EEOC Suing The Salvation Army

America's taxpayer's dollars are at work again. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) is suing the Salvation Army for firing a couple of employees for not speaking English on the job. That is the policy of the Salvation Army--you have to learn English to work for the private non-profit organization. The Salvation Army even let the couple of employees have a year to learn English. Wow, that is pretty generous.

This stupid suit brings up several issues. If the EEOC can sue a private non-profit organization for firing people for not speaking English after giving them a year, then they can go after other private organization and businesses for the same thing. If the EEOC wins this suit that is what will potentially happen. Gov't out-of-control is what this is called. Private organizations should be able to hire and fire people without repercussion. Another issue is speaking English on the job. If you are in a job where you have to communicate with customers like say a cabbie, tech support technition, or a psychologist you should be required to learn the English language. Heck, if you are an immigrant to this country and say you love America then learn the English language. That is the main language of the country. It will help you in the end and will show that you love the country. My maternal grandfather came from Germany when he was 18 to this country not knowing any English. But since he made America his home and loved the country he wanted to learn English and did. If I lived in Italy for example I would try to learn Italian.

The Baloney Detection Kit and Global Warming

In his book The Demon Haunted World, the late Carl Sagan had suggestions for detecting fallacious or fraudulent arguments. He called these suggestions the Baloney Detection Kit. I am going to apply these suggestions to global warming. Here are most of the suggestions:

• Wherever possible there must be independent confirmation of the facts. Scientists say the earth is getting warmer. That has been the only thing confirmed by all scientists. Everything else has not been totally confirmed. Scientists cannot even predict how hot the earth will be.
• Encourage substantive debate on the evidence by knowledgeable proponents of all points of view. Here the knowledgeable proponents would be mainly meteorologists and climatologists. I don't see hardly any encouragement for dissenters who believe that man is not the sole cause of global warming. They are ridiculed and say they should lose their AMA accreditations. That is not science. That is a cult.
• Arguments from authority carry little weight (in science there are no "authorities"). In other words, just because you are well known popular climatologists does not mean you are right about global warming. You have to show you are right by the science. And if you are a politician (read Al Gore) or a celebrity you are definitely not an authority on the subject.
• Spin more than one hypothesis - don't simply run with the first idea that caught your fancy. For example, sunspot activity may cause global warming. I know without the sun you have no greenhouse effect which is the mechanism behind global warming. Volcanoes may cause it too. Just don't go blaming mankind right away for all of the causes of global warming.
• Try not to get overly attached to a hypothesis just because it's yours. Hypothesis' come and go. If your ego gets involved with the hypothesis then you may disregard or downplay any evidence that can disprove your hypothesis. Also, if a researcher gets a grant from the gov't to do research his/her ego will even be more attached to the hypothesis. That is where politics starts to corrupt the science.
• Quantify, wherever possible. Someone once said mathematics is the language of science. You can make up hypothesis' all you want, but unless you can quantify your hypothesis it is harder to describe and cannot be tested. Linear systems like a ball rolling across a floor is easy to describe in an equation. All you need is the ball's mass and velocity to get its momentum. Also, you can figure out from its trajectory where the ball is going to move next. The ball has only one-degree of movement. For more degrees of movement a system has, the more complicated to describe it mathematically (Lotfi Zadeh's Law of Incompatibility). Eventually, if the system has enough complexity it may appear random, but may not be random at all. Just too complex for anyone to quantify precisely. It's hard to link cause and effect together. That is the nature of nonlinear systems. Weather systems are no different. That is why meteorologists can only tell you there is a 60% chance of rain instead of 0% or 100% chance of rain. To simulate weather on a computer meteorologists use five differential equations called primitive equations. These nonlinear equations describe temperature (which is just the average measure of molecule velocity), wind direction (longitude and latitude), precipitation and pressure thickness. If you input the wrong value in those equations or if the value is imprecise then the computer model can yield incorrect results (garbage in, garbage out--as computer scientists like to say). Even a group of researchers from America and Europe saying better forecasting models are needed to model global warming.
• Ask whether the hypothesis can, at least in principle, be falsified (shown to be false by some unambiguous test). In other words, it is testable? Can others duplicate the experiment and get the same result? The hypothesis about mankind being most responsible for global warming can be falsified. There is global warming on Mars. Mankind does not inhabit Mars. Therefore, if mankind cannot affect global warming on Mars then it must be something else creating it. Like say the sun or some other natural process.

Cloaking Technology

Purdue University is developing technology that James Bond or any spy would love to have (come to think of it he would like that self-erasing paper too). The university is developing a cloaking device that makes objects invisible by bending light rays around the object. A device has already been made by the university that bends microwaves and they think they can also make a device that bends infrared light around that would make a heat shield. All this is possible by using nanowires.

The Concept of Good and Evil

When 48 Hours started their show on the Virginia Tech massacre they started talking about the gun the murderer used. The show went into what type it was etc. I am sorry, but it was not the gun's fault. The gun did not make the killer use it in his rampage. But that is the way the main stream media treats evil. It is not the person doing the action that is responsible it is X--whatever X is. X caused him/her to do the violent act. The person is not held accountable for his actions. It is the violent video games and or movies that caused his behavior. It is because he was abused. It is because he was picked on in school (the press is already reporting that the Virginia Tech killer was shy and was picked on in school. Like who hasn't been picked on when you went to school?)

There are two potentially dangerous and wrong concepts that the secular-progressives (sp) have about human nature. The first is that evil does not exist in reality only in the abstract. That there is an explanation for evil. This is definitely incorrect and shown by the Virginia Tech massacre and 9/11. The correct view of human nature is and most mainstream religions agree on this is that people have both good and evil in them. We choose which course we take in life. I believe that human nature is 10% very bad (Hitler, Stalin, serial killers, mass murders), 80% medium good, 10% very good (Mother Teresa, Buddha, Ghandi, etc.). It's like the sps completely ignore the 10% very bad part (although the drive-by-cloned-media who mainly is sp love to report it then excuse it.) It's funny when the sps say mankind has no evil in him but then blames society for a killers actions. If that premise is true (which it isn't) then how does a good society do evil? That just does not make sense.

Then there is the belief that you should act on your feelings. Well, feelings are not rational and moral. If you feel you have been wronged or persecuted like the Virginia Tech murderer felt in his video tape then you act on them. That leads to more bloody violence.

Since we don't let felons have guns legally maybe we should not the other potentially dangerous people have them legally either. If you are psychotic and the voices are you telling you to kill people--you should not be able to get a permit for a gun. The same for sociopaths and people who belong to hate groups. Psychotic people who are in a mental hospital and then are released with anti-psychotic drugs should not be allowed to own a gun. They could forget or not to decide to take the drugs. Sociopaths are a different story. This is a functional disorder therefore they are not put in mental hospitals. Also, they are very hard to detect unless they commit a crime. As for people in hate groups unless a person belongs to a group like the KKK or an Islamofacist group he is hard to detect. The only other way to detect a hater is if they document it. Like Hitler did before the Holocaust. Of course there are privacy issues (like doctor-patient confidentiality, the ACLU saying you cannot put hospitalized psychotic people on lists like they protested convicted child molestors listings in a database on the internet) and there is the issue that the very bad people will always be able to get a weapon.

Shopping Hurts The Earth

Yes, you read that right. According to Canada's gov't environmental adviser, Jonathon Porritt, people must shop less because consumerism is killing the planet. I guess shopping ranks up there with murder. I wonder if this guy has a wife or sister and what they think. I believe it was US Senator Hollings said one time "there is too much consuming going on." I can see it now. A young skull full of mush comes home from school saying to his mom, "Mommy, mommy. My teacher told me shopping is destroying the planet! We must do less shopping!" Then the mom replies, "Yes, dear. That's too bad. So, does that mean we don't buy you anymore birthday or Christmas presents?" Which then the kid gives his/her mom a wide-eyed look. Not to mention, we have to give less wedding presents, baby shower gifts, retirement presents, etc.

Haven't we heard this "sky is falling" routine before? It was Prof. Paul R. Ehrlich who said that the world would experience famines sometime between 1970 and 1985. It did not happen. All this "less shopping" rhetoric is just another example of anti-capitalism.

By the way, if you are keeping count, this is my 100th blog entry! Yea! I should buy myself something to celebrate, but I guess we are supposed to shop less. Oh, well.

Steve Forbes' Flat Tax Form

Being this is the day where the federal government gets their cut of the action (er, I mean where you pay your taxes, sorry about that), I would like to share with the reader Steve Forbes flat tax form:

1. Wages & Salary
2. Number of adults in family
3. Number of children in family
4. 1. Deductions for adults (multiply line 2 by $13,200) or
   2. Deductions for head of household ($17,160)
5. Deductions for dependants (multiply line 3 by $4,000)
6. Total deductions (line 4 plus line 5)
7. Taxable income (line 1 minus line 7)
8. Pre-credit tax (multiply line 7 by 17%)
9. Child tax credit ($1,000 per child under 16)
10. Earned income tax credit (see EITC rules)
11. Total tax credits (line 9 plus line 10)
12. Total tax (line 8 minus line 11)

Not a bad start to reforming the tax code. It is a lot simpler than the behemoth tax code we have now. Steve Forbes wants to the tax rate to be 17%. You can read more about his plan in his 2005 book: Flat Tax Revolution. Using a Postcard to Abolish the IRS. Will the tax code be reformed? Probably not, unless the tax payers want it to be reformed and they vote for candidates who want it to be reformed too. Otherwise, too many people (tax accountants, tax lawyers, etc.) make money off of the system as it now and Congress uses it as a way to punish and reward certain groups.

Some people like Neal Boortz want a National Retail Sales Tax (or if you prefer the FairTax) instead. If you are going that way you then Congress would have to repeal the Sixteenth Amendment otherwise you are going to be taxed twice. You can read more about the FairTax in Neal Boortz's 2005 book: The FairTax Book. I think first we should start with a flat tax rate similar to Steve Forbes plan then think about the FairTax later on.

In full disclosure I should say I have never met Steve Forbes and do not know him. I just think his plan is a step in the right direction.

At the end of his 1993 book For Good & Evil: The Impact of Taxes on The Course of Civilization Charles Adams described what he called the Four Square approach to taxes. Basically, tax rates = intrusions (the tax agency looking at your tax records) = penalties = equality (taxpayers paying the same rate and being treated fairly). In other words, all the components of a tax system should be in balance and be fair. It's called four square because you visualize a square where rates and penalties are the top and bottom and equality and intrusions are the left and right sides respectively. A flat tax rate fits this approach.

Before I end this blog entry here is a couple tax quotes from President Ronald Reagan and Will Rogers:

The taxpayer (is) someone who works for the government but doesn't have to take a civil service examination.
        -- Ronald Reagan

Even when you make a tax form out on the level, you don't know when it's through if you are a crook or a martyr.
        -- Will Rogers

A Five-Point Presidential Platform

Here is my talking points on a good presidential platform:

One, take the war on terror seriously. Never letting another 9/11 ever happen again.

Two, a flat-rate income tax with very few exemptions. Congress won't like this idea because they use the current system as a way to punish and reward.

Three, line-item veto for the president. States have it, why not the federal gov't? Congress won't like it because their pork projects might be trimmed, and the president might not like it because it makes him/her more responsible for trimming the fat. Also, if he cuts out something that the opposition party likes they might accuse him of not funding a "necessary" program. If the country is serious about balancing the budget this is a real good way to do it.

Four, illegal immigration reform. Put a barbwire fence or the National Guard on the border to keep out the trespassers for starters. Fine any business for hiring illegal aliens. If an illegal alien commits a crime, deport him/her. Lynn Woolley has even more good ideas on this topic.

Five, make Social Security optional. That is let the workers decide if they want a portion of their paycheck going into it. You could even let them decide how much that portion will be. Whatever they put into it is what they'll get out it when the worker retires. If it is a good program then workers will keep it funded. This is called democracy. Actually, make all gov't programs that take money out of your paycheck optional. You will never hear a candidate (presidential or otherwise) state this.

Ex-Hostage's Gift-Bag Contains Junk

One of the hostages freed by Iran said there was nothing but junk in that "goodie" bag they gave him. The DVD and CD Iran gave him did not work and the clothing they gave him to wear was cheap. They also gave him a cheap suit to wear and stole his £160 ($294.71) iPod.

I hope the British sailor scanned both the DVD and CD for maleware before trying to play them. The Iranians could have put viruses and worms on the media. I would not put it past them to do just that. If they are capable of developing nuclear material then they are capable of writing viruses.

Also, a British naval mom said she feared that the people holding them hostage would rape her. Here is her exact words: "I was thrown into a tiny little cell and ordered to strip off. They took everything from me apart from my knickers. Then some cotton pajamas were thrown in for me to wear, and four filthy blankets. The metal door slammed shut again." She mouthed the words "Are they going to rape me?" to her commander. No wonder the Iranian gov't did not want the hostages to be interviewed when they were released. Isn't this treatment of this female sailor a violation of Geneva Convention?

On a side note, when you go to Google News and type in the phrase "British sailor hostage" you get 512 results. Change the word "hostage" to "captive" the result goes up to 2,099 results! Just an observation.

Another Supreme Court Ruling

The US Supreme Court is at it again. The men in black robes rules that the EPA can now regulate greenhouse gases specifically CO₂ gases. You know that gas we and other animals exhale out every time we breathe and that the green plants consume. The Supreme Court considers it a pollutant. I am really getting tired of the Supreme Court stepping outside its role as judges. This would be like umpires during a baseball game changing the rules whenever they want to. So, what is the EPA going to do? Tax people for breathing? How are they going to regulate greenhouse gas production?

According to Wikipedia, these are the main factors of the greenhouse effect:

• water vapor (excluding clouds) 36-70%
• water vapor (including clouds) 66-85%
• CO₂ 9-26%
• methane 4-9%
• ozone 3-7%

Note the top greenhouse factor: Water vapor. Which of course is not a pollutant. This is a main factor because of oceans and seas I am guessing. CO₂ is number two. Methane is from natural gas, cattle belching, and produced by those pesky ravenous termites. I thought flatuence contain methane, but this is a common myth. Flatulence actually has more nitrogen (not a greenhouse gas) than methane. Which is probably a good thing because methane is a lot more flammable than nitrogen. If you look at the percentages you will notice they are given in ranges not single values. This is because according to Wikipedia: "because the influences of the various gases are not additive. (The higher ends of the ranges quoted are for the gas alone; the lower ends, for the gas counting overlaps.)" Something to ponder when reading or hearing about global warming.

Crazy Schools

In the name of political correctness, some schools in the United Kingdom decided not to teach Holocaust history because it might offend "Holocaust deniers." (read: Islamofacists--oops did I offend someone?). You read that right. It has come to the point where we cannot offend deluded crazy people. Never mind that the Jewish population might be offended and that the Holocaust is a fact that was proven in a court of law in America. The good and bad should be taught in history irregardless who is offended. There should be no historical revision and should be taught without bias. Facts are facts. If you do not teach the evil of history then there is a good chance that the evil will be repeated. How would the descendents from slaves in America would like it if some American schools did not teach about slavery before the Civil War? You know the answer to that question.

On a side note, a Burlington, New Jersey school has a hostage drill that portrays killers as Christians. They are holding drills just in case the school is held hostage by some armed mentally-disturbed parents. For some reason they are thinking that these people would be Christians. Let see. Who held the hostages in an US embassy in Iran during the 1980's? Was it Christians? No, I don't think so. The answer is crazy Muslims. Also, who held a journalist hostage and chopped of his head? Again, crazy Muslims. Who just recently captured UK navy ship and just today released them saying they did that as an Easter gift to the Brits? Once more, Islamofacists. Are you detecting the pattern? Besides using Christians as an example in a mock drill is setting up wrong expectations for the students. You don't need to signal out any kind of group to do a hostage drill. That is not necessary.

What is the lesson you can learn from these schools? Offending Muslims bad, offending Jews and Christians is okay. All Islamofacists are shooting guns in the air celebrating.