1. The Greatest Question Ever Asked by the Devil
The great question of the Book of Job is not "Why do the righteous suffer?" but "Why do people serve God?" Would you serve God if there were no blessings attached? What if God were to show you no mercy? What if there were no heaven? What if there were no hell? Would you still serve God? Why or why not? The Devil asked a legitimate question.
2. David Mills on how some people like the idea of the "natural family" until it means changing or re-thinking their own lifestyle:
When a pastor says something in a sermon that you do not like, goes the old joke, he has "gone from preaching to meddling." He has stopped telling pleasant and comforting stories (or enjoyably convicting stories about the sins you don't commit) and started interfering with your life....
You go from preaching to meddling when, for example, you assert that the Natural Family has a "quiverful" of children; that it requires a permanent, unbreakable bond between the husband and wife; or that it is marked by what are called "sex roles." This is too much nature, it is nature untempered by technology and culture, as if you were asking people to go naked in the winter or hunt and kill their own food and eat it raw.
3. Philosopher Victor Reppert on hypocrites:
What's very interesting about hypocrisy is that it is an inevitable by-product of having a high moral standard and rewarding socially behavior that lives up to that moral standard. If the bar is high, then you are always going to have some people who want the social benefits of appearing moral without actually being moral, and if that is the case then you'll get hypocrites. Thus it is an argument for being a member of a Christian church, and not an argument against it, that there are hypocrites in the church. If you dumb down your moral standard to the level that everyone can fairly easily satisfy, you'll get rid of the hypocrites, along with the high standard.
4. Mark Olson on solving the health care crisis
The essential problem in health care is that it is labor intensive. Drug production aside (which has it's own unfortunately high regulatory burden), the medical profession is saddled with very, very little mechanization. There is no machine that lets the doctor of today provide his services, through the advent of gadgetry two or three orders of magnitude moreclients, err, patients. That is what will solve the "health care" crisis. Nothing else. There is no other magic potion available. Costs can only be brought down through the introduction of labor multipliers, spreading the costs. Only by allowing one doctor or office or hospital to charge orders of magnitude less per patient because with the same staff it can assist orders of magnitude more patients. Those two magnitudes are directly related. If a doctor can process twice the patients he can charge half as much and still end the day with the same income at the end of the day. Ten times the patients -> one tenth the cost. One hundred -> one hundred. Imagine that. OK, now figure out how to make it real!
5. StrategyPage: Why Are U.S. Troops So Hard To Kill?
While every combat death is a tragedy, the war in Afghanistan has been notable for how few of them there have been. We'll use a standard measure of combat losses, the number of troops in a combat division (12-20,000 troops) who are killed each day the division is in combat. Since late 2001, there have been .12 American combat deaths per division day in Afghanistan. During the Vietnam war, the average division lost 3.2 troops a day, which was similar to the losses suffered in Korea (1950-53). In Iraq, the losses have been .44 deaths per division per day. By comparison, during World War II the daily losses per American averaged (over 400-500 combat days) about twenty soldiers per day. On the Russian front, German and Russian divisions lost several times that, and often over a hundred a day for weeks on end.
(HT: No Left Turns)
6. Quote of the Week: "Obama has repented of one good thing he did in the Senate: voting to save Terri Schaivo's life....Is this the kind of 'change' we want: the killing of the innocent at both extremes of life: the unborn and the disabled?" -- Philosopher Doug Groothius (HT: Between Two Worlds)
7. On NASA's website, ISS Science Officer Don Pettit describes the "smell of space":
Each time, when I repressed the airlock, opened the hatch and welcomed two tired workers inside, a peculiar odor tickled my olfactory senses. At first I couldn't quite place it. It must have come from the air ducts that re-pressed the compartment. Then I noticed that this smell was on their suit, helmet, gloves, and tools. It was more pronounced on fabrics than on metal or plastic surfaces. It is hard to describe this smell; it is definitely not the olfactory equivalent to describing the palette sensations of some new food as "tastes like chicken." The best description I can come up with is metallic; a rather pleasant sweet metallic sensation. It reminded me of my college summers where I labored for many hours with an arc welding torch repairing heavy equipment for a small logging outfit. It reminded me of pleasant sweet smelling welding fumes. That is the smell of space.
(HT: BoingBoing)
8. Novelist Nicholson Baker on The Charms of Wikipedia:
Wikipedia is just an incredible thing. It's fact-encirclingly huge, and it's idiosyncratic, careful, messy, funny, shocking, and full of simmering controversies--and it's free, and it's fast. In a few seconds you can look up, for instance, "Diogenes of Sinope," or "turnip," or "Crazy Eddie," or "Bagoas," or "quadratic formula," or "Bristol Beaufighter," or "squeegee," or "Sanford B. Dole," and you'll have knowledge you didn't have before. It's like some vast aerial city with people walking briskly to and fro on catwalks, carrying picnic baskets full of nutritious snacks.
9. Anthony Esolen on Biola University and Patrick Henry College :
I am absolutely persuaded -- and to our shame let it be spoken -- that the typical undergraduate at [Biola University's Torrey Honors Institue] has read more Aquinas and has studied his thought more carefully than has the typical bishop in the American church, as the typical undergraduate at Patrick Henry College knows more about Constitutional history than does many a judge warming a federal bench.
I don't doubt that's true. The Torrey students I've met are not only wickedly smart and well-read but winsome and warm. They are by far some of the best and brightest young people in America.
In "Hit or Miss? The Effect of Assassinations on Institutions and War," Olken and Jones looked at the effects of political assassination, using a strict empirical methodology that takes into account economic conditions at the time of the killing and what Olken calls a "novel data set" of assassination attempts, successful and unsuccessful, between 1875 and 2004.
Olken and Jones discovered that a country was "more likely to see democratization following the assassination of an autocratic leader," but found no substantial "effect following assassinations-or assassination attempts-on democratic leaders." They concluded that "on average, successful assassinations of autocrats produce sustained moves toward democracy." The researchers also found that assassinations have no effect on the inauguration of wars, a result that "suggests that World War I might have begun regardless of whether or not the attempt on the life of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in 1914 had succeeded or failed."
11. The Economist: In Praise of the Potato
Unlikely though it seems, the potato promoted economic development by underpinning the industrial revolution in England in the 19th century. It provided a cheap source of calories and was easy to cultivate, so it liberated workers from the land. Potatoes became popular in the north of England, as people there specialized in livestock farming and domestic industry, while farmers in the south (where the soil was more suitable) concentrated on wheat production. By a happy accident, this concentrated industrial activity in the regions where coal was readily available, and a potato-driven population boom provided ample workers for the new factories. Friedrich Engels even declared that the potato was the equal of iron for its "historically revolutionary role".
12. Top 10 Amazing Chemistry Videos
13. Megan McArdle on poverty and start-up costs:
...the fact that poor people without savings are often forced into higher-cost alternatives than middle-class people. If you don't have the deposit and first and last month's rent for an apartment, you end up in a residential hotel that costs more but will let you pay by the week. If you only have a small refrigerator, it's hard to be thrifty by buying in bulk. If you can only afford a battered used car, a lot of your paycheck may get eaten up in expensive car repairs. It seems to me that this is actually a fairly easy poverty intervention, one that I know is sometimes done by churches and other charity groups, but could probably stand a more systematic implementation...
This is one of the reasons that being a middle-class person with a low income is fundamentally different from being born poor. Middle-class people generally have relatives that they can draw on for help with those kinds of upfront expenses. People who are born poor generally have social networks that are rich with mechanisms for surviving poverty, but rarely flush with cash.
14. Woman Gives Birth To Child Nearly Her Own Size:
A northern Kentucky woman believes she is the smallest woman who ever gave birth to such a large baby.
Stacey Herald, 33, gave birth five weeks ago to an 18-inch daughter who is not much smaller than her mother."I'm 28 ½ inches, head to heel," said Herald, who was born with osteogenesis imperfecta.
(HT: Neatorama)
15. Drinking makes heart grow more sorrowful, study finds
The researchers, led by pharmacology professor Norio Matsuki, gave mild shocks to lab rats to condition them to fear. As a result, the rats would freeze in terror and curl up the moment they were put in their cages.
Researchers then immediately injected the rats with ethanol or saline. The researchers found that rats with alcohol in their veins froze up for longer, with the fear on average lasting two weeks, compared with rats that did not receive injections.
"If we apply this study to humans, the memories they are trying to get rid of will remain strongly, even if they drink alcohol to try to forget an event they dislike and be in a merry mood for the moment," the study said. "The following day, they won't remember the merriness that they felt," it said.
(HT: Neatorama)
16. The Hermeneutics Quiz (HT: ChristianThinker.net)
17. Tongue Piercing, Sponsored by Coke Zero
Shops in Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Porto Alegre and Salvador are giving free piercings to people that agree to take a picture with a fresh new Coke Zero stud. Coke's calling the concept advertasting.
(HT: Neatorama)
18. When you hit the snooze alarm on a clock radio or alarm clock, why does the alarm goes off again in nine minutes?
By setting the snooze time to 9 minutes, modern digital alarm clocks only needs to watch the last digit of the time. So, if you hit snooze at 6:45, the alarm goes off again when the last digit hits 4 - at 7:54. They couldn't make the snooze period 10 minutes, or the alarm would go off right away - or the clock would take more circuitry.
19. Gene Edward Veith on making policy choices:
On serious issues, my policy positions are based on my deeply-held convictions. On less important issues, I go by whatever position is funniest.
20. Timewaster of the Week: Bug Battle Combat
21. Why does the woman depicted in the Mona Lisa appear to be both smiling and not smiling at the same time?
The smile part of the Mona Lisa's face was painted by Leonardo in low spatial frequencies. This means that when you look right at her mouth, there's no smile. But if you look at her eyes or elsewhere in the portrait, your peripheral vision picks up the smile.
22. The Science of Fairy Tales
23. 20 Movies that Make Men Cry
24. 100 Weird Facts About the Human Body (HT: The Presurfer)
25. LOLCat of the Week
Enter the ICHC online Poker Cats Contest!
26. Aaron Earls on being Jesus' "hype men":
To put it in today's terms, we're Jesus' hype man. For those not familiar with the term, you'll know the guy. In a rap song the main artist doesn't come on until several seconds after the beginning of the song. During the build-up to his entrance on the track, the hype man yells over the beat. He's always saying things like, "Yeah!" "Alright!" "Uh-huh!" and other generic phrases that prepare the audience for the main event.
The hype man are usually friends of the rapper that lack the skills and experience of the featured artist. Hype men are successful as long as they are just another instrument there to make the main artist look good. They can and should have no ego, because it's not about them. Just about anyone can do what they are doing, they have that role because of who they know and nothing more.As hype men for God, we don't have any special skills that He needs to accomplish His work - He's God. Any abilities that we have, He gave to us so that we can be fulfilled by promoting or hyping Him.
27. How to Draw an Impossible Triangle (HT: The Presurfer)
28. 10 DIY Car Hacks
29. Researchers have discovered a gene that can block the spread of HIV -- A team of researchers at the University of Alberta, including a scientist at the University of Pennsylvania, have discovered a gene that is able to block HIV, and thought to in turn prevent the onset of AIDS. Dr. Stephen Barr, a researcher in the Department of Medical Microbiology & Immunology at the U of A, says his team identified a human gene called TRIM22 that can block HIV infection in a cell culture by preventing the assembly of the virus.
30. PC beats doctor in scan tests
Experts taught a standard computer how to diagnose Alzheimer's from brain scans, and got a 96% success rate.
The accuracy of diagnosis from standard scans, blood tests and interviews carried out by a clinician is 85%.
(HT: Hit & Run)
31. Like Owner, Like Dog: One Third Of US Dogs Are Obese, Cats Also Suffer -- Obesity in pets mirrors that of humans, as do the reasons -- decreased physical activity, age, and an increased caloric intake, even genetic predisposition. Like humans, there are also many health problems associated with being obese, such as diabetes mellitus.
32. Reaching 100 Is Easier Than Suspected
Living to 100 is easier than you might think. Surprising new research suggests that even people who develop heart disease or diabetes late in life have a decent shot at reaching the century mark.
It has been generally assumed that living to 100 years of age was limited to those who had not developed chronic illness," said Dr. William Hall of the University of Rochester.
Hall has a theory for how these people could live to that age. In an editorial in Monday's Archives of Internal Medicine, where the study was published, he writes that it might be thanks to doctors who aggressively treat these older folks' health problems, rather than taking an "ageist" approach that assumes they wouldn't benefit.
33. The Duke and His Daughter
John Wayne answers a question about what he wants for his daughter. (HT: Mick Huckabee for President blog)
Costs can only be brought down through the introduction of labor multipliers, spreading the costs. Only by allowing one doctor or office or hospital to charge orders of magnitude less per patient because with the same staff it can assist orders of magnitude more patients.
Mark Olson might be right, and I have no reason to suspect that he's wrong. But I do believe that he's only half right. My concern is that Mr. Olson says it's the ONLY way. I don't want him, any other conservative, liberal, government bureaucrat, OR insurance adjuster telling doctors and medical personnel how to do their jobs more efficiently. Any talk of bringing down health care costs has to include the introduction of market forces. Skyrocketing costs can be attributed to the introduction of government paying for medicine and the steady shift toward third party payers.
Guess where costs have gone down: in elective procedures like plastic surgery and laser eye. Yeah, I know, it's only the rich who can afford that stuff, (I'm not sure that's accurate anymore), but the costs ARE going down. Them's the facts, jack.
3. Philosopher Victor Reppert on hypocrites:
What's very interesting about hypocrisy is that it is an inevitable by-product of having a high moral standard and rewarding socially behavior that lives up to that moral standard. If the bar is high, then you are always going to have some people who want the social benefits of appearing moral without actually being moral, and if that is the case then you'll get hypocrites. Thus it is an argument for being a member of a Christian church, and not an argument against it, that there are hypocrites in the church. If you dumb down your moral standard to the level that everyone can fairly easily satisfy, you'll get rid of the hypocrites, along with the high standard.
I agree, but I thought he was going to say that Christians are hypocrites because we are supposed to be "followers of Christ." Anyone who tries to emulate Christ will always come up short. We proclaim to be Christians but we will never be able to fully abide by and live out the dictates of our beliefs, thus making us hypocrites. Does that make sense?
6. Quote of the Week: "Obama has repented of one good thing he did in the Senate: voting to save Terri Schaivo's life....Is this the kind of 'change' we want: the killing of the innocent at both extremes of life: the unborn and the disabled?" -- Philosopher Doug Groothius (HT: Between Two Worlds)
Exactly! The "hope" Obama peddles to the masses (who are drunk on the Kool-Aid) does not include the unborn, the disabled, even the NEWBORN. What kind of hope is that?
Would I still serve God if I went through the torments of Job?
3 answers:
1. Yes. Intellectually, I know that God is worthy. He created everything. Who else is there to serve but God? He knows when I sit down and when I stand. He counts the hairs of my head. He will not let a sparrow fall. He created the oceans I sail and the mountains I ski. (figuratively: I live near hills and lakes.) Yes, if anything is worthy of worship it is He.
2. Yes. I went through my own version of Job's torment and found that I had nowhere else to turn. However, it was through Christ that I came to belief. Christ said that he accepted me as I was, where I was, unconditionally. I believed Him.
3. Considering that there was no Christ mentioned in Job's torment, and that the Devil destroyed everything in Job's life as he knew it, I believe I would have taken Job's wife's advice: I would have cursed God and died.
Of course, that's why God said to the Devil: "Consider my servant, JB." God knew that Job had always been faithful and would always be faithful. God, in His wisdom, did not say, "Consider my servant, jd." Had He done so, the book of Job would have been considerably shorter and with an entirely different outcome. Probably would have involved weapons and a post office.
Guess where costs have gone down: in elective procedures like plastic surgery and laser eye. Yeah, I know, it's only the rich who can afford that stuff, (I'm not sure that's accurate anymore), but the costs ARE going down.
Lasik surgery is actually a good example of how technology has driven down the cost, while allowing the surgeon to make a good income. My wife had Lasik in 2006; the surgery cost $2600 and we were in the office twice, for a total of 60 minutes. The first appointment was a consult to establish that she was a candidate and the second was the surgery. During the surgery appointment, the surgeon spent a total of 20 minutes with us, of which 10 was the surgery, and a machine did the actual surgery.
Joe --
I'm trapped in IE6 at work, your your layout is causing the "SPONSOR LINKS" to cover the middle third of this post.
yes, IE6 is a dead end, but they are data nazis here. Any help?
ucfengr - on health costs
Lasik surgery is actually a good example of how technology has driven down the cost, while allowing the surgeon to make a good income. My wife had Lasik in 2006; the surgery cost $2600 and we were in the office twice, for a total of 60 minutes. The first appointment was a consult to establish that she was a candidate and the second was the surgery. During the surgery appointment, the surgeon spent a total of 20 minutes with us, of which 10 was the surgery, and a machine did the actual surgery.
IN comparison, it is quite easy to drop $500 on glasses. Assuming the Lasik surgery lasts forever it pays for itself over 10-15 years (assuming you replace your glasses every two to three years...me I'm on like year 5 or 6).
The problem with analyzing health costs is that it is really broken into two pieces; old healthcare and new healthcare. Old healthcare is often cheaper than it was back when it was new. This is especially true with drugs where generics can knock the price down 80-90%. New healthcare is expensive but today's new will become tomorrow's old.
To analyze something like a visit to the doctor becomes very difficult. Even if the doctor charges you more, you're getting a combination of old and new since even the slowest doctor is at least somewhat aware of the newest findings.
Daniel - on hypocrisy
What's very interesting about hypocrisy is that it is an inevitable by-product of having a high moral standard and rewarding socially behavior that lives up to that moral standard.
One wonders why Jesus ever bashed people for being hypocrites then? Was it because he was offended by their high moral standards?
A hypocrite, at least when people use it negatively (which is just about the only use for the word), is not just someone who fails to live up to his high moral standards. A hypocrite is someone who holds others to a higher standard than he holds himself. For example, I would consider Henry Hyde or Newt Gingrich to be hypocrites on the subject of extramarital affairs as they both had a rather sordid history on the matter while bashing Bill Clinton (to be fair, though, Newt was unusually quiet during the Monica affair). Bill Clinton, on the other hand, would not be a hypocrite on extramarital affairs. Why? Because even though he admitted they are wrong he did not make a point of holding others to a standard he himself could not hold himself too.
In health care costs, the comment doesn't factor in lifestyle changes. How about more agressive reform resulting in healthier patients (less doctor visits)?
What about supply of doctors? I don't think the number of US Universities granting an MD degree has kept up with either the inflation rate or the population growth rate.
One certainty -- more doctors offerring services would mean lower prices would be available.
Until doctors' average salaries are less than about twice the average consumer's wage, there is a good claim that there are not enough doctors.
Why hasn't there been more discussion of more Med Colleges, and more doctors?
"Thus it is an argument for being a member of a Christian church, and not an argument against it, that there are hypocrites in the church. If you dumb down your moral standard to the level that everyone can fairly easily satisfy, you'll get rid of the hypocrites, along with the high standard."
This assumes that a higher standard is always a good thing. Needlessly high moral standards may not be, especially when they cause anxiety and guilt in people. Some people might say that a standard so high that human beings can never entirely fulfill it was too high. Of course Evangelicals will go on about how God's perfection demands a perfect standard, but if that's what he wants he might pick up some of the slack at his end. We only have what we're given to work with.
For example, I would consider Henry Hyde or Newt Gingrich to be hypocrites on the subject of extramarital affairs as they both had a rather sordid history on the matter while bashing Bill Clinton
That's BS Boonton. Just because they failed in the past does not mean they couldn't hold Bill Clinton to the same standard which they failed to uphold. If they were continuing in the behavior while accusing others of doing the same (that's the Clinton modus operandi), then they can rightly be called hypocrites.
According to your logic, a reformed alcoholic, who hasn't had anything to drink for thirty years cannot accuse another of being a drunk for fear of being a hypocrite. Incredible.
And really, the notion that Henry Hyde and Newt Gingrich have any kind of "sordid history" to compare with Bill Clinton's is laughable. Yes, they each had an affair. It was wrong. They should be held accountable. But guess who was the only one--of all those who were accused of having an affair--to lie to everyone he met, including the grand jury?
Once again, you intentionally miss the point. The point is that liberal Democrats consider hypocrisy (along with intolerance) to be a mortal sin. That's convenient for them, because when you have, shall we say, flexible standards, well then it's difficult to be a hypocrite.
God's perfection demands a perfect standard, but if that's what he wants he might pick up some of the slack at his end.
Loki, he did pick up some of the slack. It happened some 2,000 years ago, when He allowed His own Son, an innocent man, to be tortured, humiliated and killed by a bunch of hypocrites--cheered on by some ordinary malcontents, miscreants and assorted Walter Mittys like you and me.
He allowed it to happen for me and for you, if you choose to believe it.
IN comparison, it is quite easy to drop $500 on glasses. Assuming the Lasik surgery lasts forever it pays for itself over 10-15 years (assuming you replace your glasses every two to three years...me I'm on like year 5 or 6).
Boonton, my comment was more about how technology has allowed Lasik surgeons to lower their prices while still making a decent living, not really a comparison of Lasik to its alternatives, but if you are going to compare alternatives, don't leave out contact lenses.
The problem with analyzing health costs is that it is really broken into two pieces; old healthcare and new healthcare.
I think a better breakdown is diagnosis vs. treatment. Right now, I think we are doing a pretty good job of using technology to reduce the time it takes to treat a patient and the time it takes for a patient to recover, but diagnosis is still a pretty time consuming process for a doctor.
The "smell of space" is also the "smell" of underwater. Spend any time on a Navy submarine and you smell the same thing. It's amine, used to scrub the carbon dioxide out of rebreathed air.
Sounds romantic to call it "the smell of space"; in reality it's nothing more than a chemical reaction of an compound derived from ammonia by replacement of one or more hydrogen atoms by organic radicals.
Until doctors' average salaries are less than about twice the average consumer's wage, there is a good claim that there are not enough doctors.
Can you imagine many people entering a profession that requires 7+ years of schooling (costing several hundred thousand dollars) and a multi-year internship (depending on specialty) to get a job earning something less than $76k/year (average wage in 2006 = $38k/yr), much of which will be eaten up by malpractice insurance? Me neither.
ucfengr
Boonton, my comment was more about how technology has allowed Lasik surgeons to lower their prices while still making a decent living,
I think Lasik is unique in that it is an actual market product in the healthcare market. It is sold over the market, customers pay for it out of pocket and rarely can get some third party (the gov't or insurance) to cover it. As a result the market 'clears'. You don't have unemployed Lasik surgeons nor do you have people holding fistfulls of money annoyed because all the Lasik clinics are booked 3 years in advance.
But we as a society are quite comfortable with the idea that people who can't afford Lasik won't get it. Because of that we have a market in Lasik that works just as efficiently as the ipod market...maybe more. A lot of healthcare, though, doesn't work like that and won't. I don't think the cause of Lasik's falling costs is so much attributable to technology then, (although that is a factor).
Right now, I think we are doing a pretty good job of using technology to reduce the time it takes to treat a patient and the time it takes for a patient to recover, but diagnosis is still a pretty time consuming process for a doctor.
True, diagnosis though is very time consuming and difficult if you have a tough condition. Dr. House is never going to be hard up for work!
That being said, there's been a huge increase in diagnostic tools available for those with more common problems. Soon I wouldn't be shocked to see a new generation of blood/DNA tests that zero in on not only what type of disease you have but what drugs will work for you and won't.
Can you imagine many people entering a profession that requires 7+ years of schooling (costing several hundred thousand dollars) and a multi-year internship (depending on specialty) to get a job earning something less than $76k/year
According to http://www.payscale.com/research/US/People_with_Jobs_as_Physicians_%2F_Doctors/Salary
the lowest median salary for a physician is not less than $120K. Even with less than a year experience they typically are making $120K, by 5 years they are touching $150K.
According to http://www.payscale.com/research/US/People_with_Jobs_as_Physicians_%2F_Doctors/Salary
the lowest median salary for a physician is not less than $120K. Even with less than a year experience they typically are making $120K, by 5 years they are touching $150K.
Okay, but I was responding to Tom Grey's assertion that we should produce enough doctors that the wage drops to "less than about twice the average consumer's wage", or about $76k. I don't think you would find a lot of people willing to undergo the training required to become a licensed M.D. requires for a salary that is less than a that of many mid-level managers or engineers with only a 4 year degree.
Who is the 'we'? If people want to go to med school they can. Likewise there's plenty of demand for doctors to come here from overseas. If the market wanted to drive wages down that much I don't think the insurance companies would object greatly. You're probably right that $76K is not enough 'return' on the massive investment needed to become a doc....even if you do some of the schooling overseas where it's cheaper.
Any list of "guy-cry" movies that does not have Field of Dreams is a crock.
Loki said: "Some people might say that a standard so high that human beings can never entirely fulfill it was too high."
That is what a savior is for. Jesus was the only human being to entirely fulfill the highest of standards. But it's not by works we are saved, lest any man would boast. It's by grace! We are not called to be Christ; we are called to be Christ-like.
jd
That's BS Boonton. Just because they failed in the past does not mean they couldn't hold Bill Clinton to the same standard which they failed to uphold.
Again a hypocrite is someone who holds others to a standard they do not hold for themselves. To the degree they were not willing to accept the consquences for themselves that they wanted to inflict on Clinton they were hypocrites.
Perhaps the best way to illustrate the difference in definitions here is an NA or AA support group. By the definition Joe uses, these are probably the most hypocritical of all groups since just about everyone there holds sober living as a standard yet almost everyone there will admit to 'falling off the wagon' some or many times. The definition I and almost everyone else uses would hold the opposite. They are not hypocrites because even though they often fail to live up to their standard they do not advocate inflicting anything on anyone that they themselves would not accept for themselves as a consquence.
And really, the notion that Henry Hyde and Newt Gingrich have any kind of "sordid history" to compare with Bill Clinton's is laughable. Yes, they each had an affair. It was wrong. They should be held accountable. But guess who was the only one--of all those who were accused of having an affair--to lie to everyone he met, including the grand jury?
Sounds like classic enablement to me there jd. "Sure my guy drinks but he doesn't drive when he's drunk so its ok".
Once again, you intentionally miss the point. The point is that liberal Democrats consider hypocrisy (along with intolerance) to be a mortal sin. That's convenient for them, because when you have, shall we say, flexible standards, well then it's difficult to be a hypocrite.
Again Jesus seemed to take a pretty dim light to it as well. He also took a dim view of the self-righteous. Advice that many on the right seem especially resistant to understanding.
#2: I wouldn't mind Mills' piece so much if his definition of "natural family" wasn't an ideal unattainable for many. As with the so-called gender debates whose terminology he does aptly define and correct, he over-absolutizes. Mills' basic thesis is good but he spoils his arguments by assuming that more things are absolute than really are. Just where do we draw the line between what is natural (in regards to the family) and what isn't? Not by so-called ideals, or even majorities.
For example, what of the woman (and child) who would die in childbirth (or be seriously injured) if it wasn't for technology (the C-section)? Is her family meant to have a "quiverfull?" What about the infertile couple? Should they resort to IVF in order to attempt to fill their quiver? Is adoption natural? Is "natural family planning" really that natural? What of the family where the father is an unrepentant abuser or drug addict or adulterer?
In other words, for many, being a "natural family" as Mills defines it would be pretty horrific, definitely not something which "more effectively provides simple human happiness."
His examples are extreme and oversimplified and his rhetoric hyperbolic.
He has a point about meddling, but it is meddling, or at least presumptuous, to assume you have the right answer for everybody when you really don't.
18. - The real answer is located further down in the article - The internal gearing associated with pre-digital clocks dictated either nine-or-less or ten-or-more minutes. I'm sure someone consulted with sleep specialists as well to determine the time required to return to deep sleep.