A recent study on police use of force by Harvard economist Roland Fryer found no evidence of racism in police shootings. This was lauded by those who wish to deny the existence of an anti-black bias. But lethal use-of-force incidents make up a tiny fraction of police interactions. The study found widespread systemic racism in …
In the last 60 years the Supreme Court of the United States has had exhibited two trends: the number of both unanimous decisions and 5-4 split decisions has grown to historical highs. All the stuff in between is in decline. It is in those split decisions where the problem lies. …
This post is a tribute to Sarah Barr, who at the age of 19, lost her seven year battle with Ewing’s sarcoma, a childhood cancer. She now resides in the hands of God. In 2013, Sarah Barr made an oil painting based on one of my monarch butterfly photos. As the …
I, like most Americans, grew up eating pumpkin pie made from canned pumpkin. Every Thanksgiving my mother would make such a pumpkin pie, adventurously changing the recipe to use either sweetened condensed milk or evaporated milk. I lived in ignorant bliss until I owned a home and had a garden …
In trying to sort out fact from fiction, there are confusing moments when faced with two competing views. Take reincarnation. There is the traditional viewpoint which rejects it and alternate viewpoints that accept it as fact. In the latter case, I was stunned by the following: And finally, the verse below is often used …
For as long as I can remember I’ve been told that America has two camps: Left Liberal Democrats and Right Conservative Republicans. One is always correct and the other always wrong. Yet as a Christian it perplexed me why some of the devout around me picked different parties from each other. How can this be if …
From the time America was discovered until around 100 years ago, most of the old growth forests were cut down. This upset environmentalists, so a push was made to protect forests and to plant more trees. Now trees are roaring back. Estimates are that between a third and half of …
President Obama spoke in favor of mandatory voting. Why would anyone want to require the populace to vote? Politicians love uninformed voters. They are easy to manipulate and they generally turn attention away from the details. It becomes a popularity contest. A good part of politics is trying to win …
While there is no doubt from a statistical standpoint that that humans are major contributors to global climate change, the exact extent and mechanisms are unknown. Pundits would have you believe otherwise, but just look at how terrible the climate models are at prediction. There is a lot of guesswork and complexity. …
Welcome to the site. I plan to use the blog as a place to muse about a number of topics of interest to myself. Hopefully you find it a little bit useful. Feel free to comment. The site will also include my portfolio of photos that will be available for both …