Hillary’s ad

I don’t know if Clemens is guilty though he looks like it. I don’t think Congress is going to learn jack squat. They rarely prove perjury and I doubt much will happen here.

There is a ton of evidence to show that eye witnesses are consistently wrong. People will begin to believe their lies. People can be swayed to alter their memories. So what is the truth?

We ain’t going to find it here. Truth is rarely black and white. Look at all of the people who have been released from prison due to DNA. This is a waste of Congresses time.

In their bipartisan zeal to quickly cut a deal on an economic stimulus bill, GOP lawmakers overlooked something that will certainly inflame the conservative base _ illegal immigrants could receive a tax rebate check from the government.

But maybe this is a goodbye present.

Probably what I am most annoyed with is people who will step up with no lack of confidence saying that they are right. They don’t know and most don’t. I can’t do that.  The ones who probably do know don’t really care about telling others because it won’t matter.

I ranted about this before but it still annoys me. Everything gets refuted. I just saw an article saying that bone density is mainly based on ethnicity. I won’t link because there is another one saying that study is full of crap.

Is money the issue? Do they make/get the grants because of what they want to find? Do they change the results in their own best interest? The more things change they more they stay the same?

Take Chernobyl for example. Worse disaster in recent times. I thought it was a total wipeout with deformed children as the aftermath.

The recent report of the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR) is in total disagreement with the opinions widely propagated by the international media, by the Greens, and by the governments of Belarus and Ukraine, that there have been tens of thousands of cancer deaths and epidemics of genetic disorders, allegedly caused by the Chernobyl accident. To the contrary, UNSCEAR states, even among the progeny of the survivors of the atomic attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, who received radiation doses hundreds of times higher than the radiation doses to the inhabitants of regions contaminated by the Chernobyl accident, no radiogenetic disturbances of health have been found.

Who is lying? Do they even believe they are lying? Both cannot be true. Here is a report for ABCNews on Chernobyl and radiation. In it they talk about the overblown reports Chernobyl and how we are bombarded with radiation just standing around. And that some people visit a Montana uranium mine to improve their health.

In this article three people argue about the placebo effect. Almost wants makes me want to go back to the stone age except for the lack of toilet paper and TV.

The reason this pisses me off so much is I like to be right. And I cannot stand to be wrong. I am drawn to science for this reason. But I am learning science is as fuzzy as Einstein’s hair. So where does that leave me?

Do I just randomly pick things to believe in and ignore all information to the contrary to give me piece of mind sitting like a sailboat with it’s sail down? Or do I let the frustrating crosswinds whip me around as I try to navigate with my sails up? Which method of travel is better?

This quote sums it up pretty well,

I prefer the company of peasants because they have not been educated sufficiently to reason incorrectly.
– Michel de Montaigne

All of the “education” in actually a form of indoctrination to a way of thinking. Just as there are camps in Physics and Psychology, they come from a certain point of view. To pull away from it is be thrown out of your group be it science or religion.

I have to remind myself that,

No amount of sophistication is going to allay the fact that all your knowledge is about the past and all your decisions are about the future. —Ian E. Wilson

Also most people don’t have their mirrors adjusted correctly.  Side mirrors should not show the side of your car.  If anything is touching the side of your car you are already screwed.  Your side mirror should be a continuation of what you see in your rear view mirror.

Blind spots are no excuse for accidents just like shyness is a cover for being scared.

• LA County Murder Trial $625,000
• Death Penalty sought $1.9 Million
• Cost to put 5 guys on death row in NY State $23 Million

So now I just wanted them to rot in there. I just didn’t see that it would deter criminals. Most people, and maybe my thoughts are derived from movies, don’t think or care about the death penalty at the moment of the crime. A lot of deaths would seem to be a crime of the moment or passion.

But apparently there is some evidence that

“each execution, on average, results in 18 fewer murders.” And alsothat, “Specifically each additional execution reduces homicides by 5 to 6, and three additional pardons (commutations) generate 1 to 1.5 additional murders.”

New Jersey wants to fast track an end to the death penalty.   I heard Lars Larson’s late night talk show last night which led me to this site.  Oddly enough if you put “the morality of the death penalty” into google you will find both sides of the debate. One saying it is moral and the other saying it is not.

I am not a journalistic reporter or number crunching economist just like 99% of the population.  The only thing I think that would sway me on the idea that innocents might be executed is if I knew of people who had never done any time in jail before the homicide for which they were convicted.

If someone can give me evidence of that I would be interested in that.  Otherwise my feelings are that people get away many times over for the behavior they are caught.

People who speed didn’t just do it that one time they got caught.  I have a hard time believing that a criminal getting busted the third time for the “Three Strikes Law” had only committed those three crimes.

Jail is not a deterrence for the average repeat offender.  But there was an interesting statistic on one of the sites that was intriguing.  States with the death penalty have higher homicide rates, 9.0 vs 9.3.   If a state that doesn’t have the death penalty neighbors one that does, the former has a lower homicide rate.

I can’t wrap my head around that one but I still think it should be there.  And to answer the typical question, “Would I pull the switch?”  Most likely not.  I don’t know if I would want to be the judge in tough cases either, or the guy on the bomb squad, an undertaker, garbage collector, etc.

“Hey little Sally, want to have some fun riding a tiny horse in a circle?  Won’t that be exciting?  Doesn’t it look happy?  And if you don’t enjoy it, we always have the dog at home to kick.”

Subtle aren’t I?  I don’t understand people putting birds in cages either.  Like a comedian said, “Oh look how beautiful this creature is with the gift of flight!  Let’s lock it away.”

While we are on animals, check out the post about the Humane Society which I found surprising.