Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer Bows to Pressure: Vetoes Religious Freedom Act

by Ben Johnson

PHOENIX, AZ, February 27, 2014 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Facing an intense national campaign of media and economic pressure, Gov. Jan Brewer vetoed a bill that would have given Arizona business owners greater legal protections to exercise their faith in public.

Senate Bill 1062 would have made it more difficult to sue business owners who refuse to participate in commerce that violates their religious convictions, such as making a cake for a same-sex “wedding.”

“Senate Bill 1062 does not address a specific and present concern related to religious liberty in Arizona,” Brewer said. “I have not heard of one example in Arizona where a business owner’s religious liberty has been violated.” However, lawsuits have been filed against a Christian photographer in New Mexico, bakers in Colorado and Iowa, and an elderly florist in Washington state who refused to take part in same-sex ceremonies.

Brewer obliquely referred to the economic threats her state faced if she signed the bill. Corporate executives, their allied politicians in both parties, and the chamber of commerce threatened economic repercussions if the bill passed. The NFL also threatened to deny Arizona the chance to host Super Bowl XLIX next year.

“I know that the entire business community is galvanized, in a way that I’ve never seen, against this legislation,” Sen. John McCain, whose wife and daughter support redefining marriage, said before the veto.

“This legislation seeks to protect businesses, yet the business community overwhelmingly opposes the proposed law,” Brewer said in her veto message, adding that the bill “could result in unintended and negative consequences.”

Instead, she asked state legislators to turn away from First Amendment issues and “foster Arizona's business friendly environment.”

"I think she vetoed the bill because of pressure from the Arizona business community," political adviser Dick Morris told Newsmax, who said the Super Bowl threat was pivotal.

While celebrating the veto, homosexual activists underlined the role economic blackmail played in their success. “With today’s veto, Governor Brewer spared her state from institutional discrimination and economic catastrophe,” said Chad Griffin, president of the homosexual pressure lobby group Human Rights Campaign. “This country isn't turning backwards.”

Brewer's veto earned praise from such strange political bedfellows as Hillary Clinton, U.S. Sens. John McCain and Jeff Flake, Democratic Congressman and amnesty enthusiast Raul Grijalva, and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi. “Veto = victory in AZ tonight,” Pelosi tweeted.

The veto was purchased by mischaracterizing the contents and effect of the bill, a group of nearly a dozen scholars noted. Homosexual activists said the bill was a Jim Crow law that would give business owners a blanket right to deny all services to homosexuals – and possibly allowed sexual or racial discrimination, as well.

“We have left the confines of reality,” Republican Rep. J.D. Mesnard of Chandler told local media.
Unlike homosexual actions, race and sex are known to be physically immutable traits that are covered by federal civil rights laws. No state law could revive segregation, much less this one.

S.B. 1062 was based on the Religious Freedom Restoration Act – a bill that passed the U.S. Senate by a 97-3 vote and that earned the support of Ted Kennedy. Some 18 states have adopted similar legislation since 1997. Under S.B. 1062, homosexuals could still sue, but would have to meet more stringent criteria to prevail in court.

Now, it will be easier for activists to sue individuals who refuse to violate their religious consciences. “And keep in mind that these private plaintiffs may not be suing a business; they may be suing a church, a minister, a religious charity, an individual, or anyone else clearly protected by the Arizona RFRA,” the scholars said in their letter.

“The legislation reaffirms the basic principle that the fundamental rights of free speech and the free exercise of religion do not stop at the exit door of your local church, and instead extend to every area of life,” U.S. Congressman Trent Franks of Arizona said, noting that American servicemen had died for that liberty. “They gave all they had because they knew that religious freedom was the cornerstone of all other freedoms. The aim of the sponsors and proponents of SB 1062 was to defend against increasing and ubiquitous efforts by the secular Left to do away with religious freedom in America as they have successfully done in many other parts of the world.”

Franks said “rather than join an honest debate about the actual text,” liberal progressives “resorted to their primary strategy of flooding the zone with gross distortion, political intimidation, and economic extortion.”

Family Research Council President Tony Perkins said apparently the bill's opponents are “graduates of the Pelosi School of Policy, where they dispose of bills before they find out what's in them.”
“This bill like the federal RFRA, bars government discrimination against religious exercise,” he said, “so by vetoing this bill Governor Brewer is saying she supports government discrimination against people's religious freedoms.”

Hearing of the veto, LGBT pressure groups were ebullient.

“This was a major defeat for what has become a concerted Hail Mary campaign to carve out special rights for religious conservatives,” said Evan Hurst, Truth Wins Out’s associate director.
GLAAD CEO and President Sarah Kate Ellis said this proved that Republican support for pro-family Americans is waning. "Governor Brewer today demonstrated that basic respect for LGBT people extends across party lines,” she said.

Yet Brewer's stance did nothing to abate the Left's persistent criticism of her record as governor. “Governor Jan Brewer stood on the right of history today by vetoing SB 1062,” the homosexual activist group GetEQUAL said. “However, we cannot forget the suffering that some of her other decisions have caused. ... She signed SB 1070 into the law – one of the most anti-immigrant laws in the country – then signed an executive order denying driver's licenses for DREAM Act-eligible youth who received Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival (DACA). She has defunded Planned Parenthood clinics and signed a bill prohibiting abortion after 18 weeks after conception. She has also backed a marriage equality ban in Arizona.”

Still, Lambda Legal hoped her veto would be “a guiding signal for elected leaders across the country considering similar bills.”

Constitutionalists who believe in the unalienable right to practice religion and self-determination hope this will not be the end of the line for bills that would respect those privileges.

“Everyone should be free to live and love as they choose, but no one should demand that government coerce others into celebrating their relationship,” said Ryan Anderson, a marriage expert at the Heritage Foundation.

"Unfortunately, at a moment of testing, Governor Jan Brewer yielded to the cultural bullies and their frenzy-driven opposition instead of consulting the facts," Perkins concluded.

State pro-family leaders called the veto “a sad day for Arizonans who cherish and understand religious liberty.”

“Opponents were desperate to distort this bill rather than debate the merits,” Cathi Herrod, president of the Center for Arizona Policy said. “Essentially, they succeeded in getting a veto of a bill that does not even exist.”

Contact:
Hon. Janice K. Brewer, Governor
Executive Tower
1700 West Washington Street
Phoenix, AZ 8500

The Core is Rotten: Three Reasons Why Common Core Should Not Be Accepted

Written by John Horvat II

All across the nation, parents are reacting to a new educational program called Common Core. Under this program, national standards and testing are being set up for students which will eventually give rise to a core curriculum that will fundamentally change the way American children are educated.


Many states and dioceses have adopted the Common Core standards that have been proposed by the government without significant public commentary. It behooves everyone to take a look at what Common Cores is and why it should not be accepted.

There are many reasons that could be cited.


However, this article will present considerations based on the ideas of my book, Return to Order: From a Frenzied Economy to an Organic Christian Society—Where We’ve Been, How We Got Here and Where We Need to Go. The three reasons given here focus on how this unpopular program goes against the core concepts of what true education should be.


To read the three reason, click on the link below:


The Core is Rotten: Three Reasons Why Common Core Should Not Be Accepted | Return to Order

Look How a High School CENSORED Pro-life Students -- Speak Up And Protest!

Click here to tell the school to restore the pro-lifers' 1st Amendment Rights

Even though Bryce Asberg is only 15, he's brave.

He leads the Students for Life group at Wilson High School in Washington state.
But his freedom of speech was grossly violated. He was told by school officials that he can't organize a day of silence, hold a vigil or even put up pro-life posters for the unborn.

Guess why? Because it might "offend staff or students..."

This is what Bryce's pro-life posters that got censored look like:





Click here to tell the school to restore their 1st Amendment Rights.

Meanwhile, the "Gay Straight Alliance" at the same school put up posters that undermine the concept of natural marriage between 1 man and 1 woman. And they were also allowed to hold a "day of silence." School officials had not problem with that. They were not concerned that it might "offend staff or students..."

You see, that's how "equality" really works on the West Coast. It's fake.

And here's a photo of the pro-homosexual poster. Notice the message promoting moral anarchy: "love knows no limits." And that's OK? And not offensive?



That's why it is so important for you and me to speak up right now, because if we don't, this type of censorship against pro-life students will only tend to spread to more schools.

Click here to send your peaceful protest to the school right now

Thank God, the Thomas More Society law firm stepped forward to help Bryce Asberg and his pro-life group regain their free speech at school. The law firm sent a letter to the principal of Wilson High School, stating:

"We are prepared to pursue the matter in court."

In addition to praying -- Can you do me a favor?

Please invite your friends to join this peaceful protest. The easiest way to spread the word is to forward this email to all your friends and family.

Thank you for defending the truth.

To leave a message of support and encouragement for Bryce Asberg and his group, the Wilson Students for Life, just submit them at the bottom of this post:

Wilson High School CENSORS Pro-Life Student Group
Contact information (Please be polite yet firm)
Wilson High School
Call (253-571-6076)
E-mail vice-principal, Shane Sliva
ssliva@tacoma.k12.wa.us

Who is Planned Parenthood’s newest member? You’ll never guess

by Joe Scheidler

For reasons unbeknownst to me, the other day I received at our home address my official Planned Parenthood Membership Card, along with a letter [PDF] from Cecile Richards saying she can’t thank me enough for what I have done for Planned Parenthood this past year.


What I have done is picket their high-dollar fundraising events, protested their conferring of various leadership awards on turncoat politicians, and exposed a pattern of abhorrent practices at their facilities nationwide. But I’m glad they appreciate these contributions enough to confer membership on me.


The letter from Cecile Richards says nothing is going to stop them from making sure women have access to “safe, legal abortion,” but that my support is absolutely critical in 2014 to help them lead the fight.


She admits they’re having trouble: “Five years ago, very few people thought legal access to abortion was really at risk.” Then she goes on to fret about waiting periods, counseling and ultrasound requirements, admitting privileges, and “unnecessary” building code laws for abortion
clinics.


Good. It’s nice to know what bothers the nation’s largest abortion chain, so as Member number 1840624, I’ll do everything in my power to concentrate on doing


Who is Planned Parenthood’s newest member? You’ll never guess | LifeSiteNews.com

Hans Kung Plans to Commit Suicide

Hans Kung is planning to take his life. Or so he said in an interview last week in the British Catholic weekly, The Tablet. Kung is suffering from Parkinson’s disease, macular degeneration, and polyarthritis in his hands. Determined not to go gentle into that good night, he has apparently decided that he will at some point travel to Switzerland in order to be assisted in committing suicide. His reasoning is threefold: he does not wish to live when there is no quality of life; his life is a gift from God and he intends to give it back to God; and death, like birth, is “our own responsibility.”

To read the rest of the article, click here

Please Sign Petition to King of Belgium to Stop Child Euthanisia!

Please sign this petition asking the King of Belgium not to sign the child euthanasia bill into law. 
http://citizengo.org/de/4162-petition-den-koenig-von-belgien-das-kindereuthanasiegesetz-nicht-zu-unterschreiben?tc=gm&tcid=1842591
More about the bill here:

Belgium Parliament passes law allowing children to be euthanized

by Peter Baklinski
BRUSSELS, February 13, 2014 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Belgium has become the first country in the world to approve euthanasia for children of all ages after the country’s parliamentarians passed the controversial bill today in a vote of 86 to 44, with 12 MPs abstaining.

Alex Schadenberg, executive director of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, called the move a “form of abandonment.”


“Belgium has abandoned the elderly, and now they are saying they will abandon their children,” he told LifeSiteNews.

Schadenberg said the new law is not about ending suffering for children with disabilities, but about expanding the “categories that are eligible for death.”

The bill was first introduced in December 2012.

The law extends to those under the age of 18 who request euthanasia with parental consent. It also applies to younger children requesting euthanasia after a doctor has certified that the child fully understands the implications of the decision.

“This is the horrific logic of euthanasia: Once killing is accepted as an answer to human difficulty and suffering, the power of sheer logic dictates that there is no bottom,” wrote Wesley J. Smith about the law.

The proposed law had been protested by a number of groups that said the existing 2002 euthanasia legislation has been an unmitigated disaster.

Schadenberg said he was not surprised to see the bill pass, since he said the entire euthanasia project in Belgium is being “pushed blindly” by a government that has ignored all the abuses currently taking place within existing euthanasia laws.

“Euthanasia has been really out of control in Belgium for quite some time. We know from studies that about 32 percent of euthanasia deaths go without requests. Over half of euthanasia deaths are not reported,” he said.

Schadenberg said the new law will only make it easier for doctors to indiscriminately and without repercussion end the lives of the most vulnerable deemed unfit to live.

Quo vadis, Domine? Reverent and Filial Message to His Holiness Pope Francis from Prince Bertrand of Orleans-Braganza

Activists from movements that obstinately and violently subvert private property in Brazil are invited to hold meetings with important organizations of the Holy See; one of them is received by the Pontiff. In face of these developments, Prince Bertrand has written this Reverent and Filial Message to His Holiness Pope Francis.


I address Your Holiness in my twofold capacity as Prince of the Imperial House of Brazil and an active participant in the public life of my country to express a serious concern about the Catholic cause in Brazil and in South America in general.

Brazilians are largely aware that it was thanks to the entreaties of Pope Leo XIII, and in spite of the serious political drawbacks that such a decision would entail, that my great grandmother, Princess Isabel, Regent of the Empire, signed the Golden Law, on May 13, 1888, definitively abolishing slavery in Brazil. That action cost her the throne, but earned her the title of “the Redemptrix” in Brazilian history; and for it she received a Golden Rose from the Pope as a reward for her selflessness  in favor of social harmony and the rights of the underprivileged.


Moved by the same sense of justice and dedication to the common good as my ancestors, I am honored to have founded and assisted for these last ten years the Peace in the Countryside campaign,^[1] promoting social harmony in Brazilian agriculture. This task is all the more necessary since the country’s rural areas have been thrown into convulsion over the last few decades by a series of land invasions, attacks, destruction of crops, confiscatory expropriations, outlandish environmental requirements, and legal insecurity.


At the core of this agrarian agitation—which is the main obstacle to the full development of Brazilian agriculture and cattle ranching, responsible for 37% of Brazil’s jobs^[2] and about half of all new jobs  in the first semester of 2013^[3]—are found the Landless Workers Movement, better known by its  Portuguese acronym, MST, and the international organization, La Via Campesina.


 To read the complete statement, click on the link below.


Quo vadis, Domine? Reverent and Filial Message to His Holiness Pope Francis from Prince Bertrand of Orleans-Braganza

How A Lourdes Miracle Cured a Boy and an Unbelieving Father

The following is an account of a miracle at Lourdes found in the book, The Song of Bernadette:

“The second case was no less immediate. It concerned another young person of Bordeaux. It was Jules, the twelve-year-old son of an official in the revenue department, Roger Lacassagne. This gentleman affected a martial air and, quite unlike Moreau, could not be accused of any stirrings of a religious instinct. Now, Jules was afflicted by the rare and curious disease popularly known as Saint Vitus’s dance.

This affliction is less dangerous on account of the morbid contortions of the limbs than on account of the swelling and progressive closing of the oesophagus which gradually makes almost impossible the intake of solid food. The family physician Nogues and the consultant physician Professor Roquer applied all remedies prescribed in the medical textbooks as well as some that were not. They displayed the opportunistic pragmatism common to all physicians who are unwilling to admit their powerlessness. The boy’s oesophagus closed up more and more. At last the channel left was no thicker than a knitting-needle and admitted even a few drops of milk or soup only with extreme difficulty. Jules Lacassagne had become a mere shadow and seemed doomed to die of starvation. His mother took him to a seaside resort: perhaps the ocean’s energy would help. It did not.

“On the beach whither they carried the boy he found a torn piece of newspaper. Holding it in his feeble hands he read an account of the healing of young Marie Moreau. He pocketed the piece of paper but dared not at first utter his wish. He knew his father’s character and convictions well and was afraid of being laughed at. Not until many days later, when, obviously doomed, he was taken back to Bordeaux, did he hesitantly tell his mother the story of Lourdes and Marie Moreau. Madame Lacassagne besought her husband to set out for Lourdes on that very day. The husband consented without debate. IN THE FACE OF DEATH, UNFAITH IS FAR UNSURER OF ITSELF THAN FAITH. In his own arms Roger Lacassagne carried his son to the grotto. A former army man, he was disinclined to stand for any nonsense. IF MIRACLES CAN HAPPEN, LET THEM! Hence he had brought with him a bag of soft biscuits.

“After Jules, endlessly agonizing, had succeeded in getting down a glassful of the water drop by drop, the absurd father handed him one of the biscuits and gave an order in his military fashion: “Now, then, eat!” And now an absurder thing happened: the boy ate. He bit off a piece, chewed it, and swallowed it like any ordinary mortal. The tall Lacassagne with his grey pompadour turned aside, reeling like a drunken man, and beat his breast and panted: “Jules is eating . . . Jules is eating . . . .”

And the people around the grotto burst into tears.

“But Jules kept on eating in silent thoughtfulness and it seemed to many as though the first flush of recovery were even then tingeing his cheeks. Marie Moreau and Jules Lacassagne were but two out of fifteen cases which Bishop Laurence considered as inexplicable by natural processes and as fulfilling his specific demands. He was always guided by the medical evidence recorded immediately prior to the cure and also Monseigneur welcomed most the testimony of physicians either not of the Catholic faith or confessed enemies of all faith…” (Capitals as in original).

Manufacturers Change Look of AR-15; Rifle Is Now Legal in New York State

Prototypes
for the newly designed AR-15 are hitting gun shops across New York, as
gun shops and machinists have designed a rifle that complies with the
anti-gun law. At least one gun shop has received a letter from state
police saying that the new AR-15 style rifles should be legal in the
state as long as they don’t have some of the features that the law
prohibits.

The new gun law bans all kinds of semi-automatic rifles that have
been labeled with the “assault” term even though these are very common
rifles and are no more powerful than the average hunting rifle.

Features like adjustable stocks, pistols grips, and flash suppressors
has been deemed to be unlawful on these rifles, mainly because it makes
them LOOK mean.  And we all know how little these anti-gun lawmakers
really know about guns, as the “Ghost gun” video illustrated.

The new AR-15 design did away with the pistol grip which gives the
gun an odd paintball gun look.  The stock is fixed as well, but at least
New Yorkers now have a legal way to own an AR-15, a fact which is still
driving some gun control activists mad.

Read more at Guns -n- Freedom



Read more at http://clashdaily.com/2014/02/hissy-fit-new-ar-15-design-compliant-safe-act-gun-control-activists-pouting/#JSpKW0amIF0q3xGg.99

Prototypes
for the newly designed AR-15 are hitting gun shops across New York, as
gun shops and machinists have designed a rifle that complies with the
anti-gun law. At least one gun shop has received a letter from state
police saying that the new AR-15 style rifles should be legal in the
state as long as they don’t have some of the features that the law
prohibits.

The new gun law bans all kinds of semi-automatic rifles that have
been labeled with the “assault” term even though these are very common
rifles and are no more powerful than the average hunting rifle.

Features like adjustable stocks, pistols grips, and flash suppressors
has been deemed to be unlawful on these rifles, mainly because it makes
them LOOK mean.  And we all know how little these anti-gun lawmakers
really know about guns, as the “Ghost gun” video illustrated.

The new AR-15 design did away with the pistol grip which gives the
gun an odd paintball gun look.  The stock is fixed as well, but at least
New Yorkers now have a legal way to own an AR-15, a fact which is still
driving some gun control activists mad.

Read more at Guns -n- Freedom



Read more at http://clashdaily.com/2014/02/hissy-fit-new-ar-15-design-compliant-safe-act-gun-control-activists-pouting/#JSpKW0amIF0q3xGg.99

Prototypes
for the newly designed AR-15 are hitting gun shops across New York, as
gun shops and machinists have designed a rifle that complies with the
anti-gun law. At least one gun shop has received a letter from state
police saying that the new AR-15 style rifles should be legal in the
state as long as they don’t have some of the features that the law
prohibits.

The new gun law bans all kinds of semi-automatic rifles that have
been labeled with the “assault” term even though these are very common
rifles and are no more powerful than the average hunting rifle.

Features like adjustable stocks, pistols grips, and flash suppressors
has been deemed to be unlawful on these rifles, mainly because it makes
them LOOK mean.  And we all know how little these anti-gun lawmakers
really know about guns, as the “Ghost gun” video illustrated.

The new AR-15 design did away with the pistol grip which gives the
gun an odd paintball gun look.  The stock is fixed as well, but at least
New Yorkers now have a legal way to own an AR-15, a fact which is still
driving some gun control activists mad.

Read more at Guns -n- Freedom



Read more at http://clashdaily.com/2014/02/hissy-fit-new-ar-15-design-compliant-safe-act-gun-control-activists-pouting/#JSpKW0amIF0q3xGg.99

Prototypes for the newly designed AR-15 are hitting gun shops across New York, as gun shops and machinists have designed a rifle that complies with the anti-gun law. At least one gun shop has received a letter from state police saying that the new AR-15 style rifles should be legal in the state as long as they don’t have some of the features that the law prohibits.




The new gun law bans all kinds of semi-automatic rifles that have been labeled with the “assault” term even though these are very common rifles and are no more powerful than the average hunting rifle.

Features like adjustable stocks, pistols grips, and flash suppressors has been deemed to be unlawful on these rifles, mainly because it makes them LOOK mean.  And we all know how little these anti-gun lawmakers really know about guns, as the “Ghost gun” video illustrated.


The new AR-15 design did away with the pistol grip which gives the gun an odd paintball gun look.  The stock is fixed as well, but at least New Yorkers now have a legal way to own an AR-15, a fact which is still driving some gun control activists mad.


Read more at Guns -n- Freedom

pes
for the newly designed AR-15 are hitting gun shops across New York, as
gun shops and machinists have designed a rifle that complies with the
anti-gun law. At least one gun shop has received a letter from state
police saying that the new AR-15 style rifles should be legal in the
state as long as they don’t have some of the features that the law
prohibits.

The new gun law bans all kinds of semi-automatic rifles that have
been labeled with the “assault” term even though these are very common
rifles and are no more powerful than the average hunting rifle.

Features like adjustable stocks, pistols grips, and flash suppressors
has been deemed to be unlawful on these rifles, mainly because it makes
them LOOK mean.  And we all know how little these anti-gun lawmakers
really know about guns, as the “Ghost gun” video illustrated.

The new AR-15 design did away with the pistol grip which gives the
gun an odd paintball gun look.  The stock is fixed as well, but at least
New Yorkers now have a legal way to own an AR-15, a fact which is still
driving some gun control activists mad.

Read more at Guns -n- Freedom



Read more at http://clashdaily.com/2014/02/hissy-fit-new-ar-15-design-compliant-safe-act-gun-control-activists-pouting/#JSpKW0amIF0q3xGg.99

Prototypes
for the newly designed AR-15 are hitting gun shops across New York, as
gun shops and machinists have designed a rifle that complies with the
anti-gun law. At least one gun shop has received a letter from state
police saying that the new AR-15 style rifles should be legal in the
state as long as they don’t have some of the features that the law
prohibits.

The new gun law bans all kinds of semi-automatic rifles that have
been labeled with the “assault” term even though these are very common
rifles and are no more powerful than the average hunting rifle.

Features like adjustable stocks, pistols grips, and flash suppressors
has been deemed to be unlawful on these rifles, mainly because it makes
them LOOK mean.  And we all know how little these anti-gun lawmakers
really know about guns, as the “Ghost gun” video illustrated.

The new AR-15 design did away with the pistol grip which gives the
gun an odd paintball gun look.  The stock is fixed as well, but at least
New Yorkers now have a legal way to own an AR-15, a fact which is still
driving some gun control activists mad.

Read more at Guns -n- Freedom



Read more at http://clashdaily.com/2014/02/hissy-fit-new-ar-15-design-compliant-safe-act-gun-control-activists-pouting/#JSpKW0amIF0q3xGg.99

HISSY FIT: The New AR-15 Design is Compliant with “SAFE Act” and Has Gun Control Activists Pouting

The Death of Peak Oil

Written by John Horvat


 Every once and while, liberal myths explode onto the scene with great fanfare and then later fade into oblivion with a whimper. One example was the famous population explosion myth in the seventies, where the left was proclaiming the imminent destruction of mankind by the year 2000 due to overpopulation. They could hardly have foreseen the fact that many countries are experiencing a population implosion that will have disastrous economic and social consequences in the near future.


Another such myth is the theory of peak oil.


Peak oil, was the brainchild of M. King Hubbert, who claimed the world will reach a maximum rate of oil extraction, after which the rate of production is expected to enter into a terminal decline. He claimed that new discoveries of oil would fall rapidly and the world would be forced to face apocalyptic times.

The only problem with the theory is that King created and first used the models behind peak oil in 1956 to predict that United States oil production would peak between 1965 and 1971. When  projections of world production did not come to pass, Hubbert predicted in 1974 that peak oil would occur in 1995.  However, oil production did not peak in 1995 but actually climbed to more than double the rate initially projected.


No problem. New projections pushed the date up to 2006 when oilfields would surely start depleting and big oil’s days would be numbered.

But that was not to happen. With the discovery of new oil fields and technology to extract oil from shale, the peak oil theory has fallen on bad times. Each new discovery pushes up the day of doom to the point that many experts are saying that present rates of oil production will sustain supply for up to 100 years.


Worse yet for the peak oilers, American oil companies are asking the government for permission to export domestic crude to other parts of the world for the first time since the oil crisis in the seventies. America is now one of world’s largest producers of oil. The world is awash in so much oil that it is increasingly hard to see the peak.


For the peakers, oil and gas are becoming embarrassingly more abundant. Exxon, for example, is saying that new technologies will make it possible to draw fuels from deep under the world's oceans, oil sands deposits and tight rock formations like shale until 2040. The sheer abundance of oil and gas in the U.S. has overwhelmed demand. Moreover, Exxon claims that even after all this extraction until 2040, nearly two-thirds of the earth's crude deposits will remain untouched!


The death of peak oil myth does not disturb leftist myth makers. Theymerely stop talking about it and go on to the next myth. Indeed, there are plenty of other myths to take their place. Like a fast talking car salesman, advocates of these myths never seem to learn, and are fast to talk up the latest apocalypse. By the way, did you hear the latest about rising global temperatures…that will soon destroy the earth as we know it in 2025…or 2040?

Repetition and the Way of the Cross

 
by John Horvat II

The
life of a Christian involves suffering and the carrying of one’s cross
daily. One way this is done is by the constant and often grueling
repetition of tasks that are part of developing a trade or craft.


However, such repetition is not without its purpose. In fact, it aids
in the  development of skills and the production of beautiful products
or arts. Indeed, practice makes perfect.




Richard Sennett reports that as skills expand, the capacity to sustain repetition also increases.
He mentions the so-called Isaac Stern rule in music, in which the great
violinist declared “the better your technique, the longer you can
rehearse without becoming bored” (Richard Sennett, The Craftsman, Yale
University Press, New Haven, 2008, p. 38).




In those times of grueling repetition, there are those “Eureka”
moments embedded in routine that lead to the reward of great cultural
masterpieces and accomplishments. In short, the way of the cross in
daily life leads to a rich and fabulous culture marked by great efforts
and insights.

Repetition and the Way of the Cross | Return to OrderReturn to Order

The Problem with Equality

Written by Daniel J. Mitchell 

If you want to know why the left is wrong about income inequality, you need to watch this Margaret Thatcher video. In just a few minutes, the “Iron Lady” explains how some – perhaps most – statists would be willing to reduce income for the poor if they could impose even greater damage on the rich.
This picture is another way of getting across the same point. It was sent to me by Richard Rahn (famous for the Rahn Curve), and it uses two pizzas to show how leftist policies would “solve” inequality.



I like this analogy, and not just because I also used the pizza analogy to make the same argument in this TV interview.

The growing or shrinking pizza is useful because it helps to focus people on the importance of growth.

Chinese Block Access to Shrine of Our Lady

As happens every year, Chinese police surrounded the village of Donglu,
made famous among Catholics by an apparition of Our Lady in the early
twentieth century, the official newspaper South China Morning Post reported.



Police prevented pilgrims from joining with city residents for the celebration in honor of Our Lady.



The forces of repression blocked the highways leading to the city with armed men standing watch day and night.



Even so, the ingenious Chinese Catholics managed to celebrate the feast with a solemn procession in front of the sanctuary.



The City of Donglu, in the diocese of Baoding, Hebei Province, has a
population of 10,000 and is a few hours drive from Beijing. Ninety
percent of the city's residents are Catholic. A Catholic man commented
that "the police deny access to outsiders.”

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Chinese Block Access to Shrine of Our Lady