Sunday, July 17, 2011

Debate over Iran and the West

  • Alethia 5 comments collapsed Collapse Expand
    The west is weary of war. Iran should be thankful to allah. The hand of Iran is behind Islamic terrorist acts around the world. It has the blood of innocents on its hands, its time for destruction has not come. We should not rush it. When Gahdafi is gone, we should probably take a rest from war, and sadly prepare for the next one. But let it always be on the side of the oppressed, the innocent, whose governments kill and murder the people they are supposed to serve, and let us hold them accountable.

  • Emile Zola 4 comments collapsed Collapse Expand
    You must be a tea partier or are an ignoramus of history. I don't recall Iran invading other countries for oil under false pretenses and yes, your ignoring the 800 LBS in the room, gives you zero credibility. For starters, it was America through its Criminals In Action, CIA, that overthrew their dutyful elected government to put in its place aa American puppet and just as criminal, just as arrogant and just as criminal. I'm sure that Iran hasn't forgotten that and I guess the embassy hostage take was just pay-back for them. I hope you should know that for every action, there is a re-action. We, au contraire, have more countries than even the Nazis, ergo, calling the Iranians terrorists is like the pot calling the kettle black, but with a super sized hypocrisy. As for them killing their citizens for trying to overthrow their government, are you crazy or stupid. What do you think would happened to you if you dare to protest. Well, I think that is was on these same pages that Nazi like tactics were used to people protesting during the republican convention and those thugs behaved like the worst of the Nazis. Also, don't forget those killed at Kent State university. I want you7 to go to a mirror and say: Woe is me, or better yet: Woe is us. We are the worst terrorist in the world today, bar none.

  • Alethia 3 comments collapsed Collapse Expand
    These are common false assumptions. I am not an American, so I can't be that "neo-con" nor the Tea Party person. However, it seems I understand the US far better than you. The world saw what Iran did to its own people when they rightfully protested fraud perpetrated on them by their own people. People who were supposed to be holy men. A pathetic joke that shows the world that either their "allah" is evil, or there are evil people purporting to speak for him, saying to the world he is EVIL.

    Iran is toast. Its noble people will strive for basic human rights and dignity, its government will be seen for the evil it is even moreso than it is now--if that is possible. The judgment against Iran is inevitable. It is coming. It will not be put off... although, if the people could overthrow their government, the west would relent. Look over the border and see Iraq, that great nation you were at war with a generation ago. The nation Iran could not defeat. Look on its desolation. That is your destiny, Iran.

    The spawn of terrorists will be torn down. What is now Libya today is Iran tomorrow.

  • Emile Zola 2 comments collapsed Collapse Expand
    Are you for real or are you a planted CIA agent that gets to spew propaganda for an unknown reason. You make no sense. The U.S. have killed over a million plus innocent civilians and as far as I understand, Iran is not even in the thousands and the foreigners they put in jail, they come out smiling thinking in the books and money they are going to make trying to make Iran look worse than the U.S. when in reality they are, with their Mullahs and all, better in a moral sense. Our prisoners come out in pine boxes. Also, Iran didn't invade Iraq, it was the other way around and at that time, we were buddy, buddies with that guy named Saddam. You say you are not a tea bagger, but by your rhetoric you sound like one: All lies, propaganda and zero substance.

    Replying to Emile Zola

    • Image

  • Alethia 1 comment collapsed Collapse Expand
    Is Amnesty International a bunch of liars? : http://www.amnesty.org/en/news...

    Look at the details of this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...
    You murder young girls.

    Or how about this? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...

    Do you think the world couldn't look in her eyes while she died to know wihtout a doubt she was not "faking" it?

    Of course you will not look, you are the propagandist, are you from Press TV? Or perhaps from the guards?

  • Alethia 1 comment collapsed Collapse Expand
    You can't be CIA if you aren't American. A person can make up any number they want, a million? Why not 10 million? How many million died in WWII?
    War is hell. Innocents are killed. But there is a vast difference when one army fires on another one and there are civilian casualties, than some mujaheddin who blows himself up in a market place. The latter is nothing short of murder. You will notice I didn't criticize Iran for the death of innocents no matter how many boys they sent across minefields. The world has seen Iran murdering its own civilians. If it is bad that civilians die in war, how much moreso when a government murders its own people before the eyes of the world? Iran is a great evil, and its doom is coming. The blood of the innocents cry out.

Cold Fusion: LENR references I posted on a Face Book discussion...

Monday, July 11, 2011

  • In a way John, I am arguing in favor of your original concept of home grown, in that when you grow something yourself, you know what inputs you have put into the product. However, you don't know the chemical state of the soil in most insta...nces. This becomes problematic for example in Trail, famous for its high lead levels in the soil. I am not sure home grown is a good concept there, nor for example whether the debateable toxicity of various pesticides would even be on par with the devastating toxicity of lead. If your soil is native, and you understand the history of the property to know no one dumped PCBs there in the 1960s, then the "home grown" is obviously preferable. The word organic does not actually have anything to do with toxicity. The word has been borrowed and made to mean something different. It has been redefined to mean that no synthetic chemicals have been added. However, there could be dung with chemicals in it. Since that is considered a "natural" fertilizer, usually no one bothers to see if the cow had deposited prions due to its having "mad cow disease" (that is an extreme example) or a toxic form of e-coli contamination. In the previous 2 examples, you have organic toxicity from pretty much accepted organics of microbial form. Forgive me if I sound somewhat argumentative, but I have some big peeves against what is purported to be "environmental science" these days.See More

    23 minutes ago ·

  • Owen Abrey ‎2 years ago, on a mineral claim, we had several hundred soil samples taken. Picture a nice old growth forest with trees girthing 6-7 feet in diameter. Vegitation is lush. To the point of being very hard to get through with only a machete in hand. Where we began sampling, everything was in nominal range. However, perhaps 200 metres from that spot, the lead and arsinic values were screaming. I can't help but think, what if this was in someone's back yard. They might have grown a garden here and never known the difference. They may die 20 years before they were supposed to, but no one would likely know it was the garden that killed them.
    8 minutes ago ·

  • Owen Abrey In the mountains of BC, we have thousands and maybe millions of faults beneath the soil. Faults can give rise to exhalatives....that bring poisons to the surface. Arsenic is particularly mobile. But so is Uranium dioxide. It dissolves in water, can come down a mountain stream and deposit itself in soils in the river bank. Uranium dioxide is actually not considered poisonous. The form of radiation is a beta particle I think... however, it has a half-life that causes the original uranium to turn into radon gas... that is very toxic.
    4 minutes ago ·

  • Owen Abrey Or thorium, also toxic. So, if you really want to be certain, a home-grower should do some basic soil samples, send them away and get a laboratory guaranteeing the soils constituence. An organic farmer should do the same, on his soils and on his inputs, and on his product if he wants to certify the safety of the food he is selling you. I don't know if any actually do that.
    a few seconds ago ·

    • Owen Abrey The killer in most science experiments is that you need to know your base-lines. So likewise, if you are going for extremely high quality foods that you grow yourself, you need to start with a soil test. Its about 20.00 a sample at ACME labs in Kamloops. For Eco nuts, who rave about organics like an ostrich with their head in the sand, who boast amazing knowlege of carcinogens, or pesticides or herbicides and call for all the highest standards of science, to rave on this and neglect to start with a soil sample they are crazy
      3 minutes ago ·
    • Owen Abrey Its called scientific rigor.
      3 minutes ago ·
    • Owen Abrey I am frustrated to assert our science, and especially that we teach our kids, is so flacid and lacking rigor, Louise Pasteur must be rolling over in his grave.
      2 minutes ago ·

Saturday, July 9, 2011

More rants over Afghanistan

Some things you know you know, like war is hell and people die. Some things you know you don't know, like who's gonna die, where the bombs are going to blow up. Then theret are the things you know that you don't know: Like whether this is going to make this world a better or worse place. But its the things you don't know you don't know that spell out ignorance. DiManno at least has been there. Admitting there are things you don't know is the opportunity for enlightenment. We brought a million men home from WWII, lost more men in an hour than we did in 10 years in Afghanistan. I think history is going to judge us for our pathetic support in stupidly not providing adequate numbers and equipment. Its like Nato is trying to do the least that it can thinking they can get away with while hiding the truth of it. Canada's forces have done so much with so little. Its a huge credit to their spirit. How huge? Well that is what we don't know we don't know, it seems... Thanks Ms DiManno

http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/1022315--dimanno-little-reason-to-ask-if-afghan-mission-is-worth-it#comments

Sunday, June 26, 2011

Inerrency and authority discussions.

Rev. 22:18-19 DOES NOT refer to books of the bible apart from the book of Revelations. To suggest it does, does violence to the principles of hermeneutics that we use to interpret the rest of the entire scripture. However, that said, the... word of God (all scripture) is no less THE inspired word of God, it is simply wrong to make those verses say anything beyond the book as John originally wrote the Book of R. This is crucial, because if the fact the NT was written in Koine greek, was written that way so EVERYONE could understand it. I am reminded of a translator's challenge translating into a Peruvian dialect. There was no word for paper or book in the entire language. The natives however, when the minister opened the bible and disclosed God to them, called the book: the skin of God. So the term "skin of God" is still used to this day to translate book or page. This is the dilemma of the translator, and I would not be quick to pick up stones on this one.

Evidence of Islamic Suicide Bombers

  • A blockade is a legally recognized tool of war. This flotilla is foolishly venturing on a field of war. Hamas instead of looking for peace, demands the annihilation of Israel.
    There for Hamas is in a defacto state of war with a cease fire putting battle off to some inevitable point in the future. There isn't a nation in the world who would not use a blockade in the same circumstances. It is one of the few bloodless tactics of war.
  • @zibeddy June 1, 2011 University of Chicago published a massive data base that has tracked all the deaths due to suicide bombings: Looking only at Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, from 1/1/2008 to 12/30/2009, there were 6,112 deaths by extremists. There were 0 PPK (Turkey), 4 Algeria, 170 Somalia, and 89 in Sri Lanka, 0 from Hindu Bhuddist extremists Discounting the million or so who died in Darfur. Islamic terrorists perform over 95% of the murders of these innocents.

A Third Way: Terrorism by the Numbers.

A Third Way: Terrorism by the Numbers.

Thursday, June 23, 2011

Terrorism by the Numbers.

Sometimes statistics are so grim, it is a shame having to mention them. I made an off the cuff reference to Anne Coulter's comment: "All Muslims are not terrorists, but all Terrorists are Muslim." I thought it radical but also thought provoking. Through a debate I conceded that: "ALL" terrorists cannot possibly be Muslim extremists. It didn't make rational sense, there was the PPK, Sri Lanka, Hindu extremism and perhaps other kinds after all. So I said even if 95% were at the hand of Islamic terrorists it wasn't fair to say they all were. .
Because I had no hard data, my assertion was seen to be a twisted expression of hatred towards Muslims, even though I stressed the victims were innocent Muslims I and the world care about. One is not expressing hatred to Muslims, rather, you are expressing care and concern--because lets face it a suicide bomb in a market place, kills far more innocent Muslims than extremists.
I read many reactionary web sites, with perhaps dubious non-credible sources. Until I found a study published by the University of Chicago Dated June 1, 2011. So by way of publishing date it is about as up to date as possible  Because I have been accused of preaching hatred with sloppy statistics, here are statistics directly from Chicago University.  There may be a more accurate source in the world but I don't know it.
This data by CPOST can be found here: Combing through it was not enjoyable. But I wanted to make sure I displayed a modicum of veracity. It isn't fair to allude that the vast majority of deaths by terrorism were by Islamic Extremists without being able to provide the actual numbers.
http://cpost.uchicago.edu/

Some people have had trouble with the direct link.

Choose Suicide Attack Data Base.

I used these data base filters.
Data base filters: 2008,9; all weapon types except airline bombings,  all locations, no filter on group name.
 I think the rationale for these choices is rather obvious .
So this is what I found: Looking only at Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, from 1/1/2008 to 12/30/2009, there were 6,112 deaths by extremists. There were 0 PPK (Turkey), 4 Algeria, 170 Somalia, and 89 in Sri Lanka, 0 from Hindu Bhuddist extremists. I discounted the million or so who died in Darfur. And for the sake of margin of error, counted the Algerian and Somalian data to be non-islamic
I use the term Muslim or Islamic only because of common convention:  For example, Ireland terroism is referred to as "Christian" or "Protestant/Catholic" (same thing) I would much rather have this study disprove the hypothesis that Islamic extremism was significant.
So to correct Anne Coulter, you are wrong Anne: Not **all** extremists are Islamic extremists, only 95.87% are.

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

A Vital CO2 Discussion on Facebook:

hypocrisy.com
There ought to be a law against volcanic pollution. Did this frighteningly political documentary mention volcanoes? A volcano in southern Chili is

2 hours ago · · ·



    • Dustin Lacosse
      Inconvenient perhaps, truth however? The comments on that post are ridiculous. This Richard bloke comes off as a complete fool that can't cite any references other than a documentary (Seriously, he just says, "Google it"... my god), then go...es on to simply quote his detractors asking for honest citation of his sources a stupid Confucius quote (Basically calling them fools), and he doesn't even take the time to exert proper spelling and grammar in his responses. To a scientific crowd that's quite the smack in the face.

      I really, really, dislike that post. Regardless of my beliefs, I cannot take a guy who answers his comments like that seriously. No respect.

      gbeauregard, on the other hand, gets a +1.
      See More

      about an hour ago ·

    • Owen Abrey
      Dustin, I don't know the volume of C02 that volcano has spewed. I certainly have no way of proving the veracity of the statement, most of the people who could don't want to. Here is a letter from an old friend of mine from Hi-school. He ...has a grad degree in Meteorology. He works for Environment Canada. I know him personally. I have to leave his name confidential because this is so politicized there could well be witch-hunts: http://paradoxicalx3.blogspot.com/2011/06/grad-scientist-speaks.html And here is Rex Murphy's recent article:See More

      about an hour ago ·

    • Owen Abrey The column of ash is 18 cubic miles in volume or 40.96 cu kilometres. This translates into 22,960,000 cubic metres of CO2 in suspension in the column at any one time. I am not certain of the velocity of the ejectile so I can't calculate rate at this time. **http://paradoxicalx3.blogspot.com/** has the basic calculation according to current scientific measurment of the gasses.
      15 minutes ago ·

    • O.j. Abrey
      I dislike seeing people using anti-AGW arguments as justification to continue environmentally unsafe practices such as offshore drilling. Really reflects badly on scientific arguments that should be given more credibility. Sounds to me like... "HAH! CO2 emissions don't matter, so we can pollute as much as we want!" Commentators like that are one of the reasons, when you mention you're not entirely convinced about the validity of anthropogenic global warming, most people accuse you of being in the pockets of the oil companies.

      CO2 emissions aside, we've seen multiple occasions where oil drilling has had severe environmental effects. And regardless of whether or not we're causing global warming via carbon emissions, I believe we should be focusing more on developing cleaner, more sustainable energy sources; in that, I agree with the AGW crowd.
      See More

      9 minutes ago ·

    • Owen Abrey It is a profound error to mix up the topic of a debate. This debate was not about off-shore drilling. It was about the comparable contribution of CO2 to the atmosphere. The moment you go there, you have ducked the question and conceded defeat. There is no shame in being wrong...
      4 minutes ago ·

    • Owen Abrey Oj, the issue regarding CO2, is its relative significance. We have been fed alarm bells and called upon to pay hundreds of billions of dollars based on a false and corrupt stream of dogma. Read my recent articles in my blog for detail.
      about a minute ago ·

    • Owen Abrey Now, if we were to have a different debate, there is a vast common ground between me and environmentalists when it comes to global pollution. It is far more dire than CO2 production.

Chilean Gas Volumes

The volcanic cloud volume is 1.6 km x 3.14926  x 16 km =
Volume x 5.6% CO2**= 2.296 cubic kilometres of CO2

  converted into cubic metres = 22,960,000  The volume of CO2 suspended in the column at any one time.



**As per:

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=10&ved=0CFcQFjAJ&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.researchpublications.qmul.ac.uk%2Fpublications%2Fstaff%2F25573.html&rct=j&q=Chilean%20Volcano%20gas%20volume&ei=FAcBTo3mFMzSiAK6o_WnCA&usg=AFQjCNGPzfSZ7VeAvYl2AxgM1gaFe0nn7A&cad=rja

ON Book Burnings

Book burning is an attempt as squashing a competing ideology you cannot refute.

That said, how many copies of Saloman Rushdie's "Satanc Verses" can you find? What happened to them? Quietly disposed of in a politically correct way. Silent shipments to incinerators from the warehouses of book companies... Much more out of sight and there for certainly out of mind...

A New RCMP Commissioner?

We need a new Sam Steele: Who was never appropriately recognized for the profound legacy he invested in Canada. Respected by 1st Nations people, concerned for justice and fairness, there raises the question whether we would have the RCMP today with out him.

Please find us one of those!

Rex Murphy on Climate Change:

Inviting the fox into the henhouse

Rex Murphy, National Post · Jun. 18, 2011 | Last Updated: Jun. 18, 2011 4:07 AM ET
One of the disturbing practices revealed by the great cache of emails out of the University of East Anglia -the so-called Climategate emails -was the attempted shortcutting or corruption of the oh-so precious peer-review process. The emails contained clear declarations of how the grand viziers of climate science would lean on journals and reporters to make sure certain critics did not get the validation, the laying on of peer-reviewed hands, so critical to full participation in the great climate debate. This was most succinctly expressed by the beautiful quote from Dr. Phil Jones of East Anglia that, "We will keep them out somehow -even if we have to redefine what peer-review literature is."
Much of what the world bizarrely allows to be called climate "science" is a closetgame, an in-group referring to and reinforcing its own members. The insiders keep out those seen as interlopers and critics, vilify dissenters and labour to maintain a proprietary hold on the entire vast subject. It has been described very precisely as a "climate-assessment oligarchy." Less examined, or certainly less known to the general public, is how this in-group loops around itself. How the outside advocates buttress the inside scientists, and even -this is particularly noxious -how the outside advocates, the non-scientists, themselves become inside authorities.
It's the perfect propaganda circle. Advocates find themselves in government offices, or on panels appointed by politicians disposed towards the hyper-alarmism of global warming. On the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) boards and panels, like seeks out like. And when the IPCC issues one of its state-of-the-global-warming-world reports, legions of environmentalists, and their maddeningly sympathetic and uninquisitive friends in most of the press, shout out the latest dire warnings as if they were coming from the very mouth of Disinterested Science itself.
An early and particularly graphic illustration of this vicious circle came when the IPCC 2007 report warned that most the great Himalayan glaciers would melt by the year 2035. Not only was the claim of a massive melt the very height of ignorant nonsense -the sun would have to drop on the Earth to provoke a melt of this proportion -it was also plucked from a seven-year-old publication of the ever busy World Wildlife Federation (WWF). As the Times of London put it, the claim itself was "inherently ludicrous" culled from a "campaigning report" rather than "an academic paper," was not "subject of any scientific review" and despite all these shortcomings became "a key source for the IPCC ... [for] the section on the Himalayas."
A scare report, seven years old, from the an environmental advocacy group, became the key document for a major report released under the authority of the IPCC, the world's best and brightest global warming minds. Sir Isaac Newton would be so proud.
Now we have an even more telling illustration of this same sad, vicious circle. It was first reported on by Steven McIntyre on his blog, Climate Audit (and was run on the FP Comment page of Friday's National Post). McIntyre revealed that the IPCC used a Greenpeace campaigner to write a key part of its report on renewable energy and to make the astonishing claim that "close to 80% of the world's energy supply could be met by renewables by mid-century if backed by the right enabling public policies." He further revealed that the claim arose from a "joint publication of Greenpeace and the European Renewable Energy Council (EREC)." And it turns out that while working for the IPCC, the Greenpeace campaigner approvingly cited a Greenpeace report that he himself was the lead author of. He peer-reviewed himself.
A report on renewables, by the Renewable Energy Council of Europe, and Greenpeace, peer-reviewd by the man who wrote it. All they need add is a citation from the Suzuki Foundation and an endorsement from Elizabeth May and "the science will be settled" forever.
This is not just letting the fox into the hen house. This is giving him the keys, passing him the barbeque sauce and pointing his way to the broiler. Or, as McIntyre put it in plainer terms: "A lead author of the IPCC report, and of the hyped 80% scenario, is Sven Teske of Greenpeace International, whose official contribution is essentially based on a Greenpeace report cooked up with Europe's renewable energy industry."
Kind people may put this down to pure sloppiness on the part of the IPCC. Coming after its disastrous handling of the Himalayan glacier melt, however, it looks to me more like deliberate mischief. The IPCC cannot be that stupid by chance. Why these stories, and others of comparable magnitude, have not worked their way into the consciousness of the world's politicians despite such clear demonstrations of the IPCC's ramshackle processes is a mystery. But thanks to Steve McIntyre and others of nearequal courage, standing firm against the rage and mockery of the alarmist warming establishment, at least some of the IPCC's dubious and chillingly erroneous practices are revealed.
- Rex Murphy offers commentary weekly on CBC TV's The National, and is host of CBC Radio's Cross Country Checkup.

Sunday, June 19, 2011

Fascits comebacks

Oh Puuleese! Not the Fascist label again. That has to be the attribution of last resort to the loser of any debate--underscoring the profound his ignorance.

The mechanics of the Senate

Anyone who thinks of the Senate as a non-partisan place has been sleeping at the switch or knows nothing of Canadian history. From a pragmatic point of view the senate has existed to restrain the next political parties agenda. So if you can create a majority for your party, and lose the next election, true power is held off until the next election, which you better win, or the same will happen to you.

This is exactly what happened over the course of the last 8 years. Even thought the Conservatives were in the government and had the power to appoint, it took them until this spring to capture the majority in the senate.

All senates are partisan. Look any where it the world and you will see that it is true. Our senate could be bi-partisan, or even multi-partisan, if there was any good will at all built up. But there wasn't. For 6 years bills could be passed in the house but stalled by the Liberals in the Senate. And it was. What ever senate reform might look like, we probably won't really see it for another 3 years--after a significant amount of conservative law/bills are passed. If Harper is given a 2nd majority mandate, and he was still appointing senators, he might install an NDP person like Jack Layton for a Liberal seat vacated.

Friday, June 17, 2011

Creationism that fits.

    • Well, for 25 years I have been considering the idea I first read by Charles Hummel who wrote "The Galileo Connection". I think it plausible because it fits both scientific and biblical world views. It begins by posing a question, what if the creation of man as we know him, in the image of God, was indeed the pinnacle of creation that also included pre-anthropomorphic forms. Maybe 10,000 years ago. It is interesting that I have read something by anthropologist who say something significant happened to the Human brain 7-10,000 years ago.
  • Owen Abrey
    38 minutes ago
    Owen Abrey
    • Such newly created creatures, humans as we know them, were different from any other pre-anthro forms especially because they were spiritual beings in the flesh. Could such people be called the "son's of God" for this reason? I have done intense work in the Hebrew, and studied the archaeological perspectives of ancient near-eastern texts. The term "sons of God" was employed by Chaldean and Babylonian 1 texts. We can tell that often a king may be called the "son of god".
  • Owen Abrey
    30 minutes ago
    Owen Abrey
    • The Genesis 1 passage of the days of creation, from a hermeneutical perspective is Hebrew Poetry. There is no doubt. Other cultures refer to a creation similar, but also using days as a structure for the poetic forms. Days, 1+4, 2+5, 3+6 are obvious parallelisms. I am convinced by what we learned in hermeneutics together, Christians have misread the text because if failed to recognize the genre in which it was written. If you will recall, it was genre that gave Stronstad his perspective on Acts. Narrative. If you don't get that, you see know problem keeping Acts as a history instead of Luke II.
    • 7 day creationists misread Gen 1. In a way they conveniently forget that Genesis was always a collection of texts. It is the fact that Genesis was compiled this way that makes interpreting it so difficult.
  • Owen Abrey
    21 minutes ago
    Owen Abrey
    • If you recall, we learned in hermeneutics is to interpret the text literally when it was meant to be taken literally; and interpret it figuratively when it was meant to be taken figuratively. In 1987, I took an archaeology course from Regent--especially because it was a lecture series given by DJ Wiseman. Who was the general editor for that 3 volume set The Encyclopedia of Biblical Archaeology. We also studied him in Hermeneutics and Stronstad's Arch course--if you took it in.
  • Owen Abrey
    13 minutes ago
    Owen Abrey
    • I say all this because it was Wiseman's lectures that detailed among other things, the Genealogies of the OT. There was only a passing reference that the Sons of God could refer to people of OT faith. There is a later passage that said to whom the word of God comes, they are the sons of God. He used that as an OT example of employing the term. It has some interesting implications on many passages where the term is employed.
    • You see why I avoided replying? Any shorter a position would be too easy to dismiss without a 2nd thought.
    • So what does that do? It makes a huge reconciliation with science. It untangles the text from the modernist approach that treats it not as was meant to be understood, but tries a form of revisionism that rewrites it as some sort of scientific work.
    • Therefore, it fits for me to accept old earth creationism as a theory where theology and science *might* over lap without each trying to become an authority in the other's domain. Science stays talking about science--but backs off trying be some sort of theological interpreter.
    • And visa versa.
  • Owen Abrey
    3 minutes ago
    Owen Abrey
    • Adam and Eve were created among other forms--say even Neanderthals, their sons married them, the forms changed over time to be anthropic as we know ourselves to be today. They were called the "sons of God". They would be brilliant with 140 plus IQs amidst a population of "men" who's iq's were closer to 50 or 60. They would easily be seen as giants, men of renown who built cities... easily be devolved into polytheistic deities. These, people the off-spring of Adam would carry a lineage now dilute, but was exceptional in their day.
  • Owen Abrey
    a few seconds ago
    Owen Abrey
    • OT genealogies have been accepted by serious OT theologians to possibly refer to dynasties. If you had an hour or two I could relay that line of thinking... but I have typed enough. I refuse to go along with theological constructs that break all the rules of hermeneutics thinking themselves to be justified in doing so. Remember Dr. Lim's discussion of Isogesis vs Exegesis?

Thursday, June 16, 2011

Vancouver in the shadows of the 2011 riots.

Is there a city in the world more urbane? More humanistic? More Liberal? More on the cutting edge of moral relativism? With explicit goals to socially engineer a society like this, I lay it at the feet of the BCTF, and the morass that spawned it.

How many of these kids were in diapers when their parents were there in 1994? How many of them actually had a real good spanking?  Hpw many of their parents?  Nature or Nurture, is there any other choice?

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

A Grad Scientist speaks:

 A grad-level Meteorologist speaks.  He is a professional scientist with Environment Canada:



  • Owen,
    I've assembled a "brief" reading list for you, consisting of two parts,
    A. Climate science, AGW.
    B. Physics, cosmology, philosophy of science.

    Nils
    --------------------------------------------------------------------------
    A. Climate science

    i. Cosmic rays and clouds - the real agents of climate change?
    http://www.space.dtu.dk/upload/institutter/space/forskning/05_afdelinger/sun-climate/full_text_publications/svensmark_2007cosmoclimatology.pdf

    - fascinating science that has been ignored, for the most part, I think, because it has the potential to substantially alter the priorities of the climate change issue.

    ii. A short(?) rant on climate modelling
    Recall the conflict of ~120 years ago between old-earth geologists and the 'establishment' physicists, 'led' by Lord Kelvin. The mechanism of nuclear fusion was not known, and physicists tried to explain a young age of 20M yr for the sun using known physics. Their weakness was a lack of full understanding of the relevant mechanism(s). The geologists had facts - i.e. the rock record - on their side. Fortunately the physicists were honest enough to admit their shortcomings after the discovery of radioactivity.

    Today, one major weakness of the climate modelers is Cloud Physics. Clouds cover scales from microns to many kilometers. Clouds are undeniably a HUGE feedback mechanism in climate, but that mechanism has been eclipsed by the relatively MINOR effect of the so-called greenhouse gas CO2.

    Current and atmospheric models do not precisely model the formation of clouds. They assume that if the air is sufficiently humid and the air motions are so-and-so, there will be clouds and/or precipitation. This works reasonably well for short-range weather forecasts (<5 days). But the small systematic errors will over longer time scales, lead to large errors in, among other things, the energy budget.

    It is possible to 'tune' the model so that it appears to simulate the 'known' climate. But how well is the state of atmosphere known? Are the observations reliable? And even if we objectively assimilate and analyze reliable weather observations, can we be certain that we haven't introduced some bias or error into the analyses? After all , the analysis model is essentially the climate model. How modellers have tuned their models may and does depend on their own biases. You can get the "right" answer for one problem using the wrong method, but is it correct for other problems?

    Knowing what I know from my education in science, and after years of working with atmospheric models, my view is this:

    Climate has been changing at all scales - global, regional, local - since the beginning of the earth. To insist that the most recent observed changes are solely the result of modern western civilization's activities is simplistic and just plain wrong.

    Regardless of what the models may indicate, and what the climate is doing now, insisting that CO2 reduction measures are the solution - or even that we must do something to 'stop' climate change at all - is about as rational as throwing sacrificial virgins into a volcano to stop it from erupting.

    Unfortunately for us all, the AGW proposition has become a racket-state-religion. Either you are a "believer" or a heretic, to be ridiculed and condemned. Everyone is subject to the tithe (taxes used to subsidize unprofitable "green" energies). Those who 'sin' too much can purchase indulgences (carbon credits). Companies can either get on board and try to soak up some of that green subsidy, money, or relocate...

    iii. "The Deniers"
    http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fpcomment/pages/the-deniers.aspx

    B. Physics, cosmology, philosophy of science

    There are some writings by Frank J. Tipler that I have read and found thought-provoking. See his entry at
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_J._Tipler.

    An intriguing professor of mathematical physics, he is criticized for his "unorthodox" conclusions. His writing style can be brusk and dismissive. He himself admits that many of his peers have dismissed him as a crank, although he claims they can't actually prove that he is wrong.

    From what I can tell, Tipler's most vehement opponents - those who actually make the effort to 'logically' criticize his work - are usually working from their own 'faith-premises', e.g. infidels.org.

    Occasionally he points out some of his own errors that he made in previous work, none of which, however, seem to demolish his basic conclusions. At the very least, it is entertaining reading for anyone interested and capable of following his arguments.

    Articles

    i. Tipler, F.J. (2003). "Refereed Journals: Do They Insure Quality or Enforce Orthodoxy?" :
    http://www.iscid.org/papers/Tipler_PeerReview_070103.pdf
    - Einstein probably wouldn't have been able to publish his early classic articles if he'd had to go through peer review.
    - Interestingly, Tipler refers to the issue of Intelligent Design versus evolutionary biology orthodoxy, but his points apply also to the AGW question.

    ii. Tipler, F.J. (2008). "The Obama-Tribe 'Curvature of Constitutional Space' Paper is Crackpot Physics". Social Science Research Network.
    http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1271310
    - the above web address gives the abstract and links to a pdf of the full article.
    - This article has many sections that touch on a number of topics. For example a section on logic that I found extremely interesting, which criticizes the philosophers David Hume, Karl Popper.
    - Tipler writes that to follow his argument in this article requires no more than "high school" math and physics. Either he's out of touch with high-school curricula, or I guess RDPC was deficient; in order to really follow his math, I was luckily able to resort to my rather rusty 4th year mathphys from Univ of Alberta.

    iii. Tipler, F.J. (2003). "Intelligent life in cosmology". International Journal of Astrobiology, 2:141-148.
    http://math.tulane.edu/~tipler/intelligentlife.pdf
    - refers extensively to his early work.... especially books (a) and (b) below.
    - brings up intriguing questions on the origins and "goals" of life.

    iv. Books I've read (a,c) or started reading(b). Can be bought cheaply at www.abebooks.com

    a) Barrow, J.D. and Tipler, F.J. (1986). The Anthropic Cosmological Principle. Oxford Univ. Press.
    b) Tipler, F.J. (1994). The Physics of Immortality: Modern Cosmology, God and the Resurrection of the Dead. Doubleday.
    c) Tipler, F.J. (2007). The Physics of Christianity. Doubleday

    -------------------------------------------------------------------
    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/8578014/New-Little-Ice-Age-in-store.html

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Foreign Policies

Americans see this in the context of their own revolution. Nato sees this in the context of Kosovo, Rwanda, Tienanmen square & Iraqi genocides. The direction of the Arab spring is a concern. If these societies move to freedom and democracy, these democracies want to support it. If this turns out to be another Islamic revolution that has come as a wolf in sheep's clothing, it could potentially create many Afghanistans. Who would want that?

Monday, June 13, 2011

Owen Abrey Don't you donate to the NDP? If you gave 1k last year, then we paid 750 to you via tax credit. So you aren't actually paying for my donation, you are paying for yours. In my austere career, we had our 4th child while earning 270.00 per week. I know poverty first hand. I know that in Canada we are wealthy enough to afford to be a card-carrying member of a political party. If we value something enough, we will scrape the dollars together to buy it, even if it means you will never need the tax credit

  • Owen Abrey
    Owen Abrey Don't you donate to the NDP? If you gave 1k last year, then we paid 750 to you via tax credit. So you aren't actually paying for my donation, you are paying for yours. In my austere career, we had our 4th child while earning 270....00 per week. I know poverty first hand. I know that in Canada we are wealthy enough to afford to be a card-carrying member of a political party. If we value something enough, we will scrape the dollars together to buy it, even if it means you will never need the tax creditSee More
    2 hours ago ·
  • Michael. Ryan Perhaps this should go another step. In middle Europe, I have seen advertising places for political parties during campaigns. You put all of your literature in the designated spot .... and that is it. However, I am not sure how you control the party-in-power from producing self-serving advertising campaigns telling you how well they have done with your money. Sigh.
    about an hour ago ·
  • Owen Abrey
    I hear you Michael, it is very hard not to become cynical. So much about politics is spin, deflection, and the avoidance of truth. I am not sure what the alternative really can be. I can't see that abandoning freedom of speech to put it ...all in one place on one wall helps democracy. Surely certain parties attract wealthier individuals. But 16 million people who ready to put their money where there mouth is behind a political party, will not be daunted by fancy advertising. People convinced that a certain direction is right for a country will not be swayed by opposition. Surely this is the political lesson that was learned from the Reform-Alliance movement. Love or hate their politics, it was a tectonic shift in a country run by Red Tories and Liberals since Diefenbaker. The ideology, the belief system comes first, the money follows after. When a belief becomes bankrupt, its not long before that is reflected by their bottom line. People vote with their dollars. They spend them on their deeply held values, not intellectual acrobatics. It in itself is a kind of democracy. One that costs more than an x on a page.See More
    4 minutes ago ·
  • Owen Abrey The $2.00 subsidy was the life line for the bloc. And let me tell you I would rather have Jack representing the people of Quebec than them. If by some extraordinary circumstance the bloc falls, never to rise again because the Canadian tax payer is not providing them the hind teat, it is time to celebrate this sort of democracy over the other.

350 + propane kit for sale

My wife has been mad at me for a few years.  It was an ugly old girl I had since 87.  I loved my Jimmy.  She has refused to drive it for 15 years, but I thought I needed a hunting vehicle.  I gave her mechanical parts lots of love, but the body just fell apart.  My wife has hated the lawn ornament who's plates were only renewed for hunting season, and carefully kept off-highway.

I payed 3k to have the Engine rebuilt 5k miles ago.  It is especially modified to run on propane, so there is no power loss if you want to run propane.  I will include a propane heat exchanger, (add new tanks).  For a no-quibble 1850.00  A propane kit now goes for about 3k tanks included.  Tanks are usually less than 500.00 depending on the type and size.

In addition, a year after rebuilding my motor, I had my 205 new process tranny and transfer case rebuilt.  The tranny was fine, but I was showing the old girl lots of love, thinking I would restore her one day.  It was built at EK transmission and cost me 2500.00.

Then I have a pair of especially sweet 4-11 difs for sale, (matched)  Ready to go for some serious off-roading.  New hubs.  Give me a call, and we can negotiate a reasonable price.

I can't tell you how hard it was to part the old girl out.  Maybe the grass will come back where she was parked the last 2 years...

Email me and we can set up a call... my answering machine is gross.

Morality and Law

So should thievery, and murder laws be extinguished as well? The laws that forbid those are based on morals. If one studies how our legal system arose, arising after the black plague in about 1360, the intent was to structure law that was in sync with fundamental morality.

Certainly times have changed. But it is foolish to contend that morality is some sort of problem that needs to be abandoned. To expect to have a society, that has no morals--not to degenerate, is simply foolishness.

Opinion on Prostitution and Drug Addiction.

We want to keep this simple: Kill the laws that forbid prostitution. If all of society were a machine, eliminating one gear, or lever *may make the machine run better. But humans are very complex, so our society faces complex problems.

No commentators so far have raise the important question as to why prostitution exists at all?
Once upon not so long ago, I worked on the streets of Vancouver providing exit opportunities for prostitutes. What I concluded is that a person becomes a prostitute as a last resort. Human slavery directly forces women from far away countries to do it. If they could survive doing anything else they would. Secondly, prostitution is related to drug addiction in many cases. When the addiction demands a fix, and you have no money, as a woman this otherwise untenable idea becomes a way to feed the need.

I am a social conservative some might say, but I think society needs a shift in their paradigm, see these women as the victims they are and provide viable ways out. It may astound some of you liberals, but I think drugs need to be legalized, and even dispensed in drug stores by prescription. For many heroin has had a grip on them for years. Because it is an illegal drug, illegal activity must occur to feed the habit. If it flows through the existing drug-store industry, dying as a result of impure or extra-strength heroin would become far less frequent. The actual cost of heroin is a few pennies. Canada could set prices far below the street, kill a major source of funds for organized crime, all forced prostitutes may even get to go back to school. If we treated prostitutes and addicts as a health issue rather than a crime issue it would make a huge difference in the lives of these victims.

Sure there are exceptions: There are prostitutes who brazenly say this is a career profession they enjoy. We need understand they really aren't representative of the majority of the industry. With proper regulation, instead of paying johns the majority of their income, a far smaller proportion of their income can contribute to taxation.

I see this as the only viable solution. I wish we could legally make these industries vanish, but by refusing to admit the only way to deal with this is with compassion we are bound to keep some rendition of the current drama in play.

Sunday, June 12, 2011

Iceage or Warming? Two sides of one "scientific" face.

And here we have a site where so many experts predicted the coming ice age, and below is one who just can't seem to know exactly what he thinks.

http://www.climatedepot.com/a/3213/Dont-Miss-it-Climate-Depots-Factsheet-on-1970s-Coming-Ice-Age-Claims

Professor Stephen Schneider converted from warning of a coming ice age in the 1970s to promoting of man-made global warming fears today. In the 1970s Professor Stephen Schneider was one of the leading voices warning the Earth was going to experience a catastrophic man made ice-age. However he is now a member of the UN IPCC and is a leading advocate warning that the Earth is facing catastrophic global warming. In 1971, Schneider co-authored a paper warning of a man-made "ice age." See: Rasool S., & Schneider S."Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide and Aerosols - Effects of Large Increases on Global Climate", Science, vol.173, 9 July 1971, p.138-141 – Excerpt: 'The rate of temperature decrease is augmented with increasing aerosol content. An increase by only a factor of 4 in global aerosol background concentration may be sufficient to reduce the surface temperature by as much as 3.5 deg. K. If sustained over a period of several years, such a temperature decrease over the whole globe is believed to be sufficient to trigger an ice age." Schneider was still promoting the coming "ice age" in 1978. (See: Unearthed 1970's video: Global warming activist Stephen Schneider caught on 1978 TV show 'In Search Of...The Coming Ice Age' – September 20, 2009) By the 1980's, Schneider reversed himself and began touting man-made global warming. See: "The rate of [global warming] change is so fast that I don't hesitate to call it potentially catastrophic for ecosystems," Schneider said on UK TV in 1990