Religious Fundamentalism

Killing others in the name of any God or prophet or religion is wrong. It's a form of genocide, of ethnic cleansing. It's clear prejudice. It's not in self-defense. It's an open act of offense to purge the earth of people who suffer the great offense of believing differently than the murderer believes.

Agreed?

One of the greatest recorded acts of this kind of genocide deliberately sought after the men, women, and children and slaughtered every last one. And a well-recognized religion of peace has no problem with this. In fact, it celebrates the guy who did this.

Numbers 31 in the Old Testament tells of Moses, giving the order to kill the Midianites.

"Kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him. But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves."

So it's okay when Moses did it - because God told him it was okay and Moses and God were tight like that. But Muslims? To listen to some people yesterday, they were about ready for internment camps over the incident at Ft. Hood.

I've already stated my position: any act of killing in the name of God or a prophet or a religion is wrong. If what's written in the bible is true, then Moses was an murderous asshole - just like the guy at Ft. Hood.

Christians like to forget that their god is "the Lord of Hosts." That used to mean something to people, but I'll bet that most folks don't know what that phrase means any more. It means: "The Lord of Armies." The Christian god is a military god, who according to the bible waged a bloody campaign against the Midianites by the hand of Moses and the Israelites. If you believe that the bible is the word of God, there you go.

To a Christian, is that an atrocity?

If it's not because your faith dictates that you must accept it as the will of God, then surely you understand how a Muslim can believe the Qur'an and its dictates - some of which can be interpreted to murder infidels. I mean, true believers act on their faith, right?

"Well yeah, but that was different..." will be the reply of devout Christians. "Muslims don't know the one true God. God told Moses to do that. God didn't talk to Muhammad."

Yes, of course. What a fundamental difference, to be sure.

Christians come from a bloody faith and they justify, rather than repudiate, the despicable acts that spawned their faith because anything less would require them to either question their faith or to equate that element of their faith with the horrific religious fundamentalist acts done today. Just because it was done thousands of years ago doesn't make it any less wrong. It is the height of hypocrisy to allow yourself to accept a murder done in God's name in one instance and not allow someone else to accept murder done in God's name in another.

Unless of course, you know, God tells you that it's okay.

0 Comments
BeatCanvas.com, an Iowa Art Blog, by artist Brett Rogers, 11/7/2009 6:04:07 AM
Permalink

Skinned Knees

I like to remind people at times that the best way to help somebody might be to let them skin their knees.

Back during the summer, John McHugh - a little-known congressman from upstate New York - voted for the Democrat Cap and Trade bill. He was nominated and later sworn in to become Barack Obama's Secretary of the Army this past September.

By becoming the Army Sec, he left a vacancy that had to be filled, and the Republicans of New York's 23rd District chose a tax-loving liberal in the person of Dede Scozzafava to be his replacement to represent the Republicans; at least until conservatives around the nation got wind of it.

At this point in this election night, it appears that Constitution Party candidate Doug Hoffman, a quiet accountant who believes in freedom and limited government, will lose to Democrat Bill Owens, for whom the former "Republican" candidate, Ms. Scozzafava, stumped.

I think the best outcome has happened, should Hoffman loses by a shred. Nancy Pelosi already has her majority; a win by Hoffman wouldn't erase her majority or substantially change anything.

But what it will do is to demonstrate to the leaders of the Republican party that nominating RINO's is a loser strategy. If Hoffman wins, they narrowly miss skinning their knees.

If Hoffman loses, their knees stay skinned for quite a while. They lost a seat that they didn't have to lose. The activists stay mad about it, and are therefore not complacent. And Newtie? His time is pretty much up within the ranks of the Republican party.

It started out as a RINO district. I won't be surprised much if Democrat Owens wins. RINO's are, after all, Democrats wearing a Republican jersey. What's the difference? Since they voted one into office with McHugh, Owens isn't much of a stretch.

In the event of a loss, the leaders of the Republican have to live with their unnecessary loss for a year before the next election.

"Mom, I skinned my knee."
"Were you doing something you weren't supposed to?"
"Yeah..."
"Well, then don't do that and you won't get hurt."

2 Comments
BeatCanvas.com, an Iowa Art Blog, by artist Brett Rogers, 11/3/2009 11:57:45 PM
Permalink

Vote

Tamara and I woke up today and voted. It was a city council election. Only one candidate came to our house, a guy named Brian Rickert, who espouses lower property taxes.

I bought a book not too long ago - Get Out the Vote - and it listed all of the methods politicians use to increase voter turnout.

Long story short, the most effective method for getting out the vote is: the door-to-door visit.

Mailers, robo-calling, TV campaign ads - all of these take a big backseat to the door-to-door campaign.

The bigger the district, the more volunteers you need - because a politician can't physically visit every house. But volunteers can.

The guy running against Rickert? Well, I never heard from him at all. I expect Rickert to win. As a matter of due diligence, I went out to the other guy's web site and checked him out. He too favors lower property taxes, but he tried to engage in some negative campaigning, I discovered. So Tamara and I gave the "A" for effort to Rickert, the guy who bothered to come to our door and traded a few email with me.

Electioneering takes work, and a strong pool of volunteers. There are no shortcuts.

0 Comments
BeatCanvas.com, an Iowa Art Blog, by artist Brett Rogers, 11/3/2009 1:36:16 PM
Permalink

Purple

I read that Atlanta might elect a new mayor who describes herself as a "'purple' fiscal conservative."

I like that description. That describes me pretty well. I strongly support gay marriage, I am devoutly capitalist, I believe in individual freedom and limited government, and I'm definitely a fiscal conservative.

"Purple fiscal conservative" - that'll work.

2 Comments
BeatCanvas.com, an Iowa Art Blog, by artist Brett Rogers, 11/1/2009 11:58:39 AM
Permalink

When the Government Owns the Industry...

The latest Fannie Mae delinquency chart:

Each column is a year, and that last column is 2009.

Notice how stable it was for years. Mid-2007, it started to move upward in a serious way as all of those homes went under water for the super-risky products being offered.

When I worked at Wells Fargo, I asked the verbotten question: "What happens if Fannie goes out of business?" I was laughed at. (Still laughing, Joe?)

The problem with Fannie (and Freddie): there are no free-market alternatives. That's what happens when you kill the free-market. There is no mechanism for corrective action. And this failed government enterprise posing as a "business" just keeps expanding its book of business.

So back when I worked as a strategy consultant to Wells Fargo, I urged them to begin to develop a private alternative to Fannie. I told them that they were no different than a one-crop farmer. No one took this seriously.

Farmer, meet the corn worm.

There are two ways out of this for banks:

1. Develop and invest in a free-market alternative.
2. Let your kids pay all of this debt off when the government - i.e. taxpayers - just soaks all of this up.

0 Comments
BeatCanvas.com, an Iowa Art Blog, by artist Brett Rogers, 11/1/2009 11:08:56 AM
Permalink

Prosper Update

A couple of years ago (or so), I became a lender on Prosper.com, and here's how my four loans I helped to fund are performing.

Two are paid in full, and the other two are current, as you can see.

The government, which shut it down to any participation outside of the state of California due to concerns about "risk," is full of ninnies. Viva freedom and self-determination.

0 Comments
BeatCanvas.com, an Iowa Art Blog, by artist Brett Rogers, 11/1/2009 1:08:31 AM
Permalink

1,000 Days

Yesterday, Tamara and I had been married for 1,000 days. (And today is 1,001...)

If you follow this site, you know that I have this concept of the importance of each day - hence, the Days Alive calculator at the top-right corner of my site's home page. Interestingly, the Days Alive meter tripped 100,000 sometime yesterday afternoon on my 1,000th day of marriage to my beautiful wife. Kinda cool.

So in celebration of that fact, I bought us a fancy room at the Suites at 800 Locust and hired Singing Gourmet, Louis Dean. He cooks you a gourmet meal and then sings love songs to you during dinner.

Tamara was surprised. She knew that I had something planned and why, but having this guy come to our room and set up to sing to us while serving dinner was unexpected to her. (Success! Because it is impossible to surprise her.)

Dinner was lovely in appearance and taste. The cheesecake he makes is amazing, by the way...

And his singing is superb. I was a bit concerned that being in such a small space, it would overwhelm us, but not at all. Not only is his singing terrific, but expertly contained, and so it was a delightful addition to our romantic dinner for two. He even learned a song that was special to us at my request and sang it to us.

I love her. She beamed 1,000 watts all through dinner.

My goal was to make a memorable experience. We got married in the luxurious atrium of the hotel 1,001 days ago, and we talked of all we could remember from that day. From our family in attendance to Kelly's excellent photography to the beautiful setting, our wedding was magical.

It was great to reminisce about the day and our life of a thousand days together.

0 Comments
BeatCanvas.com, an Iowa Art Blog, by artist Brett Rogers, 10/31/2009 1:57:33 PM
Permalink

Projects

I am reminded yet again of a project axiom:

"Projects are never completed; you only find a temporarily interesting place to pause."
- Tom Wujec

0 Comments
BeatCanvas.com, an Iowa Art Blog, by artist Brett Rogers, 10/29/2009 4:34:19 PM
Permalink

Twitter

I used to have the Twitter gizmo here on my home page. Not no more... too buggy and unreliable. It was showing up as a big black box more often than it was appearing normally, and in IE, it was prompting my debugger. Yuck.

I normally use Opera as my browser, which I like quite a bit as it is fast and safe, so I don't notice issues in IE. But even in Opera, the Twitter gizmo was just a big black box.

Oh well.

I don't think I'll be tweeting as much. Twitter is great for trying to fit a concise message inside 140 characters, such as:

Capitalism: "I look forward to the reward of my labor."
Liberalism: "I look forward to the reward of your labor, too."

0 Comments
BeatCanvas.com, an Iowa Art Blog, by artist Brett Rogers, 10/29/2009 10:36:17 AM
Permalink

Proud Dad

One of the joys of being married to Tamara is knowing her children: Tyler, Tate, and Tess.

On November 6th, a play - The Farnsworth Invention - opens up at the local Des Moines Playhouse. In the picture below, on the right, is Tyler.

Tyler has always been involved in theater, and two months ago he decided to try out for the Des Moines Playhouse and got a part. He really loves working with the actors and comes home each night excited.

When he came home last night, he talked of how impressed he was with the professionalism of the other actors and how they're helping him become a better actor. We talked for a long time about that and his other interests, and it's great to see him in such a good place in his life. I'm mighty proud of him :)

0 Comments
BeatCanvas.com, an Iowa Art Blog, by artist Brett Rogers, 10/29/2009 10:13:13 AM
Permalink