Ed Burns Personal Blog

The Miami Marlins will host the Phillies six times in the 2012 regular season

2012-01-25T08:22:00.001-08:00

This being the inaugural year of the Miami Marlins and their new stadium, I'm planning a road trip down from my home near Orlando to see them host my Phillies.

The Marlins host the Phillies six times throughout the season. Here are the dates.

April

Monday 9th
Wednesday 11th
Thursday 12th

June

Friday 1st
Saturday 2nd
Sunday 3rd

Friday 29th
Saturday 30th

July

Sunday 1st

August

Monday 13th
Tuesday 14th
Wednesday 15th

September

Monday 10th
Tuesday 11th
Wednesday 12th

Friday 28th
Saturday 29th
Sunday 30th

Now I just have the pleasant task of planning the trip!

2011-10-27T06:45:00.001-07:00

About two years ago I received a gift copy of James G. McCarthy's "The Gospel According to Rome" as a gift from my recently saved brother-in-law. Thanks for the gift. Thanks also for the reading guide that directed me straight to the epilogue. Here are some thoughts on that epilogue, but let me start out with scripture, as all Bible believing Christians should do (including Roman Catholics).

Ephesians 4:1 - 6 NAB

I, then, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to live in a manner worthy of the call you have received, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another through love STRIVING TO PRESERVE THE UNITY OF THE SPIRIT THROUGH THE BOND OF PEACE: one body and one Spirit, as you were also called to the one hope of your call; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.

That's what the Bible says. Here's what Mr. McCarthy says, in the epilogue (on page 319 in my copy):

Oppose Ecumenism

... Though Rome has yet to achieve its ultimate purpose, it has succeeded in undermining the commitment of many Christians to the evangelization of Catholics...They [Vatican II] labeled the evangelization of active members of each other's flocks as illegitimate theology and 'sheep stealing,' and resolved 'to explore patterns of working and witnessing together in order to advance the one mission of Christ.'

Such ecumenical compromise must be opposed. There is no room in biblical Christianity for unity or cooperation with Rome and its false gospel, its continuing sacrifice, and its idolatrous devotion to Mary. As long as the Roman Catholic Church continues 'to regard the Scriptures, taken together with sacred Tradition as the supreme rule of her faith,' there is not even a common basis for dialogue.

I don't know about you, but the author's flat statement about the absence of a common basis for dialogue, and indeed, the whole point of this last section of the book, seem to be exactly the sort of rejection of dialog that the author decries. Furthermore, this section seems in direct opposition to what Paul teaches us in Ephesians 4, as you can see by reading the NAB translation of the Bible.

Back when I was a practicing Roman Catholic, a Jesuit priest once told the people during his homily, “I have never read the bible. [pause for effect] I have only ever read translations of the bible.” All of us must keep that in mind as we bash each other over the heads with doctrinal differences. That and the fact that Satan is laughing all the while at how well he has been able to use our human nature of quarrelsomeness to drive people away from God.

The Evolution vs. Creationism Debate Hits My Family

2011-06-01T06:11:00.000-07:00

I was raised Roman Catholic and there are many things about the Roman Catholic faith that I value. Foremost among these is the rigorous tradition of Biblical scholarship as exemplified in titans such as St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Augustine. Within this tradition is a strong emphasis on reason as God’s gift to man to help him understand God. In my elementary education at St. Aloysius Academy for Boys, I was taught there was nothing inherently sacreligious or anti-God about Darwin’s theory of evolution. I vividly remember one of the nuns who served as our teachers explaining that the seven days of creation could really be geologic periods and need not be single 24 hour one-rotation-of-the-earth days. I have carried this belief into adulthood and continue to believe that science, not the Holy Bible, should be consulted to answer such questions as, “what is the age of the earth”. I note that the Holy Bible has answers to far more pressing and important questions for me, such as, “what should I do with my life?” and “how can I be a better father to my sons and husband to my wife?”

This morning I read an article in this week’s issue of The Economist titled A man-made world. Putting aside the intentionally eye-grabbing title, the article reports on a movement to classify our current geologic age as new and separate from the holocene, the one in which most scientists currently accept we are currently living. Following this, I sat down to read today’s lectionary reading (another Catholic tradition I value) and the first reading is from Acts 17:22 — 18:1. In it, Paul is in on his missionary trip in Athens, Greece, addressing the pagans there.

Then Paul stood up at the Areopagus and said:
“You Athenians, I see that in every respect
you are very religious.
For as I walked around looking carefully at your shrines,
I even discovered an altar inscribed, ”To an Unknown God.”
What therefore you unknowingly worship, I proclaim to you.
The God who made the world and all that is in it,
the Lord of heaven and earth,
does not dwell in sanctuaries made by human hands,
nor is he served by human hands because he needs anything.
Rather it is he who gives to everyone life and breath and everything.
He made from one the whole human race
to dwell on the entire surface of the earth,
and he fixed the ordered seasons and the boundaries of their regions,
so that people might seek God,
even perhaps grope for him and find him,
though indeed he is not far from any one of us.
For ”In him we live and move and have our being,”
as even some of your poets have said,
”For we too are his offspring.”
Since therefore we are the offspring of God,
we ought not to think that the divinity is like an image
fashioned from gold, silver, or stone by human art and imagination.
God has overlooked the times of ignorance,
but now he demands that all people everywhere repent
because he has established a day on which he will ”judge the world
with justice” through a man he has appointed,
and he has provided confirmation for all
by raising him from the dead.”

To tie this back to my family, our church home is Calvary Chapel Orlando. I love this church, and love the messages of its Pastor, Gib Allen. Since coming to this church, however, I have felt pressure in my family to abandon my catholic views on Evolution vs. Creationism in favor of a strictly scriptural belief. My eight year old son is just now asking questions about “transitional creatures” and such and this has brought my family to a crisis point. What can I do about this? This is the sort of question for which the Holy Bible is made. Consider Paul’s words, “He made from one the whole human race to dwell on the entire surface of the earth”. Is this not a statement of endorsement for the theory of evolution? Granted, one needs to have a wealth of references in order to adequately draw an endorsement from the Holy Bible, but, hey, at least I found one, and God gave it to me today after reading that Economist article.

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My flight back from CON-FESS 2011 Vienna

2011-04-25T10:23:00.000-07:00

Thanks very much to the people at Irianfor organizing the excellent CON_FESS 2011 conference. It was great fun and a great way to kick off JSF 2.2. On the flight back, I took Austrian Airlines/Air Canada instead of my beloved Lufthansa flight 465 from Frankfurt to Orlando. This involved a flight direct from Wien Schwechat to Toronto. The equipment was a Boeing 767-300. I'd never taken this equipment across the ocean before, and I was surprised to find it being used for such a route. The flight attendent stated that Austrian Air had to sell some of its newer planes due to financial austerity measures. The nicest thing about my Austrian Airlines experience was the freshly baked bread on board. I've never seen that before. Very nice.

The worst thing about the experience was the aborted landing attempt coming into YYZ. Very heavy turbulence coming in. I was viewing the downward facing camera on the in-seat entertainment system, while the guy next to me, who looked like Kevin Smith, had on the Flight Map. I saw the altitude descending below 2000 feet, but then noticed the runway coming into my screen at an angle about 20 degrees to vertical. Then the altitude started to climb. Shortly thereafter, the pilot announced they were going to make another attempt on a different runway. This second attempt was much less turbulent and quite smooth.

The Air Canada flight from YYZ to MCO was excellent. The in-seat entertainment system featured a selection of classic films on demand. I watch Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers in "Shall We Dance", a film I hadn't seen since I lived in CA and my wife and I would frequent the Stanford Theatre.

Mac OS X DHCP lease cycle

2010-10-29T05:33:00.000-07:00

Your DHCP lease is controlled in System Preferences->Network.

To release the lease

* Highlight the connection type you want to modify in the left pane. For example, Ethernet or AirPort

* Expand the icon that looks like a cog next to a triangle at the bottom of the left pane. Choose "Make Service Inactive"

* Click Apply

To renew the lease

* Do the same as above but choose "Make Service Active"

* Click Apply

Federal efforts to fight homelessness: yet more erosion of states rights?

2010-07-20T07:27:00.000-07:00

A little article in the 26th issue of the Economist weekly newspaper for 2010 covered the first-ever comprehensive U.S. federal plan to prevent and end homelessness. The article mentioned that the number of homeless families has increased by 30% over the past two years, and that there are more homeless Vietnam veterans then there were U.S. soldiers who died in the war itself. These are eye-grabbing stats. Half way into the brief article, it was mentioned, in an off-hand fashion, that dealing with homelessness is normally a matter for states. I’m a strong believer that the strength of America comes from strong states rights. Indeed the Economist itself has cited the effectiveness of having 50 public policy labs trying to get the best solutions to our problems. If that’s true, then why do the feds need to step in? In the case of homelessness, I believe that a federally coordinated approach has a higher chance of success than simply saying, “dealing with homelessness is a states issue.”

The Economist article seems to have been culled from the report itself, which can be downloaded from <http://www.usich.gov/PDF/OpeningDoors_2010_FSPPreventEndHomeless.pdf>. I took a quick peek to assess the level of sincerity of the Administration with respect to not overstepping states rights and responsibilities. Here is an excerpt from BHO’s foreword to the report that supports my belief that his efforts here are on the right track.

...preventing and ending homelessness is not just a Federal issue or responsibility. It also will require the skill and talents of people outside of Washington - where the best ideas are most often found. Tremendous work is going on at the State and local level - where States, local governments, nonprofits, faith-based and community organizations, and the private and philanthropic sectors are responsible for some of the best thinking, innovation, and evidencebased approaches to ending homelessness. These State and local stakeholders must be active partners with the Federal Government, and their work will inform and guide our efforts at the national level.

Another sidebar comes from the much maligned Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.

Homelessness cannot be solved by a single agency or organization, by a single level of government, or by a single sector. Everyone should be reminded of the intricacies of homelessness as a policy area, and remember that preventing and ending homelessness will take real coordination, collaboration, and a constant exchange of ideas.

Again, I think this approach is reasonable and worthy of support. Finally, if you are the sort that feels homeless people deserve being homeless because they are lazy, consider this statement from the Executive Summary of the report.

Indeed, for many persons living in poverty, the lack of stable housing leads to costly cycling through crisis-driven systems like foster care, emergency rooms, psychiatric hospitals, emergency domestic violence shelters, detox centers, and jails.

No-one can dispute that crisis-driven remedies, while consistent with the Christian principle of helping those less fortunate, are more expensive than preventative measures with the same aim in the long term. Therefore, whatever your political allegiance, Christian infused self-interested reason dictates that the it's cheaper for all of us to support results-based efforts to reduce homelessness.

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Letter to the Editor regarding The Economist 6 March 2010

2010-03-12T06:20:00.000-08:00

Sir - The presence of a Consumer Reports type article in your 6 March 2010 issue (Snapping a good camera) induced in me a feeling of horror and dismay. I know you are under pressure to keep and grow subscribers, but cheapening your publication with crass (though useful) consumer gadget review information is not the way to do it. Please stick to your core competencies.

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Health Care Debate: Is there an app for that?

2010-02-25T17:12:00.000-08:00

I maintain a deep suspicion of corporate media, especially that owned by Australian Rupert Murdoch, but Gerald F. Seib's 201002251833 EST article in the Wall Street Journal online was useful to me. It suggested that today's Health Care Summit clarified three fundamental differences between Congressional Democrats and Republicans regarding the way forward for health care reform.

Is the goal comprehensive or incremental change?
Is access or cost the top priority?
Should government or markets set the standards?

I haven't watched the debate, but regardless of whether or not these are the fundamental differences, I feel compelled to use them to articulate where I stand. It would be nice if there were an app so I could see where others stand--using Seib's list.

Ed's position on Seib's list: Comprehensive, cost, markets. Now, where's the app?

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In praise of HIPAA

2010-01-31T20:36:00.000-08:00

We live in the days of the preplexingly ascendent “tea party” “movement”. I feel this thing is neither a “movement”, as in “civil-rights movement”, nor is it in the same spirit of Samuel Adams’s Boston Tea Party. In any case, thanks to this thing, it has become very fashionable to bash all legislation (especially health care legislation) as “intrusive”, “unconstitutional”, “un-American”, and many other undesirable labels. I recall such bashing when the Kennedy-Kassebaum act of 1996 (aka Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act aka HIPAA) came around. This act was the compromise legislation that was passed when Hillary Clinton’s much more humane (but likely impractical) program was thwarted. This blog entry is my statement of thanks for one small but personally very significant part of HIPAA.

I have chronic asthma and must take expensive tier-III medication every day to remain symptom free. During those rare times when my symptoms get severly out of control, I am unable to fulfill my duties as a productive member of society (aka “working for the man”). Therefore, it is in the best interest of society as a whole to minimize those symptomatic outbreaks.

Consider the following points.

The act of taking out an insurance policy is essentially a wager.

A health insurance policy is usually a pretty unfavorable wager for the insurer, considering the state of general healthfulness in the America.

The business of America is, always has been, and always
will be, business .

In light of these points it is not surprising that the insurer has a right to adjust the odds. In fairness, it is hard to deny them that right, especially when you consider that corporations are in fact legal persons, with all the rights (but few of the responsibilities) of human people. One way insurers adjust the odds is to make coverage more expensive for smokers, drinkers, overweight, etc. Again, that’s fair to me. You can choose not to smoke or drink, and choose to eat less. One odds-adjusting technique with which I strongly disagree is the “preexisting condition exclusion”. This basically means that if you’re already seriously sick, say with cancer, or asthma, the insurer has a right to deny you coverage because, in fact, the odds are that they’ll have to pay out on your policy. It’s hard to make a profitable business out of those kinds of wagers! Here's where the Kennedy-Kassebaum Act of 1996 comes in.

This law was sponsored by Democrat Edward Kennedy and Republican Nancy Kassebaum and includes a clause that says that if you’ve had continuous coverage for 12 months and then switch insurers, the new insurer cannot deny you coverage based on having a pre-existing condition.

In Sec. 54.9801-3 (a)(2)(iii) of the 2004 final HIPAA portability regulations, published in the Federal Register on December 30, 2004 (69 FR 78720), you’ll find the following text.


    (B) The rules of this paragraph (a)(2)(iii) are illustrated by the 
following example:
    Example.  (i) Facts. Individual D works for Employer X and has 
been covered continuously under X's group health plan. D's spouse 
works for Employer Y. Y maintains a group health plan that imposes a 
12-month preexisting condition exclusion (reduced by creditable 
coverage) on all new enrollees. D enrolls in Y's plan, but also 
stays covered under X's plan. D presents Y's plan with evidence of 
creditable coverage under X's plan.
    (ii) Conclusion. In this Example, Y's plan must reduce the 
preexisting condition exclusion period that applies to D by the 
number of days of coverage that D had under X's plan as of D's 
enrollment date in Y's plan (even though D's coverage under X's plan 
was continuing as of that date).

In my case, instead of switching from my plan to my spouse’s plan, I’m switching from Sun Microsystems’s plan to Oracle’s plan (both of which offer my current insurer, United Healthcare). So, thanks to the Kennedy (liberal elite mastermind)-Kassebaum (RINO) Act, I don’t have to lose a day of faithful service to the man. How can the members of the so-called “tea party” “movement” disagree with the economic soundness (aka patriotism) of that?

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Letter to the Editor regarding The Economist 28 February 2009

2009-03-11T11:20:00.000-07:00

Sir - Your article “Round and round it goes” surfaced a troubling bias at your newspaper. The article asserts that, “[in Mumbai] recycling is a profitable persuit for all involved, whereas in San Francisco it costs most residents money.” You justify this assertion by stating that, “Indian rag-pickers require no wages, equipment, or electricity,” and contrast this with the living wage paid to workers in the San Francisco Materials Recovery Facility. It seems you are holding up the Mumbai recycling model as an economic ideal, conveniently omitting the fact that it is based on extreme poverty and the patently non-Western practise of wage slavery. This bias makes me wonder what the early editions of your newspaper had to say about the economic effects of Britain’s Slave Trade Act 1843. I sincerely hope your newspaper did not argue in favor of slavery due to its economic benefits for all involved.

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Obama should get his own blog

2008-11-06T18:10:00.000-08:00

My big boss at Sun Microsystems, Jonathan Schwartz, was the first Fortune 500 CEO to wholly embrace blogging, both for his own blog, and for all Sun employees. Jonathan's blog is key to Sun's public interface. Given the presumably huge gulf between what it's like to be on the inside at the White House and the public's view of actions and their motivations, it makes lots of sense for Barack Hussein Obama to start a blog of his own once he takes office. This is especially true in light of his promise of running a transparent administration. I'll explore one use case.

I just read this interesting article in the New York Times: Campaign Pledge on Ethics Could Become Obstacle to Filling White House Jobs. The point of the article is that Obama's going to have a hard time sticking to the letter of the law of his campaign ethics pledge if he wants to have the largest possible talent pool for his administration. The article seems to infer that the lobbying culture of Washington is so entrenched that all of the competent and desirable folks would be ineligible. If Obama had a blog, he could make his own, individual case for any individuals whose inclusion might, at first glance, seem to stretch the ethics pledge, but with closer inspection and nuance would be acceptable.

There are many other blogging benefits, but is it even possible that he'd be allowed to do it even if he wanted to?

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Right Wing Assault Continues

2005-06-15T05:24:00.000-07:00

I'm sick of it, all right? Ever since Bush took office, there have been a constant stream of action alerts for me to call Congress to prevent them for doing something that is bad for the Republic. I could give a litany of such things, but here are a few, just off the top of my head.

drilling in Alaska

abandon Kyoto

Ridiculous tax cut for the rich (myself included)

the war in Iraq

renouncing obligations to International Criminal Court

repealing the ergonomics law

destroying constitutonally protected checks and
balances to expand the power of the legislative branch.

Now this latest one, a move to put the last nail in the coffin of that organ of relatively public interest information long despised by the radical right, Public Broadcasting, really has me down. Here is yet another thing that anyone who wants to preserve the quality of the Republic, such as it is, needs to act upon, and call Congress. Why the assult? What's the goal of all these changes? What is the ideal world to which Rove and company are driving? Could someone please tell me?

Getting personal

2005-03-14T07:30:00.000-08:00

While I had one of the first 400 home pages on the WWW ever (see this link for an email dated Wed, 7 Sep 1994 that references my (now-long removed) page), I've only recently gotten into blogging proper. To date, I've used my java.net blog for content related to the Java Web Tier, and my sun.com blog, for miscellaneous technical content. And that was fine enough.

Even though Jonathan Schwartz championed the creation of Sun employee blogs, and stated that they could be used for any content at all, within reasonable guidelines, I wouldn't feel comfortable posting political, religious, or otherwise potentially controversial views there. So, I'm creating a blogger.com blog here to contain posts that don't fit anywhere else.