A life of appeasement is not worth living

     You've probably heard the phrase:

                    "If you don't stand for something, you will will fall for anything".


     I was listening to Ronald Reagan's famous 1960 Destiny speech in which he makes the argument against "accommodation" saying that accommodation is really appeasement and that by appeasing the enemy you eventually have to answer the "final ultimatum"... and what then.  He gave this speech at the height of the cold war with communist Russia and in the speech says that the path to true peace is not backing down, but instead standing up to our enemies and telling them "there is a price we will not pay, a point at which they must not advance".


     I started to look at this speech at a more personal level in my own life and our children's lives.  It began when I heard of Riley Stratton, a girl in a Minnesota high school, who was forced to hand over the password to her laptop and Facebook account to her principal under the threat of dismissal (there was also a police officer in attendance as well).  She was "broken" by her masters and ended up complying with their demands (while in tears).   Like that girl we are all called upon to "accommodate" the government and their demands on us and as a Christian, I can agree with that for the most part (Paul tells us "if taxes, then pay taxes, if honor , then pay honor") but that does not mean we need to appease them and their demands.

     We all just want to get through life.  I can hear the parents now telling their daughter, "just give them the password and move on.  You will be in college next year...don't make any waves".   Then their daughter will go on to college and there too she will be forced to accommodate the college and their beliefs.  She again will be told, "Just give them what they want ... you will be out of there soon and working on your own".   Then later she will be out of college and working (maybe for the government) and she will be pressured to accommodate the workplace and make unethical decisions so she can make her way up the ladder.   All the time, accommodating, retreating, backing down and losing more and more of her soul until there is nothing left.

     I find it interesting that in Reagan's speech he talks about how the Russian leader said that when the final demand is made on the USA,

"Our surrender will be voluntary because by that time we will be weakened from within: spiritually, morally and economically".   

     What does that have to do with accommodation?  The answer is everything.   If you go back to my first paragraph, I say "If you don't stand for something, you will fall for anything".  You see, living a life of appeasement never ends well. By accommodating EVIL in our lives, the GOOD in us shrinks (never the other way around).  By appeasing we give evil a base to work from in our hearts and souls and in the end we must face the final demand:  total and unquestioning control of our lives.

     Going back to the girl in Minnesota, what would happen if she refused to hand over her PRIVATE information to the school principal (who has no legal authority to request such information in the first place).   Well, she might have been suspended for a time, maybe even have to leave that school to go to a different school.  Maybe that mark on her record would keep her from going to the ivy-league college she dreamed of and would have to live with going to a state-school instead.  Because she went to a state-school she might have to take a less prestigious job and start on a lower rung of the corporate ladder.

    But she would have maintained her soul intact.

    Jesus showed how priceless one's soul was by using hyperbole when he said, 

"What does it profit a man to gain the WHOLE world and yet lose his own soul".  

    He said this to get across to us the importance of not accommodating evil in our lives.  Reagan spoke of this as well in his speech when he said,

 "You and I do not believe that life is so dear and peace so sweet that it should be purchased at the price of the chains of slavery".   

     We all need to stand together and reclaim our rights as citizens and stop appeasing the government and handing over our rights.  Whether it's our right to not be searched and seized without warrant, or our right to privacy or our right to say what is on our minds and in our hearts, or our faith in God, or our right to protect ourselves and our families or even our right to a speedy trial by our peers.  We all have this constitution in common.  We may not agree with each other on other matters, but we all need to fight for each others rights to be free citizens. 

     To end, I would like to finish with Reagan's final words in his "Rendezvous with Destiny" speech. 

"You and I have a rendezvous with destiny.  We will preserve for ourselves and our children this the best hope yet for mankind on earth or we will sentence them to take the final step into a thousand years of darkness". 

Using Capitalism to Control Free Speech

   There's an old Marxist phrase that says:

      "The capitalist will sell you the rope you intend to hang him with"

     It essentially means that money means more to the capitalist than his freedom (or in this case his life) and no truer words were ever spoken than these as we see this played out today in our country.

     I remember when the term "politically correct" (PC) first came out.  At first it was used by people on the left from college campuses and we were taught that it was just about us policing our speech to be more tolerant for others.  Black was replaced with African-American.  Chinese was replaced with Asian-American.  Alternative-Lifestyle replaced words like gay, queer or homosexual.  For the most part we bought into the new terminology and accepted it as fashionable or accepting of others (although I was always confused why "white" never was given a PC term and continues to be used today).

    But the march of the PC police did not simply stop with our terminology.  Today the left hunts down those with politically "incorrect" views and ideas regardless of whether those views are of any concern.   By using the capitalist system, they have managed to do what they were never able to do through the power of the government: instill fear into the American mind.  Communists for years tried to use government to squelch speech and thought, but were stymied by our 1st Amendment rights which guarantee these freedoms to its citizens.   So they turned to the "free market" system to do their dirty work by taking the freedom out of the free market and like the phrase says, the capitalists have been more than will to "sell them the rope".

    Take for example the former CEO of Mozilla, Brendan Eich, who in 2008 gave $1000 to support California Prop-8 (a traditional marriage proposition).  His PERSONAL contribution mysteriously becomes public knowledge in 2014 and a pro-gay organization mounted a campaign to boycott Mozilla.  Fearing lost revenues the board decided to fire Eich from his position rather than stand up for Eich's right to hold his own personal views.    Did Eich not hire gay workers?  No.  Did he write a company policy on hiring gay workers? No.  Did he have his company give money to anti-gay organizations?  No.  Did he have his company put anti-gay statements on their companies website?  No.  He merely gave a $1000 to a political organization from his personal account on his own personal time.

    Another more recent example is Miami Dolphins safety Don Jones.  He recently made a tweet about being offended by viewing Michael Sam (NFL's first openly gay player) kissing his boyfriend on national TV after being drafted.   The Miami Dolphins acted quickly having fined Don Jones and barring him from team activities until he has finished "training classes for his recent remarks".   So now it is not enough to be fined, he will have to go through extensive "brainwashing" in order to keep his job as a professional football player.  Did he say he would not play with a gay player?  No.  Did he make remarks about what he would do in the showers with a gay player? No.   He just stated how he felt about what he saw.

     Then there is the story of the Benham brothers.  Twin brothers who own a home remodeling company were to be stars of their own show on HGTV called "Flipping it forward" in which they would help poor people renovate their houses.   The two brothers are outspoken and unabashed Christians.  A group called "Right Wing Watch" dug up statements they made on gay marriage and abortion advocated for the show to be boycotted.   HGTV, like all the rest,  crumbled like a cheap lawn chair and caved to the pressure by pulling the show.    Of course after doing some research (and who has time to do that these days) it can be found that the statements used were completely out of context and misstated altogether.   Were the two brothers only helping Christians? No.  Where they espousing gays be rounded up and re-educated?  No.  Were they advocating for abortion doctors to be killed or lose their license to practice? No.

   Finally there is the story of Don Sterling, owner of the LA Clippers.   Recently his views were made public by an escort who illegally recorded him making racist remarks regarding black people.  First off, he's a fool and an idiot! But the last I saw there's no law against being either (if it were Washington DC would be void of people for they would all be in jail).  The NBA, fearing reprisal from the black community now wants to force the sale of the LA Clippers from Donald Sterling, while still others want to make it even MORE permanent by making it illegal for anyone of Sterling's descendents to EVER own an NBA team (punishing the children for the sins of the father).   Did Don Sterling pay black players less than white players?  No.  Did Don Sterling order only white players should be hired?  No.   Did Don Sterling order only white people can be season ticket holders?  No.  Did any of us even know Don Sterling held racist views before this came out?  No.  Did Sterling have separate seating for blacks and whites?  No.  He is just a stupid old man who is too trusting of the people around him.

Putting Profit Over Principle

    In each of the above cases, a corporation fearing a loss of revenues (no matter how small) is willing to trample on a persons freedom of thought and expression (even if that expressions was thought to be private).   But these knee-jerk decisions are shortsighted.  Like the capitalist selling the rope to the hangman, eventually his willingness to sell off freedom will come back and kill him.  Recently a conference took place in Madison Wisconsin, called the White Privilege Conference in which teachers, administrators and high school students were indoctrinated for 3 days on the idea that "racism drives everything in our country"  and that "capitalism == racism".   Hidden video has been leaked out from the conference showing some of the most vile and hateful statements on race I have ever heard.  In my opinion, the PC police will not stop until they control everything in this country.  Will organizers boycott any company that does not have a black (or at least non-white, non-heterosexual, non-christian) CEO at their helm?   What about their board of directors?  How many of them are white or non-white?     Have they given money to "racist parties" (sarcasm added) like the GOP?   Are they racist if they believe in small government and low taxes?

     Maybe you consider me to be an alarmist, but many also sneered and mocked the PC movement in the 90's and now lament as to where it has gotten us.  If the "White Privilege Movement" takes root in our country like the PC movement we will see our country slide into the same racial hatred that Nazi Germany experienced in the 1930's.   To me, the White Privilege Movement is not much dissimilar than the Aryan Movement used to by Hitler to rouse hatred of the disenfranchised in his country.  Hitler used this hatred to put him into power and once in power he no longer needed these people and had many of them murdered in "The Night of Long Knives".  

    Finally, this "racial-bullying" will not end until the companies wake up to what is happening and see that the noose is tightening around them and they stand up to these PC bullies for the rights of their employees to believe and speak what they believe.   Until they do that the PC bullies will only get more extreme and more demanding until free speech is a faint thing of the past.

    Otherwise company execs, the only question left for you is this:

                         "Do you want your noose made of nylon or hemp rope?"

 











    

Fear and Respect

    I own my own home and all the contents inside of it (we paid the bank off 2 years ago!).   Every room in it, every piece of furniture, every painting, every TV, every computer has been purchased with the money I earned.   I have the right to go into any room I choose at any time.  Yet when I come to my son or daughters rooms, I knock and ask "May I come in?".   Why?  Because I respect them as individuals and their right to privacy.   My children both fear and respect me as their father as I also feared and respected my father (although it embarrassed the heck out of me to see him mowing the lawn in his plaid shorts and shoes with black socks).   The two go hand in hand.  Fear and Respect.  They are two sides of the same coin. 

   Fear is an external motivator to do what your told to do.  For a child, it's seeing the fly-swatter or the "paddle" hanging on the wall that reminds you what might happen if you disobey and it's reserved for times of direct and outright disobedience.   Sometimes all my father had to do was give us "that look" and we knew what would come next and we straightened up and did what we were told to do.

    Respect on the other hand is an internal motivator.  I respected my father because I knew he respected me as a person as well.  Like asking for permission to enter the bedroom so also I respected his rights to put demands on me to be home at a decent hour when I lived under his roof.   Sadly, we
have probably all seen cases, whether in our own families or other families around us, where a father (or mother) has lost the respect of their children either because the parent is addicted to drugs or alcohol or their poor choices of mates that causes the children to lose respect for them and actually hate them rather than love them.   Far too often in these same families as we see the respect diminish we then see these parents resort to harsher and harsher punishments to inflict fear on members of the family to make make up for the lack of respect.  Finally with all respect lost, we see that no amount of external motivation will have an effect on them and the family disintegrates.

     So also those in our government today.  Some rely on their titles to give them respect when it is not the office that garners that respect but what you do while in that office.  And like the parent that loses the respect of their children, so also as the people feel that their individual rights are respected less and less by the government, the government will have to rely on fear to motivate its citizens to comply.

• When we see our government officials disregard the law and make exceptions for themselves and their workers... we lose respect.  
• When they commit crimes and are able to simply retire with full benefits... we lose respect.
• When they feel its in their right to limit our freedom of speech and political action (IRS scandal).... we lose respect
• When the outright lie to us (ObamaCare and Benghazi).... we lose respect.

    Some in government feel that they can make up for this loss in respect by increasing fear.  We saw the BLM (Bureau of Land Management) show up with helicopters, AR-15's, sniper-rifles, dogs, tazors, camouflage and flack-jackets.   Really?  BLM needs para-military equipment to do its job?   We also know that many other departments have also increased their levels of force as well.  The HSA, ATF, IRS and yes, even the EPA has acquired military style equipment and purchased billions of rounds of ammunition.  Local police forces as well have obtained similar equipment through the Patriot Act and efforts to counter so-called terrorism.  Like a bad parent who feels the grounding is not harsh enough anymore and needs to use a baseball bat to get their point across so also our government seems to have gone the same way as well.  

    We need to put people back in Washington who will help "restrain" our federal government and "respect" its citizens again rather then call them "domestic terrorists" like Sen. Harry Reid has done recently.  Such rhetoric does not garner respect but only inflames the citizens more which will only make politicians like Harry Reid resort to more violent means to get their way.  We need Washington to obey its laws (both the letter of the law and also the spirit of the law) so "We The People" can have confidence once again in them and their laws that they pass.   And finally we need to demand that organizations that like the BLM, IRS, HSA and the EPA be DE-militarized and rely on local law enforcement if needed.   These military-style tactics do not belong inside the borders of the United States of America.  They belong in war torn countries like Afghanistan, but not here.
   

The importance of "Moral Authority"

      It was like a scene out of a Hollywood movie ( a cross between "High Noon at the OK Corral"  and "The Hunger Games") where the little guy stood up against the big bad government and won!  Last weekend we saw the Bundy Ranch face-off end with no guns fired and the BLM workers step back.    It was amazing to watch men and women on horseback with nothing more than flags in their hands stand up to men in military "camo" carrying semi-automatic weapons and flying around in helicopters.

      I have heard many "legal arguments" showing that the Bundy's have no legal leg to stand on.  Arguments such as the fact that Nevada has in its constitution declarations that much of its land is owned by the federal government and that two to the Bundy's efforts in court have failed to change that.  While I agree in principle the Bundy's may have no legal authority, they do have moral authority on their side.   For without a moral authority to back up the legal authority the men of the BLM cannot enforce their so-called rules and regulations.   (I hope that the people support Bundy took notice that it was not the militia's showing up with their guns that ended the confrontation, but instead unarmed people banding together on horseback that did the trick)

    We as Americans have always been for freedom and fairness in our country.  Anyone who looks at

Federal Land in red

the situation in Nevada must feel that something is wrong where a federal government owns over 80% of a state.  How can that be?  Does New Jersey or New York or Virgina have large swathes of land that is not theirs even though it is within their own borders?    Obviously not.  Who of us would buy a parcel of land if we found out that the neighbor next door controls your backyard and has a legal right to use it however they wish?  Would we not say that such an agreement made in the past should be revisited and be changed?  Should not Nevada also be free to change their constitution and reclaim its land for its own use and prosperity?

     Yes, you can quote all the laws involved (Taylor Grazing Act of 1934 or the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976) or sight the court cases like "United States vs Gardner"  but if the will of the people and their view of what they see as morally right does not support you then you have no way of enforcing those laws.   We saw this during last weeks stand-off when we saw that armed men with shiny little badges from the BLM were no match unarmed men and women on horseback armed only with flags and cell-phones.   On many occasions they threatened to shoot if they came past the gate (which BLM erected), but in the end they knew what they were doing was not right and they could not pull the trigger on these people.

    Moral authority trumped legal authority.

    To those who quote these ancient rulings and regulations, does it ever occur to you that the law may be wrong?  Maybe these laws need to be re-written?   That peoples freedoms for years have been trampled on and now its time to rectify the situation?    Could it be that when these laws were passed that our government which was run mostly by people on the east coast over stepped their bounds?

     Simply put:  Laws that are not challenged are never changed.

    The Bundy's may not have a legal leg to stand on, but in the eyes of the people their moral authority is in good standing with the court of public opinion.

    Of course the battle is not over with the Bundy Ranch and the federal government is weighing its options for its next course of action. But for now the scoreboard reads:

                                                   BUNDY:  1     FEDS:   0

FINAL NOTE:

   Government must realize that the law enforcement is a two-way-street.  If they are not willing to abide by their own laws and the Constitution then also they are inviting others to do so as well at their own peril.  For Senator Harry Reid to talk about people disregarding the law while he and President Obama have bypassed the rules laid out by the Constitution is nothing short of astounding.  "We The People" restrain ourselves because we see our government restrain itself.  We abide by the law because we see our government and its officials abide by the law as well.

THE END IS NEAR!

   We are told that "change is good".   But change is good or bad depending on your point of view.  If we change the Senate from Democrat control to Republican control,  one third of the country will be happy while another third will be upset (the other third doesn't give a crap... but that's another blog for another time).

   The issue that I am about to discuss will of course make some people angry or scared, but for most of our world it will be welcomed news.  That news is that "Moore's Law" is coming to an end.

   What's Moore's Law?

   ML is not really a "law" like that of the "Law of Gravity" or the "Laws of Motion".  It's actually more of a prediction than anything else.   It was first created by Gordon Moore who was a co-founder of Intel Corporation.  He predicted that the number of transistors put on a chip would double every 2 years and for the past 45 years its been very accurate and is the main driver behind all the technological advancement of the last 50 years and because it was so accurate of a prediction for so long it had the appearance of a law of nature.

   First,  to those are not aware of what it means to double something every 2 years.  Let me put it this way.   Let's assume you start with 1 penny and we double your savings every 2 years...

As you can see from the table, doubling your savings every 2 years goes up to 4.2 billion dollars by the time you are ready to retire (if you started this when you were a baby).  The number get very large, very quickly.   This expansion of the technological-universe is the driving force behind you being able to play 3D games, or watch full-length HD movies, take pictures and video, get directions and find just about anything you want on a device smaller than a pack  of playing cards.

   Since working at Intel I have seen many doublings due to Moore's Law (12 in fact ... and counting).  When I first started working at Intel the i486 was the new processor on the block and it was the first 1 MILLION transistor part in existence and was manufactured using 800nm (thats' 800 billionths of a meter) technology.  Today, using our 14nm (that's 14 billionths of a meter) we could put approximately 3300 i486 on a single chip.   Imagine that!  Over 3000 computers (which would take fill a large room) on a single piece of silicon the size of a postage-stamp. 

    Many people take data like this an extrapolate far into the future and try to imagine the possibilities.  But the world is not always that predictable in truth and the same holds true for Moore's law as well.   Take for example the size of a single silicon atom.  According to Wikipedia, the Van Der Waals radius 210pm or .210nm.   Therefore current transistors are approximately 66 (14/0.210) atoms wide.  For transistors to operate properly they MUST stop electrons from moving through them when their gate-voltage is off.  However at about 1-3nm, a quantum effect called "quantum tunneling" occurs which allows electrons to move from one side of a barrier to another without going through it.

You might be a libertarian

     One of my most favorite comedians of ALL time is Jeff Foxworthy.   He is well known across the United

States for his routine called "You might be a redneck" in which poses a series of  "IF you _______ then you might be a redneck".   For example, he once said, "If your senior prom had on-sight day-care.... you might be a redneck".   Or another time he said, "If the directions to your house includes the words 'now get off paved road' you might be a redneck.

    Having grown up in Southern Illinois (we refer to ourselves that way to say "we don't want anything to do with Chicago")  I could relate to that humor as I could recall people I went to school with that resembled those descriptions. Sometimes I even saw some of those descriptions in myself and would say, "Oh yeah, I guess I am a redneck too!".

    That is true in many other circumstances also.  Sometimes we don't recognize who we really are until someone holds up a mirror to our face and we say "Oh yeah, that's me too!"    Take for example political affiliations.  We grow up with a certain set of political ideals but as we grow up and the world changes around us we don't see that we don't fit those affiliations anymore, yet we continue to support them with our money and our votes.  Many for example will say they are democrat, but when asked if they support the President sending troops without Congressional approval or IRS mistreating groups because they are from another political persuasion or the use of drones to kill American citizens abroad and most likely they will give you a emphatic  "NO!"

    Personally, I refer to myself now as a "recovering republican" as much I see in the republican party I no longer agree with.  Ronald Reagan left the democrat party as they no longer espoused the same views as he had and they went their separate ways.  I too, also feel that way about the GOP as I do not agree with the "Patriot Act", or "No Child Left Behind", or "Common Core" or "being the worlds police force".   It has taken several years of soul searching to come to this conclusion.  Some will call me a "Loser-terian" (Michael Medved on the radio does this) claiming libertarians can't win.  But I say "So What!".  To me, the GOP needs to be reformed.  Like Martin Luther tried to do with the Catholic Church in the 1500's so also we need try to reform the GOP.   It's not enough to vote GOP just to win some elections so we can ease up on the gas a little as America is driving off the edge of a fiscal cliff.   We need to put people in who are willing to slam on the brakes and turn the car around.

     Maybe you are like me... a libertarian.  Take the following quiz to see if you are

1) IF you believe the government has no business in what we do in privacy of our homes  (marriage,
     recreation, education)....     You might be a libertarian

2) IF you believe that schools should be accountable to parents and not bureaucrats....
    You might be a libertarian

3) IF you believe taxes should be as easy as paying you electric bill.....You might be a libertarian

4) IF you believe that the private sector does everything more efficiently and cost-effectively than the
     public-sector....   You might be a libertarian

5) IF you believe your government should obtain a specific search warrant for your electronic information
    such as email and phones.... You might be a libertarian

6) IF you believe government should never trample on ones freedom of belief or conscience....
    You might be a libertarian

7) IF you believe that your party (R or D) does not stand for the individual anymore but only for corporate
     lobbyists .... You might be a libertarian

8) IF you believe ALL people (white,black,red,yellow..) should be treated 100% the same and without
    favoritism  ....You might be a libertarian

9) IF you believe that the use of military/government drones should be never used within the borders of the
    United States.....  You might be a libertarian

10) IF you believe that a US citizen should never be killed by drone (Obama has killed 4) but should be
      arrested and given their day in court....  You might be a libertarian


Of course you might not agree with ALL of them, but I think if you kind yourself saying YES to at least 5 of them, it's probably a pretty good bet that your are indeed ....

A libertarian

Why CONTROL is bad and CHAOS is good

     Do you remember the old "Get Smart" TV show in which 2 agencies, KAOS and CONTROL,

battled it out in 007 like fashion only with Mel Brooks style humor?   I loved that show and all its crazy antics and gags.  Today ,it seems, we have the same agencies at work in our country today only they are not fighting each other with shoe-phones and pen-lazers.  Instead they are fighting each other in the public vs private sector.

    On the one side we have CONTROL (government) and on the other side we have KAOS (private sector).   But unlike the TV show, it's KAOS (in my opinion) that are the good guys and CONTROL that is that bad guys.   Our government has done a good job of indoctrinating us that chaos is bad for our society and that order and control are more palatable and sustainable.   While some manner of regulation is good (to keep the trains running on time),  long-range planning and development are not the public-sectors best qualities.  Whenever the  idea of giving over an area of operation from the government to a private-sector entity, many naysayers will most likely jump and down like a bunch of frogs declaring, "There will be CHAOS if we let that happen! We need the government to have CONTROL of this/that area!"

   But in the long run, chaos is actually better than control.   Take for example, our earth's web-of-life. While there is no over-arching control mechanism (if you believe in evolution) it seems to manage itself quite well.  Sure, millions of species have gone extinct over its billions of years, but things have still progressed.   Chaos allows for nature to develop a myriad of solutions geared to survive/thrive in the most inhospitable places on the planet as each creature is solving a very simple equation:

     Those acquainted with math will know that their are 2 ways to maximize this function.  The first is of course to extend your life span, but the other is to make the energy-used as SMALL as possible.  Of course the 2 factors are also interdependent in many ways.  I can expand my life-span by going to the gym and exercising, but expending too much energy at one time can also end my life if I am not careful.  So also, creation knows that by living longer it provides them more opportunities to create more of their kind and by limiting their energy they can ensure that they provide themselves stored energy for times when food supplies are low.

    Take for example,  the Spadefoot Toad that lives in the Arizona
Desert (yes there are frogs there).  These toads bury themselves in the ground and go into hibernation waiting for the first good rain to happen.  When it does, they are re-activated and come out to mate before the water dries up.  They have adapted their lives to their environment to solve the equation the way no other toad could.

This is what I call:  goal-based-chaos.

    The problem with control-based-systems, is that like a chessboard with an infinite-by-infinite board space you cannot possibly consider all the possibilities and therefore you
cannot play out all possible actions and reactions.  Therefore those in charge must limit their choices to but a handful of moves and only look ahead to 1 or 2 moves.  This short-sighted and limited choice player is doomed to lose against its opponent: the universe.  Imagine yourself playing chess on 100-dimensional chessboard with against 99 players who are not playing against each other, but instead are playing against YOU.  Not only are they playing against you, they have another advantage as well in that hey will out live you too!    What probability do you think you have in winning that game?  Answer: ZERO!   But that is exactly the game you play when trying to control the universe.   Your better option would be to relinquish control and adopt a chaotic-system approach in which it's not just YOU a single person, but instead 6 BILLION (and counting) of you playing at the same time, each for its own advantage but combined have better odds of winning (or at least lasting longer in the game).

     Take for example the issue of education.  We hear many politicians cry that we need to "educate our children for the jobs of the future!".   When they say this they are implying high-tech-computer-driven jobs of course.   They push for computers in every classroom, computer-literacy classes, web-driven-education and the like.  They mandate educational programs like "Common Core" to standardize education for the masses and prepare them for jobs of the future.    Too often, these same politicians view education like a automobile-assembly-line in which employers
at the end of the line receive their "finished product" (your child) ready to work in their corporate kingdom of cubicles.  They act as if they were given crystal ball in which they have stared into the future or something of that matter and can predict what kinds of "workers" our world will need.   But the truth be told, they have no such crystal-ball.  They, like the rest of us, are merely extrapolating what is happening around them today and trying desperately to see the next move on the chessboard. By "standardizing" the education process they are limiting the outcomes in what our children may become.

What will the jobs be in 20 years?   I don't know ... and neither do our politicians.  

      To understand this better, consider the following.  Our planet recently (last summer) came 9 days

away from being struck by a solar-blast that would have sent us back to the early 1800's by wiping our our complete electrical grid and high-tech instruments (satellites, computers,... etc) for a minimum of 5 to 10 years!  (this is not a conspiracy theory as this was reported on all the major news outlets).  This also is not something that has never happened before.  Back in 1859 a solar flare burned out our entire telegraph system.  They did not know it at the time but now we do know that was the cause.    If that had happened today, what would have been the jobs of  the future?   Answer: probably farming (by hand).

     But it won't take a catastrophe either to do us in. Instead, it could be technology itself hitting a dead-end that may change our course.  For example: what happens when Moore's Law comes to an end.    Moore's Law (more of a prediction than a law really) says "The number of transistors on a chip will double every two years".   But no one says that this prediction can go on "forever" since transistors would eventually hit a point where they are only a few atoms in size and at that point their ability to do the job of a "electrical switch" becomes near impossible without it being unreliable. 

 This "law" has been in effect since 1968 since Gordon Moore (founder of Intel) first said it and it is solely responsible for the technological advancement of the last 50 years.  But like all good things, it too must come to an end, as making the transistors smaller and smaller (now 14 billionths of an inch wide) will eventually become too costly and reach its physical limits.    

     What impact will that have in 20 years to jobs?   We don't know.  We may need more programmers to make as much use out of our computer speed/capacity as we will no longer be able to put MORE processors and logic on our chips.   With silicon resources being limited,  putting logic on the chips will become too difficult.  It could be that layout engineers (a 2 year degree) may become more valuable than engineers with 4 year degrees.   Who knows?   What if we train a bunch of people for jobs that are no longer required or needed?   What then?  

      Just like the assembly-line, one of the biggest issues facing manufacturers is how long it takes to shift your production line.   If a product takes a month from beginning to end on the assembly line, changes in customer needs or desires cause mayhem on the production line since countless product already on the conveyor-belt will have to be scrapped when it falls off the end because there is no customer there to receive it.   For products like cars that is fine, but our children are not cars which can be flung aside.

How to win at multi-board Chess

   Back to our illustration of playing a 100-level board game of chess where the other 199 players are out to defeat you.  There are ways to improve your odds of winning the game.  One way would be to

employ 99 extra helpers to watch the other boards and inform you if they are putting themselves in position to take your king and alert you in the advent that is about to happen.  While this method multiplies the number of "eyes" in the game and improves your defense, it does not improve your ability to win the game (offense).  Second it still requires more data to be streamed to a single decision maker who must sift through all the information he is being given to make an "informed" decision.   In this scenario, often the decision maker will segregate his informers into "trusted" and "untrusted" and put more weight on the "trusted" informers.

    Another solution would be to add 99 more chessboards (for a total of 199 boards) and 198 more

players who are on your side (or I should say your TEAMS side) and give them a set of goals to achieve so they may play autonomously from you.

Rule #1: Your king is more important than their king and they     should do everything they can to protect it.  

Rule #2: They should play their board to win against their opponent

Rule #3: If they lose their board (ie their king) they need to stay and  work with the other players to teach them what they did wrong and how your opponent beat you.

   With these sets of goals/rules, you have a goal-based-chaotic system that increases YOUR chances to win without you being the main decision maker.  Each person would be looking out for their own benefit and yours at the same time.

     Our own system of government can also be viewed as a goal-based-chaotic system as well.  Our founders set up a small basic set of rules to follow by supplying us a Constitution and allowing our states to be relatively self-governing.   While those on the "central planning side" of the aisle feel safer with all decisions emanating from a small group of "great thinkers", our system works better because it allows us tailor our laws to meet that groups needs rather than a one-size-fits-all approach. It is also more efficient as it allows less time to be wasted on issues that do not apply to them. For example, states on the coasts can spend time dealing with issues like off-shore-drilling or deep sea fishing rights whereas states in the Midwest can focus their concerns on farming or tornado-disaster-preparation.   In fact, all the states can manage whatever issue is the most concerning for them all at the same time rather than wait their turn to meet with the great-thinkers of the central committee. 

     In conclusion, no one person (or political party) knows what the future holds.   To put all of your eggs in one basket makes as much sense like a single person playing a high-stakes-chess against the universe.  Therefore, we are better off allowing freedom/chaos to reign and make the decisions rather than a small group of  so-called "know-it-all's" do our planning for us who can't see beyond the next election (let alone the next century).  In the end, you are better off to admit you know nothing of the future and plan your own life around being a person who has many abilities that can adapt to whatever the universe throws you tomorrow or the next day.

LET CHAOS REIGN!

Not all reading is the same

   My son has read more novels already than I ever have (I've only read 3 in my life).  He has read all the "Harry Potter" books, Leminy Snickets" and a few other series books.   We never had trouble getting him to read when he was young and his Star-Testing showed no issue in this area.   But when it came to reading textbooks like History and Science, there were problems that arose by junior high.  We took him to "Huntington Learning Center" for help.  Their testing showed that while his reading speed (words-per-minute) was fine, his information retention was a concern.   This was because he was never taught how to read for "information" and was only taught to read for pleasure. 

   The people at Hungtington then showed us how they were going to fix this issue with our son and I

remember instantly recognizing the material as soon as they placed it on the table. It was an "SRA Reading Lab" packet.  I used this when I was in elementary school from 3rd to 8th grade.   These were "bite-sized" articles that a kids can read in a few minutes and answer 10 questions on what they read.  These were not stories about witches and warlocks or teenagers turning into werewolves, but instead about a broad range of topics covering history, society or science.  Huntington taught my son "HOW to read" an article for information.  They taught him to:

1. Read the first and last paragraph first (this will tell you what the article is about and where the author is taking you)
2. Read the bold-face heading of the article (this will show you the stopping off points)
3. Read the first/last sentence of every paragraph and any sentence that has a number in it (this could be a date or a value)
4. Finally read the whole article in detail.

    For me, I did not learn this method until I got into college but for my son it made a measurable difference.   Luckily when I was younger my father, who was a teacher, pointed me to the encyclopedias (we had a World Book set at home) whenever I had a question he felt he could not answer adequately.  I would often have 3-5 books open at the same time as one article would lead me to 2 or 3 other articles.   This provided me with the skills I would need for my future more than any novel would ever be able to do.

   Read for pleasure vs Read for information

   First of all, I don't want to knock novel-reading totally.  If it gets a kid to read and insure he is literate then I am all for it. But much of our testing in schools today only seem to focus on this one area.  For a large percentage of us, informational-reading will be a required ability in our jobs (unless your a book editor looking for the next Hemingway).  Reading for information has been shown to use different areas in the brain than when we read a novel.  Novels excite areas in the brain requiring imagination and visualization whereas informational reading exercises memory and critical thinking.   We need help our kids develop this ability for them to be successful.   Whether it's reading a stock report, a university study, a study on a new drug, a customer claim, a legal document, a report on product results.. the list goes on and on. 

   Some suggestions for parents: (things I wish I had done with my kids more)

1. Use encyclopedias at home - I know in the days of Wikipedia this seems old fashioned but its
   
   not.  Wikipedia is written for adults (academia mostly) and not for children.  Also, it allows you to cover multiple topics at the same time and cross reference them.  (I still believe the printed word is superior to a computer screen in this manner).  Point them to them when they have questions (even better sit down with them and read it together).  While NEW encyclopedia sets can be expensive, you can often purchased used sets for much less money (I found a 1980 set for $40 on Criagslist) and they are still good sources of information for kids in elementary/high school.
2. Use SRA reading labs at home - you can purchase used sets from Amazon for about $400-$800.  While this seems a bit pricy, the value they provide is very well worth the cost.  These articles are written for their age group and are lengthy enough to challenge them without tiring them out.   If your teacher's classroom has these already but they don't have time to utilize them in class, ask if your child can bring a few home over the weekend for them to do. (if you are on good terms with your teacher you may even ask if your child can use them over the summer).
3. Teach them the above steps on how to read for information.  Don't wait until they are in high school or college to develop this.  It is an ability that takes time and repetition to develop in order to get good at.  
4. Have them read newspaper/magazine articles - When they are older have them read articles out of a newspaper or magazine after YOU have read the article.  Prepare 3-4 questions from the article for them to answer (who, what, where type that they can easily answer if they read it ... not looking to "trip them up").  
5. Resist the temptation to let your kids read series novels. While these books are often popular (and most kids want to follow the group) series-novels, like "Harry Potter", are shown to be less effectual than reading non-series novels.  The reason being is simple. Series-novels do not expand our children's vocabulary as effectively and by the second book most kids can follow the writer's story without reading 100% of the text provided.  They know the characters fairly well and the author's style of writing so well that they can skip much of the written text to find out what happens in the story.  Another reason that books like Harry Potter are less effective is namely that the movie has ruined our kids need for imagination in that they no longer visualize the characters in the book as they see them.  Instead they see the characters and scenery as Hollywood has provided on the screen (and even sometimes an altered/shortened story plot).  You should try to keep them challenged by supplying them with new novels/books by different authors who have not yet had their stories retold by a movie producer.
   
   

Why MATH is important

   We all remember sitting in elementary and high school math as the teacher strains to find a purpose for us to learn things like:

1. The Pythagorean theorem 
2. The Quadratic equation
3. Logarithms 
4. Imaginary numbers
5. Sines, Cosines, Tangents
6. Geometric rules and axioms
7. etc.. etc.. etc..

     For many kids, if you didn't find some fascination with numbers, you were bored to tears.   Many teachers feel you have to find a purpose for math in order to teach math.  But for many people, the math being taught only has use in teaching ... more math.  So for many kids, they say to themselves, "I'm not going to be a scientist or an engineer.   So why do I have to learn this stuff?"   They then begin to shut themselves off from learning it and their only goal is to just "get through it and graduate. 

     A while back I even heard that schools were giving into this response by providing students with a dumb-ed down version called "Every Day Math" in which math was taught with the idea that it must have a use in every day life to keep their interest.  To me this is just wrong headed for much of math has no real day-to-day usage (I dare you to find an everyday use for the imaginary number 'i') and even if it did most kids would argue that they can use their calculator on their smart phone to do most of the work anyway.

Building a better brain

     Math's importance isn't in how we apply it directly every day.  Instead, math's purpose is to simply enable teachers to teach basic logic to children and therefore, "build a better brain".   There is simply no other method given to man to do this other than math.  (the brain is the one organ in the body that has the power to fix itself)

    To illustrate this, consider going to a professional football game.  As you watch the lineman

(offense and defense) come out of their locker rooms.  Ask yourself this: "How did they get that big?".   Of course part of the answer is genetics/DNA, but a large part of it is that they spent many hours in the weight-room lifting increasingly heavier and heavier weights.   Would they have ever told their high school coach, "Coach I don't want to weight-lift.  It's boring and hard, my arms hurt when I am done and other guys can bench so much more than me. Can't we just play football instead?  I have no desire to become a professional weight-lifter.  Why do you make me do this?"    Of course not.  Every athlete knows the importance of lifting weights to build strong health muscles (even runners weight-lift a little).  Next consider this, when you see the football players come out on the field, do they carry dumbbells and barbells out on the field with them?   Are they doing curls and over-head-presses while they are standing on the sidelines?  Does the use of these barbells play ANY role in helping the team win the game by showing how much they can lift ?  Not a bit.   Yet, without a doubt, those weights helped make them a better football player.  Sure they could build muscles by pushing each other around the field during practice or doing other kinds of exercise such as: pushups, swimming, biking, heck even dance for that matter.  But none of those activities comes near to weightlifting for building large strong muscles.

    The same goes for math.  Most math (especially higher level math) has no direct use in day to day life just like those barbells have no direct use in the game of football.  But math plays an integral role in helping us think logically and rationally as opposed to emotionally.  Math is the weight-room of the logical mind in which humans must struggle to make new logical connections.  Let's look at the similarities:

For weightlifting to be effective the person must:

1. Workout multiple days per week
2. Do repetitive sets of a weight (not just 1 lift) 
3. Must use different kinds of weights to work out different groups of muscles.
4. Start with smaller weights in the beginning and increase the size of the weights over time to challenge the body to grow 

For math to be effective the student must:

1. Attend class multiple days per week
2. Do repetitive assignments doing the same type of problem over and over again
3. Must learn different areas of math (basic,number theory,fractions,geometry,word problems..)
4. Start with lower level (basic) math and move up through algebra, geometry, trig and calculus to challenge the brain to develop better logic/thinking skills.

   And just like there may be other ways to build muscle (swimming, biking, hiking, dancing etc..), so also other subjects such as history, literature, music, art can help the brain grow and develop,  but none of those methods comes close to transforming the brain in logical reasoning than math.

IT'S THE MOST EFFECTIVE METHOD!

     Consider the first time you learned 1+1=2 ... POW! your brain made a new connection that wasn't there before.  It didn't happen by accident.  It was taught to you.  You then went on to learn 1+2 = 3 ... POW!  another connection was made and to solidify that connection you needed to do repetitive homework in which you added 1+1=2 10 times and then did the same for 1+2 then 1+3 ...      Later your teacher showed you that 2 + 2 + 2 +2 = 8  and you can come to the same answer faster by doing  2 x 4 = 8 (or 4 x 2) and now your brain was learning how to "group"  and do math faster with a new function called multiplication.    Your teacher may have even conducted in-class verbal drills in which the whole class repeated after the teach a whole table of multiplication saying: "1 times 1 is 1", "1 times 2 is 2", all the way up to "10 times 10 is 100".

Boring?

Probably.

But necessary.

    Have you every memorized lines for a play or a speech?   You probably practiced your lines out loud while standing in front of a mirror over and over again.   Why?  Because you knew instinctively that using more of your senses (hearing, seeing, speaking ) will enforce the memory faster and better than just reading the lines quietly to yourself in your mind.   So also math (which combines logic + memory) needs this process as well.  If I asked you "What is 5 time 4 ?"  you would probably say "20" in less than a second.  Did you calculate that by visualizing 5 rows of 4 balls and then count all the balls in your head?  No.  Instead you recalled that answer from your second or third grade math class in which you learned 5x4=20.  This memory allows your brain to concentrate of higher concepts and not get bogged down counting "balls".  This memory work also paved the way for your brain to memorize other concepts down the road such as how to add or multiply fractions or do long division or find the length of a hypotenuse (or even recall what a hypotenuse is).   
 
Efficient way to try out ideas

  But math does more than just give us a platform to add, subtract, multiply and divide numbers.   It allows us to rationally think out the future without it actually happening and in the end it saves time, money and energy.   I don't need to buy a whole roll of carpet if I don't need to.   I don't need to try 1000 different methods to see which one works, I can test them mathematically.  Thomas Edison (the inventor of the light bulb) is often used as an example of how hard work and perseverance can pay off.   When looking for a filament for his light bulb he tried over 1000 different things (including human hair) and nothing worked until he came across carbon thread.  While his method did eventually find a solution, it was very wasteful and many of life's problems are way too complex for this kind of tinkering. Just imagine NASA using Edison's approach to send a man to the moon.  I don't think they would have found anyone willing to be the first astronaut (ie guinea pig) to try it out.  A person's math ability allows them to think ahead to a future that doesn't exist yet and to create a pathway to get there for others to follow.

Solve day to day problems in our jobs

    Studies have shown that people who were competent in math make more money regardless of their career path than those who did poorly in math.   This isn't because they can add 11+15 faster than anyone in their office or because they were able to solve a quadratic equation in a meeting when no one else could (that only happens in the movies).   The reason is simply because they were able to think logically and find solutions to problems that give them an advantage over other competitors.   Take for example, UPS.  A truck driver in UPS found that he used less gas and got his routes done FASTER by only taking right-hand-turns.  Because of this he never got stuck waiting for a left-turn light (3 rights = 1 left) which happen less often and for shorter periods of time than straight-ahead lights.  His logic was then deployed across all of their UPS drivers (their GPS system even now uses it when selecting a route) and they were able to save time and gas.   That driver didn't know it, but he owed his good idea to some math teachers he had along the way when he was younger.

Create a society of  "free thinkers" 

     Finally, beyond earning a living, math makes for a better world and better citizens by enabling them to "think for themselves" rather than others to do the thinking for them.  A society cannot be free unless all of its citizens are first able to think for themselves and make their own decisions.

Take for example the following question:  

                                        "Is healthcare a right(A) or a privilege(B) ?"

      Right now your brain is calculating the answer to that social problem.   You may have considered "B" but that sounds like you are an elitist and don't care about the poor.   But "A" has implications of me needing to provide it to others for "free" which you know is not entirely possible.   But A is less elitist than B and may lead to less arguing or name-calling. etc etc etc.    But the REAL answer to the question is "C" -- none of the above.    "Wait a minute!" you say, "You didn't give C as an option.  You just made that up!".   But in reality, I didn't.  It was there all the time.   To illustrate this let's change the question to something less controversial :

                               "What is your favorite animal: cats (A) or dogs (B) ?"  

Here is a Venn-diagram illustrating the choice.

Notice the "yellow" area?  That represents everything that is NOT "cats" or "dogs".   In mathematics its referred to as the "universe" and constitutes everything outside of the 2 choices.   It's always there in every circumstance.   Yet many never see it.  Questions posed about things like healthcare are meant to corner people into making only one choice.  In this case A.   This is the choice the questioner wants you to make so they can manipulate you into thinking like them rather than think for yourself and choose "C" as your answer (such as, "It's a PRODUCT you either want or you don't want.  It's up to the individual.  Maybe they think they don't need it.  Maybe they want to take care of themselves").  Math, therefore,  helps create a world of "free thinkers" who don't allow themselves to be boxed in by others and their view of the world.

    These are the reasons every child (and adult) needs to learn math regardless of their future employment.  For by doing so, we can remain a free, efficient and rationally thinking society that can find the answers to the everyday problems it faces.

99 bottles of beer on the wall

    99 bottles of beer.  Take one down pass it around... 98 bottles of beer on the wall.    Who doesn't remember singing that song on a long car ride with the family?   Most of us never got past 90 as by that time we were usually to hoarse to sing another note. (That was probably the goal our parents had in mind in teaching us that song so they could have some peace and quiet in the car)

    I have a new take on that song we should probably be teaching our kids and here it goes...

   99 freedoms of speech we all have.
   99 freedoms of speech 
   Take one down, trample it down...
   98 freedoms of speech we all have

  Okay, so it doesn't roll off the tongue like original ... but you get the point.

    Last year we witnessed the IRS going after conservative groups applying for tax-exempt-free status as a 501c3 to limit their free speech (and enhance others they do like).   The leaders of these groups were targeted by our government by the FBI, ATF, HSA, and even by OSHA.   They were also harassed by requests from the IRS for things like: lists of the their members (address, phone# and even SS#), 90-page questionnaires detailing their thoughts on the Constitution and the role of government in peoples lives.  Many saw their businesses dry up because their customers were often harassed as well by the same organizations.   Now we have learned that rather than stop this abuse, the IRS has instead decided to make it all perfectly legal by "clarifying its rules" and making it the requirement (saying that the reason for the earlier abuse was that the rules weren't clear enough before).  And even though the President said he was "angered" by the events that led up to the investigation (heard it on the news) and promised the American people that those who instigated them would be held responsible, no one... repeat no one.. has been fired for their actions.  Instead the person at the center of the crime was allowed to plead the 5th (they cherish that personal right a lot) and take early retirement. 

     Now we have learned that the FCC wants to get into the same game by doing a "study" of media outlets by placing government officials in TV newsrooms across the nation to see how decisions are made as to what information is brought to the American public and why.   From this study, the FCC maintains, they will be able to better serve the "national interest" by incentivize-ing media outlets.

    Hmmm....What could go wrong here?

    Of course many will say that the FCC study is not mandatory and TV stations can "opt out" if they desire.   But given that these same TV stations get their license to be on the airwaves from the same organization doing the study, it is highly unlikely that they will say "no thanks" to the request.  Anyone who has read (and I urge you to if you haven't) "Atlas Shrugged" will immediately recognize the similarity to the government agents that were placed inside of corporations to make sure these companies were complying with the government and were serving the "national interest and public good".    These agents were there mostly to "rat" on the companies and give the government inside information on what the company was doing so they could best strong-arm them when needed.   This will be the same job of these agents as well.... especially at conservative news outlets.

    Will Fox News be the first to be studied?   Not sure.  Given that Fox News lives on cable and not on the airwaves (so FCC does not license them) it would not be likely unless they use some other controlling tactic such as the IRS, FBI or HSA to do their dirty work.   But Fox also has many TV news stations dotted across the country that do live on the air-waves so they might see an FCC agents shadow darkening their doorway in the near future.   Listening in on their editorial and programming decisions while at the same time taking notes and providing important "feedback" to them as to what their FCC bosses consider important and newsworthy.

     Like a 100 foot wall separating two countries,  the best way to remove that wall is not all at once with a tank or a missile, but instead 1 layer of brick every year.  In doing so, each generation will think the wall has always been 100ft, 99ft, 98ft,...10ft,9ft,8ft,7ft tall until nothing is left to stop the invading hordes from taking over.

   We are witnessing the bricks disappearing now at an alarming rate and we better wake up and tell them to put them back before its too late. I believe to allow ANY government agent in the media will set a dangerous precedent for future generations as they will undoubtedly be told that "This has been a long held tradition in our news agencies etc... and we are just adding to that tradition by ...."

  Question left for us now is... how far are we into the song  "99 Freedoms of Speech"  and are there enough left to  make a difference.

Out of Order

   Ever go to a vending machine when you are hungry and have no time to go out and get a bite to

eat.  You put your money into the machine, punch your selection and ... NOTHING!  A big fat nothing comes out of the machine.  It's frustrating.  You bang on it.  You shake it back and forth and still...NOTHING.   Even more frustrating is when you find out that someone else earlier in the day tried it and got nothing as well.  You may even yell at them and say "Why didn't you put an 'Out of Order' sign on it to warn others?"  That machine is utterly worthless.   It's not hurting anyone (not emitting deadly radiation or catching fire) but it's not helping anyone either.

   A common argument for anything these days seems to be....

   "I am not hurting anyone when I am doing ________!"

   While that is true, replace "urt" with "elp" and you get

   "I am not helping anyone when I am doing ________!"

   This argument is especially used by those who want drugs to be legalized.   Their belief seems to be that they are an island with a population of ONE and they should be able to do on that island whatever they want.  The libertarian in me wants to say "Go ahead", but there is more to this problem than just "I am not hurting anyone" we need to discuss.  Namely, you are of no help to anyone else either.


   This is often the most over-looked reason for not doing drugs.   While, yes, you are not theoretically hurting anyone when you are in your apartment zonked out of your mind, you are also, like that worthless vending machine, of no use to anyone else around you.   Maybe you should slap an "Out of Order" sign on your forehead to alert possible friends and family that you are of no use to them. That way when they come to you because...

• Their car is broken down and they need a ride
• Their girl-friend of 3 years has broken up with them for another guy and they feel like killing themselves
• They have been diagnosed with cancer or some other disease.
• Their father or mother has just passed away and they feel lost.
• They just got their 3rd rejection notice from their college list
• They just lost their job and they are overdrawn at the bank.
• The list goes on and on...

   They will know you are of no use and worthless to them as a friend or family member.  It will tell them that they should just move on to get their help from someone who will be 100% available to them rather than waste their time on you.    Furthermore, just like you pass by that vending machine that has cost you so much in lost dollars because it's not worth the risk, you also will see friends pass you by as well because you are not worth the risk either.

Don't rush the experiment

   We have heard one of the great benefits in our country is that we have 50 laboratories of freedom to experiment, unlike other "national" countries where a one-size-fits-all solution is forced on all of its inhabitants at the same time.  Take for example, Colorado's experiment with the legalization of marijuana.  They can test the waters and see what happens.  Will it bring down their state or will it do nothing at all?  We will have to wait and see.   But many don't want to wait.   They see Colorado's choice to legalize as reason to push that same legalization here in California.  But would you rush to try a new cancer drug that has only been tried in a half-dozen mice or so?  Of course not.  You would wait until further studies are done on mice, monkeys and a small population of people before trying it out on a whole populous.  That's the rational thing to do.   But whoever said lawmakers were rational?   Rather than wait they are already pushing us to legalize as well.

   What could go wrong?

   A lot.

Medical differences between Marijuana and Alcohol.

  Despite recent opinion statements made by Obama (supposedly the smartest man in the world) that marijuana is no worse than alcohol.  Marijuana is much worse than alcohol.  People often get caught up in the short-term effects of marijuana with what is done by drinking alcohol.   But this is only the tip of the iceberg.  First of all, alcohol and marijuana cause their "high" in 2 different ways.  Alcohol reduces the oxygen level in the blood stream and the brain is very sensitive to oxygen levels (in fact brain cells are the first to die when oxygen levels become too low).   Kids who cannot obtain alcohol sometimes try playing a dangerous game called "The Choking Game" in which one person chokes another for a period of time to cut off blood to the brain to cause an alcohol-like high (sometimes to a disastrous end).  Marijuana on the other hand gives its high a different way.  It does so by its main ingredient: THC which inhibits neuron transmission in various parts of the brain by binding to neuron receptors.  This interferes with short term memory and cognitive (decision making) functions which are important functions for growing adults under the age of 25 (the brain continues to grow up to that age well beyond the legal age of 18 in Colorado). Secondly, alcohol is removed from the body by the liver and 24 hours after you have consumed it, it is completely gone and once removed your are back to your old self.  Marijuana on the other hand does not get removed so quickly as THC binds itself to fat cells and remains in the body for 1-2 weeks after it is ingested. (a simple urine test can detect its presence for two weeks) 

   Question: where is that largest concentration of fat cells in the body?

   Answer: The brain.

   Fat acts as an insulator for the electrical connections in the brains neurons similar to rubber or plastic sheathing on copper wires.  THC has been shown to be released from these "fat reserves" during times of stress.  This is not something you want in your body when you are taking an exam or working on a crucial project deadline at work.

 Beyond the medical issues:

   In conversations I have had with my kids, I have told them the problem with ANY kind of drug (including alcohol) is that it makes you unavailable to being there for others.   You might as well slap a sticker to your forehead saying "Out of Order" while you are drunk or high because that is basically what you are.  Of course many will say "So what? It's my life!"  but that is not entirely true.  We all have friends and family who rely on us.   We have no idea what may come our way where we might be called upon to help.   A broken down car.   A car accident.  A sudden illness.   A fire.  A broken relationship.  A mental breakdown.   A feeling of hopelessness and suicide.   Anything.   But because you were stoned or drunk, you were not there for the other person.  You are utterly useless.  

    Here also is another difference between alcohol and marijuana. Alcohol can be consumed for other reasons other than intoxication.  For example,  it will often take me over a couple of hours to drink an entire beer (maybe an entire football game) and I enjoy every sip of my Sam Adam's.  People even  O'Doul's alcohol free beer just because they like the flavor and want nothing more.  Would a person EVER want to smoke a THC-Free marijuana joint(if there ever was one)??   Probably not.  Because there is no enjoyment in marijuana apart from the high it gives you (the aroma is actually quite nauseating).  

Unanswerable questions

   How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?

   These among many are questions that just can never be answered.  Their purpose is not to find an answer but instead to either create discussion, or just waste time.   Today we don't hear many people pose question like this one but many that are similar.

   What does your church teach on...

• Sex outside of marriage?
• Divorce?
• Abortion?
• Euthanasia?
• Capital punishment?
• War?
• Economic inequality?
• Drinking?
• Drugs?
• Pornography?
• etc..

These questions are often asked not so much so we can arrive at a conclusion for most likely the person offering up the question has already settled in their own mind an answer that they are unwilling to budge from.   Instead these questions are asked to either

A - Control.
          Force the person to be quiet about their religious views by discrediting them in public opinion

B - Create an illusion of being religious
          Discuss topics in which nothing can be gained but allow one to feel that they are religious

    This is really nothing new however.  Jesus was asked by Pharisees and Sadducees on a variety of topics meant not to answer a difficult question but instead to discredit him in the view of the crowds.  The first of these questions was a political one. "Should we pay taxes to Caesar?"  Were they really interested in getting Jesus' tax advice?   Was he the H&R Block of his time?   No.  If he says YES pay taxes he might lose the crowds who hated paying the corrupt gentile/pagan government their hard earned money.  If he says NO, then he can be taken out by the Romans as an instigator of rebellion.   Jesus instead cuts through the fog and says to pay BOTH to Caesar and to God what they are owed.

    In a later question, the Sadducee sect which didn't believe in life after death asks Jesus a question about marriage in heaven.  Now this is actually hilarious to me (and I think there were people in the crowd chuckling to themselves when they heard this question asked).  This is like a devout Jew asking which tastes better "Honey Baked" or "Slow Roasted" HAM.   (Can you say "scraping the bottom of the barrel?").  Jesus again goes BEYOND the question to the real issue.  God's word.   What does IT say?

   Jesus on a third occasion was asked by the temple priests where he got his authority to teach?  Jesus again responds first with another question.   "Where did John the Baptist get his authority to teach?"   Here they are trapped because they ignored John's teaching of repentance (which the people knew) and yet his teaching was not from man but from God as it was in keeping with the law and the prophets.   Was Jesus dodging their question?   Actually, no, he was not.  Since they could not answer Jesus' question, Jesus was able to determine that they were not on the same page spiritually and so it would be a waste of time for Jesus to answer their question.  It was not a dodge, but instead an instrument to save time.

   We too are often met with similar questions like I mentioned earlier and all too often we get tied up in answering the question they've posted without asking what is the motivation behind the question.  What is the purpose in asking the question?   Do you really want to know the answer?   Probably not.  We should instead be like Jesus and answer their question with a question.   That question should be "What do you believe about the Bible?  Is it God's word or just a collect of nice thoughts?"   For that is the question behind the list of questions earlier.  If it's not God's word, then you are going to arrive a different conclusions for all the others.  We would be wasting our time as well in answering their question if we are not able to have the same conclusion on the this question.

     But is it logical to believe the Bible is God's word?   To me, my answer is simply "YES".  My line of thinking on this is simple.  First of, we must ask ourselves:

"Will God punish those who are evil?"

    Consider the likes of Hitler (killed 6 million Jews) , Mussolini, Stalin (killed 15 million), Mao (killed 70 million) , Che Guevara (killed over a thousand Cubans by his own hands), Rev. Jim Jones (caused 900 to take their own lives), and countless mass murderers, rapists, drug dealers and con-artists who have bilked millions of people out of their life savings.  In my opinion, God has let the likes of these men to exist for the very fact that they present to people who think that world lives in varying shades of moral-gray, a streak of the DARKEST BLACK which cannot be ignored or lightened.  Their "evil" cannot be ignored or swept under the carpet of history.  Faced with their deeds, we cannot simply shrug and say "we don't know what will happen to them" for to do so would mean for us to stand in approval of their deeds.   If our answer to the above question is YES, then we must ask another:

"Wouldn't a loving God set down the rules?"

    Imagine a father punishing his son for coming home at 12:30am if he never told him that his curfew was 12:00am?   He would be soundly ridiculed by other parents for treating his children in such a way.  He can't demand his children to just "know what he expects of them".  Clearly, God also must first set the boundaries before he can judge his creation. If the answer to the above question is YES, then we must ask yet another question.

 "Would God write down those warnings and promises?"

     The more important the consequences the more important it is to get them in writing.  For example, would you buy a house from a person without a written deed?  Of course not!  Getting it in writing solidifies the agreement and helps insure that is not forgotten of modified in the future.  So also, if God must warn his creation, should he just "hope" this critical piece of information gets passed down from generation to generation by word of mouth?   Should he not "get it in writing"???  Also, if you were a religious Jew coming out of Egypt, would you not adapt the same technology you witnessed in the country of your oppressors?  Namely: writing.  I am astounded that so many view the early Jews as being so stupid/ignorant as to not adopt a  written language until so late in their history.  But now archaeology is bearing new information showing the Jews had a written language as early as the time of King Solomon.    If the answer from the above question is YES, then we must ask another question:

"Can an all powerful God guard and protect his words and promises?"

    Consider that question carefully.   How is it that an all powerful God capable of creating entire universes with his word, cannot protect his own writings over the centuries?   Does that even make sense?   How is it, that the omnipotent God so impotent to do this despite the immense ramifications (judgement).   Wouldn't YOU, if you were God, do everything in your power to insure that you find and inspire people throughout the ages to guard and protect your promises?   Of course you would!  In fact, it was shown with the Dead Sea Scrolls that the Old Testament changed very very little from 200BC to 900AD (the oldest OT Manuscript we had before the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered).  For example, Isaiah (one of the largest and most prophetic books in the OT) was found to be 99% the same and the 1% differences were grammatical changes which changed none of its verses interpretations.   If you answer to the above question is YES, then God's word must be exactly that... GOD'S WORD and nothing else.  He has provided us with the warning of what is to come but ALSO with the SOLUTION to the problem in sending his Son Jesus Christ to save us.

    Answering that question...answers all the rest