Recently one of my more devout friends got into a mini-debate about so-called Creation Science and the veracity of the Bible as a scientifically true book. His pièce-de-résistance was the article quoted below. It’s not my purpose here to refute Creation Science itself, but to refute calling it true science. It is, like phrenology, a pseudo-science. Read the rest of this entry »
Theoretical Creative Destruction
February 7th, 2010Geek Product Design
February 7th, 2010The OpenOffice Mouse – Boing Boing:
“It supports Windows, Linux, and Macintosh operating systems, will retail for $74.99, and is not a joke. [OpenOfficeMouse]“
(Via Boing Boing.)
And this is why engineers rarely can design products for mortal computer users.
UPDATE: Forgot photo
Budget Sense and Nonsense « The Baseline Scenario
February 3rd, 2010Budget Sense and Nonsense « The Baseline Scenario:
“So, let’s recap. The medium-term deficit problem was created by Bush tax cuts and by an unfunded Bush-era expansion of Medicare. The long-term deficit problem is all about Medicare. Yet the only solution that Republicans can think of is reducing spending–but not Medicare spending. Of course, this shouldn’t surprise us; Mitch McConnell gave us this, after all:*”
(Via The Baseline Scenario.)
A picture is worth a thousand words.
Why I’m not into Elephants
February 3rd, 2010Are African-Americans ready to embrace the GOP? Part 2
Jeff Booker, who is currently on the Gloucester Township GOP committee and previously served as the Executive Director of Camden County GOP (2002-04) stated, “I believe that the GOP is the party that exemplifies responsibility, small government, liberty, and self-determination. Younger blacks are becoming Republican because they see the negative affect of a large out of control government can be. As you get older, people start to change their views. We are starting to see suspicion in the local Democratic Party. However, our party has not done a good job of recruiting people of color and I am apart [sic] of the effort to do better.”
via Examiner.com.
First let me say Jeff is a good friend and I respect him and his choice to be a Republican. Even more I applaud his efforts to recruit better. I have long been suspicious of the party because of it’s deplorable track record regarding race and it’s loud and showy “Christianity” that is short on the values that Jesus taught. Having said that, GOP ideology when reduced to core principles that can flexibly be expressed in policy are compatible with mine which are generally center left. If a GOP candidate focused on the following, which generally deals with how the GOP could handle race and religion, I wouldn’t rule out voting for them. (Hey, after the 2008 campaign where Palinites were shouting, “KILL HIM!” that’s the best I can do.)
- You Can Be Tough on Crime…Equally – By the DOJ’s own statistics, blacks in the system face a stacked deck from drug war laws that give poor, lower level criminals longer sentences than the kingpins who supply them to the unequal sentencing of the death penalty to police brutality and murder and racial profiling.
- You Have to Have a Job to Have Your Taxes to Cut – It has been scientifically proven that a black man with a clean job history has less of a chance of getting hired than a white ex-con…in New York City. And that’s in a blue, blue, blue state. Imagine the red states where the GOP dominates. You don’t have to be for Affirmative Action. Craft a policy such as class based affirmative action, that you can prove benefits poor black folks and that your ideology can support. Bougie Negroes like Jeff and I might not benefit, but so what? AA wasn’t supposed to be for us anyway!
- Come Clean about a Racist Past and THEN Move On (no pun intended) – Ever since Nixon first employed the infamous Southern Strategy, the GOP has used the racial fears and racism in white voters to win elections from Willie Horton to Barack “HUSSEIN” Obama. And despite Ken Mehlman’s apology to the NAACP, I have not seen any serious attempt to change this. Painting Obama as an Arab/Muslim was a clear example of this. Stop providing joy and comfort to racists. And be public about it. We don’t trust you otherwise. It’s that simple.
- Know What Christian Values Are and Live Them- Jesus was very specific on being anti-death penalty (John 8:2-11), lending without expectation of repayment (Luke 6:35), giving generously to the poor and uplifting them (Luke 6:20, 18:22), turning the other cheek (Luke 6:29), blessing our enemies (Luke 6:28), providing care to the sick (Matthew 25:34-40), praying in private (Matthew 6:5-6), and visiting prisoners (Matthew 25:34-40). The party really needs to reconsider it’s pro-war, pro-death penalty, pro-prison, public prayer, anti-poor, anti-healthcare policies before you can claim a lock on Christian values (Matthew 25:41-46). I mean, really! (Luke 6:46-49)
So if the party can produce a candidate that seriously deals with the four points above, I don’t see why plenty of black people wouldn’t consider the party myself included.
iPads and Humans
February 3rd, 2010http://northtemple.com/2010/02/01/on-ipads-grandmas-and-gam
First my Dad. Next I’m sure my technophobe Aunt. I’m just waiting for her call after my Mom chats her up about the thing.
I’m now convinced about adjusting my parents accounts using Parental Controls. I’ve long been a tough love advocate with them figuring they should be exposed to what they have to deal with on a computer. When the inevitably stumble, be there with iChat to help.
But since it looks like Apple has a Second Coming of the Mac, I’ve had a change of heart. I’m going to start favoring the human side more like the author said and downgrade their accounts to SimpleFinder. Get them some of that iPad experience today.
Pressed to Move
February 1st, 2010Well the move to WordPress from MovableType is complete. WP is a much easier platform to work with.
Importing, however, was a nightmare. Had to hack a PHP page to get things working. It’s not 100% because of a few posts not porting over correctly and possibly a handful of broken links. But this is close enough for government work!
Earning The Temporary Hatred Of Your Children – Ta-Nehisi Coates
January 21st, 2010Earning The Temporary Hatred Of Your Children – Ta-Nehisi Coates:
“This is hard for a lot of people to hear, but in my family, in my neighborhood, and in my community this is what part of what parenting meant. If you weren’t feeling the edge of the sword on your ass, then you were responding to the possibility of it. One thing I learned, while touring for my book, was that a lot of people consider this to be child abuse. It really was news to me and ultimately unthinkable. Almost everyone I’d ever known had come up the same way. My book editor would joke, while reading, the manuscript about his grandmother coming up from the South and making him go search for a switch. In Harlem.”
(Via Ta-Nehisi Coates.)
Truth be known, I’m trying to avoid it as much as possible. But push come to shove, I’m going to shove. Better me than the police who will not temper their assault nor will give or repeat verbal warnings prior.
Is It Live Birth or Is It Memorex?
December 7th, 2009Last week I had a disagreement with my pastor over the nativity stories and their veracity as history at Bible study (a story for another day) that got me to thinking about nativity scenes and the old and tired battles about truth and the Bible. However, it never ceases to amaze me how people avoid facing facts in service to what they believe (and this includes you athiests out there, perhaps especially so given recent events). I think it has to do with our need to order our world and make it comprehensible, predictable in some way. I’m not judging whether this is bad or good, just the way it is often discussed in a less than honest fashion IMHO. So back to the nativity.
The discussion at Bible study turned to Christ’s birth and I remember Father speaking of eyewitnesses, etc. I objected to this because there are lots of problems with claiming the birth stories together are eyewitness accounts and are therefore history, at least history of a sort. Even our understanding of the nativity as an amalgam of Luke and Matthew has issues. In the end, magi offering gifts to a babe laid in a manger is not a scriptural scene. In other words it’s not in the Bible. Yet we see nativity scenes in front of plenty of churches and have kids play out Christmas plays every year, traditions that I think speak to a deep need to make the separate stories in Luke and Matthew make sense together and support our faith in a modern world.
And I’m OK with that as long as we are honest and up front about it. When a believer goes into spin mode in an attempt mask the simple fact that Jesus’ birth is a historical mystery beyond the tradition that holds that he was born of a virgin in Bethlehem of Judea a little over two millenia ago, it’s worse than an outright lie, it’s a con job: an attempt to fool another person ( or oneself!) through trickery.
I know such language is harsh and unforgiving but we all know whose game lies and trickery is. It’s important we don’t succumb to such temptations to speak in half truths which are whole lies. It besmirches the Gospel which is so dear to us.
Why I Love Thinking: It’s a Rare Commodity
November 16th, 2009This morning I saw some college undergrads analyze the healthcare bill more incisively than any legislator, policy wonk, or pundit. That is both a source of pride in the students I’m privileged to teach and terror in that none of our leaders in Washington seem to get what the hell is going on.
This is a black eye most of all on my President Barack Obama who, as a generally supportive but frustrated professor said, “should have brought doctors and economists together to craft a real solution” to be debated in Congress. I once thought his standards too high, but mine were too low. And it is clearly reflected in the bill.
I’m still optimistic because our system seems to be self correcting over the long haul. I pray we correct soon. Until then I’ll at least enjoy the GOP get pummelled by fact checks.
Ballmer Embarrasses Himself (Again)
October 24th, 2009The Associated Press: With Windows 7 and new designs, PCs looking better:
“Microsoft has more to contend with than computers running other operating systems. People have begun to use such gadgets as the iPhone as tiny mobile computers.
But Ballmer scorns the idea that smart phones could unseat PCs as the technology of choice for on-the-go consumers.
‘Let’s face it, the Internet was designed for the PC. The Internet is not designed for the iPhone,’ Ballmer said. ‘That’s why they’ve got 75,000 applications — they’re all trying to make the Internet look decent on the iPhone.’”
(Via Google News.)
Now that’s so stupid, I’m embarrassed for him.
