Commentary

Strictly Personal By Chuck Baldwin
by Chuck Baldwin

I have written this column for over a decade now and have never once written one such as the one I'm writing today.

Most readers know that I am the pastor of the Crossroad Baptist Church in Pensacola, Florida. My wife, Connie, and I founded this church in 1975 with a total of 6 people attending that very first service. In June of 2010, we will celebrate our 35th anniversary as founding pastor and church. [More]

Global Warming: The Real Agenda
by Robert L. Hale

MINOT, ND - Fear of global warming has taken the world by storm, so to speak. According to theorists -- universally claiming to be purveyors of scientific truth rather than theorists -- mankind is bringing the earth to a boil. Without worldwide management of human activities, they assure us, life as we know it will come to a disastrous end.

The world climate conference in Copenhagen is making clear which “human activities” must be brought under control. Zhao Baige, China’s vice-minister of National Population and Family Planning, equated population with climate change. She pointed to China’s one-child policy as the right way to deal with climate change. [More]

The Coming of Caesar
By Dr. Mark W. Hendrickson

We have a problem. This could be “the big one”—bigger than coping with the Ahmadinejads, Kims, and Chavezes of the world and bigger than our current economic woes. Our republic, our society, may be heading for a crackup. We are bankrupt, both financially and politically.

The source of the problem is democracy. Decades of so-called “progressive” thought have led us to abandon the limited-government, constitutional republic established by our founding fathers. In the name of putting more power into the hands of "the people," the government has arrogated sweeping powers. [More]

O' Unity Tree, O' Unity Tree
By Dr. Paul Kengor

‘Tis the season…. That is, to not refer to the Christmas Season as the “Christmas Season.”

Of course, that’s old news. But what’s new news, or recent news, is the bewildering refusal in some quarters to call a Christmas tree a “Christmas tree.” Unfortunately, this isn’t new to those of us from the Pittsburgh area. On that, I’d like to enlighten folks around the country, hopefully providing some exposure to something that merits national ridicule. [More]

Who Was Nels Konnerup?
By Dr. Paul Kengor

America honors its deceased presidents, its fallen troops, its late senators, and even its musicians and movie stars. But what about its veterinarians?

Well, there’s one veterinarian who deserves pause for recognition. His name was Nels Konnerup. He recently passed away at age 92. [More]

Lincoln’s Question At Gettysburg Is Still Relevant
By Lee H. Hamilton

Maybe it’s the recession. Or the perilous state of the war in Afghanistan. Or the growing sense that other nations — China, India, Brazil — are rising at a clip we can’t match. Suddenly, though, doubts are surfacing about whether our political system can handle the challenges that confront the United States. [More]

Finally, an Honest Con Game
By Dr. Marvin Folkertsma

“This is not funny, this is serious stuff!” intones a flock of furrow-browed politicos about that well-dressed couple who conned their way into a White House shindig. Yes and no, in that order, because some of us think this incident is more than a little funny and really not all that serious. “They could have smuggled a toxic substance in the guise of a perfume, or even an explosive!” someone exclaimed on MSN-Please-Take-Me-Seriously-BC. Well, okay, I suppose so; that might have happened in an “NCIS” episode; or was it “Loaded Weapon” or “The Naked Gun?” Can’t remember. At all events, my guess is that most Americans are more amused than upset. [More]

Three Laws We Don’t Ever Break
By Dr. E. Kirsten Peters

I was surprised by how terribly hot the engine smelled.

On a recent Saturday I drove my ’87 pickup truck home with a “new” camper on its back. I bought the camper for $800, about right for one built in 1975. I’m pleased (and surprised) to report the propane fridge and stove still work, so I was in high spirits as I started up the highway from the Snake River to the plateau where I live – some 1500 feet higher. [More]

Dynamite Brains
By Dr. E. Kirsten Peters

People are unusual animals. We spend a lot of time watching mediocre T.V., but we also describe our thoughts in written language. We pour beer on our heads at football games, but we also study the whole history of life on Earth preserved in fossils.

It’s not our biceps that make us people special, but our thoughts. What makes our thinking so complex, able to soar with the poets and solve problems with an engineer? [More]

Congress Needs A Five-Day Work Week
By Lee H. Hamilton

Looking at ways to make Congress a stronger, more effective institution, it’s easy for reformers to get dispirited by the sheer complexity of the task. How do you even begin to fix the budget process, or reduce the hold of campaign money on members’ attention, or change the lopsided power equation between Congress and the White House? Yet there is one small improvement that Congress could put into effect right now that would go a long way toward making it a more successful body: extend the congressional work week. [More]

Can Congress Cope With The Communications Age?
By Lee H. Hamilton

When I first came to Congress in the 1960s, dialogue between members of Congress and their constituents was straightforward. Every so often, a lawmaker would get interviewed on radio or television. Many sent monthly newsletters to the folks back home. They responded to letters, fielded and made telephone calls, and met as often as possible with the people who had sent them to Washington. It was by no means a perfect system — unless they made extraordinary efforts, legislators were often in touch with a smaller cross-section of the population than they should have been — but it worked tolerably well and was readily managed. [More]

Even In An Economic Crisis, Follow The Money
By Lee H. Hamilton

Recently, Newsweek looked at Federal Election Commission records and made an intriguing discovery. The political action committees of five major recipients of federal bank bailout money, it found, made some $85,000 in campaign contributions in January and February, mostly to members of Congress sitting on the committees that oversee their industry. [More]

The Capitalism Reformers Caper and Prance
From Whiskey and Gunpowder

Free market capitalism is the “god that failed,” writes Martin Wolf. Thus does Financial Times lead off a feeble chorus of lament in its “Future of Capitalism” series. What do we do now? is the question. Can capitalism be tamed? Can it be harnessed? “Yes we can!” says America’s president. Richard Layard from the London School of Economics, offered a way forward: [More]

The Death of the Small Town
From Whiskey and Gunpowder
By Linda Brady Traynham

The death of the small town has been widely exaggerated. On the contrary, small towns are thriving just as they have for decades, in perfect balance. Population is steady, infrastructure is sufficient, all goods and services required are available, and it is rarely more than 25 miles to the nearest Wally World — an outing everyone enjoys. There is very little unemployment; kids know that they will either take over the family farm or business or that they will have to seek their futures elsewhere, or some combination of working elsewhere until family concerns or opportunities call them back. [More]

The Real Meaning of Earth Hour
By Keith Lockitch

On Saturday, March 28, cities around the world will turn off their lights to observe “Earth Hour.” Iconic landmarks from the Sydney Opera House to Manhattan’s skyscrapers will be darkened to encourage reduced energy use and signal a commitment to fighting climate change. [More]

What's Wrong with Banning Black Cars?
By L.K. Samuels

When a proposal in California to ban black painted cars was revealed in March 2009, the blogosphere and talk radio buzzed with cries of "outrageous." The state legislature, under the auspices of the California Air Resource Board, pushed to reduce auto emissions by controlling the color of vehicles. Because black paint encourages heat absorption, any reflective material painted over dark-hued cars would likely fail to stop reflective heat, violating the 2006 California Global Warming Solutions Act (AB 32). And since black is the second most popular color for cars, the opposition was intense. In the face of angry voters, the eco-bureaucrats naturally back-pedaled on this unpopular provision. [More]

Why the Fuss About Executive Compensation?
By Tibor R. Machan

Most executives draw pretty reasonable salaries, maybe from $250,000 to several million per year, plus bonuses, depending on how the company is doing or how important the executive's contributions are expected to be. This isn't unlike how baseball and football players are hired and compensated, especially the stars. [More]

World War V, Anyone?
by Joe Sobran

VIRGINIA BEACH, VA- This country is still, so to speak, Bushed. We may need a generation or so to recover from the last administration. If you need to refresh your memory of it, you can't do much better than to read a new book, The Transparent Cabal: The Neoconservative Agenda, War in the Middle East, and the National Interest of Israel, by Stephen J. Sniegoski (Enigma Editions). [More]