HOT5 Daily 3/15/2011

1. "God and Disaster" These things have been pointed out many times before, but believers always have ways of rationalizing them away.

Representative Sample: If they believe that their god designed a world in which such things happen but left the world alone thereafter and does not intervene when it turns lethal on his creatures, then they implicitly question his moral character. If he is not powerful enough to do something about the world’s periodic murderous indifference to human beings, then in what sense is he a god? Instead he seems to be a big helpless ghost

2. "DOD Takes Steps To Secure Classified Data" It's about time.

Representative Sample: Thousands of classified military documents were leaked and distributed into the Internet's public forum last summer, prompting an immediate investigation from the top down.

3. "Candor: The World’s Scarcest Resource?" Moderate Muslims attempting to whitewash the Koran.

Representative Sample: it is genuinely disconcerting to see so many moderate Muslims dissemble about the traditional tenets of their faith. Of course, it’s hard to know whether Ellison was actually lying, or whether he is simply unaware of the contents of the Qur’an, but I have had far too many of these exchanges myself, both in public and private, to ignore the general trend. Who will reform Islam if Muslim moderates remain committed to denying the obvious?

4. "Total world military spending and arms." Breaking it down.

Representative Sample: The defence budget of America alone, at $693 billion, accounts for more than 60% of the total. But when defence spending is compared to the overall size of each country’s economy, Saudi Arabia tops the list. It spends over 10% of GDP on defence, more than double the proportion spent by America.

5. "Only The Government Could Accidentally Spend $3.1 Million" Our government in action.

Representative Sample: That Medicare is such a gigantic program that a computer glitch can lead to the misspending of millions of dollars is a testament to just how bloated entitlements have become.

To submit a blog post for HOT5 Daily, please e-mail me at unrright@NOSPAMgmail.com. Put HOT5 in the subject.