09 AUG 2013 by ideonexus
War is an Alien Threat
More than a century ago a young Frenchman, Alexis de Tocqueville, visited America. After that visit he predicted that the two great powers of the future world would be, on one hand, the United States, which would be built, as he said, ``by the plowshare,'' and, on the other, Russia, which would go forward, again, as he said, ``by the sword.'' Yet need it be so? Cannot swords be turned to plowshares? Can we and all nations not live in peace? In our obsession with antagonisms of the moment, we ... 1 
notes
notesRonald Reagan suggests we would put aside our differences if threatened by extraterrestrials, but then notes that war is an alien threat--alien to how we desire to live.
19 JAN 2013 by ideonexus
America is Naturally Anti-Science
In the end, politics is about story. Robert McKee, Hollywood's master of storytelling, views the world from the top of America's other great cultural export—its movies.
"1 think that the American ethos is not science-friendly and never has been," he says. "The American model is Thomas Edison and Henry Ford. Guys who never went to college and who were geniuses and invented things, and people like them. The inventor versus the scientist. Somebody who can go west, discover gold mines, and cr...
1 Science is hard work, America is about the dream of Hollywood. We are living on the benefits of science, but will those innovations become cultural rituals if we won't do what we need to do to promote science and education?
09 DEC 2011 by ideonexus
Newt Gingrich is Like King David
A number of years ago, I gave a series of messages on the life of King David of old. I entitled the series, "A Portrait of a Champion." One of the messages in that series was called, "Champions Know How to Repent." Even a great champion for God such as King David messed up "royally" and had to repent ... This brings me to Newt Gingrich. While many people have, and will continue to throw stones at the former Speaker's past marriage failures, I am glad that Newt is a man who knows how to repent...
2 Twisted Logic of Scripture: His past indiscretions should be forgiven because King David was a great ruler despite sleeping with his servant's wife and having the servant murdered so he could marry her.
01 JAN 2010 by ideonexus
Rachel Maddow on Obama's First Year
Turns out that a lot of the things that have happened in the lest than two years of this administration are the biggest or first or most important in generations. On the occasion of the Wall Street Reform announcement today, Tagan Godard at CQ politics wrote "Not since FDR has a president done so much to transform this country."
Even before today's historic Wall Street Reform agreement, President Obama of course did what politicians have been trying to do for more than 60 years, he passed He... 1 notes
notesAn inspiring summary of everything Obama has accomplished less than halfway through his first term.
