God and Liberalism

In Dean L. Overman's book A case for the existence of God (2009) he talks about why would an all powerful God allows evil to exist. He gave an analogy of a parent to a child. Why would a good parent allow a child to ride in an automobile? After all the auto may get into an accident and harm or even kill the child. A parent could be overprotective and not allow the child in the car at all. But then this would not be fair to the child. You can expand this analogy to not letting the child cross the street or ride his/her bicycle. Again this would not be fair to the child.

This is what God has done. He has given us free will to decide between good and evil. He also have given us a mind to make (hopefully) wise decisions. To be totally good we would have to have no free will and be completely programmed by God. He wants people to experience life even if it is dangerous.

What's this have to do with the Left? Most on the Left believe in big gov't control. They want the citizens of America to be totally protected by gov't. Not safety-nets or guard rails. Totally regulated. After all to the Left people are like little children who have to be always protected and told what they can and cannot do. I'm not talking about just morals mind you but being dictated in everything in people's life. Therefore the Left cannot understand why a God would not interfere in the life of man to protect him. After all that's what they think government's main role is. To protect mankind in every aspect of his life. Big Gov't = An all-power God. Why need a god when you have big gov't.

Saudi 'Killer Chip' Implant Would Track, Eliminate Undesirables

From Fox News.com (May 15):

German media outlets reported last week that a Saudi inventor's application to patent a "killer chip," as the Swiss tabloids put it, had been denied.

The basic model would consist of a tiny GPS transceiver placed in a capsule and inserted under a person's skin, so that authorities could track him easily.

Model B would have an extra function — a dose of cyanide to remotely kill the wearer without muss or fuss if authorities deemed he'd become a public threat. [read more]

Talk about George Orwell's 1984 on overdrive! Then again this device is what an oppressive gov't (like Iran, N. Korea, Venezuela, etc.) would love to have. And if the Saudi gov't suspects you of being a homosexual they could implant that chip in you. Once they think you're a homosexual--you're dead. Good thing the chip was denied.

On a side note, Venezuela's dictator is making a $14 cellphone for the people of Venezuela. You know because they lack cell phones and he wants to listen in on their conversations. Then again I could be wrong about that.

Oops! Pirates Captured After Threatening Wrong Ship

Fox News.com on May 4 reported that a bunch of Somalia thugs pirates had mistaken a French naval ship for a merchant ship. The French ship hid its identity by sailing in the sun. Then it had its support helicopter fire warning shots at the pirates. The so-called pirates then promptly surrendered.

Gotta love that! I love it when the bad guys screw up. It's too bad the French naval ship did not just sink the three boats but oh well.

IBM's 'Watson' to Take On 'Jeopardy'

From PCMag.com (April 27):

IBM said Monday that it plans to produce "Watson," a computing system designed to parse questions intelligently and respond in the manner in which it was intended.

The goal? To knock off human contestants in "Jeopardy," in much the same way IBM's "Deep Blue" computer beat Garry Kasparov in chess.

Watson will be forced to interpret the question, process puns and other word games, search through its database and determine the correct answer, all within less than a second -- the reaction time of "Jeopardy" players. The machine will not be connected to the Internet, but will have to parse its own database of content. [read more]

Interesting. If this works it will be a big milestone for AI.

IBM could write a similar program for the "Wheel of Fortune" game although a little bit trickier. They could program the computer to know the frequency count of letters and use its knowledge base to "guess" the phrase. The tricky part is that IBM would have to build a robot to spin the wheel or have a person do it.

One of these days computers are going to take over tech support. The electric companies already has automated systems that respond to your voice commands over the phone. At least mine does.

The DREAM Act in the 111 Congress

The DREAM Act has been reintroduced in both the House (H.R. 1751, by Rep. Howard Berman (D-CA)) and the Senate (S. 729, by Sen. Dick Durban (D-IL). Several cosponsors of the legislation have referred to the DREAM Act as a "narrow" proposal to deal only with the children brought here illegally by their illegal-alien parents. Unfortunately, the facts belie that claim. Here are the essentials of what the bills would do:

• They retroactively repeal the federal ban on in-state tuition for illegal aliens, so individual states would decide whether to grant this subsidy to illegal aliens at the expense of U.S. citizens and legal residents.
• They require DHS to award amnesty to every illegal alien claiming to meet minimal criteria: 1) present in the U.S. for the last five years; 2) a U.S. high school diploma or GED, or admitted to a U.S. institution of higher learning; and 3) of good moral character with no more than 2 misdemeanor convictions.
  • The Senate version also requires that amnesty applicants be under 35 years of age and not be subject to a final order of removal or exclusion.
  • Neither version requires specific documentation or other proof that amnesty applicants actually meet these minimal criteria.
• Once an alien files an amnesty application, he or she cannot be removed from the United States for any reason until the application is fully processed and a final decision to grant or deny amnesty has been made.
• All amnesty applications go to the front of the line for processing, thus bypassing millions of people around the world who have applied to come to the United States the right way.
• In order to deny any amnesty application, the federal government has the burden of proving an illegal alien's ineligibility for amnesty.
• There are no numerical limits to the amnesty and there's no end date for the application process.
• Amnestied aliens are required to complete two years of college or military service during their first six years of legal residence, but DHS can waive the requirement or grant additional time to comply for those who do not.
• At the end of the six years, amnestied aliens can apply for citizenship and petition to bring their extended relativesóincluding the parents who brought them here illegallyóto the United States.
• Amnesty beneficiaries are eligible for certain federal student loans and work-study programs.

Hat tip to NumbersUSA.com for this info. Notice there is nothing in this bill about border control. With the Swine Flu about to be pandemic according to the WHO it is now more important to get control of the border. Who knows who is crossing the border with that disease or any other disease. Not to mention drug gangs and terrorists that could cross over too. No, just about every politician is catering to the Hispanics like they want diseased people or dangerous people in their town. It's about safety and law and order.

The Home Builder-Economy Analogy

The following analogy is taken from Meltdown (2009) by Thomas E. Woods Jr. The author says this a summary of what the Austrian theory says:

Imagine a home-builder who believes he has 20% more bricks than he actually has. He will build a different kind of house than he would if he had an accurate count of his brick supply. (Assume he can't buy any more.) The dimensions will be different. The style may even be different. And the longer he goes without realizing his error, the worse the eventual reckoning will be. If he finds out his error, only at the very end, he'll have to tear down the whole (incomplete) house, and all those resources and labor time will have been squandered. Society will be that much the poorer.

The economy is like the home builder. Forcing interest rates lower than the free market would have set them makes economic actors act as if more saved resources exist than actually do. Some portion of their new investment is malinvestment---investment in lines that would have sense if the saved resources existed to sustain and complete them, but which do not make sense in light of current resource availability.

An adept analogy. Basically information affects what your actions are. Incorrect information or beliefs will take you down the wrong path.

Here is what the author says should be done about the current economic crises:

• Let the big companies go bankrupt. It's capital equipment doesn't disappear. Someone will come along and buy them and run the business.
• Abolish Fannie and Freddie. These are zombie companies according to the author.
• Stop the bailouts and cut gov't spending.
• End gov't manipulation of money.
• Let's have a debate about whether the Federal Reserve (Fed) is helping or hurting the economy.
• The Fed should abolish its Term Auction Facilities and return to making loans at its discount window only to its traditional customers. Interest rates should be allowed to float.
• End the monopoly money.

Good ideas. I like the zombie term for Fannie and Freddie. Basically they are companies run by the gov't. In other words they are in between a free-market company and a gov't agency. Weird. I think the Fed does more harm than good, because there is a lot of power to control the economy. And power corrupts. This is the same reason I am anxious about having a National Sales Tax--it would allow the gov't too much power to control how much you save and spend.

N. Korea Threatens S. Korea

From UPI.com:

SEOUL, April 22 (UPI) -- North Korea warned South Korea against joining a U.S.-led anti-proliferation program during talks Wednesday in Kaesong, a North Korea border city.

The North Korean delegation at the meeting said South Korea's joining of the Proliferation Security Initiative would lead to an inter-Korean "confrontation," officials told the South Korean news agency Yonhap.

South Korea's Unification Ministry spokesman Kim Ho-nyon confirmed the issue was raised. Previously, Pyongyang has warned joining the anti-proliferation campaign would be considered a "declaration of war." South Korea said it still intends to join the initiative. [read more]

Scary. Add to this N. Korea resumes its nuclear operations and they tested a missile that could reach Hawaii. Then N. Korea warns of a second nuclear test. This dangerous N. Korean dictator has to be taken seriously.

The question is if a war happens between the two Koreas will Japan get involved and be an ally with S. Korea. Japan feels threatened by that crazy dictator of N. Korea too. Japan not too long was thinking about what their constitution would allow to protect itself from N. Korea.