Irreni World Scale

Hi! Zappy Friday! Hug! Here, have a hug! Hugs and kindness are not two things we generally associate with politics and voting. It is never to late to start, eh? Voting has gotten especially mean this election cycle? Are you a Trump voter? Are the non-Trump voters being nice to you? Are you a 3rd party voter? Are the non-Trump voters bullying you? I have stated in a previous blog post that  morally you should always vote your vote . Don't let yourself be bullied. Bullying is especially troublesome this election because of Trump. Trump voters are getting bullied and non-Clinton voters such as myself are getting bullied. And the irony is that the bullying is being done by the crowd promoting an anti-bullying agenda. Why aren't people being kind to each other when it comes to politics? The answer is obvious, plain for all to see. Politics and being mean are human nature. It is who we are. Political meanness is the norm for all cultures. This means political kindne

Hi! Happy Wednesday! Let us do some positive thinking, always vote your vote. What is Democracy? Voting for who you want. Anyone telling to not vote 3rd party is a bully and anti-Democracy. Being a bully and being anti-Democracy is negative thinking. Always voting who you want is Democracy. Easy peasy. So that is positive thinking. The voters who voted for Ralph Nader in 1999 did not elect Bush. They elected Ralph Nader. This is no different than the people who voted for Bush elected Bush. The heart and soul of Democracy is your vote. Don't  undermine Democracy voting for someone you do not want to vote for. Let us examine some of the claims made by the vote bullies. A vote for Nader was a vote for Bush. No, a vote for Nader was a vote for Nader. The assumption is that Ralph Nader voters would have otherwise voted for Al Gore. The funny thing is, there is no proof of this given, ever.  Low voter turn out, not Al Gore votes. The US has low voter turn out, even in Presi

Hi! Happy Wednesday! This blog post is an open letter to Katherine Ozment, author of "Grace Without God: The Search for Meaning, Purpose, and Belonging in a Secular Age". I'm attending your book signing tonight, read your book and have some thoughts to share. All good. No worries. There is nothing angry or hostile. It is all good. Well met!  First let me say I really enjoyed the book. Especially the first half that details personal experiences in your life. The first half of this book is a much needed story for any and all into a modern life grappling with being non-religious all the while valuing religion and questioning missing out on those religious benefits. We need a lot more of these stories. Hopefully your book will encourage others to do so. Second, the second half was not as compelling for me. Well met! with the second half as well but personally the survey of secular institutions is covered ground as I have studied these on my own. One thing I did not

Hi! Happy Wednesday! How can the rise of gay marriage acceptance and the rise  of Trump exist in the same country? What's going on? We cannot be both less bigoted and more bigoted can we? The acceptance of gay marriage in this country is a glass-half-full hope for humanity being less-bigoted in America. The public appearance of racism and bigotry during the Trump campaign is a glass half-full. What to think? It is by the goodness of God that in our country we have those three unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence never to practice either.         --Mark Twain Welcome to America. Or rather, welcome to humanity. While the specifics of the topic may be American the aspects of human nature are universal. At the crux of this seeming paradox is identity versus survival. We do not have the free will but we believe we do and this is problematic when it comes to our identity and survival; who we think we are. Scientifically we

Hi! Happy Saturday! It is a nice day here  in Menlo Park, California. The annual Menlo Park Summer Festival is being held this weekend. There is a particular artist I go to every year to acquire this year's shirt. Steve Ripatti is his name and he spends all year coming up with one design for a shirt. Every year I make the trip the Menlo Park Summer Festival to pick up the shirt. The shirts take a year to make because the fabric incorporates up to fifteen different colors and Steve says most fabric makers only do three-or-four, tops. This year's shirt was about Cuba! Now just hold your horses. We'll get to the topic of politics here in a second. Cafe Borrone in Meno Park opens at the unusual hour of 7:00am and it is a nice place to grab eggs and a mocha con panna. And a mimosa. Mmmm. There is something I find especially appealing. That is this: now I don't consider myself a particularly pretentious fellow.  I haven't had a hair cut since October and when I d

Hi! Happy Sunday! Is there such a thing as a good, ethical or moral code of silence? Today the most prominent public attention to a code of silence is with the Blue code of silence of law enforcement. The current moral argument goes that all police are complicit with the murder of unarmed citizens due to the blue code of silence. Therefore the murder of black Americans by law enforcement is not a case of a few bad apples because the Blue code of silence makes all of law enforcement complicit. Why? Because there is only one reason to have a code of silence in the first place: to cover up. You don't cover up helping kids getting their cats down from a tree. No, cover-up is done for unethical and immoral acts. Codes of silence are always evil because they cover up immoral things. The fact that law enforcement employs a code of silence makes them all complicit with evil. Every single one. Don't want to be evil? Don't subscribe to the code silence. It is that simple. Mos