THE OTHER SHOE DROPS: Turning back the tide of information overload with a digest of the latest developments in news conservatives need to pay attention to:

† Living In These Mad, Mad, Madoff Times: Birth rates in 48 states and the District of Columbia fell sharply during the recession, according to a report by the Pew Research Center. The New York Times reports:

According to preliminary data from 2010, the rates dropped to 64.7 births per thousand women ages 15 to 44, from 69.6 births per thousand women in 2007, the year the recession began. …

The link between financial distress and lower rates of childbirth surfaced clearly in the regional data. North Dakota, with one of the lowest unemployment rates in 2008, about 3 percent, was one of two states to show a slight increase in its birth rate from 2008 to 2009. The other was Maine.

In all other states, birth rates declined, said Gretchen Livingston, the lead author of the report. Arizona had the deepest decline in its birth rate, down by 7.2 percent.

“What people seem to be doing is not so much deciding not to have children, but postponing until things start to recover,” she said.

† Obama Creating Green Jobs That Americans Won’t Do: Believe it or not, Solyndra is small peanuts – at least compared to SunPower, another failed taxpayer-funded “green energy” company that was touted by Interior Secretary Kenneth L. Salazar in October 2010 (“The path to a clean energy economy starts here, in places like SunPower’s research and development facility.”). In a well-researched article, Human Events describes how the “failing California solar company, buffeted by short sellers and shareholder lawsuits” was able to snag a $1.2 billion federal loan guarantee “for a photovoltaic electricity ranch project – three weeks after it announced it was building new manufacturing plant in Mexicali, Mexico, to build the panels for the project.” When all is said and done, there will be just 15 permanent jobs for U.S. workers – at a cost to taxpayers of $80 million each – which is “a little high, even for the current Obama administration,” Human Events notes.

If there is a bright side to this mess, it’s that Solyndra’s meltdown may have pulled the plug on $6.5 billion in government loan guarantees that had been granted "conditional" approval but “suddenly disappeared from [the Department of Energy’s] roster.” The Wall Street Journal reports an interesting twist to the $1.9 billion in taxpayer largess slated to be awarded to CA solar-panel farm First Solar:

In August the company posted a 62% drop in second-quarter income, and its stock, which traded at $170 in February, is now $57 a share.

Energy did move ahead with two separate conditional loan guarantees for First Solar, though at reduced amounts – $646 million (rather than $680 million) for a solar farm in Lancaster, California, and $1.5 billion (rather than $1.8 billion) for a farm in Riverside County. The approvals came as First Solar announced it had sold the Lancaster farm to utility giant Exelon and the second to General Electric and NextEra Energy Resources. So taxpayers are now underwriting solar subsidies not for start-ups but for the biggest of big business.

As it happens, GE Chairman and CEO Jeffrey Immelt is a close personal friend of President Barack Hussein Obama’s and is also chairman of the President’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board. Clearly, the aim is to ensure that investors in green energy companies that tank will recover their capital, not creating “green jobs of the future.”

A new report by the Labor Department's Office of Inspector General found that a $500 million stimulus grant to a program that trained 53,000 workers for “green jobs” graduated 1,033 who remained employed for at least six months – but that many of these positions already existed and had been “relabeled” as green jobs. “Bus drivers, Environmental Protection Agency regulators, university professors teaching ecology, and even the Washington lobbyists who secure energy loan guarantees count as green employees for the purposes of government counting,” The Wall Street Journal reports.

So the “green economy” is not only a scam, it’s also a sham.
 

† Prediction: Christians Will Be “Extinct” In The Holy Land Within 60 Years: The Washington Times notes that the Obama administration “has been obsessed with Muslim outreach,” but has turned its back on oppressed Christians in the Middle East:

The United States has been wary to intervene in matters affecting Christians in the Middle East for fear of validating terrorist narratives that the West is engaged in a new crusade against Islam. The result of this passive policy has been to allow Islamic extremists increasingly to dominate the debate, often with tragic consequences.

On Sunday in Egypt, a clash between Coptic Christians and the military left at least 25 dead. Copts are the largest religious minority in Egypt, representing about 10 percent of the population. Attacks on the Copts have increased since former President Hosni Mubarak's ouster. That the military was involved in this incident was a signal that matters are taking a turn for the worse. The White House issued a lukewarm condemnation noting that President Obama is "deeply concerned about the violence in Egypt" and that "as the Egyptian people shape their future, the United States continues to believe that the rights of minorities – including Copts – must be respected." In other words, the U.S. government will do nothing about the massacre of Christians.

† Restorative Capital Punishment: A New Haven Superior Court jury convicted Joshua Komisarjevsky of all 17 charges against him, including capital felony killing, kidnapping and sexual assault (related article, sixth item on the page), The Associated Press reports:

Komisarjevsky's co-defendant, Steven Hayes, was sentenced to death last year after he was convicted of raping and strangling Jennifer Hawke-Petit and killing her daughters, 11-year-old Michaela and 17-year-old Hayley, who died of smoke inhalation.

The only survivor of the attack, Dr. William Petit, bit his lip and closed his eyes as the verdict was read.

"I thought from the beginning that he was a lying sociopathic personality and probably at this moment he doesn't think he is guilty of anything," he told reporters outside the courthouse.

The penalty phase, during which the jury will decide whether Komisarjevsky, 31, should be executed or sentenced to life in prison, is scheduled for October 24^th.

† A To Z Approach On Illegal Immigration In AZ: The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta further whittled down the provisions of AL’s new anti-illegal immigration law that the state could enforce while it considers the Justice Department's request to strike it down altogether (related article, eighth item on the page), FOX News reports:

Alabama cannot prosecute illegal immigrants for not carrying registration documents with them at all times or require schools to check the immigration status of all students.

But the court said Alabama, among other things, can require police officers to verify the immigration status of anyone they lawfully stop if they suspect they are in the country illegally. Illegal immigrants will also be prohibited from obtaining a license to drive, get a vehicle or open a business.

The Justice Department opposes Alabama's law, claiming it invites discrimination against foreign-born citizens and legal immigrants and is at odds with federal policy. But state officials say the law is necessary to protect the jobs of legal residents.

A final decision on the law won't be made for months to allow time for more arguments.

Another provision of the law that can still be enforced prohibits state and local government agencies from entering into contracts with illegals.

† Those Who Can’t Teach, Cheat: The GA Professional Standards Commission has revoked the teaching licenses of eight teachers and three school administrators in the Atlanta Public Schools in the aftermath of one of the nation's largest school cheating scandals (related article, eighth item on the page). The commission will mete out sanctions in the remaining 170 cases by the end of the year, The Associated Press reports:

The eight teachers sanctioned by the commission can reapply for their licenses in two years, while the administrators' revocations are permanent. All rulings can be appealed up through state administrative and the Atlanta area's Fulton County Superior Courts. Some cases could take years to be resolved under the appeals process. …

The commission did not release the names of the educators sanctioned, noting they have 30 days to appeal.

The educators named by state investigators also could face criminal charges as investigations continue in Fulton and DeKalb counties in the greater Atlanta area.

† Is This Why We Fight?: Ten years after the U.S. invaded Afghanistan to liberate its people from the grip of the Islamofascist Taliban regime, there is not one public Christian church left in the country, according to the State Department's latest International Religious Freedom Report (related article, 11th item on the page). The U.S. military spent part of the $440 billion in taxpayer money to build or renovate mosques in Afghanistan, but the last public Christian church in Afghanistan was razed in March 2010, CNS News reports:

“There is no longer a public Christian church; the courts have not upheld the church's claim to its 99-year lease, and the landowner destroyed the building in March [2010],” reads the State Department report on religious freedom. “[Private] chapels and churches for the international community of various faiths are located on several military bases, PRTs [Provincial Reconstruction Teams], and at the Italian embassy. Some citizens who converted to Christianity as refugees have returned.” …

“Negative societal opinions and suspicion of Christian activities led to targeting of Christian groups and individuals, including Muslim converts to Christianity," said the report. "The lack of government responsiveness and protection for these groups and individuals contributed to the deterioration of religious freedom.”

Most Christians in the country refuse to “state their beliefs or gather openly to worship,” said the State Department.

According to the State Department report, there are only 500 to 8,000 Christians out of a total population of an estimated population of 24 to 33 million Afghans.

† NJ Taxpayers Must Choose Between Dollars And Dolphins: The Obama administration’s much-hyped plans (related article, sixth item on the page) to build high-speed rail lines across America are “Dead. Kaput. Through. Finished. Washed up. Gone-zo,” according to Human Events:

The governors of Wisconsin and Ohio nixed train lines that wouldn't provide faster service than current parallel Interstate highways. The governor of Florida cancelled a faster line between Orlando and Tampa, which are only 90 miles apart.

The one remaining project that really promises high-speed rail travel, in California, faces cost overruns that would be astonishing -- except for the fact that cost overruns have been standard operating procedure in high-speed rail projects around the world.

The feds insist California build a 160-mile segment in the Central Valley that is estimated to cost at least $10 billion and will have virtually no riders. The estimated cost of the whole project has zoomed from $43 billion to $67 billion, and there seems to be no prospect of any more public – or private-sector money.

Obama has rhapsodized about the wonders of getting on a train across the street from your office and traveling to another city, and he has presented high-speed rail as a technology of the future. …

Passenger rail is an old technology that is particularly attractive to planners, the folks who want to force us out of our cars and into subways that travel only on the routes they design. Let's make everyone live the way people do in Manhattan!

The Obama Democrats' February 2009 stimulus package included $8 billion for high-speed rail projects. The Democratic Congress appropriated another $2.5 billion.

While the Republican-controlled House has not included any funds for high-speed rail in its budget, the Democrat-majority Senate Appropriations Committee has appropriated $100 million – which one analyst calls "a vote of 'no confidence' to President Obama's infrastructure initiative" and "a bipartisan signal that Congress has no appetite for pouring more money into a venture that many lawmakers have come to view as a poster child for wasteful spending." Only in Washington is $100 million considered not spending any money.

† When Science Is A Form Of Worship: Based on his research, UC San Diego sociology professor John Evans believes that “fundamentalists' and evangelicals' relationship with science is much more complicated than the idea that they ‘oppose science’ … [and on] most issues, there is actually very little conflict between religion and science,” in this Los Angeles Times op-ed:

[C]onservative Protestants are equally likely to understand scientific methods, to know scientific facts and to claim knowledge of science. They are as likely as the nonreligious to have majored in science or to have a scientific occupation. While other studies have shown that the elite scientists who work at the 20 top research universities are less religious than the public, it appears that the vast majority of people with workaday scientific occupations are like their neighbors, religiously speaking. …

There are, of course, a few fact claims in which conservative Protestant theology and science differ, such as the origins of humans and the universe. Here we find that typical conservative Protestants are likely to believe the teaching of their religion on the issue and not the scientific claim. …

[C]onservative Protestants don't think of their own views as inconsistent, and they have a long-standing way, going back to at least the mid-19th century, of dividing the scientific findings they believe and don't believe. They tend to accept scientists' claims that are based on direct observation and common sense and to reject those based on what might be called unobservable abstractions.

The “unobservable abstractions” that invite skepticism amongst the religious right, include the Big Bang and human evolution from lower primates, according to Evans, whereas “[d]espite biblical passages suggesting the contrary, conservative Protestants believe the Earth orbits the sun, which is observable by scientists in the present” (related article, third item on the page).

† French Fries For Me, But Not For Thee: Michelle Obama wants us to eat as she says we should – plenty of fruits and vegetables, small portions – because there will be more of the yummy stuff for her. In an interview with Washington Examiner blog Yeas & Nays Paula Deen recalled a show she did with Michelle Obama in September 2008, during which she showed the future first lady how to fry shrimp:

She probably ate more than any other guest I've ever had on the show – she kept eating even during commercials. You know what their favorite foods are – it's hot wings, you know, those kinds of foods that are not necessarily top-of-the-list healthy foods, so she's no different than the rest of us.