My (Lisa's) great-uncle Bud passed away on August 11th. He was 85 years old. He died from what seems to have been a heart attack that caused him to take a severe fall in a parking lot. The time that lapsed between the attack and when paramedics were able to revive him was so great that it led to brain damage. He never woke up. Uncle Bud knew Jesus as his Savior so we are very happy for him that he has joined his beloved wife, my great-aunt Vera, in peace with their Creator. Though never having any children, Vera and Bud truly did have a special marriage. At Bud's house, my mother found an large envelope of letters and love notes that Aunt Vera would leave around the house for Bud. Some of the simply cute ones say things like, "I love you dear, Thanks for taking me to dinner last night" and "Honey I love you....please take down the meat from the freezer." They had been married for 48 years when Aunt Vera died unexpectedly from a complication after a heart procedure in 1989. Before the heart procedure she gave Bud a letter in a sealed envelope and told him only to open it if she died. Inside she had written her wishes for her funeral arrangements and ended the note with "Thankyou for the wonderful 48 years, I'll be waiting for you in heaven". When she died, I can remember my uncle saying "I never ever thought I'd be the one left alone" since he had been the one with all the health problems. So now I smile to think about my aunt saying to him "What took you so long!"

It's generally recognized that low voter turn-out reduces the quality of electoral politics in this country. Here are a couple of examples of proposals to address the problem. I think the second proposal makes a lot of sense...

From an article in the NY Times by Randal C. Archibald titled "Arizona Ballot Could Become Lottery Ticket":

To anyone who ever said, "I wouldn't vote for that bum for a million bucks," Arizona may be calling your bluff.

A proposal to award $1 million in every general election to one lucky resident, chosen by lottery, simply for voting — no matter for whom — has qualified for the November ballot.

Mark Osterloh, a political gadfly who is behind the initiative, the Arizona Voter Reward Act, is promoting it with the slogan, "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? Vote!" ...

The initiative calls for financing the award through unclaimed state lottery prize money, private donations and, if need be, state money. A spokeswoman for the Arizona Lottery Commission said its unclaimed prize pot fluctuated greatly, but it now stood at more than $1 million...

Passage of the initiative would supersede a state law barring any exchange of a vote for money, legal experts agreed, but whether it would get around similar federal laws was a matter of debate.

From an op-ed piece in the NY Times by Norm Ornstein titled "Vote - Or Else", a long but very interesting passage:

The unhappy effects of low turnout are clear: ever-greater polarization in the country and in Washington, which in turn has led to ever-more rancor and ever-less legislative progress.

Here's why. With participation rates of about 10 percent or less of the eligible electorate in many primaries to 35 percent or so in midterm general elections to 50 percent or 60 percent in presidential contests, the name of the game for parties is turnout — and the key to success is turning out one's ideological base. Whichever party does a better job getting its base to the polls reaps the rewards of majority status.

And what's the best way to get your base to show up at the polls? Focus on divisive issues that underscore the differences between the parties.

Not surprisingly, the partisan divide keeps increasing. Just look at Tuesday's results: Mr. Lieberman, a centrist, was unseated by Mr. Lamont, a darling of the left; in Michigan, Joe Schwarz, a moderate Republican congressman, was beaten by Tim Walberg, a bedrock conservative. It's no wonder that when Republicans and Democrats finally arrive in Washington, there's little incentive for them to do the nation's business.

So what can be done? Here's a possible solution: mandatory voting. A number of countries, including Singapore, Cyprus, Austria and Belgium, have forms of mandatory voting. But Australia, a sprawling polity like ours, provides perhaps the best example of why it bears consideration for the United States.

In the Australian system, registered voters who do not show up at the polls either have to provide a reason for not voting or pay a modest fine, the equivalent of about $15. The fine accelerates with subsequent offenses. The result, however, is a turnout rate of more than 95 percent. The fine, of course, is an incentive to vote. But the system has also instilled the idea that voting is a societal obligation.

It has also elevated the political dialogue. Australian politicians know that all their fellow citizens, including their own partisans, their adversaries' partisans and nonpartisans, will be at the polls. The way to gain votes does not come from working your base to fever pitch; it comes from persuading the persuadables, the centrists who are increasingly left out of the American political process. Appealing to the extremes is a formula for failure.

If there were mandatory voting in America, there's a good chance that the ensuing reduction in extremist discourse would lead to genuine legislative progress. These days, valuable Congressional time is spent on frivolous or narrow issues (flag burning, same-sex marriage) that are intended only to spur on the party bases and ideological extremes. Consequently, important, complicated issues (pension and health-care reform) get short shrift. There's no question that compulsory voting would be a tough sell. Congress would have to pass a law and the states would have to enforce it. Surveys on the subject regularly show substantial majorities opposed to the idea. Americans don't like compulsory anything — we value the freedom not to vote.

But going to the polls doesn't mean that you have to vote for a particular candidate. About three percent of Australians, for example, mark X on the ballot, the equivalent of "none of the above."

Mandatory voting comes with a price: a modest loss of freedom. But this would be more than balanced by the revitalization of the rapidly vanishing center in American politics.

That's Joe Beam's diagrammatic representation from the Grace Centered Magazine web site describing what he thinks is going on in the churches of Christ. To me, his analysis seems to be right on. The article goes into great detail. I think it's probably several years old, but it's exact age wasn't obvious to me. It's an interesting read.

His conclusions:

Ultimately things will occur as God wills. I'm not a prophet, just an observer. Division is already occurring and will be very pronounced within 3 to 8 years unless wise leaders in the Traditional churches disregard Zealots.

Neither the Opens, Cautious, or Satisfieds are driving this division; Zealots are. They accomplish it through their continually tightening rules of fellowship that Satisfieds are accepting. They will never see that but will believe the split was caused by the Opens who led their churches to become Innovative.

Our greatest enemy isn't going beyond clear New Testament doctrine. It is making laws where God never did and chaining our great brotherhood from its task by those laws.

In response to a comment about global warming, I looked up the data for CO2 emissions from the US and China over the last 25 years and made the plots below. The data are from the Energy Information Administration's "Official Energy Statistics from the U.S. Government" on the web here. The data represent emissions of CO2 from the consumption and flaring of fossil fuels.

The first plot shows that since 1980, the U.S. has released 2 times as much carbon dioxide as China has.

The second shows that the contrast is even greater per capita (per person): each year since 1980 the U.S. has released between 4 and 10 times as much CO2 per person as China.

The third plot shows that there is reason to be cocerned about China. Though in recent years the U.S. has continued to emit more CO2 than China, China's emissions are accelerating drastically and will eclipse ours.