My Mind’s Dark Depths

From the BBC:

“Chicago has become the murder capital of the US.

Last May, Lino Diaz became one of the 506 people killed in the city in 2012. The father of two was shot multiple times outside his home.”

…

” Chicago already has some of the toughest gun control laws in the US.”

Also from the BBC: 

The US firearm murder rate has been fluctuating in recent years, from 3.9 per 100,000 people in 2006 to 3.2 in 2010, according to the UN.

Different data from the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report indicates that the 2011 rate is 2.8 per 100,000 but this varies across states.

As shown below, [Washington] DC is by far the highest…”

Washington DC had the strictest gun laws in the country. So strict, in fact, that the US Supreme Court struck some down.

Something else people don’t mention, is that Houston, TX used to be the murder capital of the USA. That was before concealed carry was legalized.

Does anyone see a pattern here?

Like most of the nation, I’ve struggled with how to respond to the tragic carnage inflicted on Newtown, Conneticut’s elementary school. This underscores what I’ve written previously about “senseless violence.” There are things in this world that are truly senseless. There is no good reason for them, no justification. There is not, as some of my brothers and sisters in the Christian community have said, “a reason for everything.” Rather, it is a testament to the greatness of God that He can take a situation as evil and gut-wrenching as this and eke some good out of it.

Those of you who read my blog regularly know I’m a proponent of self-defense. The heroic first responders who started the process of putting the community back together immediately after this tragedy deserve every accolade we offer them. But I want to point out that they couldn’t be there to stop it. Fox news reports that it took “minutes after the assassin began his rampage” for them to arrive. In short, the professionals can’t protect us at the moment of tragedy.

Some of the teachers gave their lives in defense of their students. There is no greater heroism than that. But if they had been trained and equipped, could they have cut the rampage short? Could their sacrifice have saved more lives?

Politicians will use this to further their aims, and some will argue that this justifies more restrictions on our freedom and more passivity by people caught in such a situation. But this shows us, just as World War II showed us, attempting to placate a madman only leads to more madness. From where I stand, refusing to be a victim - defending one’s self and one’s loved ones - fighting back - is the appropriate response. Anything less plunges us further into victimhood, makes us more dependent on the politicians who’ve already proven they can’t protect us, and invites more of this insanity.

From time to time, I’ve said “I reserve the right to ignore the law when the law is stupid.”

Of course, that begs the question, “When is the law stupid?” Taken to the extreme, that could be seen as a blank check to do whatever I want and lead to total anarchy. (Before you report me to the police, I rarely conclude the law is “stupid”.)

Recently, some of my reading has led me to re-examine this question: When do I ignore the law? How do I know when to disobey?

To answer that, I have to recognize that laws exist in hierarchy. The laws of a state override the laws of a city. The laws of the nation override the laws of the state. The laws of nature override the laws of the state, and God’s laws (as revealed in a Holy Book, not as I dreamed about them in some “revelation”) override the laws of nature.

Then the answer becomes clear: I disobey a law when it conflicts with a higher law.

An Affirmative Action case is coming before the US Supreme Court, and the BBC includes an interesting quote in its report:

“…Samuel Alito, opposes the use of racial preferences in admissions.”

Do you see the problem with this quote? “Samuel Alito opposes…”

A judge’s political preferences should not come into the picture. The fact that we can often predict how a given Supreme Court Justice will vote based on conservative/liberal leanings is a problem. What matters is the letter of the law. Granted, a Justice’s political leanings will color how s/he interprets the law, but quotes like this look like further evidence that US courts have become places to make political statements, not seek justice. The courts are usurping Congress’s job.

So much for blind justice…

Many kids in the USA receive an “allowance”. A weekly or monthly allotment of money they can spend more or less as they like. As they get older, this may transition into a personal savings or checking account, with some encouragement to save or learn some money management skills.

When I was growing up, my parents assigned a dollar value to my chores, so I would “earn” my allowance by doing my chores. Skipping a chore meant less allowance, and I had a savings account so I could save for big purchases. My parents were attempting to teach me to manage money.

My parents’ approach gave me a better footing than some, but when I started supporting myself, something that shocked me was the cost of necessities. While I learned principles of earning and saving, I didn’t understand the impact of money I earned being “taken away” from me by bills I had to pay.

SO, with my oldest daughter entering high school, I am attempting an experiment to fill in the gaps I discovered in my own monetary education: the 15th (or so) of each month, we’ll give my daughter $100 allowance. If that sounds like a lot, keep reading…

On the first of the following month, she’ll need to tithe, save, and pay “rent”, “utilities” and “food”, with my wife and I functioning as her landlord and grocer.

So, if she saves 10%, tithes 10%, and has to pay $50 for rent, $10 for utilities, and $10, for food, that $100 doesn’t seem like so much.

If you’ve done the math, you’ll see that she only gets $10 to spend on pleasure, and my wife and I get $70 of that $100 back.

“Why not just give her $30″ you may ask. That’s the purpose of the two-week lag between receiving the money and having to pay her “rent”. It gives her time to think of the money as “hers”, and then see it disappear for living expenses.

This is an attempt to simulate real life in an environment that won’t foreclose on her and won’t force her to go hungry if she mismanages her money, and in so doing give her some skills that I had to learn through the school of hard knocks.

I’m consistently hounded about drinking energy drinks and how “unhealthy” they are. However, when I try to pin someone down on what makes them so unhealthy, there’s usually a lot of smoke blown.

Heckler: “You drink that stuff? They’re really bad for you?”
Me: “What’s so bad about them?”
Heckler: “They’re loaded with sugar. Do you want diabetes?”
Me: “I drink sugar free. What else is bad about them?”
Heckler: “er… um… they’re just bad.”

…and that’s how most conversations go.

Some people point out the high caffeine content. Some of those same people also drink multiple cups of coffee a day. Pot calling the Kettle black, anyone? Caffeine can cause dehydration, which I knew long before I started drinking energy drinks, so I usually drink 12-16oz of water alongside my energy drinks.I also drink them slowly: a single 16oz can will last me the whole day, and I often don’t even finish it, because I hate the “spike and crash” feeling of drinking one quickly.

Finally, searching the web, I find carbonation (fizz) is a problem. CO2 is a waste product, so ingesting it isn’t the healthiest thing you can do. Lately I’ve gravitated toward the tea-based energy drinks, which have little or no carbonation, and even with the carbonated ones, by opening it in the morning and sipping it slowly throughout the day, by the end of the day it’s pretty flat. As with the coffee snobs, many of my hecklers may also down multiple sodas a day, thereby ingesting more carbonation than I ever will.

So: sugar, caffeine, carbonation. In other words, soda and coffee. And yet soda and coffee are acceptable, but energy drinks are evil?

Over my many years as  a computer programmer, I have learned that there are certain constants - Rules or Laws if you will - that all users expect of their developers. They go something like this:

1. Developers must read the users’ minds.
2. Databases must be able to enter their own data.
3. Software must do all a user’s work for him/her, but in such a way that the user still gets the paycheck.
4. Deadline is yesterday. Data critical for completion will be provided by the user tomorrow.

The hack attack affecting 77 million users of Sony’s Playstation Network (PSN) has been widely publicized. In all the hype, you may not have noticed that Sony is just one victim of what appears to be an upsurge in hacker activity. Since May, 2011, the BBC has in fact reported hacks of the following firms:

Square Enix (Makers of Final Fantasy)
RSA (Makers of the SecurID token)
Lockheed Martin
Google China
Canada’s Conservative Party website
Sony
Citibank
Codemasters

Update (6/13/2011)
We can add the International Monetary Fund and Spain’s Police website to the list, though they both have suspects.

I’m computer savvy and security conscious. In spite of my simple precautions, though, I’ve been affected. Since I’m a gamer, the number of game companies in that list concerns me. I noticed a dramatic increase in spam after the Square Enix hack, even though the last Final Fantasy game I played was #8. I have apparently been signed up for eleven (!) life insurance policies and a dating site since the Sony hack, though fortunately those firms called to confirm my information and I was able to halt the applications.

All this to say, if someone like me is affected, you can guarantee less savvy users will be affected. It’s time to take cyber security more seriously, for myself as well.

From the Bullying FAQ on the State of California’s web site:

“They can also publicize organizations and groups that help build positive social skills and self-discipline (e.g., Boys & Girls Clubs, Scouting, martial arts classes).”

Martial Arts classes as a way to prevent bullying? Now THAT’S funny.

Today, the BBC reported that Taiwan has resumed executions of convicted criminals. The article contains an interesting quote regarding the debate over the death penalty: “The hope is that, in time, people will learn to respect all human lives, even those of murderers.”

This is, in my opinion, an example of the upside-down thinking of a society that is moving away from absolute morality (inspired by God). They are partially right, in that all human life is valuable. The problem with the perspective of “respecting a murderer’s life” is that in doing so, they are disrespecting the lives of the murderer’s victims, both those actually murdered and those of the affected loved ones. Also, since many murderers are repeat offenders, failing to execute a convicted murderer is disrespecting the life of their future victims. The only way to guarantee that a murderer will never murder again is to execute them.

So, it isn’t a question of respecting human life. It’s a question of which human life do you respect more: the victim’s or the murderer’s? A murderer has already devalued his or her life by performing such a reprehensible act. To avoid the death penalty is, in fact, giving the murderer more respect than he has earned and disrespecting and devaluing the lives of all other innocent humans.

In short, avoiding the death penalty is disrespectful to human life.

“Sometimes destroying a destroyer is the only way to protect the innocent.”