Could the GOP stoop any lower?

How far has the GOP and its supporters fallen (yes, I'm aware that not all members of the GOP share these sentiments) when they are publicly calling Sen. Obama a "traitor" and yell chants to have him put to death? Also, what does it say about Sen. McCain's character for not condemning such disgusting actions?

John McCain has shown a stunning failure of leadership. His campaign, in a time of economic crisis and foreign policy drift, has degenerated into a negative and nasty campaign of smears. The reports are piling up of ugliness at the campaign rallies of John McCain and Sarah Palin. Audience members hurl insults and racial epithets, call out "Kill Him!" and "Off With His Head," and yell “treason” when Senator Obama’s name is mentioned.

Actually Living Matthew 25:34-36

As mainstream Christianity in America continues to move further and further away from the teachings of Jesus and the Gospels, along comes this story involving one of the candidates for the President of the United States.

Update:

Here is Andrew Sullivan's comment on the above story:

Christianity, unlike Christianism, doesn't mean controlling others, policing their lives and removing their rights. It can also mean just helping someone you don't know when you can.

Not Putting Country First

Fareed Zakaria, as usual, giving an excellent take on the current Palin fiasco. However, in seeing the obvious - that Sarah Palin is unqualified to be near the White House, we must not forget it was a result of John McCain's disastrous judgment and incompetence choosing her:

Can we now admit the obvious? Sarah Palin is utterly unqualified to be vice president. She is a feisty, charismatic politician who has done some good things in Alaska. But she has never spent a day thinking about any important national or international issue, and this is a hell of a time to start. The next administration is going to face a set of challenges unlike any in recent memory.

Obviously these are very serious challenges and constraints. In these times, for John McCain to have chosen this person to be his running mate is fundamentally irresponsible. McCain says that he always puts country first. In this important case, it is simply not true.

Are the Wheels Coming Off?

They (initial Palin enthusiasts) are finally coming around to deal with the reality that Palin is the biggest farce in the history of American politics. Here is Kathleen Parker from the National Review:

Palin’s recent interviews with Charles Gibson, Sean Hannity, and now Katie Couric have all revealed an attractive, earnest, confident candidate. Who Is Clearly Out Of Her League.No one hates saying that more than I do. Like so many women, I’ve been pulling for Palin, wishing her the best, hoping she will perform brilliantly. I’ve also noticed that I watch her interviews with the held breath of an anxious parent, my finger poised over the mute button in case it gets too painful. Unfortunately, it often does. My cringe reflex is exhausted.

Palin filibusters. She repeats words, filling space with deadwood. Cut the verbiage and there’s not much content there. Here’s but one example of many from her interview with Hannity: “Well, there is a danger in allowing some obsessive partisanship to get into the issue that we’re talking about today. And that’s something that John McCain, too, his track record, proving that he can work both
sides of the aisle, he can surpass the partisanship that must be surpassed to deal with an issue like this.”When Couric pointed to polls showing that the financial crisis had boosted Obama’s numbers, Palin blustered wordily: “I’m not looking at poll numbers. What I think Americans at the end of the day are going to be able to go back and look at track records and see who’s more apt to be talking about solutions and wishing for and hoping for solutions for some opportunity to change, and who’s actually done it?”

If BS were currency, Palin could bail out Wall Street herself.

He Will Be Missed

Michael Medders
Nov 4th, 1982 - Sept 24, 2008

Updated Article

Funeral Coverage

Thou Shall Not Bear False Witness

Once Sarah Palin was announced as McCain's running mate, partisans and right-wing Christians became elated and completely energized. Enthusiastic supporters did not hesitate to point out Palin's Pentecostal religious background and more broadly speaking, that the GOP is supposedly the party for conservative Xians.

We have seen over the past decade these so-called Xians becoming obsessed with judging others in violation of the Ten Commandments, especially in regards to sexual sins (lets not mention David Vitter, Larry Craig, the fact that evangelicals are divorcing at the same or higher rates than non-evangelicals). However, they pay no attention to the blatant and continuous lies of the McCain Campaign and more specifically the documented and compulsive lies of Sarah Palin.

Do only certain commandments apply to the Republican Party? Do Xian standards and morals loosen when a candidate has an "R" next to their name? I would argue absolutely not, but it appears that the now-defunct GOP and conservative Xians supporting the GOP will answer that question in the affirmative. Whenever I hear anyone say the Democrats (and I'm not really a fan of them either) don't possess Xian morals but the Republicans do, I want to puke.

Here, Andrew Sullivan documents the lies Sarah Palin has been campaigning on. Not only is she telling the lies, but even when her lies have been proven wrong, she continues to tell them and refuses to correct her statements. Thank God Andrew Sullivan has maintained his steadfast conservative views throughout this election season and during the time the GOP has abandoned its conservative principals. If you don't have time to read his whole post, I'll lay them out quickly:

So for the record, let it be known that the candidate for vice-president for the GOP is a compulsive, repetitive, demonstrable liar. If you follow the links, here is the proof. I repeat: proof:
- She has lied about the Bridge To Nowhere. She ran for office favoring it, wore a sweatshirt defending it, and only gave it up when the federal congress, Senator McCain in particular, went ballistic. She kept the money anyway and favors funding Don Young's Way, at twice the cost of the original bridge.
- She has lied about her firing of the town librarian and police chief of Wasilla, Alaska.
- She has lied about pressure on Alaska's public safety commissioner to fire her ex-brother-in-law.
- She has lied about her previous statements on climatechange.
- She has lied about Alaska's contribution to America's oil and gas production.
- She has lied about when she asked her daughters for their permission for her to run for vice-president.
- She has lied about the actual progress in constructing a natural gas pipeline from Alaska.
- She has lied about Obama's position on habeas corpus.
- She has lied about her alleged tolerance of homosexuality.
- She has lied about the use or non-use of a TelePrompter at the St Paul convention.
- She has lied about her alleged pay-cut as mayor of Wasilla.
- She has lied about what Alaska's state scientists concluded about the health of the polar bear population in Alaska.

You cannot trust a word she says. On anything.

End the Fed!

Critics dismissed Ron Paul as a "fringe" candidate or lunatic when he claimed the Fed creates the bubbles that destroy the value of the dollar. They also laughed when he said the US financial system is heading for a collapse.

Well, seems he wasn't too far off. From Ron Chernow, a leading financial historian:

I fear the government has passed the point of no return. We have the irony of a free-market administration doing things that the most liberal Democratic administration would never have been doing in its wildest dreams. It’s pure crisis management. It’s the Treasury and the Federal Reserve lurching from crisis to crisis without a clear statement on how financial failures will be handled in the future. They’re afraid to articulate such a policy. The safety net they are spreading seems to widen every day with no end in sight

Quote of the Week

Wick Allison, a former publisher of The National Review no less, endorses Obama...another conservative disgusted with the current GOP:

But today it is so-called conservatives who are cemented to political programs when they clearly don’t work. The Bush tax cuts—a solution for which there was no real problem and which he refused to end even when the nation went to war—led to huge deficit spending and a $3 trillion growth in the federal debt. Facing this, John McCain pumps his “conservative” credentials by proposing even bigger tax cuts. Meanwhile, a movement that once fought for limited government has presided over the greatest growth of government in our history.

That is not conservatism; it is profligacy using conservatism as a mask. Today it is conservatives, not liberals, who talk with alarming bellicosity about making the world “safe for democracy.” It is John McCain who says America’s job is to “defeat evil,” a theological expansion of the nation’s mission that would make George Washington cough out his wooden teeth. This kind of conservatism, which is not conservative at all, has produced financial mismanagement, the waste of human lives, the loss of moral authority, and the wreckage of our economy that McCain now threatens to make worse.

End Drinking Age Restrictions

Will Wilkinson of Forbes writes a convincing, coherent and rational argument in favor of repealing all age limitations on drinking. He argues our current restrictions increase the abuse of alcohol and abandon the principals of individual responsibility and freedom.

UCLA professor of public policy Mark Kleiman, an ex-advocate of age restrictions, told PBS that he came around to the no-limits position when he saw a billboard that said, "If you're not 21, it's not Miller Time--yet." Age limits make drinking a badge of adulthood and build in the minds of teens a romantic sense of the transgressive danger of alcohol. That's what so often leads to the abuse of alcohol as a ritual of release from the authority of parents. And that's what has the college presidents worried. They see it.

It's too bad the debate is constantly framed around irrational, emotionally led arguments predicting doom and gloom. It's tempting to label the leaders of those arguments as demagogues.

Then there are the car crashes. It is an article of faith among much of the U.S. government that raising the drinking age to 21 averted thousands of grisly traffic deaths. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, with deceptive five-figure precision, puts the number at 21,887 through 2002. But even this statistical factoid, the neoprohibitionist trump card, deserves scrutiny. A recent research paper by Harvard economist Jeffrey Miron and his former student Elina Tetelbaum shows that states that raised the drinking age to 21 since 1984, in response to Congress' road-funding threats, enjoyed no statistically significant decrease in traffic fatalities for 18- to 20-year-olds. They point to the decades-long, steady decline in the rate of
traffic fatalities (deaths per billion passenger miles), a decline due in large part to safer cars, improved driver education and better medical technology. Raising the drinking age did little or nothing.

Conservatism w/out GOP Spin

And from Powerline, of all sources. Paul Mirengoff writes:

But some argue instead (or alternatively) that Sarah Palin's credentials are adequate. These arguments are mostly laughable. We are told that she was a courageous whistle-blower. But whistling-blowing isn’t evidence of leadership skill, administrative ability, or familiarity with vital policy issues. We are told that Palin challenged an incumbent governor and called him out for his corruption. But mounting an insurgent’s campaign for governor isn’t evidence of fitness for the presidency either. We are told that she is responsible for her state’s national guard and visited its troops in Iraq. How this amounts to foreign policy or national security experience, or otherwise qualifies Palin for national office, is unclear.
What’s clear is that if Democrats made these sorts of arguments on behalf of a candidate for national office, conservative commentators would excoriate them for it...That's why those who defend Palin's qualifications typically end up moving to more defensible terrain -- the argument that her credentials compare favorably to Obama's. This may constitute an additional reason to vote for McCain, but it's not a defense of McCain's selection of Palin.

Quote of the Week

The problem is the inherent oddity of the incumbent party running on change. Here were Republicans -- the party that controlled the White House for eight years and both houses of Congress for five -- wildly cheering the promise to take on Washington. I don't mean to be impolite, but who's controlled Washington this decade?
- Charles Krauthammer

"Whatever you do to the least of my brethren, you do to Me.” (Matthew 25:40)

I'm going to pass on Andrew Sullivan's spat with K-Lo from the National Review. He presents a pretty compelling argument against social conservatives who want to ban same-sex marriage.

The Federal Marriage Amendment for which K-Lo campaigned would render my civil marriage null and void. It would also explicitly remove any legal protections even under the rubric of "civil unions" that would provide me and my husband security. It would give people other than my spouse legal claims on my property were I to die or be rendered in some way incompetent. It would effectively divorce us. This is not factually in dispute. And if K-Lo supports equal treatment for gay couples under the rubric of civil unions, I'd be happy to discover that. But that is the only way she can argue that she is not, in fact, insisting that gay couples be stripped of defensible rights and stigmatized under the law. K-Lo even supported Virginia's Marriage Amendment which claims to bar even private legal arrangement between gay spouses. The removal of all these rights and responsibilities, by the way, in no way "protects" marriage for straight people: their rights are guaranteed regardless,
and I am an enthusiast for those rights and for those families. I came from one, after all.

We're not in danger of losing it [the ability to create children] in any way - and never will. Such heterosexual unions will remain and should remain at the heart of civilization, and heterosexual desire is hardly likey to evaporate because society is inclusive of all people, and not just the overwhelming majority. Moreover civil marriage already allows people to commit to one another without reproducing and no one seems to believe that marriage needs to be protected from this. So why the double standard for infertile or non-reproducing straights and gays - unless the point is purely to stigmatize homosexuality?

We are not redefining it [marriage]. We are making it available for the tiny minority of human beings and citizens who otherwise have no secure legal or social protection for their relationships. I'm sure K-Lo doesn't mean to hurt gays and in her own mind doesn't believe that stripping me of basic rights in my relationship renders me second class. But it does, and her feelings about this are irrelevant compared with the facts. Under her vision of society, my husband and I are denied the basic rights granted to every heterosexual. Under my vision, we all have the same rights; and gay people can and should celebrate the families of straight people, do all they can to support parenting, while straight people can do the same for their gay siblings, offspring and friends. Her vision necessitates marginalization and second class citizenship. And
she and others on her side of the debate need to acknowledge it as such and own it.

No Need for Universal Healthcare

One of the more prevalent arguments in the debate about universal health insurance is that we need to make sure everyone is insured because insured folks are paying for the uninsured. The theory goes that an uninsured person visits the ER for a serious injury. Without insurance and being unable to pay his bills, the hospital gets stuck with the liability of the man's costs. From here, the hospital passes the cost over to insured patients and also by receiving tax funding from you and I. Therefore, as the argument goes, you and I are paying for the uninsured while they get a free ride.

As some of you may know, I have been persuaded by this argument in the past considering my stance on social issues is that people should be free to do whatever they want, as long as it does not harm others. I can admit that even though I'm not directly or physically harmed by someone else's choice to forgo health insurance, there is potential that I can be harmed financially by paying for the costs incurred by those who do not have health insurance.

However, thanks to recent research by CATO, it appears that we don't end up paying for the uninsured after all. Surprisingly, it seems that the uninsured themselves end up paying for the costs of themselves:

Many uninsured people show up at the hospital, get treated, and then don’t pay
their bills. Doctors and hospitals scream an awful lot about having to
deliver “uncompensated” care. But two recent studies — one on doctors services by Jonathan Gruber and David Rodriguez, the other on hospital services in California
by Glenn Melnick and Katya Fonkych – show that the uninsured who do pay
their bills more than make up for the uninsured who don’t. Why? The
uninsured pay the highest prices. Gruber and Rodriguez write, “Our best
estimate is that physicians provide negative uncompensated care to the
uninsured, earning more on uninsured patients than on insured patients with
comparable treatments.”

One more reason to oppose government imposed universal health care.

Most Xians Prefer...

Barack Obama.

In the past few decades, it was a given that the majority of born-again Christians were voting for the Republican Party. I've even heard some people say, "I would never vote for a Democrat because they don't have any morals." Even though that statement can be dismissed as ridiculous, most Xians in the past viewed the question of "which candidate is more Xian" through an extremely small lens - namely only looking at the issues of abortion and homosexuality.

Thankfully, in a new poll/study released by the Barna Group, it appears that the majority of those who consider themselves Christians support Sen. Obama. I am hopeful that Xians are tired of being taken advantage of by the Republican Party and also beginning to see that there are more relevant issues that should be of concern to Xian voters.

For the most part, the various faith communities of the U.S. currently
support Sen. Obama
for the presidency. Among the 19 faith segments that The Barna Group tracks,
evangelicals were the only segment to throw its support to Sen. McCain. Among
the larger faith niches to support Sen. Obama are non-evangelical born again Christians (43%
to 31%); notional Christians (44% to 28%); people aligned with faiths other than
Christianity (56% to 24%); atheists and agnostics (55% to 17%); Catholics (39%
vs. 29%); and Protestants (43% to 34%). In fact, if the current preferences
stand pat, this would mark the first time in more than two decades that the born
again vote has swung toward the Democratic candidate.

I'm reminded of a quote from the book Rapture Ready by Daniel Radosh - "The Bible has more than 2,000 verses about poverty and maybe five or ten that you can interpret as being about abortion, but we are all about abortion. What about those two thousand verses about Christian responsibility to widows and orphans and aliens and strangers and the poor? We manage to be blind to all of that, but we can find those five verses about abortion."

Hopefully this is a sign of more Christians becoming more Christ-like...

Anthrax Cover-up

By now, I'm sure many of you are aware that the person the Justice Dept. believes is responsible for the anthrax attacks that occurred in the wake of Sept. 11th has committed suicide. The deceased suspect - Bruce Ivins, was a scientist who worked for the U.S. government at Fort Detrick in Maryland. First of all, this leads to some credibility for those who believed the government was behind the anthrax attacks. Whether the government actually had knowledge of Ivins' criminal acts, we shall find out, but for now, we can just say that he was acting in an individual capacity. However, it is clear that Ivins (and perhaps the US govt) wanted to create a link between Islamist terror and the anthrax. On cue, the incompetent media ran with the story and pushed that narrative into the minds of US citizens.

Glenn Greenwald provides an astounding revelation on MSM giant ABC news' role in completely fabricating where the anthrax was from and who developed it. As we all remember, the anthrax scare occurred in the weeks after the Sept. 11th attacks, creating a distinct feeling of vulnerability felt by almost everyone in the country. At that time, ABC ran a story stating that they received information from 4 "highly credible sources" that the ingredients in the anthrax pointed to Saddam Hussein and Iraq. At the time, ABC did not mention the names of the sources. The sources claimed they found the chemical bentonite, which as ABC claimed -- bentonite "is a trademark of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's biological weapons program" and "only one country, Iraq, has used bentonite to produce biological weapons." Incredibly, we now know that none of the tests performed on the anthrax came back positive for bentonite! None, it was completely fabricated and several tests were completed (ironically at Fort Detrick, the source of the anthrax).

With that being said, the 4 "highly credible sources" who leaked the bentonite info and link to Iraq were purposefully deceiving the country to believe there was a direct link between the anthrax terror attacks and the Iraqi regime.

Now, it becomes clear that ABC was being used (as usual) to peddle false information to the general public by certain agents. ABC is aware of this, but the most incomprehensible part of the story is that ABC will not release the names or agencies of the source they based their stories on. They know they were deceived into creating a link between the anthrax and Iraq by certain officials, but they will not report on who the perpetrators are! Instead of being an independent media outlet and uncovering the truth to another dead-end that led us to the war in Iraq, they are sitting on the information and deliberately covering up for those who told the lies and created the hysteria in the first place! The mind reels!

I'm hoping other media outlets and people make this a big story (look at the potential) but I'm not holding my breath. Instead of bringing people to justice and admitting mistakes, the media will be complacent in reporting on the perceived hubris of the presidential candidates or high gas prices. What more can I say?

Just Say No

Although society appears to envy or covet the skills of multi-taskers, recent studies have conclusively shown that the act of multi-tasking reduces productivity. Bryan Appleyard comments:

Chronic distraction, from which we all now suffer, kills you more slowly. Meyer
says there is evidence that people in chronically distracted jobs are, in early
middle age, appearing with the same symptoms of burn-out as air traffic
controllers. They might have stress-related diseases, even irreversible brain
damage. But the damage is not caused by overwork, it’s caused by multiple
distracted work. One American study found that interruptions take up 2.1 hours
of the average knowledge worker’s day. This, it was estimated, cost the US
economy $588 billion a year. Yet the rabidly multitasking distractee is seen as
some kind of social and economic ideal.

The next time a potential employer asks if you can multi-task -- just say no. If he/she understands what makes a good employee, they will see it as a plus.

Principled Christian Leadership

James Dobson, a so called "leading voice" in Christianity has shown his true colors. In January, Dobson said "speaking as a private individual, I would not vote for John McCain under any circumstances." (Italics mine)

This is from yesterday:
"I thought I would never hear myself saying this. While I am not endorsing Senator John McCain, the possibility is there that I might."

Yes, I may be jumping the gun since technically he hasn't broken his word, but it is clear he is hedging on his earlier statement. Unfortunately, this isn't too surprising since Jesus constantly chided religous leaders for being hypocritical. It's too bad Dobson is so eager to group himself into that category.

Another Obamacon

Larry Hunter channels my exact thoughts on the candidates so far.

I'm a lifelong Republican - a supply-side conservative. I worked in the
Reagan White House. I was the chief economist at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce
for five years. In 1994, I helped write the Republican Contract with America. I
served on Bob Dole's presidential campaign team and was chief economist for Jack
Kemp's Empower America. This November, I'm voting for Barack Obama.
When I first made this decision, many colleagues were shocked. How could I support a candidate with a domestic policy platform that's antithetical to almost
everything I believe in?
The answer is simple: Unjustified war and
unconstitutional abridgment of individual rights vs. ill-conceived tax and
economic policies - this is the difference between venial and mortal sins.
Taxes, economic policy and health care reform matter, of course. But how we
extract ourselves from the bloody boondoggle in Iraq, how we avoid getting into
a war with Iran and how we preserve our individual rights while dealing with
real foreign threats - these are of greater importance.

Guns and Suicide

The sound you just heard was another anti-gun argument crumbling. Steven Chapman discusses the relationship between gun ownership and suicide.

As it turns out, the claims about guns and suicide don't stand up well to
scrutiny. A 2004 report by the National Academy of Sciences was doubtful, noting
that the alleged association is small and may be illusory.
Florida State University criminologist Gary Kleck says there are at least 13 published studies finding no meaningful connection between the rate of firearms and the rate of suicides. The consensus of experts, he says, is that an increase in gun
ownership doesn't raise the number of people who kill themselves—only the number
who do it with a gun.

"Creationist's Worst Nightmare."

Of course, the title is taken from Rev. Ray Comfort who says that "A banana is an atheist's worst nightmare" because it is so perfectly designed for human use, that only God could have created it. Unfortunately for Ray, it is common knowledge that the modern banana is a product of selective breeding that bears little resemblance to its much less palatable wild and natural ancestor.

Anyways, scientists have recently discovered one of those pesky intermediate life forms that evolution produces.

The 365 million-year-old fossil skull, shoulders and part of the pelvis of
the water-dweller, Ventastega curonica, were found in Latvia, researchers report
in a study published in Thursday’s issue of the journal Nature. Even though
Ventastega is likely an evolutionary dead-end, the finding sheds new details on
the evolutionary transition from fish to tetrapods. Tetrapods are animals with
four limbs and include such descendants as amphibians, birds and mammals.
While an earlier discovery found a slightly older animal that was more fish
than tetrapod, Ventastega is more tetrapod than fish. The fierce-looking
creature probably swam through shallow brackish waters, measured about three or
four feet long and ate other fish. It likely had stubby limbs with an unknown
number of digits, scientists said.

Irrational Drug Laws

Florida has recently published some research findings on what drugs cause the most deaths. In summary, legal drugs kill far more people than illegal drugs. Also, parents and ad councils on tv and billboards constantly try to scare people away from using the dangerous drug of marijuana. Well, the reefer maddness was responsible for zero (0) deaths in Florida. Why is it illegal again?

Once again, it is obvious the war on drugs has been a complete failure.

The Florida report analyzed 168,900 deaths statewide. Cocaine, heroin and
all methamphetamines caused 989 deaths, it found, while legal opioids — strong painkillers in brand-name drugs like Vicodin and OxyContin — caused 2,328.
Drugs with benzodiazepine, mainly depressants like Valium and Xanax, led to 743 deaths.
Alcohol was the most commonly occurring drug, appearing in the bodies of 4,179
of the dead and judged the cause of death of 466 — fewer than cocaine (843) but
more than methamphetamine (25) and marijuana (0).

Consequences of Raising the Minimum Wage

If you are having a hard-time finding summer work, there may be a good explaination for it. Research from Northeastern University shows that raising the minimum wage is causing extremely high unemployment rates for low-paying jobs.

It is simple econ 101 that raising the minimum wage hurts the low-paying labor industry. Why do Democrats (mostly) still insist on this measure?

This year, it's harder than ever for teens to find a summer job. Researchers at Northeastern University described summer 2007 as "the worst in post-World War II history" for teen summer employment, and those same researchers say that 2008 is poised to be "even worse."
According to their data, only about one-third of Americans 16 to 19 years old will have a job this summer, and vulnerable low-income and minority teens are going to fare even worse. The percentage of teens classified as "unemployed"—those who are actively seeking a job but can't get one—is more than three times higher than the national unemployment rate, according to the most recent Department of Labor statistics.
One of the prime reasons for this drastic employment drought is the mandated wage hikes that policymakers have forced down the throats of local businesses. Economic research has shown time and again that increasing the minimum wage destroys jobs for low-skilled workers while doing little to address poverty. According to
economist David Neumark of the University of California at Irvine, for every 10 percent increase in the minimum wage, employment for high school dropouts and young black adults and teenagers falls by 8.5 percent. In the past 11 months alone, the United States' minimum wage has increased by more than twice that amount.

Responsible Rapture...ing

For all of you out there who believe that Jesus is going to be returning to earth soon and are worried about family and friends left behind - worry no more.

A company called You've Been Left Behind has created an email service where if the rapture occurs, an email will notify left behind family and friends where you are and what they can do to be saved!

The email will be sent out 6 days after the rapture occurs...but how does it know when? Apparently, there are 5 members that login to the site each day but if three of them do not login within 6 days, the email alerts are triggered. Oh, and by the way, the service is $40 a year.

There are some good arguments the rapture is not meant to be taken literally but incase you believe, doesn't this seem strange? First, how does the staff of the company know that atleast 3 of their 5 members are going to be taken up in the rapture? I guess they must be some pretty special people. Second, they say the service is to inform left behind loved ones of where you are. If this really did occur and millions of people vanished at once, I think there would be atleast one person left behind who could explain what is going on. I'm sure the personalized email message would set them at ease. Look at it from their perspective. Millions upon millions have vanished, the world is in chaos, yet an informative email is going to make someone think, "Oh, they were raptured to Heaven...thanks Bob, now I can go on with my life." Err...no. Finally, what if 3 of those 5 people die suddenly and the emails are sent out. That will be embarrassing. I guess some family members will know Bob secretly thinks they are going to hell. I'm sure that will make for an awkward moment.

Once again, it seems someone is looking to make an easy buck off of some gullible people. What a shame but hey, like PT Barnum says "a sucker is born everyday."

I'm sure this concept is set to become a footnote on "Its the end of the world as we know it."

The 2008 Democratic Nominee

I have been meaning to write something about Obama's improbable victory, but there are so many storylines running around, I don't even know where to start. Thankfully, my undergrad academic advisor - Dr. William Cunion - has written a perfect summary to the conclusion of the democratic primary season. I'm going to copy it in its entirety since 1)he does not create direct links to individual articles, 2) Google's block quote formatting sucks and 3) it is that good.

Enjoy-

We've all seen it coming since the first week of January, when a first-term senator - only three years removed from the Illinois State Legislature - and the only African American in the entire United States Senate - somehow defeated the "invincible" Hillary Clinton in the Iowa caucuses. Some setbacks here and there - some at the polls, some in the news - did little to derail what was becoming obvious to everyone. (Well, to everyone other than Hillary Clinton, who still seems unable to see it - see below.)
Whether you agree with his politics, whether you believe that the media has given him a free pass, whether you like him or not, Barack Obama has run the single most amazing political campaign in modern American history. (I'm tempted to say that it is the most astonishing political campaign ever, but let's hold back something until November. There is still, you know, the little matter of an election to be had.) I don't believe there is anything fundamentally different about Obama - he is a politician, and he can never be all things to all people as a result - but he has demonstrated more than just a powerful gift of rhetoric. He has shown remarkable executive leadership in the campaign itself, fully in command of the process while somehow remaining above the fray. Republicans will regret it if they underestimate his strength as a candidate. If the election were held today, he would be the 44th president of the United States.
So much is being said today about the historic event of nominating an African American candidate, and even many on the right are observing it with pride in a country moving beyond its shameful past. John McCain would have been wise yesterday simply to acknowledge the moment and to congratulate Senator Obama...and leave the debate for another day. And there will be debates - some thoughtful exchanges of ideas about the direction of the country - and some lowbrow smear campaigns that have always been part of the undercurrent of American politics. To be sure, while both candidates are men of honor and decency, they do have significant differences of opinion about some crucial issues, and we all must exercise our critical faculties in deciding which one of them will be a better leader for this country.
But that is for another day. For today, all Americans can set all of that aside and say together, yes we can. Such is the audacity of hope in the United States of America.

Time to Go Home, Hillary.
Yesterday afternoon, a local radio station called to ask for my reaction to the news that Hillary Clinton would be conceding defeat last night. I responded that we should probably wait to hear what she actually says. Sure enough, right on cue, Senator Clinton completes her metamorphosis from the historic presidential candidate who would shatter the final glass ceiling to the last girl at the party who has had way too much to drink but refuses to go home. You know the one - attractive and witty at 9pm, ugly and embarrassing at midnight, belligerent and hostile at 3am...and maybe passed out on the living room couch at 6am. Well, the sun is up in the United States of America, and it is time for you to go home, Senator Clinton. Her speech last night was disgraceful and incoherent (for what was she congratulating Senator Obama, if she was not conceding defeat?), but most of all, it was completely without class - a fitting end to her shameful candidacy.
There is so much commentary around the Web this morning that I couldn't possibly do it justice. But just a few of my favorite lines:
Maureen Dowd of the New York Times: "Whoever said that after denial comes acceptance hadn’t met the Clintons. If Hillary could not have an acceptance speech, she wasn’t going to have acceptance."
The Jed Report: "If I had any respect for Hillary Clinton going into tonight, after watching her speech, it is now gone....completely self absorbed."
Brendan Loy: "Hillary Clinton had one last chance, tonight, to exit the stage with dignity. She missed it."
Noam Scheiber of The New Republic: "What a disaster."
James Fallows of The Atlantic: "You HAVE LOST the nomination. There are NO MORE primaries....This is a new low."
I do wonder what her immediate plan is in terms of the actual campaigning. After all, Fallows is correct that there are no more primaries. Where will her events be? Who will be her audience? Why would anyone send her money at this point? This is bizarre.
Maybe I'm being too kind with the party analogy above. This isn't just like having a little too much to drink; it's pathological - maybe even sinister. I'm not the only one now thinking of Hillary Clinton like a character from a horror movie. Like Freddy Kruger or Jason, she just keeps coming back for more. Like the last scene from Carrie, you expect her to reach up through the dirt covering her grave for one last kill...only she refuses even to be buried. I expect the party to unify around Senator Obama this summer, but I do not think she will exit gracefully - perhaps it's too late for that, anyway. Nor do I expect her to be offered the VP slot; surely Obama has more self respect than that (I'm tempted to return to the party girl analogy, but I better let it go).
I don't know whether the radio station used my soundbite warning that she may refuse to exit stage left, but I sure hope so. Still, it's not all that insightful, and no one should be surprised. What a sad end to a sad story. Only it's not quite the end, is it?

Contradictions of Compassionate Conservatism

Sen. Coburn of OK wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal this past week detailing what Republican's need to do in order to avoid a blood-bath in the fall. One of his points is on President Bush's so called "compassionate conservatism" platform of the government helping the poor and needy.

Compassionate conservatism's starting point had merit. The essential
argument that Republicans should orient policy around how our ideas will affect
the poor, the widow, the orphan, the forgotten and the "other" is indisputable –
particularly for those who claim, as I do, to submit to an authority higher than
government. Yet conservatives are conservatives because our policies promote
deliverance from poverty rather than dependence on government.
Compassionate
conservatism's next step – its implicit claim that charity or compassion
translates into a particular style of activist government involving massive
spending increases and entitlement expansion – was its undoing. Common sense and
the Scriptures show that true giving and compassion require sacrifice by the
giver. This is why Jesus told the rich young ruler to sell his possessions, not
his neighbor's possessions. Spending other people's money is not
compassionate.

Once again, it becomes clear that President Bush was not a conservative and the Republicans are going to pay dearly for failing to stand up against his large government and unlimited executive power policies.

Literal Interpretation

Is there a relationship between reading the Bible literally and your IQ?

Questions for John McCain

For everyone out there who believes voting for a Republican is a vote for conservatism, here are some questions George Will has for John McCain. Let's hope they get answered at some point.

After reading through the questions, it becomes clear that between Obama and McCain's foreign policy, Obama clearly holds more conservative principles. It's no wonder Ron Paul is attracted to Obama's foreign policy.

The Imperial Presidency

At it's inception, the President was to maintain a low-profile and stay out of the public light. The role of the President was simply to uphold the laws of the land and to veto laws where Congress had surpassed their constitutional powers. Unfortunately, this has changed quite dramatically over time.

Gene Healy from the CATO institute writes the feature article for Reason Magazine on how far the role of the presidency has changed from what was intended by the founders. It is definately worth the read. Here is a bit:

Today Americans expect their president to pound Teddy Roosevelt’s “bully
pulpit,” whipping the electorate into a frenzy to harness power against
perceived threats. But the Framers viewed that sort of behavior as fundamentally
illegitimate. In fact, the president wasn’t even supposed to be a popular
leader. As presidential scholar Jeffrey K. Tulis has pointed out, in the
Federalist the term leader is nearly always used pejoratively; the essays by
Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and John Jay in defense of the Constitution begin
and end with warnings about the perils of populist leadership. The first
Federalist warns of “men who have overturned the liberties of republics” by
“paying obsequious court to the people, commencing demagogues and ending
tyrants,” and the last Federalist raises the specter of a “military despotism”
orchestrated by “a victorious demagogue.

The Deep Contradictions of Christian Pop Culture

I've tried to limit the number of books I'm going to get for summer reading, but I think I just found another - Rapture Ready by Dan Radosh.

The following is part of Slate's review of the book:

At a Christian retail show Radosh attends, there are rip-off trinkets of
every kind - a Christian version of My Little Pony and the mood ring.
There are Christian raves and Christian rappers and Christian techno, which is
somehow more Christian even though there are no words. There are Christian
comedians who put on a Christian version of Punk'd, called Prank
3:16.

At some point, Radosh asks the obvious question: Didn't Jesus chase
the money changers out of the temple? In other words, isn't there
something wrong with commercializing all aspects of faith?

What does commercializing do to the substance of belief? and what does an
infusion of belief do to the product? When you make a loving Christ sound
just like loving your boyfriend, you can do damage to both your faith and your
ballad.

Its always been a stretch to defend Christian pop culture as the path to
eternal salvation. Now, they may have to face up to the fact that it's
more like an eternal oxymoron.

Thank-you. Someone had to say it.

Dropping Babies

I don't think I would ever do this with my kids.