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We've all seen them: sleekly modern houses with stark angles looking like spacecraft, or cone-shaped residences built into the earth, both touting their energy-saving qualities.
Labeled green or eco-friendly, these quirky homes have captured our imagination but not our wallets. Too often these houses have carried a cost in the millions of dollars and, despite our growing concern for the environment, we can't bring ourselves to invest in one.
Yet, hold on. Energy-efficient, environmentally responsive houses that are affordable — and attractive — do exist.
From boutique specialists to larger-production homebuilders, construction of green homes has become a priority.
"Green is the megatrend," says Steve Saunders, CEO of Tex Energy Solutions in Irving, a provider of energy-efficiency audits and Energy Star services. "People underestimate the impact it will have on their lives."
Effective Jan. 1, Texas adopted the 2009 International Residential Code for single-family homes, increasing energy-efficiency standards. Part of the International Energy Conservation Code, the policy designates requirements for new-home construction and remodels of existing buildings.
"The process for developing energy-efficient homes has become more defined," Saunders says.
The proliferation of LEED-certified homes is testament to that. Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design is a point-based certification system that measures a building's sustainability in eight key areas, including energy efficiency.
LEED-certified third-party auditors assign one of four certification levels based on points received: certified, silver, gold and platinum.
For buyers, the LEED rating is similar to a nutrition label on foods, providing a detailed list of the ways a home performs, thus assuring it is green.
Saunders says enhanced definition of green standards is just one of the reasons environmentally friendly homes are becoming more affordable. Increased knowledge of green design and construction, coupled with efficiencies in installation and lower costs associated with materials and transportation, have all had an impact.
"There's a lot of innovation in processes," Saunders says. "Big builders are focusing on energy efficiency. Products have become more green and more efficient. Some of the price has come down because more people are buying green. Knowledge is better. Products are better."
Builders now offer green homes priced from the low $200,000 range. Common features include radiant barriers, low-VOC (volatile organic compounds) paints, compact fluorescent lighting, Energy Star appliances, high-efficiency air conditioning and heating, low-flow plumbing and above-standard wall and attic insulation.
While energy efficiency is a major component of green building and a leading element of LEED certification, green construction goes far beyond that.
LEED focuses on a holistic approach to sustainability, centering on efficient design, environmentally responsible site selection, healthful air quality, water efficiency, use of sustainably grown and transported products and homeowner environmental awareness.
Yet the process by which a residence meets LEED standards may vary and may not require the purchase of pricey, energy-saving materials.
Achieving an environmentally responsive home depends most upon efficient green design, says Peter Pfeiffer, an Austin architect and building scientist who is LEED-accredited.
"It's what things you can do, not what you can buy," says Pfeiffer, principal at Barley & Pfeiffer Architects.
"The idea of green thinking goes back to an environmentally sound design approach. A two-story house will inherently be more energy-efficient than a one-story house," he says. "A one-story uses 15 percent more energy than a two-story."
Site orientation of a home also plays a role in energy efficiency. "A vast amount of heat bounces off south-facing windows rather than west-facing windows where the angle [of the sun to the window] is closer to perpendicular," Pfeiffer says.
In addition, Pfeiffer recommends shading windows of new construction with an extended overhang to prevent direct sunlight.
"Use passive solar design to shade windows from the sun. You can cut energy bills by 30 to 40 percent. Even an insect screen can cut 20 to 30 percent of energy from hitting a window."
Pfeiffer also recommends blower-door and duct-blaster tests to determine how airtight a home is and then sealing any leaks that are revealed.
Energy usage and air pollution also can be reduced by using locally produced materials, since the goods don't have to be transported as far via truck or rail.
Two local builders are making affordable green homes their mission. McGuyer Homebuilders of Dallas is the first production builder to construct only LEED-certified homes; models range from the low $100,000s to the high $400,000s in its signature Coventry and Plantation brands, located throughout Dallas, Rockwall, Tarrant and Collin counties.
"We try to be at the forefront of green homebuilding," says Pat Connell, sales counselor at Coventry Homes.
Homes are carefully sealed to ensure heating and cooling efficiency, and all rooms are pressure-balanced. A weather-resistant sealant is used around all doors and windows to keep outside air from entering.
"Every home gets the blower-door test to confirm the home is airtight. We also have the duct-blaster test done to make sure there are no holes," Connell says.
"We use 80 percent CFL lighting," says Terri Hayley, area sales manager for McGuyer. "Most of our appliances are Energy Star."
Zoned manifold plumbing allows users to conserve water by stopping its flow to parts of the home with a mere flip of a switch, while outside soaker hoses built into flower beds provide drip irrigation and foundation protection.
Greenbrook Homes of Dallas, a small custom builder, focuses on building affordable LEED homes that also are eco-friendly.
"We believe in being good stewards of our resources," says Jeff Harral, manager of marketing and sales. "We believe it's what we ought to do." The company's LEED houses are targeted for the Dallas neighborhoods of Lakewood Heights and Bluffview as well as Richardson and Frisco.
This approach has led the company to incorporate a combination of energy-saving and resource-conserving materials and technology into its homes, which typically sell in the low $600,000s.
Glass-tile backsplashes, quartz kitchen countertops and carpeting all are made from recycled material and bought from sources within 500 miles.
To enhance interior air quality, all paints and stains are low-VOC. A fresh-air exchange system draws in outdoor air and removes stale indoor air.
WaterSense-certified faucets and low-flow, dual-flush toilets minimize water usage. Water conservation extends outside Greenbrook residences, too. "There's drip irrigation and drought-tolerant landscaping," Harral says.
Just as many energy-saving and resource-sustaining features have become mainstream, so have green home styles. Both McGuyer and Greenbrook offer residential styles from traditional to craftsman to contemporary.
No longer are green homes for a select few buyers. Energy-efficient, LEED-certified homes are popping up everywhere, in suburban neighborhoods, in-town communities and rural areas. There may be one right next door.
Nancy Baldwin is a Plano freelance writer.
Coventry Homes
(McGuyer Homebuilders)
LEED-certified Model 3345
Base price: $316,990
Square footage: 3,427
Location: Frisco
Green features:
Manifold plumbing (zoned)
SEER 16 (seasonal energy efficiency ratio) air-conditioning unit
Poly seal around all doors, windows and ducts
Honeywell programmable thermostat
High-efficiency MERV 10 (minimum efficiency reporting value) air filters
R15 fiberglass batt insulation, R38 in the attic
High-efficiency air-exchange system
Windows with Low E insulation film
Compact fluorescent lighting in all fixtures except canned lighting (Energy Star)
Radiant barrier reflective insulation in the attic and garage
Energy Star dishwasher and oven
Drought-tolerant landscaping in all beds with installed soaker hoses
Greenbrook Homes
LEED Platinum (pending)
Price: Low $600,000s
Square footage: 3,330
Location: Lakewood Heights in Dallas
Green features:
Net zero energy consumption
SEER 16 variable-speed HVAC system with energy recovery ventilation
Combination foam/blanket insulation system R27 in walls, R38 in attic
No- or low-VOC paints and stains throughout
WaterSense-certified plumbing fixtures
Greenguard-certified CaesarStone quartz countertops
Walker Zanger recycled-glass backsplash
Rooftop solar panel system
Control4 Smart Home System customizable control of lights, television, security system
Radiant barrier reflective insulation in attic and garage
Compact fluorescent lighting throughout
Low E vinyl windows with argon gas by Krestmark
Drought-tolerant landscaping with drip irrigation
Carpet with recycled material content


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Posted on April 18, 2014 | | Categories: File Security
The success of a company now relies on its ability to secure critical data. When escalated to this level of importance, it's time for the CEO and board to become directly engaged in the process.
The traditional role of IT has changed significantly in recent years. IT professionals, previously tasked with configuring office computers and network servers, are now entrusted with securing trade secrets and highly sensitive customer records. Add to this a surge of cloud-based applications and storage that make an organization's data vulnerable and the IT department suddenly has a very full plate.
Organizations are being targeted primarily for the purpose of financial gain. Customer records often include sensitive data that can be easily monetized, providing ample motivation for both hackers and internal threats. As companies increase their digital assets -- through the harvesting of more customer personal, financial and transaction information - they become a higher profile target for thieves.
The challenge often seems to be detecting and resolving intrusions. Sometimes the first notification of a breach comes from federal investigators who've discovered the organization's data on the open market. Even when signs of suspicious activity present themselves, too frequently the threat is not given proper escalation.
Of greatest concern is the timely reporting of incidents through the levels of company leadership, regulatory authorities and, ultimately, the effected parties. The IT department might feel compelled to research and resolve the breach before notifying senior management. This can turn a potentially damaging situation into a public relations nightmare.
The solution begins with establishing a communication channel and common language between business and IT leaders. Together they must understand and agree upon the level of risk the organization is willing to tolerate.
These marching orders allow the IT department to make a plan that meets these strategic needs. Once completed, the gaps, priorities, and strategy needs to be communicated back to the CEO and board in a language that top leadership can understand.
Lastly, don't deny the limitations of your IT department. The complexities and rapidly changing nature of security breaches may require the assistance of outside expertise to keep systems and procedures current.
This post is based on a TechRepublic article by Michael Kassner titled, "C-level execs need to rethink IT security".

subset: commoncrawl


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Writing for Slate, Phillip Carter and Owen West argue that, in terms of casualties, Iraq in 2004 looks like Vietnam in 1966. The fact that more than 6,000 U.S. servicemen were killed in Vietnam that year, compared to about 900 in Iraq this year, is no impediment to Carter and West. If one adjusts for the fact that we had nearly three times as many troops in Vietnam as we have in Iraq and for the fact that wounds tend to be less lethal now due to technological (body armor?) and medical advances and for the fact that virtually no pilots were killed in Iraq this year, one can reduce the 6-1 difference in fatalities to about 3-2.
But what sense does it make to engage in these contortions? Carter and West say they want to refute the notion that casualties in Iraq are "light." But who is referring to them in that way? The authors cite an old news story in the Telegraph in which a U.S. general stated that casualties during two days of fighting in Fallujah were "light," a claim that is consistent by the facts set forth in the story (10 Americans killed in two days of intense fighting). I don't know of anyone who is saying that, overall, our casualties in Iraq are "light."
Thus, Carter and West seem to be creating a straw man for the purpose of drawing a specious analogy to Vietnam. Sure, if the war in Iraq were three times its actual scope, and being fought in a jungle 38 years ago it would look a lot like Vietnam. By the same token, if the public can be made to feel about our effort in Iraq the same way it felt about the war in Vietnam, then perhaps our retreat from the former will look a lot like our retreat from the latter.
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"Arise and take our stand for freedom as in the olden time." Winston Churchill
"Proclaim Liberty throughout All the land unto All the Inhabitants Thereof." Inscription on the Liberty Bell


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New York – A Nissan Altima nearly became a death trap on Thursday afternoon. Two children were hospitalized, one in critical condition, after being overcome by carbon monoxide gas in the Bronx.
"I found the kids with their mother. They were all on the floor. She was crying 'help! Help!'" Lamin Kamara told CBS 2′s Hazel Sanchez.
Kamara said he saw his neighbor cleaning off her snow-covered car. The woman placed her 5- and 7-year-old daughters inside the vehicle to stay warm and had no idea snow was blocking the exhaust and endangering her children's lives.
When the woman opened the door to check on the children, they were unconscious, apparently due to carbon monoxide poisoning.
Kamara walked up to the car after the mother made the frightening discovery.
"I saw them. They were laying down, like lifeless bodies almost," Kamara said. "I couldn't describe it, because I have my own kid."
It appears that the tailpipe of the car was clogged, and that's how the carbon monoxide was pushed into the cabin of the vehicle.
The girls were rushed to the hospital. One FDNY team transported the 5-year-old.
"Sometimes whenever the pipe in the back is clogged from the snow all of that carbon monoxide that's being expelled from the vehicle can actually backfire into the vehicle," the FDNY's Daniel Burgos said.
The sisters were being treated in a hyperbaric chamber at Jacobi Medical Center on Thursday night. Pediatrician Dr. Anatoly Belilovsky said they are very lucky to be alive.
"They have more need for oxygen per unit body weight so they would become saturated with carbon monoxide more quickly," Belilovsky said.
"After that it take literally minutes to die."
As drivers continue to dig out after Wednesday's storm emergency responders said the near tragedy is a warning: be sure to clear out your exhaust pipes before you turn your vehicle on.
"At the very least open the windows up somewhat so if there is carbon monoxide getting in the car at least it will escape," said Michael Miller of the FDNY.
{CBS Local/Matzav.com}


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The Grouper Moon Project
A collaborative conservation program between REEF and the Cayman Islands Department of the Environment studying Nassau grouper (Epinephelus striatus) - a social and ecological corner stone of Caribbean's coral reefs.
Exciting News (August 2016): Grouper Moon findings lead to sweeping science-based protections for Nassau Grouper in the Cayman Islands! Read More Here.
Resources | What are Nassau Grouper? | Grouper Moon Project Overview | Yearly Project Summaries | Published Results | Videos |Collaborative Team and Supporters
Watch Live-Feed video chats from underwater with Grouper Moon researchers -- visit our YouTube channel to view live streaming and archived sessions
"Changing Seas", an informative PBS documentary featuring the research, conservation efforts, and education program of the Grouper Moon Project (07/2012) -- Click here to watch
Grouper Moon Education Program -- Check out the Grouper Education Program EduBlog for timely updates
Dr. Brice Semmens gives Lecture on Grouper Moon Project as part of the Birch Aquarium's Perspectives in Ocean Conservation Series -- Click here to watch
An video about the importance of protecting Nassau grouper spawning aggregations -- Watch the video on You Tube.
What is the Grouper Moon Project? -- Listen to a Podcast with project scientist, Dr. Brice Semmens.
Grouper's Last Stand -- Informative article featured in Sport Diver
What are Nassau Grouper?
Normally solitary and territorial, during the winter full moons grouper travel, sometimes over great distances, and "group" together to spawn. About fifty of these spawning aggregations sites have been recorded in different places throughout the Caribbean. Historically, once discovered, grouper aggregation sites have become synonymous with fisherman aggregation sites. Due to the timing and site fidelity of the spawning aggregations and the ease with which these relative loners can be caught while congregating by the hundreds and thousands to spawn, one-third to one-half of the known Caribbean aggregation sites are now inactive. The Cayman Islands used to be home to five Nassau grouper (Epinephelus striatus) spawning sites. Today, four of these sites are dormant or depleted. But one site, on the west end of Little Cayman Island, is home to one of the last great reproductive populations of this endangered species.
Grouper Moon Project Overview
Nassau Grouper: A Caribbean Icon, Education Program - In the Fall 2011, REEF and our collaborators started development of an education program that will coincide with the Grouper Moon Project. Working with a professional educator, the program includes curricular materials and classroom lessons, as well as "meet the scientist" and "live from the field" sessions. Working in collaboration with classrooms from Cayman Prep and High School, and with funding from the Disney Worldwide Conservation Program, we piloted the program during the aggregation field season in 2012. To view a short clip of the underwater live-link, showing project scientist Dr. Brice Semmens answering qustions from students while underwater, click here. To find out more about this program, visit the Grouper Education Project EduBlog. You can also watch archived underwater Live-Feeds.
Baby Grouper Adrift! - Satellite Drifter Project - Spawning aggregations are typically located at promontories that feature a confluence of currents and waves. Why there? Using satellite drifters, we are studying the passive transport of Nassau grouper larvae spawned at the protected aggregation sites in the Cayman Islands to better understand the importance of place. This research is funded by the Disney Worldwide Conservation Program. To visit the 2011 Baby Grouper Adrift! webpage, click here.
Marine Protected Areas and Spawning Aggregations - Starting in 2008, REEF and our collaborators at the Cayman Islands Department of the Environment (CIDOE) and Oregon State University (OSU) greatly expanded the conservation science research being conducted as part of the Grouper Moon Project in the Cayman Islands. The funded research, broadly titled as "The reproductive biology of remnant Nassau grouper stocks: implications for Cayman Islands Marine Protected Area (MPA) management" aims to evaluate the potential for spawning site MPAs to recover Nassau grouper stocks. This research was funded by a grant from the Lenfest Ocean Program at the Pew Charitable Trusts and expanded on the initial findings of the Acoustic Research Project that was started in 2003.
Acoustic Research Project - In 2003 the Cayman Island Marine Conservation Board instituted an 8-year total fishing ban on all known Nassau grouper (Epinephelus striatus) aggregation sites in the Cayman Islands.This project was conducted to provide a clearer understand of how local populations of Nassau grouper use aggregation sites, to evaluate the effect of the no-take status of aggregation sites, and in order to assess the likelihood that the closures are effective. We acoustically tagged Nassau grouper both on and off the Little Cayman west end aggregation site, and monitored movements of the tagged fish over a two year period using an array of passive autonomous hydrophones surrounding the island. This work was funded by the NOAA International Coral Reef Conservation Program. For more information, results, and to watch videos of Nassau grouper movement to and from the aggregation, click here.
Yearly Project Summaries
Click here to read annual summaries of the Grouper Moon research.
Published Results
This paper summarizes shifts if color phase of individual Nassau grouper at the Little Cayman spawning site in the days leading up to spawning, based on 5 years of video data.View PDF
This paper summarized the first five years of monitoring of the Little Cayman West End aggregation, including a summary of spawning activity, total numbers of fish present at the aggregation each year, coloration, and behavior. View PDF
This paper documents attacks by the isopod Excorallana tricornis tricornis on Nassau grouper caught in Antillian fish traps during the post-spawning season of Spring 2005. Fish were being trapped in order to acoustically tag individuals from sites around Little Cayman Island in order to better understand what percentage of reproductive-size individuals attend the aggregation each year. The paper discusses the apparent energetic costs associated with spawning. This work was also presented as a posted at the 56th Gulf and Caribbean Fisheries Institute Meeting in 2005 (View PDF), and a summary of the poster is posted online. (View Poster)
This paper summarizes the findings from the 2002 REEF Grouper Moon Project, which documented the characteristics of a newly discovered Nassau grouper spawning aggregation. View PDF
Click on the title to view/download the video. Formats and sizes vary, see end of description for details.
2013 Spawning Night Compilation - Watch this short video montage of the aggregation and spawning action in February 2013.
Changing Seas: Grouper Moon - This episode of the Emmy award-winning "Changing Seas" PBS series features the story of the Grouper Moon Project. It features interviews with scientists, information about the cutting-edge research being conducted, REEF's education and outreach efforts, and spectacular underwater footage.
Grouper Education Program Underwater Live Feed Highlights - As part of the Grouper Education Program, our team conducts "live from the field" sessions. In this video, Professor Brice Semmens of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography chats live from underwater with students from Cayman Prep and High School during the 2012 research field season.
Grouper's Last Stand - A 3-minute PSA highlighting the importance of protecting spawning aggregations. This video was produced in 2011 by Josh Stewart in the month's leading up to the expriation of the original 8-year ban on fishing at aggregation sites durign spawning in the Cayman Islands. Thanks to awareness raised by this PSA and other Grouper Moon outreach efforts, the Cayman Islands Marine Conservation Board exteded the ban for another 8 years in December 2011. (YouTube)
2012 Spawning Highlghts - A short video featuring field work from the 2012 Grouper Moon season. (YouTube)
Grouper Moon Project Documentary - A 16 minute documentary video produced by Dr. Brice Semmens in 2006 that highlights REEF's collaboration with the Cayman Islands Department of the Environment on this critical conservation science project. The acoustic tagging research that was initiated in 2005 is featured. (Windows Media Player, 33 MB).
Cleaning Station at the Aggregation - During the February 2006 aggregation, we placed stationary cameras on two active cleaning stations for one hour intervals during the day in order to record behavior and cleaning station activity. A compilation of time-lapse video from a cleaning station, sped up 2x actual speed, -- the video represents approximately 10 minutes over two days at one large sponge that served as an active cleaning station on the Little Cayman West End aggregation site. The Nassau grouper are seen flashing various colorations during their attempts to be in the primary cleaning location in the sponge. In addition to Nassau grouper, yellowfin grouper and tiger grouper occasionally show up to be cleaned (but rarely are allowed access for more than a few moments). (Windows Media Player, 12 MB)
Little Cayman Spawning Aggregation Compilation 2008 - This video is a compilation of activity at the West End Little Cayman spawning site. The clip features the large number of Nassau grouper at the site (estimated at 3,000-3,500 individuals) a few days prior to spawning, the use of the site by many different species to spawn (including horse-eye jack), Caribbean reef sharks that try to prey on spawning (and distracted!) fish, and finally the big event, Nassau grouper spawning. (Windows Media Player, 20MB)
Grouper Moon 2008 Compilation - This video/audio compilation was edited by Dr. Scott Heppell (OSU) and features topside and underwater footage of the January 2008 field research. (Windows Media Player, 50MB)
Current Drifter Tracks - Three satellite drifters were deployed at the Little Cayman aggregation site on the night of spawning. The paths will be recorded by ARGOS satellites for 45 days and the resulting data will be used to develop a larval dispersal model in collaboration with researchers from University of Miami. Little Cayman is the island shown. The video represents movement between 1/29/08 and 2/11/08. See the 2008 Project Summary for more information on this work. (AVI, 10MB)
Fish Movement - Preliminary results from the acoustic tagging project that was initiated on Little Cayman in 2005 to understand the movement patterns of Nassau grouper. This link will take you to a page with links to movement track videos of all tagged Nassau grouper.
Acoustic Tagging Methods - This link will take you to a page with several short video clips of the capture, tagging, release, and tracking methods used in the Grouper Moon Acoustic project.
2002 Little Cayman Spawning Aggregation - A short compilation of video from the first year of video documentation of the Little Cayman West End Aggregation Site in 2002. Footage includes daytime behaviors and spawning releases. (Windows Media Player, 10MB).
All videos, images and content from these pages are copyrighted by REEF/Grouper Moon Project. Viewing and/or downloading any content implies agreement to the terms of use. Appropriate photo/video credit and copyright information must be given and notification of their use must be provided to REEF.
Collaborative Team and Major Supporters
The Grouper Moon Project is a collaboration between REEF and the Cayman Islands Department of the Environment. REEF extends a huge thanks to the CIDOE staff for their tireless efforts, including Phil Bush, Bradley Johnson, Croy McCoy, James Gibb, Tim Austin, Gina Ebanks-Pietre, Keith Neale, Delwin McLaughlin, and Robert Walton. The Grouper Moon Project has continued through the years empowered by the first year's success and the passion of project leader Leslie Whaylen Clift.
REEF volunteer project team members have included: Judie Clee, Thor Dunmire, Heather George, Dr. Steve Gittings, Tracey Griffin, Doug Harder, Brenda Hitt, Doug Kessling, Denise Mizell, Hal Peterson, Alex Score, Sheryl Shea, and Leslie Whaylen Clift. Drs. Scott and Selina Heppell from Oregon State University have been assisting with various Grouper Moon research projects since 2005. The 2010 Our World Underwater Scholar, Josh Stewart, has assisted with field efforts and outreach since in 2011 (as a Scripps Inst. of Oceanography graduate student since 2012). OSU graduate student, Stephanie Kraft-Archer assisted the project 2008-2011. Scripps Inst. of Oceanography graduate students, Brian Stock and Lynn Waterhouse, have assisted with field efforts and data management in since 2012.
Generous logistical support has been provided throughout the years by Peter Hillenbrand, as well as by local dive operators at the Little Cayman Beach Resort/Reef Divers and the Southern Cross Club. Brac Reef Resort has provided lodging support for education efforts on Cayman Brac. Cayman Airways has provided inter-island travel support. Grants from the Disney Conservation Fund, beginning in 2011, have supported field efforts, the Baby Grouper Adrift webpage, several outreach products, and the development and continued coordination of the Grouper Education Program. A research grant from the Lenfest Ocean Program at the Pew Charitable Trusts funded the project between 2008-2011. Funding for the acoustic work was provided in 2009-2012 by the NOAA International Coral Reef Conservation Program, the J. Edward Mahoney Foundation, and PADI Project AWARE. Additional funding has been provided by hundreds of REEF members. Wayne Sullivan and his crew of the Glen Ellen has provided generous field support since 2009. Raymarine Marine Electronics donated RADAR equipment to assist the CIDOE in their enforcement efforts. To alleviate the constraints of diving deep depths on regular scuba, several other sponsors came on board to assist in the project, including Divetech and PM Gas of Grand Cayman, Silent Diving of Brockville, Ontario and Shearwater Research of Vancouver, British Columbia. FLOW Cayman Islands (previously LIME) has provided 4G internet support for the live-video feeds for the Grouper Education Project since 2012, and Ocean Reef Systems and Ocean Systems, Inc. have provided technical support for the live feeds. Pegasus Thrusters supported the project in 2013 through the donation of Diver Propulsion Vehicles. Cayman Airways has provided travel support, and McLauglin Car & Scooter Rental has provided island transportion on Little Cayman.


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Home › Classroom Resources › Calendar Activities
Calendar Activities See All Calendar Activities
Not your everyday calendar, here you can find important events in literary history, authors' birthdays, and a variety of holidays, all with related activities and resources that make them more relevant to students. View by day, by week, or by month.
April 5, 2019
Pocahontas married John Rolfe on this date in 1614.
Students read "The Chieftan's Daughter" and are shown the fresco that tells the legend of Pocahontas. A class discussion follows regarding fact and fiction and students research Pocahontas.
Grades 7 – 12
Types of Calendar Activities
Authors & Texts
Birthdays, publication dates, and more
Historical Figures & Events
Notable people and happenings in history
Holidays & School Celebrations
Special days and how to observe them
Literacy-Related Events
Celebrations that promote and encourage literacy


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Rabbi/Rebbetzin Shoshana Ohriner lives in Silicon Valley with her husband Rabbi Philip Ohriner and their two children. In addition to her work as as a food writer and the creator of the parve baking blog Couldn't Be Parve, Rabbi Shoshana loves connecting people to tradition and Judaism through food. Whether by inviting people over for Shabbat and holiday meals or providing meals to families in her community in times of need and joy, the food is the foundation for cultivating meaningful connections and relationships. Since there are rarely less than fifteen people at a Shabbat or holiday meal at the Ohriner home, Rabbi Shoshana has developed quite a few recipes that feed a crowd without too much fuss. These are some of her most requested recipes:
Brisket Like My Grandma Made
Broccoli for Shabbat
Raspberry Lemonade Marshmallows
Almond Meyer Lemon Blueberry Bundt Cake


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I'm preparing myself for a winter of indoor activities, and creative forts are at the top of my list after gawking over entries sent in for the Wild Things' Fort Contest:
Where The Wild Things Are is filled with references to building a world out of things from your everyday life and that's exactly what we want you to do!
We want you to create a fort! Use garbage bags, tree branches, tablecloths, prosthetic limbs, wood, gold, whatever you got!
Click here to see the winners, then scroll down to follow the links to more submissions. There is enough variety and inspiration to keep you and the kiddos busy all winter long!


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By Jocelyn VerVelde, TTU Sports Information Coordinator
AKRON, Ohio – The Tennessee Tech volleyball team was in action twice Friday at the Akron Invitational as it lost to host Akron in straight sets and and dropped a tight match with Milwaukee in four.
Host Akron stifles Golden Eagles offense
In Tennessee Tech's first match of the Akron Invitational, the Golden Eagles offense was stifled as Akron held Tech to a hitting percentage of .111 in the match, losing 3-0.
Tech opened set one playing the Zips point for point, staying tight to a 10-11 score, but following a few offensive miscues from Tech and an offensive run by Akron, the Zips lead 21-16. Tech was unable to obtain enough offensive momentum to get back, dropping the set 25-16.
Set two opened the same way as the first. Tech took the early lead on Akron, leading 5-3. But Akron fought back, tying the set at 9-9, and then went on to take the lead to the end. Back to back kills by senior outside hitter Natalie Penrod brought the Golden Eagles within two, 16-18, but it was not enough as Akron won the set 25-18.
Following suit of the match, Tech traded points again in the opening of set three. Back-to-back Tech kills from junior Ellen Conti and sophomore Cody Dodd put the Golden Eagles up 6-4. Unfortunately, that was the only lead the Golden Eagles would hold in set three. An eight-point run by the Zips gave them the momentum, and they finished out the set. Akron took the match with a 25-16 win in set three.
The Golden Eagles were led by Dodd and senior Elise Robertson who each had eight kills. Dodd also added a team-high 3 services aces, while junior Courtney Smith added a team- best 11 digs.
Golden Eagles lose close match to Milwaukee
The Golden Eagle volleyball squad lost a very close match to Milwaukee Friday night. Despite out-hitting the panthers 59 kills and a hitting percentage of .241 to 48 kills and a .230 percentage, Tech lost 3-1.
In the first set, Milwaukee opened up on a 5-1 run, but Tech was able to bring it within one with Milwaukee still up 10-9. With a balanced offense, kills by senior Elise Robertson, junior Ellen Conti and sophomore Cody Dodd, the Golden Eagles helped to tie the match at 20. The Panthers racked up kills at just the right time to take the set 25-21.
The Golden Eagles traded points with the Panthers, all the way to a 9-9 tie. The Golden Eagles came out firing and went on a 10-2 run, taking the lead 17-10. Freshman setter Sharon Anderson distributed the offense evenly, overwhelming the Milwaukee defense with an offense that hit .467 with 16 kills in the set. Dodd also helped Tech maintain the lead with 4 service aces in set two alone. Tech went on to win the set 25-18.
Sets three and four did not fall in Tech's favor. Set three was a tight battle, but the Golden Eagles never held the momentum during the set. Tech dropped set three, 25-20. Tech found themselves in a rut to start set four. Down 11-2, Tech started to fight back, getting as close as 18-20. Tech was never able to quite complete the comeback, dropping the set 25-22.
Anderson set a career-high with 49 assists for the Golden Eagles, adding two kills and two digs. Senior Natalie Penrod and Conti recorded their first double-doubles of the season. Penrod finished the match with 15 kills, a hitting percentage of .353, and 10 digs. Conti finished with 10 kills and 14 digs. Robertson added 13 kills and 3 blocks, while Dodd added 10 kills, four blocks and a career-high six services aces. Junior Courtney Smith added 26 digs to lead the offense.
Tech wraps up the Akron Invitational Saturday with a match against Niagara at 10:30 a.m. CDT.


text:
"What series of events made you reexamine your faith, and how did you decide that your religion was wanting?"
Because the asker is a good friend of mine, I honestly didn't mind answering, but I asked for a few days to write it all down. I didn't want to just tell the bones of the story and miss any details that I thought were important to me, as part of my own journey into applying rationalism to religion.
Then, not an hour after my first friend asked me, a second, and then a third. I told them basically the same thing I told my first friend, and that they could expect me to answer them in the space of a week or so, because I felt it was an important thing to tell it like it happened.
This is the end result I've come to. There are arguments that you all know and have heard at least ten times. It's long and gets a bit emotional in some parts (which I find a little awkward, so I hope you can forgive me), but this is how it happened.
This is the very brief story of my deconversion. I do plan on making this essay public on my Facebook and my personal blog, but I'd like it to be read by more reasonable people first. I've posted it here just as it would appear on any public site for my religious friends to read (which is why it addresses them and any other religious people). I've had it proofread by my lovely husband, but I'd like it (if any of you endeavor to read this) if you'd let me know if you find any spelling errors. And, as always, comments are most welcome. :)
Let me start this off by saying that I'm not trying to be offensive. I'm not trying to make anyone upset, nor is my objective to 'deconvert' anyone from any faith. I know that by being outspoken about this subject, I am opening myself up to lose family, friends, acquaintances, job opportunities, and even to receive threats.
My main goal is to explain why someone who, just a few short months ago called herself a Christian is longer identifying as such. Not because I need to justify myself (I know why I made my decisions), nor do I feel like I answer to anyone but myself. But some friends have expressed confusion and a desire to understand where my change of heart and mind came from. I'm afraid that I won't be able to touch on every point that helped change my mind, because I do want to make this as brief as possible, while still being true to the way that my loss of faith happened.
This is for you, friends.
Last year, I decided that it was time to re-read the Bible, from cover to cover. It had been a long time (nearly ten years) since I had done that, and I felt that so much time had passed that I should do it again. I had done a lot of growing and changing over that near decade and I wanted to refresh my memory and my commitment to the faith I had. (I'm one of those people that reads all of a software license and the fine print of every advert. It's ridiculous to ignore the actual rules of what you're agreeing to.)
So I did. I read the book and a bit extra (Apocrypha, anyone?) and took notes. There were a few passages that I didn't remember from the last time I read the Bible, and there were some that I did remember, vividly. There were some bits that I didn't understand (I marked those to return to later) and there were some that I understood for the first time, due to recent education through classes and general reading.
There was something else I noticed for the first time while I read. Contradictions. Like, a lot of them. I considered keeping track of them, but I didn't honestly think there would be that many. There were, and it was distracting. I put it out of my mind though, because anyone who knows a little bit about the Bible, knows that it was written by a lot of different people at different times, edited again and again and then translated into so many different languages- it would be ridiculous to think that there wouldn't be discrepancies, right?
Well, no, not if you believe that the Bible was written by the hand of God.
A Few Examples of Contradictions – Are We Punished for the Sins of Others?
[Table from the Skeptic's Annotated Bible]
(After reading these all in the Bible, I didn't agree with the concept any more than I had originally, but I did think that back in the times when the Bible was written, it was assumed your family would be punished for things you did as a deterrent. I found myself making that rationalization- they used any 'law' as a deterrent/motivator for the people during that time period- more and more often.)
'Okay', I figured, 'well, "written by the hand of God" is obviously just a turn of phrase. In fact, I didn't (and still don't) know of any Christian who actually thinks that God sat down one day and wrote the Bible, because the books of the Bible are often called the name of the person who the text is attributed, even if that's not entirely accurate. God didn't literally write the Bible, he inspired many people and those people were imperfect, so the result, divinely inspired though it may be, is imperfect. That doesn't mean that it's not true.'
I moved on, and read further. God punished people for believing lies when they didn't know better (Genesis 12:17, Genesis 20:18), killed people for telling the truth (Numbers 14:35-36), hardens the hearts of people for the purpose of killing them later (because of their hardened hearts- Exodus 14:4-28) and punished children and generations of a family for something an ancestor did (Original Sin- which I had never bought into- wasn't the only instance of this, and that bothered me a lot. See the above chart for other examples).
'But!' I said to myself, 'This God was the God of the Old Testament, the God that most modern Christians don't really take into consideration.' And I thought that was true. The God that demanded and rejoiced in burnt offerings (Exodus 20:24), animal sacrifice (Genesis 15:9-10), slavery (Leviticus 27:3-7), genocide (Exodus 17:11-13), infanticide (Hosea 13:16), rape (Numbers 31:17-18 which also allows for pedophilia and sexual slavery), murder (Numbers 16:49), racism (Numbers 25:6-9), and all other manner of terrible things isn't the God of modern Christians, right? So I put it out of my mind until I got to the New Testament.
I had always been taught that the laws of the Old Testament didn't count in the New, because of Jesus. Jesus's blood was the new covenant. There wasn't any need for the old laws, right?
Except that's not what the New Testament says. In fact, Jesus himself says otherwise. (All emphasis is mine, but no changes have been made).
."Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. Therefore anyone who sets aside one of the least of these commands and teaches others accordingly will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. " (Matthew 5:17-19 NIV)
Jesus goes on in Mark (7:9-13 NIV) to criticize people who were not upholding the law by killing disobedient children:
"And he continued, "You have a fine way of setting aside the commands of God in order to observe your own traditions! For Moses said, 'Honor your father and mother,' and, 'Anyone who curses their father or mother is to be put to death.' But you say that if anyone declares that what might have been used to help their father or mother is Corban (that is, devoted to God)— then you no longer let them do anything for their father or mother. Thus you nullify the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And you do many things like that."
"Jesus answered them, "Is it not written in your Law, 'I have said you are "gods"'? If he called them 'gods,' to whom the word of God came—and Scripture cannot be set aside— what about the one whom the Father set apart as his very own and sent into the world? Why then do you accuse me of blasphemy because I said, 'I am God's Son'? Do not believe me unless I do the works of my Father." (John 10:34-37 NIV)
Well, alright. So the rules that any moderate Christian doesn't follow, should be followed. Even before my initial re-reading of the Bible, I was aware that most Christians today are cherry-picking which rules to follow and which rules to ignore. We don't kill people for working on the Sabbath or force rape victims to marry their attackers, or any of the 603 commandments (aside from the 10 that everyone knows so well). I've read back and forth between Christians and Jews, the Christians saying that since the Jews were the object and audience of the Old Testament, that the Christians are released from having to follow those rules. Well, even if that is so (which I think sounds more like a cop-out than anything else), why wouldn't Christians want to follow the explicit word of God? Why wouldn't they want to try to be more like God's chosen people, without giving up anything of their own religion? It's in the Old Testament, which is part of the Christian Bible. So, beside the fact that we don't normally like to go about killing people who wear cotton/poly blends, why wouldn't Christians want to try to follow the word of God as closely as possible?
The argument bothered me, the passages bothered me, and the dawning realization of the scope of how much most people don't know about the faith they claim to have was much bigger than I realized. If I asked anyone, I'm sure they wouldn't think Jesus wanted them to kill unruly children. Or, I'd be told that it was a parable or a metaphor. But, in the context, that doesn't make sense. And beyond that, there are only so many things that can be taken as metaphorical, before there isn't another option but to take it literally. "Kill these people for not following rules" doesn't lend itself to being terribly metaphorical when people were actually being killed for not following these rules.
'But', I comforted myself, 'that didn't make Jesus any less miraculous, or God any less real, that just means that the times changed and that we are no longer in need of certain rules'. The idea bothered me, but I put it aside. I told myself that one doesn't have to follow all of those rules to be a follower of Jesus, or to believe that he was the son of God, especially since most Christians flat out ignore most of the rules that they're supposed to be following- even the people who were teaching the rules.
Jesus did do miraculous things in the Bible. He turned water to wine, healed the sick, walked on water, raised the dead, and fed a huge crowd of people with a very small amount of bread and fish. He did things that were called miraculous.. But, if I'm going to do what Jesus asks in the above passage from John 10, I have to believe him only if he does the works of his father. The works of God. I have to hold him to that standard. (Because there were other people in his time frame that claimed they were the Messiah- a brief list of which can be found here and it was claimed that they did miracles as well, so I can see why Jesus would want to be held to a higher standard.)
(I think this is where the 'skeptic' switch got turned to the 'on' position. I've always enjoyed being a relatively rational person, but for some reason it never occurred to me to apply this way of thinking to religion. I suppose it's looked down upon. But as soon as it happened, I couldn't undo what I saw in my rational mind.)
I believed that God made THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE. From atoms to quasars to black holes to earthworms. Viruses, bacteria, howling monkeys and anaerobic microbes. The things we didn't understand then, and the things we're still trying to work out now. The makeup of carbon and the blueprints of stars were his doing. And I'm supposed to believe that Jesus is his son, is actually HIM? The guy who did what amounted to parlor tricks compared to God? The one who left no evidence of any of his miracles? And, in a time where other self-appointed Messiahs were also performing 'miracles'? Heck, even in the Old Testament, when Moses went to Pharoh, the High Priests of the Egyptians were able to perform little tricks too.
Even looking at Jesus's healing of the sick and lame, which I would think was the most miraculous, simply because disease wasn't understood then, his miracles were overshadowed by the fact that, if he had this power to heal the sick, well.. why didn't he heal all the sick? Why let many suffer? Why not do away with all disease? Wouldn't that have converted lots more followers? Wasn't he there to save souls in the first place? Why not do everything in his power (which should have been quite a lot, considering) to help people understand who he was? And, stepping back for just a moment, if Jesus was the son of God, and also God himself, why did he create sickness in the first place? Why allow humans, his most precious creation, suffer? Even if people were supposed to suffer for bad choices (or other peoples' bad choices, depending on if you believe God punishes people for the mistakes of others), I can't help but wonder if babies with malaria really had it coming to them.
I was uncomfortable with how disbelieving my train of thought was (as I'm sure most Christians are that are reading). I didn't like doubting Jesus, the Shepard. Jesus, the lover of the meek and mild. The perfect Prince of Peace.
"Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to turn
"'a man against his father,
a daughter against her mother,
a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law—
a man's enemies will be the members of his own household.'"
(Matthew 10:34-36 NIV)
"But those enemies of mine who did not want me to be king over them—bring them here and kill them in front of me.'"
(Luke 19:27 NIV)
Jesus is demanding death to those who didn't want to follow him, for whatever reason. Maybe they just didn't understand him? Maybe they weren't there for his preaching, or to witness his miracles? Maybe if Jesus had healed everyone, they would have known to follow him? Surely they would have known?
"When he was alone, the Twelve and the others around him asked him about the parables. He told them, "The secret of the kingdom of God has been given to you. But to those on the outside everything is said in parables so that,
"'they may be ever seeing but never perceiving,
and ever hearing but never understanding;
otherwise they might turn and be forgiven!'"
(Mark 4:10-12 NIV)
Did Jesus just say that he speaks in parables to confuse others, so that they won't be able to get forgiveness? That's not the Jesus (Prince of Peace?) of moderate Christianity- or at least, I didn't think so.
In fact, there are quite a few examples of how Jesus says he's not intending to be peaceful. There are also examples where Jesus says just the opposite.
Is Jesus Peaceful?
[Table taken from the Skeptic's Annotated Bible]
So that's a little disturbing. A lot disturbing, actually. 'But it's okay!' my apologetic mind screamed, 'Because the Gospels were written at least a generation after Jesus was gone! So chances are that he didn't actually say that!'
Okay. But then what did he say? And for that matter, how can we know he said anything? We know of people who were around at his time, because they wrote things and their contemporaries wrote about them. That's not the case with Jesus. In fact, most of the evidence that pointed to a historical Jesus (with the exception of the Bible itself) has been shown to be either not from his time, or manufactured. So while there may have been a Jewish teacher named Jesus, who was possibly crucified by the Romans, there simply isn't any evidence of him, beside the Bible. (In the interest of space, please see Evidence for the Historical Existence of Jesus Christ here.)
And the portions of the Bible with Jesus in them were written 70-90 years after Jesus died.
I looked up some Christian websites and found that most Christians weren't bothered by any of this. On one Catholic website, there was a Q&A section, and one question addressed this directly. The question was this:
"Why were the Gospel accounts written long after Jesus' death?"
The answer, given by a Father Bob, was this:
"It all depends on what you mean by a long time! The consensus of modern scholarship is that the Gospels were finalized in the form we now know them within several generations of the death and Resurrection of Our Lord: Mark shortly before AD 70, Matthew and Luke between 70 and 90, and John by the end of the first Christian century . Historically speaking that is not a long period of time. It also must be remembered that the Gospels developed in a mostly oral culture, so the stories were told and retold for years before they were committed to writing. Additionally, it is very possibly that the sacred authors drew upon early written accounts of Jesus' ministry and sayings.
The first Christians saw no need to write things down for posterity because they believed that Jesus would be returning in glory very shortly. It was only when it became apparent that the Second Coming wasn't necessarily too expected in the near future that they finally realized the importance of writing down the message concerning Jesus that they were preaching."
The page can be found here
Now, besides the fact that Father Bob gives no sources on his information, what bothered me even more was the fact that he says that 70 to 90 years isn't a long time. Speaking geologically, historically, or even generally, he's right. But when considering the lifespan of the average human during these times is now generally said to be about from 26 to 30 years, 70 years is a lot longer than we consider it to be now.
If there was contemporary written evidence used by the writers of the Gospels, why don't we have that now? What did they take from? To be honest, the closest written documents that the contemporaries might have taken from certainly weren't Jewish (see the table below). And since Jesus was so infamous in Jerusalem, don't you think that some Roman somewhere would have written about the upstart Jewish teacher who was given over by his own people to be killed?
There are other parts of the Jesus story that would have been written about, too. Like why the men of the Jewish council would set aside their sacred traditions in order to meet on the first night of Passover. Or the slaughter of the innocents. Or those dragons Jesus did away with (okay that one is in the Apocrypha, but it's still a Jesus story). Or that Pontius Pilate released a known killer of Romans into the city. Some Roman must have written about that, surely. But we don't have any of that.
And yes, many parts of the story was from an oral tradition, but anyone who has ever told a story, a joke or just recalled an account to someone who wasn't there knows that we all change small details- sometimes not even realizing we are doing it. And these stories were being retold, by many people, as the truth. As, quite literally, gospel. Something to base one's entire life off of. Something to die for.
'Alright!' I said to myself, 'But even if there isn't any evidence of Jesus beyond the Bible, nor of his miracles, that doesn't mean that he didn't exist, and that he wasn't special. He claimed to be the son of God! Not just anyone could get away with that. And he was backed up by many different prophecies from the Old Testament!'
[Table found on Google Images]
Okay. Maybe not that unique. Jesus did have a lot of the same characteristics of lots of the gods and heroes of older oral and written traditions. And maybe those prophecies that were fulfilled, being available to the Jews of the time, were more self-fulfilling than we like to admit. And, being that they were the ones doing the writing, it's not absurd to consider the possibility of some details being changed to fit circumstances.
Considering the likelihood that the Bible had been tampered with, the stories that had been written down were from even older oral traditions, and that even if everything in the Bible had happened, there was absolutely no proof, I had a bit of a crisis.
Since I was having trouble expressing my doubts further than 'there seems to be something wrong here, but I can't quite put my finger on it', I jumped on my computer. In the Google searchbar, I typed in "reasons to believe in God". I figured that if I found some comforting Christian website that helped me understand why none of these things added up in the Bible, that I'd regain my equilibrium, and be able to face my faith without doubts. I found a few very interesting things. Here are a handful of them (and my responses) to show how well looking for a reason to believe worked out for me..
The Earth/universe/eye/brain/human body is designed perfectly.
It does seem that way, at first, but if you examine the claim that the Earth (or universe or eye or brain or human body) is perfect, you begin to see the problems with the statement.
Earth: Earth is about in the middle of the habitable orbit (coined the 'Goldilocks Zone' because it is neither too hot nor too cold). But that habitable orbit is anywhere between about 0.95 to 1.37 AU (or 88 million to 127 million miles) from the Sun, so Mars is in that habitable orbit as well. And, just roughly estimating that there are are between 200 and 400 billion stars, there are bound to be some planets orbiting these stars, some of which are going to be randomly in the 'Goldilocks Zone'. If two out of our eight planets in our solar system have managed to end up in a habitable zone, that's a huge degree of chance that there are other planets that could support Earth-like life.
The Universe: There is nothing about the universe that suggests it was created specifically for us. While we don't understand a lot about the universe, that doesn't mean that we won't be able to understand it ever.
The Eye: This is a particular favorite of a few people who think that the human body is perfectly designed, because the eye acts like a camera, it can recognize an amazing amount of colors, and because it is hard to imagine evolution giving us such an amazing tool. Except it's really not that hard once you think about it, and once you understand basic evolution. It happened in a few stages, the first being a light-sensitive patch of cells(so as to tell when it is light and when it is dark). The second being the patch of cells arranged in a cup shape (so one could tell from what direction the light is coming). The third is the development of a pinhole-like camera, the fourth is the development of a crude lens, and the fifth is the refining of the lens.
The creatures that had slightly more cupped cells in the second phase were more likely to be able to sense movement of predators, and therefore passed on their genes more often. Their offspring (over lots of generations) were slowly beginning to focus on general shapes, and had a great advantage over the offspring who just had the cup-shaped cells. That's how evolution works. (Here's a great video showing the evolution of the eye.)
Not to mention, of course, that anyone who's taken grade school science knows that the images our eyes send to our brains are backwards and upside down. Our brain has to unscramble the images before we can make sense of them. Not to mention humans have blind spots. That doesn't seem to perfect to me, it seems like what arose out of necessity, and it worked well enough to keep it around.
The Human Body: I have heard a lot of arguments that the human body is perfect. Now don't misunderstand, I am in no way saying that it's not an amazing thing. But it's far from perfect. Our wiring is faulty at best (some nerves have to double over themselves to get where they're going), our cells have the nasty habit of liking to suddenly reproduce explosively, and we are constantly at war with mirco-organisms that we are unable to detect using just our senses. Really, just because our bodies have a good map of arteries and veins doesn't mean that our bodies couldn't be put together a lot better.
God gives us moral direction. You can't be moral without God!
Well that's a little disheartening. The idea that the vast majority of mankind is holding off murdering/raping/stealing/blowing up other people and material objects is because they're afraid of some kind of supernatural punishment? I can try to be a good person without needing to be threatened. Actually, it seems more dishonest to only be good because of the looming threat of punishment or promise of reward. Why not just try to be a good person?
If you don't believe in God and that life has a design, you don't think there's any reason to life. God and religion give life purpose!
I don't need to think I'm so important that I deserve a supernatural reason to exist. I'm not special, I'm just another mammal. I don't need a pre-deigned purpose. If I just live my life as a good person and try to make the world a little bit better, I will have done my fellow humans right, and will be very happy with that.
I think it's self-centered and narcissistic to think that in this entire universe, out of all the millions of billions of things going on right this second, that someone would assume that the grand creator of everything would have a specific purpose for me- the barest flash of an inconsequential dust speck.
Hitler/Stalin/Pol Pot was an atheist!
Even if all three of these people were atheists (which isn't true) that doesn't mean that all atheists are homicidal maniacs. That's like saying because the Spanish Inquisition was run by Catholics, that all Catholics are out to torture and kill. I hope that's not true, anyway. On top of that, this 'reason' to believe in God really isn't a reason at all, it's a finger-pointing blame. There are lots of 'reasons' to believe in God that are like this one.
Would anyone die for a lie?
This argument is basically saying that the apostles (and is sometimes extended to all Christian martyrs) wouldn't have died for the sake of their faith if they had not witnessed the happenings firsthand. There are a few problems with this argument, but the simplest and most damning, I think, is that other religions have martyrs too. Does that make those religions absolute truth as well? The followers did believe it enough to die, after all.
Most people have some sort of faith in the supernatural. Even [insert any well-known name here] believes in God!
Just because the majority believes in something does not make it real, or the best option. Two hundred years ago, the white majority thought it was alright to own blacks as property. Just because the majority believed in it did not make it right or the real best option for everyone involved.
Also, even if [insert scientist, celebrity, author, sports star, politician, musician, comedian] does believe in God, so what? That doesn't prove that God exists, that just proves that that individual believes in something that isn't provable..
Something can't come from nothing! So even if everything else scientists say is true, that doesn't account for the beginning of life, so therefore God must exist.
Even though science does not at this point have a good working theory of how life came to be on Earth, there is evidence that abiogenesis is possible (see the Miller-Urey Experiment, it's really interesting). There are theories about the possibility of panspermia as well.
Neither of these hypotheses have to invoke the unexplainable or the supernatural because the universe and our world operate on very specific principles. Furthermore, to assume just because we don't know something now and therefore it must be God's doing and unknowable, is absurd. A long time ago, we thought lightning and earthquakes and hurricanes were signs that God/gods/nature/the spirits/someone else was upset with us. Now we know the causes of these things- and it's not because we've offended Poseidon.
This can also be seen as an argument from incredulity- just because someone cannot fathom how something works means that it couldn't have possibly happened naturally- which is, of course, ridiculous. For instance: I'm not that great at mathematics, though I do find the subject interesting. Just because I cannot fathom the formula that tells us the luminosity of a black hole doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. It does exist. And it was created by someone who had more experience and more training in mathematics than I have. I cannot in good conscience pretend that things don't exist just because I personally don't understand them.
Religion gives people hope and makes them feel safe. Why wouldn't you want to be a part of that?
This was a big one for me, in many different ways- but there was one thing that kept bothering me about the assertion that religion gave hope and warm fuzzy feelings. It was this: even if these beliefs make me feel nice, that doesn't make them true. Do I care whether what I believe is true?
Do I care what I believe is true?
Well, yes. I do. And I realized that making the claim that one believes in God is making a claim about how you think the universe and everything in it works. It's a claim on reality, and everything around us.
To make the extraordinary claim that there is a supernatural God that created everything, knows me, knows my heart, cares about what I (and 6 billion others) do and say, and has the power to bend time and space if he so wanted to, and is all knowing, all loving, all powerful, and everything wonderful- I better have some damn extraordinary evidence. And there isn't any.
There's a book comprised of other, shorter books, written at least 1500 years ago (and some much longer before that) that gives the accounts of some desert people and the rules they had that made sure that their social construct didn't fall apart, and the God they ascribed those rules to (because why would anyone follow rules without an enforcer, and what an enforcer that can get you after you're dead!) . There are even older oral traditions in the book made of smaller books, though most of the mostly-nameless authors can't agree on details. Then the book of smaller books was translated many times, re-written, translated more, and changed by many different men at many different times, sometimes on accident and sometimes not.
A bunch of scribbles written by a desert dwelling people from the Bronze Age on, tampered with until today, is not a good piece of evidence. It is especially not a good piece of evidence for a God who wanted me to get the message that he gave to those people. Anyone with half an ounce of common sense knows that the best way to convince someone of anything is to demonstrate what you are trying to prove. Why would a God, who wanted me to know this message of his love for me, let it be conveyed 2000 years later, through a book that didn't resemble the original book that was written mostly way after the things in the book said happened, and was written by people who hadn't even seen the things happen. Why would this God, who was all powerful and all knowing leave it up to that sort of poor evidence, when he could just show me? And, on top of all of that, give me a rational mind, with which to pull this all apart and come to the conclusion that it just didn't add up?
What kind of God would do that?
If God created the world in all its splendor, why didn't he tell us about it? Why isn't there any science in the book made of smaller books? Why didn't God tell us about bacteria, about small little cells that can get inside of people and make them sick or die? Why aren't there any mentions of other people, all over the Earth? Other languages? Why just this one small place, with this one small mindset, for this one small people? Why isn't there anything in this book but wars and killings and rules on who you should kill and how and when. Interspersed are some truly lovely bits, like "don't kill". No one else sees the irony.
And, even if God was all loving and all good and all powerful, why does he let so many suffer? Why do I see Facebook statuses day after day thanking God for a good parking spot at Wal-Mart, or thanking God that they didn't have to pay as much as they thought they would have to to get their car fixed, or thanking God that they got that payraise they'd been after for six months- when there are children dying of disease and starving in slums and getting raped or sold into prostitution. Why on Earth would a good God allow those great injustices to happen? Even people, flawed as we are, can see that these things are bad.
Their faith is being tested? That's sick. That's cruel and terrible. They're earning a better afterlife? What a disgusting and vile answer. So that the Christians can earn points from a silent observer in the sky by sending crosses and Bibles, or taking the Mother Teresa route and using dirty, work-blunted needles on the sick and dying? Giving no more than asprin to people dying of AIDS, cancer, and malaria? Why won't God hear the prayers of the people who are crying out in pain?
I have tried to remain clinical and reasonable with my answers to these (and other) reasons to believe in God. But the only time I got a good answer to the question, "Why does God grant the prayers of people in the US, who aren't dying in the street, but neglects other people who have life-threatening disease and circumstances all around them?" was when I was answered my own question with this: "Because there isn't an invisible being in the sky who cares about us. Nature isn't sympathetic, and humans are susceptible to catching diseases, being injured and dying. It's a matter of chance, and when one is born in a country with less than adequate water purity, food, and medical supplies, the chance of getting a serious sickness at a younger age goes up quite a bit. Because the world works just like you'd expect it to if there wasn't a God."
At this point, my God was dwindling. The savior I thought I had known was a stranger. The good laws that I had always tried to follow (don't lie, don't steal etc) were eclipsed by laws that I could not in good conscience follow (kill homosexuals, kill those who work on the Sabbath, kill disobedient children, hate and abandon your family etc). The rules that I thought didn't matter because they were in the Old Testament, that actually were upheld in the New. The universe and the world acted in the way one would expect the world and the universe to act if there were just natural laws (gravity, physics) governing, with no help from any deity.
I was upset. I desperately clung to the religion that I wanted to believe in, but with these rules and laws, I couldn't bring myself to commit to it anymore. I needed answers, I needed to know about what much smarter and more educated Christians thought, and how the Methodist church in specific responded to these issues.
I decided to talk to a pastor, and try to get in touch with a few other people who I knew, that knew more about what I was reading than I did. I figured I had talked myself into a corner, that I wasn't able to see the answer because I was too close to the problem. I thought that if I talked it through with someone who was more educated than I was, that it would be more clear to me.
Well, that didn't happen. I did go to a pastor, and I did ask my questions (some of them), and I found a few things that bothered me. When I asked about the Methodist church's stance on some of the rules in the Bible (because I was at that point, still a Methodist), I wasn't given an answer. I was told the pastor's opinion. I was told other Methodist opinions. I wasn't given what I asked for. So I asked more questions. And when I wasn't getting simple "I don't know" answers, I was given more personal opinions and feelings. The few times I was given a Bible verse as an answer, I could usually pull one or two Bible verses that contradicted it. It was frustrating.
Nothing solid, nothing that helped me see where I had been wrong in my train of thought, or in my questions. All throughout the conversation, though, the pastor commended me for digging into the Bible and really trying to learn. He said that my questions were good ones, and that I was a good person (and a good Christian!) for asking questions and using the brain that God gave me to try to know Him better.
We spoke for quite a while, and somehow got to the topic of heaven. He asked if I believed in heaven and I told him that I wasn't sure. I explained that from what I understood of the body and the brain in specific, that the personality and the 'mind' were products of the brain, and that once the brain dies, the memories, thoughts, and personality go with the brain. The control center is dead, and so would be the messages sent by the control center. And I couldn't see anything that made the concept of a soul seem realistic, or even possible.
The pastor's body language and tone of voice immediately changed. He told me I relied on science too much, that I relied on logic and rationalization too heavily. He said I couldn't make sense of an emotional experience. It had to come from the heart. Reason had no place in a church, and that I had to come to terms with that myself. I had to have faith.
In my mind, all I could think was 'But that doesn't make sense! You can't base a huge commitment like religion on just a feeling! You've got to have a reason to believe what you believe, and just saying that you believe it doesn't answer the question, it begs the question!'. In my mind, I had a brief moment of sensation, a surreal feeling of going over some metaphorical bridge. I couldn't put a name to what I had just gone through, so I thanked the pastor for his time, and left.
I realized, driving home from that meeting, that the sensation I had felt was a mental demand to figure out why I believed in God. Why did I think that I knew God, and that God loved me? I made a list. It looked something like this:
I was healed when I was a small child.
I was raised in a Christian home.
Most of the rules of modern Christianity are good ones, although personally I feel that many are outdated and barbaric.
Having a God that watches over me, cares for me and loves me is a good feeling.
A few days later, I went back to that list and just about laughed out loud. It was so self-centered and basically said nothing about who God was or why I believed in him. Here are the replies that I gave to my own list:
I was healed when I was a small child- It seems that doctors and medical staff along with medical technology don't get enough credit these days. Combined with the malady itself, I wasn't on death's doorstep or anything like that, so there is no reason to believe that my general health is attributed to anything other than those doctors and medicine.
I was raised in a Christian home- and if I had been raised in a Hindu home, I'd probably be asking the same questions about those Gods. Nope, not a good reason to base my life on something.
Most of the rules of modern Christianity are good ones- while this isn't false, there is a lot of room for improvement. Not to mention that most evolutionists have shown that ethics evolve within social species, so "don't kill" isn't even that good of a rule. We would know that killing would put us on the outside of the herd, so to speak, even if we didn't have the cognizance to write it down, or to speak it out loud.
Having a God that watches over me, cares about me, and loves me is a good feeling- Just because I want these things to be true doesn't make them true. And just because I felt it in my heart and thought that I 'knew' God doesn't make God real. I recalled a line from Neitzsche, "A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith proves nothing."
Just because I want it to be true does not make it true, and just because it made me feel special and good does not make it real (nor does it make me special or good).
I sat back, after replying to my own list and thought. I cared about whether or not what I believed was true. I cared about reality. I cared about proof and evidence and reason. I wanted to follow where the trail took me, and it had led me to realize that there was no proof nor evidence for a God, or any sort of supernatural deity. Not to say that there was proof against the idea. And then I wondered where that left me, the person.
I tried on the label 'agnostic', which seemed at first accurate, but after a while, I began to wonder about the implications. Pure agnosticism, as I understood it, was saying that there was no way to truly know, and therefore God had as much a chance of existing as not. That simply wasn't how I felt. It seemed that the more I really observed the world, the less likely it was that God was a part of it, or even there at all. Why, then, would there be starving children in one war-torn, disease-riddled and Christian country, while other secular countries were doing just fine, even booming?
Atheist then, I thought. There are a lot of negative connotations with the word, and I didn't want to have to defend myself against what surely would cause an uproar by labeling myself as such, but it fit the bill. I didn't believe in any gods anymore, nor the soul, other supernatural events such as miracles, or anything of the like. Not because I wanted to disbelieve, but because there was no evidence to back the claims up. If the evidence showed that these things were real, then I would change my mind. I felt like that was the most rational and reasonable way to go about it.
That night, I was in bed, and the thought occurred to me that eventually, I was going to die. It was a literal 'dark night' for me. I was anxious, I was scared. What would death be like? Would it hurt? Would I be alone? This wasn't the first time I had thought about these things, but the point of view was quite changed. What would nothingness feel like? I didn't want to not exist anymore! I liked existing! I liked being me, having a mind and an opinion and a voice to speak it! I didn't want to disappear into nothingness, I didn't want to simply vanish into the past, as a memory. I didn't want to die.
The next day, tired and a little frazzled, I collected myself and made an effort to look at things through a rational eye. I read a lot of atheist and godless literature that talked about death and dying. I didn't want to hear some reassuring talk about deities and an afterlife. I wanted something that addressed the struggle I had gone through. I wanted to know that somewhere else, someone who had thought the same things I had thought and worried about the same things I had worried about had come through. Not only come through, but been comforted while still facing reality. I wasn't looking for anything to believe in. I don't think I can just believe in something anymore. But I wanted to know that it was possible to come out of the realization like the one I had, and to not be negative or bitter. I didn't want that. I wanted something that addressed the human condition without making it either into a fairy tale or a bleak story with an even bleaker ending.
Some of these essays and papers I found were for people who really were in the process of dying, the sick, injured or elderly. Some were very aloof, and questioned why someone should be afraid of death. I don't think I'm afraid of death, but as someone that's been alive as long as I can remember, I don't really look forward to the day when my metabolic processes stop and I am no longer a living thing. I was a little offended by a few, that suggested that we shouldn't care about death at all. Death does happen to us all, and it is an eventuality, but that doesn't mean that we shouldn't care about it, or at least, not to me. But I'm the sort who likes to face things head-on.
One woman, Greta Christina, wrote about how death in a lovely, very comforting way. She said,
"I don't know what happens when we die. I don't know if we come back in a different body, or if we get to hover over time and space and view it in all its glory and splendor, or if our souls dissolve into the world-soul the way our bodies dissolve into the ground, or if, as seems very likely, we simply disappear. I have no idea. And I don't know that it matters. What matters is that we get to be alive. We get to be conscious. We get to be connected with each other, and with the world, and we get to be aware of that connection and to spend a few years mucking about in its possibilities. We get to have a slice of time and space that's ours. As it happened, we got the slice that has Beatles records and Thai restaurants and AIDS and the Internet. People who came before us got the slice that had horse-drawn carriages and whist and dysentery, or the one that had stone huts and Viking invasions and pigs in the yard. And the people who come
after us will get the slice that has, I don't know, flying cars and soybean pies and identity chips in their brains. But our slice is no less important because it comes when it does, and it's no less important because we'll leave it someday. The fact that time will continue after we die does not negate the time that we were alive. We are alive now, and nothing can erase that. "
In fact, that piece of writing touched me so deeply that I made sure to write down that I wanted it read at my funeral. (The whole article and website can be found here. Some of the articles are NSFW, but I don't see why that article wouldn't be okay.)
And then I couldn't force myself to worry about death. I found myself wanting to be more engaged with my friends, wanting to do more within my community, wanting to help more people more often. Instead of praying for someone, I wanted to actively do something for them. I didn't want to mumble something to a god who might be there, but probably isn't. I wanted to do good for the sake of doing good. And that's what I've based my life off of now. Being the best person I can be, and treating others (other people, other animals, the planet I'm on) well. I don't think we should look for rewards for doing something right. The reward is the right that is done, and I get to share that with others by doing right by them.
So here's the ending of my little tirade. I hope it's made sense in the sensical parts and was distressed in the distressing parts. It was terrifying, taking that first step away from what I was raised to believe, what most of my friends and family believe, and I'm going to have to defend my stance probably for the rest of my life. I'm alright with that.
If you're a religious person and you're reading this, I hope I've explained well why I'm not among your ranks anymore. I hope I have made you think just a little bit, about your own faith and why you believe what you do. Know that my perception of you as a person has not changed, and that I still want to maintain our relationship, whatever it may be. I don't want to cut all ties with my religious friends, and I hope that you don't want to cut all ties with me. I hope we can continue to keep our communication open about this and other topics. Feel free to email me, message me, Facebook me, or even call or text me if you want to discuss this or any other topic. Thanks for reading.
Views: 260
Too bad that length doesn't make up for poor research. I am not going to address every grievance I have here as my reply would no doubt be as long as your post.I will point out three that I think are deserving of you going back to think about.
First of all let me address the use of the Skeptic's Annotated Bible. It is an interesting source of opinion on the matter of biblical criticism but it is, for what should be obvious reasons, incredibly biased. As such there are many errors, you should always follow up and do your own research. For example, Jesus being peaceful. The quotation in Matthew 10:34 is taken completely out of context, the whole section is a parable set to reference to Micah 7:6. This is how the author of Matthew wrote.
Second is the random chart pulled up from somewhere in the depths of Google and made by who the hell knows showing the similarities of Jesus and other divinities. The problem is that it is riddled with incorrect information. Was Buddha born of a virgin? I think most Buddhists would be astounded to hear that considering that Siddhartha Gautama was a prince, the son of the king of the Shakya clan. His birth was supposedly miraculous because his mother had a dream about an elephant (a powerful omen in Indian culture) and that the birthing process was quick and painless. Buddha, isn't coming back to judge the dead, in Buddhism the dead are reborn depending on Karma and he didn't die on a cross, he ate spoiled food and died. And ascending to heaven is completely unlike attaining nirvana. One is an afterlife existence, the other is a state of non-being (in total layman's terms because it is actually much more complicated than that). Oh, and Mithra wasn't born of a virgin either, well... I guess really all rocks are virgins. But really, do your research. Yes Christianity came from an amalgamation of other religions over time, including Mithraism, Judaism, and various European paganisms, but getting facts wrong on this point does us no benefit.
Third is the blunder about time and life expectancy. Many people lived past the ages of 26 - 30, your source is about a necropolis found in the Western Mediterranean, Judea is part of the Eastern Mediterranean. You just compared Gaelic-Roman Iberia to Greco-Roman Palestine. Really, we all know that the Gospels we written decades and decades after the events, but the books of the bible were actually written fairly quick for a holy book at that time.
If I made a mistake in leaving in one of the Bible verses that seemed inaccurate, I do apologize. I did my best to make sure the verses were as in context as possible.
While I did in fact find that chart on Google, I did also do a lot of reading about other religions. I did come across claims that the Buddha was a miraculous pregnancy from a white elephant into the side of a woman, not through intercourse. If I have been misled by all of these different people who have made (or at least repeated) the same claim, I am terribly sorry for misleading you in turn. I was not a Buddhist nor do I personally know any. Perhaps that section should be labeled 'miraculous birth' instead of 'virgin birth'. My point stands that many myths of mortals claiming to be gods, or even just the myths of gods in general do contain many of the same elements.
I feel that Alejandro has illustrated the life expectancy issue well, so I won't respond to that.
First off, I don't need to show that all claims are false when issuing a warning against using any source without doing your own research. I only need one, and in my rebuttal I provided three reasons why this was poorly researched. The Skeptics Annotated Bible is a quick fall back for Atheists to make points about a book they know little about, but it is loaded with incorrect data. Not all the data is incorrect, but as I demonstrated it is in there. Want another example? Fine, Luke 19:27 is part of the parable of the pounds. Luke 12:51 is the same parable I pointed out earlier. The annotation from Luke 22:36 in the Oxford Annotated Bible (RSV) (both a secular and academic source) says, "The sword apparently meant to Jesus a preparation to live by one's own resources against hostility." This is made clear if you read the few verses in front of it as well as a single verse afterward where 2 swords are enough and are never used. So three out of four examples for Jesus being violent fall flat on their face. Again, you (or really, SAB) are the one cherry picking a single line and then delivering it with no context.
As for Buddha, give me an authentic sutra which makes that claim and not some pieced together chart you found on Google. Buddha was born of his mother Maya, who had a dream of an elephant who touched her side while she was pregnant. People who are generally uninformed on the subject then read Jesus into it as a miraculous conception. Bet lets focus on the other incorrect information. Was he born on December 25? No, his birthday is celebrated on the eighth day of the Chinese calendar, in 2010 it was on May 27th. Did he come to fulfill the law? I would ask what law? He became an aesthetic and heretic in Hinduism and taught quite contrary things. Did he teach in the temple at 12? No, his father actually kept him away from the priesthood, the sick, and the dying until he was a full grown man. Was he baptized in water? Nope, again no where in the story. Did he walk on water? Nope. Did he die on a cross? Nope, he died of spoiled food. Did he ascend into heaven? No, he attained Nirvana, but years before his death. Was he transfigured on the mount? Nope, again nothing like this in the story. Did he raise the dead? No, because the dead are reborn in Hinduism/Buddhism. Will he return to judge the dead? Nope, again, no dead to judge as there is no afterlife, his teachings are said to pass away and then the next Buddha (a completely different person) will come and do what he did. Finally, Buddha didn't claim to be a god, in fact he was and is dubbed an atheist heretic by Hindus because he said that you don't need the gods to live spiritually. Perhaps you missed my point that your chart is a pile of false information, something that does us no favours when trying to actually discredit religious claims.
I will come back to address the final point when I get back from work today.
Kenneth Montville wrote: "The Skeptics Annotated Bible is a quick fall back for Atheists to make points about a book they know little about, but it is loaded with incorrect data."
Sorry, Kenneth, but it has recently been proven that atheists actually know MORE about the bible than believers. Just click on the link below.
Evey is new to the game and didn't realize that she needed to protect herself from this sort of semi-ad hominem attack. All I can say is thanks for educating her as to the nature of the opposition.
The theists can't win the argument, so what they try to do is "prove" that you aren't smart by attacking some part of what you said, your methodology, your evidence, etc. They will even attack your work in totally unrelated areas.
Obviously, this doesn't prove you are wrong on the primary point of disagreement, but they can't seem to see that. They can't tell the difference between ideas and the people who advocate them, which is why they can't admit that they are making a mistake by believing in invisible magic men: To them it is intricately bound up with their egos.
I think I love you...
this was amazingly written and you use logic beautifully! I dont feel all that alone in my beliefs anymore! This is so sound!


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Hi folks, It's truly with a heavy heart that I type these words: I'm retiring both AdminPraise and TapTheme.
As I've been hired as a fulltime employee for a few years now, I've slowly had less and less time for AdminPraise and TapTheme, and have chosen to focus only on Projectfork outside of my job.
With all the work I did on the Joomla admin UX for Joomla 3.0, it really defeated the purposed of AdminPraise moving forward. Joomla 3's admin is essentially my final act for AdminPraise.
Same goes for TapTheme; I worked extremely hard to get Bootstrap in the core of Joomla, knowing full and well that I was placing a shelf life on TapTheme since all Joomla sites will be responsive moving forward.
When the store went down for AdminPraise and TapTheme I figured now was a good time to discontinue it. I've decided to give away all the templates and extensions for free, but THEY WILL NOT BE SUPPORTED.
Again let me repeat: THESE FREE DOWNLOADS ARE NOT SUPPORTED, so users beware (and don't email me unless you like a harsh lashing):
###AdminPraise Downloads: Download here
###TapTheme Downloads: Download here
If some devs out there want to update any/all of those templates and extensions for Joomla 3, feel free. Just don't be a jerk and try to sell these free downloads as they are.
Thank you for supporting and encouraging my work over the years. The diverse experience led me down the path to my current career and I'm truly greatful.
If you want to check out my current work, visit me on Dribbble.
We also got lots of good stuff cookin' in Projectfork if you haven't seen it lately.
Follow Kyle Ledbetter on: twitter / dribbble / instagram
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text: On Fri, Apr 01, 2005 at 01:10:06PM -0500, Joshua Baker-LePain wrote: > For one thing, xfsdump/xfsrestore actually backs up all FS info, including > ACLs. dump/restore doesn't do ACLs, and neither does tar, meaning on > RHEL3/4 there is no "official" way of fully backing up a FS with ACLs. That makes xfs broken, not the reverse ;-) -- greg


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Bleach Blondes
BOLD, bright and always guaranteed to attract attention, bleached blonde hair can be glamorous, punky, pretty and grungy in equal measure. In the April issue of Vogue - with a golden-haired Sienna Miller on the cover - Hannah Hanra examines why being a blonde is so addictive and how the look has transcended the decades, from Marilyn Monroe's classic curls in the Fifties to Abbey Lee Kershaw on the catwalk these past few weeks. SEE INSIDE VOGUE'S APRIL ISSUE HERE "White goes with everything," Kershaw told Hanra. "I hope I'll be blonde forever." And this isn't just any blonde we're talking about - it's bleached, almost-white, peroxide blonde. With the models in Alexander McQueen's autumn/winter 2012-13 show all sporting platinum wigs and Rihanna having recently opted for a bleached blonde weave, it seems blonde is as intoxicating as ever. Here we take a look at the stars who have made bleached blonde hair their own - from Madonna and Marilyn to Abbey and Agyness.


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Congress should seek other sources
Members of Congress debating President Barack Obama's recommendation the U.S. go to war with Syria have much to discuss. Their questions should not be directed solely at the White House's representatives.
Of course, much of the information and opinion lawmakers will hear will have to come from Obama's administration, including the Pentagon. But outside opinions and intelligence also ought to be explored. A one-sided debate, guided only by those loyal to the president and willing to follow his lead, would not be prudent.
Already, at least one controversy over the facts has arisen. U.S. officials say Syria's alleged chemical attack against its own people on Aug. 21 killed 1,429 men, women and children. That is far higher than the 281 estimated by the French, who agree military action should be taken against Syria. It also eclipses the 355-person death toll estimated by Doctors Without Borders.
If U.S. officials are wrong on the casualty count, what other intelligence is faulty?
A decade ago, U.S. officials managed to convince a coalition of nations to join in military action that ousted Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. The issue then was weapons of mass destruction, including chemical armaments. Yet once troops went into Iraq, the large stocks of WMDs could not be located.
In addition to knowing with certainty whether Syria actually did cross Obama's "red line," members of Congress need to know more about precisely what kind of attack is contemplated and the goal in mind for it. Is the idea merely to deter Syria from using chemical weapons again – or to weaken its military to the point rebel forces can prevail?
Also, lawmakers need to understand the potential havoc that could result from an attack on Syria. Would it provoke new terrorist attacks on Americans? Could the conflict spread?
A variety of sources of information and opinion are available to lawmakers. Prudence dictates they make use of as many of them as possible, without relying solely on the Obama administration. War, especially given the consequences possible from an attack on Syria, is too serious to be embarked upon without getting a second opinion.