A news round up - 15 September 2014

• Great River Teens Encounter Christ is seeking to raise $35,000 through its third annual fundraising campaign to offset the costs of the retreat weekends and to keep fees low for participants and team alike. Please help if you can!

• In yet the latest attempt to force Christianity from the Public Square, Arizona State University has ordered the removal of small black crosses from back of football player's helmets. How long will it be before crosses are ordered removed from the steeples of our churches? 

• After studying daily weather observations made in 16th century Europe, researches have concluded that the autumn weather in Poland and Germany in the 1500s was "considerably colder" than it is today. For years I've been suggesting proponents of global warming study history to learn that the global climate is constantly changing. This new study is yet another piece of evidence to demonstrate this.

• In the days ahead of the planned Satanic Black Mass in Oklahoma City, we've been told by some that this is simply an expression of free speech and that the Satanists are merely exercising their religious liberty. I wonder if these same people would like to explain this a 5-year-old boy who had has his eyes gouged out with a spoon by his own mother during a Satanic ceremony?

• Muslims in Britain on calling on Prime Minister David Cameron that he should only refer to the Islamic State of Syria and Iraq as the "Un-Islamic State of Syria and Iraq." This is just silly. The government of China doesn't actually function as a republic, but no one is calling on any government leaders to refer to China as "the People's non-Republic of China."

• The Islamic State of Syria and Iraq has recently a detailed plan for growth over the next five years, including plans to spread from Spain to China. 

• U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder has announced a national plan to "counter violent extremism," without specifying what sort of violent extremism will be countered. As a caution, it should be remembered that it was not all that long ago that Catholicism and Evangelical Christianity were listed in military training materials as forms of "religious extremism," alongside al-Qaeda, Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood, and the KKK.

A news round up - 30 August 2014

Here are a few news items you may have missed:

• This story is a bit old, but new to me. Senator John Hoffman (D-Minnesota) believes that calling a certain fish Asian (as in the Asian Carp) is "hurtful" and "offensive," so much so that he introduced legislation to change the name of the Asian Carp to the Invasive Carp.

• Just in case you somehow never learned how to toast a marshmallow over a fire, the U.S. Forest Service has compiled a helpful (?) guide on how to do so (though the administration does not yet have a strategy about what to do with ISIS).

• Governor Neil Abercrombie (D-Hawaii) lost the primary note in a recent - and historic - vote as he sought another turn at governing the Hawaiian islands. Governor Abercrombie attributes his loss to his decision to legalize same-sex 'marriage'. I hope he's right.

• After years of increasing violence against Christians in north Nigeria and after watching the growth of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, Boko Haram has declared the beginning of an Islamic State in Nigeria. The reaction from world leaders has been minimal.

• After months of verbal abuse and threats of physical violence, a group of orthodox Jews have abandoned their homes in Guatemala to seek new homes elsewhere.

• Krista Hodges, a teacher in California, has been reprimanded after tweeting that she wanted to stab some of her students and her "trigger finger is itchy." That's right; she wasn't fired, only reprimanded. We are assured by her supporters that she is a "great teacher". Hodges has apologized and said she was only kidding. Some joke.

• More than 1,400 children were sexually abused by Asian members of a gang in Rotherham over a 16 year period. The South Yorkshire Police and the Rotherham council knew of the abuse and yet did nothing about it so as not to appear racist.

News round up - May 14th

The news you may have missed:

• The Department of Defense has paid out hundreds of dollars to settle allegations of sexual abuse against civilian workers in Hawaii.

• Archaeologists may have discovered the wreckage of the Santa Maria, the flagship of Christopher Columbus.

• A new global poll conducted by the Anti-Defamation League concerning anti-Semitism suggests 4% of the global population deny the Holocaust occurred. Other findings from the survey are both surprising and concerning.

• A Florida couple has been fined and threatened with imprisonment for feeding the homeless.This story is yet another part of the frequently asked question, Why doesn't the Church do more to help the poor?

• According to a survey conducted by The Art Newspaper, the Vatican Museum ranks as the fifth most visited art museum in the world.

• "The Big Read" program of the National Endowment for the Arts has awarded a $9,000 grant to the Quincy Public Library.

• In what seems to be a rather ridiculous stunt, the Military Association of Atheists and Free Thinkers plans to ask the military for "chaplains". Why an atheist should have need of a chaplain - a word which, even in its etymology, only refers to a minister of a chapel or one who prayers - is quite beyond me.

News round up - April 30th

The news you may have missed:

• The State Journal-Register reports that a proposed tax in Illinois on sugary beverages "may be falling flat" with legislators. When news of this proposed tax first surfaced, I offered my thoughts on it: a foolish bill that, if passed, would simply backfire.

• President Obama told a gathering of Malaysian youth yesterday that "the world is less violent, it is healthier, it is wealthier, it is more tolerant and it offers more opportunity than any time in human history for more people than any time in human history." If you live in the Middle East or in Africa, you probably haven't noticed a less violent world. You won't have noticed a healthier world if you life in the U.S.A. where childhood obesity continues to rise, as reported by the Centers for Disease Control earlier this month. Likewise, the poor of the world aren't getting any wealthier and Christians throughout the world remain the most persecuted people in a more tolerant world, and face growing persecution besides as John L. Allen, Jr. has recently demonstrated in his book, The Global War on Christianity.

•  Bryan Singer, the director of the forthcoming X-Men movie called a lawsuit alleging he sexually abused a minor some years ago "a sick, twisted, shakedown."

•  After he quoted Sir Winston Churchill in reference to Islam, Paul Weston, who ran for political office, was arrested for racially aggravated crime.

• Tens of thousands of Hungarians marched on Sunday in protest to the growing anti-Semitism in Hungary after the Jobbik party recently won 21% of the national vote.

• Doctors in Britain who object to "any form of contraception" because of their conscience are no longer eligible for specialization as obstetricians or gynecologists. Roman Catholics are particular singled out. In all likelihood, we will see this soon in the U.S.A., as well.

News round up - March 19th

Here are a few news stories you may have missed:

• Back in 1993, advisers to Hilary Clinton created an "enemies" list (their word) of those who did not support her efforts at healthcare reform.

• Since 1970, the Illinois Medicaid program has paid some $12 million for medical services for people who, according to other state records, were deceased at the time.Suggestions have been made to correct this problem. Illinois now requires every funeral home/cemetery to register burials with a state agency or face heavy fines. I hope cross-checking with this agency among the suggested fixes, though, really, it ought to be the only suggestion to avoid paying for dead people.

•  Jews have been ordered to register and declare their property in Ukraine, or face expulsion and confiscation. We've seen this before, and it didn't end well...

• Cuba has declared Good Friday a national holiday.

•  In Rome, a woman who became pregnant through in vitro fertilization, has been fertilized with another woman's embryos.

•  Each year in Pakistan some 700 Christian girls and women are kidnapped and forced into Muslim marriages.

As history repeats itself...

There are troubling reports coming out of the city of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine that Jews are being required to "register" and declare their property or face expulsion and confiscation.

In light of this, this message is particularly needed at this time: