Tolerance: True For You But Not For Them

I just came across this post at Katie's Beer. Isn't moral relativism just swell.

Sorry About the Detour

I really didn't intend to turn my blog into a celebrity obituary site. I wouldn't have posted on Dennis Weaver if it wasn't for the connection with my father. I'll try to lighten things up a bit. That might be tough, given the weighty issues of the day. However, I'll give it a try.

Dennis Weaver (1924-2006)

My younger male sibling, proprietor of Shock & Blog, has brought to my attention the fact that Dennis Weaver, best known for his portrayal of the title character in the TV show McCloud, died due to complications from cancer on February 24, 2006.

The above picture was not chosen arbitrarily. Dennis Weaver looked a lot like my father and this photo reminds me a lot of him. Interestingly, dad also died of complications from cancer in February 1998. It seems so long ago, but I remember it like it was yesterday.

Darrin McGavin (1922-2006)

Darrin McGavin, known for his roles as Carl Kolchak in the TV series Kolchak: The Night Stalker and as Ralphie's father in the holiday movie classic A Chirstmas Story, goes on to his major reward.



Darrin McGavin's Bio

[HT: Shock & Blog]

Don Knotts (1924-2006)

Don Knotts Bio

Lincoln on Punditry

"Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than
to speak out and remove all doubt."

The Quotation Page

South Dakota Impatience

The state of South Dakota is about to enact a law banning all abortions except to save the life of the mother. Clearly, the intent is to force the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) to re-examine and hopefully overturn the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision. While I share the goal of seeing Roe overturned, I am concerned that this action is premature and will have unintended consequences. At this time, there is no guaranty that there will be five votes to overturn Roe. I would even say it is unlikely that there will be five votes. However, it is possible that before President Bush leaves office, there will be another vacancy on the court. If South Dakota's attempt fails, it may be more difficult to challenge Roe when the odds favor the Pro-Life cause.

"Don't fight a battle if you don't gain anything by winning."

~ George S. Patton, Jr. ~

Lifer, With No Possibility of Parole

Here's another pointless quiz courtesy of Doug at Bogus Gold. The funny thing is that it's pretty accurate - I did take this at work. *wink*

I'm a Lifer!

To you, a job is what pays the bills. You put in your hours, follow the rules, and then go home. Occasionally, you consider quitting, but then you think of how bad the job market is and you reconsider. Whatever happiness you get, you get from your life outside the workplace. Relationships, family, hobbies, and outside creative pursuits are what really matter to you. You're probably taking this test at work because you don't have anything better to do.

Talent: 41%
Lifer: 59%
Mandarin: 56%

Take the Talent, Lifer, or Mandarin quiz.

Because He's a Manly Man

Fellow MOB member Alan Anderson lists some fascinating facts from chucknorrisfacts.com. I've listed them below because I needed to correct the typos. (Sorry, I just couldn't help myself.) I also left out a couple that were very funny, but of questionable taste.

When Chuck Norris does push-ups he doesn't push himself up. He pushes the earth down.
C.N. doesn't need a watch. He decides what the time is.
There are no WMDs in Iraq. C.N. lives in Oklahoma.
C.N. played Russian roulette with a fully loaded gun and he won.
When C.N. is in a crowded area, he doesn't walk around people. He walks through them.
C.N. has a deep and abiding love for human life...unless it gets in his way.
C.N. once ate an entire bottle of sleeping pills. They made him blink.
People wear Superman pajamas. Superman wears C.N. pajamas.
When C.N. calls 1-900 numbers, he doesn't get charged. Money falls out.
Scientists have estimated that the energy given off during the Big Bang is roughly equal to one C.N. Roundhouse Kick.
C.N.'s house has no doors; only walls that he walks through.
C.N. doesn't actually write books. The words assemble themselves out of fear.
C.N. can divide by zero.
The grass is always greener on the other side unless C.N. has been there. In that case, the grass is probably soaked in blood and tears.
C.N. invented his own type of karate. It's called Chuck-Will-Kill.
When C.N. talks, everyone listens or else dies.
C.N. doesn't throw up if he drinks too much. C.N throws down.
C.N. doesn't bowl strikes. He just knocks down one and the other nine faint.
It takes C.N 20 minutes to watch 60 minutes.

So, You Think Your Job Sucks...

...it could be worse.

D. N. R. (Do Not Rescue)

The euthanasia resistance organization, Not Dead Yet, has issued a statement in response to an NPR story about the killing of hospital patients in the wake of Katrina. From the NPR story:

NPR has reviewed secret court documents related to the investigation and not yet released to the public. The documents reveal chilling details about events at Memorial hospital in the chaotic days following the storm, including hospital administrators who saw a doctor filling syringes with painkillers and heard plans to give patients lethal doses...

According to statements given to an investigator in the attorney general's office, LifeCare's pharmacy director, the director of physical medicine and an assistant administrator say they were told that the evacuation plan for the seventh floor was to "not leave any living patients behind," and that "a lethal dose would be administered," according to their statements in court documents.

When you read the whole story, and I know you will, you will notice that NPR does point out that the conditions were terrible and some of the patients might not have survived being evacuated. So, the doctors euthanized their patients to remove the danger of killing them during evacuation. That's why physicians and scientists shouldn't make ethical decisions for society.

[HT: Lost Budgie]

Strange Bedfellows

If you are President Bush and former-president Jimmy Carter agrees with you on an issue, it's time to reconsider your position. Carter has been wrong on virtually everything since, well, forever. (The only exception has been his work with Habitat for Humanity. Go pound some nails, Jimmy. PLEASE!) At any rate, Presiden Bush finds himself in this unusual position because of his desire to allow a United Arab Emirates company to have commercial control over six major seaports.

In my opinion, the fact that a couple of the September 11th murderers were from the UAE isn't sufficient to squelch the deal. However, it should cause us to be additionally cautious. A far greater danger is that terrorists will attack one or more of the seaports knowing that the President will be blamed for pushing though this deal. If successful, they will undermine and weaken the President thereby jeopardizing the war effort. The UAE company could be entirely innocent, but that won't matter. The political reality is that this deal will be blamed and the President will be the one left standing when the music stops.

This deal is also bad because it gives Hillary an easy opening to sound stronger on defense than she is. Oops! Too late.

Welcome Fellow MOBsters

Well, I finally got off the dime and requested that The Impudent Finger be added to the blogroll for the Minnesota Organization of Blogs. The Elder was kind enough to forward my email to the proper department over at Fraters Libertas, Inc. Thanks to St. Paul for his prompt action in getting me on the blog roll.

If you are visiting for the first time, welcome and thank you for taking the time. I hope you find something interesting here. One thing you will notice is that I don't do middle-finger humor. (If that's what you're looking for, adjust your Google search and try again.) I address politics, pop culture, current events and whatever else trips my trigger. I usually try to throw in a little humor when I can. Every once in awhile, I'm actually funny.

Happy Presidents Day

I used to like this holiday more when I worked in the banking/mortgage business. You guessed it. Paid holiday. Now, it's just another paid working day. I think I need a new agent.

I listened to the NARN (Northern Alliance Radio Network) radio show this weekend as I usually do. The father of a soldier in Iraq called in and plugged his son's blog. With a blog name like Fun With Hand Grenades, I had to go check it out. First, a warning. If colorful language (with an occasional F-bomb) is something you will find offensive, you will get offended. However, Dreadcow (his nom de plume) is a very good writer and writes exactly what he is thinking and feeling. I plan on making his blog one of my regular reads. I hope you will do the same.

From Ashes to Kerosene

Joe Carter of The Evangelical Outpost has a great piece entitled Let’s Melt the Ice Cap: Evangelicals, Scientific Consensus, and Global Warming It's a thought provoking post even if you disagree with him.

Context, Context, Context

Justin at Between Two Worlds points to a problem with the scripture referenced in the banner of this church website. I must admit I didn't recognize the problem immediately. The passage is Luke 4:7 KJV:

If thou therefore wilt worship me, all shall be thine.

Taken out of context, it doesn't sound all that bad. However, here is the immediate context (vv 6-8) :

And the devil said unto him, All this power will I give thee, and the glory of them: for that is delivered unto me; and to whomsoever I will I give it. If thou therefore wilt worship me, all shall be thine. And Jesus answered and said unto him, Get thee behind me, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.

As Homer Simpson would say, "DOH!"

UPDATE: The church has since removed the poorly chosen scripture from their website and replaced it with their phone number. Maybe that's a hint to bloggers that we should call them instead of making fun of their mistake. Point taken.

How About Balaam's Ass

Rapper and 'Bush Basher' Kanye West thinks he should be a character in the Bible.

Maclaurin Institue Free MP3 Downloads

The Maclaurin Institute has several new MP3 files available on their website. They include lectures, debates and panel discussions on topics such as: Does Religion Benefit Society?; Quest for Truth; Philosophy of the Pro-Life Movement; Evolution and Creationism; Suffering and Evil; Science and Faith.

The lecturers and participants include: Father Richard John Neuhaus, Jed Macosko, Alan Padgett, Krister Sairsingh, Randy Moore and Robert Spitzer. Previous lecturers include Walter Kaiser; Craig Blomberg; Michael Behe; Dallas Willard; Jean Bethke Elshtain; Phillip Johnson; Dr. Alvin Plantinga; Dr. David Aikman; Ravi Zacharias; Peter Kreeft; and Vishal Mangalwadi.

Austin Bay on Toon Troubles

Since I am one who believes we are in the midst of World War IV, I tend to agree with Austin Bay's assessment of the ongoing "Cartoon War". Austin considers if a "very sophisticed information warfare operation." Read his posts on the subject here , here , here , here and here.

Piper Surgery Update

Desiringgod.org has an update on Pastor John Piper's upcoming cancer surgery. Please remember him, his family and the surgeon in your prayers.

My previous post on the announcement of Pastor Piper's prostate cancer can be found on Solablog.

Deforestation Reduces Greenhouse Gasses

Okay, I'll admit it. This Reuters story doesn't claim that deforestation reduces greenhouse gasses. However, it does tend to undercut some Global Warming conventional wisdom (sic):

The journal Nature reports that a group of German scientists led by Dr Frank Keppler have discovered a new source of greenhouse gasses - plants . . . Keppler and his colleagues discovered that living plants emit 10 to 100 times more methane than dead plants. Scientists had previously thought that plants could only emit methane in the absence of oxygen.

So if the plants are dead there will be less greenhouse gasses produced. Maybe I should retract my previous mea culpa.

David Lowe, of the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research in New Zealand, said the findings are startling and controversial. "Keppler and colleagues' finding helps to account for observations from space of incredibly large plumes of methane above tropical forests," he said in a commentary on the research . . . But the study also poses questions, such as how such a potentially large source of methane could have been overlooked and how plants produced it.

The answer to the first question is easy. It's called philosophical and political bias. As to how plants produce so much methane, that will need to be addressed by using the scientific method.

The Politics of Not Being Them

In this article, the New York Times reports that some Democrats can't figure out why they are doing so poorly:

...Democrats described a growing sense that they had failed to take full advantage of the troubles that have plagued Mr. Bush and his party since the middle of last year, driving down the president's approval ratings, opening divisions among Republicans in Congress over policy and potentially putting control of the House and Senate into play in November.

Asked to describe the health of the Democratic Party, Senator Christopher J. Dodd of Connecticut, the former chairman of the Democratic National Committee, said: "A lot worse than it should be. This has not been a very good two months. We seem to be losing our voice when it comes to the basic things people worry about," Mr. Dodd said.

What Senator Dodd fails to realize is that the Dems haven't lost their voice. The people hear them loud and clear. The Dems hate President Bush so much they have treated every issue as if it is "opposite day". Bush says "Yes" and they say "No". Democrat Senator Evan Bayh summarizes their problem very succinctly:

...Mr. Bayh said, "I don't believe we will win by just not being them."

Deciding What Is Right(s)

In his article, Bogus Rights, Walter Williams points out that not all "rights" are Rights.

Do people have a right to medical treatment whether or not they can pay? What about a right to food or decent housing? Would a U.S. Supreme Court justice hold that these are rights just like those enumerated in our Bill of Rights? In order to have any hope of coherently answering these questions, we have to decide what is a right.

Read the entire article here to find out what is right.

No. 11: Blogging on the Job

Here are 10 Ways to Poison Your Career.

The CSI Effect

It was inevitable. The very popular CSI and it's various spin-offs have given criminals a tutorial on how to destroy evidence of their crimes.

Prosecutors have complained for years about "the CSI effect" on juries -- an expectation in every trial for the type of high-tech forensic evidence the show's investigators uncover. It also appears the popular show and its two spinoffs could be affecting how some crimes are committed. "They're actually educating these potential killers even more," said Capt. Ray Peavy, also of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department and head of the homicide division. "Sometimes I believe it may even encourage them when they see how simple it is to get away with on television."

You can read the entire article HERE.

Liberals Gone Wellstone

The debacle of the Paul Wellstone memorial service was revisited at the memorial service for Coretta Scott King. Drudge reports:

The outspoken Rev. Joseph Lowery, co-founder of Southern Christian Leadership Conference, ripped into President Bush during his short speech, ostensibly about the wife of Martin Luther King Jr. "She extended Martin's message against poverty, racism and war. She deplored the terror inflicted by our smart bombs on missions way afar. We know now that there were no weapons of mass destruction over there," Lowery said. The mostly black crowd applauded, then rose to its feet and cheered in a two-minute-long standing ovation . . . "But Coretta knew, and we know," Lowery continued, "That there are weapons of misdirection right down here," he said, nodding his head toward the row of presidents past and present. "For war, billions more, but no more for the poor!" The crowd again cheered wildly.

Jimmy Carter, not being satisfied with his place as the worst president and worst ex-president in American history, decided to increase the size of the ash heap upon which history will deposit his legacy:

Former President Jimmy Carter later swung at Bush as well, not once but twice. As he talked about the Kings, he said: "It was difficult for them then personally with the civil liberties of both husband and wife violated as they became the target of secret government wiretaps." . . . Later, Carter said Hurricane Katrina showed that all are not yet equal in America.

What's wrong with these people? They turn memorial services into political rallies. What ever happened to mourning or at least celebrating the life of the dearly departed? Most decent Americans think taking advantage of the dead for political purposes is disgusting and that was proven when Norm Coleman won Wellstone's Senate seat. Fortunately for the Democrats, this time the next election is nine months away.

Baby, It's Cold Outside

Russian astronomer, Khabibullo Abdusamatov, is predicting a mini Ice Age in about 40 - 45 years.

. . . temperatures will begin falling six or seven years from now, when global warming caused by increased solar activity in the 20th century reaches its peak . . . The coldest period will occur 15 to 20 years after a major solar output decline between 2035 and 2045. . .

Great. I was looking forward to a nice warm climate in my old age. Now I'll be freezing my butt off when I'm 80.