Romney drops his Presidential Campaign!It really is a two-man race.  Again, I ask, will movement conservatives rally to Huckabee?  I say “not a chance.”  But I’m curious what they will do.UPDATE:  McCain gives a stemwinder speech to conservatives at their big meeting, CPAC.  He seemed to get some good response from the crowd as he paraded his conservative achievements, making the case that cutting government spending and defending the country against Islamic terrorism are the major issues of our day, while insisting on his pro-life convictions, pledging to appoint strict constructionist judges, and expatiating on his love of liberty.So do you think the Republicans should now unify and rally behind him? 

The Maharishi Mahesh Yogi is dead at 91.  The Indian guru turned a pop-version of Hindu meditation into a $3.5 billion empire.  With his robes and flowers, the Maharishi and his for-profit meditation seminars became a fixture of the Sixties, though his reach went beyond the counter-culture into corporate seminars and government-funded prisons and public schools.  (Bruce, we need to hear from you on this!)

The more-generally-acceptable war in Afghanistan is being waged by NATO.  The problem is, some of the NATO troops there–e.g., the Germans–are not allowed by their governments to risk casualties in combat.  This creates all kinds of command and control problems, when whole units will not participate in what they may be needed to do.  Yesterday, Defense Secretary Robert Gates had some undiplomatically harsh words for our allies:

“I worry a great deal about the alliance evolving into a two-tiered alliance, in which you have some allies willing to fight and die to protect people’s security, and others who are not.”

We had a faculty candidate on campus who gave a lecture on his specialty, international relations, who made the case that much of the pacifism and the easy-going welfare state mentality of the European Union are luxuries made possible by the American forces who, through NATO, have been protecting them, relieving them of the expensive burden of high military spending.  Should we pull back, especially if the other members of the alliance are not pulling their weight, or is the current practice better than Germany going all militaristic again?

Japan used to be the world’s economic success story. Now, after a decades-long slide, its own government officials are saying that Japan no longer has a “first-class economy.” According to this article, its woes include too much government regulation, declining productivity, stagnant innovation, and. . .

the petering out of the population. Japan has the world’s highest proportion of elderly people and the lowest proportion of children.By 2050, population decline will have reduced economic growth to zero, according to the Japan Center for Economic Research. Seventy percent of the country’s labor force will have disappeared.

You know something else? Some business educators, using their old notes and research from twenty years ago–are STILL hailing Japanese management techniques and saying that we need to emulate them.

George Herbert: Lent

Welcome dear feast of Lent: who loves not thee,

He loves not Temperance, or Authority,

 But is composed of passion. 

The Scriptures bid us fast; the Church says, now: 

Give to your Mother, what you would allow 

To every Corporation.

It ’s true, we cannot reach Christ’s fortieth day; 

Yet to go part of that religious way, 

Is better than to rest: 

We cannot reach our Savior’s purity; 

Yet are bid, Be holy ev’n as he. 

In both let ’s do our best.

Who goes in the way which Christ has gone, 

Is much more sure to meet with him, than one 

Who travels the by-ways: 

Perhaps my God, though he be far before, 

May turn, and take me by the hand, and more 

May strengthen my decays.

Yet Lord instruct us to improve our fast 

By starving sin and taking such repast 

As may our faults control: 

That ev’ry man may revel at his door, 

Not in his parlor; banqueting the poor, 

And among those his soul.