Mohler on Christian Rap; Male Friendship; American Prosperity Gospel...and more

"...To all you workers out there preaching morality about those of us who live on welfare... can you really blame us? I get to sit around all day, visit my friends, smoke weed.. and we are still gonna get paid, on time every month..."

Report: More than 1,000 NHS patients have died of dehydration since 2003

‘Game changer’: study finds increased risk of breast cancer after abortion in Chinese women
Pro-abortion advocates have relentlessly denied a link between abortion and breast cancer, but a new study has emerged from China that seems to show that such a link not only exists, but that the risk rises with each abortion a woman has.

Dr. Joel Brind, professor of endocrinology at Baruch College, City University of New York and a director at the Breast Cancer Prevention Institute, called the findings a “real game changer” for deniers of the so-called ABC link.

The study, titled “A meta-analysis of the association between induced abortion and breast cancer risk among Chinese females” was published this week in Cancer Causes and Control, a peer-reviewed international cancer journal.

The researchers say they were initially puzzled by their findings, stating that Chinese women “historically” have had lower rates of breast cancer compared to women from western countries such as the US.
They found, however, that incidences of breast cancer in China increased at an “alarming rate” over the past two decades, corresponding with the rise of the Chinese Communist Party’s one-child policy...

Book review: BLESSED: A History of the American Prosperity Gospel
They are as ubiquitous on the American landscape as the split-level home or McDonalds drive-through. Churches with epic names like World Overcomers, Victory International, and Word of Faith International Christian Center are visible from highways throughout the country. Christian television networks Daystar, TBN, and CBN air preachers such as Joel Osteen, Joyce Meyer, and T. D. Jakes, who promise the spiritual and material rewards of faith. Their books—with titles like Become a Better You and Can You Stand to Be Blessed?—are sold in Walmart stores. Their congregations claim 20,000 members or more. To paraphrase H. L. Mencken: Heave an egg out of your Ford Focus window and you might hit a prosperity gospeler, wearing a snazzy three-piece suit and diamond cufflinks...

Whatever Happened to Male Friendship?
A recent short film advertisement for Tullamore Dew Irish Whiskey is the toast of the advertising world.  The spot follows four young men across the rainy, verdant Irish countryside singing the old farewell song “The Parting Glass.”  By the time they sit down and raise a glass, we’re sure that one of their number has recently passed.  But as the church bells ring, a beautiful bride is revealed: it’s the wedding day of Jerry, one of the four friends....

Albert Mohler: Thinking about Thinking about Rap — Unexpected Thoughts over Thanksgiving
...Rap music is not my music. I do not come from a culture in which rap music is the medium of communication and I do not have the ear for it that I have for other forms of music. But I do admire its virtuosity and the hold that is has on so many, for whom it is a first and dominant musical language. I want that language taken for the cause of the Gospel and I pray to see a generation of young Gospel-driven rappers take dominion of that music for the glory of God. I see that happening now, and I rejoice in it. I want to see them grow even more in influence, reaching people I cannot reach with music that will reach millions who desperately need the Gospel. The same way that folks who first heard Bach desperately needed to hear the Gospel.

The good, the beautiful, and the true are to be combined to the greatest extent possible in every Christian endeavor, rap included. I have no idea how to evaluate any given rap musical expression, but rappers know. I do know how to evaluate the words, and when the words are saturated with the Gospel and biblical truth that is a wonderful thing. Our rapping Gospel friends will encourage one another to the greatest artistic expression. I want to encourage them in the Gospel. Let Bach’s maxim drive them all — to make (their) music the “handmaid of theology.”...

The Long, Slow Death of the Senate
...And the single most important senatorial institution cementing this sensibility was the filibuster, the requirement that a supermajority was needed to clear procedural hurdles to consideration of matters such as legislation or confirmation of executive nominees. This has been the keystone of the Senate as institutional bulwark against governmental encroachment. The Senate was never designed to run on pure power, and the filibuster ensured that it would not succumb to such a dangerous approach.

Now the Senate majority leader, Nevada’s Democratic senator Harry Reid, has dealt a serious blow to the filibuster—and to the Senate’s traditional institutional ethos. Employing a simple majority, he has eliminated the filibuster for the confirmation of judges and executive nominees (though not, the majority leader insists, for Supreme Court nominees).

The institutional consequences are going to be immense. The Senate likely won’t survive in its crucial institutional role, which is to ensure that actions taken by our increasingly powerful and intrusive federal government must get serious and extended deliberation before they can become law. Already the House of Representatives has been destroyed as the institution it was designed to be—the "first alert" system for Washington lawmakers who need to know what new political sentiments are welling up within the polity, out in the country. It served this valuable function through the two-year term and the need for House members, for the sake of political security, to keep their ears to the ground to detect political rumblings emanating from their districts...

Dilbert Cartoon Creator Wishes Pro-Lifers “Would Die a Long, Horrible Death”
...You see his father was extremely ill, and Adams wanted to kill him–but can’t under the law. So, he hates us or “torturing” his father. From his blog, “I Hope My Father Dies Soon:”

Let me say this next part as clearly as I can. If you’re a politician who has ever voted against doctor-assisted suicide, or you would vote against it in the future, I hate your [f-word] guts and I would like you to die a long, horrible death. I would be happy to kill you personally and watch you bleed out. I won’t do that, because I fear the consequences. But I’d enjoy it, because you mother[f-word] are responsible for torturing my father…
I’m okay with any citizen who opposes doctor-assisted suicide on moral or practical grounds. But if you have acted on that thought, such as basing a vote on it, I would like you to die a slow, horrible death too. You and the government are accomplices in the torturing of my father, and there’s a good chance you’ll someday be accomplices in torturing me to death too...

Obama spends $600 million on rail projects that benefit private companies
...The nation’s freight rail network has been the quiet recipient of more than $600 million in federal investment during the Obama administration.

According to Federal Railroad Administration numbers, at least half that amount has gone to projects that benefit the nation’s four largest railroads, the same companies at the heart of the industry’s ubiquitous “Freight Rail Works” campaign.

That doesn’t even include tens of millions more that states have contributed for additional investment in ports and high-speed passenger trains that’s boosted the nation’s freight railroads...

Another Obama Victory: Family Discovers Their Infant Isn’t Covered Under Obamacare
...When Kelly called a representative, he was told his daughter had to be 2 before she could be covered under a family plan. He would have to buy a separate plan for her, at monthly premiums that ranged between $117.21 and $369.31. The cost would be on top of a family plan with premiums ranging from $810.84 to $2,554.71 a month...

Cancer patient critical of ObamaCare now facing IRS audit
...Appearing on “The Kelly File” in early November, Elliot explained to host Megyn Kelly that he could not afford the new premiums in the federal exchange and did not want to “burden” his family with the cost, saying he’ll pay the fine for not having health insurance and “just let nature take its course.”

Kelly was unable to mask the devastation of that comment on her face.

Initially, Elliot’s story took a turn for the better when a health insurance broker helped him keep his existing insurance plan, at least until he learned that he’s being audited by the IRS.