Ranting to /dev/null

Yes!

Land developers are celebrating this week's whack-job eminent domain decision by deciding to build a new hotel... on Justice David H. Souter's home. I can't think of a better way to go.

Personally, I think that municipalities do need more power to enact urban planning initiatives, which includes seizing under-used real estate in prime locations, and not just for things like roads and schools. That being said, I don't think that the court was right in its decision, as this cuts too far into property rights.

Anselm

I snagged these results from a quiz linked to by Tyler. According to the authors, I'm closest to Anselm, and a second attempt gives the same order with slightly different numbers:

You scored as Anselm. Anselm is the outstanding theologian of the medieval period.He sees man's primary problem as having failed to render unto God what we owe him, so God becomes man in Christ and gives God what he is due. You should read 'Cur Deus Homo?' Anselm 100% John Calvin 80% Martin Luther 67% Jonathan Edwards 53% Friedrich Schleiermacher 53% Karl Barth 53% Charles Finney 47% J�rgen Moltmann 47% Augustine 47% Paul Tillich 20% Which theologian are you? created with QuizFarm.com

It's nice to see that the major Reformational theologians are at the top of the list, and I think I'm different enough from Augustine to warrant him being so low on the list. I've absolutely no problem with Tillich being at the bottom, but I think I have a slightly higher view of Barth than is suggested here.

As an interesting conicidence, I just finished watching Luther with my parents. It's quite good, for those who haven't seen it.

I'm suddenly very busy. See, I've got this job thing. I'm not doing too badly either. With just over two full weeks of employment, I've already moved around $3400 of product and been promoted twice. It's a living.

Wisconsin is completely sloshed

Here's a map of binge alcohol use in the past 12 months. You'd expect the Dakotas to be pretty hammered given their high percentage of Native Americans (alcohol continues to plague their populations at disasterous rates), but Wisconsin?

If you scroll down a bit, you can see that tobacco use is definitely highest in the South, particularly Kentucky (which though not technically part of the Confederacy, is certainly part of the culture of the South, right down to the poverty). So, to all of those who read this site who are smokers - and there are plenty of you - kick the redneck habit and join the civilized segment of society.

Interestingly enough, the Southwest is the highest in cocaine usage, with Colorado being off the charts, along with... Delaware? DC I can see, but Delaware?

Another counterintuitive bit of data is that the South is lowest in terms of alcohol consumption. The highest uses are in areas with Indian reservations, and then New England. Which goes a long way to explain why Kerry lost the last election: his home base was plastered.

Don't mess with these guys

Here's some footage of the minigun on an Apache attack chopper. Looks for all the world like a blaster cannon from any sci-fi movie. Some of the footage looks like they're actually spraying molten metal. Which is what they're doing, come to think of it.

The clip is about 5MB, so dial-up users need not apply.

Why social security needs private accounts

Doesn't have anything to do with the rightness of social safety nets. Doesn't have anything to do with rate of return. Doesn't even have anything to do with averting the upcoming fiscal disaster - I'm not entirely convinced it's possible.

No, the real reason we need private investment accounts is because if money is set aside in an account in your name on it, then you know that it'll always be there, unless either 1) you spend it, or 2) the economy collapses to the point that it's worthless. If the former happens, you can't really complain, now can you? If the latter does, well, it doesn't really matter whether it's your money that evaporates or the money that taxpayers would have used to pay your bills, because both would be gone. Besides, if you've invested in something like T-bills (which is probably where they'd go, unfortunately) and they become worthless, it's because the US government has defaulted on its loans. If that happens, the world as we know it will come to a screeching hault. It'd be like cruising down the highway at 70 mph and accidentally shifting to reverse instead of fifth.

On the other hand, if you're depending on some third party for a defined benefit pension/social security check, you're in trouble. That promise is only as good as the financial health of the party in question, and only as good as their will to keep their promise. Airlines are defaulting on pension plans left and right, and there isn't any reason to think that other industries can afford to pay thousands of people for not working. The auto industry, which is pretty similar to the airline industry in terms of both union and pension obligations, is in bad shape, and now that the courts have let a few airlines default on pensions, it'll only be a matter of time before it happens elsewhere. But if these people had private investments like 401ks or a social security account, their money would still be there.

Plantimals

The pearguin has got to be one of the funniest things I've seen in a while, though the gerbiwi is also pretty funny. It's a photoshop contest here.

Why I don't read WORLD

My parents get WORLD. I read it with some regularity when I was in high school, so five plus years ago. I didn't have much to do with it in college, though the Belz family - publishers of the magazine - are involved with Covenant to the point that the dorm I lived in is named after them. Dan also has tenuous connections through friends.

Now, I'll periodically pick up the magazine just to see what's going on. And articles like this one are why I just can't stand the thing. They're praising an unmitigatedly bad movie that's as violent as anything, just because it has "spiritual themes" and features a Bible as a key prop. So not only will they condemn excellent movies for cussing, they'll laud crappy ones (with just as much cussing as ever) because there's some hackneyed moral to the story. This isn't a review. This isn't cultural engagement. This isn't even journalism, for crying out loud. This is mechanically parroting a party-line while trying to make as much of culture as possible fit into a tightly proscribed box. They're no better than any of the leftist whack-jobs they criticize, and frequently not even any more correct.

They may be Christians, and I will recognize them as my brothers and sisters in Christ, but that doesn't mean I have to like what they're doing.

Quick question

Why is Mayor Littlefield trying to promote Chattanooga as a good site for new auto plants at a time when GM is laying off 25,000 employees? Might something like that suggest that now is not an ideal time to link your city's future to old-school manufacturing?

Churches are emptying out

Here's maybe an explanation for why fundamentalist-type Christians seem to be gaining in power: they're declining in numbers. Sounds a little counter-intuitive, but let me explain. Historically, Christians have comprised a majority of the US population. Guilded Age and all that. The prevailing civil and social worldview was essentially Christian and predominately Protestant. During the past century, this started to change, as we moved towards a more secular public square. Why? Because there are a lot fewer Christians today than there have been in the past, if we use church attendence as a measure of being a Christian.

It is a good measure too. First of all, there are the theological reasons: I've argued in the past and will continue to argue that regardless of what you say about yourself or what you say you believe, if you don't go to church, you can't be a Christian. End of story. Call me anything you want, that's just the way Scripture indicates things are, and I'm not really interested in arguing about this for this post: it's a tangent. But second, if you don't go to church, you probably aren't committed to the faith in ways that would align you with the traditional, conservative Christian civil/social worldview. That seems a pretty safe thing to say any way you slice it, as a major reason non-churchgoers give for not attending church is not wanting to be part of that culture.

So we've got a historically dominant group that is starting to decline in numbers, but still encompasses a significant plurality of the population. Sounds like a demographic just made for last-gasp grasps at consolidating and preserving what cultural power and influence they have.

While we're on the subject...

Dan's dad, Joe Kearns, also has a blog. It's pretty sweet, and he's currently in the midst of a careful exploration of the cloning issue.

Reacquaintence

So there's this guy I know, named Daniel Kearns. I grew up with the kid: his older brother David is my age, while Dan is two years younger. The Kearns family has lived just down the street from mine for almost two decades, which is the vast majority of all of the Davidsons and Kearns kids lives. When I went to school, we kind of lost touch, like I did with most people I knew from home. Well, he's had an interesting few years - as have I - and providence has brought us back into town at the same time. He withdrew from Case Western Reserve this past semester because he decided he didn't want to be an engineer, and he's currently planning on applying to Westminster East. I'm back in town on a leave of absence (possibly permenant) from Columbia.

He's got this blog. Some really good stuff there. I've added him to the blogroll on the right. I'm glad to have him back in my life, and I'm looking forward to becoming closer friends.

Neat little game

I stumbled across this today. It's a fun little diversion. Check it out.

Asian culture is just weird

I think the best part is when he screams at the Buddist monk, who just kind of looks at him funny and keeps going.