Good morning. Brevity?
(Hey, if Democrats can invent a war, so can I.)
Hobby Lobby had filed suit to block the ObamaCare contraception mandate. They lost round 1.
As a “secular” corporation, they have no rights to use the religious beliefs of their ownership as a justification not to abide by the contraception mandate. This decision is inconsistent with the Tyndale House one you may have heard about. So apparently being a Bible publisher does make you religious, but being a Bible seller doesn’t.
The argument the administration advanced successfully in the Hobby Lobby case is a particularly troublesome one for believers of all faiths who operate under the assumption that they can use their moral principles to guide the way their place of business spends money. According to the administration’s legal arguments, the family that owns Hobby Lobby is not protected by the First Amendment’s "free exercise" clause because “Hobby Lobby is a for-profit, secular employer, and a secular entity by definition does not exercise religion.”
Hobby Lobby is an all-American success story if there ever was one. Read the whole thing for their history. But now, with ObamaCare breathing down our collective necks, you lose your religious freedom the minute you start a company.
The company remained all privately owned, with no franchising. Their statement of purposes and various commitments all begin with Bible verses, commitments to honor the Lord. The Hobby Lobby folks pay well above minimum wage and have increased salaries four years in a row despite the recession. They are teetotalers of the old Oral Roberts variety, refusing to stock shot glasses, don’t sell any of their store locations with liquor stores, don’t allow backhauling of beer shipments – all things that could make them money, but they just bear the costs. Every Christmas and Easter, the Hobby Lobby folks advertise a free Bible and spiritual counseling. They are closed every Sunday. The family also signed the giving pledge, committing to donate the majority of their wealth to philanthropy.
So: I doubt this is the type of company to spend one dime on this contraception mandate. They will just drop coverage, and pay employees the difference, shifting them onto the exchanges or the taxpayer, rather than compromise their beliefs. It’s logical, it’s more predictable as a budgeting choice, and it will save them tens of millions in the long run versus retaining coverage and paying the fine.
I have to wonder if this wasn’t part of the plan all along; a self-fulfilling prophesy of the need for state insurance exchanges by forcing, in part, religious people who happened to have started a business to join them. That’s a little cynical, I’ll agree, but it’s tough to understand this blatant contravening of freedoms in the very first Amendment.
Arguing that a corporation isn’t a person is one thing. Arguing that you stop being one when you create one is another one entirely.
Good morning. Hope y’all had a great Thanksgiving!
Good morning.
Be wary of those who rag on that the Republican Party is primarily made up of old, rich, racist white men. Be wary because when faced with the prospect of a young Hispanic Republican, as in Marco Rubio, the media seems to think that a question of priority for said Republican is to ask him how old he thinks the Earth is. Let’s disregard how other issues were skipped over in lieu of that high priority age of the Earth question. Issues such as: immigration, the economy, healthcare, gun running into Mexico, a U.S. Ambassador being killed in a coordinated attack at a U.S. Embassy and, maybe, the current conflict between Israel and Hamas, you know – low priority issues like that. Oh, and let’s also disregard the fact that Rubio probably-most-likely-maybe thinks that the laws of aerodynamics work consistently enough so that he believes that when he boards a jetliner it will actually fly through the air (as designed); or that he thinks that the laws of chemistry work consistently enough so that when he takes medication it will interact with his body the way it is supposed to; or that he thinks most of that – you know – “science stuff” really works.
Yes, since they can’t accuse him of being an old, rich, racist white man, they simply disregard all of the real issues and paint him out to be some sort of buffoon by asking him how old the Earth is because, when all is said and done, they’re not interested in tolerating a Hispanic Republican.
Be wary.
Good morning. And I don’t know how old the earth is … I was taught (and believe) that every number stated in science needs units (unless it’s dimensionless) and error bars. But an interesting exercise for the reader is to use make estimates based on things you know to estimate age and error … what do you get and how do you get it? If you can’t get the age, about about some bound like the Parker limit on monopoles? For example, the moon’s spin is synchronized with the earth’s spin. That’s a quadrupole coupling … that should give you a way to make a lower bound estimate on how long the earth moon have been a system. Right?
Good morning.
Good morning.
Which country produces the most Bibles? I thought this would be a simple question; the United States, the most capitalist country around. Lots of people, and a jillion different translations, paraphrases and parallel versions would make for a big market.
Not so. This may surprise you, until you think about it a bit.
When one thinks of China, Christianity and the Bible are likely two of the furthest things that come to mind. “Communism,” “forced abortions,” one-child policy” and other terms are, more generally, what’s the nation is known for. But now, a shocking new development has come to the forefront: China, a country that makes many products consumed in the U.S. and abroad, is now also the world’s largest Bible producer.
Amity Printing Company is the only outfit in China that is permitted to produce Christian Bibles. While the Chinese government doesn’t have the most stellar record when it comes to religious freedom, Amity Printing has been fast at work, with the company’s chairman, Qiu Zhonghui, announcing that the business published its 100 millionth Bible in July.
According to a report by Christian Today [Ed.: not "Christianity Today"], the Amity has printed 60 million Bibles, including nine ethnic minority editions in various languages. Additionally, 40 million copies were printed in more than 90 languages and sent to about 70 nations and regions across the globe.
Not bad for a printing company founded in 1988.
Good morning.
Good morning.
The Occupy Wall Street crowd, upset that government power was being overly wielded by bankers, suggested, as the solution, we give government more power. The funny thing was, they took up other causes themselves (feeding people, protesting bank fees by not doing business with those banks) that were successful because it was individuals meeting a need rather than government imposing a one-size-fits-all solution. The market worked, and people were helped. Churches and conservatives have been doing it for a long time; it was nice to see these kids get a feel for individual charity and individual choices.
Another Occupier has been given a grim remind that government can’t be everywhere, but individuals can be.
The situation in public housing projects in Coney Island, Brooklyn remains a "humanitarian crisis" in which the government and the Red Cross have been nearly completely absent, according to Eric Moed, a volunteer aid worker with Occupy Sandy.
Friday is Moed’s fifth day volunteering with Occupy Sandy, an ad hoc hurricane relief group formed by former Occupy Wall Street activists. Moed, an architect from Brooklyn’s Clinton Hill neighborhood, goes door to door in the 30-40 public housing buildings in the Coney Island neighborhood of Brooklyn to distribute food, water and supplies, and help address sanitation and medical needs. The projects in Coney Island remain without power, and often without water and necessities in the wake of Hurricane Sandy. Accounts of these conditions have been corroborated in the New York Daily News.
Moed says all of the supermarkets on Coney Island have been flooded or looted.
The result is what Moed describes as a "humanitarian crisis." Sick or older people may be vulnerable to death without heat, or food and water.
He’s there. He’s helping. As I’ve noted before, people who do not believe it’s the government’s job to help people generally are more willing to help people themselves. Moed’s comments suggest he’s not one of those types, but good on him for helping out anyway.
Whatever response there has been from the government — city, state, or federal — or the Red Cross, Moed says their presence in and around the Coney Island projects is non-existent, inadequate, or counterproductive. FEMA has set up a solitary aid trailer on what Moed calls the "sexy area" of Coney Island — near the famous amusement park and Nathan’s — which was not hit very hard. It awaits people seeking help, when those who most need it are stranded in high-rise buildings a few blocks away.
Moed insists that he does not assume anything about the government and Red Cross’s lack of a response, but says their absence is indisputable. "They’re literally not there. It’s not a criticism, it’s literally a fact," he said. "I’ve been on the ground here for four days. I’ve seen zero FEMA people. Occasionally a Red Cross truck will come through with hot meals. But there’ll be one truck for 15-20 buildings."
Moed reserves perhaps his greatest scorn for NYCHA (New York City Housing Authority) the city government body in charge of the projects where Moed does his rounds. Moed says NYCHA has been focused exclusively on restoring power and after ten days, they have failed even to complete that task. "People have claimed that they are still being asked to pay rent, despite the lack of power and water," Moed Says.
This is one kid learning that, when things are worst, our best bet is to rely on each other, not the government. Some may suggest that "each other" includes the government, but a bureaucracy hundreds of miles away will not be as reliable as the guy down the street. Or you. The federal government ceased being a good representative of "each other" a long time ago. Some are being helped, to be sure, but if you rely first on government, you are likely to be disappointed.
And even though Moed said that his acknowledging of a lack of government response was not a criticism, as time dragged on, it became that.
Moed has also used social media to express frustration with the inadequate response of the government. On Thursday Moed tweeted:
WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU @barackobama? Citizen here, been in Coney Island Projects FEEDING ppl ALONE no FEMA or Red Cross. People are dying.
— Eric J Moed (@rickersteen) November 8, 2012
He tweeted the same thing to NYC Mayor Mike Bloomberg and New York Governor Andrew Cuomo.
In the near future, however, Moed does not plan to go beyond his remarks on social media to campaign the government for help. "I’ve decided to devote my energies to actually helping people who are in life or death situations, as opposed to demanding things," Moed said. "I see the need to demand that Mayor Bloomberg and NYCHA and Red Cross and FEMA get out there and really start canvassing and doing things from the ground up, but the needs are so dire and so desperate at this point that we’ve just been down there trying to get that stuff documented and taken care of."
Don’t wait on government. Don’t rely on government. It is not omnipotent nor omnipresent. Devote your energies "to actually helping people who are in life or death situations, as opposed to demanding things".
Democrats would try to portray Moed’s attitude as one of some sort of social Darwinism, the way they portray Republicans. But it’s not political. It’s literally a fact.
Good morning.
Good morning.
Good morning
Help Build Houses and Hope with Habitat for Humanity
