Stones Cry Out

Chantal Delsol has a prior book to go along with The Unlearned Lessons Of the Twentieth Century, a book titled Icarus Fallen. Tonight, I’m reading.

I did have a quick remark, which may or may not spur discussion. It seems to me Congress is becoming less and less influential? But is that because the Federal government in general is gaining power and that Congress is not doing so as quickly as the other branches so it only appears to be losing in influence? Rome as we all know had its Legislative body subsumed by the Executive. Why do we think that will not happen here?

If anti-abortion protesters threw stink bombs into abortion clinics, and threatened to demolish the building, what would happen to those protesters?  Well, they’d probably get thrown in jail and decried in the media.  (Perhaps get called a "Christianist" by Andrew Sullivan.)

But, change the cause, and those tactics become, as the LA Times says, "compelling" television.  Yes, terrorize for the right cause, and you get your own TV show.

Jill Stanek has the details on "Whale Wars", a Discovery channel show documenting the life and times of an crew of anti-whalers.  I saw an episode where they made it appear that they were going to ram the offending ship.  If people trying to save babies tried this, they’d be pilloried (by, no doubt, the LA Times). 

But do this in the name of animals, and the Left and the media put you on a pedestal.  Priorities, folks.

1. Four links on Iran.
2. 2009 Bulwer-Lytton noted.
3. The too many regulations and laws problem.
4. Victims strikes me as the wrong word.
5. Tax and oppression … is this where the left wants to go?
6. At least some on the left are unimpressed with Mr Obama’s tactics.
7. I think in some way those on the left who are pleased as punch with Mr Franken’s win betray themselves as pure partisan animals. After all, Franken is basically the left’s less talented equivalent of Ms Coulter. If she had won a highly contested Senate seat … how would they view those on the other side of the aisle praising that event?
8. Health care and the Baucus plan.
9. Consequences of policy.
10. Virtue leaves the room.
11. Bigots in places of power.
12. This keeps happening …
13. I’m not catholic but that’s a debate I’d enter.
14. Cars and US manufacture … and party … which I link as a GOP supporter driving a VW (diesel) and two Honda Insights (original version) which we got used.
15. A geek debate.
16. In which “possible worlds” means ones which are not in any way realistic.
17. Marriage.
18. Culture and Orthodoxy.
19. For the 4th. Here too.
20. And some patristics.

An interesting interview of Michael Horton on the Stand to Reason weekly radio broadcast, on June 8th (rss feed for weekly podcasts).

Horton, the author of Christless Christianity: the Alternative Gospel of the American Church, made some claims about Charles Finney that were quite astounding. In discussing the premise of the book, namely, that the American church has pushed Jesus aside and essentially put a self-help, therapeutic gospel in His place, Horton alluded to the theological stance of Finney, that which Horton posits is more tuned in with Pelagianism than with Arminianism. From the book,

As I will make clearer throughout various points within this book, ever since the Great Awakening, especially evident in the message and methods of evangelist Charles G. Finney, American Protestantism has been more Pelagian than Arminian.

In his essay, The Legacy of Charles Finney, Horton is more blunt,

Thus, in Finney’s theology, God is not sovereign; man is not a sinner by nature; the atonement is not a true payment for sin; justification by imputation is insulting to reason and morality; the new birth is simply the effect of successful techniques, and revival is a natural result of clever campaigns.

…

Needless to say, Finney’s message is radically different from the evangelical faith, as is the basic orientation of the movements we see around us today the bear his imprint: revivalism (or its modern label, ‘the church growth movement’), Pentecostal perfectionism and emotionalism, political triumphalism based on the ideal of ‘Christian America,’ and the anti-intellectual, anti-doctrinal tendencies of American evangelicalism and fundamentalism. It was through the ‘Higher Life Movement’ of the late 19th and early 20th centuries that Finney’s perfectionism came to dominate the fledgling Dispensationalist movement through the auspices of Lewis Sperry Chafer, founder of Dallas Seminary and author of He That Is Spiritual. Finney, of course, is not solely responsible; he is more a product than a producer. Nevertheless, the influence he exercised and continues to exercise to this day is pervasive.

Wow!

I’m certainly not an authority on Finney, but an initial hearing of Horton has revealed many issues with which I agree on. That American evangelism, in the alleged Finney sense, could be the catalyst for many of the ills within the church, as well as cults outside it, which we see today, is astonishing.

From Politico (HT: Holycoast), former Governor Mark Sanford writes,

Immediately after all this unfolded last week I had thought I would resign – as I believe in the military model of leadership and when trust of any form is broken one lays down the sword. A long list of close friends have suggested otherwise – that for God to really work in my life I shouldn’t be getting off so lightly. While it would be personally easier to exit stage left, their point has been that my larger sin was the sin of pride. They contended that in many instances I may well have held the right position on limited government, spending or taxes – but that if my spirit wasn’t right in the presentation of those ideas to people in the General Assembly, or elsewhere, I could elicit the response that I had at many times indeed gotten from other state leaders.

Well, Sunday afternoon I worked for a while on this essay, tonight I’m returning to it to flesh out the missing paragraphs. The first draft is now complete … editing will now commence. It’s a little long soooo … below the fold Read the rest of this entry

Jump over to La Shawn Barber’s Corner and watch the latest in a long line of videos catching Planned Parenthood in the cover-up of statutory rape. 

Again I ask, how long before these places get investigated on a nationwide level? 

Front-page Daily Kos writer SusanG is exuberant about the energy bill that recently passed in the House.

In an unprecedented move, the White House retracted yesterday the embargoed text for the president’s usual weekly address, which it generally sends to news outlets the evening before the official Saturday remarks are posted on the White House website. The first address sent was focused on health care reform; the replacement discussed—and praised to the heavens—the energy bill that passed the House yesterday afternoon.

Clearly, the measure’s passage prompted a nimble switch in presidential priorities for the address, which President Obama often uses as the first salvo in setting messaging for the coming week—and for putting friend and foe alike on notice about what’s on the administration’s upcoming agenda. In fact, he’s so adamant about pushing his slant on the energy bill that today’s weekly address is mostly a reprise of a speech he gave earlier in the day yesterday, with a framing he clearly wants to drive home:

It’s all about the jobs, baby.

In the very first sentence, in fact, the President doesn’t just refer to the measure as an energy bill—it’s a piece of legislation that "will open the door to a clean energy economy." In fact, this is—make no mistake, he says—a jobs bill.

Yup, he talked about jobs.  He called it a "jobs bill".  And merely saying that makes things all golden.

‘Cept he said the same thing about the stimulus package, and we all know how that turned out.  A reminder:

Yeah, the President called the energy bill "a jobs bill".  After the last "jobs bill", unemployment rose to a point higher that he said we’d hit if we did nothing. 

But hey, he said this would be a "jobs bill".  For the Left, it appears that’s all that really matters.  Results?  Meh.  Intentions are everything.

• Bias.
• In which “Decades of affirmative action have done little to fix that” … where a thing not working don’t result in the obvious questioning of the method. Einstein had a pithy remark on that sort of thinking.
• I think it’s a mistake too if he’s recovered from his injury.
• Konkatsu.
• On Russia. More here.
• St. Paul’s relics dated plus unintended consequences of birth control medication.
• Can’t admit them as being evil if you want to negotiate … history repeats? Likewise.
• Economic foundations.
• That’s funny.
• Aging.
• Projections. And remarks on the same … or all they just lies, damned lies and you know … statistics.
• Race ya (dad?)!
• Pedophilia and numbers.
• Honduran considerations.
• Of Dickens and Trollope.

1. Climate anyone?
2. Credit and the meltdown.
3. Heh.
4. Art, modern.
5. On marriage vows.
6. Brandon has some good links.
7. Race and the court.
8. A shirt.
9. Favorite heresies?
10. Interesting ink.
11. A cricket race.
12. Iran and the view from the right.
13. Reading a book of note.
14. Almost colliding with the privacy/personal space contradiction of the pro-choice crowd.
15. On Mr Jackson, two links … one and two.
16. That GOP war on science.

This is the first draft of an essay for our parish newsletter. The topic is on “science and religion.” Given my short “dread bullet list” of ideas on the essay of last week, Brandon (of Siris) suggested helpfully that I try to make clear in the essay what specifically of “religion” and “science” I’ll be trying to identify and discuss, as both topics are huge and more than a little slippery. There was another suggestion that the “three stages” seen so far in our understanding of nature (the second bullet list item) was the most interesting. So without more ado, here is a preliminary draft, i.e., it is a little incomplete … however I offer it at this point for additional comments. It’s a little long so find it below the fold. Read the rest of this entry

Remember when candidate Barak Obama said that he wouldn’t raise taxes on anyone making less than $250,000 a year?  That promise may not last 6 months into President Obama’s tenure.  George Stephanopoulos reports:

White House senior adviser David Axelrod said the president won’t rule out a health care reform bill that includes a middle-class tax hike.

"The president had said in the past that he  doesn’t believe taxing health care benefits at any level is necessarily the best way to go here.  He still believes that," Axelrod told me on This Week, "But there are a number of formulations and we’ll wait and see.  The important thing at this point is to keep the process moving, to keep people at the table, to the keep the discussions going. We’ve gotten a long way down the road and we want to finish that journey."

I pressed Axelrod on whether Obama will draw a line in the sand and veto any bill that funds health care reform with tax hikes for people making under $250,000 a year — despite a pledge Barack Obama made during the 2008 presidential campaign not to raise taxes on the poor and middle-class.

"One of the problems we’ve had in this town is that people draw lines in the sand and they stop talking to each other.  And you don’t get anything done.  That’s not the way the president approaches us.  He is very cognizant of protecting people — middle class people, hard-working people who are trying to get along in a very difficult economy.  And he will continue to represent them in these talks," Axelrod said.

So if you expect Obama to keep his promises, you’re just a stick-in-the-mud.  According to Axelrod, any line drawn stops the talks, and thus everything is negotiable. 

Well, at least we know where the administration stands now.  All the tough talk and "yes we can" talk were all just suggestions.  Hope for change, and such.

In 1935, a color reversal film (i.e., “slides”) was introduced by Kodak. Kodachrome, as it was named, not only provided brilliantly accurate color rendition, but would retain such accuracy over an archival period of fifty years. Since 1935 you have certainly seen many an image, shot on Kodachrome (ref. the iconic Afghan Girl).

Last week, Kodak announced that it would soon be retiring production of Kodachrome.

While the increasing viability of digital photography played a major role in Kodak coming to this decision, truth be told, the introduction of newer varieties of color reversal films, films with much more saturated colors, is probably what initially catalyzed photographers to move away from the Kodachrome standard.

A photographer friend of mine still refuses to move to the digital realm. He likes to say that, “when the automobile was introduced, they didn’t go out and shoot all the horses, did they?” Well, no they didn’t, but I haven’t seen a horse on the freeway lately. In the same manner, it is unlikely that film production will completely disappear but, rather, move towards a more esoteric and artistic venue.

As for me, I shot my last roll of Kodachrome probably in the early 1990s, and my last roll of film in 2004.

Time, and technology, marches on.

This is a great article from the Washington Times regarding the persecution of Christian in communist Vietnam, and our government’s complicity in it.

You can’t engage in diplomacy with an enemy would simply will not be negotiated with.  Case in point:

The [Iranian] government appeared to fall back on a familiar playbook: trying to rouse Iranians through populist appeals against outside interference and dark accusations of foreign conspiracy. Mr. Rezai’s aides said the authorities did not even bother to conduct the limited recount they had agreed to. Mr. Ahmadinejad stepped out of the shadows to lash out at President Obama, who said Tuesday that he was “appalled and outraged” by the crackdown on protesters.

On Thursday, Mr. Ahmadinejad said: “We expected the British and European countries to make those kinds of comments. But we were not expecting Mr. Obama, who has talked about change, to fall in the same trap and follow the same path that Bush did.”

All Obama did was express his opinion on the treatment of protestors, and even that was too much for Ahmadinejad.  And comparing him to Bush; that must have hurt.  >smile<

And you know you got our President mad when he disinvites you from the July 4th wienie roast.  The invitation was rescinded supposedly because of recent events.

On Wednesday, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who had authorized diplomatic posts earlier this month to invite Iranians to their Independence Day parties, sent out a cable rescinding the invitations.

“Unfortunately, circumstances have changed, and participation by Iranian diplomats would not be appropriate in light of the unjust actions that the president and I have condemned,” she said. Embassies that had already invited Iranian diplomats were instructed to disinvite them.

So the past 30 years of "unjust actions" were OK, but this crossed the line?  C’mon, folks!  This simply shows that the Obama crowd is far too naive to be in charge of the really important decisions.  No Iranians had accepted the invitation anyway.  They simply do not wish to be engaged, and no amount of mustard and relish, or strongly worded letter from the UN, will change that.