Techcordance

Right Respect

If you wanted a book title to speed the pulse of liberal academics, journalists and politicians, you couldn’t do much better than “The Democratic Virtues of the Christian Right.†For many people that’s a title akin to “The Winning Ways of Serial Killers.â€
The two leading arguments of the book, written by Jon A. Shields and published last month by Princeton University Press, are no less provocative.
“Many Christian-right organizations,†Mr. Shields writes, “have helped create a more participatory democracy by successfully mobilizing conservative evangelicals, one of the most politically alienated constituencies in 20th-century America.â€
Well, actually that thesis, which the book supports with all the requisite tables and data about party identification, voter turnout, and political knowledge and activity, might be accepted by many of Mr. Shields’s fellow political scientists.
It is his second argument that is sure to stir cries of “No, no, no; impossible.â€
“The vast majority of Christian-right leaders,†he writes, “have long labored to inculcate deliberative norms in their rank-and-file activists — especially the practice of civility and respect; the cultivation of dialogue by listening and asking questions; the rejection of appeals to theology; and the practice of careful moral reasoning.â€
Mr. Shields, a 34-year-old assistant professor of government at Claremont McKenna College in California, reached this conclusion after interviewing leaders of 30 Christian-right organizations, attending training seminars and surveying the materials used to instruct the rank and file.

Twitter

Boy, did I pick an interesting week in which to join Twitter: First I join up (@twailgum) last Thursday. The very next day someone named Oprah Winfrey goes out there and steals all my thunder.The nerve!The Twitter world was abuzz when Ashton Kutcher finally bested CNN in their duel to first reach 1 million followers. Then, of course, Twitter’s servers had to work extra hard to keep up with the media-enabled crush of new Tweeters like me-soccer moms, book clubbers, yo-yo dieters and other curious folks wondering what this whole Twitter thing is all about.The resulting “Oprah Effect” on Twitter’s back-end operations caused a couple of issues for users. During my first six days, for instance, my profile page displayed just one icon out of the numerous people I was following: Professional golfer Stewart Cink.Though I wasn’t alone (Twitter’s help page noted this kind of problem was pervasive), I felt as though it made me look some kind of a stalker of professional golfers named Stewart.

Understanding the disparity of those who call themselves Christian in America.

Disparity
Jennifer Hua identifies herself as a Christian. A 35-year-old former attorney studying Christian counseling at the Wheaton College Graduate School (Illinois), she has gone to church all her life and is a lay leader in her suburban Chicago congregation. She furthers her spiritual development by daily Bible reading, prayer, listening to and singing worship songs, and interacting with other Christians. And every few months, she carves out time for a silent retreat. “I do all of these things because I know from past experience I need to recalibrate my mind and my heart to be in tune with God,” she says.
James Smith also identifies himself as a Christian. He attended church as a child, but his attendance was minimal as a young adult. He believes in God, occasionally attends Redeemer Presbyterian in Manhattan when his time-consuming job in the finance district allows, but he does not often participate in other activities to further his spiritual life. He has a Bible but rarely opens it; what leisure time he has he spends with friends, most of whom are of different faiths, and he does not necessarily believe that his God is any different from the one his Muslim friend worships.
“I don’t think that God would be a God who would shut others out of heaven because they don’t use the word ‘Christian’ to describe themselves,” he says.

Mac maleware

Plan B
The Food and Drug Administration said 17-year-olds will no longer need a doctor’s prescription to get the Plan-B birth control pill.
This comes after a federal judge ruled the Bush administration let politics drive their decision to allow over-the-counter access only for women 18 and older.
Pro-life groups say it is the equivalent of an abortion pill.
Wendy Wright of Concerned Women for America told CBN News that politics affected the FDA’s decision.”This decision is driven by politics, not what is good for parents or minors. Parents should be furious at the FDA’s complete disregard of parental right and the safety of minors,” she said.
Wright called the decision a “very bad precident.”

Bias?

Last week I did an interview with an NPR reporter, Bob Garfield, for his NPR show “On the Media” about the recent Texas decision. I am used to hostile and skeptical questions from the media–and in fact I generally welcome good, hard discussions from reporters. But this reporter was particularly hostile and seemed to have an agenda to paint Darwin-skeptics like crazy religious fanatics. The final story lived up to its expectations.

The Interview: A string of False Accusations and “How Dare You?” Type Questions

The interview started with benign questions about the recent decision of the Texas State Board of Education to welcome scientific critique of evolution into the curriculum. This quickly descended into various “how dare you” type questions, about whether this was all a plot by the “Religious Right” to insert religion into public schools, and why I rejected all the fossil and cosmological evidence that shows the universe isn’t 10,000 years old. “Huh?,” I replied. I quickly informed Mr. Garfield that not only do we oppose advocating religion in science classrooms, but that I’m not a young earth creationist, and that the debate in Texas has never been about young earth creationism. The new Texas Science Standards only require scientific critical analysis of evolution, and in no way shape or form invited biblical creationism or religion into the classroom.
Mr. Garfield was also reminded that many of the 13 members of the Texas State Board of Education who voted for the new science standards both professed to accept evolution and stridently opposed the teaching of creationism, and thus it would seem highly unlikely that the new Texas standards were a “Trojan horse” for teaching religion. Nonetheless, the final story favorably quoted members of the evolution lobby saying this is all a ruse for creationism.

Original Broadcast

Pirate Bay Trial

In one of the biggest technology-oriented legal cases of the year (the entire trial was broadcast live on Swedish TV), the four men responsible for the operation of the notorious Pirate Bay website — an unapologetic haven for obtaining copyrighted music, TV shows, movies, software, and just about anything else for free — have at last been found guilty of “assisting in making copyright content available.” All four defendants have been sentenced to one year in prison and are compelled to pay damages of $905,000 each.
The verdict is paradoxically both surprising and wholly expected. On the surface, it’s obvious that The Pirate Bay has always done what it was charged with, “assisting in making copyright content available” is the site’s very charter, and the website has long been upfront that that’s exactly what it does. But TPB has always offered up the defense that, under Swedish law, making copyrighted material available for download is not actually illegal. Some of its letters to Hollywood studios in response to demands that it take down copies of various movies linked on the site are downright hysterical in their brashness.

The Slow Slide

“Hypocrisy in one Age,” warned Joseph Addison, “is generally succeeded by Atheism in another.” Consider this in light of charges that America is becoming, according to a Trinity College survey, less Christian. It’s not that Americans are converting to other religions, it’s that they are more willing to avow nothing. One researcher blames Christianity’s association with conservative politics for turning people away. Sexual abuse by Catholic priests also tarnished us, he says. Underlying it all is a cultural shift that makes atheism more publicly acceptable. Recognizing this trend, President Obama became the first president to pay homage to nonbelievers in his inaugural address…
While the vast majority of Americans claim to be Christian, in other words, a good many of us don’t seem capable of explaining what that means. Little wonder the comically vicious Bill Maher had such a field day filming a mockumentary wherein he accosted Christians about their faith. Not knowing what we believe makes it awfully hard to answer why we believe it. It shouldn’t surprise us if Christians who can’t articulate what they believe have children and grandchildren who don’t even bother to try. And this is exactly what we are seeing, as large numbers of young people stop attending church altogether upon leaving home.

Still out there

Antivirus company Sophos has sent an alert saying many users still have yet to patch their PCs against the exploit that makes them vulnerable to the Conficker worm.
Sophos’ senior technology consultant Graham Cluley, said in a blog post Thursday, the antivirus company found 11 percent of users who had taken an endpoint assessment test at its Web site did not have the Microsoft OS08-067 patch installed.
The patch, available since October last year, fixes a vulnerability which allows the Conficker worm to infect PCs.
The Conficker saga has been broiling for the last month or so, where it received a swarm of media attention leading up to April 1–when it was expected to detonate. Its real effects were seen about a week later, when it started dropping a mystery payload on infected computers.

Whatever your opinion of Rick Warren and the “Purpose Movement” is,  he is an Evangelical leader with much exposure and influence.  Hugh Hewitt’s interviews this month were very interesting. Thanks to Hugh Hewitt at Townhall.com
*Download* Rick Warren Interview 1

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