Random links of interest, concern or curiosity from the past week or so, that deserve at least a SHORT mention:

 
Revealed: the full scale of Mexico’s ‘disappearances’ ~ Dozens of Mexicans go missing every week as cartels wage their bloody battles and corruption takes its toll (Over 5000 this year alone!). Which begs the question: how in the world did all those illegal children from Central America make it through Mexico’s drug-war zone?
 
Minnesota Plans To Eliminate Gender Distinctions For High School Sports ~

The MSHSL (Minnesota State High School League) decides policy for all extracurricular activities in public, private, religious, and home schools. It’s currently in the process of outlawing all sex distinctions in high-school sports. On December 4, it plans to install an athletic policy granting transgender students the choice to play on either boys’ or girls’ teams.
 
In this scheme, there would be no accounting for sex differences in high school sports on the field or in locker rooms, bathrooms, and hotel rooms. It forbids any camaraderie rooted in the biological reality of one’s sex, or any consideration of the reality of the opposite sex. In fact, to affirm that reality would basically be a crime.

I fear that the country’s collective sanity is hanging by a thread here…
 
The Mike Brown PBS “Lie Chart” – The False PBS Claims Deconstructed Visually ~ Someone spent a really long time correcting all the facts that PBS played fast and loose with, and assembling them in a graphic format.Impressive. Now if only the drones would take just a minute to discover the truth.

 
Franklin Graham: The War on Christmas Is a War on Christ ~

The war on Christmas is a war on Christ and His followers. It’s the hatred of our culture for the exclusive claims that Christ made: “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me” (John 14:6).

Yes. Unfortunately, our society has less and less tolerance for transcendent Truth.
 
Jordan’s King Abdullah: Battling ISIS Is ‘Our Third World War’ ~ Wow! A voice of refreshing sanity in the Middle East ~

Speaking to “CBS This Morning,” Abdullah stated that ISIS is a Muslim problem that they need to take ownership of […]
 
“We need to stand up and say what is right and what is wrong. This is no reflection of our religion. This is evil and all of us have got to make that decision,” Abdullah, who is in Washington to meet with President Barack Obama, said. “We have to stand up and say this is the line that is drawn in the sand and those that believe in right should stand on this side and those that don’t have to make a decision should stand on the other. It’s clearly a fight between good and evil. I think it’s a generational fight.

(Sadly, the King’s probably now a dead-man-walking)

 
Newly Designated Nevada GOP Majority Leader: We’re Here to ‘Get our Gun Rights Back’ ~ Whoa! Here’s one rep who actually got the message of the mid-term election – and isn’t afraid to act on it!

Newly designated Assembly Majority Leader Michele Fiore (R-Las Vegas) says Republicans were elected to the majority to defeat liberalism and that includes doing what has to be done to recover gun rights in Nevada.

 
It’s Possible to Love a Child Without Loving His Sin ~ We’re all sinners. Don’t fall for the phony “hater” label ~

It would be grossly irresponsible of a parent to allow self-destructive behavior in a child to go unchallenged. It is a shallow understanding of love that says love requires acceptance and approval of dangerous and harmful behavior.

 
Sojourners in Exile at Thanksgiving ~ A timely reminder from OnePeter5 that we Christians are on a shared pilgrimage ~

As we gather with family and friends this year to celebrate (Thanksgiving and) Christimas, may we remember that we are all sojourners in exile and that our true home is heaven.

 
White House Says We’ve Made ‘Historical Progress’ on $18 Trillion Debt ~ The debt escalation under President Barack Hussein Obama is CRIMINAL. (No matter how Josh (NOT)Earnest tries to spin it!)