Imagine if This Were the Tea Party

Look at the coverage of the effective riots in Wisconsin. Imagine these were Tea Party members. The media would not be off the "bad people" argument. Yet they say barely a peep about the far worse behavior and even death threats of those involved here.

Couldn't be bias, could it?

Most of you have probably seen the demonstrations (and worse) going on in Wisconsin. Those who had negotiated quite cushy perks are really upset that they may lose the right to negotiate those in the future.

Whether you are in favor of unions or not, having them in the public sector (the only place they are growing or maintaining strength) seems a bit wrong. The can organize and support candidates who will give them more benefits. That is a kind of self-feeding system, for the worse.

The state is broke, they need to tighten their belts and live without things they may have claimed as their right in the past, just as all of us are doing now. They don't like it, so they are "throwing a tantrum." What is not surprising, but still saddening, is how many liberal apologists proclaim they have the right to everything.

Brad

I am Awed by Design

It never ceases to amaze me that men can look at the complex designs in nature and yet credit them to random chance. This is in spite of the fact that nothing in life that they can observe works that way! I have worked many years in software development and information security and neither of those areas will work right if you don't put a lot of effort into designing things to work properly.

Even the "simple cell" is complex beyond our imagination. Yet we maintain the persistent myth that random forces caused all this.

Talk about believing "its turtles all the way down"....

Content "Piracy"

We regularly here that accessing content "illegally" is stealing. We really need to reevaluate this stance. While we have certainly "owned content" for the past several decades, this was not the historical norm. Prior to this, anyone could reprint just about anything, though the costs of doing so were the more limiting factor. Now, the duplication costs are effectively zero, so it is much harder to keep control.

One serious flaw in the argument is that stealing takes something from someone else. If I steal your phone, you don't have a phone. On the contrary, if I copy your mp3 file, you still have full access to your own. By this logic, if I hear you singing a new song I will have "stolen it" if I sing it myself.

This doesn't hold up to logic and I suspect that it will not hold up in the long term.

As with much of life, those arguing for the "new order" are not looking for the good of society, they are looking out for their own pocketbook. While this is to be expected, we should keep it in mind when deciding what is the right thing to do.

NOTE: I am not advocating the copying of material. I am just discussing the reasoning behind things.

Focus Pocus

I believe I have written before that this is my biggest challenge. I do great once I have a clear goal (whether I generate it or it is given by others), but I can have a hard time getting to that point if nothing is driving me there.

That is the biggest challenge in life too!

In fact, each of us must ultimately decide what to focus on. Allowing others to do that will almost certainly take us to a place where we do not want to be. While the individual decisions may seem fine, each one may take us farther from a goal that we would be really satisfied with.

I do not believe you can really plan your entire life out, though a few people do seem to come very close to that. Life has a way of stepping in the middle and messing up the best plans. That should not be used as an excuse to not do anything though. It is far better to aim at something and adjust your aim, than to aim at nothing and hit it!

"I Don't Want Anything"

Most people loudly insist that they don't want any outside support. They will often proclaim, "I don't want anything." Yet I think this is far from reality. What is much more likely is that they don't want any "strings" with what they get. They want an ATM machine that they never put money in, but that they can take it out without even a receipt saying, "be thankful for what you got."

In the past, I believe some really did want to "do it on their own," but that inner drive is largely missing. While I am an incredibly motivated individual, I have to constantly watch myself, how much more for someone that really isn't interested in things?

Look at all the programs (government and otherwise) to help people out. None of them (that I know of) are hurting for applicants. If anything, we are constantly told we need to "do more" even though the need will never be filled. Some people are in truly rough situations, but the answer is to help all of us learn skills to get out of the mess, not just throw money and resources in to let us keep the same attitudes that kept us in the mess in the first place.

We need to have an attitude shift. We need to stop doing the things that poor people do and start doing the things that enable people to gain wealth. Everyone will never be "above average," but we can certainly do much better.

Life is about always improving, yourself and your relationships with others. How are you furthering that goal today?

NOTE: The reason it is impossible for everyone to be "above average" is because average just means "in the middle." Someone will always be in the middle. Some will always be above and some will always be below average. Nothing can change this. The key is to raise the tide, not just specific boats.

I suppose this is why "the poor will always be with us." Poor is often a relative term, even though a mindset is often what keeps people stuck there. The poor of today have far more than even the rich several hundred years ago, but we don't have a gratefulness for that, which goes back to the start of this entry. Thus the circle continues.

No More Collections?

I was just listening to a podcast and one of the comments was that the transition to purely online media faces a challenge since it goes against the human desire to collect things.

How many of us have at least a small collection of CDs and DVDs. While all are not as compelled to collect things as I am, we all tend to collect some things. With the "pay per use" method, you no longer will have that option.

I wonder how strong this collection desire is in everyone. If it is as strong as I suspect, this transition may not ever be complete, no matter how much the producers and studios want us to change to renting what we watch.

Focus

This is my biggest area of challenge these days. Though I suppose I would have to say that in relationship with my life. I can do well at a wide range of things and enjoy almost all of them. That is good in one sense, but it is hard when I face decisions about where to really focus with my life.

No answers here, but perhaps by writing about it some direction will come out that helps me and those who may read this.

How Have You Improved Yourself Today?

What have you done today to make yourself a better person? This is a key thing all of us should keep in mind. Our most limited asset is our time and we need to use it the best we can.

Make sure you do something each day, however small, to improve yourself. Take a step toward being the person you want to be!

How Certain is "Natural History"?

I was watching a show tonight on the beginning of the oceans (I missed the first part). It was full of tiny bits of facts stuffed with lots of "scientific imagining" at its own admission. (I may have the exact word wrong, but they basically admitted to making a lot of it up.)

It is amazing how certain they are of so many things, without any solid evidence to back them up, just their own guesses.

It was interesting to note their focus on the shift to plate tectonics. They noted the clever "everything fits together" without noting the size differences of the continents. Its kind of like taking the pieces from several different sized puzzles and then insisting they all fit together. Though perhaps they did, that doesn't prove the stories they weave.

Clearly, the plates move, but they were quite far from proving that all we can see can be explained by slow gradual processes. It is ironic that they claimed the alternative was a belief that "God made it static" when that doesn't fit with what even the most hard core Creationist believes. (Check out the Flood of Noah for lots of shifting, for example. See also the Mount St. Helens eruption for fast-forming canyons.)

My wife asks me why I watch these shows. I like true science, yet find little of it. Lots of myth telling though. I am not sure, though maybe she is correct when she says it is so I can argue with the TV! :)

Brad

Today's Election

I have tuned out of a lot of political hype in the past few years. I used to be a lot more concerned about things, truly believing the idea that my vote mattered. I no longer am convinced it really matters, except as much as it is following the overall trend in our culture.

Right now many voters are "mad" about some things and many felt they were sold a bunch of junk with our current president. However, I am not convinced that most of those really want the radical cut back of government that would be required to have a more balanced society.

We rely on government to do to much for us, not realizing that we are ultimately responsible for ourselves. A big danger is that many will step forward claiming they can help us manage things better, in spite of reality.

The only time letting someone else handle things is appropriate is when you are a child. The modern American citizen needs to grow up and stop being a child. We all need to realize that while we should personally help each other out, our own future is pretty much in our own hands. No one can manage it better, nor should we ever give up our freedoms to attempt to reach that.

Droid X

I got tired of my Samsung Omnia phone and replaced it with a Droid X.

The Droid X gets hot, though looks like it will be a great phone, if I can keep the heat away from me. :)

The Omnia had high ratings, but I don't believe it lived up to its hype.

Blaming God for Life's Troubles

I was listening to a PBS show on Mark Twain (via Netflix) while doing some work tonight. The biggest thing that struck me is that on the one hand he blamed himself for all bad things, but on the other he blamed God.

I suspect this is a problem with those who claim to always blame themselves. They ultimately know they are not as wrong as they think, so they have to blame someone. Since God is not there and usually gets the burnt of everyone's blame, they then dump on Him.

This completely ignores their own role in things and also the results of sin in the world. How few of us acknowledge that we are really getting far better than we deserve? It is quite common in the modern world to think we all deserve perfection. Some think that everything should go well, all the time. Ultimately, this is normally just selfishness. I have especially seen this in those who don't work hard for their own advancement, instead thinking someone else "owes them" merely because they "suck air" as Dave Ramsey says.

If this fits you, consider that perhaps you are not seeing the whole picture. Sure you can blame God, but He has already taken action, yet few of us accept His Son and what He has done for us. Then we blame Him because we don't get the good times we think we are due.

While I have faced my own series of troubles, I will never bow to the temptation to blame God for them. Sure, He knows everything, but He has chosen to let us face the lives we mostly make ourselves.

Stop blaming Him and start thanking Him for the good things you do have. Countless stories show that those who do so face better lives, even if they end up going through even worse troubles.

Time Keeps on Slipping into the Future!

I am constantly reminded of the song by the Steve Miller Band, Fly Like An Eagle. Time certainly slips away quickly.

My life is much more flexible now than it has been at times in the past when I was physically "on site" for an employer for 40 or more hours a week, yet I find my time vanishes just as fast now as it ever did. In some ways, it seems like it goes quicker.

Not sure the point of this post, but something to ponder. We need to use our time wisely. It slips away and is gone before we know it. We can never get it back. It will be spent regardless.

Are you spending your time wisely?

Tea Party Haters

I am a fair bit behind on listening to my Economist subscription and just came across the Letters section for an issue in early May. One of the letter writers complained that the Tea Party members only complained about their lot in life.

His solution, get more informed instead of just complaining. And what exactly would the point of that be? Or is that just another command to "shut up and get with the program of having the government take over more and more of life"?

Is he as critical of anti-war protesters, those who protest the oil spill and drive to the events in their gas-guzzlers, etc.? I doubt it, since those are more correct causes.

I am not a Tea Party member and I am unlikely to be, since I think politics today is largely a waste of time. We are given the illusion that we control things, not the reality.

Why is the "complaining" against the Tea Party any worse than the complaining Mr. Curcio and others in his party have likely done against Texas governor Rick Perry? They seem to always be complaining about something in the little bit of Texas politics I hear.

Complaining about the direction of your country/state/city/whatever is a perfectly valid use of our right to free speech. How ironic that those who want to "free" us don't want the same rights of free speech for those who disagree with their goals and methods.

Some day we will wake up and realize that a strong controlling government is a very dangerous thing. Unfortunately, that will probably be after it is far too late to do anything about it. It is probably too late now in fact. Too many people have become dependent on all the things that government provides (at a horrible ultimate price and one forceably extracted from others via taxes).

The freedoms we have can be lost very quickly and it is looking more and more like I will live to see that day. Big bummer on that one.

People like Mr. Curcio need to get a life. Instead of seeing their schemes of more Nanny State control in our lives as the only way, they need to wake up and see that shrinking back the power of our rulers would really be a good thing and that protesting against a state that sticks its nose in all things is a good thing.

The Amazing Variety of Life

I was just watching the first part of the deep ocean episode of The Blue Planet. It is a look at the wide variety of life in the deep ocean. The narrator notes that the attack and defense methods were developed in an "evolutionary arms race". While this sounds good, it fails to note the incredible difficulty of this working in practice. A partial attack or defense method would almost always (if not always) be useless.

We would never look at a computer system that had strong defenses and think it just happened. We also know that those who attack computer systems either use their own intelligence or that of those who designed their tools.

How can we look at the incredible complexity and functionality in life and think it "just happened" with a straight face.

I Bought an iPad!

After being intrigued but largely not focusing on it, I got spurred into getting an iPad the very same day they happened to be releasing the 3G version. Naturally, I needed the biggest one they had, a 64GB 3G one.

I love it! While it isn't perfect and learning the controls can take a brief bit of time, I am finding it much more effective at things than either Kindle (I have both versions) ever was. I did get GoodReader based on a recommendation I saw on the web and I love the way it presents PDF files. They are very viewable and it works great for reading them.

Reading PDF files, which I need to do for classes I teach, is a significant motivation for having such a device, but I am also finding that it is a great game playing machine.

I had also noticed the Small World game came out. It is one of the few board games by that publisher that I don't have, but I will note that the iPad implementation is great. I do wish I could toggle off the stupid sound that plays on the screen when you start the app, but that is fortunately not part of the normal gameplay. I had steered away from it because of the fantasy theme, but that is mostly just a mechanic in the game, not a principle focus. It is all about taking territories and collecting residual income.

Highly recommended!

I am looking at getting a Mac now so I can play around with developing some of my own iPad apps as well. Looks cool. I have been "away from the Mac" for almost a decade now too!

Brad

Frontline Slams For-Profit Colleges

I just got done listening to the Frontline show "College Inc." It is an examination of the for-profit education business. It is certainly a business and that clearly bothers some people, especially those from more traditional education.

The show did show many good things and probably gave as unbiased a view as they could, given their mindset. I would be most of those involved with the show's production were very used to only the more traditional academic environment.

A couple of things bothered me about the show and I am listing them in the order I think of them, not necessarily their order of importance.

- They continually complained that the cost of a for-profit education is much more than that at a more traditional community college or regular university. In this, they failed to note how it compared to the cost of each student in such organizations when you factored in the money such schools receive from government at all levels. Is it really so different in that case? Perhaps, though I have my doubts. While government money to education is being trimmed in some places, it still amounts to a lot of money. Tuition costs are also rising rather rapidly from what I have seen.

- Many of the "sad stories" they give of people who made poor choices were truly sad. Unfortunately, the real problem is getting too much debt, something that plagues our society in so many ways. A significant cause of the current credit crisis was too much credit for a wide ranger of things. Are the producers really certain that this is the only stupid thing people have done and are paying the price for now? How about even interviewing those who have huge amounts of debt and possibly no degree from a large state school? How about an elite college, like Harvard?

People run up bills for stupid things all the time. We should be actively telling people to not fund an education, or much else for that matter, on debt. Staying debt free is much more important than just picking apart specific examples.

- The regulators on the show seemed no different than the ones in other areas who want to assert their power and ability to rule the area they are over. Does anyone really trust that government regulators are always correct? Maybe they are in this case, maybe not, but where were the questions about how this could be getting spun the wrong way?

- What about the large number of failures in more traditional education? I am sure they could fill a whole show with those. That would probably not fit their anti-business (at least in this area) bias though.

- A question was asked near the end, "Is education a business?" Who can really say it hasn't been for many years? The interviewer needs to go back to school himself if he doesn't think traditional education is a huge business. It is also a monopoly in places, with false shortages, encouragement that "only the elite can make it" and other such "pressure" items to get parents and others to pay the huge costs for such education.

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The biggest thing the show indicated is that the traditional establishment doesn't like change and that people need to pay attention before they commit. On the latter, individuals need to realize they are responsible for their own lives. No one will look out for all problems for you. Unfortunately, we live in a society where no one really wants to take ownership and responsibility for their own life!

If someone promises you something that seems too good, it probably is. You should deeply investigate anything before signing on the bottom line.

The fact that traditional education is against this is not surprising at all. They get huge amounts of money from the government now and they have largely been a monopoly for many years. They would definitely not want anyone to step in and interrupt their ability to control all aspects of education as much as they have for the past hundreds of years.

If you want to compare both "education industries," you should compare the full costs on all the parts, not just the money paid up front. Factor in the money colleges get from government at all levels. Evaluate the promises that all colleges and schools make to prospective students.

When they take the same spotlight on so-called non-profit education I will take them more seriously. Though they might also have to start looking at how much "non-profit" non-profit TV really is these days as well, though that would be against their own interests so I don't expect to see a show on that any time soon.

I remember the outcry about the commercialization of the Internet in the early 1990s. Many proclaimed how unfair it was to make money on the Internet and how that would ruin it. I think the naysayers really missed the boat on that one. Could it be the are in the same spirit and wrong on this one too?

I will probably write more about this later.

I do want to note that these thoughts are my own and do not represent those of any organization I may have a relationship with.

Disclaimer: I do some teaching and other work for a well known for-profit university and may do other teaching in this field in the future. My goal is to help people learn, however I can!

Dealing with Your Core Traits

Many people want to completely discard their past. They want you to judge them today only by today, not by anything they did in the past. If they had personally harmed you, they usually have a general apology, but one that don't go into many specifics.

On the one hand, I am all in favor of this. No one should have every mistake brought up all the time. We have to be able to work past our past and advance into the future. That said, we cannot completely ignore what we have done in the past if we want to avoid the core of the same problem in the future.

Our basic tendencies and ways of doing things almost always remains the same, even if we change the focus of our lives. Our basic way of responding is likely to be the same. If we were quiet and contemplative, we are unlikely to react quickly and loudly. In the same way, someone who decides not to harm others may still do annoying things if they have an aggressive personality.

We may also find that our decision to "do right" is not built on as firm a foundation as we want to believe. While we may want to do right, we have to change our habits and fill our lives with "good things" before we can be sure to keep the bad habits out.

I find I am knowing that habits and our deep character are different, but I know that many people see them as the same. This is ultimately not correct. I may decide I am not going to try and push you into an action, but I also know that I could push you to "hurry up" if we took a road trip across the country. My desire to not force your decisions would not outweigh my desire to "get moving" when the time to do so came.

I do not see a conflict with this. I am all for people changing and think that is the only way we will find our way out of many modern troubles, but I also know that such change will have to take into account that we are still the same people.

This brings us back to my starting thought. You cannot completely ignore your past. If you try to do so, you will not account for important elements in your own current actions and behaviors. You are still you. This means you must make sure you deal with those core issues, not just ignore them.

All of us want to be past our past problems and mistakes, but make sure you don't set yourself up to repeat them because you never recognize a core personality trait!

A character trait is based on doing good or bad and can be changed. A personality trait will always be with you and must be considered. Character traits can also be more persistent than we realize. Acknowledge the character traits so you can see the warning signs that you are about to repeat them. Acknowledge the personality trait so you can learn to keep it controlled, but realize you will never eliminate it without eliminating who you are.

In the same manner, realize when someone's personality trait is coming up and don't get offended. Work with them to find a way to funnel it properly rather than rejecting them. This will help you all relate in a much more effective manner.

Fscination with the Supernatural

We supposedly live in a modern age where science has proven that we are all just the (ultimate) result of mindless processes over many, many years. No guiding intelligence above us, just cold, hard science. Many of these "scientists" actively devote their lives to slay the "demons of superstition" of those who believe in a god of some sort, especially the Christian One. They find that it is completely intolerable that anyone with such views might influence government, the media or anything else "important". Such beliefs are not even tolerable in the churches, since they ultimately lead to all kinds of bad things (in the eyes of these evangelists).

Yet, in spite of all this, what are the most popular entertainment choices now? Vampires, werewolves, and other supernatural things. The very things many of these religious views oppose have become dramatically more popular at the same time a more "rational" view of the world is supposedly prevailing. The local cable company keeps pushing "ghost story" movies and other tripe, in the same vein.

We need to come to the realization that the elite priest of scientific atheism are wrong. Everything cannot be explained by purely natural processes. Things exist outside what our senses can directly interact with. Close one avenue off and society will seek others.

Man inherently knows the supernatural is real. Some is good, some isn't. We need to instead focus ourselves on learning what really is accurate and building a life in balance with the universe, not one that leaves a huge part of it out. People will seek the supernatural, so we are better off pointing them to the proper things rather than fighting that and only leaving the more dangerous aspects.