iPandora

I came across the Blueberry Story recently. It didn’t pass the sniff test, but I couldn’t immediately explain why.

Jamie Vollmer was the CEO of an ice cream company that made, at one time, what some considered the best ice cream in America. He was also a sharp critic of the public school system, and shared his criticisms before an assembly of teachers and educators.

I was convinced of two things.  First, public schools needed to change; they were archaic selecting and sorting mechanisms designed for the industrial age and out of step with the needs of our emerging “knowledge society”.  Second, educators were a major part of the problem: they resisted change, hunkered down in their feathered nests, protected by tenure and shielded by a bureaucratic monopoly.  They needed to look to business.  We knew how to produce quality. Zero defects! TQM! Continuous improvement!

At the end of this particular talk he took questions from the audience.

As soon as I finished, a woman’s hand shot up.  She appeared polite, pleasant – she was, in fact, a razor-edged, veteran, high school English teacher who had been waiting to unload.

She began quietly, “We are told, sir, that you manage a company that makes good ice cream.”

I smugly replied, “Best ice cream in America, Ma’am.”

“How nice,” she said. “Is it rich and smooth?”

“Sixteen percent butterfat,” I crowed.

“Premium ingredients?” she inquired.

“Super-premium! Nothing but triple A.”  I was on a roll.  I never saw the next line coming.

“Mr. Vollmer,” she said, leaning forward with a wicked eyebrow raised to the sky, “when you are standing on your receiving dock and you see an inferior shipment of blueberries arrive, what do you do?”

In the silence of that room, I could hear the trap snap….  I was dead meat, but I wasn’t going to lie.

“I send them back.”

“That’s right!” she barked, “and we can never send back our blueberries.  We take them big, small, rich, poor, gifted, exceptional, abused, frightened, confident, homeless, rude, and brilliant.  We take them with ADHD, junior rheumatoid arthritis, and English as their second language. We take them all!  Every one! And that, Mr. Vollmer, is why it’s not a business.  It’s school!”

He was unable to reply to such ideas. And it took me a day to realize what was wrong with this teachers argument.

First, there is truth in both what Mr. Vollmer said and in what this teacher said. Neither of them are completely correct, and neither of them are completely wrong.

The big hole in this educators argument is that children are not the only resource in a school.

When you’re building a product commercially you gather all sorts of raw materials and assemble them and process them to create a finished product. Businesses are primarily rewarded by doing this more efficiently and with more quality than other companies. However, simple physical raw materials are never the entire picture.

You can take blueberries and cream and sugar and eggs and ice and salt and throw them together all day and it will not turn into ice cream. You must have a goal, a guiding principle, a primary idea which directs the process from beginning to end. This idea begins before any raw materials are assembled and achieves fruition and is born into reality in the end product.

In a school children are both a raw material and eventually the fruition and reality of this idea. A healthy, intelligent, wise, productive and strong member of society is the hoped-for result of any school. When children are the raw material (as small children first coming into the school) they indeed cannot be turned away. The school must take any and all. The teacher is right about this.

However, there are many other raw materials which may (and indeed should) be turned away at the loading dock for insufficient quality. Teachers are one of the raw materials of our education system. Those who can’t do, teach, is a sad but true tale of many who comprise the front lines of education in America. Low academic standards does not attract the best and the brightest to this profession. Many of the best teachers teach because they love to. Many others do it because they cannot find so secure a position with as healthy a payroll or extensive benefits in the private sector.

Education philosophies are another raw material that can and should be examined in light of reality and not in light of the establishment’s preconceived notions of the state of the world.

Specific subjects that do not pertain directly to healthy functioning in society also ought to be turned away at the door.

The lesson that schools should take from business, first and foremost, is that competition is good for everybody involved.

The only people who will be hurt by school vouchers, charter schools, more local control of education, and less federal nannying are teachers who aren’t up to snuff and entrenched and ensconced administrators who cannot really justify their silly existence.

The teacher was right, they can’t turn away children from school. Every child can and will benefit from learning truth. But learning and truth are not necessarily the same, and to fail to see the difference and to support a system that is so obviously and painfully failing yet another generation of children is to fail to see yet another blade laid to the neck of our great nation.

Continued from part 4

CONSUMPTION: “Golden arrow” “heart of the system, the engine that drives it.
“Protecting this arrow (of consumption) has become the top priority for (government and corporations).”
After 9/11 President Bush told US to shop. – The economy had been hurt. It was not the only thing he said. Bush said many things during that time, among them he dealt with the serious blow to our economy. He was standing well in his position with the bully-pulpit to minimize the effect the attacks had on us. The goal of the terrorists was to cripple our nation in as many ways possible, including economically. To address this specific threat Bush did make statements encouraging us to not sit tight and hunker down. If the economy took a hard hit from people acting in fear, people would have lost their jobs, lost money, experienced much more damage than we actually did. This was not a cold-calculated attempt to shore up his ‘buddies’ in business, this was Bush’s way to keep Americans acting from a position of strength.
Percentage of resources still in use 6 months after purchase: 1% -
99% trashed within 6 months – How much of this is packaging? Terrible packaging, wasteful. Can the government do better? They can’t design a simple tax system. What do you think their packaging would look like? Once again, the private citizen using the resources available to them can change this. In the news just today Amazon.com reports they are redesigning packaging and encouraging other companies to do the same to minimize waste and improve the user experience with packaging in response to one person’s ‘encouragement’. It’s not that this isn’t a problem, it’s just the implied solution is far from the best.
“It didn’t just happen. It was designed.”
“Our enormously productive economy demands that we make consumption our way of life, that we convert the buying and use of goods into rituals, that we seek our spiritual satisfaction, our ego satisfaction, in consumption…We need things consumed, burned up, replaced and discarded at an ever-accelerating rate.” Victor Lebow, 1955 – This is idolatry to a Christian who participates to the extent people such as Lebow desire or prescribe. That is undeniable. But it is wisdom to participate to the extent God allows us, for in our participation we expand the gifts God has given us (Parable of the Talents), benefit others through the melding and expansion of each others resources, and enable ourselves to support ministries which further His work on this earth.
Purpose of the economy is to create more consumer goods – NOT: Health care, Education, Safe transportation, Sustainability, Justice. Governments have a God-given responsibility to apply Justice. We ourselves, as individuals and together as an independent society have the opportunity to meet all the other needs through the strength of the economy. If there was not this vehicle for spurring innovation and creating wealth, how would any development and growth occur in any of these other categories?
Planned obsolescense: “Planned for the dump” OK for smaller things, packaging. Now bigger stuff too. – Solution? Research and buy more reliable stuff. I purchase a quintessential toss-away technology item, a portable CD player, 10 years ago. I paid $150, which is significantly more than people pay on average for such devices. However, mine is still running. My cost is therefore only $10 per year. A good price. And no extra junk for those 10 years from disposing of cheaper products. It’s not like I’ve not abused the device, it’s followed me to work and school in my pockets, walking, on the bus, bicycling, etc… It’s just better. Armed with the extensive knowledge we have today, we are more able than ever to verify products reliability. All this ability is because of the capitalist system which encourages innovation.
Percieved obsolescence: “Convinces us to throw away stuff that is still perfectly useful”
Not keeping up with the times.
“It’s to keep us buying new shoes” – We are allowing ourselves to be controlled and defined by media. There is nothing which says we must act a certain way as defined by the media, there is just our decision to allow such things control in our lives. If we allow ourselves to be controlled, we are not victims, we are weak but nevertheless guilty independent moral agents.

National happiness peaked in 1950s (post war). Why? – Because we were all working, on a post-war high. Industry was thriving. Poor people 20 years previously were now part of the exploding middle class. More people were going to school and getting college degrees than ever before. All because of the incredible wealth ingenuity and innovation supported by a free-market, capitalist system which had just vanquished a strong enemy in the form of Fascist Nazi Germany.

DISPOSAL: Trash – 4.5 pounds each day per person

Dumped in landfill or burned and dumped – Burning trash was the main power generation method in Woodland, CA. It may not be cleanest, but it does use the the output in a creative and productive manner.

Climate change: incineration, super toxins, Dioxin. – Climate change does not enjoy the scientific consensus many would like it to. After the UN report on climate change came out, several scientists sued to have their names removed from its list of endorsers, claiming they’d been misled in the content of the report. The climate change models popularized by Al Gore are suspect at the very best, with causation and correlation confused and data manipulated in ways that ought not be in serious scientific pursuits. Further, the aims and goals of many of those claiming catastrophic global warming are more damaging to society than they are helping to global climate change.

Recycling helps – Recycling is not energy effective. It takes more energy to recycle paper and plastic than it does to make more and new. Not that recycling is bad, it just takes a wealthy society to support an effective recycling system.

Core of the problems? - The solutions proposed in so many of these arguments engaged the government in taking over huge sections of private industry in an attempt to make it all work in some happy circle. Individuals building corporations to provide creative and effective solutions or convincing other corporations to clean up their acts is more effective and do not have the same crippling effect on the economy and devastation on people’s lives as the government intrusion.

Labor rights, blocking landfills and incinerators, taking back government (of the people by the people). - How do labor rights get in here? This is not a list of solutions, it’s a laundry list of the speaker’s favorite pet socio-political projects. Taking back government is an excellent course of action, one I can definitely sign on to. But I think her ideas and my ideas of what that government ought to do are very different and mutually irreconcilable. Instead, make government small and increase the ability of people to convince corporations to act responsibly. At the same time remove the protections from people who do try to convince those corporations so that frivilous suits over pointless and wasteful stupidities will be deterred from their damaging and greedy quests.

“Chuck the throw-away mindset” – Excellent idea. All for this one.
“Local living economies” – Read: “Master-planned communities” Who plans those communities? Allowing communities to grow naturally is better. Zoning laws needlessly restrict the growth of communities along the predetermined lines preferred by city planners.

People created problem, people have to create solution. - But can we? All these problems are symptoms of a single, much larger problem: human sin. And we are unable to resolve it. We do what we can as part of our changed and redeemed natures as Christians to fix problems as we can with the first goal of bringing others in from the dark of sin and into the light of Christ.

Continue reading in part 6

Continued from part 3

DISTRIBUTION: “Selling all the toxic, contaminated junk as fast as possible”
“Keep the prices low, keep the people buying, keep the inventory moving”
“How do they keep the prices down?”
“They don’t pay the workers very much, and they skimp on health insurance everytime they can. It’s all about externalizing the costs. What that means is the real costs of making stuff aren’t captured in the price.” – Is there a mandate that companies provide health insurance? It definitely is a perk and people are perfectly able to vote with their feet and take jobs which provide insurance coverage, which will then encourage more employers to provide health insurance.
“We aren’t paying for the stuff we buy”
“I didn’t pay for the radio. So who did pay?”
These people paid with the loss of their natural resource space.
These people paid with the loss of their clean air, with increasing asthma and cancer rates. – A bugbear: healthy diet and exercise have been shown over and over again to allow our body to process toxins it encounters and avoid the problems many people result to medication to resolve. Also, studies have shown that rates of many diseases are not increasing so much as diagnosis of them is. People are more willing to be tested for diseases and conditions and accept treatment of those diseases and therefore the incidence rates are going up. There may indeed be increases in the actual incidence rate, but we cannot know a) how much is accounted for by the more pervasive testing and b) whether there is significant enough correlation between the two data sets to support the claim of pollution causing the increasing incidences of illness.
“Kids in the Congo paid with their future. 30% of kids in the Congo dropped out of school to mine… a metal we need for our cheap and disposable electronics.” – If that job payed them more than they’ve ever dreamed of earning before in a society where education does not mean what it means to us, is that as terrible as the initial claims sounds? The video makes the error of viewing these cultures through the prism of a Western viewpoint. The children would be better served in the long run by staying in school now. Their potentials would be significantly improved. But to leave those schools now and go to work supporting their families was a valid and tempting option to many of them. Our cheap and disposable electronics has grown their economy and given money to the lowest of the low in their society. How is that bad again?
These people paid by having to cover their own health insurance. - If you compel every employer to provide health insurance, you raise the cost of each employee to their employer. If the cost of employing people goes up, employers will employ fewer people. So then which is better: A worker paying for their own insurance or an unemployed person unable to pay for anything and living off the government dole?
All along this system people pitched in so I could get this radio for $4.99. - That is the beauty of the system. It is not perfect, and many people don’t get the same “treatment” by the system. But by and large, more than any other system that has been tried or theorized, more people benefit to a greater extent across all levels of income, culture, and economy by the capitalist system. It is not that capitalism is the perfect system, it is simply the best system we humans can engage in.

Continued from part 5

Is it just me, or are people really not listening to our political candidates. I can understand people not listening to John McCain. He has nothing to say and has been using the same lame attacks for about three weeks now. However, why aren’t people listening to Mr. Obama and Mr. Biden. They have a ton to say. In fact, the more they talk, the more they reveal themselves. Here is one example and here is another example.

Some general talking points from these audio clips include:

• The Constitution doesn’t say what the federal government must do on my behalf. (Actually it does. It says that the federal government is to protect me and create an environment for me to prosper in. However, it condones little else.)
• The Supreme Court is wrong for not addressing the redistribution of wealth or the economic injustice in this society (My goodness, keep the courts out of this. If they courts [especially the Supreme Court] are supposed to interpret the Constitution, why would they even touch this issue seeing as it is not addressed in the Constitution.)
• Civil Rights movements didn’t break free from the constraints of the Constitution. (No, it redefined the Constitution to protect all citizens of the United States. It was not supposed to give give people the liberty to steal the money of hard working Americans.)
• The Constitution is actually a list of negative liberties. (Darn right it is. The Constitution was supposed to be a restraint on Government and all its dealings, not on the citizens. Remember where the founding fathers came from? Yah, they didn’t want an oppressive government.)
• The civil Rights movement didn’t do enough to bring about a “redistribution of uh, um, uh change” (you wanted to say wealth, right?)
• Redistribution of wealth is an administrative responsibility. ( Keep your butter finger government hands out of my pocket. You are supposed to do a good enough job for us to want to give you money, or at least not mind paying our taxes. That is the administrative role. Do a good job, earn our respect. Earn our dollar. Then manage the money to OUR advantage. But, since you can’t properly manage the redistribute halfway legitimate taxes [anyone remember Social Security], why would I want to trust you with the stealing and redistribution of my money.)
• The Constitution reflects “The” fundamental flaw that continues to this day. (What, the lack of a redistribution of wealth to the lazy or the down right racism that is rampant in all parts of the United States? Guess what, I have news for you, the majority of the U. S. is color blind now. Take a trip to California. It is hard to find racism there, unless it is directed at Mexican-Americans [and the African-Americans are the primary proponents of that racism]. However, Mr. Obama, you will find racism if you look for it. I mean, just look at the fact that estimates say that 95% of African-Americans will be voting for you.)

And here are a couple gems from this article.

People had a way of hearing what they wanted in Mr. Obama’s words. Earlier, after a long, tortured discussion about whether it was better to be called “black” or “African-American,” . . . According to Mr. Ogletree, students on each side of the debate thought he was endorsing their side. “Everyone was nodding, Oh, he agrees with me,” he said.

[In a Robotic Tone] Yes Master . . . Lead on oh Great One . . . The world will bow before your superior rhetoric . . .

But mainly, Mr. Obama stayed away from the extremes of campus debate, often choosing safe topics for his speeches. At the black law students’ annual conference, he exhorted students to remember the obligations that came with their privileged education. His speeches, delivered in the oratorical manner of a Baptist minister, were more memorable for style than substance, Mr. Mack said. “It’s the inspiration of the speech rather than the specific content,” he said.

Yes Great One . . . another great showing . . . your superior speaking ability sent shivers down my spine . . .

a mouse infestation at the review office provoked a long exchange about rodent rights — as well as some uncertainty about what Mr. Obama himself thought about the issue at hand.

In dozens of interviews, his friends said they could not remember his specific views from that era, beyond a general emphasis on diversity and social and economic justice.

Yes master . . . you listen to my needs . . . you know who I am and what I want . . . you will give me my deepest desire . . . All will see you as our Savior from . . . um, uh, um  . . . What can you save us from, I didn’t hear that part?

In interviews, Mr. Obama was modest and careful. (In a rare slip, he told The Associated Press: “I’m not interested in the suburbs. The suburbs bore me.”)

Watching a British humor bit on politics and the education system (a real gem you’d get a laugh out of along with some insight on how to argue for school choice and a minimized Department of Education, read on for the links), it struck me that the great American Education system is an exercise not in excellence or even equality, but mediocrity.

Pushed upon us with the rationale that forgotten corners of America would be educated, that a standardized system would raise all schools to a uniformity of excellence and achievment on par with the best schools in the nation.

Instead, the poor and those who don’t care languish in the scum of poor teachers and poorer facilities, while those who care and those who can, pay for private schools to do their best upon their children.

There is no basis within a non-competitive system for any to excel. Teachers are protected by Unions from having to strive for real excellence and can instead coast on ignorance while their pupils languish in the squalor of low expectations and high bills.

The centralized system is capable only of moving quickly only in the direction of untested and untried educational philosophy promoted by pawns and peons of pop-culture, and is incapable of modifying itself to special circumstances and situation unique to each neighborhood and city.

The monolithic education system is shown to be a false hope by the very awards it offers. Principles, administrators, and teachers who buck the system, go far beyond the call of duty (or their contract) to achieve real results are rewarded instead of expected. The system has not helped them and only pay lip-service to their triumph over it.

The solution? Privatise and allow competition to take over the system. It may be (slightly) humorous, but the truths you’ll hear in the four videos linked below will encourage you.

The National Education Service – 1 of 4
The National Education Service – 2 of 4
The National Education Service – 3 of 4
The National Education Service – 4 of 4

Some goodies that I’ve found interesting, enlightening, and maybe a bit scary in the last few days worth of news.

First up, Jesse Helms.

He died recently, and our condolences and sympathy go out to his family and friends, of which he apparently had many. People who met him invariably found him courtly and affable, the quintessential gentleman, regardless of whether they agreed with him or not.

“If you took a poll of the pages and the people who work in the Capitol about who was the most popular member, I expect Jesse Helms would have won, which would surprise an awful lot of people in the press and people out in America who thought of Jesse Helms as a fierce individual,” (Senate Minority Leader Mitch) McConnell (R-Ky.) told the Senate Monday.

In the Wall Street Journal, John Fund said of Helms:

If Ronald Reagan was the sunny and optimistic face of modern conservatism, the uncompromisingly defiant exemplar of it was Jesse Helms.

Senator Helms was a man of character and consistancy, with few equals alive in our time. Mr. Fund ends with this:

Jesse Helms was a major influence on American conservatism, but his career provides a blueprint for anyone who represents an embattled minority viewpoint. You can, with persistence and unflinching determination, change the political odds in your favor.

We see liberal and socialist causes operating today based on the methods Senator Helms pioneered and championed for many years.

But the socialists who disagreed with him in nearly every way except method have besmirched his record by use of a myopic focus on several incorrect and inexcusable stands and a refusal to see Senator Helms’ rationale and larger worldview and philosophy.

The Day of Connecticut claims he was against civil rights progress. I, too, would be against much of what they consider to be progress.

I have referenced Booker T. Washington previously. The gist of his philosophy was that rather than trying to erase the effects of slavery by raising the black American above his comparable white American we ought to focus on erasing every wall or seperation or limiter between any race, allowing all to equally participate so much as they desire in the American Dream. Currently, American policy is racist, purportedly in favor of the black American, but by attempting to ease the way of the black American, they are damning the average black American to a life of desperation as by policy they are not allowed to compete in the marketplace of merit, only the bazaar of skin color.

I do not know enough of Senator Helms’ view on integration, and from reading the current crop of articles framing his life, I do not think I would agree with much of what he believed on the issue. At the same time, it is conceivable that the ideas of Booker T. Washington would be vilified with much the same hatred as has been directed to Senator Helms.

San Francisco’s Alternative Online Daily, BeyondChron.com, “The Voice of the Rest”, makes their view very, very clear: “Jesse Helms: Just A Dead Southen Bigot” (written by “a radical southern Italian atheist queer with a website”, Tommi Avicolli Mecca).

The Washington Post rises no higher than the “radical southern Italian atheist queer with a website”, and, in face, cannot even come with anything original. The Post re-posts an article they wrote 7 years ago: “Jesse Helms: White Racist“.

The National Review calls him a Patriot. One wonders if this were a according to a definition Obama would posit.

Speaking of Obama (that was a segue worth of Michael Medved), even the pro-socialist media are starting see that he cannot possibly support the massive amount of money and government largesse he has promised to each and every Harry Hardluck and Sally Sobstory and Liberal Petproject to be found.

The LA Times adds up the cost of Obama’s agenda:

“I don’t think it all adds up,” Isabel Sawhill, an official in President Clinton’s Office of Management and Budget, said of Obama’s spending plans.

The Houston Chronicle points out that laundry-lists are often tossed once the person is elected:

In more than a year of campaigning, Democratic Illinois Sen. Barack Obama has made a long list of promises for new federal programs costing tens of billions of dollars, many of them aimed at protecting people from the pain of a souring economy.

But if he wins the presidency, Obama will be hard-pressed to keep his blueprint intact.

The Houston Chronicle goes on to point out a distinct and significant difference between John McCain and Barak Hussein Obama:

Obama has said he would:

• strengthen the nation’s bridges and dams ($6 billion a year)
• help make men better fathers ($50 million a year)
• aid Iraqis displaced by the war ($2 billion in one-time spending)
• extend health insurance to more people (part of a $65-billion-a-year health plan)
• develop cleaner energy sources ($15 billion a year)
• curb home foreclosures ($10 billion in one-time spending)
• and add $18 billion a year to education spending.

It is a far different blueprint than McCain is offering. He has proposed relatively little new spending, arguing that tax cuts and private business are more effective means of solving problems.

It is socialism that Obama proposes. He is a socialist of the common order. Perhaps it is inexperience, perhaps it is that he honestly thinks this is the correct way, perhaps he hungers for the reality of the power that many ascribe to him in him nearly messianic coming.

And finally, some local goodness. My governor, Rod Blagojevich hears it from the media. The allegations against him are more serious than those for which former governor George Ryan was just sent to prison. And Obama is mentioned:

From the BloggingBlagoBlog.

For those of you who aren’t interested in politics, let me give you three reasons why you should care enough to vote in the general election for president:

1. Human life is at stake. If you believe that the unborn are human being made in teh image of God, then you should care about who will be appoint new supreme court justices who may offer hope of overturning Roe v. Wade.

2. Morality and knowledge are at stake. The two candidates have very different views on education. One will give us the same old system, the other supports a major change in the system that could improve the education AND virtue of millions of kids.

3. Our country as a place of free and self-governing citizens is threatened. Will we go down the road of reliance and dependency on the government — living in an ongoin state of adolescent irresponsibility? Or will we fight against this trend?

Of course these issues will not be quite this extreme or solely decided by this election BUT these are issues in politics and they are very real divides and problems. I admit up front that this is a long note. I hope most of you will still read it because it has what I deem to be important things in it (otherwise I wouldn’t have taken the time to write it).

I don’t know if anyone else has experienced this (although I’m guess many of you have) but the idea of having to choose between McCain and Obama in the fall leaves a bad taste in one’s mouth. McCain has passed policies that absolutely drive me up the wall. They are infuriating. But Obama’s promise of Progressivism is even worse. Where will the nanny state end, where will dependency upon the federal government in every arena stop, if Obama is elected and begins instituting huge spending increases? Not to mention his show-stopper support of abortion. So I come back to the title of this piece, “What is a small government conservative to do?”

I’ll be the first to admit I have had mixed feelings on this. For a long time I was sure (and told a number of people) that I would vote for a third party this fall to “discipline” the powers that be in the Republican party for putting forward a big government conservative like McCain. I thought it would be ok to let Obama win because myself and many others chose to support a real conservative candidate. If Obama won I think ti would galvanize the country and the Republican party four years down the road. But I have changed my mind and I will tell you why.

First, let me tell you some of the things I detest about McCain’s policies. We can start with the infamous McCain-Feingold campaign finance law. Not only was this a direct violation of the first amendment and our ability as Americans to express our political opinions freely by putting our money where our mouth is, it’s just a bad policy. It has increased the incumbency rates by making it more difficult for new candidates to raise money to challenge the incumbent. If that’s not a bad policy, I don’t know what is. Furthermore, it has led to increasing complexity in how campaigns are financed. There are now back door mechanisms and roundabout ways for groups to contribute money and express their opinions. But this is only an imperfect substitute for a free arena of public and political discourse. You know what else bothers me about McCain? If you guessed environmentalism, you would be correct.

Now I don’t want to make this a debate about global warming but about the policy McCain advocates. He position is that the US should reduce carbon emissions by 60% by 2050. Ok, is that a good idea? Will reducing our carbon emissions by that much effect the global carbon emissions? Let’s assume that China continues to grow (and pollute) over this time period. Not only that, let’s also assume that a number of other countries begin industrializing over this time period. I think it would be fair, in fact extremely generous, to say that if McCain’s 60% reduction goal was met, we would only decrease the world carbon emissions by 5-10%. Now, what effect will that have on the rate of global warming? Considering scientists can barely even measure the increase in temperatures now, I’m guessing not much at all.

So we’ve looked at the potential benefits (with regard to global warming) what about the costs? How will this reduction in carbon emissions come about? Well, best case scenario they come about gradually. We offer carbon tax credits that can be bought and sold by different companies in different industries. So the most valuable production will be allowed to continue (albeit at a higher cost) and the less valuable (though still valuable enough to exist) industries and companies will be driven out of business. Will there be innovation to reduce emissions? You bet. Will there be less emissions? You bet again. But economically we will be worse off. And not just us, but other countries that benefit from our production and consumption will be worse off. Because if we have less production, and thereby wealth, domestically, it follows we will buy fewer goods from foreign countries. Anyway, I think carbon tax credits are a bad idea because the costs far outweigh any benefits I have seen thus far. And carbon tax credits are the best idea they are considering. There are many many worse ones.

So, given these positions, why would I decide to support McCain? Well I’ll tell you. It’s the classic compromise position but I think it’s reasonable. THE STAKES ARE TOO HIGH! Sure, I would love to vote libertarian and stick it to the Republicans. I would like to see people see the consequences of their actions and ideas – though it affects us all, those people who are well off and/or intelligent will be ok, it’s the poorer people and the less educated and intelligent who will be taken advantage of. And the problem extends beyond that; most middle class and upper middle class will be hit hard by the policies proposed by Obama and company.

But back to my first statement, I think that libertarian vote would be irresponsible. Can I choose to, in a sense, tacitly support abortion and allow it to continue? A vote for someone other than McCain supports Obama. Indirect of course, but clearly acknowledged. Ask anyone whether their voting libertarian instead of republican helps Obama and they will admit that it does. What about the judges the next president will appoint to the Supreme Court? For you history buffs out there (Mark Perkins) just think about the influence the Supreme Court has had over the past century. Those are pretty high stakes. Think about how difficult it is to cut government spending once it is in place, and how hard it is to remove bureaucrats and new layers of regulation and red tape. Those are pretty high stakes.

And McCain isn’t all bad. In fact, my writing this piece was spurred by reading a full page section in the Wall Street Journal comparing the two candidates on Taxes, Education, Social Issues, Diplomacy, Iraq, Energy, Health Care, and Housing. There are some important differences between the candidates. Allow me to highlight just a few for you.

In Energy policy: while McCain supports a 60% decrease in carbon emissions by 2050, Obama supports an 80% reduction. While McCain favors incentives (which unfortunately probably means subsidies) for nuclear power (which, by the way, I think will be increasingly important in the future), Obama supports subsidies for solar and wind energy and is against nuclear energy. I don’t know how many of you know this, but right now solar and wind energy are terribly inefficient ways of creating energy. That’s not to say they won’t be better in the future, but right now they are just not feasible on a large scale and throwing taxpayer money at them won’t change that anytime soon. It’s better to let the market handle that because they will look for the most cost effective and profitable methods, rather than the purely “research” or “scientific” methods. Furthermore, and you environmentalists will love this (Mark), it has been observed that giant wind turbines actually disrupt the environment. Wind and weather patterns and the migration of different types of birds have been damaged through existing wind turbines.

In Healthcare, Obama supports socialized medicine (a.k.a. bad medicine you have to wait months to receive) while McCain supports somewhat socialized medicine (a.k.a. you can still get good medicine from time to time, but it’s going to cost you big bucks) Actually, his position isn’t quite that bad. The estimates for his program are $7-10 billion while for Obama’s they are about $110 billion. A sizable difference if you ask me.

In Education McCain favors greater school choice and allowing parents to put their education taxes towards private or charter school tuition (although you don’t pay tuition at charter schools as far as I know; I have a feeling the writer just wasn’t aware of that). Obama’s position is to throw more money at the problem. He wants to spend money for pre-school programs ($10 billion), K-12 ($8 billion), and college ($10 billion a year). I don’t think I have to tell you that throwing money at the problem will not fix it and won’t even alleviate it. If you have questions about that, please ask.

Of course in Social Issues McCain opposes abortion while Obama supports it. If you believe that the unborn are humans created in the image of God, this should be a HUGE issue for you. The policy of abortion amounts to little less than institutionalized and government sanctioned murder. McCain thinks civil unions and same-sex marriages should be left to the states to determine whether they should be legal or not. Obama agrees, except he wants some states to have to acknowledge and uphold the civil unions created in other states. And McCain supports abstinence only education while Obama favors a “comprehensive” sex education program.

In Iraq, everyone knows that McCain thinks we should stay while Obama wants to cut and run. This is another one of those high stakes issues. While the war is a thorny issue, I think the surge has been very successful in that it has reduced the amount of daily violence in Iraq dramatically and has established relative order and peace. And furthermore there are some encouraging signs that Iraqis are continuing to try and improve their own conditions. The war has not been a success yet and I’m not arguing whether it was a good idea to go in or not, but cutting and running would cause a lot of damage. What is going to happen to all the people there when the American soldiers leave in the next year? Mass death. There will probably be sectarian conflict if not outright civil war, Iran will try to get in there and destabilize things as much as possible, etc. I think it would be morally reprehensible to leave Iraq at the drop of a hat.

As far as taxes go, McCain is in favor of lowering corporate taxes while Obama favors increasing the capital gains tax. For those of you who aren’t very familiar with the corporate world and the tax structure, here’s a 101 crash course:

Right now we tax business three times in this country. We tax the amount they pay their employees. This is what we commonly refer to as the income tax (don’t think I’m patronizing here because I’m not. It’s easiest to speak and understand things in the simplest terms) So employers (business) have to pay part of the social security taxes for every employee. Furthermore, they have to pay their employees more because they know their employees won’t be able to keep everything in their salaries (because of the income tax). Now, the capital gains tax is the tax stockholders and investors have to pay whenever they make money from buying and selling stocks. And as you probably know, companies raise their capital through selling their stock. The capital gains tax makes it more expensive for investors and stockholders to invest in corporations because any returns they may make will be reduced by the tax. Finally we tax business again through the corporate income tax. This means we tax the profits a business makes at some percentage. Right now it’s at 35%. So we triple tax business through the income tax, the capital gains tax, and the corporate income tax. Let’s just say we could increase the dynamism of the market and the incentives to produce wealth dramatically by reducing these taxes. (For those of you that are anti-wealth, we can talk about that later)

Well I think that’s it. I’ve mixed a lot of my opinion in with the positions, but of course, that’s bound to happen since I’m telling you why I’ve changed my mind and decided to support McCain. So what should you do? Well, first of all vote this fall for McCain. But we all know that our individual votes don’t really make a whole lot of difference so…….. Tell all your friends to vote for McCain. If you run into someone who says they are going to vote libertarian, explain to them why they shouldn’t; and if you have friends who are voting for Obama…. Tell them why they shouldn’t. Remember, don’t underestimate the power of suggestion and conviction. As human beings we often look to our friends and peers to see what they think and that can have enormous impact into what we think and do. So don’t be afraid to talk people about these things (albeit in a humble and non-overbearing way). Oh, and by the way, this goes for talking about morality and Christianity too. Maybe I’ll write some notes later on those more controversial, yet more important subjects.

Here’s the link: LINK

For some two years now Lt. Chessani, who had been accused for a massacre of Iraqi innocents, has been before military court. With only 4 defense marine attorneys and one million dollars (mostly provided by Michael Savage and his radio listeners the Savage Nation) against 65 NCIS (Naval Criminal Investigative Service) agents and 36 million tax payer dollars, Lt. Chessani’s case is almost over after the military judge dismisses case. There is only 72 hours left to appeal the decision; please pray that the case is over.

This man was wrongly accused by a reporter who believed Iraqi insurgent propaganda – a make believe massacre. This disinformation was propagated during 2006 (Congress election year) by John Murtha. LINK. Over and over John Murtha, a former marine, condemned these marines who had not yet had a trial – likely for political reasons.

CNN – The Situation Room (Wolf Blitzer)

BLITZER: There’s an investigation of what happened at Haditha. …you’ve suggested this week that there in effect was a massacre. …

MURTHA: Well there was. There’s no question about it…

BLITZER: The Marines say they’re still investigating. They don’t know what happened yet. The pentagon says the same thing. How do you know what happened?

MURTHA: Wolf, you read the “Time” magazine articles. There are pictures, there are photos. You don’t have to talk to the military about the proof.

Yet it is now clear that Murtha was wrong and so was the media; but you will NOT see one iota of apologies from either of them. Nor will you see this great news in the main stream media; no you will see homosexual marriage.

Something else very interesting is Lt. Chissani is a devote Christian, married, with six homeschooled children and it has been his case that has lasted longer than nine other marines. Also this case sets a precedence over all other military trail cases since Vietnam and possibly even beyond (as told by his Chief defense agent during an interview on Michael Savage’s radio broadcast).

In 72 hours The Chief defense attorney will be back on Michael’s show, tune in at KSTE.com durning the hours of 3pm pst and 6pm pst for updates or his site Savage Homepage. Additionally Savage has commited to opening an education fund for Chissani’s six children to help put them through school because they will not get those two years back. Although some may disagree with some of Savage’s politics and radio approach I believe it is reasonable to say God bless him and his listeners for helping this innocent man return to his family.

ADDED: Euphoric Reality has been posting an exhaustive series on the military court cases. Here’s the latest.

…in my family it was me.

From ICanHasCheezburger

And some linky love:

• The Night Writer is a recent discovery and addition to my blogroll.
• Neil at 4Simpsons keeps up the quality, like always. I like his dogs.
• Animate Matters’ Wes keeps my connected to Vox Day by one order of separation, a distance I can handle.
• TikiRae from Haemet keeps me up to date with current conservative thought on the Cornell College campus.
• Ironic SurrealismII and Velvet Hammer keep hitting things, plushly.
• MomLovesBeingAtHome loves being at home. My fiancee will appreciate her.
• Jay at OldFordRoad grew up on old Ford Road, it’s who he is. Stalwart.
• Sol at SolomonHezekiah keeps us up to date on the state of education in rural UK.
• SunflowerDesert keeps me wondering where I can find that desert.

And finally, this fine adaptation of Abbot and Costello’s famous “Who’s on first?”

In a previous article, Priorities Of Preservation, I discussed the importance Christianity puts on the entirety of an person: body, mind, and spirit.

While the world, in a misguided and myopic view constrained by sin, only really cares for the preservation of the body. And through ignorance, loses the whole person.

In a report released last week which most have already heard of or commented on, it was noted that 1/4 of the US Teenage Female population is infected with one of several Sexually Transmitted Diseases.

The immediate cry was that Abstinence Education must be completely abandoned and further explanation of the ins and outs of safe sex be taught to every child.

I find those making that argument to be their own worst enemies, and I am determined to sit and watch them tear themselves apart trying to make sense of what they’ve said.

Better have a good belt to hold these sides in. The problem is, this is no laughing matter: peoples lives are at stake.
At the blog dbTechno (“Providing Science And Technology News Since 1996″) under the headline “Teens Having Sex, Getting STD’s Due To Lack Of Knowledge” (strongly caution) there is a small picture of three bikini-clad young women shaking their derrières before the camera. This was the picture Google had selected on it’s news aggregator to highlight the several articles on this topic this morning.

In our sexified culture it is considered “emancipated” for a woman to be so “comfortable” with her sexuality that she feels willing to flaunt her body either scantily clothed or free of clothes before the whole world.

I don’t think that it is a sign of a healthy self-image that women are willing and even choose to clothe themselves that way.

I am not for arbitrary requirements in clothing, but it is saddening that, younger and younger, we are compelling out daughters and sisters to choose between frumpy and scandalous.

Removing their modesty with bits of lycra and spandex.

Revealing their bodies for the eyes of all the world.

And then we worry that too many of them are having sex.

I think a healthy self image will result in true self-worth, where the woman will not feel compelled to dress “sexy” to get the approval and acceptance of others.

When a woman is dressing revealingly they are revealing their insecurity, not their assuredness.

The Florida Sun-Sentinel Editorial Board this morning published an article titled “Abstinence-Only Education Needs To Go” (no scandalous images here) in which they completely demolish their own claims, twice.

First, early in the article they lay claim to the moral high ground:

From here, it would be easy to play the blame game. But that would be unproductive. It doesn’t matter if you’re the pro-sex education or abstinence-only type, the statistics speak for themselves, and what matters most is that something be done to make our children more sexually responsible and safe.

And then, in the very next paragraph:

Let’s start with re-tooling the failed abstinence-only approach backed by the Bush administration. Let’s teach teenagers about contraceptives and other precautions that could help protect them if they are sexually active.

Yes, lets avoid the blame game, and lets look at the facts. The Bush Administration has indeed backed and supported an abstinence-only education approach, because no one who practices abstinence contracts an STD, no one. It make sense to back a winner. But how many education programs has the Bush Administrations policy actually affected? Good question.

I would be willing to bet that with state policy, and NEA policy, and DoE policy, there is precious little abstinence-only education going on in the public schools of America.

The article then goes on to make an astounding statement. I very nearly cheered, at work, when I read this:

Abstinence teaching has its merits. It not only promotes a sure-proof defense against STDs and unwanted pregnancies, but also the idea that sexual activity requires a high level of maturity and understanding. An adolescent who engages in “protected” sex prematurely may not run the risk of physical infections, but could be exposed to long-term emotional and psychological damage.

And then gets to the…

BOTTOM LINE: Place more emphasis on contraceptives and STDs in sex-education classes.

And they reached that how?

With this simple caveat they have attempted to justify their entire tortured argument, and by extension, rationalize their continued support for the torture of young minds and bodies with illness both physical and psychological:

Like it or not, half of the teenage girls in this country are already sexually active, according to the study. Something has to be done to make them wiser in their choices, or we soon could have an even bigger public health crisis on our hands.

Do they not see the cruel irony?

Because we’re a bunch hapless, helpless dolts who’ve bought the lie that children are capable of making their own informed decisions regarding sex and mature relationships.

Because we’re a bunch of laissez-faire non-present parental units who feel no particular responsibility to counter the culture’s claims that boys are animals and girls are meat.

Because we’re a bunch of lazy do-gooders who value intentions over actions and outcomes and are willing to allow our children to do whatever they please so long as it makes them feel good.

We will complete ignore what we already know to be true: that premature involvement in adult relationships, emotional and physical, will not only harm the body but will also damage the mind.

So long as we tell enough of them to use condoms, we are perfectly willing to let them hop into bed with any yahoo or floozy who comes along.

Yea, that’s advanced society and parental love for you.

See also:

The Condom Conspiracy: Sex, Lies, STIs and Teenage Girls – the evangelical outpost

While we have Planned Parenthood and sex educators claiming that condoms can “offer effective protection against most serious sexually transmitted infections” the report finds there’s no scientific basis for that claim.

STD Data Comes As No Surprise, Area Teenagers Say – Laura Sessions Stepp and Katherine Shaver in the Washington Post

The Marrow girls offered several reasons why teenagers have sex.

“It’s to fit in, peer pressure,” Christine said, noting that virgins are often mocked. Also, “sex sells on TV.”

Khadijah chimed in that some young girls found their inspiration in the popular R&B singer Rihanna, whose latest album is titled “Good Girl Gone Bad.”

But Christina suggested something closer to home. “Write this down,” she said. “Bad parenting.”