Signs and Wonders 04.11

School choice thwarted. Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer vetoed a bill last week that would have expanded a tuition-scholarship program for students with special needs. The year-old Arizona Empowerment Scholarships Account program-one of two choice programs operating in the state-would have expanded to include gifted students, children of military personnel, and those attending the state's worst-performing public schools. Currently, the program allows parents of special-needs students to apply for 90 percent of what a public or charter school would have spent on their children, and lets them use it for tuition at the private school that best serves their children's needs, therapy, books, or tutoring. Not sure why Brewer, a Republican who claims to be a conservative, would veto a school choice bill that will save the state money, but in her veto letter she said it would be "premature" to sign the bill before the 2013 budget is complete.

Global warming? Polar bears say bring it on. You may have heard that global warming is destroying the habitats of polar bears, and that the population of the bears is falling dramatically. Only problem is, it's not true, at least the polar bear part of that equation. According to an article in The Globe and Mail, a recent study has produced a "healthy polar bear count [that] confounds doomsayers." According to the article:

"The number of bears along the western shore of Hudson Bay, believed to be among the most threatened bear subpopulations, stands at 1,013 and could be even higher. That's 66 per cent higher than estimates by other researchers who forecasted the numbers would fall to as low as 610 because of warming temperatures that melt ice faster and ruin bears' ability to hunt. The Hudson Bay region, which straddles Nunavut and Manitoba, is critical because it's considered a bellwether for how polar bears are doing elsewhere in the Arctic."

It appears that the global warming alarmists will not have to find a new bell to lead the way.

Double standard. Compass Direct News reports that a priest in Egypt was sentenced in March to six months in jail for "a minor construction violation at his church building, while no one in a mob that burned the same structure down has been arrested." The Rev. Makarious Bolous of the Mar Gerges Church in Aswan was sentenced on March 4. Bolous said the ruling, coupled with the absence of prosecution against those who burned down the church building, is clear evidence of persecution and a legal double standard between Christians and Muslims. The lower court that made the ruling also fined Bolous 300 Egyptian pounds (US$50). Local government officials said the building was 2.5 meters taller than what they had approved on a series of architectural drawings for the church building. On Sept. 30, 2011, some 3,000 villagers set fire to and then demolished the building and razed four nearby homes and two businesses, all Christian-owned.

The last frontier. Family advocates won an important victory in Alaska April 3, when the residents of Anchorage defeated Proposition 5. The initiative sought to expand the city's nondiscrimination ordinance to include "sexual orientation and transgender identity." What makes the victory particularly significant is the fact that gay-activist billionaire Tim Gill had bankrolled the Proposition 5 campaign. Gill and his allies spent $340,000, about four times more than conservatives raised. Despite all that money, the measure failed by a 16-point margin, 58 percent to 42 percent. "It represents a triumph of common sense over cash," said Jim Minnery, president of the Alaska Family Policy Council.