Cigarettes And Chocolate Milk

Today at work we were discussing government health care, and the various pluses and minuses. One coworker suggested government will pay for it with massive tax increases on cigarettes, many of which have already been enacted.

Because I like arguing, I suggested the following: rather than raise money to pay for healthcare through a cigarette "sin tax", the government instead should subsidize cigarettes and save money by having people die younger. After a moment when I let people pick up their jaws, I explained: if you have to cover someone for 60 years until they quickly die of cancer its probably cheaper in the long run than covering someone who dies at 93 on 15 medications with multiple conditions.
Pascal Gobry does it better:

The justification for taxes on cigarettes is that smokers cost more to the public purse, right? Not because they smell bad, right? They cost more because they get cancer, right?

What if it was the other way around? What if smokers saved the government money? Because we do. We get cancer earlier. We die younger. We cost less in pensions and we even cost less in healthcare. What is so cripplingly damaging to the healthcare system is end of life care for the elderly, right? Postponing the inevitable by a couple months, right? End of life care is much cheaper for a 60 year old with untreatable cancer, whom you just put on a morphine drip, than it is for an 85 year old with about eleven different conditions.

The point Pascal and I are getting at is that it is very easy to tax the minority. Why is marijuana still illegal? Because it's easy to legislate things away from people who don't have the clout to protect themselves or their personal liberties.

Now, one might argue that marijuana turns people into sterile, mindless, apathetic sloths, and that arguer might be right. But I can change that sentence and instead of making a thing illegal, we tax it:
Now, one might argue that cigarettes turn people into cancerous, high-blood pressure suffering, emphysemic, nicotine addicts...

The bottom line is this: our country happily legislates on morality, and when I say morality I do not in the slightest speak of natural law. I speak of the vogue morals of an ever-changing society, one that hasn't the slightest inclination why some rules are rules.


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Veritable Smorgasbord

So apparently the government was a little too generous with its "Cash For Clunkers" program, in that it created an incentive great enough ($4500), that within two days the entire program's $1 billion budget was exhausted. I may not be good at math, but I think that's something like a little over 222,000 cars bought in two days.
I want to ignore the economics of this and focus on the less obvious: our roads are dominated by awful, embarassing cars. In order to qualify for this government subsidy, the car you are trading in must be a guzzling old hunk of junk, getting an abysmal 18 mpg or less.

So I find it scary that not only were there 222,222 of these cars on the road to be traded in, but worse yet, that's only a tiny fraction of the qualified vehicles in America. Are we so horrendously culturally and environmentally irresponsible?

In other news, I am currently eating a "Fuji" apple. Apparently "Fuji" means that during the apple growing process, the farmer sprinkled the glowing green worms from James and the Giant Peach, because this apple is about the size of a grapefruit. The fruit is delicious, the color lovely. But it's just scary huge. And since apples are bought by the pound and not by the quantity, this apple cost me about $3 bucks. $3 for a giant mutant apple.

In other other news, I happened to click on the msnbc.com live feed just in time to watch the shuttle land safely. Pretty neat trick, considering from the time it enters our atmosphere to the time it lands in the Cape, it's essentially a powerless glider, and the pilot only has one chance to land safely. I need to make sure I sit The Abstracted Daughter down and make her watch the next couple shuttle launches...as I've mentioned before, we're at the end of an era.

In other other other news ( I swear this is the last tidbit), human scientists have determined that mammals are better at evolution than reptiles. In other news, lizard people around the world bashed the scientists, calling their research "pro-mammal" and "warm-blood biased".


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Boys Will Be Boys...

This morning during my commute on "KLOV" the local radio broadcast of the nationwide "positive, encouraging" (Christian) radio station, they had their daily "focus on the family" segment, in which a psychologist argued that all boys should be held back a grade in elementary school.

TAE was immediately offended.

The psychologist argued that little boys are just less mature than their equal-aged female peers, and aren't ready to learn like little girls are. Give them an extra year (to do what, I wondered) and they'll thrive, and have more self-confidence because they'll do better in school.

Despite the lack of empirical evidence to support this, I want to examine his theory.

Many people refer to this as "redshirting" their boys before Kindergarten, stealing the term from collegiate sports where a player attends college for a year but does not lose that year of eligibility. Turn on an NCAA football game, and you'll hear the term "redshirt freshman" a hundred times.
Here, in a well-written essay, Holly Korbey explains how her son, Holden, barely 5 before the first day of Kindergarten, was told by the preschool teacher to redshirt her son:

"I think you should hold Holden back from kindergarten," she said.

"Are you joking?"

I felt myself getting defensive. I started talking too loud. "He reads! He's fully reading! He meets every criteria on this list, except one! Why on earth would we hold him back?" My mind was racing. I was thinking there must be some explanation. He was smart, social, pretty well-behaved. He definitely had his moments. But still, I couldn't think of what would make the teacher want to hold him back from kindergarten.

"Yes, Holden is a very smart boy. But, he acts very young."

"He's four."

"How Holden acts is perfectly age-appropriate. But, he does act young."

"What is he doing that's so young?" I began to have nightmarish visions: Holden yanking down his pants and peeing on a kid. Hurling toilet paper wads at the bathroom ceiling.

"Well, for one, he sucks his thumb."

Sucks his thumb? I knew kids who sucked their thumbs in high school! (Ones who went to Stanford, by the way.)

"I think if it continues, the other children will make fun of him."

She cited other examples of his immaturity: when they did a silly song and dance on Fridays, he participated. (The other boys did not.) Also, he liked to play by himself.

When I was a young child, I was very small. Although a March birthday, like mine, isn't that late in the year compared to summer birthdays, nevertheless I was one of the last birthdays in my class. Compound that with my short stature and you end up with a very small boy. In grade school, it seemed like all the boys around me would have a growth spurt, then, a few months later, I'd have about 2/3rds of that growth spurt. I felt small and a lot of kids picked on me. There was one kid, ironically a kid that was held back, who took particular delight in ruining my day with his behemoth stature (aside: he later did 5 years for grand theft auto).

But being held back was never really an issue I think my parents discussed. When I was a kid, my peers that were held back were done so almost entirely for mental reasons; most of the kids that were held back were also the kids in special ed classes. You certainly didn't see this:

In the next four weeks, I had seven more conversations with moms who insisted that I not send Holden to kindergarten. They told me their own success stories. One mom told me her son acted "effeminate," and she held him back a year to ensure that he was larger than the other boys, so they'd be less likely to pick on him. Another told me that she was holding her younger son back so there would be more room between him and her older son. "That way he (the older son) can enjoy high school without baby brother in his business." Still another mother was concerned about dating. "Tommy will be able to get his driver's license with all the other kids, be able to drive, go out on dates a year earlier." I listened in horror. Nobody mentioned academics. These moms were more concerned with the social advantages that came with being older and bigger: dating, driving, and — oh, yeah, one more thing.

There was one more reason, a blip on the radar, every single mom mentioned to me, however sheepishly: sports eligibility. In a state known for near-deadly sports competitiveness, Texas wisdom is that the bigger the boy gets, the more competitive he'll be at sports, especially in high school. And the older ones will be bigger first.

Is holding your son back becoming a vanity issue, and not a parental care issue?

Let's get back to the psychologist I heard this morning. His argument, unlike the "Dallas rich white people who want NFL quarterback sons" argument, is that boys are not emotionally ready to learn. The first question, I have to ask, is whether the psychologist claiming this was held back, or wasn't. The second question is how, exactly, did we make it this far with emotionally green men? Is it just me, or are all men, no matter what age a little less mature than women? In a culture where the term "man-boy" has become a commonly applied trait, I have to wonder if holding our sons back will really age them, or is the perceived immaturity of the male half of the U.S. population a symptom of a larger scale problem: decreasing personal responsibility and increasing levels of people blaming their environment for their own failures:

"My darling little boy is a terror because his birthday is in June, not because I let him play ultra-violent video games late into the night, drink loads of Mountain Dew, let him have free rein over the house, let him watch "R" rated movies, buy him whatever toys will keep him shut up, and then blame his teachers when he misbehaves in the classroom."

Holding your son back is not something I universally oppose. Many people take a year of grade school twice, and it helps. But it shouldn't be used as some sort of strategy for collegiate athletic scholarships.

Korbey states:

We all want our kids to be the best they can be. I want Holden to have every advantage, because he's a good kid with a ton of potential. But redshirting seems to me like thinly disguised one-upmanship, a show of force and a way that rich, white kids can gain yet another advantage over the other children. And frankly, it seems unfair — especially to the kids who could probably use another year in preschool if their families could only afford it.

I hate to sound cynical here, but when I see the truckloads of little kids at the local golf course, idly swinging clubs as their parents sit nearby and read about Tiger Wood's Nike contract and the huge piles of money he makes, I have to say that I don't really think all parents want what is best for their kids. A lot of parents want what is best for their own retirement accounts, and a professional athlete as a son certainly helps that desire.

Further thought: I have heard arguments that elementary schools should go to a semester system, so that kids would start kindergarten at two points during the year, hopefully making it easier for August babies, like Holden in the story above, to enter grade school with equal-aged peers.
And although this seems like a potentially clever solution and I consider it very reasonable, it really doesn't address the "problem" the Dallas parents have: they want their sons to be older than their peers. It also doesn't solve the psychologists' issue: boys are dumber than girls.

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Bad Ideas

Over at Ideas Blog, which I enjoy, Rachel Brown suggests we quit wasting our time with teacher "certification" or even "education degrees" and start letting anyone with a college diploma to teach.

Part of her justification lies in the well known fact that teacher dropout rates are high, and many who get educated in Education don't last in that field very long.

But her solution frightens me. She suggests we institute a "learn as you go" apprenticeship program for teachers, where they hit the ground running. First, is she suggesting teachers forego college, and that we just stick 18-year-olds in the classroom with a smile and a "good luck"??
Second, why do these policy ideas seem perfectly practical when suggested in regard to education and THE FUTURE OF OUR COUNTRY but would seem highly implausible when applied to other trades.
For example, brain surgeons have high mortality rates of their patients. They spend many years, and a lot of money, training to do a job that they might better learn if they just started cutting people's heads open as soon as they graduated high school. Because, you know, we should hit the ground running. I'd certainly feel comfortable letting a teenager open my head.

But then the real problem I see with her argument is that she suggests anyone with a college education can teach. So my concerns over 18-year-old teachers is unfounded, those youths will still have to attend college. What, pray tell, does TAE suggest those individuals major in while they are in their mandatory college term? Perhaps a degree in education.

But then we're right back where we started.

Hilariously, in the comments to that post, a person suggested that the bright women who used to become teachers are now, in today's society, becoming engineers. Forgive my sarcasm, but man or woman, I'm not sure an engineer is someone you'd want in front of 15 hyperactive children, trying to corral and teach them.


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Tried as an adult

This is a horrible story. Simply horrible.

These boys need to pay for their crime, to be sure, but I am confused as to why the 14-year-old boy is being tried as an adult, while the 9, 10, and 13-year-old boys are being tried as juveniles. I understand in some cases, if the crime or the maturity of the youth justifies it, a minor can be tried as an adult. But 14 years old? When I was 14, I could not drive. I could not buy a pack of cigarettes or a lottery ticket. I had not yet had my first kiss. Granted, I was naive and sheltered compared to many youths in the country at my age at that time, but nevertheless I was in no way an adult, physically or emotionally.
Nor, I believe, can anyone be.
But that really doesn't justify my opinion that the eldest boy shouldn't be tried as an adult like the others. What I really don't get is what they think the difference is between a 14-year-old and his 13-year-old cohort that justifies the difference in legality?

I'm no lawyer, but it seems to me that 13 and 14 are pretty similar, and neither of them very mature.

I do not condone the actions of these boys. I am just saying that I don't understand why the 14-year-old should do 10 years in prison, while the 13-year-old (who technically could be a single day younger) should do probation at a juvenile facility, and have this dropped off his record when he turns 18?


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Marijuana + California Deficits

First off, I have never smoked weed, or done any drugs for that matter. Besides a couple years of binge drinking, I've always been straight edge.

That said, I can't ignore facts. Like the fact that many people I know that occasionally smoke marijuana are living basically normal lives. Or the oft quoted "no one has ever overdosed on weed."

So when the state of California has a massive budget problem on the order of billions and billions of dollars...and they confiscate $1.8 billion worth of weed, I have to ask: why don't they just sell it?


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I ain't as good as I once was...

Watching coverage of the last week's Tour de France stages I was both disappointed and saddened by the flagging efforts of Lance Armstrong coupled with the surging power of Alberto Contador.
Although Lance may very well still end up in second or third and get a podium spot, and although there is an outside chance that Lance has been saving himself for an insane surge up the Ventoux tomorrow for a shocking win, it is evident that Lance Armstrong is no longer "Lance Armstrong." Like watching Tiger Woods during 2006-2007, it suddenly became clear that either the competition got better, or Tiger had slipped. Perhaps Tiger Woods is the greatest golfer out there, perhaps the greatest golfer of all time, but he and Lance are both facing stiffer competition and notably less domination than is expected from them. Where is Tiger Woods that won the U.S. Open by 12 strokes, utterly humiliating every other player out there? Where is the Lance Armstrong that passed the greatest time trialist of the day, Jan Ullrich...during a time trial?

The point of all this, of course, is that people age. Both physically and emotionally, Lance Armstrong doesn't seem the utterly brilliant bicyclist of old. Maybe it's age...38 is pretty old for biking competitively. Maybe it's the un-retirement. Maybe it's the broken collarbone this spring. Whatever the reason, watching the leaders head up the mountain on Tuesday, with Lance The Unbeatable falling far behind, unable to pace them, I had to ask myself "is this what becomes of us all?"
Are we all meant to age, and ungracefully deny it, up until the bitter end when we watch the next generation pull ahead of us and fade into the distance? Is that simply what life is?

Deep down, a big part of my dislike for Alberto Contador is that he is not an American. The Tour is just so much more interesting when an American interloper is stealing it.


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Obligatory 40th Anniversary of the Moon Landing Post

When I was a kid, in the 80's, the moon missions were long since history. Shuttle launches, though sporadic, were the latest thrill, as we slowly shipped aluminum and solar panels into space in ever increasing quantities.
I was big into science fiction in my early years (before, for some absurd reason, I stopped enjoying fiction altogether and only read fact), and read more than a couple tomes like Battlefield Earth, L. Ron Hubbards massive tome that in some ways was both the most misunderstood and least well-read discussion of human ingenuity in the face of overwhelming technological underdogitude (Underdogitude is a trademarked phrase, TAE 2009).
I read and empathized with Stranger in a Strange Land, got excited about my own intelligence in Ender's Game, examined politics in Dune, skimmed through Starship Troopers (wondering how they could even name the movie after this!), mused over Do Androids Dream of Electric Sleep?, watched The Matrix, and Star Wars, and in general imbibed a large collection of futurescapes all colorful and filled with humans traveling the stars with reckless aplomb. Not to mention I watched every single episode of Star Trek: TNG, DS9, and most of Voyager.
But for some reason, in spite all that, fantasy novels attracted me more. I read Dragonlance, and Forgotten Realms, Tolkien, the Wheel of Time, Terry Goodkind's series, and was an expert on anyone with the last name "Rahl" or "Shannara." I think Megan McCardle may have nailed down the reason:

Four years before I was born, man walked on the moon for the first time, the most magnificent single feat our little tribe of East African Plains Apes has ever managed. Now we don't even do that. What happened to the dream? Government mismanagement, yes, but something more than that, too, some failure of imagination and will.

Perhaps what I experienced, as a kid in the 80's, was the subconscious disappointment that all the science fiction books I was reading were a lost cause. All the great imaginings of the authors amounted to nothing but wasted dreams, nothing but a swan song for human interstellar progress. Perhaps the reason fantasy was so much more appealing was because I knew that dragons didn't exist, and therefore couldn't suffer the disappointment of having the Ordinary Wizarding Levels tests canceled due to budget rearrangement. I knew, deep down, that fantasy worlds would never be and had never been, so for me they truly were an escape.
On the other hand, science fiction novels usually touched on real life advanced physics, or existing futuristic technology taken to the nth degree. Science fiction, it seems, is a fantasy world built on future hopes for humanity. But as I grew up, watching the shuttle thunder into space, then return, never really making progress, as I watched coverage of the SkyLab and MIR dropping into the ocean in burning fragments, I realized we are (save for a 9 year blip in the 60's), no closer to space than we ever were.

One thing is certain to me: it's not about the money. $600 million toilets could just as easily be built for $100,000 if we really tried. The issue is that no one really, really wants to explore the stars. If we explore them, they argue, we may lose ourselves in them.

Space exploration has become a pet issue like global warming legislation. Everyone is "for it" but they'd rather America spent the money and time on space after they are done with their term in office. Exploring the stars, renewed interest in the moon, increased funding for NASA, these are perennial promises from Presidential candidates, and are perennially postponed or tossed into a quagmire of funding issues and red tape.

The last problem is the "private sector." Some argue that private exploration of space will surpass government efforts. Unfortunately, I think this prophecy will absolutely come true. Because private efforts to reach space exist, it puts the government off the hook to do so, and so NASA really loses a lot of pressure to progress. And suddenly we lose the impetus of the largest organization in the world to reach deep space. Space goes from a frontier to a tourist attraction.

It disappoints me that I think this but the following is probably true: humans will not reach another planet unless they have destroyed this one. I'm sorry, but it's probably true. Unless significant pressure is put on us, like, say, something cataclysmic happened and Earth had 8 years left before the atmosphere would dissolve and all life on the planet would cease, I really never see us branching out. Obviously the epic collapse of life on Earth is not what I desire. But neither is space exploration at the speed of a dead snail (and at the cost of billions).

When I was a kid my dad told me "I bet we go to Mars soon. They'll probably need a bioengineer on Mars. You should keep your eye on that." What a lunatic he seems now, as the first humans are not scheduled to go near Mars until I am well into retirement. A colony there...well let's be realistic; probably not in my daughter's lifetime.

That makes me incredibly sad.


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Carnivorous Robots - What Could Go Wrong??

At first glance I thought this was a fake funding announcement, surely no one in the government would actually give millions of dollars to a company that wants to make a carnivorous robot. But alas, it's actually true. This company wants to (and so apparently does the government) create autonomous robots that can range far and wide. Once the robot's fuel supply is depleted, it just starts eating.

Fortunately, I read a little deeper and found out this is a herbivorous autonomous robot, or "herbibot" (TAE hereby trademarks the words "carnibot" and "herbibot"), and when its fuel supply is depleted, it grinds up plant and wood matter that is combusted in a special new engine. The engine then recharges the robot's batteries, which power the motor system. Pretty cool.

Pretty unnerving, however, if someday soon I am driving down a country road and see a field with a herd of cows gently grazing...side by side with a herd of herbibots, armed with missile banks and Gatling guns.


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Space, the crowded frontier

Whether you are aware of it or not, the shuttle just took off for the International Space Station (ISS)(not to be mistaken for In School Suspension, a concept TAE narrowly avoided on many occasions). This marks the 8th to last mission ever for the shuttle fleet, next year they're retiring, and NASA appears to be planning to switch back to rockets and away from rocketplanethings.

But here's an interesting tidbit: This is the first time in this history of the human species that 13 people were in space at the same time. The reason this is possible is that the last couple space station trips installed new equipment that allowed for an expanded space station crew of 6. So if you combine the six at the ISS with the seven aboard the shuttle...well, you can do the math.

But we all should stop and think about the momentousness of this: the most people ever are in space at one time. As a thought experiment, try to list 13 of your relatives. Or 13 of your close friends. Chances are, it takes a minute. 13 is a lot of people.

Now, I think it is really, really neat that we have all these people up in space, and that we've developed the ability to sustain life outside our atmosphere, to a certain extent. But as I always do, I want to remind the human race that every 2 seconds a person starves to death. The cost of the ISS is estimated around 50 BILLION DOLLARS. By the time I am done writing this post, 300 people are dead from starvation. But look up in the night sky, kids! You might see what looks like a quickly moving star! It's the International Space Station! Where they spent $100 million dollars on a toilet!


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Why I cry

Life, as we humans know it, last about 70 years.

But to some, you only get 7 months. I miss you, Krazo. (click on the picture for a full version)

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Astana, the Yankees of Cycling

The Tour is about half over, and at this point, I have to point out that there is a bizarre and amazing thing happening in the standings. Team Astana is in 2nd through 5th place. What's more astounding about this is that the first place guy is not expected to last, making it possible that Astana would hold spots 1 through 4:

1st: Rinaldo Nocentini (Ag2r)
2nd: Alberto Contador (Astana)
3rd: Lance Armstrong (Astana)
4th: Levi Leipheimer (Astana)
5th: Andreas Kloden (Astana)

Also neat fact: "Astana" is the sponsor for the team, and the name comes from the capital city of Kazakhstan. That's right. Lance and my man-crush, Levi, are riding for make benefit glorious nation of Kazakhstan.


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Make light of dark news

Husband: Sheila, I damn well know where I'm going!
Wife: Well, Harold, mapquest says turn left at the next intersection.
Husband: Well I think if I turn right it'll take us right to the Rim Lodge.
Kids in back: Daddy's lost! Daddy's lost!
Wife: Left here, Harold. Left! Harold Left! You missed it. We should have gone left there.
Husband: So help me Sheila, if you don't stop bothering me I'll drive off the first cliff I come to.


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Lance Armstrong Video Bombardment

Back in 2005, when Lance Armstrong was driving home his 7th consecutive Tour de France, I felt compelled to buy my own Trek road bike, complete with Team Discovery Channel paint scheme, and hit the road. Between that summer and the next, I rode approximately 1,000 miles, lost 15 pounds, and found myself with a resting heartrate of 38.
Although the footage on VS. of the TdF was compelling, what really, honestly, pushed me into bike ownership was the following video. If you can stand it, turn your volume up, Chemical Brothers' track "Acid 8000" seems as if it were custom written exactly for this video clip.
When Lance makes the infamous "look back" at a heaving Ullrich 2/3rds of the way up the Alpe D'Huez, it was the shot heard round the world, in terms of cycling. It was the "I just want to let you know I'm about to crush your spirit." Lance, simply put, was dominant.



Another video that I find inspires me before I exercise is this gem from Nike:



I have Acid 8000 on my mp3 player, and occasionally, when I'm riding, I flip to it, channel Lance, and hammer my pedals.


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Hindsight

This afternoon, with my wife away and busy with the womanly art of baby showers (not ours) I took my daughter to the neighborhood pool. When I arrived I realized two things: I was the oldest person there, and my daughter was the youngest. The pool, it seemed, had become overrun with teens.
Possibly some of them were twenty. Despite the fact that most, if not all of them, were drinking beer, you could tell from their smooth, innocent faces, hairless chests, fatless bodies, and just...the rebellious way that they held their drinks, that to a man they were not 21 years old. I had no problem with this, as TAE has often argued that soldiers fight and die for this country at barely 18 years old but apparently alcohol is too mature for people that age...
Nevertheless, as The Abstracted Daughter splashed merrily in the pool, I looked at the gaggle of youths and was so suddenly and richly taken back to my own youth that I felt I must record it. Forgive my retrospection.
There was one young man there at the pool: well-built, short, and obviously hypersexual, who awkwardly kept trying to hit on a girl in the group. Though lukewarm to his advances, I had to chuckle as I watched him struggle to keep her attention with bad jokes and pool antics. Frankly, he reminded me of me.
Watching him, I remembered a young me, more than a decade ago, who would work the day shift from 6:30 am til 2:30 pm at the local SuperTarget. My best friend at the time, Chad, worked with me and the moment our shift was over, we dusted out of there, hopped into our cars, and hit the local pool. Oh, how simple life was. Chad's girlfriend was a lifeguard and we got in for free. I, as a youth, was perpetually single, mostly by my own ineptitude, and I was always on the lookout. At the time, well, time seemed to fly. Those summers just went so fast, and I really didn't feel like progress was made in my life during them. Most of the money I made was secreted away for college, and most of the time I spent chasing girls evaporated into nothingness.
But looking back, I can't help but get nostalgic thinking of the purity, and the simplicity, and the wonderful happiness of those days.
So I saw these kids this afternoon, playing washers, drinking cheap beer, and flirting with each other at my local pool, and I thought, "I loved that time in my life."

To me, it seemed like the best times of your life are always viewed backwards from far beyond them. In my experience, time makes the joys more poignant, and the sorrows fade away to nothing. But I guess I remember the sorrows sometimes too. I remember one afternoon in my high school years I cried on the floor of my bedroom, weeping openly and violently, begging God, Jesus, or any supernatural beings that had spare time, to help me find a girlfriend. I laugh, in retrospect, at my immaturity, but I also laugh out of embarassment and humility. Those same feelings still arise in me, but at newer targets. It wasn't a month ago I was doing the very same thing, but instead of praying for a girlfriend, I was praying for a job.

These thoughts struck me as I went to "make an appearance" at the baby shower. Here was a stock of my acquaintances from high school, as my wife and my wife's friend both attended the same high school I did. And as I was talking to a man, whose daughter sat in front of me in calculus class my senior year, it occurred to me that we all are just living these lives with no clue what the future holds, but a clear head about what the past held. It struck me as odd that I had sat behind that man's daughter for a year of calculus, but that whole time I had never thought "10 years from now I'll be at your parents house for a baby shower hosted by my wife and your little sister."

When I got home, it had been a crummy day. My car is on its last legs, between a couple fender benders, a bad exhaust system, bad steering, poor electrical system, failed cruise control, bad alingment that wears the tires out, aggressive driving that wears the brakes out, failed air conditioning, and CV joints that need replacing, my car is a in a sad state, and has weeks, if not days, of life left. My daughter had been extremely taxing all day; she has learned what "no" means and uses the word with reckless aplomb. My wife had been very busy with baby shower planning and had not helped much with the daughter. The weather here today was stifling, muggy, and I sweat even in air conditioned rooms. I somehow injured my foot, and the pain nagged me all day, whenever I took a step. All in all, I was not having a very great day.

But when I got home from the baby shower with my daughter, and put her in her jammies, and we read a story, things started to get a little better. Then I had my daughter turn out her light, and I lay her down in bed, and gave her a blanket. I said "Goodnight honey, I love you," maybe a little more robotically than I should have. From the quiet crib, a little voice replied "yuv you."

Is there a thing more precious, more effective at thawing even the coldest hearts, more effective at cooling the hottest heads, than a daughter's love? At one point today, my daughter screamed "no daddy!" and I saw that look of hate in her eyes that I know will be back when she turns 13 or 14. But when her tiny little voice mumbled "yuv you" the whole day's crappiness somehow withered away, and all I care to remember about the entire day was that two word sentence.

Truly I tell you this: the unconditional love of a child for its parent is such a precious and wonderful thing, I cannot imagine my life without it. I cannot imagine how I got through a day like the day I had today before I had my daughter to tell me she loved me. I cannot believe that, having cussed out my car, cussed out the weather, cussed out my foot, cussed out the laundry, and cussed out bad drivers, that at the end of a day where everything I tried to do with my daughter was a battle, every time I gave her two choices she'd just scream "no!", every time I put her in her car seat she battled me, on a day when she sang through most of her nap, and got up early, on a day where all her meals were unworthy and ended up on the floor, that even through all that, her day ended with a story and love.

As soon as I closed the door to her room, I know I had to record this. I knew that although my readers probably don't give two cents about some precious garbage between me and my daughter, especially since many of my readers aren't parents themselves, that this would be a waste of other people's time. But when my daughter ended her day with "yuv you" I suddenly realized I should end mine the same way.

Life goes by way too fast. It seems like 10 minutes ago I was in high school, but it's actually been 10 years. It just...I dunno. It just seems like this whole thing we're doing here is so damn precious we shouldn't waste a single minute cussing out bad drivers. Instead we should be singing "twinkle twinkle little star" with our kids who will be in high school themselves in another ten minutes.

Forgive me, I am rambling. I just wanted to put it on record that my daughter told me she loved me tonight, and it made the whole day perfect.


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Birthday Wishes

Happy Birthday to TAE occasional rival and occasional cohort TPI, who blogs here. TAE finds most of TPI's posts to be so cerebral that my eyes glaze over. However, behind all his liberal leanings and idealism, he speaks an excellent truth. And he speaks it well.


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Mental Health Break

Lo there do I see my father.
Lo there do I see my mother.
Lo there do I see my brothers and my sisters.
Lo there do I see the line of my people back to the beginning.
Lo they do call to methey bid me take my place among them in the Halls of Valhalla, where the brave may live forever.

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Collins for NIH head

This morning President Obama announced Francis Collins, M.D., as his choice to head the NIH, or National Institutes of Health, which represents the Federal Government's major research funding arm, with an annual budget of $27 billion.

About a year ago, I sat down with Francis Collin's book The Language of God inside which he loosely and nebulously explains that DNA, his specialty, is the "language of God," i.e. the method by which God works actively every day in science. I believe the technical term for Collins' philosophy is "theistic evolution" or in layman's terms "evolution actively guided by a higher power."

Collins journey to Christianity has been very similar to mine. As a young man, he considered science far above and beyond the mythologies of religion, and like me, had an epiphatic moment where he realized the harmony that actually exists between Nature and God. Like me, he has studied science most of his adult life, and like me, he finds the acquisition of knowledge to further proof of God's wondrous power, rather than diminish it.

All in all the book was a snorefest. To me it basically read like this:
"All you non-sciencey people, I know waaaaaaay more than you do about science, and I'm one of the foremost experts on genetics in the world. Despite that, I find God deeply plausible, but not in conflict with science. Therefore, you all should too."
Now, there may have been a large body of people who, not knowing much about science but having a deep faith in God read the book and said to themselves: "If this scientists can believe that religion and science can coexist in harmony, then maybe I shouldn't be so anti-science" and (though I find it highly doubtful) perhaps a couple of Dawkins' cohorts read the book and it dawned on them that God and Science aren't enemies...they're the same thing.

But I doubt it.

The lines in the sand seem pretty well drawn to me, and I just don't see a lot of my peers dropping what they're believing and following Collins' BioLogos theories.

Now, disappointment with texts aside, the body of Collins' scientific research is astounding and humbling to a young scientist like myself, and I have no doubt that he will fulfill every expectation as the head of the NIH.

But if anyone (including Mr. Obama) is hoping that Collins' taking over the NIH will somehow spark a hugfest between Richard Dawkins and Ken Ham...think again.


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Brilliant T-Shirt Idea of The Day

Front: Jeb Bush 2012

Back: Because third times a charm...right?


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The Peter Principle of Politics

You get elected to higher and higher positions until you are found incompetent at a political position, which you effectively get reelected to over and over...

Here, Arizona state Senator Sylvia Allen manages to contradict herself in two sequential sentences:

"The Earth has been here 6,000 years, long before anybody had environmental laws, and somehow it hasn’t been done away with. We need to get the uranium here in Arizona, so this state can get the money from it,"

Now, "science" tells us that the Earth is around 4.3 billion years old. The reason we know this is that we have something called radioactive decay measurement. In essence, if you know the rate at which radioactive materials decay, then you can determine how long ago a sample was purely radioactive material...in essence back calculating the age of the sample. The most accurate estimates of Earth's age come from radioactive decay measurements using...you guessed it...uranium.


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How to colonize another planet.

Hint: Not realistic.

Here, scientists argue that nanorockets that act like "particle accelerators" could provide thrust to tiny spaceship, speeding them to nearly light speed so that they could reach other stars in a reasonable amount of time. Ignoring the fact that communication with those spaceships would still take...light years...this is a pretty cool idea.

Here, scientists claim to have discovered how to make sperm cells from stem cells.

TAE's genius idea: Load a tiny ship with stem cells and a bioprocessor. Then, launch said ship (and a small army of others explained later) at nearly light speed to nearby stars. The ship army automatically determines if habitable planets exist around star. If not, the microship army moves on to next star, and so forth until a habitable planet is discovered. The bioprocessor ship then activates the bioprocessor, which turns the stem cells into sperm and eggs. The sperm then fertilize the eggs. The fertilized eggs are then frozen and the spaceship sends a "Go" signal.

Phase 2: Once the "go" signal is detected, a small army of microships are launched in the direction of the colony ship. These ships contain parts and pieces of incubation chambers, a power plant, colony buildings, and highly advanced robots. The robot ships, almost like Voltron, assemble in space into the robots, who use solar power to function. The robots then start assembling the power plant, which has an autolanding mechanism built into it. The robots then land (switching from solar power to power from the plant) and assemble the incubation pods. The fertilized eggs are then thawed and cultured in the incubation chambers for 9 months.
Voila! Human babies are born. The robots then meticulously raise them, using food from food-bearing microships that have also landed. The robots also teach them. Soon the humans have started a colony. Earth, meanwhile, (years before) has sent out a radio broadcast to the future colonists. The radio broadcast arrives, and the colonists send one back. Years later, it arrives on earth. Congratulations, we've just colonized another world, in another solar system.

The problem with classic colonization theory is the idea that adult humans climb into a vessel to trumpets and fanfare and blast off from Cape Canaveral to do it. From a resource standpoint, it makes much more sense to send gametes to another planet in tiny, easy to power vessels that actually can move quickly from star system to star system, and once a habitable planet is found...the adult humans are grown onsite.


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Self-sacrifice, cont'd.

Back during Easter season (I think it's supposed to be a season? Or is the season Lent and the day is Easter? This is why The Abstracted Sister is the minister, and I am the engineer), I wrote a short post discussing that I consider self-sacrifice for strangers to be the single most Christian act a person can perform, and the act of doing so was perhaps the single most significant thing that both separates humans from the rest of the animal kingdom, and connects us to the Divine.
This morning I heard two men in Minnesota drowned after saving a boy from a similar fate. I can't find a link to the expanded story, but the synopsis is as follows:

A boy swam too far out, and the high winds were making it difficult for him to get air and swim. After hearing his cries for help, Nathan Junker and Albert Hermiston dashed into the water with a life preserver. The two swam to the boy, put the life preserver on him, and sent him to shore. Lacking floatation devices themselves, the two were unable to reach shore or stay afloat. Tragically, both men drowned. The boy lived.

When I heard this story I was deeply moved. And at the same time, I asked myself what I would do if I were in Nathan Junker's place. Would I watch helplessly from the shore, sickened but fascinated? Would I desperately call 911, knowing deep down that police surely could not arrive in time? Or would I plunge recklessly into the water, putting the life of a stranger above my own?
I do not pretend like this isn't a hard decision. I have a wife and young daughter who depend on me. But at the same time, when I think about how hard it would be to leave them here on earth via self-sacrifice, I also think about what I'd want a stranger to do if my daughter ever found herself above her depth in a lake in high winds, unable to reach the shore.

And there's the rub. There's the core theme of Christian sacrifice. Someone else sacrificed His life for me, not even knowing me, not even knowing if I would be worthy of that sacrifice. And He didn't get the luxury of a graceful, swift death. He didn't go out with his boots on. He bled to death on the cross in his undies in front of a hostile crowd. And because He did this for me, I absolutely must do it for another, if the time comes.

Now I don't want to give the impression that self-sacrifice is the only Christian connector to God. But it seems to me that sacrifice, or more importantly doing less so another can have more, is a noble and human trait.
Perhaps our grandparents got this. Perhaps that is what makes them so unique from Gen Y. Perhaps our grandparents believed and lived a philosophy of "I have slightly more than the minimum necessary, so I'll give the extra to those that need it" while my generation is living a philosophy of "I want as much as possible but I'm not heartless so I want everyone else to have as much as possible too." Our ideals are noble, but our methods are unChristian.

I'm not innocent of the accusations I make above. My own head swims with greed, and I am obsessed with the idea of becoming rich beyond imagination via my powered exoskeleton. And then I think of all the stuff I could buy for my family and friends with my riches. That's nice of me, but I'm missing the mark somewhere. The problem is that in my plan I don't sacrifice anything, I just redistribute my wealth to a larger group of people. Potentially, I could be creating more problems than I'd be solving.

To the readers, especially those in Gen X and Y, I suggest you take a look at your goals, and try to figure out your true motives. And then see if you can really reconcile those motives with the fundamental philosophy of your religion.

Anyway, back to science.


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Wisdom is not a fossil fuel.

TAE best friend and repeat guest writer Adam wrote me a long email discussing his renewed and deep admiration for his grandparents. He writes:

“My grandma had a cherry tree grove at her house. When the cherries were ripe, she started calling her extended family to come over and pick cherries. When not enough of them could come, she started calling neighbors, and anyone else she could think of. She could not let a single cherry touch the ground. ‘Can’t let good cherries go to waste’ she’d say. You just don’t see people doing that nowadays.”

He goes on to discuss the conservative mindset that his grandparents have held so firmly for as long as they can remember. At last, he expressed regret that he had not interacted with his grandfather more, as the man is starting to succumb to early stage dementia.

As I am sensitive to my friend’s situation, and as I also hold Tom Brokaw’s Greatest Generation dear, what I want to express to the reader today is that “wisdom” is not a fossil fuel, and once passed down, can renew itself in a new host. I have a friend, a mechanical engineer like myself, who got a lucrative job recently at a large firm based here in Kansas City. His salary was…fantastic, fresh out of college he started at 75k. His profit sharing is also lucrative, and he’ll probably earn 10-20k this Christmas via that. In this economy. And combine that with his wife’s salary as a paralegal, you get a family of two living in a low cost city making six figures.
I talked to this friend a few months ago when he was preparing to buy a house. He said the bank had qualified him for a $255,000 loan. He and his wife had looked around at the homes at that price, and were awestruck by how much house they could “afford.” Mind you, this is after the housing bubble popped. Three years ago he’d probably have qualified for a $400,000 loan. Anyway, I asked him “what does a young, childless couple need with a 5 bedroom, 4 bath with walkout basement?” and he said this to me “my friend, no family on earth needs that much house. Not even if we had 5 kids would we need that much house. My grandpa and grandma lived in a 2 bedroom 1 bath (with no garage) for 41 years, raised three kids there, and never once did they complain or believe they needed more house.” My friend and his wife eventually bought a 3 bedroom, 1.5 bath, gorgeous ranch with a huge yard, and TAE tips his hat to the modest.
The point here is this: our grandparents lived lives in an era that required them to not only get by with less, but to rationalize the “less” they had as “enough” and go on living. Our grandparents planted Victory Gardens. Our grandparents canned their own food. Our grandparents attended church…well…religiously, for most of their lives. I challenge the reader to name 3 people over the age of 70 that don’t attend church. I suggest you will be hard pressed to name them.

This post is not meant to be grandparent hero-worship, although I know it seems like it. What I am trying to impress upon the reader is that living like your grandparents is extremely difficult in a world where not only are we taught to not content ourselves with what we have, but we have been ingrained with the a priori philosophy that “more wealth = more good.” To live like your grandparents, you first need to open the New Testament, as they have done countless times over the last century and read the words of Jesus to the young king: “give away all your belongings, and follow me.” Deep down, I know that I am very much like my paternal grandfather. I know he was an intrepid, enterprising, humorous, ambitious young man. These are the qualities I pride in myself. But when I wonder what separates me from him, I know deep down it is not losing the farm in the Great Depression. It is not the bombing runs he flew in WWII. It is not being witness to 85 years of history against my paltry 27. What separates me (and my generation) from his is the indomitable faith in Jesus Christ and his teachings, and how weakly I follow them and how strongly they guide his life. I once again challenge the reader to name three people. But in this case, name three people under 35 who read a daily devotional.

The little angel on my shoulder suggested to me that I be less Christ-centric in this post. That is fine. Take Christ and Christianity out of the above post, and insert any other faith, and the generalities still hold. My generation has not found its faith, whatever that faith may be. We, it would seem, worship ourselves instead.

To Adam, and to anyone else who acknowledges that The Greatest Generation has a lot to teach and show us about living a satisfying, full life (without living a life full of stuff), I suggest you remember that your church probably has a cadre of different aged persons. Although awkward and difficult (and bizarre in the eyes of your less forward thinking peers), taking the time to establish relationships and dialogues with the elderly in your church can teach you more about lving life, and about loving yourself, than you could possibly imagine. As I was writing this, I stopped on a whim and called my grandmother in Iowa. She explained that her new wallpaper border in the kitchen was a crock pattern. Amused, I asked what a “crock” was. “For pickling cucumbers, of course,” she replied. “We’d fill the 5 gallon crock with cucumbers and brine and let it all pickle.” I didn’t even know you could do that.


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Chicago Architecture/Renovation

Next time I am visiting the Abstracted Sister and her family in Chicago I absolutely must check out the new all glass observation platforms installed on the Sears Tower. Apparently you can see a full quarter mile down.

The Abstracted Mother is highly advised to avoid the Sears Tower at all costs.


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Obligatory Lance Armstrong Post

As I type this, Lance Armstrong has moved up to 2nd place in the Tour de France.

Armstrong has many biographies, training manuals, and websites devoted to him, so I'll spare the reader any biographical information they could find elsewhere, probably more accurately.

But as an engineer, Armstrong is really the posterboy for biomechanical engineering. From wind tunnel testing to adjusting the bike mechanics and aerodynamics, to ergonomics of the bike seat, to aero bars, to his intense training regimen that is, like horses, set up to peak at race time, to his embrace of new technology, the man and the economy that surrounds Armstrong proves that science and technology can coalesce into a superior version of the human condition. Although most of us do not have 6 hours a day to ride and a team of dieticians to provide us with perfectly designed meals, we do get the shake down of technology that has largely been brought about in the last 10 years...a.k.a. The Reign Of Lance. Ten years ago you just didn't see people on bikes much. Nowadays you see them on carbon fiber bikes with disc wheels. These technologies weren't invented by Armstrong or even his team. But the freakish success of Armstrong in TdF after TdF has proven the success of the technologies.

Whereas cyclists used to take a very relaxed off-season (see Jan Ullrich) and start getting in shape in early spring for the racing season, now most competitive cyclists never stop to catch their breath.

If you are lucky enough to catch Armstrong, Leipheimer, Contador, and the peleton of bikers on television this month, just try to admire for a second the marriage of technology and biology that has occurred to create the athletes spinning across your screen.

And when the inevitable EPO scandal hits some of the cyclists, instead of reviling the sport, and the athletes that participate in it, instead realize that biotechnology has come so far that we've even figured out how to artificially increase our red blood cell count temporarily to enable higher speed at higher altitude. Cheating? Yes. Amazing? Yes.

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Surprise of the Century

Madison Capital Times:

Studies show that "a dose of nature" can be more effective than a dose of medication in reducing the symptoms of attention deficit disorder. Obesity and depression are alleviated, too.

Read the full article here.


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Idle thought

In 1977 Freeman Dyson argued that about 10% of the carbon dioxide in the air is typically absorbed by plants from Spring to Fall, then released when the plants die as the temperature cools.

Thought: as human society warms the earth with ever increasing CO2 emissions, and more and more land becomes habitable for plants and trees, will it actually stem the increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide?
Or does increasing temperatures actually decrease habitable landmass?


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Promoting White Kids

My opinion on the Ricci v. DeStefano case is this: there is a reason we have 9 Supreme Court justices, and not just 1 or 3.

Now, I have to be careful what I say, because I am a white male from the upper-middle class and compared to some, grew up with a silver spoon in my mouth. But when I was applying to college 10 years ago, there was a noticeable abundance of scholarships available for minority students, and a noticeable lack of scholarships available for white males from the upper-middle class. I was not so naive as to think this was some sort of discrimination against whites; rather I was cognizant that minority opportunies were in place to level the playing field that had been stacked in my favor.
However, I am as strong proponent of the realization that the removal of the dermal layer of a human being erases any ability to discern their race, i.e. the human mind architecture is not correlated to race, and anyone that tells you so is either citing nothing, or citing research sponsored by white supremacist agendas.
In short, I did not feel oppressed by the lack of scholarships, and I certainly believed that when I was in a college class with mixed demographics, if I excelled more than a black person, it was becuase I worked harder, not because they were black. Nor was it because of their background prior to college, in my opinion. When I got to college, I considered everyone to have a clean slate.

Now, on to the alleged exam. As someone who understands how to run an ANOVA, and how to run a student's T test, let me tell you: 77 examinees is a very small sample size. To me, it is difficult to explain why the minority test takes fares so much poorer than the white test takers. But what I do know is that without a much larger sample, it is very difficult to provide a clear understanding of the results. Had this been a nationwide test, like the SAT, and minority examinees nationwide across all demographics and economic levels had scored lower than their caucasian peers from equivalent backgrounds, then you might have an issue with the test questioning.
Two of my friends are executives for a company that administers online nurse qualification exams. This test is taken nationwide by a large percentage of nurses in training. Their results show that there isn't a correlation to race in the pass/fail ratios. I suggest to the reader that the same might be true for the firefighter test, had it been administered to a larger sample pool.

But the thing I find most suspect about this (and if you have more details please let me know) is that a 70% on the test was passing, and a 69% was failing. Although I do not know the exact results of the test, is it possible that a couple white examinees got 71% and a couple of black examinees got 69%? What if all the black examinees got scores in the 60-69% range, and in so doing, failed...by a hair. What if all the white examinees got scores in the 70-75% range, and in so doing, passed...by a hair. Although only separated by a couple percentage points, the white examinees pass, and the black examinees don't. And so the results seem more extreme than they might actually be.

As far as the Sotomayor angle...I have no opinion.


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To grad school, or not to grad school

Here, 4 "experts" analyze the merits of getting a Master's degree. Some of you know I have a Master's degree in biomechanical engineering. When I graduated from the University of Missouri with a B.S. in biological engineering, I was neither emotionally mature enough nor academically qualified enough to get a job that I would enjoy. I considered the military, and I considered graduate school. However, after I got my M.S., I relatively easily found a job, then when I was laid off a month ago, I had multiple interviews with multiple companies within 2 weeks, and was working 3 weeks after I got laid off. The job I accepted required a M.S. in engineering. So to me, my M.S. absolutely has paid for itself, in that I am working right now and writing this over my lunch break, rather than writing it between browsing job seeker websites.

The third columnist in the article says this:

In some fields, such as business or engineering, a graduate degree typically boosted income by more than enough to justify the cost. In others — the liberal arts and social sciences, in particular — master’s degrees didn’t appear to produce much if any earnings advantage. The Census Bureau has updated the data I used a few times since then, and the results are similar: certain graduate degrees just don’t seem to pay off.

So wait, getting your M.A. in Landscape Appreciation won't pay for itself like a M.S. in electrical engineering will? We need experts to tell us this?
To me, this all goes back to a quote I heard once, and I'll do my best to repeat it here:
"The teacher asked us in Kindergarten what did we want to be when we grew up, and we'd all answer "astronaut," or "doctor," or "teacher," or "NFL quarterback" but no one would answer "garbage man" or "day laborer". The fact was, if we all grew up and did what we had dreamed in Kindergarten, then society would have quickly collapsed in a steaming heap of unsorted garbage."

What I think is happening to society, especially the upper and middle class White kids in America is that they are getting the impression that they should do the job they want to do, but if the standard salary for that position is only $30,000/year, somehow they shouldn't be okay with that. And somehow graduate school will magically fix it.


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Noah's Ark vs. Science

This morning I heard that a church has set the world record for the largest ever scale LEGO model of Noah’s Ark.

This is where science and religion irreconcilably clash on details. The idea that a “scale model” was made is what bothers me, because Noah’s Ark was almost assuredly never actually built.

Facts:
-Even if all the water vapor in the air spontaneously condensed and it all fell in the form of rain all at the same time, while the polar ice caps and all glaciers melted instantaneously, sending their contents to the sea, the best we could expect would be for the sea levels to rise a paltry 150 feet or less. That much rise would require relocation of many hundreds of millions of humans, but neither drive humanity to the brink of exctinction, nor require the safeguarding of all animal species.
-In order to “flood the world” one would need basically a 29,000 foot rise in sea level to close the seas over the tallest mountains. Even discounting this, you’d still need at least a 5,000 foot rise to flood all but the highest regions. That would require a massive increase in the total amount of water on earth. That much more water would crush the planet, causing major seismological events. And when the floods receded, where would the millions of cubic miles of water go?
-In order for Noah to collect all animal species on Earth in a few weeks time, the continents would have to be connected, else the species exclusively in North and South America would all be unable to reach Noah in the Mediterranean region and would be forced into untimely extinction.
-Were a species of animal to bottleneck down to one female and one male, the genetic damage from inbreeding would be immense. Although its likely all the species would be driven to exctinction by the bottleneck, one cannot discount that some species might survive because they retained enough genetic purity to not kill themselves off before they’d created a small, but stable, population. However, its likely the mutations brought on by such a bottleneck would massively change any species that survived.
-Certain important details seem to be missing from the story of Noah. How exactly did Noah provide meat for the carnivorous species? Did Noah bring on a male and a female zebra (and then a few more zebras as food for the lions)? When the species got off the boat, how did the lions survive until a stable population of herbivorous game could be reestablished upon which they could prey?

I could go on…and on…but the point I want to make here is that the story of Noah is not meant to be read literally, nor is it supposed to be believable. Just like the story of Pandora’s Box, the story of Noah is meant to teach a lesson; that the power of God is infinite, that God’s wrath is terrible, that God is just and fair, and that God is forgiving. It is not meant to be a narrative of events.

What I find terribly interesting is that Noah’s Ark is often the story that defines whether someone is a Bible literalist or a Bible interpretist (my word). So often, it seems the book of Genesis, where stories have clear details that defy both logic and science, becomes the battleground for people who feel any interpretation other than exactly what is written is blasphemy.







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Requests?

Are there any other topics my loyal (or disloyal) readers are interested in? Post them in the comments, I'll get to them as I'm able.


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Requests blog

One of my long-time readers expressed interest in my opinion on several specific issues, and that compelled me to remember that most popular bloggers do “requests for topics” occasionally and then write about the issues they receive in request form. So to answer a couple of the aforementioned topics:

“I think you are missing Cap and Trade being rushed through? KCPL has said expect at least a 50% increase in your bill if it passes.”

I believe the commenter is referring to this article, or its facsimile elsewhere, where Chuck Caisley, Director of Public Affairs for Kansas City Power and Light, expressed his believe that rates will go up 50% by 2012 to cover the cost of buying carbon offsets.

The problem I have with this, and the reason I have not posted on it, is because I do not see any victims here. I’ve only been on this earth for a few decades, but during that time, numerous attempts were made to increase the number of nuclear plants providing electricity to Kansas City. And time and time again, voters defeated those attempts.
I am not aware of all the subtle nuances of cap-and-trade and I do not have specific information about what kinds of standards are put on nuclear power. However, I am aware that Kansas City has gradually increased its coal-fired power plant population over the last 30 years, and the voting residents of Kansas City have made it patently clear that they oppose clean(er) nuclear energy.
So as far as I’m concerned, the rate hike will suck for KC residents…but it is their bathwater…they can soak in it.
Anyone interested in the counterintuitive and hypocritical arguments for and against nuclear power should read this article on NIMBY.

Next topic:
“Obama wants to have forced vaccines for flu rolled out. Yes, mandatory vaccines here we go.”

I have been a long-time proponent of vaccinations. All my readers know this. I’ve argued that the human “herd” is weakened by those who voluntarily pass up on vaccinations. I’ve argued time and time again that paranoia about thimerosal is misguided at best, delusional at worst. I’ve argued that vaccinations save lives, countless lives, while a tiny, statistically insignificant group of people may or may not have had side effects from chemicals in shots. Flu shots especially protect the elderly and the young (like my 2 year old daughter), and are relatively benign. You do not have a sore injection point like a tetanus shot (a shot which has saved an estimated 100 million people).
Although I understand that people are concerned this is a “slippery slope” issue, that “if Obama forces vaccinations, what will he force next?” But on the other hand, to me this is like speed limits on streets, we shouldn’t need speed limits, because people should be smart enough to drive at a reasonable pace without the government defining safe speed. But if people continue to drive recklessly, then we continue to need speed limits.


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