http://www.kendallharmon.net/t19/ TitusOneNine en Copyright 2008 2008-05-12T03:18:00-06:00 http://www.kendallharmon.net/t19/index.php/t19/article/12410/ Kendall Harmon 2008-05-12T03:18:00-06:00 * By Kendall http://www.kendallharmon.net/t19/index.php/t19/article/12377/ Kendall Harmon In her veto message, the governor took credit for lower abortion rates in Kansas, citing her support for “adoption incentives, extended health services for pregnant women, providing sex education and offering a variety of support services for families.” Indeed, the governor and her administration should be commended for supporting adoption incentives and health services for pregnant women.

However, the governor overreaches by assuming credit for declining abortion rates in Kansas. Actually, lower abortion rates are part of a national trend. Our neighboring state of Missouri has actually had a steeper and longer decline in its abortion rate.

Governor Sebelius’ inclusion of public school sex education programs as a factor in the abortion rate decline is absurd. Actually, valueless sex education programs in public schools have been around for years, coinciding with increased sexual activity among adolescents, as well as increases in teen pregnancy and abortion. On the other hand, the governor does not acknowledge the significant impact of mass media education programs, such as those sponsored by the Vitae Caring Foundation, or the remarkable practical assistance provided by Crisis Pregnancy Centers which are funded through the generosity of pro-life Kansans.

What makes the governor’s actions and advocacy for legalized abortion, throughout her public career, even more painful for me is that she is Catholic.

Read it all.]]> 2008-05-11T11:13:00-06:00 * Culture-Watch, Life Ethics, * Religion News & Commentary, Other Churches, Roman Catholic http://www.kendallharmon.net/t19/index.php/t19/article/12376/ Kendall Harmon
Time to drill in the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge? No. Time to cut us gas-subsidy checks? No. Time to work on a tax and consumption policy that encourages less oil usage and more investment in alternative, renewable energy.

Read it all.]]> 2008-05-11T11:08:00-06:00 * Economics, Politics, Energy, Natural Resources http://www.kendallharmon.net/t19/index.php/t19/article/12374/ Kendall Harmon
Obama added superdelegates from Utah and Ohio, as well as two from the Virgin Islands who had previously backed Clinton. The additions enabled Obama to surpass Clinton's total for the first time in the campaign. He had picked up nine endorsements Friday.

The milestone is important because Clinton would need to win over the superdelegates by a wide margin to claim the nomination. They are a group that Clinton owned before the first caucus, when she was able to cash in on the popularity of the Clinton brand among the party faithful.

Those party insiders, however, have been steadily streaming to Obama since he started posting wins in early voting states.

"I always felt that if anybody establishes himself as the clear leader, the superdelegates would fall in line," said Don Fowler, a former chairman of the Democratic National Committee.

Read it all.]]> 2008-05-10T21:27:00-06:00 * Economics, Politics, US Presidential Election 2008 http://www.kendallharmon.net/t19/index.php/t19/article/12373/ Kendall Harmon
Rep. POMEROY: One of the things about the structure of our program is that it's been able to sustain congressional support through all kinds of political circumstances. Even in the years I've been in Congress, I've seen very different environments relative to the receptivity of members of Congress to supporting foreign aid.

Ms. MCGROARTY: So for purchasing we want to be targeting associations. I mean, it's impossible for us to deal individually with each farmer and each farm.

DE SAM LAZARO: World Food Program officials say they make local purchases carefully. They reject criticism that this causes prices to rise. But they're not about to reject Food for Peace donations.

Mr. SCALPELLI: I am asked this question quite a bit, and I'm not going to bite the hand that helps feed essentially a million Malawians today, and the United States government is indeed the number one largest donor to Malawi still.

DE SAM LAZARO: Other food aid agencies, unlike CARE, say they must continue to monetize their U.S. donations.

(to Nick Ford): Would you not prefer just straight cash assistance?

NICK FORD (Catholic Relief Services): Absolutely, and that's going to be a much more efficient use of the American taxpayers' money. We still have a service to provide the target communities for our development activities. Monetization provides resources that do address the root causes of hunger and poverty in these countries.

Read it all.
]]> 2008-05-10T21:13:00-06:00 * Culture-Watch, Dieting/Food/Nutrition, * Theology, Ethics / Moral Theology http://www.kendallharmon.net/t19/index.php/t19/article/12372/ Kendall Harmon
While scientists, doctors, patient groups and medical charities welcome the ground-breaking advances it could bring, the Roman Catholic Church and several other faiths are vehemently opposed to stem cell research on the grounds that it compromises the sanctity of human life. Central to the religious objectors' argument is that using stem cells amounts to deriving benefit from the destruction of human embryos - fertilized eggs in the early stages of development - and is therefore tantamount to murder, and certainly little better than abortion.

Yet supporters of the revolutionary research techniques are thrilled that stem cells taken from embryos can be made to grow into any cell in the human body, providing an extraordinary resource in the fight against Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, Motor Neurone Disease, diabetes and other conditions.

Read it all.]]> 2008-05-10T21:05:00-06:00 * Culture-Watch, Life Ethics, * International News & Commentary, England / UK, * Theology, Ethics / Moral Theology http://www.kendallharmon.net/t19/index.php/t19/article/12369/ Kendall Harmon
"We went through a great time of healing as a congregation and we are ready to move on," said Norb Birchmeier, senior warden of Trinity Episcopal Church. "I believe we are a stronger congregation because everyone became closer to each other."

Congregants often believe they are better at performing some of the management tasks of the church, he said, which leaves new pastor Rev. Lori Johnson more time to address spiritual growth. Johnson's first service at the church was April 13.

"They seem to be connecting to something in each message," Johnson said of the Sunday services. "They seem happy and excited to have a new priest and are looking toward the future."

Read it all.]]> 2008-05-10T19:28:00-06:00 * Anglican - Episcopal, Episcopal Church (TEC), TEC Parishes http://www.kendallharmon.net/t19/index.php/t19/article/12368/ Kendall Harmon
Mass transit systems around the country are seeing standing-room-only crowds on bus lines where seats were once easy to come by. Parking lots at many bus and light rail stations are suddenly overflowing, with commuters in some towns risking a ticket or tow by parking on nearby grassy areas and in vacant lots.

“In almost every transit system I talk to, we’re seeing very high rates of growth the last few months,” said William W. Millar, president of the American Public Transportation Association.

“It’s very clear that a significant portion of the increase in transit use is directly caused by people who are looking for alternatives to paying $3.50 a gallon for gas.”

Some cities with long-established public transit systems, like New York and Boston, have seen increases in ridership of 5 percent or more so far this year. But the biggest surges — of 10 to 15 percent or more over last year — are occurring in many metropolitan areas in the South and West where the driving culture is strongest and bus and rail lines are more limited.

Read it all.]]> 2008-05-10T18:09:04-06:00 * Economics, Politics, Energy, Natural Resources http://www.kendallharmon.net/t19/index.php/t19/article/12367/ Kendall Harmon
A better measure of housing fundamentals is the relationship between house prices and rents. This is a sort of price/earnings ratio for the housing market: the price of a house reflects the discounted value of future ownership, either as rental income or as rent saved by an owner who lives in the house.

A recent analysis by Morris Davis of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Andreas Lehnert and Robert Martin of the Fed, shows that the rent/price yield in America ranged between 5% and 5.5% from 1960 to 1995, but fell rapidly thereafter to reach a historic low of 3.5% at the height of the boom. Given the typical pace of rental growth, Mr Feroli reckons house prices (as measured by the Case-Shiller index) need to fall by 10-15% over the next year and a half for the rent/price yield to return to its historical average. Again, that suggests the national housing bust is only halfway through. And, given the scale of excess supply, house prices are likely to overshoot. All told, the pressure on policymakers to help struggling homeowners is bound to increase.

Read the whole article.]]> 2008-05-10T16:21:01-06:00 * Economics, Politics, Economy, Housing Market http://www.kendallharmon.net/t19/index.php/t19/article/12366/ Kendall Harmon
JEN PETERSON: The Friends in Need Food Shelf in St. Paul Park.

This wasn't a campaign stop. She was dropping by to pick up some food for her family. It was just her second visit this year.

JEN PETERSON: But I see a trend developing.

COLE: In your life?

JEN PETERSON: Yeah in this need.

Jen knows that trend well. When she was a single mom with four kids she had to lean on all kinds of state aid. She and her current husband, Tony, both work two jobs, and after a big child support settlement in 2004, they were able to make do without assistance.

JEN PETERSON: So we were, you know, living pretty happy, middle class, dual-income parents.

Except both Tony and Jen's ex are in the building industry, and after the foreclosure crisis hit, she found herself back at the food shelf for the first time in four years.

JEN PETERSON: It's just hard to keep the cupboards full without having to spend more and more money, and this is, you know, the food shelf is the one way that we can supplement that.

Read or listen to it all.
]]> 2008-05-10T16:00:00-06:00 * Culture-Watch, Dieting/Food/Nutrition, * Economics, Politics, Economy http://www.kendallharmon.net/t19/index.php/t19/article/12365/ Kendall Harmon
--Mark Shields on last night's Lehrer News Hour]]> 2008-05-10T15:56:00-06:00 * Economics, Politics, US Presidential Election 2008 http://www.kendallharmon.net/t19/index.php/t19/article/12364/ Kendall Harmon
What it all boils down to, he says, is that a cruel hoax is being played on these students. "America, ever-idealistic, seems wary of the vocational-education track. We are not comfortable limiting someone's options," he writes. And he sympathizes with this ideal -- but he's the one who has to see how little it has to do with reality. His students aren't college material. They don't read (some of them can't really read). They don't share even the rudiments of a common intellectual culture on which to build. He says he tries to explain the basics of narrative to them in terms of movies, but they haven't all seen the same movies. They are more or less well-mannered, hard-working barbarians. The only thing they all share is a sense that they are good people for being in college, and that they can be anything they want to be.

Prof. X says the whole system, premised on a false egalitarianism, is to blame here. One key question this excellent essay raises by implication is this: if quite a lot of Americans are incapable of doing college work, what does that do to the Thomas Friedmanesque understanding that in order to compete in a flattened, globalized world, US laborers are simply going to have to get retrained and better educated? What if there are natural limits to their ability to expand their cognitive skills? What then?

I mean, look, what if things were flipped, and the Friedmans of the world were telling the "knowledge workers," for lack of a better term, that staying competitive in this globalizing world economy meant having a stronger back. Ergo, nerdling, you're just going to have to start spending a lot more time at the gym to develop a longshoreman's body, or get left behind. We'd laugh at this, because we have no problem grasping that nature has not endowed all of us equally well in terms of physical strength and capabilities. The nerdling would be able to improve his strength to a certain degree, but to tell him his physical limits are defined only by his desires and will to succeed is to play a cruel hoax on him.

Are we not doing that with some of the people who are in college now?

Read it all and make sure to check out the comments as well.]]> 2008-05-10T15:46:00-06:00 * Culture-Watch, Education, * International News & Commentary, America/U.S.A. http://www.kendallharmon.net/t19/index.php/t19/article/12363/ Kendall Harmon
However, energy independence is likely to be an even more complicated task, Mason said, because unlike the World War II project it doesn't have a single, dedicated "deliverable" - a bomb to end the war.

A number of ORNL scientists, including David Greene, a top fuel economist and transportation researcher, offered comments during the session and discussed what should be priorities. Greene said transportation is at the heart of the nation's oil-dependence problem, and he said one goal should be doubling the fuel economy over today's level by 2030.

But production of biofuels and greater fuel economy won't be enough to achieve energy independence, Greene said.

"To accomplish that goal, we must make electricity, hydrogen - or both - clean, carbon-free, competitive choices for American motorists," he said. Greene cited the need for a new generation of advanced batteries and fuel cells and better, safer ways of storing hydrogen aboard vehicles.

Read it all.

]]> 2008-05-10T15:42:00-06:00 * Economics, Politics, Energy, Natural Resources http://www.kendallharmon.net/t19/index.php/t19/article/12362/ Kendall Harmon Watch it all.]]> 2008-05-10T15:40:00-06:00 * Culture-Watch, Education, Globalization http://www.kendallharmon.net/t19/index.php/t19/article/12361/ Kendall Harmon
Some of history’s greatest scientists — Newton, Pasteur, Galilei, Lavoisier, Kepler, Copernicus, Faraday, Maxwell, Bernard and Heisenberg — were all Christians, and the list doesn’t stop there. Some important scientists, such as astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus, were actually Catholic priests!

Christianity is not against science, but against an absolutist reading of science. The empirical sciences cannot do everything, and hold no monopoly on knowledge and truth. Many important questions — the most important, really — fall outside the purview of science.

What is the meaning of life? How should people treat one another? What happens to us when we die?

No matter how long a white-coated scientist toils and sweats in his laboratory, his instruments will never reveal the answers to these questions. Science is the wrong tool for the job.

Read it all.]]> 2008-05-10T15:35:00-06:00 * Culture-Watch, Religion & Culture, Science & Technology, * Religion News & Commentary, Other Churches, Roman Catholic, * Theology, Apologetics