In the article, the author mentions the Penn State scandal amidst a litany of other major college scandals – namely, Ohio State and Southern Cal for their illegal benefits to players and Tennessee for their “unethical recruiting violations”.  The only thing those scandals have in common with Penn State are the adjectives illegal and unethical, but the scale at which those adjectives are applied to each scandal is off by orders of magnitude proportional to the sizes of an ant hill to the Great Red Spot of Jupiter.

I didnt attend any of those 3 schools but I would be highly offended to be lumped into the same category as Penn State.

And for the record, JoePa got what he deserved. He showed true moral turpitude in overlooking an obvious crime so as to not bring shame or attention to the mask of his pristine program.

Why is Rick Perry getting such a hard time for a nervous stumble during the latest debate?  Correct me if I’m wrong, but didnt we once have a President who was nationally lampooned for slipping on a wet tarmac; one who had a consistently embarrassing drunk brother; one who probably couldnt find Iran on a map during the arms deals; one who preferred a special intern taste to his cigars; and one who couldnt remember a basic song lyric from a world renown Who song – who by the way beat out a guy who thought he contributed to the invention of the Internet.  So what Rick Perry did was so bad??  I mean it’s not like he cant answer a simple question about Obama and Libya.

Now we’re trying to censor high school drama programs.  Really?

First it’s soccer celebrations, now drama class.

Well, we are just pushing forward right back to the 1930s, arent we? What’s next?  Is some other county official going to start banning books tomorrow?  Maybe we can go and pull every copy of The Catcher in the Rye off the shelves because Holden Caulfield sees the word fuck on a wall.

Let’s not stop here, people.  Next we’ll tackle alcohol and cigarettes.

Push forward, right back to the past!!

By the way, after tackling all these social issues, do you actually have time to instruct and teach the kids in your classrooms??  You should look at the state-wide test scores in your counties before answering that.

After getting complaints from opposing fans and parents, a high school principal decided to forfeit the remainder of the playoff season for his soccer team.

Wank decision #1.

Then after “careful contemplation”, he decided to reverse his decision and allow the season to continue.

Wank decision #2.

In this case, two wrongs don’t make a right, it just makes you look like a bigger wank than you already are.

Make a decision and stick by it. Dont cave in twice in the same week.

I’m getting sick of admins and officials taking the fun out of high school, college, and pro sports.

And to the parents and players who were offended, there is really one simple solution next time.

WIN THE GAME!!

Wow…I didnt realize the Washington Post started a new service to help citizens in the circulation area recover stolen items.

Can I assume everyone has access to this new service??

As a follow up, it turns out that the bike was recovered thanks to a tip to the police.  Let’s hear it for the Washington Post for serving ONE citizen.  Now let’s see you step up and help the other 5,000 kids who got bikes stolen in the past month.  Let’s see an article about each and every one of them…….k?

Do you really care that much that people go off-shore to place bets on sporting events? or to play poker?  You have a $14 trillion debt staring you square in the face, and you’re busy shutting down sportsbooks and poker rooms.  Really?   Can’t you find something better to do with your time?  Pass legislation that will make it legal in the U.S and tax the hell out of it if you want, but leave the small time gamblers alone.

In my last post, I discussed one of many anthropic views of the universe and how some use that to infer the possibility of intelligent design.  William Lane Craig offered the following argument as proof of the existence of an intelligent designer.

1. Whatever begins to exist has a cause.
2. The universe began to exist.
3. Therefore, the universe has a cause.

This certainly seems logical and if you believe the first two statements, you’d almost certainly agree with the last and therefore the existence of some intelligent designer.  My problem is that I’m sure I really believe the first statement.  Whatever begins to exist has a cause?  Although I cant come up with an every-day counter-example, it does not mean I have to blindly accept the statement.  It may not be obvious on Earth how this is false, but remember I am trying not to think from an anthropic point of view.

Stephen Hawking, and a few others, are working on a theory called the Wave Function Law. Basically it proves that the universe could have come about without a cause.  Hawking is bit smarter than I am, so I’m not about to try to understand the theory.  But the theory is out there, and if proven correct scientifically, makes it difficult for me to accept the first statement.

Again, as a Catholic, I do believe in God, but I cannot accept this argument either.

My topic of thought today is anthropic coincedences. Basically this idea involves the finely-tuned parameters that make life on Earth possible.  From a chemical point-of-view, for carbon to have formed in the early universe from the lighter elements of hydrogen, helium, and deuterium the strong and weak nuclear forces that rule our physical universe had to be in a very precise range for the necessary chemical reactions to have occured.

Other coincedences exist such as our precise distance from the sun.  You could spend pages upon pages listing all the coincedences, and although from time to time I’ll probably write about some of these in a different context, my thought today is the overall set of coincedences and the idea that an intelligent designer had to be responsible for this fine-tuning in order for us to be here.

My problem with this line of thinking is this:  Who says we are the only life that exists in this vast universe.? I’ll concede the amazing chain of events that had to occur over billions of years to even get to a point where carbon-life forms could be created.  But what I can’t concede is that that is the only possible scenario.

Let’s assume that in other parts of the universe the strong and weak nuclear forces arent as they appear, or even that our universe is the only universe.  There could be an alternate universe where these finely-tuned parameters are different.  There could be  another universe dominated by only hydrogen or helium and maybe some nitrogen. Given enough time, these elements would be forced to attract and repel and form other elements, and from those elements, given enough time, some form of “life” could evolve.

What would a nitrogen-based or a helium-based life from look like?   Scientists could only guess.  They could simulate an environment where hydrogen, helium, and nitrogen dominate, but what they cannot simulate is time.  It would be strictly conjecture since scientists wouldn’t have the luxury of waiting 5 billion years to see what would become of a strictly nitrogen-based atmosphere.

Humans tend to be pretty self-centered when it comes to our Earth and even the universe. But we shouldnt be so conceited and convinced that an intelligent designer exists simply because some people think that ours is the only existence.  This universe is way too big and the possibilities way too endless to be that close-minded.

Now I say all this with the caveat that I was raised Catholic and do believe in God. But as I get older and the scientific, logical, analytical part of my brain wants to take over, it makes me question what role religion and science can play together, because I really  dont believe they are mutually exclusive worlds.

More to come on this and other topics.

Stared at this for 20 minutes at the vets.   There had to be a camera watching my reaction.