Was Evolution Guided?

Introduction 

The current and most commonly accepted theory of evolution is frequently called the Neo-Darwinian Synthesis. Its basic thesis is that the laws of nature, and natural selection operating on random processes, accounts for how life went from single-celled organisms to all the species on Earth today.

Here are a few facts that are pretty much accepted by scientists. The Earth is about 4.5 billion years old. Fossil evidence for the earliest single-celled organisms seems to point to life starting around 3.8 billion years ago, shortly after the Earth cooled enough to support life. 

Life mostly consisted of single-celled organisms until about 600 million years ago, when we have evidence of quite well-developed animal phyla. This occurred during the Cambrian Explosion – an explosion of life.

So life went from single cells to humans in about the last 600 million years. 

The Fossil Record

The fossil record is pretty clear about this. But what the fossil record does not show is what Darwin expected - a gradual change from one species to the next. Rather, it mostly shows many species remaining fairly unchanged for a few million years, and then dying off and replaced by entirely new species. Stephen J. Gould called this 'punctuated equilibrium'. 

Here's a quote from the Wikipedia article: "Punctuated Equilibrium is a theory in evolutionary biology which proposes that once species appear in the fossil record they will become stable, showing little net evolutionary change for most of their geological history. This state is called stasis. When significant evolutionary change occurs, the theory proposes that it is generally restricted to rare and geologically rapid events of branching speciation ... the process by which a species splits into two distinct species, rather than one species gradually transforming into another. Punctuated equilibrium is commonly contrasted against the belief that evolution generally occurs uniformly and by the steady and gradual transformation of whole lineages." 

Evolutionary biologist Ernst Mayr complimented Gould's paper, stating that evolutionary stasis had been "unexpected by most evolutionary biologists" and that punctuated equilibrium "had a major impact on paleontology and evolutionary biology". 

Today, the fossil record still supports Punctuated Equilibrium and the late Stephen Gould and others have made numerous attempts to explain it. 

But none of these attempts seem to be satisfactory. And there is no currently accepted theory as to why punctuated equilibrium occurs.
 
Explaining the Fossil Record 

Let me be clear. Gould and most evolutionary biologists believe that there is a purely naturalistic explanation for punctuated equilibrium. I do not.

Why? Because as a Computer Scientist, I am familiar with 'evolutionary algorithms' that attempt to simulate aspects of evolution. But unless programmers build (their own) intelligence into these algorithms, only minor changes are found. And the faster computers today operate at trillions of operations per second. I see no computer evidence that comes anywhere near showing that Neo-Darwinism can explain these rapid evolutionary changes.
 
What can? Think about the automotive industry. Modern cars started with the first internal-combustion-engine cars. Each year slight changes were made. And then a new model would come out that had major changes. But any major change (say involving the transmission) necessitated major changes in many parts of the car to work. This is how cars have evolved. Major changes in new models did not come about by small changes. There had to be many changes that were designed into any new model. And you can apply the same reasoning to virtually any device such as smart phones. 

And this seems very similar what the fossil record looks like. Insignificant changes over large periods of time, resulting in the same species being around for large periods of time. And then large changes in a short period of time resulting in entirely new species.  

But who was responsible for the evolution of cars and smart phones? Human intelligence, of course.

Conclusion 

So I've concluded that the evolution of life was also guided by an intelligence or intelligences. (The intelligences behind evolution had to be incredibly capable, but they do not appear to be 'perfect' because the fossil record does not show perfection in the evolution of life).

The hypothesis that the evolution of life was guided fits the fossil record, and fits with what we know about the weaknesses of evolutionary algorithms. So I believe that it is the best explanation as to how entirely new species occurred. This is a perfectly valid scientific hypothesis, because it can be falsified. 

And I am open to it being falsified. It would not change my worldview at all. My conclusion is based on the evidence. If evolutionary biologists come up with a plausible way that life could have evolved naturalistically, I will happily accept that.

My advice is, don't hold your breath waiting for it.

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Tim Farage is a Professor in the Computer Science Department at The University of Texas at Dallas. The views expressed herein are those of the author. You are welcome to comment upon this blog entry and/or to contact him at tfarage@hotmail.com.
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What shall we do about issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples?

In 2015, the Supreme Court ruled that states that issue marriage licenses, must also issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. I do not wish the argue the issue here, rather to give a solution to the probems it has caused. 

One problem was that a number of county clerks did not wish to do issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Yet, one can argue that since they are government employees, they should be fired for not doing so. 

And yet doctors, even in county hospitals, are not required to perform abortions if it violates their belief system. 

How can we handle this issue? We want to allow people to follow their beliefs as long as they are peaceful. Otherwise we would be violating the bedrock principle of our country - the right to act according to one's beliefs. 

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The root cause of many such conflicks comes from the fact that government has way overreached in many areas. 

If we got states out of the business of issuing marriage licenses, we wouldn't be arguing about this. If 3 men get married in a church, that is their business since I am not endorsing it personally or through my government. 

But the government has a cetain legitimate role here. If a married couple, or group of individuals get divorced, there may be children to deal with, property issues, and other issues that might only be resolved by the government. 

So a good way to handle this is for states to stop issuing marriage licenses to anyone. Any couple or group could get a minister, or priest, or even a lawyer to witness their marriage. They would sign some marriage documents of their own choosing. There would not be any government employees issuing a marriage license, since there would be no more marriage licenses, which imply a government's endorsement of a marriage.

This couple could go to the county office and register these decuments, along with any other related documents, such as pre-nuptual agreements. The state would just have to stamp 'received' on it, and no one in the government would need to sign or endorse anything.

We'd have to clean up a few things like that have gotten entangled in marriage such as health insurance, the income tax, etc.

But for most of the history of the world, governments were not involved in marriage. Even at the start of the United States marriage licenses were not issued. 

Keep marriage private. Even schools would not have to teach about what the government's current definition of marriage is.

And then we would be not waiting for the Supreme Court to decide what its next definition of marriage will be.

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Tim Farage is a Senior Lecturer at The University of Texas At Dallas. The opinions given here are his alone.

A New Study That Will Soothe Those Who Are Alarmed About Global Warming

Introduction 

You probably have heard many times that global warming has 'paused' for the last 15 to 19 years or so. There have been a number of studies dealing with this, and they have come up with dozens of explanations for it. Most scientists usually admit that further study needs to be done, and this is admirable, since no one really knows how to predict climate, in the short term or in the long term.  I will get to the newest study I've found on this 'pause' later on in this post. But now I wish to deal with the terminology that is increasingly being used euphemistically for 'man-made global warming', terms that only confuse the issues rather than clarify them. 

Many scientists and now many people have switched to the term 'climate change' instead of 'man-made global warming'. Of course, the Earth's climate is always changing, so everyone should believe in 'climate change'. Yet, many have switched to this meaningless term. I suspect it is because there's been little or no global warming lately, and so using 'climate change' continues to allow some to alarm us about global warming without having to produce any evidence that it is a significant cause for concern. 

Just so I am clear, I will use the abbreviation, GW, to refer to man-made global warming, because that seems to be what most people mean when they write about 'climate change'.

For example, in one article, the author says that "bottled water contributes to climate change". Really? Does it cool the Earth or warm it? And by how much? Any answer would result in 'climate change'. So that quote contains no information. 

The point of the article was that bottled water uses much more energy than tap water to produce and transport. And that is certainly true. So that quote from the article would have had some meaning if it said "bottled water contributes to anthropogenic global warming". It would have been even been more useful if it estimated how much bottling water contributes to GW. That would have given us some data to decide if it is worth trying to reduce the use of bottled water. (The article did make the useful point that you pay more for bottled water than for gasoline. So test your tap water. If it meets specs, which most municipal tap water does, you can save quite a bit of money).

You might think I'm being picky about the misuse of terminology. But in science, or any other areas that require critical thinking, it is very important to use terms that have a precise meaning. Otherwise, you'll be arguing about terminology and wasting time. If I start reading an article that uses 'climate change' when it really means 'anthropogenic global warming', I have a hard time finishing it, because the author is not being precise.

A New Study

Recently, a new study came out saying that GW didn't pause, but that the Earth has was actually warming for the last decade or two. A number of climate scientists have questioned the methodology used, but here I am going to take the study at face value. Here is a link to it: Global Warming Hasn't Paused. At least take a brief look at the article, so you can see that the intention of the author is to make us more concerned about GW.

One quote from the article says, "Global warming has not undergone a ‘pause’ or ‘hiatus', according to US government research that undermines one of the key arguments used by skeptics to question climate science. The new study reassessed the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s temperature record to account for changing methods of measuring the global surface temperature over the past century."

The article has some nice pictures, but the article's author, presumably a science writer, did not write objectively about the research, something we should expect from a science writer, as opposed to opinion pieces.

So let's look at the actual data found by the climate scientists who did this study. What rate of global warming did it find? 

Fortunately, the article actually has the data: 

"The results, published on Thursday, June 4, 2015, in the journal Science, showed the rate of warming over the past 15 years (0.116C per decade) was almost exactly the same, in fact slightly higher, as the past five decades (0.113C per decade)."

Couldn't the author have made the data more understandable by converting these numbers to the amount of warming it yields per century? Let's multiply the number 0.116C per decade by 10. And what does that give us?  A warming rate of 1.16C per century. 

Now is this great news or what?! 

Don't we normally read that the concern is that the global temperature would increase by 8 to 10C or so by the end of the century?

But 1.16C per century? Surly, this is a cause for celebration. Yet the climate scientists who did this study indicated it was a cause for concern.

If this small amount is still of concern to you, keep in mind the following two points:
 
a) No one knows the optimal global temperature for humanity. I've seen one study that claimed a 3C increase would be better for humanity as a whole than the current global temperature. I have no idea if this is correct. But to assume that the current global temperature is the best one is very likely a wrong assumption. That would be a remarkable happenstance. In any case, this is the same rate of warming that has been happening since 1950, and that has had no discernible effects.

b) Therefore, spending money to stop this low level of warming is a waste of money. Any sort of carbon tax, basically a tax on carbon dioxide, will make energy more expensive, and will have no detectable effect on GW. But it will hurt the poor the most, because everyone needs energy. So a carbon tax is not only irrational - it is on the verge of being immoral, because we are commanded to help the poor, not cause more poverty.

I do believe that a tax on real pollutants, such as lead or mercury, is a good idea. It might raise the price of energy a bit, but the poor become ill disproportionately more from such pollutants, because they generally live closer to coal plants, cement plants, and other high-polluting plants than most of us. So a reasonable pollution tax could well have a net positive effect on the poor.

Isn't This Going Against What Most Climate Scientists Think?

I've seen a number of surveys that show that the majority of climate scientists believe that GW is occurring, and is mostly man-made. I actually agree with this. But not because of the survey; rather this is what the data shows.

But all of the data I've seen - and I attempt to read every article about GW that comes out - shows a GW rate of 1C to 2.5C per century. Not enough to be of concern. Some climate models predict more than this, but it will take decades to verify which models make accurate predictions. And it is quite possible that it is impossible to predict climate, just as it is impossible to predict weather more than 7 to 10 days in the future.
 

But Aren't We Giving Off More Greenhouse Gasses?

Yes. And I don't want that to continue indefinitely. So I would fund research into nuclear energy, solar energy, wind energy and other sources of energy that give off virtually no pollution or greenhouse gasses. If we do, I think that within 15 to 20 years, any new energy plants we build in the United States will be environmentally friendly and generate inexpensive energy.
 
Conclusion 

The GW data tells us to stop worrying about GW, and the very small risk it might pose. The inordinate amount of fear we have about GW, is actually harming us. This is because there are literally dozens of problems that are of more concern, and some of these problems are ones that we could actually do something about, in a very cost-effective manner.

And solving some of these problems would make the world a better place for all of humanity.
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Tim Farage is a Senior Lecturer in the Computer Science Department at The University of Texas at Dallas. The views expressed herein are those of the author. You are welcome to comment upon this blog entry and/or to contact him at tfarage@hotmail.com.
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Government based upon Natural Law - (Part 4) - The Advantages of a Natural Resource Tax

Introduction 

In a previous post, "Government based upon Natural Law - (Part 3) - The Income Tax is Bad", the many and various disadvantages to having an income tax were discussed.  In this post, fair, just, and efficient alternatives to the income tax are given. 

What kinds of taxes are just?

What kinds of taxes are fair and just? Fair and just taxes are those that pay for the use of a government-provided service; these are frequently called "user fees".

Actually, many of our current taxes are just.  The gasoline tax is a good example.  The government (federal, state or local) builds and maintains the majority of the roads.  It is fair and just that those who use the roads the most should pay the most for them.   A semi-truck that travels 100,000 miles a year should clearly pay more for the roads than Aunt Pearl who drives to church on Sunday in her Ford Taurus.  Since the amount of gasoline a vehicle uses is proportional to the weight of that vehicle and the distance it travels, gasoline taxes are a relatively fairer way to pay for the roads, (although a road tax based upon the weight of the vehicle and the miles driven would even be better).

The FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) provides another good example of a just tax.  The FAA exists mainly to monitor air traffic and ensure the safety of aircraft. Clearly, the people who fly are the ones who should pay for this.  And this is currently the case, because each airline ticket has attached a small federal tax on it to pay for the FAA.

How about taxing human-caused pollution? By definition, human-caused pollution consists of substances that harm either people or plants or animals. Thus, it would be fair and just to tax a polluter in proportion to the harm caused by the pollutant for which they are responsible. This also results in the beneficial side effect of encouraging less pollution, since creating less pollution means paying less pollution tax. And it so happens that those who are rich usually pollute more for the simple reason that they own more cars, homes, boats, jets, etc. Thus a pollution tax would naturally cost more for those who can most afford to pay it.

(As an aside, the EPA has recently defined carbon dioxide as a pollutant so that they can regulate its emissions.  This was a mistake, since carbon dioxide is essential to life, and is not harmful to humans, plants, or animals.  On the contrary, plants breathe in carbon dioxide, and would die without it, and we would shortly follow suit.  Many think that it is a major contributor to global warming, but that is not a reason to label it  pollutant. Having a CO2 tax will do nothing to prevent global warming, but it will harm the poor here and abroad, because it will increase the price of gasoline and electricity. (But this is the subject for a another post).

Each of the taxes mentioned above, I believe, would fit the definition of fairness of any five-year-old. 

Reasons for Having a Natural-Resource Tax

However, there are some legitimate and constitutional functions of the government for which it is more difficult to assess how we can be fairly taxed to pay for them.  The military, foreign affairs, FBI, police, and fire departments fit into this category.  How can we fairly pay for them?  One way to think about this is to ask, "Who gets more protection from the military or the police or fire departments, Bill Gates or Aunt Pearl?"  While Aunt Pearl only has, say, a small apartment that benefits from military or police protection, Bill Gates gets quite a bit more protection because he owns many vehicles, buildings, and acres of land.  And he would suffer much more loss if we were to be successfully invaded by a foreign power.  The general principle is that those individuals or companies that own the most land or other natural resources should pay the most for these kinds of government services.  Thus, a natural-resource tax (NRT) would be a fair and just tax to be placed upon us.  Such natural resources include land, as well as coal, oil, aluminum and other minerals, etc. 

Another principle concerning natural resources is that they are a product of nature (i.e. our Creator and His Helpers) and thus are not produced by man.  Therefore, the only just way to deal with natural resources is to treat them as the property of the people as a whole.  So, if government wishes to sell or lease land or sell the rights to a company so that it can extract a natural resource, it is appropriate to tax that resource as compensation to the people for allowing the use or extraction of that resource from the commonwealth.

For example, in Alaska, private companies are permitted to extract oil from the ground.  To compensate the people of Alaska for this, Alaska taxes each barrel of oil removed, and that money goes into Alaska's Permanent-Fund Dividend.  These funds are paid to the residents of Alaska each year.  In 2008, the dividend was over $1,000 per person.

For consumable natural resources, the fairest way to apply the NRT is to tax it once—paid for by the company that extracts the resource. Thus, you would not pay a NRT on the aluminum can of Diet Coke you bought. But the company that extracted bauxite (an aluminum ore) would pay a tax to the federal government on each ton of aluminum it extracted. Of course, the cost of this tax would be passed onto the ultimate consumer, so in this sense those who use the most natural resources are those that pay for them.

In the case of land, only the land owner would be taxed, as a monthly land-tax fee. Note that there would be no NRT on the home or buildings on this land, because the NRT would have been paid previously by the companies that extracted the resources needed to build these structures. 

The legitimacy of this tax is based on the fact that no one has created the land. Thus, if a person or company 'owns' land, they have the right to control who is allowed on it. Therefore, they should pay for this right as a land-tax, which is one part of the NRT. 

Why the Natural-Resource Tax is Efficient

On the practical side, all local governments and some state governments have already established such taxes, usually called property taxes.  Thus, it would be fairly easy to have such a federal property/natural-resource tax as a replacement for the income tax (and Social Security/Medicare taxes, as well).  Ownership of property and natural resources such as land, oil wells, coal mines, etc. are already publicly recorded, so there would be no additional intrusion into our lives as a result of this tax.  It would take no tax attorneys, accountants, tax software, or tax forms to do our taxes.  Individuals that own land and companies that own land or extracts natural resources would be taxed regularly, preferably monthly.  Furthermore, property valuations that have already been done at the state or local level could be used at the federal level, thus avoiding another bureaucracy. 

Other Benefits to having a Natural-Resource Tax

There are many other benefits to a natural-resource tax.  For instance, today some of those who are wealthy can often live off tax-sheltered investments and pay virtually no tax.  With an NRT, those who are well-to-do would naturally pay more taxes than those who are not, because they would use more natural resources.  Own five homes?  No problem, but you'll be paying taxes on each lot that the homes are built upon, and would be indirectly paying for the natural resources used to build the homes.

It is important to reiterate that home owners (as well as owners of other buildings) would pay an NRT only on the land that their home sits upon and not upon the building itself.  Thus, in a given subdivision, all lots that are substantially the same would have the same taxable value and the tax assessors would not have to be concerned with the value of the home itself.  This would encourage people to build and maintain nice homes, since they don't have to worry about their taxes going up because of improvements they make.

Also, it would be fair to tax farm land, residential lots, and commercial lots at different rates, given their various uses.

Life would be easier on farmers as well.  They would only be taxed on their land and not on their profit.  Thus they would be encouraged to make the best use of the land they have.  There would be no incentive to not grow crops as there is now in some cases.

Because people naturally want to minimize their taxes, a wonderful side effect of an NRT is that if people want to save on taxes, they only need to consume fewer natural resources. This then encourages the use of more energy-efficient cars, homes, and buildings, and encourages recycling as well. 

The Natural-Resource Tax Dividend

And finally, but importantly, just as with Alaska's Permanent-Fund Dividend that is given to the people of Alaska from oil companies, the federal government could give all citizens and legal residents an NRT Dividend to compensate them for others' use of natural resources.  This would be a fair and just thing to do, and it would be an equitable way to assist the poor (and everyone else).  If done right, this NRT Dividend could replace all subsidies that the government gives out (except for the Health-Care Subsidy and Education Subsidy to be discussed in other posts), saving the taxpayer money from the reduced bureaucracy of administering hundreds of different subsidies.  The amount of this subsidy can be debated, but I'd like for it to be around $1000 per month per adult citizen or permanent resident of the U.S., adjusted each year for inflation.  We could encourage the more prosperous among us to refuse this subsidy, which would help keep the price down. (In order to keep the budget balanced, this amount of this natural resources dividend could be defined as 10% of the Gross Domestic Product - GDP).


Another Benefit of the Natural-Resource Tax Dividend

As time goes on, fewer and fewer low-skilled workers will be needed due to automation. The NRT Dividend will assist those by providing a base income to all. And no matter how much extra money they earn, this Dividend will never be taken away.

Conclusion

In summary, let's replace the income tax and FICA taxes with user fees, taxes on pollution, and a natural-resource tax.  It is the fair and just thing to do, and will create a cleaner environment and a more prosperous nation.

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Tim Farage is a Senior Lecturer in the Computer Science Department at The University of Texas at Dallas. The opinions expressed herein are those of the author. You are welcome to comment upon this blog entry and/or to contact him at tfarage@hotmail.com.
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Government Based Upon Natural Law - (Part 3) - The Income Tax is Bad Idea

Unintended Consequences of the Income Tax 

Ever since the IRS was established, people have complained about its abuses. Many bills have been passed in Congress in the hope they will correct some of these abuses. Unfortunately, any fix is doomed to fail.

It is not the IRS but Congress that has established a tax on income. (At least they even did it the right way – we passed a Constitutional Amendment that allowed Congress to tax income. Sadly, this was the one of the worst amendments ever passed). It was Congress that has modified a tax code that initially levied a 1% tax on those with above-average income to a tax code that is over a million words in length and that literally no one understands. The IRS is authorized by Congress to enforce this code and to collect such taxes. Since some people will try to hide income in order to avoid paying income tax, the IRS naturally tries to find these people. Is it a surprise that the IRS has a computer database that stores information about us? Or that they can use this database to check to see if someone's purchases correspond to his or her reported income? Or that they monitor cash deposits over $10,000? Most of us don't like this, and we shouldn't. But it's not the fault of the IRS. The problem is the income tax itself.

Taxing income is bad for a large variety of reasons. It has been estimated that it costs the American people between $200 - $600 billion dollars each year for the tax attorneys, accountants, record keeping, books, software, etc., just to comply with the tax code and minimize their taxes. This does not include the millions of hours we waste each year in tax related activities.

The income tax is arbitrary and frequently counterproductive as far as what deductions are allowed. For instance, you can deduct day care expenses from your income tax, but if a mother chooses to not work outside the home, no deduction is available. Congress uses deductions as a way to encumber us to them and they are loathe to make major changes. There are so many deductions we think we depend on, that we'll vote for whoever will maintain or increase them. Woe is he who runs for office and who wants to eliminate popular deductions. Furthermore, many prosperous individuals pay very little income taxes.

Another issue is that having to report income to the government is an invasion of privacy. Should it really be the government's business how much money we earn, where we earn it, or how far we drive while earning it?

Because of the complexity of the tax code, taxpayers must concern themselves with taxable events, such as selling stock or property. The economy is distorted and less efficient when we make decisions based upon whether or not a taxable event will occur rather than what we think would be a good use for our money.

Income tax law is even at fault for abridging freedom of speech. How can that be? Section 501(c)(3) of the IRS code grants certain not-for-profit organizations, including churches, a status that allows them not to pay income tax. However, it also prohibits such organizations from making political endorsements, and it stipulates that nonprofits should spend no substantial part of their activities in carrying on propaganda, or otherwise attempting to influence legislation. Such organizations may not participate in, or intervene in any political campaign on behalf of or in opposition to any candidate for public office. The IRS has investigated and is still investing churches who they think might be violating 501(c)(3) code. This is frightening to those of us who believe in free speech. The point here is that if there was no income tax, there would be no such IRS code controlling the free speech of non-profit organizations.

Unjustness of the Income Tax

But the biggest reason against a tax on income is that it is unjust.

An income tax is unjust because it has nothing to do with fees charged for services provided by the government. What government service does a person use just because he or she is earning money? To clarify this point, imagine two people who have the same job and earn the same salary during the day. At night, one of them watches TV and the other does marriage counseling out of his home. Is there any rational reason that the second person should pay more taxes that the first? No, because the counselor is certainly not benefiting any more than the TV watcher from government services. Taxing the counselor more than the TV watcher is tantamount to discouraging him or her from counseling. As a matter of fact, the income tax is unjust for the same reasons that the tax on polluters is just. We should tax polluters because of the harm they cause; and this tax discourages them from polluting. We should not tax people for working, since people who work are clearly benefiting our country. Taxing their productivity is precisely the wrong thing to do for such taxes discourage work! 

So let's replace the income tax (and FICA taxes, too). No more tax on wages and salary, no more wasting time, money and human intelligence trying to minimize or avoid paying income taxes and complying with an impossible-to-understand tax code. No more intrusion into our personal lives. No more taxing productivity. No more tax forms to fill out or tax audits to go to.

Of course, the government has many legitimate needs, and there will have to be some kinds of taxes to pay for them. What taxes are fair and just?

You can find out in my next blog entry, "Government based upon Natural Law - (Part 4) -The Natural Resource Tax".

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Tim Farage is a Senior Lecturer in the Computer Science Department at The University of Texas at Dallas. The views expressed here are those of the author. You are welcome to comment upon this blog entry and/or to contact him at tfarage@hotmail.com.
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What Should We Do about the Islamo-Terrorists?

Introduction 

As of February, 2015, there are a number of Islamo-Terrorist groups, such as ISIL and Al Qaeda. These groups seemingly want the entire world to convert to their perverted view of Islam. Those that don't have frequently been murdered. Of course, on 9/11/2001, Al Qaeda murdered 3000 innocent Americans. Recently, ISIL burned alive a Jordanian pilot and recorded it so it could be posted on the Internet. And they just murdered a number of Coptic Orthodox Christians in Egypt. The Jordanian and Egyptian governments, along with the rest of the world, were horrified by this and are attempting to track down and kill the perpetrators, who have murdered tens of thousands of innocents.

These terrorists have even attacked schools and murdered school children in Chechnya, the Middle East, and North Africa. Their heinous murders of innocent men, women and children seem incomprehensible to us, especially since they believe they are doing this in God's name. 

What should the United States NOT do about this?

A recent CBS poll shows that a majority of Americans, about 57%,  now believe we should send ground troops into the Middle East and Northern Africa to defeat ISIL. (See http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/majority-of-americans-now-support-us-troops-on-the-ground-against-isis-10061247.html).

This would be a woeful mistake.

Since 9/11 our intelligence agencies and the FBI have thwarted most terrorist attacks in the United States. The ones that have succeeded were awful, yet resulted in relatively few deaths.

The job of the United States government is to protect the United States. It is NOT to be the policemen of the world.

While we all empathize with the tremendous suffering caused by these terrorists, dealing with them should be done by the countries whose citizens are murdered or controlled by them. After all, we did not ask Jordan, Syria, Great Britain or any other country to send troops to the United States after 9/11.

So what should the United States do?

“Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations but entangling alliances with none.” 

Thomas Jefferson

We should have cordial relations with all countries or groups who act peacefully.  No peaceful country ought to be afraid that the United States will ever attempt to conquer it or forcibly take away its natural resources.

To countries or groups that have ill intentions toward us, our firm message should be: It would be a grave mistake to attack us, because you will regret it.  “Speak softly and carry a big stick” was not bad advice from Teddy Roosevelt.

We ought not to preach to other countries about how they should behave, or what their economic or political systems should be.  This has frequently led to them resenting us, rather than appreciating our good intentions. 

Rather, we should be humble and set a good example for other countries to follow.  What this means politically is that our government should protect our right to be free to live our lives as we deem best, as long as we don’t interfere with the right of others to do the same.

And what this means individually is that each of us ought to love our Creator and love others, by treating others as children of our Creator, and by using our talents to help make the world a better place.

So what should the United States military do?

The United States military and intelligence agencies should defend the USA if it is attacked, and to attempt to prevent an attack against us. 

This also includes eliminating or incarcerating those who have already attacked us.

(A possible addition to this is that if a close ally of ours is attacked, and if they request our assistance, and if we are able to help, we should carefully consider whether to use our military to aid the ally). 

Specifically, we should not send ground troops to other countries unless we are at war because we were attacked.

Rather, we should use our intelligence-gathering capabilities and our Special Forces to attempt to locate threats to the United States. When threats are found, we should eliminate them. 

I approve of the current way the Obama administration is doing this, by directing drones to eliminate such targets, or to bomb them.

I am also in favor of bringing the troops home that we have stationed in over 100 bases in other countries.

Some of these troops can be used to protect our porous borders and ports, further enhancing our safety.
  
But when hunting down terrorists, who can move from place to place and country to country, using our ground troops to fight them puts our soldiers in harms' way, which I do not wish to happen to protect other countries. 

What should the countries whose citizens are attacked do? 

The Arab League consists of about twenty countries in the Middle East and North Africa. The population of these countries is almost 400 million, more than the US population. 

So they have the people to take on and eliminate the terrorists themselves, if they would cooperate with each other. And it they aren't willing to cooperate, that is none of our business.

Conclusion 

The United States military should protect the United States. Other countries have the right and duty to protect their own citizens.
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Tim Farage is a Senior Lecturer in the Computer Science Department at The University of Texas at Dallas. The views expressed herein are those of the author. You are welcome to comment upon this blog entry and/or to contact him at tfarage@hotmail.com.
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We Have Nothing to Fear about Global Warming Except for the Fear of Global Warming Itself

Introduction 

First I wish to apologize for not using the much more scientific term 'climate change' instead of the term 'global warming'. The reasons for this are simple. The climate has always changed throughout Earth's history. Thus, everyone believes in climate change. Also, the Earth has not warmed or cooled significantly since around the turn of the century, and those climate scientists and politicians who keep telling us to be alarmed, much prefer the term 'climate change', to keep from being embarrassed.

Enough having fun at the expense our beleaguered climate scientists.

Since my last post on global warming, not much has changed about what the climate data shows: The Earth is warming at a rate of less than 2C per century.

A warming of 2 to 3C might be better for humanity, so maybe we should be celebrating. 

What does the current data show?

I've looked at the temperature data from many sources, and as mentioned in the introduction, the actual data shows a warming at a rate of less than 2C per century.

And the climate models, which take many decades to verify, have mostly been wrong so far. Here's a telling graph that gives actual data compared with the predictions of 90 climate models:

 

The actual data are the blue and green dots. The black dots are an average of the climate model predictions. The actual data shows about a 0.4C increase over the last 30 years, which extrapolates to about a 1.4C increase over a century.

 

According to this chart of actual satellite and surface temperature observations vs. what was predicted by 90 different climate models, 95 percent of models overestimated actual temperatures. 

So when you hear the, “95 percent of scientists believe in global warming” talking point, you can now reply with “95 percent of reality thinks your climate models are garbage." (Credit to Sean Davis for this creative reply).

And therein lies the real reason why so many global warming alarmists are so desperate to change the terms of the debate. Rather than discuss the actual science, they’d rather marginalize anyone who disagrees with their policy prescriptions. 

The global warming alarmists aren’t attempting to shut down debate because they’re worried the dissenters are wrong; the alarmists are attempting to shut down debate because they know their models are wrong, and they’d rather nobody focus on that inconvenient little fact. 

What should we tell the plants? 

Tell them that our scientists at the United States Environmental Protection Agency (the EPA) have declared that carbon dioxide is a pollutant. Tell the plants that the EPA must have forgotten what they learned in 9th grade biology about the Oxygen Cycle and how plants absorb CO2 and give off oxygen, which animals tend to breathe in on occasion. 

What should we do now? 

Don't give in to any of the 'carbon tax' proposals. And don't lose sleep over your 'carbon footprint'. 

But go ahead and support cost-effective conservation efforts, and support the reduction of real pollutants such as mercury and lead.
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Tim Farage is a Senior Lecturer in the Computer Science Department at The University of Texas at Dallas. The views expressed herein are those of the author. You are welcome to comment upon this blog entry and/or to contact him at tfarage@hotmail.com.
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