Magic Statistics

Richard Frazier, a horse rancher in Tularosa, New Mexico, claimed last week that he was soon to receive new revelations from God.  This news was delivered through a high-tech device he had invented many years before: an electronic chair that he calls “God’s Comfort Chair” (photo at right).

The revelations were to be given at 7:07 am on Saturday, 7 July 2007, at a location in the southern New Mexico desert and, sure enough, later that morning, he gave his wife seven copies of a seven-page booklet entitled “God’s New Revelations”.  She in turn distributed them to the multitudes “small group of people” gathered at the gate of his homestead, the Good Moose Ranch.

According to the booklet, the Book of Genesis was written by the Devil for a number of devious reasons, the first being to separate humans from God through fear and prevent God from speaking to them. "But their fear would not let my message be heard," he writes, claiming the message to be from God.

"This is a warning to humankind, but 10's (sic) of thousands of fearful scholars, wise men, priests have sought the Devil in every place but where he lives, in Genesis," the booklet states.

Frazier writes that Genesis "taught humankind to fear God and I cannot communicate with humankind through a veil of fear." He noted of Genesis, which he states forms a part of the Scriptures in Judaism, Christianity and Islam, that "No other scriptures mistaken for Holy have done more to cripple mankind."

Some “God”: He doesn’t even know what’s in the Qur’an.

He claims that organized religion corrupted the Jesus story, where it is posited that people are, in effect, in control of their destiny, because it did not fit in with their desire to control people.

So, Jesus came to tell us that God doesn’t care what we say and do?

The story in the Almagordo Daily News goes on to summarise more of the “revelations”.  I’d be interested in reading the whole booklet, but I don’t want to get on Mr Frazier’s mailing list.

Where did he get all those wild ideas?  A clue is found about halfway down this page:

Richard developed a computer program to operate the chair. Richard became ill and moved from Canada where the machine was under-deployment [sic] to New Mexico to recover.

He’s from CANADA!

The headline refers, of course, to the immortal Monty Python sketch, “The Spanish Inquisition”.  The comfy chair is introduced around 2:10 of this video.  It looks far more comfortable than Mr Frazier’s.

h/t: Religion News Blog

Previous related post: NO ONE expects the Spanish Inquisition!

The two US senators from Alaska are co-sponsoring a proposal to limit American greenhouse gas emissions.  The bill could also generate billions of extra dollars for their already-flush state.  Can you say “pork barrel”?

Sens. Ted Stevens and Lisa Murkowski are co-sponsoring a bipartisan plan to cap carbon emissions believed to contribute to global warming. As written, the bill could bring tens of billions of dollars to Alaska in coming years, staffers for the senators said.

Here, the money could be used to move villages away from eroding coastlines, help people, especially in rural Alaska, pay rising fuel costs and fix highways cracking above thawing permafrost, supporters say.
. . .
The proposal would require oil refineries, coal plants, natural gas processors and other facilities to pollute less. If they don't, they would have to pay the federal government. That money would be used for things like researching cleaner fuels and helping states adapt to warming weather. Much of it could end up in Alaska.

Sens Stevens and Murkowski say they don’t know and don’t care to what extent human activity is actually responsible for global warming.

Stevens and Murkowski stopped short of saying human behavior is entirely to blame for warming temperatures, but the Alaska Republicans said it's clear something needs to be done.

"Regardless of whether these changes are caused solely by human activity, we must take steps to protect people in the Arctic," Stevens said.

If you don’t know to what extent human activity is responsible, how can you defend imposing potentially huge financial penalties on corporations?

Anyway, if the aim is to reduce GHG emissions, a direct tax on gasoline would be far more efficient and less costly to implement.  But then voters would see the tax every time they filled up their SUVs.  Taxes on emissions from oil refineries and other production facilities will be also be passed on to consumers in the form of higher pump prices and, to boot, far more expensive to impose and collect, but they would be hidden in the wholesale price of gasoline.  The latter feature makes it very attractive to incumbent politicians come election time.

Murkowski and Stevens — who have opposed mandatory emissions limits in the past — both said the bill is a measured approach that wouldn't damage the economy.

Whaddya bet the measures they opposed in the past did not entail the transfer of oodles of cash to their home state?

Previous related posts:

• Global warming hits Anchorage
• Frozen gas could replace petroleum as energy source
• Some Alaska natives support oil drilling in ANWR

At a time when judges seem willing to endorse whatever crazy arrangement parents dream up irrespective of children’s welfare, it’s good to hear the Supreme Court of Canada draw a line somewhere.

On Thursday the Supreme Court dismissed an application for leave to appeal by a woman who wanted to absolve her common-law husband of responsibility for a child she had through artificial insemination.

The couple, identified only as John and Jane Doe, signed a pre-parenting agreement stating John Doe would not be considered the child's father. The couple took the agreement to court seeking legal validation.

Last February, the Alberta Court of Appeal ruled against the agreement, saying the common-law husband will inevitably act in the role of father because he lives with the woman and her child.

As usual, the court gave no reasons for declining to hear the appeal.

Details are sketchy, but it would appear that a man and a single mother decided to live together and pretend for legal purposes that the child has a mother but no father.  In the event the relationship ends, the man wants to avoid child support payments and other responsibilities of paternity.  That's obviously selfish, but logical from a narrowly self-regarding perspective.

Maybe it’s just me, but I find the mother’s motivation difficult to fathom.  She wants to live with the guy, but she doesn’t want him to have contact with her child after they break up.  Doesn’t she trust him to treat her kid right?  If she doesn’t trust him with her child after they stop living together, how can she trust him in the same house with the kid now?

As a law professor quoted in the story points out, with this decision Canadian courts have said that children cannot be treated like property.  Thank God for that minimal recognition of children’s needs.  There is a limit beyond which parents’ preferences cannot override the best interests of their children.

Previous related posts:

• Three-parent ruling based on adult preference, not child’s best interest
• Next stop: Legalised polygamy
• Ontario court: Child can have three legal parents