“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves money from the public treasure. From that moment on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most money from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world’s great civilizations has been two hundred years. These nations have progressed through the following sequence: from bondage to spiritual faith, from spiritual faith to great courage, from courage to liberty, from liberty to abundance, from abundance to selfishness, from selfishness to complacency, from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependency, from dependency back to bondage.” – Alexander Tyler (A Scottish professor)¹

No endorsement of any single issue qualifies a person to hold public office. Being pro-life does not make a person a good governor, mayor, or president. But there are numerous single issues that disqualify a person from public office. For example, any candidate who endorsed bribery as a form of government efficiency would be disqualified, no matter what his party or platform was. Or a person who endorsed corporate fraud (say under $50 million) would be disqualified no matter what else he endorsed. Or a person who said that no black people could hold office—on that single issue alone he would be unfit for office. Or a person who said that rape is only a misdemeanor—that single issue would end his political career. These examples could go on and on. Everybody knows a single issue that for them would disqualify a candidate for office.¹

As I understand things, even if it takes 10 million years to create the pattern that allows me to identify an error, it is still an error. Perhaps we are off by 100 years, perhaps by 100 million years, but when the article says that what was thought to be constant for the globe now has localized variations, and further more might not be at all correlated as the previous theory suggested, I think I am perfectly justified in saying that we do not know how old things are.

“I do not know” is a whole lot better than “I am going to believe something I know to be untrue just because you cannot offer a better theory” in my book.

I see looking back that I never said anything other than the fact that there have been a lot of good movies out this summer, and that I enjoyed the Indiana Jones movie.

We went to see the Incredible Hulk back when it was still in normal theaters. I very much enjoyed it, even more so than I have the previous Hulk movie. I look forward to sequels. ☺

The newest Batman movie was certainly very different. I do not at all regret going. It was a little more disturbing than I like to see in a Batman movie though, and I hope they brighten things up for the next one. True to the comic books though it no doubt is, I also dislike seeing Rachel die. ☹

As an introductory side-node, it is interesting that I found this article not via any of the intelligent-design sites I read, but via slashdot.

Anyway, the article says that a group of scientists have found that we need to “[rethink] how geologists interpret varations in the ¹³C/¹²C ratio throughout Earth’s History.”¹ Or in other words, we really do not know how old anything that has been carbon-dated is.

I am amused to find myself quoted here as an example of what all creationists argue. I would have thought that he could have found a better source. I am not really sure what he was trying to accomplish by quoting me though.