Bad Trend

The article I linked yesterday is a truly accurate analysis of the state of Christian churches in our time; especially Christian Churches in California. I don’t think the rest of America is as bad as California yet, but the trend is not promising for traditional Christian men or women.

I was in a Church on Easter where a husband and wife talked about their divorce and reconciliation. Neither spouse ever took responsibility for what led to divorce or even mentioned what caused the divorce. All they talked about was how they had grown apart and how they sensed God leading them back together. The husband ended by saying how he is now an Elder in the church.

Orthodox Christianity is right or wrong/good or bad behavior and knowledge, not right or wrong/good or bad feelings. This trend toward feelings will not change as long as head count is a determinate of a successful church.

The Feminization of the Church

Hat Tip: A Team

Why Its Music, Messages and Ministries Are Driving Men Away:

"Men’s absence is especially noteworthy, they said, given that men were a strong force in the early church."

"In America, among evangelical churches, 57 percent of members are women and, among mainline Protestant churches, 66 percent are women, according to a 1998 book American Evangelicalism (University of Chicago Press).

About 23 percent of married women attend without their husbands, according to Murrow.

The men who do attend show less commitment, including less participation in Sunday School, small groups and service activities, according to Barna. Men also report less practice of spiritual disciplines like tithing, Bible reading, evangelism and prayer."

"Yet, because churches have more women, Murrow believes their stereotypical strengths are more valued — and are even seen as more godly. Masculine strengths are often seen as unneeded or as threats to the peaceful status quo, he said.

Johnstone believes the feminization of the church reflects a feminization of the larger culture.

“Our whole society has tended to deprive men of their biblical and creational strengths and empower women,” Johnstone said.

As a result, many people think of church only as a nurturing place that addresses personal needs, Pearcey said. Think: sitting in circles, sharing feelings, holding hands, singing softly, comforting members."

Strange Monkey Doll on the Snow Job

Strange Monkey Doll has the best take on the appointment of Tony Snow as the new White House Press Secretary.

Chess or Checkers?

Anyone who claims that high gas prices hurt the economy probably plays more checkers than chess. Economics is not very difficult to understand, but economics does require a little more than one dimensional thinking and it does require understanding more than one cause and effect at a time.

Gas prices have risen because demand for gas has risen. Demand for gas has risen because more people throughout the world are working, needing energy to produce products, needing gas to drive to work, and buying cars and homes that require more energy.

As long as gas producers are making a higher than average profit, more producers will enter the gas producing business, more jobs will be created, and more money will be spent, creating a tremendously positive ripple affect throughout the economy.

High gas prices may hurt some consumers on a fixed income with a high dependence on their automobile, but only the one dimensional thinkers believe the economy is being hurt.

Schizophrenia

Californians want: to drive SUV’s with stadium seating; a coastline without oil wells; reduced carbon emissions; to bring the troops home from Iraq; no new refineries; and lower gas prices at the pump.

Life 101 seems too complicated for most Californians.

What About the Senate?

2006 politics must read by Jay Cost.

Solution to Gas and Other Problems

Shell, Exxon-Mobil, and every other gas producing company have every right to manage their inventories of oil and gas using a just in time (JIT) methodology similar to how General Motors and other automobile manufacturers manage their inventories of parts and manufactured vehicles. These gas producing companies also have every right to manage their business in a way that produces the greatest return on investment for investors by turning capital into profits. The profits from gas are just as beneficial to the economy as profits from any other product.

Profits mean that an enterprise has developed an improved or more efficient way to produce and deliver a product. Profits are capital that can be reinvested in a way that will create more profits for the company or profits can be spent in ways that will generate profits for other companies and investors. High profits by gas producing companies are an indicator that other companies have an opportunity to profit by moving investment capital into the gas producing industry which in the long run will help to lower the price of gas as more companies compete with each other.

In recent years the gas producing companies have also benefited from an almost monopolistic competitive environment. New companies and new investors are reluctant to invest the amount of capital necessary to be competitive in the gas producing industry because of the risk involved with government threats and regulatory restrictions. Republicans get most of the blame for this problem because of the tax breaks to the gas producing companies, but Democrats are just as responsible for the problem because of the way they constantly threaten gas producers. When it comes to the price of gas, just like everything else, anyone expecting help from the government better hold on tightly to their wallet.

The answer to the problem of high gas prices is for companies that are adversely affected by the price of gas to begin the process of vertical integration into refining their own gas. Companies like General Motors, United Airlines, and others need to step up and start investing in refineries. Both of these companies as well as many others are being hurt by high gas prices and both of these companies have the ability to deal with all of the government red tape and regulations in building new refineries. Both of these companies have labor problems that could be reduced by putting employees to work building and operating refineries. Both of these companies would profit from lower gas prices even if their refineries were not that profitable. Both of these companies could do a lot for their own profits and help to reduce the price of gas if they would be more proactive in creating a better market environment for their products and services by becoming gas producers as well as automobile manufactures and airline carriers.

Compared to what?

It is impossible to understand any issue without a having an accurate point of reference. This is why children who are capable of learning facts quickly and remembering facts at rates much higher than adults are not able to apply facts as wisdom as well as adults. Some children will draw the right conclusion from the facts occasionally, but most children, most of the time, and all children, some of the time, do not turn knowledge into wise decisions. Children lack experiences that help provide an accurate point of reference to make wise decisions.

Adults form a point of reference through personal experiences, education (both formal and informal), assumptions, and social norms. All four of these components are weighted and blended in different ways by different people in developing a point of reference. Confident people will rely more on personal experience and personal assumptions while humble people will rely more on education and social norms in developing a point of reference. Confidence, in the extreme, becomes arrogance when education and social norms are not considered and humility, in the extreme, becomes meekness when personal experiences and personal assumptions are ignored. Confidence can also become arrogance when the confidence is derived from the opinions of others based on the social status of the other person expressing the opinion.

In Science, when the compare group is defined and the experiment is conducted with a double blind study, there is always a precise point of reference for comparison, but in most of life, the point of reference is a little more difficult to determine. Therefore, “Compared to what?” is always a great question to ask oneself when being sold a product or being convinced of an idea or concept. The point of reference along with a fair comparison is what leads to a wise decision or position.

When I hear others expressing an opinion about the disaster in Iraq, I know they are basing their opinion on a faulty point of reference or a poorly reasoned comparison because I have been able to ask myself “Compared to what?”, in analyzing the situation in Iraq. Compared to Viet Nam? Well no, Viet Nam was a disaster where 50,000 Americans and over 2,000,000 innocent Asians were murdered by the Communists. Iraq is a tremendous success so far compared to Viet Nam. Compared to Korea? Well no, Korea was a disaster where the Communists were allowed to retain power and untold millions of people have suffered and died as a result. Compared to World War II? Give me a break, more Americans died on most days in WWII than the total number of Americans lost in Iraq since the invasion. Compared to California? Yes, this is probably the fairest comparison. A few people in California die every day from gang murders just like in Iraq, a country about the same size and population as California.

Climate of Fear

Global-warming alarmists intimidate dissenting scientists into silence.

Key Excerpt:

But there is a more sinister side to this feeding frenzy. Scientists who dissent from the alarmism have seen their grant funds disappear, their work derided, and themselves libeled as industry stooges, scientific hacks or worse. Consequently, lies about climate change gain credence even when they fly in the face of the science that supposedly is their basis.

Immigrant Economics

I keep reading and hearing about how big business benefits from illegal immigration and is therefore against any type of immigration reform. The assumption seems to be that lower labor costs equal higher profit margins. As usual, the assumption is simplistic and wrong.

Obviously, there are many business people who oppose immigration reform and who pay lobbyists to represent this anti-reform position to congress and who support politicians who will maintain the status quo. Some of these business people may even believe they are profiting from a low cost of labor, but most businesses are always in favor of the status quo when a change to the status quo involves considerable risk.

Business people are only in favor of changing the status quo when changing the status quo involves reducing risk. Immigration reform would create more risk to individual businesses because of the market turmoil that would result from modifying labor and pricing strategies. This turmoil would create a situation where some businesses would gain market share and some businesses would lose market share, but overall, the profits for all business would remain the same. The fear of losing market share is what motivates some businesses to oppose immigration reform.

The Fortune 500 companies that are most often villanized by the left are probably the least affected by current immigration policy or any change to the current immigration policy. Most Fortune 500 companies pay most of their employees in America way beyond minimum wage. At the same time, these big companies are moving manufacturing and other operations outside of America to reduce the cost of labor and avoid American regulation. Hilton Hotels at number 438 on the Fortune 500 list may be a slight exception because they do rely on illegal immigrant labor in the United States, but Hilton Hotels is still international enough to shift new development outside of the United States in the event of reform.

In America labor is a commodity that is sold on the open market. The more specialized the labor, and the more demand for the specialized labor, the higher the price for the labor. The less specialized the labor, and the less demand for the labor, the lower the price for the labor. If all of a sudden all of the illegal immigrants were removed from the available labor pool in America, the price for labor would rise and unskilled Americans at the low end of the salary scale would see an increase in pay. But guess what else would happen? The price of goods and services produced in the United States would also rise and the buying power of the increased wages would be reduced. Profits for individual companies might change, but overall profits for business would remain unchanged. Buying power should also remain unchanged, but buying power could be reduced if prices rise faster than wages.

An unfortunate side affect of increased wages will be an increase in tax revenue sent to the Federal government in the form of Income and Social Security taxes. This may help reduce the Federal deficit, but it will also be an incentive for the Federal government to authorize more programs that control our lives and reduce our freedom. Shouldn’t we be advocating more legal immigration and less welfare as a way to fix the immigration problem instead of advocating policies that make government bigger and more intrusive?

Paying Attention

More good news from Iraq.

Global Warming stopped in 1998

Facts keep getting in the way of Global Warming!

Selected Excerpt:

For many years now, human-caused climate change has been viewed as a large and urgent problem. In truth, however, the biggest part of the problem is neither environmental nor scientific, but a self-created political fiasco. Consider the simple fact, drawn from the official temperature records of the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, that for the years 1998-2005 global average temperature did not increase (there was actually a slight decrease, though not at a rate that differs significantly from zero).

And also, yes, this eight-year period of temperature stasis did coincide with society's continued power station and SUV-inspired pumping of yet more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

How AIDS in Africa Was Overstated

The Washingtom Post has a piece on How AIDS in Africa Was [exagerated] Overstated.

Selected excerpts:

But AIDS deaths on the predicted scale never arrived here, government health officials say. A new national study illustrates why: The rate of HIV infection among Rwandans ages 15 to 49 is 3 percent, according to the study, enough to qualify as a major health problem but not nearly the national catastrophe once predicted. The new data suggest the rate never reached the 30 percent estimated by some early researchers, nor the nearly 13 percent given by the United Nations in 1998.

Taken together, they raise questions about monitoring by the U.N. AIDS agency, which for years overestimated the extent of HIV/AIDS in East and West Africa and, by a smaller margin, in southern Africa, according to independent researchers and U.N. officials. "What we had before, we cannot trust it," said Agnes Binagwaho, a senior Rwandan health official.

Such disparities, independent researchers say, skewed years of policy judgments and decisions on where to spend precious health-care dollars. "From a research point of view, they've done a pathetic job," said Paul Bennell, a British economist whose studies of the impact of AIDS on African school systems have shown mortality far below what UNAIDS had predicted. "They were not predisposed, let's put it that way, to weigh the counterevidence. They were looking to generate big bucks."

On its Web site, UNAIDS describes itself as "the chief advocate for worldwide action against AIDS." And many researchers say the United Nations' reliance on rigorous science waned after it created the separate AIDS agency in 1995 -- the first time the world body had taken this approach to tackle a single disease.

"It's pure advocacy, really," said Jim Chin, a former U.N. official who made some of the first global HIV prevalence estimates while working for WHO in the late 1980s and early 1990s. "Once you get a high number, it's really hard once the data comes in to say, 'Whoops! It's not 100,000. It's 60,000.' " Chin, speaking from Stockton, Calif., added, "They keep cranking out numbers that, when I look at them, you can't defend them."

The Media and Reporting on the Environment

Here is a good piece by David Mastio about The Media and Reporting on the Environment.

Selected excerpts:

"Next time you read a magazine cover story like the one Time just published ("Be Worried. Be VERY Worried. Polar Ice Caps Are Melting ... More And More Land Is Being Devastated ... Rising Waters Are Drowning Low-Lying Communities... The climate is crashing, and global warming is to blame") you should remember one little fact: U.S. media companies, including Time Warner, donate more to the environmental movement than any other industry. Companies like The New York Times, Gannett, Tribune, ABC, CBS and NBC have donated more than a half-billion worth of ad space since the 1990s to raise money for some of the nation's most extreme environmental groups. And yes, that was billion with a B."

"Well, for some reason, no. The Ad Council has given us exactly the opposite: Their messenger is Environmental Defense (formerly known as the Environmental Defense Fund), a group with a reputation for crying wolf. Right now on their web page, ED asks parents to click to find out whether their children are in "danger" from dirty air. Nowhere can parents find the more comforting fact that, no matter where they live, kids today are breathing cleaner air than they did 50 years ago."

"It may be true that every single one of the environmental concerns raised to block hydro-power, wind energy, nuclear plants and natural gas development are all valid. But if global warming is really, really the "most serious environmental issue of our time," shouldn't environmentalists be willing to put their other concerns aside until we deal with the dangers of runaway climate change?

Maybe if our largest television networks, newspapers and magazines weren't the largest fundraisers for these same environmental groups, they'd be in a position to ask."

Steve Forbes on Africa

Steve Fobes starts his opinion piece about the changes that need to be made in Africa in This Money Won't Buy Happiness stating a fact that should be obvious to anyone wanting more African aid:

Alas, this emphasis on giving more money to benighted countries is mis-begotten. Most of it will be wasted, and despite "safeguards" all too much of it will be siphoned off by corrupt politicos and bureaucrats. Africa has received more than $400 billion in aid since 1960, yet per capita income has declined. No other area of the world has suffered such a regression. Blair, Bono et al. should be focusing on measures that would allow sub-Saharan Africa's existing entrepreneurial energies to put their countries on the path of rapid, India-China-Pacific-Rim-like economic growth. There are huge barriers blocking those who could catapult Africa's poor nations onto an economic fast track.

He then lists high taxes, unsound monetary policy, regulatory obstacles, and aids and malaria as factors in African poverty that need to be addressed in order to actually help Africans.

Becoming American

Real Estate is not a significant defining attribute of America. People may be awed by the Grand Canyon, the Pacific Coast, Pikes Peak, and the Great Plains, but none of these geographical locations have played a part in making America great. However, the freedom, liberty, and justice as defined in the United States Constitution, codified into American law, and practiced by generations of Americans are the most significant defining attributes of America and are the reasons for American greatness.

When Americans view their heritage as pieces of property, and when Americans consider land to be the defining attribute of their country, the concepts of freedom, liberty, and justice, become restricted and sometimes even unattainable for non-Americans who desire to live the American life because fewer immigrants are legally allowed to migrate to America.

There is more than enough land in America for everyone in Canada and everyone in Mexico to migrate to America if migrating to America is their choice. Let’s be clear, when Americans vote to limit immigration, Americans are voting to limit freedom, liberty, and justice for others. Is that the kind of country America wants to become? It’s not the kind of country I want America to become.

I Don't Get It

How can employers hire employees who have forged Social Security cards? Don’t employers have to send Social Security taxes to the Social Security Administration for each employee? Why is the Social Security administration accepting taxes for workers who are not listed in the Social Security system as having a valid Social Security number?

Is the hiring of illegal immigrants happening with the full approval of our Federal government and the Social Security administration?

In Favor of Immigration and Amnesty

In a just society, nobody should be unfairly advantaged or unfairly disadvantaged by the luck of their birth. Birthrights and caste systems are unjust because the recipient of a birthright becomes entitled to an unfair advantage throughout life while those stuck in a caste system have very little opportunity to succeed and very little control over their own individual destiny.

Immigration in America has suffered through years and years of bad immigrations policy that has created a birthright for some and a caste system for others. Most of the problems ascribed to illegal immigration are not caused by illegal immigrants. Almost all of the problems ascribed to illegal immigration are problems associated with the lack of enforcement and the manipulation of American laws and public policies.

There are many business and political leaders in America and Mexico who benefit from the current immigration system. The government of Mexico benefits from a system where some of its citizens can move illegally to America, find a job, receive a tax payer funded education, receive subsidized health care, and send parts of a paycheck back to Mexico in order to support remaining family members. This system of illegal immigration keeps American dollars flowing into Mexico, helping to support the economy of Mexico, and reducing the pressure on the government of Mexico to reform.

Construction, farming, hotels, landscaping, and many other businesses in America benefit from a system which supplies a never ending source of inexpensive unskilled labor. These unskilled laborers themselves are rarely able to afford the services of the businesses that utilize illegal immigrants. This system of illegal immigration keeps the prices lower, the profits higher, and maintains the growth potential of the businesses who utilize undocumented laborers. It is a system that also punishes all of the honest businesses that obey the law because it is more expensive for a business to follow the law.

Most Americans want to punish illegal immigrants and business that hire illegal immigrants either through existing laws or new legislation with even stiffer penalties. Some Americans, including President Bush, want to create a two tier system of caste for guest workers. At the same time, almost nobody is in favor of granting amnesty to any illegal immigrant regardless of how long they have been in America. The conventional wisdom is that a grant of amnesty will encourage more Mexicans to break the law and come to America illegally with the hope of eventually obtaining their own amnesty.

As American citizens, we have a right to vote for leaders and laws, but we should be very careful about supporting leaders and laws that change the basic nature of American freedom and American justice. Stricter enforcement of existing laws, new laws with stiffer penalties, a thirty foot wall separating Mexico from America, and a guest worker program do not represent a move toward more freedom and justice. All of these solutions would represent a significant turn away from freedom and justice.

It is time for the government of the United States, the government of Mexico, the businesses in America who hire illegal immigrants, and the citizens of America, to find the rectitude to begin making and enforcing an immigration policy that allows Mexicans who believe in America to live in America, work in America, contribute to America, and become American citizens without having the stigma of second class status. It is time for Americans to quit claiming a birthright that is fundamentally unjust and fundamentally un-American.

Real Simple

This is real simple. There is no need to complicate morality when a simple principle is all that is needed.

The obligation of a Christian is to always offer peace. This offer of peace must always be on the table for an enemy to accept when the enemy is ready to lay down their arms. If the enemy of the Christian refuses to accept the peace offer, it then becomes the obligation of the Christian to protect the innocent. Protecting the innocent sometimes involves killing the enemy.

The war in Iraq was not only a just war, it was one of the few real moral accomplishments by my country in my lifetime. The after-war in Iraq has had problems because some of the enemy still does not want peace. The enemy has chosen death over peace. We should oblige.

Curing the Conservative Crack-Up

Here is a good description of what Republicans in Washington need to do in order to return to Conservatism.