Pastor Saeed Abedini 'Viciously Beaten' in Iranian Prison; USAF and transgenders...more

Pastor Saeed Abedini 'Viciously Beaten' in Iranian Prison, Told His Only Way Out Is to Deny Jesus Christ  American pastor Saeed Abedini has reportedly been "viciously beaten" by fellow prisoners in an unprovoked attack in the Iranian prison where he's being held. The pastor was punched in the face, leaving his eyes beaten black and blue, but prison

The American Center for Law and Justice, the law group which represents his wife, Naghmeh Abedini, and the couple's two children in the U.S., said that the prisoners also demolished a small table that the pastor had used to study and read during the beating that he endured last week...

United States Air Force Enters New Era For Transgenders ...Nevertheless, while Russian bombers have substantially increased the number of times they are “buzzing” American airspace and testing our defenses this year (along with those of a number of European nations), the United States Air Force has now developed a winning strategy. Mind you, not a strategy to counteract Russian bomber incursions or for the defeat of ISIS, but rather, our Air Force has now officially eased its discharge policy on transgenders in conjunction with “Gay Pride Month.” Under the leadership of Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James, who has long supported “gender confused” airpersons to serve, high-ranking Air Force officials will decide the fate of known transgenders in their ranks, and an objective medical diagnosis will no longer suffice to trigger automatically a service member’s discharge. Senior officers are now free to keep open transgenders in their units, despite the fact that this violates military policy...

“Our Father” or Fairy God Mother?  ...Ultimately, this is an attempt by some in the Church of England to allow human beings to define God as they see fit. This is an inversion of the creation formula itself. God is the potter and we are the clay (Isaiah 64:8), not vice versa (Isaiah 29:16). One can only pray that this initiative to have the liturgy address God in a manner contrary to His will fails to receive the approval of the General Synod. Should they succeed, God’s name will be denigrated and women will be robbed of an image of a loving father.

Calvin And Hobbes embodied the voice of the lonely child ...Calvin didn’t have trouble focusing on the world around him, he had trouble reconciling himself to the fact that the world around him was such a disappointment. The reason the strip appealed to people both young and old is because Calvin was feeling underwhelmed at a college graduate level. It’s not unheard of for children to experience this, particularly those who are more sensitive to their surroundings, and for many it was a relief to know that seeing the world without the luster and facade constantly created for us wasn’t so unusual. Calvin made it okay to be disheartened and disappointed by life and normalized the inherent loneliness that childhood can bring. He was there for us as we grew up and while we learned that things were capable of getting so much better and so much worse as we experienced puberty and beyond, he was still mired in the first grade, raging against the machine...