Camelot Not Quite: My Reflections on JFK, Fifty Years After

This piece is, in some sense, obligatory.  Just about everyone alive and out of the crib then remembers where he or she was when they learned that Jack Kennedy had been assassinated in Dallas on 22 November 1963.  Although there have been recent potshots at the Boomers’ obsession with the subject, it’s not a bad …

From Hard Currency to No Currency

What a difference two decades makes: Predicting the imminent collapse of the U.S. dollar, a Russian lawmaker submitted a bill to his country’s parliament Wednesday that would ban the use or possession of the American currency. Mikhail Degtyarev, the lawmaker who proposed the bill, compared the dollar to a Ponzi scheme. He warned that the …

If They'd Known He Was a Republican, They Wouldn't Have Honoured Him

Abraham Lincoln, that is: A public university in President Abraham Lincoln’s home state of Illinois is adorned with a plaque that states Lincoln – arguably the most famous and influential president in American history – was a Democrat. Lincoln was a Republican. History is such a stinker sometimes...

Thinking and Living Bureaucratically in America

National Journal's Ron Fournier is sorry: I'm sorry you campaigned for reelection on the famous false promise: "If you like your health care plan, you'll be able to keep your health care plan. Period." I'm sorry your aides debated whether to tell the full truth (that people could keep their insurance only if it hadn't …

My Perspective on Driven Pile Drivability Studies

Recently I had a round of correspondence with a county official in Washington state re pile drivability studies and their place in the contract process.  (If you're looking for some explanation of this, you can find it here).  His question was as follows: During the bidding process, is the contractor's sole basis for anticipating the …

Why Sydney Anglican Subordinationism is Lame

Now that my serialised posting of My Lord and My God is done, we can tackle what is, for Anglicans at least, the obvious question: what relationship does this have with the Sydney Anglicans' contention that subordination does, in fact exist in the Trinity?  This has been batted around since the issue first hit the …

It's Back to Gay Apparel at Christmas

After Hallmark stepped into it: Critics took to Twitter and Hallmark’s Facebook page, accusing the company of making a political statement by using the word “fun” to replace “gay.” Some Facebook commenters said they would never again buy Hallmark merchandise and that the change amounted to the company rewriting Christmas classics in the name of …

My Lord and My God: The End of the Journey

For an introduction, explanation and links to the entire work, click here. We have come a long way in our theological adventure concerning the deity of Christ and the nature of the Godhead. Our friends from the Watchtower who have followed us this far are probably glad that such a trip is finally coming to …

The Exorcist's Author Injects Himself Into Another Horror Story

Every Halloween, he comes out of hiding: William Peter Blatty will emerge from his burrow, the stately Bethesda home where he lives with his wife of 33 years, to watch the 7:30 p.m. showing on Halloween. Afterward he will submit to questions from audience members. Blatty will bear the cross of his mammoth success, which …

My Lord and My God: Why Arianism Failed

For an introduction, explanation and links to the entire work, click here. In the course of our discussion we have made reference to a lot of history surrounding the original Arian controversy. It took nearly a century to sort things out on this. Organisationally the Watchtower is separate from the Arian churches of long ago. …

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