January 2018 - Page 26 of 26

Monday, January 1st, 2018

Evangelical Christianity is facing a political crisis

VALERIE TARICO, - Salon/Alternet

Stephan: My takeaway from the Roy Moore carnival was that the racist Christofascist cult that has captured evangelical Christianity was going into crisis. Anyone who could vote for Donald Trump and Roy Moore was so trapped in fear and resentment that they were no longer rational. Research studies showing that millennials and even younger people were leaving evangelical churches in droves further confirmed this. Here is an essay that raises some of the relevant issues.

Ok, evangelicals do have a brand problem—but they also have a major product problem.

Bible-believing born-again Christians, aka evangelicals, have had a brand problem since Jerry Falwell’s Moral Majority sold the born-again movement to the Republican party in exchange for political power a generation ago, forging the religious right.

The Republican party has been using Christianity’s good name to cover bad deeds ever since, all the while tapping evangelical media empires and churches as communications and organizing platforms to bring ordinary believers along with the merger. Having become true-believers themselves, Evangelical leaders have offered themselves up as trusted messengers for this New-and-Improved political gospel project.

And it has worked.

Born-again Christians haven’t given up their core beliefs: that the Bible is the literally perfect word of God, Jesus died for their sins, and folks who don’t accept this gift will burn forever in Hell. Rather, most white evangelicals (and a number of blacks and Hispanics) have appended parts of the Republican policy agenda and the underlying conceptual framework to this list. Religious beliefs and political beliefs have become, for many evangelicals, indistinguishable objects of devotion, beyond question. Political tribe and religious tribe now have the same boundaries.

When I outlined evangelicalism’s brand problem in […]

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Slow federal response in Puerto Rico is causing urgent shortage of IV bags

Kate Sheridan, - Raw Story/Newsweek

Stephan: The complete failure of the Trump administration to effectively address what happened in Puerto Rico ought to be a wake-up call to all Americans that we are not prepared to deal with climate change. The misery and death Trump has allowed to occur in Puerto Rico ought to be an impeachable offense, but won't be of course, teh Republican Party needs a useful idiot in the presidency to move their agenda forward; the tax bill was just the beginning. If I were a Puerto Rican I would be organizing an independence movement. On the basis of the social outcome data I see no benefit in being a colony of the United States, and a rather substantial downside. There is no reason that Puerto Rico could not do as well as any of the other Caribbean island nations.

Credit: istock

Ben Boyer, by his own admission, usually restricts his tweeting to ” dumb stuff” or ” juvenile pictures of signs.” Occasionally, there’s a picture of his three-year-old daughter. But on December 28, the San Diego man’s tweets got serious. “My wife’s nurse had to stand for 30 mins & administer a drug slowly through a syringe because there are almost no IV bags in the continental U.S. anymore. See, they were all manufactured in a Puerto Rican factory which still isn’t fixed,” he wrote. “Meanwhile that stupid swollen prick golfs,” he added.

Ben Boyer@sleezsisters

My wife’s nurse had to stand for 30 mins & administer a drug slowly through a syringe because there are almost no IV bags in the continental U.S. anymore. See, they were all manufactured in a Puerto Rican factory which still isn’t fixed. Meanwhile that stupid swollen prick golfs

10:09 AM – Dec 28, 2017

The tweet spread […]

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Renault’s 2030 Vision: SYMBIOZ

Cynthia Shahan , - CleanTechnica

Stephan: The world outside of the U.S. is moving faster than any of the experts imagined or predicted. It is one of the most fascinating positive trends going on today. Here is the latest.

An electronic Renault Credit: Renault

Renault is further electrifying cars, vans, trucks, and entire fleets. It is entering regionsfew companies bring their electric cars to. It plans to have 8 fully electric vehicles on the market by 2022 and 12 electrified models. It has also given us a more idealistic visualization of an electric future, one for 2030. Renault recently shared its innovative vision of the electric ecosystems — the SYMBIOZ. It is an integrated house and car that work together in harmony. The home and car will essentially share their energy.

The way we use cars is changing and the way we generate and use energy is changing. Danny Parker, a zero footprint hero and energy researcher, set an example for all of us long before 2030. He used his Chevy Volt to power his appliances after one of Florida’s hurricanes. Renault envisions this capability becoming the norm, not just a solution for tech wizards.

As with Margot Robbie highlighting the coming infrastructure of connectivity and the electric ecosystem of Nissan, Renault’s Symbioz is prepping us for the future. “SYMBIOZ […]

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