Illinois Mountain Lion

My uncle forwarded these pictures to me saying they were taken in East-Central Illinois

Well I hoped it was true.  It’s not.  But people will forward almost anything.  Some people will, the same people always will it seems.  I received an email saying Obama refused to say the pledge of allegiance or wear an American lapel pin.  The person who sent it and did the right thing by emailing all who received it, telling us it was false, and apologizing.

Sometime soon I think I will send around a fake forward just to see what people will believe.

Email Fraud

I don’t know if that is a real crime but I just got an email that smacks of the Nigerian 419 Scam.  I replied to it, I hope to hear from Dr. Terry Williams soon reguarding my prize.  Here is the text:

OXFAM INTERNATIONAL
Oxfam House, John Smith Drive,
Cowley, Oxford, OX4 2JY.,
United Kingdom.
Date: 21th July, 2008.

Dear Funds Beneficiary

This is to notify you that you have been officially chosen by the Board of
Trustees of the Oxfam GB (NGO UK) as one of the final recipients of a Cash
Grant/Donation for Economic Growth and a Poverty  Alleviation Scheme through
your email.
Oxfam GB (U.K.), a Multi-Million Pounds NGO group, was established with the
objective of Human Growth, Poverty Alleviation,Educational and Community
Development around the world. In line with the 61st anniversary program,
Oxfam
in conjunction with the European Council is giving out Twenty-Five
Million,Five
Hundred Thousand Pounds Sterling as specific Donations/Grants to 10 lucky
International recipients worldwide in different categories for their
Business
and Social Development.

These funds are freely given for your Business,Economic and Educational
Development, as well as the enhancement of the overall standard of living of
the less previledged people in your region.
It will interest you to know that your email was selected from your
country’s
chambers of commerce,due to an internet random selection and you have been
confirmed as one of the lucky recipients of this year’s donation programme.
You are also entitled to the sum of Two Million,Five Hundred and Fifty
Thousand  Pounds Sterling(2,550,000.00 GBP) as charity donations/aid
from the
Oxfam GB (UK) International donation scheme.

Further information on the processing and disbursement of your grant
entitlements, alongside the provision of your qualification documentations,
will be dislosed to you by the National Secretary of the foundation, Dr.
Terry
Williams.
Please contact him with your Qualification Number [OXG /101/231/BDB]
as soon as
possible.

Dr. Terry Williams
Tel: +44 704 578 1442.
Email: oxfamgb.intl47@googlemail.com
Oxfam-GB, United kingdom.

Signed:
Sir. William Boykin
Programme Manager.
?xfam-GB

I hope he gets back to me, I would like to know if he is in England or Africa.

Obama and Racists

This is sort of funny sort of deep.

Racists for Obama?

Included is this gem:

it’s perfectly possible to hold a negative view of at least one aspect of African-Americans and yet simultaneously prefer Obama, racial feelings are not as cut and dried — not as black and white — as people often say.”

Americans Must Always Act On Conscience.

You might not have heard about this at the time but I did, and it has been bouncing around in my head for a few months.  A pharmacist refused to fill a prescription for birth control because of his religious beliefs.  At first, I rolled my eyes and thought about how so many Christians push there convictions on others, but then I watched something the History Channel (sometimes called the Hitler Channel for its large focus on World War Two).

Under the Third Reich terrible things were required of the citizens by law.  In my heart I believe the people of Germany are no more evil than any other people group, but they did the worst things in all of history.  Why?  Well, they had a leader who had charisma and a hate filled goal.  They had hate of their own, anger, and the technology to carry out revenge.  Many countries have these things, why did Germany succumb to it all?

It was the State ethics and morals usurping the place of individual conviction and conscience.  The laws said one must carry out orders, and orders were carried out.  If the people of Germany decided that they would not participate in the brutality, than the brutality would not have happened.

The pharmacist sees birth control and wrong, the United States government sees it as a right of an individual to prevent a pregnancy if she chooses.  If we as a people stand up and refuse to allow the government to determine right and wrong for us, and always seek the highest ethics and morals, we can ensure that no massacre is on our heads.  We can ensure that no people are trampled beneath us.

The Ethics of Pet Ownership

There is a good deal of discussion of how wrong dog fighting is. Or how it is horrible to mistreat an animal. Seeing how popular opinion is already clear about how we should treat the animals we are around, lets ask some ethics questions about having animals around. The following might make you feel uneasy, but stick with me, I think I have a point. And I will discuss all of this in terms of dogs, but the principle is transferable.

We all have at one point had a dog as a pet, or known somebody who has. When we see our dog sick or injured we care for them to some lesser degree, as we would for our own family. That means going to the vet and buying medicine. Then fighting with the dog to administer said medicine. It is work and money to keep a dog healthy. How do we justify a dog getting medical treatment?

I don’t mean to sound like your father at the dinner table, but there are people in this world that don’t get medical treatment or medicine. I have a real problem with a dog having a higher place in my priorities than any human being. I see it as unethical to own a dog (especially for Americans), because it places that animal above humans somewhere else in the world.

What does it cost you to feed your dog every month? Imagine you are holding a delicious nutritious muffin. In front of you is a homeless man, and a dog. You are not hungry, the dog and the man are. What do you do with the muffin? I hope you hand it to the man, I hope I would too; though it is a strange situation. Civilization has given us the gift of currency, and we can give our discretionary income to Non-Government Organizations (NGOs) dedicated to feeding the hungry faster than we could deliver a muffin to a homeless man. Check out: Foodshare, The Hunger Site, Compassion International.

Look around you. People are lonely, desperate to connect with others, to have true friendships. Not to be terribly mushy, but we are all looking for love. What do you love? Is it your dog?  I find myself give attention to dogs who seek it, but I do my best to ignore a person who gets on my nerves by trying to get my attention.  I am a failure in this way, but I am seeking to remedy this.

All I am trying to convince you of is what you already know.  People are infinitely more important than dogs, and our lives need to reflect this.  Pet ownership is at odds with our societies ethics.

Repressive Left

French air-bag convicted of downplaying the Nazis

The person in question is historically wrong, and morally suspect. But that is not the point. When we say thing like, “We have the right to say what we think.” It would sometimes be followed by an example to the contrary of a notorious county (USSR, East Germany, China). But this is France, the cradle of the Enlightenment and the Rights of Man.

Can a people be so concerned about protecting the population from oppressive ideas, like fascism, they become oppressive?

Update: What the hell is going on in France?  French Police ‘made Nazi salutes’ 

The Transitive Property of Torture

Update: CIA director: Waterboarding necessary, but potentially illegal
Update: We Waterboarded

The idea of torturing is repugnant to me, I truly mean that. The definition of torture is sometimes confused, or narrowed for the benefit of the ‘interrogator’. Here’s Webster’s definition. Or Wikipedia has a whole article about it. So when current Attorney General Michael Mukasey last year also said he found torture repugnant, it was a breath of fresh air.

In a CNN article today concerning some Senate hearings Mukasey seems to not speak-out against water-boarding. As if it might not be torture. Edward Kennedy asked, “would water boarding would be torture if it were done to you.” Mukasey’s answer, “I would feel that it was.”

New rule of thumb: If it feels like torture, it’s torture.

Now we get to a topic called metonymy. Please allow me to explain. We say, “Bush attacked Iraq.” Nobody anywhere contests this. What has George W. Bush done in Iraq that is an act of war? Nothing, all acts of war are carried out by men and women under Bushes authority. We accept that Bush is responsible for the commands he gives, and may one day be held accountable in international court for some of those decisions.

If Bush is responsible for the actions of those under his authority (when those actions are commanded by or known by the president). Who gives the president his authority and who does he answer to? I will give you a moment to look it up in the constitution.

The answer is the people. We the people. Now as fun as democracy is, this is sort of the rub: We Americans, voting and non-voting alike are morally responsible for the actions of our government.

A=B, B=C, therefore A=C.

If Bush is responsible for torture and I am responsible for Bush, than I am responsible for torture.

Some things to consider with our newfound responsibility:

All the Republican candidates gave the nod to torture except McCain, who was once a tortured POW. As far as I know, no democrat candidate has ever said it was permissible.

Huckabee is something of a mystery to me. He claims to be the values vote, but he endorses torture.