Geotimes has an interesting article about natural disasters and factors that affect the humanitarian impact of the disasters. Unsurprisingly, the most democratic and country and the higher the GDP, the less than humanitarian impact of the disasters. From Geotimes:

Despite the increase in natural disasters, reported deaths are actually decreasing — both as a percentage of global population and in total numbers.

The average annual percentage of the global population killed by natural disasters decreased 10-fold from the period 1964 to 1968 compared with the period 2000 through 2004, from 0.01 percent (roughly one killed for every 10,000 people) to 0.001 percent (one in 100,000) respectively. At the same time, the average annual number of recorded disasters increased five-fold between 1964 through 1968 (64 per year) and 2000 through 2004 (332 per year). The events that continue to result in the major number of fatalities are the relatively small percentage of events that occur with large recurrence intervals, such as massive floods, strong earthquakes and direct strikes from intense hurricanes, or events that are unusual in the area in which they occur.

A month ago Laura and I bought a Panasonic 1080p plasma HDTV. After one month I’m a big fan. There isn’t a ton of real High-Def content, but what there is looks great, especially the content in 1080i.

CBS broadcasts in 1080i and the sports look wonderful.  I haven’t watched any other programming on CBS, but at least the NFL on CBS looks good.

NBC also broadcasts in 1080i and it too looks great. NBC carries a lot of golf, but the only problem is that not all of NBCs cameras are high def. NBC’s stationary cameras are high-def, but their hand-held cameras are standard def. The picture goes from gorgeous long shots of Tiger putting, for example, to close-up pictures from the stationary high-def cameras.  The standard def cameras don’t look bad, but you really see how much better high def is.

PBS stations also frequently broadcast in 1080i.  Ken Burns’ The War was captivating, in part because the images looks so good.

ABC and Fox are chintzy and only broadcast in 720p. The pictures look good, but you really see the difference between 720p and 1080i. 720p is a real improvement over standard def, but 1080i is more detailed.

Then again, apparently I’m not as good as seeing the difference between 720p and 1080i as I thought. I thought that ESPN was broadcast in 1080i, but as I was researching this post, it turns out they broadcast in 720p.

The baseball gods are pouring special blessings on TBS. TBS is carrying the baseball playoffs this year and they are broadcasting the games in 1080i.  I was blown away when I saw watched the tie-breaker game between the Padres and Rockies. It was better than being at the game.

When we picked up our new HD cable box, the cable company did something absolutely evil–they gave us access to the movie channels. Watching movies in HD was better than being in the theater, just cheaper.  Too bad Comcast has already cut off our access to the movie channels. It was the best advertisement I could think of for buying a Blu-Ray player or an HD-DVD player.

HDTV is a great improvement. And this is a great time of year to have HDTV with the MLB playoffs, the NFL, and new shows such as Heroes and Pushing Daisies.

Every once in a while people like to write stories about how Wal-Mart is destroying America and how Costco is a viable alternative. For example, here’s the first story I found when I searched for “Costco vs. Wal-Mart”. Here’s the main refrain

A number of factors explain Costco’s success at building a retail chain both profitable and fair to its workers. But the basic formula is one the labor movement has been advocating for decades: a loyal, well-compensated workforce means a more efficient and productive one.

If this is true,  why are Wal-Mart workers so much better at customer service than Costco workers? In my experience, most Costso workers are jerks. Shouldn’t Costco workers be more polite since they are paid more? Doubtful.  Since they are Union workers, it is harder to fire workers who are hostile to customers. Maybe that explains why the Wal-Mart shopping experience is so much better than Costco. Or maybe the the culture of the Costco I go to most is one where they don’t value customer service or helpfulness.

Articles that compare Wal-Mart to Costco are also flawed on their face. Wal-Mart and Costco aren’t even the same type of store. Costco and Sam’s Club are good comparisions, but not Wal-Mart. So what’s with the fetish of comparing workers’ wages at Costco and Wal-Mart? Costco’s workers should be paid, on average, more than Wal-Mart’s because Costco’s workers because they seem to be higher-skilled than Wal-Mart’s workers. There’s also 1/3 less workers per store at Costco than Wal-Mart.

Anyway, I like both Wal-Mart and Costco. But I prefer the shopping experience at Wal-Mart because the workers are so much more pleasant and helpful.

Richard Dawkins, writes on the WashingtonPost.com:

It is easy for religious faith, even if it is irrational in itself, to lead a sane and decent person, by rational, logical steps, to do terrible things. There is a logical path from religious faith to evil deeds. There is no logical path from atheism to evil deeds. Of course, many evil deeds are done by individuals who happen to be atheists. But it can never be rational to say that, because of my nonbelief in religion, it would be good to be cruel, to murder, to oppress women, or to perpetrate any of the evils on the Hitchens list.

Dawkins is exactly correct. It isn’t because of “nonbelief in reglion” that “it would be good to be cruel, to murder,” etc.  For the nonbeliever there can be no good or evil because there is no objective good or objective evil.  All ethical judgments are subjective. That’s the logic of atheism.

Atheists can be governed by their ethics.  By my standards, they may be be good, ethical people. But with atheism there can be no logical interpersonal good or evil.  You have to have a God to believe in a set of ethics that are truly interpersonal. You have to believe in capital “T” “Truth.” But there is no logical reason for atheists to believe in such as things as one “Truth.” If there is no Truth then there are many “truths” and only the individual can decide what is truth for himself.

I’m a bit at a loss when Dawkins really means when he writes, “There is no logical path from atheism to evil deeds.” First of all, there are no truly evil deeds for the true atheist.  There are deeds that Dawkins thinks are evil (and I might agree with him), but when there is no Truth you really can’t say if something is good or evil.

I don’t necessarily believe that there is a logical path from atheism to evil deeds, but then again, there doesn’t need to logical path. What does it matter for the atheist if there is “logical path” to evil deeds? A logical path isn’t some kind of mystical prerequisite to engage in evil deeds.

Lastly, it would sure be nice of Dawkins understood religion a bit better.  But he’s making a lot of money by not understanding religion and then lampooning his version of God and religion. So why should he stop? Obliviously his ethics don’t require him to a understanding of religion.

But there is such a thing as a Truth. There is such things as Good and Evil. Not all people who believe in a religion are good. Not all religions are true. It is possible to logically follow the tenets of a set of beliefs and engage in evil deeds. But how is this any different than atheism? I don’t see a difference. Religious people have a set of shared ethics.  Atheists have their own intrapersonal ethics. A religious person could follow his religious beliefs to do evil deeds, but an atheist could logically follow his own personal beliefs to do the same. What’s the difference?

I admire Dawkins’ ability to evangelize atheism. He’s done an impressive job, sold a lot a books, and I’m sure he has raked in a lot of money in speaking fees. But I sure wish I’d fun across something insightful by Dawkins. Instead I keep running into rubbish.

Jeremy, this picture is for you.

If you have ever wanted to drive a car with nearly 1,000,000 miles on it, then it’s your lucky day. Some mega-ultra-super-galactic road warrior is selling his high mileage Civic.