Does God Still Speak Today?

Since the Reformation, and particularly since The birth of modern Pentecostalism at the Azusa Street Revival, the church has been divided over whether "charismatic gifts" are operative today. John MacArthur, in particular, is an outspoken opponent of charismatic gifts. He is a Cessationist - one who believes that the charismatic gifts ceased when the first generation of apostles died off.

MacArthur repeats a common proof-text that Cessationists use to argue that revelatory gifts, specifically prophecy, have eased. It is found in 1 Corinthians 13:8-12

" Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away. When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. "

- 1Cor 13:8-12

Master's Seminary, which MacArthur heads, has produced a document that argues that the phrase " that which is perfect" refers to the formation of the New Testament Canon(esp page 2/188). There is nothing in the text that mentions the NT canon. It is purely reading man's theology into the text something that isn't there. The document parses the Greek ultra-hard in order to make room to insert this man-made idea.

The master's seminary document concedes that the coming of the perfect refers to maturity and completion, but does not allow these concepts to speak for themselves, but puts these idea in a straight-jacket by parsing obscurities in the Greek. MacArthur misses the forest for the trees. I shall let these idea speak for themselves in this article.

The Greek word translated perfect is teleios - meaning completeness. The text contrast this completeness with that which in part. The text could have easily read "When that which is complete is come, that which is in part shall pass away." What is that which is complete?

There are three context clues which tell us what this is and when it will happen: These are maturity and a changes in human epistemology (philosophy of knowledge) for believers.

It is written in verse 11, " When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things." Maturity is one demarcation of the coming of that which is complete. Eph 4:11-16 described apostles, prophets, evangelists, and pastor-teachers as given to equip the church until she "attains the stature of the fullness of Christ, a perfect man." The Greek word teleios also appears here to describe a mature adult church. Complete maturation of the church requires resurrection bodies, as flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God (1 Cor 15:35-54, particularly vs 50). While the church can reach a place of being "not immature," or literally "not green (Rev 14:15) in the corruptible body," it can only fully mature by being harvested into resurrection bodies.

The second context clue is given in verse 12. " For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known." This is describing a two phase change in epistemology. to the ancients, seeing through a glass darkly meant looking at a mirror of polished metal. These mirrors gave a good reflection of the big picture, but were poor at showing fine detail - details were fuzzy in these mirrors. We now see a big picture with a clear outline but fuzzy details. It is only when that which is complete is come, will we see everything with clarity.

It is written, that when that which is complete is come, that " then shall I know even as also I am known. (vs 12)." The ability to know as I am known means that the subjective filters of our limited perspective are taken away. We will be able to see ourselves as other see us; we won't be limited to one partial perspective, as we are now. The canonization of the New Testament did not take away these filters; it provided an anchor to counteract the tendencies of these filters to push us towards relativism, allowing us to be anchored in the truth. The Bible is a compass that allows us to truly proclaim "thus saith the Lord" in spite of the limited perspective we have by giving us enough of God's perspective to know some things truly.

When the resurrection of the saints occurs (1 Corinthians 15:35-54), the glorified bodies of the saints will have abilities far more advanced than our currently corruptible bodies allow. These will include advanced capacity for knowledge. Our epistemology will change. We will not need partial spiritual revelatory gifts because we will have access to all of the knowledge of God in its fullness. That which is complete will occur at the resurrection of the saints; until then we need all of the partial s that God is willing to give us to live our current, earthly lives in His strength.

The Coming Death of the Bill of Rights

There are emerging trends in the law that will result in the Bill of Rights, or the first ten amendments of The United States Constitution ceasing to have legal force in American Courts. While this article is not about "gay rights" issues, more accurately called homofascism¹, the Homofascist movement is becoming the vehicle through which this loss of liberty is affected. Chai R. Feldblum, who is a law professor at Georgetown who self-identifies as a lesbian², is promoting a new paradigm for adjudicating liberty claims in an article in the Brooklyn law Review called Moral Conflict and Liberty: Gay Rights and Religion³. This article will explain her paradigm, critique her paradigm, and then show why it is relevant to the debate over freedom.

A new, subjective paradigm for interpreting rights is emerging
Feldblum right out of the gate makes her point when she says " Your religious belief - your belief liberty interest, as I hope to explain below - is necessarily curtailed by the existence of a law that prohibits you from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation or marital status."⁴ This, however, raises a question. What if the law is unconstitutional. Doesn't the First Amendment of the Constitution restrict the government from encroaching on religious liberty. Feldblum wants to do away with the first amendment by imposing a new interpretive paradigm in constitutional law.

" Second, I want to suggest that the best framework for dealing with the conflict between some people's religious beliefs and LGBT people's identity liberty is to analyze religious people's claims as belief liberty interests under the Due Process Clauses of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments, rather than as free exercise claims under the First Amendment. "⁵

She wants the Due Process clause to trump the First Amendment. She suggests that the First Amendment is not the only source of protection for religious people. What she fails to disclose is that the First Amendment is the strongest legal protection for religious people because it clearly and explicitly defines religious liberty. Her new paradigm seeks to game the Due Process Clause to change the rules.

She suggests that Supreme Court Justice David Souter, in his concurring opinion in Washington v Glucksberg⁶, hints at this new paradigm⁷. This paradigm, as we shall see, replaces objective criteria for judging the constitutionality of a law with subjective criteria.

According to Feldman, " Justice Souter finds guidance for this approach in Justice Harlan's dissent from dismissal on jurisdictional grounds in Poe v. Ullman:

[T]he full scope of the liberty guaranteed by the Due Process Clause cannot be found in or limited by the precise terms of the specific guarantees elsewhere provided in the Constitution. This "liberty" is not a series of isolated points pricked out in terms of the taking of property; the freedom of speech, press, and religion; the right to keep and bear arms; the freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures; and so on. It is a rational continuum which, broadly speaking, includes a freedom from all substantial arbitrary impositions and purposeless restraints, and which also recognizes, what a reasonable and sensitive judgment must, that certain interests require particularly careful scrutiny of the state needs asserted to justify their abridgment. ⁸

What this means is that if a judge "finds" a right that is not explicitly disclosed but is deemed present in the due process that is contrary to an explicitly stated right, the explicitly stated right does not limit the rights that are allegedly hidden in the "rational continuum." This principle, if consistently applied, takes the explicit guarantees of religious freedom, freedom of speech, and other freedoms guaranteed in the bill of rights completely out of the equation as one could no longer appeal to the plain meaning of the text as an argument in court.

Souter, in Washington vs Glucksberg, is clearly pushing towards a subjective standard of review. He writes.

" It is only when the legislation's justifying principle, critically valued, is so far from being commensurate with the individual interest as to be arbitrarily or pointlessly applied that the statute must give way. Only if this standard points against the statute can the individual claimant be said to have a constitutional right. ⁹"

While Souter does directly not do away with the strict standard¹⁰, this standard clearly stands contrary to it. Souter is saying that a statue only gives way if it is " arbitrarily or pointlessly applied. " There is no need to demand that state conform to a strict standard or even have a burden of proof. Historically, encroachments on rights guaranteed by the Bill of Rights were subjected to strict scrutiny¹¹, which means that the state must show that they have a compelling interest and that the statute is necessary to fulfilling the requirements of this compelling interest.

Not only is Souter hinting that a statue only need not be arbitrary, but removes original intent of the legislative body from the equation. It is not " legislation's justifying principle " as set forth by the legislative body, but as " critically valued, " that is counted. It is the judges take that all freedom rest in this paradigm.

Feldblum clearly supports this paradigm shift, and proceeds to cite numerous references to make her case that Justice Kennedy used this paradigm in deciding Lawrence v Texas¹². This is especially noteworthy as Kennedy is a swing vote on the Court and could very well be the vehicle through which the strict scrutiny that protect our fundamental rights is abolished. I do not believe these are isolated quotes Feldblum is using but representative of the direction that the judicial system is moving. This approach clearly dovetails with the so-called living document theory of constitutional law¹³ that many judges now uphold.

Critique
While Feldblum is obviously motivated by her desire to provide a legal environment friendlier to the interest of the "lesbian gay bisexual transgendered LGBT" community, but this paradigm has implications that go way beyond homofascism. Subjectivizing constitutional law will have devastating effect on liberty across the board.

The Founding Fathers, when they set up the Constitution, clearly envisioned the Bill of rights as providing some contours for liberty. The Founders clearly saw liberty in terms of "certain inalienable rights. ¹⁴" The Founders also clearly made several provisions for the Constitution to adapt to the changing times. There was instituted The Commerce Clause to allow the Federal wide scope in regulating state commerce, the Ninth Amendment, that allowed wide sweep to protecting both states rights and enforcing a host of unenumerated rights, and a process for adding amendments to the Constitution or convening a convention to replace it with a new Constitution. All of these imply that the founders saw the Constitution as an objective standard for law.

The great danger of making the Constitution relative to a subjective standard is that it then becomes manipulable. David Strauss writes,

"Even worse, a living Constitution is, surely, a manipulable Constitution. If the Constitution is not constant-if it changes from time to time-then someone is changing it, and doing so according to his or her own ideas about what the Constitution should look like. The "someone," it's usually thought, is some group of judges. So a living Constitution becomes not the Constitution at all; in fact it is not even law any more. It is just some gauzy ideas that appeal to the judges who happen to be in power at a particular time and that they impose on the rest of us."¹⁵

Strauss goes on to assert that we can escape this predicament by grounding Constitutional jurisprudence is precedent root in centuries of common law. Strauss' method would only work in an environment where are certain objective limiting parameters. The Founders intended for the Constitution to provide just such a framework. This framework would make it harder for government officials and judges to game the system. One of the things that Professor Feldblum lamented about current jurisprudence in cases involving conflict between rights connected with sexual identity and rights connected with religious freedom was that in many of these cases, judges twisted and creatively parsed facts in such a way to come to a conclusion that that laws putting a burden on religious freedom did not really put a burden on religious freedom. She would rather that the courts acknowledge that these laws do burden religious freedom and then justify that encroachment¹⁶. What Feldblum fails to say is that her paradigm would not stop judges from continuing to game the system. Without an objective standard to judges rights claims, the judge will simply game the critical evaluation as a means to impose his or her opinion on people.

If our freedoms hinge on the whim of a judge, what if those women in Texas who were sexually molested by the police in the side of the interstate¹⁷ appeared before a lesbian judge who thought it was no big deal that these women were subjected to having their vaginas fingered by the police. Would the lesbian judge be sympathetic if the women referred to this as a "homosexual attack" given that they were sexually assaulted by a female cop. Because there is still a vague semblance of an objective standard, the cops will be prosecuted, but under Feldblum's paradigm, it would be permissible for a judge to dismiss the case. There is currently a case in Montana where a judge gave out a superlight sentence for rape that was actually illegal under Montana law¹⁸. Do we really want to give judges wide open discretion to do whatever they want? Feldblum;s paradigm would do just that.

Lest we think that only the words of legislators are robbed of their original intent, this slippery slope also undermines the words of the judges themselves. If interpretation of law look at only the "critical evaluation" of a legal text and not its intended meaning, then what's to stop cops from playing the same games with a judge's ruling that the judges play concerning the text of legislation or the Constitution. This abolition of an objective standard that Feldblum and others advocate means the end of the rule of law in any meaningful fashion. It is also the end of democracy in any meaningful fashion as the product of legislative activity, texts of laws, are nothing more than legal "Play-Dough" to be molded and fashioned according to the whims of those with power.

Conclusion
This paradigm is what Francis Schaeffer called "sociological law.¹⁹" Sociological law is simply whatever those in power want it to be at the moment. Once the requirement to adhere to the plain meaning of the Bill of Rights is done away with, there is no objective legal basis for restraint of arbitrary government power. Without an objective standard to provide meaning to legal texts, there can be no rational basis for law, the law is nothing more than the subjective whim of those in power, and the only restraint on the exercise of power is the limit on what the power agent can get away with.

References

 

1. Homofascism is a political philosophy that holds sexual orientation as one's master status (referred to by Professor Feldblum in her article as identity liberty), and therefore defines all opposition to that nature or its products as being necessarily a personal attack that warrants state intervention. Because it is a political philosophy and not a sexual orientation, one need not be homosexual to be a homofascist; most homofascists are heterosexual. It is also possible to be homosexual and reject homofascism.
2. Moral Conflict and Liberty: Gay Rights and Religion, Brooklyn Law Review, vol 72:1, page 65, top para (Page 7 on pdf) http://scholarship.law.georgetown.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1080&context=facpub
3. Moral Conflict and Liberty: Gay Rights and Religion, Brooklyn Law Review, vol 72:1 http://scholarship.law.georgetown.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1080&context=facpub
4. ibid,page 62, (page 4 on pdf), 2nd para from bottom, last line of para
5. ibid, page 63 (page 5 on pdf), top line of last paragraph
6. 521 U.S. 702, 752-89 (1997) (Souter, J., concurring).
7. Moral Conflict and Liberty: Gay Rights and Religion, Brooklyn Law Review, vol 72:1, page 64 (Page 6 on pdf) http://scholarship.law.georgetown.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1080&context=facpub
8. ibid,page 92 (34 on pdf), top of page
9. ibid, page 93 (35 on pdf), 2nd para citing Glucksberg, 521 u.s. at 768 (Souter, J., concurring).
10. ibid page 93, last para-pg94, 1st para (35-36 on pdf)
11. Cornell University Law School http://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/strict_scrutiny
12. Moral Conflict and Liberty: Gay Rights and Religion, Brooklyn Law Review, vol 72:1, page 95-96 (38-39 on pdf)
13. The Living Constitution, University of Chicago Law School http://www.law.uchicago.edu/alumni/magazine/fall10/strauss
14. The Declaration of Independence http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/declaration_transcript.html
15. The Living Constitution, University of Chicago Law School, 5th para http://www.law.uchicago.edu/alumni/magazine/fall10/strauss
16. Moral Conflict and Liberty: Gay Rights and Religion, Brooklyn Law Review, vol 72:1, page 115-121 (Page 57-63 on pdf) http://scholarship.law.georgetown.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1080&context=facpub
17. North Texas Women Subjected to Roadside Cavity Search Speak Out After Troopers Indicted, CBS| DFW http://dfw.cbslocal.com/2013/03/26/north-texas-women-subjected-to-roadside-cavity-search-speak-out-after-troopers-indicted/
18. Prosecutors Weigh Appeal of 30-day Rape Sentence in Montana, Cable News Network (CNN), http://www.cnn.com/2013/08/28/justice/montana-teacher-rape-sentence/index.html
19. A Christian Manifesto, Francis Schaeffer, Crossway Books, 1982 Schaeffer used this term throughout his book to refer to the consequences of abandoning the world-view of Reformation Christianity. His opinion was that naturalistic and humanistic world-views left no adequate basis for morals and law.

   

Verizon’s bid to kill network neutrality law goes to court Monday | Ars Technica

Without Internet Neutrality in some form, ISP's could censor information that travels across their networks for any economic or political whim. Consider the following quote from Ars Technica.

The FCC counters Verizon's Constitutional arguments by noting in its brief that "Internet access providers do not engage in speech; they transport the speech of others, as a messenger delivers documents containing speech. Unlike cable systems, newspapers, and other curated media, broadband providers do not exercise editorial discretion. Verizon has defended itself from lawsuits on that very ground. If the First Amendment applies at all, the Open Internet Rules are narrowly tailored to serve important government interests. The rules result in no taking without just compensation because, among other things, broadband access providers are compensated for the use of their networks."

The FCC also said it was justified in making the rules because of "multiple incidents of broadband providers interfering with their customers’ ability to use Internet services, from file sharing services to Internet-based telephony."

Powerful economic incentives coupled with technological progress and limited competition make it easier for ISPs "to discriminate among edge providers and to block customer access to Internet sites of their choosing," the FCC argued.

Verizon is now suing to do away with Internet Neutrality. They have economic motive in degrading Internet-based product of competitors who users may use their network for the transmission of data. There is also a huge issue concerning individuals' freedom of expression on the Internet. Should Verizon win on this issue, ISP's could block religious and political content that they don't like. For example, they could block access to Websites critical of same-sex marriage or block access to Conservative(or liberal) Web sites. via Verizon’s bid to kill network neutrality law goes to court Monday | Ars Technica.

Syria World War Three Prophecies: Does Isaiah 17:1 Armageddon Vision Foresee US Military Strike? - IBTimes UK

A line in the Old Testament Book of Isaiah has led a number of people to believe US military action in Syria will lead to the end of the world.

Isaiah 17:1 reads: "The burden of Damascus. Behold, Damascus is taken away from being a city, and it shall be a ruinous heap... The fortress also shall cease from Ephraim, and the kingdom from Damascus, and the remnant of Syria: they shall be as the glory of the children of Israel, saith the Lord of hosts."

As President Obama mulls a major air offensive against the Assad regime following the use of chemical weapons, fundamentalists have suggested this prophecy is now coming to pass, with believers interpreting the passage to foretell the Armageddon or the Second Coming of Christ.

via Syria World War Three Prophecies: Does Isaiah 17:1 Armageddon Vision Foresee US Military Strike? - IBTimes UK.

John Locke and a Christian Understanding of Freedom

John Locke is considered by many to be the single most important influence on the American Revolution. He wrote the First Treatise on Government and Second Treatise on Government. I am posting an analysis of Locke's references to God in the Second Treatise to show Locke's view of the relation of God to nature and the topic of the rights of man. It is evident that Locke was not a secularist, a pantheist, a deist, or legal positivist. Locke was a believer in the Natural Law Theory, and held to a distinctively Judeo-Christian and libertarian interpretation of natural law - reflecting specifically the Reformation Christian understanding of freedom,

This analysis can be found here.

Some Thoughts on the Recent US Supreme Court Ruling on So-Called Same Sex Marriage

I have several observations concerning the rulings in particular and so-called same-sex marriage:

First: The idea that it is marriage equality is just slick marketing: There are fundamental differences between males and females that interplay in sexual relationships: Homosexual relationships cannot duplicate these dynamics no matter how much they may want to. This means that same-sex marriage is a colossal fiction.

Second: The fiction of same-sex marriage can only be maintained by denying that there is any divine or natural basis for marriage. Marriage is re-defined as a construct of the state. In United States vs Windsor, pages 16-17, the majority decision asserts that the state defines marriage and has "full authority over marriage." This view, of course, ignores both the fact that for thousands of years of history marriages existed without state sanction and that much of that history it was religious institutions that provided the sanction for marriage.

Third: While I believe that a case can be made that the government has a vested interest in promoting traditional marriage, it is better to show that marriage is defined by God and embedded into the nature of the natural order. Marriage is God's domain, not the state.

Fourth: Because same-sex marriage promotes the idea that marriage is a state construct, that it is a statist monstrosity. If the state defines marriage and "definition of marriage is the foundation of the State’s broader authority to regulate the subject of domestic relations with respect to the'[p]rotection of offspring, property interests, and the enforcement of marital responsibilities' (United States vs Windsor, pages 16-17)," then the door is opened for the state to undermine parental rights and even displace the parents as the parental authority.

Fifth: the Supreme Court used inflammatory language in the decision. It argues DOMA "necesarily demeans" homosexuals (page 29). As such, it affirms the homofascist narrative that says there can be no reasoned disagreement with same-sex marriage. You either affirm it or you are a hater. Scalia, who was in the chambers when this case was debated, argued in his dissent that the majority decision decribed opponents of same-sex marriage as "enemies of human race(page 55)."

If languages demonizing opponents of same-sex marriage and opponents of homo-dascism is promoted by the highest court, then it is only a matter of time before official persecution, discrimination, and restrictions on free speech become government policy. This is already the case in Canada, Australia, and Europe; and the United Nation supports criminalization of all criticism of homosexuality.

Time to prepare to some hard and bizarre times ahead. It's going to be a doosey.

Crushing Academic Dissent

The perfect scheme to ensure academic uniformity and enthrone propaganda involves a scheme to quash dissent as "uncollegial" and replace them with people who are sexually and racially diverse but who march lockstep with the official party line, creating the illusion of "diversity."

How to Purge Faculties of Real DiversityThe "fourth criterion" for tenure should be "collegiality", according to a current stream of university thinking. (The first three are said to be "research, teaching and service.")

We are supposed to want "productive dissent," and the key word that must be interpreted, of course, is "productive." Who decides? A scientific critic of Darwin's theory in the biology department is, by definition, an unproductive dissenter. An advocate of free market economics in most universities does not add the stimulus of intellectual diversity, you see, but instead threatens "unproductive" dissent

Read the rest of the article here

Will the Government Exploit the Boston Bombings?

The recent Boston bombing weighs heavily in the minds of many people right now. Currently, investigators have detained a Saudi national as a person of interest, raising the specter that this is another instance of Islamist terrorism.   There is emerging pattern in recent years: the government lies in wait for opportunities to exploit tragedies in their gambit to either increase their own power or marginalize political enemies.   When the Oklahoma City Bombing occurred in 1995, it provided an opportunity for Hillary Clinton to promote her vast right wing conspiracy theory. An all out witch-hunt was done on conservatives to attempt to tie the entire Conservative movement to terrorism.   In September 2001, terrorists brought down the World Trade Center. The government response was the Patriot Act, which would have done nothing to stop 911 but has successfully gutted the fourth amendment.   Earlier this year a tragic shooting in Newtown, CT occurred. The result is an all out blitz to increase gun control.   Should this turn out to be Islamist terrorism, this will provide the government an opportunity to wage war against religious freedom. A new narrative has been emerging on Islamist terrorism over the past five years: terrorism is the result of religious extremism. Religious extremism is defined as exclusivism. What this means is that if you believe your religion is truer than others, you are an extremist.  

Globalists like Obama, the UN alliance of Civilizations, the Doha Debates and Karen Armstrong want the government to control all religion. Armstrong, in particular wants to set up an organization that will serve as an arbiter of religious belief.

The Real Reason Corporations Support "Same-sex Marriage"

Corporations are uniting to support so-called same-sex marriage. As of this writing, there are two cases being hears by the Supreme Court. One case involves a dispute concerning whether the Defense of Marriage of Act (DOMA) is constitutional and the other is challenging California’s Propositional 8.

Over 200 major companies have filed Amicus Curiae (friend of the court) briefs. The corporate world, it seems, is speaking as one. They claim that legalizing “same-sex marriage” is good for business that it allows for greater market efficiency. This claim is rather dubious. Proposition 8 was passed by majority vote of the citizens of California. Corporate support for “same-sex marriage” risks alienating a large segment of the market. This could in losing business to suppliers who are not as hostile to traditional marriage.

Another reason to doubt that corporate support is just about business is that the libertarian view on marriage would actually be better for business. Libertarians argue that the government should stay out of marriage and that marriage be treated like a private contract. People would enter into the marriage contracts of their choosing and others would be free to recognize or refuse recognition. The libertarian view would allow homosexuals the freedom they claim they want without destroying the freedom of others. Corporations would then pursue whatever policies would be suitable for their companies, most of which would have gay-friendly policies based on their public support for “same-sex marriage.” People like me who object to the “gay lifestyle” would be free to refuse recognition of “same-sex marriages.”

The real reason that corporations are pursuing support for “same-sex marriage” is the same reason that the homosexual community supports it: the use of state power and government guns to forcibly change the cultural norms. The homosexual community wants to use the police power of the state to enforce the perception that homosexual activity is moral. Corporations also want to use the police power of the state to forcibly change social norms. Corporations see the issue of “same-sex marriage” as an opportunity to gain allies from groups that would normally oppose them. Many Leftists would normally oppose displays of corporate power are now supporting such power grab because they see it beneficial to one of their favorite causes.

It goes without saying that the sudden convergence of so many companies supporting “same-sex marriage” smells of collusion. The root of big business is banking. In Mystery Babylon Rising, I write about how modern banking was rooted in the occult mysteries of Mystery Babylon. Both the Medicis and the Fuggers were deep into the occult. Freudo-Marxism, out of which comes the militant homosexual political activism, is also ultimately rooted in the occult. These two streams are converging together.

Charisma: Christians Dominate American Idol This Season.

"Season 12 of American Idol has its share of Christian contestants: Eight of the top 10 are Christians.Contestants Candice Glover, Lazaro Arbos, Janelle Arthur, Curtis Finch Jr., Amber Holcolm, Angie Miller, Devin Velez, and Burnell Taylor are all in it to win it.   "They're also not ashamed to share their faith with the world while they're at it. Angie Miller, who many expect to be crowned winner this year, often tweets about her faith."  

Read the rest of the story here.

The Coming Internet Lockdown

The wild, wild world of the Internet is becoming less free. Current trends are underway to lock down the various layers of the Information Architecture known as the Internet. This paper will explore a possible paradigm for centralized control of information.   There are a number of possibilities for locking down the Internet. There are a number of proprietary methods, but I believe these will have limited impact. Proprietary standards would result in splitting the internet into competing fiefdoms. End users would pick the walled garden that they liked best; centralized control would be hindered.   This paper will show how the Internet can be locked down using open standards. There are four layers to this approach: Hardware, platforms, networks, and government regulation. The analysis will include methods currently used and extrapolate where these methods may lead.   Read the rest of this article here.  

American Citizens now subject to Droning according to Holder

Attorney General Eric Holder can imagine a scenario in which it would be constitutional to carry out a drone strike against an American on American soil, he wrote in a letter to Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky.   “It is possible, I suppose, to imagine an extraordinary circumstance in which it would be necessary and appropriate under the Constitution and applicable laws of the United States for the President to authorize the military to use lethal force within the territory of the United States,” Holder replied in a letter yesterday to Paul’s question about whether Obama “has the power to authorize lethal force, such as a drone strike, against a U.S. citizen on U.S. soil, and without trial.”   Paul condemned the idea. “The U.S. Attorney General’s refusal to rule out the possibility of drone strikes on American citizens and on American soil is more than frightening – it is an affront the Constitutional due process rights of all Americans,” he said in a statement.    

Read the rest of the article here.