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..."...