Parableman

Mutual Submission

Tim Challies is on a roll lately, tackling some controversial topics. Now he's got a succinct argument for why Ephesians 5:21 does not and cannot mean that every individual in a congregation submits to each other person in the congregation. This has important consequences for one relatively recent interpretation of the passage that begins with the next verse about wives' submission to husbands and husbands' love for their wives as reflecting the relationship between Christ and the church. One view that's become common maybe in the last twenty years is that the call for wives to submit to their husbands is part of every believer's call to submit to every other believer and thus isn't a specific instruction just for wives. The problem is that this passage requires a non-symmetrical relationship to make sense of the Christ-church analogy. That means something of the wife's submission is not true of the husband's love, and something of his love is not true of her submission.

There are so many other issues that this brings up, but since his post basically says nothing false that I could detect on one reading, and I think that's extremely rare when it comes to such issues, I had to give it a mention.

Conservative Arguments Against a National Sales Tax

Vaccum Energy, a fellow Syracuse-based conservative blogger, gives some reasons completely independent of mine, why a conservative should be horrified at Denny Hastert's proposal to replace income taxes with a national sales tax or VAT. I don't they're all equally good reasons, but together they're sufficient even without the issue I raised, which the flat tax he and I have both admitted to favoring doesn't have problems with.

He's also got a good followup to my Using X for Political Gain post.

Alan Keyes for Senator

Republicans in Illinois have just announced that they've asked Alan Keyes to run for Senate against Barrack "pretend I'm a moderate even though my voting record looks like democratic socialism" Obama. Now I wish I could be voting in Illinois (though I'll take great pleasure in casting my vote against Schumer). I'd vote for Keyes over almost anyone. I already have. I voted for him in the 2000 primary against Bush and McCain, and I really like Bush. I'd love to watch that debate. He'll hold Obama to all his claims about "one America" and taking responsibility. I'm fairly confident that there's never been a Senate race before with a black candidate from each party. It could be a hard race for Keyes to win, but he's faced greater odds before, and it could be great fun to watch.

Update: Wink has pointed out an unfairness to Obama in my description of him ("pretend I'm a moderate even though my voting record looks like democratic socialism"). He's right. It would be more accurate to say Barrack "the democratic socialist with some conservative social hopes". My point was not about him or to complain about how he frames himself. I really like the conservative emphasis in his speech. I just don't want people to conclude that he's conservative or moderate in any way in terms of the policies he supports. My intent was more in response to moderates who see him as a moderate than it was to him. He isn't really a moderate at all. He's a mixture of the standard democratic socialism of someone like Dick Gephardt with the more conservative social emphasis shared by liberals like Bill Cosby and moderates like John McWhorter (and compassionate conservatives like George Bush, for that matter). The difference between Obama and McWhorter is primarily in McWhorter's agreement with some economic or social libertarianism and Obama's insistence on policies that look much more like the democratic socialism of much of Western Europe (and to some extent Canada). That doesn't make him a moderate, in my view. It makes him a political liberal with some conservative moral views (the opposite of most libertarians, who tend to have liberal moral views but support conservative economic and some conservative social policies).

Marriage and Celibacy

Beyond the Rim... has a great explanation of why it's unfair to characterize the biblical position on marriage as saying celibacy is a higher calling, with marriage a fallback option.

There's a discussion of this also, with more focus on the passage from I Corinthians 7 that's often used to justify the view that celibacy is preferred, at Challies.com. I don't agree with either what Tim calls the traditional view or the one is he is presenting (but not necessarily endorsing) as an alternative, but it's an interesting discussion. If you want to know what I think, look in the comments. I do fully agree with everything he says in the followup post on whether Paul is reporting an uninspired opinion when he says "I, not the Lord".

Commentary recommendations

People often ask me what commentaries I would recommend for a particular book of the Bible. Since I have a significant commentary library, read lots of reviews of commentaries, and investigate further purchases through the libraries I have access to and inter-library loan, I have a fair idea of the strengths and weaknesses of different commentaries.

For those who have never used a commentary before, they help your study of the Bible by giving background on language, archeology, theology, poetry, and connections with other scriptures. You can take advantage of someone who has spent hours wrestling with the text to find its meaning, its purpose, its relevance to life, etc. A commentary is incredibly helpful in getting the details of the text while also providing a broader framework. Commentaries vary in quality and usefulness for study of scripture as God's word, and some are too technical for someone without seminary or Bible school training.

First I'll list some good ones at a readable level for those without as much training or experience with in-depth study. Then I have another list of intermediate commentaries for each book, also requiring no formal biblical studies training but with more depth and some treatment of scholarly issues that wouldn't always but might come up in a Bible study discussion. Finally, I have the best scholarly commentaries by book, often with more than one choice due to different commentaries having different strengths or needing to be balanced with another perspective (or sometimes just because either so many are good or none stands out above the others).

Update: I've made a good deal of changes and repositioned this entry as if new. Its current position makes it my post 550th post. For posterity's sake, I originally posted version 1 of this on 14 February, 2004.

More Myth-Refuting

On WMD: Esoteric Diatribe has a good summary of the WMD and WMD components that have been found in Iraq and why those who keep perpetuating the untruth that no WMD have been found aren't thinking very carefully.

On unilateralism: The Key Monk discusses some coalitions assembled by the Bush Administration to deal more effectively with nuclear proliferation and particularly with Iran and North Korea. This is something I've never heard of before, which confirms The Monk's claim that the press won't give any publicity and also partly explains why so many people think Bush has acted unilaterally (though that also ignores how many allies, particularly how many allies not traditionally given a voice, have supported the United States in the very actions declared by many to be unilateral).

A Man of Conscience and a Woman of Dim Wit

Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV) was on the Diane Rehm show yesterday, and he confirmed himself in my mind as largely a man of conscience, even though I disagree with him on a number of issues. I didn't realize how stupid Diane Rehm was, though, until I heard her questioning him repeatedly on something he'd already answered more than once, her questions assuming something he'd already stated pretty clearly to be false. It was quite a spectacle, if audio can be a spectacle.

The senator was explaining his vote regarding the FMA. He was one of three Democrats who sided with Republicans, along with Bill Nelson and Zell Miller. Diane Rehm asked him why he voted for the FMA. He said the Constitution serves two purposes, to set up our federalist system of government and to give basic civil rights. The FMA doesn't serve either purpose and thus doesn't belong in the Constitution. She proceeded to ask him why he then voted in favor of the FMA. He said he voted the way he did because he couldn't see this issue as the sort of thing to use as a political weapon. I didn't think he was really clear yet on what he meant by this, so it isn't surprising that she asked yet again why he voted for the FMA. I imagine she was thinking that the Republicans had been using it as a mere political weapon and that the Democrats were rightly voting against it, that Byrd must have meant this, and that his vote was thereby inexplicable. Well, no. His forthcoming explanation was quite clear, but it wasn't that.

Here Come the Zombies

Scientists have now made a great leap in the progress toward zombies -- pulseless humans.

Christian Carnival XXIX Plug

Digitus, Finger, and Co will host the Christian Carnival for the first time this Wednesday. If you have a blog, this will be a great way to get read and possibly pick up a few readers. Read on for details.

Double Positive

Sidney Morgenbesser, philosophy professor at Columbia University, died yesterday. NPR had a little tidbit on him this afternoon, demonstrating that a famous urban legend really happened. One of his colleagues was on the air recounting it.

J.L. Austin was giving a talk formal semantics and pragmatics or something like that, and he said something about double negatives canceling out and making a positive but that double positives never turn to a negative. Morgenbesser, under his breath and not expecting to be heard, said "Yeah, yeah..." Everyone in the room did hear and of course broke out in laughter.

I heard this story without any names and without it being said to be even related to philosophy. I think it was "Yeah, right!" instead. I had assumed it was just another urban legend like most stories about professors, but it turns out to be a true urban legend.

National Sales Tax/VAT

Drudge is claiming that Bush is going to introduce a new campaign issue. [Thanks to Imperfect but Forgiven for the link.] If Drudge is right, Bush wants to get rid of the IRS and replace it with a national sales tax or a value-added tax on specific kinds of items. This is an extremely bad idea, both politically and in terms of just governing.

This sort of policy is unjust largely because it requires poor people like us who don't pay taxes to pay taxes. The only taxes we currently pay are phone, utility, medicare, social security, and state sales tax and other taxes added at purchase (e.g. gas tax). Those are the taxes that people, regardless of their income, pay. A good tax relief plan should minimize increases in these taxes or even decrease them. The tax policy as it is allows people under a certain income to be exempt from any income tax. What Bush is proposing may be good for the majority of middle-class people, and it may allow collecting on money made illegally, because it's collected when spent and not when earned, but the downside is really not worth it.

Stem Cell Facts

John Rabe has a great post giving the facts on stem cells and stem cell research, and as far as I know he's exactly right on each point. The most important point is that adult stem cell research has borne great fruit, and embryonic stem cells have only led to problematic developments when inserted into adult organisms. Ron Reagan says Republicans opposing embryonic stem cell research are scientifically ignorant, but he may more accurate if he directs that charge toward himself. The Democrats' decision to make this a key issue of the presidential campaign is a bad idea, since science is not on their side.

What I'd like to see is more information on placental stem cells, since those are usually just discarded and are adult stem cells, having the DNA of the mother. Our obstetrician, a pro-life Christian, told us there isn't any research showing it to be of much use, and he recommended discarding it, but I'd like to see the studies showing that. I haven't coming across any.

Update: Robert George argues for an even stronger conclusion. Ron Reagan is taking advantage of people suffering from Parkinson's Disease and other ailments by promising them a change in administrations is going to lead to cures for many such diseases. I didn't read his speech carefully, but what I saw doesn't contradict this. He also points out that Reagan chose a very careful way of phrasing the process of extracting stem cells that isn't technically false but makes it sound as if it doesn't kill a live embryo, which is nuts. It does, and most of the research people would do with a policy change would be using embryos created deliberately just to be killed for such research.

Arminian Churches in Iraq

I keep hearing these quick news blurbs on the Arminian churches that have been attacked in Iraq, and I've been wondering why it is that they've been targeting the churches that emphasize human freedom in salvation as over against God's sovereignty. Why wouldn't they target Calvinist churches also? I just don't get it. Is there something about the emphasis on human freedom that the terrorists think is more threatening? Well, isn't Calvinism also known for its connection to the middle class in Europe and the drive to prosper economically? Sure, it has nothing to do with what Calvinism is really about, but I wouldn't expect Islamicist terrorists to know anything about what really drives Christians, so I don't buy this explanation.

What was that? They weren't targeting Arminian churches? They were targeting Armenian churches? Well, someone better tell all the news anchors at CNN, Fox, MSNBC, and everywhere else that's been misreporting it! I wonder if they're using Christian bloggers as their source of information. After all, a number of Christian bloggers in the circles I've been reading tend to contrast two different theological positions -- Calvinism and Armenianism. Last I knew the Armenian Orthodox were closer to Russian and Greek Orthodox than to anything else (though there are still big differences).

A good Google search can pull up some good examples of this phenomenon, but I'm going to be nice and not point anyone out.

Theology Posts

Here's one more Favorite Posts filter. This time I'm collecting theology posts. I think some of these are among my all-time best.

Apologetics Posts

To clean out my favorite posts list in the sidebar, I'm removing five apologetics posts and then adding this post. Two of these are in my top 15 list, so I don't think entries shunted to being linked from posts that are themselves in the list of favorite posts are necessarily not as good as the ones in the sidebar list directly. It reflects more which of the older posts can easily be grouped.

So here are six of my favorite posts on apologetics.

Using X for Political Gain

Democrats used 9/11 for political gain all through the conference. Every time they mentioned it, their statement was intended to get people to support John Kerry and the party's agenda. Yet they're going to be harshly critical of the Republicans is there's any bare mention of 9/11 or if Bush even in passing mentions his leadership during that time. There's an inconsistency here. That's not what I'm interested in right now, though. What I'm wondering is why it's wrong to use something for political gain, especially given how common it is.

Responses to a Friend

I've finally given the originally-promised response, such as it is, to w1re's questions in my post Questions From a Friend from over a week ago. Those who might have been following that discussion who don't look at my Recent Comments list in the sidebar might miss it without a mention in a post, so here we are.

Contradictory Road Signs

What do you do when road signs lead to flat-out contradictions? Is there a way to know which one trumps the other? I've encountered the following situation more than once. When you have a two-lane (on each side) road, with a turning lane and one lane continuing, there's always the issue of whether you need to stop before turning right from the turning lane. If there's a stop sign, then you must stop of course. If there's a single light for the straight lane and none for the turning lane, then you need not stop. If there's a yield sign, you need not stop. If there are two lights, one for each lane, and the turning light has a red/green arrow, then you go by the light. If there are two lights and the turning light just matches the other one, then you have to stop before you turn right if it's red. What if there's a yield sign and a double light, and you come up to the light when it's red? The double light clearly indicates that one of the lights is for the turning light, and when it's red you have to stop before turning right. But then there's the yield sign. Doesn't that mean you don't have to stop if you're turning unless there's someone coming? The import of this is that you have a legal obligation to do something but that there's also a law telling you that you don't have that exact legal obligation. Right?

Al Sharpton's Embarassment of a Speech

The biggest mistake of the Democratic Convention earlier this week was to allow Al Sharpton to speak. Everyone was expecting a smaller bounce than normal for Kerry after the convention, but the polls I've seen suggest that he's actually still losing ground after the convention, just at a slower rate of losing ground than he had been before it. Al Sharpton is one of the reasons, I'm sure. They were trying hard to have a well-scripted, well-timed convention, masquerading as conservatives, toning down the rhetoric against Bush so as to look positive with all sorts of veiled venom whose depth of negativity the average viewer won't detect. Most of the speakers were performing admirably. See my comments on Clinton's speech to see how masterful he was at pretending he was being positive and uniting while making all sorts of false and unfair claims. He has amazing skills at the kind of rhetoric philosophy courses teach people to see through. It's brilliant psychologically, though to someone like me it just gives the appearance of stupidity for lack of a real argument.

Well, Sharpton didn't hide anything. He still had bad rhetoric in lieu of any arguments, but it was exactly that -- bad rhetoric. He's not fooling anyone. Even those who don't know of his history of bigotry can see that the guy is a divider, an angry hater who gives a very different image from what Kerry is trying to fashion for himself with this convention. All the liberal commentators on MSNBC (Chris Matthews, Howard Fineman, etc.) were pointing this out. There are some aspects of his speech that are so evil in the disguise he puts on them that not everyone would notice, but it only took viewing a couple minutes of the 24 he spent (though he was allotted only 6) for me to think the Democratic leadership were regretting allowing him on. Here's his speech.

Drugs for Blacks

There's a new drug for African-American heart patients (found at Volokh). There's something right about this, and there's something a little dangerous. The drug had been tested and abandoned in the 80s due to little success among most people. At some point someone figured out that it had a better effect among black people, and studies to confirm this showed good results. What's most likely going on is that a genetic trait common among Americans of recent African descent (one suggestion has to do with nitric acid levels) allows this drug to be more successful with this particular kind of heart condition, just as some other kinds of medication are less successful in the same population. It doesn't seem related to the genes for pigmentation. Skin color may be a good guide to seeing whether someone has the relevant trait for the drug, but enough race mixing has gone on in the history of this country, and enough immigration of people who look enough like Americans of African descent but who are genetically very dissimilar, that prescribing such medicines according to racial identification is a very bad idea.

Carnival of the Vanities XCVII

Jeff Doolittle hosted the 97th COTV this week. It contains my post about Colin Powell's being not black enough for some people and how that undermines one of the primary motivations for affirmative action.

I don't mention this post at goobage on dumb things John Kerry has said so much to make fun of Kerry but to show that most of the things Bush gets made fun of for are extremely common for anyone doing a lot of public speaking. It doesn't show lack of intelligence. It shows humanity. Some people are a little better at avoiding such things, but the facts in this case are that preconceived opinions lead people to focus on Bush (and Quayle before him) and ignore how much others do the same thing.

I don't know anything about the election this post at Spot On is about, but the story of black voters being handed Democratic ballots and being told that they really should be voting on Democratic ballots once they return it and ask for a Republican ballot is pretty sick. Racism takes some odd forms. Not quite as bad, but pretty silly, is Politcal Correctness Watch's story of a woman who was told she was discriminatory for including "hard-working" in a job description.

And now for the most shocking of all: QandO has done some digging into the 9/11 Commission to see that they've disproved a number of claims by Bush's opponents. The connections between al Qaeda and Saddam were much stronger than mere communication, according to statements by Richard Clarke. Iraq and al Qaeda made repeated overtures to each other regarding Iraq serving as Bin Laden's new home if it became clear that the Taliban couldn't protect him. It turned out that such an agreement never solidifed, but that's quite a connection. Going after Iraq was something General Franks, Paul Wolfowitz, and Tony Blair all pursued before Bush was willing to consider it a priority. Bush even himself dismissed the possible connection between Iraq and 9/11 that some within the administration were pushing.

Revisiting the Justification for Invading Iraq

One Hand Clapping has one of the best summaries of the reasons for invading Iraq and deposing Saddam Hussein that I've seen in a long time. There's so much that too many people seem to have forgotten, and almost every sentence in the post is a fairly agreed-upon fact by those who pay attention to details and don't just spout off unsupported one-liners that contradict the truth. There are still philosophical debates about what you should conclude about the right response to some of this, but any decent attack on the reasons for invading Iraq must admit most of what this post says. I'd even forgotten some of this stuff myself. It seems to me that the reasons have become even more clear over time, with new discoveries supporting Bush's decision rather than undermining it as many people are claiming. If you don't agree, at least make sure your reasons have what he says in mind. As I repeatedly tell my students, no argument is as good as it can be unless it shows an awareness of what the opposing side has to say, and most arguments against the war are shockingly unaware of much of what this post reminds us of. Here are some of the more important points:

Christian Carnival XXVIII

The 28th Christian Carnival is up at Fringe. As of this writing, I can't get it to load any individual pages. If that's still true when you check, go to his main page and scroll down. The Carnival is still there.

It features my Organized Religion and the Church.

Doc Rampage reflects on some encounters he's had with people on the street asking for money, unsure what the proper Christian response should be. The last encounter he describes is worth reading just to see what lengths someone will go to get the actual cash in his hand rather than getting something paid for.

My Domestic Church has some excellent thoughts on the selfishness of youth and the wisdom of middle age. Some of this wisdom didn't come from aging but from the responsibility of having children, but the point is the same.

Exultate Justi has an excellent explanation of the sort of political theory I would endorse, a libertarianism of sorts limited by a realization that some forms of morality really do need to be enforced and mollified that Christians values are a perfectly good starting place for wanting to encourage and protect against certain behaviors or attitudes. He concludes with a good explanation of why "you can't legislate morality" is a fairly stupid claim but also what true claim people mean to be expressing when they say such things.

Messy Christian shows that having a ministry is simply choosing to serve people. She gives some excellent examples to help us avoid the trap of thinking we don't have a ministry simply because no one has put us in an official ministry position.

Digitus, Finger & Co. will be hosting next week's Carnival #XXIX.

Are You Addicted to the Internet?

From Rebbeca Writes

Saddam's Stroke

I haven't seen much on this yet, but they did interrupt the DNC coverage once to mention that Saddam Hussein's lawyers have said that he has had a stroke. They're not sure if he'll live long enough to stand trial. This is pure speculation, but I have to wonder if this is legit or some tool for manipulating things related to the trial. I also can't help but wondering if such an injury could possibly be self-inflicted. I don't know how you could give yourself a stroke, if that's what happened, but doesn't Saddam seem to be the sort of guy to commit suicide to avoid standing trial? It wouldn't surprise me.

Speculation aside, I'm not sure what the right response to this should be. Should I feel sad? Should I be glad? Should I hope and pray that he does stand trial if I want justice will be served in the end? I could delight that God will see justice done after his death, but I can't help but wonder if the most important Christian response is to pray for Saddam's salvation before his life ends. That's something that I hesitate to think most Christians will do upon hearing this, thinking of course that he doesn't deserve it. Well, who does? No one is beyond the gospel, and when sin abounds grace abounds as well. I don't expect someone who considers America (and the Christianity he associates with it) to be the great Satan to consider Christ, but early Christians didn't expect the guy standing around with the stoners of Stephen to be the greatest Christian missionary of all time.

Open Theism criticisms

Rebecca Writes is doing a series on God's attributes. In the process, she's had a couple good posts on how open theists have to be fairly revisionary on God's attributes. The first looks at God's omniscience, simplicity, freedom, and independence. The second one covers God's infinity.

I've recently revived an old post on this in case anyone wants to see more on open theism.

Open Theism

This is an old entry from December 2003, but the main body of it was originally on my old website, and I had just linked to it. Since I'm about to refer to it in my next entry, I decided it would be good to include everything in the post itself and move it to a current date.

A couple things worry me about open theism (the view that God doesn't know the future because of free human decisions that God can't predict). I should say that I think someone can believe the gospel and be an open theist, though I do think it has some serious tensions with things that are very important for the gospel (e.g. that Jesus needed to die for God's plan to work, yet free human decisions were required for this). I also think it just plain flat-out contradicts clear statements in scripture (e.g. Isaiah 10, where a human king is responsible for what he does yet is portrayed as a tool in God's hands, which means God can have absolute control over what we do freely).

I remember Christianity Today doing an article on open theism (the view that God doesn't know the future because of future human free choices) a few years ago, and I was disappointed at how imbalanced the discussion was, though they say they were just giving tools for people to make their own decision. Most of the points that I thought needed to be said were included in the letters they published in the next issue. Rather than say much of anything on my own, I've assembled the best letters CT published in response to that article. It struck me how insightful some of these letters were. The main reasons for the traditional view and the most serious criticisms of the reasons given for open theistic arguments are all here in extremely concise form.

Eschatology

I'm still too busy to write too much at the moment, but here's a post adapted from something at my old website (originally written 17 February 2003).

Eschatology is one of the most controversial topics in theology today. In my experience, people tend to look at scripture in light of a system they learned that had its basis in some scriptural statements but then took them beyond those statements and interpreted all else in light of those statements. I don't think the scriptures themselves are that had to interpret, at least in their basic message about the end times. What I'm primarily doing in this post is explaining what seems pretty clear to me (or at least very likely) in the scriptural teachings on the end times. This all assumes the divine origin of the scriptures. I'm not giving any argument here. I'm just summarizing my conclusions about what the scriptures say. Also, some of this assumes some background in the terminology.

Christian Denomination Selector

Bill Clinton's Fallacies

Yes, I know that title opens up the possibility of too many crude jokes, but it's the best description of his speech last night at the DNC. It's amazing how many violations of good reasoning occur in that speech. Here's a brief catalogue. Some of these are just flat-out falsehoods, and some are manipulative rhetorical twists with no backing.

Update: See the comments on World Magazine's blog for more details. After no one gave any specific responses, I posted my link here, and then continued criticisms of parts of the speech I didn't touch started pouring out. It's nice to see good discussion on a post over there for a change. Continue reading for my own fisking.

What Kind of Elitist Are You?

You speak eloquently and have seemingly read every book ever published. You are a fountain of endless (sometimes useless) knowledge, and never fail to impress at a party. What people love: You can answer almost any question people ask, and have thus been nicknamed Jeeves. What people hate: You constantly correct their grammar and insult their paperbacks.

What Kind of Elitist Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

I think I might have had this one as my runner-up:

Christian Carnival XXVIII plug

This coming Wednesday (7-28) the Christian Carnival will be hosted at Fringe. If you have a blog, this will be a great way to get read, and possibly pick up a few readers.

To enter, your post should be of a Christian nature, but this does not exclude ones that are political (or otherwise) in nature from a Christian point of view. Please send only one post per blog dated since the last Christian Carnival. Then, do the following:

Organized Religion and the Church

Still without much time to write new stuff, I'm posting something I wrote for an off-topic list created by those on a music discussion list who wanted to discuss things not about the music the list was designed to discuss. The subject of organized religion came up, and some people defended the idea of being Christian while avoiding organized religion, which I've heard others describe as being Christian but avoiding church. I think this is a clear example of heteropraxy, so it's always amazed me that anyone could be taken in by this kind of thinking. (Orthodoxy and heterodoxy are about whether someone has views fitting with genuine Christian belief, and orthopraxy and heteropraxy are about whether someone's life is aligned with or radically different from the model given by Christ, passed on by the apostles, and recorded in scripture.) Still, the reasons are worth setting out, and I did so at that time (9 January 2003). Here's an adaptation of what I wrote. I hope to write a new post soon based on some themes that have come up in the current sermon schedule in my congregation (which is studying Ephesians 4-6 between July 18 and Oct 24). That post will rely on some of this, which is why I'm posting this rather than anything else.

Christian Carnival mailing list

The Christian Carnival mailing list has gone kaput. Nick just realized it. If you were on it and haven't received his message about the new list, you're probably not someone he remembered as being on it. He has no records of who was on it. So if you want back in (or in for the first time), go here to subscribe.

Bush's National Urban League speech

I just got around to reading President Bush's speech to the National Urban League. It's very good. I don't think there's any question which candidate should appeal more to black voters, as long as they're willing to put aside long-standing prejudices against the Republican party. Bush knows how to speak the language of the ordinary person, something Kerry can't even succeed at doing when he puts on his actor's hat and tries. It's no surprise that some of this involves speaking the language of the ordinary black American. The things Bush choose to emphasize in this speech are the things so many ordinary Americans, including those who are black, value very much. They're the very things black voters have been convinced for a couple generations that Republicans don't value at all.

This time there's no way you can charge Bush with just saying it when speaking at this sort of gathering, because most of his speech was a defense of actual policies he's enacted or tried to enact unsuccessfully. It's not just a defense, but it's a good defense. He knows how to make this argument well. I don't agree with every single point, and it may be (for all I know) that on some points I'd be more inclined to agree with Kerry, but John Kerry doesn't hold a candle to him on these issues.

Party Convention Speakers

Howard Fineman is on MSNBC right now saying that the Democratic Convention is aiming at undecided Democrats and Republicans. If so, they're being extremely stupid about choosing their speakers. Let's compare their lineup compared with the Republicans'.

Bill Clinton avoided the left of his party to draw in moderate voters. He had conservative Democrat Zell Miller and other speakers from what we now call red states. He stayed away from people who seem more liberal, e.g. Ted Kennedy, especially like those seen as weak on national security, e.g. Jimmy Carter. Al Gore even left Clinton behind because he has exactly the same features as George W. Bush. About half the country absolutely hates the guy. Well, look at the differences this time around.

Urgent Hoax Warning!

Someone I know and trust fairly well through the Kerry Livgren and Kansas internet circles (I think we even got married the same day or maybe a week apart or something) sent this:

I hate those hoax warnings, but this one is important! Send this warning to EVERYONE on your E=mail list immediately. If someone comes to your front door saying they are conducting a survey and asks you to take your clothes off, DO NOT DO IT!!! This is a scam; they only want to see you naked. I wish I'd gotten this warning yesterday. I feel so stupid and cheap now ........

Bush's strategy

InstaPundit links to some educated and intuitively plausible (to me, anyway) speculation about Bush's strategy for beating Kerry at U.S.S. Clueless. He also links to another that came later and says little, though not nothing) new that isn't in the other post. You can find it at the InstaPundit post if you want to read it.

Book Review: Sexual Orientation and Human Rights

I have far too many things to do to write much today, so I'm following Jollyblogger's example and posting a review I wrote for Amazon almost four years ago of Sexual Orientation and Human Rights, by Laurence Thomas and Michael Levin.

[Help! I can't get the MTAmazon code to work. It's the same code that works fine in the sidebar. Any ideas?]

In the interest of full disclosure, I should say that Laurence Thomas is a faculty member in my own department at Syracuse University. I worked as a teaching assistant for him for five semesters, four of them as the TA Coordinator (there were six TAs for this class of 400+ students), and he's someone I expect would always be happy to write a letter of recommendation for me. We used this book in the class I TAed for him, and I was his editor for the portion he wrote. I do admit being influenced by his thinking in a number of ways, and I'm pleased to say that there are a couple places where he had to change some of his positions or arguments in the book due to my comments (though not enough, as the review shows). On to the review:

"Colin Powell's Not Black" and Other Underminers of Affirmative Action

One thing I've been covering in my ethics course this summer is whether it's possible for there to be black anti-white racism and black anti-black racism (I say yes to both). I've been suspicious of a common attitude toward Colin Powell and Condi Rice fits both categories, namely that they're not really black due to their being conservative, serving in a Republican administration, being part of "the man", etc. I've written on this subject here, here, and here. What just occurred to me yesterday is that the main argument for the line of thinking that I'm suspicious of seems quite at odds with one of the main arguments for affirmative action.