Yearly Archives: 2012

Brantley says Obama’s stimulus package worked

February 29, 2012 – 11:40 am

The government can not spend themselves out of a recession. It doesn’t work. Japan did 8 stimulus packages in the last 20 years but it has never worked. The best approach to get out of a recession was done by Ronald Reagan in the early 1980’s when he cut taxes then we experienced 7% economic growth. However, somehow Max Brantley of the Arkansas Times claims today that the stimulus did work and that we should have done more!!!

Steve Chapman  rightly noted in his article “Stimulus to Nowhere” noted:

Mired in excruciating negotiations over the budget and the debt ceiling, President Barack Obama might reflect that things didn’t have to turn out this way. The impasse grows mainly out of one major decision he made early on: pushing through a giant stimulus.

When he took office in January 2009, this was his first priority. The following month, Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, with a price tag eventually put at $862 billion.

It was, he said at the time, the most sweeping economic recovery package in our history,” and would “create or save three and a half million jobs over the next two years.”

The president was right about the first claim. As a share of gross domestic output, it was the largest fiscal stimulus program ever tried in this country. But the second claim doesn’t stand up so well. Today, total nonfarm employment is down by more than a million jobs.

What Obama didn’t foresee is that his program would spark a populist backlash and give rise to the tea party. Where would Michele Bachmann be if the stimulus had never been enacted — or if it had been a brilliant success?

To say it has not been is to understate the obvious. The administration says the results look meager because the economy was weaker than anyone realized. Maybe so, but fiscal policy is a clumsy and uncertain tool for stimulating growth, which the past two years have not vindicated.

The package had three main components: tax cuts, aid to state governments and spending on infrastructure projects. Tax cuts would induce consumers to buy stuff. State aid would prop up spending by keeping government workers employed. Infrastructure outlay would generate hiring to build roads, bridges and other public works.

That was the alluring theory, which vaporized on contact with reality. The evidence amassed so far by economists indicates that the stimulus has come up empty in every possible way.

Consider the tax cuts. Wage-earners saw their take-home pay rise as the IRS reduced withholding. But as with past rebates and one-time tax cuts, consumers proved reluctant to perform their assigned role.

Claudia Sahm of the Federal Reserve Board and Joel Slemrod and Matthew Shapiro of the University of Michigan found that only 13 percent of households indicated they would spend most of the windfall. The rest said they preferred to put it in the bank or pay off debts — neither of which boosts the sale of goods and services.

This puny yield was even worse than that of the 2008 tax rebate devised by President George W. Bush. Neither attempt, the study reported, “was very effective in stimulating spending in the near term.”

The idea behind channeling money to state governments is that it would reduce the paring of government payrolls, thus preserving the spending power of public employees. But the plan went awry, according to a paper by Dartmouth College economists James Feyrer and Bruce Sacerdote published by the National Bureau of Economic Research.

“Transfers to the states to support education and law enforcement appear to have little effect,” they concluded. Most likely, they said, states used the money to avoid raising taxes or borrowing money.

That’s right: The federal government took out loans that it will have to cover with future tax increases … so states don’t have to. It’s like paying your Visa bill with your MasterCard.

The public works component could have been called public non-works. It sounds easy for Washington to pay contractors to embark on “shovel-ready projects” that needed only money to get started. The administration somehow forgot that even when the need is urgent, the government moves at the speed of a glacier.

John Cogan and John Taylor, affiliated with Stanford University and the Hoover Institution, reported earlier this year that out of that $862 billion, a microscopic $4 billion has been used to finance infrastructure. Even Obama has been chagrined.

“There’s no such thing as shovel-ready projects,” he complained last year.

Even if jobs were somehow created or saved by this ambitious effort, they came at a prohibitive price. Feyrer and Sacerdote say the costs may have been as high as $400,000 perjob.

Based on all this evidence, we don’t really know whether the federal government can use fiscal policy to engineer a recovery. We do know it can go broke trying.

 

By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in President Obama, spending out of control | Comments (0)

“Everybody is a Murray St fan now”

February 29, 2012 – 10:22 am

The other day my son Hunter went into a store with his Murray St shirt on and the person behind the counter said, “Now that Murray St is undefeated and ranked in the top ten in basketball everybody is jumping on the bandwagon now!!” My son replied, “My cousin Davis Sayle is a freshman football player for them and my whole family got Murray State shirts before the season started this year!!”

My nephew Davis was an all state football player for Briarcrest the last 3 years and I saw him play often. Briarcrest is the school the film Blindside is about (below is more about the people involved in the movie Blindside).

Davis’ bio in NCSA says: 2010 TN Sportswriters 1st Team All-State D… a 3 year starter…3 Interceptions as a Senior…National Honor Society, Ambassador, Honor counsel
 
Major…Pre-Med/Biology….Family: Father Brian Sayle, Mother Beth Sayle,   Harrison, Walker and Gretchen…
 

Actually the Murray St football schedule came out and they play UCA this coming year. Below is the schedule:

Date Time Opponent Location H/A Conf. Game Time/Result Details
9/1/2012 TBA Florida State Tallahassee, Fla. A   TBA Details
9/8/2012 TBA Central Arkansas Stewart Stadium H   TBA Details
9/15/2012 TBA Missouri State Springfield, Mo. A   TBA Details
9/22/2012 TBA Eastern Illinois* Charleston, Ill. A   TBA Details
9/29/2012 TBA Tennessee Tech* Stewart Stadium H   TBA Details
10/6/2012 TBA Austin Peay* Clarksville, Tenn. A   TBA Details
10/13/2012 TBA UT Martin* (Homecoming) Stewart Stadium H   TBA Details
10/27/2012 TBA Jacksonville State* Jacksonville, Ala. A   TBA Details
11/3/2012 TBA Tennessee State* Stewart Stadium H   TBA Details
11/10/2012 TBA Eastern Kentucky* Richmond A   TBA Details
11/17/2012 TBA Southeast Missouri* Stewart Stadium H   TBA Details
11/24/2012 TBA First Round FCS Playoffs TBA H   TBA Details

 Here is more about the people in the movie “The Blindside:”

The Blind SIde: The Journey of Michael Oher

Sandra Bullock plays Leigh Anne Tuohy – The Blind Side Interview

Uploaded by on Feb 3, 2010

If youre looking for an inspirational and heartwarming film, go no further than The Blind Side. Oscar nominated Sandra Bullock gives a riveting performance as real life mother and housewife Leigh Anne Tuohy. The Tuohys, a well-to-do white family, took Michael Oher, a homeless African-American youngster from a broken home, into their home and helped him fulfill his potential. At the same time, Oher’s presence in the Tuohys’ lives leads them to some insightful self-discoveries of their own. Living in his new environment, the teen faced a completely different set of challenges to overcome. As a football player and student, Oher worked hard and, with the help of his coaches and adopted family, became an All-American offensive left tackle and now plays in the NFL for the Baltimore Ravens.

Huckabee Interview with the Tuohy family who adopted Michael Oher – Blind Side 2

Phillip Fulmer in Blind Side

Phillip Fulmer in Blind Side

TUOHY’S TRIUMPH:EXCLUSIVE!

Leigh Anne Tuohy shares her story with SheKnows in a deeply personal interview that gets to the heart behind the heart-filled Sandra Bullock instant classic, The Blind Side.

Tuohy famously took in a homeless teenager in Memphis, Tennessee who would find his calling and become a football superstar. What led this wife of an entrepreneur who owned over 80 fast food restaurants to spearhead an effort to make Michael Oher a home that could not have been further from where he grew up?

The Tuohy family in San Diego for gameday against the Chargers

How that path was paved is not completely told on screen in The Blind Side directed by John Lee Hancock (The Rookie). Tuohy sat with SheKnows at the Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly Hills after a long day of interviews with the film’s cast. Stay tuned for our exclusive video interviews with stars Sandra Bullock and Tim McGraw!

After sitting amongst the hugest stars in the film and music business, the playing field leveler was Leigh Anne Tuohy. Equal parts firecracker, strong Southern woman, inspiration, motherly to all (including yours truly!), pragmatic and one-hundred percent what made what The Guess Who so perfectly called the iconic American Woman.

Leigh Anne, husband Sean and their two children, Sean Jr (SJ) and Collins, did not simply adopt Michael Oher, the engulfed him in familial love that has changed lives exponentially. With The Blind Side’s arrival on November 20 in theaters everywhere, look for the inspiration to explode.

TUOHY TRIUMPH AND TRAVAILS

SheKnows: Hello Leigh Anne, it is such a pleasure to sit with you after witnessing your stirring story. I think the film is a strong statement for women. How do you think your story speaks to women?

Leigh Anne Tuohy: Southern women are strong natured anyway. It’s kind of a characteristic. Maybe, a characteristic flaw (laughs). I’m very strong willed. I think at this point in our society and in our country right now, everybody’s got to be strong willed. I think women have to wear a lot of different hats. Not only do you have to be the mother the nuturerer, but also the wife and the housekeeper and now, so many have to and want to have a career. So, you have to wear a lot of hats. I’m not a big women’s liberation person — not at all — but I do think right now, women have to contribute to all facets.

SheKnows: I wondered what you thought of hearing Sandra Bullock was going to play you?

Leigh Anne Tuohy: I was thrilled. There were names and names and names that were thrown out over a year-and-a-half. It’s all about timing. It was a rollercoaster. Finally, they said it was going to be Sandra Bullock. I thought, “yeah, I’m sure it’s going to be somebody else.” Three weeks later they called and said she signed on. I was pleasantly surprised. I fell in love with her. She did a great job.

SheKnows: For some, Virginia isn’t quite “the South,” any issues with a Washington, DC suburb of Arlington, Virginia-native tackling Tennessee?

Leigh Anne Tuohy: (Laughs) I think Virginia’s South!

Sandra Bullock makes her point in Warner Bros' The Blind Side

SheKnows: I’m sure Sandra does too. You had kindred spirits heading in to telling this story. One theme that arose for me from The Blind Side is how you did not really change Michael’s life, he changed yours. How can you quantify in a way that your life would be different without him in it?

A FAMILY FINDS ITSELF

Leigh Anne Tuohy: If Michael had not come into our lives it would have been extremely different. With all that being said, we have a different view of life now. We view everybody different than we did. We realized that there’s a need out there that we didn’t really know about. We were living in our own little cocoon. You tend to realize that there is a lot going on out there that you’re not aware of and it brought so much to light. Even relationship aspect-wise, it all brought us closer together. We had that common bond. We went through trenches that a lot of other families don’t go through.

Sandra Bullock and Tim McGraw as Leigh Ann and Sean Tuohy

SheKnows: Indeed…

Leigh Anne Tuohy: We came out of this as a stronger family. I’m thankful. I also think that we are so much aware of all people now and feelings and their needs. You don’t know what the guy next to you has going on. He’s got mud on his shoes or a tattoo. We’re so quick to judge. We are so, so quick to judge. You don’t know the worth of that person or what they could contribute to society. We tend to put labels on people. There’s a lot of things that we’ve come through so much, I think, the better.

SheKnows: You’re talking people judging a book by the cover, I know they show in the film, when you first meet Michael where it’s cold and raining and he’s wearing shorts and a T-Shirt in November. What was that moment really like?

Leigh Anne Tuohy: John Lee (Hancock, director) took some liberties with that, but the scene really happened. It was the Tuesday or Wednesday before Thanksgiving and the kids had just gotten out of school and we had been over my mom’s dicing nad getting ready to cook for Thanksgiving. We were coming back home and Michael was walking and he had on shorts and it was…it’s almost become an urban legend (laughs). It was a blizzard (laughs). It was chilly, it was like 40 degrees. I just commented that he looked like a fish out of water for an African-American kid to be where he was at that moment in our neighborhood. You just don’t see African-American kids walking around the neighborhood at 9:30 pm at night in shorts. I said, “who is that?” SJ (her son) said, that’s a new guy at our school. I thought, “what he’s doing out here?” SJ told me he plays basketball. But, school was closed. Sean (her husband) wondered if maybe he had gone to shoot some hoops. I said, “turn around the car.”

FATE BLIND-SIDED LEIGH ANN

SheKnows: You were compelled?

Leigh Anne Tuohy: It was obvious after we turned around and chatted a few minutes that he had no mission, no plan. We thought he was going to the gym because it was warm. Sean said that the gym is not open, let us take you home. He wouldn’t let us take him home, but he let us take him to a bus station about six or seven miles away. So, we drove him that night to the bus stop. Then, he went back home. Flash forward a couple weeks and that was the first time he spent the night on our coach. When I pulled over, it was a seed that was planted. I immediately knew after the conversation. I come to find out, none of that was really the truth. It snowballed. I went in on Monday after Thanksgiving and asked about Michael and who was this kid. Why doesn’t he have long pants on in November? Where does he live? Where are his parents? I didn’t get any of the answers I wanted yet. I just took it from there.

SheKnows: In the film, and also in real life, it seems that adopting Michael really happened naturally.

Leigh Anne Tuohy: It did. It really did.

SheKnows: There was a natural Michael coming into the family that felt effortless. When Sandra Bullock and Tim McGraw and the kids are gathered around the table and ask Michael if he’d like to be part of the family, it felt truly as if that moment was incredibly organic.

Leigh Anne Tuohy: It was, there was never an agenda. There was never a moment. That was so authentic. It just happened. People find it so hard to believe. We have crazy lives. My husband has a very successful business and he tries to run 80-plus fast food stores, and yet he broadcast (play by play) for Memphis’ NBA team, I’m trying to get here yesterday, he could less, but he needs five suits out because they’re leaving for a week of road games. He needs his suits. That’s what was important right then. That’s how we operate. Whatever the need is at that moment, we take care of it. You throw in a daughter that is a level-nine gymnast and a state champion pole-vaulter and we drive two days a week to Arkansas because that’s where the Olympic guys are, and then you throw in Michael playing three sports and constantly needing everything to get through those sports and then you have Sean, Jr (laughs) who’s just along for the ride and always helping out. Our lives are always crazy. It was like, to Michael, if you want to jump in this frying pan, let’s go!

TIM MCGRAW AS HUSBAND

SheKnows: Lastly, your husband in the film is portrayed by Tim McGraw. Tell me your girlfriends in Memphis were not so excited for you!

Leigh Anne Tuohy: Isn’t that fun (laughs)?

Tim McGraw stars in The Blind Side

SheKnows: That has to be a blast.

Leigh Anne Tuohy: He did a good job as Sean. He’s cocky and a little arrogant. He’s a smart ass and I think Tim nailed all three of those beautifully. My husband’s personal assistant is a huge Tim McGraw fan, so she was in heaven getting to hang out with him. That was a big feather throughout this whole thing is getting to hang out with Tim McGraw.

The Blind Side Movie Trailer

Uploaded by  on Aug 24, 2009

This November, you’ll get a hard-hitting football movie featuring no less than Sandra Bullock, Kathy Bates and Tim McGraw. It’s called The Blind Side, and it might be the Rudy of the new millenium.

When a high school student, operating under the perfect storm of being poor, wildly undereducated and badly out of shape, gets recruited by a major football program that grooms him into the exact opposite, his life will change forever. But will it change it for the better? Check out the trailer.

November is the perfect time of year for this kind of movie to hit because it so clearly wants to go for an Oscar run. But at the same time, it should prove accessible to anyone who watches it. Dust off your thesauruses–you’ll need synonyms for “heart-warming” because EVERYONE’S going to call it that. But do you want your heart warmed? Or does this one leave you cold? Hit the comments section and tell us what you think. Thanks for watching!

The Blind Side Cast: Sandra Bullock, Kathy Bates, Kim Dickens, Tim McGraw, Quinton Aaron, Rhoda Griffis, Ray McKinnon, Lily Collins

The Blind Side movie trailer courtesy 20th Century Fox. The Blind Side open in US theaters November 20th, 2009. The Blind Side is directed by John Lee Hancock

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By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events | Comments (0)

“Jesus Discovery” video clip, pictures and story

February 29, 2012 – 8:32 am
 

 

 
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The Garden tomb entrance between the apartments — it is covered by the cement slab at bottom center.

Uploaded by on Feb 28, 2012

The story of a stunning new discovery that provides the first physical evidence of Christians in Jerusalem during the time of Jesus and his apostles.

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Jonah And The Whale Jesus Discovery

First Posted: 02/28/2012 7:27 am Updated: 02/28/2012 12:04 pm

Great story below with other links.

‘Jesus Discovery:’ Jerusalem

Archeology Reveals Birth Of Christianity

The following is an excerpt by James D. Tabor and Simcha Jacobovici, authors of The Jesus Discovery: The New Archaeological Find That Reveals the Birth of Christianity

On the morning of Tuesday, June 29, 2010, outside the Old City of Jerusalem, we made an unprecedented archaeological discovery related to Jesus and early Christianity. This discovery adds significantly to our understanding of Jesus, his earliest followers, and the birth of Christianity. In this book we reveal reliable archaeological evidence that is directly connected to Jesus’ first followers, those who knew him personally and to Jesus himself. The discovery provides the earliest archaeological evidence of faith in Jesus’ resurrection from the dead, the first witness to a saying of Jesus that predates even the writing of our New Testament gospels, and the earliest example of Christian art, all found in a sealed tomb dated to the 1st century CE.

We refer to this tomb as the Patio tomb, since it is now located beneath an apartment patio, eight feet under the basement of a condominium complex. Such juxtapositions of modernity and antiquity are not unusual in Jerusalem, where construction must often be halted to rescue and excavate tombs from ancient times. The Patio tomb was first uncovered by construction work in 1981 in East Talpiot, a suburb of Jerusalem less than two miles south of the Old City.

Our discoveries also provide precious new evidence for evaluating the Jesus son of Joseph’s tomb, discovered a year earlier, which made international headlines in 2007. We refer to this 1980 tomb as the Garden tomb, since it is now situated beneath a garden area in the same condominium complex. These two tombs, both dating to around the time of Jesus, are less than two hundred feet apart. Together with a third tomb nearby that was unfortunately destroyed by the construction blasts, these tombs formed a cluster and most likely belonged to the same clan or extended family. Any interpretation of one tomb has to be made in the light of the other. As a result we believe a compelling argument can be made that the Garden tomb is that of Jesus of Nazareth and his family. We argue in this book that both tombs are most likely located on the rural estate of Joseph of Arimathea, the wealthy member of the Sanhedrin who according to all four New Testament gospels took official charge of Jesus’ burial.

Who was Joseph of Arimathea and how did he enter the historical picture? The Jesus Discovery explores the answers to this and a series of related questions. The recent discoveries in the Patio tomb put the controversy about the Jesus family tomb in new light. We now have new archaeological evidence, literally written in stone, that can guide us in properly understanding what Jesus’ earliest followers meant by their faith in Jesus’ resurrection from the dead, with his earthly remains, and those of his family, peacefully interred just yards away. This might sound like a contradiction, but only because certain theological traditions regarding the meaning of resurrection of the dead have clouded our understanding of what Jesus and his first followers truly believed. When we put together the texts of the gospels with this archaeological evidence, the results are strikingly consistent and stand up to rigorous standards of historical evidence.

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First view of a previously unseen ossuary in niche one, blocking stone at the side.
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Accessing the sealed Patio tomb was a tremendous challenge. The technological challenge alone was daunting. Our only access to this tomb was through a series of eight-inch drill holes in the basement floor of the condominium. We were not even positive these probes would open into the tomb. We literally had only inches to spare. Investigating the tomb required getting agreements from the owners of the building over the tomb; the Israel Antiquities Authority, which controls permission to carry out any archaeological work in Israel; the Jerusalem police, whose task is to keep the peace and avoid incitements to riot; and the Heredim, the ultra-Orthodox authorities whose mission is to protect all Jewish tombs, ancient or modern, from any kind of disturbance. None of these parties had any particular motivation to assist us and for various reasons they disagreed with one another about their own interests. Any one of them could have stopped us at any point along the way, and there were many anxious times when we thought the exploration would never happen. Ultimately we were able to persuade each group to support the excavation. That we succeeded at all is more than a minor miracle. At the same time we had no evidence that our exploration of this tomb, if it were possible, would yield anything of importance. But we both agreed it was a gamble worth taking.

At many points the entire operation seemed likely to collapse. We pushed on, however, not because we knew what was inside the tomb, but because we could not bear the thought of never knowing. Since that time we have begun to put the entire story together and a coherent picture is emerging that offers a new understanding of Jesus and his earliest followers in the first decades of the movement.

Archaeologists who work on the history of ancient Judaism and early Christianity disagree over whether there is any reliable archaeological evidence directly related to Jesus or his early followers. Most are convinced that nothing of this sort has survived, not a single site, inscription, artifact, drawing, or text mentioning Jesus or his followers, or witnessing to the beliefs of the earliest Jewish Christians either in Jerusalem or in Galilee.

Jesus was born, lived, and died in the land of Israel. Most scholars agree he was born around 5 BCE and died around 30 CE. We have abundant archaeological evidence from this period related to Galilee, where he began his preaching and healing campaigns, and Jerusalem, where he was crucified. There is evidence related to Herod Antipas, the high priest Caiaphas, and even Pontius Pilate, who had him crucified, but nothing that would connect us to Jesus himself, or even to his earliest followers — until now. Our hope is that these exciting new discoveries can become the catalyst for reconsidering other archaeological evidence that might well be related to the first Jewish-Christian believers.

The oldest copies of the New Testament gospels date to the early 4th century CE, well over two hundred years after Jesus’ lifetime. There are a few papyri fragments of New Testament writings that scholars have dated to the 2nd century CE, but nothing so far in the 1st century. The earliest Christian art is found in the catacomb tombs in Rome, dating to the late 2nd or early 3rd centuries CE. Our discovery effectively pushes back the date on early Christian archaeological evidence by two hundred years. More significantly, it takes us back into the lifetime of Jesus himself.

This has been the most extraordinary adventure of our careers, and we are pleased to be able to share with readers the surprising and profound story of The Jesus Discovery.

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Is the Bible historically accurate? (part 24)

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By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Biblical Archaeology | Comments (0)

France will learn just like Obama will learn about class warfare

February 29, 2012 – 6:50 am

Uploaded by on May 3, 2011

This Economics 101 video from the Center for Freedom and Prosperity gives seven reasons why the political elite are wrong to push for more taxes. If allowed to succeed, the hopelessly misguided pushing to raise taxes would only worsen our fiscal mess while harming the economy.

The seven reasons provided by the video against this approach are as follows:

1) Tax increases are not needed;
2) Tax increases encourage more spending;
3) Tax increases harm economic performance;
4) Tax increases foment social discord;
5) Tax increases almost never raise as much revenue as projected;
6) Tax increases encourage more loopholes; and,
7) Tax increases undermine competitiveness

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Raising the taxes on the rich may sound good in a class warfare strategy but it doesn’t work out like people would think. Here goes France again.

France Will Show U.S. How (Not) to Do It

Posted by Marian L. Tupy

Francois Hollande is a man on a mission—to increase the top rate of tax on income to 75 percent. The Socialist candidate, who is poised to beat Nicolas Sarkozy in the French presidential election, said, “Above 1m euros [£847,000; $1.3m], the tax rate should be 75% because it’s not possible to have that level of income.”

Hollande’s “unassailable” logic aside, the measure would remind those who are too young to remember the 1970s of what happens when the rapacious state makes work really unprofitable. I can just see the Whitehall mandarins wring their hands with joy as thousands of French high-earners, from actors to businessmen, pour across the English Channel to London. If anything, the disastrous effect of the French tax will be greater than four decades ago—the world, after all, has become even more competitive and the cost of relocation has fallen appreciably. Karl Marx is supposed to have said that “history repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce.” Hollande may well prove him right.

By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Cato Institute, President Obama, Taxes | Comments (0)

Remembering Francis Schaeffer at 100 (Part 12)

February 29, 2012 – 6:35 am

Dr. Francis Schaeffer – The Naturalistic, Materialistic, World View

This year Francis Schaeffer would have turned 100 on Jan 30, 2012. I remember like yesterday when I first was introduced to his books. I was even more amazed when I first saw his films. I was so influenced by them that I bought every one of his 30 something books and his two film series. Here is an article that I got off the internet that quotes Schaeffer and it comes from Chuck Colson’s website www.breakpoint.org :

Piece By Piece
By Chuck Colson|Published Date: July 25, 2011

Taking Apart a Worldview

fence-sky1

First published in February, 1998, this BreakPoint commentary reminds us of the utter necessity of confronting and dealing with sin.

How important is it to understand another person’s worldview—someone’s conception of the world, of human life, of reality? It took a former communist to remind me of the answer: It’s absolutely essential.

A few months ago I traveled to Eastern Europe to meet with Prison Fellowship volunteers in a number of countries. One stop was Bulgaria. At the prison in Sofia, we dedicated a prison hospital, provided by Prison Fellowship Holland, and a new prison chapel that had been built by Bulgarian Christians.

It was a glorious occasion. Bulgaria’s national press corps were in attendance, along with the minister of justice, a former Communist and an atheist.

During the dedication ceremonies I told the crowd that crime was a moral problem. Thus, the chapel was vital in dealing with crime, because it would address the restoration of souls.

The minister of justice, who had stood indifferently through most of the proceedings, now stared intently at me as I spoke. Later, he invited me to drop by his office. A remarkable conversation followed.

“Mr. Colson,” the justice minister said, “you speak of crime as a moral problem. What do you mean? Is that a sociological statement?”

I told him that crime was caused by sin—by people choosing to do wrong. He looked bewildered and shook his head. “Oh, no,” he said. “Crime is caused by economic factors.”

At that moment I realized I was face to face with an absolutely alien worldview. As a Communist, this man had been steeped in dialectical materialism—the philosophical underpinnings of Marxism. That is, that economics determines how we behave. That’s the way he saw reality and life.

I realized that before I could even begin to witness to this man, I would have to engage in what the late Francis Schaeffer called “pre-evangelism.” So during the next 90 minutes, I took apart this man’s most basic suppositions, piece by piece. I talked about human sin—the evidence of it in the tragedies of the twentieth century. I talked about the fact that people are motivated by spiritual forces, not by economics. I talked about the relationship of morality to crime.

It was fascinating to watch his expression change as I challenged his view of human nature and of reality. Finally-after an hour and 20 minutes—I was able to openly share what Jesus Christ had done in my life. At that point the minister could understand it; it was as if a dark cloud had lifted.

My experience in Bulgaria is a metaphor for what Christians face—not only in foreign lands but here at home, as well. You see, if people believe there is no such thing as sin, then talk of a Savior makes no sense. If they believe that man is in charge of his destiny—that he can create utopia—then to their minds they make the law, and there is no such thing as a law above the law.

That Bulgarian bureaucrat reminds us that what stands between many people and the Lord is a worldview that cannot accommodate the essential truths of the faith. Until Christians understand this, it will be next to impossible for us to communicate with the modern, secular mind.

Because the man, whether in Bulgaria or America, who does not believe in sin will not believe in a Savior.

BookYou should get a copy of Cornelius Plantinga’s book, Not the Way It’s Supposed to Be, from our online store. Dr. Plantinga can help you to understand better the devastating effects of sin. You should also read the article, “Slaves to Sin,” by T. M. Moore.
By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events, Francis Schaeffer, Prolife | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (0)

An open letter to President Obama (Part 21 of my response to State of Union Speech 1-24-12)

February 29, 2012 – 6:33 am

Congressman Rick Crawford State of the Union Response 2012

Uploaded by  on Jan 24, 2012

Rep. Rick Crawford responds to the State of the Union address January 24, 2012

President Obama’s state of the union speech Jan 24, 2012

Barack Obama (Photo by Saul Loeb-Pool/Getty Images)

President Obama c/o The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. President,

I know that you receive 20,000 letters a day and that you actually read 10 of them every day. I really do respect you for trying to get a pulse on what is going on out here.

The President’s Heroics and Other Tall Tales about the Auto Industry

Posted by Daniel Ikenson

Newt Gingrich defeated communism, someone hacked Anthony Wiener’s Twitter account, and President Obama saved the U.S. automobile industry.  Grandiosity, denial, and revisionism are all noted indulgences of the political breed.  That’s why we should always be skeptical of their words and pity the partisan lemmings who mindlessly parrot their rhetoric.

In his SOTU speech last night, the president claimed credit for rescuing the auto industry:

On the day I took office, our auto industry was on the verge of collapse. Some even said we should let it die. With a million jobs at stake, I refused to let that happen. In exchange for help, we demanded responsibility. We got workers and automakers to settle their differences. We got the industry to retool and restructure. Today, General Motors is back on top as the world’s number one automaker. Chrysler has grown faster in the U.S.than any major car company. Ford is investing billions in U.S.plants and factories. And together, the entire industry added nearly 160,000 jobs.

We bet on American workers. We bet on American ingenuity. And tonight, the American auto industry is back.

This is a claim that is likely to be repeated as the president campaigns across the country this year, so it may be worthwhile to examine its merits.  (Who knows, maybe an effective debate moderator or Sunday news show host might find his way to asking the right questions of the president or members of his administration.)

Closer analysis reveals that President Obama (enabled by President Bush’s complicity) bailed out specific stakeholders at two auto companies at great cost to U.S.taxpayers and at great expense to important U.S. institutions.

The assertion – or implication – that he saved the auto industry is bogus. The auto industry was never on the verge of collapse.  GM and Chrysler were in deep trouble, but Ford, Honda, Toyota, Nissan, Mazda, Kia, Hyundai, BMW and Mercedes Benz (to name some U.S. producers) were fine.  Yes, in 2008-2009 the economy was in recession and automobile demand had tanked.  The companies that had been the most profligate, the most reckless, and the least disciplined were exposed, but talk of industry collapse was the product of a Detroit public relations campaign that featured the claim that 2 to 3 million jobs could be lost if the government didn’t funnel huge sums of cash to the Big Three. (Details here.)

I have shouted from the rooftops about this issue for over three years.  So rather than present all the facts and reconstruct all the arguments, let me economize with reference to this congressional testimony, given seven month ago. It pretty well sums up everything that’s wrong or misleading about the president’s narrative.

As I wrote last year:

The objection to the auto bailout was not that the federal government wouldn’t be able to marshal adequate resources to help GM. The most serious concerns were about the consequences of that intervention — the undermining of the rule of law, the property confiscations, the politically driven decisions and the distortion of market signals.

Any verdict on the auto bailouts must take into account, among other things, the illegal diversion of TARP funds, the forced transfer of assets from shareholders and debt-holders to pensioners and their union; the higher-risk premiums consequently built into U.S. corporate debt; the costs of denying Ford and the other more worthy automakers the spoils of competition; the costs of insulating irresponsible actors, such as the autoworkers’ union, from the outcomes of an apolitical bankruptcy proceeding; the diminution of U.S. moral authority to counsel foreign governments against market interventions; and the lingering uncertainty about policy that pervades the business environment to this day.

GM’s recent profits speak only to the fact that politicians committed more than $50 billion to the task of rescuing those companies and the United Auto Workers. With debts expunged, cash infused, inefficiencies severed, ownership reconstituted, sales rebates underwritten and political obstacles steamrolled — all in the midst of a recovery in U.S.auto demand — only the most incompetent operations could fail to make profits.

But taxpayers are still short at least $10 billion to $20 billion (depending on the price that the government’s 500 million shares of GM will fetch), and there is still significant overcapacity in the auto industry.

The administration should divest as soon as possible, without regard to the stock price. Keeping the government’s tentacles around a large firm in an important industry will keep the door open wider to industrial policy and will deter market-driven decision-making throughout the industry, possibly keeping the brakes on the recovery. Yes, there will be a significant loss to taxpayers. But the right lesson to learn from this chapter in history is that government interventions carry real economic costs — only some of which are readily measurable.

_______________________________
You don’t understand the free market and the fact that GM was in trouble does not mean the government needs to rush in and take them over. If GM had gone out of business then it may have helped us get more jobs in the long run by helping other car companies benefit. You need to check out Milton Friedman’s film series “Free to Choose.”

Thank you so much for your time. I know how valuable it is. I also appreciate the fine family that you have and your committment as a father and a husband.

Sincerely,

Everette Hatcher III, 13900 Cottontail Lane, Alexander, AR 72002, ph 501-920-5733, lowcostsqueegees@yahoo.com

By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Cato Institute, President Obama | Comments (0)

“Midnight in Paris” wins academy award “Woody Wednesday”

February 29, 2012 – 6:25 am
Bananas (1971) 
Bananas (1971)

en cast ex-wife, Louise Lasser (the duo were married from 1966 to 1969), as his romantic lead in this quirky comedy. When asked why he chose to title the movie Bananas, Allen quipped, “Because there are no bananas in it.” 

“Midnight in Paris” is one of Woody Allen best works.

Woody Allen wins best original screenplay Oscar for Midnight in Paris

Woody Allen, writer/director of Midnight in Paris, has taken the best original screenplay Oscar for his script about a novelist adrift in a romantic re-imagining of 1920s Paris

Oscars 2012 coverage continues on our live blog

guardian.co.uk, Sunday 26 February 2012 22.31 EST

Woody Allen

Woody Allen, who has won the 2012 original screenplay Oscar for his Midnight in Paris script. Photograph: Guido Montani/EPA

Woody Allen has won the Oscar for best original screenplay at the Academy Award ceremony currently taking place at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood. His film Midnight in Paris is the most commercially successful of his entire career, but he still faced a struggle to defeat the favourite, The Artist writer Michel Hazanavicius.

  1. Midnight in Paris
  2. Production year: 2011
  3. Country: Rest of the world
  4. Cert (UK): 12A
  5. Runtime: 100 mins
  6. Directors: Woody Allen
  7. Cast: Adrien Brody, Carla Bruni, Kathy Bates, Marion Cotillard, Michael Sheen, Owen Wilson, Rachel McAdams, Tom Hiddleston
  8. More on this film

Allen also came out on top ahead of a strong field including Bridesmaids’ Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumolo, JC Chandor (Margin Call) and Asghar Farhadi, writer of Iranian divorce drama A Separation. This is the 15th time Allen has nominated for best original screenplay, winning just twice, for Hannah and Her Sisters in 1987 and Annie Hall in 1977.

Midnight in Paris sees Owen Wilson play an American novelist on holiday in the French capital who finds himself magically transported to his favourite era: the jazz age Paris of expats such as F Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway.

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“Woody Wednesday” Part 1 starts today, Complete listing of all posts on the historical people mentioned in “Midnight in Paris”

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What can we learn from Woody Allen Films?

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Nihilism can be seen in Woody Allen’s latest film “Midnight in Paris”

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Movie Review of “Midnight in Paris” lastest movie by Woody Allen

Midnight in Paris – a delightfully entertaining film of wit, wonder and love Have you ever thought that you were born in the wrong time? Since I was a child, I found my love for MGM musicals set me apart from my friends. Are we really out of place, or is a sense of nostalgia […]

“Midnight in Paris” movie review plus review of 5 Woody Allen classics (video clips from Annie Hall)

Five favorite Woody Allen classics Add a comment Sean Kernan , Davenport Classic Movies Examiner June 11, 2011 Woody Allen’s new film “Midnight in Paris” starring Owen Wilson, Rachel McAdams and Oscar winner Marion Cotillard opened Friday, June 10th at Rave Motion Pictures in Davenport, Iowa. “Midnight in Paris” stars Owen Wilson as a blocked […]

By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events | Comments (0)

Remembering Francis Schaeffer at 100 (Part 11)

February 29, 2012 – 6:04 am

The Gospel of Christ in the pages of the Bible

_______________________

 This year Francis Schaeffer would have turned 100 on Jan 30, 2012. I remember like yesterday when I first was introduced to his books. I was even more amazed when I first saw his films. I was so influenced by them that I bought every one of his 30 something books and his two film series. Chuck Colson’s website www.breakpoint.org  and I was directed from there to Probe’s website where I found this great article below. I will share it in 4 parts. Todd Kappelman is the author and here is some info on him and Probe.

Todd KappelmanTodd A. Kappelman is a field associate with Probe Ministries. He is a graduate of Dallas Baptist University (B.A. and M.A.B.S., religion and Greek), and the University of Dallas (M.A., philosophy/humanities). Currently he is pursuing a Ph.D. in philosophy at the University of Dallas. He has served as assistant director of the Trinity Institute, a study center devoted to Christian thought and inquiry. He has been the managing editor of The Antithesis, a bi-monthly publication devoted to the critique of foreign and independent film. His central area of expertise is Continental philosophy (especially nineteenth and twentieth century) and postmodern thought.

What is Probe?

Probe Ministries is a non-profit ministry whose mission is to assist the church in renewing the minds of believers with a Christian worldview and to equip the church to engage the world for Christ. Probe fulfills this mission through our Mind Games conferences for youth and adults, our 3-minute daily radio program, and our extensive Web site at www.probe.org.

Further information about Probe’s materials and ministry may be obtained by contacting us at:

Probe Ministries
2001 W. Plano Parkway, Suite 2000
Plano TX 75075
(972) 941-4565
info@probe.org
www.probe.org
Copyright information

This is the fifth part:

The Need to Read: Francis Schaeffer Print E-mail

Todd Kappelman Written by Todd Kappelman

The Need to Read series began several months ago with a program on C.S. Lewis . The rationale for this series is that many of the great writers who have helped many Christians mature are now either unknown or neglected by many who could use these authors insights into the faith.

This installment focuses on Francis Schaeffer (1912-1984), one of the most recognized and respected Christian authors of the twentieth century.

Francis Schaeffer and “The Man Without a Bible”

The purpose of this discussion of the works of Francis Schaeffer is that we hope Christians will once again turn to this great apologist for the Christian faith and learn from him. In closing, we will address one of his lesser known works titled Death In The City. In chapter seven, The Man Without a Bible, Schaeffer offers some advice for Christians living in a post-Christian world. He argues very convincingly that the church in America has largely turned away from God and the knowledge of the things of God. This occurred in just a few short decades, from the 1920s to the 1960s.{12}

We must always bear in mind that many people do not believe that the Bible is inspired or authoritative. For these people the Bible is just another book. The dismantling of biblical authority has been very efficient in the last 150 years. Very few of our major secular universities treat the Bible as authoritative anymore. Yet many of these universities were founded at a time when no one would have doubted the importance of the Holy Scriptures. The majority of men at the end of this century hold vastly different views about the Bible than did their ancestors at the close of the previous century. So, how do we share the Christian message with the man without the Bible?

Schaeffer cites three instances where Paul spoke to non-Christians and did not appeal to the Scriptures. These are found in Acts 14:15-17; 17:16-32, and Romans 1:18-2:16. The reason that Paul did not use the Scriptures on these three occasions is that the people he was addressing did not recognize the claims that the Holy Scriptures made on their lives. In approaching these individuals, Paul appealed to the moral knowledge that men possess as a feature of their created being. Schaeffer refers to this as the manishness of man.

In Romans 1:18 we have the description of Gods wrath being poured out on man. Schaeffer believes that this is an ideal place to approach modern man. We may tell the modern non-believer that he knows that God exists and that he has suppressed this knowledge. (The knowledge of God must be understood here as natural revelation, and not the gospel.) Paul means that each and every man, regardless of what he says, knows that God exists. This knowledge of God that the non-believer possesses is supplemented by the moral argument for Gods existence. The fact that men hold beliefs about right and wrong betrays the fact that they know that God necessarily exists. Men willingly suppress this knowledge of God and this brings His wrath.

The man without the Bible has suppressed the natural revelation of God, not the special revelation found in the Scriptures. The man without the Bible has not followed his initial knowledge of God to the proper conclusions and therefore remains lost. The many men without the Bible present both an opportunity and a challenge for the Christian. The opportunity is that this man is lost and Christians can share their faith with him. The challenge is in showing these lost people how the world around them and the human nature within them point toward the existence of God.

Francis Schaeffer was wonderful at discussing Christian truths with non-believers without appealing to the Scriptures. It is our loss if we do not familiarize ourselves with, and use, the works of one of this countrys greatest Christian thinkers.

Notes

  1. J.I. Packer, forward to Francis A. Schaeffer Trilogy, by Francis Schaeffer (Wheaton: Crossway Publishers, 1990), xiv.
  2. Hosea 4:6.
  3. Francis Schaeffer, The God Who Is There in Francis A. Schaeffer Trilogy (Wheaton: Crossway Publishers, 1990), 109-114.
  4. Ibid., 196.
  5. Ibid., 217-224.
  6. Ibid., 225-236.
  7. Ibid., 261-270.
  8. Ibid., 207-208.
  9. Francis Schaeffer, He Is There and He Is Not Silent in Francis A. Schaeffer Trilogy (Wheaton: Crossway Publishers, 1990), 277.
  10. Ibid., 275-290.
  11. Ibid., 291-302.
  12. Ibid., 211.

©1999 Probe Ministries.

schaeffer

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Andy Rooney was an atheist

How Now Shall We LiveClick here to purchase Chuck Colson and Nancy Pearcey’s How Now Shall We Live?, dedicated to Francis Schaeffer.


Click here for a list of Francis Schaeffer’s greatest works, from the Colson Center store!
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By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events, Francis Schaeffer, Prolife | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (0)

Ark Times reader says Social Security is not Ponzi Scheme

February 28, 2012 – 11:14 pm

Social Security is a Ponzi Scheme but Blake who is a blogger said I was off base.

Ark Times reader says Social Security is not Ponzi Scheme

Social Security Disaster

Politicians who are principled enough to point out the fraud of Social Security, referring to it as a lie and Ponzi scheme, are under siege. Acknowledgment of Social Security’s problems is not the same as calling for the abandonment of its recipients. Instead, it’s a call to take actions now, while there’s time to avert a disaster. Let’s look at it.

The term was derived from the scheme created during the 1920s by Charles Ponzi, a poor but enterprising Italian immigrant. Here’s how it works. You persuade some people to give you their money to invest. After a while, you pay them a nice return, but the return doesn’t come from investments. What you pay them with comes from the money of other people whom you’ve persuaded to “invest” in your scheme. The scheme works so long as you can persuade greater and greater numbers of people to “invest” so that you can pay off earlier “investors.” After a while, Ponzi couldn’t find enough new investors, and his scheme collapsed. He was convicted of fraud and sent to prison.

The very first Social Security check went to Ida May Fuller in 1940. She paid just $24.75 in Social Security taxes but collected a total of $22,888.92 in benefits, getting back all she put into Social Security in a month. According to a Congressional Research Service report titled “Social Security Reform” (October 2002), by Geoffrey Kollmann and Dawn Nuschler, workers who retired in 1980 at age 65 got back all they put into Social Security, plus interest, in 2.8 years. Workers who retired at age 65 in 2002 will have to wait a total of 16.9 years to break even. For those retiring in 2020, it will take 20.9 years. Workers entering the labor force today won’t live long enough to get back even half of what they will put into Social Security. Social Security faces Ponzi’s problem, not enough new “investors.” In 1940, there were 160 workers paying into Social Security per retiree; today there are only 2.9 and falling.

Some politicians claim that Social Security has a huge trust fund and is in good health. An uniformed public and a derelict news media don’t challenge that lie. Back in August, politicians were in a tizzy over raising the federal debt limit. In an effort to frighten seniors, President Barack Obama said in a CBS interview, “I cannot guarantee that those checks go out on Aug. 3 if we haven’t resolved this issue, because there may simply not be the money in the coffers to do it.” Here’s how we reveal the trust fund lie: According to the Social Security Administration, it has a trust fund with $2.6 trillion in it. If those were real assets, then the Social Security Administration could have mailed checks out regardless of what Congress did about the debt limit. The reality is that the Social Security trust fund consists of government IOUs that have no real value at all and probably are not even worth the paper upon which they are printed.

I believe that a person who is 65 years old and has been forced into Social Security is owed something. But the question is, Who owes it to him? Congress has spent every penny of his Social Security “contribution.” Young workers have no obligation to be fleeced in order to make up for the dishonesty and dereliction of Congress. The tragedy is that most seniors just want their money and couldn’t care less about whom Congress takes it from.

Here’s what might be a temporary fix: The federal government owns huge quantities of wasting assets — assets that are not producing anything — 650 million acres of land, almost 30 percent of the land area of the United States. In exchange for those who choose to opt out of Social Security and forsake any future claim, why not pay them off with 40 or so acres of land? Doing so would give us breathing room to develop a free choice method to finance retirement

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Social Security is a Ponzi scheme (Part 4) Governor Rick Perry got in trouble for calling Social Security a Ponzi scheme and I totally agree with that. This is a series of articles that look at this issue. Trains, Pensions, and Economic Freedom by Timothy B. Lee This article appeared on Forbes.com on August 17, 2011. recently […]

Social Security is a Ponzi scheme (Part 3)

Social Security is a Ponzi scheme (Part 3) Governor Rick Perry got in trouble for calling Social Security a Ponzi scheme and I totally agree with that. This is a series of articles that look at this issue. Personal Accounts and the Savings Rate by Timothy B. Lee This article appeared on Forbes.com on September 11, 2011 […]

Rick Perry’s Ponzi-scheme claim is in no way unprecedented

Rick Perry and Mitt Romney went after each other at the debate over this term “Ponzi scheme.” Janet M. LaRue   Romney’s Ponzi Phobia 9/19/2011 When it comes to Social Security, Republicans should stop treating seniors like the feeble-minded demographic portrayed in commercials written by 13-year-olds on Madison Avenue. It’s like the home security commercial […]

Social Security is a Ponzi scheme (Part 2)

Social Security is a Ponzi scheme (Part 2) John Stossel – Government’s Ponzi Scheme Uploaded by LibertyPen on Apr 21, 2010 A look at the Social Security system. By contrast, Bernie Madoff seems like a shoplifter. http://www.LibertyPen.com Uploaded by LibertyPen on Jan 8, 2009 Professor Williams explains what’s ahead for Social Security ______________________________ Governor Rick […]

By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Social Security | Comments (0)

Liberal journalists complain that Republicans will not let Obama’s picks sail through

February 28, 2012 – 3:53 pm

Max Brantley called it a cold war between the White House and the Republicans in the Senate over these appointments that were being held up. Today he jumps on this again.

Where did this “cold war” start? I contend that it started back during the Bush years when Mark Pryor and his Democratic buddies were holding up judges like Miguel Estrada for no good reason.

Paul Greenberg in the editorial “Dept. of Hypocrisy: Mark Pryor’s Selective Outrage,”  (May 3, 2010) pointed out that Pryor was angry that Republicans were holding up the  President’s picks for the federal bench. ”There’s just no place for this in the Senate,” he huffs. “There’s no place just to play partisan political games with these judicial appointments.” Greenberg went on to show how hypocritical this was of Pryor.

Liberal columnists seem to be the most hypocritical though. Take a look at this article below that shows how the NY Times keeps changing their opinion on this according to who is in the White House:

Elizabeth Garvey

February 27, 2012 at 11:35 am

In an editorial last month, The New York Times argued that the Senate should adopt President Obama’s plan requiring the Senate to vote on judicial nominees within 90 days—thus eliminating the filibuster as applied to those nominations.  The Times notes that this is a “major change in position” from its stance that the filibuster “goes to the center of the peculiar but effective form of government America cherishes.”  As Ed Whelan pointed out, this is not the first time the Times has reversed course on the use of the filibuster.  In 1995, the Times argued that the Senate, or “the greatest obstructive body,” should stop using the filibuster as it had “become the tool of the sore loser.”

Whelan noted that coincidentally, the Times opposed the filibuster when Senate Republicans used it to stall President Clinton’s executive-branch nominees but “hailed” its existence when it was used to block a number of President Bush’s judicial nominees.  So, we won’t be surprised when the Times’ latest reluctant revelation that the filibuster “threaten[s] to paralyze government” us reversed yet again during the next Republican administration.

As for Obama, he voted as a Senator to filibuster a number of President Bush’s nominees—including Supreme Court Associate Justice Samuel Alito and Court of Appeals Judges Janice Rogers Brown, William Pryor, Priscilla Owen, and Leslie Southwick (and as Whelan discusses, Senator Obama not only voted for filibuster but led the unsuccessful attack against Southwick).  As president, Obama now opposes the filibuster since it’s been used to thwart some of his nominees, including Goodwin Liu and Caitlin Halligan.

What the Times doesn’t discuss is one rather obvious reason why President Obama is calling for the Senate to change its rules now.  The proposal itself raises the stakes if conservatives in the Senate slow down confirmation of judicial nominations to challenge the President’s recent unconstitutional “recess” appointments to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the NLRB.  As Hans von Spakovsky discusses in this recent piece, conservative senators have yet to take meaningful action in response to the president’s purported recess appointments, but there reportedly are some senators who want to follow in the steps of Senator Robert Byrd, who infamously challenged President Reagan’s recess appointments by holding up a variety of Executive Branch nominees and even 5,000 military promotions.  Eliminating the filibuster would further neuter the Senate in the face of future, illegal recess appointments—as the New York Times certainly knows.

By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in President Obama | Comments (0)