Saturday, February 02, 2008
Farewell
Since it's been several months since I posted to this blog, I thought I might as well make it official that it's dead. I began this with my trip across the country, but that chapter of my life has long since closed and I'm in a new one. However, I haven't given up blogging: In fact, I'm running two other blogs:
Independent Learning is where I describe work on my knowledge base and any other educational topics.
Confutus Says is where I talk about religion, politics, current events, space, science fiction, and other stuff.
Thanks to any of my readers and all who've posted comments.
Independent Learning is where I describe work on my knowledge base and any other educational topics.
Confutus Says is where I talk about religion, politics, current events, space, science fiction, and other stuff.
Thanks to any of my readers and all who've posted comments.
Monday, August 06, 2007
For some reason, I seem to have become obsessed with the War Story I mentioned a couple of weeks ago. To do a proper writeup with sources would involve more research than I want to devote the time for, so I'm just going to mention it.
I've been keeping a half-eye on other news. The Counter-insurgency tactics associated with "The Surge" seem to be working, although at the current rates of progress, it may take some time before they are fully successful. Although some commentators are concerned about the political stability of Iraq, there are still so many armed factions disguising themselves among and terrorizing the populace that it is nearly impossible for a democratic government to work. The US has taken the role of a more or less neutral outside party trying to sweep out the violent elements and give those more responsible parties a chance to discuss their various issues and come to an agreement. At the moment, the tactics that go along with this strategy appear to be working, which is causing a problem for the dedicated leave-Iraq-now crowd.
Barak Obama has destroyed himself as a serious candidate for President. He has promised to sit down and meet with leaders of our most determined enemies, while threatening to bomb and invade an ally unless it cooperates with us, in an attempt to go after Osama bin Ladin. All this at the same time his party is calling for withdrawal from Iraq. He's managed to make himself look like he's trying to be a saint on one hand, a bully on the other, and really is dangerously ignorant or naive on both. But presidential campaigns have substantial inertia: I don't think he's going to give it up until he's actually defeated at the polls.
I've been keeping a half-eye on other news. The Counter-insurgency tactics associated with "The Surge" seem to be working, although at the current rates of progress, it may take some time before they are fully successful. Although some commentators are concerned about the political stability of Iraq, there are still so many armed factions disguising themselves among and terrorizing the populace that it is nearly impossible for a democratic government to work. The US has taken the role of a more or less neutral outside party trying to sweep out the violent elements and give those more responsible parties a chance to discuss their various issues and come to an agreement. At the moment, the tactics that go along with this strategy appear to be working, which is causing a problem for the dedicated leave-Iraq-now crowd.
Barak Obama has destroyed himself as a serious candidate for President. He has promised to sit down and meet with leaders of our most determined enemies, while threatening to bomb and invade an ally unless it cooperates with us, in an attempt to go after Osama bin Ladin. All this at the same time his party is calling for withdrawal from Iraq. He's managed to make himself look like he's trying to be a saint on one hand, a bully on the other, and really is dangerously ignorant or naive on both. But presidential campaigns have substantial inertia: I don't think he's going to give it up until he's actually defeated at the polls.
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
Men at work
Ed Morrissey at "Captain's Quarters" pointed to this article in the Washington Post about Outsourcing the Picket Line"
To anyone even vaguely familiar with the American labor movement and and its history and rhetoric, this has to be supremely ironic.
To anyone even vaguely familiar with the American labor movement and and its history and rhetoric, this has to be supremely ironic.
Monday, July 23, 2007
War stories
I have to wonder what Senator Reid is up to. Twice in the past month, on the Immigration Reform bill, and then on the recent Iraq withdrawal bill, he's tried to take a thin majority and ram it through the opposition.
On the bill which would have demanded a US withdrawal from Iraq beginning in four months, he had a majority, which would normally be enough to pass a bill. But he also might have expected a Republican filibuster. He might then have also expected President Bush to veto the measure, which would then require an even bigger majority to override. That might have suggested that trying to ram a bill through wouldn't work. It leaves me wondering whether he is really that blind to political realities, or whether he has a different kind of game in mind.
And all this comes at a time when news coming out of Iraq (although that's mixed and contradictory enough) indicates to be that the "surge" and the counterinsurgent strategy that has gone along with it appears to be working.
But it appears that in the US Congress, the important war is the one between the Republican party and the Democratic party. The war in Iraq is only important to the degree that it can serve partisan purposes.
The New Republic recently published an article entitled "Shock Troops" describing three incidents which took place in Iraq, one of an incident were a facially disfigured female contractor was hazed by soldiers, one where a mass grave of children were uncovered and some grisly mockery took place, and one where the driver of an armored vehicle was using it to run over dogs. Almost immediately, current and former military personnel began denouncing it as fiction, and describing in detail what was wrong with it. Now, while I have little doubt that there are some soldiers who would do these kinds of things if they could get away with it, and some who have done things nearly as bad. Juvenile immaturity is not confined to the military...I've seen LDS missionaries do some really stupid things which would look just as bad. But the question is whether these incidents actually took place as described, or were fabricated or embellished.
As someone said, if the story is true, the New Republic gets away with a bad odor, but some soldier is in serious trouble. If it's false, the opposite's the case. The public expects news publications to be able to distinguish fact from fiction. Not that there's anything wrong with writing fiction. Provided you label it as fiction, people are willing to pay for stories that no sane person ought to believe in their entirety. (Ask J.K. Rowling) . But to repeatedly publish fiction and call it fact, or to leave it up to the reader to decide means that before long, no one will believe or trust anything you say, true or false.
And that leads into another question that's been on my mind. I've seen the question of bias often comes up, in writing of history, and journalism. Given that it's almost impossible to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, and that every writer selects from the facts available those what seem most important, what is the difference between a truthful, accurate history or news story, and pure partisan polemics?
On the bill which would have demanded a US withdrawal from Iraq beginning in four months, he had a majority, which would normally be enough to pass a bill. But he also might have expected a Republican filibuster. He might then have also expected President Bush to veto the measure, which would then require an even bigger majority to override. That might have suggested that trying to ram a bill through wouldn't work. It leaves me wondering whether he is really that blind to political realities, or whether he has a different kind of game in mind.
And all this comes at a time when news coming out of Iraq (although that's mixed and contradictory enough) indicates to be that the "surge" and the counterinsurgent strategy that has gone along with it appears to be working.
But it appears that in the US Congress, the important war is the one between the Republican party and the Democratic party. The war in Iraq is only important to the degree that it can serve partisan purposes.
The New Republic recently published an article entitled "Shock Troops" describing three incidents which took place in Iraq, one of an incident were a facially disfigured female contractor was hazed by soldiers, one where a mass grave of children were uncovered and some grisly mockery took place, and one where the driver of an armored vehicle was using it to run over dogs. Almost immediately, current and former military personnel began denouncing it as fiction, and describing in detail what was wrong with it. Now, while I have little doubt that there are some soldiers who would do these kinds of things if they could get away with it, and some who have done things nearly as bad. Juvenile immaturity is not confined to the military...I've seen LDS missionaries do some really stupid things which would look just as bad. But the question is whether these incidents actually took place as described, or were fabricated or embellished.
As someone said, if the story is true, the New Republic gets away with a bad odor, but some soldier is in serious trouble. If it's false, the opposite's the case. The public expects news publications to be able to distinguish fact from fiction. Not that there's anything wrong with writing fiction. Provided you label it as fiction, people are willing to pay for stories that no sane person ought to believe in their entirety. (Ask J.K. Rowling) . But to repeatedly publish fiction and call it fact, or to leave it up to the reader to decide means that before long, no one will believe or trust anything you say, true or false.
And that leads into another question that's been on my mind. I've seen the question of bias often comes up, in writing of history, and journalism. Given that it's almost impossible to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, and that every writer selects from the facts available those what seem most important, what is the difference between a truthful, accurate history or news story, and pure partisan polemics?
Monday, July 16, 2007
Atheism
At one time I had intentions to make this blog pretty much daily, but I have another blog going, a web site that I'm growing, and now an on-line forum to manage, so my time is a bit split.
On top of that, I was getting a bit disgusted with current events. Reid, Pelosi, and almost the entire Democratic party are still apparently convinced that in Iraq, we (the US) are the real enemy and should get out as fast as we can and leave the Iraqis to clean up, whether they can hold off their neighbors while their government is still so wobbly or not. Reid refused to answer what he thought would happen to the Iraqis once our troops left, beyond claiming that we weren't wanted. A leader of one of the insurgent groups that was fighting us a couple of years ago has decided that, unwelcome foreign infidels though we may be, al-Qaeda is worse. His forces have been willing to cooperate in helping clean al-Qaeda out before we go. Fair enough, I'd say. I don't suppose that the "we are evil" crowd in our government...or is that just the Bush Administration and everyone who supports it is evil? is paying any attention to the Iranian arms smugglers our soldiers have been uncovering.
One of the reason's there's not much progress on the political front in Iraq is that al-Quaeda or some other unrelated group that calls itself al-Qaeda, swears allegiance to Osama bin Ladin, and acts like al-Qaeda, has been doing its utmost (can't call it best) to stir unrest, create as much havoc, and kill as many Americans and their collaborators as possible. In the meantime, the leader of Iraq's principal opposition party, who runs his own private army, has been running back and forth between Iraq and Iran. Anyone who is sure his motives are purely patriotic might also believe me if I claimed I had some beachfront property in Arizona for sale.
This is the same Iran which is so busy building nuclear power plants to make nuclear weapons to confront the great Satan (That's the US, in case anyone has forgotten, and the Iranians are a lot closer to building nuclear weapons than the late unlamented Saddam Hussein ever was) that they have neglected to build oil refineries and in spite of sitting on top of vast oil fields, have to import gasoline and had to put down riots over a shortage. It would almost be comical if it weren't so deadly.
But this is all beside the point of what I intended to talk about. There is a Wall Street Journal editorial that mentions the big money some authors of atheist books have been raking in, as well as the weakness of their arguments. I'm afraid that it won't be too many more years before those who are persuaded by their argument that anyone who believes in God is a bloodthirsty terrorist start taking up arms to "Defend their rights", instead of just hiring the ACLU to do it. I'm also seeing signs of a somewhat of a curious alliance of liberal Democrats with Muslim groups. Is it perhaps, that Christianity is seen as so perniciously oppressive that Islam (or any other alternative to Christianity) has to be deliberately favored, just as accused criminals, minorities, feminists, and more recently, homosexuals have been?
I'm also a bit saddened by comments on the debate on Beliefnet.com between Orson Scott Card and Dr. Albert Mohler. From the beginning, this debate has generated more heat than light. Although I contributed a couple of posts, which quickly sank into the great swamp, I decided that anything else I could say had already been said, didn't need to be said, or wouldn't be heard.
Such evangelicals as Mohler endeavor to create a wide and mostly artificial gulf between their own doctrine and that of the Mormons, rather than acknowledging that their similarities are greater than their differences. But they're facing the wrong enemy. Widespread atheism and hostility to all Biblical tradition is the enemy of both evangelical and Latter-Day Saint, and Latter day Saints, with a claim to modern revelation that reaffirms the truth of the Bible have a better shield against atheist arguments.
This puts these evangelicals in something of the position of fighting their best allies across a deep gulf that they themselves have dug while they ignore the enemy at their unprotected back. Besides irritation that many of those those who claim expertise on Mormon belief have evidently never read the Book of Mormon at all, I'm mostly sorry for them. Fortunately, there are at least some evangelicals who recognize that if one says he believes in Christ and acts as if he believed it, he must be some sort of Christian. We can get along with those a lot more easily than we can with those who call us liars and hypocrites.
On top of that, I was getting a bit disgusted with current events. Reid, Pelosi, and almost the entire Democratic party are still apparently convinced that in Iraq, we (the US) are the real enemy and should get out as fast as we can and leave the Iraqis to clean up, whether they can hold off their neighbors while their government is still so wobbly or not. Reid refused to answer what he thought would happen to the Iraqis once our troops left, beyond claiming that we weren't wanted. A leader of one of the insurgent groups that was fighting us a couple of years ago has decided that, unwelcome foreign infidels though we may be, al-Qaeda is worse. His forces have been willing to cooperate in helping clean al-Qaeda out before we go. Fair enough, I'd say. I don't suppose that the "we are evil" crowd in our government...or is that just the Bush Administration and everyone who supports it is evil? is paying any attention to the Iranian arms smugglers our soldiers have been uncovering.
One of the reason's there's not much progress on the political front in Iraq is that al-Quaeda or some other unrelated group that calls itself al-Qaeda, swears allegiance to Osama bin Ladin, and acts like al-Qaeda, has been doing its utmost (can't call it best) to stir unrest, create as much havoc, and kill as many Americans and their collaborators as possible. In the meantime, the leader of Iraq's principal opposition party, who runs his own private army, has been running back and forth between Iraq and Iran. Anyone who is sure his motives are purely patriotic might also believe me if I claimed I had some beachfront property in Arizona for sale.
This is the same Iran which is so busy building nuclear power plants to make nuclear weapons to confront the great Satan (That's the US, in case anyone has forgotten, and the Iranians are a lot closer to building nuclear weapons than the late unlamented Saddam Hussein ever was) that they have neglected to build oil refineries and in spite of sitting on top of vast oil fields, have to import gasoline and had to put down riots over a shortage. It would almost be comical if it weren't so deadly.
But this is all beside the point of what I intended to talk about. There is a Wall Street Journal editorial that mentions the big money some authors of atheist books have been raking in, as well as the weakness of their arguments. I'm afraid that it won't be too many more years before those who are persuaded by their argument that anyone who believes in God is a bloodthirsty terrorist start taking up arms to "Defend their rights", instead of just hiring the ACLU to do it. I'm also seeing signs of a somewhat of a curious alliance of liberal Democrats with Muslim groups. Is it perhaps, that Christianity is seen as so perniciously oppressive that Islam (or any other alternative to Christianity) has to be deliberately favored, just as accused criminals, minorities, feminists, and more recently, homosexuals have been?
I'm also a bit saddened by comments on the debate on Beliefnet.com between Orson Scott Card and Dr. Albert Mohler. From the beginning, this debate has generated more heat than light. Although I contributed a couple of posts, which quickly sank into the great swamp, I decided that anything else I could say had already been said, didn't need to be said, or wouldn't be heard.
Such evangelicals as Mohler endeavor to create a wide and mostly artificial gulf between their own doctrine and that of the Mormons, rather than acknowledging that their similarities are greater than their differences. But they're facing the wrong enemy. Widespread atheism and hostility to all Biblical tradition is the enemy of both evangelical and Latter-Day Saint, and Latter day Saints, with a claim to modern revelation that reaffirms the truth of the Bible have a better shield against atheist arguments.
This puts these evangelicals in something of the position of fighting their best allies across a deep gulf that they themselves have dug while they ignore the enemy at their unprotected back. Besides irritation that many of those those who claim expertise on Mormon belief have evidently never read the Book of Mormon at all, I'm mostly sorry for them. Fortunately, there are at least some evangelicals who recognize that if one says he believes in Christ and acts as if he believed it, he must be some sort of Christian. We can get along with those a lot more easily than we can with those who call us liars and hypocrites.
Monday, July 09, 2007
Islam
I was going to write something more or less patriotic for the 4th of July, but nothing quite sounded right, and I've been swept up in other things.
My impression of Islam has generally been more favorable than not, but lately it's been taking a beating. Before I express any solid opinions about it, I need do what I would encourage critics of Mormonism to do...Read the book; don't rely on someone else's opinion. I have been following a series, Blogging the Koran, but haven't got around to reading it for myself.
I can't believe that all Muslims are potential terrorists; many of them have to be living good lives. Yet, there are others who by emphasising different passages in the same book find themselves justifying terror. And then I read things like this report from WorldNetDaily about some of the more radical preaching of some Muslims and I wonder.
There is commentary on this same blog that compares Joseph Smith to Mohammed, apparently written by people who have never actually read the Book of Mormon or anything else Joseph Smith wrote. There was an earlier series, on Blogging the Bible, written by a Jew who had never actually read it (The Old Testament, that is). I wonder about the possibility of Blogging the Book of Mormon. Comments, anyone?
My impression of Islam has generally been more favorable than not, but lately it's been taking a beating. Before I express any solid opinions about it, I need do what I would encourage critics of Mormonism to do...Read the book; don't rely on someone else's opinion. I have been following a series, Blogging the Koran, but haven't got around to reading it for myself.
I can't believe that all Muslims are potential terrorists; many of them have to be living good lives. Yet, there are others who by emphasising different passages in the same book find themselves justifying terror. And then I read things like this report from WorldNetDaily about some of the more radical preaching of some Muslims and I wonder.
There is commentary on this same blog that compares Joseph Smith to Mohammed, apparently written by people who have never actually read the Book of Mormon or anything else Joseph Smith wrote. There was an earlier series, on Blogging the Bible, written by a Jew who had never actually read it (The Old Testament, that is). I wonder about the possibility of Blogging the Book of Mormon. Comments, anyone?
Monday, July 02, 2007
Left Behind
I admit it. I've always been suspicious of the No Child Left Behind Act. Although I've been more or less avoiding schools like the plague for years (except for the libraries, nearly a second home) , I do have an interest in education. The problem is that although I love learning, I've come to hate school, and although I enjoy teaching, I prefer it when the people I am teaching want to learn. I have no interest in packing 25 or more students all the same age into a classroom and try to teach them all the same thing at the same time, regardless of whether they are prepared or whether they have any interest in the subject. My interest in education has taken a different turn entirely. With the insistence from all quarters on having a Bachelor's degree before I am allowed to teach and the suspicion I faced last time I dared to poke my amateur nose into the sheltered cloisters of secondary education, I'm not sure that I would be even allowed to try. So, I watch the education debate from the sidelines. It's hard to predict what the next coming political debate is going to be, but if the NCLBA is coming up a renewal it will be something I want to watch this time around.
