Dr. Dobson heads down a dangerous path

I could hardly believe it when I first heard it, but now Dr. James Dobson (founder of Focus on the Family has published his 2008 Presidential election plans in the New York Times.

Basically, he says that if the nominee from the Republican and Democrat parties are both not perfectly pro-life and pro-family, he'll vote for someone else. Can he not see that there are worse possibilities than having a President who doesn't line up squarely with one's position on a few issues? How about having one who lines up exactly opposite one's positions on a lot of issues?

Let's suppose that Rudy Giuliani and Hillary Clinton are the nominees. So Rudy doesn't match Dr. Dobson point-for-point on abortion and family issues. He doesn't match me point-for-point, either. But refusing to vote for him simply gives her another vote. We must not allow her to become President, for that would be a far, far worse thing for this country than nearly any other alternative I can think of.

You can read Dr. Dobson's editorial here.

And you think you've got it bad ...

Idahoan struggling to prove he's very much alive

Water bottles

According to the October issue of Fast Company magazine (page 155:

Last year, Americans threw away 38 billion plastic water bottles, about $1 billion worth of plastic.(1) That's a huge waste, especially considering 1.5 million barrels of oil -- enough to fuel 100,000 cars for a year -- were used to produce the bottles.(2) And that's not even including the oil used for transportation.

(1) Fishman, Charles: "Message in a Bottle?" Fast Company, July 2007.
(2) Arnold, Emily; Larsen, Janet: "Bottled Water: Pouring Resources Down the Drain," Earth Policy Institute, February 2, 2006: earth-policy.org/Updates/2006/Update51.htm

A motto for the UK?

Gordon Brown reportedly wants to come up with a motto for the UK. The ever-helpful BBC has asked readers to send in suggestions. My personal choice, "The UK - At least it's not France" is the first one listed.

Some of my other favorites:

Britain - All it needs is a coat of paint.
Si non confectus, reficiat (If it's not broke, fix it anyway)
UK: Obesité, Apathé, Hostilité
Bothering foreigners since 1066
It'll brighten up later
May contain nuts

Read the rest here.

More advice

Way back in May, I posted my Advice to Young Couples Part 1. My main (if ungrammatical) point was "Fight Fair".

On the Mormon Coffee blog today is a re-statement of what I said, this time directed at posters to that website. They say it so well, I'm quoting it here:

Consider these two fictional examples of comments:

“I disagree with your conclusion. I don’t think it makes any sense, and here’s why.”

This is a criticism directed at an argument; it is welcome on Mormon Coffee.

“Jason, you are an idiot. You only talk about this because you hate Mormons. You should be ashamed of yourself.”

This is a criticism directed at a person; it is not part of a respectful dialog.

Christian author and speaker Greg Koukl has pointed out,

“The minute one is labeled mean-spirited simply for raising an opposing view, it cuts off debate. This simply isn’t fair. We avoid what may be a legitimate discussion by simply calling names. Worse, we compromise our ability to know the truth.

“It’s absolutely imperative that we not silence dissent in this way. We ought to learn how to argue fairly, reasonably, and graciously. We need to cultivate the ability to disagree with civility and not take opposition personally. We also must have the grace to allow our own views to be challenged with evidence, reasoning, and Scripture. Those who refuse to dispute have a very poor chance of growing in truth.”

Sound advice for young couples, and the rest of us, too.

The real betrayers

Those foaming-at-the-mouth whiners at moveon.org published a newspaper ad the other day calling General David H. Petraeus, Commanding General of the Multi-National Foce-Iraq, "General Betray-us". They basically accused him of lying. More than that, they implicitly accused the whole military of lying. President Bush, for all his faults, called this one correctly when he said it was "disgusting". Agree with the President or the Democrats, agree with the war or disagree ... there's no reason to call into question the integrity or honesty of our military leaders without cause. Just because what they report isn't what you want to hear doesn't make them dishonest.

So, today, the US Senate considered an amendment to a bill. That amendment was "To express the sense of the Senate that [Petraeus] deserves the full support of the Senate and strongly condemn personal attacks on the honor and integrity of General Petraeus and all members of the United States Armed Forces." Pretty cut-and-dried, right? Doesn't matter which side of the debate you fall on, surely you could support this one, right? Anyone who doesn't agree with this one is a traitor to the United States of America, right?

OK, here's the list, in all it's glory:

Akaka, Hawaii
Bingaman, New Mexico
Boxer, California
Brown, Ohio
Byrd, West Virginia
Clinton, New York
Dodd, Connecticut
Durbin, Illinois
Feingold, Wisconsin
Harkin, Iowa
Inouye, Hawaii
Kennedy, Massachusetts
Kerry, Massachusetts
Lautenberg, New Jersey
Levin, Michigan
Menendez, New Jersey
Murray, Washington
Reed, Rhode Island
Reid, Nevada
Rockefeller, West Virginia
Sanders, Vermont
Schumer, New York
Stabenow, Michigan
Whitehouse, Rhode Island
Wyden, Oregon

Notice the names of a few candidates for President in that list of traitors? Now, here's the real kicker: Mr. Biden of Delaware and Mr. Obama of Illinois simply failed to vote. They knew they couldn't go on record voting against this amendment, but they are so under the thumb of moveon.org that they couldn't vote for it. So skipping the vote saves their political careers for both the election and for the rabid left-wingnuts.

My respect for Ms. Clinton couldn't get any lower (except for that respect I have for a mastermind of crime ... how does she manage to get away with it, time after time?). But any shred of respect I had for the others on that list (Obama and Biden included) is now gone.

I was duped ... but I'm in good company

In an earlier post, I said that the LDS church had issued an "apology" for the events at Mountain Meadows 150 years ago this past September 11. Turns out that the LDS church never intended their message to be taken as any sort of apology, and is apparently quite upset that some people took it that way.

I was led on by the first news story I read about the event, on the Deseret Morning News website. Their reporter, along with the one from the Salt Lake Tribune, simply got it wrong. According to LDS spokesperson Mark Tuttle, “We don’t use the word ‘apology.’ We used ‘profound regret.’”

Read all about it at:

Mormon Coffee
Fox News