Congratulations and welcome home, Jared! Sounds like a lot of waiting on God and just plain waiting has been rewarded. It brought a smile to my face to see the picture with your new son. All the best and richest blessings to you and your family!
Via American Thinker, here is quotable wisdom Tony Snow shared in a May 2007 commencement speech, advice to “live boldly, to live a whole life”:
1. Think; use your brains.
2. Take risks; don’t be content with what you know.
3. Commit to God. Faith is as natural as the air we breathe. Religion is the introduction to the ultimate extreme sport.
4. Get out and experience life. Get your fingernails dirty… and laugh, a lot, at yourselves. ..the pain, the poignancy, the aches are essential; they bring us together.
5. Love. It is everything…to love is to acknowledge that life is not about you…to submit willingly, heart & soul, to things that matter. Think not only of what it means to love but what it means to be loved. I have a lot of experience with that. Since the news that I have cancer again, I have heard from thousands and thousands of people and I have been the subject of untold prayers. I’m telling you right now: You’re young [and you feel] bullet-proof and invincible. [But] never underestimate the power of other people’s love and prayer. They have incredible power. It’s as if I’ve been carried on the shoulders of an entire army. And they had made me weightless.
Rest in peace, Tony Snow (1955-2008). Condolences to his family and loved ones.
The warped, whiny, politically correct victim culture has reached a new milestone of insanity:
A homosexual man who has a blog on Sen. Barack Obama’s campaign website is suing two major Christian publishers for violating his constitutional rights and causing emotional pain, because the Bible versions they publish refer to homosexuality as a sin.
Bradley LaShawn Fowler, 39, of Canton, Mich., is seeking $60 million from Zondervan and another $10 million from Thomas Nelson Publishing in lawsuits filed in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, the Grand Rapids Press reported.
I’m sure if he goes judge-shopping long enough, Mr. Fowler the Barack Obama blogger may even find one who agrees with him that scholarly translations of sacred texts should be obliterated if they cause offense. News flash: The Holy Scriptures and the Christ they tell us about are an offense and a stumbling block to people everywhere determined to live their own way - including Mr. Fowler’s hubris to think that he has unveiled a biblical interpretation that has eluded scholars for centuries.
In this showdown of Leftist lunatic zealotry vs. religious freedom and common sense, there’s every reason to believe the latter will prevail. But as a Right Wing News blogger observed:
Christians are advised to find secure places to store Bibles, where they will be safe from authorities after the book has been banned for failing to comply with the one true commandment: There is no god but moonbattery, and Obama is its prophet.
Wow. Simply wow.
Today marks 120 days until the November 4 general election - 120 days of obnoxious pandering by Presidential candidates, 120 days of campaign television and radio ads, 120 days for lovers of the Republic to hold their collective breath. Sigh.
Speaking of candidate pandering, Barack Obama’s recent whiplash-inducing rush away from his Leftist voting record and positions should give cause for concern. As one noted for his aptitude at quoting Scripture out of context, though, Barack Obama does have a ready-made passage he can abuse to justify his major switcheroos:
I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some.
Of course, it goes without saying that I Corinthians 9:22 doesn’t say anything of the sort that would justify Barack Obama’s waffling. But the thought that he “might save some” of us from ourselves fits right in with his messianic complex. And the way this campaign has unfolded so far, I wouldn’t be shocked if Obama did quote this passage some day soon on the trail.
Now back to summertime and the non-political life.
From the Times of India (via Drudge Report):
NEW DELHI: With Democrat senator Barack Obama busy in the run-up to the US presidential polls, a group of well-wishers in the capital have decided to send him a symbol of his lucky charm, Lord Hanuman, to help him emerge victorious….
An hour-long prayer meeting to sanctify the idol was earlier organised at Sankat Mochan Dham and by Congress leader Brijmohan Bhama, Balmiki Samaj and the temple’s priests.
“Obama has deep faith in Lord Hanuman and that is why we are presenting an idol of Hanuman to him,” said Bhama.
This story gives a whole new meaning to the name “American Idol.” But seriously, this could add another layer of religious confusion to the ever-unfolding bizarre “Obamessiah” phenomenon.
Okay, we all know Barack Obama is not a Muslim. After all, Islam disdains idolatry, as at their core do Christianity and Judaism. So should Obama accept the Hindu idol? Apart from worrying about the fuel it might add to all the recent talk surrounding religion and his campaign, he also may wish to consider this first:
The monkey symbolism of Lord Hanuman is related to the notion that a human being’s mind is ever active and never restful, hence the depiction of a human being with the face of a monkey. Furthermore, Lord Hanuman symbolically stands for pure devotion, complete surrender and absence of ego or the lower self.
The “pure devotion” and “complete surrender” may refer to the blind legions following Barack Obama, but what about the “absence of ego”? It’s very hard to see how that would describe Obama himself. All told, one of the more curious political stories of the season.
Jason Janz - a personal acquaintance I met through his launching and running the successful Christian website Sharper Iron - wrote a Speakout published in today’s Rocky Mountain News about Denver’s upcoming Juneteenth celebration:
I am not African-American and I am going to Juneteenth. In fact, I believe that people of all ethnicities should attend if they are able. Why? Juneteenth is a celebration of freedom and equality, values that every American should embrace. Just because the peak of the civil rights movement has passed does not mean that racial tension in our community is gone. There is still much work to do. By standing next to the African-American community, you are showing solidarity with them as a partner for peace and harmony in our city.
I also believe that celebrating another culture will enrich your life. Learning about another culture will teach you much about your own. You cannot fully understand your own culture unless you understand others. Saturday will be a study for you in similarities and differences. You will see commonalities that show that all people are more alike than different. At the same time, you will see the differences between your culture and African-American culture as unique gifts from God to make this city a beautiful place to live and work.
Jason and his family left their more comfortable place in a suburban church ministry to start the multi-ethnic Providence Bible Church. If you are a Christian believer, please consider supporting the Janz family and their labor of love with your prayers. Or maybe you can join them at this Saturday’s Juneteenth celebration.
It sounds like Republican Party ideals are not exactly in their heyday in Montana (H/T Volokh Conspiracy):
Republican U.S. Senate nominee Bob Kelleher wants a “nonviolent revolution” to overthrow the foundation of American government. He favors enormous, FDR-style government work programs to reduce poverty; he wants to nationalize the American oil and gas industries and supports government-run, socialized medicine. He has little nice to say about President Bush or former Montana Gov. Marc Racicot.
Political scientists and the head of the Montana Republican Party say Kelleher, 85, isn’t really a Republican, at all.
And yet, two days ago, Kelleher beat five other, mostly conservative to mainstream GOP candidates to become the Republican who will take on Sen. Max Baucus in the fall.
Since John McCain is a strong favorite to win Montana’s three electoral votes, it looks like there will be a lot of vote-splitting this November in Big Sky Country.
But a socialist as the Republican candidate for U.S. Senate? Maybe one of my Montana conservative friends can fill me in. Craig? Charles?
The hearts of Coloradans are struck by the extensive destruction wrought by yesterday’s Weld County tornado.
The Rocky Mountain News has a rolling feed of live coverage on events in Windsor and the surrounding areas - truly a 21st century newspaper feature. Fellow blogger Bob Agard has posted video from the opening of last night’s MSNBC News coverage - reminding us how truly amazing it is that the storm resulted in only one fatality.
Meanwhile, of most importance, if you are able to do anything to help our neighbors in need - the Centennial Chapter of the American Red Cross is collecting donations for local relief. And please remember to utter a prayer for those whose lives have been turned upside down.
We should also be reminded of much larger international tragedies of late - and find good ways to help the victims in Myanmar and in China, such as World Vision or Caring for China.
Update, Part Deux: Sources have contacted me to correct my update. The Act hasn’t officially passed the Senate yet. The final vote will be later this week. The first vote was a procedural motion that appears to be a strong indicator of a final vote. Anyway, there is hope for this bad legislation to die yet.
Update: Just as I was publishing this post, it looks like the Act has passed the Senate, with a lot of so-called Republicans also enabling the legislation. So goes the world…
Unsurprisingly, the Democrats in Congress haven’t accomplished much since they took over. Most notably, Nancy Pelosi’s 2006 “plan” to bring down gas prices is still in the works.
One special interest group to which Democrats have been busy pandering is Big Labor. They keep trying to take away workers’ rights to a secret ballot (aka the “Employee Free Choice Act”) as a means of growing private-sector union membership.
Meanwhile, Democrats in Washington have been trying to coerce the growth of union clout in the public sector, too. The issue at hand is the Public Safety Employee-Employer Cooperation Act of 2007 (S. 2123), which has made its reappearance in the Senate, having initially stalled there after passing the House:
Under current law, every state has the ability to set policies that govern its public workforce. In some states, police, firefighters and paramedics belong to unions that collectively bargain for their contracts. In others, unions representing public-security workers can bargain over pay, but not over benefits or work rules. And in some others, these workers can choose not to belong to a union.
Democrats want to change this for the entire country. A bill that passed the House last year would make the top officials at local unions the exclusive bargaining agents for public safety officers in every town or city with more than 5,000 people. They would also have the authority to bargain for everything — pay, benefits and work rules. The goal is to give labor the whip hand with local governments, and further coerce nonunion members to join the dues-paying ranks.
A top-down dictum to small local governments to mandate union recognition for police, fire, and other public safety workers? It’s a lot more efficient for Big Labor leaders to push the change at the federal level than to wade through the various laws of different states that have different prevailing views about public-sector labor relations. And Congressional Democrats are enabling them, without any compelling reason in the public interest and, in fact, many potential harms to the public interest.
If you want more information, the Alliance for Worker Freedom has a ton of resources on the issue. There’s also a great brief written by James Sherk of the Heritage Foundation.
Last year, when this issue was first hot, I interviewed Weld County Sheriff John Cooke for an iVoices podcast to discuss the potential local impact of the federal legislation.
A major earthquake in China today strikes home with a couple of my Colorado blogging friends.
Jared and his wife are waiting to pick up their new son from China. Meanwhile, El Presidente waits to hear from “friends and former students” who live in the affected region.
As usual, if you are so inclined, prayers are in order.
Democrat Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has conjured up a Scriptural passage from whole cloth to sanction her Left-liberal environmentalist agenda:
In her April 22 Earth Day news release, Pelosi said, “The Bible tells us in the Old Testament, ‘To minister to the needs of God’s creation is an act of worship. To ignore those needs is to dishonor the God who made us.’ On this Earth Day, and every day, let us pledge to our children, and our children’s children, that they will have clean air to breathe, clean water to drink, and the opportunity to experience the wonders of nature.”
Cybercast News Service repeatedly queried the speaker’s office for two days to determine where the alleged Bible quote is found. Thus far, no one has responded.
Distinguished biblical scholars, however, cast doubt on the existence of the passage.
Not that biblical scholars necessarily had to be consulted to disprove the obvious, but they all unanimously point out that nothing approximating such a passage exists - and one even called it “fictional.” (Michelle Malkin links to other bloggers commenting on the subject.)
Read the rest of this entry »
Yesterday I wrote about the positive experience of meeting RedState’s Erick Erickson. What I forgot to post was a mention of the speech he gave at Samsphere. It’s good food for thought for those of us who blog on the conservative, pro-freedom side.
Better yet, here’s the link to a written version of the speech, with an excerpt to tease your interest:
Too many of us are frozen by inaction today because of our visions of tomorrow. I can’t tell you how many friends I see sitting around, plotting web strategy and how to crush the left online only to sit on their hands or twiddle their thumbs and give up hope because they don’t have the funding or the knowledge or the connections or the skill set or the message hammered out — great ideas on the ash heap of history because they spent so much time taking stock of tomorrow that they never took stock of today.
Even here this weekend, several people have mentioned the money advantage on the left. We have become fixated on the money advantage. I’ve got to point out that 200 plus years ago a rag tag group of Americans using their own rifles and bullets beat the best organized, best funded army the world had ever seen to gain freedom. Online, it’s time for us to do it again. The money, like the French and Spanish did 200 years ago, will come. But first we need to show what we are capable of with our present tools.
Most of the people fretting about the money we don’t have, have something in common with another set of people we know — the ones who are in the conservative movement and think their project is the cause instead of the cause being their project.
These two groups perfectly encapsulates where the right is online right now. We are, as Screwtape wanted, hag-ridden by the Future—haunted by visions of an imminent heaven or hell upon earth. We are perpetually in pursuit of the rainbow’s end, ignoring every real gift which is offered us in the Present.
It was truly one of the highlights of the Samsphere experience, not in the least because Erick cited C.S. Lewis and the Patriots of the American Revolution.
Serious reflections for Good Friday (all passages from the New American Standard Bible):
Romans 5:6-9
For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for the good man someone would even dare to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him.
I Peter 2:21-24
For you have been called for this purpose, since Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example for you to follow in His steps, WHO COMMITTED NO SIN, NOR WAS ANY DECEIT FOUND IN HIS MOUTH; and while being reviled, He did not revile in return; while suffering, He uttered no threats, but kept entrusting Himself to Him who judges righteously; and He himself bore our sins in His body on the cross, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness; for by His wounds you were healed.
For more edification, read Rev. Mark D. Roberts’ observations on Christ’s seven sayings from the cross.
But the best news is that Christ is alive (more reflections to come for Easter)!
Today we remember the Last Supper and Christ’s betrayal. Though there are many passages to choose from, in particular I am reminded of the Savior’s ultimate example of service and his incomparably fervent prayer (both from the New American Standard Bible):
John 13:3-5
Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into His hands, and that He had come forth from God, and was going back to God, rose from supper, and laid aside His garments; and taking a towel, He girded Himself about. Then He poured water into the basin, and began to wash the disciples’ feet, and to wipe them with the towel with which He was girded.
Luke 22:41-44
And He withdrew from them about a stone’s throw, and He knelt down and began to pray, saying, “Father, if Thou art willing, remove this cup from Me; yet not My will, but Thine be done.” Now an angel from heaven appeared to Him, strengthening Him. And being in agony He was praying very fervently; and His sweat became like drops of blood, falling down upon the ground.
On the Tuesday before His crucifixion, Christ was famously tested by questions from the religious teachers. Two of his dazzling responses that confounded his questioners (both from the New American Standard Bible):
Mark 12:17
And Jesus said to them, “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” And they were amazed at Him.
Matthew 22:37-40
And He said to him, “‘YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND.’ This is the great and foremost commandment. The second is like it, ‘YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.’ On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the prophets.”
By nearly all scholarly accounts, the following are from passages that happened on the Monday before Christ’s crucifixion (both from the New American Standard Bible):
Matthew 21:21
And Jesus answered and said to them, “Truly I say to you, if you have faith, and do not doubt, you shall not only do what was done to the fig tree, but even if you say to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and cast into the sea,’ it shall happen.
Luke 19:45-46
And He entered the temple and began to cast out those who were selling, saying to them, “It is written, ‘AND MY HOUSE SHALL BE A HOUSE OF PRAYER,’ but you have made it a ROBBERS’ DEN.”
Joshua has a very disturbing report that took me by surprise:
The Republicans in State House District 6 in Denver are about to make a terrible mistake.
At their Assembly on March 1, they nominated a terror apologist, and an avowed enemy of Israel, with no credible conservative credentials as their candidate to succeed Rep. Andrew Romanoff. Her name is Rima Barakat Sinclair.
Joshua has all the details and the links to make his case. It’s not the religion, but the Leftist affiliations, the moral equivalence, the deceptive behavior, and the dissembling rhetoric that Ms. Barakat Sinclair should have to answer clearly for.
Rather than rehashing it all, I would say that if there is any truth and substance in this report, that Joshua’s conclusion is absolutely correct. The Party needs to find another candidate to rally around in District 6:
Fortunately, the nomination is not yet set in stone, and there is still a chance to petition a more appropriate candidate onto the ballot.
Such a candidate would be able to help build party strength, keep it viable in a difficult season, promote ideas and philosophies we all care about, and perhaps even help in some small way the candidates for statewide and national office.
It would be an almost sure defeat in the general election, but the cost to petition on the ballot would be well worth saving any honor the Party has.
Over at the Corner, Mark Steyn highlights the Left’s illogical “Sharia creep” in its latest manifestations in the United States:
Forty years ago, advocating separate drinking fountains made you a racist. Today, advocating separate taxi cabs or separate swimming sessions makes you a multiculturalist.
No one has a keener eye for this stuff than Mark Steyn. If you’re not reading him regularly, you should be. After all, he has been fighting the good fight for free speech against Canada’s Human Rights Commission. (More on this story from Michelle Malkin.)
A little solidarity today from south of the 48th parallel.
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