Americans Like Their Religion Straight

It’s an old story. Conservative, strict churches are growing, and liberal, secular churches are
shrinking. According to sociologist
Rodney Stark, it’s always been like this.
But it doesn’t hurt to get a second opinion. So
David Shiflett
has written a book about it:
Exodus: Why Americans are Fleeing Liberal Churches for Conservative Christianity.

People want meaning, purpose, and connection to something bigger than themselves. They get it from
a life and from a faith that makes demands upon them.

What Would President Hillary Be For?

Global content provider
Mark Steyn
takes a look at the prospect of President Hillary in our future, and rates the chances at 50-50.
Senator Clinton is the only Democrat running for president that can afford to ignore the sacraments of
peace and abortion. So she is the only Democratic candidate that can appeal to middle America.

But the question is: what would President Hillary be for? Surely, the Democrats have tested to
destruction the old formula of the rule of the experts and pensions for the people. Tony Blair and
New Labour are busily testing the concept to destruction in Britain: one-size-fits-all education, welfare,
and health care leads to not much of anything except bureaucracy, rationing, targets, schemes, regulators,
and jobs for Labour Party voters.

Could the Hillary Clinton of Hillary Care, of the Children’s Defense Fund, of “reforming”
the government school system of Arkansas ever turn from the cult of the rule of the experts and
help restore an America of self-government? There is a Nixon-Goes-to-China opportunity here, if Senator
Clinton is smart enough to grab it.

The Experts Can't Read

The problem with our glorious empire of experts, where experts pronounce, and we the people genuflect, is this. What if the experts are wrong, and fails to teach about 20 percent of kids to read? What if they have pronounced a one-size-fits-all regime of “whole language” reading for every schoolkid, and it turns out their program is wrong?

Don’t think about it. Just praise the lord that the experts and their political masters have
finally seen the light, as Minette Marrin does. Britain’s Labour Party has finally agreed that “whole language” reading is a disaster and now they are going to change the entire British education system to teach phonics.

But enquiring minds are bound to ask the deeper question here. Aren’t we progressive types supposed to believe in diversity, and hate monoculture? Yes, of course we do, when it comes to fields of monoculture wheat and forests of monoculture Douglas-firs. But we seem to have a blind spot when it comes to humans.

Surely, if it means anything, diversity means no one-size-fits-all programs for our nation’s children. For what if the expert designers of the one-size-fits-all program are wrong?

The trouble is, you are not allowed to tell liberals they are wrong. When liberals hear criticism, they label it hate speech.

The End of the Expert

Experts gave us the defined-benefit pension, now dying in the bankruptcies
of the steel companies and the airlines. Experts gave us Social Security
with its promise that is not a promise.
Michael Barone sees that we are moving away from all that
stuff.

But some people haven’t got the message. Democrats attacking the
president’s reform of Social Security fail to see that there is a risk
in Social Security just as there is a risk in personal retirement accounts.
But there is one difference. You can control the risk in your own
retirement account. But Social Security is different. With
Social Security you are dependent on the government. Who knows where that will end up.

Forget the Dieting!

Nutritionist Sandy Szwarc has been telling this story for some time. Studies show that dieting doesn’t work. In fact, women that diet experience worse health outcomes that women that don’t diet. Scientists conducted a randomized clinical trial of two groups of women:

For six months, half of the women participated in a traditional diet and weight loss program, complete with social support; standard nutritional guidance to moderately restrict calories, on how to count calories and fat, read food labels and shop, maintain food diaries, and monitor their weight; and were given information of the benefits of exercise and behavioral strategies for successful dieting. The other women were instructed to let go of restrictive eating habits and not weigh themselves, were counseled to eat according to their natural appetites, given standard nutritional information about healthful foods, and participated in a support group designed to help them become more accepting of their larger bodies, develop a positive self image, and enjoy their bodies.

Guess what. “While the dieting group that had initially lost weight, it had regained almost all of it two years later, while the nondieters’ weights had remained stable.” And the non-dieters showed healthier blood pressure and lower cholesterol levels.

Go on. Read it all.

Ryanair's Cost-cutting Frenzy

Did you know that Mike O’Leary, boss of Europe’s Ryanair, has now stopped employees charging
their mobiles (cellphones to you) at the office? And that they have to cadge pens
and highlighters? There’s worse. Ryanair is now charging for checked baggage. The idea is not to
make baggage a revenue item. Oh no. The idea is that
if nobody checks baggage then Ryanair can cut costs because they don’t need to pay for baggage-handling at the airport. Still not impressed?

The Scotsman, quoting Ryanair’s own figures, writes that the carrier handles 10,000 passengers per employee, compared to no-frills rivals EasyJet’s 6,300 and British Airways’ 760.

Go on. Read the whole thing, written by
Val McQueen.

Right Wing Noise Machine

Now it is John Kerry that is complaining about the right-wing message machine that is drowning out the liberal message, according to Jeff Jacoby:

’’Several times a day, their message is amplified," grumbled the former Democratic standard-bearer.`’We don’t have anything like that."

This is absurd, as Jacoby writes. Sure there is Fox and Rush Limbaugh and The Washington Times. But there is also CBS, NBC, ABC, PBS, The New York Times, and The Washington Post, etc.

But the question is: do the Democrats really believe this stuff, or are they just blowing smoke to rile up their supporters? It is beginning to appear that they really believe their own propaganda. And that is not good. Not for them, and not for America. The worst lies are the lies that we tell to ourselves.