Twenty Items of Interest (v.8)

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1.  Sweet photo, not doctored – read the story.

HT: Stephanie 

2.  House Democrats obviously don’t give a rip about our National Security.

HT: Stix

3.  Conservative herald William F. Buckley, Jr. dies at the age of 82 on Wednesday in his study… probably skewering liberal thought, I’m sure.  See Chicago Tribune coverage with video of White House reaction.  In related news, Christian Rock pioneer, Larry Norman died at the age of 60 on Sunday

4.  A likely unwanted endorsement awarded to Senator Barack Obama, Louis Farrakhan, leader of the Chicago-based Nation of Islam, endorsed him at their recent convention.

Speaking to thousands of members of the Nation of Islam at their annual convention Sunday in Chicago, Minister Louis Farrakhan praised presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama as the only hope for healing the nation’s racial divisions.

Farrakhan, 74, the longtime leader of the Nation of Islam, said the war in Iraq, the nation’s faltering economy and the increased number of natural disasters were signs of “a nation in peril.” He said those problems provide the broader context for Obama’s rise.

“We are witnessing the phenomenal rise of a man of color in a country that has persecuted us because of our color,” Farrakhan told the crowd of nearly 20,000 gathered at McCormick Place.

Source: Chicago Tribune5.  Mark Driscoll ditches the “emerging” label for Jesus.  Last Sunday he preached on the emerging church:

Within a more complicated context is a diverse range of Christian churches.

There are the fundamentalist Christians. For this group, Driscoll says everything goes into a “closed hand.” Not only does doctrine remain strict, which Driscoll agrees with, but so does the methodology which remains inflexible, rigid, outdated and “no fun.”

Then there are the liberals. They say they’re open with the methodology and the worship style and how to love people, but they’re also open about doctrine.

“We’re not sure if the Bible’s God’s word, we’re not sure if Jesus is God, we’re not sure if anybody’s going to hell,” Driscoll said, referring to liberals.

Denouncing such liberalism, the Mars Hill pastor stressed, “We’re supposed to be old Bible-believing, Jesus-loving Christians. Christianity doesn’t change. Now, the way it’s expressed culturally and demonstrated does change.”

At Mars Hill, doctrine is timeless but at the same time, methodology is timely.

“We’re theologically conservative and culturally liberal,” he often says.

Source: Christian Post

6.  Strange news – a sex change inmate (in for murder) claims that the prison is violating “her” (he’s in a men’s prison) constitutional rights. How, you may ask?  By denying hair-removal treatment and access to a specialist to discuss his testosterone levels.  Heck yeah!  Why should taxpayers have to foot the bill for this?  Gimme a break!

7.  This is a disturbing first, but it is the result of diminishing a culture of life in our nation.

On a winter night in 2006, a disabled and brain damaged man named Ruben Navarro was wheeled into an operating room at a hospital here. By most accounts, Mr. Navarro, 25, was near death, and doctors hoped that he might sustain other lives by donating his kidneys and liver.

But what happened to Mr. Navarro quickly went from the potentially life-saving to what law enforcement officials say was criminal. In what transplant experts believe is the first such case in the country, prosecutors have charged the surgeon, Dr. Hootan C. Roozrokh, with prescribing excessive and improper doses of drugs, apparently in an attempt to hasten Mr. Navarro’s death to retrieve his organs sooner.

Read the rest – Source: New York Times

8.  Temperature monitors report widescale global cooling.

Twelve-month long drop in world temperatures wipes out a century of warming.

Over the past year, anecdotal evidence for a cooling planet has exploded. China has its coldest winter in 100 years. Baghdad sees its first snow in all recorded history. North America has the most snowcover in 50 years, with places like Wisconsin the highest since record-keeping began. Record levels of Antarctic sea ice, record cold in Minnesota, Texas, Florida, Mexico, Australia, Iran, Greece, South Africa, Greenland, Argentina, Chile — the list goes on and on.

No more than anecdotal evidence, to be sure. But now, that evidence has been supplanted by hard scientific fact. All four major global temperature tracking outlets (Hadley, NASA’s GISS, UAH, RSS) have released updated data. All show that over the past year, global temperatures have dropped precipitously.

Hmmm…. that’s interesting.  Somebody better check Al Gore’s temperature.

HT: Janice Dean

9. McCain vs. Obama – Fighin’ words on Wednesday.  Michelle Malkin & Kirsten Powers analyze and debate on Fox News.

HT: Hot Air

10.  Kevin McCullough says Christians do not have permission not to vote.  He follows up that article with a blog post.  I wholeheartedly agree.

11.  Evidently the Air Force thinks that banning access to blogs is a good idea.

The Air Force is tightening restrictions on which blogs its troops can read, cutting off access to just about any independent site with the word “blog” in its web address. It’s the latest move in a larger struggle within the military over the value — and hazards — of the sites. At least one senior Air Force official calls the squeeze so “utterly stupid, it makes me want to scream.”

Until recently, each major command of the Air Force had some control over what sites their troops could visit, the Air Force Times reports. Then the Air Force Network Operations Center, under the service’s new “Cyber Command,” took over.

HT: John Noonan 

12.  Louisiana GOP gives Republican voters the middle finger by giving most of their delegates to John McCain, even though Mike Huckabee won the Louisiana primary.  This is unbelievable.  I guess the state party wants to keep with the state’s reputation for corruption.

13.  Pistol Pete writes about piety and pettiness. 

Genuine piety can be a wonderful thing.  Piety can be true devotion to the holy and living God.  Piety can be self-less service to God’s people.  Piety can be feeding those who hunger for the Spirit and thirst for righteousness.

But what begins as piety can easily turn into pettiness when we begin to see things not as God sees them, but according to their outward form.

14.  David Hayward gives some tips on how churches and pastors can develop authenticity and transparency .  Great stuff.

15.  Awesome post on pride vs. brokenness

Sara takes the following points from a resource from Nancy Leigh DeMoss called Revive Our Hearts:

• Proud people focus on the failures of others…broken people are overwhelmed with the sense of their OWN spiritual need.
• Proud people have to prove that they are right…broken people are willing to yield the right to be right.
• Proud people claim “rights” and have a demanding spirit…broken people yield their rights and have a meek spirit.
• Proud people have a drive to be recognized and appreciated…broken people have a sense of their own unworthiness; thrilled that God would use them at all.
• Proud people feel confident in how much they know…broken people are humbled by how very much they have to learn.

16.  Principled Discovery offers some great rebuttals to some objections to home educating your children.  While she is writing in the context of objecting to a bill before the Nebraska Legislature, the objections and rebuttals are universal.  A worthy read whether you home educate or are just ignorant.

17.  Interesting post on Limited Atonement, a very difficult subject when discussing Calvinism and one that I have struggled with.

18.  The NFL now says that it is ok for churches to show the Super Bowl on big screens…  Sweet!

HT: Joshua Griffin

19.  Todd Rhoades asks a very important question – would you rather have bad breath or body odor?  I’m not sure I guess I would say bad breath because at least people wouldn’t smell me when I walk into a room.  How about you?

20.  Hilarious article by Dave Barry – “A journey into my colon — and yours“

HT: Tony Jones