Islamophobia

A couple days ago I heard in the news (Fox news radio) that Islamophobia has been on the rise.  The evidence for this case was that there have been many states that have banned sharia law.  I found this pretty confusing.  How is that evidence of Islamophobia.  After all, I'm pretty sure that it's already illegal to beat people for fornication in most areas of the country.  If the practices of sharia law are illegal, then I don't see why it's all that bad for states to clarify that it is, even though I don't get why they need to.  After all, if someone tried to practice laws of other nations here and started stoning people, they would be jailed and there would be no controversy.  The fact that sharia law is part of the Muslim faith doesn't really convince me that it should therefore be legal to be barbaric, especially towards people who may not want to be Muslims anyway but fear retribution if they convert to some other religion, like Fathima Rifqa Bary, who fled her home to escape an honor killing.  Of course, maybe I am an Ismophobe.  After all, I don't want to get killed for being a Christian or live with seeing people being brutally beaten, amputated, stoned, or crucified.  In that case, I don't want it to be legal to practice sharia law and some other parts of the Muslim religion that are already illegal.  Of course I can't see why the liberals want sharia law either.  They certainly don't appreciate people who believe that the right thing to do is shoot down as many people as possible to try to get your point across.  How are these beliefs any worse than the Muslim faith?  Why do they appear to want Sharia law but not terrorism?  Why is being an Islamophobe so bad if it means not wanting it to be legal for someone to kill me?  Somehow I don't think I'll find the answer on the evening news.

Tropical Storm Irene

Well, as you probably gathered from the fact that I'm still posting, we weren't killed by tropical storm Irene here in eastern Pennsylvania.  It was actually a bit of a let down, we only got three inches of rain and some branches down.  However, we did have the most flooding I can remember seeing here in my entire life (not that there's much significance in that, seeing as I haven't lived all that long).  Anyway, I biked around our little local area to check out some of the flooding and was able to get some picks.  However, I'm not going to show them to you until I get some comparison pictures, so you'll just have to wait for a couple of days.

Christian Dominionism

Dominionsim, as far as I can tell, seems to be the new popular attack on Christianity.  The critics of Christianity use Genesis 1:28 to claim that Christians believe that all political positions should be filled with Christians.  They call these Christians, who include all conservative Christians, and especially conservative Christian politicians, Dominionists.  These Christians want to control politics and make it illegal to have fun and force everyone else to live according to their cold restrictive principals.

And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” (Genesis 1:28, ESV)

My English teacher would kill me for that citation, but fortunately the English teachers haven't taken over politics and made it illegal to stray from MLA guidelines.  Watch out, though, you have to be careful to make sure that politicians don't haven't been associating too much with the English teachers.  I heard that Obama talked to one of his english teachers outside of class.  Can't risk voting for him.  After all, our freedom of speech is at stake.

In a sense, the Dominionism conspiracy theory is no more reputable than this little parody.  Most of the time the media is reduced to using the most absurd and minute association with people who may have Dominionist leanings to convict politicians of Dominionsm.  Lets just say that Obama's former pastor does not strike me as a savory character and that didn't stop many people from voting for him and leave it at that.

Of course, this isn't the only reason that this charge is absurd.  As befits a theory currently being circulated by the main-stream media, it is absurd on many levels.  First of all, the passage mentioned only commands that man (people) in general have dominion over nature.  It doesn't command that Christians have dominion over politics, it doesn't even say anything specifically about Christians or politics, and the list of things to be dominated can hardly be skewed even by the most unscrupulous of characters to include political dominance.  (By the way, it logically follows from these premises that the media contains some of “the most unscrupulous of characters".  Just saying.)  Of course, besides the fact that their scriptural basis is absurd, I personally hadn't even heard of such a belief anywhere in the modern Church until I heard liberals talking about what powerful movement it was.  I feel so left out.  It appears that all the other Christians in the US have suddenly started to want to impose a Christian version of sharia law and I didn't know anything about it!  (By the way, why aren't the liberals equally opposed to sharia law?)  Basically, have I not heard of any Christian who thinks this way and can't think of how there could be any Biblical basis for such a view.  The Bible commands Christians to respect the authority of the government and says nothing about using government to legally enforce moral behavior.

Now, of course, I have to point out one last thing.  Can you think of anyone who doesn't want to elect politicians who they agree with.  Don't the liberals want to elect politicians who will force smart, hard-working, and lucky people to give up huge portions of their income to enrich the the lazy, the unintelligent, and the unfortunate?  Why is it any worse for Christians to want to elect people who will fight against what they think is evil.  I can understand why the Liberals wouldn't want a taste of their own medicine, but it seems that they're downright paranoid about it, considering that the only things I can think of that conservative Christians really want out of this election is a decreased deficit (which I suppose is equally unsavory to liberals).  Although Christians certainly want to reform the culture, the ones I am aware of all want to do so by changing individuals lives, not by forcing people to live according to Christian principles.  (Of course, I'd prefer if it remained illegal to murder me or steal my possessions, but right to life and property is also in the constitution, so it'll be pretty hard for the Liberals to argue that those should be legal, even if they don't believe in transcendent moral grounds for them.) 

Cherry Springs Report

Last Friday we left for Cherry Springs State Park, which supposedly has the darkest sky east east of the Mississippi.  Why did we do this?  Because we are nerds.  What does being a nerd have to do with going camping?  Well, on the particular weekend that we journeyed to Cherry Springs there was a star party being held, which all of the astro-nerds on the east coast flock to to enjoy the darkened sky during the new moon (and enviously eye each-others telescopes I'm sure).  If you think I'm being over-dramatic about the nerd thing, allow me to further describe the general nature of the persons that attended.  Although I consider myself a nerd, some of the people there were way out of my league.  For instance, there were a number of telescopes there that people had made themselves.  That's impressive enough, but what if I told you that some of them were at least a story high?  I even heard of one person who made a machine with which to grind the lenses for their telescope.  Not to mention, of course, that all the people there chose to spend one of the last weekends of summer star-gazing and losing sleep.  Of course, I was one of those, but I'm a nerd to, so that doesn't detract from my argument.  Anyway, as if this vacation wasn't nerdy enough, we went to the Corning Museum of Glass before getting to the campground.  Although the museum was actually rather art oriented, there were parts of it that were all about materials science, which was really sweet.  While we were driving through New York state I thought I saw two Black Bears, but it was a a long distance, so it could have been anything really.  When we got to the campsite we met up with my Dads astronomy teacher friend and set up camp.  Since we'd spent about five hours at the Museum, we didn't have to wait too long for sunset.  I hate to say it, but I'd actually seen better skies while camping in other places, because we were there a a pretty mediocre day for cherry springs.  Nevertheless, I got to look through some other peoples telescopes and saw things like the Swan Nebula, the Wild Duck Cluster, Andromeda Galaxy (which I could see easily through my binoculars), Ring Nebula, and lots of other cool stuff I can't remember.  (The pictures I included are not strikingly good images, I just picked them because they looked most like what I could see.  If you want to see them in all their glory, go search them and you should come up with all kinds of cool-looking pictures.)  Anyway, Saturday morning we got up (very late), packed up, and left.  On our way back, we stopped at the PA Grand Canyon, which is a really pretty spot that my Mom and sister had never seen before.

I also saw I butterfly that I thought was cool.  Unfortunately I'm too lazy to go look up what kind it is.

Overall, I have to say that that was absolutely the nerdiest camping trip I've ever been on.  (And therefore the best, of course.)

Increasing Hurricanes?

Ok, I finally thought of something I haven't ranted about yet.  Ever since Katrina, people have been talking about how global warming is causing hurricanes to become more frequent and more powerful, and thusly more devastating.  Ever since Katrina, there has been an eery calm in the atlantic in respect to hurricanes.  Maybe we have more named storm, but if that's so it's because they've been changing their method of collecting data, a highly unscientific method, whether they wanted to skew the data or not.  For instance, we have started naming both atlantic and pacific storms, we now have far superior technology with which to detect storms that reach the required wind-speeds while they aren't over land, or even don't hit land at all.  Since Katrina, there hasn't been any significant property damage due to hurricanes in the United States (I say significant as in worthy of being reported by the main-stream media, which is predisposed to hype anything, especially tragedies and especially especially tragedies that could have been caused by global warming).  It's really quite humorous.  Every year they predict a record hurricane season, and every year we get comparative calm.  Take this season for instance, granted it isn't over yet, but so far it's been acting pretty typically for post-Katrina season's and everyone can remember it because it's still going on.  At the beginning of the season, there were the traditional proclamations of coming hurricane doom.  Now, there is finally a hurricane that looks like it might make landfall on the US.  GOOD!  Florida, Texas and other parts of the south that often experience hurricanes are currently in severe droughts.  How does one mitigate the severity of a drought?  Get a hurricane to come through.  It's natures watering can.  They suck water up out of the ocean and dump it on the land.  The fact is, that hurricanes are a vital part of southern ecology.  Without them, you get droughts.  So I'm saying that from looking at the data, we have been going through a period of Global Cooling since hurricane Katrina.  Although I'm sure someone has already written an article in Nature about how Global warming causes both more hurricanes and less hurricanes, just like it causes both floods and droughts and both high temperatures and low temperatures.

It's relative

It appears that there are some things that are wrong for Israelites to do but perfectly okay for Syrians to do, as far as the US government is concern.  It appears that Syria is using a blockade that is almost exactly the same as the Israelite blockade that received so much rebuke from the world in general, including the US.  But now that Syria is doing it it's perfectly fine.  If Israel wants to have a blockade to keep the Palestinian fighters from getting weapons with which to destroy their nation, that's wrong, but if Syria starts maintaining a blockade and firing on ships because they want to keep weapons away from Palestinian fighters, that's perfectly okay.  After all, everyone knows that peace-loving muslims shoot people with generous loving hearts, while the Israelites do the same thing (minus the shooting) with malice and bigotry.  The left wing is always saying that they want equality and that the right wing stands for bigotry and other forms of hatred, but sometimes I wonder if equality wouldn't look a little bit harder on muslims and african-americans and a little bit easier on Christians, Jews, and conservative women.

Stepping on those who can't

Here is an interesting take on the riots in London.  I guess it just goes to show that the riots really were, as I thought due to the spreading or irresponsibility and coddling by Liberals.

This [the London rioting] has all caused me to reflect on the extraordinary passivity of Americans, and of American students, who respond to reduced access to education by studying harder, getting better grades, and stepping on the people who can’t — or aren’t in a position to –compete any longer.  

God forbid that anyone should work harder to better themselves.  I was under the illusion that people were supposed to rise above the difficulties and work to better themselves and their nation.  That was the freedom the founding fathers gave us.  Apparently that is SO 18th century and now we know better.  Everyone should be equal, just be created equal or have equal opportunity, but be exactly equal.  Now the mathematicians among you will most likely say that this is impossible, but such facts don't bother liberals.  Apparently, those of us who are progressive enough understand that it just isn't right to work hard, because you might actually end up having a better job or life in general than someone else.  Out of respect for those who are unable to work, we also need to refrain from working so as to not have an unfair advantage.  Instead we need to take to the streets and destroy and rob other peoples stuff that they have worked for, to show them that working and having stuff is just wrong.

Come to think of it, what exactly constitutes "the people who can’t — or aren’t in a position to –compete any longer"?  Does Professor Potter mean those who have learning disabilities?  Those who are just plain not as smart?  Whoever you are there is usually some area that you can compete in.  As best I can tell, she wants everyone to have exactly the same abilities, like in Harrison Bergeron.  (If you haven't read that short story or watched the film, I highly recommend it.)  What it sounds like to me is that she wants everyone to be equally horrible at everything.  It's like the opposite of the humanist era.  Now we know that it's best for everyone to be bad a doing everything, not for us to better society and become superhumans.  After all, wouldn't you feel horrible if you got a better grade on your homework than someone else because you worked harder for it than they did.  That would be so unequal.  After all, he can't help that he can't conscentrate his mind on his homework.  Of course, some people are naturally better at math, but Potter was downing the people who work to make up for such differences.  Apparently in her mind we all need to just lay back and move as a happy, lazy, brainwashed group of good-for-nothing bums.  Something tells me that she must mean something else, but I can't find any other way to interpret her statement.  I wonder how she feels about oriental kids, who work their tails off and are rewarded with testing better than American kids. I guess we'll have to send the Handicapper General over there to fix them as well.  Can't have anyone being smarter or stronger, after all.  Would it really hurt that much for some people to excel in some areas?  I can't imagine how we'd have our current quality of life people hadn't in the past.

Share the Poverty

On the BBC Global News Podcast, August 17 AM, a Professor of economics from Athens University argued that the Eurozone must institute a Eurobond system, which, as far as I can tell, would basically force all of the nations in the Eurozone would insure together all of the loans taken out by Eurozone governments.  This would essentially lower the credit ratings of nations like germany and elevate those of nations like Greece, which have been on drunken spending sprees for many years now.  When asked whether this was fair for nations like Germany, he responded by saying that he thought that Germany had no argument and that it was simply not interested in fixing the crisis at hand.  Besides the fact that he didn't answer the question, I horrified at his answer because it shows that Greeks still function under the same beliefs and expectations that got them into this mess in the first place.  The whole problem started when governments started insuring people, and offering them prosperity whether they work for it or not.  Now the many governments are finding themselves in a whole.  Rather than realize that entitlements don't work, these governments have looked to other nations for bail-outs and coddling.  It seems that the only thing these people are willing to do is kick the can down the road, and wait till the problem is even worse to actually take care of it.  Getting a bailout doesn't fix the problems with the socialist system, it only allows the governments to function a little longer, allow people to become more reliant on entitlements, and get deeper into debt.  What really needs to happen, is the Greek people need to come to the realization that entitlements simply are unsustainable.  As painful as it may be to cut entitlements and implement serious "austerity measures", it's the only thing that will work.  Anyone with the most basic understanding of math knows that if ones spending is higher than ones income and one is going into debt, getting a gift of cash for Christmas will not fix the problem, it only puts you back to where you were when you had more money but were spending above your income.  The first thing you must do is bring down your spending to a point at which it is less than your income.  As long as you still spend more than you get, one-time gifts will not fix the problem, they will only buy just a little more time, while making the problem worse if spending is not cut.  The fact is, that although many people understand this, they have been raised in a socialist society in which the idea that individuals are responsible for their own actions is unheard of.  Instead of taking responsibility and bettering oneself, citizens of socialist nations are taught to wait for other people to be forced to bail them out.  Now that the government is no longer able to bail people out, the people want their government to be bailed out, by germans who were responsible with their money and worked hard for it.  Someone has to realize that at some point, even if the Germans were robbed of their hard-earned money to support some lazy bums in Greece who can't dream of waiting till they turn 50 to retire and perform violence in the street as soon as anyone even mentions it, even the Germans would run out of money, because of the gross wastefulness of socialist governments.  The fact that the Greeks won't take any responsibility for their own well-being and that they think it's perfectly fair to confiscate the Germans prosperity is simply sickening and frightening to me, especially considering that America is on the same track and has proven historically to often follow European trends.  I hope that in this upcoming elections, people in America will look at Greece and understand that that's a bad way to go, and vote accordingly.  If not, then I'll at least be able to say "I told you so", not that there will be much comfort in that, I'm sure.

Cutting the Military

Whenever the republicans start trying to cut the budget, democrats love to say "good idea, lets cut the military".  Although it would seem that the republicans should cut the military because of their position on spending, here is my argument for why they should not.  First and foremost, the military is the only program that the government has a responsibility to maintain.  The Biblical and Historical function of government is solely to protect the people.  It's always been up to the individual to get a job, make a living, pay for medical bills, and provide for old-age, but the government's single important task is to defend the people both from internal criminal threats and external martial threats.  The helping the needy and providing for the elderly is an important part of biblical teachings.  Individuals are often exhorted to help the needy and oppressed, but government is solely to ensure that an individuals life and rightful possessions are not taken unlawfully.  It almost seems that government has been moving to do the opposite in this country.  From our elevated tax system, to excessive government regulations on the private sector, to cutting defense, our government seems to be far more about gaining control than protecting the sovereign rights of individuals.  Even our deficit is a concern to national defense, and the government refuses to fix it.  Like I said in my last post, compromising isn't going to work.  We're headed in the opposite direction of where we should be.  We need people in our government who will stand by their values and push through reform, not allow us to slide any further down the path to economic collapse an anarchy.

Doing What's Best for the American People

Recently we have heard from all over the place that congress needs to stop playing politics and "do what's best for the american people".  It also seems that the majority of americans are of this opinion, which I find quite discouraging.  The republicans bid to cut spending is not playing politics, as far as I'm concerned, it IS what's best for the american people and the Democratic refusal to take part in any real spending cuts is a shocking as it is depressing.  It is the Democrats, including President Obama, who want to maintain popular wasteful spending and fight entitlement reform, who are playing politics and keeping the government from fixing the problem.  The problem is not congress, the problem is not the Tea Party.  The Tea Party, as far as I can tell, is the only movement that sticks to its principals and does what's best for america instead of getting in the way of reform and a desperately needed reigning in of spending.  After the failure of our government to cut spending THANKS TO THE DEMOCRATS the stock market has been lurching around all over the place and it is clear that to restore consumer confidence and our AAA rating it will take some real, legitimate spending cuts.  People have compared the debates in washington to small children bickering over a toy.  I will fix this il-formed analogy by altering and expanding it somewhat.  An adult, the republicans, is trying to take the toy (the United States) from a child, the democrats, who are trying to throw the toy into a furnace where it will be consumed and destroyed.  The child, meanwhile, is calling the adult names like "racists" "extremist" and "terrorist" and telling it to stop fighting over the ball and come to an agreement.  The child, of course, won't accept any agreement that doesn't end with the toy in the furnace, but it is willing to consider an and every method of getting it in, some slower than others, and thereby compromise with the adult.  What we need in Washington is not more compromising, we need more politicians with conviction who are serious about cutting spending and growing the economy NOT through keynesian methods, but by cutting taxes and giving the american people the ability to grow and prosper, thereby creating enough revenue for the government.  It has become clear now that Obama will not cut spending in any significant way and that if he cuts at all he wishes to only cut the military, which should be left alone for reasons I will explain in my next post.  Unless a miracle happens, it would seem that we will have to wait till the next election to fix this every growing problem.

Dover Report

We’re just getting back after our trip to Dover, DE to see our grandparents and go to the beach.  Although I’m not a huge fan of the beach, because I don’t like sand and sunscreen, I enjoyed myself despite my preference for swimming pools.  While we were at the beach on Thursday, some of us walked a little ways down the beach, away from the umbrellas, and I was surprised to find both a Royal Tern and a Common Tern, in addition to Laughing Gulls, Ring-billed Gulls, Greater Black-backed Gulls, Herring Gulls, and a Rudy Turnstone.  I was able to take some grainy photos, but those aren’t really worth uploading, so I’m not going to go to the trouble.  Today we went to a shooting range and fired some of my grandfather’s pistals, which ranged from .22 to .45 caliber .  My favorite by far was the Colt .45, which I’m pictured shooting here.

I really enjoyed the range, but I was ready to leave when we did.  It gets really hot in those sandpits, and there were lots of people who had to take turns, so most of the time wasn’t actually spent shooting.  Now that we are going back home, I’m getting kind of apprehensive about my soccer practice tomorrow, since I haven’t been able to go running much due to our constant travel this summer.

Even the Liberals agree with me

 Can you believe it?  Even liberals agree with me that it is likely that Obama doesn't really have any beliefs or doesn't care if he goes against them or not.

A somewhat less charitable explanation is that we are a nation that is being held hostage not just by an extremist Republican Party but also by a president who either does not know what he believes or is willing to take whatever position he thinks will lead to his re-election. 

Of course, I don't agree with the part about the republican party being the problem, because the teaparty has almost the entire body of republicans who want to reduce our drunken spending spree, but it seems that even those who were experiencing tingles up their legs not too many years ago are beginning to see that this man really doesn't appear to have any convictions at all.

Healthcare Happenings

In this post, I'm not really going to present hard arguments or logical statements, I'm just going to note some facts of debatable meaning.  While Obama and his goons were pushing through Obamacare, against the wishes of most americans, we were being told that the implementation of the bill would be catastrophic for the health of the average american.  Despite the fact that the bill is being implemented in small steps, and the media is busy talking about other things, some examples of the trials to come are being seen already.  One tuesday night, our local news reported to separate stories.  One was on a Verizon workers who were striking.  Although I did not pay much attention, I heard that the strike was related to increases in the cost of healthcare.  Another story told about how there has been a huge spike recently in the number of medications that are experiencing shortages.  When you think about it, both of these can be easily attributed to Obamacare.  The cost of private healthcare has gone up because the private sector is anticipating having to compete with the public sector, which has a huge advantage in that all the money it needs can either be printed or stolen from people, whereas the private sector must be efficient and run on the money it makes through business.  Because of this, Verizon is having trouble providing its workers with healthcare.  Also, because the government now controls how much a pill can sell for and what one can and cannot use, as the healthcare provider, drug companies must be competitive, instead of risking money on creating new medicines and over-supplying existing ones, or even making pills that cost more to create than they are allowed to be sold for.  This causes there to be shortages of more pills and people therefore get worse care.  I know that I've said this before, but whenever the government gets involved in something, it creates waste inefficiencies that are depressing to see, and even more depressing to have to live with.

Obama's Morality

I think that most of us can agree that we would like the person representing the entire United States to be a person whose morals we agree with.  The reason many of us vote is simply to make sure that the laws of the land are not written against our moral principals.  With this consideration in mind, I have decided to briefly examine the Obama's morality, not by what he says he believes, but by what he has said and done as President.  As far as I can tell, Obama claims to be a Christian.  That would be far more interesting if the Christian church had not been hampered by all kinds of people masquerading as Christians who don't actually believe in the infallible nature of scripture or the resurrection of Christ or humans sinful nature.  I, for one, would be ready to say that just being a Democrat means that one doesn't believe in man's fallen nature, considering their love of socialism, which doesn't work at all if man is sinful and inclined to work the system.  Anyway, despite the fact that he is a liberal and we already know he's messed up, I still think it's worth-while to look at his morality or lack thereof. (Just kidding, some Liberals are perfect kind, even christian, people.)  In my humble opinion, (to quote Michael Savage, who is not at all humble) Obama's morality can be summed up in this manner: whatever gets the most votes is the right thing to do.  Think about it.  While he was a senator, Obama talked about how it was irresponsible to raise the debt ceiling, whereas recently he has spoken vehemently about the irresponsibility of HESITATING to raise the debt ceiling.  Early in his presidency, Obama pushed through trillions in bail-outs and signed a whole new kind of entitlements that will cost the US trillions more.  Just recently, after the mid-term elections, Obama began talking about how concerned he was about our deficit and how he is willing and ready to cut the debt (while calling any kind of serious cut radical, but you can still see that he's lying as if no one actually remembers what he said a month ago).  This kind of flagrant inconsistency shows that if he actually has any opinions on there being a right or wrong then he either think that whatever the american people are excited about at that point in time is right, or that there is no right or wrong, or suppresses his opinions of right or wrong so that he can go on expensive vacations and play golf.  Either way, is he really the kind of person that you want to reelect?  I would think that having such a wishy-washy man deciding the fate of the entire US and even the world would be a highly undesirable state of affairs.  But, on the other hand, he hasn't completely ruined us yet.  Maybe we should give him another four years and see if he can get things as bad as they were under his kindred spirit FDR during the great depression.  I guess at least under FDR the debt wasn't quite as much of a crisis, so Obama has an even better chance or destroying the nation created by the blood and sacrifice of thousands of soldiers.

"We will always be a triple-A nation"

As you all know, S and P gave the United States AA+ rating instead of the AAA rating it has enjoyed throughout the years.  This makes perfect sense, considering the fact that the US is 14,587,849,000,000 as I write this post and climbing at an astonishing rate.  Furthermore, the government has passed up the perfect chance to cut spending and reduce the deficit and has insisted on demonizing the people who try to restore sanity to the spending orgy that has been going on in Washington.  The President has blamed this degrading on the bickering between republicans and democrats.  Believe it or not, I agree with him.  He and his democratic goons are holding americans money hostage all month and refused to do the responsible thing and cut spending.  Because they refused to let the Republicans restore fiscal sanity and make US bonds credible.  Borrowing more money, contrary to the Democrats unscrupulous rhetoric, is not enough to make the US AAA rated.  What makes bonds credible is the likelihood that they will be payed back.  What's the likelihood of that happening for US bonds when the debt is going to do nothing but climb higher and higher.  There comes a point when the US can't just borrow more money.  At this point, it would be good to remember that the reason that we got in this entire economic mess in the first place was that crediting agencies were pressured to give good ratings to things like Fannie Mae and Freddy Mack, which bought high risk loans and were just dying to go bankrupt.  The government then chastised the rating agencies for their unscrupulous ratings and now that honest rating is coming back to bite them in the backside.  I personally would give the US a much worse rating considering the vicious stupidity of our House democrats and maybe even the executive.  We'll see what the future holds in this next election, however.  Either America will hold fast in its demand for fiscal freedom or it will lapse back into a intoxication on entitlements and unconcern at astronomical deficit spending.  If you want a stock market drop like today again, vote democrat.

Camping Report

Contrary to the original plan, we arrived home from camping at around 00:15 Sunday.  Although we had planned to arrive home sunday mourning, we were planning on also leaving sunday mourning instead of leaving at 21:00 Saturday.  The reason for our early departure was that due to the pouring rain we experienced between 10:30 and 18:00 on Saturday the ground beneath our tent was so saturated that any significant pressure on the tent floor caused water to seep through and pool on the floor.  Anticipating a wet night and probably a rainy mourning we decided to skip sleeping in a wet tent and eating breakfast in the rain and left a little bit early.  As a result of this, we were able to go to church on Sunday mourning, which was good.  I can't get to comfortable here, though, because we have to leave Wednesday to go visit our grandparents in Delaware and go to the beach.

While we were camping on Thursday and Friday, however, we had a fantastic time.  On Thursday we set up camp and got used to our surroundings and had a delicious dinner of steelhead (which is like salmon) cooked over the fire.  In addition to this, we saw a red eft, which I can't recall ever seeing before, but had red about in books when I was younger.

He probably wasn't the only one either, because we saw another run over by a car and a third was captured by one of the younger boys we were camping with.

On Friday, we took a hike on a beautiful trail that went along a stream with lots of waterfalls, most of which I photographed.  Fortunately for you, I was able to control myself and weed out some of the worse ones.

In addition to gorgeous waterfalls, we saw a cool millepede with blue and red stripes.  I guess these things must love mixed deciduous forests, because I've only ever seen them in state parks like Ricketts Glen and Worlds End.

On Saturday, we were able to get breakfast in before it started raining.  One bright side of the pouring rain was that I was able to make use of this emergency blanket I've been carrying around in my backpack for years.

Well, it's a whole lot better than carrying an umbrella in my backpack for years.

Nevertheless, I was glad to get home so that we could be indoors for a little while before heading off on our next trip.

Quick Update

Well, I tallied it up yesterday and thought you might like to know that I saw 51 new species of birds on our trip out west.  Now that I'm barely settling in, we're going to leave on a camping trip tomorrow.  We hope to not be back till Sunday afternoon, so I won't get to hear all the political jabbering about the debt limit for a few days (I think I'll manage though.  We haven't gone to this particular camp ground for a couple years because the last time we were there, there were bears all over the place tearing up cars and what-not.  The worst part was that the rangers insisted on reminding us constantly that the campground was "the bears home" and that we were guests there.  I wonder if the people who you pay to get in say that line as well.  If I am not mistaken a campground is a place were people stay, often located within an area of natural beauty.  I would be inclined to think that a campground was, therefore, the people's home, since that's who's supposed to stay in it.  Anyway, we shall se if Ricketts Glen campground is still the bears home, and if it is we'll know next time not to pay the state to sleep there.  Maybe the rangers can charge the bears rent, if they maintain their former anti-costumer attitudes, like so many other government institutions.  (I meant the so many other government institutions have anti-costumer attitudes, not that they charge bears rent.)  I will try to update you again by Monday evening.

Breivik's Christianity

 Word has reached me, despite my avoidance of the main-stream media, that Anders Behring Breivik, the norwegian terrorist who took it upon himself to commit mass murder in a youth camp and probably set off a bomb in the Norwegian capital, was a Christian.  Although I know that anyone who would do something like that is acting exactly the opposite to the way the Bible teaches people they should live, I thought it would be nice if their were additional evidence that he really didn't even think he was a Christian.  Fortunately, there was a link to an article with just such evidence on Viewpoint, titled Fundamentalist Christian or Deranged Social Darwinist.  As usual, the truth happened to be even better than I hoped.

Since the horrific acts perpetrated by Anders Behring Breivik in Norway last week, the news-media have been scrambling to uncover the worldview of Mr. Breivik. After initially speculating (wrongly) that the Oslo bombing and subsequent youth camp massacre were committed by a radical Muslim, establishment media outlets like CNN sought to depict Breivik as "a right-wing Christian fundamentalist." Think Jerry Falwell or Pat Robertson with a machine gun.
Except, it now turns out, Breivik really isn't a Christian fundamentalist after all. According to his 1518-page manifesto "A European Declaration of Independence," he may not even believe in God. Instead of Christianity, his views are largely based on what might be described as a virulent mixture of scientific fundamentalism and Social Darwinism.

A "Christian Atheist"?To be sure, Breivik identifies himself as "100% Christian" in his manifesto (p. 1403), and he certainly talks incessantly about defending "Christian" civilization. But he also makes clear that his Christianity is a simply pose adopted for political reasons. Answering why he chose to align himself with a group supposedly espousing "Christian values," he states: "My choice was based purely [on] pragmatism." (p. 1380) He goes on to explain that "Christianity" has far more "mass appeal" than nationalism, white supremacy, or a revival of paganism, and so it is a more effective "banner" under which to build his movement. (p. 1381) In sum, Breivik views religion like Machiavelli viewed religion--as a political tool. It's worth noting that Machiavelli's The Prince is listed by Breivik as one of his favorite books. (p. 1407)

As for his own religious beliefs and practices, Breivik frankly admits: "I'm not going to pretend I'm a very religious person as that would be a lie. I've always been very pragmatic and influenced by my secular surroundings and environment." (p. 1344, emphasis added) Indeed, Breivik acknowledges that he used to believe that "Religion is a crutch for weak people. What is the point in believing in a higher power if you have confidence in yourself!? Pathetic." He continues: "Perhaps this is true for many cases. Religion is a crutch for many weak people and many embrace religion for self serving reasons as a source for drawing mental strength (to feed their weak emotional state f[or] example during illness, death, poverty etc.). Since I am not a hypocrite, I'll say directly that this is my agenda as well." (p. 1344, emphasis added) In other words, at best he views his embrace of religion as a psychological crutch to give him strength for his horrific activities. Although he adds that he has not yet actually prayed to God for strength, he expects that he may do so when he goes on his murderous rampage: "If praying will act as an additional mental boost/soothing it is the pragmatical thing to do. I guess I will find out... If there is a God I will be allowed to enter heaven as all other martyrs for the Church in the past." (p. 1345) Note the "if" in his statement about whether God exists. Breivik himself doesn't even appear to believe in God. He frequently identifies himself as a "cultural Christian," a term which he defines at one point as the same thing as a "Christian atheist." (p. 1360)

Unsurprisingly, Breivik's idea of "cultural Christianity" has little to do with Christianity as most people would understand that term. For example, Breivik makes clear that to join his movement for cultural Christianity "[i]t is not required that you have a personal relationship with God or Jesus." (p. 1361) Indeed, Breivik would like to expand "Christianity" to include those who worship the Norse pagan god Odin. Breivik calls for the Christian church to be "re-create[d]... as a nationalistic Church which will tolerate and allow (to a very large degree) native cultures/heritage/thought systems such as Odinism." (p. 1361) And despite using the adjective "cultural," Breivik's "cultural Christianity" doesn't leave much room for Christians to actually influence society apart from social rituals. Indeed, Breivik emphasizes that he wants a secular European state where "[t]he Church and church leaders will not be allowed to influence non-cultural political matters in any way. This includes science, research and development and all non-cultural areas which will benefit Europe in the future. This will also include all areas relating to procreation/birth/fertility policies and related issues of scientific importance (reprogenetics)." (p. 1137, emphasis added)

As can be seen, Breivik harbors a special concern that Christians not be able to influence issues related to science and pubic policy "in any way." Why?

Because he sees biological science--not traditional religion--as the ultimate savior of society. In his view, advances in biology will makes possible a vigorous new form of Social Darwinism that will save the Nordic race through positive eugenics.

So, how much better can it get?  It turns out that this guy is not only in no way a christian, he is a social Darwinist, who believes in eugenics and the power of science, which was at the core of Hitler's beliefs.  After all, when hitler was losing the war, he simply responded by directing more funds to the extermination of Jews and the disabled.  His goal was not as much to conquer the world and it was to purify it and remove unwanted persons.  This sounds a lot like what Breivik talks about in his manifesto.   "[t]he Church and church leaders will not be allowed to influence non-cultural political matters in any way. This includes science, research and development and all non-cultural areas which will benefit Europe in the future. This will also include all areas relating to procreation/birth/fertility policies and related issues of scientific importance (reprogenetics)."  If this is christianity then I am not a christian.  I will always be a follower of christ, which is far from this Darwinist's religion.  After all, according to this guys definition, vikings would have been christians because they worshipped Odin.  It seems to be all to clear that the atheism is second only to the muslim faith in the creation of terrorists.  Fortunately, this person was not elected to be the most powerful person in germany, or things could have been a lot worse.  Social Darwinism and ethical pragmatism have proven time and again to be a dangerous concoction.  Remind me again why it is essential to teach are children that Darwinism is undisputed fact in the public schools?

The debt crisis debate

Ok, I am SO TIRED of hearing about how wealthy Americans need to pay their fair share.  Why is it at all "fair" for wealthy americans to pay ANYTHING towards the prosperity of less wealthy americans.  After all, having more money does not constitute an objective moral reason to give it away to other people.  Come to think of it, I'm not sure that most liberal thinkers even deserve to believe an any objective ethical standard.  What would they base this objective morality on anyway?  The idea that all men are created equal?  Since when does an idea constitute a moral objective?  Why would it be any better to take money from the rich than take it from the poor?  because the poor have more votes?  What if the tea party has more votes, does that make them right?  The fact is, that the only place one can find to base an objective ethical standard is in something supernatural.  How can something natural have any absolute sway over someone.  Even mob rule, which is basically the definition of democracy, from which the democrats get their name, should have no objective sway on anyone. Although mobs can force people to do things, the people who they push around don't have an objective moral responsibility to comply.  So, how can Obama say that wealthy Americans "need to pay their fair share"?  Does he have an objective reason that gives basis to this statement?  Where on earth could he get such a reason, unless he had a supernatural being creating such an ethical responsibility?  He seems to think that people should agree with him because he is right, but I've never heard anyone come up with how he could be right.  The only way one can be right is if there is an objective truth, which Liberals are often want to deny the existence of.

Now, there is one thing that could still hold sway over our politicians, and that is the constitution.  I, however, fail to see how the constitution could hold sway over anyone unless there was an objective moral reason that the politicians oath to keep and uphold the constitution is binding.  That reason, I would argue, is God.  If you know me, you probably know that I am speaking of the Christian God, the God described in the Bible.  However, leaving this aside for just a moment, lets not specify who this God who holds objective moral sway over all of mankind and merely postulate that he does exist.  If this were the case, then people would have to obey his commands.  Now let us go further and say the bible contains all the commands of God.  If this is the case, then people have an objective ethical responsibility to keep their word and not back off on their promises.  Furthermore, the constitution, which is not only the law of the land and therefore the next authority under God according to the Bible, is also made even stronger by the fact that it is taken from the Bible.  In this case, although God gives individuals the responsibility to care for the poor, neither the constitution nor the Bible gives such a responsibility to the state.  Therefore, although Obama is right to think that the rich need to take care of the poor, he is wrong in trying to convince people that they should feel a moral obligation to have the government do it for them, which is all the conservatives of american want to change.  Conservatives merely want to take the job of caring for the poor away from the government (which has been doing an extremely bad job of it) and move it back to the people, who are the ones who are responsible for that anyway.

Now, of course, I should return to the other possibility, which is that the Christian God does not exist and that there is no objective morality.  If this is the case, then it doesn't matter whether anyone helps the poor or whether anyone ends up rich, because without God, nothing matters at all.  Although some Atheists vainly search for an escape from Nihilism, their attempts always end in arbitrarily choosing something they would wish to call objective morality, which can't be objective because their basis is arbitrary.  The only way anything could have sway over us is if it made us, developed us, cared for us, and loves us and is greater than us in every way and has the power to judge us for eternity.  Either way, Obama has no right to say what he says.