The Federal Trade Commission is once again handing out subpoenas to companies that market food to children and teens.

Three years after initially delivering what is technically known as “orders to file special report” to 44 marketers, the FTC last week began sending subpoenas to 48 companies in order to prepare a follow-up to its 120-page report issued in 2008, “Marketing Food to Children and Adolescents: A Review of Industry Expenditures, Activities and Self-Regulation.”

A spokeswoman for CEC Entertainment, parent company of Chuck E. Cheese, said she could not comment without having seen the subpoena.

Katherine Mangu-Ward wonders how the FTC brainiacs came to that conclusion.

The eagle-eyed regulators at the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) have a sneaking suspicion that a company offering disgusting pizza, animatronic human-sized mice, and a ball pit may be trying to appeal to children. Or rather, their marketing (the slogan was “Chuck E. Cheese: Where a Kid Can Be a Kid!” last time I checked) may inappropriately appeal to children.

Chuck E. Cheese markets to kids?  Shut up!  I’m sorry but I just don’t see it; I mean, I take my dates there all the time.  Who doesn’t like a few games of skee-ball or Whack-a-Mole before pizza and beer?  I know I do.

Next thing you’ll tell me is that car and beer companies use attractive women in their ads is to try to convince men that if they bought that car or drank that beer, they’d have a snowball’s chance in hell of making it with one of the attractive women in those ads or someone even close to her.  Because that’s just crazy talk.

Like many Americans I watched the news last weekend and saw the pictures of people gathered on the mall in Washington, D.C., at the foot of the Lincoln Memorial.

There conservative talk show host Glenn Beck stood at Lincoln’s feet, looked out across the crowd and declared, “America today begins to turn back to God.”

As I listened to him speak, it suddenly became clear to me. Glenn Beck and I may both call ourselves Christians, but we don’t worship the same Christ or the same God.

To save time, I’ve cut out all of Templeton’s stupid crap about Beck “promoting a fear of the other.”  But you’re quite right, Templeton.  You and Glenn Beck don’t worship the same God.  For that matter, you and I don’t either.

See, my God has this thing about telling the truth.  And when He came into the world, He drove home the point in a slightly different way when He said, in effect, “Here’s a thought.  Why not say what you mean and mean what you say?”

On the other hand, Templeton, your deity apparently has no problem whatsoever with you lying through your teeth.  I don’t have cable TV, satellite TV or high-speed Web access so I don’t get to watch Glenn Beck on television much although I do listen to his radio show all the time.  And I’ve never heard him say anything that any sane person could describe as “promoting a fear of the other.”

Since you didn’t actually see any of it, Templeton, here’s what that rally was about:

Beck is building solidarity and cultural confidence in America, its Constitution, its military heritage, its freedom. This is a vision that is despised by the people who have long held the commanding heights of the culture. But is obviously alive and kicking.

Beck is creating positive themes of unity and patriotism and freedom and independence which are above mere political or policy choices, but not irrelevant to them. Political and policy choices rest on a foundation of philosophy, culture, self-image, ideals, religion. Change the foundation, and the rest will flow from that. Defeat the enemy on that plane, and any merely tactical defeat will always be reversible.

Beck is unabashed that God can be invoked in public places by citizens, who vote and assemble and speak and freely exercise their religion. They are supposed to be too browbeaten to do this. Gathering hundreds of thousands of them to peaceably assemble shows they are not. But showing that the people who believe in God and practice their religion are fellow-citizens who share political and economic values with majorities of Americans is a critical step. The idea that these people are an American Taliban is laughable, but showing that fact to the world — and to potential political allies who are not religious — is critical.

Beck is attacking the enemy at the foundations of their power, their claim to race as a permanent trump card, their claim to the Civil Rights movement as a permanent model to constantly be transforming a perpetually unjust society.

According to Glenn Beck himself, by the way.  Do you see anything in there that leaves any American out, that promotes a “fear of the other?”  If you can, I’d see a doctor, stat.  Because there is something seriously wrong with you.

Your deity judges by the outward appearance while my God  looks upon the heart.  And while your deity advises you to make snap judgements of men based his and your political biases, my God teaches that the best way to assess men is to watch and listen to what they actually do and say.

And frankly, Templeton, my God can actually, you know…do stuff.  Your deity is a weak impotent, little wuss who can”t seem to do much of anything without human help as you freely admit here.

That dream of which he spoke is deeply rooted in the gospel, a call for us to help establish the kingdom of God here and now, a kingdom where there are no “others,” only beloved children of God.

Templeton?  Given the sorts of people he tends to attract, given the sins with which he doesn’t seem to have any problem at all and given that he seems to be fine with judging people based on something somebody claims to have read somewhere, why anyone would ever be attracted to your pathetic excuse for a deity completely escapes me.

I was moved by your letter expressing your pain and frustration over the recent ruling by the Episcopal Church’s Court of Review which has made it possible for the Rt. Rev. Charles Bennison to resume the position of Bishop of Pennsylvania. Good people can disagree about how the court interpreted our canons. I believe that most Episcopalians who have followed this case agree that Bishop Bennison’s choice to resume his episcopacy presents significant problems for the Diocese of Pennsylvania and for the wider Church.

I want you to know that I share your hope that the Episcopal Church can be, “a guiding beacon to all people everywhere who are affected in some way by clergy sexual abuse.” I also share your frustration that in your case, and in others, our churches were not “safe sanctuaries” for vulnerable people. And I share your outrage that individuals in positions of authority have been complicit in maintaining a climate of silence and denial that has inhibited our efforts to end sexual abuse within our church.

Like the Diocese of Pennsylvania’s Standing Committee, and many diocesan clergy and laity, I wish that Bishop Bennison had the wisdom and generosity of spirit to resign. As bishop he is more likely to deepen divisions and discredit the church than he is to bring healing or advance our common mission. I join the Court of Review in its assessment that Charles Bennison’s handling of the sexual abuse charges against his brother John was “totally wrong.” Bishop Bennison’s lack of remorse about his handling of this situation, and his solipsistic view of what is at stake, concern me deeply.

I have spoken recently with Bishop Bennison, whom I have known for many years. I have also spoken with members of the Standing Committee. I wish I could say that I can imagine a just and speedy resolution to this situation, or for that matter, a satisfying outcome following a protracted campaign, but I do not. It is my prayer that the Bishops of The Episcopal Church, when they are together this month in Arizona, will prayerfully consider this matter and either prevail upon Bishop Bennison to resign, or undertake other measures that lead to Bishop Bennison’s removal from office.

UPDATE: In case the message still hasn’t sunk in, Chuckles, here’s the ENS story.

Peter Tatchell, an activist and LGBT rights advocate, tells Big Think that the best way to protect our children from sexual abuse is paradoxically to give them more sexual freedom. Age of consent laws vary from state to state in the U.S., with the majority being 16 and some ranging as high as 18, but Tatchell says they should all be lowered to 14.

Right around the beginning of adolescence.  Sure, what could possibly go wrong?

“Whether we like it or not, many teenagers have their first sexual experience around the ages of 14 or 15,” says Tatchell.

Whether we like it or not, kids have been known to sneak a pop or two out of Mom and Dad’s liquor cabinet now and then.  The solution to that little problem is not offering little bottles of Jack or Beam in school vending machines.

In most states, these sexually-active young people are actually breaking the law and could be convicted as sex-offenders, even if both partners consent.

See adolescence comment above.  That there is not consent, Tatch.  That there is hormones is what that there is.

In 2008, a 16-year-old boy from Iowa was convicted of “lewd and lascivious acts with a child” for having sex with a 13-year-old girl, even though the two were dating at the time, she had lied about her age, and she wasn’t pressing charges. For the rest of his life he will have to register on a sex offenders list alongside child sex abusers.

Action?  Meet consequences. 

Criminalizing underage sex is not the way to protect our kids, says Tatchell: “If we want to protect young people, and I do, the best way to do this is not by threatening them with arrest, but by giving them frank, high quality sex and relationship education from an early age.

Gotcha.  That would have been an interesting day at Washington Park Elementary way back when.  Reading, spelling, recess, arithmetic, lunch, social studies, recess and frank, high-quality sex and relationship education.  What’s all this grade-school sex ed supposed to achieve anyway, Tatch?

This includes empowering them with the skills, knowledge and confidence to say no to unwanted sexual advances and to report sex abusers. Compared to the blanket criminalization of sexually-active under-age youth, this empowerment strategy is a more effective way to protect young people from peer pressure and pedophiles.”

Ladies and gentlemen, give it up for the stupidest thing ever written. “Empowerment,” Tatch?  Really?  “Empowerment” is going to protect kids from peer pressure?  What planet are you from, freakshow?

This sort of education has been going on for years.  My friends and I did lots of really dumb things because we thought they were funny.  In various ways(“I suppose that if everybody jumped off the Empire State Building, you’d jump too?”), my parents taught me that I was “empowered” to resist peer pressure.

Know something, Tatch?  Those lessons didn’t sink in until much later in life.

So not only is your “high quality sex and relationship education” going to produce peer-pressure resistant kids, it’s also going produce kids who can say no to the blandishments of adults who don’t have various hormones racing through their bodies and the various emotional issues related thereto.  Don’t see it happening, Tatch.

A higher age of consent actually puts young teens at greater risk of abuse by “reinforcing the idea that young people under 16 have no sexual rights,” Tatchell says.

Um…what?!!  What the hell does that even mean?!  If young people believe that they shouldn’t have sex until they’re emotionally ready for it, then they’re at greater risk of…being sexually abused?  How on earth do you get from A to B?  You’re just making crap up now, aren’t you?

“They signal that a young person is not capable of making a rational, moral choice about when to have sex.”

Let’s unpack that a bit, shall we?  Tatch thinks that a low age of consent signals to Young PeopleTM that they’re “not capable of making a rational, moral choice about when to have sex.”

I don’t know how it was with anyone reading this but with me, rationality and morality had no effect on my choice whether or not to feel up the rear end of that girl over there or her choice not to spin around and deck me.  Hormones did.  On the other hand, rationality and morality did enter in to my choice not to have sexual intercourse regardless of what my body wanted me to do.

And pedophiles can manipulate this sexual disempowerment to their advantage. “Guilt and shame about sex also increase the likelihood of molestation by encouraging the furtiveness and secrecy on which abuse thrives,” he adds.

As the Peter Tatchell Non Sequitur Festival rolls merrily on.  The fact that you’re a little kid and an adult is sexually abusing you has everything to do with the fact that you were told not to have sexual intercourse until you were older and nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that that adult is a sexual deviant who tells you to keep your mouth shut if you know what’s good for both you and your family.

“Despite what the puritans and sex-haters say, underage sex is mostly consenting, safe, and fun,” Tatchell believes.

For pedophiles and adolescent males wanting to get some.  Of course, in Tatchell World, there’ll be the occasional 12-year-old mom now and then but if you want to make an omelet, you have to break some eggs, as they say.

“If there is harm caused, it is usually not as a result of sex, per se, but because of emotional abuse within relationships and because of unsafe sex, which can pass on infections and make young girls pregnant when they are not ready for motherhood.”

Girls?  That feeling you’re feeling right now is not guilt.  You’re feeling what you’re feeling because that guy who just talked you into the sack forgot his Trojans and is emotionally abusive even though he was unfailingly polite, he kept telling you you were beautiful and you’ve known him for all of an hour and a half.

Next week, I use up the last of my vacation time so I’ll be indolent for about a week and a half.  But I may have to see if I can move things up.  I”ve got a feeling that I’m going to need to spend three straight days in the bathtub washing off the stench of this one.

The head of the World Council of Churches, who is on a visit to the Middle East, has condemned the killings of four Israelis near Hebron in the West Bank.

“To bring security to both Israelis and Palestinians, the negotiations must stop the occupation and all the injustices that ordinary Palestinians experience each day,” said [the Rev. Olav Fykse] Tveit in the statement that said he rejected any use of violence to gain peace for this region.

The four Israelis, who were reportedly settlers living on occupied land and included a pregnant woman, were killed on Aug. 31 by gunmen believed to be Palestinians.

There can be few sights more humiliating for the American people than that of a US president kowtowing to a foreign leader or to supranational institutions. Continental Europeans are used to this sort of thing after decades of dominance by unelected bureaucrats in Brussels, and have grudgingly accepted over time the gradual and undemocratic erosion of their freedoms. But most Americans fiercely defend their national sovereignty, and find the idea of giving international organisations a say over their laws and lives completely unacceptable.

The Obama administration however has submitted a report to the UN Commissioner on Human Rights, South African judge Navanethem Pillay, which makes direct reference to a popular Arizona immigration law aimed at tackling illegal immigration, which is fiercely opposed by the White House, and is the subject of legal action by the Justice Department.

The highly controversial reference to the Arizona law serves only one purpose – to gain UN and international support for the Obama administration’s position in the face of mounting opposition from Arizona legislators and a majority of the American people. A recent Rasmussen poll showed 61 percent of Americans backing Arizona-style laws for their own states, and just 28 percent supporting a Justice Department challenge .

By doing so, Obama officials undoubtedly hope to stir up international condemnation of the Arizona policy in advance of the UN General Assembly meetings in September, which they believe will increase pressure on Arizona to back down. It is a highly cynical move that speaks volumes about the Obama team’s willingness to undercut American sovereignty and popular will on the world stage.

It is important to note that the Obama administration’s report to the United Nations will go before the UN Human Rights Council, which includes in its current membership some of the world’s worst human rights abusers. The likes of China, Cuba, Libya, Russia, and Saudi Arabia, will have a right to pass judgment over the Arizona immigration law, a humiliation for a great superpower before some of the most brutal regimes on the face of the earth.

In the meantime, the Justice Department continues to harass Arizona.

So it is a violation of “human rights” to insist that the federal government do its job.  Democrats?  If you want a reason why you’re currently in freefall, this is as good a reason as I can possibly provide you.

Spin this any way you like.  But the fact of the matter is that the leader of your party doesn’t much like the country he leads.  He and his administration are only too happy to kowtow to the “international community” at the expense of people with whom he shares a nationality and who only ask that the government secure the national borders, something that it is the responsibility of all governments to do.

What, do you think the United States is a perfect country, Johnson?  What about the whole chattel slavery thing, huh?  What about that?! 

What about it? Six hundred thousand Americans lost their lives to get rid of it.  Yeah, well, what about America’s endemic racism?  Spare me. 

Tell you what; if you can come up with any other country in the world where a member of a minority group has a chance in hell of being elected to lead that country, that country will be the only one in the world who has the right to criticize the United States on racial matters.

Until you can, keep your mouth shut.  Simple fact of the matter, rest of the world, is that you’re as racist as you think we are.

Are Americans arrogant?  Now and then.  Not to put too fine a point on it but compared to many of the members of the United Nations whose opinions this president and his sychophants believe that we are obliged to respect, this country has, quite frankly, a great deal to be arrogant about.

If Arizona was rounding up illegal aliens and herding them into concentration camps, that would be one thing.  But the fact that the Arizona law referenced treats illegal aliens better than they are treated in Mexico, say, is something else again.  That Barack Obama considers this law a human rights violation should tell anyone without blinders everything they need to know about the current president and his toadies.

Republicans lead by 51% to 41% among registered voters in Gallup weekly tracking of 2010 congressional voting preferences. The 10-percentage-point lead is the GOP’s largest so far this year and is its largest in Gallup’s history of tracking the midterm generic ballot for Congress.

The Republican leads of 6, 7, and 10 points this month are all higher than any previous midterm Republican advantage in Gallup’s history of tracking the generic ballot, which dates to 1942. Prior to this year, the highest such gap was five points, measured in June 2002 and July 1994. Elections in both of these years resulted in significant Republican gains in House seats.

And that’s not all.  The Republicans have a huge lead in another area.

Republicans are now twice as likely as Democrats to be “very” enthusiastic about voting, and now hold — by one point — the largest such advantage of the year.

Republicans usually turn out in higher numbers in midterm elections than do Democrats, and Gallup’s likely voter modeling in the final weeks of an election typically reflects a larger GOP advantage than is evident among registered voters. The wide enthusiasm gaps in the GOP’s favor so far this year certainly suggest that this scenario may well play itself out again this November.

Let’s see.  A ten-point lead in the generic ballot, twice as large as it was in 1994 when the Republicans took control of both houses of the Congress.  And a 25-point lead in likely voter enthusiasm.   I may have to use some vacation time to live-blog that day.

I think I’m going to wind down this blog. The stupidity of the religious Left has stopped being funny to me, and I find that commenting on their continuing decomposition just isn’t worth the energy genuine indignation would require. Politics is also going from bad to worse, what with the Ground Zero Abomination Mosque Roach House project failing to produce the correct response: pistol duels. I’m starting to feel like M. Scott Peck dealing with one of his evil-infected patients: that the sickness of so many parts of the world today is so great that it will overwhelm me if I don’t get away from it.

I understand that, I really do.  The idea has occurred to me from time to time and if you run one of these things long enough, it’ll occur to you too.  So why have I kept at it?

Probably the only advantage to being an intensely shy, moody loner is that it provides you with a certain distance.  If you spend your entire life on the outside looking in, you’ll eventually develop an outside-looking-in way of looking at the world.

After getting over the wrench of leaving the only church I had ever known, the Episcopalians began to amuse me so it was fun to write about them.  If you’re interested, here’s the best chronicle of that process(not available at fine bookstores everywhere; just sayin’). 

And they can’t even do that anymore.  These days, since they are so predictable, the Episcopalians and the rest of the Christian left bore me more than anything else.  Hence the gradual move into other areas.

But how have you stayed at it as long as you have, Chris?  Why hasn’t it gotten to you?  Here’s one reason.  Know why the Anglican Investigator exists?  Know why I take occasional semi-successful stabs at humor?  Stuff like that actually isn’t for the readership.  It’s for me. 

You have to amuse yourself once in a while.

Fact of the matter is that most of the time, I rarely post things because I think other people will be fascinated by them.  I post them because I am.  The fact that other people are as well is icing on the cake.