Dobson (again....sigh)

Well, our man Dobson has done it again.
He apparently is, has or knows the litmus test that determines if someone will be a good president, and even if someone is a Christian.
Speaking about Fred Thompson in U.S. News and World Report, Dobson said this:

"Everyone knows he's conservative and has come out strongly for the things that the pro-family movement stands for," Dobson said of Thompson. "[But] I don't think he's a Christian; at least that's my impression."

What is a Christian, according to Dobson's spokesman? "We use that word—Christian—to refer to people who are evangelical Christians."

In the old days, preachers mounted the pulpit with fear and trembling because of the awesome responsibility to preach the word of God correctly and call people to repentance. Nowdays that doesn't happen much anymore.

Dobson takes an awesome responsibility upon himself to judge the heart of a man he doesn't know, and make his judgement public, based on an impression. I think his knees should be shaking.

Dobson's phone call to U.S. News senior editor Dan Gilgoff Tuesday was unsolicited, reports the article.

Imagine.

Republicans

Those Republicans...

"Rudy Giuliani has defended Newt Gingrich, saying it's okay Newt had an affair and that no one is perfect. That's when you know the Republicans are in trouble -- when a guy with three marriages and an affair is defending the guy with three marriages and two affairs, so they can team up and beat a Clinton."

--Jay Leno

Proposal

It is a reasonable proposal.
At least he can pronounce it.

Casualties of War

Zbigniew Brzezinski

You can tell I like Jon Stewart.
In this clip, his guest is Zbigniew Brzezinski.
Articulate, smart man, who has good things to say about how the last three presidents have squandered the opportunity to really do something in the world after the fall of the Soviet Union.
If you have the time, take it to watch this clip.
If I were in the U.S. I'd buy the book.

Bush in South America

Dead before you die

This quote found on this blog:

Psychological studies reveal that Americans live in less than forty percent awareness, as though our minds and spirits cringe before the banality and ugliness of national life. Such studies imply an enormous waste of potential lost to trivial pursuits - game-playing, fantasizing, daydreaming, television, self-pity, brooding, boredom, gluttony in food or drink. Lost is the prospect of personal and social renewal, reading, study, meditation, prayer, teaching, service to the poor, justice, peacemaking, and non-violent resistance to power-mongering government and corporations. The scripture likens such crippled attentiveness to death - death before one dies.
Philip Berrigan

Newt Gingrich

Well, Newt Gingrich has admitted to having an affair at the same time he was heading up the impeachment procedings against Bill Clinton for perjury.
He is well educated, and is clear about how he could do that while carrying on an affair. He attempted to impeach Clinton because of perjury, not because of sexual immorality. So his own personal immorality played no rol in his efforts.
Technically he is correct.
When one divorces twice and has at least one affair, he has to lie more than once. There is no other way.
A liar is a liar is a liar. The room in which it happens doesn't make much difference. Courtroom or living room.
Certainly Christians with a moral conscience know that.

Gingrich has been interviewed on Focus on the Family radio by James Dobson.
One of the things Dobson said in his introduction: "We have often talked about pro-family issues that we care about so deeply."
I think it is scandalous for Dobson to overlook Gingriches' morality in this way, and help him prepare for a possible presidential run.

The Right and the Religious Right are seeming to make fools of themselves without thinking twice about it.
President big-smile-I-am-the-decider-I-am never-wrong Bush has mislead our country and dumped us into a mess of historic proportions and has been incompetent in almost every area of his presidency.
Dobson focusses on a couple of moral issues, promotes war and hate langauge and thinking, and now supports Gingrich who has a horrible moral record, not to mention the ethical questions which caused him to leave his post in Wshington.
The Right's most popular talk radio host has been divorced three times, is a (ex?) drug addict and was recently caught with Viagra in his handluggage while coming into the U.S.

It boggles the mind.

Bono

Bono's speech at the NAACP has received a lot of attention.
If you haven't seen it, you can see it here.
A couple of quotes:

Martin Luther King: A man who refused to hate because he knew love would do a better job.
Where you live should not decide whether you live or whether you die.
This is not a burden, this is an adventure.
We can be the generation that ends extreme poverty.

Nukelar

There's a very well written blog by Cynthia Huddleston called Prodigal Aspersions.
She wrote a piece about George Bush, Iraq and the way he says "nukelar".
A little bit of it here to whet your appetite.
Click here for the rest.
I got to Cynthia via Real Live Preacher. Also a well written blog.

Most of us had no idea George Bush would be president this long. (Stop a minute... Breathe...) Heck, George Bush probably didn't think that far ahead either. He said nukelar because that's the way he is...a Texas good ol' boy. He probably never realized that folks would find it incorrect or uneducated or misinformed. He always said nukelar, so nukelar it will ever be. Even if he now sees that it might look a mite rubish, what can he do?

George Bush cannot just start saying nuclear, as if he had always done so. That might point out the embarrassing fact that he has said nukelar about a million times...wrongly. What...wrong? Never. Gee folks, it was cute the first hunnerd times, but, ok, no more nukelar. Heh, heh..or more improbably... I was wrong. Can you imagine him saying it the right way just once and the story of it not leading the nightly news shows on all channels?

He cannot admit he was wrong. He just can't. It is not in him. He can't risk public ridicule by suddenly starting to say the word correctly. So he will just continue to say nukelar. You know he will. He will chuckle at it occasionally. Heh, heh. That's my nature. (Big grin)

Christian Pick-Up lines

I love the Wittenburg Door, the only Christian satire magazine.
Only thing is, because I've lived out of the U.S. for so long, there's a lot of satire I don't get.
But that Christians are a constant source of good satire is clear and pretty funny in and of itself.

This issue helps young Christian men pick up girls in a spritually wholesome way.
I wish I was young enough to try it.

Pick-up lines range from beginner-level, such as the favorite, "Do you want to start a Bible study with me?" to professional-grade, "In Koine Greek you would be known as babelios-dynimo. I've studied the ancient language for three years just to be able to tell you that truth with confidence." (Do not attempt this line unless you have actually studied Koine Greek.)

"Can I have your number? God told me that if I have faith when I ask I shall receive." (Matt. 6:7)

"Miss, I believe that if you were to count your ribs you'd find you have one of mine." (Gen. 2:21-23)

"Excuse me? Would you hold my hand as I pray? I believe that so long as you're standing with me, God will grant me anything I ask." (Matt. 18:20)

Conservapedia

Jon Swift, one of my favortie bloggers - no, make that my favorite blogger, including myself - has written a great piece on something I had not heard about yet. Conservapedia.
I took a look at it myself today. Really unbelievable and amusing.
Conservapedia bemoans Wikipedia's biases (anti-Christian and anti-American), but manages to say clearly on the main page: Conservapedia is an online resource and meeting place where we favor Christianity and America.
That's not bias?
Just for fun I looked up Copernicus.
Copernicus is described as having made the stunning claim that the earth revolved around the sun, opposing the views of science and the church of his time. Copernicus did make some unforgiveable mistakes, however: he thought the planets moved in circular revolutions and that the sun was stationary.
Conservapedia reports that most Protestant countries reacted negatively to the theory of Copernicus because it clashed with the Biblical truth that the sun had stood still for a while in the time of Joshua.
This illuminating article concludes with the assertion that To this day, most Protestant countries reject the Copernican theory.

I had not realized there were Protestant countries today.
I'm glad I found Conservapedia. Thanks, Jon.

Intellingence and Iran

This from Time Magazine:

Worst foreign policy mistake in history

"Things getting very nasty in Washington. Today the White House denied an assertion by Senator Harry Reid that the Iraq war is 'the worst foreign policy mistake in U.S. history.'
The White House said, 'You have to realize that President Bush has two more years in office.'"

--Conan O'Brien

Are we winning?

This in the news today about a resurgence of Al Qaeda.
Not really surprising.
Up until recently Buish has been saying that we are significantly crippling Al Qaeda. Apparently not.
It has already been announced that we are not winning in Iraq, probably soon he will have to announce we are not winning against Al Qaeda either.
I would use the word crazy to describe this if it weren't so dangerous.

Senior leaders of Al Qaeda operating from Pakistan have re-established significant control over their once-battered worldwide terror network and over the past year have set up a band of training camps in the tribal regions near the Afghan border, according to American intelligence and counterterrorism officials.

American officials said there was mounting evidence that Osama bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri, had been steadily building an operations hub in the mountainous Pakistani tribal area of North Waziristan. Until recently, the Bush administration had described Mr. bin Laden and Mr. Zawahri as detached from their followers and cut off from operational control of Al Qaeda.

The new warnings are different from those made in recent months by intelligence officials and terrorism experts, who have spoken about the growing abilities of Taliban forces and Pakistani militants to launch attacks into Afghanistan. American officials say that the new intelligence is focused on Al Qaeda and points to the prospect that the terrorist network is gaining in strength despite more than five years of a sustained American-led campaign to weaken it.

The concern about a resurgent Al Qaeda has been the subject of intensive discussion at high levels of the Bush administration, the officials said, and has reignited debate about how to address Pakistan’s role as a haven for militants without undermining the government of Gen. Pervez Musharraf, the Pakistani president.
Last week, President Bush’s senior counterterrorism adviser, Frances Fragos Townsend, went to Afghanistan during a Middle East trip to meet with security officials about rising concerns on Al Qaeda’s resurgence in Afghanistan and Pakistan, an administration official said.
Officials from several different American intelligence and counterterrorism agencies presented a consistent picture in describing the developments as a major setback to American efforts against Al Qaeda.

Sad but funny

If it wasn't so sad you could make it really funny...

Press Conference 2

Yesterday I said I'd quote some from Bushes' press conference of yesterday.
This post will be a little longer than normal, because I am quoting from the transcript.
The first subject has to do with the reliability of the intellingence telling us that Iran is sneding weapons to and meddling with the situation in Iraq.
It seems to me a most reasonable question and, in the light of the intelligence mistakes upon which the war in Iraq is based, absolutely necessary that we can trust the intelligence information we are getting. There is nothing political or negatively critical about the question. It is perfectly reasonable, and one we are most interested in.
That question was asked at least twice yesterday, and received no answer.
It is at least scandalous that no answer was given, and also alarming. Read it for yourself:

Q Thank you, sir. I'd like to follow on Iran. Critics say that you are using the same quality of intelligence about Iran that you used to make the case for war in Iraq, specifically about WMD that turned out to be wrong, and that you are doing that to make a case for war against Iran. Is that the case?
THE PRESIDENT: I can say with certainty that the Quds force, a part of the Iranian government, has provided these sophisticated IEDs that have harmed our troops. And I'd like to repeat, I do not know whether or not the Quds force was ordered from the top echelons of government. But my point is what's worse -- them ordering it and it happening, or them not ordering it and it happening? And so we will continue to protect our troops.
David, our strategy is comprehensive in order to resolve problems that will affect our own peace and the peace in the world. And the biggest problem I see is the Iranians' desire to have a nuclear weapon. As you know, we've been dealing with this issue ever since you've been covering me, and pretty much ever since I've been the President. And we've made it very clear to the Iranians that if they would like to have a dialogue with the United States, there needs to be a verifiable suspension of their program. I would hope that they would do that. I would like to be at the -- have been given a chance for us to explain that we have no desire to harm the Iranian people.
But my focus is on making sure that this weapon is dealt with, the program is dealt with in a constructive, peaceful way. And we'll continue to work toward achieving our common objective with other nations in the world in a peaceful way.

Q. What assurances can you give the American people that the intelligence this time will be accurate?
THE PRESIDENT: Ed, we know they're there, we know they're provided by the Quds force. We know the Quds force is a part of the Iranian government. I don't think we know who picked up the phone and said to the Quds force, go do this, but we know it's a vital part of the Iranian government. What matters is, is that we're responding. The idea that somehow we're manufacturing the idea that the Iranians are providing IEDs is preposterous, Ed. My job is to protect our troops. And when we find devices that are in that country that are hurting our troops, we're going to do something about it, pure and simple.

He gives us no assurance that the intelligence now is of a better quality than that of five years ago. None.

I also mentioned how difficult it is to understand Bush. If you have some time, try to figure out his answer to this question.

Q Mr. President, do you agree with the National Intelligence Estimate that we are now in a civil war in Iraq? And, also, you talk about victory, that you have to have victory in Iraq; it would be catastrophic if we didn't. You said again today that the enemy would come here, and yet you say it's not an open-ended commitment. How do you square those things?
…The reason I described that is that no matter what you call it, it's a complex situation, and it needed to be dealt with inside of Iraq. We've got people who say civil war, we've got people on the ground who don't believe it's a civil war. But nevertheless, it is -- it was dangerous enough that I had to make a decision to try to stop it, so that a government that is bound by a constitution, where the country feels relatively secure as a result of a security force that is even-handed in its application of security; a place where the vast resources of the country -- this is a relatively wealthy country, in that they've got a lot of hydrocarbons -- is shared equally amongst people; that there is a federalism that evolves under the Constitution where the local provinces have got authority, as well; and where people who may have made a political decision in the past and yet weren't criminals can participate in the life of the country; and is an ally in the war on terror. In other words, that there is a bulwark for moderation, as opposed to a safe haven for extremism. And that's what I would view as successful.

Now only 704 days.

Press Conference

I'm listening live to the Bush press conference today.
He really does simply avoid answering some pretty straightforward questions.
Some of what he says is really absolute nonsense.
Some of it is not understandable.
The English continues to be butchered.
It's an embarrassment.
When the text is printed, I'll comment more specifically.
Only 705 days, my counter tells me.

Children and the Kingdom

Today UNICEF published a report entitled: An overview of child well-being in rich countries.
It is an assessment of the wellbeing of children and adolescents in econcomically advanced nations.
On the front page are these words:

The true measure of a nation’s standing is how well it attends to its children – their health and safety, their material security, their education and socialization, and their sense of being loved, valued, and included in the families and societies into which they are born.

The older I get, the more I think this is correct. When we as families cannot or will not provide a safe place for our children, we fail miserably, however rich and powerful we may be.

It is interesting that Holland takes the first prize, having the highest average ranking.

The United Kingdom and the United States find themselves in the bottom third of the rankings for five of the six dimensions reviewed - Britain last and the U.S. next to last.

The U.S. has the higest number of children in households with less than 50% of the median income, and ranks, in that category, last.

My sermon this coming Sunday will be on Jesus' parable about Kingdom as a mustard seed that provides a nesting place for the birds of the air. Where the Kingdom is, people - and children - are safe.

Should give us a lot to think about. Where is Gods Kingdom now really?

Why are children so safe in "secular" Holland, and so unsafe in "Christian" America?

And what are you doing to promote the wellbeing of the next generation?

Derailed

Yesterday I had a conversation with someone about what it is like when things get difficult - either temporarily or for the long haul.
I used the example of a train that is derailed. It's not going anywhere (for a while).

What you don't need is someone who makes all kinds of suggestions about what you could/should have done to prevent the derailment.
It also doesn't help if those around you say or think look, you derailed the train, get it back on the tracks yourself, and when things are running again I'll catch up with you.
You need someone who bends down to help you without saying too much.

Sometimes you need more than one person.