Well I’ve come to a point where I’ve been far enough from the abortion debate, which the Philadelphia kerfuffle has brought back to the front burner, that I feel I can’t muster a coherent argument for abortion at all. So, what I’m going to try to do here is mention the two or three points/arguments that I know for that case and see if anyone out there can fill in the gaps or offer argument not mentioned that are stronger. Read the rest of this entry

Good morning.

1. Some SSM thoughts from First Things.
2. Zoning laws meet the green movement.
3. Bad arguments meets hypocrisy. Let’s see “background checks” … would not have stopped any of the recent events but are necessary and … “didn’t read the bill” was exactly the Pelosi statement regarding AFA which at the time was just fine. Wonder when he’ll cite the Democrat representative who didn’t realized magazines used in pistols were reusable when citing ignorance.
4. Just remember, background checks would (not have) fixed this either.
5. Remembering Thatcher from the UK(raine).
6. Commandments and Scripture … are not deontology.
7. The perils of education.
8. Drones.
9. Just remember, this is an incentive to save more, not less.
10. Yer homework.
11. A photographer captures the perfect image for April 15th. Your government and you, a relationship in pictures.

Well, the Gosnell kerfuffle is in the news.

1. Dachau’s neighbors and what they knew.
2. NAF?
3. Bias in media. I did see an amusing turnabout on this.  One “feminist” wrote an article about this guy 2 years ago, which apparently means that the feminist press has been “all over this” since the get go. Uhm, riiight. Apparently the NYTimes employes only one feminnist writer. Who knew?
4. More on media.

See?

Three, mark that, three in a row.

1. ACA marking time.
2. Obama salary stunt described.
3. A brave man indeed.
4. Remember Obama’s speech in Egypt, talking about Islam and religious freedom? Hmm.
5. I too have the book, it has been recommended to me, but haven’t read it.
6. Whose the protagonist.
7. Jobs report.
8. Some remarks on the Obama budget, unserious as ever.
9. About that minimum productivity limit.

Two days in a row! Woo.

1. The East and icons.
2. Chopsticks and nukes.
3. More to come with Obamacare rising.
4. Mr Irons makes the same point I’ve made.
5. Spartacus! While Lance (used) to be a the big US cycling star, when Lance was riding I was a fan of Michele Bartoli and then Cancellara.
6. Alcohol … yah, prohibition worked so well.
7. So, Mr Obama flaunts his ignorance. One: “Surely there are well meaning Democrats who can tie their shoes. Two: “Fully automatic” … except, alas,  it wasn’t and we all know that (including the speaker). Three: “We waste money …” which is an excellent description of what you’re doing full time, however politicians are not usually so upfront about money wasting as their vocation.
8. So if Mr Bush had said that? What would be the reaction in the press?
9. Yes, you are constrained. This is a feature, not a bug. If you think otherwise, you’re unfit for office.
10. Oh please, get real. What percentage of Down under overseas travel is to the predominantly Muslim Malaysia? Probably most … hence the policy. It’s not “dhmittude” it’s about profit.
11. I don’t the reason for the continued shortage? I begin to suspect government intervention/regulation.
12. No dilemma … no reason to choose between them at all yet, these can not be the only criteria/description of the policies.
13. I guess Garmin and Tom-Tom will be funding the appeal, for the ruling basically says you can’t use a GPS while driving.
14. Heh.

Episode 36 of my podcast, "Consider This!", came out this morning. Here’s the (slightly edited) script for one of the segments regarding the call for "marriage equality".

When the Supreme Court took up two cases regarding same-sex marriage recently, Facebook lit up with red equal signs of people proclaiming their support for what they call “marriage equality”. And that’s how I’ve heard the debate framed by supporters for years, as an issue of equality. One group gets to do something that another group doesn’t. Where’s the sense of fairness, of everyone being equal under the law?

Well, to understand the underlying problem here, let’s take two other areas where one could demand equality. Let’s look at voting and driving. Are you for voting equality and driving equality? Should some voting or driving laws be different for different people, or not even available at all to some?

Let’s take a group of people I’ll call blind people. Now, should they have both voting and driving equality? I’m going to hazard a guess that you said yes to voting but no to driving. I don’t need to be a mind-reader to get that one right. But, but, equality! What about equality? Shouldn’t we really be taking to the streets and demanding the Supreme Court rule on driving equality for the blind?

No, of course we shouldn’t. But why equality for one thing and not another? Steven Smith, a Professor of Law at the University of San Diego, wrote an article using this example of why we treat the two situations differently.

That is because an ability to see is not a relevant qualification for voting, but it is a relevant qualification for driving. We know this, though, not by applying the idea of “equality,” but rather by thinking about the nature of voting and of driving. Probably there is no disagreement about these particular conclusions. But if you did happen to encounter a good-faith disagreement, you would not be saying anything helpful if you thumped the table and declared that “blind people should be treated equally.” You would only be begging the question.

You can’t drive if you’re blind, or under a certain age, or haven’t taken a driving test. Heck, you can’t vote if you’re a felon, or under a certain age, or mentally incompetent. So even with voting, there are inequalities. And therefore, just demanding marriage equality, without considering the nature of marriage, is useless.

And so what, then, is that nature of marriage? That’s the next logical question, and something I will be taking up in a subsequent episode. Until then, I have another link in the show notes to a rather lengthy paper by the Heritage Foundation on what marriage is, why it matters, and the consequences of redefining it. I’ll be pulling points from it for when I tackle this subject later on. You may want to take a look at it and perhaps write or call with your thoughts to be included in the episode.

But this foundation of the issue of equality needs to be laid first. Suffice to say, for now, that just spouting “Equality” with your fashionable, red equal sign doesn’t really mean much. It’s not an argument. It’s not a reason. It’s just a slogan.

If you want to let me know what you think, call 267-CALL-CT-0 (267-225-5280) for the feedback line, or e-mail considerthis@ctpodcasting.com.

Busy busy.

1. Woo. Nukes.
2. And guns. More guns?
3. LOL.
4. Debt.
5. And speaking of debt … someone around here was arguing that incentives to save have been on the rise. Whoops.
6. Art and emotion.
7. I hadn’t realized my younger daughter was so exceptional.
8. The Nile and denial.
9. Cypriot economics.
10. An amazing algorithm for the unbreakable password.
11. There’s two ways of looking at this alas. Anyone who centers their religion of any sort on Jesus of Nazareth belongs anthropologically speaking to a Christ cult, which in some circles are called Christian(s). However, Nicene confessing Christians commonly use the term Christian to mean Nicene confessing Christians, which a person who denies the Resurrection is not … and myself being a Nicene Christian agree, that failing to confess belief in the Nicene creed means … you’re out of the club.
12. Democrats like to point out they are better educated and pretend to smarter than the conservatives across the aisle. How they do that, is sometimes quite amazing. Wow, dumb like that has to be practiced for generations I imagine.
13. A ghost slum?
14. Just imagine how bad this would be in the absence of global warming, eh?
15. News from Syria.
16. Well, apparently nobody in the White House read Fault Lines.
17. That STEM education. It always amuses me when politicians tout how we “need more STEM” students and squawk about needing to promote STEM. Uhm, so .. Mr Politician … tell me, why didn’t you get a degree in a STEM field, hmmmm?

Good morning.

1. Markets of sorts.
2. Suspended?
3. Feminism moves backwards, removing a reality on account of a fiction.
4. Making your point.
5. Drones and a shift that is less than it appears.
6. And we just grouse because schoolteachers and priests aren’t fired.
7. Cyprus.
8. Cause and effect?
9. Where the press is less free than here.
10. A sunstone.

Good morning.

1. Early maths.
2. Consistency.
3. Terrify the Kremlin?
4. I’d never even heard of Nowruz. So know you know.
5. Just remember “real utopias” typically have a archipelago of gulags for the millions of kulaks who don’t see your utopia as utopian.
6. Two words, fullness and mystery.
7. Again, I think this is a symptom of an underlying disagreement, on which my homework is to write more tonight. I’d started a post on that topic and changed my mind halfway through. I need to work toward a conclusion again.
8. This is not unrelated.
9. Zooom.
10. Striking down some regulations. Wooo.
11. Babbage in action.
12. More grist for the drone conversation and the difference between killing as a soldier and murder.
13. So, privileges for gays … means you need tests to verify the category.
14. Mr Krugman, sloppy reader, noted in response here.
15. Yikes.

Good morning.

1. Woo Hoo. Mr Cheney back in the news, sort of. Well, actually … not.
2. Grist for the drone discussion.
3. Hmm, no hints at telling us how America will move to becoming an authoritarian state, but interesting nonetheless.
4. Cronyism, fraud? Is that a start? And it’s all about who you know.
5. Nuance.
6. Interesting post on the first day of Spring when it’s  13 degrees out (and global temperatures have been flat for almost 20 years).
7. For the Palin fans … the guy they fail to defend. Just remember, one heartbeat from the Oval office.
8. Simplicity itself. Heh.
9. Last week we had pictures of those bear sized grey wolves in Idaho … this we read from history.
10. All electric not there yet.
11. A budget comparison.
12. Failure to comprehend.
13. Abortion and consequences.
14. Uhm, Patrick was in the 5th century … the concept of “British” had no relation to the modern concept. You’d be better off calling him Roman.

Well, I seem to have lost a day to work and the 1st week of Lent.

1. I think by the term “Wisdom” he means “being sneaky”. Or at least that word substitution makes for an interesting hermeneutic.
2. Why does it help to multiply everything by ten all the time?
3. The other side of the aisle would call that synergy and a good thing. They’re wrong.
4. Mr Timber might recall the non-Democratic defense of the British commander by John Adams prior to the Revolution.
5. Hmm.
6. But bias? Is this bigotry, tribalism? No, not possible. Heh.
7. On fasting.
8. Philosophy meets maths.
9. Seriously? A taster? I’m appalled.
10. The missing articles in the paper about the recent gun debate look like this.
11. I’ve warned about this before, more and more it’s who you know that matters.
12. 20k and growing.
13. Returning to that master race science fiction epic.

My brother, an ordained minister in The Salvation Army, is using YouTube to present a series he calls "The Bible Doubter". He gives answers to common charges made against the Bible that are short (4 – 7 minutes), concise and accessible. He’s starting in Genesis. Really worth a look.

I’ve known Christians who claim to adhere to pacifism, as well as seen protest signs with "Who Would Jesus Bomb?" painted on them. But Bart Gingerich, critiquing Methodist professor and theologian William Abraham’s new book, notes that this supposed "cure" for war may just be as bad, or worse, than the disease. Of the book "Shaking Hands with the Devil: The Intersection of Terrorism and Theology", Gingerich writes.

Abraham admits that pacifism superficially offers moral arguments against terrorism, but its medicine is worse than the disease by disallowing defense of the innocent. He opines: “It requires a very special kind of intellectual malfunction and self-deception to sustain pacifism over time.” And he specifically challenges the particularly fashionable form of “pragmatic pacifism” espoused now by Glen Stassen of Fuller Seminary as “just peacemaking,” which he decries for failing to address terrorism seriously. Its pseudo-scientific claims he calls “bogus and misleading.” Although maybe offering occasionally useful “partisan” policy proposals, just peacemaking ultimately aims to shut down the case for force, can offer “false hope,” and ultimately may only fuel further terrorism.

Hat tip to Don Sensing.

Good day. White smoke, eh?

1. A conservative revolutionary.
2. Some background.
3. More.
4. From down under.

In other news

1. A review in the old style.
2. How many “G’s” in goggle? When the answer is … 2.
3. Well, when your combatants are comfortably at home, micro-managing is not impossible.
4. A category which describes almost all the 2nd generation wealthy individuals.
5. ’cause I don’t have principles, why would I suspect anyone else might?
6. Obama’s North African legacy.
7. This doesn’t quite ring true to me, but it’s close.
8. Suicide statistics, indicator of hope and happiness?
9. A natural consequence of a skewed press, progressives need to explain why this is a good thing.
10. Majorities of both parties watch.

Vibrating oobleck, interesting.

1. A meme. Co-ordinated? What’s the stock Dem answer?
2. Which means …. it isn’t. Pretty clearly in the Gospels the return will be when you don’t expect it. So if you do expect it, guess what logic dictates.
3. Very cool.
4. Applauding Hegel from across the aisle.
5. Well, any thoughts of an upcoming energy shortage just disappeared.
6. I didn’t get the first one, but the rest were funny.
7. Future crystal gazing.
8. Corollary to the Risky Business rule (don’t F with a man’s livelihood) … he gets testy about hobbies too, even if ultra-rich.
9. The man who siphoned about a billion from governments via climate has little leg to stand on. What still bugs me, is the liberal defenders who will jump quickly to “follow the money” never manage to do so with him.
10. So … the President’s recent suggestion. Is he stupid or evil? Do you think he knew or didn’t know that they were already illegal?
11. For the small screen.
12. Actually, the only time they wouldn’t pass on the costs is if they were hit by this cost increase but no other competitors were. This is not the case so … woops.

Good morning.

1. Sovereignty, and after you agree (or not) with the statement, consider the US Civil War.
2. Short answer to “is it racism” … if you are a conservative, yes, it not, then no.
3. Musing on the end.
4. Is this a straw argument is it one even being made?
5. A telling commentary on progressives and their spending, “To proclaim that spending is spending, waste notwithstanding, is remarkably destructive of the public’s trust. It suggests that governments are indeed profligate stewards of the public’s funds.” That bird has long since flown.
6. Proving the opposite point intended.
7. The film you’ll hear about in, or after, Church in the upcoming season.
8. One of the lessons history teaches. Few listen.
9. A stab at a short list.
10. An atheist passes on remarks on celibacy and the Roman church.
11. An election noted.
12. Hypocrisy, in the modern trivial sense, … if you don’t have it, you should.
13. One of the points on the side of faith for the Habermas/Ratzinger debate.
14. Something to read if you have the time.
15. Something our government is doing just as fast as it can. Why do they think that is good? Remember the story of that Biblical villain, Joseph and the Pharaoh (hint: the Patriarch after Israel is Judah, not Joseph)? What did he do, wiped out the independent farmers and centralized the economy. What occurred down the road. Slavery.  A road to serfdom we are on.
16. If the TSA isn’t doing this every week, something is wrong. If we know they are doing it every week, something else is wrong. If you’re serious about security, you have teams working to break in constantly probing for weak points. If it’s theater, then why bother.
17. Why gun control laws won’t/don’t matter one bit to the policy questions at hand. It’s more likely about #15 above … and the modern liberal elites visceral fear of firearms.
18. Have fun with tech.