Pasadena Politics

Geo-Centricity would still be vigorously defended today.

While driving home, I heard an interesting advertisement proposing to raise money to fight against Meg Whitman for California Governor.  It made me think of several things, one of them the recent Supreme Court Decision finally allowing US Corporations to enjoy their Second Amendment Rights and the Revelations that Anthropomorphic Climate Change is Junk Science at best and blatant fraud at worst.  Now, I don’t really know which Republican candidate is best at this point as I have been busy with other issues.  But any advertisement that claims you should oppose a candidate because they are a threat to State legislation built on the Junk Science of Anthropomorphic Climate Change catches my attention and rings warning bells in my mind.

So what is this Level the Playing Field dot com?  Good question.  WhoIs was unable to tell me as they chose to be anonymous.  Not a big issue there.   Following links through the site, it seems painfully obvious that the site avoids giving you contact information for a live person as well as mentioning sponsors.   Well, thankfully SFGate gives some information about the new site: Averell “Ace” Smith who handled the California campaign for Hillary Clinton and Chris Lehane, a former Clinton spokesman are mentioned as Senior Strategists.

“Level the Playing Field is one of three independent expenditure entities created to bolster 2010 Democratic campaign efforts in California. Such efforts, by law, are not associated with or directed by the Brown campaign. But they allow organizers to sidestep campaign fundraising limits with advertising that will assist Democrats.” – SFGate point.

This leads first to warning bell number two: Campaign Finance Laws.   This website is devoted to defeating a candidate.   Campaign Laws against corporations would have had no effect on this despite the Supreme Court Ruling, yet, how do you know who is donating money and even from what country they are from?  Where is the accountability on this site?   Oh, there is a check box to indicate you are a citizen, but it does nothing to verify that you are one.   Additionally, you see that the site the Donate link goes to is for www.actblue.com, or as their banner reads: ActBlue – The online clearinghouse for Democratic action.    The Fund-raising pages show John Edwards at the Top of the Fundraising Pages.   At the bottom of the section is a “Do it for Ted! Support Martha Coakley” link.   Poor link, it must be embarrassed.

So, we know this: leveltheplayingfield.com is supported by Clinton supporters who both happen to be Democrats.  We also know that ActBlue is a Democrat fundraising clearinghouse.    We also know that the site is geared towards asking Meg hard questions, questions such as: how do you plan to cut the budget, aside from cutting state worker jobs.  Of course this is actually a critical step towards cutting the budget – but as the SacBee reporter says this would be impossible and that: “Whitman has almost no contact with reporters who know something about the budget and could ask knowledgeable questions“   The irony about this is simple: Meg has enough intelligence to know these reporters only report based on agenda.  You can’t talk to them without having what you said and did not say, mean something grossly different and convenient to their world view.

I find it rather convenient that the SacBee article came out a day before the leveltheplayingfield.com radio blurb with both making the same accusation: she won’t talk to reporters and let the public know her.   Please note that the leveltheplayingfield.com site was registered Jan 20th 2010, which suggests the site was being planned before Feb 15th and that such radio spots take some time to put together and air.

Also along the theme is the: Don’t vote for her, she has money!  To which I should say: good for her.  She obviously got it from doing a better job than any Sacramento Politician.  Certainly e-Bay is more profitable than the State of California so her experience as an executive means a heck of a lot more than Jerry Brown’s experience.   If you follow the logic they apply, you should grab the homeless guy off the street and make him Governor.    But that is idiotic, you don’t vote for someone to pull you out of a fiscal crisis who has proven to be incapable or unwise in the handling of money, you vote for someone who has demonstrated wisdom and the capability to make money.   In the particular crisis we face in California, you should vote for the person who has the best record for making a profit and if the choice is between Jerry Brown and Meg Whitman (and believe me, the whole point of leveltheplayingfield dot com is promoting Jerry Brown surreptitiously and in a most circuitous manner) you want the one with the best results.

Next is warning bell number one: “…special interests who want to roll back California’s bi-partisan law fighting Global Warming…“.   Now, I am all for that.    Actually, I am all for just about anything that contradicts the idiocy of Global Warming legislation and action.  That the press in the USA is pretty quiet about the whole collapse of Anthropomorphic Global Warming gives greater credence to claims that the Media is just a propaganda arm of Liberals in America.

Anyways my fellow Californians, watch out for the advertising.  It is already clear that the Media is against Meg simply because she was a successful business woman who does not view government as savior of the people.  It is now clear that the Democrat Party is starting to hurt in the Golden State and looking for ways to bolster their candidate any way they can – well, as long as it is not corporate money I suppose it is ok?

Edit: A short article pointing out the obvious: money buys advertising which does not automatically translates into votes.   This simple logic should have been obvious in the 2008 Presidential Election: McCain did not lose for a lack of money, but because he didn’t put enough effort into the campaign and getting the message out as to why he was the better candidate.   Plus he lacked something money could not buy: an ideologically sympathetic mass media.

In true scientific inquiry data is collected from observation and experimentation resulting in the formulation and reformulation of hypothesis.  All data obtained from experimentation and observation is collected and taken into account.  None of it is tossed aside merely for the fact that it disproves or causes difficulty for the theory or preconceived belief.  In fact, those data elements are critical, for they allow accurate tuning of the theory and the methodology itself; not in order to obtain pre-ordained results, but accurately understand the questions that drive true science: what and why.  All science starts with out to solve a question and, in order to stamp out preconceived ideas; beliefs, it relies on repeated tests and observations as well as peer review.

The current problem with much of today’s scientific community appears to be that genuine scientific inquiry has been sacrificed on an alter of ideology.  But the worst part is the complicity of most of the major news organizations and politicians.  This is unfortunate in that genuine scientists will feel even greater pressure to not dissent against the teachings of the Roman Cath… no sorry: the likes of Al Gore and East Anglia.   This is unfortunate because science has been cheapened to “cooking the books” to please whomever will give you a grant.   I wonder if Enron should sue the press for not covering for them the way they are covering for “Climate-Gate” which will cost more money and more livelihoods than any failing of Enron could ever dream.

The issue is not a little ‘opps’.  The issue is not merely bad science but fraudulent science.  Nor is it like the genuine scientific debate that revolved around Geo-centricity vs. Helios-centricity until the Roman Catholic Church got involved.  It is much like the fraudulent effort of Ernst Haeckel to support his theory about Recapitulation in the embryonic stages.  Only this time, instead of being tossed out the theory has been embraced and any who dissent with real scientific evidence are silenced (ie: no publication of dissenting research).

Al Gore, a one-time Presidential candidate, after weeks of silence could only state “I haven’t read all the e-mails, but the most recent one is more than 10 years old.  These private exchanges between these scientists do not in any way cause any question about the scientific consensus.”   Naturally, this is important to Al Gore since his livelihood depends on the notion of Man Made Global Warming.

Report here, here, and here.  Oh… and if you deny Anthropogenic Global Warming, you may want to see a shrink.

There are many choices we have and can make in life by benefit of living in this great Nation.   We can choose to have long or short hair.  We can choose who we marry.  We can choose the type of car we drive or the very light bulbs we use (at least until 2010).    We can choose what we do or do not believe.    While there are certain things we have no choice about (who our parents are), we have plenty of opportunity to choose much concerning the courses of our lives.

Emphasis on lives.   We cannot choose nor can we have opportunity without life.   The foundation of this Nation, the Declaration of Independence (the Constitution and Bill of Rights would come later) iterates three inalienable rights (they are a primacy): Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.   Without Life, no one has rights.  Without Liberty, one cannot exercise their rights.   Without the Pursuit of Happiness, one’s freedom means little.    So we have the right to Life.  An inalienable right.

Yet, that most basic of rights has, at times in our Nations history, been denied to people.   Not on the basis of action – such as those condemned by Capital Punishment, but by basis of birth; the color of one’s skin.  There are those who uphold the Supreme Court as the best defence in this Nation against Executive or Legislative abuse of our rights, yet if you look at the but a few examples (Dred Scott) you see that the expediency of appeasing financial and political allies overthrew the rights of many.   It took a bloody civil war to rectify that fault in America.

Today, we have a similar situation.   It was not born out of compromise in order to create the Union as slavery was.   This was born out of a mistaken ideology which does not value life for it sees no separation between man and common animals.    The very Supreme Court case: Roe vs Wade, relied on poor and debunked evidence to support the theory that a human fetus was not human.    When is a human a human if not at conception?    Certainly not prior to conception, there is zero potential for humanity in a sperm or ovum (* link may offend some).    Once conception occurs, regardless of the simplicity, there is 100% potential.  That is: you have human life.    The main differences are: size, intellectual capacity, self-reliance, communication, and maturity.

The premise that a woman has the right to abort her fetus is an erroneous argument.    It presumes that the rights of one individual outweigh the rights of another.    The only instances allowed are in cases of Capital Punishment and self-defense.  With regards to a mother’s choice then; with regards to a pregnant woman’s choice then, we do not have an instance where Capital Punishment of a Fetus is expected nor do we have an instance of self defence except for the case where a woman’s life is in direct danger due to the pregnancy.   Otherwise, what gives the right of anyone to take the life of another?

Where does that right come from except by dehumanizing the fetus; the unborn?   Only by assuming that our inalienable rights do not come from a higher power: not from God but from man – that we make the rules and rights.    All should be very much afraid for if man can pick and chose the rights to bestow on his fellow man, then likewise those same rights and more can be taken away.

What is the source of our Freedoms? The source of certain “Inalienable Rights”? Is it Man whose fickle and obstinate nature produces complex and contradictory rules and laws? Is it a higher authority, outside ourselves, that we may not see daily but from whom one of two very fundamental laws are not objectionable to even atheists? That would be: Love your neighbor as yourself or, more commonly: do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Our Declaration of Independence lays out three certain inalienable rights and the Constitution itself is a limiter to government’s power.

My topic today and most likely for next time as well revolves around the Declaration of Independence. Ethics, and Morality. The recent lifting of the Stem Cell research Ban has prompted me to grouse about it in relation to the main topic. And now, my reasoned rant:

The Declaration of Independence states that “all men are created equal”. This phrase has been controversial with regards to slavery and women’s voting rights. Men or man, in English, can refer to both male and female; to mankind as a whole without distinction of sex or heritage. So it was the pro-slave owners hated the Declaration of Independence (or at least that phrase) and Abolitionists touted it as a primary reason for expunging the nation of slavery. I side with the latter.

We can have a very narrow view of “men”: white and male to wider: all mankind. Chew on that for a moment.

We have pro-fetal-stem cell research advocates stating that politics and ideology should not be used to hamper scientific research. But what of Ethics and Morality? They should always be a constraint to any scientific endeavor for scientific inquiry is otherwise hideous. What is it that warrant the use of human beings in a scientific experiment conducted against their will? Lack of Ethics… Lack of Morals… Humanity is conveniently ignored by those who consider life expendable next to their goals.

Obama, for shame! Do you not recall that the debate once raged about the humanity of Africans as justification for the continuance of slavery? Now you would create a whole new industry that thrives off of the lives of other people. There is a difference between being a willing organ donor and being an unwilling organ donor and no difference in Size, Intellectual Capacity, Independence, and Location should be used as justification to deny people their inalienable rights. Those four aforementioned are the only things separating a fetus from the same rights you, Mr. President, enjoy.

The Declaration of Independence, without which the Constitution would not exist, does not give Government the right to take away Life, or Liberty, or the Pursuit of Happiness – save only when criminal activity has been proved to have been committed by the individual. Is it a crime to be conceived? Where is the due process for the fetus? Fetus, such a clinical term, as a title does not remove one ounce of humanity from that ‘clump of cells’ growing that should they be born enjoy the protection of the Constitution. (We are not talking about eggs or sperm having rights *link may offend some* – do understand the difference between the two and conception – unless you somehow think of yourself as a walking, talking sperm and egg.)

Government has no right to finance the destruction of the unborn and certainly less to fund an industry that would perpetuate the ‘need’ for more sacrifices samples. Stem cells from non-fetal sources have been proven, scientifically, to work. Why is money not better spent in those areas? Or is there a need to justify keeping an abhorrent practice? To make people feel guilty should they oppose fetal stem-cell treatment for a disease and oppose abortion at the same time?

What does Galileo, CEO pay caps, this movie, and this ignored document have in common?

Quite a lot, actually.

First a comment about the movie.  I just finished watching it and, ironically, it related to part of what I was already going to  write about tonight.   The movie is Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, by Ben Stein and I highly recommend it.   It strongly echoes what I have believed for years about Macro-evolution and, in particular, the lack of allowance for differing scientific approaches to the question of our origins.   In turn, it closely relates to Galileo’s persecution by the scientific and political (read: the politics of the Roman Catholic Church) community of his day.   This in turn brings us to two salient points:

1. Darwinian Evolution is still a theory.
2. Darwinian Evolution as a theory is not as scientifically rigorous as Modern Physics, Chemistry, or Biology due to it being of a historical nature and unobserved thus unrecorded by scientists.

Evolution, macro-evolution, has had a direct and negative impact on all societies that embrace it as a life style.   Additionally, I strongly believe that had it been popularized a few decades earlier by Darwin the freeing of slaves and possibly the Civil War would not have happened.   Now, certainly many people can say that religion has led to much violence of man against man, but few religions foster hatred for their own kindred as Darwinian Evolution does.   Christianity, a typical target of Evolutionists, can certainly be slandered for the actions of a few who, when you examine their belief, are not actually following Christian doctrine.   But it would be grossly inaccurate to equivocate the effects of Darwinian Evolution with the teachings of Jesus the Messiah.

So, what then does Darwinian Evolution have to do with CEO pay?   The Constitution.   This document is meant to protect us from government.   Big Government is antithetical to freedom and a prime example is the demand by Government that CEOs taking bail out money be limited to $500k.    If they are big enough to tell you what you can make, they are big enough to demand that you not smoke, not eat certain foods, not drive certain cars, not use certain light bulbs (oops, too late there), not dig a well here and not use your own property.    Believe me: once you rely on Government, you forfeit your rights.   Once Government is big enough, they can tell you what you can do with yourself.    Just wait till Universal Health Insurance is passed.