Zimmerman vs. Martin

I don't support either side. Both sides share blame. However, I am more concerned that the media is whipping this case into a frenzy that may ignite into riots. If riots turn into armed conflict, I fear we may well see harsher weapons restrictions and maybe even gun confiscation in America.  Gun confiscation in America would leave the US vulnerable to nuclear attack and invasion by Russia and China.  

Now we are hearing that Ben Kruidbos IT Director of Florida State Attorney's Office testified that prosecutors withheld evidence from George Zimmerman's defense team has been fired.  Kruidbos said that 2,958 photos were in the report given to the defense but that his report contained 4,275 photos.

We are also hearing that Judge Nelson at the last minute opened up the possible charge of Manslaughter as a possible verdict as well as Second Degree Murder.  The defense had only been arguing against the Murder 2 charge this entire time.  Dirty Tricks?

Instructing the Jury on Manslaughter Judge Nelson says: "To prove the crime of Manslaughter, the State must prove the following two elements beyond a reasonable doubt: 1. Trayvon Martin is dead.  2. George Zimmerman intentionally committed an act or acts that caused the death of Trayvon Martin."

That's it. Just 2 bullet points. According to this Zimmerman is guilty.  Matin in dead and Zimmerman shot him. The section goes on to describe the Manslaughter further but without any more summarizing bullet points.  It is my opinion that this beginning 2 bullet point summary is exceptionally misleading.  Fortunately we have some smart jurors who have asked Judge Nelson to reclarify the definitiion of the new Manslaughter charge.

 

NSA Activities

The revelations by Edward Snowden regarding the unconstitutional activities of the NSA only served to verify what US citizens have suspected all along.  However, NPR this morning is carrying story after story trying to convince us that most US citizens don't mind having their phone records stored in a database, and that having the government record all of our phone, email, and online activity is no big deal.

I am going to tell you why government storage of data and metadata is dangerous.  First, it doesn't matter if the government is only saving metadata or saving emails and conversations with certain words.  Whose decides what words get put on an enemy list? In just the last months we have seen government agencies (IRS, USDA, EPA) target conservative, tea party, religious and constitutional  groups.  Whose to say the NSA wouldn't and isn't already doing the same?  

Second, you say that that if the government were to put together an enemies list and target a religion or conservative group that US military  would never follow orders to target  US citizens.  However, this forgets that the military with all its drones and satellites is nearly automated.  Whose to say one day the government could just launch thousands of drones domestically and upload a target list and remotely and automatically hunt down and target  US citizens arbitrarily labeled enemies of the state.

Third, with all the backdoors written into the many programs we use on our computers and now with the storage of information in the "cloud", whose to say the government couldn't plant false information and files on our computer or in our email or cloud storage and label that person a domestic terrorist or pediphile?

NSA Data Centers:

Fort Meade (Baltimore), Maryland
Friendship Annex (Baltimore), Maryland
Bluffdale (Salt Lake City), Utah
Fort Gordon (Augusta), Georgia
San Antonio, Texas (Texas Cryptology Center)
Oahu, Hawaii (KRSOC, Kunia Regional SIGINT Operations Center)

Geneva, Switzerland (NSA spy on US citizens by foreign intelligence or private contracting firms from foreign country)
RAF Menwith Hill (Harrogate), England Eschelon
Japan???

According to the Washington Post, "[e]very day, collection systems at the National Security Agency intercept and store 1.7 billion e-mails, phone calls and other types of communications. The NSA sorts a fraction of those into 70 separate databases." [Wiki]

Missions:

Shamrock- monitired all overseas telegrams.
Echelon- monitors all phone and fax communications
Thinthread- monitors all cellphone and email
Trailblazer- storing all cellphone and email
Turbulance- placing monitoring malware and backdoors in all electronic devices
Prism- monitoring and storing all online communications (skype, google, AOL, MSN, VOIP, P2P, ect

Narus STA 6400 Device (Room 641A ): 20 or more internet fiberoptic mass hi-speed monitoring stations.
NarusInsight (OC-192) capable of monitoring 10 billion bits of data per second.

http://m.dailykos.com/story/2006/04/08/200431/-All-About-NSA-s-and-AT-T-s-Big-Brother-Machine-the-Narus-6400

[Conjecture]
The problem with recording metadata:
1. Unconstitutional
2 Compilation of lists
3. Individuals targeted by drone strikes
4. False information planted on e-devices

Lifeguards and Personal Responsibility

I think the idea of lifeguards and other trained public safety professionals is great. However, something happened today at the neighborhood pool that got me thinking. I was talking with a friend at the local pool while we were watching our kids.  The older kids were on swim team and the younger kids were playing on the steps in the shallow area.

Our local pool usually has 2 lifeguards sitting high on lifeguard stands overlooking the deep water.  Just recently the pool added a 3rd lifeguard sitting at the pool edge near the steps where the littlest non-swimmers wade. This is a great idea because, it has been my experience with my own kids that its these non-swimmers that get into the most trouble the quickest.

Anyways, we are talking at the poolside  and my friend is watching his kid like a hawk.  The 3rd lifeguard is at poolside as well. So, as it happened, the littlest kid who was playing on the steps, stepped off the step and got into water over his head. So my friend and I spot the top of his son's head just under the water, arms moving but not strong enough to get his head above the water again. 

So, in a flash, my friend jumps up, is over in the water lifting his son out onto the poolside.  The kid, just out of the water, coughs a few times then vomits and then is fine and spends the rest of the time sitting on my friends lap in a towel with no apparent permanent effects from the incident.

After the incident, I'm having flashbacks to all the close calls with my children around water. I've had my non-swimming kids fall into deep water on a dock, or jump into the pool without their arm floaties not remembering that they had just taken them off to eat a snack. And, I've been the one to snap into action and respond; snatching my kids out of the water or getting their head above water before they inhale any of it. I was also glad my talking with my friend didn't distract him from noticing the exact moment when his son was in trouble.

What is amazing here is, in addition to the fact that any kids survive childhood is that through that whole incident with my friend's kid's head going under the water, the flailing, the rescue, the cough, cough, vomit on the concrete; none of the lifeguards noticed that anything had happened.  Even the lifeguard sitting next to the shallows. Didn't even notice after the fact.

What's my point here? My point is that having lifeguards is great, but their presence doesn't mean parents and everyone at the pool doesn't have the responsibility to be watching.  In the event of an incident, its nice to have some trained professionals and water-saving equipment available. But in this instance and many others with my own kids, had I not been watching and been the one to rescue my own kid, the lifeguard would only have helped in retrieving their lifeless corpse from the bottom of the pool.

The reason I brought this up was notto discuss  water safety, the merits of arm floaties, or the continued need for parental supervision. There is a principle here that applies to other aspects of our life.   With all this attention on gun rights in America, and security in the workplace, and knowing life-saving skills, etc.

It is nice to have trained County Sheriff's deputies, Emergency Medical Services, and workplace security.  But I will tell you that when there is a safety or health incident, if a person has to wait for the trained help to arrive, it's too late. When there is a cardiac arrest and a person's heart stops.  If that person doesn't receive bystander chest compressions in the 15 minutes its going take for EMS to arrive, its too late. They are going to be brain dead.

And again, when it comes to the 4th Amendment right in the US to bare arms.  If there were to be a security threat, if victims were forced to wait for public safety to arrive, it's too late.  Safety and security  is our common shared responsibility.  We all have to be watching out for each other.  We all have to be trained in basic life saving skills.  It's okay to have trained safety professionals, but its not okay to abandon completely our personal responsibility to a designated few.

This is not just a physical principle but also a spiritual principle. Our spiritual safety and security is also a common shared responsibility and should not only be left to trained professionals like pastors.  

The Unbelievers

Atheists love to pit Science and Religion agsinst each other. Atheists claim that only Science can explain "How" the universe was created.  However, this is a false argument. The pupose of Religion is NOT to explain the "How" of the universe. While Science deals with the questions of "What" and "How", Religion is focused on explaining "Who" and "Why".

Richard Dawkins and Lawrence Krauss have been touring the country debating science vs. religion.  I was just watching a YouTube clip where they were discussing a new documentary "The Unbelievers".  I haven't yet seen this film but from the explanations from Richard Dawkins he made some arguments against religion I wanted to address.

1. First off, Dawkins sets up debate between science and religion.
2. Dawkins claims religion and science are two conflicting ways man has devised to explain the universe.

3. Dawkins claims science explains the universe by the scientific method, experiment, observation, and verifiable and predictive facts.

4. Dawkins claims religion describes the universe by superstition and tradition.

5. Dawkins says faith is the enemy because blind belief can lead to radicalization and irrational behavior.

6. Dawkins would like people to abandon all religious belief and embrace pure rational thought.

7. Dawkins calls religious belief that one person knows better than another to be arrogant and scientific thought to be humble.

First, this is a false debate:

1. The purpose of religion is NOT to explain the universe.  The purpose of religion is to explain how mankind should behave and relate to one another.

2. Religion only has gotten into trouble in describing the Universe by drawing false analogies in an attempt to support a proscribed behavior.  False analogies don't make the proscribed behavior wrong.

3. Religion is fine allowing science to explain the universe.  But when we realize with dark matter and dark energy make up over 95% of the Universe, and that we see or can detect less than 5%, I think its arrogant for science to think they have much of a clue to how the Universe works.  Seems to be a lot of belief, blind faith, and tradition to go along with the many unverifiable scientific theories.

4. The business of Religion is teaching charity and virtue and NOT explaining the Universe.

5. What makes human's human is that we have the capacity to NOT act like animals. Religion purpose is to reinforce this human behavior.

6. Religious faith is NOT about blind obedience and not about being irrational or unverifiable. 

7. The idea of religious faith is to encourage animal-natured humans to follow the time-tested examples of our forebearers, and verify the word by experimentation to suppress our animal nature, and  to treat our neighbors with charity and virtue. 

8. Religious faith simple message is "try it and you'll like it".  Test the word before you cast it aside.  The need for initial faith is that the natural man cannot comprehend, see, understand, or conceive  of the benefits of human behavior before he has tested it.  But once faith has been tested and verified by experience, the principle of behavior becomes knowledge.

9. Religion teaches that humans can be hungry but decide to fast, they can be offended and decide to forgive, they can sacrifice  something they want now for something better in the future.

True Religion Teaches:

1. treat others how you would want to be treated.

2. do no harm

3. help your neighbor

4. govern your own actions

5. all humankind are equal

Law of the Jungle Teaches

1. do as you will

2. if you are more fit than others, than it is your duty to rule over the others and spread your superior genetic material for the survival and advancement of the species.

3. if you have a desire, you must obtain it. The universe has placed that desire in you and you put yourself at odds with the  universe if you deny yourself.

4. it is for the good of the species that each individual realize the full extent of their desires.

Problem With Law of the Jungle Thinking?   What happens when 2 people want the same thing?  They have to kill each other to get what they want. Or one has to decide they really didn't want that. In this system, there is only room for one person at the top.  Or there are a gang of mob bosses who act like they are fighting with each other but in reality they collude and prey upon their own followers.

Solar Hibernation, Global Cooling, and Seismic Activity

The sun has a more recent well known 11-year solar sun-spot cycle. Every 11 years or so, the sun would go from having hundreds of sun spots on its surface from having no sun spots back to a solar maximum of many sun spots again.  Scientist really don't know exactly why the sun exhibits these magnetic variations.  But we do understand better how this 11-year cycle affects temperature and weather.

In addition to these shorter 11-year solar sun-spot cycles, there are longer cycles where there have been prolonged periods with weaker solar maximums and longer solar minimums with no sun spots at all.  

This last solar minimum exhibited almost 3 years without a sun spot.  Now that we are finally entering into a solar maximum, the sun only has half as many sun spots as it would during other maximums.  Only time will tell if this weaker solar pattern will continue.

Okay, so what happens with Earth temperatures and climate when the sun goes through these prolonged solar minimum's?  Well, the last time it happened in the 1600-1800's. This climatic period is known as the "Maunder Minimum" and "Dalton Minimum". What happened with the climate was that global temperatures were much colder than usual. This period, also calked "The Little Ice Age", resulted in cold winters where the Mississippi River, and Thames River in London routinely froze over each winter.

The interesting detail to this would be that in addition to colder global temperatures that occur during prolonged solar minima, is the possibility for increase seismic activity, Earthquakes and Volcanism.  However, the mechanism between solar activity and vulcanism is still unknown.  Some scientific  prognosticators are predicting a possible increase in seismic and volcanic activity if a prolonged solar minimum occurs.

What is known is that higher solar wind is inversely correlated with cosmic rays.  Instead of being hit by a stream of protons and electrons from the sun, when the solar wind is weak, greater amounts of high energy cosmic rays coming from interstellar space shower down on the Earth. Higher cosmic rays have been associated with higher cloud cover.   Higher cloud cover traps more heat. Water vapor in clouds traps much more heat via the greenhouse effect than carbon dioxide.