"Listen! The wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, cry out, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts. You have lived on the earth in luxury and in pleasure; you have fattened your hearts in a day of slaughter." Read more
Mallory Ortberg and Mark Driscoll offer parody apologies. The ingredients for very expensive urine. Love vs. Hate. You need empathy to get the joke. "When people get to the end there's always the brick." Read more
This isn't an example of bias, but of obliviousness. The problem is not the journalists' affluence per se, but their failure to grasp that their affluence makes them exceptional. Articles written by and for the exceptionally affluent are irrelevant to the majority of their readers. Read more
"The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face to shine upon you, and be gracious to you; the Lord lift up his countenance upon you, and give you peace." Read more
Another way of looking at the idea of a fair bet is to ask what would happen if one had enough money to "invest" in enough tickets to guarantee a win. With the pick three games, this would mean spending $1,000 on tickets for every possible combination of numbers. Doing so would guarantee you hit the winner, taking home a prize of, say, $400. You would, in other words, be throwing away $600. That's a sucker's bet. Read more
One of the biggest such disagreements is the heated argument that pervades much of the Bible between what I call Team Jonah and Team Book of Jonah. For Team Jonah, God's plan of salvation is for the chosen few -- the righteous elect. Ninevites and Pagan sailors need not apply. God picked Abraham and rejects everyone else. You can find this view presented, asserted and defended in a host of passages throughout the Bible. But you can also find this view attacked, rebuffed and rebutted in a host of passages throughout the Bible. Read more
Look again at that list of entities above -- families, friendships, etc. Any one of those might, at some point, come to function as a "bully" in the life of an individual. In doing so, it would be betraying its intended purpose and function, but any single one of those entities so corrupted could turn a person's life into a hell. Read more
John Hagee: bad on love and hate; not bad on saxophone. Right to bear arms replaced by the right to sell guns. The news from Texas. Some background on Art Pope's attempt to buy North Carolina and sell it for parts. Joseph Carens on immigration. Sarah Moon on what is, and isn't, a sin. Read more
Holiday business and holiday busy-ness have interrupted our weekly sojourn through the World's Worst Books. Read more
"Waterboarding was used by the Nazi Gestapo and the feared Japanese Kempeitai. In World War II, our grandfathers had the wisdom to convict Japanese Officer Yukio Asano of waterboarding and other torture practices in 1947 giving him 15 years hard labor. Waterboarding was practiced by the Khmer Rouge at the infamous Tuol Sleng prison. Most recently, the United States Army court martialed a soldier for the practice in 1968 during the Vietnam conflict." Read more
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