Sunday roundup

 Why can't you get an Uber ride in Boston? Because the city council outlawed surge pricing:

Boston is one of the cities that passed a law banning what’s known as “surge pricing” among gig-economy companies. That allows ride-share rates to be raised during high-demand hours. It’s a good system because it provides a greater incentive for drivers to log on, reducing wait times while allowing the drivers to earn more than they normally would.

But Boston outlawed that, so some of the drivers are asking why they should bother working during the worst traffic conditions if there’s nothing extra in it for them. One driver told the Globe that he’s been making one-third less during peak hours since the law went into effect. The City Council originally claimed that they were passing the law to protect consumers from “outrageous” prices during peak demand hours. But in reality, as we’ve seen in so many other cities run by Democrats, they were doing whatever they could get away with to damage Uber’s business model. This was done on behalf of the traditional taxi companies and their unions who provide plenty of donations to primarily Democratic political campaigns.

Scott Hubbard at Desiring God takes a look at the matter of sin still showing up in our lives even after we've said yes to Jesus.  

Andrew T. Walker at Baptist Press on what a Christian response to Pride Month looks like. 

Carolyn Moore explores just what it was about a cartoon she ran across that bugged her so much:

I saw this cartoon online a few weeks ago, and I can’t shake it so I’m going to have to write about it. Just in case it doesn’t show up on your screen I’ll describe it. It’s Jesus schooling a group of religious leaders. “The difference between me and you,” he says, “is you use scripture to determine what love means and I use love to determine what scripture means.”

When I saw it online, it had all kinds of “amens” in the comment section. And I have to admit: it sounds good. What could sound more anti-bad-religion and pro-Jesus than the idea of letting love be our filter for understanding what the Bible says? The wording is so slick and catchy that it’s a shame it is such bad theology. 

And it is. 

Jason Riley, writing at Quillette, looks into how Thomas Sowell's Harvard years were when rumblings indicative of his ultimate direction as a thinker could first be discerned. 

I'm currently reading The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self: Cultural Amnesia, Expressive Individualism, and the Road to Sexual Revolution by Carl Trueman. My interest was therefore piqued by this piece by him at Deseret News:

“Others” do not exist for “our” satisfaction or self-actualization. Rather we all exist for the sake of one another. And that, of course, has implications for sexual morality and behavior. To those who acknowledge their bodies as who they are, not simply the raw material of self-creation, and who understand the rational, dependent nature of our life, sex can never be simply a means of personal pleasure whereby others are reduced to being mere instruments of our own satisfaction. Nor can it come to occupy a central place in how identity is understood. It is not sexual desire that defines us but the relationships of which sexual activity is a meaningful part.

Danielle Pletka, writing at The Dispatch, makes clear the it would be a supremely bad idea for the Biden administration to enter into a revived JCPOA-type agreement with Iran.

Republicans' most recent fool's errand - harboring any kind of hope that the Very Stable Genius would focus on policy and knock it off with the stolen-election nonsense - ought to be one more learning experience for them, but it seems the party has become impervious to learning experiences. Gosh, maybe he'll clean up his act for the next rally:

Former President Donald Trump dashed the hopes of Republicans on Saturday who spent the weeks leading up to his public reemergenceencouraging him to keep his focus on policy and Democratic shortcomings, rather than re-litigating his 2020 election loss once again. 

In a nearly 90-minute speech to North Carolina Republicans gathered for their annual state convention, Trump baselessly claimed that his defeat by President Joe Biden last November was "the crime of the century" and likened the 2020 presidential contest to a "third-world" election. 

"Remember," Trump told the crowd after repeating numerous falsehoods about widespread election fraud, "I am not the one who is trying to undermine American democracy, I am the one who is trying to save it." 

"What happened to this country in that last election is a disgrace," he continued, noting that he has been pleased with Republican-led efforts in Florida and Texas to impose new legislative restrictions on voting. "I would like to see Georgia be much tougher," he noted.

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette editorial on Mitch Daniels's commencement address at the school he presides over, Purdue University.