Caffeinated Thoughts

Truth Obeyed Will Heal
The Stimulus Failed: Here Is The Evidence
Planned Parenthood’s War on Baby Girls

Posted: 29 May 2012 08:00 PM PDT

A great passage from J.I. Packer, an Anglican and Reformed theologian who teaches theology at Regent College in Vancouver, British Columbia. He wrote in A Quest for Godliness: The Puritan Vision of the Christian Life that if we obey truth it will heal us.

Truth obeyed, said the Puritans, will heal. The word fits, because we are all spiritually sick — sick through sin, which is a wasting and killing disease of the heart. The unconverted are sick unto death; those who have come to know Christ and have been born again continue sick, but they are gradually getting better as the work of grace goes on in their lives.

The church, however, is a hospital in which nobody is completely well, and anyone can relapse at any time. Pastors no less than others are weakened by pressure from the world, the flesh, and the devil, with their lures of profit, pleasure, and pride, and, as we shall see more fully in a moment, pastors must acknowledge that they the healers remain sick and wounded and therefore need to apply the medicines of Scripture to themselves as well as to the sheep whom they tend in Christ’s name.

All Christians need Scripture truth as medicine for their souls at every stage, and the making and accepting of applications is the administering and swallowing of it, (pg. 65).

Amen. Unfortunately in our flesh we want to run from what makes us well. We want to hide from it, reject it, and even at times call our only cure poison. Come we must however. We are miserable when we don't. It is only when we confess our sin will we experience God's faithfulness and compassionate justice as He forgives us and cleanses from everything in us that is unrighteous, (1 John 1:9).

HT: Desiring God

The Stimulus Failed: Here Is The Evidence

Posted: 29 May 2012 04:30 PM PDT

The next time any of your liberal friends talk about how we would have been in a depression had it not been for the stimulus, please send them a link to this post.

When left-wingers make the case that the stimulus program was necessary, they often refer to economic theory. Some of this theory is quite well-supported actually (my problem with keynesianism has never been the theory; its been the practical applications).

I’m an economist, not a dogmatist. I’m not interested in debunking the “stimulus saved the economy”-myth for ideological reasons. If Obama does something right, I’m more than happy to concede this (like when he gave the order to kill Bin Laden).

I’m interested in debunking it because it’s wrong, and because this myth is dangerous: If it becomes a common perception that the stimulus is what ended the recession, then obviously next time there is a recession the public will call for another stimulus program which will add another nice trillion to the US national debt, which future generations will have to pay back.

So how can we know that the stimulus didn’t end the recession?

Let’s look at some simple chronology: The stimulus was passed in February 2009. The recession ended in June 2009.

So what? Surely as long as the stimulus was passed before the recession ended, then there’s no way of proving that the stimulus money wasn’t what cured the economy.

Not so fast though. The thing is, out of the roughly 800 billion that was the stimulus, only 84 billion dollars had been spent by september 2009. Now, assuming stimulus spending was the same each month from march to september, that implies only 42 billion was spent before the recession actually ended (this of course is an imprecise figure, but the point remains).

We can now from this draw either of two conclusions:

1) 42 billion dollars was enough to prevent a second Great depression, even though 42 billion dollars is just about 0.3 % of the size of the US economy. This then begs the question; what was the purpose of passing a 787 billion dollar stimulus bill, given that 42 billion was enough to save us from the apocalypse Obama predicted would happen if the stimulus bill wasn’t passed? Seems like those other 735 billion that was added on to the national debt was all for naught in that case.

2) The stimulus money had nothing to do with the fact that the recession ended. Hence, all the 787 billion dollars was a waste (not just 735 billions of it).

Doesn’t look too good either way, does it? But wait, there is a third scenario that I have to respond to lest liberals pester me with it in the comments section:

3) The stimulus, while it didn’t itself aid very much in the recovery of the economy through increasing aggregate demand, did change expectations. Investors and employers got optimistic again (in keynesian language, there was a change in “animal spirits”) because now that there was a stimulus package about to be spent, they figured aggregate demand would soon pick up and so they began investing and hiring again.

Theoretically, that could happen. But I’m pretty sure it didn’t. First of all, hiring did not pick up with the stimulus – the unemployment rate would continue to go up long after the recession had ended actually. Investors and employers never really liked Obama, nor the stimulus anyway, so to believe that their expectations changed for the better when the stimulus bill was passed is quite ridicoulous. They never trusted Obama and trust him even less now.

Finally, let’s consider a “what-if” scenario: What if the stimulus did indeed shorten the recession? We don’t have to care about how that would be possible, let’s just say it is somehow. The question then becomes: By how much did the stimulus shorten the recession, and can we reasonably argue that it was worth it?

Let’s say the stimulus shortened the recession by three months. Was it really worth spending 787 billion dollars to make that happen? Really? That would work out at (roughly) 250 billion per month, money that future generations will have to pay back. Here’s a question for liberals: You always talk about caring about future generations when it comes to the environment. You even go as far as telling us we have to lower our current standard of living, just so that a clean environment will be available to future generations as well. I can completely understand (even if I don’t entirely agree with) that sentiment. But why are you being so shortsighted when it comes to recessions? Maybe, just maybe, we could endure another three months of recession (with all the pain that it would mean for the current generation), just so that our grandchildren won’t have to pay back 750 billion dollars with interest? Can’t we do that sacrifice for them?

I think we should. The recession was caused by our mistakes, and future generations should not have to pay for it. Of course, like I said, I don’t believe the stimulus shortened the recession at all, but even if it did do so marginally I have a hard time seeing the benefit being worth the cost.

This will do for now. Thanks for reading. Please forward this post to any liberal friends you might have.

Planned Parenthood’s War on Baby Girls

Posted: 29 May 2012 02:03 PM PDT

Just when you think an organization couldn't get any worse another layer is peeled back. Live Action released another under cover video today which demonstrates that sex-selective abortions are alive and well in the United States. The video below is the first in a series entitled "Gendercide: Sex-Selection in America." It exposes the practice of sex-selective abortion in the United States and how Planned Parenthood and other abortion clinics facilitate the practice.

Live Action provided a partial transcript and description of the video:

"I see that you're saying that you want to terminate if it's a girl, so are you just wanting to continue the pregnancy in the meantime?" a counselor named "Rebecca" offers the woman, who is purportedly still in her first trimester and cannot be certain about the gender. "The abortion covers you up until 23 weeks," explains Rebecca, "and usually at 5 months is usually (sic) when they detect, you know, whether or not it's a boy or a girl." Doctors agree that the later in term a doctor performs an abortion, the greater the risk of complications.

The Planned Parenthood staffer suggests that the woman get on Medicaid in order to pay for an ultrasound to determine the gender of her baby, even though she plans to use the knowledge for an elective abortion. She also tells the woman to "just continue and try again" for the desired gender after aborting a girl, and adds, "Good luck, and I hope that you do get your boy."

Live Action reports that in the past four years six studies have indicated that there are thousands of "missing girls" in the United States, many due to sex-selective abortions. China, Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, India, Australia, the United Kingdom and Vietnam all have banned the practice. The United States with the exception of Illinois, Pennsylvania, Oklahoma and Arizona does not. This Prenatal Non-Discrimination Act (PRENDA) or H.R. 3541 sponsored by Congressman Trent Franks (R-AZ) is scheduled to be debated in Congress on Wednesday. If it is passed it would ban sex-selective abortions nationally.

One would hope that this bill would receive bipartisan support, but you can rest assured that Planned Parenthood will fight for even this. "The search-and-destroy targeting of baby girls through prenatal testing and abortion is a pandemic that is spreading across the globe," notes Lila Rose, founder and president of Live Action. "Research proves that sex-selective abortion has now come to America. The abortion industry, led by Planned Parenthood, is a willing participant. Planned Parenthood and their ruthless abortion-first mentality is the real 'war on women. Sex-selective abortion is gender discrimination with lethal consequences for little girls."

"Could there be any greater discrimination against women than targeting girls for death before birth?" said Susan B. Anthony List President Marjorie Dannenfelser. "Regardless of one's position on abortion—left, right, pro-life, pro-choice—we can agree that women's constitutional right to equal protection should, at a minimum, protect us from prenatal death. We call on Congress to immediately end the injustice of sex-selective abortion. The position should be pre-political and is common ground from which only a radical minority dissents."

Susan B. Anthony List pointed out that opposition to this practice has transcended party lines:

In 1990, longtime abortion-rights advocate and then gubernatorial candidate Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) said she opposed the practice and would consider outlawing it.
In her book Unnatural Selection: Choosing Boys Over Girls, and the Consequences of a World Full of Men, pro-choice writer Mara Hvistendahl states, "In a world in which women are unnaturally scarce, the right to abort will be the least of our worries."
In an interview with the New York Times, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton lamented the occurrence of sex-selective abortion in India and China saying "…unfortunately, with technology, parents are able to use sonograms to determine the sex of a baby, and to abort girl children simply because they'd rather have a boy. And those are deeply set attitudes."
In 1995, UN Fourth World Conference on Women set forth a platform that established "eradicating violence against the girl child" as an internationally recognized priority and included a call to "enact and enforce legislation protecting girls from all forms of violence, including female infanticide and prenatal sex selection."

Even though President Obama has trumpeted abortion rights one would hope that if PRENDA passes the House and Senate that Obama would sign it into law. A veto condones this evil practice. The complete, unedited video and transcript can be viewed at www .ProtectOurGirls .com.

Horoscop

miercuri, 30 mai 2012

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