Acton Institute PowerBlog - Entries from Friday, June 1, 2007

Global Warming Consensus Alert: GWCW IS A TOOL OF EXXON

Friday, June 1, 2007

In what might be the coolest thing ever to happen to me, a Grand Rapids-based “progressive” news outlet has implied that I - as the creative dynamo behind the beloved and highly anticipated Global Warming Consensus Watch posts - am little more than a corporate stooge of Exxon. Yes, the good folks at Media Mouse are pointing the righteous finger of progressive accusation at yours truly for the unimaginable crime of “...running a regular blog feature dedicated to challenging the idea that there is scientific consensus on global warming. These recent activities fit within a history of advocating industry-friendly ‘free-market’ policies and attacking environmental regulations.” Acton also stands accused of giving a forum to an individual with nonstandard and non-“progressive” opinions on both the subject of Global Warming and Corporate Social Responsibility, Mr. Fred Smith. Thoughtcrime, my friends! Thoughtcrime!

Naturally, there must be a reason that we at Acton are so willing to engage in this sort of dangerous expression of subversive views, and Media Mouse has found the smoking gun: a $50,000 contribution to Acton - for general operations - from the Exxon Foundation! Yes, that must be it! That must explain why I, while browsing news on the internet, regularly notice articles published by independent news sources in which the “scientific consensus on global warming” is called into question by 1) scientists or 2) new scientific findings. (Presumably, the media outlets that publish these articles - which include Reuters, The Rocky Mountain News, The International Herald Tribune, The Huntsville Times, and The Financial Times among many others - must also be under the thumb of Exxon, as they’re the ones who actually publish the news articles that I have the audacity to notice.)

So I guess it’s settled: I am little more than a whore for Exxon. Each morning, I receive my talking points from corporate HQ, and every Friday I head down to my local Exxon station to pick up my bag of filthy oil money, a portion of which I use to light cigars that I then extinguish on the backs of the various downtrodden and oppressed wage slaves that I have acquired through my support of “free markets” to do menial labor on my palatial estate while I crank out another issue of Global Warming Consensus Watch.

Or perhaps I simply believe that the science isn’t as settled on this issue as groups like Media Mouse claim, and enjoy presenting a contrary view. Perhaps I didn’t know (and frankly couldn’t care less now that I do know) that Acton does, or ever has received support from Exxon.

Naaah, that couldn’t be it. It must be that we’re all corrupt. So I thought I’d do everyone a favor by just getting it out in the open once and for all.

I am an enemy of the people.

By the way, climate change is normal. And pay no attention to the massive disparity in the amount spent by Exxon in grants to organizations that oppose global warming alarmism last year ($2 million) versus the amount paid out to various alarmist organizations ($100-$150 million). And certainly don’t read this article, which notes that the “gotcha!” funding game can cut both ways. OOH! There I go again with the filthy dirty LIES!

More lies after the jump.

Continue reading "Global Warming Consensus Alert: GWCW IS A TOOL OF EXXON"

Posted by Marc Vander Maas in Environmental Stewardship at 13:46 | Comments (7) | Trackback

Defined tags for this entry:
Climate Change, Exxon, Global Warming, Global Warming Consensus Alert, IPCC

Cornwall Alliance Debates GW at Family Research Council

Friday, June 1, 2007

Representatives of the Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation and the Evangelical Environmental Network faced off in informal debate Thursday, May 31, at the Family Research Council in Washington. Dr. E. Calvin Beisner and Dr. Kenneth Chilton represented the Alliance on a discussion panel about global warming hosted by the FRC. Opposite them were EEN representatives Dr. Jim Ball and Dr. Rusty Pritchard. To hear the panel discussion, click here.

Posted by E. Calvin Beisner in Environmental Stewardship at 11:55 | Leave a comment | Trackback

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climate change, cornwall alliance for the stewardship of creation, creation care, debate, environment, evangelical environmental network, family research council, global warming, stewardship

Death With Dignity, Redux

Friday, June 1, 2007

Why is this man smiling?

Assisted suicide crusader Dr. Jack Kevorkian is out of prison as of this morning. For a good recap on who Kevorkian is, what he proposes for society, and just how creepy the man really is, I encourage you to check out Wesley Smith’s article at National Review Online. A sample:

...most of Kevorkian’s “patients” were not terminally ill, but disabled and depressed. Several weren’t even sick, according to their autopsies. Moreover, Kevorkian never attempted to treat any of the 130 or so persons who traveled to Michigan to be hooked up to his suicide machines to die either by drug overdose or carbon monoxide poisoning.

And as for compassion — forget about it. Kevorkian was never in the killing business to alleviate unbearable suffering. Indeed, over the course of decades he repeatedly explained his ultimate goals in professional journals and in his 1991 book, Prescription Medicide. As Jack Kevorkian articulately expresses it himself, compassion had absolutely nothing to do with it.

Kevorkian’s adulthood obsession has been to perform live human experimentation on people he was killing.

No doubt this event will bring the issue of physician assisted suicide to the forefront of our national dialogue for a time. I added my two cents to this debate almost two years ago and I don’t have much to add to what I’ve already said:

We hear a lot in our society about the importance of “death with dignity.” Often this phrase is used in the promotion of physician-assisted suicide by people who argue that those with terminal illnesses should have the right to “hasten their death” in the face of suffering. In so arguing, however, advocates of assisted suicide reinforce the idea that those who suffer have no intrinsic value as human beings that would cause society to favor sustaining their life; and as a result they strip those who suffer of any dignity at all. They seem to say that the terminally sick and aged have no inherent dignity - but it can be earned by choosing suicide.

The assisted suicide movement - like so many well-meaning “compassionate” efforts - fails because it does not recognize the inherent worth of every man, woman, and child. Dignity and value are not commodities that rise and fall on some moral market in response to the fluctuations of human frailty. They are intrinsic to what we are as humans. They are a part of our very nature, as real a part of us as the blood that flows in our veins.

These thoughts come to mind as I read of the passing of Dame Cecily Saunders, the founder of the modern Hospice movement. Her life’s work has allowed countless individuals to face the end of their life with some amount of physical comfort, often in their own home surrounded by their loved ones. There is a profound truth at the core of the movement that she founded: that dignity in death comes not through the act of dying, but through the act of living one’s life to the fullest until death.

You can read the full post here.

This post is dedicated to the memory of my father, my grandmother, and the other friends and loved ones now departed who demonstrated to me - in the midst of their suffering - the true nature of dignity at life’s end.

More: Jordan Ballor sent along links to three commentaries written by Rev. Robert Sirico in 1996 and 1998 on the topic of Dr. Kevorkian’s activities; they’re all well worth a read as well:

How About a Debate, Dr. Kevorkian? (October 26, 1996): “I am challenging Jack Kevorkian to a formal debate on assisted suicide. I’d like this debate to go beyond the legality or illegality of his practice, and even beyond the facts of the many cases of suicide in which he has assisted. These are the areas most critics concentrate on, whereas he and I both know that real issue here is the morality or immorality of the ‘right-to-die’ position itself, and the ethical implications of assisting people in exercising this supposed right.”
Kevorkian’s Moral Lapse in Right to Die (December 1, 1996): “The faxed response from Geoffrey Feiger reads: ‘”’Keep your religious nose out of medical affairs,“ says Dr. Kevorkian and me.’ I take from this that Dr. Kevorkian thinks people of faith--and 95 percent of Americans describe themselves as such--have nothing to contribute to the subject of medical ethics.”
Terminal TV (November 25, 1998): “What the man actually wants to legalize, it is now apparent, is the untrammeled right to pull the trigger on anyone he deems ready to die anyway – a step from ‘assisted suicide’ to outright medical homicide, an action that violates every code of medical ethics.”

Posted by Marc Vander Maas in News and Events at 11:16 | Leave a comment | Trackback

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assisted suicide, death, jack kevorkian, suffering, suicide

The Henderson Model of International Aid

Friday, June 1, 2007

One of my favorite novels is Saul Bellow’s Henderson the Rain King. Eugene Henderson is a loud, boorish, rich American who goes on a soul-searching journey into the heart of a mythically depicted Africa.

One of Henderson’s first stops is a village inhabited by folks called the Arnewi. He comes into the village brandishing his modern implements, lighting a bush on fire (one of many biblical allusions) and offering to shoot any man-eating lions with his gun loaded with .375 H and H Magnum.

Henderson is determined to help the people of the village any way he can. When it becomes clear that the people (and their livestock) are suffering from water shortages, Henderson leaps into action.

It turns out that the source of the problem is that the village’s cistern is populated by frogs, which the villagers understand to be a curse. The water is not itself harmed by the frog’s presence, but it cannot be used while the frogs are there. Moreover, the Arnewi are prevented from doing anything about the infection, and must wait for divine intervention to lift the curse.

Henderson, of course, is restrained by no such ceremonial inhibitions. He says to the prince, “You’re not allowed to molest these animals, but what if a stranger came along--me for instance--and took them on for you?” Henderson is dedicated to helping the people, “I realized I would never rest until I had dealt with these creatures and lifted the plague.”

Continue reading "The Henderson Model of International Aid"

Posted by Jordan J. Ballor in Effective Compassion at 07:53 | Comment (1) | Trackback

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colonialism, development, europe, henderson the rain king, international aid, paul wolfowitz, saul bellow, world bank