Busting Obamacare Myths

Politico has a great piece up about the myths (see: lies) about the Affordable Care Act. It caught my eye because of a little tidbit that came up recently came up in comments about Indiana's rates rising by 72 percent.

Two states are playing starring roles in Republicans’ “Obamacare rate shock” warnings: Ohio, which said its health insurance rates for individuals will go up 88 percent, and Indiana, which estimated its individual rates will rise by 72 percent.

There’s just one problem: Both states’ insurance departments tell POLITICO that people’s premiums won’t necessarily go up by that much.

Neither state was actually talking about premiums — they were talking about the basic cost of providing health insurance.

Neither state tried to distinguish between the four different levels of Obamacare coverage. They just mashed all of the costs together, so a casual customer would have no sense that some plans will be cheaper than others.

What this clearly demonstrates is that when conservatives make an accusation, the rest of the country should just sit back and wait for it to implode. They don't have anything other than adolescent outbursts that are full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

Fox News: Unfair and Unbalanced

When Fox News interviewed Reza Aslan they opened themselves up to a firestorm of ridicule. Aslan, author of Zealot, a scholarly biography of Jesus the man, is a Muslim. Lauren Green, the Fox anchor, insisted that a Muslim could not possibly write a book about Jesus. She and other right-wing critics of Aslan's book, are trying to sell the lie that Aslan is hiding the fact that he's a Muslim (he mentions this on page 2 of the book, which Green apparently did not read).

Apparently Fox thinks Aslan should wear a crescent armband everywhere he goes so that we can tell he's a Muslim. I guess the Persian name didn't clue them in.

Fox ignores the fact that Aslan had once converted to evangelical Christianity, and that his mother and his wife are Christians, and that his brother-in-law is a Christian pastor. Aslan is also a religious scholar with four degrees, one in the New Testament, and fluent in biblical Greek. So he obviously understands Christianity from the inside out. Fox also ignores the fact that Islam reveres Jesus as a holy figure. Many Muslims believe Jesus was born of virgin birth, that he will return near the day of judgment to restore justice and that he had miraculous powers to heal. But they don't believe he is one with God.

But that's true of many Christian sects, which hold views on Christ not all that different from Islam. Jehovah's Witnesses don't believe in the Trinity at all. Mormons don't believe that Jesus is God, they believe he is the son of god and one of many gods. The Unification Church, Christian Scientists and certain Pentecostals also reject the Trinity.

Saying that Aslan, a Muslim, cannot write a book about Jesus is like saying that a Christian Old Testament scholar cannot write a book about Moses. Because Moses was a Jew, and Jews have for centuries been persecuted, murdered and castigated as Christ-killers by all of Christendom. In the middle of the last century Christian Germans stood by and watched Hitler commit genocide against Jews, largely because of that antisemitic religious sentiment. The only reason fundamentalist Christians seem to tolerate Jews these day is that the return of the Jews to Jerusalem is a prerequisite for the End Times, when the Antichrist attacks Israel. Yes, Christians want to see Israel restored so that millions of Jews can be killed.

Monotheistic religions are sort of like releases of operating systems. Judaism is Monotheism 1.0. The Pharaoh Akhenaten's worship of the solar deity Aten was Monotheism 1.1. Christianity is Monotheism 2.0, with a little polytheism thrown in with the Trinity. Roman Catholicism is Monotheism 2.1, and Eastern Orthodoxy is Monotheism 2.2. Islam is Monotheism 3.0, with the polytheism taken out again. Protestantism is Monotheism 2.1.5, with the indulgences taken out. There are hundreds of branches of Christianity, with all sorts of heretical beliefs. Mormonism comes in at about Monotheism 2.1.9.1, with the reintroduction of polygamy and polytheism on a massive scale, then there's Monotheism 2.1.9.2, which is Mormonism with polygamy taken out again, but all the polytheism.

What's most revealing about the Fox interview with Aslan is the utter rejection of the very possibility of scholarly research. In the minds of the Fox anchors, editors, producers and viewers, it is only possible to write books that are either outright attacks against Jesus or a glowing hagiography praising him. In their minds a Muslim cannot write a fair biography about the life and times of the historical Jesus, just as a Democrat could not possibly write an objective biography of Ronald Reagan (even though millions of Democrats voted for Reagan).

This reveals everything you need to know about Fox News: their motto of "fair and balanced" is completely false. They don't believe it's ever possible to be objective about anything. And the interview with Aslan proves the point: Fox News cannot give a Muslim a fair interview: they're just interested in pushing a false narrative that hews to their preconceived notions that Muslims hate Christians.

This is why they and their viewers reject scientific research that disagrees with their political agenda. Because they are innately incapable of separating their own beliefs and prejudices from facts, they believe it is impossible for others to do so. They feel scientists are constantly attacking them by producing evidence that conservatives are wrong, when the scientists are just reporting the facts they're finding. You can tell this is so because so many scientists frequently report findings that show that their own conclusions were incorrect. Unlike conservatives, most scientists admit it when they're wrong.

This also shows why Fox News is so dangerous: they are constantly selling the false narrative that Christianity and Islam are at war. They want to take the immoral actions of a few Muslim terrorists and besmirch the honor and motives of all Muslims. This is what's so evil about the conservative worldview: everything is a battle to death and no one should be given any quarter.

It can be difficult to keep your beliefs from coloring your language when you write about something. But as long as a writer discloses his personal history and potential conflicts of interest, and includes citations to other works upon which the research is based -- which Aslan does -- the reader will be fully aware of the possible slant and take it into account.

But what's really funny is that all Fox News really did with that hatchet job was make Reza Aslan richer. Zealot had climbed to the #1 spot on Amazon.com by Sunday, and Random House has ordered another 50,000 copies be printed.

Not A Christian Either

"If someone is gay and he searches for the Lord and has good will, who am I to judge?"

I guess the new pope isn't a Christian either:)

Yep, They Are Scared, Ted

Texas Senator Ted Cruz recently said that the DC Republicans are scared and actually don't want to defund Obamacare in fear of being beaten up politically. Well, Ted, they are scared because you and your fellow nutbags are doing everything possible to shorten the lifespan of the Republican party and I don't think you realize it.

In looking at the situation honestly in DC right now, House Republicans (and that basically means the hostages the Tea Party are currently holding) don't want the president to succeed. Think of what would happen if all of his policies were passed. Our country would improve. Indeed, it already is, thanks to the ones that have made it through. It has to be a fucking nightmare for them to watch the economy recover and deficits reduced.

Think about it for a minute. They have staked their political lives on their fevered and quite irrational belief that the federal government can't succeed at much of anything. If it does, they are fucking done...forever. The bubble will collapse. In fact, it already is and they just want to keep it going a little longer so they can retire to Shady Acres.

Unfortunately they are doing their usual deal and thinking like adolescents: short term. By being as obstinate as they are on a whole host of issues (the budget, energy, immigration, gun safety, health care), they think they are protecting themselves and the country but they are actually holding us back. Thankfully, people are starting to get hip to this and I suspect 2014 is going to be full of surprises.

Where Does Our Stuff Come From?

There are so many good things about the latest cover story in The Christian Science Monitor on globalization that I don't know where to start. Our world is very different these days and this piece really drives that home. I don't see how anyone can have a discussion about the issues facing our country without considering the information in this article.

Seriously, check it out!

Six Reasons

AmericaBlog has a good piece up about why the ACA is going to be good for entrepreneurs. It's important to have this sort of information out there to combat all the propaganda the Right is spewing about how the new health care law is going to destroy America.

The ones that jumped out at me were....

2. Cost containment But there’s so much more. Before Obamacare, if you decided to leave your job – or lost your job – and went to work on your own, you went back to zero with the insurance companies. Let me explain. A good friend decided to move from DC to Arizon. He was paying $250 a month for his HMO here. When he moved to Arizona, the same insurance company, Kaiser Permanente, told him they were upping his monthly premiums to $1200 a month because of various pre-existing conditions. Mind you, it’s the same company. But because he was leaving his job on the Hill, and moving to Arizona to work for himself, he lost his health insurance and had to start over again from scratch, which means paying exorbitant rates because the insurance companies treat you as “new” and basically gouge people who work for themselves.

A much overlooked point. If your work for yourself, you pay an insane amount in health insurance. No longer...

5. No more worries about annual limits I work for myself, and have the best self-employed PPO I could get from Blue Cross when I bought it in 1998 or so. Since that time, my monthly premium has nearly quadrupled. But another interesting thing happened. I found out that I have an annual limit on my prescription drug coverage – CareFirst BCBS will only pay $1500 a year for my prescriptions, and after that I’m on my own. That wasn’t such a big deal when I was younger. But nowadays, even though I don’t have any “grave” conditions, my annual prescription drug costs are far beyond the $1500 that BCBS is willing to pay for (my monthly asthma drugs alone cost around $450). Oh but it gets worse. In the past 15 years or so, when my monthly premiums have gone up 400%, how much do you think BCBS raised my annual $1500 prescription drug limit? Zero. And if I kept this plan for another 20 years, they’d still only pay $1500 a year. That’s criminal. Under Obamacare, annual limits are gone. Sadly, I need to switch to another plan that’s a good $250 a month more if I want to take advantage of Obamacare’s no-annual-limits, but I’m hoping that once the DC exchange kicks in, that price will go down.

Another overlooked point. Everyone on the Right is waiting for rates to go up but completely missing the point that they have always been going up and now will likely go down due to the increase in customers.

It's going to be very interesting to watch this law roll out. It's likely to achieve a moderate degree of success at the very least and then you can say buh-bye to what has been the foundation for the Right in the last five years. What will they do when it doesn't fail? Pretend that it did?

Ah, That Explains It...

Time to Go Kosher

On Thursday there was a story about how Chinese parents spend exorbitant amounts of money the world over trying to buy non-Chinese baby formula for their children. On Friday there was a story about how the FDA plans to put the companies that import food in charge of making sure that they're safe. And last May there was a story about a Chinese company buying out a major pork producer in the United States. The combination of these three stories is very unsettling.

Why are Chinese parents desperately avoiding buying Chinese baby formula, and even foreign baby formula imported by Chinese companies? Because the profit motive in China is so strong, and the regulatory environment so lax, that they dare not trust their babies' lives to the honesty and integrity of Chinese businessmen.

More specifically, in 2008 Chinese baby formula producers boosted the protein content by including toxic melamine to fool the chemical tests. Six babies died and hundreds of thousands became seriously ill. These adulterations have continued despite two people being executed and three receiving life sentences in the scandal.

How has China responded to the parents' attempts at getting pure food for their children?

[... C]ustoms officials in Hong Kong are enforcing a two-can, or four-pound, restriction on travelers taking it out of the territory — with violators facing fines of up to $6,500 and two years in prison.

Officials in Hong Kong are treating baby milk smugglers like criminals who traffic in more illicit kinds of powder. In April, the customs police held a news conference to announce that a two-day “antismuggling operation” had resulted in the breaking up of three “syndicates,” the arrest of 10 people and the seizure of nearly 220 pounds of formula worth $3,500.

The Chinese demand for baby formula has caused shortages in countries from the Netherlands to New Zealand.

And this is all because communist China has become a capitalist paradise. There's almost no government regulation of industry: it's a laissez-faire Randian utopia. The selfish me-first mentality that Libertarians claim is the source of everything that is holy has Chinese parents scrambling across the planet to make sure their babies aren't poisoned.

And now the FDA thinks it's safe to allow companies to take responsibility for the purity of imported food. This is a very bad idea. Just four months ago the biggest American honey packer was caught laundering Chinese honey, saying that it had come from third country. China has been dumping honey on the American market and is notorious for adulterating it with rice syrup, beet sugar and corn syrup.

For years my wife and I are have been avoiding food imported from China -- which can be hard because so many companies lie about the country of origin. We have absolutely no faith that the stuff China produces is safe to eat, just as the Chinese people themselves.

Another thing to note is that nearly all vitamin supplements on the American market are made in China. They've driven all the other suppliers out of  business with low prices. That, combined with the general dubiousness about the efficacy of vitamin supplements in the first place, has caused us to abandon taking vitamins all together. You should get all your nourishment from the food you eat, not pills made in China.

So I'm not particularly happy about the prospect of companies being their own watchdogs, considering that so much of the food they import will come from China. The first thing Walmart will do is spin off the import arms of their business so that they can avoid responsibility if they get a bad batch of food. They'll  cut the "independent importer" loose, let it go bankrupt and sacrifice a few underlings. Then they'll keep on demanding lower and lower prices from their suppliers, which means it'll only be a matter of time before kids start dying all over again.

I'm even less happy about the prospect of American meatpackers being bought out by Chinese concerns. Chinese companies are notorious for processing diseased animals into food they sell to consumers, dumping thousands of dead animals into the rivers that supply their drinking water, and China is the breeding ground for some of the worst flu outbreaks in recent years. China is also the source for a deadly pig virus that will may kill up to a million piglets in the US and Canada this summer.

I've never been a big fan of pork. But with Chinese companies getting in the American pork industry, there's never been a better time to go kosher.

Can You Believe It? Drivers That Are Too Polite!

Recently I've taken up cycling. No, I'm not a Lance Armstrong wanna-be (who would be, these days?). It's just something that I can do with my wife that gets my heart pumping without a lot of collateral damage.

But when you start a new activity you often develop a whole new set of pet peeves. And my new pet peeve is drivers who are too polite.

Most of the time people complain about drivers who act like idiots and drive like they're the only ones on the roads. They don't know or don't care about the rules of right of way. They are oblivious about stoplights and turn signals. I've almost been creamed by guys like this twice in two months. Drivers of black pickup trucks seem to be the worst offenders.

Those guys are dangerous, but far more frequent are the drivers who are too polite. These drivers see a bike at a trail crossing, so they stop and wait for you to cross. Now, I appreciate their intentions. But most of the time it's misplaced.

If you take a look at the picture on the right, you'll see the signs that are at nearly every intersection of a bike trail and a street in Minnesota. In the foreground is an octagonal red stop sign for the bike trail, and a notice that says "Cross traffic does not stop." In the background is the yellow diamond caution sign for the street that says "Trail Xing." The other day I even saw one of those programmable blinking signs at a trail crossing, reminding bikers that cars don't have to stop for them.

At such crossings (which is most of them) cars on the street have the right of way, and the pedestrians and bicycles on the trail must yield to cars. Cars are under no obligation to stop, though they should be on the alert for idiot bikers who just barrel across the street. But about half the time when I come to such an intersection the drivers seem to think they have to stop for me.

Again, I appreciate the intention. But that "half the time" is the problem. When three or four cars approach the trail crossing, one or two will stop. The others just continue through, as is their right. Which means that I've got to stop anyway. And, a lot of the time, there are cars approaching from further back, whose drivers I can only assume will be irritated by the delay, swerve around the stopped car, and roar by me. Which means I can't go until I see what they do, which means that I -- and the person who stopped for me -- have to wait even longer.

When this happens I wave the driver of the stopped car on, but most of the time they refuse to go. Sometimes there are more cars coming that aren't stopping, so I can't go. Sometimes I'm not ready to cross yet -- I might be waiting for my wife to catch up, or I'm in the wrong gear to get going quickly, or I'm about to take a drink, or check my cell phone, or I just don't want to be rushed. And once I've stopped, the car might as well go ahead because they can accelerate faster than I can.

So if a cyclist waves you on, and you're sure there's nothing else in your way, save yourself and the cars behind you some grief and time, and just exercise your right of way.

Now, there is one time when I really do appreciate a driver stopping: some streets at certain times are extremely busy, and there's never a break in traffic. If you know a bike has been waiting a long time, giving them a chance to cross safely makes you a hero.

But exercising your right of way doesn't make you a villain.

Halliburton's Handslap

Halliburton has pleaded guilty to destroying evidence in the Deepwater Horizon oil spill:

In a startling turn in the three-year-old criminal investigation, Halliburton said that on two occasions during the oil spill, it directed employees to destroy or “get rid of” simulations that would have helped clarify how to assign blame for the blowout — and possibly focused more attention on Halliburton’s role. 

They were charged with one count of criminal conduct and will pay a $200,000 fine. Which is how much money they make in 15 minutes.

Executives at Halliburton had a hand in the deaths of 11 people and tried to cover it up. Why isn't anyone going to jail?

This entire affair shows how preposterous the Republican claim that big business can be trusted to act responsibly all on their own, and that regulation and oversight are unnecessary and even harmful. The same Republicans want us to allow a foreign company to build the Keystone XL pipeline straight the the heartland of the United States -- trashing many American's property rights with eminent domain -- to allow Canadian oil to be more easily exported to China.

Execs at big companies -- especially ones that are headquartered in foreign countries -- don't give a damn about America. They just want to squeeze every last drop of oil and gas out of the land and sea at maximum profit, and they don't care that they leave a polluted and desolate wasteland. They know they'll never be held personally responsible for anything they do. In the worst case the company gets slapped with a meaningless fine and they'll get a golden parachute worth tens of millions of dollars and be forced into retirement on some luxurious island tax haven.

The entire purpose of a corporation is to diffuse responsibility so thinly that no one can ever be held personally accountable for their actions. So how can anyone possibly trust that a company like Halliburton will ever do the right thing when they have to choose between doing the right thing and making a ton of money?

I Guess I Must Be A Woman...

Attack of the Zombie Voters

One of the best tools in the Republican arsenal of voter suppression is voter ID laws. These are usually justified by claims of huge numbers of impersonators, illegal immigrants, felons and dead people voting.

The Washington Post looked into one such case: numerous Republican politicians in South Carolina claimed that 900 dead people voted in elections there, and used these "facts" as evidence that voter ID laws were the only solution.

So South Carolina hastily passed a voter ID bill in time for the 2012 election, but the courts delayed its implementation until 2013. Oh, and an investigation was called for. But guess what?

The State Law Enforcement Division (SLED) conducted an extensive probe, which was completed May 11, 2012. But the final report was just made public this month after a 13-month review by Wilson’s office. In fact, the report was only released after Corey Hutchins of the Columbia (S.C.) Free Times submitted an open records request under the Freedom of Information Act. He received the report the day before the 4th of July holiday — perfect timing for news designed to be buried.

It turns out the claims of 953 votes by dead people actually involved not one election but 74 elections over a seven-year period. 

So SLED’s investigation centered on 207 votes that allegedly were made by dead people in the Nov. 2, 2010 election — when a total of 1,365,480 votes were cast — after officials concluded that that batch constituted a “representative sampling” of the alleged voting irregularities. (Note that the number of alleged dead votes was less than 2/10,000th of all of the votes cast in that election.)

The report confirms what the State Election Commission had found after preliminarily examining some of the allegations: The so-called votes by dead people were the result of clerical errors or mistaken identities.

In other words, zombie voters are just as fictional as the flesh-eating ones.

In addition to numerous clerical errors, the false positives included misidentifying living voters with the same name as deceased (sons with the same names as their dead fathers), bad data matching, scanners that incorrectly attributed a vote to a dead person, people who received absentee ballots who died without voting (not criminal in any sense), and one person whose absentee ballot was counted after they died -- which is exactly what South Carolina law calls for.

The episode in South Carolina is typical of Republican scandal-mongering. Phony up some voting data, misrepresent a tragedy in Benghazi, or solicit a bogus report from IRS inspector general. Cause a huge uproar and shout to the high heavens that there's a terrible conspiracy. Demand immediate action and a thorough investigation.

Then bury the results of the investigation when it turns out that there was never any kind of a scandal in the first place.

Yep

A Different Trial, a Different Outcome

The story of the old man who shot a 13-year-old black kid in cold blood has ended in a life sentence for the killer. The details are particularly revolting.

John Henry Spooner's home had been burglarized two days before the May 2012 shooting, and he suspected 13-year-old Darius Simmons as the thief. So he confronted the teen, demanded that he return the guns and then shot him in the chest in front of his mother when he denied stealing anything.

Spooner's own home surveillance cameras captured the shooting, and prosecutors aired the footage in court.

His defense:

The defense had argued that the killing might have been reckless but not intentional, and said Spooner didn't mean for the shot to be fatal.

The surveillance footage showed Spooner confronting Darius on a sidewalk, pointing a gun at the boy's chest and firing from a few feet away. Darius turned and fled, and then collapsed and died in the street moments later as his mother cradled him in her arms.

Spooner fired a second shot that missed. He tried to fire a third one but his gun jammed.

The part about the gun jamming instills very little confidence in me about the efficacy of firearms as "protection." What's incredible is that the defense argued that the killing was not intentional: he pulled the trigger three times! And then there's this:

During the trial, race — Spooner is white and Darius was black — was almost never mentioned, except when Spooner referred to his surveillance footage from the day of the burglary. It showed two black teenage males walking near his house from the direction of Darius' home. Their faces are difficult to identify and neither is carrying Spooner's guns. 

Finally — and the reason that the 76-year-old Spooner got life without the possibility of parole — there's the utter lack of remorse when he spoke at sentencing:

"They had to rob the house," he said. "Why'd they do that to me? ... They pushed me over the edge, I guess. I don't know. As far as being sorry, I don't know if I did right or wrong." 

He doesn't know if he did right or wrong? The cops searched the kids' house within hours of the murder and found nothing. The victim was standing on the street with his mom, not currently engaged in any kind of illegal activity or threatening Spooner in any way. How could this man possibly have any doubt about whether killing a 13-year-old child in cold blood was wrong?

This is exactly why the black community is so outraged by the Trayvon Martin killing. Because, in their minds, this is what they think was going through George Zimmerman's mind when he stalked and shot Martin. They believe Spooner and Zimmerman had exactly the same motivations (as indicated by Zimmerman's comment about punks who always get away).

The main difference was that Zimmerman made sure there was no surveillance video and no witnesses.

The net result of this stupid old man's love affair with firearms: he's in jail for the rest of his life, one kid is dead, and two shotguns are out on the streets in the hands of criminals. Spooner's behavior and remarks show that having guns is not about protection: his guns didn't stop his house from being broken into or prevent his shotguns from being stolen.

Having guns is all about revenge and being able to kill the bastards who cross you.

And About Keystone?

I'm not quite sure what to make of the Canadian oil train disaster that caused the deaths of 47 people. Certainly regulations were lax and Canada has stepped up and made moves to fix the problems in transporting hazardous goods. Of course, they don't have irrational adolescents in their country screaming about socialism so that makes it easier.

But what about Keystone? If the northern section of the pipeline is approved, what sort of guarantees do we have that the same thing won't happen here? Do we have regulations that are similar to the ones Canada is implementing? No more one man crews?

I really don't know. That's why I am asking.

Let The Free Market Sort It Out

This is what happens when you let the free market sort itself out.

This industrial dance has been choreographed by Goldman to exploit pricing regulations set up by an overseas commodities exchange, an investigation by The New York Times has found. The back-and-forth lengthens the storage time. And that adds many millions a year to the coffers of Goldman, which owns the warehouses and charges rent to store the metal. It also increases prices paid by manufacturers and consumers across the country.

But wait, though, pricing regulations set up by an overseas commodities exchange?

The inflated aluminum pricing is just one way that Wall Street is flexing its financial muscle and capitalizing on loosened federal regulations to sway a variety of commodities markets, according to financial records, regulatory documents and interviews with people involved in the activities.

Ah, that explains it.

Now this is happening which never would have if Mitt Romney had won the election.

Personal Stories

Here's a piece from links file that I never got around to posting.

Sharing her story seemed like a way to break through her fears and to help others understand. And Nabil Laoudji's Mantle Project offers a unique way to do it: Put storytelling and civic sensibilities together to heal polarization. Mr. Laoudji does this by focusing on a controversial issue and producing performances by average citizens of diverse backgrounds who talk – entertainingly – about the experiences that have shaped their perspective on that issue.

Laoudji took this project to America and used a similar approach to bringing together very different political ideologies. The results were quite fascinating and are detailed in the article.

I've always pushed for more personal stories from people across the political spectrum. Rather than the knee jerk mouth foam, perhaps an individual story about how and why a person thinks the way they do politically. Anyone care to take a stab at it?

Bono Speaks!

Very interesting interview with Bono, lead singer of the band U2, regarding Jesus Christ from a couple of years ago. He says many things with which I agree and some that I do not.

My understanding of the Scriptures has been made simple by the person of Christ. Christ teaches that God is love. What does that mean? What it means for me: a study of the life of Christ. Love here describes itself as a child born in straw poverty, the most vulnerable situation of all, without honor. I don’t let my religious world get too complicated. I just kind of go: Well, I think I know what God is. God is love, and as much as I respond [sighs] in allowing myself to be transformed by that love and acting in that love, that’s my religion. Where things get complicated for me, is when I try to live this love. Now that’s not so easy.

Agreed. Trying to live up to the perfect love that Jesus had for mankind and what he tasked us to do is indeed very difficult.

His next bit is very interesting.

But the way we would see it, those of us who are trying to figure out our Christian conundrum, is that the God of the Old Testament is like the journey from stern father to friend. When you’re a child, you need clear directions and some strict rules. But with Christ, we have access in a one-to-one relationship, for, as in the Old Testament, it was more one of worship and awe, a vertical relationship. The New Testament, on the other hand, we look across at a Jesus who looks familiar, horizontal. The combination is what makes the Cross.

Also agree. God is different in the OT than the NT and that's because of Jesus Christ. It's pretty simple when you think about it. Right before this, though, he says this:

There’s nothing hippie about my picture of Christ. The Gospels paint a picture of a very demanding, sometimes divisive love, but love it is.

Christ may have not been the hippie his artistic portrayals make him out to be but he was a man of peace. I don't think that God's love is all that demanding, at least from the standpoint from Him as an authority figure. After all, it is your choice to believe. For me, having faith is the easy part, I guess.