Who’s to blame?

 

Who did President Bush blame for 9/11, the dot-com meltdown, etc.?  No one.

Who has President Obama blamed for the country’s problems?

1. Bush
2. Tea Partiers
3. Bush
4. ATMs
5. Decades of politicians (probably Republicans, of course — see below)
6. Bad luck
7. Bush

The above list has zero exaggerations.

He pretends to be taking accountability below, but read it carefully and see how it is just another dodge.

I recommend electing an adult in 2012.  See Obama To CNN: “The Buck Stops With Me” : Stop The ACLU:

“The mess has been bigger than a lot of people anticipated at the time,” Obama said in an interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer from Peosta, Iowa. “We have made steady progress on these fronts but we’re not making progress fast enough. What I continue to believe is that ultimately the buck stops with me. I’m going to be accountable.”

Notice he did not say “I’m accountable.” What Mr. Obama was actually saying was that he’s not actually accountable for any of the issues that at the least, made no better, at worst, made a right big mess, but, that voters will hold him accountable. He trotted out the old Harry Truman line, and spun it around. Really

Throughout the interview, whether asked about the economy or next year’s campaign, the president struck a realist tone — conceding the scale of problems facing the country while insisting his administration is working diligently to fix them.

Obama said that even though Americans understand that the economy’s problems are “decades in the making,” voters are “impatient” to see more progress on the economy.

So, he just blamed everyone else for the financial decisions over the past few decades. He tended to also Blame Republicans and Bush throughout the rest of the interview, as well.

Obama has been criticized during his three-day Midwestern bus tour this week for not including new proposals to address the country’s unemployment problem. But in the CNN interview, he defended his administration’s work to coax Congress to act on infrastructure investments, free trade deals with South Korea and Panama, and payroll tax breaks for workers.

“The truth is everything we’ve done has been related to jobs, starting back with the Recovery Act,” Obama said.

True. They are related to jobs, mostly destroying them. What little progress was made created short term jobs (which is what “infrastructure investments” would do) at absurd costs to create.

Free eBook for those battling bipolar

Courtesy of Pistol Pete – Free E-Book Still Available « Necessary Therapy.:

It’s called From Sheol to the Highest Heavens: 101 Devotions for those with Bipolar Disorder (and those who love them).  It is a spiritual journey through my 20+ years battling Bipolar with Christ on my side (yet sometimes my working against Him).  You can get your free copy by sending an e-mail request to nikita1940@comcast.net and write in the subject line, “free e-book”.

Our financial crisis is your fault!

You should have elected a luckier President.  See Obama Creates His Own Luck (emphasis added):

Today in Iowa, Barack Obama proved once and for all that he does not understand how the economy works:

At a town hall meeting on his campaign-style tour of the Midwest, President Obama claimed that his economic program “reversed the recession” until recovery was frustrated by events overseas.  And then, Obama said, with the economy in an increasingly precarious position, the recovery suffered another blow when Republicans pressed the White House for federal spending cuts in exchange for an increase in the national debt limit, resulting in a deal Obama called a “debacle.”

“We had reversed the recession, avoided a depression, gotten the economy moving again,” Obama told a crowd in Decorah, Iowa.  “But over the last six months we’ve had a run of bad luck.”  Obama listed three events overseas — the Arab Spring uprisings, the tsunami in Japan, and the European debt crises — which set the economy back.

If the issue wasn’t so serious you could just laugh off this childish leader who blames everyone but himself.  Corporate CEOs would have been fired by now for the lack of results and the lack of personal responsibility.

False teacher ignores Biden’s real violent rhetoric, makes up Perry issue

Race-baiting false teacher Chuck “Jesus is not the only way” Currie is a pathetic political hack.  Does the UCC pay him for this nonsense?  It is fascinating how someone could be that bad at theology and politics and still be on HuffPo (oh, wait a minute, that’s not surprising at all).  Chuck’s hypocrisy is so reflexive that he probably revels in the irony of him demonizing Perry for political gain, all the while pretending to be the civil one.

Completely ignoring Joe Biden describing Tea Partiers as terrorists, Currie tips his hand at his pants-wetting fear that Rick Perry will annihilate Obama the way Reagan whipped Carter in 1980.

What was Perry’s “violent rhetoric” that Chuck boo-hoo’d about in Presidential Candidates Should Reject Violent Rhetoric; Embrace Church Call For Civility?  Just this:

. . . Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke “print more money” between now and the election. Speaking just now in Iowa, Perry said, “If this guy prints more money between now and the election, I dunno what y’all would do to him in Iowa but we would treat him pretty ugly down in Texas. Printing more money to play politics at this particular time in American history is almost treasonous in my opinion.”

So Perry said that something would be “almost treasonous,” and that qualifies for a sermonette from Chuck?  Here is Chuck’s hyperbole:

He needs to acknowledge his error, apologize, and find ways to communicate his vision for the nation that bring people together instead of tearing the fabric of our society apart.

No, Chuck needs to acknowledge his theological errors and hate-driven agenda then repent and believe in Jesus.  Just because he quotes the National Council of (apostate) Churches (which gets non-religious funding, not surprisingly) it doesn’t mean he is making a biblical point.

Will the Libs at Huffpo lap this up?  Of course.  It will help them sleep at night, hoping that this miserable failure of a President is running out the clock.  The good news is that the independent voters will realize what a fake shill Chuck is and realize that they should vote for Perry.  I mean, if that is the best the Left can come up with to demonize him, that’s pretty bad news for them.

Also see Seventeen (17) things that critics are saying about Rick Perry.  That list will come in handy when Chuck & Co. are making up lies about why you shouldn’t vote for him.

P.S. You can tell that Chuck still fears Sarah Palin, because he brought her up again.

From the “I can’t believe we’re having this conversation” category: Voter ID opponents

If an alien came to earth it would be shocked to discover that anyone would oppose voter identification laws.  What could be more simple and foundational to the integrity of the voting process?  Yet here we are, with countless Liberals opposing this most common sense of measures.

They really tip their hands with their opposition to voter ID.   What other motive could they have but trying to remove one of their barriers to committing voter fraud?  We shouldn’t even have to provide examples of other places where ID is routinely required, but the list is long: Buying anything with a credit card, at the bank, getting a driver’s license, air travel, and so many more.

There is a reason for the truism that Republicans have to win elections by a large enough margin that the Democrats can’t cheat to win.  See Pajamas Media » Every Single One: The Politicized Hiring of Eric Holder’s Voting Section.

Recently released documents — disclosed by the Obama Justice Department only after a court battle — reveal that the Civil Rights Division at the Department of Justice is engaging in politicized hiring in the career civil service ranks. Typical Washington behavior, you say? Except the hiring in question is nearly unprecedented in scope and significantly eclipses anything the Bush administration was evenaccused of doing. And the evidence of the current political activity is far less impeachable than what was behind the libelous attacks leveled at officials from the Bush years.

For nearly a year, the Civil Rights Division rebuffed Pajamas Media’s Freedom of Information Act request for the resumes of attorneys hired into the Division during the tenure of Eric Holder. PJM was finally forced to file a federal lawsuit earlier this year. Only then did Justice relent and turn over the documents. The result leaves little wonder why PJM’s request was met with such intense resistance.

The Department’s political leadership clearly recognized that the resumes of these new attorneys would expose the hypocrisy of the Obama administration’s polemical attacks on the Bush administration for supposedly engaging in “politicized hiring” — and that everyone would see just how militantly partisan the Obama Civil Rights Division truly is. Holder’s year-long delay before producing these documents — particularly when compared to the almost-instantaneous turnaround by the Bush administration of a virtually identical request by the Boston Globe back in 2006 — also shows how deep politics now runs in the Department.

As Richard Pollock of Pajamas Media observed in an article, none of this should surprise anyone even remotely familiar with Holder’s highly partisan nature. Indeed, Holder boasted to the American Constitution Society (an organization started as a liberal counterweight to the Federalist Society) back in June 2008 that the Obama Justice Department was “going to be looking for people who share our values,” and that “a substantial number of those people would probably be members of the American Constitution Society.” The hiring records from Holder’s initial thirty months in office underscore how serious he was about this mission.

. . .

But don’t just take my word for it. Let the resumes speak for themselves.

We start today with the Civil Rights Division’s Voting Section. This Section is responsible for enforcing, among other things, all aspects of the Voting Rights Act. This includes reviewing redistricting and other pre-clearance submissions under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act that covered jurisdictions throughout the country must submit to the Justice Department for approval. Redistricting maps, voter ID statutes, citizenship verification laws, and a host of other politically contentious election issues rest in the hands of these Voting Section bureaucrats.

Long a refuge of partisan activists and ideological crusaders, the Section has been filling its ranks over the last 30 months with like-minded liberals ready to do the bidding of left-wing advocacy organizations. Sixteen attorneys have come on board in this hiring binge. Who are these new radicals?

Bryan Sells: Mr. Sells was recently hired as one of the Voting Section’s new deputy chiefs. He comes to the Department from the ACLU’s Voting Rights Project, where he worked for nearly 10 years as a Senior Staff Counsel. During his tenure, his organization strongly opposed all voter ID laws, and challenged the right of states to verify the U.S. citizenship of individuals seeking to register to vote. He also characterized state felon disenfranchisement laws – which are expressly authorized in the Constitution — as a “slap in the face to democracy,” and consistently took the most aggressive (and generally legally unsupportable) positions onredistricting cases throughout the country.

Read it all.  It gets worse.

If anyone opposes voter ID, you can be sure they are highly disingenuous or truly lacking in critical thinking skills.

Make sure you don’t support “cocaine charities”

The phrase used in Common Sense Concept » Cocaine Charity refers to charitable endeavors that enslave those you set out to help.  The intentions are good, but the long term results are bad.  From the link:

Does this prescription align with the majority of our charitable endeavors? Brian had deep respect that this Kenyan ministry served the “least of these.” But, was this charity in alignment with the biblical model of charity? Were they helping these women…

To no longer need to receive charity?

Experience the dignity of honest work?

Enjoy the blessing of providing for their children?

Know the joy of giving charitably to others?

In fairness, there are times when the only appropriate response is to freely give things away. The Haiti earthquake and supporting the disabled are examples of such. But, barring such exceptions, our long-term aim should always be to help in a way which frees recipients of the need for our charity, “so that they might help others in need” (Eph. 4:28). Well-intentioned charity devoid of this goal can lead to unhealthy dependency, it can strip parents of their God-given role as providers, and, as Brian saw in Kenya, it can lead to addiction.

Sadly, the U.S. welfare system is almost purely a “cocaine charity,” resulting in generational poverty, a counterproductive entitlement attitude and an impossible-to-sustain system.

As I noted about my Kenya trip, part of the mission team saw the Hope Companion project, a terrific endeavor where orphans are given practical business skills to support themselves — sort of a Junior Achievement Meets Jesus program.  It gives the kids hope and us as well, because it makes such a radical difference.  This isn’t about handouts for multiple generations, it is about making them self-sufficient.  The U.S. could learn a lot from this model.  Whether it was sewing, baking bread or planting seedlings for sale each of these youths were now able to support themselves and often others.  One boy had 7 younger siblings he could now care for instead of having to beg from others who already didn’t have enough — plus he took on care for another orphan.  That’s convicting!

Should we help others?  Of course!  But we should do so with wisdom and discernment.  The religious Left has it all wrong.  They obsessively covet the wealth of others and seek to redistribute in ways that will be bad for those they seek to help.  They love themselves and their perceived role as saviors, but real love is having the long term best interests of others at heart.

Swahili

I find it very useful to learn and use basic phrases as much as possible when on mission trips. The locals seem to appreciate the effort and it is fun to learn new things. As my daughter noted, so many of them speak multiple languages compared to us.

We had some fun with the Swahili iPhone app when preparing for our Kenya mission trip. I created some .mp3 files in 2004 to help me memorize a few words and phrases and have shared those with others (“Learn Swahili with Neilie!”), but this app was much more thorough and entertaining – and, uh, higher quality (it is possible that I mispronounced a few words on the .mp3 files).

I am not making up the following examples:

Travel safety

• Don’t shoot! (Practical, I suppose, but hopefully you don’t need that one.  And if you said it in English I doubt they’d think you were saying, “Yes, please shoot me!”  And my guess is that they won’t let you whip out your iPhone to double check the pronunciation.)
• I didn’t know I was doing anything wrong (that doesn’t work for me in English, but maybe it will in Swahili)
• Those drugs aren’t mine! (Oh, well, since they aren’t yours, carry on and have a nice day.)
• There was an explosion

Food & Eating

• I am a well known food critic in my country

At the bar

• I’m not just saying this because I’m drunk

Flirting

• I am a marine biologist (That was the only career listed. I assume that was just an example, but perhaps being a marine biologist is the premier gateway to getting dates.)
• I am very rich
• I am famous
• Will you marry me? (seems like you might want to both be fluent in the same language before asking that)
• I’m not a stalker (really!)
• I’m not just saying this because I’m drunk (Apparently that works in multiple categories.  It is probably a good one for the workplace, too.)

Still legal, but still not safe or rare

Another example of many where abortion clinics harm women and then say and do ghoulish things – ‘Just act dumb’: new 911 abortion tapes reveal ‘disturbing’ words of clinic staff.  The question you should ask is, “Why doesn’t the mainstream media tell me these things?”

In a new 911 tape from an Albuquerque abortion facility released by the national pro-life group Operation Rescue, an abortion worker agrees to “act dumb” with the dispatcher during a late-term abortion emergency while she thought she was on hold.

“I don’t know – I don’t know what information he’s asking me,” says the Southwestern Women’s Options employee.

“Just talk to him – act dumb,” replied her colleague.

“Okay. Exactly. Yeah,” the worker said.

Including five 911 calls released last month, the 13 calls obtained by Operation Rescue show that life-threatening abortion complications requiring emergency assistance occur at the rate of one every 10 weeks.

So much for safe, legal and rare.  As usual, they only get the legal part right.

Thee clinic workers recorded on the calls report uterine rupture, “profuse” bleeding, cervical laceration, and other complications of the abortion procedure.

One worker said an 18-year-old patient having an abortion at 20 weeks began to hyperventilate as she lost feeling in her legs and hands accompanied by chest pain.

In another call, regarding a 35-year-old patient “throwing up everywhere” as she suffered multiple seizures following an abortion, the dispatcher asked: “Is she – well, is she pregnant?”

“She was. Not anymore!” responded the clinic worker.

Operation Rescue Senior Policy Advisor Cheryl Sullenger said that the clinic workers’ casual tones were even more unsettling than the cases themselves.

“As disturbing as the critical nature of these life-threatening emergencies are, perhaps more disturbing are the callous attitudes of some of the abortion workers and their willingness to cover up for the abortionists,” said Sullenger.

“The clinic workers are careful about how much information they revealed to the emergency dispatchers, and in many cases, even attempt to shift the blame for the complications onto the woman. Their general actions and attitudes toward the woman they just injured are despicable.”

. . .

Sullenger called for immediate closure of the two Albuquerque clinics “for the protection of the public. “It’s just wrong for paramedics to have to clean up after these abortion quacks every ten weeks,” said Sullenger.

Once again, more guns = less crime

Hopefully the good news will spread.  See Crime rate drops in VA bars and restaurants.

Okay, even gun rights advocates have to admit that, on its face, the idea of legalizing concealed carry in places that serve alcohol sounded bad, if only at first blush.  When the state of Virginia removed the restriction on concealed carry in bars and alcohol-serving restaurants last year, critics blasted the action and predicted a wave of crime, violence, and death from drunken patrons … much like critics of carry permits predict for licensed carry anywhere, actually.  The Richmond Times-Dispatch reported yesterday that the critics managed to keep their perfect prognosticating record intact (via Gabriel Malor):

Virginia’s bars and restaurants did not turn into shooting galleries as some had feared during the first year of a new state law that allows patrons with permits to carry concealed guns into alcohol-serving businesses, a Richmond Times-Dispatch analysis found.

The number of major crimes involving firearms at bars and restaurants statewide declined 5.2 percent from July 1, 2010, to June 30, 2011, compared with the fiscal year before the law went into effect, according to crime data compiled by Virginia State Police at the newspaper’s request.

And overall, the crimes that occurred during the law’s first year were relatively minor, and few of the incidents appeared to involve gun owners with concealed-carry permits, the analysis found.

 

Really simple explanations as to why government involvement in home loans is counterproductive

The Federal government’s involvement in home loans has been a disaster, costing the nation hundreds of billions of dollars, damaging the nation’s credit rating — probably permanently, and causing misery for millions of people.  It was all preventable, but childish ideals got in the way of clear thinking.  You don’t have to be an economist to understand these principles.

Q. If you increase the demand for something, do prices go up or down?

A. Up.  Most people understand that intuitively.

Q. So if the government decides that more people should own homes and makes it easy for them to borrow money for them — whether they can afford it or not — will home prices go up or down?

A. Up, of course.  That is what drove home prices up in the housing bubble.  So the government increased housing costs for everyone, including the people they were trying to put into homes.

Q. At a given price of a house, say $100,000, and all other things being equal, which borrower is more likely to repay, the one who makes a down payment of $10,000, resulting in a $90,000 loan balance, or someone who borrows at 100%?

A. The one who made the down payment, of course.  Even if you ignore that those who have the cash to make down payments are probably in a better financial situation and more likely to make payments, the lower mortgage will have a lower payment.  But the government made it easy for people to borrow with no money down.  Then people were surprised when loan defaults went up.

Q. If you could go to Las Vegas and gamble knowing that you could keep all your winnings and others would cover all your losses, would you go?

A. Of course!  And that’s why bailouts are always horrifically bad ideas.  The mortgage mess involved government promises to cover losses, so people did exactly as expected: They made loans they never would have made otherwise.

—–

The government needs to get out of the home loan business. Privatize Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae asap.

Uh, about those allegedly drowned polar bears . . .

I like polar bears.  A lot.  They are my favorite zoo animal by far.  So I’d prefer that they not drown unnecessarily.  But the fake science and media creation of the global warming induced drowning polars is now being exposed — see Global Warming Link to Drowned Polar Bears Melts Under Searing Fed Probe.

Polar bears drowning in an Alaskan sea because the ice packs are melting—it’s the iconic image of the global warming debate.

But the validity of the science behind the image—presented as an ignoble testament to our environment in peril by Al Gore in his film An Inconvenient Truth—is now part of a federal investigation that has the environmental community on edge.

What a surprise: When people gain money and power they may be tempted to lie — just like they did here.

Proclaiming the word in Kenya

As I mentioned in my summary of our Kenya mission trip, one of the highlights was taking the Proclaimer audio Bible to the local Christian hospital and churches.  This ingenious device is used to get the word of God out to those who can’t read.  They can be powered by electricity, solar or hand cranked so they can be used over and over almost anywhere.  We took versions in Swahili and English (and are working to get a version in Kimeru, another local language), so they can hear the word in their language.

Faith Comes By Hearing translates the Bible into hundreds of languages in audio form.  Having it translated in writing is important, of course, but when you consider how few people read you realize how important these audio Bibles are.

Last year we took one to Kenya as an experiment.  It was so well received that this year we took a dozen.  As you can see in the video below, my friend Stanley Gitari was eager to get as many of these as possible to get the word out to “all the corners.”  I never get tired of that.

Stanley helped me get the units in the hands of local pastors, who often have 10 small village churches that they serve.  Audio Bibles will be priceless to them.  We also gave some to the church/school in the Kawangware slum in Nairobi, where they can use it to get the word out to the neighborhood.

Here’s an amazing fact: Their 2nd most downloaded language is Arabic!  This is the single best way to get the word of God into Muslim countries.  Many people are listening to the Bible on their phones.  Apparently the governments aren’t aware or haven’t figured out how to stop this yet.

Many peoples know there is a God, but when they don’t have his word in their language they don’t think He is their God.  Faith Comes By Hearing has countless stories of communities transformed by hearing his word in their language.

Be sure to get the free Bible.is app for your iPhone, so you can read and listen anywhere.

If you go on mission trips or just have a passion for getting God’s word out to be who are eager to hear it, please look into the Faith Comes By Hearing organization.  You can get free audio downloads of the New Testament and play them on your computer or iPod, or you can donate to help spread the Word.

—–

Here is an email from the hospital chaplain about the Proclaimer we took last year.

Let me say we have been using the device and its demand is too high especially in the local church. The one you left us is only used within the hospital and if we could get others we would really appreciate. Our department was thinking if we had an intercom in the hospital we would only use one proclaimer by putting it in one place and connecting it to all the wards for all the patients to listen to the message at the same time. This would be of great help especially because the staffing is not adequate in chaplaincy unit.

For now i can say we are using the device to the maximum. We sometimes leave it with the patients after showing them how to use and they really like it. Thanks a lot to you and those who donate them. They are a great way of taking the word of God to the people.

Receive new year wishes from Maua methodist hospital, church and the chaplaincy unit.

Looking forward to seeing you next year.

God bless you.

Rev Alice

This picture is of Reverend Alice, the hospital chaplain, explaining it to a group of patients and their children.

I’m a firm believer in Isaiah 55:10-11

As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.

From their website:

How does the Proclaimer work? An installed microchip contains Scriptures in the heart language; the chip will not erase or wear out from frequent playing.

The battery will play for 15 hours and can be recharged enough times to play the entire New Testament more than 1,000 times.

The Proclaimer has a built-in generator and solar panel to charge the battery.

The solar panel, in addition to charging the battery, will run the Proclaimer even without battery power as long as there is sunlight.

The sound is digital quality and loud enough to be heard clearly by groups as large as 300.

The Proclaimer was developed primarily as a playback device for poor and illiterate people who may not have any other source to hear God’s Word. Our goal is to use the Proclaimer in the majority of our FCBH programs worldwide.

Very few of these people read, but now they can hear the transforming and powerful word of God.  This is probably the best use of technology I’ve ever seen.

A great overview of the Book of Job

The Book of Job can be challenging to read, but it contains many timeless truths.  Having God come on the scene and turning the questioning on Job is worth reading the whole book.

This article at Pyromaniacs: The Patience of Job was the best overview I’ve ever read on Job.

Human emotions don’t help us make sense of these things. If you want to sort through the problem of evil, you have to think sensibly, and theologically, and biblically, and not let your emotions rule your mind.

Job was a wise enough man than to know better than to respond by reflex on the basis of his feelings. If he had responded according to what he felt like, he might have cursed God. If he had just given vent to his feelings, he could easily been consumed with bitterness, self-pity, anger, and frustration—and he might have been tempted to take his wife’s advice: “Curse God and die!”

But Job’s very first response was the response of someone who knows something about God: “Naked came I out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return thither: the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord” (Job 1:21).

Job had filtered his feelings through his theology. It still did not make sense to him why he had to suffer like this (and that is why Job is 42 chapters long; because it records the dialogue Job had with his friends as he tried to sort this out). But even though it made no sense to him, even though he was overwhelmed with painful feelings, his immediate response made no mention of those feelings.

. . .

This cannot be stressed too much: It was sound theology, not his feelings, that enabled Job to weather the immediate shock of the news that his children and everything he owned were gone forever. This is why sound theology is so important—and so intensely practical.

Notice what truths Job clung to. These were the things Job knew for sure about God. These were the truths that became his anchor. And throughout the book of Job, amid all his complaints and pleading, he never once let go of these principles. Here are three truths Job clung to in order to see him through his grief:

I encourage you to read it all.  I agree that Job was a staunch Calvinist and it made a big difference to him.

A slippery slope or a cliff?

Stan’s piece on slippery slopes reminded me of the distinction between a slippery slope and a cliff.

When debating the oxymoronic “same sex marriage” (SSM) topic one of the typical secular arguments I use is that the same arguments could be used to justify polygamy, incestuous relationships, bestiality, etc.  The reason is that the pro-SSM arguments are typically that the parties are loving and committed and that the government should therefore recognize and affirm these relationships – even though by nature and design they don’t produce the next generation and they can never provide a mother and father to a child.

The other side often responds that these are “slippery slope” arguments, defined as:

A slippery slope fallacy is an argument that says adopting one policy or taking one action will lead to a series of other policies or actions also being taken, without showing a causal connection between the advocated policy and the consequent policies. A popular example of the slippery slope fallacy is, “If we legalize marijuana, the next thing you know we’ll legalize heroin, LSD, and crack cocaine.” This slippery slope is a form of non sequitur, because no reason has been provided for why legalization of one thing leads to legalization of another. Tobacco and alcohol are currently legal, and yet other drugs have somehow remained illegal.

However, as the link notes, the slippery slope argument is not always a fallacy.  In the case of SSM, it is clear from the reasoning that it would apply to these other cases.  That is why I consider it a cliff instead of a slope.  Once SSM is legislated the same reasoning is immediately available to other groups.

The same thing occurs with the inevitability of SSM impacting religious freedoms and the child abuse of teaching 5 yr. olds how “natural” LGBTQX behavior is.

What is ironic is that the SSM proponents claim (or is it feign?) revulsion at polygamy, incestuous marriages, bestiality, and necrophilia.  Yet who are they to pull up the moral drawbridge?  Until recently almost all of society viewed GLBT behavior as immoral, and many still do.  Why is the pro-SSM crowd so judgmental of other preferences and “orientations?”  I would think that polygamists would have a much stronger case for governmental recognition and affirmation than gays, because at least they can provide a mother and a father to a child.

Here’s an overview of same-sex unions.

How liars play the “hate group” card

False teacher Chuck “Jesus is not the only way” Currie shows you how in GOP 2012 Field Looks To Tea Party For Inspiration.  It is a simple two-step process:

1. Find a group that labels as a “hate group” any organization that teaches the truth of the Bible, namely that homosexual behavior is a sin.

2. Refer to that organization as a “hate group” as if they were akin to the KKK.

It is just that easy!   And just that dishonest!

Also, it helps to be a hypocrite like Chuck who criticizes Rick Perry for — eek! — hosting a prayer conference as an alleged “separation” issue.  See Hypocrisy: Houston Prayers Violate Church & State but Jim Wallis at the White House Does Not? and ask why Chuck didn’t have a problem with this:

In contrast, the Religious Left has applauded Sojourners chief Jim Wallis’ “Circle of Protection,” a Christians-only coalition that met with President Obama to defend welfare programs from Republican budget cutters. Supposedly the prayer summit, according to liberal critics like Americans United for Separation of Church and State, was “exclusive” and theocratic. But the White House summit, despite its specific political and partisan goal, was widely lauded.

Jim “the Gospel is all about wealth redistribution“ Wallis is as fake as Chuck, taking big $$ from atheist George Soros.  The National Council of (apostate) Churches also takes secular Leftist funds.  Somehow Chuck & Co. never point that out.

The faux-reverend Chuck is also a good little political hack, spouting all the talking points of the Left –”Tea Party downgrade” (because the problem definitely isn’t spending 70% more than we take in!), “extremist,” “increasing taxes” (aka coveting the wealth of others), “Religious right” (double eek!), etc.  He ghoulishly blamed Sarah Palin for allegedly violent speech before the Arizona bodies were cold yet has been not-so-strangely silent on the “Tea Partiers are terrorists” comments from Biden et al.  What a hypocrite.

I’m glad to see the new group CASE (Christians for A Sustainable Economy), which will help real Christians protect the poor from the likes of Currie, Obama, etc. who prefer to keep them enslaved.

Kenya 2011

This was my 5th trip to Kenya, my wife’s 2nd and my youngest daughter’s first. It was amazing to be able to share it with them, though it would have been 100% perfect if my oldest could have come (she had a dance commitment that worked out splendidly for her, and she is now a paid apprentice with a professional ballet company!). The whole trip was my daughters’ idea. We had talked about doing a Mediterranean cruise to celebrate our 25th anniversary and my youngest’s high school graduation, but the mission trip won out.

We helped construct an AIDS Orphan home, which is one of our usual projects.  The recipient is a 15 yr. old boy who cares for his nearly-blind grandmother and lived in a mud/stick hut.  Now they have a 12′x20′ two room home that will keep them dry and safe.  His parents and three siblings had died.  The local church has helped counsel him and he’s doing much better than he was.  He seemed to have some good friends.  He even helped with the construction.  The grandma was so quiet all week, then at the dedication she started jumping and singing in thanksgiving (something about being lifted higher by Jesus).

Part of the group saw the Hope Companion project, a terrific endeavor where orphans are given practical business skills to support themselves, sort of a Junior Achievement Meets Jesus program.  It gives the kids hope and us as well, because it makes such a radical difference.  This isn’t about handouts for multiple generations, it is about making them self-sufficient.  The U.S. could learn a lot from this model.  Whether it was sewing, baking bread or planting seedlings for sale each of these youths were now able to support themselves and often others.  One boy had 7 younger siblings he could now care for instead of having to beg from others who already didn’t have enough — plus he took on care for another orphan.  That’s convicting!

We visited a bush clinic where vitamins, de-worming, antibiotics, etc. were dispensed to a few hundred people.  Getting out in the community is one of the best parts of the trip.

I shared my leadership training (“great results / high employee satisfaction”) to the hospital management team.  Given cultural and language barriers I set low expectations for how it would be received, but it really seemed to resonate with them.  It highlights the techniques I’ve used to run successful groups with best-in-class employee satisfaction scores and remarkably low turnover (I really need to blog on it someday).  I’ve presented it at a few conferences in the U.S. and shared it in a session with managers where I work, but wouldn’t have thought that it would work in Kenya.  But in talking to the hospital CEO last year and hearing about their staff turnover problems, I realized that this was just what they needed to hear.   Good, basic management skills are universal.  I enjoyed adding Bible verses to the presentation and focused on the theme that if God had such high expectations for how Christian masters should treat slaves in the Roman empire, how much more so should Christian supervisors treat their employees well?

Our associate pastor had to cancel at the last minute, so I ended up giving a couple messages in his place. One was at the morning devotional for the hospital employees. Their scripture for the day was from Ephesians 5, starting with “Wives, submit to your husbands.” Oh, good, an easy and non-controversial topic!  I embraced it as a chance to talk about how many U.S. churches hate that passage and rationalize that Paul didn’t write it under the inspiration of God, and because of that they miss out on a beautiful passage.  Also, in that culture the men love that verse but tend to stop reading after that.  I noted that they need to focus more on the part about “husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church.”

The other talk was a 20 min. sermon at the church in the Kawangware slum in Nairobi. That was a huge blessing. I figured the pastor would want something lighter, but he wanted me to include topics that they face like AIDS, domestic violence and poverty.  I preached on John 1:1-5, emphasizing Jesus’ deity, God’s sovereignty and how Jesus is the light to the world and uses us in his plan.  It seemed to go well.

Visiting Dennis, our World Vision sponsor child, is always a highlight for me. We’ve written him for over 13 years so he is like family to us. He is in college now and works very hard. He is an amazing young man with a passion for God.

We took 12 Proclaimer audio Bibles to distribute, and I was beyond thrilled at how well they were received.  I’ll blog separately on that.

In addition to the daily 15 min. services at the hospital, we got to worship there twice — in Maua and in the church in the Nairobi slum.  The services are a little longer (2 hours) but much more energetic than in the U.S.

The hospital in Kenya does amazing things to help the community, and they are extremely cost-effective.  They share the Gospel with all the patients.  They know how to reach the poorest of the poor.  They are hurting now with the food shortages.  If you want to help the hospital and community, click here.    Money goes a long way in Kenya!  For example, for only $10 / month you can feed, clothe and educate a child.

Miscellaneous things

Flight stuff: We flew on Emirates for the first time, with a 15+ hour flight to Dubai then a 5 hour flight to Nairobi. As we’d been told, the leg room was a little better than what we’re used to. Yea! But those long flights are still killers (“Let’s see, I’ve read, gone through all the pictures on my computer, napped, eaten a meal and a snack, and read some more, so we must be almost there . . . ack! 11 hours to go!”).

I took my laptop on this trip. It was a bit of a burden to carry all the stuff (it is a heavy one, plus the extra batteries and such) but I loved being able to write and edit pictures on the plane and when we had free time. That is always the hard part of returning. There are lots of things to catch up on after being gone 17 days, but my OCD nature (“It’s not just a disorder, it’s a lifestyle!” ™) makes me want to complete all the picture editing / uploading right away.  With Google’s Picasa software the various albums were all set to upload as soon as I logged in at home.

Ending the trip with a couple of days on a photo safari in the Masai Mara (where they film some of the Discovery Channel wildebeest crossing / crocodile videos) is a joy. Seeing God’s creation in such an un-touched way is just amazing.  No animals were harmed in the filming process.  OK, maybe one zebra.  Circle of life, baby!  Circle. Of. Life.