The Pour Over Today - Friday, October 8, 2021

Episode Date: October 8, 2021

Congress reaches a short-term deal on the debt ceiling; various vaccines are paused, approved, and seeking approval; Taiwan is worried about an invasion; and other top news for  Friday October 8th. Stay informed, while remaining focused on Christ, with The Pour Over.

Congress reaches a short-term deal on the debt ceiling, various vaccines are paused, approved, and seeking approval, Taiwan is worried about an invasion, and other top news for Friday, October 8th. Stay informed while remaining focused on Christ with The Pour Over. Here's the quote of the day. Your goal is to not know every detail of the future. Your goal is to hold the hand of the one who does and never ever let go. Max Lucado.

Let's get started with some espresso shots. Uncle Sam asked for a Tesla and got a tricycle. Yesterday, Senate leaders agreed on a deal to raise the debt ceiling and avoid default through early December. Treasury Secretary Yellen says the U.S. defaulting, which has never happened, would be, quote, catastrophic and likely trigger a recession. Many lawmakers are questioning the merits of pushing that to the holidays instead of solving the problem. None of the standoffs over a long-term solution have been resolved. Raising the debt ceiling isn't the only thing that Secretary Yellen has been campaigning for. She's been defending a proposal to require banks to provide annual reports to the IRS on accounts with over $600 in activity. Proponents

say that it would help catch tax cheats. Critics call it an invasion of privacy. Jesus showed compassion when people expected rejection, gentleness when people expected anger, and love when people expected hate. Whether you're negotiating a multi-trillion dollar debt ceiling or working on a group project with people you dislike. Be imitators of Christ. I give you a new command. Love one another. Just as I have loved you, you are also to love one another. By this, everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another. John 13 verses 34 and 35. China and Taiwan's relationship is complicated. Spurred by a disagreement over communism,

Taiwan considers themselves a sovereign nation while China considers them a rebellious province. If this sounds familiar, it's because dissent against communist China was made illegal in Hong Kong, a semi-autonomous region, just last year. Now, China appears to be trying to tighten their grip on Taiwan as well. Last week, China began flying military aircraft through Taiwanese airspace. Taiwan says it is preparing for an invasion and that tensions are at their worst in 40 years. The U.S. has historically agreed to recognize, quote, one China, while still supporting defensive efforts in Taiwan. This week, the U.S. and China agreed to have their presidents meet before 2022, and discussions over an invasion of Taiwan would definitely make the agenda.

Now it's time for everybody's favorite, more COVID news. A Nordic study of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine has led Finland, Denmark, and Sweden to pause giving this specific vaccine to males under 30. The study indicated a slightly higher risk than others in developing myocarditis, which is an inflammation of the heart, and not in a fun, romantic way. Meanwhile, Pfizer officially submitted an emergency authorization request for children ages 5 to 11. If authorized, it would be the first COVID-19 vaccine authorized for children under 12 in the United States. In other vaccine news, the World Health Organization

approved the first vaccine for malaria, a mosquito-borne disease which kills over 500,000 people every year. While expected to save tens of thousands of lives, the vaccine isn't a magical fly swatter. It's only 30 to 40 percent effective and requires a four-dose regimen, which makes it a potential burden for countries with fragile medical infrastructure. Sin means we can't just trust our gut, but should instead, in humility, test our closest held beliefs against scripture and godly teaching. Being peaceable, gentle, and open to reason in the face of culturally hot topics is a sign of God's wisdom in us. But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peace-loving, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, unwavering, without pretense.

James chapter 3, verse 17. In other brews, we've got a rapid round of updates. Twitch, a popular streaming platform owned by Amazon, apparently left a door unlocked. Hackers posted 125 gigabytes of Twitch's data online, including source code, details about upcoming products, and how much top creators are paid. The number one spot pulled down over $9 million. Not too shabby for having people watch you play video games. It doesn't appear that any user data was stolen, but Twitch recommends everyone updating their passwords. Everyone is expected to survive an argument-turned-shooting

at a high school in Arlington, Texas, on Wednesday. An 18-year-old student opened fire and injured three classmates and one teacher before fleeing, sparking an hours-long manhunt. The shooter's family says he was bullied and robbed at school. A federal judge issued an emergency injunction Wednesday night, barring statewide enforcement of Texas' controversial new abortion law, which prohibits abortions after a fetal heartbeat, which is around six weeks, and leaves enforcement up to private citizens. Texas has appealed the ruling to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Matt Amodio, a Ph.D. student at Yale, now has the second most consecutive wins of any Jeopardy contestant ever. In Friday's episode, Amodio passed James Holzhauer, who amassed $2.4 million over 32 wins in 2019. But he still has a long way to go before he breaks Ken Jennings' 74-game streak from 2004. Thank you so much for listening this morning. We'd like to end by giving a special thanks to our TPO baristas who made this podcast possible. TPO baristas are those who choose to pay for what they could get for free. If you want to join them and support this podcast at a deeper level, go to theporeover.org slash barista. If you found this podcast helpful or informative, we would really appreciate it if you would consider sharing it with a friend or leaving us a five-star review. Otherwise, we hope you have a great day. We'll see you back here bright and early on Monday morning.