The Transition Government

Update: Was the New World Translation mentioned as the most accurate translation of the Bible on Jeopardy?

2011-10-22T10:25:00.000-05:00

I wrote about this several years ago and I have continued to get plenty of hits on the subject. So having this subject kept fresh in mind, I have had plenty of chances to go back and re-look for evidence of its happening.

The myth is (via chain email) that on Jeopardy, Alex Trebek once presented an answer to the effect of "The most accurate translation of the Bible" to which the question was "The New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures by The Watchtower Bible and Tract Society."

Did this ever happen?

The short answer is no.

I have never found any evidence of it. Not on YouTube, not on Google Video, and not now that the entire archive of Jeopardy questions and answers is available online. http://www.j-archive.com/

You are free to check for yourself. But I have found more evidence for Michael Jackson still being alive. Michael Jackson was a Jehovah's Witness as well, but that's neither here nor there.

The important thing here, aside from the evidence or lack thereof, is that you need to learn to think critically.

Let's review the situation here:

1. The claim is from an email forward. Anyone familiar with these, or Snopes.com or other debunking websites knows that email forwards are almost invariably universally unequivocally always false. In my estimation, I'd say that upwards of 90-95% of all emails are completely bogus or at the very least offer a real picture with a false explanation. NEVER place any trust in ANY email forward, it's like going to the casino and betting that you'll win every time. It doesn't work that way.

2. The claim is that the topic appeared on Jeopardy, a pop culture and history quiz show where people win actual money, is widely viewed, and features geniuses. 'The most accurate translation of the Bible' is a 100% subjective item, especially between the camps of Jehovah's Witnesses and the rest of Christendom. Such a thing I dare say would never appear on Jeopardy.

3. Consider the state of religion today. If such a thing had happened, it would have been leaped upon by every religious media program there is. It would be on the Bible Answer Man, it would be heard from the podcasts of innumerable pulpits, and it would be on every apologetics website there is. However, the truth is, it isn't in any of these places. There is a simple and overwhelming lack of evidence. It's as if someone said "in the middle of a cornfield in Nebraska sometime between the years of 1984 and 2005, a man played checkers with a cornbread bust of Abraham Lincoln." There's just no evidence.

I have heard several anecdotal reports of the question. However, as we know, anecdotal evidence is one of the most unreliable pieces of evidence there is. All humans have a propensity to remember things not as they were, but as some sort of glorified or horrified version of events. The truth is, we make things up and we forget things and in our own minds without corroborating evidence, it always all still fits together seamlessly. That's how our minds work. But its only when you go back and watch that old film of the vacation at the lake do you realize that the boat was actually blue and not red.

The best explanation I have found for this happening is that there was some sort of church youth event which taught about different religions and at the end there was a Jeopardy style quiz for the youth to answer questions about what they had learned. There was a question about which Bible JW's read and the answer was of course the New World Translation. From there, it morphed into what we know as this phenomenon today where people still insist despite the evidence and logic that they saw that particular episode of Jeopardy even though they can't point to a time and even though the archive of Jeopardy questions contains it not.

It's sad that even today people will hold on to belief in something that doesn't matter in the slightest and that there is absolutely no evidence for.

Let it go.

It didn't happen, and it wouldn't matter if it did.

It's a Great Time for Democracy

2011-02-24T19:58:00.000-06:00

Just wanna throw my hat in support for the democratic uprisings we're seeing all over the Muslim world, and in the US too in the fight for union rights. These are all good things.

WiredForStereo

Nothing's Really Moving Me Right Now

2011-01-30T21:42:00.000-06:00

Nothing that I can properly talk about anyway.

Sorry.

I really need to be inspired to make good posts, to write with feeling.

Just not feeling much right now.

I have been working on my beekeeping blog a bit lately, check it out if you're interested in bees at all. They really are fascinating creatures. In beekeeping, there's an excellent opportunity to practice organic farming right now.

Once again, I ask for suggestions on subjects about which to write. I have been thinking lately about the literal-ness of the Bible lately. It could make for a lengthy post, but quite interesting. What do you think?

WiredForStereo

Movie Review: Temple Grandin starring Claire Danes

2011-01-24T21:27:00.000-06:00

I've been following Dr. Temple Grandin the person for several years. Well, let me qualify that, she's over fifty already anyway. She didn't just get discovered or anything, she designed the handling facilities for half the cattle slaughtering houses in the country. She's an autistic who has the ability to remember in pictures and has used her abilities to change the way we deal with animals on the way to slaughter. I have heard a number of interviews with her and a presentation or two that she's given. She's a very brilliant person.

To the movie.

Now this is acting. Acting is worthless when you're just watching the person on screen in some form of themselves. Claire Danes is brilliant in this film. Her portrayal of Grandin is very close, her mannerisms, speech patterns, and tone. She's not perfect, but it's hard to know exactly since the good doctor is a bit older now. When I heard her opening line in the movie, I said "That's not how Temple Grandin talks, but it's close enough." Of course Danes portrays her when she was much younger than she is now. Grandin herself in the special features remarks as to how close Danes' portrayal is.

This is one of those stories you wouldn't believe if it wasn't real. Grandin has done so much with her life, and she came from a time when autistic children were more often than not institutionalized. She was the first person to explain what it was like to be autistic.

I absolutely loved this movie and I would recommend it to anyone, and in fact, you should really see it.

10/10

WiredForStereo

The Electric Vehicle Truly is the Future

2010-12-24T11:06:00.001-06:00

Electric vehicles are the future. Anyone can generate electricity and on a small scale, using renewables is just as easy as using the traditional methods, easier in some cases. Electric vehicles provide the range the vast vast majority of us need on a daily basis and in the winter time, they heat up faster too. But like everything, they have their downsides.

The first downside and the most important one in my book is the human resistance to change. We've had fossil fueled vehicles almost exclusively for a hundred years. We have some electric buses and trains in and near big cities, but many of us don't live in big cities. There's the concept called "range anxiety" where people are supposed to be concerned about how far their EV can go. There's the time it takes to recharge, and the availability of charging locations away from home. And for some reason (obvious source when you think about it) fear is drummed up about the cost of replacing the battery.

First let me address the battery. There's a fundamental difference between electric and FF cars. A gas engine can be expected to last around 300,000 miles or so with a few repairs along the way. After that, it will need a rebuild, or depending on the car, it might have already had one. But in any case, it will be worn out. There will be metal inside the engine which will no longer be there. That's why oil turns black, it's carrying the little pieces of metal that have worn off from the inside of the engine. A diesel can be expected to last significantly longer because it's built far more competently. Some diesels can last longer than a million miles.

But an electric vehicle is different. There is essentially only one movable part in the "engine." There's a rotor that spins around on the inside of the motor casing inside the coils. Virtually all production electric vehicles utilize AC motors which have no wearable "brushes" to transfer electricity from the non moving to the moving parts. What does this leave us? The only wearable parts are the bearings which are replaceable, and the transmission which unlike a car transmission will not likely have any gears, clutches, or sensors. An EV has no emissions equipment to go bad, no exhaust system to rust out, no fluids to change, no fan belts to squeak, and because of regenerative braking, the brake pads may last the life of the car. Typical repair costs will be minimal at most.

But the battery, what do we do about the battery? Latest estimates have the battery costing between $3000 to $10,000 in an electric vehicle and supposed to last 150,000 miles in California and estimated to last 10 years elsewhere. But there's an aspect that you don't get if you don't go in depth. At the end of a battery's projected life, it doesn't just die one day. The end of a battery's life is 70% capacity. That means instead of going 100 miles, it goes 70. Instead of going 300 miles it goes 210. It's obviously not the end of the world. There's another aspect that bears investigation as well. If in ten years you do decide you need a new battery, the batteries available will be far better than the one you have now. And since your electric car is far from actually wearing out anyway, it will be worth the investment, like doing that engine rebuild. In fact, it may be worth it to replace the seats, some or most of the interior, maybe even upgrade the motor. A car can be more like a house as far as capital investment goes because it's not quite so much of a consumable product any more.

Let's talk about range. This is where my big solution comes in. Right now, the major electric car available is the Nissan LEAF. The current LEAF comes with about 100 mile range, more if you like to hypermile. Aside from the fact that this range easily covers the daily commute of over 90% of the population, think about charging at work. I would consider it a perk of a job to be able to plug my car in (slow charge of course) at work. Even if you do charge from dead to full (not likely to happen) with the whole 25 kWh, that's still between $2 to $5 anywhere in the US. It's just not that big of a deal. Even if your boss is a tight-@$$, maybe he'll let you drop a fiver for the privilege or do a monthly fee. Better yet, park nearby at some nice local business who will let you charge. There are options. It's doable even if it does put you out of your comfort zone. Better yet, in two years or so, the second generation Toyota Rav4 EV is supposed to have a range of 300 miles.

But what about long trips? First, I doubt there will be many households with only all EV's. I plan on commuting on a motorcycle the majority of the year, an electric motorcycle. So for long trips, you could keep a vehicle around, it should last a long time since you won't be using it much. Or you could rent one for trips.

But I have an idea. You likely have heard about the Chevy Volt which has a range extender built in, a generator to maintain charge after the battery has run low. However, this adds considerable weight to the car which you'll have to drag around when you don't need it. What if you could put the generator on the trailer? better yet, what if you could rent the generator on the trailer? What if you could go to UHaul and rent a generator trailer for your electric car? Or, you could build one out of spare parts. It can be done.

And it has been done. Check out this picture of the generator trailer developed for the first Rav4 EV and the tZero. It uses a two cylinder Kawasaki motorcycle engine and has special steering so that when you back up, you don't have to worry about knowing how to back a trailer.

Here's a Polar Power DC generator that I have been looking at lately. It uses a Perkins 4 cylinder diesel engine with a permanent magnet alternator. Since most EV's today use battery packs with voltages below 400, it's no problem to match voltages with the generator. Check them out at http://www.polardcmarine.com/polarpower/products/dc-generators/ they have several smaller models as well.

Coincidently, the LEAF already has a DC quick charging plug. It's the one on the left. Not sure, but I think this could be useful.

You may have read about (or saw on YouTube) my recent generator project where I used a car alternator and a rototiller engine and an inverter to make a cheap fixable generator. Next on the docket is the Parker Engineering Mark II DC Generator. I have purchased a used 6 hp Lombardini diesel engine and I'm building a full frame and enclosure for it to make another generator. If I can find another higher amperage alternator, it I should be able to make a significantly better overall machine, with higher sustained power output, better fuel economy and longer run time, not to mention quieter. Electric start will be a bonus as well. Look for it soon.

My point with all of this is that there are a lot of great options with a bit of good ol' American engineering. An individual with just a little know how and an internet connection can figure out a whole bunch of solutions to use a variety of machines and technologies to produce power. Modern electric cars will make that even more possible. They will also bring about cheaper battery technology which will make it easier to build custom electric cars and for homes to be off grid. Off grid means lower energy usage all around.

With energy, less is better.
WiredForStereo

The Doctrine of American Exceptionalism

2010-11-21T21:58:00.000-06:00

What’s the best way to be? Is it: Better than everyone else? Stronger than everyone else? Smarter than everyone else? More morally pure then everyone else? Wealthier than everyone else?

The Doctrine of American Exceptionalism offers you the opportunity to be all of the above. And you don’t even have to try, you just have to be born here, or successfully immigrate and obtain citizenship and preferably white.

You may have heard of American Exceptionalism. It is a theory that the United States occupies a special role among the nations of the world in terms of its national ethos, political and religious institutions, and its being built by immigrants. The roots of the position have been dated back to 1630 with John Winthrop's "City Upon a Hill" (you may have heard that in a Reagan speech) although some scholars attribute it to a passage of Alexis de Tocqueville, who argued that the United States held a special place among nations because it was the first working representative democracy.

You may have heard conservative windbags like Sean Hannity say things like “how can Obama be an effective president, he doesn’t even believe in the Doctrine of American Exceptionalism.”

You may have heard or even believe that the United States is the greatest country in the history of the world. For me, it’s the root of the phrase “God bless America.” Sure, I want God to bless America, but not by destroying other nations at our feet. For me it’s “God bless America, and everybody else too.”

America may hold a top-of-the-pile position today, and for the last number of decades or a century or two, but it’s not because we are those things I listed in the first paragraph. It’s because for the most part, we haven’t had a war on our soil that destroyed our entire infrastructure.

If you listen to conservative talk radio or watch Fox News (I’ve decided that Fox doesn’t report the news, Fox reports the truth, see Jon Stewart’s recent interview with Chris Wallace) you’ll hear that we are so much way more awesome than Europe where socialism is. I’ve had it told to me that we are way more innovative. Our economy is way better. And we have all these “freedoms.”

But to be fair, what really happened? What is really the case? And why?

Europe has been a little slow. But if the US had been the location of two world wars in thirty years, we’d have been slow too. Much of Europe got the living cuss bombed out of it in WWII. You’ll also notice how little of our famed innovation has come out of the south where the Civil War destroyed all manner of progress. I live in Arkansas, where there appears to be only one major university. As far as I can tell, the greatest density of universities and colleges is in the North East and West Coast.

When Europe got out of WWII, they were so hosed, they had to go about things completely differently. We were the victors. Nary a bomb had dropped on our soils. Soldiers returning from war came back to the new middle class centered plan of the New Deal. Taxes on the rich were high. Unions thrived. We boomed. Europe on the other hand was hosed. Hosed hosed hosed.

They had massive casualties, fire bombed out cities, bridges destroyed, airports with holes all over them and no oil reserves. Germany had to pay reparations (again) and Britain was so gutted, they had rationing for years afterward. But they’ve come back. They have pretty robust economies now. They have low unemployment, and don’t have nearly the economic swings we capitalists have.

More and more lately, I’ve come to believe that all that stuff they used to tell us in grade school about being the greatest country on earth is a load of hooey. They tell us about all sorts of advances in technology, medicine and whatnot. Where is the first mass produced electric car coming from? Nissan. Who has the best healthcare in the world? Not us. Where was your cell phone made? Not here. Where is your job? Somewhere else.

They tell us that the constitution is a moral document, that God had his hand in its writing like he dictated the King James Version of the Bible. We got “all men are created equal” you know, except for slaves and whatnot, oh and women, don’t forget women. And it turns out that many of the founders weren’t Christians, at least not the kind we’re told they were. Blasphemy of blasphemies, the great Thomas Jefferson cut out all the miraculous stuff from the Bible and republished his own version!

How’s that racism coming along. Well, there were some of us who were against it for a long time, but we had to have a war over it, oh yeah, and after we whooped Britain in the Revolutionary War, they abolished slavery decades before we did. Now we have a black radical Christian Muslim president. Figure that one out for yourself. How surprising was it that the day after he was elected, gun sales skyrocketed? The economy is in the ash can, but you haven’t seen any gun stores closing. Just recently there are people protesting a “mosque” with a domed roof going up near a freeway in Phoenix which actually as it turns out is really a non-denominational church. Xenophobia - An exaggerated or abnormal fear of strangers or foreigners. I was listening to “Christian” radio last night. Their “news” segment consisted of a guy ranting about how important it was to cast extra suspicion upon anyone who was a Muslim for fear of terrorism.

What about on the moral front? Surely we are the center of morality pure as the driven snow in the world. Not hardly. What did we do to the Indians? We royally screwed them over. We forced them off their nice land that they had occupied for maybe thousands of years and we concentrated them out in the desert, and Oklahoma. United States military forces murdered thousands upon thousands of them outright in cold blood.

Then World War II comes along and we have vast resources that we commit to building the atomic bomb. And then we drop the most powerful bomb in the history of the world on civilians. What an cusshole thing to do. The moral high ground is to act in honor and civility no matter how provoked. Truman could have called up Hirohito and said “Hey, we got a bomb. We got a big cussing bomb, and we’re gonna drop it in the middle of Tokyo Bay, and then you got 48 hours to surrender or we’re gonna glass your little island.” But no, we didn’t drop it in Tokyo Bay. We didn’t drop it in the sparsely inhabited mountains that make up so much of Japan. We didn’t drop it anywhere where it would do a little damage but make a big point. We dropped it on civilians who were just trying to get along with their lives. If we want to be exceptional, we must always hold the moral high ground, and we are so very bad at it. But they’ve come back. They’re doing pretty good, and while they are clawing their way to the top of the Environmental Performance Index, we are screwing our way down. You wouldn’t believe the countries that are beating us now. Look it up for yourself, we suck (on that index).

Likewise is our dealing with the Middle East. Understand this. Islam is a warlike religion with a tribal history. It has a strong sense of revenge and vengeance and vendetta or whatever you want to call it. So when we go bomb the towel heads, we wind up the kind of cuss-storm we can’t truly understand. They’ll wear us down to the last man, the last dollar, the last bullet, the last bayonet because their sense of revenge is far better developed than ours is. So what are we? We’re the invaders. I’m an active advocate of non-violence, but if someone walks into my country, onto my property with violent intent, I’ll be the first one to be slinging lead around. There’s a different sort of mindset when you waltz into someone else’s country and start shooting. And we’ve been on the wrong side of that coin so many times, you’ll never see it paid back. We’d have to be invaded by two dozen different countries before we even start to get even.

And the thing that bugs me the most is when people say that God is the one behind our supposed greatness. I guess I can blame God for all the above then? Why does God get blamed? Why would God bless the good ol’ US of A? Is it because we’ve been good? Not that I can tell. Are we some sort of chosen nation? I think that one was Israel. Is it because we’re white and righteous? There’s a Mormon reference. BOOM! The truth is, our church movement is stagnated and beginning to die. We’re very nearly post-Christian. And I for one am glad. Maybe soon we can stop blaming God for how “awesome” we are.

If we’re a Christian nation, we’re cuss sure a poor example of one. But I guess that’s just hyperbole. I don’t believe it. I don’t have any evidence that shows it to be true. And I’ve looked. I’ve read the constitution, God isn’t in there. He’s in the Confederate constitution go figure, but not ours. There’s nothing exceptional about the US. We got lucky on stuff like natural resources. We killed off all the natives leaving us vast expanses of land. We haven’t been bombed. We were immigrated by people willing to work. But there’s nothing exceptional about us. We’re human like everyone else.

WiredForStereo

White House Gives In On Bush Tax Cuts

2010-11-11T12:11:00.001-06:00

Don't give up Obama, let the Bush Tax Cuts die!
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

[sarcasm]Now that the Republicans have Won, Abortion will End![/sarcasm]

2010-11-04T11:29:00.002-05:00

Before I start, let me assure you that this is my own original political analysis and I have neither seen on TV nor read in any media nor heard on the radio what I am about to tell you. I just wanted to say that because I get accused of copying Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews and I just want everyone to know that I don't and have never watched their shows. Not a single time. I don't even have cable. I am a democratic socialist. They are TV pundits. I am able to make the distinction. Some are not apparently.

Anyway, my analysis.

I was taken aback by what I heard. I listened to quite a number of victory and concession speeches. I listened mostly to republican victory and concession speeches. I listened to Rand Paul, Christine O'Donnell, Carl Paladino, John Boehner, and others whose names are less recognizable and even less remember-able. A single issue voter might have me believe that a republican loss would mean a loss for the pro-choice movement. A republican win should mean victory for the babies!

But none of them mentioned abortion.

Nobody said, "Now that the American people have elected me to office, I will end abortion!" Nobody said "since our tragic loss, unborn babies all over America will now never see the light of day." Nobody said anything about abortion.

Not a damn thing.

Not one damn thing.

Because republicans won't do anything about abortion.

Not a damn thing.

It's a hot button issue which they were fortunate enough to have gotten on the right side of 40 years ago. But it's just a card. Like a King of Diamonds, or the Ace of Hearts. It's a card, you use it to make a good hand, then when you won your chips, you shuffle it back into the deck and hope that at some time in the future you can pull it out again and use it to win another hand. In poker, you play the people, not the cards.

They are playing the people.

Since Roe vs. Wade in 1973, the republicans have held the presidency for like 25 years. Compare that to 14 for the democrats. During that entire time, they did next to nothing. Sure, they campaigned on it like mad, but the weren't playing the cards, they were playing the game, playing the people. In the same time, they pushed abstinence only education. Yet, we have the highest teen birth rate in the industrialized world! They started like three wars. You know what kills more innocent people than abortions? WARS!!!

The democrats on the other hand want to pass out condoms, a method which tends to prevent a lot of pregnancies. The democrats typically lift the poor, which tends to prevent a lot of unwanted pregnancies. The democrats better fund education, education tends to prevent pregnancy. Democrats want to provide health care, good health insurance pays for contraception, a reliable method of preventing pregnancy. Democrats want to provide comprehensive sex education, which has the same effect as any other education like I mentioned before. But most of them still want abortion to be legal.

The republicans didn't mention abortion because they don't care about it. What did they mention? They mentioned taxes, budgets, power, majority, taking things back, taking over, guns, and cuts to everything but the military. But they didn't mention abortion. They don't care and they won't do ANYTHING!

It's a card, and you don't play cards, you play people.

If you are a single issue voter, you are being played, and quite successfully. Congratulations.
WiredForStereo

Fair Tax

2010-11-01T20:38:00.000-05:00

Surely, you’ve heard of the fair tax. It’s big in libertarian circles and in many conservative ones as well. It is an initiative to replace federal income tax with a federal sales tax. Proponents say that it taxes wealth, that it is progressive on consumption. A “prebate” would be paid up to the poverty level to compensate the poor.

I have a few problems with it however.

On the surface, it sounds like a great idea. Think about it, you get a check to pay for the tax up to the poverty level, and if you spend more, you pay more tax. Buy a Kia, and you pay Kia tax, buy a Bugatti and you pay Bugatti tax. But it’s not really progressive on consumption is it? A progressive tax is one that is greater on greater amounts of money. A properly instituted progressive tax is the only truly “fair” tax. The “Fair Tax” is a constant 33% tax, and no matter how much you spend, a regressive tax (one that is more advantageous to the wealthy because they have a much greater amount of money to pay it) still is inequitably applied to those less able to afford it.

Let’s take a few minutes to understand the differences between progressive and regressive taxes. Let’s make up a few people, some hypothetical circumstances, and use them to understand this issue. They will all live in Oregon so there aren’t additional sales taxes to bother with calculating.

Person A, we’ll call him Abe, is a low wage earner. He graduated high school but was unable to attend college and now works delivering Xerox copy machine supplies for 25,000 a year. Scrimping and saving and being a good steward of his money, he is able to fully fund his Roth IRA with $5000 every year. The current federal poverty level is $11,000 and under the “Fair Tax” plan, he would receive a prebate for the tax he spent on buying stuff with that money. He spends $5000 per year on rent and various non-taxed payments and spends the remaining money on what he needs to survive. The money he has to pay taxes in is thus $4000. With the “Fair Tax” he will spend $23 out of every $100 spent on sales tax and will be paying $920 in taxes. That figures to be 3.7% of his income.

Person B we will call Bill. He is an engineer and makes $100,000 a year. He fully funds his Roth IRA, spends $25,000 on his house which he is buying and will own and on other non-taxed stuff. He is also able to invest $10,000 which yields a return of 10%. Like Abe, he doesn’t have to pay taxes on that $11,000 and so he has to pay taxes on $49,000. Thus he pays a total of $11,270 in tax, 11.3% of his income.

Person C, Cal does pretty well. He is a CEO of a company and makes 1,000,000. He lives reasonably and invests 500,000 at a rate of 10% return. He spends another $200,000 on things that aren’t taxed leaving $300,000 in taxed expenditures. He will pay $69000 in tax, 6.9% of his income.

Person D, Don does really well. He is one of those Wall Street CEO’s you hear about and he makes 50,000,000 a year. He is able to live on about 10% of that a year and the rest is reinvested at a rate of 10%. He pays tax on that 10% of his income that is spent and will pay $1,150,000 in tax, 2.3% of his income. As you can see, if Don chose to, he could stop working altogether and live on the returns from his investments at his current level of comfort.

Finally I will tell you about Person E, Ed. He founded a software company that went huge and he now makes a sh!t ton of money. He makes 10,000,000,000 but he only lives on $100,000,000 of it in lavish opulent wealth. He pays 23,000,000 in tax, 0.23% of his income. Because he is able to invest so much, he gets $900,000,000 from the investments he made last year, increasing his income to 10,900,000,000, and his actual tax rate is 0.21%.

Do you see where this is going? The more you make, the less of it you need to live on. I could make a billion dollars a year and still live in my same house and drive my same motorcycle. I could not do that when I was working for Xerox. Yes, the poor get a better deal under the “Fair Tax” because they make less, but the poor currently pay virtually no tax, and in truth often get Earned Income Tax Credits. The “Fair Tax” wants to tax them. It places a burden upon them they already can’t carry. I know I didn’t include it, but the rich guys still get the prebates like everyone else!

Regressive taxes work that way. As you may have picked up in this analysis, high earners can also afford to invest a large amount of their money and through that earn even more. I can’t do that, I have to spend a quite large fraction of my family income on a house and cars to get to work and school and food, and speaking of school, I have tens of thousands of dollars in student loans still out there. By the time I graduate, I’m basically going to be a house and a half in debt.

With a single sales tax rate, you can’t make this tax progressive in the long run. Even if you jacked the “poverty level” up to $100,000, it would still be a boon for the ultra-rich. Consider this also: the “Fair Tax” is supposed to increase the rate of investment. Who benefits the most from increased rates of investment? A related question: Who would benefit the most from the privatization of Social Security? The Wall Street people benefit, the ones who already have vast amounts of money and like to play with it in ways detrimental to all of us. Either way, they win, commoners lose, the middle class pays more money and bears the burden. Just like today, the tax rate for capital gains is only 15%. Who makes the most in capital gains but the ones who have capital, the wealthy. It’s another system, a gift of the Bush Tax Cuts, which empowers the rich to concentrate wealth and allow them to get out the door without paying their tab. It truly is “redistribution of wealth”. But the wealth is going upward.

A properly instituted progressive income tax is the only logical solution. Consider the great age of our country. The greatest time for the advancement of civil rights, the greatest time for the advancement of workers rights, the creation of social security, Medicare, the EPA and all of that good stuff. During that time, the top marginal tax rate was between 70-90%!

Libertarian ideas work in a window. I’ve said that before. And you must realize, this is a libertarian idea, and it does work, but only in a small window. That window reaches up to a million dollars or so and down to a few tens of thousand. But like other libertarian ideas, if you’re on the low end of the hill, the system works against you, and if you are on the top of the hill, the system works in favor of you. A properly balanced system will work FOR you.

Be concerned about who pushes ideas. This is not a bi-partisan idea. This is a conservative libertarian republican idea. It benefits the insanely wealthy the most, and the commoner the least. Most right wing ideas do.

Finally, I’m not gonna tear down an idea without offering one in its place. It’s a modern version of what we had in the 50’s, 60’s, and 70’s.

The amount of tax on the amount of money made below the state poverty level is tax free.

The money made between that and 40,000 is taxed at 10%. The amount made between 40k and 60k is taxed at 15%.

The amount made between 60k and 80k is taxed at 20%.

The amount between $80k and 100k is taxed at 25%.

The amount between $100,000 and $250,000 is taxed at 30%.

Between 250k and $1M is taxed at 50 %.

Between $1million and $2 million is taxed at 60 %. Between $2 million and 100 million is taxed at 75%.

Finally, the amount above $1 billion is taxed at 90%.

Additionally, there is no distinction made between earned income and capital gains. It counts for total income, anything that you get during the year that you didn’t have at the beginning of the year.

This plan represents a pretty decent tax break for anyone making less than $250,000 which is in line with Obama’s current plans, and sets a truly progressive tax system which will make our system work again like the libertarians want it to work now. It’s not that I think they are lying and want to destroy our economy, I really think they have the best interests of the country at heart, they are simply fundamentally mistaken about the results of their plans.

Now don’t take this as gospel truth, I definitely plan on revising this in the future and making and spreadsheet and all that, but this is just something to show you in which direction we should be going, and how to get to a place where you really can rise above if you put your mind to it.

Remember, it is far better to make a billion dollars at 90% tax than it is to make 100,000 at 10%. Higher taxes on the rich is not punishing them for making more money, it’s requiring them to pay for their footprint in the world.

Equal is regressive. Equitable is progressive. The “Fair Tax” is not fair.

WiredForStereo

Inherent Necessary Inefficiencies.

2010-10-28T21:06:00.000-05:00

Since I have been of the mind to pay attention to politics, and I am certain long before, I have heard from politicians and politicians-to-be that government should be run like a business. I have heard that government needs to be more efficient, it needs to treat money like we who have to live and work do.

Why?

We are inherently different than the system of government. Business is inherently different than government.

Think of it like a system with a purpose.

A business is a system whose purpose is to generate money. What other purpose does it have at its core? Sure, some businesses and organizations have other purposes but by far, the vast majority of businesses exist to make money, for the owners, for the shareholders, or perhaps as tax dodges so that someone doesn’t have to pay out money on the other side.

A household is a system with a purpose. Its purpose is to provide basic needs for people who work to earn money, and use that money to pay to maintain the household. It serves the householders who are part of the same system. A household would not work if it were maintained with the purpose of generating money. I don’t even know how that would work.

A government is a system with a purpose. Government’s purpose is to serve the people. It serves them by building them infrastructure so that they can carry on business and householding. It sets policies for imports and exports and regulates how businesses can treat workers. It regulates what persons can do to each other with the purpose of creating a civil society in which everyone can carry on business and householding. It prevents overreach of many aspects of society, and necessarily so, it serves humans.

Government to a degree facilitates everything that happens in a society. Government can’t go bankrupt like a corporation and be dissolved and assets sold to pay debts. Government can’t be sold like a business or a house. Government can’t buy other governments. A government cannot be run like a business because it doesn’t create wealth or serve to generate money, it distributes it by its very nature. It collects money via taxes and fees and provides services based on what needs to be accomplished to move the society forward.

Unlike a business, government serves the people. Unlike money, the best needs met for people do not lie in what makes the most money. There are inherent and necessary inefficiencies. Because government controls so much, it needs inherent drogues to keep it from commanding everything in its path. It needs to apply drogues to businesses and householders so that they may not overstep their bounds also.

Consider the Senate of the United States of America. According to James Madison, "The use of the Senate is to consist in proceeding with more coolness, with more system, and with more wisdom, than the popular branch." The Senate was necessarily less efficient than the House, more deliberative, less apt to act with haste, a necessary and inherent inefficiency. At this point in time, progress in the senate has slowed to a crawl because some senators value the business of money more than they value the business of serving the people. While this is a seriously annoying hang-up, it is an inherent necessary inefficiency to keep the government from overreaching in faster times.

Inefficiency in government prevents great evils from coming to pass if they work right. As a price for this, great goods are also slowed.

The justice system works similarly. In order that the minimum number of innocent people are dealt with unjustly, sometimes a known criminal must be released because he was not read his rights when he was arrested or because proper procedure was not followed in some other aspect. We complain about these miscarriages of justice because we know a guilty party got away with something. How much more would we complain if we the innocent party were unjustly prosecuted for the same crime? It is a necessary and inherent inefficiency that keeps the system from running amuck.

Democracy itself is likewise inherently inefficient. Why spend so much time debating and arguing and legislating in one direction and then another when we could have some glorious all powerful leader who could make changes to our society en masse? Because though that kind of government is far more efficient at getting things done, it is also inherently unjust, or so history would tell us. Democracy, when it works correctly, allows people to govern themselves and move in a direction that generally has the best interests of the society as a whole.

As an aside, let me cut you libertarians, corporatists, plutocrats, autocrats, and republicans off at the pass before you try to tell me that democracies are inherently evil and that the majority will eventually confiscate rights and freedom from the minority. I have done my best to test that assertion, and I have found it to be categorically false. I even had a libertarian try to tell me that Hitler was democratically elected. It’s simply false. I can’t find an example where a democracy has confiscated rights from a minority. If you can provide me one, I’d be happy to consider it, but expect to defend your assertion.

Yes, we all know government is inefficient. We try to make it more efficient. We want it to work for the benefit of all citizens. But to do that, there are some things it can’t do efficiently and we need to accept that. It shouldn’t be wasteful, but some waste is inherent in a system that serves people. A system that serves money is allowed to be far more ruthless.

When government becomes ruthless and cold, you know it is serving money and not the people. When moneyed interests make plans for government, you know they are seeking to change government so that it serves money and not the people.

But it needs to be inefficient. It requires, and was designed with, a certain necessary inherent level of inefficiency so that it would fulfill its purpose in serving the people and not the money.

I eventually plan to start a business where one of the stated purposes is to provide jobs, to serve people. To do that, there will have to be a necessary inherent inefficiency introduced fundamentally into the system so that the sole purpose of the business is not simply to make money, but to serve the people working there.

This post serves to further one of my overall messages that catchphrases, soundbites, and litmus tests are truly useless to our representative democracy. The truth lies in in-depth study, discussion, understanding, and reason. The truth and the best good for the society and our nation lies in seeing every side of an issue, in not yelling, not offering incendiary arguments, and not offering catchphrases in place of reasoned discussions and compromises. Nuance is as important as progress. Depth of understanding is as important as passing a bill. It’s an inherent necessary inefficiency, that we have to slow down and think about what we are doing.

What Do You Believe?

2010-10-20T11:14:00.000-05:00

In our culture today, so many times the question is asked about what we believe, especially in politics and religion. Do believe in Jesus as your personal lord and savior? Do you believe that a woman has the right to control her own body? Do you believe in the death penalty? Do you believe the earth is 6000 years old? Do you believe in fiscal responsibility?

It doesn't matter what you believe, it matters what you're going to do about it.

That's my stand. In the bible, James said: "Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works." "Do you want to be shown, you foolish person, that faith apart from works is useless?" So I've come to the conclusion that it doesn't matter what you believe because what you say you believe makes you a liar unless what you do backs it up. If James calls it useless, than it is useless. Apart from the Bible, I still say if you can't back up what you believe by what you do, then it truly is useless!

The American Christian (you know what I think about these people) culture today is one in which you are defined by what you believe, or at least what you say you believe. Are you against abortion? Are you against gay marriage? Are you against taxes? Are you a fiscal conservative? Yes? Well then by Jove, you're okay in my book! But like I said, so? What I want to know is what are you going to do about it?

Conservatives have been against abortion for forty years. They have used it for forty years to gain votes, but in the end, what have they done about it? Little more than nothing. Well, they won elections, so I guess that counts. I have recently been encountering atheists who are now approaching the ability to discuss moral issues in a playing field which for so long has been dominated by people of faith. Jen Roth is a so-called pro-life atheist and she has such a powerful case against abortion that usually argumentative commentators can't but sit and listen to her lay it out. I'm currently reading a new book by atheist Sam Harris called "The Moral Landscape." And it's hard to fathom, but atheists are now, at least in my view, making better cases for moral issues than the staid Christian apologists.

If this plays out, American Christianity is in some sh!t!

P.S. I really hope it's deep!

But how could I say these things? I'm a follower of Jesus after all, I believe all the stuff I'm supposed to believe right? The difference is what I am going to do about it.

Jen Roth with her "Pro Peace" makes the best case, and I'm gonna mix hers and my stuff here for a minute to make an aggregate case for thought, action, and nuance. Okay, so we all, on all sides can agree that abortion is not a good thing. Even pro-choice people can usually agree that having less abortions is better. There's something about the psycho-physical interaction that is a woman that says that the loss of a child is a damaging event. But pro-choice people still want the option to be there just in case, and typical pro-life people think the benefit of life to the being is more important than the emotional or other state of the woman.

Okay, so we want less abortions, now what? The belief is out of the way, so what should we do about it because it's the doing that is the important part is it not? That's what I said up there, so that's what it is.

What are our options? Some say overturn Roe vs. Wade. Truth be told, this is not a viable option. It's a decision that gives federal rights to people, a whole bunch of people aren't gonna let that happen. There will be riots and if it does succeed, it will be driven by the American Church and the Church will lose the American people for generations, and probably forever. In short, it isn't going to happen. It's just not. It's not a viable option, it's not a peaceful option. Likewise, making abortions on demand and free is not going to make their numbers go down like we all want.

Now if we come to the table to form a solution in the spirit of cooperation and reason, you know, being reasonable, both sides need to make some concessions. This is how cooperation and negotiation works. This is how it is done. You can take power by force and alienate your opponents, or you can meet in the middle and step by step, progress can be made. By the way, that is my definition of progress, moving forward, getting things done piece by piece, thing by thing. That's why I can be against the health bill because it doesn't do what we need, but for it because it takes several steps in the right direction.

First of all, we just have to abandon abstinence only education. It doesn't work. It simply doesn't work. Teens are gonna have sex. The good parents can have a good lifelong effect on that, but the schools are gonna have a really rough time getting that to be effective.

People gotta stop trashing Planned Parenthood simply for fun. Where I grew up, Planned Parenthood handed out condoms on demand. That was a good thing. Who knows how many pregnancies were avoided because of that.

The rights of women to not get pregnant if they choose such must be held high. There are a lot of women who are coerced into getting pregnant. This creates a lot of strife and is not a peaceful option for the world. Also, a great many women are coerced into having an abortion by their boyfriends or their families. That's unacceptable.

What I mean to say with all this is very important. We're not going to get abortion illegalized, at least not in my lifetime and not peacefully. So let us put our beliefs into action to realistically reduce the number of abortions. Let us change militant attitudes and single issue voter status quos to affect real change.

Because it doesn't matter what you believe, it matters what you're going to do about it.

Shalom
WiredForStereo

Review: Harley Motorcycles at Bikes, Blues, and Barbecue.

2010-10-02T20:02:00.000-05:00

In the last two days, I had the opportunity to ride six different models of Harley Davidson. They were Sportster Forty 8, Sportster 883 Low, Fat Bob, Fat Boy Classic, V-Rod Muscle, and one other soft-tail of some sort. I was also able to ride a Can-Am Spyder, a three wheeled vehicle built more like a snow mobile than a motorcycle.

I was looking for a motorcycle to consider buying when my 1995 Honda Nighthawk 750 kicks the bucket. This is not likely to happen soon, it just passed the 30,000 mile mark and runs presumably like the day it was made, definitely like the day I got it, that is before I switched it over to synthetic lubricants.

The biggest difference I noticed was between my bike and the others when I switched back which I did after riding two Harleys in a row in each case. My bike weighs probably 200-300 lbs less than the average Harley and maneuvers much better. It also vibrates a whole lot less, in fact, the first time I started it up after riding the first two Harleys, I had to rev the engine to see if it was actually on.

Which leads me to my first point.

Harleys vibrate. With the exception of the V-Rod, Harleys use an air cooled 45 degree offset v-twin. With their sheer size and power and natural imbalance, they vibrate a lot, especially Sportsters without counterbalances. The Classic was probably the best beside the V-Rod, but let me explain the V-Rod.

The V-Rod is not your traditional Harley by a long shot. It was designed with help from Porshe, and differs in many significant ways. First, it is offset by 60 degrees which makes it a bit bigger even though the displacement is significantly smaller. Adding to that factor is water cooling. It is also counter balanced making it much smoother than the other machines even though the engine is hard mounted instead of rubber mounted like the others. It makes a sound unlike any I have come across. Able to rev to 9k, it easily beats any of the other Harleys whose rev limiters kicked in with out much notice around 6k or so.

All the Harleys are big. They all maneuver significantly slower than my bike. Several I was able to drag the foot pegs on the ground without trying, and the 883 Low was so easy that I was able to drag pegs on both sides in successive left and right swerves. That was without leaving my lane and at 50 mph or more. Probably the best one of the standard machines would have been the one I didn't get to ride, but did get to sit on, the Sportster 1200X with its dirt bike styling (but not functionality) and sport bike peg position. It's handlebar position was way better too, like some street-fighter conversions I've seen with dirt bars.

Of all the bikes I tried, with a change of handlebars, the V-Rod would be the one I would go with. It is the most powerful, the best technology, probably the longest lasting, and the best technology. What can I say, I'm an engineer.

The Spyder was a different bird altogether. I didn't like it much. It rides like a four-wheeler on pavement which is to say it's way too sensitive and it seems could toss you if you get a bee stuck in your helmet and twitch too hard. The electronic shifting sucked. They tell you not to let off the gas when you shift. They didn't say why, but it turns out that the machine does it for you which isn't cool. Fortunately it does have a manual option, so there's that. I wouldn't ride one unless I lost my left leg. You still need your right leg because that's the only option for a brake, though I think that could be remedied with a little imagination. For someone only trained on two-wheelers, the Spyder can be a problem. A lady in front of me almost ran off the road trying to countersteer like you would a motorcycle.

The three wheeled configureation is naturally more stable than a standard trike configuration which leaves much to be desired in handling, and as I have said before, one of my favorite cars is the Aptera 2e with the same configuration, but it's a car, it has a steering wheel and not handlebars. I think the handlebars are what causes the problem.

I hope some real life experience could help someone, if you have any questions, I avidly answer comments.
WiredForStereo

Book Review: "Patience with God: Faith for People who Don't Like Religion {or Atheism}" by Frank Schaeffer

2010-09-09T12:02:00.000-05:00

Patience with God is an excellent book. The early sections on atheist and christian fundamentalists are especially interesting. Frank Shaeffer while writing from a sort of christian point of view keeps it real and visceral by not shying away from strong language. He is never shackled by politeness. His criticisms of fundamentalist atheists are especially good.

Later in the book where he focuses more on his backstory and history and philosophy, the salient points are further between, but Frank is a good writer, and if he doesn't expand your vocabulary, you're probably an english major. Unlike other books where I feel like the author was writing to a ninth grader, Frank keeps it more up to my level.

I heartily recommend this book especially if like me, you're searching for not just something to believe in but the best and most truthful something to believe in. And I don't mean truth in a "We have the truth, join us" sort of way, but a level headed look at the real factual truth, the truth that God is not the god of the fundamentalists, or the right wing, but the creator and redeemer of our planet.

I don't recommend reading Schaeffer's book to believe everything that's in it, but rather to read it to glean information and ideas from it. Schaeffer takes an even more liberal and cynical view of religion than I do, and if you read his Huffington Post articles, you'll find that. At times he can even be a bit overly hostile especially toward the Older Testament. But he has a very interesing and eye opening point of view.

If you plan to read this book, I suggest you read "Crazy for God" first as this book may seem to build upon it in a few places. They were written in that order, so it only makes sense to read them in that order.

9/10
WiredForStereo

You Don't Need a Zero-Turn Mower.

2010-08-18T10:57:00.000-05:00

Full disclosure, I used to work at Lowe's selling lawn mowers and tractors before I was married and started college.

I loved it.

I was good at it.

If it paid five or ten times more, I'd do it for the rest of my life.

It was a whole lot of fun.

I was developoing my environmentalism back then. During breaks, I would grab the latest issue of Mother Earth News and go out to the outdoor section where the outdoor furniture is and I'd take my red jersey uniform thing and hide it under a pillow and I'd sit on one of those cushy outdoor reclining deck chairs and I'd read for fifteen minutes.

I learned (as I still do quite regularly) what I wanted in a house, in a lawn mower, in a garden, in a car and in a whole bunch of other areas.

I also learned how to sell lawn mowers.

I learned to turn on a backwoods Arkansas accent and say "Yes ma'am!" when asked a question. You see, you have to sell to the wife, you can sell the husband no problem, but if he tells you that he has to go ask his wife, you can just forget about it. I only had one guy who did that actually come back and buy anything.

Anyway, zero-turn mowers. So, I'm a huge believer in efficiency. My family vehicles include nothing with more than four cylinders in its engine. My primary vehicle for most of the year is a motorcycle that gets more than 40 miles per gallon. My work truck is a 1985 Toyota Pickup that on many occassions gets overloaded and drags itself down the freeway at 50 miles an hour with a full bed and pulling a full trailer. It's great.

I did sell my fair share of zero turn mowers, but the only time I ever saw that they were necessary was for commercial use. I even worked for a company where one of my jobs was to mow the lawn of the office and the boss's house with a real legitimate commercial zero-turn mower, one that cost more than my truck and my motorcycle combined when I bought them. And I did end up selling one of the Cub Cadet zero-turns to a commercial guy from Lowe's, and of course, that voids the warranty but he managed to break it before the thirty day return policy was up, so he got to return it anyway, but returns are a story for another day.

For homeowners, zero-turn mowers are completely unnecessary. First, they cost a whole lot more than any lawn tractor, even those with much larger deck sizes. They cost more because they have two hydrostatic transmissions where a lawn tractor would have only one and more transmissions means a larger engine is necessary to propel the machine. That's a ding against the efficiency.

At either Lowe's or Sears, you can get a 54 inch lawn tractor, capable of the same speed as a zero-turn, for more than thousand dollars less than a comparable consumer grade zero-turn. But you'll be able to do stuff with the tractor that you can't do with the other like bag clippings, pull things, and get good fuel economy.

One of the big selling points is that zero-turn mowers can go around trees quicker. This is pretty well bogus, since the mowers go the same speed, and if your trees are properly mulched with a three to five foot radius, any lawn tractor can mow around them with no problems at all.

Additionally, if you have that much lawn and you're just mowing it to make it look nice, you're wasting your time. I have over an acre of lawn, but my primary use of the lawn is to collect grass clippings for mulch and compost. If I didn't use so many clippings, I wouldn't have so much lawn. because there's no reason for it. I would expand the garden, plant tons more fruit trees and grape vines (already in the works) and only use a push mower, probably electric.

Speaking of electric mowers, they are the best option if you can afford them, they produce no pollution at point of use, they cost far less to operate, and they are much quieter.

The only reason to buy a zero-turn mower is for commercial use where the mower needs to be maneuvered into strange spaces at high speeds, be loaded and unloaded from a trailer multiple times a day, and have no need for bagging. A better option still is to have no unnecessary lawn, to have native plants that don't need to be watered or fertilized, or fruit trees with heavy mulch around them so that no grass grows but the soil still absorbs healthy amounts of rain water.

My prime goal in everything is utilitarianism, and my secondary goal is efficiency. Utilitarian is a lawn tractor that can do all kinds of things and contributes to my other biological systems, and efficiency is doing that with the most fuel efficient, economic, and appropriate machine available.

Just some practical tips you can use, if you ever need to know what mower to buy, I'm always available, leave a comment.
WiredForStereo

Book Review: Crazy for God: How I Grew Up as One of the Elect, Helped Found the Religious Right, and Lived to Take All (or Almost All) of It Back by Frank Shaeffer

2010-08-11T20:00:00.000-05:00

In the last few days, I've been reading this very interesting book. I had seen Frank Shaeffer several times on shows like Rachel Maddow and on YouTube. I was very interested in his points of view considering that he is a left leaning Christian, I guess you could say.

I was even more intrigued when I learned about his past, how he was the son of the late great evangelical theologian Francis Shaeffer, though after reading this book, he might just be late, but everyone has their flaws. The subtitle really explains a lot. Frank was the one or one of the main ones who brought the abortion issue into the mainstream conservative religious right playbook.

Frank grew up in Switzerland, the child of two evangelical royalty as he calls them. Of the many things I learned from this book was a couple of ways how not to raise your children. Frank was for most of his childhood given the run of the land and little education. It also didn't help that he had dyslexia.

He doesn't hide much, talking about how controlling, hyperspiritualized, and condescending his mother was, and how abusive his father was toward his mother. He also tells about his own inheritance of these traits, how mean he was to his wife and children. He also tells how his parents were uncommonly kind and understanding to people commonly rejected outright by the contemporary American church. There don't seem to be any subjects that Frank doesn't cover, including masturbation, spousal abuse, and a crush he had on a star of one of his movies.

He talks about his abandoned art career, his successful professional Christian career, his failed movie director career, and finally his success and contentment as an author and conversion to the Greek Orthodox church.

Most interesting was the inner workings for the christian right movement which has taken political power for the past few decades. It was very interesting to learn the history, the behind the scenes wrangling, attitudes, and control.

I would recommend this book to anyone. It's the real life story of real life people whose fingerprints on society have shaped history for decades and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. This book gets pretty real, there's swearing, there's sex, there's yelling, and there's the behind the scenes lives of revered people. 9/10.

WiredForStereo

Libertarians Abandon Free Market Democracy in Favor of Despotism and other stuff that is completely hypocritical.

2010-08-09T14:49:00.000-05:00

I very recently had the following conversation on Facebook with a couple of people who are staunch libertarians. For years, I have heard that true democracy is evil because the majority will do what ever makes sense for them at the peril of the minority. But I want to know, when has this happened? I know the rhetoric by heart, but where’s the evidence?

If you can answer the question, I really want to hear it, and I’m not just trying to prove a point, I really want to know! I can’t find a single case. Everything I find shows the most evil despotic regimes and rulers coming to power through some sort of uprising or coup.

I’ve replaced the names with descriptions if you couldn’t tell.

______________________________________________

Host Republic vs. Democracy. I still want to know how laws are created in a Republic. Majority rule? Minority rule? Common sense? WHO gets to make the decision what laws are created? If it's rule by the people, it's Democracy. But Democracy turns into an evil force of plunder and oppression. What are your thoughts on this?

[YouTube video link which didn’t come through.]

Our system of government was never intended to be a democracy. Although many believe that we live in one, they have never been asked to vote on the decisions made by said government. Yet they believe that they are empowered just the same. We are not.

[At this point, there are a couple of posts that have been deleted. I asked if someone (I knew there are always libertarians lurking around) could give me an example of a democracy that turned evil like they often talk about. The Host made a sarcastic comment to the effect that the USA was such a country.]

Me I was looking for was an answer. Do you have one? Sarcasm about a country that is by your own account not a democracy does not count.

Host Ok, Rome fell when it morphed from a Republic to a Democracy.

Host And, you're missing the point of my post.

Me Rome fell when it went from a democracy to a monarchy. And you're not answering the question adequately.

Other Guy The point is that the will of the majority is not always just. There has to be a check against that power to protect the individual. IN our system, that is the constitution and the judiciary. No system is perfect however. Our constitution was as close as it comes in my opinion. Unfrotunately it's completely ignored most of the time.

Other Guy When the ballot box fails, there is always the bullet box.

[Notice here, the immediate abandonment of democracy and straight to bullying and violence when not in the position of power]

Other Guy Case in point, slavery (as pointed out by Host). The ballot box wasn't an option. The bullet box solved the problem.

[Actually, if you read history, the “bullet box” in this case was first checked by what we now understand (in many contexts) as the losing side.]

Me Show me the evil democracy you guys always tell me about.

Other Guy Do you read anything anyone writes?

Me The name of a country please.

Other Guy Naaaa, I'm not wasting my time. I was planning to get drug naked through a parking lot full of ground glass into a pond filled with alcohol. I wouldn't miss that just to argue with you.

[And that was the first inclination of when I knew I would never get an answer because the other side was in a losing argument and was not going down with any honor.]

Me I'm not arguing, I'm asking a question about a point I hear all the time and getting no answer.

Other Guy You've got plenty of answers, you just ignore them.

Host I want to know what's the difference between a Democracy and a Republic REALLY. A Republic is "rule by law"- but whose law? Who decides. I believe I said that in the original post. This is a "working out an internal conflict" post.

If you'd like to give me an answer to the question I actually asked, I'd be happy to consider it thoughtfully.

"But Democracy turns into an evil force of plunder and oppression." This was part of the post. I would just like to see a legitimate example of this statement.

Host In a 56 word post, you are obsessed with these 11. 9 sentences, 5 of which were questions. Thanks for reading the whole context and sticking with it.

Me I would be happy to consider your questions if I could just have a little clarification on your statement. The answer to my question will necessarily father the answer to your question.

Other Guy Clarification: democracy is mob rule. What do you not understand?

Host What if it was a repetition of what I hear others say in an attempt to challenge them to answer MY FRIGGIN' questions in their responses?

Other Guy Hey I will say something for WiredForStereo. AT least he hasn't called us racist yet.

[I’m not sure exactly to what this is referring.]

Me What I mean is, there are over 190 countries on earth. What I'm asking is, which one of these fits your definition of the evil of democracy? And if there is not one in existence now, which one in the past typifies your statement?

Host ‎23 comments. 23 comments and still no feedback on a deeply troubling question. If I'd asked for proof that Jesus was the son of God because I just don't get it, I probably would have been able to get THAT question answered.

Me I give you my word that I will comment on your question as soon as I get the clarification I'm looking for.

As for Jesus, what sort of proof would be acceptable to you?

[This is an important question. What kind of proof would be accepted by people who won't even answer a question that exposes the fundamental absurdity of their position?]

Host What if it was a repetition of what I hear others say in an attempt to challenge them to answer MY FRIGGIN' questions in their responses? I swear I feel like I'm talking to a wall.

Me You know...so do I. I would absolutely love to answer your question, and believe me, it's a subject I am dying to weigh in on as soon as some one will give me an example of the statement in the post.

Other Guy You are talking to a wall Host. It's cheap entertainment. Remember the eternal wisdom of Thomas Jefferson, "Ridicule is the only weapon that can be used against unintelligible propositions".

[An interesting point, but the unintelligible proposition is one that here cannot, no, will not be backed up by any sort of evidence.]

Me Show me some ridicule, some name calling, some sarcasm, anything. I'm asking a question and no one will answer it.

Second Guy Evil democracy - Haiti... Pre-WWI Germany... Pakistan... Iran... United Nations (quasi-democracy)... Lebanon... China. FUTURE evil democracies - Iraq... Afghanistan.

[Finally, after hours, someone actually tries to give some evidence.]

Host Let me get this straight. I ask 5 questions, and you ask 1 in response to my 5. Then, you refuse to answer any of my 5 until I answer your one. Your one question, which I've said, not once, but twice, was a half way sarcastic remark to get people to think before they answer my 5 questions and not necessarily a direct position statement.

Other Guy Don't get your hopes up Second Guy. Just sit back and enjoy the ride. LOL

I completely disagree Host. Every question I've asked has been completely serious.

Second Guy, excellent post, I'll get back to you, but off hand I know that Iraq, China, Iran, and Afghanistan are republics. The UN is not a country and as we all know is relatively impotent, but I will research and get back to you in a few minutes.

Host You really DO refuse to read anything I've written tonight, don't you? Where did I say what YOU'VE written wasn't serious?

Second Guy ‎"The People's Republic of China" is as much a republic as "The People's Republic of North Korea." You can call a turd a rose, but it's still a turd.

Me The Republic of Haiti, The Weimar Republic, The Islamic Republic of Pakistan, Lebanon, all republics. You'll remember that Hitler was placed in power by the previous old guy and not voted in per se.

Second Guy As much as I would love to continue this banter.I have a long drive to our LPAR BBQ tomorrow at Mt. Nebo. See you there Host. Wish you were coming, Jason. If you change your mind, we will be there all day and night tomorrow, leaving out Sunday,

Me I define sarcasm as not being serious, at least in part. I've not been sarcastic.

Me I'm asking a question, and Second Guy was the only one who even bothered to try to answer it.

Host I see. You're superior to me. And your questions mean much more on this earth than mine do. That's rather misogynistic, don't you think?

[And now it’s personal. This is the sum total of the devolution of discussion and debate. The name calling begins, but I won’t have any of it.]

Me I don't have any idea what you’re talking about, and I'm not going to start tossing around five syllable insults. I told you Host, I'm not going to be doing that any more. If you don't want to answer, then don't. If you do, then do. Don't stoop to that level. I'm not going to be doing it either.

A TeaParty Person

Host. America is a "Democratic Republic". This means that we elect representatives (that's the domocratic part) who in turn represents us in running the government (Republic). The Founders set it up that way because at that time, they believed that few citizens truly understood how to run a government but felt strongly that "The People" had to be able to particpate in their government. America is NOT a democracy as it is classically defined. There has been no true democracy that survived throughout history and a total republic is very close to a socialistic society. By combining both types of government - something that had never been done before - the Founders basically invented a new type of government. Ultimately, this form of government became the greatest society the world has ever seen.

We must protect our government as defined in our Constitution. Allowing ANYONE to "fundamentally change America" is criminal and falls outside the US Constitution. We hope this helps.See More

A Girl

I agree that our founding fathers were inspired in creating the Constitution. I'm not sure what they set up is a simple republic. As I understand it the difference between a democracy and a republic is that the people select leaders to make the laws rather than make laws directly (well, referendums seem to circumvent this a bit).

And I think originally it was another degree separated (I'm not a political history buff). The people voted to select electors who then used their judgment to select the people they considered best suited. Public popularity votes were optional early on, though, I think they somehow crippled the electors so that they had to vote the way public vote at some point. Not sure if that's good or bad, but it does take a lot of power away from that level of decision making.

So, to get back to your original question... ...the laws are made not by 'the people' but by an ever changing group of people who 'the people' have vested their trust in.

So what does this do to the laws then? Well, this group of people is selected from the pool of 'the people' and have a lot of the various flaws and good points. So sort of the laws might be said to be 'of the people' though not quite of the majority nor really of any minority either. It's really 'of this group of individuals,' so it'd be a oligarchy if the group didn't change up. With a lot of leaders taking direction (as least that's what they claim) from what they feel the people who voted for them would choose, it shifts the decision process closer to a democracy. Theoretically the leaders of a republic should be using their best judgment to choose the best route (most moral, even handed, etc) whether the people who voted for them would agree or not.

The flaw of democracy is that it's unstable. Our self serving inclinations get out of hand and we start choosing only those things with personal short term benefits, despite the cost to the future or to non-majority groups. I think the republic set up is intended to put a bit of distance there so that the government would respond to the ideals of the time, hopefully to the best ideals, and yet exert enough 'self control' that, as a nation, we could make ourselves take the harder path with better long term outlook. To swallow the bitter medicine if the nation got sick. ...I wish I could be more certain that this is how the current administration functions...

Oh, and can't you delete notes from other people on your own page? I hope so. Deleting off topic comments is valid moderation technique. It's not like the comments can't be written on their own wall if they want to discuss something else.

*Which I agree with as well. I think it takes a fair bit of education and/or natural aptitude for that level of management and tracing side effects laws. I'm not sure that all of our current leaders are qualified. The 'lets vote yes on this so we can find out what's in it' comment boggles my mind. But I sure wouldn't want running the country put in my personal hands. Even if I could manage not to be the puppet of more experienced people, I'd still wreak havoc with inexperience.

[Now here’s something, but despite the continual tirade against democracy, there’s still no evidence offered as to an example of how democracy is evil. We all know why, the reasons, the justifications, but where’s proof?]

A TeaParty Person Girl. You gave an excellent description. I guess the future generation of leaders is not yet a lost cause. Thanks.

A Girl Oh silly me. I deleted the sentence that needed the foot note. Oops. It was in reference to the comment on whether the founding fathers didn't trust just everyone to know how to run a country.

‎"The flaw of democracy is that it's unstable. Our self serving inclinations get out of hand and we start choosing only those things with personal short term benefits, despite the cost to the future or to non-majority groups."

I'd like to see an example of this.

A Girl D.a., that does sound interesting. If I get enough mental space to give it some attention could I ask for a similar synopsis?

A Girl Oh, no worries and thanks Red. I'd assumed it would just be too long to fit in a comment. Which is also why I'll need to find a moment and block out some mental space to digest such a synopsis. Otherwise I'd just skim it and probably end up confused.

Host Thanks Girl, Red, and whichever fine lady from TeaParty helped shed some light on the original questions.

Me But my question remains in the dark.

[]And that was the end of it. I realize not all of this is pertinent to the thesis, but I had to post all of the convo because in case someone finds this and identifies themselves (it happened with Laurie Masterson recently even though the internet visitor who claims to be Laurie was on a computer located in the wrong city). I want there to be complete transparency, well except for the names. I don’t want to take anyone out of context. I don’t know who deleted the first couple of posts, but it wasn’t me.

The point here is that from what I’ve seen, democracy is getting further and further from a primary goal of our society as constructed by libertarians and republicans and conservatives, and it’s being done naturally by the people who would take control at gunpoint if they can’t figure out how to get a majority in an election. They consistently talk about the tyranny of the majority while logically pushing a tyranny of a minority. It just all depends on where you are and if your side has more votes. Remember when Bush II got caught with his pants down in Iraq when there turned out to be no WMD’s and suddenly, our mission was to bring democracy to Iraq? Yeah, that’s sick.

We can never allow a movement to take power that believes it should be in power even if most people won’t vote for it.

The constitution is there to maintain the equitable distribution of protection to the minority, not give it power to rule.

Furthermore, because I need to interject Jesus into everything, I need to point out that Jesus never ever advocated taking power by force, no matter the circumstances, and given the chance to do just that at the highest point in his popularity, he refused. I mention Jesus often in these types of posts because conservatives (not the libertarians in this post specifically) are most often Christians. And yet, despite what the man they believe is their God said, they are the ones hinting at a second civil war. They like to call it a second American Revolution, but anyone who has the ability to think about it will realize quite quickly that it’s a civil war.

We really didn’t do well in the last civil war, we lost.

WiredForStereo

Another Look at Helping: A Follow-up to the Honduras Post.

2010-07-23T20:39:00.001-05:00

Since I wrote that last post about "short term missions," I have received quite a bit of feedback.

The vast majority of it has been along the lines of "fair" and "harsh."

Both of these are true and while my intention was fair and not so much harsh, I don't seem to have a lot of control on the harshness, and I'll tell you why. My best writing comes when I am very emotional or angry about something. There were many things in there I felt very strongly about and still do and I apologize for anyone's feelings, but there are more important things than feelings.

The truth is more important than feelings.

And the truth is that after fifty years and billions upon billions of dollars of "aid" to places like Africa, our heavenly minded efforts have yielded little more than dependence.

We're doing it wrong.

And I'm not even talking about evangelism here, most of those places where humanitarian aid is being dispensed have been or are being evangelized. But it's hard to learn anything on an empty stomach. We need to fix the empty stomach, and not just by filling it today, but teaching how to fill it for a life time.

My mentor sent me a link to a trailer for the movie "What are we doing here?" I am very strongly looking forward to watching it.

You see, far more than the expected "fair" and "harsh" returns I got from that post are all the people who I'm finding have already come up with this same stuff on their own. On the suggestion of a friend of mine, I have decided not to go on short term group trips anymore. Rather, I'll go on trips with just me or a couple of close friends or family members.

I feel a movement coming. A movement of humanitarians who have seen that the easy "throw money at it" solution doesn't work and that the real solution requires a lot of hard thinking, planning, doing, and then rethinking. A movement of people who know that the benevolent white man doesn't always know best. I see a movement of people who care where all this is going and who don't simply feel better because the check is in the mail to some "help the poor starving children" fund with high overhead.

I know I get cynical. I am cynical. I doubt everything. Someone has to. But as you might be able to tell, I'm also an unsinkable optimist. It's a fantastic dichotomy I know. It's hard to deal with sometimes, but we're not here for things to be easy. The most damaging things in life are often really easy to do. The most beneficial are often very hard.

So stick with me here,

and do the hard thing.

WiredForStereo

Honduras 2010: Disillusioned with Short Term Missions

2010-07-16T13:52:00.000-05:00

From July 5^th to July 12^th, I went to Honduras for a short term mission trip. My projects were a dental clinic and installing Hydraid water filters. But on a deeper level, I went to find what my role in missions is. I haven’t felt called to be a missionary like others have, and I wanted to see what my options were because I do believe in the great commission. Moreover, I have just read the book “When Helping Hurts” and it had seriously shaken my whole concept of how missions works. In fact, if I hadn’t already paid for the trip, I probably wouldn’t have gone because I knew I wasn’t in the right place.

Before I get into the nitty gritty theological, practical, and philosophical results of my trip, I’d like to allow you to read my journal from the time I was there. The following paragraphs were written on my iPhone and other than the usual spelling and grammar fixes, they are completely unedited. If you are mentioned in the following paragraphs, do not take offense. They were never written to spite or hurt anyone. They are simply the truth the way I see it, me talking to me (and maybe you) about what’s going on. I thought about censoring the names to keep from hurting people’s feelings, but I decided against it because it wouldn’t be as truthful. If I pussyfooted around people’s feelings, I wouldn’t be who I am. So, here it is, read through and try to follow the emotions and thoughts.

7.6.10
Flight in, watched “Up in the Air,” paid six bucks to watch TV on the plane. Trip in was okay, stopped at Wendy’s for lunch. Team no longer eats at Opalaca’s for dinner due to possible food contamination. I'm trying to be a good friend to Jim; I think he's my appointment. Henry doesn't seem to know that I'm a co leader too, and I'm trying to be humble but it takes every thing I got to not tell him. If God wants to make stuff happen he will. I'm not going to push the issue. Like I always said I will be recognized for what I am when God appoints it to be so. When he wants me to do something or assume a position he will not allow it to happen until I'm ready. To be perfectly honest I was really passive in the whole planning phase and run-up and so don't really deserve the title and responsibility anyway. I am here to put in filters and pull some teeth. That's what I’m here for and I'm not or shouldn't be all that concerned with any of the rest. Three hours of sleep last night. Took a small disorienting nap before dinner. Dinner was carne asada. Leg hurts a bit but bearable without pills. Still wondering what God will do to explain how missions are supposed to work. Eyes dry and tired. Decided not to listen to a sermon tonight. Very happy with new phone battery life. Still haven't been able to burn past 30% could have but charged on the plane.

7.8.10
Well, made it past 30%, it's 28 as I type. Took a mule in to the mountains today it was basically three hours of silence. It was time to think, sing, and encourage the mule to do a good job. I've come to terms with not being included in leadership decisions; I'm okay with doing whatever God gives me to do. Brent even asked me if I was okay, and I told him I was. It really comes down to just doing water filters and having fun with that. I guess practically that's all I really planned and wanted to do. Also Ryan has been way more easy to deal with that I expected. I was expecting him to be all type-a and whatnot but he's really pretty chill. We even had a really good conversation about heating and cooling and perpetual motion machines and stuff on the car ride up this morning. It has been raining almost nonstop since we left San Pedrito. Well see how it works tomorrow.

7.9.10
Rained much less today. Did clinic this morning, some really hard teeth. The dentist would grab onto them and they would just split and break in pieces. Then she would have to tear out the roots. One guy’s tooth she couldn't get after it broke off. That guy has to really be hating life right now. She sent him to the hospital I hope he goes. Wish there were more food to go around but I'm not starving. Not too dirty either. Laying down for a rest now. Had a good nap until lunch time. Had a good sharing time with the group this evening. The usual popcorn prayer and sharing and as usual I stayed silent. I don't know if I’m too cynical or what. Lord if you need to change me if this part of me is not good enough just change it. If not leave it alone. Tomorrow I will shine. We are installing the water filters. Two are going down to Agua Caliente. Well see how it goes but this is my initiative and my idea. If it goes well I'll continue down this road. My battery is at 26% and I'm trying to conserve battery in the usual ways. It's never been dead before so there's no telling when exactly it will die.

7.10.10
Set up the filters today. I fear like everything else we've done they'll go unused and neglected. It seems the sand should have been washed. I visited the two plots we did the SALT on and they're completely neglected. The book was right. The white man shows up and tells the brown man what to do and when the white man leaves the brown man goes back to doing whatever he was before. It's really hard not to be cynical. Jim said that short term missions are for the white people. Missions should not be for the missionaries but the indigenous. I'm more able to see now how much more useful indigenous missionaries are. I don't know if I'm coming back this next year. I didn't really mesh with the leaders of the trip his year especially the shorter one. That reminds me. He pulled a really stupid white man stunt today. He was trying to fix the water and he went and cut off he threaded end of a perfectly good hose. Does he know how much that cost someone? Here comes the selfish white man destroying our equipment just so the water comes out the end of the hose a little faster. Que estupido. Then he went and had a little argument with the kid who kept changing the valve. That poor little kid was probably doing what his mother told him to because there was no water at their house. We’re going back tomorrow. I'm looking forward to it. I've purposely not read more than the last sentence of each day’s writing in here I want to come back to it and watch the natural evolution of my ideas and attitudes. I think I was trying to find out what God wanted to tell me about missions. I don't know what to think about what he's telling me but I am still not seeing very many positives to short term missions. In fact in the over all scheme of things I can't really think of one. Maybe medical clinics. They seem to be useful but our dentist was kinda mean. The battery is now at 22% it's lowest ever. I'm going to probably send it with someone tomorrow to map the Jurassic park route, but I don't know how long it will last. 21 now. It's probably going to run all the way out. Then we’ll know two things.

7.11.10
It did run out after only an hour and a half. So now we know that 21% means an hour and a half on GPS. So I skipped the youth service this evening. I got interrogated by Ryan and Steve wanted clarification. Is another church service what I need right now? I haven't gone to the youth service before so I'm not really concerned about it. Am I allowed to just not want to go? I installed the last filter in the church in Monteverde. Didn't get to install the home grown one but I guess it's just another in a long line of things that didn't work here. The ride back was yet another serious stretch of silence on this trip. There have been too many. Perhaps God is trying to say something. The treatment of the mules in the mountains is morally and philosophically repugnant to me. Those back woods mule drivers beat the living shit out of those mules completely arbitrarily and it gets to be quite a nuisance when you're sitting on one while they're doing it. Last year I told people to expect me back this year. This year I haven't said that. In fact I've been hinting in the most ambiguous of terms that I won't be. If I feel called to do anything it's support the full timers here. It seems like [name withheld] is really having a rough time and I don't blame him/her. I've also hung out a lot with Jose and even though he's actually a full timer in Bangladesh he needs some love too. I want to go home. I don't belong here. Bit what is my role in missions? I'm tired of everything being damp.

After the Lowman’s briefing tonight I'm feeling much more like I have a purpose as far as missions goes. It follows two initiatives that I feel very strongly about. First is education of women which is what Cindy does with Hope and a Future. Second is who are the most effective missionaries. The answer there being full time and indigenous. Indigenous are best of all. I want to support Jose and sponsor a girl to go to high school. I think this trip is starting to have some meaning. I had a long conversation with Brent and with Ryan even longer which started because I am weird and they were concerned about me. I shared my frustrations and musings on the trip and the whole idea of coming down here at all. I want to flesh that out when I have a full keyboard to write on. Tomorrow is the beach. Finally back to civilization. I miss my wife and son.

7.12.10
The main thing I learned this day is that I don't think God ever called me to go to Honduras. I've had great time here and I’ve learned so many things here but I don't really think God actually called me or told me to come to Honduras. He told me to become an engineer but he never told me to come to Honduras. Ryan told Henry about the conversation we had the other night and it seems to me that he kind of made it sound like I didn't accept Henry’s explanation about the SALT farms. He said it hadn't failed because it had never been tried. And from his perspective I can see how he could think that. But on the other hand from my point of view I used up thousands of dollars to come down here three separate times with a total of around seventy people to truly achieve none of our goals. The demonstration areas we started are all abandoned. It may not be a failure to him because it never got off the ground but if you think about it, an airplane that never gets off the ground is a failure. I'm not a relationship builder and I think my lack of close friends attests to that. It's the way God made me. I'm a stuff builder and stuff doer. I build stuff and I do stuff. The stuff that we did in the mountains the time we spent teaching the farmers all the time we spent in preparation and everything we did from my perspective really came to nothing and the pictures I'm going to post when I blog this will show that. I know it's not just about doing things but remember I'm not a relationship builder. I'm just not. I know people, but I rarely make friends. The things I did in the mountains didn't stick. It's that simple. I don't really have another layer. As an engineer I take inputs and work out the expected results. If I don't get the results I’m looking for I adjust the inputs. I'm not getting the results I'm looking for therefore something’s being done wrong on the input end. Perhaps that's resulting from my lack of calling in this area. So I came into this thing with questions and now I’m coming out with more questions.

So that was it. What do you think?

The rest of this post is my newly minted view on missions, and if you’ve read “When Helping Hurts” you’ll notice I’ve borrowed very heavily from those ideas and philosophies, but it is all based on things I’ve seen with my own eyes in the five-one week mission trips I’ve been on.

First, I’d like to delve into the issue of missions and short term missions. What’s the purpose of missions? The direct purpose of a mission is to reach out and lead new people to Christ. Often this is coupled with humanitarian and other types of relief, aid and development. In the past couple of decades, there has been a boom in short term mission trips, those that last say one or two weeks. Though the official definition may include stays of up to a year, I’m gonna stick with the one month or shorter type that the vast majority of mission trips are.

My question is this; do these achieve the goals of a mission trip? I have it on good authority that as far as evangelism goes, a short term mission trip does absolutely zero. The same goes for building relationships that might lead to a life change or conversion. As far as relief, aid, and development go, short term mission trips rarely lead to more than a dependence on the “missionaries” by the indigenous people. You get a bunch of white people coming on what basically amounts to a vacation and giving out all sorts of food, clothes, manual labor and even money to people all too ready to accept them. Again, this creates dependence. There is precious little time to make a friend and share the gospel, so giving things away takes their place. Dependence is a very bad thing. It leaves the person in a perpetual welfare state where their needs are filled by people who randomly show up and give them things. What’s worse is that it seems that this assistance is predicated upon the person believing what they are told they should believe. This does not result in a good communication of the gospel and the redeeming work of Christ, rather it tells the person that if they say the right things, they will get stuff.

One of the things the book talks about is not doing things for people that they can do themselves. I have to admit, I’ve done this on every single “short term mission trip” I’ve ever been on. For instance, when we took the youth to Mexico, what did we do? We spent a week pouring concrete and moving dirt for a church that was already in existence and not particularly impoverished. We weren’t even coming in contact with non-believers! We each spent $800 to travel to Mexico and move dirt! I don’t remember exact numbers, but I believe the total came to more than $20,000. With that kind of money, a concrete truck and earth mover and crews to man them could have been hired to do the work that we did all in a single day and with $18,000 left over! How much could that church have used such funding?

For the Honduras trip, we each paid $1600 and for about a dozen of us that totals nearly $20,000. If we paid laborers ten dollars a day (a good wage) we could have hired 1000 guys for the two days of actual work we did in the mountains who could have built a bunch of houses, hauled tons of bricks, and probably built an entire soccer field using only shovels and machetes!

The next thing I want to talk about is the control the white people often assert over the natives in the mission field. I think this is related to both the issues above. The white people show up and start telling the brown people what to do. The brown people do it because they know this is what they have to do to keep having white people show up and give them things. I’ve done this before on my trips. We showed up and sent out the word that the farmers were supposed to come and meet about a new farming technique. They showed up, we educated them for an hour or two about SALT Farming (look it up, it’s a really good thing) and then we took them out in the field somewhere where we would attempt to start a SALT farm on their land. Our group would direct and work with them as to how to do it. It made for great pictures. Look at us, we’re working with the natives. The problem is, these projects failed. They failed to get of the ground, they failed to be implemented, they failed to see any adoption, they failed to stick into the minds of the natives. Five years (a week each) and perhaps a hundred thousand dollars worth of mission trips (three trips I was on) and here’s what our wonderful SALT farm looks like:

See, nothing.

One thing related to the control aspect that I saw this last trip was the hose debacle I mentioned in my journal. What kind of selfishness does it take to show up and cut up some poor community’s only working garden hose? What kind of unchecked arrogance allows a white guy to show up and demand that the natives in the mission field shut off their water so that he can have water flowing out on the ground day and night? What kind of message does that send to the people? How incredibly stupid is that? It only reinforces the idea that the white guys show up, tell you what to do, you take it because you want hand outs, and then they leave. It’s so moronic I don’t even have adequate words to describe it. I’d have to type in all caps and use a lot of four letter words to really tell you how pissed off I was and still am about that. It just amazes me how stupid and selfish people can be. And it wouldn’t be such a big deal if it was some sort of nihilist or something, but a supposed Christian “missionary,” and a leader! My God, it’s simply beyond comprehension.

Perhaps many of you have heard of business as missions. That is where a person travels to the mission field to set up a legitimate business as an inroad to good immigration status and often employment for poor natives and a tool for evangelism. As far as I have seen, this is a good idea, however very difficult to achieve success if success is defined as profit. However, I’ve seen something else which is not really related but which I call “Missions as Business.”

It goes like this: A person or group of people decide to be missionaries and settle in a mission field. But there is a lot of work to do, so they start hosting short term workers to help do the work. Soon, they are spending an inordinate amount of time and energy hosting these “short term mission trips.” I’m not saying that these trips are a bad thing, they are most helpful to the full time missionaries, but the whole point of this post is to try and make the distinction and to show that “short term mission trips” are not missions, and that the long term missionaries are the real missionaries. I believe a proper understanding and application of this short term work is the solution to the balloon of “short term missions” and the burnout I’ve seen experienced by the real missionaries. Remember, the boom of “short term missions” has not been followed by an equivalent boom in long term missionaries.

Another related term I have coined is “Vacations as Missions.” Catchy right? Every “short term mission trip” I’ve been on has had elements of a vacation rolled into it. Why? Well, they’re often trips taken during spring break, during summer, or other popular vacation times. And how many people would really do these things if they were hell holes in and out? Philanthrotourism, which is what many “short term mission trips” are, has recently come to the fore as a fund raising tool for non-profit organizations working in third world countries. But again, what good is a tourist? What good is someone who shows up and gives a bunch of stuff away? Remember, most people who win the lottery end up further in the hole than they started.

It all comes down to leadership. We have church leadership today who believes in “short term missions.” There are really good leaders like the ones who wrote “When Helping Hurts” who hold “short term missions” at arms length. And then there are those who think that “short term missions” are a really good thing. Further, there are leaders who as far as airports go (or really anything really) has no idea what the **** is going on despite having done this multiple times before as I saw on my recent trip. It’s the leaders who are truly accountable for all the things what go wrong, or simply don’t work. They are accountable for leading the people to believe that they are evangelizing and spreading the gospel when they are actually on a working vacation.

Coincidently, that leads me to a related sidebar. I told my neighbor what I had done on the trip and he immediately asked me if we “shared the gospel.” I told him that yes, it was a mission trip and that we had held a few services while we were in the mountains. But then I got to thinking how that mindset continues to play into force that “short term missions” is. What is the usefulness of it? Like I mentioned before, you can’t successfully evangelize anything when you are in a foreign country for a single week because you can’t make true friends. If you are doing some sort of evangelization, it’s to feed your own need to do such a thing and not to actually save anyone.

One of the things the leader of the missions organization that hosted us told me was that he didn’t do “crusades” or “revivals.” This is good, very good. Do you know why? Jesus said that the Pharisees laid heavy burdens on the people without lifting a finger to help them, and he said that if they did manage to convert someone, they were twice the son of hell that they were before. The “short term missionary” is the Pharisee in this story. If you show up, evangelize someone, get them to “pray to accept Jesus” and then leave, what have you done? You have saddled them with a heavy burden (the work of understanding salvation and faith) and not helped them to carry it. That’s why revivals have tens of thousands of individuals who “get saved” and then they come back and do it all again. They have virtually no lasting impact, and neither does a “short term mission trip.” It’s great business, but it’s not great for the kingdom.

One of the things that has often bugged me on “short term mission trips” has been the hyper-spiritualization of every aspect of the trip. Every “sharing time” we had seemed like an opportunity for a select few people to practice their “what I did today and why Jesus likes me” speeches. They were great at adding emphasis to the correct words and masters at dramatic pauses. Before the last of these “debriefing” episodes I had to ask myself the question, “why are we having another one of these, we haven’t done a single ministerial thing since the last one?” And it was no surprise that the exact same people who had done all the talking in the last three did all the talking in that one too. What was the purpose? Surely if they needed to vent their redundant feelings, they could have done it in the shower.

Everything I’ve seen and been told has shown me that a short term mission trip is basically for the value of the “missionary.” It’s really a go and see type of thing. But missions is supposed to be for the natives, not the missionaries. What it ends up being is a couple of good things for the goers and a bunch of useless things and of little worth to the indigenous. The good is that it exposes them to the world of missions, the stuff we read in the Bible and are supposed to be practicing on a day to day basis. It afflicts the comfortable by showing them how the rest of the world lives. And it gives people the opportunity to see real missionaries in action. Hopefully it gives them a sense of what they should be doing to help.

On a side note, it’s very interesting to see conservative Christians go help the third world poor, give them all kinds of stuff and assistance, and then come back to the US and have such contempt for the poor here.

That’s why I have decided to stop calling “short term mission trips” by their common name and instead call them by a more correct more descriptive name of what they really are. So what are they? Certainly short term missionaries fulfill a need and that need is assistance to the full time missionaries. That’s all the need that is filled. So why don’t we call it something like “missionary assistance expedition” or “missionary aid trip?” How about “messenger support trip” or “field worker supply journey” or some variation thereof.

Here’s how it should work. Missionaries go out as missionaries should and do what missionaries do. People who are not willing or able or called to go out as full time missionaries should support the missionaries from home. From time to time, or as often as possible, they should travel to the place where the missionaries are and help the missionaries do the missionaries’ work and support them personally and spiritually. But if you don’t live in the mission field, YOU ARE NOT A MISSIONARY. You are a temporary helper or a tourist. You are not there to “build relationships” or “evangelize,” you are there to help the missionary in whatever he or she needs to do to build relationships and evangelize because you’re going home in a week anyway. You should commit to return to help the missionary regularly. You should read the book “When Helping Hurts.” You should leverage your (and others’) time and money to achieve the greatest return possible rather than wasting it on vacations to make yourself feel better about your relative wealth. And most of all, do it all for them, not for you.

Where shall I go for my next Missionary Assistance Expedition?

WiredForStereo

Another Jab at Libertarians

2010-07-03T20:49:00.000-05:00

I especially like the Denial-ican. That's to all those people who have voted Republican in every election and think that Republicans and Conservatives aren't the same thing.

WiredForStereo

Politics Here in Arkansas

2010-06-25T15:41:00.000-05:00

Came across this on Facebook. Just a taste of the craziness we have to deal with in this country.

Sorry about the formatting, you should be able to figure it out.

Laurie Lee Masterson
Laurie Lee Masterson **AND THIS?** ## Discredit the American Constitution by calling it inadequate, old fashioned, out of step with modern needs, a hindrance to cooperation between nations on a worldwide basis. ## Discredit the American founding fathers. Present them as selfish aristocrats who had no concern for the “common man”.
Yesterday at 7:14pm
2 people like this.
Donna Epperson
Donna Epperson
Laurie Lee, this is what amazes me the most about this bum of a president. I just absolutely do not think this election was on the up and up. This was known before he was elected. I just don't get it, I just don't.
Yesterday at 7:21pm
Julia Foreman
Julia Foreman
How does another failure in passing a jobs bill play into "the plan"?
Yesterday at 7:25pm
Donna Epperson
Donna Epperson
More people dependent on the government through food stamps etc and government food banks, medicaid, medicare and what ever else the government chooses to "give them"
Yesterday at 7:27pm
Jon Cross
Jon Cross
OBAMA IS DOING MORE HARM TO THIS COUNTRY THAN OSAMA DID!! WHO IS THE GREATER THREAT??
Yesterday at 7:28pm
Donna Epperson
Donna Epperson
Osama/Obama as far as I'm concerned they are one in the same!
Yesterday at 7:30pm
Gary Munson
Gary Munson
Laurie, Ideological morons can be convinced of anything, given enough time...
Yesterday at 7:31pm
Gary Munson
Gary Munson
Obama Bin Laden...
Yesterday at 7:31pm
Donna Epperson
Donna Epperson
Good one Gary!
Yesterday at 7:32pm
Gary Munson
Gary Munson
:).....
Yesterday at 7:34pm
Belinda Manning
Belinda Manning
RIGHT ON DONNA E. I feel the same way.
Yesterday at 7:36pm
Belinda Manning
Belinda Manning
@Jon C. Right on to you too Jon. Obama is out to destroy our country and I will always believe that about that non American. Many say im a fool but i don't care. I know what my gut is telling me and what his actions show me.
Yesterday at 7:42pm
Donna Epperson
Donna Epperson
Why does everyone think he is trying so hard to strong arm amnesty for illegals, because he is one of them.
Yesterday at 7:44pm
Carol Nichols
Carol Nichols
Please pray for our country and other countries also. The leaders need God in their lives to do whats right.
Yesterday at 8:09pm
Bruce J. Bennett
Bruce J. Bennett
Liberals thought I was an idiot when I said 'doesn't anyone seem alarmed about his middle name being 'Hussein'?'
Yesterday at 8:27pm
Donna Epperson
Donna Epperson
Aw! Bruce! Don't you know we can't cal him 'Hussein', or talk about his ears or talk about his 'name change'? Teee(smurking)
Yesterday at 8:31pm
Bruce J. Bennett
Bruce J. Bennett
No, but I like calling him Barry O. Y'know - like the mid-'70's crime drama with David Janssen...
Yesterday at 8:32pm
Donna Epperson
Donna Epperson
Yea, yea. I like calling him a bozo eared bafoon! LOL!
Yesterday at 8:33pm
John D Hall
John D Hall
My Congressman calls the Constitution "fixed in time. a guideline"
Yesterday at 8:45pm
Shelly Gabriel Rowe
Shelly Gabriel Rowe
we call him king barry the weak...
Yesterday at 8:46pm
John D Hall
John D Hall
Obama bin Lyin
Yesterday at 8:47pm
Donna Epperson
Donna Epperson
Man, that is sad. How can someone pledge to defend and uphold something they don't know anything about! Sad, sad
Yesterday at 8:48pm
Matt McKee
Matt McKee
Those were part of the communist party goals of 1963 right? They have had a great deal of success. They're patient and determined. Remember, the issue is not always the issue, the issue is always the revolution.
Yesterday at 8:53pm · 1 person
Donna Epperson
Donna Epperson
Right Matt! We can not lose focus on the truth!
Yesterday at 8:55pm
Gary Earp
Gary Earp
What he says and what he does have nothing to do with each other!
Yesterday at 8:58pm
Donna Epperson
Donna Epperson
Slight of Hand. Don't watch the left hand, watch the right while the left stabs you in the back!
Yesterday at 9:00pm
Matt McKee
Matt McKee
The purpose of a political argument is not to refute your opponent "but to wipe him from the face of the earth. -V.I. Lenin
Yesterday at 9:05pm
Donna Epperson
Donna Epperson
You go man, you go, we all must march forward together we will prevail!
Yesterday at 9:07pm
Older Posts

Republican political activist spurring on the birthers. What a mess.

WiredForStereo

Oil Spill Live Feed

2010-06-04T08:15:00.001-05:00

Broadcasting Live with Ustream.TV

It is ALIVE!!!

2010-05-27T17:38:00.000-05:00

A year and a half ago, we had a huge ice storm here and we lost power for six days. We had to stay with friends who had a generator, and all my tropical fish died.

We considered buying a generator as many were doing that the time. Lowe's, Home Depot, Walmart and others were making a killing on generators and chainsaws. But I did some research as I often do and read about the benefits of DC generators. They don't have to run at full throttle all the time like AC generators do and they are compatible with all inverters because there is no concern for clean power. Best of all, with a few parts and some know how, you can build one yourself.

So that's what I decided to do. One of the reasons it took so long was because I wanted to make it as utilitarian as possible, a true emergency generator, constructed in an emergency. I also didn't want to spend a bunch of cash, so I told people and waited for parts to come in. I bought an alternator on Ebay, but it didn't work. I bought another one for 10 bucks or so and it was a lot more powerful and it tested good at Autozone.

The alternator I bought was a CS-144 120 amp unit. Running at proper speed, it should be able to produce over 1500 watts. A few calculations and you find that to produce such that many watts, you need about four horsepower. There's another thing to remember also. Standard small engine horsepower ratings are way off. Briggs and Stratton engines have a standard that allows up to a 15% fudge factor straight off the top. In addition, they are tested at high speeds never seen in actual service. So to achieve four horsepower, you will probably need an engine rated at least six or seven horsepower. So I asked around for an engine.

Mark at church told me he had an old rototiller that I could have. It turned out to be just perfect, a FREE five horsepower engine. A little tinkering and I got it running again.

I needed something to build the whole thing together, I got a piece of 3/16 inch steel plate from a neighbor and welded some legs onto it. Onto that, I bolted the engine, and a plate on which to mount the alternator. I welded some pieces of half inch flat bar onto the second plate which hold the alternator.

Here are some pictures of the project.

Here is the plate mounted and the alternator on top of it. This was not the original pulley that came with this unit, I got this one from my dad's alternator pile. You can get them online for $15.

Here is the tensioning bar mounted with the adjustment bracket.

Closeup of the bracket. Both slots all the way to the shortest length belt.

The longest length belt.

And here it is with a belt installed. This belt was way too tight and would have caused the bearings to wear abnormally. I returned it and got one that was a little larger which you will see in the following video of the first time start-up and operation.

And that's the generator. You can see the difference in the system voltage between when the alternator is active and not.

The next plan is to replace the inefficient L head gas engine with an overhead valve diesel engine, an engine that should be two or three times more fuel efficient. There's a bit more work to get that going, so I am happy with at least having something that works for now. Next I need to get a little bigger pulley so the alternator runs at something closer to a proper speed.

If you have any questions, I am always happy to answer them.

WiredForStereo

Bad Words

2010-05-27T09:55:00.000-05:00

What do you think of when you hear the word woodlouse?

It seems that for most people I tell, woodlice are bad things. It might bring up images of some blood sucking insect that you might accidentally pick up while you're out hiking around Lake Fayetteville.

But here's what a woodlouse looks like.

"But wait" you say, "that's a roly poly!" Yes, it is a roly poly. But its real name is "woodlouse."

This is the kind of problem we have when we start telling people that words are bad. They are not. A word cannot be bad, it is simply a way of recording a sound on paper by using a set of established rules on how sounds are to be recorded in text. Even the sound has no inherent good or evil to it. It is simply a sound or set of sounds traditionally used to denote a certain meaning.

There are no bad words. Swear words are not bad, they're just a class of words people have defined (arbitrarily) as having some value they don't and can't have.

Here in Arkansas, I get the same thing with the word "liberal." I have a friend who for years has disdainfully called me a liberal over and over again. We were having dinner with his parents a few weeks ago and he told them that he used to think I was a liberal, but now he knows I'm really not. Excuse me? I am most definitely liberal, progressive even, politically, economically, socially, etc. But it really revealed something to me. He doesn't use the word liberal to describe something liberal, he uses the word liberal to describe something he disagrees with. He's caricaturing me, describing me using hot button words well known among his people to attach negative aspects to me whether or not they actually exist. For them, "liberal" is used like when I use "ignorant." Except ignorant in the context I use it is used to ascribe ignorance, whereas they use liberal not to describe a set of ideologies or philosophies, but to ascribe all around disdain.

I am reminded of South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut where Cartman calls Kyle a stupid f***ing Jew. Later, he apologizes and says Kyle isn't really a Jew after all. But Kyle is a Jew! Not in the sense of the negative racial stereotype that Cartman is using, but in the sense that his family is Jewish. Naturally, Cartman simply can't fathom how this works.

Be careful with your words. Be an honorable linguist, don't use words to label people. Use the proper definitions of words to communicate ideas and identify the truth.

WiredForStereo

BP Fails Booming School, Fails the Planet, Why Should We Put Up With This Any More?

2010-05-26T08:52:00.001-05:00

The first problem is demonstrated in the following video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vx8kMXufu3w There is a significant amount of swearing, but I can understand, because the person who wrote it is very very angry, and it's the way oil people talk anyway. In case you don't want to watch it, it makes the case the BP is doing a massively horrible job of booming the beach. Instead of blocking and collecting the oil, they are purposely allowing the oil to overflow the booms and wreak havoc.

Secondly, and emphatically, the only way to keep the oil industry, market, companies, and consumption under control is a fuel tax that truly takes into account the externalities of the commodity. We have an industry that can simply do whatever it wants because it has so much money it can't be controlled. The only feeble attempts being made are to try to tell the car manufacturers that they have to abide by arbitrary fuel economy restrictions. All this does is cripple the car companies because they make all their money off big cars because that's what people want. A European style fuel tax changes the purchasing dynamic on the demand side. The fuel prices in the last few years have borne that out unarguably. The first to go was Hummer.

Who knows when the hole will be fixed, nobody's solutions will come in time. The only way to do it right is to do it right from the beginning. There is virtually no governmental control or regulation over the oil industry, and the courts have consistently required less of oil companies than damage caused. So you either have to tell the oil companies "you will pay for every dollar to every person inconvenienced by your choices and every dollar needed to clean up your mess in perpetuity, or you will simply never drill without forceful backup plans in triplicate." I vote for both.

Business will never do what it is supposed to. Money always comes first. Remember that.

WiredForStereo

Great News! Home Energy Usage Update.

2010-04-29T22:18:00.000-05:00

Great news, my home now consumes two thirds of the electricity of the average American home.

As you can see above, my usage over the last year shows that I have dropped below the two thirds of the average mark. I'd have to do some statistical analysis to see how many households are using more or less than me, but I'm not even sure that data exists.

Just a reminder as to how I am able to do this, and how I am able to steadily continue lowering my consumption rate, I have made some improvements to the house. I removed a window, replaced a window, and replaced a door. I added radiant barrier insulation to the attic as well as adding eight or so inches of cellulose insulation. I use an on demand electric water heater with a one gallon per minute shower head. We wash clothes in only cold water, we use all CFL or LED light bulbs. We have a programmable thermostat that automatically drops the temperature in the house by ten degrees at 9:30 PM in the winter time, and we open the windows at night in the summer time. We use ceiling fans and usually keep the air conditioning at 78 degrees.

Other than the insulation, we haven't really done anything out of turn to increase efficiency, though at times we'd like to. We have simply replaced things as they have burned out or broken. As you get the chance, just do things the best way possible, it will add up in the end.

Ultimately, we'd like to build our superinsulated dream house. It doesn't even have to be all that big, I just want it to be really efficient and really utilitarian. It is my goal to build a home wherein I can keep the temperature around 75 year 'round and have virtually no heating or cooling bill. That's not to say that it won't have to be heated or cooled at all, just very little and in ways that are cheap or free like wood heat and solar hot water and hydronic heating. Making a good investment in home efficiency will hopefully produce a house that pays off in the long run and lasts for generations. As you can see on my spreadsheet, I make a comparison to the Passivhaus standard in Germany. Though I use two thirds the electricity, the Passivhaus standard calls for one fourth of what I use, and that's all energy included. I still use a few gallons of propane every year.

Here's to goals,
WiredForStereo

Friends

2010-04-09T21:33:00.001-05:00

I have like 184 Facebook friends. I used to have 200, but I deleted some of them.

Who does that?

Me.

You see, I take the word "friend" very seriously.

Why?

Because I'm the kind of kid who prays that God will send someone to be my friend. Only I didn't pray that as a kid, maybe I didn't think about it. Maybe I did and don't remember, but in either case, I didn't have many friends. I still don't have many people who I call friends.

I have acquaintances. I have people I know.

But for some reason I hesitate to use the word friend.

Kids picked on me. I was "the dirty kid." I was poor, my clothes were stained, we didn't have a shower and you can't take a full bath every day when there's five people in the house. And I went to a private school, which as you know is for kids who can afford to go to a private school. So I was the dirty kid.

The playground was on two levels, they used to think it was fun to push me down the hill and keep me from getting up to the top, you know, where the equipment was, the swings, the merry-go-round, the monkey bars.

I had a "best friend" in first grade, his name was Jonathan Fox. He had a lisp or an accent, I don't remember which. But second grade came along, and he moved away. Never had a best friend since. No one my age, or in a similar place in the world. I know one guy with similar political leanings as me, but he's an atheist. It's hard to connect on a spiritual level with an atheist. Great guy though, I couldn't say enough good things about him, he's a lot of fun to hang out with, but he's like eight years younger than me, going through totally different stuff.

I'm different. I guess.

I'm a non traditional student at school, which means I'm old or married or live off campus. I don't get dorm life. I don't really have any engineer friends. I don't do my homework with anyone. It's kinda hard to get caught cheating if you always do your homework by yourself.

I like being alone.

A lot.

I don't like "worship music," it's boring. All the church people like to "worship," with the "music" (acoustic guitar and vocals) but it's really boring.

I'm the sound guy at church. I like doing that because I control the volume.

It's an interesting phenomenon that I have tested on many occasions, there's a certain threshold in volume where people will stand up and/or raise their hands. It's around 93 decibels depending on the device used to measure. It's fun to control people without them knowing it. Somebody will be standing next to me in the sound booth and I'll say "hey, watch this" and I'll turn the volume up and people will stand up and raise their hands.

My recent Facebook escapade was kinda related to that. I said it was an experiment. It was. It was kinda like practicing controlling people, though it's hard to get them to do stuff, it's really easy to get them to stay in a conversation, you just ratchet up the rhetoric. Throw in a few key phrases. Appeal to ego, or ideology.

On a relational level, I hate Facebook. It makes miles and miles of relationships, but an inch deep. I have met new friends on Facebook which is great. People I will probably know for years and maybe even work with. Anybody can snipe your stuff, and I know because I'm a Facebook sniper. Or maybe a Facebook flasher. I just wander around waiting to say something funny like "that's what she said" or maybe someday "bow chicka bow wow!"

I want to try "radical honesty."

That's when you say everything that's on your mind, never even veil the truth. You cuss when you want to cuss. Burp and fart out loud and not say excuse me if you don't want to. Tell people their baby is ugly if you think it is. The whole point is to say exactly what you mean at all times and always tell the truth.

But I can't.

I can be really really really mean. I'm afraid I would have even fewer friends than I have now. I'm afraid I'm too harsh on the inside for most people. I'd probably die alone.

Now, it's my thing, properly filtered, that kind of thing makes people think you are open and honest, and sometimes even say that you don't have a filter. But I do. You don't even know what's going on in the inside.

And I'm angry.

So angry.

I have these dreams where people keep doing every thing that makes me mad. It's like they're trying to do it. And I just want to rip them limb from limb and I try, but I can't. I can't reach them or they run away or they are incorporeal. Some times it's people from my past, people who have done mean things to me. Sometimes not.

I do want friends. I want to be close to people, but I'm completely accustomed to not.

I kind of have this self image that I'm annoying. I think I annoy people. I don't know if I really do or not. They still keep coming around, well not most of them, but I keep going around them, and they don't leave usually.

My hobbies are things people usually do alone. I don't care for sports. I keep bees, I play with model trains. I try to annoy people on Facebook.

School is hard.

I mean it's not hard like lifting a car, I mean it's hard like getting up in the morning after sleeping for only one hour. Some times I'll sit for hours berating myself because I won't start my homework.

Do I need depression medication? Every late winter it's really hard. Spring is here so it's better, but I get really depressed in February, every year.

But I really do want friends. I want people who want to come over to my house even though it's small. Do you know how often people come to visit uninvited? Never.

Do you know how often they come invited? Almost never.

I'm lonely.

WiredForstereo

The Great Facebook Experiment

2010-04-02T20:30:00.000-05:00

A few months ago, I had grown tired of the environment Facebook was creating. So I decided to have a little fun with it. I decided to play the fool as it were, to play all the parts that people dislike the most on Facebook and to gauge people's reactions. I called it a little "Social Experiment." I could not however lower myself to the point where I actually posted song lyrics. I just couldn't bring myself to do that.

So I did just that. I made a nuisance of myself.

I posted horribly mundane status updates. I posted an update every few minutes for nearly an hour. I got excessively political, starting fires in political threads, and who could resist with all the politically charged things that have happened lately. I posted personal information. I started my own fan club. I made fun of Glenn Beck (got a great response there.) I posted about bodily functions. I posted links, videos, and pictures that had very little to do with me. I carried on pointless arguments about things I don't really care about. I picked fights with conservatives and libertarians. I posted status updates which were descriptions of stereotypical status updates except that they contained no actual information. I went so far as to impel someone to "unfriend" me. I did all of this and more, and I made regular announcements about what I was doing, but I included the caveat that just in case someone took offense, it was actually directed toward them personally, which if you think about it, is completely ludicrous.

So, what did I learn?

I learned that many people are simply unable to control themselves when they see something that gets on their nerves. Even though I made it clear that I was doing an experiment, there were still quite a few people who could not help but to take the bait. Despite my repeated assertions that what I was saying was not serious, several people were simply unable to comprehend that there was no reason to debunk or politically correct what I was saying. I found myself saying that there's no reason to agree to disagree or compromise or mature because the whole thing was an experiment. And still people didn't seem to get it. It seems to me that there is a distinct inability among a group of people today that is entirely unable to comprehend duplicity. It seems to me, that is where guys like Limbaugh, Beck, and Hannity reside. They take up residence in a cohort that cannot tell when they are lying, or simply are unable to suspect it.

On the other hand, there are many who can get it and love to play along. These people are the most fun, because it challenges you to come up with ever more creative and provocative statements, posts, and links to try and draw them in, and sometimes you can succeed when they forget that you are yanking their chain. Some are quite entertained by it. On the other hand, there are those who start calling names and eventually unfriend you because they just don't get it.

I also had a flameout involving global climate deterioration as well. One of the posts immediately below is in regards to that one. I was having a friendly (or not) discussion about the subject (which I happen to be neutral on) and people were getting pretty heated. Then my friend's mom comes on and posts that bunch of nonsense you see below. This is the kind of thing that really tells me what I have ahead of me as a progressive follower of Jesus, but this wasn't the forum for it, so I ignored it. Now that the experiment is over, I may have to actually go back to working on the things that are important to me, like the environment and conservation and things like that.

As I mentioned before, I posted a lot of posts close to one another several times. I posted a lot of statuses, most of which were very funny if I do say so myself, and I linked my Facebook account to my Discus account so that whenever I left comments on a blog or website with Discus, they would also show up on my Facebook account. I heard from several people that they thought about ignoring me, but didn't.

I suggested nudism to a few women that I know, didn't get many reactions to that. And don't misunderstand, it was not in a crude way, I am a proponent of Christian Naturism, I just haven't had the opportunity to practice it myself.

But it was those older people who couldn't understand what I was doing that made me decide to end the project. I left a status update similar to the Onion News Network story about being sorry that it wasn't Glenn Beck who had died tragically in some accident. Nobody got it. My mentor, my wife's grandfather, they were not happy at all. They thought I was inciting violence. My wife's grandfather pulled the old "I'm older, so that means I know better than you" argument which is about the first thing that will make me lose all respect for anyone.

So I had to quit it.

It was kinda cool though that several people expressed the sentiment that they enjoyed watching what I was doing because it was entertaining. These were most of the same ones who had played along earlier, and even at times added to the project.

My conclusion is that Americans need much more to be critical (the good kind) of everything, especially the things they hold most dear. Never accept any information without a challenge to the ruler of truth. Understand that people can and do lie regularly. Everyone, especially those who claim to believe in truth or have the truth or want to tell you something they say is the truth. Like Jack Sparrow said, "it's the honest ones you have to worry about mate." You just did the voice in your head didn't you, so did I. Don't accept something as fair and balanced just because the one who told you said it was. Doubt everything. Doubt motives, doubt unproven or unprovable facts, doubt everything someone who is paid to have an opinion says.

The truth is out there, but you have to go find it yourself, don't trust ANYONE to bring it to you, even me.
WiredForStereo

THEY DID IT!!!

2010-03-23T16:27:00.000-05:00

Google did it, they pulled out of China!!!

You'll remember, they are doing this because of China's censorship requirements.

You'll also remember that I began the switch to Gmail a few months ago because Yahoo turned over information that ended up getting people prison time in China.

I'm glad I did.

Abandon Yahoo, Google is real people.

WiredForStereo

The Calvinist's Guide to Global Warming

2010-03-22T16:20:00.000-05:00

I was having a Facebook flame out the other day in the comments section of a Status Update which said and I quote "IN YOUR FACE GLOBAL WARMING FREAKS" in response to a snow storm on the first day of spring. Now I like to get into a few Facebook flameouts because as you know, Facebook is my b!tch and I like to bait people and see if I can get them to do stuff like what I'm about to write to you about.

So, the guy(who posted the status)'s mother comes on (and let me say, I like this family, and know them pretty well, but they are such staunch conservatives) and leaves the following tirade:

It's quite presumptuous to think that mere men can affect the Sovereign God's world to such a degree. God has CHOSEN to consider us eternally valuable--our significance is not innate. He will bring us down when we begin to talk like the Babel-onians :), whose pride caused them to set themselves up against an omnipotent, Creator God. Seems that the most serious impending danger lies in our moral depravity...not in our "poor stewardship" of the earth. What are your hearts like? Jesus spent His time exposing the true motives and conditions of His friends' hearts. So~with what are you filling your minds?...and eyes? and ears? What are you eating, drinking, or smoking? It is much easier to live from the outside, in, rather than from the inside, out.

God will destroy His earth, whenever He is ready. We're not that powerful.

Name-calling is inappropriate, weakens your case. Confirms the assertion than the liberal platform resorts to attacking the person, rather than stating the (known) facts.... See More

Environmentalism is a works-based righteousness religion. It borders on idolatry, gives us reasons to pat ourselves on the backs. Don't impose it on me.

American industry should behave responsibly, certainly. But China and India are some of the greatest offenders---yet the U.S. continues her martyr-like, self-punitive behaviors. (Beijing Summer Olympics 2008....and Ganges River)

Freedom>>prosperity>>jealous neighbors, who don't want our "freedom tactics" to leak out, or they'll lose power>>"U.S. is evil!!!" (= we hate them because they're prosperous)

I replied "with all due respect, that's your interpretation" because I didn't want to start a fight with her, because middle aged people in no way get what I'm doing on Facebook. So I thought, for the benefit of those who may read this blog, that I'd explore the tirade and relate what's wrong with it, bibilcally, politically, factually, and spasmodically.

The first sentence is self defeating if you look at it long enough. Why then is it not quite presumptuous to think that mere men can not affect the Sovereign God's world to such a degree? Is it presumptuous to presume that I may be able to shoot someone against God's will? And if God plans on burning the thing up anyway, (depending on your interpretation) why would we not be able to do our own fair bit to destroy it before then? Simply saying that we are too small to make a difference does not make it so, there are nearing seven billion of us. That's 13 people per square kilometer and 47 people per square kilometer of land or one person for every 21,277 square meters. I don't know about you, but give me a few years, and I could tear up a 21,277 square meters if I wanted to. That's only about five acres, I got two acres now!

And then the stuff about the Babylonians. Am I to believe that by supporting initiatives against the destruction of the environment, I am going against God? I believe the good book says that when God created this joint, he called it "very good." His plan of restoration is to fix what we have messed up. The word often translated "dominion" in Genesis is better understood as borrowed or held in trust as in the parable of the talents in the new testament.

The name calling wasn't me, it was someone else.

Call environmentalism what you want, but it goes back to name calling. And if environmentalism is a religion, so is anti-environmentalism. And as far as imposition goes, don't impose your non caring attitude and politics on me.

If the US needs to be disciplined due to its actions, so be it. You tell you children things like "just because everyone is doing it doesn't mean you should do it," but on a national scale, I guess the ideology changes.

And finally, the last paragraph takes the cake. The hubris and bigotry is self evident. The world doesn't hate us because we are prosperous, they hate us because we keep BOMBING THEIR VILLAGES!!! And we do it in Jesus name, at least in their eyes.

I'm not in favor of protecting the environment because of some self serving pseudo religious idolatrous fervor. I protect the environment because what you do with a gift depends on what you believe about the giver. I love the giver, why would I not cherish the gift? But there's this idea that God has everything under his thumb, not simply under his control, but under his thumb, that he will cause and uncause things to happen and make things go his way. This is ignorance on the highest level. It is more than obvious that God is not running this show. He works in smaller more intricate ways on individual levels. But he always allows the morons of the world to do whatever they want for a time.

Americans are an individualistic riotous revolutionary bunch. This is what happens when a nation starts through a revolution. It's like hiring a worship leader who initiated a church split at a previous church. Understand it or not, we are all here in this joint together. A more collective goal as a people is necessary. If you want to be a rugged individualist, please move to Wyoming.

WiredForStereo

Comparing Education Levels of Pundits and Political Talkshow Hosts

2010-03-21T09:28:00.003-05:00

So I was wondering the education levels of talk show and news show hosts. I knew Rush Limbaugh dropped out of college, but I wanted to see the education levels of the individuals, so I looked them up. I'll try to organize them by approximate popularity and see if I can come up with any trends. I'll start with the Liberals, Progressives, and the like.

Progressives/Liberals
Rachel Maddow Ph. D. Politics
Thom Hartmann Ph. D. (All Degrees Unrelated) (Around 20 Books)
Kieth Olbermann B. S. (3 Books)
Ed Schultz MN St. (not sure degree) (2 Books)
Alan Colmes B. A. Communications (2 Books)

Conservatives/Libertarians
Rush Limbaugh High School (2 Books)
Sean Hannity High School (2 Books)
Glenn Beck High School (8 Books)
Bill O'Reilly M. P. A. (8 Books)
Phil Valentine High School (2 Books)
Fred Thompson Juris Doctor

My hypothesis was that if a host was more popular (on the right), the likelihood would be greater that they would be uneducated. And the more popular on the left, the likelihood of higher education would be higher. You can argue with my ordering of these people, or you can suggest that I add more, and I hope that you do, I need a more comprehensive list. However, I am sure that either Rush or Sean is the top on the right side and obviously, it doesn't matter because they are both only educated through High School. To be fair, they did both drop out of college.

My hypothesis does seem to be correct, at least without deeper research. This is due to the different emphases in the way business is done in each case. On the right, the louder, more vitriolic (but not too much) ones seem to excel, while on the left, there is the emphasis on correctly reporting and analyzing the facts. The right also seems to try to identify with non-educated people more as well. They tend to criticize scientists, political scientists, Arts degrees, and higher education in general.

I would just like to point out that as far as books go, Glenn Beck wrote one called "Arguing with Idiots" but it has a picture of himself on the front cover. So, the number of books written may not be an indicator of much if you know what I mean.

WiredForStereo

Welcome to The Transition Government

2010-03-15T00:05:00.002-05:00

When you think of "transition government" you probably think about what the president-elect does between the time he's elected and the time he's inaugurated. And that's where I got the idea, but there's a deeper meaning.

As you may have read in the past in the subtitle of this blog, it's about the garden coming back. My beliefs about the world, the environment, politics, and everything are based in my faith in Jesus Christ. And my goal as a disciple of the same is to return the earth and all that dwells upon it to the state in which it was created. It was created as a perfect garden, and my goal is to bring the garden back.

So when I say "Transition Government" what I mean is not "government in transition" as you'll see on the news, but rather "transition to a new government," or original government as the case may be. That is not to say however that I am advocating some sort of theocracy, and I'll tell you why. When we have theocracies on earth, God (or whoever it is) is not ruling directly, rather fallible humans are interpreting the will of God and ruling however they please. It's about making the world a better place for all who live in it. That is of course juxtaposed to the way it is now where most of us are unhappy because of something.

Would I like to turn this in to a run for president someday? Absolutely I would. But if it doesn't happen, I'll still have done my best to make the world a better place. If you read the blog regularly, you'll notice I do that with explorations on religion and the Christian faith, environmentalism, advocation for the disadvantaged, progressive politics, and by spreading the message of all of the above.

Know this: I always have an agenda. I always work toward my goals at all times, whether it be in my job, at school, on Facebook, among friends or at church. I live what I believe, and I challenge others to do the same. I incorporate as many people as possible (those that want to.) And I hope that if you read this, you'll dedicate your life to affecting something on a large scale too.

So, I'm changing the name of the blog to "The Transition Government." I've also started a Facebook group under the name "The Transition Government." If you like my ideas, please consider joining the group and contributing (ideas, or money, whatever.)

WiredForStereo

Giving up Shampoo.

2010-03-09T09:09:00.000-06:00

Over the years, I have washed my hair every day like every other red blooded American, but my head would often break out. I would switch shampoo, switched to head and shoulders and it worked for a while, but after a month, my head would break out again. Last summer, I resorted to shaving my head completely.

But I was reading on Treehugger about people who didn't use shampoo anymore. They said that shampoo washes away your head's natural oils and so your head goes into overtime to produce more oil to replace that which is lost. When you don't wash your hair for a few days, your hair then gets really oily and you need to wash it again. And then you'd have to use conditioner to replace the lost oil so your hair would feel healthy. They said that you could stop using shampoo, to scrub your head with just water, and your head would readjust its oil output and your hair would be just fine.

So I tried it. And why not? The phosphates in shampoo and other soaps are one of the major components that have to be treated out of waste water. Plus by not using shampoo, I can save money and also save the embodied energy in it.

So sometime about last November, I stopped using shampoo altogether. I'm not one who has really greasy hair anyway, but it was just a little more oily for a few weeks. Since about Christmas or so, everything has leveled out. I even had a girl at church feel my hair to prove that there's nothing wrong with it. My wife has commented that it is soft and not at all oily.

So, my recommendation to you is to try it. Remember though, it won't happen overnight. You'll have to keep it up for a few weeks. When you take a shower, simply scrub your head like you normally would with shampoo, only without. You'll feel a little of your natural oil on your hands, this is okay. Just scrub your head until you think you think you are done, and then continue on with your shower as usual. That's all there is to it. Keep up with it for about six weeks and if you don't like the results, you can go back to doing whatever you were doing before, nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Come back and report your results.
WiredForStereo

The Punchline

2010-03-07T18:19:00.000-06:00

Red paint.

How to Build and Operate a Composting Bin for a Sawdust Toilet in Three Easy Steps.

2010-03-03T22:18:00.001-06:00

Step 1: Build bin from pallets found near random dumpster (or wherever else you can get them for free.)

Step 2: Put yer stuff in.

Step 3: Cover over with straw or hay, repeat until bin full, build new bin and start with step 1. After this bin has waited a year, use compost. Enjoy!

See, it's just that easy. Leave a comment if you have any questions, comments, or snide remarks.

WiredForStereo

Sign of the Devil

2010-02-24T17:53:00.000-06:00

Have you every wondered why the stars on the Grand Ol' Party logo are upside down? They weren't always this way, they were changed I believe around 2000 or so.

Traditionally, the upside down five pointed star was the sign of Satan or the occult.

Just wondering.
WiredForStereo

The Sawdust Toilet comes Full Circle

2010-02-23T22:10:00.001-06:00

Well, I guess I'd have to grow food in the compost and eat it and then it would be full circle. But until later this spring when that comes to pass, the news is for now. The bin has been sitting for a week short of a year, and I had some time today so I decided to break into it and see what was in there.

This first picture was what I saw when I first took the pallet off.

Closer view here. The grassy stuff is compost, grass, paper etc. that I put on top of the pile as it condensed. No point in wasting good composting space.

Then I started to dig out a section to see what I was getting into.

Here you can see a good cross section of the pile. There are four distinct layers. The top layer is uncomposted organic material. The next layer is composted bathroom waste. The black layer is a layer of leaves that I put on the pile between the times the pile was in use because for a few months, I ran out of sawdust. The red/brown layer on the bottom is the oldest of the bathroom waste compost.

Here it is in the wheel barrow. There are some spots you can see with uncomposted material, that is pieces of plastic from various sources, cardboard tape, shredded envelope windows and the like. It should photo-degrade pretty quickly when it gets exposed to the sun.

Finally, here is a sample in my hand. I did have the thought "This is poo in my hand" but then I realized "No it isn't, it's compost, it's not poo any more." The consistency shown is that of worm castings, if you click on the picture, you can see a much larger view.

The biggest thing I noticed was that I expected the compost to be much darker. I think that my be due to the fact that in this pile, I did not use rotted sawdust, but fresh stuff from a cabinet shop. Therefore, it may be more powerful when finally composted in comparison to the nitrogen rich materials. Other than that, I can't wait to get this stuff on the garden and see some results. My corn has been poor here, I hope to change that. If you have any questions or comments at all, please leave a comment, even if you wish to do so anonymously. I read every comment and answer nearly every one.

I spread the first wheelbarrow full on the strawberries.

WiredForStereo

The F Word and the R Word

2010-02-21T22:09:00.000-06:00

Recently, I’ve undertaken to explore the differences between faith and religion. I guess the greatest reason for doing this is because I’ve ceased to identify myself with the American Christian church at large. What I’m really looking for is an intermediate term that identifies me with Jesus the Messiah, but not with the American church and Christian Conservatism, and especially not with conservatives and republicans. They do not represent me as a Christian, or represent Christ either.

There are a lot of problems as I see them with the way we use the words faith and religion and how they compare with how they were used traditionally and originally especially in a Christian context. Western thought now often espouses the idea of a spiritual life separated from a work life, a sex life, a financial life, and the overall concept of life as it is. In Jesus time and in ancient thought in the near east in general, there was no such thing as a spiritual life, there was just life. It was expected that everything you did affected and was affected by everything you were and believed. Fortunately, thinkers today are in some ways returning to this mode of thought. Today, faith and religion are used almost interchangeably, and even some try to delineate them in ever more creative vocabularial gymnastics. Contemporary preachers are now heard describing religion as a bad thing, a set of rules, while faith is what we should do if we follow Jesus.

I myself find that I want to get away from those rules and focus on a more personal faith. Faith after all is only as efficacious as the object in which it is placed. However, I do want to associate myself with the orthodox Christian faith, and am definitely interested in the history of the church. One of the ways I’ve explored this is by studying the Mennonites recently. Since the inception of their tradition, they have been committed to non-violence (well, most of them, you know how it is.) Jesus said “Blessed are the Peacemakers” so, naturally, I assumed that meant that it was a good idea not to be starting wars and killing people. Apparently, according to the Christian conservatives, I was mistaken. I’ve come to understand a completely new (to me) meaning of the Beatitudes as well. For as long as I can remember, the beatitudes have been another list of things that you should do if you want to be blessed by God. This is not the correct interpretation. If the beatitudes are a new law, then Jesus did not fulfill the law, he made a new one. This stands in the face of everything Jesus actually did, to restore the universe to its rightful order. Read the text carefully, it does not say “Blessed are you when you do such and such.” It says “Blessed are you when you are such and such.” Blessed are you, fortunate are you when you are just as you are, broken, wrecked, and longing for a better way. This interpretational difference really codifies the difference between faith and religion for me.

Recently, a friend, in a moment of startling lucidity, explained it in this way. "There IS a difference between religion and faith. Faith is something that is very personal and is understood by an individual. Religion is an attempt by man to explain faith and allow a group to understand the faith of the individual." In some cases, I’d say it is an attempt to coerce or convince a group to understand the faith of the individual or even to fall in line with a certain dogma.

One of the unfortunate things the church is doing is getting the attention of the world, but in a bad way. The ones who are getting the attention of the world lately are the unfortunately conspicuous like Pat Robertson, Joel Osteen, and James Inhofe. Ask a non believer what they think of Christians and they will say “hypocrite.” Ask a non believer what they think Christians should be doing and they’ll say “helping the poor.” One of these things Jesus preached for, the other he preached against. Lately it seems, more than anything, that the world knows Christians for only one narrow set of political doctrines, being against abortion and gay marriage. Abortion aside, it’s not just good enough to be against gay marriage, but further to try to make it illegal, to take it so far as to desire to soil the great Constitution of this Union with the requirement that marriage be between only one man and one woman. Interestingly enough, the Bible only makes that stipulation for leaders of the church. Are politicians to be leaders of the church?

I want to be noticed by the world for positive things. The Christians who get noticed for the good they do today are those like Mother Theresa who live in poverty to help the poor. They notice those like Shane Claiborne who made national news by going to Iraq and comforting the people as the bombing started. They notice teachers like Rob Bell who like the Mennonites eschew words like “heretic” for words like “love” and “community.” The world sometimes notices people like me who believe so strongly in caring for creation that they decide not to waste water by pooping in it. That kind of radical lifestyle gets people’s attention. When you dare to be different in a positive way, the world takes notice.

For a while now, I’ve been saying that I am spiritual but not religious, because I love Jesus but I’m not a republican. But I’m not only spiritual; I also want to reach out to the larger faith movement of my day. And I do mean movement, I am a progressive, I believe in moving forward and making things better. It’s not a movement if it’s not moving. And it’s not a certain church or ideology that I follow. I follow progressive radical faith movements, like Mars Hill Bible Church who are doing and thinking of things so differently. I follow movements like Cornerstone in Simi Valley who decided to give up their nice building so they could devote more money to humanitarianism.

The truth is you can have faith and religion apart from one another. You can be faithful without belonging to an organized religion. And you can certainly belong to a religion, or be religious without having the faith. It’s like James talks about with faith and works. In a very literal sense, you cannot have faith without it being unconsciously outpoured through what you do. But you can have good works without even having the slightest positive attitude about it. People hear me say this and try to pass it off as legalism, but it is so much beyond legalism. Legalism says “You have to do this or you’re not in.” Faith says “People who are in do this.” You have to make your own conclusion.

One of the things I’ve come to realize is that non believers don’t really care what happens to me after I die. Much of evangelism has included as part of its message threats of hell. The thing is, when you use fear to motivate someone, you only motivate them if they are actually afraid. How does a person fear hell when they don’t even believe it exists? Non believers don’t care what I do after I die; they care what I’m doing when I’m alive. You can’t manipulate people with the threat of hell if they aren’t threatened by hell. All those years of studying apologetics, and I find that I have all the answers to the questions no one is asking.

The kind of Christianity I want to get away from is the kind that can’t be distinguished from other parts of the culture. Today, we have “God and Country” when in reality it’s just “God.” Jesus doesn’t want Christians who act like Muslims with their understanding of revenge. Revenge is an entirely non-biblical concept while Islam is undeniably a revenge incorporating religion. We can’t fight the “War on Terror” with guns and bombs. Muslims wreak violence, because first, they’re hungry, and second, it’s like we want them to hate us. We keep working by their system, you kill one of them, their brother vows to kill you, so you kill him too, so his wife and children vow to kill you, and you kill them so their siblings and cousins vow to kill you, so you kill them, so very quickly, you have thousands of family members making death threats and generally trying to destroy you. This is not Jesus’ system of peacemaking. Jesus’ way involves sacrifice. He says you have to feed them, pray for them, and love them like you love yourself.

According to Wikipedia, the definition of religion is: “A religion is a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, especially when considered as the creation of a supernatural agency or agencies, usually involving devotional and ritual observances, and often containing a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs.” The definition I was taught in World Religions class was this: “Religion is the belief that there is an unseen order, and our good as a people lies in harmoniously adjusting ourselves thereto.” I like the second definition just a little better because you can interpret it to include atheism as well. For atheists, the unseen order can be naturalism, or entropy, or simply lack of an unseen order, and our good as a people, or as individuals would lie in adjusting ourselves to that understanding. At any rate, a religion does not require actual belief in any god, or even following a specific set of guidelines. And this is where religion meets with philosophy, but that’s a discussion for a different day.

Individually, the concept of faith really works well in the Christian context, even among conservatives, and I believe that individual people are really rather good in the world. When we all have to work as individual agents, having only one to a team, peace tends to reign because one is less likely to make waves with few allies. On the other hand, you rarely see large groups of people storming around fixing things. You see large groups of people roaming around and destroying things. Individually, people are nice, generally friendly and sane. Corporately, humanity is a bunch of bastard coated bastards sprinkled with bastard and with a bastard filling. This is where faith meets religion. This is where the practices of the individual meet the practices of the group.

In this study and the several weeks of research I’ve undertaken to gather ideas, the one aspect of faith and religion that I have grabbed hold of is the discipline. Spiritual disciplines are important to one’s wellbeing. And I’m not just talking about reading the Bible and praying, I’m also talking about practicing silence, purity, and moderation. It’s not just about not doing the don’ts; it’s really about doing the dos. Remember, Jesus had disciples, and a disciple, as you may know is one who comes under the discipline of another. However, the word disciple is used in many contexts I’m not willing to adhere to as well, so I’m going to go with something a little more complex. From now on, under religious affiliation, I’m going to use the term “Under the discipline of Jesus of Nazareth.” I want to fully embrace the faith, but also the movement, the man, the messiah, the message and the commission.

WiredForStereo

A Little Zionism for the FacePalm

2010-02-21T21:21:00.000-06:00

I hear so much pro-Israel talk, though it has abated somewhat lately. The very missions minded folks tend to be more in this genre, connecting it with mission theology. However, they take it too far. What was meant to be a prophecy to be fulfilled in Jesus Christ is now used to defend the actions of the State of Israel, most certainly a brutal secular nation.

24 And all the prophets who have spoken, from Samuel and those who came after him, also proclaimed these days. 25 You are the sons of the prophets and of the covenant that God made with your fathers, saying to Abraham, ‘And in your offspring shall all the families of the earth be blessed.’ 26 God, having raised up his servant, sent him to you first, to bless you by turning every one of you from your wickedness.”

It is clear that Peter is speaking of the fact that through the line of Abraham the whole earth would be blessed and the specific channel for that blessing was through Christ. The blessing was not from Israel, but as you can see, came out of Israel and then was turned around to try to bless them first. As history will show, most of the very early Christians were Jews, but as the Jews did with the prophets, and with every other blessing God had provided them, they turned it away, persecuting the messengers God had sent until they killed God himself. 40 years later, the very symbol of their religion, the temple was leveled, and the people dispersed into the world where they have been often persecuted since then. Is persecution of the Jews okay, absolutely not, I'm just saying what happened. Through the lense of scripture, and with a proper understanding of history, it is clear what the Abrahamic blessing meant.

But clarity has never prevented all misunderstanding.
WiredForStereo

Strategic Move

2010-02-14T22:49:00.000-06:00

I needed to get that post off the front page, it was discouraging traffic. However, I was disappointed that it did not generate more traffic, or at least discussion. Discussion is more what I'm looking for.

I like something I heard on "Pushing Daisies." You wouldn't be dragging that much bait if you had a belly full of fish. So, I want discussion, I drag bait around here to try to fish some up.

Keep an eye out for a new post coming up discussing the differences between faith and religion and quite a bit of discussion thereof. It will be a long one, takes a lot of research, talking to a lot of people to find out different points of view.

WiredForStereo

One Curse

2010-02-06T00:34:00.001-06:00

I was coming home from Encounter this evening, and I heard on the radio a news story about Afghan police accidently killing seven civilians who were just out collecting fire wood. Now I'm loathe to actually let these words escape my mouth but...

God damn it.

God damn war.

God damn violence.

God damn it, God damn every bit of it.

God damn countries that start wars.

God damn world leaders who wreak of death and destruction.

God damn those who kill or cause to be killed people who are innocent.

I don't use these words as simple obscenity. I'm not screaming them after smashing my finger with a hammer, I am legitimately calling down a curse from God. I hurt on the inside about people on the other side of the world who are dying pointlessly. And there's nothing I can do about it. So I use my influence with God to call down curses on the people who kill the innocent and the poor.

I call down a curse on my own country for being responsible for murdering countless thousands over the past 250 years because of its greed and bigotry. America is not blessed, it's cursed. Our culture is responsible for the destruction of Native American culture and lives. We were responsible for disgusting wars. We were responsible for racism, lynchings, carpet bombing, chemical warfare, and the deaths of brown people the world over. You know, when I heard Jeremiah Wright's tirade when he said "God damn America," I didn't see what the big deal was. He was making a valid point, and one that I agree with.

Because it's not a curse word, it's a curse.
WiredForStereo

Movie Review: Heckler

2010-02-04T20:52:00.001-06:00

Heckler is Jamie Kennedy's exploration into hecklers and critics of movies and comedians. It is a very insightful look into a very critical and overly celebrity possessed culture.

Watch it, it's pretty good. 7/10. Lot of swearing, but hey, they're dirty comedians, what do you expect.
WiredForStereo

P.S. Watch the movie and you'll realize why this review is so short.

Movie Review: "The Future of Food"

2010-02-04T20:46:00.001-06:00

I've had "The Future of Food" DVD lying around for some time now, but it's one of those things that you put on your Netflix queue and by the time it gets here, you forgot why you put it on there to begin with. As I was watching it, I think I remembered that Thom Hartmann had recommended it last summer or fall.

But once I got into it, this is the kind of documentary that talks about the things that "The Way" is really all about. This film starts out by explaining how foods came to be genetically modified and how in the United States GMO crops do not have to be labeled as such even though they may present a significant danger of allergic reactions.

Throughout the film, Monsanto is continually implicated in the continued degradation of the food system through the manipulation of genes and the patents of the same. The patenting of critical parts of living things is of course ludicrous, but it continues down the same path as corporate person-hood recently has. The only fighting back that has been done is by a few states who have amended their constitutions. What really needs to be done is a significant rewrite of the first amendment to stipulate that only humans, living organisms are persons, and that patent laws apply only to inventions or innovations, and not discoveries.

Fortunately, there is some populist backlash against the agricultural corporations. In the last twenty years, farmers markets have approximately doubled, and thanks to green movements, more and more poeple are trying their hand at growing their own food. But the problem is, courts have ordered that if a Monsanto owned gene somehow gets into your crops, even if your crops are distant descendants of a single seed blown off a Monsanto seed truck, Monsanto owns it. Further, a termination gene has been developed that sterilizes the second generation of a seed thus rendering it unable to be replanted. What happens if this gene is cross bred into other populations of crops. In a few generations (plant years) an entire species of food plant could be wiped out.

Don't buy the lies that genetically modified crops will feed the world's hungry, it is not the truth and is meant to deceive you and allow agribusiness to continue allowing them to take you to the cleaners. For years now, the world food problem has had more to do with distribution than with supply. It is a problem actually created by corporations driving former subsistence farmers off their land and into cities.

It's up to us, like it or not, though I am but a small voice, it needs to be heard. Regulations on business are not just about controlling business or keeping certain things from happening. It is about keeping the human as the dominant force on earth, and not business whose only motivating factor is greed.

Overall, I give this film a 9/10, I think the area that could be the most improved is the narrator's voice. Should have had James Earl Jones.

Grow your own food or buy at a farmer's market. Your future ability to eat may depend on it.
WiredForStereo

Avatar and Pantheism

2010-02-03T16:53:00.001-06:00

I was reading an acquaintance's Facebook page recently and he had commented on how he had some problems with Avatar, in how it was pantheistic. And while the thought crossed my mind, as it would yours when you watch the movie, there are deeper, or perhaps shallower interpretations which are far more valid in this case.

When I saw the movie the first time, rather than jump straight to pantheism, I, being vastly more educated on environmentalist philosophies than the average Arkansan, jumped rather to the Gaia Hypothesis. Part of the Gaia Hypothesis states that the sum total of the organisms and processes on the planet act as a large organism in itself.

Pantheism on the other hand is the view that the universe and God are identical. They are the same thing. Everything is God, God is everything, God is in everything and everything is in God. More or less.

Avatar is most definitely not an example of pantheism, just as the religion of the Watchtower Society is not monotheism. The first half of the movie or so, you get the view of the humans for the most part and this is where you'd get the idea that there is a pantheistic philosophy in the movie. Jake says something to the effect that when you want someone from someone, you make them to be the enemy so you feel justified in taking it. In the same way the humans made the Na'vi to be terrorists or whatever, they also derided their "religion" calling Eywa their "deity." The poor primitive savages still believe in a god, how silly and delusional they must be, let's sweep them aside so we can have their unobtainium.

However, Eywa, unlike in pantheism, is not simply everything, is not imagined or part of a religious system, and is not really a deity. Eywa is a sort of a neural network made up of every tree and plant on the planet acting as neurons and synapses in a brain. Additionally, most organisms have a way of directly connecting to Eywa through their tentacles (or whatever you call them) in a sort of computer/peripheral sort of relationship. Instead of Eywa being a philosophical ideal of God, it's a living brain, a living computer which stores information in the form of downloaded thoughts and feelings from the living creatures able to connect at access points such as "The Tree of Souls."

There is really no religious tone whatsoever in the minds of the natives, those actually experiencing it. The humans, unable to understand the true nature of the system only deride it as such. Eywa is a real living thing.

So how do people get the idea that this is pantheism? Firstly, they start out with their preconceived notions of what the "Hollywood liberal elites" are trying to communicate and ignore the things that actually take place in the movie. Secondly, they are not very well educated in religion, that is to say, they haven't studied religion much, either their own or others'. It's very unfortunate that there is a lack of religious education in this country and no, I'm not talking about teaching creation in class, I'm talking about teaching about religion in class. There is absolutely no prohibition in the constitution or anywhere else that says that there shall be no education regarding the nature, history, existence, or tenets of religion. But those willing to argue on either side of the issue always want their own propaganda inserted into said education and thus the war goes on between the secular progressives and the religious fundamentalists. We, like countries in Europe need rounded education that tells us about world religions. Without it, we are just asking to make more worldwide political blunders because we don't understand the people.

I'm here to say, I'm a religious progressive, but it does depend on your definition of religious. Stay tuned for an upcoming post on what religion really is.

WiredForStereo

Why it is that I Am Whatever it is that I Am.

2010-01-30T18:56:00.002-06:00

I've done more preparation for this post than most others. I started out by calling it "Why I'm a Liberal," crossed that out, tried "progressive" but then I looked it up and seen what some of them did back before the modern equality movement and decided against it. I was thinking about another post a few days ago and was wondering exactly how I got here from where I was. I mean, I actually voted for George W. Bush in 2004. Fortunately it didn't count because the vote was cast in Oregon, but nevertheless, it's been a trip. So, I sat down and thought about it, and came up with a few reasons, what I've done in the last 5 or 6 years, and I went to bed and thought about it in the many hours it takes for me to go to sleep every night, and I sat down and brainstormed on a white board and organized some things, and now I've sat down and decided to lay words to paper or LCD as the case may be.

I guess this is mostly for my own personal curiosity, though some of those of you who know me may find some enlightening bits of epiphany. It really is for me though, I'm a believer in the idea that you don't really know what you believe until you say it out loud. That or until you actually have to put it into action. So this is why I am who I am, mostly politically, but for the purposes of this blog, why I am what I am for the purposes of this blog. Confusing I know, but I guess it will speak to why I write the things I do, why I ask the things I do, why I bring up the conversations I do, and why I do some of the things I do.

My political radar began blooping about the time Al Gore "lost" the presidential campaign of 2000. I used to be in BrainBowl in high school and the nerds were all abuzz about who should have won and remember, this was Oregon, so the discussion was much less one sided than it would have been here in Arkansas.

After that, there wasn't too much going on until 2004 when 'Ol Horseface didn't get my vote primarily because in one of the debates he in the same breath as affirming his Catholic beliefs also affirmed his belief in a woman's right to choose. Back then, I was more pro-life in a republican way than I am now, though I am still pro-life, just not in the standard republican way. So I didn't vote for him. I voted for Bush in Oregon and watched the election in Arkansas, then moved to Arkansas permanently January 1, 2005.

There have always been some things that I have disagreed with the conservatives on, and understand, I used to listen to conservative radio all day long when I worked at the steel yard. I used to listen to the local talent, Bill O'Reilly, Rush Limbaugh, and that one chick. I have always disagreed with them on energy policy. Oil is bad, coal is bad, efficiency is good, huge cars are bad, CFLs are good, wood heat is good, etc. In my mind, if there is a good way to do something, then that's the thing we should be doing. Renewable energy is renewable, meaning no fuel, therefore that's the thing we should be doing. I have always thought this way, since a child. I have always wanted to build a super efficient house, possibly underground, passively solar heated and just really awesome.

I also have never been able to reconcile the idea of lowering taxes on the rich being good for anyone but the rich. That may be because I grew up poor, but even now as I hear the more sophisticated evidences for it, I still cannot match it up with reality. It doesn't make sense, it's not intuitive, and real life shows that it doesn't work.

When I was young and of the lower class, pollution didn't bother me that much. Oh, what an education can do. When I was a kid, we burned our trash. Not in burn barrels, we piled it up and about once a year, we burned the whole toxic pile sending up black clouds of toxic smoke. We had fun getting out the cutting torch and melting the lead off cars that used to be used to smooth over dents before modern filler was implemented. Then we would collect it and melt it into little ingots, all without any kind of breathing apparatus to keep us from getting lead poisoning. When we found mercury, we played with it, sometimes spilling it, creating what I now know are hazardous waste conditions in our own home. My dad told us that we really didn't need toothpaste, and consequently we took many trips to the dentist and even after I became an adult, I spent thousands of dollars having my mouth fixed. My dad? He has three teeth left.

One of the things my dad told us as kids was "Poor ways have poor people." Now beside the fact that it's complete nonsense, what I got from it was that if somewhere there was a poor way to do something, somewhere there was a poor person doing it. Listening for a while to conservatives, I got the idea that poor were poor because they were lazy. They live in a world where they just sit in their cruddy little houses and watch Jerry Springer and collect welfare. Well, when I actually got out into the world and first realized I was poor, then second realized I worked hard and was not lazy and did not get welfare and was still poor, there developed a little bit of cognitive dissonance. When I looked around, sure, I saw some lazy people, but even most of them had jobs. I found that the vast majority of the so called poor are working 40 or more hours per week. A person making minimum wage working full time will only make $15,000 per year. That's poverty. I discovered that real poverty has very little to do with money and has everything to do with the environment. It is very difficult for anyone to end up in a different social class from the one they were born in. When my wife was growing up, it was a given that she was going to college when she graduated school, and her parents were able to pay for it and are still paying for it. In my world, college was something scientists and geniuses do. It wasn't really something we hard working laborers do. And for a person with such great intelligence, that was not the thing I should have been hearing.

In 2001, while attending my first year of public high school, 9/11 happened. As I've written about before, I was naturally incensed and wanted to take the fight to those who brought it, though fearful of a possible draft. But in the run up to the Iraq war, I couldn't understand why we were supposed to be attacking a guy who hadn't really done anything to us lately. I had changed my stance on war greatly. War is terrible. I realized how many people would be hurt and/or killed unnecessarily. In 2002-3 while all this was happening, I worked at a steel yard doing hard, hot/cold, dry/wet, dirty laborious work, and all the while, I had a radio to listen to tuned to conservative radio. I further could not reconcile the permissive and even cheer leading attitude I was hearing from major American christian figures regarding Bush's campaign to start a war.

I met my wife and moved to Arkansas to be with her. When I came to Arkansas, a notoriously red state, I noticed quite a few things. I had lived in Oregon, a notoriously blue state, so I had a good comparison to make. I noticed the level of education. I noticed the level of pollution, groundwater, surface water and air. I had never before seen so many people with lazy eyes and missing limbs. While there are parts of Arkansas that are as modern and progressive as any state with a beach, the parts out in the sticks are the very same parts that Jay Leno makes fun of so often. You know, the hicks who live in 30 year old trailer homes but drive a brand new 4X4. The kind of people who have fights with their spouses and beat their children in the front yard while you're fiddling around outside next door. I had never before seen the cloud of sparks a cigarette makes when tossed out the window at eighty miles per hour. I had taken for granted things like wind turbines, biomass power plants, solar panels. These are only some of the differences I noticed between a red state and a blue state. Don't get me wrong, I love it here, but they are about 30 or more years behind.

Something that I cannot grasp completely is the effect of being flung into the middle class instead of working my way there. When I left Oregon, I was mostly jobless, I had been selling scrap aluminum from my dad's stash to pay for gas and insurance for my truck. When I got to Arkansas, I lived in an appartment with central heating and cooling, something I had never before experienced for more than a few days at a time in my entire life. If I wanted something, my girlfriend/wife would consent to buying it for me. For the first time, I was able to amass more than a week's worth of clean presentable clothing. With no property and nothing really to do, my female and I watched "Friends" from beginning to end, every episode. She fed me meaty foods constantly and I gained weight (my father was a vegetarian, a feat I hope to attain.) When I needed tires for my truck, I got them. When I wanted to eat at a restaurant, I got to. I got a job that didn't amount to eight hours a day of hard labor. I got married, I bought a brand new lawn mower, a motorcycle, a bed heater, and I started going to school. It was a whole new world. But how did it affect me? I guess I got to see the differences in the life of a poor person and a middle class person first hand. I worked less physically, more mentally, and got paid more.

I moved to Springdale, and was still in school, but started working for Total Document Solutions. This was a dream job for me. It was tons of fun, I got to drive all over NW Arkansas delivering stuff and driving a big zero turn mower, and blogging. I also listened to conservative talk radio all day. I listened to Glenn Beck, Rush, Medved, and whoever else while doing deliveries. It was during that time that I started blogging and you can go back and check the tone of some of the older posts and see what I was thinking then. But again, there was this dissonance. I worked for a christian man who went to church every week, spoke of religious things all the time, but drove a Mercedes and lived in a huge house. So in history class, when I heard about Andrew Carnegie and the Gospel of wealth, I looked it up. The idea is that God blesses some because they are doing his will, and it is their job to dole it out in whatever way they want, it is their money after all, God gave it to them. I rejected this idea immediately, though I didn't know exactly why, but it was mostly based on what Jesus said about wealth, that it is hard for a rich man to enter heaven. How is it then that the rich are blessed? They are cursed, in other words, blessed by Satan with good cash flow. That's one way of seeing it anyway. Another thing I found was the incredible level of dishonesty at the office. I estimated that if you called the office for service or a question or anything, there was about an 80% chance that you'd get lied to. And I hated that. It got to the point that they wanted me to lie to dupe Xerox. It depressed me and the quality of my work suffered, and eventually I got fired because I wouldn't put what God told me he wanted me to do on hold so I could be an employee of Total Document Solutions.

The 2008 Presidential campaign opened my eyes a little to a more clear view of what was going on in the world. Bush was of course a terrible president, and really made the world a worse place. I started listening to progressive talk radio at the urging of a conservative I know, and it really opened my eyes to what I thought might be out there, but really had known nothing about. I saw people whose public policy was actually about people, and not about taking what they could get and giving to people who already have enough. I decided to vote based on tax policy alone. A progressive tax policy, as its detractors state, redistributes the wealth, and admittedly, downward. But a regressive tax policy redistributes the wealth up. To complain about redistribution of wealth and not mention that its already being distributed to you is disingenuous. After listening to Rush Limbaugh go on one of his "greed is good" spiels, I sat down and thought about it and realized greed is not good. It's greed that gave us child labor, and a lower class, and a tax policy that gives money to those who already have it. Greed is not good, the Bible says so, and Rush is not a Christian. He hijacks supposedly christian ideologies to further his own agenda. I don't know why people would take advice on children from a man who has never had any and been divorced three times!

In 2008 and into 2009 as I continued to listen to progressive radio, I started to really think that progressivism and socialism and liberalism are not really all that bad. Europe is actually doing quite well compared to how Glenn, Rush, Bill, and Sean say it is. Most of the great environmental and renewable energy strides taken in the world are taken in Europe. Europe was not hit nearly as hard as the US in the recession where we seem to be overtaken by greed and avarice. I don't know why, but the mainstream media (which is what Fox is now that they are the most watched) seems to think that Europe is a terrible place where people die because there is no medical care due to the fact that everyone has medical care. I care about people, and socialized health care seems to take care of the most people.

I started to embrace the progressive name. I even ceased becoming incensed when people call me a liberal. I don't know, I'm not a liberal, I'm a social progressive, a social liberal, a full socialist maybe? I codified the progressive idea by coming up with a little saying, "Things are not so good that they can't get better, and they are not so bad that they haven't been worse." That's why I'd rather be a progressive than a conservative. I hear people say that Obama is taking our beloved country from what it was to something we don't want it to be. But what was it? Racist? Polluting? Discriminatory? Poorly Educated? You want to go back to this? I don't.

And you know what continues to drive me to the left? It's the vitriol from the right. They are the people of NO. They don't seem to care about the truth. They want anger, fear, and dare I say hate. I don't want those things. I want a bright future, not one where I have to be concerned about corporations owning politicians. I want to breath clean air, drink clean water, and eat toxin free food. I want the ACLU there to defend me when the government doesn't like what I say.

Well, there it is. I don't know if it explained anything, it's really nebulous in my own head, so I hope you can make sense of it. But one thing that overrides it all is Jesus. It all comes down to what Jesus would do. I know it seems kind of cliched, but that really is the case. Would Jesus want everyone to have health care? What did Jesus say about the rich? What does the Bible say about immigrants? What would Jesus do in response to a terrorist attack? If you are a Christian, you must answer these questions, if you are not, then you need to hold responsible those who say they are for answering these questions.

I hope that gave you a little better view into my window, if you have any questions, leave a comment, and I should get back shortly.

WiredForStereo

Energy Consumption Update

2010-01-28T20:55:00.001-06:00

The above jpeg shows a screen shot of our most recent information for our energy bills. Click on it to get a more magnified view.

Notice the downward trend in our energy usage since we moved into the house. Notice especially the first August when there was a peak. After that August, I added radiant barrier insulation to the attic and from then on, there was no summer peak. That speaks to its effectiveness even though it technically has no R value as an insulator, is paper thin, and is perforated. Moreover, it's cheap, get some. We usually set our thermostat to 78F in the summer, but lately we've been finding ourselves wanting to set it lower and it seems to be because the AC isn't on enough to draw all the humidity out of the air and make it seem cooler.

Since adding more than six inches of new insulation to the attic this last spring, I am wondering what the change in the bills will be. Notice the difference between this November and last November. There is a difference of 7 kWh per day, that is significant, though differences in weather could be to blame, I doubt all of that would be due to the weather. The rest of the winter will bear out the differences, but I predict continued record lows.

If you look toward the upper right hand corner, you can see that I make a comparison between the average household and mine in terms of energy usage. This doesn't account for gas and other forms of energy usage on the national numbers, but my house is almost completely electric. Only the backup heat which comes on when it is lower than 25F outside is propane, and as you can see, I use 80 gallons or less a year. As you can also see, right now I am using about 65% of the national average.

I also drew a comparison between the Passivhaus standard in Germany and my own energy usage. I am running a little more than four times as much energy as my goal of a Passivhaus. I use Passivhaus because Passive House doesn't really mean the same thing and isn't necessarily identified with the same standard. The Passivhaus standard is very strict, it includes energy used from gas, oil, and wood, not just from electricity.

Hope this has been informational, I enjoy continued projects to try and lower the energy usage of the house. This year as I mentioned, I added insulation, but also removed a window. I replaced a window last year, but a single window won't show up on the stats in such a short term with little to compare to.

Happy savings,
WiredForStereo

Google Resists Chinese Censorship

2010-01-25T21:48:00.002-06:00

I'm sure you've heard of Google's threat to pull out of China due to censorship. I would support them in this decision, but I got to thinking.

Back in 2004, Yahoo gave up information that got a journalist sentenced to ten years.

So I'm considering dropping my long held Yahoo email address and switching to my Gmail account. Does anyone have any opinions on the matter?

WiredForStereo

50,000 Hits!

2010-01-23T22:43:00.000-06:00

Three years, 284 posts, and several name changes later, the blog is still on. This is the true meaning of freedom of speech.

WiredForStereo

The Pull

2010-01-22T21:48:00.001-06:00

I'm struck by the tone of my posts of late.

Lately, many of my posts have been related to my faith, and often connected to politics. My faith is very important important to me and really informs everything I do, including my politics. But politics are such a divisive issue leading me do to things I'm not normally prone to do, like forget about my roots in this blog.

For instance, when I merged my two blogs to create this one, I merged a blog about religion with a blog about sustainable living, but in the process, sometimes I lose track of one or the other and tend to focus to heavily on one at the expense of the other.

I was just thinking about passive houses for instance. Why haven't I blogged about passive houses lately? They are the future of housing and really a fantastic solution to many of our energy problems. Why haven't I blogged about my favorite energy source, wind power, lately? Most of my posts are rants about something conservatives or Christians, or conservative Christians are doing that I don't think meshes with what Jesus wanted them to do.

And it's hard not to, I listen to progressive talk radio on my phone, NPR or conservative talk radio in the car. I would listen to NPR more, but they play music half the day. I don't like to listen to music on the radio, they don't play the songs I want to listen to. I quit listening to KLRC because they play secular Christmas music, and Air1 doesn't play around here much to my dismay.

Politics are so depressing. I fall probably a bit left of many democrats, bordering on socialist and definitely progressive. But to me, that's inevitably where my beliefs in Jesus lead me. I know that's a foreign concept to some people, but especially here in the south, people just don't understand. I live in one of the most churched areas in the country, but with few real Christians it seems. Of course, that concept falls under my definition. Why can't anyone understand that there's no room in the Bible for "God and Country." It's just God!

And with so little room for blogging anyway because of school, it's hard to gather my thoughts for anything that doesn't just straight out piss me off. It's hard to sit down and develop the material I need to type up a good post with reasoned arguments and interesting prose. There's a list of about a dozen topics to write about in my iPhone, but most of them I can't remember what I was thinking, and the rest are six months old. The fire kinda goes away after a while. Some of them I think I wrote about, but I'm just not sure.

And finally, very few people really read this blog anyway. I mean, no one sits down and reads for the reading. No one encourages me at all. I have eleven followers, but the vast vast majority of the hits and comments I get come from people trying to find out what the most accurate Bible translation is. Praise God for Jehovah's Witlesses right? No one really cares about what I really care about.

So I guess the point to this is that I want to do more environmental stuff. I am in school to be an environmental engineer after all. I'm very in to the idea that "God is green." But environmental issues are kinda hard to really get fired up about especially when there's health care, corporate personhood, and most of all, you're just too tired.

Maybe my purpose is too broad.
WiredForStereo

Edible Bibles.

2010-01-19T10:52:00.004-06:00

Treehugger (treehugger.com) just posted an article about a church that has sent 600 solar powered audio Bibles to Haiti.

You might think "Solar powered audio Bibles, great idea, and green too." But remember, Haiti just had a massive earthquake and what people need right now is food, shelter, and medical care.

This particular operation was done very poorly if the secular environmentalists are picking up on it. Ask a non-believer what they would expect of a true Christian and it'd be my bet that they'd expect us to help the poor and to shine in terrible situations like the one in Haiti. Ask a non-believer what they see in the Christians they see before them now and you'll get some variation of "self-righteous" which is what they see when they hear that six hundred solar powered audio Bibles are being sent to a country where 100,000 people are dead and more are dying every day due to injuries.

My friend Mark and I came up with a new take on an old proverb. Remember "Give a man a fish and you'll feed him for a day, teach him to fish and you'll feed him for a lifetime." Mark and I added this to that same proverb: "But while you're teaching him, give him some fish because he's hungry." Sure, this directly applies to food, but what about the spiritual applications? You cannot clearly communicate the gospel to someone who is dying of starvation or gangrene. You must bring a state of healing to the body before someone will accept healing of the mind, and more importantly, the two are not just sequential, but interconnected.

If you are going to send Bibles to a disaster area, send food FIRST! If people tear through a pallet of food and find a few Bibles in it, when they are done eating, they might listen to the Bibles. If they tear through a pallet of Bibles, and find no food, they're likely to be angry. The Bibles may go to waste.

How we interact with the world is almost as important as the message we bring to them. If we do not communicate the message in a way that people will be willing to listen to, the message will not be heard.

There's a reason non-believers think so poorly of us, it's because we're doing a poor job.
WiredForStereo

Recent Trip to Oregon

2010-01-15T20:47:00.002-06:00

Over Christmas break, I went to Oregon to visit my family for the first time in about a year and a half.

Last time I visited was in the summer, and the difference was depressing. In the summer it's very hot and dry which is fantastic for a guy who has become accustomed to the south with heat and high humidity. In the winter time here, it is often very cold but often dry or at least frozen dry. In Oregon, it was wet and nasty.

But I got to do some awesome stuff and brought back some awesome stuff as well.

I got to see Randy Grubb's Blastolene "Pissed off Pete" custom truck hot rod in person at his home. He's the guy who built the Blastolene Special which Jay Leno owns. He was also on Monster Garage where he embarrassed himself a little bit, you'll have to see the episode.

I got to ride quads on the dunes on the Central Oregon Coast. It was tons of fun even though it caused my cold to take a nasty recurrence.

I brought back 24 bee hive deeps which brings my total collection up to 54 which is enough for about 11 full beehives.

My youngest brother gave me a good quality welder for Christmas which I brought back.

My dad gave me some parts to finish my generator project. I now have a working CS-144 alternator with a double v-belt pulley to generate power with. I also bought from him a single cylinder air cooled Lombardini diesel engine to make a future generator upgrade with as soon as I figure out how to get it working.

My dad and other brother gave my son and I a bunch of HO scale freight cars and an engine. My son loves trains, and so do I. I'm working on a double layer 4x8 foot layout now.

They also found a little wheelbarrow my dad built for me when I was a young boy and refurbished it, replacing the wheel and powder coating it for my son. Now he has the same little blue wheelbarrow that I had when i was a kid. With the way it's built, his son is likely to have it as well. I think in about 25 years, I'll have it sandblasted and re powder coated and give it to my grandson for Christmas.

I also found a great plastic barrel for use as a water barrel. It has a removable lid with a wide mouth.

I built a way to attach the spare tire to my trailer.

And finally, I got to build a bunch of fires in three different wood stoves which I haven't done much in the past five years. I love starting fires.

Too bad I didn't really have any Christmas break to do any thing here.
WiredForStereo

Wisdom of the Day

2010-01-12T08:23:00.002-06:00

Today's Wisdom:

"Loyalty is an admirable quality, but only if you're on the right side." - WiredForStereo

Public Displays of Christianity

2010-01-10T19:12:00.002-06:00

Traveling around the country as I recently did, you get to see a lot of what I like to call public displays of Christianity. These include anything from street preachers to tee shirts to billboards and even conspicuous church buildings themselves. My thesis for this essay is that these conspicuous displays of religion, specifically Christianity, are a detriment to the church as a whole and are a sign of the inner rot of the American church specifically. Herein and henceforth, "church" is the body of followers of Jesus Christ. It's not the building they do business in.

If you travel through Texas on I-40, you can't miss it. Apparently it's the biggest cross in the northern hemisphere or something like that. I just checked the website, apparently it's the western hemisphere. Anyway, it's a big dang cross and it appears to be clad in some sort of metal roofing. While I do believe in the powers of metal roofing (can't beat the warranty) I cannot for the life of me figure out of what use this metal behemoth is. I'm sure it's a great tourist attraction for the religiously aware, but is this thing really gathering in the believers?

Second on this list is those little plastic chrome fish that people stick to the back to their cars. From what I'm told these are a way to tell others around you that if you are a jackass in traffic, they should blame God. "Thanks alot God for creating this jackass!!!" On second thought, whatever works as long as they are talking to God. If you are going with a Christian themed bumper sticker, I suggest "I found Jesus, he's in the trunk."

Next is those lit bulletin boards in front of churches. I'm not sure I have ever seen one that had anything useful on it besides the meeting times. Now I'm a biblically literate dude, and if I see the phrase "Seek his face" I know what it means, but to the average person driving down the street, what the eff does that mean? Bulletin boards are there to show how culturally irrelevant the church is.

Which leads me to my next bit of PDC, which is the church building itself. Many of these are rather small, house sized and roofed and sided as such and besides the fact that such a building is an obvious sign that no one wants to attend there, I have no problem with these. It's the gaudy megachurches that I can't stand. I won't name any names, yes I will, ahem, Church at Pinnacle Hills. How many millions did you spend on those giant effing crosses in the front yard? Yes, I have sound system envy, but your pastor is BORING!!! Another good one is the Crystal Cathedral. I feel like walking in and yelling "Is Jesus in here? No? Okay, I'll look somewhere else." What do these things say to non-believers? It says to me that they care more about your money than your soul. The only good church building is one you can't tell it's a church.

Finally, I can't handle those misguided billboards that say things like "you're going to hell" (paraphrased) in King James English. Think about what the thing is really saying. "I'm not only a bigot, but I'm also completely out of touch with the world." My wife says that from time to time she sees a billboard that uplifts her, but I must have missed all of those. Then there's the classic "The Pope is the Anti-Christ." This is a really fun one that not only shows the bigotry and out of touch that I mentioned before, but also a complete lack of understanding of the Bible. Thanks for that one Historic Seventh-Day Adventists (and whoever else.)

My whole point here is that what we do on the outside shows what's on the inside and as far as I can tell we as a group are bastard coated bastards with a bastard filling. And the problem with that is we are not willing to admit it. That's why nearly every non-christian confronted with the word "christian" in a word association quiz will come up with some variation of "self-righteous." That cannot remain for this thing to work. This is way to big for me to fix, I'm just saying that it's a sign.

WiredForStereo

Movie Review: Religulous

2009-12-28T10:31:00.003-06:00

Yesterday, I watched Bill Maher's Religulous. I did it not because I want to disprove religion, which he does, and Islam, and Judaism, but I wanted to know what he was all about. I did know a bit, but it's just really interesting to see public figures and paid religious professionals stumble and bumble with questions with obvious answers if they were really honest. But they can't answer the real answer because it doesn't mesh with their lifestyle.

One section I found particularly interesting was the chapter on the DVD entitled "God and Country" if I remember correctly. Bill started the section by asserting that in Jesus' world view, there is no room for nationalism. This is one point where I agreed with Bill immediately. As a true follower of Jesus, there is no "God and Country." There is only God. You want to be a patriot, whatever, but your allegiance lies with God alone when it all comes down.

If you like to see religious people squirm, you'll like this movie. Beware, if you are a conservative Christian, or a very religious person, this movie will make you squirm. It made me sick to my stomach to see all these people claiming to be Christians rather than defending the truth, defending their religion. It was horrific to hear all the really bad answers.

Overall, I'd give this movie about 7/10 based on how it was done, editing, writing etc. But if you are a Christian, this is a must see just because you need to be exposed to this kind of thing.

WiredForStereo

Made in the USA Product of the Day

2009-12-06T23:28:00.003-06:00

Today's product: DeKuyper's Sour Apple Pucker.

Man do I love this stuff. You see, I drink a little bit of alcohol because statistically speaking, moderate drinkers do better in life, have more fun, make mor money, live longerr etc. But I don't like wyne or beeer. So back win I were a teenager (shhhhhh!) I discoverd appel puker nd is gud stiff.

Plush as wee al kno, Jesus drank two!
WirelessFourSurroundSound

P.S. This post demonstrates simulated drunkenness. I was a no point impaired in most of the usual ways. "What the eff does that mean" you say? Exactly.

Question of the Day

2009-12-06T23:18:00.004-06:00

Question: Where did Coffee come from?

Answer: I can't figure this one out. It's like somebody went out in the forest, found this small spindly tree and said "Hey, lets pick these fruits off here, but don't eat them, strip the fruit off the seed and then dry the seed. Then bake it, now I know what you're going to say, but stick with me, this is where it gets good. After you bake it, grind it up real fine. Then run hot water through it, then drink the water, but make sure to drink it while it's still hot otherwise it will taste just as bad but it will be cold. It will wake you up in the morning just as good as say, an apple, but you don't have to worry about flavor or worms."

I can figure out how we got wine, but how we got coffee is beyond me.
WiredForStereo

Is Satan Green by Thomas D. Rowley

2009-12-02T16:36:00.002-06:00

Is Satan Green?

By Thomas D. Rowley*

In the three years since PBS’ Bill Moyers asked “Is God Green?” the answer from American Christendom has become a resounding “yes!” Proclaimed by everything from eco-friendly Palm Sunday fronds to the soy-based, Kermit-hued ink in the Green Bible, God’s color has been decided.

But what about Satan’s?

I know. I know. Talk of the devil these days is déclassé. Too fire-and-brimstone for our post-everything mindset. Plus, everyone knows he’s red with horns, tail and a pitchfork. Right? But what if C.S. Lewis were still uncovering missives from that diabolical Undersecretary of Temptation, Screwtape to his nephew and Junior Tempter, Wormwood? What might that reveal about Hell’s slant on the environment? With apologies to Lewis, perhaps something like this…

My Dear Nephew:

I see a certain despondence in your last correspondence. The long-delayed awakening of Christians to the Enemy’s directive to steward the Earth has gotten you down. Particularly, the awakening of that pesky group called evangelical Christians--a label that writers of the New Testament might well have thought redundant! Do not let it. As with all surges of that army, this, too, can be redirected. Confusion is the order of the day, dear Wormwood. Confusion!

To begin with, keep striking the chords that have proven so successful for us already. Keep your patients focused on the politics of it all--feeding the notion that the Enemy simply could not mean them to side with those they growlingly call “tree-hugging liberals.”

At the same time, nag them with doubts about science; keep them asking, albeit subconsciously, how something associated with abortion and evolution (thanks to your good works, Nephew) could ever be trusted?

Play, too, the note that says “it will all burn anyway, and the sooner the better.” Ah, there’s nothing finer than bad theology mixed with hopelessness for turning them aside.

Finally, addle their puny brains with false dichotomies: Surely, they cannot evangelize and care for the poor, for example, while also stewarding nature! Needless to say, you must keep hidden from them the indisputable facts that nature sings so disgustingly of the Enemy who created it and that upon nature the poor of the world so heavily depend.

As always, keep them from thinking deeply on any of these matters. There lies our undoing! Instead, fill their minds with the busyness of life—the grocery list, the children’s piano lesson or the church committee meeting. Should you detect a serious thought forming, however, simply give a nudge that now is the perfect time to text message, email or turn on some enlightening talk radio. Oh, how I love that last one! What victories it has given us!

Should these attempts fail to keep them off balance and ignoring the Enemy’s directive, we, too, can become green—at least our own shade of it. Here, I, of course, mean money, that ancient yet infallible tempter. How they love their money! Forgetting as they so laughably do that it is not theirs and that the Enemy has warned them again and again about what He ridiculously refers to as idolatry. I’ve also learned of a new shade of green developed by our labs: that of the perfect green lawn. How delightful! The illusion of health and beauty fostered by poison, copious amounts of precious water, and the weekly toiling behind a deafening, fume-belching machine! Brilliant! Simply, brilliant!

Above all--and I really shouldn’t have to warn you of this--keep them from opening that dastardly book the Enemy gave them! Rare indeed is the patient who can be retrieved once he has devoted himself to study there.

Finally, make sure to keep our correspondence secret. Human ignorance of our plans is one of our very best weapons. Nevertheless, should this letter leak to the press, I am confident that misunderstanding and emotion (never forget the power of emotion) will cause such a disturbance that you and I will be dismissed as the depraved imaginings of some witless human writer.

As always, your affectionate (and green if need be) uncle

Screwtape

*Rowley is Executive Director of A Rocha USA, a nonprofit conservation organization mobilizing Christians to steward the Earth. For more information, please see www.arocha-usa.org.

Don't Give Thanks for the Food, Pray Against it.

2009-11-24T15:25:00.004-06:00

I have recently been formulating a blog about praying against our food for all the things it does to us and to everyone, but I guess PETA beat me to it.

Anyway, back to my idea.

Of course it is good to thank God for sustenance he has given us, but before we are too thankful, let us be reminded of what our food does to us and the rest of the world.

Our Father in heaven,

Thank you for the blessing of this food you have placed before us. While we eat, let us remember the 35,000 children who starve to death every day.

Be with the starving people all over the world because crop land is used not to grow food but fuel for our gas guzzling cars.

Lord, remember the people affected by factory farms whose manure and antibiotic runoff destroys streams, and creates superbacteria that our bodies cannot defend against.

Protect us from the chicken litter that contains known toxins and human carcinogens that enter our food supply when they are used on plant crops and when the dust blows into our homes.

Protect our children from the air pollution created by factory farms and the transport of factory grown meat to market that gives them asthma.

Heal us from the effects of pesticides that lower our intelligence, lower our fertility, and cause birth defects.

And bless all the people of the world who have to breathe in the particulate matter, mercury, lead, cadmium, and radioactive contamination that is produced by the coal power plant whose power we used to cook this food.

We pray this in Jesus name,
Amen

Pray like Satan's about to get you.
WiredForStereo

Made in the USA Product of the Day

2009-11-22T21:21:00.004-06:00

We all should know why it's important to buy products made on our shores. It keeps our jobs here and keeps us from bleeding money as a country.

Today's product, Maruchan Ramen.

I love this stuff, I've eaten literally thousands of packages and it is my favorite brand.

And it's CHEAP!!!

WiredForStereo

The Disconnect

2009-11-17T18:52:00.002-06:00

My wife and I delivered some coats and things to an event where poor and/or homeless people come to get coats and a meal in a local park. I happened to meet a person there who if you'll remember had gotten quite caustic with me on Facebook when I decried her gloating over killing the health bill. She had demanded that I list everything I had done to help the poor to make me prove that I was better than (or maybe as good as) her in doing such things. I flatly refused and she she tore me up, calling me a hypocrite and laying down insults in her status updates. Remember, this was because I wouldn't tell her, not because I had nothing to tell, just because I wouldn't. She insulted liberals, me, and even one of her friends who agreed with me that bragging about our works was not appropriate.

Of course I believe that the work she does with the poor is admirable, but I can't help but think about the disconnect that this demonstrates to me. And forget that I think she's a poor example of a Christian. It just seem strange to me to outwardly be so generous, but inwardly be so caustic. To give coats to poor people and yet vote for measures and representatives who will make more poor people.

Now I know of course that she will disagree and say that I am the one who is making more poor people, but tell me, who's favorite representatives are for free trade which allows us to ship the jobs to other countries?

I'm under no delusion about the ramifications of what I believe. If my goals were enacted, it would absolutely make some people poorer, the rich ones. I believe in progressive tax policy which readjusts the distribution of wealth to a greater proportion of the population. If I can provide health care to the poor on the backs of the rich, I'll do it. No man is an island. No man becomes a millionaire without someone else doing a bunch of the work.

But, my goals and beliefs are consistent. I advocate for a tax policy that distributes the wealth more evenly among the classes, and I also advocate for the disadvantaged. I don't help the poor and then actively advance policies that will swell their ranks.

It's not productive.
WiredForStereo

Carbon Dioxide, Global Warming, and Pollution: What to do, what to do.

2009-11-09T19:40:00.006-06:00

I was discussing global climate change with one of my professors, who also happens to be my mentor, at school the other day. He is a Civil Engineer, Associate Professor of Environmental Engineering, specializing in ground water. So I asked him what he thought about climate change and the like not knowing what he would say because he is also a Christian and I wasn't sure what his opinions were. Let me qualify that by saying as you know that many Christians, especially here in the Bible belt are conservatives and conservatives tend not to be on the global warming bandwagon, so I just like to feel around usually before I make an ass of myself.

Somewhat surprisingly, what he told me was extremely similar to my own beliefs on the subject. He said that he tended to be somewhat cynical but was not trying to discredit the science. I was excited.

So we talked about the true pressing problems in the world. We talked about one of the climate reports that said if we don't do something in the next few decades, by 2050 some people were going to be displaced or something. We also compared that to how a billion people in the world have no access to clean water and how two billion have no access to sanitation. We talked about how many million people die each year from diseases related to lack of clean water.

And I have thought about this before, I've even blogged about it in passing, so I decided to blog about it again, but in more detail this time. I want to enumerate the real exigent issues and how they relate not only to our world, politics, people, but also to how I live out my faith through those things.

Let me start by saying that I'm not a "climate change denier" nor do I want to be bellicose toward this issue. I am most certainly not against science, but I think there are a few things not adequately explained by the popular climate change theory, scientifically speaking. I do definitely line up on the side of the issue that says pollution has got to go, it's bad, it's not loving our neighbor as ourselves when we pump the sky full of toxic substances. However, carbon dioxide is not a toxic substance, you inhale a little and exhale a bunch with every breath. Nor do I find it to be the major component of greenhouse gases on this planet. I also feel that the sun causes much of our climate change though I believe man probably has something to do with it. But finally, I don't believe it to be the most pressing issue of our day, and though it may cause rising ocean levels, possibly displacing millions of people, millions of people are already dying because of things that are far easier and cheaper to fix.

Water woes are set to become far more visceral an issue than climate change. The primary thing a culture needs to become great is water. Without water, many people cannot live in tightly packed cities, and without sanitation, disease will run rampant. A civilization cannot thrive unless it has water. So in this age where in America, we flush 1.6 gallons of purified drinking water down the crapper just to wash away a 3 ounce turd and less than 3% of the water purified for supply to our houses actually enters a human body, why are we not focused on providing water to a billion people who don't have it? Why are we so focused on an invisible menace while ignoring a manifest obstacle?

Well, I don't know. Maybe it's sexier. Maybe it's a way to be better than other people. "I have a smaller carbon footprint than you." Maybe people don't really care about other people.

I'd like to think of myself on a lot of issues as a progressive. I think of it this way, I'm not a conservative because I don't think we should go back to something that was better than it is today. I'm a progressive because I think it's never so good that it can't get better tomorrow. I like progressive taxation, conservationism, social justice, and many other progressive ideals. I want things to change, I want them to get better.

For instance, the United States is still about 50% reliant on coal for electrical power. Aside from the issue that coal is about the most carbon intensive form of energy generation, there are a crap ton of other reasons why it's the most horrible of all ways to make power. Look at it from the cradle to the grave. Massive amounts of devastation are wrought to collect the coal at the beginning of the process. Mountaintop removal destroys wild land, mines drool water pollution, and dams that hold tailings from the mines collapse and kill people and ruin watersheds. Most coal is transported to power plants by diesel trains which though quite efficient provide the US with an incredible 10% of its nitrogen oxide pollution. At the plant, the coal is burned, releasing hundreds of tons of toxic metals such as mercury, cadmium and lead which lead to all sorts of diseases from lowered IQ's to full on birth defects and destroying fisheries. Leftovers from the burning include fly ash which gets piled up in heaps which can collapse and make a huge mess as we have recently seen. From Genesis to Revelation, coal power is bad. It's bad for health, for safety, for beauty, for nature and just really really bad.

Despite being a little cynical of the imporance of carbon dioxide in the world, I am most definitely for climate change legislation for the simple reason that it will probably prevent scores of new coal power plants from being built and will hopefully choke off existing ones. With the populist swell against coal that already exists, coal plants are being abandoned left and right. Hopefully, more of the same will happen if Carbon Cap and Trade comes to be.

Also understand that I am an avid reader of Treehugger and Mother Earth News. Both are excellent avenues for finding ways to consume less and for highlighting the real problems with consumption and pollution in the world. They still focus an inordinate amount of time on climate change, but that's their prerogative.

I guess another reason why climate change gets more press is that it's too easy to be against climate change. It's hard to go to a foreign country to provide water purification, but it's easy to be pro-climate. You don't really have to do anything. Its unfortunate, but people will always be lazy, self centered and apathetic. We all know it's so much easier to do nothing rather than something.

If ocean levels rise (they haven't risen much so far, but we'll see, I'm young) yes, millions of people will be displaced. However, as I've mentioned before there are already bigger problems. But people can move. People have the ability to move. 20,000 years ago, ocean levels were 130 meters below where they are today. The earth is constantly in flux. Tides can fluctuate tens of feet every day in some places. Saying that ocean levels can rise is describing the occurrence from an extremely human centered point of view. I'm sure the rise will be quite welcome to brackish water swamp creatures. We can adapt, we will adapt. One day we will run out of coal. Truth be told, all that coal was once free atmospheric carbon dioxide anyway.

What really needs to happen is for us to leverage our resources in such a way to make a sustainable way of living for future generations. People need clean water. People need food. These problems are a trifle in cost compared to the costs of mitigating climate change, but they will be ignored in favor of sexier problems, ones people see on TV and in disaster movies.

I don't care about carbon dioxide. Yet I pursue sustainable living, renewable energy, waterless toilet technology, and the like. Why? Because the pollution, the real pollution that I make travels around the world and causes my brothers and sisters and neighbors to suffer.

That's not loving others like I love myself. That's just loving myself.
WiredForStereo

Question of the Day

2009-10-27T21:39:00.003-05:00

Question: What's with moonhoaxtards?

Answer: Every conspiracy needs a nut, every nut needs a conspiracy. I'll call that a "diamond in the rough" paraphrase of Proverbs.

I coined a new phrase:
"May you live long enough to reload." - WiredForStereo

P.S. That's a Halo reference.
Eat your heart out Spock. (That's a Star Trek reference.)

Question of the Day

2009-10-10T11:37:00.001-05:00

Question: If you are listening to music and you sing along with the backup singers, is that a sign of low self esteem?

Answer: You tell me.

WiredForStereo

Did Jesus Drink Alcohol? Wine? Or was it non-alcoholic?

2009-10-09T19:52:00.003-05:00

For some reason after 2000 years there's still question as to if Jesus actually drank wine or not, so I've actually waited a while to answer this question because I wanted to get it right. Now I think I've got enough evidence so I'm going to go about this a few different ways. I've talked to pastors, professors, home brew beer makers, and made wine and mead myself. I've heard a bunch of arguments, and I've even heard if from the pulpit of several churches including First Baptist of Bentonville. I've actually even heard that the wine Jesus drank was nonalcoholic. So let's explore this.

First of all, let's talk about grape juice. It may surprise you to know that there really was no such thing as grape juice before about 150 years ago. This guy named Welch (that's right) came along and figured out that you could Pasteurize grape juice and refrigerate it and it wouldn't ferment. In fact, he even advertised and sold it as alcohol free communion wine. Until that point, virtually all communion wine was in fact wine.

I've also taken time to get a scientific perspective on this question. I've spoken to University of Arkansas microbiology Professor Dr. Timothy Kral about this subject and he has had quite a bit to say and in no uncertain terms. It goes like this. There are wild yeasts (single celled organisms of the fungi kingdom which produce alcohol as a waste product) which naturally grow on grapes. When the grapes are pressed, the yeasts begin to reproduce and rapidly consume sugar and oxygen in the juice until the whole mix becomes anaerobic. At this point, the yeasts cease respiration as a means of energy production and expand to fermentation as a sole means of survival. They feed off the glucose (sugar) and other nutrients in the mash until one of two things happens. First, they either run out of food, or second, alcohol (waste product) kills them off. Some yeasts can stand a higher alcohol content that others, but just about all yeasts can stand above 10% which is well higher than beer. The yeast completely spread throughout the liquid fermenting the sugar into alcohol. Since alcohol is a toxic waste product, it then preserves the entire batch and it can be stored indefinitely. I asked Dr. Kral if it were possible to keep the juice aerobic to keep the fermentation from happening and possibly make non-alcoholic wine. He said absolutely not. Firstly, if the juice were kept completely aerobic, it would spoil and no one would drink it because it would be nasty and disgustingly acidic. Secondly there will always be some yeasts in the mix making at least some alcohol.

Let's look at the Bible. One of the best known cases is the wedding at Cana when Jesus turns water into wine. There are several arguments here. Some say that the bad wine was wine wine while the "wine" Jesus makes and everyone likes so much is actually grape juice. There are a few problems with this. First, logically, which wine is good wine? The rule of thumb is generally the older the better. Any grape juice more than 6 hours old is wine. Better wine is older wine. Jesus made the better wine. Secondly, this even took place around the time of Passover, in the spring. Grape harvest is in the fall. Without pasteurization, refrigeration and hermetically sealed containers, all grape juice is completely fermented into wine by this time. There would have been some mighty suspicious people if Jesus showed up with grape juice. No, Jesus made the good wine, the aged high alcohol content good wine.

Jesus also tells a parable about wine skins. He says that if you put new wine in old wine skins it will burst the skins. He is right. "New wine" or freshly squeezed grape juice will begin to ferment immediately releasing carbon dioxide. A sealed container not able to stretch (an old wine skin for example) will burst within hours. A new wine skin will be fresh and able to stretch and so won't break. But there's another clue in here. Only a sealed container will have the possibility of bursting. Why would it be sealed? Because if it wasn't, it would not ferment and it would rot and ruin the wine and the skin. Jesus knew you had to seal the container to make wine, wine that has alcohol. There wasn't any uncertainty at all, Jesus was talking about real wine.

Finally, think about the cultural perspective. Ancient cultures, the Jewish culture especially, used wine ubiquitously. It was the only way to purify water. Paul told Timothy to mix some wine with his water because of his stomach. Paul knew well as did everyone of the time that the alcohol in wine stopped stomach ailments which as we know now is due to the the killing of the microorganisms by the toxic alcohol. Think about what the main ingredient in hand sanitizer is. Wine or beer was the only way store or purify water. Many sources of water were polluted, especially near cities and the alcohol in wine was the only thing beside boiling that the ancients could use to kill the stomach bug.

The Jews were very much into wine. One of their official prayers basically says "Dear God, we like grapes, amen." Jesus was a Jew. Though there were some Jews, the Nazarites, who never consumed any wine or alcohol or grapes or anything, Jesus was not one, he was a Nazarene, they're different. The Nazarites eschewed even grapes because they as well as modern day scientists know that if you have grape juice, you have wine, it happens automatically. The yeast grows on the grapes, you can't escape it. In fact, it is general practice to boil wine after mixing it because you want to kill all the wild yeasts so you can add special breeds or blends to get just the right taste. You can't have unrefrigerated juice without having wine. Jesus most certainly drank real wine. He drank real wine with alcohol in it. Science says it, history says it, culture says it, the Bible tells it, logic dictates it.

Before 150 years ago, there was no big argument about whether Jesus drank grape juice or wine because everyone understood the reality that there was no such thing as grape juice. How ignorant some of us have become.

WiredForStereo

First Entertainment Review: Dexter

2009-10-07T16:00:00.005-05:00

I already do movie and book reviews, but I like some other things too, so I decided to review them too. Entertainment reviews will be less specific and may contain anything that entertains, not just movies or books. Today, I am going to review the TV show Dexter starring Michael C. Hall.

Dexter appears on Showtime, and as such contains material not appropriate for many people, however, I don't watch it for the visual content. I watch it for the exploration of morality it represents.

Story: Dexter Morgan is a police blood spatter analyst by day, and a serial killer by night. His father, a police detective, realized what he was when he was young after he adopted him when he began to kill small animals. His father trained him to be extremely discreet and to kill only those who deserved it. Thus, Dexter avoids prison and serves a useful purpose by cleaning up what the justice system misses. Oh, and he also gets to be the most successful prolific serial killer in the world.

The question of morality comes when you understand what Dexter is. If we are really honest, Dexter is a cold blooded murdering psychopath. Well, maybe he's warm blooded. But properly understood, he doesn't kill for the justice in it, that's just a side effect. He kills to sate his "dark passenger" mentioned in the novels and recently more often on the show. One of the novels explains the dark passenger like a malevolent spirit or ancient god, though that specific novel was unpopular due to the spirituality therein.

Much of the show evolves around the "code" Dexter's father Harry taught him. The code keeps him from getting caught and keeps his activities in the realm of a service rather than a menace to society. In the first season, the main villain is Dexter's long lost biological brother who for the same reason is likewise a psychopath, only without the code, tries to kill Dex's sister, so he kills him. In the second season, Dexter's exploits are discovered but he gets lucky when his mistress frames someone else for him, so he has to kill her. In the third season, he reluctantly accepts an apprentice of sorts who won't follow the code and kills in anger, so Dexter kills him. Also in the third season is a Nicaraguan torture expert who though he says he tortures to extract information, really just does it because he likes it. He tries to kill Dexter so Dexter kills him. Now we have the fourth season where the villain is a long time serial killer and has been exposed in the first episode, and I'm not sure how it will play out, but I think Dexter will kill him.

I really like this show. They could really cut down on the swearing and nudity, but the gore seems pretty accurate generally speaking. I swing back and forth between for and against the death penalty, but it really comes down to being for it for all who deserve it regardless of race or economic status. As you may know, nearly all cases of the death penalty are executed upon people of the lower classes, and that's just not right. So pragmatically, I'm against the death penalty as law. But it would be a very interesting situation indeed if there were a guy in the world who kills only murderers and rapists. This show is definitely not for minors, and not for the squeamish.

9/10
WiredForStereo

Questions of the Day

2009-09-29T23:25:00.003-05:00

Long day of discussing (arguing) some things with a super hard core conservative.

Question 1:
What do you call the guy who backs out of the argument first?

Answer:
The loser.

Question 2:
What's the point of believing the Bible is inerrant, infallible, etc. if you don't read the f@ck!ng thing?

Answer:
F@ck if I know.

Tell me how it went.
WiredForStereo

Which Christian Nation?

2009-09-27T21:29:00.005-05:00

I've been trying to explain to people why the United States is not a Christian nation. My focus in doing this is trying to convince people that many of the main figures of the Founding Fathers were not Christians, or not Evangelical Christians, or at least not the kind of Christians we have today. We do have wonderful Christian figures who have done great things throughout history such as William Wilberforce, but our country is no more a Christian nation than if you walk into a garage you are a Volkswagen.

In that vein, I found some quotations from our founding fathers and I did some research to check their validity. First is Thomas Jefferson. For the uninitiated, he actually wanted to see the end of the Christian faith and favored more of a universal moral gospel.

"Christianity is the most perverted system that ever shone on man." Thomas Jefferson

This quotation is a paraphrase of the original here (emphasis mine):

"...those who live by mystery & charlatanerie, fearing you would render them useless by simplifying the Christian philosophy, the most sublime & benevolent, but most perverted system that ever shone on man, endeavored to crush your well earnt, & well deserved fame." - Thomas Jefferson to Joseph Priestley, Washington, 21 March 1801

“Religions are all alike -- founded upon fables and mythologies”
“The Christian God is a being of terrific character - cruel, vindictive, capricious, and unjust”

Also: "But it does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg." Thomas Jefferson

Next Ben Franklin. He was really a Deist, known by some as a champion of generic religion, and claimed by several denominations, he did not affirm some extremely vital tenets of faith in Jesus such as: salvation, hell, Jesus Christ’s divinity, and he believed in the goodness of man.

"The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason." Benjamin Franklin

And Finally John Adams.
“This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it”
"The government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion." John Adams (To be perfectly fair, this one is also credited to George Washington, so it may be one or both.)

The overriding principle here is that even if each and every one of the founders were born again evangelical Christians, the goals of the US as a country and the principles of the American Dream do not mesh with true Christian principles. We are promised "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," and all these "freedoms" bandied about by the politicos of today. The Bible doesn't promise us any "freedoms." The Bible promises us death, imprisonment, and torture. So as you can see, our country was not founded solely on Christian principles and more importantly, it is not a Christian nation. We even have separation of church and state, something that not even Switzerland has. Our country was founded as a nation where there is freedom of religion, which may be somewhat of a Christian ideal, but Christianity functions best under persecution. But, freedom of religion does not equal Christian Nation. Nor is there anything in there about freedom from taxes, liberals, homosexuals, or Asian automobiles.

What has been done in the name of being a Christian nation by a self proclaimed born-again president has done incalculable damage not only to our country, but especially to the true faith of Jesus Christ. Wars started in the name of a god are the kind of thing done in Islam, not in true Christianity. Our politicians need not soil the name of God by proclaiming publicly that attacking a sovereign nation without just cause is "the will of God" because it is no such thing.

Please do some research. Faith's only worth is found in the object toward which it is directed. Faith in politicians who tell you what you want to hear is useless.

WiredForStereo

Gleaning, Aliens and the Bible

2009-09-20T21:24:00.003-05:00

In the story of Ruth (in the book of Ruth) we see Ruth doing something called "gleaning" which is collecting leftover crops from the fields after harvest. This was part of the Mosaic law and it was required that the harvesters of the crop not harvest the corners and edges of the field or pickup anything they had missed. This was done so that the poor and aliens in the land could come and glean the fields and get enough to survive.

How different it is today in this "Christian Nation."

Right here I'm not trying to take any particular side on the immigration debate. My simple solution would be to recall every US service person and piece of equipment and base and set them up along the boarders and coasts of the United States of America. Surely we could cut the military budget by like half and use that money for all sorts of things. The military personnel could be border guards as part of their training and practice. How many countries have military bases all over the world like we do. I'm not against a strong military, I just want it here, right here, and only right here. We are not world police and we don't need myriad bases in other countries. There are no German air bases on US soil are there?

But we need to treat immigrants better. They are among the protected classes that the Bible warns about caring for. The illegal immigration problem wouldn't be a problem if employers weren't breaking the law and hiring them in the first place. Think about it. Pedro says to Manuel "Hey vato, you wanna go up north?" To which Manuel replies "And do what, there ain't no trabajo no more." But instead we focus on getting the little guy. It's the wrong approach. It's like sitting on a lawn chair next to a light bulb at night and wondering why there are so many moths. Turn off the light. You can't control the moths, you can control the light, it's very simple. You can't control the immigrants, you can control the employers.

Simple enforcement, go to a construction site or job site or factory. Do some random citizenship checks. If you find an illegal, arrest the foreman, arrest the CEO shut down the operation. Do that about five times with major media coverage and you'll find the immigration problem quickly disappearing. But don't take it out on poor Pedro, he's a good hardworking guy, he just wants to support his family.

Controlling activity with government is done consistently wrong, especially by conservatives. If you want more efficient cars, don't tell the car manufacturers to make more efficient cars, raise the gas tax. If you want more efficient houses, raise the price of energy. Don't get all up in Manuel's business, arrest his illegal employer and make Manuel get a green card.

The problem is not illegal immigrants, it's illegal employers.
WiredForStereo

Moses Doesn't Love Me

2009-09-18T21:01:00.003-05:00

You may have seen this guy standing in a public place "preaching" at the top of his lungs at passing college students. You may have seen him at the University of Arkansas, the University of Central Arkansas, Oklahoma State University, or some other public place making a mockery of Jesus Christ and a fool of himself.

His name is Gary Bowman, but students often know him as Moses at the U of A or Preacher Bob at some other campuses. He seems to try to evangelize students and faculty, but let me deconstruct his intentions for you.

His primary purpose seems to be to incite anger and draw fodder for lawsuits. In fact, in 2003, the University of Arkansas had to pay him over $30,000, and there have been quite a number of different lawsuits over the years against a variety of organizations.

Secondly, his evangelism is really nothing more than the kind of thing you might hear from Westboro Baptist Church or some other inflammatory group. You see, when you talk to someone about Jesus or share your faith with them, you meet them on their level, you empathize with them and show that you care for and have love for them. On the other hand, what Mr. Bowman does is talk past you, over you, around you, and through you. He doesn't care about you. Just walk up to him and try to talk to him in a reasoned calm and compassionate way. He'll most likely continue preaching at the top of his lungs while you are still standing next to him.

He doesn't just ask you to follow Jesus, you have to follow Jesus in his way, and his "Jesus" isn't the same one the rest of us know. To be okay with Gary, you need to be a "tongue talker" a Pentecostal Holiness person, and you better not even occasionally drink or smoke. None of these things, of course, is biblical.

And definitely don't try to engage him in the same way he tries to engage you. You can find a YouTube video which clearly shows Mr. Bowman calling the cops on a student with a bullhorn. He knows his rights, he knows the system, and he will use every opportunity to use it against you while using it for his own purposes.

So what to do? Ignore him. Leave the nuts to argue with the nut. He wouldn't come back if he didn't get a rise out of people. He's not doing God's will, he's gratifying his own sick need for attention. Jesus wouldn't call you a whore.

Fact.
WiredForStereo

Book Review: "Crazy Love: Overwhelmed by a Relentless God" by Francis Chan

2009-09-17T19:23:00.007-05:00

I just finished reading (listening to) Francis Chan's Crazy Love. I downloaded the audio book read by the author from iTunes and it's a good listen at about four and a half hours. It cost about two bucks less than buying it, plus there wasn't the hassle of needing to leave the house or paying taxes or burning gas to go somewhere to pay too much for it at the local Christian bookstore (no names.)

The first three chapters of the book are kind of a foundation for what the whole book is about. I woke up a little sick this morning and decided to take a long hot bath as I often do when I'm sick. So between last night and the bath, I listened to about the first four or five chapters. Apparently I stayed too long in the bath because I got out and threw up all the grape juice I had been drinking. The first chapters left me with a feeling of "yes I know that." He was talking about how great God is and how much he loves us and how the story of the universe is really about him and not us. Very important stuff. One point that struck me was about our relationship with Jesus and how we should seek that first. He quotes statistics about how most Christians pray only a couple of minutes a day and watch TV for four hours.

But later on came the real good stuff. You know the kind of stuff that you sit and listen to (or read) and you know in your soul that what is being said is the truth and that all these years I have been making excuses for not taking certain parts of what Jesus said literally. I was sitting in the Civil Engineering lounge in Bell doing my homework and listening to the meat of the book and I started to cry. I have always lived in marginal houses and have always wanted to build my ultimate dream house, an earth sheltered ultra efficient super sustainable house that would have virtually no utility bills and would be the paragon of virtue in a green world. But I realized that if I were going to follow Jesus and give what he wants me to give, I don't think I'm ever gonna get my house. I'll never be able to fulfill many of the dreams I've had growing up the way I did. I already know I'm not going to be rich and I'm okay with that. But will I ever get to live in an efficient house? Will I ever ever get to own an electric car? Do I get to see my dreams come to fruition?

I want to be a Christian, I want to be a disciple of Jesus, but the question is, what will he ask of me? And when will I have to tell my wife about it? How much do I give? How much is enough? Can there be too much?

I want to do what is required of me, but I don't want to do the minimum. And my flesh tells me I certainly don't want to do the maximum. I don't want to go the Financial Peace way and simply save my way into financial security, that's not what Jesus calls us to do.

Francis goes through a near comprehensive list of what it is to be a lukewarm Christian. He says there won't be any lukewarm Christians in Heaven. I recently encountered a lukewarm Christian or two when they demanded that I prove my care for the poor by telling them everything I had done for the poor. And as he read through the list, I thought, I do more than all of those, I give more money, I give more time, I serve more, I'm less demanding, I'm less worldly, but in the end, what is enough? What on God's green earth am I supposed to do exactly? What do I do?

Much of the last half of the book I spent waiting for the punchline. I waited for Francis to tell me what it was that I was supposed to do to fulfill God's will. Was I supposed to sell my house? Am I supposed to give all my possessions to the poor? What do you want Francis, I'll do it!!! If you tell me to sell my house I'll do it. If you tell me to be a nominal Christian and give sparingly to missions, I'll do it, just tell me. Neither poverty nor riches, I'll do it. Do you want me to save up and retire early so I can be a volunteer at my church for the rest of my life? Do you want me to move into the city... never mind, I don't want to do that. But anything else Francis, I'll do it. How is my life supposed to be? I don't want to just do enough so I don't feel guilty anymore. I have enough guilt already.

However, in typical fashion in nearly all Christian books, Francis didn't tell me what to do. He did give me a few examples though, including Shane Claiborne and Rich Mullins (though I would like to remind everyone that Rich would probably still be with us if he'd been wearing his seat belt.) And they are great examples, even Shane is a real Christian Greenie like me, but he doesn't get to live in a super insulated house either. He lives in the city and plants trees in toxic waste sites and feeds poor people.

Lately I've been coming to the conclusion that I'm not supposed to be a goer, but a sender. I like that, it's comfortable, it's nice, it doesn't require me to step out on a limb or be adventurous or anything, and maybe I might get a foundation or a building or something named after me. WHAT THE HELL AM I SAYING?!? Actually, just skip the second sentence in this paragraph, it was entirely untrue and only said to make a point, I've never felt that way. But now, I'm wondering what I really am supposed to do. I'm left with the last thing God definitely told me to do and that was to become a Civil Engineer. He hasn't really told me anything since then, not that I haven't asked him to, but we haven't really been close lately in all honesty.

Am I supposed to live on my engineer's salary? Do I drive that electric car? Do I build that house? Do I do short term missions like my Hydraulics professor, you know the one I wanna be like when I grow up? The big question is, did God make me with the inborn desires that I have, the car, the house, the wind turbines, the third world water filters, or are these my way of trying to slip into the file cabinet of "just above mediocrity?" Should I really have been crying about not being able to have the house? And it's not just the house, do I really have to give up all that I want to do with my life? Should I sell my $110,000 house and buy a $55,000 house and give the rest to the poor? I already live in a house that's a square foot and a half bigger than exactly half the size of the average American house, how much further down do I need to go? Can I build a 600 square foot really efficient house to house my wife and future four to five children (two adopted?) Can I have an electric car or can I convert my 24 year old mini pickup to electric and use that? Or should I sell my cars and ride my bicycle the nine miles into town? Or should I sell my house and live in a 600 square foot apartment in town? Do I sell everything, give it to the poor, live in my truck and have my wife leave me? Am I supposed to keep blogging, can God use that?

GOD TELL ME WHAT YOU WANT ME TO DO AND I'LL DO IT!!!

Fantastic book, I give it 10/10. Read it, if it doesn't change your life, you should really think about shooting yourself because you're just wasting your time anyway. $5.95 on iTunes.
WiredForStereo

Libertarianism in One Lesson by Mike Huben

2009-09-16T15:08:00.002-05:00

Libertarianism in One Lesson by Mike Huben

One of the most attractive features of libertarianism is that it is basically a very simple ideology. Maybe even simpler than Marxism, since you don't have to learn foreign words like "proletariat".

This brief outline will give you most of the tools you need to hit the ground running as a freshly indoctrinated libertarian ideologue. Go forth and proselytize!

Philosophy

* In the beginning, man dwelt in a state of Nature, until the serpent Government tempted man into Initial Coercion.
* Government is the Great Satan. All Evil comes from Government, and all Good from the Market, according to the Ayatollah Rand.
* We must worship the Horatio Alger fantasy that the meritorious few will just happen to have the lucky breaks that make them rich. Libertarians happen to be the meritorious few by ideological correctness. The rest can go hang.
* Government cannot own things because only individuals can own things. Except for corporations, partnerships, joint ownership, marriage, and anything else we except but government.
* Parrot these arguments, and you too will be a singular, creative, reasoning individualist.
* Parents cannot choose a government for their children any more than they can choose language, residence, school, or religion.
* Taxation is theft because we have a right to squat in the US and benefit from defense, infrastructure, police, courts, etc. without obligation.
* Magic incantations can overturn society and bring about libertopia. Sovereign citizenry! The 16th Amendment is invalid! States rights!
* Objectivist/Neo-Tech Advantage #69i : The true measure of fully integrated honesty is whether the sucker has opened his wallet. Thus sayeth the Profit Wallace. Zonpower Rules Nerdspace!
* The great Zen riddle of libertarianism: minimal government is necessary and unnecessary. The answer is only to be found by individuals.

Government

* Libertarians invented outrage over government waste, bureaucracy, injustice, etc. Nobody else thinks they are bad, knows they exist, or works to stop them.
* Enlightenment comes only through repetition of the sacred mantra "Government does not work" according to Guru Browne.
* Only government is force, no matter how many Indians were killed by settlers to acquire their property, no matter how many blacks were enslaved and sold by private companies, no matter how many heads of union members are broken by private police.
* Money that government touches spontaneously combusts, destroying the economy. Money retained by individuals grows the economy, even if literally burnt.
* Private education works, public education doesn't. The publicly educated masses that have grown the modern economies of the past 150 years are an illusion.
* Market failures, trusts, and oligopolies are lies spread by the evil economists serving the government as described in the "Protocols of the Elders of Statism".
* Central planning cannot work. Which is why all businesses internally are run like little markets, with no centralized leadership.
* Paternalism is the worst thing that can be inflicted upon people, as everyone knows that fathers are the most hated and reviled figures in the world.
* Government is like fire, a dangerous servant and a fearsome master. Therefore, we should avoid it entirely, as we do all forms of combustion.

Regulation

* The FDA is solely responsible for any death or sickness where it might have prevented treatment by the latest unproven fad.
* Children, criminals, death cultists, and you all have the same inalienable right to own any weaponry: conventional, chemical, biological, or nuclear.
* All food, drugs, and medical treatments should be entirely unregulated: every industry should be able to kill 300,000 per year in the US like the tobacco industry.
* If you don't have a gun, you are not a libertarian. If you do have a gun, why don't you have even more powerful armament?
* Better to abolish all regulations, consider everything as property, and solve all controversy by civil lawsuit over damages. The US doesn't have enough lawyers, and people who can't afford to invest many thousands of dollars in lawsuits should shut up.

Libertarian Party

* The Libertarian Party is well on its way to dominating the political landscape, judging from its power base of 100+ elected dogcatchers and other important officials after 25 years of effort.
* The "Party of Oxymoron": "Individualists unite!"
* Flip answers are more powerful than the best reasoned arguments, which is why so many libertarians are in important government positions.
* It's time the new pro-freedom libertarian platform was implemented; child labor, orphanages, sweatshops, poorhouses, company towns, monopolies, trusts, cartels, blacklists, private goons, slumlords, etc.
* Libertarianism "rules" Internet political debate the same way US Communism "ruled" pamphleteering.
* No compromise from the "Party of Principle". Justice, happiness, liberty, guns, and other good stuff come only from rigidly adhering to inflexible dogmas.
* Minimal government is whatever we say it is, and we don't agree.
* Government is "moving steadily in a libertarian direction" with every change libertarians approve of; no matter if it takes one step forward and two steps backwards.
* Yes, the symbol of the Libertarian Party is a Big Government Statue. It's not supposed to be funny or ironic!

Political Debate Strategy

* Count only the benefits of libertarianism, count only the costs of government.
* Five of a factoid beats a full argument.
* All historical examples are tainted by statism, except when they favor libertarian claims.
* Spiritually baptize the deceased as libertarians because they cannot protest the anachronism: Locke, Smith, Paine, Jefferson, Spooner, etc.
* The most heavily armed libertarian has the biggest dick and thus the best argument.
* The best multi-party democratic republics should be equated to the worst dictatorships for the purposes of denouncing statism. It's only a matter of degree.
* Inviolate private property is the only true measure of freedom. Those without property have the freedom to try to acquire it. If they can't, let them find somebody else's property to complain on.
* Private ownership is the cure for all problems, despite the historical record of privately owned states such as Nazi Germany, Czarist and Stalinist Russia, and Maoist China.
* Require perfection as the only applicable standard to judge government: libertarianism, being imaginary, cannot be fairly judged to have flaws.
* Only libertarian economists' Nobel Prizes count: the other economists and Nobel Prize Committee are mistaken.
* Any exceptional case of private production proves that government ought not to be involved.
.........................................................

Yes, I know this is completely pejorative, but that's kind of the point. How can we properly criticize anything without a little bit of laughing at it? I know some libertarians, and I like most of them, but I'm not one. These were some funny reasons hidden in a bit of sarcasm, so don't get on my case too much, if you are a libertarian, attack the charge, not the messenger.

WiredForStereo

The Unfulfilled Life of a Blogger

2009-09-07T08:48:00.003-05:00

Hello everyone, all five of you who read this blog regularly.

I don't know about you other bloggers, but this experience has left me a little bit frustrated. First of all, and not surprisingly, not that many people are interested in the same things I am. There are relatively few people out there who like composting toilets. There are some who like electric cars, but not many. There are plenty interested in politics, but few are both Christians and not conservatives.

To my dismay, the majority of hits on my blog are related to what is the most accurate Bible translation. Of course few people are looking for what is really the most accurate Bible translation, they just want to argue about it. The second most common subject is "The Shack" by Paul Young. This is not bad, I just wrote those posts years ago.

I have a confession to make. I got into a Facebook argument yesterday despite my previous abandonment of Facebook. It was mostly about the health care debate, but arguing with conservatives nearly always gets very messy. They don't play fair. They can be kind of mean. They make too many assumptions. One such assumption what that because I was for health care reform, that I was also pro abortion. So one guy went on this big fallacious post about how all I was doing was dancing across the skulls of dead babies. He reminded me very much of Sean Hannity who despite being disproven always keeps using the same arguments even when his facts are completely off. The same guy kept saying that I was part of the Emergent Church and a liberal which I am not. This serves to reinforce my belief in the exclusivity of the right. Either I'm one of them or I'm a bleeding heart liberal. Unfortunately I got in an argument with a person who could well be defined as a loudmouth. Arguments between loudmouths and knowitalls don't end well. I only hope she doesn't decide to pull a Sarah Palin and try to get me fired from my job (seriously.)

What I really want from this blogging experience is what I see on other blogs. There's a post, then comments with supporting and opposing views. There's some thoughtful discussion and some flaming too, but generally things go in some direction. But my position is just so unique. I'm a Christian, moderate, centrist, environmentalist, etc. etc. etc. But I get consistently labeled a liberal which bugs the crap out of me. I am always reminded that the right gets it wrong and the left doesn't get it. But people who get things wrong are much more virulent than the ones who don't get it. So it this point, it pretty much takes a super majority on any subject for liberals or progressives to get anything done. And though I'm not a liberal, years of republican filibustering and do nothing partisanship make me want to see the democrats get something done. They did win the election, they should get some results.

I just want people to be interested, is that too much to ask? They can like or hate it, but just somebody care! I'm kidding. No one said this would be easy. And yesterday was really hard. But oh well. I'll keep plugging on and no one caring. Maybe when I get to elected office my opponents can use this blog to claim I'm a flip flopper or a socialist or some other equally ludicrous nonsense.

Have fun.
WiredForStereo