The Aerie

The Problem with the L O S T finale

2010-05-29T17:22:00.013-05:00

Here's the problem with the last 30 minutes (and by extension the entire 6th season):

L O S T as a whole appealed to 3 audiences: those who like mystery/fantasy/science fiction, those who like interpersonal, nightime soap drama (e.g. "Grey's Anatomy"), and those who were intrigued by the melding of these two genres. But because the ending was pretty much solely written to satisfy the interpersonal drama fans, the other two groups were left out in the cold and it is these two groups that have been cheated.

A huge section of the L O S T audience followed the show for the mystery/SF elements. Most fan blogs were awash in debates about the nature of the Smoke Monster and how it came to be, what was the "Lamp Post", what was Dharma up to, what was Widmore's plan, what were the numbers, and, in season six, what was Desmond's plan (i.e. was he going to somehow reconnect the two realities?) The soap opera fans must admit that the L O S T blogs were not ultra concerned about the melodramatic flash forward/backward stories of the characters. For the most part, the interactions and backstories of the characters were self-explanatory (and compelling) but no more so than any other quality drama on television. No, what caught everyone's fancy was the crazy world of The Island and the conflicts over its mysterious power. The flashbacks and forwards added life to the characters but that was just frosting on the cake. The main event was the intrigue and suspense of the happenings swirling around The Island.

So, here comes the last 30 minutes of the series and we find out that the show was really more St. Elsewhere than Twilight Zone. Those wanting a pay-off for the many questions presented, were told to take a hike. The show was about people not about mystery or science after all.

So to those who say it was a great ending and the rest of us mystery/SF fans should get over it, to you I say gain some understanding. This was obviously a serialized science fiction drama from the get go, what with the killing of the pilot of 815 by the Smoke Monster right off the bat. But gradually (and then at the end, frenetically) the narrative moved deep into the realm of the soap, leaving all hope of a mystery/SF payoff out of reach. Interestingly enough, this makes the ending of Battlestar Galactica more satisfying to me because at least writer, Ron Moore, had the honesty to try to answer the big questions of the series, even if in a highly rushed and contrived manner.

For 5 seasons, L O S T was about The Island, its mysteries and the conflicts between the visitors to the island. Without The Island the series would have just been another well produced, but pedestrian show about screwed up people. In those five seasons we did see people grow, learn, and solve (some) mysterious issues but that is why it was good drama, not why it was a good mystery.

The LOSTies were surogates for the viewer. Most of us can identify with some aspects of the various foibles of The characters but even more than that, we wanted the characters to figure out what was up with The Island and then come out the other end being both emotionally AND intellectually wiser. Ironically, several characters didn't leave The Island any more emotionally mature than when they arrived (think Boone and Shannon). Furthermore, we should remember that, aside from Jack, Ben, Desmond, and Hurley, no one else left The Island really intellectually perceiving much more than when they arrived. And really, for all we know, even these guys were in the dark until they died.

The writers lie.

1. In season 6 a wholly new storyline was dropped on the viewership, a story that began with a blatent lie, that being that The Island was at the bottom of the ocean (presumably put there as a result of "The Incident"). But at the end of the series we learn that The Island NEVER DID SINK! It is still there (we assume), just like it always has been only now with Hurley and Ben watching over it. Narratively, there is no valid rationale for the writers to show The Island at the bottom of the ocean since, in the way-station purgatory reality, there is no Island AT ALL, (at least not one that our LOSTies would have collectively created as part of their purgatory/shared-consciousness-thing). It is clear now, that the scene of the sunken Island was actually a ruse by the writers to lead the viewer to think that this was an alternate timeline and that whatever Jack and Juliet did at the end of season 5 "worked". Season 6 ostensibly opens with how it worked as we fly out the window of 815, down through the clouds and then to the sea floor where The Island now sits. We're clearly led to believe that the incident caused The Island to sink and time/space was somehow "shattered" by this incident. Even on ABC's L O S T web site we see official network verbiage saying:

"A flash sideways is not a flashback, flash-forward or an alternate timeline. It posits what would have happened if Oceanic flight 815 didn't crash on the island but instead landed in Los Angeles."

So this is a "what if" scenario that ABC carefully avoids calling "alternate"? Surely , it MUST be an alternate timeline rather than just a "what if Oceanic 815 didn't crash" scenario since the first episode of the 6th season shows The Island at the bottom of the ocean rather than at sea level where it should have been had 815 simply flown over the island rather than crashing on it.

2. So did Jack's nuke plan "work"? According to Miles, apparently it did but according to the last 15 minutes of the series, it didn't. So was Miles wrong? He supposedly gets the last vibe of dead people he runs across and in this case, Miles tells us that Juliet says "it worked". Apologists now lead us to believe that Juliet's words refer to the vending machine and not to the use of the bomb. So, let me get this straight; Juliet's last thoughts of her life were about a vending machine in PURGATORY??!! A vending machine that our LOSTies collectively "created" in their way-station reality? What might be so important about this vending machine that Juliet's thoughts about it from the Other Side would leave such a strong impression with Miles? So the writers ended season 5 with a clue for us to follow that leads to a candy bar dropping out of a machine in purgatory?

Bah!

The writers NEVER led us to believe anything other than Miles was able to glean actual real facts from the last moments of the life of the dead person in question. He wasn't reading their after-life experiences about candy bars in purgatory.

3. Desmond flashes between one reality and the other and this leads him on the quest to "awaken" his friends in purgatory.

Really??

We know that Desmond didn't die in the electromagnetic field so what is he doing experiencing the afterlife with his fellow LOSTies BEFORE he actually dies? Furthermore, not only does he experience the purgatory reality while he is still alive but that experience gives him a sense of peace that he should follow Widmore's direction (and we do ultimately learn that Widmore was visited by Jacob in order to vanquish the MIB). But now we know that Desmond COULDN'T have visited this other reality since that reality doesn't exist except as some existential way-station created by dead people. AND HE'S NOT EVEN DEAD YET!

So what do these three points tell us? I think it tells us that the writers, for all their advanced warning that they had only 6 seasons to tell the story, didn't have a way to finish the story. They THOUGHT they did and they put clues into the last moments of season 5 and the early part of season 6 about there being some kind of fracture in time and space but then, for some reason, abandoned that notion and decided that the characters were all dead, that there was no alternate timeline, and that whatever Juliet was talking about as far as "it worked" didn't happen and The Island never sank.

Summary.

The last season would have, in retrospect, been better if the writers had not lied to the viewer by including things in the way-station story line that would otherwise make sense if it were an alternate timeline but make ZERO sense if it is purgatory. I doubt I will go back and review season 6 knowing what I know now (that that the flash-sideways was a lie), but others will probably find that there were dozens of plot holes created once the writers decided that the flash-sideways was not an alternate timeline but rather a nonsensical "they're all dead" communal illusion. Shared hallucination or "it was all a dream" narratives are interesting if they last a few minutes of a show but for a whole season? Pointless, and in this case, deceptive. They strung us along but in the end, had no way of giving us a narrative payoff. Ending with "they're all dead" plus lots of unanswered questions, is a cop out. Yes, I know it is hard to tie up loose ends in a mystery but then, these are professional writers and they were the ones who CREATED those loose ends in the first place! Watch any high quality mystery and you will often see dozens and dozens of clues dropped and then addressed in just a 50 minute show (c.f. any Granada Television Sherlock Holmes mystery). Don't pose a conundrum in a show like L O S T if you don't plan to address it, if only obliquely. Any hack can write a mystery if he doesn't have to resolve the mystery. It's like telling someone you have come up with the funniest joke ever and then never tell the whole joke. Instead you stop short and just say "at this point imagine a really hilarious punchline". Sorry that's not good writing.

This is the ultimate problem with endings like this. We are already being asked to suspend our disbelief to follow a story that is obviously fictional. To learn at the end that not only was the story fictional but the writers are intent on TELLING us it is fictional, breaks the 4th wall. This is why stories like Man of La Mancha are only watchable once, at least for the plot, because once you find out that the main character is telling a fable (a play within a play), we no longer can suspend our disbelief on the second viewing.

Such is the case for me with L O S T. The alternate storyline of season six will now have zero impact with me because I know that it never happened within the construct of the primary narrative. Viewers or readers of fiction have to be able to identify the story as POSSIBLY having happened at some point or in some place. But if the story itself TELLS you it never happened then what's the point of suspending disbelief?

So ultimately, my problem with the series is not that there were questions left unanswered or that the writers spent time on unimportant points leaving important ones forgotten, but rather, that a whole season was wasted in a dreamland Los Angles following events that mean nothing to the larger narrative. That is a tease with no pay-off and for that, I loath the ending.

Cap 'n' Tax Needs to be Aborted

2009-07-06T20:13:00.001-05:00

It is hard to even know where to start with regard to how bad the Cap 'n' Tax bill is.

It isn't "green" at all: it doesn't lower carbon emissions significantly enough to make any difference to global temperature (as if that was even a good idea in the first place - which it isn't), it INCREASES dependency on imported oil, and to top it off, it is an economy killer.

What statists don't recognize is that the single BIGGEST boost to the greening of America (and the world as a whole) is, wait for it...

PROSPERITY!

You can talk all day about the "hidden costs of dirty energy" or other such mealy mouthed nonsense but it is undeniable that wealthier countries are also cleaner countries. This is a self-evident truth. What poor country can you point to that can afford to mandate green space, national parks, smoke stack scrubbing, and CAFE standards?

NONE

No, the single best thing we could do is abandon this Marxist, abortion of a bill and help restart this economy:

1. Open up all domestic oil and natural gas reserves in the US. This would immediately address the so-called aim of "Cap and Trade" to "reduce dependence on foreign oil" with the added benefit of putting millions of Americans back to work after they lost their livelihoods last year when Peolosi and Reid started putting more reserves off-limits (thereby driving oil speculation).

2. Get rid of Ethanol and similar totalitarian mandates. This bill, along with several in the past promotes one of the most idiotic energy policies of all time: burning food for energy. It takes 1.5 gallons of gasoline to produce a gallon of Ethanol and starves the third world in the process. How stupid is that???

3. Take all the useless R&D subsidies the Feds currently spend on Solar and Wind, and, if we must, divert them to making a cleaner burning internal combustion engine. Cars are here to stay, as is gasoline (we have 420 years of KNOWN oil reserves in this country alone). Electric vehicles are idiotic environment killers yet they are promoted by empty-headed legislators like Henry Waxman. The ICE is the future and we should just get used to that fact.

4. Recognize that a strong economy encourages people to invest in a cleaner environment. If the populace is just barely surviving, they don't care whether a Leftist wants to see the foothills of Maine or not. And they certainly want to be able to sell their house without having an eco-nazi having to inspect their appliances and windows before they can sell it like Waxman wants to have happen.

Oh, and by the way. Here's a memo to AGW flat-earthers: The sun is experiencing a solar minimum right now which explains the last 10 years of cooling (and the next 30 of predicted global cooling). My question for them therefore is, given that a warmer planet is a more prosperous planet, how do we go about CAUSING warming right now when we know from history that warming is a Good Thing?

(And by the way, driving SUVs more won't make a dent - we'll still find ourselves freezing our collective backsides off in a few years time no matter HOW much C02 we spew into the atmosphere).

"Fixing" The Economy Is Not Obama's Goal

2009-03-08T22:31:00.002-05:00

Why are Americans even putting up with all this neofascist economic policy? It is not the job of the federal government to confiscate private property or nationalize businesses. The more the government moves this direction, the more wealth is destroyed. As wealth is destroyed people lose jobs and hope.

Either Obama is an economic ignoramus or he, Pelosi, and Reid are intentionally precipitating this economic disaster to satiate their megalomania.

A.) Democrat regulatory policy, with regard to the mortgage industry, is certainly the rot at the center of this crisis. Of this there is no doubt. Anyone can go to YouTube and review the hearings where Republicans warned of the impending mortgage catastrophe while Dems asserted there was no reason to regulate their private sandboxes of Freddie and Fannie.

B.) Fannie and Freddie were deeply vulnerable to an economic downturn but they were not the trigger. The trigger was the election of Pelosi, Reid, and their leftist friends who immediately set about instituting policy that began tying up American LNG and oil reserves. This combined with ever increasing "green" legislation as well as the impending threat of cap and trade policy (which McCain bought into but only because he wanted to "reach across the aisle" to the leftists on the other side) started steadily increasing the cost of energy futures. As a result, between 2006 and 2008 the price of gas at the pump went from under $2/gal to over $4/gal. Similarly diesel and jet fuel costs skyrocketed.

In order to deal with this massive new cost of living, the American public, relying on their vehicles to get to their jobs, gradually began cutting back on discretionary spending just to buy food and fuel. Vacations were cut back or cancelled, desserts and lattés removed from their menus, cut-backs on the purchase of new vehicles, and tons of other similar purchasing quickly ground to a halt as the Democrats pushed their economy crushing energy policy. As the travel, auto, and hospitality industries started to weaken due to the ever increasing cost of energy, the dominos started falling. The trucking industry started laying off drivers, the airlines began firing huge number of employees. Car dealerships went bust while hotels, coffeehouses, movie theaters, restaurants, theme parks, and thousands of other businesses that rely on American disposable income started going belly up.

C.) With increasing unemployment caused by skyrocketing energy prices in late 2007 and early 2008, people began falling behind on their credit card payments but were left no choice but to continue using them in order to buy necessities. Finally, by mid 2008 many people were simply not paying on their cards at all (this is about the time we started hearing radio ads for businesses promoting ways to get out of paying off unsecured debt). By July 2008, many out-of-work Americans were beginning to default on their mortgages. These were not "people who couldn't afford their homes" as many like to claim. These were people who could afford their homes right up until Pelosi and Reid drove the cost of energy so high that their employer had to lay them off, at which time, they BECAME people who couldn't afford their homes. These were people who had good jobs before the Democrats in government destroyed their lives.

D.) Chuck Schumer precipitated a bank run of over $100 million dollars on IndyMac late in June of last year. It is not surprising then, that shortly thereafter, consumer confidence in the banking industry, already reeling from newly defaulting mortgage loans, began to abate. Consumer confidence is crucial to our economy and it always has been. When the Democrats finally had their way and convinced a majority of Americans that the economic downturn (which started under the Pelosi/Reid watch) was George Bush's fault, they paved the way for their ascendancy to the White House. Given that pushing doom and gloom got them the presidency, why is anyone surprised that Obama continues to preach doom and gloom instead of his promised "home and change"? If he wanted to push change he would immediately eliminate all "green" and cap and trade legislation. That would be a massive and hugely beneficial change. If he wanted to instill hope, and thereby consumer confidence, he would abandon all the socialist and nationalizing industry rhetoric and work to clean up the banking mess. But neither of those things keeps him and his ilk in power.

Bottom line, government meddling and the craven and economically fascistic (used in the technical, not pejorative sense) policies of Pelosi, Reid, Schumer, Dodd, Frank, and Obama clearly precipitated this disaster. Personally, I believe they did it on purpose rather than as simply bumbling fools that they often appear to be. Obama is now using the crisis that leftists in his own party caused to advance the nationalizing of our economy.

"Fixing" health care by further regulating it, "fixing" education by giving the teachers unions yet further control, "fixing" energy policy by further driving up its costs are not solutions in the manner which most of us understand the word "fixing". They are using it in the same sense we use the phrase "price fixing". That is, to establish a lock on the economy that benefits their personal lust for power. The most disheartening thing about all of this is how many people have fallen for the cynical and deeply dishonest rhetoric of this snake oil salesman. The teacher's unions have done their job all too well.

Dear Mr. Obama. Don't Promote The Failed Policies of the Past

2009-02-09T16:34:00.003-05:00

Mr. Obama is out demagoguing the economic mess in which the U.S. currently finds itself. He wants us to abandon the "failed policies of the past" that ostensibly got us into this mess. Of course, he is talking about the conservative tax policy of the past.

Either Obama a.) is an economic illiterate and doesn't realize that lowering taxes spurs the economy or b.) he is a socialist hack, using lies and demagoguery to try to frighten the American public into swallowing his socialist spending plan.

The irony is that the "failed policies" of the past is exactly what his bill is full of. So Mr. Obama, please take a time out and actually follow through on your campaign promises of promoting hope over fear. Remember that pledge? The one that probably gained you the presidency?

Here is the real prescription for economic stimulus:

CHANGE POLICY!!

This costs nothing and will do more than any socialist spending will do.

1. Get rid of all "green" legislation that unnecessarily weighs down business and industry. Excise all "cap and trade" nonsense. Remove any and all regulation relating to carbon. End all CAFE standards for the auto industry.

2. Open up all lands to energy exploration AND development. This includes Alaska, offshore, the Bakken Play, Rocky Mt. and oil shales. The price of energy will plummet at which time you will see the economy take off like a rocket.

3. Stop all illegal immigration and deport all current illegal aliens. These people are taking our jobs and sucking off the public teat. Time to end this economic and security travesty NOW.

4. End all capital gains taxes. We should not be punishing risk takers.

5. End all corporate taxes. Corporations don't pay taxes, consumers do.

6. Lower income tax rates to a max of 27%.

7. End both corporate and individual welfare. No more subsidizing industry (a subsidy is GIVING money to a company - not the same thing as lower taxes.

Do these 7 things and watch the stimulus happen big time.

6 Reasons Why Obama's is an Historic Presidency

2009-01-24T15:22:00.005-05:00

Everybody is talking about how "historic" the Obama move to the White House is for the country. Maybe so. I certainly was able to think of several historic "firsts":

#6. The most corrupt individual to ever be elected. Obama essentially bought the presidency with illegal foreign campaign contriubtions. He rose to power through the corrupt Chicago political machine. He has nominated at least 2 individuals into his cabinet who have run afoul of the law. The list of scandal is already very long with Obama and will, no doubt, get much longer.

#5. The least experienced person to ever be elected. Obama has only a few months of experience in federal office and has never held any executive office or military position. Every other previous president in American History had significant experience in one of these three areas. Not Obama.

#4. The most promoted candidate by the mass media in modern history. Has the media EVER been so overtly in the tank for any other candidate in history? Not even close.

#3. The most left-leaning candidate to ever win the presidency. Some say he is a Marxist, other's identify him as just a run-of-the-mill Socialist. Either way, its a first.

#2. The first candidate to gain the white house with personal terrorist connections. One could argue that it is possible that Bill Clinton could not have qualified for a security clearance to get access to the White House. Nevertheless, there is no doubt whatsoever that, with Obama's personal ties to Weather Underground co-founder Bill Ayers, he would never have been able to get even the lowest level government security clearance had he not otherwise been elected to the presidency.

#1. The first person ever elected to the White House without being a natural born citizen. Technically, Obama CAN'T be president because he was not born in the United States of two American citizens as is required by the Constitution. In this regard, Obama is clearly a usurper to the power of the presidency and can't actually legally sign legislation, appoint judges, or approve treaties without running afoul of this most basic of eligibility standards to be president.

You may be asking why I didn't include that Obama is black? To me, this is a non-starter. So the guy has a little more melanin in his skin than previous presidents. Big deal. Everyone's melanin level varies from person to person. I don't consider superficial things like skin tone to be all that historic.

A Biblical Defense of Marriage

2008-12-28T15:34:00.004-05:00

While there are many cultural reasons to protect marriage and the traditional marriage unit, my view on this can be distilled to two primary arguments:

As a believer, I hold to Christ's own definition of marriage found in Matthew 19 where he told the Pharisees:

"Haven't you read," he replied, "that at the beginning the Creator 'made them male and female,' and said, 'For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh'? So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate."

Thus, the Bible affirms that marriage between a man and a woman is an institution created by God Himself and reinforced throughout Scripture. He also warns against those seeking to destroy the relationship between the "male and female".

This foundational concept of man and woman being in the God-created marriage unit is further highlighted both in the Ten Commandments in Exodus 20:12 and then repeated by none other than Jesus Christ Himself when he says to the rich young ruler in Mark 10:19:

"You know the commandments: 'Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not give false testimony, do not defraud, honor your father and mother."

Mother and father, man and woman. This theme is everywhere in scripture. Indeed, this idea of bride and groom lies at the heart of the relationship between Christ and His Church. Christ, as the groom, cares for his bride, the Church, which is explained at length by Paul in Ephesians 5:

"Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything."

There is no room here or in any of these other passages for anything else than male and female marriage relationship. For why would it? Marriage was designed to be a "type" of the relationship Christ has with His people. A fascinating study of the return of Christ for the saints in the Last Day can be done by looking at the Jewish wedding ceremony. The bride waits for the groom but doesn't know when he will come. In fact, the groom doesn't even know when he can go fetch his bride for, in Jewish tradition, only the groom's father has the authority to dispatch his son to go get his bride. This, and many other facets of the Jewish wedding tradition tell us much about future events related to the second coming. All of it centers around the male/female marital unit.

I don't want to bore you with a litany of passages in both the old and new testament on this subject but suffice to say, Christ Himself affirms the exclusivity of male/female marriage. NO WHERE is homosexual marriage indicated. Quite the opposite in fact.

Meanwhile, the gay lobby is seeking to undermine the institution. I believe, purposefully. They are not interested in "civil rights" since civil unions or other forms of contractual relationships cover that issue completely. The co-opting of the term "marriage", the determination to have traditional wedding ceremonies, etc. all are designed to remove the special place traditional marriage has in our society. Indeed, I believe the goal is to render the special nature of marriage between a man and a woman null and void. If anyone can get married then there is nothing special about it.

So this takes me to point 2:

Marriage has eligibility requirements not unlike a lot of things we undertake. To be a doctor you have to meet certain requirements. In order to drive a car one must meet certain criterion. To vote one must be a citizen. And so on. You have a right to be a lawyer but you have to jump through a few hoops to become one, and it may be that you don't qualify. Does that make the bar bigoted?

No one in this country is denied the right to marry as long as they are marrying a single, non-related individual over the age of 18 of the opposite sex. That is the definition of marriage in this country. No one, except maybe young people, are actually denied the right to marry with this definition. No one.

I do find it interesting that a conundrum is intrinsic to the efforts of the gay lobby. They argue that we must eliminate this eligibility requirment because it is "hateful and discriminatory". By their own logic, people under 18, those who want to marry multiple partners, and those who would wish to marry a blood relation, should likewise be allowed to get married. In other words, to be non-discriminatory, ANYONE should be able to get married if we want to eliminate "bigotry".

Having lived in Santa Cruz for 6 years, I have heard every argument imaginable on the "gay marriage" issue. During some of those discussions, I would often ask, "then, are you saying that, in order to be non-discriminatory, anyone should be able to get married to anyone they want and how ever many of them they want?" The response that came back was usually just an alternate, but still exclusionary definition of marriage.

These gay marriage advocates had their own eligibility standard for marriage that INCLUDED gays but EXCLUDED polygamists, underage people, blood relations, marrying animals, etc. They still drew a line, it just wasn't the same one as the traditional line. They still wanted to deny certain classes of people their right to marry. Totally hypocritical and ironic of course since such an argument is self-contradictory. It manages to undermine the only plausible argument against the current definition of marriage (that it is a violation of "civil rights") by being nearly equally discriminatory.

Meanwhile, I am fully aware that I am being exclusionary on this matter, but only as much as Jesus Himself was exclusionary.

Marriage is designed by God to be a model of the way he wishes the human race to behave in its advance of civilization. When it doesn't things quickly fall apart. God also intended the marriage relationship to give us a glimpse of the nature of the relationship between Christ and his Church. Destroying the meaning of marriage destroys not only the foundation of civilization but also the meaning of the marriage as it relates to our relationship with Christ.

This is why marriage needs to be protected.

11 Straight Years of Global Cooling

2008-11-22T16:16:00.003-05:00

Neuroscientist and physicist, Dr. Gregory Young, writes in the latest online edition of The American Thinker:

We're dismayed over the fact that the Global Warming fiasco has become politically popular and expedient to those left-wing politicians and power-brokers whose sole aim is to literally tax everything with a carbon footprint and give them control over all life, hidden within their PC guileful pretence to save the planet. They wish to save no one but themselves.

His piece is, by far, the most succinct explanation I have seen to date debunking the religion of Manmade Global Warming.

Is Obama the Antichrist?

2008-11-11T21:51:00.011-05:00

I don’t claim to be an expert in very many things but regarding Bible prophecy, I have about 35 years of study under my belt. I have seen claims of "This guy is the the Antichrist" or "that guy's the Antichrist", over the last many decades. I think it is important for our side to know a little about the matter of Bible prophesy so that we can deal with the question: “Is Obama the Anti-Christ?”.

Now I know you may not necessarily be a Bible believer but grant for just a moment that there IS specific Biblical teaching on the matter of the antichrist (a term, BTW, that is rarely used in the Bible - instead, terms like The Man of Sin [2Thessalonians 2:3] The Son of Perdition [2Thessalonians 2:3] and The Lawless One [2Thessalonians 2:8] are more common). According to the Scriptures, Obama ain’t him.

Here are a few things to bear in mind:

A. The Lawless One (LO from here on out) does not need to, indeed, WILL NOT make an appearance until all relevant prophecies about the reestablishment of Israel and the Magog Invasion have been fulfilled. These include: Israel being reborn as a nation (1948), Jerusalem being reclaimed as the nation of Israel’s capital (1969) and most importantly, the move by Iran and Russia against Israel. While Satan may have some Lawless One waiting in the wings at any given moment, he has not had to have such a person ready until after the events of 1969.

B. Hitler could NOT have been the LO. Why? Setting aside for a moment that Hitler was the opposite of a friend of the Jews, none of the above three Last Days prophecies had been fulfilled at the time Hitler was alive. All one had to do to tell if Adolf was the Lawless One would be to check to see if Israel was a nation yet: checking… Nope, not yet. Must not be him after all.

C. Is Obama the LO? We know that Scripture says the LO will arise out of a reformulated Roman Empire. Obama is neither a Western nor an Eastern/South Eastern European (remember, there were two legs of the original Roman Empire referenced in Daniel, the second one was ruled from Constantinople and lasted for centuries beyond the Empire of the Caesars - so we don’t really know which of these two areas will birth the LO). But regardless, Obama is not a candidate because Scripture says the LO will be from some part of the Roman Empire (east or west we're not able to tell from Scripture).

D. The United States (and all other nations) has to COMPLETELY abandon Israel in order to make smooth the path for the LO to arise. As long as we protect Israel the LO won’t be revealed because he will not be needed by Israel. The Scripture is VERY clear that the Israelies make a treaty with the LO (who evidently will be a charismatic, apparently honorable, respectable, and powerful leader - someone the Jews will intrinsically trust as being their true Messiah) as their political and military savior. Again, no way that the Jews would perceive Obama to be such a man, even if he were European. This protection treaty will be signed after a pivotal war with Russia, Iran, Turkey, and allied nations as referenced in the prophecy found in Ezekiel 38:1-7:

A message came to me from the Lord. He said, "Son of man, turn your attention to Gog. He is from the land of Magog. He is the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal. Prophesy against him.

"Tell him, 'The Lord and King says, "Gog, I am against you. You are the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal. But I will turn you around. I will put hooks in your jaws. I will bring you out of your land along with your whole army. Your horses will come with you. Your horsemen will be completely armed. Your huge army will carry large and small shields. All of them will be ready to use their swords.

"The men of Persia, Cush and Put will march out with them. All of them will have shields and helmets. Gomer and all of its troops will be there too. Beth Togarmah from the far north will also come with all of its troops. Many nations will help you.

"Get ready. Be prepared. Take command of the huge armies that are gathered around you.

These three countries and their allied armies are vanquished. It is critically important to note two things about this prophesy:

a. According to Ezekiel’s prophecy, Iran, Russia, and Turkey apparently have cart blanche to make their move against Israel without fear of reprisal. They apparently believe that NO ONE will stand up to protect her and thus, they have no doubt that Israel is ripe for the taking.

b. Iran, Russia, Turkey, and those with them LOSE this war, not because of Israel’s military might, but rather, due to some unexplained "natural" disaster (if one can call brimstone from heaven "natural") that destroys their invading force.

What this means to prophecy geeks like me is that the US is either unwilling or unable to come to the aid of Israel and has either been neutered somehow or has telegraphed that we intend to stay out of future conflicts in the Middle East (maybe we turn their protection over to the UN?). As we all know, as long as a Bush, Reagan, or even a Clinton was in the White House, there is simply no way that this prophecy could have been fulfilled. All of these presidents and their Israel supporting predecessors have been unwittingly forestalling the Last Days with their foreign policy posture vis a vis Israel. In other words, as long as the US stands by Israel, Russia and Iran will not attempt to invade Israel as prophesied by Ezekiel.

The core principle I am getting at is that, while there is considerable debate over the timing of this prophesy, it seems to me that it is easier to simply look at the logical steps required for the LO to make his appearance on behalf of Israel.

Let’s put the pieces together.

1. Israel IS a nation and DOES have Jerusalem restored to them. Two of the three major “Lawless One revealed” prophecies fulfilled.
2. Israel is still protected by the US so no invasion from an Iran or Russia seems likely at this point.
3. The US is becoming more socialist and its citizenry more sheep-like. This can only result in eventually cutting the troublesome Israel lose from our foreign policy. I also believe that such a policy would not be possible as long as the Christian Church is active in America. However, if the Church is removed in the Harpazo* (commonly called the "Rapture") then such a foreign policy seems inevitable.
4. Once Israel is outside the military penumbra of the US, she is vulnerable to an attack from the nations that hate her most. This invasion MUST occur prior to Israel making a treaty with the LO. I maintain that this attack is what precipitates the need for Israel to make the treaty with the LO in the first place.
5. Israel is attacked and then spared through, what should be and is intended to be, an obvious intervention by God Himself. The reason for this military drama seems to be that God intends to send a message to the Jews that THEY DO NOT NEED THE UNITED STATES OR ANYONE ELSE TO PROTECT THEM as long as they rely on Him. But will they?

Sadly, no.

The Bible goes on to say that they wipe the sweat off their collective brows and thank their lucky stars that some mysterious natural disaster wiped out the invading armies. Whew! saved in the nick of time. They then decide that, given the US is no longer able to protect them, and given that they almost were wiped off the face of the planet by their mortal enemies to the north, they believe they need someone new to protect them. Thus, they make the fateful pact with the Lawless One, believing him to be the long awaited Messiah.

So how does Obama figure in this? A couple of things come to mind:

1. Obama's rise to power proves that many people in these latter days will abandon all logic and rational thought in their longing for someone to save them from the chaos of this world (something the Bible does predict as well). "Hope and Change" are obviously not policy positions but apparently, many do not care. As flawed as Obama is, he gives hope (false as it may be) to millions. But just imagine if a guy came on the scene with Obama’s charisma but without all his baggage? Someone who DOES have the foreign policy cred, the experiential bona fides, the political gravitas required to dupe EVERYONE.

2. Obama may end up being The One who fulfills a foundational prerequisite to the Last Day prophecies. HE very well could be the one that abandons Israel, unwittingly making way for the events that culminate in the coming war between Iran/Russia/Turkey and Israel. If he, or one of his like minded successors do that, at that point, it will be an inexorable march toward the end.

By the way, I am as sure that something like I describe above will take place as I am of my own existence. It was predicted and it is coming to pass just as the Bible has said it would. It makes obvious sense based on the events of the last 70 years.

Hang on, its going to be an amazing and bumpy ride.

*The Harpazo (Greek for “the snatching away”) is what we call the Rapture of Believers. The Bible is clear that the Harpazo happens prior to the Lawless One being revealed. What this means to me is that, it is likely that Bible-believing Christians will not be on earth (at least be visible on Earth) to see the Jews make their treaty with this European superstar. Only non-believers who still have their heads on straight will realize what is going on. However, I don’t suggest that such people hang around to find out.

A Game Changer?

2008-10-06T20:37:00.002-05:00

One of the mysteries of the current election cycle is how an economy put in the toilet by Democrats helps Obama's prospects for the presidency! Is the voting public really so stupid as to think that the gas shortages, corruption at Fannie and Freddie, and the pork in the $850B bailout are the result of Republican initiatives?

I guess so.

Six REAL Degrees of Separation

2008-09-22T19:10:00.002-05:00

I recently noticed an experiment over at Facebook to use that network to see how far separate we are from other people.

There is an inherent problem with the exercise of the theory of 6 degrees of separation. That being, people are very loose with the concept of what constitutes a "degree". Facebook "friends" is just such an example. Are these people really what you would consider "friends" or are they "acquaintances"? If the latter, then they are not really a "degree of separation" candidate in my book.

For example, you can find posts online about how someone thinks they are personally six degrees away from Kevin Bacon like this:

Kevin Bacon starred in Hollowman. Working on that film doing special effects sound was

1st degree: John P. Fasal who once worked on the same film (Children of the Corn) as

2nd: Mike Warren (who did the titles). Mike Warren gets his hair cut by

3rd: some guy in Studio City who is brother-in-law of

4th: the guy who once sold

5th: Carolyn her 1998 Toyota Camry before she left Southern California.

6th: Carolyn is now the warehouse manager at MY company.

Therefore, I am only 6 degrees of separation from Kevin!

I say hogwash. Not only do I not really know Carolyn (except to ask her to fill out an inventory form now and again), most of the people in this set of links don't really know each other either except casually.

The original concept of 6 degrees of separation (aka "the small world phenomenon") is that we personally know people who personally know people who personally know people, etc. The idea being, that you are connected with a VERY strong line of relationships to someone you don't know at all.

Working on someone's car, talking to someone through Facebook "friendships", having a second cousin once removed who once played golf with a guy, etc., ARE NOT close relationships.

In the game 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon, the task is to find people who actually worked DIRECTLY with someone who worked DIRECTLY with someone who worked DIRECTLY with Kevin Bacon. Citing an extra who never once saw Kevin on set as a degree away from Kevin is ridiculous and undermines the concept of the theory.

So for "degree" to mean anything in this context you need to be connected through a personal or business relationship. (i.e. you could actually make a recommendation - good or bad - of that person to someone else.)

In this respect, "friends" on Facebook don't really fulfill the definition of a "degree" in its original conception (until you REALLY DO become friends and not just an online acquaintance).

Here is a more straight-forward set of degrees (a semi-real world example):

President Bush worked closely with:
1. Tony Snow who was good friends with:
2. Skunk Baxter (formerly of the Doobie Brothers) who consults with Science Applications International Corporation's CEO who is
3, Kenneth C. Dahlberg who graduated from USC where he took classes from:
4. [fill in name of professor here] who was also:
5. your professor when you went to school at USC about 10 years later.

In this example, Bush is 5 degrees of separation from you (I made up the last two of course).

You
1. Your professor
2. Dahlberg
3. Skunk
4. Tony
5. GW

Bottom line; someone you met via the Internet doesn't count in this game. Sorry.

Why They Hates Us

2008-09-13T10:46:00.002-05:00

From the American Thinker:

"They truly have no idea what makes us tick, and their willful misunderstanding has rendered them wholly incapable of dealing with the curveball Palin has thrown them."

Read it all.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/09/palin_and_the_lefts_comprehens.html

There, He's Gone and Done It

2008-09-13T10:36:00.002-05:00

I really didn't expect this of McCain. But maybe an old dog can learn a new trick after all.

Sarah Palin was exactly the right pick. Why, because it turned a nation of conservatives around. People who couldn't previously stand John McCain now will vote for him in order to get Sarah Palin in line for the presidency. All of the sudden (and as I previously predicted), a conservative running mate made all the difference for McCain.

Conservatives WANT Palin to be a heartbeat from the oval office. In fact, if the ticket were flipped we would be all that much more pleased with this turn of events. Liberals don't understand her and can't figure out why, in one week, their fortunes were turned. What is even more delicious, is that this one pick has put the House of Reps back in play!

McCain had zero coat tails until Palin came along. Now, anything is possible.

Who would've thunk it?

More on Why I hope John McCain Loses

2008-06-08T17:13:00.002-05:00

I say let the Dems have the White House come next January.

Reason 1: Treasonous (to the Reagan Conservative cause) and corrupt behavior should not be rewarded or we'll get more of it. McCain is no Reganite and he is certainly not a conservative.

Reason 2. McCain is the 2nd most liberal Republican in the Senate. Why would I vote for a guy who does not believe in my values? And does anyone think that if John McCain wins after giving the conservative movement the finger all DURING THE CAMPAIGN, no less, he will suddenly decide to return to the conservative side of the street? HARDLY. He will go even farther left. It would not surprise me at all if he selects Hillary as the replacement for Justice Ginsburg. I can't see Obama doing that.

Reason 3. McCain is of a discern-ably low IQ. On issue after issue he is at odds with his own stated positions. He doesn't understand economics, and he certainly is not familiar with the lack of evidence for so-called Anthropogenic Global Warming. I know why Obama supports the AGW theory; to give himself more power. McCain either wants the same thing through his support of the hoax of AGW or he has no clue as to the reality of the situation. I think it is more likely he is clueless.

Reason 4. McCain is a hypocrite. He constantly talks about being a "straight talker" but changes his position as often as he changes his underwear. He was for open borders, then he wasn't then he was again. He says he'll nominate constructionists to the court but he says he thinks that Alito is too conservative. He says he is a fiscal conservative but is behind the single biggest government money and power grab since the New Deal only now it is called "Cap and Trade".

The list could go on and on. But the bottom line is, McCain will destroy the conservative movement if he is elected. Obama will strengthen it if he is elected. Of the two, America survives best with a strong conservative movement and therefore, Obama MUST win

Why John McCain is an Ignoramous

2008-05-16T11:03:00.006-05:00

John McCain is out courting the left by claiming that our solution to global warming is "Cap and Trade". This is folly.

There are only 3 things you need to know about the anthropogenic global warming (AGW) hoax:

1. Elevated C0₂ (which plants love BTW) levels in the atmosphere FOLLOW global warming, not the other way around. See this excellent explanation for more on the lag between ocean heating and the release of C0₂ into the atmosphere. If you look closely at the graph in "An Inconvenient Truth" you can see this. However, in this particular section of the film, Al Gore glosses over this fact and claims the opposite.

2. If it were possible for man to warm the planet, IT WOULD BE A GOOD THING. When the planet was warmer in the past than it is now, civilization thrived. Cooling is MUCH more dangerous than warming and, ironically, global cooling will require much more energy to be expended to keep us and our crops warm.

3. We are officially now in our tenth year of global cooling and many scientists without an AGW grant are confirming that this is just the beginning. Expect MUCH cooler years ahead.

Regarding oil.

It is not a fossil fuel! It is abiotic and has been found as deep as 30,000 ft. below the surface, much deeper than any past organic life has lived. Oil is in endless supply but like diamonds, it is kept expensive by keeping it rare. If it is a "fossil" fuel then it must eventually run out, right? If it can be found at deep levels everywhere then what usefulness is that to the government (who is the primary profiteer on the high price of oil not the eeevil oil companies).

Therefore, it is said we need to move to conservation even though there is no way to "conserve" our way out of the current oil supply mess given that China is adding car drivers by the millions every year.

The reality is that oil is an almost magical substance. It is plentiful, can be acquired with very little damage to the local environment, new IC engine technology makes using it for fuel very enviornmentally friendly, and it is continually replenished in the crust of the earth.

The US has enough known reserves to last us 200 years without ever using a drop of oil from the terrorist nations of the ME or doing more exploration (which would produce hundreds of years of new reserves). But instead, this country has to be an environmentally imperialist nation. We refuse to use our own resources but instead, take them from other countries. It is the End of the World™ if we drill in the arctic wasteland but just fine to drill in the fragile deserts of Kuwait.

Bottom line: There is zero reason to abandon oil. We have the infrastructure to transport and refine it. It can now be burned cleanly in the latest engines from Detroit and Japan. It is plentiful and we need it for the manufacture of plastics anyway. It forms the foundation of freedom.

Although I am not encouraging this because it is not the government's job to give stuff away; if we were to take all the boondoggle funding for things like ethanol mandates, windmill farms (a truly idiotic energy source if there ever was one), solar panel subsidies, and other government energy porkbarrel projects and just bought everyone a new car (getting rid of those old VW buses, and 1975 Volvo station wagons that professors drive around with Save the Whale bumper stickers on them), we could clean the atmosphere up really quick.

But the reason that oil is eeevil is that it allows people to drive and we can't have that, nosiree. If people can drive where they want to then how can the we possibly control their lives? After all, the proletariate need to live in tall government provided housing near the center of crime ridden cities and ideally, should move from place to place using a urine encrusted public transportation system of some kind.

An Open Letter to Bill Bennett

2008-02-18T09:40:00.005-05:00

Dear Bill,

I think it would be better if you stayed away from a defense of McCain. It is neither helping him or buttressing your own conservative credentials. Your normally reasoned and honest approach to the wide variety of subjects you take on daily falls by the wayside when you get on the subject of John McCain.

First, what's with the name-calling? Your past comments about conservatives being purists ("Trotskyites" is the way you put it I believe) is sophistry. We supported Thompson and he is far from pure. He would have been Voltaire's "good" vs. the "best". The "McCain's not perfect" line or "there will never be another Reagan" excuse that you and other McCain apologists trot out is condescending and shallow. Given that this argument can be used just as easily about Obama, it really carries no argumentative weight does it?

This morning you called those of us who vehemently disagree with McCain on a host of issues "snippy". Two weeks ago you called people in the south who refused to vote for the liberal John McCain, "stupid". Last week you termed the critiques of McCain by your fellow conservative talkers as "noise". This is a tactic of the left in this country and is almost always an indicator of a weak argument on the part of the person hurling the insults.

Next, what's with the overstatements about McCain's conservative stands? On today's show you said that there are many things with which you disagree with McCain but also there are many things that he is good on. "Many"? May I suggest that this is a HUGE exaggeration. He is certainly bad on many things but even the few things he is ostensibly "good on" are really half-hearted and inconsistent.

It would be more accurate to say this on the air:

"Yes, I will acknowledge that McCain loves to sponsor liberal legislation and eschews sponsoring conservative legislation, but he does at least support the war in Iraq. Of course he is one of the weakest Senators regarding border security and yes he does want to close Gitmo and bring enemy combatants into the US court system thereby making it impossible to prosecute their crimes (given that doing so would reveal our intelligence methods), and of course, he is against giving intelligence officers the ability to use non-injurious interrogation techniques like water-boarding against known terrorist leaders but hey, at least he was for the surge (along with most of the rest of the Senate)."

Then you could tell your audience, "Fortunately, he is very good on fiscal issues... well except for the aforementioned amnesty legislation which is devastating to local economies, education systems, hospitals and the like and yes, he wants to codify the anthropogenic global warming hoax by levying heavy gas taxes on Americans through the fiscally irresponsible "cap and trade" scheme, thereby crippling the economy (which he admits is not something he knows a lot about), but at least he is pro-life (except for his desire not to overturn Roe v. Wade and his vote for stem cell research). But other than these few things he is great."

If you would come on the radio and say those two paragraphs then conservatives might take your defense of McCain more seriously. But mendacity does not become you Bill. In a column on your web site defending McCain you dishonestly assert, "McCain has an ACU (American Conservative Union) rating of 82.3; Clinton has a rating of 9."

This is is a false comparison. Hillary has only been in the Senate for a short period of time and coincidently, during a period when McCain was much more liberal than his mediocre 82.3 lifetime rating. Why not compare their current ratings? Yes, Hillary is currently rated with an 8 while McCain has a 65 (and this was before his most egregious votes and liberal legislative work during 2007) but 65 still puts him on the far left of the Republican party with only 4 Republican senators farther to his left. Furthermore, the ACU rating is for votes cast.

If we look at each vote as a test of sorts, then a no-show should count as a zero. The ACU doesn't do this however which puts their entire methodology in question. Using their system, McCain could show up for one vote out of the two hundred that he should have showed up for, vote the conservative way, and get a 100% rating from the ACU. If a student only shows up to take tests on subjects he is good at, I seriously doubt that the student would pass the course. In reality, McCain does very poorly if we count votes he has skipped (because they would show him to be a liberal if he did vote on them). Giving him a zero for skipped votes gives him a rating more in the 30s and puts him to the left of several Democrat senators and leaves only 2 Republicans to his left.

It would be better to acknowledge McCain's liberalism and simply point out that he is just not as liberal as Hillary or Obama and leave it at that. Acknowledge that even on national security, pro-life, and economic issues, he is lackluster but still better than Obama and Hillary. The remaining challenge for McCain is that, of the two nominees, McCain is the less principled. Obama is openly Marxist. McCain is secretly a socialist. The voters want honesty in their presidents and given that McCain has serious ethical challenges, tends to flip-flop on issues, claims to be a Reagan Republican (from his perch on the left side of the party), and is a political opportunist, I don't see how he beats Obama even if you convinced every conservative to vote for him (and few will).

So our choice is between an unprincipled, self-aggrandizing, ill-tempered, old, liberal or a young, African-American, principled Leninist.

Spinning this election any other way just lowers your otherwise excellent credibility Bill. So please stop calling us names and recognize that McCain has few strong points, just less terrible ones than the opposition.

The Good? Hardly.

2008-02-12T00:23:00.001-05:00

The empty-headed recitation of the phrase by McCain acolytes, "perfection is the enemy of the good" is, to be blunt, maddening.

A. The quote is "the best is the enemy of good", so if the McCain apologists are going to quote Voltaire, they should at least do it right.

B. I would instead argue that "the adequate is the enemy of the excellent". I would also maintain that McCain does not even rise to the level of "marginal" much less "adequate".

C. Since when is McCain "the good" and since when were conservatives looking for "the perfect"? People who claim that either of these are the case are sophists. McCain is "the bad" and conservatives would have been perfectly happy to settle for "the good" (c.f. Fred Thompson or Mitt Romney).

D. The issue of the SCOTUS is routinely raised by McCain fanbois as the sine qua non argument. Ragnar demonstrates that it is a feeble posit. One can certainly argue that there is a remote possibility that McCain would nominate someone to replace, say Ginsburg who is less liberal but past experience informs us that 1.) a nominee in the mold of Ginsburg would be a requirement of the MSM, and the Dems in the Senate would allow no other choice no matter what, and 2.) above all, McCain loves good press. Since he has no principles beyond what makes him look good, just exactly what evidence do we have that he wouldn't nominate Hillary herself? Absolutely none. Nominating Hillary Clinton would give McCain exactly what he always goes for: Maverick glory status.

When people say, "McCain is not perfect but..." I tune that person out as an unserious commenter. McCain doesn't even merit a "mediocre" rating.

At the end of the day, McCain has zero redeeming qualities, which actually puts Hillary a point or two above him. At least she is consistent and principled (in her devotion to all things Leninist.) Meanwhile, McCain's only real devotion is to McCain, on all other issues, he is entirely unpredictable and so it would be with the SCOTUS.

The AGW Debate gets Surreal

2007-08-27T23:23:00.001-05:00

The problem with debating anyone over the issue of anthropogenic global warming is that most of the AGW apologists proceed from multiple false assumptions. Recently a very ignorant poster to a thread over at Townhall.com said:

"Probably global warming is real, but it’s possible it’s not. Either way it’s a smart move to take common sense measures to reduce the risk."

First false assumption:

Global warming is a risk. It is demonstrably NOT a risk. In fact in the past, when the earth was warmer than it is today, civilization thrived. Grapes were grown in vineyards of Scotland, the Vikings colonized Greenland. In brief, if we COULD warm the planet through some manmade mechanism, it would be a GOOD THING.

Second false assumption:

C0₂ causes warming. In fact, there is ZERO evidence of this. What we do have evidence of is that as the oceans warm (caused by Mr. Sun) then C0₂ is released into the atmosphere.

Third false assumption:

C0₂ is a pollutant. Those who believe AGW is real often conflate pollutants (especially particulate pollutants like soot) with C0₂, which is a gas required on this planet for LIFE! LA has higher ozone and particulates (mainly dust) in the lower atmosphere but there is no way to notice elevated C02 in LA's air. C0₂ is a pollutant like oxygen and nitrogen are pollutants.

Fourth false assumption:

The earth will continue warming unless we do something to stop it. It is, in fact, quite possible that we are at the apex of a warming cycle and that the earth will begin cooling. This would be a BAD THING.

My question for the imbecile who said warming was a "risk" should consider the much larger risk of global cooling. A cooler earth would be catastrophic for fruit and produce producing nations. It would drive people out of currently habitable areas into smaller zones of the planet. When we start cooling, are the enviroloons going to demand we drive more or build more coal fired power plants?

The most important thing to point out in all of this is that C0₂ is the RESULT of warming. That one, single fact blows holes a mile wide in the cap and trade nonsense. It also debunks EVERYTHING that Al Gore has asserted (and I think he knows it given how fast he skips past the C0₂/Warming corollary chart in his fictional movie, An Inconvenient Truth).

There are so many things demonstrably and transparently wrong with this whole AGW ploy it is tragic:

1. There is ZERO evidence that man causes global warming.

2. Global warming has not been shown to be a negative for the planet.

3. Temperature measurement data before 1950 is highly inaccurate and back farther into the past is guesswork of monumental proportions.

4. NASA and other organizations responsible for collecting CURRENT temperature data have been caught cooking the books. I see NASA as the scientific world's Enron.

5. The AGW industry is monetarily GIGANTIC. Everyone wants a piece of this pie from anonymous researchers (who couldn't get a dime for a grant until they figured out how to connect their research with AGW) to multi-national corporations who have learned how to use enviro-scares to their benefit, to politicians who see more power ceded to them by playing up the Chicken Little AGW scheme.

AGW is like a bad prank that somebody came up with thinking that "nobody is that stupid to buy into it" only to find out that huge numbers of people are sheep and will buy into anything. I guess P.T. Barnum was right after all.

10 Reasons Why Socialized Medicine Would Be a Good Idea

2007-08-22T23:12:00.000-05:00

If we ever get socialized medicine in this country of the kind that Hillary advocates (the kind that makes it illegal to opt out of the system except by leaving the country) we could see some excellent benefits:

Number 10. Boon for Caymen Islands who begin to recruit all our best doctors and nurses to their newly minted "hospitals for Americans".

Number 9. Boon for doctors and nurses who always wanted a job in a beautiful Caribbean country.

Number 8. Boon for travel industry as Americans leave in droves to get treatment at Caymen Island hospitals.

Number 7. Decision making made easier for people needing drugs. "Which would you like for your life threatening illness sir, Aspirin or Penicillin?"

Number 6. With government employees now performing delicate surgery like angioplasty, big fat liberal slobs like Michael Moore would be dying in surgery in droves.

Number 5. The poor, who up until socialized medicine was implemented, received the very best care in the world, are now treated by unqualified government employees. They die in droves, thus reducing the ranks of Democrat voters (who voted for the politicians who devised the Socalized Health Care scheme in the first place). Once these voters are killed off by the very system they voted for, those who remain alive wisely abandon government run health care and return to the previous system with the advantage that the Democrat Party has lost half its support base.

Number 4. Abortion clinics are no longer the profitable business for Planned Parenthood they once were so they close shop and Planned Parenthood, now starved for money, goes bankrupt.

Number 3. Abortions are now performed by people not qualified to work at FEMA or the DMV. Because of this, the abortion rate starts to decline as pregnant women begin fearing that they will die on the table like Michael Moore did.

Number 2. With the US no longer acting as the engine for medical innovation in the world, Europeans start dying by the millions for lack of wonder drugs that previously were developed in the US. Less Europeans means less French people meddling in world affairs.

Number 1. Socialized medicine means there is no longer a private industry for lawyers to sue. This puts millions of lawyers out of work, including John Edwards.

Compare and contrast

2007-07-31T10:56:00.001-05:00

The Qur'an:
Sura (9:29) - "Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued."
Sura (9:5) "But when the forbidden months are past, then fight and slay the Pagans wherever ye find them, and seize them, beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them in every stratagem (of war); but if they repent, and establish regular prayers and practice regular charity, then open the way for them..."
Sura (9:12) - (Continued from above) "But if they repent and establish worship and pay the poor-due, then are they your brethren in religion"
Sura (2:193) - "And fight them until persecution is no more, and religion be only for Allah. But if they desist, then let there be no hostility except against wrong-doers."

From the Hadith:
Muslim (1:33) The Messenger of Allah said: "I have been commanded to fight against people till they testify that there is no god but Allah, that Muhammad is the messenger of Allah..."
Muslim (19:4294) - "When you meet your enemies who are polytheists [Christians...], invite them to three courses of action. If they respond to any one of these, you also accept it and withhold yourself from doing them any harm. Invite them to (accept) Islam; if they respond to you, accept it from them and desist from fighting against them ... If they refuse to accept Islam, demand from them the Jizya. If they agree to pay, accept it from them and hold off your hands. If they refuse to pay the tax, seek Allah's help and fight them"
Bukhari (8:387) - "Allah's Apostle said, 'I have been ordered to fight the people till they say: 'None has the right to be worshipped but Allah.' And if they say so, pray like our prayers, face our Qibla and slaughter as we slaughter, then their blood and property will be sacred to us and we will not interfere with them except legally and their reckoning will be with Allah.'"
Bukhari (53:392) - "While we were in the Mosque, the Prophet came out and said, "Let us go to the Jews" We went out till we reached Bait-ul-Midras. He said to them, "If you embrace Islam, you will be safe. You should know that the earth belongs to Allah and His Apostle, and I want to expel you from this land. So, if anyone amongst you owns some property, he is permitted to sell it, otherwise you should know that the Earth belongs to Allah and His Apostle."
Bukhari (2:24) - "Allah's Apostle said: "I have been ordered (by Allah) to fight against the people until they testify that none has the right to be worshipped but Allah and that Muhammad is Allah's Apostle, and offer the prayers perfectly and give the obligatory charity, so if they perform a that, then they save their lives and property from me except for Islamic laws and then their reckoning (accounts) will be done by Allah."
_________________________________________________

The New Testament

John 13:34 "I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. "
John 15:12 "This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. "
John 15:17 "I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another."
Rom. 12:10 "[L]ove one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honor."
Rom. 13:8 "Owe no one anything, except to love one another; for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law."
1Ths. 4:9 "Now concerning love of the brothers and sisters, you do not need to have anyone write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love one another; "
1Pet. 1:22 "Now that you have purified your souls by your obedience to the truth so that you have genuine mutual love, love one another deeply from the heart. "
1John 3:11 "For this is the message you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another."
1John 3:14 "We know that we have passed from death to life because we love one another. Whoever does not love abides in death. "
1John 3:23 "And this is his commandment, that we should believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us."
1John 4:7 "Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. "
1John 4:11 "Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another. "
1John 4:12 "No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us."
2John 5 "But now, dear lady, I ask you, not as though I were writing you a new commandment, but one we have had from the beginning, let us love one another."
1John 4:20 Those who say, "I love God," and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen.

This Person Could be President

2007-07-29T23:17:00.001-05:00

Hillary is (or should be) known for her vile temper, foul mouth, condescending attitude toward her peers and subordinates, arrogance, and hate speech.

Here are just a few examples (warning, some of the following quotes are rated R):

"Where is the G-damn f**king flag? I want the G-damn f**king flag up every f**king morning at f**king sunrise."
(From the book "Inside The White House" by Ronald Kessler, p. 244 - Hillary to the staff at the Arkansas Governor's mansion on Labor Day, 1991)

"You sold out, you mother f**ker! You sold out!"
(From the book "Inside" by Joseph Califano, p. 213 - Hillary yelling at Democrat lawyer.)

"F**k off! It's enough that I have to see you sh*t-kickers every day, I'm not going to talk to you too!! Just do your G*damn job and keep your mouth shut."
(From the book "American Evita" by Christopher Anderson, p. 90 - Hillary to her State Trooper bodyguards after one of them greeted her with "Good morning."

"You f**king idiot."
(From the book "Crossfire" p. 84 - Hillary to a State Trooper who was driving her to an event.)

"If you want to remain on this detail, get your f**king a*s over here and grab those bags!"
(From the book "The First Partner" p. 259 - Hillary to a Secret Service Agent who was reluctant to carry her luggage because he wanted to keep his hands free in case of an incident.)

"Get f**ked! Get the f**k out of my way!!! Get out of my face!!!"
(From the book "Hillary's Scheme" p. 89 - Hillary's various comments to her Secret Service detail agents.)

"Stay the f**k back, stay the f**k away from me! Don't come within ten yards of me, or else! Just f**king do as I say, Okay!!!?"
(From the book "Unlimited Access", by Clinton FBI Agent in Charge, Gary Aldrige, p. 139 - Hillary screaming at her Secret Service detail.)

"Many of you are well enough off that [President Bush's] tax cuts may have helped you. We're saying that for America to get back on track, we're probably going to cut that short and not give it to you. We're going to have to take things away from you on behalf of the common good."
(Hillary grandstanding at a fund raising speech in San Francisco; SFGate.com 6/28/2004.)

"Why do I have to keep proving to people that I am not a liar?!"
(From the book "The Survivor," by John Harris, p. 382 - Hillary in her 2000 Senate campaign)

"Where's the miserable c*ck sucker?"
(From the book "The Truth About Hillary" by Edward Klein, p. 5 - Hillary shouting at a Secret Service officer)

"Put this on the ground! I left my sunglasses in the limo. I need those sunglasses. We need to go back!"
(From the book "Dereliction of Duty" p. 71-72 - Hillary to Marine One helicopter pilot to turn back while en route to Air Force One.)

"A right-wing network was after his presidency...including perverting the Constitution."
(To Barbara Walters about the Republicans who impeached her husband; 20/20, ABC 6/8/2003.)

"Son of a b*tch."
(From the book "American Evita" by Christopher Anderson, p. 259 - Hillary's opinion of President George W. Bush when she found out he secretly visited Iraq just days before her highly publicized trip to Iraq)

"What are you doing inviting these people into my home? These people are our enemies! They are trying to destroy us!"
(From the book "The Survivor" by John Harris, p. 99 - Hillary screaming to an aide, when she found out that some Republicans had been invited to the Clinton White House)

"I mean, you've got a conservative and right-wing press presence with really nothing on the other end of the political spectrum."
(C-Span, 1/19/1997 - Hillary complains about the mainstream media, which are all conservatives in her opinion)

"Come on Bill, put your dick up! You can't f**k her here!!"
(From the book "Inside The White House" by Ronald Kessler, p. 243 - Hillary to Gov. Clinton when she spots him talking with an attractive female at an Arkansas political rally)

You know, I'm going to start thanking the woman who cleans the restroom in the building I work in. I'm going to start thinking of her as a human being -Hillary Clinton
(From the book "The Case Against Hillary Clinton" by Peggy Noonan, p. 55)

"We are at a stage in history in which remolding society is one of the great challenges facing all of us in the West."
(From the book "I've Always Been A Yankee Fan" by Thomas D. Kuiper, p. 119 - During her 1993 commencement address at the University of Texas)

"The only way to make a difference is to acquire power"
(From the book "I've Always Been A Yankee Fan" by Thomas D. Kuiper, p. 68 - Hillary to a friend before starting law school.)

"We just can't trust the American people to make those types of choices.... Government has to make those choices for people"
(From the book "I've Always Been A Yankee Fan" by Thomas D. Kuiper, p. 20 - Hillary to Rep. Dennis Hastert in 1993 discussing her expensive, disastrous taxpayer-funded health care plan)

"I am a fan of the social policies that you find in Europe"
(Hillary in 1996" From the book "I've Always Been A Yankee Fan" by Thomas D. Kuiper, p. 76 - Hillary in 1996)

This person could be our next President!

The Two-Dimensional Anti-war Thinking

2007-07-28T22:03:00.000-05:00

The difficulty we are having with this war (and the debate over it) is that it is being won militarily but lost politically due to the completely 2 dimensional thinking of the anti-war crowd. Liberals appear to have very little nuance when it comes to discussing Iraq specifically, or the larger war against Islamic Jihadism in general. This is because it is quite apparent that they see everything through the "neo-cons are pulling Bushitler's strings" prism.

Note to the Bush Haters:

Realize that this is an ASYMMETRICAL war, the first of its kind ever fought by this country. There is has never been a more complicated set of variables laid out for a president and his generals to consider and there is no blueprint for how to succeed.

Consider:

1. This is a proxy war with Iran and AQ fought on soil that is rife with civil unrest and tribal hatred.

2. This is a war that was historically necessary to prove that America is not a paper tiger. I firmly believe that one of the prime reasons that this administration chose to eventually go into Iraq was to demonstrate that you don't mess around with the UN security council or the United States. This is what Saddam was doing and Bush decided that the line had to be drawn in the sand or risk total loss of credibility on the world stage.

3. This is a war being fought in the midst of political game playing by the Democrats - game playing played solely for their political gain. Remember, Clinton didn't take on the Iraq problem because he knew it was a political mine-field and would be deeply unpopular with Americans. Clinton was not the kind of president to do the right thing when doing the popular thing would work much better. Bush hesitated for 18 months before going into Iraq for likely the same reasons. He knew it was going to be hell for his party if he got involved in a war in Iraq. In other words, there was NO upside for Bush or the GOP to get into this war. The only upside was for the long term good of the nation (assuming that he could reestablish our street cred). Meanwhile, there was huge upside for the Dems for Bush to get into this war if they could succeed in undermining his efforts. They have played this advantage to the hilt and ultimately to the detriment of the country as a whole. They have been invested in a loss in Iraq since the shock and awe portion was over.

4. The American Media hates Bush as much as the Dems and like the Dems, want to see a humiliation for him in Iraq. This became patently clear when they started saying the surge was a failure before we even got the surge troops in place.

5. The jihadists are WELL AWARE of points #3 and #4 above. They see the American populace as easily swayed. They see that very little is required to raise the angst level here in the States because the Dems and Media will exaggerate the chaos in Iraq and downplay or simply not report American successes. This amplifies any successful efforts that they undertake.

6. It is evidently easier to believe we are failing than succeeding in Iraq. Petraeus, a man of impeccable credentials and expertise has a plan he is enacting in Iraq but we don't take his word for the successes he says are happening there. No we take the word of Reid, Pelosi, and Murtha, people who are invested in losing, that the surge is a failure.

7. Our Rules of Engagement prevent success in many situations in Iraq. This is unheard of in our history of warfare. As long as we are tying the hands of our military, lives will be lost and the propaganda benefits to the enemy of those losses are incalculable.

8. We don't understand Islamists and they rely on this ignorance. These people are motivated by an ideology that hates both red and blue states in the US equally. They hate Americans in the red states because those people are Christian, Israel supporters. They hate the bluestaters because they represent weakness, materialism, feminism, gay rights, and the export of American cultural malaise.

All of these factors and several more make this a near impossible situation for Bush, made only worse because we have very little resolve left to fight to win (and by win I mean dishearten the Islamists to the point of pulling out of Iraq.) They now see that we are not the aggressive, strong military might they saw at the beginning of the war. In fact, they are seeing that their feeble efforts are actually causing our Congressional leaders to prepare for retreat. This emboldens them in the face of otherwise impossible military odds.

So what to do? If we think Hillary is going to win then we should pull out now because she will anyway if elected. This will save American soldiers lives (for now). If we think Rudy or FDT will get elected we should step it up now and make it easier for either of them to mop up and then prepare for the next onslaught of radical Islamic Jihadism that will surely come. In the end, I don't think this war will ever be won given that the Islamists will not give up until we are destroyed.

Baptists and Bootleggers

2007-07-28T09:12:00.000-05:00

"Bruce Yandle authored the Baptists and Bootleggers Theory of Regulation, which said that two groups often work together to have regulations passed, but for two very different reasons. For example, both Baptists and Bootleggers might pressure government to outlaw alcohol; Baptists due to religious beliefs and bootleggers because of the potential for profit."

- Rob Blackstock

Over the last 40 years or so, as the socialist enviros started gaining the ear of legislators, business and industry have been forced to either go on the defense (fight socialist enviro legislation), or go on the offense (join the opposition and seek to benefit by squeezing out competition).

Offense by corporate interest is what we are seeing with the corporate social responsibility movement. Companies that are savvy enough, can capitalize on regulations by twisting them to their advantage. Cat may be misjudging the current AGW environmental regulatory landscape but in the past other companies have benefited from similar deals with the devil. However, these deals rarely benefit the consumer.

A notable example is DuPont, with their promotion of the bogus CFC Ozone depletion scare. Of course, CFCs have no impact on stratospheric ozone since CFCs are too heavy to rise to that level (similar problem with C02 by the way) but that didn't stop the environmental alarmists and DuPont from joining forces. Seeing an opportunity to make multi-billions in selling newly patented refrigerants, Dupont was only too happy to work with environmentalist interests and weak-minded legislators. We have been paying dearly ever since R-12 was outlawed due to this con.

For a good summary of the Baptist and Bootlegger aspects of the CFC debacle, see this article.

Without Creationists, Where Would Modern Science Be?

2007-05-02T22:22:00.000-05:00

Modern science itself was established by Creationists, not evolutionists (both groups of which were contemporaneous with the other).

That’s right, evolutionists were not highly visible in the founding of modern fields of scientific inquiry. This being the case, one would have to give serious credence to Creationism given that any one of the fields listed below could’ve refuted creation but instead confirmed and expanded our knowledge of it.

So I ask you, dear reader, if Creationism is incorrect how could modern science have even been developed at all? The uninitiated are often stunned by the sheer volume of fields of study developed by those who believed God created the universe as described in the Bible. The following list of the fathers of modern science was developed by Curt Sewell, author of God at Ground Zero:

Sir Francis Bacon (1561-1626) Lord Chancellor of England, is said to be the one who began the “scientific method.” This was based on experimentation and induction from data, rather than simply philosophical deduction like Aristotle used. Bacon was a devout Bible-believer, who wrote: “There are two books laid before us to study, to prevent our falling into error; first, the volume of the Scriptures, which reveal the will of God; then the volume of the Creatures [the created things of nature], which express His power.”
Johann Kepler (1571-1630), discovered the laws of planetary motion and celestial mechanics. He was an earnest Christian, and wrote that he was merely “thinking God’s thoughts after Him.”
Blaise Pascal (1623-1662), mathematician, philosopher, a founder of hydrostatics and hydrodynamics, wrote the “wager of Pascal,” — “How can anyone lose who chooses to become a Christian? If, when he dies, there turns out to be no God and his faith was in vain, he has lost nothing — in fact, he has been happier in life than his non-believing friends. If, however, there is a God and a heaven and hell, then he has gained heaven and his skeptical friends will have lost everything in hell.”
Robert Boyle (1627-1691), father of modern chemistry, said to be the greatest physical scientist of his generation, active Christian and Bible student and translator.
Nicolaus Steno (1631-1686), developed the principles of stratigraphical interpretation of fossils, and was a Flood geologist, attributing the fossils to the Biblical Flood of Noah. He wrote many theological works.
Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727), discoverer of the law of gravitation, the three laws of motion, the calculus, the first reflecting telescope, and many others. He wrote more theological works than scientific papers, including a book defending the Ussher chronology of the Earth. He wrote: “I find more sure marks of authenticity in the Bible than in any profane history whatsoever.”
William Herschel (1738-1822), astronomer and telescope maker, discovered double stars and the planet Uranus. He was a devout Christian who wrote: “The undevout astronomer must be mad.”
Michael Faraday (1791-1867), universally acknowledged as one of the great scientists and experimenters, primarily in electricity and magnetism. He was a sincere Christian and faithful church-goer, and stated that he was supremely confident that true science and the Bible were both based on divine truth and were necessarily in agreement.
Samuel F.B. Morse (1791-1872), inventor of the telegraph, artist, sculptor, and builder of the first camera in America. He wrote: “The nearer I approach to the end of my pilgrimage, the clearer is the evidence of the divine origin of the Bible, the grandeur and sublimity of God’s remedy for fallen man …”
Matthew Maury (1806-1873), oceanographer and “Pathfinder of the Seas.” A Bible-believer, he read Psalm 8:8, “… the paths of the seas …” and said that if God said there paths through the seas he would find them and chart them. He discovered the prevailing currents of the world’s oceans during his lifetime with the U.S. Navy.
James Joule (1818-1889), physicist and discoverer of the mechanical equivalent of heat and one of the chief founders of the scientific discipline of thermodynamics. He was also a devout Christian.
Louis Agassiz (1807-1873), paleontologist, glaciologist, professor of natural history at Harvard, whose Museum of Comparative Zoology is named in his honor. Some have said he wasn’t really a Christian, but he certainly believed in God and His special creation of all kinds of organisms. He was an active opponent of the concept of evolution.
Louis Pasteur (1822-1895), established the germ theory of disease, pasteurization as a way of destroying bacteria, and demolished the evolutionary concept of spontaneous generation, developed vaccines for rabies, anthrax, and other diseases. He was a strongly religious man, who was criticized by the biological establishment of his day because he opposed Darwinism, yet he’s acknowledged as one of the greatest biologists of all time.
William Thompson, Lord Kelvin (1824-1907), was a Bible-believing Christian. He was one of the foremost physicists of all time, and held the chair of Natural Philosophy at University of Glasgow for 54 years. He established the scale of absolute temperature, and defined the first two laws of thermodynamics. Lord Kelvin was a strong opponent of Lyell’s principle of uniformitarianism and Darwin’s evolution. In 1903 he made a statement that “With regard to the origin of life, science … positively affirms creative power.”
Joseph Lister (1827-1912) was a great English surgeon, who developed the concept of antiseptic surgery and chemical disinfectants. Lord Lister received many honors during his lifetime, and was a firm Quaker Christian. He wrote: “I am a believer in the fundamental doctrines of Christianity.”
Joseph Clerk Maxwell (1831-1879) was one of the greatest scientists of all time, best known for his comprehensive mathematical framework for electromagnetic field theory and other theoretical physics works. He strongly and actively opposed Darwinism and other naturalistic views of Earth’s origins. A hand-written paper found after his death affirmed his personal faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, and quoted the Genesis account of man’s creation in the image of God.
George Washington Carver (1864-1943) is considered the greatest black scientist of all time, working mostly in the realm of agricultural products. He was born as a slave in the Southern U.S., and dedicated most of his life to helping his people, while also proclaiming his faith in God and the Bible.
Wernher von Braun (1912-1977), the father of the U.S. space program, was born in Germany and emigrated to the U.S. in 1945, becoming a citizen in 1955. He was a practicing Lutheran, and was active in church life, and a sincere Bible student. He wrote: “I find it as difficult to understand a scientist who does not acknowledge the presence of a superior rationality behind the existence of the universe as it is to comprehend a theologian who would deny the advances of science.”

Do we assume that the Theory of Creation is valid just because modern science was conceived of, and developed by Creationists? I am not going to go that far. However, it should stand as a counterpoint to any assertion that evolution must be true because modern science has managed to persist with the notion still in wide spread acceptance. Heck, the Greeks managed to advance science despite the fact that they thought the earth was flat (even though the Hebrews at the time had the silly notion that it was a sphere).

Really Excellent Cluebatting of Nutty Conspiracy Theories

2007-04-12T10:23:00.000-05:00

Seeing the Unseen is a series of articles by Bill Whittle that do a really great job of debunking a variety of conspiracy theories that have cropped up over the years. They are not only an enjoyable read but a great summary of the idiocy that is pervading our society.

Here's one really excellent excerpt on bumper sticker intellectualism:

No Blood for Oil!

Sometimes, the best way to examine a radical assertion is to assume that it is correct and examine the likely consequences. For example, proponents of the Loch Ness Monster assert that there is a surviving plesiosaur lurking in the murky depths of a Scottish lake. We are then drawn into endless discussion of distant wakes and grainy photos and claims of hoaxes, etc. But if you cut to the chase, so to speak, and grant the premise, where does that leave you? Plesiosaurs are air-breathing reptiles that have to daily consume massive amounts of fish to survive. There are essentially no fish in Loch Ness. Does it order out for pizza? Also, as an air breather, we would not have a surface sighting once or twice a decade, but hundreds of times a day. If you grant the premise of an air-breathing dinosaur the entire proposition becomes ridiculous, not on the basis of the evidence, but on the monumental lack of evidence supporting the idea.

Likewise with a “war for oil.” What would a real "war for oil" look like? Well, US troops would have sped to the oilfields with everything we had. Everything we had. Then, secure convoy routes would have been established to the nearest port – probably Basra – and the US Navy would essentially line the entire gulf with wall-to-wall warships in order to ensure the safe passage of US-flagged tankers into and out of the region.

There would have been no overland campaign – what for? – and no fight for Baghdad. Fallujah and Mosul and all those other trouble spots would never even see an American boot. Why? No oil there. The US Military would do what it is extraordinarily well-trained to do: take and hold a very limited area, and supply secure convoys to and from this limited area on an ongoing basis. Saddam could have stayed if he wanted: probably would have saved us a lot of trouble, and the whole thing would have become a sort of super no-fly zone over the oil fields, ports and convoy routes, and the devil take the rest of it. Sadr City IED deaths? Please. What the f**k does Sadr City have that we need?

That’s what a war for oil would look like. It’s entirely possible that such an operation could have been accomplished and maintained without a single American fatality.

We have lost thousands killed and wounded because they are being blown up as they continue to provide security, electrical and water services, schools and hospitals to a land ravaged by three decades of fear, torture and barbarism. It is the American presence in the cities, providing security and some semblance of order for Iraqi citizens, that has cost us so many lives. If we are going to be tarred and slandered and pay the public relations price for “stealing Iraqi oil,” then the least we can do is go in and actually steal some of it, instead of dying to protect that resource for the use of the Iraqi people. Which is what is happening, because, as usual, there is not a shred of evidence to the contrary, no matter how many imbeciles hold up signs and dance around in giant papier–mache heads.

1st part of the essay is here

The 2nd part of the essay is here

How I Know the Bible is the Word of God

2007-03-27T09:56:00.000-05:00

The Bible has many areas that are highly controversial and are subjected to heavy interpretation. This tends to lead skeptic to think that the Bible is unreliable.

The way to verify that the Bible is authored by God Himself is to look at prophesy. Some were fulfilled to the exact day, something that no man could predict.

There are many prophesies about the various Jewish captivities, the fall of Jerusalem, etc. that have been foretold by prophets such as Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and others and then later fulfilled. These are easy to find and to verify through any archeological commentary. Nevertheless, I’ll give you three off the top of my head starting with the most important of any OT prophecy, the first coming of the Messiah.

In Daniel 9:25 we are told that from the time of the command to restore the walls of Jerusalem, to the arrival of Messiah, there would be 69 weeks of years (the Hebrews used the term “week” to refer to a 7 year period much like we use the term “decade” to refer to a 10 year period) and these Biblical years were 360 days in length.

The command was given March 14, 445 BC. Counting forward the required 173,880 days we arrive at April 6, 32 AD. The exact day that Jesus Christ entered Jerusalem on the day we call “Palm Sunday”.

It is important to realize that this is a very clear and very specific prophecy (not one of the more obscure or complex ones we can find here and there but one that is very straight forward). It is so clear that Jesus actually said that the city of Jerusalem would be destroyed because its people did not specifically acknowledge the prophecy. Because they disregarded it, His prediction was fulfilled in 69 AD. The Romans had their way with the symbol of the Jewish religion, Solomon’s temple, and at that moment, Israel was no more.

Now, if you are asking whether there is an independent record of the April 6, 32 arrival date, there is no need. All four gospels record the event and all four gospels were in circulation shortly after the crucifixion. Many of the early readers of the gospel accounts certainly would have been present during the events of the first Palm Sunday. It defies logic or reason to accept that FOUR false accounts of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem with such supposed fanfare would have withstood the scrutiny of the many Jewish skeptics who were alive at the time.

The reality is, that everyone knew that Jesus came into town on the prophesied day. This is why there is no record of the Gospel accounts being challenged.

Furthermore, in all the ancient writings available to us, only Jesus Christ is recorded to have fulfilled the prophesy of Daniel 25:9. While there may have been others who might have thought to be pretenders to the fulfillment of that prophecy, only Jesus actually fulfilled it.

A couple of other amazing prophecies:

In chapter 4 of his book, Ezekiel predicted that the tribes of Israel would shortly be sent into servitude/captivity but also prophesied that Israel would rise again 907,200 days (2,520 Biblical years) after this “servitude of the nation” (which occurred on July 17th, 606 BC.) Counting forward 907,200 days we land on May 14, 1948, the day David Ben-Gurion announced on international radio, the name of his rebirthed country, “Israel”.

This prophesy references the servitude of the nation and then it’s rebirth. They are connected events both in time and in type. The period begins with the nation going into captivity and ends with it being reborn. Ezekiel predicted it exactly and I think there are plenty of independent sources to verify the date that modern day Israel came into being.

What is even more provocative is that the same prophesy by Ezekiel (Ezekiel 4:3-6) talks about the “desolation” of Jerusalem (which happened 19 years later in 587 B.C.) where they lost control of the city (going into Gentile hands) and then the subsequent recapture of Jerusalem 2,520 years later.

Would it be any surprise to learn then, that Jerusalem was recaptured by the Israelies from its Arab enemies exactly 19 years after Israel was birthed and exactly 907,200 days after the desolation of Jerusalem in 587 BC?

Probably just a coincidence.

The Goracle Claims he is "Carbon Neutral"

2007-03-23T10:46:00.000-05:00

At the recent hearings on Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) before the Senate, Al Gore made this proclamation about himself:

“We live a carbon-neutral life.”

The sleazy thing about this statement is that not only does it refer to a charade but one that is built on an emperor’s-new-clothes-type system that his Al-ness helped develop in order to amass further wealth and power.

I can just hear Gore talking to his staff many years ago when he first started hatching this scheme:

“Ok people”, announced the Goracle, “We all know that political power is gained through fear. Reagan gained his by playing on the fears of the Soviets. That creepy guy, and former boss of mine, Bill Clinton, gained his by playing up fear of Republicans. And so on. But the future, my friends, is in hyping the ultimate fear. The fear that we will use up our planet, boil its oceans, and it will end in fire. Hey, the Bible predicts it right?”

“So I say, we start pushing this environmental disaster, not like the old guard did with fears of DDT and fish kills. That’s kid’s stuff. Too easy to actually solve. No, what we need is something that can never really be solved! We need an environmental catastrophe caused by the very existence of an industrialized society itself! And need I mention that this looming catastrophe can only be addressed by bringing the full force of government to bear?”

But the Goracle’s minion’s asked, “What could possibly be so bad that even the full weight of massive, punitive, and even the Stalinist government tactics that we love so well, will hardly help?”

“I’m talking about global climate change here people.” spake the Goracle. “As our evil, white, Christian, bigoted culture spews billions of tons of steam, I mean hydrocarbons into the atmosphere, it is spelling the end of the world as we know it. It must be addressed and only I, (and a few other well-connected liberal venture capitalists) can ever hope to stop it.”

“What ARE we going to do to stop it?”, the slavering suck-ups asked.

Then the Goracle responded, “We must first lay the groundwork for how the atmosphere will overheat if something isn’t done about SUVs. We’ll call it the “Boiling Stratosphere” problem, or some such thing. We bribe (or coerce) the scientific (*snicker*) community to go along with us. These days they are so beholden to the almighty government grant (not to mention that some of them are just plain simpering cowards) that getting most of them onboard will not be difficult. Our apologists in the media can be relied upon to squelch any mention that there are “Boiling Stratosphere” skeptics but they’ll just call them homophobes and holocaust deniers and that should put them in their place.”

“But, but”, stammered a Goracle minion, “Won’t the oppressive government measures you recommend to deal with the “Boiling Stratosphere” problem be a problem for us too? I mean, sure, it will enrich you and your select capital venturists, and sure it might mean you will finally be crowned king, I mean elected President, but we don’t want to curtail our driving of SUVs, our flying of G4s, our living in 30K sq. ft houses, our trips to Cancun.”

“That’s the beauty of this plan people”, spake the Wonderful Wizard. “I, and a few of my friends have developed a system where you simply buy the rights to output carbon emissions that are over the “limit” (*snicker*). Besides, hydrocarbons, as we all know, are not pollutants anyway. They’re harmless, but they are the perfect boogie-man for my plan. We don’t have to feel guilty about producing more of them with our lifestyle but they can, through scientific consensus, media disinformation, and educational “documentaries”, be shown to be the source of the “Boiling Stratosphere” problem.”

“But even better, because everyone will believe that they are producing the “Boiling Stratosphere” problem, they will gladly yield to my “Boiling Stratosphere” carbon offset program. What I intend to so is set up one or more companies that trade in these carbon offsets. Essentially, we buy the rights to as large of a carbon footprint (*snicker*) as we want through the sale of offsets to Hollywood imbeciles and corporations who have onerous regulatory requirements to meet my carbon output criteria. It is a beautiful thing! We make money on the buying and selling of phony offsets and we get to still live our lives of luxury. Not only that, I’ll set myself up as the physician to Gaia Herself and as the savior of the planet while you people get to worship me without hardly any cost.”

At this, Al thought to himself, “and people call ME a moron.”

The Fall Of Western Civ

2007-03-17T23:24:00.000-05:00

Don’t be distressed by the impending fall of western civilization. It was predicted!

I am a firm believer in the accuracy of Biblical prophecy. It’s not been wrong yet (and thousands of prophecies have already been fulfilled), and because of this, I believe what it says WRT the future.

Personally, I don’t see the end of the world as we know it to be very far off, and I’ll give you one specific reason why: the looming abandonment of Israel.

The Bible is very clear that in the Last Days, Israel will eventually have to stand alone with no one to protect her from her enemies (and she has many). When that day happens, Israel will have to turn to the one political leader who steps forward and says “I’ll protect you”. This leader will be from some European country (typically considered to be west European by eschatologists but could also be south-eastern European and still fit the prophecy).

The notion that one day, the US would abandon Israel seemed like a ludicrous idea not that long ago so very few people understood how this European political savior of Israel could arise. It was theorized that maybe America would one day, be destroyed, thus leaving no one left to stand by Israel. That would create the power vacuum necessary for this leader to step in. (Keep in mind that, despite the left’s whining about “blood for oil” most of our middle eastern policies rest on a long-standing role as the protector of Israel.)

We now realize that all it would take for the groundwork for this prophesy to be fulfilled would be for someone like a John Kerry (who openly admitted that he thought we should lift our support for Israel in the last election cycle) to come to power.

So here is how the Bible explains the political scenario of the Last Days:

-Israel re-establishes itself “in a single day” (happened in 1948)
-Jerusalem is re-established as its capital city (happened in 1967)
-All of Israel’s previous protectors are either destroyed or abandon her (I think the latter given the current political climate).
-Israel is attacked by an army “from the north” (typically considered to be a coalition of nations including Russia and Iran).
-Israel supernaturally survives this attack but in so doing realizes that can’t survive on its own and seeks a new protection treaty.
-The person known as the “son of perdition” (a charismatic political leader we typically call the “antichrist”) steps up and offers his aid.
-Israel accepts his offer
-The “antichrist” breaks his treaty 3.5 years later.
-All hell breaks loose

Libs Don't Get the whole "CO2 is Good" Thing

2007-03-02T11:19:00.000-05:00

The Gore acolytes seem perpetually confused on the issue of C02 and clean energy. From a recent conversation:

If we can develop a cleaner source of energy that doesn’t rely on a dwindling supply of fosil[sic] fuel that another country can hold over our heads then how can you be against it?

Setting aside for the moment that Oil is probably not a "fossil" fuel, no one IS against energy independence, in fact, we are FOR the best alternative power source known to man: NUCLEAR. The problem with the AGW debate is that, crying "the sky is falling" using a lie actually HINDERS the process of decreasing our reliance on middle eastern oil because no major advance in science can be built on a false assumption. But this is a much more nuanced issue than the typical Liberal seems able to grasp:

1. Oil, as it is refined and used in manufacturing, is a very clean energy source. Yes, the burning of oil produces sulphers and carbon monoxide, both of which are poisons (unlike C02) but in new vehicles the catalytic converters deal with this issue. At factories, smokestack scrubbers deal with that issue. Most pollution that comes from the burning of "fossil fuels" is because the thing that it is burning it is old. For example, a new Hummer produces MUCH less pollution than some Lib's old Volvo Station wagon or VW van. This is why wealthy countries are cleaner. We can afford the newer technologies that make fuel burning clean.

2. Oil (and NG) are the lifeblood of modern civilization, and for good reason:

-It is plentiful (we could support ourselves and be a net exporter of oil if we drilled for our own - offshore and Alaska being the most notable),
-probably renewable (the abiotic production of oil is an unsupportable scientific hypothesis),
-we have the pipelines already built (which would need to be duplicated nationwide if we went to any other form of fuel such as hydrogen),
-it is absolutely REQUIRED for the production of heating oil, lubricants and plastic, the production of which results in a waste product called GASOLINE! (many people do not realize that before the advent of the IC engine, gasoline was dumped after the refining process because there was no use for it),
-it is inexpensive (and if we drilled for our own oil on a wider scale, it would be even less expensive than it is now).

Be honest, if it weren’t for the oil in the Middle East, we wouldn’t think twice about that region. They would forever be stuck in the seventh century and we could care less.

I can be even more than honest, I can be educated. Setting aside the issue of the protection of Israel for now, if Iraq or Iran have WMDs then their oil makes no difference to us, we would still care about them. As a matter of fact, one of the strategies being promoted by conservative military experts is to mine Iranian harbors and blow up their refineries. This would bring them to a halt, kind of a modern day seige. But this would reduce the oil supply from the ME, something you claim that we can't abide. Also, need I remind you that ME oil on the world market reduces the price of Texas and other American produced oil?

Granted, developing alternative energy sources will be costly at first — but far less costly now than if we have to wait until we reach the time when we are forced to move to another source for any reason.

If companies want to develop "alternative energy" I'm all for it. However artificially raising the price of oil (or subsidizing AE research) so that companies can do the development is fascistic (dictionary sense) and completely unnecessary. The lifeblood of civilization is oil and there is absolutely nothing wrong with it. In fact, I could make a case that if we were currently running on expensive solar and biomass energy sources we would be looking for an "alternative" and oil would have to be one of those given that it is inexpensive, relatively clean, is easy to transport, and is more versatile as a fuel than pork is as a food.

Personally, I can’t say if Gore is right or wrong on the issue of global warming or climate change. But the one thing he is doing is getting people to talk about it and explore different solutions.

I always have to laugh whenever I see this kind of statement. How about: "Personally, I can’t say if David Duke is right or wrong on the issue of race. But the one thing he is doing is getting people to talk about it and explore different solutions."

If someone is clearly wrong as is obvious with what Al Gore is promoting, then his portion of the dialog is just misleading people.

Too much oxygen will kill you also. It’s about balance, not whether any particular gas is benign or not.)

Leading researchers on the subject C02 as a pollutant demonstrate that IT IS NOT. If you want to resort to the "anything is bad in enough quantity" argument then you have already lost the argument. WATER in too much quantity is very dangerous but we are not outlawing it (yet).

They've Got it Exactly Backwards on Global Warming

2007-02-04T11:27:00.000-05:00

In the past, specifically in the early part of the last millennium, it was much warmer (medieval warm period). During that time civilization experienced a golden age. Crops grew better, people were more healthy, days were longer (temperature-wise), so more got accomplished. Then, in the 1300s, things started looking bleak (temperature-wise) and we ended up with the dark ages.

I submit that:

1. If the climate IS in a long-term warming trend (and there is no way to know this of course) then this IS A GOOD THING!

2. If man is causing this alleged warming trend, THEN THIS IS EVEN A BETTER THING. It's better because it implies we actually have control over a process that could usher in a new era of growth and prosperity (just like warming trends in the past have caused.)

3. Since global warming has historically been A GOOD THING and if man is capable of causing it, then I say do more of what is causing the GOOD THING.

The issue of decoupling ourselves from Islamist oil reserves aside, forget about nuclear. Wide-spread use of nuclear would mean less man-made C02 and hence, by the enviro's thinking, less warming. Since less warming IS A BAD THING, the only conclusion we can take away from the enviro-terror lobby's position is that they WANT a new dark age.

As for me, I say the more warming the better, it worked in the past, it will work again.

UPDATE: The Great Global Warming Swindle is now up on YouTube. This documentary totally debunks Al Gore's hypocritical pseudoscientific screed, "An Inconvenient Truth" with actual data and scientific testimony. It is a must view for anyone who wants to speak intelligently on the subject of Anthropogenic Global Warming.

Main take-away point: Increases in atmospheric C02 FOLLOW global warming not the other way around.

The Bible Affirms Creation and Debunks Evolution

2007-01-21T12:34:00.000-05:00

A common problem I see with debates between Bible believing Creationists and secular evolutionists is that the evolutionist likes to set the ground rules. They love to throw around the words “fact” or “myth’ when there is no possible way to prove such assertions.

It would be one thing if they were simply claiming that their words were opinion in which case, their constant unsupportable statements would be palatable. But when they condescend to the rest of us from their high scientific "mountain of evidence" and then proceed to make statements that they themselves know to be unsubstantiated, they simply look foolish.

More honesty in this debate would be nice but I don't expect it from the other side. This is why I will state openly that my creationist perspective is not falsifiable by way of the definition of science as secular science defines it (i.e. only naturalistic methodologies can be allowed to explain the universe). Obviously, if "Science" is defined as anything not involving God then the discussion is over.

Now, I think Creationism is science but not in the narrow-minded manner from which secularists proceed. Likewise, I also grant that evolution IS science because it IS falsifiable. It is a forensic science that cannot be duplicated in the present but we can point to things that would, THEORETICALLY, disprove the notion of evolution even though it happened in the past.

I don’t claim that evolution is “myth” even though by most secularists standards (at least when they are applying said standards to Creationism) it is. But I am not using those standards because they are dishonest.

There are two verifiable ways of KNOWING that God created just as the Bible says. Neither are provable using the scientific method as secularists define it. However, it is provable using another method…

The Bible itself proves it.

If God created the clockwork universe and human life as we know it, He would have a rationale for doing so. It would stand to reason that He would explain this rationale in a way that could not be forged or faked but that would not bias free will. He would simply provide evidence of His love for us and let the chips fall where they may.

So how to explain this without bias? The Bible is an amazing answer to this conundrum which is missed by so many people.

Because the Bible is true.

Quite simply, the Bible demonstrates the reality of a transcendent Being of immeasurable knowledge and power and it is this book that says that this Being created the universe. It also specifically says that God DID NOT use evolution as his preferred method of creation. It is as if God knew that there would be a future divide between those who would take Him at His word and those who would not. He gives us no middle ground.

People who dismiss what He has to say do so, I believe, at their own peril. This debate IS important because evolution is specifically designed to undermine the message of the Gospel. If evolution is true then Christ died for nothing and therefore, he is not God. Leading evolutionists know this and this is why such a weak idea, from a scientific standpoint, is pushed so heavily in the secular world.

A Creation Discussion with a Seeker

2007-01-20T13:40:00.000-05:00

Recently I had the opportunity to discuss some Creation Science with a genuine seeker. I quote him out below:

I think there must have been a gap between the 6th day creation of man and woman and Adam and Eve who I think may have been created on the 8th day or sometime thereafter.

The "gap" is only implied (and it is a very subtle implication indeed) between verse 1 and 2 of Genesis 1. There is no room for any other interpretation of the rest of the chapter other than the days being contiguous with no gaps. We can debate how long the days were but there are no gaps, subtly implied or otherwise, in the text. Now, to be clear, I do accept the possibility of a gap of time between verse one and two but this would only affect the age of the universe and would have nothing to do with how long life itself took to be created.

But why do you think that we need to find one? I can tell you that you do not need to search for a gap to explain modern scientific findings. And for sure the Bible says that life did not evolve.

We have no knowledge of God’s measurement of time since it is on a scale of eternity.

Actually we do have knowledge of his measurement of time. He created the system of time we use (even in secular society) today. For example, there is no natural cycle of 7 days yet that is our week. The Bible talks in several places about the creation week as a literal week. While many people like to dismiss Genesis they forget that Exodus has a very specific reference to the creation week as being literal.

Right there in the middle of the ten commandments we read in Exodus 20:11: For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it.

If the days are of indeterminate length then this command makes no sense. Indeed, it makes no sense if they are anything other than 24 hour periods of time.

Feel free to say that both Genesis and Exodus are wrong from a scientific perspective (I personally believe they harmonize with science perfectly) but please don't claim that God has not given us specific information on the timing of creation.

Perhaps the women were from the first creation though there are no human remains in the fossil record during the period of dinosaurs that I know of.

Here's the thing. There is no need to look for a gap in Genesis for where the fossils came from. First, if there was a preCreation it is said that it was utterly destroyed. We see no evidence of it today. Everything, at least on earth, was made new starting in Gen. 1:2. Secondly, the Bible is very specific that no death occured until after Adam sinned. I think you may have noticed something very salient about fossils... they're dead.

This is central to the doctrine of Christianity. The savvy anti-Christianist will know that if he can undermine Corinthians 15:21, he can undermine the basic teaching of the Bible:

"For since by a man came death, by a man also came the resurrection of the dead."

Christ died physically (not just figurativly or spiritually) because Adam brought physical death into the world.

If there was death before Adam then Adam was not responsible and therefore, Christ died for nothing and the whole of the Bible is a fable.

Evolution is based on the notion that death has been going on long before Adam came along (if he ever came along at all). The promotion of the idea of death being a natural process rather than the result of the entropic principle that came as a result of Adam's disobedience is central to atheistic evolutionism. The realty that Christians buy into evolution is a sad commentary on the general understanding of the teachings of Scripture.

I have a hard time believing God scattered fossils about after the time of Adam and Eve.

Fossils are the dead remains of creatures instantly covered by mud, sand, and debris. God did not "scatter" them but rather, the animals (and some people but not a lot) were caught in some kind of deluge that trapped them. Fossils do not occur unless the creature was quickly buried in mud or sand. You think that fossils take a long time to form because the evolutionists have promoted this disinformation for a long time. In fact, fossils, sedementary layers, crustal uplifts, erosion, and so on are better explained by catastrophism and not uniformitarianism. Fossils have been found that were formed in just a few hundred years.

That would only confuse the issue and God is not a God of confusion but of order.

I agree. But we can look down through the history of science where the Bible said one thing and contemporary scientists said another and the Bible turned out to be correct and scientists wrong. You ask, Why would God write the Bible with incorrect information? But realize, the Bible is confirmed all the time as new research is done and as a result we realize that God was not trying to confuse anyone. He was seeking to enlighten them.

If we tell a kid looking out a skyscraper window that those are actually people below and not ants, does the kid wonder if we are lying? Why would we deceive him when he can tell that those are just little tiny insects.

Only later does he realize that we were right. His subsequent observations tell him that we were not trying to confuse him but to inform him.

One of my favorite examples of this from the Bible is Paul's description of the elements that make up all that we see. He explained in Romans that the universe is made up of things too small to observe with the naked eye. At the time, the scientists reading his letters surely would have scoffed given that it was commonly understood that the elements were obviously Earth, Wind, and Fire.

But we know this was a fantasy.

But place ourselves in the shoes of the secular scientists of the day. Why would God claim that the physical universe was made up of things that were invisible when everyone knew that it was made up of earth, wind, and fire? Was God just being figurative or trying to confuse us?

Just because we don't understand why God says he created in 6 days even though it appears that the earth is much older doesn't mean there isn't a scientifically knowable explanation. Just as the Psalmist wrote there are currents in the oceans (and he wrote this at a time when people thought that the oceans were just big lakes) doesn't mean that the Psalmist was wrong. In fact, there are currents and scientists first made conjectures about such currents from reading Scripture.

God is not joking with us and he is not putting out false clues. How about if we just assume we don't know everything and take him at his Word?

Building support for the Iraq War.

2006-12-15T10:43:00.000-05:00

It amazes me that Liberals are gaining any traction with the dishonest and cynical "Republicans lost in 2006 because of the illicit war in Iraq" line.

Whenever I see this kind of comment I think to myself either the speaker is a liar or an idiot.

Can't we all agree that the war was initially supported in a bipartisan Congressional manner, by a majority of the American people, and it was supported then for the same reasons that it should be supported now? Going into Iraq was the right thing to do then and really, was the only option that was still on the table (given the utter failure of the protracted UN deliberations and proclamations). To claim it is an "illicit war" is factually untrue and an entirely different thing than raising honest questions about how well it is being conducted. The former is deceptive and traitorous, the latter is prudent and reasonable.

So first question that should be answered: Is it a just war?

The answer is clearly "yes" according to any Just War doctrine you can come up with. We know that Saddam was an evil mass murderer. We know he was a threat to our national security as well as those of our allies. We know that he used WMDs. We found WMDs subsequent to our recent liberation efforts there. We know he was in defiance of numerous UN "lines drawn in the sand". We know that he harbored terrorists. We know that he funded terrorists. We know that Saddam violated the terms of the cease fire from the Gulf war which means that we were technically in a state of war with Iraq before we even went into Baghdad. We know he was in violation of UN resolution 1441. ALL of these things were laid out by Bush before he committed troops. When he did commit them he did a stellar job and I commend him. My only complaint at the time was how long it took him to get into gear. He left Saddam WAY too much time to dispose of incriminating evidence and to give the French and Russians the opportunity to undermine our military and intelligence efforts.

Second question. Then why has support waned?

1. Because some people hate Bush regardless of what he does. Remember, he is governing from the left and is still hated by lefties just because he is Bush.

2. Many people are idiots (consider how many people think that the government is behind 9/11). These people are easily swayed by leftist media propaganda about the war. For example, some still actually think we found no WMDs in Iraq despite mountains of evidence to the contrary.

3. Hawks have been disappointed in the manner in which Bush conducted the war post "mission accomplished". He did not secure the Iraq borders so the Iranians have managed to conduct a proxy war in Iraq. He has not cut off sources of funds from Saudi Arabian private interests. He has not "nuked" terrorist strongholds. Bottom line, he is conducting the war like a weeny liberal. This does not please the bulk of the American populace (who are, let's face it, hawks). We want victory. We want to go in and kick some proverbial butt. Instead, we fight like this is some kind of PC police action.

These three reasons add up to a large group of people who are unhappy with Bush's war effort.

Now, is Bush going to win a PR war at home by appeasing the first group that hates him? Of course not. If he brings all the troops home and Iraq falls into anarchy and ends up being worse than the Taliban controlled Afghanistan then the leftist Bush haters will still hate him because that is what they do.

Can he convince the idiot group that the effort is worth it? Probably not because this requires for them to have actual firing brain cells. There is a segment of the population who are "feelers" not "thinkers". Some of these can be educated to a level of cognitive thought that might get them on board but stupidity is a hard thing to overcome. The people who ignorantly cry about not "finding any WMDs" or that "Bush claimed the effort would be a slam dunk" or that that the "administration has changed the reasons for going to war" are not worth reasoning with. All of these assertions have been thoroughly debunked over and over but those idiots are not going to be swayed by facts. In the end, getting support from dumb people is just gravy but cannot be relied upon as the basis for a coalition of support.

The third group is where the President can work to get his credibility back. He needs to ignore the drive-by media, the Iraq Surrender Group, the Democrats (except Zell and Joe), and the socialist countries around the world. He needs to get in there and fight like he means to win. For starters...

- Let our troops take their gloves off.
- Cut off supply lines from Iran and Syria.
- Inform the Saudis that if another drop of money comes from their people to the terrorists that we will immediately start drilling in ANWR for our oil (Bush can start that process tomorrow by Executive Order).
- Establish a strict curfew.
- Bomb terrorist strong-holds even if that results in civilian casualties.
- Execute any Iraqi soldiers who collaborate with terrorists.

Finally, prosecute those in this country who give aid and comfort to the enemy. These people are, to be blunt, traitors. Shut down CNN operations in the States and send collaborators at the NYT and the leakers in the government to jail. Furthermore, threaten to veto EVERY Democrat piece of legislation in the next 2 years if they continue to undermine our efforts in Iraq.

In other words, play hardball.

There are ways to win this war and anything less than an effort to win would be immoral and will leave this world in a bigger mess than it already is.

People STILL believe Bush Lied

2006-11-19T17:56:00.000-05:00

It saddens me to think that the state of our public education system is such that people continue to persist in believing the nonsense that "Bush lied about Iraq WMDs" when there is a mountain of evidence to the contrary.

However, for purposes of argument, if he did lie then all of the libs that came before him lied (and many of these same people are now in control of our government such as Nancy Pelosi or are hoping to become president one day such as Hillary Clinton and Al Gore.)

Maybe it's just that everyone KNOWS that liberal Democrats are liars and that their statements about Saddam's WMDs were just cynical political posturing and to be expected. Meanwhile, no one expected a Republican president to lie and so when Bush started talking about the same things that his predecessor had talked about for years, people were surprised. ("How could President Bush repeat the same lies that Bill Clinton has been telling for years?", they wondered. "Is he just too dumb to realize that Bill Clinton has never been truthful about anything in his life?")

But the record is clear and unambiguous. Either:

a.) Saddam's WMD arsenal WAS a threat and Bush was right to go after him
or
b.) Hillary, Bill, Al Gore, Pelosi, Kerry, Byrd, et.al. were/are all liars of the first order and Bush should have ignored those lies instead of acting on them.

If the latter then maybe Pelosi and Hillary should be impeached when Bush is and thrown out of office. As for Al Gore, he should be permanently relegated to the scare-mongering circuit to peddle his useful-idiotness.

Here is just a small sampling of evidence for what I am saying and should be enough to silence any intellectually honest liberal on the notion that "Bush lied".

"One way or the other, we are determined to deny Iraq the capacity to develop weapons of mass destruction and the missiles to deliver them. That is our bottom line."
President Clinton, Feb. 4, 1998

Quoted on CNN

"If Saddam rejects peace and we have to use force, our purpose is clear. We want to seriously diminish the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program." — President Clinton, Feb. 17, 1998

Quoted on CNN

Iraq is a long way from [here], but what happens there matters a great deal here. For the risks that the leaders of a rogue state will use nuclear, chemical or biological weapons against us or our allies is the greatest security threat we face." — Madeline Albright, Feb 18, 1998

Transcript of remarks made at a Town Hall meeting in Columbus, Ohio — from USIA

"He will use those weapons of mass destruction again, as he has ten times since 1983." — Sandy Berger, Clinton National Security Adviser, Feb 18, 1998

Transcript of remarks made at a Town Hall Meeting in Columbus, Ohio — From USIA

"We urge you, after consulting with Congress, and consistent with the US Constitution and laws, to take necessary actions (including, if appropriate, air and missile strikes on suspect Iraqi sites) to respond effectively to the threat posed by Iraq's refusal to end its weapons of mass destruction programs." — Letter to President Clinton, signed by Sens. Carl Levin (D-MI), Tom Daschle (D-SD), John Kerry (D — MA), and others Oct. 9, 1998

See letter to Clinton by Levin, Daschle, Kerry and others

"Saddam Hussein has been engaged in the development of weapons of mass destruction technology which is a threat to countries in the region and he has made a mockery of the weapons inspection process." — Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D, CA), Dec. 16, 1998

Statement by Rep. Nancy Pelosi — House of Representatives website

"Hussein has chosen to spend his money on building weapons of mass destruction and palaces for his cronies." — Madeline Albright, Clinton Secretary of State, Nov. 10, 1999

Answer to a question at the Chicago Council of Foreign Affairs

"There is no doubt that Saddam Hussein has invigorated his weapons programs. Reports indicate that biological, chemical and nuclear programs continue apace and may be back to pre-Gulf War status. In addition, Saddam continues to redefine delivery systems and is doubtless using the cover of a licit missile program to develop longer-range missiles that will threaten the United States and our allies." — Letter to President Bush, Signed by Sen Bob Graham (D, FL,) and others, December 5, 2001

Letter to President George W. Bush signed by 9 Congressmen, including Democrats Harold Ford, Jr., Joseph Lieberman, and Benjamin Gilman.

" We should be hell bent on getting those weapons of mass destruction, hell bent on having a credible approach to them, but we should try to do it in a way which keeps the world together and that achieves our goal which is removing the... defanging Saddam.." — Sen. Carl Levin (D, MI), Dec. 9, 2002

Online with Jim Lehrer — Public Broadcasting Service

"We know that he has stored secret supplies of biological and chemical weapons throughout his country." — Al Gore, Sept. 23, 2002

Transcript of Gore's speech, printed in USA Today

"Iraq's search for weapons of mass destruction has proven impossible to deter and we should assume that it will continue for as long as Saddam is in power." — Al Gore, Sept. 23, 2002

Transcript of Gore's speech, printed in USA Today

"We have known for many years that Saddam Hussein is seeking and developing weapons of mass destruction."— Sen. Ted Kennedy (D, MA), Sept. 27, 2002

U.S. Senate — Ted Kennedy

"The last UN weapons inspectors left Iraq in October of 1998. We are confident that Saddam Hussein retains some stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons, and that he has since embarked on a crash course to build up his chemical and biological warfare capabilities. Intelligence reports indicate that he is seeking nuclear weapons..." — Sen. Robert Byrd (D, WV), Oct. 3, 2002

Congressional Record — Robert Byrd

"When I vote to give the President of the United States the authority to use force, if necessary, to disarm Saddam Hussein, it is because I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a threat, and a grave threat, to our security and that of our allies in the Persian Gulf region. I will vote yes because I believe it is the best way to hold Saddam Hussein accountable." —Sen. John F. Kerry (D, MA), Oct. 9,2002

Congressional Record — Sen. John F. Kerry

"There is unmistakable evidence that Saddam Hussein is working aggressively to develop nuclear weapons and will likely have nuclear weapons within the next five years .. We also should remember we have always underestimated the progress Saddam has made in development of weapons of mass destruction." — Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D, WV), Oct 10, 2002

Congressional Record — Sen. Jay Rockefeller

"He has systematically violated, over the course of the past 11 years, every significant UN resolution that has demanded that he disarm and destroy his chemical and biological weapons, and any nuclear capacity. This he has refused to do" — Rep. Henry Waxman (D, CA), Oct. 10, 2002

Congressional Record — Rep. Henry Waxman

"In 1998, the United States also changed its underlying policy toward Iraq from containment to regime change and began to examine options to effect such a change, including support for Iraqi opposition leaders within the country and abroad. In the 4 years since the inspectors, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capability, and his nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including al-Qaida members, though there is apparently no evidence of his involvement in the terrible events of September 11, 2001.

"It is clear, however, that if left unchecked, Saddam Hussein wiill continue to increase his capability to wage biological and chemical warfare and will keep trying to develop nuclear weapons. Should he succeed in that endeavor, he could alter the political and security landscape of the Middle East which, as we know all too well, affects American security."
Sen. Hillary Clinton (D, NY), Oct 10, 2002

Congressional Record — Sen. Hillary Clinton

"The Joint Chiefs should provide Congress with casualty estimates for a war in Iraq as they have done in advance of every past conflict. These estimates should consider Saddam's possible use of chemical or biological weapons against our troops.

"Unlike the gulf war, many experts believe Saddam would resort to chemical and biological weapons against our troops in a desperate -attempt to save his regime if he believes he and his regime are ultimately threatened."
Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA) Oct. 8, 2002

Congressional Record — Sen. Ted Kennedy

"There is one thing we agree upon, and that is that Saddam Hussein is an evil man. He is a tyrant. He has used chemical and biological weapons on his own people. He has disregarded United Nations resolutions calling for inspections of his capabilities and research and development programs. His forces regularly fire on American and British jet pilots enforcing the no-fly zones in the north and south of his country. And he has the potential to develop and deploy nuclear weapons... — Sen. Bob Graham (D, FL), Dec. 8, 2002

Congressional Record — Sen. Bob Graham

"To overcome this obstacle, and to discover and dismantle Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction, UNMOVIC and the IAEA must interview relevant persons securely and with their families protected, even if they protest publicly against this treatment. Hans Blix may dislike running ''a defection agency,' but that could be the only way to obtain truthful information about Saddam's weapons of mass destruction."— Sen. Joseph Biden

Congressional Record — Sen. Joseph Biden

"With respect to Saddam Hussein and the threat he presents, we must ask ourselves a simple question: Why? Why is Saddam Hussein pursuing weapons that most nations have agreed to limit or give up? Why is Saddam Hussein guilty of breaking his own cease-fire agreement with the international community? Why is Saddam Hussein attempting to develop nuclear weapons when most nations don't even try, and responsible nations that have them attempt to limit their potential for disaster? Why did Saddam Hussein threaten and provoke? Why does he develop missiles that exceed allowable limits? Why did Saddam Hussein lie and deceive the inspection teams previously? Why did Saddam Hussein not account for all of the weapons of mass destruction which UNSCOM identified? Why is he seeking to develop unmanned airborne vehicles for delivery of biological agents?"
Sen. John F. Kerry (D, MA), October 9, 2002

Congressional Record — Sen. John F. Kerry

"Saddam Hussein's regime represents a grave threat to America and our allies, including our vital ally, Israel. For more than two decades, Saddam Hussein has sought weapons of mass destruction through every available means. We know that he has chemical and biological weapons. He has already used them against his neighbors and his own people, and is trying to build more. We know that he is doing everything he can to build nuclear weapons, and we know that each day he gets closer to achieving that goal.

"Iraq has continued to seek nuclear weapons and develop its arsenal in defiance of the collective will of the international community, as expressed through the United Nations Security Council. It is violating the terms of the 1991 cease-fire that ended the Gulf war and as many as 16 Security Council resolutions, including 11 resolutions concerning Iraq's efforts to develop weapons of mass destruction. — Sen. John Edwards, October 10, 2002

Congressional Record — Sen. John Edwards

Quote research: Mary Mostert

Hypocrits on the Left

2006-10-04T15:44:00.000-05:00

It is the standard mantra of the left that Bill Clinton is in a different category than Mark Foley because he had consensual sex while Foley did not (did Foley even have any sex with these pages?)

Clinton's actions are legally sexual harassment, therefore not "consensual". Any attempt to claim otherwise belies ignorance of a law that Clinton himself supported.

Furthermore, Clinton jeopardized national security during his sexual escapades. Can't claim this of Foley.

Clinton is lionized by Dems to this day despite his criminal behavior. Can't claim that of the GOP.

DEMs covered up the IMs so that they could drop an October Surprise, can't claim that of the GOP.

The Dems love to confuse and deceive people by conflating the Foley emails with the Foley IMs. They do this in a meanspirited and hateful attempt to fool people into demanding Hastert's resignation.

Dems love the gay pimps and the Klansmen in their midst and never ask for those resignations. Buy wow, they demand that anyone on the Republican side who even may have been in a position to know of private IMs (but didn't) should resign. How many Dems know that Barney Frank was running the prostitute ring out of his house? Did they resign?

Dems sign legislation all the time that makes illegal, activity in which they themselves engage (sexual harassment, theft, rape, racial discrimination, etc.)

Foley is out. When are Frank, Byrd, and the other disgraced politicians in the Democrat party going to resign?

IDF attacks Reuters Photographer During Lecture

2006-08-07T09:36:00.000-05:00

The Israeli IDF is admitting that bad intelligence resulted in the "accidental" firebombing of Reuters photographer, Adnan Hajj, while he spoke on a panel at the Lebanese American University.

Developing...

On Who's Authority?

2006-07-06T10:34:00.000-05:00

Self proclaimed historian, Howard Zinn writes today in the Progressive: "Is not nationalism -- that devotion to a flag, an anthem, a boundary so fierce it engenders mass murder -- one of the great evils of our time, along with racism, along with religious hatred?"

One always has to wonder upon what moral authority any Lib like Zinn can claim that something is "evil". They don't believe in God, the Bible, or any absolute authority so how can there be any basis for determining anything is bad or good? I'd like him to point to some ultimate authoritative voice that would help us know that American nationalism is a bad thing. He won't be able to because he doesn't believe in absolute moral authority.

His only moral compass is the ramblings of his own demented mind, in other words, he is holding himself up as the final arbiter of what is wrong and right. When a person like Zinn does this he is, in fact, declaring "Your god is false for I am God".

But herein lies a conudrum. Zinn does not believe in Divine providence so one has to assume that he has to question his own self-proclaimed divinity. What to do?

In the Liberal world view, there is no absolute right and wrong - except what they claim themselves but even that has to be relative since these people are generally fine with killing thousands if done by one of their own (FDR, LBJ, JFK, Clinton, et. al.). They hate nationalism except when their guy is in power and then they are cool with it. How can one live in such a constant state of cognitive dissonance?

Generally, Conservatives need to remind Liberals that their own ideology PREVENTS them from declaring anything to be evil. Only God can establish that measure and since they don't believe in God, then the alternative must be survival of the fittest - every man for himself. If they can't agree to that then the only other option is to set themselves up as the ultimate authority of what is evil and what is not. However this makes them into the ultimate capricious god since it is their feelings at the moment that determines what is evil and what is not.

This is what makes people like Zinn more dangerous than any indian killing settler, or even Japanese interning Dem president. The level of narcissism required to establish oneself as the ultimate arbiter of good and bad is breathtaking in its arrogance.

Zinn and his ilk have an ideology that ultimately cares not for justice or peace. He hates God and so he sets himself in God's place. But that generates a self-loathing that results in a form of insanity that only suicide or conversion to a true belief in the God of the Universe can cure.

Personally, I would never call a person who could not learn from history a "historian". Do we call a guy who keeps wiring houses so poorly that they burn down, an electrician? Do we call a person who can't read a librarian?

If I found that a school my kid was attending was using Zinn's writings for anything but lining the cage of the kindergarten hamster habitat, I would have words with those in charge of the curricula. Idiocy.

The More Successful Effort

2006-07-05T23:19:00.000-05:00

Star Parker writes on the Liberal mind's inability to learn from history over at World Net Daily.

This sparked a question in my mind. What has been more successful, the War on Poverty or the War in Iraq?

Just asking...

On Hiatus

2006-04-07T09:22:00.000-05:00

The Aerie is on hiatus for the near term while we are in the midst of a new start-up venture.

Superbowl 40 Fixed?

2006-02-07T22:07:00.000-05:00

The 2006 Seattle/Pittsburg Superbowl had all the appearances of a fixed game. Until there is an investigation, there is no way to know for sure what happened. Whether the NFL needed Pittsburg to win or the refs were somehow on the take, we don’t yet know. One thing is for sure, it is really hard to chalk up the horrendous one-sided officiating to incompetence.

Seattle lost because the referees shifted the momentum to the Steelers at multiple key moments in the game. This is what the game came down to. It is the job of the officials to keep the game fair not the opposite.

The early Offensive Pass Interference (OPI) call that went against the Seahawks was obviously incorrect. To wit: the DB interfered with the WR twice before the touchdown pass (once right in front of the ref just prior to the WR “pushing off"). Either it should have been called as defensive pass interference or ignored altogether. If you’re going to call OPI you better be DANG SURE that the defender didn’t interfere first (which in this case he did).

The call giving the dubious touchdown to Pittsburg was also wrong as a matter of simple geometry and physics. The on-axis camera angle may have been inconclusive given that the QB’s hand was blocking the view of the football when he hit the turf but it clearly showed the position of his forearm which is all we need to know as far as the position of the ball is concerned.

The corner endzone camera showed that the ball was not in the QB’s hands but rather by his forearm (and going even further toward his chest as he fell) when he hit the ground. This shot may not have shown the the location of the ball at the end of the fall but we do see it just before. All the replay reviewer had to do would have been to note where the ball was relative to the QB’s hands (moving back towards the QB’s chest in the area of his forearm) and then look at the on axis goal line camera and note where the forearm was when he hit the ground. The ball was about 4-6_ back from the goal line.

In both of these cases, the refs changed the course of the game in a way that was unfair to the Seahawks. This momentum change, coupled with other dubious calls, dramatically and obviously affected the mood of the underdog Seahawks. They never really played the same after this 14 point swing in the favor of the Steelers.

This is not to excuse them for not pulling it together and trying to overcome the officiating but they just could not get a break from the officials. When that happened, the impression was solidified that the fix was in. Seahawk morale deteriorated while the Steelers, seeing that they could do no wrong in the eyes of the refs, had their confidence buoyed.

The Seahawks should have ignored the momentum altering calls but because they didn’t, they lost.

Numerous press stories here, and
here, and
here, and
here seem to support the contention that something went horribly wrong with Sunday’s officiating.

Seattle did have problems with clock management and dropped balls but they still would have beaten the lackluster Steelers had they not had the cards stacked against them.

I've already outlined two questionable calls that, had they gone the other direction, Pittsburg would have lost. This does not count the other half dozen or so highly questionable calls that either cost Seattle huge amounts of yardage or set Pittsburg up for a couple of TDs. Nor does it include the fact that Pittsburg was only penalized ONCE in the game on the ref's own volition.

Here is a rundown of the moments wherein the officials mistakenly altered the basic momentum of the game:

-SECOND drive of the game. On 3rd down, Hasselback connects with Jackson for a first down on Pittsburgh 20 BUT:

Highly dubious holding penalty is called on the Seahawks -- Seattle is forced to punt - scoring opportunity for the Seahawks taken away.

-THIRD Drive - Hasselback connects with Darrel Jackson -- Seattle touchdown BUT:

OPI penalty is called that should have been called as a DPI or ignored because of mutual contact. Seattle settles for a field goal.

-FOURTH Drive - punt returned by Seattle 39 yards for a first down on the Pittsburgh 40 BUT:

ANOTHER SUSPECT PENALTY (a trend?) Every big play so far a penalty is called against Seattle. Seahawks must instead start on their 22 instead of Pittsburgh 40 - The Seahawks probably would have added at least another 3 points on this drive.

-Right before the half -- Pittsburgh comes up short on a QB rush to the goal line. BUT:

Despite not making it to the goal line, seven points are awarded to Pittsburg instead. Yes, they may have gotten a TD the next down but we'll never know. In any case, this call was a further indication of the bias of the officiating and a huge blow to Seattle morale.

SECOND HALF - Seahawks starts drive from their own 2 with score 14 - 10 - Hasselback connects to Stevens for first down on the Pittsburgh 1 BUT:

ANOTHER BIG PLAY PENALTY called on the Seahawks - What would have been a certain touchdown and 17-14 lead for Seattle instead turned into third and long and forced Hasselback to throw a desperation pass that was intercepted.

-On the Pittsburg run-back, Hasselback makes an amazing tackle after the interception BUT:

ANOTHER PENALTY giving the Steelers a gift first down at the Seahawks 45 and setting them up for their trick pass touchdown.

Here are some additional facts to mull over:

1. Every penalty called on the Seahawks happened on a game changing play. -- Not a single penalty was called on a short yardage gain or on an incomplete pass. Now that is just odd, don't you think?

2. Pittsburgh, arguably the most physical team in the NFL had only THREE penalties called against them in the entire game! 2 were for false starts (and note that the Seahawks' defensive lineman had to point out the penalty by initiating contact with the Pittsburgh player after they moved to get the official to call the penalty). That left only ONE Penalty called on Pittsburgh the ENTIRE GAME!

3. Going into this game the Seahawks were the second least penalized team in the NFL.

4. Pittsburgh on Sunday, was the FIRST team to ever win the Superbowl while having more turnovers than their opponents.

5. Ben Rothslisberger (with his terrible 22.9 QB rating) has the lowest rating in the history of the Superbowl for a team that WON the Superbowl.

6. Seattle outplayed Pittsburg in every stat category and is the first team to ever lose a Superbowl under that circumstance.

I won't go into all the suspicious penalties beyond those I have listed above given that the links to writers above go into that detail for me.

Suffice to say, had just two of the obviously wrong calls made by the refs gone the other way, we would be talking today about how Pittsburg deserved to lose given their terrible offense and inability to overcome the huge rushing and pass advantages of the Seahawks. Instead, the terrible officiating is the discussion.

Polipundit Off the Preferred Blog List

2006-02-07T21:25:00.000-05:00

For about a year I have been a regular reader and discussion commentor over at Polipundit but as of today, I can no longer recommend it nor will I be reading it. Until they remove a guy named DJ Drummond from the lineup of contributors, I won't be visiting.

Drummond was a leading "Bush bootlicker" in the Harriet Miers nomination debacle and often stooped to calling those who disagreed with the SCOTUS selection "bast*rds" and other niceties. Nearly every time he posts he is wrong and thus, I stopped reading him on a regular basis after his performance on the Miers issue.

His recent attempt to analyze Islam falls equally as short. Comparing Islam's and Christianity's history without a well-rounded understanding of either is just one of many exmples of how he misses the mark. Once one reads about 3 paragraphs of any of his columns, one realizes that Drummond is not only uninformed but has an indearing inflexibility and arrogance to go along with the ignorance.

But this is not the only reason I won't be stopping by there any longer. Polipundit is cursed with some of the worst forum software currently available (at least the version that is running there). No preview, no warnings about incorrect HTML, no spam prevention, and no user registration.

I liked Lori Byrd and Polipundit's title contributor but overall, it's simply not worth the aggravation.

Moving on...

UPDATE: Polipundit has spun out of control. Good riddance.
UPDATE: Lori Byrd has joined Wizbang! The Aerie wishes her well.

Did God Take Vengeance on New Orleans?

2006-01-18T16:10:00.000-05:00

Recently the Mayor of New Orleans said:

"Surely God is mad at America. He sent us hurricane, after hurricane, after hurricane . . . [and He] . . . . doesn’t approve of us being in Iraq under false pretenses….

During a Polipundit discussion of these comments a liberal posted a comment to which I responded and have included below:

maybe God *is* mad we invaded Iraq! did that not ever occur to any of you?

Our country went in and saved 50+ million people from the evil dictatorships in Iraq and Afghanistan. Under those dictatorships the populace was not allowed to practice the religion of their choice and certainly neither Christianity nor Judaism. Part of the Great Commission of Jesus Christ were His words "go unto all the nations and tell them the good news of My coming". This commission is impossible to fulfill if people are not free.

So in a word, it is God's will that people be set free to choose Him (or not choose Him as the case may be.) He has used our nation in carrying out his purposes countless times in this regard.

at the time, the Pope was against it, and, as we all know, he’s divinely inspired.

People can disagree on when the Just War principle should be applied in any given war. This has been discussed at length in other threads but the long and short of it is, the liberation of Iraq follows the RCC's own Just War doctrine. Maybe the Pope (who is NOT divinely inspired BTW) simply decided that he would not look to his own church's policy in this particular case.

and Jesus was a pacifist.

I would have to disagree with this. Jesus is God. The God of the Bible is a judge and has often commanded the destruction of whole nations.

Jesus taught that we should not take revenge and he also taught that we need to be submissive to our government. Also, as I mentioned above, telling people the gospel requires that people be free to hear it.

Of course, I doubt that GW is freeing Iraq so that missionaries can move in but certainly, a free people obtains the privilege of deciding how and who to worship. A good commentary on this the issue of whether Jesus was a pacifist can be found here.

many of you people ascribe to the Bible, you say your Christians, and that’s great, but when someone actually speaks out in such a way that explicitly conforms to the Bible’s teachings (Nagin, Robertson), you get all bent out of shape, like its crazy talk. but in reality, it’s quite the opposite.

This is certainly a valid consideration but let me suggest that Nagin was clearly speaking from a political perspective, not a Biblical one. As I've said above, God is not going to punish a nation for doing His will. His will is for people to be free to follow Him and for righteous people to protect the vulnerable. Saddam was thwarting any hope for his citizenry to worship freely. They were being killed by the thousands. America stepped up and righted that horrible wrong.

Nagin is just talking out of his hat. He is invoking God's name to cover his own backside. Robertson has never done that.

It is more likely that the floods in NO are the result of poor planning over the last 200 years rather than God's vengeance.

Jesus said “turn the other cheek.” So maybe God is mad.

This is clearly not an admonition by Jesus to a nation like the US. Contextually, this is an admonition for Christians to not retaliate for revenge. America is not a "Christian" even though America has always sought to conform itself to Judeo/Christian standards of Just War (i.e. defensive wars). We are not imperialistic and in fact, we are typically saviors (c.f. WWI, WWII, WWIII (Cold War), WWIV (GWOT)).

When it comes down to it, the reality is that our efforts in the middle east are geared toward the protection of Israel. Most Christians believe that this nation has been blessed by God because of our protection of that nation. I would hope that we would never stop being their protector but regrettably, that is a false hope. The Book of Revelation says that eventually an American leader will forfeit our role as Israel's protector at which time, Armageddon will quickly follow.

On that happy note...

Forgotten Holidays

2005-12-28T01:53:00.000-05:00

This Kwanzaa stuff is nice and all but what we really need to do is celebrate the ancient holiday of Geehahhd. It is a holiday commemorating native Muslim customs and traditions. The seven pillars of the Geehahhd holiday observance are:

-Order. Practical Application: Help nonobservant folks to understand, appreciate, and grow to love their proper place in the world.
-Cleanliness. Practical Application: Remove large ugly skyscrapers from the skylines of big cities.
-Tranquility. Practical Application: Eliminate crowding on tour buses in Israel.
-Health. Practical Application: Assist people who don't believe in Geehahhd to lose weight... above the shoulders.
-Poetic Justice. Practical Application: Burn down France.
-Freedom of Speech. Practical Application: Make legal cell phone calls from mosques in NYC to villas in Riyadh using "rollover" minutes.
-Submission. Practical Application: Everyone in the world bows toward Mecca or else.

Note: Additional information about the holiday is sketchy due to the fact that its author is summering (and wintering) somewhere in the hills of Afghanistan and is unavailable for comment.

This holiday needs to be part of the multicultural curricula in every 3rd grade class in America. Furthermore, it should be observed every September 11th and be made a federal holiday for government employees.

Can Rudy beat Hillary?

2005-12-12T12:13:00.000-05:00

Over at Polipundit a discussion is underway on whether Rudy could beat Hillary. I maintain that she can because Rudy is a social liberal, something that the conservative base of the Republican party would stay home in droves rather than vote for. Some think that this is not true but I’m not sure I see any historical validation of this view. Quite the opposite:

- Carter won because Ford could not motivate the base.
- Clinton won because Bush stepped over onto the left side on taxes (actually he was rolled but he still veered left),
- Clinton won again because Dole agreed with the Democrats a few too many times while Senate ML (albeit for political expediency rather than because he agreed with them),
- GW almost lost twice because he demonstrated he is outright center/left when it comes to spending, education, prescription drugs and border policy.

Just imagine if Bush had been pro-choice. Would he have won? I guarantee you he would have lost a significant share of the conservative vote and we would be in a second term of Al Gore right now had he not taken a stand for life.

Hillary is a much more formidable candidate than either Gore or Kerry if for no other reason than she is a liberal woman by the name of Clinton. She is also a demonstrably principled liberal and has been all her life. Likewise, Rudy is much more of a principled individual than Dole or GHWB. Both probably will stick to their ideological guns.

So when he comes out with a lib position on an issue, I’m inclined to think that he is neither going to change his mind nor would he be a wallflower about those issues. Either he is principled (the reason some are giving for liking him) and therefore he will stand up for the things he has espoused he believes in. Or he will flip flop on those liberal issues to get elected, thereby disqualifying himself from getting support for being “principled". Either way, he’s non-electible.

God's Blessing on this Thanksgiving

2005-11-24T10:33:00.000-05:00

Early Saturday morning, driving home from a gig in Savannah, the members of the Christian rock band "Any Given Moment" were tired and eagerly anticipating reaching their homes in Atlanta Georgia. It was on a lonely stretch of I16 between Savannah and Macon when the SUV, carrying 5 members of the band and two others drifted slightly to the center median. The young driver, not realizing the effect that their trailer would have on the van, over-corrected and instantly, the whole rig started cartwheelling.

After flipping 4 times and landing on an embankment on the right hand side of the freeway, one of the occupants, guitarist Luke Hickok, looked back to see two of their number missing. He wrestled the door open and found his buddy, and fellow guitarist, Michael Jones, about 25 feet from the van. He had been ejected from the vehicle as he was one of two people who did not have a seat belt available to him. With one look he realized that Michael was too severely injured for him to be able to do anything for him. He called to Kyle, Michael's brother and bass player for the band over and Luke went in search of his sister Shea. She was the other occupant who did not have a seat belt available to her and thus, was also ejected from the van during one of its flips. She was found pinned under their trailer and so immediately, three of the band members lifted the weight off of her only to find her stiff and unbreathing. Luke carefully turned her on her side and suddenly she coughed up blood and started to take in air again.

Twenty minutes later, the ambulance arrived. In the meantime, Michael had died in his brother's arms. Michael was 19 years old and the boyfriend of Shea. He was a committed believer in Jesus Christ and therefore, is at this moment, in Paradise with his Savior. Thousands attended the three different services that were held this week in the north Atlanta area where he grew up.

Meanwhile, Shea has been clinging on to life. The doctors did not expect her to live the night given the horrific nature of her injuries. She experienced massive trauma to her upper body which collapsed her lungs. Most of the bones in her face are shattered, one of the most excruciatingly painful injuries any human can experience. Ironically, it may have been this pain that kept her alive given that she screamed for the entire trip to the hospital. This kept her lungs functioning, if only partially, and may be why she survived.

Tens of thousands of people are praying for Shea and her family. Steve Hickok is my business partner and so his emotional trauma affects me deeply as well. Steve is one of the most talented painters, photographers, and worship leaders in the country. His wife, Susan, is a beautiful and gifted individual in her own right. They have two sons, Luke, a talented 15 year old guitarist and Jesse, a 9 year old kid who is just now coming to grips with this tragedy.

Pray for them all.

For Shea's current status visit her blog.

The CIA's Attempted Coup

2005-11-05T21:13:00.000-05:00

Consider this scenario for a moment.

The CIA, unhappy with the conservative leanings of the Bush administration and paranoid about pending house cleaning in their bureaucratic ranks, decides to undertake a palace coup to replace Bush with Kerry by undermining the president's credibility leading up to the 2004 elections. But how to do it?

9/11 gave Bush a huge boost as a result of his steadfast leadership. The CIA knows that, in order to replace Bush it has to surreptitiously attack him on this point. The president, from almost immediately after 9/11, points to Iraq as a terrorist nation. But Bush is cautious. He doesn't want to just drop a cruise missile somewhere in Bagdad like his predecessor had a predilection to do. No, he needed a very powerful set of verifiable reasons to go the whole nine yards: REGIME CHANGE!

The CIA, seeing that Bush requires a rationale for the impending liberation of Iraq, provides him with what he needs: Saddam has a major chemical weapons program and maybe worse! This makes sense in that Saddam had used chem WMDs before and he has made no bones about his desire to go nuclear. The CIA thus provides a willing White House with bogus information regarding mobile labs, weapons grade tubes that can be used to make nukes, weapons stockpiles, etc.

The CIA has connections deep inside Interpol and other spy agencies in semi-friendly "allies", all who are eager to undermine Bush as well. They go along with the charade that Saddam has an active WMD program knowing that soon, Bush will have been revealed to have gone to war for the wrong reasons.

In order for this coup to actually work however, it needs to have a trigger mechanism. Once the administration was successfully set up, the CIA needed a Washington insider with cred to go public with a high profile critique of Bush's WMD assertions. This leads us to the Wilson Gambit. The CIA can't send one of its own out to criticize the White House but it can send a proxy. But said proxy should have a pretext for making such a bold proclamation as "Bush lied". So Joe Wilson is deployed by the CIA to Niger who comes back and immediately writes an op ed about how Saddam had no intention of buying material to build nuclear weapons.

This cements the notion in a great many people's minds that Bush lied his way into war. The CIA need only wait for the first Tuesday in November.

Too bad the American people still voted a second term to Bush. D'oh!

Gotta Love Ann

2005-10-26T21:34:00.000-05:00

I have to say, Ann Coulter is my favorite columnist. She has been savaged of late for her stand against Harriet Miers and her latest column is just going to cause people to go even more ballistic.

So, for all those who love to knee-jerk against Coulter because she has the sharpest tongue on the planet. I have distilled her points into something less amusing/biting but maybe easier to swallow:

——————

- Nixon went liberal on his base and they ultimately abandoned him.

- Bush has gone liberal and the base will abandon him.

- Conservatives have been unhappy with many Bush policies but were confident Bush would never let them down on the two most important issues of our time: the war on terrorism and the Supreme Court. Bush bashed conservative hopes on the latter.

- When conservatives complained when Bush nominated a woman because “Laura wanted a woman", the WH informed the base that only senators vote on judicial nominees.

- When conservatives complained because Bush nominated someone without experience the WH accused conservatives of elitism and sexism.

- The WH believes that we are “uneducated” and “easily led” and, acting on that belief, snookered a few evangelical leaders into supporting Miers. But apparently, at least half of the evangelical base decided not to buy in.

- The White House chose Tom Rath, the guy who assisted in getting Souter confirmed, to threaten Republican senators who are thinking of voting against Miers.

- The White House and its supporters keep saying we need to wait for the hearings to see if Miers is qualified. We know she’s not qualified so the nomination hearings will not tell us anything new.

- Just because Miers might say at the hearings she opposes “judicial activism” will not mean anything, Chuck Schumer claims he opposes “judicial activism,” too.

- If Miers gets on the court, Democrats believe Bush will have exposed himself as cowardly and will take further advantage but next time he will have to face them without his “armies.”

- “Bush has screwed his base, screwed Republican senators, screwed legal conservatives.” In so doing, he has lost the critical support he will need when things go bad for his administration in some future time of need.

————–

Now that Coulter’s wit has been filtered from the above prose, do any of these arguments carry any more weight?

Pro Miers Commentators Hypocritical?

2005-10-09T19:33:00.000-05:00

Could a pro-Harriet Miers pundit please explain their primary arguments a little further?

Argument #1. President has sole authority to make SCOTUS decisions so people should stop complaining.

I assume that those who advance the "Presidential Constitutional absolute authority" position with regard to the selection of Supreme Court nominees would apply this argument consistently? When a Democrat President nominates say, Laney Davis, it should go without saying that the people making this argument will support Davis? If not, should it even be a talking point?

Argument #2. President Bush's decision-making should be trusted because he has more information than we do (or whatever the reason for trusting is being proffered).

This is kind of a kissing cousin to argument #1 without the Constitutional technicalities to support it. To be less Socratic than the Laney Davis rhetoric, would the person offering this defense of HM have supported what many believed, was Bush's preferred first choice: AG Gonzales?

Furthermore, since there is no Constitutional prose that speaks to the "trust the president" argument, I assume that this is more of a general premise by which GOPers should look at all of Bush's decisions. If it applies to the SCOTUS nominees, does it not also apply to the President's rationale on immigration policy for example? Maybe this is a limited trust thing (based on his past court nominees)? This may be a valid argument but I have read several quality commentaries that demonstrate that GHWB and Reagan both made similarly high quality lower court picks before making poor quality higher court nominations.

#3. The "kooks" on the right were never elected president and they should just go away" argument.

I really don't understand this particular line of reasoning. It is especially ironic when it includes comments like "Coulter is a snob" as if this was a support for HM. Aside from the fact that her "snobbishness" is really is beside the point, is not a snob a person who chooses to only relate with a small group of select cronies and only take advice from said small insider cadre? In any case, are snobs now prohibited from having their comments on this nominee considered? Are the "kooks" like Krauthammer, Noonan, Ned Ryan, et. al. suddenly persona non grata ? Maybe I'm missing something but how does banning a snob (especially a brilliant one) from consideration make any logical sense?

Maybe there are more Pro-HM arguments that I am missing but these seem to be the primary ones I have run across and I am failing to see the internal consistency of the arguments.

To my mind, if these are your arguments then it appears you should:

a. never question a judicial nominee of either party.
b. trust all of Bush's future decisions.
b. cease consideration of the opinions of Krauthammer, Will, et. al. because you don't listen to "elitists", "whiners", and "kooks".

Honest attempts to set me straight on this would be appreciated.

How to determine: Idiot or not an Idiot?

2005-10-01T17:03:00.000-05:00

We now have a foolproof way of determining if someone is a total blithering idiot. I have been looking for a test of some kind for a while and now we have one.

Ask someone, "Do you think Bill Bennett is a racist based on his remarks on his radio show last Wednesday regarding abortion?"

If they do, they are an idiot. Taking someone completely out of context, reading into their clearly stated remarks the exact opposite of what they said, and then spreading that ignorance around to others is a sure sign of an ignoramus. Of course, they could be doing it purposefully and thereby, are more on the deceitful side of the spectrum than the stupid one. Nancy Pelosi is a good example of the former whereas Barbara Boxer is a prime example of the latter.

For a more in-depth explanation of why it is impossible for Bennett to be what his critics are saying, read this column from Andy McCarthy.

Cult of Windows

2005-09-27T10:59:00.000-05:00

It has been a while since I did a Mac v. Windows column but now that it looks like a "new" OS from Microsoft, Windows Vista, is finally going to be released and Apple is just about to up the ante with a new line of PowerMacs, I thought the time was ripe.

A few years ago Wired magazine ran a column comparing Mac users to a cult. I ran across the article again recently and I have to say that Wired was totally out to lunch on this one. The column is replete with assertions that Mac users are fanatical nuts, going so far as to ask (and later answer in the affirmative):

The Mac community may resemble a congregation, but is it a cult, full of zombie-like fans, slavishly devoted to Apple and all its works? Would Mac fans quaff poisoned Kool-Aid if Steve Jobs commanded it?

But nowhere in the article does one find any comment on the slavish followers of Windows. In any case, the idea that loving the Mac is cultish can only be considered a complete misunderstanding of what constitutes a cult.

As a longtime Mac user, a former IT manager at a major UC university where both Macs and PCs were in heavy use, and someone who has extensively studied cults, I can assure you that the term is misapplied, both in this article and throughout the tech media. The closest the article comes to making a connection is that a cult has a charismatic leader. Having never interacted with Steve Jobs, I can’t say whether he is or is not charismatic or if he even is a leader when it comes to those who use his product. I do know people at Apple and I can assure you that the employees of Apple do not revere Jobs as some kind of Messianic persona. So even on this partial definition of a cult we see a breakdown when applied to Apple.

In reality, the generally accepted primary definition of a cult is a "false religion" or an erroneous deviation from orthodoxy. If computing is a religion then we should ask where is it true and where is it false. Where are people brainwashed and where are those who have truly researched the best manner of computing? Where are a few insiders benefiting while mind-numbed masses send in billions of dollars to the head guru.

Using these more appropriate definitions of where cultish computer-buying behavior resides might we instead turn our gaze toward Windows? Where else are people so easily sucked into false teachings? Where else in modern purchasing behaviors do we find so many people blindly buying a product based solely on spin, misinformation and outright false advertising rather than quality, performance, and value? For nearly every other major product-buying decision, and especially for the Mac, people do concerted research, look at all options and buy with due diligence. For some reason, huge numbers of people buy Windows as if they were blindly following the Rev. Moon.

But let's look at the specific definition of a cult. From the Oxford English Dictionary:

Cult

1. a system of religious veneration and devotion directed toward a particular figure or object.

Both platforms have devotees. No help here.

2. a relatively small group of people having religious beliefs or practices regarded by others as strange or sinister.

This points much more in the direction of Win zealots than Mac zealots. Most Win users either hate the OS or are ambivalent about it. Relative to the installed base the Win zealots are definitely a small group while Mac zealots are a huge portion of the installed base.

The question is, which group follows something "strange or sinister"?

Nearly everyone agrees that as one of the most monopolistic corporations in the world, Microsoft, is a predator. Furthermore, its primary product is an odd amalgam of ancient code, poor design practices, terrible GUI, and other strangeness. If Windows was released today it would be laughed out of the marketplace. Fortunately for Redmond, they were able to get their grip before people realized they had been sucked into a strange and sinister black hole.

3. a misplaced or excessive admiration for a particular person or thing.

Is the choice of a superior product "misplaced or excessive"? Hardly.

Conversely, what can one say about a misplaced admiration of Windows? Desperately defending a 1990s vintage OS that was never really updated, is buggy, virus infected, clunky, ugly, expensive, and dying by saying "everybody uses it so it must be the best" is simply cultish.

4. a person or thing that is popular or fashionable, esp. among a particular section of society.

Hard to say how this could apply to either. Windows is "popular" while Macs are "fashionable".

But let's sum up:

1 and 4 could apply to Mac zealots.

1, 2, 3, and 4 apply to Windows zealots with 2 and 3 DEFINITELY applying.

There is simply no defense of Windows as a multi-purpose OS on the merits. Windows holds market share largely by sheer momentum. That alone is enough to keep it on desktops where it really doesn't have a right to be. But defending its use as a general purpose productivity OS is the very definition of cult.

Misunderstanding Abounds

2005-09-20T21:43:00.001-05:00

Recently I partook in a discussion thread that focused on Dan Rather, ID, and Evolution. When the following ill-informed statement was made, I felt compelled to remind the poster that Christ died to atone for the sin and death that initially, Adam brought into the world.

TotallySirius said on 9/20/2005 at 09:54AM PDT
God created evolution.
End of arguement [sic].

My response: The Bible is anti-evolution from Genesis to Revelation. If "God" used evolution to create the universe then the Bible (and thus, Christianity) is a lie.

TotallySirius said on 9/20/2005 at 10:26AM PDT
Does not the Bible state that the motives and devices of God are beyond the ken of mortal man? I've read the Bible many times and I can't find a single anti-evolution passage. If you know of any please post them, this is a subject of serious interest with me.

My response (excerpted from an earlier column:) If the Bible is true, then evolution CANNOT be the way God created life. On a doctrinal level, the Bible teaches that Christ died for our sins. Even the marginally informed non-Christian knows this. Probably the best single sentence summary of the Gospel is 1 Corinthians 15:21 where we read: "For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man."

This is the central truth of Scripture upon which every thing else hangs.

According to the Bible, a specific real man (Adam) committed the first real sin and brought the first real physical death into the world. To remove this curse, according to the Bible, God Himself mandated that the physical sacrificial death of His own son was necessary. The alert reader will immediately recognize the problem then with God using evolution as a methodology for creating/advancing life.

Evolution (regardless of which theory you subscribe to) REQUIRES millions of years of death before Adam arrives on the scene. If death, as evolutionists assert, existed for millions of years before Adam's arrival 6 or 7 thousand years ago, then Christ died for nothing. In other words, if evolution is true then the Gospel message is false. QED

Don't let anyone convince you of the lie that God used evolution as a creative methodology. The Bible goes to great lengths to say just the opposite. It's almost as if God knew that people would make the argument later on ;-)

Then someone else chimed in:

plutosdad said on 9/20/2005 at 10:42AM PDT

I thought the "since death came through a man" referred to the second death, not the first (physical) death.

My response: This is a common argument posited by theistic evolutionists but it doesn't hold water for one primary reason. Death is stated to be a curse on ALL of creation (including things that have no souls). Thus Christ had to die a physical death in order to atone for the sin that was bringing physical death to the world. If the "death" spoken of by Paul was merely spiritual then Christ needed only to die spiritually in order to atone for the sins of men.

Again, the complete explanation for why the first sin brought on physical death needs to be detailed and is thus, beyond the scope of a thread on Dan Rather. Suffice to say, if you are a liberal theologian then the term "death" can mean anything you want it to mean. If the original words of the Bible (just like the original words of the Constitution) mean what they say then the death spoken of by Paul was physical.

Then another spoke up:
Fatal said on 9/20/2005 at 11:13AM PDT

Many people point out that the first Chapter of Genesis indicates that during the creation, God created animals and plants, each to reproduce "after its kind", which would mean that a cow produced a cow, it didn't produce a proto-evolutionary creature that would one day become something other than a cow.

But, I doubt that is conclusive evidence that the Bible is anti-evolution or that God couldn't create an evolutionary process - after all he is God!

Me responding to Fatal, a Christian who was simply trying to say that God can do anything. I did not want people to misconstrue his comments to mean that God used evolution to create life:

The Bible is a lie if God used Evolution to create the universe. According to the Scriptures, physical death on this planet arose about 7000 years ago when Adam first sinned. Thus, Christ had to come and die in order to turn that curse around (for those who chose to believe in Him).

You may not agree with ID but that does not change the fact that the Bible is ANTI-Evolution throughout. Let me repeat, only the ignorant think that the God of the Old and New Testament created using an evolutionary process.

If He did then His son died for nothing!

If I were God, I would not send my son on a sacrificial fool's errand.

God: "Did I create using evolution? Then why did I have my son go and die an agonizing and brutal death on the cross? D'oh! Note to Self: I created using evolution, no need to send Son again to die for nothing."

Me responding to the a general postulate amongst several posters in the thread that "evolution" refers to both abiogenesis and microevolution:

Those who continue to dismiss ID as "religion" and not scientific have not kept up on the current state of research in the field. ID is all about information theory. The process of arranging amino acids into proteins is a problem of coding. This cannot happen by chance.

This reminds me, after hundreds of posts, I still find that many evolution proponents in this thread tend to conflate the various aspects of evolutionary theory. This in itself should disqualify them from speaking authoritatively on the subject.

Please allow me to define in simple terms:

Microevolution: Intraspecies changes that result from environmental pressures. Changes in the height of Japanese men, viral adaptation, expansion of the number of breeds in dogs, etc. would fall into this category. NO ID proponent has a problem with this and indeed, it should not even be termed an evolutionary process but rather, an adaptive process (this would quiet the folks who get confused by a term that has the word "evolution" in it but which doesn't actually refer to the theory at all.)

Macroevolution: This typically refers to the field of study more technically referred to as "Organic" or "Biological" Evolution. This is the theory that once life arose on the planet that, given enough time, it went from single cell to George Bush. It DOES NOT seek to explain the origin of life but rather the origin of the species.

There is another whole line of evolutionary research that people tend to conflate with biological evolution and that is the field of "chemical" evolution. This is the theory trying to explain how life arose in the first place (called "Abiogenesis"). About 40 years ago researchers thought this happened by chance but when the mathematical odds proved too daunting, they moved on (although the public schools did not). Chemical evolutionary researchers are now largely pursuing, not the theory that life arose by "chance", but rather by "necessity". If you see someone point to crystal formation as proof of chemical evolution they have left Chance behind and have moved to Necessity.

The dirty little secret of evolutionary research is that these are the only two possible primary explanations for abiogenesis (I'm leaving the multiverse and panspermia theories off to the side for now).

It's either Chance, or Necessity to Mainstream Science.

But there is a third possiblity. That being Design. This is the field in which SETI lives. They are listening, not for random noise that occasionally sounds designed, they are not even looking for repeating patterns (which can be found in Quasars for example). They are looking for something that is designed. They are looking for aperiodic patterns that have, at their heart, information. SETI is not the only program that is looking for Design but it is the most well known.

Chance, Necessity, Design. All are potential areas of scientific study. In the search for life, it is either Necessity or Design.

Fatal then said: I also believe that God is omnipotent, and therefore, could have created an evolutionary process. Do you disagree or do you think God is incapable of doing so (NOT whether He did it or not, but CAN He do it?)

But of course He CAN. He can do anything that is in character for Him.

He could have just created Man and a pomegranate tree (no Eve) and left it at that. But He didn't.

He could have made it so we could live on the moon without space suits. But He didn't.

He could have come up with an entirely different plan than to sacrifice His son. But He didn't.

The plan He came up with is outlined in the Bible and that outline specifically negates the possibility of evolution.

Fatal: I might note that the claim that death entered the world 7,000 years ago is not accepted fact even among Christians.

The fundamental evangelical community believes that sin/death entered the world through Adam. Adam lived between 6 and 7 thousand years ago. How long He lived before passing is of some debate, hence the debate on the ambiguity of how long ago he lived.

Fatal: The whole 7,000 year thing does not literally appear in the Bible, it is based on calculations done on the lifespans and geneologies presented in the Bible.

Ah, but it does "literally appear" in the Bible. One has to not take the genealogy at face value in order to get anything other than a 7000 year timeline from Adam to now.

Fatal: There are a whole lot of assumptions that must be made to come up with a number identifying how long it has been since Adam was on the earth.

I beg to differ, assumptions are what are made by those who do not accept the Biblical account. In any case, whether it is 7K or 70K since Adam, that is not the issue. The issue I am trying to get across is that theistic evolution (God creating through the mechanism of evolution) is a falsehood. When Adam lived is not so important as whether he brought physical death into the world as the Bible says. If he did then evolution is false. If he didn't then Christ was a deluded guy who was crucified for nothing and ergo, Christianity is a lie.

I concluded with this:

Much of this thread has been about the confluence of Science and Faith. I would argue that a great deal more faith is required to believe in Evolution than in ID.

This has not always been the case. Up until a couple of decades ago, our understanding of DNA was minimal and most scientists thought that "simple" cells were basically globs of gelatin. Now that we know that a "simple" cell is more complicated than an iPod Nano (or even for that matter, the factory that manufactured the iPod) most researchers in origins have had to radically change their thinking. More than a few are turning to Design as they realize that information is required to create life and information never "evolves" of its own volition. Certainly most researchers have turned away from Chance as an explanation for abiogenesis. In any case, traditional Darwinian and chemical evolution, if anyone seriously even believes in them any longer, can be reasonably termed a "faith".

The more that evolutionists seek to censor proponents and researchers in the field of ID the more Evolutionism looks like a full fledged religion, complete with its gatekeepers and inquisitors.

If Evolution is that strong of a theory then its proponents should not be afraid to let it be challenged. ID proponents are more than open to debate. That level of confidence contrasted with the evolutionary community's paranoia speaks volumes.

The future of origins research lies in the information sciences because life is all about complex information encoded in our very being. DNA is a 3 out of 4 self correcting programming language more complex than anything that the folks at Apple or Microsoft have ever attempted. How many people here think that sans designer and given enough time, a fully functional PowerBook with the latest version of OS X might come into existence by chance (or even because it simply MUST spring into existence by necessity)?

The more we learn about DNA the more we realize that DOS evolving into OS X by random mutation is more likely than amino acids forming meaningful protein molecules by chance.

New Orleans, the next Venice?

2005-09-04T21:21:00.003-05:00

Over at Polipundit.com a discussion is ensuing over the future of New Orleans? Should it be abandoned, rebuilt on higher ground, rebuilt in place?

My suggestion is that we move the residential areas to higher ground while preserving the urban and historic sections where they stand. Yes, it is in a horribly vulnerable location. Yes, it is below sea level. Yes, even if it is strategically located, the levees are, at best, a stop gap measure.

But what if we just got rid of the levees?

"But wouldn't that leave the city permanently flooded?", you ask. Well yes it would.

But Venice has been a prospering city built on pilings for centuries. True, during some high tides the folks have to retreat to the next floor up but it is a city that has learned to deal with the sea. Visitors leave their cars at the city gates and from there it is either walk or take a boat. True, there are differences between the geography of Venice and New Orleans. Venice is built in an archipelago on a series of islands and it is less likely to be hit by major storms, but still, there may be something to be gleaned from this most beautiful of European cities.

ID Roundup

2005-08-09T10:26:00.000-05:00

Looking for more quality opinion and facts regarding Intelligent Design?

Here's an early August roundup of recent columns and articles on the subject:

David Limbaugh on the ID bogeyman.

Attorney Dan Peterson does a fine job of framing the debate in this column from The American Spectator where he plants his tongue firmly in cheek and describes all us ID proponents to a "T":

Among certain sectors of the media, for example, it's an article of faith that those who believe in God, or advocate principles supporting that belief, are just a mob of Bible-thumping, knuckle-dragging, Scripture-spouting, hellfire and brimstone-preaching, rightwing, gun-toting, bigoted, homophobic, moralistic, paternalistic, polyester-wearing, mascara-smeared, false-eyelashed, SUV-driving, Wal-Mart shopping, big hair, big gut, fat butt, holy-rolling, snake-handling, Limbaugh-listening, Bambi-shooting, trailer-park-dwelling, uneducated, ignorant, backwater, hayseed, hick, inbred, pinhead rubes -- mostly from the South, or places no better than the South -- who voted for Bush.

But Peterson does an even better service than giving us some levity. His article is one of the best summaries of the debate I have come across to date.

Lawrence Henry has something to say about Unintelligent Design

In his National Review column, President Bush is right about evolution and design, Peter Wood tries to take the middle ground:

I don't carry a brief for Michael Behe, the intelligent-design proponent at Lehigh University, or the movement that he has started. But I also don't think science is well served by elevating to the status of unquestionable truth the image of a material universe governed solely by random and otherwise inexplicable events. That's a worldview, not a scientific conclusion, and it has no better claim to our intellectual assent than views that postulate an underlying purpose, meaning, or destination for humanity.

For a real treasure trove of superb thinking on the subject I highly recommend the writings of William Dembski, one of the leading proponents of ID.

Lefty claims Jesus was a Liberal

2005-08-09T01:01:00.000-05:00

A column over at azcentral.com entitled “That Nazareth fellow would be Dem today” is probably not blasphemy but it comes very close.

The column lists these as Democrat/Jesus teachings:

- Love ("of creator... yourself... neighbor"). First of all, “love” is not exactly the first thing that comes to mind when one contemplates the Michael Moore, Howard Dean, Al Gore, Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Belafonte party. Furthermore, Jesus never taught anyone to love themselves. And I might mention that, as the current debate over Intelligent Design demonstrates, Liberals are not that big on loving (or even believing in) the Creator either.

- Tolerance. I’m somewhat knowledgable on the Bible and I'm fairly certain that “tolerance” is not really a primary Jesus teaching. But even if it were, Liberals/Dems are just about as intolerant as people get without giving in totally to Robert Byrd-like KKKism. Go over and read the KosKids if you doubt me. Hate is the feeling du jour amongst Liberals these days, not tolerance.

- Forgiveness. Yes, this is at the top of Jesus’ teaching list but just ask Rush Limbaugh, Trent Lott, or Newt Gingrich if they feel the Left has ever forgiven them for anything. Does President Bush feel forgiven by the Left for the wrongs they think he’s done? Not likely.

- Charity. Is taxing working people to give to others really "charity"? I think it is reasonable to assert that if anything, Democrats are anti-charity. Is not charity the voluntary giving of one’s time and money to those in need? Taking the folk's money at the business end of an IRS owned gun is probably not what Jesus had in mind when he talked about helping the poor. In reality, Democrat policies of governmental largess for the poor are exactly antithetical to the teachings of Jesus. Stealing taxpayer money by threat of violence and giving it away to other people tends to give said taxpayer an excuse not to be charitable (not to mention the obvious 8th commandment violation.)

The column continues by stating that there is an “inherent immorality of the existence of a “working poor” class.” But Jesus never talked about any such “immorality". Even if He did, the Democrats work daily to keep the working poor the working poor. Meanwhile, Reagan/Bush tax policy is gradually making sure that people are moving up the income quintiles.

Next, the column makes the claim that Jesus would be a Democrat because he was for government encouragement of better wages and a government sponsored national health care system. Really? That must be in a lost book of the New Testament that I somehow overlooked. Was Jesus really a closet big government socialist and all of us just missed that attribute? It is worth noting that both of these Democrat-inspired issues require Fascist-like policies to be in place to make either possible. Fascist/totalitarian states are antithetical to the pursuits of the Bible-believing Christian who has always ended up being the victims of such governments. The totalitarian regime of the Roman Empire was responsible for not just the persecution of Christians but much of the evil that gripped Israel at the time Jesus walked this earth. True, Jesus did preach that taxes should be paid to Rome but Jesus was no fan of the government that He knew would ultimately sentence Him to the most horrible death that has ever been invented by man.

Moving on, the azcentral.com column takes this broadside at Republicans:

Read the New Testament. It's not that long. And it's not about fire-and-brimstone fundamentalism, judging one another or dominating the Earth.

This is interesting in that “fire and brimstone” is not something that we hear preached much these days by ANYONE let alone GOP leaders (yet it WAS a familiar theme in Jesus' teaching). And judging one another? The MoveOn.org Left is clearly among the most judgmental people on the planet (at least that’s my own judgment ). Still, who called people vipers and hypocrites and even once told someone to "go and sin no more"? Oh right, that was JESUS!

Finally, I don’t see the GOP actively trying to dominate the Earth although it is important to note that this is something Jesus plans to do at some later date.

The ID Debate Reignites

2005-08-05T22:38:00.000-05:00

Since the President's comments regarding the teaching of Intelligent Design, the debate has been reengaged with vigor. Yet when I read comments from those standing against an open discussion of the subject of origins, what is most fascinating is how little the critics of ID know about Evolution (much less Intelligent Design).

Michael Medved was discussing the subject on his radio show today and an anti-ID caller claimed that evolution could easily have occurred in the several billion years the earth has been in existence. His proof? "we're here aren't we?". Of course, I could claim that ID is true using the same argument. The reality is, most people have no idea that the discussion is more nuanced than the standard disproven pop science taught in the average high school biology classroom and that the concept of life arising by chance was long ago abandoned by serious chemical evolution researchers.

The unfortunate reality is that most anti-IDers don't even realize that there are two differentiated theories of Evolution and thus, they often confuse the two:

1. Chemical evolution (chemicals forming amino acids in the "primordial soup" to form proteins which then produce simple celled life). About 35 years ago scientists thought this process happened by random processes but now do not.

2. Biological evolution (commonly referred to as Darwinism and which seeks to expain speciation rather than origins).

Most people conflate these two concepts thinking that chemical evolution is Darwinism and vice versa. The latter, biological evolution, is the theory that a combination of random mutations and natural selection (which are two separate things and which are also typically conflated but that is a discussion for another day) accounts for the wide variety of life we see today. Darwin only was theorizing in the area of speciation which, if it ever happened as he imagined, would only happen once life actually blossomed on the planet and in no way has anything to do with the advent of the first cell. Darwin never theorized anything about chemical evolution (aka the theory that chemicals bind together to form amino acids which then form chains that build proteins which then join together to build "simple" cells).

Yet, ask the average high school educated person and, if they can even address the subject at all, they will guess that the Darwinism/biological evolution theory encompasses "primordial soup", a few lightning strikes, and then BOOM, simple cells (which then later turn into apes and then President Bush).

The reality is, the concept of life arising by random chance from a chemical soup was abandoned by chemical evolutionists in the 1960s. Researchers realized that the chances of amino acids forming chains to produce life giving proteins was simply mathematically impossible (see my previous article for more on this point). Since then, they have moved to the theory that life arose by necessity much like crystals form.

Even though this is the hill chemical evolutionists are currently defending, it is quickly becoming more of a losing battle everyday as they learn that the basis for life is not merely amino acids or even chemicals. The foundation of life is INFORMATION. Simple cells turn out to be anything but. They are mini-factories that are more complex than any man-made machine. Researchers are now faced with trying to understand where the programming came from to produce such complex machines.

This is where the information sciences are now gaining in importance in the study of origins. Since it is now clear that the foundational element of life is information rather than chemicals, the concept of an author (whoever that may be) who wrote that information now becomes a topic of renewed interest.

I am reminded of a Star Trek: The Next Generation episode where Picard and the gang go in search of an answer to a "4 billion year old mystery" involving DNA and the origination of our species. The story was intriguing to me, not that the payoff was anything but silly but because Picard and the other sleuths onboard looked beyond naturalistic explanations for why our DNA is coded the way it is. Once they set aside the notion that DNA is merely random (or repetitive chemical) bonding of protein sequences, they were able to set out on a journey of discovery that they would never have otherwise experienced. Of course, ST:TNG is a secular show with a generally anti-Christian bias so the conclusion revealed that an ancient race, and not God designed our DNA but that said, it was designed nonetheless.

DNA is a 3 out of 4 self-replicating, self-correcting programming language, more complex than anything written by anyone in Redmond or Cupertino. Such programming language is aperiodic (rather than simple repetition as we see with the formation of crystals for example). Look at a headline in a newspaper and you will grasp a little of what researchers are now dealing with. The ink and newsprint do not cause the formation of the letters that say "Bush Promotes Intelligent Design". The ink and paper are simply a "backbone" on which the information is carried. They have no input into the content of the headline. That input comes from outside. Hence the current interest in ID.

Absent a designer, the only other two options available to scientists to explain origins are either "chance" (now seen to be mathematically impossible) or "necessity" (also impossible since information is not formed by the repetition of chemical bonds like we see in crystals).

Design is the only other option and should not be dismissed just because it might lead to God. There are several areas of scientific endeavor that look beyond materialistic naturalism. The study of origins should likewise be open to the possibility that the answers lie with design, especially since the other options have proven to be dead-ends.

Willful Ignorance

2005-05-25T22:03:00.000-05:00

They deliberately forget that God made the heavens by the word of his command, and he brought the earth up from the water and surrounded it with water.

-2 Peter 3:5

Ronald Bailey, Reason magazine's science correspondent, regurgitates some of the same old tired, elitist, anti-Christian hate speech that has become so popular of late. This time, it takes the form of calling anyone who advocates teaching the theory of Intelligent Design (ID) along side Evolution, "bigots and ignoramuses".

Ironically, Bailey showcases his own ignorance of the debate in two key areas.

First, that "Science is on the side of evolution" and therefore only it is worthy of being taught in the public education classroom. The problem with this is that evolution, as presently taught, is laughably out of step with current thinking amongst evolutionary biologists. Look at any evolution curriculum, talk to any high school biology teacher and you will learn that the disproved theory of "abiogenesis" (life arising by random chance through the formation of amino acids in the "primordial soup" of the ancient earth which then go on to form proteins which then lead to life) is what students are being spoon-fed every day. Regretably, these kids are being deceived.

A number of years ago, it became obvious that the abiogenesis math wasn't adding up and so the scientific community decided they had to look elsewhere for answers. The best paper I have ever read on this subject was written by one Dr. Dermott J. Mullan. His explosive research on the probabilities of life arising by chance can be found here.

An excellent debate on the paper (wherein Mullan kindly but forcefully blows his critics out of the water) can be found here.

If you don't want to read all 47 pages of the paper or the discussion thread (both of which contains some highly nuanced math), here are the crib notes:

The most time that anyone can reasonably (read "scientifically") claim that life had in order to first evolve is 1.11 billion years. (If you don't know why go to section 3 of his paper). Mullan's area of study seeks to answer the question, "is 1.11 b.y. long enough for a given set of amino acids to form the proteins necessary to build the first primitive cell?" I find his paper compelling because he is errs so far to the side of life arising by random chance in order to give all benefit of the doubt to the promoters of the abiogenesis theory.

For example, he grants, for optimization sake, that the first proteins would be more primitive than any we know of today, containing only 12-14 amino acids (compared with say, a basic protein like insulin, which has 51). There are no proteins in existence today with this low of an amino acid count. But he uses the number anyway so as to give some window of possibility for life to have arisen through random interactions of primordial amino acids into a protein that might have given rise to the first living cell.

After all his calculations he does ultimately conclude that life could have arisen without intelligent intercession:

"With all of these assumptions, we find that the probability of assembly of the RNA required for even the most primitive cell by random processes in the time available is no more than one in 10^79."

Editorially, I have to say that this is about as close to IMPOSSIBLE as it gets in my mind.

The bottom line is, it turns out that life could not have evolved on this planet because the Earth is simply not old enough.

Once the math disproved abiogenesis, researchers began to look elsewhere for a solution that did not involve intelligent design. The current theory (and the one that should be taught in high school if the theory of evolution is going to be taught at all) is that of Necessity. In other words, life HAD to happen. In my next article I will explain this approach in greater detail but for the purposes of demonstrating where Bailey has gone wrong, it is sufficient to say that the theory he wants taught in public schools has long been dropped by those who have studied and grasped the implication of probability theory.

The second area in which Bailey errs is found in his statement:

"What they don't understand, however, is that religious belief and evolution are compatible."

The "they" in this sentence are the promoters of ID, most of whom are Christian. So in this context, the "religious belief" to which Bailey refers is Christian religious belief. The problem is that the Bible specifically teaches AGAINST evolution in numerous places.

What Bailey is referring to in his statement is actually a quaint fiction, that of "theistic evolution". Evolutionists often attempt the tactic of claiming that the Christian faith and the theory of Evolution are compatible by saying "God could have used evolution to create life". Setting aside for a moment that vociferous proponents of evolution usually don't believe in God in the first place, the Bible anticipates this false teaching and constantly reminds the reader of the true nature of the creation.

If the Bible is true (and I'm not talking just about the historicity of Genesis Chapter 1 and 2, I'm also talking about the Gospel message upon which Christianity is based), then evolution CANNOT be the way God created life. If people like Bailey actually understood the foundational beliefs of Christianity then they would never even attempt the theistic evolution canard.

At a doctrinal level, the Bible teaches that Christ died for our sins. Even the marginally informed non-believer knows this. 1 Corinthians 15:21 reads,

"For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man."

This is the central truth of Scripture and the one upon which every thing else hangs.

According to Scripture, a specific man (Adam) committed the first sin and thereby introduced death into the world. To ultimately revoke this curse, another Man had to die a physical death on behalf of everyone who has come since Adam first sinned. The alert reader will immediately recognize the problem then with God using evolution as a methodology for creating life. Evolution (regardless of which theory you subscribe to) REQUIRES millions of years of death before Adam arrives on the scene. If death, as evolutionists assert, existed for millions of years before Adam's arrival 6 or 7 thousand years ago, then Christ was a fool because he died not realizing that death predated Adam. If Adam was the first sinner as the Bible teaches but death existed before Adam as evolutionary science teaches, then death is not a curse but merely a methodology. This is why Christianity and evolution are entirely incompatible with each other. One requires Jesus Christ to be a savior, the other requires Him to be a delusional idiot.

The Bible is replete with references to death being the result of Adam's sin. As a result, the Bible is all about God's plan to keep men from having to face eternal death. Now, the unbeliever is free to dismiss the Bible's teaching that Adam ushered death into this world but they cannot claim that the teaching ITSELF does not exist. Because I Cor. 15:21 is the central thesis of the Christian Faith, "theistic evolution" must be relegated to the status of heavily promoted fiction.

At the end of the day, it is difficult to strip ID of its connection with the Creator described in the Bible. However, because Christaphobes have set the terms of the debate (no mention of God allowed in public school) the only way that the viable theory of ID can be broached is to try to secularize it. This is not deception but merely the only avenue of getting some truth back into the discussion of origins. Consider that if God did create all that we see around us (as all the evidence points to), and yet, mention of God is forbidden in the teaching of origins, what are the alternatives?

Well, the current alternative in the modern American classroom is to teach a lie.

Who's incompetent?

2005-04-06T17:28:00.000-05:00

For a couple of years now, the Liberal Press has been bleating endlessly about how incompetently the Bush administration has run the war in Iraq. They have portrayed the president as ill-informed, Powell, as an ignorant mouthpiece, and the intelligence community as hopelessly inept. But are these people really qualified to criticize ANYONE on how to do their jobs?

Consider the quality of the work in the mainstream press of late:

1. RatherGate. CBS news ran (runs) such an amateur investigative operation that they were unable to determine what dozens of other news operations were able to determine in an afternoon; that the Texas National Guard docs were fakes. We would have lost the war in Afghanistan and Iraq if the administration ran those operations like CBS runs theirs.

2. Schiavo talking points memo. The Washington Post, ABC, et. al, have completely failed to perform the due diligence required of a professional news organization in finding out who was behind the distribution of the talking points memo attributed to the Republican Senate leadership. Instead, they continue to assume that a senior GOP Senator is behind the memo. Whether one is or not we are not told by the press. We would have lost the war in Afghanistan and Iraq if the administration ran those operations like ABC runs theirs.

3. Delay tempest-in-a-teapot. The mainstream press continues to pound on Tom Delay for alleged wrong-doing but has completely failed to connect the dots on Pelosi and other congresspersons who have involved themselves in similar activity. If the administration had that level of blindness to obvious facts we would have lost the war in Iraq.

And the list could go on. Evidently, it is only the mainstream press that is unable to see that they have no credibility in their attacks on the competence of the Bush administration. Simple investigative procedures that even the the most newbie blogger would follow are completely beyond the reach of the networks and the major print organizations. These people are apparently no better equipped to faithfully report the news than your local junior high journalism class who prints their "newspaper" using the copy machine in the principle's office.

Next time you hear one of these "news" organizations claiming that the administration is incompetent, temper that claim with a dose of reality. They clearly do not know what they are talking about.

Transition Time

2005-02-25T22:52:00.000-05:00

The Aerie is currently on hiatus during our move to Atlanta.

Seahawks win!

2005-01-10T02:18:00.000-05:00

I often wonder why a one touchdown margin is considered a decisive win in football but a 20 state victory margin in presidential politics or two winning recounts in a gubenatorial election is not. Evidently DJ over at Polipundit.com was thinking the same thing.

"The play on the fielded ended with St. Louis ahead on the scoreboard, 27-20. But because the margin was only one score, King County filed suit to review the play results, and because (in the opinion of the WSSC) the Seahawks “clearly intended to score a tying touchdown..."

Heh

Let's give 'em Ohio

2005-01-10T00:50:00.000-05:00

Okay, I think it is time to let Kerry have the entire 118,775 votes by which Bush purportedly won Ohio. It was just so close, the state had to be stolen. So Kerry gets those 20 electoral votes. But hold on, does that give Kerry the Presidency? In the spirit of fair play, I would suggest that the Democrats give Bush all the states where, by the same logic, Kerry must have stolen a state from Bush:

These would include the following "Blue" states with winning margins less than Ohio:

Minnesota with a 98,444 vote margin (10 electoral votes switched to Bush)
Wisconsin with a 11,813 vote margin (10 electoral votes switched to Bush)
Oregon with a 67,488 vote margin (7 electoral votes switched to Bush)
Hawaii with a 37,209 vote margin (4 electoral votes switched to Bush)
New Hampshire with a 9,171 vote margin (4 electoral votes switched to Bush)
Maine with a 65,046 vote margin (4 electoral votes switched to Bush)
and Delaware with a 28,356 vote margin (3 electoral votes switched to Bush)

So let's do the math:

Official '04 electoral college tally:

Bush 286
Kerry 252

Then:

Bush concedes Ohio to Kerry due to the close margin of victory:

Kerry 272
Bush 266

But then Kerry necessarily concedes those states he won by even a tighter margin than Bush won Ohio:

Bush 308
Kerry 230

But we don't even need to switch the electors in all the states with a tighter margin than Ohio. Another way to slice this is if we just say to Kerry, "okay, take Ohio's 118K votes and the 20 electors. In return we'll take no more than 118K combined votes from those states you "won."

So we take:

Wisconsin, Oregon, Delaware, and New Hampshire which garnered only a 116,828 margin of victory for Kerry between the four of them - 1,947 votes to spare!

Bush 290
Kerry 248

So let 'em win their argument. Ohio was stolen. Fine, by that logic, Kerry stole 7 states from Bush. So instead of Bush country encompasing 30 states, it apparently encompasses 36!

They Cheat and STILL Can't Win

2005-01-07T00:56:00.001-05:00

I'm amazed at how many people decry the Ohio election results as being invalid because of alleged errors in counting. The critics and partisans point to the banking industry where companies can process millions of transactions with near perfection (they say) and try to draw a corollary. "If something like check transactions can be done right every time why can't voting for the leader of the free world be done just as well?" they ask.

Let me put it like this:

How many banks allow you to withdraw money without identification?

How many banks allow you to make a withdrawal of all your funds in absentia and then allow you to go into the branch and withdraw those same funds a second time?

How many banks allow a check to be cashed when they can't tell if you wrote the check for $10 or $1,000?

How many banks cash checks signed by Micky Mouse?

I could go on but the point is, the banking industry is HIGHLY regimented with very strict rules that are specifically intended to prohibit cheating. It is also overseen by federal regulatory agencies who have zero tolerance for funny business.

On the other hand, elections in this country are largely based on an honor system where the dishonest can quite easily game the system. There is no federal regulation, there is no effort to enforce strict voter registration rules, or to prevent voters from being bussed from precinct to precinct, no effort to card them when they walk into a precinct to vote, no serious effort to even keep illegals from voting.

The banking industry is a little hard to demagogue:

BANK: "Sir, you have insufficent funds in your account to cover that check".
MAXINE WATERS: "Bank of America is trying to disenfranchise it's minority banking customers, they should be allowed to withdraw as much money from the bank as they need without being forced to keep funds in their accounts."

The hard, cold fact is that the voting process in this country has, in many places, been hijacked by the left. If that level of corruption and laxity were the norm in the banking industry the whole financial system in this country would collapse. But the Democrats would be the last to want the regimentation of the banking industry to be imposed on the election process.

It is a testament to how hard the GOP got out its vote this last time to overcome the huge level of cheating undertaken by the Democrats. The grandstanding in the House and Senate about Ohio was pure demagoguery and nothing more. The Democrat leadership is about as interested in reform of the election process as they are in seeing Condi run for President in '08. If we tightened up our registration and voting process in this country they would rarely win a national election.

Can you imagine them voting for reform that would institute the following?:

- 30 day advance registration requirement (to give election officials a chance to check the authenticity of the registration),
- National voter registrant database to assure that the voter was registered in only one state, was alive, was not a felon, was a legal citizen, and of voting age.
- Social Security Card (or other national ID) required to register (no driver's licenses allowed).
- 2 forms of ID required to actually vote.
- No provisional balloting
- No dead people, pets, cartoon characters, or illegals would be allowed to vote.
- Optical card voting only (no punch cards, no touch pads, no lever pulling). Optical (fill in the bubble) scan cards are the most reliable voting methodology and, while largly an electronic process on the counting side, leaves a paper trail.
- Only ballots correctly filled out are counted, PERIOD. If the voter makes a mistake (fills in too many bubbles, forgets to fill in a bubble, marks the wrong bubble, etc.) then the ballot is considered "soiled" and is discarded, no ifs, ands, or buts.
- No hand recounts allowed. Hand recounts are subject to gaming (c.f. State of Washington guber race).

That is the kind of reform that would make sure that voters were not disenfranchised by having their votes nullified by cheaters. This is, in fact, the current situation. The last election, I voted in California, a state where election fraud is rampant on the Democrat side. Nobody makes a big deal out of the fact that my and thousands of other GOP voters are disenfranchised because California is considered a "blue" state. The GOP can't win here, the conventional thinking goes, so who cares if the Democrats pad their margin by a few hundred thousand votes?

One has to wonder how "red" California would go if we instituted the election reforms listed above.

Whither the iPod Revolution?

2005-01-04T00:57:00.000-05:00

What makes the iPod unique is that it embraces a delicate balance of features, functionality, style, size, and price. No other manufacturer has been able to achieve this balance. Apple designers are exceptional in their approach to the inevitable compromises of industrial design. It's all about prioritizing capabilities:

1. Hardware interactivity
No other player has the ease of use of the iPod. NONE. It's not just the scroll wheel but display, ease of one-handed operation, and its large, easy-to-operate buttons.)

2. Software (OS, syncing, PC interface via iTunes).
No other player has as intuitive of interface as the iPod or the ease of interoperability with its PC software counterpart. It is staggeringly easy to move from song to song, album to album, etc. on the iPod and even easier to keep music synced via iTunes. In the end, it is the vertical integration of desktop to iPod via iTunes and the ITMS that makes this player second to none. The masses appreciate ease of use and techs should even more so. The average tech might be able to make his kludgy mp3 player work but the WISE tech knows his time is worth something and will always opt for the more elegant solution.

3. Size.
Who wants a big clunky thing in their pocket? For example, people want to run with their mp3 player strapped to their arm. The iPod is amongst the smallest HD players made (maybe the smallest, it's hard to keep track). The importance of this design feature cannot be overstated.

3. Style.
Yes, the iPod is trendy but in a way that is highly unusual in the world of tech marketing. It is a product that is also the best at what it does. Personally, I wish Apple would advertise it more.

4. Price.
Compare product pricing and you'll find that the iPod is competitive. Go out and look at a comparable player from, say, Rio. The Kharma is the same price! Why would one spend $299 for a Rio when one can get an iPod for the same money?

As for things like battery life and missing features? This is the place where Apple shows its design genius. The battery is the same technology used in the other players and is not made by Apple. However, Apple does want the smallest player possible and since size is more important to the customer than battery life, they usually choose size. Meanwhile, the mp3 bricks that have 20-50% more battery life simply don't sell as well. Why? Because people prioritize their needs. They do the research and make a choice.

The same philosophy is true of extra features. Extra features could be part of the iPod lineup but they aren't. Why? Does Apple not know how to include them? Will it make the iPod too expensive to market? Of course not. Extra features that very few people use simply get in the way of the iPod's primary selling point: user friendliness. For those not paying attention, this is a core Apple (no pun intended) design philosophy across their entire product line. Apple prefers to produce elegant technology solutions. They eschew feature bloat because it gets in the way of the user experience. This is the bottom line with all of their products.

Oh, and as a technology manager at a major university, I've seen every desktop computer and mainstream media playback device ever made. When all is said and done, I recommend Apple products up and down the product line because they cause me the least support problems. Does that make me selfish? Maybe. But my time is valuable and recommending products that are hard to use is just mean.

What if America was a Conservative Nation?

2004-12-12T16:04:00.000-05:00

Perusing the Liberal Left blogs and miscellaneous political forums one notices a striking inability of many on the left to understand that the US (like the rest of the West) is socialist at its core. Yet, recently I read a post where a Leftist was attempting to convince the rest of the readership that "US politics are just shades of right wing conservatism". This, of course, is an absurd assertion on it's face. The U.S. is demonstrably a moderate socialist state.

True, it is more conservative than the rest of the Western nations of the world but being on the right side of the left side of center is still LEFT. Like the frog put in a pot of cold water while the heat is turned up until the frog boils to death, most people have just gotten used to our liberal politics to the point that moderate politics appear right-wing.

If US politics were just shades of right wing conservatism here is what I think we might look like:

1. Law abiding citizens would be free to defend themselves with a gun without restriction.
2. Children would be free to be born without risk of being murdered.
3. There would be no income or property tax.
4. People would be free to send their child to a school of their choice (on their own dime of course but they wouldn't be paying property taxes so they could afford paying their own way).
5. Universities would hire conservative professors.
6. CBS, ABC, the NYT, NBC, and CNN would be to the right of Fox News and would have huge audiences as a result.
7. The U.S. would be ardently pro-Israel with no pretense about "roadmaps" or negotiating with the PLO.
8. We would have nailed UBL during the 90s rather than passing on nabbing him 13 different times.
9. Schools would teach Design Science side-by-side with other theories on origins.
10. Children would be free to recite the Pledge of Allegiance in public.
11. The rule of law would trump personal judicial philosophies.
12. Ex-California governor, Gray Davis would be in jail for massive corruption (of course, in a conservative America he would never have been elected in the first place).
13. Clinton would have not only been impeached but removed from office, tried as a rapist, and, if convicted, sent to jail (of course, in a conservative America he would never have been elected in the first place).
14. You could say "Merry Christmas" in any venue you wanted to without being censured.
15. A Republican president would not be pushing a liberal agenda (like increasing federal education budgets, prescription drug benefits, lax immigration policy, etc).
16. There would be no such thing as welfare (for individuals or corporations).
17. Individuals would gladly rise to the challenge of meeting the needs of the poor through private charitable giving.
18. Religious symbols (of every religion) would be allowed on state property.
19. Judges would take a strict constructionist view of the Constitution.
20. No one would pay attention to Janeane Garofalo, Susan Sarandon, George Clooney, Michael Moore, Martin Sheen, Danny Glover, Sean Penn, Alec Baldwin, Tim Robbins, Julia Roberts, Mike Farrell, Jennifer Aniston, Ed Harris, Richard Gere, Woody Harrelson, Ed Norton, David Clennon, Dustin Hoffman, Robert Redford, Jessica Lange, Woody Allen, Johnny Depp, Kate Hudson, Harrison Ford, Dixie Chicks, Barbra Streisand, Eddie Vedder, Madonna Ciccone, Bruce Springsteen, Michael Stipe, Chris Martin, Chrissy Hynde, Sheryl Crow, Dave Matthews, Neil Young, Bono, Tom Daschle, Nancy Pelosi, Patty Murray, Howard Dean, Paul Begala, Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, Robert Byrd, Ken Livingstone, Henry Waxman, Bob Graham, Janet Reno, Patrick Kennedy, Charlie Rangel, Sheila Jackson Lee, Fritz Hollings, Al Gore, Al Sharpton, Gray Davis, Hans Blix, Ashleigh Banfield, Norman Mailer, Mike Tyson, Bill Moyers, Ted Turner, Martha Stewart, or Jesse Jackson (but they would still be free to be idiots).

If these 20 points were true about America then I would agree that American politics were conservative. This is not to say that the populace is not conservative for a look at the county by county Presidential election map supports that. But inacted policy is a different thing altogether and, in my mind, that is what counts.

Ultimate iPod Vehicle Install

2004-12-11T00:15:00.000-05:00

There are a lot of cars and trucks on the road with iPods in the glove box and you may be one of them. But unless you have a Beemer or the new Saab , you probably fight with control of the device. Worse yet, transmitting via an FM transmitter probably wears on your ears as the static and interference ruins the listening experience.

This is my personal solution to the problem.

Democrats imploding not good for Conservatives

2004-12-10T13:53:00.000-05:00

I plan to write more on this topic in the coming weeks but here is just an initial thought. There are two types of approaches to politics: partisanship and ideology. I am in the latter camp and so the crackup of the Democrats is not a good omen for me as a conservative. If you are a partisan, the self-destruction of the opposing party is a Good Thing. It strengthens one's own party as the more sane in the opposition abandon the doomed party and switch to yours. In our current situation, the Dems are moving ever more left, which everyone knows is a path to destruction for them. But they just can't seem to help themselves. As they slowly slip into the quicksand of their own making, Conservatives should not celebrate.

Zell may be the most high profile to do so but there are other prominent Dems who are becoming more openly critical of their own party. Furthermore, many longtime Democrat voters chose Bush this last time around and one has to wonder how far behind it can be before they simply make the move and join the Grand Old Party. Already registered independents outnumber registered Democrats. So this is a good thing for Republican partisans.

But here's the rub for Conservatives. As more and more "moderate" Democrats abandon their party, the GOP leadership feels it must accommodate them to help them make the leap. The Karl Roves of the world, for all their political genius, are not interested in the Conservative ideology but in enlarging the GOP base. This is not a totally Bad Thing except that it is unprincipled (okay, so it is a Bad Thing -ed.). This explains, in part, the leftward migration of the GOP.

One can imagine a day when the Democrat party is entirely controlled by the MoveOn.org types. They already think they own the party and maybe they do. As a result, the rank and file Dems are further alienated from their party and Rove knows this. Rove's goal: bring them in for good by making the tent even bigger.

Any objective observer has to admit that today's Republican party is very close, ideologically, to JFK's Democrat party of 40 years ago. Certainly the GOP has abandoned classic Jeffersonian liberalism that modern Conservatives love so much. Where then, is the conservative party in America of tomorrow? What happens if Rudy or (God forbid) Ahnold is nominated for our party's candidate? My hope is that the GOP will hold to its principles as we need at least one major party in this country that does. However, as the Democrat party goes the way of the Whigs, one has to wonder if we now are seeing the beginning of the end of a conservative leaning GOP.

Dumbing Down Your Product

2004-12-10T13:13:00.000-05:00

Although I have the previous generation of Apple Cinema Display (the 23" crystal acrylic) and so this is not an issue for me, Rush went on a rant today on his show about the new Apple Cinema's power button. Apple has indeed designed the monitor so that it can work with PCs and thus, the feature we Mac users have grown to accept as standard, that the monitor power button can also power up the computer, is now a thing of the past. The Apple ADC connector was brilliant (as most Apple innovations are) and although it did conform to a standard, the DVI connector found on newer PCs made it such that Windows users could not utilize Apple monitors with their machine. Apple is expanding its base by appealing to Windows folks and so they made the decision to abandon the very cool ADC connector (which allowed for all video, USB, and power to flow through a single cable) in favor of the dumber DVI standard.

The PC magazine, ZDNet raves about the monitor here but does note that it has one "con". That's right, the power button does not power up the computer.

Rush has put out an APB for a "hacker" to come up with a solution to getting the monitor to talk to the computer on power-up. I think the solution is probably something that Dr Bott sells but I have not had time to go through their product catalog yet, but they are industrious types over there so that seems like Rush's best bet.

An Ill Wind is Blowing (but this is not necessarily bad news).

2004-12-07T04:04:00.000-05:00

Of late I have really begun to notice how the tide has turned against Christianity in the West. True, Europe has been post-Christian for a while but ever more frequently we are finding that God is being systematically banned from public discourse here in the United States as well. It is getting so bad that in some places Christmas itself is being shut out of the public square.

There is little need to enumerate the anti-Christian sentiments found in the MSM, Hollywood, or in Academia, as this is common knowledge. What is more fascinating to me is the willful ignorance of the modern anti-Christian bigot toward facts like the religious beliefs of the Founders, the role of Christians in the spread of justice and charity throughout the world, or even things as fundamental as what is evil and what is good.

The Bible clearly states that as we head toward the final prophetic moments of history, that unbelievers will think themselves wise but be, in actuality, quite foolish. They will say that what is evil is good, and what is good, evil. They will hate those who follow Christ, and they will imagine themselves to be gods in their own eyes.

In talking about good v. evil I am reminded that Liberals apparently have no problem endorsing the teaching of one of the most violent and oppressive religions conceived by the mind of man in our public schools yet ban anything remotely Christian (including the reading of the Declaration of Independence) from that same venue. I note that more and more, it is Christian teachings that are said to be the source of the worlds ills (as opposed to Islamic fundamentalists, Franco/German bribery schemes, Russian attempts to recreate the glories of the Soviet State, or the generally dark hearts of people the world over.)

No, apparently it is the simple teaching that Christ is the only path to heaven that MUST BE STOPPED!

The fact that the Left has no difficulty promoting the idea that Islam is a "religion of peace" (as opposed to "submission") while modern Christianity is racist and violent, is a testament to just how upside down the world has become.

Now, lest you think I am suggesting we should seek to alter this trend, let me disabuse you of the thought. This is an inexorable movement, like lava travelling down the flanks of Mauna Loa. Christians are hated, and not because we are not "open-minded" enough, or not environmentally friendly enough. No, it is because we believe that what the Bible says is [gasp!] true. This is intollerable to the modern Liberal mindset. In truth, the term "Left" is quickly becoming shorthand for describing "haters of Christ".

Jesus, Peter, Paul, and John all talked about how this would be the climate at the End Times. In my opinion, there is really nothing that can be done to stem this anti-Christian tide. When all is said and done, Christians, with all their generosity, righteousness, and desire to spread freedom throughout the world are, to the Left, a sworn enemy.

Ultimately the question we have to ask ourselves is, as Francis Schaeffer once posited, "How then shall we live?"

I suggest that, as believers, we can do two key things:

1. Do everything possible to maintain a society that allows for the message of Christ to be preached. Fighting against national ID cards or the New World Order, are pointless in my opinion, as they take our eyes off the more important issue of spreading the Gospel message. Which brings me to:

2. Spread the good news that Jesus Christ is alive and willing to accept all who choose to follow Him.

Of course, the Left does not want to hear this message nor does it wish to have Christians hanging around making it difficult for them to spread their latest brand of totalitarianism. They are interested in only a couple of things these days; a.) personal gratification and b.) silencing Christians.

We need to stay vigilant such that we are not silenced. In this respect, Christians need to be more involved in the public discourse than anyone. If we hang back we will lose the opportunity to speak the good news of salvation in Jesus Christ. But don't fool yourselves, the tide will continue to turn against Christians and we need to be prepared for this reality. America is heading the direction of Europe and Canada: post-Christian.

In the time we have left, let's not be distracted by the little stuff. Jesus is coming soon, let's act like it.

Kerry Apologists: Defining Stupid

2004-11-20T16:25:00.000-05:00

The aphorism can be applied to stupid people just as easily to the insane. It goes like this: "A reasonable definition of stupidity is doing the same thing today that you did yesterday, and expecting different results."

The stories are everywhere. Kerry voters are in therapy over their loss. Pundits are all over the media and blogosphere analyzing what went wrong, were Kerry acolytes too easy on the President? Maybe they were too hard. Maybe they should have played up moral values more, maybe, maybe, maybe.

The common thread of the post election postmortums is that the Democrats need to take a different approach in order to win back the White House. A few Dem insiders are even privately saying that to win they need to be less shrill, less negative, less liberal, less "anti", less reactionary, more positive. James Carville even said, in so many words, last week that this was necessary for the Democrats to become a majority party again.

But this is the second election in a row that they have come to this conclusion. They were highly negative the last time around when Gore lost the White house and many were saying then that people were turned off by the high level of negativity in that campaign. The low blows leveled against W in 2000 including the despicable NAACP dragging ad and the 11th hour drunk driving charge did tremendous damage to Bush, it is true but also to Gore as people recognized the dirty politics involved.

Fast forward to today when, despite all evidence showing that people found Kerry's negative portrayal of Bush and middle America repulsive, many on the left are elevating the lunacy and negativity by talking blue state secession, moving to Canada, another stolen election in Florida and group psychotherapy sessions for Kerry lovers fearful of what terror Bush is going to bring upon them this time around. The anti-evangelical rhetoric is increasing, the "stupid" red state mantras continue, and on it goes.

Apparently, these people just can't help themselves. They know that their antics turn off the electorate. They know that they should moderate their tone. They should know that whining just makes them look like lame losers. But, from all appearances, the Left is intent on self-destruction. I can't watch Fox News in the evening for more than 15 minutes before I see some Kerry apologist like David Korn or Bob Beckel making racist remarks about Condi or bigoted statements about evangelicals. It just goes on and on. They should know better but they appear to think that doing the same thing they did last election cycle will produce different results in the next.

Berkeley Study: Gore almost stole election in Florida!

2004-11-20T14:25:00.001-05:00

Although the tinfoil beanie types are still trying to claim that the reason Kerry lost is because the Republicans cheated, a recent study ironically, may prove that Bush won Florida in 2000 by a much larger margin than we thought. A new Berkeley study is trying to claim that e-voting in Florida in the recent presidential election does not square with voting patterns in 2000. Since votes chalked up for Bush faster in 2004 than in 2000 the only conclusion can be, that the GOP somehow hacked the electronic voting machines, thereby giving Bush more votes than previous voting patterns suggest he would have received.

But here's the problem, the study might unwittingly, be proving that the DEMOCRATS cheated in 2000 by SUPPRESSING Bush votes.

Dafydd ab Hugh, a statistician wrote an email dissecting the assumptions and makes this astute observation:

"...the correct way to interpret this is that there were between 130,000 and 260,000 "excess votes" for Bush. But mathematically, it's equally valid to suppose that there was a Republican suppression factor in the 2000 and 1996 elections -- that is, that the Democrats cheated in counting punchcards in heavily Democratic districts in past elections -- which they were unable to do in 2004 with the electronic voting machines."

To think that the Gore-illas almost got away with a wholesale theft of the election in 2000 still makes me shudder.

(hat tip: Powerlineblog.com)

Secession Blues

2004-11-11T02:03:00.000-05:00

As we all grow weary of the increasingly tiresome secession talk, I'd like to remind you Kerry-lovin' blue voters that you are, as usual, unhinged from reality. First, there is no Cascadia and there isn't going to be one. You Blue folks are simply too hateful and unproductive to survive in a land all your own. Us red folks are the engine of this country and you know it.

Second, if you really must secede (and we don't want you to but this is currently a free country and the redder it is the more that will be true), you're talking about EIGHT new countries, not one. But sorry, you don't get any more territory than you currently claim you occupy. After all, you're the ones always talking about how sparsely populated "Jesusland" is. Well fine, then stick to your Watts public housing or your Upper Westside rent-controlled condos. That's fine with us out here in Stupidpeopleland.

While some might argue that the red/blue maps should either be purple or boiled down to red/blue at the precinct level, the reality is, the county-by-county election map is the best foundation for establishing the boundaries of your eight shiny new blue countries:
Your nation selection will be varied in locale, climate, and natural resources (which we expect you to leave untouched, by the way). Note that, while some blue counties had to go red (and vice versa) to make your 8 new countries possible, that's geopolitics for you. Sorry you can't keep ANWR or Yellowstone but we need more oil and geothermal energy for our rapidly expanding Stupidpeopleland population (currently 59,459,765+).

So take your pick of one of the new confederated blue countries and then feel free to apply for immediate citizenship. We'll miss your whining (but that's about it.)

Poverty Doesn't Breed Terror

2004-11-08T22:57:00.000-05:00

As I suspected all along:

A John F. Kennedy School of Government researcher has cast doubt on the widely held belief that terrorism stems from poverty, finding instead that terrorist violence is related to a nation's level of political freedom.

Read the entire piece.

Who Really are the Stupid Ones?

2004-11-05T12:57:00.000-05:00

Jane Smiley comments, in her now infamous column, about the stupidity of Bush voters. But ever since the election I've been asking myself, "how could people be so ignorant to vote for the ultra-leftist Kerry?" Yes, I know I risk being labeled a reverse-elitist here and I do know that there are many well educated people who voted for Kerry. So what explains the popularity of a candidate who was demonstrably the most liberal Senator in Congress, a "war hero" of dubious distinction (and quite possibly of dishonorable merit), a self-admitted war criminal, by definition a traitor to his country (as he gave aid and comfort to our enemies on multiple occasions), a guy who was on every side of the issue from day one of his candidacy, and a stiff to boot?

The answer lies, I think, in three different areas. First, regarding his "flip flopping". Many Kerry true believers are just as liberal as he is and know that his seemingly apparent constant changing of position was just that, SEEMINGLY apparent. In fact, the position-changing was as we now know, simply a tactic to get the gullible to vote for him. The Faithful didn't care that he was a pseudo-flip-flopper because they also knew that Kerry could prevaricate like a Clinton (only not as roguishly). They knew he was for partial birth abortion, gay marriage, taxes on everyone with an income, big government, and never met an appeasement position he didn't like. So, they didn't care if he appeared to change positions because they knew that ultimately, he was going to be what he has always has been, an anti-war, anti-family, liberal, globalist.

The second reason Kerry was nearly elected was that a huge number of people now rely, in no small measure, on government. Either they collect social security, welfare, subsidies, or a paycheck as a government worker. Others rely on big government for the enhancement of their power base. This is the vote that is becoming ever more dangerous for how long can a democratic republic exist if the majority vote is cast by people who are takers rather than contributors?

Finally, many Kerry voters apparently do not pay attention to the issues to a level that qualifies them to think for themselves. These are the people who think that modern conservatism/libertarianism is synonymous with its ideological nemesis, fascism. These are the people whom Jay Leno interviews who don't know who Dick Cheney is or that the moon is the Earth's ONLY satellite. These are the people who think that Michael Moore's films are documentaries rather than fantasy (and not very good fantasy either). One might say that these are the products of public school/elite media brainwashing. This is the group Evan Thomas, Asst. managing editor for Newsweek, was no doubt talking about when he claimed that the mainstream press could deliver 10-15 points to Kerry beyond what the candidate normally should get. Indeed, I think they did succeed in obtaining that number. Without their help the Dem candidate would have lost nearly every blue state after being challenged on his dubious war record, his traitorous conduct after the war, his non-existent career in the Senate, and his constant position changes. But they didn't (and in fact, did the opposite). They covered up for him, built him up as a brilliant, thoughtful, and nuanced individual, a politician of the people, yada, yada, yada.

I would place good money on the hunch that AT LEAST 15% of the country bought the bogus stories produced by CBS and the NY Times about Bush's TANG record and the trumped up wep depot story. Newsweek and the AP printed Democrat talking points as real news stories for months and people lapped it up. Can I say, people that bought these lies, maybe THESE are the stupid people that Michael Moore was really talking about?

There is no other explanation for how a guy who carried the banner (and poorly at that) for a failed ideological system could get 48% of the American vote.

48% is a huge number considering the bankruptcy of both the Kerry record and the ideology he espouses. How is this possible? While the following numbers are not the result of research, it is my considered opinion that the voting populace probably breaks down something like:

Dem column:

15% "Intellectuals", assorted true believers, Christian values haters, anti-war types, socialists
18% People who benefit from big government programs (recipients as well as government employees)
15% uniformed people who are easily taken in by media propaganda or idealists who don't know their history.

GOP column:

30% values oriented traditionalists who stand by the foundational premise of the country.
15% American exceptionalists who see this country, warts and all, as the best hope for the world.
7% uninformed voters who vote based on common sense rather than deep study of the issues.

Kerry supporters can whine all they want about the "dumb" American voter, but in the end, a look in the mirror might be more in order.

We are NOT Divided!!

2004-11-03T16:43:00.000-05:00

I grow so weary of the "divided country" stuff. Liberal commentators keep talking about how Bush now has to govern to the center instead of the "far right" because he won by such a slim margin. Tell me this, did they say the same things when Clinton couldn't muster more than 46% of the vote in 1992?

Look at these numbers (from City Comforts Blog):

year ..... margin ....... candidates

1948 * 04.5%, 114 * Truman/Dewey
1952 * 10.9%, 353 * Eisenhower/Stevenson
1956 * 15.4%, 384 * Eisenhower/Stevenson
1960 * 00.2%, 084 * Kennedy/Nixon
1964 * 22.6%, 434 * Johnson/Goldwater
1968 * 00.7%, 110 * Nixon/Humphrey
1972 * 23.2%, 503 * Nixon/McGovern
1976 * 02.1%, 057 * Carter/Ford
1980 * 09.7%, 440 * Reagan/Carter
1984 * 18.2%, 512 * Reagan/Mondale
1988 * 07.7%, 315 * Bush 1/Dukakis
1992 * 05.6%, 202 * Clinton/Bush 1
1996 * 08.5%, 220 * Clinton/Dole
2000 *-00.5%, 005 * Bush 2/Gore

Bush won by 3+ points and 34 electoral college votes and NOW we're suddenly divided?

Why Bush Will Win

2004-10-29T21:04:00.000-05:00

Steyn is brilliant once again , and quite humorous:

In 2000, Al Gore lost because he had no appeal to rural white men, who, despite his claims to be a Tennessee farmer, reacted to him as if he were some effete ninny from Massachusetts. Four years on, the Dems have replaced the faux effete ninny with the genuine article.

Heh!

Kerry Still on a Mission from God

2004-10-29T20:14:00.000-05:00

As I suspected and earlier reported. God sent Kerry to us to save us from the evil of Bush.

Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin says John Kerry has been gaining in the polls every day since Oct. 21, and George Bush has been going down every day. "That's how God wants it to be," Harkin told a group of about 25 people at the Benton County Headquarters in Vinton on Thursday afternoon.

These people amaze me. They can simultaneously condemn the President daily about his faith and then come up with stuff like this. Pat Robertson says something like this and he's a crazy religious zealot. Harkin says it, who can disagree?

NBC, ABC trying to bury CBS?

2004-10-28T09:53:00.000-05:00

Despite their best efforts, the MSM has been unable to put Kerry over the top in his bid for the White House. But of the big three broadcast networks, only CBS still clings to the hope that its news department can swing the election to Kerry. There comes a point when it is time to cut your losses and this appears to be the time for the folks over at NBC and ABC. Capitalism may finally be overcoming their leftist tendancies enough to start piling on their competition over at CBS.

First, NBC ran with a story contradicting the Times/CBS Al Qaa Qaa contentions, now ABC is acting like they are a real news organization as well:

The documents [obtained by ABC] show IAEA inspectors looked at nine bunkers containing more than 194 tons of HMX at the facility. Although these bunkers were still under IAEA seal, the inspectors said the seals may be potentially ineffective because they had ventilation slats on the sides. These slats could be easily removed to remove the materials inside the bunkers without breaking the seals, the inspectors noted."

Although ABC and NBC still tilt heavily left, I begin to think that these news organizations are half-heartedly admiting that their efforts have not helped their guy in the polls enough and it's time to stop putting good money after bad. One could even argue that the more they try to prop Kerry up, the worse it gets for him. Although the MSM generally moves as a pack, NBC and ABC may have decided that CBS is very vulnerable these days. It would be arena sport to see them eat one of their own.

Could Kerry unwittingly "fulfill Revelation"?

2004-10-28T07:14:00.000-05:00

I keep hearing an ill-informed complaint from my liberal friends that the number one reason they despise Bush is because "he thinks he is on a mission from God". I frequently notice this drivel in the mainstream media as well. In fact, a discussion on this very topic happened a couple of weeks ago on HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher. Guest David Cross stated that Bush "takes the Bible literally", and "he wants to fulfill Revelation". Maher nodded approvingly while the crowd applauded wildly.

Let's look at this charge for a moment. Presumably, Cross and his like-minded secularists think that somehow, by America coming to its own (and Israel's) defense in the middle east, Bush will preciptate the Second Coming. But let's look at this seriously. If Bush is indeed, a person who wants to usher in the events of the End Times, then I submit that he is going about his prophesy-fulfilling efforts all wrong.

A recent Charles Krauthammer column tends to support my theory that it is KERRY policy that is more likely to usher in Armageddon, not Bush's.

Krauthammer presents the eminently logical theory that Kerry may have a secret plan for "bringing along the allies" to help with the war in Iraq in return for cutting Israel loose. Now, if I were a Christian who had the power to presumptuously rush the world toward the events depicted in the prophesies of Revelation, there would be no better way to do that than for America to abandon the Jews. Right now, we're down to just a few countries which will stand by Israel. Of these, only the US is in a position to truly keep the wolves from Jerusalem's doorstep. Fortunately for Israel, this is enough.

But where does Israel go if, as Krauthammer suggests, a Kerry or a future similarly like-minded administration abandons it?

As followers of Biblical prophesy know, the Antichrist of Revelation will be a leader of a future European confederation who rises to prominence because he makes an amazingly daring protection treaty with Israel. John prophesies in Revelation that the Antichrist will make a deal with the Jews so that they can actually rebuild their temple on its original site (a place that just so happens to be the current location of the Dome of the Rock) without retribution. There is no way that the building of the Jewish temple can happen without a persuasive political leader with a large military behind him to hold back an angry Muslim world. If we think Islam is radical now, imagine what it would be like if someone came along and said to the Jews, "go ahead and demolish the Dome of the Rock and build your temple, I'll protect you". Such a history making agreement is simply impossible while a Bush policy is in place.

Put another way, if you believe in a literal interpretation of Revelation, you have to believe that as long as the United States sticks with the current policy of protecting Israel, the Antichrist can never find the fertile geopolitical ground required to rise to power. This is why I think it is so ironic that secularists in Hollywood and the liberal media think that W sees himself on a mission from God to "fulfill Revelation" when in fact, he is currently pursuing a policy that effectively prevents the single most important political event described in the Book of Revelation from coming to pass.

Put another way, if Hollywood fears the "fulfillment of Revelation" then they need to vote for Bush!

UPDATE: Bush is reelected, Armageddon postponed!

The Success of Senators

2004-10-27T23:56:00.000-05:00

Someone recently assured me that sitting Senators were more than qualified to be president. I replied that the voting populace has generally disagreed with that assertion. In the following list I highlight where the POTUS had senatorial experience. While numerous presidents were in the Senate at one time or another (some just before taking the presidency), only 2 were sitting sentators when elected to the White House. I'll leave you, dear reader, to figure out which two:

George Washington
surveyor, planter, general of the Army of the United Colonies

John Adams
schoolteacher, lawyer, diplomat, vice president under Washington

Thomas Jefferson
writer, inventor, lawyer, architect, governor of Virginia, secretary of state under Washington, vice president under Adams

James Madison
lawyer, political theorist, U.S. congressman, secretary of state under Jefferson

James Monroe
soldier, lawyer, U.S. senator, governor of Virginia

John Quincy Adams
lawyer, diplomat, professor, U.S. senator, secretary of state under Monroe

Andrew Jackson
soldier, U.S. congressman, U.S. senator, governor of Florida

Martin Van Buren
lawyer, U.S. senator, governor of New York, vice president under Jackson

William Henry Harrison
soldier, diplomat, U.S. congressman, U.S. senator from Ohio

John Tyler
lawyer, U.S. congressman, U.S. senator, vice president under Harrison

James Knox Polk
lawyer, U.S. congressman, governor of Tennessee

Zachary Taylor
soldier

Millard Fillmore
lawyer, U.S. congressman, vice president under Taylor

Franklin Pierce
lawyer, soldier, U.S. congressman, U.S. senator from New Hampshire

James Buchanan
lawyer, U.S. congressman, U.S.senator, U.S. secretary of state

Abraham Lincoln
postmaster, lawyer, U.S. congressman from Illinois

Andrew Johnson
tailor, U.S. congressman, governor of Tennessee, U.S. senator from Tennessee, vice president under Lincoln

Ulysses Simpson Grant
U.S. Army general

Rutherford Birchard Hayes
lawyer, soldier, U.S. congressman, governor of Ohio

James Abram Garfield
schoolteacher, soldier, U.S. representative from Ohio

Chester Alan Arthur
schoolteacher, lawyer, tariff collector, vice president under Garfield

Grover Cleveland
sheriff, lawyer, mayor, governor of New York

Benjamin Harrison
lawyer, soldier, journalist, U.S. senator from Indiana

William McKinley
soldier, lawyer, U.S. congressman, governor of Ohio

Theodore Roosevelt
rancher, soldier, governor of New York, vice president under McKinley

William Howard Taft
lawyer, judge, dean of the University of Cincinnati Law School, U.S. secretary of war

Woodrow Wilson
lawyer, professor, president of Princeton University, governor of New Jersey

Warren Gamaliel Harding
newspaper editor, U.S. senator from Ohio

Calvin Coolidge
lawyer, governor of Massachusetts, vice president under Harding

Herbert Clark Hoover
engineer, U.S. secretary of commerce

Franklin Delano Roosevelt
lawyer, governor of New York

Harry S. Truman
farmer, soldier, haberdasher, judge, U.S. senator, vice president under Roosevelt

Dwight David Eisenhower
supreme commander of the Allied forces in Europe, U.S. Army chief of staff
writer

John Fitzgerald Kennedy
journalist, U.S. congressman, U.S. senator from Massachusetts

Lyndon Baines Johnson
schoolteacher, soldier, congressman, U.S. senator from Texas, vice president under Kennedy

Richard Milhous Nixon
lawyer, U.S. congressman, U.S. senator, vice president under Eisenhower

Gerald Rudolph Ford
lawyer, U.S. congressman, vice president under Nixon

James Earl Carter, Jr.
peanut farmer, governor of Georgia

Ronald Wilson Reagan
movie actor, corporate spokesman, governor of California

George Herbert Walker Bush
oil executive, U.S. congressman, U.S. ambassador to the UN, Director of CIA, vice president under Reagan

William Jefferson Clinton
lawyer, governor of Arkansas

George Walker Bush
oil executive, sport team owner, governor of Texas

Was Jesus a Fundamentalist Christian?

2004-10-27T23:42:00.000-05:00

I am amazed by the widespread myth that Christian Fundamentalists are no different than Islamic Fundamentalists at their core. Even fleeting analysis reveals that one is the polar opposite of the other.

A true Christian is, by definition, a follower of the teachings of Christ. For His part, Christ could be accurately labeled an extreme fundamentalist Christian (the first one in fact) because he followed his own teachings to the letter. So what does being an extremist, fundamentalist Christian entail?

Extreme Christianity would require Christians to be more bold in telling the world of the good news of eternal life through Christ (and doing so through friendly persuasion and living a life of righteousness), doing everything possible to help the poor, fighting against evil, doing what is good, etc. That is fundamentalist Christianity. More of that behavior would be good for the world would it not? (unless you're part of the aforementioned group of evil people :-)

However, to be a good Muslim (and I'm not talking "good" by Western standards which is to be a "moderate" but rather "good" by Wahabi standards, that is, a close adherent of the Quran) one must engage in a battle against modernity, Judaism and Christianity. Women must be subjugated, free thought must be suppressed, and temptation (such as Hollywood likes to export) must be avoided at all costs. In fact, the very concept of democracy is anathema to the teachings of the Quran. We think that exporting American democracy is a good thing for Muslim countries whereas they see it as an evil.

Just look at the fundamentals of each faith. One teaches caring for widows and orphans and allowing the freedom to choose to be with God or avoid Him forever. The other religion mandates the killing Jews and Infidels wherever they are as an essential tenet of the faith. It is interesting how prophetic it is that of the two teachings, Jesus Christ's are considered evil and Mohammed's tolerable.

The religion of "Peace"

2004-10-27T23:35:00.000-05:00

A reader took me on recently on my assertion that Islam is far from a religion of peace:

"As I understand it, you believe that anyone who reads the Quran wants nothing less than killing everyone who isn't in the Islam faith, and they are just biding their time. Is it? Because that is not how it is in reality, the average Muslim wants what you and I both want - a roof over our heads, food, good friends, and a loving relationship that produces good children. They care not for killing someone who doesn't believe in the Quran."

There are two important points that the reader completely ignores:

1. How many Muslims AGREE with the Jihad against the West. (clue: look at how many Muslims have denounced the terror).
2. Does the Quran command the killing of Jews and Infidels. (clue: let's go to the source:

Surah:

2:191

kill them wherever you find them, and drive them out from wherever they drove you out

9:123

Oh ye who believe! Murder those of the disbelievers and let them find harshness in you.

9:5

Slay the idolaters wherever you find them

8:12

I will instill terror into the hearts of the unbelievers: smite ye above their necks and smite all their finger-tips off.

9:29

Fight those who do not believe in God and the last day... and fight People of the Book, who do not accept the religion of truth (Islam) until they pay tribute by hand, being inferior"

5:11

And as for those who disbelieve and reject Our Signs, they are the people of Hell"

29:45

Argue with people of the book, other than evil doers, only by means of what are better! and say, we believe in what has been sent down to us and sent down to you. Our God is the same as your God, and we are surrendered to Him.

2:256

There is no compulsion in religion

2:193

Fight them on until there is no more tumult and religion becomes that of Allah

5:33

The punishment of those who wage war against Allah and His Messenger, and strive with might and main for mischief through the land is: execution, or crucifixion, or the cutting off of hands and feet from opposite sides, or exile from the land: that is their disgrace in this world, and a heavy punishment is theirs in the Hereafter;

22:19-22

But as for those who disbelieve, garments of fire will be cut out for them; boiling fluid will be poured down on their heads,

Whereby that which is in their bellies, and their skins too, will be melted;

And for them are hooked rods of iron.

Whenever, in their anguish, they would go forth from thence they are driven back therein and (it is said unto them): Taste the doom of burning.

9:23

O ye who believe! take not for protectors your fathers and your brothers if they love Infidelity above Faith: if any of you do so, they do wrong.

60:8

Allah forbids you not, with regard to those who fight you not for (your) Faith nor drive you out of your homes, from dealing kindly and justly with them: for Allah loveth those who are just.

25:52

So obey not the disbelievers, but strive against them herewith with a great endeavor.

66:9

O Prophet! Strive against the disbelievers and the hypocrites, and be stern with them. Hell will be their home, a hapless journey's end.

47:4

When you meet the unbelievers, strike off their heads; then when you have made wide slaughter among them, carefully tie up the remaining captives.

8:65,

O Prophet! rouse the Believers to the fight. If there are twenty amongst you, patient and persevering, they will vanquish two hundred: if a hundred, they will vanquish a thousand of the Unbelievers

3:28
Let not the believers take for friends or helpers unbelievers rather than believers: if any do that, in nothing will there be help from Allah. except by way of precaution, that ye may guard yourselves from them. But Allah cautions you (to fear) Himself; for the final goal is to Allah.

8:12
I will instill terror into the hearts of the unbelievers: smite ye above their necks and smite all their finger-tips off them

8:60
Against them make ready your strength to the utmost of your power, including steeds of war, to strike terror into (the hearts of) the enemies, of Allah and your enemies.

This is far from a comprehensive list of passages but should provide little comfort to those who claim that the Quran teachs "peace".

Kerry On a Mission From God?

2004-10-27T21:09:00.000-05:00

David Limbaugh argues that it is Kerry who is more likely to be the one to continually quote Scripture:

As I recall, while President Bush made no secret during the debates of his reliance on God, it was not him, but John Kerry who was citing Scripture -- or trying to. And it was Kerry who said, "My faith affects everything that I do, in truth."

More proof that Kerry is a dangerous Bible thumper!

Want to be Productive? Use a Mac

2004-10-21T00:25:00.000-05:00

As the iPod continues to dominate the MP3 player market, leading more and more PC users to consider buying at least one piece of gear from Apple, I think it is worth taking a moment to explain why I would never use anything other than a Mac.

First off, I am the first to say that if there is a compelling reason to run Windows I certainly understand. Windows is a software tool like any other software tool and as such, it should be deployed where a user finds that it is the only option.

There are dozens of varieties of Windows operating systems, each specifically designed to run on a given manufacturer's hardware. In this respect, there is no monolithic OS called "Windows". Every manufacturer of a "Wintel" PC has its own way of implementing Windows and thus, you can't think of Windows like you can with the Mac (which is a tightly integrated hardware/software environment controlled entirely by Apple Computer). The MS Windows operating system is customized by each hardware manufacturer to suit its own needs. This gives it flexibility but at the sacrifice of stability and ease of use. Of course, the hardware itself varies widely from manufacturer to manufacturer as well.

That said, in this contest, I believe Macintosh wins as a productivity platform for the following reasons:

No viruses. At this point (5 years after its initial release), Mac OS X remains virus and worm free. This translates directly into a safer user experience. In this day and age, the value of this single issue cannot be overstated. OS X makes this possible. Meanwhile there are thousands and thousands of viruses for the contemporary versions of Windows (NT, XP, 2000). Of course, someday someone might figure out how to write one for OS X but then there will be only ONE virus vs. the tens of thousands for Windows. For this reason alone OS X is simply the better choice for the academic and home environment.

TCO (Total Cost of Ownership). Macs are simply better built, obsolesce slower, are easier to support, and more intuitive to use than its Wintel competitors. If user productivity is higher then the value of the computer increases. A total solution must consider not just the OS preference but longevity of hardware, ease of support, ease of upgrades, downtime considerations, and training issues.

Less expensive to support. Dozens of studies have looked at just this one issue related to TCO and have found that user-to-tech ratios are much better in operations running Macs over Windows. If the computer takes less time to troubleshoot or to upgrade or to explain to a user, then it is spending more time doing what it should be doing, being a productive tool rather than a constant headache.

Initial purchase cost. A similar speed Mac with comparable features is currently less expensive than the Dell. A 2Ghz iMac is comparable in speed to a 3.5Ghz Pentium IV (the combination of the outdated Windows operating system running on inefficient Intel chips requires much faster clock speeds to get the same amount of processing as the Apple/IBM combination). As of Spring of 2004 the eMac, for example, was priced well under $800 while the comparable Dell Dimension 8300 runs around $1200. At this writing, there are no $800 Dell PCs with Firewire and a quality separate video card like the eMac. The price gap is even wider when comparing the Mac Powerbook lineup with the Dell offerings.

Support. Apple provides better direct support of its customers. the best test of this is to visit Apple's web site and then Dell's. The experience is like night and day.

More user-friendly. The Mac has easily the most elegant user interface on the market with OS X. It is designed from the table up to work right out of the box. In 5 years of using OS X I have experienced only 3 crashes amongst my 3 different Macs. It is that stable.

But you might ask, what about all the Windows software that is unavailable for the Mac?

It is true that there are roughly 40,000 usable Windows packages that few people will ever use on their PC vs. about 20,000 that few will ever use on their Mac. Of course, all the MAJOR packages that a user generally needs are available for both platforms. I think most of these run better on the Mac than under Windows. The exception is MS Office, which generally performs better from within the Windows environment than on the Mac. However, Office X is a very robust software package and actually has several key features not found in the Windows version.

Over all, the software availability for OS X is very wide and includes many extremely advanced packages NOT AVAILABLE for Windows. These include Final Cut Pro, Logic, Soundtrack, DVD StudioPro, iDVD, GarageBand, iCal, iMovie, iPhoto, Mail.app, and iSync.

Finally, I'm rather fond of the UNIX underpinnings of OS X. The BSD code under the hood has proven to be the most reliable of any OS kernel ever built.

This is not to say that Windows is not useful. I think it's a great platform to run Solitaire!