Scatter Shooting

• I am re-reading a book that was once a college assignment. Because of the nature of required reading, I gave it the minimal amount of attention. I am really enjoying the second and more thoughtful look at Milton Friedman's Free to Choose. Friedman is a Nobel Prize winner for economics and applies his theories to just about everything in this book. The political implications are especially striking. This book was written in the late 1970's, but it quite relevant in its discussion of oil prices and other trends that seem to be affecting us again. Some of the quotes that struck me so far are:

  We have shifted from a expectation of equality of opportunity to the expectation of equality of results

  Experience shows that that once government undertakes an activity, it is seldom terminated.

  Major wars aside, government spending from 1800 to 1929 did not exceed about 12 percent of the national income. Two-thirds of that was spent by state and local governments, mostly for schools and roads. As late as 1928, federal government spending amounted to about 3 percent of the national income.

  (Today the federal government spend 6 times that, about 18% of national income)

  Sincerity is a much overrated virtue.

  (In other words, being convinced that something is correct does not make it so)

  We refer to ourselves as a free private enterprise society, as a capitalist society. Yet in terms of the ownership of corporate enterprise, we are about 46% socialist... The federal government is entitled to 46 cents out of every dollar... The federal government therefore owns 46% of every corporation.

  (This was using the 1979 high tax rate. Change the # to the current standards. It is quite a thought.)


• Fred Thompson's speech last night at the Republican National Convention reminded me of why I liked him so much during the primary race. No, he is not the most polished public speaker. He does however have a keen sense of how to break apart the issues in a way that is easily understandable. He knows how to refute the other side in a clear concise way. He is very good on policy, just not flashy enough.


• I recently watched Close Encounters of the Third Kind. The 1977 Spielberg film that shows aliens and such. One of the biggest questions was how well the graphics would hold up. For the vast majority of the movie they did a very good job. The aliens at the end felt somewhat more like claymation than a modern movie would present them, but that was my only main complaint. Richard Dreyfuss does a great job of playing a lunatic. His ability to play that role sometimes scares me. Is he really acting? I was surprised at the novelty of the film. In recent years we had the film Signs. A lot of the ways in which they show you alien interaction were just copied from Close Encounters I think. They were very similar. Communicating with colored tones... ok. I guess that is one way we could do it. I would give it a 3 out of 5. Some of the crazy scenes went on a bit long for me.


• Our small group at church is reading Everyday Christianity by Grumpy Smith this quarter. So far it seems like an enjoyable read. Since I go to church with his daughter Miranda, it is even more fun to laugh at his stories. His ordinary man approach looks promising.


• Preseason College Poll - Is there anything more worthless?

The Chronicles of Narnia Pt. 1

I just finished reading the entire Narnia series over the past month and I enjoyed the series immensely. I would definitely have to recommend the series to anyone. I am going to review several aspects of the series and therefore split my posts up on the topic. I read over 1500 pages in one month, so it had to be good.

This series was written over a period of many years by C. S. Lewis. This series is undoubtedly written for children and Lewis was inspired by one. A young girl named Lucy actually stayed with the professor during the air raids of World War II. The imagination of this girl and Lewis's desire for a good story got this series going. Now you have to be wondering why on earth a grown man would read such a story. It all started back in 4th grade when a teacher sparked an interest in me. I read them over 15 years ago and enjoyed them thoroughly. I forgot many of the details and upon hearing a second movie was coming out, I decided to reread the series.


They carry a Christian theme throughout that has been the cause of some controversy. And given the knowledge of Lewis's other books, this is quite and obvious idea. There are many other themes though that may trouble strict traditional Christians. Many themes from various mythologies are incorporated on top of the Christian base. I will expand more on these themes in a subsequent blog.

There are 2 suggested orders to read the books, the order of publication or the fictional chronology. I prefer the following chronological order:

• The Magician's Nephew
• The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
• The Horse and His Boy
• Prince Caspian
• The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
• The Silver Chair
• The Last Battle

For my money, The Horse and His Boy was the most enjoyable read while The Silver Chair was the most tedious.

Ainulindale vs The Magician's Nephew

I have recently read both the Ainulindale[A] and The Magicians Nephew[MN] and thought I would do a comparison between the two. Now the Ainulindale is part of The Silmarillion if you actually want to find it. This can also be seen as a comparison between J. R. R. Tolkien (author of the Ainulindale) and C. S. Lewis (author of The Magicians Nephew). These two were part of a literary group known as the Inklings and probably shared each of these stories with the group. Therefore I think that these two accounts probably have some each person interwoven into them even though they reflect the author in the end.


First off, both of these stories are most likely elaborations on the the biblical genesis story. Both of the authors were Christians and no doubt had interesting views of how it all began. The theme of music is shared by both is used as the method of creation. No doubt both men had visited cathedrals and heard choirs of voices resounding throughout the massive buildings. The view of creation as a beautiful harmony seems almost natural if you have heard certain masterpieces. The instrument of the music is different in each. In [A] the Ainur are created by Iluvatar (represents God) and they in turn sing the part of the song that was put in them. In [MN] the singer is a singular person in the lion Aslan (represents the Christ, son of God). The Lewis version of having the Son involved in creation reflects thoughts presented at the beginning of the gospel John. John chapter 1 verse 3 states

Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.

Aslan therefore is the personification of this scripture. Tolkien's presentation could be best described as God creating angels and giving them a purpose. Those angels then fulfill their purpose in creating.

The literary style in [A] is much closer to the actual biblical account of creation than [MN]. Tolkien himself was a linguistics professor and wrote many languages for his books. This knowledge of the origins of many languages most likely caused him to write a structured and believable account of creation. For his writing style can easily be seen to closely mimic ancient stories from almost all origins. This style can be perceived as distant or detached to some people, but it is nonetheless accurate from a historical standpoint. Lewis on the other hand uses [MN] to take the reader to the date of creation and makes them an observer. The creator seems much more personable. He even laughs with creation. Most people tend to prefer this version because it seems more personable and fits better with modern times.

The timeline presented by Tolkien is somewhat vague. For an unknown amount of time creation was occurring being designed. The actual creation process in his account takes many centuries to complete. Lewis has the account occur in a singular day and would fit more literally with the Genesis account. I think that you also have to take into account the intended audience. While Lewis's audience was explicitly stated to be children, Tolkien's book takes on a much more scholarly take. This take presents a much more serious and intricate look at things than a mere children's book would.

Taking all things into consideration, it is hard for me to choose a favorite. Although from a personal standpoint, [MN] gives me a much better feeling.

20,000 Reasons Not To Write About The Sea

I have been enjoying reading books once again. The past year has seen me read more books for pleasure than the past 10 years combined. I started out strong with Asimov's Foundation series. I explored many different aspects of Michael Crichton's imagination. I even gave Carl Sagan's Contact a try. Currently I am reading a book about heroic American figures that are not widely publicized.

So my current dilemma is to find a new book to read. I started thinking about different ideas and I could not come up with just one. A lot of authors I enjoy write thousand page novels that take 300 pages to introduce the characters. I don't think I have time for that. I enjoyed the quick fun pace of the Foundation series, so a sci-fi book sounded appealing. I pondered what genre of this crazy dorky world to explore and finally came up with a topic I was interested in. The following is the premise that I wish to explore in a book:

In the near future (50-400) years humans discover that exploring the solar system is very costly and not producing enough benefits. It still is only an elite few who can go up and small outposts are on the Moon / Mars etc. But the expected space boom just did not happen like the Jetsons promised. Somewhere in this time frame someone thought, "What about the 70% of the world that we can't live on?" At this point a new exploration / settlement occurs in which humans migrate / expand to the oceans and find new ways of living. It is much cheaper and easier than shipping people 100,000 times the distance to a nearby rock. Therefore this story is set with the expansion to the ocean as its backdrop. Now this does not include any people mutating into gilled creatures or anything. Just finding expansion room on Earth rather than elsewhere.

So I have searched for such a book. It sounds not only interesting to me, but also plausible. However, finding such a book has been anything but easy. I searched at Barnes & Noble, Borders, Amazon.com, the local library, and even Google. The only possible solution that I have found is located in an annoyingly green background site titled If You Like This. Beware going to that site if your eyes are not steady.

So my wife casually laughed at my subject of search and said, "Why don't you just write the book if you can't find it?" So the more frustrated I get with my search, the more I consider the idea. I do like the scenario at least. Lend me your thoughts.

It's 5 o'clock Somewhere..

. : Free Day : .

Several thoughts come to mind today. But the first is that it feels like the Middle East is about to go nuts. It appears to me that Iran is funding people in order to bait Israel into attacking everyone. That way they have an acceptable excuse to retaliate. My only reaction is that this escalation is scary as all get out.

For the umpteenth time someone thinks Weezer is done for and never going to play again.

The Texas Rangers decided to hit once again. Since they are in a wide open division, look out! This might encourage the ownership to open up their pocket books.



I just finished the book State of Fear and would recommend it to you. I give it a 4 out of 5 stars. The language and adult themes kept it from 5 out of 5. It is a story that really emphasizes a need for a paradigm change among the entire environmental movement. It points out that there is a lot more phantom doomsday reports and a lot less constructive advances. It also is heavy into scientific proof behind any such theory. The action in the book is what really makes it good. Every chapter keeps you interested in spite of the huge amount of scientific data presented in the book. I hope you get a chance to read it.

Deep Space Travel

. : Technology : .

I think that space travel is quite fascinating. I guess you could say that it is my blood since I have a grandparent who was big in the industry. Ever since people latched on to Asimov's idea of hyperspatial travel, people in general just assumed that pretty soon we would be trouncing around the galaxy. Shows like Star Trek gave us the idea that jumping around our quadrant was an everyday occurrence. The Jetsons made us think that it would be right around the corner. Even the movie Blade Runner gave us the idea that after the year 2000, space travel would be the norm.

The reality however is that as fast as technology has accelerated, it has not been able to catch up with the special effects department of Hollywood. Getting to the moon and back is our best accomplishment to date for human travel. While this took a great amount of new ideas and new technology, it pales in comparison to science fiction. A fun but probably slightly outdated read can be found here.

What we do have is a lot less glamorous, but in my mind it is equally cool. The Gravitational Slingshot method was used to send the Cassini-Huygens probe to Saturn. I found the picture below on Wikipedia which demonstrates how we used the gravitational pull of the sun and several planets to accelerate our way out to Saturn.



This is the limit of our current technology. Even if we were able to travel at the speed of light (which we are nowhere near close to), it would take several years to get to another star. I think the learning curve on safe and ordinary space travel that has been dangled in front of us for years will be much slower than touted. However that does not mean that we should slow down or give up. There is enough to explore right here for now.

Books On Tape

This week I started reading/listening to The Last Full Measure (about the Civil War) on tape. I am amazed by the fact that in 4 days of driving to and from work I have gone through almost 3/4 of the book. This should cut down on my 6 month time frame for reading a book. I am actually excited about this!