Monday March 8, 2010
“Church”
Here is an interesting read for a Monday morning. I have tons of sympathy and connection with where this writer is headed. I will not likely follow him all the way there, but I understand.
Why I don’t believe in “Church” | the Jesus Manifesto
To summarize the main points:
- Appearance and Performance: We parade ourselves before one another without the ability to speak to one another, we are there to watch and listen, not to participate.
- Centralization of Power: How could one possibly speak for the whole?
- Waste of Resources: We come together in buildings that need not be constructed for the church to exist.
- The Way is Narrow: Apparently Jesus didn’t mean it when He said that the way was narrow and that it would be difficult to be His followers.
- Entitlement and Self-fulfillment: Our churches reinforce the notion of our individual rights that Christians have to continue living in whatever way they choose, continuing to over-consume, over-pollute, over-simplify and under-question.
Friday March 5, 2010
Onward, Regardless
Charles Krauthammer – Onward with Obamacare, regardless
… Obama was reduced to suggesting that his health-care reform was indeed popular because when you ask people about individual items (for example, eliminating exclusions for preexisting conditions or capping individual out-of-pocket payments), they are in favor.
Yet mystifyingly they oppose the whole package. How can that be?
Allow me to demystify. Imagine a bill granting every American a free federally delivered ice cream every Sunday morning. Provision 2: steak on Monday, also home delivered. Provision 3: a dozen red roses every Tuesday. You get the idea. Would each individual provision be popular in the polls? Of course.
However (life is a vale of howevers) suppose these provisions were bundled into a bill that also spelled out how the goodies are to be paid for and managed — say, half a trillion dollars in new taxes, half a trillion in Medicare cuts (cuts not to keep Medicare solvent but to pay for the ice cream, steak and flowers), 118 new boards and commissions to administer the bounty-giving, and government regulation dictating, for example, how your steak is to be cooked. How do you think this would poll?
World’s Shortest Political Quiz
I’m sure you can’t wait to find out where I came out:
Your PERSONAL issues Score is 90%.
Your ECONOMIC issues Score is 100%.
LIBERTARIANS support maximum liberty in both personal and economic matters. They advocate a much smaller government; one that is limited to protecting individuals from coercion and violence. Libertarians tend to embrace individual responsibility, oppose government bureaucracy and taxes, promote private charity, tolerate diverse lifestyles, support the free market, and defend civil liberties.
Thursday March 4, 2010
I’m Gullible
Saturday February 27, 2010
Dumb Question of the Week from MSNBC
Big quake question: Is nature out of control? - msnbc.com
Big quake question answer: Yes!
Nature never was in man’s control and never will be. The question implies an arrogance that I cannot understand.
But then again, MSNBC is the venue of Keith Olbermann, so any level of arrogance should not surprise me.
Friday February 26, 2010
Meta-announcement
BREAKING NEWS: N.Y. Gov. David Paterson announces he’s ending election campaign
Actually, I heard it on the radio and Paterson didn’t announce that he was calling it quits.
What he did was, he announced that he was announcing that he was calling it quits.
I wish he could have given a little warning, perhaps by announcing that he was going to be announcing the he would announce that he would end his campaign.
Don’t believe me? You could look it up.
I Wore My Seat Belt Today
When I left for work this morning, I didn’t expect to have an automobile accident. The road conditions were better than they had been recently and the sky was clear. And since it is Friday, I rather expected that this could probably be the easiest commute of the week.
I thought about my record. I’ve never had a car wreck. Well, I once put a little crease in an Edsel because I was distracted by a young lady sitting next to me back in my college days. And I did get rear-ended by a ditzy Scottish lady in Paisley, probably because I was unfamiliar with and a bit hesitant at a weird intersection. But those little incidents were not life threatening at all. During the first I wasn’t wearing a seatbelt, and in the second case, the belt made no difference.
So, conditions and experience told me that a seat belt was totally unnecessary for this 20-minute trip to work.
Then I realized that I really don’t know anyone who has had a bad wreck lately. Oh, plenty of my friends and family have had serious accidents in the past, but not recently. Road conditions are a lot safer now.
It was pretty clear to me that I would be perfectly safe if I just left the seat belt off today.
But I used it anyway. What would you do?
Thursday February 25, 2010
Right-Wing Tea Party Protester Kind of Guy
Morning Briefing for February 24, 2010
Wednesday February 24, 2010
Nazarenes: Emergent, Fundamentalist, and the Rest
If you are not a Nazarene, you won’t be interested in this post. But if you are, you should be very interested. The future of our church is at stake. I’m having very little success at the level of my local church getting people to see the danger, but I fully believe the danger is upon us. I completely expect that, within my useful lifetime, the church will either fade into oblivion or become a church with which I wish to have no association. I want neither result, but I really don’t have much hope right now.
I hope you will read this post by Scott Cundiff. Scott, like me, is a boomer who gets it. There don’t seem to be many of us. I apologize for copying the entire post, but you need to read it.
It feels as though a civil war is brewing between those who are seeking to drag my denomination into whatever it is that the future holds and those who are trying to drag us into fundamentalism. After years of Nazarene (hopefully) sanctified smugness that our Zion avoided the divisive pitfalls of the Battle for the Bible, a few who have no respect for our longstanding “plenary inspiration” and “all things necessary for salvation” approach to Biblical inerrancy are taking advantage of the Internet to organize and then put pressure on the denomination to take a big step toward joining the bloody fights over the nature of Scripture that have wounded other groups.
Meanwhile, the second group is busily trying to re-invent Christianity. These people are less than impressed with the track record of the Church over the last 100 years or so and think the problem is that culture has changed while the Church has stayed the same, perfecting an approach to Christianity that’s only of interest to “insiders” and irrelevant to “outsiders.” Their movement, overall, is called “emerging” because it’s not very well defined. No one claims to know how things will look in 100 years, but proponents hope the result will be a revitalized, world changing Christianity.
The fundamentalist-leaning and the emergent-leaning Nazarenes get along like cats and dogs. Fundamentalism is all about believing the right things. Its tenants are well defined. “Emergentism” isn’t very organized and its proponents are more united by a desire to bring new life to Christianity than they are organized around any unifying doctrinal position.
When an emergent and a fundamentalist interact they drive one another crazy. The fundamentalist is angry that he can’t pin the emergent down on things that matter the most to him. The emergent tends to be dismissive of the fundamentalist, thinking that his approach has already been proven to be a failure as the influence of Christianity is waned in many areas of the world.
Interacting with these groups is a challenge. The fundamentalist is a labeler. He tags everyone who doesn’t line up with his rigid positions as an enemy. It isn’t hard to get on the wrong side of a fundamentalist. His approach is “if you’re not with us you’re against us.”
On the other hand, it’s easy to get on the good side of an emergent. You can believe a variety of things yet agree that the Church needs to change to reach the lost and be okay in their eyes. You don’t have to really be one of them so long as you aren’t actively opposed to them. Their approach is “if you’re not against us you’re for us.”
Personally, I’m not a fundamentalist because I hold to the traditional Church of the Nazarene approach to Scripture. That is, I think the Bible is fully inspired by God and is inerrant in matters pertaining to our salvation. I can’t be a fundamentalist because I refuse to shoehorn all the historical, scientific, and other “not necessary for our salvation” material into an “it has to be literal or the Bible’s not true” classification.
I get along with the emergents okay, but I’m not one of them. I’m a baby boomer and I don’t think in post-modern terms as they do. To me they feel a bit clannish and sometimes come off as a little arrogant. I’m not convinced that their approach is going to be the big, world changing version of Christianity that they think it will. Still, I guardedly cheer them on. I don’t want to see them de-Christianize Christianity, but I’m ready to see Christianity find itself, to fall in love with Jesus all over again, and to get back to living the Great Commandment and obeying the Great Commission.
Too Many Apologies
Slavery is too serious for an apology and somebody else being a slaveowner is not something for you to apologize for. When somebody who has never owned a slave apologizes for slavery to somebody who has never been a slave, then what began as mushy thinking has degenerated into theatrical absurdity– or, worse yet, politics.
via Thomas Sowell : Too Many Apologies
A Scientist Speaks Out
I have been working in drug discovery over 30 years. I am an experimentalist by training, with a PhD in organic chemistry, and have been with my present company for 22 years, during 20 of which I have been involved in the computational side of drug discovery. I am one of the inventors of the first anti-migraine drug, which won Queen’s Award for Innovation. I am also on the review panels of several learned journals, and I often give presentations and run workshops at major international conferences.
Climategate triggered my interest in the controversy about “global warming” caused by mankind, with CO2 branded as the main culprit. What shocked me the most was the language which the Climategate scientists used to describe anyone who was trying to disagree with the science behind the models that the IPCC was advocating. Labels like “denialist” belong to religion, while skepticism is the driving force behind the scientific truth. Any scientific finding MUST be treated with scepticism, until proven beyond doubt.
via A scientist speaks out | The SPPI Blog
Feral
We watched an episode of Gangland last evening about the GKB street gang in Columbia, SC. As I watched, it seemed to me as if these young men (and women) have just gone feral. They seem to be lacking in any restraint that could be considered part of civilization. I don’t want to call them animals, for they are thinking and speaking, sometimes even intelligently. Sometimes not so much.
I’ll just call them feral humans. Feral humans with red bandannas.
Then I heard a woman this morning on our local call show who expressed that she was afraid her grandchildren would be living in a third world country. She meant the USA.
I connected her thought with the documentary I watched last night, and I became afraid. If the lady who called is right, and if the feral humans I saw last night are an indicator of our future, we are in pretty bad shape.
Tribes of feral humans fighting against other tribes of feral humans for dominance: how does that sound?
Tuesday February 23, 2010
Fighting the EPA
Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli took a gutsy and intelligent step Feb. 17 when he petitioned the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to reconsider its ill-advised “finding” that carbon dioxide creates an endangerment for human health. The endangerment finding would let the EPA battle alleged global warming by regulating emissions of CO2, which of course is the gas that every animal and person exhales with every breath. The finding was ludicrous from the start, and now Mr. Cuccinelli makes a reasonable case that it also was unlawful.
via EDITORIAL: Cuccinelli fights the EPA – Washington Times
Have You No Shame, Sir?
Friday February 19, 2010
Skeptic Denier
Check out this annotated version of the Phil Jones Q&A session: Phil_Jones_Momentous_QA.pdf
Specifically, the Q-and-As confirm what many skeptics have long suspected:
- Neither the rate nor magnitude of recent warming is exceptional.
- There was no significant warming from 1998-2009. According to the IPCC we should have seen a global temperature increase of at least 0.2°C per decade.
- The IPCC models may have overestimated the climate sensitivity for greenhouse gases, underestimated natural variability, or both.
- This also suggests that there is a systematic upward bias in the impacts estimates based on these models just from this factor alone.
- The logic behind attribution of current warming to well-mixed man-made greenhouse gases is faulty.
- The science is not settled, however unsettling that might be.
- There is a tendency in the IPCC reports to leave out inconvenient findings, especially in the part(s) most likely to be read by policy makers.
Benny Hinn’s Marriage Slain in the Spirit
ORANGE, CA – The wife of televangelist Benny Hinn has filed for divorce in California.
Suzanne Hinn filed the papers in Orange County on Feb. 1, citing irreconcilable differences after more than 30 years of marriage. The papers note that the two separated on Jan. 26.
Hinn’s ministry released a statement saying, “Although Pastor Hinn has faithfully endeavored to bring healing to their relationship, those efforts failed.”
As my friend Brian McAnally notes, there is a bit of irony there in that last statement.
via Benny Hinn’s wife files for divorce
Open Theology and the Church of the Nazarene
Open theology has gained wide attention since the 1990s. It enjoys growing influence in the Church of the Nazarene.
Reduced to its bare bones, Open theology affirms that 1) love is uniquely exemplified by God, 2) love is the human ethical imperative, 3) God and creatures enjoy free and mutually-influencing relations, 4) and the future is open and not settled. Open theology affirms that God knows everything that may happen in the future. God knows all possibilities. But God does not know with absolute certainty what every free creature will someday actually do.
Many Christians in the Arminian, Wesleyan, and Holiness traditions are attracted to Open theology. This attraction is due mainly to Open theology’s claims about divine love, creaturely freedom, and the God-creature covenant relationship.
A growing number of Church of the Nazarene members, including some laity, pastors, and professional scholars explicitly identify themselves as advocates of Open theology or have strong sympathies with the tradition.
And I am one of them. Read the whole post from Professor Oord:
Open Theology and the Church of the Nazarene · Thomas Jay Oord
Friday February 12, 2010
Obama’s Reality Gap
Obama’s advisers want him to pull out of his downdraft by getting back to campaign mode. It’s governance as performance art. He’s hosting a bipartisan health-care summit on Feb. 25. Surely, he’ll sound great and spin gorgeous webs of fancy — as the reality gap yawns beneath him.
via Obama’s Reality Gap – Rich Lowry on National Review Online
Thursday February 11, 2010
Crib Notes
Most politicians use “crib notes” of some kind while giving speeches.
Some bring 3×5 cards listing key points. Others refer to handwritten rough drafts. And some even read from pages on which the entire speech has been printed out.
But Barack Obama and Sarah Palin each have their own unique crib notes technology. The two diagrams below analyze how much each type of technology costs per speech.
via Zombie » Crib Notes Technology Cost Analysis
Wednesday February 10, 2010
Captain Phil is Dead
ANCHORAGE, Alaska – Phil Harris, the fishing boat captain whose adventures off the Alaska coast were captured on the television show “Deadliest Catch”, has died, the Discovery Channel said Tuesday night. He was 53.
via ‘Deadliest Catch’ captain Harris dies
Tuesday February 9, 2010
Punch
Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Monday that Iran is set to deliver a “punch” that will stun world powers during this week’s 31st anniversary of the Islamic revolution.
“The Iranian nation, with its unity and God's grace, will punch the arrogance (Western powers) on the 22nd of Bahman (February 11) in a way that will leave them stunned,” Khamenei, who is also Iran’s commander-in-chief, told a gathering of air force personnel.
via Iran anniversary ‘punch’ will stun West: Khamenei
Monday February 8, 2010
Solvency Plan
George Will had me at the first two paragraphs:
In 2013, when President Mitch Daniels, former Indiana governor, is counting his blessings, at the top of his list will be the name of his vice president: Paul Ryan. The former congressman from Wisconsin will have come to office with ideas for steering the federal government to solvency.
Not that Daniels has ever been bereft of ideas. Under him, Indiana property taxes have been cut 30 percent, and for the first time Standard & Poor’s has raised the state’s credit rating to AAA. But in January 2010, Ryan released an updated version of his “Roadmap for America’s Future,” a cure for the most completely predictable major problem that has ever afflicted America.
He goes on to describe Ryan’s tax reform plans. Sounds good to me. The whole idea is to get the economy ticking again after being crippled by entitlements.
Wednesday February 3, 2010
Neo-fundamentalism
Dennis Bratcher is a Nazarene biblical scholar in whom I have a great deal of confidence. Turns out the he is concerned about at least one of the things that concerns me too:
I am becoming increasingly concerned that several high-profile members of the Church of the Nazarene who command attention by their position and influence are openly and aggressively advocating ideas and theologies that are alien to the tradition of which they claim to be a part. The Church of the Nazarene stands clearly in the Arminian-Wesleyan theological tradition. Yet what some are promoting is far more in line with Calvinism and the promotion of a modern form of fundamentalism neo-fundamentalism; see note than they reflect theology and views shaped by Wesleyan perspectives or their own theological tradition. Several have entered the “battle for the Bible” in significant ways, a battle that has its roots in Calvinistic/Reformed theological perspectives and reflects the influence of the modern fundamentalist movement, which the Church of the Nazarene rejected three-quarters of a century ago. That is the same movement that has torn the Southern Baptist Convention apart and threatens to deepen that rift among American churches.
My question is, why should we allow issues and agendas that are not part of our heritage to become central to who we are as Nazarenes with a Wesleyan heritage? Why are so many Nazarenes so eager to buy into this perversion of our heritage and theology without challenging it, or at least without casting a discerning eye on some of the things that are being promoted by these high profile people and groups?
Examples follow. Go read the article. In fact, check out the whole website of the Christian Resource Institute.
Tuesday February 2, 2010
The Wise and Correct Course
Calvin Coolidge said, “The wise and correct course to follow in taxation is not to destroy those who have already secured success, but to create conditions under which everyone will have a better chance to be successful.”
President Obama doesn’t think this way. He doesn't see government as a last resort, preserving liberty in order that citizens might rise to whatever level their character, education, talent and persistence permit. Rather, he sees the needy as the norm and the wealthy as a source of income for his and his fellow progressive’s expensive and unworkable agenda.
via Cal Thomas.
Discourse
As has been demonstrated by Callow (1989), all verbal or written communicative attempts are for the primary purposes of: (1) affecting the emotions of the audience, (2) affecting the ideas of the audience, or (3) affecting the behavior of the audience. There can be no meaningful communication without the communicator choosing one of these three purposes or a combination of them. One can affect the hearer’s emotions by describing one’s own emotional experience (like describing a sunset). One can affect the hearer’s ideas by sharing information with him (like explaining why Washington confessed to cutting down the cherry tree). Affecting the ideas includes the request for information. One can affect the hearer’s behavior by appealing to him to behave in a specific manner (like requesting someone to close the door).
These three intents are the most basic characteristics of the primary semantic genres of discourse.
John C. Tuggy in David Alan Black et al., Linguistics and New Testament Interpretation : Essays on Discourse Analysis (Nashville, Tenn.: Broadman Press, 1992), 46.
Monday February 1, 2010
Michael Spencer’s Book
Been waiting for a long, long time for this book by the Internet Monk, Michael Spencer. Michael is a long-time online friend of mine.
What you may or may not know is that Michael has had a terrible turn of events in his health. He is fighting cancer. He has pretty much lost his job and needs to raise money to afford COBRA payments to keep his insurance.
So, it would please me a great deal if my readers would pre-order Michael’s book. I’m sure it would be a great encouragment to Michael and his family, as well.
Michael has been extremely influential to me, and if I have had any influence on you, he has too.
Graphic courtesy of my friend Aaron Smith (aka CulturalSavage). By the way, Aaron is a terrific web designer and photographer, and he would love to work for you.
Confessional
This post is intended to be a little more personal than the norm. I hope you don’t mind, but I have some things I need to dump.
This is the winter of our discontent. There have been a slew of occurrences that have stacked up. Any one or two of them would have been easily handled, but the stack has been a bit too much. We have been pretty despondent at times, but hope has not died. Now we are in fix-it mode. We can’t go on as we have gone on.
It all started when our best friends were let go from the church staff. That was bad enough, and it threw us for a loop. But then we found out that our best friends weren’t’ really our best friends. They apparently blamed me for causing their change of status, or at least for not redeeming the situation in their favor. Repeated attempts to clear things up were rebuffed. Maybe time will heal the wounds all around, but I doubt it. We are terribly wounded and I guess they are too.
Then we made the decision to try to be supportive of our church in this matter I just mentioned. Several others of our friends took exception to our stance. And now we are pretty much out of friends. I guess the better approach would have been to badmouth the pastor and join the little pockets of people complaining and threatening to leave the church over the dismissal of our staff guy. We tried to take the high road, and have been cut out of the will of our friends for it.
I can take the heat for taking the high road. In fact, I expect to take some heat and sometimes I even relish a few singes here and there on my psyche. But Carol can’t handle it. This caused her to tailspin out of control. She saw people that she had poured herself into, giving her time, her money, her ear, and her tender spirit to, turn around and turn their back on her because we tried to be supportive of the church and of the people who were stepping in to fill in the gaps on a volunteer basis. To save Carol’s mental health, we should have joined to little groups that met after church on Sunday to complain about the music and the pastor and the terrible situation we are all in because the pastor fired the staff guy. We could have felt superior and kept our egos intact. We could have come to worship to watch it as we would come to watch a house burning or a train wrecking.
Carol is still tailspinning, but I believe we are going to pull out before this thing hits the ground.
Add on to these major things a lot of other major things that are not so much church related, and we find ourselves in a funk and a fugue and blue crapstorm, all rolled together.
I am now wrestling with some heavy stuff. I definitely need to make some changes in how we live in order to cope with the current crisis and future crises.
Part of the problem comes from being on the church board and knowing all the politics of what goes on in the church. If you have read my blog for more than a little bit, you know how I hate church politics. And just recently we have seen a sparklingly bright and wonderful couple leave our board and our church because the politics became too much to handle. How I hate that! I’m pretty sure God is not pleased.
So, I seriously doubt I will ever, ever, ever consent to be on a church board anymore. Maybe I can handle it, but Carol surely cannot, and my obligation to her is far stronger than to the local church. (Note: I did not say “God”; I said “the local church”. They are not the same thing.) I serve through May, and then never again.
No big loss, though. I’m getting old. My ideas were once upon a time valued, but now I’m pretty much on the sidelines anyway. The church board will be better without me. We’re in a big youth movement anyway.
The other big decision has to do with the Sunday School class I teach. I’m not too sure I am really being effective anymore. I kind of think it’s time to step aside and let someone teach it who has a real passion for it. I’m very weary of the whole thing. Maybe my energy will come back, but maybe not. We’ll see. Maybe it’s just SAD.
We are definitely making some changes in our attitudes and commitments and obligations. How that all shakes out remains to be seen. Film at eleven.
Two Stories, Back to Back
My local news-talk station was already on when I started my truck this morning. I was just in time for the local news.
First story: A libertarian city councilman in Indianapolis is proposing to allow law-abiding licensed people to carry guns in city parks, which is currently disallowed. The station had three soundbites. The first was a quick one from the proposer, the next two were from a couple at the dog park in Broad Ripple. Ripple is a throwback hippy/yuppy/greeny/lib neighborhood, our version of Haight-Ashbury or Greenwich Village. The couple were appalled at the thought of guns in the park. The guy, being a guy, said something like it would make him wet his pants. And the gal said they would just leave the dog park if they saw someone with a gun. She said it with a quivering voice that almost brought a tear to my eye. End of story.
Second story: A young man was killed last evening in a shootout in a city park in Indianapolis. But wait, I say, how can this be? There is a city ordinance against having guns in city parks, and yet apparently a group of seven youths, age 18 to 20, had at least two guns among them. They broke the ordinance, if you can believe it.
You see, here’s the deal. You can make all the laws you want to, but criminals don’t seem to obey them. In fact, isn’t that kind of what defines someone as a criminal? Criminal, crime. See the connection?
So, I will not put my feet on the hallowed ground of an Indianapolis city park as long as criminals are the only ones who are allowed to have guns. Do I look stupid or something?
Indianapolis has some great city parks, including Eagle Creek Park, which is one of the largest and best municipal parks in the USA. I wouldn’t go there on a dare.
I hope this ordinance passes, but I don’t give it much hope.
Friday January 29, 2010
Almost Lunch Time
Wednesday January 27, 2010
Public Priorities
Public Priorities Per Pew Polling
Source: Pew Research Center.
via American Thinker Blog: Graph of the Day for January 27, 2010
Philosopher-King
I heard Victor Davis Hanson speak on this subject yesterday on The Dennis Miller Show. I think he has it exactly right.
In Plato’s ideal society, philosopher kings and elite Guardians shepherded the rabble to force them to do the “right” thing.
To prevent the unwashed from doing anything stupid, the all-powerful, all-wise Guardians often had to tell a few “noble” lies. And, of course, these caretakers themselves were exempt from most rules they made for others.
We are now seeing such thinking in the Obama administration and among its supporters.
via VDH’s Private Papers::Our Philosopher-King Obama
Tuesday January 26, 2010
The Search for Authenticity
I’m sick and tired of the evangelical claptrap.
We think that that following Jesus means building a big and prosperous church, centered on a campus, focused on a ministry staff, intent on providing a sterling worship and entertainment package on Sunday morning, and geared towards self-replication of people who support the enterprise and consume its products.
That, my friends and fellow churchmen, is a wilderness. Actually, a dry desert. There is no sustenance there for me.
What I want to know is this: how can I follow Jesus authentically in the here and now?
I’m not interested in recreating the church of another era, although they may have models that are helpful in my pursuit. The early church lived in a different time, and its experience can go only so far in providing a pattern to follow.
I’m not interested in recreating the church of my youth, as many people my agre want to do. I realize that is only a microtomed cross-section of what ought to be.
Nor am I interested in creating a church that will have wide appeal to my neighborhood. Walmart and Starbucks already have a corner on that product.
In fact, I would need little impetus to disconnect from the institutional church, as we know it, altogether.
I just want to follow Jesus. That’s all.
The Cycle
Monday January 25, 2010
Odiferous Words
Words of wisdom from pastor Kenn Blanchard: His Words Are Like A Fart
Friday January 22, 2010
Climategate Redux
Not surprisingly, the blatant corruption exposed at Britain’s premiere climate institute was not contained within the nation’s borders. Just months after the Climategate scandal broke, a new study has uncovered compelling evidence that our government’s principal climate centers have also been manipulating worldwide temperature data in order to fraudulently advance the global warming political agenda.
via Climategate: CRU Was But the Tip of the Iceberg
The Good Doctor Krauthammer
After Coakley’s defeat, Obama pretended that the real cause was a generalized anger and frustration “not just because of what’s happened in the last year or two years, but what’s happened over the last eight years.”
Let’s get this straight: The antipathy to George W. Bush is so enduring and powerful that . . . it just elected a Republican senator in Massachusetts? Why, the man is omnipotent.
via Charles Krauthammer – What Scott Brown’s win means for the Democrats – washingtonpost.com
International Sand Registry
This Valentines Day, give your sweetheart the most romantic gift she’ll ever receive — name a grain of sand after her.
Hi, I’m Rocky McRob, with the International Sand Registry. For only $54, we will name a grain of sand after anyone on your gift list. Since 1979, International Sand Registry has named countless grains of sand after celebrities, dignitaries, royalty — and individuals just like you.
We will send the recipient an incredible gift package which includes an 8 x 10 individualized certificate, suitable for framing, with the details of your grain of sand and a fascinating book about sand.
Your grain of sand will be registerd in the International Sand Registry for all eternity, and entered into the Library of Congress Copyright database.
For only $108, you can have the deluxe sand registry package, which includes everything in the standard package, plus an actual grain of sand, suitable for mounting, just like the one named after your sweetheart.
Make this the most talked-about Valentines Day ever. Name a grain of sand after your sweetheart.
Tuesday January 19, 2010
America is Like Haiti
The recent earthquake in the island nation of Haiti illustrates the fragility of all societies. While Haiti is unusual in its lack of infrastructure and its high dependence on foreign aid–more than half of its annual government budget comes from foreign aid–it is still similar in many ways to other nations: From the 1960s to the turn of the 21st century, as in many other nations, Haiti became an urbanized nation. Before the 1960s a substantial portion of Haitian society still lived on rural semi-self sufficient farmsteads. But as urbanization and specialization went on, fewer and fewer people lived off the land and more and more citizens became dependent on foreign aid and a scant number of industrial jobs. This trend has been repeated around the globe, making nearly all societies increasingly vulnerable to disasters, man-made or natural. The resiliency of traditional agrarian societies has sadly become a thing of the past. Here in America, 2% of the population now feeds the other 98%. This is now something that First, Second, and Third World nations have in common. America is more like Haiti than we’d like to think. Human nature is the same in every culture and nation: fundamentally sinful.
via America is More Like Haiti than We’d Like to Think – SurvivalBlog.com
Monday January 18, 2010
Harbinger
Only raw and unrestrained liberalism could have destroyed the world’s 8th-largest economy. Boasting unparalleled assets in agriculture, high technology, entertainment, and tourism, and blessed with ample energy resources, deep-water ports and ideal weather, California has nonetheless managed to turn itself into a perfect dystopia.
Friday January 15, 2010
Disconnect
And Peggy Noonan comes to a similar conclusion, though she approaches the subject from a different angle.
The people are here, and he is there. The popularity of his health care plan is very low, at 35% support. Someone on television the other day noted it is as low as George Bush’s popularity ratings in 2008.
Yet—and this is the key part—the president does not seem to see or hear. He does not respond. He is not supple, able to hear reservations and see opposition and change tack. He has a grim determination to bull this thing through. He negotiates each day with Congress, not with the people. But the people hate Congress! Has he not noticed?
via Peggy Noonan: Slug the Obama Story ‘Disconnect’ – WSJ.com
President Obama’s Fall
The good doctor has an apropos analysis of Obama, one year in, called “One Year Out”. The lede:
What went wrong? A year ago, he was king of the world. Now President Obama’s approval rating, according to CBS, has dropped to 46 percent — and his disapproval rating is the highest ever recorded by Gallup at the beginning of an (elected) president’s second year.
via Charles Krauthammer – One year out: President Obama’s fall – washingtonpost.com
James Mungro, Coach
I have thought for a long time that James would be a good coach when he left the NFL. I guess he agrees with me.
“I know what I’m trying to be and that’s just being a good role model for these guys,” said Mungro. “Teach them not just football stuff but teach them stuff that’s going to help them longer down the road just besides playing football on the field.
“Working with these guys this year has been tremendous.”
via Colts: James Mungro Starts Coaching Career at DePauw
Wednesday January 13, 2010
Go Get ‘Em
Like the Mafia
Global Warming Is a Religion
It is so gratifying when people I respect agree with me.
Manmade global warming, for many, is an Earth-worshipping religion. The essential feature of any religion is that its pronouncements are to be accepted on the basis of faith as opposed to hard evidence. Questioning those pronouncements makes one a sinner.
via Walter E. Williams : Global Warming Is a Religion
Tuesday January 12, 2010
Boiling It Down
Far better to be blown to smithereens than to be politically incorrect.
via Thomas Sowell : “Notional” Security
Friday January 8, 2010
Wrong Headline
Nigerian bomb suspect faces court hearing
Whereas, the headline should read:
Nigerian plane bomber faces waterboarding; divulges information about more plots
But not in today’s America with today’s government. What happened to cause the government to be against the country? Let’s dump this government.
Thursday January 7, 2010
Wow!
I’m impressed. You need to read Ann Coulter’s response to the Brit Hume on Tiger Woods flap. Simplistic? Yes. But you have to keep it simple so liberal ignoramuses can understand it, which is what Ann is so good at.
Someone mentioned Christianity on television recently and liberals reacted with their usual howls of rage and blinking incomprehension.
via AnnCoulter: IF YOU CAN FIND A BETTER DEAL, TAKE IT!
I Like Guns, Too
Monday January 4, 2010
Whose Fault Is It?
I think Mona is looking at this the right way. Do you disagree?
I love the closer:
And here’s one more question: How does an over-grand, overreaching would-be messiah learn the humility to at least put first things first?
via Mona Charen : Whose Fault Is It? – Townhall.com
