Category: News

Big news: Great Britain to repossess U.S.

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Apparently, while we were all distracted with the Olympics and that skirmish between Georgia and Russia, this was handed down from Great Britain to the U.S.:

“In light of your failure to nominate competent candidates for President of the USA and thus to govern yourselves, we hereby give notice of the revocation of your independence, effective immediately.” 

“Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will resume monarchical duties over all states, commonwealths, and territories (except Kansas, which she does not fancy).” 

 

Read the rest here.

Sizing up the presidential election

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RealClearPolitics has a rundown on what the Electoral College map looks like at this point in the election season.

We’re the media and we don’t care

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Wesley J. Smith at Secondhand Smoke points to another case of arrogance in the media:

The Orlando Sentinel continually describes Terri Schiavo’s medical condition as “brain dead.” This is clearly wrong. Brain dead is a popular term for death by neurological criteria and it means that the whole brain and every constituent part has ceased to function as a brain. Thus, there are no reflexes, the body can’t breathe without support, etc.

Terri Schiavo was clearly not brain dead. She breathed on her own. She swallowed her own saliva. She had sleep and wake cycles, she moved her body–none of which can be done by a brain dead body.

But the Orlando Sentinel doesn’t care. When Bobby Schindler complained that their description of his sister was factually inaccurate, they told him to go eat a fig.

This was the letter the Orlando Sentinel sent to Bobby Schindler in response:

Dear Mr. Schindler:

I reviewed your complaint with our state editor, Bob Shaw. We’ve considered the arguments you made in our phone conversation, but we’ve consistently used the term “brain-dead” in connection with the Terry Schiavo case, and we see it as a valid brief description. I appreciate your calling us about it and letting us know your point of view.

Best regards,

Dana Eagles
Orlando Sentinel

But this wasn’t a “point of view” issue, it was about what is fact and what the paper was reporting. That kind of response — “point of view” — is media speak for “you can write to us all you want but we don’t care what you think and it won’t change anything we do.” It was only after a letter from Florida Attorney General David Gibbs requesting a correction that the paper admitted its mistake and printed a correction:

Correction: Because of an editing error, an article about the resignation of Florida Supreme Court Justice Kenneth B. Bell misstated the medical condition of Terri Schiavo, a Pinellas County woman who died in 2005 after the removal of her feeding tube. Schiavo, whose case was considered by the court, was severely brain-damaged but was not brain-dead.

That correction covers the particular story it was attached to, but it doesn’t go anywhere near addressing what was expressed in the letter from the Sentinel to Schindler that “we’ve consistently used “brain-dead” in connection with the Terry Schiavo case.” That’s a weak correction.

The media likes to throw out opinion polls to show how much our country hates the current president. Those are low numbers. But do you know the media is even lower in the public’s opinion than the much-criticized president and even Congress?

The point is not that we should trust all public opinion polls. After all, public opinion is fickle and there are a lot of opinions floating around out there. Rather, the point is is that we need to be discerning and critical-thinking about what is being reported. Major news organizations can do good work, but not just because they are “major news organizations.” That is just lazy thinking, and not worth putting our trust in.

Hold the tomatoes

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Roma TomatoesThis is news that my daughter will applaud:

OAK BROOK, Ill. (AP) — McDonald’s said Monday it has stopped serving sliced tomatoes in its U.S. restaurants over concerns about salmonella food poisoning linked to some uncooked varieties.

This could be bad news for BLT lovers out there:

Restaurants, fast-food chains and supermarkets across Southern California removed fresh red Roma, plum and red round tomatoes from their shelves and took them off their menus this weekend as the U.S. government warned of a widening outbreak of salmonella.

The Food and Drug Administration said consumers should avoid raw red plum, red Roma or round red tomatoes, which have been tied to 145 infections reported since mid-April.

Consumers may continue to eat cherry tomatoes, grape tomatoes, tomatoes sold with the vine still attached and tomatoes grown at home, the FDA statement said.

Major supermarket chains including Ralphs, Vons and Albertsons have stopped selling the three kinds on the FDA list. Other types of tomatoes remained for sale, said Brian Dowling, a vice president of public affairs for Vons owner Safeway, based in Pleasanton, Calif. “It’s a precaution.”

Remembering today in history

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June 6, 1944

Today marks the 64th anniversary of D-Day, the turning point in World War II when the Allied forces stormed the beaches of Normandy, France. Here is how the AP originally reported the mission:

SUPREME HEADQUARTERS, ALLIED EXPEDITIONARY FORCE, TUESDAY (AP) – American, British and Canadian troops landed in northern France this morning, launching the greatest overseas military operation in history with word from their supreme commander, Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, that “we will accept nothing except full victory” over the German masters of the continent.

Go here to read the whole story.

What an incredible effort and great sacrifice was made for the sake of freedom. We owe much to brave men who much gave much.

‘We no longer have a moral compass’

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This story has outraged many people because it shows the utter indifference of our society:

HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — A 78-year-old man is tossed like a rag doll by a hit-and-run driver and lies motionless on a busy city street as car after car goes by. Pedestrians gawk but do nothing. One driver stops briefly but then pulls back into traffic. A man on a scooter slowly circles the victim before zipping away.

The chilling scene – captured on video by a streetlight surveillance camera – has touched off a round of soul-searching in Hartford, with the capital city’s biggest newspaper blaring “SO INHUMANE” on the front page and the police chief lamenting: “We no longer have a moral compass.”

But is this really something so new? Have we maybe heard this story somewhere before? The point is, none of us is immune to acting this way so we shoudn’t point fingers. Instead, we should open our eyes.

Hand over the keys: How to (possibly) lose your license

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And, in another dog-bites-man story from The Associated Press (emphasis mine):

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — Police say an elderly couple, aged 100 and 99, who drove the wrong way along a highway for more than a mile in New Zealand before crashing will probably be asked to surrender their driver’s licenses.

OK, where to begin? Granted, there were consequences involved, but I can relate to being a little confused at times on the road. I don’t know how many times I’ve lectured my kids on the importance of wisely choosing who they hang out with; now I have a concrete example. Not only does the driver in this case face losing his license, but so does the passenger.

It’s all fun and games until somebody gets hurt (or crashes the car). The story continues:

Calder said Tuesday the pair are unlikely to face charges and that police are still trying to determine who was driving the car at the time of the incident and how they ended up going the wrong way.

OK, here are a few guesses: The man was driving. He was lost and his wife was asking if he knew where he was going. He couldn’t hear her. Despite the onslaught of oncoming traffic and the pleas of his panicked wife, he plowed ahead. Chaos ensues.

In my previous post, I linked to research about how our eye sees things a split second ahead of our brains and then our brains, predicting the future, act accordingly. I think I’ve just seem my future about 60 years ahead. Unless my wife takes the keys.

Spider-Man? How about every man?

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\According to new research, humans can see into the future ever so briefly, which explains why we are tricked by optical illusions.

Researcher Mark Changizi of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York says it starts with a neural lag that most everyone experiences while awake. When light hits your retina, about one-tenth of a second goes by before the brain translates the signal into a visual perception of the world.

Scientists already knew about the lag, yet they have debated over exactly how we compensate, with one school of thought proposing our motor system somehow modifies our movements to offset the delay.

Changizi now says it’s our visual system that has evolved to compensate for neural delays, generating images of what will occur one-tenth of a second into the future. That foresight keeps our view of the world in the present. It gives you enough heads up to catch a fly ball (instead of getting socked in the face) and maneuver smoothly through a crowd. His research on this topic is detailed in the May/June issue of the journal Cognitive Science.

The article goes on to explain that illusions occur because our brains try to perceive the future but reality doesn’t match our perceptions. The question that comes to my mind: Is this something that has evolved or is it one more way we are “fearfully and wonderfully made.” ?

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HT: Centurion

Miscellanea: New books from Piper, review of The Shack, Calvinism, gay marriage

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  • NEW BOOKS FROM PIPER: Since I get much out of the writing of John Piper, as do many others, I was thrilled to hear his latest update at the conclusion of his writing leave: Four books are in the works! Great news!
  • REVIEW OF THE SHACK: Tim Challies has an extensive review of William P. Young’s The Shack that takes a hard look at what makes this book dangerous and heretical to many despite its popularity.
  • DEBATE ON CALVINISM: Dr. James White gives a powerful closing statement in a debate with George Bryson on Calvinism.
  • MACARTHUR ON COURT RULING: John MacArthur weighs in following the recent California Supreme Court ruling that same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry.

Is it offbeat that God answers prayer?

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\"Strange News?\"In a completely unsurprising story from the Associated Press, two New Zealand men were in a plane that was about to go down due to a lack of fuel. What they did next was what many people, Christian or not, would have done: They prayed. And, not only did God hear their prayers, he caused them to land their plane next to a billboard that said “Jesus is Lord — The Bible.” Here is part of the story:

Grant Stubbs and Owen Wilson, both from the town of Blenheim on the country’s South Island, were flying up the sloping valley of Pelorus Sound when the engine spluttered, coughed and died.

 

“My friend and I are both Christians so our immediate reaction in a life-threatening situation was to ask for God’s help,” Stubbs told The Associated Press on Wednesday.

Now, I say this is unsurprising because I know that God can — and does — answer prayer. I think God has a sense of humor in that he caused their plane to land near the sign so it could be “more newsworthy” (to the Associated Press, that is). After all, is it that remarkable that God answers prayers, often dramatically, every day? It shouldn’t be. After all, he says just as much in “The Bible.” Sidenote: I am irritated at these billboards that make broad statements and then attribute them to “The Bible” or “God,” meaning you cannot refute them. You can make many true-sounding statements that are not necessarily biblical this way e.g. — “You can’t beat your kids. — God”

So, this story about God answering a prayer in an amazing fashion now catches the eye of the Associated Press and ends up on its Web site under “AP Top Strange News.” This is the kind of world we live in, sadly. And, perhaps even sadder, I believe there are many Christians who think it strange that God actively works in our lives each minute so that they live their lives as if God is only there as some kind of cosmic 911 operator. Although I can’t be totally sure, the statement above by one of the men has that kind of ring to it.

Here’s the thing: Did the men think to pray to God before the trip or maybe before they realized their plane was in danger? I have a good friend who works as a missionary pilot. He flies in places that many people would say are extremely dangerous and is a great praying man. He e-mails updates before his trips and then sends out updates afterwards about how God answered those prayers. Most are uneventful, but there are several where you see how God answers prayers in a way different than was prayed, but it turned out that it was the best  way possible. And my friend acknowledges that in his updates.

These kind of stories (the one about the men in New Zealand) make big splashes and will get many people excited about Christianity and God. But the truth is that God is working day in and day out doing things that may seem mundane but are just as mighty. Jesus, who we worship as Lord, upholds the universe by his mighty hand:

 

Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs.

Hebrews 1:1-4