Rep. Dingell: It's taken a long time to 'control the people'

If you live in Michigan it shouldn't surprise you that Rep. Dingell would make such a comment unless you one of the morons who has been voting for him all these years.
by Peter Barry Chowka

Rep. John Dingell (D-MI), the Dean of the House of Representatives for being the longest serving member of the body (he was first elected in 1955, succeeding his father, Rep.  John Dingell, Sr.), made an amazing admission during a live telephone interview with Detroit WJR News/Talk 760 radio talk show host Paul W. Smith on Smith's show Monday morning, March 22, 2010. The night before, Dingell had been a featured speaker at the Democrat Congressional leadership victory press conference after Obamacare passed the House.

In response to a question posed by Smith, Dingell said:

Let me remind you this [Americans allegedly dying because of lack of universal health care] has been going on for years. We are bringing it to a halt. The harsh fact of the matter is when you're going to pass legislation that will cover 300 [million] American people in different ways it takes a long time to do the necessary administrative steps that have to be taken to put the legislation together to control the people.

The comment by Dingell begins 6 minutes 23 seconds into the twelve minute-long podcast of his interview on Smith's radio show.  The podcast is titled "Congressman John Dingell tells Paul W. Smith he is thrilled with the passage of the health care bill." It can be streamed or downloaded as an mp3 audio file from this page at WJR's Web site.
American Thinker

The complete interview between the renowned atheist Christopher Hitchens and Unitarian minister Marilyn Sewell

This is only a part of the interview but it reveals that Hitchens understands Christianity better than the liberal unbelieving minister who claims to be a Christian.

Sewell: The religion you cite in your book is generally the fundamentalist faith of various kinds. I’m a liberal Christian, and I don’t take the stories from the scripture literally. I don’t believe in the doctrine of atonement (that Jesus died for our sins, for example). Do you make and distinction between fundamentalist faith and liberal religion?

Hitchens: I would say that if you don’t believe that Jesus of Nazareth was the Christ and Messiah, and that he rose again from the dead and by his sacrifice our sins are forgiven, you’re really not in any meaningful sense a Christian.

Sewell: Let me go someplace else. When I was in seminary I was particularly drawn to the work of theologian Paul Tillich. He shocked people by describing the traditional God—as you might as a matter of fact—as, “an invincible tyrant.” For Tillich, God is “the ground of being.” It’s his response to, say, Freud’s belief that religion is mere wish fulfillment and comes from the humans’ fear of death. What do you think of Tillich’s concept of God?”

Hitchens: I would classify that under the heading of “statements that have no meaning—at all.” Christianity, remember, is really founded by St. Paul, not by Jesus. Paul says, very clearly, that if it is not true that Jesus Christ rose from the dead, then we the Christians are of all people the most unhappy. If none of that’s true, and you seem to say it isn’t, I have no quarrel with you. You’re not going to come to my door trying convince me either. Nor are you trying to get a tax break from the government. Nor are you trying to have it taught to my children in school. If all Christians were like you I wouldn’t have to write the book.

To read the whole thing go here

Six Flags Over Jesus

Jared C. Wilson

I am from Texas. I love Texas. I get Texas.
I lived half my life in Texas, grew up in Texas churches, ministered in 3 of them, accepted the gospel of Willow Creek (which is from Chicago but is Texas-sized) in one of them, and know full well what Jesus meant when he said a prophet is not accepted in his hometown.
Most every time I talk “church” with Texas folk who are still in Texas, the leading question is “How many are you running?” or “How big is your building?” It would be an exaggeration to say every conversation begins this way but it would not be an exaggeration to say most of them do. I have been in Tennessee for the last 12 years, and the Bible Belt is in full cinch there, along with its focus on bigger, better, and faster. Your church is not taken seriously by most in Nashville if you’re not big. But nobody makes bigness the looming necessity that Texan evangelicals make it. In Nashville, the bigness is an unspoken rule while people are talking about small groups and spiritual formation and music, but in Texas they talk about bigness without apology, without any trace of irony, without any sense that it’s utterly ridiculous to assume the church growth movement. Most of them don’t know what irony is or what the “church growth movement” is. But they know what church is, and it’s big, dang it. Or else you’re not doing something right. Or, bless your little heart, you sure are giving it a go.
In Nashville, the people might think your small church is cute but in Houston they will tell you it is, as if this is a compliment and not a condescension. The second pastor I was a youth minister for planted his church in 1995 in Houston. He’s been there 15 years now with a regular attendance of about 100 for the last decade, and our mutual friends consider this as “Hanging in there.” As if 15 years of existence with 100 people constitutes the verge of death.
This isn’t just a Texas problem, but it is a Texas-sized problem in evangelicalism. Enter First Baptist Church of Dallas, Texas and their new $130 million building campaign. Normally I don’t give one whit about how much a pastor is being paid or how much a church spends on whatever; I get my ire raised more by other things. And what FBC Dallas is doing doesn’t really raise my ire. But it is reflective of something that, yes, is bigger than FBC Dallas, bigger than $130 million.
Do we even know what $130 million looks like? Well, we do, actually. It looks like this.
What is at stake is what church is. In the building Q&A linked above, we find this gem: “[T]he glass walls have an evangelistic effect: people walking by have a view in from the street and feel drawn in.”
In the same way a hobo on the sidewalk might press his face against the window of a fancy restaurant in a Norman Rockwell painting, no doubt.
Nobody should fault FBC Dallas or anybody else for building a building. But this isn’t a building. This, and a bunch of other stuff, is Bible Belt Disneyland. This is evangelicalism with more cowbell. This is Field of Dreams attractional church. And it stinks to high heaven. I was directed to a church website once while doing some research that had in its mission statement this sentence: “We will be a missional church, reaching out to the community to invite them to come see what we’re doing at ___________.”
Not go and tell. Come and see is the “mission” of megachurchianity. Which is why you need evangelistic windows.

Benny Hinn Ain’t Down With The Faith Healing Poseurs

Joe Carter

Most faith healers are frauds. So saith Benny Hinn, faith healer extraordinaire, in an interview with my buddy Frank Lockwood of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette:

LOCKWOOD: In your ministry, how many people have been healed and what kind of [illnesses] are we talking about?
HINN: Well, goodness, we’ve had, I mean, I can’t tell you how many. In the thousands. But these miracles are very real. My goodness. The greatest miracle I ever saw was a lady in Montreal that was bent over like an arch and God healed her. She became straight in front of our eyes. … I’ve seen many great healings and great miracles and to Jesus be the praise.
LOCKWOOD: How many faith healers do you think are the real deal and how many are frauds? How many are going to hear ‘Well done thou good and faithful servant’ [Matthew 25:21] and how many are going to hear ‘Depart from me, ye worker of iniquity’? [Matthew 7:23]
HINN: The majority will probably not hear ‘thou good and faithful servant.’ I mean there’s really a few that have kept their life clean. Kathryn [Kuhlman] was one of them, Oral Roberts was another. I’m praying I’ll be one. I’m not done yet. You know it’s very easy to start right and it’s very difficult to finish right. And my aim is to finish right and I pray that I’ll do that. But there are people, sadly, that have fallen away because of sin and because of corruption.

Oh, snap! Sounds like Hinn is calling out all poseurs. The other faith healers—there are still more of these guys around aren’t there?—can’t let Hinn dis their rep like that. And we all know there’s only one way to settle this beef: Heal off!
Anyone who doubts that Hinn won’t be slaying all sucka FHs hasn’t seen him action. This cat don’t fool around—he lays ‘em out cold.
Evangel

Woman pushed off cliff by monkey sues

A MONKEY has pushed a woman off a cliff.

The woman, 60-year-old Zhou Juchang, made the claim after winding up at the bottom of a seven-metre rockface, fracturing her hip and breaking three ribs.
Now she’s suing her travel agent, who organised her trip into China’s Chengdu Wildlife Park.
The monkey allegedly flew into a rage when the woman refused to hand over the bag of monkey food which her tour guide recommended she buy.
A spokesman for the park said the woman’s mistake was showing fear.
“If you show fear a monkey will bully you,” he told London’s Metro.

Geez Louise by Douglas Wilson

So, a friend informs me, Brian McLaren is observing Ramadan this year. I was minding my own business, see, and my friend sent me this link. Check it out your own self here. He sent me the link, I am convinced, to see if I would go off like a bottle rocket, all the while trying to stay out of sin.

No, I do not go off like a bottle rocket. I sit here, solemn and thoughtful, stroking my beard. Hmmm, I muse to myself, thinking down the same lines that Cicero did when he o temporaed o moraed about ancient Roman monkeyshines. What shall the harvest be? I then turn to go back to whatever it was I was doing.

But then I ask myself, am I being selfish? Do I not have peculiar gifts in the arena of fisking? Was I not born for just such occasions? With a sigh, I put aside my casual evening, and go out to my shop to find the nine-pound sledge.

It is not as though McLaren just announced this, leaving us to figure out why. He 'splains it himself.

"Ramadan is the Muslim holy month of fasting for spiritual renewal and purification. It commemorates the month during which Muslims believe Mohammed received the Quran through divine revelation, and it calls Muslims to self-control, sacrificial generosity and solidarity with the poor, diligent reading of the Quran, and intensified prayer."

And all God's people say ohhhh, their voices trailing off at the end. Then their faces bunch up that funny way that faces have. And then a cluster of hands go up, and the looks on some faces indicate that this might turn into a town hall meeting or something.

"This year, I, along with a few Christian friends . . . will be joining Muslim friends in the fast which begins August 21. We are not doing so in order to become Muslims: we are deeply committed Christians. But as Christians, we want to come close to our Muslim neighbors and to share this important part of life with them."

That is, deeply committed Christians who believe that what matters is the deeply committed part, and not the object of the commitment. For, as we have just learned, being deeply committed to a diligent reading of false Scriptures, and intensified prayer to a false god, and sacrificial generosity as a means of ginning up some works righteousness around here, is something that deeply committed Christians can "come close" in order to "share." Sharing, that is, in the experience of getting all the fundamentals wrong. It is as though deeply committed adherents of the notion that the square of the hypotenuse was equal to the sum of the square of the other two sides decided to "come close" to those who thought that it wasn't even close to the sum of the square of the other two sides. But what the heck. What matters is being deeply committed to drawing what you think are triangles on a piece of paper. Is that not what really matters? We have pencils and papers in common. Come on, people. Don't you want to end wars?

To read the rest

Spend Tax and Borrow

Sobering stats: this year the federal government will:

• spend $30,958 per household
• tax $17,576 per household
  
• borrow $13,392 per household

Federal spending, in particular, will

• be increased by 22%
• account for 26% of the gross domestic product (GDP)

By 2019, we'll be spending almost $800 billion just to pay net interest on our debt.

And none of these estimates include the cost of health-care reform!

Bonuses Break the Bank

In October last year, nine banks received a grand total of $125 billion in taxpayer money as part of the much publicised Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). The aim of the payout being to aid in the banks' survival as they tried to ride out the pressures of the economic crisis.

Look At The Chart but watch yourself this could make you very mad.

The National Debt Road Trip

After watching this you should be asking wheres the outrage? Wheres the national press coverage? This is what happens when the press gets in the national debt car with the president and cries out "Go Faster" from the backseat.

‘God Awful’: Black Chamber of Commerce CEO Rips Sen. Boxer for ‘Condescending’ Racial Remarks

Black Chamber of Commerce, President and CEO Harry Alford accused Senator Boxer (D-CA) of playing race politics during an EPW Committee hearing on green jobs.

Jobs Prediction vs. Jobs Reality

Your Share of the National Debt: $546,668 and Counting

According to USA Today, your share of the national debt is $546,668 and counting:

The latest increase raises federal obligations to a record $546,668 per household in 2008, according to the USA TODAY analysis. That's quadruple what the average U.S. household owes for all mortgages, car loans, credit cards and other debt combined.

Change you can count on: taxing ourselves into prosperity.

ACORN and Drummond Pike’s Tides Foundation - More Corruption

The "Glenn Beck Program" had a segment today on Fox News about the connection between ACORN and the Tides Foundation. (I can't find a video clip of the segment online yet.)

He said that Drummond Pike, head of the Tides Foundation, wrote a personal check for about $700,000 to ACORN to cover the bulk of the $948,000 that Dale Rathke, brother of ACORN founder Wade Rathke, embezzled from the ACORN network.

The Tides Foundation is a pass-through entity. Wealthy liberals give the charity money, take the tax deduction, and then tell Tides which causes to give their money to. The money is then given in the name of Tides and the real donor's name is withheld. Pike has said that keeping the identity of Tides donors secret is very important.

Wade Rathke, who was expelled by ACORN's national board last summer for his role in covering up the embezzlement, is a member of the Tides board. Suspicious? You betcha.

Meanwhile, ACORN stands accused of election fraud, extortion, and racketeering, yet congressional leaders have no interest in investigating the group. House Financial Services Committee Barney Frank (D-Massachusetts) and House Judiciary Committee chairman John Conyers (D-Michigan) refuse to probe ACORN.

By Matthew Vadum

Car Crazy: Bankrupt companies making 39 mpg autos. Are we nuts?

This article is about the new standards that Obama wants — standards that will significantly increase the price of cars. From the Wall Street Journal:

"All that's left to arrive at the President's new destination for the American way of driving are huge, unanswered questions about technology, financing and the marketability of cars that will be small and expensive.

…We wish these folks luck "working together" with the Obama auto-design team. One thing seems certain by 2016: Taxpayers will be paying Detroit to make the cars Americans don't want, and then they will pay again either through (trust us) a gas tax or with a purchase subsidy. Even the French must think we're nuts."

This is not a plan to help anyone but the Federal Government to have more power. These morons in Washington are not competent to to run any private business, if you want something done wrong let the Federal government run it, just look at the United States Postal Service or Amtrak for examples. These are the Bluesman's thoughts not the Wall Street Journal.

A little Thing Called Reality - The Federal Goverment Is Incompetent

The blue chart comes from page 4 of this government report. Its meant to show how the unemployment rate will be much lower with the President’s stimulus plan in effect (the dark blue line) than it would have otherwise.

The folks at Innocent Bystanders added the red triangles which represent a little thing I like to call reality. Those are the actual unemployment numbers for the last two months. As you can see, it appears we’re now charting a course even worse (steeper) than the President’s worst predictions. But of course we did spend the stimulus money. So it’s really the worst of both worlds.

What exactly has the administration accomplished, beside digging a huge financial hole for the US?

"This Is A Lunatic Idea."

Taliban spokesman ZABIHULLAH MUJAHID on U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's offer of an "honorable form of reconciliation" for Taliban members who abandon extremism.

This just shows how stupid the left is thinking that if we can just talk to people they will come around and see how easy it is to set things straight.

Birth control touted as part of Earth Day

We are starting to see more and more of this—birth control being touted as a solution to environmental issues.Well yes isn't it obvious? If you use birth control you are saving the planet. Look how well this concept is working in China, because of their one child policy they have aborted millions of girls and now have an over abundance of boys, who will never find a mate. Linking birth control to saving the planet is just stupid.
Read the story

W-2 WTF?!?!: Tax Facts to Make Your Head Explode!

Is it patriotic to pay taxes? And if so, who are the most patriotic Americans? Who are the least? How many words are in the tax code? How much do patriotic Americans pay to prepare their taxes? Joe Biden is a Moron.

New 4,800 Calorie Burger

If you happen to go to a West Michigan Whitecaps baseball game in Grand Rapids Michigan make sure to try their new 4-pound $20.00 Burger. Featuring 5 Beef patties, 5 slices of cheese, nearly a cup of chili, and liberal doses of salsa and corn chips, all on an 8-inch sesame seed bun. Any one who eats the entire 4,800-calorie burger in one sitting will receive a special T-Shirt.

Special T-shirt! You'll need an ambulance!

Holy Spirit Car Protection

Another example of Christian junk sold to the mindless unthinking people who think this is spiritual. Didn't you know that a hidden ministry of the Holy Spirit is auto protection? He is your unseen protector to drive away car thieves. If you have this sticker on your car let me show you some places to park in the city of Detroit and we can see how well it works.