Author: The Progressive

Evidence of a god

Today is Atheist Day. To observe it, I am answering a question I hear all the time:

What evidence would you need to believe a god exists?

I’ve given it some thought and my answer is what you would expect. All I would need is empirical evidence of the god that is not based on a logical fallacy. Ironically, most people would give the same answer if you simply changed the word “god” in the question to almost any other noun.

Before I could answer more explicitly, I would need you to describe the characteristics of the god about which you are asking. And please don’t tell me what the god is not. Tell me what its characteristics are. What is it composed of? Where can it be found? How does it affect its environment (or vice versa)? The answers to these questions inform my decision as to specifically what evidence I would look for.

However, for that evidence to be empirical, it must verifiable by observation or experience. So once I know how the god can be observed, measured, or otherwise detected objectively, I would know what kind of testing I could perform to demonstrate that the god exists. The key is that, whatever type of testing is done, any person conducting the test would get the same result.

For example, any person who weighs a liter of water will find that it weighs the same amount that it does for any other person who weighs any other liter of water—one kilogram. Or any person who checks the temperature of water when it begins to boil will find that it is 100 Celsius. Or anyone who observes a snowflake will say that it is six-sided. These are all objective measurements or observations.

On the other hand, some people would say that their evidence of a god is the personal relationship they have with their god. But this is a subjective observation. There is no way for any other person to experience that relationship. And any evidence that any person has ever given me for the existence of a god has been subjective. It is impossible for me to experience their evidence myself.

I also stated that the evidence must not be based on a logical fallacy. The fallacy I hear most commonly is something to the effect that humans (or other life form) are so incredibly complex that it’s impossible for them to exist as a result of natural processes. But this is the fallacy of personal incredulity (also known as an argument from ignorance). Just because you don’t understand how something occurred does not mean that a god doing it is the only explanation.

Another common fallacy concerns the question of why the universe exists. Believers will say that “something cannot come from nothing,” therefore, a god must have created it. But this is a black-or-white fallacy. Maybe something simply always existed or maybe something other than a god started the universe. But nobody really knows how the universe came into existence.

I’m sure most people would consider the standard of evidence I seek for the existence of a god a completely reasonable standard for them to use to evidence most other things in life. I simply expect the same standard to be used for a god. When someone brings me empirical evidence of a god that is not fallacious, I will believe that it exists.

A businessman bangs his daughter-in-law

I was reading some short story literature when I came upon this wack story. Tell me if you can guess from which collection of short stories it is. It goes like this:

Once upon a time, there was a married guy named Jude. He named his firstborn son (perhaps prophetically) Er, his second Onan (not a barbarian), and his last son—with his wife, at least—Shelah (which is what Australians call a girl).

When Er became a man, Jude got a girl named Tamar. He gave her as a wife to Er. There was a godfather character who thought Er was a gangsta, so the godfather capped his ass.

Then Jude told Onan to bang Tamar and fulfill his duty to her as a brother-in-law to “raise up offspring for your brother.” Onan thought that was a weird ask, so he pulled out every time he banged Tamar. But the godfather was pissed that Onan pulled out, so he capped his ass too.

By now, Jude is getting wise to the godfather putting out a contract on his sons. Not wanting his last surviving son to get capped, Jude invited Tamar to shack up with him “until my son Shelah grows up.” So she did.

A long time later, Jude’s wife died. After Jude finished grieving, he planned a business trip to Timnah. Tamar, who had moved to Timnah by that time, heard that her father-in-law would be in town. Being pissed off that Jude never gave her to Shelah, Tamar dressed up like a whore and went plying her trade on the main strip into town.

Sure enough, Jude spotted her when he came to town and liked what he saw. Not recognizing her as his daughter-in-law, he pulled over and asked her to come now and bang him. Tamar replied, “And what will you give me?”

Jude wasn’t ballin, so he offered to send her a goat if she banged him. Not impressed, Tamar asked for his bling and the staff in his hand for collateral until Jude sent the goat. Jude was horny, so he gave them to her so he could get laid. It turned out that he knocked her up.

Jude realized that he would be a laughingstock if people recognized his personal bling, so Jude had a friend bring to who he thought was just a common whore the goat he had offered her. His friend asked around Tinmah where he could find the “shrine prostitute.” When he got back, he reported to Jude that, “I didn’t find her. Besides, the men who lived there said, ‘There hasn’t been any shrine prostitute here.’”

By the time Tamar was in the second trimester of her pregnancy, Jude heard that his daughter-in-law was pregnant and guilty of prostitution. Jude said, “Bring her out and have her burned to death!” When she was brought out, Tamar flashed Jude’s bling and said, “I am pregnant by the man who owns these.” Recognizing the bling, Jude proclaimed that Tamar was innocent because he didn’t give her to Shelah. Then he decided not to bang Tamar again.

Moses. Genesis 38. Holy Bible. 1950 BCE

I know it’s an awkward ending but I didn’t write it. I’m just relaying it. Have you figured out what it’s from? I’ll give you a clue: the story is called Genesis 38. Meanwhile, at Sunday School…

Sabroso!

I was bingeing on Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives one day when I saw Guy visit a Mexican joint in my neighborhood. Mexican food is my favorite cuisine, so I decided to visit the place myself. On Día de los Muertes, a Mexican friend and I headed to Sabroso! Mexican Grill for dinner. “Sabroso” is the Spanish word for “tasty” and this restaurant is aptly named! Their food was so delicious that we’ve been back a couple more times and I’ll tell you why.

Everything on the menu is made completely from scratch right down to the tortillas and you can really taste that it is. The chef is a maestro of Mexican salsas (i.e. sauces) and caldos (i.e. broths). His use of chiles has a harmonious balance of spiciness and flavor that perfectly complements the protein in whichever dish he’s preparing. The menu has a wide variety of traditional Mexican dishes—even menudo on the weekend.

I love a good chile verde and it’s one of the most commended dish in Sabroso!’s Yelp reviews, so I ordered it on my first visit. I was not disappointed. It had plenty of pork and the green sauce was the best I’ve had (don’t tell my mami). It’s made with green tomatillos and enough chiles to be spicy but not so much as to overpower the other flavors.

Chile verde dish and the house margarita
Chile verde and the house margarita

My Mexican friend ordered the chamorro and gave it her stamp of approval for authenticity. It’s a slow-cooked, fall-off-the-bone beef chuck in a mild, smoky guajillo sauce. She shared a piece with me and I too thought it was delicious. She also ordered a mango margarita rimmed with spicy salt and she said it was very good.

Chamorro dish and a mango margarita
Chamorro and a mango margarita

Perhaps my favorite Mexican dish is pollo en mole but it’s absent from many Mexican restaurants’ menu. Since it’s one of Sabroso!’s house specialties, I ordered the red chicken mole on my next visit. It’s spicy and has all the complex flavors you would expect from mole poblano. The generous portion of chicken was enough for me to take some home and get a second meal out of the dish.

Red chicken mole dish with Peruvian beans
Red chicken mole with Peruvian beans

On another occasion, I was passing by Sabroso! on my way home. So I stopped in and ordered a bowl of pozole to go. They offer it with pork or chicken and I tried the pork. It had a wonderfully flavorful broth. On the side, it had all the traditional fresh toppings, including shredded cabbage, onions, and lime. It reminded me that I would have to try their menudo the next time I’m there on a weekend.

Most of Sabroso!’s plates come with Mexican rice and beans. Rather than the more common pintos, they offer a choice of black beans or refried frijoles peruanos, which I had never eaten before but enjoyed thoroughly. They offer a choice of flour or corn tortillas made fresh to order and I found the corn tortillas to be excellent. Of course they include the obligatory chips (made from their corn tortillas) and salsa.

I discovered Sabroso! during the pandemic, so I dined under the outdoor pavilion they erected for safety but the state now allows them to serve their guests indoors at limited capacity. The waitresses are friendly and hospitable. If you’re a fan of Mexican food and you’re anywhere in the area of Garden Grove, California, pay Sabroso! a visit. You will not be disappointed.

Trust the science

Here’s what a year of novel coronavirus pandemia looks like in America measured by new confirmed COVID-19 cases and deaths per day. In retrospect, the impact of the pandemic looks eerily like what the epidemiology experts warned us in advance that it would look like.

COVID-19 cases confirmed in the United States per day
Deaths caused by COVID-19 per day in the United States

Epidemiologists said that cases would be a leading indicator, followed by hospitalizations about a week later, and the trailing indicator, deaths, about a week after that. These graphs show the peaks in deaths following a couple of weeks or so behind those in cases.

They also said that COVID-19 cases would start climbing after people began congregating on Memorial Day, which they did. Then they said cases would spike after Thanksgiving and Christmas gatherings, which they didーas high as 300,000 on one day!

So let’s let the science guide us to put an end to this pandemic as quickly as possible now that Americans are getting vaccinated against COVID-19. Until we reach herd immunity in the United States, continue to wear a mask and maintain social distance while out in public and avoid congregating in large groups for extended periods of time.

Entitlement is not bad

The word “entitled” has developed an unfair negative connotation. There is nothing inherently negative about it. Merriam-Webster defines “entitled” as having a right to certain benefits or privileges. It’s actually a good thing to have a right to certain benefits or privileges when they are deserved.

How did the word end up with a negative connotation? It happened from people using it improperly. People call other people “entitled” when they actually mean the exact opposite—that they do not have a right to certain benefits or privileges. When someone believes they should receive a benefit or privilege that they do not have a right to, it should be said that they have an undeserved sense of entitlement (“sense” being the operative word) because they inaccurately feel they are entitled.

A classic example of a true entitlement is Social Security benefits. Most workers pay into the Social Security trust fund throughout their professional career via paycheck withholdings and their employer’s contributions to it. Therefore, when a worker becomes eligible for Social Security benefits, they are entitled to receive them.

Nonetheless, there is a viral Internet meme that incorrectly says “Social Security is not an entitlement.” In fact, Social Security is not only an entitlement by the definition of the word (a right to benefits specified especially by law or contract) but also by official designation. The federal government defines an entitlement as:

A Federal program or provision of law that requires payments to any person or unit of government that meets the eligibility criteria established by law. Entitlements constitute a binding obligation on the part of the Federal Government, and eligible recipients have legal recourse if the obligation is not fulfilled. Social Security and veterans’ compensation and pensions are examples of entitlement programs.

United States Senate Glossary

It’s a good thing they are entitlement programs because if the government designated the benefits as “discretionary spending,” they would not be protected. Discretionary spending is subject to the whim of annual appropriations acts and congress has proven completely inept at passing them. That’s why when congress fails to pass one, the government shuts down but beneficiaries continue to receive their Social Security benefits.

So be proud when someone says you are entitled to a benefit or privilege that you have a right to. But if someone says that someone is “entitled” to something they do not deserve, let them know that they are not entitled.

Fight fire with fire

After four years of divisiveness in the White House, many Americans are calling on President-elect Joe Biden to govern in a bipartisan manner. They claim it will promote healing from the open wounds President Donald Trump has inflicted on the United States of America. But a wound cannot heal if the patient keeps picking the scab away.

In an unprecedented move, 126 Republican Members of the House of Representatives have joined Texas attorney general Ken Paxton’s motion for the Supreme Court of the United States to overturn the election (PDF). Never mind that Trump’s own administration announced that “the November 3rd election was the most secure in American history” and that “there is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised.” Even his attorney general Bill Barr said “we have not seen fraud on a scale that could have effected a different outcome in the election.”

Everyone who joined Paxton’s motion is guilty of sedition. How can the United States make them accountable? It can look to the 14th amendment, which says that:

No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress … who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress … to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same.

Section 3 of the 14th Amendment of the United States Constitution

The congressmen’s attempt to subvert a free and fair election for the president of the United States is a clear act of rebellion against the United States Constitution.

Accordingly, Representative Bill Pascrell called on “House leaders to refuse to seat any Members trying to overturn the election” yesterday.

Tweet by Representative Bill Pascrell, Jr. (D-CA)

Some would say it’s a rash action and that congress should try to foster bipartisanship instead. Forget about trying to foster bipartisanship. The Senate Leader Mitch McConnell has not changed a bit in the four years since he opposed everything President Barack Obama did. And these 126 congressmen comprise 65% of the GOP in the House. They have made it abundantly clear that they will do everything in their power to cheat the Democrats and thwart President Joe Biden at every turn. That will defy the will of the American people who spoke clearly what we want in the election last month. It’s time for Democrats to fight fire with fire.

That said, I would support one concession to Representative Pascrell’s demand. If one of the seditious Members made a formal statement on the floor of the House under oath, they could be seated in the House. The statement must affirm Trump’s own administration’s position that the 2020 presidential election was the most secure in American history and that there is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised. Absent such a statement, those Members can sit out the next congress.

Seating those Members who tried to overturn last month’s free and fair election would send the signal that they can get away with sedition in congress. Not only would that encourage them to do it again, the Republican track record indicates that they would try something even worse next time. And if Democrats don’t fight back hard now while they have a majority, Republicans will overrun them at their next possible opportunity. We already know what that would lead to. The GOP has demonstrated that it fully supports an autocracy in the USA — as long as the autocrat has an R behind his name.

Shutting down America again

Just three weeks ago I praised the Trump administration’s guidelines for “Opening Up America Again.” I stand by that praise because I still think the guidelines make sense and are practical. Unfortunately, President Trump does not stand by his own guidelines.

Literally the day after releasing the guidelines, Trump encouraged people protesting the lockdowns in Virginia, Minnesota, and Michigan by exhorting the states to reopen in a series of tweets:

Liberate Minnesota
Liberate Michigan
Liberate Virginia

However, none of the states satisfied the gating criteria that the guidelines specified for proceeding to any of the opening phases. One gating criterion calls for a downward trajectory in coronavirus infections yet all three states were still on an upward trajectory.

The guidelines also make the states responsible for being prepared to do widespread testing and contact tracing. I see this as the linchpin to success reopening up America. However, my opinion is that the federal government is also responsible for this rather than leaving it up to the states alone. I called for the federal government to take leadership on the production and distribution of the resources needed to test and trace. But the federal government has failed to do so and, as expected, no state is yet prepared to test and trace at the level prescribed by the guidelines.

Nonetheless, states such as Texas, Indiana, Colorado, Florida, and Tennessee are beginning to reopen even though the number of confirmed cases are still increasing. Georgia began reopening businesses on April 24 even though coronavirus infections were still on an upward trajectory. But at the end of the month, Trump said of Georgia’s reopening that “I think it’s wonderful.” President Trump isn’t the only one encouraging states that are failing to follow Trump’s own guidelines for reopening. Vice President Pence also praised the thirty something states that have plans or have already begun to open up, even though none of them can pass the testing gate or have two weeks of a downward trajectory in infections.

I understand why the states want to reopen. Sheltering in place and social isolation will wreak severe economic damage not only across the United States but also around the entire planet. The only way to recover from the economic harm is by opening up businesses in all sectors of the economy and in every state. Setting aside the economy, the American people are personally wearying of social distancing for a couple of months now. We all want to begin gathering in large groups for all kinds of events again.

But that doesn’t assuage my concern at this point in the pandemic that we may be reopening society too soon. No one disagrees that opening up will cause an increase in COVID-19 hospitalizing and killing Americans. Everyone hopes that this will happen at a manageable level.

We need to reopen businesses and reduce social distancing with great caution to prevent the increases from occurring in major spikes. If other cities start experiencing overloaded health systems like New York City did (and still does) from COVID-19, they will have little choice but to begin shutting down again. And if we think the shutdowns we’ve all lived through already this year were painful, imagine how much worse it’s going to hurt if we have to shut down America again.

Opening Up America Again

President Trump’s administration released guidelines for “Opening Up America Again” today. They comprise a federal policy that can be effectively implemented nationwide. They are clear, objective, and achievable while also allowing flexibility.

The guidelines assume that they will be implemented by governors on a state-by-state (or even county-level) basis. They set gating criteria and preparedness responsibilities as a baseline. This baseline will be met at different times by different states, so it allows those that are ready now to embark on Phase One immediately while ensuring that states which are not ready yet don’t open up too soon. The guidelines also give governors the flexibility to enhance the guidelines with their own requirements for conditions unique to a given state.

The guidelines are broken into three phases. The baseline gating and preparedness must be met and in place before moving to any of the three phases. Each phase addresses those aspects of daily life for which restrictions remain appropriate due to COVID. Once a phase has begun, states should have no evidence of a rebound before moving to the next phase. They might even have to retreat back to the previous phase if they experience too great of a rebound in COVID-19. Each phase has a distinct set of guidelines for individuals, employers in general, and specific types of employers.

Even Phase Three, which eliminates most restrictions, is not a full return to normal. The United States will likely not be able to return to a state like what seemed normal at the beginning of the year until a coronavirus vaccine has been developed and administered to a large enough portion of the population to get herd immunity. That will not happen until the year 2021 at the earliest. And even then, it will be some form of a “new normal.”

How well and how soon the guidelines will be implemented in a given state will depend largely on its governor. There will be a wide variance among states depending on the resources available to the state and the competency of the governance. Some states have already banded together with their neighboring states to begin working toward opening up to their residents. These coalitions will likely facilitate implementing the guidelines by pooling their resources and people.

The president wants to see the economy return to a reasonable level of productivity as soon as possible. For that to occur, the federal government will also have to step up to the plate. The first obstacle states will face is testing and tracing. States will not be prepared to begin even Phase One until they have widespread testing and contact tracing in place. And they cannot move beyond Phase Three until vaccination for coronavirus is widespread among their respective populations. Neither of these are likely to occur in the near future without the federal government taking leadership on the production and distribution of the resources needed to test, trace, and vaccinate. So the president needs to begin immediately working on this if he wants to see the economy turn around. If President Trump won’t take the responsibility to do so, it will be President Joe Biden who will.

Guidelines: Opening Up America AgainDownload

The evil genius of the Democrats

I was watching Fox News when I learned that the Coronavirus is just another scam created by Democrats to impeach President Trump. I have long felt that the Democrat party is uniquely capable of leveraging a distinct advantage into a colossal failure. So imagine my surprise when they managed to exhibit amazing genius in creating their latest scam to remove Trump from office.

Coronavirus impeachment scam

It all started late last year when the Democrats found a pangolin that was infected with a strain of Coronavirus that was at that time unknown to scientists. They brought the pangolin to China and tricked a vendor into selling it at an open air market in Wuhan. Then the Democrats induced the virus to jump species from the pangolin to humans.

But this was just the beginning of their genius. The Democrats knew that the Chinese people’s behavior was such that there would be an outbreak of the Coronavirus infection in Wuhan. That way, in spite of Trump’s quick implementation of a travel ban from China, the Coronavirus would still manage to get inside the United States.

Once inside the US, the Democrats engineered a way for the Coronavirus to bypass Trump’s “perfect” testing program. Even though Trump assured us that he has “a natural ability” to understand the virus outbreak, the Democrats still managed to get it to break out across the country. This caused Americans to react in irrational paranoia by cancelling public events to mitigate the spread of the virus.

The Democrats’ next step in their vast left-wing conspiracy was to manipulate the mainstream media into reporting on the Coronavirus. Specifically, they got the American people to panic and the MSM to blame Trump for the Coronavirus hoax. The Democrats did all this to impeach the president since they failed miserably with the Mueller investigation and the Ukraine scandal.

What makes this conspiracy particularly heinous is the Democrats’ willingness to needlessly frighten millions of Americans just to get Trump out of office. In fact, the Democrats even got the World Health Organization to declare COVID-19 (the “scientists” name for the Coronavirus) to be a global pandemic so that everyone would fall for the Democrats’ scam.

World Health Organization declares that COVID-19 outbreak is pandemic

So forget about Russia meddling in our elections. Be much more concerned about the Democrats using the Coronavirus to steal the election from Trump. They have finally managed to show true genius in an election scam. But America does not need genius if it’s driven driven by evil.