Mar 04 2009
How Big Government Infrastructure Projects Go Wrong
[I]t’s important to remember that big government programs often have results that are very different than what was intended.
Say it isn’t so. But read the link first.
The “stimulus” looks more and more ominous.
Mar 03 2009
At the link, a very interesting description of a debate between a theist philosopher and an atheist philosopher, which sounds very interesting in its own terms, and this revealing confession.
I was at the talk. It was packed with professional philosophers and graduate students in philosophy, most of whom sided with Dennett. I wrote live comments on the debate/session. I prefer to remain anonymous for various reasons, in particular because I am inclined towards Plantinga’s position over Dennett’s and were this to become well-known it could damage or destroy my career in analytic philosophy. This is something I prefer not to put my family through. I almost didn’t publish these comments at all, but as far as I could tell, this would be the only public record of the discussion.
Friends, if you can identify me, I request that you keep my identity secret. I am sharing my thoughts as a service to the philosophical community and all those who have an interest in such debates. But I prefer not to suffer at the hands of my ardently secular colleagues. This is not to say that all secular analytic philosophers are this way; they most certainly are not. But enough of them are that I cannot risk being known publicly.
But wait! I thought the Left was all about tolerance. And DIVERSITY!
SURE it is.
Here’s the link to the exchange between Plantinga and Dennett.
Disclaimer: while I’m obviously a theist, I don’t find so called “theistic evolution” to be a particularly convincing perspective, nor the attempts to rename it but not change the underlying concept.
But the “live blog” of the Plantinga/Dennett debate is very interesting.
Mar 02 2009
Go here.
When you enter the site, and click the “Planned Parenthood” link on the left side, you’ll see the following paragraph, and some very powerful videos.
Planned Parenthood is the largest abortion provider in America. 78% of their clinics are in minority communities. Blacks make up 12% of the population, but 35% of the abortions in America. Are we being targeted? Isn’t that genocide? We are the only minority in America that is on the decline in population. If the current trend continues, by 2038 the black vote will be insignificant. Did you know that the founder of Planned Parenthood, Margaret Sanger, was a devout racist who created the Negro Project designed to sterilize unknowing black women and others she deemed as undesirables of society? The founder of Planned Parenthood said, “Colored people are like human weeds and are to be exterminated.” Is her vision being fulfilled today?
What else needs to be said? I wonder: just what were Margaret Sanger’s views on “diversity”, and what do most “diversity” activists today think about abortion on demand?
The cognitive dissonance is stunning. Now go read the site, and ponder your own perspective on the matter.
Mar 02 2009
So says Iowahawk. Read it all:
iowahawk: Memo to America’s Irresponsible Tea Party Whiners: STFU
For example, now that my mortgage worries are over, I was able to afford the down payment on a sweet new jet ski, directly creating jobs at Coralville Kawasaki. I also purchased a few items from my friend and local small business entrepreneur Randy Hansgard. Randy used that money to make high tech capital improvements in his business, like new grow-lights and an Ohaus 3-beam electronic scale. After I wrecked the jet ski, this created jobs at the Coralville Kawasaki service department. I also splurged by sending Linda a thoughtful Jenny Craig gift certificate with my partial January mortgage payment, because she’s really been packing on the pounds lately.
Mar 01 2009
I am not certain of the value of all the short term missions trips that high school and college students make to Mexico over Spring Break. I’m not saying there is NO value. But I always wonder if that value is more in terms of general inter-cultural contact than actual benefit to the indigenous population of Mexico. And I always find myself wondering if more good would be done by giving the enormous amount of money, spent in sending all those students to Mexico, directly to the missions groups who live there year-round, as opposed to parachuting in and leaving a few days later.
I am not suggesting “neglecting” Mexico, but I am suggesting that sending a hoard of students who consume voluminous resources is perhaps not the best stewardship of those resources, which could be directly given to the professional missionaries who LIVE there, and who could really use the help.
It is, of course, much less glamorous to students to raise some money and just send it somewhere than to raise some money and GO somewhere. I get that. It’s not as much fun. The emotional high of “being a missionary” is missing. They don’t have a story to tell after coming home. But the Great Commission does not say, “Go on cool missions trips.” It presupposes some amount of wisdom and discernment in what we do and how we do it.
Things have really, really deteriorated in Mexico, and it now appears very possible that some “short term missions trip” is going to end tragically, and that tragedy will cause a re-thinking of the purposes of the entire program. Many who have made these trips for years will disagree, pointing out that it hasn’t happened yet. The “frog in boiling water” analogy comes to mind, of course.
Below is an excerpt from one of thousands of articles on this topic of Mexico’s collapse as a polity. People who know what’s going on in Mexico are worried, and delivering warnings. We should listen, and carefully consider the programs now in place. It is popular for Christians to discuss “counting the cost” in these circumstances, but when that phrase is used, the assumption is always that, whatever the cost, it must be paid. I am not so sure.
This entire article is worth reading, and discusses, among other things, the warning by the US State Department to students planning to go to Mexico on Spring Break.
ThreatsWatch.Org: RapidRecon: We’ve Been In Denial
The drug violence in Mexico killed more than 5,800 people last year; since January 1, 2009, the murder rate has already hit 1,000! The revelation of warning students on Spring Break to avoid “crossing the river,” is ludicrous. All of a sudden this is “sage advice”? That anyone would vacation or worse, send a child to a university in Mexico given the lengthy trail of violence in Mexico is beyond my imagination.
To paraphrase: Maybe it’s better to stay away, and live to minister another day.
An excellent place to start is in the USA, which has enormous opportunity for ministry. What could tens of thousands of college and high school students accomplish in local USA communities that could use the help? What relationships could they establish that could continue year-round?
Those whose administrative expertise and public relations savvy have gone into building very large programs of short term missions to Mexico might consider what could happen in the USA, if programs of similar size, enthusiasm and funding were directed at the neediest areas here. And those same people should very prayerfully be considering what the effect will be on the entire enterprise if one carload of students is machine-gunned for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
In discussing this with a friend who is involved in planning these kinds of programs for a large institution, I was told, “Oh, the odds aren’t even one in ten thousand of there being any kind of trouble.” Considering how many people go on these trips, those are very poor odds. And I’m afraid the odds aren’t actually that good.
Pray for our missionaries, and for discernment on the part of program planners.
