Well, this weekend the clever routines at Amazon suggested an interesting book, on which I bit and a problem of sorts arose. This book, in electronic form, was priced at that-which-must-be-obeyed level, that is to say $1. It was a “trilogy” of short books, fiction, in a genre I enjoy. Enjoy in the “guilty pleasure” sense of the title of this little essay. 

So. Do you like space opera? If so, check out the series by Mr Randolph Lalond (here’s a start in paper First Light Chronicles Omnibus or eInk First Light Chronicles Omnibus.

Thoroughly enjoyable. I’m into the continuation series … as time permits. The continuation books are a little more expensive in the eInk version … but only by a little. 

Executive Order No. 62 or… How to, at a moment’s notice, turn otherwise law abiding citizens into criminals. In North Carolina, the governor signed the executive order, declaring a State of Emergency due to the approaching Hurricane Earl. While that may sound all well and good, when combined with North Carolina General Statute 14-288.7, things can become messy. The statute makes it unlawful for one to possess or transport off their own premises, a “dangerous weapon”, during a declared state of emergency. Hence, anyone engaged in lawful possession of a firearm off their premises (such as hunters or CCW permit holders), prior to a declared emergency, would automatically be breaking the law once an emergency is declared.

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Korean shop owners had it figured out During the 1992 Los Angeles riots, Korean shop owners were left on their own to defend themselves, with whatever means they had. Lucky for them they were armed as looters roamed the streets looking for booty. Not surprisingly, after experiencing shots fired from pistols and AR-15 rifles, looters left the Korean shop owners alone. Funny how that works.

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Laser-tag makes it to the Olympics Well, not quite. Laser guns will replace air guns at the Olympics, for the modern pentathlon, beginning in 2012. Billed as the “way of the future,” organizers say that safety will no longer be a concern, and that events could be held at parks or even shopping malls! I guess the safety issue of a laser beam in one’s eye is not a concern to officials. Rumor has it that other Olympic events will be restructured, in the name of safety: the javelin throw will be done via a Wii, and the hammer throw and discus will utilize nerf technology.

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An offer he can’t refuse? If offered a 15% raise (on top of your $150,000 / year salary), 4 times the stock benefits, and a $500,000 bonus – just to stay a year more – would you refuse it, as well?

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How did he become Mr. Unpopular? Because, I think, he finally showed his true colors (please, no racist intent was meant by the use of the word “colors”).

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At first, complaints about his use of the teleprompter were laughed off by liberal comics… Now, even Matthews is tiring of Obama’s dependence on it.

President Obama said in a political speech yesterday that his opponents talk about him as if he were a dog.  Well, I want to state here that I do not think the President should be treated like a dog. However, he should take counsel from the Harry Truman quote (which most now say Truman never said): “If you want a friend in Washington, get a dog.” Truman did have some dog issues, and probably should have had a dog.

The Obama’s do have a dog, who the President believes has star quality. Things are not going to get any friendlier in Washington the next two months; perhaps President Obama should get better acquainted with the dog, because he may need a friend. 

And as Lord Byron (not Truman) said in 1841: “Nobody need want a friend who can get a dog.”

Good morning. I hope everyone had a nice Labor Day weekend.

1. A new legal blog, a sample here.
2. Worse than heroin? Hmmm, that’s an odd point of view to say the least.
3. A word, oikophobia.
4. More on the Beck gathering, here and here.
5. That strikes me as less a problem of gender and more about manners.
6. On the values gap.
7. Freedom of speech and a martyr.
8. Church and dress.
9. A reply to Mr Krugman’s reading of WWII as stimulus. 
10. Our government right now in a nutshell.
11. One part of the financial picture.
12. And an argument against expanding government influence in, say, healthcare or well just about anything.

Good morning.

1. A book reviewed.
2. VAT considered. The bigger problem with VAT is that the Congress critters considering VAT aren’t thinking of it as a replacement but an addition.
3. A book list.
4. Clunkers. A bad idea then, worse in retrospect.
5. Oil in them thar hills.
6. What airline I wonder?
7. Beslan.
8. Lies, damn lies, and statistics.
9. Weather is not climate. Climate is not climate. 
10. The Administration and yet-another-broken-promise.
11. Another look at unemployment numbers. 
12. Prayer as image.
13. The Discovery nut as right winger meme.
14. Statistics and schools. 

He was a rabid environmentalist.  He considered babies "parasitic human infants", and wanted all "pro-birth" programs to push "stopping human birth".  He was extremely anti-war, and equated having more humans with more war.  He considered civilization "filth", and its religious roots "disgusting".

And ThinkProgress, an extremely popular liberal blog, calls out the Right over this guy, James Jay Lee, who took hostages at the Discovery Channel, because one of his eleven points refers to immigration. 

Really?  Is this what passes for intellectual honesty on the Left these days?  A guy who said Al Gore’s "An Inconvenient Truth" woke him up is a product of the Right?

None other than President of the United States Bill Clinton blamed conservative talk radio for Timothy McVeigh, and recently brought that back up in light of the Tea Party.  Conservatives against the "Ground Zero Mosque" were blamed for the stabbing of a Muslim cabbie (until it was found that it was a GZM supporter who stabbed the cabbie who was against the Mosque).  And Caleb Howe reminds us:

Lee acted irrationally. His environmental extremism was likely a function of his derangement, rather than the source of it. He latched on. He took it to the extreme, to say the least. Lee was not, by any measure that I would choose, a sane man. The story told by his brother-in-law – one of temper, erratic behavior, and irrational views – recalls Jerry Kane.

Jerry Kane, and his son Joe, killed two police officers and were killed themselves, in a shoot-out precipitated by a simple traffic stop. Jerry Kane, too, was an unstable man. His hometown mayor said of him that “You were always looking over your shoulder to make sure he wasn’t there. You never knew what he was going to do. I always thought he was an unstable individual.” Like Lee, the aftermath anecdotes painted a picture of paranoia and fear. But that didn’t stop liberal sites like Crooks and Liars from laying him at the feet of the conservative movement. Or Joseph Stack. Or Richard Poplawski. Or Byron Williams. It didn’t stop them from suggesting that Erick [Erickson] was responsible for a census worker slaying.

In fact, every time someone is shot in a lone gunman scenario, the right, and the tea parties and talk radio in particular, are virtually instantaneously blamed by the left at large for “violent” rhetoric and instigation.

Stop me, again, if you’ve heard THAT one before.

We never stop hearing from the MSNBC left how the Fox News right is stirring up violence. But when someone clearly basing his murderous intent on the idea that humans are going to destroy the world, and soon, acts on the dire prophecies of Al Gore … well suddenly you can’t blame rhetoric for crazy people.

Rachel Maddow, Keith Olbermann and Ed Schultz will simply not take responsibility for this guy.  I don’t think they should, but they should then not require the Right to take responsibility for the acts of other nuts.

But they will, as will Bill Clinton.  This is what passes for intellectual honesty on the Left.

I’ve written previously on the false notion, in my opinion, of “felt-led” theology (see here and here). Felt-led theology, as coined by Greg Koukl at Stand to Reason, is a mindset among Christians, in which life decisions are based on whether or not one feels led – presumably of the Spirit – towards said decision. This experiential approach is heavily dependent on interpreting inner feelings and urges as potential messages from God. In a broad sense, such an approach is also used as a measure of one’s “connectedness” with God. In other words, your walk with God is determined by how well you decipher those inner nudges; the better you decipher, the more closely aligned you are with His Will.

Unfortunately, though pervasive within contemporary evangelical culture, felt-led theology has no scriptural foundation and, in my opinion, is tantamount to Christian superstition.

How many times have you encountered a fellow Christian who has made an important commitment decision or, worse, has left a previous commitment, mainly because they felt that God was leading them in such and such a direction? How many times have you encountered a fellow Christian, while contemplating a decision, state that they are “praying for direction”? It seems to me that the Bible makes it clear that we should pray for wisdom (and then use our own minds to make the decision).

Maybe it’s the introvert in me, as I deal with a decidedly extroverted Christian culture, but I tend to find the notion of relying on inner nudges and feelings, while we have access to God’s Word, to be a bit counter intuitive. Recently, I saw a discussion pertaining to how one should expect an answer from God, after prayerfully asking, especially when no answer seemed (felt) to be forthcoming. Some comments were (with my emphasis),

Yes, the waiting time can be very difficult. However, sometimes we have to ask ourselves if we are really listening or if we are really waiting for an answer.

Sometimes we’re so afraid of what the answer might or might not be that we’re not ready to listen to what he has to say.

He’ll only answer if you want him to.

While it’s sad to see such lame theology coming from other Christians, it’s even sadder to realize that such notions are commonly held beliefs within the evangelical community. One has to wonder if those who hold such beliefs have ever considered that God not only has the ability to deliver a message to us in any manner he chooses, regardless of whether or not we’re “listening” or whether or not we’re afraid of the answer, but that scripture does not support the notion that we have control over whether or not God speaks to us. Indeed, when one looks at scripture, one finds that God has no problem at all getting His message to whomever He chooses (ref. Saul on the road to Damascus); and that those who happen to feel that God is not answering them do not conclude that they aren’t listening hard enough, but understand the distinction of who they are and who God is (ref. David calling out to God).

Unfortunately, the message behind the idea that we can control whether or not answers from God get through is that we can conjure up God. That makes God our puppet – and that’s sending the wrong message to our fellow Christians.

For additional reference:
Just Do Something – Kevin DeYoung
Decision Making & the Will of God – Greg Koukl

Steven Hawking is one of the most brilliant scientists of our time, and we’re lucky to have him.  In earlier days, his disability might have relegated him to being homebound, and he probably wouldn’t have lived nearly this long, robbing humanity of his intelligence.

However, he’s apparently branching out into a new area that he is not as well versed in; religion.

In his latest book, The Grand Design, an extract of which is published in Eureka magazine in The Times, Hawking said: “Because there is a law such as gravity, the Universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the Universe exists, why we exist.”

He added: “It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the Universe going.”

In A Brief History of Time, Prof Hawking’s most famous work, he did not dismiss the possibility that God had a hand in the creation of the world.

He wrote in the 1988 book: "If we discover a complete theory, it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason — for then we should know the mind of God.”

In his new book he rejects Sir Isaac Newton’s theory that the Universe did not spontaneously begin to form but was set in motion by God.

Scientists have a conniption when theologians delve into the scientific realm.  But apparently, that doesn’t work both ways in Prof. Hawking’s estimation.

Frankly, I think there can be spill over to each other.  The God of creation made us to be curious and made the order of the universe understandable to us.  I just would like scientists, who frown when a religious person appears to infringe on territory they claim exclusive rights to, would judge themselves by their own standards when moving the other direction. 

Good morning. Well, I’m a little rushed this morning … shorter list than usual … work intrudes on life.

1. Satan and cinema.
2. Another view of the POTUS speech. I think the right was not his intended audience. I’m not sure who was.
3. Thoughts on marriage, mostly from the left. I’d offer that if you’re considering marriage and want to pretend to live the self-examined life, this resource is indispensable (Wing to Wing, Oar to Oar).
4. Ahhhhh. 
5. Occupied territory.
6. Why is this even a question? 
7. Thought and sin.
8. Liberal caricature.
9. Comments of note.
10. Of rest and restlessness.
11. Noetic processes.

Good morning.

1. Son of a great man.
2. On the POTUS address.
3. Verse.
4. Huh, the average male has a GPS these days.
5. France and the Roma.
6. Hmm, in a search for a less substantial less vapid political post … this might be in the list. My wife lists here occupation on our 10-40 as “domestic goddess.” 
7. Male midlife crisis … a temporary one.
8. Mr Assange.
9. About those free riders.
10. I think that assessment is right, although I doubt my own ability to judge the motives of liberal/progressives.