Lynn Chu and John Yoo give a sober assessment of President Bush’s proposed troop surge in Iraq.
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Dixie Chicks Win Big
The Dixie Chicks won big at the Grammy’s tonight. They won five awards, including “Song of the Year” and “Album of the Year.” Though I don’t agree with their politics (understatement alert!), I think their album “Taking the Long Way” is great. My favorite performance of the night, however, was the opening act by The Police. The reunion was long overdue, but they didn’t miss a lick.
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Abortion and Capital Murder
Under the current regime of Roe v. Wade, it is legal for a mother to have her unborn child killed at any stage of pregnancy. Yet this week a San Antonio father was convicted of one count of capital murder for killing his unborn child (read the story). This tragic story here in Texas highlights the inconsistency and injustice of abortion-law in the U.S. In Texas it is a capital offense to kill an “unborn child at every stage of gestation from fertilization until birth.” Currently, there are at least 36 states that have such homicide laws defining a fetus as a person. Yet abortion remains legal in the U.S.…
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Global Warming and the Christian Conscience
I do not claim to be an expert on global warming or to have mastered the scientific literature on the subject. But I do think that it is important for Christians to consider the claims of certain evangelicals concerning global climate change. The “Evangelical Climate Initiative” (endorsed by evangelical luminaries such as Rick Warren) says that,
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Southern Baptists Taking a Hit in the Wall Street Journal?
John Wilson writes in today’s Wall Street Journal about Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton’s “New Baptist Covenant.” I am happy to read that Wilson is not too keen on this new coalition of “above the fray” Baptists (a.k.a., moderate and liberal Baptists). Even though the former Presidents are Baptists, it still takes a lot of chutzpah for two politicians to pose as the new uniters of Christendom, especially when the big meeting is set to take place in 2008 right in time for the Presidential primaries. The whole thing smells more of politics than of piety. So I share Wilson’s low estimation of the so-called “New Baptist Covenant.”
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Biden Sinks His Own Ship
Senator Joe Biden has announced that he will run for President of the United States, but I think he may have deep-sixed his candidacy on his first day out. According to the New York Observer, Biden offered this reflection on Senator Barack Obama’s candidacy: “I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy. I mean, that’s a storybook, man” (audio). The worst part about this quote is that it appears that neither Biden nor the interviewer perceived the implicit racism of the statement. If any of the other candidates (like this one) chooses to make hay of this boner, I…
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What Huckabee Should Have Said
Yesterday, Governor Mike Huckabee announced his plans to run for President of the United States. He made the announcement in an interview with Tim Russert on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” Governor Huckabee is a former Baptist pastor and is widely regarded as an evangelical-friendly candidate.
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Saturday Snickers: Bipartisan Blathering
Bush may be master of the malapropism, but Hillary Clinton is the master of the monotone. Which is worse? You be the judge. The following videos confirm that Hillary can’t sing, and Bush can’t talk. [HT’s: Drudge Report, The Late Show]
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N.T. Wright Repeats Jim Wallis’ Error
I wrote last week about Jim Wallis’ harsh (and I think unfair) criticism of the U.S. war in Iraq (click here to see it). Wallis alleged that President Bush manipulated the U.S. into invading Iraq by intentionally deceiving the American people into believing that Iraq was behind 9-11. In a recent essay for the Washington Post‘s “On Faith” forum, N. T. Wright makes the same charge. He writes, “I believe, and have said so from early 2002 when the idea was first mooted, that for Britain and the USA to go to war in Iraq was not, could not be, and would not be seen as a just war. It…
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Katrina Didn’t Do It
I wrote last week about the alarming murder rate in post-Katrina New Orleans—nine murders in the first eight days of 2007 (previous post). I also pointed out that the problems that New Orleans is facing are not mainly due to Katrina. Katrina merely exacerbated problems that were there before the storm.