loPEZ Dispenser

It’s great to live in Philadelphia! Being the birthplace of our great nation, Philly prides itself as a place founded on the ideals captured in our beloved Constitution. Being the day before Independence Day I thought I’d tell you a story about something going on up here.

There are times in our history when mistakes are made. Laws are passed that maybe don’t fully take into account the freedoms granted to us by our Constitution. In times like these action must be taken. It is our duty as citizens to uphold and protect the ideals that so many have fought and died for in our 232 year existence as a nation. We have a mechanism in place via our judicial branch that allows us to challenge contradictions and injustices in our own laws. There are even many organizations out there which provide assistance to those who need a louder voice.

Today, the city of Philadelphia is under assault by one of these laws. In April, the city passed a law that by it’s very nature is so heinous, discriminatory, and utterly unfair that citizens are in an uproar! Some say that at it’s core this law violates the First Amendment’s guaranty of free speech. Three citizens of our great city Mike Tait, Josh Silver and Ann Bourlais along with the Institute of Justice have had enough of this injustice and have filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of this law.

So what is this law the the city so carelessly passed? According to the new law, beginning in the fall, all Philadelphia tour guides must take (and pass) a history exam and pay a fee to become a city licensed tour guide. Violators of the law would face a fine of $300. This law applies to all city tour guides including NPS guides, Duck Boat and Bus tours, carriage rides, and even foot guides. CAN YOU BELIEVE THIS INJUSTICE!

The city claims that this action was taken to ensure that all tour guides are providing proper and historically accurate information to the tourists that visit from all over the world. According to a local news article:

“The city of Philadelphia is trying to claim that is has the power who may speak and who may not and under our Constitution, that’s simply unacceptable,” said Robert McNamara of the Institute of Justice.

The group believe the new regulations would have a negative impact on small and independent businesses.

“What’s next? Are you going to start licensing comedians to guarantee the delivery they have is funny,” Boulais said. “Where does it stop?”

So let me clarify this. These people are claiming that their free speech is being violated because the city wants them all to be licensed. Let me tell you people something. Even the food cart operators have top be licensed. The city is not stopping these people from speaking. They can say whatever they want whenever they want. However, if they are being payed to provide a service (a business) then information they provide needs to factually accurate. This has nothing to do with free speech. It has everything to do with being qualified for the job.

Lets re-frame this. Will the city or state give me a plumbing license without passing the plumbing exam? NO! Will I be able to practice law without passing the Bar exam? NO! Can I practice medicine without passing a medical exam? NO!

NO! NO! NO! Freaking IDOITS! What a waste of time and my tax dollars. I love the quote above about comedians. What a poor analogy. You aren’t paying a comedian to give you accurate information.

So could my company be sued for not hiring a person who doesn’t have the job qualifications for the job they are gunning for? Of course not!

Are these people so lazy and stupid that can’t study for a history exam that they should already know the answers to? If they spent half the energy studying as they have put into this stupid lawsuit it would be no problem. I’d actually love to take the test and see how I stack up based on what I know right now. Can anybody arrange that?

I am sick and tired of our judicial system being so tied down by stupid lawsuits like this. These people should be responsible for ALL court costs associated with these ridiculous suits if they lose them…and this one will be lost. Maybe that would make them think twice.

So Happy Independence DAY!

*NOTE: All links below are clickable and lead to my sources.

My final grad school class is about Systems Thinking. I wouldn’t normally take a class like this but for some reason I was drawn to the topic. Systems Thinking is about unlearning linear thought (such as A causes B) and seeing the world and situations as one entire interconnected structure. At it’s core is the adage that “the whole is greater than the sum of the parts” which somewhat introduces the idea of emergent properties. It may sound hokey or like one of those things you learn in college with no real world application. I beg to differ.

I was first introduced to Systems Thinking (though not by name) when I read the book Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner. I highly recommend this read (I’ll even loan it to you). In Freakonomics the authors go on to explore counterintuitive relationships between seemingly unrelated variables. I won’t go into the details here but go read this book.

Now on to my point. All of you should know by now that I think Global Warming is a crock of &#^$! Now answer me this. What is the link between global warming and global food shortages? I’ll tell you…ETHANOL! Unless you’ve been in a cave for the last year or have other people buying your groceries you’ve no doubt noticed the significant increase in food prices. Dairy, eggs, any wheat product, rice and many other core food groups have nearly doubled in price. Why? Ethanol!

Ok, so lets frame the system. We’ll look at two sets on unintended consequences of this biofuels craze driven by global warming alarmism. The first set we’ll look at how this is driving up food costs and increasing world starvation. I call this “Kill Me Now”. Then we’ll look at how the process of creating Ethanol! actually creates more carbon dioxide than it saves. I call this “Kill Me Later”. Get the title now?

Kill Me Now
We are faced with “global warming”. Global warming is caused by carbon dioxide accumulation (so they say). Some brilliant scientist says, ok, well lets add ethanol to our gasoline to make it pollute less. BAM! Instant carbon reduction. Politicians get on board and all of a sudden we have committed to us using 45% ethanol by 2015! This year alone it took nearly 20% of our grain to help meet that target (according to this article). This is a number that will only grow. Since much of the ethanol produced is made from corn, farmers are opting to convert their wheat and other crops to corn fields which drives up the cost of wheat. Additionally, this diversion of corn to biofuels has driven up the cost of meat and dairy products since much of livestock is corn fed. This new drive for Ethanol! has heavily contributed to a global spike in food costs. Americans are feeling the pinch and for most of us this is just an inconvenience, however, those less fortunate than us have it much worse. Many are facing starvation (especially in countries who are net importers of food) and have to spend nearly 75% of their wages on food. The UN is crying foul and some have predicted that this setback has cost us 7 years of progress in the global hunger fight.

President Bush recently released $200 million dollars in food aid to help but things are getting messy. When people are hungry rational though goes out the window. There is unrest in many of the poorer countries. It is not intuitive that in our fight to curb so called global warming we caused world hunger and unrest.

Kill Me Later
Now lets start again with global warming as our main variable. Again, global warming drives an increased use in ethanol. Well ethanol doesn’t grow on trees. The organic matter has to be processed. Not only does the machinery used to process the ethanol emit CO2 into the atmosphere, the process itself emits CO2. The US Departments of Agriculture and Energy sponsored a report on this and this is what they said (on page 19):

The fermentation of corn starch into ethanol generates CO2, which has a low economic
value and is expensive to move. Most ethanol producers vent CO2 to the atmosphere,
although a few ethanol producers are able to sell it.

So to get ethanol to lower CO2 we have to create CO2. Does that make sense to you? This would further drive up the levels of CO2 in the atmosphere thereby worsening global warming. In Systems thinking this is called a “Fix that Fails” archetype.

It gets worse though. Ethanol has become a profitable industry. As stated above, many farmers are converting their land to grow corn instead of wheat. Additionally, TIME Magazine reported a disturbing trend in South America and other places where the rainforests are being razed to create new farmland. This is a double whammy for carbon levels. Not only are you removing trees that absorb CO2 naturally, you are then turning around and burning them which releases even more CO2!

Causality

One tenet of Systems Thinking is the generation of Causal Loop Diagrams. These are pictures that represent the relationship between variables in a system. It can help one see the counterintuitive loops that drive system behavior. Below is a CLD I created for Ethanol! production.

Click to Enlarge

I won’t go into the details but here is a rundown. The arrow causally link the two variables. If there is a “+” sign at the end on an arrow is means that an increase in one drives an increase in the other (same direction). A “-” indicates that an increase in one drives a decrease in the other (opposite direction). Talking through my diagram starting with “Carbon Dioxide Levels” would go like this:

An increase in CO2 drives an increase in global warming which drives an increase in the use of biofuels which loops back and reduces the CO2 levels. The increase in biofuels also drives an increase in the conversion of organic matter which, as discussed above, further increases CO2. Likewise, an increase in biofuels leads to more demand for farming land which leads to more razing of forests which further increases CO2. Finally, an increase in biofuels decreases the crops for food which increases the cost which drives hunger and unrest.

Digestion
I know this is a lot of information to take in and this certainly doesn’t nearly capture the entire picture of what drives the system. This is just one glaring example of how global warming alarmism has made my pretzels cost more and others to starve to death. This is no stretch. Watch the news. Connect the dots. Maybe you will see that my cynicism and skepticism on global warming and what is being done about this supposed problem is well founded. I’d encourage you, my five loyal readers, to try and think systemically. I digress.

So which would you prefer, Kill Me Now by starving me to death or Kill Me Later as we are slowly cooked to death by rising global temperatures? All of a sudden I am hungry. Do you smell chicken? Oh, its Bob next door…

People who know me know that I am always on the lookout for a good deal. Every time we got to Target we check the clearances and have found some great stuff for CHEAP! To help me in my deal searching I got to this great website Slickdeals. It is there where other bargain shoppers like me post their findings.

Tax season is upon us so I’ve been looking out for a deal on Taxcut. Sure enough, Slickdeals delivered! Last Monday (1/14) somebody discovered that if you go and order Taxcut Premium Federal + State + efile from Office Depot online but opt for in-store pickup the price dropped from $64.99 to $29.99. Plus there is a $10 rebate out there making the deal $20 after rebates. As I said, not a bad deal.

It didn’t take Office Depot long to realize their mistake and correct it. Many people reported back that their store managers were not honoring the deal stating that corporate sent them an email stating that it was a mistake and all orders were canceled, purchasers were notified, and monies returned. I never received a cancellation email. I put off going to pick it up because I figured it would be a bust. Finally Friday I went there on my way home from work.

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I explained that I had not received my money back yet and he said that is a corporate thing and had nothing to do with them. We jabbed back and forth for a few minutes but he wouldn’t budge. I then proposed two scenarios:

1. Sell me the product at the price I was charged (once my credit card was charged it was a legally binding contract) and we’re all happy or

2. I leave empty handed and you lose me as a customer for good and I tell everybody I know about your pathetic customer service and deceptive practices (which I am doing right now).

The manager rudely chose the latter. I left, again defeated (but pissed).

Once I got home I called the Office Depot corporate line. The guy was understanding and was ready to help me out. His boss said he could override and give me the lower price. I was thrilled. But them he told me that he could not process the order as the product was discontinued. Huh. Well I just saw 100 of them at the store 20 minutes earlier so…

Today I decided to go to the Best Buy across the street to play some Rock Band at lunch. I figured that while I was there I would try a price match from my online confirmation receipt. I simply showed my internet receipt from OD and he matched it. In addition to getting taxcut for $30, BB has a promo where you get a $5 gift card with a tax software purchase. I got both plus I’ll send in the $10 rebate and be out the door for $15 in the end.

So screw you Office Depot! I WIN!

Well then I wrote a letter to their corporate office about how the manager treated me. We’ll see how that goes…I’ll report back.

…ridiculed, seen as crazy, unreasonable, and hypocritical. This is another symptom of how out of touch many Christians are with the world. We are told to be “in the world but not of the world” but we are still definitely IN THE WORLD.

How often do we see Christians trying to “protect” themselves via segregation? This is evidenced in the fact the we have separate schools and colleges, Christian workout facilities where men and women are separated in the name of modesty, and Christian bookstores where you can get the latest praise album.

Yes, God does tell us not to partake of the sins of the world but we are also told to “go into all the world and preach the gospel”. How can we accomplish this if we are never in the world?

You must be wondering by now what this is all about. Well, today I read about a new conservative Christian website that was introduced to counter wikipedia. Conservapedia is “A conservative encyclopedia you can trust.” Um, I trust wikipedia just fine, thanks. This is what they have to say about themselves:

Conservapedia is a much-needed alternative to Wikipedia, which is increasingly anti-Christian and anti-American. On Wikipedia, many of the dates are provided in the anti-Christian “C.E.” instead of “A.D.”, which Conservapedia uses. Christianity receives no credit for the great advances and discoveries it inspired, such as those of the Renaissance.

Conservapedia is an online resource and meeting place where we favor Christianity and America. Conservapedia has easy-to-use indexes to facilitate review of topics. You will much prefer using Conservapedia compared to Wikipedia if you want concise answers free of “political correctness”.

It was started by a guy named Andy Schlafly and a band of “58 high-school-level, home-schooled students from the New Jersey area”, according to this article (which is where I discovered this waste of web space). The fact that a group of sheltered homeschoolers (of which I used to be one) started this site pretty much throws all credibility out the window.

Schlafly claims that Conservapedia is “one of the largest user-controlled free encyclopedias on the internet.” Is this some kind of joke? Does it really matter whether dates use CE or AD? I mean, does it really, really matter? Are people going to turn away from God because of it? If they do, they had other issues to begin with.

This site has become a laughing stock of the blog community (rightly so) and it embarrasses me that I, as a Christian, am lumped into the same category as those who proliferate this nonsense.

My wife and I have been discussing the issue of education recently. Our daughter just turned 1 last week so we have some time before any critical decisions are made, but we both seem to agree on one thing. No amount of parental sheltering can protect a child from everything. Instead of teaching a child to avoid and shun everything we should be teaching them how to deal with things and make proper decisions for themselves. Case in point, I went to a Christian school (and was partially homschooled) and I turned out good. I never smoke, drank or did drugs and I didn’t have premarital sex. My wife went to only public schools and she never smoke, drank or did drugs and didn’t have premarital sex either. So what does that say?

I will continue to use wikipedia. In addition to wikipedia, I will confirm that information with additional sources, which you are supposed to do ANYWAYS!! Plus, I imagine that (at least) scientific information on wikipedia is more accurate than on Conservapedia. Just a hunch though.

With all that said, I will now officially launch a boycott against all things Conservapedia!! After all, boycotts is what we Christians do best, no? If you wish to join my boycott, leave a comment below…

Every year, the NFL enters into a routine of nominating their best players for an all expense paid trip to Hawaii for the Pro Bowl. Every year, the wrong people are picked. There are a bunch of reasons for this. First, the general public is allowed to vote. That means that people who don’t know anything about football are deciding which players are the best. For example, Mike Alstott was a pro bowl fullback for many years. The only problem; he’s a halfback, not a fullback. The main job of a fullback is to block for the running back. Alstott was an average blocker, but he was the main runner in the Bucs offense. Even though he was listed as a fullback, when he lined up he often had a true fullback lined up in front of him. It’s not that Alstott wasn’t a good player; he was. But he was elected by the public in a position he didn’t even play. Another reason the pro bowl vote is rarely accurate is that voting starts before the season is even half way over. How can you say a player was the best at his position after only playing half the season? I would rather they wait until the regular season is over to start the voting. The pro bowl isn’t played until February anyway.

Ok, let’s move on. First we’ll cover the misses.

Pacman Jones and Terrell Owens were not elected to the pro bowl, but Shawne Merriman was. All three are standout players at their positions. Jones is second in punt return touchdowns and is a constant threat to run an interception back for a touchdown. Owens leads all receivers in touchdowns even with the drops. Merriman lead the league in sacks. He’s a fantastic linebacker in only his second year and is a dominating force on defense. Though all three are qualified to be pro bowlers, Owens and Jones got snubbed and Merriman got in. The reason the Owens and Jones got snubbed is that they are turds when they’re not on the field. Pacman loves getting arrested, and Terrell enjoys tearing apart teams. Good. They don’t deserve to get in. But why is Merriman held to a different standard? Merriman tested positive for performance enhancing drugs and was forced to sit out 4 games because of it. He cheated. Why should he be rewarded for cheating? He gave the same old excuse that a ’suppliment’ he was taking must have had the steroid and he didn’t know about it. He even went as far as to say he was going to sue the company, but refused to name the company. Smart on his part, because had he named the company he would be opening himself up to a very large slander lawsuit. Have you ever seen a vitamin or suppliment that didn’t have the ingredients clearly listed on the label? If so, would you take it? That’s what Merriman wants us to believe. Testing positive for performance enhancing drugs should invalidate you for any individual awards or post season accolades. Recently Jason Taylor and Champ Bailey have echoed this statement, and Taylor won defensive player of the year.

Mack Strong - Shaun Alexander’s yards per carry went from 5.1 last year to 3.4 this year. If you compare games from this year and last year, it’s easy to see why Alexander was so successful last year and so mediocre this year. Last year, Alexander wasn’t touched until he reached the secondary. This year, he’s getting tackled by linebackers. Sure the loss of Steve Hutchinson has a LOT to do with that, probably more than Mack Strong. But Strong has also regressed since last season. He is missing blocks and getting blown up by defenders. Strong is good, but there are better fullbacks out there that deserve it more. Like Justin Griffith who blocks for the best rushing game in football in Atlanta, and rose to the challenge when injuries caused him to take the RB reigns last week. He has averaged 5.6 yards per carry this season, and has four total touchdowns.

Kellen Winslow - Granted, he doesn’t have the name recognition of Antonio Gates or Tony Gonzalez, but he lead NFL TE in catches, and was only 2nd behind Jeremy Shockey for idiotic outbursts. He’s a gung-ho player that can’t seem to focus his angst. While his production does make a great case for him being in the pro bowl, his motorcycle riding cost him a lot of respect from those who cast the ballots. I expect to see him on the list next year though.

Willie Parker. Willie Parker?!? Yeah, he had a good year, but it wasn’t outstanding. I can’t think of another AFC runner that did a lot better, so lets take the 3rd AFC RB slot away and give it to Winslow at TE .

Tony Romo - Ok, he won some games against mediocre and poor competition. But when your own coach says you’re not that good, maybe you don’t deserve to be a pro bowler. Clearly his popularity was affected by the false rumors of his dealings with Jessica Simpson. Jeff Garcia had a much better half season than Tony Romo.

Troy Polamalu - This is purely a name and hair recognition vote. He had a very sub par year, and was not worthy of the votes he got. He didn’t break the AFC top 25 for tackles, sacks, or INT’s. Not to mention how many games he missed due to injury. Ok, there were 3 of them and I just mentioned them, but they had to be mentioned.

Now lets see what they got right.

Michael Vick not getting in - This guy is not a QB. It was a travesty that he got in last year completing only 55% of his passes for a paltry 15 touchdowns and 13 interceptions. “But he ran for 1000 yards this year”, I hear you saying. Great. Let him try to make the pro bowl as a running back then. This guy is NOT a leader, has no respect for authority, got his coach fired, and flicked off his own fans. He has no business getting a free trip to Hawaii, or being a QB in this league. Ron Mexico doesn’t deserve to be in the NFL.

Tom Brady got Snubbed - I don’t know if I’d even call it getting snubbed. The 3 guys that beat him; Manning, Palmer, and Rivers certainly deserved to be there. You could argue that he may have beat out Rivers, but I’d tell you that Rivers threw fewer interceptions, was more accurate, and had a higher QB rating. Rivers just deserved it more than Brady this year. And don’t tell me it’s because Brady didn’t have the receivers… lets see you name the starting receivers of the Chargers…

Brett Favre was left out - He had the 4th most yards, and refuses to be injured. Other than that he was mediocre. He threw 18 TD’s and 18 INT’s. He led the league in attempts, but didn’t come close to the lead in completions. ‘Everyone wants to see him in because this is his last season.’ That’s what they said last season, and that’s what they’ll say next season too.

Frank Gore - This guy came out of nowhere. He was almost a forgotten player playing for a crappy team. More than anyone else on the 49ers, this guy fought for them. He ended up leading the NFC in rushing yards despite the fact that he plays for a lousy offense with a mediocre line.