Reformation Day Thoughts

Both Bunnie Diehl (a fellow LCMS Lutheran) and Discoshaman have posts about Reformation Day. I also have some thoughts about this day. I've been thinking about what it means to say I am saved by faith alone and grace alone.

For every good thing I think of that I do, I can think of probably ten or more bad things I do. I'm far more impatient than patient. I get angry, lose my temper and sometimes even slip into despair. I can be very unforgiving, and even when I think I've forgiven someone, I find there is still that urge to throw their wrongs back up in their face again. (So, have I really forgiven them?) I can be selfish and self-absorbed, getting irritated when people make demands on my time. (Knowing, of course, that this time isn't really mine to being with.)

I'm repentant of my sinful ways, and I pray that I can become godlier. But I find every day a struggle against my sinful nature.

So, if I were saved by works, I'd be in real trouble. My faith is very often weak. Perhaps if it were stronger, it would reflect in my works, and I'd be a godlier, less sinful person. But I do have faith, and whatever good I do comes from this faith.

By God's grace I have come into faith, and it is this faith in what Christ has done for me that saves me. By God's grace, my faith can become stronger, and I can get ever closer to being what He wants me to be.

Whitewashing Margaret Sanger

A couple of days ago, a concerned reader emailed me about Dover Publications publishing the autobiography of Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger. (Dover Publications specializes in nostalgia publishing -- they are the ones who published the books of Charles Dana Gibson illustrations I use in some of my site skins.) This reader, like many of us, is aware of Margaret Sanger's belief in eugenics and is alarmed that Dover Publications would glorify Sanger and make it look like she was just a courageous, compassionate woman who wanted to help the poor.

I share this reader's concerns and would like to do my part in making sure people know the whole truth about Sanger. Here are a couple of articles (in addition to the one linked above) that will shed some light:

• The American Spectator: Maggie Sanger and the Human Weeds
• BlackGenocide.org: The Truth about Margaret Sanger

If you want to see Sanger's legacy in action, be sure to check out the posts about Planned Parenthood on Dawn Eden's blog. Dawn regularly does the "dumpster dive" into Planned Parenthood's websites (particularly those aimed at teens and children) so you don't have to.

Just as I was wrapping up this post, I noticed that Dawn linked to this post by Charles G. Hill on this same subject.

Pagan Rites in (Supposedly) Christian Churches

This story has been all over the place today, but I think I first saw it on Relapsed Catholic. The ever-apostate Episcopal Church USA is promoting a "women's Eucharist" that is actually a pagan rite. I read about something similar to this being promoted in some mainline churches many years ago. In fact, I think I read about it in First Things...yes, here it is, second item down.

I remember being completely outraged at this. What really got me was this quote:

"I don't think we need a theory of atonement at all. I don't think we need folks hanging on crosses and blood dripping and weird stuff. . . . We just need to listen to the god within."

The First Things piece is over ten years old. So this sort of nonsense is nothing new and is now actually being promoted by the ECUSA.

Update: CT Weblog has more on this today. It looks like the ECUSA is engaging in some CYA.

One-Fingered Salute

This anti-Bush site apparently has the vapors because President Bush, when he was Governor of Texas, once used a naughty gesture. Actually, that gesture pretty much sums up my own feelings towards about half this country these days.

Oh, and the site is looking for videos of "disturbances outside polling locations". Well, I've already heard of some disturbances, but I doubt these clowns would be interested in videos of them.

(First link via Andrea Harris.)

Update: LOL! (Via INDC Journal.)

The Adventures of a Political Poseur

A coworker sent me this link. I found it hilarious...and revealing:

Slate: Political Poseur - Pretending to be a Republican in Blue California

As a political and journalistic experiment, I decided to see how people who live in primarily one-party areas would react when faced with a living, breathing member of the opposition. I appointed myself an ambassador to bridge the Red-Blue divide and ventured into each side's territory dressed in the T-shirt, campaign button, and tote bag of the other.

Now, guess who was more open-minded and tolerant of an opposing opinion. Here are a couple of hints:

In my Kerry-Edwards shirt, I enter Red America certain that I am on the verge of inciting to rage a gang of angry yachtsmen who would soon be strapping me and my lefty leisurewear to their mizzenmast. Instead, I encounter only shades of indifference—head shaking, "crazy idiot" expressions from older, very wealthy, very white folks in Newport Beach; terse nods from the middle- to working-class citizens of Bakersfield, which seem to indicate that people here have much bigger things to worry about than whatever is on my stupid T-shirt.

Then this journalist (who is no Bush supporter, BTW) puts on a Bush-Cheney shirt and enters Blue America:

On Vermont Avenue, irony fades into gentrification. A fashionably dressed woman seated at a sidewalk table makes a disgusted face at the sight of me. On line at Psychobabble coffee house, another woman in a blue velour tracksuit rolls her eyes and grimaces at me with undisguised hatred. Realizing there are no seats but the one next to me, she stares intently into her cup, avoiding my polluting glance, until another table opens and she quickly relocates. Out on the avenue once again, I am gifted with my second "Asshole" of the day, this time muttered by a young man with bright dyed raspberry hair. [...]

I enter the faux-rustic Brentwood Country Mart, a collection of shops intended to look like an olde-time barnyard. On the central patio, I pass a woman who looks up from her gaggle of children to see me passing and exclaims, "Ick! God!" A group of teen skater boys waiting on line to buy the Mart's famed "Chicken Basket" discuss whether Bush will be removed from office by the time they turn 18, thus saving them from the draft. I sit down to eat. Dining nearby is a young girl who looks to be about 6 years old; she gazes at my shirt with a look so forlorn, I expect to learn that Dick Cheney just stole her crayons. Her mother arrives and gives her a hug of consolation. The girl starts to talk, but I can only make out "Bush shirt," which she says to her mother as she points my way. The mother turns and glares, shaking her head at me. I start to wonder what sort of person I am to inflict this on a poor child.

There's much more. As they say, read the whole thing.

Goodies from My Bloglines Clippings Folder

If you're not familiar with Bloglines, it's a really great service that allows you to subscribe to RSS feeds and read them in your browser (as opposed to using a standalone aggregator program). Bloglines also has a neat feature called a Clippings folder, where you can save links to posts for future reference. I use the Clippings folder to save posts that I may want to blog on later. Well, since I haven't had a lot of time to blog lately, these posts got neglected, until now. So, here are a few noteworthy posts that have accumulated in my Clippings folder over the past month or so:

• Dean Esmay explains why he is now convinced that "neocon" is a bigoted term.
• Intellectual Defenestration has a good post about why Pentecostalism is so vulnerable to scandal.
• Life Matters posts a column that originally appeared in the Toronto Star that questions the whole concept of "mercy killing".
• If you are considering voting for Michael Peroutka, the Constitution Party candidate for President, Tulip Girl links to some posts that will give you some good reasons not to do so.
• Havdala posts on ostentatious modesty and how it defeats the whole purpose of true modesty.

Steve Taylor News

See this post on Get Religion for the details (plus some background on Steve Taylor).

Correcting Stem Cell Research Misconceptions

There are a lot of misconceptions about stem cells research, the effectiveness of certain kinds of stem cells and what is being federally funded and what isn't. Both Dawn Eden and Roy Jacobsen have great posts that clear up those misconceptions.

Pessimism about the Election Outcome

I've been trying to stay somewhere between being positive for a Bush win and being agnostic about the outcome. My usual strategy is to expect the worst outcome. That way, either I'm not surprised when the worst happens, or I'm pleasantly surprised when the best happens. This commentary by Neal Boortz is bringing my pessimism to the surface (I'll excerpt the whole post, since he doesn't have his permalinks working today):

EIGHT DAYS ...

And the polls are still showing this election as a dead heat. At this point I still think that the race will go to Kerry. Two reasons. First, the intensity of the white-hot hatred for George Bush coming from Kerry supporters and the left is something to behold. Facts mean nothing to them. They believe that Bush stole the election. Don't tell them that every single recount in Florida showed Bush to be the winner. Don't tell them that Bush lost as many as 18,000 votes when people turned around and went home in the Florida panhandle when the networks called the state for Bush an hour before the polls closed there. Never mind that all Gore had to do was to carry his own home state. And whatever you do don't try to convince them that the so-called "popular vote" has no legal meaning whatsoever in a presidential election. They believe that Bush stole the election, and that, by God, is that.

Secondly .. this election is going to hinge on voter turnout, and the left is much better at herding people to the polls than the right. This is due to a basic personality difference between liberals and normal people. The nature of the left is one of collectivism. The dynamics of the left is one of group dynamics. The war on individuality has been waged by the left for well over 100 years, and the success is astounding. Liberals seldom think in terms of individuality. It's "the blacks" and "the children" and "the poor," and so on. They think in terms of majority rule -- the rule of the mob -- rather than individual rights. The common good is always foremost in their minds. People with this sort of "follow the crowd" collectivist mindset are much easier to stir to collective action, such as getting out there on November 2nd to vote, than are people who celebrate their individuality and independence.

On election day you will see unions, the bastions of group mentality, sending vans and busses around to pick up voters and take them to the polls. You won't see that many right-leaning organizations rounding up voters in this manner. When Democrats yell "stampede!" liberals start running mindlessly. Conservatives and (especially) libertarians start looking around trying to figure out where the noise is coming from.

When it comes to getting out the vote ... the left has the edge. If conservatives were as good at spurring their followers to action this election wouldn't even be close.

I can't really argue with anything he says here. Since I live in the Panhandle, I remember very well the results being called for Florida before the polls closed here. A lot of people don't seem to realize this, but the Panhandle west of Tallahassee is on Central Time, not Eastern Time, so we are an hour behind the rest of the state.

I also remember that Gore tried to get overseas military absentee votes thrown out. (And he partially succeeded in doing so.) I even went to a rally in downtown Pensacola to support Bush and protest this action by Gore.

Others have said it better than me, but I'll repeat this to try to get through to the ignorant, for all the good it will do: Bush did not steal the election. Florida law (which the Florida Supreme Court itself refused to follow) says that invalid ballots should not be counted and that recounts need to take place within a certain time frame. Gore and his lawyers wanted the invalid ballots counted in an attempt to "divine" what the voter may have intended, which was completely ridiculous. They also wanted the recounts to go on until...well...I guess until Gore scrounged up enough "votes" to win Florida. Again, ridiculous. All the Supreme Court did was say, "Hey, Florida...follow your own laws!"

Gore tried to litigate his way into office and I'm afraid that even if Bush wins by a good margin, Kerry will attempt the same. And he may even succeed. A coup by litigation -- is this really what we want?

Lousy Radio and Manufactured Pop Stars

I could go on an extended rant about the above subjects but I'll spare you. Instead let me link a couple of good posts on both subjects.

First, Michele at A Small Victory posts about an investigation into radio payola. She sums up the problem with radio this way:

See, the program directors think we, the listening audience, are stupid.

This is why the only radio I listen to these days is talk radio. There are also a lot of good comments on Michele's post.

Next, Jared at Thinklings caught pop star Ashlee Simpson in a "Milli Vanilli moment" on SNL last night. Now, since I don't listen to music radio, I am blissfully unfamiliar with Simpson's music. However, I wish I could have seen this. Of course, she blames the embarrassing incident on her band, which shows her to be a jerk as well as a no-talent.

The very idea of Teresa Heinz Kerry as First Lady...

I have to admit, it's been amusing to see Teresa Heinz Kerry keep stepping in one pile after another. One consolation if Kerry wins is that THK is sure to provide an entertaining four years. It would be the same kind of entertainment you get from watching really bad, campy movies.

The other day, Drudge linked this article which I found both amusing and annoying:

Washington Times: Polite society anticipates Teresa's pizazz

I'm sure other bloggers have already picked this apart, but I'm behind on my blog reading, so forgive me if this has been played out elsewhere.

The Bushes have been virtually incognito for the last four years. Harpers Bazaar recently referred to the first lady's style as "Marian the Librarian."

Gee, Laura Bush isn't a social butterfly? Just imagine somebody wanting time to themselves or with their family instead of hanging with a bunch of chattering, shallow, gossiping socialites.

"Nobody's been to The White House," added Mrs. Pincus. "You don't know about them. There's no buzz." The president is a teetotaler and Laura Bush "doesn't even do lunches. It's like, 'Hello, is this 1958?'"

Horror of horrors...could the Bushes be a bit...introverted? And isn't it just awful that a man who had a drinking problem when he was younger is abstaining from alcohol? (Hey, liberals -- make up your minds. Either condemn him for once having a drinking problem or for being a teetotaler, but not for both.) And Laura Bush doesn't "do lunches". How quaint, old-fashioned and rude of her to have better things to do than have lunch with people who probably hate her anyway.

"I think Washington will be more active" with Mrs. Kerry in the White House, said Democratic stalwart Esther Coopersmith. "I don't think John Kerry and Teresa will go to bed at 9 o'clock."

Described as "with it" by people she knows, Mrs. Kerry's sophisticated social circle is in stark contrast to Mrs. Bush's down-home Texas ways. [...]

Washington socialites speculate what a Kerry administration would bring. "I don't think they're going to serve grits in the White House," said Smith Bagley, whose wife Elizabeth was ambassador to Portugal during the Clinton administration.

Yep, the Democrats...the party of the downtrodden and the common man...

Mrs. Wallop points out that the Bushes have only hosted "what, four or five state dinners in four years? These people don't understand that to get things done you have to have these stupid dinners."

Why would you have to have state dinners to get things done? Get what things done? Again, maybe the Bushes have better things to do.

It sounds like a bunch of vain, spoiled Washington society people are upset at the Bushes for not paying enough attention to them. Since THK is one of them, naturally they are looking forward to being catered to again.

I don't blame the Bushes for not wanting to hang with these jerks.

Voting on the Amendments in Florida

There are a bunch of amendments on the November ballot here in Florida. Steve H. has a good post about why he is voting for Amendment 3. He explains Amendment 3:

Here it is, in a nutshell. If Amendment 3 passes, patients who win malpractice suits are guaranteed 70% of the proceeds, apart from expenses, for verdicts below $250,000. For bigger verdicts, they're guaranteed 90%.

Sounds perfectly reasonable to me, but many trial lawyers are upset about it, which is all the more reason to vote for it.

If you are a Floridian and would like a good summation of the amendments, go to this site. I would especially like to note that Amendment 1 is opposed by Planned Parenthood and the ACLU and Amendment 5 is supported by MoveOn.org. Also, one of the top three contributors to Amendment 5 is the Tides Foundation.

Terri Schiavo and the Florida Supreme Court

Life Matters posts the latest on the Schiavo case. This may end up going to the Supreme Court. Maybe Terri and her family will be able to get some justice there.

In the meantime, I have noticed that two of the Florida Supreme Court Justices are up for retention on November's ballot. They are Justice Kenneth B. Bell and Justice Raoul G. Cantero, III. Strangely enough, they were both appointed by Gov. Bush. Bell is a Pensacolian. Nevertheless, I am voting "No" on retaining them in office.

Still pretty busy but...

...I really hate letting my blog languish like this. So I'll post a few things shortly.

Sorry for the lack of posts...

I've been really busy the past few days and I'll continue to be busy for at least a few more days. But don't worry, I'll be back! In the meantime, check out the many fine blogs on the sidebar.

Overwhelmed!

I would like to thank Michelle Malkin and Bill Hobbs for linking to my previous post. I got an enormous amount of hits from both of their posts today. I also got many wonderful comments (and one troll comment, which has been redacted) and a nice email. I wasn't even sure if the post came out right when I wrote it, but I must have done an adequate job of getting my point across.

Anyway, thanks again to everyone who has linked, commented, emailed and visited!

Vile Bigotry

A couple of posts ago, I mentioned a song by Steve Taylor called "Baby Doe". The song is about a true story -- a baby with Down Syndrome was allowed by his parents and doctors to starve to death. A have some personal feelings about those with Down Syndrome, so let me share those with you before I launch into the point of this post.

My Mom's youngest sister had Down Syndrome. This Aunt died at the age of 49 more than ten years ago. I remember when I was a kid we used to visit my Mom's family. During those visits, my Aunt and I would play with dolls together. She was much better off than a cousin on my Dad's side of the family. He was the son of one of my Dad's sisters. He was so profoundly retarded that he could not speak. When they would come and visit us, I remember trying to teach him to count and to talk. I thought it would be wonderful if I could teach him to speak. He died several years ago as well, and my Dad's sister took care of him all his life.

I got my first taste of bigotry against Down Syndrome people when I went to a slumber party when I was twelve. We were going to go to church the next morning with the girl who was hosting the party. I remember there was a discussion of how we would all get there. The church had a bus, but that idea was nixed because, as one of the girls at the party put it, "All those retarded people ride the bus!" I told them that it was no big deal, because I had people in my family who were retarded. This only caused this same girl to make fun of me..."Ewwww! You have retarded people in your family...and you admit it?"

The thing is, Down Syndrome people don't have a mean bone in their bodies. Outside of my family, I have met several and I've found this to be true in every case. While they may not have the mental and physical abilities of the rest of us, they have it over us when it comes to goodness. They certainly don't deserve to be reviled the way they are.

So, what am I leading up to here? This:

I first saw this in this Michelle Malkin post. Apparently, it's from a flyer that Democrats in Tennessee are distributing. This is a disgrace...it is hateful, vile and disgusting. You can't get much lower than ridiculing disabled people to make a cheap political point.

Unfortunately, this is nothing new, coming from liberals. After all, didn't Al Gore once refer to "extra-chromosome" conservatives? And then, there's that shallow hack Maureen Dowd, who is also fond of calling pro-life people "extra-chromosome" conservatives. (Link via Michelle Malkin.) The American Spectator piece has this to say:

Dowd's thoughtless reference to "extra-chromosome conservatives" as a way of describing pro-lifers carries a further heartless edge. Down Syndrome children are increasingly the target of abortion by parents who refuse to countenance the addition of such a child to their families. Sometimes, pro-lifers are the only advocates these vulnerable children have.

Indeed. From what I understand, there are very few Down Syndrome babies being born anymore...most are aborted.

I know not all Democrats and liberals approve of this kind of thing. In fact, I hope that a majority do not. I would like to see those who don't approve denounce this sort of bigotry and distance themselves from it.

The (Thankfully) Last Debate

God help me...I'm watching the last Presidential debate. I'll update this post later with my final thoughts. I will make this comment...Did I hear John Kerry invoke Ronald Reagan's name a while ago when talking about how he would defend the country? As Senator, didn't he vote against pretty much everything Reagan did in that regard?

Update: Okay...I admit my attention to this debate sort of waned because I was busy writing the next post. But from what I saw, Bush put in a solid performance.

Timely Songs

One of William Luse's readers recently mentioned the song "Baby Doe" by Steve Taylor and how that song, written twenty years ago, reminds us of the current situation with Terri Schiavo. Another Steve Taylor song that's been going through my mind (and coming up frequently on my iPod) lately is "Since I Gave Up Hope I Feel a Lot Better":

"Life unwinds like a cheap sweater
but since I gave up hope I feel a lot better
and the truth gets blurred like a wet letter
but since I gave up hope I feel a lot better

"While the world winds down to a final prayer
Nothing soothes quicker than complete despair
I predict by dinner I won't even care
Since I gave up hope I feel a lot better"

This is a song that satirizes academia, cynicism and corrupt philosophies. I think that it may be even more relevant today than it was when it was written in the late-80s.

If you are interested, you can listen to both songs by going here (but only for a limited time).

Incidentally, I've finally changed the songs in the radio blog.

And one more thing...while I haven't had a chance to add more songs lately, there are over five hours of music on LilacRose Radio. I'll add more songs soon. I'm also putting together a website for the radio station. I'm really happy that people are actually listening to the station and presetting it.

Deterring a "Nuisance"

I know everybody has linked this stuff, but I think it needs as much exposure as possible...even on my own puny blog.

Apparently, Senator Kerry wishes we could go back to the good old days when terrorism was just a "nuisance". Never mind that just because it happened "over there" instead of here in America didn't mean it was merely a nuisance.

But doesn't this statement pretty much drive home the kind of attitude we don't want when it comes to defending this country? Here's what Lileks has to say:

Mosquito bites are a nuisance. Cable outages are a nuisance. Someone shooting up a school in Montana or California or Maine on behalf of the brave martyrs of Fallujah isn't a nuisance. It's war.

But that's not the key phrase. This matters: We have to get back to the place we were.

But when we were there we were blind. When we were there we losing. When we were there we died. We have to get back to the place we were. We have to get back to 9/10? We have to get back to the place we were. So we can go through it all again? We have to get back to the place we were. And forget all we’ve learned and done? We have to get back to the place we were. No. I don’t want to go back there. Planes into towers. That changed the terms. I am remarkably disinterested in returning to a place where such things are unimaginable. Where our nighmares are their dreams.

We have to get back to the place we were.

No. We have to go the place where they are.

While on this subject, if you haven't already read them, please do read Bill Whittle's latest essays: DETERRENCE (part 1) and DETERRENCE (part 2). Trust me...they are worth your time. Those of you on the left and right who opposed us going to Iraq or think Iraq was a mistake should especially read these essays...if you dare.

The Latest Presidential Debate

Once again, I'm reluctantly watching another debate. Kerry makes my head hurt. I think Bush is doing better this time...perhaps it's the format or perhaps he's not as tired. (I think he had been visiting hurricane victims before the previous debate, while Kerry was getting a manicure*.) I do wish he would bring up the UN oil-for-atrocities scandal when Kerry goes on about the U.S. "going it alone".

*Does this mean that if Kerry wins, he will be our first metrosexual President?

Update: I think the President did very well in this debate. I would say he won this one.

Oh, great...

Just great...

Debate Comments

I suppose I should say something about the recent Presidential and Vice Presidential debates. Yes, I sort of half-heartedly watched them. I try to avoid politics lately, because I'm just not into it that much right now. I support President Bush, I can't stand Kerry, and that's that.

Thoughts on the first Presidential debate...I thought they both held their own and there was neither a big loss nor a big win by either one of them. Yes, President Bush isn't as slick of a speaker as Senator Kerry, but so what? I'm not that great of a speaker either, so I sympathize with him. Just because you are not the greatest orator in the world doesn't mean you don't know what you're talking about. And there are an awful lot of eloquent speakers who are completely full of crap.

Thoughts on the Vice Presidential debate...Cheney came across as wiser and more dignified. Edwards trotted out the usual trial lawyer emotional demagoguery. While it may work in a courtroom, it doesn't work as well in debates.

And speaking of Edwards, Joel Fuhrmann comments on the VP debate and points out something interesting:

I don't remember hearing it come up, but on another issue, abortion, here's how the Democrats voted on two abortion-related bills during the last year:

Partial Birth Abortion Ban: Kerry Nay, Edwards did not vote

Unborn Victims of Violence Act: Kerry Nay, Edwards Nay

It is interesting that Edwards, who made tons of money putting OB/GYNS out of business, seems to be able to channel the thoughts of the unborn (Best of the Web, third item) (NYTimes) while not even considering them to be deserving of legal recognition when their life is ended by an act of murder.

Something to think about, isn't it?

Changes about squared away...

Sorry for the lack of posts...I just haven't felt up to it lately. Nevertheless, I have been working in the background on the templates and stylesheets for this site so that I can use some of the new MT 3.11 capabilities.

The most obvious change is that you can now use your TypeKey registration to comment if you wish. Now, don't worry -- you can still comment the old way as well. (Although, as always, I require a name and an email address.) I don't see myself setting up comment registration on this site. However, I might set it up for comment moderation in the future.

I may tweak some things here and there, but the changes are done for the most part.