Captivated part 2

Here's a reply from the Captivated elevator media folks. My only further comment is that from browsing the the wordspy.com site that Gareth Branywn of Wired's "Jargon watch" must be the lord high guru of new words (even if he has to make them up himself sometimes ). Who knew!? Gareth's home site in title link.


From : Danko, Christine
Sent : Thursday, January 27, 2005 11:12 PM
To :
CC : "Bigay, John" , "DiFranza, Mike"
Subject : FW: Viewer Inquiry

Hello Robert,
Thank you for contacting us with your feedback (below). The content from the
"Biostitutes" screen was from one of our editorial partners, Wired
magazine, and was part of a regular series they do on "jargon" that
makes its way into popular culture. There was no bias or offense
intended, and we will be running other "Jargon Watch" screens on a range
of subjects.
Best regards,
Christine Danko
Senior Editor
Captivate Network


Name: Robert B
City: Los Angeles
Building: Other
E-mail: Comments: Little disturbed about your use of the term "biostitute" on Jan26, 2005 Hope you will play no favorites and have a full spectrum of such colorful expressions. I posted my own opinion of this at my blog www.rb2bb.blogspot.com

We have a right not to be damaged by others' religious tenets

Huh? This is the conclusion of Gerald Plessner - a San Gabriel Valley citizen with whom I regularly disagree. Sound nice, sounds like the tolerance we should all practice, and yet it isn't reality, it isn't mandated as a right in the Bill of Rights or anywhere else, and to enforce it would actually inhibit free expression and therefore is inherently intolerant. Well, he does attempt to start out with basics. Quote: "There is no doubt that it (the First Amendment) prohibits government sponsorship of religious activities or displays of any religious nature that use public money or property belonging to all citizens." I won't belabor the point overmuch but the Amendment does balance a specific prohibition - establishment of a particular religion - against a broad freedom to practice any or no religion. The extension to "sponsorship" has meant not so much misuse of public funds as to avoid the appearance of "establishing" religion. But it cannot be too broadly applied to disallow freedom of expression in the public square as we recently were advised by the wise ones of the Supreme Court in knocking down Newdow's attempt to toss out prayer at inaugurations. If Lieberman or Prager were to become president, I would expect a rabbi there to bless the event for our nation. If Kerry had won and then announced his conversion to Church of Satan, we would all need to be tolerant at his choice of clergy.

He argues against the teaching of Intelligent Design in our schools. Interestingly, he does not define even according to his own bias what Intelligent Design is about, he does not tell us how it would offend his values, and he does not tell you that "teaching the controversy over evolution" is contained in a law of the land, that apparently has not been challenged over its constitutionality, not yet at least. First of all Intelligent Design is not "six day creationism" which arguably could not be taught without presumption of strong specific beliefs. Intelligent Design doesn't even totally oppose the evolution of species, but argues that there is much proof that life could not be established or grow without design. DNA is substance but it is complex information that at its outset must have had a core function of replicating a template (if you don't see the problem, you've never contemplated that eternal question - which came first the chicken or the egg?). Evolution's great foundation of "natural selection" has NO explanation on how organs and wings are functional in one step of random mutation to allow for the survival of the newly evolved creature. Certainly an atheist would be offended by the premise of some sort of Creator, but any other faith that posits something beyond the natural (which definitely includes Judaism that basically initiated monotheism) would not have qualms.

Biology defines evolution with a small e "as the change in the gene pool of a population over time" - that you know from animal breeds and antibiotics resistance. No one can argue with that. However Evolution is according to the National Association of Biology Teachers, an organization of science teachers, " an unpredictable and natural process of temporal descent with genetic modification that is affected by natural selection, chance, historical contingencies, and changing environments". This statement clearly implies there is no alternative to the development of species than the undirected process that caused mutation from the primordial soup to the human being.

Now, Plessner considers the "damage" caused ( in a fashion that also resembles random mutation), blurring the difference of at least 3 things that Christians are doing that "hurt" non-Christians. One is prosletyzing, the efforts at persuading or arguing or "sharing" a faith that may not be welcome. The next is expressing of one's faith in public settings. The third is the clear expression that their faith presumes a set of eternal moral values that they would like the culture to share. The first is an offense against manners and an insult to those targeted, even if done with the best of intentions, and is notably ineffective. But even so, it is not illegal unless linked with some form of intimidation, which I would say is quite rare in this country. The second I have spoken to already and argue that freedom of expression trumps limiting public religious activities except again where enthusiasm slips into undue influence. Finally, Christians laugh because it keeps us from crying, that we are marginalized for maintaining that marriage means lifetime heterosexual bonding , life is endowed by a Creator at conception, and that good and evil are defined by God not by man, struck by the realization that not only was America founded on these truths and others, but the great mass of humanity has lived and died by these principles as well.

So yes, tolerance can and must be balanced by free expression. In one way or another, in public or hidden away if we must be, we will share values to our children and whoever wants to listen. This is because we think that telling 3rd graders that they come from amoeba may somehow stunt their desire to find meaning in life and that leads to profound moral and philosophical consequences to them and to all of us.

Captivating!

In case you wonder what the heck I'm talking about in regards to "elevator video newsfeed" check out the above title link on the Captivate company site on what they do.

Biostitute - a word whose time has not come

For the 2nd time in 2 days a blurb in the Captivate elevator video newsfeed has caused me to blog-rant. Item - click on above title in wordspy.com - " biostitute (by.AWS.tuh.toot) n. A biologist who supports a company or activity that is harmful to the environment."
Apparently used by environmentalists to describe their scientific brethren who practice biology in the service of corporations that pollute"

Huh?! or even Duh!? Well, yeah sure, BUT please ask the citizens of former communist countries whose scientists were all in the employ of GOVERNMENT whether the lack of a profit motive assisted in the protection of the environment or whether instead State policy and marxist dictated academics led to unquestionable obedience and passive bureaucracy leading to many spectacular horrible incidents as well as widespread ecological despoilment. We probably won't know the half of the damage in China for their development policies until a decade after totalitarianism falls.

And before questioning the integrity of ALL of American scientists who apparently created the most efficient environmental control systems in the world - how about examining the well-known and provable examples of extortion of big industry by environmental organizations such as NRDC*.

Blackmailers calling scientists in honest jobs prostitutes - hypocrisy indeed!


*http://www.zmag.org/zmag/articles/apr97tokar.html
*http://www.innercitypress.org/bxrep104.html
*http://www.doewatch.com/family.html

Was Auschwitz easy?

When I first saw the article, really just a blurb on (strangely enough) the new elevator video newsfeed, I felt the need for a rant. The headline blurb read something like " (Auschwitz) ...the recurring theme is just how easily it happened".

My first reaction was it was not "easy" at all. It was a stupendous culmination of meticulous logistical planning and political will and "sowing the seeds" of psychological acceptance of genocide from the first publication of Mein Kampf to the last gold filling extracted from human remains. The second reaction was that the implication that "Auschwitz was easy" was that without the vigilance of let's say, the media, that perhaps Abu Gharib would have morphed into Auschwitz.

When I actually read the article, which is a reviewed by David Von Drehle in the Sunday, January 23, 2005 Washington Post of AUSCHWITZ: A New History by Laurence Rees, I had to turn down my rant-o-meter at least regarding the second reaction. While in the last account, that might be a subliminal message that journalists and academics may be useful in a defense against genocidal tendencies, I actually can't disagree with that. In Germany, so much of independent thought was stifled and yes the Fourth Estate and the ranting of even the most leftist professors is a display of our free speech and a necessity of the accountability of our government to the people.

But I still must disagree with the concept of Auschwitz was "easy". Some genocide may be easy to implement perhaps - most of the deaths in Darfur are not direct raids and rapes and pillage, but the threat and harassment resulting in dislocation and deprivation causes starvation and disease. Sometimes acts of genocide are even accidental such as China's metal recycling program I believe in the sixties that resulted in millions of deaths and tens of millions of dislocations from simply stripping the farms and villages from everything from farm implements, wiring, tools etc as part of the "Great Leap Forward" that micromanaged agricultural policy into unmitigate disaster. And yet it achieved its end, by driving millions into the cities to achieve urban and industrial goals, which was the beginning of the economic exporting colossus that China has become. But enough of this side-story.

My point is at the heart of genocide is a goal to subordinate a society to become something it currently is not. Then it must change the philosophy of the culture. There will be an elite (the Gestapo, the camp guards etc, the Zylon industrial wizards that will be trained / conditioned to carry out atrocities but the society as a whole must learn to at least passively accept and often tacitly assist in carrying out the planning of the events of the Holocaust.

Hot Baltimore

David Baltimore, Caltech's dean and Nobel prize winner, talks about AIDS.

This hits 2 of my hot buttons because
1) scientists are "co-opted" to the "politcally correct" position on the world AIDS crisis.

2) Dr. Baltimore will head the oversight committee for the spending of $3 billion dollars of CA taxpayer revenues for stem cell research.

I'm at it again

I click on the "next blog" feature, and sometimes when I get a liberal who's spouting, I spout out our own stuff!

Blogged - Technorati Tsunami

My tsunami post which pasted the e-mail originally from Covenant missionaries - the Dwights - a first hand account of their beach "vacation" - was picked up by another blog that apparently scoops up recent references to the tsunami and or Thailand!

No Go for NGOs part 2 World Vision

I was surprised that they had detrimental words to say about World Vision. I don't know whether local sources providing "commentary" about local needs is responsible or it's a matter of policy. Also, unless the really egregious stuff is now removed, the articles on Palestinian need don't seem too bad or out of line even if you have a pro-Israel bias

see for instance - their reference to World Vision Middle East pages. It may be "bleeding heart" but that's what relief agencies are all about. The suffering of the civilians in Palestinian territories is real, the question is Israel the villain or is the corruption of the Arafat regime / "collateral damage" to legitimate Israel response to terrorist action - I don't think World vision makes a judgment ( http://meero.worldvision.org/index_country.php?countryID=15 )

No Go for NGOs?

If you're a friend to Israel, hear these words of caution about relief agencies (click on title above)

NGOs - is a term meaning "non-governmental organizations" used in UN and other circles to differentiate from nation states (and their regional and local govt and I suppose various rebel and opposition organizations)

NGOs, as relief agencies and "human rights monitoring" etc are now a vital part of the international system, and often have a sort of "lobbying" influence in their participation in international conferences.

Blogging about "Blog"

Now Hugh Hewitt has written a book about blogs and bloggers. We'll all be famous. Click on the title above to see Amazon's blurb or go to his BLOG site : http://www.hughhewitt.com

Wanna Wiki?

If I am able to write enough mini-reviews of books and articles, I may be tempted to look into a "wiki" in addition to my blog.

A "wiki" in the definition of "wikipedia" (click on title above to explore wikipedia.org) IS AS FOLLOWS:

" Wiki or wiki (pronounced "wicky", "weekee" or "veekee"; see pronunciation section below) is a website (or other hypertext document collection) that allows a user to add content, as on an Internet forum, but also allows that content to be edited by anyone.
The term Wiki can also refer to the collaborative software used to create such a site (see Wiki software).
Wiki (with a capital 'W') and WikiWikiWeb are sometimes used to refer specifically to the Portland Pattern Repository, the first-ever wiki. Proponents of this usage suggest using a lower-case 'w' for wikis in general. Wiki wiki comes from the Hawaiian term for "quick" or "super-fast."

Tsunami - A first hand account

> This is an email that being circulated among the family, friends, and
> supporters of Don and Lillian Dwight, Covenant missionaries in Taiwan.
They were in Thailand on holiday when the tsunami hit.
>
> -Brad Boydston
>
> - - - - - - - -
>
>
> Thursday, Dec. 30, 2004
>
> Dear Friends,
>
> So much has transpired in the last few days and so many Christians all
> over the world have been praying for us we wanted to take this chance
> to thank all of those who were praying. We are home safe and feeling
> relieved and thankful to God for preserving our lives during the
> tsunamis that hit the Indian Ocean on Sunday morning.
>
> Most of you know by now that we took a family vacation to Thailand in
> celebration of Lillian and my 25th wedding anniversary. We brought
> all of our kids with us. On Saturday we took a ferry to Phi Phi
> Island off the coast of Thailand. This is a beautiful tropical island
> no more then a mile long. We enjoyed the beauty that afternoon and
> evening with not a thought at all that the next morning it would be
> devastated. There is a small village with many shops and hotels a
> few feet from the beach.
>
> I believe that the Lord was guiding our steps even months before our
> trip. When we had tried to make reservations for a beach bungalow
> almost three months ago they where full. The proprietor recommended a
> hotel with bungalows on the side of the hill and we were able to make
> reservations there. Sunday morning we went down to the hotel
> restaurant for breakfast. The day was beautiful and bright with the
> clear blue water shimmering a few feet from where we were eating. At
> 10:00 AM we finished eating and returned to our rooms up the hill. We
> rested for a bit and at 10:15 we heard some yelling. We opened our
> bungalow door and saw some smoke on the top of the hill so we figured
> it was a brush fire which the staff was yelling about. There didn't
> seem to be any immediate danger. In a few minutes we decided to go
> swimming and put on our swim suits. As we walked down the path to the
> shore we realized something was very different. The water level
> reached up into the hotel restaurant and the bay was full of debris
> including large pieces of furniture. At first I thought that there
> must have been some weird high tide that had washed into the beach
> side shops. I had no idea of the devastation that had already hit
> this island much less the destruction that would hit other areas. All
> we knew was that we couldn't go swimming so we just stood there and
> watched. In a few minutes several people carried a lady up the
> sidewalk and laid her down right where we were standing. She wasn't
> breathing. Her husband was crying for help. After yelling once or
> twice that somebody should start CPR nobody did, so Lillian and I
> decided that we needed to do it. We started the process then a couple
> of men joined us. Peter, our son, took a couple of rotations to give
> us a rest, also. Unfortunately, after working for an hour we were
> not able to revive her. As Lillian and I put our arms around her
> husband and son, Mike and Adam, (13 years old) Lillian prayed for
> them. I knew that it was hard enough to lose your wife and mother to
> a tragedy like this, but being thousands of miles from home and all
> alone without any family or friends would make it even worse. So I
> felt the nudge of the Holy Spirit to stay with them and help them any
> way I could. Mike, Trish (the wife), and Adam were from London. One
> other British couple who had meet Mike and Trish the day before were
> also very helpful and stayed with Mike and Adam for many hours.
>
> By this time, of course, we were getting an idea of the local
> devastation. When we asked for a doctor's help the locals told us
> that was impossible because everything was wiped out. Furthermore, a
> half mile walk along the beach to get to the clinic-which was already
> wiped out-was considered too dangerous because of the possibilities of
> further tsunamis. All communications and power had been wiped out. A
> walk along the beach later that afternoon did confirm the massive
> destruction. Meanwhile, we heard possibilities of evacuation and,
> indeed, helicopters started to fly over the island. All that
> afternoon and night we waited. The locals graciously made rice and
> sausages over an open fire for dinner.
>
> On Monday morning we decided that nobody was going to come to our side
> of the island to evacuate us, so we needed to get to the pier which
> was about half a mile away. A hotel staff person arranged for a
> motor boat to take Mike and Adam and Trish's body to the other side of
> the island where a makeshift helipad had been set up. As we put them
> into the boat and sent them off that is the last I saw of them. I
> assume that a helicopter took them to the Thai mainland to receive the
> help that they needed. Please pray for Mike and Adam. I gave Mike my
> email address. I would like more of a chance to share the love of
> Jesus with him and Adam some day.
>
> Then it was our turn to leave. Fortunately, we had everything in
> backpacks, so the walk to the pier climbing over the rubble was easier
> then if we were dragging suitcases. You have seen the pictures, we
> saw the destruction with our own eyes. We finally made it to the
> pier and began the wait. I myself was quite nervous about getting on
> the pier because there appeared to be about a thousand people on it
> and I was afraid it would collapse. Every 30 minutes or so a boat
> would come in a take about 50 people. More people kept coming to the
> pier. If we didn't get on the pier we wouldn't get evacuated, at
> least not anytime soon. After a prayer for wisdom we decided to go
> ahead and get on the pier. Low and behold, in about 30 minutes a very
> large ferry came and several hundred people were able to get on this.
> Our family was one of the last to get on. There was quite a bit of
> shoving and pushing to get on so it was a bit wild, but the Lord kept
> us together and we made the hour an a half boat ride to Phuket. From
> the dock we were taken to a processing center at the city hall. It was
> here that I was able to finally call my family and let everybody know
> that we were safe. This was over a day wait for many of our friends
> to hear this news. We are so appreciative of hearing about all of the
> people that were praying for us. I believe that God's hand was truly
> protecting us. Us being in our first choice of hotels or staying for
> breakfast a few minutes longer or going swimming a few minutes sooner
> and this letter would be very different. It was at the processing
> center that these thoughts overwhelmed me and the tears started to
> come. I don't mean to imply that my family or I am any better than
> any of those who lost their lives, but God has chosen to give us the
> gift of life and it is a gift we accept thankfully. I, also, feel
> strongly that God has said that we-my family-have more work to do here
> and we will continue to serve Him the rest of our days.
>
> From the processing center we were taken to the Phuket airport and
> amazingly we got on a flight to Bangkok that afternoon. The airport
> was packed with thousands trying to get home and I thought that there
> was no chance we would get out that day, but God surprised us with
> another blessing again. When we got to the hotel in Bangkok some
> missionary friends were there to greet us and we felt God's love and
> the love of brothers and sisters in Christ pouring over us.
>
> As we began to see the news reports we have become aware that many
> many people have had a much harder time then us. Please pray for the
> rescue and relief efforts that are ongoing and if possible please give
> a monetary gift to an organization which is doing relief work in the
> effected areas. Pray that Christians in those areas will take a
> leading role in caring for the millions in need.
>
> This is all for now.
>
> In Christ,
>
> Don, Lillian, Peter, Matthew, Andy, Olivia, and Megan Dwight

Echoing softly -

Well I started a discussion with a British philosophy student. See link above
Is he a Marxist, is he naive, or is he just searching for answers? Stay tuned.

Reading " The Bomb in My Garden"

Well I looked at the Duelfer report on Iraq's WMD. It was scary but a little hard to digest. It showed that there was deception, but it was Iraq deceiving itself and the whole world. Yes, there may not have been much "substance" but the programs were there and once, the sanctions and inspections were gone!!!

Anyhow, I think I will enjoy the true tale of Iraq's top nuclear scientist. No, it wasn't really a bomb in his garden, but a fully functional (if activated) centrifuge for nuclear materials.

Have you been Phished?

Got email supposedly from Smith Barney / Citibank.
Don't do business with them but if I did the email and the link looked official to respond to but of course the link would have you "login" to your account.

This is much scarier than harmless junk spam or even the virus attacks. Are you safe in cyberspace??

The link above by the REAL Smith Barney shows what was sent to me and where you get linked to.