who wants a fiscal conservative in the 9th District?

I do-- and hopefully, so will Republican primary voters in May and general election voters in November.

Unfortunately, Mike Pence has decided he doesn't-- or is somehow confident that a victorious (and chastened?) Mike Sodrel will change the error of his fiscal ways from when he served as the 9th District's rep in 2005-2006.

Pence endorsed Sodrel today (hat tip: HoosierAccess) in a bizarro-world decision. Is this what you do when you run for President?

Sodrel's "fiscal conservatism" is similar to Baron Hill's-- far more claimed than what's reflected by their voting records. Sodrel was more fiscally conservate than Hill, but Sodrel was average for a Republican and Hill has been conservative for a Democrat. For a fiscal conservative, neither is (nearly) good enough.

Pence apparently found this sort of thing quite disturbing a few months ago (hat tip: TFeldman). Feldman also notes that Sodrel's rating from Citizens Against Government Waste was equivalent to Barack Obama's in 2006-- when both were rated as "unfriendly" to taxpayers. Wow...

Of course, it's public record that I do not think Mike Sodrel is the best candidate in the 9th District's GOP primary this year. That said, if he somehow wins the primary and then the general election, I'll certainly hope that he acts on the fiscal conservatism he claims to hold dear.

And what does this portend-- if anything-- for Mike Pence's future?

on a high-speed rail to inefficiency and waste

From Wendell Cox in the WSJ...

On Thursday the Obama administration awarded $8 billion in stimulus funds to plan and build high-speed rail projects in California and Florida, and for other routine passenger-rail projects masquerading as high-speed rail. This is a political plum to the states that will receive the money....But this is not money well spent.

Supporters say high-speed rail is a cost-effective, "green" solution to airport and highway congestion. In reality, it is costly to build and operate and has a negligible impact on highway and airport traffic. High-speed rail is driven by little more than a romantic notion to confer a European ambiance on American cities.

Proponents also claim that high-speed rail is profitable, but this too is off the mark. Internationally, only two segments have ever broken even: Tokyo to Osaka and Paris to Lyon.

Ridership in these markets has been bolstered by high gasoline prices and one-way highway tolls of $40 and $100, respectively. These and other foreign routes have attracted much of their ridership from a strong core of rail passengers that does not exist in the U.S....

There is no need to subsidize intercity travel. Flyers pay for virtually all of the costs of running the airline system, including airports and air traffic control. Gasoline taxes and highway tolls built and maintain intercity roadways, and they also support mass transit with $10 billion in subsidies annually. Intercity buses require no taxpayer funds.

Only rail requires heavy subsidies. At the end of the day, the great danger is that true high-speed rail could cost taxpayers even more than the tens of billions in subsidies that have been paid to Amtrak since the 1970s...

don't people understand basic game theory: why unilateral disarmament is a bad idea...

From Jacob Sullum in Reason...

When Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan started shooting up the Soldier Readiness Processing Center at Fort Hood, Pfc. Marquest Smith dove under a desk. A.P. reports that “he lay low for several minutes, waiting for the shooter to run out of ammunition and wishing he, too, had a gun.”

Neither Smith nor the other victims of Hasan’s assault had guns because soldiers on military bases within the United States generally are not allowed to carry them. Last week’s shootings, which killed 13 people and wounded more than 30, demonstrated once again the folly of “gun-free zones,” which attract and assist people bent on mass murder instead of deterring them.

Judging from the comments of those who support this policy of victim disarmament, Smith’s desire for a gun was irrational. According to Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, “This latest tragedy, at a heavily fortified army base, ought to convince more Americans to reject the argument that the solution to gun violence is to arm more people with more guns in more places.”

Note how the reference to “a heavily fortified army base” obscures the crucial point that the people attacked by Hasan were unarmed as a matter of policy. Also note the breathtaking inanity of Helmke’s assurance that “more guns” are not “the solution to gun violence.” In this case, they assuredly were....

Do people like Helmke really believe their own arguments? Again, we're left trying to figure whether we're seeing stupidity or disingenuity.

researchers unaware of chicken/egg aspect of guns/crime debate

From Jacob Sullum in Reason...

In Philadelphia, according to researchers at the University of Pennsylvania, possessing a gun is strongly associated with getting shot. Since “guns did not protect those who possessed them,” epidemiologist Charles C. Branas and four co-authors conclude in the November American Journal of Public Health, “people should rethink their possession of guns.” This is like noting that possessing a parachute is strongly associated with being injured while jumping from a plane, then concluding that skydivers would be better off unencumbered by safety equipment...

The one explanation Branas et al. don’t mention is that people who anticipate violent confrontations—such as drug dealers, frequently robbed bodega owners, and women with angry ex-boyfriends—might be especially likely to possess guns, just as people who jump out of airplanes are especially likely to possess parachutes. The closest the authors come to acknowledging that possibility is their admission, toward the end of the article, that they “did not account for the potential of reverse causation between gun possession and gun assault”—that is, the possibility that a high risk of being shot “causes” gun ownership, as opposed to the other way around.

Republican lobbyists OR just the sort of garbage that's gotten the GOP in ideological trouble

In Indiana, we have two recent examples of lobbyists turned politicians-- Baron Hill and now Dan Coats. Funny that the Dems think it's ok for Hill but hilarious for Coats... In both cases, I'm sure we can do better...

From Peter Suderman in Reason...

As the health care debate dragged on last year, Democrats searched high and low for Republican support....Finally, in October, the majority party found four prominent Republicans to support the cause: former Senate majority leaders Bill Frist and Bob Dole, and former health and human services secretaries Louis Sullivan and Tommy Thompson. This was big news: The New York Times, The Washington Post, and ABC News all published stories on the endorsements, and President Barack Obama praised the four Republicans in his weekly radio address.

But it turns out the turncoats were not necessarily motivated by bipartisan concern for the greater good. As reported by Timothy Carney in The Washington Examiner, all four had direct financial ties to health care interests that stand to gain from ObamaCare....

"zero-sum" in economics but not politics?!

I had never caught the perverse, ironic and infuriating observation at the end of this article and my post on it: those who apply zero-sum thinking to economics don't do the same for government activism.

Morons, political hacks, or both?

From Matt Welch in Reason...

Anyone who has expended energy arguing for free trade, market competition, and the open exchange of ideas has repeatedly encountered the same obstacle: zero-sum assumptions misapplied to dynamic, nonlinear phenomena. Almost anywhere you see statism advancing— in economic policy, national security, even the basic conditions for free speech—you can bet that underneath there’s a faulty zero-sum argument....

You might have thought that the New Democrats routed those zero-sum arguments years ago, perhaps when then–Vice President Al Gore eviscerated Ross Perot while debating the North American Free Trade Agreement on Larry King Live. But Old Democrat economics made a rousing and depressing comeback during the 2006 congressional elections...

It’s an alluringly simple vision, this notion that public policy challenges can be solved merely by lifting some gold off one end of the scale and plopping it down on the other. You see it every day...

There are three fatal flaws in this line of thinking. The first is that it fails to acknowledge, let alone explain, the fact that we keep placing more and more gold on the “government services” end of the scale without seeing anything like a commensurate increase in results....

The second flaw in zero-sum economic logic is that by consciously whittling down issues to a single, hermetically sealed scale, policy makers overlook the complexity of consequences, whether intended or not....

The third and most infuriating aspect of zero-sum economics is that its practitioners suddenly forget to apply the same standard to one of the few entities that can accurately be described with a pie metaphor: government budgets—especially on the state and local level...

Kent Conrad: another one of those Democratic "fiscal conservatives"

Reminiscent of Baron Hill...

From Neil King in the WSJ...

Kent Conrad vaulted from North Dakota tax commissioner to the U.S. Senate in 1986 on the strength of a startling pledge: He would quit and go home if the federal deficit wasn't "brought under control" during his first six-year term.

The deficit that year hit a record $221 billion. Six years later it topped $290 billion. This year, it's expected to hit $1.6 trillion.

Mr. Conrad, now the Democratic chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, did resign in 1992, but he stayed on after the state's other senator died. Since then, he has become one of the Senate's most vociferous deficit hawks, warning that the nation faces insolvency if it doesn't boost revenues and trim obligations.

Like many in Congress, he is conflicted. He boasts a 23-year record of looking after North Dakota voters with ample farm subsidies, aid for drought-hit ranchers, defense spending and scores of pet projects. He has done little to help rein in Medicare and Social Security expenses—the U.S.'s biggest budget busters....

The problem, Mr. Conrad says, is that "everyone in Washington wants to be for every tax cut and every spending increase."

Know thyself, say the senator's colleagues. "Conrad says one thing, and then votes hundreds of times the other way—to spend money," says Republican Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, one of the Senate's strictest spending hawks and among only six senators who sought no funding for home-state projects through the "earmark" process last year.

David Walker, former head of the Government Accountability Office who now runs a private campaign to tame the debt, puts it differently: "Kent fights over what the size of the pie should be while also fighting to get as large a slice of that pie as he can for his state."...

will Obama follow in FDR's footsteps and continue attacking business?

From Amity Shlaes in the WSJ...

You get the feeling President Obama is girding for battle with the financial sector. In last week's State of the Union address, he promised to regulate the industry. On Jan. 21, he was blunter, warning that he would not let companies that enjoyed "soaring profits and obscene bonuses" block his financial reforms. "If these folks want a fight," he said, "it's a fight I'm ready to have."

This declaration of war echoes that of Franklin Delano Roosevelt....

Mr. Obama might want to stick to a moderate approach. FDR's war against business played to the crowd, but it hurt the economy. While monetary policies impeded recovery in the late 1930s, it was the administration's assault on companies and capital that ensured the Depression's duration....

And Roosevelt, like Presidents Obama and Bush, dumped billions in cash onto the country. There was, not surprisingly, a Roosevelt market rally, just as there has been an Obama rally. But complete recovery proved elusive....

The attacks started with taxes....The 1935 Wagner Act was a tiger that makes today's union law look like a pussycat. It favored unions over companies in nearly every way, including institutionalizing the closed shop....The result of it all was the Depression within the Depression of 1937 and 1938, when industrial production plummeted and unemployment climbed back into the higher teens. Even John Maynard Keynes chided FDR for his attitude about businessmen: "It is a mistake to think they are more immoral than politicians"....

The 1930s story suggests not that any individual reform is wrong per se. It reminds us rather that frustrated presidents are inconsistent, that antibusiness policies are cumulative, and that hostility yields more damage than benefit. Presidents can choose between retribution and recovery. They cannot have both.

enviros debate nuclear

Excerpts from book reviews by Ronald Bailey in Reason on efforts by two of the key leaders in the environmental movement-- a proponent and an opponent of nuclear power.

The proponent is Stewart Brand, author of Whole Earth Discipline: An Ecopragmatist Manifesto; the opponent is Al Gore, author of Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis.

Environmentalists fiercely disagree about the role nuclear power might play in addressing global warming. Two new books by big names in the green movement stake out the boundaries of that debate....Both men have impeccable environmentalist credentials....

Once an opponent of nuclear power, Brand is now a big backer. Where others argue that reactor generation of power is an unsafe, expensive process that produces hazardous waste and could contribute to the proliferation of nuclear weapons, Brand writes, “I’ve learned to disbelieve much of what I’ve been told by my fellow environmentalists.” On safety, he notes, “year after year, the industry has had no significant accidents” in the operation of 443 civilian nuclear plants around the world....

For those who profess concern about global warming, Brand cites fellow environmentalist Bill McKibben: “Nuclear power is a potential safety threat, if something goes wrong. Coal-fired power is guaranteed destruction, filling the atmosphere with planet-heating carbon when it operates the way it’s supposed to.”

Brand is also fairly sanguine about handling the radioactive wastes produced by nuclear plants....While the drawbacks to nuclear power are overstated, Brand argues, the benefits are considerable. He lists four main advantages: base load, footprint, portfolio, and government scale....

On the other side of the debate we have Al Gore, who criticizes “the grossly unacceptable economics of the present generation of reactors.”...But somehow Gore’s cost consciousness gets lost when he considers his pet solutions, such as solar power. Elsewhere in the book, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate does a lot of hand waving about future photovoltaic cell breakthroughs and declining cost curves. Even though he decries lavish subsidies to nuclear power, he hails “the recent establishment by the U.S. government of new incentives for solar electricity,” along with state government requirements that utilities obtain a certain percentage of their power from high-cost renewable sources....

The federal government is now offering utilities a host of new subsidies and guarantees to build new nuclear power plants....In light of such policies, the liberal blogger Matthew Yglesias recently, and properly, accused many American conservatives of favoring “nuclear socialism.” Brand clearly falls into that camp as well. Gore, meanwhile, can fairly be accused of solar socialism.

If those were the only options we had, Brand would win the debate. If man-made climate change is a big problem, it doesn’t make sense to rule out in advance energy technologies that could contribute to substantially reducing greenhouse gas emissions. But costs do matter. The best way to figure out which technologies are the most economical is to set a price on greenhouse gas emissions and let various energy sources compete against each other. No subsidies needed.

three public policy ironies: environment, transparency, and buy local

Good stuff from News of the Weird-- as often is the case (hat tip: LEO which published the first two)...

Copenhagen, one of the "greenest" cities in the world, endured an added 41,000 extra tons of carbon-dioxide-equivalent in December during the 11-day "climate summit." The 15,000 delegates required 2,000 limousines (only five of which were electric or hybrid) to get around town, and the world leaders arrived and departed in 140 private jets, some of which had to be "parked" overnight in Sweden because of airport congestion. [Daily Telegraph (London), 12-5-09]

In December, Obama administration officials, seeking to fulfill a campaign pledge of a more open federal government, held a multi-agency training session in Washington, D.C., on the Freedom of Information Act. The meeting was closed to the public. [Star Tribune (Minneapolis)-AP, 12-9-09]

A central purpose of the California Milk Board is to convince consumers to buy local dairy products to keep the spending in-state to help California's farmers, but the board acknowledged in November that its promotion campaign's advertising contract had gone to an agency in New Zealand. Said a board official: "We have a ... responsibility to spend (taxpayers') hard-earned dollars as efficiently as we can." [Los Angeles Times, 11-13-09]

All-Pro Dads on Saturday

At the Chick-fil-A in Clarksville-- from 9-10 AM

Alan Butts, owner of Coffee Crossing in New Albany, will speak on "Understanding your child".

Good stuff; be there!

Rothenberg says Baron does not want to face Hankins

From Lesley Stedman-Weidenbener in the C-J-- in her discussion of Baron Hill filing to run for "his" 9th District seat in May/November...

“We started this (campaign) cycle believing that Baron Hill was not significantly vulnerable and that Mike Sodrel – if he were to run again – would not pose a serious threat,” said Nathan Gonzalez, political editor of the national Rothenberg Political Report. “The national trend working against Democrats has brought this seat into play.”...

Gonzalez said he’s not sure it matters which wins the GOP nomination.

Regardless, Republicans will want the race to become “a referendum on Democrats in Washington and how people feel about the direction of country,” he said.

“In contrast, Democrats and Baron Hill want the election to be a choice between him and either Sodrel or Todd Young. They want to localize the election and that’s a race Baron Hill thinks he can win.”

I'm impressed. I thought that a national organization might underestimate a grass-roots-focused campaign like Hankins'.

Gonzalez still believes that an insider-- like Sodrel, Hill, or Young-- could win. But it's difficult to imagine a better year to be an outside-the-establishment candidate.

Gonzalez is also pointing to a basic principle in politics: politicians are risk-averse. In campaigns, they prefer circumstances where the variables have less variance. Sodrel offers little if any variance. Young, as a traditional, establishment candidate, is also relatively predictable from Baron's perspective.

But Hankins' approach to campaigning-- and the movement and principles he represents-- are less predictable. One can imagine a grass-roots campaign that fizzles and one can imagine a grass-roots campaign that catches fire. But knowing Travis and trying to interpret the times, I'd bet on the latter.

In any case, let's hope Baron has a lot of sleepless nights between now and November!

what does Focus on the Family have in common with a male homosexual dating site?

Both are, apparently, clever marketing geniuses...

Two thoughts on the Tebow pro-life ad (now that we've seen it)-- both based on the question "Is that all?"

From the perspective of the pro-choicers: That's what you got apoplectic about? LOL!

From the perspective of the pro-lifers: There's little in the commercial that connects Tebow to pro-life-- except all of the pre-game/commercial hype. (Like the Mosaic Dorito commercial, there's not much there.) For the full story on the Tebows, click here.

But maybe that was the plan...If so, like the male homosexual dating site, Focus on the Family emerges as a marketing genius.

Dungy's character and influence

Excerpts from a very nice and very lengthy article about Tony Dungy from Howard Bryant at ESPN.com...

It's not salaries or strategies, endorsement opportunities or even another championship run by the team he coached for seven years, the Indianapolis Colts, that are on his mind, but how, 4½ years later, he still regrets what he sees as a major failure: He believes he could have saved the life Michael Vick once had, the one he'll never have again...

What type of individual honestly believes that, given a single afternoon on the soft water casting a fishing line into the sea, he could have been the one to change the course of another person's history? He offers a brief smile at the suggestion that entertaining such thoughts is a supreme example of naivete, arrogance, confidence, all of the above. But Dungy, whom close friends have called a messenger of God, cuts a different figure from many of his peers, one born of faith, the loss of a child and commitment....

In his first year outside the NFL since the early 1980s, Dungy is a unique and powerful figure. He has developed an enormous broadcast profile while emerging as a confidant of NFL owners, coaches and the commissioner himself. He is a connected insider, yet strives to maintain a special rapport and credibility with the country's disadvantaged.

Unlike many of the league's ex-coaches, who use the broadcast booth as a paid hammock until another position on the sideline opens, Dungy has used the platform to establish himself as a substantive voice....

"In truth, I'm pleasantly surprised. I thought he'd be pretty good, but I'm surprised he's this good," Costas says. "He's not grabbing you by the lapels and shaking you. He makes some declarative and bold statements, but never grandstands when doing it. He never makes things harshly personal. He can criticize without drawing blood, and that is actually what makes him effective over time. You can only slash and burn so many times before people say that's his shtick. He has no shtick."...

"lying pro-lifers"

Darrell Dow's blog with news and commentary on a highly regrettable move by American Right to Life Action-- entitled "Lying Pro-Lifers"...

My run-in with Right to Life groups came when they were unwilling to talk about Republican votes for Planned Parenthood in the federal budget.

But sadly, sometimes there's truth-- and then, there's politics.

There is an important issue to debate here-- federalism and whether abortion should be handled, politically, at the federal or state level. But demagoguery and lying? C'mon...

A gaggle of stunningly ill-informed malcontents and misfits called American Right To Life Action has published a slanderous “profile” of Congressman Ron Paul. According to ARTL, Paul is “is pro-choice state by state and therefore rejects the personhood of the unborn child.” If Paul runs for the presidency in 2012 ARTL intends to smear him as a solider for the forces of darkness and a merchant of death. "Pro-lifers will be alerted in advance to his pro-choice record," said Darrell Birkey, ARTL research director. "In the last election voters thought Ron Paul was pro-life. We want folks to know the truth."

“The truth”? Here ostensibly is a group of self-conscious Christians claiming to wage a culture war on behalf of the God of Truth (John 14:6), a God who cannot lie (Num. 25:6). Yet their language is full of falsehoods and distortions, and their tongues drip with slander and lies of the most outrageous sort.

Ron Paul has been a pro-life activist since he was in medical school, where he witnessed the horror of a late abortion. “It was pretty dramatic for me,” he says, “to see a two-and-a-half-pound baby taken out crying and breathing and put in a bucket.”

Over the ensuing years as an OBGYN, Dr. Paul delivered 4,000 babies, counseled many women out of murdering their children and often delivered their babies for free. He also has written two books about abortion.

Dr. Paul has said that granting rights to the unborn is the "greatest moral issue of our time." He wrote that the life of the fetus deserves legal protection and has repeatedly introduced legislation to define unborn children as persons under the law and to remove abortion from the appellate jurisdiction of the federal courts, per Article III of the Constitution, effectively overturning Roe v. Wade and returning the issue to the states where restrictions could be imposed without the oversight of black-robed tyrants. While Paul was attempting to put feet to his beliefs, professional pro-lifers were supporting the likes of Fred Thompson and pining for an implausible amendment to the Constitution.

None of this is good enough for the folks at ARTL who want nothing short of a federal imposition to "solve" the abortion tragedy....

ARTL cites Revelation 21:8 in calling Dr. Paul a "coward." If you are unfamiliar, here is the text: "But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death." Hmm, apparently Dr. Paul is on the highway to hell for not seeking the federalization of every crime under the sun.

The fool is one who does not fear God, His law and His judgment. The good people at ARTL, if their website is any indication, are staying quite busy violating the 9th commandment. We should pray for their repentance.

Goldilocks and the Three Bear Markets

A nice pun from Dave Coverley's Speed Bump...

the pros and cons of abstinence education

From the AP at FoxNews.com...

Billed as the first rigorous research to show long-term success with an abstinence-only approach, the study released Monday differed from traditional programs that have lost U.S. federal and state support in recent years.

The classes didn't preach saving sex until marriage or disparage condom use. Instead, they involved assignments to help students around the age of 12 see the drawbacks to sexual activity at their age. It included having them list the pros and cons themselves, and it found their "cons" far outnumbered the "pros."

The study appears in the February edition of Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine. It was funded by the National Institute of Mental Health and involved 662 black children in Philadelphia.

The students were assigned to one of four options: eight hour-long abstinence-only classes; safe-sex classes; classes incorporating both approaches; or classes in general healthy behavior. Results for the first three classes were compared with the group that had only the general health classes. That was the "control group" the study used for comparison.

Two years later, about one-third of abstinence-only students said they'd had sex since the classes ended, versus nearly half — about 49 percent — of the control group. Sexual activity rates in the other two groups didn't differ from the control group....

The trade-off-- at least on paper: fewer kids having sex, but those kids know less about sex and may be more prone to STD's and pregnancy.

While abstinence is definitely the best way to go, what do you do with people/children who choose not to abstain?

Of course, educational choice leads away from many of these problems-- at least in terms of their imposition on parents and children. If you want to have A, B, C or D taught to your kids, you should be free to acquire those educational services in a competitive education market.

laud Tim Tebow's courage

So says Jemele Hill with ESPN.com...

I went to church with Tim Tebow when he was a high school senior and I was a sports columnist in Orlando. I remember thinking then that once he got to the University of Florida, it was only a matter of time...It's not that I thought Tebow wasn't being sincere...I just thought: "He's young. He'll grow out of it." Thankfully, he hasn't.

As most sports fans know, Tebow used his time at Florida not only to prove he's one of the greatest college football players ever, but also to promote his Christian values. And as he transitions into professional football, Tebow is showing his values remain important to him, even with millions of dollars at stake now. But anytime you believe in something as strongly as Tebow does, it's bound to cause problems.

On Super Bowl Sunday, Tebow reportedly will appear in a commercial with his mother, Pam. But it won't be one of those deals where he and mom imitate the Manning brothers and challenge each other to an Oreo-licking contest. The 30-second ad, which is being bankrolled by the conservative Christian group Focus on the Family, reportedly will feature Tim and Pam telling their story of his birth....

Feminists suggesting women can't think for themselves? Talk about irony.

...let's put our religious and political beliefs aside for a moment and put Tebow's participation in this ad in its proper context.

It's his first major national ad since leaving the Gators, and he isn't hawking Nikes, energy drinks or candy bars. Instead, he's putting himself in the middle of one of the most divisive issues in this country -- and on the biggest sporting day of the year.

Just think about that....

Tebow's decision to appear in this ad should be considered just as courageous as Muhammad Ali's decision to not enter the draft, or Tommie Smith's and John Carlos' black power salute at the 1968 summer Olympics.

No, I'm not kidding. And yes, I'd say that if Tebow were appearing in an ad that advocated a pro-choice position....

We acted like Tiger Woods and LeBron James were the second coming of Martin Luther King Jr. and Gandhi because Woods voiced his support for President Barack Obama and James condemned the war in Darfur. I don't mean to belittle their opinions, but supporting Obama and condemning genocide isn't exactly joining the Black Panther party.

It's far more impressive when a person in Tebow's position chooses a lonelier path....

I'm a big fan of people who live the way they talk. You may not believe Tebow will become an NFL quarterback. You may think the media fawns over him way too much. And you may think he's overrated. But the one thing you can never say about Tim Tebow is that he's a fake.

Hart on Dawkins: good stuff on evolution; yahoo on philosophy

From David B. Hart's review in First Things-- of Richard Dawkins' most recent book, The Greatest Show on Earth...


The first lesson to be learned from Richard Dawkins’ new book is a purely practical maxim: One should always do what one does best, while scrupulously avoiding those tasks for which neither nature nor tuition has equipped one. This is not, obviously, what one could call a moral counsel; it is merely a counsel of prudence. Another way of saying it would be, try not to make a fool of yourself....

The Selfish Gene, despite occasional propositions of an almost metaphysical variety, is, for the most part, an excellent introduction to one of the more fascinating areas of modern biological science and speculation. And, generally, whenever Dawkins has confined himself to topics within his field of expertise, he has produced well-organized, lucidly written guidebooks to the current scene in the life sciences.

With The Greatest Show on Earth, Dawkins has returned to what he does best. He makes occasional mention of subjects he ought not to touch on—Plato, for instance, or the “great chain of being,” or God—with predictable imprecision; but these are only momentary deviations....

It recently occurred to him, he says, that over the years he has written about evolutionary theory but never taken the time to provide his reasons for believing in it for those who have not had the benefit of his training. And this is what he does here...an ideal précis of the evolutionary sciences and the current state of evolutionary theory that can be recommended for the convinced and the unconvinced alike....

Although the book is, for the most part, wholly “positive” in its argument, it is nonetheless explicitly directed toward two targets: young-earth creationists and the intelligent design movement. In regard to the former, of course, he does not really need to expend much energy....In regard to the latter, however, he does feel the need to exert himself; and, while some of his arguments are solvent enough, others are no more sophisticated than the positions they are meant to refute....He merely inverts the [popular vs. academic] ID equation and confesses his own personal incredulity at the idea that nature—containing so much that is inefficient, ungainly, brutal, wasteful, abortive, and ill-formed—could be the product of a designing intelligence....

I should confess, although quite gratuitously, that I derive a certain malicious delight from Dawkins’ consternation at the persistence of young-earth fundamentalism in even the most educated of societies. At one point in The Greatest Show on Earth, he records—at somewhat tedious length—the transcript of an interview he gave to a not very well-informed antievolutionist by the name of Wendy Wright....The reason this amuses me, to be honest, is that, whenever he himself turns to philosophical issues, Richard Dawkins is Wendy Wright—or, at least, her temperamental twin.

After all, what makes The God Delusion so frustrating to any reader who has a shred of decent philosophical training and who knows the history of ideas is its special combination of encyclopedic ignorance and thuggish bluster....

All of these failings would be pardonable if Dawkins were capable of correction. But his habitual response to any concept whose meaning he has not taken the time to learn is to dismiss it as meaningless, with the sort of truculent affectation of contempt that suggests he really knows, at some level, that he is out of his depth.

Anecdotally, I know for a fact that numerous attempts have been made, not to convince him that there is a God, but merely to apprise him of the elementary errors that throng his arguments. Like poor Wendy, he simply does not grasp what he is being told, so engaged is he in repeating over and over the little “mantras” he has devised for himself....

Sounds like a good book to read on the topic-- at least for those who can see through his philosophical musings. Anybody read this one?

Mosaic's Doritos in the Super Bowl??

From Gillian Flaccus in USAToday (hat tip: Linda Christiansen)...

Pastors have long competed with the NFL on Sundays, but this season a hipster megachurch is turning the tables with a 30-second ad that could muscle its way into that all holiest of sporting events: the Super Bowl.

Mosaic, a 3,000-member megachurch, is one of six finalists in the Doritos' "Crash the Super Bowl" challenge with a lighthearted spoof that plays off the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

If the church's ad, titled "Casket," is among the top three vote-getters in an online playoff, it will air on Feb. 7 during the Super Bowl. If the commercial ranks in the top three most-popular ads among viewers, it could win its creators either $400,000, $600,000 or $1 million...

For Erwin McManus, Mosaic's lead pastor, the ad competition represents a chance to make his faith relevant to one of the largest TV audiences in the nation when viewers least expect it — and are least likely to tune out.

...the LA church, a congregation full of hip twenty-somethings who mostly work in the film industry and make short films for a hobby, is taking a different tack. They were careful to stick to the quirky, slapstick-style humor that's expected by Super Bowl fans....

I hope they win, since I'm rooting for the Kingdom team-- and I didn't watch the others-- but this one is only amusing to me.

Here are the Top Six this year.

Here was the winner last year.

the govt tries to create job with a pittance-- while making business more painful and risky

From the AP's Martin Crutsinger (hat tip: C-J)...

The Obama administration on Sunday endorsed spending an additional $100 billion to attack painfully high unemployment as it prepared to send Congress a $3.8 trillion budget...

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said the administration believed "somewhere in the $100 billion range" would be the appropriate amount for a new jobs measure made up of a business tax credit to encourage hiring, increased infrastructure spending and money from the government's bailout fund to get banks to increase loans to struggling small businesses....

It'd be amazing if $100 billion could fix the recession. But that's less than 3% of the budget and less than 1% of the economy. Even with multiplier effects, it's difficult to imagine it doing much good-- even ignoring the negative impact on the debt, real interest rates, etc.

It'd be far better to leave it alone (for the first time in two years)-- and reduce the risk by eliminating the possibility of painful policies like cap & trade and health care mandates or payroll taxes.

St. Drew

Geaux Saints?

Here's Sharing the Victory's interview with Drew Brees (hat tip: James Embry)...

Good stuff!

Genesis 2:4-- an intro to the 2nd creation account

Genesis 2:4 starts the second "account" in Genesis—by using the term used 11 times as a literary marker in the book. (The next section begins in Gen 5:1, implying that we are to read Genesis 2-4 as a unit, more than separating out Genesis 4 or even Genesis 3.)

This second account is, in essence, the beginning of human history—or alternatively, what happened to God's “good” creation. We turn from God’s creation to the human condition. From 1:31’s “very good” to not-so-good (Gen 2’s loneliness; Gen 3’s sin). From 2:3’s blessings of God to ch. 3’s curses. From the God of Creation to the even more important God of History.

Why two accounts? It’s no big deal; we see it elsewhere in the Bible—most notably, in the Gospels and with Kings/Chronicles. But why did God and the redactor/author make that choice here?

Budziszewski compares it to giving directions to his house: “I give two versions—one focusing on the names of the roads, the other on distances and landmarks.” Similarly, you could compare it to a state map with an insert for a city. In a word, the two accounts do different things—and supplement each other.

The most obvious point is that God’s name “changes”. In Gen 2, it’s "Lord God"—a combination of Yahweh (the personal and covenant name of God) AND Elohim (from Gen 1). God is still monotheistic, but more intimate. Likewise, the verbs to describe God change are more active, hands-on, and descriptive. Here, it’s form, fashion, shape, breathes, builds—rather than just speaking and creating. We also see many anthropomorphisms here: Gen 2:7,19's potter, 2:8's gardener, 2:21's surgeon, and 3:8's peaceful landowner). As Kathleen Norris quotes Ephrem: this pictures God's efforts "to clothe Himself in our language so that He might clothe us in His way of life".

Leon Kass offers some other key distinctions: Gen 1’s natural, cosmic, metaphysical vs. Gen 2’s moral, political, social. Gen 1 ends with man; Gen 2 begins with man. In Gen 1, the reader is a spectator offered a cosmic view of man’s place in the cosmos; in Gen 2, the reader is a parallel agent offered a human view of our lives.

But Eugene Peterson was most helpful to me here. He notes that Gen 1 focuses on time, while Gen 2 focuses on place [in time]. Gen 1 is more music and poetry; Gen 2 is a narrative set in place with plot and characters. Gen 1 is cosmic and comprehensive; Gen 2 zooms in to a single location on earth. (Note that Gen 2:4b reverses the earth and heavens.)

Peterson continues by noting that all of this takes place in a garden (vs. e.g., wilderness). A garden implies order and care (revisited), but to Peterson’s point, a garden is local and defined by boundaries/limits.

Further, Peterson teases this point out in application to us: God works with us in time and place. But often want to escape from our garden and/or get excited about what’s outside our garden. Instead, “God deals with us where we are and not where we would like to be.”

Peterson also notes that utopia means “no place”—an ideal place that does not exist, whether “politically in communities, socially in communes, religiously in churches”. And he cites the example of Gregory of Nyssa who was sent to a backwater place by his brother (and was not happy about it). His brother’s wise counsel: don’t obtain distinction from the church, but confer distinction on it.

Enjoy your garden; find your blessings there; and extend them to God and others—today and always…

Genesis 2:2-3-- the 7th Day (part 2): The Cosmic Temple Inauguration view

Ooohhh...that sounds "out there", huh?

Anyway, here's part 1 of this post...

This last set of remarks on the 7th day and the 1st creation account comes from John Walton's provocative book, The Lost World of Genesis One: Ancient Cosmology and the Origins Debate.

Let’s start with an important hermeneutical consideration. How do we weigh the original intent—or at least, how the original audience would have read something—vs. a (purely) contemporary understanding? Are the dictates and applications to be considered cultural or universal? For example, we know from elsewhere in Scripture that “unclean” in Leviticus is not relevant to us, morally, today.

The clearest examples of this principle are in the epistles. We know that they were written to a particular audience and its context. Then again, figuring out what to do with the epistles is a matter of some debate—e.g., head coverings. We figure that Christ used the Samaritans to make a point to the people of His day—that would better be made by referring to Iraqis or the Chinese today. But injunctions about sexual morality and loving one’s neighbor certainly seem to be universal.

Walton starts with the principle that the Bible was written to "them" and will hopefully be understood by us. He notes that we have an advantage over them in terms of prophecy (including Christ). But we are disadvantaged in terms of understanding their words, culture, and context.

Walton sees the “first creation account” (in Gen 1) as functional rather than material. And provocatively, he argues that we often have a modern bias toward materialism, causing us to focus on the latter. He points out that the English term “create” can be either material or functional (e.g., a company or curriculum). And he notes that other ancient cosmologies clearly focused on the functional. (See: the Bible’s focus on the sun’s function for us—seasons, light, day/night—rather than describing it as a big, burning ball of gas.)

Walton points to other hints in the text: Gen 1:2’s describes the move from chaos and emptiness to order and function. Ex nihilo creation does not mention material. More broadly, there is clearly a considerable functional emphasis in the Gen 1 account—while the Gen 2 creation account is much more material.

Did God create everything (materially)? Walton’s answer: Absolutely, what else?! It’s all over the Scriptures! But he asks “is that what Genesis 1 is about”?

Instead, Walton argues that Day 7 is a “temple text” (common in ancient cosmologies). The cosmos is God’s temple—his headquarters. On Day 7, God takes His place in the Temple, the world comes into functional existence; and things can get started. (The fancy term for this is the “cosmic temple inauguration” view.) As such, “rest” would be the state after crisis has been resolved—or in this case, when stability has been achieved. It represents the completion of activity so that normal routines can be established and enjoyed.

Walton notes that for the modern materialistic reader, Day 7 is a non-material appendix with theological implications for Sabbath. For the ancient reader, Day 7 was the climax!

Walton argues strongly for this view—even to the point of saying that the standard view is wrong. You can read his case for yourself if you’re interested. For me, I’m content to see Walton’s explanation as a both/and—and to appreciate the value-added he brings in steering me toward a more-functional understanding of Genesis 1.

Genesis 2:2-3-- the 7th Day (part 1)

Genesis 2:2-3 describes the "seventh day". Interestingly, the term “Sabbath” is not used until Ex 20:11 (Neh 9:13-14, Ex 31:13-17). Of course, here, there is no need for the Law.

Let’s start by considering that God could have created the world in an instant (vs. seven “days”)! So, why did He do it that way?

First, it turns into an example to us of the Sabbath, and more figuratively, the rest available to us in Christ (Heb 4).

Second, it establishes the number 7 as symbolic. (Why seven? It connects to the importance and inter-working of the numbers 3 [fig. for complete] and 4 [the number for man and earth]. Note also that 3*4 = 12 is an important number, biblically.)

Third, it encourages us to consider His wisdom and power more carefully—as if the Creation required more effort. Likewise, it makes each day seem more special—and it separates us out as a special act of creation.

Fourth, it underlines the importance of work in God’s economy.

Fifth, although an instantaneous might communicate more power; seven days reflects more sovereignty—as the Creation “week” unfolds.

Finally, it implies the importance of order, process, rhythm—in a Biblical worldview. J.B. Phillips: "The revelation of God in Nature and the Bible is that He is never in a hurry. Long preparation, careful planning and slow growth, would seem to be leading characteristics of spiritual life...It is refreshing to study the poise and quietness of Christ. His task and responsibility might well have driven a man out of his mind. But He was never in a hurry, never impressed by numbers, never a slave of the clock."

For us, life is a marathon, not a 100-yard dash. Life should be filled with spiritual disciplines—and more importantly, a spiritually-disciplined life—rather than a compendium of moments of instant gratification.

As Eugene Peterson puts it: God is not in a hurry but does not procrastinate (he gets it done by the end of day 6). Both of these errors have potential application for us.

Back to the passage…The first thing to note is that the ordinal listing, “seventh” has moved from the end to the beginning of the discussion. Second, notice that the term “seventh day” is repeated three times—again, unique.

Peterson observes that this continues the 3’s of creation: there are two sets of 3 work days—the first 3 largely giving form (vs. 1:2’s chaos—tohu) and the second set filling the emptiness (vs. 1:2’s bohu). Then, we have these 3 mentions of 7 here.

Peterson focuses on the rhythm of the passage before concluding: “Genesis 1 is structured in time, a seven-day sequence of God’s speaking creation into being. The formative effect is rhythmic, using metrical and repeated phrases to pull our distracted, anxious and sometimes lethargic lives into the steady, sure, unhurried pace of God as he speaks his reliable and effective word across a sequence of six days. These rhythms are then resolved in an all-embracing seventh-day Sabbath…”

Three other points…

First, Gen 2:3b’s “made it holy” continues the pattern of separating and sanctifying.

Second, Gen 2:3a’s “blessed [it]” is the third of 3 times in this Creation account (Gen 1:22a for fish/fowl; 1:28a for man’s life/calling). Kass runs with observations about this combo: the three represent a.) life, rule, holiness; b.) natural, political, sacred; and c.) animal, man, God.

Third, Gen 2:2b,3c’s says God "rested" (or "ceased") from “all his work”. Of course, it goes without saying that He did not rest because He was tired! Rest represents perfect creation—sanctified and at rest. Creation didn't need to be revised or repaired. Rest is for the purpose of commemoration, reveals satisfaction, implies a change of pace, a time of reflection and enjoyment.

Here's part 2 of my comments on the 7th Day...

Genesis 1:29-2:1

Genesis 1:29-30 finishes off DAY 6—quite a busy day! Food is provided for both animals and man (Ps 136:25). Interestingly, both living things and food are made out of “the dust” (2:19; Eccl 3:20).

Moreover, both animals and man are given life by God’s provision-- 1:30, 2:7’s “breath of life”, and here, are sustained by the fruit of earth (2:7; Mt 6:26). Man was created separate from the animals in hierarchy. But here, his connection to the animals lends an air of humility and has something to imply about proper “dominion”.

The passage also explains that we were vegetarians before the Fall. (This does not seem to change until 9:2-3's post-flood instructions.) First, it’s interesting that man was given dominion over all, but was only able to eat some. Second, this initial instruction might imply that meat-eating is bothersome ethically &/or indicates what carnivorous activity would do to the natural order. As we know, animal cruelty-- abusing some of the vulnerable-- is a very bad sign. That said, things get ugly anyways, going into Gen 6. Perhaps this is to make the point to a modern audience that vegetarianism could not be the fix.

Genesis 1:31-2:1 provides a summary. The word “finished” is the same word as is used in Ex 40:33’s tabernacle and II Chron 7:11’s temple. (See also: Jn 19:30, Rev 21:5-6.)

Genesis 1:26-28 (part 2)

Let’s take a second look at Genesis 1:26-28...

Christian theology begins with Genesis 1—and a key passage is 1:26-28 where we are told that man is “made in God’s image”. What does this imply?

First, consider the term “made” or “created” as opposed to “built”. The latter implies construction and a functional purpose—whereas made/created implies something more artistic (Eph 2:10). Both are fine—and help to inform our understanding of who we are and who God wants us to be.

What does it mean that we are made in God’s image? Here’s my top ten! We are to…

1.) convert chaos into order (with freedom) and to act with purpose (1:2)

2.) be creative and to create things of use and beauty within our ‘work’

3.) value and enjoy creation as ‘good’ (God’s intent from Eden to the New Jerusalem)

4.) be people whose word is good-- that when it is said, it is as good as done

5.) respect the equality of all people and their individual differences (1:27)

6.) exercise proper dominion over nature and the resources over which God has given us stewardship (1:28)

7.) bless God and others-- as we have been ‘blessed’ by God (1:28, 12:1-3)

8.) work to empower others-- as we have been empowered by God (1:28; Schneider, p. 51a)

9.) pursue teamwork and community—as we do our work (e.g., within marriage, between genders, in general; see: 1:26's ‘our’/Trinity; 1:27,28; Eccl 3:13)

10.) view ourselves as God’s royal ambassadors in the world (II Cor 5:17-20; Schneider, p. 47-48)

In this, history and our-story (done well) will be an extension of God’s original creation (Jn 5:17, Heb 1:3).

meet Travis Hankins!

We're having a meet-and-greet with Travis Hankins-- one of three GOP candidates for U.S. Congress, 9th District in Indiana-- in our home on Super Bowl Sunday (2/7) from 2:30-4:00.

Come and meet the best candidate in the race!

We hope to see you here. Please feel free to invite anyone else who might be interested. Kids are welcome; they can play in the basement!

Shoot me an email if you need directions...

Jake Payne hates babies

What's up with some of the pro-choicers lately?

First, Jonathan Meador in LEO.

And now, Jake Payne at PageOne. (Warning: Jake likes to use colorful language.)

Jake is the #1 political/social blogger in Kentucky. (I'm only #5 or so.) I enjoy following local politics through his blog-- even if I disagree with many of his opinions.

Jake wrote this:

I love that the gay-haters and lady-haters can get a fancy Super Bowl ad on CBS but a gay dating site gets rejected.

This, in response to two stories I've covered as well-- the proposed Super Bowl ads from Focus on the Family (the Tebow, pro-life ad) and ManCrunch (a dating site for male homosexuals).

I understand the passions of both sides in the abortion debate. On the one hand, pro-lifers want to restrict the liberty of women who have a baby in their womb. On the other hand, pro-choicers want to end the life of that baby. There's a lot at stake.

So, on the one hand, given what's at stake, I can appreciate and respect Jake's fire on this issue. On the other hand, I prefer civility-- even in something so important-- and giving people the dignity of their chosen labels (unless it's ridiculous).

But if you're going to go with fire, then you need to expect-- or even demand-- fire from the other side.

Jake doesn't seem to see it that way.

In response, I wrote:

A smart, capitalistic move by ManCrunch; well-played.

I hope the baby-haters can tolerate the Tebow ad.

In reply, Jake wrote:

If you wish to comment here, keep your s### in check.

Baby-haters?

This isn’t Jesus central. So you’ll accept the fact that the authors of this site support a woman’s right to choose and aren’t supportive of allowing wingnut white men to make all decisions for women based on their perverted religious opinions. If you want to espouse that s###, do so elsewhere.

In response, I wrote:

The post said “lady-haters”. So to be consistent, it’s baby-haters on the other side. Both terms are ridiculous, but I’m willing to play ridiculous for consistency’s sake…

Of course, you can support a woman’s right to choose– in opposition to white (and non-white), wingnut (and normal), religious (and non-religious) men (and women) who support pro-life for religious (and especially scientific) reasons.

But why do you characterize the debate/issue in that manner?

And Jake has left it alone from there...

Unless he has a change of mind, we have to assume that he would continue to characterize his opponents as lady-haters and himself as a baby-hater.

the history and decline of "Christianity Lite"

From Mary Eberstadt in First Things...

Eberstadt opens with a reference to "Benedict XVI’s landmark announcement in October 2009 offering members of the Anglican Communion a fast track into the Catholic Church". She notes that this "may not seem to amount to much"-- in terms of numbers, "mere drops in the Vatican’s bucket".

But in the longer run—say, over the coming decades—Rome’s move looks consequential in another way. It is the latest and most dramatic example of how orthodoxy, rather than dissent, seems once again to have taken the driver’s seat of Christianity.

...the progressives left behind [among the Anglicans] may well find the exodus of their adversaries a Pyrrhic victory. How will they possibly make peace with the real majority of Anglicans today—the churches in Africa, whose leaders have repeatedly denounced the Communion’s abandonment of traditional teachings?...

Even so, it is the still longer run of Christian history whose outlines may now be most interesting and unexpected of all....not only the beginning of the end of the Anglican Communion but indeed the end of something even larger: the phenomenon of Christianity Lite itself...

If it is Christianity Lite, rather than Christianity proper, that is fatally flawed and ultimately unable to sustain itself, then a rewriting of much of contemporary thought, religious and secular, appears in order....

What is at the height of this divorce?

Ask any contemporary Mainline Protestant what most distinguishes his or her version of Christianity from that of Roman Catholicism, and you will likely get some version of this response: Catholics are still hung up on sex, and we’re not. They prohibit things like divorce and birth control and abortion and homosexuality, and we don’t. Moreover, this rendition of the facts would be essentially correct....

How did sex, of all subjects, come to occupy such a prominent place in the division of Christendom? In a sense, the potential was always there. From the first believers on up, the stern stuff of the Christian moral code has been cause for commentary—to say nothing of complaint. “Not all men can receive this saying,” the disciples are told when Jesus puts divorce off limits....

Yet to say that the sexual revolution made Christianity Lite inevitable, as many people would, is to miss an important historical point. It was the Anglicans who first started picking apart the tapestry of Christian sexual morality—hundreds of years ago, long before the sexual revolution, and over one particular thread: divorce. In fact, in a fascinating development now visible in retrospect, the Anglican departure over divorce appears as the template for all subsequent exercises in Christianity Lite.

For about two centuries, and despite its having been midwifed into existence by the divorcing Henry VIII, the Church of England held fast to the same principle of the indissolubility of marriage on which the rest of Christian tradition insisted....Even so, this early dedication to principle would turn out not to hold...

This same pattern of dissent over sexuality, followed by decline in both numbers and practice, also appears clearly in the other churches dedicated to Christianity Lite, those of the Protestant mainline in addition to the Episcopal Church....

This leads to a third pattern arising from the experiment of Christianity Lite: the ongoing and inarguable institutional decline of the churches that have tried it....Across the board, funding is down, numbers are down, numbers of the young are especially down, and missionaries—one particularly good measure of the vibrancy of belief—are diminishing apace. Even the kind of social work for which Christian churches have been renowned is also down: Mainline volunteerism, according to the new Barna numbers, has dropped a shocking 21 percent since 1998...

Since Dean Kelley’s work in the 1970s, culminating in the book Why Strict Churches Are Strong, observers have tried to make sense of that phenomenon....[including] “simple demographics” [fewer babies]...People who cannot be expected to obey in difficult matters cannot be expected to obey in easier ones either. In the 1950s, almost half the population of the Church of England attended services on Sunday. By 2000, that figure was around 7 percent, and that includes Charismatic and Pentecostal affiliates....what might be called the hidden power of the Christian moral code: its by now undeniable resonance with at least some human beings....

C.S. Lewis quote-of-the-week

“If what you want is an argument against Christianity (and I well remember how eagerly I looked for such arguments when I began to be afraid it was true), you can easily find some stupid and unsatisfactory Christian and say, ‘So there’s your boasted new man! Give me the old kind.’ But if once you have begun to see that Christianity is on other grounds probable, you will know in your heart that this is only evading the issue.”

--Mere Christianity, book 4, ch. 10