Maybe it's just me, but it seems sort of counter-productive to throw away a billion perfectly good light bulbs in the name of saving energy.

Reviewing The Children of Hurin. (A&LD)

LVMI warns against subsidized health-care:

I am convinced that deregulation of healthcare would only improve the system. Break the healthcare guilds that exist all the way from medical education through licensing, reduce government interventions, and watch the healthcare system improve at Intel speed. Please do not advocate for a government-run healthcare system, or even its predecessor, universal coverage. Think Walter Reed or the Soviets before going that route.

On August 28th:

489 - Theodoric, king of the Ostrogoths defeats Odoacer at the Battle of Isonzo, forcing his way into Italy.
1609 - Henry Hudson discovers Delaware Bay.
1884 - First known photograph of a tornado is made.
1937 - Toyota Motors becomes an independent company.
1974 - Geir Hallgrímsson became Prime Minister of Iceland
2007 - Caedmon's Call releases new album: "Overdressed"

KP of The Christian Mind quotes Luther and N.T. Wright on Death and Resurrection.

Luther's remedy for this [...] temptation is to contemplate death all the more, but to do so at the right time—which is not the time of death. Instead, he exhorts us to "invite death into our presence when it is still at a distance and not on the move"—that is, in our daily lives long before death threatens us. Conversely, Luther counsels Christians to banish thoughts of death at the final hour and to use that time to meditate on life.

MercatorNet interviews a Polish film producer about the spiritual climate of Europe.

Asking yourself about the meaning of life, of the world and of history is what ennobles art. Without these questions, art is just an ephemeral expression of our sensations. I do not believe in art with a capital A which lacks a metaphysical dimension.

Ron Paul interview excerpts. (HT: Instapundit)

VOM, Ethiopia:

• JIMMA - On March 22, two Bible school students were imprisoned on the accusation of attempting to kill an imam. They were released one week later with after paying a fine. A court hearing was scheduled for April 2, 2007.
• BAMBASSE - April 2, the home of evangelist Tolosa Megersa was raided by local Muslims. Six of his cattle and sheep were killed. Five days later, the home of Full Gospel Church leader Lemmu Abdissa, was also raided. All of his property was destroyed, including 4,000 kilograms of grain.

Thank God for the release of the two students. Pray those who have lost property will be encouraged and rest in knowing they have "better and lasting possessions." Hebrews 10: 34-37

The right battle, on the wrong battlefield: Supreme Court upholds Congressional ban on Partial-Birth Abortion.

AU weighs in.

Ron Paul on foreign policy. Yes, I want the book.

It is time for Americans to rethink the interventionist foreign policy that is accepted without question in Washington. It is time to understand the obvious harm that results from our being dragged time and time again into intractable and endless Middle East conflicts, whether in Iraq, Iran, Syria, Lebanon, or Palestine. It is definitely time to ask ourselves whether further American lives and tax dollars should be lost trying to remake the Middle East in our image.

Instapundit on taxpayer-funded vacations for congressmen:

Actually, I'd rather we did this about 51 weeks out of the year. It's bound to work out cheaper in the end. . . .

David St. Lawrence reports on the latest storm in Virginia, and shares a bit of rural wisdom:

Country life is far more comfortable when you can apply a bit of technology in the right places.

Peter passed his driving test today. Nice job, bro.

Instapundit has a roundup on the Virginia Tech shooting. And Pajamas Media (with a roundup of their own) links to some cell-phone footage from a student.

I'm scratching my head regarding why the crackdown didn't occur at 7:15, when the first call came in.

UPDATE: VA Tech not the deadliest school disaster in U.S. history after all.

UPDATE II: PJM keeps rounding it up. More here.

Finally: some clear, if secular, thinking on Iraq.

It's going to be a very consistent flow of sequential problems. What the Bush administration basically did by going into Iraq was - the best rationale is really to lay the big bang on the Middle East and set that part of the world down some pathway of change.

And they certainly accomplished that. And the cynic in me says basically the worse Iraq goes, sort of, the better the big bang goes because it's more realistic that Iraq was going to go badly as opposed to well in terms of our expectations and the breakup of Iraq really forces the fights that need to occur in the Middle East now that Saddam is gone and those fights are all going to be tricky. They're going to be overlapping, and there's not going to be an obvious conclusion to it.

Instead, it's going to be a long-drawn out evolutionary process where our sense of winning or losing really hinders our sense of imagination, and in many ways, it retards the dialogue we need to have in this country about what comes next.

(HT: Northern Gleaner)

The discussion continues: Gene Redlin has another post about war and heroics, and I have another comment.

UPDATE: And Garrett has a comment on my comment.

Here's a classic example of the ultimate undoing of evil and darkness - the "kingdom-divided" problem: sectarianism is eating away the Iraqi Insurgency from within.

The good news is that the bad guys are all busy killing each other.

(PJM)

Homeschooling under fire in Germany. (LVMI)

Evolutionary science is getting more entertaining all the time. Upon finding protein within a dinosaur femur, we have this striking conclusion:

As far as the hypothesis that protein would not survive more than a million years... we have obviously proven that to be false.

Wise fool.


(HT: PJM)

VOM, Pakistan:

Five Christians have been charged with blasphemy under Pakistan's blasphemy laws 295-A and 295-C, in Toba Tek Singh, Pakistan. Daniel, an 11-year-old Christian boy, refused to play with his Muslim friends, resulting in them beating him. When Daniel's family confronted the attackers, the Muslims called the police and made a false report saying they had blasphemed the name of the Holy Prophet. Now Daniel's family-Rashid Masih, Salamat Masih, Sahba Masih Motta, Bao Masih and Sheela Masih-is living under threat of attack by Muslim extremists. The Muslim family told other Muslims at a religious gathering that the Christians had disgraced the Holy Prophet, tore a holy sticker and beat it with a shoe. This has led to tension in the city. Christians in the area fear Muslim extremists will attack the family. There was fear there would be attacks during celebrations leading up to Easter Sunday. If convicted under blasphemy laws 295-A and 295-C, the family faces three years imprisonment, a fine and the death penalty, or life imprisonment and a fine. Pray God protects these believers and provides a way of escape for them.

Ireland's Protestant and Catholic leaders resolve a long-standing political/religious conflict.

In Ireland we are all winners -– because it is over -– and we are all losers because it should never have started in the first place.

What happens when you take a world renowned classical musician and have him play for nickels and dimes in a D.C. Metro station during rush hour?

Sadly, not much. There's video.

This is a wrenching glimpse into our culture's tragic betrayal of beauty. Read with a heavy heart, and mutter a prayer for this brave, brave world.

(HT: evangelical outpost)

Ron is backing away from Theocracy:

The more that I think about it, the clearer it becomes that theocracy is not a good word for describing the Kingdom of God...

Just as there is no fear or force in heaven, there is no room for fear or force in his Kingdom. This means that any word that ends with “ocracy” does not fit with the kingdom of God.

I only question the reference to capital punishment.

Harrison Scott Key of WORLD is agonizing over how to relate the Christian to the State, using the philosophy of Pat Robertson's Regent University as the sulfur for the match.

Are we to be sectarian separatists, compromising realists, or triumphaslistic dominionists?

Whoever can answer that question – in speech form, book form, whatever – will have done a great service to us all. I'm reading (or have read) everything from Russell Kirk to Neuhaus to Schaeffer to Shelby Foote (for crying out loud) trying to figure it out.

I would love to write a book on this. Perhaps. In time.

For now, read this one.