Mindless Competition

There's nothing like competition where the opponent has no idea there's anything going on.

Stumbling blindly through blogdom, I found this page, which tells you how much your blog is worth, in what I think is a sly take on a business deal I don't claim to know a thing about.

Nevertheless, being a pointlessly competitive sort, I gave it a shot. $3,387.24. Sounds low compared to the $124K+ on the site that led me there. But then I put in someone else's. $2,258.16. I felt better. Really, they're both multiples of $1,129.08 - so I rated a 3 while he rated a 2, but even so... Boo-yah!

Yar! There be buried treasure about, mateys!

AOL is now engaged in hunting for buried treasure. Some things are just too good to make up.

Science, Faith, and the Classroom

This excerpt of an essay in the New York Times makes me nervous:

The chairman of the school board, Dr. Steve Abrams, a veterinarian, is not merely a strict creationist. He has openly stated that he believes that God created the universe 6,500 years ago, although he was quoted in The New York Times this month as saying that his personal faith “doesn’t have anything to do with science.”

“I can separate them,” he continued, adding, “My personal views of Scripture have no room in the science classroom.”

"A key concern should not be whether Dr. Abrams’s religious views have a place in the classroom, but rather how someone whose religious views require a denial of essentially all modern scientific knowledge can be chairman of a state school board."

The argument is that Science tells us the Earth must be very old. Dr. Abrams believes the Earth is only 6,500 years old. Therefore Dr. Abrams doesn't believe in science at all, as is seen in this quote:

It is a matter of overwhelming scientific evidence. To maintain a belief in a 6,000-year-old earth requires a denial of essentially all the results of modern physics, chemistry, astronomy, biology and geology. It is to imply that airplanes and automobiles work by divine magic, rather than by empirically testable laws.

My problem is that "all the results of modern physics, etc." only say how the Earth appeared to come about. They cannot say, nor can anything, whether the Earth could have been created, ex nihlo with laws in place that made it look very old. To say that combining a hydrocarbon with oxygen and heat today proves the Universe must be more than 6,500 years old is false. It does show that current scientific analysis works in a reliable way, but it is not absolute proof.

I lean towards the Old Earth / Science origin story. I still believe that God, as a super-natural being created it all. But I would not be surprised if God said one day "it really was just 6,500 years old. I made it that way." I believe God could do that, but as I look at the Universe, I use the assumption (because, no matter how many formulas, proofs, and tests are applied, I simply was not there) that it is really, really old.

What Dr. Abrams does is seperate science, as a way of investigating the visible world, which appears very, very old; from his faith that says "no matter how old it appears, it is only 6,500 years old." It is not a separation I care to make in this case, but neither do I find it impossible to think.

The Christian Response to Global Warming

Does not exist. All I can have is a Christian's response to global warming, and that's the most anyone else can have. I agree strongly with this article, in that I think (1) global warming - i.e. the significant warming of the earth due entirely to human activity is still a matter of debate, and far from certain; (2) burning organic compounds is a simple and cheap source of energy (ie, wood, coal, oil and their derivatives); (3) improving the quality of life for the poor requires energy (be it in wells, water purification, the manufacture of drugs to treat illness, transportation of goods, trade, etc); and (4) that increasing the cost of energy (through government mandates or bans) will decrease the effectiveness of a given dollar given to help the poor, more than the potential benefits they would see from it.

I don't really believe in global warming, in that I think the data on it is weak, the uses of the data are heavily political, and the politics is strong enough to overcome the weakness in the data. To say "but it's been really, reall hot" is bad because it's antecdotal, and says nothing about why it is hot, which is the crux of the matter. Just because it's hot does not mean that it is hot because of man-made global warming. That is a very important causal effect that needs to be shown.

Notes from the reunion

It was better than I feared it might be. I ended up at one table, so I only really got to catch up with a small handful of people. As it happened, many of them had been "stoners" in high school, who I knew to varying degrees from JROTC. I wondered for a bit why a clean, arrow-straight sort of person felt more comfortable with these people than mingling with others. I never drank, smoked, touched drugs or dated (much less slept with anyone).

It occured to me later in the night. Ideally, to be a Christian is in part to see the broken, fouled, fallen side of yourself, and know that you have no power to change it. Those who have "fallen" in the eyes of the world already know these things about themselves. As a result, I could sit in a group without pretense.

The saddest moment was hearing that one girl, now a single mother living in South Carolina, faced rejection from most of her small community because she's different. She feels cast out from the "good" Christians all around her. Shame on us.

The happiest moment came when I saw the e-mail address of a guy who seemed to have done more drugs than the others. It was a Scripture reference. Romans 10:13. The reference? Paul citing Joel "for, 'Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.'"

The lessons of the reuinon? Religious people condemn a girl in need while a (presumably) former drug user proclaims the salvation of the Lord. I definitely know which crowd I prefer.

Ten Years, Part 1

My ten-year high school reunion is today. Doesn't seem to be a fancy affair - it's at Bully's, just down the street from the school. But it provides an occasion to recall how my life has changed since then.

Summer 1996 - Graduated in June, I spend a summer doing nothing. I am accepted at UNR, and just need to register for classes. My major is Chemical Engineering, but I am thinking of being a doctor. I wait until the week before class starts to register. I need 15 credits to keep my scholarship. I get 4 of the 5 classes I am planning on, but the most important is full. I rework my whole schedule in order to fit that class in. I wind up with Music Appreciation on Wednesday nights from 7-10pm, as well as Economics 101 (for a Social Science requirement) on Saturdays from 9-12am. The upside is that Mon, Wed and Fri my first class is at 11. Thursday, it's at 10. Tuesday, it's 1pm. Begin the life of up until 3, sleep to 10. Began attending TGIF, a gathering of college students from my church. Myself, Matt and Alex - three seniors from the same school, now freshmen, stick together like glue.

Fall 1996 - only marginally involved in the college group, but slowly getting to know people. Organic Chemistry is a lot harder than high school AP Chemistry.

Winter 1996 - I meet a girl. She's in the college group, a couple years older than I. One night in December, she asks for a ride home from TGIF, since we live pretty close to each other. I begin playing roller hockey in February with people from TGIF from ~12-3am. I begin slowly - I only got my rollerblades for Christmas.

Spring 1997 - I end up taking Economics 102, because 101 was pretty interesting. Matt and I begin attending InterVarsity (IV), a Christian group on campus made up largely of people from our college group. The girl hangs out a little with Matt. He thinks she's interested, I'm jealous. A week later, it is cleared up that she's just being friendly.

Summer 1997 - I am approached by some people from IV asking if I'd like to lead a Bible Study on campus in the Fall. I agree to it. I hang out more and more regularly with the girl, usually riding to and from Bible Study together. I'm elated to have finally met a girl that I was comfortable around, could talk to, and who seemed to be interested in having me around. A group of us hikes up Mount Rose at sunset to see the full moon from the top. On the way back, she puts her head on my shoulder and falls asleep on the ride back down the mountain.

Fall 1997 - Still a Chemical Engineering major, though I have no desire to pursue it at all. Things seem to be going really well with the girl. I lead the Bible Study, she attends. I meet Kenny and Luke, and start to get involved with things.

Winter 1997 - After attending the December graduation with her, I go to tutor someone from one of my classes. She attends the graduation party for a guy in the group. At the party, someone says she and I are dating, she strongly disagrees. After a conversation with her mom, she talks with me that evening. "You're a great guy and one of my dearest friends, but that's it." She admits that she was probably stringing me along a bit because it made her feel good to be liked. She asks for forgiveness, and I give it. What exactly just happened doesn't settle in for a couple hours. Matt showed up, and we spent some time talking in my car. It's the only time I ever remember crying in front of another person since before high school, or since.

Spring 1998 - I get my only D in college, in Accounting 201. I really couldn't care much less. It's mostly just a blur. She and I talked here and there, but not much for a few months. I'm still teaching a Bible Study.

They Can't Do This To Me!

There's another set of Lord of the Rings DVDs coming out. The "Limited Edition." The theatrical and extended movies on a single disc, with new "making of" footage.

August 18

Next weekend, I want to go up to the Black Rock Desert again. Probably drive up Friday after work, and return home early Saturday morning - though I might choose to actually sleep in instead of trying to stay up all night... though then again, the pre-dawn sunrise was perhaps the best part. Anyone else interested?

For the Record

I love Nevada. The mountains, the lakes, the rivers, the weather, the people, and a great many other things about it. I even like that we have casinos, not that I am a gambler (if I found that the sum total of random coins I've dropped in a slot machine exceeded $10, I'd be very shocked) but because... it feels like home.

It hurts when I read what some people think of my state. From this account, you'd think that Nevada was devoid of life, except for the sex parade of the Las Vegas Strip, a shameful place, with nothing useful to say, deserving only to be shunned and ignored.

For me, Nevada is an Awful Awful at the Little Nugget, swimming in the Truckee river, Shakespeare at Sand Harbor, stargazing on the Black Rock Desert, snow-tubing at the Tahoe Meadows, climbing Mount Rose, sleeping in a hammock, walking the streets of Virginia city, screaming for University of Nevada athletics, sunsets over the Sierras, and cows blocking a dirt road I need to drive down.

Immigration

I'm highly in favorof it. The only argument made concerning a need to restrict immigration is that of security. If we had a system where as many people as want can come, provided they do not pose a threat of physical harm to American workers, I'd love to throw open the gates.

One reason is that population growth leads to economic growth. More people earning wages and buying more things is how the country works. People want to come here for a better life, and their coming here would make a better life for all of us.

This New York Times article gives a couple hard facts along these same lines.