The heat of competition: Russian deputy prime minister Dmitry Rogozin has ended the strike at Voctochny, getting the pay to workers while firing the construction head who hadn’t paid them.
Though it appears that the Russian government is serious about completing Vostochny, the amount of corruption that appears rampant here speaks badly for future Russian space operations.
The state religion rules! In Colorado, the same civil rights office that punished a bakery for refusing to participate in a homosexual wedding ruled this week that a gay bakery can refuse to bake cakes with anti-homosexual messages on them.
This is more proof that the discrimination claims of the pro-homosexual movement are a lie, that the real goal is to persecute religious Christians.
We’re here to help you! In order to prevent welfare recipients in Kansas from using their welfare checks improperly, state Republicans have placed a $25 per day limit on benefits, and forbid the use of that money to buy anything in liquor stores, or from fortune tellers, swimming pools and cruise ships.
This is why you don’t depend on government, or ask them for help, or give them any power over you. As soon as you do, they stick their hands into your business and tell you how to live your life. It might be stupid for a poor welfare recipient to buy a ticket on a cruise ship, but damn it, it’s their life, they should be free to live it as they wish.
There is one benefit of this policy however. It might convince some recipients who can to get off welfare and go to work.
Because they haven’t been paid in months, 26 workers at Russia’s new spaceport in Vostochny have started a hunger strike.
This sure indicates that Russia isn’t going to get this spaceport ready for its first launch this year. And even if that launch does go off as planned, it does indicate some deeper problems that are going to haunt Russia’s space efforts in future years.
In less than two days, an independent fund was set up and raised almost $850,000 for the owners of the Christian pizza parlor in Indiana that was forced to close because of death threats from the left wing community.
Friends of the Washington state florist whose entire life savings might be confiscated by the state for refusing to participate in a homosexual wedding have also now created another site to raise money to help her. They have already raised over $50,000.
Both funds are important for many reasons, the most important of which is each fund makes it clear that Christians of good conscience are not alone, that they can stand for their beliefs and not be abandoned and destroyed. There are thousands of people who will rally to help you.
Let me add, as a Jew, this thought on this first night of Passover. Each year on Passover, Jews gather for their Passover Seder to retell the story of their enslavement in Egypt and their escape to freedom. In doing so, you are supposed to imagine yourself as a slave who is freed. As the Haggadah, the book that outlines the Seder ceremony, states, “In every single generation, each individual is obligated to think of himself as one of those who came out of Egypt.”
The Jewish faith also emphasizes that we must thank God each time for bringing us to freedom. I say that God only helps those who help themselves. It appears that in America today, in the 21st century, we are obliged to do the same again.
An evening pause: On this Good Friday evening, which is also the beginning of Passover when Jews worldwide sit down to retell the story of their exodus from slavery and the giving of the law, I think this lovely American bluegrass gospel song captures that same sentiment, from another time and place.
If you can’t watch the embedded video below, go here instead.
The battle over forcing businesses to participate in same-sex marriages is actually an attempt by the left to establish a state religion called progressive liberalism.
It is important to note that Madison was making this case [in arguing for the first amendment in the Bill of Rights] not in the context of arguing for permitting the free exercise of religion but rather in the context of arguing against the establishment of any religion by law. His point was that no one ought to be compelled to affirm as true a religious tenet he took to be false and that no one should be compelled to participate in a religious rite that violated his own understanding of his religious obligations. [emphasis mine]
The author goes on to point out how the effort by the left to require businesses to participate in same-sex weddings is exactly the same as what Madison feared, the creation and imposition of a state religion, except in this case the state religion calls itself secular and has few if any links with God.
Read it all. When I read it my mind went “Bingo! He has hit the nail right on the head.”
The competition heats up: The deal between ESA and Airbus Safran to build Europe’s next generation rocket, Ariane 6, to compete with SpaceX for the launch market is now threatened because Europe wants the company to pay more for development than the company expected.
[ESA launch director Gaele] Winters acknowledged that Airbus Safran Launchers has not agreed with ESA’s assessment that industry’s share of the development cost is around 400 million euros. “They told us they have not signed off on the 400 million [euros], and this is correct,” Winters said. “It is an assumption we made, which we will look at next during the full Program Implementation review scheduled for mid-2016. Industry is prepared to invest in the program, and one important condition is that we need to be sure they have a fair rate of return on their investment.”
Winters said ESA is sensitive to the fact that additional costs borne by industry will find their way into the Ariane 6 pricing structure, which would undermine the vehicle’s competitiveness on the international commercial market.
If Airbus Safran wants to own the rocket, they must be willing to pay for some of its development, as have SpaceX and the other new American commercial space companies. This is the price for having the right to make money from the rocket outside of its European government customers. It seems, however, that Airbus Safran is balking at that reality. They are used to having everything covered by ESA, and are now unhappy they might have to lay out some bucks themselves.
Link here.
Some of the hallmarks of the original McCarthyism are popping up in today’s variant. Media companies were pressured in the 1950s not to hire people suspected of Communist ties. Today, pressure is being applied to isolate or sideline scholars who disagree with climate-change policies. In the 1950s, people accused of heretical views were sometimes unfairly attacked or threatened. Today, people who oppose gay marriage sometimes see their jobs or businesses put at risk. Ask Brendan Eich, who was forced to step down last year as CEO of Mozilla for making a six-year-old donation to a measure opposing same-sex marriage. Or the owners of the Indiana pizza parlor who had to close their doors after threats mounted when they said they would serve any customers in their restaurant but wouldn’t cater a gay wedding.
Read it all. It has become increasingly obvious in recent years that the left is no longer interested in civil debate. Disagree with them, and their answer is to try to destroy you.
A federal judge this week ordered the IRS to reveal its list of almost 300 tea party groups it targeted for harassment in 2012.
A federal judge ordered the IRS this week to turn over the list of 298 groups it targeted for intrusive scrutiny as the agency defends against a potential class-action lawsuit by tea party groups who claim their constitutional rights were violated. The IRS had argued it shouldn’t have to release the names because doing do would violate privacy laws, but Judge Susan J. Dlott, who sits in the Southern District of Ohio, rejected that claim and ordered the tax agency to turn over any lists or spreadsheets detailing the groups that were targeted and when they filed their applications.
From the article, it is very clear that the Obama administration and the IRS has been stonewalling this scandal and that it also appears to be succeeding in that stonewalling. The reason? Our so-called independent mainstream press is working for the Democratic Party, and has been helping the IRS build that stonewall. By not following up aggressively on these stories, they have allowed the story to die politically.
Then again, the 2014 elections suggest the issue has not died with the educated public that votes during mid-terms. It is the uneducated public that votes during presidential elections from whom the leftwing press has tried to bury the scandal. We will find out if they have succeeded come 2016.
Fascists: A family in Indiana is now in hiding having received numerous death threats after the daughter, owner of a pizzeria, said they would not cater a homosexual wedding.
If a homosexual couple wants to get married, that’s their business. It is not their business to force others to participate in the wedding. To then gang up like a mob to try to destroy anyone who disagrees with them is to behave like a NAZI storm-trooper throwing bricks through the windows of Jewish shops during Krystalnacht.
An evening pause: From the 1959 classic movie Ben-Hur, written by Miklós Rózsa. Watch the musicians as they aggressively play this very driving piece of music. Shows that classical orchestra music is far from staid and boring.
Hat tip to Phil Berardelli, author of Phil’s Favorite 500: Loves of a Moviegoing Lifetime.
