Addressing the Mormon Question

Posted on January 5, 2012 by admin

I love the passion of Twitter, and the people I follow in the short month or so I’ve been on have some of the highest passion levels I’ve ever seen. However, one Tweeper raised some questions about Mitt Romney’s – and by extension, Jon Huntsman’s and, by further extension, my – religion. Things have been said which are not at all true, in an attempt to steer people toward one thing or away from others.

I wanted to chime in with a couple of observations that I have come across in my years of study, to help, if I can, temper the debate on Mormonism in the public spotlight.

The Usual Caveats

As I’ve stated before, I won’t ARGUE religion with anyone. I WILL discuss it, but I am old enough and (possibly) wise enough to realize that there is a good likelihood that your view and mine may never meet. BUT, that said, if I can contribute to an understanding of the perspective that each of us brings to the discussion, that is important to me. I think of it as the “metaphysics” of the discussion, which to me is an interesting – and often overlooked – aspect of the discussion. Let’s find out if we come to the discussion from a common perspective, and then the ensuing discussion may be much more fruitful in terms of understanding each other.

As always, I don’t hold myself up as any paragon of virtue, and I don’t pretend to speak for the Church as a whole. That said, let’s get started.

Building a House From the Roof Down

You’d laugh at me if I climbed up on a ladder, held a roof shingle up as high as I could in the air, declared loudly that I am about to build a house, then let go. We would all watch in amusement as the shingle unceremoniously fell to the ground.

That’s what happens when you try to build a house from the roof down.

Some people approach Mormonism the same way. They throw out what to them is a grandiose claim of Mormonism, and because it’s so (to them) apparently outrageous, they watch it thud to the ground, and they satisfy themselves that they’ve disproved the religion, based on trying to build it from the roof down.

I’ve studied the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints – the “Mormons” – for a whole lotta years. Like I said, I don’t hold myself up as any paragon of virtue, and I don’t pretend to speak for the Church as a whole, but I do have my own experiences and convictions, honestly arrived at, that are not so easily dismissed. I have built the ediface of my faith from the ground up, line upon line, precept upon precept, and I have arrived at a point where, to me, it makes sense and I live by it.

I would challenge you to try the same. As it says in James 1:5-8:

5 If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.

6 But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed.

7 For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord.

8 A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.

Uncle Joe’s Journals

A lot of people say that the God of the Bible and the God of the Mormons is different, and therefore Mormonism is wrong.

First, a statement: The God of the Old and New Testaments is the same God that we members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints worship.

Many think that because Mormons use the Book of Mormon that the same God claim cannot possibly be made. Why is that?

In broad brush strokes, here is the story of the Book of Mormon: About 600 years before Christ’s appearance, Israel was in chaos. Jeremiah and other prophets wandered the land, agonizing over the fallen state of the nation. God spoke to one man, Lehi was his name, and told him to take his family away from Jerusalem, and flee. God led them ultimately to a new land – America – and the Book of Mormon is their record of their faith. The record contains testament that Jesus Christ – the same who was crucified in Jerusalem and rose again – visited the descendants of Lehi in the New World. On the cover of the Book of Mormon is inscribed “Another Testament of Jesus Christ.” (Some whose intents are not so pure often intentionally misquote this as “A Testament of Another Jesus Christ” – and help fuel the fire of ignorance.) The Book of Mormon spans the time period from approximately 600 B.C. to 400 A.D.

Is such a thing possible? Would God lead people away from danger, and would they keep a record of their journeys, their faith and the historical happenings?

The Bible itself tells us in Isaiah 29: 4, 11-18:

4 And thou shalt be brought down, and shalt speak out of the ground, and thy speech shall be low out of the dust, and thy voice shall be, as of one that hath a familiar spirit, out of the ground, and thy speech shall whisper out of the dust.

[...]

11 And the vision of all is become unto you as the words of a book that is sealed, which men deliver to one that is learned, saying, Read this, I pray thee: and he saith, I cannot; for it is sealed:

12 And the book is delivered to him that is not learned, saying, Read this, I pray thee: and he saith, I am not learned.

13 Wherefore the Lord said, Forasmuch as this people draw near me with their mouth, and with their lips do honour me, but have removed their heart far from me, and their fear toward me is taught by the precept of men:

14 Therefore, behold, I will proceed to do a marvellous work among this people, even a marvellous work and a wonder: for the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the understanding of their prudent men shall be hid.

15 Woe unto them that seek deep to hide their counsel from the LORD, and their works are in the dark, and they say, Who seeth us? and who knoweth us?

16 Surely your turning of things upside down shall be esteemed as the potter’s clay: for shall the work say of him that made it, He made me not? or shall the thing framed say of him that framed it, He had no understanding?

17 Is it not yet a very little while, and Lebanon shall be turned into a fruitful field, and the fruitful field shall be esteemed as a forest?

18 And in that day shall the deaf hear the words of the book, and the eyes of the blind shall see out of obscurity, and out of darkness.

Mormons see that as a prophesy of the coming forth of the Book of Mormon.

One last quote, for those who are tempted to say that God would never do that, from Isaiah 55: 8-9:

8 For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD.

9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.

And another, from Matthew 19: 26:

26 But Jesus beheld them, and said unto them, With men this is impossible; but with God all things are possible.

One more, from Mark 10: 27:

27 And Jesus looking upon them saith, With men it is impossible, but not with God: for with God all things are possible.

Now, a parable, and a question.

Suppose we have a relative in common, Uncle Joe. We know of Uncle Joe through stories and tales passed to us from relatives at every family gathering.

Suppose in an attic I find an old journal by a contemporary of Uncle Joe’s. In it, he describes many of the historical facts and thoughts and feelings and experiences Uncle Joe had, and from it, I get a better picture of Uncle Joe.

Question: Is the Uncle Joe of story and family myth the same Uncle Joe of the journal? In the same light, I would say that the God of the Old and New Testaments is the same God of the Book of Mormon. Jesus Christ – same. As a Mormon, I just have more to work with.

To End, an Old Joke as an Illustration

There is a thought that all Christian churches are united in the “body of Christ,” and all Christians have a monolithic belief. Mormons are generally excluded from this by people who conveniently overlook the many schisms and fissures in the realm of “Christianity.

In refutation, I would first point to just a handful of the the disagreements extant in “Christianity” today: Pope or No Pope? Baptism by sprinkling or immersion? Baptism for infants, or not? Revelation possible today, or Heavens are sealed?

Based on the many doctrinal discords, which church is right? They can’t all be right, right? Matthew 7: 14 points us in the right direction:

13 Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat:

14 Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.

The many doctrinal differences do matter. To illustrate, an old joke for ya:

A man was standing on a bridge, clutching the truss, obviously preparing to end it all by jumping into the icy, black water below.

Another man approached, and shouted, “Wait! Don’t jump! There is always hope!”

“Yeah, what do you know about it?” the would-be jumper asked.

“I know God lives!” said the second man.

“Oh? You’re a Christian? Me, too.”

“Thank, God, brother!” said the helpful man. “I’m a Baptist.”

“Me, too!” said the suddenly unsure jumper.

“Northern or Southern Convention?”

“Northern” said the man up on the bridge.

“Me, too! Evangelical or Pentecostal?’

“Evangelical,” said the more hopeful jumper.

“King James or New International?”

“King James, of course!” said the man up on the bridge.

“Church of God or Body of Christ?”

“Body of Christ.”

“First or Second Synod?”

“Second,” said the jumper.

“HERETIC!” screamed the man on the ground, and pushed the other guy off.

I hope you had a chuckle there, and – throughout this essay – I hope you gained some insights as to Mormonism, or at least how you might go about finding out the truth, for yourself. There are always those pairs of guys in white shirts and suits with nametags riding bikes or walking through neighborhoods (a.k.a. Missionaries) and web sites, and, at the very least, I would hope that you would first of all ask a Mormon if you have questions, (my email is dan at sassafrassin dot com, if you feel so inclined.)

Keep the passion, but proceed with truth!

Posted in Religion | Leave a comment

Why I Hate Obamunism

Posted on January 2, 2012 by admin

For the record, here’s an alphabetical list of the “isms” that I despise:

  • Authoritarianism
  • Collectivism
  • Communism
  • Fascism
  • Marxism (Marxism/Leninism)
  • Maoism
  • Obamunism – That this fits so nicely into the cavalcade of isms is remarkable.
  • Oligarchism
  • Socialism
  • Stalinism
  • Statism
  • Totalitarianism

My dislike stems from a number of sources, two of which I’ll detail here. The intent is not to “convert” you or start any huge theosophical arguments, but to let you know where I’m coming from.

Two caveats: I will NOT engage in any arguments over religion. I have mine, you have yours, and possibly, nary the twain shall meet. I will DISCUSS religion at any time with anyone, but I won’t ARGUE it.

Second, I caution you to not “build a house from the roof down.” I’ve heard it said that most religions contain tenets that sound way-out wacky when they’re just thrown out there, and my religion is no different. BUT, I have built the House of My Personal Faith from the foundation up, not the roof down. I have reached my present religious views after years of study, prayer and earnest discussions with others, and I’m metaphysically “here” because of that investment in time, line upon line, precept upon precept. If you start constructing a house from the roof down, instead of the foundation up, it’ll never stand. So, what I’ll say may appear outlandish and absurd, but I realize I’m approaching it from a perspective quite likely vastly different from that of any readers out there.

OK, time to get started.

I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or if you prefer, a “Mormon.” What I will say is not any official Church-authorized pronouncement, and I do not speak for the Church as a whole. Still, what I have to say is doctrinally sound.

Mormons believe that we all lived in Heaven before we came to Earth, in a state called the Pre-existence. There, we were presented with two plans for our lives. One, presented by Jesus Christ, that all would be given freedom to choose, and life would be a test, with the successful participants returning to Heaven, and all glory would go to Heavenly Father. The second, presented by Lucifer (a.k.a. Satan), to have each and every person be forced to return to Heaven, under Lucifer’s guidance and coersion, so that not one soul would be lost, but all glory would go to Lucifer.

A war was fought, with the two-thirds who supported Jesus Christ’s plan winning over the one-third who supported Lucifer’s plan. The followers of Jesus Christ were all given the opportunity to come to Earth, to gain physical bodies and live lives according to faith, and hopefully to return to Heaven at the end. The one-third who followed Lucifer were not allowed to come to Earth. But Lucifer is allowed to influence men, so that they may exercise their Free Agency, and show that they can make the good and correct choices.

More to it than that, but through these broad brush strokes, I have attempted to paint for you the major reason behind my aversion to force and coersion, especially as applied in the last two centuries. (Side note: It’s also why I have an aversion to “The Borg” and other sci-fi manifestations of the same metaphysical concept of “group-think” or mindless obedience. I value my mind, so I value the ability to, inasmuch as I am able, choose for myself.)

Enough theology at this point. Let’s go temporal for a while. In a long-ago time, I was in love with this girl, and wanting to please her I read some of the books she recommended. One book was by Madeline L’Engle, A Wrinkle In Time. (More info from Wikipedia here)

From the Wikipedia article:

“The children travel to Camazotz to rescue Meg’s father. They find that all the inhabitants behave in a mechanistic way and seem to be all under the control of a single mind.”

I believe there was a description of one of the characters observing the inhabitants going to work. The observer watches a street, and at exactly the same time, the doors open, the men march out in lock-step formation, open their car doors in unison, and drive off in a nice, neat orderly procession. The description, as I remember it, was eerie, and foreign, and alien. I disliked it immensely.

I’ve also read a good deal of Russian authors, like Solzhenitsyn, and know quite a bit about life in the Soviet Union. I was a Russian and Polish linguist in the U.S. Air Force, and I studied the history and culture of “the enemy.” I know the horrors people describe, and I know the dangers of “cult of personality” and “group think” and “the collective.” I’ve read and studied enough to know how it unfolded in Russia, and when I see the same things start to occur here, I feel I must speak out. When I see groups of school kids mindlessly chanting the praises of Obama, I get concerned. When I see anarchists and the Communist Party of the USA stake out claims in the Occupy Wall Street camps, I get a little concerned. When I see our Dear Leader ignore the Constitution, and start to issue “edicts” to bypass Congress, and set up extra-governmental agencies and unelected “czars,” I get a LOT concerned.

So there you have it: A little essay on why the current state of affairs in the United States drives me crazy. I don’t dislike Obama because of his skin color, I dislike him because of the ideas he espouses. Hope you learned something, and if nothing else, will understand a little more of where I’m coming from.

Posted in History, Philosophy, Politics, Religion | Leave a comment

Battle Plan

Posted on December 30, 2011 by admin

Getting To The Romney vs. Perry Battle Conservatives Need

Yes! This is how it will eventually shake out, I believe, so we must prep now for the long haul ahead.

Or as Dan Riehl put it:

And that leaves Perry. There is about a two month lag between Iowa and Super Tuesday. Perry has managed to regain his footing, put in acceptable performances in the last few debates and has slowly begun to rise, again. He is also the only viable competitor to Romney with enough money in the bank to hang around. If you believe, as I do, that Mitt Romney is not at all instinctually conservative and will only play ball, giving us Republican politics as usual if he makes it to the White House, then Perry must become conservatives last best hope to hold off a Romney nomination.

Think of the primary in terms of three parts. After the early states, the GOP establishment will be doing everything it can to sell the notion that Romney has the thing locked up. That won’t be true and will only become true if conservatives accept it. We must not fall into that trap.

[...]

There will be some give and take during what I’ll call stage 2 – see below. What must happen as things shake out is for the other competitors to fall away, leaving Perry as the last not fully DC establishment candidate remaining to oppose Mitt. This is the period during which conservatives must continue to come together and consolidate around Perry as the not-Mitt candiate, if you will. If we do that, the stage will be set for a head-to-head match up on Super Tuesday.

[...]

It will not be easy and is sure to be a tough, dirty fight. But if conservatives want a nominee more in line with their views, as opposed to Washington’s, then March 6 is the day to ultimately demonstrate it. Even then it will not be over. A positive is that Perry should prove to be the stronger of the two as we move on into the South. The way the schedule plays out, it could very well be a seesaw battle.

But if we can pull this off, conservatives will finally have the fight they want and also be in a position to win it. As a conservative, this is the best case scenario I can envision playing out. But we cannot give up early, or easily. Obviously, Texas Governor Rick Perry and his team must do their part, as well. Barring that, it will be Mitt and quite likely what Hillsdale College History Professor Paul Rahe recently called “just another bump in the long, gentle road leading us to soft despotism” given a Romney nomination and potential victory in 2012.

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Hey! Good Luck With That!

Posted on December 30, 2011 by admin

Iran boasts of surveillance of aircraft carrier and claims U.S. ‘is not in a position’ to prevent blockage of major shipping lane

Q: What does the U.S. Navy call the ships of the Iranian Navy?
A: Targets.

Also, when you see the article above, you will note the BIG ship and the MANY planes. It is relatively easy to photograph a carrier. It is altogether a vastly different proposition to take one on.

But, hey! Good luck with that, Iranians!

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My Own Private Idaho, er, Platform

Posted on December 30, 2011 by admin

Reading the inimitable Doc Zero, a.k.a. John Hayward, (Link: Empowering American Families), and he mentions Rick Santorum’s current surge in Iowa, and referenced Santorum’s 31-point campaign platform.

Which got me to thinkin’…

I’d like to outline my OWN Private Platform, based on my own political and moral philosophy. Once constructed, I can judge any candidate’s platform against mine, and see how he or she “stacks up.” So here goes:

  • Limited Government – I call for a return to Constitutional principles, and vow to eliminate entities that are NOT specifically enumerated in the United States’ Constitution. I would return these programs and responsibilities to the states after a short period of defunding, say 20 percent cuts in federal budgets each year for four years, and a complete defunding by the start of the fifth year. I would also have an immediate and thorough review of all laws and regulations on the books, and a recommendation for repeal for those that are out of date or overly onerous. I would implement an across-the-board 10 percent budget cut for every cabinet level department for every year of my administration, except for the Department of Defense, which would maintain current budget levels (no cuts or increases.)
    • Department of State – Keep
    • Department of the Treasury – Keep
    • Department of Defense – Keep
    • Department of Justice – Keep
    • Department of the Interior – Return to state-level control
    • Department of Agriculture – Roll up under Department of Commerce
    • Department of Commerce – Keep
    • Department of Labor – Roll up under Department of Commerce
    • Department of Health and Human Services – Return to state-level control
    • Department of Housing and Urban Development – Return to state-level control
    • Department of Transportation – Roll up under Department of Commerce
    • Department of Energy – Roll up under Department of Commerce
    • Department of Education – Return to state-level control
    • Department of Veterans Affairs – Roll up under the Department of Defense
    • Department of Homeland Security – Roll up under the Department of Defense
    • Office of Management and Budget – Keep
    • Environmental Protection Agency – Return to state-level control
  • Flat Tax – Implement a flat tax of 15 percent on income across all income levels, and including U.S. Corporations. Those who currently pay no income tax will become invested in the system, and seeing their money confiscated like the rest of us will, it is hoped, take a more active interest in how it is used.
  • Balanced Budget Amendment – To force Gub’mint to live within its means. Make it airtight and foolproof so even the most hardcore Washington Weenie won’t be able to mess with it. American Families are forced to live within their means, and so should Gub’mint.
  • Review and Overhaul of Entitlement Programs – Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, chiefly, but also look at limiting welfare payments to a strict timetable (except in cases of “can’t work,” and based on continuing and successful drug- and alcohol-testing outcomes per recipient.)
  • Review and Overhaul of Foreign Aid, including the United Nations – Tie receiving aid to performance indicators. I also favor foreign aid IN KIND, meaning you no longer get a fat wad of cash, but you get American-made products to use. For example, where before you got $1 Billion in aid that likely went to gold toilet fixtures in the Potentate’s Palace, now you get a boatload of John Deere Tractors and enough seed corn to start a good crop with. Maybe some power tools in the bargain, and lots of U.S. timber to build infrastructure.
  • Renew America’s Covenant with the Individual – We need to get away from “identity politics,” which tend to pit groups against groups to fight for political benefits. America was founded as a place where the individual would rise based on his or her merits, which includes perseverance, education and self-improvement and personal “gumption.”
  • Foster the Free Market – Gub’mint will no longer be allowed to influence the picking of “winners” and “losers” in the marketplace. No more grants, loans, subsidies, etc. for any industry participant – banks, TV stations, car companies, you name it!
  • Term and Privilege Limits for Public Servants – This includes all Congressional positions (Representatives and Senators), and a limit to their privileges, staffs and expenses. Public servants will have the same access to programs that average Americans have, so that means no more special retirement funds, no favored exemptions, no special privileges. No more Super Special Retirement Packages (six figures after 5 years’ service!?!?!), and no more Legalized Insider Trading. Blind and Deaf Trusts for all funds, and a signed commitment that they will not be employed as lobbyists post Congressional service. Serve then depart with the thanks of a grateful nation. Long-term bureaucrats will also be limited in years of service, with mandatory retirement after 30 years of service after attaining a high pay grade, and 20 years’ mandatory retirement if a person fails to attain the requisite pay grade. (This would be similar to the U.S. Military structure.) This would prevent the amalgamation of power in bureaucrats’ hands.
  • Outlaw Public Unions – No more Gub’mint unions. It has long been recognized that public unions represent an unfair advantage in collective bargaining (see President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s thoughts on the matter), and they cannot be allowed to hold sway in the public arena.
  • Eliminate Fraud in Federal Elections, including Primaries for Federal Offices – This would entail a picture ID requirement for voting, and a strict limit to a specified precinct for each voter (to eliminate a voter possibly voting numerous times in numerous precincts.) Eliminate apparently insufficient voting methods – such as electronic voting booths which may be “hacked” and the tallies compromised. If it means a return to paper ballots and hand-counting of results, so be it. I would even like the idea of dipping one’s index finger in indelible purple ink for the day, as was done in Iraq, to prevent voting fraud.
  • Secure the Borders of the United States – Fences, dogs, barbed wire, and minefields if necessary, with strict entry checkpoints. Deny access to illegal immigrants at all borders. Prosecute any/all U.S. companies which hire illegal immigrants, and deport illegals where/when found. We can, at the same time, encourage legal immigration, and with the expected boom of reducing Gub’mint intrusion in the free markets, we should be able to accommodate new immigrants with ease. It will no longer be the case of them “taking jobs Americans just won’t do,” but instead, will become a case of “we need willing workers at all levels.”
  • Pay Down (and eventually Pay OFF) the National Debt – We owe too much, and we’ve mortgaged our children’s children’s children’s future. This is quite possibly the most egregious, most morally reprehensible thing that has been done by Gub’mint in it’s long history: The shackling of unborn generations with debts incurred to pay for extravagances today. One only need hear stories of sums spent on shrimps on treadmills or penis pumps to know that we have too many self-interested politicians with their hands on the purse strings, and we need to rein them in and kill their extravagances.

Well, that’s about it for me for now. I may add some to this. Don’t know right at the moment.

Posted in Philosophy, Politics | Leave a comment

To My Conservative Friends in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina

Posted on December 28, 2011 by admin

As you contemplate stepping into the polling places over the next few weeks, please do ALL OF US out here in the Rest o’ the States a favor when you finally cast your vote:

Please vote your heart and head, and NOT by the polls or commercials or come ons or robo-calls you experience! Please honestly look at the candidates, and make your selection on whom you truly best feel would be the one to help bring this country out of the mess we’re in.

Especially don’t, I implore you, think that one candidate is the “chosen” one, or one has it all wrapped up. The Establishment – and the candidates themselves! – want you to believe this, and cast your vote resignedly. Instead, vote your heart and cast your vote as if it were the only vote that the candidate of your true heart would get.

The TRUTH of the matter is this: NOTHING has been decided yet! Someone on Twitter today made the observation that NONE of the 2,400 plus delegates have been decided yet, so there ARE NO FOREGONE CONCLUSIONS! No “Anointed One!” No “Chosen One!” No “Shoe-In!” The way to start us off is not as a herd of sheeple, consigned to hold your nose and cast a vote for whom “they” tell you to. Instead, vote for the one YOU MOST WOULD LIKE TO SEE WIN, BECAUSE IT’S THE RIGHT THING FOR AMERICA!

You just might be pleasantly surprised!

Posted in Politics | Leave a comment

The Perils of Polling

Posted on December 28, 2011 by admin

The purpose of a poll is two-fold (at least as far as I can see it):

  1. to get a “snapshot” of public opinion on a certain issue at a certain time
  2. to influence public opinion

Inasmuch as a poll is meant to try to give a snapshot of a given point of view at a certain point in time, all well and good. That’d be an honest attempt to provide information on the prevalence of a sentiment in a set time and from a set place.

The problem arises when a poll is meant to influence opinion. I believe this is the far more used scenario in today’s media climate. It plays on the biases of the questioning, the ignorance of the polled group (by and large) and the tendency of Human Beanz to want to belong, to associate with the “in” crowd.

So if you admit to the less-than-honest purpose of most pollling – to sway opinion – then you come to distrust polls. But there are a couple of other factors everyone should keep in mind when regarding polls and polling.

First, the questions asked are not just simple attempts to garner information. They are carefully crafted to elicit the desired response, and depending on the desires of the pollster and polling organization, may have quite different syntax and sentence structure depending on the goals of the poll. The WAY a question is framed is as important to the response as the response itself.

Second, there is no law restricting the response to the realm of truth. The responder is free to say whatever he or she wants – regardless of the true intent or relation to any objective standard. I can respond to a pollster’s question as a Democrat, as a “country bumpkin,” as a racist, as a homophobe or whatever – and that would in no way relate to who I really am in real life. My motive may be to frame my response in a way that helps – or hurts – the pollster or the subject matter being polled about.

The current polling seems to show Ron Paul leading in polls in Iowa, yet most polls are also starting to show that his “support” stems from SOME Republicans, and also some Democrats and other “mischief” voters who seek to prop Ron Paul up artificially to ultimately harm the process by bringing an arguable nut case up as a legitimate candidate. Ron Paul’s “popularity” in polls won’t last if people truly evaluate his record and the gold mine of quotes he’s left behind. These responders seek something else besides Ron’s ascendancy in the polls.

Third, you have to take into account the poll’s “margin of error.” From a Journalism Class I had at my Alma Mater, we did a story on a poll we devised. We had to ask at least 100 people a question, and write on the results. Even with such a small sample, the “margin of error” was plus or minus 6 percent. So if we found 50 for and 50 against, the TRUE statistic could be 44 for and 56 against, or 56 for and 44 against. Wide swing, yes? And even with more sophisticated polling – with much larger sample sizes – the margin of error only goes down to about 3 percent.

Take the motivations of the pollster, the motivations of the respondent, the sample size and the margin of error, and you get: Probably a not-very-useful yardstick of where you are, or where you wanna be.

So, as you try to discern the “truth” from the current plethora of Iowa polls, keep these things in mind. And as you caucus, stand in the group where your heart leads you, not where the polls try to tell you to go!

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I Don’t Wanna Swim In A Roped-Off Sea

Posted on December 28, 2011 by admin

Is Google filtering my search results? While trying to find some articles on the “Santa Claus Killer,” I entered a search for “atlasshrugs blog,” and got the following results (click on small picture to view larger size in new browser window):

Long story short: NO direct results pointing to Pamela Geller’s excellent blog, Atlas Shrugs Blog. That’s somewhat disturbing, because I’d heard some rumors long ago that Google tended to “censor” its results depending on the “politics” of the sites involved. So much for “Don’t be evil.” (Oh. Wait. That was withdrawn a couple of years ago.)

It would appear to be possibly true. If so, don’t expect to find Sassafrassin.com anywhere in Google, either, because I intend to be about as politically incorrect as I can possibly be, (within the bounds of good taste, of course!)

Posted in Business, Politics, Technology | Leave a comment

Changed DrudgeReport.com Headline, Just a Little…

Posted on December 26, 2011 by admin

The original text was OK, just the graphic wasn’t quite right. So I changed it:

Posted in Zoo of Losers | Leave a comment

Meanwhile, In Another Couple of Corners of the World…

Posted on December 26, 2011 by admin

In the post-Christmas haze, I am nonetheless drawn to happenings in other corners of the world, which may affect us.

In Russia, on Saturday, tens of thousands flooded the streets of cities across the former Soviet Union to protest the recent “elections.” People are definitely NOT happy with the recent “version,” and they’re demanding “Honest Elections,” (“Честные Выборы”) I follow a couple of Twitterers from Russia, and via my imperfect reading of their Tweets and related links, I can get a glimpse of what’s going on there, at least in a little part.

I love Russia, and Russians. They have a depth of experience, of history, of spirituality that I hope to one day explore further, in a first-person kind of way. They know things, hugely important things, that we might only guess at, and most of it would be of immense value for a soul wandering and searching for the meaning of life and living. I watch, an anxious bystander, hoping that what is best in the Human Spirit will win out against the forces of conformist idealogy, wearing today a different mask, but snarling the same teeth as that of the Bolsheviks in years not too long gone.

I silently cheer the progress, and the stubborn resistance, I see to the oppressive government just lurking below the surface. Since 1991, I have cheered their successes and their lurching steps toward the freedom they so richly deserve and strive for.

Yet another window to this world opened just today, when one Tweet I saw detailed the plight of Chen Si (and I may be misspelling that!), a 57-year old Chinese arrested for “undermining activity.” (Nearest I can translate without my trusty dictionary.)

It’s remarkable to me that the Russians know of the Chinese, yet we Americans, by and large, know next to nothing of either. We, the supposed guardians of freedom, would be hard-pressed to know whom to root for and whom to boo when it comes to Russia and China.

I think that’s a little sad, and I am resolved, in 2012, to know better these voices I see and hear who cry from a faraway land, in a strain at once familiar and at once faraway, that of Freedom. These are the inheritors of the legacy of Tienanmen Square, and of the Attempted Coup against Gorbachev, and for too long we’ve ignored – or more precisely, remained ignorant of – their voices. That will change in 2012.

Here are some links to the stories I saw today. (NOTE: You’ll need some Russian under your belt, and you may want to decide for yourselves if Google is censoring any info about Chen Si, ’cause I sure as heck can’t seem to find anything on him via Google. Shame on Google if they ARE blocking info to kow-tow to the Chicoms’ ruling sensibilities.)

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