Driving into work today I got to hear an NPR segment that purported to be a "discussion of what the Republican Presidential Candidates positions were on torture". It seemed that the purpose of the piece was to try to make the topic an issue, all of them were clearly "against torture", but it was asserted to get complex when the question became "what is torture".
Naturally, Democrats are completely clear; they are against it all - even sleep deprivation. I'm quite certain that they would be 100% clear if asked that there is really no such thing as a "terrorist" and in the unlikely event that anyone has to be "detained", it is important that this be with conjugal visits, weekend release, the diet of their choice and 24x7 entertainment. (Unless they are an American Corporate "criminal" like the Enron guys, then the death penalty isn't strong enough)
Ah yes, folks that would give their lives in suicide attacks to kill as many Americans as possible in any manner they can, who regularly cut the hands off thieves and stone adulterers and gays must really enjoy the spectacle of americans caught up in an endless discussion of whether "water boarding" is torture. I'm sure they are deeply respectful of the "moral high ground" that many on both the left and the right seem to think such a discussion stakes out.
Tuesday, December 04, 2007
Monday, December 03, 2007
Imus: 'The program is not going to change' - CNN.com
"Just three months after he was fired, the Rev. Al Sharpton, one of the strongest voices calling for his firing, said Imus had a right to make a living and could return to radio. Sharpton planned a news conference later Monday."Nice to see that the Rev. Al says that "Imus has a right to make a living".
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
Power Line: A general the Democrats can embrace
Being "credible" to the MSM and the Democrats is pretty easy. Declare defeat and hopelessness for America on all fronts early and often, especially in Iraq. Progress? Never the truth. Maybe time to be renamed into "General Betray Us". Defeat? Little history of being in charge of Abu Griab like Richard Sanchez? NO PROBLEM!!!
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
Thursday, November 22, 2007
My Grandfather's Son
This memoir by Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is a fairly quick and I believe important read for our times. The left has of course come out and called this an "angry book" and been strongly against it even though it is selling pretty well from what I hear. It is a book with emotion, but the primary emotions that I find come through are regrets, uncertainties, shame, feelings of inadequacy and yes anger, but primarily at himself, although also at injustice in many forms. To dismiss it as an "angry book" says more about the people dismissing it than it does about the book. They must have REALLY missed Dawkins and almost every anti-Bush, anti-War, anti-business and anti-everything screed out there.
His grandfather taught Clarence about personal responsibility, truth, character and "playing the hand that you are dealt". Thomas started out literally no running water barefoot poor and learned about hard work and stern discipline from his grandfather. One of his major regrets is that he rebelled and due to the makeup of both men, irreparably damaged that relationship. Thomas left the training of his youth behind for a time and dabbled in the "racism / victim hood world" during his Yale years and for some time after. His slow trend to conservatism and essentially back to the training of his grandfather was based on life experience and the influence of people of the right, especially John Danforth.
I find that Bill Clinton and Clarence Thomas provide a very good set of book ends to understand that people one truely can and can't respect and trust. A significant number of the same ones were supporters of Clinton and no difficulty with his actions, yet either at the time, or as time as unfolded have come to think of Thomas as having "poor character". Certainly the facts can't warrant that assessment, so one can understand a lot about the worldview of one on opposite sides of those cases. Biden and Kennedy are two that come to mind as especially good examples.
For me, the biggest insight of the book is how much courage is really required for a black man to hold views on life that don't align with those allowed by the Democratic liberal "proper worldview for blacks". Even conservatives have a hard time believing that blacks can think independently on issues like victimhood, racism and personal responsibility. Thomas makes it clear just how lonely it really is to really be "away from the herd".
I was also impressed with how willing he was to open up and put his self-doubts, fears, drinking, broken marriage and other items that he is clear he isn't proud of, but is willing to accept as part of the life he has lived. It provided an insight into a VERY different human experience of a black man in the old segregated south growing up and making good in life against long odds and a lot of difficulties. It is the kind of story only a liberal could hate!
His grandfather taught Clarence about personal responsibility, truth, character and "playing the hand that you are dealt". Thomas started out literally no running water barefoot poor and learned about hard work and stern discipline from his grandfather. One of his major regrets is that he rebelled and due to the makeup of both men, irreparably damaged that relationship. Thomas left the training of his youth behind for a time and dabbled in the "racism / victim hood world" during his Yale years and for some time after. His slow trend to conservatism and essentially back to the training of his grandfather was based on life experience and the influence of people of the right, especially John Danforth.
I find that Bill Clinton and Clarence Thomas provide a very good set of book ends to understand that people one truely can and can't respect and trust. A significant number of the same ones were supporters of Clinton and no difficulty with his actions, yet either at the time, or as time as unfolded have come to think of Thomas as having "poor character". Certainly the facts can't warrant that assessment, so one can understand a lot about the worldview of one on opposite sides of those cases. Biden and Kennedy are two that come to mind as especially good examples.
For me, the biggest insight of the book is how much courage is really required for a black man to hold views on life that don't align with those allowed by the Democratic liberal "proper worldview for blacks". Even conservatives have a hard time believing that blacks can think independently on issues like victimhood, racism and personal responsibility. Thomas makes it clear just how lonely it really is to really be "away from the herd".
I was also impressed with how willing he was to open up and put his self-doubts, fears, drinking, broken marriage and other items that he is clear he isn't proud of, but is willing to accept as part of the life he has lived. It provided an insight into a VERY different human experience of a black man in the old segregated south growing up and making good in life against long odds and a lot of difficulties. It is the kind of story only a liberal could hate!
The Language of God
In the subject book, Francis Collins, the head of the government side of the Human Genome project attempts to "provide evidence for belief". While I enjoyed the book quite a bit, if you are looking for "evidence of God", Collins pretty much just defers to C S Lewis on the actual discussion of "The Moral Law" which is the cornerstone of his "evidence". I'm still in the "belief and unbelief are equal leaps of faith" camp, but the point is that there is logic for either case and nothing in science, philosophy, or religion are going to "rationally prove" the case in this universe. Either God or chaos decided that our existence wasn't going to give us that rational proof in this universe.
The question of the book is: "In this modern era of cosmology, evolution and the human genome, is there still the possibility of a richly satisfying harmony between the scientific and spiritual worldviews?" His answer is very much "yes", as is mine. "Whether we call it by name or not, all of us have arrived at a certain worldview. It helps us make sense of the world around us, provides us with an ethical framework, and guides our decisions about the future." Seems obvious.
He lists 3 responses to the Anthropic Principle: (that the universe is uniqely tuned to give rise to humans, or as really good atheists put it "we are here because we are here"):
1). There are essentially an infinite number of universes (the "multiverse theory"), so "we had to be here", all possibilities are. (a current atheist favorite that they had to come up with fairly quickly)
2). We are just ultimately and incredibly lucky ... a string of many known and likely many unknown 10 to the - many 10's and even at least low hundreds of decimal place improbabilites all worked out in our favor. We won the cosmic lottery. No way to prove that the winning lottery ticket for the next 300 million Powerball WON'T blow into your house window. In fact, it would be nearly a dead certainty stacked against the odds that you would be here at all.
3). God did it.
Actually, in the ebb and flow of human history, this hasn't really changed much. We just have a few more specific numbers for just how high the odds against our random existence really are.
After some time wading through angry atheist tracts, the thing I liked best about this book was the tone and humility of the author and a lot less "intellectual grandstanding" than Gould even though this guy is clearly extremely intelligent and accomplished. He seems to be far more interested in his reader understanding the issues and his points than in being impressed with the authors intelligence.
A lot of time is spent on the problems of Creationism and Intelligent Design. I generally agree with his assessment that they cause more trouble than they are worth. I find "fundamental literalists" to almost always be quite brittle and quickly become uncomfortable and judgmental or both when issues of origin and science are discussed. However, I think Collin's fails to understand what I would see as the "the appearance of age problem". God could create the universe as I write this using whatever methods he chooses--how that happens to "look to us" is interesting TO US, but doesn't have anything to do with his "somehow trying to fool us". From a divine perspective, it is all "just stuff"(matter, or the appearance of matter), not of any great importance. The hope we have is that he has chosen to provide us with a "soul in his image" ... no doubt with less fidelity than a low res cartoon, but promised to be eternal.
Sit back, try to focus on the NOW, being as opposed to doing, "say thanks"--there may be more "proof" available than logic would indicate. God wants to know you, shut off your monkey brain and LET HIM!
The question of the book is: "In this modern era of cosmology, evolution and the human genome, is there still the possibility of a richly satisfying harmony between the scientific and spiritual worldviews?" His answer is very much "yes", as is mine. "Whether we call it by name or not, all of us have arrived at a certain worldview. It helps us make sense of the world around us, provides us with an ethical framework, and guides our decisions about the future." Seems obvious.
He lists 3 responses to the Anthropic Principle: (that the universe is uniqely tuned to give rise to humans, or as really good atheists put it "we are here because we are here"):
1). There are essentially an infinite number of universes (the "multiverse theory"), so "we had to be here", all possibilities are. (a current atheist favorite that they had to come up with fairly quickly)
2). We are just ultimately and incredibly lucky ... a string of many known and likely many unknown 10 to the - many 10's and even at least low hundreds of decimal place improbabilites all worked out in our favor. We won the cosmic lottery. No way to prove that the winning lottery ticket for the next 300 million Powerball WON'T blow into your house window. In fact, it would be nearly a dead certainty stacked against the odds that you would be here at all.
3). God did it.
Actually, in the ebb and flow of human history, this hasn't really changed much. We just have a few more specific numbers for just how high the odds against our random existence really are.
After some time wading through angry atheist tracts, the thing I liked best about this book was the tone and humility of the author and a lot less "intellectual grandstanding" than Gould even though this guy is clearly extremely intelligent and accomplished. He seems to be far more interested in his reader understanding the issues and his points than in being impressed with the authors intelligence.
A lot of time is spent on the problems of Creationism and Intelligent Design. I generally agree with his assessment that they cause more trouble than they are worth. I find "fundamental literalists" to almost always be quite brittle and quickly become uncomfortable and judgmental or both when issues of origin and science are discussed. However, I think Collin's fails to understand what I would see as the "the appearance of age problem". God could create the universe as I write this using whatever methods he chooses--how that happens to "look to us" is interesting TO US, but doesn't have anything to do with his "somehow trying to fool us". From a divine perspective, it is all "just stuff"(matter, or the appearance of matter), not of any great importance. The hope we have is that he has chosen to provide us with a "soul in his image" ... no doubt with less fidelity than a low res cartoon, but promised to be eternal.
Sit back, try to focus on the NOW, being as opposed to doing, "say thanks"--there may be more "proof" available than logic would indicate. God wants to know you, shut off your monkey brain and LET HIM!
Friday, November 16, 2007
What is Middle Class?
Tucked away in this unenlightening little column that I'm not sure why I read is an unintended gem. Howard clearly things that $100K is "rich". A couple of middle aged high school teachers in most areas make $100k. Do they believe they are rich?
 clipped from www.newsweek.com
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Reviled and Isolated
The linked Krauthammer article is very much worth the read. BUSH is certainly "isolated and reviled" by the MSM, the left and the far right, but as one can see if they look at the success of the surge, relations with France and Germany, and the general health of the economy, he hasn't quit being successful just because the folks that hate him would want him to. In my book, if both the far right and the far left hate you, you must be doing something right.
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
The Anti-Keillor
Two things strike me in this Power Line Post:
1). The idea that someone would need to be a "stealth conservative" at a paper is funny and sad. We know that 90% of media people self-assess themselves as "liberal" when given the chance and whine loudly about ANY sort of "conservative view" ever showing up in the media. It is just amazing to see the need for stealth by someone with a conservative view so prominently displayed.
2). Keillor is a great example of the constant liberal mixing of fact and fantasy to make their points. Hollywood for example is a master of the technique. The left loved to bash Reagan for allegedly "mixing up the movies with reality". Why does one have a humorist (Al Franken) running for Senator and a "Radio Humorist" writing a weekly column largely on politics for a major newspaper? Because for the left, "mixing" is never a problem as long as it is effective!
1). The idea that someone would need to be a "stealth conservative" at a paper is funny and sad. We know that 90% of media people self-assess themselves as "liberal" when given the chance and whine loudly about ANY sort of "conservative view" ever showing up in the media. It is just amazing to see the need for stealth by someone with a conservative view so prominently displayed.
2). Keillor is a great example of the constant liberal mixing of fact and fantasy to make their points. Hollywood for example is a master of the technique. The left loved to bash Reagan for allegedly "mixing up the movies with reality". Why does one have a humorist (Al Franken) running for Senator and a "Radio Humorist" writing a weekly column largely on politics for a major newspaper? Because for the left, "mixing" is never a problem as long as it is effective!
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
MSM Reports Iraq Headline
Hey, Iraq is back as headline news on CNN! Get a bunch of Democrats to figure out the most inflated cost figure they can come up with and it is printed as headline gospel truth. No need to report any positive news, we "just can't afford Iraq". It is already been declared a "defeat", no need to make any reassessment just because of problem. It is never too soon to declare defeat.
Oh, and Al Quaeda interrupting oil shipments at the Straights of Hormuz, or another attack on US soil? "Free" I assume.
Of course, entitlements are over $1.5 TRILLION every year and the "futures" if done with same the pessimism as the Iraq analysis would run that "family of four" something well over $100K. According the the MSM or the Democrats though, no question about "affording" THAT.
Oh, and Al Quaeda interrupting oil shipments at the Straights of Hormuz, or another attack on US soil? "Free" I assume.
Of course, entitlements are over $1.5 TRILLION every year and the "futures" if done with same the pessimism as the Iraq analysis would run that "family of four" something well over $100K. According the the MSM or the Democrats though, no question about "affording" THAT.
Monday, November 12, 2007
'Buckwheat' Comment Gets Candidate In Trouble
Guess the political party of the "Rep"? Well, the article doesn't say, but it DOES say that her HUSBAND is in a key position with the state DEMOCRATS. Gee, I wonder why it doesn't say? I always find it interesting when there is negative news on a Democrat the MSM somehow finds "Representative" too long to spell out so has to be abbreviated "Rep", and also fails to find the letter "D" on their typewriter. Not that the MSM would ever want to confuse anyone.
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
Peru and Other Menaces, George Will
"The stock market has predicted 9 of the last 3 recessions" is something worth remembering. On a more somber note, Democrats while most likely headed for power seem to be solidly protectionist, and everyone seems to want to talk the economy down. Will does a good job of covering some of the key bases.
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
Sunday, November 11, 2007
Are The Poor in America Really Getting Poorer?
Excellent Walter Williams column, VERY worth reading it all, but a highlight quoted here. As Jesus said, "the poor will always be with us". Why? Well, because if you decide call the bottom 1/5 of the population "poor", then there will ALWAYS be a bottom 1/5. They may have two cars, air conditioning, color TV and more space than the middle class in Europe and Japan, as those in the US do, but RELATIVE to the rest of the US, they will be "poor". Relative to something like 70% of the people on the planet, they are RICH! As Dinesh DeSouza says brought him here; "I want to live in a country where the poor people are fat!".
Having a lot has never prevented people from being envious. Jimmy Buffett with only a Cessna Citation jet is envious of someone with a Gulfstream. The US "poor" are envious of those that have more, and typically so is the middle class-envy is fun! No matter what you have, you can always want more-especially if you don't look at the "costs" in effort, risks or other changes that would get you to that "more" that you desire.
In the US however, if you ARE willing to look at that other side of that coin, the evidence is strong that you can move up that income ladder, and in fact have a 30% chance of moving into the TOP 1/5th from the bottom. None of this will ever be good enough for the lefties though. Like suicide bombers, they don't really care if their policies take EVERYONE down including themselves and the poor they are supposedly helping.
To a lefty, it is worth seeing an honest poor person actually hungry if that will get some upper 1/5ther to have to vacation in FL rather than taking a cruise this year. It makes no difference if that poor persons problem without the "help of the left" would have been "buying a smaller color TV than they wanted" vs going hungry. The important issue is for that upper 1/5ther to feel some "sting", then mission accomplished! What's a little collateral damage if the "rich" have to "pay the price"?
As study after study as shown, if you are able to get and stay married and work reasonably hard, success in the US is as close to a guarantee as anywhere in the world.
Having a lot has never prevented people from being envious. Jimmy Buffett with only a Cessna Citation jet is envious of someone with a Gulfstream. The US "poor" are envious of those that have more, and typically so is the middle class-envy is fun! No matter what you have, you can always want more-especially if you don't look at the "costs" in effort, risks or other changes that would get you to that "more" that you desire.
In the US however, if you ARE willing to look at that other side of that coin, the evidence is strong that you can move up that income ladder, and in fact have a 30% chance of moving into the TOP 1/5th from the bottom. None of this will ever be good enough for the lefties though. Like suicide bombers, they don't really care if their policies take EVERYONE down including themselves and the poor they are supposedly helping.
To a lefty, it is worth seeing an honest poor person actually hungry if that will get some upper 1/5ther to have to vacation in FL rather than taking a cruise this year. It makes no difference if that poor persons problem without the "help of the left" would have been "buying a smaller color TV than they wanted" vs going hungry. The important issue is for that upper 1/5ther to feel some "sting", then mission accomplished! What's a little collateral damage if the "rich" have to "pay the price"?
As study after study as shown, if you are able to get and stay married and work reasonably hard, success in the US is as close to a guarantee as anywhere in the world.
What do you think distinguishes the high and low poverty populations? The only statistical distinction between both the black and white populations is marriage. There is far less poverty in married-couple families, where presumably at least one of the spouses is employed. Fully 85 percent of black children living in poverty reside in a female-headed household.
Poverty is not static for people willing to work. A University of Michigan study shows that only 5 percent of those in the bottom fifth of the income distribution in 1975 remained there in 1991. What happened to them? They moved up to the top three-fifths of the income distribution -- middle class or higher. Moreover, three out of 10 of the lowest income earners in 1975 moved all the way into the top fifth of income earners by 1991. Those who were poor in 1975 had an inflation-adjusted average income gain of $27,745 by 1991. Those workers who were in the top fifth of income earners in 1975 were better off in 1991 by an average of only $4,354. The bottom line is, the richer are getting richer and the poor are getting richer.
Saturday, November 10, 2007
Wonderful Life
I finally slogged my way through the last of what is certainly a very worthy text on the Burgess Shale, the Cambrian Explosion, and the proper way to understand contingency in evolution, by Stephen Jay Gould titled "Wonderful Life". Yes, the title pays homage to the Frank Kapra movie "It's a Wonderful Life" because the angel shows Jimmy Stewart's (George Baily) what the town would be like if he had never been born. Gould attempts a bit of that conjecture, but mostly he just points out how very likely it is that humans would have never happened in any "roll of the tape".
Gould is considered by many to have been the foremost expert on Darwinian evolution of the late 20th century (he is recently deceased), and his expertise shows through in the book. He writes well, but feels that a huge amount of detail on personalities, latin names and classification jargon is required to tell the story. I disagree; the book, while significant, borders on the unreadable to all but someone VERY interested in paleontology, evolution studies, and minutia of Gould's ways of thinking of the people involved in science.
The actual message is very simple; If one would "rewind the tape of evolution" (he says that a lot) to the point of the Burgess Shale and start again the odds that any of the rewinds would result in human consciousness are infinitesimal. Darwin, Charles Walcott, and most every textbook have an erroneous idea of the "cone of increasing diversity" in evolution that leads by "design" to man. I give Gould credit for not harping on the relationship (although it is mentioned) that Walcott still believed in a "designer" (God), so that influenced his thinking that "evolution was part of the mechanism", and therefore "directed". A more apt description might be "the wastebasket of evolution" and the "graveyard of creative destruction" as much of the massive diversity of the early Cambrian simply ceases to exist, and it the reasons for the destructed and the selected are unknowable to us, and probably much more "contingency" than "order".
The book drives home the point that there isn't any such "assumption of progress" or even idea that "progress" means getting to something like humans. Gould's "watchmaker" is not only blind, but purposeless. There is no thought that "a watch" is a worthy outcome. Gould seems to think that life showing up was "inevitable" (oddly, he provides no scientific basis for that, and nobody has gotten close to creating even the simplest of life in the lab).
Other than that "inevitability", even the development of the eukaryotic cell (the type we are made of, with the wall and structures in the cytoplasm) doesn't show up until 1.5 billion years ago. Gould suspects that this is another major league accident in planetary development that often wouldn't happen soon enough before sun depletion (something like 4 billion years) to give a decent chance at consciousness like ours. There is very little chance of the undirected, completely random evolutionary accident arriving at us (uh, "news at 11 I guess" ... this wasn't exactly a surprise).
I'm struck by how often very intelligent people find a flaw in one item that someone else had asserted for evidence of God, and immediately jump to the "SEE!, it isn't created!". Meanwhile, they almost always expand the odds against their own existence by some astronomical factor. Gould never provides an imagined "10 to some huge negative decimal" odds against humans showing up, but over and over he indicates how at MANY points in the random dance of evolution, if one "rewound the tape", there is no way we ever happen.
He brings up the "anthropic principle" that says "this is the universe we see, because we are here" as about the only possible explanation a dutiful atheist scientist can be left with. This explanation is pretty much "it is because it is", or "we did a lot of study, discovered that the odds against us defied explanation, so we decided that we are just here because we are".
Say you are on Death Row and I'm your lawyer. I come in and tell you that we have exhausted all appeals, but you will be released before you are executed because "I've never lost a capital case". Are you comfortable? Turns out that in the real world, I've never lost a capital case nor had one of my patients die in brain surgery! Therefore, by the sorts of odds of us being here in this universe, you ought to find me as a "reasonable choice" for a lawyer at a murder trial, or your brain surgeon if you need one! "We are here because we are" has just as much to suggest it as a wise answer philosophically.
I suppose if you are betting against God, then any explanation that lets you live without that concern is comforting. Gould allows us to stack yet another giant but unstated number against us being here on top of a stack from physics with the wonderful cosmological constant of 10 to the -120, not estimated by man, but DISCOVERED in the fabric of our universe saying, "It could be ANY number, none of the others allowing your existence.How do you like those apples?".
I find that simple premises in life tend to work best. The old "If you are in a game of chance and you don't know who the patsy is, it is probably you" has a lot of truth. That is also heavily related to "the house wins"-you just have to figure out who "the house" is. In Vegas, that is pretty easy, in the US, lots of folks would like you to believe "corporations", and I falsely went with that, thinking it was a good idea to "work for the house". Unfortunately, it is Lawyers. If you look closely at our system you find they are all the politicians, judges, and BOTH sides in any dispute. Take a look at John Edwards-oh, and BTW, how many Lawyers are running for President vs CEOs or even long term corporate employees? But I digress.
Lots of scientists and atheists seem to think that they can explain to God just how he can run his house. "If evolution doesn't look ordered to US, then it can't have INTELLIGENCE behind it"! Uh, and exactly what would it be that would give us the perspective to decide that as little more than pond scum orbiting on obscure rock on the outskirts of one obscure galaxy out of what we believe to be 100 billion galaxies in at least this universe?
If one wants to believe string theorists, that would be out of 10 to the 500 universes. Is even the definition of "intelligence" that simple? Isn't even defining what our yet not understood to ourselves consciousness does as "intelligence" in some universal sense a pinnacle of hubris WAY beyond the simple idea that the earth was the center of the universe? We have decided we KNOW the parameters within which an ultimate power can decide to create? We believe God wouldn't play dice, it looks random to us, ergo, there is no God.
I was glad to finally read a Gould book since I've heard a lot about him and seen him quoted by many atheists as a comforting; "See, he is a really smart piece mass of protein, he has done a lot of study and decided God didn't create life, so let's commit the unforgivable sin and maybe set up a website where teens can do it, because we are scientists and only think RATIONALLY".
Maybe so; if it happens that randomly generated protein arrived at the proper definition of "rational" then my hopes are in vain and life has the atheist desired lack of meaning. Strangely, it seems like other than really large odds against OUR existence, it is going to be hard to have any evidence for or against God.
Gould is considered by many to have been the foremost expert on Darwinian evolution of the late 20th century (he is recently deceased), and his expertise shows through in the book. He writes well, but feels that a huge amount of detail on personalities, latin names and classification jargon is required to tell the story. I disagree; the book, while significant, borders on the unreadable to all but someone VERY interested in paleontology, evolution studies, and minutia of Gould's ways of thinking of the people involved in science.
The actual message is very simple; If one would "rewind the tape of evolution" (he says that a lot) to the point of the Burgess Shale and start again the odds that any of the rewinds would result in human consciousness are infinitesimal. Darwin, Charles Walcott, and most every textbook have an erroneous idea of the "cone of increasing diversity" in evolution that leads by "design" to man. I give Gould credit for not harping on the relationship (although it is mentioned) that Walcott still believed in a "designer" (God), so that influenced his thinking that "evolution was part of the mechanism", and therefore "directed". A more apt description might be "the wastebasket of evolution" and the "graveyard of creative destruction" as much of the massive diversity of the early Cambrian simply ceases to exist, and it the reasons for the destructed and the selected are unknowable to us, and probably much more "contingency" than "order".
The book drives home the point that there isn't any such "assumption of progress" or even idea that "progress" means getting to something like humans. Gould's "watchmaker" is not only blind, but purposeless. There is no thought that "a watch" is a worthy outcome. Gould seems to think that life showing up was "inevitable" (oddly, he provides no scientific basis for that, and nobody has gotten close to creating even the simplest of life in the lab).
Other than that "inevitability", even the development of the eukaryotic cell (the type we are made of, with the wall and structures in the cytoplasm) doesn't show up until 1.5 billion years ago. Gould suspects that this is another major league accident in planetary development that often wouldn't happen soon enough before sun depletion (something like 4 billion years) to give a decent chance at consciousness like ours. There is very little chance of the undirected, completely random evolutionary accident arriving at us (uh, "news at 11 I guess" ... this wasn't exactly a surprise).
I'm struck by how often very intelligent people find a flaw in one item that someone else had asserted for evidence of God, and immediately jump to the "SEE!, it isn't created!". Meanwhile, they almost always expand the odds against their own existence by some astronomical factor. Gould never provides an imagined "10 to some huge negative decimal" odds against humans showing up, but over and over he indicates how at MANY points in the random dance of evolution, if one "rewound the tape", there is no way we ever happen.
He brings up the "anthropic principle" that says "this is the universe we see, because we are here" as about the only possible explanation a dutiful atheist scientist can be left with. This explanation is pretty much "it is because it is", or "we did a lot of study, discovered that the odds against us defied explanation, so we decided that we are just here because we are".
Say you are on Death Row and I'm your lawyer. I come in and tell you that we have exhausted all appeals, but you will be released before you are executed because "I've never lost a capital case". Are you comfortable? Turns out that in the real world, I've never lost a capital case nor had one of my patients die in brain surgery! Therefore, by the sorts of odds of us being here in this universe, you ought to find me as a "reasonable choice" for a lawyer at a murder trial, or your brain surgeon if you need one! "We are here because we are" has just as much to suggest it as a wise answer philosophically.
I suppose if you are betting against God, then any explanation that lets you live without that concern is comforting. Gould allows us to stack yet another giant but unstated number against us being here on top of a stack from physics with the wonderful cosmological constant of 10 to the -120, not estimated by man, but DISCOVERED in the fabric of our universe saying, "It could be ANY number, none of the others allowing your existence.How do you like those apples?".
I find that simple premises in life tend to work best. The old "If you are in a game of chance and you don't know who the patsy is, it is probably you" has a lot of truth. That is also heavily related to "the house wins"-you just have to figure out who "the house" is. In Vegas, that is pretty easy, in the US, lots of folks would like you to believe "corporations", and I falsely went with that, thinking it was a good idea to "work for the house". Unfortunately, it is Lawyers. If you look closely at our system you find they are all the politicians, judges, and BOTH sides in any dispute. Take a look at John Edwards-oh, and BTW, how many Lawyers are running for President vs CEOs or even long term corporate employees? But I digress.
Lots of scientists and atheists seem to think that they can explain to God just how he can run his house. "If evolution doesn't look ordered to US, then it can't have INTELLIGENCE behind it"! Uh, and exactly what would it be that would give us the perspective to decide that as little more than pond scum orbiting on obscure rock on the outskirts of one obscure galaxy out of what we believe to be 100 billion galaxies in at least this universe?
If one wants to believe string theorists, that would be out of 10 to the 500 universes. Is even the definition of "intelligence" that simple? Isn't even defining what our yet not understood to ourselves consciousness does as "intelligence" in some universal sense a pinnacle of hubris WAY beyond the simple idea that the earth was the center of the universe? We have decided we KNOW the parameters within which an ultimate power can decide to create? We believe God wouldn't play dice, it looks random to us, ergo, there is no God.
I was glad to finally read a Gould book since I've heard a lot about him and seen him quoted by many atheists as a comforting; "See, he is a really smart piece mass of protein, he has done a lot of study and decided God didn't create life, so let's commit the unforgivable sin and maybe set up a website where teens can do it, because we are scientists and only think RATIONALLY".
Maybe so; if it happens that randomly generated protein arrived at the proper definition of "rational" then my hopes are in vain and life has the atheist desired lack of meaning. Strangely, it seems like other than really large odds against OUR existence, it is going to be hard to have any evidence for or against God.
How to Report War News
The linked article shows a theme picked up by the MSM to get the war back in the news in a way they find acceptable after a few months in which they have been forced to drop coverage because of not enough bad news. Headlines of "Bloodiest Year Of War" in some format or another have started to crop up, and the linked article is even better because since Afghanistan deaths can be used, they don't even need to give a hidden line on the success of the surge inside the article.
Tommy Franks was against putting more troops in Iraq mostly because more troops meant more targets and more deaths. In retrospect, that was probably wrong thinking, but it is a pretty easy sentiment to understand. When Bush was effectively backed into doing the surge, it resulted in more deaths as those more soldiers acted against the enemy, but it also resulted in the tide being turned and the locals finally beginning to pick up more of the load as well.
Can it keep working? Well, not if the Democrats and MSM have anything to do about it. The Democrats fabricated a resolution on asserted genocide in Turkey in the 19th century and successfully created a diplomatic and potentially shooting crisis in Northern Iraq. In the MSM, it is nearly as hard to find information on the surge working as it is on the stock market going up or the economy being good. Most people have no idea. Now, rather than reporting "the death of the day", we are going to report "a new record number of deaths for the year" as long as we can in order to keep the war news negative.
"Success" at this point for the Democrats and their supporting MSM involves defeat in Iraq being as clear as possible. The last few months it has looked like success in Iraq was a very real possibility, although not one that there was likely to be any significant reporting on. They appear to be making progress on a move back to defeat at this point.
Tommy Franks was against putting more troops in Iraq mostly because more troops meant more targets and more deaths. In retrospect, that was probably wrong thinking, but it is a pretty easy sentiment to understand. When Bush was effectively backed into doing the surge, it resulted in more deaths as those more soldiers acted against the enemy, but it also resulted in the tide being turned and the locals finally beginning to pick up more of the load as well.
Can it keep working? Well, not if the Democrats and MSM have anything to do about it. The Democrats fabricated a resolution on asserted genocide in Turkey in the 19th century and successfully created a diplomatic and potentially shooting crisis in Northern Iraq. In the MSM, it is nearly as hard to find information on the surge working as it is on the stock market going up or the economy being good. Most people have no idea. Now, rather than reporting "the death of the day", we are going to report "a new record number of deaths for the year" as long as we can in order to keep the war news negative.
"Success" at this point for the Democrats and their supporting MSM involves defeat in Iraq being as clear as possible. The last few months it has looked like success in Iraq was a very real possibility, although not one that there was likely to be any significant reporting on. They appear to be making progress on a move back to defeat at this point.
Understanding Hillary
There was some coverage of Hillary taking 3-4 positions on drivers licenses for illegal immigrants in a 3 minute time span in the Democrat debate a couple of weeks ago, and then accusing Tim Russert of playing "gotcha" in trying to pin her down. This week we have Slick Willie coming out with accusations of "Swift Boating", apparently now extended to mean any criticism of a Democrat by anyone.
The video is worth taking the time to watch, because it suggests a lot about Hillary as a person. She strongly feels that she ought to have any group of positions she wants and never have to be pinned down to anything. For a Republican front-runner, a ham-handed gaff of this level would have the MSM talking "unfit", but as we charge on to the coronation, it gets barely a whisper.
The video is worth taking the time to watch, because it suggests a lot about Hillary as a person. She strongly feels that she ought to have any group of positions she wants and never have to be pinned down to anything. For a Republican front-runner, a ham-handed gaff of this level would have the MSM talking "unfit", but as we charge on to the coronation, it gets barely a whisper.
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