Echoes in Eternity

Hmm, I hope they figure out a way of catching this besides strip searches...

Here is a report put together highlighting the positions and views of more than 700 scientists, all of whom have worked for the United Nations with regards to climate... so much for consensus.

"The world is waiting, pregnant with the possibility of another future than
wars and rumors of wars." - Shane Claiborne

Is this true? Does history or the Bible lead us to believe that there could be a future on this planet where war is a thing of the past? Or is Claiborne...

"Red, yellow, black and white, they are equal in his sight"

My parents just returned yesterday from a vacation to the UK. During their time there, they came across an elderly woman who had fallen on the side of a street. A few people were crowded around her, while she lay bleeding profusely from a head wound. My mom, a nurse, proceeded to begin CPR on the woman with the "aid" of someone who claimed to know CPR. The injured woman had no pulse and was not breathing, just to give you an idea of how serious the injury was. Shortly thereafter, the ambulance arrived (after two other ones had driven by). That's when everything went downhill. First, the EMTs showed little urgency in their care, taking their time getting to the injured party. Second, they had almost no clue about what to do. My mom had to continually remind them to keep doing the oxygen "bagging" and chest compressions, and they were greatly distracted by the head wound and bandaging it up when it was obviously not the most important issue at hand. Lastly, they had a defibrillator (which has a much higher percentage of success than just your basic CPR) but it was in the ambulance and they didn't go get it, nor did they immediately take the woman to it. My parents don't know what happened to the woman, but it seems highly likely that she did not survive. To be fair, the woman may have died no matter what care was provided her, but it is no understatement to say that the trained professionals paid to care for her did little to save her.

My mom also had an opportunity to talk with a group of women at a Bible Study over there and health care came up. She mentioned some of the typical things women get regular checkups for. For example, they were amazed that here in America, women begin mammagrams at age 40, while in Britain, they don't start until age 50. Same thing was true for a few other tests; the British are advised to wait a lot longer than Americans to begin preventative testing. She told them that when a government is paying the bills, it will obviously limit "unnecessary" testing and procedures to as few as possible. They said they didn't realize that Americans got such good care.

So now Christian apologetics is illegal in Britain.

HT: Steve M.

A great post on why Christians should not support a distributist economy like the Jews had with the year of Jubilee and what not in the OT.

Here's a great little article on how even the global warm-mongers are now admitting that the earth hasn't warmed in over a decade and how they aren't intellectually honest enough to admit that this puts a big damper on the likelihood they have any clue what they're talking about when it comes to climate as a whole.

Personally, I think a homeless bum on the street has a better chance of predicting the global temperature for the year 2035 than the James Hansens of the world. I said a few years ago that they would be proven wrong shortly, and so they have. Unfortunately, because they have the media behind them still, they are able to still somewhat spin this as a "just a pause" situation. However, thankfully more and more people are seeing through the lies, deception, and really bad science.

Here is an excellent post on the differences between Michael Jordan's acceptance speech into the NBA Hall of Fame and David Robinson's speech. Below you can view the two speeches. Jordan's is breathtaking in its self-indulgent, vindictiveness, while Robinson's displays the grace and love that defined his career.

Matt. 19:30

Almost half of American doctors would consider retiring or quitting medicine if Obamacare passes... I thought the White House was claiming that doctors were behind the bill. Oh well, just more lies from Obama, nothing new.

This is a man who should be honored well above the Ted Kennedys and Michael Jacksons of the world.

[UPDATE: More on him here.]

Yesterday

In high school...


In college...

"In the eight years since 911, about 10.4 million Americans have lost their lives through the atrocity of abortion. This was about 1.3 million a year -- over 3,000 a day. Those who perpetrated 911 killed 3,000 in one day, and they perished at the same time. But the ghouls in charge of our judicial system, and the one we elected to appoint new justices to the top of that system, preside over 3,000 deaths a day, every day, non-stop. Just since 911, we have conducted over three thousand 911s ourselves. And just like the terrorists, we have a cloak of self-justification. The only difference is that we need a much bigger cloak.

But keep the distinction between horizontal and vertical in mind. Agreeing that Yahweh had a judgment to bring against Israel, one that He justly brought by means of the wicked Assyrians, is not the same as saying that the Assyrians had the right to do what they did. We are a stiff-necked people, and it is only through the mercy of God that we are not consumed." - Doug Wilson

So Yale University recently had those infamous cartoons which depicted Muhammad removed from a book on the subject because of a "fear of violence." It's informative to think about this: the liberal academia, which constantly tells us that Islam is a religion of peace, won't print some relatively benign cartoons because they are scared of violence. Where does this violence come from? I thought Muslims were peaceful. So you see, while they may protest otherwise, liberal elites are actually the most prejudiced of all against Muslims and in so doing, confirm that which they deny.

Dalrymple has an excellent discussion on the subject of crime and the prevention thereof in the New English Review this month.

In Europe, the United States is often used as a trope for all that is bad about the modern world, and in particular as an example of a savage, unsocial world, a kind of Wild West of the soul, where everyone is selfish, concerned only for his own advantage, indifferent to the fate of others, crassly materialistic, and so on and so forth. Although no European visitor ever claims to have seen such a thing for himself, many Europeans conceive of the United States as a land in which, if a person is injured or falls ill in the street, he is left to die there if he is not privately insured.

I am not myself an idolater of the United States. I do not believe that all that is American is best. It is neither a model to be imitated in all things, nor a model at all costs to be avoided. Its manifest failings are exceeded by its manifest virtues: but it requires discrimination to decide what is worthy of emulation and what of avoidance. Generally speaking, we in Europe get things exactly the wrong way round.

For me, the high imprisonment rate in the United States is a sign of social health, not of social disease. Of course, I do not approve of any miscarriages of justice or of incidents of brutality that occur in American prisons: but when I compare the confidence and resolution with which America faces the problem of criminality with the vacillation in most of Europe (some countries excepted), I cannot help but be struck by the difference, which is all to our disadvantage. The American system, for all its faults, is prepared to draw a line; European systems, on the whole, are not. But my view is exactly the opposite of what most Europeans, or at any rate educated Europeans, and no doubt many Americans, think.
...
[S]ocieties such as several western European ones that cannot summon the confidence to set apart those who have persistently shown themselves unwilling to abide by the most elementary rules, and which prevaricate and beat their breast wondering how they and not the law-breakers are really to blame, may truly be described as decadent.

This is what happens when we cede moral and parental authority to the government.

This piece in The Atlantic is brilliant and if you only read one thing about the health care issue, make it this! I'm not sure I entirely agree with the author's solutions (I'd prefer to keep most health care coverage voluntary), but otherwise it's a very sound discussion of the actual problems inherent in the American health care system.

Jonah Goldberg wrote a good piece this week on the global warming topic.