Evolution in Missouri

People who do not believe that man evolved from apes should be forced to spend several hours in the food court at the mall in Joplin, Missouri.

Just sit there and watch the crowds. At the end of that hour, you will believe one of two things: 

Either men are descended from apes, or it’s the other way around.

When Star Trek VI opened in the mall at Joplin, Missouri, I saw a number of people arrive for the opening, all dressed as Klingons.  The problem was that it was difficult to tell where the make-up left off and the naturally-sloping foreheads began.

A few years later the film Gods & Monsters (1998) played in the same Joplin theater. In this movie, the main character, played by Brendan Fraser, says he is from Joplin. That characterization is key to understanding the film. FYI

Understand 9/11 : the Real Conspiracy

Understand the 9/11 Truthers and their Truth Movement

As much as I respect the sincerity of the people in the 9/11 Truth Movement, I believe that they are wrong about what happened on Sept. 11, 2000.

First of all, the Truthers choose to believe that George W. Bush was smart enough to organize, plan and carry out a conspiracy to mine the WTC and then explode the buildings, synchronized with the mass illusion of planes crashing into the buildings.  Sorry, but that idea is just too incredible to believe. The fact is that the 9/11 conspiracy is much easier to explain and the conspiracy is far simpler than you might imagine.

Here is what really happened.

In the months leading up to Sept. 11th, intelligence analysts at the CIA and the Pentagon discovered, from various channels, that Bin Laden planned an attack on the WTC and other buildings in Washington.  This attack would, most likely, involve hijacking aircraft and flying them into the WTC.  Bin Laden had already tried this in the Philippines, so it was no real stretch to think he would try it again here.  The analysts reported this up the chain of command to their bosses.

The CIA and the Pentagon intelligence people quickly realized that, although they knew when the attack would come (several Al Queda messages warned their agents to return home before 9/10) they could not effectively prevent the attack.  Security at most of the airports in the U.S. was just too lax.  No one could—they thought—prevent hijackers from boarding the planes with box cutters, knives, etc., and taking over the aircraft.  In their view, the 9/ll plot was inevitable.

Being unable to stop the attack, they realized that—what the heck—why not profit from the inevitable?  Over the next few months, many people with ties to the CIA and the Pentagon began playing the NY Stock Market.  Knowing when the attack would happen, it was a simple matter to plan for a crash of the Stock Market in the days following 9/11.   A savvy investor could make millions by placing options on various stocks, especially airline stocks and the stock of companies with offices in the WTC (in the days after 9/11, several European intelligence agencies reported that Bin Laden had also invested in the Stock Market, through various front companies).

Although not nearly as imaginative as the Bush-Did-It Conspiracy Theory, this scenario has the virtue of being simple and direct.  It involves the most basic of motives: Greed.

This loosely organized conspiracy (to financially exploit the 9/11 attacks) involves some of the wealthiest and most politically connected people in Washington, who had access to the CIA and the Pentagon intelligence insiders.  They made the commitment to invest in The Market, knowing that they stood to make millions, if not billions on the post-9/11 financial collapse.

Worst of all, the CIA and Pentagon analysts were pressured not to issue any kind of warning about the attack.  To do so would run the risk of Bin Laden delaying the attack (knowing the date of the attack was key to their plans) or perhaps even canceling the attack on the WTC in favor of some other target.  If this happened, they would probably lose millions of dollars.  Every effort was made to keep the impending attack a secret.

After 9/11 several agencies began investigations.  Some heard from European sources that Bin Laden had invested in the Stock Market, and so they began looking at trades on the New York Stock Exchange.  These investigations were quickly quashed and lists of questionable stock deals were suddenly suppressed and made “top secret.” 

The list of Americans who made tons of money off of 9/11 includes some of the most powerful and politically connected officials in Washington.  Something had to be done to stop any further investigations along these lines.  And so they quietly began encouraging the Bush-Did-It Conspiracy Theory.

It began as a sort of “Stalking Horse”—that is, could people be convinced that mines, drone aircraft, or some other method brought down the WTC?  Could the White House itself be blamed for the plot?  Ideally, the real plotters wanted an idea out there that various conspiracy buffs would explore, but which would not be taken seriously by the mainstream media.  The fact that the White House would, almost certainly, exploit 9/11 for their own political gains only made this new theory more plausible.

Unfortunately, no one in the White House—not even Chaney, himself—was clever enough to come up with such a brilliant idea, much less carry it out.  Planting mines in the WTC?  Flying drone planes into the buildings?  Frankly, Dick Nixon was a much smarter guy than Bush, and he couldn’t even get the Watergate burglary done without screwing it up.  So how could Bush’s buddies—none of them particularly bright—come up with and implement as complex and inventive a plan as this one?

The real conspiracy was to keep everybody quiet about the impending attack, while also investing--ie.  "shorting"--the Stock Market, knowing that the Market would crash on 9/12.  The follow up to this conspiracy was trying to blame George W. Bush for a crime that, frankly, he is just too dumb to have accomplished.

You Are Their Guinea Pig!—The Pharmaceutical Industry vs. Your Health

Their Plan for Your Future:

You Are Their Guinea Pig!—The Pharmaceutical Industry vs. Your Health

One of the biggest drags on the American economy right now is the high cost of health care. Americans pay more for health care and get less for their money than almost any advanced Western country you can name. The current plan for expanding health coverage, called Obamacare, is merely a bandage put on a gushing wound. It doesn’t address the main problem, which is this:

Why is the cost of healthcare rising so rapidly? What is driving the increasing demand for more and more health care, at greater and greater costs?

When you read a drug label, you can see all the various side-effects that you might experience if you take this pill. Most of the time you won’t experience these side-effects, and many of these side-effects seem trivial. For example, your pill for “restless-leg syndrome” may make you prone to becoming a sex addict (but aren’t you already a sex addict? … so this pill really has no side effects).

But the very fact that these side-effects are listed means that someone who participated in the original drug trial has experienced this side-effect, and the drug company is required by law to list it. (Keep in mind that the drug company may have actually done three, four, or ten different drug trials and then picked the one trial that had the fewest reported side-effects. They can legally “bury” the other drug trials without reporting the results to the FDA. Nice for them, but not for you!)

What is little understood by the average person is the fact that we are all similar biologically. But the differences—though they seem quite small—are important.  For example, scientists have discovered that humans share about 98% of our DNA with chimps.  This fact proves that even a small 2% difference in DNA can have very serious ramifications.

Last year I took a DNA test to find out if my genetic background was really what I thought it was: 50% Irish with the rest being English, German, Norman French, and Native American.* The results came back with the not surprising result that I was 88% Northern European and 12% “other” — which I assume means about 10% Native American and 2% unidentifiable (No, not chimp!). Most people get a 2% unidentifiable result on this test.

The point here is that we are all fairly similar biologically—but we are not identical. And any particular drug can have a wide range of side-effects.  A small minority of people react badly to Tylenol, for example, but that does not mean that we should all stop taking Tylenol… or does it?

As more and more people take more and more drugs it is inevitable that people will experience a dangerous or debilitating side-effect. Many of these drugs can cause serious health problems… which require you to take another pill. For example, my father took a variety of pills—both prescription and over-the-counter pills—to deal with his allergies.  When his brother needed a kidney transplant, the doctor told my dad that these allergy pills had caused damage to his kidneys and he could not donate one of his kidneys to his brother.

Similarly, some years ago I mentioned—during a physical exam—that I was having some chest congestion. The doctor decided to proscribe a “brand new” pill that had just been developed to cure this congestion.  So I took the pill for a week and, yes, it cleared up the problem. Unfortunately, the pill also gave me dry skin—a condition that has lasted now for over 15 years! This is the “unintended consequences” of taking this new-and-shiny pill that had just been developed.

I guess I don’t have to recount the story of how a famous and profitable diet pill gave thousands of people heart damage. You know that one already. And I bet you have many family members who have had bad reactions to common medications.

And what is even more dangerous to your health is the fact that doctors are starting to prescribe a variety of steroids to fix a wide variety of conditions. What they don’t tell you is that steroids often have bizarre and dangerous side-effects, including screwing up your blood-sugar or a three-month bout of impotence (for which they will sell you Viagra).  The Drug industry loves steroids because one week of steroids leads to months of side effects that can be treated with more expensive pills. Steroids are like a wild card with dozens of side-effects that are difficult to trace back to the cause: the steroids. (The drug companies are counting on the fact that you won't be able to sue them because of the wide range of unpredictable side-effects that steroids can cause.) Steroids are like red kryptonite! You can't predict what will happen.

You see, each pill leads to another pill and another pill and a surgical procedure and another surgical procedure.  My uncle had two kidney transplants before he died as a result of an infection (and the anti-rejection drugs) that ravaged his already-compromised immune system. 

Doctors also don't bother to describe the possible side-effects of having a vasectomy, which can lead to granulomas and other painful conditions. Vasectomies are just too damn profitable. And the Feminists all preach about the joys of vasectomy as a safe form of birth control. And undoing a vasectomy is another & much more expensive surgery (that your insurance company won't pay for). No one will dare rock this boat.

You are the subject of an enormous biological experiment—and the Medical Establishment is the main financial beneficiary of problems that they caused in the first place.

 None of this will show up on TV or the print media because the media rely heavily on advertising dollars from the pharmaceutical industry. None of this will be printed in medical journals either, because they depend very heavily on ads for drugs! Just look at medical journals. They have more self-promoting advertisements than Cosmo!

On a personal note, I am currently experiencing tinnitus (ringing in the ears) which I believe was cause by a low-dose anxiety medication that I had taken for several months. The package lists tinnitus as one possible side-effect. I guess I was just the unlucky one who actually got it. As I sit here, I can hear the greasy whine in my ears. It never goes away.

Somebody please answer the damn phone!

------------------------------

*I have a ringing in the ears which, I suspect, may be caused by a malfunction of the alien implant in my skull. At least this is what the Ouija board says. So that weird 12% of DNA in my genes might also be alien DNA. In case you’re wondering.

Their Plan for Your Future: The Medical-Military-Industrial-Media Complex

Their Plan for Your Future:

The Medical-Military-Industrial-Media Complex

One of the biggest drags on the American economy right now is the high cost of health care. Americans pay more for health care and get less for their money than almost any advanced Western country you can name. The current plan for expanding health coverage, called Obamacare, is merely a bandage put on a gushing wound. It doesn’t address the main problem, which is this:

Why is the cost of healthcare rising so rapidly? What is driving the increasing demand for more and more health care, at greater and greater costs?

The easy and rather simplistic answer is that more and more people are using the health care system. But no one seems to know why we are becoming less healthy than our parents, or even our grandparents. Are we truly less healthy? And if so, why?

Some people claim that poor diet and little exercise is the main culprit. This is partly true, but I believe it masks the greater problem.

Let me explain the real problem, using this true-life example from http://perezhilton.com:

Medical supply providers are scamming the system by selling cheap sex toys as expensive medial aids

“Apparently Medicare payments for the $338 devices have increased by over 500% within the last decade, but erectile dysfunction may not be to blame — seedy sellers are!

“The government is happy to allow Medicare recipients to use their coverage for penis pumps as long as a doctor prescribes the device as "medically necessary," but they aren't thrilled to be paying for penis pumps that people aren't even using!

“Investigators have been challenging more than $8 million in payments made for the devices over the last four years that may have been completely fraudulent. For example, a company in Florida sold 75 pumps to male and female Medicare patients to collect a total of $28,000, but those pumps were NEVER even shipped!

“In another case, an Illinois supplier bought penis pumps off the internet that were the equivalent of cheap sex toys, then reshipped the products to Medicare recipients who didn't ask for them. Medicare was charged a rate almost 11 times what the shady supplier initially paid for the pumps, let alone what they were actually worth.”

My own father, who is 84 and suffers from dementia, was sent one of these aids; and Medicare was charged over $450! A similar device sells on the internet for $49 or less.

This, in a nutshell, is what is wrong with healthcare in the United States. Medical device salesmen, Hospitals, Pharmacies, Pharmaceutical companies, etc., etc. have learned how to game the system. They are learning how to pump money out of insurance agencies, Medicare, and everywhere else; and they learn faster than the government or the insurance agencies can react. And every time the government figures out a way to lower costs, lobbyists for the Medical industry lobby Congress to change the rules and stop the government from implementing effective reforms that might slow the gusher of money pouring into their pockets. Both Congress and the White House are getting political contributions to make the system work more inefficiently.

Why I Support Christian Homeschooling

Why I Support Homeschooling

Some people are no doubt puzzled by the fact that I support Homeschooling.  You would think that a Rationalist like myself would object to the idea of letting people force their crazy religious beliefs on their children, and especially under the guise of “education.”  Not me. 

I may be a Rationalist, but I am also a Darwinian.  While my three kids did well in the public schools and are now starting in new careers, the children of homeschoolers are also coming onto the job market. These homeschooled kids have a strong work ethic but very poor skills in the areas of logic, writing and arithmetic. Years of being taught "magical thinking" can have that effect. The vast majority will do very poorly on the ACT or SAT tests, and those kids who do manage to get into college will probably fail due to their non-existent social skills.  Having spent many years memorizing Bible verses and learning the proper way to put a saddle on a dinosaur, they are unlikely to pose a threat to my kids in the job market.

And, best of all, all those years they spent memorizing Bible verses will have prepared them for that day—somewhere in the future—when they will need to memorized the food orders, the soup of the day, and the names of all the salad dressings that are available. I’m sure my children and grandchildren will appreciate it when they get the right soup. And fresh bread. Daily.

The Psychopath Test

The Psychopath Test

There has been a psychological test going around the internet called The Psychopath Test. In a few sentences, a scenario is laid out about a woman whose mother dies and she meets a guy at a funeral. It goes like this:

A woman went to her mother's funeral. A few days earlier, her mother had been killed in a head-on collison with a tractor trailer. At the funeral, she met this guy and thought the guy was amazing, her dream man! They had a lot in common. They even both enjoyed maple-nut ice cream. She fell in love with him, but never asked for his last name and, later on, could not find him after the funeral.

A few days later her sister died in a hit-and-run accident.

Who killed the sister? And why? Can you figure it out?





 Answer to The Psychopath Test: She killed her own sister in the hope that her "dream man" would show up at the funeral.

All Hail, Kali!

Several people have, over the years, asked me why I identify myself as a Free-Thinker rather than an Atheist.  The answer is simple.  An Atheist is someone who refuses to believe in God, no matter what.  A hard-core Atheist would refuse to believe in God, even if The Almighty appeared before him, attired in all His glory, holding a pitcher of water and a glass of wine.  

A Free-Thinker, on the other hand, would believe in God, if God appeared before him, or even if He simply offered some reasonable proof of His Infinite, Divine Existence.  Of course, a real Free-Thinker could just as happily believe in the truth of Krishna if Krishna suddenly appeared, awash in day-glow colors and bathed in illuminescent Wisdom. 

And that's not all.  A Free-thinker is not prejudiced against the idea of deity, per se.  Rather, the Free-thinker simply asks for some reasonable demonstration of the divinity's existence, rather than mere hearsay evidence.  I am willing to believe in any deity that chooses to demonstrate His, or Her, existence — be it Odin, Athena, or even Kali.   

Free-Thinkers are open-minded, sometimes to a fault.  And if, on some future occasion, the Goddess Kali decides to appear in my presence and She is adorned in human skulls and drinking blood from a cup, I would be quick to accept this as sufficient proof of Her existence, while quickly edging my way backwards and looking for the nearest Exit, stage left.