Archive for August 30, 2006

Riverside Presbyterian Church Votes to Join PCA; Westbrook Accepted to Iowa PCA Presbytery

August 30, 2006 Christian Life

08/30/2006: Riverside Presbyterian Church–which voted unanimously to separate from the Presbyterrorist Church (USA)–has voted 83-0 to unite with the Presbyterian Church of America (PCA).

Topping it off, Russ Westbrook, that heretic pastor who dared to :::HORROR OF HORRORS!!!::: preach the Scriptures, was accepted into the Iowa Presbytery of the PCA.

Hats off to the faithful of Riverside, and to Russ for having the spiritual stones to face down the Prospect Hill Hezbollah, the lackeys for the Presbyterrorists.

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Vox Day on the Evils of Trusting in Men

August 30, 2006 Christian Life, Politics

08/30/2006: Today, Vox Day nails another humdinger:

NRO quotes Lee Edwards’ biography of Barry Goldwater:

When [Goldwater's] daughter Joanne, not yet twenty and still in school, became pregnant with the child of her intended husband and told her father that she did not want to have the child, Goldwater said, “I’ll take care of it.” He arranged for Joanne to fly back to Washington and have a then-illegal abortion (it was 1955) in the converted dining room or a large three-story house in the suburbs. “I just want to prevent anyone from going through that,” says Joanne Goldwater, who admits that all three of her daughters have had abortions.

Is it any wonder that the conservative movement is so hapless when it comes to ending the atrocity of abortion? Even its iconic one-time leaders are hopelessly compromised… as is all too often the case, whatever their public protestations might be, they act as if they regard themselves beyond good and evil.

Don’t ever put your trust in men. Not Barry Goldwater, not Arnold Schwarzenegger, not George Bush or anyone else. The distance between a Winston Churchill and an Adolf Hitler is rather less than it appears. The whole point of libertarianism is to reduce the ability of flawed and evil men to exert control over the lives of other individuals.

I only would add this: don’t put your trust in a movement either. I don’t care if it’s a religious movement, a political movement, or even a bowel movement.

Truth be told, I’m a traditional values conservative who wants the size of government to be only as large as is necessary. But political leaders–and the movements and parties that they command–are human institutions with human frailties and human failings.

Even my favorite President–Reagan–had plenty of faults. (Many conservatives forget that it was Reagan who signed into law the legalization of abortion in California, a move that–according to Michael Reagan–he would go on to regret.)

And trusting in movements to effect changes that only the Body of Christ can effect is tantamount to planting your feet in quicksand.

I would defy any pro-life activist or anti-pornography activist to point to their blistering successes, in spite of having their allies in the White House for 18 of the last 26 years, and in control of both houses of Congress for the last 12 years.

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Technology Should Complement–not Substitute–a Real Professional

August 30, 2006 Aerospace, Comair 5191, News/Opinion, Robotics/Controls

David Warner of Prospect, Kentucky, raises some good points in today’s Louisville Courier-Journal:

Isn’t it interesting that I can buy a $400 gizmo for my dashboard that will bark at me if I miss my turn in the dark but a pilot can’t find the right runway on a foggy morning?

The answer to that question is even more unsettling: The pilot’s union has fought more technology in the cockpit because their members want to be “jet jockeys” and not play second fiddle to a jet that can easily take off and land by itself.

The joke is that the typical passenger with a laptop has more computer horsepower than you’ll find in the cockpit. Since the vast majority of plane crashes are “pilot error,” isn’t it time for an upgrade … that doesn’t have to look out the window to see if the jet is on the correct runway?

While the case is strong for more in-cockpit technology, it should serve as a complement–and not a substitute–for a pilot who is meticulous with his or her checklists. Airlines will not be safer if pilots begin relying on technology to maintain safety.

After all, when–not if–such technology fails or malfunctions, the checklist–with all its mundanities–is the difference between a safe flight and a disaster.

Some have made comparable arguments with respect to medicine, as very impressive decision support technology–using Artificial Intelligence (AI)–exists that allows computers to perform medical diagnoses. Many financial companies use this technology to augment their management of client portfolios.

Anyone who doubts the capacities of AI needs to take it up with Garry Kasparov.

However, in the real world, batteries die at the darndest times; circuit components break down; power surges destroy electronic components; hard-drives crash; databases get corrupted; programs crash when memory runs out (and the amount of available memory is often inversely proportional to the immediacy of the situation). Automated systems do fail.

Engineers, pilots, physicians, database administrators, network analysts, and application developers are well-acquainted with Murphy’s Law: when those systems fail, they will fail at the worst possible times .

With pilots–as with physicians–technology can be very effective as a redundancy: a fail-safe, if you will.

However, there remains no substitute for a pilot performing pre-flight and pre-takeoff check, or a physician who researches, speaks with the patient, interprets verbal and non-verbal communication, runs tests, researches topics, and arrives at a conclusion that can withstand the scrutiny of peer (or even judicial) review.

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