I decided to bring my French press in to work so I could brew a cup of coffee or tea every now and then. I’ve got the tea thing pretty well figured out, but I’m still working on the exact amount of coffee I need to use to make “the perfect cup.” One website said that I should use about a half-cup of grounds for 24 oz. of water. Suffice it to say that it turned out to be just a little bit strong. I looked up the caffeine content of a half-cup of coffee grounds, and it turns out it’s somewhere between 6 and 8 Red Bulls. Considering the tremors in my hands right now, I’d say that’s about right. This video pretty much sums up how I feel right now:

Yikes.

Catholic bishops may respect Obama as the president, but that doesn’t mean that they’re willing to sit idly by while Obama works to “support and expand abortion rights” (that’s a euphemism if I’ve ever seen one). Some quotes from their meeting in Baltimore yesterday:

“This is not a matter of political compromise or a matter of finding some way of common ground, it’s a matter of absolutes.” – Bishop Daniel Conlon of Steubenville, Ohio

“Any one of us here would consider it a privilege to die tomorrow–die tomorrow!–to bring about the end of abortion.” – Auxiliary Bishop Robert Hermann of St. Louis

“If Catholic hospitals were required by federal law to perform abortions, we’d have to close our hospitals.” – Bishops Thomas Paprocki of Chicago

I’ll be the first to tell you the Catholics get a lot of things wrong, even centrally important doctrinal things. But at least they are standing up to “the greatest social evil of our day – abortion. Our people voted to overlook a little thing like the slaughter of the unborn, because of other considerations like economic prosperity, climate change and the desire to have all the other nations in the world like us again.” (source)

Regrettably, it seems that many Christians were more concerned about their carbon footprint than the blood on their hands from the present-day holocaust that continues to rage on in our nation.

This is embarrasing. From ChristianityToday.com:

Twenty percent of American Christians (19 percent of Protestants; 28 percent of Catholics) give nothing to the church. Among Protestants, 10 percent of evangelicals, 28 percent of mainline folk, 33 percent of fundamentalists, and 40 percent of liberal Protestants give nothing. The vast majority of American Christians give very little—the mean average is 2.9 percent. Only 12 percent of Protestants and 4 percent of Catholics tithe.

A small minority of American Christians give most of the total donated. Twenty percent of all Christians give 86.4 percent of the total. The most generous five percent give well over half (59.6 percent) of all contributions. But higher-income American Christians give less as a percentage of household income than poorer American Christians. In the course of the 20th century, as our personal disposable income quadrupled, the percentage donated by American Christians actually declined.

It’s no wonder we elected a Marxist as president. People look around and see that there are poor, hungry people living among us and something (good) inside of them feels a bit compassionate. “Somebody ought to help them,” we think. But who? Certainly not the Christians, who apparently haven’t read through the end of Matthew too frequently.

What would happen if Christians actually trusted God and gave to his Church according to his standards?

If just the “committed Christians” (defined as those who attend church at least a few times a month or profess to be “strong” or “very strong” Christians) would tithe, there would be an extra 46 billion dollars a year available for kingdom work. To make that figure more concrete, the authors suggest dozens of different things that $46 billion would fund each year: for example, 150,000 new indigenous missionaries; 50,000 additional theological students in the developing world; 5 million more micro loans to poor entrepreneurs; the food, clothing and shelter for all 6,500,000 current refugees in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East; all the money for a global campaign to prevent and treat malaria; resources to sponsor 20 million needy children worldwide. Their conclusion is surely right: “Reasonably generous financial giving of ordinary American Christians would generate staggering amounts of money that could literally change the world.”

You can try the “I already help the poor because I pay my taxes” route, but I’m not buying it. We already know that the State can’t help the poor. Yes, they can give them money. Even your money. But that isn’t what most of them need. Jesus didn’t die so that the poor could have affordable housing. If we were truly committed to following Jesus, we would be loving the poor so well that they would kindly tell Obama to “keep the change” when he offered them other people’s money in exchange for the ballot box version of indentured servitude.

The irony here is astounding. If we gave as if we believed in eternal life, *this* life would be radically changed. Can you imagine what 5 million loans to entrepreneurs would do for the world’s poorest economies? What difference would 150,000 new missionaries make? I can barely imagine it.

Instead, we hoard our riches or squander them on the temporal comforts of this world. We don’t believe in eternal life. We don’t believe in eternity. Or, if we do, we certainly don’t act like it. And so, people suffer in the “here and now” while we patiently wait in the drive through at Starbucks, thinking that venti “fair trade” mocha we will soon be consuming absolves us of our greed and indifference.

“Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ …And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.” – Matthew 25:41-43, 46

I’m pretty sure he was serious.

Partial Birth Abortion is never necessary to protect the mother’s health. Let me repeat that. Medically, there is never a situation that a Partial Birth Abortion would be necessary to protect a woman’s health.

From The Continuum:

If a pregnancy ought to be terminated in a late term, there is no reason why the baby has to die. For several years doctors have been able to induce early labor and birth without killing the child. Hospitals have a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) for premature births. Partial Birth Abortion is a procedure that comes after such an induced early labor, only the baby is not placed in a NICU. Instead, scissors are inserted into the back of the helpless child’s head, and a tube sucks out the brain. This is what the pro-abortion people call a “medical procedure.”

Inasmuch as there is no medical reason to kill the baby instead of making use of a NICU, it is painfully obvious that the only reason for Partial Birth Abortion is to complete a contract killing. There is never a medical reason to kill the child. (emphasis mine)

This makes sense. If the baby has already been delivered, except for the top of its head, how could it possibly be “medically necessary” to end the procedure with the death of the child instead of completing the delivery and sending the child off to the NICU and, ultimately, parents who will love him? Instead, the doctor becomes a hitman and “takes care of” the problem.

Say what you want, but I would suggest that Partial Birth Abortion is more satanic than anything you’ve ever seen in some Halloween movie involving candles and a pentagram. What else could we call the intentional destruction of image-bearers by hands and instruments that were intended to preserve life, if not satanic? Isn’t this exactly what the Murderer has been up to since the Garden? And now we’ve elected, as a nation, a leader who believes that his role as the Executive Officer of this country involves protecting, and even subsidizing, this wicked, detestable act, under the guise of wanting to “protect life.”

I’ve done a lot of thinking since the election about my perspective on and analysis of Barack Obama as the next president of the United States. I’ll post more on this soon, but for now I’ll just say I plan on praying for him and respecting the office that he holds. God put him there for a reason. Let us not grieve as those who have no hope, and so on. I get it. What I refuse to do, however, is to pretend that he is anything but a wicked, evil man who wishes (and has even promised) to expand the culture of death that has gripped our country to the point where we stab children in the skull with scissors and call it “protecting the life of the mother”.

HT: Touchstone Magazine

Happy Birthday, Tess!

I have frequently reminded Nary an Original Thought readers of the sovereignty of God, in all circumstances. This morning I’m wondering if someone would return the favor….

Somehow the death of roughly 4 million babies during the reign of Obama the Merciless fits into God’s eternal plan. I’m having trouble understanding how.

Did you hear that clanging metal sound followed by the whoosh of fighter jets flying over head, with synthesized punching sounds in the background? That can only mean one thing…

The election results coverage is revved up. Get your free cup of coffee from Starbucks and settle in for a long and entertaining night!

Keep this in mind when you vote tomorrow:

10 If you faint in the day of adversity,
your strength is small.
11 Rescue those who are being taken away to death;
hold back those who are stumbling to the slaughter.
12 If you say, “Behold, we did not know this,”
does not he who weighs the heart perceive it?
Does not he who keeps watch over your soul know it,
and will he not repay man according to his work?

- Proverbs 24:10-13

Don’t think that God will be fooled by the excuse that you had other “social injustices” in mind when you voted for Obama. A vote for the most pro-abortion candidate to ever run for the presidency is not just a failure to rescue those who are being taken away to death. It is outright participation in their murder.

The funniest line I’ve read in awhile about The ObaMessiah himself: “When it comes to the economy, Obama can see the Soviet Union from his house.”

From the comments of a post on the Hot Air blog.

Which would you rather have: an extra $284 added to your tax refund, or a job? If you’re an average American (say, a plumber), that is the difference between Obama’s tax plan and McCain’s.

The NY Times, in an articled entitled For Incomes Below $100,000, a Better Tax Break in Obama’s Plan, reports:

The median household income nationwide is $50,233, according to the Census Bureau. The Tax Policy Center found that, for married couples with incomes of $50,000, two children and both parents working, income taxes would be cut by $284 more under Mr. Obama’s plan — by $1,005, compared with $721 under Mr. McCain’s plan.

Deloitte also examined such a couple and found similar benefits; a $700 cut under Mr. McCain’s plan and $1,000 under Mr. Obama’s.

To finance this tax cut, Obama would “raise the tax rate for single households with incomes of $200,000 or more and for families with incomes over $250,000. He would also raise taxes on capital gains and dividends.” Yeah, sock it to those greedy so-and-sos, right?

Well, if you don’t fit into that $200k per year crowd, you probably work for someone who does. They earn:”(Yes, that’s right. Most of them work very hard for the money they earn.)”: enough money to enjoy some of the finer things in life, some of which are probably out of your reach at this point. But, at some point they realize that they could earn even more money (thereby enjoying even finer things and in greater quantities) if they hired a few people and grew their business. This is what’s known as capital investment–or, in liberal terms, building an empire on the backs of the poor–where wealth and resources are invested in order to generate even more wealth and resources. So, your employer invests $50,000 into your salary in order to produce $55,000 worth of goods and services. Everyone wins. You make your mortgage payment, and your boss has an extra five grand for his trouble.

Obama, who is one of these greedy so-and-sos, likes to tell you that these greedy so-and-sos have way too much money. So, here’s the deal. If you give him what he wants (i.e. a position where he has the authority to take their wealth away from them), he’ll give you what you want (i.e. other people’s stuff). Think of it like prostitution, only dirtier. He gets the power, you get the money (about $300 or so), and the rich people pick up the tab.

Yes! I’ll take that deal. I mean, who couldn’t use an extra $300? What could go wrong? Besides those rich guys have more than they need, anyway.

Well, when the someone you work for realizes that the extra revenue created by keeping you on the payroll will be negated by the extra taxes they will pay on it, suddenly keeping you employed doesn’t seem like such a good investment after all. Maybe he’ll just spend that $50,000 now instead of trying to turn it into $55k over the next 12 months. I hear Vail is pretty. So, your boss enjoys a nice ski weekend this winter while you look for a new job. Oh, but good luck with that because nobody else is hiring, either, because Obama’s tax increases will have this same effect on a national (international?) scale.

Do the math. Obama’s plan doesn’t make sense, no matter how envious you are of what the Jonses have. McCain is no Reagan, but at least he hasn’t promised to spread the wealth around, until there isn’t any left, in the name of “fairness”.