In a survey I asked a bunch of former drug addicts which they believe more difficult to give up; drugs or sex. Female respondents largely said drugs. Male respondents overwhelmingly said sex.
I wish I’d asked the same question about giving up drugs vs giving up high calorie diets.
Obesity is a major problem in our society and is only getting worse. It is one of the key factors in increased healthcare costs. It is becoming a significant issue for airline flyers who find the rolls of fat of the person next to them flowing over in to their already tight space. The Army recently noted that recruitment efforts are becoming more difficult because many who want to join are too obese to even start training and the numbers who begin training and then are kicked out because they can’t attain a minimum level of fitness is increasing.
A doctor I heard speak once said something to the effect of this: It used to be that we couldn’t avoid physical labor and that calories were difficult to come by. Today we can’t avoid calories but physical labor is difficult to come by.
I understand where he’s coming from, and agree that things have changed, but not to the extent that he espouses. Stop by any major construction site and you’ll see a number of obese people doing physical labor. It’s not just a lack of labor among the general population. Exercise is critical to good health, but almost no amount of exercise can overcome a high calorie diet. A 490 calorie scone from Panera Bread will require about 3 hours of brisk walking (8 miles in 2 hours, 35 minutes) to work off.
Calories are certainly more prevalent today than in the past, but just because they’re available doesn’t mean we have to partake. We can choose to eat healthier. We don’t have to eat Big Mac’s or Alice Springs Chicken (a menu item at Outback Steakhouse that alone has as many calories as many people need in an entire day.)
I’ve done it so I know how difficult it is. Over about a 10 or 15 year period I’d very slowly put on 3 or 4 extra pounds a year until I was noticeably pudgy. I reduced my calorie intake to about 1,800/day to lose the extra 35 lbs and now generally stick to about 2,100 to maintain it. I eat out over 90% of my meals, travel a good bit, and eat at formal dinners and other events. It’s not even remotely impossible to choose to do it and then do so.
This does pose a question. Is every person capable of the self-control and self-discipline necessary to limit their diet to something appropriate like 1,600 – 2,200 calories per day?
How many of the obese people around us are or are not capable of controlling what they eat. Is it different for men and women?
How would you rank sex, drugs, and high calorie food on the self-discipline scale?
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Welcome and Thank YOU!
This blog was originally created for a small group of friends and associates. Looking at the traffic stats it appears there are a number of others who’ve stumbled upon it and even continue to read. So, to all those who suffer through my often hastily and poorly written posts - Thank You! It’s always very gratifying when anyone takes their valuable time to read something I’ve written, whether it be in a national magazine or a simple anonymous blog.
Will posting calories help control obesity?
The one thing in Obama’s healthcare bill that I have been supportive of is the requirement that restaurants post calorie information on menu’s. Panera Bread cafés began doing this recently of their own initiative. Does it work?
My wife and I ate in Panera for dinner last night. Based on the calories posted I chose a half Cuban chicken sandwich and half cobb salad. 680 calories was within my 900 calorie dinner allowance. So far so good. They also have a promotion for a bakery item for 99 cents. That 490 calorie orange scone (my future daughter-in-law makes real (and very good) scones, Panera’s are not real but more like scone shaped muffins) sure was good.
Based on this study, posting calories is of little benefit
FitBit
While we’re talking about calories… I read an article recently about a device called a fitbit. It measures your activity throughout the day and tells you how many calories you’ve burned. Sounds like a good thing.
This morning I heard a group of POS (persons of size) talking about something similar that they all have. They were all excited because their devices showed that they burned 250 calories going on a 40 minute walk. “I can eat a candybar.” one said.
There’s a danger in this. Thanks to our metabolism we naturally burn a bunch of calories throughout the day, usually between about 1500 and 2500. I burn about 60 calories per hour when I’m sleeping, about 80/hr for the approximately 12 hours I’m fairly sedentary sitting at my desk, and about 190/hr for the 4 hours I’m somewhat active which includes things like taking a shower, grocery shopping, or cutting the grass. For all of this I can eat about 2200 calories a day and not gain weight. Eating anything more than my base metabolic rate will destroy my svelte figure.
If, for one of my ‘active’ hours, I go for a long walk that burns 250 calories, I haven’t burned an extra 250, but only an extra 60 or so. I’d actually have to walk a 250 calorie per hour pace for a bit over 4 hours to burn off that candybar. I do a lot of bike riding and burn about 1000 calories per hour (approx 20mph pace). That doesn’t mean that I can eat an extra 1000 calories though. Realistically I’ve only burned about an extra 800 calories. In reality though I find that for that 1000 calorie ride I can only eat about 600 calories over my 2200 calorie metabolic rate or similarly 1200 calories on a day I’ve supposedly burned 2000 calories on my bike. I’m not sure if my computer and various charts give high calorie burn information or if it just takes more than a calorie to burn a calorie.
Moral of the story – be careful how many calories you think you’ve burned.
My wife and I ate in Panera for dinner last night. Based on the calories posted I chose a half Cuban chicken sandwich and half cobb salad. 680 calories was within my 900 calorie dinner allowance. So far so good. They also have a promotion for a bakery item for 99 cents. That 490 calorie orange scone (my future daughter-in-law makes real (and very good) scones, Panera’s are not real but more like scone shaped muffins) sure was good.
Based on this study, posting calories is of little benefit
FitBit
While we’re talking about calories… I read an article recently about a device called a fitbit. It measures your activity throughout the day and tells you how many calories you’ve burned. Sounds like a good thing.
This morning I heard a group of POS (persons of size) talking about something similar that they all have. They were all excited because their devices showed that they burned 250 calories going on a 40 minute walk. “I can eat a candybar.” one said.
There’s a danger in this. Thanks to our metabolism we naturally burn a bunch of calories throughout the day, usually between about 1500 and 2500. I burn about 60 calories per hour when I’m sleeping, about 80/hr for the approximately 12 hours I’m fairly sedentary sitting at my desk, and about 190/hr for the 4 hours I’m somewhat active which includes things like taking a shower, grocery shopping, or cutting the grass. For all of this I can eat about 2200 calories a day and not gain weight. Eating anything more than my base metabolic rate will destroy my svelte figure.
If, for one of my ‘active’ hours, I go for a long walk that burns 250 calories, I haven’t burned an extra 250, but only an extra 60 or so. I’d actually have to walk a 250 calorie per hour pace for a bit over 4 hours to burn off that candybar. I do a lot of bike riding and burn about 1000 calories per hour (approx 20mph pace). That doesn’t mean that I can eat an extra 1000 calories though. Realistically I’ve only burned about an extra 800 calories. In reality though I find that for that 1000 calorie ride I can only eat about 600 calories over my 2200 calorie metabolic rate or similarly 1200 calories on a day I’ve supposedly burned 2000 calories on my bike. I’m not sure if my computer and various charts give high calorie burn information or if it just takes more than a calorie to burn a calorie.
Moral of the story – be careful how many calories you think you’ve burned.
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Cable TV: Not Long for this World...
At the middle of last century AT&T, colloquially known as Ma Bell, controlled all phone service to homes and businesses. If you wanted phone service they were your only choice. You had no options with AT&T. You got what they decided they wanted to offer and that was that. They were regulated by the government but that didn’t seem to be doing much to improve service or lower costs.
Enter Bill McGowan. He decided it was time to undo Ma Bell’s monopoly and give them some competition. They didn’t like the idea. He started a phone company to compete with Ma Bell and then filed a lawsuit to end their monopoly. During this tumultuous time his company, Microwave Communications Inc., later known as MCI, was fondly referred to as a law firm with a microwave dish on it’s roof (it employed more lawyers than telephone people.)
Well, Ma Bell didn’t like competition. They said that they had a legal and regulated monopoly and all was fine, thank you very much. Bill said all wasn’t fine, that they were extremely slow in introducing newer technologies and that their rates were much higher than they needed to be. Ma Bell said that undoing their carefully structured monopoly would put the entire phone system at risk, that there would be tremendous problems and that people wouldn’t be able to make phone calls if Bill won.
Fortunately for all of us, Bill won. MCI began implementing newer technologies and offering services at a fraction of what AT&T had been charging. To their credit, AT&T became a much more efficient, competitive, and technologically advanced company within just a few years instead of the 10 or more many expected.
Today’s cable companies are not much different than AT&T of yesteryear. We are living in an ancient world held down by a paradigm largely developed decades before Al Gore decided he invented the Internet*.
We can only get the channels that our monopoly cable carrier or satellite service decides to offer. I’d like Universal Sports Channel, but my cable company doesn’t offer it so I’m out of luck. And even for channels they do offer we often have to purchase those we don’t want in order to get one we do, just because of the way the cable carriers decide to bundle channels.
My PC isn’t handcuffed like my antiquated cable service. I’m not prevented from viewing tripadvisor.com because Comcast hasn’t negotiated a contract with them. Can you imagine if your internet service provider told you that you could only access the websites they choose to offer?
Likewise we’re limited in options for Al’s internet service. Many people have no alternative for internet but their monopoly cable company. A few have a low-speed DSL option from their local phone company (likely a descendent of Ma Bell), but if they want higher speed, cable is it. Some have no reasonable option at all.
Well, there’s sunshine on the horizon and it won’t even require lawsuits.
Part I of sunshine is that we are beginning to see the unbundling of cable channels from carrier service. Many ‘channels’ are now streaming their programming on their websites. So, while Comcast doesn’t offer Universal Sports, I can just go to Universal Sports website and watch their stream of the Milan – San Remo bike race. I’m no longer locked in to only what Comcast chooses to offer and only at the price Comcast chooses.
In time we’ll see more and more of this and ultimately it will no longer be necessary to subscribe to any ‘channels’ through our cable or satellite company. All we’ll need is internet service and then we’ll ‘tune in’ to whatever ‘channels’ we want to watch via their websites.
One slight cloud though. Just as traditional land-line phone companies are seeing a precipitous decline in customers as more and more of us forego a traditional phone for a cell phone, cable companies will see a decline in people purchasing traditional cable service as we choose to get the channels we want directly via the internet. The cable carriers will want to raise their internet rates to make up for the lost revenue from cable TV subscriptions, but they’ll find a problem. Competition.
Part II of sunshine is 4G. Today you may get the internet at your home through your cable company, DSL from the phone company, or maybe WiFi from your municipality **. Tomorrow you may very well get the internet in your home from your cell phone company. We think of cell service as ‘mobile’, but if it can do mobile cost effectively, it can certainly do stationary even more cost effectively. 4G promises data performance comparable to what cable provides today or greater. DSL has provided little real competition to the cable companies, but 4G and similar wireless technologies will. Just replace your current cable modem with a 4G modem and you’ll be set.
Verizon is leading the charge with a faster rollout (30 cities in Q3 of 2010) and greater speed promises of 5 – 12 Mbps. Sprint is just behind though they say that they will only offer 6 mbps initially. And even our old friend AT&T is there with rollouts (12 mbps rumor) planned for 2011. The 4G spec though includes up to 1 gigabit per second (gbps) for stationary applications.
Today I pay $148/mo for cable and another $62/mo for internet so a total of $208 to Comcast. I pay another $67/mo to my cell company for voice+data. My guess is that the new 4G will come in around $99 for voice+data so for another $32 I can drop my $62/mo cable internet and soon the $148 cable altogether.
The one remaining piece of the puzzle will be for TV’s to include web browsers and media players similar to those we have on our PC’s. LCD and Plasma displays are really just computers built into very large computer displays. Today they have proprietary media players for Netflix and Youtube, tomorrow we’ll see open applications like we have on our PC’s including web browsers and good media players.
* Note: The Internet was actually invented by a guy name Vinton Cerf. I worked for Vint. At MCI.
** 4G data service from cell providers has been a known technology for some time. Despite this, several municipalities around the country have moved forward with installation of WiFi (and low power WiMax) networks, often paid for with tax dollars. It remains to be seen if these will be able to compete with 4G (which includes a higher power version of WiMax). My guess is that these, along with 'wifi hotspots', won't be long for this world either.
Enter Bill McGowan. He decided it was time to undo Ma Bell’s monopoly and give them some competition. They didn’t like the idea. He started a phone company to compete with Ma Bell and then filed a lawsuit to end their monopoly. During this tumultuous time his company, Microwave Communications Inc., later known as MCI, was fondly referred to as a law firm with a microwave dish on it’s roof (it employed more lawyers than telephone people.)
Well, Ma Bell didn’t like competition. They said that they had a legal and regulated monopoly and all was fine, thank you very much. Bill said all wasn’t fine, that they were extremely slow in introducing newer technologies and that their rates were much higher than they needed to be. Ma Bell said that undoing their carefully structured monopoly would put the entire phone system at risk, that there would be tremendous problems and that people wouldn’t be able to make phone calls if Bill won.
Fortunately for all of us, Bill won. MCI began implementing newer technologies and offering services at a fraction of what AT&T had been charging. To their credit, AT&T became a much more efficient, competitive, and technologically advanced company within just a few years instead of the 10 or more many expected.
Today’s cable companies are not much different than AT&T of yesteryear. We are living in an ancient world held down by a paradigm largely developed decades before Al Gore decided he invented the Internet*.
We can only get the channels that our monopoly cable carrier or satellite service decides to offer. I’d like Universal Sports Channel, but my cable company doesn’t offer it so I’m out of luck. And even for channels they do offer we often have to purchase those we don’t want in order to get one we do, just because of the way the cable carriers decide to bundle channels.
My PC isn’t handcuffed like my antiquated cable service. I’m not prevented from viewing tripadvisor.com because Comcast hasn’t negotiated a contract with them. Can you imagine if your internet service provider told you that you could only access the websites they choose to offer?
Likewise we’re limited in options for Al’s internet service. Many people have no alternative for internet but their monopoly cable company. A few have a low-speed DSL option from their local phone company (likely a descendent of Ma Bell), but if they want higher speed, cable is it. Some have no reasonable option at all.
Well, there’s sunshine on the horizon and it won’t even require lawsuits.
Part I of sunshine is that we are beginning to see the unbundling of cable channels from carrier service. Many ‘channels’ are now streaming their programming on their websites. So, while Comcast doesn’t offer Universal Sports, I can just go to Universal Sports website and watch their stream of the Milan – San Remo bike race. I’m no longer locked in to only what Comcast chooses to offer and only at the price Comcast chooses.
In time we’ll see more and more of this and ultimately it will no longer be necessary to subscribe to any ‘channels’ through our cable or satellite company. All we’ll need is internet service and then we’ll ‘tune in’ to whatever ‘channels’ we want to watch via their websites.
One slight cloud though. Just as traditional land-line phone companies are seeing a precipitous decline in customers as more and more of us forego a traditional phone for a cell phone, cable companies will see a decline in people purchasing traditional cable service as we choose to get the channels we want directly via the internet. The cable carriers will want to raise their internet rates to make up for the lost revenue from cable TV subscriptions, but they’ll find a problem. Competition.
Part II of sunshine is 4G. Today you may get the internet at your home through your cable company, DSL from the phone company, or maybe WiFi from your municipality **. Tomorrow you may very well get the internet in your home from your cell phone company. We think of cell service as ‘mobile’, but if it can do mobile cost effectively, it can certainly do stationary even more cost effectively. 4G promises data performance comparable to what cable provides today or greater. DSL has provided little real competition to the cable companies, but 4G and similar wireless technologies will. Just replace your current cable modem with a 4G modem and you’ll be set.
Verizon is leading the charge with a faster rollout (30 cities in Q3 of 2010) and greater speed promises of 5 – 12 Mbps. Sprint is just behind though they say that they will only offer 6 mbps initially. And even our old friend AT&T is there with rollouts (12 mbps rumor) planned for 2011. The 4G spec though includes up to 1 gigabit per second (gbps) for stationary applications.
Today I pay $148/mo for cable and another $62/mo for internet so a total of $208 to Comcast. I pay another $67/mo to my cell company for voice+data. My guess is that the new 4G will come in around $99 for voice+data so for another $32 I can drop my $62/mo cable internet and soon the $148 cable altogether.
The one remaining piece of the puzzle will be for TV’s to include web browsers and media players similar to those we have on our PC’s. LCD and Plasma displays are really just computers built into very large computer displays. Today they have proprietary media players for Netflix and Youtube, tomorrow we’ll see open applications like we have on our PC’s including web browsers and good media players.
* Note: The Internet was actually invented by a guy name Vinton Cerf. I worked for Vint. At MCI.
** 4G data service from cell providers has been a known technology for some time. Despite this, several municipalities around the country have moved forward with installation of WiFi (and low power WiMax) networks, often paid for with tax dollars. It remains to be seen if these will be able to compete with 4G (which includes a higher power version of WiMax). My guess is that these, along with 'wifi hotspots', won't be long for this world either.
Friday, April 16, 2010
Politically Incorrect to help those enslaved ?
I'm on vacation (and thus this is unedited), but had this article forwarded to me and wanted to make a comparison. Human Trafficking is a serious problem throughout much of the world, in particular Asia and the Middle-East. Stories of people, mostly women, enslaved to work in garment factories, rice fields, brick factories, brothels, and homes are excruciating to read. They are most often not allowed to leave the premise. They are told that if they are disobedient in any way that they will be punished or their family will be. In many countries, such as Thailand, the police and other authorities are of little or no help as they are paid bribes to assist the slave masters and indeed, in some areas this type of slavery is considered socially acceptable.
When International Justice Mission (IJM) is prevented from putting up advertisements with a message to people who might be enslaved that they can contact IJM for help, Americans rightly go ballistic. The Brad Pitt's and Angelina Jolie's of Hollywood, the elected folk in Washington, and others scream about the lack of freedom of speech and how horrible these people are who do not want to help those enslaved.
Yet here in the U.S. this happens and what do we do? If someone plastered bus ads all over telling people that if they were enslaved in a Christian organization and couldn't leave for fear of harm that here was someone who could help, I'd not be offended in the least. So, why are these SIOA bus ads offensive? We know from a number of cases in the U.S. in just the past year that some number Muslims are held hostage, eg, enslaved, under threats of death. Why does Miami-Dade Transit not want to help these people escape?
If I wanted to put up an identical ad, though trying to reach women enslaved and forced to work as prostitutes in Miami, would that be deemed offensive to pimps who enslave these women and thus not allowed on Miami-Dade buses? If it said:
Threat over your head? Leaving Prostitution? RefugeFromProstitution.com
What third world is Miami-Dade becoming?
When International Justice Mission (IJM) is prevented from putting up advertisements with a message to people who might be enslaved that they can contact IJM for help, Americans rightly go ballistic. The Brad Pitt's and Angelina Jolie's of Hollywood, the elected folk in Washington, and others scream about the lack of freedom of speech and how horrible these people are who do not want to help those enslaved.
Yet here in the U.S. this happens and what do we do? If someone plastered bus ads all over telling people that if they were enslaved in a Christian organization and couldn't leave for fear of harm that here was someone who could help, I'd not be offended in the least. So, why are these SIOA bus ads offensive? We know from a number of cases in the U.S. in just the past year that some number Muslims are held hostage, eg, enslaved, under threats of death. Why does Miami-Dade Transit not want to help these people escape?
If I wanted to put up an identical ad, though trying to reach women enslaved and forced to work as prostitutes in Miami, would that be deemed offensive to pimps who enslave these women and thus not allowed on Miami-Dade buses? If it said:
Threat over your head? Leaving Prostitution? RefugeFromProstitution.com
What third world is Miami-Dade becoming?
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
The Pope needs a Wife !
What we’ve witnessed from the Catholic church over the past few years with its pedophile priests scandal has been, at the least, very concerning.
What we’ve witnessed from the Vatican in the past week has been absolutely nauseating.
The Pope and others in Catholic leadership need wives.
Not because this will give them a more appropriate outlet for their sexual appetite than the children they’ve been using. Though it will. And not because this will attract more non-pedophiles into the priesthood instead of it being overloaded with those with homosexual pedophilic tendencies. Though it will. But because these men are in dire need of normalcy, balance, and a woman’s opinion in their lives.
There have been dozens of cases (and likely hundreds or thousands) throughout the Catholic church, worldwide, of those in authority protecting priests who rape and molest children rather than taking actions to protect the children from further abuse by Catholic priests. Among other horrific actions, they’ve routinely moved priests accused of molesting and raping children instead of removing them. How many hundreds of men in authority throughout the Catholic church have done this? How many hundreds have made the decision to move one of these rapists and allow them to continue to rape little children? How many thousands have known about these decisions but did nothing?
As this scandal continues to grow it has become obvious that this is pervasive throughout the Catholic church. It is pervasive around the entire globe and it is pervasive at every level including the very top. And it goes back as far as anyone alive today can attest so we can only wonder how long it’s been going on.
Is anyone involved in leadership in any way in the Catholic church, from parish priest to pope, innocent of allowing these children to be molested? As pervasive as these actions appear to be I find it difficult to believe that anyone who has been in leadership for more than a year or two was not aware of what was going on.
We know that there have been thousands of complaints of priests molesting children over the past few decades. How many times, prior to the scandal becoming public, did the Catholic leadership who received these complaints contact any authorities?
What were they thinking when they allowed these things to happen? Were they in sympathy with these men? Were they thinking that they could understand the sexual frustration these men experienced and they could, on some level, sympathize with their molesting and raping children. And because of their sympathizing and empathizing so well with these rapists they deemed their actions justified in moving a molester from one job to another instead of removing him from ministry or doing what any normal person would – turn them over to the police.
How many of the people (I’m finding it difficult to continue calling them men) involved in any way in these decisions empathized because they too had molested children?
What was the Pope thinking when, as cardinal of Germany, he allowed a known child molester to continue working with children? What was the Pope thinking when, as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, he allowed a priest in the U.S., who had been accused many times of molesting children, to continue working with children for several years before taking action?
Can any, even remotely normal person, who finds out that someone who works for them is molesting children continue to allow them to work with children? I find it difficult to imagine what kind of person would do such a thing. Yet the leadership of the Catholic church has done so over and over again.
Can the men running the Catholic church then, in any way, be considered normal?
Yesterday morning a Vatican official commented that he simply can’t imagine the Pope being called to account for his actions. “It’s just not acceptable.” After all, the official said, he is the head of the church. He is ‘Christ’s head’ on earth.
Bullshit! The Pope is no different than any other man. And as we’re seeing, this Pope is far less than most other men.
The leadership of the Catholic church is one of the most insular and dangerous mutual admiration societies in history.
Wives
So, now we get to the topic of wives for these men. If those in authority in the Catholic church had wives and children would they have made different and much better decisions? What man with a child would ever condone the molesting of children as those running the Catholic church have been doing for so long? How often might these people have had a more normal outlook if they had a wife to discuss things with on a routine basis?
Over the past week we’ve seen an outpouring of support for the pope from all levels of Catholic leadership. What we haven’t seen (and what you’d normally expect to see in these circumstances) is a groundswell of those in leadership calling for an investigation of the pope and his actions.
Imagine if there was evidence, even much less than that against the Pope, that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid had known that another Senator had been molesting children and that Reid helped to cover it up to protect the party. I assume that even most Democrats would call for an investigation of Reid. Now imagine if celibacy was a requirement to be a Senator and so the senate was an insular group of celibate men. Might things be different?
Celibacy
I’m not at all against celibacy. I’ve known a handful of men and women who have chosen to live a celibate life. One in particular was a pastor of a church I worked for. I had a great deal of respect for him. There are two key differences; 1) he had chosen celibacy for himself, and 2) he was in leadership with a number of men who were married and had children of their own. He wasn’t in an insular environment of nothing but celibate men.
God never called for celibacy of pastors, elders, priests, or anyone in leadership. Jesus never said that celibacy was good or a requirement in any way. In fact, Peter, appointed by Christ as a church leader, was married. Do the leadership of the Catholic church know better than Christ?
For the first 1,000 years of the Catholic church there was no celibacy requirement. Celibacy was an invention of man for man’s purpose, not God’s.
The disgusting actions of Catholic leaders that have been uncovered in the past few years shows the result of relying on man instead of God and his Word.
What we’ve witnessed from the Vatican in the past week has been absolutely nauseating.
The Pope and others in Catholic leadership need wives.
Not because this will give them a more appropriate outlet for their sexual appetite than the children they’ve been using. Though it will. And not because this will attract more non-pedophiles into the priesthood instead of it being overloaded with those with homosexual pedophilic tendencies. Though it will. But because these men are in dire need of normalcy, balance, and a woman’s opinion in their lives.
There have been dozens of cases (and likely hundreds or thousands) throughout the Catholic church, worldwide, of those in authority protecting priests who rape and molest children rather than taking actions to protect the children from further abuse by Catholic priests. Among other horrific actions, they’ve routinely moved priests accused of molesting and raping children instead of removing them. How many hundreds of men in authority throughout the Catholic church have done this? How many hundreds have made the decision to move one of these rapists and allow them to continue to rape little children? How many thousands have known about these decisions but did nothing?
As this scandal continues to grow it has become obvious that this is pervasive throughout the Catholic church. It is pervasive around the entire globe and it is pervasive at every level including the very top. And it goes back as far as anyone alive today can attest so we can only wonder how long it’s been going on.
Is anyone involved in leadership in any way in the Catholic church, from parish priest to pope, innocent of allowing these children to be molested? As pervasive as these actions appear to be I find it difficult to believe that anyone who has been in leadership for more than a year or two was not aware of what was going on.
We know that there have been thousands of complaints of priests molesting children over the past few decades. How many times, prior to the scandal becoming public, did the Catholic leadership who received these complaints contact any authorities?
What were they thinking when they allowed these things to happen? Were they in sympathy with these men? Were they thinking that they could understand the sexual frustration these men experienced and they could, on some level, sympathize with their molesting and raping children. And because of their sympathizing and empathizing so well with these rapists they deemed their actions justified in moving a molester from one job to another instead of removing him from ministry or doing what any normal person would – turn them over to the police.
How many of the people (I’m finding it difficult to continue calling them men) involved in any way in these decisions empathized because they too had molested children?
What was the Pope thinking when, as cardinal of Germany, he allowed a known child molester to continue working with children? What was the Pope thinking when, as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, he allowed a priest in the U.S., who had been accused many times of molesting children, to continue working with children for several years before taking action?
Can any, even remotely normal person, who finds out that someone who works for them is molesting children continue to allow them to work with children? I find it difficult to imagine what kind of person would do such a thing. Yet the leadership of the Catholic church has done so over and over again.
Can the men running the Catholic church then, in any way, be considered normal?
Yesterday morning a Vatican official commented that he simply can’t imagine the Pope being called to account for his actions. “It’s just not acceptable.” After all, the official said, he is the head of the church. He is ‘Christ’s head’ on earth.
Bullshit! The Pope is no different than any other man. And as we’re seeing, this Pope is far less than most other men.
The leadership of the Catholic church is one of the most insular and dangerous mutual admiration societies in history.
Wives
So, now we get to the topic of wives for these men. If those in authority in the Catholic church had wives and children would they have made different and much better decisions? What man with a child would ever condone the molesting of children as those running the Catholic church have been doing for so long? How often might these people have had a more normal outlook if they had a wife to discuss things with on a routine basis?
Over the past week we’ve seen an outpouring of support for the pope from all levels of Catholic leadership. What we haven’t seen (and what you’d normally expect to see in these circumstances) is a groundswell of those in leadership calling for an investigation of the pope and his actions.
Imagine if there was evidence, even much less than that against the Pope, that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid had known that another Senator had been molesting children and that Reid helped to cover it up to protect the party. I assume that even most Democrats would call for an investigation of Reid. Now imagine if celibacy was a requirement to be a Senator and so the senate was an insular group of celibate men. Might things be different?
Celibacy
I’m not at all against celibacy. I’ve known a handful of men and women who have chosen to live a celibate life. One in particular was a pastor of a church I worked for. I had a great deal of respect for him. There are two key differences; 1) he had chosen celibacy for himself, and 2) he was in leadership with a number of men who were married and had children of their own. He wasn’t in an insular environment of nothing but celibate men.
God never called for celibacy of pastors, elders, priests, or anyone in leadership. Jesus never said that celibacy was good or a requirement in any way. In fact, Peter, appointed by Christ as a church leader, was married. Do the leadership of the Catholic church know better than Christ?
For the first 1,000 years of the Catholic church there was no celibacy requirement. Celibacy was an invention of man for man’s purpose, not God’s.
The disgusting actions of Catholic leaders that have been uncovered in the past few years shows the result of relying on man instead of God and his Word.
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Impact of ObamaCare
A friend of mine runs a local company and made some comments yesterday regarding ObamaCare that I thought interesting.
They are taking an immediate write-off of about $90 million due to the loss of deductibility of retiree health benefits. This comes right off their bottom line and will impact their ability to hire new employees and increase the costs of their products.
They estimate that if they continue with their current level of health benefits that their annual costs will increase by a minimum of 11% or $25 million per year. One really big unknown, and that is not included in the $25 million, is how the elimination of lifetime limits will impact them. Genomics and other massively expensive new procedures and tests could bankrupt them without some form of cap on lifetime expenditures. A cap that under ObamaCare will now be illegal. According to ObamaCare, if you provide health benefits to your employees, it’s all or nothing. A completely open-ended, unlimited expense is impossible for any company.
Within the next year they will need to make a decision about any continued health benefits. Though he didn’t say it, the implied message is that it would be financially irresponsible to continue providing any health benefits after ObamaCare is implemented. Doing so would put the company itself at risk of bankruptcy. Their only choice will be to discontinue all healthcare benefits and have employees obtain healthcare from the government.
Government Healthcare – British Style
He grew up in Britain and provided some insight on the British system that the Democrats want to convert us to. Britain had no real medical system prior to the late 1940’s. Before then extremely few people in Britain, likely less than 5%, EVER saw or talked to a doctor or any other medical person. Without the free enterprise system that the U.S. has Britons tended to wait on the government to do something rather than do it themselves. For Brits the introduction of a government healthcare system in 1948 was a huge improvement over what they didn’t have prior and, without knowing a comparative system, still consider pretty good.
Contrast this with our current healthcare system in the U.S. that is the envy of the entire world. Many Brits come to the U.S. every year for healthcare. I don’t hear of any U.S. folk going to Britain for their better healthcare.
British doctors are paid £60,000 per year (about $100,000) by the NHS (National Health Service). This, they have found, is not enough to encourage people to go through medical school. Due to a shortage of medical students Britain has been importing doctors from India, Morocco, and other countries. The NHS is under serious financial strain and cannot afford to increase pay to doctors so the government are considering other options such as a much shortened medical school regimen that will produce something akin to a jr. doctor who would receive pay of about £50,000 per year.
For most Britons, if they want to see a doctor, they must call their local NHS first thing in the morning and hope to get an appointment that day. If they can’t get one that day then they wait and call again the next morning.
They are taking an immediate write-off of about $90 million due to the loss of deductibility of retiree health benefits. This comes right off their bottom line and will impact their ability to hire new employees and increase the costs of their products.
They estimate that if they continue with their current level of health benefits that their annual costs will increase by a minimum of 11% or $25 million per year. One really big unknown, and that is not included in the $25 million, is how the elimination of lifetime limits will impact them. Genomics and other massively expensive new procedures and tests could bankrupt them without some form of cap on lifetime expenditures. A cap that under ObamaCare will now be illegal. According to ObamaCare, if you provide health benefits to your employees, it’s all or nothing. A completely open-ended, unlimited expense is impossible for any company.
Within the next year they will need to make a decision about any continued health benefits. Though he didn’t say it, the implied message is that it would be financially irresponsible to continue providing any health benefits after ObamaCare is implemented. Doing so would put the company itself at risk of bankruptcy. Their only choice will be to discontinue all healthcare benefits and have employees obtain healthcare from the government.
Government Healthcare – British Style
He grew up in Britain and provided some insight on the British system that the Democrats want to convert us to. Britain had no real medical system prior to the late 1940’s. Before then extremely few people in Britain, likely less than 5%, EVER saw or talked to a doctor or any other medical person. Without the free enterprise system that the U.S. has Britons tended to wait on the government to do something rather than do it themselves. For Brits the introduction of a government healthcare system in 1948 was a huge improvement over what they didn’t have prior and, without knowing a comparative system, still consider pretty good.
Contrast this with our current healthcare system in the U.S. that is the envy of the entire world. Many Brits come to the U.S. every year for healthcare. I don’t hear of any U.S. folk going to Britain for their better healthcare.
British doctors are paid £60,000 per year (about $100,000) by the NHS (National Health Service). This, they have found, is not enough to encourage people to go through medical school. Due to a shortage of medical students Britain has been importing doctors from India, Morocco, and other countries. The NHS is under serious financial strain and cannot afford to increase pay to doctors so the government are considering other options such as a much shortened medical school regimen that will produce something akin to a jr. doctor who would receive pay of about £50,000 per year.
For most Britons, if they want to see a doctor, they must call their local NHS first thing in the morning and hope to get an appointment that day. If they can’t get one that day then they wait and call again the next morning.
Monday, April 5, 2010
Obama: Anti-Semitic? Stupid? Immature?
Barack Obama’s actions towards Israel since becoming POTUS have been quite amazing. What I’m not sure about is if they come from his being Anti-Semitic, Immature, or just plain Stupid. It doesn’t take too much research of the Israeli-Palestinian-Muslim conflict to see that Israel is not the aggressor, that Israel’s actions are defensive in nature.
Is Obama really so stupid as to not understand the nature and history of this conflict? I don’t think so. It is impossible for any one person to have a very good understanding of the many conflicts and issues around the world. And that is why our presidents have advisors and the U.S. State Department. Rationality is extremely in Israel’s favor, Obama has numerous intelligent advisors, it’s his job to understand issues before taking any action, he’s not that stupid.
Immature? Maybe. His administration was embarrassed by Israel’s announcement of building more apartments in East Jerusalem during Biden’s visit to Israel. Obama’s administration over-reacted which caused further embarrassment. Perhaps an argument can be made that Obama’s walking out on and cutting short a meeting, and then a planned dinner, with Israel’s head of State was a momentary spat of immaturity. Obama has shown before that he can be very thin-skinned. But he’s also always overcome it and persevered through. At least when he wants to. His recent actions towards Israel were pre-meditated and he’d thought through them. These were not simply spats of immaturity.
Could Obama believe that treating Israel like dirt and sideling up to Islamic states will lead to peace in the Middle-East? Possibly. Peace could also have been achieved prior to WWII by giving Hitler everything he wanted as well. We could have ignored his transgressions and the world he would have created and sought peace at any cost.
Well before Biden’s embarrassing trip we’d seen tips of Obama’s hat. Statements here and there, delaying of signing off on selling planes to Israel, something that until now was routine for any POTUS. Israel has been too good of a friend to the U.S. for too long to attribute Obama’s actions to anything other than Stupidity, Immaturity, or Anti-Semitism. If we’ve ruled out the first two, what’s left?
Is Obama really so stupid as to not understand the nature and history of this conflict? I don’t think so. It is impossible for any one person to have a very good understanding of the many conflicts and issues around the world. And that is why our presidents have advisors and the U.S. State Department. Rationality is extremely in Israel’s favor, Obama has numerous intelligent advisors, it’s his job to understand issues before taking any action, he’s not that stupid.
Immature? Maybe. His administration was embarrassed by Israel’s announcement of building more apartments in East Jerusalem during Biden’s visit to Israel. Obama’s administration over-reacted which caused further embarrassment. Perhaps an argument can be made that Obama’s walking out on and cutting short a meeting, and then a planned dinner, with Israel’s head of State was a momentary spat of immaturity. Obama has shown before that he can be very thin-skinned. But he’s also always overcome it and persevered through. At least when he wants to. His recent actions towards Israel were pre-meditated and he’d thought through them. These were not simply spats of immaturity.
Could Obama believe that treating Israel like dirt and sideling up to Islamic states will lead to peace in the Middle-East? Possibly. Peace could also have been achieved prior to WWII by giving Hitler everything he wanted as well. We could have ignored his transgressions and the world he would have created and sought peace at any cost.
Well before Biden’s embarrassing trip we’d seen tips of Obama’s hat. Statements here and there, delaying of signing off on selling planes to Israel, something that until now was routine for any POTUS. Israel has been too good of a friend to the U.S. for too long to attribute Obama’s actions to anything other than Stupidity, Immaturity, or Anti-Semitism. If we’ve ruled out the first two, what’s left?
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