Brazil off to a 3-1 Win

Brazil made a statement in the opening game downing Croatia 3-1. There will be three games tomorrow. Current Standings (my picks in bold):

Group A: Brazil (3), Mexico (0), Camaroon (0), Croatia (0)
Group B: Spain (0), Netherlands (0), Chile (0), Australia (0)
Group C: Columbia (0), Greece (0), Ivory Coast (0), Japan (0)
Group D: Uruguay (0), Costa Rica (0), England (0), Italy (0)
Group E: Switzerland (0), Ecuador (0), France (0), Honduras (0)
Group F: Argentina (0), Bosnia-Herzegovina (0), Iran (0), Nigeria (0)
Group G: Germany (0), Portugal (0), Ghana (0), United States (0)
Group H: Belgium (0), Algeria (0), Russia (0), South Korea (0)

12:00 PM - Mexico v. Cameroon
 3:00 PM - Spain v. Netherlands
 6:00 PM - Chile v. Australia

Let the Insanity Begin!

The 2014 World Cup kicks off (literally) Thursday with Brazil vs. Croatia. In case you forgot, the groups are:

Group A: Brazil, Croatia, Mexico, Camaroon
Group B: Spain, Netherlands, Chile, Australia
Group C: Columbia, Greece, Ivory Coast, Japan
Group D: Uruguay, Costa Rica, England, Italy
Group E: Switzerland, Ecuador, France Honduras
Group F: Argentina, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Iran, Nigeria
Group G: Germany, Portugal, Ghana, United States
Group H: Belgium, Algeria, Russia, South Korea

And, just in case anyone out there cares, *cough, cough*, my, let's embarrass myself again, picks for moving on to the round of 16 were:

Group A: Brazil, Mexico
Group B: Spain, Netherlands
Group C: Columbia, Greece
Group D: Uruguay, England
Group E: Switzerland, France
Group F: Argentina, Nigeria
Group G: Germany, Portugal
Group H: Belgium, Russia

Of course without Paraguay there will be no Larissa. Excuse me while I go cry my eyes out about that.

SCOTUS Declines Request to Delay Gay Marriage

While the old white folks in Texas were making themselves look foolish by endorsing "therapy" for gays, the Supreme Court of the United States refused the request from NOM to delay gay marriages in Oregon.

Can you hear the walls crumbling?

Texas GOP Supports "Therapy" for Gays

Well, it could have been worse. They could have gotten the language "sexual sins tear at the fabric of society" in the GOP plank but they didn't.

Basically a couple of thousand old white people yearning for a fictional "good old days" decided to call for treatments that attempt to turn gay people straight.

This is despite all professional psychological and psychiatric associations in the US saying that not only is this treatment ineffective, it has the potential to be harmful.

Another example of the ignorance and arrogance of conservative Christians. That goes along with hateful and bigoted to make conservative Christianity one of the most repulsive philosophies on the planet.

If Jesus could only see what they've done.

I do not understand how anyone with an ounce or more of integrity and an IQ above 90 can vote Republican.

Common Core Sex Education

Feel free to form your own opinions. Everyone does. All I ask is that you try to first get all the facts straight.

Hey, no one is perfect. I'm as guilty of selective reasoning as anyone else. We all tend to form our ideas based upon emotions and then proceed to find reasons why those ideas are correct.

But, and this is the big but, when you are faced with clear evidence that says maybe, just maybe, you're wrong, you have to accept that.

At the very least you need to accept the facts as they exist and if you can't sustain your position in light of those facts, you have to give it up.

Majorie Holstein, a conservative activist opposing the Common Core standards, is reported to be of the opinion that the Common Core sex education standards contain material so graphic they violate obscenity laws in some states.

There's only one problem; Common Core doesn't contain any sex education standards. So, if that is her opinion, I think it's safe to say it's a tad inaccurate.

NOM Asks for Stay in Oregon

The National Organization for Marriage (NOM), claiming to represent three unnamed members in Oregon, has asked the Supreme Court to stay the Gay Marriage order pending appeal.

Both the original plaintiffs and the State have asked the SCOTUS to deny the stay.

This could go either way as other states have had Gay Marriage put on hold pending appeal.

A Gem from the Internet

The definition of Theology courtesy of day2night.

"Theology is a field of study designed to keep dangerously incompetent people in Universities away from moving machinery and sharp objects."

Same Sex Marriage in the US

As of today there are now 18 states that allow gay marriage as neither Oregon nor Pennsylvania is going to appeal recent court opinions. Illinois will become number 19 on June 1st.

Seven states are pending the appeal of court decisions declaring laws or amendments prohibiting gay marriages unconstitutional.  Two more states have been ordered to recognize out of state same sex marriages.

Basically the Supreme Court decision striking down DOMA has opened the flood gates and in the final analysis it will be up to the Supreme Court to either (a) shut them again, (b) leave them open for the long painful process of fighting the battle state by state or (c) put an end to all gay marriage bans.

In order to shut them again the Supreme Court would have to rule that State Constitutional amendments or laws banning gay marriages are constitutional.  They could allow the long painful process by simply refusing to review the question and they could end all gay marriage bans by declaring amendments and laws that prohibit gay marriage unconstitutional.

When the question finally gets there, what are they going to do?

Either (a) or (b) results in an ongoing state by state fight but (a) gives the advantage to the forces of darkness while (b) gives it to the forces of light.

Does John Roberts REALLY want to be remembered as being on the wrong side of history? Hopefully not and the court will go with (c) or at least (b).

Operation American Spring

In case you don't know what Operation American Spring (OAS) is, allow me to tell you. OAS was organized by right wing Tea Party activists to flood Washington D.C. and bring the city to a halt until Obama left office.

Organizer Harry Riley said they were expecting 10-20 million people and guaranteed a minimum of 10 million.

Organizers claimed that "militias all around the country are mobilizing" and that if the movement's objectives weren't met then things could turn violent.

They said that OAS was "bathed in prayer" and that God was on their side.

They intended to forcibly remove Obama from office and install a tribunal led by GOP figures such as Ted Cruz and Allen West.

Less than 100 people showed up.

The right wing is delusional. They are incapable of telling the difference between fantasy and reality. If they can think of it, and they can think of some pretty weird crap, and it meets their warped view of the world, then it must be true.

Clearly these morons have no concept of what it takes to organize a rally of even thousands of people never mind millions.

They also overlooked the small problem that what they said they were intending violated the Constitution of the US as well as federal law. If anyone in the government saw any reason to treat them as other than a joke, they'd all be in jail right now.

Even crazies like Cruz and West know better than to get involved in nonsense like this.

Oh yeah, God didn't show up either. I can only assume he had better things to do such as creating a universe without right wing lunatics perhaps.

I Agree with Pat Robertson

Someone needs to check whether or not hell has frozen over because I find myself in agreement with Pat Robertson.

The other day, on his CBN show, Robertson said that you had to be "deaf, dumb and blind to think that this earth that we live in has only 6,000 years of existence."

You got that one right Pat. In 2009 I wrote an entry about Ray Comfort talking to Pat Robertson where I expressed the opinion, based upon the look on Robertson's face, that he was humoring Comfort but thought he was nuts. I suppose I was right.

Ken Ham, of Answers in Genesis and the Creation museum, isn't taking kindly to this and claims that Robertson's comments were "beyond ignorant," that Robertson was "undermining the authority of the word" and "any attack on the word is an attack upon the person of Jesus Christ who is the word."

Now Robertson is not well versed in science and some of his remarks, in particular talking about carbon dating and millions of years, did display some scientific ignorance. But that doesn't change the fundamental accuracy of his main point, YOU DO HAVE TO BE DEAF, DUMB AND BLIND TO THINK THE WORLD IS ONLY 6,000 YEARS OLD.

As for an attack upon "the word," I'd like to point out to Ham the Ignorant that NOWHERE in the Bible is the claim that the earth was created 6,000 years ago. Something that I'm sure Ham knows very well.

The number is based upon a calculation by  Bishop James Ussher that creation began at nightfall preceding Sunday October 23rd, 4004 BCE.

He arrived at this number by (1) adding up the ages of the supposed unbroken male lineage from Adam to Solomon and then (2) from Solomon on, cross referencing the events in the Bible to other known rulers, events and cultures.

It is in fact a fairly impressive calculation based upon the facts and assumptions that were known at that time.

However in history as in science one must be willing to re-evaluate one's conclusions when new information becomes available. I absolutely guarantee you that if Bishop Ussher knew then what we know now from natural science, history and archaeology, he would discard his 6,000 year conclusion.

Even based upon Ussher's limited knowledge there are several glaring faults with his calculation especially the part related to adding up the ages of the males from Adam to Solomon.

1. The classic assumption is he is assuming the "days" in Genesis were consecutive 24 hour days when there is no real justification for that in the actual Hebrew. Most Christian Bibles give the distinct impression of counting with "the first day," "the second day," "the third day" and so on but the actual Hebrew is different.

In the actual Hebrew text the word "yom" has no definite article so better translations would be "one day," "a second day," "a third day" as in most Jewish translations and the New American Standard Bible (NASB). So there is no guarantee of the length of the day OR how much time may have passed BETWEEN the days.

2. He is assuming that the ages in the version of the Bible (which I assume was the KJV) he used are correct. The fact is that different Bible versions give different numbers. For instance the Septuagint apparently gives ages that add 1500 years. I suppose that's why you hear some hedging by Creationists about the age of the earth.

3. He is assuming that every male in the lineage is listed and he has to be assuming the age of the father at the birth of the son because that isn't always specified.

4. How can he possibly know how long Adam and Eve were in the garden before getting booted out?

Of course we now know, with pretty much absolute certainty, that Ussher's calculation of 6,000 years is wrong just as we know that Lord Kelvin's calculation in the 1890s was wrong. Kelvin calculated that the earth was between 20 million and 100 million years old based upon the thermodynamics of a cooling solid earth. Kelvin's calculation was wrong because he didn't know about radioactivity, which generates heat, and his assumption that the core of the earth is solid was wrong. It's actually molten.

While Kelvin never issued a retraction of his estimate he did concede privately that radioactivity made some of his assumptions unworkable. Even the best scientists can become dogmatic and dig in their heels when a favorite conclusions of theirs is attacked. That's why there are no authorities in science and peer reviews are so critical.

OK, I went off on a bit of a tangent there. The point is, if you believe in evidence, and if it matters to you what the truth is, you cannot escape the conclusion that the earth is something like 4.5 billion years old.

Robertson is right and Ham, as usual, in my opinion, is delusional.

The NFL Draft

Well, the soap opera that the NFL draft has developed into is over and the final picks are in. How well did my predictions go? About as well as usual. In other words, I'm in no position to quit my day job.

The big question on everyone's mind was where would Johnny Football end up? Would the Texans take him at #1 or would they take DE Jedeveon Clowney? For the last few days there had been growing rumors that the Cowboys were maneuvering to draft Manziel and would either trade up or wait and hope at #16. In response the Giants indicated they would consider Manziel if he was still on the board at #12.

Oh the intrigue of it all.

The Texans did in fact go with DE Jedeveon Clowney at #1. The Rams grabbed OL Greg Robinson at #2 and then things began to go haywire which, for the NFL draft, is pretty much expected by now.

The Jaguars surprised a lot of people by taking QB Blake Bortles at #3. Most "experts" thought they would take Johnny Manziel if Houston didn't.

Then Cleveland traded its 4th pick to Buffalo for pick #9 this year and a first round pick next year. Buffalo drafted WR Sammy Watkins. That brought up Oakland who also was thought to be interested in a QB but the Raiders passed on both Manziel and Louisville's Teddy Bridgewater and took LB Khalil Mack. Khalil takes the prize for coolest name in the draft. It's Arabic for friend.

Atlanta took OL Jake Matthews at #6 which brought up Tampa Bay which also had been rumored to be looking for a QB. But the Bucs took WR Mike Evens. Then Cleveland traded the #9 pick it got from Buffalo to Minnesota for the #8 pick.

This didn't seem to make a whole lot of sense other than perhaps exchanging a draft pick so they could draft Manziel while leaving the Vikings with Bridgewater. But the Browns drafted CB Justin Gilbert and the Vikings, another team linked to a QB pick, took LB Anthony Barr.

The next three teams were the Lions, Titans and Giants. The Lions and Giants were set at QB. No one was taking the Manziel threat from the Giants seriously. Would the Titans go for Manziel?

As it turned out the Lions took TE Eric Ebron, the Titans OL Taylor Lewan and, to the surprise of many people, the Giants drafted WR Odell Beckham Jr. Most thought the Giants would take T Zack Martin or DL Aaron Donald. But, then again, no one thought Beckham would still be around at #12.

That left only three teams between the Dallas Cowboys and Johnny Manziel, the Rams, Bears and Steelers. None of them were likely to draft a QB in the first round and none did.

So, El Momento de Verdad had arrived. The Cowboys were on the clock and Johnny Football was on the board. The seconds ticked away. The numbers turned red as the clock went under one minute. The internet held its collective breath waiting for Jerry Jones to pull the trigger.

It's still waiting. Calmer heads prevailed and the Cowboys drafted T Zack Martin. As Jones explained the next day, they're committed to Tony Romo and, while drafting a QB to groom as Romo's replacement is not a bad idea, Manziel, with his star studded celebrity reputation just didn't fit that mold. As soon as anything went wrong, the pressure to go to Manziel would be a disruptive force, so the Cowboys passed on Johnny Football.

Then there was some speculation that the Jets at #18, despite having drafted Gino Smith last year, might go for Manziel because nobody really knows what the Jets will do or, Chip Kelly might surprise everyone and take him at #22.

As it worked out the Jets drafted S Calvin Pryor and the Eagles traded pick #22 to the Browns. I was beginning to get a little dizzy watching Cleveland bounce all around the board.

Finally the Browns drafted Manziel at #22. Bridgewater ended up going to the Vikings with pick #32 which they got from the Seahawks in order to prevent the Texans from possibly grabbing Bridgewater on the 1st pick of the second round.

The Texans came that close to potentially getting both Clowney and one of the top three QB prospects. Of course as to whether they would actually have drafted Bridgewater we'll never know.

While Cleveland was experiencing Manziel-mania, the announcement came from the NFL that their star WR Josh Gordon had been suspended for the year for substance abuse.

So, how will Johnny Football do in Cleveland?

Cleveland has been a death trap for QBs, In the last five years a number of high draft picks, selected with high hopes, have fallen victim. Brady Quinn (pick #22 in 2007), Colt McCoy (pick #85 in 2010) and Brandon Weeden (pick #22 in 2012) all met their Waterloo in Cleveland.

Did you notice that Johnny is the 3rd QB chosen at #22 by the Browns?

Hopefully Manziel can work his magic in Cleveland and break the jinx. Magic in Cleveland? Who am I kidding?

Aaron Donald, predicted as a Giants 1st round pick in many mock drafts, went to the Rams at #13. Ha Ha Clinton-Dix, the runner up for best name in the draft, went to Green Bay with pick #21.

The first openly gay player in the draft, Michael Sam, also went to the Rams in round 7 at pick #249. Whether Sam can make the roster is another issue. He's what is known as a "tweener" in NFL slang. He may be too small for DE and too slow for LB. His NFL Combine workout was also apparently underwhelming. I'd put his chances at about 25%.

The title of Mr. Irrelevant, the last player taken in the NFL draft, went to S Lonnie Ballentine of Memphis.

The Arrogance of Conservative Christians

In North Carolina a group of ministers along with the United Church of Christ church have joined same sex couples in challenging North Carolina's constitutional ban on same sex marriage.

The twist in this challenge is the clergy are arguing that because the law states that it is a misdemeanor to marry someone without a state license, the same-sex marriage ban violates the religious rights of clergy that wish to perform such ceremonies.

Now, you have to admit that's a fairly creative position.

Of course Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council disagrees. That's his right but WHY he disagrees is a real eye opener.

According to Perkins there's a "test" for "true religious freedom." Apparently it's only a freedom that's based upon "orthodox religious viewpoints."

So, who is it that's supposed to decide what constitutes an "orthodox religious viewpoint" you twit? According to Perkins "You cannot point to the Christian faith and say that same sex marriage has been a key teaching of the church."

Which "church" Tony?

The Episcopal Church has an approved liturgy for blessing same-sex marriages. The Evangelical Lutheran Church allows individual congregations to recognize and bless same-sex unions. The Unitarian Universalists and The United Church of Christ both support same-sex marriage.

Either everyone has freedom of religion or no one does. If you reserve a "freedom" to a subset of the population it becomes a "privilege." 

That's really the bottom line. What Conservative Christians actually want is "privilege." They want the privilege to decide what's right and what's wrong and then they want the privilege of forcing everyone else to abide by that decision.

Jesus's Wife, Greece and Mississippi

Ok, so the Jesus's wife manuscript may NOT be authentic.

Less than a month ago I reported that the scrap of papyrus appeared to be authentic rather than a medieval forgery. Since then it appears that many scholars have attacked the scrap as a fake and Harvard University has apparently stopped defending it.

In the Greece New York, case about prayer at town meetings, the Supreme Court has decided that prayer is OK because it is a "tradition," I might point out to the five twits that voted that way that slavery was a "tradition" too.

Finally, the Mississippi Religious Freedom Restoration Act – which is to take effect July 1 – and mirrors one passed on a federal level during the Clinton administration, is designed, in part, to protect business owners who don't want to do work to promote homosexual activism.

In response to passage of that bill, owners who want the business of homosexuals are now posting blue, circular window stickers that incorporate the rainbow colors typically associated with homosexual activism.

This is driving the American Family Association, a major supporter of the bill, totally crazy. They're now screaming that somehow businesses stepping into the breach and welcoming gay business is intended to "trample the freedom of Christians to live according to the dictates of scripture."

No, you can go ahead and refuse the business but other firms are perfectly happy to step in and take it. And that includes the business of heterosexuals who think discrimination sucks.

This is the old right wing attitude that they're allowed the "freedom" to say and do what they want but no one is allowed to disagree with them. In other words EVERYONE has to accept their opinions.

To all American Conservatives I say, here, check out the lovely shape of my middle finger.

Claims and Assertions

I must be missing something.

If you want to make a claim then it's usually a good idea for it to be of the form "John is cruel BECAUSE he tortures puppies."

Now we have your justification for claiming that John is cruel and we can move on to the EVIDENCE that John actually does torture puppies.

The point being is that you have at least established WHY you believe John is cruel. You believe he is cruel because you believe he tortures puppies.

Notice how much more illuminating this is than simply saying "John is cruel." An assertion with no justification is known as an "unsupported assertion."

It's been my experience that Conservatives rarely provide justifications. They simply provide "unsupported assertions."

A perfect example of this was David Horowitz yesterday on the Steve Malzberg radio show where he said "Obama is a dangerous, dangerous evil man" and a "neo-communist" that wants to "take down" the United States." Lots of assertions, but no justifications.

This is one of the reasons I find it hard to take them seriously.

WTF is a "neo-communist" anyway? Interestingly enough it's a new breed of communist that rejects totalitarianism while claiming to remain true to Marx's original concepts.

Given the way income inequality is going, this may not be a bad thing. Of course there's no way of knowing if that's what Horowitz meant because he didn't provide a justification for his assertion!

Donald Sterling

So, here we have the owner of the Los Angeles Clippers of the NBA, a sports league where like 80% of the players are black, getting himself recorded yelling at his "girlfriend" not to post pictures of herself with black people and not to bring black people to the games with her.

I put "girlfriend" in quotes because she looks to me to be about 12 years old. And she happens to be half black and half Mexican.

WTF is with this guy?

In the meantime everyone is, rightfully so, incensed over Sterling's remarks about blacks but they're giving him a free pass on being about 75 years old, and married, with a 12 year old girlfriend. Oh, OK, maybe she's over 18 but not by a hell of a lot.

The Clippers, who are mostly black, are deferring to their coach, Doc Rivers, who is also black, to speak publicly about Sterling's remarks. Rivers is being calm, collected and professional about the whole thing.

Apparently there is some doubt about the authenticity of the recording and a lot of doubt about the details of how the recording was made. Doc Rivers is well aware of these things which is why he is treading lightly.

Besides, he and his team would like to do well in the playoffs even if the team owner is a putz.

Assuming the recording is genuine I think Mr. Sterling needs to be made aware that he is not welcome in the NBA. A strong suggestion that he might want to consider selling the team would seem to be in order.

Dual Canonization

Tomorrow, in St. Peter's square, the Catholic Church will canonize two recent Popes. Pope John XXIII and Pope John Paul II.

The dual canonization is brought to you by a host of corporate sponsors including Nestle but dominated by Italian firms including energy companies Eni and Enel, a banking company Intesa SanPaolo and the railroad Ferrovie Italiane.

I love it.

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, this sainthood brought to you by Trojan condoms for that safe and comfy feeling.

John XXIII is getting a pass on the normally required second "miracle" and John Paul II is getting a pass on the normal five year wait time before the beatification process can begin.

In other words it's the Church desperate for some good publicity.

Needless to say I think the whole sainthood and miracles thing is a load of nonsense and John Paul II was about as close to a fascist pope as you can get but hey, it's the Church's sandbox, so I suppose they can erect sand statues if they really want to.

Another interesting tidbit is that there will be two living popes present. Current Pope Francis I and Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI.

The South Korean Ferry

I was going to let this one go but things are starting to spin totally out of control.

It was bad enough when the captain and crew were being accused of panicking and failing to issue the proper directions to the passengers. The delay in taking any action at all quite possible resulting in deaths that could have been avoided.

But things appear to be going downhill since then if you can believe that's possible.

Now we're hearing allegations that (1) the captain made an "excessive change of coarse without slowing down," (2) the ferry may have left port carrying three times its recommended cargo and (3) the ship's operators may have bribed government inspectors in order to get a clean bill of health for the ferry.

Really screwed up huh?

OK, accusations are not the same thing as a conviction but this is ridiculous. If the cargo and bribery claims are true, then it sounds to me like there are people who might be a lot guiltier than some crewman who panicked.

However you want to bet who's going to get the book thrown at them and who's going to get a slap on the wrist?

Flight 370 Again

It's now been two weeks since the Australian PM announced that, based upon analysis of the satellite handshakes, that they were confident that Flight 370 went down in the Indian Ocean some 1500 miles off the western coast of Australia.

Since then a number of debris sighting turned out to be just discarded flotsam.

The latest leads are based upon a series of RF signals at 37.5 khz that may be from the planes data recorders. Or, they may not.

The radio pings have allowed the searchers to reduce the size of the search area but whether they're closing in on Flight 370 or something else is hard to say.

The fact of the matter is that with no debris there is no hard physical evidence that the plane is in fact anywhere near where they're searching.

Since I don't know the analysis they performed on the SATCOM communications, I don't know if this is an example of desperate people convincing each other that what they're doing is correct.

I don't know what the RF signals are although we do know with absolute certainty that 37.5 khz is the frequency that the block boxes on that particular Boeing 777 would use.

I'm tempted to predict the plane will never be found as that would probably guarantee they find it in the next day or two.

Jesus's Wife Manuscript may be Authentic

The chemical analysis of a scrap of papyrus known as "The Gospel of Jesus's Wife" appears to be authentic in terms of its age.

In the scrap Jesus refers to his "wife."

Of course simply concluding that the scrap isn't a medieval forgery like so many documents doesn't say anything about the accuracy of the text. So, I wouldn't start talking about a Mrs. Jesus just yet. Scholars aren't even 100% certain the word translated as "wife" means the same thing as it means today.

Afghan Security Forces Surprise Everyone

To the amazement of just about everyone, the Afghan Security Forces managed to protect voters and voting during the elections in Afghanistan.

Make no mistake about it this is pretty amazing stuff. The Taliban, who had threatened to disrupt the elections, were pretty much kept in check by security forces which earned themselves wide admiration for a job well done.

I wouldn't start celebrating the birth of democracy in Afghanistan just yet but this is a pretty good start.

Same Sex Marriage Cases Move to Appeals Courts

The first Appeals Court hearing on the constitutionality of same sex marriage bans will occur in the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver on Thursday. The court will hear oral arguments on the Utah ban overturned by a federal judge.

Federal judges in Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, Oklahoma, Texas and Virginia have also struck down similar bans. The Tenth Circuit will hear the case from Oklahoma a week after the Utah case.

Utah's legal brief argues that restricting marriage to opposite-sex couples "helps prevent further erosion of the traditional concept of marriage as being principally a child-centered institution, one focused first and foremost on the welfare of children rather than the emotional interests of adults."

The state argues that children do better when raised by "a mother and father in intact families" and that changing what constitutes marriage "would likely reduce over time the proportion of children being raised in one of those arrangements."

Lawyers for the three couples challenging the ban counter that marriage is not "a zero-sum game that pits the needs of children against the desires of adults. To the contrary, marriage benefits the health and well-being of both adults and children."

I agree with that and there is also the position by most professional psychological organizations that there is little difference in children raised by homosexual or heterosexual couples.

Even if we concede that children are better off raised by a mother and father, being raised in a loving family with two mothers or two fathers is a hell of a lot better than being raised with no mother and no father.

Then there is the point that not all marriages are aimed at having children. Some couples decide against it; some couples find they simply cannot and some get married late in life beyond childbearing age.

In other words, Utah's argument is total crap and I suspect that Oklahoma's will be as well. I find it hard to believe that the Appeals Court will buy into the nonsense being spewed by the state of Utah.

It's all going to end up in the lap of the Supreme Court no matter what the Appeals Courts say but a string of victories in the Appeals Courts would make it harder for the Supremes to do something really stupid.

Supreme Court won't hear NM Photographer Case

The case of the New Mexico couple with the photography business that refused to take pictures of a lesbian commitment ceremony will not be reviewed by the US Supreme Court.

The couple had appealed to the Supreme Court based upon what they claimed was a violation of their 1st Amendment rights. A New Mexico Court had ruled that the couple had violated the anti-discrimination provisions of the New Mexico Human Rights Act.

The couple appealed to the New Mexico Supreme Court which ruled against them saying that the business could be regulated because it is a public accommodation.  Now the US Supreme Court has refused to consider the case leaving the NM Supreme Court ruling in place.

One has to wonder what this means, if anything, for the Hobby Lobby case.

One-year Old Toddler Rescued at Sea

A one-year old girl who fell ill at sea on her family's sail boat has been rescued by the US Coast Guard, US Navy and California Air National Guard.

The Kaufmans had set sail on their 36-foot sail boat for an anticipated trip across the Pacific with the one-year old and her three-year old sister.

The girl became ill and the boat lost its steering and communications about 900 mile southwest of Cabo San Lucas Mexico. The couple sent a satellite call to the Coast Guard for help.

The Coast Guard responded by sending four California Air National Guard members to parachute near the boat while the Navy frigate USS Vandegrift sailed toward the crippled boat.

The guard members stabilized the child and then took the family to the warship on an inflatable raft. The Kaufmans sail boat, named the Rebel Heart, was sunk by authorities because it was taking on water and represented a maritime hazard.

The Vandegrift is expected to land in San Diego on Wednesday.

I'm happy the girl is safe but I sincerely hope the Kaufmans get presented with a whopping bill because, in my humble opinion, they are certifiable idiots.

First of all, who the hell sets sail across the Pacific Ocean with a one-year old and a three-year old on board? I don't care how experienced a sailor you are, I guarantee you the one-year old isn't very experienced.

Second of all, they lost both steering and communications at the same time? Nice way to maintain your boat Kaufman.

You can't keep people from doing stupid stuff and, at least this time, the Coast Guard, Navy and Air National Guard saved the one-year old from paying for the folly of her parents. Unfortunately, not all stupid moves have a happy ending.

The Health Care Law

What I find amusing are all these people criticizing Obamacare who (1) have clearly not been on the exchanges and (2) most likely already have health care insurance.

 First let's acknowledge that the role out was screwed up and the technical issues were a total fiasco even given the complexity of the web sites.

Second, I'll talk about my personal experience.

I have health care but one of my daughters doesn't. We've been covering her via COBRA from my wife's health care plan. The cost was $524 a month. The plan was administered by Blue Cross-Blue Shield and was a PPO.

Getting on the New Jersey exchange was a challenge but once we managed that we found that the health plans were organized in several tiers. The lowest tier was a "catastrophic policy" which basically covered nothing but extended hospitalization and the basics that all plans must cover. Then there were Bronze, Silver, Gold and Platinum plans with ascending costs, varying deductable and ascending coverage.

Ultimately we chose a Silver Plan from Blue Cross-Blue Shield with reasonable co-pay, deductable and prescription support. The plan was an EPO but, since we're talking Blue Cross-Blue Shield, just about every doctor we knew was a part of the network anyway.

It took a while to compare the various benefits because there were significant differences and it wasn't always obvious why one plan had higher premiums than another. The plan we ultimately chose was $335 a month. By far the longest part of the process was comparing the plans. After hitting the "yes I want that one" button they gave you a phone number at Blue Cross-Blue Shield to call but everything pretty much moved forward from there auto-magically.

After going through the exercise I also understood why they probably had such problems getting the exchanges off the ground. The site links directly not only to health care provider sites but also to the IRS for checking tax returns. The complexity is no excuse but it is more complicated a system than I originally thought.

Could the plans be better? Absolutely. Will their costs go up? Very probably. Is 35 million people without health insurance a financial catastrophe? You bet it is. By law a hospital cannot refuse someone care regardless of whether they have insurance or can pay. When you have 35 million without health insurance (1) they don't get medical attention until it's a crisis and (2) they go via the emergency room which is the most inefficient and expensive option.

Universal health insurance is a financially sound approach. Personally I think we should have Medicare for everyone with varying levels of coverage and premiums because a single payer system would be far and away the most efficient. The current health care law is far from perfect but it's a step in the right direction.

Johnny Manziel and the NFL Draft

Johnny Manziel, also known as Johnny Football, from Texas A&M will be in this years NFL draft and the Houston Texans have the #1 overall pick.

I could be wrong but I have to believe that Houston will take Manziel #1. Here is my reasoning (*cough, cough*):

1. They desperately need a QB especially now that they traded Matt Schaub to Oakland.
2. If they take Manziel and he's a star, hello Texans as the new Texas pro darlings and good-bye that other team up near Dallas (what are they called again?).
3. The fans in Texas will forgive them if they take Manziel and he's a bust.
4. The fans in Texas will forgive them if they don't take Manziel and he's a bust (unless he ends up with Cleveland. No forgiveness if Johnny gets exiled to Cleveland because no one can succeed in Cleveland).
5. The fans in Texas will NEVER forgive them if they don't take Manziel and he becomes an NFL star. 

OK, in all seriousness. Johnny Manziel from Texas A&M playing for the Houston Texans is a media blitz made in heaven. The only thing that could be better is if he ended up playing for that other Texas team up near Dallas (what are they called again?).

That would mean that Jadeveon Clowney would fall into the lap of St. Louis who I would assume would be quite happy. The Rams are set at QB.

If the Texans take Clowney instead and, like I said, the Rams are set at QB with Sam Bradford, the next three teams to draft will be Jacksonville, Cleveland and Oakland. All of them need a QB. Even Oakland who just acquired Matt Schaub.

The three top QB prospects are Manziel, Blake Bortles from Central Florida and Teddy Bridgewater from Louisville. I'm betting at least two of these three will be gone by the time the Atlanta Falcons are on the clock and if Houston picks Manziel, then all three could be gone.

Flight 370 Again

The Prime Minister of Malaysian announced this morning that they are now confident that Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 went down in the Indian Ocean off the coast of Australia.

The conclusion is apparently driven by additional analysis of the satellite data received from Inmarsat.

No offense guys but analysis is still analysis and, without a lot more information on the analysis that was performed, described as something that hadn't been done before by the PM, I'll remain a tad skeptical.

This isn't good enough. It leaves way too many questions such as, if the plane did go down there, what the hell was it doing there?

The Crimea

Well, the Russians have annexed the Crimea after the region voted to secede from the Ukraine and join Russia.

The Ukraine claims the vote is illegal.

The Ukraine can claim anything it wants but the Russians now own the Crimea.

I suppose the people have spoken (*cough, cough*). Besides no one is going to do much about this so the Russians, at least for the moment, win this round.

Malaysian Airlines Flight 370

The search is entering its third week.

Debris spotted by satellites some 1500 miles off the coast of Australia in the Indian Ocean raised some hope that an end might be in sight.

Unfortunately the remoteness of the location and uncooperative weather have prevented searchers from actually locating the debris.

In the latest development NASA has joined the search and will train its satellites on the area of the Indian Ocean where the debris was sighted five days ago.

People are now beginning to face the very real prospect that this airplane may never be found and we'll never know what really happened.

Michigan Ban on Gay Marriage Declared Unconstitutional

A federal judge, appointed by Ronald Reagan in 1988, has declared Michigan's ban on Gay Marriage unconstitutional.

The case wasn't even directly about Gay Marriage but rather about a gay couples right to adopt each others children.

Some quotes from the judge's decision.

"Many Michigan residents have religious convictions whose principles govern the conduct of their daily lives and inform their own viewpoints about marriage. Nonetheless, these views cannot strip other citizens of the guarantees of equal protection under the law."

In other words your rights do not include the privilege of enforcing them on others to their detriment. Christians please take note.

"No court record of this proceeding could ever fully convey the personal sacrifice of these two plaintiffs who seek to ensure that the state may no longer impair the rights of their children and the thousands of others now being raised by same-sex couples."

Experts testified that there were no differences between children raised by same sex couples and a couple consisting of a man and a women.

Mark Regnerus testified for the state of Michigan that, based upon his research, there was a difference and that children raised by same sex couples did relatively poorly.

The University of Texas took the extraordinary step of disavowing the Regnerus testimony.

The state of Michigan says that it is obligated to appeal the decision and will ask an appeals court to stay the court order until after appeal.

A statement from Michigan's Catholic bishops demonstrated how out of touch the church is with reality.

"This decision ... mistakenly proposes that marriage is an emotional arrangement that can simply be redefined to accommodate the dictates of culture and the wants of adults."

Yes, in a secular country, under secular laws, that PRECISELY defines a legal marriage. The church is free to sanctify, or not sanctify, such a marriage.

My marriage is not, and never would have been, sanctified by the Catholic Church which is one reason why I'm no longer a Catholic. Yet I'm still legally married. The last time I looked my marriage license still hasn't expired.

So the Catholic Church and the bishops of Michigan can go perform a biological function on themselves.

County Clerk's offices in Michigan say that if no stay is issued, they'll be ready to start issuing marriage licenses to gay couples on Monday morning.

Bullied Child and the My Little Pony Backpack

Allegedly, a nine year old boy in North Carolina, after complaining about being bullied because of his "My Little Pony" backpack, was told by the school, are you ready for this one, to leave the backpack home.

Obviously the school administration has its head shoved somewhere without light. Supposedly the principal, when questioned about this, revealed that she thought it had been a REAL pony. When corrected she simply said "Never mind."

Obviously an educator that's right on top of things. What a complete ditz.

Anyway, ignoring the ditz running the school, telling the kid to leave the backpack home places the blame for the bullying incident on the victim. That's like blaming a woman for being raped and the Jews for being murdered by the Nazis.

On the other side however, what the hell were his parents thinking?

It's far from unknown in our culture that boys will get teased for showing up at school with items deemed either too girly or too babyish by their peers. There are scenes in both "Home Alone" and "A Christmas Story" that talk about getting beat up for wearing the wrong thing.

This doesn't excuse the actions of the bullies or the school, but, seriously, a "My Little Pony" backpack?

Sure, Straight is Great

NYC Pride has told Catholic League Bill Donahue to "COME ON DOWN." Of course he's welcome to march in the NYC Pride Parade.

NYC Pride even provided instructions for the online registration process.

A spokesman for NYC Pride said "Straight allies are great. We have thousands of straight people participating in the Pride March."

OK Bill, the ball is in your court.

Straight is Great?

Bill Donahue of the ultra-Conservative Catholic League says he wants to lead a "Straight is Great" contingent in the NYC Pride Parade.

I think that's a great idea. Let Bill get out there and march.

Donahue says he's had his last glass of Guinness after the beer company dropped its sponsorship of the St. Patrick's Day parade over its anti-gay policy.

I'm sure Guinness will be burning the midnight oil worrying about that (*cough, cough*).

Donahue says if his application is approved he'll bring a big wedding cake to the Pride Parade.

Hey, that's sounds like fun. Why Donahue thinks this is something that would bother gays is unclear. I say LET THE MAN MARCH (and remember to take LOTS of pictures of Bill and his new friends).

Flight 370 Again

It is now 12 days since Malaysia Airlines fight 370 went missing.

This is crazy. A 200 foot long Boeing 777 shouldn't be able to just disappear. In the meantime, what comes out as official statements makes one wonder if anyone is in charge of this show. There have been a number of contradictions and changes but the latest timeline, with commentary, is as follows:

All times are local on March 8, 2014.

12:41 a.m.: Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 departs Kuala Lumpur International Airport for Beijing.

We know THIS with absolute certainty. Something which can be said for very little else.

1:07 a.m.: The onboard Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System, or ACARS, sends out what turns out to be its last communication.

There has been a lot of misinformation about ACARS. Originally Malaysian officials indicated that it had been turned off before the final voice communications from the aircraft. But now concede that it's impossible to tell.

There was also a report that in order to turn off ACARS you had to go down into the body of the plane. This isn't true. There is a switch in the cockpit.

1:19 a.m.: Someone inside the cockpit, believed to be the co-pilot, sent the last verbal communications to Air Traffic Control. All he said was "All right. Good night."

At this point there was no hint of a problem but these were the last words supposedly heard from Flight 370 (yes, at this point my skepticism is running wild).

1:21 a.m.: The transponder, which automatically broadcasts the aircraft altitude, coordinates and call sign stopped working.

This is a scant TWO MINUTES after the final sign-off. It's hard to believe that everything went to hell in two minutes but it's certainly possible.

1:22 a.m.: According to a Royal Thai Air Force spokesman, the plane disappeared off of Thai Military radar.

This makes no sense unless (1) the plane exploded, (2) the plane went down, (3) the plane left radar range or (4) the Thai spokesman is wrong.

When you combine this with the transponder stopping about the same time, this strongly suggests to me a catastrophic event. But wait, let's continue shall we.

1:28 a.m.: A Thai Royal Air Force spokesman says that Thai military radar picked up a plane headed in the opposite direction that MIGHT have been Flight 370.

Personally I think the Thai military needs to train its radar techs better. I'm inclined to completely ignore anything the Thai military has to say especially given that it took like 10 days for them to tell the Malaysians about this.

1:30 a.m.: Vietnamese Air Traffic Control cannot make contact with the plane.

I'm piecing this one together from several sources. I'm pretty sure this is close enough. The bottom line is that Flight 370 was no longer under Air Traffic Control direction. This is apparently the official time when the plane was lost by Air Traffic Control.

1:37 a.m.: An expected ACARS transmission does not occur.

Which means the ACARS system ceased functioning sometime between 1:07 a.m. and 1:37 a.m.

 2:15 a.m.: Malaysian military radar last detects what is believed to be Flight 370 over the small island of Pulau Perak in the Strait of Malacca.

This is hundreds of miles from its intended flight path. I don't know why they believe it was the plane nor why someone didn't attempt to make contact because they must have been tracking it for a while.

Why weren't fighters launched to intercept a commercial aircraft hundreds of miles off course?

6:30 a.m.: Expected time of arrival in Beijing.

I cannot imagine the sick feeling it must be to be waiting for a plane that never arrives.

7:24 a.m.: Malaysia Airlines announces via Facebook that Flight 370 lost contact with Air Traffic Control at 2:40 a.m. The discrepancy in time has never been explained.

Right THERE we should have all realized that we were dealing with the keystone kops of the airline industry.

8:11 a.m.: An Inmarsat satellite makes the last electronic handshake with the aircraft.

Personally I don't think this means the plane was still flying. I suspect it could have been down and its SATCOM pings still operating for a short time.

So, where the hell is the damn plane?

Analysis of the Inmarsat pings puts it along one of two arcs. One heading northwest over China, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and into Kazakhstan. It is almost inconceivable that a Boeing 777 could have proceeded along this arc without being detected.

But, if it could, this is the worrisome one. The idea of a Boeing 777 in the hands of an Islamic terrorist group is a thing of nightmares especially given that I'm not all that sure the Russians have accounted for all of the atomic weapons from the now independent countries in that area.

The other arc extends south toward Australia and the Indian Ocean. A route perhaps more easily traveled than the northern arc but a route for which it is very difficult to see a motive. If the plane went this way, then it's on the ocean floor.

The bottom line is the only hard evidence is the plane took off and the plane disappeared about 49 minutes later. That puts in between Malaysia and Vietnam in the South China Sea.

Yes they claim to have searched the area. I say search it again because, based upon Occam's Razor, that's where it is.

Even More on Flight 370

Oh boy. This morning Malaysian authorities have confirmed that they have information that indicates that Flight 370 appears to have been purposely diverted.

Things are still a little confused because every news agency in the world is jumping on every scrap of information and not always reporting things accurately. But what I've been able to get from the various reports is as follows:

(1) About 20 minutes before the last transponder report the Aircraft Communications and Reporting System (ACARS) was shut down.

(2) The transponders were shut down (there are apparently two on a Boeing 777).

Note that "shut down" could also mean "stopped working" but the 20 minute gap is highly suspicious.

(3) Malaysian military radar detected a plane, that could have Flight 370, proceeding westward across the Malay peninsula.

(4) Inmarsat has reported that its satellites, which ping for subscribers in the area, received automated return pings from the Malaysian jet for six to seven hours after it went missing. The statement from Inmarsat is very terse. It said simply that automated signals were received and the information was provided to SITA (Societe Internationale de Telecommunications Aeronautics) which has provided it to Malaysian airlines.

(5) ACARS apparently kept sending signals. This one confuses me because if it was shut off, how was it sending signals? It's unclear if these are the same ping responses alluded to by Inmarsat. There are also some reports that the Rolls-Royce engines kept sending automated data.

Like I said this is still a little confusing. One article says ACARS was shut off but another says it kept sending automated signals for hours after contact was lost with the plane. ACARS isn't a monolithic thing but has various levels of service so perhaps the higher layers of service were shut down but the lowest layers continued to operate?

I suppose the details only really matter to detail oriented guys like me. The key point is they now seem to think that the plane was probably "purposely diverted." But by whom, and why, is still very much up in the air.

Note the "probably" above. Given the total chaos surrounding this disaster it wouldn't surprise me if tomorrow they said "forget all that," we now think it's in the South China Sea.

More on Flight 370

Malaysia Flight 370 is still missing but new information is creeping out.

First, the Malaysian military has now confirmed a military radar tracking of an aircraft, that could have been Flight 370, heading west over the strait of Malacca. I suppose it took four days for this information to become public because it came from military radar which most countries, under normal circumstances, are hesitant to talk about.

But that means the plane made what amounts to a left turn after civilian radar contact was lost and the transponder, which automatically transmits identification, heading, altitude and velocity, had either been turned off or was inoperable.

Experienced Boeing 777 pilots indicate that it would be very difficult to lose the transponder in an otherwise apparently airworthy aircraft. That sort of implies that it is more likely that it was purposely turned off.

One suspicious point is that contact with the aircraft was lost at a civilian radar edge so air traffic controllers further along the flight path would not expect to detect the plane for some period of time.

So IF these things, (1) the aircraft made a left turn and headed west rather than continuing northeast, (2) the transponder was turned off and (3) this occurs just as the aircraft left civilian radar space, are indeed true, then the suspicion of a hijacking, by either passengers or crew, has to move up in the list.

Given that there was no distress signal and the cockpit door would normally be locked, one has to consider that this may have been an inside job of some sort. Just to further confuse things the plane had about five hours of fuel left after the military radar lost it. That could easily have taken it well out into the Indian ocean.

Second, US intelligence agencies say the analysis of data from "national technical means" shows no evidence of an explosion. Translated that means the spy satellites didn't see the plane blow up which makes the bomb scenario less likely.

The Malaysians have now asked for technical assistance from the Federal Aviation Agency (FAA) and National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) in analyzing the data, including the military data, that they have.

Lastly, it was revealed by the FAA that the type of Boeing 777 being flown in Flight 370 had a new Airworthiness Directive (AD) being issued warning of cracks in the fuselage below the Satellite Communications antenna that could cause the plane to lose structural integrity.

The AD was drafted in September 2013, approved in February 2014 and scheduled to go into effect on April 9, 2014 however drafts had been circulated to all the airlines for comments so preliminary precautions could already have been taken.

The AD was in reaction to a report of a 16 inch crack on a 14 year-old plane with 14,000 flight cycles. The Malaysian Airlines plane was 12 years old with 7,525 flight cycles.

Two other items in what is rapidly shaping up to be a media circus.

A worker on an oil gig in the South China Sea, which is on the far side of Vietnam, claims he saw the plane go down in flames and an Australian news report has accused the 27 year-old copilot of entertaining women in the cockpit on a 2011 flight which, if true, makes one wonder about the integrity of the hopefully locked cockpit door.

The South China Sea report seems unlikely because the Vietnamese didn't pick up the plane on radar and I have no idea what the source for the Australian story is so I'd have to discount that as well.

So, where the hell is the plane?

Malaysia Flight 370

Where the hell is the plane?

A Boeing 777 doesn't just disappear with no warning and no trace. What the hell?

The experts are working the scenarios but nothing at the moment seems to make sense. The plane was last heard from three days ago at its cruising altitude of 35,000 feet. That's the safest part of any flight.

Midair Mechanical Malfunction
A catastrophic event that made the plane come apart, other than being REALLY unlikely, would have left a huge debris field which no one, at least so far, has been able to locate.

A mechanical failure which brought the plane down intact would have allowed time for a distress signal which apparently was never sent. But again, given the duplicate and triplicate systems of a 777, it's hard to imagine what sort of failure this could have been.

A Bomb or other Explosion
The same problems exist with this scenario as with a mechanical failure. Besides, no one has claimed responsibility and a plane carrying mostly Malaysian and Chinese passengers doesn't seem to be nearly as likely a target as a European or American aircraft.

Of course it might be an easier target and I suppose the motive could have been one where credit isn't an issue but there's still the problem of no debris and no distress call.

One possibility that has been suggested is a relatively small bomb that blew a hole in the aircraft that caused decompression but didn't destroy the flight integrity of the plane. The decompression could have knocked out passengers and crew but left the plane traveling on auto pilot only to eventually crash on land somewhere.

The problems with this are (1) why didn't even unreliable radar detect the aircraft and (2) why where there no automatic messages signaling distress and course?

Hijacking
That's not so easy any more these days. The cockpit door would have been locked and pilots have transponder codes they can enter to indicate a hijacking is occurring.

Besides, where the hell was the plane hijacked to? It didn't land anywhere that anyone is aware of.

Granted there are the two stolen passports that were used and some people claim that radar detection in that area isn't as reliable as in other airspace (but others disagree), but still, where's the plane?

Sabotage
Remember the Egyptian flight a few years ago that the co-pilot supposedly crashed into the Atlantic? Something like this could have occurred here but it's pure speculation. This is no evidence that anything of the sort occurred.

There is evidence that the plane started to turn as if to head back to Malaysia. This could mean there was a problem and the pilots had decided to turn back but things went to hell before they had a chance.

Still, see all the problems cited above with mechanical failures.

The Ukraine

Less than a week ago the protests in the Ukraine were a mild background story. Now the Russians, with their occupation of the Crimea, have catapulted the story onto the front pages.

Let's understand a couple of things. First the country is divided in its loyalties. The Western part would like closer ties to the European Union and perhaps even membership in NATO. The Eastern part is pro-Russian and sounds like it yearns for the good old days of the Soviet Union.

Second, the nation, bordering Russia, is clearly within the Russian sphere of influence and with Poland, a member of NATO, both Georgia and Belarus joining the NATO "partnership for peace" and the Ukraine also making nice with the western alliance, the Russians must be feeling awfully left out and more than a little nervous.

This is probably a gamble that Putin felt he needed to take in the hopes that the Sochi Olympics built up, if not good will, than at least tolerance.

I think he expected crying, moaning and complaints but not much more than that.

The question becomes is there anything, other than yell, jump up and down and wring hands, that anyone is willing to do about this.

I suppose we shall see. Personally I'm not willing to do a whole hell of a lot other than yell, jump up and down and wring hands. It didn't inconvenience me when the Ukraine was a part of the USSR, so who really cares?

I could be wrong but I don't think the Russians want the Ukraine. They want a Russian friendly government and some peace and quiet in the country, something there hasn't been much of lately.

Discrimination, Gay Marriage and Climate Change

Some days you just get a rash of events.

In Arizona, Governor Brewer didn't wait until Friday, she vetoed the discrimination bill SB 1062 but I'm sure it won't be the last really stupid thing Conservatives try.

In the meantime a federal court judge in San Antonio has struck down Texas' ban on gay marriage. Ok, this is getting really silly. We get it, the Supreme Court rejection of DOMA is being interpreted by federal judges all over as meaning that gay marriage bans violate the 14th Amendment.

Texas gets added to the list of Utah, Oklahoma and Kentucky. Let's just go to the envelope please and see what the Supreme Court has to say.

The handwriting is on the wall. It's only a matter of time before gay marriage is legal all over. All the current Supreme Court can do is delay the inevitable and put itself on the wrong side of history. Here's hoping the court is too smart to do that.

On the Global Warming front, the experts at the National Academy of Sciences and the Royal Society say that, despite the hiatus in raising global temperatures, they are more certain than ever that human activity is changing the global climate even though they don't fully understand every detail of the climate system.

The two scientific societies are hoping a new report called "Climate Change: Evidence and Causes" will move the debate into the arena of deciding how to limit the impacts on society.

Two chances, slim and none. Not unless the Rapture happens and we get rid of all the Evangelicals and Republicans. But trust me, it's not going to happen so I suspect we have a ways to go on this one.

As for the hiatus, the report addresses it in a 20 part Q&A section.

Question: "Does the recent slowdown of warming mean that climate change is no longer happening?" 

Answer:  "No, blame the slowdown on interactions between the ocean and atmosphere, quiet solar activity and an increase in sunlight reflecting particles."

The Arizona Discrimination Bill

And you thought all the nuts lived in Texas, Alabama and Kansas.

It looks like there are a few in the Arizona legislature as well.

The bill, which is currently sitting on governor Jan Brewer's desk, was supposedly intended to protect people who, for religious reasons, didn't want to provide services for gay weddings. Of course gay weddings aren't legal in Arizona so one has to wonder what they were REALLY thinking.

Anyway, the bill is apparently so poorly worded that even legislators that voted for the bill are beginning to realize that it could open the door for discrimination against anyone and anything as long as a religious basis could be claimed.

Needless to say the sane parts of the country are going ape shit over this as are many businesses and individuals within Arizona. A Chicago Pizza place in Tucson has put up a sign saying they won't serve any Arizona State Legislators.

Super Bowl XVIX is supposed to be in Glendale next February and, despite the Arizona Super Bowl Committee having already protested the bill and urged the governor to veto it, the NFL is beginning to make noises about moving the Super Bowl should the bill get signed.

Aside from the fact that this piece of Conservative idiocy wouldn't have a snowball's chance in hell of passing a court challenge, this may well be the most immoral piece of legislation since the Jim Crow laws.

Even some Republicans realize that this is a stupid idea.

Hopefully governor Brewer vetoes the bill and gays have the good sense not to go out and purposely confront Christian businesses on this issue so we can all calm down and carry on.

Justina Pelletier

This is the stuff that nightmares are made of.

Justina Pelletier is a 14 year old Connecticut girl that has, for all intents and purposes, been imprisoned by Boston Children's Hospital (BCH) in Massachusetts for the past 13 months.

Justina had been treated at Tufts Medical Center in Boston for mitochondrial disease, a genetic disorder that can cause a wide range of symptoms. Justina had been having severe issues with her gastro-intestinal tract and her head doctor at Tufts wanted her to be seen by the gastroenterologist who treated her for over a year but had left Tufts for BCH.

However, upon arrival at BCH, and despite her mother's insistence that Justina be examined by that doctor, the girl's case was headed by a neurologist that began to have doubts about the diagnosis of mitochondrial disease. He was especially disturbed by the number of invasive medical procedures the girl had undergone with little or no relief and the fact that two of the usual markers for the disease were missing.

The neurologist was also concerned about what he called "the black and white thinking of mom." Apparently this was the result of "mom" insisting with certainty that her daughter suffered from "mito."

"Mom" was Linda Pelletier who sounds like a lady that knows what she wants and isn't afraid to fight for it. The problem is that people, like doctors, who consider themselves as something akin to demi-gods don't like that kind of person. They don't like them because that kind of person isn't afraid to question the "ex cathedra" pronouncements that people like doctors sometimes make.

At any rate, the neurologist decided to call in a psychologist.

The psychologist began to note some oddities including that Justina seemed worse whenever "mom" was around.

Within three days BCH came to the conclusion that Justina suffered from a somatoform disorder. This is a psychiatric disorder in which distress manifests itself as physical symptoms. They informed Justina's parents that they would be following a new course of treatment which would eliminate many of the medications that the girl had been taking.

Needless to say, "mom" and the rest of the Pelletier family, including "dad," were not impressed. They decided, since Justina still had not seen the gastroenterologist that they had come to see in the first place, that the time had come to leave BCH and return Justina to Tufts.

To say that the relationship between "mom" and "dad" and the BCH staff was "strained" sounds like it would be a severe understatement.

However when the Pelletiers tried to have Justina discharged, they were informed that BCH had filed a complaint with the Massachusetts Department of Children and Families (DCF) accusing them of "medical child abuse" and hospital security would not let them take their daughter.

That's when "dad" called 911. Unfortunately, the police sided with the hospital and said everything would be ironed out in court the next day.

Well, things still aren't ironed out and in the latest misfortune to befall the Pelletiers, a family court judge ruled a few days ago that Justina would go to foster care rather than be returned to her family. Upon hearing the court decision Linda Pelletier collapsed and had to be taken to the hospital (but hopefully not Boston Children's Hospital).

Ok, so much for the general background. Unfortunately there is also a considerable undertow here. It seems the parents had been marked as "difficult" by multiple medical personnel including the doctors at Tufts. One pediatrician, according to the Boston Globe, had even accused them of "doctor-shopping" or getting care from multiple physicians without co-ordination. Keep in mind that "medical child abuse" is sometimes used as a euphemism for Munchhausen's by Proxy.

Just to further muddy the waters, the lead doctor at Tufts was a expert in, you guessed it, mitochondrial disease, and the psychologist at BCH had written a journal article on, you guessed it, somatoform disorder.

One other point to consider is that an older sister of Justina had also been diagnosed with mitochondrial disease and it apparently does tend to run in families.

I guess I don't really understand. I was always under the impression that, barring very unusual circumstances, a patient had the final say in his treatment. If the patient is a child then the final decision would fall to the parents or guardians.

It's that "unusual circumstances" caveat that makes this case a tad tricky I suppose. Still, considering what I think I know (which could very well be incomplete or even wrong) from reading several articles, a respected and trusted group of doctors at Tufts had made a diagnosis that the BCH staff questioned.

The usual way of working this out is to get everyone in on the same conversation to compare notes and to see if a consensus can be reached. If the disagreement persists, then one should defer to the patient or, in this case, the parents. Why this doesn't seem to have occurred in this case and why judges continue to side with the hospital baffles me.

 Here's what the United Mitochondrial Disease Foundation says about a diagnosis for mitochondrial disease.

"Mitochondrial diseases are difficult to diagnose. Referral to an appropriate research center is critical. If experienced physicians are involved, however, diagnoses can be made through a combination of clinical observations, laboratory evaluation, cerebral imaging, and muscle biopsies. Despite these advances, many cases do not receive a specific diagnosis." 

These diseases are apparently very difficult to diagnose with any certainty. The diagnosis at Tufts was described by the doctor there as a "working" diagnosis according to the Boston Globe. What seems clear is the girl had multiple extreme symptoms that neither hospital could account for with any certainty. The doctor at Tufts was a mitochondrial disease expert so, not surprisingly, he went with that. The psychologist that saw the girl at BCH had written an article on somatoform disorder so, not surprisingly, she went with that.

Who was it that said when your best tool is a hammer you tend to view every problem as a nail?

What a mess.

The worst part is that, according to reports, Justina's condition hasn't improved, and may have significantly degraded, after 13 months of psychiatric treatment.

So what about Michael Sam?

In case you've been in a coma for the last few weeks, Michael Sam is the defensive end from Missouri that came out as gay. What makes this so interesting is that Sam is a potential NFL draft pick.

I say "potential" because his numbers at the NFL Combine have been at best average. If he is drafted it will probably be in one of the later rounds. His chances of making an NFL roster would be probably about 50-50 at best.

This is of course is without taking into account his coming out.

Do I think his announcement will improve his chances? I doubt it. I saw an interview with Jason Garrett, Head Coach of the Cowboys, where he was asked about Sam. Garrett simply said that they would evaluate him as they would any other football player to determine if he would help the team.

Garrett is a straight up sort of guy (even if he is a Cowboy) and I believe that he was being completely honest.

Will everyone have that sort of attitude? I really have no idea but the NFL is such a huge business that I find it very hard to believe a team would pass up a player they thought could help them win just because he's gay.

Damn it's Been Cold

I spent a week in the Florida Keys and missed the last big snowstorm of about 14 inches. Every place I look there are mounds of snow. The inch or two dusting we got the other day put a nice pretty white covering on the piles underneath.

I freaking hate snow, really I do. That's one of the reasons I ignore the Winter Olympics. That plus I find just about all of the events kind of boring.

So, where's Global Warming when you need it?

Apparently it's on vacation as well. The latest NASA reports on average temperature continue to show what looks like a pause in the planet's warming trend. In fact, temperatures have been pretty much flat for the last 10 to 15 years. But the increase in greenhouse gases has continued.

So what exactly does this mean? Are the doubters correct? Perhaps, but on the other hand maybe not.

Climatologists have a number of ideas as to why we may have hit a temporary pause including the El Nino Southern Oscillation in the Pacific, a cyclic decrease in solar activity and, something I found sort of hard to understand, China using more coal.

I always thought burning coal contributed to Global Warming but apparently not. Coal burning produces sulfur particles which I'm being told tends to cool the climate and could cancel out the warming trend from the greenhouse gases.

OK,  then why not just use lots of coal? Well, it seems the pollution is harmful to human health for other reasons.

If this all sounds to you a little, or a lot, like rationalizing, welcome to the club. This is going to make getting anyone to do anything more than a little difficult.

Facts are facts and the facts say that the models were wrong and for at least the last decade there has been no measurable warming trend. Time will tell whether the explanations being put forth are correct or an attempt to save face.

To be honest it would be nice if the whole Global Warming thing did turn out to be a fantasy because the models being relied upon are wrong or too unsophisticated because it's going to get ugly if it is really happening.

Lesbian denied Communion

I'm not sure how I got on the mailing list of "Faithful America" but today I got an e-mail from them asking me to sign a petition, to a Catholic Bishop of all people, complaining about a lesbian being denied communion as follows:

"Carol Parker and her mother were long-time congregants at St. Columban Catholic Church, so when her mother died, it was only natural that her funeral would be held there. Carol never guessed that she’d be denied communion at her mother’s funeral Mass simply because she's a lesbian." 

Are you insane? Carol's not much of a Catholic if she hasn't figured that out. In order to receive communion you must receive absolution during the sacrament of Penance or Confession.

A key part of Penance is the Act of Contrition in which the promise is made to "amend my life." The Catholic Church considers homosexual acts (but not homosexual orientation) a mortal sin so unless Carol promised to cease lesbian acts, and it doesn't sound like she made any such promise, the priest cannot, according to canon law, grant absolution. If she wasn't granted absolution, she can't receive communion.

I support gay rights and gay marriage but this is wrong. The Catholic Church, along with any other religion, is entitled to set its own rules. This is guaranteed by the 1st Amendment. This is the sort of thing that gives fuel to the Religious Right's claim that gay rights and religious freedom are incompatible.

If you don't like the Catholic Church's rules, don't be a Catholic.

Roy Moore Wants a Constitutional Convention

Judge Roy Moore wants a Constitutional Convention to amend the U.S. Constitution to ban same sex marriage.

The idea is based upon Article V of the Constitution which states:

"The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments..."

Moore is the idiot that the idiots in Alabama voted in as Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court. They voted for him despite his having been previously removed from office for refusing to follow a federal court order to remove a monument of the Ten Commandments from the Alabama Supreme Court building.

Moore has sent letters to all 50 governors urging them to get their legislature to call a "Convention for proposing Amendments" with the express aim of outlawing Gay Marriage.

This is another example of Conservatives not being in touch with reality (I discount this as a play for political support within the Alabama electorate for another run by Moore at governor but I guess it's possible that's all this is).

Conservatives seem to actually believe that the majority of Americans agree with them and somehow this majority view is being stifled by the courts or Congress or the president or the media or some nefarious conspiracy.

Moore would need 34 states to call for a convention. Fourteen states already recognize gay marriage and five others, Oregon, Nevada, Colorado, Virginia and Wisconsin, are unlikely to be sympathetic.

That leaves 31 states that might be willing to go along with Moore but I'm betting just about all governors will toss his letter in the garbage can.

Even if by some miracle Moore got 34 states. Any proposed amendment would need to be ratified by 38 states in order to be added to the Constitution.

Bryan Fischer: Defeating Darwin in Four Easy Steps

The title come from a blog written by Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association. There are so many things wrong in that blog that it's difficult to know where to begin. If I were to address all of the factual errors, misunderstandings and quote mines in the blog, I'd have to write 10 times the amount of the original blog.

This is called a "Gish Gallop." The fact is the Creationist can make far more absurd assertions than anyone can explain in the same timeframe. But I'm going to address at least some of them.

First let's start with some preliminary assertions.

#1 - The Assertion that Bill Nye, in his debate with Ken Ham, didn't have answers for the most important questions about evolution. 

The questions were identified as:

(1) Where did the atoms that made up the big bang come from?

First of all this has nothing to do with evolution. This is the province of the Science of Cosmology. But let's answer it anyway. Atoms weren't what "made up" the Big Bang. The idea is it all started with an energy plasma that was infinitely dense and infinitely hot. The plasma then began to expand.

How long the plasma existed and why it began to expand are unanswerable questions. Maybe a god created the plasma and willed it to expand? It's as good an idea as any.

A few seconds after the start of expansion the first elementary sub-atomic particles began to form and these would later be part of the formation of the first atoms.

How do we "know" all this? We don't. But, it's the best explanation we have given the evidence. What evidence you ask? There are four independent lines known as the "Four Pillars of the Big Bang Theory."

Line #1 - Almost all galaxies are moving away from us and are millions of light years away. This suggests that billions of years ago everything was concentrated in a single point.

Line #2 - The abundance and amount of elements that we see around us. Amazingly enough, the ratio of elements appears to exactly match what you would expect to find if the universe was once a really big star.

Line #3 - The background cosmic microwave radiation. During the Big Bang there would have been an enormous release of radiation. Now, billions of years later, it would be moving away from us so fast as to have shifted into a microwave wavelength.

Line #4 - The large scale structure, such as galaxies, that we see in the universe.

(2) Where did man's consciousness come from?

No one knows the answer to this question but so what? We know that it did form.

The basis is probably electrical. All complex life forms appear to have some sort of consciousness so it doesn't seem to be much of a big deal.

(3) How can matter produce life? 

Again, this has nothing to do with evolution but belongs to the science of Abiogenesis.

Maybe God created the first cell? But once the first cell exists, evolution takes over.

#2 - On several occasions Fischer asserts that something is a "scientific law" and not a "theory" with the obvious implication that somehow a "scientific law" outranks a "theory." 

That's not how it works. A "scientific law" is simply a description, often mathematical, of an observation. For instance, the Law of Gravity simply describes, mathematically, how the mass of the earth affects a nearby untethered object.

Theories provide explanations for observations. "Scientific laws" are a part of theories. The "Law of Gravity" is a part of the Theory of Gravity.

Now for the "Four Easy Steps."

Step #1- The First Law of Thermodynamics - Matter and Energy can neither be created or destroyed therefore science cannot address the question of why there is something rather than nothing.

Once again, evolution doesn't care. By the time evolution becomes a factor there are a whole lot of things including molecules, amino acids, stars, planets, water and at least one living cell.

If one goes back to the idea of infinitely hot plasma, that's energy. The universe began as all energy.

Where did the energy come from? Maybe a god created it? Maybe it was a god that annihilated itself in order to form the matter in the universe?

One wild speculation is as good as another.

Step #2 - The Second Law of Thermodynamics - Increasing entropy must lead to more disorder while evolution requires greater order or as Fischer put it "...in every chemical or heat reaction, there is a loss of energy which is never again available for another heat reaction."

Well at least this is actually related to evolution. For the 26,432nd time. This is true in A "CLOSED SYSTEM."

A "closed system" cannot import energy from an outside source. The Earth's biosphere is NOT a "closed system;" it is constantly importing energy from the sun and cosmic radiation.

If "greater order" could not "evolve" in our biosphere then seeds couldn't grow into plants, a fetus couldn't become a baby and a baby couldn't become an adult. These are all examples of "open systems" importing energy and becoming more complex.

The universe as a whole may well be a "closed system" which is why some scientists speculate that it is destined for a "heat death" billions, upon billions upon billions of years in the future. I suspect that's not something for us to worry about right now.

Step #3 - Fossils - There are no "transitional forms."

Here's where we get the quote mining. Ok, simply put, the assertion that there are "no transitional fossils" is just flat out not true. There are hundreds, if not thousands by now, of transitional fossils and, despite fossilization being very rare, more are being discovered every year.

But, we have to address the "quotes" in this section as well as the nonsense statements about the Cambrian Explosion (which Fischer calls the "Pre-Cambrian explosion) and Punctuated Equilibrium.

Quote #1 -Yale University's Carl Dunbar - "Fossils provide the only historical, documentary evidence that life has evolved from simpler to more and more complex forms."

Dunbar got his doctorate in 1917 (YES, 1917!) and taught at Yale from 1920 to 1959. In other words he made this statement long before we had any significant understanding of DNA.

Quote #2 - Harvard's Stephen Jay Gould - "The extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record persists as the trade secret of paleontology." 

I'm very familiar with this quote. This is Gould arguing that "Punctuated Equilibrium" explains the fossil record better than "Phyletic Gradualism." Gould is talking about transitional fossils at the species level and arguing that they are so rare because speciation happens relatively rapidly in short spurts.

That, by the way, is the actual definition of "Punctuated Equilibrium." RELATIVELY rapid bursts rather than consistent change as hypothesized in "Phyletic Gradualism." But we're still talking millions of years just less millions of years sometimes.

As for transitional fossils, Gould clarifies in "Evolution as Fact and Theory," "Since we proposed punctuated equilibria to explain trends, it is infuriating to be quoted again and again by creationists—whether through design or stupidity, I do not know—as admitting that the fossil record includes no transitional forms. Transitional forms are generally lacking at the species level, but they are abundant between larger groups." 

Quote #3 - The British Museum's Colin Patterson - "...there are no transitional fossils" not even a single one "for which one could make a watertight argument."

The quote comes from a letter from Patterson to Creationist Luther Sunderland. Sunderland had asked why there were no examples of transitions between species in Patterson's latest book. Patterson is responding that the fossil record does not indicate which particular species gave rise to another particular species. 

Let's put the quote in context shall we:

"I fully agree with your comments on the lack of direct illustration of evolutionary transitions in my book. If I knew of any, fossil or living, I would certainly have included them. . .I will lay it on the line, There is not one such fossil for which one might make a watertight argument. The reason is that statements about ancestry and descent are not applicable in the fossil record." 

The Cambrian Explosion - Fischer makes it sound like the "Cambrian Explosion" was instantaneous. The fact is we're talking about something like 70 or 80 million years during which most major animal phyla seem to appear in the fossil record. Note I said PHYLA and not SPECIES as some cretins sometimes quote. A Phylum is five levels above Species in the hierarchy of biological classifications.

Step #4 - Genes and Genetic Mutation - Naturally occurring genetic mutations are inherently harmful.

Nope, they're not. If they were we wouldn't have diverse races which are the result of genetic mutations, we wouldn't have black furred rock mice thriving on the cooled lava flows in the New Mexico Desert and we wouldn't have bacteria that can digest nylon.

We get some quotes here as well.

Quote #1 - The University of Chicago's James Shapiro "There are no detailed Darwinian accounts for the evolution of any fundamental biochemical or cellular systems, only a variety of wishful speculations."

I'm not sure where this quote is from (and Fischer doesn't help by not providing ANY citations) but I'm guessing it's from Shapiro's book "Evolution: A View from the 21st Century."

Shapiro challenges the basic notion that evolution occurs through small changes. His book starts by saying "Innovation, not selection, is the critical issue in evolutionary change." 

Shapiro believes that what he calls "natural genetic engineering" rather than Darwin's "natural selection" is more of the driving force in evolution.

"Natural genetic engineering" would allow a form of natural hybridization that would greatly speed up evolutionary speciation.

So this isn't an argument against evolution, rather it's a hypothesis that there is a more efficient process driving it. I don't see how this helps Fischer's case.

Quote #2 - Bristol University's Alan Linton - "Throughout 150 years of the science of bacteriology, there is no evidence that one species of bacteria has changed into another" and "if it's never been observed in the simplest of organisms, it shouldn't come as a surprise that its never been observed with more complex forms. There is no evidence for evolution throughout the whole array of multicellular organisms."

Alan Linton is a Professor Emeritus of Bacteriology at the University of Bristol and the quotes here are accurate and mean what they appear to mean.

Linton is also a devout Christian, a Young Earth Creationist that believes the earth was created 6,000 years ago and has written a book called "Israel in History and Prophecy."

Now, none of that means he's wrong, but it doesn't make him a very convincing source either.

So Fischer's "Four Easy Steps" are pretty much a load of crap.

Now that would be OK if this was the first time he's published these "Four Easy Steps." But it's not. He's published them before and I'm sure he's been told before that pretty much all of what he is saying is either inaccurate, a misunderstanding or just flat out not true. Yet, he continues to publish it.

Where I come from that's called LYING. Christians are dishonest. Here's another example of how dishonest they are.

Mitt

I watched the documentary "Mitt" about Mitt Romney and his runs for the presidency. His first failure in 2008 when he lost the Republican nomination to John McCain and his second in 2012 when he lost the general election to Barack Obama.

Obviously the documentary paints Romney as a sympathetic figure but it convinced me that I did the right thing by not voting for him and contributing what I could afford to insure his defeat.

First there was the scenes of him "praying" with his family. This guy really believes that crap. Then there was his mention of the guy that started Papa John. You know, the guy that said he would cut people's hours in order not to offer health care to his employees because it would raise the price of a pizza by 25 cents? Like I said before, here's your stinking quarter.

People like Mitt Romney just don't get it.

Yes, I agree with his assessment of the financial situation in the United States. I just think his "solution" not only isn't going to solve it, it's going to make things worse.

Paying employees substandard wages while people so rich they don't know what to do with all the wealth get richer strikes me as idiotic.

I'd build four or five new tax brackets on top of what we have with the last one tapping out at around 75% for incomes that exceed about $10 million. I'm not looking to find more money for the government but rather to make uncontrolled greed less profitable.

Even if I ignore my lack of faith in Romney's economic "solution," how can I vote for the candidate of a party that (1) rejects evolution, (2) rejects the science of climate change, (3) wants gays to be second class citizens and go back into the closet, (4) wants to restrict access to contraception, (5) wants to restrict access to abortion (except of course for those that can afford it) and (6) would like to establish Christianity as having special privileges.

I'm almost the perfect Republican demographic in everything except education and religiosity. I'm an older, white, male of reasonable financial means. But I'm better educated and less (a WHOLE lot less) religious than the average Republican.

Maybe Mitt should ask me why I wouldn't vote for him. He might learn something.

No Evidence for Evolution?

Evolution was developed based upon the evidence that we have. To say there is "no evidence" for evolution when evolution emerged from the evidence that exists is by definition wrong.

If you have a better explanation for the evidence that we have, then please feel free to present it. The trail starts with morphology, continues through the fossil record and the geographic distribution of species, then into genetics and DNA along with the various genome studies that have been performed.

The acid test of a theory is can it make accurate predictions? Two successful predictions that Evolution has made that I'm aware of are (1) that a human chromosome was fused (turns out to be chromosome #2) and (2) the existence and almost precise depth of the "fishopod" Tiktaalik.

Then there is the track record of the scientific method which has taken us from the dark ages to the doorstep of space. Science feeds us, gives us clean water to drink and protects us from pestilence. Two of those three are helped along by the science of evolution and that's the best evidence. EVOLUTION WORKS. Just like physics, chemistry and quantum mechanics work.

Now that I'm retired and the Superbowl.

Now that I'm retired, and have been for almost a year, I no longer seem to spend much time on the old blog.

That's partly because I now have lots of other options and partly because I'm just sick and tired of going over the same old ground over and over again.

I didn't even bother making a fool of myself in predicting the NFL playoffs. if you MUST know, I would have picked Denver over Seattle primarily because Peyton Manning was playing for Denver and I don't like Pete Carroll.

I still think Carroll owes a better explanation for the mess he left at USC a few years back. Basically USC appears to have been cheating by extending financial benefits to players with the full knowledge and support of Carroll. I've also watched the Seahawks defensive secondary and, personally, I think they're getting away with a lot of holding down field. I guess that's Carroll coming up with another way to cheat.

Still, they did play the game, they did win it and the refs didn't throw any yellow laundry so "I must be wrong," *cough, cough*.

Oh yeah, I also don't like the Seahawks fans. I've never met such a bunch of assholes. Even Eagles and Cowboys fans are better.