Survey on UFO's and Religion

I am conducting an informal survey on UFO's and religion to help determine if there are any connections between religious/spiritual observance and experiences with UFO's and other such phenomenon. However, this is not a formal or scientific survey, only a preliminary information-gathering tool.

Please take the survey here:
http://www.polldaddy.com/s/5081D43BBE47370C/

Thank you, and please pass this link on to others. Once the survey closes (at 1000 responses), I'll compile the results and post them here.

It is my hypothesis that those who are very religious or spiritual have FEWER experiences with UFO's and other such phenomena. However, it is just a hunch, so I am seeking some kind of evidence one way or another.

And, stay tuned, I might create another survey to include other strange phenomena, like Bigfoot sightings, etc.

The Difficulty of Being a Border Patrol Agent

A new article on MSNBC states that U.S. Border Patrol agents are being pelted with rocks, bottles and bricks in order to distract them while smugglers work. The agents respond with tear gas and other non-lethal means, but the Mexicans that live in the area near the border complain that they are caught in the middle.

If U.S. Border Patrol agents are being attacked, then that is an act of war, and the agents have a right and duty to respond. If the Mexicans in the area don't want to be involved, then they need to move away from the border, or they need to get involved, complain to their government to get illegal immigration and smuggling under control, or they need to take matters into their own hands. I am not advocating vigilantism (although, if that's the only way, it's a good last resort), but some grassroots activism, political activity, and some good old-fashioned neighborliness.

There was a time when neighbors helped to take care of each other and to prevent anything illegal from occurring in the neighborhood. But, now, people depend too much on the government to solve everything and don't take the initiative to help defend the law. The Mexicans in the border area have an opportunity here to help improve their country and neighborhoods, but they just complain and look for someone else to solve the problem. And that's what's wrong with Mexico.

There is corruption and lawlessness in Mexico because the people allow it. They don't stand up for what's good and right, they just let the government and the upper-class elites do what they want. Now is the time for every good Mexican to come to the aid of his country.

Now, I'm also hearing about the U.S. Congress cutting funding for the border fence. If nothing is done about the illegal immigration and smuggling situation along our southern border (particularly), then I can see a time when this situation will escalate in to full-scale war. I'm not threatening, just predicting.

Source:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22300821/

The UN is at it again. Ban Ban

Now I am reading of the new UN U.N. Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, exhorting us to act on global warming, or face "oblivion." (Whatever that means.) He says:

"The situation is so desperately serious that any delay could push us past the tipping point, beyond which the ecological, financial and human costs would increase dramatically," Ban said in a speech to delegates. We are at a crossroad. One path leads to a comprehensive climate change agreement, the other to oblivion. The choice is clear."

Whatever. . . What about the "ecological, financial and human costs" of the Kyoto Protocol and those other cap-and-trade schemes that Al Gore and company (and I use that word on purpose) are promoting? They would set us back to the Stone Age.

My previous post of Friday, October 5, 2007 should be sufficient to answer his statement. Apparently the "oblivion" that he's so concerned about would be his bank account without the grundle-loads of money that the elite are set to make from their cap-and-trade schemes.

My request to my readers is this: Use your own mind, apply some critical thinking skills to this issue, seek out the information for yourself (from primary sources), apply a little logic, and make a your own decision. (This applies not only to global warming, but to most of the issues that face us today.)

On the other hand, if he means Oblivion, the game, then by all means, let's play! ;)

Sometimes, when the UN speaks, people laugh, but most of the time, they die.

Border Patrol Emasculated

In August 2007 United States Border Patrol Agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean were convicted to 11 and 12 years in prison for actions related to the pursuit of a suspect near the U.S-Mexico border. Since the laws and events surrounding this event are as clear as mud, I will not play the part of lawyer and attempt to dissect the case. (Although I do think that they should not have been prosecuted to the extent that they were.)

However, it seems to me that the problem is not so much immigration law, nor is it the actions of the enforcers. The REAL problem is the way the law is (or rather, is NOT) enforced, and with the restrictions placed on Border Patrol agents in doing their jobs.

For example:
"Assistant U.S. Attorney Debra Kanof said, Ramos and Compean had no business chasing someone in the first place. 'It is a violation of Border Patrol regulations to go after someone who is fleeing," she said. "The Border Patrol pursuit policy prohibits the pursuit of someone.'"

I will let Agent Ramos speak for himself, and me:
"How are we supposed to follow the Border Patrol strategy of apprehending terrorists or drug smugglers if we are not supposed to pursue fleeing people?" he continued. "Everybody who's breaking the law flees from us. What are we supposed to do? Do they want us to catch them or not?"

That's just the beginning. If we are really serious about protecting our borders, then we must allow our border patrol personnel to do their jobs and actually enforce the law. And, we need to get tough with it.

I can't go on, it makes me so angry. Just read over the source documents below and think about it.

Sources:
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=23228
http://www.dailybulletin.com/news/ci_4141562
http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/txw/press_releases/Compean-Ramos/Compean_Ramos_factsheet1.pdf

One Cancer or Another, it's Still Death.

I think about this every fall when the breast cancer awareness campaigns kick into gear: What about the people who die from other forms of cancer, especially prostate cancer?

First, some statistics from the Center for Disease Control:
In 2004 (the most recent year numbers are available),
- 186,772 women and 1,815 men were diagnosed with breast cancer
- 40,954 women and 362 men died from breast cancer
(http://www.cdc.gov/cancer/breast/statistics/)

In 2003 (the most recent year for which statistics are currently available):
- 185,891 men were diagnosed with prostate cancer
- 29,554 men died from prostate cancer
(http://www.cdc.gov/cancer/prostate/statistics/)

The difference in the number of cases of breast cancer in women versus the number of cases of prostate cancer is .0047 percent. That's a difference of less than half a percent; the difference is statistically insignificant. Therefore, we can say that there are, essentially, the same number of cases of each kind of cancer per year.

So, given that information, why so much emphasis on breast cancer awareness? Why is there not an equal emphasis on prostate cancer awareness? My very smart wife says it's because breasts are more obvious and prettier than prostates, and breasts are sex objects and we are a sex-oriented (obsessed?) society.

Although she may be right, I think it's got more to do with the power of the feminist agenda. The media, corporations and organizations are so afraid of offending feminists that they ignore the suffering of other demographic groups. They have bought into the feminist agenda so much that the issue is no longer human suffering, it is feminine suffering, masculine suffering is callously ignored. Or, on the other hand, it is an acknowledgment that women are weak and need the help of the rest of society to deal with their health problems. If equality between the sexes is the goal, then they have failed. (On another hand, if the feminist agenda is about dominating men, then they are wrong and are just creating another repressed minority.)

Aside from that, not all breast cancer patients are women (yes, men can get breast cancer, too), but the emphasis is on women (notice all the pink stuff: ribbons, bags, packaging, etc.). To me, this is further evidence that it isn't so much about cancer as it is about feminism.

Now, to clarify: I don't mind feminism, I've been told that I am a feminist, and I am in favor of equal opportunities and rights for women. I believe that all people, regardless of gender, should be allowed to do what they want with their lives, whether it's the spouse-homemaker-parent option, or the career option. Although I also believe that the wife-homemaker-mother option is the best one for most women, and has the potential for a much more positive influence on the world, and that mixing career, family and home-making is a challenge that very few people are up to.

Here is a more recent article that reflects my point of view: "The politics behind the pink ribbon"

What's with the changes at NewsMax.com?

Has anyone else noticed the changes at NewsMax.com? I don't necessarily mean the new web site or the new video feed and things like that, but the changes in content: It just doesn't seem as conservative as it used to. Yes, it is still much more conservative than any other mainstream news source, but it just doesn't seem to be as conservative as it used to be; they seem to have taken it more mainstream, more middle-of-road. Have they caved to market pressures, or worse, political pressures? Have they changed their position to a more moderate one?

What's more, I never saw any editorial notice or commentary about the changes or anything else. It just got changed, as if they expect the users to not notice and to continue as usual. Or as if they hoped to hide something from the users. Hmmm. . .

This concerns me because these conservative news sources help maintain a balance in the marketplace of ideas. To paraphrase a very popular radio talk show host: They are equal time. In order to make an intelligent decision regarding the issues, people need to see all sides of them and to get exposure various opinions and points of view. Sites like NewsMax and CNSNews help do that by providing a more conservative perspective than the mainstream news sources. If they start to migrate to the middle of the road, then what is the fate of the conservative view?

However, the one thing that really bothers me the most about any of these web sites is the profit motive. I'm not opposed to capitalism, in fact I'm very much in favor of it, but it seems to me that it might be to the publisher's advantage to go soft on advertisers and their ideologies, simply because they are the sources of the money. Similarly, government sponsored news sources, like NPR and the BBC, concern me for much the same reasons: reporters will be very wary about biting the hand that feeds them. (You may notice that, even though it's available, and very tempting, I have no advertising here.) Edit (11/5/2008): I've decided that a small, unobtrusive banner ad at the bottom of the page is OK, and wouldn't affect my "objectivity".

So, what I would like to see is an independent, non-profit, truly objective, news outlet. One that doesn't depend on advertising revenue for its survival; one that doesn't depend on government approprations and tax dollars for its existence. Sort of a Consumer Reports of the information market. However, the problem is how to fund such a news organization, especially since people aren't used to paying for their news.

I'm still thinking about the solution to this one; any ideas or suggestions would be appreciated.

What's wrong with us?

In the Middle Ages, peasants and serfs usually paid a third of their income to their landlord, (who owned the land, and provided protection in the event of invasion), and that was considered servitude. But, now, people don't even blink at paying 40-70% in taxes. What's wrong with us, why do we allow this?

Nobel Prize for Deception

Now Al Gore gets a Nobel Prize for his work in relation to global climate change. I guess the Nobel committee are idiots, too. Have they no objectivity, no scientific curiosity, no skepticism? The Nobel Prize has become like the UN: irrelevant and meaningless.

Of course Gore has no desire to run for the Presidency of the US; he can make much more money with a lot less work and stress with his global climate change work. I gotta give him credit, he may not be real honest, but he's not stupid.

Here's some more food for thought:
"Dr. William Gray, one of the world’s foremost meteorologists and a pioneer in the field of seasonal hurricane forecasts, told a lecture hall filled with meteorology students and a host of professional meteorologists at the University of North Carolina that humans were not responsible for the warming of the earth. 'We’ll look back on all of this in 10 or 15 years and realize how foolish it was.'"
Source: Al Gore's Inconvenient Nobel Prize

Global Warming as Capitalism

I just finished reading an interesting article on Human Events called The Money and Connections Behind Al Gore’s Carbon Crusade. While I haven't had the chance to check the background or primary sources, it does reveal some interesting issues. The basic gist of the article is that:

1. Global warming (and the carbon cap and trade plans that go with it) is a sham to make the rich richer and to impose draconian laws on the general public that would keep people under subjugation and cripple the economy.
2. Al Gore is the leader (at least in public; his investors and backers aren't revealed) and cheerleader of this plan.
3. The mainstream media has conspicuously ignored these issues and just plays along.

Here are a few interesting quotes from the article:

"Al Gore’s campaign against global warming is shifting into high gear. Reporters and commentators follow his every move and bombard the public with notice of his activities and opinions. But while the mainstream media promote his ideas about the state of planet Earth, they are mostly silent about the dramatic impact his economic proposals would have on America. And journalists routinely ignore evidence that he may personally benefit from his programs. Would the romance fizzle if Gore’s followers realized how much their man stands to gain?"

"In fact, the World Bank now operates a Carbon Finance Unit that conducts research on how to develop and trade carbon credits. The bank works with Italy, the Netherlands, Denmark and Spain to set up carbon-credit funds in each country to purchase emission credits from firms for use in developing countries. In addition, it runs the Carbon Fund for Europe helping countries meet their Kyoto Protocol requirements. These funds are traded on the ECX (half of which is owned by CCX, itself a creature of Al Gore’s firm, Generation Investment Management). Can we connect the dots?"

"In 2006 Al Gore established his own global-warming non-profit group, the Alliance for Climate Protection, a 501(3)(c) charitable organization. The group favors more stringent environmental policy regulations on the private sector and especially wants cap-and-trade legislation so that companies will be forced to lower their greenhouse gas emissions and buy carbon credits."

"There are billions of dollars to be made in trading emissions credits. But first the federal government must force everyone to play the game."

Follow the money. These are the last days, and greed and deception are everywhere.

Read the article in its entirety, right now. I'll wait.

. . . waiting . . .

OK, now that you've read the whole article, what's going on here? Al Gore & Co. will be making a huge amount of money from this plan, and they just need to get enough people scared about it to buy in to it. So, these people who say that capitalism and its accompanying greed, consumption and materialism are ruining society and the earth are themselves indulging in capitalism.

(I don't mind greed or capitalism, per se, I think that capitalism and a certain amount of self-interest are an excellent vehicle to prosperity for all. What I do object to is capitalism/greed/self-interest unchecked my morals, (true) charity and self-restraint.)

Never mind the fact that the whole global warming thing is questionable to begin with, and the effectiveness of the carbon credit plan unproven, the media and the promoters just keep harping on how we'll destroy the planet if we don't do something. This is the wrong "something."

What we should be doing is exposing these guys for the deceptive schemers and crooks that they are. We should be demanding more research and REAL, objective, solid evidence from the global warming advocates! We should be taking back our government(s) from the socialists, communists, and megalomaniacal tyrants that currently occupy its offices. We should be demanding more research, development and promotion of alternative energy sources. We should be rejecting the Kyoto protocol and futile stabilization programs, and, in case the gloom and doom forecasts do come to pass, adopting some adaptations to higher temperatures (See "Focused Adaptation").

The global warming scare is an example of the "evils and designs which do and will exist in the hearts of conspiring men in the last days".

So, now you may be wondering where I get my ideas about global warming. Well, for the intellectually honest and objective reader, may I suggest a few texts:

• State of Fear by Michael Crichton. This book, although a fictional novel, is written by one of the greatest minds of our time, and is very well-documented. Even if you don't enjoy the story (which is, admittedly, lame), at least get it for the data, the charts, the footnotes, endnotes, and bibliography--very revealing.
• A speech by Crichton: Aliens Cause Global Warming. A sample: "Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled. Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you're being had. Let's be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus. There is no such thing as consensus science. If it's consensus, it isn't science. If it's science, it isn't consensus. Period." And: "Consensus is invoked only in situations where the science is not solid enough." Good stuff, baby!
• The Politically Incorrect Guide to Global Warming (and Environmentalism) by Christopher C. Horner. An entertaining examination of the claims and science behind the global warming dogma. Very eye-opening.
• And another article by Horner: Cooking up Global Warming Again, very revealing and thought-provoking: "If you place your measuring equipment in the wrong place you could help start a global warming panic. " Hmmm... suspicious...
• And, one more easy read, from the National Center for Policy Analysis: Get the "Global Warming Primer" a graphic explanation of a number of statistics and phenomena associated with the global warming argument. (If you can't get it there, e-mail me and I'll send you a copy.)

Furthermore, the honest and objective thinker will evaluate the arguments and consider all the possibilities. So let's just sit and think about it for a moment:

• Are we, as puny humans, so powerful as to be able to destroy a planet that has taken care of itself, through disaster after disaster, for so many thousands (perhaps millions) of years?
• Are we really so knowledgeable as to be able to predict the weather in a hundred years, when we still have trouble predicting the weather next week? The weather is a chaotic system, and, as such, defies prediction.
• Do we really have enough data to truly understand what is happening with the earth?
• Is there no God who is in control of the universe and the elements?

One day we will know whether or not we are right about global warming, and whether we are too late or not is irrelevant, if it's going to happen, then it's going to happen; there is very little we can do about it. But, with the evidence under reasonable doubt, do we really need to ruin our economies and line the pockets of the elite based on their suppositions and "consensus science"?

Disclaimer: The writer of this blog is not associated with Human Events, Regnery Publishing, the National Center for Policy Analysis, Michael Crichton, Amazon.com, nor any other person or organization mentioned here, except as noted. (That goes for all of these posts, not just this one.)

Watch for Motorcycles!

A few weeks ago I was riding the SilverWing home from the boring job (not the one at UVSC, but the one that pays the bills) and had a near-death experience. It was after midnight, and the stop light turned green. I twisted the throttle and got about halfway through the intersection when some broad, talking on her cell phone, ran the red light and zipped through the intersection in front of me. I yanked on the brakes and quickly slowed down enough to allow her to go through without smearing the SilverWing and me on the asphalt.

After I made it through the intersection, I turned around and followed her (I know, it's crazy, but it's a reasonably safe thing to do in Orem). Within a few miles, she pulled into a driveway and began to get her stuff out of her car. I parked, got off the bike and pounded her face! No, just kidding! I got out my Palm LifeDrive and navigated to a collage of my four children. I walked up to her, and said:

"I want to show you something."

I held out the LifeDrive, displaying the picture of my children, and said, "These are my four children. Now, back there just now when you were talking on your cell phone..."

"I know, I missed that light."

"Yes, and if there had been one second difference for either of us, my kids could have been without their father."

"I know, I'm sorry."

"I recommend you get off the cell phone and watch for motorcyclists!"

"OK"

"Thank you, good night."

Then I walked away, got on my bike and rode off in to the night. I hope she started crying. I hope she was afraid. I hope she was angry. I hope she had some kind of emotional response, because I certainly did!

Then, just tonight, on the way home, again, someone pulled out in front of me and I had to lay on the horn and swerve to miss them. Again, someone wasn't paying attention.

I ride my "scooter" nearly every day, at least half an hour (about 12 miles per day), and every time I see at least one person do something stupid or illegal while driving and talking on a cell phone. I really just want to take the phone away and spike the stinkin' thing on the pavement! People just don't understand how quickly and easily they could affect so many lives with a single, simple, stupid decision.

The lessons:

1. GET OFF THE PHONE AND DRIVE!
2. Pay attention to your surroundings.
3. Watch for motorcycles!
4. Life is precious, don't be stupid.
   

In the beginning...

A few years ago, when the whole "blog thing" emerged, I scoffed at it and wondered why in the world people would want to blab their stuff all over a web page--essentially spewing brain vomit on the internet, and why they couldn't just do it with a personal web site. Well, now here I am with my own.

So, what's the diff? What's changed? Nothing. It's still brain vomit, but it's MY brain vomit! ;) It's better than a web page because it's easier to create and update, and it's easy for other people to find, so they can partake of my brain vomit (I know, eeewww! The metaphor has lost its attraction, scrap it!)

What's the point of a blog? Some people are natural writers. Some people have a need to comment on life, the universe and everything. Everyone has a need to be heard. A blog is the easiest and most painless way to publish your "stuff" (see the above worn-out metaphor), and to express oneself to the world without having to get an editor/publisher/bookseller's approval.

So, here is where I'll go when I have something to say, something to gripe about, something to take a stand about, when I have cause to pause and speak my mind. Long live the blog!

Notice: the opinions expressed here are my exercise of my First Amendment rights and, as such, are protected under the Constitution of the United States of America.