Muddling Toward Maturity Blog

WORTH LOOKING AT . . .

Sharia creeps into Europe  - Olivier Guitta     (HT: Kathryn Jean Lopez)

Accounting for California's Suicide: A weird sort of utopian mindset.  - Victor Davis Hanson

Take a Break from Technology -  Chuck Colson

DEFENDING RELIGIOUS LIBERTY AGAINST MOB INTIMIDATION BY PRO-GAY MARRIAGE ACTIVISTS

- - UPDATE 12/8/08 - I have no respect for organizations and groups that go after individuals.  A restaurant manager who supported Prop. 8 has had to resign because of hatred against her. More here.  Update 12/15/08 - Still more details.

- Mark Krikorian reports:

 Well, this doesn't happen everyday. A bunch of well-known religious leaders came to the Mormon church's defense by taking out this full-page ad in The New York Times denouncing the persecution of the church over Proposition 8.

Evangelicals will recognize the names Colson, Seiple, Olasky, Sider, Cizek plus others.  You can add your name to the list at nomobveto.org   I congratulate those who have initiated this public proclamation against mob intimidation.  That such shameful measures should have been employed by pro-gay marriage activists can only be viewed as unconscionable and disgusting. 

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON ON THE DISMAL -- SHOULD I SAY DISASTROUS? -- STATE OF CALIFORNIA

Here is VDH's thumbnail sketch of the State of California:

I think the wretched state of California, now looking at a fiscal disaster of roughly a $20-30 billion annual shortfall, should be a wake-up call for the Obama administration. Whatever California is doing — please don't follow suit!

With proposed increases, we will have the highest sales taxes (ca. 9%) in the nation, the highest state income taxes (10+%), and probably the lowest thresholds to get into those top brackets — and yet only about 380,000 Californians pay 40% of the aggregate income tax revenue.

In exchange, our schools, roads, airports, hospitals, and police are, to use a euphemism, not competitive. The CSU campuses make up the largest university system in the world, with the largest unionized faculty, and yet nearly 50% of entering freshman must take mandatory remedial math and English courses. We don't utilize our ample energy, mineral, and timber resources, but