On The Shoulders Of Giants

I just can’t trust the former CEO of Goldman Sachs to save this country at a time of crisis especially when the price tag is so high. My gut is telling me that something is seriously wrong. This is so much like the Iraq war. They said “mushroom cloud” and everybody went along to look patriotic. I think this bail-out plan requires a pause. Comment please.

Even Thomas Friedman blows a gasket.

Last Saturday Barack Obama and John McCain appeared at Rick Warren’s church and answered some questions. There is one question that in my mind stands out. They were asked what income level do you consider “rich”? To which Obama responded with $250,000 and McCain responded with $5,000,000. I don’t think there’s anything that exemplifies the difference between these two candidates more than these two numbers. McCain said that he doesn’t want to redistribute wealth. Well, I’ve got some news for you Mr. McCain. Maybe if A is making more than a million dollars a year and there’s a veteran in a wheelchair who can’t go to work, some redistribution of wealth would not only be Ok but would be humane. Jesus, these people are so selfish.

It is so insulting to our intelligence when people try to sweep their nasty stuff under big news stories such as the Olympics.

Russia attacked Georgia on the opening day. I still need to read more about this.

And John Edwards dropped his infidelity bomb on the same day. I don’t care if he cheated on his wife. What I care about is that he ran for presidency while he had these skeletons in his closet and he lied about it and when #$%! finally hit the fan, he admitted it and said “I didn’t love her.” and “My wife’s cancer was in remission.” And all along we thought he was the son of a mill worker, a family man and he was championing the common person. How narcissistic and classless? Beware of this power thing. It is very toxic.

“We know all the so-called aid workers,” they read. “We promise to kill them, wherever they are.”

I don’t know how to say this but please read this.

Could drugs be used ethically and responsibly? Could drugs be used without harming oneself or others?
My answer to these questions is, yes. First let’s define drugs. By drugs I mean any behavior or substance that artificially makes you feel good. By artificial, I mean that good feeling is not intrinsic and it is a direct result of that drug. This is a broad definition. This includes a variety of drinks, substances, rituals, religious activities, meditation and so on. You may not agree with me for putting alcohol and meditation in the same category, but I see a similarity here and I would like to talk about what all these things have in common: the fact that they make you feel good artificially and temporarily. I believe if one is careful enough not to harm oneself or others, they should be free to use whatever drugs they want. How is this possible? There are several conditions that need to be met for this to be true:
1. The origin of the substance has be more or less ethical. Sales of cocaine, finances a lot of other crimes such as organized prostitution and human trafficking. That makes cocaine an unethical drug.
2. It should not harm oneself or others. By this token regular use of cigarettes due to all its health risks is unethical. Getting drunk and becoming abusive with others is also reprehensible.
3. Should not interfere with a healthy lifestyle. This rules out alcoholism and heroine addiction and using drugs that would lead one to miss appointments and deadlines.
4. Its side-effects should not outweigh its advantages. By this token getting extremely drunk is not right.
5. It should not put oneself in a position of doing wrong. By this one drunk dialing your exes could be wrong.

As you can see, I don’t consider addiction by itself unethical. A healthy daily dose of meditation or prayer could be very beneficial.

If you can add to the above list, or disagree with me please chime in.

Speak up against what is going on Zimbabwe.

This is one issue that you should have stayed on principle and not on politics and you made the wrong choice. Please don’t say things like this:

“The bill has changed. So I don’t think the security threats have changed, I think the security threats are similar. My view on FISA has always been that the issue of the phone companies per se is not one that overrides the security interests of the American people.”

from Wikipedia:

In Islam, there are several grades of sin:

1. khatia: mistakes
2. dhanb: immorality
3. haram: transgressions
4. fasad : wickedness
5. shirk: ascribing a partner to god

I like the first four categories. A mistake would be forgetting about an appointment. Immorality in my opinion would be harming yourself. Transgression would be stealing. Wickedness would be to steal from a poor person. For the life of me, I don’t understand why ascribing a partner to god would be worse than wickedness. And my reason for that is that wickedness causes pain which in my philosophy is real but ascribing a partner to god would cause no harm because in my theology god does not feel pain and is not harmed by us. If I were god, I would not even put it on my list. I guess, I would have been a more anthropocentric god. But I am limited by my human mind and it is not surprising that my theology would be anthropocentric and different than god’s theology.