Seven months ago I wrote about why Congressman Jim Bridenstine (R-OK), nominated to be the new administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, was well qualified and, in a saner world, should have been confirmed quickly. Yesterday, at last, the well-deserved confirmation finally happened---albeit along strict party lines---after the vote had been delayed for months. Democrats opposed him because---well, because they're Democrats, and he wasn't nominated by Hillary Clinton. … [Read more...]
Will the Global Economy Be Battered by Car Batteries?
In America and around the world, millions of people think electric vehicles (EVs) are the solution to all kinds of environmental problems---like smog, fine particulate pollution, and global warming. Save the planet! Drive a Leaf (or Volt or Tesla or ... the models multiply). But enormous technical problems face the transition from gasoline- or diesel-powered to battery-powered vehicles. Those problems are all rooted in one issue: energy density (energy stored by volume). Cubic inch for cubic … [Read more...]
A Warming Solution that Just Might Work—But Not as Planned?
Los Angeles has a new solution to climate change: painting streets white. Well, not quite a solution to climate change. What it really addresses is what's called the "urban heat island" (UHI) effect. Cities and towns, with lots of blacktop streets, absorb more energy from sunlight than rural areas, so their ambient air temperatures (especially at night) are warmer. Los Angeles will paint its streets white to reduce its UHI. It might actually work, though with all those black rubber tires … [Read more...]
What Really Brought about the Population Collapse on Easter Island?
For years people around the world, swayed mostly by Jared Diamond's book Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, have thought Easter Island---2,300 miles west of the coast of Chile---suffered a population crash because its people used up its resources (chiefly palm trees) faster than they could be renewed. I haven't known what to think, but, though I knew of its inaccuracies on some other subjects, I assumed Diamond's story was likely. Now my friend Dennis Avery has educated me. The … [Read more...]
Who Are the Real Science Deniers? It’s a Given
A little etymology lesson: data derives from the Latin, dare (pronounced DAH-ray), "to give," and means "given." (Back when I took Latin, it was typically the second verb the conjugation of which one learned. The first was amo, "I love," the infinitive form of which is amare.) Data means "given." In the natural sciences, it's supposed to mean what we observe. It's supposed to be quite distinct from what we do with or infer from what we observe. To be data, information should be unadjusted … [Read more...]
Worried about Warming? What about Cooling?
While most of the global elite and politicians and media are worried that human action will usher in global warming, the more likely scenario for the next thirt years or more is global cooling. And while some warming would be mostly good for people and planet, cooling would not. That's the testimony of history. Humanity has always done better in warmer than in colder periods in history. Crops grow better, so food is more abundant. Cold snaps kill ten times as many people per day as heat waves. … [Read more...]
You shall not covet
You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor’s. Heavenly Father, Your Word is filled with warnings about the dangers associated with riches. What will it profit a man if he gain the whole world but lose his own soul? Such is the danger to every individual who lets riches take Your place. You teach us, instead of pursuing wealth, to pursue contentment … [Read more...]
You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
Father, twice in a single sentence You spoke, through the prophet Isaiah, of Yourself as “the God of truth,” and our Savior Jesus spoke of Himself as the way the Truth and the life and prayed that we might be sanctified through the truth, adding that Your Word is truth. Give us a passion for truth, we pray. Teach us, as the Apostle Paul instructed, to test all things, hold fast what is good. Rid us of the plague of relativism, which refuses to recognize that truth and falsehood are incompatible, … [Read more...]
You shall not steal.
Lord, You tell us that the earth is Yours because You made it, and from that we learn that producing something is the basis of ownership. You also tell us to respect others’ property—not only that we don’t steal it, but also that we don’t harm it, but instead act to preserve it securely as their own. You demonstrate justice to us in that You render to everyone his due. But today there are many who pervert the meaning of justice so as to violate property rather than preserve it. Not to each his … [Read more...]
You Shall Not Murder
O LORD our God, you have made every man, woman, and child an image of Yourself, to be honored and respected for that reason all by itself. Yet millennium after millennium, century after century, decade after decade, year after year, month after month, week after week, day after day, we have, as a human race, shown contempt for Your image by showing contempt for our fellow man, even to the point of killing with no just cause. We are angry, and our anger leads to violence and killing. We are … [Read more...]
- « Previous Page
- 1
- …
- 25
- 26
- 27
- 28
- 29
- …
- 78
- Next Page »
