Here’s a short article that continues the theme on yesterday’s thread about the state of our culture and the challenges this poses to Christians. Apparently there are three good books that have come out on the topic recently, one of which is the “Benedict Option”. This is being referred to as “the Post-Christian America genre”. I have already ordered Dreher’s book, but had never heard of the others. By the way, though his book is not one being discussed, Charles Murray gets a positive mention.
Thanks for posting, Debra. Hillbilly Elegy is an excellent supplement to those books. It gives a graphic, but somewhat sympathetic view of what is happening in many of our communities.
Living in North Texas is very strange right now. We are absolutely booming. However, the boom is based on attracting very productive people or rich retirees (the parents of the first group) from the North, California and Asia. That was Rick Perry’s plan. I am not sure it is sustainable.
“WikiLeaks has published hundreds more files today which it claims show the CIA went to great lengths to disguise its own hacking attacks and point the finger at Russia, China, North Korea and Iran.
The 676 files released today are part of WikiLeaks’ Vault 7 tranche of files and they claim to give an insight into the CIA’s Marble software, which can forensically disguise viruses, trojans and hacking attacks.
WikiLeaks says the source code suggests Marble has test examples in Chinese, Russian, Korean, Arabic and Farsi (the Iranian language).
It says: ‘This would permit a forensic attribution double game, for example by pretending that the spoken language of the malware creator was not American English, but Chinese.’
This could lead forensic investigators into wrongly concluding that CIA hacks were carried out by the Kremlin, the Chinese government, Iran, North Korea or Arabic-speaking terror groups such as ISIS.”
For the record, when my husband took a position overseeing 1000 sailors, including women for the first time, he immediately made sure there was a window into his office and told his secretary that anytime he was in a conversation with one female sailor, she should make it a point of entering the room at least once.
He also encouraged me and the kids to visit the office regularly.
As events turned out, particularly for his counterpart, it was a wise move.
There’s nothing I’ve seen to criticize Mike Pence about regarding his scruples meeting (or not) with women. So far as I know, all the hoopla is based on the Wapo article, which only contains a one-sentence summary of something Pence said in a 2002 interview given to The Hill. I looked for that Hill article, but couldn’t find it. I wonder if Pence fleshes out the issue more in that interview. Whatever the case, nothing about his “rule” merits criticism.
It is a sign of our culture that two of our last four presidents have been sexual predators and people are making fun of Pence for taking steps to make sure everyone knows that he is monogamous.
Michelle @9:58 That is an excellent article. It articulates very well the process of deconstruction that is going on around us all the time. Marriage is just one of those foundational building blocks that determine how we live our lives every day, there are many, and all are being attacked. Unfortunately, the deconstruction is not just from the political left—although I think it is easier to see it there, perhaps because it is used as a tactic to normalize cultural Marxism.
Wandering Views 
Here’s a short article that continues the theme on yesterday’s thread about the state of our culture and the challenges this poses to Christians. Apparently there are three good books that have come out on the topic recently, one of which is the “Benedict Option”. This is being referred to as “the Post-Christian America genre”. I have already ordered Dreher’s book, but had never heard of the others. By the way, though his book is not one being discussed, Charles Murray gets a positive mention.
https://stream.org/end-world-know/
LikeLiked by 2 people
Thanks for posting, Debra. Hillbilly Elegy is an excellent supplement to those books. It gives a graphic, but somewhat sympathetic view of what is happening in many of our communities.
Living in North Texas is very strange right now. We are absolutely booming. However, the boom is based on attracting very productive people or rich retirees (the parents of the first group) from the North, California and Asia. That was Rick Perry’s plan. I am not sure it is sustainable.
LikeLiked by 1 person
So did the Russians really hack us, or was it the CIA posing as the Russians?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4367746/WikiLeaks-says-CIA-disguised-hacking-Russian-activity.html
“WikiLeaks has published hundreds more files today which it claims show the CIA went to great lengths to disguise its own hacking attacks and point the finger at Russia, China, North Korea and Iran.
The 676 files released today are part of WikiLeaks’ Vault 7 tranche of files and they claim to give an insight into the CIA’s Marble software, which can forensically disguise viruses, trojans and hacking attacks.
WikiLeaks says the source code suggests Marble has test examples in Chinese, Russian, Korean, Arabic and Farsi (the Iranian language).
It says: ‘This would permit a forensic attribution double game, for example by pretending that the spoken language of the malware creator was not American English, but Chinese.’
This could lead forensic investigators into wrongly concluding that CIA hacks were carried out by the Kremlin, the Chinese government, Iran, North Korea or Arabic-speaking terror groups such as ISIS.”
LikeLiked by 1 person
What’s up with the Pence marriage story?
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/446283/mike-pence-marriage-rules-controversy-exposes-dived-over-human-nature
For the record, when my husband took a position overseeing 1000 sailors, including women for the first time, he immediately made sure there was a window into his office and told his secretary that anytime he was in a conversation with one female sailor, she should make it a point of entering the room at least once.
He also encouraged me and the kids to visit the office regularly.
As events turned out, particularly for his counterpart, it was a wise move.
LikeLiked by 2 people
A little more horror on marriage: http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/2013/03/the-deconstruction-of-marriage.html
LikeLiked by 2 people
And a story about Nunes: https://www.wsj.com/articles/what-devin-nunes-knows-1490914396
LikeLiked by 2 people
There’s nothing I’ve seen to criticize Mike Pence about regarding his scruples meeting (or not) with women. So far as I know, all the hoopla is based on the Wapo article, which only contains a one-sentence summary of something Pence said in a 2002 interview given to The Hill. I looked for that Hill article, but couldn’t find it. I wonder if Pence fleshes out the issue more in that interview. Whatever the case, nothing about his “rule” merits criticism.
LikeLiked by 4 people
It is a sign of our culture that two of our last four presidents have been sexual predators and people are making fun of Pence for taking steps to make sure everyone knows that he is monogamous.
LikeLiked by 4 people
Michelle @9:58 That is an excellent article. It articulates very well the process of deconstruction that is going on around us all the time. Marriage is just one of those foundational building blocks that determine how we live our lives every day, there are many, and all are being attacked. Unfortunately, the deconstruction is not just from the political left—although I think it is easier to see it there, perhaps because it is used as a tactic to normalize cultural Marxism.
LikeLiked by 2 people