Read 1

So far, my fellow Americans, we still live in a free country. Freedom to govern ourselves is a gift from the founders who built a government-by-the-people . . and figured out a way for that to succeed where many others had failed. 

"America's founding was brilliant, a work of unsurpassed political wisdom. Where do we think that brilliance came from? Clean air and lots of trees? Rugged independence? The “American spirit”? No. The Founders were students. They knew their Bible, for starters, and that includes men like Jefferson who didn’t believe all of it. They knew their Hobbes and their Rousseau, their Locke and their Burke. They knew the Magna Carta, their English common law, and their European history."

Instead of the freedom to live a life of foolish consumption, we treasure the freedom to make life decisions according to our conscience - to pursue goodness, truth, and beauty. Don't take it for granted. It could go away. 

Freedom requires effort. Determine to make yourself a part of the solution instead of the problem. Read to educate yourself in the God-given freedom we have. I'll try to help.

Changed mind 3b

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

Karlyn is abnormally open-minded in this day of divisive tribalism. When the online bullying she witnessed shook up her assumptions, she decided to pursue different political points of view on youtube in order to educate herself. 

Her perception was that people in the opposite political party were evil people who wanted to control her life. But she discovered that they were pretty normal, intelligent, well-intentioned. 

In New Hampshire she had experienced all sorts of political rallies, so the opportunity came to attend one for the other political party. That was intimidating. A woman advised her to bring pepper spray since she would be in danger from the evil people, the lowest of the low.

Surprisingly, they turned out to be nice, average people. She let it slip that she belonged to the other party, and they said, "Good for you! Welcome!"

Karlyn's conclusion: "I refuse to be a part of the divisiveness any longer. I refuse to hate people I don’t know simply because they choose to vote for someone else. If we’re going to heal the country, we have to start taking steps toward one another rather than away."
from Medium

Changed mind 3a

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

Organizational psychologist Karlyn Borysenko specializes in workplace bullying, but she never expected to see it on her knitting website. It was one of a chain of circumstances that changed her life. She eventually published a warning to her own political party.

Her experiences led to a paradigm shift.

(cont'd tomorrow)

Afraid to speak

What might constitute a thought crime in the U.S.? How about hatred of elected officials? No, that's obviously okay, as a five-minute glance at some of our national news will tell you. Opposition and hatred is very emotional, very loud, and in-your-face public. 

It's not a crime to hate a politician. But to express an opinion counter to political correctness could get you in very big trouble. You could lose your job if you disagree with the political left, not to mention bullying and shaming.

According to a new poll, 62% of Americans say they are afraid to speak about their political views.  They have good reason to be afraid. Half of those on the left think a business executive who donates to the current president's campaign should be fired from his/her job.

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An online community of people who knit would probably be safe, though, right? No. Organizational psychologist and author Dr. Karlyn Borysenko saw horrible bullying there. 

(cont'd tomorrow)

Changed mind 2

Dave Rubin is not "cookie-cutter" anything. You could say he doesn't fit in the conventional boxes, and he definitely thinks for himself.

Like Elizabeth Nickson (last Thursday-Friday posts), he has left the left.



"I'm a married gay man so you might think that I appreciate the government forcing a Christian baker or photographer or florist to act against their religion in order to cater/photograph/decorate my wedding. But you'd be wrong. A government that can force Christians to violate their conscience can force me to violate mine."

Changed mind 1b

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

Researching family history, she found "that they were Christian. And I mean very, very Christian. This was unnerving since on the intellectual left, faith in God, and particularly Christ, signifies a weak mind."

But they far from weak-minded. They built towns, churches, and infrastructures from the time they arrived in 1630; two held important positions in the revolutionary army; one was a member of the Continental Congress; they participated in the Great Awakenings; they were officers on the Underground Railroad for decades; they advocated for Indians. 

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"The entire clan’s Christianity was hard-wired and their charity never-ending." No evidence existed that the great-great-grandmother was oppressed. She lived as she wanted.

Elizabeth came to some conclusions after this family research and some other factors. The contemporary leftist story tellers she knew "had utterly corrupted our idea of our country and culture, religion and past." They teach that the whole West system is built on exploitation and oppression and must be replaced by command and control socialism.

She has left the left.

Changed mind 1a

She grew up in the wealthiest suburb of Montreal, Canada, but came to hate the snobbery aimed at her middle-class mom. By the time she got to university, Elizabeth Nickson was marching at any and all protests. Her philosophy prof-boyfriend recruited her for communism.

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In London, her circle of political/international friendships grew while she worked for Time magazine. She describes herself as "a happy swimmer in the cultural left," where everyone was waiting for socialism to save the world. She wrote a book and became the European Bureau Chief for Life magazine.

She discovered while visiting family that her great-great-grandmother had been a feminist back in 1850! What an inspiration! So she must write a novel, possibly centered around the oppression that woman must have endured from family and the barbaric society of that unenlightened time. She and her editor happily "dug for dirt" as they researched three centuries of family history.

from C2C Journal

(cont'd tomorrow)

AI restricted

Artificial intelligence (AI) is improving medical diagnosis, informing farmers where to fertilize, interpreting IoT sensors, driving cars, and permeating almost everything. Ethics questions are on people's minds because maybe some things should not be done, even if they can be done.

Facial recognition technology is like that. The government of China is heavily invested in facial recognition for the purpose of surveilling and judging all its citizens. Each person is given a score. Its 600 million cameras enable totalitarian control at a whole new level.

But we in the West consider that application of AI to be oppressive, a violation of our ethical standards. Facial recognition is used in the West for other purposes, like helping law enforcement identify criminals. But lots of mistakes are made, especially racially-related.

IBM has taken a stand. They sent a letter to U.S. Congressional leaders saying:

"IBM no longer offers general purpose IBM facial recognition or analysis software. IBM firmly opposes . . [it] for mass surveillance, racial profiling, violations of basic human rights and freedoms . . ." 

School choice 2

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

Public schools are funded by your tax dollars. Where school choice exists, a mom and dad can tell the government to forward their child's portion of those dollars to the school that they choose. It doesn't have to be a government school, but it could be.

Cecilia Iglesias was correct - parents have a right to choose the best school for their child. The government ought to support that choice. 

School choice

One determined mother was brave enough to bring her three children to the U.S. to get a better education for them.

Her daughter, Cecilia Iglesias, caught her mom's passion for good schools. When she had her own family, she was elected to her local school board. She describes herself as a "mom with a mission," a mission to give parents options for their kids' education. She thought that was just common sense.

She had no idea what was coming.

Pilots' dilemma

Just two years ago, airlines were facing a very serious shortage of pilots. They expected the shortage to get much worse because demand for air travel was supposed to double in twenty years.

Nobody predicted what actually happened. The volume of airline business dropped 96% just three months ago and they're not close to recovered yet. The big airlines expect to offer about one-third fewer flights next year.

That pilot shortage is gone. Airlines are offering early-retirement plans to pilots between the ages of 60 and 65 (mandated retirement age). If enough of them take it, the airlines will only have to lay off . . ten to fifteen thousand pilots.

Biggest concern of the pilots? If their employer airline goes under, the early-out deals will probably never be paid.

Change of mind

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

Universities originated in the European Middle Ages (roughly 900 to 1400 A.D.) when Christianity was the primary cultural influence. 

"Natural History" was a common course of study, scholars and students working to understand the natural world and its ordered principles. Being made in the Creator's image, they thought it reasonable that we humans could use our gift of rationality to understand the rest of creation.

Now, however, universities in general take an increasingly hostile position toward Christian views, going beyond nature & science to morality. Many university graduates assume Christian values are inferior and foreign to their own. 

Tom Holland (yesterday's post) assumed that . . until, as a historian, he studied the ancient pre-Christian cultures he was attracted to. He found that his own deeply held values came from the Christian faith, and that they transformed that cruel ancient world.

He calls the writings of the New Testament (Bible) revolutionary, a depth charge into the ancient world. His latest book tells the story, not from a Christian but rather from a secular viewpoint. Can't wait to read it.

Not sacrifcial

Re-post from 2018

From childhood, Tom Holland loved the exciting gods and warriors of ancient Greece and Rome. They were more fun than the Christian God of the church he grew up in. Later the books he read, like Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, confirmed for him that the values and people he admired came from the ancient classics.

Tom became a historian, looking deeply into the accounts and writings of his heroes like Julius Caesar and Leonidas. But he learned enough to discover that their values were not his values. Leonidas supported "murderous eugenics", and Caesar "killed a million Gauls and enslaved a million more."

Tom found that his own values were in sympathy with the God who came to earth to live a sacrificial life to save the people he loved. "In the ancient world, it was the role of gods [to inflict] punishment – not to suffer it themselves." Those gods would not inspire people like the Vanderpools to live sacrificially for others (yesterday's post).

He says that he was wrong about Christianity. "It took me a long time to realize my morals are not Greek or Roman, but thoroughly, and proudly, Christian." 

Ditto for most of the West.

(cont'd tomorrow)

Sacrificial

Re-post from 2018

David and Laurie Vanderpool live in Haiti; they expect to die there. David is a surgeon. They provide clean water, medical care, and food to the poor. They could have air conditioning, fine food, comfort and entertainment in America. But to give their lives to the Haitian poor, they had to give it up. They're Christian missionaries.

They are attacked sometimes by those who practice voodoo. It's a powerful force. "My wife has been held at gunpoint and pistol-whipped. And had a knife to her throat. I know to American ears that sounds sort of, that sounds horrible, you know?" Yes it does.

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Why would anyone live like this when they could have lived a comfortable life? Because they believe God wants them there, and because they think the good they do for the people of Haiti is worth it. 

They see beauty in a life of sacrifice. 

(cont'd tomorrow)

No cobalt

Three years ago I posted that Tesla was going to find a new source for the cobalt required in electric vehicle (EV) batteries. Most of the world's supply came from mines in the Congo, where children worked under dangerous conditions.

Now they've gone beyond re-sourcing the cobalt . . to eliminating cobalt altogether. And that is going to give Tesla another leg-up in the EV car business.

Big electric batteries put EV's out of the reach of many car buyers. They make EV's roughly 30% more expensive than internal combustion engine (ICE) cars to purchase (though they're cheaper to run). Cobalt made the price so high, but no longer.

Tesla's new cobalt-free lithium iron phosphate battery is already being used, with the Chinese government's approval, at the new factory in Shanghai. Purchase price of a new Tesla is going to go down. 

Traditional cars are going to lose some of their advantage. Let's see what happens.

from Forbes

5G smarter

"Objects become apps," is how AT&T's Chief Technical Officer describes the future with 5G (fifth generation). Your smartphone might disappear, replaced by a wristband or a pair of glasses.

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Much faster internet will mean many more services can move online. Virtual reality and autonomous driving technologies will be enabled.

From 2007 to 2019, AT&T's data transmission increased by 47000%. In the next five years they expect it to grow another 5x.

He thinks 5G may give us geofencing, the ability to wall off data in a home or a conference for more security. Home computing networks could be both secure and portable wherever you take them.

from Mind Matters News

Climate fear 6

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

Not much has been said in media about those two methods (yesterday's post) that could mitigate global warming, sun screens and solar power generators in space. But if Chinese scientists do put the latter into effect soon, media will have to report it and we'll hear about it.

More methods are mentioned in Weathering Climate Change which might help prolong our climate stability.

Aerosols could be injected into the stratosphere to reduce global warming by 1.5 degrees C. Harvard University has such an experiment in its future plans. It could be somewhat cheaper, thus more doable, but there might be unintended consequences.

Carbon dioxide (CO2) could be filtered from the atmosphere and stored underground. The technology exists but is expensive.

Various agricultural changes have been suggested such as reform of rice paddy management and red meat alternatives. Ross doesn't mention Allan Savory's work, but I think it should be considered. 

Climate fear 5

(contd from yesterdays post)

Dr. Ross thinks our beneficial, extreme climate stability is ending. In just the last 70 years, the heat effect from human agriculture and industry went beyond offsetting the cooling trend, all the way to a net heat increase.

Draconian demands of environmental activists are beyond what governments can deliver. But Ross says some things could be done to mitigate the danger for a few hundred or maybe thousands of years, if the technology and funding can be achieved.

Some sort of sun screen could shield us from part of the sun's radiation. Even with extremely thin material, the cost of placing it into space is estimated at many billions of dollars. A likely stability problem would have to be overcome as well.

A second proposal would place solar power generators in space. Photovoltaic cells would be made by 3-D printers in space and assembled robotically. Solar energy would be transmitted by microwaves and then converted to electricity on earth. Potentially, solar power generating systems in space could reduce or eliminate the need for fossil fuels. 

Sounds far fetched, but a Chinese team of scientists plans to send the first such systems into space between 2021 and 2025.

from Weathering Climate Change

(cont'd tomorrow)

Climate fear 4

(contd from yesterdays post)

Over the last 9500 years, earth's mean temperature average varied by only a couple of degrees, represented in the right half inch of this graph below. The previous 80,000 years were subject to wild swings of temperature. 

image

Extreme stability enabled human civilization to flourish. Agriculture took off after weather became predictable. Fewer people had to spend most of their lives finding food. A tiny percentage of our population today grows and prepares food for all of us. The rest spend their time building, writing, doing science, research, discovery, art, medicine, digital innovation - whatever they choose. 

We're sure lucky that our climate stabilized. Or . . the Creator fine-tuned our planet home for human flourishing and growth.

(from Weathering Climate Change)

(contd tomorrow)

Climate fear 3

Dr. Hugh Ross of Reasons to Believe published a new book, Weathering Climate Change, on the same topic as last Friday's post. He agrees with Michael Shellenberger on his primary points, that climate change is indeed happening and that environmental alarmists have whipped up counterproductive hysteria over it.

A little history will help. For over two million years ice ages have periodically taken over, spreading sheets of ice and snow on 2/3 of the planet's surface. They happen every ~100,000 years, triggered when earth's mean temperature rises 2-3C over average. Ice cap melt leads to more precipitation; more snow starts a runaway cold trend because it reflects the sun's heat.

A new ice age would have started a couple thousand years ago, but human activity produced a warming trend to offset the historically normal cooling trend.  It resulted in 9,500 years of extraordinary temperature stability . . which is going to end.

(cont'd tomorrow)

Climate fear 2

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

Shellenberger's book, Apocalypse Never: Why Environmental Alarmism Hurts Us All, is being praised by environmentalists who agree that climate rhetoric whips up inappropriate, non-factual fear.

Mr. Shellenberger wants to correct false claims of alarmists. Here are a few of his points:

• climate change is not making natural disasters worse
• carbon emissions are declining in most rich nations
• wood fuel is far worse for people and wildlife than fossil fuels

As a consistent activist, he's been on a mission over the past few years to save nuclear plants, which are emissions-free.

Much more information is available at the website of his organization, Environmental Progress.

Climate fear 1

Maybe you noticed that recently some celebrities are publishing books that seem to deny a cause they used to believe in. Today's post is about a climate environmentalist who did that. 

Michael Shellenberger does have Climate (global warming) credibility. Back in 2008 Time magazine named him a hero of the environment. 

But now he is apologizing for scaring people: On behalf of environmentalists everywhere, I would like to formally apologize for the climate scare we created over the last 30 years. Climate change is happening. It’s just not the end of the world. It’s not even our most serious environmental problem.

About half the people surveyed believe that climate change is going to lead to extinction of human beings, all because of fear tactics used by climate change activists according to Shellenberger.

He wrote an article summarizing his argument and published it in Forbes magazine. Forbes left it up for a day, Sunday, and then took it down. Why?

(cont'd tomorrow)

Repair 2

So . . ot my laptop ack after nineteen days, wic tey say is averae. But . . new tins wron. Keys dont all work, and more. So sorry for te disruption! Will ave to take it back to repair. 😟