Commentary

Sean McDowell surveys the beliefs of today’s young adults

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The article is here on Conversant life.

Excerpt:

  • Skeptics and perspectivalists: “Most have great difficulty grasping the idea that a reality that is objective to their own awareness or construction of it may exist that could have a significant bearing on their lives. In philosophical terms, most emerging adults functionally are soft ontological antirealists and epistemological skeptics and perspectivalists…” (45)
  • Everybody’s different: “Nearly any question asked of them about any norm, experience, rule of thumb, expectation, or belief in life is very likely to get an answer beginning with the phrase, ‘Well, everybody’s different, but for me…’” (48).
  • Individualism: “The absolute authority for every person’s beliefs or actions is his or her own sovereign self” (49).
  • Settling down is for later: “But they also want to relish it [young adulthood] as the time to be young, have fun, and avoid major responsibilities…Later, when they settle down they’ll be sober, faithful, and responsible adults. The assumption seems to be, ‘Whatever happens in my early twenties stays in my early twenties’” (57).
  • Relationships are amorphous: “Old clear-cut labels, like ‘just friends,’ dating, courting, and engaged, for instance, are too black-and-white for the way many emerging adults relate today…” (58).
  • Cohabit to avoid divorce: “The vast majority of emerging adults nonetheless believe that cohabiting is a smart if not absolutely necessary experience and phase for moving toward an eventual successful and happy marriage” (62).

I think it would useful to engage these guys to think throught their beliefs more rationally. On the one hand they want to cause no harm, on that other hand they are totally uninformed about the likely outcomes of their own behavioral choices. E.g. – cohabitation increases the risk of divorce by 50%. Break-ups hurt – and certain behaviors affect the likelihood of a messy break-up. Bad behaviors undermine your view of the trustworthiness of the opposite sex, as well as your ability to be content in a monogamous relationship with responsibilities.

News

MUST-READ: Coast Guard obstructing Bobby Jindal’s efforts to clean up the oil spill

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Check this out:

From ABC News.

Excerpt:

Eight days ago, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal ordered barges to begin vacuuming crude oil out of his state’s oil-soaked waters. Today, against the governor’s wishes, those barges sat idle, even as more oil flowed toward the Louisiana shore.

“It’s the most frustrating thing,” the Republican governor said today in Buras, La. “Literally, yesterday morning we found out that they were halting all of these barges.”

Sixteen barges sat stationary today, although they were sucking up thousands of gallons of BP’s oil as recently as Tuesday. Workers in hazmat suits and gas masks pumped the oil out of the Louisiana waters and into steel tanks. It was a homegrown idea that seemed to be effective at collecting the thick gunk.

“These barges work. You’ve seen them work. You’ve seen them suck oil out of the water,” said Jindal.

[…]”The Coast Guard came and shut them down,” Jindal said. “You got men on the barges in the oil, and they have been told by the Coast Guard, ‘Cease and desist. Stop sucking up that oil.'”

[…]The governor said he didn’t have the authority to overrule the Coast Guard’s decision, though he said he tried to reach the White House to raise his concerns.

“They promised us they were going to get it done as quickly as possible,” he said. But “every time you talk to someone different at the Coast Guard, you get a different answer.”

Why? BECAUSE THERE ARE NOT ENOUGH LIFE JACKETS ON THE BARGES.

What about this news from Monday:

“We need the Coast Guard to deploy all the resources they have – using the military air traffic control assets if needed, or sentinel ships for water-based reconnaissance – but we must deploy every resource we have and not simply wait and hope for the best. Federal officials could also work to relax regulations to free up non-essential oil fighting resources, including skimmers and boom, from ports and refineries. We asked the President to consider this during his last visit and he said today that he was still looking into it.”

“I also asked that the President demand BP give us full access to their claims data so we can ensure Louisiana people and businesses are getting the payments they need to reimburse their losses related to this spill. As of the last report, 39 percent of claims had not been paid and we have no way to know the circumstances or details related to these claims.

“We again asked the President to increase the monitoring of our deepwater wells so they do not have to be closed down and cost tens of thousands of our people their jobs during a six-month or longer process by a government committee that hasn’t even been assembled yet.. Louisiana people should not have to lose their jobs because the federal government cannot do their job.

The governor has urged the Obama administration to lift the ban on the drilling moratorium citing unfortunate and unfair impact upon Louisiana.

Obama has played golf nearly 40 times in 8 weeks and held fundraisers for Democrat senator Barbara Boxer.

Wouldn’t it be great if Jindal solved this problem himself without any help from the federal government, and then explained his experiences to the American people during his presidential campaign in 2012? He could explain exactly what Obama did to help/hurt his efforts to clean the spill. Imagine the presidential debates when Jindal could explain everything that he did, and Obama could counter by explaining how well he can play golf, slash Louisiana jobs, pass the cap-and-trade energy tax, and point fingers at people who are trying to fix the problem.

News

Environmental regulations restrict law enforcement by Border Patrol

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Story on Fox News.

Excerpt:

Federal environmental laws are handcuffing U.S. Border Patrol agents to a foot-and-horseback strategy as they try to battle Mexican drug cartels and illegal immigrants who are turning wide swaths of America’s border with Mexico into a virtual no-man’s land.

Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, ranking Republican on the House Parks and Public Lands Subcommittee, said the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge in southern Arizona — part of which was closed in 2006 because it was considered too dangerous for Americans to visit — is just the tip of the iceberg.

He said there’s plenty of other parkland along the border that’s either closed to the public or is considered too dangerous because of concern about drug gangs, human smugglers and illegal immigrants, and that the problem is getting worse.

“You travel here in America at your own risk,” Bishop told FoxNews.com.

The reason the parkland along the border has become so hazardous, Bishop said, is because environmental regulations restrict Border Patrol from using vehicles to patrol in those areas — except in special circumstances. In turn, he said, drug cartels are being funneled into those swaths as immigration agents get tougher patrolling private land.

Bishop has introduced a bill to allow the Border Patrol to do their jobs, but the Democrats will vote him down, just like they vote everything else good down.