Dull preaching The Bible says a pastor must be “apt to teach.” That means the pastor should have some degree of talent for study and explanation. The purpose behind the requirement is make sure the ministry of the word doesn’t get dumbed down or become so dull that nobody can sit through it. The usual […]
The nuclear industry can be its own worst enemy at times. Several plants around the country have detected leakage of tritium into the ground on the plant sites. Tritium is a radioactive form of hydrogen. Tritium leakage is particularly problematic because the tritium is usually a constituent of water and is chemically identical to ordinary […]
The Ivy-league stranglehold on American government is more a serious problem than we might imagine. Here are the educational backgrounds of our Supreme Court members: Roberts — Harvard Scalia — Georgetown and Harvard Kennedy — Harvard Thomas — Yale Ginsburg — Cornell and Harvard Breyer — Harvard Sotomayor — Princeton Alito — Princeton and Yale […]
Tiger Woods’ apology included an angry denunciation of the news media. They certainly have that coming for a host of reasons, but the nasty, gossipy inquisitiveness of the news media is just a fact of life for people who devote their lives to riches and fame. If you choose fame as your path of life […]
The strictures of PeeCee have already slain a number of soldiers at Fort Hood. Everyone knew Major Hasan was a threat, but nobody could say it aloud, and nobody could act on the obvious. He was part of protected class and thus couldn’t be resisted until he acted. Once he acted, of course, it was […]
Oregonlive.com has an interesting take on the recent SCOTUS decision to overturn most of the McCain-Feingold act, which is the act that sought to outlaw free speech in politics. One effect of the SCOTUS decision is to allow corporations to get back in the game of donating money to politicians… like they haven’t been doing […]
Power companies do an appallingly poor job of educating the public. Part of that isn’t their fault because they are publicly regulated and have to observe a lot of scruples about conflicts of interest. But part of it is their fault, and words like “base rate increase” are a perfect example. They need to stop […]
The guy at the center of ClimateGate, Professor Phil Jones, is on record in the Daily Mail saying there has been no statistically significant global warming since 1995. I gather that this means the uncertainty of his data is bigger than the change in his data. In other words, the margin of error is bigger […]
The religious battles of the 1980s seem to have gone away. The loud and public contests between Scripture’s defenders and detractors seem to have abated. Given the general trends in American society and the Christian wing of it, the Bible’s opponents must be thinking they pretty much won the contest. The conservative Baptists kept a […]
If you’ve visited here in the past couple of days, you may have wondered why the blog appearance keeps switching around. It’s because the cache function in WordPress has been acting gimpy, and I’ve been trying to work around that. I think it’s straightened out now, but we’ll see. Meanwhile, be patient with me. I […]
Leaders in the Pacific Northwest have announced they’re going to supply increases in energy demand over the next 20 years mostly through conservation. Here’s hoping they succeed but doubting they will. Electric demand has grown significantly in the past dozen or so years, and forecasts are that it will continue to do so. Year – […]
I can’t speak for God on this, but it does make you wonder. Coming right on the heels of the ClimateGate public relations calamity, Washington, D.C., has now broken its all-time snow accumulation record. This is the most snow recorded there… ever. Now isn’t that an inconvenient truth? Al Gore: Call your office.
To borrow Mr. Obama’s football metaphors, health care is on its fourth down at the enemy 20-yard line. To win, the Washington Socialists need a touchdown and a two-point conversion. They started with a first down on the one-yard line but a coalition of liberty-loving Americans has proven tougher than expected. So Coach Obama has […]
Christopher Hitchens, the famously aggressive atheist, has penned an article about North Korea which is a good read in every way but one. He claims North Korea is a right-wing regime because it has become a military dictatorship and features racial purity as a unifying political theme. He further bases his claim on the ground […]
The Tithe, Moses-style Note: Part 1 is found here. There were three distinct systems of tithing under the law of Moses. The first system was founded on the agrarian nature of the Israelite economy. It required that a tenth of the produce of the land (Lev 27:30) be given for the maintenance of the temple […]