Author Archives: Neil Steiner

Hollywood versus STEM fields

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STEM is an acronym for the fields of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math.  These disciplines are a pile of fun, with a good deal of hard work mixed in, but Americans consistently seem to steer clear of them.  I’ve never understood why.

On the flip side, we have an entire industry in Hollywood dedicated to science fiction and special effects, few of which are grounded in real life.  Movies rarely present STEM fields or STEM professionals in a realistic or favorable light.  The industry loves blowing things up for effect, but shows little appreciation for the fields that make their magic possible.

That’s a shame.  Most Americans know little or nothing about STEM fields, and consequently don’t study them or go into them.  So Hollywood, how about some realism?  How about some technical accuracy?  How about some respect?  Not only will your movies be more compelling, but you will also help awaken the imaginations and passions of future scientists, engineers, and mathematicians.

Do any of my readers even know what STEM fields bring us?  Computers, the internet, GPS, iPhones, cars, satellites, planes, PlayStation, pacemakers, radars, gene sequencing, encryption, cellular communication, digital cameras, cosmology, MRI, recycling, electronic banking, DVDs, quantum computing, social media, amazon.com, robotics, X-rays, superconductors, superglue, plastic, general relativity, bridges, zoology, the Higgs boson, and so on.

Hollywood, just give us fair treatment, and in addition to making better movies, you’ll be doing your viewers a public service, at very little additional expense.

Now it’s personal: the IRS vs. The Oak Initiative

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I am proud to be a member of The Oak Initiative, an organization established about three years ago with the following mission statement:

“to Unite, Mobilize, Equip, and Activate Christians to be the salt and light they are called to be by engaging in the great issues of our time from a sound biblical worldview.”

Around that same time The Oak Initiative applied for 501(c)3 tax-exempt status with the IRS.  The IRS has still not acted on the application.  As of July 30, 2013, the IRS claims they are processing April 2012 applications (a 15 month lag), but that hardly explains the lack of action on a 2010 application [source: The Oak Tree].

In light of recent revelations about the IRS discriminating inappropriately on 501(c)3 applications, it isn’t too hard to imagine why The Oak Initiative might not have fallen within their good graces.  For one, The Oak Initiative is a fervent defender of the US Constitution.  For two, The Oak Initiative has repeatedly spoken out on issues which the Government would rather hide:  Government mismanagement and fraud, Sharia, Benghazi, ObamaCare, abortion, the attack on traditional marriage, the 2nd and 4th amendments, Fast and Furious, the demonization of Christians, veterans, and others.

But the IRS is not allowed to apply the law based on their preferences.  Just like Lois Lerner, Director of the IRS Exempt Organizations, is not allowed to plead the Fifth Amendment to cover up what her organization did.  In short, The Oak Initiative is exposing many of the problems that need to be corrected in our country.  If our Government is threatened by that, they have clearly forgotten that they are of, by, and for the People, and that they answer to us.

I call for justice to be served, and for the Government to correct its ways.  The longer they continue to work against upstanding Americans who love our country, the more they will find me pushing back.  I was born a free American, I intend to die that way, and I will not be silenced.

The problem with “green” technology

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I would never be mistaken for a tree-hugging dirt worshipper, but I do love nature, and have often told people that my favorite part of the US Government is the National Park Service!  (My favorite part, not necessarily the most important part.)

But environmentalists and ecologists have a huge problem on their hands, because of the way that politics has hijacked their field.  The issue is that politicized science is invariably bad science, and bad science loses credibility about as fast as the politicians who tout it.  People have been so focused on pushing “green” everything—some of them ignorantly claiming that it’s better for the environment, others duplicitously making that same claim, and a majority sincerely believing the claim and trying to do their part to help the environment—that few have stopped to objectively evaluate the data.

Many things turn out to be less eco-friendly than advertised, and often no better than “dirty” alternatives.  Says who?  Well, the recent cover story in IEEE Spectrum, for one.  The IEEE is the largest professional organization for electrical engineers in the world, and unlike most politicians, engineers generally enjoy a high approval rating by virtue of their integrity.  (Disclaimer:  I am a member of the IEEE.)

IEEE Spectrum July 2013 cover

IEEE Spectrum July 2013

We learn in “Unclean at Any Speed” that when the full life-cycle of electric cars is taken into account, they are not environmentally friendlier than gasoline-power cars.  Or more to the point of this posting, “electric cars don’t solve the automobile’s environmental problems.”  That’s not a good outcome, given the huge subsidies and acclamation given to all things green.  Bear in mind that this is coming from electrical engineers who would presumably favor electric solutions in a draw.

The article has this to say about the comprehensive report generated by the National Academies:

In a gut punch to electric-car advocates, it concluded that the vehicles’ lifetime health and environmental damages (excluding long-term climatic effects) are actually greater than those of gasoline-powered cars. Indeed, the study found that an electric car is likely worse than a car fueled exclusively by gasoline derived from Canadian tar sands!

…

When the National Academies researchers projected technology advancements and improvement to the U.S. electrical grid out to 2030, they still found no benefit to driving an electric vehicle.

The Spectrum article also cites a Norwegian study in the Journal of Industrial Ecology—“electric vehicles consistently perform worse or on par with modern internal combustion engine vehicles, despite virtually zero direct emissions during operation”—and asks:

Do electric cars simply move pollution from upper-middle-class communities in Beverly Hills and Virginia Beach to poor communities in the backwaters of West Virginia and the nation’s industrial exurbs? Are electric cars a sleight of hand that allows peace of mind for those who are already comfortable at the expense of intensifying asthma, heart problems, and radiation risks among the poor and politically disconnected?

Folks, this is a real problem.  We praise and subsidize electric vehicles or hybrids because they’re supposed to be better for the environment, but they’re actually worse.  That means that 1) we aren’t solving the real problem, and 2) we are instead enabling misguided political agendas.  Now I’m not an environmentalist or ecologist, but I do care about this world, and I really would like to see better solutions offered.  Politics has been allowed to retain its stranglehold on the field by virtue of its power and money, and as long as that remains the case, we are unlikely to see real solutions.

What do we do about this problem?  To the politicians, I would say check your agendas at the door when you deal with science.  And try honesty for a change.  To those who truly love and wish to protect nature, purge the self-serving politicians from your midst, and reestablish the integrity of your cause.  If you can do that, then people like me will be able to listen to you and work with you because of the level of trust that we can develop, and we’ll actually be able to make progress based on objective credible good science.

An apology to Michelle Obama

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Mrs. Obama, I believe you are owed a deep apology for the rude and disparaging ways that my fellow conservatives sometimes speak about you.  Though I may fervently disagree with your husband’s policies and even some of your own policies, my objections are constitutional and ideological rather than personal in nature.

Every person deserves to be treated with love and respect.  That is true regardless of differences and disagreements, regardless of societal status or position, and that certainly extends to you.  I do not claim to be perfect in that respect—goodness knows I’ve made a few exceptions—but it grieves me to see you blatantly disrespected in blogs and comments, and I positively will not condone it.

So ma’am, please accept my sincere apologies.  You deserve much better than that.

Password responsibility for websites: Part 1

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Webmasters: You should always hash and salt your password list

Every so often I register with some new website or service and am horrified to receive an email confirmation that shows my password in plaintext.  Let’s consider some of the reasons why that’s A Bad Thing™.

  1. If the website can send my password in plaintext (and typically include my username), someone else can see it and can gain joint access or exclusive access to my account.  Seriously, people:   Email is not secure unless encrypted, and almost nobody encrypts email these days.
  2. If the website can send my password in plaintext, it almost certainly means that they are storing my password in plaintext.  Why would that be a bad thing, you ask?  Because not if but when a website gets hacked, the attacker can collect the passwords and impersonate the users or gain exclusive access to their accounts.
  3. If the website stores my password in plaintext, they are probably putting it verbatim in a database field that recognizes certain characters as delimiters.  That places limits on the characters that I am allowed to use in my password (i.e. no spaces, no punctuation, …), which in turn reduces the strength—more formally, the entropy—of the passwords, and forces me to adapt my strong passwords to arbitrary rules.

With those considerations in mind:

  1. Passwords should always be stored as hashes, also known as message digests.  This means that if an attacker compromises a website, they will not know what the original passwords were, though they may be able to impersonate users by using the hashed passwords.
  2. Password hashes should also be salted with some identifier unique to that site, so that the same password produces a different hash from one site to another.  That means that a hash obtained on one site frequented by a particular user doesn’t help the attacker break into other sites for that same user (i.e. Google and Facebook).  This is what LinkedIn failed to do.

My loathing for CAIR

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I have few enemies, but the Muslim Brotherhood is at the top of my list, and the part of it that I most fervently despise is CAIR, the Council on American Islamic Relations, a despicable organization clothed in a religious-cultural cloak.

According to CAIR founder Omar Ahmad:

“Islam isn’t in America to be equal to any other faith, but to become dominant. The Koran should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on Earth.” [link]

Contrast that to the benign lovey-dovey statement on their website:

“CAIR’s vision is to be a leading advocate for justice and mutual understanding.”

My quarrel is not with arabs, nor with muslims per se.  I have known and worked with truly wonderful arabs, and with truly wonderful muslims.  But the Muslim Brotherhood is a different beast.  Its stated aims are the assimilation of the United States under the rule of Sharia law, the destruction Israel and the Jewish people, and the establishment of a global caliphate.  The “Religion of Peace” is not what its PR job makes it out to be.  Its world is divided into Dar al-Islam (house of Islam or peace), where Sharia law dominates, and Dar al-Harb (house of war), where it does not.

These statements are true, and I say them not to frighten or provoke, but merely to shine the light and expose the subterfuge we are under.  Our government and media are complicit in this for faithfully propping up the abomination that is political correctness.  Christianity is suppressed at every turn, but muslims are honored and granted special favor.  And the Muslim Brotherhood is the Trojan horse that has been welcomed with open arms into the highest places in our government.

In the case of the media, this complicity constitutes gross incompetence and violation of the people’s trust. In the case of the Government, it rises to the level of criminal negligence and outright treason.  The facts are there, abundantly documented through expert witness and in federal court documents, but this Administration refuses to acknowledge it.  I will repeat as many times as necessary:  Sharia law is entirely incompatible with the United States Constitution, and the Constitution is the supreme law of our land.

Ahmadinejad: Holocaust aspirant

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When Mahmoud Ahmadinejad speaks of destroying the Jews, he isn’t using hyperbole.  No.  He is telling the world exactly what his plan is.  We’re just too “civilized” to believe that he could be telling the truth:  The man who denies the last Holocaust is somehow dead set on creating the next one.  Doesn’t that mess with his head?  Most of us do not feel the compelling need to exterminate an entire people group.

Forsaking all courtesy that I would normally extend to a foreign head of state, I have to call him what he is:  A demonized raving madman, no less than Hitler.  I contrast that with the handful of truly wonderful and gifted Iranians I’ve had the pleasure of working with.  And, oh my gosh, what a beautiful country!  I am eager to see the Iranian people free, and some day when our countries are no longer at odds with each other, I would love to visit their land.

Free stuff:  More than Dreams DVD to whoever is interested.  One of the five segments is in Farsi.  Contact my neil.steiner address at vt.edu.

The United States before revisionism

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Our Founding Fathers were quick to acknowledge that without the direct involvement of the Church in Government and the military, there would never have been a United States of America.  No wonder those who hate our country do their utmost to keep us out of those realms.  I hope they don’t expect us to just roll over and die.

The Johnson Amendment to the US Tax Code is unconstitutional because it violates the First Amendment.  Sorry, folks:  The Tax Code does not trump the United States Constitution, for the simple reason that the United States Constitution is the supreme law of the land.  Every one of our elected officials ought to know that, given that they are bound by oath to support it.

What do you mean “when does life begin”?

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There’s this really dumb question going around about when human life begins.  At conception?  At “viability”?  At birth?  I am no biologist or medical doctor, and my last biology class was sometime before 9th grade, but this is really pretty basic stuff.

Let’s take a step back and consider the reproductive process:  We begin with an egg cell and a sperm cell which fertilizes the egg.  Once the fertilized egg begins to divide, we call it an embryo until it reaches a particular prenatal developmental stage, and we begin calling it a fetus.  That fetus, at full term, is brought into the world through childbirth.  With me so far?

Here’s a question for my erudite opponents:  When did life ever end?  When was that developing human not alive?  The sperm cell was alive.  The egg cell was alive.  The embryo was alive.  The fetus was alive.  That newborn baby is certainly alive.  The answer is that life never ended, and that’s really easy to prove.

Let’s try a simple thought experiment.  This is what physicists do when faced with a problem that they don’t necessarily want to conduct in real life, to the relief of a great many superimposed felines.  If you spontaneously stop the life of the sperm or egg or embryo or fetus at any point in the process, can it ever be born as a living human?  Of course not.  That’s the whole point of abortion.

From the beginning of the sperm and egg cells until the time a child is born, there has always been at minimum one living cell with distinctly human DNA.  The natural progression is for that fertilized egg to develop into a grown human unless the mother miscarries—a tragedy—or has an abortion—a horror.

From the time of the first two human beings until each of us today, there has been continuous uninterrupted life:  An unbroken chain of human cellular life from me through the entirety of my ancestry back to the beginning of the human race.  If that life had ever ceased at any point, you wouldn’t be reading this.

Life is a precious gift, and in its weakest and most vulnerable times it needs love and protection.  To ask when it begins is misinformed or disingenuous or in some cases downright evil.