Nonetheless, I was promised flying cars...

The future as seen from 1981, when "2 or 3 thousand Bay Area residents" had home computers.



[Via Mark Shea.]

Great Moments in Christian Love

A "Truly Reformed" guy is upset that various Calvinist publications dare to think that Anne Rice's turn away from atheism isn't a bad thing:

Puzzlingly, Anne Rice continues to get a "pass" from Christian/oid writers. I remarked on this phenomenon once here, at its most baffling (WORLD magazine). Now up it comes again here, in a conversion story that, strikingly, features no conversion. Not to Christ, anyway, though it's titled "An atheist returns to Christ." It's really "An atheist returns to Romanism," with its ritualism and false gospel of works. The article is an interesting-enough read, but a sad one. Here's the puzzling punchline: "[Rice] describes sensing with her entire being that she was surrounded by God's love. The next day she went to Mass for the first time in 38 years. Her re-commitment to Christianity began with that miracle shortly before Christmas of 1998, but was not completed until 2002." No, I didn't delete anything. Going to the blasphemous re-sacrifice of Christ = "re-commitment to Christianity." There is nothing in that about the Biblical Christ who saves. But we read that God talks to Rice, tells her to write more books. Not very good books, though, judging by the one I read (to be reviewed later). Towards the end of the article, we read that "to be a Christian is ...to act differently." Well. There y'go. It's all about works after all!

He links to an earlier post, wherein he reported the reason he was allowing his World subscription to end:

Then there was the interview with "convert" Ann Rice, best known for her Interview with a Vampire series, her baldly immoral storytelling.

The article was titled Into the Light, and subtitled "Novelist Anne Rice leaves the vampire Lestat and embraces Christ, 'the ultimate supernatural hero'." You may know the story; Rice became a Roman Catholic. That's right, a Roman Catholic.

Note very carefully: the title and subtitle express a spiritual evaluation of Rice's spiritual condition.

Now, I don't doubt that there are Roman Catholics who do not understand and do not believe the RCC's damning dogmas, and are genuine, if mistaught, Christians. WORLD is ostensibly coming from a Reformed perspective, and its writers and reporters presumably know this also. So naturally, with their readership in mind, the interviewer is going to ask Rice about her conversion, right? What is Rice's understanding of the Gospel, what does it mean to her to be saved, to be a Christian? What drew her to Rome? Just the natural, basic questions every Christian will wonder, all perfectly capable of being asked in a friendly, respectful way.

No. Not at all. Not even close.

Follow-up: in WORLD 's blog's post on this article, I object in posts 3 and 6. In #10 the reporter herself, Lynne Vincent, gives the most clueless sideways response (around me, not to me) that I can imagine, sniffing that it is a "turn off" to examine a testimony when you're reporting on a testimony.

Read that again. Then say it with me: "Huh?" You make sense of that.

But again I note: WORLD had no trouble concluding in its title that Rice had indeed gone "into the light," and had indeed embraced the Lord Jesus Christ. It is just that readers are denied information that would help us understand the basis for that evaluation. Every Roman Catholic -- in fact, let's broaden that and say every "Christian" cultist -- will claim to have embraced Jesus Christ. Mormons, Oneness Pentecostals, Christian Scientists, Jehovah's Witnesses. We can only understand what folks mean by asking questions. It isn't rude, it isn't loveless -- in fact, it is respectful. It is saying, "I respect you enough not to assume that I know what you mean without asking."

But it's a "turn off." To a reporter. One can only sigh and shake one's head.

Putting aside this homage to the 17th Century, the Anne Rice story ought to be significant to all believers.

For example, it is instructive that Rice wrote her vampire stories during a time when she was a committed athiest. With a true atheist mindset, she posited people with superhuman existence - immortality, power, the ability to define their own morals - and what she came up with was a picture of nihilistic, frustrated, bored, empty people ineffectually looking for redemption from their near-godlike existence. She writes on her blog:

Interview with the Vampire, the novel that brought me to public attention, is about the near despair of an alienated being who searches the world for some hope that his existence can have meaning. His vampire nature is clearly a metaphor for human consciousness or moral awareness. The major theme of the novel is the misery of this character because he cannot find redemption and does not have the strength to end the evil of which he knows himself to be a part. This book reflects for me a protest against the post World War II nihilism to which I was exposed in college from 1960 through 1972. It is an expression of grief for a lost religious heritage that seemed at that time beyond recovery.

And:

The existence of my Goth audience continues to create misunderstanding. Yet I remain convinced that many of the young “Goth” readers who write to me are hungering for transcendence. They gravitate to these books because they find their environment sterile, secular, and materialistic and to a large extent unsatisfying. They “identify” with my heroes as my heroes search for beauty and for truth. These young readers have deluged me with poems and paintings in past years. They, as well as other readers, express openness to the painting, music, history and philosophy discussed in my books. These readers are looking for something enduring and something meaningful, and I cherish their response to these books.

And:

For me, the entire body of my earlier work, reflects a movement towards Jesus Christ. In 2002, I consecrated my work to Jesus Christ. This did not involve a denunciation of works that reflected the journey. It was rather a statement that from then on I would write directly for Jesus Christ. I would write works about salvation, as opposed to alienation; I would write books about reconciliation in Christ, rather than books about the struggle for answers in a post World War II seemingly atheistic world.

It is interesting that some of the best books about the shallow trap of atheism are written by atheism. For example, when I read Ian McEwan's "Atonement," it was clear to me that the author was an atheist and that he had accurately described the experience of an atheist who needs forgiveness and redemption and has no way to get the redemption and forgiveness he desperately needs. "Atonement" is in its way a persuasive description of the trap that atheism puts its true adherents - at least those who are not unconsciously positing a way out of their materialims - into self-deception.

So, Rice ought to be recognized as a person on a quest - as are all people in her who find themselves in her situation. She, at least, recognized the problems inherent in materialism and nihilism and moved forward and out of it; we can pray and hope that her legions of Gothic fans can realize that the 'vampire' lifestyle is the problem and not the solution.

Another Liberal Scare-Myth Debunked

"SO, WAIT, ALL THAT TALK ABOUT THE “VANISHING RAIN FORESTS” WAS CRAP?"

So, let me see if I understand this, plants grow???

Yet another liberal crisis joins the tank with "Famine 1975," scarce world resources, the "population crisis" and global warming.

The Passive Generation

Check out this story about an 83 year old WWII vet taking on a bank robber while nine other younger men stood and watched.

The More We Learn

From Steve Sailer concerning what might be Gov. Blago's strategy to save his hide:

Obama and Blagojevich never liked each other much, but they both were close friends of Tony Rezko, so Blago just might have something on Obama from his days in the Illinois Senate.

One of the scandals for which Rezko is currently in jail is for owning via bribery five of the nine members of a Illinois state commission that has veto power over plans to build hospitals in the state, allowing Rezko to push through a giant hospital construction plan. Until Illinois Democrats swept to power in the 2002 elections, with Blago becoming governor and Obama becoming chairman of the state senate Health and Human Services committee, there were 15 members of the commission, so Rezko only owned a minority. But a 2003 bill, Senate Bill 1332, was introduced to cut the number commissioners from 15 to 9 and referred to Obama's committe. The Obama committee recommended it to the floor where it passed. Six anti-Rezko commissioners were then dropped from the commission and Rezko had his illicit majority of five of nine.

Did Obama understand what his old friend, fundraiser, frequent lunch partner, and property co-buyer in 2005, was up to?

Obama's not stupid. He'd known Rezko since 1990. Obama knew all along how the game was played in Illinois. He never wanted to change the rules of the game, just win at it. He chose to move to Chicago, twice, to make Chicago politics his career.

Could Blago take Obama down over this?

That is a slick bit of politics.

Generation Narcissus faces its first grown-up crisis

Victor Davis Hanson offers this insight:

If anyone wished to know what the baby-boomer generation would do when, in its full maturity, it hit its first self-created, big-time recession, I think we are seeing the hysterical results. After two decades of unprecedented economic growth, rampant consumer spending, and unimaginable borrowing to satisfy our insatiable appetites, we are suddenly going into even larger debt and printing trillions of dollars in paper money to ensure that someone else after we are gone pays the debt. As if the permanent solution to a financial panic and years of spending wealth we didn't create were a government take-over of the economy in the manner we currently witness in Spain, Italy, and Greece—or the high-tax, high-spend ethos of a bankrupt California.

The reaction to the economic panic was sort of analogous to the call to 'charge it!' after 9/11 (cf. Ike's fights about the surtax to pay for Korea), or to the Iraq 2006 upsurge in violence, when suddenly our leaders declared the war lost, blamed the nebulous "they" for tricking them into voting for the war, and calling for immediate withdrawals and retreats. Ditto the Stalag-Gulag Guantanamo that, by January 19, had ruined the Constitution, shredded the Bill of Rights, and forever tarnished our reputation. Yet, on the 20th, it was suddenly complex and problematic, and required a "task force" to do a year-long inquiry into the bad and worse choices confronting us. At some point in all this serial hysteria, we are beginning to see the problem is not in the stars of the economy or of the war, but in ourselves—a weird generation that, when it finally came of age, proved to be just about what we could expect of it from what we saw in its youth.

Character is destiny.

Tipping her hand

This merits a "did I actually say that out loud?" moment by Nancy Pelosi:



Let's be honest - for a change - abortion policy is more about reducing government cost by eliminating as many children of the poor and needy as possible than it is about "choice." That's why moms get a choice to kill their babies but dads don't get a choice to sign off of their paternal obligations. It is of more than accidental significance that while one policy is "pro-choice" and the other is "anti-choice," both policies result in fewer babies that need to be supported by governmental policies.

Similarly, I've heard people express support for abortion on the grounds that it reduces the criminal and dependent population. File that idea under the heading of "too many of you, just enough of me."

So, what Pelosi said is clearly the subtext of abortion policy, but if any Republican had said it, it would immediately generate charges of racism.

Economic Good News

The Consumer Price Index has been falling for five months.

Or it could be that a depression in prices means a depression in the economy.

There is also this observation that the valuation of things is now more based on economic realities than pie in the sky expectations. That might be a good thing, but as Mark Steyn warns:

Trying to reverse an old-time "credit crunch" is one thing. But trying to restore systems in which an insanely inflated gain on assets is a permanent feature of life is a fool's errand - I'm thinking not just of the global finance markets but also of more localized phenomena, such as the English property racket.

"TARP" fails a basic truth-in-advertising test. It's not a "Troubled Asset Relief Program". It's a relief program for failed financial instruments that's wound up troubling the assets even futher. By common consent, the first $350 billion of TARP was completely wasted. Secretary Paulson might as well have ordered the Treasury to hurl it out the windows in dollar bills and watch it flutter down into the Potomac and out to sea. At least then, the odd rummy sleeping in the park might have caught a buck or two to buy some industrial alcohol.

Congress, meanwhile, is behaving disgracefully, magically transforming pork into "stimulus" by sticking another three zeroes on the end. Severe asset deflation is just about manageable. Severe asset deflation plus government-mandated prevention of market correction plus out-of-control spending and the eventual return of inflation is a recipe for catastrophe.

If you liked "Chairman Mao's Little Red Book", you will love "President Barry's Little Blue Book".



More self-indulgence by the Liberal Fascist left from the History Company's publication of a colection of Obama quotes. The product description - with its tacit assumption that people in the New York publishing industry think everyone thinks this way because everyone they know thinks this way - is over the top:

Printed in a size that easily fits into pocket or purse, this book is an anthology of quotations borrowed from Barack Obama's speeches and writings. POCKET OBAMA serves as a reminder of the amazing power of oratory and the remarkable ability of this man to move people with his words. His superb and captivating oratory style has earned comparisons to John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, and this historic collection presents words that catapulted his remarkable rise to the American Presidency. It is an unofficial requirement for every citizen to own, to read, and to carry this book at all times.

*Sheesh*

The highest form of patriotism is no longer dissent; it's now conformity and abiding by the "unofficial requirement of every citizen" to think alike.

40 years of rule by the philosopher kings of the courts have definitely sapped the democratic core of the left.

Parody Update: Steven Sailer sees this as an obvious parody.

"Occam's Butterknife"

This is an interesting but dangerous deconstruction of a popular liberal racialist urban myth about stereotyping and attitudes. As Steven Sailer points out, this might be useful to keep in mind as we hear more "magic thinking" about Obama's miraculous essence.

Asymptopic money supply

Check out this chart of money supply:



How is this not a recipe for inflation, the likes of which we've never seen?

Disturbing

Obama is already running against the media - the small part of the media that isn't part of liberal hegemony. He's also sounding like a guy who believes that "bipartisan" means "do things my way":

"You can't just listen to Rush Limbaugh and get things done," he told top GOP leaders, whom he had invited to the White House to discuss his nearly $1 trillion stimulus package.

One White House official confirmed the comment but said he was simply trying to make a larger point about bipartisan efforts.

"There are big things that unify Republicans and Democrats," the official said. "We shouldn't let partisan politics derail what are very important things that need to get done."

That wasn't Obama's only jab at Republicans today.

In an exchange with Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.) about the proposal, the president shot back: "I won," according to aides briefed on the meeting.

"I will trump you on that."

Limbaugh responds:

There are two things going on here. One prong of the Great Unifier's plan is to isolate elected Republicans from their voters and supporters by making the argument about me and not about his plan. He is hoping that these Republicans will also publicly denounce me and thus marginalize me. And who knows? Are ideological and philosophical ties enough to keep the GOP loyal to their voters? Meanwhile, the effort to foist all blame for this mess on the private sector continues unabated when most of the blame for this current debacle can be laid at the feet of the Congress and a couple of former presidents. And there is a strategic reason for this.

Secondly, here is a combo quote from the meeting:

"If we don't get this done we (the Democrats) could lose seats and I could lose re-election. But we can't let people like Rush Limbaugh stall this. That's how things don't get done in this town."

To make the argument about me instead of his plan makes sense from his perspective. Obama's plan would buy votes for the Democrat Party, in the same way FDR's New Deal established majority power for 50 years of Democrat rule, and it would also simultaneously seriously damage any hope of future tax cuts. It would allow a majority of American voters to guarantee no taxes for themselves going forward. It would burden the private sector and put the public sector in permanent and firm control of the economy. Put simply, I believe his stimulus is aimed at re-establishing "eternal" power for the Democrat Party rather than stimulating the economy because anyone with a brain knows this is NOT how you stimulate the economy. If I can be made to serve as a distraction, then there is that much less time debating the merits of this TRILLION dollar debacle.

Obama was angry that Merrill Lynch used $1.2 million of TARP money to remodel an executive suite. Excuse me, but didn't Merrill have to hire a decorator and contractor? Didn't they have to buy the new furnishings? What's the difference in that and Merrill loaning that money to a decorator, contractor and goods supplier to remodel Warren Buffet's office? Either way, stimulus in the private sector occurs. Are we really at the point where the bad PR of Merrill getting a redecorated office in the process is reason to smear them? How much money will the Obamas spend redecorating the White House residence? Whose money will be spent? I have no problem with the Obamas redoing the place. It is tradition. 600 private jets flown by rich Democrats flew into the Inauguration. That's fine but the auto execs using theirs is a crime? In both instances, the people on those jets arrived in Washington wanting something from Washington, not just good will.

If I can be made to serve as a distraction, then there is that much less time debating the merits of the trillion dollar debacle.

One more thing, Byron. Your publication and website have documented Obama's ties to the teachings of Saul Alinksy while he was community organizing in Chicago. Here is Rule 13 of Alinksy's Rules for Radicals:

"Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it."

A bunch of celebrities making News Years Resolutions sound like Groupthink in Oceania

Particularly the bit at the end about being "a servant to my president and all mankind"....yikes, "servant"..."to my president."

Democracy on the skids when these idiots don't realize who is supposed to be the servant to whom.

Here it is.

MySpace Celebrity and Katalyst present The Presidential Pledge


Did you catch the bit about some Hollywood starlet pledging to advance "stem cell research"? Because you just know that with brainpower and microbiology degree, she's going to find that cure for cancer this year by chopping up tiny human beings.

Great.

"For how many years must the planet cool before we begin to understand that the planet is not warming?"

Perhaps it's cooling in a spiritual sense?

From this op-ed:

If you're wondering why North America is starting to resemble nuclear winter, then you missed the news.

At December's U.N. Global Warming conference in Poznan, Poland, 650 of the world's top climatologists stood up and said man-made global warming is a media generated myth without basis. Said climatologist Dr. David Gee, Chairman of the International Geological Congress, "For how many years must the planet cool before we begin to understand that the planet is not warming?"

I asked myself, why would such obviously smart guy say such a ridiculous thing? But it turns out he's right.


The earth's temperature peaked in 1998. It's been falling ever since; it dropped dramatically in 2007 and got worse in 2008, when temperatures touched 1980 levels.

Meanwhile, the University of Illinois' Arctic Climate Research Center released conclusive satellite photos showing that Arctic ice is back to 1979 levels. What's more, measurements of Antarctic ice now show that its accumulation is up 5 percent since 1980.

On this day of all days, let's not let facts and data get in the way of hope and change.

Get a few scholars to say so and being an adulterous homosexual bishop is practically required for salvation

Bp. Schori explains it for you:

Is International Trade Collapsing?

Shipping prices from Asia to Europe have fallen to zero or below costs because European demand for Asian goods have collapsed.

Not good.

Obama Language Watch

Obama on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial mentioned the "enormity of the challenges facing us."

Alrighty then, "enormity" means "The quality of passing all moral bounds; excessive wickedness or outrageousness." He probably meant "enormousness" or "size."

People make language mistakes, but given the merciless focus on Bush's syntaxical problems, let's keep that in mind for the next time we hear about some Republican mangling the language.

Update: On the other hand, there is this from this Telegraph op-ed on the imminent collapse of the British economy:

Yesterday marked a new low for all involved, even by the standards of this crisis. Britons woke to news of the enormity of the fresh horrors in store. Despite all the sophistry and outdated boom-era terminology from experts, I think a far greater number of people than is imagined grasp at root what is happening here.

This usage may be proper under all meanings of the word, inasmuch as "horrors" can be "morally wicked", albeit it seems strange to be ascribing a moral status to economic events in anything but the most extended metaphorical sense. It's like describing the enormity of a really big hurricane.

I still think that is a non-preferred use of the word, which is normally used to suggest corruption or evil. The better word for a "really big thing that is not subject to moral blame" is "size" or "enormousness" but I suspect that people who use "enormity" aren't aware of its overtone of judgment and think that using words like "size" or, in particular, "enormousness" is unsophisticated.

I'm not alone update: Apparently, a discussion is going on at the Corner about how Obama should learn the meaning of the word "enormity":

I was talking to my friend and NR colleague Kevin Williamson yesterday, and he said, “You know, I wish the president-elect would learn the meaning of the word ‘enormity.’” He keeps saying things like, “I recognize the enormity of what I’m about to undertake.” Kevin quipped, “We may consider the upcoming administration an enormity, but . . .”

It sounds like Obama is using "enormity" because of faux-sophistication.

Of course, if Bush had done something like that, we would never have heard the end of it.

There are dots, but if you connect them you are "un-American."

Inside Catholic points to Tom Hanks' recent comment that those who voted for Prop 8 are "Un-American" and that Tom Hanks is the producer for the "Big Love", which subverts traditional companionate heterosexual marriage by depicting polygamy as normal.

Ah, but we are not supposed to think that there might be a connection between legalizing gay "marriage" and polygamy because those two things are in no way similar.

Except (a) that both subvert traditional marriage and (b) the leftist cultural elite presents - and thereby endorses - both as viable options to traditional marriage.

At what point do we get to say the obvious, "they're not for 'gay mariage'; they are against traditional marriage."

Liberal Fascism

Rod Dreher has a post on a map someone ran up that "mashes" the Prop 8 donor list with Google. I've spent a few minutes seeing who in Fresno donated to protect marriage in Fresno, and I spotted a basketball coach and the HR manager of the local Whole Foods.

I'd be worried if I was either of those two guys, but, pretty clearly, the Whole Foods HR guy has the courage of his convictions.

Dreher writes:

Here is a Google map that allows you to find your way to the homes of people who donated money to Prop 8 in California. It's damn creepy, is what it is. What could possibly be the use of this kind of information, presented in this way? It's intended to intimidate people into not participating in politics by donating money. Do that, and you'll end up on some activist group's map, with hotheads being able to find your street address on their iPhones.

If I were any of these people, I'd be scared right now -- especially if I lived in San Francisco. And given the attacks made on Prop 8 supporters, I doubt very much I would ever give another dime to any campaign that would get me on some gay activist hate map.

The thing is, I don't believe that donors to political campaigns should be anonymous. It's just never occurred to me that people would take that information and use it in such a way as to pose a public threat to private people.

Ditto, particularly that last point.

It was not all that long ago that the Ninth Circuit upheld a RICO damage award against the "Nuremberg File", which used to list abortion providers as "wanted" posters, and cross out the names of any who had been killed or died. The Court upheld the award on the basis that the format constituted a "true threat" - the website actually threatened the abortion providers - although the site actually contained no explicit threat.

How is that different from this?

Apart from the politics, that is.

The power to tax is the power to destroy

A few months after Prop 8 passes, San Francisco invokes a novel theory to tax Catholic property.

Modern Art

What is this?



Answer: Illinois 4th District represented by Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D.

Check out the other impressionistic tributes to keeping America safe from democracy.

Another blow to the Fresno economy

Gottschalk's has filed bankruptcy.

Sounds like a whole bunch of expensive office space in Riverpark is about to open up.

Great moments in child-rearing

I've seen this kind of exploitation of children for begging all over Fresno for the last several months. There are several "mothers" with their small children at begging for money at certain set locations around town. Apparently, though,being a publicly intoxicated father is what it takes to get police involvement.

I like the part in the story about the police claiming that they haven't seen the exploitation of children for begging before this. Apparently, thousands of civilians driving past Blackstone and Palm or First and Milbrook have better powers of detection than our police force.

I also take it that the civil libertarians have weakened whatever legal control mechanisms there are to prevent this kind of Nineteenth Century exploitation of children, inasmuch as apparently it takes "public intoxication" to take action against this obviously incompetent parent, but then they give the children to their exploiting "Fagan" of a mother.

Terrific.

Grant him a holy death

Father Neuhaus has received last rites.

Big Hollywood

Andrew Breitbart launches "Big Hollywood", which he describes as:

...a big group blog that will feature hundreds of the big minds from the fields of politics, journalism, entertainment and culture.

Big Hollywood is not a “celebrity” gabfest or a gossip outpost - it is a continuous politics and culture posting board for those who think something has gone drastically wrong and that Hollywood should return to its patriotic roots.

Big Hollywood’s modest objective: to change the entertainment industry. To make Hollywood something we can believe in - again. In order to give millions of Americans hope.

Until conservatives, libertarians and Republicans - who will be the lion’s share of Big Hollywood’s contributors - recognize that (pop) culture is the big prize and that politics is secondary, there will be no victory in this important battle.

Should be worth bookmarking

How to Watch a Video

I've recently read Mortimer Adler's "How to Read a Book" and I give it "two thumbs up." It is the kind of book that high school students should be required to read before they start their studies so that they can get the most out of their education. It's also very insightful for those of us who are veteran readers in our own right but want to sharpen our game or find out why we do what we do. What it also is, not surprisingly given Adler's Aristotelian background, is a brilliant discusion of the "virtues" that make up excellence as a student and a reader, or any other worthwhile habit.

Here is the original video of Charles Van Doren and Mortimer Adler discussing their book.

The Death of Mainstream Protestantism

The California Supreme Court has essentially - as acknowledged in Justice Kennard's concurrence - returned to hierarchical principles for the determination of church property disputes. This means that California provides a major piece of persuasive authority for those declining Protestant denominations that have "departed from doctrine" and which are consequently seeing membership depart them.

In reaching its decision, the Court returned to the law of California that existed in the Nineteenth Century, but without the "departure from doctrine" provision that kept denominations honest to their founding principles.

This is now the second recent decision that incorporates a result oriented outcome in favor of the gay agenda to radically reshape the law.

Making the world new

I've been waiting for the other shoe to drop on the Raving Atheist's announcement of his conversion to Christianity. Hope is a transcendent Christian virtue, but not being taken in by a stupid prank - like that perpetrated by this dillweed - is a pragmatically human desire.

But the conversion is real.

A few observations.

Raving inhabited a lonely corner of atheistdom because he was pro-life. I remember one post he put up a few years ago where he argued that being an atheist did not require that one accept the propositions that human beings were not human being before their birth and how he was pilloried by the atheist community for being a turn-coat and such.

Logically, it would seem that there is no necessary connection between a belief in God and a belief in the transcendent value of human life, but but as former Edward's campaign staffer, anti-catholic bigot and feminist-atheist Amanda Marcotte writes:

I’m almost a little worried about engaging on this topic, though I’m grateful to Auguste for pointing out that the Raving Atheist finally completed his conversion 2 and a half years after I said that he would have to or the cognitive dissonance would break him down.

Then, there is this charming post by P.Z. Myers:

Another mind poisoned
Category: Godlessness
Posted on: December 23, 2008 1:24 PM, by PZ Myers

Once upon a time, one of the more popular atheist sites on the web was The Raving Atheist. Then the blogger became the raving anti-abortionist, and most of his readership left — they even set up an independent forum where they could continue their discussions without the weirdo in charge of the blog butting in ...

It's almost as if a job description for being an atheist is the ability to hold the opinion that you are uniquely qualified to decide who qualifies as human and who should live and die.

God complex much?

Myers also writes:

There's an interesting analysis of the process of deconversion to be made here. I suspect he's been getting a lot of personal support and attention from Christians actively interested in converting him over the years, and it's that emotional massaging that convinced him to throw his brain out the window.

Deconversion? Well, that's giving away the show. After all, normally we are told that atheism is the absence of a belief, not a belief itself. So, the movement to atheism is not supposed to be a conversion, i.e., an act of faith, but one of reason. This would of course mean that there should be no "deconversion" when one moves from atheist to Christianity.

But there it is, "deconversion", which makes atheism a "faith", which it is.

Naturally, many of the comments by atheist show a vituperative emotionalism best seen in people who feel that someone has betrayed them as a, well, group defined by transcendent faith, rather than as a group defined by an absence of one particular belief.

The irony of this appears to be lost on these atheists.

If only teachers could marry

Clovis girl sues teacher and Clovis Unified School District for sexual harassment.

I don't know about the truth of the allegations, but since the point of this continuing series is to give the same treatment to other professions that is dealt out to claims against Catholic priests, presumably we should assume that the charges are true until they are disproved.