Latte Liberals, and Saving Starbucks

Some coffee musings: It used to be that high-income, left-wing people were referred to as "limousine liberals."  Now they're referred to as "latte liberals," and Barack Obama wouldn't be where he is without them.  The difference?  Global warming perhaps?  But part of the reason is the expense, and that leads us to... Starbucks is trying …

Jesus: Beyond the Sting of Satan

From the hadith: Al Bukhari Volume 4, Book 54, Number 506: Narrated Abu Huraira: The Prophet said, "When any human being is born. Satan touches him at both sides of the body with his two fingers, except Jesus, the son of Mary, whom Satan tried to touch but failed, for he touched the placenta-cover instead." …

I Think It’s Real Work

It's rough when your own mother trashes what you do for a living: Sen. Hillary Clinton took a swipe at her daughter's profession today at an economic roundtable discussion at a restaurant in Parma, Ohio, suggesting wealthy investment bankers and hedge fund managers on Wall Street aren't doing real 'work.' The former first lady's daughter, …

You Really Don’t Want To Know…

Having lived not so far from I-35, the "Holy Highway," I take some special interest in this topic, which has caught the attention of NPR. In this story we read the following: Do travelers think it's strange when they see a cluster of people — heads bowed and hands uplifted — on a grassy strip …

Scientology: Has The Bologna Club Met Its Match?

One of the toughest nuts to crack in our civilisation (or what passes for one) has been Scientology, which has succeeded in bullying many of its critics into silent oblivion.  (I refer to this crew as the "Bologna Club," a term going back to the 1930's and referring to a time when my family and …

The Tyranny of “Doing Right”

It took Jack Crooks of Black Swan Trading to point out this quote from C.S. Lewis: “Of all tyrannies a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his …

The Great Mistake (Almost) Everyone’s Overlooked

Daniel Finkelstein's post on the ten worst mistakes in British history is one of the most fascinating things I've seen on the Web in some time.  But he (and, unless I've overlooked something, all but one of his respondents) have overlooked a big one: Vortigern's bright idea of bringing the Saxons over to defend post-Roman …

Getting Past Uthman’s Edition

No one is going to produce proof that Jesus Christ did not rise from the grave three days after the Crucifixion, of course. Humankind will choose to believe or not that God revealed Himself in this fashion. But Islam stands at risk of a Da Vinci Code effect, for in Islam, God's self-revelation took the …

Of Course American Christianity is Turning Charismatic!

Pentecostal or charismatic Christianity is viewed by some Americans as an emotional, theologically suspect form of the Christian faith. It is widely thought to be a very vocal and visible, but numerically small slice of the grand religious pie in the United States. Two new surveys from The Barna Group, however, indicate that things are …

Dear Muslims…

The beginning of the new year is an opportunity to deal with a point of business from the old one: the letter by 138 Muslim scholars back in October for unity between Muslims and Christians.  Since I was appointed by my church's General Assembly to a position in the denomination, I think I can make …

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