Stephen C. Meyer’s Signature in the Cell: DNA and the evidence for Intelligent Design (HarperCollins) is a detailed account of the problem of how life came into existence from lifeless matter – something that had to happen before the process of biological evolution could begin. The controversy over Intelligent Design has so far focused mainly on whether the evolution of life since its beginnings can be explained entirely by natural selection and other non-purposive causes. Meyer takes up the prior question of how the immensely complex and exquisitely functional chemical structure of DNA, which cannot be explained by natural selection because it makes natural selection possible, could have originated without an intentional cause. He examines the history and present state of research on non-purposive chemical explanations of the origin of life, and argues that the available evidence offers no prospect of a credible naturalistic alternative to the hypothesis of an intentional cause. Meyer is a Christian, but atheists, and theists who believe God never intervenes in the natural world, will be instructed by his careful presentation of this fiendishly difficult problem.
Get Meyer’s book. This is the best thing that got published this year. Buy it!
David Farr is the CEO of Emerson Electric, a $1.7-billion-dollar company heavily involved in manufacturing. What does he think about the job that the Democrats are doing in Washington?
Emerson Electric Co. Chief Executive Officer David Farr said the U.S. government is hurting manufacturers with regulation and taxes and his company will continue to focus on growth overseas.
“Washington is doing everything in their manpower, capability, to destroy U.S. manufacturing,” Farr said today in Chicago at a Baird Industrial Outlook conference. “Cap and trade, medical reform, labor rules.”
Emerson, the maker of electrical equipment and InSinkErator garbage disposals with $20.9 billion in sales for the year ended September, will keep expanding in emerging markets, which represented 32 percent of revenue in 2009. About 36 percent of manufacturing is now in “best-cost countries” up from 21 percent in 2003, according to slides accompanying his speech.
Companies will create jobs in India and China, “places where people want the products and where the governments welcome you to actually do something,” Farr said.
The unemployment rate in the U.S. jumped to 10.2 percent in October, the highest level since 1983. Emerson, which Farr said employs about 125,000 people worldwide, has eliminated more than 20,000 jobs since the end of 2008 to lower expenses.
“What do you think I am going to do?” Farr asked. “I’m not going to hire anybody in the United States. I’m moving. They are doing everything possible to destroy jobs.”
[…]Mature markets such as the U.S., Western Europe and Japan continue to decline in importance and the company will keep investing in emerging markets, Farr said during the presentation.
“We as a company today are putting our best people, our best technology and our best investment in these marketplaces to grow,” he said. “My job is to grow that top line, grow my earnings, grow my cash flow and grow my returns to the shareholders. My job is not to shrink and roll over for the U.S. government.”
[…]In renewable and alternative-energy markets, Emerson had 2009 sales of $50 million and plans to increase that to more than $800 million in five years.
“But you are not going to see Emerson going out there with fancy commercials or sitting at the right hand of some president, talking about this,” Farr said. “We do it.”
When it comes to manufacturing jobs, the only person whose opinion counts is the CEO of the manufacturing company, because he makes the hiring decisions.
The American Thinker article analyzes why Obamanomics will not improve the economy.
Excerpt:
The reason that Obamanomics will not and cannot work is because an economy cannot be managed from the top. Economics is a bottom-up process that depends upon individual incentives. Critical incentives have been diminished or destroyed by recent economic policies. Fear, uncertainty, threats, tax increases, penalties, and violations of the rule of law are but some of the conditions anathema to entrepreneurs, small business, and large business. Businesses will not hire, invest, or expand in a climate of disincentives. No commands from on high can force economic activity. That was a lesson that should have been learned from Eastern Europe and the former USSR.
If these disincentives are left in place, our economy will continue to shrink and our standard of living will continue to diminish. Capital has no nationality, and it will start to flee our shores. Talent will follow. We will not recover from this economic downturn until businesses and individuals have a more favorable incentive structure.
You can’t argue with the 10.2% unemployment rate, and it’s only going to get worse. Everything that Obama has done has been bad for business, and has contributed to raising unemployment. Democrats, (and the people who voted Democrat), know less about economics than my keyboard.
Major Nidal Hasan had his first hearing in the Ft. Hood murder case. The hearing was held in the hospital. His lawyer says he is paralyzed from the chest down, incontinent and in severe pain.
[…]How barbaric that the military will seek to kill a man with no sensation in his body from the chest down. He might prefer it (I certainly would) but it’s inexusable behavior for a civilized society and way beyond the pale of decency.
One wonders what she would say to the families of the victims.
The death penalty as a deterrent to future crimes
The trouble with Democrats is that they make decisions based on feelings and intentions, instead of based on knowledge and results. No one likes the death penalty, but that’s not the point of it. The point of the death penalty is that is deters future crimes.
“Science does really draw a conclusion. It did. There is no question about it,” said Naci Mocan, an economics professor at the University of Colorado at Denver. “The conclusion is there is a deterrent effect.”
A 2003 study he co-authored, and a 2006 study that re-examined the data, found that each execution results in five fewer homicides, and commuting a death sentence means five more homicides. “The results are robust, they don’t really go away,” he said. “I oppose the death penalty. But my results show that the death penalty (deters) – what am I going to do, hide them?”
Statistical studies like his are among a dozen papers since 2001 that capital punishment has deterrent effects. They all explore the same basic theory – if the cost of something (be it the purchase of an apple or the act of killing someone) becomes too high, people will change their behavior (forego apples or shy from murder).
[…]Among the conclusions:
– Each execution deters an average of 18 murders, according to a 2003 nationwide study by professors at Emory University. (Other studies have estimated the deterred murders per execution at three, five and 14).
– The Illinois moratorium on executions in 2000 led to 150 additional homicides over four years following, according to a 2006 study by professors at the University of Houston.
– Speeding up executions would strengthen the deterrent effect. For every 2.75 years cut from time spent on death row, one murder would be prevented, according to a 2004 study by an Emory University professor.
So, removing the death penalty encourages criminals to commit more crime. And this also applies to terrorism. If you want to coddle captured terrorists by giving them civilian trials and life imprisonment, instead of military trials and death sentences, then you get more terrorism.
Navy SEALS face criminal charges after capturing terrorist
Navy SEALs have secretly captured one of the most wanted terrorists in Iraq — the alleged mastermind of the murder and mutilation of four Blackwater USA security guards in Fallujah in 2004. And three of the SEALs who captured him are now facing criminal charges, sources told FoxNews.com.
The three, all members of the Navy’s elite commando unit, have refused non-judicial punishment — called an admiral’s mast — and have requested a trial by court-martial.
Ahmed Hashim Abed, whom the military code-named “Objective Amber,” told investigators he was punched by his captors — and he had the bloody lip to prove it.
Now, instead of being lauded for bringing to justice a high-value target, three of the SEAL commandos, all enlisted, face assault charges and have retained lawyers.
Just consider the incentives being created by this prosecution of Navy SEALS. This is exactly what caused the Army and the FBI to keep silent when Major Nidal Hasan was giving all the warning signs of committing a terrorist attack, including communicating with terrorists. The Army and the FBI didn’t want to face the wrath of politically correct lawyers and judges.
So we have the left opposing the death penalty for terrorism on the one hand, and on the other hand the left is in favor of prosecuting Navy SEALs and CIA interrogators for their work in stopping terrorism.
How Modern Liberals Think
If you want to understand why people on the left call evil good and call good evil, be sure and watch Evan Sayet’s speech at the Heritage Foundation, entitled “How Modern Liberals Think”.
Here’s the lecture:
Democrats aren’t not serious about evil, and that disqualifies them from any office involving national security. In my opinion, they are not qualified to do anything of any importance.
WINTERY KNIGHT 