Stories and conversations with older adults on flourishing as they age.
Book Excerpt: Life Gets Better
Wendy Lustbader on older people having room in their lives for generosity.
Book Excerpt: Apprenticed to Spirit
A message from David Spangler's mentor from the invisible world about making choices.
Book Excerpt: Dom Helder Camara
Dom Helder Camara on life being made up of sacrifices and acts of anonymous heroism.
Spiritual Literacy Blog: The Average Catholic Is Reading Joyce Rupp
An interview by Orbis Press editor-at-large Michael Leach with Joyce Rupp who lives with more questions than answers.
Book Excerpt: The Workplace and Spirituality
Joan Marques, Satinder Dhiman, and Richard King on why it's natural to bring love and spirituality into the workplace.
DVD Feature Film Review: Jane Eyre
An inventive and fertile screen adaptation of Charlotte Bronte's 1847 novel.
DVD Feature Film Review: The Conspirator
A poignant and ethically-charged courtroom drama about yet another overlooked and forgotten abomination from America's past.
Questions linger about Arkansas health’s policy not to release information … – The Republic
Questions linger about Arkansas health's policy not to release information ... The Republic They say the public often needs to be told more about heat deaths and can be given certain details without violating medical privacy. "It really does look silly," said Ken Bunting, executive director of the National Freedom of Information Coalition. ... |
West Memphis Three Walk to Freedom: Are They Really Innocent? – International Business Times
West Memphis Three Walk to Freedom: Are They Really Innocent? International Business Times Medical examiner concluded that Byers died of blood loss and the other two boys of drowning. At the time of their arrests, Misskelley, Jr. was 17 years old, Baldwin was 16 years old, and Echols was 18 years old. The trio admitted to the crime after a ... |
What Next for ObamaCare? – RealClearPolitics
What Next for ObamaCare? RealClearPolitics They should not appear to defend the one-sided socialism of freeloading, or treat as outrageous any attempt to curb wasteful and unnecessary medical services. Freedom comes with personal responsibility: isn't that the true conservative and libertarian ... |
MN Systems Announces Launch of Freedom PACS – PR Web (press release)
MN Systems Announces Launch of Freedom PACS PR Web (press release) MN Systems, headquartered in Southfield, MI, a leading developer of medical software systems, announced today the availability of Freedom PACS. Freedom PACS has been serving the needs of 22 multi-specialty physicians located in ten clinics throughout ... |
HASCO Medical, Inc. and Its Wholly Owned Subsidiary Mobility Freedom Announced … – MarketWatch (press release)
HASCO Medical, Inc. and Its Wholly Owned Subsidiary Mobility Freedom Announced ... MarketWatch (press release) ... a managed healthcare provider that serves patients in Alabama, Florida, and Mississippi, announced the combined audited 2010 year-end results and the unaudited combined 2011 first quarter results for HASCO Medical, Mobility Freedom ( www. ... |
Indonesia Must Step up Efforts to Protect Rights of all Minority Religious Groups
A second brutal mob attack on Indonesia's Ahmadiyya last week, as well as the harsh sentencing of an Ahmadi victim in a previous attack, are further proof of a troubling downward spiral in religious freedom in Indonesia. Freedom House calls on the Indonesian government to step up its efforts to protect its minority faith communities through effective law enforcement, appropriate and unbiased application of the law, and an active role in promoting religious tolerance at all levels.
Freedom House Denounces Deportations Ahead of SADC Summit
Freedom House condemns the deportation of three civic leaders and two journalists who were traveling to Angola to attend a civil society conference occurring concurrent with this week's Summit for Heads of State and Government of the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) and calls upon Angolan authorities to cease their efforts to prevent legitimate civil society participation in activities surrounding the Summit.
Freedom House Releases Report: "Promise and Reversal: The Post-Soviet Landscape Twenty Years On"
Freedom House today launched a web feature presenting its latest special report, 'Promise and Reversal: The Post-Soviet Landscape Twenty Years On,' to mark the 20th anniversary of the failed Soviet coup of August 19, 1991. The feature includes a retrospective essay examining changes in the state of political rights and civil liberties in the former Soviet Union over the last two decades, as well as graphs and rankings that illustrate the region's performance in the annual Freedom House publications Freedom in the World and Freedom of the Press.
Doing the Chevy Volt Dance – Encore Presentation
Or, alternative title - "Dancing on the Green Jobs Grave"
From USAToday, "Chevrolet Volt prospects are starting to lose interest" Aug. 15:
Interest in buying the $39,995 plug-in car is starting to taper off, not only among "early adopters" but among lots of other buyers, reports CNW Marketing...
In March, more than 21% of early adopters said they were very likely to consider the GM vehicle. In the July study, that figure had dropped to 14.6%...
"In fact, all categories of new-car intenders are reporting less likelihood of even considering the vehicle."
From the NY Times, "Number of Green Jobs fails to live up to Promise" Aug. 19:
In the Bay Area as in much of the country, the green economy is not proving to be the job-creation engine that many politicians envisioned. President Obama once pledged to create five million green jobs over 10 years. Gov. Jerry Brown promised 500,000 clean-technology jobs statewide by the end of the decade. But the results so far suggest such numbers are a pipe dream.
A study released in July by the non-partisan Brookings Institution found clean-technology jobs accounted for just 2 percent of employment nationwide and only slightly more — 2.2 percent — in Silicon Valley. Rather than adding jobs, the study found, the sector actually lost 492 positions from 2003 to 2010 in the South Bay, where the unemployment rate in June was 10.5 percent.
Editor's comment - They sure had some hot shapely dancing girls though.
Libertarian Party says solution is simple: more Jobs, Less Government
Release...
Aug. 19
WASHINGTON - As unemployment in the United States remains stuck above 9 percent, Libertarian Party Executive Director Wes Benedict released the following statement:
"Every time politicians say they're going to create jobs, they end up destroying more jobs than they create.
"Here's the Libertarian approach to unemployment: cut taxes and spending, and let the free market work. [emphasis added]
"Government intervention in the free market is what causes unemployment. There are many examples of this, well known to many economists. Minimum wage laws cause unemployment. Government-mandated unemployment insurance causes unemployment. Welfare and food stamps cause unemployment. Occupational licensing laws cause unemployment.
"One especially destructive factor is government prohibition of at-will employment. Because the government won't let employers hire, maintain, and fire employees on a truly at-will basis, it makes employment much riskier. Employers are scared to hire people because it can be so difficult to fire them if they don't work out, and employers are sometimes even scared to interview people because they might be forced to hire them. The result? More unemployment.
"What about all the 'stimulus spending' we've seen during the last two administrations?
"Stimulus spending doesn't create jobs, it destroys them. The government spends money by extracting it out of the productive private sector, which causes a net loss of jobs.
"Stimulus spending makes our future less secure, without doing any good in the present. It destroys jobs today, as well as down the road.
"Back in 2009, the Obama administration was worried that unemployment might reach 8 percent. So they pushed through a massive stimulus program, and employment went up even higher, to 10 percent. The stimulus program made our problems worse.
"And in 2008, George W. Bush championed a counterproductive plan to send $300-$600 stimulus checks to millions of people.
"Republicans and Democrats in the federal and state governments need to stop trying to help, because they're only making things worse. Instead, they need to get out of the way and let us free Americans solve the problem ourselves."
Daily Beast gets it dead wrong on Tea Party origins
by Eric Dondero
Check out these two paragraphs from an article by David Sessions a writer at The Daily Beast. "Tea Party: The Christian Right in Disguise?" Aug. 18:
Michele Bachmann, once an outspoken social conservative, has reduced her comments on gay marriage to vague statements like “I’m not judging anyone” and “I think my views are clear.”
Tea Party candidates like O’Donnell and Bachmann have campaigned on libertarian economic platforms, leading some commentators to dig into old Ayn Rand novels for the source of this new economic populism. But what they’ve missed is that the Tea Party’s obsession with the size of government has been part of Christian conservatives’ platform for decades. The Tea Party was just a new name coined by clever activists and the media—a rebranding that has made it much easier for Christian-right candidates to run for office without having to air their views on social issues, which are increasingly viewed in a negative light by the general public.
Mr. Sessions seems completely unaware that the Tea Party was founded by the Libertarian Party, and some elements of Ron Paul's organization very late in 2007. The very first Tea Party events were in Seattle, Denver, and Chicago. The Chicago event was organized by then Libertarian Party of Illinois Exec. Comm. member Eric Odom, who went on to become an early leader of the movement. The Seattle and Denver events were jointly sponsored by Ron Paul groups and the local Libertarian Party affiliates. Later sponsors included the self-described libertarian groups Americans For Prosperity and libertarian economist Dick Army's Freedom Network.
Yes, religious conservatives later joined, and have been fully welcomed by libertarians. But it is still as it always has been, a firmly grounded libertarian movement.
And if Michele Bachmann and Christine O'Donnell have been influenced by libertarians on social matters, all the better.
Ron Paul on Rick Perry; a blast from the past…
From Eric Dondero:
In 2009, Texas Governor Rick Perry was the featured speaker at a Tea Party event outside the State Capitol in Austin. He made his now famous remark that "Texas had the right to secede," if the federal government overstepped its bounds.
Appearing on CNN a few days later, Texas Congressman Ron Paul was asked about Perry's remarks.
Via the Manchester Union-Leader, Aug. 18:
[Paul called Perry's comments] “very much American.”
“We seceded from England, so it's a very good principle,” Paul said on CNN in 2009. “It's a principle of a free society. It's a shame we don't have it anymore. I argue that if you had the principle of secession, our federal government wouldn't be as intrusive into state affairs, that would be very good.”
Paul was also quoted recently on him entering the race, that Perry's free market views made him "look like a moderate."
