Month: June 2007

Huckabee on immigration bill

Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee had this to say about the recent immigration bill that Congress failed to pass this week:

“I was pleased to see Congress recognize the will of the American people against this amnesty bill. Illegal immigration is a serious problem. Unfortunately, now we’re hearing the excuse that politics will make immigration a dead issue until after the ’08 election. Instead of shirking their responsibility, I urge the Administration and Congress to roll up their sleeves and spend the next year-and-a-half productively doing what the American people expect them to do – seal the border. It’s not a political issue – it’s a national security issue. If our government could just show competence on this threshold issue, the American people would feel more confident about moving forward on a national immigration policy.”

Surge in Iraq brings more U.S. casulties

Hmmm… more soldiers = more casualties?
That wasn’t supposed to happen was it?
Commanders point to some early successes. They’ve captured or killed dozens of insurgent leaders and more.
Commanders are pointing to moderate successes.” 50% of Baghdad is now in the control of U.S. or Iraqi forces.
330 soldiers however have been killed since April.
NPR has the story.

Thomas meets Rob Bell


Thomas was able to meet Rob Bell this weekend during Bell’s Peacemaker tour of the UK.

Rob Bell was amazing. To get up in front of 500 people and speak for 90mins… and keep there attention… without digging out powerpoint or even some music… tremendous!
Audience participation was welcomed when Rob talked on non-violence – he focussed on the action Jesus spoke of in the beatitudes (Matthew). He spoke of the subversive, counter-revolutionary ideas Jesus had to help the downtrodden and humiliated.

It’s interesting that Bell spoke on non-violence and the B-attitudes. After reading about Gandhi’s fascination with the Sermon on the Mount we started talking about the B-attitudes in Matthew 5 and I think we’ll continue looking at the Sermon on the Mount during our Wednesday morning What-a-Breakfast at What-a-Burger in Red Oak.
We had some great discussion this last week just on the B-attitudes.
According to Thomas, Bell spoke of a two ways we tend to respond to violence – either retaliation or as a total pacifist.
But Jesus spoke of a third response:

The Third Way has two guiding principles that are founded in tremendous courage and creativity:
1) Do not cooperate with anything humiliating
2) Hold out any possibility that the aggressor may wish to change his/her mind.

Bottled water – a symbol of U.S. commerce


Charles Fishman of Fast Company magazine talked about his article “Message in a Bottle” with Robert Siegel on All Things Considered Yesterday.
Fishman writes that when an industry that supplies something people don’t need — an industry “built on the packaging and the presentation” — grows and thrives like the bottled-water industry, it’s important to ask how that happened and what the impact is.
Funny how as Americans we pay for something we can get for free while millions around the world don’t have access to clean, safe drinking water.
And I’m not pointing fingers – we have a case of bottled water in the fridge – as well as a Brita filtering pitcher.
Oh and here’s a great fact: 24% of the bottle water market is simply tap water repackaged by Coke and Pepsi. Dasani and Aquafina are the #1 and #2 brands of water and it’s simply re-purified tap water.

(picture above & below – a water drinking well outside Jos, Nigeria – notice the used paint bucket. it’s used to pull water from the well and to drink out of)

Does Wikipedia entry offer insight into Benoit tragedy

CNet has the scoop…

An anonymous edit to Wikipedia could provide a clue about the deaths of former professional wrestler Chris Benoit, his wife and 7-year-old son. Or it could simply be random Wikipedia pranksterism by a University of Connecticut undergraduate.
The changes were made to the Wikipedia article on Benoit, a former internationally recognized athlete who participated in World Wrestling Entertainment, hours before police discovered the bodies in the family’s suburban Atlanta home.
At 12:01 a.m. ET on Monday, the entry was changed to say he missed a championship match because of personal issues “stemming from the death of his wife Nancy.”

Quite interesting. Someone’s gonna get subpoenaed.