Failed Execution.

In US a legally sanctioned execution was attempted using a legally approved method. It failed. The victim is alive and reportedly walking and talking. What must we conclude? That God saved her for some higher pur? There will be those that hold that view. Surely!

The epidemiology of belief

We are familiar with the idea of a self-proclaimed belief and its value to the listener. On its own it gives some information but not enough to be acted upon. A belief, to be useful, needs to be testable and tested. The most rigorous test is the observation of behaviours by the believer which, if the belief were to prove false, would involve serious inconvenience or harm. This is seen most clearly in simple economic matters where an individual chooses to invest money in hope of future gain recognising that this is based on a belief about future events which if proved wrong may result in substantial losses. It is also exhibited in playing games with moves chosen on the belief that they will improve the individual's chance of success and which if wrong will result in a disadvantage or loss. With religion the test is impossible because neither the observer nor the believer seriously expect any positive outcome.

Ignorance Supidity and Sloth.

There are three issues which distort and destroy much of public life. They are omnipresent yet are seldom mentioned. We need to recognise these for if we don't we are condemned to a future of hopelessnness and despair.

In most public debate on any matter whatever if one attends one sees evidence of :

Ignorance - individuals making judgements while not in possession of available knowledge, 

Stupidity - a relative inability to draw reasonable conclusions from such knowledge as is to  hand and 

Laziness - a failure to exert effort to comprehend or affect the situation. 

Look, listen and reflect and you will see this at every turn in the pronouncements of many in the public eye. There was a time when such persons would not have been afforded a hearing. The great transformation may have been triggered by the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980 as  President  of the USA. He embodied all three failings in a high degree and his situation was starkly apparent in the inevitable comparison with his predecessor Jimmy Carter who showed then and has confirmed since that he is knowledgeable, smart and diligent. The three opposites of Reagan's defining features.

We need to stop being squeamish and call such people out. We cannot allow this unholy trinity of properties to blight our future. Listen, Look, Reflect and above all Act!

As an afterward it is tragically necessary to report that Donald Trump makes the wretched Reagen look good.

Don't Ask Why

Except if you are inquiring about the actions of a person or perhaps also an animal.
The word why has built in the notion that what you are asking about was a manifestation of someone/something seeking an objective. Why did (s)he do that suggests they were trying to achieve something or get somewhere. It invites an answer which includes an account of what it was they were trying to achieve. This can be extended a bit to animals - "Why did the chicken cross the road" and all that.
Beyond that "Why" is meaningless. "Why does the sun shine" has no answer. "How does the sun shine" is fine - a sensible answer can describe what we know of the mechanism but the sun has no plan or objective against which we can ask "why?".
If a child asks you why this or that is so be careful in answering not to include "so it can ..." or similar response. Do not encourage a child in the notion that items other than persons or some animals can have a plan or objective. A huge amount of confusion and misunderstanding in the world is driven by this dangerous response to a simple little overworked word -"Why". Give it a rest!

Hopeless?

Have you given up hope?  You could be forgiven if you had.  This reckless nationalist rabble run from one folly to the next.  Today we have our first minister promising to even out educational attainment by further dumbing down to the point where every child will be the same.  The talented and the diligent must not achieve more than the others.  There is as ever an issue.  The talented and the diligent are the folk who make our country work. Soon they will be in even shorter supply .  And soon the country will not work and we will go down the pan.  It will be then that we can take our revenge on these ludicrous nationalists .  Unless -  we throw them out .  Let's do it!

Do not give Money to Rich People - they have enough already.

You may have read how 1% of the population now have the vast majority of the money. What can we do about this? Don't give them any more! How do we do that? With some difficulty. However - there are some pointers. To begin - in any transaction in which money changes hands there is a winner and a loser - contrary to received wisdom. Most of the time the winner is the person who gets the money. Most goods and most services are not worth what we pay for them. Much food and drink is junk, much clothing is poorly made, poorly designed and largely worthless, more walking and fewer bus journeys are healthier, TV and Movies have little relevance to real life etc etc.
So - first action - do not buy anything you do not actually need. (In the 1960s in USA civil rights groups encouraged supporters to try to buy only food and medicine in an attempt to influence the largely white owned business community to change its attitudes).
Secondly - choose where you shop. Buy from smaller businesses rather than large conglomerates. The family who own Asda are among the richest in the world!

It's been a while

There has not been a post for a while. This is unsurprising. Wisdom is in short supply! When any endeavour  struggles it sometimes helps to go back to basics. What are basics? In science the basics are maths (of course) and physics. Central  to physics are the laws of thermodynamics and the issue of entropy the details of which are well beyond me. The core issue is that we need order in our lives and there are many more ways of things being disordered than well ordered. To get things  the way we would like them we need to do work.  This is true in physics and equally in life. To get things done we need to do useful work. We need to study, develop our skills and do the right things. Modern society  seems to have stepped  back from this and politicians  have responded by promising the voters something for nothing. Read the physics books. It does not work. Elect people who will help us do this and reject those promising magical solutions or success by stealing from others.