Touchstone Magazine - Mere Comments: Eighth Day: Touché Socrates!

re: Eighth Day Books, their catalog, and the book So Many Books: Reading and Publishing in an Age of Abundance, by Gabriel Zaid; trans. by Natasha Wimmer...

The Corner on National Review Online: Not Your Average Harvard Feminist

re: "...Serrin Foster, head of the group Feminists for Life, mourns the death of Benazir Bhutto, who she calls “an international advocate for women and children, born and unborn, especially those in developing countries.” / Foster says of the former Pakistani prime minister: “A pro-life feminist, Bhutto consistently promoted a holistic approach to addressing the needs of women by emphasizing the empowerment of women. Bhutto urged world leaders to address health issues including increased nutrition and immunizations. She advocated the protection of women from domestic violence and war. And she connected the need for education of girls and women to their ability to work, and a woman’s ability to work as essential to achieving economic independence. / Foster adds: “Bhutto also refused to choose between meeting the needs of women or between protecting unborn children from abortion,” Foster said. Bhutto called the common practice of gender selected abortions “tragic” and said it “still haunts a world we regard as modern and civilized.”..."...

Dr. Sanity: THE LOGIC OF TERROR

re: "Much is being written and said about Benazir Bhutto's assasination and the mythology and reality of her life. I think the most important issue that needs to be remembered by the West comes from Cliff May at The Corner:..."...

Mankind is more than the janitor of planet Earth | spiked

re: "...The reduction of man to an eco-janitor, a being who creates waste and thus must clear it up, is more than a cynical attempt by isolated Christian leaders to connect with the public. Yes, Williams, Owen, the Holy See and Co. no doubt hope and believe (mistakenly, I’m sure) that adopting trendy Greenspeak will entice people to return to the church. But the move from focusing on love for God and one’s neighbour to focusing on ‘respect for the planet’ represents more than a rebranding exercise: it signals a complete abandonment by the Christian churches of the Judaeo-Christian tradition. And in this sense, it is not only God that is being downgraded by the new nature-worshipping priests; so is humanity itself. And that’s enough to make even a committed atheist like me worry about the current direction of the Christian churches."

hat tip: Frank Wilson

At A Hen's Pace: A Return to Tradition

re: "Thanks to my friend Jen in Seattle for pointing out this article! If you've been a reader here for awhile, you know I've been doing an on-again, off-again series on why we are planting an Anglican church: what drew us, from evangelical backgrounds, to this form of worship, and why we think it will grow... [snip]... The Baptist church that I grew up in held their first-ever Ash Wednesday service last year! Anyone else noticing a return to tradition in your church?"...

AMERICAN FUTURE » Tom Friedman on the NIE

re: "Friedman has just returned from the Bahrain security conference, at which “all the buzz” was about the latest NIE on Iran. Friedman says that it left every Arab and European expert he spoke to “baffled” — “not in its conclusions, but by why those conclusions were framed in a way that is sure to reduce America’s leverage to negotiate with Tehran.” /In his New York Times op-ed, Friedman presents an interesting analogy..."...

Global Anglican Future Conterence

re: Archbiship Jensen: "A Global Anglican Future Conference is planned for June 2008. The aim of the Conference is to discuss the future of mission and relationships within the churches of Anglican Communion... [snip]... I want those in the fellowship of our Diocese to know what this is about and why I am involved..."...

Anglican Church Finder

re: "The AAC answers calls daily from individuals who want to leave their Episcopal churches but don’t know where to turn. Below are some resources available to assist you in finding an orthodox, Anglican-tradition church nearby..."...

Two Perspectives on the Bible and Contemporary Issues

re: "This week, The News Hour with Jim Lehrer on PBS has featured two different perspectives on the Bible and its relevance to contemporary issues. On Tuesday, Ray Suarez interviewed Dr. Peter Gomes, Minister of the Harvard Memorial Church and Plummer Professor of Christian Morals at Harvard University, about his new book, The Scandalous Gospel of Jesus. /On Wednesday he presented an interview with me about my new book, Cultureshift: Engaging Current Issues with Timeless Truth [due to be released January 15]. /The audio versions of the segments are available online, as are full transcripts of the interviews. Dr. Gomes' book is worthy of a full review, which will appear here in coming days. I appreciate the fact that Ray Suarez and The News Hour dealt with both of us far above the level of soundbites..."...

A CERTAIN SLANT OF LIGHT » Congress Defunds Border Fence, But Looking To Fund La Raza

re: "...As incongruous as it may seem to sane people with the requisite common sense that perpetually eludes this Congress, Rep. Ruben Hinojosa (D-TX) has introduced HR-1999 (the “Hope Fund Act of 2007″) that would fund (see bill’s summary) the National Council of La Raza with a gift-wrapped bounty of taxpayers’ dollars. Writes John Wallace in an Op-Ed piece for News Blaze: //The American people should also be aware that there is also a bill currently in Congress (HR-1999) to fund the National Council of La Raza, an anti-assimilation, pro-illegal alien organization. This bill asks the American people to give this pro-amnesty organization $5 million dollars in 2008 and $10 million a year for each fiscal year thereafter..."...

Rumors of Glory: The Conscience of an Anglican - Books & Culture Magazine

re: Alan Jacobs explains why he has mostly stayed out of the public arguments about the Episcopalian/Anglican conflicts, even though he has left the Episcopal Church for reasons of conscience. Column mentions in passing the book Wayward Christian Soldiers by Charles Marsh...

Captain's Quarters: Turks Using US Intel To Hit Iraqi Targets (Update: Rice In Iraq)

re: "If we can't stop the Turks from invading Iraq, at least we can control their target selection. That appears to be the strategy this morning, as the Turks moved in and hit at rebel bases within the autonomous Kurdish area in northern Iraq. The Bush administration has walked a tightrope for months on the increasing provocations of the PKK and the inevitable response..."...

Captain's Quarters: Kicking Up The Ruckus

re: "Newsweek has launched a new feature at its website called The Ruckus, in conjunction with the Media Bloggers Association. The Ruckus will track the postings of nine bloggers on the presidential race from now until Election Day in November -- including Captain's Quarters..."...

FIRST THINGS: A Journal of Religion, Culture, and Public Life

re: Robert P. George: "The obligations and purposes of law and government are to protect public health, safety, and morals, and to advance the general welfare—including, preeminently, protecting people’s fundamental rights and basic liberties. /At first blush, this classic formulation (or combination of classic formulations) seems to grant vast and sweeping powers to public authority. Yet, in truth, the general welfare—the common good—requires that government be limited..."...

Captain's Quarters: The Terrorist Plot No One Talked About

re: "A terrorist conspiracy to attack military sites and synagogues developed among prison Muslims for years, and yet hardly any mention of the conspiracy made the news. The Los Angeles Times picks up the story no one else seems interested in reporting, noting that two of the accused have pled guilty to the conspiracy... [snip]... The investigation started as a routine probe into a gas-station robbery. Police in Torrance discovered the group's manifesto, a list of targets, and a post-attack warning for people to avoid contact with Jews and non-Jewish supporters of "the Zionist state". Torrance called in the feds, who believe that the group had almost completed its preparations for a major attack in Los Angeles..."...

Great Books CD Series - Prison Fellowship

re: "...This new CD series by Dr.Kenneth Boa—a fascinating teacher and prolific author himself—helps you delve into the greatest books ever written that were influenced by a Christian worldview. Each month you will receive a CD that gives insights into a particular book and its author—gems of knowledge and perceptions that give new clarity to what you’re already reading or whet your appetite to dive into the book..."...

Joust The Facts: "Belief In" Global Warming

re: "...Wall Street Journal carried a Holman Jenkins Jr. column on the patron saint of rising ocean levels, Nobel Prize winner Al Gore, the former VP. It's a very good read, if you can get past the subscriber wall. I found one quote particularly interesting. Mr. Jenkins first notes the psychological work of another couple of Nobel Prize winners: //How this honor has befallen the former Veep could perhaps be explained by another Nobel, awarded in 2002 to Daniel Kahneman for work he and the late Amos Tversky did on "availability bias," roughly the human propensity to judge the validity of a proposition by how easily it comes to mind. /Their insight has been fruitful and multiplied: "Availability cascade" has been coined for the way a proposition can become irresistible simply by the media repeating it; "informational cascade" for the tendency to replace our beliefs with the crowd's beliefs; and "reputational cascade" for the rational incentive to do so..."...

Happy Catholic: The Twist in This Adventure-Thriller is Catholicism

re: "...I like this sort of thriller which tends to be straight forward between good and bad guys, full of action, and in praise of the dedicated military man's prowess. Recent books I've enjoyed of this genre include Empire by Orson Scott Card and Karl's Last Flight by Basil Sands. I hadn't come across Tom Grace's books before but this book [The Secret Cardinal] is singularly of interest to Catholics who also enjoy the genre. Grace became aware of the struggle between the church and the Chinese government when he read a transcript of Sen. Joseph Lieberman's tribute on the death of Cardinal Ignatius Kung Pin-Mei. This sparked Grace's further investigation into the situation which in turn led to this book. Not only is there the action of rescuing the Cardinal, but of a papal conclave which has a mole in its midst leaking news about Yin's escape..."...

Admitted “In The Blink Of An Eye” « Expat Yank

re: "...IRIS is far superior to what U.S. citizens and “green card” residents have to endure to enter the U.S. The booth opens as you approach, you step in, and a plumy female recorded voice tells you “Look into the mirror“. You stare ahead, and your iris is within seconds checked against the registered database, in which your immigration details are stored..."...

The Common Room: Quiet Strength, a Memoir

re: "I picked up Quiet Strength by Tony Dungy when the Equuschick was in the hospital nursing her pancreas. I have always enjoyed reading biographies about leaders. Leadership is needed in our nation, in our churches, and especially in my gender. We need servant leadership that is gentle, strong, and effective. We need leaders who care enough about others to step up and say, "Follow me, I'll smooth the path for you and accept responsibility for our direction."... [snip]... I highly recommend this book..."...

Considerettes » Emotionally Tied to Embryonic Stem Cells

re: "Now that normal skin cells can be made to mimic embryonic stem cells, you’d think that the big push to keep destroying embryos and the ethical considerations that accompany it would pretty much die out. You’d be wrong. Michael J. Fox, one of the more vocal and visible players advocating embryonic stem cell research, will have none of that..."...

Dr. Sanity: BANKRUPT PHILOSOPHY EXPOSED, BUT MALIGNANT LEADER SOLDIERS ON

re: "The totally bankrupt ideology espoused by Hugo Chavez (and admired by his Hollywood fan club) was, sooner or later, bound to lose its ongoing struggle against the forces of reality. "21st Century Socialism" never had much of a chance of bringing anything but devastation to the Venezuelan populace... [snip]... Chavez can still do great harm since he will remain in power until 2013; and, with his sort of malignant personality, it is very likely he will. But it has become clear that his touted "21st Century Socialism" is just the same, tired, old 20th century Marxist bull, proven to be toxic to human society. It was already well on its way to poisoning all of Venezuela, and we can expect continued societal deterioration, increased poverty, and endless misery in that part of the world for a while. Whether this one democratic vote can really stop the sociopathic forces of socialist opporession remains to be seen..."...

The networks protect us from dangerous ideas « Bookworm Room

re: networks refuse to run ads thanking the military...

World On the Web » Gore vs. Faulkner

re: "...Probably the most famous Nobel speech belongs to William Faulkner, who accepted his (for literature, of course) on this date in 1950. Gore’s and Faulkner’s speeches can be compared rather easily. /Faulkner’s speech came in the beginning of the cold war, when nuclear war and the A-bomb were about to start scaring the you-know-what out of everybody. Faulkner’s speech and Gore’s are eerily similar in that they both speak about a Big Problem and What’s To Be Done in Face of It. Some think Faulkner was being a little progressive and utopian in his speech, but I think the Christian, even the Calvinist, can see that Faulkner understood something about the soul when he said..."...

hat tip: Phil

Father joins Navy to honor son who died in Iraq | Chron.com - Houston Chronicle

re: "...His son, Marine Lt. Nathan Krissoff, 25, had been killed in a December 2006 roadside bomb explosion in Iraq. /Months later, Krissoff came to a carefully considered decision: He would honor his son by leaving a flourishing orthopedic practice, a comfortable life, to join the Navy as a combat surgeon.
But his application for an age waiver was mired in paperwork. /So, on that August day in Reno, when Bush went around the room and asked if there was anything he could do, Krissoff spoke up. /"I said, 'Yeah, there is one thing. I want to join the Navy medical corps and I gotta get some help here,' " recalled Krissoff, 61, who lives in California, near Reno. /Three days after that meeting, the Navy called. /His waiver had been granted..."...

hat tip: cdr salamander, via PalmTree Pundit

A Film that Continues to Amaze - Prison Fellowship

re: "CATHERINE CLAIRE: I recently spoke with Erik Lokkesmoe about the DVD release of Amazing Grace, and what has been happening since the release of the film last spring..."...

Rush Interviews Justice Clarence Thomas

re: transcript of long interview from August 21, 2007, when the book My Grandfather's Son first came out...

Considerettes - Hysteria Begets Cash

re: "...In this case, the statement is referring to the AIDS epidemic. While there’s no doubt it is a scourge, the UN is revising its figures down; way down..."...

Considerettes - Stem Cells Without Ethics Issues

re: "As I’ve noted over and over and over again, adult stem cells are a win-win situation; they have amazing curative powers and have none of the ethical issues associated with embryonic ones. Well now, we hear of yet another source of stem cells that fit that category..."...

Sinking Ship Evacuated Off Antarctica - TIME

re: "(Buenos Aires, Argentina) — A Canadian cruise ship struck submerged ice off Antarctica and began taking on water, but all 154 passengers and crew took to lifeboats and were rescued safely Friday by a passing Norwegian liner, officials said..."...

Life After Embryonic Stem Cells - TIME

re: by Alice Park: "Twenty-five days. That's how long it took Dr. Shinya Yamanaka of Kyoto University to undo more than 30 years of exquisitely programmed biology packed into a woman's cheek cell — and just maybe change the world. In a procedure that some scientists thought could take decades to discover, Yamanaka tricked the cheek cell into acting like an embryonic stem cell — capable of dividing, developing and maturing into any of the body's more than 200 different cell types. And he wasn't alone: on the same day that he published his milestone in the journal Cell, James Thomson, a pioneering University of Wisconsin molecular biologist, reported similar success in Science. / Their papers cap a year of remarkable research, in which scientists have surged ahead of ethicists and politicians in finding ever more clever ways to generate stem cells. But where other breakthroughs relied on using cells from living embryos — tiny bits of inchoate life, fraught with ethical issues — the work by Yamanaka and Thomson sidesteps that abyss by nursing adult cells into a state in which their cellular destiny is yet to be fulfilled. No embryos, no eggs, no hand-wringing over where the cells come from and whether it is ethical to make them in the first place. /Stem cells generated by this method are ideal not just because they are free of political and moral baggage. They can also be coaxed into becoming any type of tissue, and then be transplanted back into the donor with little risk of rejection. Still, these cells are far from ready for medical use. The viruses used to ferry the genes that manipulate the cells can introduce genetic mutations and cancer. And with myriad ways to reprogram a cell, sorting out the best ones will take time — meaning that stem cells from embryos will remain useful (and controversial) for a while. Both Yamanaka and Thomson admit that we still know too little about how the process works to exploit the method's full potential. Nevertheless, their discovery has moved stem-cell research back to an embryonic state of its own — in which anything, it seems, is possible..."... [ed. note: while many types of adult and cord stem cells have proven useful, so far I'm not aware of any success with embryonic stem cells, unless you count snagging grant money and getting reporters to gush over you and buy into your theories as success...]

Planet Gore on National Review Online: IPCC report: The green iron triangle

re: Henry Payne: "The Greens-Government-Media Complex – the new Iron Triangle – was on full display this weekend as the U.N. tried to muster a frightening dossier of intelligence to convince the international community to fight a pre-emptive war on global warming. /The United Nations and Green groups stand to gain enormous political power from the venture as they advocate carbon caps and other global regulations run through the U.N.’s vast bureaucracy. Major media responded in kind with barely concealed government press releases. New York Times’s green reporter Elisabeth Rosenthal (in dispatches that ran across the planet via the Times News Service) committed journalistic malpractice as she uncritically reported on the “forceful language” of the “most powerful” IPCC report warning of “mounting risks.” /The triangle was further reinforced by the Nobel Peace Prize, “an honor,” wrote Rosenthal, “that many scientists here said emboldened them to stand more forcefully behind their positions.” Science? Sounds like raw politics. /Nowhere in the Times’s report (or similar dispatches from AP) was a fact questioned, an inconvenient study cited, or a skeptic quoted..."...

Captain's Quarters: Britain Tackles Domestic Terror

re: "The British have always had a soft spot for animals, and have led the movement to treat them as humanely as possible. For that reason, the British have long shown tolerance for terrorist tactics of animal-rights activists, including bombings, blackmail, and character assassination. According to Der Spiegel, that appears to be changing. A new countering movement has rapidly gained favor among the British, who may have had their fill of terrorists altogether..."...

More unintended managed health care consequences « Bookworm Room

re: "When it comes to managed health care, the law of unintended consequences just keeps rolling along. The news out of England today tells the story of a woman who has been barred from New Zealand, where her husband has already moved, because she is “too fat.” Apparently in the conflict between politically correct thought and its managed care economy, the latter wins. Anyway, here’s the story..."...

Forgotten WWII-Era American Fighter Plane Found on Beach in Wales

re: "NEW YORK — Sixty-five years after it ran out of gas and crash-landed on a beach in Wales, an American P-38 fighter plane has emerged from the surf and sand where it lay buried — a World War II relic long forgotten by the U.S. government and unknown to the British public. /During those decades, beach strollers, sunbathers and swimmers were often within a few yards of the aircraft, utterly unaware of its existence just under the sand. Only this past summer did it suddenly reappear due to unusual conditions that caused the sands to shift and erode. /The startling revelation of the Lockheed "Lightning" fighter, with its distinctive twin-boom design, has stirred considerable interest in British aviation circles and among officials of the country's aircraft museums, ready to reclaim yet another artifact from history's greatest armed conflict./ ...[...snip].../ Officially, the U.S. Air Force considers any aircraft lost before Nov. 19, 1961 — when a fire destroyed many records — as "formally abandoned," and has an interest in such cases only if human remains are involved. /The twin-engine P-38, a radical design conceived by Lockheed design genius Clarence "Kelly" Johnson in the late 1930s, became one of the war's most successful fighter planes, serving in Europe and the Pacific. Some 10,000 were built, and about 32 complete or partial airframes are believed to still exist, perhaps 10 in flying condition..."...

OpinionJournal: The Insanity of Bush Hatred

re: Peter Berkowitz: "Hating the president is almost as old as the republic itself. The people, or various factions among them, have indulged in Clinton hatred, Reagan hatred, Nixon hatred, LBJ hatred, FDR hatred, Lincoln hatred, and John Adams hatred, to mention only the more extravagant hatreds that we Americans have conceived for our presidents. /But Bush hatred is different. It's not that this time members of the intellectual class have been swept away by passion and become votaries of anger and loathing. Alas, intellectuals have always been prone to employ their learning and fine words to whip up resentment and demonize the competition. Bush hatred, however, is distinguished by the pride intellectuals have taken in their hatred, openly endorsing it as a virtue and enthusiastically proclaiming that their hatred is not only a rational response to the president and his administration but a mark of good moral hygiene. /This distinguishing feature of Bush hatred was brought home to me on a recent visit to Princeton University. I had been invited to appear on a panel to debate the ideas in Princeton professor and American Prospect editor Paul Starr's excellent new book, "Freedom's Power: The True Force of Liberalism."..."...

Constitutionally Correct : ‘Contracepting’ Christians from the Medical Profession: A Response to Marci Hamilton

re: "Law professor Marci Hamilton, a regular contributor to Findlaw's parade of abortion enthusiasts (see, e.g., here, here, here, and here), penned a screed today against religious freedom in the State of Washington. Her article is well-crafted as a propaganda piece in the ongoing drumbeat to ban Christians from the medical profession, but it is somewhat short on rational analysis. Three of Hamilton's tactics are instructive to those involved in protecting religious freedom and the sanctity of human life. / [snip]... / The professor's next sleight of hand betrays her desire to force Christians from pharmacy and medicine altogether. Try to follow this "reasoning": "As abortion opponents have succeeded in using state laws to trim back the impact of Roe v. Wade, they have also been emboldened to seek to prohibit the distribution of contraceptives. Accordingly, pharmacists who are "pro-life" have refused to fill prescriptions for the Plan B pill." /Allow me to translate from law-professor into English: Pro-life people have succeeded in passing state laws that marginally restrict abortion. Pro-life medical professionals also don't want the government to force them to participate in killing children. Ergo, pro-life people are outlawing drugs that solely prevent an embryo from existing in the first place. /The problems with this argument are multiple, including the fact that a pharmacist who decides not to participate in a process that kills embryos has "prohibited" exactly no one from dispensing "contraceptives." Professor Hamilton no doubt recognizes this irregularity in her logic. What we should draw from this example is that if the debate is over whether doctors and pharmacists should be forced to kill people, abortion advocates lose, and they know it. Their approach, accordingly, is to declare that religious freedom advocates are outlawing contraceptives. The tactic is bizarre, but unfortunately typical. In the process, they equate the traditional belief of billions of people on the planet that it is wrong to kill living human beings, to an "imagine[d] . . . religious sect [that] permit[s] children to die of treatable medical ailments," arguing that both stand on the same ground and should be forced to violate their beliefs. Thus are abortion advocates not only fighting the outlawing of contraceptives, but they are the real child defenders in this debate. / Cases like this are in fact about whether medical professionals should be forced to kill people. Abortion advocates want to force pharmacists to dispense embryo-killing drugs, doctors to perform abortions and practice them in medical school, employers to pay for methods that kill unborn human lives, and taxpayers to pay for it all. They have arguments about why forcing these things is a good idea--mainly that they think some human beings, including embryos (or 39 week old babies) are not "people." But they're not willing to defend that position in public, because moral reasoning and basic common sense rejects it outright. So they hide their desire for government compulsion that forces Christians to choose between their livelihood and religion..."...

ADF: ADF attorney available for questions after hearing in American Atheists v. Duncan - Alliance Defense Fund

re: Nov. 12: "SALT LAKE CITY — ADF Senior Legal Counsel Byron Babione will be available for questions immediately after a federal court hearing in American Atheists v. Duncan Tuesday. ADF, along with local attorney Frank Mylar, represents the Utah Highway Patrol Association, which opposes a lawsuit brought by American Atheists that seeks to remove roadside memorial crosses placed by families of highway patrol members who lost loved ones in the line of duty. / “It’s ridiculous that a small group of offended atheists would seek to stop the families of slain troopers from honoring their loved ones as they see fit,” said Babione. “There’s nothing unconstitutional about what the UHPA and these families are doing. The memorials cost taxpayers nothing as they were constructed by volunteers and materials donated by local businesses.”..."...

ADF: Court stops enforcement of Wash. regulations targeting pharmacists, pharmacies who don’t stock abortion drugs

re: "OLYMPIA, Wash. — A federal court Thursday confirmed that the right of Washington pharmacists to obey their conscience when they object to dispensing abortion-inducing drugs on religious grounds will be protected while a lawsuit by two pharmacists and a pharmacy owner moves forward. The court halted newly passed regulations, which the pharmacy and pharmacists are challenging, until a decision is reached in the case. Attorneys with the Alliance Defense Fund and ADF-allied attorneys filed the lawsuit and motion for preliminary injunction in July. / "The government shouldn’t force pro-life pharmacists or any other health care providers to violate their religious beliefs simply to appease a political agenda," said lead counsel and ADF-allied attorney Kristen Waggoner of the Seattle-based law firm Ellis, Li & McKinstry. "The right to conscientiously object to the taking of human life is deeply rooted in our nation’s history and laws. The ‘morning-after’ pill can unnaturally and deliberately kill innocent human life." / The court’s order stated, "the regulations appear to target religious practice in a way forbidden by the Constitution" and "appear to intentionally place a significant burden on the free exercise of religion for those who believe life begins at conception…."..."...

Leader of evangelicals 'unChristian' say secularists -Times Online

re: "...Dr Edwards said: "To remove religious conviction from the public square is as sensible as removing the engines from an aircraft in flight. For a while the plane may glide and to all extent seem fine, but before long the altimeter will only be headed in one direction, by which time it is too late to start remembering how it was you got airborne in the first place. /"A tolerance which calls for the removal of conviction is no tolerance at all. If modern day politics seeks to silence or exclude voices, be they religious, gay or atheist, then a key pillar of an open society will have been destroyed and we will be the poorer for it. It is our task in this debate to persuade society that tolerance is not the absence of conviction, or even of conversion. It is the absence of coercion. In a liberal democracy it is more intolerant to disallow religious views based on secular prejudice: after all, secularism is just another religious position."..."...

hat tip: Anglican Mainstream

Townhall.com::Blog: The Catholic Vote

re: Hugh Hewitt: "From the Boston Globe: /Cardinal Sean P. O'Malley of Boston, saying the Democratic Party has been persistently hostile to opponents of abortion rights, asserted yesterday that the support of many Catholics for Democratic candidates "borders on scandal." /In his sharpest comments about the political landscape since he was installed as archbishop of Boston four years ago, O'Malley made clear that, despite his differences with the Republican Party over immigration policy, capital punishment, economic issues, and the war in Iraq, he views abortion as the most important moral issue facing policymakers. /"I think the Democratic Party, which has been in many parts of the country traditionally the party which Catholics have supported, has been extremely insensitive to the church's position, on the gospel of life in particular, and on other moral issues," O'Malley said..."...

Captain's Quarters: API Live Blog II: Seismic & Geophysics

re: "This session focuses on geophysics and seismic science. Barney Issen is speaking in this session, and now we're using the panoramic displays, which are quite impressive. We're going to get a remedial lesson in seismic science, and we should have some good questions on this..."...

Captain's Quarters: API Live Blog I: Overview Session

re: "We have arrived at the Chevron headquarters in Houston for the start of our two-day briefing on oil technology and energy policy..."...

Good reads « Bookworm Room

re: "Just a quick heads up that Jonah Goldberg has one of his better columns (meaning it’s very good, indeed) about the Democratic candidates’ attack on wealth. /Also, John Stossel has some common sense about climate change (as does Power Line)."...

No Left Turns Archive: 1968 Again

re: Steven Hayward: "Dan Henninger’s Wonderland column in today’s Wall Street Journal takes up the point I made the other day about the Hatfield-McCoy aspect of baby boomer politics, and how this will inevitably play out in this election, hopefully for the last time?..."...

WW1: Experiences of an English Soldier

re: "This blog is made up of transcripts of Harry Lamin's letters from the first World War. The letters will be posted exactly 90 years after they were written. To find out Harry's fate, follow the blog!..."...

hat tip: Google Blogs of Note list

Jen Robinson's Book Page: WBBT: Friday

re: "Here is today's Winter Blog Blast Tour schedule..."...

Dramatic shuttle flight has a happy ending - MSNBC.com

re: "CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - Discovery and its crew returned to Earth on Wednesday and concluded a 15-day space station construction and repair mission that was among the most challenging — and heroic — in shuttle history./ [snip]... /The seven shuttle astronauts and three residents of the international space station teamed up during the docked mission to save a mangled solar wing. It was one of the most difficult and dangerous repairs ever attempted in orbit, but the future of the space station was riding on it — and Scott Parazynski pulled it off in a single spacewalk..."...

hat tip: The Paragraph Farmer

Weather Channel Founder Calls Global Warming A 'Scam'

re: "When John Coleman founded The Weather Channel in the early 1980's, he probably never could have guessed that TWC would be promoting the theory of global warming in the 2000's. /That's because Coleman doesn't believe in global warming, or so-called climate change. In a November 7 blog entry on icecap.us, Coleman makes it clear that he does not oppose environmentalism, but he says that global warming is a "non-event, a manufactured crisis and a total scam."..."...

hat tip: The Paragraph Farmer

The Paragraph Farmer: Preach it, Laura

re: "...--From a chapter on federalism in the excellent Power to the People, by Laura Ingraham. You could do worse than view this book as a first-year civics or social studies text from a woman who writes better than most academics do. / ... [snip].../ 'Judicial restraint' isn't a term you hear that often, because it doesn't fit into the standard political categories of Left and Right, big government and small government--and that's the point. Under our Constitution, judges are not part of the political process. Judicial restraint begins with a judge recognizing what he is not: he is not Congress, he is not the president of the United States, he is not the mayor of a small town in Texas, he is not the commissioner of the PGA, and he is not God." / Strictly speaking, Ingraham's most recent book is not a history text. It is no substitute for Robert Wilken's Remembering the Christian Past, or Schwiekart and Allen's A Patriot's History of the United States..."...

Captain's Quarters: Michael Yon's Iconic Coverage Of The Iraq War

re: "...The picture you see shows Muslims and Christians restoring the cross to the top of St. John's Church in Baghdad. The Iraqis wanted Americans to see that they have unity at the ground level, and consider their Iraqi nationality more important than their sectarian differences. Even the Muslims in Baghdad rejoiced at the reopening of the Christian church, perhaps as a canary in the coal mine moment. If a Christian church can open its doors in Baghdad, then the Muslims know their mosques remain safe. / Michael also noted that the Iraqis had another message for Americans. They thanked us for a real peace, one that doesn't come from brutal oppression of a dictator but that of a free people governing themselves. The church is a symbol of that peace, and they understand that..."...

| The Living Church Foundation: Southern Cone Offers 'Safe Haven' for American Dioceses

re: "Dioceses that wish to secede from The Episcopal Church because of disputes over doctrine and discipline will be given an ecclesiastical home in the Church of the Province of the Southern Cone. / Meeting Nov 5-7 at St. Paul’s Church, Valparaíso, Chile, the Southern Cone synod voted to extend the province’s jurisdiction to North America, allowing dioceses and other ecclesial entities to affiliate with the province. / The Provincia Anglicana del Cono Sur de América is comprised of the dioceses of Chile, Peru, Bolivia, Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay and Northern Argentina. The Diocese of Bolivia already has provided pastoral oversight to several dozen congregations in the United States comprised of former members of The Episcopal Church. In addition, Presiding Bishop Gregory Venables of the Southern Cone exercises a personal prelature over former members of the Diocese of Recife (Brazil). / Bishop Venables told The Living Church the offer of a provincial home for traditionalist American dioceses merely recognized the existing splits within the church. He said the Southern Cone was not precipitating a crisis or invading The Episcopal Church, but was offering a safe haven within the Anglican Communion for those wishing to flee..."...

hat tip: American Anglican Council

Wednesday Hero - 10/10/07 « A Rose By Any Other Name

re: "...Her name is Holly Holeman. Her job is working at a flower shop. And her mission to make sure soldiers are never forgotten. Which is why she’s out at Arlington National Cemetery every week putting flowers around the headstones. She usually does this alone, but on a bitter cold day in February of 2007 she was met with family members of fallen soldiers buried in Section 60 of the cemetery who helped her to place the roses. /To read the rest of Holly’s story, you can go here..."...

Wednesday Hero - 11/07/07 « A Rose By Any Other Name

re: "...An avid outdoorsman, Spc. McKinley worked as a baker at Alpine Bakery in Corvallis, Ore. Upon his return from Iraq, he hoped to open a juice bar in the college town to provide a drug and alcohol-free environment for young people. Friends and co-workers remember Spc. McKinley as a quiet, caring young man who dyed his hair, sported several tattoos and loved ska and rock music. His senior yearbook picture showed a grinning young man with spiked hair dyed red and green. In other 1998 yearbook pictures, he has purple and blue hair in a mohawk... [snip]... Almost 500 people attended the memorial service for Spc. McKinley at Starker Arts Park in Corvallis. There was a mix of people dressed in either military or punk attire — including McKinley’s six-year-old cousin, who, in tribute, wore his hair in a bright green mohawk..."...

Reuters’ “Tiny” Grasp Of Percentages « Expat Yank

re: "...Credible information source Infoplease tells us that Saudi Arabia’s population is 27,601,038 (as of 2007). Islam is also said to be the religion of 100% of that population. It is reasonable to believe that those figures come from official Saudi estimates. /So, assuming those Roman Catholics therefore aren’t included in that 27.6 million, given Reuters’ above characterizations the news service obviously considers to be “tiny” those estimated 1 million Catholic “migrant workers” who constitute roughly 3% of the human inhabitants of Saudi Arabia, but whom, being non-Muslims, are apparently deemed officially statistically invisible. If the Saudi state chooses not to recognize the presence of Christians in their midst that’s one thing, but what acceptable excuse is there for the facts obsessives at Reuters for being only slightly less blind? After all, a similar sized 3% minority in the UK (stated by numerous sources as being around 1.8 million persons, out of a total population of 60 million) of another religious outlook is, for the global news gatherer, by no means considered nearly as “tiny”, nor as humanly inconsequential..."...

Mommy Life: What does it mean to be pro-life?

re: "...In the meantime, I want to encourage all of my readers to consider what it means to be pro-life and to ask yourselves if there is something you need to do that will take you out of your comfort zone. We are not called to a live of comfort, but a life of service. /The material prosperity enjoyed by our culture has lulled many evangelicals into complete insensibility. Remember how Marx called religion the opiate of the masses? While for many years as a leftist I believed that, I now understand how wrong he was. Religion should not dull your sensibilities, but sharpen them. Faith should be a call to action, a call to serve - maybe not in a big, dramatic way, but in ways that God can see and ways that He can use..."...

hat tip: Danielle Bean

Danielle Bean: Linky Linky

re: "For the Love of Literature Great news from Catholic mom and author Maureen Wittmann. There's a pre-publication special on her upcoming book, For the Love of Literature, which is a wonderful resource for every Catholic family -- particularly homeschoolers... [snip]... // ...Un-Killable This haunting story popped up a few different places and some people sent it to me over the weekend. I did my best to forget it -- I just found it too disturbing. How can a mother pose, smiling, while holding an adorable child she tried in vain to abort? Doctors are not always right. Thank goodness for that..." ...

Wittingshire: An Unbeliever on the "New Atheists"

re: "Theodore Dalrymple, who is not a believer, nevertheless takes issue with the authors of the recent spate of anti-religion books. Dalrymple is, as usual, eloquent and devastating. / Remarkably, however, Dalrymple--best known for showing us the seedy side of life in books... [snip]...--this time uses his formidable skills to draw our attention to beauty. He says..."...

seMissourian.com: Story: Proposed ethanol plants would produce 690 tons of pollutants

re: By Sam Blackwell ~ Southeast Missourian: "Ethanex Energy and Renewable Power of Cape Girardeau are working out plans to build ethanol plants along Nash Road along the border of Cape and Scott counties. A third company, First Missouri Energy, has applied for an air permit from the Missouri Department of Natural Resources. /If built, Ethanex and Renewable Power will add 690 tons of pollutants annually to the nearly 8,600 tons currently produced by the area's industries. Buzzi Unicem, the cement kiln, is by far the largest producer of pollutants at 8,500 tons annually. More than 7,000 tons of the pollutants Buzzi Unicem produces are in the form of carbon monoxide. /The largest percentage increase in emissions from the new plants will be in the form of hazardous air pollutants, or HAPs./ ...[snip]... Renewable Power continues to work on acquiring financing, said Mitch Robinson, executive director of the Cape Girardeau Area Magnet. He doubts whether all three ethanol plants will be able to locate here because of the high demand for corn. "That is why companies are locating on the river or rail or both," he said. "There is concern that if there was a blight situation that they would be able to bring corn in from outside the region."..."...

OpinionJournal - John Fund on the Trail: 'Fairness' Is Foul

re: "It wasn't that hard for Indiana's Rep. Mike Pence to build media and congressional support for his Free Flow of Information Act, which would protect the confidentiality of contacts between reporters and sources. It passed the House this month by an overwhelming vote of 398-21. His next battle will be a lot harder--to permanently ban the Fairness Doctrine, the regulation many liberals are now actively trying to revive in an effort to silence their critics..."...

OpinionJournal - The Return of the Thought Police

re: Wendy Kaminer on "hate crime" legislation and how it assaults civil liberties...

Captain's Quarters: A Complication of Imprecision

re: "One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter -- and the State Department finally has discovered this truth. In a long-overdue act, State has forgiven the "terrorism" of the Hmong and Montagnards who fought so bravely beside us in Southeast Asia, allowing them to enter the country and allowing those already here to become legal residents. Not for the first time, imprecise language in war and government created unintended consequences... [snip]... This springs from the central conceit in the current war we face. We have used "war on terror" as a label because it allows us to avoid the more accurate -- and more provocative -- descriptor of a war against radical Islamist terrorists. Using that phrase clearly identifies our enemies, but we have avoided it to keep those enemies from twisting it into a war on Islam for their own propaganda purposes./ Unfortunately, this declaration of war against a tactic leads to a lot of conclusions, many of them self-defeating... [snip]... / We could avoid all of this by simply talking straight with the world. Radical Islamists declared war on us through several terrorist acts over the last 30 years, culminating in the death of 3,000 Americans on 9/11. Instead of pretending to be the global supercop representing everyone's interests in ending terrorism as a tactic, why don't we just explain that we're at war with radical Islamist terrorists because they started the fight -- and why it's in everyone's interest to join in beating them?"...

Cafe Hayek: Progress

re: "In 1970, according to the American Housing Survey (from HUD and the Department of Commerce ,then called the Annual Housing Survey, Table A-1, p. 32), 36% of the 67 million households in America had air conditioning, 11% had central air. This is the earliest data available from this survey. /In 2005, the most recent data from the same survey, (Table 2-4, p. 66) 82% of the 15 million households with income below the poverty line had air conditioning, 52% had central air."...

Touchstone Magazine - Mere Comments: Prying Pediatricians

re: David Mills: "While I'm reading Lydia McGrew's posts, here is a shocking one: No Pediatricians. She reports, from an article in the Boston Herald (link in her article) that the American Academy of Pediatricians //start quote//has issued "guidelines" to its doctors suggesting that they ask scary-crazy questions of children during routine checkups. And in the case of teenagers, these questions are to be asked if possible without parents present. The questions include how much the parents drink, whether they have a gun in the house, and (this is the worst of all) whether teenage girls' fathers "make them feel uncomfortable." Let me emphasize: These are not cases where there is probable cause of abuse. The doctor is supposed to ask these questions routinely of girls who come to him for, say, a sports checkup for school. // end quote //She expresses, as a "proto-anarchist," "some sympathy" with a father who decked the doctor. I have every sympathy with a father who decked the doctor, because that doctor has assaulted his child. He has assaulted her mind, her understanding of the world and the family, and he has assaulted the relation with her father crucial for her health and growth. /And he does so from a position of authority and trust that the poor parents have taught their children to give him. Which means, now that I think of it, that he has betrayed their trust as well. Not honorable. And no more honorable because he thinks he's doing a good deed..."...

Touchstone Magazine - Mere Comments: Wenders Away from God

re: James M. Kushiner: "Image journal, published by Gregory Wolfe, has "Why Believe in God?" for its Fall 2007 cover story. German film director Wim Wenders has a brief entry in this symposium of artists and writers. In it he writes: //start quote// I've been away from God for a large part of my life, so I remember his absence. No, that's the wrong way to say it. He wasn't absent, I was. I had gone into exile of my own free will. I meandered through all sorts of philosophies, surrogate enlightenments, adventures of mind, socialism, existentialism, psychoanalysis (another ersatz religion). Some of these I won't deny or badmouth. I'm happy to have been there--and back. /I remember how tentatively I started to pray again. I remember how that slowly changed me. I remember how I wept when I realized I had finally come home, when I felt that I was found again. /And how that feeling slowly transformed into a certainty..."...

Touchstone Magazine - Mere Comments: The Rise of the Pornogogue, II

re: Anthony Esolen: "...Our schools have perversely chosen to permit their moral windows to be smashed. More: administrators and teachers have taken up the hammers and done plenty of smashing themselves. It isn't only that they have permitted students to dress like knaves and hookers. Nor that they habitually teach a moral relativism that justifies knavery and whoring. Nor that they pride themselves on running down their nation, turning American history into one vast criminal enterprise. All these things undermine trust. But there's one thing that blows it sky high -- and that is their decision to set themselves essentially at enmity with the family, arrogating to themselves the rights of parents. I may trust a friend, or, upon a friend's recommendation, a stranger. I may make a pact with an enemy. The enemy may be a fine person. But a relational enmity remains. Therefore I cannot trust the enemy. I must always watch for the knife..."...

Touchstone Magazine - Mere Comments: The Brother Many Ignore

re: David Mills: "In Like a slave, is an unborn child not a brother?, published in the Daily Telegraph, Charles Moore reflects on the opening of a museum exhibition on the history of slavery and asks how curators will see abortion in 200 years... [snip]... He ends with an argument that "with the passage of time, abortion, especially late abortion, is slowly coming to be seen as a "solution" dating from an era that is passing. It will therefore be discredited." I hope he is right, but the drive (need/desire/addiction) for sexual license is so strong, and therefore the need for abortion so great, that abortion's coming to be seen as outdated strikes me as unlikely. /What may happen is that the social disorder and chaos created by a society consumed by sexual license will encourage a harsh reaction, and continence will be socially and perhaps legally required and as a result abortion made illegal, but that it is not the same thing..."...

Aggie Catholics - aka "Mary's Aggies": Guttmacher Stats

re: a statistician looks at recently published stats from a pro-abortion group, and claims that their use of data is "like stitching a quilt from fish nets." He goes on to give details.

hat tip: Happy Catholic

Considerettes » Scouts Are Victims of the Culture War

re: "They couldn’t win in the courts, so the Left is attacking the Boy Scouts any other way they can. Sometimes the Scouts win, but sometimes, as in this case, the Left gets cities and organizations to back out of agreements..."...

Considerettes » Electoral Vote Allocation - The Liberal Double Standard

re: "Republicans in California are trying to change the way electoral votes from California are distributed..."...

The Mad Tea Party: Another Anniversary

re: "After DS#1 was born I asked Hubs to bring me a copy of that day's San Francisco Chronicle. My mom kept a copy of the paper on the day we were born and I wanted to continue the tradition. / Little did I guess the headlines would read "241 Marines Killed in Lebanon."..."...

Oregon Books Reviewed Webpage

re: "These reviews originally appeared in the newsletter of the Oregon Library Association, the "OLA Hotline." The idea is to let librarians know what books on and related to Oregon are available, and to give a capsule summary of them..."...

The Scotsman - Business - Legume and doom as floods force vegetable prices up 65%

re: "THE price of peas and other vegetables have soared by as much as 65 per cent because of this summer's floods, according to the latest industry figures. /The sharp price rises in legumes, including peas and beans, as well as cauliflower, cabbage, broccoli and brussels sprouts, have been sparked by disastrous UK harvests..."...

Is The BBC Ready To Hear A Serious Answer? « Expat Yank

re: "...For what the Beeb naturally misses is that Sen Obama appears to suffer not so much from the racism of whites but from unreasonable expectations from African-Americans. /That’s because the U.S. president (and vice president) is the only office chosen by voters from across the country. If, say, a Californian-bred candidate announced that his main concern were always to be California-focused issues, such sectionalism would be hardly be likely to lead to his winning much support outside 30 million or so Californians. Similarly with what could be called “ethnic sectionalism”. /The office requires someone with wide enough national appeal to allow as many voters as possible to see some little bit of themselves as being represented by that prospective presidential officeholder..."...

Phi Beta Cons: Hamline U. Student Suspended for Beliefs Regarding Guns

re: George Leef: "FIRE has a really Orwellian new case. A student at Hamline University responded to an official school pronouncement regarding the Virginia Tech shootings by saying that he thought that lifting the prohibition against allowing students to carry concealed weapons might help to prevent such tragedies in the future. For having written that, he was declared to be in violation of the university's judicial code for his "threatening" behavior. The student was told that he'd face suspension unless he agreed to a "mental health evaluation. / Brian Doherty of Reason discusses the case here..../ ..."...

OpinionJournal - On the Boardwalk

re: more on the efforts to force Methodists to host a civil union that is against church teaching. Includes info on Ocean Grove, N.J.'s, history...

Brandywine Books: Sold Out Audience for "The God Delusion" Debate

re: from Friday: Phil: "It appears the debating Oxford fellows had a warm reception in Birmingham. Recordings of the debate will be available soon from Fixed-Point Foundation, and it will be rebroadcast tomorrow on WMBW at 3:00 p.m. eastern. You can listen online, if you are not in southeast Tennessee during that time. / Editor Naomi Riley reports on her experience at the debate in today's Opinion Journal..."...

Dr. Sanity: UNDOING: The Healing of the Traumatized Left Has Begun !

re: "Al Gore wins the Nobel Peace Prize? I'm amazed. I thought Cindy Sheehan had it all sewn up. Or Hugo Chavez. / I guess it just goes to show how much their cachet with the left has dropped in the last year or so; or, how much Gore's has risen in the pre-2008 election cycle... [snip]... Scott Ott has, by far, the most psychologically satisfying take on the announcement; a scenario that in a fair, just, and compassionate world (or, at least one consistent with reality, anyway) might have been. / But seriously, folks, Glenn Reynolds has the absolutely best understated quote: "I think he makes a fitting addition to the pantheon of Nobel Peace Prize holders." Indeed... "...

Doris Lessing Wins Nobel Prize in Literature - New York Times

re: "Doris Lessing, the Persian-born, Rhodesian-raised and London-residing novelist whose deeply autobiographical writing has swept across continents and reflects her engagement with the social and political issues of her time, won the 2007 Nobel Prize in Literature on Thursday... [snip]... Ms. Lessing, who turns 88 later this month, never finished high school and largely educated herself through voracious reading. She has written dozens of books of fiction, as well as plays, nonfiction and two volumes of autobiography..."...

Death reveals harsh side of a 'model' system in Japan - International Herald Tribune

re: "...Japan has traditionally been hard on welfare recipients, and experts say this city's practices are common to many other local governments. Applicants are expected to turn to their relatives or use up their savings before getting benefits. Welfare is considered less of an entitlement than a shameful handout. /"Local governments tend to believe that using taxpayer money to help people in need is doing a disservice to citizens," said Hiroshi Sugimura, a professor specializing in welfare at Hosei University in Tokyo. "To them, those in need are not citizens. Only those who pay taxes are citizens." /Toshihiko Misaki, head of the city's welfare section, did not refer to the three deaths as from starvation, but called them "solitary," and he defended the system. /"On the one hand, there are people who've done their utmost to remain standing on their own feet," Misaki said. "On the other hand, there are those who've gotten into trouble because they've led idle lives and are now receiving welfare. That's taxpayers' money. We get criticized by people who are trying their best, so we have to find the right balance." /With no religious tradition of charity, Japan has few soup kitchens or other places for the indigent. Those that exist — run frequently by Christian missionaries from South Korea or Japan's tiny Christian population — cater mostly to the homeless. /Like the diarist, the other two men were sickly, and they seemingly starved after their applications for welfare were rejected..."...

Britain's Doris Lessing wins 2007 Nobel Literature Prize - International Herald Tribune

re: "Doris Lessing, Nobel laureate. This year's winner of the literature prize should inspire a fresh look at the long, prolific career of the author of "The Golden Notebook" and dozens of other works, and a fresh debate about the taste of Nobel judges. /The 87-year-old Lessing, whose novels, short stories, memoirs and plays have reflected her own unexpected journeys across time, space and ideology, was praised Thursday by the Swedish Academy for her "skepticism, fire and visionary power."..."...

Gore and UN panel are awarded Nobel peace prize - International Herald Tribune

re: "The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded Friday to Al Gore, the former vice president, and to the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for its work to alert the world to the threat of global warming. /The award is likely to renew calls by some of Gore's supporters for him to run for president in 2008, joining an already crowded field of Democrats. Gore, who lost the 2000 presidential election to George W. Bush, has said he is not interested in running but has not flatly rejected the notion. /Gore "is probably the single individual who has done most to create greater worldwide understanding of the measures that need to be adopted," the Nobel citation said. The United Nations committee, a network of 2,000 scientists, has produced two decades of scientific reports that have "created an ever-broader informed consensus about the connection between human activities and global warming," the citation said. /Gore, who was traveling in San Francisco, said in a statement that he was deeply honored to receive the prize and planned to donate his half of the prize to the Alliance for Climate Protection, a nonprofit climate group of which Gore chairs the board. /"We face a true planetary emergency," Gore said in the statement. "The climate crisis is not a political issue, it is a moral and spiritual challenge to all of humanity. It is also our greatest opportunity to lift global consciousness to a higher level."..."...

Common misconceptions about the Nobel Peace Prize - International Herald Tribune

re: "OSLO, Norway: An award that generates as much interest as the Nobel Peace Prize is bound to be surrounded by mystery, myth and misconceptions. /Geir Lundestad, secretary of the secretive committee that awards the prize, once outlined for The Associated Press some of the most common misunderstandings..."...

just muttering: Peace (????) prize

re: "Putting aside for the moment whatever one thinks of Al Gore and his theories of human causes of climate change, please tell me what does it have to do with peace?? The core of his message - and please note that all he has done is send a message - is that humans caused climate changes that are violently dangerous. He dismisses any other cause for climate change such as geological cycling or solar aging. Why is that so meritorious as to earn him international acclaim, adulation, money and the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize? Genuine peace-seekers who did or did not win the award must be spinning and frowning a lot... [snip]...Alan Sullivan at Fresh Bilge puts the case strongly and aptly, that if Gore's "fixes" are implemented, there will be more poverty and disease, and less food, globally: "The victims won’t be blown to bits [by Nobel's dynamite]; they will die early of malnutrition, disease, and the strife endemic in many poor lands, which will get poorer under the global government our international elite is attempting semi-consciously to create."..."...

Joust The Facts: Not The Guy In The Firehat?

re: "...There's something wrong with someone who consistently thinks being annoyed is grounds for legal action."

Joust The Facts: Say, That Is Inconvenient!

re: "A British court was forced to fully assess Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" after the government decided to distribute it widely as an "educational" film. The verdict is .. how shall I say it ? ... rather inconvenient, I suppose. There were 11 major inaccuracies, from polar bear deaths to sea level rises to Hurricane Katrina. In short, all of the most notable points in the film were knocked down..."...

Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864)

re: numerous links related to the author and his works...

Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864) Home Page from Eldritch Press

re: "...This WWW site is dedicated to enhancing our understanding and appreciation of Hawthorne's writings and life..."...

No Left Turns: Sabato revisted

re: Joseph Knippenberg: "Almost exactly three months ago, I posted on Larry Sabato’s (bad) ideas for revising the Constitution and holding a constitutional convention to do so. (I’m all for civic education, but that strikes me as a singularly bad means of accomplishing it.) /Today, my father-in-law waved yesterday’s Atlanta paper in front of me. It had this announcement of a series devoted to Sabato’s proposals, and this interview with Sabato.../ ...[snip]... / It seems to me that the small states look quite a bit like the big states. And it seems to me that Sabato’s theoretical concern is so far-fetched as to be almost ridiculous. He hasn’t convinced me that anything is broken here, or that his "fix" (more "democracy") is in keeping with the spirit of the Constitution..."...

No Left Turns: A Third Way to end the culture war?

re: "...on "framing" the abortion debate... One immediate takeaway from the memo is that the Third Way folks would like people to think that pro-lifers are interested in putting those who seek and those who provide abortions in prison. I’d be happy to yank the medical licenses of those who provide abortion on demand and in other ways make it difficult for them to operate, without necessarily imprisoning anyone."

American Thinker: The evidence for Neocommunism

re: James Lewis: "There is a compelling factual case to be made that the contemporary radical Left can properly be called "Neocommunist." The Hard Left is grounded in Marxist vision of creating a "new man" under a system led by a vanguard that knows best what the rest of society needs. And Neocommies behave in patterns with startling parallels to Old Communist tactics..."...

San Francisco Nimby’s « Bookworm Room

re: "...One of the big ACLU and liberal lawyer triumphs of the 1960s (and one they’re still working on at irregular intervals today) was to deinstitutionalize the mentally ill. (You can get a taste of that battle here.) The ACLU’s point was that it was a denial of civil liberties to force the mentally ill into institutions when many of them (most notably the paranoid schizophrenics) so obviously didn’t want to be there. I remember vividly when Reagan, while still Governor of California, signed off on Legislation deinstitutionalizing the mentally ill... [snip]... /The immediate and obvious result of Reagan’s “freeing” of the mentally ill was a huge influx of people on the streets living in filth and talking to themselves... [snip]... /These new homeless, who often coupled substance abuse problems with their mental illness, were appalling. They ate out of garbage cans; lived in their own filth; had all their worldly goods piled in stolen shopping carts; had terrible lesions on their bodies; were tubercular; harbored contagious vermin (such as lice); lunged at people walking by; and occasionally killed people. That sentence was in the past tense. It needn’t be. As the above shows, these street people are still appalling. While I don’t live in the City anymore, I only have to head to a major urban downtown (New York, S.F., Phillie, wherever) to see them again./ ...[snip].../ All I can say is that, if you measure a society’s humanity by how it treats these helpless people, our current laws allowing them to descend into the Seventh Circle of Hell on our own streets is a striking example of inhumanity. The fact that some who are profoundly mentally ill can still function at a minimal, animal level, doesn’t mean that we’re doing them a favor by allowing them to avoid health care, mental health treatment, decent food, and some level of physical safety..."...

Townhall.com::Nietzsche Would Laugh::By Chuck Colson

re: "...It’s important to understand what is not in doubt: whether an individual atheist or agnostic can be a “good” person. Of course they can, just as a professing Christian can do bad things. / The issue is whether the secular worldview can provide a basis for a good society. Can it motivate and inspire people to be virtuous and generous? / ...[snip]... / One atheist understood the moral consequences of his unbelief: That was Nietzsche, who argued that God is dead, but acknowledged that without God there could be no binding and objective moral order. /Of course, the “New Atheists” deny this. Instead, they unconvincingly argue that you can have the benefits of an altruistic, Christian-like morality without God. /Nietzsche would laugh—and wonder why they don’t make atheists like they used to."

hat tip: Brandywine Books

Not only gorgeous (he is, really), but smart, too. « Bookworm Room

re: "From NewsBusters’ Paul Detrick: //CNN Meteorologist Rob Marciano clapped his hands and exclaimed, “Finally,” in response to a report that a British judge might ban the movie “An Inconvenient Truth” from UK schools because, according to “American Morning,” “it is politically biased and contains scientific inaccuracies.” /“There are definitely some inaccuracies,” Marciano added. “The biggest thing I have a problem with is this implication that Katrina was caused by global warming.”... [snip]...//While I’m on the subject of global warming, I came across these gemlike paragraphs written about the huge benefits to the medieval world from global warming around the year 1000...[snip]...From: The Year 1000: What Life Was Like at the Turn of the First Millennium, by Robert Lacey and Danny Danziger (a book I can’t recommend highly enough, along with Lacey’s other books about British history)..."...

Captain's Quarters: Rather A Laughingstock

re: "Dan Rather's lawsuit has certainly brought about a change in his fortunes. He has managed to get his colleagues in the news media to shift their opinion about him almost overnight. Once regarded as a respected journalist who just got one story wrong and refused to admit it, the lawsuit has generated an outright antagonism among journalists that never existed before. Charles Lane of the Washington Post's editorial page staff writes a hilarious and pointed attack on Rather's vanished credibility by declaring the lawsuit a "fake":..."...

OpinionJournal - Five Best: The Chosen

re: Ruth R. Wisse recommends five "Essential works about Judaism" in OpinionJournal's ongoing program of Five Best book lists...

The Vindication of Terri Schiavo by Vatican's Clear Answer on Nutrition and Hydration

re: "Special to LifeSiteNews.com by HLI President Fr. Tom Euteneuer / Since the election of Pope Benedict, the Church has been renewed by an abundance of blessings flowing from the Vatican. In case you did not hear, the Pope's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) has just released its answer to the question of providing nutrition and hydration (i.e., food and water) to persons in so-called vegetative states. Even though a child can figure out that it's not right to starve people to death, the Vatican set the issue to rest this week. In its technically-precise language, the CDF vindicated our beloved Terri Schiavo by saying that no one can dare to commit or justify such an atrocity as her killing by any interpretation of Catholic teachings. Period. / The CDF responded to a question from the US Catholic bishops who asked whether it was morally obligatory to give food and water to a patient in such a state. The response was unambiguous: "Yes. The administration of food and water even by artificial means is, in principle, an ordinary and proportionate means of preserving life. It is therefore obligatory to the extent to which, and for as long as, it is shown to accomplish its proper finality, which is the hydration and nourishment of the patient. In this way suffering and death by starvation and dehydration are prevented." /That was not all. The bishops further asked whether food and water could be withdrawn from the patient if there was no chance of recovery. Again, the CDF was unambiguous: "No. A patient in a 'permanent vegetative state' is a person with fundamental human dignity and must, therefore, receive ordinary and proportionate care which includes, in principle, the administration of water and food even by artificial means." And just to be sure that no stone was left unturned, the accompanying note said that this is always and everywhere true "in principle" even if there are truly exceptional circumstances where it is not morally obligatory to provide food and water. Such a case would be, for example, when the person's body is in such a state that it is physically unable to assimilate food and water. There would be no moral obligation to try and force nutrition into the person in that case, but clearly this is an exceptional circumstance which does not in any way undermine the principle of absolute respect for life in its most vulnerable moments. / How many of us, at the time of Terri Schiavo's death, actually heard even so-called "good Catholics" say that they should just let her die because "no one should have to live that way" and other nonsense like that? The real message of this declaration is that no one should have to think that murderous way any more..."...

Academy Award winning actress Ellen Burstyn Says Abortion was the Worst Thing in Her Life

re: "...the interviewer asked Burstyn "what was the lowest moment" of her life. / After a pause during which the interviewer prompted with her single motherhood, struggles with her son and more, Burstyn said, "You know, I guess, I hate to talk about this on the air, but having an abortion." / Burstyn continued, "You know that was really an extremely painful experience.""Did you feel you didn't have a choice?," asked the interviewer. "At the time I was just young and dumb, I didn't really want to have a baby then," she replied. / "It was the wrong thing to do and I really didn't understand that till later," said the actress..."...

Kata Iwannhn » Who Keeps Time?

re: "In his very enjoyable A Dresser of Sycamore Trees: The Finding of a Ministry (the title is taken from Amos 7:14-15), Garret Keizer describes his work as the clock-winder of the church clock in the town in Vermont where he serves as the lay pastor of Christ Church (Episcopal). Just as you start spotting Hondas as soon as you buy a Honda yourself, Keizer has become aware of mechanical clocks all over the place. /He points out something worth considering..."...

BLOG and MABLOG: Souls of Rejected Children

re: quote: ""The womb was scraped clean, but the fetus instead of disappearing simply changed its place of residence. Once it was prevented from growing in her womb, it started growing in her mind, a troubled conscience that could not be repressed . . . The monsters that haunt . . . are the souls of the rejected children" (E. Michael Jones, Monsters from the Id, p. 248-249)."...

Townhall.com::Jena 2007::By Mike Gallagher

re: "...Good and decent people shouldn’t stand for white teenagers hanging nooses or burning crosses in order to intimidate and terrorize black people. /The story of the “Jena Six” isn’t nearly as complicated as some would have us believe. Amazingly in today’s America, there existed a “white tree” in Jena where white teenagers gathered under the shade of the central Louisiana sun. One day, a black teen had the temerity to ask a school official at the local high school if he would be allowed to sit under “the white tree.” Of course you can, said the administrator. You should be able to sit wherever you want to. /Not everyone agreed. The following day, three hanging nooses were tied to the tree, a chilling message reminiscent of Ku Klux Klan rallies and lynch mobs. /It didn’t take long to discover the culprits, three white kids who attended the high school. They were given three day suspensions for their hideous act. /And then all hell broke loose..."...

Townhall.com::Can New Jersey punish Methodists for marriage?::By Maggie Gallagher

re: "The headline news on the gay marriage issue is that on Tuesday, Maryland's supreme court joined the growing list of state high courts upholding marriage as the union of husband and wife... [snip]... Behind this slam-dunk is a far more ominous and less noticed headline, buried in the metro section of Tuesday's New York Times: "Group Loses Tax Break Over Gay Union Issue." /For the first time, a religious organization in New Jersey is being punished by the government because it refused to permit same-sex civil union ceremonies on its property..."...

Planned Parenthood-friendly Catholic university loses big donor alum

re: Matt C. Abbott: "In an update of sorts to my coverage of the relatively recent controversy involving the University of Detroit Mercy — which had advertised job opportunities at Planned Parenthood, among other scandalous items — a UDM alumnus who had given nearly $200,000 to the university "will never give them another dime."..."...

hat tip: The Alliance Alert

Considerettes » Our Standing In The World

re: "Democrats have bemoaned the (alleged) loss of standing with the world that the US has suffered supposedly due to the war in Iraq. I guess before that, everyone just loved us, and since then we’ve lost the support of our allies. Well, the good news is, those Democrats can stop their worrying; France likes us again..."...

New Lack of Evidence Boosts Certainty of Darwinism | ScrappleFace

re: satire on current events, specifically on how evidence contradicting scientific theories about human evolution has only strengthened the faith of the people who believe in the theory...

Betsy's Page: That Civics and History test

re: "If you're interested in taking the Intercollegiate Studies Institute test on civics and history that got several headlines recently, you can go take it here... [snip]... While I'm all for teaching more history and civics at all levels, I must quibble with the test..."...

Betsy's Page: Destroying a business by lawsuit

re: "Remember that ridiculous lawsuit from the administrative judge who wanted $67 million from a cleaners for losing his pants. Well, he became a laughingstock around the country and lost his suit. But the damage was done. Now the Korean couple who ran the cleaners have had to shut it down. //
Roy Pearson, the D.C. administrative law judge whose $67 million lawsuit against his neighborhood dry cleaners turned into a worldwide lesson in how one obsessed person can hijack the American legal system, lost his case in court, but today delivered the crowning blow to the owners of Custom Cleaners: /Bowing to the emotional and financial strains of two years of litigation, Soo and Jin Chung today announced the closing of the dry cleaners that may or may not have lost a pair of Pearson's pants that he put in for a $10 alteration in 2005... [snip]... Public support for the Chungs did come in strong as news coverage of Pearson's wild demands and the D.C. court's failure to nip the case in the bud spread throughout the globe. Both the tort reform lobby and the trial lawyers association denounced Pearson's abuse of the legal system--a rare case of cooperation between sworn enemies. And fundraisers for the Chungs collected enough money--more than $100,000--to cover the family's legal bills. /Pearson last month appealed the Superior Court decision rejecting his suit, but Manning said his firm will handle the appeal for the Chungs without charge. / The Chungs will now work exclusively at their original shop, Happy Cleaners, on Seventh Street NW, across from the D.C. Convention Center. Soo Chung was there this afternoon, mopping the floor, waiting for customers. For the first time in a very long time, she was able to smile about her work. "This is our first store, first job," she told me. "When we came to America, we worked here. Good job. Good store."..."...

Joust The Facts: Greenspan Clarifies, Shoots Down Anti-War Theory

re: "...Greenspan, who wrote in his memoir that "the Iraq War is largely about oil," said in a Washington Post interview that while securing global oil supplies was "not the administration's motive," he had presented the White House before the 2003 invasion with the case for why removing the then-Iraqi leader was important for the global economy. /"I was not saying that that's the administration's motive," Greenspan said in the interview conducted on Saturday. "I'm just saying that if somebody asked me, 'Are we fortunate in taking out Saddam?' I would say it was essential." //In other words, that was his justification, not the Bush administration justification, for deposing Saddam Hussein. It was Mr. Greenspan who felt that removing Saddam was "essential" to provide global economic oil security. It's likely that the administration agreed, but judging by Mr. Greenspan's wording it's fairly certain that nobody even asked him, instead that he went to them to make that case."...

Brandywine Books: D'ya Feel Lucky, Punk? Then Plug Your Book

re: "The NY Times is talking about the Internet's effect on book promotion. Publishers try to control the release of an attention-grabbing book and are undermined by newspapers or networks who work the system to their own advantage... [snip]... The article does not mention a great source on this topic, that is Plug Your Book: Online Book Marketing for Authors by Steve Weber. I have intended to review this book for weeks. What I have read of it is hard-hitting, honest, and informative. Weber writes about many publicity ideas, both good and bad, helping us understand what we're getting into, not selling us on a promotion designed more for making him a bit of cash than promoting our book. Read the book online here..."...

No Left Turns Archive: Don't Taze Me, Bro

re: Julie Ponzi on her one and only participation in a protest...

Townhall.com::Blog: Another Reason to Repeal Sarbox

re: "Rudy Giuliani is fundraising... in London! Tim Montgomerie's Britain and America blog notes the regulatory roots behind the offshore fundraising boom:..."...

Townhall.com::Why the Left Has Changed Journalism, Education and the Courts::By Dennis Prager

re: "...I asked the panel members to give their view of the role of judges. The response of the liberal former California Supreme Court justice opened my eyes to the left's view of virtually everything in society. /He said that the purpose of a California Supreme Court justice, and for that matter, every judge, is to fight economic inequality and racism in society. I responded that I thought the one purpose of a judge was to render justice in the courtroom. /I might as well have responded in biblical Hebrew (that's where I got the idea of a judge's role anyway): He and the other liberals on the panel reacted as if I had offered a new and original notion of judges' roles..."...

Freedom, but from what? « Bookworm Room

re: "...Liberals, on the other hand, who are willing to hand over to the government so many aspects of their private lives, are loath to surrender their security to the government. Instead, when it comes to security, they look at the same government they trust to examine their bodies, make their health care decisions, educate their children, rescue their poor, and control their businesses, and suddenly start ranting that it is out to get them, whether to destroy their buildings and their citizens, listen to their phone calls, or read the same library books they do. They demonstrate a bizarre love-hate relationship with the government, that sees them on the one hand practically handing it their first born, while on the other hand having paranoid nightmares about wiretapping. /Frankly, I’m at a loss to explain this inconsistency. Whether you agree with their viewpoint regarding freedom and privacy, when it comes to government, conservatives at least are consistent — they want the government out of their lives as much as possible, except for the one thing the government does best, which is securing the nation as a whole..."...

Books, Inq.: We link ...

re: "... you decide: Is it time for Americans to start cutting our baby emissions? ..."...

Southern Baptist Convention: Chaplain spreads Gospel via Internet

re: "...Tober, as an Internet chaplain endorsed by the Southern Baptist North American Mission Board, has been venturing into this missions frontier for 15 years without ever leaving home... [snip]... Following retirement from the Navy chaplaincy in 1992, Tober and his wife Sally moved to her homeplace in Adams, Tenn. While doing supply preaching in area churches, he began exploring the Internet and did not like what he saw. /"I began going into chat rooms and saw them for what they were. Even then they were sleazy," Tober said, adding that they have become increasingly worse. /To counter the perverse culture of the chat rooms, Tober, a member of First Baptist Church in Clarksville, Tenn., began providing a Christian perspective. /"It was learn by doing," he said. /A few years later, Tober took on the name "Chaplain Bill" or "Pastor" in chat rooms. He said he makes clear to everyone he communicates with that he is a Christian. /"People know up front who they’re dealing with. I don’t hide anything," he said. /Since then, he has ministered to thousands of people each year... [snip]... Tober wants other people to join him in his role as an Internet chaplain. He especially sees it as a viable ministry for a retired minister and is willing to train anyone interested..."...

Captain's Quarters: The Truth About J-Schools

re: "One has to wonder what kind of journalists the storied Columbia School of Journalism intends to produce. If the column published this month by Idris Leppla ten days ago for the Columbia Spectator gives any hint, we can expect novices of the obvious who infantilize the people who serve as their subjects. This time she uses her brother, who applied to and entered the Naval Academy at Annapolis, apparently without Idris and her mother realizing it meant joining the Navy..."...

Remembering Madeleine at Semicolon

re: links to lots of posts paying tribute to author Madeleine L’Engle...

Betsy's Page: Cooling the global warming debate

re: "Bjorn Lomborg is a not the typical global warming denier. He agrees that it is going on and that man is resposnsible for much of it. However, where he departs from the global warming crowd is in his ability to look at the picture much more broadly. The author of The Skeptical Environmentalist is out with a new book, Cool It, that thoughtfully examines the question without fear-mongering. Kimberly Strassel reviews the book and some of Lomborg's arguments..."...

Is Adolescent Culture Making Us Weak? - Acton Institute PowerBlog

re: "...Diana West, a Washington Times columnist, just released her new book, Death of the Grown-up: How America’s Arrested Development is Bringing Down Western Civilization. In an interview with FrontPage Magazine, West discusses some of her ideas about the perpetual adolescent but shifts into the subject of the War on Terror... [snip]... In the interview, West also makes the connection between socialist dogma and adolescent behavior..."...

Global Warming Consensus Alert: Could This Be The End of Science? - Acton Institute PowerBlog

re: "If there’s one thing that I’ve learned from supporters of climate change alarmism, it’s this: Science = consensus, and consensus = TRUTH. / Well, it appears that science and truth have taken another hit..."...

More cracks in the “warming is humans’ fault” consensus « Bookworm Room

re: "... The text speaks for itself: //[begin quote] Global warming is an entirely natural phenomenon and its effects can even be beneficial, according to two leading researchers. /Recent climate change is not caused by man-made pollution, but is instead part of a 1,500-year cycle of warming and cooling that has happened for the last million years, say the authors of a controversial study. /Dennis Avery, an environmental economist, and Professor Fred Singer, a physicist, have looked at the work of more than 500 scientists and concluded that it is very doubtful that man-made global warming exists. /They also say that temperature increase is actually a good thing as in the past sudden cool periods have killed twice as many people as warm spells... [snip]... [end quote]// Incidentally, the fallout from the hysteria is suddenly beginning to fall fast. In my regular Stratfor letter, which comes from Strategic Forecasting, Inc., I learned that organizations are trying to slow the reliance on biofuels, because that reliance is itself causing trouble..."...

At A Hen's Pace: Church Plant Update Plus

re: "...How do folks find a tiny, unadvertised Anglican church in a little-known town in Wisconsin? (And why do they want to??) The common thread seems to be the Anglican Mission in America (AMIA). Of the four new "family units" (one is a single) who've visited us in the past two weeks, all had visited or been members of AMIA churches before. And they were all looking for what AMIA offers. / What is that, exactly? Well, AMIA churches tend to represent the "three streams, one river" approach to doing church. The three streams are the liturgical/sacramental tradition, the evangelical, Bible-based teaching and discipleship, and the freedom of the Spirit in musical worship... [snip]... Though right now many lifetime Episcopalians (who are considering jumping ship due to the heresy in their leadership) are looking seriously at AMIA and its "sisters" (other networks formed by Anglican churches who've disassociated with the American version of the Episcopal Church), most of the Anglican folks we know are formerly from mainline evangelical denominations and independent churches. They've been drawn by the sacraments, which they feel is something missing in typical evangelical worship..."...

International News | Pope Benedict XVI Says Abortion Could Threaten Future of Europe, New York Times Reports - Kaisernetwork.org

re: from Sept. 11: "Pope Benedict XVI on Friday during a visit to Vienna, Austria, said abortion could threaten the future of Europe, the New York Times reports. The pope urged European governments "not to allow children to be considered as a form of illness" and to provide incentives to couples who have children in an effort to reverse the continent's declining fertility rate (Fisher, New York Times, 9/8). According to Reuters, the average total fertility rate in European Union countries is about 1.5 children per woman (Pullella, Reuters, 9/7). / Benedict said that the "fundamental human right ... is the right to life itself," adding, "This is true of life from the moment of conception until its natural end. Abortion, consequently, cannot be a human right -- it is the very opposite." The pope proposed that rather than legalize abortion, governments create a "climate of joy and confidence in life ... in which children are not seen as a burden, but rather as a gift for all" (AFP/Yahoo! News, 9/7). / According to Reuters, Benedict's speech could have implications in the 2008 U.S. presidential election, in which abortion is expected to become a major campaign issue. In addition, the speech put the pope on a "collision course" with Amnesty International, which recently affirmed a new policy on abortion that supports a woman's right to the procedure under certain circumstances, Reuters reports (Reuters, 9/7)."...

hat tip: The Alliance Alert

The Common Room: The Victorians and Piano Legs

re: "You may have heard, as I did, that the Victorians were so strait-laced and repressed, that they put frilly covers around the legs of their pianos so as not to stir up improper thoughts about limbs in the minds of people around those items of furniture. /Not true, and the story of how it came to be believed is quite interesting, and somewhat amusing..."...

Brandywine Books: We call it "niceness" in Minnesota

re: "Via World Views, this fascinating article by the English writer and physician Theodore Dalrymple, on the question of whether religious people are, or are not, actually nicer people than the secular kind. / You won't agree with everything, but it's a fascinating snapshot."...

Captain's Quarters: Putin Sacks Government, Nominates Unknown

re: "Vladimir Putin dismissed the Russian Prime Minister and his government almost three months ahead of scheduled elections. He had been widely expected to do so, but he crossed up the analysts and nominated an unknown as a replacement: // Russian President Vladimir Putin has accepted the resignation of PM Mikhail Fradkov and nominated a financial crime investigator to replace him..."...

Captain's Quarters: Abe Resigns

re: "Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe unexpectedly resigned today, apparently tired of political battles over diplomacy and economics. The move stunned the political establishment in Tokyo, which had prepared for an Abe defense of a counterterrorism policy that had encountered some resistance..."...

BBC NEWS | UK | Red tape in police force: Your reaction

re: "The chief inspector of constabulary, Sir Ronnie Flanagan, says police officers in England and Wales are bogged down in red tape and are afraid to use their own judgement. /Here, two officers who contacted the BBC news website, give their reaction to Sir Ronnie's report... // The headline comments are spot on. We spend a lot of our time recording and dealing with minor events that should really be dismissed. /This is simply because of a mixture of Government targets and public expectations. /The public also have blame in this problem because their expections of what the police should be involved with has risen dramatically over recent years. Issues that were once sorted out within families, communities etc, are now instantly thought to be a police issue. /The worst example of this is the amazing number of parents that ring up to ask a police officer to come around and tell their child off. /
The other is parents whose kids have been involved in typical childrens rough and tumble and instantly want to report a minor bruise as a crime and have the other child prosecuted..."...

BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific | Powerful aftershocks hit Sumatra

re: "A second strong earthquake has hit the Indonesian island of Sumatra, a day after an 8.4 magnitude tremor destroyed buildings in several towns and cities..."...

Laura Ingraham: ‘Power to the People’ - - MSNBC.com

re: "Conservative radio talk-show host urges action in ‘Power to the People’..."...features excerpt from Ingraham's book...

hat tip: The Alliance Alert

Famous parrot with big bird brain — and gift of gab — dies - On Deadline - USATODAY.com

re: "Alex, an African Grey parrot with a knack for the English language, has died at age 31, apparently of natural causes. /The subject of a landmark study on bird intelligence, Alex had a vocabulary of more than 100 words, the New York Times writes in its obituary. /According to his Web perch (where there's a picture of Alex with his handler) he also could "identify 50 different objects, 7 colors, 5 shapes, quantities up to and including 6 and a zero-like concept." Research by Irene Pepperberg at Brandeis University was said to have "shattered the generally held notion that parrots are only capable of mindless vocal mimicry." ..."...

Calif. ag worker gets 24 years for Pakistan terror training - On Deadline - USATODAY.com

re: "Hamid Hayat, an agriculture worker from California's Central Valley, was sentenced today to 24 years in prison for training with terrorists in Pakistan and planning attacks against other Americans. /Hayat, a U.S. citizen who spent much his life in Pakistan, turned 25 today. He could have received 39 years for his April 2006 conviction for providing and attempting to conceal material support and resources to terrorists and for lying to the FBI..."...

Federal prisons remove unapproved religious books - On Deadline - USATODAY.com

re: "Religious books are being removed from federal prisons across the USA, according to The New York Times. /"The chaplains were directed by the Bureau of Prisons to clear the shelves of any books, tapes, CDs and videos that are not on a list of approved resources," the paper says. "In some prisons, the chaplains have recently dismantled libraries that had thousands of texts collected over decades, bought by the prisons, or donated by churches and religious groups."..."...

hat tip: The Alliance Alert

No Left Turns Archive: On Russian men, women loving pink, and older men

re: Peter Schramm: "The Economist is often worth looking at and reading into. For example, this article on how Russia is becoming the neo-KGB state; and more on the siloviki. Not good news, especially for Russians..."...

No Left Turns Archive: The NYT Speaks: Osama Listens

re: Steven Hayward: "Back during the Cold War, and especially in the 1980s, you could pick up the editorial page of the New York Times and the news/editorials of Pravda, and you couldn’t tell the difference. (Sometimes Pravda would save its own writers the bother and just quote the western press for denunciations of the United States.) And Soviets always seemed to take their talking points for summits with Reagan from the American left. Gorbachev, for instance, in his first meeting with Reagan tried out the feminist chestnut that 'by law' women in the U.S. could only make 60 cents for each dollar a man earned. This should have been embarrassing to the left, but wasn’t of course. / So now we have Osama, channeling the Daily Kos, the Huffington Post, and the American left..."...

No Left Turns Archive: Thompson's Critics Mirror Reagan's

re: "...Presumably, Scherer is irritated because Thompson would not spell out detailed policy plans for Social Security, a position on the fair tax, and Labor Department statistics on the question of an approaching recession. As a criticism, that’s fair enough--as far as it goes. But notice that the positions Thomspon articulates against abortion, securing judges for the courts, opposing gay marriage and supporting defense are described as clichés. Thompson may not be another Reagan, but the criticism of him from the other side is beginning to sound an awful lot like the criticism Reagan got..."...

Pavarotti, RIP « Daily Inklings

re: "The King of the High Cs, Luciano Pavarotti, has died at his home after his battle with pancreatic cancer. I remember the highly successful Three Tenors back in the 90s, which included Jose Carreras and Placido Domingo..."...