One child

Under the label "Demography" or "China" to the right, you'll find some background on China's birth rate and their one-child-policy. Though that policy has changed, the mind set of hundreds of millions of people can't change overnight. Birth rate is staying low.

Maybe government officials got caught up in that era's fear of over-population. Maybe they didn't think things through before passing the laws. But the social cost of decades of restricting families is becoming clear, as explained in new book, One Child.

Fewer young people will be in the work force to support a much bigger generation of old people. There's going to be pressure. See the moving chart here for a graphic visual of the changing ratio between young and old up to the year 2050.

The word "policy" sounds mild, but it included at times dragging a woman pregnant with her second child into custody to get a forced abortion. Counties were not held accountable for methods of enforcement.

Penman

Jake Weidman is the youngest certified Master Penman in the world by 30 years. His passion is to create beauty with pen and ink, and he certainly does.

He mixes calligraphy into his art work to "give the words and the pictures more life."

It's "one of the oldest romances between the eye and the hand."

QC

"Quantum computing" is China's top priority - and I never heard of it til now.

"Quantum mechanics" has apparently been around for about a century and I never did understand that. Now I feel even further behind - because now there's also something called quantum computing (QC).

According to this IBM introduction, QC is the subject of research at IBM, Microsoft, Intel, Google. They say that QC will solve problems that are too difficult for any of today's computers, problems of communication, analysis, and prediction. An expert at "Cambridge Quantum Computing" says no one really knows what applications it will have.

There's a race to develop this exotic technology. That expert at Cambridge says:

"[T]wo years ago we were all privy to the news that quantum computing, as far as the Chinese were concerned, was the number one priority, not water, not population control, not food. Quantum computing. There is no budget, which means no limit to the budget. They will do whatever it takes to be a leader in this field."

Then & now

A hundred years in the history of the world isn't that long, but the last hundred years in America packed in huge change. Our lives are different in some interesting ways than lives were in 1915. The Bureau of Labor Statistics compiled some of those ways.

Here's a few of them:

• Life expectancy today 79 years, then 54 years
• A third of our population today is under 25 years, then half of the population
• 1% births are outside hospitals today, then 87%
• In today's dollars, the average full-time worker today makes $50k/year, then $16k
• Clothing today is just 3% of our budget, then 13%
• 85% of the population completes high school today, then 18%
• In 1915 the typical work week was 55+ hours

To sum up, we work less today but have much more than they did then. Why? Because the last century (overall) was full of innovation.  Wealth was created by capitalism. Today's culture is much wealthier and healthier - while working less.

Ransom

How does Islamic State finance the expenses of their butchery? They loot banks where they take a city, and they take oil wells. And - according to this article (by AP) - "Kidnapping for ransom is a main source of income."

Here's a recent example. Last year in Syria 200+ Christians were captured by IS and held all this time for ransom. A bank account was opened in Iraq and donations came in from all over the world. A negotiated sum (under $9 million) was eventually paid, and the kidnapped were released.

"Ransom money - a horrible dilemma."  If you don't pay the ransom, your kidnapped victim suffers terribly. If you do pay it, your victim is released - but you have enabled & funded the kidnappers to take more victims. It's a moral dilemma.

Gadsden Co.

"[O]ne of the deepest cycles of violence, poverty and incarceration in the state" described his jurisdiction in 2004 when Morris A. Young became the new sheriff in town. Fortunately, he didn't share the hostility toward Christianity often found among academic and government elites. 

Sheriff Young collaborates with community faith leaders. Church members come to jail to teach scripture and life skills. He recognizes that inmates have a spiritual nature that can be reached so he hired a chaplain, Jimmy Salters, who says, "I teach, preach, and pray . . and when they are ready to confess their sins before God, I baptize them." 

The churches are not doing it all, but are part of the official county effort to change things. That's the way it should be.

Read the NYTimes article to see what the school superintendent and a judge are doing. In Gadsden County, Florida, "a sheriff, a chaplain, a judge, and lots of good church folk are together offering hope and transforming lives in their own community."

Most shared

On Christmas Day of 2014, this article appeared in the Wall Street Journal. It soon set a record for the most facebook activity of any article in WSJ's history. 

"Science Increasingly Makes the Case for God." The article struck a chord.

photo: wsj.com

Given the huge odds against the existence of life in the universe, and against the fine tuning of the universe's nature, he asks, "At what point is it fair to admit that science suggests that we cannot be the result of random forces?"

(If you run into a paywall at wsj.com, google the article and try some other links. That's how I finally got access to the whole article.)

Mustard gas

If anything could make Islamic State more barbaric and dangerous than we already know, it could be this - they have chemical weapons.

The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) has determined that mustard gas was used in Iraq last year against the Kurds.

IS may have recovered chemical weapons from stockpiles in areas of Syria which they've overrun. It could also be, as one expert believes, that IS has developed its own chemical weapons in Mosul, Iraq, which they took in the summer of 2014.

Not free

A year ago the "Tragedy of Venezuela" was described in The Atlantic this way:

"Venezuela is now the world champion of inflation, homicide, insecurity, and shortages of essential goods—from milk for children to insulin for diabetics and all kinds of indispensable products. All this despite having the greatest oil reserves in the world and a government with absolute control of all state institutions and levers of power."

photo: businessinsider.com

Economist Dr. Anne Bradley explains why "desperate economic conditions [are] plunging Venezuelans into poverty and despair" in this article, "The Lesson from Venezuela: Making Free Is No Substitute for Unleashing Human Creativity With Powerful Market Signals."

She says that "Eliminating prices and making things free or nearly free is the fastest road to poverty and ruin . ." Inflation this year is expected to hit 720%. "This hurts everyone, but it hurts the poor especially because they don’t have the extra income to withstand the loss of currency value and the loss of freedom resulting from inflation."

"This causes extremely high, prohibitive cost increases for basic items. You could go to bed with a loaf of bread costing $2 and wake up with it costing $100." There's a cost to getting stuff for free. It's not really free.

US air fares

On average, have air fares in the U.S. gone up or down in the last twenty years? You'd want to know that trend not in dollar prices, but rather adjusted for inflation.

So here's the result, adjusted for the inflation that's taken place since then: I'm a little surprised to see that air fares have actually declined from 1995 til 2015.

"Although real airfares have been relatively flat for the last decade at around $375, the trend line in the chart above shows the downward trend in airfares over the last 20 years. Compared to the peak in 1999 when airfares topped $475 in the first quarter of that year and were above $450 in 8 quarters between 1998 and 2001, consumers today are saving close to $100 on every round-trip flight." 

Kids saving

(cont'd)

To continue last week's topic, Hope International is a faith-based organization operating in 17 countries to make small loans and other financial services available to under-served people groups. They also encourage savings as a way to empower people in their financial resources.

Saving money is important for anyone to learn because it provides a "lump sum of money to invest in their potential—by paying school fees, saving for the future, or investing in businesses." Both loans and savings can be that "lump sum," but you don't have to pay back savings with interest.

In Rwanda, there are 8800 "savings groups," and 79 of them are populated by children. Some of the children intend to use their savings for school expenses,  even to become a doctor. Others provide for their family's future with the purchase of a pig or cow.

Most of Rwanda's population (61%) are under 24 years of age. The kids in these groups are preparing for a better future.

Mamola

(continuing yesterday's topic)

When someone takes out a loan to get started in a business or expand it, they're taking a risk (that their plan will not succeed). They trust that their labor and ideas will produce enough profit both to sustain the business and to pay back the loan.

Mamola of the Dominican Republic took out just such a loan ($177) from Hope International's local partner back in 2008. Her plan to purchase and resell dishes succeeded. More loans followed as she developed a "colmado" (store) in her home to sell the sort of groceries her neighbors use.

A widow now, she helps support her twelve grandchildren and she replaced her home's walls with sturdy concrete. Her diligence and good sense have paid off for her - she blesses her family and her community.

Microfinance

"Microcredit " plays an important role in the developing world. Wikipedia says it supports entrepreneurs, alleviates poverty, empowers women, and uplifts whole communities.

Hope International is a Christian network of microfinance as well as savings & credit associations. Their mission statement:

"At HOPE International, we invest in the dreams of families in the world's underserved communities as we proclaim and live the gospel."

"We believe families in poverty have the God-given talents and skills to provide for their families. What they don’t have is a lump sum of money to invest in their potential—by paying school fees, saving for the future, or investing in businesses."

Last year they served 850,000 families in 17 countries. Tomorrow's post features one of those families, the family of Mamola in the Dominican Republic.

(cont'd tomorrow)

Car wars

(cont'd)

Maybe the biggest motivation to buy an electric vehicle is the assumption that it will leave less of a carbon footprint, pollute the air less than a conventional car. But the video in yesterday's post casts doubt on that hope.

So another motivation might be that EV's are less costly to run. But it doesn't help that gas is now about $1.50 per gallon. It just gets harder to justify buying a pricier car . . like Tesla, for example. The Model S still costs upward of $70,000.

Multiple factors coming together seem to be driving down Tesla's stock (although factory output still lags demand).

A new mass market Tesla (Model 3) is scheduled to be available in 2017, at about $35,000 before incentives. The lower price will mean a much bigger market for Tesla, but they'll have to share that market niche - because General Motors is coming out with their version of the mass market EV at a slightly lower cost and months before Tesla.

Coal powered

More on the controversy over electric vehicles (EV). This video asks the question, "can we call electric vehicles green if coal actually powers them? Or if they actually are responsible for close to  the same amount of carbon emissions as gas-powered cars?"

But electricity (to power EV's) will soon be produced by "renewable" energy sources, right? So very soon it won't be coal anymore? Apparently not, as reported by the current U.S. administration's Energy Information Administration - who says that the great bulk of our electricity 25 years from now will still be produced by fossil fuels.



(cont'd tomorrow)

EU calls it

The European Union has done it - they passed a resolution last Thursday calling the atrocities of Islamic State genocide.

Their resolution is based on the 1948 UN definition of genocide as "acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group." 

Atrocities which the European Union says qualify under this definition include the killing of thousands, the enslavement and trafficking of women and children, the raping, the forcing of children into armies, the kidnappings:

"[P]ersecution, atrocities and international crimes amount to warcrimes and crimes against humanity;  . . the so-called „ISIS/Daesh‟ is committing genocide against Christians and Yazidis, and other religious and ethnic minorities . . "

The resolution goes further to say that these people have a right to live in their "traditional and historic homeland . . "

For individual stories of IS crimes, click on the labels "Iraq," "Syria," "IS."

10 brothers

A family of ten children is a big family of rare size. But a band of ten brothers who are all achievers in high school wrestling  . . that is even rarer. That set a state record.

You'll enjoy the story of the Bothun family, who set a state record for "most career wins by a set of brothers." The wrestling coach has been in his position for 28 years, and had a Bothun on every team (please excuse the commercial).

Deadly

Under the "Nigeria" label on the right you can find stories of attacks by Boko Haram. You will also find that the Nigerian military won some battles against them in the last year, but the extremist group has come back swinging.

They "spent four days last week brutalizing villages across northern Nigeria, barbarically undermining the Nigerian government’s claims it has defeated Boko Haram." They would throw fire bombs into homes and gun down the ones who tried to escape.

Up to 85 people met their death, dozens more were injured or kidnapped. "Last year, Boko Haram claimed the morbid title of deadliest terror group for its killings in Nigeria, Chad and Cameroon." That is, they are now officially more deadly than Islamic State.

Protection

If you didn't see the report of Muslims who banded together on a bus to protect Christians . . then you should hear about this.

In northeast Kenya, a commuter bus was attacked about six weeks ago. The Islamist gunman ordered Muslims to separate from Christians but they - amazingly - refused.

“We even gave some non-Muslims our religious attire to wear in the bus so that they would not be identified easily. We stuck together tightly,” Abdi said. “The militants threatened to shoot us, but we still refused and protected our brothers and sisters. Finally they gave up and left but warned that they would be back.”

They could have paid for this act of goodness with their lives.

Names

Social rules about speech today in America are looser in some ways than they used to be. There's more vulgarity for sure, with less social stigma for it. But in some ways social rules now are much more sensitive and strict. Think "micro-aggression."

What is better for society?

Attack plans

Europol (European Union police) has published a report that describes what European countries should expect in future terror attacks, according to this CNN article.

Last Friday's post named a Belgium teenager who apparently was recruited for IS in just a few months, to his mother's sorrow. "Younger recruits are more impressionable and radicalize quicker," according to the report. 

Other trends among recruits: they may be less knowledgeable about their religion, attracted to excitement, have mental issues. Immigrants are specifically targeted by recruiters.

Attacks will primarily be directed toward "soft targets," which are "relatively unprotected and vulnerable." In other words, innocent people going about their lives.

And it's not just IS. "The report warns that Al Qaeda is still a "factor" in the region and a reason for the EU to focus broadly on religiously inspired groups." But . . I notice that all the terror groups mentioned in this article are tied to one religion, not a variety of religions.