On Cecil the Lion and the Resulting Outrage

Recently, my social media feeds have exploded with people expressing outrage and deep sadness over the killing of Cecil the lion. You might be led to think that they were best friends with this beast, although none of these people have ever met or scene Cecil in person, as he lived on the other side of the planet.  But they have seen pictures and videos of him and I can tell you that they appear to have been very deeply impacted by the story of his demise. Petitions! Blog posts! Status Updates! Exclamation Points!!!!

Meanwhile, in our own little corner of the planet, we are completely passive about the premeditated slaughter of millions of innocent humans. We have pictures and videos of these little babies in the womb, yet do not raise our voices to protect them. To speak critically of the immoral practice of abortion is not the current trending topic on the web, and has not been for quite some time. I wonder where the outrage is over the 1 human life that is purposefully ended in utero every 30 seconds in America. Every day that passes on the calendar is another 2,899 people that will never breathe their first breath in the Land of the Free. Over 1 million babies a year are killed and yet it is an acceptable practice. (abortion clock)

If we lined up 120 lions and killed them all in 1 bloody hour, you can be sure that the entire world would demand justice. And yet, we do something far worse every hour here in the United States. 21 percent of ALL pregnancies in our country are terminated by an abortion. 1 in 5. Over 58 million Americans have been murdered in this fashion since 1973. That’s an immediate population loss of over 18%, which does not include possible future generations.  Dwell on that. These aren’t just numbers  - they are little lives that are being purposefully extinguished.

As a father of three children, I truly cannot understand how anyone who has ever stared at a live monitor feed of an ultrasound can defend this practice. How do you deny that the heartbeat that can be measured and seen at 8 weeks post conception is human? I cannot.

I have seen people express anger and outrage over the fact that this animal was hunted just for sport. I understand the emotion and do not disagree with the anger over luring a protected animal to its death. I’m all for obeying the laws that exist and protecting the creatures that have been designated as requiring that protection.

To all the people outraged in general over the hunting/raising of any animal, specifically for food: If you commit wholeheartedly to this thought and stop eating all poultry, pork, red meat, fish and their eggs then I will acknowledge that the outrage you have expressed has prompted life-altering action. To do any less would be picking and choosing what animals are more valuable than others and that doesn’t seem like a valid option to me.

To all the Christians who are outraged by the death of a lion you’ve never met, in a place you’ve never been: Please take that passion and purpose and pour it into defending the lives of the babies who are dying as a result of “choice”. Be willing to take a bold stand in the social arenas for those who do not have the ability to scream for themselves.

To all the Christians who support abortion: Please study the Bible and attempt to reconcile your stance on abortion with what God says about a person’s worth, their creation, Him physically knitting them together and, knowing them in the womb, etc. I don’t understand how the two can be reconciled. I welcome your emails and private messages to begin a 1 on 1 dialogue.

Dead lions don’t have souls and Christ didn’t come to die for them.

Let’s be more outraged about the death of millions of people in our country than that of a lion in a far off land.

Ethanol and The Dust Bowl

Lisa and I recently watched the Ken Burns' documentary "The Dust Bowl". It was very interesting, very informative and very moving. The stories featured told of the causes of that environmental catastrophe, the impact of the event on the people in the area and the fragility of the land. It featured a lot from Timothy Eagan's wonderfully written book on the subject "The Worst Hard Time" - I highly recommend reading it.


Today I read this article "The Secret, Dirty Cost of Obama's Green Power Push" which details how the EPA, Department of Agriculture and the White House have pursued pushing ethanol as a sustainable biofuel, when the evidence is more and more to the contrary.

There are several things stated in the article that brought to mind the Dust Bowl, but this one really stood out to me:

Investors from as far away as Maryland and Pennsylvania have bought thousands of acres in Wayne County, sending prices skyrocketing from $350 per acre a decade ago to $5,000 today.

One in every four acres of in the county is now owned by an out-of-towner.
Those who still own land often rent it to farming companies offering $300 or more per acre. Perkins could make perhaps $27,000 a year if he let somebody plant corn on his land. That's nothing to dismiss in a county where typical household income is $36,000.
But he knows what that means. He sees the black streaks in his neighbor's cornfields, knowing the topsoil washes away with every rain. He doesn't want that for his family's land.

This is similar to what happened in the 1920s when the cost of grain skyrocketed and the government expanded homestead settlement programs. Investors from the big city or even out of state would purchase acreage or pay to farm someone's previously untouched existing acreage. The land hadn't previously been planted with crops because it was unsuitable for that type of farming. The huge increase in demand and price led to a boom of converting prairie land to farm land. Yet the fact remained, the newly converted land was historically known as not being suitable for crops. When the unusually wet years turned back to the normal dry years, the ground dried out and the soil began to erode and blow. When the drought of the 30s hit the former prairie lands, there was nothing to hold the soil down and it literally took off with the wind.

It would behoove us to learn from past mistakes and not farm land that is not meant to be farmed. It would be wise for our government to eliminate subsidies for programs that produce little benefit, encourage a misuse of the land and place us in a position that could lead to another environmental disaster.

In short, it would be beneficial for us as a country to learn from our own not-too-distant history.

The State of the Union 2011

As is my annual ritual, I read through the President's State of the Union Address this morning. I haven't read or listened to any political commentary at this point, so my perspective is untainted and solely my own.

There are several portions of the speech that I could draw attention to, but I will choose only two.
Here's the first:

And if we truly care about our deficit, we simply can’t afford a permanent extension of the tax cuts for the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans. (Applause.) Before we take money away from our schools or scholarships away from our students, we should ask millionaires to give up their tax break. It’s not a matter of punishing their success. It’s about promoting America’s success. (Applause.)
In fact, the best thing we could do on taxes for all Americans is to simplify the individual tax code. (Applause.) This will be a tough job, but members of both parties have expressed an interest in doing this, and I am prepared to join them. (Applause.)

Okay, where to start. If you truly care about the deficit, you will stop spending more than you have. Period. This isn't rocket science. Don't spend what you don't have. That means that you can't create new government institutions, agencies, positions and programs until you have funded existing programs. Since the existing programs were running a deficit when the President took office, he should have reigned in spending and reduced the size of the Federal government. But he didn't. He increased its size and scope and buried the nation under a crushing amount of debt that will cripple us in the coming years if the tough decisions aren't made.

The idea of sacrificing for the good if the nation is noble and all, but when the government doesn't choose to adopt the same strategy, one has to question the motivation behind this course of action. America's success isn't going to be determined by whether or not the wealthiest Americans are taxed higher. Her success will be determined by how well the Federal government allows the American people to innovate, create and prosper - including financially. When you tax the wealthiest people at an ever-increasing rate, what do you suppose the final outcome of that will be? Inevitably, the wealthy people find the loopholes, reinvest their finances in other places, or they simply move to a place that will not tax them so heavily.

I'm all for simplifying the tax code. What currently exists is so convoluted and complex that even the government institution chartered to enforce those regulations (the IRS) is having trouble keeping up.Contrary to what the President and members of the government believe, this is a fairly simple goal to accomplish. It's called a flat tax. The amount of paperwork and hassle that such a system would remove from businesses is huge. The reduction in size of the Federal government, by way of drastically reducing the size of the IRS, would be sizable. While I am open to the idea of reducing and removing large portions of the existing to tax code as a preliminary step, I cannot see how this type of effort would prove worthwhile over the course of time. Every year there are additions to the tax code. I am of the opinion that a flat tax would work and would allow the citizens and companies of this great land to prosper. The only way this would work is if the government is held accountable and sticks to a non-deficit increasing budget. (That's sounds a lot like common sense, doesn't it. Some might even say it's Constitutional.)

[Feel free to insert a rant about the Federal Reserve's ability to print an unlimited amount of currency here.]

Here's the second portion that I want to draw attention to:

And because the American people deserve to know that special interests aren’t larding up legislation with pet projects, both parties in Congress should know this:  If a bill comes to my desk with earmarks inside, I will veto it.  I will veto it.  (Applause.)

Let's see how long it takes to break this promise. I cannot imagine the President being able to stick to this. Now perhaps the senators and Congressman will find another way to tack on their pet projects, or call them by a different name, but I just don't see this being a line in the sand that the President is unwilling to withdraw from.

Overall, the speech read like most of the State of the Union speeches. Obviously, I cannot speak to the effectiveness of the President's delivery of these words, nor to the receptiveness of the blended-party crowd. I am sure there is plenty being said about all that extraneous stuff anyway. If I find anything worth linking to or pointing out as I read more and hear more today, I will add it to the bottom of this post.

A Big Mess Disappears?

Guess what?

All that oil that has been spewing out into the Gulf of Mexico for the past several months has suddenly gone missing...

From this ABC News article:

The numbers don't lie: two weeks ago, skimmers picked up about 25,000 barrels of oily water. Last Thursday, they gathered just 200 barrels.


Still, it doesn't mean that all the oil that gushed for weeks is gone. Thousands of small oil patches remain below the surface, but experts say an astonishing amount has disappeared, reabsorbed into the environment.

Possible reasons for this?

The light crude began to deteriorate the moment it escaped at high pressure, and then it was zapped with dispersants to speed the process along. The oil that did make it to the ocean's surface was broken up by 88-degree water, baked by 100-degree sun, eaten by microbes, and whipped apart by wind and waves.

I think it is way too early to assume that there might be no long-term effects of this in that environment, but if what some of these scientists are saying is true, then it is truly amazing what is happening in that water.

(HT: Michael Williams)