Conflict of interest

Here's today story on CNN:

http://www.cnn.com/2012/09/30/politics/fea-scotus-red-mass/index.html?hpt=hp_c2

6 out of the 9 Supreme Court justices attended the annual Red Mass in Washington. The main focus of the speaker (the archbishop) was about using faith in decision making. There are quotes like: "The faith we hold in our hearts must motivate the decisions, the words and the commitment of our everyday existence" and "We are instruments in the hands of the Lord...". 

Well, I'm sorry... but which God's teachings are they referring to? Theirs? So by that rationale, if the muslim countries appointed justices that made decisions based on their God's teachings, will that justify certain actions? Like jihad? Or blasphemy laws?

We are talking about 66% of the highest ranked protectors of justice in our country. Isn't their job to simply interpret the law verbatim and not try to start making faith based decisions? I know what most people will say... "well, that's their day job; they are allowed to practice whatever faith they want outside of their jobs". Ok... fair point. Then do you guys also agree with the firing of an NFL referee when photos of him emerged supporting the Saints? His day job was being an unbiased referee and in his spare time, he was a Saints fan, right? What's wrong with that? Well... it's called a conflict of judgement and not being able to be unbiased; that's why he got fired. That's the exact same reasoning here.

Let me put it differently; if 6 of the 9 justices were caught at a KKK meeting, will we be so cool about it? Wouldn't that scare the crap out of you? Then no one will argue about that being their vocation which will not interfere with their day jobs, right? Then why is this any freakin' different? 

While other countries are advancing in science and engineering, here we are focused on an election where the 2 candidates are trying to convince the country that their faith is stronger than the other's. 

Fuckin' awesome!!

If you really think about it, we're all atheists about most gods...

... I just take it one god further.

Okay, I can't take credit for that wonderful line... that's from my man, Richard Dawkins. But take a minute to think about it... really think about it. There are about at least 2 dozen mainstream religions (no, scientology isn't one of them) and 1000s of variations amongst them (christianity itself has over 40,000 denominations, each one claiming that they have it right over the others). Most of these religions are mutually exclusive and in direct contrast from each other. Some are mono-theistic (like christianity and islam) and some are poly-theistic (like hinduism). Some are ancient and forgotten (like the greek gods, Thor and Zues), some are funny (like scientology), some are just plain stupid (like the new Jedi-church and it's worship of jedis... like star wars jedis).

So, no matter who you are or what you believe in, there's no one in the world that can possibly believe in all of these, right? So even the most devout catholic is very much atheistic (not agnostic... as in, "hmm, I wonder if the other gods are true", but extremely atheistic, as in "my god is the only true god and all of these other fools have it wrong") about all of the other gods except his/hers. So why is it so hard to understand true atheists (or anti-theists like me) who just simply take it one god further?

This point and the other more important point about no religion = no morals is very well covered in this new 9 minute video, which is actually just an abridged version of Dawkins' book, The God Delusion. But the points in here are worth sitting down and thinking about. I personally believe that if every person, believer or not, were to sit down and with an open mind watched this video, there's a very high chance that they would walk out with a different perspective of their religious beliefs. Open mind and honesty to themselves.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIErAz-ZO-I&feature=plcp

I hope a few people will at least see the video from this link and I would done my part towards cosmic karma :)

Creationism - funny story or dangerous seed in the minds of kids?

For those that don't know, I was raised Catholic and therefore bought into every bit of the creationism story right from my childhood. I was taught that by my parents and then my school and then my church. I was absolutely convinced that god personally took the time to create the entire universe and everything in it and he perfected it all in 6 days. I wasn't smart enough as a kid to question the gaping holes of this theory, even when I was, I should shamefully admit, a teenager and a young adult.

It wasn't until I really started thinking for myself without all of these external forces (parents, teachers or church) that I was able to see the bullshit behind all of this. That's the power of religion that's thrust upon kids; it's like a drug that you can't live without unless you go through complete withdrawal. It is about this point that I want to talk about in this post... the dangers of polluting a young mind with fictional stories cleverly disguised as religious dogmas. It is a powerful force that takes a very strong mind to break free from, yet extremely dangerous to an infatuated, gullible and naive mind of a kid.

Recently Bill Nye, popularly known as "The Science Guy" and a prominent proponent of atheism in our country, especially in our schools, published a short video on this very subject:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHbYJfwFgOU

Most moderate (read not-so-religious) parents may let a few of these fictional stories slip past their kids thinking no harm can come out of it, but it's important to realize that there's no such thing as a temporary lie; some kids may never grow up to be scientifically inquisitive because of some of the BS that they've been fed as as child. Please, be responsible parents... keep the creationist BS away from kids and teach them some real science.

I’m not an atheist anymore!!

To all of my loyal followers who are bewildered by that new revelation… fear not, I haven’t lost my mind and taken up religion or anything :). I’ve been thinking about this term “atheist” and decided I don’t want to call myself an atheist anymore. By definition, an atheist is a person who does not believe in God or any supernatural power. Well that’s true… I don’t. But here’s why I don’t like this “grouping”; I don’t want to fall into a category that’s defined in terms of religion, even if it’s the lack of belief in one.

 

Let’s say all of the Star Trek fans got together and decided that you are either a Trekkie or you are not and then in all forms of communication and formal office, you were asked to tick a box that said “Trekkie” or “Non-Trekkie”… well, you wouldn’t even want to answer that question since it sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it? That’s the same reason why I don’t want to categorize myself in any form of a religious way, even if I’m saying that I don’t believe in one. Not to mention that the word itself has a negative connotation; look up the word “atheist” in the dictionary and as it’s synonyms, you’ll find the following words: agnostic, infidel, skeptic. Really? Infidel and skeptics are akin to atheists? Isn’t that just the church’s way of sticking it up a bit deeper into our asses??

Instead, I started thinking about how I would want to describe myself if someone should genuinely ask me what kind of a person I am or what my beliefs are. I started focusing on what’s the basic difference between someone who’s stuck within the boundaries and rules set by their religion of choice (or no choice in most cases) and me and the answer is simple… I’m a self-thinker. That’s the basic difference. I think for myself whereas all religious people follow what someone else “makes up”. You might try and defend your religious freedom and culture as much as you want, but at the end of the day, you follow what someone else made up and told you to follow… period. There’s no way all of these people thought for themselves and came up with the same story… no. They listened to the first invisible man in the sky story that they heard and decided to go with it. Whereas people like me did that for a while and then when we were old enough to start questioning things for ourselves, asked very basic questions like “where’s the proof for this” or “where did all of this come from” or “if this is true, why is there so much bad in this world and this big powerful god is doing nothing about it”, etc. and the logical conclusion that all of us came to was simple… there is no god, there is no bible, there is no quran, nothing.

So there you go, from here on out, please categorize me under “Self-thinkers” and you can add yourself to whatever pre-packaged, pre-wrapped, pre-sold BS that you subscribe to every Sunday.

Religion is no different than sci-fi (only with more blood)

I’ve been thinking a lot about how so many, otherwise normal people, are so far deep into this religion story and I’ve come up with 2 main reasons:

1. Long and repeated brain-washing – if the only thing you’ve heard from birth till now is that there’s an invisible man in the sky, it takes a very strong mind to challenge it and change it; it’s the same reason why people love their mom’s cooking. It may be crappy, but if that’s all you knew as a kid growing up, you will love it no matter what!
2. The need to believe in something – not everyone is strong enough to admit that we are responsible for our own actions and that even in the darkest times, we need to find inner strength than depend on “higher power”.

 

While I understand the human need for such emotions, I just can’t imagine why people would knowingly and willingly drink from this religious cup of pure BS. I mean, no matter which religion you follow, the underlying principle is still the same; there’s an invisible man in the sky and he created you and gave you a few set of rules to follow and if you don’t follow them, he’ll punish you even though he loves you. My argument here is simply that blindly believing in things like that is not only stupid, it’s actually dangerous too.

 

To prove this, let’s consider this scenario. Let’s say we manage to take a copy of the entire Star Wars books and send them off into space. Let’s say they land on a remote planet in another galaxy. Let’s say in a 1000 years, a new species, with human-like intelligence happens to evolve on that planet (I know my scenario includes the idea of evolution which is turning some of your stomachs, but stay with me for a bit longer!!) and also miraculously speaks English. If they were to find this “manuscript” or “bible” and they adopted this as the ultimate truth, we’d have a race that worshiped Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader would be Satan. It’s not that hard to believe it… there are lots of parallels between the bible and Star Wars. They both have good over evil, they both have the evil tempting good (“come to the dark side my son” – Star Wars vs. Satan tempting Jesus over 40 days), they both have incest (Luke kissing his sister Leia vs. the basis of creationism… come on guys, if you believe in creationism, you surely do believe in incest, right? I mean, after God created Adam and Eve, how do you suppose the family went on to procreate further if not for incestual activities??), etc. Anyway, so this new race would completely believe and worship Luke since they found their “bible” and it tells them so.

Does that mean they are right?

 

Now where does that put religion as we know it in our world? In the same category as Star Wars and Harry Potter… a fiction of someone’s imagination. Why one book is taken so seriously and the others are given the status of “story books” is beyond me, since, to most truly intelligent people, they are both the same.

 

Grow up, don’t let stories rule your life.

The chimp that does calculus

Alright, that was a bit of a tongue-in-cheek, teaser headline to reel you in, but it wasn’t totally pointless. I wanted to make an analogy that will probably help you understand why it’s okay to not have all of the answers around the evolution of the universe and still not be religious. Most people that I know who are, by their own admission, "apathetic about religion, but still believe in god", do so mainly because they haven’t found the holy grail (pun intended :) ) of the evolution theory. While science has undeniable facts around the history of the universe and has very cohesive, albeit complex theories about how a universe can be formed and destroyed, it hasn’t tied every single loose end, like recreating the big bang (though, as we speak, the LHC (Large Hadron Collider) in Switzerland is trying to do just that) or dark matter, etc. And that gives these religious fanatics enough of an excuse to debunk the rest of the theories by saying that since we cannot conclusively prove or recreate this process, it must not be true.

That’s where our analogy comes in. Let’s say we have a chimp, which is the closest relative to man that we know of (clue #1 for evolution, but that’s a different topic). Let’s say this chimp is smart… smarter than his other chimp brothers. Let’s say he can do cool tricks and arrange colors and numbers and even do simple math. And then let’s say we try to teach this chimp calculus. Not just basic calculus, but the whole nine yards. We teach it every possible derivate, integral, limit, etc. Does anyone expect it to learn any of it? No… not possible. Not by the chimp as we know it today. The reason is that a chimp, even a smart one, is limited by it’s genetic makeup. It is incapable of understanding complex concepts like calculus.

But that does not mean that calculus is not real or cannot be understood by a higher intelligence (read man… well, some people at least!)

That’s the same reasoning I use for humans understanding and explaining all of cosmology and astronomy. Just because we cannot piece together every last piece of the puzzle doesn’t mean it’s not true. Maybe we are limited by our powers of understanding and we are incapable of conceiving of something as complicated as the creation of a universe! Maybe the secret lies in a new dimension that we are yet to discover or might never do since our 6 senses do not allow for this new dimension to be recognized or measured! Maybe we are the chimp trying to figure out the calculus of the universe and we are genetically incapable of doing so.

But it still does not mean that the theories of evolution that have been proved so far and the facts of the universe (and multiverse) are false or optional. The only thing limiting us from accepting these facts and using it to propel us forward is this dangerous, abysmal, controlling stories of religion and the consequences of not following "the rules". The sooner we recognize the dangers of believing in these types of backward ideologies, the better off we will be as a species.

Making decisions based on future inevitability

This topic applies to both politics and life in general. It may sound a bit confusing, but stay with me for a minute. Every day we come across people debating issues. Roe vs. Wade, gay rights, equality of pay for women, space exploration, etc. There never seems to be an end to these debates since each person is extremely convinced about their position. I’m not here to question the validity of each of these issues; I’m just trying to present a different approach to solving these issues.

Instead of arguing about what’s currently right and wrong or what currently makes sense and doesn’t, it’s very important to look forward into the future to see what the inevitable outcome of these issues will be. To understand this argument, let’s analyze the past for a second. Let’s take slavery or civil rights. There was a big debate (heck, an actual war!!) about whether slaves should be freed and later on whether blacks should have equal rights. Instead of arguing and fighting about it, if they had stopped and realized that this slavery system will not last forever and that eventually people will either rebel or there will be a majority who believe that they should be free, then they could have used that information to make their decision. It’s almost like having a crystal ball to see into the future and accept the eventuality of certain issues NOW instead of resisting it.

Take that principle and apply it to 2 big issues of today’s political diversity in this country: abortion rights and gay rights. Anyone with an ounce of common sense will tell you that these are the civil rights issues of the 21st century and that it’s only a matter of time before pro-choice and gay marriages become the norm and not the exception. The people who are opposing that today will be made fun of and ridiculed in a couple of decades. If they can see that now, maybe they can accept this eventuality sooner and save all of us a lot of time!

If you think about it, technology does that in almost every field. Most technological advances are made by looking into the future and coming up with ideas that are not currently feasible, but are inevitable and then working towards that. Putting a man on the moon is a classic example. Concept cars are the main drivers of future car technology. Sci fi movies have pretty much inspired most of the technology that we see today! It’s a practically proven technique; why can’t we apply that to make some of the moral decisions as well?

People who oppose the inevitable simply just have their heads in the sand. Unfortunately, there are enough of them.

Weighted voting in America

There is one big flaw in our current voting system… every vote is equal :)

Okay, I wasn’t just trying to get a rise from you; I really meant that as a problem. And no need to try and quote the constitution… I’m fully aware of what the 15th, 19th and 26th amendments say. But you take this good ideological principle and apply it to today’s population and what you get is a majority of the people who don’t understand or don’t care to learn the democratic process or the issues that face them. They have neither the time nor the inclination to better themselves by participating in the election process. The most important role a citizen can play for the country, apart from serving in the military, is voting. And not just blindly voting, but making an educated vote.

The concept of a weighted vote is simple; we “weigh” the knowledge of the voter based on certain basic criteria (which we’ll talk about later) and based on their response, their vote can be counted between a range of 0 to 1. So let’s say we make this simple and ask each voter 5 questions and each question carries a weight of 20%. Then the voter with 0 correct answers will contribute to 0 vote, the one with 5 correct answers will contribute to 1 vote and the person with 2 correct answers will contribute to 0.4 votes. The questions will not be based on the voter’s intelligence or party affiliation, but basic civic questions: Who is the governor of your state? How many seats does your state have in the House of Representatives? How many senators are there in Congress? Where does the candidate you’ve chosen stand on Roe vs. Wade? As you can see, these are the type of questions they expect immigrants wanting a US citizenship to know the answers to, so why shouldn’t we expect the voting public to know the same.

So why do all of this? Well, it bugs me that the vote of an informed, analytical voter carries the same weight as someone who read that Justin Beaver (yeah, I know that’s not how you spell it, but I like it this way :)) likes the outfit some candidate was wearing! A vote is the closest thing to politics that most of us get to and that needs to be taken more seriously. People spend countless hours watching American Idol and Jersey Shore, but don’t know the different between a caucus and a primary or a delegate and a lobbyist! Their vote should not count the same as someone who exercised their right to vote in the way it was meant to be done; by understanding the issues, evaluating them and coming up with an informed decision on their own.

This will probably never happen since the PC police will never let it happen. But I wish people thought of their vote as such an important RIGHT that they have and took it more seriously and conversations like this is the only way that can happen.

Next time, we’ll talk about how I think people who are physically able, but choose not to vote should be penalized! :)

Why Gandhi was the worst thing that could have happened to India

As Indians, we’ve all heard and grew up with the sentiment that Gandhi was a great man and that by standing up to the British empire with nothing more than powerful words, he was braver than the bravest knight in all of Britain, blah, blah!! Those who know me personally know that I, to put it mildly, am not a big fan of the guy. Which is to say that I hate the coward and place a big part of the blame for India’s delayed Independence and it’s slow start as a new nation squarely on him. And as for his famous weapon of non-violence, it’s caused more deaths than most people would care to admit. Want proof? I’ll give you 5:

1. Supporting the British war effort in WWI between 1914 – 1918: Gandhi agreed to support the British by recruiting thousands of Indian soldiers in order to solicit some sort of goodwill from Britain. But he failed to negotiate any terms with the British for this deal making this the dumbest exhibition of political skill by a man said to be a trained lawyer! Not to mention a pacifist signing up thousands of his countrymen to go die in a war that didn’t benefit them in any way.

2. The Gandhi-Irwin pact of 1931: for a simple man with no real political title, Gandhi made an autocratic decision to call off the mass agitation in 1931 by his close lieutenants and instead negotiated a “deal” with the then Viceroy of India, Lord Irwin. There was a chance we could have kicked out the British by 1931, but instead we listened to Gandhi and called off the troops and let him make this deal. In short, the British agreed to give some of our basic freedoms back (like conducting peaceful protests!) and releasing most of our political prisoners and in return, we would support the British at the Round Table conference. Well, guess who didn’t keep their end of the bargain! Again, for a lawyer, he sure made some sucky deals: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gandhi%E2%80%93Irwin_Pact

3. Supporting the British in WWII: At first, Gandhi refused to agree to sending Indian soldiers again to fight alongside the British, but it wasn’t for pacifist reasons… it was simply because the British had committed Indian troops to fight without the consent of the native leadership, which made Gandhi look bad. However, under pressure, he succumbed and eventually ended up sending 2.5 million soldiers of the INA (Indian National Army) to fight the Nazis when Germany had no intention of invading India. 2.5 million troops??? There weren’t nearly that many Brits in India at that time… how about using those troops to drive out these bastards instead?

4. India-Pakistan partition: yes… I place the blame squarely on Gandhi. If you’re the unofficial leader of this new country and your #2 is asking you to split the country into two against your will, it’s your job to get him to shut up. For someone who “bravely opposed the mighty Brits”, he caved like a bitch when it came to opposing Jinnah. Under his watch, 25 million people crossed borders from either side… more than 1 million of them never made it. Not so good on a non-violent pacifist’s resume, is it? Even if he gave into the political pressures of the time, there was surely a more efficient way to execute the exchange. If you couldn’t care enough to organize this properly, then why should you be called a great humanitarian?

5. Finally, why he really was murdered by a fellow Hindu: most people only remember his last words as he was being shot and call him a great man. Sure, that was very noble of him to pardon his shooter; personally, I would asked for his ass to be roasted over a grill for 48 hours! Anyway, the reason some of the Hindus turned against Gandhi was after the Indo-Pak war of 1947 when Pakistan invaded Kashmir, the Indian congress sought to freeze the 55 crore rupees in payment from the British-Indian treasury to the Pakistani government… seems like the logical thing to do, right? But Gandhi fought against it and went so far as staging a “fast until death” protest against the Indian government until they paid out the cash to Pakistan. They just attacked your country and you fast to get them money from your own treasury??? Brilliant!!

Now why am I so against the guy? Well, I hate it when people say “at least he did something when everyone else was just simply bowing down to the British”. Well, not exactly true. There were other true leaders, more pragmatic leaders, who sought the kick the British out of the country, but they never got the support of the masses because of people like Gandhi. So there is such a thing as bad leadership, especially when you shape the entire future of a country based on your stupid ideologies. And yes, non-violence as a foreign policy in any political environment or country is a stupid idea. Now, there’s a big difference between non-aggressive and non-violence; the former says “I won’t attack you unless” and the latter says “I won’t attack you no matter what”. Big freakin’ difference.

Not convinced yet? Well, let’s play a game. You play Gandhi and I’ll play the British. You sit there and fast while I rape your wife, steal your wealth and beat the crap out of you. And while I’m doing that, we’ll see if you continue to sit there and tell me “please sir, stop raping my wife; stop stealing from me; stop beating me… otherwise I won’t eat until you do!!”. Or, even if you’re out-numbered and out-powered, we’ll see if you try to at least kick me in the nuts once, even if you don’t manage to kill me.

Eugenics! Good idea or evil practice?

As promised in one of my earlier comments, let’s talk about eugenics. I’m sure all of you are going, “geez, Fred’s the next Hitler!! He supports eugenics”. Well, not really. First of all, this is one of those words that has been associated with such negativity that the word itself has taken on a very derogatory meaning. So when I say I support the general principles of eugenics, here’s the definition I have in mind:

“The study of or belief in the possibility of improving the qualities of the human species or a human population, especially by such means as discouraging reproduction by persons having genetic defects or presumed to have inheritable undesirable traits (negative eugenics) or encouraging reproduction by persons presumed to have inheritable desirable traits (positive eugenics).”

This is not a new theory or idea and is readily available in nature under the name “natural selection”. Everything in nature follows the general principle of natural selection. Humans as a species would not have come about if not for natural selection (I see all of the religious nut-jobs going “that’s preposterous! God created us exactly as we are today”. Sorry folks, not true; get back to reality here). So in it’s basic definition, eugenics is not a bad idea. It simply suggests that the good genes of a population will triumph and produce better genes and the bad genes will wither away leaving room for the good ones.

However, what’s wrong and dangerous is man trying to control that for his/her own agenda. This is where most of the abuse of this idea comes from. Most people immediately associate eugenics to the mass murders committed by Hitler and his Nazis. True… they were the biggest offenders of this. But they actually got their ideas for this from the American eugenics movement which lasted from 1907 all the way through 1960. It started off with the principle that some people (white, rich, healthy) were better suited to procreate than others (non-white, poor, sick, mentally unstable, burden to society). As this propaganda grew, the natural direction it took was “So, what do we do about it”. Some suggested restricting such people from procreating, but that wasn’t easy to implement. So that led to sterilizations, both forcibly and unknowingly (as in, call them in to do some “tests” and sterilize them without getting their permission to do so). This was supported by an overwhelming section of the population including politicians, government officials and of course, the church.

Anyway, coming back to the question of “should any form of eugenics be practiced”, I tend to say yes. Before you judge me, tell me if you think people on welfare should really have 6 kids just to claim more welfare benefits? Tell me if people like the Octomom should be allowed to do what she did to make money off the entertainment value? Tell me if people who are certified as mentally disabled (insane) should be allowed to mate and have offsprings that they cannot take care of and end up being the state’s (read yours and my) problem.

There are safe alternatives to permanent sterilization; there’s a drug developed in the 90’s called Norplant, which when implanted in a woman, prevents pregnancy for up to 5 years. If you’re on welfare… well, you can’t enjoy the “free money” you’re getting and use that to get knocked up and get more free money; you’ll have to agree to this “blackout period” if you will until you get your own life in order. Is that such a bad thing to advocate? That seems like the logical thing most of us would do, but for the ignorant few that don’t care or want to take advantage of these things, these kinds of mandatory rules is what it would take.

You’ll be surprised by how many bills there are currently pending with the congress that touch upon eugenics principles. In Florida, there’s a bill pending that would offer $400 for men living below the poverty line for undergoing a vasectomy. In Colorado, the bill would allow certain criminals early release or reduced sentence for the same. Sounds crazy? Well, desperate times…

A universe from nothing

Those who know me know I'm an atheist. More importantly, I am extremely anti-religion. Not to be confused with anti-spirituality, but strictly anti-"organizations who take themselves too seriously in the name of religion and brain wash people into believing that their god is better than yours". It's very hard to talk to these religious fanatics since, when all else fails, they throw words like "dogma" and "inner feeling"... things that cannot be verified by any means known to man. But when I sometimes do talk to them, one of the final defensive arguments is "well you can't explain how the universe began since you cannot create something out of nothing".

That's actually a valid argument and something that the scientific community has always had a hard time answering. My only argument to that point until now has been "well, just because we cannot prove the exact instant and method in which the universe was created billions of years ago doesn't mean the religious theories are correct. There are still several other FACTS that support the evolution theory much more clearly and without doubt that any creationism story can ever hope to do". I still stand by that argument since we've already proven (and I mean without doubt or prejudice) that the sun is close to 14 billion years old and almost at half it's life span, that the big bang did in fact occur, that there are actually several universes (multiverse), that millions of other galaxies exist and have existed over a very long period of time with a very good probability of having sustained life, etc. But that's not enough for the bible thumpers... they need proof (which, coming from a bunch that implicitly believed the first "invisible man in the sky" story that their parents and pastors fed them, is kinda funny!).

So I've always been fascinated by the work done by theoretical physicists and the field of cosmology since that's the field of science that explains a lot of what has happened and what we can expect to see over the next 14 billion years, should we somehow find a way to survive that long. One of the prominent members of this scientific community is Dr. Lawrence Krauss; he's a theoretical physicist who runs the Origins project at Arizona State University's Cosmology department. He delivered a very famous lecture, now titled "A universe from nothing"; it's about an hour long and does get quite technical, though he does a great job of dumbing it down for people like me. Now I'm no scientist or even pretend to understand a lot of what they say. But just because I don't understand it, doesn't mean it's not true. It's that blatant audacity of the religious community that pisses me off the most; that if they can't understand it, it can't be true. If they'd only stop and consider the fact that they are too stupid and closed minded to even comprehend what's being said, then a lot of this nonsense would stop.

In any case, for those searching for alternate explanations and a slice of the complicated truth, this is a must see: http://www.youtube.com/user/richarddawkinsdotnet#p/u/34/7ImvlS8PLIo
Hopefully this will at least open your eyes to the possibility of a vast collection of facts that is out there.

Happy viewing!
- Fred

I'm back!!

To my dear fans who have patiently waited for 3 years for me to get back to updating my blog, I say thank you :). If you notice, I started the blog in late 2008 when the presidential campainging was in full swing and now in early 2012, I had the itch to vent again. So I remembered my good old blog and decided to add more to it.
Hopefully I'll find enough time to keep updating the blog since I surely have enough to vent about. So stay tuned... this is going to be fun!
Cheers!
- Fred

Irony - the advances in the science of longevity of human life being the ultimate destruction of mankind!

I'm deviating a little bit today from my usual topic to talk about what I think is the greatest threat to the existence of mankind... the unchecked growth of the human population.

Let me reiterate my topic. There are several clever examples of irony, but this is what I believe is the best illustration of the word, partly because I came up with it. "The advances in the science of longevity of human life being the ultimate destruction of mankind". This realization dawned on me yesterday when I was watching the discovery channel and they were talking about the advances science was making in extending the average lifespan of humans. You know that it's really come a long way when there are doctors, no... specialists, called "longevity experts". They do nothing but help rich old men extend their lives as long as their bank account will support it. I'm not talking about keeping them plugged into a machine on their death bed... I'm talking about prescribing a 100 pills and supplements a day to what they call "reverse the signs of aging".

Why is longevity so important? Whatever happened to quality of life instead of quantity? Personally, I'd take 50 years of healthy, fullfilling life experiences over a 100 years of simply "existing". I truly believe that the single greatest threat to mankind is overpopulation. The result of this unchecked epidemic is self-destruction. In a world where resources are already growing scarce, the last thing we need is more people trying to share a shrinking piece of pie. There are these tree-huggers and Al Gore lovers who go on and on about how we should "save the Earth by conserving it's resources" and then produce 5 offsprings each. Have they thought about how much resources each of those 5 bastards are going to use up? In 2000, the world population was around 6 billion people; it's projected that by 2030, the population would go up to 9 billion. How much longer can we keep dividing these finite resources amoung us?

Which brings me to my real topic here; as alarming as the birth rate is at it's current rate, we're not doing any good by drastically reduing the death rate. There's a reason nature intended for people to die at a certain age... to maintain a balance in the sheer number of people. But once we start messing with that, we're opening Pandora's box. What if in the next 10 years, we increase the average human lifespan by 10 years. That's 'n' number of people we'd have to sustain for an extra 10 years than originally planned by nature. What if we make a huge breakthrough and extend the lifespan by 30 years. People who should have died at 70 are now all living to a ripe old 100? The fact that they are not going to be contributing members of society cannot be changed. So the burden falls on the working "younger" folks to pick up the slack. How long can we sustain that? Think of the simple case of health care; just because these folks live to be a 100 doesn't mean that they aren't going to need health care! And as seniors, they aren't going to be the ones picking up the tab; that'll fall on the government, which is really you and me. At a time when people can barely afford health insurance for themselves, we're going to ask them to foot the bill for all these other folks too?

Yes, I do know some really nice old people and I'm not talking about mandatory limits on people's ages. If you can live to be 90 as a reasonably healthy person without being a burden to others or to society, then fine... I have no problems with that. But if we're starting to extend life simply for the sake of "living on", then that's pointless and dangerous in the grand scheme of things. You may think this is crazy... that I'm just being a lunatic here. Hopefully I won't be around to see this, but in 50 years, when the world's at a staggering 12 billion people and everyone around you is living to be 100 years old and trying to share your space and resources, then this point will make more sense.

Stop trying to simply aim for longevity of life... aim for quality of life and when it's time to go, say your goodbyes and move on.

Question for our esteemed presidential candidates

As it stands right now, we're going to have a Senator in the White House as President of the United States since the last senator to hold that office, Richard Nixon, back in '74. Personally, I don't like that too much. Senators are basically paper-pushers; they've never had any real administrative office. I don't care if they are part of high profile committees and have very high security clearances. To me, having balanced a city's or a state's budget prepares you better to be the president (which governors and mayors do). Anyway, that's not what I want to talk about today.

I have a question that actually applies to either of the 3 Senators currently in the run for Presidency, Senators Obama, Clinton and McCain. Sadly, this question applies to all 3 of them. It revolves around one of the biggest problem the nation faces, illegal immigration, second only to our security (or lack there of) problems. The question is as follows:

“Hello Senators. My name is Fred and I’m from India. I came here to pursue higher education and I’ve been working in the IT sector for the past 8 years. I’m on a H1-B VISA and I’ve been in line for my green card for the past 6 years. I’ve paid more than $10,000 in legal fees for this procedure and I’m still waiting indefinitely to get my GC. I pay my taxes (almost 25% in Federal and State taxes), pay for Medicare and Social Security, something that I’m not eligible for under my current status, but still have to pay for, own a house in GA and pay property tax, own an American car and I also volunteer with pet shelters. I can speak/read/write English as well as, if not better than, some Americans that I know and I’ve never broken the law.

My question is: under my current VISA status, if I get fired tomorrow, I’m legally supposed to pack up my bags and leave the country and try from my home country for another job. But then I heard of your comprehensive immigration plan… it sounds wonderful. A chance for everyone to have a shot at the American dream. Since my illegal immigrant brothers can stay indefinitely in this country and get a working VISA which will eventually lead to a citizenship and have to pay much less in terms of a penalty for breaking the law, I was wondering if you could give me a list of federal crimes that I can commit after I lose my job that will guarantee me the same status as these “undocumented workers” from our southern border? I don’t want to leave this wonderful country if I lose my job as I legally should and after careful research, I’ve realized that the comprehensive immigration plan is the best way for me to cheat the system and get a citizenship. I can’t seem to do it if I follow the law, so please give me a list of federal crimes that I can commit in order to be eligible for this wonderful status. Thank you”.

For the sad few who couldn't smell the sarcasm reeking off that e-mail, let me assure you that I'm not looking to commit any crime here. The point was that, no matter how well you sugar coat it, no matter what excuses you give or what name you give for "amnesty", at the end of the day you're rewarding illegal behavior. Some might even say that you're "aiding and abetting"! These people are criminals for the simple reason that they broke at least 1 Federal crime by crossing the border without proper authorization. The politically correct police are not even allowing people like me to use the work "crime" and "illegal immigrants" in the same sentence. Well, when the father of a sick and hungry child steals a loaf of bread out of sheer desperation, but gets caught doing so, he's still branded as a "criminal" for doing so and is sent to jail for his "crime", right? Then why are we so afraid to admit that these people have in fact broken the law and thereby become "criminals"? Are we afraid, or maybe even guilty, because we hired one of these criminals to mow our lawn for half the cost of the other legit company? How long as we going to act that we're doing the humane thing by letting them stay? Would you feel the same way if your son or daughter was killed in a hit and run accident by an illegal immigrant behind the wheel?

Trying to stay true to the very essence of this blog, the common sense question then that we have to ask ourselves is, "why is it so hard for people to call these law-breakers as illegal immigrants?"

My first post - topics I'll be writing about

As my first post to my first blog, I wanted to set the expectations, if you will, for my readers on what they can expect to read about here. This is not a news blog; if you want current events, go to CNN. This is not an entertainment blog; if you want to know who got kicked out of American Idol last night, well, you're the sort of person I'll be writing about here.

No, this will be a blog to highlight the stupidity of people around us, some done intentionaly (read politicians), but most of whom are oblivious to it. By talking about these, I hope to get people to use that amazing thing inside all of us called "common sense" and rationally think about the issues. Of course, most issues worth talking about aren't black or white; there are always arguments supporting both sides. But those are not the issues I care about. I'm talking about the "what the fuck were they thinking by doing such a thing" kinda issues. For example, a government school takes sexual harrassment to such a degree as to punish a 7 year old boy by branding him as a "sex offender" for lifting the skirt of his classmate! That's the kind of dumb, irrational thinking that I'm trying to point out so that the rest of us can stay clear of it.

I am very interested in politics; where else can you get your daily dose of "I can't believe these numbnuts hold any sort of office or power" news? My being a foreigner gives me the unique ability to be completely unbiased when it comes to political affliations. I'm neither a Democrat, though I'm pro-choice nor a Republican, though I'm pro-2nd amendment. If I have to lable myself, I'm an Independent. I like that word since it has the least amount of government attached to it. A lot of my posts might revolve around government or some of the stupid laws and regulations that are being passed by our elected officials, but I also have other non-political pet peeves that you might hear about from time to time (like slow drivers... boy, how easily they piss me off!!).

Hope you enjoy reading my blog and I hope it'll make you stop for a second and think to yourself "hmm... maybe I should use my own common sense more instead of going along with the rest of the crowd".

Cheers!