Couple of things
- This story reveals the struggle families in poverty face, and I ask for you folks to help out.
- The endorsement letters keep rolling in ... Beverly King likes Andy Herod, while Edward and Nancy Roberson like David Hamilton.
- I was actually agreeing with Norm Weatherby ... until I read the last paragraph where he couldn't resist lambasting the media, Hollywood and Muslims all in one fell swoop.
- Here's the problem with this bill ... isn't this, to some extent, following along the lines of that whole eminent domain debate that everyone was all up in arms about a while back? Or are we only serious about protecting private property rights when the oil companies aren't involved? I mean, this bill sounds awful for a variety of reasons ranging from visionary ones (because makes ourselves remain dependent on non-renewable fuels) to practical ones (letting non-governmental organizations and businesses seize private property in order to do what they so desire).
- I can understand why the city manager lost his job, though that doesn't mean I necessarily agree it. What I can say with absolute certainty is that Rev. Ron Saunders of Lighthouse Baptist Church in Largo, Fla., does not speak for the Good Lord with regard to this specific personnel matter.
- I like public investment in things like education, social services, etc. But I also like to get some bang for my buck ... and spending $8.3 billion on our public education system to finish in the bottom half of a report by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce on educational effectiveness isn't delivering that. Maybe if we started giving the local communities more control in these types of things, something I though the governor was all about, we might see a better use of our monies.
- I like the concept that we allow technologies developed at Georgia research institutions to stay in Georgia, but this does seem a little bit like micro-managing, doesn't it? It would seem an incentive-based system, rather than one built around mandates, would be the best option.
- The endorsement letters keep rolling in ... Beverly King likes Andy Herod, while Edward and Nancy Roberson like David Hamilton.
- I was actually agreeing with Norm Weatherby ... until I read the last paragraph where he couldn't resist lambasting the media, Hollywood and Muslims all in one fell swoop.
- Here's the problem with this bill ... isn't this, to some extent, following along the lines of that whole eminent domain debate that everyone was all up in arms about a while back? Or are we only serious about protecting private property rights when the oil companies aren't involved? I mean, this bill sounds awful for a variety of reasons ranging from visionary ones (because makes ourselves remain dependent on non-renewable fuels) to practical ones (letting non-governmental organizations and businesses seize private property in order to do what they so desire).
- I can understand why the city manager lost his job, though that doesn't mean I necessarily agree it. What I can say with absolute certainty is that Rev. Ron Saunders of Lighthouse Baptist Church in Largo, Fla., does not speak for the Good Lord with regard to this specific personnel matter.
- I like public investment in things like education, social services, etc. But I also like to get some bang for my buck ... and spending $8.3 billion on our public education system to finish in the bottom half of a report by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce on educational effectiveness isn't delivering that. Maybe if we started giving the local communities more control in these types of things, something I though the governor was all about, we might see a better use of our monies.
- I like the concept that we allow technologies developed at Georgia research institutions to stay in Georgia, but this does seem a little bit like micro-managing, doesn't it? It would seem an incentive-based system, rather than one built around mandates, would be the best option.
posted by Jmac at 8:07 AM
2 Comments:
Hey, I agree that Weatherby's arguments tend to be, shall we say, strained. But you also have to realize that a. the whole Letters to the Editor format doesn't allow for well-developed thorough argumentation and b. Weatherby in that last paragraph raises some good points, though he simply asserted them instead of providing evidence (see (a)).
I don't want to go into a deep conspiratorial spiral or anything, but I do not think it is at all outlandish to surmise that Cameron and Jacobovici and the Discovery Channel and whatever parent company(ies) controls it are doing this for the money and not really at all in the interest of advancing "scientific knowledge" or discovery. The Discovery Channel is not helping us discoer much of anything with this documentary, except perhaps that really really stupid argumentation and mis-readings of evidence are not limited to conservatives who argue that a cold day in Denver disproves global warming. But let me tell you how I really feel.
This whole thing was held onto pretty tight, then released for maximum (monetary) value. Nothing wrong with doing that, I know the world we live in, but it's hard Weatherby for pointing this out (however clumsily he did so). Jacobivic has, guess what, a book on this that also just happened to come out this week. The story that the documentary was coming out basically "broke" last Friday night (a theology mailing list I'm on found a pretty obscure reference to it)--all major media stories about it came out on Monday morning, along with Cameron and Jacobovici's interview on Today that same morning and their press conference later that afternoon. The website jesusfamilytomb.com appeared ex nihilo as a fully blossomed creation on Monday as well (I'm not positive about this, but pretty sure).
Again, I don't expect anything less than for them to fo for the shock value. But the fact remains that that is just about all that is going on here. This "discovery" has zero scientific merit, even in principle. It took only a few hours for detailed refutations to surface from scholars in the field. By Monday morning, the basic arguments of the jesusfamilytomb site were already exposed as ridiculous.
My point being (sorry for rambling so), as a project of intellectual or scientific merit this whole thing is already guaranteed to be stillborn when it airs this weekedn. The Discovery Channel will be showing an already-refuted piece, yet they will show it. Why? Gotta be the money, right?
And I also think Weatherby has a point that the Discovery Channel (and James Cameron and Jacobovici) would not be nearly so quick to do a documentary on some historical evidence that supposedly trashes important Muslim claims about Mohammed. This may just be one of those things where you either see this or you don't, but there it is.
(And this doesn't even get into the patronizing way the people doing the documentary are trying to tell Christians that this isn't really all that big of a deal. I mean, Jesus could still have been raised "spiritually", right? Gee, I never thought of that! That really is an elegant solution that leaves Christinaity entirely in tact! Thanks!)
Okay, rant mode off...
I don't necessarily disagree. I mean James Cameron ... doing something for monetary gain! Shocking! I just wonder if Leonardo DiCaprio is hosting the darn thing.
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