Nigeria-more kidnappings; George Will vilified; National Cathedral's embrace of transgenderism...more

Lest Ye Be Judged: Pastor Dean has baptized 66 professional umpires, calling them safe in the only way that matters.
...Pastor Dean, as folks around baseball know him, is the leader of Calling for Christ, a nonprofit ministry that for the past 11 years has tried to ease the anguish of major league and minor league umpires by keeping them close to God. Esskew is 48 and enormous, with a booming, smoky drawl and his own cologne-scented weather. He ministers exclusively to umps, piling through stadium crowds with an awkward, hammering limp acquired years ago when a horse bucked him on the farm in Oklahoma where he lives with his wife. (Debrah Esskew runs a parallel ministry for umpires' wives and girlfriends.)...

George Will Vilified for Questioning Campus “Rape Culture”
According to Vice President Joe Biden twenty percent of college women will be sexually assaulted over the course of their college life. Walk onto any college campus, and one out of every five women you see either has been or likely will be the victim of rape during her college years.

Can you believe it? Well, if not, you aren’t the only one who’s skeptical. George Will recently landed himself in a hotbed of controversy by daring to question the accuracy of these statistics. In the aftermath of the public outcry, his column was canceled by the St Louis Post-Dispatch. Will’s column will continue to be syndicated nation-wide. In some respects it was encouraging to see that the campaign to vilify Will accomplished so little. It’s still unfortunate that pressuring conservatives to shut up now seems to many like the obvious way to deal with uncomfortable views...
"People aren’t 'misunderstanding' what Will wrote. They deliberately misrepresented what Will said..."  I think what is happening is more nefarious, because it focuses on the person. It's not just an idea that is put off limits (such as questioning the veracity of a woman who accuses a man of rape), it's the person who dares to say it. You are to be regarded as toxic. It's this fear of being regarded as toxic that inhibits many people from speaking.

Nigeria kidnapping: 60 girls and women, 31 boys said to be abducted   At least 91 people – more than 60 women and girls, and 31 schoolboys – were abducted last week by suspected Boko Haram militants, two months after the terror group kidnapped more than 300 schoolgirls in northeastern Nigeria, according to witnesses.

Local media reported about 60 people were abducted in attacks on villages south of Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state, between Thursday and Saturday.

The attack comes as more than 270 schoolgirls are still being held by Boko Haram more than two months after their abductions from a school in Chibok town in April. Several dozen of the girls managed to escape.

About 30 people were reported to have been killed by the extremists in the latest attack. Elderly residents fled their homes, trekking 15 miles to seek help...

National Cathedral “Comes Out” With Transgender Preacher
The Episcopal Church’s embrace of transgenderism is part of God’s “project of revelation” according to the first transgender person to preach at the Washington National Cathedral.

In a special Sunday service marking Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) Pride month, the cathedral hosted visiting guest preacher the Rev. Dr. Cameron Partridge, who was born a woman but now identifies as a Trans-man.

Partridge was joined by retired Bishop Gene Robinson, the first openly partnered homosexual bishop in the worldwide Anglican Communion, who presided at the 11 a.m. service of Holy Eucharist...

38 Employees Behind Bungled Oregon ObamaCare Exchange to Get Fat Bonuses  ...Cover Oregon and its partner state agency, the Oregon Health Authority, spent upwards to $250 million and never produced a fully functional website. The debacle led to intense media scrutiny and withering criticism...

Slingshot water purifier: It can save millions
...Using a process called vapor compression distillation, a single Slingshot can purify more than 250,000 liters of water per year, enough to satisfy the needs of about 300 people. And it can do so with any water source—sewage, seawater, chemical waste—no matter how dirty...Kamen calls the global water crisis a “Goliath” of a problem, which suggests that he is David. He offers a quick refresher on biblical lore: David, it bears remembering, defeated Goliath with a slingshot....