Stones Cry Out

1. Mr Obama promised to fight earmarks. Oops. A little on some of the earmarks in the latest spending … thing.
2. Mr Obama spoke critically of Mr Bush’s use of signing statements calling them an abuse of power … waits less than 2 months to follow suit.
3. The Christian carnival is up.
4. Science and stem cells, two comparable views, here and here, both from supporters of the research.
5. Underground in Russia.
6. A second decalogue.
7. With the economic woes, the gap between rich and poor shrinks yet oddly enough the cheers of those who think that’s important have been mighty quiet on that front.
8. Modesty and the economy.
9. Another author to investigate.
10. A film as well?
11. Dr and Mr J&H + Tinkerbell?
12. Signs and portents.
13. “Those type of people” in heaven?
14. A faith journey, part one of an interview.
15. Stinking liar!
16. A generation speaks?
17. Considering the Frum/Limbaugh matter (and a little pot/kettle action).
18. A list.
19. A real Iron Man.
20. Is Mr Putin a hero of the global warming crowd?
21. Bailouts and salary caps … and Academe?
22. Mr Biden remains clueless.

1. Church as a noetic Jeremiah.
2. “Hope he fails” and a little hypocrisy from the left via cricket races.
3. Those last moments and eschatological fate.
4. Time on hand.
5. Geek chic.
6. Mean/not mean? I say not.
7. A look back at a look forward and education.
8. Zap.
9. Hmm, will inexperience show up in the comments?
10. I “vant to suck your … fishy parts?“
11. Paglia on the Rush/Obama kerfuffle.
12. Cue, “Talk to the Animals”.
13. Things to do with filters (HT: Swap blog).
14. Not just a crook. A fool. With some unusual concurrence?
15. A toast.
16. Mr Obama as “conditioner”.
17. Kinda what I said on the popularity of Keynesian economics in politics.
18. Ooops.
19. On that “robust” economy (from a comment yesterday) of the 70s and 80s.
20. Well, I’m firmly in category “B”.

By "they" I meant American Democrats.  Not the establishment; the rank and file.  And by "President", I meant George W. Bush.

In a poll (PDF file) conducted in August of 2006, one of the questions was this:

10.  Regardless of how you voted in the presidential election, would you say you want President Bush to succeed or not?

Hat tip: Patterico, who notes that we were in the thick of a war whose outcome was uncertain.  When Democrats try to take the moral or patriotic high ground regarding what one man, Rush Limbaugh, said, just remind them what a majority of all of them said just 2 1/2 years ago.

President Obama, demonstrating another example of what Jim called an "incomplete life ethic", rescinded Bush’s executive order, reversing the ban on most federal funding of embryonic stem cell research.  Bush’s restrictions were informed by his moral beliefs, but Obama will have none of that.

Aides to Obama told reporters in a phone conference Sunday that the new administration intends to be led by a “responsible practice of science and evidence instead of dogma.” Harold Varmus of the president’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology said, “We view what happened with stem cell research in the last administration as one manifestation of failure to think carefully about how federal support of science and the use of scientific advice occurs.”

He once said that determining when a baby gets human rights was "above my pay grade".  Apparently, deciding when to destroy them isn’t. 

This, then, is apparently the "rightful place" that he promised to restore science to.  It doesn’t sound like morals and ethics are part of the equation anymore. 

Ryan Anderson, writing in the Weekly Standard, brings this point home (as well as noting a "big lie" that Obama continues to perpetuate).

During the ceremony this morning, Obama announced that by signing this executive order "we will lift the ban on federal funding for promising embryonic stem cell research." Of course there never was a ban on federal funding for embryonic stem-cell research. President Bush was, in fact, the first president in history to fund embryonic stem cell research. The compromise Bush reached, however, put restrictions in place that prevented the further destruction of human embryos. It is these restrictions protecting human life that Obama has lifted.

Anderson notes that, while Obama did appeal to "moral values", he set up a straw man that he could easily knock down and brush aside, supposedly taking the issue off the table.  Anderson’s article covers this and a number of other objections that Obama’s decision simply ignores.  Read the whole thing.

The Washington Post headlined their article, "Obama Aims to Shield Science From Politics".  It not only touches on the signing of the EO, but notes how this value system will affect us going forward.  A memorandum was issued along with this signing.

The memorandum will ensure that "people who are appointed to federal positions in science have strong credentials and that the vetting process for evaluating scientific information doesn’t lead to any undermining of the scientific opinion," he said.

That is to say, Obama wishes to shield science from similar ethical concerns, or indeed any debate, during his administration.  Heck, his spokesmen injected politics into the debate by trash-talking "the last administration as one  manifestation of failure to think carefully."  One wonders how the WaPo headline writer actually came up with that summary of the story.

And finally, Scott Ott satirizes this whole situation, such that it can be, with this:

As he signs an executive order Monday lifting limits on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research, President Barack Obama said he intends to make the wealthiest Americans “bear their fair share of the burden.”

Following through on his inaugural promise “to restore science to its rightful place, and wield technology’s wonders to raise health care’s quality and lower its cost“, the president will order the National Institutes of Health to extract stem cells from embryos whose parents earn more than $250,000 per year, and to inject them into “the sick and crippled middle class.”

“Let me be perfectly clear,” Mr. Obama said, “if your family earns less than $250,000 per year, the federal government will not harvest one single stem cell from your embryos…not one single cell. In fact, for 95 percent of working families, my stem cell plan contains nothing but miraculous healing. That’s right, the cures are on the way.”

Again, read the whole thing, and get a good chuckle.

1. Art and arithmetic.
2. Yes, and a majority of Americans want a pony with that too.
3. 40 martyrs almost 1700 years ago.
4. Truth or (and?) unity.
5. Makhala-something-or-other.
6. Another not-quite-as-far away place … and bananas too.
7. A conversation between a Christian and an atheist (on faith).
8. A conversation (of sorts) with a liberal.
9. Weirdness in SF … that’s not disgusting?
10. The life use cycle of houses.
11. Drink, drank, drunk.
12. Some remarks on Mr Obama’s stem cell order. More here.
13. Collapse and war … or the reverse.
14. Church and state.
15. So. Would you buy these?
16. I don’t think that word “consistent” means what he thinks it does.
17. Not socialists.
18. Heh. Logic and Lent.

My friend John Murdoch, a conservative writer who is also concerned about climate change,  has written a perceptive critique of his interchange with Al Gore at a Climate Project training.  As I have written, the development of a total life ethic, recognizing the threats to life of both abortion and environmental degradation, is elevating to our Christian witness and could effectively batttle both offenses. 

John confronted Gore about the disconnection of the these life issues.  He writes:

Face to face with Al Gore, the meaning of life was on my mind as well. I raised the credibility gap created by invoking the plight of future generations to advocate global warming legislation while elsewhere lauding Roe v. Wade which blocks protections for the unborn of today. 

Gore stated that abortion “is best dealt with in a way that leaves the principle responsibility to those most affected by it.” (The developing child was notably absent from his “most affected” list.) Stressing that disagreement “doesn’t keep [him] from seeking common ground,” Gore closed by expressing hope that many would be willing to “join together to address global warming, a common threat to born and unborn.” 

Gore’s batting one for two. The life issue extends beyond the womb, but it certainly extends to it as well.

Confession is a sacramental rite which is, to my admittedly somewhat incomplete knowledge, waning amongst the Roman Catholic communities (especially in the US) and very rare to non-existent in the Protestant communities. For myself, as a somewhat recent convert to Orthodoxy (a community which has not left confession behind), I have had had just a little exposure to confession. I have found the experience, actually, surprisingly salutary. Father Andrew, the priest of my parish, shared some interesting thoughts on confession which I would like to attempt to share.

A common notion about confession is that is a juridical one. In the juridical view, we confess to Christ with the priest as our advocate and adviser of the sins of which we are aware. After (and perhaps by) our confession and repentance we are then forgiven those sins. The juridical formula is clear. We admit our guilt and sin, we repent and are perhaps assigned penance, and are forgiven and our slate wiped clean.

This is not the Orthodox understanding of confession. When I am in a relationship with someone I love, sharing of our thoughts, our desires and so on is part of growing close to that person. Of those thoughts and desires and actions regarding the beloved which were contrary to that relationship which are accompanied by repentance and sorrow are especially important toward growing ever closer. Confession to the beloved of those actions and thoughts are especially painful and difficult. Often the difficulties, especially with a loving and forgiving lover, lie not with the other but with the facing of those part of one’s self. But the experience is enormously helpful in growing ever closer to your beloved. Confession then is exactly this sort of sharing. It is sacramental because it involves our relationship with God. Its purpose is to help us in our striving toward Theosis, toward communion with the Creator. It can be hard, in fact should be difficult. Because, honesty about our failings hurts. Facing our sinful nature and in particular our memories of our past sins is needful for this is one of the large obstacles holding us back from growing closer to God. Confession of these sins helps us move beyond these memories and helps us to confront those parts of ourselves.

The weakness of the juridical view of confession is that it is less effective in aiding us in repentance and to move to a place in our relationship with God in which we are less likely to commit those same sins yet again. A communal sacramental view of confession is stronger. It places the motivation in a different place as well. It is not a penal/juridical action. It is an action which is intended, like so very many other parts of this season of Great Lent, to bring us closer to God. That is a motivation which seems at the very least, much more positive in outlook and ultimately if stronger a better one to help us tame our passions and to stoke the fire of the Spirit of God within us.

Peter Robinson, writing in Forbes, notes three guys who are shocked to find that Obama is such a liberal.

“To see what is in front of one’s nose,” George Orwell famously asserted, “needs a constant struggle.”

Congratulations this week to three journalists who have finally taken up that constant struggle: Christopher Buckley, David Gergen and David Brooks. All three used to insist that Obama was some species of centrist or moderate. Now that Obama has proposed the most massive expansion of government in the history of the republic, each has recognized that just conceivably he might have been mistaken.

I touched on Brooks last Friday, but read the article for details on Buckley and Gergen.  The wool over their eyes is slowly being pulled back up, and they don’t like what they see.

What’s interesting is to hear Robinson compare who got Obama wrong with who got him right.

Buckley, Gergen and Brooks all attended expensive private universities, then spent their careers moving among the wealthy and powerful who inhabit the seaboard corridor running from Washington to Boston. If any of the three strolled uninvited into a cocktail party in Georgetown, Cambridge or New Haven, the hostess would emit yelps of delight. Yet all three originally got Obama wrong.

Contrast Buckley, Gergen and Brooks with, let us say, Rush Limbaugh, whose appearance at any chic cocktail party would cause the hostess to faint dead away, or with Thomas Sowell, who occupies probably the most unfashionable position in the country, that of a black conservative.

Limbaugh and Sowell both got Obama right from the very get-go. “Just what evidence do you have,” Sowell replied when I asked, shortly before the election, whether he considered Obama a centrist, “that he’s anything but a hard-left ideologue?”

The elite journalists, I repeat, got Obama wrong. The troglodytes got him right. As our national drama continues to unfold, bear that in mind.

Please?

1. What’s worse than poverty?
2. Tracking Mr Obama’s views on wiretapping.
3. Hunting for a reasonable explanation for Mr Obama’s wish to require people to do that which they think immoral.
4. The history of the synodikon.
5. The rabbit and Lent.
6. This may get discussed this week, and our prayers will be with the family.
7. Undercounting liberals in academia.
8. The Obama administration and the general lack of epistemological humility.
9. Friday’s Akathist ..  a preview.
10. Art and work.
11. Newsprint and trends.
12. Just move along.
13. A book offer.
14. Links from Brandon at Siris.
15. That unreasonably horrible treatment of prisoner.
16. When editing video.
17. Lending, borrowing and morality.
18. What the world needs, a bathing suit that doesn’t get wet.
19. Verse and the bike.

An engaging study of Revelation is going on at my home church, every Wednesday night. Our pastor, a New Testament scholar, who wrote his dissertation on Revelation 19, is providing for us an in-depth analysis of the context of Revelation, including educating us on the genres it’s comprised of, as well as the cultural meaning of the imagery described. Suffice it to say, this ain’t no Left Behind series!

Last Wednesday, we began Revelation 5. Here is the text, per ESV,

5:1 Then I saw in the right hand of him who was seated on the throne a scroll written within and on the back, sealed with seven seals. 2 And I saw a strong angel proclaiming with a loud voice, “Who is worthy to open the scroll and break its seals?” 3 And no one in heaven or on earth or under the earth was able to open the scroll or to look into it, 4 and I began to weep loudly because no one was found worthy to open the scroll or to look into it. 5 And one of the elders said to me, “Weep no more; behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered, so that he can open the scroll and its seven seals.”

6 And between the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders I saw a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain, with seven horns and with seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth. 7 And he went and took the scroll from the right hand of him who was seated on the throne. 8 And when he had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the
twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each holding a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. 9 And they sang a new song, saying,

11 Then I looked, and I heard around the throne and the living creatures and the elders the voice of many angels, numbering myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands, 12 saying with a loud voice, “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!” 13 And I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and all that is in them, saying, “To him who sits on the
throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever!” 14 And the four living creatures said, “Amen!” and the elders fell down and worshiped.

Note that the scroll, referred to in verse 1, was being held by God the Father (ref. chapter 4), who was given his due worship. He is seated on the throne and is holding the scroll in his right hand. While it appears that no one is found worthy to open the scroll, one of the elders states that the Lion has conquered, so that he can open the scroll. Yet we see a sort of juxtaposition taking place when John sees not a Lion appear, but a Lamb – that had been slain.

Lion / Lamb, conquered / slain.

The Lamb then approaches God, on the throne, and does not ask to be given the scroll, but he takes “the scroll from the right hand of him who was seated on the throne”! The elders and all creatures then confirm that Jesus is worthy to receive worship.

The Lion who has conquered is the Lamb who was slain, and he is worthy of that which is only allowed to be given to God – worship.

The prisoners don’t want to leave.

BAGHDAD (AFP) — An increasing number of Iraqi detainees are refusing to leave detention centres despite being eligible for release because they want to complete studies begun behind bars, a US general said on Sunday.

“In the last three or four months we have begun seeing detainees asking to stay in detention, usually to complete their studies,” Major General Douglas Stone told a news conference in Baghdad.

The US military offers a wide range of educational programmes to the 23,000 or so detainees — adults and juveniles — being held at its two detention facilities, Camp Cropper near Baghdad’s international airport and Camp Bucca near the southern port city of Basra.

Some parents of juvenile detainees, too, have asked that their children remain behind bars so they can continue their schooling, said Stone, the commanding general for US detainee operations in Iraq.

The US military, he added, was not encouraging the trend.

“We don’t want them to remain in detention,” he said. “When they are no longer considered a threat we want them to go home.”

(Hat tip: Betsy Newmark.)  Just keep this in mind when human rights groups complain about how bad the place is.  What kinds of a “concentration camp” educates its own prisoners to the point that they’d rather not leave?

1. In brief, stimulus. And the multipliers might not be what is expected.
2. Unimpressed with a meeting.
3. The economy and some criticism of the popularized viewpoint.
4. A speech, and some changes in a man.
5. Continuing discussion on theodicy.
6. St. Theodora.
7. Tartars in Russia.
8. Of Eucharist and frequency.
9. Contra the prosperity Gospel (cue background music Truly Scrumptious from Chitty Chitty).
10. A prayer request.
11. Depression and the Christian life.
12. A thought for the day.
13. Professional speechwriter blog on Mr Obama’s teleprompter addiction.
14. Demonizing the rich.
15. Heh. (HT: Mad Minerva)
16. Wrestling, sex and a bad idea noted.
17. Values and development.
18. An interesting new development.
19. Mr Freeman.

David Brooks is shocked — SHOCKED — that Barack Obama tuned out to be liberal! 

You wouldn’t know it some days, but there are moderates in this country — moderate conservatives, moderate liberals, just plain moderates. We sympathize with a lot of the things that President Obama is trying to do. We like his investments in education and energy innovation. We support health care reform that expands coverage while reducing costs.

But the Obama budget is more than just the sum of its parts. There is, entailed in it, a promiscuous unwillingness to set priorities and accept trade-offs. There is evidence of a party swept up in its own revolutionary fervor — caught up in the self-flattering belief that history has called upon it to solve all problems at once.

So programs are piled on top of each other and we wind up with a gargantuan $3.6 trillion budget. We end up with deficits that, when considered realistically, are $1 trillion a year and stretch as far as the eye can see. We end up with an agenda that is unexceptional in its parts but that, when taken as a whole, represents a social-engineering experiment that is entirely new.

And the real kicker:

Those of us who consider ourselves moderates — moderate-conservative, in my case — are forced to confront the reality that Barack Obama is not who we thought he was. His words are responsible; his character is inspiring. But his actions betray a transformational liberalism that should put every centrist on notice. As Clive Crook, an Obama admirer, wrote in The Financial Times, the Obama budget “contains no trace of compromise. It makes no gesture, however small, however costless to its larger agenda, of a bipartisan approach to the great questions it addresses. It is a liberal’s dream of a new New Deal.”

Emphasis mine.  Well, actually, emphasis of this was made by Republicans long before election day.  One only had to look at his record, such as it was, to know this.  And yet these "Brooks Moderates" were so caught up in the words and the history of it all that they apparently turned off those parts of their brains responsible for critical thinking.

Looks like the editorial board of the Chicago Tribune did the same thing.

Whoa!

The Obama administration and Democratic leaders of the House and Senate are blowing the lid off of spending restraint. But they’re finally meeting some resistance within their own party.

Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.), in an essay published Wednesday in The Wall Street Journal, ripped a spending bill passed by the House last week as "a sprawling $410 billion compilation of nine spending measures that lacks the slightest hint of austerity from the federal government or the recipients of its largesse."

He said he will vote against it, and he urged President Barack Obama to veto it if it passes the Senate. We second that motion.

(Hat tip: Don Surber)  The Tribune endorsed Obama, and now they’re thinking they can pull back the reigns.  They sound like they’re saying, "Obama’s a big spender?  Who knew?"

I will heartily agree that Republicans spent very irresponsibly during their tenure with control of the Legislative and Executive branches.  But Democrats, true to their ever-constant form (a form that moderates like Brooks should have look to history, even recent history, to confirm), have outspent Republicans by a huge, huge margin.  "Tax and spend" wasn’t a catchphrase made up by Ronald Reagan; it’s a description of their MO.

The Democrats who "rediscovered" fiscal responsibility during the Dubya years have shown that outrage to be mere window dressing than principle.  There are indeed Republicans who had the same problem during the Clinton years and while Democrats held Congress.  But there is simply no real equivalence here. 

While it is still true that Republicans will overspend less than Democrats, it pains me to have to put it that way.  Nonetheless, if you value fiscal responsibility, convincing Republicans to slow down on spending seems to me to have a far better chance of success than convincing Democrats of that.  Mr. Brooks, please take note.

Much ink, likely some of still non-virtual, has been spilled over the Democrats framing Mr Limbaugh as a leader of the GOP and Conservative movement. As to this topic I’d like to frame a question, which will take a bit of setup.

Obama and the liberal media punditry are framing and identifying Mr Limbaugh as the leading light of the Conservative/GOP. If we examine, what effect does this have and who, besides Mr Limbaugh, benefits then a problem arises. Clearly there is a partisan benefit. Democrats will glean a tactical advantage via this identification. However, looking at the slightly wider picture,  the real question is is how does that benefit the nation at large to identify Mr Limbaugh as a leading speaker for the loyal opposition? It seems to me quite clear that the nation is not aided by this identification.

It seems clear that a strong principled loyal opposition is a clear benefit to the nation. Given that, the best thing for the President to do is to identify the best people within his party and the opposition and ensure the people who are framing the debate(s) over policies are principled and well spoken. The best of us on either side of the aisle. That ensures lively and healthy discussion and ultimately is the best for the nation.

Mr Obama as a point man who is doing exactly not what is clearly in the best interest of the nation. Isolating and focusing on Limbaugh (arguably not the best and brightest of the loyal opposition) is clearly running counter to this idea. So if this is right, he then faces the “stupid or evil” accusation with respect to this matter. Either he is not intelligent enough to realize the implications of what he is doing or he is evil, i.e., working to further partisan/personal factions over and above a clear national interest.

1. One view of the ecnomic problems facing the world today. Another, with an Asian focus, here.
2. Good advice. I need to work on the reading slow part … although a busy life helps there.
3. Hmmm.
4. A post I disagree with at On the Square, the First Things blog … although I think the conclusion of the post disagrees with the content.
5. The desire of Mr Obama to fail meme disabused.
6. When not studying (Greek?).
7. Plugging lefse and a kitchen toy.
8. Considering peer review.
9. Bad pictoral pun.
10. Confucious and … the Desert?
11. A poll (cricket race?) in Pakistan.
12. Hmm, I’m guessing a good peaty single malt isn’t on the ticket either.
13. A suggestion for banking.
14. A two parter of advice for the lay detection of junk science, part one and part two.
15. Stranger than fiction.
16. A series begins … Diesels you can’t get in the US but should be able to … and I too am a fan of the modern small diesel engine as one of our families cars is a VW TDI Golf.
17. Teaching and a problem … which in a sane world would not be a problem at all.
18. Does the bill rejecting the fairness doctrine contains seeds of the same.