Potty Training Noah: Day 4

Very bad morning. Mommy on the precept of giving up because "he is not ready." However, he had his two year checkup this afternoon and Erin spoke with the doctor. The doctor was very encouraging to her and opined that he is indeed ready. She said for a two-year old, middle child, boy, that he was doing spectacular.

So, he still had on underpants when I got home and he had no accidents all night.

Traffic Signs

Mihaela has recently become enamored with traffic laws. Red light means stop. Green light means go. Yellow light means be cautious. While driving anywhere with her one is subjected to a running commentary of what she sees (buses and motorcycles are of particular interest). Many conversations go like this:

"Daddy, a stop sign."

"I see the stop sign. What color is it?"

"Red"

"Good. What shape is it?"

"It's an octagon." (Yes, she knows octagon. She can recognize almost any shape: triangle, circle, oval, square, trapezoid, parallelogram, pentagon, hexagon, and octagon)

So, its a lot of fun. The other day we went to the grocery store. As I was exiting the grocery store parking lot I stopped at a yield sign to wait for a break before merging into traffic. Mihaela looked around and said,

"Why are we stopping? I don't see a stop sign."

"Well, Mihaela, do you see that triangle sign that is red and white?"

"Yes"

"That is a yield sign. It tells me that if other cars are coming, then I need to stop."

"Oh. OK."

A few minutes later down the road, we pass another yield sign and Mihaela pipes up with, "Look, Daddy, a triangle stop sign."

In Jesus Blessed Name

At family dinner time last night, I asked Mihaela if she wanted to say to prayer. This is the first time I had thought about it. She eagerly agreed and said, "How do I pray?"

"Start with 'Dear God'" I replied.

In her sweet child voice she then said, "Dear God, Thank you for this day. Thank you for this food. In Jesus Blessed Name, Amen."

Erin and I could barely contain our tears.

Potty Training Noah: Day 3

Not a good day. Six accidents. Mommy was very disheartened...

Sometime you have to learn the hard way

Sometimes you have to learn the hard way. We expect our children to ignore our directions and get hurt. We weren't looking forward to it, but are aware that personal experience is a better teacher than relying on the wisdom and experience of others. Actually, I think one of the defining characteristics of maturity is when a person no longer feels the need to make mistakes to learn from them himself, but will instead rely on the lessons others have learned by making those mistakes. Unfortunately, you can't expect that kind of maturity and insight in a three year old.

So, Mihaela had to learn a lesson the hard way. We certainly didn't expect this to happen to her. We were convinced that it would be Noah. However, this evening, Mihaela put her hand on the hot stove and got burned. Despite repeatedly being taught the dangers of the stove and to never, ever touch it because you never know if it is hot or not, she had touched it.

We have a flat-top stove and a little red light tells us if the stove is still hot. Luckily, I had been done cooking on the burner she touched for about 10 or 15 minutes, so it was still hot, but not too hot. I was standing by the stove making dinner and Mihaela was standing next me quizzing me about ways she could help (she loves to stir). There was nothing for her to do. Then, I watched in horror (and in slow motion) as she reached up and placed her hand on the burner. I reached for her, but she was too far from my grasp. She planted her hand firmly on the burner, paused and the picked it up and looked at it in astonishment. She never screamed, she never cried. She just seemed, surprised.

I quickly called on my experiences as a grill cook and restaurant manager and administered the appropriate First Aid for burns. She never complained or cried. Her hand got a little red and one blister formed. She has been tentative with her hand this evening. She avoided clapping and was very protective of it during bath time. She has learned her lesson though. She talked all evening about she got a burn by touching the hot stove and how she shouldn't touch it.

One down, two more to go.

*Sigh*

Potty Training Noah: Day 2

Only one non-BM accident because Mommy forgot that she was potty training and didn't take him. Otherwise, doing good.

Senseless Microsoft

My boss wants me to upgrade our production database server from SQL Server 2000 to SQL Server 2005. We have been running SQL Server 2005 on our development database server for sometime and need to move a new product from development to production. We purchased the software. Now, on the CD is a little utility called the SQL Server Upgrade Advisor. This utility examines the SQL Server 2000 database configurations and advises you of any pitfalls that you may encounter in the upgrade. Being diligent, I decide to run the Advisor.

Well, the Advisor requires that the .NET Framework 2.0 be installed on the machine which I didn't have installed. So, I went to the MS Site, downloaded and installed the Framework. The Advisor ran. As expected, the Advisor turned up no specific issues. Of course, being Microsoft, we did get a generic warning that pretty much stated that the Advisor doesn't look at absolutely everything and a clean bill of health from the Advisor in no way guarantees there will be no issues in the upgrade and if you happen to get an issue, then you can't hold MS responsible, etc....

I decide to go ahead and do my install. I click the button to install the server and almost immediately I get an error:

Error: SQL Server 2005 Setup has detected incompatible components from beta versions of Visual Studio, .NET Framework, or SQL Server 2005. Use Add or Remove Programs to remove these components, and then run SQL Server 2005 Setup again. For detailed instructions on uninstalling SQL Server 2005, see the SQL Server 2005 Readme.

Well, this server has never had the BETA versions of anything on it. It is our production DB server and we don't do BETA software on production servers. But I did just install the .NET Framework to run the Advisor, but that really can't be it because SQL Server 2005 requires the .NET Framework to run as well. I check a few things out. Google. MS Knowledge Base. Nothing really crops up that meets my "smell" test for why this is happening.

Well, I finally decide that even thought SQL Server 2005 requires the .NET Framework, I will uninstall it and see if my error message goes away. The worst that can happen is that the install software will tell me it is required and ask me to reinstall it. I uninstall the .NET Framework that I just installed to run the Advisor that is not a BETA version and, lo and behold, my install of SQL Server will now progress and it tells me that:

SQL Server Component Update will install the following components required for SQL Server Setup:

.NET Framework 2.0
Microsoft SQL Native Client
Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Setup Support Files

So...the .NET Framework 2.0 is on the CD, but the Advisor won't install it as part of its setup. You have to download it. But the downloaded .NET Framework is incompatible with the install of the actual server. This doesn't make an sense, why do I have to install something to use the Advisor only to have to uninstall it to use the actual product?

Potty Training Noah: Day 1

As much as we have dreaded this, the time is ripe to begin the potty training of Noah. He is very interested in the potty and actually has "experimented" a little. For the past week or so when we take his diaper off for bath time, he has climbed up on the potty and used it. This was our sign that he is ready.

So, today we officially began in earnest and he did fabulous. We took him every hour and only one time did he have a wet diaper. After rest time we put him in big, boy underwear and he did not wet himself once (he did mess in them though).

The first time we took him, though, it was kind of funny. He climbed on, did his thing, and then threw a hissy fit when I put his diaper back on because he thought it was bath time and was mad that I was not putting him in the tub.

S, all in all, a good Day 1 experience. We shall see how he does the rest of the week. Although, it is kind of weird potty training a kid who won't talk. We're not sure how he will tell us he needs to go...

A pill for Celiacs?

Scientist in the Netherlands have found an enzyme that may allow people with Celiac Disease to eat food with gluten. Basically, like people who struggle with heartburn or acid reflux, the Celiac would take a pill containing the enzyme right before he begins eating. The enzyme speeds up the breaking down of the gluten in the food so that none of it reaches the small intestines where the gluten does the damage.

I actually have thought that this would be the best method of controlling the disease. It makes sense to me.

Of course, they haven't actually tried this on people yet. However, I am hopeful.

Prolyl Endoprotease Enzyme May Allow Patients with Celiac Disease to Safely Eat Gluten on Occasion

.: U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works :: Minority Page :.

.: U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works :: Minority Page :.: "Many former believers in catastrophic man-made global warming have recently reversed themselves and are now climate skeptics."

Maybe, just maybe, the tide of hysteria is turning. Thanks the new media. While mainstream newspapers and media outlets regurgitate the global warming and climate change mantra, people remain free to log on to the Internet (for now) where they'll find more than enough to read from scientists who were once global warming alarmists but who are now skeptics.

Take Dr. Nir Shaviv, an Astrophysicist. has recently recanted his belief that man was warming up the earth. He recently wrote: "Like many others, I was personally sure that CO2 is the bad culprit in the story of global warming. But after carefully digging into the evidence, I realized that things are far more complicated than the story sold to us by many climate scientists or the stories regurgitated by the media. In fact, there is much more than meets the eye." Shaviv adds that "Solar activity can explain a large part of the 20th-century global warming."

Dr. David Evans is a mathematician and engineer. This is the man who did the carbon accounting for the government of Australia. He spent six years building models for the Australian government to estimate carbon emissions. He's now a global warming skeptic. Evans says that "By the late 1990s lots of jobs depended on the idea that carbon emissions caused global warming." He adds: "The science of global warming has become a partisan political issue, so positions become more entrenched."

And there's the curious question. Global warming, or climate change, if you will, has indeed become a partisan political issue. But there's more to it. It's an issue for the left; for the world's anti-capitalists and socialists. And just why would that be? Could it possibly be because these anti-capitalists and leftists see the religion of climate change as a way to bring down or harm powerful nations with economies based on capitalism and free enterprise?

More Climate Change Info

Here's a couple of "climate change" news bits you might not have heard somewhere else.

I know you are aware that glaciers are melting. We are told that this a BAD THING because it will cause seal levels to rise. However, something rather odd is happening as the glaciers retreat. We are finding evidence of civilization where those glaciers once stood! In Switzerland they're finding silver mines.

So, as the glacier retreats they're finding the mine shafts and the mining tools stacked up and waiting ... waiting for the mine workers to return as the winter snows melted. It seems that one year those winter snows didn't actually melt. Then year upon year passed and the snows grew deeper. Finally, a glacier. It was the little ice age! Now the little ice age is ending, the glaciers retreating, and evidence of civilization emerging where we've known nothing but ice.

We're also finding water management structures built by man where glaciers are retreating elsewhere. So, yes, it's warmer. One whole degree in the last 100 years. But we've been there before. Warmer than this. And we did it without SUVs and the industrial revolution. Interesting...

Sowell talks about Amnesty

I think Thomas Sowell is not only brilliant, but articulate as well. If you're not tired of reading or talking about the amnesty bill, here are two of his columns for you: The Amnesty Fraud, and The Amnesty Fraud, Part II.

Yes to Immigration, No to Amnesty

I'm all for immigration. Our nation was founded by immigrants and has succeeded because of the efforts of immigrants throughout the years. I believe we should allow as many people who want to become citizens of this great country to come and be citizens (i.e., I am against immigration quotas). However, I believe that immigration needs to be controlled to a certain degree. Obviously people who want to be citizens here need a background check to ensure that we are not importing criminals. Immigrants should receive a medical overview and terminal and long-term ill people should not be let in to be a burden on this society. Immigrants should be able to prove that they will be productive members of society by showing they have education, skills, and work ethic. We don't want to increase our welfare rolls or our Medicare rolls with people from another country. This is just common sense.

However, if a person from another country wants to come to America and join this great society in a productive way, then I am all for it and say let as many in as possible. I just want them to come in a legal and orderly fashion.

The HOT TOPIC of the day is the "Comprehensive Immigration Bill Compromise." It continues to baffle me how elected officials could be so out of touch with the American People. If there is an issue that unites many Americans it is the fact that 85% of the people in this country do not want to grant any kind of legal status to the 12-20 million illegal immigrants in this country. Yet, the elected elite officials continue to try and force this issue down our throats.

Here is my "Comprehensive Plan":

1. Secure the border. And I mean secure it. I want a wall 15 feet high, twenty feet deep running across most of the border. Place agents on the wall every 1000 feet. Create a "virtual" fence using Predator Drones, Satellites, and other technologies. If China could be the Great Wall of China without modern machinery, then we certainly can do it. The wall should be fully completed in 5 years.
   
   
2. Make it virtually impossible for corporations and businesses to hire illegal aliens. The fines for hiring illegal citizens should be so high that the expected profit from cheap labor should make it a "no-brainer" for businesses to not do it. Sure a few would take a chance of not getting caught, but there should be jail time and multi-million dollar fines for the owners when they are caught.
   
   
3. Make it virtually impossible for landlords to rent to illegal aliens.
   
   
4. To accomplish two and three the Federal Government must make an easy, web-based application that allows for the confirmation of the legality of somebody. Yeah, it will be expensive. Yes, it will be hard to maintain and confirm the legal status of 300 million people. But, just put the IRS on it.
   
   
5. Clarify the 14th Amendment so that natural citizenship of a child flows from his mother. Whatever Mom's citizenship is, so is the child's. Obviously, though, we can't make this retroactive, so we have to do something with all those children born in America to illegal immigrant parents who are American Citizens. My plan there is to allow these children to have dual citizenship in America and their country of origin.
   
   Anytime an illegal is rounded up for deportation, the child would be sent back to the country or origin with his parents. He will have an opportunity to decide on one of those citizenships after they turn 18 and before they turn 25. If he has not pro-actively chosen American citizenship by the time he is 25, then the American citizenship for him would be dropped.
   
   
6. While we can not logistically deport 12 million people, I firmly believe that we won't have to. If we make it impossible to find work or a place to live (i.e., it is a hostile environment for illegal aliens), many of them will find their way back home without help.
   
   
7. Anytime an illegal alien is discovered by law enforcement or hospital workers or anything like that, they are given basic treatment and then deported within 7 days.
   
   
8. To ensure that the jobs that need to be done get done, a stringently enforced Guest Worker Program would be set up. There is a way to insure that anyone in this country to participate in such a guest worker program would not stay here once their time is up. It's really very simple. You don't pay them. You pay a private agency that has arranged for them to be here. When their time is up, the money is gone.

   Let me explain. There is necessarily going to be some government involvement in this program, but we can keep it to a minimum. You set up some employment agencies that specialize in obtaining guest workers for U.S. businesses that need the extra or seasonal help. These employment agencies are hired by and paid by the private businesses who need the workers. They obtain the workers from foreign countries and provide for their transportation to their place of employment in the U.S. as well as provide for their housing, food and medical care while here.
   
   The employer pays the agency for the workers, and then the agency pays the workers. When the temporary guest worker assignment is over, the employer stops payment to the agencies and the money to the guest worker dries up. We would need harsh -- extremely harsh -- penalties for any employer that tries to pay a guest worker directly. Under this system the agencies are responsible for transportation to and from the U.S. and making sure the workers get paid. These agencies, of course, would work under strict federal regulatory supervision.

   The key to this ... and the key to removing any suggestion of amnesty ... is that all guest workers in this country must sign up for the program in their home country, not here. All ID cards for guest workers must be issued ONLY in that worker's country.
   

9. Remove all federal dollars from "Amnesty Cities and Counties" until they get their act together and cooperate.
   

So, I have outlined an expensive, yet simple plan, to handle the immigration issue without amnesty. There should be no reward of "paths to citizenship" or automatic "legal status" to people who break our laws to be here. If we aggressively enforce this program for 5 to 10 years, I am confident we could have a handle on the illegal issue.

Only after the Government has earned our trust as being willing to enforce our borders through the consistent enforcement over a long period of time, we could talk about removing immigration quotas and streamlining the process to get people here legally.

Travelled to Nashville

I drove up to Nashville last Thursday afternoon (5/17) because I had to make a presentation before the National Land Council on Friday morning. Anyway, as I was driving up I kept a little notepad next to me and jotted down ideas from news stories and what-not about some stuff to blog about. I know you are all waiting with great expectation for words of wisdom to flow.

Anyway, some topics that I will be writing on and posting over the next few days include:

• Dobson's un-endorsement of Guliani
• How to spend the 2.9 trillion dollars in the Federal budget.
• The Immigration Bill, including Randy's solution to anchor babies
• Mihaela and traffic signs
• Some more Climate Change thoughts
• and a few other tidbits...

Stay tuned.

(P.S. - I'll probably update this post with links to the other posts as they become available)

The Dilbert Blog: Imagination

Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert, talks about his views on imagination. Since I have previously written on the subject, I was fascinated by his analysis.

Random Thoughts by Thomas Sowell

RealClearPolitics - Articles - Random Thoughts

Some of my favorites:

Liberals hold us individually responsible for nothing but collectively responsible for everything.

Calling an illegal alien an 'undocumented worker' is like calling a drug dealer an 'unlicensed pharmacist.

Some of the biggest cases of mistaken identity are among intellectuals who have trouble remembering that they are not God.

I am so old that I can remember a Democrat, at his inauguration as President, say of our enemies: "We dare not tempt them with weakness."

Climate Change II - Is Global Warming really a bad thing?

As I wrote about last week, one of my traits is that I tend to question assumptions. An assumption is an idea that you take for granted or accept without proof. Our lives are full of assumptions. For example, I used to assume that when I got a message from my servers that the backup was successful, that indeed the backup was good. However, I later encountered a situation where I needed to recover some files from a supposedly good backup only to discover the backup had not really been successful. This is why most network administrators verify backup operations by periodically doing restores.

The fact is, some of our assumptions are not as reliable or absolute as we think. And sometimes our confidence in our knowledge of an area or our skills makes us a little cocky. We stop considering new ideas or questioning the way we have "always done it." Sometimes the result of an ill-considered assumption can be disastrous. That's why it's essential to keep an open mind and learn to question your assumptions.

But before you can question your assumptions, you must first identify what they are. And this is usually harder than you think. It's hard to remember that your perspectives and opinions are not necessarily true, no matter how undeniable they may seem to you. The first step in the innovative process is to dig out these assumptions with some leading questions.

There are some assumptions we need to address in the Climate Change debate. For instance we assume that the current climate is the norm. What if this is not really the case. What if the current climate is actually the aberration and we are retuning to a normal climate? This leads to the question of what if there is no such thing as a "normal climate"? What if the climate needs to be a some sort of cyclic process of heating and cooling to maintain the weather engine we depend on?

One of the big tenets of those who practice the anti-capitalist, anti-technology, anti-individual religion of ecodeism is that the climate changes experienced are bad. We listen to the supposed changes that will take place if the Earth continues to warm up and assume that those changes are indeed a bad thing. After all, the flooding of coastal cities, where most people live, due to ice cap melting sure doesn't sound like a good event, especially for those people that live there. Of course, that depends on how much flooding those coastal cities get. Those estimates appear to be all over the place; I've read over time that the average sea level will rise from a couple of inches to many feet. Besides how high the flooding gets, it is also how quickly the flooding happens. A few feet of worldwide flooding over a days would be very detrimental. However, only the most extreme models and extreme movies predict this kind of flooding. The reality is the IPCC's latest estimate is 7-23 inches, which frankly does not seem an unmanageable amount to adjust to over the next 100 years.

But global warming would also extend the agricultural year and open up a lot of land in the northern US, Canada and Siberia that is frozen tundra to be used for farming. If we were farming and grazing on grasslands that are inhospitable now, but would be useful after warming, we may not need to cut down rain forests to grow food and raise cattle. This sounds like a good thing to me. So, right away, we see that climate change is not all bad. We have questioned our assumption and discovered that there are trade-offs and some of the results are positive.

You might counter that I am just speculating. But I am not. I recommend you read J. R. Dunn's essay, "Resisting Global Warming Panic," especially his exposition of the:

"medieval warm period, more commonly known as the Little Climatic Optimum (LCO), a period stretching roughly from the 10th to the 13th centuries, in which the average temperature was anything from 1 to 3 degrees centigrade higher than it is today. (emphasis added)

• How warm was it during the LCO? Areas in the Midlands and Scotland that cannot grow crops today were regularly farmed. England was known for its wine exports.
  
• The average height of Britons around A.D. 1000 was close to six feet, thanks to good nutrition. The small stature of the British lower classes (and the Irish) later in the millennium is an artifact of lower temperatures. People of the 20th century were the first Europeans in centuries to grow to their 'true' stature - and most had to grow up in the USA to do it.
• In fact, famine - and its partner, plague - appears to have taken a hike for several centuries. We have records of only a handful of famines during the LCO, and few mass outbreaks of disease. The bubonic plague itself appears to have retreated to its heartland of Central Asia.
• The LCO was the first age of transatlantic exploration. When not slaughtering their neighbors, the Vikings were charting new lands across the North Atlantic, one of the stormiest seas on earth (only the Southern Ocean - the Roaring 40s - is worse). If you tried the same thing today, traveling their routes in open boats of the size they used, you would drown. They discovered Iceland, and Greenland, and a new world even beyond, where they found grape vines, the same as in England.
• The Agricultural Revolution is not widely known except among historians. Mild temperatures eased land clearing and lengthened growing seasons. More certain harvests encouraged experimentation among farmers involving field rotation, novel implements, and new crops such as legumes. While the thought of peas and beans may not thrill the foodies among us, they expanded an almost unbelievably bland ancient diet as well as providing new sources of nutrition. The result was a near-tripling of European population from 27 million at the end of the 7th century to 70 million in 1300.
• The First Industrial Revolution is not widely known even among historians. Opening the northern German plains allowed access to easily mined iron deposits in the Ruhr and the Saarland. As a result smithies and mills became common sights throughout Europe. Then came the basic inventions without which nothing more complex can be made - the compound crank, the connecting rod, the flywheel, followed by the turbine, the compass, the mechanical clock, and eyeglasses. Our entire technical civilization, all the way down to Al Gore's hydrogenmobile, has its roots in the LCO.

But temperatures started crashing in the late 13th century, after which came the Great Plague, killing a third to half the population of Europe."

So let us suppose two things: first that global warming really is occurring and human attention to it can reverse it, and second, that we do reverse it. Are we then to agree that a cooler earth really is in our best interests? Why?

I've always kind of suspected that underlying much of environmentalism is a desire for the impossible: stasis. For the earth will either get warmer or cooler, but it definitely won't stay the same. Even if everyone were to agree that the globe really is warming, can we please see some scientifically-sound documentation that it is a bad thing that needs to be stopped?

Before you point out specific areas where global warming will cause damage, let it be known I too have read articles explaining the prospects of increased desertification and other warming-related effects, such as the extinction of some species (although, Darwinian philosophy says they will either adapt or were not fit to be alive, anyway). But the thrust of my question, might it turn out to be a good thing, is oriented not in micro-climates here and there, but on the net overall effect worldwide. For every hectare turned to new desert, would there be a hectare turned to verdancy, especially land newly useful for agriculture when it wasn't before? Is there really a downside to the extension of the growing season is more northern and southern latitudes? After all, certain commercial grains can now be grown in Iceland, which couldn't be done only 20 years ago. In the literature I've read on warming, potential positive effects seem to either be ignored or glossed over.

Again, the issue cannot be maintaining a climatic status quo, since that wasn't the case even before humanity's earliest known ancestor, Ardipithecus ramidus kadabba, walked around more than six million years ago. The earth "rests" only briefly between periods of cooling then warming. So it's warming now. Is that worse than cooling? Answering that question might give some balance to the political debates on the issue.

Climate Change

My eldest niece is 16. She is a very sweet girl with a heart of gold. However, she goes to government-run indoctrination centers (public school) and thus, has not been taught how to independently think. She has bought into the mantra of "people are destroying the environment" and is very vocal about it. When her family of 6 was visiting a few weeks ago, she complained when we ate dinner off of Styrofoam plates.

First, let me say that I believe it possible to be skeptical of "man-made climate change" and still have a healthy respect for the environment. As a matter of fact, I believe that Christians have a God-given obligation to watch over the environment in much the same way as a trust-fund manager has the responsibility to oversee a trust fund. I also believe that Christians have the responsibility to make use of the environmental resources God has provided. We can not be like the man with one coin who buried it. This, of course, leads us back to an old mantra of mine that life is about Trade-Offs. There is a delicate balance that mankind must walk between using environmental resources, leaving a "footprint" in the environment and abusing the environment.

Unfortunately, many environmental groups have engaged in debate tactics that smear any opposition to their agenda. Routinely, they shout that if you don't agree with every single point of their argument, then you are a money-hungry, capitalist-pig, bent on pumping toxins that kill women and children into the air and water just so you can make a dollar. Either you accept their extremist views or you are vilified as a person who wants dirty air and dirty water. This is unfortunate because it stifles legitimate disagreements.

I, for one, am very skeptical of the man-made climate change doctrine being broadcast over the media. First, I'm not sure if we can look at current sets of data and project what will happen in a linear model. While I am not an expert on climate data, I am very aware of how to use data, read data, manipulate data and work with data. I work with large data sets everyday. I work with sub-sets of that data everyday. One thing I know is that a subset of data usually does not reflect the properties of the entire set of data (depending on the randomization techniques one is using and the statistical methods one is applying). Climate changes in the past appear to be measured by changes in the climate over thousands, if not tens of thousands of years. Looking at a 50 year period of data and assuming it is as reliable as ten thousands years is foolish.

Secondly, I do not believe humans have as big an impact on the environment as many of the environmentalist do. If anything humans, through the use of technology, have done more to help the environment than hurt it. Most people don't realize that America has more trees and forest land now than it did in 250 years ago when we were over-throwing an oppressive government. This is because of technology's impact on farming. Today's technology allows us to grow more food on less land than it did 250 years ago. So, that land has been reverted back to forests. Of course, if a decision comes to make a trade-off to use the land for forest or for food, what right-minded person would decide it is better to let people go hungry so that you can have a tree? You can't eat shade.

Third, I have a hard time believing the models used to forecast doom. How can they predict the future, when they can't even predict the past? The ability of these models to accurately simulate historical climate changes determines the credibility of their predictions of climate change in the future. When I design a piece of software I always take legacy data (i.e., old information) and plug it into my computer program to make sure that I get the correct result. If the climate computers models are indeed correct, then the scientist using them should be able to take data from the 1970s and 1980s, plug it into the model and project what should have happened in the 1990s. Then, compare the results of what the computer model "predicted" to what actually happened. If the projected outcomes match what really occurred, you have a good computer model. So far no model has been able to do this without fiddling with the software until it finally produces the results the climatologist wants. I don't think this is how honest scientist are supposed to work.

Fourth, Earth is not the only planet experiencing global warming. Mars is also getting warmer. Interestingly enough, it is getting warmer at the same rate as Earth is getting warmer. This really suggests that Sun is burning hotter (which is a confirmed fact) and that has a greater effect than the "man-made" greenhouse effect.

These are just a few of the reasons that I am skeptical of what I read and hear in the media. I know that it is very difficult for a non-scientist to observe all the bickering and come up with a well-formed, independent opinion. My stance is that regardless of the confusion, reduction of pollution is a good thing. Reduction of waste is a good thing. Reusing and Recycling are worthy while endeavors that should be pursued by individuals. However, all the costs should be considered and individuals should be allowed to make the choices they wish instead of being forced by busy-bodies to reduce their lifestyle.

I'm All Done

Earlier this week Mihaela had chicken nuggets for dinner. As per our custom, she is not allowed to eat any dessert until all her dinner is gone. So, I was sitting in the living room when Mihaela pops in and says, "I'm all done with my nuggets. Can I have a piece of candy now?" Being the dutiful father that I am (you know, the "Trust but Verify" kind), I walked into the kitchen to see that she still had a lot of nuggets on her plate.

I reviewed the house rules with her. I reminded her that lying is wrong and that she is not done until all her nuggets are gone. She sat down to continue eating. A little bit later, she announces once again that she is done. Once again I check. Once again she is not. Rules repeated. This goes on several time and I realize we are having a failure to communicate. There are three nuggets left on her plate.

Maybe she doesn't understand what all gone is. The concept of zero was developed by the Mayans, but not used by Western Civilization, so I can see how it could be difficult for a three-year old to comprehend. A new tactic was needed.

I sat next to Mihaela and asked her to count the remaining chicken nugget pieces. She gleefully complied by pointing to each one as she said,

"Not One. Not Two. Not Three."

Imagination

The other day I went to the local medical lab to have some blood drawn to check my thyroid levels. I entered the building and signed-in at the receptionist window. Sitting behind the window was a young man, maybe twenty years old. I sat down in the waiting room to wait to be called back. A young woman entered the receptionist area from the back room. The two of them bantered in conversation, just flitting above the line of flirting.

The young man mentioned to the young woman that he was reading a novel. She replied that she didn't really like reading because it was so hard to use her imagination to paint in her mind the author's scene. He responded with something about how that is what he liked about reading, is the ability to use his imagination.

"I feel sorry for you, then." the young lady commented.

"Feel sorry for me!? For using my imagination?" he asked bewildered.

"Yeah," she answered back. "I just don't see the use for imagination. I feel sorry for those people who have to rely on it."

"I feel sorry for those who don't use their imaginations." the young man retorted, clearly aghast that somebody would look down on someone else because they had and used their imaginations. To a certain degree, his spirit had been crushed by her dismal of his ideas. While he and she continued their verbal jousting, the electricity of the flirting was gone from his voice.

He asked me to go on back to the back room and he took my blood. As I was getting up to leave, he said, "Mr. Bowman, can I ask you a question?" I said, "sure."

Like a little boy seeking affirmation, he said, "Do you feel sorry for somebody with an imagination or without?"

"I feel much more sorry for somebody without imagination. They will never be able to rise above what they have been trained to do. They will never be leaders, because leadership is about vision. The vision to look beyond what is here and now and to see what can be. That requires an imagination. People without imaginations can not innovate or solve problems, they are nothing more than trained circus animals, repeating the tricks they have been taught by those with the imagination. I feel very, very sorry for them."

The fire in his eyes reignited as he exclaimed, "That's it exactly!"

As I left the building, I walked past the open window of the receptionist desk where the young lady sat, waiting for the next patient to come through the door. As I passed through the doors, I heard the young man re-enter the reception area and re-engage his colleague in a philosophical debated by stating, "He has a great theory about imagination."

It is at times like this I wish I were a small business owner. If I were I would have walked right back in and offered that kid a job. He may only be trained to be a phlebotomist right now, but he is a person I would feel confident investing in. Here is a young man, obviously raised in the poor part of town. He has risen above his obstacles and the anti-achievement mentality of the culture in which he was raised. He took the one year course to get a skill. He has acquired a job. His positive attitude and his willingness to fight for his beliefs and not be quieted by a woman he is flirting with speaks highly of his character. While I would not be able to hire him to draw blood, he has an inborn skill worth more than that which he was trained to do. He is a leader.

Bob the Tomato

As we watched "The Angry Eyebrows," a Larry-Boy cartoon adventure, a scene is shown where Junior the Asparagus, Bob the Tomato and Vicki are in a food-fight. Junior and Vicki squirt each other and Bob with mustard, while Bob squirts his opponents with ketchup. This prompted me to wonder where ketchup comes from in Bumblyberg. Is Bob a cannibal? Is it his "blood?" Inquiring minds want to know.

Dangers of compact fluorescent light bulb

Compact fluorescent light bulbs are all the rage right now. They are being promoted as great energy savers and some cities, states, and countries have either already banned or are planning on even banned the selling of anything other than compact fluorescent light bulbs.

However, it seems, like I've state before...that there is always a trade-off. While they do use a lot less energy than traditional incandescent bulbs, they are more expensive. However, what is most ironic to me is that the real trade-off for energy savings is not in the cost of purchasing them, but in the cost of disposing of them. Since compact fluorescent light bulbs contain mercury, they can not just be thrown out. And, heaven forbid, one should break, then you have an environmental disaster in your own home.

So, what's the trade-off? More energy inefficient and more dangerous. Less energy efficient, yet less dangerous. Who should decide which one you use in your home? You or the government?

Please don't let them have seen that...

Since summer time is here and the days are getting longer and I am getting off work earlier, I have been taking the two oldest kids to the park almost everyday after work. They love the park. I love them to go to the park because they have so much fun there. However, I hate what I see going on that park by other children. Noah is at this stage where he copies everything he sees. So often as I am watching other children, I am praying that mine don't see how they are behaving and try to copy it.

Playgrounds are supposed to be a training ground for social interactions among children. They should learn to share, respect each other, take turns, and play together. The park should be a place where parents interact very little with children, letting them explore and discover how to work things out on their own. Parents supervise to ensure no one gets physically hurt, but not interfere with the development of the social mechanisms. There used to be a communal standard of behavior for children. But now there is none. That means the park is really no longer a safe training ground anymore. It is very sad that I am more concerned about taking my kids to the park because of what they might learn than I am about what they might learn from watching TV.

"Safety Patrol" shows no Respect

While I was at home on "paternity leave," I was exposed to many children's show on Disney Channel. Most of them are pretty cute. I do have issues with some of them, though. For instance, Higglytown Heroes is about as socialistic as they come. For crying out loud people, doing your job does not make you a hero. You are watering down the word. Besides, they always show each individual doing what is best for the community. I just don't like the anti-individualism, anti-achievement mentality.

However, the one the really upset me was the "mini-show" Safety Patrol. Basically, these two twins try to teach the children about being safe, which is a good and noble goal. What bugs me is when these two children lecture their parents on safety. Children do not have the right or responsibility to hold their parents to standards. Parents tell children what to do, not the other way around.

Some people see things that are and ask, why?

When I was leaving my old job to start my new one, some of my coworkers were trying to convince me to stay. Besides being sad that I was leaving, they trusted my work, which is saying a lot in the IT world. As they were bemoaning the traits that I possess that they would miss most, they mentioned a curious fact that I really didn't know about myself. They said to me, "Randy, you think outside the box." I started processing these thoughts and realized they are right. Many times in meetings and in problem solving, I would say things like, "Let's look at this from a different angle." "You say the problem is this, but you really don't mean that. The real problem is that and this is just symptom of that." "Why do we do it this way?" "Why can't we change our rules to make it work this way?"

This is an important trait to have in life, especially when it comes to problem solving. The easy problems have already all been solved. One needs to be able to question their assumptions and bounce up against the rules to see if the constraints of a problem are really constraints, or if they are artificially placed there.

My three-year old has entered the "Why" phase. Except, she never asks "Why?" She always asks "Why not?" Maybe she will be a great problem solver, an "outside of the box" thinker, an engineer of imaginative solutions.

There are 90 of me in the US

HowManyOfMe.com

There are 90 people with my name in the U.S.A. How many have your name?

Potty Training Noah: Day 4

Very bad morning. Mommy on the precept of giving up because "he is not ready." However, he had his two year checkup this afternoon and Erin spoke with the doctor. The doctor was very encouraging to her and opined that he is indeed ready. She said for a two-year old, middle child, boy, that he was doing spectacular.

So, he still had on underpants when I got home and he had no accidents all night.

Iraq Surrender

This evening the President vetoed the Iraq spending bill because the Democrats had put in a firm deadline for pull out of American Troops. I have been aghast recently as key leaders of the Democrats have talked about how we have lost the war, how we awful things are, and how we should just pack up and come home.

Usually, even when I disagree with somebody I can put myself in their shoes and at least understand why they believe the way they do. However, this notion of humbly accepting defeat baffles me completely. I can not understand it at all. No matter if you believe we should have gone to war or not, the fact is we are there now. We are the greatest and most powerful nation on this planet and we are just going to sit idly by and accept defeat? That makes no sense to me. It would seem to me that if you are more powerful than your adversary and you have been holding back during a fight with him and he is starting to beat you, then you step up your attack and crush him. Where is their pride in their country? Where is their pride in themselves? How can somebody just accept defeat? I don't get it or understand it at all.

I am glad the President vetoed the bill. I wish he could rally Congress, the Media, and the People to remove the artificial political barriers we have placed on our troops and let them do their job. I am sure if we stopped caring about looking nice we could have the terrorist out of Iraq in no-time. We have forgotten the old saying that "All is fair in love and war." We are at war. Our enemies declared war on us and we have a right and responsibility to defend ourselves. If we are to continue to succeed as a nation, we must make it clear to the international community that we will not tolerate attacks on us. We must win and we must win decisively. Anything less is dishonorable.