Genetic Evidence-Good Enough to Kill, not Good Enough to Confirm

With the extreme popularity of shows like CSI and the media hype surrounding the use of DNA evidence one would think that vast majority of the population has no problem with using DNA in courts of law, in most situations. You see it all the time on CSI, Grissom solving a murder using epithelial cells found at a crime scene which, through some twisted route, lead to the killer.

Well it seems that a large portion of the population actually do not accept genetic evidence to be good enough for anything, and suggest any genetic evidence confirming common ancestries of multiple species be taken out of the classroom, or that the teach should have to say "Well this is all just guess work here." This is just sillyness, when you know these same people if they sat on a rape jury would convict based on DNA evidence. These same people would even convict in a murder case based on DNA evidence and then possibley be sending that man being tried to his death with that conviction. These people who are saying that this science should be called "guesswork" in schools are accepting it as good enough to put people away. What a double standard.

Now for any of you IDists or Creationists reading this I suggest you stand by your word, that genetic evidence doesn't mean anything, and all of you write letters to your Governor's and to the president (who seems to agree with you) and tell them to pardon everyone who has been convicted based on DNA evidence. I mean come on this DNA evidence has to be even less reliable than DNA evidence used at universities and research centers that show common ancestry in multiple species, since those DNA tests done in forsenics are done quickly, and are biased since they start with the the idea that the person they are getting the sample from is a suspect. Of course the DNA and genome research done at universities and research centers is done over a long period of time, all the results being tripple checked by teams of Ph.Ds and Ph.D cantidates. Those lab techs in forsenic labs don't have anything on these people doing evolution research, so they must really be guessing if the guys doing evolution research are guessing. I am willing to bet a few of the really nutty creationists out there will say "yes I have already done that!" Well good for those really nutty ones at not holding a double standard, to the rest of you just decide, is genetic evidence meaningful and meaningless.

Republican Pedophilia---

How pathetic, Rep. Foley can only say, "Well I'm a drunk gay who was molested by a clergyman" over his relations with pages. Seriously folks homosexuals who were molested don't suddenly turn into pedophiles when they drink do they? NO. Also you have a serious problem even using this excuse because if you know you turn into "Pedo-man" when you drink then don't drink. What I find even more pathetic is the republican response to his actions, basically nothing. The republicans could have easily saved face in the begining by saying "How dare him, we will make sure he is prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law." We all know that won't happen, he will go through Alcohol Rehab, go to AA meetings and probably get a suspended sentence if he even is convicted. Of course I don't know all the details so it may be possible he can't be prosecuted, just as a man who engages in cybersex with a 12 year old girl can't be prosecuted in some juristictions because he didn't really touch her and who knows she could just be role playing that she is 12. Of course Foley KNEW these pages, he knew they were teenagers not of legal age and he had ready and easy access to them. I'm just curious what is the republican stance on pedophilia now? I mean they don't come out saying "what a terrible man" you don't see Bush making a huge public statement about it, or anyone else for that matter. Hell Foley doesn't even have the guts to talk to the public about it...no he just has his lawyer read statements for him. So other than being a disgusting pedophile he is a pussy! We all know he isn't really "gay", most sex offenders are outwardly heterosexual and even view themselves as heterosexuals because they don't "have sex" with men they just molest, rape, fondle and engage in cyberrape with young people. I could understand and would even stand up for Foley if he had sex with a 16 year old who lied and told Foley he was 18 who Foley did not know from the page class and later said "Rep Foley raped me," because this happens all the time. At that point him saying he was drunk and gay might have worked out as an ok excuse, because people make that mistake all the time. The problem, in my mind, is that he knew already that these pages had not reached the age of consent.

Now because the republican party did not act fast enough and did not act strong enough they are making Pedophilia their policy. Which is good, for the democrats, who can hopefully regain some power in the government in the comeing election. I seriously hope this wakes America up as to how corrupt the Right has been.

Evolution as a Religion?

How can evolution be seen as a religion? I can't understand this. Fundamentalist Evangelicals have, instead of calling The Theory of Evolution by any of its 2 correct names, taken to calling it Darwinism. For starters completely Darwinian Evolution is not even what is taught or accepted by science. Darwinian Evolution is incomplete, and flawed, just as Newtonian Physics (AKA Classical Dynamics) was incomplete and flawed. Darwin didn't understand genetics as fully as we do know, he didn't have a way to test relatedness of species, and didn't even know what DNA was. We do have the means and understanding now to more fully understand evolution. After Darwin posed the idea of evolution one of two things could have happened. The idea would have been disproven, rejected, and thrown in the garbage heap with other disproven theories, or it would have been studied further and later confirmed as our understanding grew. Guess which one happened! Thats right it was studied further and confirmed, and no evidence disproves evolution currently.

Now with a religion, we have Bob, the founder of Bobism, who writes a religious text or has others compile religious texts of other religions adding his own flare to those. After doing so his text isn't tested, it is either accepted by people or it isn't based on faith alone. Many people will say of some religions that prophecies being fullfilled show their religion to be correct, but as is the case in portions of the Bible many prophecies have been back written, or were not fully fullfilled in the manner it stated they would be. Then of course believers forget when using prophecy or this or that to show their belief is right that even according to their belief they are supposed to believe based on faith alone.

Now if Evolution was indeed faith based as religions are, why does it rely on evidence? Why is it that people who accept the theory look for evidence that disproves it? Do Muslims look for evidence that disproves Allah? Not really. Could anything disprove Evolution? Of course something could have been found that would have disproved evolution, but it never was found. Could anything disprove Jehovah, Allah, Shiva, of Zeus? Not really, because the belief in their existance is based on faith and dogma, not testable scientific evidence.

School Vouchers: Blessing or Curse---

The public education system in the United States is full of problems. After watching an episode of 20/20 I started to think. Of course had school vouchers been available to myself I may have attended a private school, although the public school I had access to was above average in terms of test scoes, GPA, suspension/expulsion rates, attendance and graduation rate, a better private institution with a wider assortment of courses would have been very appealing to me. At the same time had school vouchers been available where and when I went to school a very good friend of mine would have ended up at a Fundamentalist Christian Private school, and many others I went to school with, including the top 4 students to graduate in my class would have ended up at similar schools. It seems odd that any republicans would support school vouchers, since such programs would tend to help the lower-class. Many republicans care nothing for the lower-class, they don't donate to their campaigns after all. They typically care very little for the youth of America, but then again that applies to all politicians. It becomes clear after a little thought why some republicans would support school vouchers. Vouchers would allow for any student to learn, or more correctly be indoctrinated, according to the belief system of such politicians. Any private school could get the vouchers, including schools that refuse to teach science and schools that teach hatred of any kind. Fundamentalist Christians and Neo-Wahabist Muslims both believe a system where students either learn from parents or in a non-regulated environment where they could be taught anything! Imagine if you will, the Eric Robert Rudolph institute...students learn about Christianity and how to build bombs to blow up clinics. Or the Kent Hovind School of Evangelical Creation Science, where students are taught science is just a bunch of stuff people made up to disprove God, except for the science that we like, and even those we aren't sure about. Or maybe the Warren Jeffs Tabernacle School, where they make sure your 15 year old daughter can pleasure her 45 year old husband and obey him. If you think Islamic Terror Schools in the middle east cause problems here imagine what such Christian schools could do here with government funding. Imagine the "mega"-churches making mega schools, all the children of members of the congregation attending, now being brain-washed 6 days of the week to believe everything their preacher says. Then imagine all those vouchers, being converted into cash by the mega-church, you are talking a big chunk of change at this point. Combine that with collection, tithes, and not having to pay a cent of tax....if such a mega-church made a mega-school under a school voucher situation the church could easily become a force to be reckoned with, not to mention the church already having an army of its own.

A civil war is the end result of such a situation. A church taking over a state...taking over a region...finally pushing to take over a nation. Sectarian violence is something in America's near future, and it will, in the end, be funded and supported by the government as it slowly is overrun with more supporters for one sect or another.

The Religious Right and Neo-Wahabist Islamic-Facists

These two groups have become the new facist powers to worry about. Instead of facists like Franco, Hitler, and Musselini who all shared enough common views as to allow them to agree with each other and not focus their hatred against each other we have two groups, with power, numbers, and money who have openly declared war on each other.

Both of these groups are leading to the destruction of their parent groups through the war they have declared on one another. The Religious Right is destroying the reputation of American Christiams, portraying them as ignorant crusaders while the Neo-Wahabist Islamic-Facists are destroying the reputation of Muslims, portraying them to be Jihadists. The schisms forming among American Christiaans and Muslims grow each time one of those groups does as the other claims they will do. Since many American Christians and Muslims are smart enough to understand that the stereotypes are just that, stererotypes, but those on the fence belonging to the parent groups are more easily persuaded to join the facist elements of their larger parent group when the opposing facist side carries out another act that portrays the stereotype. For instance, before September 11 the religious right was going on doing there thing preaching hatred of non-Christians and claiming that other religions were inherently "evil" and after September 11 those American Christians who may have had the slightest bit of agreement with the religious right on their view of other religions and who weren't mentally equipped to reason their way through the propaganda of the Religious Right joined them. Then when the Religious Righ pushed for the Iraq war and lied to the American public to get us all on board for the war you see some of those Muslims who were on the fence in regards to how they felt about American Christians now see them as invaders and crusaders just as the Neo-Wahabists would have them believe.

Facism is alive and kicking and if these groups are not stopped this will lead to the next world war. The "War on Terror" will be construed as a "War on Islam" by the Neo-Wahabists and the resistance to the "War on Terror" will be construed as a Jihadism by the Religious Right and they will preach their typical "If you aren't with us you are against us!" when speaking of nations or groups that don't support their methods in the "War on Terror." We must hope that one of these groups falls out of power and falls out of favor with the population that supports them.

The Religious Wrong---Part II Creationism and Intelligent Design

Those in the Religious Right who deny evolution and support either creationism or ID only show their ignorance to science. Many of those who attack the Theory of Evolution have no education on the subject. For instance Ann Coulter makes odd claims that evolution is part of a godless "religion" and claims it is an already falsified and discredited theory, while she has no credentials in biology! I mean she has a J.D., she has no degrees in any of the sciences. Of course she has the right to make a statement about evolution, she also has a right to blantantly lie. I truly don't understand how people like Ann can believe that teaching valid science in science classrooms can topple their religious beliefs. Do they have that little faith? The Catholic Church has no problem with Evolution, the Big Bang, or any other scientific theories as far as I know. Although I may not subscribe to the beliefs of the Catholics I truly love the statement made by the late Pope John Paul II, "Truth cannot contradict truth."

I have communicated with members of the Kansas State Board of Education on the topic of their vote to redefine science in the classroom as to allow Intelligent Design in science classrooms. One who disagreed with the majority vote to allow ID in science classes responded to me, along with one member who did vote for ID to be allowed. The member who believed ID should be taught was extremely defensive and felt insulted after I pointed out that she was ignorant of much of the information supporting evolution, and suggested she was ignorant of anything regarding the topic. Her only response was "everyone has a right to an opinion", but she was unwilling to accept that evolution was more than an "opinion." This just reinforced how ignorant she was of the topic and showed that the people making this decision had no information on the subject, but still voted solely on the basis of their religious belief.

Creationists and IDists both refuse to actually try to support their points of with evidence. They do try to discredit evolution, using a variety of tired arguments. These arguments include such things as claims that the Second Law of Thermodynamics precludes evolution, or mathematically probabilities preclude. The Second Law argument is pure non-sense because the Laws of Thermodynamics can only be applied to isolated systems, and the mathematical probability argument is based on flawed statistical analysis and makes little sense considering evolution is an observed process, so no matter the probability it still does occur. No claims made by creationists or IDists to discredit Evolution disprove it, even if the claims did make sense in most cases the claims would still fail to disprove Evolution. The Theory of Evolution and its various components have been tested again and again, and within 150 years it has not been disproved.

Creationists also tend to ignore specific pieces of evidence, like shared endogenous retroviruses, which confirm a common ancestry for many species. An endogenous retrovirus, or ERV, is a "genetic scar" caused by a retrovirual infection which is passed on from one generation to the next. These "scars" are never the same in any two organisms infected with a retrovirus, yet after mapping the genome of humans, chimpanzees, and bonobos it has been found that all three species share the exact same "genetic scars." The simplest explanation for this is that some ancestor of all three species was infected by a retrovirus which altered its DNA and this alteration or "genetic scar" was then passed on. Creationists will say "oh well the creator just made it that way" and an IDist's response to would vary from "well the designer just made things that way" to "well the designer designed that ancestor to change and branch off into those species." Alright...and these statements are scientific how? So you can actually test whether or not a creator or designer exists and you can test to see if a creator or designer was involved in anything? The answer is of course no. No one can test a faith based idea, but you can test Evolution, you can test the Big Bang Theory, you can also test many other theories that IDists and Creationists of the Religious Right claim are not science, and they hold after being tested.

The Religious Wrong--Part I Gay Marriage

The religious right again tries to impose their religious views on others by sponsoring the amendment to ban homosexual unions. Do they not realize that such an amendment would violate the first amendment. Forceful imposition of a religious ideology does constitute legislation concerning the establishment of a religion. If religion is not the reason why the religious right supports such anti-homosexual legislation then why can't they come up with a single unified reason why they want to ban it? They all have different, usually nonsensical, reasons. For instance some would claim that homosexual unions would some how degrade marriage as an institution. The basis for this argument seems to be the stereotype that homosexuals are promiscuous and incapable of commitment. This is really funny because most divorces in the USA involve straight Christian couples. The religious right would also encourage all impregnated women to marry the man that impregnated them, which they don't seem to see in most cases this leads to a divorce. The whole time the religious right would push for these events to occur they will not allow for people who are committed and not being forced into marriage or pushed into it to marry. I mean it isn't like churches would be required to perform ceremonies, I'm sure most wouldn't even care if a different legal name was given to homosexual unions as long as all the same rights and benefits were applied to homosexual unions and heterosexual marriages.

It seems more likely that the true reason the religious right wants to ban homosexual marriage is merely because they feel such unions are sinful. The only other options are that members of the religious right are so deeply disgusted by homosexuals that they are unwilling to extend the same rights to them as they extend to heterosexual couples or that they aren't comfortable enough with their own sexuality to be able to view the situation objectively. So if the last two reasons aren't the reasons that the religious right wants to ban gay marriage it must mean that it goes back to them wanting to impose their religious views on others through law. The hardest core evangelists at least admit to this being the reason that they would support a gay marriage ban, while politicians need to lie to come up with a reason to ban homosexual unions.

Lou Dobbs, Montel Williams and a draft

After recently seeing Lou Dobbs on Montel speaking about a draft, or National Service as he referred to it, I realized he is nuts. If we changed out military to a non-volunteer service the quality of our armed forces would drop drastically. Truthfully the United States does need a larger military, but we also need a better military. We have one of the best in the world, but we don't give our troops the best we have to offer. During World War II all nations involved in the war tried to get their best and newest technology to the front as fast as possible, while now we hold back. We have no F-22s in active service, no Comanche helicopters in active service, no urban combat units using metamorphic camouflage or our new urban combat uniforms. We are engaging in urban warfare constantly in Iraq, yet we don't deploy the new equipment we have to use in such situations. People talk about sending more people into the military while we don't even have enough of the very best equipment we have for them. We should be giving contracts for production of the new urban warfare equipment and aerospace companies for the production of more of our most advanced fighters and helicopters and tax incentives to companies willing to take those contracts. We also should be paying soldiers much much more. Enlisted personnel in combat should be making at least $90,000 per year and outside of combat they should be making around $50,000 a year. With a $40,000 per soldier per year increase in spending maybe the government would at least consider keeping a war as short as possible. This would also act as a great incentive for people to join up during wartime. Join up, do your year tour in combat, go back to the states, go to school on the GI bill, stay another few years and retire with a Bachelor's Degree, a big savings, and enough for a nice down payment on a home. The government could also do many other things to entice people to join up, clearing criminal records, pressuring credit reporting bureaus to repair credit of enlistees, and many other possible scenarios.

A draft is a terrible idea, and a draft or activation of selective service should only be used if the United States is actually invaded. An increase in pay for soldiers and expedited production and use of new military technologies would give us all we need currently militarily without forcing anyone into military service.