Caution: Contains intense vitroil and profanity.

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Let me make this perfectly clear.

I will react to any attempt from government to dictate how and what I write with extreme prejudice and malice. More in a moment.

This is from a Federal Communications Commission director.

This is one of the guys who sets the federal policy. He, apparently, was blindsided by this decision.

For those people who think the media is controlled by the government, this is nothing more than an official stamp on an unofficial government action. For those who know better, this is a frightening idea. Some will say it's about damned time someone did something.

FULL DISCLOSURE - I have held stories on request of certain people because publishing the story at that time would have caused undue harm and unwarranted interference in some delicate matters. The story was eventually published in every case. I do not publish crime victim names without their permission or they are dead. I also do not print everything I know and am told because some information is off the record and given to me so that I can fully understand everything.
ABOUT THAT PRESS 
 
President Lyndon Johnson penned a report on the media in 1967. He asked the media to be more fair and concentrate more on issues of substance and importance. He bemoaned the fact that no official training is needed for someone to become a journalist and so, universal standards for the job do not exist.

Some 46 years later, the same refrain is being chanted.

In case you wonder, the press in Canada and and Great Britain are beholden to the government. In my lifetime as a professional (and trained) journalist, the media in  both countries has been restrained by government action. The most recent involved the seizure of computers from a media outlet in England. Items were being reported which were an embarrassment to the government and to the US government.

Understand, the United States press is unique in the world. Our freedom is guaranteed in the Constitution and has been repeatedly upheld in court case after court case. Except not.

Case 1
Case 2
Case 3
Case 4

And so on and so on and so on and so on.

 

A HEAVIER HAND

This FCC "CIN" thing might appear to be innocuous. When has government ever ordered an innocuous study? This is even more troubling when you consider the federal government has looked at the free media as an adversary. Some may disagree, but when President Ronald Reagan referred to the White House Press Corps as "sons of bitches" the empirical evidence supports my statement.

Here's a quote direct from Ajit Pai's story in the WSJ: "The FCC says the study is merely an objective fact-finding mission. The results will inform a report that the FCC must submit to Congress every three years on eliminating barriers to entry for entrepreneurs and small businesses in the communications industry. 

"This claim is peculiar. How can the news judgments made by editors and station managers impede small businesses from entering the broadcast industry? And why does the CIN study include newspapers when the FCC has no authority to regulate print media?"

Why indeed?
 

LOOKING DEEPER

Pai gives us a deeper insight to the situation: "The FCC also wants to wade into office politics. One question for reporters is: 'Have you ever suggested coverage of what you consider a story with critical information for your customers that was rejected by management?' Follow-up questions ask for specifics about how editorial discretion is exercised, as well as the reasoning behind the decisions."

Why does the FCC need to know this? Short answer - it doesn't. Longer answer - To establish policy over how the media may report on matters of the government. Ostensibly, this could be an effort to make the media even more free by removing some editorial control over reporters. If you believe that, you'll by this watch. Considering the reputation of our government, a far more chilling aspect is to give government some control over what is reported and how.


If government truly wants a more free media, then all it has to do is start talking. Openly. On the record.

The fact is, the current president's record on being open is worse than Bush. What is the president hiding?

With that in mind, the real reason behind this FCC initiative becomes very sinister indeed.

A FINAL REPLY

Should the FCC or any government agency come into my office and attempt to dictate what and how I write news, the first reply will be me telling them to leave and never come back. If they persist, then I will escalate my response right along with theirs.

Yes. If it comes to it, blood will be shed. Whose I do not know. But blood will flow.

Count on it.

Maybe it ain't so random

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What if the various financial lotteries are not as random as people think?

Science as long said a person has a better chance of being struck by lightning than winning the lottery.

What if they are wrong?

Breaking science already has amassed a body of evidence that could, and I stress could, indicate winning the lotto is not as random as once believe.

To 'splain. Science has something called Random Number Generators (RNG - no relation). When an RNG fires up, there should be no way to predict what numbers will pop up when,

T'aint so.

"The Global Consciousness Project has been showing that a few dozen such systems, called random number generators spread around the world can produce anomalies when global events happen that polarize human attention. Most famously during the attacks of 9/11," writes Gregory Weinkauf in the HuffPo.

In other words, what people think can and apparently does affect reality.

Whoa nelly.

Lest you think this is not serious, I tell you Princeton has researchers studying it. They are not the only ones. They are also not the only ones to find evidence of this.

If this proves true, then by a not-so-big-leap of extension, enough people concentrating on the Lotto could affect what numbers pop up.

As George Takei says, Ohh Myyyyyyyyy.

Freedom of religion

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Unless you've been living under a rock, you've heard the news that Jamie Coots is dead.

Coots, like another snake-handling preacher Andrew Hamblin, had both run afoul of the legal system because of their decision to take up and collect venomous snakes.

Here's the problem: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

The 14th Amendment extends this prohibition to the rest of the law-making bodies in the United States.

Coots (him not so much any more), Hamblin and like-minded people believe they have a God-ordered right to handle snakes. On that, the Constitution is pretty clear. Government can't do anything about it.

Or can it?

Government comes at the matter sideways, a pretty common move. By that I mean government does not explicitly say snake handling is illegal. If a rattler appeared in church (which can happen) and the congregation took it up and passed it around, government could not do a bloody thing about it.

However, going out and collecting snakes can be regulated and is regulated. The collection process of itself is not a religious activity - yet. It could be, but no one in the church has claimed that. Possessing dangerous snakes is not illegal, but does require permits. Unless that too is claimed as a religious activity.

Hrm.

Snake handling is not the only religious practice that has run afoul of the legal system in this nation. Peyote use in religious ceremonies is legal, but only for certain people. Marijuana (which is rapidly becoming legal regardless of intent to use) is also seen as a religious matter in some places, but the government doesn't agree. Roger Christie is still in the pokey and also facing tax evasion charges.

Consider the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster which is an anti-religion religion. Niko Alm won his case of religious freedom with the CFSM.

Wearing cookwear on your head for a driver's license photo is one thing. Handling snakes that have, do and will continue to deliver venom which kills people is another. Smoking MJ is yet another.

Or is it?


Here's the problem with the first part of the First Amendment - What is a religion?  Who defines it? Does it need definition?

No one with a rational mind will dispute Christianity is a religion as it counts more than a billion believers globally. Same goes for Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, ancestor worship, animism and a bunch of others which claim enough adherents to be a decent-sized city. So is there a minimum number of adherents before a religion becomes official? How many? How few?

The more important question is - What religious practices are permissible?

Aye. There's the rub!

1) Is tearing apart a tortilla (unleaven bread) and sharing it during services an acceptable religious practice? Don't think anyone with a rational mind will argue that.

2) Is flogging someone during a religious service acceptable? Gonna find some argument on that one.

3) Is sacrificing a live animal on altar during religious ceremonies acceptable? Gonna find a LOT more argument on that.

4) Is a human sacrifice during a religious ceremony acceptable? Ooooooo. Done opened the annelid breeding facility gates!

All four items are part of the Judeo-Christian religious faith practices. Betcha. Can point it out to you in the Bible.

So let's narrow this down. How about say a religious ritual that does not harm anyone other than the person enacting the ritual is OK? In other words, wanna shred your back with a cat o nine tails? That's your business. Want to hug a rattler? Your business.

In short. Don't hurt anybody and you're good to go.

And yet this too runs afoul of some of the world's major religions. Really. Interpretations of some major religions call for the death of apostates. Others will argue that making kids go to church is child abuse. Force is, in some religions, a basic tenet.

The strictest interpretation of the First Amendment directly collides with the right to be free.

And therein is a tautology of both epic and the narrowest of proportions. What is freedom? If my religious freedom requires having power over others is that acceptable? That's part of the Judeo-Christian and Islamic belief structure.

Whacha gonna do?

For the record, I was forced to go to church and hated it. I have never and will never force my kids to go. They go to church because they want to be there.

One last thing - If the government intends to get you, it will. Tax evasion a la Roger Christie is a catch-all penalty like the "too fast for conditions" ticket which local enforcement can hand out when you've done nothing else you can be charged with.

Bout dat debate, cats, trees and bad news

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Disclaimers:

• I did not watch the Bill Nye v. Ken Ham debate on creationism v. evolution nor will I watch it.


• Why is scissors spelled with an "sc" at the beginning?

• I am an ordained minister in two groups and support the idea of intelligent design.

• Fried is a food group.

• This post is more or less about that Ham-Nye debate.

• I am giving you nomenclature about the debate with the words in alphabetical order.

Here's a wrapup of the debate from a mostly non-religious view. Here's the same from a religious publication.

Here's a few salient points I wanna address. I quote from the Yahoo news piece.

Ham believes that "kinds" cannot diverge into other "kinds." So far, there's no repeatable scientific experiments which have taken one specie of critter and turned it into another. The "turn" I refer to here is when the two critters cannot reproduce with each other, assuming a pairing of male and female and etc. Experiments with fruit flies have been going on for the equivalent of 12,000 human years. These experiments have also NOT attempted to breed separate species, so you can't draw any firm conclusions there. We have scientific evidence which suggests such evolution.

Scientific AND religious evidence must be interpreted by humans. More on this in a moment.

Point next

"One of the key features of a scientific theory is that it is falsifiable, Livio told Live Science. That means the theory makes predictions that are testable in new experiments."

SCIENCE!

"As long as the results of those new experiments or observations agree with the predictions, the theories hold," Livio said. "Once the results are found to deviate from the predictions, the theory has to either be rejected or to be modified."

I am not, despite surficial appearances of this next statement, anti-science; I am a huge fan and believe in science.

"[S]cientific theory is ... falsifiable." Putting this another way, ideas put forth by science which stood for centuries have been overturned. I suggest a true scientist must view evolution of humanity as something which could be declared false at some time in the future. Best a real scientist can say is "Based on what we know right now..." That's the kind of science I can get behind and support. Religion should be treated the same way.

I must add, a lack of evidence is not proof in either direction. We cannot prove the evolution of humanity in lab. We cannot prove creation in a lab.

Science has repeatedly declared something cannot exist and then it was discovered. Egg on face. Religious "facts" have been shot down repeatedly. Egg on face.

Mr. Nye even admits what we know is infinitesimally small compared to what we may know. Those who read the Bible and believe it must admit to not understanding.

Point next

RELIGION!

"Creationism has no such predictable power, as findings must conform to the creationist's interpretation of God's word."

No. Creationism, by its very definition, must conform to what the higher being has ordered and directed. Human interpretations and observations are irrelevant. Until and unless a human can fully understanding the workings of a higher order being, we'll never know for sure. Reminds me of science.

(In case you aren't wondering, absolutes bother me.)

As for predictions in the scientific realm, light continues to defy predictions, at least of expected behavior. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double-slit_experiment. You can know the position of a certain elementary particles or the direction it is headed in, not both. Schroedinger's cat, et al.

Furthermore no one has yet managed to predict with 100 percent accuracy what a human being will do. If science relies on predictive power, then it is starting from a flawed base, a human. This is also a major failing of religion.

Bonus confusing item: For the record, physics states if a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, it did not make a sound. So said my dad, an engineer from Georgia Tech, and the math he showed me to explain it. See (pun intended) abovementioned cat.

Point next

And science has brought us ever greater ways to kill each other.

Religion and science are inert. They become a force of good, evil or neutrality ONLY when acted upon by a human being.

Interpreting "evidence" of any kind, be that scientific or religious, relies on a human with all the shortcomings, prejudices and beliefs that human has. There can be no truly objective interpretation of evidence by a human.

Religion can be applied pretty much however an individual wants. While the world's great religions all call for peace, love, understanding and acceptance, religion has also lead to some horrific atrocities.

Science has brought tremendous advances to humanity, but science is also responsible for every human death at the hands another human. Even pummeling someone to death with bare fists relies on an understanding of physics and geometry, whether or not the person can do the math. Swinging a fist implies an expectation of it landing where intended. That's physics and geometry in action.

Point next

"As a result, the debaters were 'playing a game without consistent rules,' Seth Shostak, an astronomer at the SETI Institute who watched the debate, wrote in an email to Live Science."

Ayup. See above statement regarding humans and our amazing ability to be subjective about everything.

Job 42:3 You asked, ‘Who is this that obscures my plans without knowledge?’ Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know.

Science AND religion would do well to remember this passage. Neither has all the answers which may be couched into human understanding.

Point the last

Me bud TC offered this post-debate statement after some observed neither side won: "What a relief. I got a feeling that victory in either case is probably bad news for the rest of us."