Signs, signs, everywhere signs

I saw a couple of signs of note on Wednesday. The oil-change place at 4th and FRB had a sign on their marqee that said, "Ask about our Synthetic Specials". Well, of course, if I get a special, I want it to be a real one. But later that day, while I was eating lunch at Wendy's, I notice the table tent advertising their new Frostys. And there, in bold lettering, was the assurance that they were "...made with real ingredients." Duh.

Now if we could just get the oil-change place to offer real specials, and Wendy's to admit that their ingredients (while still "real ingredients") are synthetic, I think we might be onto something.

Expelled - The Movie

Norma and I went to see Expelled last night.

My reactions: It was pretty good, but it could have been great.

Ben Stein is an incredibly intelligent man, but he resorted to Michael Moore-like tactics in his film. He made himself look stupid on one occasion in particular, and made the people who didn't agree with him look stupid on a number of occasions.

In one particular case, he was talking to a scientist with a definite naturalistic worldview, and asking about how life began from some goo. The scientist said that one theory (among many) is that the molecules necessary for life were attached to crystals as they grew. In any case where crystals grow, there are "mistakes", and these "mistakes" could account for certain molecules getting together in particular ways. OK, I'll agree that this is patently stupid, but it doesn't bolster Mr. Stein's argument in any way when the film cuts from this interview to a clip of a fortune teller gazing into a crystal ball. It's a blatant attempt to make the scientist appear goofy, which he did quite well on his own.

The link between a naturalistic paradigm and the horrors of Nazi Germany was explored in great (if somewhat graphic) detail, and it's probably that part that earned the film a PG rating. Still, it was nothing adults shouldn't see. In fact, it is precisely the sort of thing adults need to see.

I'm still digesting what I saw. I won't recommend against seeing the film, I just feel that it could have been done with a bit more class. Mr. Stein has seen too many Michael Moore movies, I fear.

PS: I used my CB&G gift certificate yesterday to buy two books:
The Case for a Creator by Lee Strobel
Darwin's Black Box by Michael J. Behe
I'm already a third of the way through Strobel's book. Expect a review soon.

Mitt Romney's Top 10 list

Mitt Romney's Top 10 List of reasons for quitting the race for US President, as he gave them at yesterday's Radio and Television Correspondents Association annual awards dinner:

10. There weren't as many Osmonds as I had thought.

9. I got tired of the corkscrew landings under sniper fire.

8. As a life-long hunter, I didn't want to miss the start of varmint season.

7. There wasn't room in the campaign for two Christian leaders.

6. Word leaked out that nobody had bothered to search my passport files.

5. I'd rather get fat, grow a beard, and try for the Nobel Prize.

4. I wanted to finally take off the dark suit and tie and kick back, in a light-colored suit and tie.

3. Once my wife Ann realized I couldn't win, my fund-raising dried up.

2. I took a bad fall at a campaign rally and broke my hair.

1. There was a flaw in our campaign theory that as Utah goes, so goes the nation.



Source: Deseret News website, which cites youtube.com as their source.

Off the Bottle?

From Business Week magazine, April 14, 2008, page 47:

Many people drink bottled water because they deem it superior to the stuff that comes out of the faucet. Wrong, argues Food & Water Watch, a Washington (D. C.)-based non profit dedicated to consumer rights. In a report last year, the group blasted bottled water, declaring that Americans "think it is somehow safer or better than tap water ... but it is generally no cleaner, or safer, or healthier than tap water. In fact, the federal government requires far more rigorous and frequent safety testing and monitoring of municipal drinking water."
Americans drank 31.2 billion liters of bottled water last year. And the Pacific Institute, an Oakland (Calif.)-based sustainability thinktank, estimates that it takes approximately 17 million barrels of oil to produce the bottles all that water comes in. That, says the institute, is enough to fuel more than 1 million cars and light trucks for a year.

Why I'm not running with Ryun

One of the darkest days in recent history was in 2006, when the 2nd District of Kansas elected Nancy Boyda to the US House of Representatives. Fortunately, we get a chance to undo mistakes like that every two years. When I heard that Jim Ryun was planning to run against her this year, I immediately put what little support I can offer behind him. Of course, my main consideration was that anybody was better than Boyda, and Ryun hadn't done anything too offensive in his years in the House.

At a recent meeting of Pottawatomie County Republicans, I got a chance to listen to Ryun give a talk, and also to his Republican challenger, Lynn Jenkins. After the meeting, I saw that she was between conversations, so I went up and introduced myself. I told her that I was mainly interested in defeating Boyda, but I wanted to know what differentiated her from Ryun. Her answer, from long practice answering the same question, was concise, well thought out, and made a lot of sense. I hope I do her justice when I try to put the gist of it in here.

Mainly, she said, we've had two schools of thought for the last few decades. The Democrats want to tax us more and spend more. The Republicans want to tax us less and spend more. Neither scenario is workable, as evidenced by our huge national debt and continued deficit spending. Jenkins is a CPA, and has been an excellent State Treasurer as far as I can tell. As a CPA, however, she realizes that the cycle of spending cannot continue. She wants to cut taxes and reduce spending, something that is unthinkable in Washington.

If she's elected, she won't last long. People (read: voters) love politicians who bring home the pork. Nonetheless, I'm supporting Lynn Jenkins for 2nd District US House of Representatives. I hope all my readers (both of them) will give her a good look and see if you don't agree.

And we think our taxes are high ...

Strike that. We know our taxes are high. But not as high as Sweden and Denmark. News today from The Local, Sweden's English-language newspaper, tells that Swede's have finally dropped out of first place in the "Highest Taxes in the World" list. Sweden seems to be proud that their tax burden averages only 47.8 percent! Think of that ... half your paycheck going to be mostly squandered by the government. It boggles the mind.

Oh, here's the story.

Is there any hope for more nuclear power in the US?

Is there any hope for more nuclear power in the US? Probably not, as long as the news outlets are so biased against it.

Exhibit A:
Headline on CNNMoney website: "Nuclear Plant Shutdown Causes Massive Florida Power Outages"
Excerpt from the actual story: "A problem with the electrical grid in Florida caused power outages stretching from Miami up almost to Jacksonville that affected as many as 3 million people Tuesday and caused a nuclear plant to automatically shut down ..."
Truth: A problem outside the nuclear generating facility caused instability in the electric grid, so the power plant shut down (safely) as a precaution. The headline doesn't just give the impression that the plant was at fault, it blatantly says so.

The fact is that most Americans have an irrational fear of nuclear power. The amount of radiation release in the Three Mile Island incident was less than is released in the average chest X-ray. And Chernobyl ... well, that reactor was not built to any reasonable safety standard. The reactor building was not even encased in concrete. FAR more radiation occurred in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania from the Chernobyl incident than from the one at Three Mile Island.

And here's something I didn't know: One big concern with nuclear power is the waste. Fortunately, most of the waste can be recycled and used for medical and other beneficial uses. France, which generates a huge percentage of it's power with nuclear plants, stores all of it's waste in a small room. We can't do that in the USA thanks to Jimmy Carter. He was concerned that terrorists and other countries might use waste to make bombs, so he outlawed ALL recycling of nuclear waste. Didn't make any difference. The bad guys have found many cheaper sources of what they want.

Until laws and attitudes change, we have little hope for the inexpensive, clean and safe power that the nuclear option offers.

There's an EXCELLENT article in this month's Imprimis magazine on the future of nuclear power in the USA. Well worth the 5 minutes or so it takes to read it.