In this week's podcast, I interviewed my friend Chris Heuertz, International Director of Word Made Flesh. In an time when Christianity has often been reduced to ugly stereotypes or pragmatic self-help cloaked in quotes from the Bible, Chris is advocating a very simple (not simplistic) Christianity that has called him to befriend the poorest of the poor. In this interview, Chris and I discuss his new book, Simple Spirituality: Learning to See God in a Broken World.

I read today about a proposed plan in the UK that would require all adults to carry a carbon ration card.

"Under the scheme, everyone would be given an annual carbon allowance to use when buying oil, gas, electricity and flights. Anyone who exceeds their entitlement would have to buy top-up credits from individuals who haven't used up their allowance. The amount paid would be driven by market forces and the deal done through a specialist company."

I absolutely agree that strong measures are going to have to be taken regarding energy consumption and stewardship of the Earth. But if there was ever a plan tailor-made for graft, corruption, and influence-peddling, this is it. I'm not sure how this plan uses "market forces" particularly since market forces will not determine what the initial carbon "entitlement" will be.

I just looked through Drudge Report to see if there was anything new this weekend and found this report about a new tax proposal in California:

California state lawmakers are considering an unusual idea to solve the state's huge budget shortfall: Tax pornography.

The idea was proposed by a state assemblyman, and would impose a 25 percent tax on the production and sales of pornographic videos -- the vast majority of which are made in southern California.

It is unknown, however, how seriously lawmakers will take the idea or how the porn business would deal with the new tax. It is likely, though, that porm-makers would simply pass the cost along to consumers by making pornographic materials more expensive. read more »

A friend of mine just sent me this article:

Hillary Clinton today brought up the assassination of Sen. Robert Kennedy while defending her decision to stay in the race against Barack Obama.

"My husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June, right? We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California. I don't understand it," she said, dismissing calls to drop out.

Watch a video of the editorial board meeting here.

Clinton made her comments at a meeting with the Sioux Falls Argus-Leader's editorial board while campaigning in South Dakota, where she complained that, "People have been trying to push me out of this ever since Iowa."

Obama, the first African-American to advance so far in the race for the White House, has faced threats, sources have said. read more »

Maybe a reason to vote for McCain?

McCain Vows To Replace Secret Service With His Own Bare Fists

It's Friday so I thought I would get away from political and cultural topics for the day and talk about technology instead. (Though now that I think about it, this topic can be just as contentious if not more so than things like abortion and religion)

After 15 years as a PC/Windows user, I finally made the jump to Apple last month. I swore that I never would. Not that I didn't know anything about Apples. In fact, one of my first computers was an Apple IIc that I used throughout high school and wrote all my college papers on.

There have been a handful of reasons why I didn't think I would make the switch. read more »

If you are like me, you are probably starting to feel some angst over the continuing rise is gas prices. My wife and I are discussing the idea of selling our cars to get more fuel efficient ones. I may even get a Vespa.

A large factor that is driving my concern is the growing realization that our government doesn't have a clue about what a real energy policy should look like. Unfortunately it appears that both parties simply want to demogogue and attempt to buy votes. read more »

A friend of mine posed these very thought-provoking questions:

I have a question for any Obama voters from one who is sympathetic to Obama, has defended him on many occasions, voted for him in the primary, but isn't sure that he could ever vote for him in the general election:

Four observations and then a question:

1) Today NARAL endorsed Obama.
2) The New York Times recently reported that the Obama campaign will make abortion an issue in the general election in an effort to draw independent and Republican moderate women who may be uncomfortable with the prospect of Roe v. Wade being overturned.
3) Obama voted against Roberts and Alito. Let me focus on Roberts: eminently experienced, qualified, and respected across the board. In my estimation, there was no reason to vote against him unless you were making abortion a litmus test. Keep in mind that there is a long precedent of giving the president some respect in terms of Supreme Ct. nominees. This explains why John McCain voted for Ginsburg and Breyer despite disagreeing with them on abortion.
4) Obama has never voted against any abortion measure, including partial birth abortion.

So...

How does this fit with Obama's post-partisan political persona? Isn't this just hardball partisan politics because no one could get the Democratic nomination without capitulating to the pro-choice lobby? Wouldn't it be more consistent with his post-partisanship to say: "You know what? 2/3 of Americans are against partial birth abortion. We need to respect that and find some common ground. Etc. Etc."

This is a big, big problem for me. Discuss...

Not that many politicians are innocent when it comes to demagoguery and "saying whatever it takes to win". But I did find Hillary Clinton's remarks about OPEC particularly over the top.

"We’re going to go right at OPEC. They can no longer be a cartel, a monopoly that get together once every couple of months in some conference room in some plush place in the world, they decide how much oil they’re going to produce and what price they’re going to put it at."

Um, last I checked, counties can do anything they damn well please regarding the exporting of their natural resources. I also don't recall hearing about any sort of "World Constitution" that would regulate things like this.

Next thing you know, Hillary is going to call for the abolition of the law of supply and demand. Go ahead girl, knock yourself out.