Friday, October 12, 2007

Somewhere Alfred is Spinning in his Grave

So today (or yesterday) it was announced that Al Gore will be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his work promoting the dangers of global warming. Let me state that I am happy that Mr. Gore was awarded this - although not I suspect for the same reason as others. To reference my notes below I relied upon Wikipedia a publicly accessible and editable source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_Prize

Now I happen to disagree with Mr. Gore's opinions on this topic. Some might say - but Bill these aren't opinions they are facts - unfortunately for them I have British Law on my side: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2007/10/11/scigore111.xml
As part of this it is important to note that the judge rulled that Mr. Gore's global warming debate file was in fact as "Political Film"- this is important. Also note early reports indicated there were 11 vs. 9 issues - I have linked to an independent news source that lists 9 issues.

However, let me make two things clear - Mr. Gore was not alone in recieving this shared award and he recived in large part not because of a single movie - but rather in relation to a large body of public and literary work (as noted in the award anouncement linked to below.)

So the first thing to note is that Mr. Gore wasn't given a scientific award for presenting scientific details of global warming. In fact this would have upset me more since as noted in Wikipedia: 'most science awards take 20+ years to be awarded -the result according to wikipedia is that many scientists die before their discovery is considered as worthy of an award, and since the award can't be awarded to someone deceased they are never considered.' (my use of single quotes indicates I have paraphrased and not exactly quoted this statement.)

So far so good - but why is Alfred spinning. Well for starters there's the fact he probably spins up every time he thinks of Mahatma Ghandi - the largest proponent of peaceful conflict resolution of the last century who - was never awarded a Nobel Peace prize. (Remember you have to be alive to get the award and Mr. Ghandi passed away after his 5th nomination.) Fortunately for Mr. Gore he didn't need to wait for 20 years on a science award or for 5 nominations.

So what according to Alfred Nobel are the criteria for the award for Peace. As takenfrom his will: (the full text of which is available on the NobelPrize.org site and I have quoted from an excerpt on Wikipedia.)
On timing: "... shall be annually distributed in the form of prizes to those who, during the preceding year, shall have conferred the greatest benefit on mankind. " on this issue the nobel comittee has made clear that they prefer to wait for the test of time on a person's achievements. As noted for science this is often 20 years; for literature it is often awarded based on a body of work (something you couldn't do in a single year).

For peace the award tends to be awarded in near term as mentioned Kofi Annan was given the award in 2001 within 4 years of becoming the UN Secretary General.

So what are the requirements for the Peace Prize as laid out by Alfred Nobel over a century ago:
"... to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity among nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses."

Again the comittee has - probably justifiably - recognized that the term "person" might be interpreted as a collection of individuals or an organization.

So how does Mr. Gore's work on Man-made climate change meet these requirements? To be honest I'm not sure it does, but from my standpoint that's OK - my complaint with the man-made global warming debate is that it's not about science it is about politics and this award goes to reinforce that reality.

In the announcing this year's award the quote was:
"for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change" unfortunately this announcement doesn't list anything about peace.

However, the full press report makes clear: "By awarding the Nobel Peace Prize for 2007 to the IPCC and Al Gore, the Norwegian Nobel Committee is seeking to contribute to a sharper focus on the processes and decisions that appear to be necessary to protect the world’s future climate, and thereby to reduce the threat to the security of mankind." - http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/2007/press.html

Unfortunately reducing the threat to the security of mankind is not the same as actually promoting peace and thus I feel Mr. Nobel would not approve - but that is just my opinion. In the meantime I congratulate both the UN and Mr. Gore for their political efforts and honestly hope that peace is a result of their efforts.

For more information on the Nobel Prizes please visit their site at: http://nobelprize.org/

Wednesday, October 3, 2007

Hey Babe, Show Me How You Shake It

Even before I was a parent I've worried about the threats to children. TV shows like 'To Catch a Predator' illustrate just the type of evil that lurks out there. It isn't always someone who seems creepy on the surface. More importantly how we expose our children to those threats is important whether it's the teacher that invites you over to their house (as a young man I somehow stayed clear of the predators I ran across - and I ran across several including a gay scout leader.)

So what does this have to do with the title, well from the standpoint of being a parent (heck a responsible adult for that matter) I wouldn't/won't take my daughter out and have her dance for men for money. (I started to say 'strange men' but I wouldn't do it for men I knew either...)

Seems like an incredibly straight-forward statement. I doubt that any would would based on that statement alone mount a defense so let's add some complexity and show that my preceding assertion is still true. We allow girls to become cheerleaders at an ever increasingly young age. Now on the surface I don't have a problem with this. I don't have a problem with those same girls going to a sporting event for other kids in their same age range and performing cheers. It's part of the culture and they are actively supporting other kids at a kid event. The type of event where a known predator wouldn't be allowed.

But now comes the problem - this team of pre-teen or young teen girls wants to raise money for a trip. They could do a bake sale or a car wash or they could.... well at a recent professional football game here they came. A couple parent's chaperoning a group of 10-12 girls in cheerleading uniforms. Let me be clear this isn't the first time, nor were they the only group on the lot.

Now let me again support my previous statement about cheerleaders. One day each year the NFL cheerleaders support a group of junior cheerleaders out on field in an organized show - not a problem. These girls have their day in the sun and that's OK. There is a grey area here that a traditionalist might not approve of, but I'll agree it's grey.

However, this is again different these girls go from tailgate party to tailgate party announcing "If you give us money for _____ we'll dance for you." That fast they've gone from something which is socially acceptable to something which quite literally isn't. More importantly these girls aren't in the middle of a stadium a hundred feet away from the nearest audience and dancing for money. They are 5 feet away, and 5 feet from whom? The local parolee, the sick internet geek recording their little shows to post on the internet? Suppose that parolee takes a liking to your daughter - you just told him which school to stake out if he'd like to pick her up some afternoon...

Think about Who at this point are you exposing these girls to and What lesson you teaching by suggesting, a great way to make money is to walk up to groups of strange men and offer to dance for their pleasure? For those who still can't recognize the problem - well in the immortal words of Bill Engval - "Here's your sign."

Welcome

Well it finally happened.... I don't really have time for a personal blog but I keep reading things and encountering things in my personal life that I want to post about. Get another opinion out there that says things like 'What were you thinking?' or 'Hey, Reality Check here; and cashing it is going to cost." So I've set this up.

My first name as you might guess is Bill, thus the title "Bill's Opinions" because like everybody else I've got plenty. Of course as I've ready else where - everybody has one just like they have a butt, and everybody thinks everyone else's stink. So that pretty much puts things in perspective.

I'm not here to dispense a 'how-to' blog or a history of my life blog - this is a more of a 'Here's what I think' and oh by the way you might not agree - you might call me names - you might even link to one of my posts and say hey there's a different way of looking at that and while I might not agree I do see some new thoughts that will alter my opinion.

Things you should know up front -
  • I'm busy so I won't post every 20 minutes.
  • I don't believe in "man-made global warming" (note man-made is a key term - the earth warms some decades it cools others right now yes things are getting warmer not the claim of the "global warming alarmists".)
  • I think we have lots of environmental issues like over-fishing, poor forest management and over development.
  • I think Social Security was one of the best things ever created and over time destroyed via mis-management and failure to adapt by our government
  • I am a staunch supporter of the US Military.
  • I didn't vote for "W" in 2000, and think invading Iraq was a mistake, although I think his Father's management of the 1991 Iraq war is often under-appreciated and he deserved 4 more years for it.
  • I think we need to stay in Iraq until the job is done, and you couldn't have paid me to vote for Kerry in 2004 (btw, I also didn't vote Gore in 2000).
  • I believe its pronounced "K"-"OS" not "KOS" and the nickname wasn't a complement and the site isn't worth my time.
  • I think Rudy should drop out of the presidential race - and frankly he could take Hillary with him.
  • I think our health care system has problems - but most people are trying to 'fix' the parts that ain't broken.
  • I don't see parent's really watching out for how they 'market' their kids.

If you notice a pattern in the preceding it's because - yes, this blog is about MY opinions. I'm not looking for agreement - just a soapbox.