What's on my mind?

Religion anyone?

2005-11-22T15:24:00.000-06:00

Very few people ever ask me why I am an Atheist. I often wonder why; I welcome the opportunity to discuss religion with anyone that will partake in an intelligent conversation about the subject. Except for a handful of street corner evangelists preaching about how everyone not totally agreeing with "their" god will end up in some bad predicament, I have not really had many opportunities to debate the issue. Why is this? Are Atheists the lepers of society? Will a believer "burn in hell" if they discuss the subject in a logical manner? Can it be discussed logically?

The topic of religion is taboo in today's society. You cannot question it, you cannot be critical of it. In the politically correct, diverse to the point of absurdity world of today, all religions are above criticism (although Islam currently holds the title of black sheep). How can intelligent people, who live their lives being critical of ideas that are based on nothing more than wishful thinking, not use the same logic when looking at religion? Do we live in Oz?

When I am lucky enough to engage somebody on this subject, I first have to ask; why are you a __________ (fill in the blank, Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, Moonie, Jew, Scientologist, Heaven's Gate devotee, etc.)? Usually I get a really funny look, and then the person's eyes roll around in their head for a while, and then the famous answer "that's how my parents raised me" or "that is the church I was brought up in". WHAT????? Are you kidding me? If you don't believe me try it sometime, it's really funny. After hearing this response as often as I have it began to make sense. People tend to resist change; many grow up and start their own families but never settle more the 100 miles from where they grew up. If you were brought up since childhood belonging to a certain church, being indoctrinated into a specific belief system, what would possibly motivate you to change? If you were born in India you would probably be a Hindu or Muslim, Mexico a Christian, Hollywood a Scientologist, and so on. Very few people take the time and effort to really study each of these groups and make a determination of "which one fits".

If you think that you (if you are a "believer") and I are so far apart then think about this. Over the course of history, there have been countless religions, and even more gods. Let's say for the sake of argument 100,000 gods. We would then totally agree that 99,999 of them are bogus and disagree on the 1 you consider the "real" one. Pretty close huh? Maybe we can get somewhere after all.

Because many people reading this post will be Christian, let's talk about that for a moment. How many of the events supposedly attributed to the Jesus story are original to Christianity? Basically none; older ancient religions had all of the same elements. Virgin births, raising from the dead, healing of the sick, son of God, Dec. 25th, nope, all used before. Some had even cooler things like coming to life from stone. People today laugh at the thought of Zeus, living up on Mt. Olympus (or wherever he lived) looking down on his loyal human subjects. Why is that any more bizarre than drinking wine and eating bland wafers representing the body and blood of a man we are not sure even lived while another guy waves a smoking purse around for good measure? Today we have a wealth of documented information on about any person or subject you can imagine and we cannot even agree on something that happened weeks ago. People really believe the Gospels are accurate? C'mon they were written 50-60 years after Jesus (if he really lived) had been dead and drifted off into heaven to be with daddy. These authors did not even know him, AND they contradict each other over almost every important fact. If that isn't bad enough, where are the other Gospels, you know, the ones the church thought didn't tell the story the way they liked it. Didn't know about that? Check it out.

I don't mean to pick on Christians, the same holds true for any other religious group, take your pick. In closing, I would just like people to use the same critical thinking techniques they use (at least most people, but that is a story for another time) everyday, on all subjects. Nothing should be taboo to critical thought. I leave you with two dictionary definitions:

1. Faith - Belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence.
2. Believe - To accept as true or real.

Fantasy Football is Legitimate

2005-11-19T12:38:00.000-06:00

I love fantasy football. I enjoy spending my entire Sunday watching bits and pieces of several NFL games to see "my" players in action. I also take alot of crap from people who do not understand my obsession. "It's all make believe", "it's not really football", "it's like Dungeons and Dragons", I've heard them all. Well, I think unless you don't follow sports at all, I am actually a better fan and more plugged into the "reality" of the game than you "non-believers".

Humans as a species are clanish. What does this mean? We humans tend to feel safer, better, more secure, etc. when we are among people more like ourselves. Ask a sports fan in any city who their favorite team is, I believe the majority will select a team in the city they live in or very close by. The (fill in the blank; Bears, Bengals, Ravens, etc.) are "my guys" the home-town heroes. This is crazy; times have changed, teams are no longer composed of local boys we can cheer for from gradeschool to the pros, the only reason they are "our guys" is because the General Manager of the local franchise hired them for a short period of time to play here. This is especially true after the introduction of free agency. When I was a child I loved baseball, and I knew that if my team didn't win this year I could cheer them on knowing that the same basic core of players would still be there (unless they were injured or retired). Today teams rent players. Look at the flurry of activity in August when the smaller market teams, already out of playoff contention start giving away their best talent so that they won't have to pay the reamainder of their contract. What about next year? They will simply sign a few big name free agents to get fans in the seats and if they fall short again, well, off they go.

Fantasy football allows me to follow the players I like, the ones I truly enjoy watching, regardless of what helmet they wear. I follow the game at the individual player level, not the imaginary "our team" level. I am not required to like players like Terrell Owens, Randy Moss, Allen Iverson, Dennis Rodman and any other criminal, drunk or drug addict that has the ability to catch, hit or dribble a ball better than others. Many Chicago fans hated Dennis Rodman for years when he played for Detroit and San Antonio, then he played for the Bulls and we all loved him because now he was one of us. This is bullshit.

This year the White Sox won the World Series. It was great for the city, White Sox fans came out of the woodwork (where were they the last few years when the stadium was half empty?). Chicago tentatively scheduled a parade for the Monday following a game 7 if neccessary. The series ended early and the parade took place on Friday. Why? The players didn't want to have to stay the weekend in Chicago before heading to their real homes in the Dominican Republic, Venezuela or other states in the U.S..

You watch your games, I'll watch mine, but the real "fantasy" in football today is believing that you should follow like lemmings a hometown team which is composed of strangers.

Gotta go, I need to check my lineup for week 11. :)

Outsourcing - What is really going on?

2005-11-19T11:10:00.000-06:00

"The World Is Flat", not a world view from the 1500's but a new book by Thomas L. Friedman got me thinking about the future of our economy. Because I am, and have been involved in software development for 19 years, I have a vested interest in the topic of "outsourcing" or "asset re-allocation" or whatever label is currently put on the process of moving jobs from the United States to India, China, Russia or any number of other countries (Some former/current threats, even enemies of ours) where very low labor costs make it profitable for U.S. companies. Are the companies taking advantage of outsourcing really reaping the benefits they expect? I'm sure some are, maybe even most, but at what cost to the future of our children and the U.S.. Most of us do not really know how integrated outsourcing has become in our daily activites, sure many software jobs have moved off-shore, many manufacturing jobs, but did you know that your tax returns are probably completed in India, most tech support for your new home computer or other electronics, even market research for Wall Street companies? In 2003, 25,000 U.S. tax returns were done in India. In 2004, it grew to 100,000. It is expected that 400,000 will be completed in India in 2005. While not a majority of returns, I think you get the idea. In many small and some medium size hospitals in the U.S. radiologists are outsourcing reading of CAT scans to doctors in India and Australia with the assumption made that these foreign doctors have the proper credentials to perform these tasks.

I know friends who have called tech support because their electronic gizmo isn't working right. After fighting with it themselves, sometimes for many hours, they call for help. Usually a very polite man/woman answers and gets your account information. Many times a communication problem presents itself because the support person has a heavy accent (of whatever type) and frustration levels run high and many times the phone gets slammed down by the angry American leaving the problem unresolved. Large companies like Infosys and others in Bangalore India have started training their tech support staffs to speak with American, British, etc. accents to "hide" the fact they are speaking to an Indian. Get this, they even get to pick an American name for themselves, like Sarah, Mike, etc. to use while introducing themselves to their American caller, how cool is that?

What jobs are safe? Eventually, maybe none. Want to make a dinner reservation? This can now be done from another country using call centers all over the world. Airline reservations, haircut appointment, same thing. Some McDonald's drive-thru's are utilizing a call center in Colorado (OK, so Colorado is in the U.S., but I am making a point here) to take your order, and process it before you pull up to pick it your happy meal.

You may be saying,"well so what, I don't want those jobs anyway". Here's the catch, we are now paying for the infrastructure in foreign countries (High speed communications, undersea fibre-optic cables, etc.) to support these low level job activities and an enormous amount of U.S. money going to these countries to pay for the labor (keep in mind how far $1,000,000.00 will go in another country like India or China) which will allow these countries to advance into taking far more technical and higher level jobs.

Countries like China and India are filled with well educated, and extremely ambitious citizens who are involved in heavy competition to get the jobs we send there. CEO's of oversea companies like Infosys will not settle for our scraps they have big plans for the future. An example; Boeing set up shop in China 9 years ago to manufacture tail sections for their aircraft. Now that China has gained the knowledge, and skills to construct aircraft such as those produced by Boeing, and the finances built up during the past few years from an economy growing at an astronomical rate, China has announced that they will begin selling aircraft of their own to compete directly with Boeing and other aircraft companies. Better sell that Boeing stock, or maybe hope a Chinese company buys Boeing.

The time has come..........

2005-11-18T13:24:00.000-06:00

As I grow older and begin drooling on myself and forgetting what I had for breakfast, I have come to the conclusion that I need to somehow document my usually confusing and incoherent thoughts. Hopefully others can try to make sense of me, or simply have me locked up. Enjoy