mbjones

Nice!

The day the Bush administration took over from President Bill Clinton in 2001, America enjoyed a $236 billion budget surplus -- with a projected 10-year surplus of $5.6 trillion. When the Bush administration left office, it handed President Obama a $1.3 trillion deficit -- and projected shortfalls of $8 trillion for the next decade. During eight years in office, the Bush administration passed two major tax cuts skewed to the wealthiest Americans, enacted a costly Medicare prescription-drug benefit and waged two wars, without paying for any of it.

To put the breathtaking scope of this irresponsibility in perspective, the Bush administration's swing from surpluses to deficits added more debt in its eight years than all the previous administrations in the history of our republic combined. And its spending spree is the unwelcome gift that keeps on giving: Going forward, these unpaid-for policies will continue to add trillions to our deficit.

Good food for thought that is more often than not ignored.

Despite more than a dozen international conventions banning slavery in the past 150 years, there are more slaves today than at any point in human history. Slaves are those forced to perform services for no pay beyond subsistence and for the profit of others who hold them through fraud and violence. While most are held in debt bondage in the poorest regions of South Asia, some are trafficked in the midst of thriving development. Such is the case here in Africa's wealthiest country, the host of this year's World Cup. While South Africa invests billions to prepare its infrastructure for the half-million visitors expected to attend, tens of thousands of children have become ensnared in sexual slavery, and those who profit from their abuse are also preparing for the tournament. During a three-week investigation into human-trafficking syndicates operating near two stadiums, I found a lucrative trade in child sex. The children, sold for as little as $45, can earn more than $600 per night for their captors. "I'm really looking forward to doing more business during the World Cup," said a trafficker. We were speaking at his base overlooking Port Elizabeth's new Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium. Already, he had done brisk business among the stadium's construction workers.

Read the whole article. It's heart breaking but worth it. We are all fools who choose not to see the brokenness in the world. And we are utterly heartless should we decide to do nothing.

Two summers ago whilst in Cape Town, the team I was with helped staff a seminar focused on human trafficking. A local South African group was seeking to raise awareness because they were already beginning to anticipate and see the trafficking problems that the world cup would bring. This past summer while there, it was mentioned to me that at least one child a week goes missing.

I don't know what exactly we'll be able to do whilst there but I know both my wife and I hope and pray that we'll be able to do something. At the very least we know and accept the call Micah 6:8 lays before us: to love justice and mercy and to walk humbly before our God...

(CNN) -- A major earthquake struck just off the Haitian capital Port-au-Prince on Tuesday, sparking a tsunami watch for parts of the Caribbean, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

Raymond Joseph, Haiti's ambassador to the United States, told CNN he had little information about the extent of damage from the quake, which had a reported magnitude of 7.0. But he said the suffering inflicted on the impoverished Caribbean nation was likely to be "catastrophic."

"The only thing I can do now is pray and hope for the best," he said.

My brother, his wife and their 16 month old currently live in Haiti. Luckily they live on the other side of the island from Port-au-Prince, and according to their facebook status they are OK. Keep them and the people of Haiti in your prayers though.

"I am thrilled to be joining the great talent and management team at Fox News," Mrs Palin said in a statement on the network's website.

"It's wonderful to be part of a place that so values fair and balanced news."

This made me laugh out loud. I then read it to my wife (who is an award winning reporter in Oklahoma) and her reaction wasn't laughter but frustration. She said that she couldn't believe Fox was still attempting the "Fair and balanced" schtick and how unprofessional and particularly biased -- not fair or balanced -- it was for journalists to be directly involved with politics as many of Fox's commentators are (Karl Rove, Mike Huckabee, Sarah Palin now, Newt Gingrich). And I quote, "That's not journalism."

For more on Fox being fair and balance, here's a great article from October that lists ten particularly blatant lies. Or you could watch the Daily Show with John Stewart calling them out, it seems endlessly, for being anything but fair and balanced.

Not that the other stations are any better though. TV news in general has the tendency to make me leave a room.

A big driver of the  outbreaks of record cold and snow in many spots around the Northern Hemisphere is the little blue dot at the lower right-hand corner of the graph above, just above the year 2010. The chart (generated by  Ignatius Rigor for Dot Earth) shows the state of the  Arctic Oscillation, a pattern of atmospheric pressure that has two phases, positive and negative (somewhat like the more familiar  cycle of El Niño and La Niña in the Pacific). A strong negative or positive condition can powerfully influence weather around the northern half of the globe and the behavior of sea ice on the Arctic Ocean.

The blue dot shows an extraordinary negative plunge of the index in December, taking it below any such reading since at least 1950. (I ran a preliminary version of the chart in  a recent post on sea ice trends, but now it’s been updated with the  full month’s readings of atmospheric pressures.)

Good article for those curious about why it's so cold right now across the US. No, global warming isn't likely involved and no, it doesn't invalidate warming data either (see here: http://www.tnr.com/blog/the-vine/why-yes-it-chilly-out-right-now)

Leach said in a 38-minute phone interview late Thursday that James acted as if he were entitled to special treatment and that he was lazy. He also said the player and his family’s claims of mistreatment were the result of bitterness over a lack of playing time.

Leach said that he felt that James’s father, Craig James, tried to leverage his position as an ESPN analyst to get more playing time for his son.

It has been widely reported that Leach locked Adam James in a closet or a shed after James sustained a concussion at a practice last month. Leach said he only ordered James to be taken “out of the light” and did not know specifically where he had been taken.

“I was busy coaching practice,” Leach said.

He added: “There have been several things that have been brought to my attention on the ticker that’s just false,” Leach said, referring to ESPN’s bottom line ticker. “He was never locked anywhere. At no point was he locked anywhere. At no point was there an electrical closet.”

Leach described a divisive and tense relationship with Craig James, whom he said he had to deal with more than every other parent on the team combined. He said that James frequently attended practices and called assistant coaches.

“I think he used his position at ESPN to try to coerce me into allowing Adam to play more,” said Leach, who said he expected to coach again. “But the thing about it is as the coach, I watch every inch of film. I’m deferring to the judgment of 12 people as we look at the film on who should play and who should play when and then we make our decision based on that. I don’t feel like it’s fair to the other players and I don’t think it’s the right way to do business to allow influence and position to dictate when you play a young man.”

This is what I thought to be the case when I first heard the rumblings about Leach: a spoiled kid with an influential father. The article goes on to detail statements from Tech's head trainer and doctor that confirms Leach's comments. I've always liked the quirkiness of Leach and think he's done great things at Tech; assuming his, the doctor's and the trainer's comments are true, hopefully he'll find another team that values what he brings more than money and power. Here's to hoping for the whole truth.

But what we don't want to remember, what we make 100 percent sure to forget, is that we do all sorts of hateful things to Gaza that they don't do to us, and that this is the way it's been since 1967.

Aside from choking the flow of goods to Gaza by land, we blockade their entire coast. We don't allow ships to sail into Gaza or out. Does anyone stop ships from coming and going at the ports of Eilat, Ashdod or Haifa? What would Israel do if anyone tried? (Think of what Israel did two weeks after Egypt blockaded the port of Eilat in May 1967.)

We also blockade Gaza's airspace, preventing planes from flying in or out. Does anybody stop planes from flying in and out of Israel? Would we stand for it if someone did?

For 37 years, between 1967 and 2005, our soldiers and settlers were the overlords of the Gaza Strip. If foreign soldiers and settlers tried to come in and take over Israel, what would we do?

And regarding the years of rocket attacks on the people in Sderot, I've never been through such an ordeal, but I imagine it's hell. However, I've also never been through the ordeal that people in Gaza have gone through, and are still going through, yet I know - as everyone in the world knows, except Israelis - that life in Gaza is incomparably worse than life in Sderot ever was.

An awesome -- if controversial -- article from the Jerusalem Post. The excerpt above is only a piece...head over to the site to read it all.

AN HONEST CONVERSATION, LIVE AND UNSCRIPTED, ABOUT AMERICA AND THE MIDDLE EAST.
AND HOW JESUS CHANGES EVERYTHING.

Ted Dekker, Carl Medearis and Gov David Beasley talk about Jesus and the Middle East. I love what Carl has to say so it should be good, if things like this interest you...