Featured

NEWS ALERT: Authorities Execute Man Who Claimed To Be God

In a rare display of political and judicial cooperation between leaders of the occupying Roman Empire and the conquered land of Israel, authorities in Jerusalem today condemned, flogged and crucified a carpenter-turned-itinerant preacher who claimed to be the Messiah.

Jesus Christ, 33, of Nazareth in Israel’s northern province of Galilee, was pronounced dead Friday following approximately nine hours of in extremis suffering as a result of being whipped and then nailed to a cross in the Golgotha district just outside of Jerusalem’s walls.

Continue reading “NEWS ALERT: Authorities Execute Man Who Claimed To Be God”

There’s More To Keeping Talent On The Hill Than Pay

Pay is low on the Hill but there’s more to the issue of whether to stay or go.

By Bret Bernhardt

This may sound like an esoteric and idyllic response to retaining good talent on Capitol Hill, because that is what it is. But all worthy efforts start with big ideas and lofty aspirations.

So is the remedy for what ails congressional talent retention.  

In all the important decisions we make in life, including those of aspiring Hill staffers, we consciously or unconsciously keep two factors in mind:

Continue reading “There’s More To Keeping Talent On The Hill Than Pay”

Palm Sunday: There Was A Time When Christians Were Dismissed As Atheists

Believe it or not, early in the decades following Jesus Christ’s crucifixion, burial and resurrection, His followers were considered unpatriotic atheists by the most powerful government in the world, Rome.

As Ryan Leasure writes on The Poached Egg on this Palm Sunday, Roman Emperors expected subjects to bow down to the Roman pantheon of gods in an act both of loyalty to Caesar and religious piety.

Christians — in a dramatic act of separation of church and state —refused to worship the Roman gods and were thus viewed officially and by many Romans as atheists. But there was also an economic angle involved, as Leasure explains:

Continue reading “Palm Sunday: There Was A Time When Christians Were Dismissed As Atheists”

Are The Only Truths Those That Sense And Science ‘Verify’?

Some famous figure whose name escapes me at the moment once remarked on how many people go through life as slaves of long-dead philosophers, an observation that likely applies to all of us at one time or another.

But if you consider the only truth to be those claims that are detected via the five senses and which can be verified scientifically, you might want to become familiar with an 18th Century philosopher of the Scottish Enlightenment, David Hume.

Dr. Frank Turek, the noted Christian apologist and co-author of “I Don’t Have Enough Faith To Be An Atheist,” explains why in this brief video that gets right to the point:

 

Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Committee Staff, Courtesy of R Street Institute’s Casey Burgat

There are basically two classes of congressional aides — those who work for individual senators and representatives make up one while those known as committee staff are the other.

Casey Burgat is a senior fellow of the R Street Institute, which does a bang-up job of tracking Hill staffing trends. He recently completed a comprehensive look at where things stand on committee staffing that should be of interest to anybody hoping now or in the future to occupy such a position. What did Casey find? Continue reading “Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Committee Staff, Courtesy of R Street Institute’s Casey Burgat”

Think Legislative Language Is Complicated? Check Out ‘Irreducible Complexity’ And Flagellum Motors

Biochemist Michael Behe introduced the concept of “irreducible complexity” with his 1996 book, “Darwin’s Black Box,” which made the case for the idea that there exists at the cellular level “a single system composed of several well-matched, interacting parts that contribute to the basic function, wherein the removal of any one of the parts causes the system to effectively cease functioning.”

To put it more simply, irreducible complexity means there are things like the Flagellum motor that consists of multiple parts that must all come together simultaneously if it is to perform its intended function. Assemble it sequentially and it doesn’t work. Yes, that’s an argument for intelligent design.

Before you close your mind and move on, you might want to take a little more than three minutes to watch this amazing video from the aptly named Discovery Institute.

Have You Heard About The New ‘Consent Condom?’

One thing can be said for sure about capitalism and that is where there is a demand for a consumer product, there will be a producer to satisfy that demand if a profit can be made.  Thus, the new “Consent Condom” from Argentinian firm, Tulipan.

What is the Consent Condom? Glad you asked, particularly if you work on Capitol Hill. Put a bunch of smart young adults in a pressurized, highly competitive workplace and “things” inevitably happen. Now the name of the product makes sense, doesn’t it.

Continue reading “Have You Heard About The New ‘Consent Condom?’”