Sacrificing Self-Sacrifice?

My Google news page linked to an interesting Associated Press article titled "'Gospel of Wealth'Facing Scrutiny" by Eric Gorski. Evidently there are evangelical ministries raking in untold (to the IRS) riches and the various pastors are living the life of luxury. Predictably, all this money has caught the attention of the U.S. government:

The probe by Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa, the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, has brought new scrutiny to the underlying belief that brings in millions of dollars and fills churches from Atlanta to Los Angeles — the "Gospel of Prosperity," or the notion that God wants to bless the faithful with earthly riches.

All six ministries under investigation preach the prosperity gospel to varying degrees.

This raised a question in my mind. In light of the growth of religion in America in recent decades, could it be that this growth is due not to the appeal of self-sacrifice, the stock in trade of all religions, but to the appeal of self-survival, a morally acceptable self-interest that is ok with God? I think it is so. From the article:

One of the teaching's attractions is that it doesn't dwell on traditional Christian themes of heaven and hell but on answering pressing concerns of the here and now, said Brian McLaren, a liberal evangelical author and pastor.

The result of this appeal is:

Yet the prosperity gospel continues to draw crowds, particularly lower- and middle-income people who, critics say, have the greatest motivation and the most to lose. The prosperity message is spreading to black churches, attracting elderly people with disposable incomes, and reaching huge churches in Africa and other developing parts of the world.

Obviously these ministries are appealing to the desire for the unearned but using self-interest as a hook. They seem to be saying "don't feel guilty for making money but do feel guilty if you don't sacrifice some of it to God's voices here on Earth, (us evangelicals)." A lot of people are looking for a moral sanction that tells them it's ok to be self-interested without feeling guilty about it. It is going to be difficult however to convince people that self-interest is in fact virtuous as long as they insist that virtue must be sacrificial. What's sad is that what most people call a sacrifice really isn't. When I talk to most people today, what they call a sacrifice is actually a trade. But in their mind a trade cannot be virtuous. So they just call their trades sacrifices in order to feel virtuous.

As long as this is the case, these people will always be in the market for something that will make sacrifice work like a trade while allowing them to pretend the transaction is in fact a sacrifice and thus virtuous. It is the need for a moral sanction for earning wealth coupled with the desire to avoid guilt that these ministries are cashing in on.

I recommend reading the entire article. I saw a little humor in the sentence:

One of the pastors in the Grassley probe, Bishop Eddie Long of suburban Atlanta, has written that God told him to get rid of the "ungodly governmental structure" of a deacon board.

And I saw a little honesty in the sentence:

But the prosperity gospel, McLaren said, not only preys on the hope of the vulnerable, it puts too much emphasis on individual success and happiness.

I don't think the tax-exempt status of these ministries is in any danger. Sen. Grassley will hold a hearing, demand more transparency, the pastors will agree, probably ala the Joyce Meyer disclosures, and that will be the end of it.

I do think these ministries however are approaching a contradiction they cannot afford. Is self-sacrifice being sacrificed to self-interest? I think this is what is scaring the other ministries that don't preach the prosperity gospel.

Light Blogging

As you may have guessed by now, blogging may be light till after the first but if you're looking for something other than bad news, Nicholas Provenzo has some pictures of Gunston Hall at George Mason U after a dusting of snow.

And,

Ralph Buttigieg reports on a new world record cave dive. I don't think I could spend 15 hours in a decompression chamber though.

Two More Things Spotted By Mike's Eyes

The 12/21/07 print edition of the Detroit News printed a LTE of mine in response to an AP article proclaiming that Arctic ice was melting faster that scientists expected.

Arctic ice melt temporary
I protest the Dec. 12 Associated Press article "Arctic ice melting faster" because it is misleading. It is not true that the melting is caused by carbon dioxide emissions from human activity. The ice is melting because the Pacific Ocean, since 1976, has had a south-to-north movement of warm air to the Arctic. It is due to revert back to a weak phase any time. When it does, the Arctic ice will reform. The speed at which it is melting may surprise some scientists but not those who study climate history.

Every now and then I have to and want to let the media know that the BS their readers are hearing about the perils of global warming are just that, BS.
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On a lighter note.

Last week we in the Midwest really got dumped on with snow. My suburb of Detroit got 8 inches. Some burbs got 10 and 12 inches. Schools were all closed the next day. On the third day though my sidewalk was shoveled as were all my neighbors' and the schools were reopened. An elementary school is only a block from my house which is why I moved here many years ago. As I sat there in my dinette drinking my morning coffee and looking out the front window, I observed small groups of kids with backpacks strapped over their shoulders walking to school. But instead of walking on the nice clean sidewalk, they deliberately stepped off the walk and into the deep snow between the walk and the street and walked to school that way. A smile broke across my face as I took in this sight and recalled my own childhood in which I did the same thing. I didn't have an explicit, well thought out reason for wanting to walk in the snow. It was more like an urge which, if it could be put into words might be something like "Go ahead. It might be fun".

It's good to know I was just being natural. There is nothing wrong with human nature, properly understood.

Merry Christmas to all!

Spotted by Mikes Eyes Tue. 12/18/07

Yesterday 12/17/07, I stopped by the Cassandra Page and found a head shaking quote by Mark Steyn. Evidently Mark has found a couple writers who are perfect that is, 110%, misanthropes. According to Mr. Steyn:

Oxford University Press has published a book by professor David Benatar of the University of Cape Town called "Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming into Existence." The author "argues for the 'anti-natal' view – that it is always wrong to have children … . Anti-natalism also implies that it would be better if humanity became extinct." As does Alan Weisman's "The World Without Us" – which Publishers Weekly hails as "an enthralling tour of the world … anticipating, often poetically, what a planet without us would be like." It's a good thing it "anticipates" it poetically, because, once it happens, there will be no more poetry.

Ayn Rand once referred to this mentality as the worship of the zero, the non-being. As usual, her identification was right on.
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My opinion.

Benny Peiser has an article in The Financial Post titled "climate alarmism hits a brick wall". While that general idea pleases me, my point is the pragmatic--which means unprincipled--nature of Australia's new leader elect. This paragraph is in evidence:

This power shift has perhaps never been more transparent and dramatic than in
Bali, when Australia's Labour government, under the newly elected Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, announced a
complete U-turn on the thorny issue of mandatory carbon dioxide emissions
targets. Only days after Australia's delegation had backed Europe's demand for a
25% to 40% cut in emission by 2020, Mr. Rudd declared (his signature under the
Kyoto Protocol wasn't even dry) that his government would not support such
targets after all.

Ayn Rand once pointed out that modern pragmatists don't want to get elected to advocate certain ideas. They advocate certain ideas in order to get elected. I almost feel sorry for the Aussies. They have elected one of these.

Their only hope I think, is that he wants to stay in power so bad he'll do whatever they want. But do they even know what they want? Perhaps the Aussies want a leader who will say the magic words that will make the Europeans and the UN greenies like them. Maybe they're so terrified of not being liked they will elect a man like Rudd who will say the right words and go through the right motions (perform the right rituals) to achieve the expediency of the moment and everything will be nicey wicey again.

I'm glad Mr. Rudd nixed the Kyoto accord but do our mates down under really prefer a man who says one thing and does another-Rudd-to a man who says one thing and stands by it-Howard? I guess I'll have to wait and see.

Update: Corrected word in F.Post title.

Look Who's Talking

Via Fred Singer's Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP) comes news that the Pope has criticized greens for their gloom and doom senarios. According to the linked article at the Daily Mail:

The 80-year-old Pope said the world needed to care for the environment but not to the point where the welfare of animals and plants was given a greater priority than that of mankind.

Despite the fact that this sounds quite rational and the Pope is right about placing man above plants and animals, I think there is an underlying motive.

The Pope, leader of one of the world's largest religions, is acutely aware that his religion has some serious competition in environmentalism. In the spirit of "Thou shalt not worship false gods before me" or something like that, he seems to be saying all the attention and donations going to NGOs should go to the Church and the alms basket. But I had to chuckle when the article said:.

The German-born Pontiff said that while some concerns may be valid it was vital that the international community based its policies on science rather than the dogma of the environmentalist movement.

Look who's talking about dogma!

The church and the NGOs both call for man's sacrifice. But the Holy See sees exactly what is going on. He sees enviromentalism as the new God and "carbon footprint" as the new original sin. It's competition for the sacrificial offerings pure and simple. The government, public and the press are mostly clueless on this. Seems like the only people who truly understand what's going on are the Greens, Objectivists, some skeptics, and the Papacy.

Public Interest Trumps Private Interest

Billy Beck has a good post at Two-four about how the New York Times is looking more like the old Soviet Union's Pravda every day. He points out how the Times regards Bush's tax cuts as depriving the government of its money. He even has a relevant quote from Ayn Rand on the subject. But I'm mainly concerned with an excellent point Billy made when he wrote:

Sometimes, dear reader, the FNORDs blow away and you can see right through the clear sky to the naked, evil premise. The Comfy Commissariat is not concerned with you. Take them at their words.

This is so very true. The altruists, collectivists don't see you as an individual. To them you only have value as a member of some collective which can do anything it wants to you for the 'greater good'. That's when you learn that the 'greater or common good' does not include your good. When they say you must sacrifice for the 'public interest', that's when you discover that the 'public interest' does not include your interest, that 'general welfare' does not mean your welfare. You are an individual. You are not a 'greater' or a 'public' or a 'social' or a 'general' thus your interests, good and welfare don't count.

An example of FNORDs being blow away was revealed in a short editorial in the Detroit Free Press of 12/12/07. It complained that the Michigan State Senate's refusal to ban smoking in public places was some kind of travesty. The editorial's argument:

The French made it a priority. The English and Irish, too. And New York City, and some 30 states. Even the casino in Windsor. The U.S. Surgeon General says secondhand smoke is flat-out dangerous. But Michigan bar and restaurant owners say it should be their choice. What other aspect of public health is left to private interests?

There is proof. "Public health" does not include your health. You are an individual and as such a very private interest. Public health cannot be left to private interests means that public health refers to everyone's health except those of private interests like you and me. Public interest or health or welfare or good always means that the health and welfare of some will be sacrificed for the benefit of others. Those others could be anybody or nobody but most likely will be those in power.

(I am ignoring the fact that the Free Press has no doubt, never checked into the so-called evidence behind the Surgeon General's claim that second hand smoke is dangerous and thus abandoning any pretence of speaking truth to power. Nor will I harp on the fact that the editorial uses the logical fallacy of the arguement from consensus and since the editors are educated people who cannot fail to know they are using it, they have given up any pretence of speaking truth period.

It should be noted that the republican Senate did not shelve this bill to protect the individual rights of bar and restaurant owners. They said since Michigan's economy is so bad they didn't want to place any more burdens on the businesses that haven't left the state yet. IOW, lets wait till the golden goose regains his health and starts laying more golden eggs, then we'll bash him over his greedy, selfish head and congratulate each other on how noble and virtuous we are.)

But I digress.

So, whenever you hear intellectuals using collective phrases like common good or public interest, be very afraid because they do not mean you, your interests or welfare.

Free Michael Vick

Via Breitbart.com (h/t Drudge) comes an AP story that Michael Vick has been sentenced to 23 months in jail for running a dogfighting ring. This is an egregious miscarriage of justice. Vick needs to appeal this judgement right away. He violated no one's rights and should not be in jail.

It is morally wrong to be cruel to animals. It demonstrates a profound lack of respect for life in general. Those who do it deserve every bit of private and public moral condemnation they get. His football team has every right to drop him and ditto his commercial sponsors. What Michael Vick is going through now sans the prison sentence, is in fact a form of social ostricism and its a good and proper thing for a morally just society to do.

But it is politically wrong to give rights to animals. Rights pertain to the freedom of choices that present themselves to volitional beings which animals are not. The only rights that belong to an animal are those of its owner. If someone should abuse or kill an animal without that owner's permission, then he can and should go to jail for violating the owner's property rights. If there are now laws making such cruelty illegal, they should be removed. I am even willing to compromise and say that at the very least, for now, the law should be reduced to a misdemeanor without prison time.

This issue is a good test of one's loyalty to principles. It is often very difficult to defend on principle someone whose actions are morally repulsive. Like defending the free speech rights of the printers of sleaze and pornography. If you're loyal to the principle of free speech, you will do it in opposition to those who would outlaw sleaze thus bringing censorship to this country, free speech being a value held higher than censorship which if adopted, would lead to the destruction of free speech.

Giving political rights to animals would mark the destruction of all rights for humans. Once adopted, this non-objective principle would spread to everything and the next thing you know, humans have no rights and must be sacrificed to everything and anything that does. How would you justify cutting down the tree in your yard because its roots are cracking your foundation, or sidewalk, or plugging your sewer drain, or you want to build a garage there, when that tree has the same right to life you do? If a dog bites a human the government has the right to use retaliatory force to remove that dog from society. But, having rights, how would you put that dog on trial? And what would a jury of his peers look like? Sound stupid? Of course. But no more stupid than giving political rights to animals.

Free Michael Vick now.

Spotted By Mike's Eyes Dec. 2007.

I think Steven Milloy at Junkscience.com of Dec. 6th. has coined a new term which is so admirably precise I plan on using it in future posts. See if you can spot it in this paragraph:

Andy (Revkin's article in New York Times--ME) is partly right, energy-starved third worlders would (and will) love nothing better than cheap, abundant coal-fired electricity. The problem with the piece stems from the totally-wrong idea that atmospheric carbon dioxide presents a problem that must be addressed. This is true only in the virtual world of Play Station® Climatology and has exactly no bearing on the real world. The real motivation for many in the global warming industry has always been the suppression of human activity and the global warming scare represents their greatest success, far greater than their anti-nuclear activities.

If you guessed Play Station® Climatology you'd be right. Computer game technology is exactly what climate models are about when used for predicting future climate. All the catastrophic gloom and doom scenarios come from a single source, computer climate models, not from the observable, historical record. That is why such predictions of disaster should be dismissed as nonsense. If global warming were in fact harmful to life on Earth, there would be evidence of it in the historical record. There isn't any.
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Accuracy Schmacuracy

In Friday Nov 30th Detroit News is the headline "MSU [Michigan State Univ.--ME] finds tainted food killed 350 pets". But the article says "More that 300 dogs and cats may have died earlier this year as a result of eating contaminated pet food, a new survey shows" (my emphasis). It's just a survey of vets, and vet hospitals in which 347 animals "met the criteria" for the sickness. About 25% of these had pre-existing conditions. My point is if someone only read the headline, they would believe that 350 pets died when in reality it's only an estimate which could be significantly off.
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MY MICHIGAN NANNY STATE PROTECTS ME and...

"Legislators draft gift card reform" is the headline in Friday 12/07/07 Detroit News. The article says:

Both [state house and senate--ME] packages would make gift cards or gift certificates good for five years after purchase. As it stands, the life of the cards varies widely from a brief period of time to no expiration date at all.

The House and Senate bills also would:

• Bar retailers from changing the terms and conditions once a card is issued and require terms be disclosed to the purchaser.

• Require that retailers honor the gift cards, even for advertised sale items.

• Ban the charging of inactivity fees.

"Our plan protects every Michigan consumer," said Rep. Michael Sak, D-Grand Rapids, main sponsor of the House package. "Our legislation ensures that consumers get their money's worth from gift certificates, no matter when they choose to use them."

I do think that changing the terms of a card after issue is already illegal or, if our politicians were the least bit concerned about protecting rights, would be.

The idea that deciding how gift certificates should be used is not a legitimate function of government, would not occur to Mr. Sak or the legislature. That businessmen have the right to use and dispose of their own property--which includes gift cards--so long as they don't violate the rights of other citizens, is alien to the Michigan Government mindset. They know they can get away with violating the rights of businessmen because--

...THEY HAVE THE SANCTION OF THE VICTIM:

The legislation is called "imperfect" by the Michigan Retailers Association, which does not oppose the bills.

"They offer important protections for consumers and retailers," said Tom Scott, spokesman for the retailers' group. "We hope the legislation gives consumers even greater confidence so they buy even more gift cards."

He said the five-year shelf life is reasonable, given that retailers have to carry the cards on their books at some cost to the businesses until they are redeemed.

He said retailers are "disappointed" that the bills do not address cards issued by shopping centers for a number of stores.

Like their feelings of disappointment mean anything to the state! This is what it means to be pragmatic and only consider that which is right in front of one's nose ignoring long term consequences and even the path down which one is taking the state. It also proves that pragmatism does not work.

Another Editorial on 2nd Amendment

This past Monday I posted on a Detroit Free Press editorial calling for a national list of gun owners. Yesterday, 12/04/07, Detroit's other paper the Detroit News ran an editorial urging the SCOTUS to find that the 2nd Amendment protections apply to individuals and not to state militias. While I support this position generally, the editorial makes a common epistemological mistake:

But the Second Amendment does use the phrase "well-regulated."

In our view, this means the government, federal, state and local, has the right to restrict private ownership of such items as machine guns and heavy military hardware. Reasonable regulations such as registration, gun training, certain gun lock requirements, waiting periods for background checks before guns are sold, barring felons from gun ownership and other limitations may easily fall within the normal police powers of the state.

First of all, the phrase well-regulated is explicitly tied to the concept militia and not to the pool of citizens from which the militia was to be drawn. Well-regulated does not apply to individual citizens or their guns outside the context of militia. I do hope the Court understands this context. As I mentioned Monday, to say the the right to keep and bear arms applies only to government militias is to say that the right of the government to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed, a completely ludicrous notion. The right to keep and bear arms can have only one meaning, a right of the individual.

As for the list of so-called reasonable regulations in that paragraph, they're a mixed bag. No distinction is made between substantive regulations, those that involve initiating force against citizens by restricting thus violating their rights, and procedural regulations, those that employ the government's monopoly on retaliatory force to answer the question: How best can we exercise our right to keep and bear arms? It's my judgement that requiring certain gun locks would be a substantive regulation involving initiatory force against citizens thus violating their rights. Where as laws against say firing a weapon in a residential neighborhood could be valid regulations because no one has the right to threaten the life of others. The removal of such threats is a proper function of government. But such threats must be clearly and objectively defined.

It is critical that the distinction between starting the use of force and retaliating with it be grasped clearly. Procedural regulations are based on the positive idea of respecting the rights of others and not on the idea of restricting or limiting rights. No one has the right to violate or threaten to violate some one else's rights. Since that right does not exist, well, you can't limit or restrict that which does not exist. It is absolutely essential that our lawmakers and judges think in these terms. To suppose that rights can be restricted in any way is not only sloppy thinking epistemologically, it is very dangerous politically in that it can lead to all kinds of very real limits on very real rights in turn leading to their complete destruction.

I am not a lawyer so I'm not sure exactly what regulations would qualify as procedural or substantive in any given context. Such determinations are for those schooled in the law. But I think any lawmaker or judge when considering a particular regulation, should ask these questions: does this law aid in the exercising of a right by employing the retaliatory use of force in the service of recognizing the rights of others? Or does it consist of starting the use of force against citizens to compel a certain behavior which does not remove an objectively provable threat thereby violating rights.

An objectively provable threat must be clearly defined and does not mean that because one is uncomfortable with a neighbor who has a gun and might someday shoot one it justifies one's desire to have the government confiscate his gun. All such
preventive laws are substantive in nature and a violation of citizens' rights and therefore unconstitutional. I seriously doubt that our Supreme Court is even capable of thinking in these terms but who knows, maybe someday someone will be nominated to the SC who is.

Aiming At Guns

Sunday's, 12/2/07, Detroit Free Press had an editorial titled "Safety first on guns" by editorial page editor Ron Dzwonkowski. He is calling for the establishment of a national list of gun owners. His main argument is:

It makes sense to me that police should have access to a national database of gun owners. If I'm rolling up to a house where there's a reported burglary in progress or some kind of assault going on, I'd want to know if guns are registered for the premises. Wouldn't that advance warning protect gun owners, too, from police reacting badly to the presence of a firearm? Seems as if it'd be safer for both. (In Michigan, police can run a computer check to see if a person has a permit to carry a firearm, if they have a name; license plate checks for vehicle ownership do not include such information)
[um, I thought license plate checks revealed a name which can then be checked for ccw--ME]

This has to be one of the inanest arguments for a national list I've ever heard. First, I don't think there is a cop in his right mind who, upon discovering no gun was registered to a given house, would enter that house on that assumption. Second, Mr. Dzwonkowski points out that there are an estimated 240 million guns in homes in America. Cops cannot fail to know this. Any cop who thinks he will be safer with a national list of owners won't be safe for long. Third, criminals usually have unregistered guns precisely so they can't be traced to them. A gun owners list will not provide an iota of safety from real criminals. I know that domestic violence cases are often very dangerous for police but an owners list will not alleviate that one bit, unless the gun is removed before the DV crime is committed and that is the real point isn't it.

This is nothing but an attempt to get all guns registered which will be an aid to any attempt to confiscate them. Using harmless sounding words and phrases like "But nobody's allowed to keep a list of who's armed" (poor oppressed government) and "...not even for police-eyes only..." (can't we even have a peek?) Mr. Dzwonkowski is trying to couch this as a harmless little list for police-eyes only which will simply be used for police safety. Right! If you can believe that....

This editorial does have merit though. It shows how a principle (like letting the government keep records on you) once adopted even only partly, grows by its own merit until it is applied entirely or is repudiated entirely. Mr. Dzwonkowski reminds us of the extent to which we have already adopted the above principle so why not let it expand a teensy bit more?

Yet government agencies keep records of your driving habits and vehicle ownerships, of births and address changes, can get at records of your phone and credit card use and, soon enough I'm sure, will have basic medical information about you on a central computer.

But only you get to know if there's a gun in your house. Should the police ever roll up in an emergency, might be a good idea to let them know it's there, and that it's legal.

"But only you get to know if there's a gun in your house." Yep, and that's the way I want to keep it.

He seems to be of the opinion that SCOTUS will rule next year on Washington DC's effort to ban handguns in favor of the individual and not state militias but that guns will be 'well regulated' "sparing us a national war over disarmament" which disarmament he obviously prefers.

Of course the Court should rule that the 2nd Amendment applies to the individual and not state militias. When you consider that a proper government must have a monopoly on the retaliatory use of force, therefore it must have guns, and that a state militia is a government entity, to say that the 2nd Amendment applies to militias would be saying that the government must have the right to keep and bear arms, a ridiculous redundancy. The right of the people to keep and bear arms can have no other meaning than individual human beings.

Night Shift Causes Cancer?

There is no way I could ever be a news reporter or even a headline reading news anchor. I would go to bed at night feeling unclean, with guilty conscience knowing I had fed my audience a spiel full of half-truths, package-deals, out of context statements and a general disrespect for concepts and their meanings. I would get bounced out of any job like that in the first day or so because, in order to sleep at night, I would have to annotate everything.

Case in point: in Friday's Detroit News is a front page, above the fold article by AP writer Maria Cheng which, if I were anchorman--then reporter-- Mike N, I would report thusly, my annotations in brackets:

"The Associated Press reports on a new study which found that working the 'Night shift may cause cancer'. [Which means after tonight there will be no more News at Eleven.] Our ace reporter Mike N has the story from London. Mike?"

*Thanks Mike. 'London--Like UV rays and diesel exhaust fumes, working the graveyard shift will soon be listed as a *probable* cause of cancer.
It is a surprising step validating a concept once considered wacky.'

[Actually folks, it doesn't validate anything. It just identifies itself with that wacky concept which we are to believe was once considered wacky but evidently no longer is.]

"Next month, the International Agency for Research on Cancer, the cancer arm of the World Health Organization, will add overnight shift work as a probable carcinogen.

The higher cancer rates don't prove working overnight can cause cancer. There may be other factors among graveyard shift workers that raise their risk for cancer.

However, scientists suspect that overnight work is dangerous because it disrupts the circadian rhythm, the body's biological clock. The hormone melatonin, which can suppress tumor development, is normally produced at night."

[While true, this is a misnomer. According to this source, Melatonin is produced in darkness which for most people is at night. But if you work at night and sleep in a darkened room, you'll still get your melatonin.]

"There are plenty of skeptics. And to put the risk in perspective, the "probable carcinogen" tag means that the link between overnight work and cancer is merely plausible.

Dr. David Decker, an oncologist for Beaumont Hospital said he's never heard of a correlation between cancer and the shift a patient has worked, although he said it's plausible.

"I would take (the study) with interest but I wouldn't change my lifestyle or go out and quit my job," Decker said."

[So we see ladies and gentlemen that the threat is only a plausible one but the IARC is going to call it 'probable' anyway. My advice? Don't lose any sleep over this one.]*

I probably wouldn't make it to the end of the story before security guards escorted me out the door. I do think the reporter Ms. Cheng, and contributing News writer Oralander Brand-Williams did a good job of giving some balanced perspective to the article.

However, one more quote from that article is noteworthy:

""The indications are positive," said Vincent Cogliano, head of the agency's (IARC-ME) carcinogen classifications unit. "There was enough of a pattern in people who do shift work to recognize that there's an increase in cancer, but we can't rule out the possibility of other factors.""

I want to add that what is really going on here with elevating 'plausible' to have the same meaning as 'probable' is another attempt to morph the meaning of correlation into causation. As readers of this blog know from this post, a "positive pattern" is all that is needed for a correlation to be deemed "convincing". Once so ordained, it becomes fact and no more evidence or proof is needed.

The need to end government encouragement of science has never been greater.

Some Positive Posts

Joseph Kellard at The American Individualist has a post on one such individualist, Roger Folz, who built his gumball vending business into a nation wide company from modest beginnings but now is closing the doors having sold it to a larger company. In "Folz is Folding" Mr. Kellard opens with

"They have a cure for old age now," 79-year-old Roger Folz quipped as he slowly, carefully climbed the stairs in his office. "Die young."

Projecting an image of man the achiever, the story is well worth reading.

In addition, Mr. Kellard tells how he came to write that story in another post titled "Anatomy of a Story" in which he shows how a writer can start out thinking he's going to write a certain story but wind up writing a completely different one.
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Sarita at The Kalamazoo Objectivist has a 14 min. video about a man who is not an objectivist but is committed to staying focused on reality 24/7, James Randi. She quotes part of his video:

"Why people are so drawn to the irrational has always puzzled me. I want to, if I can,be as sure of the real world around me as is possible...I want the greatest degree of control. I've never involved myself in narcotics of any kind. I don't smoke. I don't drink because that can easily just fuzz the edges of my rationality, fuzz the edges of my reasoning powers and I want to be aware as I possibly can. That means giving up a lot of fantasies that might be comforting in some ways but I'm willing to give that up in order to live in an actually real world as close as I can get to it."

Admirable code to live by indeed.
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SoftwareNerd has a list of "Ten Simple Poems". I enjoyed them. Hope you do too.

Nonsense

While I've spent the week posting short notes on things I'm grateful for, I see this week has been one for the utterly inane and and mindless. First, via Drudge Report is an article by Telegraph writer Roger Highfield about two American cosmologists who claim "Mankind 'shortening the universe's life'. How?

The damaging allegations are made by Profs Lawrence Krauss of Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, and James Dent of Vanderbilt University, Nashville, who suggest that by making this observation in 1998 we may have caused the cosmos to revert to an earlier state when it was more likely to end. "Incredible as it seems, our detection of the dark energy may have reduced the life-expectancy of the universe," Prof Krauss tells New Scientist.

It's incredible alright, incredible that these two men bought into the nonsense of the Schrodinger's Cat experiment. This theory holds that states of existence are determined not by the nature of the things existing, but by the act of a consciousness perceiving them. The folly of that idea has been exposed before and doesn't need restating by me. Fools and unthinking intellectuals will always be with us but what is really amazing is that these gentlemen are collecting a paycheck and are being taken seriously by others in the so-called intellectual professions.

Paul at Noodle Food has posted on this also. Comments are interesting.
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Next is the report, also from Drudge, by Jeffrey Earl Warren of the San Fransisco Chronicle, that SF is considering banning all fireplaces. Mr Warren makes good practical arguments against such a ban but misses the moral argument. The closest he comes is:

Those of us in rural communities feel bullied by this sort of nanny state legislation. We'd like to believe that a man's home is indeed his castle. Most of us live in small towns or the country for a reason. We don't like cities. We don't like traffic. We don't like noise. We don't like the dirty air.

A good moral argument of course would be that 'a man's home is indeed his castle' by unalienable individual right, and not by permission of the state. The government has no right to ban anything in anyone's home so long as no one's rights are being violated.

BTW, if this goes through can backyard barbecue grills be far behind?

Giving Thanks for Rational Education

It's the day after Thanksgiving and I spent about 6 1/2 hours babysitting my two grandsons. A lot to be thankful for there.

But today, Lisa VanDamme, founder of VanDamme Academy, is also reflecting on some of her favorite things. Because I know a rational education is of crucial importance to human survival, I reprint her latest newsletter below.



Pedagogically Correct Volume 2, Issue 3
November 23, 2007

"Pedagogy": The art and science of teaching.
:: Calling All LifeLong Learners: Learn Science the VanDamme Academy Way!
:: Announcement: Pedagogically Correct Blog


Yesterday's Highlights: Stories From Home

We at VanDamme Academy love hearing stories about things the students do or say at home that reflects their VanDamme Academy education. I recently asked parents to share some stories from home. Here are a few highlights:

Calvin (5):

I was talking to Calvin about the upcoming trip to Schoolhouse Rock, and I told him how much I enjoyed the songs as a child. I started singing "Conjunction Junction for him: "Out of the frying pan and into the fire. He cut loose the sandbags but the balloon wouldn't go any higher. Let's go up to the mountains or down to the sea. Always say 'thank you' or at least say 'please.'" Then Calvin said, "Pan, fire, bag, balloon, mountain and sea are nouns."

Mrs. O'Brien's poetry discussions and literature readings have had an impact on Calvin. He's begun to describe things metaphorically. Yesterday he told his little sister she has a smile of sparkly snowflakes. He told me my eyes are made of fairy dust, ocean water and chocolate milk. (They're green with flecks of brown and a rim of blue.) Later that evening he was thinking of Mrs. Beach and her black hair. He said, "Mama, Mrs. Beach's hair is made of night-time sky and pretty, pretty stars."

Last week we were sitting down to dinner and Calvin said, out of the blue, "Daddy, would you rather eat leather or die?" (I hope my cooking didn't put that idea in his head.) After some prompting from us, he told us he learned from Mrs. Beach that Columbus and the sailors on his ship ran out of food and had to eat leather to survive. He made a little game out of thinking of other things that might have some nutritional value and could pass as food if he were stuck on a ship in the middle of the ocean. "Would you rather eat sawdust or die? Would you rather eat leaves or die?"

Jonathan (7):

Allie, Johnny's younger sister, received a copy of the Disney film Pocahontas. She was telling him about the movie when he said to her: "That's not the real story at all." He then proceeded to tell her his entire history lesson on the subject. When I asked him if it bothered him that the movie wasn't the real story, he said, "No, movies aren't real."

Lana (8):

Yesterday, on the way to a birthday party, we passed La Paz Rd., and Lana declared, "La Paz is the capital of Bolivia!" (A fact learned in Mr. Mizrahi's geography class.) Later that day, she feared Greta was being too rough on their dog Gracie, and said, "Be careful not to hyperextend her paw." (A term learned in Mr. Krieger's science class.) Over the summer, when I was at the gym with the girls and Lana heard someone say his son didn't "do too good in school," Lana waited until he was gone and whispered to me, "Don't worry, Mom. I corrected his grammar in my mind."

Darcy (4):

Darcy was telling me that she missed her family in Virginia and wanted to move back. I told her I understood how she felt and that it would be so nice to be near her aunt and grandma. I then said that if we did go back it would mean that Darcy wouldn't have her friends Lana and Greta nearby, wouldn't be in Mrs. Beach's class, wouldn't have her classmates, etc. Darcy said, "I have an idea. We can do what they did in olden times and start a colony."

Bianca (8):

At home one evening, Bianca was plotting schemes to steal balls from the boys at recess in their benevolent, ongoing boy-girl rivalry. She read her plans to me in the car on the way to school. I was instantly struck and thrilled by her scheme: it was in outline form! I thought to myself, "My child has an orderly mind! She THINKS in outlines!" This is unquestionable the result of the structured note- taking and writing she does at VanDamme Academy.



Calling All LifeLong Learners: Learn Science the VanDamme Academy Way!
Now Anyone Can Understand The Fundamental Principles of Science Better than Most Scientists
"Fundamentals of Physical Science: A Historical, Industive Approach"
By David Harriman, Historian and Philosopher of Physics

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"I am currently a Ph.D. candidate in physics, and I was amazed at how much I learned from David Harriman's course. This course stands head and shoulders above any other course or textbook I have encountered."

"It's perfect for someone relatively new to physics like myself; it's perfect for even advanced people who want a deeper historical perspective than is usually taught...I found Mr. Harriman's physics course to be an exciting walk through the fascinating world of physics."

"I think this type of course is needed for everyone, as in my experience, it's so far above the courses I've had throughout my life as far as the actual transmittal of knowledge is concerned...In short, this course has made science and math much more intelligible for me, and was completely worth the time and cost - I highly recommend it."

I was a physics major when I entered college, yet I can easily say that my actual understanding of physics is much greater as a result of this course than I can credit to any other class I've taken.

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With this course you will:
* Finally understand the world around you, the world of science and technology, in a way you never thought possible. (No, you don't have to be a math wiz.)
* Learn the thinking methods of the greatest minds in history.
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* Be inspired by scientists' amazing 2500-year quest to unlock the mysteries of the physical world.
* And have a great time in the process!

All thanks to a one-of-a-kind science teaching methodology available in no other course or textbook.


www.vandammescience.com


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Check out our 'blog, which will contain much (but not all) of the material we sent out in our newsletters. Spread the word!




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Happy Learning!

Giving Thanks to Soldiers and Pioneers

Today is Thanksgiving Day and I had a great meal with family today. I have several groups I want to thank. The first is all the soldiers who fought and risked their lives so that their families and country could continue to have joyous holidays like today.

Second, I thank the pioneers who settled Jamestown in a for-profit adventure funded by a global corporation 400 years ago this year. America really was founded on the principles of capitalism.

Both the pioneer and the soldier are cut from the same moral cloth. Both were willing to make the ultimate trade: their life in return for a better future.

To Them I say a profound thank you!

Giving Thanks for Capitalism

Today I want to give thanks to our founding fathers for establishing a rights respecting social system called Capitalism. This rights honoring system allowed men to create material and intellectual values they could trade with other men. This led to the incredible technology we have today.

Recently a relative gave birth to a baby 2 months premature. When I went to visit, I noticed all the tubes and monitor wires attached to these little beings. I also noticed 4 other premies in the same unit and I realized how fortunate we were to have this technology at our disposal. It occured to me that before Capitalism, most if not all of these babies would not have survived.

So I say thanks Founders for creating Capitalism and the life-sustaining modern technology that it has made possible.

Giving Thanks For Earth's Gravity

Just two days before Thanksgiving, I want to give thanks to the fact that I live on Earth and not Jupiter. You see Jupiter is 318 times more massive than Earth and I think the gravity ratio would be about the same. That means that since I am about 30 lbs overweight on Earth, (I'm working on that) I would be 9,540 lbs overweight on Jupiter. Now that would require one helluva diet and excercise plan! No thank you!

(On the other hand, if I went to the moon, which has only 1/6 of the Earth's gravity, my 208 lbs would reduce to only about 35 lbs and mother nature would owe me some pounds. Seconds anyone?)

Giving Thanks to Carbon

Since this is Thanksgiving week, I have decided to give thanks for a few of my favorite things. Today I give thanks to the element Carbon. After all it is what I am made of. Without it I wouldn't be here. In fact, all living things are made of it. Carbon is unique in that it can easily combine with so many other elements to make so many different and useful--that is, life sustaining--compounds.

It is true that Carbon can unite with oxygen to form the deadly gas Carbon Monoxide. But it redeems itself beautifully by also forming Carbon Dioxide which is a life giving food for all plants. It is an indispensable gas without which there would be no life on this earth. It can be said that we humans are this element's greatest achievement thanks to its magnum opus--the DNA molecule.

I personally can't do justice to this excellent element. But John Brignell at Number Watch has come pretty darn close with a superb essay titled "In Praise of Carbon" which I highly recommend. In fact, that essay inspired this little thank you note.

A Right to Paradise

Planet Ark has a Reuters news story by Ajay Makan titled:"Climate Change Threatens Human Rights - Small Island States" (h/t Junkscience.com of Nov 14th) In it Mr. Makan writes:

MALE - Representatives of 26 of the world's small island states met in the Maldives capital Male on Tuesday to draft a resolution identifying climate change as a threat to human rights.

That's right! Rising seas and other natural forcings can be guilty of violating your rights. This isn't a misunderstanding. Mr. Makan removes all fog with this clarification:

Delegates are expected to agree a declaration that climate change threatens the fundamental right to a safe, secure and sustainable environment, forcing developed countries to view rising seas through the prism of human rights.

Have you ever heard more unthinking drivel before? If these delegates sign this declaration they will be displaying a total ignorance of the concept rights, its source, its purpose and its nature.

In her essay 'Man's Rights' Novelist/Philosopher Ayn Rand pointed out that:

The concept of a "right" pertains only to action—specifically, to freedom of action. It means freedom from physical compulsion, coercion or interference by other men.

It does not mean freedom from the requirements of nature including one's own. It does not mean freedom from the responsibility of using one's mind to provide for one's survival. It does not mean that one can call on governments to force someone to somehow provide one with a "safe, secure and sustainable environment."

The intellectual deterioration of our age is really getting bad. People like these delagates can look at the phrase "right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" (our Constitution is not a secret) and not have a clue as to its meaning. This is the age of whim worship. Like our Supreme Court, if you wish to declare a life-giving gas like carbon dioxide a pollutant, go ahead and it shall be so. If you want to stamp your feet like a 12 year old spoiled brat because no one has provided you with a safe, secure and sustainable environment, have at it. It's standard procedure nowadays.

I don't know how much attention the world will pay to these delegates but if past performance is any indication, they'll get all the press they want and then some. The only way to combat this kind of ignorance is with a clear understanding of the concept of rights which can be gained by reading Ms. Rand's essay Man's Rights in her book Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, or in the book Virtue of Selfishness. A collection of her quotes on 'rights' can be viewed here.

Unearned Guilt via Environmentalism

Lubos Motl at The Reference Frame has a great post titled "Trillions for CO2 regulation and guilt propagation". In it he points out how expensive carbon mitigation really is, provides another proof that the whole AGW campaign is driven by politics not science, and shows how China may be blaming the western nations for its emissions. Mr. Motl talks about how the west should not accept this guilt because it is just typical communist propaganda as well as being inherently unjust. All true but I want to focus on the concept he correctly identifies as "guilt propagation." Regarding guilt Mr. Motl says:

This question about the propagation of "guilt" is another important aspect of this whole debate. Imagine, for a little while, that CO2 emissions are harmful. Who is responsible for the Chinese emissions? Is it the buyers?

A few paragraphs later he correctly points out that:

But one of the principles of an enlightened modern society is that guilt simply cannot propagate in this way. For example, you shouldn't be held responsible for your parents' being killers even though you have had relationships of many kinds with your parents.

On close inspection one can see that the kind of guilt Mr. Motl is referring to is unearned guilt. I want to pursue this concept further for it is indeed an "important aspect of this whole debate."

The entire AGW-equals-catastrophe movement is spread by employing two main techniques; the propagation of fear and the propagation of unearned guilt. We all know about how the greens propagate fear. Just pick up any newspaper or magazine or consult any evening news broadcast and you'll see enough half-truths, package deals, out of context assertions and nonsequiturs to fill a book of logical fallacies.

But it's the propagation of an unearned guilt that is the most insidious. The main tool used in this technique is the concept "the environment." Let's look at that concept a little closer.

My Webster's college dictionary defines 'environment' as "1.surrounding or being surrounded, 2.something that surrounds,3.all the conditions, circumstances and influences surrounding and affecting the development of an organism or group of organisms: often contrasted with heredity." We see then that the concept 'environment' is local and/or regional.

If we look around the world, we see many different species of organisms living in a discernible environment. Some even share the same environment like predators and prey or competitive species. The sum total of all these environments is what we refer to as nature. Just as there is no such thing as a global climate, only local or regional ones, so the same is true for the concept global environment. It refers to the total of all the environments.

As an aside, notice how a trick is being used with both above mentioned concepts. Both 'global climate' and 'the environment' are being sold to American citizens as if they were individual things, single entities which can be controlled with a few tweaks by knowledgeable 'experts.' But if one remembers that global climate actually refers to hundreds if not thousands of local and regional climates all dynamically interacting with each other, and it is these the enviros are claiming we must--and they know how--to control, one sees the utter absurdity of their claims. Well, the same is true for 'the environment'. And this is where the selling of unearned guilt comes in.

To get a person, or nation, to accept an unearned guilt, one must get them to believe they are responsible for something which in reality they are not. The method used is the cognitive package deal. It takes the valid meaning of environment, an organism's surroundings that influence it, and stretches its meaning to include everyone else's environments. If he accepts this new meaning, he is agreeing to be held responsible for whatever happens to anyone's environment. It is a guilt he has not earned but has accepted. Thus, if he can be told that his actions or lack of same, had a negative impact on someone's environment halfway around the world, his guilt will make him want to atone by offering sacrifices (like donating to green foundations) or performing rituals (like recycling). {The former is what the enviro movement is all about}

Just as it would be immoral to hold Antarctic penguins responsible for the environment of a tree frog in Argentina, and that frog responsible for the environment of a sparrow in Michigan, and that sparrow responsible for the environment a Hudson Bay polar bear, so it is equally immoral to hold a man in New York responsible for the environment in Miami, or that Miami man responsible for the environment in Tokyo. It isn't their environment. They are not responsible for it. And no one should accept an unearned guilt from anyone for any reason.

Lubos Motl nailed it when he said:

Guilt for well-defined sins must be localized to those who are really responsible.

Amen


(I am indebted to Peter Schwartz for his identification of 'the environment" as a cognitive package deal in his lecture set "Clarity in Conceptualization: The Art of Identifying 'Package-Deals'" which can be purchased here.)

Update: fixed a typo in headline.