Grab-bag

Today's main task was to continue filling a trench that runs up/down a hill. Mrs ERJ was working one of the shovels and she is a delightful companion to work with.

After emptying the back of the truck, we broke apart an old clump of iris and planted them beneath the guy-wire that secures a utility pole. Keeping the grass cut beneath the diagonal wire is a chore. We planted about 30 of the "toes", three rows of them about 15" apart in every direction.

The flowers are nothing special. Compared to modern hybrids they are a half-mouthful of lukewarm spit. But they beat weeds and they are tough enough to fend for themselves for 50 years. In my world, that counts for a lot. Launch-and-forget.

Economy slowing down? 

I noticed an exponential growth in the number of "toys" for sale beside the road. Quads, motorcycles, motor-homes, pontoon boats....all in the five miles immediately west of Potterville, Michigan.

$5.00 a gallon gas is biting Michigan's economy. Maybe I can find a newish, tandem-axle trailer for a reasonable price in the near future. The expansion and contraction of the economy is like the beating of a heart. Resources (like trailers and employees and commercial real estate) are released from enterprises/people who cannot make them pay and are quickly absorbed by enterprises/people who need them and can make them pay.

Farmers

There were at least three commercial farmers at the soccer game I attended Thursday night. Normally, this time of year, they would be in the fields planting from before sun-up to after sun-down. But those fields are too wet to get a tractor on, so they are watching their grand-daughters and great-granddaughters play soccer. The goal keeper for one of the teams was one of those girls.

Normally, storm-tracks spray across the eastern US like a drunk trying to pee on a tree-trunk. Everybody gets about the right amount of rain. This year they storm-tracks are running across Michigan as if LASER guided. We are getting too much rain. People just a hundred miles south of us are begging for it.

If you ain't complaining about the rain, you ain't farming.

The Story of Everything

A friend sent me a link to a documentary titled The Story of Everything. It is a film that defends the theory of "Intelligent (God-guided) Design".

I know I sound like a Richard κεφαλ but these efforts always strike me as efforts to prove that the sound of the color "orange" is exhibited by a soprano saxophone. 

The problem with that genre of movies is that it allows the unbelievers to frame the argument. 

Unbelievers state "Religion is proven false by science, therefore religion is garbage". That statement makes some believers lose their minds.

The appropriate response is "Judeo-Christian beliefs are still highly functional after 4000/2000 years. The half-life of scientific "knowledge" is much, much shorter. For instance, the half-life of "Truth" in Psychology is about five years*. Only a moron would trade eternal-truth for "truth" that changes more more frequently than the grad students bathe." 

If you want to keep hammering those who claim all religion is bunk, try: "Science is ALWAYS proven false by future science. By your argument, that makes all current science "garbage"."

Ironically, even high-end scientists recognize that theories that have been proven false are often the most effective way grapple with reality. For example, scientists in the field of Public Health will quickly concede that "The Theory of Spontaneous Generation", while technically wrong, is the most effect way to eliminate rats and ticks and mosquitoes. Get rid of the garbage, the tall grass and the standing water and those pests disappear.

The compulsion to "prove" the Bible with science seems backasswards. Does that mean that the Bible can be disproven? Isn't faith throwing oneself into the unknown and believing (and letting that belief guide your actions) when absolute proof is lacking. Believing that a set of car keys will fall downward out of your hand and hit the floor is not "faith". It is experience.

So even if the Bible is wrong (a point I am not willing to concede but am entertaining for the sake of argument), modern science continues to fail to offer a better, more durable, simpler way put handles on the wheelbarrow that is life, pick it up and move forward. Occam's Razor chooses the Bible.

Your mileage may vary. I know one person who is certain that the way to succeed in life is to prove that you (he) is the biggest asshole first. Objectively, that isn't working so well for him but he will defend his beliefs to his last breath.

Bonus images

"Quicksilver was here"

Early for the big, yellow morels.

*Specific to the number of genders, the half-life is measured in days.