The video above is a news report about a man who ate at McDonalds three meals a day for three months. In doing so, he was testing the conclusions reached by the documentary “Super Size Me,” which attributed blame to McDonalds for obesity and poor health. In this new experiment, the subject regulated his caloric intake daily, and at the end of three months he lost 37 pounds! And he didn’t just eat salads the whole time. Burgers and ice cream were a part of his regular diet as well. He was able to achieve this result simply by controlling how much he was eating and by walking for about…
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Hobby Lobby goes to Washington: What’s at stake?
Yesterday, the Supreme Court set a date for hearing oral arguments in Hobby Lobby’s case against Obamacare’s contraception mandate. Lawyers for Hobby Lobby and for the Obama administration will make their cases on Tuesday, March 25 at 10 a.m. At issue is whether the government has a right to force the Christian owners of Hobby Lobby to provide coverage for drugs that sometimes cause abortions. The Obama administration will argue that the government does have a right to force these Christians to violate their consciences in order to comply with Obamacare. Obviously, the owners of Hobby Lobby will argue otherwise.
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Cody’s Story
From Igniter Media.
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Evaluating the Consequentialist Case for Legalizing Pot
The editors of National Review have penned a recent editorial calling for the legalization of marijuana. They argue that the consequentialist case for legalizing pot is powerful. According to them, marijuana is a benign intoxicant that the state has no business regulating. Individual liberty means that the government needs to get its nose out of prohibiting the use of this drug. According to them, regulating marijuana has led to a failed and expensive war on drugs. Furthermore, laws against marijuana usage only end up making ordinary citizens into criminals. And what’s the use of that?
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“The Little Way of Ruthie Leming” by Rod Dreher
I just finished one of the most remarkable books that I’ve ever “read”—Rod Dreher’s The Little Way of Ruthie Leming: A Southern Girl, a Small Town, and the Secret of a Good Life. Many good reviews have already been written since the book appeared last Spring, so I will not try to redo what’s already been done. But I do want to take a few moments to share some of my impressions from this very moving work. The book focuses on the life and times of Ruthie Leming—Rod Dreher’s younger sister—who died in 2011 from lung cancer. But the book is more than that. It’s the story of Dreher’s sojourn…
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Miley Cyrus and the Moral Gag-reflex
John Stonestreet suggests that Miley Cyrus may have pushed the envelope too far, even for our hypersexualized American Culture. He writes: It’s too soon to call it a “reformation of manners” but a backlash to what one recent author called our cultural vulgarity is already asserting itself—not via the boycotts of angry culture warriors but by some of the unlikeliest cultural allies in politics, the media, and the music industry. For example, several celebrities have spoken out who’ve been repulsed by the shameless pornification of “entertainers” such as Miley Cyrus… Now, many of these new allies have little on which to base their revulsion of the new vulgarity other than…
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Almost killed by the prosperity gospel
I love this testimony from Sean DeMars about the prosperity “gospel” that almost killed him. He writes: Here’s the bottom line: I was a heretic. But Christ had saved me from my sin, and he saved me from my heresy too. When it comes to embracing the prosperity gospel, I doubt that you would have found anyone more dedicated or ruthless than me. I was the chosen one. But I was ensnared in a false gospel. And so is everyone else who is trusting in this “crap called gospel,” to borrow a phrase from that old man’s video.
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Bill Nye the Science Guy takes on creationists
Bill Nye the Science Guy recently produced a video that has gone viral (see above). It features “The Science Guy” castigating parents who teach creationism to their children. In short, he thinks parents should not be allowed to teach their children such a thing. If parents want to believe in fairy tales like creationism, that is fine. But it is not fine—according to “The Science Guy”—for parents to foist those fairy tales on their children.
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Marrying a man addicted to pornography?
In the most recent issue of JBMW, Heath Lambert answers this question: “Should a woman marry a man who has a problem with pornography?” The essay contains much practical and helpful advice, and I commend it to you. Here’s how Lambert begins his answer to the question: First, the short answer. There is a clear and concise response for a woman wondering whether she should marry a man after discovering he struggles with pornography: no. She should not do it. Marriage is too important and too exclusive to enter into it with a man who is cultivating desires for women beyond the one to whom he is married. You need…
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The Supreme Court halts gay marriage in Utah
The New York Times reports: The Supreme Court on Monday blocked further same-sex marriages in Utah while state officials appeal a decision allowing such unions. The terse order, from the full court, issued a stay “pending final disposition” of an appeal to the federal appeals court in Denver. It offered no reasoning. The Supreme Court acted more than two weeks after a federal judge in Salt Lake City on Dec. 20 struck down Utah’s ban on same-sex marriage, saying it violated principles of equal protection and due process. Judge Robert J. Shelby of Federal District Court refused to stay his decision while it was appealed, as did the United States…