A couple of surprising things to end the year on

Two things to end the year on--a climate update and a new poll. Both are instructive and, for some, surprising.

First, a climate update. Flash . . . it's cold outside. Why is this a hot item (pardon the pun)? Well, as we have been told endlessly by the global warming "experts," we are heading toward a catastrophe of our own doing, where we expire in heat death. But wait, whether in Los Angeles or London, recent predictions have gone crazily awry. Global warming? Seems more like a new Ice Age. Get the parkas out.
Those stranded travelers stuck in airports across Europe because of an arctic freeze are a bit confused as well as angry. Sadly, they've been told for more than a decade now that such a thing was an impossibility — that global warming was inevitable, and couldn't be reversed.

This is a big problem for those who see human-caused global warming as an irreversible result of the Industrial Revolution's reliance on carbon-based fuels. Based on global warming theory — and according to official weather forecasts made earlier in the year — this winter should be warm and dry. It's anything but. Ice and snow cover vast parts of both Europe and North America, in one of the coldest Decembers in history.

But what have we been hearing from the experts? Those who wrote the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, global warming report in 2007 predicted an inevitable, century-long rise in global temperatures of two degrees or more. Only higher temperatures were foreseen. Moderate or even lower temperatures, as we're experiencing now, weren't even listed as a possibility. I saw an article from a British newspaper a few years ago that said snow would soon become a distant memory for those in England.

Here's the ugly truth for the global warming crowd. Since at least 1998 no significant warming trend has been noticeable. Unfortunately, none of the 24 models used by the IPCC views that as possible. They are at odds with reality.

Will this moderate their views? Will they admit it's extremely difficult to predict global weather? I doubt it. Not even the extraordinarily frigid weather now creating havoc across most of the Northern Hemisphere bothers them. Don't wait for any forthcoming admissions from this set. They want to bring down the Western world's economic base, and this is one way to do it.

And the other item has to do with the findings of a new poll. Muslims have gradually lessened their support for radical Islam over the past several years. Guess when the support lessened the most? During the years Bush was in office. But I thought Obama was reaching out to the Muslims, soothing them and offering praise for all their accomplishments (and other fairy tales). Looks like people respond better to strength than to pablum and weakness. Who's surprised by this? Only lefties who think we just need to sit down and make nice with our enemies to disarm them. Yeah, that worked for Hitler, didn't it?

School choice in developing nations works

As a public educator and a conservative, I have been interested in the ongoing debate over school choice. The teacher unions fear choice and fight against it fiercely. They have various reasons and scare tactics, but mostly they have money to battle against giving parents the chance to put their children into schools that will do the best job educating their young. A recent movie, Waiting for Superman, exposes the unions for their selfishness in this regard and holds out hope that parental choice would be a better option.

I thought about all this as I read an article in World magazine. By the way, you ought to consider getting this magazine because it acts like Time or Newsweek but without the liberal bias as it reports on news, entertainment, and politics. Anyhoo, World had a report on school choice I found interesting.

The magazine told about a professor of education who studied private schools in a dozen developing countries. He was surprised to learn of private schools existing without government money. Instead, they depended upon "$2-per-month fees paid by rickshaw pullers who scrimp and save to give their children a chance not to pull rickshaws." He found all sorts of for-profit schools created by poor but persevering entrepreneurs.

The professor was especially amazed to see the results when he compared these private schools with better-funded government schools. He found high motivation and better results where he least expected it -- in these poorer schools. Parents had genuine choices of a number of competing private schools that were close to their homes and were in competition to keep prices low. Educational entrepreneurs were responding to parental needs and requirements, with the result that their quality was higher than that of government schools provided for the poor.

A large grant allowed him to create research teams that went on to test thousands of schoolchildren in countries like India, China, Nigeria, and Ghana. They found that poor children in private schools scored 75% better than comparable students in government schools. Of course, this did not go over big with government "experts," who saw these schools as a threat to their bureaucracy.

Sound familiar? We encounter the same results and foot dragging here in the United States. The experts don't want to give up their monopoly on education, so they fight school choice whenever they can. But I think choice is the wave of the future, just like we have seen in the rise of for-profit higher education like the University of Phoenix. Competition is good in all fields, especially education.

Stephen Hawking doesn't prove what he thinks he does

I just came across an article by Jay W. Richards, a Senior Fellow at the Discovery Institute. He is the author of Money, Greed and God as well as editor of the bookGod and Evolution. In his article "Did Physics Kill God?" Richards takes on Stephen Hawking.

Hawking, who holds the chair of mathematics at Cambridge University, announced in his new book The Grand Design that our understanding of physics shows that God did not create the universe. Hawking says because of gravity the universe can and will create itself from nothing. Of course, leading atheists like Richard Dawkins were delighted: "Darwin kicked God out of biology, but physics remained more uncertain. Hawking is now administering the coup de grace."

But Richard says Hawking's arguments are neither new nor compelling. He notes that Hawking is confusing physical laws with causal agents. He has focused on a physical law rather than deal with agents who can use those physical laws to create something that wasn't there before. He believes this is much like someone demanding that we choose between aeronautical engineer Sir Frank Whittle and the laws of physics to explain the origin of the jet engine. Of course, we understand the laws of physics are there, but a person was needed to use those laws in such a way to create the jet engine. Similarly, someone would have to use the law of gravity to produce the universe.

Richards then says Hawking has made a major mistake by claiming the universe created itself from nothing. Actually gravity is something, not nothing. Hawking has clearly not explained why there is something rather than nothing. He has only asserted that something comes from something. No big insight there.

Toward the end of the article, Richards explores how over the last 100 years physics has been making trouble for materialism. In the 19th century, most scientists believed the universe was eternal, so there was no need to worry about a cause or beginning for it. But we now know the universe had a beginning in the finite past, thanks to astronomy and physics. Many scientists hated this idea of a cosmic beginning because they knew that anything that begins to exist must have a separate cause for its existence.

Added to this is the evidence for fine tuning in the universe. We have discovered that the universe has basic laws, constants, and initial conditions which have been precisely calibrated for the existence of complex life. Even someone like Fred Hoyle, a committed atheist, admitted the universe looked like a place where some sort of super intellect had monkeyed with physics.

Richards ends his piece by admitting the issues involved are exquisitely complicated. He cheerfully recognizes that reasonable people can disagree about what these issues mean. But his point is that the case is far from settled. Stephen Hawking's release of his new book is a great time to remind ourselves of the value of critical thinking. Whenever we hear a challenge to our Christian beliefs by a noted scholar, we shouldn't be swayed by the person's credentials. We simply have to ask ourselves what is being said and what proof is offered. In Hawking' case, he has claimed something which he hasn't proved. As Greg Koukl says, smart people can make stupid comments, especially in areas like metaphysics and religion. We don't need to panic at wild claims. Sit back and ask questions to see where the truth really lies. It's back to the drawing board for evolutionists seeking to displace God from His creation.

The Sermon on the Mount--good news for today

In his book The Divine Conspiracy, Dallas Willard spends time discussing the Sermon on the Mount given by Jesus. He sees this as a concise statement of Jesus's teachings on how to actually live in the reality of God's kingdom, which is available to all Christians right here and now. He had a new take on the sermon which made me rethink how I had to interpreted it.

For example, there are the famous words of Jesus: "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." I had always thought and heard that this was a reference to people who realize their spiritual needs. They would be blessed because they would be driven to the arms of Jesus due to their spiritual poverty.

However, the author points out something interesting. Jesus did not say, "Blessed are the poor in spirit because they are poor in spirit." According to Willard, Jesus was not saying it was a good thing to be destitute of every spiritual attainment.

Instead, he says people who are poor in spirit are called blessed for another reason. It's not because they are in a meritorious condition, but because the rule of God has moved upon and through them by the grace of Christ. We who are spiritually impoverished are blessed because of the gracious touch of God in heaven which has fallen upon us. So we all can benefit from the reality of God in our lives, even the poorest among us.

This goes back to the bigger picture that Willard has developed in the book. His overall point is that our lives should be better right now as Christians rather than struggling along just waiting for a blessed afterlife. Willard says God can make a huge difference in the life we have here on earth. So, the Sermon on the Mount tells all of us that we are blessed right now because of God's intervention in our lives.

In summary, he says the Sermon on the Mount does not involve teachings on how to be blessed. No one is actually being told that they are better off for being poor, for mourning, for being persecuted, and so on. Nor are people told the negative conditions are recommended ways to well-being before God or man. They are, in Willard's words, "explanations and illustrations, drawn from the immediate setting, of the present availability of the kingdom through personal relationship to Jesus. "

So the author focuses on something hugely important to all Christians. We can live a life far more abundant than we have now. I know in my life it's easy to get caught up in all the things I have to do, with the result that my Christianity seems dry and distant. Sure, it's good to know I have a future with God based on Christ's ultimate sacrifice for me two thousand years ago. But Willard wants me to realize I can have so much more now than I can imagine. I've heard this before, of course, but Willard drives it home so that it becomes fresh and real. I hope that in this Christmas season, where we celebrate the birth of Jesus, we think about the coming of the kingdom to our own lives right now in December 2010.

Exciting times coming up in Washington

I just read a great piece in The Wall Street Journal, which laid out Republican plans for the coming two years in Washington, D.C. When Republicans take over the House of Representatives in January, they'll have a solid majority, 242 to 193. The author, Fred Barnes, says many good things can happen as a result. Let's hope so.

Barnes believes House Republicans intend to take full advantage of the new conservative mood in the country as people saw the Democrats enlarge the government at a frightening pace. Public sentiment now strongly favors cuts in spending, less government, and a shift in power to the states. Even now the House Republicans are ready to join their Senate colleagues to block the spending surge that Democrats are trying to slip through the lame duck Congress this week.

The Republicans' strategy, according to Barnes, is to use the House as a battering ram to force their proposals and ideas to the top of Washington's list of priorities. By passing spending cuts—a new one every week—and curbs on government activism, the goal is to put Democrats and the president on the defensive. Guess who will now be called the party of "no"?

Barnes mentions several committees which will be at the head of the charge. First is the budget committee. Wisconsin's Paul Ryan, the incoming chairman, says he's "stockpiling bills right now" to cut back spending and overhaul the entire budget process. At the Energy and Commerce Committee, the incoming chairman is Michigan's Fred Upton, who is eager to contain the rising cost of Medicaid. He plans to dispatch committee members to investigate federal agencies to "see if they're capable of running their programs." I have a hunch he'll discover many are not.
In addition, Mr. Upton intends to have what he calls "top-flight governors," including Chris Christie of New Jersey, testify on Medicaid at a series of committee hearings. I'm looking forward to that; Christie is my new political hero. Ever see some of his confrontations with liberals on YouTube? That's not all. He also wants to subject the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, aka ObamaCare, to "heavy-duty oversight." I like that. Of course, parts of it may disappear once the courts get through with it.

Another committee will be looking at financial wrongdoings in our government. The Financial Services Committee, which will be led by incoming Chairman Spencer Bachus of Alabama, is preparing to review the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill enacted this year. More important, he will take up what that law completely ignored, the money-hemorrhaging Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

The House Appropriations Committee, where the purse strings are held, will be the first to act. Its task is to offer "rescissions," or cuts, in the current 2011 budget. To prove their seriousness about reining in spending, House Republicans will vote first on a 5% decrease in funding for congressional operations, the speaker's office included. That vote will be followed by one to repeal ObamaCare. Both are expected to pass the House. Won't that be interesting to watch as it unfolds?

So, here's to a new Washington in 2011. The Republicans have to produce or the American people will turn on them. They didn't win because the electorate loved them. They won because Americans didn't like the direction Obama, Pelosi, and Reid were taking them. It's up to these incoming representatives to make things right. The Democrats won't go quietly, so these next two years should provide plenty of fireworks. Keep our elected officials doing what they promised--trimming the excesses of the past two years.

The Divine Conspiracy

I'm currently rereading The Divine Conspiracy, a book by Dallas Willard. His overall point is that belief in Jesus is far more than the key to everlasting life after our time on earth. Instead, he argues God is relevant for every aspect of our existence. We need him now for our life on earth, rather than only as a part of the hereafter. I want to hit a few highlights of this book.

Since I am part of higher education, I found some of his opening comments intriguing. Teachers have been told over the past fifty years that there is no recognized moral knowledge to be used to develop moral understandings among students. Teachers have been told they are not to impose their views on students.

So what has been the outcome of this attitude? Well, if it's true there is now no body of moral knowledge in our culture, then we shouldn't be surprised at what has come about. Listen to what Robert Coles discovered.

Coles is professor of psychiatry and medical humanities at Harvard University. He's also a well-known researcher and commentator on moral and social matters. In 1995 he published an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education called "The Disparity between Intellect and Character."

He came up with this essay due to an encounter he had with one of his students over moral insensitivity of other students. Remember, this is at Harvard, home of some of the best and brightest in our society. The student was a young woman of shaky economic means who had to clean student rooms to help pay her way through the university. She discovered quickly that people who were in classes with her treated her ungraciously because her lower economic position, without simple courtesy and respect, and often were rude and crude to her. One man, for example, repeatedly propositioned her for sex. What was ironic was that he was in two classes with her which focused on moral reasoning. He excelled in these classes and receive the highest grades.

This young woman quit her job and left school. When she talked to Coles, she concluded by saying to him, "I've been taking all these philosophy courses, and we talk about what's true, what's important, what's good. Well, how do you teach people to be good? What's the point of knowing good if you don't keep trying to become a good person?"

So this is the world of intellectuals. They can fill in the blanks, they can answer essay questions, they can discuss ethical issues. But, of course, this seems to have no bearing on their character or behavior.

That's where we are today -- we have a culture that has accepted the view that what is good and right is not a subject of knowledge that can guide action and for which individuals can be held responsible. As Willard says, we are flying upside down and don't know that. We are clever; we are not good.

This is true in so many other fields besides education. But universities have become authority centers of world culture, so this attitude is conveyed to the rest of our society. Notice that The Divine Conspiracy is covering the same ground that Nancy Pearcey covered in her powerful book Total Truth.

I want to cover a few additional points that Dallas Willard makes, so I plan a few more blogs on his book.

The bomb house-- a reflection

This will be an abbreviated blog dealing with a recent mess in Escondido. It ended up being a big inconvenience, but some interesting things came out of it.

A few weeks ago Sharon heard several loud pops but assumed they were from cars and trucks on a nearby freeway. Then, the week before Thanksgiving, we found law enforcement people swarming all over our neighborhood streets. You know why--a gardener stepped on an explosive powder and was hurt badly when it exploded under his feet.

We soon discovered the house where this took place was right behind us; our backyard met his front yard at Via Scott. Of course, that night we had scheduled a party for a Christian apologetics group at our house. The street was teeming with police by then, so it was quite a scene: "Sure, come on in. Don't worry about the police; it's just a bombing next to us. The chips and drinks are on your right."

The days went by, and life here came to an odd standstill. Finally authorities determined there was no safe way to get explosives out of the house, so they decided to burn it. We were forced to evacuate for a night. We gained some interesting insights as the entire episode unfolded:

1. People who have nothing of importance to say can become media stars. One of our neighbors ended up in the television studio on the day of the burn, smiling and replying to silly questions with pointless answers.

2. The media got many of the details wrong as to location, names, and occupations.

3. Dodging the media is an art form I have not perfected. For example, we were back home, trying to unload all our stuff. We had a dog in the back of our Pathfinder. So, there I was trying to get the dog out as news people scurried over to get our reactions. Sharon said we didn't have anything to say, but the cameraman kept his finger on the button. The next day a student in one of my classes said he saw me and my dog. I can only imagine what a graceful figure I must have seemed as our dog lunged for the backyard while I spun around, desperately holding onto the leash.

4. Friends are priceless. So many called and emailed to ask if they could help. Really sweet.

5. Family is a treasure. We stayed with my mom, and our son took the dog for the night. Who else would be willing to let their yard be turned into a dog bathroom?

6. Stuff is just stuff. We couldn't take much with us, but that was fine. Both Sharon and I realized once again that we get too attached to things at times. Who cares if it all goes up in smoke? We have each other.

7. For all our skepticism, government can function well. Many thanks to all the various branches of the government who helped pull this off successfully.

We're glad it's all over, and we thank God for the blessings and insights He gave us over the last several weeks.

Climate change falls flat in Cancun

The United Nations set up a huge conference on global warming in Cancun this past week. Here’s the good news—nobody cared.

But remember Copenhagen last year? It was there the term "climate change" came into being when the delegates realized the globe had begun to cool, as it does from time to time. Some 45,000 delegates, "activists," business representatives and the usual retinue of journalists registered for the party there.

But it’s different for this year’s beach party at Cancun. The U.N. organizers concede that Cancun won't amount to anything, even by U.N. standards, which is saying a lot.

What happened to all the Washington movers and shakers who have supported severe global warming–oops, climate change—legislation to protect us from ourselves? Consider Rep. Henry A. Waxman of California, who wrote and sponsored the cap-and-trade legislation last year He now says he'll be too busy with congressional business even to think about going to Cancun. Last year, he joined Speaker Nancy Pelosi (remember her?) and dozens of other congressmen in taking staffers and spouses to the party in Copenhagen. The junket cost taxpayers $400,000, but Copenhagen is a friendly town and a good time was had by all.

What about California’s great senators? Dianne Feinstein, another firm supporter of the fight against climate change, seems a bit vague about this year’s meeting. "I haven't really thought about [Cancun], to be honest with you," she tells Politico, the Capitol Hill daily. Barbara Boxer, who was proud to make global warming her "signature" issue only last year, would undoubtedly like to be in Cancun, but she's not even sending anyone from her staff, willing as congressional staffers always are to party on the taxpayer dime. "I'm sending a statement to Cancun." Wow, thanks, Barbara. That should deeply impress those of us who are a bit skeptical about the alarmist rants.

So that’s the good news of what isn’t happening. But there’s more good news about what is happening. There was an announcement that the House Select Committee on Global Warming would die with the 111th Congress. Mrs. Pelosi established the committee three years ago to beat the drums of the ravages of climate change. The result was the proposed job-killing national energy tax, but with the Republican sweep, there's no longer an appetite for killing jobs. Gee, imagine that—people didn’t want more jobs ruined.

I read about the final meeting of this committee. It’s hilarious. Rep. Edward J. Markey of Massachusetts, the chairman of the doomed committee, organized one final event this week, which starred alarmists going on about all the coming global-warming disasters. Wesley Clark was the only former presidential candidate to accept an invitation, and he was a no-show. The star witness of the afternoon session was Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an "environmental attorney" who talked about how "clean energy" is nicer than the other kind. Mr. Markey himself, apparently as bored as everyone else, didn't bother to return after lunch.

So that’s where we stand on global warming, I mean climate change. In a way the poor economy has been a blessing, along with Climategate. They have awakened people to the dangers of turning our economy over to extremists who want to ruin it in the name of an untested, controversial concept. Let’s slow down and consider better alternatives to providing a good earth to our offspring.

Al Gore's admission--more gas from a windbag

Remember Al Gore, leader of the movement to save our planet? Sure, there were inconsistencies and flat-out lies in his movie, An Inconvenient Truth, and sure, he stands to make a lot of money off his advisory role in destroying the economies of the industrialized world. But it’s worth it because he always knows exactly what we should do, right? Oops . . . poor Al has changed his tune when it comes to ethanol.

Just this week he spoke to clean energy financiers in Greece and admitted ethanol is not a cure to our energy problems. "It is not a good policy to have these massive subsidies for first-generation ethanol," he said. The benefits of ethanol are "trivial," he added, but "It's hard once such a program is put in place to deal with the lobbies that keep it going." He’s actually on to something here. Ethanol has become a purely political machine: It serves no purpose other than re-electing incumbents and transferring wealth to farm states and ethanol producers

I love the reference to the “lobbies that keep it going,” considering this includes Gore himself. Over the years, he pushed hard for ethanol. The Wall Street Journal had an article that followed the attempts over time to lobby for ethanol. It first came into being amid the 1970s energy crisis, with Jimmy Carter and a Democratic Congress subsidizing anything that claimed to be a substitute for foreign oil. Mr. Gore, in the freshman House class of 1976, was an early proponent of what was then called "gasahol."

The subsidies continued through the 1990s, with the ethanol lobby finding a sympathetic ear in Clinton EPA chief and Gore protege Carol Browner, who in 1994 banned the gasoline additive MTBE and left ethanol as the only option under clean air laws. When the Senate split 50-50 on repealing this de facto mandate, then Vice President Gore cast the deciding vote for . . . ethanol. That served him well in the 2000 Democratic primaries against ethanol critic Bill Bradley.

During the George W. Bush years, Big Ethanol adapted again, attaching itself to the global warming panic that Mr. Gore did as much as anyone to foment. Republicans in Congress formalized the mandate and increased subsidies in the 2005 and 2007 energy bills. Are you seeing a pattern here? It’s Gore, always at the front of this drive to subsidize ethanol. Remember, this is the same Al Gore we are all supposed to look to for truth about global warming and its solution.

So what happened to Gore’s dream? Fellow greens have slowly turned against corn ethanol, thanks to the growing scientific evidence that biofuels increase carbon emissions more than fossil fuels do. But the boondoggle lives on in dreams for so-called advanced fuels like cellulosic ethanol. Note Mr. Gore's objection only to "first generation," though the Wall Street Journal said people have been told for two decades that advanced ethanol is just a year or two away from viability.

Here’s the good news. At least on corn subsidies, there is a growing left-right anti-boondoggle coalition. The Journal article noted that major corn energy subsidies such as the 54-cent-per-gallon blenders credit expire at the end of the year, and Republican Senators Jim DeMint and Tom Coburn are encouraging the new Congress to prove its fiscal restraints by letting them die.

I think this whole affair says a lot about Al Gore. Do we trust him to take our economy in his hands? Do we believe his alarmist rantings? I hope not.