Double Take

This is funny: Texas Candidate Admits Using Twin as Stand-In

The New York Times reports on NASA

The New York Times is reporting that NASA is loosening the risk standards for the shuttle. Part of me thinks that this is news only because The New York Times was able to see documents they hadn't seen before. I get the sense reading this article that what's really going on is that NASA, fresh from a tragic accident, is faced with the difficult problem of successfully resuming what has to be one of the riskiest endevours in the history of man--sending people into space. One almost wonders reading this piece if NASA is so dumb and divorced from reality that they aren't concerned about public relations and making a good faith effort to meet all the recommendations that have been proffered to them in light of the Columbia disaster. I think what's really going on is that certain sectors of the government and the press have forgotten how dangerous space flight is--no matter what precautions you take. I hope that people don't really expect NASA to live up to the same safety standards as Delta Airlines. If that were the case, the shuttle would NEVER fly. The men and women who fly on the shuttle understand better than anyone the risks involved. And I'm positive that every member of the upcoming Discovery mission will say that what they are doing is well worth putting their lives on the line. And furthermore, I seriously doubt that any member of the next mission would board Discovery if they had any doubt that NASA hasn't taken every reasonable precaution within its powers to correct the problems exposed by Columbia's destruction.

Standing Firm

Sam (see his blog here) sent me this link: Stand Firm. This site describes itself as follows:

Stand Firm is a group of Mississippi Episcopal lay persons and clergy dedicated to upholding the Church's traditional values and teachings, and offering encouragement and support to them in these difficult and troubling times in the Church.

There's a lot here...check it out.

Newt

Make no mistake about it, Mr. Newt is running for President in 2008.

Let's abort the filibuster

David Brock in his latest column, Roe's Birth, and Death argues that the fuss we have in the Senate now over Bush's judicial nominees stems from the court's mindless decision in Roe v. Wade. In short, the Roe decision removed from the abortion issue from the political sphere and placed it in the judiciary. No longer is the issue to be decided by legislative bodies reflecting their consituents, but instead, movement on abortion law in this country--one way or another--will only occur in a court room. Brock does chide the GOP for trying to eliminate the filibuster rule, but I can't help but wonder what other option they have to just get an up or down vote.

Over 40 million American babies are dead and our politics are an acrimonious mess. Thank you Justice Blackmun and your judicial co-conspirators.

The "f" word

Robert Novak takes on the Democrat's for their hypocritical and abusive use of the filibuster rule to prevent Bush's judicial nominees from getting an up or down vote. Novak's reporting about Senator Byrd make me dislike the former Klansman all the more.

Terror in Gaza

I meant to post this story yesterday but never got around to it. The Jerusalem Post reported this horrid incident in Gaza:

Hamas has begun operating a "vice and virtue commando" in the Gaza Strip to safeguard Islamic values, Palestinian security officials and residents told The Jerusalem Post.

The new force, called the Anti-Corruption Unit, is believed to be behind the gruesome murder over the weekend of Yusra al-Azzami, a 22-year-old university student from the northern Gaza Strip.

Her "crime" was that she was seen in public with her fiance.

Although "honor killings" are not a new phenomenon in Palestinian society, the perpetrators were almost always relatives of the victims. But this is the first time that one of the Palestinian groups has openly acted against a woman suspected of "immoral behavior."

Hamas's "morality" patrolmen first spotted the young couple strolling along the beach in Gaza City, together with Azzami's younger sister. After enjoying the spectacular sunset over the sea, they got into the future husband's car and started driving towards Azzami's home.

According to eyewitness accounts, five masked gunmen who were in another car gave chase, opening fire at Azzami, who was sitting in the front seat next to her fiance. She died instantly.

The fiance and sister were later brutally beaten and moderately injured by the attackers.

The incident took place at a busy intersection in Gaza City.

What happened immediately afterwards left many passersby traumatized.

The assailants dragged the young woman's body out of the car, pouncing upon it mercilessly with clubs and iron bars.

The story simply speaks for itself. Hopefully this will start turning the tide of public opinion in Gaza against Hamas.

Now the Lutherans

Paul McCain has an extensive write-up about what he entitles the impending "Denominational Disaster" within the Lutheran Church over homosexual ministers. The following highlights some of the concerns I expressed in a previous post about the same type of debate in the Episcopal church:

On March 1, seventeen ELCA theologians issued "A Statement of Pastoral and Theological Concerns," calling on the church to reject the recommendations from the task force. "We urge that all three recommendations of the task force be rejected since, if adopted, they would alter fundamentally the ecclesiology of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and that, in turn, would threaten not only the unity and stability of this church but, as a consequence, its ability to proclaim the truth of the gospel."

All the blue that's fit to print

All the news that's fit to print. That's the saying anyway. A reading of The New York Times, however, leaves you wondering if they have some kind of underlying political bias that strongly favors the left. Strongly. Russ Smith takes the Times to task here.

First iPod

Read what President Bush has on his iPod here.

Washington's a mess

John Fund writes about the election debacle/fraud/theft in the state of Washington. What has happened in Washington is horrifying to anyone who values the stability and validitiy of democracy. Democrats who appeared to have lost the election the old-fashioned way managed to steal the governorship judicially. Typical.

The amount of fraud that took place in Washington is staggering. Apart from dead people voting (remarkably, dead people tend to be Democrats), some 900 felons were allowed to vote. And, surprise surpise, felons tend to vote for Democrats. Maybe it's the "soft on crime" image. I don't know. But I do know that 900 is more than the 129 vote margin the Democrat claimed victory on--after a third "recount" that apparently failed to count everything.

Go Democracy. Every vote counts! Even if you're dead. Even if you're in jail. At least, that is, according to the Washington Democratic party.

Novak is right

Bob Novak has some interesting comments about the Democrats' attempt to sabotage the political career of Tom DeLay and, by extension, position themselves for retaking the House in 2006.

Your honor, I object

Diana West takes on journalists who are afraid to criticize Islam.

2007

According to a Koran scholar, the US will cease to exist in 2007:

"The tsunami waves are a minor rehearsal in comparison with what awaits the US in 2007," the researcher concluded in his study. "The Holy Koran warns against the Omnipotent Allah's force. A great sin will cause a huge flood in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans."

It's a bit odd, though, that the victims of God's apocalyptic warm-up against the Americans were mostly Muslim.

Arg

This is absolutely sad: The Top 10 Examples of Government Waste.

Sadly, both parties have proven their solid ineptitude when it comes to cutting wasteful government spending.

Pie in the sky

Click here to read about the left's new response of choice to conservatives in the world of academia. I wonder how many "peace" protesters would laugh at or applaud this rather violent approach to dissent.

Haley for Pres?

James Pinkerton has an article in Newsday in which he speculates about
the viability of a Haley Barbour Presidential bid.  Pinkerton notes:

Some Barbourites are actively tooting Haley's horn. Ed Rogers, a White House aide to Presidents Reagan and Bush 41 and a past campaigner for Bush 43, was Barbour's law partner until Barbour was elected governor in 2003. In talking up the Mississippian's credentials, Rogers recalls that Barbour was the political director of the Reagan White House before going on to chair the Republican National Committee when the GOP took over Congress in 1994. As governor, Rogers continues, Barbour has enacted sweeping tort reform and held the line on taxes and spending. "A lot of Washington Republicans seem to have forgotten the importance of fiscal discipline," Rogers adds, signaling the "outsider" edge of a possible Barbour candidacy.

And indeed, others in the limited-government wing of the party are high on Haley. Grover Norquist, the Republican/libertarian strategist, is neutral in the '08 race but nonetheless volunteers, "Haley is a Reagan Republican's dream. He has Friedrich Hayek in his library and Lee Atwater and Karl Rove in his veins." That is, Barbour combines the book smarts of a famed free-market economist with the street smarts of leading political operatives.

Only time will tell, but don't be surprised to see a Barbour bid in a few years.  In my own estimation, he has the political savy, the good-ole-boy charisma, the experience, and enough knowledge of economic and domestic policy to have a legitimate shot--especially considering how uncertain the current GOP field is for '08. Personally, I would love to see a Mississippian be a serious contender for the Presidency.

Nice and centered

This is kinda funny: Hill 'Center' of Attention.

I wonder how potential GOP candidates fare on this political meter...

Just in case

Here's some interesting stuff about the contingency plans NASA has in place in case of an in-flight disaster that prevents Discovery from returning home: NASA fine tunes orbital rescue scenario.

Going Deep

Deep stuff here.

Anglican Angst

If Anglicans still had any lingering doubts about the wisdom of the ordination of the openly gay Gene Robinson, Mr. Robinson has settled the question once and for all: It was a mistake. Consider his most recent comments about Jesus:

In answer to a question from the congregation about how the acceptance of homosexuality could be squared with the scriptural emphasis on redemption for sins, the Bishop replied: "Interestingly enough, in this day of traditional family values, this man that we follow was single, as far as we know, travelled with a bunch of men, had a disciple who was known as 'the one whom Jesus loved' and said my family is not my mother and father, my family is those who do the will of God. None of us likes those harsh words. That's who Jesus is, that's who he was at heart, in his earthly life.

''Those who would posit the nuclear family as the be all and end all of God's creation probably don't find that much in the gospels to support it," he said.

The fact that Scripture is so clear when it comes to the sinful nature of homosexuality coupled with the Anglican church's blindness to this fact proves that the issue within the Anglican church was never about what's the most faithful approach to obeying the Word of God. But you would think that at the very least, the Anglican church could at least show some respect for pragmatism and common sense. Robinson is a lightening rod that has caused far more harm than good to the Anglicans--not because he is gay per se but because the church is likely to split over this issue. It seems as though the Anglican church is either stupid for ordaining Robinson or it's more concerned with driving a liberal social agenda down the throats of its members--theology, doctrine, and church history aside. I think it's a combination of both, but more so the latter (after all, how can people be that stupid). And Idiotic statements like the one above only accelerate the growing fissures among Anglicans.

Update: I found this article that describes how Robinson's own church had to shut down because of the lack of finances (stemming from a severe drop in church membership) that followed his ordination.

Media en masse

To say that the media is giving the death of the Pope heavy coverage would be an understatement to be sure. But I had no idea this story was being covered to such a high degree:

Major news media around the world devoted 10 times as many stories to Pope John Paul II's death as they did to the re-election of President Bush, according to an analysis released Monday.

The Global Language Monitor, which scans the Internet for the use of specific words or phrases using Roman characters, found 35,000 new stories on the pope in the 24 hours after his death Saturday.

That compares with about 3,500 new stories on Bush within a day of his re-election and 1,000 new stories on former President Reagan within a day of his death last year.

Apollo 13

This weekend, I purchased Apollo 13--the new 10th anniversary special edition just released. It's an incredibly moving movie that relives what in reality was one of NASA's finest hours. This article provides some interesting information regarding the movie's rerelease: Back to the Moon

Hale-Bopp

I'll never forget comet Hale-Bopp. I remember being thrilled after finding it in my telescope before it was visible to the naked eye. And anyone who saw it in the spring of 1997 will never forget how it dominated evening sky. 10 years after its discovery, astronomers are still being captivated by this amazing comet. The first photo above was taken shortly after Hale-Bopp was discovered in 1995. The middle photo captures the stunning view most people remember from 1997. The bottom photo, taken in 2005, shows a faint Hale-Bopp still giving off a tail. You can read the article about this, along with a neat animated gif, here.

Sermons Online

I've posted a link to my church's web site before, but I'm posting it again because it has changed a great deal since the last time I posted it.

Jackson Bible Church

Specifically, some of John Ward's sermons have been posted on the web site here. I know of no better expositor of the Bible than this man, and so I'm thrilled that some of his messages are now on the internet for anyone to listen to.

Tall Building

I had no idea a building like this was in the works until CNN posted a story about it on their site. The article claims, while reporting that the final height of the Burj Dubai will remain a tightly guarded secret, that the building will scale over 2300 feet. I will certainly add the United Arab Emerites to my list of must visit countries when this tower is complete.

Briefly

Again, my absence from blogging is appalling. Truth be told, second semester of law school is a bit worse than the first. As soon as I returned from spring break, my life became the brief that was due the following week. The nearly 40 page monster consumed my time, energy, and potential for fun (including blogging). But that's all over and exam prep begins.