adamelijah’s whereIstand Blog

After getting a great many concessions from fast food restaurants, the nutrition police are turning on sit down places:

Many U.S. chain restaurants are promoting "extreme eating" with dishes that pack at least a day’s worth of calories and fat, without giving customers facts about their orders, a consumer group said on Monday.

Displaying restaurant offerings including a cheese-laden chicken-and-pasta dish they dubbed "Angioplasta," officials at the Center for Science in the Public Interest said such dishes help fuel national epidemics of obesity and heart disease.

They urged local, state and national governments to make restaurants list nutritional data on their menus.

Yeah, that’s what we need government to do-become the menu police. Look, as a (shall we say) Weight enhanced American, I know that the Double Cheeseburger at McDonald’s ain’t health food. That eating too much at Golden Corral is bad for my health. Whatever happened to personal responsibility?

As the food eaten by people in these restaurants is often similar to what they eat and cook at home, how exactly is requiring them to read a label they don’t read in the store supposed to fix anything?

Let’s trust people’s common sense. We know what’s good and we know what’s not. It’s up to us to be responsible to eat right. I’m doing my best, but I don’t need government’s help. Thanks very much.

whereIstand Tags

• Are food testing standards in America effective?

The Politico Reports that Democrats have chosen to appoint William Jefferson (D-La) to the House Homeland Security Committee:

Republicans plan to force a floor vote on Rep. William Jefferson’s move to the Homeland Security Committee in an unprecedented maneuver to force Democrats to go on the record supporting their embattled colleague who is the target of a federal bribery investigation.

House Minority Whip Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) pledged to call for a recorded vote on the House floor when Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) introduces a resolution to make the Jefferson move official.

Pelosi removed Jefferson from the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee in response to Justice Department allegations that the Louisiana Democrat had accepted $100,000 in bribes and stored $90,000 of them in his freezer. The speaker then gave Jefferson a seat on the Homeland Security, and Democrats agreed to the change in a closed-door caucus in February.

"The idea that Homeland Security is less important than the tax-writing committee is ludicrous," Blunt said Wednesday.

And House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) urged Democrats to reconsider "this baffling and troubling decision.”

Why don’t you put someone who has obviously been bribed before onto a committee on national security? Because if they’re for sale, I know a guy named Bin-Laden who has quite a bit more than $100,000 and I’m sure isn’t above giving cold hard cash to Congressmen who are symbolic of corruption.

Put Jefferson on the Housing Committee, but keep him away from National Security. He can’t be trusted. That Democrats don’t understand this illustrates, why it’s dangerous to allow these people to ever be in power. 

Hat Tip: Michelle Malkin

whereIstand Tags

• USHouse
• JohnBoehner
• WilliamJefferson
• RoyBlunt
• Is the two-party system an effective means of governing?

Mister E based on the a church’s rhetoric against the death penalty declared they understood Jesus’ teachings.  When asked to cite what teaching they understood that those of us open to Capital Punishment didn’t, E responded: 

How about: "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone"

Aw, this didn’t quite make the Liberal Authorized Version, but perhaps it should have. This is one of the most taken out of context verses in scripture, both in and out of the church. Here’s the entire story:

And the scribes and Pharisees brought unto Him a woman taken in adultery. And when they had set her in the midst,  they said unto Him, "Master, this woman was taken in adultery, in the very act. Now Moses in the law commanded us that such should be stoned but what sayest thou?"

This they said testing Him, that they might have cause to accuse Him. But Jesus stooped down and with His finger wrote on the ground, as though He heard them not.  So when they continued asking Him, He lifted Himself up and said unto them, "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her."

And again He stooped down and wrote on the ground. And they who heard it, being convicted by their own conscience, went out one by one, beginning with the eldest even unto the last, and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing in the midst. 

When Jesus had lifted Himself up and saw none but the woman, He said unto her, "Woman, where are those thine accusers? Hath no man condemned thee?" 

She said, "No man, Lord." And Jesus said unto her, "Neither do I condemn thee; go, and sin no more." -John 8: 3-11    (KJ21)    

Now, there’s a difference in crime as Shaun pointed out, but there’s also shared culpability in this specific instance. If a woman was caught in the act of adultery, where’s the man? Everyone there had immediately committed the sin of partiality by only bringing one party to the stoning. 

When Shaun challenged him, Mr. E responded:

Hey, take it up with the church who had that banner. I could care less what you religious cultists squabble and argue about amongst yourselves. Actually, you can’t get off quite that easy.

Neither Shaun nor I started a discussion by claiming to know the true teachings of Jesus on the death penalty.  As with many isuses, Christ didn’t directly address it and we’re left with what scripture tells us. 

Mister E claimed to know that the true teaching of Christ is anti-death penalty, now he’s trying to worm his way out by saying he doesn’t care. I wonder whether he’s ever read the New Testament.  

As for the church, their banner didn’t claim to know Christ’s position. Many liberal churches have become almost secular social clubs with little concern for what the Bible says and tend to follow the whims of culture, not the Bible.

whereIstand Tags

• MisterE
• Is the death penalty an effective crime deterrent?
• [Open Thread]

The Oscars traditionally reward people like the Best Actor and Producer, but what about the rest of what Hollywood does. The Academy leaves out many important areas that the entertainment comunity contributes to society. 

Best Film Made to Make the Producer Popular at Cocktail Parties:

There are quite a few films made that attack religion, conservatism, the military, etc. but too poorly at the box office. 

Historic examples include the teen comedy, Saved and who could forget the classic, "The Pope Must Die."  or the subtle sledgehammer political drama, "The Contender. " These films which end up box office bombs cost millions of dollars to make and return little, but the adulation within Hollywood is enough to make vain producers waste studio time and money on it.

Worst Moment:

It’s been a bang up year for those from Britney Spears to Michael Richards and Mel Gibson. Hollywood has had it’s fair share of lousy moments and performances. Past winners of this award would include ’70s Cop Show Star Robert Blake. 

Most Vapid Person Given National Airtime to Talk Politics:

Almost always would be a major actor. Someone who thinks he’s specially qualified to testify to Congress on the Iraq War because he played a Sergeant (in a police film.) Hollywood’s legion of propoaganda-spouting stars show Moveon.org members what they can accomplish if you can learn to memorize lines and have the right dimensions and looks.

Best Destruction of a Great Franchise:

The geniuses who decided to mess with the Dukes of Hazard, the Honeymooners, and other shows due to their lack of originality deserve some type of award.

Most Clever Piece of Propoganda for Children:

Call it the Captain Planet Award. Since Hollywood rarely focuses on entertaining kids without shoving in some feminism, environmentalism, and other liberal "isms" the art form should be honored.

Best Family Picture That The Academy’s Too Snobbish to Consider:

Now, how you would go about voting on this one would be a challenge. But Chronicles of Narnia, only getting a couple Technical Oscars? Please

Most Certain Sign of Hollywood’s Decline:

Oh wait, that’s the Academy Award’s show itself, which serves as a reminder that entropy is true. Things really do tend towards decay.

whereIstand Tags

• MotionPictureAcademy
• MelGibson
• Are awards a valid measure of a film’s worth?

Shaun has a post where he lambasts certain figures on the Right who are unnamed (perhaps in an undisclosed location somewhere).

As is usual with these statements, Shaun goes off on some interesting tangents:

They claim that the media is shifting our culture so far to the left that only an extreme pull to the right will get things to be "fair and balanced."

I wonder who actually said that and given the number of liberal hosts on Fox News such as Alan Colmes, who actually would believe it.

Unfortunately, it is not about balance. It is about being right. It is about blame. It is about making people join up on one side or the other. Since when did self-segregation become the law of the land?

I don’t know, since there’s been a very relentless assault on our cultural institutions. While there are many decent people on the left, the political leaders they elect and the ones who the far left grassroots support are the type of leaders who unintentionally destroy those things that make our country worthwhile. We’ve seen the way Welfare works, the way that Social Security waits near ruin. Their’s been the breakdown of the family in the wake of the sexual revolution. There is blame, yes.

But when Shaun asks this question:

Since when did blame solve a problem?

He misses a point. Blame doesn’t solve a problem, but does it help in regards to a problem. For example after 9/11, we saw many policies that were to blame for our nation’s lack of preparedness. Now, some of that degenerated into partisanship, and some into over-correction. But if we woke up after 9/11 and no blame was assigned to anyone, and we just said, "Oh well, things happen." Than we would never solve the problem.

If you notice your drinking water is suddenly filthy, don’t you want to assign blame? Don’t you want to find what ill chemical has poisoned your drinking water and from where has it come? Or do you not want to assign blame.

Blame is diagnosis, it isn’t problem solving. Ideas have roots. How you view the World affects the way you govern. We can take a look at a problem and examine it’s roots and we can say, "This idea coupled with this idea caused this problem."

We can take a look at crime and poverty and see the root in fatherlessness and trace that back to Gloria Steinhem famous statement that, "A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle." 

At the root of each of society’s problems, you’ll find an idea or several ideas. If you never figure out which ideas make this problem worse and which make it better, than you’ll never solve the problem. Because, in the end all of our problems begin with our minds and our hearts. 

I do agree that in our current politics, much of the necessary searching for solutions has stopped and this is sad, and I’m an advocate of finding solutions and working hard to do it. 

The final paragraph is one of those somewhat annoying ones:

Though I will always defend the truth, as far as I know it, I’ve decided to give up the title of conservative.

And so a post that begins with Shaun citing conservatives who call for people to choose self-segregationists to Shaun segregating himself into an elite army of one, with a post that rings with what is too terribly common in today’s politics. 

People declare themselves fed up and tired of the whole thing and declare themselves Independents or non-Conservatives and non-Liberals. Truly the "S" would now seem to stand for Superman as Shaun struggles Truth, Justice, and the American Way against all those who claim ideology. 

Of course, such people rarely offer solutions, having disengaged from the process, and in effect it seems Shaun has set himself apart from those who carry the Conservative label as more honest, more tolerant, and more thoughtful. So rather than be a thoughtful Conservative, Shaun becomes the symbol of pure American interest that doesn’t care about any ideology and in so doing (if this is carried forward long enough)  cuts himself off from actually impacting the debate and getting people who are close to him on the issues to be more thoughtful, etc. 

I mean Shaun no disrespect, but the use of this tactic, neither helps anyone or does anything other than inflate egos.

whereIstand Tags

• shaun25
• Will the Left and Right ever find a way to live with each other in a civilized manner?
• Is the two-party system an effective means of governing?
• What impact do political parties have on government?

 The culture of corruption in Washington was to end. Democrats freed congress from a corrupt majority. Or did they? 

Eager to shore up their fragile House and Senate majorities, congressional Democrats have enlisted their committee chairmen in an early blitz to bring millions of dollars into the party’s coffers, culminating in a late-March event featuring House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and 10 of the powerful panel chairs.

In the next 10 days alone, Democratic fundraisers will feature the chairmen of the House’s financial services panel and the House and Senate tax-writing committees. Senate Democrats also plan a fundraising reception during a major gathering of Native Americans in the capital Tuesday evening, an event hosted by lobbyists and the political action committee for tribal casinos, including those Jack Abramoff was paid to represent.

Rep. Barney Frank (D-Ma.) is incredibly open about what he’s doing:

"Financial services companies are inclined to give to me because I’m chairman of the committee important to their interests," said Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank, who will headline a breakfast Wednesday at a D.C. hotel, for which donations range from $1,000 to $15,000 for the Democratic National Committee. "I’m fundraising to give to others so I can help stay in the majority and do the public policy things I want."

Asked whether banking interests feel obligated to give to Democrats when he asks them for contributions, Frank answered: "Obligated? No. Incentivized? Yes." Frank said, however, that those donating "understand, and others do, too, that there are no guarantees of my doing what they want, or even my being pleasant."

So, did Nancy Pelosi tell the truth when she said she’d clean house? Apparently not. Democrats who told us changing the party in power would change the way the House was governed were liars or fools and those who listened to them, merely fools, because Congress is back bigger than ever.

The problem is the size of the scope of the federal government’s power, which means Congress has the power to strengthen or destroy any company or industry. Some companies are willing to pay as much as $15,000 to get what they want. And that is politics and the result of the centralization of power.

Hat Tip: Red State

whereIstand Tags

• BarneyFrank
• NancyPelosi
• Should the U.S. have political party affiliations?

Carol mixes up choices and consequences in a post answering mine on free will. She writes:

Is it really free if the human race is told that they will go to hell for all eternity if they do not believe in a particular deity?

Is it free will if these same people are promised an infinity of gold-lined streets and abounding joy, if they believe in a particular deity?…

The point is, if people believe in God so they won’t go to hell, how free is that really? It’s like putting a gun to someone’s head and threatening them that they will be killed if they do not obey. Yeah, that’s a difficult choice to make.

Her Carol mixes up choices and consequences and the comparison between a gun to the head is emotional but inapt. 

Let’s look at it a different way. You will not go to Hell for failing to except Christ, rather it is for sins that one will perish. It is a disease that kills all. As scripture says, "The wages of sin are death." 

Saying that sin is a disease that is fatal and will eventually kill you and that there is one cure (the blood of Christ) is not putting a gun to your head. It’s more like your doctor telling you to quit smoking because it will kill you. 

And while I’d readily admit that there are varying degrees of views of predestination in Christianity. The demand is consistency. Ultra Calvinists are less likely to be evangelists. 

Simply put if we are all products of evolution and a million monkey given enough time and a million typewriters could write all the works of Shakespeare, than from whence is free will. And why is man any different than an animal? And if man is but an animal, why reason? That’s the challenge. 

Now, Carol goes into the question of an after-life:

Then there are those who decide they will be good and obey so that they can yield the rewards. Again, is their will based on freedom or the desire of gaining something promised?

Years ago, there was a Christian singer by the name of Evie Tornquist Karlsson who sang a song about worshipping God, even if it meant that there was nothing beyond this life. I actually enjoyed its message, but there were a number of Christians who pshawed such a notion and thought it foolish to believe in a God where there was nothing to be gained.

It was the Apostle Paul who wrote, "If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable." I think the problems with this are not that people are seeking rewards. Rather than under such a scenario:

-The Cross is a farce 

Christ came to save us from death through his death on the cross, but if there is no resurrection, he didn’t save us.

-God doesn’t want us.

Jesus told the Apostles, "I go to prepare a place for you, if it were not so; I would have told you." Old Saints will tell you they are longing to be with their Lord and God. They’re longing to know him and to know peace. 

You seem to think the Rewards are beautiful houses, all that glitters in Heaven. That it’s freedom from pain and the presence of pleasure. The ultimate Reward is God himelf, and if God didn’t care to have you in his presence and just made as a flame to die out than he wouldn’t care whether you worshipped him or not. And if he doesn’t care, than the whole excercise becomes pointless.

But thanks be to God that we have ample witnesses who testify to the truth of Heaven (those who have seen visions and those who have had near death experiences) that God will receive those who hunger for him.

whereIstand Tags

• adamelijah
• CarolHoenig
• Is there convincing evidence that a higher being exists?

Professor William Provine, an atheist evolutionist explains what Darwin’s theory means to society:

Naturalistic evolution has clear consequences that Charles Darwin understood perfectly. 1) No gods worth having exist; 2) no life after death exists; 3) no ultimate foundation for ethics exists; 4) no ultimate meaning in life exists; and 5) human free will is nonexistent (Provine, 1998).

Now, indeed, one could debate these for hours, but I want to focus on the idea of free will and pause for a moemnt to ask whether those who claim to believe there’s no God actually believe this point:

1) If Human free wil is truly non-existent than why the debate? It seems to me that if there is no free will, we don’t really have any say on what we believe, It’s determined somehow and how can we change it. How does pursuasion work in a world with no free will?

2) To talk of a ‘woman’s right to choose’ in a world without free will. 

And there are quite a few knots one can get into if you carry the question far enough. But, more importantly, without free will, free govenrment is nothing but a monstrosity. If free will is a myth, we might as well have the zoo animals choose their leaders, as do human beings.

I would contend that those who argue for naturalistic evolution:

1) Don’t understand their beliefs
2) Won’t face the consequences of their beliefs. 
3) Have never seriously thought them through?

whereIstand Tags

• Is there convincing evidence that a higher being exists?

Who said the following?

"It’s not preppies, cause I’m a preppie myself. I just don’t like homosexuals. If you ask me, they’re all homosexuals in the Pudding. Hey, I was glad when that Pudding homosexual got killed in Philadelphia."

If you guessed George Allen, you’re wrong. If you guessed a Republican Presidential Candidate, Pat Robertson, or Jerry Falwell, you are wrong, wrong, and triple wrong. The correct answer is Al Franken the liberal comedian who would be Senator (kinda like he would be the liberal answer to Rush Limbaugh.)

It’s true he was 24 when he said this, but age didn’t matter much as media hatchet men dug up people to accuse George Allen of racism based on a few words in his college days (mostly off the record and heresay.)

Here we have an admitted "homophobic statement" and the reaction from the national press is nill. A Republican would be tarred and feathered, while Franken will be treated as just that cute little comedian running for Senate. 

Hat Tip: Wizbang!

whereIstand Tags

• AlFranken
• Is the media politically biased?

The favorite piece of revisionism that has gone on in America since the laste 1990s is the consistent theme that President Clinton was impeached for having sex with an intern. As such, the impeachment wouldn’t have met the lofty Constitutional requirements of a high crime and misdemeanor, unless you’re an evil, prudish Republican who considers sex to be impeachable.

If President Clinton had merely "had sexual relations with that woman, Monica Lewinsky," than it certainly wouldn’t be impeachable. It would have bene something that it would have been appropriate to resign over given that he had a sexual relationship with a woman who was young enough to have been his daughter. However, if that was all there was, Congress would have no business forcing Clinton to show honor or dignity.

The issue of impeachment was quite simply about the integrity of our judicial process. The Perjury Clinton blatantly committed violated not Monica Lewinsky but our judicial processes and obstruction of justice was meant to obstruct discovery illicitly. 

The Senate’s acquittal said, "The powerful can lie and cheat the system and they will never be called to account, because of who they are." 

None other than Senator Robert C. Byrd (D-WV) explained how Clinton’s acts constituted a High Crime and a Misdemeanor:

The House Articles charged the President with having committed perjury. This word `perjury’–lawyers can dance all around the head of a pin on that word. I won’t attempt to dance all around on the head of the pin on the word `perjury.’ The President plainly lied to the American people. Of course, that is not impeachable, but he also lied under oath in judicial proceedings.

Mr. Clinton’s offenses do, in my judgment, constitute an `abuse or violation of some public trust.’ Reasonable men and women can, of course, differ with my viewpoint. Even though the House of Representatives rejected the second article that came out of the Judiciary Committee, the evidence against Mr. Clinton shows that he willfully and knowingly and repeatedly gave false testimony under oath in judicial proceedings.

When the President of the United States, who has sworn to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, and to see to it that the laws be faithfully executed, breaks the law himself by lying under oath, he undermines the system of justice and law on which this Republic–not this `democracy’–this Republic has its foundation.

In so doing, has the President not committed an offense in violation of the public trust? Does not this misconduct constitute an injury to the society and its political character? Does not such injury to the institutions of Government constitute an impeachable offense, a political high crime or high misdemeanor against the state? How would Washington vote? How would Hamilton vote? How would Madison or Mason or Gerry vote? My head and my heart tell me that their answer to these questions would be, `Yes.’

And then he voted to not remove the President:

Mr. Chief Justice, none of us knows whether the attitudes of the American people will take a different turn after this trial is over and this drab chapter is closed. `Fame is a vapor; popularity an accident; riches take wings; those who cheer today may curse tomorrow; only one thing endures–character!’ It is the character of the Senate that will count. And while the politics of destruction may be satisfying to some, the rubble of political ruin provides a dangerous and unstable foundation for the nation.

And yet we must move ahead. The nation is faced with potential dangers abroad. No one can foresee what will happen in Russia or in North Korea or in Kosovo or in Iraq. To remove Mr. Clinton at this time could create an unstable condition for our nation in the face of unforeseen and potentially dangerous happenings overseas.

Yet, that’s why we have a Vice-President and Al Gore could have fumble Kosovo as easy as Clinton did. 

Yet, historic revisionism has come to once again change our view of the past so we forget what this all about. It was about our system of due process and law, and as long as I’m alive, I won’t let people forget.

whereIstand Tags

• BillClinton
• RobertByrd
• Should President Clinton have been impeached?