And, like most tantrums, it won’t change a thing.  John Hinderaker notes that the media just can’t seem to bring themselves to admit that a course of action has failed (and predictably so).

You almost have to laugh at the way the media cover the "international community’s" kicking of the Iran can down the road. The board of the International Atomic Energy Agency, which a few days ago acknowledged that its policy toward Iran had "reached a dead end," has passed a resolution criticizing Iran for flouting U.N. resolutions and demanding that it stop work on nuclear weapons. The Associated Press risibly declares this a "blow" to the mullahs.

This assumes that the mullahs actually care about world opinion.  Recent history does not tend to suggest this is true (to put it mildly).  What is true, as documented by The Israel Project, are these facts and figures:

President Barack Obama recently warned that time is “running out” for Iran to join international negotiations over its nuclear program.[1] The Islamic Republic, the world’s leading state-sponsor of terror, has been deceiving the international community about its nuclear activities for almost a decade, prompting British Prime Minister Gordon Brown to declare that “the international community has no choice today but to draw a line in the sand” regarding Iran’s nuclear aspirations.[2]
Following are facts and figures relating to Iran’s nuclear violations, terror sponsorship and domestic and international affairs.

Nuclear Activity
• 5,412: Centrifuges Iran is operating for uranium enrichment as of February 2009. Another 125 have been installed but are not currently being used.[3]
• 2.75 kilograms (6.1 lbs): Amount of low-enriched uranium (LEU) Iran was reportedly producing daily as of June 5, 2009. At this rate, Iran would have enough weapons-grade uranium to create two nuclear weapons by February 2010. If all reported 7,052 centrifuges were used, the weapons could be developed as early as mid-December 2009.[4]
• 4: UN Security Council (UNSC) resolutions calling for Iran to halt its uranium enrichment program which Iran is currently defying: UNSC resolutions 1696, 1737, 1747 and 1803.[5]
• 3,000: Number of centrifuges IAEA inspectors confirmed the once-secret Qom nuclear facility is capable of housing; enough to produce material for nuclear weapons but unsuitable for the production of fuel for civilian purposes.[6]
• Approximately 6: Countries—including Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Turkey—which would also pursue nuclear technology if Iran’s nuclear program continues to develop, initiating a Middle East arms race and destabilizing the entire region.[7]

When you’ve dithered for almost a decade, how much more time do you give them?  Enough time to build a bomb and start an arms race?  As I’ve said before, sometimes when diplomacy fails, it’s not necessarily a failure of those trying to prevent conflict.  Some people/countries will simply not be negotiated with.  Iran, I believe, has proven itself, quite clearly, to be one of these. 

1. When a philosopher says, “your meaning is not clear” … his meaning apparently is also somewhat guarded.
2. An academic philosopher offering unintelligent remarks.
3. We can hope.
4. Memory, has a year passed already?
5. Theology and a question of continuum or distinct category.
6. This was settled once a thousand years ago … but I guess not for good, the return of the iconoclast.
7. Controlling costs of healthcare.
8. Yet another reason to distrust what passes for wisdom in the White House.
9. Culture of death noted.
10. Of worship and song.
11. A poem.
12. Heh.
13. Odd robot news.
14. The fate of America’s poor.
15. For the AGW faithful.

I try to stay aware of current cultural motifs. Yet I was surprised by the furor over the recent Twilight movie, New Moon. It was at work, a couple of weeks ago, when I caught first glimpse of the phenomenon. A co-worker complained that his wife was dragging him to a movie which, as he put it (in referring to me), “your teenage daughter is looking forward to.” When I asked what movie that might be, he referred to something about a “New Moon”. I must admit that my first inclination was that the feature was actually a documentary on certain astronomical events, however a Google search quickly dashed my hopes.

As point of fact, though, I must say that “no, my daughter is not interested in this movie” (note: I made it a point to ask her whether or not she was interested in the movie and whether any of her friends were, and her answers were very reassuring).

That being settled, I pretty much forgot about the release, save for the obligatory TV or web news items showing adolescent girls, and their moms, queued-up for the midnight showing. However, a curious thing happened upon release of the movie. I began seeing various posts, mainly on Facebook, from otherwise sane Christian females, celebrating the fact that they were attending or going to attend the movie. Likewise, those that had seen the movie were enthralled by what they witnessed. It was also interesting to note that the age range of those commenting spanned from pre-teen to 40+.

Why all the squealing adoration? From IMDB.com, a “plot” synopsis,

Bella Swan is still very much in love with vampire, Edward Cullen. The rest of the vampire coven who call themselves the Cullens, especially Alice, decide to throw Bella a private party for her eighteenth birthday. Things go wrong when Bella slices her finger and thirst overcomes the vampires. As a result of the danger Bella was put through, the Cullen family decide to leave Forks, Washington. At first Bella exempts herself from all social activities, until she realizes she can coexist with childhood friend, Jacob Black. As usual for Bella, things aren’t what they seem. Something is happening to Jacob that he can’t explain to Bella, and their friendship starts to deteriorate. But when someone from Bella’s past comes back to haunt her, everything will change again.

It used to be the vampires were the one the woman ran away from.

In Top 20 Unfortunate Lessons Girls Learn From ‘Twilight’, John Scott Lewinski provides us with a funny / sad list of secular impacts that derive from an obsession with entertainment such as New Moon. Some excerpts,

1. If a boy is aloof, stand-offish, ignores you or is just plain rude, it is because he is secretly in love with you — and you are the point of his existence.
…
3. It’s OK for a potential romantic interest to be dimwitted, violent and vengeful — as long as he has great abs.
…
6. When a boy leaves you, going into shock, losing all your friends and enduring night terrors are completely acceptable occurrences — as long as you keep your grades up.
…
10. Even though you have no intention of dating an alternative male who expresses interest in you, it is fine to string the young man along for months. Also, you should use him to fix things for you. Maybe he’ll even buy you something.
11. You should use said male to fix things because girls are incapable of anything mechanical or technical.
12. Lying to your parents is fine. Lying to your parents while you run away to save your suicidal boyfriend is an extremely good idea that shows your strength and maturity. Also, it is what you must do.
…
14. If the boy you are in love with causes you (even indirectly) to be so badly beaten you end up in the hospital, you should tell the doctors and your family that you “fell down the steps” because you are such a silly, clumsy girl. That false explanation always works well for abused women.
…
18. When writing a book series, it’s acceptable to lift seminal source material and bastardize it with tired, overwrought teenage angst.
19. When making or watching a major feature film, you should gleefully embrace the 20 minutes of plot it provides in between extended segments of vacant-eyed silence and self-indulgent, moaning banter.

Is the adoration that evangelical girls (and women) give for a movie like New Moon indicative of how we, as the evangelical church in general, lavish praise on the secular world? In what other areas do we, men, women, boys and girls, soak up the sugar water the world feeds us, at the expense of what is good?

We can do better.

This summer I had a class in theology which I sometimes discussed. This class was part of the “late vocations” program offered by in our area by the OCA. Currently, I’m taking the second of these classes, and true to form the reading/work load has been somewhat larger than expected. We’re taking a “great books” approach to the Old Testament, and in our 8 week class … reading and discussing the entire Old Testament …. and for the technically minded, using the Codex Alexandrinus for our canon … which means that the books we read are somewhat extended from the standard Protestant even Catholic set of books. In the below, I’m going to explore a question/point raised in class which I would like to explore in more detail.

Throughout the Old Testament, but certainly notable in Judges through Kings IV (the Orthodox church uses the Septuagint as its basis for the Old Testament, Samuel I and II and Kings I & II become Kings I-IV) there is constant influence from external polytheistic religions. There is not just military conquest and battle back and forth between nations being portrayed, but we find priests contending and confronting those following other gods and abandoning those of other religions. There is a marked contrast between how, for example, Elijah deals with the priests of Baal (Kings III 18) and how today we confront those who believe differently in this modern age. Read the rest of this entry

While one could easily dismiss the Obama Party Crashers incident as administration ineptness, let’s hope that officials within the administration treat it with the seriousness it deserves.

An inept guard was responsible for Lincoln getting shot as he allowed Booth to approach the unsuspecting president. Is it so unreasonable to think that either or both of these two individuals could have harmed President Obama had that been their intent?

Despite who might happen to occupy the White House, the office of the Presidency of the United States should not be treated with flippancy. State events should not be viewed as challenges to crash as if it were some “reality TV” contest.

Our culture may view the incident as mildly humorous. Our enemies, I fear, may see it in a completely different light.

What if Abe Lincoln had tried to make Thanksgiving a federal holiday in 2009?  Scott Ott has a hilarious take on it. 

Leading congressional Democrats see in President Abraham Lincoln’s so-called "Thanks-giving day" declaration not only "a disturbing streak of irrational mysticism," as one senator called it, "but a view of human nature inconsistent with the modern enlightenment understanding."

Reporters and columnists from the New York Times, among others, recently expressed confusion at Mr. Lincoln’s claim that he can see blessings in the midst of the trials brought on by what most experts call the "quagmire of a war for cotton" between the Confederacy and the Union.

Read the whole thing, but fair warning; swallow any liquid you may have in your mouth beforehand.  Otherwise it could be all over your computer screen.

That’s what the German’s pay, and yet their system has long ago run out of money.

Germany’s system relies on a handful of state-supported health insurers. This week they informed the government that the system was on the brink of a financial shortfall equal to nearly $11 billion.

Pointedly, the insurers made clear that cutbacks alone won’t solve the problem. They said the government would have to consider raising premiums on the insured or, you guessed it, raise taxes. Currently, German workers pay a fixed-rate premium into the insurance scheme; that rate is now set at 14.9% of gross pay.

Chancellor Merkel, something of a political acrobat, was previously allied in coalition with leftist Social Democrats. She’s now resisting calls from the Free Democrats to get off the state-pulled health-care train. The FDP’s spokesman on health, Daniel Bahr, wants a "shift in direction away from state-run medicine." Why? Because "the current financial figures have showed us that the health-care fund doesn’t work."

"Doesn’t work."  Please someone inform the Senate Democrats of this.

1. Austrian economics.
2. The importance of one Mr Brentano.
3. Is that martyrdom of or and the intellectual?
4. Looking at the left and the politics of healthcare.
5. From where I sit, the description includes “handsome” the picture … not so much.
6. Big “O” Orthodoxy, Not just an intellectual exercise.
7. Well, I linked this yesterday and was told it was deceptive. Try try again.
8. What’s “wrong” with capitalism.
9. Considering church and state.
10. Where the wild things really are … and what it’s like over there.
11. Logical fallacy and the budget.
12. In Mr Obama’s military.
13. Singing … Skopjans?
14. Cost and Afghanistan.

1. China, currency and all that stuff … a response here.
2. Exports and … Bangladesh.
3. Menace, phantom or no … another view on that here.
4. For the Afghan McChyrstal plan.
5. Freedom of choice, spin and Mr Kennedy.
6. Liberal anger, Mr Obama and the Asian “tour.”
7. A question.
8. Fiction unfolding.
9. Mr Mohler and the Manhattan Declaration.
10. Neo-Malthusians?
11. The party of “if a Black man votes against healthcare he isn’t Black” looks askance at a RNC “purity” test.
12. One effect of the climate-hackergate.
13. Icons a secular aesthetic.

Hollywood, are you listening?  Liberals who think at least Chavez isn’t the monster he’s often portrayed as, are you paying attention? 

President Hugo Chávez has risked international ire by lauding Carlos the Jackal, the Venezuelan terrorist notorious for a series of bombings, kidnappings and hijackings across Europe, as a "revolutionary fighter" unjustly imprisoned for trying to defend the Palestinian people.

The leftist Venezuelan leader praised Carlos — whose real name is Ilich Ramirez Sánchez — as "one of the great fighters of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation", denying he was a terrorist and claiming his lifetime imprisonment in France was unfair.

"I defend him," he said during a speech on Friday night. "It doesn’t matter to me what they say tomorrow in Europe."

Of course, this is now in addition to all his other BFFs.

The fiery anti-American leader sought to defend leaders he said were wrongly branded "bad guys", heaping praise on Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who is to visit Venezuela later this week, and the Zimbabwean leader Robert Mugabe, who he called "brothers".

He drew the wrath of Ugandans after casting doubt on the crimes of the Ugandan dictator Idi Amin. "We thought he was a cannibal," said Mr Chávez of Amin, whose regime was notorious for torturing and killing suspected opponents in the 1970s. "I have doubts … Maybe he was a great nationalist, a patriot."

Hat tip: Betsy Newmark, who wonders if those Hollywood leftists who have made common cause with Chavez will ever get asked about this latest news.  Yeah, probably not.  After all, it is the leftist media most likely to do any interviewing.

Now we know where that annoying campaign slogan was really coming from:

Source: GraphJam

I’ve heard some folks say that they’d happily pay their part to get health insurance for everyone.  The only problem is, they think that it’s just a matter of money; a few (or a whole bunch of) extra bucks out of their paychecks.  But there’s more to it than that.  Republicans have come out with some numbers that show this is a bit more costly than that.  A sampling:

5.5 million — Number of jobs that could be lost as a result of taxes on businesses that cannot afford to provide health insurance coverage, according to a model developed by Council of Economic Advisors Chair Christina Romer

$1.055 trillion — New federal spending on expanded health insurance coverage over the next ten years, according to a Congressional Budget Office preliminary score of the bill

0.7% — Percentage of all that new spending occurring in the bill’s first three years-representing a debt and tax “time bomb” in the program’s later years set to explode on future generations

$88,200 — Definition of “low-income” family of four for purposes of health insurance subsidies

114 million — Number of individuals who could lose their current coverage under the bill’s government-run health plan, according to non-partisan actuaries at the Lewin Group

And what about paying for all of this with Medicare fraud reduction?

$60 billion — Loss sustained by taxpayers every year due to Medicare fraud, according to a recent 60 Minutes expose; the government-run health plan does not reform the ineffective anti-fraud statutes and procedures that have kept Medicare on the Government Accountability Office’s list of high-risk programs for two decades

Zero — Prohibitions on government programs like Medicare and Medicaid from using cost-effectiveness research to impose delays to or denials for access to life-saving treatments.

That silly talk about "death panels"?

$634 Billion — Amount that could be saved by denying individuals access to treatments that are not “cost-effective,” according to a report by the liberal Commonwealth Fund; Section 1160 of the bill gives bureaucrats in the Obama Administration virtual free rein to develop a new “high-value” reimbursement system for Medicare by May 2012

Your money would be buying more government intrusion, less freedom, subsidies for those "poor" making $80,000 a year, expansion of unemployment, and a price tag that, while it may feel good at the beginning, will hit up-and-coming wage earners the hardest. 

Happily pay for this?  Really?

1. An artistic aesthetic for the family photo that I don’t quite get.
2. Contra move-on and a self-contradictory PAC.
3. Questions regarding the upcoming (show?) trial.
4. That Manhattan document.
5. Man and Woman … Mars and Venus.
6. Unimpressed by pork … or outright bribery.
7. The other healthcare bill.
8. Uranium ore and international politics.
9. Stalin and a war memorial.
10. West/East and Mary, Theotokos.
11. A favorite novel.
12. Dr Who and ethics.
13. Myths.
14. The Muslim Palestinian left and Mr Obama’s policy.
15. Lessons and climategate.

And it ain’t a happy day for the CRU.  True, this is a cybercrime, and the perpetrator(s) should be brought to justice.  But equally as big is the contents of the >1000 e-mails and >3800 documents. 

The Hadley Climate Research Unit has confirmed the hack, so this is not a hoax, and global-warming-skeptic sites like "Watts Up With That" and Andrew Bolt of Australia’s Herald-Sun newspaper are sifting through the data, finding some rather compromising evidence.  Some include details on how temperature data was manipulated, to frustration that the climate models didn’t predict the current global temp decline, to attempts to obfuscate data released via a Freedom of Information request.  Bolt has been updating his post frequently and has a dozen examples so far.

As the Wall St. Journal says, "Well, this should get interesting."

True, this could all be a major hoax, but with Hadley confirming the breach, and with 61 megabytes of data having been dumped (i.e. a vast amount), this is sounding very real.  Stay tuned.

In our self-absorbed, narcissistic culture, filled with people desperate to find meaning to their lives, is it no surprise we’ve generated the Personal Promise Bible? (HT: STR)

Have you ever inserted your name as you read the Bible to make it more personal? Now you can experience the reality of God’s love and promises in a way you never thought possible. In the Personal Promise Bible, you will read your first name personalized in over 5,000 places throughout the New Testament with Psalms and Proverbs, over 7,000 places throughout the complete Old and New Testaments.

Indeed, with a tagline of “as unique as you are”, such a product only reinforces the notion that the Bible was written directly to us individually. This, I think, is an issue that has crept up in the evangelical church in America. In Bible studies, class discussions, and sermons alike, do any of these phrases sound familiar: “To me, this verse means…”, “What does this verse mean, to you?…”, “My special verse is…”, or “God gave me this verse…”? It’s this “the Bible was written to me” idea which causes so many Christians to literally steal away the intended meaning of scripture. Consider the classic “my special verse” of Jeremiah 29:11,

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

The main problem with this unique-as-you-are Bible is that most of the Bible was not written directly to us! This certainly does not mean we cannot gleam truths, insights, applications and personal significance from the words in God’s Word, but it does mean we should approach the written Word in a manner consistent with how we approach any written form of communication. We must understand the historical foundation of Israel and the early Church which, as with any foundation, precedes us and on which we stand. We must understand that the ultimate author of the Bible (God) has an intent (plan) He is communicating to all people and working out through His church. And we need to realize that the individual authors of the Bible, through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, wrote in specific literary genres, to specific audiences, with specific intentions.

If we fail to understand these basic premises, and choose to personalize essentially the entire Bible, we’ll end up with an anti-Word. Consider Jeremiah 29:11 in this unique-as-you-are context: “For I know the plans I have for Rusty,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper Rusty and not to harm Rusty, plans to give Rusty hope and a future.” How many times have you heard Christians take this verse in essentially that personal-for-me context? Yet, are they ready to do the same with the preceding verse? “This is what the Lord says: “When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will come to Rusty and fulfill my gracious promise to bring Rusty back to this place.”

It’s interesting to note, when I’ve pointed out Jeremiah 29:10 to people who want to claim Jeremiah 29:11, the mental gymnastics that take place to suddenly turn the meaning of verse 10 into an allegory or metaphor or something completely apart from the personal promise they are so convinced is contained in verse 11.

Could it be that one reason we’ve drifted into a post-Christian culture is because we completely misunderstand our place in God’s Plan through an ill-educated approach to reading His Word?