Category Archives: Current Issues

The Idiocy of Open Carry Texas

This Open Carry Texas story amazes me. A bunch of men armed with AR-15s and shotguns go into a restaurant to eat, claiming it’s their Constitutional right to devour a Big Mac with an automatic weapon at their side. Frightened employees of one Jack-in-the-Box, seeing a bunch of armed men enter, locked themselves in a freezer. Open Carry Texas supporters have done this at various restaurants, plus other retailers like Target.

How would you react if you’re eating with your spouse and kids in an Applebees, and in walk a bunch of men carrying rifles?

It would scare the crap out of me. I would immediately grab Pam’s arm, and we’d leave. I don’t know who these guys are. The fact that they are making a public statement with loaded weapons, in the presence of children, tells me they are NOT responsible gun owners. I’d head for the door pronto.

I’m fine with concealed carry, the key word being “concealed”–nobody knows you’re armed, and you don’t publicly announce it. But this Open Carry Texas stuff is just lunacy, and I’m happy to see many gun owners criticizing such tactics online. Responsible gun owners know this stuff is irresponsible.

Besides, do any of the guys in these photos look like the type of person you would want carrying around an AR-15 in public?

Here’s a real good article on the issue. I read it a few weeks ago. Makes the point that while the open carry people say it’s all about “freedom,” the freedom is only for them–because what restaurant employee is average citizen is going to argue with a stranger carrying an automatic weapon?

“In the real world, sane people do not confront armed men and women. They don’t argue with them over politics. They certainly do not put their kids in harm’s way in order to make a point….The rest of us just have to be very polite, keep our voices down and back away very slowly, saying, ‘Yes sir, whatever you say, sir,’ and let them have their way.”

It also tells about a guy in Georgia who showed up at a Little League park waving his gun around and saying, “Look at my gun! There’s nothing you can do about it.” Police were called, but the man wasn’t doing anything illegal. So the parents did what any sensible parent would do in that situation–they took their kids and went home.

I hope open carry never comes to Indiana…but I fear it will.

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Let the Crimeans Decide

I’m certainly no fan of Russia nor of Vlad the Beefcake Clown Putin. But as an American, part of a country which went to war over self-determination, I don’t see why we oppose the Crimeans choosing to leave the Ukraine and become part of Russia. If that’s what they want.

Why don’t we just say, “The people have spoken”? Do we require a war to make it official, because that’s the way we did it?

We tend to be highly selective with foreign policy issues of this nature. We applauded when all the Eastern block countries disconnected from the USSR. We support Taiwan. We were okay with dividing Yugoslavia into several countries. We supported all the countries of the British Empire becoming independent after World War 2. We supported East Germany merging into West Germany. We supported created two countries out of the Sudan. So, why not let Crimea decide their future?

On the other hand…we supported Texas when they didn’t want to be part of Mexico, but went to war to keep them from seceding from the USA. Like I said, we’re kinda selective.

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If You’re Poor, Stop Being Poor

Aasif Mandvi has become my favorite correspondent on the Daily Show. On Thursday night, he did a segment on American healthcare. Throughout the report, he interviewed Fox Business commentator Todd Wilemon. Toward the end, Mandvi mentioned that a lot of Americans don’t have healthcare because they can’t afford it. Wilemon’s solution was brilliant: “If you’re poor, stop being poor.”

It’s really that simple. If you’re cold, put on a jacket. If you’re thirsty, get a drink. And if you’re poor, stop being poor. Anybody who is poor can, if they would just stop being utterly lazy, just flip a switch and become not-poor. If you want to become a millionaire, then become one.

What’s so hard about that? This is America, after all. Just ask the business experts at Fox.

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Inequities in the System

This is interesting, and disconcerting. In 2014, thus far 10 people, from 5 different states, have been executed in the United States–5 blacks, 3 whites, and 2 Hispanics. In each case, the victims were white.

About half of all US murder victims are white. But three-fourths of all executions involve white victims. Why is that?

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This has been a Very Warm January. Really.

The lower 48 states cover less than 2% of the world’s surface. What was the GLOBAL climate like during January? According to a Feb 20 report by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration:

  • Globally, January was the 4th warmest January on record (since 1880). The others were also recent years: 2002, 2003, and 2007).
  • Globally, we’ve now had 347 consecutive months (29 years) that were warmer than the average for the 20th century.
  • Globally, we’ve now had 38 consecutive Januarys (38 years, if you’re trying to figure it out) that were warmer than the average for the 20th century.
  • Alaska actually had warmer-than-average temperatures during January 2014. The average January temperature for Fairbanks is 1.1 degrees, but the average this year was 16.4 (it hit 45 degrees one day).
  • In the US, 2012 was the warmest year on record (the 11th warmest globally).

The report noted that the cold air blasts we experienced during January were fairly normal during the 1900s. We just don’t remember it, because we’ve had so many relatively warm winters in recent years.

It’s fascinating how Americans view the world. While 2012 was America’s warmest-ever winter, Europe experienced the type of cold we had this year, with hundreds of people dying. However, Americans didn’t look at Europe and proclaim, “See, global warming is a hoax!” When Americans sample the weather at a particular time in the specific place where they live, and conclude that that’s how it is in the rest of the world–well, I tend to ROTFLOL (that’s text-speak for “rolling on the floor laughing out loud”).

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Rushing to Judgment

50 years ago the phrase “I don’t want to get involved” entered the American lexicon, thanks to the New York City murder of Kitty Genovese. According to the legend, 38 people watched, and did nothing, as she was raped and stabbed to death outside her apartment.

I say “legend,” because it didn’t happen that way. You can read the real story here. The New York Times chose to go with a more sensational approach, and everyone accepted that inaccurate account.

We regularly learn “new details” which put old stories in new light. People write memoirs, sealed documents get released, reporters reexamine old stories, scientists and archaeologists make new discoveries. DNA tests exonerate persons, locked away for decades, whom society had despise as murderers.

Historical revisions occur frequently in matters of war and foreign relations, for which enduring secrets are common. I wonder if, in ten years, we’ll understand the Bin Laden raid, 9/11, Benghazi, and other recent events in a very different light.

But we live in a microwave world, with instant analysis. I try to keep that in mind when listening to pundits proclaiming the definitive truth about events even as they unfold. As the X-Files told us, “The Truth is Out There.” It just may not be known to the general public…yet.

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The Insidious Creation of Doubt

We all know smoking causes cancer and other medical problems. The science is irrefutable. But that wasn’t always the case.

It’s interesting how the tobacco companies defended themselves. They didn’t try to win arguments. They just created doubt.

Tobacco companies poured tens of millions of dollars into “scientific organizations” to do research regarding lung cancer and other types of tobacco poisoning. But scientists were NOT allowed to study the actual affect of tobacco on the body. Instead, they looked at any OTHER possible causes of tobacco poisoning. They identified about 20 substances that COULD cause lung cancer.

So, when a lifelong smoker developed lung cancer, they could dig around and say, “Yes, smoking may have caused it. HOWEVER, ten years ago this person visited such-and-such a place, where he could have been exposed to such-and-such a chemical, which is also known to cause lung cancer in lab animals. So we can’t be sure that cigarettes are to blame.”

They didn’t need to prove anything. They just created doubt. That worked for several decades, until scientific fact overtook them.

The same tactic is being used by the major carbon producers–oil, coal, and auto companies–in the climate change debate. In fact, one of the key “scientists” in the tobacco debates was a man through whom the tobacco companies funneled $45 million. He’s a professional “denier,” who began arguing that we can’t be SURE global warming is caused by man despite the overwhelming evidence.

Numerous other professional deniers–some of them actual scientists, but almost never actual climatologists–also make their living creating doubt about the nature of global warming.

When you see someone on TV downplaying climate change, Google their name and organization. You’ll inevitably discover that, if the person is indeed a scientist, climate science isn’t his area of specialty and he has never done actual research into climate science. And you’ll find that the organization is funded primarily by the carbon producers. But nobody takes the time to check.

(The book “Climate Coverup” exposes all of these organizations and professional deniers. It’s quite fascinating, and disturbing.)

Numerous phony scientific organizations with environment-friendly names have popped up, with spokespersons who go on conservative media to denounce the claims of climate scientists, especially the claim that global warming is caused by human activity.

They can be quite crafty. Some will go even as far as saying, “Global warming is probably caused by human activity. However, there is at least a very little amount of uncertainty, so let’s not rush into anything.” And so, we do nothing. That’s what the carbon producers want–believe anything you desire, just don’t take any action. It’s all about creating doubt and preventing any action from being taken.

A 2009 study showed that 97% of published climate scientists, persons who actually do climate research, were convinced that global warming is caused by human activity. Nearly every scientific organization worldwide has affirmed the same view. But the PR campaign by the carbon producers has been incredibly successful, at least in the United States, where doubt about global warming has increased substantially. The US is unique in that way.

In the future, the successful efforts of the carbon producing companies will become a text-book case in public relations classes. (In my Masters in Public Relations classes, we studied various cases where PR efforts convinced the general public to embrace nontruths.)

Defense attorneys use doubt. They don’t need to prove that their client is innocent. They just have to create enough “reasonable” doubt that one juror will say, “He probably did it, but I can’t be positive.”

In politics, doubt is a standard tactic. Create doubt about Obama’s citizenship and faith, about Romney’s business experience, about John Kerry’s war record, about George Bush’s intelligence, about Reagan’s age and mental capacity. You don’t need to prove anything. Just create doubt.

I suppose Satan works the same way to turn people away from the truth about Christ. And he has plenty of ammunition.

Satan creates doubt about the validity of Scripture. He raises doubt about the reality of Christianity by pointing out hypocrisy among Christians and churches. He convinces you to doubt your own past experiences with Christ. He raises doubt about what you’ve been taught about the faith. He works in a million ways to convince people, “Christianity isn’t for real.”

But convincing isn’t even necessary. Just tell them, “You’ve never seen Jesus or an angel, never heard God speak, never experienced a miracle that can’t be explained any other way. You can’t know for sure. So why commit your life to something with so much uncertainty?”

Satan doesn’t need to prove that Christianity is false. He just needs to create doubt.

The task for the other side–convincing people that smoking really is harmful, that climate change really is caused by human activity, and that Christianity really is true–is extremely difficult. Doubt, especially when people demand absolute certainty, is a big giant to slay.

Fortunately, truth always wins. The tobacco industry lost the war of public opinion. In 30 years, nobody will doubt the reality of climate change–the evidence will be everywhere. And death, which nobody can escape, will eliminate all doubts about whether or not Jesus is for real.

———

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Cold Now, but a Heat Wave is Coming

While America endures a terrible cold spell, Australia is experiencing drought and record heat. Neither situation proves or disproves anything about climate change. The universal climate system is a very complicated thing. Some climate scientists say climate change is not so much “global warming” as “global weirding.” That’s kind of what the world is experiencing.

This year, 2014–despite our current cold spell–will probably be another very hot one. It’s an El Nino year, which comes around every four years, and that always brings extra heat. Four of the six hottest years on record (since 1880) were all El Nino years–2010, 1998, 2002, 2006. So we have that to look forward to this summer.

The earth is definitely warming, and doing so very rapidly, as opposed to naturally-occurring increases which occur over a period of hundreds of years. The ten warmest years on record (since 1880) have all occurred since 1998.

  1. 2010
  2. 2005
  3. 1998
  4. 2003
  5. 2002
  6. 2006
  7. 2009
  8. 2007
  9. 2004
  10. 2012
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Terrorists in a Haystack

I’ve ranted before about how we’ve gone overboard with hyper-security, one prime example being the TSA. An excellent article on  Cracked.com talks about this.

Referring to the TSA’s tactics at airports, “The very few terrorists that exist are like needles in a haystack. But the TSA’s approach is to check every single piece of hay, in case it might actually be a needle.” Well said.

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Lincoln Vs. the Christmas Holiday

David Frum wrote an interesting piece for CNN: “The ‘War on Christmas’: Did Lincoln Start it?

He takes a historical look at how Americans have celebrated Christmas. He notes that the Founding Fathers, and our political leaders up through the late 1800s, took a far stricter view of “separation of church and state” than we do today. In fact, if they were alive today, they would argue on principle against any governmental recognition of Christmas (or any other religious holidays).

  • George Washington, as president, issued a proclamation about Thanksgiving (a secular holiday) but never one for Christmas or Easter.
  • Abraham Lincoln, in 1834, voted against making Christmas a state holiday. No state in the country closed offices on December 25 that year.
  • On his first Christmas as president, Lincoln held a cabinet meeting. The Lincolns never put up a Christmas tree, never sent Christmas cards.
  • In 1836, Alabama became the first state to recognize Christmas as a state holiday.
  • Christmas didn’t become a national holiday until 1870.
  • Benjamin Harrison, in 1889, was the first president to allow a Christmas tree in the White House.

Maybe the “War on Christmas” should be retitled the “War on the Original Intent of the Founding Fathers.”

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