. . . that all the dollars are adjusted for inflation.
Author: Jimmy Akin
Jimmy was born in Texas, grew up nominally Protestant, but at age 20 experienced a profound conversion to Christ. Planning on becoming a Protestant seminary professor, he started an intensive study of the Bible. But the more he immersed himself in Scripture the more he found to support the Catholic faith, and in 1992 he entered the Catholic Church. His conversion story, "A Triumph and a Tragedy," is published in Surprised by Truth. Besides being an author, Jimmy is the Senior Apologist at Catholic Answers, a contributing editor to Catholic Answers Magazine, and a weekly guest on "Catholic Answers Live."
Dude, That’s A Bow
So the latest word is that the White House is denying that President Obama bowed to King Abdullah of Saudia Arabia.
QUOTE:
"It wasn't a bow. He grasped his hand with two hands, and he's taller than King Abdullah," said an Obama aide, who spoke on the condition of anonymity [SOURCE].
Nice try, but no. Let's take a look at a still of the action in question:
The president is so low that he could kiss King Abdullah's hand if he wanted to.
The key thing, though, is to look at the levels of their respective heads. If you're just leaning over to take the hand (two-handedly or one-handedly; doesn't matter) of someone who is shorter than you, you don't need your head to go below theirs.
Take it from me. I'm a square dancer. I have to adjust to the height of lady dancers who are a fraction of my height all the time. I may have to bend a bit to swing them or promenade with them or whatnot, but at no time does my head go below theirs, no matter how short they are. (Some are well below five feet tall.)
Saying the above represents a bend to get at the king's hand so it can be grasped is just laughable.
A Hopeful Trendline
Well, here's some good news . . .
As you can tell, the above is the trendline of a Gallup poll concerning whether handguns should be banned, and the current reading on the trendline shows a historic low in the period covered above.
That's very good news as handguns are far more portable and easier to have around in case of emergency than longarms (that's why they make handguns), and the diffusion of handguns among the law abiding population has a protective effect on society as a whole–including those who choose not to learn how to use and own handguns.
GET THE STORY. (CHT: Instapundit).
The Moment of Creation
There's something about sci-fi writers getting sudden inspiration in the shower. Don't know what it is.
Ron Moore recently mentioned that he got the idea for how the final episode of Galactica should work while he was in the shower. (And I'll probably have some comments on the final episode soon–as well as getting back to theological blogging.)
Joe Straczynski can do Moore one better, though. He got the whole idea for Babylon 5 in the shower.
He then scrambled out of the shower and struggled to scribble down a bunch of notes on the idea, before the ideas could get away from him.
A while back, I offered a brief summary of some of the points made in an early B5 story document that JMS wrote between the pilot and season one, but JMS has also released a copy of the initial notes he wrote as soon as he got out of the shower, offering an even earlier look at his original concept for the show.
They were first published in a magazine ten years ago that I never saw, but for the tenth anniversary of their publication, JMS decided to make them available–online.
One interesting note is that, though the pre-season one story document didn't mention it, he did have the order/chaos idea that would be manifested through the vorlons and the shadows, and the idea of humanity needing to break out of the cycle of being torn between the two.
In Valen’s Name?
Down yonder, a reader writes:
Jimmy–I'm only a casual fan of B5, and haven't shelled out for the script books, so I won't ask you to go into detail about how the Sinclair version differs, but one speculation that's been bugging me for years:
Would the original series have ended with the end of "World Without End" (the Sinclair/Valen reveal)?
Hmmm. . . . I wonder. . . . Is it a spoiler if you reveal what would have happened on a show but didn't?
Oh, well. . . . Continued below the fold.
The End of Galactica
The first part of the Battlestar Galactica finale (Daybreak, Part I) has now aired, and next Friday will have the two-hour conclusion of the story.
I've had some requests for comment on the direction that the story has taken, and it seemed like this would be an opportune time to offer some.
To avoid spoilers for those who haven't seen the relevant eps, yet, I'll continue below the fold.
United Nations To Host Battlestar Pannel
Excerpt:
Since it debuted six years ago, the Sci Fi drama about a rag-tag space fleet has offered challenging fictional depictions of problems afflicting our planet in the here and now.
And now a discussion of how those very issues have been handled on the show will take place at the United Nations.
On March 17, there will be a "Battlestar" retrospective at the U.N. in New York and a panel discussion of how the show examined issues such as "human rights, children and armed conflict, terrorism, human rights and reconciliation and dialogue among civilizations and faith," according to Sci Fi.
The "Battlestar" contingent on the panel will consist of executive producers Ronald D. Moore and David Eick, as well as stars Mary McDonnell (who plays president Laura Roslin on the show) and Edward James Olmos (Admiral William Adama).
I just hope that the officials at the U.N. press them hard for details that will allow us to avenge the enslavement of our fellow cylons by their human oppressors out in the stars!
I mean, it might take us a couple thousand years to track down the twelve colonies, given our current lack of FTL drives, but it sure would be worth it to end human oppression.
I just hope that we're all on the same page on this one, here on earth. I'd hate to see this issue divide us and, y'know, lead to a nuclear war or anything.
Hmmm . . .
I think I'm going to go Google "organic memory transfer" now. Maybe I can find a lab working on that.
Funny. . . . I just have this feeling of deja vu.
General Theory of Media Incompetence
For a very long time I have held what might be termed the Special Theory of Media Incompetence, which is: The mainstream newsmedia is spectacularly incompetent when reporting stories concerning religion, morality, etc.
It's hard to read a story about one of these subjects in the mainstream media without cringing at the problems with it.
For example, consider the following four-sentence story from the Associated Press that appeared yesterday:
WASHINGTON (AP) – President Barack Obama says human cloning is "dangerous, profoundly wrong" and has no place in society.
Obama made the comments as he was signing an executive order that will allow federal spending on embryonic stem cell research.
Some critics say the research can lead to human cloning. Obama said the government will develop strict guidelines for the research because misuse or abuse is unacceptable.
He said he would ensure that the government never opens the door to the use of cloning for human reproduction [SOURCE].
First, there is the second sentence (green quote) flat-out factual error that the new executive order "will allow federal spending on embryonic stem cell research."
WRONG!
President Bush's previous executive order already allowed the spending of tax-payers' money on ESCR.
What is new is that President Obama's executive order will allow the spending of tax-payers' money on the fresh killing of new babies, as opposed to researching cell lines derived from embryos that had already been killed in the past.
So this is just ignorant reporting by a mainstream media hack.
It would also be easy to be distracted by the reported claim (blue quote) that the president believes human cloning to be "dangerous" and "profoundingly wrong" and ask, "Why on earth would he believe that? If you're willing to munch up babies to get at their stem cells–or even just because they're inconvenient to their mothers–if you're willing to treat human life so cavalierly in the interests of science and expediency–then on what possible ground do you view human cloning as wrong?
Surely such language would be simply that of political expediency rather than an actual moral conviction.
But let's look closer at what actually is being said here.
Is the president really say that he views human cloning as dangerous and profoundly wrong, as the first sentence of the story indicates?
If he did, it would seem there is a significant caveat, because the fourth sentence (red quote) speaks of him restricting the practice of reproductive human cloning (i.e., allowing a cloned human to surv
ive to maturity instead of being killed while still at a gestational stage).
Any way you look at this story, there is a problem.
If the president only said he opposes reproductive cloning but was just fine with human cloning for purposes of experimenting on the unborn then the reporter is at fault for not making this clear. His lede made it sound like the president was opposed to all cloning, and that's not the case.
Also, if the president was explicit in his support of research cloning then the reporter is doubly at fault for making it sound as if the the president is opposed to all cloning when in fact he was explicit about supporting some cloning.
Perhaps the reporter doesn't understand the difference between these two uses of human cloning, or perhaps the reporter was biased, or perhaps both.
Any way you go, I don't know–from the story–what the president actually said or didn't say or what his position on all this actually is (not from the story, mind you).
(I also have no clue why, if the president thinks that it's okay to make babies in petri dishes and that it's okay to genetically screen the ones allowed to come to term–as I assume from other sources that he does–then on what moral grounds would he judge it immoral, the technical problems having been worked out, to use artificial means to produce a genetic twin of an adult and thus deny him the younger twin brother he always wanted to have–but that's another issue.)
So here we have a clear case of mainstream media incompetency dealing with something in the religion/morals area, so . . . a piece of confirmation for the Special Theory of Media Incompetency that I've held for a very long time.
But in recent years, the more I've watched the media work and the more I've been interviewed by it, I've developed a sequel to the Special Theory of Media Incompetence.
I call it the General Theory of Media Incompetence.
It is as follows: The mainstream news media is spectacularly incompetent at reporting stories on virtually any subject.
I just happen to particularly notice its incompetence on the religion/morality ones, because that's my area of expertise.
(Note that I sayd "virtually" any subject. I'm prepared to say that there may be a few exceptions like sports scores or the current average of the sock market–simple, quantifiable things.The kind of thing a chimpanzee could report on by simply looking at a number on a screen and typing that same number a keyboard.)
When Is the Last Time You Thought About The ERA?
(Cross posted at Tim Jones' blog, OId World Swine )
Arkansas State Senator Sue Madison hasn't forgotten about it.
She's pushing "Senate Joint Resolution 12" that would "have Arkansas ratify the Equal Rights Amendment".
Just in case you don't remember, the amendment would read;
Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by
the United States or by any state on account of sex. The Congress shall
have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions
of this article. This amendment shall take effect two years after the
date of ratification.
the United States or by any state on account of sex. The Congress shall
have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions
of this article. This amendment shall take effect two years after the
date of ratification.
The article notes that "Madison needs one more vote to get the committee's recommendation
and free the resolution to be sent on to the Senate for action".
One senator, Bill Pritchard of Elkins, Arkansas, "worries that it could somehow reverse state Amendment 83, which
defines marriage as being only between one man and one woman.".
Jerry
Cox, president of the Family Council, has sent e-mails saying that the
Equal Rights Amendment would "make all state and federal laws gender
neutral," placing Arkansas' amendment defining marriage in "serious
jeopardy."
Arkansas
would be the 36th state (out of 38 needed) to ratify the amendment, and
though the legal deadline for ratification expired in 19-frakkin'-82, Madison doesn't seem to be too concerned about that;
Smith has said no deadline applies to the amendment, pointing to the
27th Amendment, which deals with congressional pay, that was ratified
in 1986, more than 200 years after it was proposed.
27th Amendment, which deals with congressional pay, that was ratified
in 1986, more than 200 years after it was proposed.
Yeah, well, there are a lot of legal experts who disagree with that assessment.
But
it's certainly a new twist on the Obama presidency. His magic is so
powerful that liberal social experiments long dead and buried are
rising from their moldy graves and walking around like zombies. Rotten,
stinky zombies. And the ERA as a legal end-run around gay-marriage
bans? Too rich! I'll bet the gals at NOW are all a twitter.
Arkansans, call or e-mail your senator. In the words of Jerry Clower, "Shoot that thang!".
Kill it. Kill it dead.
You can find your Arkansas state senator's contact information HERE.
Soups Re-Redux
In the combox down yonder, a reader writes:
"The law of abstinence forbids the use of meat, but not of eggs, the products of milk or condiments made of animal fat."
The phrase "use of meat" includes soups made from meat (no matter how you slice it). By adding "use of" they included both meat chunks on a plate, in a soup, soup that "used" a meat bone, broth, and probably smoking meat under a potato to try to imbibe the flavor into it. They thus clarified by eliminate superfluous language.
Either way, you can go without the flavor of steak for a day.
I appreciate the reader's attention to detail, but this is an artifact of the translation into English. The translator (whoever it may have been) is using an uncommon English idiom to translate what is more straightforward in the Latin, which is:
III. ยง 1. Abstinentiae lex vetat carne vesci, non autem ovis, lacticiniis et quibuslibet condimentis etiam ex adipe animalium. [SOURCE]
NOTE: I've corrected a typo in the Latin passage just given. The word "vesci" is incorrectly given in the source document as "vesei" (not a real word in Latin), no doubt due to a scanning error that didn't get caught.
Here is the parallel passage from the 1917 Code of Canon Law:
Can. 1250. Abstinentiae lex vetat carne iureque ex carne vesci, non autem ovis, lacticiniis et quibuslibet condimentis etiam ex adipe animalium. [SOURCE]
As you can see, the fundamental structure of the phrase is the same:
Abstinentiae lex vetat carne . . . vesci
The law of abstinence forbids (one) to feed . . . on meat.
The infinitive "vesci" means "to feed/eat/enjoy." It doesn't carry the same thought that the English translator's employment of "the use of" does. That's just a stilted translation.
"Vesci" is also exactly the same word that appeared in the prior law (the 1917 Code), notwithstanding the scanner error.
What has changed is that the phrase "iureque ex carne" ("and soup from meat") has been dropped.
Hence the previous answer stands: The new law repeated the previous law except for the soup phrase in what it prohibited. Thus "soup from meat" is no longer forbidden.
Good try, though! Thanks for paying attention to detail!