GBT

Applause to three local congretations of the United Church of Christ who welcomed Michigan Pride attendees this weekend. Unfortunately, Michigan is one of five states to ban all forms of recognition for same-sex relationships. The Bible quoters held a rally at the state capitol while the Pride Parade was in progress in Lansing. Would that the Bible quoters were as emotionally anti-war as they are anti-gay. The Biblical references to love and peace need more attention.

Dumb and Dumber, No. 1

I am starting a new series entitled “Dumb and Dumber.” First, I want to make a distinction between dumb and stupid. Dumb is when a person makes a wrong choice out of ignorance of the facts. Stupid is when a person hasn’t the sense to act in their own self-interest, often because their minds are captured by slogans and myths. An example of the latter is when low and modest income people support tax breaks for the rich. That's stupid.
The first example of dumb is the large number of people who buy gluten-free foods when only two percent of the population is allergic to gluten. Gluten-free is now a fad food, perhaps confused in popular minds with carb-free and thus good for those on diets. That’s dumb.
Please add your favorite example as a comment.

Catastrophe- Part 8 in a series

A recent National Geographic television channel program helped me understand the physics behind the increased number of violent storms--hurricanes, floods, tornadoes. An increase in the earth's temperature causes greater evaporation and more water vapor in the atmosphere. This moisture has to go somewhere, and that is back to earth. Also the increased water vapor absorbs more of the sun's energy and this energy contributes to storms.
Now, for public policy-- It is past time we got serious about our activities contributing to greenhouse gases, etc. particularly coal-fired power plants. The key to utilizing wind and solar energy is a national power grid to carry the electricity from the sunny and windy places to our major cities.

Debt Ceiling = Recession continues

Never has public policy been so dominated by superstition and myth as those opposing the increase in the debt ceiling and insisting on reducing Federal spending. This is a recipe for continuation of the recession. The Federal government is the only hope for tax revenue-starved state and local governments. Do these people really want to reduce the number of teacherw, firefigters, and police??