Wednesday, March 23, 2005
Retreat
I'm headed to the mountains with my wife for a time of west and wewaxation (as Elmer Fudd would say). I'll post as possible.
Monday, March 21, 2005
Science's new heresy trial
Science's new heresy trial: "Mr. Meyer submitted his paper to the Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington, a scientific journal affiliated with the Smithsonian Institute's National Museum of Natural History. The editor, Rick Sternberg, a researcher at the museum with two Ph.D.s in biology, forwarded the article to a panel of three peer reviewers. In scientific and other academic scholarship, submitting research to the judgment of other experts in the field ensures that published articles have genuine merit. Each of the reviewers recommended that, with revisions, the article should be published. Mr. Meyer made the revisions and the article was published last August.
Whereupon major academic publications—Science, Nature, Chronicles of Higher Education—expressed outrage. The anger was focused not on the substance of the article, but on the mere fact that a peer-reviewed scientific journal would print such an article.
So the wrath of the Darwinists fell on Mr. Sternberg, the editor. Although he had stepped down from the editorship, his supervisors at the Smithsonian took away his office, made him turn in his keys, and cut him off from access to the collections he needs for his research. He is also being subjected to the sectarian religious discipline of 'shunning.' His colleagues are refusing to talk to him or even greet him in the hallways.
His supervisors also staged an inquisition about Mr. Sternberg's religious and even political beliefs. Mr. Sternberg, who describes himself as a Catholic with lots of questions, has filed a case alleging discrimination not just on the grounds of religion but 'perceived' religion."
Whereupon major academic publications—Science, Nature, Chronicles of Higher Education—expressed outrage. The anger was focused not on the substance of the article, but on the mere fact that a peer-reviewed scientific journal would print such an article.
So the wrath of the Darwinists fell on Mr. Sternberg, the editor. Although he had stepped down from the editorship, his supervisors at the Smithsonian took away his office, made him turn in his keys, and cut him off from access to the collections he needs for his research. He is also being subjected to the sectarian religious discipline of 'shunning.' His colleagues are refusing to talk to him or even greet him in the hallways.
His supervisors also staged an inquisition about Mr. Sternberg's religious and even political beliefs. Mr. Sternberg, who describes himself as a Catholic with lots of questions, has filed a case alleging discrimination not just on the grounds of religion but 'perceived' religion."
Schiavo: Who's life is it anyway.
As with many of us I expect, I have begun to follow the case of Terri Schiavo more closely over the past week. I still do not consider myself an expert on the facts of the case but I was called as an expert witness the other day.
While driving my oldest daughter around town she asked me to explain what all the fuss was over starving someone.
As I began to explain I could feel nausea in my gut. I explained that Terry Schiavo is in a coma (which I learned later is not true) and her husband wants to relieve her suffering by removing a tube that feeds her. I tried to be as even handed as possible in my explanation but when it came right down to it I was explaining to my daughter that a judge is going to order the starvation of a helpless victim.
My daughter, even at the tender age of 11, was incredulous. She immediately asked an interesting question, "Why is it her husband's decision? He's not even related to her."
I'm not one to extol the virtue of blood over love in the realm of family bonds (a la Dennis Prager) but in this case I thought my daughter had raised a pretty fair question. Why is the life of Terry Schiavo in the hands of someone who has no life long blood relation to her?
It seems from this article that Terri Schiavo's brother is more concerned with her life than here husband.
...and a little child shall lead them.
While driving my oldest daughter around town she asked me to explain what all the fuss was over starving someone.
As I began to explain I could feel nausea in my gut. I explained that Terry Schiavo is in a coma (which I learned later is not true) and her husband wants to relieve her suffering by removing a tube that feeds her. I tried to be as even handed as possible in my explanation but when it came right down to it I was explaining to my daughter that a judge is going to order the starvation of a helpless victim.
My daughter, even at the tender age of 11, was incredulous. She immediately asked an interesting question, "Why is it her husband's decision? He's not even related to her."
I'm not one to extol the virtue of blood over love in the realm of family bonds (a la Dennis Prager) but in this case I thought my daughter had raised a pretty fair question. Why is the life of Terry Schiavo in the hands of someone who has no life long blood relation to her?
It seems from this article that Terri Schiavo's brother is more concerned with her life than here husband.
...and a little child shall lead them.
Sunday, March 20, 2005
Dennis Prager: The case for Judeo-Christian values: Part II
Here's the next installment in a great series.
Dennis Prager: The case for Judeo-Christian values: Part II: "Years ago, I debated this issue at Oxford with Jonathan Glover, currently the professor of ethics at King's College, University of London, and one of the leading atheist moralists of our time.
Because he is a man of rare intellectual honesty, he acknowledged that without God, morality is subjective. He is one of the few secularists who do."
Dennis Prager: The case for Judeo-Christian values: Part II: "Years ago, I debated this issue at Oxford with Jonathan Glover, currently the professor of ethics at King's College, University of London, and one of the leading atheist moralists of our time.
Because he is a man of rare intellectual honesty, he acknowledged that without God, morality is subjective. He is one of the few secularists who do."
Friday, March 18, 2005
Campus Paper: I think I was born this way?
Dennis Prager talked about this article the other day.
The McGill Daily: Brain Candy: Meow meow meow mix: "It’s hard to go through four years of a humanities BA reading Foucault and Butler and watching The L-Word and keep your rigid heterosexuality intact. I don’t know when it happened exactly, but it seems I no longer have the easy certainty of pinning my sexual desire to one gender and never the other. "
Apparently some people choose to be gay.
The McGill Daily: Brain Candy: Meow meow meow mix: "It’s hard to go through four years of a humanities BA reading Foucault and Butler and watching The L-Word and keep your rigid heterosexuality intact. I don’t know when it happened exactly, but it seems I no longer have the easy certainty of pinning my sexual desire to one gender and never the other. "
Apparently some people choose to be gay.
Updated: You gotta be kidding me!
I could have mailed this faster:
I'm in the airport in Phx @ 2pm on Sat. March 12. I don't know how much internet access I'll have for the next few days. More soon..
From my phone,
Ryan
Thursday, March 17, 2005
Why Oil in ANWR us probably a good idea...
When liberal columnists in the New York Times are writing like this, you know environmentalism has a bad name: The New York Times (free sign up required):
"In the 1970's, the environmental movement was convinced that the Alaska oil pipeline would devastate the Central Arctic caribou herd. Since then, it has quintupled.
When I first began to worry about climate change, global cooling and nuclear winter seemed the main risks. As Newsweek said in 1975: 'Meteorologists disagree about the cause and extent of the cooling trend ... but they are almost unanimous in the view that the trend will reduce agricultural productivity for the rest of the century.'
This record should teach environmentalists some humility. The problems are real, but so is the uncertainty. Environmentalists were right about DDT's threat to bald eagles, for example, but blocking all spraying in the third world has led to hundreds of thousands of malaria deaths.
Likewise, environmentalists were right to warn about population pressures, but they overestimated wildly. Paul Ehrlich warned in 'The Population Bomb' that 'the battle to feed humanity is over. ... Hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death.' On my bookshelf is an even earlier book, 'Too Many Asians,' with a photo of a mass of Indians on the cover. The book warns that the threat from relentlessly multiplying Asians is 'even more grave than that of nuclear warfare.'"
Actually the UN has been convening to figure out how to solve the problem of underpopulation.
Back in 1991 I heard some guy on the radio doing a bit he called an "Environmentalist Wacko Update". I was stunned because I had never heard anyone desecrate the holy name of environmentalism. He went on about how most of what Environmentalism claims is exaggerated or outright, politically motivated lies.
He later published a book called See I told you so.
I wonder why?
"In the 1970's, the environmental movement was convinced that the Alaska oil pipeline would devastate the Central Arctic caribou herd. Since then, it has quintupled.
When I first began to worry about climate change, global cooling and nuclear winter seemed the main risks. As Newsweek said in 1975: 'Meteorologists disagree about the cause and extent of the cooling trend ... but they are almost unanimous in the view that the trend will reduce agricultural productivity for the rest of the century.'
This record should teach environmentalists some humility. The problems are real, but so is the uncertainty. Environmentalists were right about DDT's threat to bald eagles, for example, but blocking all spraying in the third world has led to hundreds of thousands of malaria deaths.
Likewise, environmentalists were right to warn about population pressures, but they overestimated wildly. Paul Ehrlich warned in 'The Population Bomb' that 'the battle to feed humanity is over. ... Hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death.' On my bookshelf is an even earlier book, 'Too Many Asians,' with a photo of a mass of Indians on the cover. The book warns that the threat from relentlessly multiplying Asians is 'even more grave than that of nuclear warfare.'"
Actually the UN has been convening to figure out how to solve the problem of underpopulation.
Back in 1991 I heard some guy on the radio doing a bit he called an "Environmentalist Wacko Update". I was stunned because I had never heard anyone desecrate the holy name of environmentalism. He went on about how most of what Environmentalism claims is exaggerated or outright, politically motivated lies.
He later published a book called See I told you so.
I wonder why?
Wednesday, March 16, 2005
Cronkite: Stay Classy America!
In a Providential irony, I watched the Netflix DVD of Anchorman on the way back from Phoenix yesterday. Ron Burgundy is an newsman who is almost completely ignorant about the world around him. This is only a movie though, right?
Just the day before, however, I read this article about the rambling incoherence of America's foremost anchorman, Walter Cronkite. His comments are too long winded and muddled to reproduce here at length but this summary will give you an idea:
OpinionJournal - Best of the Web Today: "So, to sum up: 'Those Arabs,' who are at once 'dying of AIDS' and 'starving to death,' and who by the way get their electricity from 'a foot pump,' are 'mad at us' over the Kyoto accords and bejeweled TV 'doxies.' Ergo, we need 'true world government.' Such wisdom is the product of 65 years in the news business."
This is not a joke. Read it for yourself.
Life imitating art. Stay classy America!
Just the day before, however, I read this article about the rambling incoherence of America's foremost anchorman, Walter Cronkite. His comments are too long winded and muddled to reproduce here at length but this summary will give you an idea:
OpinionJournal - Best of the Web Today: "So, to sum up: 'Those Arabs,' who are at once 'dying of AIDS' and 'starving to death,' and who by the way get their electricity from 'a foot pump,' are 'mad at us' over the Kyoto accords and bejeweled TV 'doxies.' Ergo, we need 'true world government.' Such wisdom is the product of 65 years in the news business."
This is not a joke. Read it for yourself.
Life imitating art. Stay classy America!
Will Vietnam be the next Iraq?
OpinionJournal - Claudia Rosett: "Will Vietnam be the next Iraq?"
Maybe war, sometimes, is the answer.
Maybe war, sometimes, is the answer.
The Globe and Mail: Family movies outselling R-rated fare
The Globe and Mail: Family movies outselling R-rated fare: "LAS VEGAS -- Family crowds spoke louder than fans of racy stories or shoot-'em-up action flicks last year at U.S. movie theatres, with PG-rated films hauling in more money than those rated R in the United States (equivalent to 18A in most Canadian jurisdictions) for the first time in 20 years."
And this is in a year that included the most successful R rated film of all time: The Passion of the Christ
Dennis Prager has said for years that the reason Hollywood doesn't make more family films is not economic; clearly the money is there. It's that hollywood generally is not populated by families. R rated fare better reflects the demographic of hollywood.
And this is in a year that included the most successful R rated film of all time: The Passion of the Christ
Dennis Prager has said for years that the reason Hollywood doesn't make more family films is not economic; clearly the money is there. It's that hollywood generally is not populated by families. R rated fare better reflects the demographic of hollywood.
Academic Freedom; enemies and defenders
FrontPage magazine.com :: Correction: Some Of Our Facts Were Wrong; Our Point Was Right by David Horowitz:
"The problem being that many professors seem to regard their classrooms as political soapboxes and require one “correct” answer to questions that are controversial.
Since the intent of many of the critics of our story is to put this view of what is going in our universities in question, allow me to point out that the president of Harvard has just been publicly humiliated by his faculty for expressing a politically incorrect opinion on a controversial subject. If the president of Harvard – a former member of the Clinton cabinet and a distinguished scholar in his own right -- can be humiliated by out-of-control ideologues on his faculty, imagine what these same faculty members will do to students over whom they have authority and grading power. That – and not a particular exam at the University of Northern Colorado – is the basis for our academic freedom campaign."
Think of this when you are saving money for a college education that will make you a "free" thinker. It's not free in any sense of the word.
"The problem being that many professors seem to regard their classrooms as political soapboxes and require one “correct” answer to questions that are controversial.
Since the intent of many of the critics of our story is to put this view of what is going in our universities in question, allow me to point out that the president of Harvard has just been publicly humiliated by his faculty for expressing a politically incorrect opinion on a controversial subject. If the president of Harvard – a former member of the Clinton cabinet and a distinguished scholar in his own right -- can be humiliated by out-of-control ideologues on his faculty, imagine what these same faculty members will do to students over whom they have authority and grading power. That – and not a particular exam at the University of Northern Colorado – is the basis for our academic freedom campaign."
Think of this when you are saving money for a college education that will make you a "free" thinker. It's not free in any sense of the word.
Monday, March 14, 2005
Slow Phone Posts
Well I tried to post to the blog from my phone on Saturday afternoon. Apparently it takes days for the post to process and well, post.
I'm in AZ and found a sweet little coffee shop with free wi fi. Little time to post though, till Wednesday probably.
I'm in AZ and found a sweet little coffee shop with free wi fi. Little time to post though, till Wednesday probably.
Saturday, March 12, 2005
Blogging Clicks With Colleges (washingtonpost.com)
Memo to Campus Ministry people: Figure out what Blogging is.
Blogging Clicks With Colleges (washingtonpost.com) (required Registration):
"Blogs already have seeped into everyday life on campus. At Johns Hopkins, two juniors just set up a service for students and faculty to start their own blogs. Georgetown University tinkered with software to make it easy for professors to create blogs. There are course blogs on religion, war, literature, even cattle, at Texas A&M University.
'It's more power to the student,' said junior John Dorman, whose Georgetown government class blog bubbled with a debate over morality and politics recently, with students posting comments from 7:30 p.m. until nearly 7:30 the next morning.
Students in sophomore Craig Kessler's English class got hooked, and he said they became closer and more engaged than in any class he has taken. When the semester ended this winter, students asked the professor, David Lipscomb: Could they keep writing the blog?"
Blogging Clicks With Colleges (washingtonpost.com) (required Registration):
"Blogs already have seeped into everyday life on campus. At Johns Hopkins, two juniors just set up a service for students and faculty to start their own blogs. Georgetown University tinkered with software to make it easy for professors to create blogs. There are course blogs on religion, war, literature, even cattle, at Texas A&M University.
'It's more power to the student,' said junior John Dorman, whose Georgetown government class blog bubbled with a debate over morality and politics recently, with students posting comments from 7:30 p.m. until nearly 7:30 the next morning.
Students in sophomore Craig Kessler's English class got hooked, and he said they became closer and more engaged than in any class he has taken. When the semester ended this winter, students asked the professor, David Lipscomb: Could they keep writing the blog?"
Friday, March 11, 2005
Home State of Rainy Seattle Declares Drought
Yahoo! News - Home State of Rainy Seattle Declares Drought
If these aren't the end times, they are end times kind of times.
(sarcastic pause)
If these aren't the end times, they are end times kind of times.
(sarcastic pause)
Blogads: reader survey for blog advertising.
Interesting data on Blogs
Blogads: reader survey for blog advertising.: "Last year, we got 17,159 responses. This year, 30,079 blog readers responded.
Last year, 61% of responding blog readers were over 30 years old. This year, 75% are over 30 years old.
Last year, 40% had family incomes greater than $90,000. This year, 43% exceed that figure."
Blogads: reader survey for blog advertising.: "Last year, we got 17,159 responses. This year, 30,079 blog readers responded.
Last year, 61% of responding blog readers were over 30 years old. This year, 75% are over 30 years old.
Last year, 40% had family incomes greater than $90,000. This year, 43% exceed that figure."
Thursday, March 10, 2005
A Large Regular for the Sox Fans in the House
A Large Regular: " some of the issues facing the Boston Globe today. And that's just the sports section."
Wednesday, March 09, 2005
Fighting for a Generation
For all who work with Gen X and Y, some interesting observations.
The New Yorker: Fact: "There may be a generational explanation. While most high-ranking officers are baby boomers, most lieutenants and captains are of Generation X, born in the mid-sixties or after. Gen X officers, often the product of single-parent homes or homes in which both parents worked, are markedly more self-reliant and confident of their abilities than their baby-boomer superiors, according to Army surveys of both groups. Baby boomers moved up the ranks during the comfortable clarity of the Cold War, but the Gen Xers came of age during messy peacekeeping missions in Kosovo, Bosnia, Somalia, and Haiti. Gen Xers are notoriously unimpressed by rank, as Donald Rumsfeld discovered in December, when enlisted soldiers questioned him sharply about the lack of armor on their vehicles. This turns out to be a positive development for the Army, because the exigencies of the Iraq war are forcing the decision-making downward"
The New Yorker: Fact: "There may be a generational explanation. While most high-ranking officers are baby boomers, most lieutenants and captains are of Generation X, born in the mid-sixties or after. Gen X officers, often the product of single-parent homes or homes in which both parents worked, are markedly more self-reliant and confident of their abilities than their baby-boomer superiors, according to Army surveys of both groups. Baby boomers moved up the ranks during the comfortable clarity of the Cold War, but the Gen Xers came of age during messy peacekeeping missions in Kosovo, Bosnia, Somalia, and Haiti. Gen Xers are notoriously unimpressed by rank, as Donald Rumsfeld discovered in December, when enlisted soldiers questioned him sharply about the lack of armor on their vehicles. This turns out to be a positive development for the Army, because the exigencies of the Iraq war are forcing the decision-making downward"
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