Thursday, July 29, 2010

Standin' on a corner in Winslow, Arizona

A few years ago, I had just finished my last semester in college. I got my final report card in the mail, only to discover that the professor for one of my online classes failed me. I was upset, as I had gotten A's and B's on all of my assignments. I called him, and he told me that I hadn't turned in the final exam, which was worth 40% of the grade. I looked in my sent mail folder and told him what day and time I sent it, and the subject line. He checked his mail again while I was on the phone and said it wasn't there.

Desperate, I asked, "Is it in your spam folder?"

He checked, and it was there. He apologized and told me he would turn in a revised grade to the school once he graded my exam.

My problem with the Arizona law as it is written is not that it send illegals back to the country they came from. My problem is that the AZ law has no provision for dealing with false positives. It is like the spam folder. Sometimes real messages don't get through, and sometimes real American citizens will get locked up.

Do you know how expensive it is to defend yourself against an unwarranted criminal charge? Thousands of dollars. This laws targets the poor of every race. If a cop doesn't like your attitude, all he has to do is ask you for your citizenship papers. Don't have 'em on you? You are under arrest.

Black, white, hispanic, whatever race you are. The law doesn't spell give an official direction as to what "reasonable suspicion" of being illegal is. Most people who are against the law assume it is having brown skin and speaking Spanish. The law is so vague, it could include "wearing socks with sandals" or "eating mayonnaise on french fries". This just gives cops another reason to arrest you for no good reason.

We need to build a wall to slow the influx (on both borders), because we are trying to bail out a boat without plugging the hole first.

Thursday, February 18, 2010

Should we take action to mitigate the man-made causes of global warming?

It's a hot topic, debated on every news channel and internet forum. Is global warming (or its new moniker "climate change") really happening?* If so, are we causing it?

Those are the wrong questions. The questions we need to ask are:
  1. What will happen if we don't do something and man-made global warming is really happening?
  2. What will happen if we don't do something and global warming is real, but not man-made?
  3. What will happen if we don't do something and global warming isn't real?
  4. What will happen if we do something and global warming isn't real?
  5. What will happen if we do something and global warming is real, but not man-made?
  6. What will happen if we do something and man-made global warming is real?
I have taken the time to answer those questions in this handy little chart. It is released under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License, so feel free to copy and share the image however you like.

Climate change global warming action decision matrix

* Scientific evidence from many different disciplines show that the Earth has been getting warmer every decade. The first decade of the 21st century was the warmest on record, and this decade looks like it will be even warmer.

Friday, February 12, 2010

A Homeopathic cure for obesity

I just discovered a homeopathic reason for the obesity epidemic!

Starting with the 2 premises of "like cures like" and "water retains a memory of all substances that have been introduced in it", I will show how the "modern" practice of sewage treatment has contributed to the obesity epidemic.

First, what is the opposite of obesity? Starvation.

What cures starvation? Food.

What does too much food cause? Obesity.

Skeptics have pointed out that "if water retains the memory of what has been in it, then why doesn't it remember all the poo that has been in it?" Until now, homeopaths have tried to explain away this argument by saying that it does no such thing.

I argue that it does retain the properties of fecal matter.

Our modern diets are rich in nutrients that get passed through our bodies into our waste. that waste is deposited into the sewage system. that wastewater is "cleaned" and sanitized, and returned to the water supply where we drink it. But since the water retains the memory of the nutrient and calorie rich fecal matter that was once in it, when we drink this water, our bodies continue to grow fat, no matter how little we eat or how much we exercise

How do you avoid obesity caused by tainted water? Only drink unsanitized water from rain barrels. When it falls from the sky, it has never had the chance to be tainted by the "water supply".