Rockin’ (losin’ my mind) Girl Blogger «

re: more blogs to check out...

Considerettes » A “Subversive” Film

re: "Arnold Kling exposes a new movie. // The Acton Institute has produced the most subversive movie I have ever seen. The Call of the Entrepreneur, which is being released on an agonizingly slow schedule, is a threat to tyranny everywhere, including here at home..."...

Brandywine Books: Star Tracts?

re: "...He assumed (I take it. Could be wrong) that believers in proselytizing religions spread their messages out of a simple desire to make people agree with them. A conviction that “I’m right, and I won’t rest until I’ve convinced everybody else that I’m right.” A sort of intellectual bullying impulse. /While from my point of view, the central question is a purely practical one. I believe that there is something radically wrong with the human heart. It is literally “sick unto death.” And I have been entrusted with the medicine that cures that sickness. If I didn’t believe people were perishing, I wouldn’t be greatly troubled that people in Madagascar have a different world view than I do..."...

WorldNetDaily: Rejected church plans cost city $1.2 million

re: "The city of Lake Elsinore, Calif., whose officials said they preferred tax revenue to worship services when they rejected a church's building plans, now has paid the Elsinore Christian Center $1.205 million for that decision. /The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had ruled in the church's favor in 2006, and the case was pending before the U.S. Supreme Court when the city asked to settle the dispute, according to officials with Advocates for Faith and Freedom, a national non-profit law firm working to protect religious liberties. /The appellate ruling found that the city violated the federal Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000, which codifies the First Amendment and provides that governments cannot use land use regulations, such as zoning, to place a "substantial burden" on churches unless there is compelling state interest..."...

AP: Anti-Indecency Measure Wins Approval

re: WASHINGTON (AP) -- A Senate committee on Thursday acted to restore the government's authority to fine television and radio broadcasters for airing profanities, even if they are fleeting references. /The Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee approved a bill that would undo an appeals court ruling that invalidated the Federal Communications Commission's new profanity policy....[snip]...By a 2-1 vote, the 2nd U.S. Court of Appeals in New York tossed out the profanity rules and said the FCC failed to "articulate a reasoned basis for its change in policy." /In response came the "Protecting Children from Indecent Programming Act," sponsored by Sens. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., and Mark Pryor, D-Ark. It would require the FCC "to maintain a policy that a single word or image may be considered indecent." /Rockefeller said in a statement that the legislation "is a small but critical step in making sure that the airways remain free of words and images that are patently offensive to the vast majority of Americans." /Co-sponsors were the committee chairman, Sen. Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, and the top Republican, Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska..."...

CitizenLink: Pro-Life Signs OK in Minnesota

re: "The Minnesota Supreme Court last week reversed the conviction of two pro-life advocates who were charged with creating a public nuisance and violating a city sign ordinance. /In 2004, Rob Rudnick and Luke Otterstad stood on an Anoka sidewalk spanning the Ferry Street Bridge. The two held signs with a pro-life message. Police arrested the men after an anonymous caller complained. /Rudnick and Otterstad were convicted, but the Supreme Court ruled the state had failed to prove an essential element of the public-nuisance charge and affirmed the First Amendment rights of the men to display signs..."...

hat tip: The Alliance Alert

Howstuffworks "How Washing Machines Work"

re: "...have you ever wondered what's inside that trusty washing machine? /How does it spin the clothes so fast without leaking water? Why is it so heavy? How does the agitator switch directions? In this edition of HowStuffWorks, we'll venture inside a washing machine to answer all of these questions and more..."...

Political Radar: Sex Ed for Kindergarteners 'Right Thing to Do,' Says Obama

re: "ABC News' Teddy Davis and Lindsey Ellerson Report: Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., told Planned Parenthood Tuesday that sex education for kindergarteners, as long as it is "age-appropriate," is "the right thing to do." / "I remember Alan Keyes . . . I remember him using this in his campaign against me," Obama said in reference to the conservative firebrand who ran against him for the U.S. Senate in 2004. Sex education for kindergarteners had become an issue in his race against Keyes because of Obama’s work on the issue as chairman of the health committee in the Illinois state Senate. / "'Barack Obama supports teaching sex education to kindergarteners,'" said Obama mimicking Keyes' distinctive style of speech. "Which -- I didn’t know what to tell him (laughter)." /"But it’s the right thing to do," Obama continued, "to provide age-appropriate sex education, science-based sex education in schools."..."...

hat tip: NewsBusters

Valerie Plame's Suit Against White House Dismissed, How Will Media Report It? | NewsBusters.org

re: "A federal judge has just dismissed Valerie Plame Wilson's lawsuit against members of the Bush administration. /Will this be the lead story of this evening's newscasts? Regardless of the answer, the Washington Post reported moments ago..."...

Restricting Family Size May Become Unavoidable, Says Environment Group -- 07/19/2007

re: "London (CNSNews.com) - A British advocacy group is warning that compulsory restrictions on family sizes may become "unavoidable" if the Earth is to be saved from disaster. / The Optimum Population Trust, a group that advocates curbing global population growth because of humans' impact on the environment, says that over the next 50 years, the planet will have to deal with the largest generation of adolescents and teenagers in history...[snip]...By 2050, OPT projects that the world's population will be using the biological capacity of two Earths. It says this will lead to a massive population crash through a combination of violence, disease and starvation. / To prevent this, the report advocates a mix of government policies to prevent women worldwide from having more than an average of two children. / Recommendations for developing countries include funding to provide women much greater access to contraception and abortions. / Despite the fact that fertility rates in nearly all European countries has dropped below two -- demographers say the generational replacement level is 2.1 -- the trust said fears of "a baby shortage" are misplaced... /Donna Nicholson, a spokeswoman for the Scottish chapter of the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, said that the problem facing many developing countries is not overpopulation but global inequality. /The United States produces enough food annually to feed the entire world, she said. At the same time, the crippling debt facing many African countries drives them to cut back on education and health care. ...[snip].../Josephine Quintavalle, head of Comment on Reproductive Ethics, another British pro-life group, said she found it frightening that the OPT report was getting attention. /She said Europe was facing a situation in which in just a few years, more people would be over 60 years of age than under 60..."...

An Examination of the Media and the Global Warming Hoax

re: Rush Limbaugh: ...It is a story in BusinessandMedia.org (pdf). It's a website. It is written by R. Warren Anderson, a research analyst, and Dan Gainor, he's a Boone Pickens Free Market Fellow. These guys are think tank people. And they've done an analysis of the last 100 years of journalism on global warming. It's entitled "Fire and ice." It's 17 pages when you print it out. But this puts the blame for all of this hysteria on global warming exactly where it belongs, and that is the media! Now, for a hundred years we've had wacko scientists trying to advance agendas, and if the agenda happens to fit the media -- and the agenda here, by the way, is chaos...[snip]...Here's the opening paragraph. "It was five years before the turn of the century and major media were warning of disastrous climate change. Page six of The New York Times was headlined with the serious concerns of 'geologists.' Only the president at the time wasn’t Bill Clinton; it was Grover Cleveland. And the Times wasn’t warning about global warming -- it was telling readers the looming dangers of a new ice age. The year was 1895, and it was just one of four different time periods in the last 100 years when major print media predicted an impending climate crisis. Each prediction carried its own elements of doom, saying Canada could be 'wiped out' or lower crop yields would mean 'billions will die.' Just as the weather has changed over time, so has the reporting -- blowing hot or cold with short-term changes in temperature...[snip]...CALLER: -- you need to understand there's a reason why they call it scientific consensus rather than scientific theory, and the reason is theory needs to incorporate all the known data, and there's some excellent reports out there right now showing that the nearby planets in our solar system are experiencing solar rises in their surface temperature... ...So if we're going to accept the scientific consensus as theory, we have to conclude that our American economy is causing a greenhouse effect across the whole solar system. Now, they realize they can't get away with calling it a theory so they've come up with this code term, "scientific consensus" to hide the fact that they're advancing a political agenda rather than scientific fact..."...

AP: Suspect in prison food bribery case flees Oregon, officials say

re: PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) -- A fired state prison food manager has fled from federal investigators before he could be charged with taking more than $1 million in bribes, but his wife was arrested Wednesday, authorities said. /Farhad "Fred" Monem flew to Buffalo, N.Y., on July 1 but did not make the return trip scheduled July 11, according to an affidavit filed Wednesday by Robert Salisbury, an Internal Revenue Service supervisory agent...[snip]...Fred Monem, a native of Iran, came to the United States in 1979 to avoid military service. Relatives in Iran include his father, according to court papers. /The United States broke diplomatic relations with Iran in 1980 and has no extradition treaty. Federal officials said, however, they had no information Monem has fled to his native country...[snip]...The bribery charges against the Monems were based almost entirely on statements filed by four food vendors who earlier pleaded guilty to bribing Fred Monem. The statements, which had been disclosed previously, outlined how the vendors paid Monem in cash and by check to steer more than $20 million in business to them. /Fred Monem had built a good reputation at the state Corrections Department for driving down the cost of feeding the state's 13,300 inmates. He shifted much of the agency's purchases to the "spot" food market, arranging to buy deeply-discounted name-brand foods that were overstocked or nearing their expiration date. /Investigators were tipped to the bribery scheme last October by a former employee of a Los Angeles vendor..."...

Brandywine Books: Literary Contests

re: "I've gotten word of two literary contests currently running..."...

scribbit: Tiny Books and Secret Diaries | A Blog About Motherhood in Alaska

re: "...creating tiny hinged diaries..."...

Captain's Quarters: Falcoms QB Indicted On Dogfighting Conspiracy

re: "The Atlanta Falcons may have to count on their backup quarterback in the 2007 season. According to ABC News, a grand jury indicted the star QB on felony charges surrounding an alleged dogfighting conspiracy centered at his mansion..."...

Captain's Quarters: What The Nation Doesn't Need Is A Ten-Dollar Tax On Cigars

re: "Democrats have decided to pass a 20,000% tax increase as part of their new fiscal program for America. The target -- this time -- is cigars, on which they plan to escalate the current federal nickel tax to $10 per stogie..."...

Mommy Life: The continuing campaign to deny Christians rights

re: "...In the UK, while Muslim and Sikh girls may wear head scarves and bracelets in school, Christian girls may not wear purity rings. /Lydia's family took her school to court. The outcome: not only did they lose, but they were ordered to pay the school's attorney fees. Read the story here..."...

The Jewish Ethicist: Happy Returns

re: someone asks "If a store has a two-week return policy, is it ethical to buy something from the store with the intention of using it and then returning it for money back?" (The short answer is no. In the longer answer, Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir explains why, citing Jewish law.)

Joe McKeever: Full-Bodied Preaching

re: "...I probably had thought of it as positive preaching, the way I omitted the dark side of the message for many years. I would bring a message on faith, for instance--the source of it, illustrations of it, examples of it, reasons for it, proofs of it, the blessings of it--but never once touch on the other side: what is its opposite, what lack of faith means, what failing to believe produces in people's lives, how it insults the Savior, and why some people never seem to have faith. /In a similar vein, I have figured out why most memoirs are so boring... there's no conflict... /A novelist reveals a technique she uses to put zest into her novels. Above her computer, she has fixed this message on an index card: "Things get worse.".../ Look at the conflict all through the narratives of Scripture.../The darkness has always been there; Scripture simply records it. /It's the preaching of some of us...that leaves it out, that deals with life as all lightness and fluff..."...

Let the chimeras live say Catholic Bishops! - Mary Meets Dolly

re: "...Now, here is where things get interesting and we Catholics may need to reevaluate what we think we know. In response to the possiblility of the creation and destruction of human chimeric embryos in the UK, Britian's Catholic Bishops have said that if they are created, chimeric embryos should be allowed to live. /How outrageous does that sound? Allowing a human-monkey to be implanted and born to a human or monkey mother? Have they lost their minds? No, I do not think they have..."...

hat tip: Jennifer F.