Monthly Archives: March 2014

News

Obama to Ukraine: if you like your Crimea, you can keep your Crimea

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Stephen F. Hayes explains (in the Weekly Standard) how screwed we really are with the Democrats running our foreign policy.

Excerpt:

On February 23, five days before Russia invaded Ukraine, National Security Adviser Susan Rice appeared on Meet the Press and shrugged off suggestions that Russia was preparing any kind of military intervention: “It’s in nobody’s interest to see violence returned and the situation escalate.” A return to a “Cold War construct” isn’t necessary, Rice insisted, because such thinking “is long out of date” and “doesn’t reflect the realities of the 21st century.” Even if Vladimir Putin sees the world this way, Rice argued, it is “not in the United States’ interests” to do so.

Wow, I’m shocked that the Youtube video caused Benghazi liar didn’t see the invasion of Ukraine coming.

But it’s not just her:

On February 28, Russian troops poured into Ukraine. As they did, Secretary of State John Kerry spoke to Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, his Russian counterpart. Kerry briefed reporters after their talk, plainly unaware of the developments on the ground. Kerry said that Russia wants to help Ukraine with its economic problems. Lavrov had told him “that they are prepared to be engaged and be involved in helping to deal with the economic transition that needs to take place at this point.”

Hours later, television screens across the world displayed images of Russian soldiers infiltrating Crimea and Russian artillery rolling through Sevastopol. Obama administration officials told CNN’s Barbara Starr that the incursion was not “an invasion” but an “uncontested arrival” and that this distinction was “key” to understanding the new developments.

Oh yes! Just like Hitler was helping out Poland with their economic problems.

Why is this happening? Well, a better question would be, why didn’t it happen sooner:

For five years, the Obama administration has chosen to see the world as they wish it to be, not as it is. In this fantasy world, the attack in Fort Hood is “workplace violence.” The Christmas Day bomber is an “isolated extremist.” The attempted bombing in Times Square is a “one-off” attack. The attacks in Benghazi are a “spontaneous” reaction to a YouTube video. Al Qaeda is on the run. Bashar al-Assad is a “reformer.” The Iranian regime can be sweet-talked out of its nuclear weapons program. And Vladimir Putin is a new, post-Cold War Russian leader.

This foreign policy failure didn’t come from nowhere. There’s a whole list of failures that made Putin believe that the Democrats are weak on foreign policy.

Look:

Let me be clear. When Obama halted the scheduled missile defense shield in Europe, that was the end of Ukrainian sovereignty. We have to understand that Democrats are not just totally inept at fiscal policy and on social issues. They are also horrible at foreign policy. How many screw-ups must we witness before we understand that these people are not serious, and we shouldn’t be electing them?

News

Republicans advancing pro-life legislation in red and purple states

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From Life Site News.

Excerpt:

As the media debate the reason abortions declined over the last few years, pro-life voices say the record number of new laws restricting abortion played a role. The year 2014 is already shaping up to follow the trend of substantial pro-life legislation.

Arizona

Abortion facilities will no longer receive advance notice of state inspections, if the governor signs a proposed law. The state House of Representatives passed the measure, allowing unannounced health inspections of abortion facilities, by a vote of 34-22.

Florida

A woman tricked into ingesting an abortion-inducing drug that killed her child wants legislators to make sure that never happens to another woman. Remee Jo Lee testified that, unless lawmakers pass a new statute, Florida will have no state ordinance punishing offenders who harm women the way her boyfriend hurt her, physically and emotionally. “I’m still here but a big part of me is missing,” Lee told the House Judicial Committee. “I miss my baby every single day.” The committee passed the Unborn Victims of Violence Act 13-3 on Monday. It would allow prosecutors the discretion to try a criminal for a separate murder if he kills an unborn child, even if he did not know the woman was pregnant.

Oklahoma

The Oklahoma House passed a bill requiring abortionists to have admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles of their office, by a vote of 73-9. Similar measures have closed nine abortion facilities in neighboring Texas, as well as other states where admitting privileges were allowed to be enacted. The Senate must now pass the bill.

West Virginia

Abortion restrictions inched closer to acceptance in the Mountaineer State, as the state Senate Health and Human Resources Committee approved a ban on abortions at 20 weeks. Delegate Joe Ellington, a pro-life OB/GYN and Republican, said the bill actually goes into effect 20 weeks from conception, not the way most medical specialists count weeks. Therefore, it should really be viewed as a ban on abortion after 22 weeks of pregnancy. Violators could be fined $4,000. The bill then passed the Judiciary Committee. It will now go to the full state Senate for a vote.

Missouri

Women in Missouri may have more time to consider whether abortion is the right decision for them. The state House passed a bill to increase the waiting period for an abortion from 24 hours to 72 hours by a 115-37 vote on Wednesday. Nine Democrats joined the chamber’s Republican majority. It must pass the chamber a second time. However, Senate Democrats launched a filibuster against the Senate version of the bill on Wednesday.

More good news from a different Life Site News article.

Excerpt:

The ever-decreasing number of abortion clinics continues its decline with the announcement of the closing of abortion clinics in Texas, Florida, and California.

Whole Women’s Health announced this week that its surgical abortion clinics in McAllen and Beaumont have permanently closed due to the new law passed last year that requires abortion facilities to meet minimum safety requirements, including hiring only abortionists that maintain local hospital privileges. The McAllen location had “temporarily” closed in January.

Operation Rescue had lodged complaints about the Whole Women’s Health clinics in McAllen, Beaumont, and Austin after discovering they were improperly dumping “identifiable” aborted baby remains a during an undercover investigation in 2011. This led the Austin and McAllen locations to be heavily fined.

In addition, the North Florida Women’s Health & Counseling Service in Tallahassee has announced in public notices that it will be closing permanently on March 31. That surgical abortion clinic has operated continuously since 1981.

Surgical abortion clinics are not the only ones closing. Planned Parenthood’s office in Sunnyvale, California, which offered only medication abortions (RU-486) shut down in January.

“We are on track to see another great year. Every time an abortion clinic closes, lives are saved because women have a greater opportunity to seek other means of coping with the challenges they face. This is great news for women and their babies,” said Troy Newman, President of Operation Rescue.

Also out of business for good is Lester Minto’s Reproductive Services in Harlington, Texas. Minto stopped abortions in November due to the new Texas law, but continued to see abortion patients who had taken abortion pills procured in Mexico or other locations. This week he announced onMSNBC’s Rachel Maddow Show that he has closed his clinic permanently and is selling his building.

Minto’s clinic joins real estate market along with the former New Women All Women abortion building in Birmingham, Alabama, which was put up for sale this week.

So far in 2014, seven surgical abortion clinics in four states have announced closure with one abortion pill clinic closing. Those states are California, Florida, Texas, and Iowa.

It seems like such a strange thing to me that some people get up and go to work, and their job is killing unborn children for money. But I guess that’s why we Republicans have to pass these laws. It’s a good signal to people that they need to be more careful about the consequences of their own behaviors. Basically, Republicans are saying to people that your freedom to do as you please ends when you brush up against someone else’s freedom, no matter how small that other person might be. At least in some states, there are people looking out for the protection of those little unborn people. Sometimes, it seems to me as if the whole world is going away from morality and personal responsibility, but then I look at this legislation and I think “at least somebody is doing something right”.

By the way, Life Site News also had a good article about how the Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus is putting a stronger emphasis on pro-life voters. I think he’s probably making the case to pro-lifers that this issue matters to Republicans and that they are advancing legislation to do something to protect unborn children from adult who want to skip out on their responsibilities.

Polemics

J. Warner Wallace: science and the Bible agree on creation of the universe

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I always recommend that Christians who want to make a positive case for Christian theism begin with the evidence that caused scientists to accept that the universe had a beginning. I don’t recommend stating the kalam argument, or any Bible verses, or any philosophical arguments. Instead, I recommend that they tell the story of how the evidence that led up to the discovery of the Big Bang cosmology was discovered. Who made the discoveries of the evidence, what was the evidence, when was it discovered, and how was it discovered.

Here’s Wallace’s post on it.

Excerpt:

The Second Law of Thermodynamics

This law (also known as the Law of Increased Entropy) recognizes the following: While the quantity of energy within a closed, isolated system (like the Universe) remains the same, the amount of usable energy deteriorates gradually over time. “Usable energy is inevitably used for productivity, growth and repair. In the process, usable energy is converted into unusable energy. Thus, usable energy is irretrievably lost in the form of unusable energy.”

Many of us have played with wind-up toys over the years. After toys of this nature are wound, there is a limited period of time in which we can enjoy them. Within a few seconds, wind-up toys slow down and stop; they run out of energy. Imagine walking into an empty room and discovering a wind-up toy sitting on the floor, still operating (unwinding). The discovery of this toy (and the fact it is still in the process of unwinding), would raise two reasonable inferences: (1) the toy was recently wound at a fixed point in the not-too-distant past, and (2) there was an adequate cause responsible for the initial winding. In other words, you would start looking for the “winder” somewhere in the room, given the fact the toy was still in the process of unwinding. We happen to be living in a “wind-up” universe slowly losing its usable energy. If the universe had no beginning and was infinitely old, why would there be any usable energy still available to us? The fact there is still usable energy in the universe points to a beginning in which the universe was tightly wound, and causes us to look for the cause responsible for such winding.

The Expansion of the Universe
Over the years, a number of scientists have calculated or observed the expansion of the universe. In 1905, Albert Einstein developed the Special Theory of Relativity involving measurements of length, velocity and time from moving observers. These equations led to the now famous E = mc2 equation, which describes how matter and energy can be converted from one form to another. In 1915, by applying relativity to Newtonian physics, Einstein derived the equations of general relativity which describe the relationships between gravity, the speed of light, mass, and other factors in regard to the universe as a whole. His work was consistent with an expanding universe. While this conclusion was initially troubling to Einstein, other mathematicians and scientists were coming to the same conclusion.

Alexander Friedman, a Russian mathematician working in the 1920’s with Einstein’s theories, used the mathematics to prove the universe is expanding. His work was being paralleled at the time by astronomers in Belgium who independently came to the same conclusion. An astronomer named Vesto Slipher presented findings at an obscure astronomy meeting in 1914 which showed that several ‘nebulae’ were receding away from the earth. A graduate student named Edwin Hubble was in attendance and realized the implications. Hubble later proved that these nebulae were actually galaxies, composed of billions of stars. In 1929 he proposed the law of red shifts. Galaxies which are moving away from the earth demonstrate emission spectra with bands shifted toward the red end of the spectrum, and Hubble observed these distant galaxies demonstrated this red shift phenomena. In essence, he proved by observation the universe is indeed expanding.

Our universe is expanding like a balloon. Imagine individual galaxies drawn on the balloon’s surface. As the edge of the balloon expands, the edge galaxies move away from center and away from each other. This is what we are seeing in our universe today. If we could go back in time and reverse the process (“deflate the balloon”), we would eventually arrive at an initial point of convergence. Once again, the science demonstrates our universe had a beginning.

The Radiation Echo
In 1964, two American physicists and radio astronomers, Arno Allan Penzias and Robert Woodrow Wilson, happened upon an important discovery. They were unable to eliminate the radio signal “noise” from their large antenna at the Bell Telephone Laboratories in New Jersey, regardless of where in the universe they tried to point their instrument. As a result, they began to consult with colleagues to determine the cause of this background noise. Phillip James Edwin Peebles, a physicist and theoretical cosmologist at Princeton University, suggested the noise might not be from the antenna at all. Instead, he proposed they might be detecting the residual “background radiation” caused when the universe first came into being. Penzias and Wilson pursued this line of investigation and confirmed Peebles’ suspicions. Numerous additional experiments and observations have since established the existence of cosmic background radiation (culminating in data from the Cosmic Background Explorer satellite launched in 1989). For many scientists, this discovery solidified their belief the universe had a beginning at a fixed point in the past.

Wallace gets these evidences from a book by famous agnostic astornomer Robert Jastrow, former head of the NASA Goddard Space Institute. The book is called “God and the Astronomers”. I have the second edition.

Wallace is working on a new book. Not much is known about it, but based on photos of the books he is reading, it’s something to do with cosmology. If he can write a book for Christians that’s as easy to read as his “Cold Case Christianity”, then we are really going to gain some ground in the culture. The more Christians understand the science of cosmology, the more likely the culture as a whole is going to be to respect the Creator and Designer of the universe.