Courtesy in Communication

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When you come to me to discuss something, it means you have already given it some thought. Please do me the favor and allow me time to rationally and prayerfully consider my own thoughts and feelings on the matter before I respond. If you rudely attempt to force a response, I will simply shut off my phone and ignore you, especially if I am tired or in a bad mood. Phones are a privilege, and instant gratification is the business of fast food companies, not mine.

If you were tired or irate, how would you like me to regard you?
If we have already agreed to discuss it in person, how do you think I will respond if you try to force the conversation earlier?

Cell phones are not a tether by which you can keep me in check, and if you insist on regarding them as such, I will assume you do not trust me. I am one of the best men I know, and if you cannot trust me, you do not deserve me as a friend, let alone anything else.

As of today, I will no longer respond to texts or voicemail or emails immediately, unless you are a blood relative or my wife/child, of which I currently have none. Please make a note for personal reference. If I choose to, I will respond, but that discretion lies as always with me.

Oh, and while we're on the subject, don't drop by uninvited. That's rude too, especially if I am in the middle of something and otherwise engaged. It is not that I don't care or am involved in something bad, it is that I am already involved in something that deserves my attention because it was there before you came. Furthermore, if you force it at work, you in effect rob my employer of my contribution and attention, for which he pays me great sums of money.

If this is an emergency, please hang up and dial 911...

Kill this Bill

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For the second time in American history, the socialists in Congress want to impose by fiat national healthcare on us. Both of the last two Democrat presidents have pushed this, irrespective of the fact that a majority of the citizenry opposes the measure. When it's convenient to their agenda they claim we should follow the will of the people. Otherwise, they tell us, as Senator Reid has told me, that the people don't know what's good for them. They are elitists.



It's only a matter of time. Yes, I made this image myself.

Call your senators. Get them to defeat this bill. It will result in the death of liberty, I promise.

Tiger Woods is Human

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I have a slightly different point of view on this subject than most people I know. The friends I have who have spoken thus far have been excessively critical in light of evidence and allegations of infidelity. I believe in fidelity and chastity, but I also know that man is mortal. Just because you have not yet done after the fashion the media alleges does not mean you never will. Ten years from now if they were to be accused of infidelity, what would they like said of them?

The media likes controversy. Just because something is said doesn't make it true, and just because something is true doesn't mean it ought to be said. Many people have been accused of things they did not do, and many other people have gotten away with things they've done. I am very sensitive to unfounded allegations and accusations. It seems we've forgotten the Duke LaCrosse case. I have not. We do not know all the facts in the case. We don't even know for sure if he had an affair. Sure, there are suspicious circumstances, but that doesn't mean that your worst fears are true.

Tiger Woods, like every person who reads this, is a human. Everyone is subject to and victim of the foibles of youth, which for some to a greater degree than others leads them into error. What matters most is not that you fall but what you do after you have fallen. Get up and finish the race, because life will get hard. There will be bumps and bruises, paths to choose, and times you might lose, but if you do your level best everything will work out for the best.

Finally, the best comment I heard on it comes from my best friend who said:

Whatever he may have done - if it isn't illegal - it's none of my business.

What makes the private lives of rich and powerful people either any of our business or any of our interest? The state troopers were only able to cite Tiger for reckless driving. The story should have died there. Instead, people who once liked him are shocked to discover that he's human and they distance themselves.

Do I like Tiger Woods? Not really. I don't really like golf. I played nine holes once at a reunion in IL, and I shot a 102. Do I like what he has done with himself? Yes. He led the way down a path that few take, and that, the poet Frost wrote, makes all the difference.

Be the first to forgive. Some day the accused might be you.

Mannheim Steamroller

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Since it's December, I switched my Disney mix tape out last night for my Mannheim Steamroller Christmas mix cassette in my car. Car2-D2 blew a speaker last week, so I can't play the songs as loud as I usually do, but I have enjoyed listening to these songs again as part of my Christmas festivity, which usually lasts into the first week of April.

They have some good instrumental pieces. The few songs that have voice are appropriate, but I love this music for the way it makes me feel. Merry Christmas.

Freedom FROM Religion

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Many people I know believe that Jefferson was an opponent of church and state. Since I have read much of what Jefferson wrote, I know that what he actually opposed was a church OF the state. This is why I keep my politics and my religion separate, which is one thing that makes me so different from anyone else I know. I have what I believe, but I do not believe that any power or position gives me the right to impose my views on others.

The Founders wrote about a Creator in the Declaration of Independence. While they opposed interferance by a church in politics, they were never against religious views being held by politicians and statesmen. Most of them were believers in something. Remember that the Catholic church held hegemonic sway over many of the states of Europe, and they had a huge problem with that.

The true problem with this issue is that opponents of religious expression disagree with the amendments. They oppose freedom of religion. They want freedom FROM religion. If you have no law, there is no punishment, and whatsoever a man is becomes no crime. That is however the opposite of civil society. Alexis DeTocqueville wrote that America is great because her people are good, and when Americans cease to be good their nation will cease to be great. In Democracy in America he wrote that our strength was in our houses of worship.

Over the weekend, I saw this article. What bothers me about this is that there is no reason to oppose this. Not like most of the fans can see the writing on his cheeks, and I honestly had to look up the reference to see what it actually said, I am ashamed to admit. Some people propose bans religious things but not the obscene. You have to know what that verse says in order to have it offend you. They don't care what it says, they know it's religious, and they take the truth to be hard.

For my own part, I claim the right to live as I please and allow all men the same right. Let them worship how, when, and what they may, even if they choose to worship nothing at all.

From the US Army Training Division

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A good friend of mine is an army trainer in a Reserve Airborne unit. He was deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan recently, and to Panama and other South American destinations previously, in order to train local troops to fight in our stead. Brian's biggest problem with the current administration is that they have unrealistic expectations of the people he has to train, and that the administration's opinion colors that of the populace at large.

The locals in these countries require a lot more effort than our own populace. Many of the people in the middle east are, for example, illiterate. How do they read orders, write reports, and communicate if they cannot read or write to begin with? There are many levels of military readiness, and even after they show a spiritual one, there is much left for our trainers and advisors to do.

Military trainers must build soldiers from the ground up. They educate them, get them physically fit, teach them leadership, customs and courtesies, and then and only then do they get to learn how to fight. Much of our arsenel is far beyond their technological savvy. Even though those countries have some of the amenities of the west, it is far more likely that our poor have access to TVs and Internet than it is for some of their middle class and rich. Explain the internet to a beduin.

Beyond the logistics of training an army that has perhaps no training at all beyond an agrarian level, there are cultural and local considerations as well. Many of these climes are foreign to our trainers, and many of the customs are not part of American military training. We don't usually interrupt our activities for religious or other cultural observance. Other nations, including Great Britain, do.

After all of that effort, the people who are trained take casualties. A great majority of the forces we train are green and inexperienced. When we went into Fallujah in Iraq, Iraqi forces took enormous casualties because they were not used to the guerilla tactics employed by insurgents.

Rebuilding a nation that far away geographically and culturally takes more time than anyone planned. People claim the Bush Administration didn't have an exit strategy or that the effort is wasted. I think it's more a problem of the fact that free people require a concerted education in order to constructively use their new freedom. Even when the USA was a fledgling nation, we had the same problem. That we survived the War of 1812 is little short of a standing miracle, and let's remember that the revolution itself lasted from 1776 to 1789, a span of 13 years. We're good at freedom, but we're not perfect.

Omitted, Deleted or Missing

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In my classes, I spend a significant amount of time on the scientific method. I hope the students leave my course with a comprehension of what separates good science from bad science. Today, I would like to share with you some of that as well as a powerful and current illustration of why this matters to me so much.

When I was in graduate school, I saw a lot of unethical behavior. In fact, I think it bothered my primary investigator when he saw me enrolled for the course Ethics in Scientific Research. For various reasons, some better than others, I saw data omitted, deleted, or missing from reports. Sometimes researchers do this to protect something so that they can study it before other people know about it. More often than not, it reveals weaknesses in their conclusions.

Scientific research is primarily concentrated at the academic level in universities and their affiliated laboratories and in government institutions. All of these are funded at public expense, mostly with taxes and sometimes by philanthropic endeavors backed by regular people who buy the goods and services that provided the capital. Most of the researchers in academia are students without much expertise who are learning how to be scientists. Most of the scientists whose names are on the door spend their time in their offices writing grants, doing paperwork, and reviewing journal articles. Mine was one of the few who got out on the lab bench. As such, research is agenda driven, ALWAYS. They either have to justify money spent on supplies or money spent on personnel, many of whom work with hopes to graduate based on the research they do. Either way you slice it, either in money or in manpower, you pay for bad science, sometimes with your life.

Very little research has real end-user application. I know some researchers who do it for their career, who do it for personal interest, and who do it for money. I know fewer than five who care about how you can use it when they are done. All of those people are researchers in industry/commerce, or, gasp Big Business.

Data is not very reliable. They leave it out, they make it up, they make it fit, or they do without. I made myself quite a nuisance at conferences when I asked about statistical relevance and about poor controls. The take home message is that I could not rely on their data or reproduce it, and as such it was garbage.

On his radio show this morning, Rush Limbaugh reported how the Washington Times raised concerns about a firm at East Anglican University caught deleting information that would harm them and fighting the release. As far as the media is concerned, this did not happen. The scientists will move on to other jobs, other grants, other institutions, and the politicians will force us to conform to the consensus. They just want money. This is what I tell my students:

Science never proves anything. It removes all other possibilities until only the truth remains.

Said Rush, "There is no point in endorsing a piece of legislation aimed at reducing something that is not happening." I have seen this firsthand, but never on this scale. Most of the people I saw do it did it for their careers and their degrees. These scientists did so to advance their careers and their names and their pocketbooks. Unlike them, I would never fudge science for my own advancement, and I have paid the price for it. Unlike Senator John Ensign, who told me so in a personal letter, I would never do the wrong thing instead of doing nothing at all, no matter what price I pay for it.

What this means is that we now have reason to doubt anything a scientist says who receives public money. What this tells us about the scientists is that they know they are liars. I don't know where my cousin got this quote, but it's his status today and I agree: "No one who cannot rejoice in the discovery of his own mistakes deserves to be called a scholar." If they were truly interested in the discovery of truth, they would be glad to be proven wrong. They care instead apparently about their career more than their field and its product- truth. Name names, call them out, just as we would those who have proven unfaithful to marital oaths or oaths of loyalty to the Constitution. Who knew it? When did they know it? What will they do about it? Nothing. The President doesn't care about truth. He cares about his agenda, regardless of the lies.

You cannot be hurt by something you do not do. GK Chesterton said that what's wrong with the world is that we do not ask what is right. I wish that the peer review process worried more about how much of what we publish in science is right and less on whether they happen to agree with it. Every time they ignore facts, people die.

Equated

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I was just equated as a "great guy" with a guy who fornicates. I am appalled. Anyone who knows anything about me at all knows that I have kept the law of chastity and my marriage vows. I will not tell you that it is easy, but I know it can be done. Don't you dare say that men like that are great men and then lump me with that ilk. I have lived all of my life as close to what is good and brave and true as any ordinary man can, and I take offense at that.

Great men do great things. It has never been great to use a woman, to abuse a woman, or to put a woman beneath you. I love the following poem that sums up how I feel about women:

Woman was created from the rib of man

She was not made from his head to top him

Nor from his feet, to be trampled on.

She was made from his side, to be equal to him

From under his arm to be protected by him

From near his heart to be loved by him.

This is my philosophy, but it is also that of Cervantes and Shakespeare. Just because those men are dead and the average male has descended in behavior doesn't mean the standard for manhood and chivalry has changed or should. Why should expectations of behavior change? Their coarse behavior may not make them bad, but it most certainly does not make them great.

I hold myself to a relatively high standard. My best friend regularly tells me to relax because he fears I will burn out. I am a mortal, and as such I am subject to infirmities of mortality. However, I have to live with myself, and I set out each day to be at peace with myself when my head hits the pillow. I hold no other man to my standard. Let them do how and what they may, so long as it is legal and leaves me out of it. If you tell me your standard, I will hold you to your standard, but I do not expect other people to live like me. I of all people know full well how it taxes my willpower and strength.

I have been hurt by women. Every woman I have ever loved has taken what I gave her and rended me. That is no justification to denigrate other women and project onto the many the sins of the few or the one. I am honestly sorry for time and effort wasted on them, for the fact that I may have overestimated their maturity and virtue. I will however continue to treat women as the precious creatures they are, daughters of a God.

Gentlemanly behavior once checked the occurance of coarse behavior. You may count on me for the former as a defense against the latter.

One Man's Trash...

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I couldn't resist it, because this is one of the funniest craigslist ads I've ever seen and it made me laugh.

Gee, I was just telling my friends today how much I could really use some random concrete fragments with which to decorate my yard. How convenient that this man was giving some away at precisely the moment I needed!

It's your trash sir. Dispose of it yourself.

Picks and Shovels

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Back in August, I injured my wrist digging holes for an orchard in Southern Utah. I am probably not the best person in the state, the country, or the world to do this work, but as I have told the project manager, I am the most qualified person who will put boots on the ground and pitch in.

There are many people with great talents and abilities all around us. Good leaders are able both to identify them as well as motivate them to put their talents to use. One of the few lessons I learned from "The Fountainhead" is that sometimes great people hold out for great work and hold back their talents. It is however much more common that greatly talented people hide their talents because of fear or because they are lazy.

All of my life, I have striven to be available for God to use me. He has in fact requested that I so do. As a missionary, I traveled in my "uniform", changed for the activity, and then changed back after it was over. I intended to be ready for whatever he might need. God does not really care about your capability; what matters more to him is your availability. Neal A Maxwell wrote: “God gives the picks and shovels to the ‘chosen’ because they are willing to go to work and get callouses on their hands. They may not be the best or most capable, but they are the most available” ( Deposition of a Disciple [1976], 54).

God's work is hard work. Some people get lucky and cast down their nets and draw in a great harvest. Even in that instance, they must have nets, have nets that work, cast them out, and have strength to draw them back in. Even that is hard work.

For those who have to till a more difficult ground, there is backbreaking work with tools ahead. As I dug those holes in Utah with a pick and shovel, I injured my wrist. There was nobody else to do it. The harvest is great and the laborers are few. I was available, so in that moment, I was the best and most capable person in the universe for the task at hand. If you do today what others won't, tomorrow you will be able to do what others can't. Where more capable or talented individuals might have done so, they hid their talent and therefore they have no increase.

Be not weary of hard work. Sweat equity is one of my favorite things, and I love to work. I like the rewards, but I would rather be anxiously engaged than accidentally.