Category Archives: News

News

Indian-American Nikki Haley wins South Carolina governor primary

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Nikki Haley and her husband Michael Haley

Story here from the Wall Street Journal.

Excerpt:

South Carolina State Rep. Nikki Haley, a favorite of tea party activists, survived a turbulent primary campaign Tuesday to advance in her bid to become her state’s first woman governor, on a night that results nationally reaffirmed this year’s anti-establishment tide.

In early returns, Ms. Haley held a double-digit lead in a four-person race for the GOP nomination. She will head into a runoff with the second-place finisher, Rep. Gresham Barrett, the Associated Press reported.

Ms. Haley had trailed badly early in the campaign, but won support from the tea party movement and an endorsement from former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. Her competitors included top officials in the GOP establishment, including the state’s attorney general and lieutenant governor.

[…]In South Carolina, Ms. Haley surged in recent weeks from long-shot to leader. After that, the race became rocky, as two GOP political operatives said they’d had affairs with Ms. Haley.

The attacks only seemed to strengthen the prospects of Ms. Haley, 38, who was born a Sikh but converted to Christianity. If she wins the governorship, she could quickly become a star in a Republican Party eager to reach out to minorities, women and young people.

Nikki is the daughter of first-generation Sikh immigrants from the Punjab, in India. She’s only 38! The only other Indian-American governor is Bobby Jindal, who I really like! Now I might have TWO Indian-Americans to blog about! If she wins! By the way, she is a Protestant, which is really rarity for India. Most Christians in India are Roman Catholic. Jindal is a Roman Catholic, and a solid one.

Oh, and a couple of businesswomen won the Republican nominations for governor (Meg Whitman) and senator (Carly Fiorina) in California. Ho hum. That’s commonplace in the world of conservatism. The Republican party is the party of conservative women who succeed on their own steam, without needing the government’s help. After all, we’re the party of Michele Bachmann, Marsha Blackburn and Sarah Palin. We like SMALL government, because we like STRONG families, and fathers who bring home the bacon.

News

If a Protestant Christian commits suicide, does he still go to Heaven?

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ECM is puzzling about things

ECM is actually an extremely intelligent, cultured fellow who reads far more deeply than I do on a wide variety of topics, including philosophy, history and science. He likes to puzzle about difficult questions, and you never know what he will ask from one day to the next.

Today he wanted to know what I thought about Protestants and suicide. In Roman Catholicism, suicide is a mortal sin, so you go straight to Hell since you can’t confess it and do penance for it. [UPDATE: My Catholic commenters say that you might still go to Heaven after some time in Purgatory. However, Protestants don’t believe in Purgatory]. But I didn’t think that that would be the case in Protestantism because we emphasize grace and the sufficiency of Christ’s atonement to cover all sins. But he started to tie me up in knots with his questions, so I just told him to go away.

I still don’t know what the answer is.

Here are the questions:

  • 1) Is suicide a sin in Protestant Christianity?
  • 2) What happens to a Protestant if he commits suicide?
  • 3) How can a Protestant repent of the sin of suicide?
  • 4) Does suicide count as murdering yourself for Protestants?

Please explain to me the right answers in the comments. I really have no idea.

You can also suggest more questions, and I will add them to the list.

News

Which political party knows the least about economics?

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Story from the Wall Street Journal. (H/T Health Care BS via ECM)

Excerpt:

Who is better informed about the policy choices facing the country—liberals, conservatives or libertarians? According to a Zogby International survey that I write about in the May issue of Econ Journal Watch, the answer is unequivocal: The left flunks Econ 101.

Zogby researcher Zeljka Buturovic and I considered the 4,835 respondents’ (all American adults) answers to eight survey questions about basic economics.

The first question was “Restrictions on housing development make housing less affordable.” The unenlighted answer for that one is “disagree”, since restrictions on development reduce the supply of available housing. Demand stays the same and so there is a shortage, and prices rise. D’uh!

Here are the others:

The other questions were: 1) Mandatory licensing of professional services increases the prices of those services (unenlightened answer: disagree). 2) Overall, the standard of living is higher today than it was 30 years ago (unenlightened answer: disagree). 3) Rent control leads to housing shortages (unenlightened answer: disagree). 4) A company with the largest market share is a monopoly (unenlightened answer: agree). 5) Third World workers working for American companies overseas are being exploited (unenlightened answer: agree). 6) Free trade leads to unemployment (unenlightened answer: agree). 7) Minimum wage laws raise unemployment (unenlightened answer: disagree).

And the results:

How did the six ideological groups do overall? Here they are, best to worst, with an average number of incorrect responses from 0 to 8: Very conservative, 1.30; Libertarian, 1.38; Conservative, 1.67; Moderate, 3.67; Liberal, 4.69; Progressive/very liberal, 5.26.

It’s true, the majority of Democrat voters are people who don’t work at all, or they “work” for government, or they “work” in education, or they hold picket signs while on strike, or they are in prison, or they are chasing ambulances, or they are Hollywood celebrities. No economics knowledge is required for any of that. Republicans work in private industry, and many of us own small businesses. So we actually have to work to earn money, because we have competitors to watch out for and consumers to please.

Remember this post: Who knows more about economics? Obama or people who run businesses?