The meaning of even a perfect message must be re-interpreted periodically, in recognition that true understanding deepens as man’s body of knowledge grows, and humankind increasingly matures socially over time, albeit in minute, almost immeasurable increments.

A perfect and eternal message can never be fully understood by imperfect and finite beings such as ourselves. Each of us must approach our understandings of holy messages with humility, and be ready to revise our understandings of same as we slowly and painfully grow in knowledge and wisdom over time. Our learning in this is unending.

The Almighty has designated no human man, women or child as the absolutely inerrant and definitive interpreter of His message: hence the history in the Abrahamic tree of monotheism of both salvation history (with the Children of Israel) and recurrent revelations–in Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

Church hierarchy and authority are creations of Man, not God–in the Jewish Rabbinate, the Catholic Papacy and the Islamic Caliphate. Indulging in the conceit that Man is qualified to act as Regent of God is as great a sin of pride as that committed by the angel of morning light, for challenging the wisdom of Divine Rule and Authority: by equating himself as His equal to this task, and by failing to bow before the first man when So Commanded. By such actions as these, we inadvertently push ourselves away from the Divine: by equating ourselves as up to the task of inerrantly administering that Will by proxy, or attempting to interpret that Will for others. Each of us has a different path laid out before us–and not one of us has been equipped to identify that path for any other.

1. The Changed Economy. What worked for our parents and grandparents, no longer works for us.
2. A More Educated Workforce. Most decent jobs now require more than a high school diploma.
3. Reform in Government. Greater efficiency with less debt.
4. Tax and Legislative Reform. Close loopholes for the richest (not a new proposal, but still worthwhile) and eliminate earmarks.
5. Cultural Change. Return America to the moral high ground. Improve the new Health Care law instead of eliminating it.
6. Focus on the Future. We must be unified in common goals, regardless of party or creed, in order to effect necessary changes for us to remain competitive.

THE CHANGED ECONOMY
The strength of the stock market, quarterly corporate profits and economic growth by themselves are no longer adequate assessments of overall economic strength.

Manufacturing jobs are no longer as plentiful as they once were. In addition, fewer employers can guarantee lifetime employment as was the expected norm in generations past.

We must recognize our role in the global economy, and shift the focus of the majority of our workforce from assembly line and physical labor to knowledge skills, in order to ensure we remain engaged in that economy.

To attract new business in the global market, we must upgrade our infrastructure by providing reliable and affordable metropolitan and interstate rail transportation and ensure that high-bandwidth; low-cost, ubiquitous Internet access is available throughout the Nation.

Innovation is necessary for the survival of the American Dream. The old status quo is obsolete.

Continued subsidies for fossil fuels have no future. We must reinvest those monies in tomorrow’s energy sources and technologies. In order to invest in the future, we must focus not on old industries, but newer disciplines like biomedicine, information technology and clean energy.

A MORE EDUCATED WORKFORCE
We have great institutions of higher education in this country. Unfortunately, inadequate numbers of our own citizens attend them. Creative thinking, not rote memorization, is where America’s strength lies.

To prevent more jobs from going offshore, we must raise the general education level of our Nation’s workforce.

Teachers must be knowledgeable, as well as motivated to and effective in imparting that knowledge to their students. And they must be commensurately compensated for those efforts. Ineffective teachers must be able to be removed from the classroom in an equitable and expeditious manner.

The government should not be supporting mismanaged financial institutions by infusions of taxpayer dollars, but instead, must invest in developing the intellectual capital of this nation.

REFORM IN GOVERNMENT
We need to recognize that the time has come for reform in American government, budget, and business models. We must lean forward in order to keep up with the pace of change.

The federal government, as it operates today, is based an obsolete industrial paradigm which is bloated, inefficient, and anachronistic. It drags down our competitiveness in global markets and must be restructured in order to increase our competitiveness through greater economy, expertise and efficiency.

We need to eliminate a decade of deficit, not by slashing madly at spending, and programs that help us strategically build our future, but by eliminating inefficiencies, duplication and waste everywhere it appears in government. We also need legislation passed for tort reform in malpractice lawsuits and other legal actions which do not serve the true objective of justice.

Government regulations which create unnecessary barriers to business growth must be revised or eliminated to remove these obstacles.

TAX AND LEGISLATIVE REFORM
The income tax structure in this nation penalizes too many hard-working honest mid-sized businesses, who cannot afford high-powered accountants and lawyers to find them loopholes to avoid paying taxes.

Tax breaks for the richest place an inequitable burden on the middle class, and must be eliminated.

Transparency in knowing how tax revenues are spent, and how lobbying influence is levied, are necessary in order to ensure an informed citizenry. Pork-barrel legislation must become a thing of the past.

CULTURAL CHANGE AND SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY
We must abandon the gross public hypocrisies of the past, and be able to set a proper moral example for those in the world who would try to replace our freedoms with an oppressive fascistic theocracy molded in their own flawed image.

Obamacare is recognized as an imperfect solution—but it is far better to improve its weak areas, rather than repealing the law wholesale. Provisions currently in effect preclude insurance companies from denying coverage to those who need it most. Repealing it would remove this provision, along with other long-overdue consumer/beneficiary protections.

FOCUS ON THE FUTURE
We need to move past the partisan bickering of the past, and move forward together focusing instead on what is best for us as a Nation.

Change will be hard—and it will not be easy to build consensus—but it is our ability to ultimately do so in the face of different views and beliefs that has always made the United States of America the best nation on Earth in which to live.

Original text of speech can be reviewed at: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/26/us/politics/26obama-text.html?scp=4&sq=obama%20speech&st=cse

The Mixed-Methods approach combines qualitative and quantitative research (Creswell, 2009, p. 4).

Quantitative strategies include survey research: in which trends, attitudes or opinions are determined by studying a portion of that population or experimental research, in which a specific factor is tested to determine its influence on an outcome (Creswell, 2009, p. 12).

Qualitative strategies include:

Ethnography, in which a cultural group is studied in their natural setting over a prolonged period of time (Creswell, 2009, p. 13);

Grounded Theory, in which theories are derived from studying the views of the participants (Creswell, 2009, p. 70);

Case Studies, in which detailed observation over a sustained period of time allows exploration of a specific program, activity, event or process (Stake, 1995, cited in Creswell, 2009, p. 13);

Phenomenological and Narrative research are those strategies in which theories are developed based on descriptions provided. The significant difference between the two, is that in the former, the descriptions are provided exclusively by the participants, whereas in the latter, the researcher combines his or her views with those of the participants (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000, as cited is Creswell, 2009, p. 13).

Mixed-Methods strategies include two which are temporally-focused, and one in which a perspective guides the study (Creswell, 2009, p. 66).

In using sequential strategies, a researcher uses one method to expand or elaborate on the findings of another, one after the other (Creswell, 2009, p. 14). In concurrent strategies, both qualitative and quantitative data are collected at the same time, and are then integrated at the end of the study to determine the result (Creswell, 2009, pp. 14-15). It is the transformative strategy in which an overarching perspective provides the framework for the study. In a transformative strategy, both sequential and concurrent strategies may be subsumed or interpolated (Creswell, 2009, p. 15, 66).

Research approaches are selected based on the researcher’s philosophical assumptions, worldview or paradigm (model) (Creswell, 2009, p. 5).

Post-positivism does not accept the positivist precept regarding the absolute value and truth of knowledge. It uses the scientific method of inquiry, “…in which causes probably [emphasis added] determine effects or outcomes” (Creswell, 2009, pp. 6-7). It is best suited for quantitative research designs.

Social constructivism is a qualitative research approach in which “…subjective meanings… are…formed through interactions with norms that operate in people’s lives” (Creswell, 2009, p. 8).

Advocacy/Participative is an issue-based approach which contains an activist agenda. It arose in the last two decades of the twentieth century in reaction to a perceived need that social change and steps toward improving social justice were underserved or ineffectively addressed by precursor approaches, particularly the post-positivist (Kemmis and Wilkinson, 1998, cited in Creswell, 2009, p. 10). This approach would work well with qualitative or mixed-methods research designs.

Pragmatism is solutions-focused. It is not committed to any particular paradigm or theoretical lens, and is thus readily adaptable to different problem-sets. It is well suited for mixed-methods research designs (Creswell, 2009, p. 11).

Although there are some fundamental differences between qualitative and quantitative research, it is based at the level of assumptions about the nature of research itself, “…rather than at the level of the data…Many qualitative researchers operate under different epistemological assumptions [emphasis added] [about what is ultimately knowable] from quantitative researchers…” whereas “…[m]any qualitative researchers…operate under different ontological assumptions [emphasis added] [about the true nature of reality] (Trochim, 2006). Epistemology is where post-positivism diverged from positivism. Ontology tries to determine whether or not all reality is subjective (shaped by personal perception), or if there is truly a dichotomy between objective (pre-existing and unaffected by individual perception) and subjective reality.

The “…’mixed methods’ approach” can be applied in most research, as “…[a]ll qualitative data can be coded quantitatively…[a]nything that is qualitative can be assigned meaningful numerical values…” and that “…quantitative data is based on qualitative judgement. Numbers in and of themselves can’t be interpreted without understanding the assumptions which underlie them” (Trochim, 2006).

Where “[q]ualitative research explores attitudes, behavior and experiences through such methods as interviews or focus groups…” attempting to get in-depth opinions from participants, “[q]uantitative research…reaches many more people, but the contact with those people is much quicker than it is in qualitative research” (Sanchez, 2006).

“Qualitative research is ideal for earlier phases of research projects while the for the latter part of the research projects, quantitative research is highly recommended” (Comparing Quantitative and Qualitative Research, 2009). Qualitative research can be used initially to identify patterns, and then later (sequentially) quantitative research can be used to attempt to measure and refine those patterns previously identified.

REFERENCES
Comparing Quantitative and Qualitative Research (2009). Experiment-Resources.com. Retrieved 6 January 2011 from http://www.experiment-resources.com/quantitative-and-qualitative-research.html

Creswell, J. (2009). Research Design: Qualitative, Quantitative and Mixed Method Approaches. SAGE Publications, Inc. Thousand Oaks: CA.

Sanchez, A. (2006, August). The Difference Between Qualitative and Quantitative Research. Retrieved 6 January 2011 from http://e-articles.info/e/a/title/THE-DIFFERENCE-BETWEEN-QUALITATIVE-AND-QUANTITATIVE-RESEARCH/

Trochim, W. (2006, October 20). The Qualitative Debate. Retrieved 6 January 2011 from http://www.socialresearchmethods.net/kb/qualdeb.php

Originally submitted at bswusa.com

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(legalese)

You can’t reasonably and realistically study the evolution of any religion without putting each within its proper sociological and cultural context. If we were to accept Islam’s premise that the Q’uran is the eternal, literal and complete word of Allah (God), even if it existed outside of time, its revelation occurred covering specific points in time.

The problem with the Hadiths (practices of the Prophet Muhammad) is that they occurred in the context of the 7th century, and as such, Shariah (Q’uranic Law) is frozen in anachronistic 7th-century thought, which clearly does not translate well to a 21st-century context. Also, the belief that Muhammad was a perfect man who could do no wrong suffers from circular reasoning. He is perfect because he is the Prophet of Islam, he was chosen as the Prophet of Islam by Allah because he was perfect. Was Abraham perfect? No–but he was man of God. Jesus, through immaculate conception, was able to be sacrificed as penance for all of man’s sins: past, present, and future. Muhammad, on the other hand, was a serf to God, and a vicious warlord. That vicious intolerance is perpetuated today by Muslim fundamentalists. Islam’s “Peace” only exists when Islam rules the entire world.

Judaism teaches adherence to the law of God. It seeks no converts, and actually discourages them.

Christianity teaches salvation through Christ, and peace through humility. Christianity welcomes those who chose to accept Christ as their personal messiah.

Islam teaches that God is vengeful and unforgiving, and all must be converted to Islam, even by force, if necessary.

All religions have nugget of truth in them. But of the three Abrahamic religions, only Islam seeks to subjugate and eliminate the other two, as being based on false and corrupted revelations.

The insurers themselves are the ones most perfidiously responsible in this matter, as there is no accountability, and no consistent standards of enforcement regarding their performance in delivery of services. 

There are no incentives to get the claims right the first time, and the focus is on finding reasons to deny claims, when the focus should be on how do we facilitate getting claims processed and paid quickly?

Inefficient healthcare administration, and healthcare insurers and pharmaceutical companies need to be held to a higher ethical standard that brings them in line with the physician’s Hippocratic oath (with enforceable and significant legal consequences for failure to comply), i.e., to “heal the sick” and to “do no harm”. 

Insurance is supposed to be about distributed risk management, but medical insurers refuse to take any risks.  They would rather have nothing but strong, young healthy people to cover.  Then they could keep premiums low, because they’d be paying out very little in benefits.  With this model, who even needs health insurance, if their implicit purpose is to conspire on how not to pay or deny coverage in order to maximize their revenues?

The Department of Defense already uses two elements of three-factor authentication: (1) the Common-Access-Card (CAC) [something you have] along with (2) its associated PIN [something you know]. All that would need to be added is fingerprint readers [something you are] at each terminal, with software at the servers to validate them, and you would have much more robust authentication security than is currently practiced: as the probability of an adversary or hacker gaining possession of one user’s CAC, PIN, and fingerprint are considerably lower than spoofing a user and cracking their existing password.

In his book “The God Delusion”, Richard Dawkins utilizes a lot of solipsistic rhetoric and speculation on which he bases his premise: that God is scientifically illogical and thereby cannot reasonably exist. Yet, he does not argue cogently from point to point, but keeps returning the arguments of Darwinian evolution and statistical probability.

Let us remember though, that empirical reasoning is a useful human construct that allows us to impose some degree of order on the cosmos in order to shape our understanding of it. However, empiricism itself recognizes that its suppositions are useful until new evidence presents itself.

Much of Dawkins’ arguments are based on supposition, speculation and self-serving theories that don’t really don’t have much of a basis in fact. He tries to draw tenuous analogies to weak hypothesis that simply aren’t very convincing overall, and don’t tie together well enough as a treatise to support such a bold title.

Some of his points are amusing, and some standing by themselves are valid, but comparing Cargo Cults to Christianity and Scientology is really a stretch.

Mr. Dawkins bases his arguments on the implicit premise that human reason is practically flawless, and that we know everything useful and important that could possibly be known. Otherwise, how can we know that his arguments are in fact correct? Simply because you can’t bottle the essence of God and analyze what he is comprised of and determine how he functions in a laboratory, is it illogical and foolish to expect Him to exist?

Comparing what you know to what you don’t is admittedly useful, but the analogy breaks down when you try to apply the scientific method to determine or refute the existence of God. We’re trying to apply our limited human understanding to fathom the infinite. It’s a noble and worthy effort, but ultimately, in spite of his eloquence, the arguments Dawkins has presented against the existence of God simply aren’t terribly compelling.

Unlike Martin Luther, I don’t see faith as reason as adversaries, but rather as complementaries – as each has the potential to mitigate the hubris of the other. I do not deny the existence of God – but I don’t accept many of the things that are attributed as having come from Him.

I don’t deny the existence of Mr. Dawkins, either – even though I don’t believe in Atheists. If his perceptual framework as a biologist leaves him no room for belief in a deity, I haven’t any issue with that.

But using the framework of his scientific disciplines to try and convince me that my Theism is equivalent to the superstition of an unenlightened aborigine? He’s welcome to try, but I remain unconvinced that he’s right.

He believes that there is no God. I believe that there is. So what? Neither of us is right, neither of us is wrong. It’s not a competition.

He argues that faith is irrational, as is romantic love. Ah yes, and so are art and music.

Yet, it is a little bit of these types of irrationality, well-directed and channeled through friendship, romance and artistic pursuits that enrich our lives and continue to bring more beauty into our world.

I would think that a hyper rational, non-intuitive world in which all the mysteries had been solved or rebuked wouldn’t be worth living in. Could we use more rationality? Absolutely. But do we need to eliminate or discard everything that scientific method can’t create or empirical reason can’t resolve? If we did, we’d lose our compassion, as well.

That’s what I perceive as Richard Dawkin’s line of reasoning carried out to its ultimate, absolute conclusion. If we’re not arguing about whose faith is right, then we’re trying to argue that faith itself is wrong.

A much better book in this vein is Sam Harris’ “The End of Faith”. It presents arguments against blind faith which are much more thoughtful and well-reasoned than Dawkins’ polemic.

No security procedures and systems are absolutely impervious to intrusion or defeat. We must all exercise due care and diligence in best mitigating the risk to potential loss or compromise of the national security information that we are each charged to protect. The more sensitive the information, the greater and more stringent must be the mechanisms in place to protect that information from unauthorized disclosure.

It is important we recognize and acknowledge that the most effective security programs are multi-faceted and multi-layered—where we achieve the correct balance of protections and controls that gives such programs momentum and sustainability, until they become an integral part of—and thus inextricable from—the standard practices of the organization. The most successful security programs are not those added as an afterthought—they are at the foundation of all planning and thinking of an organization which understands their role. They are transparent in their protection of sensitive assets and information, without providing obstruction or hindrance to effective mission accomplishment.

The focus of such programs is primarily on three elements: procedural and technical controls, and effective awareness, on the part of all of those who come in contact with classified and sensitive information. The procedural controls are those dictated by higher-echelon directives and local policies. The technical controls are the equipment and software that assist in recognition and protection of sensitive and classified information, i.e., safes, access devices, secure telephones, cryptographic equipments, et al. “Awareness” in this context constitutes the familiarization and reinforcement of applicable rules and procedures by those persons authorized and granted access to classified information in the performance of their official duties. This last point is the single most important and most often neglected factor.

Without an understanding of the rationales and underlying principles for security procedures in place, individuals will not be adequately armed to make necessary judgments to ensure proper protection of classified information when rare and unusual circumstances arise. Focus should not be about going through the motions to get “a check in the block”, or collecting signatures on a page to document training.

“Sloganeering” alone doesn’t make people security smart, if they don’t understand what security principle the slogan embodies, and why it it important for them to know it.