News

Stephen Harper makes a stand against North Korean aggression

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I spy... with my little eye... someone whose ass I must kick!

Story here from the Edmonton Journal.

Excerpt:

Prime Minister Stephen Harper issued a statement on Victoria Day that Canada is joining sides with South Korea in countering North Korea’s apparent act of aggression on March 26 that involved the sinking of the South Korean naval vessel Cheonan, killing 46.

“Canada is now committed to a coordinated international response, including through the UN Security Council, as a result of this act,” Harper declared in a written press release. Canada will “move to suspend high-level visits to Canada by North Korean officials,” Harper said in response to statements made Sunday by Republic of Korea’s President Lee Myung-bak.

[..]”The Government of Canada will take steps to impose enhanced restrictions on trade, investment and other bilateral relations with North Korea, including the addition of North Korea to the Area Control List.

“Canada will also continue to consult and co-operate with South Korea, as well as our partners and friends, to ensure that a strong global approach is taken toward the current situation on the Korean Peninsula,” Harper said.

Three experts from the Canadian navy, in concert with representatives from Australia, Sweden, the U.K. and the U.S., assisted in the investigation that concluded that North Korea was responsible for the sinking of the South Korean ship, the press release stated.

That’s what Obama should have done, too. We should be parking a carrier battle group right where the ship went down and running ASW patrols around the clock as part of joint exercises with South Korea and Japan. We should be selling more arms (e.g. – SAMs, SSMs, and LAVs with ATGMs), to South Korea and Japan, and building additional ships to deploy in that theater. All vessels entering and leaving North Korea should be boarded and inspected by US naval forces. We should be stepping up espionage efforts to get advanced warning of North Korea’s plans.

There should be a swift response to the sinking of South Korea’s vessel – something visible to them, as well as a change in tone and policy in the CIA and the State Department. Kick the doves and the fifth-columnists out of national security and foreign policy, and get serious about making aggression costly on the aggressor. South Korea should just pass a law saying that for every warship of theirs sunk in mysterious circumstances, THREE warships in North Korea will be sunk in mysterious circumstances.

If only Harper were in control of the US military, then we could really get something done – and not just the economic sanctions that he is going to put into place. But with President Pantywaist in charge, our enemies can do anything they want to our poorly-armed allies like South Korea.

By the way, I found this story while browsing on My Can of Contemplation, which led me to Christian Conservative.

* When I say SSMs in this article, I mean surface-to-surface missiles, not same-sex marriage. We should NOT be selling our allies same-sex marriages, we should be selling them surface-to-surface missiles.

Videos

What would a Christian apologetics movie look like?

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I found this video at Rational Thoughts.

This movie clip was made by Brian Godawa.

One of our commenters Kelli Welch just got her first movie on the big screen as well. She is interested in making films from a Christian worldview.

More on God and morality

Oh, I just noticed this related post from Cloud of Witnesses  via the Apologetics 315 Twitter feed.

This is a quote from Chad Meister from the new book “God is Great, God is Good“, edited by William Lane Craig and Chad Meister.

Excerpt:

“If evil truly exists, what we could call ‘objective evil’ — then there also exist objective moral values, moral values which are binding on all people, whether they acknowledge them as such or not.  If rape, racism, torture, murder, government-sanctioned genocide and so forth are objectively evil, what makes them so?  What makes them truly evil, rather than simply activities we dislike?  What made the atrocities of the Nazis evil, even though Hitler and his thugs maintained otherwise?  One cannot consistently affirm both that there are no objective moral values, on the one hand, and that rape, torture and the like are objectively morally evil on the other.  If there are objective moral values, there must be some basis — some metaphysical foundation — for their being so. . . .

But [you] can’t have [your] cake and eat it too.  If good and evil are objectively real, they need an objective foundation.  No atheist has provided one, and it’s doubtful that one will be forthcoming.

See, this is the kind of book that Christians should read, because it helps them to talk to their neighbors and to raise their children. Everyone needs to understand the moral argument, and to bring people to account when they claim to be a “good person”. What does good even mean, based on the claimant’s worldview?

Make sure you all follow Brian’s Twitter feed.

News

Did Obamacare really provide a tax cut for small businesses?

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Check out this AP article. (H/T Michele Bachmann)

Excerpt:

When the administration unveiled the small business tax credit earlier this week, officials touted its “broad eligibility” for companies with fewer than 25 workers and average annual wages under $50,000 that provide health coverage.

[…]Lost in the fine print: The credit drops off sharply once a company gets above 10 workers and $25,000 average annual wages.

[…]Consider small businesses: “The idea here is to target the credits to a relatively low number of firms, those who are low-wage and really quite small,” said economist Linda Blumberg of the Urban Institute public policy center.

On paper, the credit seems to be available to companies with fewer than 25 workers and average wages of $50,000. But in practice, a complicated formula that combines the two numbers works against companies that have more than 10 workers and $25,000 in average wages, Blumberg said.

“You can get zero even if you are not hitting the max on both pieces,” Blumberg said.

[…]Hoffman, the furniture store owner whose business missed out on the credit, says he understands that lawmakers writing the health care legislation had a limited amount of money to work with. But his company’s premiums rose 15 percent this year, and it’s a struggle to keep paying.

To get the most out of the new federal credit, Hoffman said he’d have to cut his work force to 10 employees and slash their wages.

“That seems like a strange outcome, given we’ve got 10 percent unemployment,” he said.

So, the government is actually paying businesses to NOT HIRE EMPLOYEES and to NOT RAISE SALARIES. That’s the only way small businesses can get the tax credit.

Michele writes:

Unfortunately, this bill will only discourage small businesses from raising wages and/or hiring more employees.  The business owners and employers in Minnesota I’ve met with all have said one thing: the uncertainty of the newly passed Health Care bill is keeping them from hiring and expanding.

Businesses are run by people who put their own skin in the game by risking capital to try to make a profit. That capital is often borrowed from family, friends or banks. And when business owners see that government is passing laws that take away the decision making power of the business owner and give it to government bureaucrats with no skin in the game, business owners get frightened – they are taking all the risks but the government is making the decisions. And government isn’t as good at making decisions for a business to avoid losses as the business owner is.

So even though Obama spends trillions of dollars, bankrupting the next generation of taxpayers, it can still be the case that unemployment increases. He’s killing the economy with his meddling – just the same way as interventionists like Hoover and FDR did during the Great Depression. When business owners see that the rules are changing under them because of state intervention into the economy, they just don’t have the confidence needed to expand their businesses, hire employees, or raise salaries.

And don’t forget that the money for the “tax credit” is being taken from your children, who will eventually have to pay for all of Obama’s spending.