Stones Cry Out

Jason Kuznicki has some remarks spinning from a previous post of mine on Jim Anderson extended blog-based discussions on the ethics of vigilante activity. Here is Mr Kuznicki’s post. Here’s the post of Mr Anderson’s to which he refers and the original proposition and … for completeness my first post on this matter.

Mr Kuznicki offers:

To the extent that there must be laws (and only to that extent), the laws should be clearly expressed and regularly enforced. Laws that are unclear in their expression or irregular in their enforcement allow the legislators and law enforcement agents too much leeway. They give the state too much power. They also sap private initiative, because it’s important for private actors to have some reasonable expectations of how the state will behave in the future.

What this leaves out, and what one might have expected to have been the case in part in the Western folkway, is what is the case (even in the idealized “paradise” situation) in which the state has laws which it expects citizens to enforce. Consider the example of personal assaults in an idealization of the Western folkway. In the first case, of personal assaults such as battery or rape, the statutes and penalties against such things were minimal. A likely reason for this is that it was expected that individuals and their families would “take care” of such insults themselves. Now this led on occasion of course to the much celebrated mountain feuds between Western folkway clans in which the insult to one family matter would be “handed” in a way that the original injured party found excessive and responded in kind … leading to a never ending chain of responses. However, my guess would be, not having studied the matter, that feuds of that type were the exception not the rule. That most of the time the culture/society had a shared understanding within the society of a reasonable response and meeting that was the norm. Read the rest of this entry

After President Obama’s inaugural speech, when he said, "We will restore science to its rightful place", I wondered aloud (as did others, see that post’s comments) if this had anything to do with his stance on embryonic stem cell research.  Well, it looks like we’ll find out soon enough.

A new way has been found to create stem cells like embryonic ones.

Scientists have developed what appears to be a safer way to create a promising alternative to embryonic stem cells, boosting hopes that such cells could sidestep the moral and political quagmire that has hindered the development of a new generation of cures.

The researchers produced the cells by using strands of genetic material, instead of potentially dangerous genetically engineered viruses, to coax skin cells into a state that appears biologically identical to embryonic stem cells.

"It’s a leap forward in the safe application of these cells," said Andras Nagy of Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto, who helped lead the international team of researchers that described the work in two papers being published online today by the journal Nature. "We expect this to have a massive impact on this field."

Click here to see all the posts just from us on this issue, and how many alternatives to embryonic stem cells there are (include the hundreds of successful uses for adult stem cells).  All of these methods sidestep completely the ethical question surrounding the use of embryos.  You’d get no hollering from religious conservatives over the possible use of embryonic stem cells as an incentive for, or at least a slight guilt relief from, having an abortion.  That question goes right out the window.

But the scientific and the religious communities hold their breath.

In addition to the scientific implications, the work comes at a politically sensitive moment. Scientists are anxiously waiting for President Obama to follow through on his promise to lift restrictions on federal funding for research on human embryonic stem cells. Critics of such a move immediately pointed to the work as the latest evidence that the alternative cells make such research unnecessary.

"Stem cell research that requires destroying embryos is going the way of the Model T," Richard M. Doerflinger of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops said. "No administration that values science and medical progress over politics will want to divert funds now toward that increasingly obsolete and needlessly divisive approach."

We will see soon enough where Obama thinks that science’s rightful place is.

1. Of fools and money.
2. Lent and Job.
3. Whence the inflation?
4. Niceness.
5. Beatitude and blessing.
6. When rational … isn’t.
7. In which I get mentioned … in a somewhat confusing manner, as Mr Kuznicki is labeling “not libertarian” a place and time (the 18th century Western backwoods “folkway”) which he has in the past admitted as libertarian. I’ll work on a more substantive reply to this tonight. I wonder if Mr Kuznicki read my original essay at all and not just Mr Anderson’s summation.
8. Tabular awesome inspired by elemental patterns.
9. Bond. Inspired by “M?”
10. That pene-enclave thing.
11. Gay rights or something else?
12. Mr Obama and company channeling Nero?
13. “Obama thinks it’s time to get back in the market” … from a man (Obama) who never bought stocks even with a 6 figure salary and 7 figure book sales.
14. And they want free money and a pony in their backyard too.
15. Anti-semitism and anti-immigration bias on the rise in Europe?
16. Unhappy moderates.
17. Ms Sebellus … catholic?
18. A trend to give atheist libertarians and believing big-government people pause.
19. Looking at “stimulus”.
20. Well, one reason is that is ignored, is that informing people that Joe Biden is not the sharpest tool in the shed isn’t news.

Duality is a mathematical property linking structures through transformations. One of the simplest duality transformations for illustration are the Platonic solids (tetrahedron, cube, octahedron, dodecahedron and icosahedron). The simple transformation one performs on these solids is to “exchange” corners and faces.  A cube transforms into an octahedron … which is simple enough to imagine in one’s head. The icosahedron and dodecahedron also exchange through this transform. The tetrahedron, mathematically speaking, is special as it is “self-dual” and under the same transformation is unchanged.

Similarly in emotional contexts, various emotions and other notions are thought dual. The yin-yang of Taoist Chinese thought brings up a host of dual concepts and emotions: good/evil, love/hate, strong/weak, male/female and so on. The eight(seven) cardinal sins and virtues of Evagrius (Pope Gregory) also have a parallel structure.

Tonight, in as part of the Compline service after the second night of reading the Great Canon of St. Andrew of Crete we said the (famous) “Great Lenten” prayer of St. Ephraim the Syrian:

O Lord and Master of my life, take from me the spirit of sloth, despondency, lust for power and idle talk.
(Prostration)

But grant unto me, Thy servant, a spirit of chastity, humility, patience and love.
(Prostration)

Yea, O Lord and King, grant me to see mine own faults and not to judge my brothers and sisters. For blessed art Thou unto ages of ages. Amen.
(Prostration)

O God, cleanse Thou me a sinner (12 times, with as many bows, and then again the whole prayer from the beginning throughout, and after that one great prostration)

This prayer also has a duality construct as noted above, but the pairings are not traditional to our ways of thinking. Sloth/chastity, despondency/humility, patience/lust for power, and love/idle talk. One has two options when considering this pairing. One is that the pairing is mistaken that the author, St. Ephrem, did not mean for the connection to be made. However the monastic and meditative life that was much more common in the times in which St. Ephrem lived and for that reason I think that it is more likely than not that the connection was intended.

So with that in mind, consider that one might need to counter those sins of sloth with chastity, despondency with humility, lust for power with patience, and idle talk with love.

Democrats are poised to kill an educational program that has shown results for those who otherwise couldn’t afford to take their kids out of failing public schools.  The Washington Post editorializes:

Last week, the Democrat-controlled House passed a spending bill that spells the end, after the 2009-10 school year, of the federally funded program that enables poor students to attend private schools with scholarships of up to $7,500. A statement signed by [Rep. David] Obey as Appropriations Committee chairman that accompanied the $410 billion spending package directs D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee to "promptly take steps to minimize potential disruption and ensure smooth transition" for students forced back into the public schools.

We would like Mr. Obey and his colleagues to talk about possible "disruption" with Deborah Parker, mother of two children who attend Sidwell Friends School because of the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program. "The mere thought of returning to public school frightens me," Ms. Parker told us as she related the opportunities — such as a trip to China for her son — made possible by the program. Tell her, as critics claim, that vouchers don’t work, and she’ll list her children’s improved test scores, feeling of safety and improved motivation.

As I said 9  years ago, while keeping money in people’s pockets is the best way to deal with school choice, vouchers are a good fall-back position.  (The moment money touches the hands of the government, the use of it on religious schools becomes an issue.  I don’t think it should be, but that’s the way it currently is.)  But why would Washington Democrats not even want this proven program removed?  The Post continues.

But the debate unfolding on Capitol Hill isn’t about facts. It’s about politics and the stranglehold the teachers unions have on the Democratic Party. Why else has so much time and effort gone into trying to kill off what, in the grand scheme of government spending, is a tiny program? Why wouldn’t Congress want to get the results of a carefully calibrated scientific study before pulling the plug on a program that has proved to be enormously popular? Could the real fear be that school vouchers might actually be shown to be effective in leveling the academic playing field?

Why must the government be the be-all, end-all solution to these guys?  They proclaim that they care about the poor and about education, and then then kill a popular and successful education program for the poor.  Which are we to believe; their words or their actions?

And if public schools can’t handle the competition, they should be the ones feeling the pinch, not the private schools.

1. Waiting for God’s justice.
2. What the Left won’t admit, “It is becoming increasingly clear that Obama’s proposed policies go well beyond what we might need just to respond to the economic crisis; he’s making a bid for great changes in national policy.”
3. On the “hoping he’ll fail” meme.
4. For those who claim the Pope is “out of touch” … a comparison.
5. As one who thinks that there should be a Constitutional barrier preventing the government to provide insurance (because politicians ignore actuarial data to get votes) … perhaps they should get out of the loan business too for much the same reason.
6. Housing bubble.
7. Payroll spending.
8. Boing.
9. Wall street, global warming science, likely just a few of many casualties of “over-reliance” on computer modeling.
10. A question.
11. Reading in Job for Lent.
12. A problem with captalism, the productive and competent people are all busy doing things leaving government to the ninnyhammers.
13. Global warming taking a nap?
14. Theodicy.
15. Fasting from idle talk and a few other things.
16. Sudan.
17. Markets and the Ukraine.
18. Coffee and the endurance athlete.
19. Math links.
20. Now and then, a quote.

From the book on Father Arseny, a Russian priest who suffered decades of inhumane treatment in the Stalinist gulags and “special camps” for being an active member of a subversive organization (the Christian church).

I remember the visit of Bishop N. in 1962. He was a serious theologian, a philosopher, and many said, a good confessor. He came to have Father Arseny hear his confession. Many spiritual children of Father Arseny were going to the church where Bishop N. served.

He stayed for two days, during which time he confessed to Father Arseny and also heard his confession. They talked about the fate and the future of the Church in the Soviet Union and about what was important for the believers. Looking at Father Arseny’s library he pronounced, “The faithful one needs only the Gospel, the Bible, and the works of the Holy Fathers. All the rest isn’t worthy of attention.”

Father Arseny remained silent for a few moments and answered, “You are right, Your Holiness, the most important things are in those books, but we must remember that man as he develops nowadays is very different from man in the fourth century. The horizon of knowledge has become wider and science can now explain what couldn’t be understood then. The priests today must know a great deal in order to be able to help believers make sense of the contradictions he sees. A priest has to understand the theory of relativity, passionate atheism, the newest discoveries in biology, medicine and most of all modern philosophy. He gets visited by students of medicine, chemistry, physics, as well as by blue collar workers, and each one of them has to be given an answer to his or her questions such that religion doesn’t sound anachronistic or just a half-answer.”

1. Running downhill.
2. Left and jihad … common goals?
3. Sex and marriage.
4. Modern heroes.
5. Verse.
6. Stuck on stupid.
7. A Lenten podcast on a great prayer.
8. “All conservative variants of …”, hmm, I’m not sure I buy that.
9. A Lenten meditation (HT: Mark D Roberts)
10. Bank crises and policy.
11. A fisking.
12. 10 tips for life.
13. Seeking a wise materialist.
14. Anti-Semitism in London.
15. In the government must be all things to all people category.

From President Obama,

Today, …the United States will pursue a new strategy to end the war in Iraq through a transition to full Iraqi responsibility.

This strategy is grounded in a clear and achievable goal shared by the Iraqi people and the American people: an Iraq that is sovereign, stable, and self-reliant. To achieve that goal, we will work to promote an Iraqi government that is just, representative, and accountable, and that provides neither support nor safe-haven to terrorists. We will help Iraq build new ties of trade and commerce with the world. And we will forge a partnership with the people and government of Iraq that contributes to the peace and security of the region.

The only thing new about this strategy is that Obama has shifted (i.e., changed his mind) regarding his approach towards our presence in Iraq. Remember, this is the same person who opposed the Surge, who once gave up hope on succeeding in Iraq, and who once stated that the lives of troops killed in action were “wasted”. (HT: HotAir)

Life is, by no means, fair. Many times, our fortune, or failure, is simply a matter of being in the right place at the right time – of having that lucky break. What we’ll see, in the next few years, is Obama receiving the accolades for any progress to be displayed in Iraq. Bush, in our media’s shortsightedness, will take more than his share of the blame for what it cost to succeed – the failures, mistakes, and blood. Yet, he is the one who was fated to do the dirty work.

And, I think that history will eventually provide us with the clear picture of who accomplished what.

Paul Harvey died today at the age of 90.  I’ve been listening to Paul Harvey on and off since high school.  Here was a guy who was entertaining to listen to, even while he was telling me the news.  He made it interesting.  His broadcasts were "visits" rather than "programs", and Saturday was all about human interest stories.

And you gotta’ hand it to him; he at least had the intellectual honesty to call his program "Paul Harvey News and Comment".  These days, comment is passed off as news.  Would that today’s broadcasters held to that same standard and had that same transparency.

My favorite recurring line of his was "Self-government without self-discipline is self-defeating."  This would be the lead-in to some story about a government somewhere either behaving badly or reaping the consequences thereof.  These days, the government of the Palestinians seems to be a daily confirmation of that line, but perhaps the United States today, throwing out fiscal discipline, will also find that to be self-defeating.

I absolutely loved his "The Rest of the Story" feature, even if some of the items were, indeed, urban legends.  Most were not, and they gave us a look at the people and events of the news in a different light, and they always ended with, "And now you know the rest of the story".  In college, during my show on the radio station, I’d read from one of his books that had collections of them.  I even wrote a "Rest of the Story" story of my own.  Once, I recorded a number of his segments off the radio and made my own cassette tape full of them.  And to give you an idea of his tenure, I also did that years later, recording off the Internet and making a CD.  Sometime I read books to my kids, but before the evening’s chapter, I’ll pick up one of those collections and read something from there first.  That is how my children knew Paul Harvey, and why even my thirteen-year-old was a little saddened when he heard of his passing.

My dad introduced me to this fine broadcaster, and my kids knew something of him.  Thus was the staying power of the man, who ended every broadcast with, "Paul Harvey…Good day!"

And now we know the end of the story.

Here’s an interesting post from Beyond Creationism regarding how Answers in Genesis (AIG) apparently edited out some text from a Charles H. Spurgeon sermon, ostensibly to exclude Spurgeon’s positive reference to an Old Earth Creation scenario.

Spurgeon’s original text in question is:

“In the 2d verse of the first chapter of Genesis, we read, “And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.” We know not how remote the period of the creation of this globe may be—certainly many millions of years before the time of Adam. Our planet has passed through various stages of existence, and different kinds of creatures have lived on its surface, all of which have been fashioned by God. But before that era came, wherein man should be its principal tenant and monarch, the Creator gave up the world to confusion.”

And here is what AIG posted:

“In Ge 1:2, we read, ‘And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.’ Our planet has passed through various stages in creation, and different kinds of creatures have lived on its surface, all of which have been fashioned by God. But before that era came, when man should be its principal tenant and monarch, the Creator initially created the world as a chaotic mass on the first day of creation.”

Rather than me highlighting the excluded text, simply look for the sentence, in the original, which contains the phrase “millions of years”.

Says Beyond Creation,

Spurgeon’s sermon has been sanitized for the AiG audience. Apparently, the reality of Spurgeon as an old-earth creationist is too much for AiG to allow the viewing public to know about. They even rewrote a portion at the end to change Spurgeon’s statement that “the Creator gave up the world to confusion” to make it appear that Spurgeon said merely that “the Creator initially created the world as a chaotic mass on the first day of creation.” And presto! The editors turned Spurgeon into a young-earth creationist, even though he said no such thing.

After initially posting their cleansed version of Spurgeon’s sermon, AIG did post the excluded text, in a note, with the following explanation,

Bracketed text removed from the sermon. As brilliant as Spurgeon was, even he did not understand the age issue. –Editor

Lucky for us, it would seem, at least AIG understands the age issue.

John Holzmann, provides a more in-depth analysis of the fancy editing that appears to have taken place at AIG.

That was then:

In early October, as the meltdown of the financial industry gained momentum following the collapse of Lehman Brothers, a Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 59% of U.S. voters agreed with Ronald Reagan that “government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.”

This is now:

Since then, the stock market has fallen roughly 3,000 points, millions of jobs have been lost, nearly a trillion dollars has been spent so far to bail out the financial industry, an additional $787-billion government stimulus package has been approved, and a new president has taken office who has proposed spending billions and billions more.

Despite all that, a new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey shows that the basic views of the American people have not change: 59% of voters still agree with Reagan’s inaugural address statement. Only 28% disagree, and 14% are not sure.

As Pejman Yousefzadeh said at RedState, "It may be Barack Obama’s White House. But it is still Ronald Reagan’s America." 

Last December, the Bush administration granted protection to health care workers who refused to perform certain procedures on moral grounds.  If a hospital, health plan or clinic didn’t accommodate the consciences of their employees, they’d lose federal funding.  Abortion rights activists proceeded to take the low road.

But women’s health advocates, family planning proponents, abortion rights activists and some members of Congress condemned the regulation, saying it will be a major obstacle to providing many health services, including abortion, family planning, infertility treatment, and end-of-life care, as well as possibly a wide range of scientific research.

Never mind moral issues, and never mind that plenty of people who have no problem with performing these procedures exist, there must not even be the slightest impediment to these procedures.  Guess we know where their priorities lie.

As well as the priorities of some Democrats in Congress.

Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), who with Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) introduced a bill last month to repeal the rule, said: "We will not allow this rule to stand. It threatens the health and well-being of women and the rights of patients across the country." Similar legislation is pending in the House.

No, it does not threaten anyone’s health or well-being.  Allowing an employee to follow their conscience simply means finding someone who’s ethics aren’t similarly bothered.

In spite of these overwrought pronouncements, the rule was put in place.

That was then, this is now.

Taking another step into the abortion debate, the Obama administration Friday will move to rescind a controversial rule that allows health-care workers to deny abortion counseling or other family-planning services if doing so would violate their moral beliefs, according to administration officials.

The rollback of the "conscience rule" comes just two months after the Bush administration announced it last year in one of its final policy initiatives.

This rule is important, mostly to protect health care workers from losing their jobs over their personal beliefs.  They weren’t supposed to be able to lose it, but that didn’t stop the health care industry.

For more than 30 years, federal law has allowed doctors and nurses to decline to provide abortion services as a matter of conscience, a protection that is not subject to rulemaking.

In promulgating the new rule last year, Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt said it was necessary to address discrimination in the medical field.

He criticized "an environment in the health-care field that is intolerant of individual conscience, certain religious beliefs, ethnic and cultural traditions and moral convictions."

Doctors have been successfully sued for not performing procedures they objected to, so the rule is necessary to give this same protection to other, non-abortion-related procedures. 

The Obama administration claims:

Officials said the administration will consider drafting a new rule to clarify what health-care workers can reasonably refuse for patients.

How about we find out what the administration considers "reasonable" before doing away with this valuable protection?  Or is conscience not that big a deal to Barack Obama?  It doesn’t sound like it.

Lent

1. Some Lenten prayers.
2. Lenten … offsets!?
3. Looking in at Lent from the outside.
4. Ashes.
5. And economics.

Not Lent.

1. One perspective on nationalizing banks.
2. Police in Afghanistan.
3. Stimulus … a chance of bringing Chicago (corruption) to a National scale.
4. Venn – Obama.
5. Confessions and a return?
6. Running man.
7. Zap.
8. A view from outside.
9. What is not pro-life.
10. Pro-choice and rape.
11. Negation.
12. Storm and … cheestastic?
13. A film.
14. Worm.

One of the most fascinating books I have read over the last few months is The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression. Actually, in reading the book I was amazed at how much President Barack Obama’s economic policies are like that of FDR. Needless to say, that was not comforting.

Recently I had the opportunity to talk with Amity Shlaes, author of the book. Click here to read more about our conversation and what she had to say about the current economic crisis.