It has been telling to watch the aftermath of the passage of prop. 8 in California. Rather than revel in the democratic process, the prop. 8 opponents are having a cow. Well, not really. They can’t have progeny, even cows. In the aftermath of prop. 8, gay rights advocates have shown their poker hand when they should have folded and tucked their cards back into the deck to fight again another day.

I mentioned in a previous post that I thought the real motivation of gay-rights was, in part, anti-religion sentiment on the part of gays. It turns out I am correct. Aside from targeting the Mormon temples (which so far as I can tell has produced as collective "ehh!" from the church) and Catholic churches, this story of an attack of a cross bearing elderly lady in Palm Springs caught my eye.

What was planned as a peaceful candlelight service in front of City Hall took a hostile turn when the crowd began pushing and a cross was torn from Burgess’ arms. The cross ended up in pieces on the ground. [After being trampled by angry gay-rights activists)

Somebody apparently caught it on video as well, which shows the gay rights advocates a pitchfork and torch away from burning a church down.

After the election, the LA Times produced a photo essay of the protest at the Mormon temple in Westwood. Many of the signs in the pictures had some sort of "Hate" ("H8") message, as if people in favor of prop. 8 hate them. (My favorite: "Mormon Hate Out of My State.")

The attacks on religion cause me to ask, who is hating whom?

Most of the prop. 8 supporters were very clear to communicate that the issue to them was one of morality and ideology rather than hatred. There is a difference. People can have a set of values, and even disapprove of choices made, and still offer love and support to the same person making the choices. This isn’t hate — it is using the democratic process to mold society in an image of what majority considers mainstream and right. This is precisely the reason for having democracy, so that no one person (e.g., a king or judge) or a minority group can dictate to the majority the morals of their society. The majority of Californians decided (twice) that gay marriage should not be recognized. Prop. 8 supporters articulated a number of reasons for their support, most of which focused on the ancillary effects of gay marriage for children and free practice of religion, and none of which that were based on hatred of gays as people.

The only haters in all of this are the gays. They are free to disagree, assemble outside churches and temples (provided they do not interfere with the free exercise of worship), but attacks on religious people and tearing crosses, listing those who donated to prop. 8 and encouraging gay rights supporters to do what is in their power to make life difficult for there donors, causing people to be fired from their jobs, staging loud and obnoxious demonstrations during worship services, and the general vitriol observed in these protests against Mormons (this one is really classy ), Catholics, and other supporters of prop. 8. This is hatred. Hatred of religion, morality, and more generally the people themselves that share in these values.

Hate? In a prior post I mentioned that I have a gay colleague. Over the last two months, he has gone from friendly to not talking to me. As our path’s don’t often cross, I didn’t read too much into it, even when friendly greetings from me to the gay colleague were ignored as recently as two weeks ago. That is until another Mormon colleague of mine who works more closely with him came into my office yesterday and made the same observation.

Hatred? By who?

From a recent article detailing the steps the gays are taking against the Mormons was this interesting tidbit :

"At a fundamental level, the Utah Mormons crossed the line on this one," said gay rights activist John Aravosis, an influential blogger in Washington, D.C.

"They just took marriage away from 20,000 couples and made their children bastards," he said. "You don’t do that and get away with it."

OK, so I may have a degree in Molecular Biology, but can somebody explain to me how gay couples have children? Better yet, will somebody explain to me how a gay couple could have a child that is not a bastard (i.e., born of two parents that are not married)?

From my sister’s blog :

I feel the need to get on a little political soapbox for a while. This is not about who won the election, but rather us as Americans. First off, I am so sick of hearing people say, "we need a change". What the heck is that supposed to mean anyway? A change from what? I will tell you what kind of change I think we need…we need a change of the American people feeling entitled to anything and everything they want. Since when have so many "wants" become "necessities"? Why are we not saving when the going is good? Why do we feel like the rich owe us something? It annoys the living you know what out of me. It is not a governments responsibility to make sure things are always smooth sailing for us. I am not rich by any stretch of the imagination, but we make do. We budget (I am not always perfect at sticking to it, I must say) and we recognize our position. Do I hope to be rich some day, you better believe it, but if it doesn’t happen I sure hope I am just happy with what I have because I recognize it is a lot and I will continue working hard to achieve our goals.

On a different vein, I am also sick of everyone bad mouthing George Bush. He has done a ton for us as a president…mainly kept our country safe since 911. I imagine that is not an easy task. I don’t agree with all his fiscal policies, but you know what, he has kept us in an offensive position with the terrorists and to me, that means a ton. I am glad we are fighting them on their soil and not ours. And frankly, we need to finish the job we went over there to do. I am all for bringing our troops home, but not until we have finished the job we started. So, everyone get off his case. He has been a good president with good morals and I truly believe the desire to do what is best for this country. I appreciate that he is a religious man as well, because so am I and I want a president who prays and tries to have some divine guidance. It is not George Bush’s fault that we are in an economic downturn, not the republican party…sure there are certain factors that influenced it, but really the economy does this. It will get better and until then we may just have to forgo that new pair of shoes.

You know what change I want to see. I want all of us (me included) to be wiser with what we have, more grateful for what we have and a whole lot less selfish. There you go.

Couldn’t agree more.

John F. Kennedy famous said "Ask not what you country can do for you, but what you can do for your country. "

Does anybody live that principle any more? Senior citizens vote based on who will ensure they get the most $$ deposited in their bank accounts and ensuring somebody else pays their medical bills; Brock Obama plans to ensure over 50% of the electorate pays no tax so they will vote for him again; Republican (and Democrat) legislators use earmarks to pay back favors; Joe Biden (and others) pay millions of campaign dollars donated by constituents to family members (who have token campaign jobs) to enrich themselves; and the list goes on and on and on.

Does anybody still live President Kennedy’s principle?

I work with a gay man. He has always been very nice to me, and from what I observe, nice to people generally. He is also very much against Prop. 8 (marriage defined as only between a man and a woman). This morning, I was thinking about what is motivating the gay marriage arguments.

The gays claim that their motivation is only about equality. I addressed this argument in an earlier post. It occurred to me, however, that the gay marriage issue is largely about perpetuation of gay ideology. Given gays cannot have children of their own, how do they perpetuate their ideology for future generations?

Gays have two fundamental problems related to perpetuation of their ideology that gay marriage helps to solve. The problems:

1. Religious morality teaches homosexuality is wrong and ought to be rejected; and
2. Because they can have no progeny of their own, their position is untenable in the long-term without government intervention. In other words, I can teach my children that marriage is only between a man and a woman. My children are likely to grow up reflecting this position (I can hear it now — I am indoctrinating my children… you bet I am indoctrinating my children with my values!! I rather indoctrinate my children with my values than have you indoctrinate my children with your values). Thus, absent government intervention, gays are not passing their ideology on to any further generations — their ideology dies with them.

Gay marriage helps solve both these problems.

First, gay marriage is a direct assault on religious values. It forces people who object ideologically to be trumped by the government. For example, doctors in California who objected to artificially inseminating lesbian couples for religious reasons have been sued and lost . They were told that they must perform insemination irrespective of sexual orientation. In other words, the doctor’s objections on religious grounds were snuffed out by a pro-gay marriage government. Similar occurrences have cropped up in Massachusetts, where Catholic adoption agencies are closing their doors so as not be be forced to promote gay adoption .

Gay marriage is an effective tool, therefore, in solving issue number one. By having the government take a position on gay marriage that affirms it as morally acceptable, objections on moral grounds are trumped by the state.

Second, because gays can have no children of their own, they are unable to perpetuate their ideology to future generations like heterosexual families. For their cause to succeed, they must perpetuate the ideology. It is difficult to change the minds of adults, but not so hard to change the minds of young children or worse yet, to instill the ideology as a matter of first impression before their parents choose teach the children about sexual morality.

Teaching children at an early age about gay ideology makes instilling a parent’s own, different values much more difficult. Children must learn (i.e., be indoctrinated) from somebody. As anybody with children will attest, nature has designed children to learn. They observe and reflect what their parents, siblings, and other authority figures teach them by instinct. Learning is born into us.

So who decides what children learn? Parents or society? Perpetuation of gay rights requires that society, not parents, do the teaching (indoctrination) of children, particularly young children. Case in point: where have gays primarily fought hard to make inroads: schools and broadcast media and the arts. In other words, the two most influential sources of learning for children outside of a child’s family. Indeed, the goal is to use these vehicles to usurp the parent’s ability to decide what a child learns.

But what about all those children who are taught to support gay rights from their parents? When and where did their parents come to accept gay rights? Go back a generation and you will find the same societal-based indoctrination of gay rights as today, just less pronounced. And it has been effective in building the momentum of gay rights.

As I mentioned before, I am not against gays. Frankly, I don’t care what a person’s sexual orientation is. But I do care what my children learn. And I do care about the free practice of religious belief. And I do believe people should be able to live their lives according to the dictates of their conscience as it relates to family issues: adoption, teaching, etc. I am all for giving homosexuals all the legal rights that married couples have to the extent that people with a differing view on the morality of the situation be allowed to voice and live by their moral convictions.

If homosexuals want to perpetuate their issue, persuade adults based on the strength of the argument. Don’t presume to indoctrinate our children with your beliefs; that is my job. Have your own children if you want a child to indoctrinate.

The next installment will be why homosexuality doesn’t fall under the penumbra of civil rights.

From the NY Post:

Joe Biden warned that America’s enemies would test Barack Obama with an international crisis within six months if he’s elected…

So let me get this straight. We are supposed to vote for a guy whose running mate is guaranteeing that we will have to face an international crisis from our enemies (i.e., terrorists) within six months after he is elected?

Madeleine Albright then chimed in with support of Joe Biden’s statement.

The inference from Biden’s and Albright’s remarks are that terrorists see an Obama presidency as soft — a good time to attack the United States. In other words, terrorists don’t believe that Obama will use our military to punish them as Bush did.

This is the point: Biden is suggesting that the terrorists are going to attack to determine Obama’s response. The terrorists know what McCain’s response will be. If Obama doesn’t stick with the Bush’s foreign policy (how can he and continue to have support from his base?), the terrorists will know that they have carte blanche to resume plans for attacks on American interests and possible on American soil. From all of Obama’s statements, we have a good idea that his response is going to be a diplomacy only response, which translates into more attacks.

Given Biden’s prediction, which is the better candidate for keeping us out of international crises and being attacked by terrorists?

A vote for Obama/Biden is to vote for another terrorist attack, and probably more than one.

A recent British study shows that disposable diapers are better for the environment that reusable diapers. Either way, I wasn’t about to switch over to save the hummingbirds any time soon.

A government report that found old-fashioned reusable nappies damage the environment more than disposables has been hushed up because ministers are embarrassed by its findings.

…

The report found that using washable nappies, hailed by councils throughout Britain as a key way of saving the planet, have a higher carbon footprint than their disposable equivalents unless parents adopt an extreme approach to laundering them.

To reduce the impact of cloth nappies on climate change parents would have to hang wet nappies out to dry all year round, keep them for years for use on younger children, and make sure the water in their washing machines does not exceed 60C.

This just goes to show that what is best for the environment isn’t always what requires the most effort.

My Dad sent me this article, which is interesting. I find the population discussion quite compelling.

To be fair, I searched the internet to find a good copy of the article. It was supposedly given at the World Economic Forum to a group of CEOs.

There are a number of people online questioning when and where this article was published. Many claim the speech was never given. However, these same critics tends to call the author names at the same time, which makes it hard to take their assertions seriously. Invariably, they assert that Herbert Meyer never spoke at the World Economic Forum, therefore the paper is a hoax. Others attribute this paper to the 2006 forum (which would seem to gel better with his take on Iraq).

I couldn’t find anything authoritative on way or another, even at the World Economic Forum website. It is plausible that this paper is by Herbert Meyer, but given at another event, or that it was given in one of the many official, but not always well documented, break-out sessions at the World Economic Forum, or that it is a complete hoax altogether. I could not locate an official Herbert Meyer website, nor is there an official (or even semi-official) statement disavowing this paper being his.

So, for what it is worth, read on.

By HERBERT MEYER

FOUR MAJOR TRANSFORMATIONS

Currently, there are [4] major transformations that are shaping
political, economic and world events. These transformations have
profound implications for American business leaders and owners, our
culture and on our way of life.

1. The War in Iraq

There are three major monotheistic religions in the world:
Christianity, Judaism and Islam. In the sixteenth century, Judaism and
Christianity reconciled with the modern world. The rabbis, priests
and scholars found a way to settle up and pave the way forward.
Religion remained at the center of life, church and state became
separate. Rule of law, idea of economic liberty, individual rights,
human Rights-all these are defining point of modern Western
civilization. These concepts started with the Greeks but didn’t take
off until the 15th and 16th century when Judaism and Christianity
found a way to reconcile with the modern world. When that happened,
it unleashed the scientific revolution and the greatest outpouring of
art, literature and music the world has ever known. Islam, which
developed in the seventh century, counts millions of Moslems around the world who are normal people. However, there is a radical streak
within Islam. When the radicals are in charge, Islam attacks Western
civilization. Islam first attacked Western civilization in the seventh
century, and later in the 16th and 17th centuries. By 1683, the
Moslems (Turks from the Ottoman Empire) were literally at the gates
of Vienna. It was in Vienna that the climatic battle between Islam
and Western civilization took place. The West won and went forward.
Islam lost and went backward. Interestingly, the date of that battle
was September 11. Since them, Islam has not found a way to reconcile
with the modern world.

Today, terrorism is the third attack on Western civilization by
radical Islam. To deal with terrorism, the U.S. is doing two things.
First, units of our armed forces are in thirty countries around the world
hunting down terrorist groups and dealing with them. This gets very
little publicity. Second we are taking military action in Afghanistan
and Iraq.

These actions are covered relentlessly by the media. People can argue
about whether the war in Iraq is right or wrong. However, the
underlying strategy behind the war is to use our military to remove
the radicals from power and give the moderates a chance. Our hope is
that, over time, the moderates will find a way to bring Islam forward
into the 21st century. That’s what our involvement in Iraq and
Afghanistan is all about.

(more…)

Definition of modern elitism: expecting the government to pony up $85,000,000,000 in tax dollars to bail out your company due to your mismanagement, then spending $440,000 on a retreat to a posh resort for your top executives days later.

Why do these people think that they are entitle to wine and dine themselves at our expense? Perhaps the average American who is paying taxes would like to use some of their tax money for a massage. Perhaps these sorts of expenditures are what made the bailout necessary.

In every socialist regime the world has ever seen, a select group of important people used the collective’s money to fund their own luxurious lifestyles. We call those people elitists — the rules don’t apply to them. They say all the right things, but what the do and how they live conveys a different message.

Just like the executives at AIG, who think our tax dollars should be spent on them for pillow mints and massages.

Gosh, I wonder who these sorts of executives support politically? Perhaps other elitists who think middle America clings to guns and religion…

(Uses without permission, but as a fair use, from The Homa Files)

[UPDATE...] To be fair, I wanted to see to whom the greatest percentage of AIG’s contributions went to. Because the title listed on campaignmoney.com is fuzzy, I am unable to drill down on the executives. According to campaignmoney.com, 62% of the AIG employees donated to the Democrats (many had multiple donations, but each was counted only once).

Caveat: No casual relationship can be gleaned from the above stats. All that can be said about the data is (1) those who have the means to donate are more likely to be executives; and (2) approximately 2/3 of those who donated lean liberal. However, all of this is conjecture from shoddy data that doesn’t give rise to much more than casual inferences that I would be hesitant to rely on (unless you are a global warming scientist).

The majority of AIG donations went to the American International Group Inc. Employee Political Action Committee (AIG PAC). Listed below is where the $$ goes. Notice that none of the money goes to Obama or McCain. 15 of 77 donations are to Republicans, which means 81% of these donations went to Democrats.

(more…)

I watched the presidential debate tonight between Brock Obama and John McCain. Yes I was bored. I had heard all of the same sayings from each of the candidates, and I am sure that if I went to one of the fact check websites I would find that both told half of the truth most of the time.

The problem with the current debate format is they allow each candidate to play Monday-morning-quarterback on every issue. "If I had been in charge, X wouldn’t have happened. Blah blah blah. I therefore have such great judgment. Blah blah blah. Although I have no idea what will really happen with the [economy, war, country] if my policies are enacted, here is what will happen. Blah blah blah."

What do we really learn about the candidates from these debates? Hardly anything.

So I propose a new debate format.
1. Go back to policy style debates. In other words, one narrow topic only per night. Each candidate selects a topic to present a plan on. Iraq, sub-prime loan crisis, etc., selected from a large pool of sufficiently narrow topics. The candidate who selects the topic is the negative side. Affirmative gets 20 minutes to lay out their position. 5 minutes cross examination period to cross examine the affirmative position. 20 minute alternate position proposed. 5 minute cross examination period to cross examine the alternate position. Then the opponents alternate between 4 rounds of rebuttal periods of 5 minutes each with the affirmative having the last say.

This means no moderator. No silly questions that cannot be answered in 90 seconds. When a candidate is out of time, their mike is automatically shut off with no extensions. One topic gets thoroughly explored and the candidates must give details about "their plans."

2. One debate is a completely fictitious fact pattern scenario. Each candidate is given the scenario some predetermined amount of time prior to the debate. Then each candidate sets forth a plan for dealing with the situation in a way that that other candidate is not apprised of the other candidate’s plan until after giving their plan. Then the candidates interact rebutting the other candidate’s plans. A coin toss determines who is gets the last say.

These two debate suggestions, while not perfect, require candidates to demonstrate their judgment. Ultimately, what a debate is about is deciding who has the best judgment, which translates into plans. We know what their parties are, and we generally know their platforms. I get sick of hearing the candidates become demagogues, promising what they and the rest of the world know they can never deliver in vague statements that have no practical meaning.

Let’s hear them think on their feet and argue the pros and cons of their positions. Let’s see what they will do in a fictitious situation that calls for immediate decisions (e.g., Turkey gets attacked by Israel — Turkey being a NATO ally requires us to consider the attack an attack against us by one of our non-Nato strongest allies… what would you do??)

Schwarzenegger to U.S.: State may need $7-billion loan

SACRAMENTO — California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, alarmed by the ongoing national financial crisis, warned Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson on Thursday that the state might need an emergency loan of as much as $7 billion from the federal government within weeks.

California’s liberal assembly has literally spent this state into the ground. Why should the Federal government have to foot the bill and bail out these irresponsible legislators that use the state’s money like it is toilet paper?

Although I live in California, I have an idea: let the market sort it out. Let the California assembly decide what are the most important priorities and make some spending cuts so that we don’t need to borrow to stay afloat.

I don’t understand how people generally can be so flippant about living beyond their means. Credit is great insofar as it is used as a convenience or to purchase necessities that are outside the range of cash purchases, such as homes and cars. Really troubling is when a government and the elected officials adopt the same attitude and live beyond the state’s means. This is California in a nutshell. (To be fair, this is the United States too thanks to the liberal Congress and free spending President Bush.)

In a way, I hope the Federal government says no to California and every other state in similar circumstances. It will suck for a lot of people, but apparently the only way to instill a sense of financial discipline is to force the perps who have spent out of control to accept the fact that there isn’t enough money to give every baby a lollipop.

If the Federal government agrees to bail them out, there better be some strings attached that require spending to but cut. As the old saying goes, hope springs eternal.