Women in Combat and the Undoing of Civilization; The Most Essential Life Skill...more

Women in Combat and the Undoing of Civilization   ...What kind of a society puts its women on the front lines to risk what only men should be called on to risk? In countries ravaged by war, we consider it a tragedy when the battle comes to the backyards of women and children. Why would we thrust our own wives and daughters into that horror? My own instinct is to keep them as far from it as possible.

Perhaps some people believe that women ought to be able to volunteer for whatever job they are qualified to do. But what if the draft were reinstituted? Under the right conditions, the draft would be a very real possibility, and that specter of a draft is really clarifying. It’s one thing for women to volunteer for combat service. It’s an entirely different matter for them to be drafted into it. I have a hard time believing that the women of America would want to be forced into such conditions. Any man that would countenance for one second his 18-year old daughter being pressed into this kind of service is abdicating his responsibility. Are we really going to be the kind of people who press our wives and daughters and mothers to fight in combat?...

Islamic State says California killers of 14 were their followers 

Islamic State said on Saturday that a married couple who killed 14 people in California in an attack the FBI is investigating as an "act of terrorism" were followers of the militant group based in Syria and Iraq.

 The group's declaration, in an online radio broadcast comes three days after U.S.-born Syed Rizwan Farook, 28, and his spouse, Tashfeen Malik, 29, a native of Pakistan, carried out the attack on a holiday party for civil servants in San Bernardino, about 60 miles (100 km) east of Los Angeles.
The two died hours later in a shootout with police...

Investigation by FBI becomes terror probe

Another Evil on Another Street in America

In the middle of the coverage from San Bernardino yesterday I got a text from my husband:

“SWAT just showed up two doors down!”

A few minutes later: “Shots fired!”

Expected during that moment if we lived in San Bernardino perhaps, but we live in Denver. In a nice little up and coming neighborhood in the northwest part of the city. If you mention our neighborhood to those who’ve been here all their life, they recall stories of being warned to stay away from The Highland because of its high crime rates. In the past five years, though, crime is at an all-time low, housing prices keep rising, and it’s becoming one of the coveted neighborhoods in Denver.

Police surrounded our block yesterday until late into the night. At the end of it all, there was a dead fugitive and a wounded SWAT officer. When we knew it was safe, hours into the ordeal, my husband brought a mug of coffee and a bottled drink out to the policeman standing in the middle of the street outside our house. He’d been brandishing a rifle while diverting traffic and answering questions for hours. We should have offered him a bathroom break too, but I doubt he would have taken it...

Despite ISIS, American Church Still Ignorant About Christian Persecution, Expert Says  Americans remain largely ignorant and indifferent toward the plight of Christians overseas despite headlines featuring ISIS' violence, argued an expert on religious liberty.

Timothy Samuel Shah, associate director of the Religious Freedom Project at the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs, argued as part of a panel held Friday afternoon in Washington, D.C. that American Christians are not as involved as they should be in fighting persecution abroad...

No Room for Sanity at the Inn: Stifling Democratic Debate over Same-Sex Marriage Democracy and common sense teach us to seek the truth by listening to one another. If we will not even provide a room for people who want to talk with one another because we do not like what they say, then democracy is impossible...

The Most Essential Life Skill
...Think of all the successful people you know, what is it that distinguishes them all? It’s teachability, isn’t it? Think of all the people you know that never really made the most of the gifts and opportunities God gave them. Unteachability is the common thread, isn’t it?

If there’s one thing I want to to teach my children and students, it’s teachability.

When I speak to young people or students, I can usually tell quite quickly the ones who will do well in their lives and callings… and those who won’t. Teachability makes the difference...

Satanic group plans Christmas ‘snaketivity’ to rival Christmas Nativity display A US satanic temple is planning a “snaketivity” to rival a Christmas Nativity display.

The Satanic Temple of Detroit has applied for permission to display its particular interpretation of Christmas.

The application is in response to an application by supporters of Ted Cruz to show a more traditional Nativity scene at Michigan Capitol lawn.

Black Cop Writes Fake Racist Letter
...The headlines from February tell the story: “Threatening ‘white power’ letters appear at police department with a history of racial tensions,’ proclaimed the Washington Post.”

“Racist ‘white power’ letter found in Bridgeport Police Department mailboxes says black cops belong in toilet,” said the New York Daily News.

Ten months later, a black cop has confessed  to writing the letter -- and at the behest of Lt. Lonnie Blackwell, the head of the Guardians, the black police officers’ union in Bridgeport.

Bridgeport police officer Calvin Higgins, the confessed perpetrator of the hoax, achieved some local notoriety when he and two white officers were accused of using excess force when they arrested a Hispanic suspect in 2011.

The two white officers were convicted. In January, Higgins, a black man, was acquitted....