Home

  • A Fistful of Yuan: The Series Begins

    Although blogging has become a big thing for me, I have other sites with more specific interests.  But one new feature may have some broader appeal: A Fistful of Yuan, which describes my family business dealings with the People’s Republic of China in the early 1980’s.  With the upcoming Olympics and all of the news about this Chinese import and that, it might be informative for some to find out just what doing business with the Chinese is all about.

    Although I say the series "begins," just about half of it is presently online.  More is coming.

    It’s at vulcanhammer.info, my newest site.  Click here for some other advice on doing business in China.

  • Is Texas Preparing for the Inevitable?

    A long time ago, I wrote Archie Lowe: Before the Republic of Texas, about a friend who became involved in the Republic of Texas militia movement.

    On a recent visit to Texas’ Secretary of State site, I noticed two interesting sections.

    The first was the Texas Border and Mexican Affairs part of the site.  Isn’t Mexico an independent country?  Doesn’t one independent country border another?  So why does the "State" of Texas treat this border in this way?  It’s true that Texas’ longest border with anything else is with Mexico.  And it’s also true that same border is very important to Texas (it’s been the gateway for many of its residents; Texas is now a primarily non-white state.)  All the same, it looks to me like Texas is treating this like one independent country bordering another: Texas and Mexico.

    The second was the International Protocol section.  The site informs us of the following:

    By Executive Order, Governor Perry (’72) has directed the Secretary of State to serve as Texas’ Chief International Protocol Officer. In this capacity, the Secretary represents the Governor and the State of Texas at meetings and events with members of the international diplomatic corps.

    Wait a minute.  Isn’t that the job of the Secretary of State in Washington?  The site also lists the consulates in Texas, and the list is pretty extensive.  Doesn’t look like a very far leap from consulates to embassies.

    Having lived in Texas, I know that Texans regard their state as a world apart from the rest of the U.S.  To give that such official expression is both amusing and intriguing.  As our world shrinks, the need for states in federal systems to reach out around the world and across "international" borders increases.  But it also begs the question of the role of the nation that’s supposed to be handing international affairs.  In a way it’s the question that faces the European Union, only in reverse.  And some of the "states" there (such as Scotland and Wales) are definitely having second thoughts about their status.

    Perhaps the real reason Archie went to Huntsville was because he was ahead of his time.

    In his honour, this week’s podcast is his rendition of Keep Your Eyes on the Second Coming Sunset.

    ,

  • Religious-based education on trial

    It seems that the People’s Republic of California is at it again, as a group of Christian schools is suing the University of California system, claiming that their alumni’s chances for admission are impeded by the system’s rejection of some of their courses.

    For Jay Sekulow, chief counsel for the American Centre for Law and Justice, a Christian legal group, the bias is on the part of UC and of a kind "that I thought we had gotten past a long time ago," he said.

    Well, Jay, you ought to know by now that liberals don’t give up, even when favourite weapons of theirs–anti-discrimination laws and regulations–have to be circumvented because they don’t work to suit their purposes.  It’s entirely possible that the some on the left are having second thoughts on the whole concept of anti-discrimination now that they are in a position to discriminate for their own ends.

    And these liberals may be on to something.  What would our country be like if we scrapped the whole anti-discrimination edifice?  Would we revert to the 1950’s?  I doubt it.  Those groups with money, position and power–and the left is well represented there–would end up on top, at least in the short run.  Would this be good for the country? No.  But it would bring some transparency that’s sorely lacking.  Our legal and bureaucratic system covers up many of the biases of our elites as well as those on the other end.  Taking off the legal mask would force many people to make some substantive decisions about where this country is really at.

    Such substantive decisions were part and parcel of the old Soviet Union, where young people not in the Komsomol (Communist youth league) were not able to obtain a higher education.  That frequently meant many Christians, who (when not being sent to Siberia) prospered in the underground economy with the education they were permitted to obtain.  Ironically this is the same regime that brought us Lysenko, whose name is trotted out by evolutionists (to their peril, as I discuss elsewhere) as an object lesson of a regime driven by ideology rather than science.

    I do not believe that this country can survive as a purely secularistic society.  Litigation like this only serves to put off the real question: what is more important, our careers in this system that doesn’t want us, or our God?  If we choose the latter, the system is in serious trouble.

  • Israel May Propose Division of Jerusalem

    Now that Israel may propose the division of Jerusalem, many evangelicals will panic.  With some justification.

    But it’s a reminder to Jew and evangelical alike that, as I noted two years ago, if you’re going to take the land, take it.  Neither has the stomach for such an adventure, and in part for the same reason: the U.S. government stands in the way, by force with the evangelicals and by the threat of cutting off the flow of arms and funds for the Israelis.

    The Arabs, however, would probably be better off with the Israelis in control of the Temple Mount, with the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock.  Why? Because handing over this very important site to one group of Muslims will set off a power holder/power challenger conflict, as it always does in the Middle East.  Remember that the House of Saud had no scruples in evicting the Hashemites (Muhammad’s own family!) from Mecca after World War I.

    And the Temple Mount of course is where the mir’aj (mirage) took place…

  • “Pray that I can be an instrument of God”

    Barack Obama is at it again.  He tells us that the GOP doesn’t own faith and values.  But does he?

    "Sometimes this is a difficult road being in politics," Obama said. "Sometimes you can become fearful, sometimes you can become vain, sometimes you can seek power just for power’s sake instead of because you want to do service to God. I just want all of you to pray that I can be an instrument of God in the same way that Pastor Ron and all of you are instruments of God."

    These times buffalo me.

    On the one hand, we have secularlists (many of whom in the U.S. are part of the Democrat base) running about telling us that they have won (or at least in the process of winning) and that religion is headed for the ash heap of history.

    On the other hand, we have the entire Democratic Presidential field (or at least most of it) pandering to "religious" voters.  This is strange.  Those of us who have been active in this field and are honest with ourselves will admit that we have little to show for thirty years of "values voting" other than to stave off real Christianity becoming practically illegal in the U.S., which is something but not what was advertised.

    Personally I think that the whole Democrat effort with religious voters is stupid.  FDR got by with wholesale bribery through government programmes and income redistribution.  That bought them forty years of dominance.  I suspect that the Lizard Queen has figured this out, and she is probably the most religious one running.  Evidently Obama has not.

  • SanctiFusion: We are One

    Every Christian is united to any other by an uncommon love of God in each heart, and the guiding presence of the Spirit of God to bring us all together for His purposes. Each of us is at a different stage, learning different lessons, so we don’t all understand everything the same, but Jesus is the Truth, and His love brings us together. For the greater part, the “unity” question with the leaders is not so much about re-organizing for a visible unity, but finding ways to best use the real unity we already enjoy.

    Read all of  "We are One"

  • Maybe They Should Meet at the Tavern

    The news that two court employees of the California Superior Court in San Diego are suing over not being allocated a room for a Bible study is yet another example of how Christians find themselves and their activities singled out for prohibition when the powers that be have the desire and the means (or at least they think they do) to do so.

    But that gave me an idea: since the state courthouse isn’t inviting, why not go somewhere that is, where everyone "knows your name."  Like a tavern.  But that leads to the next question: what kind of music would they request?  Pentecostal churches have been answering that question for a long time; many Pentecostal musicians have a decidedly "honky-tonk" sound to them.  But I’d like to see something more of a "lounge lizard" type, and this week’s podcast brings you just that: "I cannot understand" from David Pope and the Right Angle’s "half-album" One Way, the rest of which can be found at The Ancient Star Song.

    If they actually played this kind of music at a tavern, the God-hating liberals burrowed in the Federal and state bureaucracies would rue the day they told the Christians to take a hike.

    ,

  • Christ Church Savannah: What Goes Around Comes Around

    Secession efforts of parishes (and entire dioceses) are rife in the Episcopal Church today, but few have the weight of history so heavy on them as that of Christ Church in Savannah, Georgia.

    The vestry of historic Christ Church has voted to continue in a province in good standing with the rest of the worldwide Anglican Communion by placing itself under the pastoral care of The Rt. Reverend John Guernsey, Rector of All Saint’s Church in Woodbridge, VA and a bishop of the worldwide Anglican Communion’s Province of Uganda, Africa. The vestry was unanimous in its decision.

    At the 1662 Book of Common Prayer page, I quote John Wesley as stating the following:

    I believe there is no Liturgy in the world, either in ancient or modern language, which breathes more of a solid, scriptural, rational piety than the Common Prayer of the Church of England.

    Some of John Wesley’s ministry from that Prayer Book took place a Christ Church, as did George Whitfield’s.  Anglicans aren’t the only ones with a part of their history at this church in historic Savannah.

    The parish has been engaged in an ecclesiastical pas de deux with their bishop. Henry Louttit, as reported last December.  That dance is over.  But again history comes around; it was Louttit’s father, bishop of the Central Archdeanery of South Florida in the 1960’s, who attempted to get Bishop James Pike deposed.  Much of the current tragedy of the Episcopal Church could have been avoided if Pike and his ilk had been brought to heel.  But the elder Louttit was unsuccessful.

    It is yet another reminder that the central mistake of the remaining conservatives in the Episcopal Church was to wait for the consecration of an openly homosexual bishop to take action either to fix or leave their church.  Hopefully some of the rest of us will not wait to make the same mistake.

  • Likely Voters Reject Hillary’s Racist Proposal

    It’s heartening to see that likely voters have rejected Hillary Clinton’s proposal for US$5,000 for every newborn in the U.S.

    It’s been a worry that American voters, buffeted by the wild ride this decade has been and seeing the growing gap between top and bottom of the income scale, would jump at any government entitlement.  Obviously Hillary Clinton has (at best) picked the wrong one to put forth, which may come back to haunt her.

    The blunt truth of the matter is that Hillary’s proposal is racist.  It is inspired by European programmes of the same kind which attempt to equalise the low birthrate of white Europeans with the Muslim immigrants, a desperate attempt to hold off the triumph of  "Eurabia" and (for the UK) "Londonistan."  The birthrate in the U.S. is higher, even amongst "white" people (we’ve still not found a way to deal with mixed race people properly) but it’s still pulled upwards by immigrant groups (especially Hispanics.) If birthrates were left as they are and immigration were stemmed, we would still see a relative increase in the non-white population.

    But it’s more than racist.  It’s secuarlist as well.  Religious people (Christians, Mormons, Muslims, etc.) still hold up the birthrate.  It’s liberal, white, secularist people who are lagging behind.  This subsidy was aimed at these people.  The left realises that abortion and the "culture of death" rings a bell that tolls primarily for them.

  • Christian Conservatives Consider Third-Party Effort. You’ve Got to be Kidding

    I hope that the New York Times’ blog is doing a late April Fools’ joke with Christian Conservatives Consider Third-Party Effort.  But I’m afraid not.

    Christian conservatives need to come to a few realisations about their current situation.

    1. Evangelical Christianity has been functionally absent from the halls of power for a long time, Billy Graham’s time with presidents notwithstanding.  Influential, certainly, but largely from the outside.
    2. Evangelical Christianity does not have a viable game plan to "finish the job" and really make this country a truly Christian country.  The "catch-up" effort of the Moral Majority and its successors started a decade late, and Christians have not grasped that the country’s secular (no state church) nature is too easy to use against them in the current climate.
    3. Christians needs to move away from Gothardian authoritarianism and theonomism if they want to survive and prosper in the U.S. today, otherwise the power of a secular state will come down very hard on them.  Besides, it’s more consistent with a true Christian view of government (as opposed to, say an Islamic one.)
    4. Christians really don’t want the Lizard Queen in power.  (Many liberals will find out they don’t either, but that’s another story.)

    We need to quit wondering which candidate will bring us closer to a "righteous nation" and starting thinking about which candidate is the least likely to put us in jail.

Design a site like this with WordPress.com
Get started