NPM: Detroit

Despite a short stint up in the Wolverine backwoods, I've spent over 75% of my life living one block from the city of Detroit. I grew up in a house across the street from my grandparents and I now live in my grandparents old home. Funny how life can work out sometimes.

Anyone paying attention to the News is well aware of the problems with Detroit. I love the city. I love how dirty, grimey, and unpolished it appears to outsiders. I love the view you get driving north on I-75 coming over the Rouge River Bridge and the city skyline appears with the RenCen glistening and the Ambassador bridge in the foreground and the smoke and haze of manufacturing surrounding the beauty. I'm pretty unapologetic of my love for all things Detroit (even Kid Rock and Eminem, but not so much Lions and City Council)

They say New York is the city that never sleeps, well Detroit is the city that never stops working.

That was until they starting bailing out Wall St.

I won't aplogize for this video, and it's as in your face as it needs to be.

“Pardon me if I don’t shed a tear...‘Cause they’re selling make-believe and we don’t buy that here.” - John Rich

Unfortunately, no one's listening.

NPM: Black and White

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. And you'd be hard-pressed to find someone who wouldn't agree with you. A camera in the right person's hand can be as powerful as any great work of art or composition. For quite sometime now a niche market has developed within photography focusing on black-and-white and the artistic ability it provides. According to Wikipedia,

"Today black-and-white media often has a "nostalgic", historic, or anachronistic
feel to it."

Who doesn't love black and white pictures? They usually capture a moment that communicates pure beauty. The magic is in there simplicity. Just one snapshot, catching a slice of life, that can sweep through our emotions. Stripped down to bare essentials, everything covered in shades of gray.

It evokes a simpler, much more easier time.

How long before my grand-children look at pictures of my life and "see the story of my life right there in black and white."

What I mean is, many of us nowadays hear the phrase "back in the day" to explain a time when things were easier and a Norman Rockwell moments was more commonplace than a car in the driveway. Dad worked, mom stayed home, and Eddie Haskell was your biggest problem.

But were those times easier?

Did my grandfather find times were great and things were easier as he walked to his factory job every day? Did my grandmother find her life charming and quintessential washing laundry by hand and walking to the grocery store with her kids everyday? Did they view their experiences as Norman Rockwell moments.

So, when will my grandkids pull out some old pictures and see my life in Black and White?

Really, is any time in life ever really simple and completely pure? Black and white? I don’t think so.

”A picture’s worth a thousand words but you can’t see what those shades of
gray keep covered …You should’ve seen it in color.” - Jamey Johnson

I'm on Board

Unless we are anywhere near Somalia or Rush shows up.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORING!!!

This "Presidential Debate" is absolutely brutal.

Neither one of them are answering any of the damn questions.

Lehere specifically asked each candidate what are they going to cut out of thier budgets and programs to help accomodate that probable, supposed $700 billion buy-out, and they spent (no pun intended) more time talking about what they want to do. Be a leader!!! Be a Maverick!!! Bring change!!! SOMEONE...ANYONE

AND THEN LEHER HIT THEM ON IT!!!!

"Neither one of you have said what you would do to make up for this buyout"

"One of you will come into office in January and be staring down one of the biggest and toughest times our country as ever faced."

AND THE BOTH GO BACK TO PARTISAN POLITICS.

"We have to do this..." "I want to do this..." healthcare, education, defense, blah, blah, blah...

And then Lehere says let me ask you the same question a different way to try and get an answer...

The poor guy can't get a straight answer from either one of these chumps, and one of them will be President.....

*sigh*

Hey, did you know that McCain is a Maverick?

Did you know that McCain agreed with Bush 90% of the time?

Did you know that Barack Obama is the most far left voting Senator?

Did you know that John McCain was a war hero?

Did you know McCain was for the war?

Did you know that Barack opposed the war from the beginning?



Do you know what John or Barack are going to do to solve the current crisis?

What are they going to do to maybe balance the budget?

Do we know what actual leadership qualities either of these guys bring to the table?

Crapping the Bed

Being thoroughly confused to just what in the hell is going on with all this financial meltdown crisis and watching the Stock Market drop 1,000 points in just a couple I've been trying to read a whole hell of a lot and try and figure out to what extent my family will be affected.

By all accounts, with the exception of the 401K, HSA's, and IRA's we have, we should be ok going through this. We only are in debt the cost of our mortgage (which is only 30% of the orignal mortgage cost, so even if our house has lost value, our loss what be percentage points), and in addition to the 10% of pre-tax money we put into 401K's, HSA's, and IRA's we always aim to save an additional 10% of take home pay. No Credit Card debt, School Bills, or Car Payments. So, we are not overborrowed or in heavy debt but we'll need to still do some buckling down if we want to keep on saving. I am pretty convinced, as of now, this is great chance to Buy-Low, extremely Low.

ANYWAY, here are a slew of articles, commentary, and blogs on the situation for you to read if you want. They have helped me to really understand what in the hell is going on.

• Maybe the best and clearest explanation from the WSJ "No end in Sight"
• Doctor Doom from Forbes
• Time Magazine weighing in (with a very lengthy piece) to let you know how massive this perfect storm is.
• From the BBC, which is basically saying see you later to the Clinton Democrats (don't let the door hit you on the way out) and this modern anti-fiscal conservative Republican Party (good riddance!!!)
• And, from the Atlantic it's not all George W's fault.......
• it's ours as Deneen (some good Perotesque charts and graphs) and Larison say (this is succint, to the point, and brilliant)

Please make sure your seatbelts are buckled, your trays are in their upright and locked position and you have a snickers bar (or two) - we're going to be here awhile.

Extermination and War

Chilling piece from Joe Carter in Culture11 about how China and India, among other countries, are exterminating shocking numbers of baby girls in the womb. Hey, if abortion is legal and accepted, what right do any of us have to tell Indian and Chinese mothers they may not kill their baby daughters -- sorry, female fetuses -- because they'd prefer to have boys? Right, feminists?

Beyond the confluence of feticide and sexism, Carter foresees violence in the womb leading to violence elsewhere:

Even if we set aside the moral horror of a world that is killing its daughters, this oft-ignored trend of female feticide could pose a greater threat than many of the high-profile concerns that are touted by the media. For instance, the Chinese government says that by the year 2020 the men in that country will outnumber women by 300 million--roughly the entire population of the United States.

Imagine hordes of men, numbering in the hundreds of millions, who will never be able to have sexual contact with a woman, never be able to marry, and never leave a descendant to carry on their lineage. Think about the level of anger and frustration that will be generated. Now consider the fact that the number of males fit for military service (ages 18-49) in the U.S. is currently and remains steady at 54 million.

Context

Cheez-it, cheez-it.

One of the worse kept secrets right now is the continued rising price of gas. $4 a gallon right means to me that it costs me $12 a day for one round-trip drive to work (25 mpg, 76 miles round trip). And that's if it's normal and then I do no errand running during lunch or after work. $60 a week isn't too bad and thankfully, Michele and I are in a spot right now where it is affordable for us. None the less, I've been trying to figure out a way to car pool. Back in 2006 and the very early part of 2007 I was able to car-pool with a co-worker. You know back when gas was $2.50 a gallon! We took turns driving weekly back and forth to work. At that time we were working on the same team and were able to hold the same hours. Since then we've both been promoted. Me within my same team and she took a position with a new company that my company spun off. So both our hours kind of increased and she had to trvale more and then we had Seth and I needed to have a car in case I had to run home...so it has fallen apart. Now no one lives close enough to me to car pool.

So, I started looking into the bus system. It is very extensive system in Detroit actually. It's surprising actually. I live in Lincoln Park exit 42 off of I-75 (same house you and JP visited me Gary, way back in the summer of 2001). It's about 8 miles South from downtown Detroit. I work in Auburn Hills, MI (exit 79 off of I-75) about 3 miles from the Palace of Auburn Hills. My normal daily routine is that I leave the house no later than 6:45am (6:30 ideal). Arrive at work by 7:30 and then leave anywhere between 4pm and 5pm. Sometimes I take an hour lunch sometimes I don't. I prefer not to take a lunch and leave as soon as possible so I can be home. I kind of figured the bus thing would result in more time away from home, but would include some cost savings as well as the experience in public transportation. The ability to meet all kinds of people, see some different parts of the Metro Detroit area, even allow me to some work on my laptop as I occassionally have to do at home.

So I started to research the routes and potential pick-up and drop-off points, would I need a ride to the bus-stop or from the bus-stop, how much would I have to walk. All those details.

So what does all this have to do with Cheez-Its?

I'm getting there.

I was shocked at what would be required of me to use the bus system. The best I could find for my trip to work was to leave at 5:13am and arrive to work by 8:06am. This meant I would have to walk a total of 45 minutes, wait for a bus for 13 minutes, and ride 2 different buses for 2 hours combined. And that was just to get to work by 8:06am. But to get to the bus stop by 5:13 meant I'd have to get up at like 4:30am at the minimum. Not that ideal.

Then for my trip home, assuming I can leave after working a straight 8 only (not that likely). I would hop the bus at 4:18 and be home at 7:46.

Basically I would have less than 9.5 hours at home...throw in 6 or 7 hours of sleep and I'm down to a couple hours of awake time at home. My kid goes to bed now at 8:30 - 8:45, I'd see him for an hour a day at the best, thus leaving just an hour with the lovely and talented one and myself.

This idea kind of went out the window almost immediately.

And then I got to thinking....

Sometimes you need context.

Con-text, con-text.

No idea how I remembered this movie, and if you search YouTube you'll find a lot more on this movie. But we've all heard the stories from famous athletes, people on TV, and the kids down the street or in our Youth Groups.

Sometimes we all deserve a slap in the face.

Context, context

Bureaucracy vs. Humanity

In Poland, traditional farmers are being driven out of business because of European Union regulations favoring factory farming. The ironic thing about it is that cultural and culinary trends are shifting in the direction of precisely the kind of traditional farming that they do. But they are going to be wiped out by Brussels' cookie-cutter regulations.

Kirk said that true conservatives have an "affection for the proliferating variety and mystery of human existence, as opposed to the narrowing uniformity, egalitarianism, and utilitarian aims of most radical systems." Conservatives ought to be on the side of the Polish farmers. I've no doubt that many who call themselves conservative will sneer at this thought, and say that the Poles should give way to market efficiency. Well: the price of something doesn't always reflect its full cost.

So, is God still judging America?

Thanks to the 4 people who voted and the 3 who left comments (I'm sure those 3 also voted) on whether or not you think God is still judging the nations. I know I have more readers than that so maybe I should have included a "I do not know" option so you could have added to the conversation.

Even with the small response here at MP, the conversation has continued offline on this whole God still judging the nations discussion. As a result, this interesting question has raised it's ugly head.

In Romans, we are commanded to obey our government. As such, were our forefathers very, very wrong to engage in the Revolution? Afterall, it was an uprising against the government resulting in war? Which resulted in a complete over turn of said government.

So, was the Revolution wrong in God's eyes?

Is God still judging America for those actions?

Leave some comments, vote in the poll and let's see what we all think about this.

Politics and Culture

"The central conservative truth is that it is culture, not politics, that determines the success of a society. The central liberal truth is that politics can change a culture and save it from itself." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Culture and politics are intimately related. And the current economic crash we appear to be on is proof of this. The financial recklessness that engulfed Wall Street and Main Street both didn't come from nowhere, and it wasn't imposed on us from on high. No, the politicians that allowed this to happen came out of a culture that enabled it. Politicians aren't created in some lab or basement or factory and come out minted 100% whole; they are human beings who are produced by the culture they serve, and as such reflect the strengths and weaknesses of that culture.

How many politicians of either party could have hoped to have been elected to national office over the past quarter century by preaching thrift, self-discipline and self-sacrifice?

Already we can see our tendency is to blame other people for this confrontation with limits. It's the Chinese and Indians. It's the oil companies. It's Bush/Cheney. It's the Islamofascists. It’s like heavy traffic. Heavy traffic is always other people. When you say 'traffic was terrible' you’re never talking about yourself. Well, folks, the traffic is terrible. But the last thing we should be doing is building more roads.

Here's what I don't get about conservatives (i.e. me). We are able to recognize the danger in Big Government; our understanding of the fallenness of human nature makes us rightly suspicious of the concentration of power in the hands of the state. But what makes us so willing to disbelieve that concentrating so much unchecked power in the hands of financiers will lead us to paradise? Is the financier any less human and more angelic than the government bureaucrat? Is he less susceptible to greed, to envy, and to all the ordinary vices that deform human character and cause us to behave in foolish and reckless ways? Law and culture are two gifts of civilization to help us order our liberty, and put constraints on individual action. Too much constraint, and you stifle life, growth and creativity; too little, and you have shipwreck.

God's Judgement on the Nation cont....

Wouldn't you know it........

Following a reference from one of my buddies in response to reading "God's Judgement on the Nation" he lead me to a couple resources he knew of that would perhaps answer some of the questions I proposed in that post.

The issue came up not long ago in an Mars Hill Audio Journal interview with Prof. Steven Keillor, author of a book called "God's Judgment." Unfortunately, if you click on the link you have to pay for the podcast or other form of media you'd like to use to hear it. I didn't get to hear the podcast but was given the highlights and the following link with an excerpt from a critical but largely favorable review of the Keillor book, which appeared in Books & Culture and was written by Prof. Brad Gregory of Notre Dame:

Those of us skeptical of Keillor's aim [to show that it's possible to argue seriously that God intervenes in history -- my note.] need not accept his premises in order to see the force of his arguments. His claim that the Bible offers a divinely revealed understanding of history can be tested (albeit never proved) by its analytical power in interpreting major historical events. Keillor seeks "to correlate known causes of the event with known categories of divine holiness and judgment" as disclosed in Scripture, well aware that such interpretations can be perilous and are often abused:

We must beware of presumption in claiming to know the mind of God. But the pendulum has swung to the opposite extreme, where the inability to know for sure morphs into a refusal to ask questions that cannot be known with certainty and then into a dismissal of the category of divine judgment.

In short: if God's purposes are such and such, then certain events are plausibly understood as his judgments in the flow of human history.

I won't get into the details of Keillor's theory of how we can discern God's purposes in historical events -- the B&C review does this nicely. Bible Girl's column, though, was a good reminder as to how rarely many of us serious Christians ever think about God's judgment with regard to national events -- and how unbiblical that is. In the Mars Hill interview, Keillor explicitly discusses the temptation to read divine purposes into the events after the fact, or perhaps to justify wars and other events. But just because it's common for people to do such a thing doesn't mean that we should dismiss entirely the idea that God uses dramatic events to chastise nations and to teach them something about their behavior.

We all remember Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson's pronouncement right after the 9/11 attacks that the event was God's judgment on America brought about because of the actions of the abortionists and gays. When I heard that, I was enraged and furious. Some time later, though, I had to confront the possibility that they were right, that the events of that day were, in some sense, permitted by God as a judgment upon America. I think that given the symbolic power of the attacks, a far stronger case can be made that if -- if -- the God of the Bible intended those attacks as a judgment, the symbolic meaning of the targets would lead us to conclude that He was trying to teach us a lesson about the corrupting power of wealth and materialism (the Twin Towers), and about American militarism (the Pentagon). That interpretation wouldn't suit the political purposes of the Revs. Falwell and Robertson, but it makes a lot more sense to me. See the difference?

It seems to me no bad thing for American Christians to think more rigorously about how our nation measures up to the Biblical standard, and how God might be speaking to us collectively through historical events to call us back to obedience and fidelity. We so often assume that our national aspirations and intentions are consonant with the Almighty's, and that's a profoundly hubristic assumption. So many US Christians support the idea that spreading liberal democracy is a fulfillment of the Great Commission, a sort of divine "mission civilisatrice " for the world, that we don't even stop to consider how God might see what we do. Even the Chosen People fell away from the divine will, and suffered for it. Why shouldn't we?

In the Mars Hill interview, Keillor said that one reason we modern Americans are uncomfortable thinking about interpreting history in this way is that we are opposed to the idea of collective guilt. We judge individuals, not groups, in our legal system. We expect God's judgment to conform to that model. But insofar as the Bible is a reliable testimony of God's literal historical dealings with humanity, we are imposing our own model on Him, and it's baseless. He does judge nations. Neither the United States nor righteous Americans are immune.

So: laugh at Bible Girl if you want to, but whether or not you agree with her conclusion, she's standing on firm Biblical ground in asking the right questions.

God's Judgement on the Nation

This is some interesting stuff I came across and has me really thinking just what it is I believe.

Bible Girl, aka Julie Lyons, is a white Pentecostal who keeps a blog at the Dallas Observer (Dallas' weekly Alt-mag). From what I can gather she worshipes at a black church. And as you will see, she apparently has a history of being fearlessly honest in her writing.

She's got a column about why, even though she remembers a Nigerian pastor prophesying in 2001 that after the Bush years, God would give America a black president, and even though she's a pro-life D will not consider voting Republican until the GOP gets serious about what she regards as racial justice, she will not vote for Barack Obama. The reason? Abortion. Excerpt:

It is interesting how Scripture virtually ignores a king’s political or military accomplishments. Jeroboam II, for example, presided over a time of great prosperity and influence for Israel. Yet the Bible dismisses these things in a few brusque sentences. Jeroboam II ultimately failed in keeping God’s commands, and he was judged to be evil. Because he called evil good, he caused the people to do evil as well. End of story; over and out.

Which brings me to abortion again. I’m one of those people who was never passionate about this issue until I had a child of my own -- kind of like the folks who don’t care about famine in faraway places until they see the pictures of starving children. God touched my conscience one day concerning abortion; today I passionately oppose it and call myself a pro-life Democrat.

I see it as an elemental thing: the value of life. You couldn’t identify an issue that cuts to the core more than that.

I won’t say I’m the deepest thinker on this subject. It’s just simple to me. I will put no other god before me, neither will I play God and make decisions reserved solely for him. Every time man has been given the power to decide who deserves to live and who deserves to die, hideous things have resulted.

The Middle Passage. The Holocaust. The Nazis’ extermination of the mentally retarded and gypsies. Genocide in Armenia, Rwanda, Darfur. The executions of innocents in Texas and other states. Abortion.

More

Yet I can’t escape the words of Kings. God will judge a leader by one thing: his faithfulness to God’s Word on matters for which the Christian position is clear.
No, that’s not a fashionable concept these days. It won’t win me many friends in the circles I travel. I do understand that we don’t live in a theocracy; our nation is governed by a constitution. As voters, we deal in a continuum of hope and reality. We don’t get everything we want.

Well, whoever said the world would understand or approve of followers of Jesus Christ?

I believe that Barack Obama will be our next president; the hand of God is upon him. If you read Kings, though, that can cut many ways.

But I will not give him my vote.

So, does God still judge nations?

I mean her explanation is unusual. She based her conclusion in large part on her reading of the Bible, and its clear testimony that God intervenes in history to judge nations that fall away from His will. She is withholding her vote from Obama because of her very real conviction that God's judgment will fall on this nation if it fully embraces the legalized extermination of unborn lives (nearly 50 million of whom have died at the hands of abortionists since Roe v. Wade was legalized in 1973).

For non-believers, it is obviously foolishness to make a political decision based on fear of God's judgment. But do believers really have the option not to consider it? Abraham Lincoln didn't think so. His Second Inaugural Address framed the Civil War as God's judgment on America for the sin of slavery. Excerpt (again):

The Almighty has His own purposes. "Woe unto the world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh." If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him?

I don't think Lincoln was speaking figuratively. He really believed the Civil War was an act of divine judgment. Anyone who takes the Bible seriously as a record of God's dealing with His people in history cannot escape the testimony in the Old Testament (Hebrew Bible) of God withdrawing his protection from Israel in response to its stiff-necked behavior. God sent the Prophets to call Israel back to holiness. And when that didn't work, He allowed chastisement to humble his Chosen Nation.

If we believe that God dealt with Israel that way, why wouldn't he deal with us, and with any other nation, that way?

Bummer

Unfortunately the HTML banner tag has got to come down.....

Mike Huckabee formally withdrew from the Republican race and endorsed John McCain. Good for him. He got blown out in Texas last night -- exit polling showed that more Texas Evangelicals voted for McCain than for Huck. I didn't want it to end this way, of course, but it has, and Huckabee's withdrawal was graceful and honorable. "I'd rather lose an election than lose the principles that got me into politics in the first place," he said. I loved his paying tribute to the little men and women who sacrificed for his campaign, "a voice for the hard-working people who lift heavy things every day." It was heartfelt, and his marvelous exit speech reminded me why I fell for Huck in the first place -- and why I hope this isn't the last we see of him.

By any measure, Huckabee accomplished so very, very much, and on little more than his ability to give a great speech, and to convince people of his authenticity. He outlasted the mighty, multimillion-dollar Mitt Romney campaign, and in fact was critically important in derailing it. Had he remained after tonight, he would have come off as a crank and a dead-ender. By going out on a high note, and pledging to do everything he can for the GOP this fall, he's done a lot to ensure his continuing influence in the party.

I'd like to ask Huck backers (and anyone really) what should our man do now? He'll be a formidable campaigner for the GOP this fall, that's for sure. But assuming he doesn't get the vice presidential nomination, what about after the election?

Rumor has it he may try and run in the Senate race in Arkansas (deadline to file is Monday). Some have suggested he could succeed James Dobson as the voice of Evangelicals. Maybe McCain picks him as a member of the Cabinet? Maybe he goes back to church, starts preaching again and we never hear from him again.

An Inconvenient Conference

This weekend, my family and I (or should I just say my family?) travelled to Cedar Springs (15 miles or so North of Grand Rapids) to visit some college friends and to partake in the festivities of a first birthday party for their son Ethan. Good times for sure.

But during the festivities, I believe it was channel 8 news ended up on the TV and the weatherman proceeded to tell the viewing public that February 2008 was going to go down as the snowiest ever for Grand Rapids and only had 16% sunshine the whole month.

What a truly incovenient month it has been for Grand Rapids and really the whole left coast of Michigan. And I can tell you that Metro Detroit has not been much better at all. Probably right on the same track. And again today, 3-6 inches of snow.

It has almost become something of a joke when some "global warming" conference has to be cancelled because of a snowstorm or bitterly cold weather.

But stampedes and hysteria are no joke -- and creating stampedes and hysteria has become a major activity of those hyping a global warming "crisis."

They mobilize like-minded people from a variety of occupations, call them all "scientists" and then claim that "all" the experts agree on a global warming crisis.

Their biggest argument is that there is no argument.

A whole cottage industry has sprung up among people who get grants, government agencies who get appropriations, politicians who get publicity and the perpetually indignant who get something new to be indignant about. It gives teachers something to talk about in school instead of teaching.
Those who bother to check the facts often find that not all those who are called scientists are really scientists and not all of those who are scientists are specialists in climate. But who bothers to check facts these days?

A new and very different conference on global warming was and is currently being held in New York City, under the sponsorship of the Heartland Institute, on March 2nd to March 4th -- weather permitting.

It is called an "International Conference on Climate Change." Its subtitle is "Global Warming: Truth or Swindle?" Among those present will be professors of climatology, along with scientists in other fields and people from other professions.

They come from universities in England, Hungary, and Australia, as well as from the United States and Canada, and include among other dignitaries the president of the Czech Republic.

There will be 98 speakers and 400 participants.

The theme of the conference is that "there is no scientific consensus on the causes or likely consequences of global warming."

Many of the participants in this conference are people who have already expressed skepticism about either the prevailing explanations of current climate change or the dire predictions about future climate change.

These include authors of such books as "Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1500 Years" by Fred Singer and Dennis Avery, and "Shattered Consensus," edited by Patrick J. Michaels.

This will be one of the rare opportunities for the media to hear the other side of the story -- for those old-fashioned journalists who still believe that their job is to inform the public, rather than promote an agenda.

The subtitle of the upcoming conference -- "Global Warming: Truth or Swindle?" -- is also the title of a British television program that is now available on DVD in the United States. It is a devastating debunking of the current "global warming" hysteria.

Nobody denies that there is such a thing as a greenhouse effect. If there were not, the side of the planet facing away from the sun would be freezing every night.

There is not even a lot of controversy over temperature readings. What is fundamentally at issue are the explanations, implications and extrapolations of these temperature readings.

The party line of those who say that we are heading for a global warming crisis of epic proportions is that human activities generating carbon dioxide are key factors responsible for the warming that has taken place in recent times.

The problem with this reasoning is that the temperatures rose first and then the carbon dioxide levels rose. Some scientists say that the warming created the increased carbon dioxide, rather than vice versa.

Many natural factors, including variations in the amount of heat put out by the sun, can cause the earth to heat or cool.

The bigger problem is that this has long since become a crusade rather than an exercise in evidence or logic. Too many people are too committed to risk it all on a roll of the dice, which is what turning to empirical evidence is.

So why has no one heard about this conference? Why no news or reporting or a daily update from cable news networks? Why no "panel of experts"?

Because, it's a true inconvenience for those who have a big stake in global warming hysteria to show up at the conference in New York, and unfortunately that includes much of the media.

Genius, pure genius

Did you hear what happen Tuesday night across the whole nation...yes the whole country?

From 5:30-8:30 there was a lot of trouble. Feet were tapping tap, heads were aching and foreheads were sweating. Starbucks was closed!!!

NO!!!!!

Yes it happen.

6 weeks ago, Howard Schultz took over the reins (again) as CEO of Starbucks. Since then, he's been on a mission to return the company to its previous form. Tuesday, every store throughout the nation closed for three hours for "remedial espresso training." Or in Schultz's terms, "to teach, educate and share our love of coffee, and the art of espresso."

I beg to differ. This might be about a better cup of coffee, but there's a lot more to it than that, and it's pretty slick.

Shutting down your operation creates buzz. Apple knows this; they do all their online store updates in the middle of the day, and they bring down their whole site as the rumor sites go ablaze in anticipation. Starbucks knows this, too.

When you tell the world you are shutting down for three hours to learn to excel or to make changes, when things reopen, people want to investigate. They'll want to see if the coffee is better and what new tricks the baristas have up their collective, trendy sleeve.

Even more genius, Biggby coffee was offering free coffee at the same time......

If you aren't on the Biggby coffee bandwagon (you may see it as Beaners) time to get on.

The Bride's a Slut. They Call it Progress

The New York Times reports today on a new trend in weddings:

The gown was almost wanton — fluid but curvy with a neckline that plummeted
dangerously. “It makes me feel sexy and beautiful,” said Natasha DaSilva, who
slipped it on for a fitting last week.

Cut away at the rear to reveal a tattoo at the small of her back, the dress suggested a languorous night in the honeymoon suite.

Except that Ms. DaSilva, who will be married on Long Island in
September, plans to wear it at the altar.

“Why not?” she asked. “I want to look back in 20 years and feel like I
looked hot on my wedding day.”

Ms. DaSilva, 26, thinks of herself as adventurous, but not so brash
that she is about to cross a line. Dressing for a wedding as if it were an
after-party is accepted among her family and friends. “For my generation,
looking like a virgin when you marry is completely unappealing, boring even,”
she said. “Who cares about that part anymore?”

Natasha DaSilva, that tattoo just above your butt telegraphs to the world that you're one classy dame. I'm sure your daughters will be so proud of you one day. "Wow, Mom, you really hooched up your wedding, didn't you?" Dreary old me, maybe you do become an old-fogey at 30.

Animal Husbandry

It turns out that a slaughterhouse's cruel practice are behind the massive nationwide recall of beef, the largest in US history.

Officials estimate that about 37 million pounds of the recalled beef went
to school programs, but they believe most of the meat probably has already been
eaten.

"We don't know how much product is out there right now. We don't
think there is a health hazard, but we do have to take action," said Dr. Dick
Raymond, USDA Undersecretary for Food Safety.

Federal Officials suspended operations at Westland/Hallmark after an
undercover video from the Human Society of the United States surfaced showing
crippled and sick animals being shoved with forklifts.

Two former employees were charged Friday. Five felony counts of
animal cruelty and three misdemeanors were filed against a pen manager.
Three misdemeanor counts -- illegal movement of a non-ambulatory animal -- were
filed against an employee who worked under that manager. Both were
fired.

Authorities said the video showed workers kicking, shocking and otherwise
abusing "downer" animals that were apparently too sick or injured to walk into
the slaughterhouse. Some animals had water forced down their throats, San
Bernadino County prosecutor Michael Ramos said.

No charges have been filed against Westland, but an investigation by
federal authorities continues.

About 150 school districts around the nation have stopped using ground beef
from Hallmark Meat Packing Co., which is associated with Westland. Two fast-food
chains, Jack-In-the-Box and In-N-Out, said they would not use beef from
Westland/Hallmark.

Most of the beef was sent to distribution centers in bulk packages. The
USDA said it will work with distributors to determine how much meat
remains.

Federal regulations call for keeping downed cattle out of the food
supply because they may pose a higher risk of contamination from E. coli,
salmonella or mad cow disease since they typically wallow in feces and their
immune systems are often weak.

Watch the undercover video that sparked the recall here. WARNING this is strong stuff. We don't have to or shouldn't wait for Congress or state legislatures to even do anything about this. We can take action now!

STOP BUYING FACTORY FARMED MEAT NOW!!!

Buy from your local farmers.

This website has the most comprehensive national list of meat producers who refuse to allow factory-farming methods. Not just cattle/beef either. We're talking eggs, milk, honey, pork, turkey, etc. Take a look -- here is a link to just the Michigan locales. It's surprising how many exist. And some even ship.

Watch that video and still say you trust the industrial food system to provide healthy meat. This is not the dominion mandate. This is not the husbandry that God commanded us and has given mankind. This is not the husbandry I am working toward handing off to my son one day.

To pass on the faith, live it...with discernment

I was emailed this link by a buddy of mine who, even though it has a Catholic slant, thought I would greatly appreciate it....I did.

It is an interview with Amy Welborn, who appears to be a pretty big deal in the Catholic blogosphere.

ANYWAY, back to the interview, here is a snippet worth repeating...

The problem is that when you look at Catholic history, the faith has never been passed on predominantly in classroom situations. The faith has been passed on in families and in parishes and in communities. You can have really nice catechetical materials in which you have kids learn about a saint each week and you introduce them to various devotions, but if all of that is absent from parish life, and if all of that is absent from the life of Catholics, which it is for the most part…It's something that any teacher of, particularly, the humanities can sympathize with. Think about the poor teacher trying to teach Shakespeare or Chaucer to kids who go home and are on the Internet for four hours and then are playing video games and doing all kinds of other things. It's not just a religious ed problem; it's a cultural problem. [Emphasis mine]What we are trying to transmit in a classroom setting isn't reinforced culturally.

In the Catholic setting, that means it's not reinforced in most parishes. There's no Catholic life that continually reinforces the Catholic faith. Our churches are bare. Kids don't have the opportunity to study murals and pictures of stained glass and they get bored.

Catholic education is getting better in the classrooms but we haven't grappled with the bigger cultural issue of a community's responsibility to transmit the faith outside the classroom setting.

What's the broader message for people of faith? That passing on the faith to our children is not something we can or should rely entirely on the institutional church (sermons, Sunday school, Christian schools) to do. We have to do it in our homes and in our cultural lives -- and not in the sense of, "Tonight, children, we are going to discuss the doctrine of the Incarnation." The Christian faith has to be woven into the fabric of everyday life, has to be experienced not as an interesting add-on to normal life, but as normal life itself. This is particularly challenging in a culture like ours, where increasingly the only normative belief is that there is no normative belief. But what choice do serious religious believers have?

This is why I'm attracted to the idea of living in some sort of community with other families who share our faith. My kids need to see that it's not just our family that believes and lives by these things -- and they need to see that every day of the week, not just on Sunday.

But there can be problems to that and it was why I am VERY selective on who I include in that community in terms of leadership and influence in my life and that of my family. I'll talk to anyone and let anyone "in" but when it comes to who I am going to listen to and take direction from, who I want to be a role model and someone to follow, sorry but I am judicious and selective.

And ironically, while purusing more of the Catholic website where Amy's interview came from I came across this "essay." It furthered cured the cement work I have laid down for my foundation on life, faith, and community. The author's summation with a number of statistical facts is fascinating and all too revealing, most of them showing that despite the Catholic Church's growing numbers on paper, the content of the Catholic faith in the hearts and minds of its adherents is rapidly changing to something that's Catholic in name only:

A survey in 2005 found that 76 percent of the Catholics of the United States thought someone could be a good Catholic without going to church every Sunday. Other elements of Catholic belief and practice also fared poorly. Three out of four said good Catholics needn't observe the teaching on contraception; two-thirds said the same of having their marriages blessed by the Church and accepting the teaching on divorce and remarriage; 58 percent took the same view of giving time or money to the parish and also of following Church teaching on abortion. These numbers have gone up dramatically since Davidson and his colleagues began collecting them in 1987. And, by 2005, nearly one in four held that a good Catholic needn't believe that Jesus rose bodily from the dead.

In 2003, the researchers tested American Catholics' views on the Catholic Church and other religions. Some results: 86 percent agreed with the statement "If you believe in God, it doesn't really matter which religion you belong to"; 74 percent said yes to "The major world religions are equally good ways of finding ultimate truth"; and 52 percent accepted the proposition, "The Catholic religion has no more spiritual truth than other major religions."

Apparently not all of those highly educated and loyal Catholic Americans measure up too well by the standards of Catholic orthodoxy. I am reminded of the 25-year-old chap, a baptized Catholic with six years of religious education who claimed he went to Mass twice a month. Upon leaving a showing of the movie The Da Vinci Code, he told The New York Times: "The Catholic Church has hidden a lot of things—proof about the actual life of Jesus, about who wrote the Bible. All these people—the famous Luke, Mark, and John—how did they know so much about Jesus' life? If there was a Bible, who created it and how many times has it been changed?"

People who talk as the happy-talkers do about the glories of contemporary American Catholicism aren't crazy. They know what’s going on. But they pass it over lightly because that suits the project of replacing a form of Catholicism they consider moribund with an endlessly evolving religion without norms. In their estimate, a Church like that would better suit the exigencies of post-modern times. Call it Anglicanism with a figurehead pope. (In general, I think, bishops who take the same line don't share that objective—they simply think blarney is good for morale.)

The author concludes by saying that anybody who believes there's a simple solution to this very deep and broad problem is either a liar or a lunatic. But he says any attempt to turn it around must begin with telling the truth:

Jesus tells us, "The truth will make you free" (John 8:32), but today illusion—the illusion that we aren't doing so bad—is choking the life out of the Catholic Church in the United States.

Shaw's critique concerns the US Catholic Church, but it's not hard to read it as a broad indictment of the American way of being Christian. What he's talking about is the evolution of the Christian faith to fit American cultural norms: whether we realize it or not, most contemporary Christians are Moralistic Therapeutic Deists now.

See, this is why I'm not impressed when I read news reports saying that America, unlike godless secular humanist Europe, is still a land of vibrant faith. I suppose it is, in a way, but what is the content of that faith, anyway? What does it mean to tell a pollster that you are a Catholic, or an Evangelical, but in practice do not mean by those terms what they historically mean? What does it mean to report that Christianity is doing well in terms of the numbers of people who call themselves Christians, but to ignore or downplay the qualitative aspect of their belief?

I'm not trying to read anybody out of Christianity, but what I am saying is that as a theological matter, to claim you are a Christian -- a Catholic Christian or a Protestant Christian -- means and has always meant that there are a certain number of irreducable foundational doctrines that one must believe -- doctrines that teach who Jesus is, what He did on the Cross, what Scripture is, what the Church is, what man is, and so forth. See, even a trampoline has a sturdy frame that everything else is attached to. To reject them is to reject the faith itself, in any meaningful sense. Over the course of the past 2,000 years, the churches argued over aspects of those foundational beliefs, which is why the church, sadly, is no longer united. Christians have argued over what it means to be a true Christian, but have not argued over the idea that there was an objective standard by which to define Christianity. What you wouldn't have seen, until the present day, is the widely accepted belief that it doesn't matter what you believe, as long as you believe you're Christian. That Christianity has no objective definition, and is primarily defined by subjective emotion.

Why does this matter? For one thing, some of us have this quaint idea, as did every Christian until practically yesterday, that the point of religion is to save souls, and Jesus taught us how to do that. To be crude, humankind was lost, but God intervened in history to send us a guide. Scripture (and, for most Christians throughout history, the Church) is our map out of the wilderness. If we lose the map, we could lose our souls, and the souls of our descendants, whose salvation depends on our passing the map to them in good condition. So much American Christianity has become a matter of forgetting, or denying, that there is any such thing as a map.




Why does it seem the Catholics are getting "it" more and more often?

Gimme some of that New-Old Time Religion

[UPDATE] - I couldn't help it, while looking out my window at the blustery winter Sunday afternoon of single digit temps and below zero wind chills. Watching garbage blow away down the street, tree limbs bend oh so close to breaking and thankful for the ability to burn fossil fuels to stay warm.



Modern man has shucked off most of the restraints of traditional religion. While a majority of people still say they believe in God, or at least in some form of higher being, they have rationalized their belief system so as to owe no real tribute to their ill-defined deity.

No longer are they bound by the sanctions and rules dictated by the old-time religions.

But instead of enjoying their “liberation”, their “freedom” from the inconvenient "thou shalt nots," they're embracing a different sort of puritanism and welcoming equally suffocating restrictions in regard to the new gods of health and the environment.

These new faiths, in practice, are amazingly similar to the old.

They have their own schedule of sins and vices and are just as intolerant and judgmental of those who stray from the path of righteousness. They also will go to extremes to impose their doctrines -- witness New York City's recently-passed law forbidding city hospitals from sending new mothers home with baby formula, to push breast-feeding (it's amazing what news stories catch your fancy when a child is introduced into your life).

Skeptics are demonized as heretics. To question the causes and impact of global warming, for example, is blasphemous, and many in the scientific community are finding the price for expressing doubt is banishment.

The new religions are no more tolerant of non-conformity -- smokers are shunned the way libertines once were. And they are equally instilled with an evangelical zeal to spread the faith. "Fan the flame!!" (or should we say "put out the flame" or........)

Like their predecessors, the obsession of the new religions is controlling the behavior of the flock. The real agenda of the campaign against global warming is to achieve the longstanding goals of environmentalists to force people onto mass-transit, draw them back from far-flung suburbs and minimize their ability to profit from the earth.

The new religions give new interpretations to several of Catholicism's seven deadly sins, including:

• Pride . The vanity of individualism is discouraged as a threat to the collective good. Lifestyle choices must conform to the standards of propriety set by all-knowing spiritual leaders (think Al Gore).
• Gluttony . Consumerism and overconsumption are the great evils. Frugality is a virtue, and piety is attained by the Carteresque measure of living a smaller life, accepting less. Traditional religions reward sacrifice and self-denial with immortality (allbeit heretical in it’s own rite); it's not yet clear how the new faiths will incentivize deprivation.
• Greed. The notion that American ingenuity and productivity entitle this country to a bigger piece of the pie is unholy. We're expected to feel guilty about our prosperity, pressured to give away our wealth.
• Lust. While these new faiths don't meddle so much in your sex life -- nearly any sexual practice is OK, as long as it's "safe" and consensual -- if you hunger for big trucks, big houses, big cigars -- your wages are damnation.

Unfortunately, there is no rabid oppession and acceptance of a separation of church and state to protect non-believers from being pressed into observance as their is with the "Old-Time Religions". Canonical law is written by secular legislatures and enforced by public agents.

An agnostic -- or Mother Earth forbid, an atheist -- living in this new religious environment may find life as uncomfortable as did the “witches” of Salem.

Spending Your Rebate

[UPDATE] - I posted the same thing over at the PoliForum, but some of you may not even check that site out....




Most of us are going to checks from the government to encourage us to spend money to keep the economy from going into recession:

Under the plan, as many as 117 million people would get rebate checks. Individual income tax filers would receive up to $600, working couples would get up to $1,200, and those with children would get an additional $300 per child.

How are you going to spend your rebate?

Stay away from whether you think this is the right move or not, it's happened and we are getting the checks, and while we are all people with very heavy convictions, I doubt any of us are going to throw the check away or not cash it if we disagree with this move.

Save it?

Spend it?

Pay off debt?

Buy a car?

Paint the house?

Use the money as a down payment on a house?

Buy a PS3?

Or maybe you will throw it away.......good for you, you're an idiot but good for you.