President Obama is going to become the first U.S. president to physically chair the U.N. Security Council. A sort of “President of the World” for a day or two. No wonder Chris Matthews’ Leg is tingling.

John Hindraker over at the he Powerline blog has a fascinating, if troubling, post about the long term economic implications of the policies of the Obama-Reid-Pelosi government. It’s titled “What’s In Store, Inflation or Default?”

It makes for sobering reading. The silver lining? The end of the welfare state is coming . . . one way or the other.

Arriving yesterday: The End of Secularism by Hunter Baker.

This goes in the “Waiting” pile that includes recent acquisitions:

• Money, Greed and God: Why Capitalism is the Solution and Not the Problem by Jay W. Richards
• Killing Sacred Cows: Overcoming the Financial Myths That Are Destroying Your Prosperity by Garrett Gunderson
• Power in the Name: Revealing the God Who Provides and Heals by Derek Prince

The National Geographic Channel . . . or “NatGeo” is the new hip new name, I believe . . . is running a great little special over the next few weeks. It’s called “9/11: Science and Conspiracy.” In it, a team of scientists in various specialties examine the key elements of the major conspiracy theories surrounding the 9/11 attacks on the WTC and the Pentagon.

They set up experiments to test things like the effects of burning jet fuel on structural steel (Guess what, Rosie . . . Fire actually can melt steel!) In fact, they laid a length of of structural steel over a shallow pit with jet fuel in it and placed a small amount of weight on the beam. Then they lit the jet fuel and started a stopwatch. The steel bent, buckled and twisted after only 3:51 seconds–even though the fire only reached a temperature of 2000, several hundred degrees lower than the steel’s “official” failure temp.

The best parts of the special are when they show a group of high profile “truthers” each experiment and the scientific findings. In each case, the truthers simply refused to accept what they were seeing. They were so invested in their preferred narrative that no amount of refutation could move them.

I was reminded of a great Thomas Sowell quote I heard recently. “A person cannot be reasoned out of a position they did not reason themselves into.”

Check out this video excerpt from the special. And catch one of the airings of this special if you can.

We had a good, long Skype webchat with our girl in Nairobi this weekend–with both audio and video. Seeing her face and hearing her voice was like water to a parched desert traveler for her mother.

Actual water continues to be a precious commodity there in Kenya. Our former homecoming queen mentioned that she had learned several valuable life skills in her first month there. She said:

“I’ve learned how to wash all of my clothes with only a liter of water. I’ve learned how to bath in a bucket the size of my face. And at night, I can wash my face and brush my teeth with only a dixie cup of water.”

She’s about to settle into a new routine–teaching math three days a week at an orphanage/family shelter, and on the other two days teaching young pastors how to use the Bible software that comes with the computers they are given by the ministry in which she is a volunteer.

It seems she’s busy, weary, and living in conditions that are uncomfortable to say the least. But it’s also clear to us she has no interest in coming back early. She’s having the time of her life.