When Democrats are accused of being socialists, they get indignant and complain about conservative name-calling.  But, according to a new Gallup poll, over half of Democrats DO like socialism:

A majority of 53% of Democrats have a positive image of socialism, compared to 17% of Republicans.

Sixty-one percent of liberals say their image of socialism is positive, compared to 39% of moderates and 20% of conservatives.

via Socialism Viewed Positively by 36% of Americans.

HT: Joe Carter

All together, 36% of Americans are favorably inclined towards socialism, which of course means that 64% do not. This suggests, though, that the ideological divisions in this country are not just violations of civility or political exaggerations, but real and deep.

Iranian leaders are promising something that will stun the world on February 11:

Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Monday that Iran is set to deliver a “punch” that will stun world powers during this week’s 31st anniversary of the Islamic revolution.

“The Iranian nation, with its unity and God’s grace, will punch the arrogance (Western powers) on the 22nd of Bahman (February 11) in a way that will leave them stunned,” Khamenei, who is also Iran's commander-in-chief, told a gathering of air force personnel.

via Iran anniversary ‘punch’ will stun West: Khamenei.

What do you think it will be?

The Winter Olympics start in four days, but Vancouver, Canada, where the games are scheduled is experiencing a warm spell and there is no snow! They are hauling it in and manufacturing it, and venues up in the mountains should have it. But Vancouver, with its Olympic village and all of that, looks to be brown. See this.

Vancouver, you can have some of ours! Down in Virginia, we have two to three feet on the ground, and tomorrow we are expecting up to 20 inches more! Take it. For free. How many refrigerator trucks could we get in a convoy?

Which raises another question: Are you going to follow the Winter Olympics?

Pastor Douthwaite preached a fine sermon on the callings of Isaiah and Peter on Sunday, a model of how to preach the Law, the Gospel, and Vocation. A sampling:

For while Isaiah was indeed unclean, he was not lost. For in the depth of his sin and fear, “one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar. And he touched my mouth and said: “Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for.” ” For the Lord did not bring Isaiah before him in this vision to destroy him, but to save him. And he is saved by the offering upon the altar. When it touches his lips, his sin and guilt and uncleanness are gone. He is given new life and hope.

And the same happens for Peter. He was right in confessing that he is a sinful man, but the Lord will not depart from him and leave him in his sin. Instead, Jesus says to him: “Do not be afraid.” Or in other words, do not be afraid of being in the presence of the Lord, for Jesus has not come to destroy, but to save. To save by being the offering that touched Isaiah’s lips from the altar of the cross. To save by being the sacrifice for guilt and the atonement for sin as the Lamb of God. To give Peter – and all the world – new life and hope. And the words that came from Jesus’ lips and touched Peter’s ears did for Peter what they said. They did not inspire Peter to boldness and confidence; rather, they gave him boldness and confidence.

And so it is for you and me. At the beginning of each Divine Service, we take our place with Isaiah and Peter and confess that we are sinful and unclean. We cry out Woe is me, I am lost. A lost and condemned person. We confess that we have no right to be here, and deserve only temporal and eternal punishment. But as with Isaiah and Peter, our Lord comes to us not to destroy or condemn us, but to forgive and save us. And so like Peter, His words: “I forgive you all your sins.” touch our ears and raise us to new life and hope. And like Isaiah, the sacrifice from the altar of the cross touches our lips as we eat and drink the Body and Blood of Jesus in His Supper, and our guilt and uncleanness are gone. Gone, for they are taken by our Lord, and we are given His holiness and life.

And so Isaiah and Peter were mightily transformed. Isaiah’s Woe is me! is replaced with “Here am I! Send me!” And Peter’s Depart from me is replaced with his clinging to Jesus – leaving everything and following Him, to be a fisher of men. Yet this is not the only wonder. For is it not also a wonder that these are the very men our Lord wants to send and use. God does not look for holiest and best and most righteous of men. He does not seek the strongest and most steadfast. Rather, he takes an unknown like Isaiah and an ordinary fisherman like Peter, and uses them to proclaim His Word as prophet and apostle. . . .

And in the same way have you been mightily transformed. For the love, forgiveness, and life of Jesus is not without power. And though you are not the holiest, the best, the strongest, the most steadfast, or the most righteous – our Lord will now use you. He may not have called you to be a prophet like Isaiah, or an apostle or “fisher of men” like Peter. But our Lord has called you to be a father or mother, and speak His Word to your children. He has called you to be a friend and neighbor, to serve with His love. He has called you to be a boss or worker, to provide for others through you. He has called you to be a Christian, to speak His Word of forgiveness. And in these vocations, you are just as important as Isaiah or Peter. And Jesus is using you in ways that are both known to you and unknown to you.

via St. Athanasius Lutheran Church: Epiphany 5 Sermon.

OK, as I said before, I enjoyed getting snowed in. But I had failed to factor into my delight the necessity of shoveling off our driveway. When we moved down South, I let my snowblower go with the house in Wisconsin. Our driveway is about 130 feet long and 10 feet wide, and we had 2 feet of snow. Multiply that out and it comes to 2600 cubic feet of snow that had to be removed. An internet search revealed that a cubic foot of normal snow weights about 15 pounds. So that comes to 39,000 pounds of the white fluffy stuff. That’s 19.5 tons. Call it 20 (or more) since the driveway is wider when it cuts over to the garage. We had to move 20 tons of snow to get the car out! Coal miners in the Merl Travis/Tennessee Ernie Ford song only had to dig 16 tons! And a ton of snow weighs just as much as a ton of coal. I say “we,” but, while I took a couple turns, my son-in-law did virtually all of that work. That’s another good reason to have one.

Well, I was surprised. Comment here on the game, the commercials, the half-time show, or what it all means.

Gerard Alexander, associate professor of politics at the University of Virginia, has studied the phenomenon of how the left has a habit of simply dismissing conservatives–not taking their ideas seriously even when they are presented with factual evidence, condescending to non-liberal voters, and refusing to learn from conservative successes.  He found that the liberal worldview is governed by four narratives that determine their assumptions and rhetoric about conservatives

The first is the “vast right-wing conspiracy,” a narrative made famous by Hillary Rodham Clinton but hardly limited to her. This vision maintains that conservatives win elections and policy debates not because they triumph in the open battle of ideas but because they deploy brilliant and sinister campaign tactics. A dense network of professional political strategists such as Karl Rove, think tanks such as the Heritage Foundation and industry groups allegedly manipulate information and mislead the public. . . .

But, if conservative leaders are crass manipulators, then the rank-and-file Americans who support them must be manipulated at best, or stupid at worst. This is the second variety of liberal condescension, exemplified in Thomas Frank’s best-selling 2004 book, “What’s the Matter With Kansas?” Frank argued that working-class voters were so distracted by issues such as abortion that they were induced into voting against their own economic interests. Then-Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, later chairman of the Democratic National Committee, echoed that theme in his 2004 presidential run, when he said Republicans had succeeded in getting Southern whites to focus on “guns, God and gays” instead of economic redistribution. . . .

The third version of liberal condescension points to something more sinister. In his 2008 book, “Nixonland,” progressive writer Rick Perlstein argued that Richard Nixon created an enduring Republican strategy of mobilizing the ethnic and other resentments of some Americans against others. Similarly, in their 1992 book, “Chain Reaction,” Thomas Byrne Edsall and Mary D. Edsall argued that Nixon and Reagan talked up crime control, low taxes and welfare reform to cloak racial animus and help make it mainstream. It is now an article of faith among many liberals that Republicans win elections because they tap into white prejudice against blacks and immigrants. . . .

Finally, liberals condescend to the rest of us when they say conservatives are driven purely by emotion and anxiety — including fear of change — whereas liberals have the harder task of appealing to evidence and logic. Former vice president Al Gore made this case in his 2007 book, “The Assault on Reason,” in which he expressed fear that American politics was under siege from a coalition of religious fundamentalists, foreign policy extremists and industry groups opposed to “any reasoning process that threatens their economic goals.” This right-wing politics involves a gradual “abandonment of concern for reason or evidence” and relies on propaganda to maintain public support, he wrote.

Read the whole article, which details and accounts for each of these paradigms. Watch for them. They even show up in our discussions on this blog.

via Why are liberals so condescending? – washingtonpost.com.

The military will start making available the morning-after pill, which prevents the fertilized egg from attaching to the womb, thus killing the embryo:

The Department of Defense will begin making the morning-after pill Plan B available at all of its hospitals and health clinics around the world, officials announced Thursday.

The decision came after a recommendation by the Pentagon’s Pharmacy and Therapeutics Committee, an advisory panel that voted in November to include Plan B and the generic Next Choice on the list of drugs all military facilities should stock. The Pentagon accepted the recommendation Feb. 3, a spokeswoman said.

The decision is the latest the Obama administration has made reversing politically sensitive policies involving women’s health that were implemented during President George W. Bush’s administration. Previously, the Obama administration has announced that it was rescinding a federal regulation that would have expanded the ability of health-care workers to refuse to provide medical care they found morally objectionable, including abortion and Plan B; has lifted federal restrictions on human embryonic stem cell research; and has restored funding to international family-planning groups.

via Pentagon to stock health facilities with morning-after pill – washingtonpost.com.

Snowed in this weekend. Again. We are supposed to get from 20 to 30 or more inches here around your nation’s capital. Last weekend we had 6 inches or so, and a few weeks before that we had 12 inches. Just before it hit, a book I had ordered came in from Amazon. We are all stocked with provisions. We brought in a big supply of wood for the fireplace. We are all set. I will do nothing and not feel guilty about it because I can’t even get out of the house.

I blame President Obama for all of this winter weather. Once he got elected, the oceans stopped rising and global warming ground to a halt. Actually, though, I should give him credit, since I consider the snow a good thing, as long as I’m not shoveling it or driving in it.

Normally, at this blog we talk about the two things that we are warned to NOT talk about, namely, politics and religion. So in our new Saturday edition today we will try to be more social. The safe topic, in contradistinction to those bad ones, is the weather. Is it possible to carry on an interesting conversation about the weather? Let’s try.

Do you have any weather stories? What was the hottest you’ve ever been? Has anyone drug through a desert under the hot sun as you were running out of water? What was the coldest? Has anyone endured anything like what Laura Ingalls Wilder’s father did in “The Long Winter,” where he went outside in a blizzard, got lost, couldn’t find the house, fell into a drift, and survived on the oyster crackers he had brought the family for Christmas? (If I’m remembering that right.) Have you tried to drive on the highway during an ice storm and spun out of control, barely escaping with your life? (I’ve done that.) Was the weather worse or better when you were a kid? Tell us your meteorology tales.

The family secret that reduced the star of the Colbert Report to tears:

Oh, the horrors!

Uber-Catholic Stephen Colbert had an emotional upset after finding out that – wait for it – his family descends from Lutherans.

The funny guy got the oh-so-shocking news while filming an episode of PBS’s  upcoming “Faces of America,” a four-part documentary that focuses on the lineage of celebrities.

“This one was kind of unexpected, but when the big bad Catholic Stephen Colbert found out he was actually descended from Lutherans, he got extremely emotional,” the show’s host, Henry Louis Gates Jr., told us at Monday night's Lincoln Center premiere of the series.

The episode, which airs on Feb. 10, will show the entire ordeal. “We didn’t stop the cameras. Obviously we wanted to capture that moment,” Gates confirmed.

He later added: “There were tears.”

And while a rep for PBS wouldn’t comment, a network insider says Colbert was indeed shocked by his family tree.

“It was really very intense,” says the source.

“He had a very candid reaction, and it definitely made it in the final cut of the show. He was very surprised and overwhelmed.”

Perhaps that was the point. The source added that each celeb’s personal history uncovered on the show is bound to elicit emotion.

Given that Colbert is a master at faux sincerity, what about this revelation might be cry-worthy? Do you see any evidence of his Lutheran blood?

via Reality isn’t funny for Stephen Colbert; ‘Faces of America’ reveals his family history.

HT: Mary Moerbe