For an old style car, first you refine hydrocarbons – say, oil.  Then you transport the resulting gasoline into the car’s fuel tank.  Then you burn it to make the car go.

In the name of mercy, some recent theologians have suggested that there are elements of good in some objectively wrong acts and relationships.  For example, friendship is good, and there certainly is an element of friendship in an illicit sexual relationship.

Or for that matter in the collusion of two thieves in a theft.  Funny that we don’t apply the argument to theft.

Now and then I realize how much of my writing results from trying to make up for having answered someone’s good question badly.

When people say that the standard of virtue is declining, it is considered shrewd and knowing to reply “Every age thinks it was better in the old days.”

(To the tune of “I’m Gonna Sit Right Down and Write Myself a Letter,” here sung by Fats Waller.

I'm gonna sit right down and write a good objection

And then show why it can't be true

I’m gonna fill it up with smarts

We are not just knowers, but seekers, who spontaneously incline toward certain realities other than ourselves.

Query:

St. Augustine seems to have allowed for prostitution on the grounds that the evil that would arise from stamping it out would exceed the evil of letting it be with restrictions.

TEXAS CITY SUFFERS SUB-SUB-ARCTIC COLD

Portent of Global Cooling, Scientists Warn

AUSTIN, TEXAS (CMM) – An unexpected summer cold snap shocked the Texas capital yesterday as the mercury plunged to minus 17,966° F.