Monthly Archives: September 2008

When Did Fear Take the Driver’s Seat in Amerika?

Ike is worrying me

Here‘s some video news with footage. Galveston Island is already being hit hard.

Bring the boys back home

Thanks go to Chris for linking this. (I wasn’t aware that I was copying his link line).

And here’s a confession: I almost put up a content warning about the F word. If that is what offends you in this video, then you have serious priority problems.

If GOP wins, is there any chance that Palin can resist being Quayled?

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Hope so. If not:

Palin will be to McCain what Spiro Agnew was to Richard Nixon and Dan Quayle was to George H. W. Bush — conservative vice presidents who had virtually no impact on the moderate presidents they served. In a McCain administration, it is more likely that we would see Lieberman appointed Secretary of State than Palin being given any responsibilities more significant than office secretary. And if there is one thing this election, this party, and their convention made clear, it’s that Palin’s entire purpose is to pacify traditional conservatives on the multiple issues they still care about, so that in Republican victory, McCain and the neoconservatives can finally get to work on their only issue.

Maybe someone should teach Palin about the Christian doctrine of “Just War”

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PALIN: I believe that what President Bush has attempted to do is rid this world of Islamic extremism, terrorists who are hell bent on destroying our nation. There have been blunders along the way, though. There have been mistakes made. And with new leadership, and that’s the beauty of American elections, of course, and democracy, is with new leadership comes opportunity to do things better.

GIBSON: The Bush doctrine, as I understand it, is that we have the right of anticipatory self-defense, that we have the right to a preemptive strike against any other country that we think is going to attack us. Do you agree with that?

PALIN: I agree that a president’s job, when they swear in their oath to uphold our Constitution, their top priority is to defend the United States of America. [source]

So we have had some blunders but all we need is a fresh manager of the globe and then everything will be right.

I guess there is no question that McCain properly vetted her.

If I was a racist who wanted to spread minority unemployment and or racial segregation…

Palin as a new Eve (mini-rant)

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I’m pretty sick of questions about whether Palin should be a ruler or whether she is compromising her motherhood by running for office and “neglecting” her children.

First thing. Nothing in Genesis 1 or 2 dictates that every man must or should marry and have children. In fact, it is perfectly compatible with Genesis 1 and 2 that some men should never marry or have kids. And the same with women, not every woman is supposed to be a domestic. That is not what Genesis 1 or 2 establishes.

Second thing, there are a thousand ways to raise kids, and the modern nuclear family with the stay at home Mom is only one of them. Women have worked outside on the homestead for thousands of years. For most of human history “cooking” for a household meant raising and slaughtering animals as well as growing food. I like the bourgeois way of life and think it is a gift, but it is not one that all families are granted either in higher or lower classes. So the idea that Sarah is obligated to stay home and while her husband is sole economic provider is simply garbage. You may know a couple that would be better off if they split the household needs in bourgeois fashion, but you have no business putting that on strangers from Alaska.

(Oh, and the fact that one daughter fell into the sin of fornication means exactly nothing as some sort of proof against Sarah’s responsibilities. It will prove nothing against Obama’s character either if it happens to him at some point.)

What we do have in Genesis is a man and a woman both given dominion over the whole earth. This represents humanity as a whole, but it usually isn’t experienced by other individuals. Most of us have a pretty small piece of it. But here is someone raised up like Esther (but for much better reasons and without the gross harem issues) to be at the right hand of the President who already is the queen of one of the world’s last wildernesses. It is an awesomely primal story we see playing out.

I can see lots of ways it could end in tragedy. But I also see lots or reasons for hope. And for once there is a chance for change, which until Palin was selected was something this election was entirely missing.

Is there a country somewhere that has a free market?

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I’m not trying to be political. I’m just minding my own business watching a video podcast when suddenly it is shoved in my face:

Analysts have said that Dell could face several obstacles to selling or outsourcing its plants, including incentive deals with local and state governments in the United States. Absorbing higher U.S. labor costs also could be a disincentive to Asian manufacturers.

It is not clear how the sale or outsourcing of Dell’s Forsyth plant would affect the $37 million in local incentives and up to $268 million in state incentives that it is eligible to receive.

Deborah Barnes, a spokeswoman for the N.C. Department of Commerce, said it is possible that the state incentives for Dell could be transferred to the new owner or operator of the Forsyth plant.

Those incentives, which come from the state Job Development Investment Grant (JDIG) program, are paid to the company that employs the workers, Barnes said. Dell has received about $1.5 million from that program to date. Dell also has received more than $2 million from the N.C. Revenue Department and more than $80,000 from the William S. Lee Act.

She said that a new company would have to meet the same incentive standards as Dell — minimum levels of full-time employees, and salary and benefit requirements.

Why are we arguing over corporate tax cuts in this election when we have loads of corporate welfare programs? We tax people to support corporations to pay people so they can be taxed to support corporations. Are we insane?

If the empire pays tribute is it still an empire?

Terrorism in the Middle East

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Here’s the story from the San Francisco Chronicle:

Safety pins and screws are still lodged in 15-year-old Ami Ortiz’s body three months after he opened a booby-trapped gift basket sent to his family. The explosion severed two toes, damaged his hearing and harmed a promising basketball career.

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Police say they are still searching for the assailants. But to the Ortiz family the motive is clear: The Ortizes are Jews who believe that Jesus was the Messiah.

Israel’s tiny community of Messianic Jews, a mixed group of 10,000 people who include the California-based Jews for Jesus, complains of threats, harassment and police indifference.

The March 20 bombing was the worst incident so far. In October, a mysterious fire damaged a Jerusalem church used by Messianic Jews, and last month ultra-Orthodox Jews torched a stack of Christian holy books distributed by missionaries.

Israel’s Foreign Ministry and two chief rabbis were quick to condemn the burning, but the Ortiz family says vigorous police action is needed.

“I believe that it will happen again, if not to us, then to other Messianic believers,” said Ami’s mother, Leah Ortiz, a 54-year-old native of South Orange, N.J.

Proselytizing is strongly discouraged in Israel, a state that was established for a people that suffered centuries of persecution for not accepting Jesus and has little tolerance for missionary work.

I was proud of my eldest son for pointing this out to me. He hears from other Christians how Israel is God’s special nation. I tell him that such statements are not true: the Church is God’s special nation whether comprised of Israelis, Arabs, subsaharan Africans, or even WASPS in North America. But he feels pressured sometimes, I think, to express some sort of theological loyalty to the modern nation of Israel. While a story above is horrible, and I pray for the day when that no longer happens, it does help teach him the difference.

Of course, compared to Sharia Law, Israel may be worth an alliance. I don’t have a strong opinion one way or another. But it saddens me to hear that heretical theology has such a stranglehold on Evangelicals that even in the twenty-first century prominant leaders attribute some sort of special divine identity to Israel.

And yes, I am regretful about some things I hear about Palin, if they are true.

One other thing: I hear people get incredulous or outraged when they learn that the Puritans and other settlers persecuted in England came to the New World to impose their own beliefs on others. Well, it is fine to disapprove of that practice, but to act like it is completely unthinkable is rather strange. Even the SF Chronicle seems to want to sympathize with Israel for exactly that kind of society.

Mark Horne

something helpful… or at least interesting