Even with Warren Buffett’s new tax policy idea, wherein he’d pay a higher tax rate, the continuing deficit dwarfs it.
Once again, the issue is not that we’re taking in too little in taxes. We can’t take in enough to cover the deficits. We must start cutting spending in a serious way.
Good morning.
From HotAir, apparently President Obama thinks the price of oil is hovering around $1.25 a barrel. Per his speech to Sempra Energy,
We have subsidized oil companies for a century. We want to encourage production of oil and gas, and make sure that wherever we’ve got American resources, we are tapping into them. But they don’t need an additional incentive when gas is $3.75 a gallon, when oil is $1.20 a barrel, $1.25 a barrel. They don’t need additional incentives. They are doing fine.
Yet this snip from oil-price.net shows the price to be hovering about 100 times that amount.
Honest mistake or intentional gaffe that leaves the impression that oil companies are gouging and, consequently, do not need government subsidies?
In ruling on same-sex marriage, the European Court of Human Rights warns that churches could lose some of their religious freedom.
Same-sex marriages are not a human right, European judges have ruled.
Their decision shreds the claim by ministers that gay marriage is a universal human right and that same-sex couples have a right to marry because their mutual commitment is just as strong as that of husbands and wives.
But it goes on.
The ruling also says that if gay couples are allowed to marry, any church that offers weddings will be guilty of discrimination if it declines to marry same-sex couples.
It means that if MPs legislate for same-sex marriage, the Coalition’s promise that churches will not be compelled to conduct the weddings will be worthless.
It always has been worthless, possibly naïve, if not disingenuous. If, today (actually 4 years ago), a photographer can be sued for turning down business from a same-sex wedding and lose, it’s no small step for government to compel churches to do what goes against the church’s beliefs. And the EU court has let us all know this in advance.
Keep that in mind when you hear promises to the contrary.
I’ve heard these statistics elsewhere, but not all in one place. So here’s an article doing just that. It tackles the myths about health care in the United States that ObamaCare was so necessary to fix.
The stats have been manipulated to make the US sound far worse than it really it. In most cases its standing is better rather than worse, and in the rest it on par, if slightly lower, than other countries when comparing apples to apples. And in one case — life expectancy — the numbers used include issues that don’t relate to health care at all.
Read the whole thing. (It’s short.)
Good morning.
Good morning.
Good morning.
Good morning.
That’s the title of a post by Michael Stokes Paulsen at the Public Discourse website. He starts out with a statement of the facts.
Vanderbilt University has decided that Christian student groups that hold traditional Christian religious views are not welcome on campus. They will no longer be recognized as valid student organizations. Vanderbilt’s reason is that such groups require that their leaders be Christian—that is, that their leaders embrace certain core principles of Christianity and try to live according to these principles. In Vanderbilt’s view, religious beliefs and standards “discriminate” against those students who do not subscribe to them. Therefore, student religious groups with religious beliefs and standards are banned.
This from an institute that (allegedly) encourages debate and the free exchange of ideas. All ideas are welcome, except those that aren’t. Behavioral standards will not be tolerated in student organizations. You cannot hold to a belief system and, at the same time, expect that belief system to be held to by the members.
I wonder if a women’s rights organization could be run by a woman, or a man, who thinks women are second-class citizens. She or he doesn’t agree with the group’s beliefs, but if they don’t allow for someone like that to lead the group, should they, too, be banned? But see that’s a belief system that Vandy doesn’t have a problem with. No matter how they paint it, it’s a case of discrimination based on beliefs.
And thus, in a huge bit of irony, Vandy wishes to exercise a right that they themselves deny to the student groups!
As Paulsen notes, Vandy is well within its rights to do this.
As weird as it may sound—and as ridiculous as Vanderbilt’s actions may be—this is entirely within Vanderbilt’s constitutional rights: Vanderbilt has the right to be as hostile to orthodox Christianity and to suppress its faithful exercise on its campus as it wishes. Vanderbilt’s status as a private university gives it the First Amendment right to take whatever position it wants on the exercise of religion within its university community. Vanderbilt University has the right to despise Christianity (and other faiths, too) if it so chooses.
Of course, having a right to do something does not make it the right thing to do. And Vanderbilt’s policy is, undeniably, an embarrassing example of political correctness run horribly amok, of intellectually incompetent administrators, and of institutional hypocrisy. But in Vanderbilt’s bad example lies a parable rich in irony about constitutional freedom under the First Amendment.
Worth reading the whole thing. This isn’t about rights; it’s about hypocrisy, and how it and religious intolerance is being taught to the next generation.
Good morning.
A la carte Catholics need a la carte priests
Or, Doctrinal statements are there for a reason.
Remember the recent incident where a lesbian was denied Holy Communion at her mother’s funeral? From the OC Register comes an example of personal preference attempting to force its way into Christian belief. In Do Catholics love and accept others? Not this priest, we read (emphasis added),
I’m what you’d call an a la carte Catholic.
Too convenient? Maybe.
Especially in times like these, when a priest like Rev. Marcel Guarnizo uses his position in the church to deny someone like Barbara Johnson, who happens to love another woman instead of a man, communion during her own mother’s funeral.
Now, there are many reasons I’m an a la carte Catholic, one of which is that I see nothing wrong with homosexuality; nor do I believe in a God who would turn his back on his own children just because of their sexual orientation. Dare I say that a large portion of the heterosexual marriages among us don’t put the whole man-woman union thing in the best light. Besides, who are we to deny anyone the experience of looking at their husband or wife 10 years in and wondering, “Was I high as a kite the day I committed my life to you?”
And captioning a photo of the Holy Sacraments (emphasis added),
To me, Holy Communion is symbolic of God’s love for us; a priest has no right to deny that to anyone who comes searching for it
Now, the writer of this piece is certainly entitled to her own beliefs. And she’s certainly entitled to attempt to push her beliefs on others. But she’s sorely lacking doctrinal knowledge and clear thinking by proposing that Catholics – or even this particular Catholic priest – do not love others simply because they follow the tenets of their faith. That she disagrees with the tenets of the Catholic faith is irrelevant.
You see, the issue of faith – religious faith – in our culture has become not one of objective reality but of subjective experience. When someone makes claims or statements such as “I see nothing wrong with…” or “nor do I believe in a God who…” or “who are we to deny…” or “To me…” we are seeing the expression of personal preference as the determining factor in one’s belief system. As I stated above, there is nothing inherently wrong with such a worldview and, as the tolerant individual I am, I believe people are certainly free to think that way.
But if they consider themselves to be tolerant, then they need to stop pushing their views into realms that are inconsistent with their own. The Catholic church, via the Word of God, has declarative statements on the meaning of Holy Communion. What you or I happen to want it to mean is irrelevant. Taken a step further, God, through His Word, has made declarative statements regarding His character, who he is, what he is owed, etc. Whether or not you or I agree with him, or would want to believe in a God like him again, is irrelevant.
UPDATE:
Lo and behold, the priest in question has come forward with his account of what transpired. From Crisis Magazine (HT: Joe Carter),
A few minutes before the Mass began, Ms. Johnson came into the sacristy with another woman whom she announced as her “lover”. Her revelation was completely unsolicited. As I attempted to follow Ms.Johnson, her lover stood in our narrow sacristy physically blocking my pathway to the door. I politely asked her to move and she refused.
…
If a Quaker, a Lutheran or a Buddhist, desiring communion had introduced himself as such, before Mass, a priest would be obligated to withhold communion. If someone had shown up in my sacristy drunk, or high on drugs, no communion would have been possible either. If a Catholic, divorced and remarried (without an annulment) would make that known in my sacristy, they too according to Catholic doctrine, would be impeded from receiving communion. This has nothing to do with canon 915. Ms. Johnson’s circumstances are precisely one of those relations which impede her access to communion according to Catholic teaching. Ms. Johnson was a guest in our parish, not the arbitrer of how sacraments are dispensed in the Catholic Church.
###
And, the rest of the Lesbian vs. Catholic Church story
Not an Only in California story, but related. It seems that the lesbian-denied-holy-communion is a practicing Buddhist as well as a gay rights activist. Hmmm.
Medical technology is reducing the need for stem cells.
In the laboratory skin cells were treated with a virus, which was modified to ‘infect’ them with agents that function to convert the skin cells into precursors to brain cells. These cells can specialise into the three types of brain cell: neurons, oligodendrocytes and astrocytes. After laboratory research was carried out, the converted cells were injected into the brains of mice. These mice were bred to lack the protein myelin, which is important in aiding the transmission of messages in the brain. 10 weeks later, the precursor cells had specialised into oligodendrocytes, which made the myelin that the mice lacked.
Skin cells directly to brain cells, do not pass Go, do not create ethical issues. (And creating myelin, which is something that someone like me with MS raises their antennae over.)
Good morning.
You’re probably well aware by now of the murderous attack that left 15 people dead in Pakistan.
What? You thought it was 16 people in Afghanistan who were killed? Well, certainly that news is making the headlines on newswires across the world. But I’m referring to a suicide attack on mourners at a funeral in Pakistan. From Bill Roggio, at The Long War Journal,
A suicide bomber killed 15 people and wounded dozens more in an attack at a funeral in the Pakistani city of Peshawar today. The attack appears to have targeted a senior provincial government official who has raised an anti-Taliban militia in the area.
Pakistani officials confirmed that a suicide bomber carried out today’s attack as mourners were offering prayers for a woman during a funeral in the Badaber area of Peshawar.
Had you heard about this? If you had, was it a news headline or merely another one-of-many filler stories?
In a way, perhaps the fact that such stories get so little airplay, and stories of U.S. military personnel committing crimes get so much airplay is an indication of the very difference between our moral high ground and the terrorist enemy’s.
Consider the following account of Muslim on Muslim killings, per The Long War Journal.
Over the past five years, the Taliban and allied Pakistani terror groups such as the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and the Punjabi Taliban have shown no reservations about striking inside mosques and other religious sites, as well as during religious processions and events. There have been 36 major attacks on mosques and other Islamic institutions in Pakistan since December 2007, according to information compiled by The Long War Journal.
One of the most brazen attacks took place on Dec. 4, 2009, when a suicide assault team stormed a mosque frequented by military officers in Rawalpindi. Two senior generals were among the 40 people killed.
Another major attack took place on July 1, 2010, when suicide bombers struck the Data Ganj Bakhsh shrine in Lahore, killing 41 people and wounding more than 170. Three suicide bombers detonated their vests at the shrine at a time when it was most frequented, in an effort to maximize casualties.
The last major attack against religious targets took place on Sept. 15, 2011, when a suicide bomber killed 31 people in an attack at a funeral in Lower Dir.
All told, The Long War Journal lists 36 major attacks since December 2007 (in Pakistan alone), resulting in 805 people killed. That’s an average of 22 people killed per attack – attacks at mosques and other Islamic institutions.
Try to find that on CNN.
Help Build Houses and Hope with Habitat for Humanity
