My revised plan to save the world.

This is not one for the faint of heart, though it is less so than my initial two iterations of plans along the same lines (which are too harsh to post).  The inspiration for this comes from a debate held earlier today at the St. Louis Ethical Society, which I caught wind of through the St. Louis Atheist Meetup Group, concerning the following question: "Should China's One Child Policy Be Adopted in Other Poor Countries?"  The debate itself was not very good - the only halfway-decent speaker was a pro-life Missouri Lobbyist on the wrong side of the question.  Presentation skills aside, though, the two on the good side (both members of Citizens for Global Solutions of St. Louis) outlined a good argument for the protagonist view.

First of all, I should point out that this argument is pointless unless you accept the fact that the world population is excessive, and thus a contributing cause of many of the problems we face - the earth's resources are finite, after all.  And according to the below Wikipedia rendition of a graph from a recent UN report projecting population growth, things could get worse unless some action is taken:

The CGS members' view, set forth in a handout, was that there are three (though they combined #2 and #3 into one) reasons for recommending the one-child-per-family policy in poor countries:

1. China was able to greatly increase the well-being of its own citizens by use of this policy.  Other poor countries could do the same.
2. China also greatly helped to limit the population growth of the world as a whole, thus preserving (or rather, minimizing the destruction of) the natural resources available worldwide.
3. Policies of national governments are one of the major factors in dealing with the population problem.

They also provided a few qualifications of their position.

1. Although their claim is a normative one, they do not advocate that poor countries should be compelled to adopt the policy - they believe that it should be evident that such in a policy is in their best interest.
2. They recommend flexibility for particular situations - e.g., minorities and families in rural areas - when adopting the policy.
3. They recommend the use of strong financial incentives and public opinion in implementing the policy.  This includes making population control measures (condoms, birth-control pills, tubal ligations, nonsurgical vasectomies) freely available and offering privileges (free education, subsidized health care, guaranteed unemployment income) only to first-born children.
4. They expressly reject the use of abortions, instead recommending that unwanted babies be made available for adoption by rural families (where additional labor would be useful).
5. They recognize that the policy should be brought to an end if a country thinks that some unanticipated situation requires a change (e.g., an epidemic or natural disaster).

Of course this plan is not without potential problems.  The opposition brought up the following worries:

1. First off, such a policy may seem to amount to a restriction of freedom, and this would probably be the case if implemented in a brutal, authoritative fashion.  One might be able to justify strict enforcement, and therefore limitation of liberty, by some utilitarian argument - thus overcoming the harm principle.  Regardless, the plan set forth relies on economic incentives, allowing people to choose not to comply at the risk of losing these incentives.  My worry, though, is that this may be a naive view: poor and uneducated people in these countries may not understand enough to make what I take to clearly be the proper choice.  There's also the worry that people will try to cheat the system.
2. The lobbyist pointed out that China resorted to forced abortions and other brutal measures to implement the policy.  This may be the case, but the CGS does not advocate the use of abortions.  As mentioned above, implementation would be mostly financially driven.
3. Another worry by the lobbyist is that unborn females would be targets for abortion since parents would prefer their single child to be a male.  In China this has resulted in a 1.17:1 ratio of males to females in the latest generation, which he claims has caused Chinese men to resort to illegal trafficking of women from neighboring countries.  Even if this is a pervasive problem, which I doubt, there is a logical limit to its effect.  At some point people have to realize that aborting females is a bad idea.  Maybe not being able to marry off their sons will be a way of sparking this realization.
4. Yet another counterpoint was that China has too few young people to support their aging parents and grandparents, especially as life expectancy increases.  While I can sympathize to an extent, I would choose the problem of not being able to care for old people over that of having children continuously born into inescapable poverty.

All in all, I believe that the basic idea of such a policy is a sound one, and that it should be adopted in the Third World.  Furthermore, the arguments presented against do little to weaken it.

Reciprocal altruism.

I have had an e-mail starred in my inbox for 5 months now, intending to write a blog post about it.  It's about time that I actually do it.

The motivation is an article sent by my friend Rob: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/23/opinion/23wright.html

It concerns one of my favorite topics: science and religion, and whether they are reconcilable.  The author seems to think they are.  I, for the most part, think they are not.  At least, science is not compatible with religion as the institutions exist today.

As the article notes, religious apologists often argue that science cannot explain our moral instincts of right and wrong.  Wright points to the notion of "reciprocal altruism" (benefit through mutual cooperation), which may have played a part in the evolution of our moral senses.  I think this is right.

I would only add that this evolution occurred on a cultural scale.  I don't think that we are born with an innate sense of right and wrong, but are instead raised to learn right from wrong.  Through teaching, observation, and rational thought, we learn how this works.

Wright seems to imply that "convergence" on moral instincts due to reciprocal altruism is evidence that objective moral truths exist.  I happen to disagree with this idea, but I do not completely dismiss it (there are also non-theistic motivations for thinking they exist).  I do, however, think that the analogy to stereopsis and perception of three dimensions is a bad one.

The main point of the article is that science and religion are compatible.  Basically, you can use the scientific theory of evolution through natural selection (along with this notion of reciprocal altruism) in conjunction with belief in a creator that set it all in motion.  Note, however, that in order to use this approach, believers must still abandon the Judeo-Christian conception of an omnipotent, omniscient, benevolent God; but they can still keep a creator.  This is why science is not compatible with current theology, though it is possible that religion could evolve into some sort of deism that is compatible with this approach.

Wright argues that in order for peace to be achieved concessions must be made on the atheist side as well.  I will grant him that the idea of a creator is compatible with science, and I feel like most atheists (though not the really stubborn, belligerent ones) would do this as well.  However, that is not the argument that theists are making.  If/when religious discourse abandons irrationality, then real dialogue can begin.  It seems logical to observe complexity and wonder if that is evidence of a designer, or to observe "convergence" and wonder if there are objective truths.  Debating from that point of view would be more worthwhile than using beliefs based on blind acceptance of a book of myths.

Inspirational documentary of the month: Food, Inc.

First came An Inconvenient Truth, which turned me into a tree-hugging, earth-loving hippie for a couple of years.  And then I changed my mind and pondered making my own documentary entitled "So Spring Comes a Little Earlier Each Year: What's So Bad About That?".*

Then I saw Sicko, and jumped on the universal health care bandwagon.  Yeah, I've pretty much done a "John Kerry" 180-degree flip-flop on that one.  While I definitely like the idea of covering as many people as possible (I'm a softie for taking care of the people), Tim convinced me that health insurance should basically not be treated differently from car insurance, home insurance, or any other type of disaster insurance.  I could go on more about this, but that's out of scope for this blog entry.

Now, it's about the food we eat.  This topic was first broached by King Corn, which documented the industrialization of corn, how it has killed the family farm, and how corn now permeates the majority of the food we eat.  Food, Inc., further, "examines large-scale agricultural food production in the United States, concluding that the meat and vegetables produced by this type of economic enterprise leads to inexpensive but unhealthy and environmentally-harmful food" (description stolen from the linked Wikipedia article because I'm too unoriginal to come up with a better one).

Food, Inc. is definitely a movie worth seeing, if only to raise awareness and/or stimulate discussion.  My first instinct after seeing it is to become a vegetarian or only eat organic produce.  But I've had this reaction before, and it didn't last very long.  It seems that the lifestyle that I prefer (often on the go, never cooking for myself) is not very compatible with this choice.  And then there's the worry (briefly dismissed by one of the organic farmers in the movie) of whether we could feed everybody if the system shifted to organic policy.  I have some other solutions to the overpopulation problem that drives this concern, but I fear those are too radical for dissemination.

In any case, I invite anyone who has not seen this movie to do so.  Afterward (or if you've seen it already), you can engage me in rational discourse to convince me that I am overreacting, or underreacting, to it.


* - I should confess that I'm still a bit of an environmental hippie, but not for the same reasons.  In general, I think reusing, reducing, and recycling is a good thing, but a lot of my motivations are more financial these days (even though I still pay more for electricity), as opposed to attempting to save the world from impending doom.

Online dating statistics show that we're a bunch of racists.

OK, so maybe that characterization was overly harsh. But perhaps not by as much as you might think.

In the process of checking on some recent activity on my OkCupid (a free on-line dating and networking website) profile, I stumbled across the site blog, which has a few posts that provide interesting insight into patterns in online dating.

For example, one article shows how their users of different races and religion match other potential partners. The statistics suggest that religion plays a significant role in the matching potential, but race does not.

Another post, however, reveals that message response rates don't correspond to match potential when segregated by race. A couple of interesting points of note: black women are the most responsive yet are the least responded to, while white men are the least responsive even though they are the most responded to.

I think it's fantastic that OkCupid publishes studies like this. I echo the blog author's sentiments in wishing that the major online dating sites would do the same.

Africans in America.

CNN ran a story about Africans in America (http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/07/14/africans.in.america/index.html) that was interesting to me for a few reasons (thanks to Greg for the link).

First of all, I am a second (or first, depending on how you define it) generation American with Nigerian roots. I can definitely relate to some of the experiences that the subjects discuss in the story (e.g., relating more to values of white Americans, and being teased because of this).

Another hilariously interesting point the article makes is how (in addition to stereotypes black Americans have about Africans) Africans have stereotypes of black Americans - Africans portray them as a bunch of gangsters and criminals.

Lastly, as a kid I lived in the same neighborhood in Nigeria as one of the guys mentioned in the story: Chinedu Ezeamuzie.

This brings me to the my dislike of the misnomer "African-American". Not only is it too many syllables when a simple word like "black" would do, it does not accurately describe the group it is used to represent. Not all Africans are black (see this related story). In addition, black Americans in general have pretty much no connection to the continent of Africa these days. I don't object to being called an African-American - because I indeed am one. However, if all you mean to say is that I am black, just call me that instead.

A racial divide in online social networking?

This article is an interesting read. The author hypothesizes a white flight of sorts from MySpace to Facebook (or, as I refer to them at times, MyFace and Spacebook). I think I was part of that flight. Does that mean I'm white? Don't answer that.

What is Google's civil responsibility?

Here's an interesting article about a two-pronged lawsuit that's being brought against Google:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10278274-2.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-5

The first claim that Ascentive makes (though they are not the first to do this type of thing) is that Google wrongfully allows other companies to purchase ads using Ascentive's trademarks. More on this in a bit.

The second claim (this is where they are trailblazers) is that Google unfairly removes their websites from search hits. The article goes on to explain why Google had dropped their sites (due to a malware warning), but to me this is immaterial. As the legal expert quoted in the article says, there's no way this claim gets anywhere in the lawsuit. I don't see how Ascentive can allege to have any say in how Google provides search results. Despite the ubiquity of Google search in society today, we must remember that this is a service provided by a private company - the pages of google.com are not owned by the public. As a side note, not many people realize the possible implications of having so much of their data on the servers of such private companies. And those that do don't seem to care (e.g., yours truly). But that's probably a separate blog post...

Back to the first claim. At first glance, it might seem wrong for Google to allow advertising with registered trademarks. But who's really doing wrong? I submit that the fault lies solely with the company that advertises using a trademark that they do not own. Google simply provides a service - it is the other company that misuses the service. It shouldn't be incumbent on Google to check that every ad they sell does not violate a trademark.

If I were the judge on this case, it would get tossed out faster than Matt Levine at a country line dancing bar (inside joke).

Intelligent design is not science.

This article, about yet another debate over whether evolution is the the only theory of human origin to teach in science classes, caught my attention. As a good atheist, I have long thought that creationism is BS. The intelligent design argument has never sat well with me, but until taking a Philosophy of Science class this semester I have not had a good reason to argue why it should not be taught in science classes.

Creationism is blatantly religious, and most educated people would recognize that it has no place in science. Intelligent design, however, has more subtle supernatural undertones. Many people would argue that it is a viable theory, and that it is pretty much impossible to disprove. Therein lies the rub. One of the fundamental requirements of a scientific theory is that it is testable. Although, the balance of the currently available evidence supports the theory of evolution, if we were to discover fossils that demonstrated that humans lived before the early primates that scientists believe were our ancestors, the theory would no longer be justified. There is no corresponding test for intelligent design. One could claim that any evidence fits into this theory. This is not science. See here for more insight on this issue.

Another angle the proponents of intelligent design take is that they claim to be skeptical about the evidence for evolution. I tend to be skeptical about many things, so I can appreciate this position. However, in this case there seems to be very little to be skeptical about. The evidence supporting evolution is bountiful and coherent. There is no disagreement about this issue in the scientific community. Attempts to claim this is not the case are worse than claiming that there is no scientific consensus on climate change, and probably on par with the ad campaign the tobacco companies undertook years ago to try to convince people that scientists did not agree that smoking is harmful.

Although I disagree with intelligent design, I have no problem with people posing it as a possible explanation for our existence...as long as they don't do it in a science classroom. If someone can come up with a better *scientific* explanation than evolution, I'm all ears.

Time traveling.

I have long vehemently contended that time travel is impossible. Facebook has just proven me wrong:

Time to switch toilet paper?

I'm a fan of the Charmin Ultra cuz it's so soft. However, it looks like it's not so good for the environment. Check out a comparison chart here: http://www.nrdc.org/land/forests/tissueguide/ratings.aspx. It also looks like Bounty paper towels, my brand of choice, are pretty bad in that respect. I don't think I can switch from Bounty unless the "greener" brands make select-a-size rolls.

Kid A, no. Kid B, no. Kid C, yes.

Apparently we are now capable of screening human embryos for diseases and other characteristics, thus allowing potential parents to select their desired children: click. While this is not a trivial (or cheap) procedure, it raises some controversial questions.

This takes natural selection to a whole new level. I like the idea of being able to screen for debilitating or fatal genetic diseases, but I'm not sure how I feel about the idea of designer babies, i.e. choosing gender and other physical characteristics. I don't think I can say that I'm opposed to it, though.

An interesting essay on the impossibility of reconciling science and religion.

http://www.tnr.com/story_print.html?id=1e3851a3-bdf7-438a-ac2a-a5e381a70472

Jerry Coyne's piece, entitled "Seeing and Believing", in The New Republic is a review/critique of two books which attempt to unite science and religion in a Darwin Year (the 200th anniversary of his birth). The article is a pretty long read, but there are quite a few portions that are worthwhile if you have any interest in the topic.

A few excerpts that caught my attention:

"It is a depressing fact that while 74 percent of Americans believe that angels exist, only 25 percent accept that we evolved from apelike ancestors. Just one in eight of us think that evolution should be taught in the biology classroom without including a creationist alternative. Among thirty-four Western countries surveyed for the acceptance of evolution, the United States ranked a dismal thirty-third, just above Turkey."

"True, there are religious scientists and Darwinian churchgoers. But this does not mean that faith and science are compatible, except in the trivial sense that both attitudes can be simultaneously embraced by a single human mind. (It is like saying that marriage and adultery are compatible because some married people are adulterers. ) It is also true that some of the tensions disappear when the literal reading of the Bible is renounced, as it is by all but the most primitive of JudeoChristian sensibilities. But tension remains. The real question is whether there is a philosophical incompatibility between religion and science. Does the empirical nature of science contradict the revelatory nature of faith? Are the gaps between them so great that the two institutions must be considered essentially antagonistic? The incessant stream of books dealing with this question suggests that the answer is not straightforward."

"In other words, God is a Mover of Electrons, deliberately keeping his incursions into nature so subtle that they're invisible. It is baffling that Miller, who comes up with the most technically astute arguments against irreducible complexity, can in the end wind up touting God's micro-editing of DNA. This argument is in fact identical to that of Michael Behe, the [intelligent design] advocate against whom Miller testified in the Harrisburg trial. It is another God-of-the-gaps argument, except that this time the gaps are tiny."

"Most scientists can tell you what observations would convince them of God's existence, but I have never met a religious person who could tell me what would disprove it. And what could possibly convince people to abandon their belief that the deity is, as Giberson asserts, good, loving, and just? If the Holocaust cannot do it, then nothing will."

"And they fail for the same reason that people always fail: a true harmony between science and religion requires either doing away with most people's religion and replacing it with a watered-down deism, or polluting science with unnecessary, untestable, and unreasonable spiritual claims."

"It would appear, then, that one cannot be coherently religious and scientific at the same time. That alleged synthesis requires that with one part of your brain you accept only those things that are tested and supported by agreed-upon evidence, logic, and reason, while with the other part of your brain you accept things that are unsupportable or even falsified. In other words, the price of philosophical harmony is cognitive dissonance. Accepting both science and conventional faith leaves you with a double standard: rational on the origin of blood clotting, irrational on the Resurrection; rational on dinosaurs, irrational on virgin births."

"So the most important conflict--the one ignored by Giberson and Miller--is not between religion and science. It is between religion and secular reason. Secular reason includes science, but also embraces moral and political philosophy, mathematics, logic, history, journalism, and social science--every area that requires us to have good reasons for what we believe."

You can also read some interesting responses to the article (including posts from both authors that were criticized) here: http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/coyne09/coyne09_index.html.

If I ever become a vegetable, please let me die.

A recent article about the death of an Italian woman who had been in a persistent vegetative state (PVS) reminded me of the Terri Schiavo case. I'm pretty sure I fall on the "right to die" side of that argument. It seems to me that in these cases one thing that made the choice of whether to disconnect life support (or not) more difficult was that the conscious parties involved did not know what the vegetative person would have wanted. So this is my attempt to make my preference in that undesireable event clear: if I am in a PVS for more than a year, please pull the plug. And after I'm done, go ahead and donate my organs and cremate my remains.

Free e-file with no strings attached.

I have always felt that the ability to electronically file your taxes for free should be a right as a citizen of the United States. If the government makes you pay taxes, you shouldn't have to pay someone an additional fee to figure out how much you need to pay. It looks like the Free File program has finally achieved something close to how I think things should be.

For years there have been ways to e-file taxes (both federal and state) for free, but there have been stipulations that limit access to these options, such as caps on income. For the past couple of years I have semi-manually filled out my tax returns because I refuse to pay to have my taxes done. Thankfully, the IRS had PDF forms that you could fill in, though you had to perform the calculations yourself. Missouri went a step further and provided PDF forms that automatically performed the calculations. The drawback was that I had to print out my tax returns and mail them in.

It now looks like the IRS is offering Free File Fillable Forms that perform calculations and allow e-file! It is completely free for the federal return and there are no limitations, including on income. I should note that this option is similar to filling in the paper forms, except that it is all done electronically. People who are not comfortable with crunching the numbers or deciding which schedules to fill out are probably better off with the commercial software packages/websites that guide you through the process, though usually at a cost. In any case, you can bet that I will be utilizing this service this year. Unfortunately, this does not apply to state returns, so I would have to either pay for a Missouri e-file (head shake) or mail in the state forms as I have done in the past (head nod).

An interesting take on the U.S. rail system.

I've been an advocate for enhancing the national rail system in the United States, especially after riding the trains in Japan. I knew at least one person (Michael Schwartz) shared my sentiments. I now know that there are others. This article has some interesting ideas on the issue. The guy who is interviewed basically wants to create a system modeled after the European one. It would be viable, more efficient, and more eco-friendly alternative to flying.

Yes we can.

Two years ago I predicted that the U.S. would not be ready for Barack Obama to be president in 2008, and that 2012 would be his year. It's a good thing that nobody pays attention to my political predictions.

So where was I when I found out that he was officially projected to win? Well, I had been following the race all day yesterday, and saw that he had a healthy lead before I left my mom's house for my indoor soccer game. I didn't find out that he was the winner until I returned home around 20:20, 20 minutes after he was declared the victor. I did have a suspicion, though, when on my way home I received a text message from my friend Robert which simply said "Yes!"

But what about Missouri? This is only the second time my state has been "wrong" about the president in over 100 years...and the margin was tiny - less than 6000 votes (49.4% to 49.2%). How did the Democrat Jay Nixon manage to win the gubernatorial race so handily (58.4% to 39.5%) if the presidential race was so close? I'm guessing due to a combination of a few factors:

1. Nixon, having served as the attorney general for 16 years, was already very popular in Missouri.
2. Hulshof, his opponent, was not the ideal Republican candidate.
   
3. Obama is (at least perceived as) too liberal for Missourians.
4. St. Charles County had the highest voter turnout by percentage in the state.
5. Missouri may have more pro-white racists than pro-black racists.
   

As an aside, I am also happy that Proposition C (which mandates investor-owned electric companies provide certain percentages of power from renewable sources, with a target of 15% by 2021) was passed. I'm not exactly thrilled that all the other state-wide amendments and propositions passed, though.

In any case, my enthusiasm for politics, which always peaks at election time, has already begun to wane. I hope that Obama does well in his first term as president, but it's time for me to return to being mostly apathetic.

Climate Time Machine, Proposition C.

This is an interesting little site with some quick interactive climate change demos: http://climate.jpl.nasa.gov/ClimateTimeMachine/climateTimeMachine.cfm.

By the way, I support Proposition C in the upcoming Missouri election, and I think you should too. While I'm typically not a big fan of mandates, I feel like this ballot measure (if passed) shows the power companies that the consumers want renewable energy. I will admit that Ameren offers a program called Pure Power that allows one to buy the equivalent of her/his energy consumption from renewable sources for an extra 1.5 cents per kWh (or approximately a 25% increase). Although the price increase seems a little ridiculous, I just signed up for the program as an act of proverbially putting my money where my mouth is.

Another reason to love Google.

The Google home page has gone black today to help raise awareness of Earth Hour. See below...

The concept is that in cities all over the planet people will turn off their lights tonight from 20:00 to 21:00 local time as a sign of recognition of the human impact to climate change. Kind of a neat idea.

Too bad at that time tonight I'll be at a rock concert. Doubtful, but perhaps they'll forego a light show for the opening band...

60 minutes sees it my way.

Ever since I returned from Australia and New Zealand, both countries that no longer have pennies, I have joked about creating a petition to abolish the U.S. penny. While I don't think that's actually going to happen, I came across a 60 Minutes segment which discusses the fact that pennies cost way more to make than they are worth, an argument that I use (in addition to the fact that pennies are worthless wastes of space). You can check out the segment here. They mention that nickels, my second least favorite coin, are also unsustainable to produce.

On a related note, my buddy Greg has decided to champion the cause of the $1 coin, a notion which I second...except for the fact that I lose so much change from my pockets that I would probably lose a fortune under my car seat. This was also inspired from our travels abroad, where coins seem to actually have value.

Call it a comeback!

Despite a couple of early projections that Hillary would win Missouri (see here and here), our boy Barack has pulled of the victory. If only the rest of those states would follow suit...

Missouri...black and white.

As the results come in for the Missouri Democratic presidential primary on Super Tuesday, I can't help but note a sharp contrast between the voting patterns in metropolitan areas versus rural ones. Currently, Hillary Clinton is leading Barack Obama by a slimming margin of 49% to 48%.

However, Hillary has carried every single county in MO except for 6: Boone County (where Columbia is located), Cole County (Jefferson City), Jackson County (Kansas City), Nodaway County (WTF?!), St. Louis City, and St. Louis County. Barack ran away or is running away with those 6, many of which have a significant population in relation to the rest of the state. He also came close in St. Charles County (48% to 50%), but apparently it is sufficiently far enough from St. Louis City for rednecks and hicks to inhabit.

Even with 90+% of precincts reporting, the race still appears too close to call because the remaining precincts are mostly in metropolitan areas. In any case, whoever wins the Democratic nomination will make history (you know...cuz one's a woman and one's black), so this is huge.

Green building comes to Missouri.

On my way to my buddy's house for the annual Army-Navy football game yesterday, I drove by a housing development with a sign which claimed that it was the first "GREEN" development in Missouri. Being the tree-hugger that I've turned into, I had to stop by the sales office on my way home after the game. I picked up some information about the place, and it seems pretty nice. Obviously, I'm all about the sustainable and energy-efficient aspects of the development. The cons are that they are only multi-unit buildings (4 and 12) and that it's out in St. Peters/O'Fallon. It's definitely worth checking out if you're looking to move out into those parts: Highland Park.

There's also a "green" high-rise condo development being built in downtown St. Louis called Roberts Tower. This place looks pretty cool as well.

Considering that I've only been in my new house for about half a year, don't expect me to move out into one of these places any time soon. However, it's definitely nice to see that environmentally friendly developments are sprouting up in the area.

Maybe I'm a grinch.

Isn't it a little early to have Christmas lights up? After all, November just started today. I saw two separate display of lights on the drive home today. Perhaps in this commercial society that we live in it is appropriate to start the holiday season as soon as we can get away with it. I guess most Christians don't even celebrate the true meaning of Christmas anyway.

Although slowly, the wheels of justice do turn.

Updating a previous posting, our boy Genarlow Wilson has been freed. Wright Thompson, author of the original E-ticket article that caught my attention, weighs in on it here. Good luck in the future, young man, and may your decisions be made with more care.

Here's a good idea...

Kiva allows "ordinary" people to help make a difference in the lives of the less fortunate around the world. Through them, you can loan money with minimal interest to entrepreneurs in developing countries. Yes, loan...not donate. The idea is that this isn't just a free handout, but a way to provide people some help through opportunities that may not ordinarily be afforded them. You can find out more by checking out their website: kiva.org.

Vegetarian Week recap.

I did it! A week without meat. And I don't even have the shakes, either. I feel like this is something I could do for longer, though I don't really have a desire to. After this past week, I have realized that the reasons I couldn't make vegetarianism permanent are twofold:

1. I'd be missing out on too many appetizing dishes. There are a plethora of perfectly good meals with meat out there that are just screaming my name, beckoning me to consume them. I can't let their calls go unanswered, can I?
   
2. It's sometimes hard (though not as hard as I thought) to find a substantial meal that does not have meat in it. I think this is mostly a product of the society that we live in, though. You can't go to a fast-food joint and expect to find something good without meat...usually the best you can hope for is that they can prepare something without the meat, which is a significant portion of the meal. It's definitely easier at sit-down restaurants or when you do your own grocery shopping, though.

I would like to thank and congratulate my fellow temporary vegetarian Tom Musick for his support and inspiration. Without him this experiment would never have been conceived, much less successful.

Happy Earth Day!

I celebrated by buying a bunch of compact fluorescent bulbs from The Home Depot, in addition to getting one for free. OK, so maybe I actually forgot that it was Earth Day until I got in the store and got my free bulb...

A couple of tidbits.

I just returned from a snowboarding trip to Cascade Mountain in Wisconsin. I had a lot of fun and didn't injure anything. I can't quite say the same for our bus, though, which was hit head-on by a car which skidded out of control. Thankfully, nobody was hurt.

Also, I am apparently giving up soda for Lent, as decided by one Greg Wilcox. Don't worry...I'm not turning religious anytime soon.

U of I has lost the fiscal support of one alumnus.

I have always maintained that the day University of Illinois gets rid of Chief Illiniwek is the day that I stop donating money to them. Well, that day has come. I'm sure they will not miss my annual gift of $50 ($100 after Boeing match). At least they kept the Fighting Illini name. Go here for more information.

A grave injustince.

I often argue that people who get in trouble with the law must at least partly blame themselves for being in the situation. While I think this is probably true in this case, I still think that Genarlow Wilson has suffered a grave injustice. You can read more about his story here.

My hippie thought for the day.

Go see An Inconvenient Truth.

And/or go to climatecrisis.net and stopglobalwarming.org.

I am NOT down with Nuestro Himno.

Normally, I'm someone who doesn't really care what other people say or do as long as they don't harm me. I'm also one who's fairly apathetic when it comes to political issues. However, I feel that "Nuestro Himno," a Spanish recorded version of the United States national anthem, is out of line. I'll even go so far as to agree with the president on this one.

This doesn't mean that I'm going to protest against it or anything. After all, free speech is one of the reasons that make the U.S.A. so great. What I will do, though, is write a blog entry expounding my distaste. Bottom line: if you want to be a United States citizen, please be so kind as to sing our anthem in our language.

Penalized for doing the right thing...

When I placed my newly purchased CD copy of the album Z by My Morning Jacket into my computer at work, I was greeted by an End User License Agreement (EULA) which mentioned the installation of DRM-protection software if I accepted. My immediate response: Uhhhh...no!

After more research with the help of my friend the Internet, I found that "the SOFTWARE" (as they fondly referred to it) was SunnComm MediaMax Version 5. Sony BMG was responsible for this and another DRM software package, First4Internet's XCP, which installed a rootkit on Windows computers. For those who are not up to date on their tech news, XCP created a huge controversy because it opened a security hole when rooted on computers. In addition, Sony's initial uninstall program also had a security flaw.

The MediaMax support website insists that the two software products, MediaMax and XCP, are unrelated. However, I observed that both had similar symptoms and both were initially fixed incorrectly. Hmmm...

Needless to say, I was not happy about this. And neither are many other music fans...a Google search on the topic yields countless blog posts which protest against Sony. Even the artists are quite displeased...My Morning Jacket, for example, has a link to help pages about working around the DRM protection on their website. It's also been reported that they have sent out over 100 copies of burned non-DRM copies of the album to friends and fans who have had trouble with it.

Fortunately, when I ripped the tracks onto my laptop using Yahoo! Music Engine, I was neither prompted with the EULA dialogue box, nor affected by the DRM malware. The ripped tracks play fine, and when I downloaded and ran the MediaMax uninstaller it informed me that the software was not found on my system.

Alas, this brings us to my views on the issue. Though I was not harmed by this malware, I am still enraged. These days, I acquire the vast majority of my CDs through legal means. This is not because I am more ethical than thou...it is actually mostly because I am lazy. I would rather use a subscription service, such as Yahoo! Music Unlimited (shameless plug), to check out what's hot in music and then order albums that I like off Amazon.com, than spend hours scouring the Internet for high-quality versions of songs. The few exceptions to my legal acquisition are when a friend offers to burn me a copy of something he thinks is the fire...this usually leads to me buying more albums by the artist anyway. I think it's a shame that someone who acquires music legally is put at risk by buying the CD. Oh, and Sony is wac.

While we're on the topic of race...

People need to quit being so sensitive and "politically correct." According to this article, the Air Force Academy reprimanded their head football coach for rationalizing a loss to TCU by saying that they "had a lot more African-American players than [AFA] did and they ran a lot faster than [AFA] did." He further commented that "It just seems to [him] to be that way. African-American kids can run very well. That doesn't mean that Caucasian kids and other descents can't run, but it's very obvious to [him] that they run extremely well."

What's wrong with that? Is anybody really going to argue that his comments were without merit? Don't mistake me as a member of the Fisher DeBerry fan club...this is the same guy who hung a banner which read "I am a Christian first and last ... I am a member of Team Jesus Christ" in the locker room last year, and we all know how Obi feels about religious intolerance. However, I don't think he should be reprimanded for stating something which is pretty much common sense.

I hate to rant about a previously discussed topic, but...

I have not been the subject of much racial discrimination in my life. In fact, there have been only maybe two times that I have felt that I was the victim of such an act. However, I don't think I'll ever let one of them go.

If you read my post on March 21, 2005, you witnessed a faux-expletive-laden explosion regarding Jim Caple, a writer for ESPN.com, being pictured on the Alma Mater statue on the campus of U of I. If you recall, this is the same statue I was busted for climbing while a student there. Well, I received an e-mail earlier today aptly titled "i see no black people and no po-po", which contained nothing more than this picture:



I have made it my personal mission to take a picture on top of the Alma Mater when I visit Champaign next month. Hopefully, I will return to post that picture on this very blog that you are reading. If not, I might be in jail. But more likely, I will probably forget.

Thanks to Julie for the picture.

Poignant Zen passage...

Life itself is a powerful teacher. To stay flexible, open, and sincere
at each juncture is worth a lifetime of "practice." To be a truly
compassionate person requires the ability to respond sincerely, being
comfortable with the apparent contradictions, confident in one's
ability to choose actions with heart/wisdom.

Taken from the commentary in this month's On The Way - The DailyZen Journal.

Straight from the OK Cupid! Politics Test.

You are a
Social Moderate
(55% permissive)


and an...
Economic Conservative
(61% permissive)


You are best described as a:

Centrist

You exhibit a very well-developed sense of Right and Wrong and believe in economic fairness.

As the returns come in...

Tim made a good point...

Anybody else notice how the division of the red states from the blue states, east of the Mississippi, is reminiscent of the Confederacy versus the Union?

Should I even vote?

After weeks of supporting Bush, I am undecided yet again.

The turning point? A closer look at Bush's tax cut. I was formerly led to believe that the tax cut was designed to give more relief to those on the lower end of the income scale. This is not entirely the case.

While there is initially a trend where richer people get less of a tax break, this reverses after $297,350. People making more than this get an even bigger tax break than those at the bottom...at least after the tax cuts have fully materialized. I'm not a fan of that. While one statistic shows that everyone in the richest 20% pays a bigger part of the income tax burden, the increase is the smallest for the top 1%. While there are other pragmatic reasons for decreasing the tax burden on the upper class during a time of economic recession, a handout to the uber-rich is simply not acceptable.

Now that the two main candidates are again tied, I don't know what to do. I guess somebody's gotta convince me to vote one way or another.


P.S. - Jim Edmonds just hit a walk-off homer in Game 6 of the NLCS to send it to 7. How excited am I?!

Update on my stance on social issues.

It has become apparent to me that I am socially a Libertarian...except on gun control.

Michael Moore: champion or buffoon?

My friend Steve thinks Michael Moore is an idiot. After reading this essay, you might too.

Personally, I feel duped. While I expected, and saw through, a few misrepresentations, I didn't think Moore would stoop to the levels this article claims he did to manipulate the public. I guess the lesson is that you can't always take "the facts" at face value...and that includes the linked essay.

Upon reconsideration...

I have concluded that I am not a social liberal...I just want the gays to be happy...

My first political post.

I claim to be politically independent. I believe this is true. When asked to describe my political tendencies, I would say that I am fiscally conservative and socially liberal...the same description that probably 50% of America uses on themselves.

I have a hard time seeing myself vote for the Democratic ticket in this upcoming presidential election. I'm not sure why this is. George Bush would definitely not be my first choice for president, but he seems adequate enough, especially when compared to John Kerry. On the issues, Bush currently owns a very slim lead over Kerry...although I think this is partially due to the fact that Kerry has shifted his platform to appear more moderate than he truly is. Outside of that, though, I just feel more comfortable with Bush as president, despite his occasional brain farts. In any case, I am glad that my politically apathetic phase is over, and that I am now registered to vote.

If I had my way, I would want John McCain to be president...but that's never going to happen. I think this is because he is a strait-shooter who comes pretty much as close as possible to being an independent without actually being one (props also go to James Jeffords for actually being an independent, though he was elected as a Republican). I am not a fan of people who define themselves so much by a party line that they do not entertain their individual inclinations on certain issues or candidates.

But enough of my political ranting...I'll try to keep these "serious" posts to a minimum.

One last note - my mother finally admitted yesterday that she is a Democrat, after months of claiming to be an independent. I assured her that there is nothing wrong with her beliefs, but that it's good to no longer be living in denial.