Reporter James Harrison and video producer Drew Belz traveled to Ringgold, Ga., a town devastated by Wednesday’s tornadoes. In the video below produced for Chattanooga, Tenn. news site Nooga.com, they share the stories of survivors who are working together to rebuild their lives and their town.

Amid catastrophe in Ringgold, hope from nooganews on Vimeo.

Here it is, Rants! & Raves!, your weekly opportunity to sound off about the week past.

Remember the rules:

• A Rave! is something that happened during the past week that you’re pleased about and is signified by the word “Rave!” and/or an appropriately peppy emoticon (see Website Help to learn how to use emoticons, aka “smileys”).
• A Rant! is something that happened during the past week that you’re ticked off about and is signified by the word “Rant!” and/or an appropriately grumpy emoticon.
• You may Rant! about something a person said, did, or wrote, but you may not Rant! about generally disliking a person. IOW, no personal attacks allowed.

Have fun!

Good morning!

Random question of the day: What period of your life matured you the most?

This is our daily (except for Sundays) open thread, where you can 1) answer my question, 2) talk about something else, or 3) say something truly encouraging to the commenter before you.

In a 2-1 decision, a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington overturned a judge’s order to block the federal financing of embryonic stem cell research while a case on the lawfulness of the practice continued. The judges ruled that opponents are not likely to succeed in their lawsuit to stop the government funding.

The panel reversed an opinion issued last August by U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth, who said the research likely violates the law against federal funding of embryo destruction.

The 1996 law prohibits the use of taxpayer dollars in work that harms an embryo, so private money has been used to cull batches of the cells. Those batches can reproduce in lab dishes indefinitely, and the Obama administration issued rules permitting taxpayer dollars to be used in work on them.

Opponents say the research violates the law because the human embryos had to be destroyed in order to obtain the stem cells in the first place, and so the federally funded research depends on the destruction of embryos.

The lawsuit was filed in 2009 by two scientists who argued that President Barack Obama’s expansion jeopardized their ability to win government funding for research using adult stem cells—ones that have already matured to create specific types of tissues—because it will mean extra competition.

Lamberth, the chief judge of the U.S. District Court in Washington, issued a preliminary injunction in August to block the research while the case continued.

The Obama administration immediately appealed and requested the order be stopped. The appeals court quickly ruled that the research could continue at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) while the judges took up the case.

The appeals court ruled Friday that Lamberth’s injunction would impose a substantial hardship on stem cell researchers at NIH, particularly because it would stop multi-year projects already underway. The appellate judges also noted that Congress has reenacted the 1996 embryo-protection law year after year with the knowledge that the government has been funding embryonic stem cell research since 2001.

As a result of the appellate ruling Friday, the original lawsuit can continue before Judge Lamberth, but the taxpayer-funded research also will go on.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli dropped the state’s business with King & Spaulding after the Atlanta-based law firm dropped the U.S. House of Representatives’ case defending the Defense of Marriage Act earlier this week.

Cuccinelli told the firm in a biting letter Wednesday that he did not object to working with law firms who defend objectionable people or causes, like the firm’s work defending terrorist suspects. But he said the firm’s unprofessional behavior—taking the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) case and then dropping it after coming under pressure from gay rights groups—was the cause for his decision to terminate its appointment as special counsel to the attorney general. . . . MORE >>

Read Emily Belz’s complete Web Extra report.

A historic next-to-last space shuttle launch was scratched Friday because of mechanical problems, spoiling a visit from the president and dashing the hopes of the biggest crowd of spectators in years, including the mission commander’s wounded wife, Rep. Gabrielle Giffords.

NASA hopes to try again Monday to launch space shuttle Endeavour on its final voyage.

President Barack Obama and his family visited Kennedy Space Center anyway but it was unclear whether he would meet with the Giffords. She is recovering from a gunshot wound to the head, and it was not immediately known whether she would stay in Florida for another try or return to Houston.

Giffords hasn’t been seen publicly since the Jan. 8 assassination attempt. She left her rehabilitation hospital in Houston on Wednesday for the first time to travel to Florida for her husband’s launch.

Launch director Mike Leinbach said the next try would be Monday at the earliest—and hinted at even a longer delay. Technicians will have to crawl into the engine compartment to track a suspected electrical short in a power distribution box, and that will take time.

As many as 700,000 people were expected to crowd nearby coastal communities. For days, police have been warning of massive traffic delays. After Endeavour, there’s only one more space shuttle flight before NASA ends the 30-year-old program and retires the fleet to museums.

In late morning, one of the prime heaters for the fuel line powering one of Endeavour’s three auxiliary power units failed. At the same time, another heater was acting up.

Leinbach said both heaters need to be operating for redundancy. The power units provide hydraulic pressure to the main engines at liftoff and to the rudder and speed brake during landing.

The short appears to be in a switchbox or an electrical line leading to it, Leinbach said.

Endeavour’s upcoming mission to the International Space Station is the last in its 19-year history. The shuttle was built to replace Challenger, destroyed during liftoff in 1986, and made its maiden voyage six years later.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Kate Middleton married Prince William in a union that promised to revitalize the British monarchy. A million people roared their approval as the royal couple then paraded through London in an open carriage.

After the ceremony, Middleton curtsied before her new grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II, sharing the stage with the woman who has reigned since 1952. The couple’s first royal wedding present came from the queen—the royal titles of the duke and duchess of Cambridge.

A flood of well-wishers packed central London, especially around Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, and other landmarks beginning at dawn, despite cool temperatures and the threat of rain. Cheers erupted as huge television screens began broadcasting at Trafalgar Square and Hyde Park.

The royal couple smiled broadly as they were driven to Buckingham Palace in the open-topped State Landau, a carriage built in 1902, escorted by four white horses and followed by scarlet-clad troops on horseback.

Hundreds of street parties were under way as Britons celebrated the heritage that makes them unique—and overseas visitors came to witness those traditions.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Security forces opened fire Friday on demonstrators trying to break an army blockade on the southern city of Daraa, while thousands of others across Syria defied a protest ban and denounced President Bashar Assad’s harsh crackdown of a six-week uprising, witnesses and human rights officials said. At least 42 people were killed, including 15 in the march on Daraa, a human rights group said.

The protesters in cities across Syria—including the capital of Damascus—called for Assad’s ouster, with some of them chanting “We are not afraid!”

A witness in Daraa said residents there were staying home because the city has been under siege by the military since Monday, when thousands of soldiers backed by tanks and snipers stormed in. People were too afraid even to venture out to mosques for prayers, the witness said.

Large demonstrations broke out in Damascus, the central city of Homs, the coastal cities of Banias and Latakia, the northern cities of Raqqa and Hama, and the northeastern town of Qamishli.

In Damascus’ central Midan neighborhood, witnesses said about 2,000 people marched and chanted, “God, Syria and freedom only!” in a heavy rain, but security forces opened fire with bullets and tear gas, scattering them.

The government had warned against holding any demonstrations Friday. Syrian TV said the Interior Ministry has not approved any “march, demonstration, or sit-in” and that such rallies seek only to harm Syria’s security and stability.

Assad’s attempts to crush the revolt have drawn international criticism and threats of sanctions from European countries and the United States.

Syrian TV said military and police forces came under attack Friday by “armed terrorists” in Daraa and the central city of Homs, killing four soldiers and three police officers. Two soldiers were captured, the report said. The station also said one of its cameramen was injured in Latakia in an attack by an armed gang.

A devastating picture was emerging of Daraa—which has been without electricity, water and telephones since Monday—as residents flee to neighboring countries.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

A recent survey claims that a plurality of Americans believe Christian values are at odds with capitalism. That left me wondering whether we first ought to ask whether Americans even know what Christianity and capitalism are. When one learns that one’s accountant espies a deep conflict between Newtonian physics and Jungian psychology, one is right to ask what he knows of velocity and synchronicity, and whether he ought not busy himself doing one’s taxes rather than spouting off to someone taking a survey.

The two ideas seem simple enough. Christians follow Jesus and capitalists make trades. Except that we all know professing Christians who—were you to lay it out for them—would balk at some elements of the Nicene Creed, and you can’t throw a stick down Wall Street (the reader may linger on that pleasurable thought) without hitting some well-heeled beneficiary of taxpayer welfare.

You can offer up your life to Christ without understanding Christian dogma, just as you can be a masterful entrepreneur without being able to articulate the concept of subjective gains from trade. The survey-taker might get a fruitful answer by asking how your prayer life is going, or whether you made money last quarter, but he ought not conclude that a tuna knows the first thing about lunar tides and currents.

It’s a poorly formulated question, and it might be better asked this way: “Can a Christian be a capitalist without becoming a hypocrite?” I believe the answer is yes, for four reasons.

1. Christianity is rooted in liberty.

God does not force anyone to love Him. We are free to choose life or death, salvation or damnation. Creation is a gift from God, and we are invited to walk in it by His grace and thereby make our way toward paradise or perdition.

Meanwhile, the only alternative to free markets is coercion. If a gang of smart guys dislikes what happens when people freely gather to exchange goods and services, their only option is to get some guns and forbid the exchanges they dislike. Every economic system other than capitalism depends, at its root, on smart people with guns telling the rest of us what to do.

2. Christianity was established in sympathy.

Michael Novak called sympathy “a high moral art,” and distinguished it from self-centered empathy, wherein we imagine someone’s experiences are our own. Christ didn’t engage in empathy; He engaged in sympathy. He became fully man, fully sympathetic with our plight, and thus fully engaged in our suffering and redemption.

Meanwhile, a good entrepreneur exercises sympathy. Unlike the paternalistic socialist, he does not limit himself to asking what is best for his fellow man, but asks what his fellow man truly wants. The socialist (and the bad businessman) tries to remake man against his will, while the successful entrepreneur gets to know what man truly is and wants, and therefore is much better equipped to meet him where he is.

3. Christianity was born in community.

We find, in the Nicene Creed and in the broad narrative of the Bible, community. The Trinity is community. God calls us to community with Him. He calls us into community with one another.

For all their posing as communitarians, advocates of alternatives to capitalism—in practice if not theory—inevitably foment isolation and oppression. In East Germany, North Korea, the former Soviet Union, and the failed communes of Western utopians, we find a common theme: Noble aspirations give way to shirking and selfishness, which give way to policing and punishment, all of which destroy trust and social bonds.

While capitalism is most frequently depicted in movies by the worst behaviors of Wall Street cretins, in practice it is more fully evinced by Main Street, where trust, cooperation, and shared experience characterize economic relationships, all of them lending themselves to a richer community.

4. Christianity is the story of Creation.

Most discoveries occur where people have the liberty to experiment and the opportunity to personally benefit from their accomplishments. The two great oppressive systems of economic organization in the 20th century—fascism and socialism—both subverted science while eviscerating the connection between personal creation and personal economic gain. Not surprisingly, both excelled at destructive innovations (think Nazi V-1 rockets and Soviet techniques to brush out of photographs any followers who ran afoul of Lenin and Stalin). Meanwhile, their people languished in economic and spiritual deprivation.

The true capitalist (as opposed to some bozo who makes big, ill-advised bets and then trusts his political contacts to bail him out) is a creator. She brings together an idea with resources, and takes the risk upon herself of combining those resources in a way that creates new and exceptional value for others. In so doing she participates in the first great calling of man by God, which was to labor alongside Him in creation.

I wonder if the authors of the survey in question have a firm notion of the meanings of Christianity and capitalism. It’s all well and good to dislike a doctrine—I dislike a great many myself—but it seems best to familiarize oneself with what it is that one has taken the time to dislike. Perhaps that’s an outdated concept.

Libyan forces in more than a dozen military vehicles and armed with anti-aircraft guns and rocket launchers crossed the border with Tunisia and were involved in clashes in a frontier town Friday, witnesses said. Tunisia’s government was outraged and demanded Libya halt all incursions into its territory.

There were different accounts from witnesses of exactly what happened in the Tunisian border town of Dhuheiba, about three miles from the border. But several said Tunisian troops captured and disarmed some of the loyalists of Libya leader Muammar Qaddafi and drove others out of town. Three Tunisians were hurt, they said.

Ismail al-Wafi, a Dhuheiba resident, said the Libyan forces drove into the town and fired indiscriminately. He said Dhuheiba residents clashed with the Libyans and Tunisian troops and eventually captured some and took their weapons.

Another witness said Libyan troops clashed with Libyan rebels in Dhuheiba before they were defeated by Tunisian troops. Some of the Libyans were captured and the others chased out, said the witness, Akram.

The Tunisian news agency TAP said Tunisian forces fired in the air, but did not clash with Libyan troops.

Dhuheiba resident Mohamed Hedia said angry civilians in the town and the families of Libyan rebels who had been staying there set upon the Qaddafi troops, creating a “chaotic situation.” Tunisian forces fired warning shots, Hedia said.

The Dhuheiba border crossing between Libya and Tunisia has been a flashpoint in recent days. The crossing has been changing hands repeatedly between rebels and regime forces.

At some point Friday, rebels retook the crossing, restoring a vital supply line to besieged rebel strongholds in western Libya.

The Nafusa mountain range in western Libya, close to Tunisia, has emerged in recent days as a more troublesome pocket of resistance to Qaddafi forces. Throughout the uprising, there have been reports that rebels dominate towns in the area and fight Qaddafi troops.

Thousands of Libyans from the Nafusa mountain communities have fled to Dhuheiba and other Tunisian border towns in recent weeks, as rebels and government forces battled for control of the border crossing.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.