Acton Senior Fellow in Economics Jennifer Roback Morse made an appearance last night on The Glenn Beck Show on Headline News Network. The topic of conversation was “hookup culture” and the degraded sexual ethics of our culture. Dr. Morse is the author of Smart Sex: Finding Life-Long Love in a Hook-Up World. If you missed the show, the clip is below:

Continuing with my posts highlighting just how wonderful things will be here in the United States when the government finally does its job and takes over the healthcare sector of the economy, I’d like to bring your attention once again to the fabulous success story that is the Canadian health care system:

Last year, the Canadian government issued a series of reports to address the outcry over long wait times for critical tests, procedures and surgeries. Over a two year period:
• Wait times for knee replacements dropped from 440 to 307 days.
• Wait times for hip replacements dropped from 351 to 257 days.
• Wait times for cataract surgeries dropped from 311 to 183 days.
• Wait times for MRIs dropped from 120 to 105 days.
• Wait times for CT scans dropped from 81 to 62 days.
• Wait times for bypass surgeries dropped from 49 to 48 days.

Sure, you might have to wait a couple of months for that lifesaving bypass surgery. But remember: it’s free!

Submitted for your consideration:

THE scariest photo I have seen on the internet is www.spaceweather.com, where you will find a real-time image of the sun from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, located in deep space at the equilibrium point between solar and terrestrial gravity.

What is scary about the picture is that there is only one tiny sunspot.

Disconcerting as it may be to true believers in global warming, the average temperature on Earth has remained steady or slowly declined during the past decade, despite the continued increase in the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide, and now the global temperature is falling precipitously.

All four agencies that track Earth’s temperature (the Hadley Climate Research Unit in Britain, the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, the Christy group at the University of Alabama, and Remote Sensing Systems Inc in California) report that it cooled by about 0.7C in 2007. This is the fastest temperature change in the instrumental record and it puts us back where we were in 1930. If the temperature does not soon recover, we will have to conclude that global warming is over.

The author of this story is Phil Chapman, a geophysicist, astronautical engineer, and the first Australian to become a NASA astronaut, just in case you were wondering. No word on whether he’s picked up his briefcase full of cash from Exxon yet or not. Perhaps our local independent media can do some checking on that...

Acton Institute President Rev. Robert A. Sirico appeared on Fox Business Network to discuss Pope Benedict XVI’s visit to the United States this week. If you didn’t catch it live, the video is here:


You’ll also want to tune in this afternoon during the 4:00 hour on Fox News Channel as Rev. Sirico joins Neil Cavuto to comment on Pope Benedict’s arrival.

Update: Here’s the video of this afternoon’s appearance on Fox News Channel:

All that stuff we’ve heard about global warming being unquestionably responsible for more frequent devastating hurricanes? About how the devastation we saw after Hurricane Katrina would soon be the norm? Yeah, not so much:

One of the most influential scientists behind the theory that global warming has intensified recent hurricane activity says he will reconsider his stand.

The hurricane expert, Kerry Emanuel of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, this week unveiled a novel technique for predicting hurricane activity. The new work suggests that, even in a dramatically warming world, hurricane frequency and intensity may not substantially rise during the next two centuries.

The research, appearing in the March issue of Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, is all the more remarkable coming from Emanuel, a highly visible leader in his field and long an ardent proponent of a link between global warming and much stronger hurricanes.

Lessons to learn (again) from this:

1. Our understanding of Earth’s atmosphere isn’t anywhere near complete.
2. Therefore, the “consensus” that we often hear about on the potential effects of climate change isn’t necessarily correct.
3. As such, we should be wary of those who propose drastic responses to a “crisis” that we simply do not fully understand.

Dr. Jay Richards has noted many times that there are four questions we should ask about climate change before we implement any policy in response to it. You can hear him talk about those questions next Thursday here in Grand Rapids. Check that link for more information.

This afternoon, Acton President Rev. Robert A. Sirico took his most recent address from the 2008 Acton Lecture Series on the road to Chicago, Illinois.

Sirico addressed an audience at the University Club of Chicago on The Rise and Eventual Downfall of the New Religious Left. If you were in attendance and would like to listen again, or weren’t able to attend today either today or at last month’s ALS event, you can listen to today’s audio by clicking here (17.8 mb mp3 file).

If you’d like to attend Acton’s Detroit luncheon at the Detroit Athletic Club on April 29, you can register by clicking here. And don’t forget to register for our next Acton Lecture Series event as well, which is coming up quick! Next Thursday - April 10 - Grace Marie Turner will be delivering a lecture entitled “Can We Repair What’s Wrong with our Health Care System through Christian Principles?”

Last night as I was driving to an appointment, I was listening to our local NPR affiliate here in Grand Rapids, and specifically to the show Marketplace. I happened to hear a story about how the government and economists were concerned that the money given to taxpayers via the “economic stimulus package” may actually be used for purposes other than retail spending, thereby not causing the intended “stimulus.” Not the first story of this sort that I’ve heard over the last few weeks.

The difference in this story was that it was being reported that the IRS was now being proactive in ensuring that the stimulus money was being spent “properly” by actually spending the money in advance for a certain class of taxpayers who had been identified as likely to not spend their rebates.

Naturally, I found the story outrageous. So outrageous, in fact, that I was talking back to my radio, and in fact probably talked right over the most important part of the story.

So today, when I noticed that Jordan Ballor had written a post on spending the stimulus, my mind immediately jumped to the outrageous story from the radio. I found the story link on the web, grabbed a few quotes from the transcript of the story that (I thought) I had heard in full, and posted away.

Only to have Jordan direct my attention a few moments later to the last line of the story:

Oh, c’mon, check your calendars, everybody.

Wow, did I feel stupid. Still do, actually.

Anyway, I didn’t have time at the moment to add a correction to the post as we were all busy packing up after today’s Chicago event, so I pulled the post off the blog. Now that I’m off the road, however, I’m re-posting it so that I can really embrace my stupidity. After the jump, enjoy a laugh at my expense.

Continue reading "Mea Culpa (or, How I Got Pwned By Public Radio)"

It’s been a while since we’ve seen a completely meaningless gesture on behalf of the unsinkable global warming consensus. As such, it’s my pleasure to announce that the next meaningless gesture will occur... last Saturday?

Oops.

Yes, Saturday evening saw the arrival of Earth Hour, an 8-9 pm extravaganza of switching off lights that apparently not many people knew about. For example, here’s the local reaction from the Grand Rapids Press:

...some of Grand Rapids’ most prominent environmentalists, including Mayor George Heartwell, had not heard of Earth Hour.

“Earth Hour?” Heartwell responded when asked how he planned to observe it.

West Michigan Environmental Action Council Executive Director Rachel Hood said she “probably” had heard about it, but had no plans.

“We try to save the Earth 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year,” said Hood, who has lots of plans for Earth Day on April 22.

Judging from the article, it appears that Earth Hour went head-to-head with the NCAA men’s basketball tournament and lost in a blowout. The real winners? People who enjoy comparing Al Gore’s home energy usage to that of major engineering landmarks in the US.

While we’re on the subject of Gore, it should be noted that he is now launching a $300 million ad blitz as a part of his “effort to redefine climate change as a moral and spiritual issue.”

(Allow me to pause a moment and note that the left likes to assert that the source of funding can automatically corrupt any scholarship or commentary that fails to support the consensus - see here. Under the principle of “what’s good for the goose is good for the gander,” I’d be very interested in knowing exactly who is putting up $300 million to fund Gore’s campaign. I look forward to some hard-hitting investigative journalism from, say, Media Mouse.)

Now, I’d certainly agree that environmental stewardship is a moral and spiritual issue, and that I, as a Christian, have a stewardship responsibility toward our natural environment. But there’s that word - “responsibility.” We are called to be responsible stewards, to use our minds, to balance sometimes competing goods in order to come to the best possible solution. For example - on the one hand, reducing emissions and pollution is undeniably a good thing, and we should work toward doing so as much as reasonably possible. On the other hand, economic growth is also a good thing, allowing wealth to be created and the poor to be lifted out of poverty - but economic growth often creates pollution. This is where the call to be a responsible steward comes into play - we must balance these competing interests with an eye towards the good of our fellow man.

Global warming is already a moral and spiritual issue, inasmuch as it is an issue of environmental stewardship. But we all know what Gore is getting at when he refers to the issue in this way - he’s trying to frame his view as the only moral and spiritual way to approach the issue, and to baptize his proposed “solutions” with an aura of spiritual approval. Gore has never been shy about denigrating anyone with the temerity to disagree with him in rather harsh terms, and it’s not unusual for Gore and his cadre of alarmist allies to engage in some wildly overheated rhetoric in the service of their cause, so it’s not surprising on the other hand to see him attempt to wrap himself in a mantle of spirituality to enhance his image. But just as with any politician or political campaign, Christians should be wary of simply taking Gore at his word, especially considering what appears to be his rather flexible definition of telling the truth.

Acton Research Fellow Anthony Bradley was featured on The Glenn Beck Program on Headline News Network to discuss black liberation theology with host Glenn Beck on Wednesday night. If you didn’t catch his appearance, you can watch it right here on the PowerBlog. And for more on the topic with Anthony Bradley and Rev. Robert A. Sirico, check out the most recent edition of Radio Free Acton - Obama and Religion, Part I.

Via Hugh Hewitt, here are Carol Platt Liebau’s thoughts on the prostitution scandal now engulfing New York Governor Eliot Spitzer:

The whole idea, pioneered by you-know-who and enabled by you-know-who-else, is that illicit sexual behavior and the scandals resulting therefrom can be brazened out by the insistence that they are irrelevant to the discharge of public duties. As I argue in my book, it’s all part of a new ethical calculus concluding that -- uniquely in the constellation of virtues -- sexual morality is a subjective and purely personal matter that’s of relevance only to “religious” people (or else prurient and “judgmental” ones), even when it impacts the public.

All of us are human, all of us are sinners, no one is perfect. Certainly, there but for the grace of God go any of us. But that doesn’t mean that there should be no standards. In particular, it’s unfortunate if and when public officials conclude that sexual behavior that’s deeply disgraceful (not to mention illegal) doesn’t merit resignation. It degrades our culture, makes others complicit in condoning conduct that shouldn’t be condoned, and normalizes behavior that’s wrong.

As has become the norm, there are also plenty of voices (here’s one) decrying the fact that Spitzer may be forced to resign over a sexual indiscretion, that the worst he’s guilty of his hypocrisy, and that prostitution is essentially a “victimless crime.” It remains to be seen whether or not Spitzer will step down as a result of the scandal, but in the meantime Jordan Ballor offers some food for thought in this post, which looks at the differing standards that seem to apply to business and church leaders on the one hand and governmental officials on the other when sexual indiscretions are revealed. And be sure to take a look at the David Hess essay that Jordan references in his post as well.

So, dear readers, what do you think? Should Spitzer step down, or is his indiscretion not that serious?