Sawed In Half

Aging Gracefully

Hammer King

Very interesting article from Chuck Colson at Breakpoint. If you want something to be twisted and misconstrued then the American media companies are certainly willing to help.

It is always good to be thinking about WHY people say certain things at one point and other things at another. Work at a large corporation for a few months and unfortunately you will get that experience.

Go Chuck!

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BREAKPOINT DAILY TRANSCRIPT
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The Demise of the Religious Right?
A Sign of the TIMES

October 30, 2007

The cover story of Sunday’s NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE pronounced the demise of the religious right in America. The ranks are demoralized, split, and liberal evangelicals are taking over with a new agenda for the environment and the poor. On the editorial page, the acerbic Frank Rich coordinated his column with the magazine, concluding, “Inauguration Day 2009 is at the very least Armageddon for the reigning ayatollahs of the American right.”

Wow! Just three years ago the press touted conservative evangelicals as the most powerful voting block in America. What happened?

Nothing. The press is up to its old tricks. When I was in the White House, the press heralded me as Nixon’s brilliant political strategist. Then within a year, once having built me up, I was called the “White House hatchet man” and a lot worse. The press loves to create monsters, build them up, and then take credit for slaying them. It sells papers.

The press’s portrayal of the religious right was always a caricature. Take Jerry Falwell. They had fun printing unflattering pictures of him and playing up his extreme statements. Yet they paid no attention to the good things Jerry did, like reaching out to homosexuals and unwed mothers. And the same thing applies to Jim Dobson. He is upbraided for his political statements, but his heroic defense of the family is ignored.

And where was the press in 1999 when Bill Bennett and I started a campaign against sexual trafficking? Or when I and others, like Franklin Graham, urged President Bush to fight against AIDS in Africa? And how about the legislation to stop prison rape or enact prisoner reentry legislation? The media yawns.

Now they say we are dying, but the agenda has not changed one lick in the last 15 years. All evangelicals — Rick Warren, Bill Hybels, Jim Dobson, Jim Wallis, Ron Sider — all of us, right and left, in our own way, are battling for traditional values, defending life, and pursuing justice and caring for the poor. We do it in the name of God, which is what sets the media’s teeth on edge. And sure, abortion has been out front — and has been since the first century — because it goes to the whole dignity of human life. It’s what drives me to go into the prisons and care about prisoners.

What is really happening here is that the liberal media, aided by liberal politicians, is desperately anxious to marginalize the evangelical movement and to try to drive a wedge between us and get us fighting. So, the most important thing, right now, is for serious evangelicals of all political interests to join together to proclaim the Good News, protect the family, build the Church, help the suffering, and defend the truth — all the while avoiding, as I have written for years, becoming a special interest group or placing ourselves in the hip pocket of one political party.

I am sorry to spoil the fun of the NEW YORK TIMES, but Inauguration in 2009 will not be Armageddon for the religious right or religious left or evangelicals, unless we fight each other, which is what the press really wants. It makes the best copy.

But if we reject their prophecy, a biased caricature, we will prove the NEW YORK TIMES wrong. All we are called to do is to stick to our job and work together.

No matter who wins or loses the election, I am sorry to tell you, Mr. Rich, the kingdom of God will continue to reign stronger than ever on Inauguration morning.

Get links to further information on today’s topic (http://www.breakpoint.org/listingarticle.asp?ID=7179)

Sepo land, brilliant!

Time once again to review the winners of the Annual “Stella Awards.”

The Stella Awards are named after 81 year-old Stella Liebeck who spilled hot
coffee on herself and successfully sued McDonald’s (in USA). That case
inspired the Stella Awards for the most frivolous, ridiculous, successful
lawsuits in the United States. Here are this year’s winners (from 5th to 1st
place)

5th Place (tie):
Kathleen Robertson of Austin, Texas, was awarded $80,000 by a jury of her
peers after breaking her ankle tripping over a toddler who was running
inside a furniture store.

The owners of the store were understandably surprised at the verdict,
considering the misbehaving little toddler was Ms. Robertson’s son.

5th Place (tie):
19-year-old Carl Truman of Los Angeles won $74,000 and medical expenses when
his neighbour ran over his hand with a Honda Accord.

Mr Truman apparently didn’t notice there was someone at the wheel of the car
when he was trying to steal his neighbour’s hubcaps.

5th Place (tie):
Terrence Dickson of Bristol, Pennsylvania, was leaving a house he had just
finished robbing by way of the garage. He was not able to get the garage
door to go up since the automatic door opener was malfunctioning.
He couldn’t re-enter the house because the door connecting the house and
garage locked when he pulled it shut. The family was on vacation, and Mr.
Dickson found himself locked in the garage for eight days. He subsisted on a
case of Pepsi he found, and a large bag of dry dog food. He sued the
homeowner’s insurance claiming the situation caused him undue mental
anguish. The jury agreed, to the tune of $500,000. In my opinion this is so
outrageous that it should have been 2nd Place!

4th Place:
Jerry Williams of Little Rock, Arkansas, was awarded $14,500 and medical
expenses after being bitten on the buttocks by his next door neighbour’s
beagle. The beagle was on a chain in its owner’s fenced yard. The award was
less than sought because the jury felt the dog might have been just a little
provoked at the time by Mr Williams who had climbed over the fence into the
yard and was shooting it repeatedly with a pellet gun.

3rd Place:
A Philadelphia restaurant was ordered to pay Amber Carson of Lancaster,
Pennsylvania, $113,500 after she slipped on a soft drink and broke her
coccyx (tailbone). The beverage was on the floor because Ms Carson had
thrown it at her boyfriend 30 seconds earlier during an argument.

2nd Place:
Kara Walton of Claymont, Delaware, successfully sued the owner of a night
club in a neighbouring city when she fell from the bathroom window to the
floor and knocked out her two front teeth. This occurred while Ms Walton was
trying to sneak through the window in the ladies room to avoid paying the
$3.50 cover charge. She was awarded $12,000 and dental expenses.

1st Place:
This year’s runaway winner was Mrs Merv Grazinski of Oklahoma City,
Oklahoma. Mrs Grazinski purchased a brand new 32-foot Winnebago (RV) motor
home. On her first trip home, having driven onto the freeway, she set the
cruise control at 70 mph and calmly left the driver’s seat to go into the
back & make herself a sandwich.

Not surprisingly, the RV left the freeway, crashed and overturned. Mrs
Grazinski sued Winnebago for not advising her in the owner’s manual that she
couldn’t actually do this. The jury awarded her $1,750,000 plus a new motor
home. The company actually changed their manuals on the basis of this suit,
just in case there were any other complete morons around.

Mr Abe’s stunning resignation has shocked Japan both with its timing and with its meaning. Unpopular and unimpressive in office, there is almost a sense of relief that this disastrous administration is over. But as Japan experienced in the 1990s one Prime Minister leaving does not guarantee that a better one will take his place. The principal candidates – Messrs Aso, Tanigaki, Fukuda, Yosano and Nakagawa, as well as outsider Ms Koike – are all LDP insiders who will have to face the challenge of achieving electoral popularity with a party platform of traditional values. Those traditional values were espoused by Mr Abe, and look what they did for him, but the LDP is not quick to accept changes in direction. The party might decide that a quick and clean decision is necessary, in which case one of the favourites such as Mr Aso gets the job, or it might decide that it has to face reality and accept more voter-friendly policies, in which case we have a battle on our hands and a less obvious candidate may get it. It will be an interesting week.

The policy implications are vast. The Abe administration did not have a great economic agenda and for the last 12 months the economy has largely been on autopilot, with few major reform initiatives. This has resulted in greater bureaucratic influence over policy making, which while not necessarily a bad thing in the short term, in the long run would result in less market-oriented small government policies. Does the next Prime Minister look at the election results and think that the LDP needs to reconnect with the regions – resulting in some unwelcome pork barrel projects and spending? Or does the next Prime Minister look at the fiscal position and make Japan face up to the awful inevitability of tax rises? And will we have a government which is business friendly and agnostic about the nationality of business? These are important issues; in an environment where the LDP has to court popularity, and where few of the candidates have what one might call an Economist type of policy platform, we cannot be optimistic.

Quoted from the Economist Tokyo

I really don’t know this gentleman, but from what I can see I am impressed. It is nice to see an American Senator who is willing to buck the system and serve the US government with his heart.

It seems that John Warner will be retiring. Although, he doesn’t seem to have the smoothest personal life, from articles commenting about his retirement it seems that he is a man who was not forced to stick to party decisions. He is known for looking at each issue and really try to represent the people of his districts/state.

With all the lobbyists, peer pressure from the parties, and other pressures associated with leadership of a country (usually gold, gals, and glory are the issues) I am sure it is really hard for senators, representatives, judges, and the executive branch to represent the people who voted them into office. The idea of going off your own heart is great. I hope all the US government civil servants will take note.

1. I can’t reach my license unless you hold my beer.
2. Sorry, Officer, I didn’t realize my radar detector wasn’t plugged in.
3. Aren’t you the guy from the Village People?
4. Hey, you must’ve been doin’ about 125 mph to keep up with me. Good job!
5. Are You Andy or Barney?
6. I thought you had to be in relatively good physical condition to be a police officer.
7. You’re not gonna check the trunk, are you?
8. I pay your salary!
9. Gee, officer! That’s terrific. The last officer only gave me a warning, too!
10. Do you know why you pulled me over? Okay, just so one of us does.
11. I was trying to keep up with traffic. Yes, I know there are no other cars around. That’s how far ahead of me they are.
12. When the Officer says “Gee. Your eyes look red, have you been drinking?” You probably shouldn’t respond with,”Gee Officer your eyes look glazed, have you been eating doughnuts?”

1. Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.

2. Change is inevitable, except from a vending machine.

3. Those that live by the sword get shot by those who don’t.

4. Nothing is foolproof to a sufficiently talented fool.

5. The 50-50-90 rule: Anytime you have a 50-50 chance of getting something right, there’s a 90% probability you’ll get it wrong.

6. If you lined up all the cars in the world end to end, someone would be stupid enough to try to pass them, five or six at a time, on a hill, in the fog.

7. The things that come to those who wait will be the scraggly junk left by those who got there first.

8. The shin bone is a device for finding furniture in a dark room.

9. A fine is a tax for doing wrong. A tax is a fine for doing well.

10. When you go into court, you are putting yourself into the hands of 12 people who weren’t smart enough to get out of jury duty.

Having just come back from the California, it is shocking to see things like this happen. This is very interesting political commentary from Chuck Colson. A scary thought to have the United States of America losing it freedom and open society.

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=== BreakPoint with Chuck Colson ===
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Shutting Down Free Speech
The Gay Agenda Triumphant

July 25, 2007

It doesn’t pay to take your constitutional right to free speech seriously anymore — at least, not if you live in Oakland, California. There, a handful of African-American Christian women recently found out that their free speech rights had effectively been outlawed.

The women, who are Oakland government employees, had formed an organization called the Good News Employee Association. As their flyer put it, their group was, “A forum for people of Faith to express their views on the contemporary issues of the day. With Respect for the Natural Family, Marriage, and Family Values.”

As columnist George Will relates, the women posted their flyer after other employee groups, including those advocating gay rights, had advertised their activities on the city’s email system and bulletin board. When Good News asked for equal opportunity, they were told to forget it. City officials destroyed their flyer. They accused the women of Good News of being “determined to promote harassment based on sexual orientation. If the women posted any more flyers, or sent their message via email, the city warned, they would be disciplined and perhaps terminated.

In effect, as Will notes, Oakland “has proscribed any speech that even one person might say questioned the gay rights agenda and therefore created what that person felt was a “hostile environment.” While homosexual rights groups used the city’s email system to advertise “Happy Coming Out Day,” the terms “natural family” and “marriage” and “family values” are considered intolerably inflammatory, he adds.

This is why so-called “hate crimes” laws, like the one being considered by the U.S. Congress, are so dangerous. They can be used as a weapon to censor peaceful political speech that someone doesn’t like. The goal of homosexual groups is not to stop violence, or truly hateful speech; it’s to silence anyone who says that homosexual behavior is a biological disorder or a moral wrong. Mere disagreement is redefined as hate.

The Good News group has gone to court over Oakland’s attack on their First Amendment rights, and the super-liberal Ninth Circuit Court, not surprisingly, has ruled against them. The group now hopes the Supreme Court will intervene.

You and I need to be aware of attempts to encroach on our right to speak out against moral evils. We must also understand that this is ultimately a spiritual battle.

The Bible and natural law teachings tell us that God’s law is written upon our hearts and are known to all. As Christian philosopher J. Budziszewski writes in his book, THE REVENGE OF CONSCIENCE, those who rationalize their sins find it to be so much work that they require other people to support them in it. Society itself must be transformed so that it no longer stands in awful judgment.

This is why gay activist groups want to change the law to suppress any speech that identifies homosexual behavior as either a biological disorder or a moral wrong.

You and I must pray for those who are caught up in homosexuality; their lives are tragic. But we must also remember that, as the Apostle Paul puts it, we must witness to the truth, no matter what human lawmakers say or do, because we owe our ultimate allegiance to the eternal lawgiver: God.

Get links to further information on today’s topic (http://www.breakpoint.org/listingarticle.asp?ID=6787)