Archives

Friday, May 15, 2009

400-408 – • Inside Science News Service (5/13/09) The World's Best Illusion: The Secret of the Curve Ball.  See more at http://illusioncontest.neuralcorrelate.com, with the results of their "Best Visual Illusion of the Year Contest."

413-423Hugh Ross, founder and president of Reasons to Believe (reasons.org), is an expert on the intersection of faith and reason – he's an astrophysicist by education and also a pastor at Sierra Madre Congregational Church.  Hugh's the author of a number of books, including Why the Universe Is the Way It Is, and his latest More Than A Theory: Revealing A Testable Model For Creation.  His Apologetics class, he calls "Paradoxes", is held every Sunday at 11:15am at Sierra Madre, it's free and open to the public.  BTW:  sign up for their daily email "Today's New Reason to Believe" on their website for all your skeptical friends!
• Fuz Rana, Reasons To Believe, Biology Textbooks Get It Wrong on Life's Origin.

428-437Hugh Ross

443-452Matt McCormick, CEO of the Christian Lawyers of America (christianlawyersofamerica.com, 888-702-0111).  They're hosting another Mortgage Modification & Debt Settlement Workshop next Friday, a week from today, at the Double Tree Hotel, 100 The City Drive, in Orange.  We'll be broadcasting our show from 4-7 and then the seminar will start at 7:30pm.  Registration and parking are free, just go to KKLA.com to let us know you're coming.

Father Jonathan Morris, is a regular FOX News contributor, was theological advisor to Mel Gibson during the making of The Passion, is out with his new book The Promise: God's Purpose and Plan For When Life Hurts (fatherjonathan.com).

512-523Father Jonathan Morris

528-538USAF Ret. Lt. General Tom McInerney, was the #3 man in the United States Air Force as the Assistant Vice Chief of Staff, and he was the Director of the Defense Performance Review, you see him regularly on Fox News as a senior military analyst, and he's the author of Endgame: The Blueprint for Victory in the War on Terror.
• Reuven Pedatzur, Haaretz (5/15/09) Here's how Israel would destroy Iran's nuclear program.

544-554USAF Ret. Lt. General Tom McInerney
• WSJ (5/14/09) Obama's Photo Epiphany: Why make it harder for the U.S. to defend itself?  President Obama yesterday put American soldiers and national security ahead of political braying from his campaign allies on the left. What a pleasant reversal.


1) With respect to the abortion issue, would you consider yourself to be pro-choice or pro-life?  51% said pro life, and 42% said pro choice.

2) Do you think abortions should be legal under any circumstances, legal only under certain circumstances, or illegal in all circumstances?  23% said legal in any, 53% said legal in certain, and 22% said illegal in all.

According to the Pew Research Center, since last August:  those saying abortion should be legal in all or most cases fell from 54% to 46%, and it found those saying it should be legal in only a few or no cases grew from 41% to 44%.

So, who is changing their opinion? 

The number of pro-life Republicans has increased in the past year from 60% to 70%, and the number of pro-choice Republicans has decreased from 36% to 26%.  There has been no change in the views of Democrats and Democrat leaners.  As the Gallup report says, "all of the increase in pro-life sentiment is seen among self-identified conservatives and moderates; the abortion views of political liberals have not changed."

Those now saying they are "pro-life" has increased:  non-Catholic Christians 51% to 59%, Catholics 45% to 52%, and Other-None's 27% to 31%.

The number of women saying they are "pro-life" has increased from 43% to 49%, while those saying they are "pro-choice" has decreased from 50% to 44%.

The number of men saying they are "pro-life" has increased from 46% to 54%, while those saying they are "pro-choice" has decreased from 49% to 39%.

• Mona Charen (5/15/09) The Wrong Marriage Debate
40% of American births are now to unwed mothers. In "Marriage and Caste in America," researcher Kay Hymowitz finds what we really have in this country is a caste system. At the top are the college graduates who nearly always get married before becoming pregnant. At the bottom are poor women of all races and backgrounds who routinely have babies before they marry (if they ever marry).  Hymowitz writes, "As of 2000, only about 10 percent of mothers with 16 or more years of education -- that is, with a college degree or higher -- were living without husbands. Compare that with 36 percent of mothers who have between 9 and 14 years of education."

By the age of 12, 78 percent of children living in non-married households have experienced one or more years of poverty. For children in intact families, the figure is 18 percent. Babies born to unwed moms are more likely to be premature, to face low birth weight, and to suffer other pathologies. Children who are raised in non-marital households have poorer school performance, more trouble with the law, more mental and emotional disturbances, more poverty, suffer more physical and sexual abuse, and are more likely to become unwed parents themselves. Here's Hymowitz again: "Children of single mothers have lower grades and educational attainment than kids who grow up with married parents, even after controlling for race, family background, and IQ."
Princeton sociologist Sara McLanahan, among others, has speculated about why less-educated young women do not wait for marriage. Perhaps they invest marriage with excessively lofty expectations for complete personal happiness and fulfillment? One of the unwed moms interviewed by the Post explained her decision not to marry the father of her 3-year-old this way: "He's a good dad and a good person, but he's just not right for me." Another offered that "I didn't want to pick the wrong person just to have a kid, so I just decided to go ahead and do it and work on the relationship later."

Young women, especially poorly educated ones, have gotten the idea that marriage is all about them -- about their romantic hopes. In fact, while marriage often does deliver on the promise of happiness for adults, it is only secondarily about adult happiness. It is primarily about safety and security for children. The old stigma against illegitimacy was harsh and led to its own kind of suffering. But it prevented narcissistic young people from impairing the lives of their children on a grand scale.

• Tony Perkins, Washington Update (5/14/09)
In the blink of an eye, the United States has gone from a relatively gradual uptick in unwed births to being completely Europeanized. Experts cite plenty of reasons for the surge, but the de-emphasis of marriage and family is by far the largest. As more men retreat from responsibility, women are delaying marriage or foregoing it altogether. That's bad news for children and for anyone hoping for a return to limited government. As the foundation of our homes splinter, Washington will look for new ways to fill in the cracks. Most liberals, like those presently in control of government, believe that Washington can do a better job supporting families and raising children. Instead of policies that strengthen families, the White House will look for ways to bolster the government's role in them.

Of course, a lot of fiscal conservatives ignore marriage as a policy issue because they think of it as a cultural or religious institution. What they fail to realize is that it's also an economic institution that has enormous implications for the role of the federal government. Every year, state and federal governments fork over $280 billion in welfare, food stamps, and other anti-poverty programs just to keep these broken families afloat. That means that in one decade, the decline of marriage has taken $3 trillion dollars out of taxpayers' pockets.

As our own Dr. Pat Fagan writes, "This system is a massive injustice. Married people are the source of a massive transfer of payments to broken families. Those who stay together are also paying for those adults who do not." If the federal government could reduce family breakdown by a single percent, taxpayers would save around $3 billion dollars a year. And those are just the fiscal benefits. Having a happy, two-parent home to grow up? That's priceless.

612-623Do you agree with Pat Fagan, that "married people are the source of a massive transfer of payments to broken families?"  How many of you have thought of the breakdown of the family in economic terms?  This isn't just a moral issue or a choice of lifestyle, it's an economic issue that we all have to pay for with our increasing taxes.

628-638Calls

644-652Calls

657-700Calls


• Victor Davis Hanson (5/15/09) President Palin's First 100 Days: A near disaster.

• Michelle Malkin (5/15/09) Washington Can't Meet the Cheerios Standard.


• Michael Medved (5/13/09) Economic Equality Is Neither Just Nor Fair.




• NRO Editorial (5/14/09) It's All in Your Head.




• Peter R. Orszag (5/15/09) Health Costs Are the Real Deficit Threat.  That's why President Obama is making health-care reform a priority.  Mr. Orszag is director of the White House Office of Management and Budget.


701 North Brand Boulevard, Suite 550
Glendale, CA 91203
Office (818) 956-5552
Frank's Assistant Nate Hanson nate@kkla.com
Get Podcasts here