A few things intrigued me as I perused my local paper yesterday:

First, Cal Thomas points out the often-cited contrast in pro-choice folk on their opinions regarding capital punishment:

It mocks life when anti-death penalty people advocate for the guilty, while caring nothing for the unborn.

He also points out something I had never thought of:

In self-defense, most see nothing wrong with taking life if another person is about to take theirs. It's only if the killer succeeds that the killer's life comes under constitutional protection.

Second, it is noted that "more than half the teenage girls taken from a polygamist compound in west Texas have children or are pregnant..." I'll guarantee they are not pregnant from other 14-17 year olds.

Finally, you've read the story, but I have to comment...that guy who imprisoned his daughter and his "grandchildren" for 24 years...crazy. Seven children...one dead at birth and tossed into an incinerator...three who never saw sunlight (what about the other three, how did he pass them off when they were out?)..I just can't comprehend. And after all that the mother has been through, her first reaction was for the welfare of her children, that they be protected and offered an opportunity at life...only a mother could think so selflessly.

This evening (actually a few weeks ago, I began this post back in the day)Maiya wanted me to read a few stories to her out of her Kid's Bible and one of the stories we read came from Matthew 21 regarding the Triumphal Entry. With last Sunday being Palm Sunday I had been sent a few articles on the prophecy implications of this passage and act of Christ, which I find very amazing and encouraging and mind-boggling all at the same time.

But something else struck me as pretty crazy as I read it to Maiya tonight. Not only did this fulfill the prophecy from the OT, but read the words of Jesus and the response of the disciples:

Jesus: Go to the village ahead of you, and at once you will find a donkey tied there, with her colt by her. Untie them and bring them to me.

Matthew: The disciples went and did as Jesus had instructed them.

I fully realize that by this point in the game the disciples had pretty much seen it all (opening the mouth of a fish and finding a four-drachma coin for the tax, to name one). But don't you think they still scratch their head a little on this one?

Nevertheless, they obeyed, and this is the cool thing. This is how it works in following Jesus:

Saul gets converted and Ananias is told "Go to the house of Judas on Straight Street and ask for a man from Tarsus named Saul, for he is praying..." and Ananias went, in spite of Saul's reputation for destroying Christians. (Acts 9)

Naaman has leprosy, goes to see the King of Israel, and "Elisha sends a messenger to say to him, 'Go, wash yourself seven times in the Jordan, and your flesh will be restored, and you will be cleansed.'" To which Naaman replies, "Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than any of the waters of Israel? Couldn't I wash in them and be cleansed?" He could have but that wasn't the point. In the end, we know the story, Naaman washes and is cleansed, praising God! (2 Kings 5)

Jesus was at his "home" in Capernaum teaching, which drew a crowd, leaving no room. "Some men came, bringing to him a paralytic, carried by four of them. Since they could not get him to Jesus...they made an opening in the roof above Jesus and, after digging through it, lowered the mat the paralyzed man was lying on. When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, 'Son, your sins are forgiven.'" (Mark 2) Can you picture this scene? How would this go over today? How do we describe these actions? Pure faith and trust in the Power of God!

Though Kingdom life is often not as linear and rational as we would like in the worldly terms we seek and operate under, it makes sense once we trust His calling on our heart and choose to follow Him. The question, as always, is how do we extrapolate these abstract principles and theories from the Word and put them into daily practice?

WOW! From Freakanomics, I'm staying out of the Congo!

Times columnist Nick Kristof recently highlighted economic research showing that climate change may be driving up the rate of executions of suspected witches in East Africa.
Tough times in the Congo may have been behind the recent witchcraft panic there, where police arrested 13 people accused of using black magic to shrink men’s penises.

And another one that may (or may not) help me from eating too much junk:

I walked into a Starbucks in Manhattan the other day and noticed that the food in the glass display case now lists three key facts: the name of the item, the price, and the calories. This last fact is new. It is the result of a recent New York City regulation that requires chain restaurants — those with 15 or more outlets in the city — to list caloric information.

Starbucks had a nice-looking (and huge!) apple fritter in the glass case that went for 490 calories. A slice of pound cake was just a bit less; I think the bagel cost 220 calories.

From The Economist:

“OUR politicians were corrupt, but we had enough money to buy food,” says Shah Alam, a day labourer in Rangpur, one of Bangladesh's poorest districts, nostalgic for the days before the state of emergency imposed in January last year. He has been queuing all day for government-subsidised rice. Two floods and a devastating cyclone last year, combined with a sharp rise in global rice prices, have left some 60m of Bangladesh's poor, who spend about 40% of their skimpy income on rice, struggling to feed themselves.

This quote is eerily familiar to my reading on other countries in Southeast Asia and the people's response to government. I remember reading either On the Road to Kandahar or The Places In Between (or both) and one of the themes was that most of the people didn't care about religion or government, they just wanted to feed their families. If that happened through the Taliban or Islam, so be it. It realistic, but scary at the same time.

I remember talking to a pastor in Kibera, a slum community in Nairobi, and he said that the Muslims and other religions were becoming very active in feeding the people in that area, and the people were responding by giving their allegiance to Islam. It's scary because though Christians were doing a lot of work in that area as well, you can't feed all of the people, and though food opens a door you can't rely on feeding everyone just so they follow Christ. Christianity stands on a much greater foundation than that, the Word of God and Message of Christ stand alone and don't require bread or rice to be relevant. I found the pastor we were working with almost requiring the person to confess Christ before he would hand over the food, which I don't agree with, but he found it the only way. Food and medicine is good, but as I stated earlier, he must realize that the Holy Spirit is not bound to our food or medicine to break through these strongholds, we must rely on that power as we work in the most poverty-stricken areas of the world, which continue to increase in number.

With the first pick of the 2008 NFL Draft, the Miami Dolphins select MICHIGAN Offensive Tackle...Jake Long. GO BLUE!!!!!!!!!!

The newest ESPN The Magazine discusses the change of scenery for various NBA vets who put on new jerseys in mid February. Pau Gasol's story intrigues me:

He did spend a fair amount of time at first scouring flight schedules. As Hollywood celebrated the Feb. 1 deal that shipped off out-of-favor Kwame Brown (plus promising rookie guard Javaris Crittenton, the draft rights to Pau's brother Marc and two future first-round picks), Gasol zigzagged the country. Five hours after being told he was moving, he was on a plane to LA to have his sore back examined. The next day, he jetted back east to meet his new teammates, in Washington to play the Wizards, before heading to Memphis to grab a few belongings. Then it was off to New Jersey to help the Lakers battle the Nets. That's 5,575 miles on a bad back—all commercial—in 72 hours, which makes a 24-point, 12-rebound debut in the Meadowlands only more impressive. (It may also explain why he went flat the next night in a loss to the Hawks.)

So you are telling me that the Lakers just traded for a man who was about to change their ($529 million-worth) franchise, who was on the books for 4 years and $63 million, who had a bad back, and you made him criss-cross the nation on a commercial plane? I find that hard to believe. If the Lakers didn't spring for the charter, you'd think Gasol could have forked over the $50K or so to rent a plane for a few days. I know I would have.

I don't know a whole lot about Richard Branson, other than he is very successful at most whatever he touches. I like his idea of breaking into and expanding his work in the airline industry:

Experiencing the future as Branson imagines it will cost you less than $300, the price of a bare-bones economy ticket between Los Angeles and New York City on one of Virgin America's 149-seat A320s. The planes are new, and the leather seats are comfortable enough for sleeping, even in coach. There are power outlets at every seat. The most profound change, though, doesn't look like much of an improvement at first. Like many U.S. carriers, Virgin America charges for food in economy class. But flight attendants don't dole it out from a cart like gruel in the orphanage; a touchscreen at each seat lets passengers pick what they want and pay by credit card. A few minutes after I swiped my card, an attendant brought my fruit-and-cheese box and a glass of cabernet to my seat. The food was fine, but what I remember more was the simple pleasure of getting what I wanted when I wanted it, freed from the Sisyphean tyranny of the cart...

But, it seems, don't be fooled by his "green ideals"...

His pledge to devote all the profits from his transportation businesses to fighting global warming, for example, is actually just a decision to channel some of Virgin Group's money, up to $3 billion over a decade, into a wide range of environmental companies, some of them as prosaic as a start-up that aims to reduce fuel costs through safer driving.

I was a little skeptical all along of the new wave of autism diagnoses the past decade or so (though my skepticism did nothing to sway my absolute empathy for parents and children of those who suffer from the disease, I just had a hunch something else was up), it seems that the Economist has unveiled a different reason for this:

FASHION is a strange thing, and many fields are susceptible to it—not least, medicine. There has, for example, been a vogue (among commentators, if not among doctors) to ascribe the rising number of cases of autism diagnosed over the past couple of decades to childhood vaccinations against measles, mumps and rubella. That this is fashion rather than reality is suggested by the fact that the explanation proffered in Britain has been that such vaccines provoke an immune response that damages the nervous system, whereas Americans have blamed residual mercury in the same vaccines.

It is now pretty well established that vaccination does not create autism. But the rise in the number of recorded cases is real enough. In Britain, for example, the rate of diagnosis has risen from 50 per 100,000 in 1990 to 400 per 100,000 today. That must have a cause. And one popular hypothesis is that this cause, too, is fashion—but among doctors rather than columnists.

This is an intersting take on the recent goings on in Texas, linked here. Adam actually posted this on a different site, so this is me stealing his material!

My question after reading this is at what point does the government need to step in on a situation like this? I haven’t read much more about this than what I linked to, but regardless, when can the government step in? I hate government involvement in anything, and I can see the slippery slope that Vox Day is warning us about, but if kids are being sexually abused, then I’ll be the first one to kick down that door to get those children out. Am I to assume that Vox would prefer that all parents be left to their own ways of raising kids, even if that means a good beating to teach the child a lesson? Boy, I sure hope not…

…On a quick side not, I saw this a while ago but thought it was particularly relevant after reading Vox’s slippery slope argument at the end of his article. Recently, a petition was started in the UK, found here. Like the traditional saying goes, I can’t make this stuff up!

PNate Out

Great article from The Economist on the elections in Zimbabwe, which took place three weeks ago with the results not yet released, and the lack of support for a fair election from their neighbors. My favorite quotes:

Can (South African President) Mr Mbeki seriously suggest, with a straight face, that the result would have been held back if Mr Mugabe had not lost?

The rich world also seeks, with offers of all kinds of aid, to bring other countries in Africa out of their poverty. But why should it help the governments in the region that seem blind to the monstrosity of Mr Mugabe, whose venality has helped impoverish much of the rest of the region too? Why should Africa as a whole be taken seriously when its leaders, on the whole, refuse to co-operate to remove such a cancer from their midst?

It is a sad truth that the main reason for Africa's malaise has been bad government. In the past decade Western leaders have made big efforts to right the wrongs of the past, above all by rewarding and encouraging better government. They should go on doing so. But it is not surprising that Western taxpayers feel loth to be generous when African leaders en masse refuse to help boot out one of their most wicked colleagues.

After Kenya's botched election and the brutal affects (which the Economist also noted this week, other than the killings and IDP's, will include a bloated government which will cost around $1 billion annually, an eight of the country's expected revenue) an editorial in the Daily Nation asked why, with the elections decided before the vote even happens, that African's bother with the voting process. Great question, and very applicable in this situation.

Hello everyone, I am JP’s youngest brother, and will also be contributing to this blog every now and then.

To follow Adam’s layout, I’ll give you a little bit about myself. I’m a recent graduate of the esteemed University of Stevens Point, with degrees in Philosophy and Business Administration. You’ll notice the philosophy part of that will come into play quite frequently, as I try to be as logically sound as possible. Like Adam and JP, I’ve also been redeemed by the blood of the lamb and am a bible thumping fundamentalist Christian! Politically, I’m a free-wheeler, give me liberty or give me death type guy, the more freedom from government the better! Personally, I’m about as sarcastic as they come, and enjoy witty and comedic comments.

To conclude, I’m going to leave my first post on this site the same way I did my first post on my previous (unsuccessful) blog… “(My posts) are an open discussion forum. I encourage discussion and when need be some dissension. Now with that, let the madness begin with a tagline from one of my favorite talk show hosts, Jim Rome, “Have a take, but don’t suck!”

PNate out!

Hello fellow visitors to this outstanding blog. I’m JP’s brother and I’ll be a guest contributor here from time to time.

A bit about myself. I’m a (relatively) young man pursuing a law degree in the beautiful and sunny state of Florida. Theologically I’m a follower of Jesus Christ, adhering to the historic, orthodox Christian faith. Politically I’m a libertarian crank (like sports, I’m mostly into politics for the entertainment).

All in all, like G.K. Chesterton, I’m a “prince of paradox.” My theological and political views don’t fit neatly under the traditional “liberal” or “conservative” labels. As you’ll learn as we move along on this entertaining and offensive and informative journey, my output will defy most simplistic characterizations.

I enjoy an adventurous, comedic life that involves (un)healthy doses of both joy and depression, optimism and pessimism. Cynical and sarcastic in the extreme, I’m easily restless, easily bored, and find it difficult to bear any day-in/day-out routine.

And that’s all you probably need to know for now. All that said, and without further delay, let’s start the insanity...

Regarding the post directly below, though the women and children are in much danger, we can breathe a sigh of relief that the bobonos in the Congo have a safe place to live.

Our prayers need to go out to the women and children in eastern Congo, according to The East African:

According to the report, systematic and widespread crimes against humanity continue to haunt the region...

By the end of this month, 45,000 more Congolese — half of them children — will die from hunger, preventable disease and other consequences of violence and displacement.

“Congolese women and girls in particular bear the brunt of this crisis. Indeed, eastern Congo right now is perhaps the worst place in the world to be a woman or a girl,” the report says.

The sexual violence and rape exists on a scale seen nowhere else in the world as it is part and parcel of the conflict. It mutilates and humiliates. Its nature is brutal and vicious; it defies both description and imagination.

Undoubtedly everyone has read the stories coming out of Texas and the polygamist compound where the women are leaving in droves. Praise God! I'm glad this is dominating the news, I'm glad people are hearing how destructive of a religion this is, and I pray that the women and children get the proper counseling and love that they need and the men get the proper punishments they deserve.

One other thought: This whole issue of whether the government should step in and shut this down puts me in somewhat of a quandary. One one hand, I absolutely feel that these compounds are destructive, that they prey on the innocent women and children that are held as prisoners and treated as slaves in these places, and need to be shut down, no questions asked. All one needs to do is read Jon Krakauer's Under the Banner of Heaven to realize the depth of the depravity of this situation. But on the other hand, I do want the government to stay out of our lives as much as possible. For example, I want them to allow parents to homeschool their children, but I won't be surprised if the government places tighter restrictions on this in the very near future. I want people to be able to live as they would like, without the government intervening on their lives. But the key is I want this to happen as long as it doesn't harm anyone involved, and that is where the argument happens. Do these compounds harm the women and children? I'd argue vehemently yes. Is homeschool appropriate for everyone, do all parents use this option for the best possible means? Of course not, so when and where does the government step in? I'll say for one I'm glad they did here and I hope this leads to more and more women and children coming out of these compounds and living in the freedom that these deserve.

Check out this link from Freakanomics and watch the videos!