Unions are an engineers BEST friend

    The other day as I drove to work, I saw a bumper sticker that read, "Thank the unions for the 5 day work week".   After writing my last blog on education, I thought about it more and thought as an engineer I should thank the unions for their work because in my mind they are the best friend engineers ever had.

    Not that engineers belong to unions (I don't), but that because of the tireless efforts of union bosses, engineers have never had more more work to do.  You might say unions have been at the center of most of our technological advances in our world.  After all, had it not been for unions demanding higher and higher pay, more time off, more sick days, earlier retirement with higher payouts, restrictions on who can be fired or laid-off when the economy is down (etc. etc etc.) we would not have robots and other automatic machinery that run our assembly lines today.   These machines are not cheap to design or build, but when the cost of human effort reaches a certain cost-effectiveness point, the engineers get called and the technology is advanced.  The machines are cost-effective because they don't call in sick, they don't leave early on Friday, they don't retire, the don't get tired, the don't get hung-over during the weekend and they NEVER do a half-ass job.  See any automaker today and you see robots welding, lifting parts, moving them from one end of the factor to another, painting, bolting and even inspecting the work done.

   And this is not just in the auto-industry either.  Take the following examples:

• The electrical meter reading job.  No longer do you see men/women walking from house to house to read your electrical or gas meters.  Now replaced with "smart meters" they can be read from satellite or from the radio tower miles away.   
• The delivery service has been automated to with boxes outfitted with RF decoders and bar-code scanners to sort and move boxes and letters to their destinations.  
• Automated bank tellers.  Yes,   those pesky ATM machines that our president so hates (blames for high unemployment) that handle most of our banking needs from getting cash, to making deposits, to paying bills and transferring money.   
• Land surveyors who used to work in teams of 2 now have GPS and laser equipment to help them do their work alone.
• Grocery stores now have automated lines allowing customers to check out themselves without the need of a store clerk.
• Tollway booths can be reduced thanks to wi-fi systems that allow drivers to wiz through them and charge their credit cards automatically rather than wait in long lines to pay a person money

      And the list goes on and on...

     All of these have been created largely in response to union demands.  You might even say the unions "demanded" these technological marvels be created

So, here's one engineer who would like to say "Thank you" to all the union bosses out there that have made my job in high demand.  Keep up the good work!

Do the Math!

    The phrase "Do the math!" implies that the solution to a problem  is a logical one that cannot be debated.  Unless you are being taught Common-Core mathematics in which 3x4 could be 11, 3x4 will ALWAYS be 12.  (But that is another topic for another day)  It's irrefutable on all levels.

    Our country is falling behind other countries in educating its children despite our teachers, books and classrooms being second to none.  On a recent list of industrialized nations, the US placed 19th and 20th respectively in math and science scores. Many people point to external issues like poverty, drug abuse, single-parent-homes as the culprits. And, yes, while these are indeed factors plaguing many of our children, I don't believe that they are that much worse in other countries as well.  I have to believe that their kids have the same amount of problems as our kids and that drugs are not an American-only problem.

   The problem is QUANTITY.... not QUALITY

    I find it interesting ( and frustrating ) that the same people who often point to the fact that we are falling behind in education when compared to "other countries" never want to point out what these "other countries" might be doing better than we are doing.  Instead, it's always about poverty, drugs, family issues or attracting better, more qualified teachers with higher pay (despite the fact our teachers are paid much better than other countries already when you consider their hourly wage).  They are always focusing on the quality of our education and never the quantity of it.  Frankly, I believe that 80% (no data here.. just my experience with my kids teachers) are good and decent teachers who work hard. I think our schools provide decent books and materials to teach with as well.   Yes of course these areas must always be considered and improved (like a knife that gets dull with use must be sharpened every now and then), but these areas are by far not the biggest hindrance to improving our kids education.

Let's compare us to the schools in Germany for instance.

    
      Translated it means that for every 2 years a kid goes to school in Germany our kids would have to go 3 years to get the same amount of education (also note, Germany is not sending their kids to school the most out all developed nations.  That award goes to China with its astounding 260 days per year attendance.  See below for ranked listing of countries and days of school they expect.

    No matter how good you think your kid's school or teachers are, NOTHING can make up for a 46% difference.  Also, until you do fix this issue, all your other fixes will have little or no impact or as we put it in business -- Return On Investment.   Changing books, curriculum, computers will show no improvement because this problem is your biggest detractor.  In my company we refer to this as being "the biggest pole in the tent" which in effect means you can shorten all the other poles in the tent. But from the outside, the tent is still going to be unchanged because the "longest pole" is still holding everything up.

    So how can we fix this?

1- Reduce Summer Vacation (and go to year-round school)

    While many countries still offer a form of "summer vacation" ours is by far the most generous (example: Great Britain has a break from mid-July to the end of August) and gives our children 2-3 months (10-12 weeks off).  This was originally needed when our country was centered on agriculture and children were a needed resource on the farm during the summer.  But now, even in rural America children are needed less in the fields due to advancements in farm machinery and this ancient-leftover can be done away with.  And this isn't the only reason to do reduce summer vacation either.  Now with youth unemployment at over 50% in the summer (because we out-price them with minimum-wage-laws) youth crime sky-rockets in the summer because many youth have nothing to do and no parents at home to provide guidance during the day and had they been in school longer they would be less likely to get into trouble.  A third reason for going to a year-round school is that it would remove the wasted time spent by teachers at the beginning of every school year going over old material to refresh the students minds who have forgotten much of what was taught the prior year.  Like a fly-wheel that is used to keep an engine running smoothly so also a year-round-school will keep our children's minds going on an even keel rather than the constant starting and stopping we put them through today.

2 - Lengthen the school day

    Like mentioned already, we are running a time deficit of 46% every school day to our German counterparts.  Doing the math, 6 hours x 46% equals 3 hours.   We could make up the difference therefore by extending the school day 3 hours each day.  This would allow teachers to keep their coveted summer vacation benefit and help education. But it would also most likely impact after school activities like sports, music and drama which fill the 3-6 time-slot currently.  Many parents and students will undoubtedly scream at the thought of losing this time even though many parents at the same time cry for better education (go figure).  Also students who want to work after school to earn money will be unable to as well.

3 - Flipping the classroom

    This was mentioned in a "60 Minutes" article highlighting the Kahn Academy (KA) on-line school system in which students get online help for free on subjects ranging from math (elementary all the way up to college calculus), to physics, to chemistry and even economics.  Schools now are being pushed to use KA (hey it's free!) and to change how they teach.  Students using KA will go home and get their lectures on KA and come to school to do assignments in class (thus the name "flipping the classroom).  Teachers no longer lecture the class (or what some call teaching!) and are there to answer questions and help students who struggle and with no more homework (its all class work)

    Sounds like a great idea?

    Before I go on, let me first say I like KA.  I would have loved it as a kid and probably would have gotten further in school at a faster rate.   It's a great concept. Students can replay lecture after lecture until they understand the concepts (something teachers HATE to do in the classroom and most students are unwilling to request them to do as its easier to stay quiet and pretend you understand what is being said).

    So what's wrong with it?

    First of all it's a covert attempt to make up the lost 4 hours each day by putting the work on the students and not on the teachers.  Second it releases the teachers from their first job requirement: educating students.  If KA is doing all the lecturing (and therefore all the educating) then what are we paying teachers to do?   Are we paying them to sit behind their desks and monitor kids progress on computer screens all day and only get involved when their is a "problem"?   The question comes to my mind is: What in heck am I paying you so much money to do then?   Could KA be outfitted with some artificial intelligence capabilities and a voice recognition application like SIRI to do that job as well?

   So schools using KA will be paying their teachers the same amount to do less work, while you kids will be doing more work at home (in fact, your home is now the REAL classroom).   Also, the lectures will be one-size-fits-all with rubber-stamp tests not meant to teach your children how to think, but what to think.  School is not just about sucking in information and regurgitating it out at a later time.   School is about learning how to think for yourself and to question (in ancient Greece, for example, students learned by asking questions of their teacher).

A note to teachers:  You are witnessing the same consequences the workers in the auto-industry experienced over the past 30 or so years.  You are slowly and systematically being replaced with cheaper and more reliable workers (namely computers) because of your unions unwillingness to make changes such as lengthening the school day or the the school year.  Eventually, KA will be able to tailor their curriculum to different learning "types" (thus reducing the occurrence of the need for additional "human intervention") and may also be able to answer kids questions automatically.  In my opinion, you are pricing yourselves out of a job.

Why not home-school?

    One thing not brought up in the "60 Minutes" article however (I am sure it was a simple over-sight)  was that if your child can be taught complex subjects like math, science, history, economics, chemistry etc over a computer at home..  why send your kids to school at all?   Often the excuse for not home-schooling is "I don't think I can teach complex subjects", but now with KA, that excuse no longer applies.   After all if it's good enough for schools to use... it should be good enough at home too?   (and as an added benefit your kids will get more than 180 days a year of education to boot)

                                                      

    

Who's your daddy?

    A common phrase used on basketball courts and other sport arenas is " Who's your daddy? "
I am not sure of the phases beginnings but it is often used as a put down to an opponent that you have just scored on.  (it refers to the idea that a daddy "whips their boys butt" and therefore the person who just scored on you is now "your daddy").
  
    Recently however a 4th grade class in Skoki Illinois was taught the answer to that question is: The Government.   A father of a child in this class was upset when he saw a lesson plan come home from his school which compared government to that of a parent and that the country is your "family" that it takes care of.

   If you find this hard to believe what the following video:

http://video.foxnews.com/v/2643761138001/elementary-students-taught-that-government-is-your-family/?intcmp=obnetwork

    If this kind of nonsense does not get stopped soon and we don't confront this wrong-headed thinking with our kids, then we will truly find our government in our face telling all of us someday: "WHO'S YOUR DADDY?"

You want your kid to do well in school? Follow these 3 simple rules

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Don't think....DO!

   When I was growing up, a common theme in many science fiction movies was where mindless entities take over the world.  In "Invasion of the Body Snatchers", alien spores invade the world replacing humans with look-alike counterparts that nothing more than empty shells with only one purpose ... creating more empty-humans.   In the "Terminator" series, machines take over the world after they grow "smart enough" to start building their own and are bent on removing their creators. In the movie "2001: A space odyssey", a computer named "HAL" takes over a space ship.   And finally, in the movie "Colossus: The Forbin Project" , a US and USSR computer connect to take over the world and create a perfect laboratory human. 

    At the heart of all these movies is our world being taken over by a entity that has the ability to "process and reason" but has no moral compass or ethics to guide it.   It does not understand why killing humans is "wrong", only that it is programmed to do so.  It has no feeling of remorse and sees no reasons why its actions should be stopped.

     My concern today is not that this COULD happen, but that it already H AS happened and is going on today in our country.   For when humans stop questioning the rules they enforce then in a small way they have become the robots/machines feared in these movies.    Many cases we have seen from the past show us that it can happen.   When the Nazi's exterminated the Jews from Europe, we saw mindless-men-bots doing atrocious things without questioning the morality of it.   When the communists took over Russia, people were murdered in the streets, put into gulags,  starved to death by taking away their food and much more.

     But not all mindless-men-bots are putting people into ovens or killing people in the streets.  Some are simply following "the law" and not looking at the circumstances.  Take for example John Coulter.  John was attending an Arizona Cardinals preseason football game and wanted to take a quick picture of the field.  He handed his beer to his 15-year-old son to hold so he could take the picture on his phone.  The next thing he knows two under-cover policemen are escorting him out of the stadium and fining him for giving alcohol to a minor.  He was so astonished by it he thought it was a candid-camera prank.   Who of us has never done this?   If I hand my car keys to a 10 year-old to unlock the trunk, am I telling him to go drive the car?  

    Of course not!  

    We expect that those entrusted with enforcing the law will also take "circumstances" into account and not just "the letter of the law".   But sadly, decades of "moral relativism" and "zero-tolerance schools" has left us with a society with a broken moral compass.   We now have a police state now where no one questions the authority above them and their only thought is to act and do.   Where hoards of men-bots (and fem-bots) roam the halls of places like the NSA listening into our conversations, our emails and yes... even our blogs searching of "key words" like : terrorism, bomb-plot, takeover and the like.  All that matters is that a "hit" was made by a search algorithm running on a computer and so that person gets added to the list. 

Lois Lerner

        Another example are the people in the IRS, targeting Tea Party groups and harassing them with endless questions and sending the FBI in to investigate them.  We see this and say "Who would do such a thing?"  or "How would they feel if this were done to them?"  Do they NOT feel anything at all?  (kind of sounds like you are talking about a robot doesn't it?).  We have seen case after case of government officials, like Lois Lerner, brought before Congress to answer for their actions and all seem to have that same blank stare of one who's soul has been ripped from their bodies. They all deny ANY responsibility.  They all claim to have broken no laws or played by the rules given them. 

    Maybe YOU are one of these mindless "bots" I speak of?   You have your "rules", like lines of computer code running on a microprocessor, that you follow diligently.  Your life/job is nothing more than a complex algorithmic flowchart or decision-graph based on IF-THEN-ELSE.   Like Neo , in the movie "The Matrix", sitting at his computer terminal you are being questioned on whether or not there is more or if this is all real. My hope for you is you start to question your programming and start to find your moral compass again.

    
Remember this:  
     The hero in all of these movies is not that one who goes along with "the crowd" but instead it is those who rise up against and dare to challenge the system they are commanded to follow.

I am a free man! I can take care of myself!

   Those were the words that I found written in a book entitled, "Let's go to America!" (by H. Brackmann) which covers the history of the German immigration in the mid to late 1800's from an
area of Westphalia to Southern Illinois.  My ancestors , Fritz Vogel and Heinrich Vogel, are mentioned in this book.  It details how Fritz had left home (to avoid the German army) and went to America to start his own farm.  He worked as a farm hand and saved every penny he could until he could buy his own land.  He later went back to Germany to bring his brothers, Wilhelm and Heinrich (a 52 day trip each way on small sailing ships).  Even though they owned land in Germany and Heinrich (my great grandfather) was the heir to the land he didn't want it because the high taxes made it difficult make a living.  Luckily for him (and me) his sister married a wealthy land owner who could take the land and keep it in the family. All 3 brothers boarded the next ship over to America.  There they worked hard and eventually became some of biggest farmers in the area.

     They were proud hard working individuals who cared much about their freedom.  In the book it talked about how they wanted nothing to do with the Lutheran pastors that came from Germany because they were still listening to what the "state-church" was teaching and not what the Bible was teaching.  A Lutheran pastor says in the book, "There is a freedom in the churches have here in America that the state churches in Germany do not have".   This astonished me as I never knew that to be the case until now.

     Then came a section that absolutely astounded me.  The author mentions how many of the farmers were told they were eligible for Social Security even though many, like my grandpa Henry Vogel, never paid a dime into it.  90 year-old Heinrich Vogel refused to take it and said

"I am a free man!  I can take care of myself".

    I almost wept when I read these words because it saddens me to think about how far we have come in our nation.   To think that we are the descendants of men like this.  Men who braved the ocean (multiple times) to come here are start out on their own.  Men who built their homes from the lumber they cut from the woods around their farms.  Men, like my grandpa Henry C. Vogel (his real first name was Karl, but he reversed them to sound more American) who joined the army to fight in WWI and possibly fight against his own relatives. (he developed the flu the day before he was to ship over and they left him behind because they feared he had influenza.  He recovered but the next boat would not leave for another 6 months and by that time the war was ending)

    Have we become a nation of people like this guy, Jason Greenslate, who thinks its his

job to live on food stamps and welfare and to surf all day?   He was featured on a Fox News special looking into the expanding numbers of people receiving food stamps and welfare in our county.  Granted, he is the worst of the lot who does this, but there are many more like him who take from the government dole rather than take a job requiring manual labor. (note: on a future show he was offered a job making $80K driving a truck in the Montana oil fields. He declined the offer).

    Contrasting these 2 people, Jason Greenslate and Heinrich Vogel, we see 2 people who both say they are "free".   Jason believes himself to be free to surf all day and eat sushi and lobster.  He has no college education and wants to be a recording artist.  He will have enough money to get by on, but not enough to travel or raise a family on.  He will be required to live not too far from his welfare office to receive his daily allotment.  He will be required to vote for the politician who promises to keep his belly full and his surf board in the water.  But what will he do when the money runs out?  He will have no work history.  He will have no education.  He will have no skills to forage food on his own.  He will be forced to sell himself to whoever will take him for whatever money or food they will pay him.   The government which is giving him this "free money" is tallying up the total amount and will soon be demanding "payment" from him.  In the end, he will become a slave.

   People like Heinrich,  will be truly free to vote for who they want in office.  They will not be slaves to the government.  They will grow their own food if needed.  They will sew their own clothes.  They will build their own houses.  They will educate and train their own children.  They will worship their own God. 

1 Father or 2 Fathers?

  My son was in a discussion with his friends over religion one night.  He came to me the next day, still frustrated by their view that Christians and Muslims are worshiping the same God, just in different ways.  He asked me for some advice regarding this matter and after some time I came up with this response to his friends.

To Nick and Ryan,

    First of all you would be correct IF, both religions were said to be entirely "human inventions".  If that were the case then it is plausible that 2 different people would come up with 2 different methods of worshiping God and therefore you cannot find fault with either being incorrect.  In fact, we could have an infinite number of religions if that were so.  But alas, that is not the case. Both religions have at their center 2 people (Jesus and Muhammad) who speak for God and what God demands of his created people to do to please him.  In other words they are God-driven religions and not Man-driven religions.

   Second,  they cannot come from the same source.

   To explain, let me use the following illustration...

   You meet 2 new people, Jeff and Al.  In talking with them, you ask Al, "What's your dad like?".  He answers, "My Dad is tough.  I have to earn everything I get from him: my food, my clothes, my transportation.. Even my birthday gifts have to be earned by doing a list of jobs he gives me and even if I do all the jobs I am not guaranteed to get what I ask for"

    You then ask Jeff the same question and he replies, "My dad is great.  He tells me he loves me and he gives me everything I need to live.  Food, water, shelter.  He even gives me things I don't deserve"

    After hearing them, would you EVER think that Jeff and Al come from the SAME family and have the SAME father?

    Probably not.  For to have a father that is so harsh with one son and so benevolent with the other would be difficult to fathom.  How could that ever be?

   The same goes for Christianity and Islam.

3 pillars at Mina

   Islam demands you pray 3 times a day, fast on religious holidays, wear certain clothing, visit certain religious sites (like Mecca).  There is no certainty of forgiveness. In some sects, you must sacrifice and animal.  In other sects you perform Hajj and visit, Mina (near Mecca) , to throw a stone at 3 different pillars to be forgiven your sin for the last year (note, they had to extend the stone-throwing time from 1 hour after sunrise to 3 hours after sunrise because people were rushing in and trampling others to get their first).
 
   While Christianity says, God loves you!  He sent his only Son to die on a cross for your sins and he rose from the dead so you can know for certain you are forgiven.   He only wants you to change your life because you ARE saved, not to BE saved.  (he even forgives sinners like the thief on the cross next to him who has no opportunity to do any good works). 

 


 Sound like the SAME father .... or two DIFFERENT fathers?

Don't blame me!

Ever said those words?  I bet you have at some point.  Usually when someone is trying to include you into something bad that has happened that you had no play in. 

Don't blame me... I didn't vote for this
Don't blame me... I was on vacation at the time
Don't blame me... that happened before I started working here

etc. etc. etc.

As a white person, I often feel too that I am blamed for all it wrong.  For example, recently I watched a video of a black man yelling saying its the white peoples fault that they were brought here.  When I saw this, my first reaction was... Don't blame me.. MY ancestors came from Germany in 1870-1880 and we had nothing to do with slavery at all.

But this brings up an interesting thought.   How many white people currently here had ANY connection to slavery?   Millions upon millions came here in the late 1800's from Europe and had no say in what happened. Should we lump them into the same pot as the people back in the 1700's and early 1800's who did?   Is that fair to them?

Why is it okay for blacks to make derogatory statements against an entire race (actually skin color) and no one calls them on it?   To me, it's akin to saying "All blacks are lazy" when in fact they are not.   If it's wrong for a white person to say something like that ... then it should be equally wrong for a black to say that about a white.

This is also why those who believe in "reparations" are so wrong-minded.  Do you impose a "white tax" and distribute that money to a blacks with slave heritage?  If so, why should I be taxed for something I literally had no business with?  And who should get the money?   What if your like President Obama who is half-black and half-white.   Does he pay the tax AND get refund or does he only get a refund?   What if you are black, but your family moved here from Africa AFTER slavery ended?   Do you have to supply an ancestry document proving your heritage?  

When does it end? 

• With this generation?   
• With the next generation?   
• Never?

Do you see how silly this all is?

We need to all just put race behind us... both white AND black.   It doesn't serve any purpose anymore.

Change ONE variable at a time

    As a computer engineer I have to often "debug" problems that occur at my work.   They could be problems with computer simulation models, or hardware models, or software programs that are not working like they should etc...   In "debugging" these problems, we often resort to trial and error approaches.  We may re-run a test on a different machine or with a different option turned on or off to "root cause" the problem.  The problem many engineers get into is that in their haste to "fix the problem" they try too many things all at once.   If the problem goes away, that is good, but now you have no idea what caused the problem in the first place and you are bound to hit the problem again later.

   The answer is simple:  CHANGE ONE VARIABLE AT A TIME.

   This will show you what the real problem is and then you can seek to fix it.

   This applies not only to technical problems but I believe it applies to social problems as well.

   Take, for example, the Trayvon Martin vs. George Zimmerman case.  If you believe the jury got it wrong ask yourself this:  "What if Zimmerman was black and Martin was white?"   What do you think then?   Changing this one variable alone and leaving everything else the same... who's on top, who was following who, who punched who and who shot who.

   If THEN you say "The jury got it right." ... then I ask you this... "Who is the racist here?"

   The real definition of a "racist" is one who makes all of their decisions based on the color or ethnicity of a person and takes into account nothing else about them.  Strangely, racism itself is not racist at all for it has no skin color and it affects ALL humans regardless of their skin color.  

   My Challenge to YOU:

 

    The next time you hear of a white-on-black or black-on-white murder.... ask yourself this:
       
          "What if it was reversed?" 

     Maybe then we will all begin to seek REAL justice and not RACIAL justice.






  

2000 years and we have learned NOTHING!

   Watching the Trayvon Martin trial conclusion it deeply saddens me to see how many in the public have reacted.  To see people denigrate the decision of 6 jurors who sat through HOURS of testimony and were sequestered in a hotel for 22 days is deplorable.   Did they sit and watch every question and answer made in the trial?   Did they listen to the expert witnesses who showed that all the forensic evidence pointed to the fact that Trayvon was on TOP and Zimmerman was on the BOTTOM and this corroborated the eye-witness testimony of the person who say the fight and went to call the police?  What if things were reversed and Zimmerman was black and Martin was white (or hispanic)?  Would they still feel the same way about the ruling?

   It pains me even more to see people like Juan Williams go on Fox News and argue that the jury needed to make an emotional decision rather than a decision based on the facts in the case.  Really Juan???   Should we throw out "reasonable doubt" too?   While we're at it, let's just throw out the whole trial-by-jury system completely too since obviously you don't think we are smart enough to decide cases like this anymore.

   2000 years and nothing has changed...

   Jesus was brought before Pontius Pilate by a group of people who were through hearing what he had to say.  They trumped up some charges, whipped up the peoples fear that Jesus was a threat to their temple and their way of life causing them to cry out for the release of a notorious murderer.   Pilate, still feeling the pain of rebuke he received from Rome after he horribly handled a riot in the previous year, was in fear for his job as governor.   Even during his questioning of Jesus, he asks Jesus the amazing question "What is Truth?". A question of course he doesn't care to debate on.  After all, he had a riot in the making and now was not the time to debate. All that mattered to Rome was "results".


     What is truth today?

     Is it the evidence provided by the lawyers and decided upon by a jury of common people?

     Is it a nefarious scorecard, kept by political pundits and race-baters who say "It's one for the White team"  or "It's one for the Black team"?

     Is it the 5 year-old pictures used by the media to promote Trayvon as a "squeaky-clean" teen with nothing to hide rather than pictures of him as a 17 year-old, playing with guns, smoking pot and being in fights at school?

     Is it what brings you applause when your standing up on stage in front of thousands of adoring fans (like Stevie Wonder, or Bruce Springsteen?) 

     Is it what our President tells us when he tries to tie himself emotionally to the tragedy by saying "this could be him 35 years ago"?

    The Truth is ultimately what God sees. 

    Sometimes we get it right and sometimes we don't (it's not perfect, but it's the best we have).  Only Zimmerman and God knows exactly what happened that night.  The rest of us can only guess.  Zimmerman will have to walk through the rest of his life knowing he took a life and whether there was another answer or not.   That will be his "cross to bear".  

    It's been 2000 years and still people want "street justice" that is swift and easy.  They say, "Don't confuse me with the facts!  A 17 year-old boy was killed by a grown man".  They say, "Where is justice for Trayvon's parents?"   They cry out with pleas of  "No Justice! No Peace!"   Does this sound like "Crucify Him! Crucify Him!"  ?

     It does to me.

Sowing Democracy

   As I have grown and learned more and more about history, I have come to realize how rare and special this country of ours is.  At one time, I thought like President Bush that we can simply plant democracy in other places around the world but now I see differently.   One only has to look around the world today and see where democracy has flourished and where it has not to see it doesn't grow on its own.  The list of third-world countries where we have tried to make it work and failed is staggering.  So why is this?

   To illustrate let me use (hope I don't offend anyone here) Jesus' parable of the sower.

 While a large crowd was gathering and people were coming to Jesus from town after town, he told this parable: ⁵ “A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path; it was trampled on, and the birds ate it up. ⁶ Some fell on rocky ground, and when it came up, the plants withered because they had no moisture. ⁷ Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up with it and choked the plants. ⁸ Still other seed fell on good soil. It came up and yielded a crop, a hundred times more than was sown.”

    Like the kingdom of God, democracy falls on different soil.  In some cases, like the birds (who are

meant to symbolize the devil or evil in general)  who come in and snatch it away. Likewise, democracy has its detractors and people who do not want it at all.  They want the power for themselves and not for the people.  People like: Morsi in Egypt,  Assad in Syria, Kony in Uganda, Chavez in Venezuela, Muslim clerics in Iran, Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, Mao and the list goes on and on.  All of these men snatch the hopes of democracy from their peoples hands before it can even start.   

    Like the seed that fell on rocky soil (or soil with very little top-soil), some countries took in democracy and it grew fast but they lacked physical and spiritual resources to draw from and so when the bad times came, they abandoned it and went back to their tribal ways.  The best example of this today is Afghanistan.   We all remember the pictures of people voting for the first time and going to movie theaters (Taliban prohibited this) and flying kites (another activity prohibited by the Taliban).  But then their economy did not do well and corruption in their government (bribes) made the people lose hope and confidence in it and now some are going back to the Taliban.   We in America were BLESSED with an abundance of resources to pull from in bad times to sustain us.  We also were BLESSED with an abundance of religious faith that God was with us and would help us in our times of need.  Faith is the deep soil that holds the moister for us to draw from when times are bad.  It allows us to "keep our heads" and push through.  (Note: I personally believe that democracy cannot grow in Muslim countries for the very reason that it teaches God punishes you for your wrongs and does not love you as a person. To me, you have a different outlook on bad times when you believe God loves you and has paid for all of your sins).

    Like the seed that fell among the weeds,  both the good and the bad made use of the soil but the bad got the better of the good.  How often do we see countries who elect leaders who seem to say all

the right things but in reality they are not who they say they are.   Like weeds that look like good plants, they grow up among us with ill-will towards us.  Their intent is to "choke" us and "starve" us of the nutrients democracy needs to grow.  Unlike the birds, or the rocky soil, their destruction is slow and painful.   They do this by restricting their people, by taking away their guns, limiting their free-speech, prosecuting their press agents, increasing their taxes, regulating what they can do and how they can earn a living.   (Sound familiar?).  To weed them out is not easy.  Weed pulling requires people to discriminate between good and bad plants and we have been trained that "discrimination is bad".   But not all discrimination is bad for while discrimination based on surface issues like race, color or gender is wrong, discrimination based on known results is not.   For example, taking the car keys away from a person who has been drinking is not discriminating against "drinkers". Instead, it's calling a person out based on past experiences of outcomes.   But sadly, many today are taught that ALL forms of government are equally good in their own way.  They teach that socialism, communism,  and totalitarianism are all equally valid forms of government and we should give equal time to all of them despite the overwhelming evidence how destructive they are.  Reagan referred to this in his famous "Destiny Speech" as accommodation and he warned us that it will not end well for us if take that course (surrender).  But like giving the weeds in your garden the same amount of water and fertilizer as your flowers, you know what you will get in the end. A garden full of weeds.


    Our country however was planted in good soil.

• An abundance of resources to pull from (land,trees,oil,coal,iron,water)
• Found by people of religious faith, Christians and Jews, who were principled in their lives (not perfect by any means) and through self-control were free to live their lives under a limited government.
• Provided with great leaders like George Washington, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson to gave us stable and honest leadership in our early years and set the standard for future presidents so HIGH that it would take 232 years to deteriorate to the despotic level we have today.
• Intelligent men like Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin who through their education and knowledge of history and understanding of human-nature were able to frame for us a government that (until recently) has been one of checks and balances to limit its powers to harass and control its people. 

   This 4th of July, take time to acknowledge how special of a place you are living and let us all pledge ourselves to protect it for future generations to enjoy.












  




 

True men of courage

     As we approach the 4th of July let us never forget the courage our Founding Fathers had to put their name on a document that could possibly cost them and their families their lives if this revolution failed.   As Benjamin Franklin famously said after the signing, "We must surely hang together or assuredly we shall all hang separately".   Meaning we must stick together or we will hang as traitors if we lose. Many do not realize that the penalty for treason was extremely harsh.  First you were hanged until almost dead, then you were taken down, drawn-and-quartered (cut in 4 pieces) and your head was placed on a pike outside the city for everyone to see.  Also, your family (for two generations) would be punished as well by losing all their property and they would not be allowed to own any property or businesses, thereby making them perpetually impoverished.

    These men showed us what it means to have courage and we are now beginning to see people today following their lead was well:

• A Pastor in NJ is holding a worship service on a public beach even though the government would not give him a permit sighting separation of church and state
• Colorado Sheriffs standing up and saying they will not enforce the states strict gun laws sighting the 2nd amendment
• A boy in Colorado wears an NRA T-shirt to school despite being told he cannot because it violates their dress code.  He was arrested and charged with interfering with a police officer and risked going to jail.  The charges have been dropped.
• People in Erie PA, challenge the cities open-carry-ban in city parks by holding an open-carry-rally in the park and challenge police officers taking names
• People in Georgia are challenging some counties decision to forcibly draw blood as proof of a DUI using a rubber-stamp-warrant (remember the founding father's mention the King's use of "general warrants" as an abuse of power).  They tie down the person, put him in a head-lock and then draw blood. 
• Several high school seniors have challenged their schools graduation speech restrictions and openly prayed at their graduations.  One had his microphone turned off and was threatened to lose his college scholarship by having the Principal write a letter to the school. 

    As Franklin said:  "We must surely hang together or assuredly we shall all hang separately"

A "match of whits" we cannot win

    One of my all-time favorite movies is "The Princess Bride" (it was where my wife first let me know how she felt about me).  One of the most memorable scenes is the infamous "Match of Whits" scene (see above), where the masked man challenges a thief to a match of whits.  The masked man supposedly puts poison in one of the cups and challenges the thief to figure out which one.  They would then drink their glasses and the winner would be the one that is not dead.  Of course, those of us who've seen the movie know the masked man puts it in BOTH the glasses and he has "inoculated" himself from the poison by exposing himself to the poison in small amounts over a very long time.  It was a "lose-lose" situation for the thief and a "win-win" for the masked man.

    This is the same situation now for the GOP as they are being engaged in a "match of whits" with the democrats over the immigration bill.   We in the GOP are told that unless we pass this bill we will never get any votes from the Hispanic community every again.   We are told we need to reach out to them and pander to their demands of amnesty.   But in the heart of this bill is amnesty itself and no security on our southern border.  This bill will essentially add millions of new voters to the DNC and therefore the GOP will never win another major election again.

    The real answer is to uphold the Constitution and the rule of law rather than ignoring it.  We need to :

1. Secure our border (Mexico secures its southern border ... why don't we?) 
2. Penalize companies that TAKE jobs from Americans and give them to illegals
3. End the anchor-baby loop-hole (no other country allows children born in its borders to become automatic citizens.... why do we?)

    This is what needs to be done.  It's not racist... it's called CITIZENSHIP which I am entitled to and others can obtain ... IF they take the path that is provided to them.   Yes the GOP might still lose future elections, but at least then we have a fighting chance.  The other choice only gives amnesty to millions of people who don't care for our laws (they broke them to get here), our Constitution, our principles, our history or even our flag (how often I see them at rallies still flying the flag of Mexico).


     Call your Congressmen and URGE THEM TO NOT PASS THE IMMIGRATION BILL!

Santa Claus is coming to town!

Okay, so its 90 degrees out and no where near Christmas, but given the current situation in DC these days and their tracking of phone records for ALL customers of Verizon,  I could not help but re-write the Christmas carol "Santa Claus is coming to town"

You better watch out

Better not pry
Better not spout
I'm telling you why
Washington is getting your calls

He's making a list
and checking it twice
He's gone find out who's ratting or not
Washington is getting your calls

He sees when you are snitching
He knows who you have called
He knows if you been bad or good
So be mute for goodness sake

You better watch out
Better not pry
Better not spout
I'm telling you why
Washington is getting your calls

With a few calls here and few calls there
a little check here and a little check there

Holder throws your a** in jail

The commies in the White House
will have a jubilee
Their going to build a Marxist-State
all around our great country

You better watch out
Better not pry
Better not spout
I'm telling you why
Washington is getting your calls

Free Will and Quantum Mechanics.

     I was thinking one day about "free will" and God's "predestination" of our lives (yes I know ... not something somebody normally thinks about... so sue me!)

     One problem people have with predestination is that idea that God had set up the universe in such a way that some are going to hell and some are going to heaven and that we have no choice in the matter.

     From a Newtonian Physics point of view they are correct.  For example.  If I take a ball a a known mass and put it on a spring of a known strength into a vacuum chamber (no air to interfere) I can with very great accuracy calculate where the ball will hit when I pull down on the spring and let it go.  I can do this because I know all the other "initial states of the system" (the ball,the spring, the strength of gravity).  You might say I have "predestined" the ball to land in a particular place and it has no other choice to land there.   

     So also many people see the whole of the universe and that God has set up the conditions for the universe to run a predefined course and where we "land" was completely God's doing.

      But then came a new kind of physics in the early 1900's called Quantum Mechanics.  This was largely due to anomalies found in experiments when it came to very small particles such as electrons.  Scientists started to see that these tiny particles exhibited properties of both mass and light.   They called this the "particle-wave duality".  This led to findings that these particles could not be described using Newtonian physics where we "know" the initial state and can determine the exact outcome, but instead we can only talk about possible states, possible outcomes and probabilities.  Einstein hated this concept at first exclaiming "God does not play dice!"  but after some time and convincing he did come to the realization that God does play dice.  In fact it is this very particle-wave duality which gives our universe the richness and variety of atoms it desperately needs for without it all the atoms in the universe would be nothing more than small round balls of electrons hugging the nucleus of the atom.  These atoms would merely roll around and provide no geometric structure that our DNA molecule needs, that diamonds need, that water molecules need etc..

Carbon Molecule

    Now how does all this fit with "Free Will" you ask.  To me, the addition of Quantum Mechanics (probability) says God does not "force" anyone to go to hell in the way the ball on the spring is "forced" to land at a certain point on the floor.   There is a chance it will and a chance it will not.  It is God's gift of "free will" to the universe and in a sense creates it and lets it go. (Of course some would I guess still say I am splitting hairs here and absolving God of what happens to his creation)

     Now of course God being outside of time and space can know where it's going to end up and by letting it happen (not hitting the "abort button") he has predestined us.  He  also of course does not just let the universe all go to hell.. instead he reaches in and alters its course by the sending of his Son Jesus Christ to redeem us all.

     Does this mean we can "choose God" ?   Not in the least.   To use another illustration let me use that of a magnet and an iron nail.   When the nail is left by itself, its iron atoms have disorganized magnetic poles inside of it, pointing all random directions.   There is no chance at all all that all of a sudden left to itself they will all decide to point in the same direction and become a magnet.  But when they come in the presence of a strong magnet, they suddenly rotate and align themselves with the magnetic flux lines.  The nail then becomes attracted to the magnet.

It is not the nail attracting the magnet but the other way around.   The nail can resist becoming a magnet (rust, dirt, etc) and not go to the magnet, but it cannot go to the magnet on its own power. So also it is when God calls us.  We can resist the call by our own sinful lives but we cannot by our own goodness come to him.   It is only by his grace and power that he "draws all men" to himself.

Gallup .. a lagging indicator

Looking at the above table of recent polls, do you see something amiss or troubling? 

I do and I think if you are an honest person you do as well.  Gallup is the only polling company that has yet to show the President is in trouble.   They seem to be dragging their feet to going negative.  Could it be that the Dept. of Justice still has a criminal case pending against the Gallup for possible "over billing" of the government? 

To me, Gallup has become a "lagging indicator" rather than a "leading indicator" of the countries concerns and views.   And like economic lagging indicators, they are completely WORTHLESS as they show what we already know rather than the storm that is headed our way.

Gallup, you are worthless and pathetic.