Separation vs Establishment

Wow, I guess my faith in the intelligence of the average American needs to diminish. Can anybody find the separation of Church and State in the Constitution? Anybody? You in back, you got something? Of course not! There is no separation of Church and State in the Constitution. There is a clause procluding the ESTABLISHMENT of religion, but nothing about separation. There is a difference, you know. One means you can have absolutely no religion in government funded anything. The other means that there will never be a Church of the United States, like there is a Church of England.

I'm not advocating prayer in schools, or 3PM prayers in the direction of Mecca. I am warning people that ANYTHING that can be construed as a religion is going to be under fire. Will we stop putting crosses on the graves of soldiers? Will we declare Darwinism to be a religion (evolution is not, Darwinism is, but we'll discuss that later). How about politcal philosophy's? Is socialism a religion? Is republicanism?(I assume if you found this blog, you know we do not live in a democracy, we live in a republic. A democracy is mob rule, he who has the most votes gets his way. In a republic, you have representative government who decides, and there are checks and balances so that the many cannot destroy the few...but I digress). Where do we stop?

I'm not sure why I am ranting on this...an old subject, well discussed and documented. I get a'skared when I hear a debate between the luntic fringes of both sides of this aregument. I stick my by formula, T = 1/g, that is the technological capability of a civilation is inversly related to the number of gods they have. Whenever I hear people debating religion in a political context (i.e. ANY Rrepublican debate) I fear a little bit that g will increase...and T will go down. Anybody for the Dark Ages, the Inquisition...or maybe the Salem witch trials? I thought not. Let's hope we all keep thinking and stop this nonsense.

I guess we are taken for granted

CNN touts the release of Genarlow Wilson for having oral sex with a 15 year old when he was 17. Forget the fact that the act was illegal on the face of it, he RECORDED it. That is why he is in jail. But will you see that in the news stories tonight? Of course not. We are taken for granted, we will believe what they say. The Jena 6 incident makes sense, if he was sooo hurt, how did he make it to the dance (and the pity fucks for all those bruises). Wilson TAPED this 15 year old. Why, except to exploit her? But we will never hear about it.

By the way, anybody notice that when you tell SOME people to get three days food anf water and meet at the football stadium for improvised housing, they throw a party; versus OTHER people who whine and cry and lie? Can't say more, but look at the video from Charger Stadium this week versus the Superdome after Katrina.....

Even Paranoids Have Enemies

Forgot to add some comments about the book "Internal Combustion" by Edwin Black (don't buy it Karen, you can have my copy when I'm done). 408 pages of text, only 316 is text, the rest is typical paranoid thinking that if you can document 2 words in an 3 word sentence, people will believe. Well, if the sentence is "Fred killed Tom", and you can prove Fred exists, and Tom exists, does that prove the assertion? Not really. In one chapter, a reporter is murdered by the subject of a muckraking article he is working on. Though the muckraking has little or nothing to do with the books premise (please see Amazon.com for a description) the murder is given front and center status, in hopes of the reader making a leap from logic to fantasy.

But you know, forgetting about the paranoia rampant in this book, there are nuggets of truth. His description of the current state of the ethanol industry is fascinating, as has his descriptions of how the early electric cars slowly disappeared. Unfortunately, he forgets about Thomas Edison's fatal mistake (choosing DC versus AC for his power distribution system) which would have doomed his dream of electric cars, and without distribution, electric cars will not exist.

In short, it's really too bad to see an author with a great concept (the electric car did not die a natural death, like the steam car did, but was murdered) get so obsessed with the conspiracy aspects that he ignores the facts that would back him up, without appearing to be a conspiracy nut. There is much good in this book, unfortunately, it is intertwined with stories to nowhere, and looking for "reds under the beds" type thought. I will say this, you can't help but yearn for an electric car after reading this.

BTW, for a better read, try "The Ghost Map" by Steven Johnson. If you ever heard of the Broad Street Pump, you will amazed at the REAL story, and if you haven't, you will be amazed at how the infrastructure in our cities started, and why. He starts out a little crass for my tastes (I prefer feces to sh_t) but when the story really gets started, it's a mystery, wrapped in an enigma, surrounded by a powerful misconception. Great book!

Ramblin on

This will meander for a bit, not quite sure what I want to say. I'm working for my upteenth startup, and it suffers from the same disease of all the other startups. In the face of cold hard facts, the powers that be, or at least a significant number of them, blithely go on with the original plans. Why worry that NOBODY wants or needs your product? Why worry about quality when there are stylistic issues to be handled? Grrrr...I'll get over it.

Then there is the coy coworker trying to hide she is having a long distance relationship. Lady, I really don't care who, where or when you get your jollys, so please don't waste my time torn between giggling and acting sober when you are dancing around the fact you are going to get laid this weekend after a long plane flight. Been there, done that, and not ashamed at all, why are you?

The reaction to the bridge disaster in Minneapolis really pisses me off. Excuse me, you asses who voted 20 million dollars for bicycle paths in RI, and over $250,000,000 for a bridge between two underpopulated places in Alaska, maybe, just maybe, you should better spend the BILLION's you pissed away on earmarks, rather than raise gas taxes, which will only be used for even MORE earmarks.

I see NASA dodged a bad one, letting the space shuttle land with tile damage. Haven't heard about the impact on shuttle turnaround yet, sure they will wait until we forget about this flight before telling us about frame damage. I don't blame them, their VSE is based around the external tank structure, if it is fatally flawed (and it is) they won't have a VSE. I remember a ST:TNG episode where Data and Troi are analyzing Rikers tactical approaches. After much over analysis by Data, Troi reminds him that in the end, he is the man he is, or as Popeye would say, "I'samwhatsIam".

OK, enough of a rant for now. Be back soon.

Willing Victims

I've been quiet for too long. The whole "nappy haired ho's" thing is out of control. If you feel victimized by words, YOU are the victimizer. Sticks and stones the saying goes, unless it's about blacks. Then it's an ATTACK. You know what it will take for blacks to rise out of poverty? Leave victimhood behind! Several hundred billion dollars ago, you could get away with it, but not today. The US passed an interesting law a few years ago, removing tarriffs from African garments. Problem is, bunches of Far Eastern comines imported their cloth to make garments. There was a catch to the US gift, after a few years, Africans had to make their own cloth. So what happened? The Africans made clothing in accordance with their masters (real Chinese) rules until the time was over. Now the tarriff gift is over, the chinese have moved on, and thousands of Africans are out of work. Racism, or just plain laziness?

The black community in this country is being split into victims and people. The sooner the victims go away, the sooner TRUE equality will exist