Here’s the Executive Director of Faith Beyond Belief:
Here’s the schedule: NOTE: ALL TIMES ARE IN THE MOUNTAIN TIME ZONE.
Friday March 8, 2013
5:30pm – Registration
7:00pm – Introductions
7:20pm – Mini-lectures featuring Craig Hazen, J.P. Moreland and Sean McDowell
8:30pm – Clay Jones: Why God Allows Evil
Saturday March 9, 2013
7:30am – Registration
8:30am – Craig Hazen: Christianity and the Challenge of World Religions
9:30am – Sean McDowell: Apologetics for a New Generation
10:20am – Break-out sessions
11:15am – Lunch break
12:15pm – J.P. Moreland: The Case for the Soul
1:10pm – William Lane Craig: Arguments for the Existence of God
2:00pm – Conference finishes
And there are some other events, including one on Thursday night: NOTE: ALL TIMES ARE IN THE MOUNTAIN TIME ZONE.
An evening with Christian speaker and author, Dr. William Lane Craig
Topic: Is the Physical World all there is? When: Thursday March 7th at 7:00pm For who: Students, General Public Where: University of Calgary campus: The Alberta Room inside the Dining Centre (“DC” on the campus map) next to Hotel Alma (169 University Gate NW).” Contact: info@faithbeyondbelief.ca or 403-689-5890
Event is free
Teaching the Christian Worldview: A Night for Christian Educators with Christian speaker and author, JP Moreland
When: Thursday March 7 at 7:00pm Where: First Nazarene Church – 65 Richard Way SW, Calgary, AB For who: Christian Educators RSVP Required: This is a free event and is by invite. RSVP is required Contact: info@faithbeyondbelief.ca or 403-689-5890
Pastors and Ministry Leaders Breakfast with Christian speaker and author, Dr. William Lane Craig
When: Friday March 8th at 9:00am Where: First Nazarene Church – 65 Richard Way SW, Calgary, AB For who: Pastors and ministry workers RSVP Required: This is a free event but RSVP is required Contact: info@faithbeyondbelief.ca or 403-689-5890
Even the parallel sessions look quite good, featuring well known Christian scholars like Michael Horner and Tawa Anderson! Lots of Masters degrees and Ph.Ds in the breakout sessions. Even some professors.
As USA Today reports, the truth is that the Canadians did almost all of the work of the rescue mission.
Excerpt:
The former Canadian ambassador to Iran who protected Americans at great personal risk during the 1979 Iran hostage crisis says it will reflect poorly on Ben Affleck if he doesn’t say a few words about Canada’s role should the director’s film “Argo” win the Oscar for best picture Sunday.
But Ken Taylor — who said he feels slighted by the movie because it makes Canada look like a meek observer to CIA heroics in the rescue of six U.S. Embassy staff members caught in the crisis — is not expecting it.
“I would hope he would. If he doesn’t then it’s a further reflection,” Taylor told The Associated Press. But the 78-year-old Taylor added that given what’s happened in the last few months, “I’m not necessarily anticipating anything.”
Taylor kept the Americans hidden at his residence and the home of his deputy, John Sheardown, in Tehran and facilitated their escape by arranging plane tickets and persuading the Ottawa government to issue fake passports. He also agreed to go along with the CIA’s film production cover story to get the Americans out of Iran.
Taylor became a hero in Canada and the United States afterward. He felt the role that he and other Canadians played in helping the Americans to freedom was minimized in the film.
“In general it makes it seem like the Canadians were just along for the ride. The Canadians were brave. Period,” Taylor said.
[...][Former U.S. President Jimmy] Carter appeared on CNN on Thursday night and said “90 percent of the contributions to the ideas and the consummation of the plan was Canadian,” but the film “gives almost full credit to the American CIA.”
Carter also called “Argo” a complete distortion of what happened when he accepted an honorary degree from Queen’s University in Canada in November.
“I saw the movie Argo recently and I was taken aback by its distortion of what happened because almost everything that was heroic, or courageous or innovative was done by Canada and not the United States,” Carter said.
Taylor said there would be no movie without the Canadians.
“We took the six in without being asked so it starts there,” Taylor said. “And the fact that we got them out with some help from the CIA then that’s where the story loses itself. I think Jimmy Carter has it about right, it was 90 percent Canada, 10 percent the CIA.”
He said CIA agent Tony Mendez, played by Affleck in the film, was only in Iran for a day and a half.
So, naturally, it gets the Oscar for Best Picture. It’s a fake movie, and that’s what we expect from uneducated artists who play make-believe for a living. The real Best Picture of 2012 was Dinesh D’Souza’s “2016″, but they’ll never pick that, because it told the truth. It was not even included as a nominee for Best Documentary, although it made more money than all the 15 nominees for Best Documentary, combined.
My absolute favorite Canadian journalist, by far, is Brian Lilley. There is no one like him in the Canadian media. I think that he is more informative than even Mark Steyn and Ezra Levant.
Take a look at this Daily Beast column warning Americans about bills that set up gun registries.
Excerpt:
Last year Canada ended its national long gun registry, a national database of every rifle and shotgun in the country that was supposed to help police track the movement of and sale of weapons. When it was introduced twenty years ago critics said the registration of firearms would eventually lead to confiscation, a criticism dismissed as ridiculous, yet that’s what happened and more right up until its dismantling.
As recently as last winter law abiding gun owners who had complied with the registry were having their rifles confiscated. In late 2011 hundreds if not thousands of people who had legally purchased the Armi Jager AP80, a .22 calibre variant of the AK47, were informed that their rifles had been deemed illegal and must be surrendered .
“You are required by law to return your firearm registration certificates, without delay, either by mail to the address shown in the top left corner of this page or in person to a peace officer or firearms officers. You have 30 days to deliver your firearms to a peace officer, firearms officer of Chief Firearms Officer or to otherwise lawfully dispose of them,” read the letter sent by the Canadian Firearms Centre.
The reason for the need to surrender what had been legal firearms was simply cosmetic, the AP 80 looked too similar to the AK47. There were no interchangeable parts between the two rifles, the rifles used vastly different ammunition, had vastly different uses but they looked the same.
What was more worrisome was that the decision to reclassify what for years had been a legal rifle was made by a bureaucrat not by elected officials. There was no debate, no vote just a decision by a bureaucrat who felt the AP80, legally owned for decades, was too dangerous to be privately owned by Canadians.
It is important for us to look at what is being tried in other countries, especially ones that have similar cultures, so that we can see the consequences. Gun registries should be opposed with the same vigor as gun confiscations, because they are the same thing, eventually. Individuals have a right to defend themselves from crime, and that is not a right that is meant to be enjoyed only by our smooth-talking politicians in Washington. I can guarantee you that those same politicians that want to confiscate your weapons will be themselves guarded by armed men. Hypocrites!
Conservative M.P. Pierre Poilevre (Nepean-Carleton), a member of the majority government in Canada, explains how Canada embraced the free entreprise system that America has rejected, and the results they got.
Here is the speech that went viral on Youtube:
And here is his article in the liberal Huffington Post.
Excerpt:
In a few days the “fiscal cliff” deadline will arrive and potentially bring massive automatic spending cuts and tax increases. Even if Congress and the President agree to avoid the cliff, the next crisis awaits. Treasury Secretary, Timothy Geithner, wrote the Senate this week to report that the “statutory debt limit will be reached on December 31, 2012,” which will require extraordinary measures to prevent a mass default. These measures will give the government 60 days before it runs out of money and Uncle Sam’s head smashes into the so-called “debt ceiling.”
It has long been said that when the U.S. sneezes, Canada catches a cold. So why have these debt-related ailments in the U.S. not afflicted the Canadian government?
The answer is that Canada has been practicing what the U.S. always preached: free markets, low taxes and minimal state interference. And it is working.
For example, Canada avoided the interventionist policies that led the U.S. to the sub-prime crisis.
In an attempt to expand home ownership, administrations from Carter to Bush Jr. forced banks to offer mortgages to people who would otherwise not qualify for them. Washington then ordered government-sponsored enterprises such as Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae to insure these “sub-prime” mortgages.
According to a 2010 Report on the U.S. Financial Crisis by the World Bank’s Development Research Group, Freddie and Fannie bought an estimated 47 per cent of these toxic mortgages. Harvard financial historian Niall Ferguson indicates that the amount of mortgage debt backed by these government-sponsored enterprises grew from $200-million in 1980 to $4-trillion in 2007.(1) The government pumped so much air into the housing bubble that it burst in 2008. The resulting financial crisis led to government bailouts of the banking sector.
Big government caused the economic crisis. So we are told the solution is more big government. Funny how the problem becomes the solution.
Because the Canadian government did not impose sub-prime mortgages on the country’s charter banks, we avoided the crisis and did not bailout a single financial institution. To keep it that way, Canada’s Finance Minister has ended all government-backed insurance of low-down payment and long-amortization mortgages. In other words, if you want to take on risky debt, taxpayers will not insure you.
Governments must lead by example when managing their own debt and spending. Low debt is the result of low spending. Federal government spending as a share of the overall economy is 15 per cent in Canada (2) and 24 per cent in the U.S. (3). The numbers are not merely the result of prodigious U.S. military spending, though that is certainly a factor. Non-military federal government spending is 14 per cent of Canada’s economy (4), and 18 per cent of America’s (5).
Take a look at some of these graphs from earlier in the year about the Canadian 2012 budget. (This is straight from their government’s web site - they have new transparency/anti=corruption measures now, so the citizens know everything that government does). When comparing the deficit and debt of Canada to the United States, always multiply the Canadian number by 10 to get a benchmark to compare. For example, Canadian GDP is 1.7 trillion, and the US GDP is 15 trillion.
Canada’s budget deficit is around 30 billion, but ours is 1.2 trillion:
Canada Federal Budget Deficit / Surplus 2012
If we were doing as well as Canada, our deficit would be about $300 billion. But we have run up about 6 trillion in debt over 4 years! Not only that, but Canada’s national debt is only $600 billion. If we multiple that by 10, we would expect ours about $6 trillion. And it was that – during the Bush Presidency. But then the Democrats took over the House and Senate in 2007 and everything went wrong and we packed trillions and trillions onto the debt, including about $6 trillion during Obama’s first term.
Canada’s Debt to GDP ratio is 34%:
Canada vs US Debt to GDP
But things are even worse for the United States, now. The current United States Debt to GDP is 105%, according to official U.S. government figures. We are due for yet another credit downgrade, and should see Greece-like levels of Debt to GDP during Obama’s second term. We are spending too much, and we aren’t going to be able to make up trillion dollar deficits even if we confiscate every penny that rich people earn. (And they won’t be daft enough to keep working as hard if we did that – they would move, and probably to Canada)
What is happening to us here in the United States is self-inflicted. We are – and have been – voting to impoverish ourselves and generations of children born and unborn, by punishing those who work hard and play by the rules, and rewarding those who don’t work and don’t play by the rules. It didn’t have to be this way. We could have elected a President who actually knew something about business and economics. Knowledge matters. We can’t just choose a President who gives us the “tingles” and then expect him to perform the actual duties of being President. Competence is more important than confidence. Substance is more important than style.
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