It occurs to me that Iran may have committed a horrible strategic error. I’ve not seen this suggested anywhere, but bear with me a moment.

• During the Iraq kerfuffle Iran has established munitions pipelines and connections between Shia in Iraq and Iran.
• There are signs that civil uprising and large scale violence in Iran is on the horizon.
• The West (and Israel) would welcome regime change in Iran, yet the West cannot be directly involved for there is little public trust or like in Iran for the West (especially the US).
• However the US now has ties in places has close relations with Iraqi Shia … and through them likely the Iranian Shia as well.
• Those ties could be used to funnel support to the nascent Iranian insurgency in Iran through the Iraq pipelines.

Thus the Iranian involvement in Iraq by the current regime may be weak point that can be now used to attack that same said regime.

What a tangled web.

We got a tip at SCO about an article by Mike Rosen-Molina dealing with how churches can use and are using Social Media to get the Word out.  While churches have had web sites for quite some time, the emergence of social media outlets like Facebook and Twitter change the dynamic.

So while static webpages might be good for drawing in people already curious about a religion’s tenants, actually getting the attention of someone who wasn’t… that was a little more tricky without coming across as spam. That is, until the advent of social media, and its accompanying ability to build relationships online.

"Creating a web site is perhaps the most basic way to use the Internet for evangelism," agreed Rev. Michael White, a United Methodist pastor and author of Digital Evangelism: You Can Do It, Too!. He noted that newer social networking sites offered more opportunities for outreach because they could better enable conversation than a static page.

"People of faith can use such social media as Twitter, YouTube, blogs, etc. to reach out both to ‘seekers’ (those looking for more information about religious faith) and believers alike to share the tenets of their faith, encourage deepening one’s religious faith, answering questions of doubt, and much more," he said.

With social media, more of a relationship can be built, which is a better foundation for sharing the gospel.  Now, I would imagine that these online relationships themselves typically aren’t enough, but they are a much better launching point than even a blog.  I have a blog (of course) and a Facebook account, and frankly unsaved friends of mine are much more likely to read my Facebook posts, notes and status updates than would read the blog.

The article also touches on specifically religious social media, like Christian sites for video sharing and Twitter-like communication.

While they may be good for uniting the faithful, some are skeptical of services that allow believers to segregate themselves from the wider world. Saddington said that both secular and religious services had their uses, but that people should keep in mind that they were unlikely to spread their faith if they confined themselves to online communities that consisted only of fellow believers.

"There’s no outreach when you’re talking to the already converted," agreed Coppedge. He said that religious social media might be useful for parents worried about their children being exposed to inappropriate content on MySpace or Facebook, but saw little use for them otherwise.

"The focus should always be on building community," he said, "If you limit yourself to only Christian communities, that’s not wise. Some people are afraid of using this technology, but you have to remember that technology is not inherently good or evil. It’s all in how you use it."

It’s the "in the word but not of it" philosophy.  The article is a good read and I think a balanced look at the issues.

1. Not a charter 77, but “they” do want this recognized … so much for “they want our silence”.
2. Here and there, back then.
3. Theology of the Iranian kerfuffle.
4. Rock your tunes … on the bike.
5. Math factory?
6. The left’s blind spot.
7. Heh.
8. An old bug.
9. Media bias? Say it ain’t so.
10. Krugman’s advice.
11. Ok, right. Re-read this realizing that “private insurance” is what you pay for not some magical “other” agency.
12. Justice, China style.
13. Christian fantasy noted.
14. Mining the globe for talent.
15. Pro-choice roots.
16. Verse.
17. To keep in mind when Mr Obama talks religion.
18. What Mr Obama means when he says he wants healthy debate, i.e., he’s lying. Others take up that tack too.

So, summer reading lists? I’ve got the Delsol (The Unlearned Lessons Of the Twentieth Century) and Beneton (Equality by Default)to pick through and I thought I’d work on finding some post-fall Eastern European literature that evaluates “what happened” and “what did it mean” questions. I’m also listening to “Snoop” as recommended by one of the blogs on my RSS list. Theology? John Behr’s three books on the early church, The Way to Nicaea and The Nicene Faith 2 Volume Set.  And … for pure escape, Steven Erikson (Toll the Hounds) and of course Dan Simmons (Drood: A Novel).

Any more suggestions (although it looks like my July is “booked”)? Any suggestions for the post-fall dissidents list?

How about y’all? What are you reading this summer?

From Chuck Asay (click for a larger version):

No, really, nothing’s changed at all.

1. Rust and wheat and the unanticipated disaster.
2. The self sufficient.
3. Film.
4. 10 myths and the bike.
5. Some (milder?) images and Iran.
6. A mid-East rebuttal to Mr Obama’s speech?
7. One man’s statement on Iran.
8. Is this the best key to use to drive education policy? I’d offer, uhm, not.
9. Some good econ links.
10. On IVF.
11. CBO on the Kennedy healthcare plan, not so good.
12. Name and spots.
13. Evangelicals notice (lifelong) celibacy.
14. Considering late term abortions.
15. In Graphic form, TV transition and the tobacco industry.
16. Heh.
17. Sex and theology the discussion continues.

Some 32 years ago, a little typewritten paper was published which took 20 years for the consequences of that document to unfold. The US stood silent then. We stood silent 20 years earlier when tanks rolled into Hungary. It looks like some would ask us still to remain silent, yet again.

Clint Eastwood directed White Hunter, Black Heart some years back. In it there is a scene in which Eastwood’s character enters into a fight against a man who was, if memory serves really deserved it. Eastwood’s character (John Wilson modeled after John Huston and his filming of the African Queen) is soundly beaten. His companion wonders afterward if he thought he had any chance of winning. The reply was no … but some things one has to make a stand against. To disregard the consequences.

In Iran today people are wondering what to make of the Iranian election. Was it a modern miracle of non-automated clerical assiduous labor. Was it voter fraud or not?

Lots of people have been following this far more closely than I. Lots of people are more expert than I at the Iranian cultural and political situation.

What I would entreat is that we don’t do the “pragmatic” thing, or the politically expedient thing. We (the US and the world that is not-Iran for that matter) should stand up for what is right. Too often we have stood silent in the face of horror and evil.

Lest this be misunderstood. I’m not advocating war. I’m not saying we should have gone to war then. But there is a vast difference between standing in silence (tacit approval) and war.

Let us not be silent. If a some Iraqis publish their chapter 9, let it be heard in Arabic, in Kurdish, in English, and indeed in all the languages of the modern world.

1. Of Theodicy and politics.
2. Only insofar as we let him get away with it.
3. This thing called Iran.
4. Some more remarks here.
5. Social evolution and religion.
6. A patristics dictionary recommended.
7. Next line of really bad ideas, the pay czar … debated by Becker & Posner.
8. The next scandal?
9. Nuclear energy (more here).
10. Want rust?
11. I’m going to check this out.
12. The consequences of denying slavery exists in the modern world.
13. The (un)importance of sex.
14. A homily for the Saints (day).
15. Watching the car industry.
16. Of bees.

Well, slowly but surely I’m catching up on my viewing of Joss Whedon’s latest enterprise, Dollhouse [note: I’ve two episodes left to catch up on]. Underlying the Dollhouse plot-line is the of course the ethical (and pragmatic) questions underlying the actual running of an enterprise as suggested. Dolls, are people, who (we are led to believe) knowledgeably contract for a 5 year term during which their minds and memory (self) is (mostly) erased and reprogrammed during the term of tenure for whatever purposes the house might desire.  For the following assume contract is not forced and the terms of the contract are made clear. That is the contractee (doll) enters into the contract with full knowledge of what it entails and voluntarily submits.

So, the question on offer is whether or not a dollhouse contract might be ethical (moral). My take looking across the ideological divide is that a strict contract libertarian cannot argue against it. For a contract libertarian no voluntary contract can be dismissed on ethical grounds. My guess is that the progressive/liberal would argue against it incompletely. That their argument would be on class/power grounds and that this is an abuse of the same … but that the progressive would leave substantial numbers of people undefended, i.e., that recruiting dolls from those suffering irrevocable brain injuries that left the person amenable to the programming process would be eliglble (salvageable as doll) for permanent doll status. Finally, it is my opinion that the conservative view would be that this is immoral under any circumstances for a number of reasons, in human rights terms (which I don’t find persuasive, but can serve here as shorthand) is that we don’t posses the right to give up our autonomy in that way.

However, making assumptions like that is fraught with danger. One cannot and should not ascribe motives an arguments for the others side, they are likely to be wrong. Recently in two discussions on the abortion debate I witnessed, the pro-choice speaker assumed motives of the pro-life side, making the categorical claim that any and all pro-life positions assume a patriarchal viewpoint and wish to oppress women. Now there may in fact be pro-life people who advocate patriarchy and oppression of women, but I’m not one and I’ve never even met one in conversation. So here we have what might be a typical view of the pro-choice left of the conservative pro-life movement which is mostly fictional. It ascribes motives and arguments to the other which, although easy to argue against, are not actually held by any but a tiny minority.

So, with that in mind, I’ll only offer my argument of why the doll process and contract is immoral, and oddly enough, it is lies at the heart of my opposition to abortion. As a defense against the totalitarian excesses of the last century it is essential that we hold to an ontological axiomatic assertion of the dignity of man. The doll process, in that it moves a person to “thing” violates that principle and is therefore immoral.

So what are my gentle reader’s takes on doll ethics? If the dollhouse process is contractually aboveboard and kept that contract is kept faithfully … is it moral?

I haven’t posted as much recently.  I thought summer would slow things down, but apparently not so much around our house.  I’ve been collecting things to write on, but they’re starting to get stale, so before they’re completely irrelevant, here are a few quick hits to start the week.

Economy: Never mind whether or not you got TARP funds, the Obama administration may be looking to cap your executive’s pay.

Gene Sperling, a top counselor to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, conceded to a congressional committee that imposing compensation caps on companies could lead to a flight of talent.

“I can say with certainty that nobody in the Obama administration is proposing such a thing,” he said.

Yet, at the same time, he and officials with the Federal Reserve and the Securities and Exchange Commission laid out a case for how payment structures rewarded short-term gains at the expense of long-term performance and contributed to the nation’s financial crisis.

The administration plans to seek legislation that would try to rein in compensation at publicly traded companies through nonbinding shareholder votes and by decreasing management influence on pay decisions.

No mention of how incentivizing the giving loans to people who couldn’t afford them contributed to the nation’s financial crisis, nor any talk of reining that in.

Abortion: Warner Todd Hudson asks and answers, “Why is Killing Abortionists Wrong? Because it is Un-Christian, That’s Why!” He uses logic and scripture to back up his position.  The key paragraphs:

The final word here is that a Christian ethic posits that men are subject to man’s laws and willfully violating them is not a Christian thing to do — but for extreme cases, and then in a more passive manner than not. Additionally man’s duly constituted law is the sword of punishment and punishment should not be carried out by the individual going off on his own hook. Christians do not take the law into their own hands.

So, in answer to Jacob Sullum’s tough question, killing abortionists IS wrong. It is also quite in keeping with Christian practice to suffer under pro-abortion laws without taking the law into one’s own hands to end the life of a doctor committing abortions. The law says that abortion is legal, only the law may impose the sentence of death, and the individual is bound by those facts under a Christian worldview.

Definitely worth a read.

Health Care: So will all those saving we’re supposed to come from health care reform going to come after the trillion dollar cost is recouped?

Health-care overhaul legislation being drafted by House Democrats will include $600 billion in tax increases and $400 billion in cuts to Medicare and Medicaid, Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel said.

Democrats will work on the bill’s details next week as they struggle through “what kind of heartburn” it will cause to agree on how to pay for revamping the health-care system, Rangel, a New York Democrat, said today. The measure’s cost is reaching well beyond the $634 billion President Barack Obama proposed in his budget request to Congress as a 10-year down payment for the policy changes.

Asked whether the cost of a health-care overhaul would be more than $1 trillion over a decade, Rangel said, “the answer is yes.” Some Senate Republicans, including Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah, say the costs will likely exceed $1.5 trillion.

And, as we all know, government estimates of the cost of a government program are a low end guess.  Somehow, I think that net tax decrease that Obama promised was never going to materialize anyway.

America has had a difficult history when it comes to racial issues and often the government has done more harm than good according to an excellent new book by Judge Andrew Napolitano entitled Dred Scott’s Revenge. Click here to read my review of the book.

Dred Scott’s Revenge: A Legal History of Race and Freedom in America By Andrew Napolitano / Thomas Nelson

1. Right wing … why right? Just to demonize the right I guess.
2. Why is the left denying affirmative action regarding Ms Sotomayor? (As opposed to pointing to it as a shining example)
3. Drifting left.
4. Betrayal.
5. Politics in the land of the cossacks.
6. A happy blogger.
7. Mr Biden then and … now?
8. Endoxes.
9. Open your mind.
10. A problem for the Treas Sec.
11. Of Constantine the Ethnomartyr.
12. Hope.
13. And zombies.
14. 7 notes.
15. A choir.
16. This meme is resurfacing again … why now?

Mr Obama and those in his coterie want to press for a major shift in our healthcare system to one which far more strictly controlled by the government. I think Mr Obama’s interest in healthcare in this manner is likely a charitable impulse for the 10% at the bottom combined alas with a disregard for the state of the middle 85% which will likely be substantially harmed by this shift and the realization that those at the very top (of which he is one) will be unaffected. The question for future elections will be how well will the Democratic party be able to re-write history and shift blame for the disaster that this will become. For if they fail that project then their predicted demographic demise of the GOP will not occur, but that a decade from now the two-party system which naturally arises in the American project will not include one which coins itself the “Democratic party”.

In the interest of completeness, is should be pointed out that the AMA hawking for market control of healthcare is a somewhat disingenuous plea. The AMA strictly controls their medical school graduating population into the various specializations in a centralized manner attempting to predict and fix the markets and quantities of various specialty (and generalist) numbers. Their plea for market forces is more in the nature of a complaint that power which had been theirs might be lost.

Today it was noted (by a liberal blogger no less) that approximately 10% of medical expenses go the mostly loudly demonized portion of the industry, i.e., the pharmaceutical companies. Given the effects of the advances that internal medicine has been able to achieve in the last few decades if that the result of 10% of our expenditure … there should be no grounds for complaints. Those touting “gains” in efficiencies of the proposed system fail to recognized the following (or at least have failed to counter them in anything I’ve read):

• To get a drastic gain in efficiency has to mean that today there are drastic inefficiencies. To this matter, a question should be asked. In your visits in hospitals and doctors offices do you see Doctors the nursing staff just doing busy work? Or are they at at task dealing with patients? In my experiences with medical staff, one sees busy doctors and the industry standard “waiting room” time is on account of emergency and other over-booking and under estimates of the time it takes to deal with individual patients. The point is, if doctors and nurses and other practitioners don’t have idle time and are actually working close to capacity … where’s this big gain in medical capacity going to come from?
• It is claimed that government involvement will streamline and make the paper work and billing matters more efficient and more streamlined. Why just stating this doesn’t cause those touting this notion’s head to explode with the cognitive dissonance is beyond me. Government. Increased efficiency. Aren’t those antithetical concepts? There is no project, no task, no aspect of life in the past 2000 years that government bureaucracy has added efficiency and smoothed out the wrinkles. Less paperwork and lower costs with more government involvement. Riiiight. Name just one time in the past where that transpired.
• If improvements in medical costs and quality of care are to be actually realized, it’s going to be when more and more of your medical interactions are in the form of something more like a internet subscription service, i.e., far fewer doctors managing a largely automated network. It’s going to take real innovation and paradigm shifts in how medicine is done. So let me ask, will entrenching our medical culture and industrial complex into a large government beaurocracy will make things more or less amenable to large changes? Less likely seems the realistic answer. If you think the answer is “more likely” … again I’ve failed to even see this issue addressed anywhere … so what is the argument to that.
• Finally, the insistence that increased administrative efficiency and methodology is where the solution to the so-called healthcare problem is to be found is harmful in that it causes thousands if not millions of people to be looking for the solutions in the wrong place.

Here are three fatal flaws with every “unified government run” healthcare proposal such as the ones that the Democrats are pushing.

1. Praising Keynes … but a different book perhaps and a look at inflation and our debt.
2. Exams noted.
3. In which it is noted we are all crazy.
4. DIY 3-d.
5. Stating the obvious.
6. Rearranging those deck chairs (on the Titanic).
7. Recursion and art.
8. Do what I say and not what I do is commonly seen, less known is the do what I say and not what I say.
9. Although perhaps its not as uncommon as I thought.
10. No. It’s not a right. If rights are at all intelligible (and that is doubtful) then you have a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness … healthcare, a good education and so on … not on the list.
11. Teaching Edwards.
12. Praising modesty.
13. Oops.
14. Heh.
15. Discussing disgust and morals in two parts.
16. Elegance.
17. Considering Sodom.
18. Anti-Semitism. Three statements from … a liberal Jew, a conservative Jew, and a theological study noted.

1. Rewarding the wrong bunch.
2. Viewing polarization and Congress.
3. Of Che and Burke.
4. Math is beautiful … and if you can’t take the class, this book (The Book of Numbers) might do in a pinch.
5. Of tolerance.
6. I think this is misleading and is being used dishonestly. A number of banks were forced against their will to take TARP money. They weren’t in distress and didn’t need or want it. Now they’ve paid it back. To not recall that in noting this is dishonest.
7. Stories conservatives tell their children to scare them before bedtime.
8. In other news, Mr Biden remains clueless, which I gather is his primary function.
9. The MSM just noticed?
10. Star Trek and Mr Obama.
11. Watching Pakistan.
12. Evangelism as abuse?
13. Morton’s fork.
14. Core strength training.
15. A stumbling block for recovery.
16. A translation project?
17. Alas, the next kerfuffle … and this is probably not unrelated. People need thicker skins.
18. Ikon and corner.
19. A YA book recommended.