Thoughts Before The Alarm Sounds

      When it comes down to opinion versus facts in an argument, there are well-known tools available which opinion can use to overcome facts.       For example, if one is arguing against experts, persons who have devoted a major portion of their lives to understanding the subject under discussion, one can always find, or even create out of nothing (e.g., the Discovery Institute), a couple of renegades to dispute the majority. Then the opinionated one does not discuss the competing claims; instead he trumpets far and wide that “even among the experts there is disagreement on the subject.” The idea is to sell the imaginary controversy, not the facts. This is the method used in the case of evolution versus intelligent design. Hopefully this movement ended with the opinion in the Kitzmiller vs Dover Area School District case.       Another tool of the opinionated is to take some statement or event out of context,...

      [The Lord] said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree which I commanded you not to eat?” The man said, “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit from the tree, and I ate.”       Genesis – New Revised Standard Version.       One of the tasks I had to perform at my job as a cost accountant was to speak to factory foremen to determine the cause of irregularities in production costs. In particular, one man stands out in my memory; his first response when I asked about a problem was always, “Whose responsibility is that?”       It was not my job to establish responsibility – my job was to 1.) pinpoint the problem, 2.) fix it, and 3.) set up safeguards so that it didn’t happen again. But the foreman’s first impulse was to determine where to point the finger. (No, not that finger.)       When I had my accounting busin...

      Prior to 2007, Pennsylvania retirement communities were exempt from real estate taxes on property utilized for assisted living residents. Property utilized for independent living residents, administrative offices, etc., was taxable. In 2007 the Pennsylvania Supreme Court decided that if an organization met the requirements for classification as a charitable institution, all its property was exempt. The exemption is not automatic; the institution must apply for it. Several retirement communities have done so, causing considerable controversy. The following letter was sent to local newspapers.       Editor, Lancaster Newspapers,       Editor, Lititz Record Express,       There has been considerable controversy recently concerning the elimination of property taxes paid by retirement communities. As long as the exemption is available, we think it is incumbent upon them to decide w...

In 2007, Jamie Leigh Jones testified at a Congressional hearing that she had been gang-raped in 2005 by as many as seven co-workers while working in Iraq for KBR, a subsidiary of Halliburton. After an Army doctor examined her and gave forensic material to her employer, she was placed under guard in a shipping container, where she remained without food or drink for 24 hours. Finally a friendly guard gave her a cell phone which she used to call her father. She was released only after her father asked the US embassy to intervene. When Jones tried to take legal action, Halliburton/KBR used a clause in her contract, which required disputes to be settled by arbitration, to block such action. In 2007, Jones filed a joint civil suit against Halliburton/KBR and the only assailant she could identify. According to the legal papers, Jones was given a knockout drug while drinking with KBR firefighters. “When she awoke the next morning still affected by the drug, she found her body naked and...