We are now seeing another round of international silliness, in which we can clearly see (if we are looking straight at it) just how social justification works. A Florida pastor with a whopping two dozen parishioners recently burned a Koran, which set off a round of riots in Afghanistan. These riots ended with with some …
Understanding Bad Words
Here are the notes for a talk to the NSA student body . . . “Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice: And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you” …
If a Charlie Sheen Rant Were a War
In foreign policy, there are two kinds of competence. Both of them are good things, but you cannot rely on one of them alone. At the same time, the presence of one can ameliorate a situation, keeping it from becoming the outright disaster it would otherwise be. Let’s take the latest adventure in Libya for …
Obams Away!
Okay, so now the most leftist president we have ever had has opened up a third front in the Middle East. Sure, it has been done in the liberal way of war . . . lots of wish-it-weren’t-soing, lots of crabwalk drills, lots of getting the French to bomb first, lots of important people doing …
Like Scarsdale
A denial of Hell is the very apex of short term thinking. Living your life here and now as though eternity matters is the epitome of long term thinking. And once these fundamental “mentalities” have set in, it is not long before you start to see other manifestations of them. Deferred gratification is essential to …
Mars Hell
Martin Luther once said that God reveals Himself in the contrary. Love is revealed in a man, contorted with pain on a cross. And an inability to understand how this can work is what creates problems for those who can find someone like Rob Bell compelling. Justin Taylor has a good summary of some of …
A Palin Critique
Given the trajectory of events, it looks to me as though Sarah Palin is going to be a significant player in the coming year, leading up to the 2012 presidential elections. I am not saying she is going to run, and I am not saying that she would get the nomination/presidency if she did run …
A Dead Calico Cat on the High Altar
This morning I saw on the news that Gov. Walker’s bill concerning public sector unions passed the Wisconsin house. The 14 Wisconsin senators are still AWOL, and the governor says that if they don’t get a bill scaling things back for everybody, then instead of keeping everybody with a little less, he will have to …
Smart as Paint
If the directors of private insurance companies ran their businesses the same way that the state runs its entitlement programs and pension plans, they would every man jack of them be in the slammer. And when I say “the slammer,” I mean chokey, the big house, the can, the clink, the bastille, the cooler, and …
Two Cheers for Fox News
I know that none of the cool kids really like Fox News. But the coolshame won’t work on me here because I actually do think that O’Reilly is insufferable, and than Hannity has morphed into an incarnate talking point. But at the same time, I do get my daily (televised) news doses from Special Report …