Violence

Last week, Stephen Marsh at Wheat and Tares posted about how arguments about Guns and Gays are similar.  Steve specifically said “people post disputed statistics for the harm caused by the parties they wish to regulate or deny. In both cases, those opposing regulation point to contrary statistics showing how good either guns or gay [...]

The headline is clear. Community of Christ will provide sacramental ordinances of marriage, commitment ceremonies, and ordination independent of sexual orientation in the USA. Specifically, after two days of discussion, the USA National Conference formally approved by a required 2/3rds majority the following recommendations to the First Presidency and Quorum of Twelve: The 2013 USA [...]

In many ways, the arguments against guns and the arguments against gays are very similar. In both cases, people who find an “ick” factor in something (be it guns or gay marriage) are against it. Those who fit in the group (either owning a gun or being gay) feel it is a personal matter others [...]

In February 2011, I wrote this blog about how I though some people love their guns more than they love God. In other words, they love their guns more than they care about the people that die each year by guns.  I still believe that there is a segment of the population that this applies [...]

The response to trauma is instinctual, even if our instinctual responses are wired individually. God evolved our species’ instincts to do something fast –flee, fight, or freeze — because the lethal nature of most of the dangers that killed humans throughout history is immediately perceptible and requires immediate response. Instincts don’t do as well when [...]

Not the program you might think. Rather, the kind of program some people had in mind for Salman Rushdie when he pointed out the contradictions of “The Satanic Verses”. Or, perhaps that should be pogrom, since there are death penalties involved. Certainly, Mark Steyn is one who has had his proverbial skin in the game, [...]

Unable to sleep a few nights ago, I sought mind-deadening through cable TV. I chanced upon a movie I thought would do the job — a murder mystery set in a mountain abbey in 14th Century Italy. I didn’t get what I expected. Instead, the movie, The Name of the Rose, starring Sean Connery and [...]

I have been personally (and later professionally) interested in the extent to which mathematics could help forecast historical trends ever since I read the fiction of Isaac Asimov way back in the 1960′s. When I shared my first office at Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory with a staff meteorologist working on air quality dispersion [...]

Did you know that there are 88.8 guns for every 100 people in the US?  As an American who has never owned one, I was pretty surprised by that statistic.  Living abroad, I’ve been asked by many people why Americans are prone to mass shootings.  It’s a great question, one that is difficult to answer. [...]

The laws that govern normal behavior on earth (e.g., “Thou shalt not kill”) do not apply in heaven, because there they are unnecessary. The laws that govern normal behavior on earth also do not apply in hell, because there no one can hope to keep them. I am not the first to notice that “war [...]

As a child of the 60s and 70s, I came to realize that the rights we have as guaranteed by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights are somewhat conditional. Firstly, and obviously, you are not free to yell “fire” in a crowded movie house unless there really is a danger. But secondly, and more [...]

I like dystopian novels. I think that if many of the ideals espoused by most people were executed to perfection the result would be captured by one of the many dystopian novels that have been written. I think this says something very important about ideals, paradox, uncertainty, and truth. I’ve been reading “Brave New World” [...]

Plan A was to have the economy humming by now and see Obama cruise to re-election on the success of Keynesian counter-cyclical stimulus. Hope and change would have proven itself superior to the failed policies of the Republican past and the country would eagerly follow Obama into yet more “transformational” policies in his second term. [...]

“Only two of the 18 launched lifeboats rescued people after the ship sank. Lifeboat 4 was close by and picked up five people, two of whom later died. Close to an hour later, lifeboat 14 went back and rescued four people, one of whom died afterward. Other people managed to climb onto the lifeboats that floated off [...]

War is good for the economy, but terrorism is fatal.  Or so it would seem with the benefit of hindsight.  Is 9/11 the underlying reason the economy is in collapse? The 1% Doctrine A few years back I read Ronald Suskind’s book The One Percent Doctrine about Dick Cheney’s approach to fighting terrorism.  To paraphrase [...]

The United States has been preoccupied with economic issues and domestic politics. So it was shocking to have the Attorney General of the United States call a news conference to announce that Iran’s government was implicated in a plot to murder the Saudi Ambassador to Washington while in the city and (from other sources) conduct [...]

Not too long ago I did a series of posts about economic principles. I thought I would go on from there to address some military concepts and other things.

Since spring, women worldwide have taken to the streets to protest rape culture in several “SlutWalks.”  So, for the uninitiated, what is “rape culture”?  According to Wikipedia: A rape culture is a complex of beliefs that encourages male sexual aggression and supports violence against women. It is a society where violence is seen as sexy [...]

New York is a city composed of five Boroughs that include dozens of neighborhoods with histories often unrecognized by their modern residents. As the city grew from its origins on the southern tip of Manhattan Island over several centuries, it enveloped and altered what had been separate communities and erased the reasons for their original [...]

During the past several weeks, as rebellion spread from country to country in the Middle East, a local evangelical church — whose members include several business clients and personal friends of our family —  has been advertising an “end-times” series on the fulfillment of Biblical prophecy regarding the Latter Days. Some of the advertising has [...]