Pfarrer Streccius

Lysenko and Warmism

2012-01-27T09:28:00.000-08:00

Scientists, debunking Warmism today in WSJ, recall Lysenko (photo at left) who did science the Proletarian Way.

This is not the way science is supposed to work, but we have seen it before—for example, in the frightening period when Trofim Lysenko hijacked biology in the Soviet Union. Soviet biologists who revealed that they believed in genes, which Lysenko maintained were a bourgeois fiction, were fired from their jobs. Many were sent to the gulag and some were condemned to death.

Why is there so much passion about global warming, and why has the issue become so vexing that the American Physical Society, from which Dr. Giaever resigned a few months ago, refused the seemingly reasonable request by many of its members to remove the word "incontrovertible" from its description of a scientific issue? There are several reasons, but a good place to start is the old question "cui bono?" Or the modern update, "Follow the money."

Alarmism over climate is of great benefit to many, providing government funding for academic research and a reason for government bureaucracies to grow. Alarmism also offers an excuse for governments to raise taxes, taxpayer-funded subsidies for businesses that understand how to work the political system, and a lure for big donations to charitable foundations promising to save the planet. Lysenko and his team lived very well, and they fiercely defended their dogma and the privileges it brought them.

Words like incontrovertible usually means science's gone unfalsifiable. Leaving the world of science for theology (or worse): the profoundly existential world of money.

Follow the path indeed, for it ends with Mike Ryoko's Ubi Est Mea which the Illinois General Assembly included in a tribute, WHEREAS, Mike Royko was Chicago; he created the unofficial motto for Chicago "Ubi Est Mea-Where's Mine?";

Warmism is what it is and don't try and prove it otherwise 'cause there's big bucks at stake. Better instead look for your take.

State Senator Ricky Hendon Resigns! But, Who Knew Obama Was An Ass-Kicking Stud? | Chicago Political Commentary

2012-01-27T05:18:00.001-08:00

Obama’s famous in Illinois for his thin skin. Below from the Sun Times in Chicago Political Commentary recalling one of the more famous incidents.

Afterward, Hendon wrote, Obama came to his desk and "told me in an eerie, dark voice that came from some secret place within the ugly side of him, 'You embarrassed me on the Senate floor and if you ever do it again, I will kick your ass!'"
Hendon said Obama then challenged him to go to the rear of the Senate chamber out of the eyesight of reporters for a fight, and Hendon did so. "A little pushing and shoving occurred, laced with profanity too vulgar to write, from both of us, until Sen. Donne Trotter and others separated us," Hendon wrote.The incident, Hendon wrote, showed that Obama "will not hesitate to fight on behalf of the United States if it comes down to it, just as he tried to fight me because of his personal beliefs."

State Senator Ricky Hendon Resigns! But, Who Knew Obama Was An Ass-Kicking Stud? | Chicago Political Commentary

I recall Hendon suggesting Obama was Irish instead of African American by ridiculing the Obama as O’Bama and asking what kind of black name was that. It wasn’t about kids.

Showdown in Chicago: Occupy Chicago Tactical Briefing #25

2012-01-27T05:05:00.000-08:00

via Adbusters, [H/T] Rebel Pundit

And if they don’t listen … if they ignore us and put our demands on the back burner like they’ve done so many times before … then, with Gandhian ferocity, we’ll flashmob the streets, shut down stock exchanges, campuses, corporate headquarters and cities across the globe … we’ll make the price of doing business as usual too much to bear.

Jammers, pack your tents, muster up your courage and prepare for a big bang in Chicago this Spring. If we don’t stand up now and fight now for a different kind of future we may not have much of a future … so let’s live without dead time for a month in May and see what happens …

Chicago's a town if you're looking for a fight, you'll usually get it. This one's going to get ugly. Big bang for sure.... SDS used to sing Lay, Elrod, lay || Lay in the street for a while || Stay, Elrod, stay || Stay in your bed for a while, about Richard Elrod. They'll be a few left permanently crippled after this fiasco too. The left will sing songs about another big bang.

Jammers, pack your tents, muster up your courage and prepare for a big bang in Chicago this Spring. If we don’t stand up now and fight now for a different kind of future we may not have much of a future … so let’s live without dead time for a month in May and see what happens …

for the wild,
Culture Jammers HQ

Top Catholic bishop feels betrayed by Obama

2012-01-26T16:44:00.001-08:00

Bishop Dolan doesn’t know the Prez like we in Chicago do if he felt blindsided on this one.

Last November, amid deepening tensions between the bishops and the administration over the pending contraception mandate and other issues, Obama invited Dolan to the Oval Office, where the two men shared what Dolan called a productive and "extraordinarily friendly" meeting.
"The president seemed very earnest, he said he considered the protection of conscience sacred, that he didn't want anything his administration would do to impede the work of the church that he claimed he held in high regard," Dolan recalled on Tuesday. "So I did leave a little buoyant."
That optimism ended last Friday, however, when Obama phoned Dolan to tell him that he was not expanding the conscience exemption to include religious institutions -- such as Catholic hospitals, universities and social service agencies. In a bid to appease critics like Dolan, the White House gave church organizations an extra year to find a way to comply with the mandate that all health insurance plans provide free contraceptive coverage.
"I had to share with him that I was terribly let down, disappointed and disturbed, and it seemed the news he had given me was difficult to square with the confidence I had felt in November," Dolan said.

Religion News Service | Ethics | Faith | Top Catholic bishop feels betrayed by Obama

Why not reach out to those who already say they are part of us?

2012-01-25T07:30:00.000-08:00

Held in the Light asks: Why not reach out to those who already say they are part of us?

I'd like to see some research on these folks, but knowing a few, I'd say forget the reach out. They identify, but don't expect them to commit. They've already decided not too. Identity's the extent of their effort.

You can't build Churches (or a Movement) with folks who will not commit to do the hard work of building either.

Is Liberalism Islamic?: An Interview with Mustafa Akyol

2012-01-25T04:30:00.001-08:00

Limits the Powers of the State……

Can you explain what you mean by liberalism?
By liberalism, I mean a political and economic system which limits the powers of the state, and gives individuals, and their voluntary associations, the freedom to shape their destinies. I think liberty has been a value throughout history, but liberalism became a full-fledged ideology in the modern age, for the modern state threatened liberty in unprecedented levels.
I also think that today liberalism presents the best medium for Muslims to live Islam in the various ways that they understand it.

Is Liberalism Islamic?: An Interview with Mustafa Akyol | Politics | Religion Dispatches

The United Methodist response to decline

2012-01-25T04:28:00.001-08:00

And a response to the response that the problem’s lackluster clergy.

No doubt some clergy are more gifted, dedicated, resourceful—even faithful—than others. So are many officers, agencies, laity and yes, episcopal leaders. The malaise is American mainline, however. It cuts across denominational lines, hierarchies and polities. Meanwhile, the same Book of Discipline guides the United Methodist Church in parts of the world where there is no malaise. Whatever is wrong with clergy in America may be just as wrong with episcopal leaders, boards, agencies, officers and laity. None are above binding scrutiny, and none has earned the right to decide by itself the validity of ministry among the others.

via The United Methodist Portal
Centralization’s not the answer. I suspect neither is movement which seems code word for centralization to me.

The Once and Future Liberalism - Walter Russell Mead - The American Interest Magazine

2012-01-25T03:48:00.001-08:00

One of the few Liberals I know who understands the Liberal notion that Liberalism’s dead because change’s inevitable. Technology drives change, ideologies collapse, and new frames rise. We’re in the midst of a revolution and the professed revolutionary vanguards can’t quite figure it out. Would they only for once read their Marx!

Writing about the onset of the Great Depression, John Kenneth Galbraith famously said that the end had come but was not yet in sight. The past was crumbling under their feet, but people could not imagine how the future would play out. Their social imagination had hit a wall.

The same thing is happening today: The core institutions, ideas and expectations that shaped American life for the sixty years after the New Deal don’t work anymore. The gaps between the social system we inhabit and the one we now need are becoming so wide that we can no longer paper over them. But even as the failures of the old system become more inescapable and more damaging, our national discourse remains stuck in a bygone age. The end is here, but we can’t quite take it in.

The Once and Future Liberalism - Walter Russell Mead - The American Interest Magazine
Read the whole thing.

What is a Religous Movement?

2012-01-24T17:38:00.000-08:00

Any sociologists of religion out there?

Somehow this does not sound like UUism,

DEFINITIONS OF:religious movement

na movement intended to bring about religious reforms

Types:: show 12 types...

Type of:: front, movement, social movement
a group of people with a common ideology who try together to achieve certain general goals

Rep. Walsh Questions National Park Service Director About Occupy DC

2012-01-24T17:15:00.001-08:00

[H/T] Marathon Pundit.

Murf's take on Morales

2012-01-24T14:35:00.000-08:00

Patrick Murfins take on the Rev Morales's letter. Murf (and I've known him since my Dad took me down to the IWW hall about 1971 or so) quotes me

The reactions to Morales’s proposals have been predictable. A leading conservative UU blogger, Bill Baar writing as Pfaffer Streccius took Morales’s proposal as a full on assault on congressional life. I believe a dispassionate reading will show that it is not. But that view will undoubtedly gain traction and be amplified by others.

The first time I've ever been leading about much which shows what blogging in a very small pond can do. But is conservative important here? 'Cause yes I'm a politically conservative UU (visit our Facebook page), but is the Congregation versus Movement issue Rev Morales presented: an issue with politically Conservative and Liberal sides?

At first blush, I thought not. As I think about it though, with Sojourners the first model of a Movement that came to my mind, I wonder if Patrick isn't more right than wrong here.

The tradtional model of Congregations anchors UUs a bit. The Movement Model (which is pretty old itself, if one thinks of Evangelicals as the model of a Religous Movement; save for the original early Christians) lacks the authority of a convenanted body to keep the flock and minister steady. A Movement may well dive right into secular Progressivism simply because the people in charge of the Movement's center are firmly stuck in political Liberalism (with blinders)!

Political Liberalism not a characteristic of Movements in general, but it will be the outcome of this movement in particular. A Liberalism of a rather thin sort too as one Politically Liberal and polity concerned UU told me not so very long ago.

Trabants and Volts

2012-01-24T07:55:00.000-08:00

Chevy Volts well on their way to becoming our version of the German Democratic Republic's Trabant: a product worth less than the materials and labor used to build it. A product with negative value. The act of building it destroys value.

Some Chevrolet dealers are turning down Volts that General Motors wants to ship to them, a potential stumbling block as GM looks to accelerate sales of the plug-in hybrid.

For example, consider the New York City market. Last month, GM allocated 104 Volts to 14 dealerships in the area, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Dealers took just 31 of them, the lowest take rate for any Chevy model in that market last month. That group of dealers ordered more than 90 percent of the other vehicles they were eligible to take, the source said.

Read more: http://www.autonews.com/article/20120123/RETAIL07/301239977#ixzz1kOL8s61a

McGurn: Obama Offends the Catholic Left

2012-01-24T04:29:00.001-08:00

McGurn today at WSJ: McGurn: Obama Offends the Catholic Left - WSJ.com and then yesterday’s piece by Winter’s : J'ACCUSE! Why Obama is wrong on the HHS conscience regulations

As Americans grow more conservative, Liberalism grows more authoritarian. Enforcing visions fewer are buying. That authoritarianism a sign of a defeated and desperate ideology. Liberalis chucking a once proud heritage of civil libertarianism (see William O. Douglas on the right to unfettered campaign contributions) rather than engage modernity and its growing diversity.

Liberals so blind they couldn’t even see how Healthcare Reform and Medical technology would bring the increasingly complex issues of ethics into the political forum, and naively express surprise that abortion would come front and center in the debate.

Rev Morales: Churches or Movement?

2012-01-22T14:31:00.000-08:00

Surprised there's not more talk of this on the UU blogosphere or Facebook.

It's a talk way over due.

Where have you been Rev Morales? A bit like King Richard, off fighting the crusade in Arizona while we Peasants toiled in the Congregations; harassed by that ruthless King John known as the great recession.

This epistle, from a man I voted for in hopes of a plan to grow our Churches a bit, must be the prelude to another set of dismal membership numbers

My Church just started it's kick-off for our pledge drive. A father testified yesterday about searching for a spiritual home during his son's severe illness. It was powerful stuff. He left me proud of our Church and the work so many members do, to be just the place this father and mother were searching for. Yeah, we'll pledge for this.

They could only have found this at a Church. Sojourners (or any movement) can't provide a Spiritual Home in the way a Congregation does.

I have hopes for technology, but sadly, Rev Morales's vision here is doomed. I'm not sure it's even going to spark the discussion and reformation the UUA desperately needs.

Protesters Throw Bricks and Bibles at Police in San Francisco

2012-01-22T14:12:00.000-08:00

Via ABC,

Occupy San Francisco’s “Day of Action” turned violent Friday night when protesters occupied an abandoned hotel and began throwing objects at police officers from the roof, police said.

“Once they gained access [to the hotel], some of them made it to the top of the roof and they then began to throw bibles down at the officers,” San Francisco Police Department spokesman Carlos Manfredi said.

“One of officers was struck with a brick to the chest and one of our lieutenants was struck in the hand with an object and may have damaged or even broken his hand,” he said.

Protesters began the day Friday by targeting San Francisco’s financial institutions like the Federal Reserve, Fannie Mae, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, the SEC, Citibank, Chase, and Bechtel.

video platform video management video solutions video player

Also at Weasel Zippers. No good comes of this...

(01-22-12) (ENGLISH SUBTITLES) Free Syrian Army Warns Assad Forces from Storming Douma,

2012-01-22T07:38:00.000-08:00

Sometimes Speed beats Mass (Money) in politics

2012-01-22T07:22:00.000-08:00

A take away from Byron York for UUs concerned about money in politics. Sometimes all that money gives you big organization to trip over. Something the Obama folks on Michigan Ave ought to be thinking about today.
Gingrich's campaign was also faster and more nimble than the Romney battleship. "There is a very strong contrast between the two campaign organizations," said Gingrich adviser (and former George W. Bush administration official) Kevin Kellems. "In military terms, it's speed versus mass. Newt Gingrich's operation, and Newt Gingrich as a man, has a great deal of speed -- intellectual speed, decisiveness. The Romney campaign is much more about money and size, having hired half of Washington D.C. And sometimes, speed beats mass."

Maureen Dowd: Showtime at the Apollo

2012-01-22T06:51:00.001-08:00

Obama's sound odd to Dowd, but we're familiar with it in Illinois. Our first African-American Prez sounds just like Illinois's first Blue-Collar Gov in his famous I gave your grandma free rides on the CTA wiretap. Chicago Pols about as self-centered as a guy (and they're mostly guys) get.

The portrait of the first couple in Jodi Kantor’s new book, “The Obamas,” bristles with aggrievement and the rational president’s disdain for the irrational nature of politics, the press and Republicans. Despite what his rivals say, the president and the first lady do believe in American exceptionalism — their own, and they feel overassaulted and underappreciated.

We disappointed them.

As Michelle said to Oprah in an interview she did with the president last May: “I always told the voters, the question isn’t whether Barack Obama is ready to be president. The question is whether we’re ready. And that continues to be the question we have to ask ourselves.”

They still believed, as their friend Valerie Jarrett once said, that Obama was “just too talented to do what ordinary people do.”

Showtime at the Apollo - NYTimes.com

تقرير صحفي من داخل درعــــا المحتلة - مترجم -

2012-01-22T05:52:00.000-08:00

CNN in Dar'a. Video is in English.

It’s Marriage Stupid (not Income)

2012-01-21T07:38:00.001-08:00

A twist on marriage inequality. Murray in a column I haven’t fully absorbed yet, but he’s peeling away at the real problems dividing Americans.

Charles Murray on the New American Divide - WSJ.com

This Is America's Moment, If Washington Doesn't Blow It - Forbes

2012-01-21T07:26:00.001-08:00

Must read by Joel Kotkin. Only thing standing in America’s way our Americans themselves.

A confluence of largely unnoticed economic, demographic and political trends has put the U.S. in a far more favorable position than its rivals. Rather than the end of preeminence, America may well be entering a renaissance.

If we have the guts and sense to seize this moment.

This Is America's Moment, If Washington Doesn't Blow It - Forbes

Time to Leave Afghanistan

2012-01-21T07:04:00.000-08:00

Time to Leave Afghanistan

Michael Yon quits Afghanistan.

Valerie Jarrett Business Partner Dan Mahru is Disbarred

2012-01-20T04:50:00.001-08:00

A quick link on Jarret’s public housing partner getting disbarred based on his guilty plea on a swindle.

Chicago Daily Observer » Blog Archive » Valerie Jarrett Business Partner Dan Mahru is Disbarred

Corporate Personhood and Media Corporations

2012-01-20T04:36:00.000-08:00

My favorite Ron Paul response from last night's debate,

REPRESENTATIVE RON PAUL (R-TX): I think too often all of us are on the receiving ends of attacks from the media, and it's very disturbing, because sometimes they're not based on facts and we suffer the consequences. You know, sometimes it reminds me of this idea of getting corporations out of running campaigns -- (chuckles) -- but what about the corporations that run the media? (Cheers, applause.) I mean, they're always (in politics ?).

As your Social Justice Committees climb on the bandwagon to amend constitutions on Corporatations and Personhood, consider what-we-should-pay-taxes GE, Obama's Economics Czar: GE's Immelt, and the GE owned MSNBC you watch.

Schakowsky from Peoples' Church Pulpit: "Pay your fair share!"

2012-01-20T04:22:00.000-08:00

[H/T] RebelPundit who writes,

What didn’t occur to me during my post event interview with Jan, which will soon be released was, why or how was Bank of America abusing her? Overdraft fees maybe? Surely she wouldn’t be writing bad checks, like her husband Bob Creamer who went to federal prison in the past for tax evasion and bank fraud, would she?

I heard Schakowsky fumble in response to the question what's a fair share on WLS talk radio with Don & Roma. She couldn't say.

The really important question though is who would she empower to decide what's fair for Americans to earn and keep, and earn and share? Which Government agency's going to make that call?

Update: More of the players at Peoples. Jackson shows real crust here considering how he's getting slammed on the southside, and getting investigated by the Senate on the offer to buy Obama's Senate Side.

RealClearPolitics - Keystone Madness

2012-01-20T04:17:00.001-08:00

Good column from Samuelson. A guy not usually given to calling decisions Madness but Keysone’s rightfully pushed him over an edge.

President Obama's rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico is an act of national insanity. It isn't often that a president makes a decision that has no redeeming virtues and -- beyond the symbolism -- won't even advance the goals of the groups that demanded it. All it tells us is that Obama is so obsessed with his re-election that, through some sort of political calculus, he believes that placating his environmental supporters will improve his chances.

RealClearPolitics - Keystone Madness

Obama's recess appointments might not hold up in court - TheHill.com

2012-01-18T18:06:00.000-08:00

Obama's recess appointments might not hold up in court - TheHill.com

The appointments had all the marks of a loser. Politics as smart as hiring a new head of OMB who had worked at Baine Capital.

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., attacked Mitt Romney over his Bain Capital career rather than answer a question about President Obama's decision to make a former Bain & Company consultant the director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB).

Who's running this campaign?

William McGurn: Obama Brings Back the Constitution - WSJ.com

2012-01-17T17:07:00.001-08:00

Obama’s three years turning out pretty much as expected. Maybe I thought the economy would have turned around a bit faster, but the left’s silence on the war has been the one big surprise for me. Well, small surprise maybe.

Yes, in the Bush years the air was also thick with accusations that the Constitution was being "shredded." We now know that the professed concern for the Constitution was fake. We know it was fake because the same Bush claims of executive authority in war that provoked such apoplexy in our pundits, professors and politicos have for the most part been embraced by Mr. Obama—all to the distinct sound of silence.

And these excellent para from McGurn and the common person as dopes frame. We’re not, and can see through these “reforms”.

We are learning, however, that ordinary Americans who never before heard of the Commerce Clause are perfectly capable of grasping the argument that if the federal government can require a citizen to buy a product in the market, there's nothing he can't be forced to do. As Republicans head into their South Carolina primary, the preferred press narrative appears to be of a party riven by differences that are intractable. What this misses is the larger constitutional point on which Republicans are mostly united and by which so many are driven: that what's at stake in the 2012 election is the process our founders gave us for resolving these debates.

William McGurn: Obama Brings Back the Constitution - WSJ.com

Solar-panel company lays off 40 employees - Toledo Blade

2012-01-17T15:47:00.001-08:00

More Green financial fiascos…. at our expense.

The start-up company has been plagued by a series of production and staffing delays since it was formed in 2008. It has received millions of dollars in government loans and tax breaks and has been toured by high-profile officials such as Vice President Joe Biden, U.S. Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis, and former Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland.
Mr. Cicak said last week that the facility was to reopen Monday after a period of adjusting its inventory. A voice mail message on the company's main phone line said the same thing.
Only 15 cars were in the parking lot at 1:30 p.m. Monday. The office was devoid of activity, and the rows of desks were empty.

Solar-panel company lays off 40 employees - Toledo Blade

Keep It Simple - NYTimes.com

2012-01-17T14:06:00.001-08:00

Solutions are the problem a boss once told me. Jamie Dimon’s no nope. My bet’s he’s right.

What if the chief executive of JPMorgan Chase is not just blowing smoke when he complains that the country — and, indeed, the world — has imposed so many new rules on the banking industry, some of them overlapping, others seeming to contradict each other, yet others whose sole purpose seems to be to weigh down the industry, that they threaten to do as much harm as good? Last summer, you’ll recall, Dimon confronted Ben Bernanke, the Federal Reserve chairman, at a conference and asked him: “Has anyone bothered to study the cumulative effect of these things?” Just last week, during JPMorgan’s earnings call with analysts, Dimon complained that Europe’s “regulatory policy, government policy, central bank policy — it’s not coordinated. It’s making the situation worse, not better.”

Keep It Simple - NYTimes.com

Marathon Pundit: While bodies pile up at Cook County morgue, Preckwinkle praises Occupy crowd (VIDEO)

2012-01-17T11:12:00.001-08:00

Cook County Board Chair Preckwinkle at Occupy Chicago while the indigent bodies pile up over at the morgue for lack of funds to burry them. Tony Rezko was once Preckwinkle’s Finance Chair… maybe she ought to send him a letter in prison for some advice on how to bail Cook County out of the mess it’s in.

[H/T] John M who’s been covering Occupy, Marathon Pundit: While bodies pile up at Cook County morgue, Preckwinkle praises Occupy crowd (VIDEO)

Why are Barack Obama’s critics so smart? – Telegraph Blogs

2012-01-17T05:50:00.001-08:00

Niles Gardiner deconstructs Andrew Sullivan's News Week piece: the conservatives as dummies frame; which is a variant of the conservatives as psychologically impaired frame.

Why are Barack Obama’s critics so smart? – Telegraph Blogs#

Sullivan's Dx says far more about his lack of horse-sense and intellectual health than about we patients. His a nasty habit that explains much of the last century.

Via C.S. Lewis's God in the Dock.

You must show that a man is wrong before you start explaining why he is wrong. The modern method is to assume without discussion that he is wrong and then distract his attention from this (the only real issue) by busily explaining how he became so silly. In the course of the last fifteen years I have found this vice so common that I have had to invent a name for it. I call it "Bulverism". Some day I am going to write the biography of its imaginary inventor, Ezekiel Bulver, whose destiny was determined at the age of five when he heard his mother say to his father — who had been maintaining that two sides of a triangle were together greater than a third — "Oh you say that because you are a man." "At that moment", E. Bulver assures us, "there flashed across my opening mind the great truth that refutation is no necessary part of argument. Assume that your opponent is wrong, and the world will be at your feet. Attempt to prove that he is wrong or (worse still) try to find out whether he is wrong or right, and the national dynamism of our age will thrust you to the wall." That is how Bulver became one of the makers of the Twentieth Century.

1% Elizabeth Warren can’t have it both ways - BostonHerald.com

2012-01-16T06:08:00.001-08:00

Lizzy has suggested she believes it takes a village to get rich. Her experience indicates it actually takes a part-time job at Harvard. In 2009, her salary was $350,000 and she earned $429,000 for 2010 and 2011.
She also raked in $136,000 in royalties from her books, $10,000 for lecturing at a Boston law firm, $90,000 for consulting for a Florida law firm and $43,000 for working for Traveler’s Insurance.
[***]
There is nothing wrong with being financially well-off. The problem is that Lizzy wants everyone in the 1 percent to feel guilty about their success while she lands another six-figure part-time gig.

Some nice six figure gov gigs too.

1% Elizabeth Warren can’t have it both ways - BostonHerald.com

California Rail Fail: Captain Brown and the Great White Train | Via Meadia

2012-01-16T04:39:00.001-08:00

Walter Russell Mead on more hight speed rail fiascos,

California’s bullet train is going off the rails, and the overseers are running for cover. The WSJ reports that Roelof van Ark, the chief executive, and Thomas Umberg, the chairman of the High Speed Rail Authority, announced they will step down from their posts as the odds against the project grow longer.

California Rail Fail: Captain Brown and the Great White Train | Via Meadia

Poll Results: Should your bylaws hold your Church to calling only a UUMA Minister?

2012-01-14T07:44:00.000-08:00

Nine out of ten voted No to the question: Should your bylaws hold your Church to calling only a UUMA Minister?

I was surprized.

Iranian Official Reportedly Threatens Retaliation After Nuclear Expert Killed | Here & Now

2012-01-14T07:42:00.001-08:00

Let’s hope the SecDef knows what he’s doing when he says stuff like this:

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said, “we have some idea as to who might be involved.”

Iranian Official Reportedly Threatens Retaliation After Nuclear Expert Killed | Here & Now

Message to Canada by actor Fadwa Soliman from inside Syria.

2012-01-14T06:09:00.000-08:00

If Fadwa Suleiman not a familiar name to you, she's Syria's Jennifer Aniston. Her story at fellow Chicagoan's blog Rebel Pundit. One of her videos below,

Althouse: "He would rather have the poor poorer, provided that the rich were less rich. That is the Liberal policy."

2012-01-13T12:52:00.001-08:00

Ann Althouse recalling Thatcher at her finest…

Althouse: "He would rather have the poor poorer, provided that the rich were less rich. That is the Liberal policy."

Justice Douglas on campaign finance reform (and Citizens United?) » Blog » Center for Competitive Politics

2012-01-13T12:19:00.000-08:00

Justice Douglas on campaign finance reform (and Citizens United?) » Blog » Center for Competitive Politics

More on William O Douglas and Campaign Finance Reform. How Progressive wondered this far from Civil Liberties going to be an interesting history.

What Comes After Hosanna-Tabor | First Things

2012-01-12T13:54:00.000-08:00

What Comes After Hosanna-Tabor | First Things:

It looks like a very bad over-reach by the Administration, and a very solid slap down by a unanimous SCOTUS.

The first thing to note is that Chief Justice Roberts and the other justices who wrote opinions were kinder to the Obama administration than it deserved. The administration came out entirely against the concept of the “ministerial exception” to anti-discrimination statutes, a legal principle that has been commonplace in the courts of appeals for nearly four decades. The Obama Department of Justice, representing the EEOC, took the position that some protection might be afforded to religious organizations on “freedom of association” grounds, which are only implicit in the First Amendment, but rejected any recourse to what the text of the amendment says about religious freedom. This, the chief justice mildly said, was “untenable.”

UNITED STATES V. AUTO WORKERS, 352 U. S. 567 :: Volume 352 :: 1957 :: Full Text :: US Supreme Court Cases from Justia & Oyez

2012-01-12T12:28:00.000-08:00

Update: Worth noting Douglas applies this dissent to Religous associations too.

People forget... Douglas in 1957 on UAW campaign contributions.

UNITED STATES V. AUTO WORKERS, 352 U. S. 567 :: Volume 352 :: 1957 :: Full Text :: US Supreme Court Cases from Justia & Oyez:

MR. JUSTICE DOUGLAS, with whom THE CHIEF JUSTICE and MR. JUSTICE BLACK join, dissenting.

We deal here with a problem that is fundamental to the electoral process and to the operation of our democratic society. It is whether a union can express its views on the issues of an election and on the merits of the candidates, unrestrained and unfettered by the Congress. The principle at stake is not peculiar to unions. It is applicable as well to associations of manufacturers, retail and wholesale trade groups, consumers' leagues, farmers' unions, religious groups, and every other association representing a segment of American life and taking an active part in our political campaigns and discussions. It is as important an issue as has come before the Court, for it reaches the very vitals of our system of government.

Under our Constitution, it is We The People who are sovereign. The people have the final say. The legislators are their spokesmen. The people determine through their votes the destiny of the nation. It is therefore important -- vitally important -- that all channels of communication be open to them during every election, that no point of view be restrained or barred, and that the people have access to the views of every group in the community.

خبرآنلاین - تمرین تیراندازی روحانیون/گزارش تصویریKhbranlayn - Clergymen skeet / VIDEO

2012-01-12T09:19:00.001-08:00

Iran’s Mullahs are second amendment guys.

خبرآنلاین - تمرین تیراندازی روحانیون/گزارش تصویری

What would your Investment Banker do?

2012-01-12T08:57:00.001-08:00

Watch your back of course. And gather up some friends to kick in donations.

In Kenwood, Daily Herald's Ray Garcia reports, Bears Stearn Executive Stuart Taylor told the President, 'Our message to you on behalf of everyone gathered here is very simple and that is: We’ve got your back, despite what you might hear or read.'"

Illinois Review: Obama raises $2 million in hometown visit

Wonder who are the We?

What is Ministry?

2012-01-12T07:35:00.001-08:00

A Free Faith Writes,

I can’t imagine there won’t be a sudden surge in churches calling employees “ministers.”

It’s free discrimination day! « A Free Faith

I have been told by a UU Minister that blogging is a Ministry. I’ve been told by a UU Minister that my membership on the Social Justice committee is a Ministry. Whether doing Ministry makes me Minister, I’d like to know.

Also, read Alito and Kagan’s concurring opinion explaining the limits of Ministry applied to non-Protestant Churches and Faiths, and expanding the notion.

Marathon Pundit: Occupy Obama in Chicago; Big Labor AWOL (Photos)

2012-01-12T07:24:00.001-08:00

MP covers #Occupy Chicago’s smallish intervention at Obama’s fundraisers at UIC: Marathon Pundit: Occupy Obama in Chicago; Big Labor AWOL (Photos)

Looks like Labor opted out of this protest.

Hosanna-Tabor: U.S. Supreme Court Church-State Decision Protects the Church

2012-01-12T06:31:00.000-08:00

Via Catholic Times.... whow, unanimous with Alito and Kagan joining together on a concurring opinon; so much for America's polarization and a huge embarresement for the EEOC.

On January 11, 2012 the United States Supreme Court, in an opinion entitled Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, issued one of the most important Religion Clause cases of the last fifty years.

This was a unanimous opinion. The majority opinion was written by Chief Justice Roberts. Two concurring opinions were filed; one by Justice Thomas and a second by Justice Alito who was joined by Justice Kagan.

Update: ScotusBlog's recap of the case here. ....and more

Now We Will See The Real Obama

2012-01-12T04:26:00.001-08:00

A guy who seems to know the varieties of Chicago Democrats pretty well,

Then there are the Democrats that are the connectors. David Axelrod is a true believer that is a connector. He is good with the turn of a phrase to mask what they truly want and turn it into something saleable to the American public. The Clinton’s had their own machine which some Chicago folks were a part of. But their idea of political combat was a scorched earth policy. Chicago operators are much more pragmatic than that.
Obama’s mission was to ingrain that sort of crony capitalist machine into the fabric of national politics. One look at all the waivers given to his cronies for Obamacare shows you where he is headed. If Obama and his compatriots get there way, every business, man, woman and child will have to bow their head and kiss a ring to get anything done.

Read all of him to get the full panoply of Dems in this town, Now We Will See The Real Obama | Points and Figures

We all have a sacred text « A Free Faith

2012-01-11T10:48:00.001-08:00

Below is simply false in my experience. Most of us guided by habit. Now read on further and you’ll see the author lands finally upon tradition, which is a lot like habit, and while a people can certainly have collective traditions and habits, there’s no requirement anyone examine them. Many don’t and manage quite well on auto-pilot.

We all have beliefs. Anyone who says they don’t have a sacred text, no collection of wisdom and ideals they hold dear is either lying or unaware. Saying you don’t just means you aren’t being upfront about what guides your life.

We all have a sacred text « A Free Faith

French journalist killed in Syria – USATODAY.com

2012-01-11T08:34:00.000-08:00

French journalist killed in Syria – USATODAY.com

Gilles Jacquier RIP

[H/T] Jesse Queen

The New Authoritarianism by Fred Siegel and Joel Kotkin - City Journal

2012-01-10T11:09:00.000-08:00

The New Authoritarianism by Fred Siegel and Joel Kotkin - City Journal

Regarding the administration's reaction to the 2010 election,

Much of the administration’s approach has to do with a change in the nature of liberal politics. Today’s progressives cannot be viewed primarily as pragmatic Truman- or Clinton-style majoritarians. Rather, they resemble the medieval clerical class. Their goal is governmental control over everything from what sort of climate science is permissible to how we choose to live our lives. Many of today’s progressives can be as dogmatic in their beliefs as the most strident evangelical minister or mullah. Like Al Gore declaring the debate over climate change closed, despite the Climategate e-mails and widespread skepticism, the clerisy takes its beliefs as based on absolute truth. Critics lie beyond the pale.

The problem for the clerisy lies in political reality. The country’s largely suburban and increasingly Southern electorate does not see big government as its friend or wise liberal mandarins as the source of its salvation. This sets up a potential political crisis between those who know what’s good and a presumptively ignorant majority. Obama is burdened, says Joe Klein of Time, by governing a “nation of dodos” that is “too dumb to thrive,” as the title of his story puts it, without the guidance of our president. But if the people are too deluded to cooperate, elements in the progressive tradition have a solution: European-style governance by a largely unelected bureaucratic class.

...speaking as a critic beyond the pale, Siegel and Kotkin absolutely on mark here. This isn't going to end well either. Reality's going to crash down hard.

High-speed rail in Britain: Full steam ahead | The Economist

2012-01-10T08:34:00.001-08:00

Saves all of 45 minutes on a trip from London to Birmingham. This has got to be a disaster.

The government says the line could carry up to 26,000 people an hour and deliver benefits of £47 billion over the course of 60 years. But The Economist has not been impressed and editorialised against the plans back in September on the grounds that high-speed railways benefits rich regions and individuals at the expense of poorer ones, and their costs sap funding from humbler but more efficient schemes.

High-speed rail in Britain: Full steam ahead | The Economist

Government: The redistributionist behemoth - The Washington Post

2012-01-09T13:22:00.000-08:00

Government: The redistributionist behemoth - The Washington Post:

Read all of Will's column above, but it's odd UU's so accustomed to discerning the power in human relations, overlook this whopper.

Liberals have a rendezvous with regret. Their largest achievement is today’s redistributionist government. But such government is inherently regressive: It tends to distribute power and money to the strong, including itself.

Government becomes big by having big ambitions for supplanting markets as society’s primary allocator of wealth and opportunity. Therefore it becomes a magnet for factions muscular enough, in money or numbers or both, to bend government to their advantage.

Get to know Len Austrevich: Berwyn native fights cancer with humor

2012-01-08T09:45:00.000-08:00

Get to know Len Austrevich: Berwyn native fights cancer with humor

My step-brothers son, if you know some jokes...

Illinois Review: ILGOP chair blames Madigan for Moody's downgrade

2012-01-07T14:12:00.000-08:00

Illinois Review: ILGOP chair blames Madigan for Moody's downgrade

Mike Madigan's been in leadership in the house for over thirty years. He's had a bigger hand in the mess Illinois's in than most.

The narcissism of victimhood

2012-01-07T11:45:00.000-08:00

The narcissism of victimhood

A forgotten war, one I remember well though.

Salvation Army donations down $285,000 in Chicago

2012-01-07T11:41:00.000-08:00

Salvation Army donations down $285,000 in Chicago

Tough times but I can't think of a better outfit to donate too.

Liberation, Marcuse, and Rugged Individualism

2012-01-06T07:34:00.000-08:00

A quick thought, but one that's been on my mind since reading John Ruskin Clark, D.D. , What's Wrong with Marcuse's One Dimensional Man? is the Liberationists won in post 1968 Unitarian Universalism and that notions of obligation and duty became to us quaint conservative nostrums; part of a Father Frame we pasted on political conservatism.

Liberationist succeeded beyond expectations convincing Americans to free themselves, which they've done (some to self-destruction), and now UU's left with an stagnating Institution, failing to attract members, and renewed calls about duties to the collective.

The collective-duty boat's left (and sunk). No matter how loving or welcoming our Congregations may become, we'll still be confusing and unintelligible until we can explain and reconcile 1968 with today.

Love Is More Important Than Freedom | PeaceBang

2012-01-05T11:06:00.001-08:00

I’m not a great fan of building your own theology classes, and PB makes some good points here, but never in the whole post does she mention truth.

Thereau wrote, Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth. A UU Church, at its best, simply offers a supportive home to seek truth. Maybe not love; certainly not fame or fortune, not even truth; just support along our paths towards truth.

That’s simply it, and if we bungle that task of supportive home, than we’re no more.

Love Is More Important Than Freedom | PeaceBang

The Escapist : News : Sweden Formally Recognizes Piracy as Religion

2012-01-05T10:42:00.001-08:00

H/T Susanne Tarkowski Tempelhof

The act of peer to peer file-sharing is a holy act and information is sacred, according to the tenets of the Missionary Church of Kopimism. An offshoot of Sweden's Pirate Party, the 3,000 members of the church have been attempting to be recognized as an official religion since 2010.

The Escapist : News : Sweden Formally Recognizes Piracy as Religion

Unitarian Universalism as One Big Codependent System–disagreement as pathology

2012-01-05T09:36:00.001-08:00

Treating disagreements pathologically as disease -as SC does below- rather than just plain old disagreements strikes me a bit of an insult. A break with our covenants to gather not in agreement, but simply paper-overing disagreement as your disease, without our responsibility for taking you seriously at all. Your not worthy of debunking or argument; you’re just sort of sick, even though we might seem kindly in our nursing.

I am exploring in which the anti-Christian sentiments found throughout Unitarian Universalism can be seen and understood as aversion addiction.

Unitarian Universalism as One Big Codependent System | Sunflower Chalice

A Missional Church?

2012-01-05T08:24:00.000-08:00

Since this is a work popping about in UU blogs of late, it might be nice to sort out what it means.

For starters here. A list which I think excludes us, but hey, I'm open. Educate me.

And Wikipedia on Missio Dei and the German Theologian (of course!) who coined the word,

In 1934, Karl Hartenstein, a German missiologist, coined the phrase in response to Karl Barth and his emphasis on actio Dei (Latin for “the action of God”).

When kept in the context of the Scriptures, missio Dei correctly emphasizes that God is the initiator of His mission to redeem through the Church a special people for Himself from all of the peoples (τα εθνη) of the world. He sent His Son for this purpose and He sends the Church into the world with the message of the gospel for the same purpose.[1]

According to David J. Bosch, "mission is not primarily an activity of the church, but an attribute of God. God is a missionary God."[2] Jurgen Moltmann says, "It is not the church that has a mission of salvation to fulfill in the world; it is the mission of the Son and the Spirit through the Father that includes the church."[3] There is church because there is mission, not vice versa. The Church must not think its role is identical to the missio Dei; the Church is participating in the mission of God. The church's mission is a subset of a larger whole mission. That is, it is part of God's mission to the world and not the entirety of God's work in the world.

I'm usually left perplexed by God's actions. If someone's blind to God's hand too, I perfectly understand. A UU should be left to believe in nothing for sometimes nothing's all we can make out.

While our UU History important, and sadly unexamined by most save the Boston Unitarian, we're no longer a Christian Church and welcome not only unbelievers, but even those of thin or wishy-washy faith.

If that's the label an Evangelical slaps upon us, maybe we should respond, one can indeed be a UU of very wishy-washy faith. We are not ashamed.

We are at our best perhaps when offering a home to just that sort of thin, wishy-washy, believer, changing belief at whim, not because our mood's vary, but because Creation does. We're just trying to find what fits, and as BU tells us that's often, and maybe must be, a very lonely task: ....from William Alger's "The Solitudes of Nature and of Man: or the Loneliness of Human Life"

Aside From The Obvious: 'We're going to take back America'

2012-01-04T09:41:00.001-08:00

Asks….

Isn’t that we are always hearing? Ok, not always, but often enough to be recognizable. According to the the Dubuque Telegraph Herald the razor thin victor, Gov. Mitt Romney: says 'We're going to take back America.’
From whom or what?

Aside From The Obvious: 'We're going to take back America' -

hmmm… well, I heard it first in 2006 from Obama in what I thought a rather famous speech to a group named Take Back America:

Take Back America Speech

TOPIC: Our Past, Our Future & Vision for America
June 14, 2006
Remarks of Senator Barack Obama: Take Back America

Faster, Please! » Iran in Convulsion (the death spiral continues)

2012-01-04T06:28:00.001-08:00

Ledeen in today’s PJ Media,

Big news today from Iran, confirming once again that the hapless regime in Tehran proceeds down its death spiral. The first is the spectacular collapse of the national currency, which has lost 35% of its value since September. The second headline, in an extraordinary press conference by the effective commander of the revolutionary guards, is the admission that the incarcerated leaders of the green movement have so much powerful support that the regime dares not prosecute them.

Faster, Please! » Iran in Convulsion (the death spiral continues)

Ayatollahs backed into a corner a dangerous things.

The meaning of Mohamed Bouaziz; the weariness of Dr. Marylin Sewell

2012-01-04T03:32:00.001-08:00

She writes,

I am weary of hearing well-meaning friends question the Occupy Wall Street phenomenon. They ask, "What do they want? They don't have any clear goals -- how can they hope to bring about change?"
I want to ask:
"What was the meaning of Gandhi's fasts? "
"What was the meaning of the Watts riots?"
"What is the meaning of the young Syrian who set himself on fire because he could find no job, and started the Arab Spring?"

The Meaning of Occupy Wall Street - Marilyn Sewell

The Syrian was really a Tunisian. He had a name. A quick google would have told you he was Mohamed Bouaziz. His picture at left.

I’m tired of UUs who conflate rich American kids disrupting free elections in Iowa ( They heckled and interrupted candidates on several occasions, often to chant a prepared script.) with brave people who give their lives for the right to have elections and vote.

I’m weary of UU leaders too lazy to get their facts right. Too seek the truth and a then honor the name of a Martyr for Democracy: Mohamed Bouaziz

Iowa’s ‘uneducated Jesus freaks’

2012-01-03T14:04:00.000-08:00

Iowa’s ‘uneducated Jesus freaks’

Also, Iowa Hawk's parody of Bloom's piece in the Atlantic.

Iowa's a fine place. I'd move there without hesitation.

Occupy protesters unable to meet with Democratic official | The Des Moines Register | DesMoinesRegister.com

2012-01-03T10:43:00.001-08:00

Rep Wasserman-Schultz strikes me as the last sort of Politician any self-respecting Socialist much less Anarcho-Syndicalist would care to parley with. Where’s Big Bill Haywood when you need him?

Occupy Des Moines demonstrators went to the Democratic National Committee’s “war room” in downtown Des Moines twice on Sunday to try to meet with the committee’s chairwoman, but the party says she won’t be in town until late tonight.

A day after police made 18 arrests at sometimes-heated rallies at political offices in the metro area, protesters carried out several more subdued actions Sunday. One man was arrested at Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign offices in Des Moines.
More events are expected Monday and Tuesday, before the Iowa caucuses officially kick off the presidential campaign. Spokesman Stephen Toothman said new plans won’t be made until a meeting Monday morning. Protesters have repeatedly emphasized that they do not intend to cause any disruptions to voting Tuesday night.

Occupy protesters unable to meet with Democratic official | The Des Moines Register | DesMoinesRegister.com

پیام حشمت الله طبرزدی از زندان رجایی شهر _ دیماه ۱۳۹

2012-01-03T09:00:00.000-08:00

via Radio Liberty,

A well-known Iranian political activist, Heshmatollah Tabarzadi, has managed to send out an unprecedented video message from the Rajayishahr prison in which he dismisses Iran's repressive measures aimed at silencing dissent and predicts they will fail.

"Freedom is the essence of human being I believe, in fact without freedom no choice has a meaning," he says in the 15-minute-plus video.

The video was recorded recently on a mobile phone and posted on YouTube. It was then quickly shared on Facebook, blogs, and other social media sites.

Update: via Nasrin Sotoudeh's fan page,

Tabarzadi says the Iranian leadership fears individuals like him who have resorted to nonviolent means to bring change in the country.

He says the harsh methods Iran uses against political activists, students, and human rights advocates are doomed to failure:

"We are not terrorists; we are not promoting violence; we have said certain things based on our basic rights; we've expressed our views. The establishment issues heavy prison sentences against us out of fear, it fears what we have to say -- the things we're saying here between us. I don't believe the crackdown, violent measures, prison and other things will stop us. We're determined, we have paid a price, and we're [ready] to pay an even higher price, we know our rights, and we will definitely reach our demands. "

Andy Kessler: The Rise of Consumption Equality - WSJ.com

2012-01-03T08:04:00.001-08:00

Kessler’s conclusion on our growing equality of consumption,

Just about every product or service that makes our lives better requires a mass market or it's not economic to bother offering. Those who invent and produce for the mass market get rich. And the more these innovators better the rest of our lives, the richer they get but the less they can differentiate themselves from the masses whose wants they serve. It's the Pages and Bransons and Zuckerbergs who have made the unequal equal: So, sure, income equality may widen, but consumption equality will become more the norm.
To me, being rich means covering the basic necessities, and then having a challenging career, fun and fulfilling leisure time, and the love of family and friends. Compared to 20 years ago, or even five years ago, chances are that you're richer. Try to enjoy it.

Andy Kessler: The Rise of Consumption Equality - WSJ.com

The other argument I suppose that wealth confers political power, but my experience that’s not quite true… consider sitting in the old Meadville-Lombard listening to jibber-jabber on determining the power structure (it’s not self-evident, you gotta figure it out with an algorithim) yet knowing after dark in this neigborhood, the bad guys run things: escort me to my car please Mr. Baar?

Brotherhood endorses Coptic candidate over Salafi one, Salafis enraged | Al-Masry Al-Youm: Today's News from Egypt

2012-01-03T06:16:00.001-08:00

Why elections and Democracy are good things.

Brotherhood endorses Coptic candidate over Salafi one, Salafis enraged | Al-Masry Al-Youm: Today's News from Egypt

What’s a UU Church Program offer the now pretty standard single-mom household?

2012-01-03T06:07:00.000-08:00

Rev Dan Harper wrote,

Bill — You write: “What’s a UU Church Program offer the now pretty standard single-mom household?”

Exactly the question to ask. All too often the answer is — nothing.

So ok, I'm asking, and betting if you visit you local big-box Church you'll find strong youth programming and support groups targeting single mothers.

A thought that's be chewing at me since hearing Doug Muder's Red Family Blue Family sermon which I thought would go over badly with the single, divorced, never married, of either gender.

Poll: Should your bylaws say only UUMA Ministers?

2012-01-02T04:21:00.001-08:00

Should your Church’s bylaws hold the Congregation to only calling Ministers who are members of the Unitarian Universalist Ministers Association?

Poll at the upper right of the blog. Please explain your vote in comments.

uuworld.org : Board may nominate only one moderator candidate

2012-01-02T04:16:00.001-08:00

If you’re lucky enough to have more than one person volunteer for a job like this, you ought to at least put them all on the ballot. People can endorse whomever, but a bigger selection the better.

Qualifying a decision it made in October 2011 to nominate at least two candidates for moderator, the Unitarian Universalist Association Board of Trustees voted in December to adopt a policy that could allow it to nominate only one person for the position.
Following lengthy debate during its monthly conference call on Dec. 15, the board narrowly agreed that if members of the board vote overwhelmingly for one person for moderator, then the board will nominate only that person.

uuworld.org : board may nominate only one moderator candidate

Poll Results: a lackluster UUA

2012-01-02T03:50:00.000-08:00

Not much of a sample, but here's the results from the poll: UUA leading from behind?

Showing Leadership we need! 0 (0%)
As good as UUs can expect. 1 (25%)
UUA's reacting, not leading 3 (75%)
What's UUA? 0

If the sample size no good, the objective evidence may be more telling. Per Rev Dan Harper,

This year, the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) reported the fourth year of decline in religious education enrollment in congregations. This decline came after a couple of decades of steady growth. Worse yet, 2007 marked the highest number of births since 1961, at the height of the Baby Boom, which means we should be seeing an increase in the number of kids in our congregations.

Dan spins the upside on this stat as indisputable wake up call for congregations and leadership. However I wouldn't underestimate UU drowsiness. The heady narcotic of reliving the 60s with #Occupy may well divert many from the essential task of tending our youth.

How Islam Began

2012-01-01T07:27:00.000-08:00

A lecture at the Oriental Institute... I'll try and be there. Say hello if you're there too.

Wednesday, January 11, 2012
Time: 7:00pm until 10:00pm
Where: Oriental Institute, Breasted Hall, 1155 East 58th Street, Chicago, IL
Description: Fred Donner, of the University of Chicago, will give a lecture entitled, 'How Islam Began: New Views'.

Muslim tradition offers a very clear vision of how Islam began, centering on the life of the prophet Muhammad in Arabia, his receiving of revelations from God that became the text of the Qur'an, and a rapid expansion of his followers after his death to form a new Islamic empire that dominated most of the Near East. Western scholarship followed this traditional story, but over the past forty years revisionist scholarship has offered a variety of new interpretations, many of which depart in striking ways from the traditional narrative. Evidence now suggests that there was a much more flexible sense of communal identity among the earliest followers of Muhammad, so that the distinction between "Muslim," "Christian," and "Jew" may have been less clear-cut than it subsequently became. This lecture explores these issues and discusses how Islam, as it is classically defined, emerged from this more ecumenical environment.

ANP rocks Mardan

2011-12-31T13:43:00.000-08:00

I've asked the ANP folks for English transcripts of the speeches.

Mardan, thousands of Awami National Party workers arrives at College Ground to listen to ANP Chief Asfandyar Wali Khan and Chief Minister Pakhtunkhwa Ameer Haider Khan Hoti.

AMNtv team was present here with four cameras to cover this historical event.
In this part you can watch Singer Gulzar Alam with flapping listeners and a speech of Mohammad Azam Khan Hoti and the entry of ANP leaders where given warm welcome.

Geo News anchor of Capital Talk Hamid Mir was also present on special invitation of ANP's Central Sec.Information Senator Zahid Khan.

U.S. flags burned at Occupy Charlotte land group in jail

2011-12-31T08:35:00.000-08:00

Was this really necessary?

إدلب أريحا جمعة ساحات الحرية 30 12 2011

2011-12-30T15:19:00.000-08:00

Jericho Fri 30 yards of freedom 12 30 2011

RealClearReligion - Why I Loved Christopher Hitchens

2011-12-30T04:49:00.001-08:00

Father Barron on Hitchens. Read him all, link at the bottom, but below explains why some believe inspite of the themselves (me too).

What you couldn't miss in Hitchens's writing and speaking was a passion for justice, a deep desire to defend those who were denied their rights. This comes through from his first book on Cyprus and Greece to his articles in defense of his friend Salman Rushdie to his recent essays and speeches on the Iraq war. Where does this passion come from? What makes sense of it?
If there is no God, which is to say, no unconditioned justice, no absolute criterion of good and evil, why precisely would someone burn with righteous indignation at violations of justice? If we are here simply by dumb chance, if all of us will one day die and simply fade away, if the earth will one day be incinerated and the universe spins away without purpose and in utter indifference to human cruelty and human nobility, why would anyone finally bother? Wouldn't in fact Dostoyevsky be right in saying that if there is no God everything is permitted?
My point is that the very passion for setting things right, which burned so brightly in Christopher Hitchens, is a powerful indicator that he was, whether he acknowledged it or not, connected to unconditioned justice. And that connection brought him very close indeed to what serious believers mean by God.

RealClearReligion - Why I Loved Christopher Hitchens

2012: The year when extremism self-destructs? - Guest Voices - The Washington Post

2011-12-30T04:42:00.001-08:00

Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite on the self-destruction of the “Christian Right”: 2012: The year when extremism self-destructs? - Guest Voices - The Washington Post

The Christian Right’s been with us for decades now. As long as Abortion is an issue, it will remain with us. I don’t see that disappearing soon.

Thistlethwait’s got the Tea Party wrong too. Illinois Social Conservatives i.e. Christian Rightest, polled the many Illinois Tea Party organizations about social issues, and with only one or two exceptions they all replied they took no stands on contentious social issues, because they were, well, contentious.

The Tea Parties focused solely on Budget and Spending issues. They were focused only on those and anyone was free to join them if they agreed on that, and persons thoughts on marriage, abortion, etc were not issues in the Illinois Tea Party.

As long as we rack up record deficits and job killers like ObamaCare, the Tea Party will be with us too.

Tensions Rise Over Drone Secrecy and the silence of UU Peace Makers

2011-12-30T04:16:00.001-08:00

I’m not a WSJ.com subscriber so can only read the first three paragraphs here: Tensions Rise Over Drone Secrecy - WSJ.com

Tensions are quietly increasing between the White House and some congressional leaders over access to sensitive information about the government's use of drones in Pakistan and Yemen, officials said.
The White House has brushed aside requests for information from lawmakers, who argue that the strikes, carried out secretly by the Central Intelligence Agency and the military's Joint Special Operations Command, have broad implications for U.S. policy but don't receive adequate oversight.
Some current and former administration, military and congressional officials point to what they see as significant oversight gaps, in part because few lawmakers have full access to information about ...

Seems like a worthy issue for UU PeaceMakers which hasn’t had a post since Feb 11th. Considering we seem on the brink of war with Iran (if we’re not in one already; I could argue we’ve been at war for years), the Peace Making silence odd.

Jane Addams on Class

2011-12-29T12:18:00.001-08:00

From pages 124 and 125 of Elshtain’s Jane Addams and the Dream of American Democracy,

In an interview published in the Chicago News on April 10, 1899, Addams extolled the bicycle as a form of exercise. When asked if this was particularly beneficial to the poorer and middle classes, she said: “There is where I wish to make an exception. I object to that word class. It is un-American. There are no classes in this country. The people are all Americans with no dividing line drawn. But I think the the bicycle is a good thing for the workingman…. It gives him recreation and exercise and while riding to and from his work he enjoys the open air.” Whatever one thinks of Addams’s hope that tired workingmen might find their health improved by bicycling, the most interesting moment is her truculent dismissal of the word class. Of course, there were dividing lines in America. It was one thing to acknowledge an empirical reality that separated people; it was another to use collective category to classify hundreds of thousands of people, and in so doing, to obliterate their distinctiveness. Americans should think of one another as neighbors and fellow citizens who have had vastly different experiences. We are obliged to interpret ourselves one to the other and to do all we can to ease the situation for those who are hard-pressed. Jane Addams practice what she preached when it came to being attuned to the uniqueness of each and every person, however insignificant he or she might seem.

It’s not Jane Addams’s America for many UUs; at least of the blogging sort. Categorizers abound, plopping fellow citizens into buckets perhaps unfamiliar, and foreign to those plopped. Our distinctiveness obliterated… the 99% in long lines with the new comer’s blue cup waiting for a welcome. My guess is most won’t wait for the categorizers wordy greeting: You say I'm what? It’s a vision unintelligible to Americans not willing to give up their distinctiveness.

Auctoritas

2011-12-29T12:00:00.001-08:00

An example of it from pages 93 and 94 of Jean Bethke Elshtain’s Jane Addams and the Dream of American Democracy,

Chicago people look to Jane Addams of Hull-House in many emergencies. The other night the little woman was roused at midnight to meet a committee of firemen in the parlor. Stables had been burned in the neighborhood and horses were injured but not killed. There is a city law which requires a special order of court to shoot a horse within city limits. This order of court could not be obtained until morning. Horses were suffering with no hope of relief but death. “Miss Addams, can’t you give us an order to shoot them?” asked the burly fireman. “I have no legal authority but I will take the responsibility, “ said the little woman. They drove with her to the place and she stood by to see the horses shot. --from the Boston Transcript, April 23, 1903

Arab League in Syria: A Mission of Amateurs - SPIEGEL ONLINE

2011-12-29T10:11:00.001-08:00

Al Dabi must not look at Youtube.

The information emerging about the visit of Arab League observers to Syria is alarming -- but not because they plan to pointedly pursue the accusations against the regime of President Bashar Assad. Instead, it's because the first statements made by its leader, Sudanese Lt. Gen. Mustafa al-Dabi, are scandalous.
Speaking in the insurgent stronghold of Homs, he said that some areas looked "a bit of a mess," but otherwise he'd seen "nothing frightening"

Arab League in Syria: A Mission of Amateurs - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News - International

Judicial Watch Announces Washington’s “Ten Most Wanted Corrupt Politicians” for 2011

2011-12-29T04:50:00.001-08:00

H/T Jim Kouri

AG Holder makes the top ten this year. Picture at left is Holder with now convicted Illinois Gov Rod Blagojevich announcing Holder’s hiring to prove Rosemont Illnois was not a mobbed-up community, and indeed worthy of an Illinois Casino license. The b-girls and bookies on Mannheim Road were tickled to hear his selection I’m sure.

Attorney General Eric Holder: Attorney General Eric Holder now operates the most politicized and ideological Department of Justice (DOJ) in recent history. And revelations from the Operation Fast and Furious scandal suggest that programs approved by the Holder DOJ may have resulted in the needless deaths of many, including a federal law enforcement officer.

Fast and Furious was a DOJ/Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) “gun-running” operation in which guns were sold to Mexican drug cartels and others, apparently in hopes that the guns would end up at crime scenes. This reckless insanity seems to have resulted in, among other crimes, the murder of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry, who was killed in a shootout with Mexican criminals in December 2010. Fast and Furious guns were found at the scene of his death.

Judicial Watch Announces Washington’s “Ten Most Wanted Corrupt Politicians” for 2011 | Judicial Watch

Obama and his Bankers

2011-12-28T11:04:00.000-08:00

Obama and his Bankers: Repo Men - Kevin D. Williamson - National Review Online

For a few measly millions, Wall Street not only bought itself a president, but got the start-up firm of B. H. Obama & Co. LLC to throw a cabinet into the deal, too — on remarkably generous terms. President Obama, for a guy prone to delivering prim and smug little homilies denouncing greed, greed, greed — the only of the seven deadly sins that truly offends Democrats (though Mrs. Obama has done some desultory work on gluttony) — is strangely comfortable among the Gordon Gekkos of this world. Shall we have a partial roll call?

A call the roll Williamson does.... go read him all.

Tillich on Ecclesiastes for JMP

2011-12-28T04:40:00.001-08:00

Reader JMP mentions Ecclesiastes so I’ll point him to Tillich’s The New Being’s chapter 21 on the Right Time. I first read Tillich in a religion class with Howard Burkle at Grinnell. I still have my copy of The New Being and sent it with my daughter to University in Madison. Dan Harper told me once UUs bonkers for anything Tillich. I like the commentary below on Time from Tillich. Time’s something few UUs get in my opinion. Many conflicts with the Orthodox and Evangelicals go away when we realize time and how we experience time different things. Tillich explains a bit….

There is another answer to the question of human existence, to the question of timing and being timed. It is summed up in the words of Jesus: "The time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand." In these words, God’s timing breaks into our human timing. Something new appears, answering the question of the Preacher is well as the question of the business man. We ask with all generations of thinking men: What is the meaning of the flux of time and the passing away of everything in it? What is the meaning of our toiling and planning when the end of all of us and of all our works is the same? Vanity? And this is the answer we get: Within this our time something happens that is not of our time but out of eternity, and this times our time! The same power which limits, us in time gives eternal significance to our timing.
When Jesus says that the right hour has come, that the kingdom of God is at hand, He pronounces the victory over the law of vanity. This hour is not subject to the circle of life and death and all the other circles of vanity. When God Himself appears in a moment of time, when He Himself subjects Himself to the flux of time, the flux of time is conquered. And if this happens in one moment of time, then all moments of time receive another significance. When the finger of the clock turns around; not one vain moment is replaced by another vain moment, but each moment says to us: The eternal is at hand in this moment. The moment passes, the eternal remains. Whatever in this moment, in this hour, on this day and in this short or long life-time happens has infinite significance. Our timing from moment to moment, our planning today for tomorrow, the toil of our lifetime is not lost. Its deepest meaning lies not ahead where vanity swallows it, but it lies above where eternity affirms it. This is the seriousness of time and timing. Through our timing God times the coming of His kingdom; through our timing He elevates the time of vanity into the time of fulfillment. The activist who is timing with shrewdness and intuition what he has to do in his time and for his time, and for our whole activistic civilization cannot give us the answer. And the Preacher, who himself once was a most successful activist, knows that this is not an answer; he knows the vanity of our timing.

Hewlett Johnson: While we’re waiting for God, Russia is doing it

2011-12-27T14:16:00.001-08:00

Before there was #Occupy, there was Hewlett Johnson. Charles Moore reviews a new biography of a painfully familiar sort of Christian: The Red Dean of Canterbury.

As Canterbury Cathedral this week marks the anniversary of the death of its most famous “turbulent priest”, Thomas Becket, it is a good moment to study the life of its second-most famous one. Hewlett Johnson became the Dean of Canterbury in 1931, when he was already getting on for 60, and clung on to the post, despite numerous attempts to get him out, until 1964.
Over those 33 years, Johnson devoted the bulk of his astonishing energy to proving that Soviet Communism, especially as practised by Stalin, was heaven on earth: “While we’re waiting for God, Russia is doing it.” In his bestseller The Socialist Sixth of the World, which was published not long after Stalin’s most extensive programme of mass murder, he wrote: “Nothing strikes the visitor to the Soviet Union more forcibly than the complete absence of fear.”

The rest here: The priest who thought Stalin was a saint - Telegraph

American Iconoclast by Tom Shachtman

2011-12-27T12:09:00.001-08:00

A new biography of Eric Hoffer by Tom Shachtman. Hoffer a blue collar guy with some thoughts on class. American Iconoclast by Tom Shachtman

Al-Arabiya TV interview, [26 Dec 2011]: The Homs massacres described by Osama Al-Homsi

2011-12-27T08:52:00.001-08:00

An interview on Al-Arabiya with English subtitles at bottom.

The Limits of Secularism | Standpoint

2011-12-27T04:25:00.001-08:00

An interesting factoid from Chief Rabbi Lord Sacks,

The young aristocrat was Alexis de Tocqueville, and in the book that he wrote about his experiences, namely his experience of American democracy, he said: "18th-century philosophers had a very simple explanation for the gradual weakening of beliefs: religious zeal was bound to die down as enlightenment and freedom spread." In other words, Tocqueville was saying that every self-respecting 18th-century intellectual thought that religion was dying, in intensive care, and all that was needed was a little bit of help on its way — assisted suicide. "It is tiresome," Tocqueville said, "that the facts do not fit this theory at all." So he had this question: how come religion didn't die when everyone said it would?
One hundred and eighty years have passed since Tocqueville wrote these words, but until very recently intellectuals have been making the same mistake. In America today, for example, a higher percentage of the population attends a house of worship weekly than is the case in the theocratic state of Iran: 40 per cent in the US, 39 per cent in Iran. Furthermore, in China today, half a century after Chairman Mao declared China to be religion-free, there are more practising Christians than there are members of the Communist Party. One way or another, religion didn't die.

Read the rest here in a longish but excellent piece:The Limits of Secularism | Standpoint

China Rail Fail: 42% Spending Cut in Bullet Train Meltdown | Via Meadia

2011-12-27T04:03:00.001-08:00

Must read for the UU high speed rail lobby: China Rail Fail: 42% Spending Cut in Bullet Train Meltdown | Via Meadia

Iran does not have necessary facilities to stone Sakineh to death so want to hang her instead | Maryam Namazie

2011-12-26T16:16:00.001-08:00

via Maryam Namazie’s blog…..

Malek Ajdar Sharifi, the head of the judiciary in East Azerbaijan, said on Sunday that the prison does not have the “necessary facilities” to carry out Sakineh Mohamadi Ashtiani’s sentence of stoning!! Therefore, he said, they are considering hanging as an alternative. Really? Have they run out of stones and hired Islamic sadists?

Iran does not have necessary facilities to stone Sakineh to death so want to hang her instead | Maryam Namazie

Anshe Kanesses Israel synagogue

2011-12-25T11:09:00.000-08:00

City moves to tear down historic West Side synagogue - Chicago Sun-Times

Terrible loss and one that would harm the eventual revitalization of Lawndale.

Check Brule Laker's photo stream for photos

(12.25.2011) Wadi Alarab | Homs | "Santa Claus wants the fall of the Assad regime"

2011-12-25T11:00:00.001-08:00

Santa's a good guy..

The Christmas Truce | First World War Centenary

2011-12-25T06:46:00.001-08:00

Merry Christmas 2011. A link to the podcast over at the Imperial War Museum on the 1914 Christmas truce. And a link to my new blog on the First World War as 2014 approaches.

IMPERIAL WAR MUSEUM’s Voices of the First World War
Here is the ninth in a series of podcasts that delve into the IWM’s Sound Archive to bring you the voices of those who lived through the First World War. Find out what a huge range of people felt, experienced and witnessed during 1914–1918, and the impact the events of those years had on their lives.
The Christmas Truce of 1914 has become almost legendary over time, with stories of German and British soldiers putting down their arms to play football in no man’s land. But what really happened? Find out from those who witnessed this incredible – and unexpected – piece of history.

Podcast 9: The Christmas Truce | First World War Centenary

In the Room with Walter Brueggemann | The Prophetic Imagination of Walter Brueggemann

2011-12-25T06:42:00.001-08:00

Listening to Brueggeman on On Being with Krista Tippet. Merry Christmas!

In the Room with Walter Brueggemann (live stream) from On Being on Vimeo.

In the Room with Walter Brueggemann | The Prophetic Imagination of Walter Brueggemann [OnBeing.org]

OWS' Reaction to TIME's 'Person of the Year' (explicit)

2011-12-24T06:41:00.000-08:00

H/T Illinois Review

제네바 일리노이 유니테어리언교 - 보편 사회의 언약

2011-12-24T06:25:00.001-08:00

우리 규약
(1842로 작성)
세계에서 실질적인 장점을 추진 내리기 위해이기 때문에, 그리고 도덕과 종교 개선 서로 도울 기회를 우리가 아니라, 캐릭터에 대한 믿음이나 완벽에 보편 진리를 획득하는 데 같은 의견에 동의으로 자신을 함께 - 안 관련된지만, 구직자로있다 이후 진리와 선하심.

McHenry County Blog | Bi-Partisan Coalition Led by Joe Walsh “Saves Christmas” or at Least “Merry Christmas”

2011-12-24T06:00:00.001-08:00

For those who think the Rich run America, here’s a decidedly unrich guy, unloved by the political establishment in Illinois, who managed to connect, get elected, and have impact. Cal Skinner sums it up here: McHenry County Blog | Bi-Partisan Coalition Led by Joe Walsh “Saves Christmas” or at Least “Merry Christmas”

Inside Syria's Death Zone: Assad's Regime Hunts People in Homs - SPIEGEL ONLINE

2011-12-23T11:31:00.001-08:00

Assad’s thugs are really hunting too. The story and pictures here: Inside Syria's Death Zone: Assad's Regime Hunts People in Homs - SPIEGEL ONLINE