not. The study of such things is called population genetics and, as a professor of it says, “In population genetics, fitness means the rate of successful reproduction, nothing else.” That is, fitness does not promote survival, but is inferred from it. The circularity is well known: Why do they survive? Because they are fit. How do you know that they are fit? Because they survive.

If fitness means the rate of successful reproduction, we encounter the interesting conclusion that a woman with an IQ of sixty and twelve retarded children by forty-five drive-by fathers is more fit than a Harvard math professor who runs Triathlons but has two children.
If instead of "fitness" with its almost inescapable overtones of physical superiority, we used "reproduction rate," clarity would follow. Perish forbid.
A staple of evolutionism is that evolution works to maximize the number of offspring, thus passing on successful genes. This is plausible but, in the case of us, counter to observation (but why let facts debilitate a perfectly good theory?) The populations of advanced countries, all of which could easily support larger numbers of people, are actually falling. For example, Japan, Spain, Italy, Germany, and Russia. In Mexico, as the standard of living rises, the birth rate falls sharply. How one passes on one´s genes by not passing them on is a mystery of population genetics.
Meanwhile the populations of black Africa and the Moslem world, the civilizational equivalents of the unwed mother with an IQ of 60, grow rapidly. Which is to say that in advanced countries, reproduction of individuals is inversely proportional to circumstances favoring it--intelligence heañth, wealth, and education. Among nations, as noted, a similar phenomenon exists.
When this is pointed out, evolutionists hem and haw (or should I say hem and her?), and then often blame falling populations on contraception, as if this were an outside force, like drought or a new predator. But saying that contraception causes falling populations ls like saying that spears cause hunting. People wanted to eat, so they invented spears. They wanted not to have children, so they invented contraception. Not passing on one´s genes is now almost a preoccupation.
And so evolutionists per force have to concede that Darwinism does not apply to all of life. Other things then must. What fun.

A Thing is Not Possible Merely Because It Happens: The Tarantula Hawk

It is easy to imagine how a complex system, once in existence, can, within limits, evolve under the influence of selective pressures. Any dog breeder can demonstrate this. Or think of the path from Eohippus to Clydesdale. The difficulty lies in knowing how the system came about in the first place.

Consider the Tarantula Hawk, a gigantic wasp that begins life as an egg inside a paralyzed and buried tarantula, where its mother put it. This may seem unmotherly, but there is no accounting for taste. The egg hatches. The larva feeds on the spider, somehow knowing how to avoid the vital organs so as to keep the monster alive and fresh. It pupates and then, a new adult, digs its way out of the burrow.
Off it flies. Never having seen another wasp, or anything else, it finds one, and knows how to mate. (Mating, if you think about it, is a rather more complex process than it may seem to high-schoolers. Some insects mate while flying, which compounds the trickiness. Think airline pilots and stewardesses.) Never having seen a tarantula, it knows how to find one, knows that it needs to attack it, knows exactly how to sting it, knows that it must drag it to its burrow, which it knows it has to dig, knows how to lay its egg on the tarantula and how to bury it.
Now, some of this may be imagined as evolving by gradual steps (emphasis on “imagined,” which in matters evolutionary is good enough) as required by Darwin. All it takes is enough time. In enough time, anything desired will happen. (A diffuse cloud of hydrogen, given time, will turn into San Francisco.) Of millions and billions of eggs deposited in unfortunate tarantulas, over millions of years, some larvae ate the spider´s vital organs and so died in a rotting spider, not passing on their genes. Others pupated but tried to dig out by going downwards or sideways, thus dying and not passing on their genes. Only those with don´t-eat-the-important-parts mutations and this-way-is-up mutations survived, and so their geneses became universal. This we are told.
But…but knowing what a tarantula looks like when you have never seen one, or seen anything, knowing that you need to sting it and just how, that you need to dig a burrow and drag the spider to it, and cover it up, when all of this has to occur simultaneously or the whole process fails….
You have to be smoking Drano.

The Bot Fly

The Bot fly is a squat, ugly, hairy fly that catches a mosquito, lays its eggs on said mosquito after positioning it correctly, and attaches them with a kind of glue. It releases the mosquito. When the little feathery syringe lands on, say, a human, the eggs drop off, hatch, and burrow into the host. These make nasty raised lumps with something wiggling inside them. Later they exit, fall to the ground, and pupate.
How did this evolve? Did a grab-a-mosquito gene occur as a random mutation (assuming that a single mutation could cause such complex behavior)? It would have to be a grab-a-mosquito-but-don´t-cripple-it gene. That is an awful lot of precise behavior for one mutation. At this point the bot fly would have a mosquito but no idea what to do with it. It would need simultaneously to have a stick-eggs-on-mosquito mutation. This would seem to require another rather ambitious gene.
Catching the mosquito without laying the eggs, or squashing the mosquito in the process, or laying eggs in mid air without having caught the mosquito, would seem a losing proposition. Yet further, the glue mechanism for making the eggs drop off onto the host instead of before or not at all, would also have to be present, caused by yet another complex simultaneous mutation. None of these awfully-lucky mutations would be of use without the others. How do you evolve this elaborate dance by gradual steps?
There´s not enough Drano.

Human Deficiencies

Human beings are conspicuous in the natural world for being weak and slow, and for having poor senses of smell and hearing. Why? Evolutionists have multiple stories. One is that because humans walk upright, they can see farther on open veldt and thus have substituted vision for other senses that just are not necessary.
This makes no sense which, as so often in matters evolutionary, doesn´t matter. Obviously being able to detect approaching predators at night by smell would be a great advantage. Lions are the color of dirt and dead vegetation and take advantage of both. Horses, which have good vision, and eyes at about the level of a human´s, have an excellent sense of smell. This story doesn´t live up even to the usual evolutionary standard of vague plausibility.
Another explanation of the poor olfaction of humans is that a more acute sense would require larger olfactory regions in the brain and, since a surprisingly large proportion of the body´s energy is expended by the brain, these larger olfactory regions would increase the need for food and cause starvation in time of famine.
Does this make sense? No.
Consider. Rats have a much better sense of smell than do humans, which they use in finding what they regard as food. A rat´s brain weighs two grams, a human´s about 1350. Let us assume that a rat´s entire brain is dedicated to smell, which of course it isn´t. Adding all of a rat´s brain to the human would increase its size from 1350 to 1352 grams, an increase of 2/1350 or .15%, Since the brain uses 15% of a human´s energy budget, the overall increase in energy requirements is 2/1350 X 100 X .15, or .02%. Not 2%, but .02%. This minute increase cannot possibly offset the advantages of an acute sense of smell.
The same reasoning applies to other sense, such as hearing. And of course people already have olfactory regions. They just don´t do much.

There Must Be a Virus

When people have engaged in bitter ideological war over a creed held dear, they tend to overlook the warts and stains and leaks in the planking. Evolutionism is full of such. An unaffiliated skeptic can point them out in droves.
In evolution, traits which conduce to survival, and thus to the passing on of genes, are supposed to flourish, while traits that work against this happy passing on, or simply do nothing, are supposed to be eliminated. Does this happen?
An obvious problem is male homosexuality. How does not copulating with women pass on one’s genes? The condition would seem to be a prime candidate for elimination by evolution, yet it has apparently been with us forever.
Here evolutionists fall back on their Maginot Line, vague plausibility. For example Greg Cochran, a physicist of immoderate pomposity but undeniable intelligence at the University of Utah, says that a virus causes homosexuality. The chief characteristic of this virus is that no one has been able to detect it. The evolutionary problem is that if homosexuality is genetic, the fact that homosexual men do not have children should cause homosexuality to die out. It doesn´t. Therefore a viurs must, must, must exist. We infer reality from the needs of our theory.
Uh, yeah.
Next, consider evolutionary psychologists. They believe that our behavior is determined by adaptations selected for tens of thousands of years ago. Yes, no, and maybe. A lot of our behavior is clearly biological in nature, which is not quite the same as evolutionary (note the discovery by adolescent boys that girls are not as yucky as they had previously supposed). Yet a lot of behavior isn´t explainable in evolutionary terms.
Examples abound: what is the reprocuctive value of suicide, masochism, sadism, schizophrenia, and so on.? Should these not be filtered from the gene pool? A Neanderthal who thought that the CIA put transmitters in his teeth and tried to shake hands with Kodiak bears might limit his reproductive opportunities.
Again, the problem is Domain Bloat, insisting thet one´s theory explain what it can explain but also what it can´t.
Consider pain. If you step on broken glass, it hurts, so you stop doing it, and don´t end up crippled and eaten by wolves, and so you can pass on your genes upon encountering an amiable maiden. This makes sense. Whether it happens is another matter, but it does make sense.
What doesn´t make sense is the agonizing pain caused by many circumstances about which, pre-medicine, the victim could do nothing. Kidney stones, for example, are paralyzingly painful. A choroidal hemorrhage, behind the retina, is hideous. The agony has no utility since the sufferer can do nothing about it. For that matter, the contribution of migraines to survival is not apparent, as a person rolling on the ground and clutching his head would seem vulnerable to ingestion. On and on. Why the abundant pain receptors with no function? Why do they not, like Marx´s state, wither away?
Perhaps instead of asking, “How does evolution explain a thing?” we should occasionally ask “Does evolution explain it?”

Impossible, Impossibler, Impossiblest

Living things are impossible, but some are more so. Consider brains. Larger brains supposedly allow more-complex behavior. In a laptop civilization, we refer to this as “processing power.” But consider hornets, cautiously. These have very complex behavior but almost no brains or other nervous tissue. Yet their unbrains control six multiply-joined legs (any robotics engineer will tell you that this is a massive problem), and allow them to fly precisely, also a very difficult problem. They know just how to chew wood fiber to make a paste from which they know how to construct complex nests. They know how and when to mate, which is not as simple a processs. The same barely existent nervous system operates various senses and interprets the resulting data, which also isn´t easy. They find food, inform the others of its location, and navigate effortlessly over long distance.
Yet hornets are pointy-headed intellectuals compared to pharaoh ants, those super-tiny picnic abominations of which several would fit on a hornet´s eye. They too have complex social organization and so on—with hardly any neurons. In general, the behavior of social insects is probably more complex than that of whales. It is inexplicable, or at least unexplained.

Metamorphosis: You Can’t Get There from Here

One of the more evolutionarily preposterous mysteries is metamorphosis in four-cycle insects. Some bug-like critters are two-cycle. For example, a spider´s egg hatches into a tiny spider which grows into a big one. Many, such as butterflies, are four-cycle: egg, larva, pupa, adult.
A butterfly´s egg hatches into a caterpillar, which has no resemblance at all to a butterfly. In physics, butterflies and caterpillars would be anti-particles. This soft, legless, wingless gelatinous tube then pupates and, through a fantastically complex series of physical rearrangements, turns into a fantastically complex butterfly (look at butterflies in detail: they are fantastically complex). Unless something we don´t understand is going on, the likelihood of this happening at all is essentially zero.
The probability of its evolving seems less. How do you get by gradual steps from arthropods that do not have four-cycle lives to those that do? I cannot come up with even the vague plausibility required by Darwinism. Did a pre-existing arthropod shed its exoskeleton, lose its jointed legs, merge head, thorax, and abdomen to become a caterpillar? What selective pressures would cause this? But if it did do this, would not the result be a free-standing species of caterpillar? How do you get by gradual steps from caterpillar to pupating into a butterfly? Pupation is phenomenally complex. You either get all of it right the first time, or you don´t get another chance.
You can believeit if you want.

Morality

Clear examples of things outside the domain of physics are morality, right and wrong, Good and Evil. A Darwinist cannot say that some things are intrinsically wrong. “Wrong” cannot be derived from physics. Instead he must show that moral behavior exists because it promotes the passing on of genes. Thus I nurse my brother back to health when he has a broken leg because together we can protect ourselves and our women better and thus pass on our genes.
But suppose a Darwinist found out that my hobby was using a blow torch to torture to death children with severe congenital retardation—vegetables, in the unkind vernacular. He would be horrified.
“Why?” I would ask. “We certainly do not want them passing on their extremely defective genes. Caring for them expends resources that would be better spent in raising more children to pass on our genes. Torturing them has no more evolutionary meaning than simply killing them instantly. What then is your objection?”
His objection would of course be that torturing children is wrong. But “wrong” doesn´t exist within the domain of physics, and so of Darwinism. Thus we see that he doesn´t really believe what he says he believes. Domain bloat.
There is Something Else involved. I do not know what.

2013-11-04T12:20:00.003-07:00

Today is the 4th day of my favorite month ... November !
Besides being the month of my birthday (November 13th) and my brother Mickey's birthday (same day, different years) it is the month in 2001 that I took Ms Hilda out on a second date (November 3rd) and changed my life forever ... and in 2008 our anniversary. It is the month that means (thankfully) no more Baseball until spring ... not a big baseball fan. It is the month of Thanksgiving Day. It is the month of the US Marine Corps birthday the 10th and Veteran's Day on the 11th.
Doug Sahms ... Sir Douglas Quintet / Texas Tornadoes / Los Super Seven / The Last Real Texas Blues Band / etc ... was born on November 6, 1941 and died November 18, 1999.
Other folks that I like who were born this month include: you'll probably notice that I tend to remember musician's birthdays more than other folks ... that's how I roll.
11-1 Lyle Lovett
11-3 J.D. Souther
11-4 Art Carney, Loretta Swit, Delbert McClinton and Laura Bush
11-5 Roy Rogers, Art Garfunkle
11-6 Sally Fields and Pat Tillman ... NFL and US Army Ranger (KIA)
11-9 Mary Travers (Peter. Paul & Mary), Tom Fogarty (John C.'s brother ... CCR)
11-11 Leonard DiCaprio
11-13 ME & MICKEY ...
Toy Caldwell (Marshall Tucker Band) ... on the same day as Mickey
Vinnie Testaverde
11-14 Prince Charles (Prince of Wales), Condoleezza Rice
11-17 Gordon Lightfoot, Martin Scorsese
11-19 Dan Haggerty (Grizzly Adams), Jodie Foster
11-21 Troy Aikman, Goldie Hawn
11-22 Jamie Lee Curtis, Scarlett Johannson

I think that Caroline Kennedy and JFK Jr. were both born in November also. Of course, that's the month their dad was assassinated.
Of course ... like all months ... we have our share of disappointments like Janet Napolitano, Whoppie Goldberg and Miley Cyrus.

2013-10-22T07:13:00.000-07:00

I had to take the ever lovely Ms. Hilda to Big Lots today … for a few items. They had large Christmas displays up, and they've been up a week … I asked. Some of the items have been up a little longer. And people wonder why I am out of the Christmas spirit by the first week of December. Is it too early for a Bah Humbug !!! It's only mid September

Doctor Rosenberg (Hilda's oncologist) found out what may be Ms. Hilda's "main" problem (besides me). She has an "Insulin Immune Reaction System" problem and they want to give her intravenous chemo. The problem is … TAH DAH!! Medicare will not cover it. So they are going to contact the drug manufacturer and see if we can get a break. The treatment is once a week for 4 weeks and that's a few thousand $$$ per week. Pray for her (us).

Cousin Fred in Mexico makes a point

2013-09-17T07:36:00.001-07:00

      In 1964 Hampden-Sydney College, in Southside Virginia, was fairly typical of American schools and particularly of the small, good Southern schools of the region: Randolph-Macon College for men in Ashland, co-ed William and Mary in Williamsburg, and Randolph-Macon Women's College in Lynchburg among others.
     H-S, as we called it, was entirely male, both as to students and professors. This had the great advantage that we could concentrate on the job at hand, as for example learning things, instead of pondering the young lovely at the next desk. These latter were available at Longwood State Teachers College (now of course Longwood University), seven miles away.
    Hampden-Sydney was not MIT. Average SAT scores were perhaps 1150 if memory serves. The students were chiefly drawn from the small and pleasant towns of rural Virginia, and would go on to become doctors, attorneys, and businessmen. Yet H-S embodied (and still does), by today´s standards, a remarkable philosophy of education, and showed that reasonably but not appallingly bright young can be educated. So did most colleges.
     It was then believed that higher education was for the intelligent and the prepared, for no more than the upper twenty percent, perhaps fifteen ore even ten percent of graduates of high school.
At Hampden-Sydney, “Prepared” meant “prepared.” It was assumed that students could read perfectly and knew algebra cold. There were no remedial courses. The idea would have been thought ridiculous if anyone had thought it at all. If you needed remediation, you belonged somewhere else. Colleges were not holding tanks for the mildly retarded.
    The purpose of a college, it was then thought was to turn college boys—we were then called “college boys” and “college girls”—into educated young adults. Part of this meant that we should act like adults, which meant as ladies and gentlemen. This concept, currently regarded as odd and even inauthentic, meant deploying good manners when appropriate, not dressing like the contents of an industrial dumpster, and avoiding in mixed company the constant use of sexual reference in words of few letters.

     Hampden-Sydney then provided a liberal education, which is simply to say an education, everything else being vocational training. A belief seldom stated but firmly held was that if you didn´t have a reasonable familiarity with literature, history, the arts and sciences and the like, you belonged to a lower order of existence. College should provide the familiarity. The faculty believed that teenagers, which most of us were, didn´t know enough to decide in what education consisted, or what we needed to learn, so there were a great many required courses. These varied between BA and BS programs, but, for example, a student majoring in history took two years each of two languages, one of them ancient (Latin or Greek), surveys of philosophy, art, a math course, and two of the sciences.
   The latter were not Football Physics or Chemistry for Cretins. They were the same courses the science majors took.
   The students were then all white and so could be graded on their academic performance. Rigor was considerable. I can still read French after two years with Dr. Albert Leduc who, judging by the workload he imposed, we suspected of being a sadist who spent his spare time pulling the wings from flies. Freshman chemistry amounted to P-chem lite, heavy on quantum theory and endless, endless, endless solution of laboratory problems of the sort encountered in the real world. It was hard. A remedial student would not have lasted thirty seconds.
    Such was schooling in 1964. Then came the Sixties, which actually started in mid-decade and didn´t have their full effect for some time. But everything changed.
   A proletarian egalitarianism emerged across the country, urging that everyone should go to college. A tidal wave of the dim and unready washed onto campuses. To facilitate their entry, admission standards had to be lowered and, to keep them in, academic standards. Colleges, which began calling themselves “universities,” discovered that there was money in these un-students, and expanded to house more of them. (The students ceased to be college kids and became “men” and “women,” while increasingly acting like children.) To recruit politically desirable black students, affirmative action arose and, when these recruits sank to the bottom, “black studies” were instituted, having no definable standards and teaching nothing. “Women´s Studies” followed, allowing girls who lacked scholarly interests to enjoy indignation without suffering the unaccustomed pangs of thought. These quickly became departments of virtuous hostility to men and whites (for who is more sexist than a feminist, or more racist than a black?)
    Since these young generally lacked either the curiosity or acuity for genuine studies, they wanted to be amused. Courses entitled The Transcendentalists of New England or Europe from 1926 were too boring, assuming that the purported students had heard of Transcendentalism or Europe, so they demanded and got The History of the Comic Book in American Culture. Such courses amounted to Remedial Sandbox, but sounded like college courses. It was enough.
   These enlarged children were paying for college, or at least their fathers were, and they wanted value for money. That meant grades. Soon everybody was getting A's and B's. What they were not getting was an education but since they didn't know what one was, they didn't notice. They called themselves men and women, without behaving as such, but that was close enough. They attended a College-Shaped Place, so they figured they must be going to college, and they got great grades, so they must be learning something.
   Those in the Victims Studies departments rejoiced in extended adolescent rebellion against their parents while engaging in disguised indolence, thus joining the historically comic class of the pampered and bored who imagine themselves as being in some vanguard or other.

     Thus died American education. A few outposts remained, and remain, but very few. Men and women of my age are the last fully schooled generation. What are we to feel other than contempt for these intellectually bedraggled victims, not of their beloved sexism and racism but of a demented egalitarianism that thinks that pretending that everyone is educated is better than allowing those capable of it to be so. How much sense does this make?