Nearly two and a half years to the day, I wrote an early article detailing Rick Warren's connections with Paul Yonggi Cho nee David Yonggi Cho--a figure who is practically at Ground Zero regarding the continued perpetuation and promotion of what has been termed "Latter Rain", evolved into "Joel's Army", and is known now as the "New Apostolic Reformation".

This early post has gained sudden relevance now with Rick Warren now being chosen as the pastor to give the inauguration prayer on 20 January.

This is also rather unfortunate, as it turns out that Rick Warren's connections to "Elijah's Army" go farther than trading tips with Cho on megachurch growth...far deeper.

See Chris Floyd's blistering take on Israel's attacks in Gaza.

In the midst of it, he avows this:

I hold no brief for Hamas; like the Angry Arab, whose coverage of the conflict has been relentless and penetrating, I don't care for any party based on religious extremism.

Did you see what he did there?

He acknowledged a reality where Hamas isn't a cuddly mascot for our favorite team.

Did he just ruin his case, bending over backwards to support some false equivalency? No, he strengthened his case (one with which you may or may not generally concur), by showing a degree of nuance, firewalling his disapproval for Israel's tactics from any perceived tacit approval of Hamas.

When we fail to do so in this classically polarizing topic, we're undercutting our credibility. If we, say, dismiss the notion of showing Israeli victims as tiresome "recycling," we're doing the same, we're becoming boosters and haranguers instead of honest brokers.

Je répète, if Israel's culpability is as stark as its critics believe, why should lefty bloggers not welcome discussion of how its actions look in the broader context, a context which includes attacks on Israelis by Palestinians. I say that not to make excuses for Israel, but to challenge progressive bloggers to be something better than an echo chamber.

Residents to send health-care statement to Obama

PORTAGE -- Residents concerned about the state of the nation's health care gathered at the Westminster Presbyterian Church Monday in Portage to construct a statement to send to the transition team of President-elect Barack Obama.

The group of about 15 people agreed that the United States is in need of a single-payer health-care system.

New Pew survey about online "activism" [PDF]. The key findings:

These are the key findings of a new survey about public interest in the presidential transition process and voters’ intentions to carry on the national conversation about the incoming administration:

* 62% of Obama voters expect that they will ask others to support the policies of the new administration over the next year. Among Obama voters who were engaged online during the campaign, 25% expect to support the administration’s agenda by reaching out to others online.

* 46% of Obama voters and 33% of McCain voters expect to hear directly from their candidate or party leaders over the next year. Fully 51% of online Obama supporters expect some kind of ongoing communication from the new administration—34% of Obama-supporting email users expect email communication, 37% of social network site users expect SNS updates, and 11% of phone texters expect to receive text messages from the new administration.

* 27% of wired Obama voters have gone online to learn about or get involved with the presidential transition process.

Notice anything?