Warlord #1

He made a career out of ruining lives, and he was spectacularly successful at it. The United Nations says he and his army killed at least 100,000 people. And just as bad, they stole about 66,000 children and turned them into soldiers and sex slaves between 1986 and 2005.

Joseph Kony, called "one of the most brutal and deplorable warlords in the region," has been hunted for years by Ugandan military. That effort was backed by the United States with military advisors and hundreds of millions of American dollars.

AP photo 

The man has a talent for hiding out in the jungle. Much of his army has left him, or been killed or captured, but he and his remaining soldiers are still out there. A lawmaker in Uganda says that her people "yearn for justice."

But Kony may never be brought to justice. Both Uganda and the United States are ending the search.

(cont'd tomorrow)

Progress

Yesterday one of the links went to HumanProgress.org, "a data-driven educational website devoted to improving the public’s understanding of the state of the world. All of our statistics come from reputable sources."

One of their pages is entitled "Your Life in Numbers - Explore how much the world has changed since you were born." The categories are average life expectancy, babies surviving the first year, income per person, average food supply, average number of years of school, level of democracy.

Enter your country and the year of your birth and you will find out how much your country has changed. Or, check another country that you're interested in.

Economic freedom

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

It's good for women to be free to make their own choices - because it's just, and also because society prospers from the free choices of its people, both women and men. Economic freedom is a good thing.

Consider China's history. Under the rule of communist Mao Tse Tung, the government imposed coercive control on agriculture and all production. But around 1978, after his death, the country began to change.

Agriculture was de-collectivized, permission was given to start businesses, foreign investment was permitted. Later reforms allowed people to actually own their own businesses.

With more economic freedoms, people created wealth. China's economy grew 31x from 1978 to 2016. Growing prosperity meant additional freedom, like freedom from many hours of laundry. Only 10% of Chinese urban households had washing machines in 1981 - but 97% did by 2011. 

Economic freedom is a good thing. Remember how Hans Rosling's mother's life was changed by a washing machine. Good things result from growing economies.

photo: kenkoskela.com

Washer results

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

"Washing machines are still doing the work [today that] they were doing 80 years ago – which isn’t just cleaning clothes. These juddering boxes are life-transforming technologies that allow women to put their time and labor to more constructive use."

Life changes for a woman, her family, and her society when she escapes some of the labor of caring for her home. She gains independence, and her society benefits when she creates wealth or volunteers for a worthy cause - because she's free to be productive according to her own strengths and passions.

Economic freedom is a "proven road out of poverty." While the world has been getting freer, there are still 18 countries today where husbands can "legally deny their wives permission to work." Some of those are among the poorest in the world. 

(cont'd tomorrow)

Washers

Technology has changed the world, especially the internet, right? According to this author, the clothes washer may compete with the internet in terms of how much it changed the way people lived before it.

"In 1900 the average household spent 58 hours a week on housework—meal preparation, laundry and cleaning. This compares with just 18 in 1975." Hans Rosling did the TED talk below to show how the washing machine changed women's lives in the West (where a high percentage of us have one) and is still changing women's lives in the rest of the world.



Hans tells us how the washing machine changed his mother's life. What did she get out of the washing machine? Books.

(cont'd tomorrow)

Hindenberg

Saturday was the 80th anniversary of the crash of the Hindenberg airship, May 6, 1937, in New Jersey. It carried 97 passengers from Germany, 35 of them dying in the disaster and another victim was on the ground.

Flammable hydrogen kept the ship in the air until it ignited in over a landing site in New Jersey.



Words of a radio announcer reporting on it were recorded at the time but not broadcast until the next day - "Oh the humanity!"

Capable

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

It seems that the U.S. government's posture toward native Americans is still as it was in 1831:

"Chief Justice John Marshall set Native Americans on the path to poverty in 1831 when he characterized the relationship between Indians and the government as “resembling that of a ward to his guardian.” With these words, Marshall established the federal trust doctrine, which assigns the government as the trustee of Indian affairs."

Tribal reservation stories are tales of impoverished futility. But here's a different story. An 8,000-member Choctaw tribe in Mississippi (with 75% unemployment) developed over 25 years from a "stagnant welfare culture" into one of the biggest employers in Mississippi, through the energy and optimism of a young chief.

Eventually the tribe ran a printing company, construction company and more, generating annual revenue of $300 million. "The result has been widespread prosperity . . The number of Choctaws on welfare has fallen dramatically; education, health, and housing have sharply improved."

Incapable

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

"Imagine if the government were responsible for looking after your best interests. All of your assets must be managed by bureaucrats on your behalf. A special bureau is even set up to oversee your affairs. Every important decision you make requires approval, and every approval comes with a mountain of regulations.

"How well would this work? Just ask Native Americans." 

image: wikipedia

Reservations are "islands of poverty in a sea of prosperity." 

Part of the problem is that the federal government owns and manages Indian land. The land they live on can't be leveraged in order to borrow money to invest. If a company wants to develop an energy resource like oil or coal, they'll have to go through 49 steps and four federal agencies. But off-reservation that enterprise would require only four steps.

Behind all this "is the notion that tribes are not capable of owning or managing their lands."

(cont'd tomorrow)

Poorest

It's obvious what ethnic group is poorest in America, right? Maybe it's not obvious. The author of The New Trail of Tears explains the policies that hold back American Indians from doing what other people groups have done to create wealth for themselves.

Dissent

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

So, yes, the arguments surrounding "climate change," aka global warming, are complicated. If you are not a climate scientist, and you can't independently study relevant evidence, how do you know which side to support?

The writer of the Dilbert cartoons is a "trained hypnotist" and says he has studied persuasion. He has some thoughts as to how people choose a side in the debate.

"No one is using reason, facts, or common sense to arrive at a decision about climate science. Here’s what you are using:  1. Fear 2.Unwarranted trust in experts 3. Pattern recognition.

"I accept the consensus of climate science experts when they say that climate science is real and accurate. But I do that to protect my reputation and my income. I have no way to evaluate the work of scientists.

"[T]he cost of disagreeing with climate science is unreasonably high if you are a scientist."

image: tvtropes.org

Consensus

(cont'd from last Friday's post)

So there was "scientific consensus" back in the 1970's that the earth was cooling and at risk of a new ice age. Today we're told that there is "scientific consensus" that the earth is warming and at risk of multiple disasters.

This view is actually an amalgam of claims:  1) Temperature of the globe is rising as a long-term trend, 2) It's caused by human activity, 3) Its effect on earth is bad, 4)  Politicians must make drastic economic changes.

That's an awful lot to agree on, not to mention the fact that point #4 is not even science but rather policy. Politicians, not scientists, make policy - which is simply an answer of what to do with information.

PC speech has labeled scientists with dissenting views as "deniers" (as in holocaust deniers). That's pretty strident rhetoric for science, since dissenters usually spearhead scientific progress.

The whole thing is complicated.

(cont'd tomorrow)

Cold / Hot #2

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

"At weather stations in the far North, temperatures have been dropping for 30 years. Sea coasts free of summer ice are now blocked year-round. According to some climatologists, within our lifetime we might be living in the next ice age."

Here's the rest of that global cooling documentary from 1978 (part 1) narrated by Leonard Nimoy:



They had 30 years of data from northern weather stations showing falling temperatures. I just have to wonder how that fits into today's "scientific consensus" that the planet is dangerously heated.

Was there "scientific consensus" about global cooling back in the 1970's?

Brazil declines

Brazil has had a bumpy ride for the last fifteen years and they're far behind where they were in 2002. Journalist Felipe Brasil lives in Rio de Janeiro, and he's not too shy to explain what he thinks has happened there.

Fact-based #2

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

So Hans Rosling's Gapminder Foundation is dedicated to help people base their view of the world on facts, on verified information rather than on outdated information.

Here is his TED talk of 2014, a classic that I still laugh at because Hans is so entertaining while he is teaching us about our world. Some of you have probably seen this already, but I yield to the temptation to post it again (because it's so fun).

Fact-based #1

(cont'd from last Friday's post)

If you are skeptical about atheist Michael Shermer's claims that life has gotten much better for many people on this planet, you are not alone in your skepticism.

That's where Hans Rosling (our favorite Swedish statistician) comes in. He found that most people have some inaccurate information about the world, so he created Gapminder to educate them. Graphics and moving charts visually show fact-based global statistics because:
"Almost nobody knows the basic global facts!"

Check out one of Hans' talks, "The World May Not Be as Bad as You Believed". . 

(cont'd tomorrow)

Fortunate #2

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

So Shermer says, "if you believe the hype of apocalyptic popularizers you might conclude that climate change, runaway overpopulation, poverty, hunger, and disease will ruin the Earth and leave humanity's only hope for survival on Mars . . .

"It's easy to think this way, given that newspapers, books, television shows and documentary films are built around drama and pessimistic thinking . ." But the truth is:

Poverty?  "it will reach zero by around 2035"
Pollution?  "air and water in our cities is the cleanest it’s been in centuries"
Health?  "those born today will be healthier, live longer and have more opportunities than anyone in history"

Michael Shermer is scornful of God, scornful of faith, and I don't share his worldview. But he's clear-eyed about this: global living conditions have been rising dramatically for 40 years  - so don't fall for panicky pessimism.

His conclusion is, "We should be grateful for the blessings we have today, optimistic about the future, and continue to work toward a better tomorrow because none of this progress was inevitable. It was the result of people taking action to solve our most pressing problems."

For sure. We are all blessed when other people use their God-given abilities to solve problems and manage the earth for good results.

Fortunate #1

Dystopia has been the subject of recent books and movies, i.e. Hunger Games, The 100, Divergence, etc. Some people have the feeling that doom and disaster is coming for the world, whether through poverty or disease or aliens or climate change or . . something.

Materialists, those who believe in nothing but the material universe, tend to believe in a coming doomsday.  But Michael Shermer, editor of Skeptic magazine, is a materialist - and he definitely does not think the world is getting worse.

photo: businessinsider.com

Shermer thinks we're fortunate to be living in the "most peaceful, most prosperous" time in human history. He says, "There is no period in history when it would have been better to be alive than today."

(cont'd tomorrow)

Retailers quit

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

Nine retailers have filed for bankruptcy in the first three months of 2017: Payless, RadioShack, The Limited, and more. If filings continue at this rate, the year 2017 could surpass 2008 (year that the great recession started) for retail bankruptcies. That year there were twenty.

JCPenney is closing 138 stores, KMart is closing 108, and CVS is closing 70 (none of these have filed so far). Check here for the other 3300 stores scheduled to close in the U.S.

JCPenney has been having less success with women's apparel, so home goods and beauty products are going to get more space while women's shoes will go to an "open sell" arrangement. They know they'll have to make changes in the stores that are still open after the 138 closings.

Hopefully the company can adjust to changing times. For a couple of years, rumor has linked it to possible bankruptcy.

Closing stores

Giant retailer Macy's will close 68 stores this year. Thousands of other retail stores will also close. Nine retailers have already filed for bankruptcy in 2017, an "alarming rate."

Customer visits to shopping malls have "declined by 50% between 2010 and 2013," and not every retail business can survive that kind of cut. It's not that these stores can be tweaked into success, according to this article, but that shoppers are "fundamentally changing" their habits, i.e. they're shopping online.

About 89,000 retail workers have lost their jobs since last October, including many low-skilled entry-level workers or those who need flexible hours. It's a niche in the job market where there are now fewer opportunities.

(cont'd tomorrow)

Iraqis hope

Islamic State (IS) captured the northern city of Mosul, Iraq, in 2014. Tens of thousands of Iraqi Christians left everything they had so they could run for their lives. Some went to refugee camps, some to relatives, some to go to other countries, but they have all suffered.

Three years later, about 300 returned home by bus just for the day to celebrate Easter in their homeland . . because the area has been reclaimed from IS, which left behind them their signature destruction of homes and churches.

"The town is well protected. Guards are on the rooftops around the church. The military is everywhere checking people going in and out of the village and those who are inside the church or in the vicinity."

Father Jacoub, the organizer of this effort, says "This means a lot to me . . Jesus can come into our hearts and that will comfort us, but coming to their homes is not possible for the people, so that is difficult for many. Of course, the message during the celebration this morning will be about hope, also for people to return.”

Victim

A week ago, Michael Nabil Ragheb was a father and a deacon in one of those Egyptian churches that was bombed last Sunday. This week, his 3-year-old daughter and his wife Sara are alone because he was murdered in the attack.

Sara says that Michael had a sense of impending danger, so he asked his family to sit apart from him in the service. “He asked me to wait for him after the service. But he never came back.”

In the middle of the mass, there was a huge explosion, smoke, people screaming. Sara screamed his name and ran to find him.

"“What I saw on my way to him was horrible, like a massacre had just taken place. The bodies of dead church members and even body parts were scattered among pools of blood. Then I saw my husband. I was in shock. He was just lying there, in a pool of blood like the others. Gone to heaven like he had sensed would happen.”

Planet Earth 2

A second "Planet Earth" has come along from the BBC and it looks beautiful. Eventually I'll watch and enjoy it. But John Stonestreet already has, and found something weird.



The script makes statements like these:

"This frog “discovered a way to avoid wasps by becoming transparent,” these hummingbirds have “traded convenience for longer beaks,” this jaguar, sloth, penguin, or bat has “found” a unique solution to the challenges of its environment."

Really? A frog discovered, a hummingbird traded, a jaguar found? No hummingbird has ever weighed the pros and cons of trading away convenience to get a longer beak. The writers of this script know that but they can't resist saying it this way . . for a pretty good reason: intuition.

It's almost impossible to learn about this incredible world and conclude that it's all just random. Our universal intuition says it was designed intelligently. Either our Creator did that, or (according to the BBC) the hummingbird designed its own features.

Targeted

Sorry to give you whiplash, but we need to follow up on Monday's story about the attack on Christian churches in Egypt.

photo: ontheworldmap.com

Christians make up 10% of Egypt's 92 million citizens, so they're a minority but a sizable one of about 9 million. They've taken hit after hit from Islamic State (IS) which threatens more violence. Some have decided they are too grieved to celebrate Easter this year, occupied with digging graves and going to funerals instead.

Some doubt that the government wants to protect them. Though IS recently published warnings, there was almost no security present at the churches last Sunday.

A priest at one of the churches said, ""We were not expecting people who live with us in the same country, people with whom we've shared love and friendships, and with whom we're familiar, to do these things."

Many are "furious at a state they believe will no longer protect them from neighbors bent on their murder."

Trap Kitchen

"Take Risk And Prosper," that's the deal behind every business start-up, and that's how these four young men came up with their name. They make their food and advertise on Instagram . . and it seems to be working.

"Every day that's all I think about - how can we improve our company, how can we improve our food."

Church bombs

Yesterday, Palm Sunday, was the start of Holy Week with Easter 2017 only a week away. Our family went to church without any fear. Egyptian Christians were at church too - but 43 of them were killed there. Islamic State says they did it and promises more of the same.

photo: cnn.com

The dead were not the only victims of the bombings at two churches. There were 78 injured people whose lives are now changed - those who lost a limb or an eye, or who will lose the employment that supported their family. 

Prayer:  Father God, we ask your provision and comfort for those who are suffering today because of these bombings. Show your people how to protect themselves from the evil that is directed toward them.

Rialto Bridge

It might survive for its 1000th birthday.  Originally built of wood in the 1100's over the Grand Canal in Venice, Italy, the picturesque Rialto Bridge was rebuilt of stone in 1591.

Whether it would survive throughout history was never in question - until now. Only good Italian police work saved it a week ago from Islamic extremist barbarians.

photo: stream.org

MSR 3

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

"[I]f we could somehow harvest all the thorium in the Earth's crust and use it in this way, we could power civilization for tens of billions of years." 

"The technology is viable, the science has been demonstrated."

It's clear that this efficient, reliable, safe, inexpensive energy source does work. Two prototypes of molten-salt reactors were built in the 1960's - and then closed.

Today in America certain entrepreneurs have the faith to make a big investment in this technology. Kirk Sorensen, a former NASA engineer, believes that thorium-powered MSR's will bring revolutionary change to the world's energy needs.

He started Flibe Energy to get this technology into production because  . . 

"We Stand at the Dawn of the Thorium Age"

Here is Sorensen's TED Talk:

MSR 2

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

This "new" power source is a nuclear reactor that uses thorium for fuel instead of uranium. It requires much less pressure, which means less danger of explosion. A "meltdown" can't happen, which means much less fear of radioactive accident. In short, it is safer by far than most other energy sources.

photo: http://www.zmescience.com/ecology/what-is-molten-salt-reactor-424343/

This fuel, thorium, is 3x more abundant than uranium. It produces very little waste, which breaks down much faster than nuclear waste today.

Sounds like the energy source our world needs. So who is doing something about this? That's tomorrow's post.

(taken from businessinsider.com, "A forgotten war technology could safely power Earth for millions of years. Here's why we aren't using it," Feb. 25, 2017)

(cont'd tomorrow)

MSR 1

Despite all the talk about moving to "green energy," most of America's power consumption comes from fossil fuels:  petroleum, natural gas, and coal. Then nuclear reactors supply about 20%.

Nuclear power is steady (in contrast to solar and wind) with no carbon emissions (in contrast to fossil fuels). But reactors are expensive and slow to construct, the fuel (uranium) is more rare, and there is waste to deal with.

Ideally, every nation would like to get its energy in some way that is safe, reliable, emits no carbon, produces no problematic waste - and of course is cheap. 

Looks like there really is such a thing and it's called molten-salt reactors (MSR):

"US engineers proved such a system works during the 1960s. However, the military canceled the project and it was nearly forgotten."

(cont'd tomorrow)

Hope definition

America's founding and early history grew from a culture better acquainted with the Bible than our society is today. You could quote scripture in the expectation that people would generally know what you're talking about and approve of it.

You could even write a dictionary and use Bible references to illustrate your definitions . . as Daniel Webster did in his dictionary of 1828. Check out the way that HOPE was defined:

2. Confidence in a future event; the highest degree of well founded expectation of good; as a hope founded on God's gracious promises; a scriptural sense.

A well founded scriptural hope is, in our religion, the source of ineffable happiness.

3. That which gives hope; he or that which furnishes ground of expectation, or promises desired good. The hope of Israel is the Messiah.

The Lord will be the hope of his people. Joel 3:16.