Will the Vikings stadium bill pass?

Will the stadium bill pass this session? If you read media accounts, it sounds like a done deal. Momentum and advocates like big business and labor are all for it. 

But when you look closer and talk to individual legislators, I'm not so sure. The funding is still a mess. The electronic pulltabs and bingo aren't a reliable funding source and most legislators know that. There are deal sweeteners for other projects and constituencies which will give others pause. 

On top of that I don't think a lot of legislators want to pass a billion dollar, state funded, project for a very wealthy sports team owner before a major election. I think many would rather push it off to next year. 

To be sure, it's gained new life this week after it looked like it was in big trouble. One lobbyist told me that's due to the business community making it a top priority. Could it pass? Certainly. Will it pass this session? I don't necessarily think so. We'll find out in the next week or so.

The passing of Chuck Colson.

Many were saddened by the death of Chuck Colson last week at the age of 80. He was a Paul-like figure in both his conversion to Christ and subsequent work on behalf the Gospel. I remember speaking with one of his biographers several years ago and he said Chuck's work in the prison ministry and other efforts would mark him as one of the giants of the church in the 20th century.

I remember first hearing him speak at a conference at Wheaton College back in 1987 I believe. He spoke about the cultural crisis facing the West as it jettisoned its spiritual and ethical moorings. The lectures were the basis for his book, "Against the Night." I always enjoyed hearing Chuck speak; he was articulate, interesting and spoke with authority. His work on the importance of Christians being involved in politics was important in my thinking as I sought to sort out my life's work. And beyond that he work on the importance of a biblical worldview applying to all areas of life has been a constant source of encouragement and challenge to me.

I had the opportunity to meet and talk to Chuck on several occasions. I found him extremely approachable and encouraging. When I went through a period of sickness several years ago he was always encouraging and concerned. I think that was an unique aspect of Chuck, his concern and interest in people, individuals. He wasn't aloof, arrogant or distant which we often find with public figures.

I presumed Chuck would have many more years of service before he went onto glory, but the Lord had other plans for him. His passing is another reminder of how short life is. Life is short and eternity is long. His passing is certainly bittersweet. All of us who knew him will miss him, but he has passed on to glory and the presence of the Lord which is certainly better by far.

Vikings stadium bill done for legislative session?

The Minnesota House Government Operations Committee voted down the Vikings stadium bill 6 to 9 in committee last night. All yes votes were Republicans but for one Democrat. There were five Democrat no votes and four Republican no votes.

I think it's unlikely the bill will recover this session though you never say never around the state legislature.

I testified against the use of a massive expansion of electronic gambling to fund the state's $400 million share of the stadium. We're not taking a position on the stadium itself.

I thought it might pass out of the committee, because some legislators wanted to keep the issue alive. Turned out not to be the case.

The stadium bill has a number of problems. To name a few. First, there's an election coming up with strong feelings on the bill. Many legislators don't want passage of a billion dollar stadium funded by taxpayer monies before the voters. Second, nothing has to be done this year. The Vikings are committed to playing here this fall. And third, the funding sources are suspect. Lots of people don't think the proceeds from charity gambling are realistic.

Porn is huge industry on Internet.

I'd heard these big numbers before, but it's a bit jolting to hear that potentially 30% of web traffic is to porn sites.

A study by tech magazine found the following.

After an investigation, the popular technology magazine ExtremeTech estimates that porn websites account for as much as 30% of the web’s total traffic. The largest porn sites out there outpace everything but the “Googles and Facebooks of the internet,” writes Senior Editor Sebastian Anthony.

Xvideos, the world’s largest porn site, gets 4.4 billion page views per month – about three times as many as CNN.com. But there are dozens of porn sites on the web’s top 500 destinations, writes Anthony.

And page views are only just the beginning.

“It’s only when you factor in what those porn surfers are actually doing that the size and scale of adult websites truly comes into focus,” Anthony writes.

Each of those visitors spends vastly more time on porn sites than others: an average visit is around 15 to 20 minutes, compared to three to six minutes for a news website.

And the amount of data transferred is “astronomical,” Anthony says, because while most websites are just text and images, porn sites are mostly streaming videos.

While loading a news article might involve 500 kilobytes, a video is more like 100 kilobytes per second, or 90 megabytes over 15 minutes. At this rate, considering the number of visitors, Xvideos is likely averaging around 50 gigabytes per second, or 29 petabytes per month, says Anthony. Later in the article, he admits it’s probably closer to 35 or 40 petabytes per month.

For comparison’s sake, he notes that an internet connection at home normally only transfers a couple of megabytes per second.

“In short, porn sites cope with astronomical amounts of data. The only sites that really come close in term of raw bandwidth are YouTube or Hulu, but even then YouPorn is something like six times larger than Hulu,” he writes.

YouPorn, the second most popular porn site on the web, alone accounts for around 2% of the web’s traffic, he says.

“There are dozens of porn sites on the scale of YouPorn, and hundreds that are the size of ExtremeTech or your favorite news site. It’s probably not unrealistic to say that porn makes up 30% of the total data transferred across the internet,” Anthony writes.

“The internet really is for porn.”

These figures show the incredible reach and addictive qualities of pornography. It's all consuming for those caught in its web of addiction.

It's important to keep in mind that pornography isn't a just harmless leisure activity but one that treats people objects, commodities, and things. It damages marriages and coarsens, cheapens our culture.

Senator Al Franken is a legal scholar?

That's what Vice President Biden said. Really.

Vice President Joe Biden described former Saturday Night Live comedian, Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., as a "leading legal scholar," presumably in the Senate, today.

"He has been one of the leading legal scholars," Biden said of Franken today, according to the pool report. He also said that Franken "is deadly serious" as a senator. He made the comments while recalling concerns that then-candidate Franken could not be taken seriously as a Senate candidate given his SNL work.

Franken's comedic spirit got him in trouble on Washington. "This isn't ‘Saturday Night Live,’ Al," Minority Leader Mitch McConnell had to remind the freshman senator after Franken made faces while McConnell spoke during the Supreme Court nomination process for Elena Kagan.