Gene Edward Veith Jr.'s Blog, page 338
April 16, 2014
Easter did NOT come from a pagan holiday
You’re probably already hearing the old canards about Easter and its customs being based in pagan festivals. It’s just not true! After the jump, links to two documented accounts from Pastor Joseph Abrahamson that gives the historical background and churchly contexts of the celebration of Christ’s Resurrection. On the Origins of Easter. (The connections to [Read More...]
Ten Forbidden Behaviours
Regional Chinese Communist officials have put forward a list of “10 forbidden behaviors” designed to improve the manners and image of party operatives. These do not have quite the moral heft of the 10 Commandments, but they give some good tips for getting along with “the masses.” Read them after the jump. And then I [Read More...]
Snowden revelations win Pulitzer Prize
The London Guardian and the Washington Post won the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for publishing the revelations from Edward Snowden about the extent of NSA snooping. After the jump, an excerpt and link to the complete slate of winners. What does this list suggest about the role of journalism in this internet age? Pulitzer [Read More...]
April 15, 2014
What the Bible is all about
On Sunday we read the entire Passion narrative from Matthew 26-27. Read what our pastor said about it in a sermon that contains the “God who didn’t act like a God” bit that I blogged about yesterday. From Rev. James Douthwaite, St. Athanasius Lutheran Church: Palm / Passion Sunday Sermon: You just heard the story [Read More...]
“Fixing” the Second Amendment
Retired Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, having spent much of his career trying to interpret the Constitution away, now wants to change it. He has written a book entitled Six Amendments: How and Why We Should Change the Constitution. He has published an op-ed piece on how he thinks the Second Amendment can be [Read More...]
IRS may go after underwater homeowners
Homeowners who were underwater on their homes but who took advantage of mortgage relief programs face the prospect of the IRS calculating the amount by which a portion of their loan was forgiven as income. From Distressed homeowners seeking mortgage relief could get stuck with higher taxes – The Washington Post: Struggling homeowners across the [Read More...]
IRS was going after the children to collect parents’ debts–but stopped!
A sentence was stuck into the Farm Bill removing the 10 year statute of limitations on debts owed to the United States government. So now the IRS is withholding tax refunds from the children of deceased parents who owed Uncle Sam money. UPDATE: The IRS has announced that it is stopping the practice. From Social [Read More...]
April 14, 2014
A God who doesn’t act like a God
Our pastor on Palm Sunday said that people’s confusion over Jesus–so that they hailed Him with palms and soon thereafter demanded His crucifixion–was because they wondered, “Can a king who doesn’t act like a king be a king? Can a God who doesn’t act like a God be a God?” It occurred to me that [Read More...]
Totalitarian discourse
Charles Krauthammer gives the name for handling disagreements by silencing and punishing those who hold opposing ideas: The left is entering a new phase of ideological agitation — no longer trying to win the debate but stopping debate altogether, banishing from public discourse any and all opposition.The proper word for that attitude is totalitarian. It [Read More...]
Encrypting the internet on the cheap
“Heartbleed” is the name of a major bug found in some encryption software that nearly everybody uses. The thing is, that software–used by big corporations and the U.S. Government–is a free, open-source program that anyone can contribute to, including the designer of this bug. The company that runs it has one employee and income from [Read More...]
