How to get out of Iraq, continued

July 15, 2008 By 2 Comments

Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki should not be criticized for calling for a timetable for the withdrawal of US troops. He is doing us a huge favor! From <a href="http://apnews.myway.com/article/20080708/D91PQ1PO0.html"Iraq insists on withdrawal timetable for US troops:

Iraq’s national security adviser said Tuesday his country will not accept any security deal with the United States unless it contains specific dates for the withdrawal of U.S.-led forces.

The comments by Mouwaffak al-Rubaie were the strongest yet by an Iraqi official about the deal now under negotiation with U.S. officials. They came a day after Iraq’s prime minister first said publicly that he expects the pending troop deal with the United States to have some type of timetable for withdrawal.

We liberated them from Iraq, we established a democratic government, that government says that it no longer requires our help. Mission accomplished. Let’s go home.

Filed Under: America 2 Comments

An atheist’s testimony, continued

July 14, 2008 By 464 Comments

The readers and commenters on this blog are a rare group, pursuing a higher and more civil level of discourse than I have seen on any other blog. Now that the post An Atheist’s Testimony has nearly a hundred comments and is still going strong, I’ve been asked to raise it again, before it moves into the archives. So feel free to continue the discussion here, with reference to the above link.

To recap where we are, Michael the Little Boot has told us with great honesty about how, after being raised in fundamentalism, he became an atheist. He says that he does not believe in sin, though he strongly agrees that we are imperfect (which is what Christians mean by sin). He does not have the conception of God that Christians do, as someone who is wholly “other” than human beings, so that differences are showing up about the deity in which he does not believe. Nor does he understand what Christians mean by “faith,” demanding instead clear, rational knowledge rather than trust, dependence, and the evidence of what is not seen. A key issue is the gospel, which seems to have been obscured in Michael’s rather legalistic upbringing. He does say that he cannot shake that fundamentalist background, try as he might. Frank Sonnek makes the intriguing suggestion that it was GOOD that he lost that legalistic faith, a loss that might lead him to the real thing. I’d like to hear more about the Christian belief that God is INCARNATE–not an abstraction far above and looking down, but that He came down from Heaven to suffer and die with us and for us.

Anyway, it’s an excellent conversation on both sides, and I invite its continuation here.

Filed Under: Blog, Theology 464 Comments

Resurrection of socialism?

July 14, 2008 By 62 Comments

Consider this development in the government’s attempt to shore up the mortgage market:

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson swung the weight of the federal government behind Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the beleaguered companies that buy or finance almost half of the $12 trillion of U.S. mortgages.

Paulson, speaking on the steps of the Treasury facing the White House, asked Congress for authority to buy unlimited stakes in and lend to the companies, aiming to stem a collapse in confidence. The Federal Reserve separately authorized the firms to borrow directly from the central bank.

When the government OWN industries, isn’t that socialism? A Washington Post pundit uses the N-word in calling for complete nationalization of these two institutions, arguing that instead of just lending them money the state should get something back by owning them.

Government-run health care is now, some are saying, inevitable. Liberal politicians have been threatening to nationalize the oil industries. Now that conservativism is being repudiated, do you think the once discredited economic system of socialism is coming back into favor?

Filed Under: Economics 62 Comments

We know where you are

July 14, 2008 By 8 Comments

People are sensitive about the government infringing upon their privacy, but they don’t seem to mind when online or on-cell-phone companies do. Here is an article about the marriage between GPS systems and cell phones: When the Phone Goes With You, Everyone Else Can Tag Along.

It talks about how you can synch your cell phone into your Face Book account so that all of your friends will know where you are. And the advertisers are really excited about the new horizons this opens up for targeted ads, which can deliver come-ons to your cell phones as you are driving near businesses. A Google exec rhapsodizes over the possibilities:

“You could see a banner ad for a coupon to go to any old Loews theater. But what if that ad said, ‘Hey, Brian, the new Batman is showing at the Loews in Alexandria, a couple of miles from where you’re heading two hours from now. Click on this coupon, and it’s half rate,’ ” he said. “Imagine the conversion rate.”

This is all presented as if it were a good thing. I do see that this technology is good for police tracking down felons and for parents tracking down children, but do we really want advertisers tracing our every move? And do we really want to build an infrastructure that would make a totalitarian police state technologically possible?

Filed Under: technology 8 Comments

Out of the woods

July 14, 2008 By 2 Comments

Well, we are back from our vacation. I will report on our adventures by means of a list of words and phrases: near death experience; backroads; family; reconnecting with an old classmate; worshipping at Grace Lutheran, a great church in Tulsa; BBQ galore; canoes; rafts; beautiful scenery; sublime scenery; relatives; getting soaked; poison ivy; Broken Arrow; hasty bake factory; Mexican cuisine; lots of driving; “The Children of Hurin”; quality and quantity time with my wife.

I have never, as an English teacher, assigned my students to write about their summer vacations, but if you want to offer a similar collage of words, you are welcome to.

Filed Under: Personal 2 Comments

The vocation of vacation

July 5, 2008 By 2 Comments

Friends, we’re en route to Oklahoma, where much of the time we will be at beautiful Lake Tenkiller, far away from the internet and probably even cell phone coverage. So I’ll be taking a break from blogging, though I’ll be back a week from Monday. We’ve had a big jump in readership, with the “vocation of the movie critic” bringing us lots of new readers. For you, don’t lose your new habit of checking in with this blog. Explore the archives, which store many fine discussions that you will still enjoy. I’ve left you a few topics to keep you busy. Do monitor the “Testimony of an Atheist” post, which is featuring some deep, honest, and insightful discussions. I will really be incommunicado out at the lake, so if anything happens in the world that I should know about, tell me about it in a comment here. God’s blessings until we meet again!

Filed Under: Blog, Personal, Vocation 2 Comments

Inalienable rights vs. Alienable rights

July 4, 2008 By 14 Comments

Happy Birthday, America! Here is something to ponder on this memorial day to the Declaration of Independence: Back in 1776, both Christians and Deists considered it “self-evident” that human beings were “created” and thus had equal moral and spiritual standing before God. Furthermore, the “Creator” “endowed” human beings with rights, which, because they have a transcendent foundation are “inalienable”; that is, they cannot be taken away.

Today, belief in a creation and a Creator are far from “self-evident”; creation is widely treated as a myth (with random evolution being the only acceptable view) and belief in God is not allowed to have any kind of legal or governmental standing. Right, instead, are endowed by the state.

It follows, therefore, that rights are “alienable,” that they CAN be taken away. The state has recently been generous in creating rights that have nothing to do with God–that indeed violate God’s ordinance–such as the right to an abortion. But without a transcendent foundation for rights, aren’t we left with arbitrary, self-interested power and the foundation for tyranny?

Can American ideals and liberties long survive without the foundation set forth in the Declaration of Independence?

Filed Under: America 14 Comments

My former students?

July 4, 2008 By 18 Comments

In the “secret identity” post, “Cindy” outed herself as the former Cindy Evers, one of my former students. Others have shown up from time to time. Are any of you readers former students of mine? I realize that I passed so few of you that it is hardly likely. And yet, I’d love to hear if any of you have become contributing members of society. Have you, despite your fears at the time, found VOCATIONS into families, workplaces, the church, and the culture? Do you still remember anything at all that you learned in my classes?

Seriously, identify yourselves and tell me what you are doing these days. I’d be glad to hear from you.

Filed Under: Education, Personal, Vocation 18 Comments

The happiness index

July 4, 2008 By 2 Comments

Those melancholy Danes have now cheered up, to the point that Denmark is now the happiest place on earth. The USA ranks up there at number 16, despite reports of record dissatisfaction. According to the study, happiness rates are actually way up since the first such survey in 1981. It’s interesting to track how the different countries measured up. U.S. Territory Puerto Rico is second, and strife-torn Columbia is third.

Filed Under: International 2 Comments

Punished with a baby

July 4, 2008 By 20 Comments

Nat Hentoff is a non-religious liberal human rights activist. He is, however, consistent with these positions. He is pro-life. I have never understood what is liberal or in any way humane about supporting abortion. In fact, that a candidate believes in abortion makes me not believe him when he then pretends to be for the poor, the marginalized, the little guy. Not when they are willing to kill the poorest, the most marginalized, and the littlest guy at all. Anyway, thanks to commenter Sam for alerting me to this column by Nat Hentoff, who has real problems with supporting Barack Obama. From Opinion – Nat Hentoff: Infanticide candidate for president – sacbee.com:

On abortion, Obama is an extremist. He has opposed the Supreme Court decision that finally upheld the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act against that form of infanticide. Most startlingly, for a professed humanist, Obama — in the Illinois Senate — also voted against the Born Alive Infant Protection Act. I have reported on several of those cases when, before the abortion was completed, an alive infant was suddenly in the room. It was disposed of as a horrified nurse who was not necessarily pro-life followed the doctors’ orders to put the baby in a pail or otherwise get rid of the child. . . .

As I was researching this presidential candidate’s views on the unilateral “choice” that takes another’s life, I heard on the radio what Obama said during a Johnstown, Pa., town hall meeting on March 29 as he was discussing the continuing dangers of exposure to HIV/AIDS infections: “When it comes specifically to HIV/AIDS, the most important prevention is education, which should include — which should include abstinence education and teaching children, you know, that sex is not something casual. But it should also include — it should also include other, you know, information about contraception because, look, I’ve got two daughters, 9 years old and 6 years old. I am going to teach them first of all about values and morals.

“But if they make a mistake,” Obama continued, “I don’t want them punished with a baby.”

That line is very telling for the pro-death philosophy: Having a baby is a bad thing, a punishment.

Filed Under: Law, Life Issues, Politics 20 Comments