Category: US

By micoots
17/08/2016 0

Morality as politics

The Pew Research Center has conducted a study finding that 64% of church goers heard political issues being preached from the pulpit. Those “political issues” included abortion, homosexuality, religious liberty, the environment, and economic inequality.
Now those are mostly moral–not political–issues. Churches have always taught about sexual morality and respect for human life. They have also addressed issues of social morality. That is not being political. The Pew study found that only 14% hear..

By micoots
17/08/2016 0

Doctors push back against assisted suicide

Vermont has a law allowing for physician-assisted suicide. State agencies are interpreting the law so as to require doctors to tell their patients about this option. Also, doctors who don’t want to kill their patients must refer them to another doctor who will.
A number of Vermont doctors have decided to fight these requirements and are suing the regulators that are forcing them to violate the Hippocratic oath.
From Vermont doctors push back against assisted-suicide requirement – Washington Time..

By micoots
16/08/2016 0

ELCA makes new accord with Catholics

The Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (the theologically liberal Lutheran denomination) has arrived at a new accord with the Roman Catholic Church, focusing on church, ministry, and eucharist. Read the document here.
After giving all of the agreements that were found, the document gives the issues of disagreement that remain: the papacy and women’s ordination (which ELCA practices).
That would sound like Missouri Synod Lutherans, who agree that only men may be ordained into the holy ministr..

By micoots
16/08/2016 0

The Zika mystery & Zika abortions

Some women who get Zika have babies with severe birth defects, but some don’t. In Brazil, some regions plagued with Zika have a huge percentage of babies with microencephaly. But adjoining regions also plagued with Zika don’t. Also, young, black, and poor women are being hit especially hard.
So researchers are now investigating whether Zika does its damage by being paired with other factors. There had been speculation that the birth defects were caused by a government-administered pesticide. But..

By micoots
15/08/2016 0

The problems with Evan McMullin, but he has one chance to win

NeverTrump conservatives thought they might have a candidate they could vote for when ex-CIA agent and ex-Republican Congressional staffer Evan McMullin threw his hat into the ring.
But inconsistencies and questions have arisen about his resume (HT: Carl Vehse). Also, Maggie Gallagher has pointed out his weakness on issues important to social conservatives. (For example, he is OK with gay marriage, says little about life issues beyond not wanting taxpayer money to pay for abortions, says little ..

By micoots
15/08/2016 0

Riots in Milwaukee

A police officer shot and killed an armed black man in Milwaukee, sparking a riot in which police were stoned with bricks, journalists were assaulted, several businesses were set on fire, and white drivers were pulled out of their cars and beaten. It turns out, the officer who fired the shots is black.
From Violence erupts after officer-involved shooting, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel:
A standoff between police and an angry crowd turned violent Saturday night in the hours after a Milwaukee police o..

By micoots
12/08/2016 0

What Clinton thinks religious liberty is

In a play to capitalize on Mormon’s dissatisfaction with Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton wrote an op-ed piece in the LDS-owned Deseret News in which she emphasizes her commitment to religious liberty. But notice what she thinks religious liberty is.
Read what she says and my analysis after the jump.
From Exclusive: Hillary Clinton: What I have in common with Utah Leaders–religious freedom and the Constitution, Deseret News:
I’m running for president to make sure our country continues to live up t..

By micoots
12/08/2016 0

Who’ll win the Irish vote?

We keep getting told that demographics favor the Democrats and look bad for the Republicans, as America becomes more ethnically diverse, a phenomenon particularly evident in the growing Hispanic vote. But Josh Gelertner gives us a history lesson putting all of this into context.
He points out that ever since the machine politics of Boss Tweed in the 1850s, Democrats have pandered to immigrants fresh off the boat in exchange for their votes. Thus the Irish became an important part of the Democrat..

By micoots
12/08/2016 0

A shark that was 512 years old?

It turns out that Greenland sharks routinely live to be 272 years old. One was caught recently that may have been 512 years old. That is to say, he would have been born in 1504.
He had been swimming in the northern sea, starting only 12 years after Columbus discovered America. He would have been 13 years old when Martin Luther posted his theses. He could have eaten a Pilgrim.
This would make this species of shark the longest-living vertebrate. Scientists are trying to figure out how these creatu..

By micoots
11/08/2016 0

The politics of refusing power

Usually, politics is a competition between individuals and factions each of which wants to be, as we say, “in power.” In Japan, though, there is a political struggle between a faction that wants to put a man in power and that man who does not want the power.
As we blogged about, the party of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has won enough seats in parliament to accomplish his goal of revising the Japanese Constitution, which was primarily the work of Gen. Douglas MacArthur after World War II i..