Should Christians Vote for a Mormon President?

I don't want to bog down my fun little blog here with a dissertation on politics, but some of my readers might be interested in what I have to say on this issue.  If so, then click below to take you to my other blog where I tackle the complicated issue of Whether Christians Should Vote for a Mormon President by responding to a recent article by Christian apologetics expert Dr. Norman Geisler.

SATURDAY, JULY 14, 2012

Should A "Christian" Vote for a "Mormon" President? (A Response to Dr. Norman Geisler)

Recently, Christian author and apologetics expert Norman Geisler published an opinion piece entitled "Should An Evangelical Vote For a Mormon President?".  You can read the full text here.

As a Christian, I feel the need to respond to Geisler's article in depth and this is as good a place as any to do so.

Before I get to Geisler's writing and my responses, let me set forth a few principles that guide me in my analysis and opinion regarding the upcoming presidential elections.  First and foremost, religious beliefs of the candidate are just one of many considerations that I use in determining who to vote for.  The most important thing to me is a demonstrated commitment to principles of limited government, free enterprise, individual free will, freedom of speech, press, and religion.  After that, I want to see whether the candidate demonstrates a proven ability to lead and a commitment to a morality base that I can generally agree with.  Finally, do I trust and respect the candidate -- an entirely subjective and intuitive rationale...TO READ MORE CLICK HERE

Reblogged: Rush to Judgment

Great column by Zaki Hasan.

I was an early adopter of Rush myself. I started listening to his show in 1988 and listened practically daily for over 10 years.


That was during the time when, if you really listened daily, you knew he didn't take his own schtick seriously. I don't doubt his conservative belief system, but the blustery puffed-up ass he portrayed on the radio was a persona he turned on when the microphone was hot and turned off when the microphone was off.

When Rush started to lose me was when he started the slow process of believing his own schtick and I was evolving into a near absolute individualist (which runs contrary to both the American "Conservative" movement AND the "Liberal" movements).

This pattern of believing their own hype happens too often with populist personalites like this. They go from being brilliant performers (and/or commentators) and slip into full demagoguery before they even realize it. Rush is digging his own grave...and Glenn Beck is surely privately drawing up proposals to offer his show to the stations currently carrying the Limbaugh radio show.



ZAKI'S CORNER with Zaki Hasan | News | Reviews | Pop Culture | Politics: Rush to Judgment: There was a time when I used to listen to Rush Limbaugh. All the time. And not ironically, either. As a junior high student in the thick...

when the world screamed: Cutting Through the Nonsense with Common Sense

I've started a second blog for writings that are less sarcastic and fixated on super-heroes and the silly stuff in life.  I call this one..."when the world screamed: Cutting Through the Nonsense with Common Sense."  Here's a sneak-peak at my first entry dealing with the Texas Education Fund and the nonsense surrounding that.  Check it out, if it interests you, follow the link over to the full entry and see what you think.  If you would connect and follow that blog too, that would be cool.  I got the name from the last of the "Prof. Challenger" stories by A.C. Doyle.  It's a title I've always wanted to steal for something.


Hijacking Texas Education Funds Through the Guise of "Privatization"

News reports have been hammering our brains for the last year or so about how Texas must cut 3-to-5 Billion (with a capital “B”) dollars from “Education.” Of course, there's rarely any specifics about where these cuts are made.  The cuts are just made and then left to the agencies and school districts to figure out how to deal with it.

At the same time that this budgeting fiasco has been going on, Texas has gone through some highly public battles with the school board over textbook rewrites and the state embarked on a major overhaul of their standardized testing system. So, out with the TAKS and in with the “more rigorous” STAAR and EOC (End-Of-Course) Examination system.  As well, add in the massive spending involved in an attempt to set up a state-wide online curriculum and testing system. Through it all, one name keeps popping up: Pearson Education. 

You may wonder who that is?  According to Abby Rapoport in The Texas Observer, “Pearson is a London-based mega-corporation that owns everything from the Financial Times to Penguin Books, and also dominates the business of educating American children.”

In fact, The Texas Observer did an outstanding job of laying out some of the details and reasons why Texas taxpayers (and basically anyone in other states where Pearson is found) should be alarmed at their lobbying efforts. I recommend everybody read the article in full. My conclusion is that the people's call for “privatizing” the school system seems to have been misconstrued intentionally into a massive intertwining of government funds (meaning: TAXPAYER DOLLARS) with a massive FOR-PROFIT CORPORATION in a way that could only make Halliburton smile with understanding.

Calls for privatizing the education system are rarely demands to funnel tax money into the coffers of private corporations. Calls for privatization are calls to remove government from the system, thus returning all tax monies to the individual citizens, and allowing the free market to function. The individual citizens decide to whom and where to funnel the money...or not.

That is privatization. 

What the Texas Education Agency, Texas legislators, and the hundreds of for-profit corporations, like Pearson, are doing is a bastardization of the concept mostly done on the down-low while everyone in the media is distracted by the ridiculous nit-picky backbiting at the State Board of Education over what goes in and out of Texas textbooks.

You might ask why would I pick on Pearson so strongly. Is it just because The Texas Observer says I should?

Well, I did some digging just to see where our tax money was actually going in terms of “Education” and specifically in regards to Pearson. This was accomplished by visiting texastransparency.org which bills itself with this sub-line: “Open government is accountable government: a clear look at your tax dollars at work in Texas.” Unfortunately, it may be “clear,” but it most definitely is not easy to maneuver. They have the site rigged up in such a way that the information is there but in terms of ease of access – frustrating. The drop-down stair-step approach to the searches and the slow searching script and the unavailability of multiple searching within one session make it very difficult to get a straight and “clear” set of numbers. The numbers don't necessarily always quite add up either. Let me explain...

Click here to read the rest...

Professor's Journal. June 16th, 2011...

On a private messageboard I post on, I made a comment about my political views currently making me feel like The Comedian (from WATCHMEN) who became a bawling "Jeremiah" when he realized he was the only one who got the "joke" about Ozymandias's plan.

I know, it's not The Comedian who had the "Journal" in WATCHMEN, it was actually the misanthropic Rorshach.  But regardless, when my buddy Eric wrote this up and posted it, I just had to share it with the world because it's flippin' hilarious....and more accurate than you might otherwise think.

Spotlight on "Ghosts"

 I came across three new books that sparked my nosy-ness recently.  I found these on the shelves at a local supermarket (presumably this indicates the targeted audience for these types of books).  So, I snapped some quick pics of the covers...just to demonstrate once again the utter absence of anyone else's name listed as "author".  The first book is FED UP! ostensibly "written" by Rick Perry.  The second book is titled IS IT JUST ME OR IS IT NUTS OUT THERE? and is purportedly "written" by Whoopi Goldberg.  The third book is George W. Bush's memoir of his time as President.  Do I believe DECISION POINTS was actually "written" by W?  No, I do not and digging into the acknowledgments will surely identify the true author.

FED UP! is subtitled "Our Fight to Save America from Washington" and it says that the author is Rick Perry.  And to make sure everyone outside of Texas knows who Rick is, they make sure to place "Governor of Texas" right there on the cover.  First thing to note is that this book was primed to come out right around the time of Perry's ordination as lifetime emperor of Texas AND the beginning of his never admit-to run for the Republican nomination for President in 2012.  Otherwise, there's no other reason for him to have hired someone to write a book under his name and start waving his fist at Washington...except to establish himself as a Washington "outsider" and a good-ol-boy Texan who ain't gu'n take no guff from Oily Obama.

So who actually wrote this book?  Page 190 buries this special acknowledgment:

"I want to single out for special recognition Chip Roy, an outstanding legal scholar who previously served as senior adviser to U.S. Senator John Cornyn in his Senate leadership office and on the Senate Judiciary Committee, and who resigned his position as Special Assistant United States Attorney to devote himself full-time to the completion of the original manuscript.  Writing a book of this nature in the midst of a campaign for reelection was a herculean task and wouldn't have been possible without Chip's dedication aver the course of several months."  

I'll bet.  Hello Chip Roy.  I bet you wrote your very own special acknowledgement.  I've heard Rick Perry talk.  He couldn't spit that sentence out if it was on a teleprompter.  How does it feel to see Rick Perry's name on the cover of a book you wrote?  I know, I know.  You were well-compensated.  I guess that's some level of satisfaction.



For some reason, I think Whoopi actually tried to write this book on her own and discovered...guess what?...writing books is harrrrdddd.  So, Whoopi writes in her acknowledgments:

"First, I want to acknowledge Tom Straw because without him I would have been able to have this done on time."

Since this kicks off a short acknowledgment section where everyone else thanked are people at the publisher...and her cat!...and since Tom's contribution here is non-specific yet spotlighted?  Hello Tom Straw.  You wrote a book and Whoopi Goldberg gets all the credit.  Well, except for here where I like to spotlight the Ghosts.