Tim Ellsworth

Noah Daniels has more lives than Bill Clinton. He’s the Teflon Vice President.

Jack goes rogue next week. Should be interesting.

I’m heading down to Opelousas, La., on Monday for a story assignment for work, so I won’t be around the blog much for a couple of days. Maybe the discussion about limited atonement can keep you busy. If you’re leaving a comment for the first time, it will throw it into the moderation queue, so it may have to sit there for a few hours before I can approve it.

Jerry Falwell on Friday preached a message at Liberty University in which he called limited atonement a heresy. Tom Ascol has responded appropriately.

Talk about turning morality on its head. Caitlin Moran thinks she did the motherly thing by having an abortion. Here’s a great piece of logic:

Last year I had an abortion, and I can honestly say it was one of the least difficult decisions of my life. I’m not being flippant when I say it took me longer to decide what work-tops to have in the kitchen than whether I was prepared to spend the rest of my life being responsible for a further human being. I knew I would see my existing two daughters less, my husband less, my career would be hamstrung and, most importantly of all, I was just too tired to do it all again.

Heaven forbid she should have given the baby up for adoption. Or sucked it up, accepted responsibilty for her actions and raised the baby. After all, that wouldn’t be as motherly as killing it.

To paraphrase Thomas Jefferson, I tremble for our society when I remember that God is just, and that His justice will not sleep forever.

You know what to do.

Dad was discharged from the hospital this morning and is back in his hotel room. He and my mom will take off early tomorrow morning and head for home.

The doctor said the biopsy from the surrounding tissues and lymph nodes couldn’t have looked better, so that was a confirmation of what we had expected all along — that the cancer was isolated to the prostate, and that it has all been removed.

Here’s a great take on the whole Don Imus flap by Kansas City Star columnist Jason Whitlock. Following Bill Cosby’s lead, Whitlock is much more critical of some elements of black culture than he is of Imus.

In the grand scheme, Don Imus is no threat to us in general and no threat to black women in particular. If his words are so powerful and so destructive and must be rebuked so forcefully, then what should we do about the idiot rappers on BET, MTV and every black-owned radio station in the country who use words much more powerful and much more destructive?

I don’t listen or watch Imus’ show regularly. Has he at any point glorified selling crack cocaine to black women? Has he celebrated black men shooting each other randomly? Has he suggested in any way that it’s cool to be a baby-daddy rather than a husband and a parent? Does he tell his listeners that they’re suckers for pursuing education and that they’re selling out their race if they do?

When Imus does any of that, call me and I’ll get upset. Until then, he is what he is — a washed-up shock jock who is very easy to ignore when you’re not looking to be made a victim.

Hat tip: Owen

Yesterday I wrote about Houston Astros pitcher Brad Lidge, who is upset about losing his job as closer.

“I’m definitely upset about losing my role after throwing in two games, after throwing in one save situation,” Lidge told The Houston Chronicle. “Garner made the decision, and I will of course stand by it. He’s my manager, and I’ll do whatever he wants me to do. But that being said, I’m pretty ticked off about it. I guess the only thing I can do is use it as motivation.”

Compare that response to the one from Florida Marlins pitcher Jorge Julio, who was informed yesterday by Marlins manager Fredi Gonzalez that he’ll be pitching setup instead of closing.

“It is best for me right now,” said Julio, who has 99 career saves.

“I need to work on my game, especially my command. I like this team, and I want to help it, not hurt it. We have a lot of games to go.”

Lidge comes off as a selfish whiner, more concerned about himself than about the welfare of his team. Julio, meanwhile, acted in a classy way and demonstrated a team-first attitude that is refreshing among professional athletes.

My opinion of Julio as a baseball player, and as a person, just went up.

UPDATE: Another story about Lidge’s demotion paints a totally different picture than the one from the Houston Chronicle. In the story on the Astros’ site, Lidge responds in an admirable way. I hope this is the more accurate of the two, and I wonder if the Chronicle’s story wasn’t sensationalized to stir up controversy.

From the Jerusalem Post:

Several prominent scholars who were interviewed in a bitterly contested documentary that suggests that Jesus and his family members were buried in a nondescript ancient Jerusalem burial cave have now revised their conclusions, including the statistician who claimed that the odds were 600:1 in favor of the tomb being the family burial cave of Jesus of Nazareth, a new study on the fallout from the popular documentary shows.

Hat tip: Drudge

So Brad Lidge is upset about being yanked as the Astros’ closer. Oh, boo hoo hoo.

Maybe if Lidge would decide to stop stinking and get somebody out once in a while, he wouldn’t have to worry about such demotions.

UPDATE: Another story about Lidge’s demotions paints a totally different picture than the one from the Houston Chronicle. In the story on the Astros’ site, Lidge responds in an admirable way. I hope this is the more accurate of the two, and I wonder if the Chronicle’s story wasn’t sensationalized to stir up controversy.

Doug Wilson is terribly infuriating. Few other writers share his ability to say so many profound things and so many silly things in juxtaposition.

A few days ago I posted a quote from Wilson’s book, “Recovering the Lost Tools of Learning,” that was one of his profundities. Sure enough, several pages later in the same book, I came across this little gem:

“What are parents to do when their children are caught up in the general excitement over Ninja turtles? If the peer pressure at a school is to immorality, then of course the disciplinary standards of the school should be applied. If the school cannot, or will not, apply them, then the parents should certainly remove their children. But if the pressure involves things that are not morally objectionable in themselves, then the parents should have a wonderful opportunity to teach leadership and independence to their child. My wife and I have been able to teach our children not to allow the group to dictate what they like and don’t like.”

I’m not sure if Wilson is referring to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles as immoral or as an example of things that “are not morally objectionable in themselves,” but I couldn’t help but chuckle at it whatever the case. As I read this line, my son was undoubtedly playing with his Donatello and Leonardo action figures gleaned from recent Happy Meals. He hopes to collect all four.

Following Zach Johnson’s Masters win on Sunday, in which he made clear his allegiance to the Lord, ABC News has written a broader story about the Fellowship of Christian Athletes.

Just got a call from my mom, and dad is out of surgery and in recovery. The doctor said everything went well and that the prognosis is good. The surgery lasted almost four hours.

Thanks again for your prayers. I’ll post other updates as the situation warrants.

Albert Mohler examines the capture of British seaman Faye Turney, the mother of a 3-year-old daughter, by the Iranians. Mohler quotes from Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad:

“You will know that among the detainees there is one lady who is a mother of a child. Why is it that the most difficult work like patrolling at sea should be given to a woman?

“Why is there no respect for motherhood? Why does the West not value its women?”

Mohler says radical feminism has paved the way for such developments in the Western world.

Driven by a fanatical ideology of feminism, the West has turned its back on a reality as basic as motherhood. We have adopted a new morality that insists — nature’s obstinacy notwithstanding — that there is no difference between men and women. This produces mothers of babies and toddlers in uniform and in the killing zones.

How sad that a madman like Ahmadinejad gets what so many people in Western civilization don’t.

The NFL came down hard on two of its biggest thugs, suspending Pacman Jones of the Tennessee Titans for the entire 2007 season and Chris Henry of the Cincinnati Bengals for half the season.

Well done, NFL. Now keep it up.