Evolution Cont'd

A commenter in my previous post on evolution made a good point:

...living in close quarters with animals forced divergent evolution between the South American humans and the European humans: the former differentiated against microbes and animal-borne diseases and the latter against parasites.

I think we are arguing semantics here. I am not arguing that the human species has not evolved at all in the last 200,000 years. I just mean that the rate at which our species was moving to a new species slowed to a crawl or even stop.

However, you can argue until you are hoarse about what exactly are the mechanisms of evolution and what counts as a mechanism and what doesn't. For example, you might argue that the constant immunological reaction to constantly evolving pathogens pushes our species in a new evolutionary direction...but then can you not argue that vaccinations do the same thing? And since vaccinations are a human-produced pathogen resistance mechanism, then does all pathogen resistance become evolution, or does none of it...or just the stuff that happens outside of human control?
But then that leads to another problem of what is considered human-caused pathogen resistance: is my body resistant to several forms of e. Coli becuase I lived and grew up exposed to e. Coli in my processed food? I very possibly would have been exposed to e. Coli if I lived a wild life 200,000 years ago, but not as easily as I have been thanks to food that was insufficiently cooked. So is e. Coli resistance evolution, or human self-modification?

And is human self-modification evolution? If so, where do you draw the line? One nasty biproduct of human society is constantly evolving and aggressively-spreading forms of influenza, like the current swine flu epidemic evolution? It wouldn't have happened at all if there were low density human populations as there used to be.

Because of the complexity of the thing, I tend to discount all immunological changes the body makes as non-evolutionary. For example, dinosaurs huge size was owed to high concentrations of oxygen in the air, and a food chain that was buoyed by it.

Typically, one argues that evolution occurs as a species moves into a newly created ecological niche, or as a creature is forced to evolve to survive the closing of a niche. These are typically not products of bacteria or viruses, but rather higher level changes in the Earth.

Now, you could argue that a bacteria will rapidly evolve its DNA to be drug resistant. You could say "the bacteria with the resistant DNA live, and the species of bacteria has evolved." In essence this is true, but once again, the evolution of that bacteria has been forced upon it by human society.

And for all intents and purposes, all the changes in the human race since 198,000 B.C. have been minor and unexceptional. My argument was mostly that nothing in the last 200,000 has made our IQ's any higher.


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Nation’s Toddlers Celebrate Death of Known Child-Molester

Reports of the death of Michael Jackson, though seemingly tragic, filled me with absolutely no emotion whatsoever. To me, and much of my generation, Jackson has never been more to us than a bizarre sideshow, and a source of cover material for bands like Fall Out Boy. Jackson’s tyrannical chokehold on Beatles songs has been a thorn in the side of many artists who wish to reproduce the songs.

From Jackson’s “Neverland Ranch” to his $38 million in debt, bankruptcy, repeated plastic surgeries, dangling baby incident, bizarre behavior in public, and his occasional stage antics, I have seen nothing in this man that deserves my lamentation over his demise.

I am not a heartless person, I did not wish for his dead. Nor do I revel in it. But I do not miss him.


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Blog Dilemma

To write about genetics and health insurance, or to blast people for abusing the word "evolved"...what a dilemma. My time is short.
For the sake of my readership, who prefers I spout about science, I'll go after the abuse of the word evolve.

Evolution, as argued by Darwin, is a noun. The verb is natural selection, by which randomness, competitiveness, and self-interest produce ever changing individuals in a species, until a time at which a new species exists with new, unique characteristics.

Quickly, my point is that evolution occurs because individuals in a species are either randomly lucky and happen to have a unique mutation that enables them to thrive better than their peers. Or it occurs because one member of a species is more effective at mating than its peers. Or it happens because one member of a species is more effective at preventing its peers from mating.

But as Matt Ridley argued in his book The Selfish Gene, individuals for the most part are not interested in the well-being of the rest of their species outside the members of their species that share some or all of that individual's genetic code. "Why should I help you," an individual asks, "you might rob me of my future mate!"

Anyway, humans helping each other, and sharing ideas, I have argued before, acts against the pressures of evolution, and it is telling that our modern species has probably existed for 200,000 years without a major evolutionary change. Most species 200,000 years ago looked very different than they do today, if they existed at all. You could almost say that social interaction, language, and the ability to "plan, do, review" is what has allowed us to rise as the dominant species on this planet.

It bothers me when people misuse the term evolution like "evolution of society" or "evolution of modern computers" because the laws of evolution really haven't been in play in most of these cases. The users of this phrase "evolution of (noun)" are mostly arguing that evolution is a movement from simplicity to complexity, however in many cases, evolution does quite the opposite.
Whales, at some point, were complex mammals roaming on land, with four legs, and probably looked something like a large dog or rat. Then they, for some reason, evolved back into the water, lost their legs and evolved very simple arms. The modern whale is much less complex than it used to be. Many insects are smaller, simpler versions of their ancestors who were giants, living in a past that had a lot more atmospheric oxygen than today.

Something people have trouble wrapping their heads around is that we are basically no more intelligent than we were 100,000 years ago when we could barely start a fire, lived in caves and crude shelters, and communicated with grunts and gestures. Somehow when people think of humans of the past, they imagine the GEICO caveman.


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Obama on Iran

Why does anything he says condoning the Iranian government stifling the international press from revealing fully the atrocies they are performing seem sketchy to me?
Why does his professed belief that technological censorship and clamping down on the images that are being released from Iran seem a bit...I dunno...odd?

Maybe because he clamped down on the Guantanimo pictures.


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Universal Auto Insurance - Safeway Style

I'm right, I just know it. Unhealthy people absolutely should pay a higher premium than the healthy. Or put another way, healthy people should pay less.

Here, in an op-ed for the WSJ, the CEO of Safeway Steven Burd describes the health care plan they have instituted, and how it has saved money and increased the overall health of company employees. A few selected quotes:

Safeway's plan capitalizes on two key insights gained in 2005. The first is that 70% of all health-care costs are the direct result of behavior. The second insight, which is well understood by the providers of health care, is that 74% of all costs are confined to four chronic conditions (cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes and obesity). Furthermore, 80% of cardiovascular disease and diabetes is preventable, 60% of cancers are preventable, and more than 90% of obesity is preventable.

And this gem:

As much as we would like to take credit for being a health-care innovator, Safeway has done nothing more than borrow from the well-tested automobile insurance model. For decades, driving behavior has been correlated with accident risk and has therefore translated into premium differences among drivers. Stated somewhat differently, the auto-insurance industry has long recognized the role of personal responsibility. As a result, bad behaviors (like speeding, tickets for failure to follow the rules of the road, and frequency of accidents) are considered when establishing insurance premiums. Bad driver premiums are not subsidized by the good driver premiums.

So Safeway realized that the auto insurance industry is a good model for health insurance? But did it save money?

By our calculation, if the nation had adopted our approach in 2005, the nation's direct health-care bill would be $550 billion less than it is today. This is almost four times the $150 billion that most experts estimate to be the cost of covering today's 47 million uninsured

So did their auto insurance health care analog improve employee health?

Our obesity and smoking rates are roughly 70% of the national average and our health-care costs for four years have been held constant. When surveyed, 78% of our employees rated our plan good, very good or excellent. In addition, 76% asked for more financial incentives to reward healthy behaviors. We have heard from dozens of employees who lost weight, lowered their blood-pressure and cholesterol levels, and are enjoying better health because of this program. Many discovered for the first time that they have high blood pressure, and others have been told by their doctor that they have added years to their life.

I love being right!


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Hope I didn't say anything especially stupid lately

Conor Friedersdorf, the legendary blogger, is doing a short term "Idea Blog" for The Atlantic. Like any blog about good and bad ideas, I have been enjoying it immensely. He asked readers to submit "The Worst Idea Ever."

I suggested the 401k debit card, and he agrees. Thanks, Conor, for the reference. Give his blog regular reading, it is worth the view.


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Universal Auto Insurance, cont'd

As I continue to think about auto insurance as a model for health insurance, I was thinking about the idea that everyone should be covered, and how genetic disclosure might cause insurance companies to deny coverage to people with likely conditions.

My answer is "liability only" coverage. When I was a teen, that was the auto insurance coverage I had, because as a white teen male, and therefore auto insurance was ridiculously expensive...unless I got liability only coverage. Perhaps something similar could be crafted as a guaranteed health care plan for high-risk people.


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Devious Plot Of The Day To Save Money By Screwing Consumers

The hollow cavity inside a Twizzler appears to becoming larger...


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GMO's and a little history

One of TAE's brother-in-laws (brother's-in-law?) is an advocate against genetically modified organisms, or GMO's.

This weekend I heard a sterling historical example of why GMO isn't always bad.

Back in the 50's, when my grandfather was inspecting crops, the standard practice was to till the land as deeply as it could be tilled, which in those days, with small tractors and 6 blade discs, was on the order of 6-8 inches deep. As the tractors drove over the land and bladed up the topsoil, they'd loosen the top layer, while hard-packing the deeper dirt.
As the roots of the plants grew, they'd drop down and stop at the hard pack, and be unable to penetrate further. Summer would arrive, and the heat and dryness of the Plains would dry out the topsoil, and the plants would wither. Then the windstorms would blow away much of the dry topsoil, or rains would wash it away as there were no plants to hold it in place. This was before the widespread use of terracing.

There really wasn't a whole heckuva lot of great ideas to combat this problem until Roundup Ready crops emerged from laboratories. The seed could be drilled directly into last years field, with the previous years dead plants helpfully mulching the ground. By not discing the top layer of soil, the soil maintained a constant hardness, and plant roots could penetrate deeper, preventing both their demise during dry spells and the erosion of soil during wet spells. Further, the tractors used to plant could be lighter than those used to pull a disc, and less hard pack occurred. Plus, weeds and other plants growing in the field that were normally contained via tillage were handily sprayed to death with herbicide by a lightweight sprayer.

The reason I mention this is that my generation has absolutely no concept of the Dust Bowl years or of widespread erosion, or of a ten year drought. I don't know that Kansas, Missouri, or even Oklahoma has seen major duststorms in my lifetime. But we have seen the scourge that is Frankenplant, emerging from the likes of Pioneer and Monsanto. And as my generation moans that it is unnatural, I have to wonder:

Doesn't it beat the alternative?

The problem I see here is that we are rapidly losing the wit and wisdom of a generation who have a lot more wisdom than we do. Left to our own devices, we rapidly forget why a thing like Roundup Ready crops were devised, and in doing so risk repeating our mistakes from the past.


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And you thought I was joking

When I posted last week about the galactic superhighway being jammed.

I was serious.


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Universal Auto Insurance

A few months ago, I was involved in a minor car accident, which was my fault (according to the law). A woman in a huge BMW SUV slammed on her brakes in front of me, and her brakes and large tires were more effective at stopping than my small brakes and bald little tires, and I hit her back bumper. A couple months later, my insurance premium went up. I had no choice but to pay it. The accident stays on my record for several years, and even if I switch insurers I will still pay a higher premium than if I hadn't been involved in the vehicle collision.

Recently scientists announced that they can do a fairly effective prediction of lung cancer risk using a simple urine analysis. Immediately the news outlets cried "FOUL!" at the idea that health insurers might get access to that information and charge high-risk individuals a higher premium.
What's the difference? I see none. My auto insurance company is basically charging me a higher premium for two reasons: 1. to pay for the repair costs to the ding on the bumper of the person I hit 2. Because people who get in accidents tend to get in more accidents, so they are hedging themselves against the fact that I am a higher risk driver than someone without any accidents on their record.

Why do we think this is fair for auto insurers to charge a premium based on risk, but it is unbelievably crass for a health insurer to even propose a similar idea? Why is it okay for an auto insurer to charge a premium based on risk, but illegal (pending Senate vote) for a health insurer to do the exact same thing? I see an obvious double standard here. It seems to me, if you are a smoker, or drink heavily, is overweight, doesn't exercise regularly, has high cholesterol, or a strong family history of a specific kind of cancer, then you are obviously a higher risk client for a health insurance company to cover than someone who lacks the above health-related issues. It seems to me that by not assessing risk in premium rates, health insurance companies then have to charge slightly higher rates across the board to cover the expensive medical costs associated with illnesses that by and large come from the unhealthy.

A woman with a strong family history of breast cancer might find it ridiculous that her health insurance costs are three times as high as a woman with no history of anything, but insurance companies that charged her more might be able to charge healthy women less because they don't need to pad their books as much in case of a likely double mastectomy, chemo, and rehabilitation costs.
Further, it would make sense that after a man has a double bypass because of clogged arteries, his insurance premium would go up. Obviously he is a high risk patient; not only does the insurance company need to recoup its losses that it spent covering his surgery, but his risk of future surgeries and health issues (not to mention the massive medication costs) has gone way up.

Then there is the 700 lb. gorilla in the room, DNA testing. Bioethicists claim that genetic testing could reveal a whole gamut of risk factors for multiple diseases. Patient advocates are quick to proclaim that these tests should be done in the strictest confidence. "If the insurance companies knew the risks, they might raise rates!"

Um, exactly? See this article, where a woman hid her genetic results from her doctor and insurance companies. The condition she was "nearly certain" to get would cost her insurer over $100,000 a year.

What this is boiling down to is that I have been thinking long and hard about the merits of universal free health insurance, current health insurance coverage plans, and Obama's hybrid plan. It seems to me that a major issue with universal health insurance is that we can all forget being healthy, because being unhealthy wouldn't cost us anything.

If your smoking habit cost you another $200/month in health insurance premiums, would you have more incentive to quit? And if after 2 years of not smoking, your insurance premium went down significantly, like auto insurance drops a couple years after an accident if you maintain a clean driving record, would that give you incentive to stay off the cigarettes?

The way I see it, we all need health care coverage in one form or another. But I see no reason why the healthy and the genetically lucky should pay the same montly premiums as the unhealthy and genetically unlucky. It seems to me that if genetic data and full health histories were disclosed to insurance companies, then by and large rates would go down for most, and up for a few.

In the article I linked above, they refer to insurance companies charging higher premiums to higher risk clients as "discrimination". How is it not discrimination that my auto insurer charges me a higher rate?


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Ford Taurus SHO

FORD IS BRINGING BACK THE SHO!!!!!!!!!!!!

Becuase nothing says "family sedan" like a 365hp twin-turbo V6.


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Letterman vs. Palin

My only thought major thought on this is that headlines for this story should be "Palin twists story into agenda to stay in political spotlight pending Presidential run in 2012."


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This morning TAE has accepted a position at a new job. My new position will mostly involve mechanical design and analysis of devices used to detect chemical and biological warfare. My employer is a privately-owned, non-profit that does mostly Defense contracting. I am very excited, as the position required rigorous credentials (which I had) and I will be amongst a group of about 200 people almost all of which are M.S. or PhD level engineers and scientists.

Unemployment has been stressful, intense, and scary, and Mrs. TAE has been very supportive. It has been a sobering lesson in the number of ways President Obama's early legislative packages have helped the economy. For those that are employed, and will stay employed for the duration of the recession, the extra $25 dollars a week of unemployment money, the 65% help with COBRA, and the extension of COBRA assistance for 9 months are all poignant reminders to me that Obama was not "created by the Jews to destroy the white race", and though many people, including myself, like to point out how quickly some of his campaign promises faded into laughable untruths, he has in fact done a lot to help the unemployed.

My quick turn around (I was laid off less than 3 weeks ago) has provided for me a clear reminder that a bachelor's degree is essential for workforce security. In retrospect, my Master's degree, which was unappreciated by my previous employer to the point that I regretted getting it, was a really good idea, as it was a requirement for application to my new job. I try really, really hard to not judge those that do not have as much education as I do. Edison (my hero) never really even went to high school, and became an outstanding scientist and inventor. So education level really should not be a measure of intelligence. However, a certain value has been placed on college education and as surely as I type this, I believe we all need to go to college.

Anyway, I am very excited to start my new job, mostly because I will be in a highly trained workforce of creative problem solvers.

My only concern is that this blog may have to be terminated. My new position requires "secret" clearance and although I doubt it, I may be encouraged to terminate my public writings. C'est la vie.


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The Other Deficit

Here, Kevin Drum laments that even if we balanced the fiscal deficit, we'd still be running a massive trade deficit, making it basically impossible to ever pay off our loans we owe other nations:

Our trade deficit is half what it was at its peak. The problem is that this isn't nearly enough: eventually, we need to pay down all these loans. That means we need to start running a trade surplus, not merely a smaller deficit. And we have to do this even though oil prices are almost certain to rise in the long term and our dependence on foreign oil is going to continue to grow. I still haven't figured out how this is going to happen, and as near as I can tell, neither has anyone else. All the options seem pretty grim, though.

In essence, we need to start making things cheaper than China so they buy from us or we're doomed.

Or are we? I propose the following solution: we must invent sweet new technologies and we must do so immediately. First and foremost, I think we need to start building and testing fusion reactors. Fusion energy is emerging as a very real possibility, and the first to market with sellable fusion reactor technology will stand to profit. And a fusion reactor isn't a $0.25 toy, where you have to sell trillions of them to stand to effect the trade deficit. Fusion reactors could be $3-5 billion a piece, and emerging countries like China and Inda have that money, and would be willing to pay.


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Motion control, cont'd

And before we all get too excited about Microsoft's Project Natal, just remember, in the 80's, virtual reality helmets were going to change gaming forever.


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Misassigning Credit

Saying Nintendo is responsible for Microsoft's Project Natal because Nintendo "invented" the motion controller is like saying Hildebrand's invention of the motorcycle inspired Daimler to invent the car.
In case you don't get that: although Hildebrand's motorcycle pre-dated the first production car by Daimler by several years, the fact was that Daimler was aware of the motorcycle, experimented on his own design, and then turned to cars because he saw more potential there.


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Hating on St. Louis aka A Great Time

Having grown up in Kansas City and then attended college at the University of Missouri, located approximately halfway between KC and St. Louis, I got used to seeing St. Louis (and scores of pathetic St. Louisans) attempt to copy or exceed the ground that Kansas City breaks.

For example, it is widely understood in most of the continental United States that Boulevard brewery, located on Rainbow Boulevard in Kansas City, is the maker of the first, and best, wheat brew, known as Boulevard Wheat. This thick, tasty beer, which tastes great with or without lemon squeezed in it, is coveted far and wide, and Boulevard Brewery has drawn international flak for not opening other distilleries in other cities. Because they only brew in KC, the range of their delicious beer doesn't extend coast to coast.

So with the announcement that Anheuser-Busch is launching "Bud Light Wheat", I can only but roll my eyes and wonder when St. Louis will do something creative, and not just pathetically copy Kansas City?


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Education

Though I myself an unemployed (via layoff) right now, I found this graph compelling. Link here if you need to see it closer. Long story short, though many educated people have been laid off, the reality is that uneducated people are feeling the pain much, much worse. I'm not talking about unemployment numbers, I'm talking unemployment rate.
People with no highschool diploma and people with no bachelor's degree are seeing a much higher rate of layoff than those with bachelor's degrees.

Don't be a fool! Stay in school!


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Wedding Season

The worst thing about May and June is allergy season. TAE spends an inordinate amount of his time blowing his nose, and cussing at pollen.

The best thing about May and June is wedding season. This past weekend Mrs. TAE and I went to Columbia, MO, to my pledge brothers' wedding. Nothing better than a gathering of friends, cake, beer, and loads of laughs. My cheeks still hurt from smiling and laughing.


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Intergalactic Superhighway At Full Capacity

Good grief it seems like they've got the shuttles under heavy duty these days...the latest to land is barely back in Florida and they're already ok'ing the next one for launch in a week!

Go science, I guess. The irony here is these are the swan song voyages of the shuttle fleet, as its retirement is imminent.


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Mars

When someone finds thermophile bacteria that eats iron creates oxygen, and then seeds it on Mars and establishes a breathable atmosphere there, I really want credit for the idea.


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Employment update

I am 2 for 2 on getting second interviews, which for me, shows not as much that I'm a qualified candidate, but that I have (by way of my mother's loving care) obtained freakishly good interpersonal skills for an engineer.

I don't want to get ahead of myself, because I don't actually have an offer yet from either company, but getting laid off from a job I was beginning to loathe may have been divine intervention, not the divine retribution I first feared.

Stay tuned.


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The rise of all of us.

Am I the only person who thinks a little friendly competition never hurt anybody? If I was referencing sports, then obviously this is true. Without competition...well you basically wouldn't have sports.
Similarly in business, its fairly well-understood that a monopoly is really not good for anybody. It actually tends to be more profitable for businesses to have competition, which forces them to stay fit. And consumers see lower prices on the shelf for goods when there is competition. Through competition, we ingenuity occurs, as clever business managers come up with new ways to make a profit in an avenue that doesn't have competition yet. Soon, that market is filled with competition as well.
It's one of the main reasons the price of oil is so ridiculous...there's really no competition. America can't produce it's own oil in large enough quantity to effect the demand we pull on OPEC oil. And so we are subject to OPEC oil prices. Sweet Brent Crude, or whatever. If there was true competition, when OPEC said "we're cutting production by 1 million barrels a day" then later that afternoon another company would say "we're upping production 1.1 million barrels a day" and they'd try to achieve a larger market share.

Anyway, the point of this is that in general competition is beneficial for all parties, and for the human race. So every 6 months or so (with all due respect to Richard Florida) when I see some article titled "Brain Drain" I just roll my eyes. Here's the thing: if some brilliant kid somehow finds his way out of a third world country and gets into college and does really well, then wants to return to that country to try to improve the human condition there, I don't see the problem.

"Brain Drain" articles tend to either state or imply that the U.S. and Europe hold (held?) a tight monopoly on intelligent people, and the outflux of intelligent people to other corners of the globe implies the weakening of the U.S. and Europe.

I am not saying that isn't so.

What I am saying is that more people are getting bachelor's degrees, master's degrees, and Ph.D's than ever before, and if those people leave the United States at the conclusion of their education, they don't simply vanish into thin air. They don't suddenly cease to contribute to the global intelligence and economy. They don't suddenly declare war on the United States and use their diabolical genius to build superweapons. They simply choose to utilize their education in a new, unique way that may not have been available to them 15 years ago (aka pre-internet).

I've mentioned before that some psychologists believe that the idea of nations is a driving force in much of history's violence. That nationalism breeds contempt and hate towards other nations despite the international treaty situation with those nations. That humans, without borders around which to rally, would be far less dangerous to one another.

Is complaint of a "brain drain" not just more nationalism? Is it not just more fear that our "enemies" may close the gap between us and them in terms of intellectual prowess?

Other than fear, what possible reason could a human being have for desiring other nations to not have any smart people there?


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Hummer may continue humming

Those of you that are regular readers know that my dream-vehicle is the God-defying Hummer HX. Built like a Hummer, but with an engine that is actually fully utilized, and removeable panels that will make Jeep owners very bitter, the Hummer HX represents, to me, the perfect vehicle in which to mount a gatling gun. A la this.

So I was saddened by early reports this year that Hummer might get shut down.

But wait! Apparently an undisclosed buyer is in talks with GM to save Hummer! What sort of insane person would buy a vehicle brand made of pure PR-nightmare, gas-guzzling, ugly vehicles that aren't selling well?

The most likely answer is that in the future, I become very exorbitantly wealthy, and use part of my fortune to build a time machine, travel back in time, buy the Hummer brand, and enable myself to own the Hummer HX at a young age!

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Tiller

One thing I find interesting about the Roe debates going on is how many people who have an opinion have never been faced with an unplanned pregnancy, or a pregnancy involving a severe congenital defect.

Far be it for me to tell people they don't have a right to their opinion. But it irks me that people who have never felt the guilt and sense of...self-loathing...that comes with contemplating an abortion feel free to judge people who have had to face that. Many pro-lifers seem to think that people who have abortions do so with no regrets and a cavalier attitude. Similarly, the pro-choicers often turn out to be people who haven't seen an ultrasound of the tiny fetus growing inside their (or their wives') belly.

It reminds me of old stories of the Civil War, where the accuracy of the rifles used by soldiers was cast into doubt until it was discovered that many soldiers closed their eyes before pulling the trigger, not willing to see what damage their bullet might cause. Killing other humans, or terminating fetuses, although the law may see it differently, when push comes to shove it is not a decision taken lightly by sane persons. Anyone who tells you different is clearly not a parent.


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Quote of the Day

Freddie DeBoer:

I can’t imagine a stupider course of action, given this country’s demographics and demographics to be, than for one party or ideology to loudly assume a lack of qualifications for an eminently qualified person because she’s Hispanic. Seriously. It’s like Republicans are trying to become as relevant as the Whigs.

Amen.


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A picture is worth a thousand incorrect words.

Do the following thought experiment with me. Read this news article here. Then picture in your head what you imagine a 16 year old Iraqi with a penchant for mathematics and physics would look like.
In my head, I had a very clear image of this person, because at my undergraduate university, most of the civil engineering professors were Iraqi, and there was a large population of Iraqi students.

But I certainly did not expect him to look like this. It made me stop and reanalyze my own preconception I have of people. Especially foreign people.


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Tiller, cont'd.

My only other thought on this is simply:

If you disagree with Tiller and other late-term abortion doctors "murdering" babies, how does committing another murder make sense in a Christian worldview? Where is the parable by Jesus that spells that one out?

The answer is that it doesn't exist. Jesus is about forgiving others, and helping them be better Christians. Jesus, at no point, elucidated a policy where the most vile should be dealt swift and ultimate justice by their peers.

Time and time again, when I read Megan, it becomes obvious to me that she has no children. I do not mean this as a judgement. I mean it simply that a human's view of the world simply changes when they have a child.


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George Tiller, M.D.

Some of you know that I hail from the flat, grassy state of Kansas. For all its downfalls, it's a pretty nice state. Even though most people more than one state away from Kansas know us simply by some Ruby Slippers and Toto, the fact is Kansas has produced many influential political leaders and even a President. Kansas, you could say, is sort of the unofficial head of the Conservative Midwestern State Club.

But in the wake of Dr. Tiller's murder, I am reminded that Kansas is the home of Fred Phelps, the perennially pro-Creation school board, and some of the most volatile domestic extremism in the country. From Westboro Baptist church in Topeka, to assassinating doctors in Wichita, to people handing out cards at gun shows advertising which political figure to murder, you have a whole gamut of "conservative" extremists in Kansas looking for a way to vent their anger.

The irony, to me, is that pretty much every time Kansas makes negative headlines it involves Christians. Christians hating gays, christians hating doctors, Christians hating scientists, hate hate hate, God God God. Where are the Kansas Christians who profess a strong bond with God, and care about humanity's future, but want to embrace all of humanity, not just those who fall into a narrow mindset?

Well, of course, they are typing this blog.


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Sotomayor - Constitutional Defender

If you prefer, as I do, to get your news from the internet and not from Rush Limbaugh, then you can do a quick google search of Sotomayer and the First Amendment and you come up with this:

It took about, oh, under one minute to do a Google search and come up with Judge Sotomayor's dissent in Pappas v. Giuliani, 290 F.3d 143. The plaintiff, Pappas, was fired by the NYPD when it was discovered that Pappas had regularly (but anonymously and on his own private time) distributed racist and anti-semitic pamphlets of the David Duke variety. The Second Circuit Court of Appeals voted to affirm the NYPD's actions but Justice Sotomayor dissented on the grounds that Pappas's first amendment rights were not vitiated merely because he had unpopular views. There are two critical points to take from this. The first, and most important point to consider, is that here we have a judge, accused of entho-centric racism, dissenting on behalf of a white male police officer accused of distributing racist pamphlets. This is outside the Limbaugh/Rove/Hannity nattering nabob narrative and so has to be ignored by much of the MSM.

The more I learn about this lady the more I think she's the best pick in two decades for the Supreme Court.

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Way behind

I've had a smattering of thoughts between applying for jobs. Good news, I have two interviews tomorrow. All, it seems, is probably not lost. Apparently a Master's Degree isn't a total waste these days.

Lemme try to catch up, and I'll try to brush over stuff that other blogs have hit, and just mention a few thoughts I've had on current events.


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