Church of the Masses: NY TIMES CALLING...: "James: So, in the last six months, there have been 37 pairings in the Times of the word "Christian" with words like "scary", "frightening", "theocratic" and "intimidating". My question is, what is it about Christians that makes you so scary?
Barb: (loud, snorting and sneering laughter) Are you kidding me?
James: What?
Barb: I finally get interviewed by the New York Times, and you ask me a question like that?! (more snorting and laughing)
James: (sniffs) Are you laughing because you think it's funny that people find Christians frightening?
Barb: No. I'm laughing because you want me to tell you why you and your friends are scared of Christians -- and I think you should ask your therapist!
Anyway, the interview went on from there. Basically, James was working on a story about how the same conservative Christian think-tanks that were behind the ascendancy of the Religious Right are now trying to take over Hollywood.
Barb: Are they?
James: Aren't they?
Barb: My experience is that the Christian initiatives in Hollywood are all organic - arising out of the industry itself.
James: Yeah, but where is the funding coming from?
Barb: They are all shoe-string underfundeds! Act One's funding comes from all over. Little drops of water from many sources --
James: Are you a Bush voter?
Barb: Whaaaaaaaaaaaaa?
In the end, I gave him some soundbites about post-Passion Hollywood, but it was clear that James had pretty much decided what he was going to write about (ie. Vast Rightwing Political Conspiracy spreading into Hollywood), and was searching for proof.
So, during this follow-up interview, Sunday, we had the following exchange.
James: I'm having a hell of a time chasing down the money connections between the DC conservative think-tanks and Hollywood Christians.
Barb: That's because they don't exist.
James: ("I'm no fool" snort) Yeah. How about you tell me 'off the record'?
Barb: Off the record, on the record, we don't get any money from rightwing covert opps!
James: Would you take money from them if they offered?
Barb: From whom?...Heck, I'd take money from Hugh Hefner! I'm just trying to meet payroll for the summer.
James: You're funny.
Barb: And poor....but with a few exceptions, Evangelical Christians outside of Hollywood don't financially support Hollywood Christians. They don't trust us.
James: Yeah, yeah...(trying another tack) So, is it your sense that some Evangelical Republicans from DC are trying to build a network in Hollywood?
Barb: I think that is accurate.
James: (Gotcha! exclamation) And why is that?!
Barb: Because being generally derided and despised by cultural leaders is a concern to them? You should ask them...
James: I'm trying, but everyone is being very paranoid in talking to me.
Barb: Does that surprise you?
James: Why is that, anyway?
Barb: You mean, besides the fact that the NY Times hates Christians?!
More laughter from James.
Barb: Honestly, the other reason you aren't getting the scoop is people don't have anything to say about this. There is no funneling of money from political Evangelicals to cultural ones. Is it being cagey and paranoid to not having anything to say about a plot that doesn't exist?
James makes an exasperated laughing sound.
A bit later, James asked me about a meeting that Act One co-sponsored last December between our writers and some Christians from DC.
James: Isn't it true that, as a result of the meeting, a feature film project was financed with money coming from DC?
Barb: Are you smoking crack?! No! There was no money! We bought a couple dozen sandwiches -- and lost money on that, as a matter of fact!
James: So, what was the purpose of the meeting?
Barb: The folks from Washington wanted to start a dialogue on some policy issues in the hopes that they could assist folks on this side of the country with government studies about some issues of joint concern.
James: (Ha!) What issue?
Barb: Well, we talked about global AIDS. Such a terrible plague. Hollywood doesn't talk about it enough.
James: Yeah, yeah. What else?
Barb: Oh yeah. There was information about the persecution of Christiansin the Sudan. There's another one you never see on primetime.
James: (depressed sigh) Anything else?
Barb: Yes. Sex.
James: Yeah! Tell me!
Barb: We talked about the problem of pornography and STD's. All about the societal wages of the Sexual Revolution.
James: (humph...)"
Thursday, June 09, 2005
A view of your local campus...
Tom Wolfe has written a novel capturing life at your local elite college. In my experience he's right on the mark.
I've spent enough time around college dorm rooms to know this is dead on.
Read it and weep.
VDH's Private Papers :: The Right Stuff: "That Wolfe is, as his ageist detractors never fail to point out, a 74-year-old Southern man, only makes his accomplishment all the more impressive. His eyes and ears are as sharp as ever. Friday nights at his fictional Dupont University, as at any school, bump with profane nursery rhymes (popularly known as gangster rap) and shrieks of girlish delight at manly antics. Wolfe notices that young men consider it a matter of duty to watch ESPN in 3-hour blocks, even when it means being up as early as ten-thirty. (My roommates went beyond the call by placing a second TV atop the main one, for ESPN-2.) He notices that the Mashed Potato or whatever dance they did in ancient days has become The Act, Clothed. Here is a sound that every college student recognizes: that terrible ascending chime of AOL Instant Messenger ringing into dorm hallways from every room. And below the computer is a nest of wires attached to the “techie alphabet toys…the PC, the TV, the CD, DVD, DSL, VCR, MP4…each asleep rattlesnake-style with a single tiny diode-green eye open….” Wolfe paints a portrait true to life itself, composed of hundreds of acute social observations, garnered through years of research on nearly a dozen campuses. "
"One passage explores how campus parlance has the F-word as an exclamation (“F!”), a noun (“You silly F!”), an imperative expressing contempt (“F that”), or an adverb modifying and intensifying an adjective. But if you think that’s F-ing insightful, observe that the S-word has become a synonym for everything: possessions (“Where’s your S?”), lies or misleading explanations (“Are you S-ing me?”), drunk (“S-faced”), trouble (“in deep S”), ineptitude (“couldn’t play point guard for S”), care about (“give a S”), ignorance (“he doesn’t know S”), hopeless situation (“up S Creek”), disappointment (“oh, S!”), startling (“holy S!”), et cetera (“and massages and S”), very (“mean as S”), violence (“before the S hit the fan”), verbal abuse “(don’t give me S”), self-importance (“he thinks he’s some S”), and feces, literally (“S”). Wolfe records 32 usages. I’ve personally heard all 32 of them as part of my higher education, but I’d never reflected on the phenomenon quite so vividly."
I've spent enough time around college dorm rooms to know this is dead on.
"But did they have Girls Gone Wild way back when? How about roofies, ecstasy, coed bathrooms, proliferating sex columnists, AIDS? (One thing remains constant: since 1980, about 45% of students have reported an excessive fondness for drink.) Slang, too, bespeaks campus change. I consulted Connie Eble, a lexicographer of college slang at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. In 1974, she says, students there were asked to list what they considered “good, current campus slang.” Thirty years later, they were asked again. The 2004 study found that 95% of the terms from 1974 were no longer used. (Put another way, only 5% of the slang words survived.) “Bad,” which in ’74 meant “good,” now means “bad” again. The word for “impressive” or “interesting” is “tight.” To express approval, avoid “That’s cosmic!” Try “Off the heezy fo’ sheezy.”The study also found that these days, “words are more explicitly sexual and derogatory.” Disco-era sorority sisters may have disliked being called “foxy mamas,” but less so, I’m sure, than “sorostitutes.” Worse is the term butterface, a ‘female with an attractive figure but a less-than-appealing face.’ (As in “…everything but her face.”) But that language should become more sexualized is appropriate seeing that everything else on campus has. Sexual liberation is no longer a movement, but brisk business. A new student-run porn magazine with real students has sold tens of thousands of copies at Boston University. “We wanted Boink to represent college and all that college is,” says the editor, not unreasonably. At my alma mater, adult film producers would drive up from Los Angeles to host parties in which their actors performed with—on—our students. The story made the cover of Rolling Stone. There is more of this on the way. But we’re supposed to think this is all old hat? What about the speech codes? And the aggressive political correctness?
Wolfe, of course, notices these, too. One day at Dupont U., a class is shown a photograph of bullfighting and a girl lets slip, “That—is— horrible! It’s—so—wrong!” “That’s your reaction to a culture different from your own?” snaps the professor. “Spanish culture is far older than ours, by a factor of millennia…. Would you favor us with a list of alien cultures you find most objectionable?” The students chuckle while Charlotte absorbs the lesson: “Denigration of another culture, especially one whose people are less well off than your own, and referring to anything as evil, which would indicate you might very well have religious convictions, were more socially unacceptable at Dupont than cruelty to animals.”
Political correctness, along with literary postmodernism (“B.S.”), radical feminism, and an obsession with race appear in Charlotte Simmons just as they appear on nearly every American college campus. And because this appearance is unpleasant to those politically disposed to defend them as signs of progress, Wolfe has been denounced for writing a jeremiad disguised as a novel. Wolfe is “a right-wing scold, a moralizing antique, William Bennett in an ice-cream suit,” said the Chicago Sun-Times’s Henry Kisor, echoing other liberal critics. In fact, such a deluge of this kind of criticism greeted the publishing of Charlotte Simmons that the deluge itself became a news item. But these literati are reacting exactly like those university presidents who insist on continuing Byzantine and morally shocking racial quotas while demanding even more insistently that these policies remain secret. Wolfe is telling it like it is. If his liberal critics don’t like what they see, their quarrel is with the universities, not Mr. Wolfe.
In truth, the university has changed dramatically over the past 30 years. For instance, the number of women enrolled in higher education rose from 5,035,862 in 1975 to 9,263,000 in 2003, an increase of 84%. (Male enrollment rose by 15%.) Minority undergraduate enrollment increased from 16.3% to 30.1% between 1976 and 2001. But perhaps the greatest transformation is this: the activist students and junior faculty of the ’60s and ’70s are today’s department chairs and administrative grandees. And they have been working hard to refashion the campus in their image. The result? A survey of 183 colleges shows that in four departments—English literature, political science, religious studies, and philosophy—more than 80% of the faculty identifies as liberal, and no more than 5% identifies as conservative. In sociology departments, 0% identify as Republicans. (One lonely discipline seems to resist the spirit of progress: agriculture.) Federal Electoral Commission filings report the first- and second-ranking organizations in the country in terms of per capita contributions to the Kerry ’04 campaign: the University of California and Harvard, respectively.
The one-party university promotes intellectual rigor with the sort of success achieved by the one-party state. This helps explain why the Larry Summers affair at Harvard became a show trial. The outrage…the self-effacement…the formal reprimands promulgated in large halls via secret ballot—it's enough to make you a believer in what Roger Kimball called the “Sovietization of intellectual life, where the value or truth of a work is determined not by its intrinsic qualities but by the degree to which it supports a given political line.” The spectacle of radical feminists savaging and humiliating Summers—while pledging to tolerate campus bullying no longer—is proof enough that the supposed oppressed are in control of academia’s commanding heights. But Wolfe is as alive to the comedy as to the tragedy of the American university. “Queer Theory” and “Ethnic Separatist Studies” remind one less of Leninism than the 19th century’s numerology and phrenology, in that they both discourse in bizarre pseudo-scientific lingo about things that don't exist. Still, the high priests of the academic occult have been successful enough at churning out half-educated true believers to ensure that Reason will not reign on campus any time soon."
Read it and weep.
JustOneMinute: Bush Aide Edited Science! and sauce for the gander.
JustOneMinute: Bush Aide Edited Science!: "Please, I'm begging now - can we drop the notion that the intersection of science with government was pure until Evil BushCo corrupted it?"
I posted that it is wrong to insert bias into scientific data. That works both ways.
I posted that it is wrong to insert bias into scientific data. That works both ways.
Wednesday, June 08, 2005
Bush Aide Softened Greenhouse Gas Links to Global Warming - New York Times
Bush Aide Softened Greenhouse Gas Links to Global Warming - New York Times: "A White House official who once led the oil industry's fight against limits on greenhouse gases has repeatedly edited government climate reports in ways that play down links between such emissions and global warming, according to internal documents.
In handwritten notes on drafts of several reports issued in 2002 and 2003, the official, Philip A. Cooney, removed or adjusted descriptions of climate research that government scientists and their supervisors, including some senior Bush administration officials, had already approved. In many cases, the changes appeared in the final reports.
The dozens of changes, while sometimes as subtle as the insertion of the phrase 'significant and fundamental' before the word 'uncertainties,' tend to produce an air of doubt about findings that most climate experts say are robust."
This is wrong. It's wrong when the MSM inserts their bias into the story, and it's wrong when Bush administration officials do the same.
In handwritten notes on drafts of several reports issued in 2002 and 2003, the official, Philip A. Cooney, removed or adjusted descriptions of climate research that government scientists and their supervisors, including some senior Bush administration officials, had already approved. In many cases, the changes appeared in the final reports.
The dozens of changes, while sometimes as subtle as the insertion of the phrase 'significant and fundamental' before the word 'uncertainties,' tend to produce an air of doubt about findings that most climate experts say are robust."
This is wrong. It's wrong when the MSM inserts their bias into the story, and it's wrong when Bush administration officials do the same.
Level 5 Leaders
Power Line: Stand up for Janice Rogers Brown: "As California's Chief Justice has ruefully acknowledged, Justice Puglia was 'a strong personality...not shy of stating his beliefs, nor about challenging others to justify theirs' but surprisingly willing to listen and modify his views. He was, as his long-time colleague Justice Coleman Blease noted: 'formidable' and 'intimidating,' but he had a 'heart of gold.'
...There are similarities in the descriptions of Justice Puglia and President Lincoln that are striking.
In a speech in 1906, Norton Parker Chipman recalled that his friend Abraham Lincoln was 'firm as the granite hills,' yet capable of great patience and forbearance. Carl Sandburg described Lincoln as 'both steel and velvet...hard as rock and soft as the drifting fog. Reading these words caused a shock of recognition, for I had been seeing exactly this sort of paradox and contradiction in the life of Justice Puglia."
This sounds very much like the Level 5 leader described in Jim Collins' brilliant book on leadership: Good to Great.
...There are similarities in the descriptions of Justice Puglia and President Lincoln that are striking.
In a speech in 1906, Norton Parker Chipman recalled that his friend Abraham Lincoln was 'firm as the granite hills,' yet capable of great patience and forbearance. Carl Sandburg described Lincoln as 'both steel and velvet...hard as rock and soft as the drifting fog. Reading these words caused a shock of recognition, for I had been seeing exactly this sort of paradox and contradiction in the life of Justice Puglia."
This sounds very much like the Level 5 leader described in Jim Collins' brilliant book on leadership: Good to Great.
ScrappleFace: Gitmo Study Sparks Arab Probe of Bible Abuse
ScrappleFace: Gitmo Study Sparks Arab Probe of Bible Abuse: "(2005-06-04) -- Friday's release of a Pentagon study on mishandling of the Koran at Guantanamo Bay detention center has sparked Saudi Arabia's leader to call for similar probes of Bible handling in detention facilities throughout the Muslim world."
Now that's comedy.
Now that's comedy.
Yale grades portray Kerry dumber than Bush
Yale grades portray Kerry as a lackluster student - The Boston Globe - Boston.com - Washington - News has the story.
The pictures would have decided the election anyway. Holy cow.
The pictures would have decided the election anyway. Holy cow.
Kubrick and the Human
Triablogue: "'Man isn't a noble savage, he's an ignoble savage,' says Kubrick, reaching for the iced water. 'He is irrational, brutal, weak, silly, unable to be objective about anything where his own interests are involved - that about sums it up. I'm interested in the brutal and violent nature of man because it's a true picture of him. And any attempt to create social institutions on a false view of the nature of man is probably doomed to failure.'
Like what? 'Well, many aspects of liberal mythology are coming to grief now -- but I don't want to give any examples or I'm going to sound like William Buckley....'"
A friend of mine convinced me that all of Kubrick's films were about dehumanization. Maybe we were wrong. They are about Humanization: Depravity.
Like what? 'Well, many aspects of liberal mythology are coming to grief now -- but I don't want to give any examples or I'm going to sound like William Buckley....'"
A friend of mine convinced me that all of Kubrick's films were about dehumanization. Maybe we were wrong. They are about Humanization: Depravity.
Church Webmasters - Stop Working for Free
Boyink Interactive, LLC : "Are you a web developer working on your church's website on a volunteer basis?
Stop it.
Immediately.
Walk away.
Or start billing for your time, at rates competitive in the local market.
Why?
Because when a church gets a website for free, it evidently has no value. Things with no value get replaced or reimplemented on a moment's notice, on staff whim, or as soon as the person leading the effort is called away."
This is sound thinking. (Hat Tip: effective web ministry notes)
Stop it.
Immediately.
Walk away.
Or start billing for your time, at rates competitive in the local market.
Why?
Because when a church gets a website for free, it evidently has no value. Things with no value get replaced or reimplemented on a moment's notice, on staff whim, or as soon as the person leading the effort is called away."
This is sound thinking. (Hat Tip: effective web ministry notes)
Tuesday, June 07, 2005
Geldof condemned over Pope 'invite' - Yahoo! UK & Ireland News
Geldof condemned over Pope 'invite' - Yahoo! UK & Ireland News: "The National Secular Society (NSS) is pointing to the Vatican's refusal to condone the use of condoms, saying it has helped spread HIV in Africa.
The society, which campaigns for religion to be taken out of public life, says it will create a counter-campaign of protest against any decision by Pope Benedict XVI to get involved.
NSS executive director Keith Porteous Wood said Geldof should not have written to the Pope about attending the Hyde Park event."
Is the Pope more tolerant the the National Secular Society? Will the Pope reject the invitation because secular people will be involved?
We report, you decide.
The society, which campaigns for religion to be taken out of public life, says it will create a counter-campaign of protest against any decision by Pope Benedict XVI to get involved.
NSS executive director Keith Porteous Wood said Geldof should not have written to the Pope about attending the Hyde Park event."
Is the Pope more tolerant the the National Secular Society? Will the Pope reject the invitation because secular people will be involved?
We report, you decide.
Personal Data for 3.9 Million Lost in Transit
Personal Data for 3.9 Million Lost in Transit - New York Times: "In one of the largest breaches of data security to date, CitiFinancial, the consumer finance subsidiary of Citigroup, announced yesterday that a box of computer tapes containing information on 3.9 million customers was lost by United Parcel Service last month, while in transit to a credit reporting agency."
What has Brown done to you?
What has Brown done to you?
The way back machine: Chirac's corruption battle
BBC NEWS | World | Europe | Q & A: Chirac's corruption battle: "France's President, Jacques Chirac, has been accused of corruption during his time as Mayor of Paris and as president of the Gaullist RPR Party.
Judges investigating the allegations wanted to question him, but have been thwarted by Mr Chirac's claim to presidential immunity, causing one of them to resign in disgust."
Maybe Michael Moore will do a documentary: Jacques and Me.
Judges investigating the allegations wanted to question him, but have been thwarted by Mr Chirac's claim to presidential immunity, causing one of them to resign in disgust."
Maybe Michael Moore will do a documentary: Jacques and Me.
When will the quagmire end?
Transterrestrial Musings: "PARIS (Routers) August 25, 2004
Sixty years after Paris was seized by the 'Allies,' and the beginning of the American occupation, France remains a failed nation, mired in political corruption and beset by vast pockets of Muslim extremism and anti-semitism, into which the gendarmerie fear to tread. The economy continues to struggle under economic policies driven by failed ideologies, and many of its best and brightest continue to flow out of the country, with only ex-dictators and their families, and hysterical movie stars willing to move there.
Sadly, history has born out the predictions of those who, in the spring of 1944, warned against invading. Many had pointed out what a poor prospect the region was for any kind of democracy, with its long history of belligerence and arrogance, and failed republics."
Sixty years after Paris was seized by the 'Allies,' and the beginning of the American occupation, France remains a failed nation, mired in political corruption and beset by vast pockets of Muslim extremism and anti-semitism, into which the gendarmerie fear to tread. The economy continues to struggle under economic policies driven by failed ideologies, and many of its best and brightest continue to flow out of the country, with only ex-dictators and their families, and hysterical movie stars willing to move there.
Sadly, history has born out the predictions of those who, in the spring of 1944, warned against invading. Many had pointed out what a poor prospect the region was for any kind of democracy, with its long history of belligerence and arrogance, and failed republics."
Monday, June 06, 2005
The Politics of Art
OpinionJournal - Extra: "Two things are worth noting about this article. The first is that it was written by a well-known, much-admired novelist. The second is that it appears to be representative of the political views of a considerable number of other artists who think that all conservatives (including conservative artists) are evil or stupid, or both. Ms. Smiley goes so far as to use the theological term 'invincible ignorance,' which implies that there's no point in arguing with such benighted folk, since their ignorance is invincible.
One finds the same quasireligious language in virtually all of Mr. Kushner's plays, used to much the same purpose: it is meant to indicate that disagreement with the author is not merely wrong but evil, and must necessarily lead to damnation. (Conversely, a play like 'Trumbo' exists not to persuade anyone of Dalton Trumbo's goodness--that is taken for granted--but to serve as a quasireligious ritual of collective self-congratulation, an opportunity for progressives to join together in celebrating a fearless defender of the true faith. That the defender in question was a hack screenwriter who tacitly connived at mass murder on a near-genocidal scale is irrelevant; all that matters is that he 'stood pat' when ordered by the House Un-American Activities Committee to inform on his similarly complicit colleagues.)
Now, it's one thing to feel like this, much less to say so out loud, if you're an elected official. That way lies a more proximate form of damnation. But what if you're an artist? What if you not only believe that more than half of your fellow men are ignorant, but allow this belief to influence the way you make art? The answer is to be found in plays like 'The God of Hell' and 'Embedded,' which are written not for a hypothetical mixed audience of red and blue Americans but for a 100% left-liberal audience whose 100% agreement is presupposed."
This is a very intelligent piece on the nature of art. I've often said that the place least likely to have real debate is the college campus. I must admit I am wrong. It seems there is even less debate in the "arts community". Everyone there knows what you're "supposed to think".
Question authority.
United Airlines Wi-fi
The New York Times > Technology > United Airlines Approved for In-Flight Internet Service: "United Airlines plans to announce today that it is the first domestic airline to receive approval from regulators to install wireless Internet networks on its planes."
Praise the Lord! Now they just need to offer it free and mix in a power supply and they've got my business.
Praise the Lord! Now they just need to offer it free and mix in a power supply and they've got my business.
Harvard’s Diversity Grovel by Heather Mac Donald
Harvard’s Diversity Grovel by Heather Mac Donald: "The “underlying . . . fact” of universities, he told the faculty at a February 15 meeting, is that they were “originally designed by men and for men.” In Summers’s view, the male origin of universities undermines any claim they might make to using objective tests of merit. “That reality [of a male founding],” he said, “shapes everything from . . . assumptions about effectiveness in teaching and mentoring, to concepts of excellence.” In other words, there is a male “concept of excellence” in genome research, say, that may not be the same as a female or black “concept of excellence” in genome research.
The deconstruction of objective standards into race and gender politics is common throughout the humanities. If Summers acts on his embrace of deconstructive relativism—he called on February 15 for “rethinking our assumptions in [such] areas [as ‘excellence’]”—standards in science will be the next to go. Any department that claims that it cannot find qualified candidates to meet the Senior VP for D’s “metrics” could face the charge that it is using white male “concepts of excellence.” Thank you very much, but I think I’ll stick with those “concepts” in the interest of ensuring that my medicine works and the airplane I’m using stays in the air."
If you wan't to see the decline of Higher Education at Harvard and probably most other elite institutions, you must read this article.
If you don't read this whole article... well, woe unto you.
The deconstruction of objective standards into race and gender politics is common throughout the humanities. If Summers acts on his embrace of deconstructive relativism—he called on February 15 for “rethinking our assumptions in [such] areas [as ‘excellence’]”—standards in science will be the next to go. Any department that claims that it cannot find qualified candidates to meet the Senior VP for D’s “metrics” could face the charge that it is using white male “concepts of excellence.” Thank you very much, but I think I’ll stick with those “concepts” in the interest of ensuring that my medicine works and the airplane I’m using stays in the air."
If you wan't to see the decline of Higher Education at Harvard and probably most other elite institutions, you must read this article.
If you don't read this whole article... well, woe unto you.
Sunday, June 05, 2005
New York City church holds 'Clown Eucharist' - 5/31/05
New York City church holds 'Clown Eucharist' - 5/31/05: "Looking like refugees from Clown Alley at Ringling Bros. Barnum and Bailey Circus, ministers and many parishioners participated in a 'Clown Eucharist' at an Episcopal church in New York City.
Earlier, the rector of Trinity Church-St. Paul's Chapel Trinity Church, the Rev. Dr. James Herbert Cooper, encouraged the parish family to come to church 'in clown dress, big hats, floppy shoes or some sort of foolish garb. Those watching on the Internet might even be foolish enough to put on some white face or a big grease-paint smile as we worship God and learn about the structure of the Eucharist by being the circus which came to town and to church on that day.'"
This is isn't a joke. There's even pictures.
Earlier, the rector of Trinity Church-St. Paul's Chapel Trinity Church, the Rev. Dr. James Herbert Cooper, encouraged the parish family to come to church 'in clown dress, big hats, floppy shoes or some sort of foolish garb. Those watching on the Internet might even be foolish enough to put on some white face or a big grease-paint smile as we worship God and learn about the structure of the Eucharist by being the circus which came to town and to church on that day.'"
This is isn't a joke. There's even pictures.
Saturday, June 04, 2005
Death throes . . .of failed ideas. - VDH
Death throes . . . - The Washington Times: Commentary - June 03, 2005: "Why all these upheavals?
Global communications now reveal hourly to people abroad how much better life is in Europe than in the Middle East and Asia -- and how in America, Australia and Britain the standard of living is even better than in most of Europe.
The removal of the Taliban and Saddam Hussein and their replacement with democracies proved the United States after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, was neither weak nor cynical. In fact, it was the utopian United Nations, with its oil-for-food, snoozing in Darfur and scandals about peacekeepers, that proved corrupt and unreliable.
The mass mourning of the pope's death revealed a renewed desire for spirituality. Two billion in India and China quietly keep copying the West. Car bombs, fist-shaking mobs and beheadings dispel all the old romance about the Third-World postcolonial 'other.'
What are we left with then?
Democracy, open markets, personal freedom, individual rights, pride in national traditions, worry about big government -- which is what we see in the United States, Britain, Australia and their allies in Japan and the breakaway countries in Europe. Elections in Ethiopia, France, Iraq, Lebanon and Ukraine all point to a desire for more freedom from central state control. "
Global communications now reveal hourly to people abroad how much better life is in Europe than in the Middle East and Asia -- and how in America, Australia and Britain the standard of living is even better than in most of Europe.
The removal of the Taliban and Saddam Hussein and their replacement with democracies proved the United States after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, was neither weak nor cynical. In fact, it was the utopian United Nations, with its oil-for-food, snoozing in Darfur and scandals about peacekeepers, that proved corrupt and unreliable.
The mass mourning of the pope's death revealed a renewed desire for spirituality. Two billion in India and China quietly keep copying the West. Car bombs, fist-shaking mobs and beheadings dispel all the old romance about the Third-World postcolonial 'other.'
What are we left with then?
Democracy, open markets, personal freedom, individual rights, pride in national traditions, worry about big government -- which is what we see in the United States, Britain, Australia and their allies in Japan and the breakaway countries in Europe. Elections in Ethiopia, France, Iraq, Lebanon and Ukraine all point to a desire for more freedom from central state control. "
For Fruit Flies, Gene Shift Tilts Sex Orientation - New York Times
For Fruit Flies, Gene Shift Tilts Sex Orientation - New York Times: "In a series of experiments, the researchers found that females given the male variant of the gene acted exactly like males in courtship, madly pursuing other females. Males that were artificially given the female version of the gene became more passive and turned their sexual attention to other males.
'We have shown that a single gene in the fruit fly is sufficient to determine all aspects of the flies' sexual orientation and behavior,' said the paper's lead author, Dr. Barry Dickson, senior scientist at the Institute of Molecular Biotechnology at the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna. 'It's very surprising.
'What it tells us is that instinctive behaviors can be specified by genetic programs, just like the morphologic development of an organ or a nose.'"
I guess the gender of fruit flies is not socially constructed. This is bad news for university professors in the fruit fly community.
'We have shown that a single gene in the fruit fly is sufficient to determine all aspects of the flies' sexual orientation and behavior,' said the paper's lead author, Dr. Barry Dickson, senior scientist at the Institute of Molecular Biotechnology at the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna. 'It's very surprising.
'What it tells us is that instinctive behaviors can be specified by genetic programs, just like the morphologic development of an organ or a nose.'"
I guess the gender of fruit flies is not socially constructed. This is bad news for university professors in the fruit fly community.
Friday, June 03, 2005
More on Europe and the Left
View From a Height: "In his Washington Post column from today, George Will pretty much sums up Europe's Nanny-state infantilization:
It is fine for people who are not French to admire from afar how 'civilized' the French are in cherishing their 'way of life' -- short workweeks, many weeks of vacation, laws 'protecting' labor by making it difficult to fire people. But those laws, by making employers reluctant to hire, help explain France's double-digit unemployment.
Cast a cold eye on this way of life -- this amalgam of desires for increasing affluence and leisure and weight in the world -- and 'civilized' looks like a euphemism for 'childish.' Children are unaware of the costs of things, and the incompatibility of many desires.
Will doesn't say so, but there's no question that 50 years of living under the American defense umbrella, in a world economy powered by American growth, has reduced the western part of the continent to the emotional stage of teenagers: old enough to operate the toys but not to produce or even understand them.
The EU was the means by which the delinquent French, Germans, and Belgians would entice college-bound New Europe to hang out for the summer rather than working.
The truly sad part is that Europe has entrepreneurial talent out that wazoo - just look at cell phones - but that talent is stifled by a system that resents success, especially new success. America has always benefitted by welcoming such people. Perhaps one of our greatest systemic threats is a China that now also does so, combined with a Democratic party that wants to replicate Europe's political culture here."
It is fine for people who are not French to admire from afar how 'civilized' the French are in cherishing their 'way of life' -- short workweeks, many weeks of vacation, laws 'protecting' labor by making it difficult to fire people. But those laws, by making employers reluctant to hire, help explain France's double-digit unemployment.
Cast a cold eye on this way of life -- this amalgam of desires for increasing affluence and leisure and weight in the world -- and 'civilized' looks like a euphemism for 'childish.' Children are unaware of the costs of things, and the incompatibility of many desires.
Will doesn't say so, but there's no question that 50 years of living under the American defense umbrella, in a world economy powered by American growth, has reduced the western part of the continent to the emotional stage of teenagers: old enough to operate the toys but not to produce or even understand them.
The EU was the means by which the delinquent French, Germans, and Belgians would entice college-bound New Europe to hang out for the summer rather than working.
The truly sad part is that Europe has entrepreneurial talent out that wazoo - just look at cell phones - but that talent is stifled by a system that resents success, especially new success. America has always benefitted by welcoming such people. Perhaps one of our greatest systemic threats is a China that now also does so, combined with a Democratic party that wants to replicate Europe's political culture here."
Dennis Prager: Hate evil: Case for Judeo-Christian values, part VII
Dennis Prager: Hate evil: Case for Judeo-Christian values, part VII: " As the leading German weekly magazine, Der Spiegel, recently wrote: 'Mr. Bush's recent speeches have made no retreat from the good vs. evil view of the world that the Europeans hate.'
Patrice de Beer, an editor of the leading French newspaper, Le Monde, wrote that in the European Union: 'The notion of the world divided between Good and Evil is perceived with dread.'
Entirely typical of the Left's view of good and evil is this series of questions posed on the leftist website Counterpunch by Gary Leupp, professor of history and of comparative religion at Tufts University: 'Questions for discussion. Was Attila good or evil to invade Gaul? Saddam good or evil to invade Kuwait? Hitler good or evil to invade Poland? Bush good or evil to invade Iraq? Are 'good' and 'evil' really adequate categories to evaluate contemporary and historical events?'
Western Europeans and their American counterparts loathe the language of good and evil and correctly attribute it to religious -- i.e., Judeo-Christian -- values. Among those values is fighting evil and 'burning evil out from your midst.' And to do that, you have to first hate it. Because if you don't hate evil, you won't fight it, and good will lose."
Patrice de Beer, an editor of the leading French newspaper, Le Monde, wrote that in the European Union: 'The notion of the world divided between Good and Evil is perceived with dread.'
Entirely typical of the Left's view of good and evil is this series of questions posed on the leftist website Counterpunch by Gary Leupp, professor of history and of comparative religion at Tufts University: 'Questions for discussion. Was Attila good or evil to invade Gaul? Saddam good or evil to invade Kuwait? Hitler good or evil to invade Poland? Bush good or evil to invade Iraq? Are 'good' and 'evil' really adequate categories to evaluate contemporary and historical events?'
Western Europeans and their American counterparts loathe the language of good and evil and correctly attribute it to religious -- i.e., Judeo-Christian -- values. Among those values is fighting evil and 'burning evil out from your midst.' And to do that, you have to first hate it. Because if you don't hate evil, you won't fight it, and good will lose."
War is not the answer?
Instapundit.com -: "This passage points to a solution, though: 'There hasn’t been any revolution so far because the potential rebels cannot get guns. No one is willing to arm the dissatisfied majority, and over two thirds of the population lives in poverty. . . . The government seems determined to starve its enemies to death, secure in the knowledge that the victims are unarmed, and the government forces have lots of guns.'"
Those who say "nothing comes from violence" (like Sting) should consider Darfur and then choose between war and starvation.
Those who say "nothing comes from violence" (like Sting) should consider Darfur and then choose between war and starvation.
Thursday, June 02, 2005
Slashdot | Microsoft Ends Era Of Closed File Formats
Slashdot | Microsoft Ends Era Of Closed File Formats: "If this interview is correct, it could mean the beginning of the end of Microsoft's proprietary file formats."
Praise the Lord.
Praise the Lord.
Journalist Who Criticized Syrian Presence Is Killed in Lebanon - New York Times
Journalist Who Criticized Syrian Presence Is Killed in Lebanon - New York Times: "UBAI, United Arab Emirates, June 2 - An outspoken journalist known for his writings against Syria's presence in Lebanon was killed in a car bombing in Beirut today, raising tensions in Lebanon just four days after elections for a new Parliament began.
A journalist for Lebanon's top daily paper who had been a critic of Syria was killed in Beirut when a bomb destroyed his car.
Anwar Amro/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Samir Kassir led a call for the resignation of Lebanon's pro-Syrian security chiefs.
The bomb was placed in a vehicle outside the home of the journalist, Samir Kassir, in the predominantly Christian district of Ashrafiya. Mr. Kassir's body lay slumped on one side after the blast as fire crews arrived on the scene, witnesses said. The blast shattered windows in the nearby area.
Mr. Kassir, a columnist at the Lebanese daily An Nahar, was known for his opposition to Syria's role in Lebanon. He blamed Syria for the assassination on Feb. 14 of former Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri and railed about that country's need to pull out of Lebanon. He also led a call for the resignation of Lebanon's pro-Syrian security chiefs."
Anyone like Eason Jordan or Linda Foley who accuse our troops , without proof, of this kind of murder, deserve to be fired.
Kudos to the New York times to report on the real thing.
A journalist for Lebanon's top daily paper who had been a critic of Syria was killed in Beirut when a bomb destroyed his car.
Anwar Amro/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Samir Kassir led a call for the resignation of Lebanon's pro-Syrian security chiefs.
The bomb was placed in a vehicle outside the home of the journalist, Samir Kassir, in the predominantly Christian district of Ashrafiya. Mr. Kassir's body lay slumped on one side after the blast as fire crews arrived on the scene, witnesses said. The blast shattered windows in the nearby area.
Mr. Kassir, a columnist at the Lebanese daily An Nahar, was known for his opposition to Syria's role in Lebanon. He blamed Syria for the assassination on Feb. 14 of former Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri and railed about that country's need to pull out of Lebanon. He also led a call for the resignation of Lebanon's pro-Syrian security chiefs."
Anyone like Eason Jordan or Linda Foley who accuse our troops , without proof, of this kind of murder, deserve to be fired.
Kudos to the New York times to report on the real thing.
Take it to the Bank
All change is experienced as loss, even if the result is a net gain. -Rich Bledsoe
Fear and Rejection Of Liberalism- New York Times
Fear and Rejection - New York Times: "Forgive me for making a blunt and obvious point, but events in Western Europe are slowly discrediting large swaths of American liberalism.
Most of the policy ideas advocated by American liberals have already been enacted in Europe: generous welfare measures, ample labor protections, highly progressive tax rates, single-payer health care systems, zoning restrictions to limit big retailers, and cradle-to-grave middle-class subsidies supporting everything from child care to pension security. And yet far from thriving, continental Europe has endured a lost decade of relative decline..."
"The core fact is that the European model is foundering under the fact that billions of people are willing to work harder than the Europeans are. Europeans clearly love their way of life, but don't know how to sustain it.Over the last few decades, American liberals have lauded the German model or the Swedish model or the European model. But these models are not flexible enough for the modern world. They encourage people to cling fiercely to entitlements their nation cannot afford. And far from breeding a confident, progressive outlook, they breed a reactionary fear of the future that comes in left- and right-wing varieties - a defensiveness, a tendency to lash out ferociously at anybody who proposes fundamental reform or at any group, like immigrants, that alters the fabric of life."
You are forgiven.
A Brave New Blogging World
Companies subvert search results to squelch criticism: "But Quixtar is not alone. Every major company, non-profit and religious group now has to worry about their Web reputation and has to pay very close attention to that first page of search results.
'Managing brand credibility and press exposure is nothing new,' said Nan Dawkins, co-founder of Red Boots Consulting, which focuses on SEO for non-profits. 'The only new wrinkle here is the medium [Internet/search engines] and the tactics used to get visibility in that medium. The reality is that search engines are VERY IMPORTANT to an organization's brand. Search engines are where people look for answers to their questions, and there are a lot of different takes on those answers. Your side of the story may appear, but it is a certainty that it will appear alongside other, varying opinions. If you don't manage it, it may manage you.'"
Interesting.
'Managing brand credibility and press exposure is nothing new,' said Nan Dawkins, co-founder of Red Boots Consulting, which focuses on SEO for non-profits. 'The only new wrinkle here is the medium [Internet/search engines] and the tactics used to get visibility in that medium. The reality is that search engines are VERY IMPORTANT to an organization's brand. Search engines are where people look for answers to their questions, and there are a lot of different takes on those answers. Your side of the story may appear, but it is a certainty that it will appear alongside other, varying opinions. If you don't manage it, it may manage you.'"
Interesting.
You can't hide your anti-American eyes, Newsweek.
Riding Sun: Newsweek: America is dead: "As you can see, the cover story shows an American flag, dirtied and tossed in a trash can, its staff snapped in two. The large white text reads, 'Amerika ga shinda hi', which translates to 'The day America died.'
The equivalent international edition of Newsweek, the January 31 issue, featured a picture of Bush on the cover, with the caption 'America Leads ...But is Anyone Following?'"
If you're going to bash the U.S. on foreign soil, don't be two-faced (literally) about it. Own up to it Newsweek, or the blogosphere will make plain what you're cowardly to say to our faces.
I posted on my own need to be forthright here. Newsweek should be who they are, not one face in the U.S. and another face abroad.
This is another example of the Reformation of information dissemination changing the world as we have known it.
The equivalent international edition of Newsweek, the January 31 issue, featured a picture of Bush on the cover, with the caption 'America Leads ...But is Anyone Following?'"
If you're going to bash the U.S. on foreign soil, don't be two-faced (literally) about it. Own up to it Newsweek, or the blogosphere will make plain what you're cowardly to say to our faces.
I posted on my own need to be forthright here. Newsweek should be who they are, not one face in the U.S. and another face abroad.
This is another example of the Reformation of information dissemination changing the world as we have known it.
More wisdom from your local college...
Althouse: How offensive does something need to be before you see what is offensive?:
Quoted from Jason Rosenfeld, a Marymount professor of art history: "That was the problem with Russia, is that it was full of orthodox religiosity and Christianity. That's why, you know, Lenin (a great Jew), Marx (a great Jew), had it right... Or was Lenin Jewish? ... I don't think he was, but we'll claim him, because he was a good egg... is because they wanted to get rid of religion, you know, religion was the opiate of the masses to Marx, who was a self-hating Jew, I guess, essentially. But my point about this painting is ..."
Oh yeah, that's because religious people are "moral retards". And Marx and Lenin were good eggs. Now it all makes sense.
That will be $20,000 a year, please.
Quoted from Jason Rosenfeld, a Marymount professor of art history: "That was the problem with Russia, is that it was full of orthodox religiosity and Christianity. That's why, you know, Lenin (a great Jew), Marx (a great Jew), had it right... Or was Lenin Jewish? ... I don't think he was, but we'll claim him, because he was a good egg... is because they wanted to get rid of religion, you know, religion was the opiate of the masses to Marx, who was a self-hating Jew, I guess, essentially. But my point about this painting is ..."
Oh yeah, that's because religious people are "moral retards". And Marx and Lenin were good eggs. Now it all makes sense.
That will be $20,000 a year, please.
Mad as hell, switching to Mac
Mad as hell, switching to Mac - Yahoo! News: "This is my first column written on a Mac - ever. Maybe I should have done it a long time ago, but I never said I was smart, just obstinate. I was a PC bigot.
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But now, I’ve had it. I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore.
In the coming weeks I’m going to keep a diary of an experiment my company began at 6 p.m. April 29, 2005 - an experiment predicated on the hypothesis that the WinTel platform represents the greatest violation of the basic tenets of information security and has become a national economic security risk. I do not say this lightly, and I have never been a Microsoft basher, either. I never criticize a company without a fair bit of explanation, justification and supportive evidence.
I have come to the belief that there is a much easier, more secure way to use computers. After having spent several years focusing my security work on Ma, Pa and the Corporate Clueless, I also have come to the conclusion that if I’m having such security problems, heaven help the 98 percent of humanity who merely want a computer for e-mail and multimedia."
I've been contemplating returning to the Mac platform for my daily tasks. Hey, it's not McRyanMac by chance. I started on the Mac. I may finish there yet.
ADVERTISEMENT
But now, I’ve had it. I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore.
In the coming weeks I’m going to keep a diary of an experiment my company began at 6 p.m. April 29, 2005 - an experiment predicated on the hypothesis that the WinTel platform represents the greatest violation of the basic tenets of information security and has become a national economic security risk. I do not say this lightly, and I have never been a Microsoft basher, either. I never criticize a company without a fair bit of explanation, justification and supportive evidence.
I have come to the belief that there is a much easier, more secure way to use computers. After having spent several years focusing my security work on Ma, Pa and the Corporate Clueless, I also have come to the conclusion that if I’m having such security problems, heaven help the 98 percent of humanity who merely want a computer for e-mail and multimedia."
I've been contemplating returning to the Mac platform for my daily tasks. Hey, it's not McRyanMac by chance. I started on the Mac. I may finish there yet.
Leaving the left
In case you missed it, I reproduce this article in it's entirety. File this under why I'm a Republican. Republicans are far from perfect. But the Democratic party has long since been taken over by the Howard Dean left. Apparently even some who have been on the left are waking up to the fact that leftist thinking is morally irresponsible.
Leaving the left / I can no longer abide the simpering voices of self-styled progressives -- people who once championed solidarity:
Nightfall, Jan. 30. Eight-million Iraqi voters have finished risking their lives to endorse freedom and defy fascism. Three things happen in rapid succession. The right cheers. The left demurs. I walk away from a long-term intimate relationship. I'm separating not from a person but a cause: the political philosophy that for more than three decades has shaped my character and consciousness, my sense of self and community, even my sense of cosmos.
I'm leaving the left -- more precisely, the American cultural left and what it has become during our time together.
I choose this day for my departure because I can no longer abide the simpering voices of self-styled progressives -- people who once championed solidarity with oppressed populations everywhere -- reciting all the ways Iraq's democratic experiment might yet implode.
My estrangement hasn't happened overnight. Out of the corner of my eye I watched what was coming for more than three decades, yet refused to truly see. Now it's all too obvious. Leading voices in America's "peace" movement are actually cheering against self-determination for a long-suffering Third World country because they hate George W. Bush more than they love freedom.
Like many others who came of age politically in the 1960s, I became adept at not taking the measure of the left's mounting incoherence. To face it directly posed the danger that I would have to describe it accurately, first to myself and then to others. That could only give aid and comfort to Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter and all the other Usual Suspects the left so regularly employs to keep from seeing its own reflection in the mirror.
Now, I find myself in a swirling metamorphosis. Think Kafka, without the bug. Think Kuhnian paradigm shift, without the buzz. Every anomaly that didn't fit my perceptual set is suddenly back, all the more glaring for so long ignored. The insistent inner voice I learned to suppress now has my rapt attention. "Something strange -- something approaching pathological -- something entirely of its own making -- has the left in its grip," the voice whispers. "How did this happen?" The Iraqi election is my tipping point. The time has come to walk in a different direction -- just as I did many years before.
I grew up in a northwest Ohio town where conservative was a polite term for reactionary. When Martin Luther King Jr. spoke of Mississippi "sweltering in the heat of oppression," he could have been describing my community, where blacks knew to keep their heads down, and animosity toward Catholics and Jews was unapologetic. Liberal and conservative, like left and right, wouldn't be part of my lexicon for a while, but when King proclaimed, "I have a dream," I instinctively cast my lot with those I later found out were liberals (then synonymous with "the left" and "progressive thought").
The people on the other side were dedicated to preserving my hometown's backward-looking status quo. This was all that my 10-year-old psyche needed to know. The knowledge carried me for a long time. Mythologies are helpful that way.
I began my activist career championing the 1968 presidential candidacies of Robert Kennedy and Eugene McCarthy, because both promised to end America's misadventure in Vietnam. I marched for peace and farm worker justice, lobbied for women's right to choose and environmental protections, signed up with George McGovern in 1972 and got elected as the youngest delegate ever to a Democratic convention.
Eventually I joined the staff of U.S. Sen. Howard Metzenbaum, D-Ohio. In short, I became a card-carrying liberal, although I never actually got a card. (Bookkeeping has never been the left's strong suit.) All my commitments centered on belief in equal opportunity, due process, respect for the dignity of the individual and solidarity with people in trouble. To my mind, Americans who had joined the resistance to Franco's fascist dystopia captured the progressive spirit at its finest.
A turning point came at a dinner party on the day Ronald Reagan famously described the Soviet Union as the pre-eminent source of evil in the modern world. The general tenor of the evening was that Reagan's use of the word "evil" had moved the world closer to annihilation. There was a palpable sense that we might not make it to dessert.
When I casually offered that the surviving relatives of the more than 20 million people murdered on orders of Joseph Stalin might not find "evil'" too strong a word, the room took on a collective bemused smile of the sort you might expect if someone had casually mentioned taking up child molestation for sport.
My progressive companions had a point. It was rude to bring a word like "gulag" to the dinner table.
I look back on that experience as the beginning of my departure from a left already well on its way to losing its bearings. Two decades later, I watched with astonishment as leading left intellectuals launched a telethon- like body count of civilian deaths caused by American soldiers in Afghanistan. Their premise was straightforward, almost giddily so: When the number of civilian Afghani deaths surpassed the carnage of Sept. 11, the war would be unjust, irrespective of other considerations.
Stated simply: The force wielded by democracies in self-defense was declared morally equivalent to the nihilistic aggression perpetuated by Muslim fanatics.
Susan Sontag cleared her throat for the "courage" of the al Qaeda pilots. Norman Mailer pronounced the dead of Sept. 11 comparable to "automobile statistics." The events of that day were likely premeditated by the White House, Gore Vidal insinuated. Noam Chomsky insisted that al Qaeda at its most atrocious generated no terror greater than American foreign policy on a mediocre day.
All of this came back to me as I watched the left's anemic, smirking response to Iraq's election in January. Didn't many of these same people stand up in the sixties for self-rule for oppressed people and against fascism in any guise? Yes, and to their lasting credit. But many had since made clear that they had also changed their minds about the virtues of King's call for equal of opportunity.
These days the postmodern left demands that government and private institutions guarantee equality of outcomes. Any racial or gender "disparities" are to be considered evidence of culpable bias, regardless of factors such as personal motivation, training, and skill. This goal is neither liberal nor progressive; but it is what the left has chosen. In a very real sense it may be the last card held by a movement increasingly ensnared in resentful questing for group-specific rights and the subordination of citizenship to group identity. There's a word for this: pathetic.
I smile when friends tell me I've "moved right." I laugh out loud at what now passes for progressive on the main lines of the cultural left.
In the name of "diversity," the University of Arizona has forbidden discrimination based on "individual style." The University of Connecticut has banned "inappropriately directed laughter." Brown University, sensing unacceptable gray areas, warns that harassment "may be intentional or unintentional and still constitute harassment." (Yes, we're talking "subconscious harassment" here. We're watching your thoughts ...).
Wait, it gets better. When actor Bill Cosby called on black parents to explain to their kids why they are not likely to get into medical school speaking English like "Why you ain't" and "Where you is," Jesse Jackson countered that the time was not yet right to "level the playing field." Why not? Because "drunk people can't do that ... illiterate people can't do that."
When self-styled pragmatic feminist Camille Paglia mocked young coeds who believe "I should be able to get drunk at a fraternity party and go upstairs to a guy's room without anything happening," Susan Estrich spoke up for gender- focused feminists who "would argue that so long as women are powerless relative to men, viewing 'yes' as a sign of true consent is misguided."
I'll admit my politics have shifted in recent years, as have America's political landscape and cultural horizon. Who would have guessed that the U.S. senator with today's best voting record on human rights would be not Ted Kennedy or Barbara Boxer but Kansas Republican Sam Brownback?
He is also by most measures one of the most conservative senators. Brownback speaks openly about how his horror at the genocide in the Sudan is shaped by his Christian faith, as King did when he insisted on justice for "all of God's children."
My larger point is rather simple. Just as a body needs different medicines at different times for different reasons, this also holds for the body politic.
In the sixties, America correctly focused on bringing down walls that prevented equal access and due process. It was time to walk the Founders' talk -- and we did. With barriers to opportunity no longer written into law, today the body politic is crying for different remedies.
America must now focus on creating healthy, self-actualizing individuals committed to taking responsibility for their lives, developing their talents, honing their skills and intellects, fostering emotional and moral intelligence, all in all contributing to the advancement of the human condition.
At the heart of authentic liberalism lies the recognition, in the words of John Gardner, "that the ever renewing society will be a free society (whose] capacity for renewal depends on the individuals who make it up." A continuously renewing society, Gardner believed, is one that seeks to "foster innovative, versatile, and self-renewing men and women and give them room to breathe."
One aspect of my politics hasn't changed a bit. I became a liberal in the first place to break from the repressive group orthodoxies of my reactionary hometown.
This past January, my liberalism was in full throttle when I bid the cultural left goodbye to escape a new version of that oppressiveness. I departed with new clarity about the brilliance of liberal democracy and the value system it entails; the quest for freedom as an intrinsically human affair; and the dangers of demands for conformity and adherence to any point of view through silence, fear, or coercion.
True, it took a while to see what was right before my eyes. A certain misplaced loyalty kept me from grasping that a view of individuals as morally capable of and responsible for making the principle decisions that shape their lives is decisively at odds with the contemporary left's entrance-level view of people as passive and helpless victims of powerful external forces, hence political wards who require the continuous shepherding of caretaker elites.
Leftists who no longer speak of the duties of citizens, but only of the rights of clients, cannot be expected to grasp the importance (not least to our survival) of fostering in the Middle East the crucial developmental advances that gave rise to our own capacity for pluralism, self-reflection, and equality. A left averse to making common cause with competent, self- determining individuals -- people who guide their lives on the basis of received values, everyday moral understandings, traditional wisdom, and plain common sense -- is a faction that deserves the marginalization it has pursued with such tenacity for so many years.
All of which is why I have come to believe, and gladly join with others who have discovered for themselves, that the single most important thing a genuinely liberal person can do now is walk away from the house the left has built. The renewal of any tradition that deserves the name "progressive" becomes more likely with each step in a better direction.
Keith Thompson is a Petaluma writer and the author of "Angels and Aliens" and "To Be a Man." His work is at www.thompsonatlarge.com. Contact us at insight@sfchronicle.com."
Leaving the left / I can no longer abide the simpering voices of self-styled progressives -- people who once championed solidarity:
Nightfall, Jan. 30. Eight-million Iraqi voters have finished risking their lives to endorse freedom and defy fascism. Three things happen in rapid succession. The right cheers. The left demurs. I walk away from a long-term intimate relationship. I'm separating not from a person but a cause: the political philosophy that for more than three decades has shaped my character and consciousness, my sense of self and community, even my sense of cosmos.
I'm leaving the left -- more precisely, the American cultural left and what it has become during our time together.
I choose this day for my departure because I can no longer abide the simpering voices of self-styled progressives -- people who once championed solidarity with oppressed populations everywhere -- reciting all the ways Iraq's democratic experiment might yet implode.
My estrangement hasn't happened overnight. Out of the corner of my eye I watched what was coming for more than three decades, yet refused to truly see. Now it's all too obvious. Leading voices in America's "peace" movement are actually cheering against self-determination for a long-suffering Third World country because they hate George W. Bush more than they love freedom.
Like many others who came of age politically in the 1960s, I became adept at not taking the measure of the left's mounting incoherence. To face it directly posed the danger that I would have to describe it accurately, first to myself and then to others. That could only give aid and comfort to Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter and all the other Usual Suspects the left so regularly employs to keep from seeing its own reflection in the mirror.
Now, I find myself in a swirling metamorphosis. Think Kafka, without the bug. Think Kuhnian paradigm shift, without the buzz. Every anomaly that didn't fit my perceptual set is suddenly back, all the more glaring for so long ignored. The insistent inner voice I learned to suppress now has my rapt attention. "Something strange -- something approaching pathological -- something entirely of its own making -- has the left in its grip," the voice whispers. "How did this happen?" The Iraqi election is my tipping point. The time has come to walk in a different direction -- just as I did many years before.
I grew up in a northwest Ohio town where conservative was a polite term for reactionary. When Martin Luther King Jr. spoke of Mississippi "sweltering in the heat of oppression," he could have been describing my community, where blacks knew to keep their heads down, and animosity toward Catholics and Jews was unapologetic. Liberal and conservative, like left and right, wouldn't be part of my lexicon for a while, but when King proclaimed, "I have a dream," I instinctively cast my lot with those I later found out were liberals (then synonymous with "the left" and "progressive thought").
The people on the other side were dedicated to preserving my hometown's backward-looking status quo. This was all that my 10-year-old psyche needed to know. The knowledge carried me for a long time. Mythologies are helpful that way.
I began my activist career championing the 1968 presidential candidacies of Robert Kennedy and Eugene McCarthy, because both promised to end America's misadventure in Vietnam. I marched for peace and farm worker justice, lobbied for women's right to choose and environmental protections, signed up with George McGovern in 1972 and got elected as the youngest delegate ever to a Democratic convention.
Eventually I joined the staff of U.S. Sen. Howard Metzenbaum, D-Ohio. In short, I became a card-carrying liberal, although I never actually got a card. (Bookkeeping has never been the left's strong suit.) All my commitments centered on belief in equal opportunity, due process, respect for the dignity of the individual and solidarity with people in trouble. To my mind, Americans who had joined the resistance to Franco's fascist dystopia captured the progressive spirit at its finest.
A turning point came at a dinner party on the day Ronald Reagan famously described the Soviet Union as the pre-eminent source of evil in the modern world. The general tenor of the evening was that Reagan's use of the word "evil" had moved the world closer to annihilation. There was a palpable sense that we might not make it to dessert.
When I casually offered that the surviving relatives of the more than 20 million people murdered on orders of Joseph Stalin might not find "evil'" too strong a word, the room took on a collective bemused smile of the sort you might expect if someone had casually mentioned taking up child molestation for sport.
My progressive companions had a point. It was rude to bring a word like "gulag" to the dinner table.
I look back on that experience as the beginning of my departure from a left already well on its way to losing its bearings. Two decades later, I watched with astonishment as leading left intellectuals launched a telethon- like body count of civilian deaths caused by American soldiers in Afghanistan. Their premise was straightforward, almost giddily so: When the number of civilian Afghani deaths surpassed the carnage of Sept. 11, the war would be unjust, irrespective of other considerations.
Stated simply: The force wielded by democracies in self-defense was declared morally equivalent to the nihilistic aggression perpetuated by Muslim fanatics.
Susan Sontag cleared her throat for the "courage" of the al Qaeda pilots. Norman Mailer pronounced the dead of Sept. 11 comparable to "automobile statistics." The events of that day were likely premeditated by the White House, Gore Vidal insinuated. Noam Chomsky insisted that al Qaeda at its most atrocious generated no terror greater than American foreign policy on a mediocre day.
All of this came back to me as I watched the left's anemic, smirking response to Iraq's election in January. Didn't many of these same people stand up in the sixties for self-rule for oppressed people and against fascism in any guise? Yes, and to their lasting credit. But many had since made clear that they had also changed their minds about the virtues of King's call for equal of opportunity.
These days the postmodern left demands that government and private institutions guarantee equality of outcomes. Any racial or gender "disparities" are to be considered evidence of culpable bias, regardless of factors such as personal motivation, training, and skill. This goal is neither liberal nor progressive; but it is what the left has chosen. In a very real sense it may be the last card held by a movement increasingly ensnared in resentful questing for group-specific rights and the subordination of citizenship to group identity. There's a word for this: pathetic.
I smile when friends tell me I've "moved right." I laugh out loud at what now passes for progressive on the main lines of the cultural left.
In the name of "diversity," the University of Arizona has forbidden discrimination based on "individual style." The University of Connecticut has banned "inappropriately directed laughter." Brown University, sensing unacceptable gray areas, warns that harassment "may be intentional or unintentional and still constitute harassment." (Yes, we're talking "subconscious harassment" here. We're watching your thoughts ...).
Wait, it gets better. When actor Bill Cosby called on black parents to explain to their kids why they are not likely to get into medical school speaking English like "Why you ain't" and "Where you is," Jesse Jackson countered that the time was not yet right to "level the playing field." Why not? Because "drunk people can't do that ... illiterate people can't do that."
When self-styled pragmatic feminist Camille Paglia mocked young coeds who believe "I should be able to get drunk at a fraternity party and go upstairs to a guy's room without anything happening," Susan Estrich spoke up for gender- focused feminists who "would argue that so long as women are powerless relative to men, viewing 'yes' as a sign of true consent is misguided."
I'll admit my politics have shifted in recent years, as have America's political landscape and cultural horizon. Who would have guessed that the U.S. senator with today's best voting record on human rights would be not Ted Kennedy or Barbara Boxer but Kansas Republican Sam Brownback?
He is also by most measures one of the most conservative senators. Brownback speaks openly about how his horror at the genocide in the Sudan is shaped by his Christian faith, as King did when he insisted on justice for "all of God's children."
My larger point is rather simple. Just as a body needs different medicines at different times for different reasons, this also holds for the body politic.
In the sixties, America correctly focused on bringing down walls that prevented equal access and due process. It was time to walk the Founders' talk -- and we did. With barriers to opportunity no longer written into law, today the body politic is crying for different remedies.
America must now focus on creating healthy, self-actualizing individuals committed to taking responsibility for their lives, developing their talents, honing their skills and intellects, fostering emotional and moral intelligence, all in all contributing to the advancement of the human condition.
At the heart of authentic liberalism lies the recognition, in the words of John Gardner, "that the ever renewing society will be a free society (whose] capacity for renewal depends on the individuals who make it up." A continuously renewing society, Gardner believed, is one that seeks to "foster innovative, versatile, and self-renewing men and women and give them room to breathe."
One aspect of my politics hasn't changed a bit. I became a liberal in the first place to break from the repressive group orthodoxies of my reactionary hometown.
This past January, my liberalism was in full throttle when I bid the cultural left goodbye to escape a new version of that oppressiveness. I departed with new clarity about the brilliance of liberal democracy and the value system it entails; the quest for freedom as an intrinsically human affair; and the dangers of demands for conformity and adherence to any point of view through silence, fear, or coercion.
True, it took a while to see what was right before my eyes. A certain misplaced loyalty kept me from grasping that a view of individuals as morally capable of and responsible for making the principle decisions that shape their lives is decisively at odds with the contemporary left's entrance-level view of people as passive and helpless victims of powerful external forces, hence political wards who require the continuous shepherding of caretaker elites.
Leftists who no longer speak of the duties of citizens, but only of the rights of clients, cannot be expected to grasp the importance (not least to our survival) of fostering in the Middle East the crucial developmental advances that gave rise to our own capacity for pluralism, self-reflection, and equality. A left averse to making common cause with competent, self- determining individuals -- people who guide their lives on the basis of received values, everyday moral understandings, traditional wisdom, and plain common sense -- is a faction that deserves the marginalization it has pursued with such tenacity for so many years.
All of which is why I have come to believe, and gladly join with others who have discovered for themselves, that the single most important thing a genuinely liberal person can do now is walk away from the house the left has built. The renewal of any tradition that deserves the name "progressive" becomes more likely with each step in a better direction.
Keith Thompson is a Petaluma writer and the author of "Angels and Aliens" and "To Be a Man." His work is at www.thompsonatlarge.com. Contact us at insight@sfchronicle.com."
Beating at Guatanamo
The Indepundit: "Okay, I'll have to come clean. I've never discussed this before, but now seems to be the time. I've been to Guantanamo Bay (GITMO) -- twice. On the first occasion I witnessed a prisoner in handcuffs being beaten repeatedly. I sat there behind a desk and didn't say a word to stop it, I didn't think I could stop it because the ones doing the beating outranked me and I never reported it. He wasn't tortured, but he was beaten with clubs and he was also kicked several times."
How could this have happened, before I was one year old. I thought the military was perfect until George Bush took office.
Read the whole thing.
How could this have happened, before I was one year old. I thought the military was perfect until George Bush took office.
Read the whole thing.
Amnesty leadership aided Kerry
Amnesty leadership aided Kerry - The Washington Times: Nation/Politics - June 02, 2005: "The top leadership of Amnesty International USA, which unleashed a blistering attack last week on the Bush administration's handling of war detainees, contributed the maximum $2,000 to Sen. John Kerry's presidential campaign. "
Shocking.
Shocking.
Wednesday, June 01, 2005
Gospel-Driven Sanctification, by Jerry Bridges
Gospel-Driven Sanctification, by Jerry Bridges: "But in my daily life, I thought God's blessing depended on the practice of certain spiritual disciplines, such as having a daily quiet time and not knowingly committing any sin. I did not think this out but just unconsciously assumed it, given the Christian culture in which I lived. Yet it determined my attitude toward the Christian life.
My story is not unusual. Evangelicals commonly think today that the gospel is only for unbelievers. Once we're inside the kingdom's door, we need the gospel only in order to share it with those who are still outside. Now, as believers, we need to hear the message of discipleship. We need to learn how to live the Christian life and be challenged to go do it. That's what I believed and practiced in my life and ministry for some time. It is what most Christians seem to believe.
As I see it, the Christian community is largely a performance-based culture today. And the more deeply committed we are to following Jesus, the more deeply ingrained the performance mindset is. We think we earn God's blessing or forfeit it by how well we live the Christian life."
A refreshing blast of the Gospel in this article; one of the best I've ever read.
My story is not unusual. Evangelicals commonly think today that the gospel is only for unbelievers. Once we're inside the kingdom's door, we need the gospel only in order to share it with those who are still outside. Now, as believers, we need to hear the message of discipleship. We need to learn how to live the Christian life and be challenged to go do it. That's what I believed and practiced in my life and ministry for some time. It is what most Christians seem to believe.
As I see it, the Christian community is largely a performance-based culture today. And the more deeply committed we are to following Jesus, the more deeply ingrained the performance mindset is. We think we earn God's blessing or forfeit it by how well we live the Christian life."
A refreshing blast of the Gospel in this article; one of the best I've ever read.
Austin Bay Blog » Fisking Amnesty, Persevering After Moral Compromise
Austin Bay Blog » UPDATED: Fisking Amnesty, Persevering After Moral Compromise: "Amnesty International is paying a hard price for its PR cheap shot, and it should. (See this Washington Post editorial.) Amnesty’s current leadership inhabits a self-referential echo chamber, and over the next few months will find that there is such a thing as bad publicity, particularly when an organization relies on “moral principles and human rights” An organization with genuine moral principles and genuine respect for human rights must be able to distinguish between scattered crime and focused genocide, between criminal actions at Abu Ghraib and Gitmo (on the one hand) and 9/11, the Taliban, Bali, Saddam, suicide bombers (etc) on the other. Koran flushing? Does anyone remember the Taliban’s destruction of the Buddas of Bubiyan? Does Amnesty? Amnesty has cheapened the language of suffering, and for an organization espousing Amnesty’s principles, this is a grievous error."
The whole post is worthy: an even-handed examination of how people always corrupt even the noblest of causes.
The whole post is worthy: an even-handed examination of how people always corrupt even the noblest of causes.
'American Gulag'
'American Gulag': "But we draw the line at the use of the word 'gulag' or at the implication that the United States has somehow become the modern equivalent of Stalin's Soviet Union. Guantanamo Bay is an ad hoc creation, designed to contain captured enemy combatants in wartime. Abuses there -- including new evidence of desecrating the Koran -- have been investigated and discussed by the FBI, the press and, to a still limited extent, the military. The Soviet gulag, by contrast, was a massive forced labor complex consisting of thousands of concentration camps and hundreds of exile villages through which more than 20 million people passed during Stalin's lifetime and whose existence was not acknowledged until after his death. Its modern equivalent is not Guantanamo Bay, but the prisons of Cuba, where Amnesty itself says a new generation of prisoners of conscience reside; or the labor camps of North Korea, which were set up on Stalinist lines; or China's laogai , the true size of which isn't even known; or, until recently, the prisons of Saddam Hussein's Iraq."
From the Washington Post?
There is hope.
From the Washington Post?
There is hope.
Tuesday, May 31, 2005
Breaking the Da Vinci Code - The Movie...
Reviews: Breaking the Da Vinci Code - Christianity Today Movies: "Breaking the Da Vinci Code is the latest DVD release from Grizzly Adams Productions, which primarily produces 'sweeps week' television specials and series for the PAX-TV Network. The documentary is based on three books from an evangelical perspective: Breaking the Da Vinci Code by Darrell Bock, The Da Vinci Deception by Erwin Lutzer, and Cracking Da Vinci's Code by James Garlow.
The documentary's purpose is clearly stated when one expert interviewee says, 'Mr. Brown's assertions of accuracy once again fall before modern scholarship.'
The documentary begins by summarizing the plot and basic premise of The Da Vinci Code for those who have not read it. However, the movie focuses its investigation on Brown's opening sentence in his book's preface: 'FACT: All descriptions of artwork, architecture, documents and secret rituals in the novel are accurate.' The narrator further clarifies, 'Brown's assertions of fact are central to our investigation of his work, along with the reasons he gave to justify those assertions.'
Thus begins a sweeping examination of the people, places, and events mentioned in The Da Vinci Code. Along the way, Breaking the Da Vinci Code revisits Arthurian legend, the Gnostic Gospels, the Council of Bishops at Nicea, the canonization of the New Testament, the conversion of Constantine and the paintings of the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper.
The documentary also analyzes the origin, nature, and activities of Opus Dei and the Priory of Sion, along with the relationship of Jesus Christ to Mary Magdalene, all of which are central elements of The Da Vinci Code story."
The documentary's purpose is clearly stated when one expert interviewee says, 'Mr. Brown's assertions of accuracy once again fall before modern scholarship.'
The documentary begins by summarizing the plot and basic premise of The Da Vinci Code for those who have not read it. However, the movie focuses its investigation on Brown's opening sentence in his book's preface: 'FACT: All descriptions of artwork, architecture, documents and secret rituals in the novel are accurate.' The narrator further clarifies, 'Brown's assertions of fact are central to our investigation of his work, along with the reasons he gave to justify those assertions.'
Thus begins a sweeping examination of the people, places, and events mentioned in The Da Vinci Code. Along the way, Breaking the Da Vinci Code revisits Arthurian legend, the Gnostic Gospels, the Council of Bishops at Nicea, the canonization of the New Testament, the conversion of Constantine and the paintings of the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper.
The documentary also analyzes the origin, nature, and activities of Opus Dei and the Priory of Sion, along with the relationship of Jesus Christ to Mary Magdalene, all of which are central elements of The Da Vinci Code story."
Speaking of Secular Extremists...
New York Daily News - Home - Top prof sparks outrage: "A Brooklyn College professor who called religious people 'moral retards' was elected to head his department this month - sparking a campus uproar."
Dennis Prager has observed rightly that although the term "religious extremist" is common in current ideological debates, the term "secular extremist" is unheard of.
That's because in the minds of Education and Media elites, one cannot be too secular.
I've said for some time now that the greatest barrier between students and the Gospel is moral, not intellectual or historical. This story is evidence of that fact.
Students generally don't believe in intellectual Truth or historical Truth. They do however harbor an inner sense of moral truth.
Students have been told by their professors, and now heads of department, that earnest Christians are 'moral retards'.
Is there any other group that professors so easily and openly subject to derision? Can you imagine using the term 'retards' for any other group and not being fired?
Now imagine that your religious and trying to earn a grade from one of these "open minded" profs.
Dennis Prager has observed rightly that although the term "religious extremist" is common in current ideological debates, the term "secular extremist" is unheard of.
That's because in the minds of Education and Media elites, one cannot be too secular.
I've said for some time now that the greatest barrier between students and the Gospel is moral, not intellectual or historical. This story is evidence of that fact.
Students generally don't believe in intellectual Truth or historical Truth. They do however harbor an inner sense of moral truth.
Students have been told by their professors, and now heads of department, that earnest Christians are 'moral retards'.
Is there any other group that professors so easily and openly subject to derision? Can you imagine using the term 'retards' for any other group and not being fired?
Now imagine that your religious and trying to earn a grade from one of these "open minded" profs.
U-WIRE.com: 10 reasons not to kill Bush
Enjoy the kind of enlightened debate that happens on your local campus:
This was a column giving reasons not to kill the President. A Democrat cautioning fellow campus dwellers not to kill the President. And they call religious people extremists.
U-WIRE.com/COLUMN: 10 reasons not to kill Bush: "I've met people on this campus who see America as the worst human rights abuser in the world (unlike the angelic paradise of Cambodia) and people who sway liberal not because they actually know anything about issues but because it's popular.
Liberalism has to be more than a college fad or a collection of loudmouths whose idiotic comments stir headlines. The rabid dislike some people feel for a man they've never even met makes me ashamed to be a Democrat."
This was a column giving reasons not to kill the President. A Democrat cautioning fellow campus dwellers not to kill the President. And they call religious people extremists.
Muslim and Media Extremists: Steyn at his best
Due to the surpassing quality of this article by Mark Steyn, I'd like to reproduce it in it's entirety:
"By my reckoning, just five American newspapers mentioned the name of Imran Khan last week. Who? Well, he's a world-famous -- wait for it -- cricketer. No, hang on: Don't all stampede for the exits, this isn't a column about cricket. He is, as it happens, a beautiful cricketer, the first great fast bowler from the Indian subcontinent and -- whoops, no, honestly, it's not a cricket column. But the point is he's a household name in England, Australia, India and everywhere else where the summer game means the thwack of leather on willow.
And in the same week a mere handful of American media outlets mentioned Imran, over a hundred newspapers mentioned Michael Isikoff of Newsweek. Isikoff was the guy who filed the phony-baloney story about some interrogator at Guantanamo flushing a Quran down the toilet. But Imran was the guy who, in a ferocious speech broadcast on Pakistani TV, brought it to the attention of his fellow Muslims, many of whom promptly rioted, with the result that 17 people are dead.
To date, reaction has divided along two lines. Newsweek has been hammered for being so flushed with anti-Bush anti-military fever that they breezily neglected the question of whether their story would generate a huge mound of corpses.
Which is true. On the other hand, there are those who point out it's hardly Newsweek's fault that some goofy foreigners are so bananas they'll riot and kill over one rumor of one disrespectful act to one copy of one book. Christians don't riot over ''Piss Christ'' and other provocations by incontinent ''artists.'' Jews take it in their stride when they're described as ''a virus resembling AIDS,'' which is what Sheikh Ibrahim Mudeiris said a week ago in his sermon on Palestinian state TV, funded by the European Union. Muslims can dish it out big-time, so why can't they take it, even the teensy-weensiest bit?
All of which is also true, but would be a better defense of Newsweek if the media hadn't spent the last 3-1/2 years bending over backwards to be super-sensitive to the, ah, touchiness of the Muslim world -- until the opportunity for a bit of lurid Bush-bashing proved too much to resist. In a way, both the U.S. media and those wacky rioters in the Afghan-Pakistani hinterlands are very similar, two highly parochial and monumentally self-absorbed tribes living in isolation from the rest of the world and prone to fanatical irrational indestructible beliefs -- not least the notion that you can flush a 950-page book down one of Al Gore's eco-crazed federally mandated low-flush toilets, a claim no editorial bigfoot thought to test for himself in Newsweek's executive washroom.
Watching the media circling the wagons around the beleaguered Isikoff this week, Martin Peretz of the New Republic described them as ''a profession that is complacent, self-righteous, and hopelessly in love with itself.'' The media are the message: But, hey, enough about the war, let's talk about me.
As for the wackiness of Muslim fanatics, well, up to a point. But, you know, we've been told ever since 9/11 that the allegedly seething ''Muslim street'' was about to explode, and for four years it's remained as somnolent as a suburban cul-de-sac on a weekday afternoon. Invade their countries, topple their rulers, bomb their infrastructure from the first day of Ramadan to the last, arrest their terrorists, hold them at Gitmo for half a decade, initiate reforms setting the Arab world on the first rung of the ladder to political and economic liberty, and the seething Muslim street gives one almighty shrug.
In October 2001 Faizal Aqtub Siddiqi, president-general of the International Muslims Organization, warned that the bombing of Afghanistan would create 1,000 Osama bin Ladens. In April 2003, Egypt's President Mubarak warned that the bombing of Iraq would create 100 bin Ladens. So right there you got a 90 percent reduction in the bin Laden creation program -- just by bombing a second country! Despite the best efforts to rouse the Muslim street, its attitude has remained: Start the jihad without me. The short history of the last four years is: They're nuts but not that nuts.
Until, that is, Newsweek's story of Quran-flushing prompted bloody riots from Yemen to Afghanistan to Indonesia. To get a rise out of these guys, it took a peculiarly vivid combination of disrespect: the literal word of Allah plus the flushed toilet, a quintessential symbol of Western decadence to the remoter parts of the Hindu Kush. Message to Bush: You can do anything, but lay off of my holy book.
And even these riots wouldn't have happened if Imran Khan hadn't provided the short fuse between Newsweek's match and those explosive mobs. Imran is a highly Westernized, wealthy Pakistani who found great fame and fortune in England. He palled around with the Rolling Stones, dated supermodels and married Jemima Goldsmith, daughter of billionaire businessman Sir James Goldsmith. Jemima was hot but of Jewish background and therefore, like much of Imran's stereotypical playboy lifestyle, not particularly advantageous when he decided to go into Pakistani politics. So, having demonstrated little previous interest in the preoccupations of the Muslim street, Imran then began pandering to it. I doubt whether he personally cared about that Newsweek story one way or the other, but he's an opportunist and that's why he went out of his way to incite his excitable followers.
It's not the mobs, so much as the determination of the elites to keep their peoples in a state of ignorance. The most educationally repressive form of Islam, for example, is funded and promoted by Saudi princes who, though not as handsome as Imran, also spend a lot of time in the West -- gambling, drinking, womanizing and indulging other tastes that even the wildest night on the tiles in Riyadh just can't sate. Whereas most advanced societies believe that an educated population is vital to the national interest, many Muslim elites seem to have concluded than an uneducated population is actually far more useful. And, when you look at Saudi funding of radical madrassahs in hitherto moderate Muslim regions from the Balkans to Indonesia, it's hard to avoid the conclusion that they're having great success de-educating hitherto relatively savvy parts of the world.
This disaster took a combination of factors. We can't do much about Muslim fanatics; we probably can't do much about our self-worshipping vanity media whose reflexive counter-tribalism has robbed it of all sense of perspective or proportion. But we ought to apply pressure on the link between the two worlds: the self-serving elites who enjoy the privileges of the West even as they exploit their co-religionists' ignorance of it. That's just not cricket, is it?"
Monday, May 30, 2005
Memorial Day Meaning
EU just won't take 'no' for an answer: "'In a world that is wholly private,' he says of America, 'we lose our bearings; deprived of any public anchor, all we have are our individual subjective values to guide us.' He deplores the First Amendment and misses government-regulated media, which in the EU ensures that all public expression is within approved parameters (left to center-left). 'Europe,' he explains, 'acts to ensure that television and radio conform to public interest criteria.'"
And they call Bush a Fascist.
These are the people that John Kerry said we need to approve our foreign policy via a "global test".
I guess the U.S. just doesn't conform.
Amen. Thanks to all who have fought, served and died to preserve the First Amendment.
And they call Bush a Fascist.
These are the people that John Kerry said we need to approve our foreign policy via a "global test".
I guess the U.S. just doesn't conform.
Amen. Thanks to all who have fought, served and died to preserve the First Amendment.
Saturday, May 28, 2005
Should we be more tolerant?
Islamic Biological Warfare:
A few years ago I talked with an admittedly liberal campus minister who cautioned me about the desire to judge others ideas as wrong. She told me of the importance of standing within my own religious tradition and yet affirming the equal validity of other traditions. It was important after all to be tolerant.
I responded with this dilemma:
The campus minister responded that she would be very careful.
I asked, "So would you push your beliefs and save their lives or let them die.
She again said that she would be very careful in how she proceeded.
That's all she could muster. She couldn't say what she would be careful in doing, because that would be either intolerant or immoral.
This is why I find the modern concept of "tolerance" so morally suspect. Tolerance seems to have come to mean that all beliefs and cultures are equally moral. And yet that clearly is not true.
So, would you tolerate Muslims who allow polio to paralyze children or would you advocate pushing your beliefs on them and vaccinating children in order to save them from this "false gospel".
Ironically even the UN seems to be willing to "cram their beliefs down other peoples throats".
You might even say that the UN went on a "crusade" to save children from their parents religious beliefs.
How intolerant.
"In Nigeria, faith based paranoia on the part of Islamic clergy, and politicians, caused a polio epidemic, which is now spreading to other Islamic nations. The UN has been trying for years to wipe out polio (which has been eliminated in most Western nations). In the last few years, UN medical resources were massing to wipe polio out in one of the last places where it still thrives; northern Nigeria.
But some local Islamic clergy got the idea that these foreigners and their medicine (polio vaccine) were actually out to poison young Moslem females and make them sterile. Yeah, it'’s nuts, but it went over big in northern Nigeria and stopped the polio eradication program cold. The Islamic clerics finally relented (after the UN brought in Islamic medical experts, and jumped through a lot of hoops), but by then it was too late. The polio was moving to areas where it had earlier been eliminated.
Since you can track where a polio strain came from, it is now known that the "Nigerian strain"” is responsible for outbreaks as far away as Indonesia. So far, there are only about 1,300 cases in Nigeria and elsewhere. Polio is not nearly as bad as AIDS. Many of those infected with polio never know they have it, but they can spread it. About one half of one percent of those who get it can end up paralyzed for life, usually in the legs. Polio mostly hits young children."
A few years ago I talked with an admittedly liberal campus minister who cautioned me about the desire to judge others ideas as wrong. She told me of the importance of standing within my own religious tradition and yet affirming the equal validity of other traditions. It was important after all to be tolerant.
I responded with this dilemma:
Suppose you are a Physician charged with caring for indigenous peoples in South America. You discover that one of the tribes that you desire to care for has an outbreak of Cholera. You have a drug that will cure the disease and save the tribe from being wiped out.
But the tribe's spiritual leader sees your "medicine" as a threat to the spirit forces guarding the tribe. She refuses to let you treat any of the tribe.
You know that without treatment most or all of the tribe will die from disease.
What would you do? Would you "push" your beliefs on the tribe or let them die?
The campus minister responded that she would be very careful.
I asked, "So would you push your beliefs and save their lives or let them die.
She again said that she would be very careful in how she proceeded.
That's all she could muster. She couldn't say what she would be careful in doing, because that would be either intolerant or immoral.
This is why I find the modern concept of "tolerance" so morally suspect. Tolerance seems to have come to mean that all beliefs and cultures are equally moral. And yet that clearly is not true.
So, would you tolerate Muslims who allow polio to paralyze children or would you advocate pushing your beliefs on them and vaccinating children in order to save them from this "false gospel".
Ironically even the UN seems to be willing to "cram their beliefs down other peoples throats".
You might even say that the UN went on a "crusade" to save children from their parents religious beliefs.
How intolerant.
Friday, May 27, 2005
A Christian Blog about Reality TV
RealityBlogs.com: "A blog about watching reality television and living the E.P.I.C. life"
This is an interesting paradigm on evangelism in the midst of pop culture and the blogosphere.
I expect it will become much more the norm in the future.
This is an interesting paradigm on evangelism in the midst of pop culture and the blogosphere.
I expect it will become much more the norm in the future.
Da Vinci Code Responses
Quoted on effective web ministry notes: "
"I had never read The Da Vinci Code and despite telling my colleague that there was no evidence in the Bible to suggest that this was true, I felt inadequate about my inability to adequately defend my faith with informed knowledge of the facts that were pertinent to the issues raised by The Da Vinci Code.
...I searched on the Internet for a Christian response to The Da Vinci Code...information was not easily accessible to anybody looking for it. I knew that other Christians must be in the same position as I am, and therefore I must make quick, relatively short answers that could help Christians to answer their critics or to refer those people who have questions to the website with the answers.
I hope to email all of the people who have visited the website with details of Alpha Course(s) starting in their region. I am also planning to produce some flyers and small business cards for Christians to use.
Visit daVinci-decoded.com for his site."
"I had never read The Da Vinci Code and despite telling my colleague that there was no evidence in the Bible to suggest that this was true, I felt inadequate about my inability to adequately defend my faith with informed knowledge of the facts that were pertinent to the issues raised by The Da Vinci Code.
...I searched on the Internet for a Christian response to The Da Vinci Code...information was not easily accessible to anybody looking for it. I knew that other Christians must be in the same position as I am, and therefore I must make quick, relatively short answers that could help Christians to answer their critics or to refer those people who have questions to the website with the answers.
I hope to email all of the people who have visited the website with details of Alpha Course(s) starting in their region. I am also planning to produce some flyers and small business cards for Christians to use.
Visit daVinci-decoded.com for his site."
Vonage Calls to Puerto Rico
Orangejack Blog: Vonage Calls to Puerto Rico :: aka Rob's Blog: "You want to Vonage?"
I've been thinking about Vonage for a while to replace my local and long distance service for less than half the price. Here's a review.
I've been thinking about Vonage for a while to replace my local and long distance service for less than half the price. Here's a review.
Orangejack Blog: PSA: Map Cheap Gas
Orangejack Blog: PSA: Map Cheap Gas :: aka Rob's Blog: "Very cool. Use Google Maps to find cheap gas in your area."
Wednesday, May 25, 2005
Theocrats punish author for heresy...
Where? In the Bible Belt?
No. Not in the land of the free and the home of the brave.
In Europe.
Instapundit.com -: "MORE CRUSHING OF DISSENT:
ROME (Reuters) - A judge has ordered best-selling writer and journalist Oriana Fallaci to stand trial in her native Italy on charges she defamed Islam in a recent book.
Fabrizio Quattrochi was unavailable for comment. However, Jeff Goldstein sees this as a 'velvet insurgency.'
Basically, where people warn about theocracy in the United States, we're seeing what amounts to a trial for blasphemy in Italy.
Tom Wolfe once said that Fascism is forever descending on the United States, but that somehow it always lands on Europe. Perhaps the same is true with theocracy?"
And France appoints news reporters only with the permission of the Government.
And Canada can bar the press from talking about it's Government scandals.
How do these countries muster the Gall to criticize the U.S.
Pull the log out of your own eye.
No. Not in the land of the free and the home of the brave.
In Europe.
Instapundit.com -: "MORE CRUSHING OF DISSENT:
ROME (Reuters) - A judge has ordered best-selling writer and journalist Oriana Fallaci to stand trial in her native Italy on charges she defamed Islam in a recent book.
Fabrizio Quattrochi was unavailable for comment. However, Jeff Goldstein sees this as a 'velvet insurgency.'
Basically, where people warn about theocracy in the United States, we're seeing what amounts to a trial for blasphemy in Italy.
Tom Wolfe once said that Fascism is forever descending on the United States, but that somehow it always lands on Europe. Perhaps the same is true with theocracy?"
And France appoints news reporters only with the permission of the Government.
And Canada can bar the press from talking about it's Government scandals.
How do these countries muster the Gall to criticize the U.S.
Pull the log out of your own eye.
Child Population Dwindles in San Francisco
Child Population Dwindles in San Francisco - Yahoo! News: "It is no mystery why U.S. cities are losing children. The promise of safer streets, better schools and more space has drawn young families away from cities for as long as America has had suburbs.
But kids are even more scarce in San Francisco than in expensive New York (24 percent) or in retirement havens such as Palm Beach, Fla., (19 percent), according to Census estimates.
San Francisco's large gay population — estimated at 20 percent by the city Public Health Department — is thought to be one factor, though gays and lesbians in the city are increasingly raising families.
Another reason San Francisco's children are disappearing: Family housing in the city is especially scarce and expensive. A two-bedroom, 1,000-square-foot starter home is considered a bargain at $760,000.
A recent survey by the city controller found 40 percent of parents said they were considering pulling up stakes within the next year."
An interesting factoid. What is the effect on an adult, of a life lived with little contact with children?
We report. You decide.
But kids are even more scarce in San Francisco than in expensive New York (24 percent) or in retirement havens such as Palm Beach, Fla., (19 percent), according to Census estimates.
San Francisco's large gay population — estimated at 20 percent by the city Public Health Department — is thought to be one factor, though gays and lesbians in the city are increasingly raising families.
Another reason San Francisco's children are disappearing: Family housing in the city is especially scarce and expensive. A two-bedroom, 1,000-square-foot starter home is considered a bargain at $760,000.
A recent survey by the city controller found 40 percent of parents said they were considering pulling up stakes within the next year."
An interesting factoid. What is the effect on an adult, of a life lived with little contact with children?
We report. You decide.
NYT and me!
NYT Co. to Axe 190 Jobs, Including Journos, at 'Times' and 'Globe': "CHICAGO The New York Times Co. will shed 190 employees, mostly at its flagship newspaper, the company announced Wednesday.
In a statement, the company said the reductions will include 'fewer than two dozen' employees in The New York Times newsroom. About two-thirds of the reductions will occur at the Times, with the rest coming from the company's New England Media Group, which includes The Boston Globe."
Maybe Micheal Moore will make a hard hitting documentary called "NYT and Me" detailing the immoral business practices of the NYT which led to downsizing and disenfranchising the average joe worker.
How can the NYT live with itself. Do they care more about corporate profits than the welfare of the common man. Let's wait on Paul Krugman to condemn his own paper.
In a statement, the company said the reductions will include 'fewer than two dozen' employees in The New York Times newsroom. About two-thirds of the reductions will occur at the Times, with the rest coming from the company's New England Media Group, which includes The Boston Globe."
Maybe Micheal Moore will make a hard hitting documentary called "NYT and Me" detailing the immoral business practices of the NYT which led to downsizing and disenfranchising the average joe worker.
How can the NYT live with itself. Do they care more about corporate profits than the welfare of the common man. Let's wait on Paul Krugman to condemn his own paper.
JustOneMinute: Betting Markets smoke out Harry Potter
JustOneMinute: Betting Markets Elicit Inside Information: "British gamblers taking a punt on the next major figure to die in the 'Harry Potter' series allegedly have tipped the odds by sneaking a peek at the printer's galleys."
This is facinating.
I guess money does make the world go round.
This is facinating.
I guess money does make the world go round.
The Winner takes it all?
bestdestiny: "
Now, the winners. Actually, just one winner, and here's where I get back to the title of this draft.
Hillary R-Clinton--who has been conspicuously silent about the whole thing. In fact, she doesn't even have a statement on her website about the filibuster, the judges, or any topic related to this.
Why does Hillary win? Because, with the exception of the delusional John Kerry, she has no serious competition for the Dem nomination in 2008. And now, arguably the top three candidates from the GOP have just been taken out; on top of that, count on small Dem pickups in the mid-terms, and it will look like she's riding a wave of progressive sentiment into a momentous 2008 Presidential bid. When, in reality, she's just hanging out in the troughs between waves of GOP faithful anger.
That's right, in the long run, this battle will be about the 2008 Presidential campaign, and right now there's only one viable candidate still standing."
Interesting analysis.
Now, the winners. Actually, just one winner, and here's where I get back to the title of this draft.
Hillary R-Clinton--who has been conspicuously silent about the whole thing. In fact, she doesn't even have a statement on her website about the filibuster, the judges, or any topic related to this.
Why does Hillary win? Because, with the exception of the delusional John Kerry, she has no serious competition for the Dem nomination in 2008. And now, arguably the top three candidates from the GOP have just been taken out; on top of that, count on small Dem pickups in the mid-terms, and it will look like she's riding a wave of progressive sentiment into a momentous 2008 Presidential bid. When, in reality, she's just hanging out in the troughs between waves of GOP faithful anger.
That's right, in the long run, this battle will be about the 2008 Presidential campaign, and right now there's only one viable candidate still standing."
Interesting analysis.
Dennis Prager: Liberal feeling vs. Judeo-Christian values: Part VI
Dennis Prager: Liberal feeling vs. Judeo-Christian values: Part VI: "In fact, feelings are the major unifying characteristic among contemporary liberal positions.
Aside from reliance on feelings, how else can one explain a person who believes, let alone proudly announces on a bumper sticker, that 'War is not the answer'? I know of no comparable conservative bumper sticker that is so demonstrably false and morally ignorant. Almost every great evil has been solved by war -- from slavery in America to the Holocaust in Europe. Auschwitz was liberated by soldiers making war, not by pacifists who would have allowed the Nazis to murder every Jew in Europe.
The entire edifice of moral relativism, a foundation of leftist ideology, is built on the notion of feelings deciding right and wrong. One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter.
The animals-and-humans-are-equivalent movement is based entirely on feelings. People see chickens killed and lobsters boiled, feel for the animals, and shortly thereafter abandon thought completely, and equate chicken and lobster suffering to that of a person under the same circumstances."
Feelings... nothing more than feelings. Not exactly the basis for a sound moral philosophy.
Aside from reliance on feelings, how else can one explain a person who believes, let alone proudly announces on a bumper sticker, that 'War is not the answer'? I know of no comparable conservative bumper sticker that is so demonstrably false and morally ignorant. Almost every great evil has been solved by war -- from slavery in America to the Holocaust in Europe. Auschwitz was liberated by soldiers making war, not by pacifists who would have allowed the Nazis to murder every Jew in Europe.
The entire edifice of moral relativism, a foundation of leftist ideology, is built on the notion of feelings deciding right and wrong. One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter.
The animals-and-humans-are-equivalent movement is based entirely on feelings. People see chickens killed and lobsters boiled, feel for the animals, and shortly thereafter abandon thought completely, and equate chicken and lobster suffering to that of a person under the same circumstances."
Feelings... nothing more than feelings. Not exactly the basis for a sound moral philosophy.
Foreign Policy: Arabs success in the good 'ol USA
Foreign Policy: Arabs in Foreign Lands: "The Middle East’s poor economic and social performance today has also prompted explanations of some malignancy in the prevailing culture. The respected Harvard University historian David S. Landes wrote in his 1998 book, The Wealth and Poverty of Nations, that the ill that plagues these countries “lies with the culture, which (1) does not generate an informed and capable work force; (2) continues to mistrust or reject new techniques and ideas that come from the enemy West (Christendom) and (3) does not respect such knowledge as members do manage to achieve.”
Such views are common, given the inexcusably poor performance of Arab nations. In the last two decades, no region besides sub-Saharan Africa has seen income per person grow as slowly as in the Middle East. At the current rate, it will take the average Arab 140 years to double his or her income. Asians, Europeans, and North Americans are expected to double their incomes in the next 10 years. The total economic output—including oil—of all Arab countries is less than that of Spain, the Middle East’s unemployment rates are the highest in the developing world, and its literacy rates rank near the bottom.
But if cultural impediments are behind the Arab world’s disappointing performance, what explains Arab Americans’ incredible success? The answer, of course, is opportunities and institutions. Arabs in the United States have access to ample opportunities to prosper and can rely on powerful institutions to protect their civil, political, and economic rights to do so. Indeed, the census data show that Arab ancestry mixed with markets and meritocracy creates a potent fuel for success...
...In general, Muslims living in Europe—of which Arabs constitute a significant proportion—are poorer, less educated, and in worse health than the rest of the population. In the Netherlands, the unemployment rate for ethnic Moroccans is 22 percent, roughly four times the rate for the country as a whole. In Britain, the Muslim population has the highest unemployment rate of all religious groups. The failure of Arabs in Europe is particularly worrisome given that 10 of the states or entities along Europe’s eastern and southern borders are home to nearly 250 million Muslims—most of them Arabs—with a birthrate more than double that of Europeans."
There's nothing sweeter than when The Great Satan suckles you to her tete.
Read the whole thing.
What about the Crusades? Primary Source Edition
Triablogue: "For, as the most of you have heard, the Turks and Arabs have attacked them and have conquered the territory of Romania [the Greek empire] as far west as the shore of the Mediterranean and the Hellespont, which is called the Arm of St. George. They have occupied more and more of the lands of those Christians, and have overcome them in seven battles. They have killed and captured many, and have destroyed the churches and devastated the empire. If you permit them to continue thus for awhile with impurity, the faithful of God will be much more widely attacked by them."
Now that's good scholarship.
I wonder if Foofadilly knows about this.
Now that's good scholarship.
I wonder if Foofadilly knows about this.
More on Spyware - Kiddy version.
Instapundit.com -: "UPDATE: Ran the MS antispyware beta and seem to have gotten rid of it, along with a bunch of other crap -- but I had to do manual surgery before I could even access the Internet to download the program from MS. (I've used AdAware for this before, but wanted to give the MS version a try; seemed fine.)
Kids' sites seem to be especially infested with this crap, which is particularly unforgivable."
Kids' sites seem to be especially infested with this crap, which is particularly unforgivable."
Monday, May 23, 2005
Sarcasm on the Brain; Researchers Pinpoint Brain's Sarcasm Sensor
- Forbes.com: "No, it's true -- many of you don't go a day without dishing out several doses of sarcasm. But some brain-damaged people can't comprehend sarcasm, and Israeli researchers think it's because a specific brain region has gone dark.
The region, according to the researchers, handles the task of detecting hidden meaning, a crucial component of sarcasm. If that part of the brain is out of commission, the irony doesn't come through, the scientists report in the May issue of Neuropsychology."
I don't get it.
Insert your own sarcastic comment in the comments.
The region, according to the researchers, handles the task of detecting hidden meaning, a crucial component of sarcasm. If that part of the brain is out of commission, the irony doesn't come through, the scientists report in the May issue of Neuropsychology."
I don't get it.
Insert your own sarcastic comment in the comments.
New York Times: Why I'm going to the NE
Class Matters - Social Class and Religion in the United States of America - The New York Times - New York Times: "While working for Campus Crusade, Mr. Bennett had discovered that it was hard to recruit evangelicals to minister to the elite colleges of the Northeast because the environment was alien to them and the campuses often far from their homes. He also found that the evangelical ministries were hobbled without adequate salaries to attract professional staff members and without centers of their own where students could gather, socialize and study the Bible."
Game on.
Hopefully this link is to the full print version.
Game on.
Hopefully this link is to the full print version.
New York Times: Christians on the move in the Ivy League
Class Matters - Social Class and Religion in the United States of America - The New York Times - New York Times: "On The Chronicle of Philanthropy's latest list of the 400 top charities, Campus Crusade for Christ, an evangelical student group, raised more from private donors than the Boy Scouts of America, the Public Broadcasting Service and Easter Seals.
Now a few affluent evangelicals are directing their attention and money at some of the tallest citadels of the secular elite: Ivy League universities. Three years ago a group of evangelical Ivy League alumni formed the Christian Union, an organization intended to 'reclaim the Ivy League for Christ,' according to its fund-raising materials, and to 'shape the hearts and minds of many thousands who graduate from these schools and who become the elites in other American cultural institutions.'"
Campus Crusade is in partnership with Christian Union.
Read the whole thing.
Now a few affluent evangelicals are directing their attention and money at some of the tallest citadels of the secular elite: Ivy League universities. Three years ago a group of evangelical Ivy League alumni formed the Christian Union, an organization intended to 'reclaim the Ivy League for Christ,' according to its fund-raising materials, and to 'shape the hearts and minds of many thousands who graduate from these schools and who become the elites in other American cultural institutions.'"
Campus Crusade is in partnership with Christian Union.
Read the whole thing.
Power Line: Those who lie in the name of God... or whatever.
Power Line: Lies and the Lying Liberals Who Tell Them: "A Lutheran theologian offers, as the key support for her attack on a former government official, a single sentence--from which she has removed the second half, thereby reversing its meaning. Is this really what they teach in the seminary? As a Lutheran, I hope not. Then, the National Council of Churches issues a press release attacking a purported body of theological opinion which is said to be associated with 'emboldened political leaders and policymakers'--Republicans all, of course. Yet, when challenged to name a single person who holds these supposedly widespread views, the person who headed up the task force for the NCC is stumped. He can't name a single human being who holds the views he has so vigorously denounced. This is, apparently, the quality of scholarship we should expect from the National Council of Churches. Pathetic."
I guess it's ok to lie if you are trying to protect the environment. Slander is not a big deal if you are slandering a Republican.
I'm sure Bill Moyers and the National Council of Churches don't think of themselves as bigots.
How else do you explain it?
I guess it's ok to lie if you are trying to protect the environment. Slander is not a big deal if you are slandering a Republican.
I'm sure Bill Moyers and the National Council of Churches don't think of themselves as bigots.
How else do you explain it?
Sunday, May 22, 2005
Bush: Oil in India?
From The Australian quoted viaPower Line: "The Bush administration, far more cohesive with Condoleezza Rice as Secretary of State, has launched a diplomatic offensive with India that is stunning in its rhetoric and serious in its content. 'India's relations with the US are now the best they have ever been,' says Rajiv Sikri, the senior official on East Asia at India's external affairs ministry.
In a calculated State Department briefing in Washington on March 25 (now famous in New Delhi), the real US purpose was made explicit. The spokesman said that Bush and Rice earlier this year 'developed the outline for a decisively broader strategic relationship' between the US and India. When Rice went to New Delhi she presented this outline to Singh, its purpose being 'to help India become a major world power in the 21st century', the abiding dream of the Indian elite."
Wait a minute, I thought Bush was Hitler. What is he doing strengthening other democracies?
Does India have Oil? Israel doesn't either. Hmm. There both democracies. That's an odd coincidence.
Oh, that's right that freedom thing he's always talking about.
In a calculated State Department briefing in Washington on March 25 (now famous in New Delhi), the real US purpose was made explicit. The spokesman said that Bush and Rice earlier this year 'developed the outline for a decisively broader strategic relationship' between the US and India. When Rice went to New Delhi she presented this outline to Singh, its purpose being 'to help India become a major world power in the 21st century', the abiding dream of the Indian elite."
Wait a minute, I thought Bush was Hitler. What is he doing strengthening other democracies?
Does India have Oil? Israel doesn't either. Hmm. There both democracies. That's an odd coincidence.
Oh, that's right that freedom thing he's always talking about.
Saturday, May 21, 2005
Wanna see something unbelievably cute?
For what it's worth!: "Everyone, meet Zoe.
Yes, she really is that small."
Are you sure you didn't photoshop this Jeff! Good Land that dog is small.
Yes, she really is that small."
Are you sure you didn't photoshop this Jeff! Good Land that dog is small.
Fight for your right to be bloggy!
RedState.org ||: "Time is running out. The public comment period for the FEC's proposed rulemaking regarding your freedom online ends on June 3rd. I can tell you that they have not yet received nearly as many comments as they expected.
There is a threat. You need to act.
More important - you as a blogger or just a reader have input the FEC needs. They need to know what sort of things you do (or will do) online. Do you raise funds for candidates? Do you have a group blog that might get a little revenue? Are you considering incorporating to protect yourself from liability?
You don't have to be a lawyer to comment, and you don't have to write 10 pages of legalese. Just send an email to internet@fec.gov and explain your concerns. If you've got any extra time you can actually skim the rule and see all the places that the FEC asks for comment.
"
There is a threat. You need to act.
More important - you as a blogger or just a reader have input the FEC needs. They need to know what sort of things you do (or will do) online. Do you raise funds for candidates? Do you have a group blog that might get a little revenue? Are you considering incorporating to protect yourself from liability?
You don't have to be a lawyer to comment, and you don't have to write 10 pages of legalese. Just send an email to internet@fec.gov and explain your concerns. If you've got any extra time you can actually skim the rule and see all the places that the FEC asks for comment.
"
No Future for Oil?
Instapundit.com: "Simmons says that the Saudis are a lot closer to running out of oil than the world realizes, and that Saudi production is at unsustainably high levels right now. "
A few weeks a go I met a new friend who suggested to me that the worlds oil supplies were with 50 years of exhaustion. I didn't believe it but this supports his point.
On the other hand, this post underlines the difficulty of planning ahead.
A few weeks a go I met a new friend who suggested to me that the worlds oil supplies were with 50 years of exhaustion. I didn't believe it but this supports his point.
On the other hand, this post underlines the difficulty of planning ahead.
Hackers Circulate Fake Microsoft Security Update - Yahoo! News
Hackers Circulate Fake Microsoft Security Update - Yahoo! News: "Hoping once again to fool security-minded users, malicious hackers have released a fake Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT - news) security update, claiming that it is an update to Internet Explorer, Outlook Express and Outlook."
Be careful.
Be careful.
Friday, May 20, 2005
Nightline: Is Intelligent Design a religion or science?
Christian News - The Christian Post | Is Intelligent Design a religion or science?: "By the end of the debate, both Dembski and Ruse agreed that ID will be more prominently taught and followed in the next ten years.
“I think it's going to be taught in more [schools]…we'll see ID within ten years,” said Ruse.
Dembski was also positive ID will take a more prominent role by then.
“It takes about ten years for somebody from high school to get a Ph. D. and go out for a postdoc and I do see the young generation latching onto these ideas of ID and running with them,” Dembski said. “Darwinism is totally a status quo in the main streams. It's academy."
This debate was on Nightline with Ted Koppel.
“I think it's going to be taught in more [schools]…we'll see ID within ten years,” said Ruse.
Dembski was also positive ID will take a more prominent role by then.
“It takes about ten years for somebody from high school to get a Ph. D. and go out for a postdoc and I do see the young generation latching onto these ideas of ID and running with them,” Dembski said. “Darwinism is totally a status quo in the main streams. It's academy."
This debate was on Nightline with Ted Koppel.
Pepsi and the danger of preaching to the choir.
HughHewitt.com: "PepsiCo had better hurry. Scorn, and lost loyalty, won't wait for McKenzie & Co to come up with a report."
If you haven't heard about PepsiCo's CFO Indra Nooyi's "America is the middle finger" speech, you may be one of the few in the blogosphere who hasn't.
My only comment (at this late hour) is how surprising I'm sure it is to Ms. Nooyi that I"m sitting in my pajamas blogging about a speech she gave at Columbia University last week.
She no doubt thought that she was saying things that would be well received by her audience and that her audience was limited to those in her hearing.
This is the sea change of information technology that is upon us.
Blogs have made public comments, truly public. It's just as likely that persons in College Station, TX would "hear" Ms. Nooyi's speech as those souls seated in attendance at the graduation ceremonies of Columbia's School of Business.
I feel confident that this fact, if appreciated by Ms. Nooyi, would have perhaps caused moderation of her remarks to make them more palatable to the millions of potential Pepsi drinkers across America who don't share her view of America's role in the world.
I imagine she had no idea that her words were accesible, at the speed of light, to the rest of us.
Now ask yourself this question: How long until your local Public University Professor (read: Ward Churchill) has the contents of class lectures readily available to alumni via bloggers or other new media?
I think this kind of feedback loop would be very healthy for Higher Education.
PepsiCo is getting feedback this week. As is Newsweek.
They can't just feed anymore. Now it's feedback.
Lebanese Political Journal: Bush freed Lebanon
This from a Lebanese Blogger.
Bush didn't lie. And he actually saved lives.
Lebanese Political Journal: Bush freed Lebanon: "Where Iraq was significant was in Syria's departure.
Bush's Iraq campaign may not have had an effect on us, but it sure had an effect on Syria.
Would Syria have exited Lebanon without American pressure and proof that Bush means what he says in the Middle East? Probably not.
Would Syria have left so quickly? Definitely not.
Would Syrian soldiers have moved into place to crack down on Lebanese citizens? Probably.
Would we have fought them? Definitely.
Would this have caused a war? Quite likely."
Bush didn't lie. And he actually saved lives.
Allthings2all: The Darfur Collection
Allthings2all: The Darfur Collection: "The Darfur Collection brings together various writers who share a common concern for the people of Darfur and a desire to see an end to the suffering and genocide in Sudan."
This is an informative round up on issues of tragic importance.
This is an informative round up on issues of tragic importance.
Thursday, May 19, 2005
Bushfish? No!
Better Living: Thoughts from Mark Daniels: "The Bushfish, you know by now, is a car magnet. Employing the most ancient symbol of the Christian faith--the fish, it attempts to equate the policies and person of the President with Christianity. An attack on (i.e., a disagreement with) Mr. Bush or his policies is seen as an attack on Christian faith, as though the President were an authorized political embodiment of God's political preferences.
The Bushfish marketers make the connection between GOD and GOP explicit by emblazoning the President's last name on the fish. In previous posts, I've mentioned two major objections I have to the Bushfish:"
Mark goes on with a third and I could probably think of many more. I join Mark in hearty rejection of the "Bushfish".
As much as I may advocate the Bush Presidency (just read my blogging past), there is NO equivalence between being a Christian and being a Bush lover, Republican or an American. In other words it is possible to be a Bush lover, Republican and an American and NOT be a Christian. And it is more than possible to be a Christian and not be a Bush lover, Republican or an American.
My learned seminary teacher Michael Horton taught me this with his story of inadvertently sitting down to breakfast with the local communist party leaders in East Germany during the Soviet Bloc years. It turned out that the head of the party was a Christian. Mike said he had never met a communist Christian. The man responded that he had never met a capitalist Christian.
The point is that the church is made up of people of every tribe, tongue and nation; and each of us have enough heresy in our heads right now to make us unfit for acting as an advocate for Christianity. Yet the grace of Christ, through the power of the Holy Spirit is working in me and fellow believers in many different countries and political parties.
That's why I believe it is misguided to place an American Flag inside of a church. The church is for every human who wishes to draw near to God in Christ. It's not right to bind the conscience of someone from another country with symbol of a human government. I am a proud American. I believe that America is the greatest country on Earth. But I am a citizen of Heaven first. And one's citizenship in heaven is not dependent on voting for George W. Bush.
Let's not confuse Bush with the burning bush.
The Bushfish marketers make the connection between GOD and GOP explicit by emblazoning the President's last name on the fish. In previous posts, I've mentioned two major objections I have to the Bushfish:"
Mark goes on with a third and I could probably think of many more. I join Mark in hearty rejection of the "Bushfish".
As much as I may advocate the Bush Presidency (just read my blogging past), there is NO equivalence between being a Christian and being a Bush lover, Republican or an American. In other words it is possible to be a Bush lover, Republican and an American and NOT be a Christian. And it is more than possible to be a Christian and not be a Bush lover, Republican or an American.
My learned seminary teacher Michael Horton taught me this with his story of inadvertently sitting down to breakfast with the local communist party leaders in East Germany during the Soviet Bloc years. It turned out that the head of the party was a Christian. Mike said he had never met a communist Christian. The man responded that he had never met a capitalist Christian.
The point is that the church is made up of people of every tribe, tongue and nation; and each of us have enough heresy in our heads right now to make us unfit for acting as an advocate for Christianity. Yet the grace of Christ, through the power of the Holy Spirit is working in me and fellow believers in many different countries and political parties.
That's why I believe it is misguided to place an American Flag inside of a church. The church is for every human who wishes to draw near to God in Christ. It's not right to bind the conscience of someone from another country with symbol of a human government. I am a proud American. I believe that America is the greatest country on Earth. But I am a citizen of Heaven first. And one's citizenship in heaven is not dependent on voting for George W. Bush.
Let's not confuse Bush with the burning bush.
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