democracy is an obstacle

Posted on March 30, 2010 by bkingr

and people are too stupid to do the right thing. So says James Lovelock. never heard of James Lovelock? Neither had I, so I checked up on him at Wikipedia.

here is what Wikipedia lists as his bibliography:

  • Lovelock, James (2000) [1979]. Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth (3rd ed. ed.). Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-286218-9.
  • Lovelock, James; Michael Allaby (1983). Great Extinction. Doubleday. ISBN 0-385-18011-X.
  • Lovelock, James; Michael Allaby (1984). The Greening of Mars. Warner Books. ISBN 0-446-32967-3.
  • Lovelock, James (1995) [1988]. Ages of Gaia. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-393-31239-9.
  • Lovelock, James (2001) [Gaia Books 1991]. Gaia: The Practical Science of Planetary Medicine. Oxford University Press US. ISBN 0-19-521674-1.
  • Lovelock, James (1991). Scientists on Gaia. Cambridge, Mass., USA: MIT Press. ISBN 0-262-19310-8.
  • Lovelock, James (2005). Gaia: Medicine for an Ailing Planet. Gaia Books. ISBN 1-85675-231-3.
  • Lovelock, James (2000). Homage to Gaia: The Life of an Independent Scientist. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-860429-7. (Lovelock’s autobiography)
  • Lovelock, James (2006). The Revenge of Gaia: Why the Earth Is Fighting Back – and How We Can Still Save Humanity. Santa Barbara (California): Allen Lane. ISBN 0-7139-9914-4.
  • Lovelock, James (2009). The Vanishing Face of Gaia: A Final Warning: Enjoy It While You Can. Allen Lane. ISBN 978-1846141850.

I especially like the last one’s title.

anyway, here are some of Mr. Lovelock’s deep thoughts, but be sure to read the whole thing.

Humans are too stupid to prevent climate change from radically impacting on our lives over the coming decades. This is the stark conclusion of James Lovelock, the globally respected environmental thinker and independent scientist who developed the Gaia theory.

It follows a tumultuous few months in which public opinion on efforts to tackle climate change has been undermined by events such as theclimate scientists’ emails leaked from the University of East Anglia (UEA)and the failure of the Copenhagen climate summit.

“I don’t think we’re yet evolved to the point where we’re clever enough to handle a complex a situation as climate change,” said Lovelock in his first in-depth interview since the theft of the UEA emails last November. “The inertia of humans is so huge that you can’t really do anything meaningful.”

One of the main obstructions to meaningful action is “modern democracy”, he added. “Even the best democracies agree that when a major war approaches, democracy must be put on hold for the time being. I have a feeling that climate change may be an issue as severe as a war. It may be necessary to put democracy on hold for a while.”

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quick hits

Posted on March 28, 2010 by bkingr

weekend wrap up.

Here is a long, detailed and informative look at health care and the profit motive from Avik Roy. Be sure to read the whole thing.

When it comes to health care, liberals and conservatives often seem to be living in two different worlds. To those on the left, America’s health-care system is a heartless capitalist jungle: a place where the bottom line is king, and the working poor are exploited. President Obama, for example, has accused insurance companies of holding Americans hostage in exchange for profits, and doctors of cashing in on children’s sore throats by needlessly removing their tonsils. The right, meanwhile, sees American health care as an outpost of socialism: The government distorts prices and suppresses innovation, impairing the quality and affordability of care and constraining individual autonomy. Hence Republicans’ call for less government involvement in insurance, and their complaints that heavy-handed Medicare rules are the source of our woes.

Simply put, liberals believe that health care is treated as a market commodity today but should not be, and conservatives think that health care is not treated as a market commodity but should be.

Here is an interesting page where five films (iron man, star trek, dark knight, no country for old men, and twilight) are dissected theologically on video.

2. Star Trek
In this 21st-century makeover of a classic series, Kirk has no father and Spock’s dad is emotionally absent. How these young men discover their purpose in life, and get embedded in a mission-focused team that becomes their family, mirrors more than simply a gospel of space exploration.

and here is a news story from the Christian Science Monitor on the resurgence of calvinism.

The renewed interest arrives at a crucial inflection point for American religion. After reviewing a landmark opinion survey last year that showed a precipitous decline in the number of people who identify themselves as Christian, Newsweek declared ominously that we may be witnessing “the end of Christian America.”

In some ways, Newsweek may have understated the shift. Five hundred years after Martin Luther posted his 95 theses challenging the Roman Catholic Church, some religion watchers see not just a post-Christian America but an unraveling of the Protestant Reformation itself. Their alarm is rooted in surveys that show a watering down of Christian beliefs.

Now come the New Calvinists with their return to inviolable doctrines and talk of damnation – in essence, the Puritans, minus the breeches and powdered wigs. Is this just a moment of nostalgia or the beginning of a deeper revolt against the popular Jesus-is-our-friend approach of modern evangelicalism? Where, in other words, is Christianity going?

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Brian McLaren on NPR

Posted on March 27, 2010 by bkingr

I was listening to the radio on the way to work yesterday morning and joined this story in progress. Give it a listen or read right quick.

I was especially struck by this bit here:

Surveys by Campbell and others show young evangelicals differ from their elders in a lot of ways. They pray less often, read the Bible and go to church less often. And they’re more open to culture and social issues, such as evolution and gay rights.

do you think that perhaps the substantive belief outcomes in the second sentence are in any way related to the behavior description in the first sentence? Do those beliefs come from less Bible reading, prayer and church attendance or do those belief result in less desire to read the Bible, pray or attend church where such beliefs may be challenged?

Here is more on Brian McLaren’s new book in my post here linking to two reviews of the book.

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chandler update

Posted on March 27, 2010 by bkingr

Week 9 update from Matt Chandler:

also from the z man

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grace in marriage

Posted on March 27, 2010 by bkingr

after adultery. God’s grace and power displayed. Paul Tripp:

Paul Tripp- Adultery and new beginnings from Crossway on Vimeo.

From the z man.

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friday fotos

Posted on March 26, 2010 by bkingr

here are some tree blossom pictures. These are the reason to keep the 105mm f2.8 AF in the bag.
tree blossoms

tree blossoms

tree blossoms

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history

Posted on March 24, 2010 by bkingr

here is a bit of long view perspective by Abe Greenwald. here is a snip, but you really should go read the whole essay.

For amid the symbolic fanfare of giant gavels and the tactical gravitas of deployed Lincoln quotes, one important fact is being swept aside: the state’s co-opting of the private sector never ends well. Every learned lesson about free markets and central planning, incentives, the allocation of scarce resources under competing systems, government incompetence, overall quality of life and freedom in socialist vs. capitalist states — in short, the reality of the Cold War — has been unlearned. Sunday night brought us the most ahistoric bit of history-making we’re likely to see in our lifetimes.

and here is Jon Ward with the much shorter term view.

The health-care bill that hung around Democrats’ necks for the last several months – right up to the final vote Sunday when some vulnerable congressmen were convinced to support it – has suddenly become a weapon.

If politics were war, Republicans would have just been lured from their walled city to chase a force they thought was retreating, only to find Democrats suddenly turning and attacking them head-on.

are they both right? Did the Dems both hurt our nation and help themselves by ramming through the health care reform on a partisan basis against the will of the American people?

or is neither one right? does our country remain in good shape for the long haul even though democrats hurt themselves badly for the fall election?

Or is one right and the other wrong? which is which?

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remember in November

Posted on March 23, 2010 by bkingr

Remember this health care monstrosity in November, but only as the biggest example (so far) of the reckless endangerment of freedom and prosperity in this great country by the Democratic party. but don’t forget the bank takeovers, the car company takeovers and the first shot over the bow of this country, the idiotic, wasteful, stupendously silly, Keynesian stimulus package.

Here is a reminder of the stupidity and foolish economics of the stimulus:

Hat tip to Ace

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By the way

Posted on March 22, 2010 by bkingr

if any foolish person tries to tell you that Republicans didn’t have an alternative (or that they are simply the party of “no”) or some version thereof. Please refer them to this clip from the Rules Committee this weekend.

HT to Hot Air

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she must be unseated

Posted on March 22, 2010 by bkingr

anybody running for Congress with a D after their name must be beaten. Anybody who votes for this woman as speaker is no moderate no matter how they voted on this particular bill.

Are you listening people in Texas Congressional District 17? Chet Edwards must be retired.

Cassy Fiano has similar thoughts

Jim Geraghty agrees as well.

All of them touting how centrist they are, or how they have conservative values, or how no matter how much they march in lockstep with Nancy Pelosion other issues, they have deep and abiding respect for the unborn.

Horse$#@%&.

“Centrist Democrat” is a synonym for a liberal who wants to get reelected in a conservative district.

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“it must be repealed”

Posted on March 22, 2010 by bkingr

Jim DeMint is hitting on all cylinders today.

There’s no fixing the government health care takeover Democrats forced through on Sunday. It must be repealed.

After telling Americans in 2008 that they would lower spending, taxes and insurance premiums, Democrats passed a bill that breaks every promise. Using secret deals, kickbacks and carve-outs, Democratic leaders jammed through legislation to control more than one-sixth of the nation’s economy.

The plan will explode the national debt, raise $569.2 billion in new taxes, force taxpayers to fund abortions, and impose unconstitutional mandates on every American.

All of this was done in the face of overwhelming public outrage and bipartisan opposition in Congress. This process has been an insult to our democracy and threatens our nation’s prosperity and freedom.

be sure to go read the rest.

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photeaux on phridae

Posted on March 19, 2010 by bkingr

some spring fotos for friday.

single dandelion with the Canon S90 on macro mode
dandelion

double dandelion with the D300 and 80-200mm
dandelion

and more bluebonnets
bluebonnets

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John Piper tweaks

Posted on March 19, 2010 by bkingr

Here is the video of John Piper out in Seattle at Mark Driscoll’s church. He is hitting the same themes he always does, but with some very important tweaks. give it a listen.

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God is on the move

Posted on March 18, 2010 by bkingr

the latest from Seat M8. Here is Andrea telling the story of her time in Turkey.

M8-Andrea from The Austin Stone on Vimeo.

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exciting news

Posted on March 18, 2010 by bkingr

john piper is going to be a grandfather again. this time with a twist demonstrating the overwhelming goodness of God. Here, let the expectant mother, Mollie Piper explain (ghostwritten by Abraham):

I knew I couldn’t have Felicity back, but something about having a daughter felt like it would sort of round out my grieving. Not finalize it, but complete it in a way, if that makes any sense.

Well, we went in for our first ultrasound yesterday morning. Both Abraham and I were very nervous. I wanted a girl so bad that I didn’t know how I’d react if it was a boy. And then that terrible feeling was compounded by the guilt I felt for feeling that in the first place.
…..
But we still didn’t know whether they were boys or girls. Fortunately, after about 30 seconds, our doctor said, “Twin A is a girl.”

I about melted.

A few minutes later they confirmed that, yes, Twin B is a girl, too.

I’ve never felt happier.

We’re in shock. We’re having twins. They’re girls.

and here is the grandfather’s poem:

We cried,
“How long, O Lord, how long
will we be made to wait, and swallow jagged shards
of that unchristened chalice
of whose warm wine we never took a taste
and all we drank was emptiness unplanned?”

And he replied,
“Until you learn the song
that only sorrow sings, of how my soul regards
your ev’ry wound, and malice
has no place in my design, but all is paced
to come with double blessings in my hand.”

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apostasy

Posted on March 18, 2010 by bkingr

Ed Stetzer and Dr. Mohler are taking on two different kinds of apostasy. Ed is looking at nominal belief but no action and Dr. Mohler is looking at no belief but nominal action. fascinating.

an excerpt from Dr. Mohler:

Early in their report, Dennett and LaScola point to a problem of definition. Many churches and denominations have adopted such fluid and doctrineless identities that determining who is a believer and who is an unbeliever has become difficult. Their statement deserves a close reading:

The ambiguity about who is a believer and who is an unbeliever follows inexorably from the pluralism that has been assiduously fostered by many religious leaders for a century and more: God is many different things to different people, and since we can’t know if one of these conceptions is the right one, we should honor them all. This counsel of tolerance creates a gentle fog that shrouds the question of belief in God in so much indeterminacy that if asked whether they believed in God, many people could sincerely say that they don’t know what they are being asked.

In other words, some theologians and denominations have embraced a theology so fluid and indeterminate that even an atheist cannot tell the believers and unbelievers apart.

Ed Stetzer’s message from the Verge Conference.

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Friedman on health care

Posted on March 17, 2010 by bkingr

Milton Friedman was an awesome man with an awesome intellect. I wish that I had been old enough to enjoy his books and his economics for the genius that they were back when he was writing and speaking. Thanks to the miracle of YouTube, today, I really enjoyed this take from 1978 on the problems with government takeover of medicine.

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Jacksonians and Tea Partiers

Posted on March 17, 2010 by bkingr

I think that Mead and Goldberg are talking about the same group of folks. If not exactly the same group, then a substantially overlapping one if you were looking at a Venn Diagram.

here’s Walter Russell Meade:

Many of the arguments and perceptions that have weakened support for Israel on the left cut no ice with the populist right.  The argument that just war theory forbids the ‘disproportionate’ use of force has absolutely no weight in much of American opinion.  When somebody attacks you, especially in an underhanded terrorist way, you have a natural right to defend yourself using every weapon and every tactic that comes to hand.  This is the way most Americans think about war; American public opinion on the whole does not regret the use of nuclear weapons against Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.  Two-thirds of American respondents tell Pew pollsters that they favor the use of “torture” under some circumstances. Such people are not necessarily indifferent to Palestinian rights, and they may not feel that every Israeli action is well judged, but they strongly believe that as long as Palestinians engage in terrorism, Israel has an unlimited and absolute right of self defense.  It can and should do anything and everything it can to stop the attacks and many Americans consider international laws against such practices as pious hopes with no binding legal or even moral force. If the terrorists shield themselves behind civilians, that only shows how evil they are — and is an extra reason why you have both the right and the duty to eliminate them no matter what it takes.

and here is Jonah Goldberg:

The restorationists are neither anti-elitist nor anti-intellectual. William F. Buckley famously said that he would rather be governed by the first 2,000 names in the Boston phonebook than the Harvard faculty, but few would dispute that the Latin-speaking harpsichord player who used summer and winter as verbs was anything but an elitist. Similarly, the restorationists hold any number of intellectuals as heroes, from Buckley and Thomas Sowell to Hayek and Ayn Rand.

The “elite” the restorationists dislike is better understood as a “new class” (to borrow a phrase from the late Irving Kristol). The legendary economist Joseph Schumpeter predicted in 1942 that capitalism couldn’t survive because capitalist prosperity would feed a new intellectual caste that would declare war on the bourgeois values and institutions that generate prosperity in the first place. When you hear that conservatives are anti-elitist, you should think they’re really anti–new class. Conservatives see this new class of managers, meddlers, planners, and scolds as a kind of would-be secular aristocracy empowered to declare war on traditional arrangements and make other decisions “for your own good.”

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Is God Short of Cash?

Posted on March 16, 2010 by bkingr

Steve Camp asks if God is short of cash. A look at the prosperity gospel.

Questions: What does the Bible say about prosperity; and if you are experiencing tough times financially does that mean you are out of the will of God?

Answers: Second part first… of course not. The Lord is sovereign working all things for our good and His glory. Even Paul considers himself in his service to the Lord, “…as having nothing, yet possessing all things” (2 Cor. 6:10b). As learning “to get along with humble means, and I also know how to live in prosperity; in any and every circumstance I have learned the secret of being filled and going hungry; both of having abundance and suffering need. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:12-13).

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a meditation on life

Posted on March 15, 2010 by bkingr

take some time to read this beautiful essay about love, divorce, life, death and suffering etc.

Here is how it begins:

It was a quiet room in a hospice, the only sounds the muffled pumping of oxygen, and the softer and slower breathing of my mother-in-law, Esther, as she lay a few hours before her death. Her husband, Herb, stood by the bedside, stroking the gray curls on her forehead, a slight gesture. It seemed to wave away 50 years of sorrow and disappointment and strife, leaving only the love he felt for her in the beginning, like a seedling under the ruins of a city.

He could have abandoned her years before — not for another woman, but for what the world calls peace. Dad is not a Catholic, so he had no Church precept to warn him against divorce. He didn’t need any. “You never know what you’ll get in life,” he put it to me once. “You have to do the right thing, because if you don’t, you’ll probably make things worse.” So he never left, and at the last moment of Esther’s life he was there, fulfilling a patient vigil, his eyes red with weariness and loss.

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Christianity v. Islam

Posted on March 14, 2010 by bkingr

here is an interesting article positing that the gains of Christianity in Africa are the reason that Muslims are pushing so hard. I like this description of current western religion:

The word “Christian”, associated in the 19th and 20th centuries with the missionary enterprises of Europe, has now come to mean something different in political terms. Today Christianity is a religion of the Third World. Europeans have largely converted to some soft and watered-down variation of the West’s only indigenous creed, Marxism, as represented by John Lennon’s “Imagine” song. Christianity can no longer be associated largely with the West. Ex oriente lux a phrase which once described the belief that all great world religions rose in the East is now truer than ever. With Marxism shrinking to the margins of the Guardian, the monotheisms have reclaimed the field at least in raw numbers.

Go read the whole thing and then check out this news story about the ongoing murderous clash in Nigeria.

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photoes on Phridae

Posted on March 12, 2010 by bkingr

I love this time of year when the trees are budding and the wildflowers are blooming.

redbud tree on the Capitol grounds with Fuji Velvia 50 film. its a great film for vibrant colors
redbud

redbud

bluebonnet in the sun with my D300 and 80-200mm lens
spring is arriving

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Ronald Reagan v. Barack Obama

Posted on March 11, 2010 by bkingr

Debate between Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama on the nature of government. A better contrast between visions is hard to imagine. Its an oldie (from November 2008) but a goodie

By the way, have you bought the book yet? what are you waiting for? I

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three quick hits and a bonus

Posted on March 11, 2010 by bkingr

Dr. Russell Moore answers an important question about how much a girlfriend should know about her boyfriend’s (a potential spouse) sexual past. hard stuff:

You are not “owed” a virgin because you are. Your sexual purity wasn’t part of a quid pro quo in which God would guarantee you a sexually unbroken man. Your sexual purity is your obligation as a creature of God. And you have rebelled at other points, and been forgiven. If you believe the gospel, you believe the gospel for everyone, and not just for yourself.

If your future husband is repentant, and forgiven, and yet you are “tortured” by the thoughts of his past, then the issue for you is one of personal pride and a refusal to see oneself as a gospel-forgiven sinner.

Jonah Golberg understands what all of us understand at some level. women civilize men. they just do.

Female equality seems to be a pretty reliable treatment for many of the world’s worst pathologies. Population growth in the Third World tends to go down as female literacy goes up. Indeed, female empowerment might be the single best weapon in the “root causes” arsenal in the war on terror.

The reason strikes me as fairly simple. Women civilize men. As a general rule, men will only be as civilized as female expectations and demands force them to be. “Liberate” men from those expectations, and Lord of the Flies logic kicks in. Liberate women from this barbarism, and male decency will soon follow.

and finally, Jay Cost believes that moderate Democrats must take their party back from President Obama before he destroys it.

House Democrats should bear this in mind as they consider the current reforms. This bill would signal not just a major change in health care, but also in the Democratic Party itself. The end result will be a smaller, more narrowly liberal party that is less trusted by the mass public to respect its collective judgment. The party will keep San Francisco and The New Republic, but sooner or later they’ll lose Murfreesboro and Zanesville.

Mr. Obama has indicated that he is all right with this. But in our system of separated powers, his opinion is insufficient. Ultimately, the decision rests with Southern and Midwestern House Democrats. They must make the final choice. They can vote with the President on a bill whose substance and process reflect little of the grandest traditions of the Democratic Party. Or they can stand up to him, and tell him that they have had enough of his condescending attitude and strong-arm tactics.

What moderate House Democrats should not do is assume that, if they vote with him on this one, President Obama will stop here. This President talked during the campaign about building a broad consensus for change. Yet when push comes to shove, he cares much more about change than consensus.

bonus fascinating backstory on this video. hint: it’s all about context. hmmm

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Biblical manhood

Posted on March 9, 2010 by bkingr

C.J. Mahaney discussing manhood from a Biblical perspective. this is really good and helpful stuff. I especially liked C.J.’s description of a young man’s “companions” in this modern technological world in which we live.

Q&A on Biblical Masculinity from Sovereign Grace Ministries on Vimeo.

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