Selective Myopia: James Dobson decries "utter evil" Congress

I still can't believe that I almost went to work for this guy...

James Dobson of Focus on the Family is telling his radio listeners that there is now "utter evil" coming out of Congress. What scares Dobson, he claims, is so-called "hate crimes" legislation: the proponents of which want tougher penalties for those convicted of criminal acts committed against others because of "sexual orientation".

Now folks, I'm against "hate crimes" legislation myself. Because in my mind there is no such thing as a "hate" crime. Does the motive honestly matter why somebody chooses to hurt another, if the end result is the same as any other circumstance? I have as much sympathy for a victim of a criminal act as I will for any other... but I'm not gonna consider one victim to be any more "special" than someone else because of alleged precipitating criteria. So as far as that goes, I will say that I have to agree with Dobson.

Where I can not agree with him however, is what is very apparently his underlying motivation for saying such a thing. Indeed, there is little doubting the motivation for much of Focus on the Family's "ministry"...

"I want to tell our listeners something has come up that is so shocking and so outrageous, we must make our friends out there aware of it," he said on his daily radio program.

"I'm going to speak very bluntly today because there's no other word for it: the utter evil that's coming out of Congress," he said. "I've been on the air 32 years and I've never seen a time quite like this.

"The radical left controls the executive branch through the president, and the Congress where the Democrats have control of both the House and the Senate," he said, adding the courts are expected to move even further to the left."

Anytime I hear phrases like "radical left" or "far right", those pop a honkin' big red flag in my head... 'cuz such words scream what this is all about. And his very tired hyperbole like "so shocking and so outrageous" isn't working in Dobson's favor either.

James Dobson is primarily interested in "his side" regaining political control of Congress and the White House.

Except James Dobson apparently fails to realize that "his side" had both for most of the past decade, and accomplished... what, exactly, in that time?

Professing Christians in America like James Dobson still believe - and very foolishly, I will add - that this country can be saved through politics.

They are so much more wrong about that, than I can possibly put into words.

These people have become blinded by might. They have placed more faith in their own understanding than they have placed in the Christ whom they claim to follow.

And as I have said before: people like James Dobson have no sincere interest at all in issues like "gay marriage" and abortion being defeated and going away. Opposition to them brings in a huge amount of money to organizations like Focus on the Family. Why else did the Republicans never make any serious attempt to pass an amendment to the Constitution protecting "traditional marriage" when they controlled Congress? Because so long as they can keep promising to oppose it, there'll always be plenty of well-meaning rubes gullible enough to keep voting for them.

This is all a game, folks. The politicians in both major parties have been playing us like pieces for too damned long. And people like James Dobson and too #@*&-ing many others don't care one whit about what is right: they just want to have a seat at "the king's table".

So if we can't put our faith in politics, what do we put our faith in, then?

Maybe... God?

And not the "God" that people like Dobson would have us believe has decreed that "Thou shalt not vote against any Republican", either.

I mean a serious and sincere turning away from what we want: rejecting any desire for worldly power, and heartfelt repenting of ever having lusted for such a thing.

If there is evil at work in the land, it is because we - all of us, including the professing "conservatives" and "Republicans" - let it happen by trusting in ourselves more than we trusted in God.

Yes, this demands that thing called "humility" which has become inordinately out of fashion among too many of those who claim to follow Christ. But that is what it is going to require.

And until I hear a call for that coming out of the mouth of James Dobson, I see no reason why any of us should consider him to be a real "Christian leader" at all.

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Rheum palaestinum: The plant that waters itself

All sorts of interesting science news coming out of Israel these days. Last week there was the world's oldest patch of exposed soil. Now comes word that a variety of desert rhubarb can irrigate itself: the only plant in the world known to have such an ability.

Mash down here for the fascinating story of Rheum palaestinum: the plant that waters itself.

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Brain does complex problem-solving while daydreaming

Perhaps Wally from Scott Adams' Dilbert is on to more than he realizes...

From ScienceDaily...

Brain's Problem-solving Function At Work When We Daydream

ScienceDaily (May 12, 2009) — A new University of British Columbia study finds that our brains are much more active when we daydream than previously thought.

The study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, finds that activity in numerous brain regions increases when our minds wander. It also finds that brain areas associated with complex problem-solving – previously thought to go dormant when we daydream – are in fact highly active during these episodes.

"Mind wandering is typically associated with negative things like laziness or inattentiveness," says lead author, Prof. Kalina Christoff, UBC Dept. of Psychology. "But this study shows our brains are very active when we daydream – much more active than when we focus on routine tasks."

For the study, subjects were placed inside an fMRI scanner, where they performed the simple routine task of pushing a button when numbers appear on a screen. The researchers tracked subjects' attentiveness moment-to-moment through brain scans, subjective reports from subjects and by tracking their performance on the task.

The findings suggest that daydreaming – which can occupy as much as one third of our waking lives – is an important cognitive state where we may unconsciously turn our attention from immediate tasks to sort through important problems in our lives...

I totally, totally agree with this assessment. If for no other reason than because I happen to believe that our minds are a wondrous creation and should be allowed to unfold and develop at their own pace just as much as we say that we encourage such a thing. There is power in play, so to speak. Look at a company like Google, which practically mandates leisure time while its employees are on the clock: not many firms that are as creative and applied as they are.

And I think the evidence speaks for itself about how this study relates to the more formative years of an individual. People like Albert Einstein didn't allow their minds to fit "the pattern". He let his mind roam and play as he saw fit, and from it came an understanding of the universe that shattered all previous paradigms.

So at the risk of being punny, what y'all think? :-)

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When there's no more room in Hell, the dead shall shop the Earth!

Leave it to the federal government to re-define the old saying about "death and taxes".

THOUSANDS of the dearly departed are receiving "stimulus" checks. It's been estimated that "between 8,000 and 10,000 checks for millions of dollars" worth of publicly-financed "economic recovery" is being written out to those who are long beyond such temporal concepts as money and spending.

And some of these people, it turns out, never received a Social Security number! Meaning that to the government they weren't officially alive to begin with.

Sorta brings a whole new meaning to "the undead" when you think about it...

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Jacob... and Esau? LOST Season 5 finale prologue

This one episode opening has everything that makes Lost the best show on television, and perhaps even of all time: character, dialogue, mystery, special effects that complement but never overwhelm the story... and that amazing score by Michael Giacchino.

I've watched this episode twice since it aired last night, but I've gone over this scene a dozen times again at least. I'm inclined to believe it has a lot of portent about the sixth and final season of Lost: that the story we've been watching, hasn't been the real story at all. That everything we've seen during the past five seasons has been a setup for a cosmic battle between good and evil, God and Satan.

So here it is: the opening scene of "The Incident", where we finally see the face of Jacob and learn that he is not alone on the Island...

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FDA sez: Cheerios cereal a drug

Here's the letter from the Food and Drug Administration to General Mills, telling the company that it is marketing its Cheerios cereal as a drug.

The FDA's problem, it seems, is that General Mills is claiming that Cheerios reduce cholesterol too much.

Meanwhile, those damned Enzyte commercials with "Smilin' Bob" continue to broadcast claims of "male enhancement".

I wonder if this means there'll be a run on Cheerios at the grocery stores now. People do not like being told by their government that something is "bad" for them like this, when they have been enjoying it for so long.

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Last LOST post-episode reaction until January 2010

I am literally hoarse from screaming during the past two hours.

Just the opening few minutes of tonight's Lost fifth season finale, "The Incident", whammed everyone hard upside the head and didn't let up.

Last week we got "Follow the Leader", which was marginally an episode focusing on Richard... even though we didn't actually find out anything new about him that we didn't already know. I enjoyed that episode but for the past week, that lack of new mythology when given the opportunity has bugged me a lot.

So what do we get to make up for it this week? How does Season 5 end?

With a Jacob-centric episode.

Whoa...

Jacob. The statue (a hella lot more about it than has ever been revealed before). The Black Rock. The "lists". What happened to Rose and Bernard. Vincent! How Hurley got talked into going back to the Island. The incident at the Swan station. What happened to Dr. Chang's arm (which I totally called on Twitter several minutes before we saw it)...

Won't be sleeping tonight again, like every other Lost season finale.

The two biggest questions for the next nine months: if Locke is still dead, then who the #&@* is that who went into the statue to see Jacob?

(My guess right off the cuff: that's really "the Monster" that's been imitating Locke all this time, and it was the Monster that we saw goading Jacob on the Island in the 1800s-era first scene of tonight's episode. There is some kind of enmity between Jacob and whatever the Monster really is, and the Monster has been trying to kill Jacob all this time. And now, in a master stroke of irony, Benjamin Linus himself has been manipulated into doing what the Monster has failed to do on its own thus far.)

And as Marvin the Martian once put it: "Where's the Ka-boom?! There was supposed to be an Earth-shattering Ka-boom!" LOVED how the episode ended with the total reverse of the usual Lost black card: blinding white this time, with Lost in black lettering.

Ye gods, my brain is frazzled after the past two hours!

Okay, I'm gonna have to watch that again. The scenes with Jacob alone might make this the most important Lost episode to date.

And if tomorrow is like any other Lost finale day-after, I'll likely be posting some more thoughts and observations as they hit me :-)

EDIT 11:44 p.m. EST: So... what is it that "lies in the shadow of the statue"?

Richard answered in Latin: "Ille qui nos omnes servabit".

Just hearing from multiple sources that it translates into English as "He who will save us all."

Discuss!

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No jokin' about no smokin': North Carolina to ban lighting up in public

For the record: I don't smoke. I don't recommend anyone taking up smoking. It's a nasty habit and I've seen what it can do to one's health. It's not something I'd wish on anybody.

But I'm also of the mind that it's left to the individual whether or not he or she chooses to smoke. And that means that it should be up to business owners to decide whether or not they allow smoking in places they own like restaurants and bars.

And I also have come to believe that in the few short months since she was sworn in, that Bev Perdue has already become the worst Governor that I have ever seen North Carolina have in my lifetime. She's already "effed"-up our educational budget bigtime. Now this...

"An important and historic day for North Carolina." That's what Perdue declared today as she announced she would immediately sign a bill just passed by the state's General Assembly that will BAN smoking in ALL public places.

In all honesty, I never thought I would live to see the day that smoking in public was outlawed in, of all places, North Carolina: the biggest tobacco-producing region in the world.

And as I said before: I don't smoke, and wouldn't want anyone to take it up either. But as an infringement on individual liberty, what Governor Perdue and the General Assembly are doing is wrong.

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$9 TRILLION unaccounted for by the Federal Reserve...

...and they haven't a clue where all that money went.

Watch as Inspector General Elizabeth Coleman of the Federal Reserve stumbles and stalls as she tries to 'splain how in the world did her bunch lose $9,000,000,000,000:

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"The Incident": LOST Season 5 ends tonight... with a bang?!

The situation as things stand now on Lost...

- Still trapped in 1977, Jack is hellbent on following through with the now-dead Daniel's plan to change the future and make it so that Oceanic Flight 815 never crashes in 2004.

- Daniel's plan to alter history, incidentally, hinges on detonating the Jughead hydrogen bomb before the drilling at the Swan Station releases the energy in what the Swan orientation film called "the incident".

- Sawyer, Juliet and Kate are on the DHARMA Initiative submarine that has left the Island.

- Dr. Chang now knows that Miles is his son, and that Hurley and his friends are from the future.

- Meanwhile in 2007, Locke has taken charge of the Others. He has decided to lead them all on a little hike into the jungle to find Jacob: the unseen "great man" who supposedly calls all the shots for the Others.

- What Locke hasn't told anyone yet... except an obviously horrified Ben... is that he intends to kill Jacob when they finally meet him.

- And there is still the little matter of Ilana, Bram and the rest of the Ajira Flight 316 survivors who have taken Frank hostage and are presumably headed toward whatever "lies in the shadow of the statue".

The penultimate season of Lost comes down to a two-hour finale tonight at 9 p.m. on ABC. And "The Incident" threatens to be the most explosive (literally) cliffhanger episode in television history. Will Jack explode the Jughead? Will we finally get to see Jacob? What does lie in the shadow of the statue? And will we ever discover why Richard Alpert never ages a day?!

The DHARMA Initiative munchies are being prepared even now. I might try to Twitter spontaneous reaction during commercial breaks. Otherwise, expect the post-episode commentary later this evening.

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BIOSHOCK 2 to include multiplayer PREQUEL game (and why I don't like the sound of it)

I'll admit that right now there's not a whole lot of information about this to yet pass final judgment. But I sure hope that 2K Games has taken some things into consideration with this move...

BioShock 2, the upcoming sequel to 2007's haunting and intellect-jarring first-person shooter, will have a multiplayer aspect: something that was absent from the original BioShock. 2K has hired Digital Extremes - a company that has worked on successful titles such as Unreal Tournament and Dark Sector - to concentrate on BioShock 2's multiplayer component. However it has become clear that what Digital Extremes will be doing is not so much a mere "complement" to BioShock 2 as it will be an entire beast of a gaming experience in its own right.

In multiplayer mode you'll have access to "weapons, plasmid and tonic unlocks, so that you'll ultimately be able to kit out your player with hundreds of combinations to compete to earn online experience points."

Sounds good so far. But wait! Here's what's popping up a huge red flag...

The mode will act as a prequel, and it is shaping up to be something of a must-play, as gamers will become test subjects for the plasmids made by Sinclair Solutions, and will have to explore the world of Rapture and see it fall into decadence and, ultimately, into ruin. The wide variety of plasmids and tonics are certain to give birth to a lot of interesting combinations...

Players will step into the shoes of Rapture citizens and learn more about the fall of Rapture as they progress through the experience...

Experience Rapture before it was reclaimed by the ocean and engage in combat over iconic environments in locations such as Kashmir Restaurant and Mercury Suites, all of which have been reworked from the ground up to deliver a fast-paced multiplayer experience.

So multiplayer BioShock 2 is going to provide our first-ever look at what Rapture was like before the cataclysmic events of New Years Eve 1958, when the underwater utopian metropolis finally succumbed to the dark side of human nature and erupted into civil war. As one who loves the lore of BioShock, I can dig that much.

But what about the BioShock fans out there who either can't get in on multiplayer for various reasons, or who simply don't care for this kind of game play?

Are they going to be cheated out of some delicious BioShock history? Will they be punished for their geography or their preference for solo play, and locked out of getting a look at pre-fall Mercury Suites and the Kashmir?

Because I'm one of those myself. I've done online multiplayer "shoot 'em ups" before and yeah they're fun for awhile, but personally I find engaging story and characters in a game like BioShock and Gears of War to be more intriguing. I'd much rather explore the worlds of those games at my own pace, instead of having to constantly worry about some 15-year old hormone machine calling himself "Lance" all the way in Minneapolis sniping me from the shadows so he can up his Xbox Live gamer score.

So are solitary players like myself going to become a segregated class in the social order of Rapture? Are 2K Games and Digital Extremes going to dictate that individuality is undesirable, that we must be collective in our game play?

Somehow I don't think Andrew Ryan would approve of that going on in his city.

And I can't believe that there are many solo-oriented BioShock fans who are going to enjoy that very much either.

I'm not going to ask for multiplayer to be stripped out of BioShock 2. For those who thrive on that sort of video gaming, I will sincerely hope that BioShock 2's will set a whole new standard for multiplaying excellence. But I am going to be anticipating that 2K Games and Digital Extremes have taken "the rest of us" into account, and will give lone players a chance to also fully explore Rapture at the height of its glory.

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One small kiss for a teen, one giant slap in the face to "Christian" legalism

Tyler Frost, who was suspended and kept from graduating by the principal of Heritage Christian School in Findlay, Ohio for the "sin" of taking his girlfriend to her prom, is shown here giving Rebecca Smoody a kiss that in the immortal words of Andy Griffith was "right smack-dab on the MOUTH!"

Said kiss also took place within ready eyesight of Heritage Christian School, which has ridiculously banned its students from dancing, hand holding, kissing, "rock music" and other things... both on campus and off.

I hope and pray that the windows of that school were filled with the gazes of curious students who beheld Tyler's act of rebellion against "the rules".

Does this mean that Heritage Christian principal Tim England will have Frost expelled?

Well, like I've said already (maybe too much at that): Tyler Frost did nothing wrong as a follower of Christ. This is all about Heritage Christian School and Calvary Baptist Church that runs it, throwing its own legalistic weight around. The school and church are a pack of Pharisees: setting up stumbling blocks that keep people from knowing the real love and grace of Jesus Christ. And so far as this blogger is concerned, Tyler Frost is being way more a sincere follower of Christ than Tim England and Gordon Dickson, who have placed worship of their church's doctrine above that of serving Christ in loving humility.

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Hyper-inflation, here we come!

The United States government will be borrowing 46 cents for ever dollar that it spends for the current fiscal year.

This country is now on the fast track to joining Zimbabwe. Or maybe the Weimar Republic is a better comparison...

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Republicans trying to hijack the "Tea Party" movement

Politico.com is reporting that GOP governors Mark Sanford of South Carolina and Rick Perry of Texas are attempting to pull off what is being called "Tea Party 2.0".

But a lot of people are seeing this as an effort by the Republican Party's leadership and elected officials to "hitch their wagons" to the grassroots "Tea Party" movement that has taken place over the past couple of months in protest of Washington's runaway taxing and spending.

And I'm inclined to more than slightly agree with that sentiment.

Look at what is happening to the Republicans of late: as a party they aren't even pretending anymore that their purpose is about anything but regaining political power. And damned few average Americans are taking them seriously as a result.

(And I write this as one who is still currently registered as a Republican, for whatever the hell worth that's supposed to have...)

So let me be succinct: the Tea Party drive is the one marginally successful movement that we have seen in American politics of late. In its purest, most unadulterated form it is something that is not a product of any political party, and should remain above and beyond partisan influence if it is to achieve its greatest potency.

And the Republicans, with nothing to show for themselves (neither do the Democrats but I digress), are now seeing the Tea Parties not as a thing to emulate but as a thing to exploit.

So to those who have been active in the Tea Party movement, I would like to suggest the following and ask that you take it to heart...

KEEP THE REPUBLICAN PARTY LEADERSHIP AS FAR THE HELL AWAY FROM THE TEA PARTIES AS YOU POSSIBLY CAN!

Do whatever the #*@& is necessary to maintain this as a movement driven by the average citizen. If you ever hold a rally, only allow private individuals the opportunity to take to the podium and voice their concerns. Don't give the elected officials a chance to grandstand and steal the momentum that your passion and energy has produced. You aren't doing this to hear "them": you are doing this to make damned sure that "they" hear YOU!

There is no reason at all to put any faith in either the Republicans or the Democrats. When the two major "parties" are more infatuated with the antics of Rush Limbaugh and Wanda Sykes than they are with being about solid principles and responsible government, something is very wrong. They sure as hell aren't going to do anything about their own mess.

And you shouldn't give them a chance to make a mess of your own efforts either.

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Venetia Phair, namer of Pluto, has passed away

The sad news has arrived that Venetia Phair has passed away in her native England at the age of 90.

It was her idea to give the solar system's ninth planet (or first "Trans-Neptunian object" if you're some kind of wacko liberal astronomer... just kidding :-) the name "Pluto". Nine years old at the time in 1930 and born Venetia Burney, she was already quite knowledgeable about astronomy and classical mythology when "Planet X" was discovered.

Click on the link above for the entire fascinating story of how one little girl's breakfast-time suggestion became enthusiastically embraced by not just the scientific community, but also by the entire world.

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A question for my fellow Christians

If we are commanded to "test the spirits" (1st John 4:1)...

...then how much more so should we boldly question the motivations of mere men?

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Our tax dollars at work: Training Chinese prostitutes how to drink responsibly

Official policy of the United States federal government is now to refer to prostitutes as "female sex workers" (FSW) and to their pimps as "gatekeepers".

It would almost be funny, except that $2.6 million of our tax money is being spent on teaching Chinese "female sex workers" how to "drink responsibly".

From CNSNews.com...

U.S. Will Pay $2.6 Million to Train Chinese Prostitutes to Drink Responsibly on the Job
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
By Edwin Mora

(CNSNews.com) -- The National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAA), a part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), will pay $2.6 million in U.S. tax dollars to train Chinese prostitutes to drink responsibly on the job.

Dr. Xiaoming Li, the researcher conducting the program, is director of the Prevention Research Center at Wayne State University School of Medicine in Detroit.

The grant, made last November, refers to prostitutes as "female sex workers"--or FSW--and their handlers as "gatekeepers."

"Previous studies in Asia and Africa and our own data from FSWs [female sex workers] in China suggest that the social norms and institutional policy within commercial sex venues as well as agents overseeing the FSWs (i.e., the 'gatekeepers', defined as persons who manage the establishments and/or sex workers) are potentially of great importance in influencing alcohol use and sexual behavior among establishment-based FSWs," says the NIH grant abstract submitted by Dr. Li.

"Therefore, in this application, we propose to develop, implement, and evaluate a venue-based alcohol use and HIV risk reduction intervention focusing on both environmental and individual factors among venue-based FSWs in China," says the abstract.

The research will take place in the southern Chinese province of Guangxi...

I guess it's only fitting: our government has been prostituting itself to China and just about anyone else for so long anyway.

Feel free to leave comments. Even if it's a joke that would normally be better left unsaid. At this point, I don't care.

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