Woo hoo! Another week.

1. Rehabilitating the term servant.
2. Is outrage?
3. An interesting line of thought,  which brought this notion to me. Performance enhancing drugs keep you awake, make you stronger, make you more alert. How about a drug that made you more ethical? What would that feel like? Be like? Would it be illegal?
4. Considering Cinderella (HT: Miss Minerva)
5. Swap in motion.
6. Tool time meets the wheelchair.
7. OK, we’ve seen everywhere that Mr Romney paid just over 14% in taxes … did you see just as widely that he gave just under 30% to charity? We have deductions for charity via itemization … how’d that figure in to the 14%? Why is that not mentioned? Could it be media bias?
8. Speaking of media bias …
9. Adaptation and learning.
10. The world’s best dad in pictures.
11. I’m struggling to make sense of this point of view. Let’s review, a Coptic Christian ex-pat disgruntled by intolerance in his homeland makes a home-made film, which is used as a proxy to spur more violence … and an ad putting forth the point of view that religious intolerance should not be tolerated. So, is the ad censuring both sides?
12. Because they’re stupid and/or misguided and/or evil? You pick.

Hobby Lobby could be the next Chick-Fil-A. "Hobby Lobby Sues over HHS Mandate"

Reverend William Owens from the Coalition Of African American Pastors in an interview with John Hawkins: "Again that’s the reason I took such a stand against President Obama. In every election, in every campaign where the marriage amendment has been on the ballot, blacks in large numbers have been against it and Americans have been against it. But he’s not interested in what the people want. He’s interested in what a few people who can give him big money want."

I don’t usually link to Sojourner’s "God’s Politics" blog for good examples of political opinion, but their non-political item — a discussion on the recent "Gospel of Jesus’ Wife" discovery — is quite good. "Five Important Questions About That ‘Jesus Wife’ Discovery"

"Antarctic sea ice set another record this past week, with the most amount of ice ever recorded on day 256 of the calendar year (September 12 of this leap year)." I blame global warming.

UN Secretary General George Orwell Ban Ki Moon: "Freedoms of expression should be and must be guaranteed and protected, when they are used for common justice, common purpose," Ban told a news conference. "When some people use this freedom of expression to provoke or humiliate some others’ values and beliefs, then this cannot be protected in such a way."

Bullying works. "The Christian-rooted fast food restaurant [Chick-filA] agreed to stop funding groups such as Focus on the Family that oppose same-sex marriage in a meeting with the Chicago politician who had been blocking the company’s move there."

And finally, competing mottos (from Chuck Asay, click for a larger version):

Good morning to all.

1. Two wrongs don’t make a right, but of course two wrights make an airplane.
2. Bang! (or bud-duh bud-duh &etc)
3. So, do you sue the algorithm or the teeming millions whose prior search made the algorithm decide that’s likely?
4. But where is the cunning plan?
5. Speaking of Black Adder and cunning plans … I’ll be this is also part of the cunning plan known as unaffectionately as Obamacare.
6. Glass houses, stones, throwing, and all that.
7. The generation of love, once removed is the generation of spite and hate?
8. If you don’t laugh at the last picture, either you missed the movie or you have no sense of humor.
9. Of brain and mind … a book.
10. Fallacy alert, you can leave your job, ergo it’s not coercion and don’t pretend it is.
11. Mr Sandefur is a Creedal libertarian, except there’s no actual creed … that part is just smoke and mirrors. From the same source, one might note that concealed carry becomes far easier for gals in full Islamic regalia.
12. Vote for the communists.
13. Of working teats and the work-place.

A blog post out there on the Interwebs asked what question you might ask in one of the Presidential debates. I’m going to try to post, uhm, one every day or so. So here we go …

Question: One of the oft spoken assumptions about the current election centers on the economy and employment. Can you identify the most important policy changes we need to push in order to put the US on the right track. In this context, please identify the most important item on which you believe you and your opponent are in agreement and the most important one on which you do not agree.

When President Obama gave some states waivers regarding the work requirements in welfare reform that President Clinton had signed, Republicans said he was "gutting" those reforms. No, Democrats replied, he was just giving some states flexibility. Now, if your changes make the work requirements more stringent or even just the same, you wouldn’t need a waiver, so that answer was suspect to me.

Obama had previously suspended a different part of welfare reform. How’s that working out?

Obama administration officials have insisted that their decision to grant states waivers to redefine work requirements for welfare recipients would not “gut” the landmark 1996 welfare reform law. But a new report from the Congressional Research Service obtained by the Washington Examiner suggests that the administration’s suspension of a separate welfare work requirement has already helped explode the number of able-bodied Americans on food stamps.

In addition to the broader work requirement that has become a contentious issue in the presidential race, the 1996 welfare reform law included a separate rule encouraging able-bodied adults without dependents to work by limiting the amount of time they could receive food stamps. President Obama suspended that rule when he signed his economic stimulus legislation into law, and the number of these adults on food stamps doubled, from 1.9 million in 2008 to 3.9 million in 2010, according to the CRS report, issued in the form of a memo to House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va.

[…]

Under the rule adopted in 1996, food stamps for able-bodied adults without dependents were limited to three months in a 36-month period unless the participant in the program “works at least 20 hours a week; participates in an employment and training program for at least 20 hours per week; or participates in a (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) ‘workfare’ program for at least 20 hours per week.”

Obama’s economic stimulus legislation suspended the rule for all states starting April 2009. Delaware continued to enforce the rule anyway, along with New York City and parts of Colorado, South Dakota, and Texas. This suspension expired at the end of the 2010 fiscal year (Sept. 30, 2010) and Congress rebuffed Obama’s requests to extend it in his fiscal years 2011 and 2012 budgets. However, Obama used his regulatory authority to effectively extend the waivers to nearly all states over the past two years.

And so instead of seeing how dumping the existing rules failed, he dumped even more. This is not going to help the economic situation. It might, though, get him more votes.

Good, mid-morning.

1. Black is the new black.
2. Economics and our regrettable President.
3. Cinema.
4. Red meat and wine … instead of chips, dogs, and beer.
5. Some Kipling for ya.
6. On the Satanic verses.
7. Not micro-brewery, but micro-foundry?
8. WW-II plan meets the SA-7.
9. Why global warming became climate change.
10. A new type of vehicle.
11. Silly man … raising the percentage makes it worse (for your side). But no, I don’t find it credible that 94% of the population gets more than it gives to the feds (especially when most of the middle is paying almost 30% to them).
12. So, was that the plan?
13. Color us unsurprised.
14. When in Rome.
15. Smells bad.

Wednesday already. Imagine that.

1. Situation or tribe?
2. Missing the threat part, i.e., “because if you don’t people might get hurt.”
3. Raising kids and threats to their safety.
4. Added Vitamin D?
5. To fixie or not fixie.
6. Almost vegan wine.
7. Ironic, eh?
8. Fortunately use has more than one meaning.
9. Moving on to the substance instead of the hand-wringing phase regarding Mr Romney’s remarks.
10. Now here’s something to work with, I’m going to try write a bit on that tonight and come up with a series of my questions.
11. Probability and number theory.
12. Mr Obama continues the “its unfair when you do it” ignoring the we do it to part.
13. Of free speech and speech codes and … actions.
14. Caption this, err, these.
15. Someone forgets in 1945 we were producing a major carrier every 6 weeks and a small one once per week. How long would it take to ramp up to that or could we even approach that again?

1. Left and right reactions to 47% compared. Quite the contrast.
2. Justice and our reactions to events in the Middle East.
3. More on the same.
4. And our administration’s reaction … so … do you think this will encourage or discourage further uprisings and atrocities?
5. Sealed!
6. I’d never heard of Fabianism. Had you?
7. So … will this ruffle Amsterdam?
8. Employment and personal habits.
9. As my youngest begins learning to drive … a drivers ed of a different sort.
10. The Ryan syndrome.
11. Who is to protect? Hmm, I thought history and Magdeburg was the answer. From this book (and oddly enough I didn’t verify it’s correctness) I learned that after the tragedy at Magdeburg modern diplomacy was born … in part because the conflict was so horrible and that it was realized if only people had talked a bit, they’d have learned they weren’t actually on different sides. Yet … do we even need diplomats to be physically on site any more in the information age?
12. As life imitates … Spirited Away?
13. Banks without seat belts.
14. Plagarism.

Hat tip to Clayton Cramer, who links to a video of noted Christian apologist Ravi Zacharias. If you are having qualms about voting for a Mormon because of your Christian beliefs, this is a very good (short) video from one of the greatest Christian thinkers of our day.

Also, the AP is reporting that some black pastors are telling their congregations to sit this election out.

Some black clergy see no good presidential choice between a Mormon candidate and one who supports gay marriage, so they are telling their flocks to stay home on Election Day. That’s a worrisome message for the nation’s first African-American president, who can’t afford to lose any voters from his base in a tight race.

The pastors say their congregants are asking how a true Christian could back same-sex marriage, as President Barack Obama did in May. As for Republican Mitt Romney, the first Mormon nominee from a major party, congregants are questioning the theology of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and its former ban on men of African descent in the priesthood.

I’ll say what I’ve said in previous elections. While I think a person’s value, informed by their religion, are something to consider when voting, I’m not voting for a national pastor; I’m voting for a national political leader. I think if these pastors could watch this video and get over their concern that Romney happens to be Mormon, this could really change the playing field.

Good morning.

1. A linguistic shift noted … and some exercise advice.
2. Lying or just inconsistent … at the same time calling for a more open internet and clamping down harder.
3. Yes the violence was a pretext. But no, I don’t think it was a pretext to get the West to do anything, sorry. Apologies by the White House and calls to pull You Tube (see above) videos are feckless and stupid primarily because this wasn’t about insults or disrespect for religion. This was nothing but power consolidation internally by Islamist groups, anything else is pretext. Explain the rational for treating a pretext as the primary reason? When historically was treating with the pretext as cause the better play?
4. More on that here.
5. And silly notions on international norms.
6. While we all ignore stuff like this.
7. Heh.
8. Obvious or not?
9. Waking up lucky.
10. Data glut.
11. Flexibility.
12. Hours as barter.

11 years after 9/11 we see that the problem still exists (witness the recent events in Cairo and Libya).

What we need to realize here is that on December 7, 1952 (11 years after the attack on Pearl Harbor), not only was World War II over, but Japan was our ally, and we were in the midst of the Korean War (which would not be over for another 7 months). The dynamics of the acts of aggression in those conflicts are categorically separate than what we now face. This is different – very different. As for the events of the past few days, to blame an insignificant movie as the cause demonstrates a complete lack of understanding of the core issue. Furthermore, to blame an insignificant movie for the murder of 4 Americans in Libya would be like blaming Wall Street for the toppling of the Twin Towers. Oh, I forgot, some people already do.

OK, been busy. Links?

1. What does it mean to be American. The conceit that this is unique is, well, probably not unique. Recall the book I mentioned a few weeks ago … Mr Snyder’s Reconstruction of Nations? This has relevance, recall one of the puzzles is how Poland and Lithuania arrived at their national identity … recall a founding “poem which all Polish students learn in school” has in its opening stanza “Lithuania my fatherland” and … when Lithuania became a nation few people spoke Lithuanian … in the cities they spoke Polish, Yiddish, Russian and Belorussian was spoken in the country and they had similar religious divisions. Nations based on an idea is not unique as we pretend. Our notions of its uniqueness relies on our ignorance of history.
2. Credentials and skillz.
3. The reality based side of the aisle strikes again.
4. Moving right.
5. On responses to killings. I’d note that in a prior admin, Mr Bush was always slow to respond … and the later responses by the adminstration might be better. But the poster is right, we don’t as a nation “deplore any intentional effort to denigrate the religious beliefs of others” in point of fact we defend the freedom of speech … with sharp pointy sticks.
6. Oooh, one for the Palin fans.
7. For the Darwinist ethics conversation. A social Darwinist it seemed to me might run with this.
8. Woo hoo.
9. Grist for the abortion debate.
10. Of logic and boxes.
11. Female protagonists and Disney.
12. Ivy league.
13. News that will be buried by the left wing press.
14. Which Jack?

Rape, incest, or the life of the mother; these are typically the three reasons under which almost everyone would say that an abortion should be permissible. Well, an international symposium on maternal healthcare in Dublin, Ireland last weekend may reduce that number.

About 140 medical professionals were at the event, including experts in obstetrics and gynaecology, mental health and molecular biology. They presented new research on issues surrounding maternal healthcare, with a focus on high-risk pregnancies, cancer in pregnancy, foetal anomalies, mental health and maternal mortality.

Prof O’Dwyer and a panel of speakers also formally agreed a “Dublin declaration” on maternal healthcare. It stated: “As experienced practitioners and researchers in obstetrics and gynaecology, we affirm that direct abortion is not medically necessary to save the life of a woman.

“We uphold that there is a fundamental difference between abortion and necessary medical treatments that are carried out to save the life of the mother, even if such treatment results in the loss of life of her unborn child.

There is that one caveat in that statement. In the course of other medical treatments required to save the mother’s life, if the baby dies, that is understandable. That could happen. And in a separate statement, the chairman of the group sponsoring the symposium stated it another way; no treatment should ever be withheld from a woman if she needed it to save her life, even if that treatment resulted in the loss of life of her unborn child.

But the symposium did say that an abortion, by itself, is never medically necessary to save her.

“Never”. That’s a pretty strong word coming from experts in their fields. But that’s what they said. And now the question is; will that have an effect on the abortion debate in this country? It ought to; this is a huge statement from people in the field who would know. But I haven’t heard it covered much in this country, which is a big reason I’m covering here, for whoever will listen.

It ought to change the debate in some way. I hope it will.

Did you hear about that business in San Antonio that lost just about all it’s market share after it’s CEO left? Seems that under his lead he developed quite the brand following and, after he left, his successor couldn’t keep the company on par with the local competition.

Oh, did I mention that the “business” was a former megachurch? From MySA,

It once was a megachurch. Now the sale of its far North Side property has wiped away longstanding debt and sparked new optimism for reversing its sizable membership decline.

…

The congregation counted an estimated 3,000 members a decade ago but today reports that about 200 attend on Sundays. The church has a lease agreement with the new owner to worship there through 2013.

“We love the building, and it’s a great location,” said David Keith, lead elder. “We just didn’t have the overall congregation to support much of that building and its mortgage.”

…

Former senior pastor Peter Spencer, who founded the congregation in 1988, could not be reached for comment. Keith said membership losses coincided with his resignation in 2003.

Spencer “had quite a following,” Keith said. “Basically, once he left, it just wasn’t quite the same.”

John Cannon, former executive pastor, succeeded Spencer in 2003 and resigned last December, eventually taking a job as a commercial real estate agent.

The church is located along a stretch of Loop 1604 informally called “church row” for the many congregations fronting it, drawing members from fast-growing suburbs. Nearly 200,000 people live within a five-mile radius of Harvest Fellowship, according to its property listing, but the competition played a role in membership losses, church leaders said.

One of these days, and I think it will be in the near future, churches in America won’t have to worry about competition from other churches.

Also see: Christians Need to Stop Making Converts

In  my most recent episode of the "Consider This!" podcast, I discussed how polygamy is beginning to get mainstreamed, with major newspapers asking the question; why is 2 some magic number for marriage? Why not "three, four, or 17"?

The website Gawker is now giving press (and rather disturbing press, frankly; the beginning of the article is not for the squeamish) to guys like Dr. Hubert Van Gijseghem (pronounced HI-sheh-hem), who is retired from the University of Montreal, and who testified before the Canadian Parliament’s "Committee on Justice and Human Rights." In part, he said:

[I]t is a fact that real pedophiles account for only 20 percent of sexual abusers. If we know that pedophiles are not simply people who commit a small offence from time to time but rather are grappling with what is equivalent to a sexual orientation just like another individual may be grappling with heterosexuality or even homosexuality, and if we agree on the fact that true pedophiles have an exclusive preference for children, which is the same as having a sexual orientation, everyone knows that there is no such thing as real therapy. You cannot change this person’s sexual orientation.

And if they’re "born this way" (to steal from a Lady Gaga song title), who are we to judge? I’m not saying that some of the things done to pedophiles is justified (the harassment they receive), because we are to love the thief, the murderer and the pedophile as Christ would love them. I completely denounce harassment, but words mean things, and this is a big step in the cultural normalization process.

At the moment, there is still some sanity on the subject. One group in Germany attempting to counsel pedophiles uses the phrase, "You are not guilty because of your sexual desire, but you are responsible for your sexual behavior. There is help." This is true of all of us. We all have our weak points of temptation, but it’s how we act (and, as Jesus pointed out, how we fantasize) that is the problem.

However, consider how homosexuality was viewed just a generation ago and how it’s been so normalized that some states allow same-sex marriage. The biggest argument that the homosexual crowd put forth was that this was something in their genes, and therefore was nothing more than being left-handed or blue-eyed. If we consider pedophilia just another sexual orientation, then, while the act may still be frowned upon for the moment, the foundation has already been laid to normalize pedophilia.

Now, I know slippery slope arguments can be…well, slippery. They involve a bit of prediction. If A happens, B will happen next. It’s easy to dismiss these sorts of arguments are mere guesses. However, when initial predictions become true, and when you have so much history to look at and see that it has been indeed happening, it’s time to take the arguments more seriously. I am very supportive of efforts to counsel pedophiles before they act on their thoughts. However, the change in terminology can and does change the culture and the views. Whether or not Dr. Van Gijseghem means it to, this change can easily be taken up by others to slip us further down the slope to … well, who knows where.