Category Archives: Current Events

Why SOPA/PIPA is the Nuclear Option (aka Overkill)

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Today the web as become more politically active than ever. Many sites have self censored themselves to show their opposition to a bill that is currently working its way through congress (SOPA – Stop Online Piracy Act) and the senate (PIPA Protecting Intellectual Property Act). Our opposition is not to the need to protect IP, but to the approach taken to protecting work.

At the heart of this issue is the vast resources involved in searching for and punishing those who violate IP laws. This is only made more complex by the lack of national borders on the web. Sites like ThePirateBay.com (based out of Sweden) have pages dedicated to the take down requests sent to them, but due to their physical location lack any jurisdictional authority.

Following this the US Congress (after more than $91 million in lobby money from Hollywood, media establishments, and others) drafted a twin set of bills SOPA and PIPA that would effectively place the whole of the internet under the jurisdiction of the United States by allowing the US Government to censor any site on the web at a structural level – a nuclear options since it destroys the whole site in efforts to remove specific IP content (not through a take down request, but by taking over their domain name without the owners consent removing the entire site from the web).

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Looming Chaos, Eschatology and our Apathy

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If the general tone of the news is any indication, humanity could be en route for some major hurt in the coming months. We have a Eurozone which is looking like it will not survive the winter (Financial Times), and the west – through america – has pushed their relationship with nuclear armed Pakistan further then it has ever been in my lifetime. Yet I have noticed a sense of apathy and disengagement from those I find myself in community with (read – christians).

This has been a struggle for me since I understand the apathy. If our assumption is that Jesus is on the verge of returning and before this occurs there will be wars, death, collapse of society it would appear that everything is going according to plan. Why would we attempt to intervene if that very intervention might be in opposition to God’s plan, or even delay the second coming.

Yet a glance at history tells us this is not the case. The authors of the new testament assumed that with the fall of Jerusalem in 70 AD that Jesus would be coming back shortly, and yet we are still here nearly 2000 years later. This same understanding could be applied to the demise of the African church (700-1000 AD), the asian church (roughly the same time period), fall of the Roman Empire, the pillaging of Genghis Khan after his conversion to Islam, the sweeping of Black Death and  Spanish Flu, and many more localized incidents.

Instead I say we need to engage what is occurring in the lives of our fellow citizens (of country and terra) and look past the darkness to the coming dawn. The people of Israel went through many dark periods before Jesus arrived on the scene. Would it be outlandish for us to believe the same will happen again? While unpredictable, God does love patterns.

Why I believe Occupy Wall Street Matters #OWS

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Marking the start of the third month of the Occupy movement’s work in lower Manhattan I feel like I have finally had enough time to process through everything that has been going on to share a few thoughts and one frustration. Let start by saying that I believe this is a thoughtful group of people with important things to say.

My Frustration

First the frustration. There has been widespread attempts to marginalize this movement of people. This has been done by attempting to hijack their slogans (We are the 99%, etc.) and calling them to get jobs. Those who have marginalized this movement have – more than likely – avoided interacting with their very clear core complaint. This also includes all of the spin-off advertising (Jay-Z…) and attempts to redirect the frustration into other pursuits.

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The new American Economy….

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[M]any people in the U.S. and around the world lack the education and skills required to participate in the great new companies coming out of the software revolution. This is a tragedy since every company I work with is absolutely starved for talent… This problem is even worse than it looks because many workers in existing industries will be stranded on the wrong side of software-based disruption and may never be able to work in their fields again. There’s no way through this problem other than education (read retraining), and we have a long way to go.

Why Software is Eating the World – Wall Street Journal

I spoke of this exact issue recently in a systematic theology course. While there are huge opportunities for the advancements economies that can leverage software space in the minds of consumers, there are many careers that will disappear within the upcoming decades. Often one hears statements about the affect of outsourcing (think back to the automotive bailout) on fewer industrial jobs in the US. Yet most of those jobs were not outsourced, rather they were automated thanks to software that replaced a need for them.

Furthermore, software lowers the requirements needed for jobs in industrial settings. Where one once needed technical skills to perform tasks at work, any still working in industry now find themselves watching machines do the work (observation jobs which  can/will also become automated). I’m unsure how the economy will adapt to this shift, and I find myself concerned about the education/retraining will be done.

Much of my consideration around this subject has rested is in how the Church might respond to this shift. Any thoughts out there?

UPDATE: My intention here was not to make anyone feel as though they have chosen a poor perfession, but to ask one question. In a shifting economy (where people must be retrained) how will the church respond? There will always be need for service sector jobs, but with the shift towards automating industry how might we respond to those being displaced? If Detroit is any indication, not very well. But I remain optimistic about the future.

Hamas Leader's Son Converts to Christianity

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Pretty ridiculous story of an insanely brave man, Mosab Hassan Yousef. For those of you who don’t know, leaving the Islamic tradition in strict practicing societies brings the penalty of death (often literally) and at a minimum you will likely never know your family again.

mosab-hassan-yousefYousef, 30, said he realized the true nature of Hamas and radical Islam during a stint in an Israeli prison. He renounced his Muslim faith, left his family behind in Ramallah and converted to Christianity.

“Islam is not the word of God,” said Yousef. “If you want to be offended it’s your problem. But you know something? Go study. Think for a second that I might be right. So wake up, look at your path, see where you’re going. Are you really going to heaven with 72 virgins after you kill yourself and kill another 20 people?”

FoxNews.com Article

I can’t even imagine going from recruiting and radicalizing youths as Yousef did, to renouncing your past, being disowned by your family, and needing to claim political asylum in a foreign country.

If you’re interested in getting some basic foundation in Islam, or hearing more of his story, there is a great interview I found over at sethskim.com from August 2008 (which is a news interview transcript).

Yousef will be a part of a televised special Tonight at 10pm EST on Fox News called “Escape from Hamas.” It will be re-aired several times I’m sure, check listings for details.

Sickest Violin I've ever heard in a long time, period.

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The above video has to be some of the sickest violin playing I’ve ever heard. Over the past few weeks I’ve been meaning to pick up my violin again and would love to be able to rock it like Paul Dateh does here. Mixing my passion for the violin with my love of hip hop. So awesome. He has a bunch more at his website, pauldateh.com, his myspace,  and his youtube channel.

Check it out, or at least listen to part of the mix above. Got some Gnarls Barkley in there near the end.

Importance of Sleeping in and Sleep Strategies

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I came across this short list that promotes sleeping in. Love it, and I love sleeping in. To bad courses start up Monday and I’ll again be sitting in those hard wood chairs at 8am. Enjoy the list from wired.

  1. You may need more sleep than you think.
    Research by Henry Ford Hospital Sleep Disorders Center found that people who slept eight hours and then claimed they were “well rested” actually performed better and were more alert if they slept another two hours. That figures. Until the invention of the light bulb (damn you, Edison!), the average person slumbered 10 hours a night.
  2. Night owls are more creative.
    Artists, writers, and coders typically fire on all cylinders by crashing near dawn and awakening at the crack of noon. In one study, “evening people” almost universally slam-dunked a standardized creativity test. Their early-bird brethren struggled for passing scores.
  3. Rising early is stressful.
    The stress hormone cortisol peaks in your blood around 7 am. So if you get up then, you may experience tension. Grab some extra Zs! You’ll wake up feeling less like Bert, more like Ernie.

MSNBC also posted an article sometime ago listing 10 strategies for better sleep, I’m interested in trying a few of them as well.

Church Exposing Members Sin Publicly… really?

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I just posted about an hour ago about the passing of the second founder of the Moral Majority (which later evolved into the Evangelical Right).

Now i was catching up on feeds for the day and came across this.

Rebecca Hancock told FOXNews.com that Grace Community Church, a non-denominational church in Jacksonville, Fla., was against her relationship with boyfriend Frank Young because the two were sexually active but not married.

When she wasn’t willing to obey the church’s orders to leave him, she decided to leave the church instead, allowing her two children to remain active members.

Now, she says, church elders have given her the worst ultimatum yet: In a Dec. 8 letter, they told her she either has to meet with them and end her “immoral” relationship or she will face public humiliation.

FoxNews Article

What?……

That is actually a part of my favorite story about Christ. that one where he doesn’t love, but instead slanders those who are trying to love him. As opposed to how he treated the woman at the well, and the woman caught in the act of adultery. Well I can only hope/pray that someone can reach out to Rebecca and her boyfriend Frank in love and humility.

This is another example of the church thinking that they are the moral authority in our culture instead of the bringers of love and hope to those who fall short of the expectations God has set (moral and practical).

What is the most startling about htis is how easy it is for each one of us to repond as this church did and not how Christ did. Gives me a greater humility and understanding of the weight we carry as we minister on behalf of Christ.