I've left this story alone, for a lot of reasons -- mainly because I don't like blogging politics, partially because I've not been impressed with the nominee. But now that the nomination is gone, I want to talk a little bit about why I'm glad.

I know nothing about Harriet Miers. She may be hugely qualified. SHe may have gone on to be the best justice we've had in a long time. But the only thing we really know about her is that she used to be Roman Catholic, and converted to evangelical, Protestant Christianity.

In the Roberts nomination, religion was off the table. Anyone who mentioned his faith was chastened, because it should only matter how good a justice he would be. And I agree with that -- there should be no litmus test of faith. We all wanted Roberts to be judged on his ability.

But not Miers. It's almost like Bush was saying to us, "Don't worry about what she thinks -- she's one of us! {wink, wink, nudge, nudge}" Christians were expected to support her because she's a Christian.

I don't like that attitude. I don't like being pandered to by the GOP, as if I'm some immature kid who has to have a candy bar thrown to him every so often so he doesn't act up. There are plenty of highly qualified, conservative judges out there who would be a slam-dunk nominee.

I almost thing that the President set Miers up for failure. It's as if he decided to give everyone the nominee that everyone feared the most, and then at the last minute pull her back and give us something else. And that's not fair to Harriet Miers, it's not fair to conservative Christians, and it's not fair to the counrty.

Posted by: Warren Kelly at 12:00 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Do it yourself .... sodas.

Soda Club is introducing their line of countertop brewing appliances to the United States. The press release, web site, and everything I've read about them says that they're pretty popular in Europe, and are expecting great things from their entry into the US market. more...

Posted by: Warren Kelly at 11:42 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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So McDonalds is going to start putting nutritional information right on the packaging of its food, huh? And this is some kind of a victory for the fast-food-eating public, huh?

more...

Posted by: Warren Kelly at 05:45 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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OK, this will sound really funny to anyone who has been reading this blog for any length of time at all, given my occasional lack of posting, but I'm going for it this year. I've registered for National Novel Writing Month.

My goal is to prove to myself that I can actually sustain writing the same story for one month. At this point, the 50,000 words is a bonus. I've had ideas running through my head in the past, but never did much of anything with them. Now is the time.

My wife has also decided to do it, though she hasn't registered yet. Of course, she's had a short story published already, and has two novel ideas, so she's got a head start on me.

I just wish it wasn't strictly a novel writing thing -- I've got an awesome nonfiction idea that I've been playing with for the past few weeks, and I'd like to get that going. But I guess I can do the proposal this month, and do some serious work on it in December and January.

Anybody else doing this? Maybe we should form a "support group" to keep each other going!

Posted by: Warren Kelly at 09:23 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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This one via Al Mohler. Today's Washington Post:

The federal government will help rebuild parochial schools, nursing homes and similar religious institutions but will not pay for reconstruction of churches or other houses of worship destroyed by Hurricane Katrina, administration officials said yesterday.

Well, here's one Southern Baptist who sincerely hopes that every one of our buildings is used for "inherently religious activities." This looks like a genuinely bad idea. Government money means government entanglement. Who will decide what constitutes "inherently religious activities?"

Posted by: Warren Kelly at 02:07 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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OK, another hat tip to Tim Challies for this one.

I think that one paragraph says it all about this:

Capitalizing on the ultra-trendy Jesus clothing movement, we proudly introduce Jesus Loves T-Shirts: an edgy collection of T-shirts featuring all the people we are afraid to love.
{emphasis mine}

Posted by: Warren Kelly at 01:45 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Tim Challies had a great post on this yesterday, and I was planning on writing this yesterday evening, but you know what they say about "best laid plans." Tim talks about John MacArthur's response to Halloween, and talks about his own efforts. He points out that, to many neighborhood kids, a dark house at Halloween isn't taking a stand against Satanism or paganism -- it's a house full of people who can't (or won't) have any fun.
more...

Posted by: Warren Kelly at 01:38 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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