A Letter to My Congressman - Concerning the Affordable Health Care for Americans Act, H.R. 3962

I was contacted by Meredith Dodson, encouraging me to urge you to vote yea on this bill. This email was rather frustrating to me, because it simply assumed that I would want this bill to pass. I most assuredly do NOT, and here's why:

1. It would increase governmental intervention in private lives, thus curtailing our freedoms. Why does the government think it can run our lives better than we can? No, the government should limit itself to law-making, law-enforcement, and national defence. This is what our Founders thought government should be, and I see no reason why their ideal should change. Human nature has not changed since they founded this country; hence, one of the best experiments in governance in the history of the world should not be changed.

2. The bill would support taxpayer-funded abortions. I am pro-life through and through; certainly abortion on demand should be highly illegal. I OBJECT to paying for the deaths of unborn human beings (to argue that they are just fetuses and not human is clearly a fallacy, since medical science has evolved to the point that "viability" occurs earlier and earlier. That's the argument of the beard. A fetus is a human being with a soul right from the moment of conception, and should therefore be protected by law).

3. It would eliminate competition, thus driving prices up and quality down. Far from creating affordable health-care for Americans, it would work very effectively against that goal. Why do so many people think that health care, education, etc., are immune from the laws of supply and demand? Or from other economic laws? Goods and services behave the same way: if you introduce competition, everything gets better for everyone.

In summary, there is not one redeeming feature of this immoral bill, and I urge you to vote NAY.

If you want to improve health care in this country, I recommend the following steps:

1. Significantly de-regulate the entire industry. I don't mean that the FDA should cease to exist (surely drugs should be put through the ringer before they are introduced), or that abortion should be legal. I mean that competition should be encouraged. In addition, it is simply impossible for the government to make all the nitty-gritty little decisions that make health care better, simply because the government doesn't know all the information it needs to know. There's way too much.

2. Make it harder to sue doctors for malpractice. America is a sue-happy country, and that drives health care costs up, in this case, because doctors have to pay so much more in malpractice insurance. The doctors, I'm here to tell you, are not going to simply absorb those costs. They will pass them on to their patients. I don't say make it impossible to sue, just make it harder. Have judges dismiss more trivial cases, for example.

A Concerned Citizen Who Votes

Humility, II

So it gets even better. After learning from my last mistake to plug the alarm clock into an outlet not controlled by the light switch, I went through the same alarm-setting procedure as before.

This time, I woke up at 6:04 on my own. No alarm. I look over at the clock, and it's on. The alarm was set for 6:00am, the clock was displaying the current time correctly, including the am/pm, and the alarm was on. So what gives?

Apparently, this clock has been a favorite playtoy of my son Hans for some time. He must have rough-housed enough with it to disturb the internal workings, or perhaps the speaker, or whatever. Anyway, it didn't go off as planned.

So the moral of the story is never to use an alarm clock your 13-month-old son has played with. Also, since I was humbled the last time, I have no need of further humility. I can stop praying that most dangerous prayer of all: the prayer for more humility. Can I sell you a bridge?

Humility

Last night, I had great intentions. I was going to wake up this morning at 6:00am, do my walking, do the dishes, and still be ready to go in time to do devotions and everything else before going to work.

I had gotten into bed soon after getting back from band. It was 11:00pm. I thought I'd get up and set the alarm clock. No problem. I found the alarm clock; it wasn't plugged in. So I plugged it in and synchronized it to our radio-controlled clock, being very careful to set the am/pm correctly (I've been burned on that before!). As I was doing so, I thought to myself, "You know, it really is quite simple to set an alarm clock, and yet so many times people don't set it correctly, and they're late to places." Of course, I was thinking of other people when I thought of this, not myself, but that's beside the point (or perhaps not-so-beside-the-point!). I continued in my train of thought, "All you have to do is correctly set the time including its am/pm, set the alarm itself with the correct am/pm, and then turn the alarm on." So I did that. Then, because I didn't want to be woken up, or kept up by the bright LED display, I put the clock face-down on the sewing table, turned off the lights and went to bed.

Next morning, I wake up with the sunlight streaming into my room, and I keep thinking to myself, "It's after 6. Why doesn't that stupid alarm clock go off?" Finally, I get up and look at the radio-controlled clock. 7:30am. I turn the alarm clock over: there's no LED display. I had forgotten that the outlet into which I plugged the alarm clock was controlled by the light switch (a feature I dislike exceedingly, unless you have very few built-in lights). So when I turned off the lights the night before, I cut off the power to the alarm clock.

And the moral of the story is this: Don't count your alarms before they sound. Also, it's a good idea to be humble.

Matthew Henry on Gen. 3:21

This was so good, I just had to post it. Genesis 3:21, in Matthew Henry's commentary, runs as follows:

Unto Adam also and to his wife did the LORD God make coats of skins, and clothed them.

We have here a further instance of God's care concerning our first parents, notwithstanding their sin. Though he corrects his disobedient children, and puts them under the marks of his displeasure, yet he does not disinherit them, but, like a tender father, provides the herb of the field for their food and coats of skins for their clothing. Thus the father provided for the returning prodigal, Luke xv. 22, 23. If the Lord had been pleased to kill them, he would not have done this for them. Observe, 1. That clothes came in with sin. We should have had no occasion for them, either for defence or decency, if sin had not made us naked, to our shame. Little reason therefore we have to be proud of our clothes, which are but the badges of our poverty and infamy. 2. That when God made clothes for our first parents he made them warm and strong, but coarse and very plain: not robes of scarlet, but coats of skin. Their clothes were made, not of silk and satin, but plain skins; not trimmed, nor embroidered, none of the ornaments which the daughters of Sion afterwards invented, and prided themselves in. Let the poor, that are meanly clad, learn hence not to complain: having food and a covering, let them be content; they are as well done to as Adam and Eve were. And let the rich, that are finely clad, learn hence not to make the putting on of apparel their adorning, 1 Pet. iii. 3. 3. That God is to be acknowledged with thankfulness, not only in giving us food, but in giving us clothes also, ch. xxviii. 20. The wool and the flax are his, as well as the corn and the wine, Hos. ii. 9. 4. These coats of skin had a significancy. The beasts whose skins there were must be slain, slain before their eyes, to show them what death is, and (as it is Eccl. iii. 18) that they may see that they themselves were beasts, mortal and dying. It is supposed that they were slain, not for food, but for sacrifice, to typify the great sacrifice, which, in the latter end of the world, should be offered once for all. Thus the first thing that died was a sacrifice, or Christ in a figure, who is therefore said to be the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. These sacrifices were divided between God and man, in token of reconciliation: the flesh was offered to God, a whole burnt-offering; the skins were given to man for clothing, signifying that, Jesus Christ having offered himself to God, a sacrifice of a sweet-smelling savour, we are to clothe ourselves with his righteousness as with a garment, that the shame of our nakedness may not appear. Adam and Eve made for themselves aprons of fig-leaves, a covering too narrow for them to wrap themselves in, Isa. xxviii. 20. Such are all the rags of our own righteousness. But God made them coats of skins, large, and strong, and durable, and fit for them; such is the righteousness of Christ. Therefore put on the Lord Jesus Christ.

Isn't that amazing?

Root Beer Day

Today, in Connecticut, it's a root beer day. What, might you ask, is a root beer day? Here are the (rather stringent) criteria:

1. It must be either a Saturday or a holiday in the summer such as Independence Day or Memorial Day.

2. It must be 70 to 80 deg F outside.

3. It must be a relatively dry day (right now, the relative humidity is 38%; that is acceptably low).

4. The sky must be either cloudless, or have cirrus clouds. A few other clouds are allowed, but the majority must be cirrus.

Now, what do you do on a root beer day? It is required that you celebrate by drinking either root beer or cream soda (it doesn't matter which brand - choose your favorite) in the afternoon.

So this is a tradition I started a while ago, and have found fun. Take it or leave it.

Biased Scientists

People, not inhuman machines, do science. Since all people are biased in one way or another, it follows that all scientists are biased. Since some of the problems scientists work on are politically charged (like, say, global warming), it follows that biased scientists work on politically charged scientific problems.

Now bias is not necessarily an evil, even in science. You must have a bias of some sort even to choose which experiments to run, or (if you are someone who decides where money goes) to decide which theories to support financially. However, bias can be an evil if scientists start interpreting data incorrectly because of their bias.

I propose a new method of deciding policy based on science (at least, whatever policy can be decided on the basis of science!):

1. Determine more than one political persuasion that scientists have, such as big government/little government.

2. Have scientists picked from each political persuasion theorize and run experiments. It would be advantageous if the scientists involved in one political persuasion personally disliked the scientists from the other persuasions.

3. Whatever results the scientists came up with that were the same, could reasonably be treated as less biased than results obtained a different way.

Thoughts on this partly tongue-in-cheek, partly not, idea?

Significant Figures

I've found I don't like the idea of significant figures, from a mathematical perspective. If you look up the wiki on it, in the section called Ineffectiveness, you'll see that, apparently, the subject receives more attention in high-school and college chemistry courses than it does in real-world laboratories. Labs use a different method of notating uncertainty.

For the following discussion, it might be helpful to review the rules for adding and subtracting using correct significant figures:

1. For multiplication and division, the result should have as many significant figures as the measured number with the smallest number of significant figures.

2. For addition and subtraction, the result should have as many decimal places as the measured number with the smallest number of decimal places.

So here's why I don't like significant figures. There are at least two mathematical problems I see with them.

1. Multiplication is not associative. Here's an example:

(1.11 x 5.79) x 6.34 = 6.43 x 6.34 = 40.8

1.11 x (5.79 x 6.34) = 1.11 x 36.7 = 40.7

These answers are clearly not equal in the least significant digit. Which answer is correct? I'm hanged if I know.

2. Multiplication does not necessarily give the same result as the equivalent addition problem. Here's an example: suppose we want to multiply 55.55 by the exact number 3. No problem. Integers, by definition, have an infinite number of significant figures. So we go 3 x 55.55 = 166.7. Ah, but now suppose we add instead: 55.55 + 55.55 + 55.55 = 111.10 + 55.55 = 166.65. The rounding rules for addition seem a bit more favorable towards retaining significant figures than multiplication does. And we see that we get a different answer here depending on which way we do things.

So I don't like 'em. I'm not entirely sure what alternatives there are. I suppose sig figs do have the pedagogic value of instilling in students the idea that you can't gain certainty by multiplication, at least (though you can by addition!).

Contraception Versus Evolution?

I just read a very interesting passage in The Abolition of Man, by C. S. Lewis. He writes, "And all long-term exercises of power, especially in breeding, must mean the power of earlier generations over later ones." - p. 56 in the paperback version published by HarperSanFrancisco ZondervanPublishingHouse. This is a very interesting statement to me.

It brought to my mind a sudden realization that there is a possible contradiction, I think, between the idea of contraception and the idea of biological evolution, Darwinian or not. For the record, I don't believe in macro-evolution at all; micro-evolution is a possibility, I suppose. I haven't examined the evidence carefully. When it comes to contraception, I believe most definitely that any abortifacient is murder, and the only defensible contraception at all is that which prevents fertilization in the first place.

Now, here is the possible contradiction: if contraception allows earlier generations to have reproductive power over later generations, and yet later generations are, by evolutionary theory, superior, then what gives? Suppose you have a couple using contraception. Thus they are attempting, at least, to decide who comes into being and who doesn't. Thus they are setting themselves up as a judge over the later generation. But if evolution is true, then the later generation would make better choices. Perhaps the earlier generation should leave as many choices as possible to the later generations.

This is most definitely a half-baked idea, written at 9:40pm on a Sunday. I'd be interested in any thoughts of my readers, however.

In Christ.

Book Review: The Valley of Fear, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

As is the case with most Sherlock Holmes stories/novels, this was very fun to read.

The story is in two parts, and starts with the murder of a seemingly very likeable, upright, and resourceful man who does not appear to have any enemies. The man's name is Mr. Douglas of Birlstone Manor House. However, there is a period of time in his life of which he did not speak, and it is that period which Sherlock Holmes delves into in order to solve the mystery, in addition to the usual clues the police always seem inclined to ignore or downplay.

The second part gives background to the first part by taking the reader back in time about 20 years, to a period of time the relevance of which is at first uncertain to the reader. However, the relevance becomes more and more apparent as the second part unfolds, eventually leading to a delightful revelation that Susan, for once, did not anticipate in the least. She has this habit of correctly predicting Sherlock Holmes story outcomes, but this one completely took her by surprise. I think it might take you by surprise as well, should you choose to read this fun read.

In Christ.

Movie Review: The Dark Knight

Rating: PG-13

Degree to which what sins there are in the movie (as defined biblically) are condemned (0 = sin is always winked at, 10 = sin is always condemned): 8

Degree to which the story has redemptive value (0 = no one saves anyone, 10 = practically the story of Christ's redemption of His people): 5

Artistry of movie (0 = completely inartistic, 10 = stunning work of art): 7

Originality (0 = copies everything from somewhere else, 10 = unique): 9

Synopsis: Harvey Dent is the new District Attorney in Gotham, and he appears to be as incorruptible as Gotham is not. He is also dating Bruce Wayne/Batman's girl, Rachel Dawes (almost hilariously miscast in this movie), a fact which complicates matters tremendously. Enter the Joker, a villain with very few rules except do everything he can to create chaos and mayhem. Without giving away too much, I'll say that the trajectory of this movie is dark in the extreme.

Critical Review: The most disorienting thing about this movie is that the viewer really has no idea whatsoever what the Joker wants to do, or what his goal is until near the end of the movie. He kills with apparently no conscience whatsoever, burns large piles of money he has just earned, etc. I should also point out that it is extremely improbable that anyone could be so far ahead of justice as the Joker appears to be. That, of course, is of no concern to the story. The story simply assumes the existence of such a man.

The theme of Dark Knight is actually very similar to the theme of Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkein, though I would say the ending is quite different. That theme is that corruption can happen to anyone, even someone like Harvey Dent.

Overall: This was a depressing movie, though exciting; it was gory, though it definitely told some truth. It is definitely worth watching at least once, though I'm not sure all the hype was well-placed. Both Susan and I liked Batman Begins better.

In Christ.

Beethoven

Yesterday/Today is Beethoven's Birthday! That's right. Beethoven's family celebrated his birthday on the 16th, but Beethoven himself, if I remember correctly, preferred to think of his birthday on the 17th. According to records, he was at least baptized on the 17th. In any case, my favorite composer was born in the year 1770 in Bonn, Germany (a fact that Bonn, apparently, is fond of reminding the world), and died March 26, 1827.

My favorite work of all is his Fifth Piano Concerto (Emperor), Op. 73. Listen to it some time, if you have the chance. It is truly magnificent. The first movement is royal, the second movement lush, and the third movement exhilirating.

In Christ.

A Plug

I just finished listening to almost all (not all are posted) of the 2008 ACCS Conference talks. They were, for the most part, terrific. You can download all of them for free from here. Some highlights for me:

Any talks by George Grant.
19 Matt Whitling - Boys and Classical Education
30 Douglas Wilson - Defending Sayers' Insight
50 Ken Myers - With Choirs of Angels: Music and Transcendent Order

The last I mentioned, Ken Myers on music, was unbelievably good. It would be good medicine for many Christians these days who think that beauty in music is relative (it isn't relative in truth or goodness; why beauty?). Ken Myers is one of those (only slightly) annoying people who are never cliched, quote mostly authors I've never heard of, and issue profound truths almost as asides. I have a time of it to keep my mind up to what he's talking about! It's worth the effort, though.

In Christ.

Book Review: How to Solve It: Modern Heuristics, by Zbigniew Michalewicz and David B. Fogel

This was a fun book to read, if you're into geeky books, that is. One of the central points the authors were trying to make throughout the whole book is that one problem is different from another, and that therefore the methods of solution will likely have to differ. Indeed, if you incorporate zero knowledge of the problem into your solution, then your solution must essentially be a random search.

Three problems provided a common thread for the many methods the authors reviewed. The first problem was the Traveling Salesman Problem (TSP). This is a famous unsolved problem in computer science. The idea is that a salesman must visit a given number of cities once only, and do so using the shortest possible path. The solution space is of size (n-1)!/2, where n is the number of cities. Applications of this problem could be drilling holes in a printed circuit board quickly. The second problem was the Boolean satisfiability problem (SAT). Here you have an expression involving a certain number of Boolean variables (they're like switches: they can be either on or off, 0 or 1, True or False), and you want to find a collection of values for which the expression comes out True. The size of the solution space is 2^n. Applications of the SAT problem include scheduling problems. Finally, there was a particular non-linear optimzation problem (NLP): maximize a complicated function involving the sums of fourth powers of cosines, the products of squares of cosines, and several complicated constraints involving sums and products. The solution space of this problem is technically uncountable infinite, but on a computer you have restrictions. Supposing a particular representation for numbers on a computer, say, with n variables each of which is m bits long, you have a solution space of order n * 2^m. Applications of this particular optimization problem might be limited, but the kind of problem is ubiquitous.

I really liked the way the authors kept hammering away at the same three problems throughout the entire book. It provided a good element of continuity. I also liked their assertion that human nature is to have a hammer and assume everything is a nail. The authors approach problem-solving differently, better: find the right tool for the job at hand. Contrary to many collections of numerical recipes (as valuable as those can be), the authors are more trying to examine the wisdom of when to use a particular technique on a particular problem.

Another theme of the book was a profound point. Suppose you teach a particular technique in a chapter of a textbook, and then you have the students do the end-of-chapter problems. Naturally, those end-of-chapter problems require applying the technique the kids just learned. After all, they're at the end of THAT chapter! However, such an approach does nothing to teach kids when to use a particular technique and when not to. An interesting and fascinating illustration of this point came when the authors proposed two relatively simple problems, not requiring any math beyond high school geometry and trigonometry, outside of the context of a particular technique. The problems were, therefore, much harder to solve. Indeed, the authors gave these two problems to math and engineering undergrads, graduate students, and even professors. Fewer than 5% could solve the problems in anything less than an hour, even though the solutions, if you know the trick, take less than five minutes each to write! Apparently, we are not taught truly to solve problems, the hard problems, the problems we've never seen before. That is the point the authors were making, and I think it's valid.

The authors propose using evolutionary computing to solve the TSP, SAT, and NLP problems mentioned above. While they don't claim it's a panacea, they do urge this family of solutions because of its flexibility in light of changing conditions, competitive conditions, etc. You still have to tune the solution to the problem, or evolutionary computing will not do any better than a random search in the search space.

The method of evolutionary computing takes its cue from the theory of evolution. And here we have to be careful as Christians. I don't believe in Darwinian evolution, not a bit of it. First of all, and most importantly, it doesn't square with Scripture. Second of all, although you do seem to see micro-evolution within species, there is no evidence whatsoever for macro-evolution. Moreover, it is rather evident that many proponents (certainly not all) of the theory of evolution take that position precisely so they can rule out the existence of God. I reject the theory of evolution, therefore, on both theological and scientific grounds. The theory of evolution, in fact, is not science but a faith. By the same token, Creation "Science" is not science either, but faith. Both are dealing with highly non-repeatable events (the origin of the universe), and thus, ultimately, no experiments are available which will provide evidence one way or the other.

However, just because I reject the theory of evolution doesn't mean that, in theory, a method of computation based on those ideas is necessarily immoral or somehow anti-Christian. The authors, as is usual with evolutionists, are unfortunately a bit preachy (in the bad sense of the word) on the point of evolution.

The evolutionary methods of computation have achieved some remarkable results in obtaining approximate solutions to problems (which is often the best you can hope for!). In addition to evolutionary computing, the authors delve into neural networks, fuzzy logic, coevolutionary systems, and multicriterial decision-making. All of these things are fascinating because they are so real. It's so easy to see real-world applications of these concepts!

Overall, I'd highly recommend this book to anyone whose business in life is to solve problems, especially of the numeric kind.

Movie Review: Wall-E

Rating: G

Degree to which what sins there are in the movie (as defined biblically) are condemned (0 = sin is always winked at, 10 = sin is always condemned): 7

Degree to which the story has redemptive value (0 = no one saves anyone, 10 = practically the story of Christ's redemption of His people): 5

Artistry of movie (0 = completely inartistic, 10 = stunning work of art): 5

Originality (0 = copies everything from somewhere else, 10 = unique): 3

Synopsis: The people of Earth have been so neglectful of their environment that it can no longer sustain photosynthesis, and therefore life. A single robot (named Wall-E) roams the Earth, and it is his sole business to sort through trash and organize it into square bundles. The movie opens with views of whole skyscrapers built of these small squares of trash. We see him going about his daily business, when he is interrupted by a spaceship landing, and another robot getting out and starting to investigate Earth. Wall-E is immediately "smitten" by the supposedly female robot, who he finds out is named Eva. Just before Eva arrives, Wall-E finds one little plant growing, which he immediately transplants into his little hoard of treasures. When Wall-E shows the plant to Eva, she immediately goes unconscious and has a little green plant sign on her that is pulsating. She also, incidentally, pockets the plant. Wall-E starts doing romantic things for the unconscious Eva, imagining that she's actually responding to him, and in general making a fool of himself. Eventually, the spaceship returns and takes Eva with it, but not before Wall-E manages to hook himself onto the exterior of the spaceship. The spaceship takes off, and Wall-E somehow manages to survive atmospheric exit. The spaceship docks with a gigantic spaceship on which we find out the rest of the human race dwells. The rest of the story shows how Wall-E and Eva interact with each other and the humans.

Critical Review: I'm someone who believes we should be caring for animals and the environment, but why? Because man, however fallen he may be, is still the crown of creation. We are stewards of God's creation. Moreover, there are other moral principles that are, to my mind, far more important than saving the environment. For example, it is more important for men to be free to worship God than it is to take care of the environment. It is more important to save baby humans not yet born than to save the whales.

For these reasons, the movie came across as exceptionally "preachy" - in the bad sense of the word. Hollywood came across as the typical we-are-environmentalists-and-the-worst-crime-you-can-commit-is-to-degrade-the-environment-in-any-way.

There were too many references to past movies and themes. 2001, A Space Odyssey, came to mind, with the battle between the ship's captain and the auto-pilot (who even looked like the computer in 2001). There were distinct themes of Brave New World.

There were a few genuinely funny moments - I enjoyed in particular the scene where Wall-E is showing Eva his treasure collection and hands her a unsolved Rubic's Cube. The camera excludes her for a second or two, and then re-includes her holding a solved Rubic's Cube. Very geeky, that.

I didn't appreciate the typical feminist gender reversal in this movie. Wall-E is supposedly masculine, and Eva supposedly feminine. But Eva has all the firepower, does all the dragon-slaying, and has the take-charge attitude, whereas Wall-E is the lovable, caring, nurturing sort.

Overall: a mediocre movie. It might be worth watching, but it's not nearly as good as The Incredibles.