The other day, I posted a link to a story on a health care company firing smokers. At the time, I said it is the sort of thing that it would be nice to see state and local governments doing. This article, from the BBC, has some more details. Most of the article is the same as the other. All seems very positive, after all, we all know smoking is bad for you. Most of us don’t like smoke. Its all very unpopular. Very easy to dismiss, or even feel encouraged by, someone banning smokers. However, “Ask not for whom the bell tolls, it tools for thee”. Towards the end of the article, is the following snippet of information: “According to Reuters news agency, Mr Weyers wants to turn his attention next to overweight workers.” Again, at first, this sounds fairly innocuous. But then remember, that according to our definitions, most Americans are overweight. Now, I say I’m fat all the time. And I do weight more than I should, by about 50 pounds. But most of my friends, while recognizing that I could and should loose some weight, say that it doesn’t show that much, and most have trouble agreeing to my 50 pound figure. And that figure itself, at my height, I would still probably be considered overweight if I did loose 50 pounds, even though that would put me within 15 pounds of the weight I wrestled in high school, and never mind the fact that I’m stronger now than I was then, though in worse shape. This long tangent really does tie in. If I worked for Weyco, and Mr. Weyers were able to implement his dream of enforcing health standards further, I’d prob be at risk of loosing my job. That puts a different light on it, doesn’t it? We always have to be VERY careful allowing our employers, or our governments, since government could do this as easily as Weyco has, control over our lives. This sort of thing brings out the libertarian in me, and some people would dismiss me out of hand. It is, however, imperative that individual responsibility be promoted, enhanced, and protected. “Freedom” is not the same as “license”, in part because freedom, unlike license, is directly proportional to responsibility. Almost sounds like a contradiction or paradox. But in an absolute sense, we cannot have free will without the ability to cause real harm. That does not mean that causing harm is not wrong, we have the responsibility not to cause harm. We are free to do what ever, but some things are wrong. Contrast this to “license.” If you have a license to hunt ducks, there might be restrictions on your license, but within the bounds of that license, you are not responsible for what duck you choose to hunt, or how you choose to hunt it. This is not a perfect analogy, because while the license to hunt does not impose responsibility, you are still responsible for your actions because of other things. For instance, you are still responsible, under our still somewhat free government, to not kill or recklessly endanger anyone. But as bad as my ability to demonstrate it may be, properly understood (consult a dictionary, its definition number 3 and 4 in both Webster’s and Wordnet), license is different from freedom. Again, I am tangenting. But again, the tangent is related. We do not want a license to eat (so much), but the freedom to eat what we see fit. And, if we overeat, we accept (or should accept), as part and parcel of that freedom, the responsibility for the impact on our health. The problem is that it isn’t quite so simple. Health-care costs have skyrocketed, and without insurance, many people would be unable to afford a level of care that many of us would now consider “basic.” Thus we are all in need of medical insurance, and by that need, the increased cost of my choices affect (effect?) the premiums you pay. And my freedom, reasonably, necessarily, ends where yours starts. So where is the line drawn? That’s a good question, one we should be hesitant to allow health insurance companies, employers, or governments draw casually.

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David Limbaugh reports on one example of the consequences of the No Child Left Behind Act. While I laud Bush and Congress for acting to fix the oh so obvious failure of the public school system to educate, their action was in this case misguided. Subsidiarity teaches us that governance moved away from the people is not right, that our society should be governed at the lowest level capable of handling a given problem. No Child Left Behind flies in the face of this principle, and here we see the results: it is predictably being used to further stifle excellence, but, now, parents challenging this trend must go to federal court, not to a local school board that they can more easily control.

The BBC reports on the planned meeting of scientists who don’t buy the prevalent hype on global warming. Professor Fred Singer, a former director of the US Weather Satellite Service, is quoted saying that “The greenhouse warming from increased gas emissions is, as far as we can tell, insignificant. It’s unlikely to be appreciable even a century from now, and we can easily adapt to it.” Not what you hear in the news every week, now is that? hhmmm.

Also in the BBC, this article talks about a recent study on the Shroud of Turin that calls into question the 1988 radiocarbon dating find. Perhaps science will once again allow us to believe that the Shroud is legitimate. I wouldn’t hold your breath though.

In their unending quest to blur the distinction between Man and animal, scientists are experimenting with chimeras, as reported by National Geographic here. Naturally there is some legit research to be done in this area. Some things we already do to save lives, like replacing heart valves with those from cows or pigs. But this article rightly questions how far is too far.

Findlaw reports on a pair of school kids now up on felony charges. For what you ask? They drew threatening stick figures. Yes. Stick Figures. Local6.com provides additional detail, though I do not know how long it will be up. Apparently these stick figures were sufficient to cause “extreme fear” in another 10 year old. Certainly this could have been handled in some other fashion…

In other, went to Pub Quiz at the 4Ps last night, and surprise surprise, Jenn came. :-) We had a very good time. I haven’t gotten to see Jenn in forever, so it was awesome. PVI wrestled Gonzaga yesterday, Michael lost his varsity match, won his exhibition match. I think he could have defeated the varsity kid, but he gets so discouraged when the other guy has a strong ability to break you down. I know how that is, it is very hard to continually work up, so I do not, cannot, fault him for having lost; he tried hard the whole match.

I’ve more or less been slowly writing this all day today, though the size of it does not reflect that. shrugs Ah-well.
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There is a man in Florida who has some incredible guts, whatever his other faults. This story talks about a man who full-page newspaper ad in an attempt to contact his wife and save his Marriage. Whatever his faults, I think it must have taken great courage to use so public a method to reach her. I hope things work out.
In Delaware, a “life” sentence now means 45 years¹. Lovely. People argue against the death penalty saying that in the modern era, it is possible to keep society safe without it. I tend to agree, but things like this make me wonder if that is true.
The BBC reports that birth rates are falling world wide. The tone of the article seems to oscillate between sorrow that they are not falling faster and worry that they are falling. How confused a world we live in, when the fact that we can’t sustain population levels isn’t a cause for concern, a wake-up call that something is wrong with society. Our faith tells us that we are called to “multiply”, I do not think God intended that to mean “by fractions”. At some point we are going to have to realize that motherhood is important, and that having and raising children is the most important, most meaningful thing that a couple will, or could, ever do. I don’t know how to argue this one effectively. I know that it is true, but how do seriously tell a girl that you don’t think a career outside the home is the best course she can take, the best she can aspire to? For all its truth, how do you make that truth shine through?

gaim
I hate it when users get ideas about how easy something is to implement. I hate it even more when they think they can dictate priorities. Why can people not grasp that in an open source project, only the developers’ priorities matter?

1) http://news.findlaw.com/ap_stories/other/1110/1-26-2005/20050126030014_03.html

This story from the LSU Reveille also mentioned here in Michelle Malkin’s web log brings up a very good question. Why is it only a hate crime if it is committed against some hip minority? Why is it not a hate crime to vandalize the crosses used in this Christian protest? Why are Christians not eligible for toleration by those who disagree with us?

According to this story, Weyco Inc. has a policy that prohibits its employees from smoking, not only on company time, but at all. Basically treating it like an illegal drug. To me this seems like the right approach for State and Local governments to be taking; why in the world are we trying to end smoking by making it prohibitively expensive and difficult (restricting where you can smoke)? This seems really misguided. On the other hand though, banning drugs hasn’t exactly worked now has it? Much like the prohibition didn’t work. I don’t know what the right approach is.

I read Oliver North’s latest column, Of faith and freedom, over at TownHall. In it, I see that Michael Newdow, that nutty atheist who tried to get “under God” removed from the Pledge, and tried to ban mention of God in the inauguration, isn’t the only atheist who feels threatened by a public display of faith on the part of others. Now I’ve more or less known this for ages, but for some reason, it still surprises me every time I see it that people can think this way. How insecure they must be in their lack of belief, how shallow they must be that they cannot stand upon their own atheism when confronted by the belief in God that Christians hold. While this might superficially seem to be a good thing, in that it should mean that it is easier to convert them, I don’t take it that way. Rather than thinking it would be easier to convert such an atheist, I think that he must rather be rabid, and will emotionally react against anything that hints of faith, without thought. And someone who refuses to think will not convert, their fear will hold them back. To really understand the scope of what they are doing, look at what the uproar would be if the situation was in reverse. They want to forbid us to mention God in public, as public officials. Think if they were forbidden to deny His existence in public, or as public officials. Try to put such a restriction into practice, and you will quickly not be able to tell the difference between the result and a theocracy. Which is exactly what atheism would result in, since atheism is just as much a religious/philosophical belief as monotheism. Shall we establish, in our zeal to “separate church and state” (a phrase that is no where in the constitution, but, unfortunately, fairly heavily in US Supreme Court precedent, and thus in common law), establish a state atheism? Enforce religion into a “God of the gaps” type practice, with ever narrowing bounds? I fear that we may yet see the full cost of our “tolerance,” beyond “Catholics” who do not believe what the Church teaches, but to the point of suppression. Already in some places, special action is needed, and hopefully will be successful, to allow the Mass to be said¹. A mention of God in a speech is said to infringe, a prayer in a public event. Shall a Cross in a skyline be next? How about a rosary hanging from a rear-view mirror in a public parking lot? Sound paranoid? Would you ever have believed that there would be a challenge to the right of the President to have a prayer said at his inauguration? I know I wouldn’t have.

1) LAUGESEN, WAYNE. ” City Wants to Help Priest Say Mass In Public” National Catholic Register January 11, 2005.

I think I have this all set up for now. No RSS, but that’s fine with me, if you’ve managed to find this, you are already coming here periodically already. Maybe I’ll do that later. It would be an interesting exercise in php’s xml capabilities to see if I can generate something fairly compliant on the fly. Thanks to Joe Duffy, who’s LiveJournal gave me some ideas on how to format this.

I’m just starting this, not sure how it will work out. A previous, flatfile attempt, a few years ago, fell very flat. I’m using some cobled together php for this rather than a fancy blog package, partly because of my utter failure to get 2 of them working (I am fairly hopeless at setting up mysql or postgresql), and partly because I’m not sure exactly what I want. Certainly nothing with the high overhead of livejournal. I’m also not certain how public I want this to be. I’m fairly certain I do not want to be on LiveJournal.