Global Warming - Part 2

A lot of the "proof" of global warming comes from computer models. And this is because since the late 1960s there has been an abundance of weather satellite data available for computers to crunch. Prior to that data was in the form of paper records and techniques such as ice core sampling.

I have a couple of problems with the Global Warming Gang and their data. First their models are proprietary and are not available for inspection. Second they will not let the scientific community look at their raw data. Only their "enhanced" data is available for viewing.

So let's look at computer modeling in general. Do you ever watch the weather channel? If you live in San Diego they are right pretty much most of the time because the weather doesn't vary much from day to day and they can easily track storms coming in from the Pacific. Here in the Midwest weather comes from four or five directions, often all at once. We get winds and rain from the West and the Northwest, arctic cold from the north and warm moisture from the Gulf of Mexico. This is why we have so many thunderstorms and tornados. But when we watch the weather channel here we know the forecast is really only valid for a day, maybe two. The first Saturday of October (2010) we were supposed to get a half inch of rain. We got six inches of snow. An interesting thing about the weather channel is from time to time they do not trust their computer model so they compare it with a European model. Now why are computer weather models so finicky? It's because of the complexity needed. There are tremendous amounts of variables involved.

First a little background. In mathematics there is a problem called the 100 cities salesman problem where you have to figure out the shortest route to cover 100 cities. Sounds simple, except it isn't. There are 100! (one hundred factorial) possible choices. 100! = 9.332622x10^157. To put that number into perspective the number of particles (including subatomic particles) in the universe (all galaxies known) is postulated to be around 10^88. In theory it would take a Cray Super computer over 300 years to solve the 100 cities salesman problem.

How many variables does a weather forecasting model have? I don't know. How many variables does the global warming forecasting model have? I don't know and few others do because the Global Warming Gang will not tell us. Remember the weather forecasting model's accuracy falls off sharply after 24 hours. How can the Global Warming Gang forecast 50 years into the future? And because the data they make available for inspection is "enhanced" (normalized to fit their predictions) we cannot run it thru our models to test the veracity of their predictions.

Don't piss on my back and tell me it is raining.

Happy February 35th!

"Thirty days hath September, all the rest I can't remember" says the jokester about the rhyme to remember how many days each month has. They tried to teach us the rhyme "thirty days hath September, April, June and November" in grade school. I prefer the knuckle method where you start on your index finger's knuckle as Jan with 31 days then the first 'valley' is February with 28 or 29, then the next knuckle is March with 31 (see a pattern developing here?) So all knuckles are 31 days and all valleys are 30 days except that pesky February. When you get to your Pinky knuckle for July you don't turn around, rather you jump back to the index knuckle for August which has 31 days also. What? How come 2 months in a row have 31 days you ask? Well accounts differ but I'll give you my take on the whys and wherefores.

• January: 31 days. Most likely named after Janus, Roman god of doors, beginnings, sunset and sunrise, had one face looking forward and one backward.
• February: 28 or 29 days. On February 15 the Romans celebrated the festival of forgiveness for sins; (februare, Latin to purify).
• March: 31 days. Named after Mars, the Roman god of war, the original first month in the Roman calendar. It was the first month of warfare because no one fought in the winter.
• April: 30 days. From the Roman month Aprilis, perhaps derived from aperire, (Latin to open, as in opening buds and blossoms) or perhaps from Aphrodite, original Greek name of Venus.
• May: 31 days. Pehaps named after Maia, Roman goddess, mother of Mercury by Jupiter and daughter of Atlas.
• June: 30 days. Named after Juno, chief Roman goddess of email.
• July: 31 days. Renamed for Julius Caesar in 44 BC, who was born this month; Quintilis, Latin for fifth month, was the former name (the Roman year began in March rather than January).
• August: 31 days! Formerly Sextilis (sixth month in the Roman calendar); re-named in 8 BC for Augustus Caesar. Both July and August were named after Caesars so one could not have more days than the other, hence two 31 day months in a row.
• September: 30 days hath. September, (septem, Latin for 7) the seventh month in the Julian or Roman calendar, established in the reign of Julius Caesar.
• October: 31 days. Eighth month (octo, Latin for 8) in the Julian (Roman) calendar. The Gregorian calendar instituted by Pope Gregory XIII established January as the first month of the year.
• November: 30 days. Ninth Roman month (novem, Latin for 9). Catholic countries adopted the Gregorian calendar in 1582, skipping 10 days that October, correcting for too many leap years. (Please take into account those 10 days when attempting to calculate the Biblical apocalypse or any other prophesied event such as the return of the Christ.)
• December: 31 days. Julian (Roman) year's tenth month (decem, Latin for 10).

So why is February the only month with 28 days? Well technically they all have 28 days but February seems to be the victim of Roman calendar tinkering. Before adopting an Egyptian style calendar based upon the solar year the pagan origins of the Roman calendar were based upon the lunar cycle. Recall that February was at the end of the Roman year which started in March so February fell victim of all shorts of adjustments to attempt to synchronize the calendar to the actual solar year. It had as many as 35 days depending on the needs to keep in step with the solar year. When Julius Caesar was assassinated in 44 B.C. (B.C.E for our politically correct numbskull friends) they renamed the 5th month in his honor and gave it 31 days. Later they renamed the 6th month for Augusus Caesar and gave it 31 days. They purloined these days from the caboose of the train, February.

FAIR PLAY FOR FEBRUARY!

It's time to address historical wrongs. Let's give poor February it's just due. I propose that all months have 30 days except February which is to have 35 days (36 on leap year). Think of these 5 days as reparations to February. Our only other alternative is to slow down the earth's orbit around the Sun by 5 days. Try to get THAT through Congress.

"Thirty days hath September and all the rest I remember except February which now has 35!"

The Reward

A young boy taken to Church by his loving parents, sits in the pews and listens to the minister preach the Gospel of the Lord Jesus. And the minister embellishes the story a bit by describing a scene of a beautiful garden where the Lord will walk with the true believers for eternity. "Imagine walking hand in hand with our Lord Jesus in paradise forever" intoned the minister. As the young boy grew into manhood he never forgot the image of walking hand in hand with the Lord in that incredibly beautiful garden. He lived his life, took a wife and fathered a son which he later took to the same church so his son could hear the "good news". Being a father he liked to imagine his son also walking hand in hand with the Lord Jesus in the paradise garden. In the autumn of his life the man, now a grandfather, began to unceasingly ponder the image of walking in the garden with Jesus. The image became so real that he came to accept it as his fate and as his reward. Years later as he lay dying in his hospital bed all he could think about was walking in the garden with his beloved Lord. And then he died.

"Lord."
"Yes my child?"
"We have been walking in this wonderful garden for 10,000 years."
"Yes my child, 10,000 wonderful years."
"I need to know something Lord."
"What is it my child?"
"Is this all there is?"
"No my child, there is much, much more. This is all you wanted."

Global Warming - Part 1

My friend Julie asked me what I thought about Global Warming. Her new boyfriend is very conservative and thinks the global warming debate is a scare by the Obama administration to shut down business. (Yes I realize the global warming controversy is much older than the Obama administration.) My Friend Mark, an attorney in the greater Los Angeles metroplex told me once that "the time for debate is over, we must take drastic action to avoid the coming ecological catastrophe." Most of us fall somewhere in between these 2 extremes.

My answer to Julie was basically in 2 parts. First I like to ask if global warming is man caused, what is causing global warming on Mars? Mark's answer to this was "oh, you found a red herring" and dismissed my question. Julie seemed to accept that the cause of global warming is not so clear. Second I told Julie whereas I am not a stupid person I just can't seem to get my head wrapped around the problem. There are too many variables. The famous Hockey Stick chart of warming trends doesn't seem to stand up to rigorous statistical analysis. The claim that Ice is thinner today than any other time in history lacks credibility because of how the data is collected. It is easy to take temperatures readings globally today using satellites but satellites have only be around since the late 1960's. Does ice core samples give an accurate temperature reading for a specific date? I don't know. Do you? Yet ice thickness and global temperatures are based on these measurements.

Global Warming studies use a lot of disciplines. Statistics, Meteorology, Climatology, Geography, Computer Science, Physics, Economics, Astronomy, not to mention Political Science and Psychology. I have training in Economics and Computer Science and understand enough of the Global Warming arguments in those areas to form an opinion. As to the other areas, I'm pretty clueless. Are you up to speed on these disciplines?

My friend Robert said the other day "it's a 50-50 proposition. Either there is a coming global catastrophe or there isn't so we better act as if there is and start trying to reverse it. This is kind of a variation on Pascal's argument for the existence of God. It is specious and doesn't prove anything but rather is designed to appeal to the emotions. (Both Robert's 50-50 argument and Pascal's wager.) But that seems to be the central theme of the Global Warming debate. Get as many people on you side as you can and build your power base. And once you have the power you can make changes to US policy to mitigate the effects of dumping so much "green house gases" into the atmosphere. Physicist and Meteorologist Craig Bohren, distinguished professor emeritus at the Pennsylvania State University, said "Whatever the US and Europe do to mitigate consumption is likely to be negated by increased consumption in countries such as China, India, and Brazil." http://www.usatodayom/tech/colum.cnist/aprilholladay/2006-08-07-global-warming-truth_x.htm

My point is this. I don't get it. And I don't see a clear path to determining the truth about Global Warming. But I can see a huge potential for abuse here. Hidden agendas being served, political power being fueled, and the usual blatant manipulation of the public.

Forgiveness

Let's talk about forgiveness.

I remember a few years ago when somebody in Georgia was murdering children was finally apprehended by the authorities. A Christian minister went on television proclaiming that "we must forgive this murderer". He went on to explain that it was our Christian duty to forgive. (And people wonder why I am not a Christian.) Well the whole incident really stuck in my craw. I, for the life of me, could not come up with a reason to forgive the killer. And more importantly the killer did not ask for forgiveness. So the incident was a catalyst for me to investigate forgiveness.

Most reasons given for forgiveness are selfish. That is to say we forgive so we may continue to grow and prosper in this life. i.e.. I forgive you so I don't get stuck in a negative mindset of hatred and/or bitterness. But what do you get out of this forgiveness? Especially if forgiveness is given freely and without conditions. How do you benefit? The answer is you don't. At least as far as I can tell.

My understanding of forgiveness in Judaism is there are 4 elements that must be met to grant forgiveness. I call them the 4 Rs and they go something like this: Remorse, Repent, Repay, Repair. A few years ago Doug Rand of the Santa Cruz Center for Nonviolence got into a heated argument with his neighbor and threw a stone through the guys window. (Delicious irony.) According to the 4 Rs Doug first needed to show that he was sorry (remorse), then ask forgiveness (repent), then fix the window (repay), then take an anger management class (repair). The last is to show true remorse and taking steps to avoid those kinds of incidents in the future.

Now compare and contrast Christian doctrine of forgiveness from God and Jewish doctrine. Christians maintain that if a person asks for forgiveness then forgiveness must be given. Unconditionally. No so in Judaism. Which method do you think a god would prefer? And this touches on one of the reasons I think Christianity is a scam. Free forgiveness... you get what you pay for.

Finally I'd like to add that, although I am not a Jew, I practice the 4 Rs method in my life. If you commit some offense against me don't expect forgiveness from me to be de rigeuer. You need to go through the steps, and conversely I will go through them if I commit an offense against you and want forgiveness. (Read those last 3 words again.)

God's love

As you probably figured out by now I feel the same way about the Christian Church as I feel about water-boarding. Not a warm and fuzzy kind of feeling, more like a scream in the dark kind of feeling. My wife has a work friend who expressed wonderment that she (my wife) has no membership in a formal religion and yet is involved in the community to the extent that she volunteered at the Community of Christ thrift store. "Well I like what they are doing for the community and I can get past their theology." explained my wife. Now this friend of hers is going through a minor crisis of faith. Her church (and I don't know which particular Christian sect) is in the process of hiring a new pastor and most people agreed that a certain woman was the perfect candidate... until they found that person had a female partner... or as I would say 'her boat sailed a little too close to the Isle of Lesbos.' So they dumped the candidate, presumably in the name of God's love. Hurray for tolerance and love!

So I have 2 points to make here. First, you don't need to call yourself a Christian to help people. In fact I find that most Christians are self-centered in that they are interested in going to heaven and having everyone else go to hell. And that taints their service to their fellow human beings. It has been my experience that there are a lot of opportunities to help people. And sacrifice without the expectation of return is part of my definition of loving thy neighbor. Second, if you are claiming that your church is representational of God here on earth you had best be sure that your house is clean before you start condemning other people's houses. As an aside, most Christians will tell you that saying 'God damn' is taking the Lord's name in vain, a violation of the third commandment. My understanding of Judaism is that taking the Lord's name in vain is not cursing using the word God, rather it is saying things like 'God is on our side' as a justification of actions. I think the aforementioned Church is guilty of taking the Lord's name in vain when they rejected the lesbian pastor. I think that God would rather his/her/its church be inclusive rather than exclusive.

9-11

Today is 9-11. September 11th 2009, 8 years after the attack. Pat Tillman called 9-11 the Pearl Harbor of his generation and immediately signed up, walking away from a lucrative football career. Thank you Pat. Thank you for taking this cowardly attack on the USA so seriously. You gave all so that we may be free.

Not everyone has the courage, or the ability to join the Army and become a Ranger to defend this country. But we can do things to help defend this country. The Bush administration tried to tell us that illegal drug sales were funding terrorism. And to some small case that may in fact be true. But the real cash pipeline to terrorism is Oil. Bin Laden's father made billions running a construction company that built oil infrastructure in Saudi Arabia. Osama took his share of the company profits and funded Al Caida. And he proceeded to export terrorism all over the world. He was in the Sudan, in Afghanistan, in Somalia setting up training camps. All because we have pumped mega-bucks into Saudi Arabia.

Remember during the Carter administration when OPEC placed an oil embargo upon us and we were waiting in line for hours to get gas... when we could find it? Don't you think that was the perfect time to come up with a national energy policy what would have weaned us from Arab crude oil? And when Congress started to talk about alternate forms of energy and the people started having 1 day boycotts of gas OPEC lowered the price of oil. And then we continued to make huge, inefficient vehicles. Shortly after that the SUV was invented and later the Hummer came on the scene. (In my opinion the Hummer is such an affront that the drivers should be pulled from behind the wheel and shot in the street.)

Today do we see a national energy policy? When we bailed out GM and Chrysler did we force them to start producing more efficient vehicles? This is not the Army, for Christ sakes, where they have CRS syndrome. (Can't Remember Shit.) We have to learn from our mistakes and formulate an energy policy. We don't need a green revolution, we need efficient vehicles and alternate forms of energy. Simple technological solutions to our current problems and not some green dream that will generate millions of jobs some time in the hazy future. He have the skills and abilities today to stop buying oil from OPEC. We owe that effort to the brave soldiers like Pat Tillman who put their lives on the line for this county.

And if we don't do it, the terrorists win.

Yeah-Yeah-Yeah

9/9/9 The Beatles (inc. Pat. Pend. all rights reserved, don't fuck with us boy) released their recordings, yet again. Summer reruns take on a new meaning. Apparently we have gone from the Summer of Love to the Summer of Ennui.

Hooo boy! How do they have the nerve to pull this off? A digital re-mastering of all their work, plus recording studio comments and a video game. Isn't Sir Paul already worth over a billion dollars?

If they really wanted to do something new (hey, wasn't that the name of a Beatles album in the 60's?) they would go on a reunion tour. I know what you're thinking, the Grantman finally ate the brown acid and has flipped out. No, this will work and I'll tell you how.

A couple years ago my friend Mark and I were walking on Decatur Street in the French Quarter of New Orleans when we were ambushed by an undercover Hari Krishna dude. And this guy was fairly entertaining in his stick so we bought (via donation to the cause) a couple of souvenir hats of Jazzfest 2007 from him. So now that we were properly softened up and in a buying mood he played his ace.

Hari Krishna Dude: So who was your favorite Beatle?
Grantman: I liked John as a kid but now find that Paul is my favorite.
Hari Krishna Dude: Don't you think that George was the best of the group?
Grantman: George? What, are you new? I always thought of George as the most replaceable Beatle. Imagine how cool that group would have been with Eric Clapton instead of George.

At this point the Hari Krishna Dude's plan of steering us towards his brand of Hinduism via the beliefs of George Harrison are toast. Dejectedly, he turns on his heels, steps off the curb and is hit by a bus. (I made up the bus part).

But it got me to thinking. Why not a reunion of the Beatles with Clapton sitting in for Harrison and Julian Lennon sitting in for John? Julian looks like John and has similar vocal qualities. His album Volatte was as good as anything John did. So there it is. A reunion tour with Julian, Paul, Eric and Ringo. Hmmm. Ringo. You know he wasn't the original drummer, Pete Best was. And let's just be honest here. Ringo is a prick. You don't believe it? Take a look at this You-Tube clip of him telling his fans to stop sending fan mail because he is too busy. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpd24yVy5C4

OK, new plan. A Beatles reunion tour with Julian, Paul, Eric and Pete. This would totally work.

And Paul had better stay on his best behavior. Nobody is irreplaceable. As Charles de Gaulle once said, "the cemeteries are full of indispensible men."

Yeah-Yeah-Yeah.

Go Niners!

When I was leaving Santa Cruz CA to move to the Midwest a friend of mine asked me "You're still going to root for the Niners aren't ya?" Not, "hey buddy we will miss you around here", or "will you be coming back for a visit?"

It was a quintessential guy moment in a bar. And I really didn't watch football out in the tall corn for a couple of seasons. I was busy exploring the beautiful fall forests with a recurve bow in my hand looking for the elusive wild turkey.

Lately I've considered taking up football watching again. And as I thought about it I figured I had better pick a local team so I had a chance of seeing them on TV without buying one of those $10,000 sports packages from the cable company. The closest areas with an NFL franchise are Kansas City (the Chiefs), St. Louis (the Rams), and Minnesota (the Vikings). I never much liked the Chiefs and I still think the Rams should have stayed in LA so I'm looking at the Vikes. I discussed this with my bartender (bartenders are licensed dispensers of sage advice) and she said, get this, "I could never root for the Vikings because of Bret Farve."

WTF?

"What's wrong with Farve?" I asked. "Oh my sister thinks he is dreamy", (they still say dreamy in the heartland) "and I can't root for a team with Farve because she adores him."

Now I'm liking the Vikes. The purple jerseys, the horns, they have a great up-and-coming RB out of Iowa named Albert Young (Albert, go figure that for a name for an African American), plus they located in the next state up. I could actually drive up for a game. But the signs are against me. Try as I may to blend in with the locals fate has fingered me as a Niners fan. This little vignette illustrates the point well: My wife and I were driving along Dodge street in Omaha one day when I saw a bar called the 49er. I turned to her and said "Is that cool or what? The have a bar named after the 49ers!" Her terse reply was "This is 49th street, genius." I still see things in terms of being a 49er fan. Besides, the Niners won their first 3 exhibition games (take that Dallas!). It looks like my fate is sealed.

Now a bit of historical confession is in order here. I used to be a Raiders fan. Remember when they won the Superbowl from a wildcard slot and President Reagan called to congratulate them for being the first team to do so? The very next year the Raiders showed their true colors and moved to LA, turning their backs on the Bay Area. After that the Niners caught fire and started to win Superbowls. The words "Montana to Rice" are etched into the minds of Niner fans forever.

The jury is still out. Perhaps I'll try to follow both the Niners and the Vikes. The turkey's will certainly appreciate that.

After note: There is a guy running around Omaha with a Detroit Lions jersey on with the number 16 and the name 'Owen' on the back. (Think back to last year's season for the Lions.)

Sunshine patriotism

Recently I received the following in an email:

We have a little less than one month and counting to get the word out all across this great land and into every community in the United States of America .

If you forward this email to least 11 people and each of those people do the same ... you get the idea.

THE PROGRAM:

On Friday, September 11th, 2009, an American flag should be displayed outside every home, apartment, office, and store in the United States . Every individual should make it their duty to display an American flag on this eighth anniversary of one of our country's worst tragedies. We do this to honor those who lost their lives on 9/11, their families, friends and loved ones who continue to endure the pain, and those who today are fighting at home and abroad to preserve our cherished freedoms.

In the days, weeks and months following 9/11, our country was bathed in American flags as citizens mourned the incredible losses and stood shoulder-to-shoulder against terrorism. Sadly, those flags have all but disappeared. Our patriotism pulled us through some tough times and it shouldn't take another attack to galvanize us in solidarity.. Our American flag is the fabric of our country and together we can prevail over terrorism of all kinds

So, here's what we need you to do .

(1) Forward this email to everyone you know (at least 11 people). Please don't be the one to break this chain. Take a moment to think back to how you felt on 9/11 and let those sentiments guide you.

(2) Fly an American flag of any size on 9/11. Honestly, Americans should fly the flag year-round, but if you don't, then at least make it a priority on this day.

Thank you for your participation.

To which I replied:

I'm really not much of a patriot. This country did not treat the soldiers of the Vietnam Era well at all. And now everybody is waving flags and saying "thank you for your service" and "God Bless America" and "support our troops" and... well you get the idea. Perhaps I am bitter and jaded, but it looks to be too little too late. Yeah, I am thankful for the kids who put their asses on the line in Afghanistan to combat the Taliban (which we invented and armed), and I stand for the flag as it passes instead of texting friends on my cell phone like all the kids do today. And while I wouldn't call it love, I like my country. But I have recently discovered something about myself... I'm not really a blindly loyal kind of guy. I will not "go once more into the breech" nor will I "go quietly into the night". I pick my battles and will choose the hill that I want to die on. And it won't have anything to do with 9-11 or flying my flag.

Now I don’t mind people feeling patriotic and flying flags as long as they don’t poke me in the eye with them. I won’t be sending the email to 11 people and I won’t be flying my flag (yes I own one) on Sept. 11^th. I will not be bullied into pretending I am a patriot when I am not.

But the question stands, at least in my mind: If all those people who flew flags after 9-11 were patriots, are they no longer patriots now because they aren’t flying flags? And if so, what value is a sunshine patriot?

Get the lead out!

As a public service I am posting this list of vitamin products that contain lead according to a lawsuit filed by the Santa Cruz County (CA) district attorney's office.

DEFENDANTS NAMED IN THE LAWSUIT

21st Century Healthcare, Inc.;

Apex Fitness Group, A division of 24 Hour Fitness USA;

Biosan Laboratories;

Bluebonnet Nutrition Corporation;

Bronson Nutritionals;

Buried Treasure, a division of Life Line Food Inc.;

Clinician's Choice;

D&E Pharmaceuticals;

Davinci Laboratories of Vermont;

Delaware Natrol;

Designs For Health;

Douglas Laboratories

Dynamic Health Laboratories;

Enzymatic Therapy;

Esteem Products; Fairhaven Health;

Foodscience Corporation;

Foodscience of Vermont;

Futurebiotics; Genspec Labs

Health Authority Dba Doctor's Trust Vitamins;

Hxn Corporation Dba Health Xpress;

Integrative Therapeutics;

Irwin Naturals;

J.R. Carlson Laboratories;

Kirkman; Kordial Nutrients;

Maximum International;

Metabolic Maintenance Products;

Metagenics;

Mountain Naturals of Vermont;

Natural Organics;

Nature's Secret;

Nature's Way Products;

Nbty;

New Chapter;

Nexgen Pharma;

Nf Formulas;

Now Foods;

Nutribiotic;

Nutritional Specialties;

Nutri-west;

Olympian Labs;

Only Natural;

Optimal Nutrients, USA, a division of Pegasus Plus;

Pioneer Nutritional Formulas;

Pure Essence Laboratories;

Rainbow Light Nutritional Systems;

Solgar;

Spring Valley Herbs & Natural Foods;

Supernutrition Life-extension Research;

The Daily Wellness Company;

The Vitamin Shoppe Industries;

Threshold Enterprises, the Parent Company Of Source Naturals;

True Fit Vitamins;

Universal Nutrition;

Wyeth Laboratories.

Proof of the existence of God

The ontological argument for the existence of God was proposed by (Saint) Anselm of Canterbury (1033-1109). It was considered to be logical proof of the existence of God. Anselm′s argument for the existence of God is as follows:

1. God is something of which nothing greater can be thought.

2. God may exist in the understanding.

3. It is greater to exist in reality and in the understanding than just in understanding.

4. Therefore, God exists in reality.

This "proof" stood until Emmanuel Kant refuted it in his Critique of Pure Reason in 1781. Kant disputed the very concept of an absolutely necessary being (i.e. God) and pointed out the logical inconsistency of using existence as a proof for existence. (Points 3 and 4 above.) It is the same old circular reasoning and tautology that people rely on today to prop up their flimsy theories.

Now I'm a real sucker for proofs of the existence of God. If you have one send it to me. I love them. But all proofs so far have been.... ah... disproven. Typically if you ask someone for proof of the existence of God they will say "just look out the window... where do you think all that came from?" Ironically, though not any proof, this stands as a pretty good argument for the existence of God... or the Flying Spaghetti Monster... and that's the problem with this proof. Most people will give you the conditional proof (which is Descartes invention) of the 4 states of being.

1) You believe in God and God exists.

2) You believe in God and God doesn't exist.

3) You don't believe in God and God exists.

4) You don't believe in God and God doesn't exist.

In cases 2 and 4 it doesn't matter what you believe. In the case of 3 you are in trouble. Therefore to maximize your chances you should believe in God and if in case 1 you will be rewarded. Though I have doubts that a God will welcome you into heaven just because you checked the odds chart.

Other philosophers like Kierkegaard talk of the leap of faith that you must make and Buber talks about the necessity of a personal relationship with God in his I-thou (Ich und du) work. But aside from the ontological argument, these are not proofs.

Cruising through my local public library the other day I came across a book by Dean L. Overman called "A Case for the Existence of God" where he maintains that Kant (and David Hume) were wrong. Overman states on page 33:

In recent thought philosophers have noted that David Hume misunderstood the term necessary to mean a "logical necessity" as opposed to a "conditional necessity"; A "conditional necessity is the result of valid deductions from premises and conditions. Hume's objection does not stand when applied to a conditional necessary being who is without beginning or end and is independent of anything else.

Then on page 36 he states:

Kant followed Hume's error so that his objection to the cosmological argument does not stand.

A couple of problems here. First Kant did not follow Hume. Hume was an empiricist and denied the possibility of knowledge through reason. Kant was arguing from pure reasoning. Second Overman talks about Kant's erroneous refutation of the cosmological argument. Kant does not address the cosmological argument, rather he addresses the ontological argument which is a different thing altogether. Overman insists that Kant thought the cosmological argument was based on the ontological argument. I have yet to find where Kant talks about the cosmological argument. At this point I tossed Overman's book across the bedroom, cursed him roundly and told my wife I was going to sleep. She said "thank God" under her breath... which is the best argument for the existence of God that I have heard to date.

The next day I was thinking about Overman's book and I picked it back up and glanced through the table of contents. And skimmed a couple of chapters before deciding what this guy was up to. Like the Republican's and Rush Limbaugh (my current favorite villains) he is inventing new terminology to support his position. Example: Sarah Palin is said to have criticize Obama's health care plan on the basis that it contains a "death board" making eugenic type decisions for the medical care of the elderly and terminally ill. Or Limbaugh saying that Obama's appointee to set the salaries of CEOs of corporation that took bail out money are analogous to Robert Ley of the Nazi German Labor Front (DAF) and thus implied that the current administration is a bunch of Nazis. Apparently calling people Commies is out of vogue and they had to revert to calling them Nazis and fascists.

Although I can't "prove" that.

Is it education or a capitalist plot?

I decided to take down this blog entry as it was causing me too much grief in my personal life.

As Maxwell Smart would say - sorry about that chief.

Management 101

Thank the Goddess that I don't have a job. Funny thing to say in this economy, but I don't miss the bosses. Oh there are a few that I'd like to meet in a dark alley with a baseball bat in my hands but most were just incompetent hacks on a power trip. I recall working for 2 different companies where management actually solicited suggestions from the computer programming staff for ideas to increase productivity. That always made me laugh out loud. Productivity, I was taught in college as an Economics Major, is a management problem and they were showing their incompetence as managers by asking the question. Another issue in the Information Technology (I.T.) world was maintenance time. We were in a departmental meeting and the manager was haranguing us about how much time we were wasting doing maintenance and insisted we reduce that time. I asked him, in front of the staff, how much time we should devote per system. I asked if 5% of my time per system was unreasonable. He said that 5% seemed about right. I said "well, I have responsibility for 20 systems. 20 times 5% is 100%. I won't be doing any new development anytime soon." POW! This particular manager was easy to sucker punch and I did it as often as possible. His way of getting back was to assign me the task of documenting every minute of everyday for the previous year. This was a 3 week vacation for me. At the end of 3 weeks of reading books in the cafeteria I would dummy up some phony data and turn it in. Nothing became of it. We both wasted an incredible amount of resources doing our little management/employee dance.

Now here's the problem in I.T. - most if not all managers were programmers who came up through the ranks and, as the Peter Principal states, rose to their level of incompetency. I.T. managers are seldom trained as managers. Oh they take a class or two but their mindset is still one of a puzzle worker and not a people guider. My father rose to his level of incompetency with IBM in the 60's and became a midlevel manager. (Yes, I was actually a second generation computer program as is my sister.) One time his team had screwed up royally and his higher ups came down on him like the proverbial ton of bricks. A sympathetic Vice President took him under wing and told my father to announce there would be a reorganization his department. My dad asked what good would that do and the V.P. said "they will have to leave you alone for at least a month in order to see if the reorg works. By that time they will have moved on to micro-managing another department and will have forgotten all about you." This is corporate America. This is also true in the public sector. Doesn't sound much better than the defunct Soviet Union does it?

So I suppose what I am saying is that we are put into adversarial roles. Labor vs. Management, Union vs. Corporate, Supervisor vs. Staff, and these roles do not add to the productivity of the enterprise. Rather they bog it down with useless bickering, resentment and the general desire to sabotage the operation. I remember signs all over the Planning Department at the County of Santa Cruz (CA) that said "The beatings will continue until moral improves." In the Air Force the enlisted guys used to have a saying "Lifers are like flies, they each shit bother people." One day I was in the First Sergeant's office and I saw a sign on the wall that said "Airmen are worthless, shiftless and lazy... but they are sneaky and must be watched every minute." We all did our part to lose the war in Vietnam.

How do we change this mess? I think we need a code of conduct for the work place. And not the reactionary rules like sexual harassment and non drug use rules we have today. What I propose is guiding principals that incorporate ideals such as every person should feel important, positive effort gets positive praise, politeness is a job requirement. Over the Holidays one year I took a seasonal job with Barnes and Noble books and they had an interesting policy. "It is corporate policy the when one employee helps another employee the helped employee must thank the helping employee." It was a simple thing really. But I watched it in action and saw that it sparked a synergistic energy between employees. Put in simpler terms, you feel like working when people are nice around you and you don't feel like working when they are not.

How hard is that to understand and why don't managers know this?

♫ Oh, we're off to see der Führer, ♫ the wonderful Führer of OZ ♪

I've been reading a lot about the Third Reich lately. And I am especially interested in the Schutzstaffel (SS) and why they were created. Heinrich Himmler believed that he was the reincarnation of the 10th century king Heinrich (we know as Henry the Fowler) and he was assembling a Teutonic knighthood in the SS. Himmler financed expeditions to Tibet to search for the source of the so-called Aryan race. He also had SS officer Otto Rahn looking for the holy grail. So I've read about the alleged occult connections the Nazis had and the various screwball theories about Hitler being in league with evil. What I am looking for is a reason why this all happened to see if it couldn't happen here in the U.S. on some level. (Notice I didn't use the word Republican.) My search has led me to a book called "The Nazi Conscience" by Claudia Koonz. Koonze believes, as I do, that morality is not from God and is situational. Don't believe that? Take slavery. Obviously immoral and evil. Not prohibited by God in the bible, but rather received tacit approval as evidenced by the fact that God (according to the O.T.) set up rules about owning slaves. Koonz speaks of the knowledge of the Nazi mindset of what was right and what was wrong and how this knowing affected what people thought. Here is an example from that book:

The recollections of a former Hitler Youth member, Alfons Heck, illustrate how such knowledge formed moral thinking. In 1940, when Alfons watched the Gestapo take away his best friend, Heinz, and all Jews in his village, he did not say to himself, "How terrible they are arresting Jews." Having absorbed knowledge about the "Jewish menace," he said, "What a misfortune Heinz is Jewish."

Now you are probably saying to yourself, "oh come on, that could never happen here. We would never view people as impediments to progress and just discard them." Well I got news for you Sparky, here is another quote from the book about a journalist from South Dakota talking about the Native Americans:

The nobility of the Redskin is extinguished, and what few are left are a pack of whining curs who lick the hand that smites them... The Whites, by law of conquest, by justice of civilization, are master of the American continent and the best safety of the frontier settlements will be secured by the total annihilation of the few remaining Indians. Why not annihilation? Their glory has fled, their spirit broken, their manhood effaced; better that they should die than live like the miserable wretches that they are.

This journalist is better known as a writer of the series of Children's books about the Wizard of Oz. His name is L. Frank Baum.

Still think it can't happen here?