Scott Peterson Guilty

My girlfriend called me for her work at one of Houston's downtown energy trading companies to say that the Peterson verdict was coming in. The guys in her office were making book on the outcome, and would I like a piece of the action?

She wasn't serious, of course, because she knows I don't gamble. (When I have the urge to lose money on a bet I use the stock market.) But, going along with the gag, I said, "Sure, put $100 down on Peterson to be guilty, first degree," which was the line with the best odds.

Too bad she didn't really place the bet, because I would have made $400 on it.

The people outside of the trial following it the most closely were the news people, and most of them seemed to be convinced that Peterson was guilty. That was based on all the circumstancial evidence regarding things Peterson did leading up to and following the murder, which made him look like a creep, a cad, and guilty man.

But the jury deliberated for 6 days without a verdict. Clearly, they didn't see it that way, not the jury as it was originally composed, anyway. And everyone knew it hinged on the lack of physical evidence linking Peterson to the crime. The prosecution's strategy was to paint Peterson as a person who deserved to die even if they couldn't produce evidence proving he actually did the crime.

The circumstances around the trial suggested a conspiracy toward a certain verdict. The jurors holding out for a not guilty verdict, the lawyer/doctor who saw the problem with the evidence, perhaps, the woman smart enough to want to do her own research, were thrown out on vague pretexts, and the jury willing to render the proper verdict was finally seated. And with that jury it only took a few hours more to get the right outcome.

It never really mattered whether Peterson actually did it or not. He was still guilty of failing to protect his wife and unborn child. He was still guilty of failing to grieve their loss with the proper verve. He was still guilty of being a cad. Only one verdict was possible.

I'd be willing to bet that with this jury he gets the death penalty, but I don't think I could get anyone to cover that bet.

More Global Warming Junk

Arctic indigenous peoples urged the United States on Friday to join other nations in cutting greenhouse gas emissions to brake an accelerating thaw of the polar ice.

What do the scientific studies of artic ice show?

Johannessen et al. (1999) used surface-based measurements to derive variations in area-averaged Arctic sea-ice thickness from 1978 to 1991. They, too, detected a downward trend in this parameter. All of the drop occurred rather abruptly over a single period of not more than three years (1987/88-1990/91) .

Winsor (2001) based on a more extensive analysis concluded that "mean ice thickness has remained on a near-constant level around the North Pole from 1986 to 1997."

Holloway and Sou (2002) On the basis of a number of different data-fed model runs, they found that for the last half of the past century there had been no downward trend in artic ice thickness. They noted that year to year variablity of ice thickness can be large.

Polyakov et al. (2002) and Polyakov et al. (2003), reported that the available fast-ice records "do not show a significant trend."

Laxon et al. (2003) Using radar techniques over the largest areas surveyed up to now they saw high year to year variablity in artic ice mass not supportive of current ideas of global warming induced change.

Pfirman et al. (2004) analyzed Arctic sea-ice drift dynamics from 1979-1997, showed that ice was being pushed out of the artic into seas further south by higher winds in certain years, a phenomenon which probably best explains the high annual variablity of the artic ice mass. The life of sea ice in the artic can be as short as 3 years as ice pushed out is constantly being replaced. Thus, the whole system is highly dynamic and subject to variablity from a number of factors, including the winds and ocean currents during certain years.

It's the old story. High degrees of natural variablity in certain measurements are filtered through global warming groupthink to become evidence of impending doom, and anecdotes of eskimos falling through thin ice are made to trump carefully done scientific studies.

Reformist Right Beats Reactionary Left

The left in America has become a reactionary force. The left champions Cold War-era international institutions, fascist dictators like Saddam Hussein and Fidel Castro, and insists that New Deal and Great Society programs like Social Security and Medicare must not be changed. The recent election was a triumph of the reformers over the reactionaries.

The untold story from last week's Republican victory was the ineffectiveness of the left's attacks on right-wing reform. Democrats surprisingly did not launch a national campaign against partial privatization of Social Security. They did unlimber heavy artillery against radical changes in federal taxation but ended up shooting duds.

This failure was dramatized by Senate elections in the very red states of Oklahoma and South Carolina. Right up to Election Day, serious Democratic strategists saw an excellent chance to win in both states because the Republican candidates were uncompromising reformers and, therefore, stigmatized as loony rightists. Instead, former Rep. Tom Coburn in Oklahoma and Rep. Jim DeMint in South Carolina won easily.

The Accomplishments of Yasser Arafat

1950 - Founded Fatah

1965-1969 - Several terrorist attacks against infrastructure targets in Israel. First attacks against airliners, including a multiple simultaneous hijacking, using Jordan as a base.

Sept. 1971 - Arafat driven from Jordan by Jordanian forces after giving the government there no end of grief.

Sept. 1972 - Arafat moves his base to Lebanon. Israeli olympic team murdered in Munich by the Black September wing of Fatah.

Oct. 1972 - Lufthansa jet airliner hijacked.

March 1973 - Black September group took American hostages in the Saudi consolate in the Sudan demanding the release of Sirhan Sirhan, Bobby Kennedy's killer.

April 1974 - PLO slaughtered eighteen residents of Kiryat Shmona in their apartment building.

May 1974 - Palestinian terrorists attacked a school in Ma'alot, murdering 26 Israelis, including several children.

June 1974 - the PLO endorsed what it called a "phased plan" to obliterate Israel.

November 1974 - PLO awarded observer status in the UN.

1980 - Arafat recognized as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinians by the EEC.

1982 - Arafat driven from Lebanon by the IDF.

1985 - a PLO cell identifying itself as the Palestine Liberation Front, led by Mohammed Abu al-Abbas, hijacked the Italian cruise ship, Achille Lauro. As his horrified wife looked on, the terrorists viciously shot a 69-year-old, wheelchair-bound Jew named Leon Klinghoffer, then tossed him overboard to die in the sea.

1987 - First intifada breaks out in Gaza. Arafat's group kills 3000 Israelis and even more of his own people were killed in political purges.

1988 - PLO granted right to particpate in UN General Assembly sessions.

1993 - Oslo accords.

1994 - Arafat wins Nobel Peace Prize.

1996 - Arafat, speaking to an Arab audience, said, "We plan to eliminate the State of Israel and establish a purely Palestinian state. We will make life unbearable for Jews by psychological warfare and population explosion.... We Palestinians will take over everything, including all of Jerusalem."

2000 - Under intense U.S. pressure driven by Clinton's need for a legacy, Israel offered Arafat the creation of a Palestinian state over 90 percent of the West Bank and all of Gaza, with its capital to be in East Jerusalem. Arafat rejected this offer.

2000 - The Second Intifada began with the collapse of the Oslo accords.

2001 - Following one of his typically belligerant addresses to the Palestinians in December, 2001, the administration of President George W. Bush let it be known that Arafat would no longer be dealt with. Bush asserts the doctine of global anti-terrorism and war subsequent to Sept 11, and Arafat's effectiveness is curtailed and he is gradually marginalized and reduced to pariah status.

2002 to the Present - Arafat is trapped in his compound in Palestine. Hamas and other Palestinian terrorist leaders are picked off one by one by the Israeli anti-terrorist forces.

The "Moral Values" Canard

With the 2004 presidential election an exit poll was conducted that included the following question:

Which one issue mattered most in considering your vote for president?

A. Education, 4 percent.
B. Taxes, 5 percent.
C. Health Care, 8 percent.
D. Iraq, 15 percent.
E. Terrorism, 19 percent.
F. Economy and Jobs, 20 percent.
G. Moral Values, 22 percent.

Because "moral values' includes so many issues, such as gay marriage, crime, abortion, and even character, it polled slightly higher than the others, which were all more narrowly defined. Group the other issues into broad categories such as "the war" or "domestic issues" and they easily out-polled "moral values."

Nevertheless, another leftist canard was born with that survey, which was the idea that Kerry was defeated by bigoted Christian rednecks. Maureen Dowd in the New York Times said it with the most verve, cursing the Republicans for pandering to "isolationism, nativism, chauvinism, puritanism and religious fanaticism" in their unfailing drive to "summon our nasty devils."

An analysis of the polls conducted after the election contradicts this idea. Bush received no more of the vote in states that had anti-gay marriage proposals on the ballot than he did in 2000, for example, and the moral values issues came up as being no more imporant than usual in other polls. The proportion of the electorate claiming to be fundamentalist Christian did not change, either.

But it can never be that the Democrat's message was simply rejected. It's never that they've gone wrong. The liberal elite must find a way to deligitimize the Republican victory and assuage their moral vanity, and this was going to be the theme this time, much like "Angry White Men" had been the theme in an earlier election.

So it is that, while standing on the smoldering ruins of yet another Democratic defeat, they angrily, absurdly claim moral superiority.

Bush And The USA Are Loved More Than You Can Believe

An astonishing letter from a member of a humanitarian organization who has worked all over the Middle East:

Every time I went to Afghanistan, Pakistan or Iraq on humanitarian missions the people begged me to assure them that Bush would be elected. These weren't a few people, as I'd first hoped (as a committed left winger,) but hundreds, thousands. They saw their struggle as I saw Cuba, Angola or Kosovo. I'm now forced, albeit with some personal reservations and resistance, to see their point. The people in these countries even begged me to tell the Americans to bomb their neighborhoods to kill the 'Taliban' that live there. Heartbreaking--but a heartbreaking admission of how sick they are of living under totalitarianism. They see America as freedom.

While watching the elections in Afghanistan I never saw such joy. Such hope. The people would come and shake my hand, hug me, just because of my nationality. What a success, I had to admit.

Even we on the left have to start coming to grips with the world, and that means coming to grips with the fact that unlike us liberal/left, a lot of people in the world admire, even love, George Bush, their 'liberator.' I hear even more passion for Bush in Iraq, worse (or better, depending on your point of view) from the people than even the soldiers, and the military are at least 5 to 1 for Bush...this would make the indigenous population maybe 9-1 for our current administration.

I was coming back from the Middle East when Bush was elected and saw the Iranians with the 'V' for victory claiming the streets in the thousands, the hundreds of thousands celebrating the Bush election.

We're going to have to rethink a lot of issues, positions, prejudices and fears, folks...it's a sad fact for some of us, but the future of the Islamic world seems to be in democracy. And we're more loved than our media and politicans are telling us--even Bush! Weird, maybe. True, unfortunately. Honest, indubitably.

Sarin Nerve Gas Found in Fallujah

NPR reports that a truck containing canisters of the deadly nerve agent was found hidden in the Iraqi city of Fallujah. The source and age of the supply of Sarin was not known, but labels on the canisters were in English.

US forces have suspected that nerve gas might be used in the defense of Fallujah and have had gas masks available during the attack.

Comments Turned On

I have enabled comments from this post forward. Attempts to add comments for posts older than this one won't work. There are no comments for those older posts even though a comment link has been added to them.

Arafat Dead

Too late he accomplishes the one thing that would have helped so many.

Letter From A Pot Smoking Bush Voter

A pro-abortion, pro-legalization-of-marijuana, pro-gay marriage, pro-human rights, pro-world democracy generation X person defends his decision to vote for Bush. This letter was written in response to John Perry Barlow's article "Magnanamus Defeat" in which the author makes some attempts to understand the pro-Bush voter:

I think what bemused me most when reading your missive, Mr. Barlow, was your description of the young man who was probably popular and on the football team and supported Bush, while you the nerdy outsider supported Kerry, and you saw the whole thing through some sort of 50s-vs.-60s lens. Nothing could show me just how insular so many on the left have become than that. Few of the war supporters I know fit such stereotypes at all. "Think for yourself, question authority" is something a lot of us sucked in with our mothers' milk--and by the way, you know we kids who were born in the 1960s are now in our 30s and 40s and parents ourselves, right? A lot of us grew up being told to question authority, and a lot of that authority we now question is the left-wing orthodoxy of your generation, an orthodoxy many of us bought into as it was taught to us in school, in the books we read, and especially in the universities, not to mention in a lot of what we see out of Hollywood today.

We came to reject a lot of that orthodoxy as we got older and learned to think better for ourselves--not because we "embraced the establishment," but because we were questioning the establishment.

There's lots more. It's worth it to read the whole thing.

So much for exit polls.

So much for the power of the mainstream media.

So much for the idea that undecided voters always go for the challenger.

So much for the Democrat's belief that the popular vote should decide the Presidential election.

So much for the idea that a big turnout always favors the Democrats.

So much for Tom Daschle.

So much for the youth vote.

So much for the winds of change.

So much for Zogby.

So much for Michael Moore's efforts.

So much for the Washington Redskin's last home game going the way of the incumbent in the election.

So much for Hollywood's clout.

So much for George Soros.

The Scopes Monkey Trial

Darwinism is as true as scientific truth can be as a theory of biology, and most of us can agree that teaching creationism in biology classes is a bad idea.

The efforts of Christian fundamentalists to include creationism in the public school biology curriculum is often cited as archtypical of the conflict between the forces of rationality and science and those of fundamentalist religious superstition.

An event often cited as an example of this conflict is the Scopes Monkey Trial. The trial in 1925 pitted populist William Jennings Bryan and his friends against defense lawyer Clarence Darrow and his client John Scopes, who was accused of violating a state law against teaching Darwinism in a public school.

Recently, this episode of American history has been revisited by several pundits, and liberals often cite the trial to frame their opposition to the conservative political agenda in terms similar to those used to characterize the Scopes Trial, i.e., the battle of the rational, scientific and informed against the superstitious and ignorant.

However, in delving into the history of the Scopes Trial one finds that things were not as they are often portrayed in the popular media (or in the news media of the day, for that matter.) For example, the idea that William Jennings Bryan objected to the teaching of evolution only because he thought it undermined the Christian religion is a myth. It wasn't just the right to teach the theory of evolution as a theory of biology that was being defended in the trial.

The textbook from which Mr. Scopes was accused of teaching was A Civic Biology Presented in Problems by George William Hunter. In this text the theory of evolution was not primarily what was being taught, certainly not in a proper biological sense. There was not much in it about Darwin's evidence, nothing about how the theory was developed, no biological examples, nothing that put the idea in a biological context. In fact, the main trust of the book was eugenics, which in the 1920's was considered to be the logical, scientific and rational extension of the theory of evolution into civic life. Civic Biology went into what the author thought were the logical conclusions that could be derived from the theory of evolution in justification of eugenics, such as the idea of white supremacy, the "scientific" justification of the inferiority of certain other races, the necessity of racial purity, and so forth.

Eugenics was what passed for a progressive and rational idea of that day. It was the backward, irrational, religious fanatics like Bryan, who insisted that all men are equal in God's eyes, that objected to the advocacy of eugenics. Bryan, informed by his religious beliefs, strongly upheld the ideals of human rights and equality. These were the same religious ideas and beliefs that had been used to advocate for the abolition of slavery 60 years before.

Looking back on this from our present position in history, having seen where these racist ideas lead, it is difficult for us to understand the thinking process behind the trial. Both Bryan and Darrow looked upon all of the racist ideas advocated in Civic Biology as being a corollary of Darwinism. There was no attempt to seperate Darwinism, which as a theory of biology stood up well even then, from derivative ideas like racism and eugenics. It was all part of a piece. Darwinism was eugenics and eugenics was Darwinism.

In the trial, Darrow made no bones about his approval of eugenics as a scientific and rational idea. The first witness for the defense was Maynard M. Metcalf, a member of the American Eugenics Society. The judge ruled such testimony immaterial and for that was ridiculed by the press for refusing to consider the scientific evidence.

Bryan, who was often called "the great common man" because of his advocacy of equality and social justice, saw where the whole idea of Darwinism/eugenics was leading. The fact that Darwinism appeared to contradict Christian teaching was to him just one part of the evidence that the whole thing was wrong. Bryan didn't object to a theory that made men the relatives of monkeys so much as he objected to a theory that justified treating people like animals. Of Darwinism, he wrote that "Its only program for man is scientific breeding, a system under which a few supposedly superior intellects, self-appointed, would direct the mating and the movements of the mass of mankind -- an impossible system!"

Whenever people advocating a secular and progressive agenda get frustrated with the objections of religious people they should stop and consider what it was their counterparts were defending in the Scopes Monkey Trial. That's not to advocate for the ascendency of religion over science and rationality in public policy, but, at the very least, to say that that religion and traditional values have a necessary role.

If We Elect Kerry President

...we, first of all, will give up the notion that America can do big things.

Once a nation that tamed a frontier, stood down the Nazis and stood upon the moon, we will announce to the world that bringing democracy to the Middle East is too big of a task for us. But more significantly, we will signal to future presidents that as voters we are unwilling to tackle difficult challenges, preferring caution to boldness, embracing the mediocrity that has characterized other failed civilizations. The defeat of President Bush will send a chilling message to future presidents who may need to make difficult, yet unpopular decisions. America has always been a nation that rises to the demands of history regardless of the costs or appeal. If we elect Kerry we will turn away from that legacy, we will turn away from who we are.

Second, if we elect Kerry we will inform every terrorist organization on the globe that the lesson of Somalia was well learned. In Somalia we showed terrorists that you don't need to defeat America on the battlefield when you can defeat them in the newsroom. They learned that a wounded America can become a defeated America. Twenty-four-hour news stations and daily tracking polls will do the heavy lifting, turning a cut into a fatal blow. Except that Iraq is Somalia times 10. The election of John Kerry will serve notice to every terrorist in every cave that the soft underbelly of American power is the timidity of American voters. Terrorists will know that a steady stream of grizzly photos for CNN is all you need to break the will of the American people. Our own self-doubt will take it from there. Al Qaeda will recognize that they can topple any American administration without setting foot on the homeland.

If we elect Kerry we will begin the process of fading into the oblivion we may then deserve.

What Liberals Don't Get

1. The world is a dangerous place, filled with deadly people. Not just people who are misunderstood. Not just people who are poor. Not just people who have different "values."

2. Most nations in the world look out for themselves. We cringe at the idea of a 'global test' because we know who's going to be grading the test.

3. America is not the world's problem--America is the world's solution. The United States is the only great nation in the world whose people are willing to make real sacrifices of blood and treasure for world peace. If we don't do it, no one will. President Bush knows this. The American people know it. American liberals don't.

American liberals are making the same mistake in the war on terror that they made during the Cold War. They trust anti-American voices around the world more than they trust the American people.

Regarding the Killian Memos

The whole point of the bloggers was that someone could just sit down at at a computer with MS Word and start typing the memos. Not even have to change default margins etc. Then run the output through a copier a few times to "age" it.Well, if this is not MS Word Times New Roman, that theory flies out the window. And one consistent character difference means it is not MS TNR.

I think you make a good point. However, looking at the points you mention I'm not sure that these differences can't be accounted for by distortion due to recopying and scanning.

If you say that MS Word didn't create those memos, then how were they created?

The aha! moment over these memos for me was seeing how an MS Word generated document almost exactly recreates the memos. I don't see how that could possibly be the case if the memos were created by a typewriter in 1972. Someone has even gone to the effort of deliberately trying to recreate the memos with an IBM Selectric Composer, and it could not be done.

When I started hearing people say that producing these documents with the Composer might have been possible, I had to laugh because I know from personal experience how absurd that is. Believe it or not I used to work for a small newspaper many years ago. I assisted in the use of a Linotype machine, the machine that the Composer sort of replaced. The Linotype was the machine that replaced manual typesetting, and it was the most ridiculous Rube Golbergian machine ever created. It must have had a million moving parts, was gas fired and electric. The operator worked at a keyboard with more than 300 keys, as I recall, one key for every character, the capital characters, and all special characters. The operator hit a key and a piece of type (actually a type mold for an individual character) was dispensed from a magazine above, carried on belts and over wheels to the ruler line where it was deposited to create a line of type. Despite all of the mechanical geegaws the operator was often required to position type manually on the ruler, reaching in with his fingers to pluck out errant type or insert type. When a line was complete the operator pulled a big lever, molten typemetal (mostly lead) poured in and a complete line of printer type was cast. At least once an hour, it seemed, the machine would spray molten metal when the casting process didn't work for any of a million reasons.

The other thing I remember about the Linotype was the fact that it was hot, hot dirty and greasy. In the non-airconditioned shop you ended up sweaty and as dirty as a coal miner after working with or around the darn thing. And it was always breaking down, and the operator had to be more than half mechanic to use it.

It was horrible. I probably still have lead poisoning from those days.

The paper I worked at had a Composer or something similar, but we ink stained monkeys were not allowed to even approach it. It was out in the nice, clean front office. The IBM Composer was referred to as a cold typesetter because it did the same job as a Linotype but without the molten metal. Nevertheless, it had the same Rube Goldbergian, clunky quality to it that the Linotype did. Like the Linotype, the thing had something like a ruler on which a line of "type" was assembled, and there was a little window that the operator watched to monitor this. If you messed up and put too many or too few characters in a line of type the whole thing fell apart and you had to start over. Most of the special characters, centering, and other effects were produced manually and took a lot of time. But at least a Composer wouldn't spew hot typemetal all over, and it had a greatly simplied, typewriter style keyboard compared to the grand pipeorgan type keyboard of the Linotype.

All this has brought those memories back, and all I can say is Thank God for computers and computer printers. (Youngsters these days have No Idea, and THAT is why the forgeries were done the way they were.)

The point of all this is to say that these machines were NOT the kind of thing that someone would sit down and pound a memo out on. There is NO WAY that anyone would use a Composer like that. The only reason to put up with the Composer's quirks was in order to produce copy that looked like it was typeset, so that it could be photographed and used in lithography to produce hundreds of printed copies. It would probably take an hour for an expert operator to create one of those memos as printed using a Composer, with centered text, special characters, superscripting and all. So that defense of those memos is just absurd.

Bush Holds All the Aces

According to people who attended Harvard Business School with George W. Bush, the President was in those days an avid and skilled poker player. One of the best strategies in poker is to convince one's opponent that one is a boob who doesn't know what he is doing, and so gets the opponent to bet a lot on a weak hand. It's a pattern one sees again and again in Bush's political career.

It must be a bitter pill to swallow. The pain of embarrassment must burn brightly on the faces of Democrats as the "Chimpident", in the process of laying down another winning hand, is about to take all of their chips once again.

The President sat back, as John Kerry's consultants, the Iowa caucus voters, the Democratic Party at large, and the media convinced themselves that the one card that trumps Bush's leadership in the war on terror was Kerry's four months in Vietnam, and bet everything on it. They have just lost that hand.

Kerry is in seclusion, unable to expose himself to any but the most sycophantic interviewers, and getting whumped by hundreds upon hundreds of fellow Swift boat veterans, plus former POWs, plus retired admirals, over every aspect of his brief stay in the Mekong Delta.

The Senator put his money on the wrong war.

Astonishing, even to an admirer like myself, is the fact that the President's advisors had predicted two years ago that the Democrats would attempt to make Vietnam the issue in this campaign season. The feeling was that the Democrats wouldn't be able to help it. Vietnam was the last time the left was ascendent in this country. They had to return to that and try to justify their position on it again. It is the very centerpiece of their whole concept of war, the government, and everything.

What they didn't count on was that the triumphs of US forces in the battlefield, especially the invasion of Iraq, would encourage old warriors, who had been cowed by academia and the media up to now, to speak out and dispute the Vietnam dogma of the left.

And, sure enough, it is becoming clear that the left, and Kerry, had been lying all along.

And so, Kerry's retro braggadocio on ice for the forseeable future, the Democrats fall back on conspiracy theories, pulling out multicolored charts showing that Kay Bailey Hutchinson is a "close friend" of some consultant to the Swiftboat Vets for Truth, and so on. Yawn.

Bush hatred is morphing into depression. Any shaggy nudists or trust fund socialists who manage to pull stunts at the Republican National Convention will only strengthen Bush's appeal.

Democrats Despair Over Kerry

Privately, but no longer quietly, Democrats are beginning to despair.

They cannot fathom why their man, John Kerry, cannot seem to fathom how easy it should be to put President Bush away, seize the high ground and take command of the issues of the war on Iraq and the war on terror.

Yet another Democrat pundit who has confused the opinion of his friends with popular opinion. He goes on to say that Kerry ought to unreservedly assert the left-liberal line on the war; i.e., we were lied to, we'd have never done it, we need to get out now, it was all a mistake, etc. The problem with that, of course, is that Kerry's own pollsters have probably concluded that such a strategy would loose him the election.

It's why Kerry saluted during his acceptance speech, why he talked about little else but his war experience, why he has said that he'd back the war regardless of how things have turned out. That he'd fight the war, but do it better. The left wing of the Democrat Party despairs that Kerry is not singing their tune. What they don't seem to recognise is that too few people out there like that tune. It is just another sign of the decline of power and influence of the left.

Yeah, the problem with a guy like Kerry is that you never know who he'll backstab next. It could be you, red diaper bone fides and all.

On the other hand, the nice thing about having a candidate with no set principles is the way in which you can exactly match the candidate with current popular opinion, whatever that might be, pretty much without regard for what that candidate has stood for in the past.

And on the third hand, I find this all oddly reassuring. For a while I believed that Kerry would be like Carter, a president apparently determined to destroy the country. Now I can see that Kerry is nothing like Carter. Carter was an evil little man who despised his own country and believed all of its citizens were evil for being prosperous, but he had a set of convictions, quasi-Marxist convictions, most likely, but convictions nevertheless. And he stuck with those convictions straight through one of the worst four year terms the country has seen, determined to punish the people of the US for being optimistic, productive, competent, and hopeful in the face of so much misery elsewhere.* Kerry, on the other hand, is going to go wherever the wind blows and is unlikely to do anything with the office.

-------------------

*And then after he'd been tossed out on his ear by the election, he had the gall to come before the people in a TV address and try to put a guilt trip on us for declining to partake in another 4 years of punishment with him, as if he hadn't been hard enough with the whip, or something. But don't get me started on that.

And, by the way, forget about Kerry being able to win allies in Europe. The people who insulted the American people by giving Jimmy Carter the Nobel Prize hate the US far too much to ever be our allies except as a pretext for screwing us over.

Policy Manifesto

I tripped over this while doing some research. I found it to be astonishing:

Policy Manifesto:

All citizens of the State shall be equal as regards rights and duties.

The first duty of every citizen must be to work mentally or physically. The
activities of the individual may not clash with the interests of the whole, but
must proceed within the frame of the community and be for the general good.

Therefore we demand:

That all unearned income, and all income that does not arise from work, be abolished.

Since every war imposes on the people fearful sacrifices in life and property, all personal profit arising from the war must be regarded as a crime against the people. We therefore demand the total confiscation of all war profits whether in assets or material.

We demand the nationalization of businesses which have been organized into cartels.

We demand that all the profits from wholesale trade shall be shared out.

We demand extensive development of provision for old age.

We demand the creation and maintenance of a healthy middle-class, the immediate communalization of department stores which will be rented cheaply to small businessmen, and that preference shall be given to small businessmen for provision of supplies needed by the State, the provinces and municipalities.

We demand a land reform in accordance with our national requirements, and the enactment of a law to confiscate from the owners without compensation any land needed for the common purpose. The abolition of ground rents, and the prohibition of all speculation in land.

So who put that manifesto forward? Was it the US Democrats, the British Labour Party, the Canadian Liberals, some European Social Democratic party? No. The manifesto is an extract from the (February 25th., 1920) 25 point plan of the National Socialist German Workers Party and was written by the leader of that party: Adolf Hitler. Most of the rest of the manifesto had to do with the Jews, of course, which made it all that much more attractive to German leftists, many of whom were very antisemetic.

Elsewhere, the author that reviews this bit notes that many of the world's states are increasingly turning toward fascism, which old Adoph himself described as a third way between capitalism and socialism that features the best elements of both.

The Biological Basis for Morality

Do we invent our moral absolutes in order to make society workable? Or are these enduring principles expressed to us by some transcendent or Godlike authority? Efforts to resolve this conundrum have perplexed, sometimes inflamed, our best minds for centuries, but the natural sciences are telling us more and more about the choices we make and our reasons for making them.

There is a tremendous amount of handwaving and vagueness on Wilson's part in this article when he goes about explaining how science is eventually going to explain religion and ethics. I for one am not inclined to give Wilson the benefit of the doubt. Philosophers have been struggling with this very question for over 90 years, and I'm quite certain that they would regard Wilson's effort here as glib and as lacking rigor.

Wilson concludes by saying that religious and ethical traditions will be subsumed under secular humanism, and in that he has already been proven wrong. I'd recommend the writings of Alasdair MacIntyre in that regard. I don't doubt that secular humanists will continue to attempt to explain religion and ethics, but MacIntyre explains why the attempt will never succeed.

In brief, efforts to explain ethics and theology with science will always founder because science itself is not completely rational and cannot be.

As is often the case for the secular thinker, Wilson seems unaware of the ways in which the very foundation of science is irrational. This is fatal to his argument because this irrational foundation rises up to choak off logic and reason whenever science intersects with the more sensitive aspects of human nature.

At one point in the article Wilson poses the question of what aliens from outer space would think of human behavior and concludes that they would regard ethics and theology as arising out of the biological imperatives of human nature. This might be correct, but until we have the aliens to consult on the matter we are stuck with human beings as the only sentient beings willing to try to understand ourselves, and that gives rise to unavoidable problems.

At several points in this article hints of the the pre-rational foundation of science, i.e., Wilson's overweening pride in his "completely rational" scientific approach, the same chauvinistic, tribalistic aspect of science as a community that he seems to look down upon in religions, threaten to break through and reveal science to be the all too human tradition that it is.

In other words, science will never be an adequate explanation for the workings of the human heart if for no other reason than human beings are not inclined to be emotionally satisfied with such explanations, and because emotions are bound to intrude on the science itself. (One need go no further than a critical reading of the current human psychology literature, as bound up in issues of political correctness as it is, to confirm that much.)

Science and theology are in some ways parallel traditions in modern cultures that will always be seen as the masters of their own domains. People can and will shift back and forth between them as the need arises, using that tradition which works best in the particular circumstance. Thus, science and engineering will continue to be used to design computers and jet airplanes, and ethics and theology will be evoked to settle questions of morality.

Bush Was Right

Over the past five years, by turning over two suspects for trial, acknowledging its complicity in the Lockerbie bombing and paying compensation to victims' families, Libya finally managed to persuade the United Nations Security Council to lift the international sanctions that had shadowed its economy and its international reputation for more than a decade. Those sanctions were lifted in September. This page recommended lifting American sanctions as well, but President Bush left them in place pending further steps, most notably Libya's decision to end its unconventional weapons programs. It is now clear that he was right to do so. The added American pressure worked just as intended.

Why Iraqis Don't Trust the UN

For the first time, the U.N. Security Council heard some home truths about Iraq from a representative of the liberated country. Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari reminded the Security Council on Tuesday, "The United Nations as an organization failed to help rescue the Iraqi people from a murderous tyranny that lasted over 35 years. "And today we are unearthing thousands of victims in horrifying testament to that failure."

Bjorn Lomborg Vindicated -- Again

Bjorn Lomborg is an inconvenience for statist environmentalists, who have yet to produce any credible objections to the bulk of his work. Yes, he made a few minor mistakes, which he has acknowledged, but they do not amount to a repudiation of his main thesis -- that things are generally getting better for man and the planet, and will continue to do so.

That is why the weird decision of the Danish Committees on Scientific Dishonesty has been deployed so often by his enemies. The committees found that Lomborg had been scientifically dishonest, but didn't mean to be, which is a pretty odd definition of dishonest, if you ask me. The committees did no independent investigation of the charges, instead relying almost exclusively on a series of articles in Scientific American by scientists whose conclusions Lomborg disagreed with.

Well, Bjorn's institute in Denmark today issued this press release:

Lomborg Decision Overturned by Danish Ministry of Science

The Danish Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation has today repudiated findings by the Danish Committees on Scientific Dishonesty (DSCD) that Bjorn Lomborg's book "The Skeptical Environmentalist" was "objectively dishonest" or "clearly contrary to the standards of good scientific practice"

The Ministry, which is responsible for the DSCD, has today released a critical assessment of the Committee's January 6 ruling. The Ministry finds that the DCSD judgment was not backed up by documentation, and was "completely void of argumentation" for the claims of dishonesty and lack of good scientific practice.

The Ministry characterises the DCSD's treatment of the case as "dissatisfactory", "deserving criticism" and "emotional" and points out a number
of significant errors. The DSCD's verdict has consequently been remitted.

The DCSD report was a hatchet job designed to keep Lomborg out of contention for a position as the head of the Environmental Research Institute in Denmark. His book has been a great blow to the environmentalist cult worldwide. The dishonesty and cynicism of the cult, of which the DCSD report is typical, has been apparent in their response to Lomborg as in nowhere else.

In the book, Lomborg argues that environmentalist claims that the world is running out of resources, that the air and water are getting more and more polluted, and that the earth cannot sustain human population growth are not supported by the evidence. In fact, most resources are nowhere near running out now or in the foreseeable future. Those resources such as oil that are likely to become less abundant in two or three generations can be replaced by technological advances, and human activity is unlikely to have that much of an effect on, for example, the atmosphere or the oceans.

Moreover, he argues that living conditions for peoples the world over have been steadily improving as a result of institution of public health, economic, and technology solutions such as improved communication, free trade, open markets, and sanitation. He points out how simple solutions such as providing a clean water supply to communities has a much greater effect on human wellbeing than any of the priorities of the environmentalists are likely to have. (IN fact, his emphasis on human well-being as a criteria for environmental policy rankles environmentalists to no end.) He regards evironmentalism inspired efforts such as the campaign to limit population growth or limit commerce and industrial activity (e.g., the Kyoto Protocol) as misguided and counterproductive.

Iraqi Reaction to the Capture of Saddam Hussein

From the Mesopotamian:

The Ululation of Gunfire again; you should all be here now. What fireworks! You should be here. The Baghdadis are expressing what they really think again. Can you hide this now CNN & others?...Just now the Miserables are beginning to bomb the streets, out of hatred and desperation. They will attack the people. I tell you, there should be no complacency. Unleash the people against them and NOW. ...Before this, I prayed the traditional prayers of thanksgiving. That I, and the Iraqi people should see this day! This, surely, is the mother of all days for us. The heroes of our valiant Pesh Mergas, and the heroes of the U.S. Fourth division have done it. Now is the time to unleash the Iraqi Counter Terror; now is the time to go for the kill. Let us go after them. Don't lose this moment. They want to recant and live in equality with the people? they have a chance - otherwise they will have to go. I am too overwhelmed with emotion to write coherently; please excuse me. The foul mouths of the enemies of our people everywhere and the neighboring vultures and hyenas be stuffed with dirt; we will come after you; your time will come.

Long live the great alliance of Mesopotamia and the United States of America and her allies. Now is the time, now is the time; Do not delay; unleash the Counter Terror.

God Bless Iraq; God Bless America; God bless the Allies

Captured!

Saddam Hussein has been captured literally hiding in a hole near his home town. Bearded and disheveled, he put up no fight and admitted his identity when captured. Reports are that he has been cooperative and talkative.

This is a signal event in the war on terrorism, the result of the admirable and excellent work of a dedicated, tenacious, and courageous US military, and the result of a bold policy advanced by President George W. Bush at tremendous political risk both to himself and his party.

The hope is that with Saddam's capture the situation in Iraq will further stablize and allow for the transfer of power to a more democratic Iraqi government at a much earlier date than otherwise would have been possible. Ultimately, the peace and security of this entire region of the world should be greatly improved. Time will tell if these hopes are realized.

God on the Quad

The Quad at Harvard University, that is.

New England's liberal college campuses have become fertile ground for the evangelical movement, which is attracting students in record numbers.

As an agnostic, I'm unable to appreciate the benefits of formal religious faith. However, I've always had a great deal of respect for religious beliefs, and I recognise the importance of these beliefs and of the rich symbolism of formal religions for the vast majority of people the world over. Unlike most atheists, I don't regard my inability to believe as being indicative of superiority on my part in any way.

Here the best and brightest student minds in America still make room in their lives for formal religious beliefs and apparently see no contradiction.

My theory is that spirituality is an essential human characteristic, present in all cultures and at all times in history. This is why it keeps springing up in renewed forms even in places where it seems to have been long absent and will often be expressed in non-traditional forms if traditional forms are suppressed.

Everyone has a spiritual outlet of some kind, and for those who eschew formal religions this outlet is often an ideology that entrains all of the emotionality and irrationality of any spiritual belief system. Channeled in this way spirituality can be destructive and counterproductive in a way and magnitude that formal religions never have been. One need look no further than the totalitarian states created by leftists for an example of this principle. For all the tens of thousands of people killed in the Inquisition, for example, it can't hold a candle to the tens of millions slaughtered and starved to death in the previous century by atheistic Communist zealots.

Marriage is Dead, Get Over It

Brooks in the New York Times promotes marriage that is something that is good for everyone. He regards it as a way to promote long term relationships, which begs the question of why the institution of marriage is needed to promote relationships when there is nothing about the institution that enforces that commitment.

Brooks' notion of marriage is based on what he thinks marriage ought to be, not what it is.

These days, people will stay together if they are "committed" to each other. When they get tired of that "commitment", for whatever reason or for no reason, they will cast it aside, marriage or not.

So, I ask, what is the point? Marriage is an institution that is no longer worth defending.

Conservatives lost the battle on marriage many many years ago. There is no point in kvetching about the mop up operations.

How Noam Chomsky Thinks

This is an interesting snippet about Chomsky because it puts Chomsky's whole modus operandi in a nutshell:

The dust jacket [of Chomsky's book] bears the legend, which one can't be around a Chomsky fan for long without hearing:

"Arguably the most important intellectual alive" - The New York Times

This very old quotation from the newspaper of record is in fact truncated. The full quotation reads as follows:

"Arguably the most important intellectual alive, how can he write such nonsense about international affairs and foreign policy?

I've added the emphasis, because I think you will agree that the elision of the italicised passage does subtly change the meaning of the sentence.

And that's the way Chomsky does it. He leaves stuff out. He relies on the fact that his supporters don't know, don't care, or are too lazy to read up on history for themselves, and the things he leaves out are all important details that would totally change the meaning of his accounts. It is a dishonest way to write history, but it is a tactic he must use because the truth almost never supports his thesis.

Schiavo Case

Some days I'm embarrassed to be associated with conservatives, and the Schiavo case brings up one of those instances.

Terri Schiavo is the woman in a permanent vegetative state over whom the controversy is raging concerning whether or not she can be allowed to die.

It was never a question of whether or not Schiavo is aware of what's going on. It was never a case of whether her quality of life is good enough. It was never a case of what the family wanted, or what her husband wanted, or what the courts wanted, or what the public wanted. It all came down to just one question: What does she want?

Because the law has always found that all of us have the right to refuse medical treatment if we don't want it. And that includes even things like feeding and watering. We have that right, the right to refuse care, and no one should be allowed to take that away from us as long as that truely is our wish. We have that right without regard to what anyone else thinks of our quality of life.

I don't know of a more bedrock solid conservative principle that that -- the principle of personal sovereignty and autonomy.

Since she is not able to tell us what she wants herself we've got to rely on other people to tell us what she, as a person, wants based on what they know about her.

Schiavo's husband has been consistent for 13 years in saying that his wife never would have wanted to be kept alive this way. The courts have gone through hours and hours of deliberation and testimony, and the courts decided that it was indeed true that she would want to refuse treatment in this situation that she's in. Perhaps more than anything else, they agreed with that because it is such a reasonable decision.

You can argue now about whether it's appropriate for the husband to be "making this decision". You can smear him and claim that he's doing it for selfish reasons. But remember that he was never really relied upon by the courts to make any such decision. What he did was tell the doctors and the courts what he thought she wanted, and the courts decided that he was correct about that after carefully weighing all the facts including any facts that would indicate a conflict of interest on his part. The courts didn't decided this on a whim or out of a sense of guilt based on their own personal experience, but based on the facts of her life and after weighing a lot of other testimony from other people who knew her prior to her illness as well.

I suspect that her parents just can't stand to see her die. They have contested the idea that their daughter would want to die in this situation, but the courts have concluded that they are mistaken about that. More than anything it has become a contest of wills between them on one side and the husband and the courts on the other. They have fought for custody and lost, they have fought to overturn the court's decisions about her care and lost. So these parents have gone complaining to everyone who will listen.

And so now the idiot talk radio people and the idiots in the Florida legislature and that idiot Jeb Bush have waded into the matter and destroyed the results of what is probably hundreds of hours of careful and thoughtful deliberation made in good faith. They have taken it upon themselves to take any vestige of personal autonomy and dignity away from her. I can forgive radio jocks for being stupid enough to be caught up in this, but Bush and the Lesgislature ought to know better.

In a since it doesn't matter because they are not really dealing with a person in the body of this woman. I've seen a number of people in her situation, and, believe me, she's not really there anymore. There is not enough of a brain left to process any information. There is no perception. It's just a collection of reflexes. I don't care what people think they see on the videos. The lights are on, people, and their ain't nobody home. There's no quality of life there because there's really no life. There's no one there to feel pain or anything else.

If the Florida legislature wants to keep this vegetable alive out of a ghoulish desire to pander to faux populists and assuage their mistaken sense of morality, then fine. Fine, fine, fine.

I just hope to God that they don't treat me this way if I end up in her condition, with my pathetic, mindless body as their warm trophy.

He Told Us It Would Be Easy

...whine the Democrats.

The most recent lie from Democrats is that the President led the American public to believe that the post-war reconstruction of Iraq would be easy, he never anticipated these problems, and can only blame himself for not lowering expectations. This is what he actually said:

We have difficult work to do in Iraq. We're bringing order to parts of that country that remain dangerous. We're pursuing and finding leaders of the old regime, who will be held to account for their crimes. We've begun the search for hidden chemical and biological weapons and already know of hundreds of sites that will be investigated. We're helping to rebuild Iraq, where the dictator built palaces for himself, instead of hospitals and schools. And we will stand with the new leaders of Iraq as they establish a government of, by, and for the Iraqi people. The transition from dictatorship to democracy will take time, but it is worth every effort. Our coalition will stay until our work is done.

Then there's this:

The work ahead is demanding. It will be difficult to help freedom take hold in a country that has known three decades of dictatorship, secret police, internal divisions, and war. It will be difficult to cultivate liberty and peace in the Middle East, after so many generations of strife. Yet, the security of our nation and the hope of millions depend on us, and Americans do not turn away from duties because they are hard. We have met great tests in other times, and we will meet the tests of our time.

That was February 26, before the war. This was on April 15:

Our victory in Iraq is certain, but it is not complete. Centralized power of the dictator has ended -- yet, in parts of Iraq, desperate and dangerous elements remain. Forces of our coalition will engage these enemies until they surrender or until they're destroyed. We have waged this war with determination and with clarity of purpose. And we will see it through until the job is done. As we press on to liberate every corner of Iraq, we are beginning the difficult work of helping Iraqis to build a free and stable country.

This was a day later:

American and coalition forces still face serious risks in Iraq. Scattered enemy is still capable of doing harm to our forces and to the innocent. But we'll stay focused. We will finish what we've begun. We will press on until our mission is finished and victory is complete… With all the hardships of this transition, the lives of the Iraqi people will be better than anything they have known for generations. The journey from a totalitarian, brutal dictatorship to a free society is not easy. It will take time to build the institutions of democracy and the habits of freedom.

And there is a lot more along these lines if anyone cares to look it up.

Party Line

A really excellent opinion piece in The New Republic about Democratic opposition to the reconstruction in Iraq, which, the author contends, is purely a manifestation of party politics and makes no sense at all either from the standpoint of national interests or the standpoint of basic Democratic/liberal party values.

He points out that the most recent contention on the part of the Democrats, that the Bush administration does not have a plan for the reconstruction, is simply a politically inspired lie:

Whatever its earlier blunders, the Bush administration now clearly does have a plan to reconstruct Iraq. Its aid request specifies in excruciating detail how the United States will rebuild different sectors of Iraqi society. And, on the day Edwards and Kerry voted no, the United States won U.N. backing for a plan under which Iraq will write a constitution and then hold elections in 2004. But that's the whole point: On one of the key national security votes of the post-September 11 era, policy barely mattered at all. And it's not likely to anytime soon.

The Quasi-Religious in Political Discourse

As the debates over the War and the economy rage on over the internet, the accusation often raised is that people have made a religious belief system out of their politics. Conservatives are often accused of having a cult-like belief in the free market. Leftists, of course, have turned their entire political system into a quasi-religious belief system that defies or denies quite a bit if reality. The postmodernists tacit agreement is apparently that only the true believers can understand; having denied all basis for truth one must be a leftist in order to know the truth, a truth that, to the leftist, is left unspoken and therefore unchallenged.

In the context of such debates most of the time "religious" means "deeply held, pre-rational beliefs with great emotional appeal."

All of us of can be said to be guilty of having such beliefs. Indeed, it might be argued that we need to have such beliefs as a necessary requirment for emotional stablity. (The quesition of what happens when people apparently have no such beliefs is the topic for another essay, but suffice to say that they are fairly dysfunctional.)

It's usually easy to spot these beliefs even in people who regard themselves as free of them. For example, ask the average secular modernist liberal to defend the rationality of egalitarianism.

Where it gets creepy is when people start denying that they are arguing out of such a basis when they clearly are; i.e., when they are clearly closing their eyes to reality in an untoward fashion in order to hang on to emotionally appealing core beliefs.

And, of course, there is no arguing with such people. There is no point in a dialogue unless it is to sway the undecided bystanders.

Once More Into the Fray for Bjorn Lomborg

Bjorn Lomborg, author of the Skeptical Environmentalist, has been the object of a number of ad homenim attacks since the publication of his book.

There was the trashing of his work in Scientific American, which backfired badly against Scientific American:

As Philip Stott, a distinguished emeritus professor of biogeography at the University of London put it at the time, "I have been involved in the editing of scientific journals for over 15 years, and I could never conceive of treating an author in the manner that the Scientific American has dealt with Dr. Lomborg. …

"Not only did the magazine run an editorial criticizing Dr. Lomborg, it gave space to four known environmentalists to write separate articles attacking him with no balancing articles whatsoever from senior scientists who are likely to support Dr. Lomborg's critique. Again, I have never heard the like. In a so-called scientific journal, such a course of action beggars belief."

Then there was the creation of an ad hoc "committee on scientific dishonesty", created especially to attack Lomborg, that issued a report accusing him of dishonesty. This also backfired as hundreds of Danish scientists closed ranks with Lomborg and defended the honesty of his work.

Now we have one, last desperate salvo by the Green Cult against Lomberg.

But his opponents never seem to learn. So this week another round of Lomborg bashing begins. But what this week's Danish panel, the DCSD, Scientific American and others who perpetuate the sustained intellectual pie-throwing campaign against Lomborg can't seem to come to terms with is a much bigger problem on their hands. The long-held convictions of the environmental movement are crumbling under withering scrutiny from independent scientists and academics who refuse to kowtow to green orthodoxy and pressure.

More on The Da Vinci Code

From a reviewer writing for amazon.com:

The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown is a gripping mystery novel. The story moves on four fronts: the hero and heroine, the head of a Roman Catholic organization, the chief inspector of the French police and a fanatical murderer. Like checkers on a checkerboard the chapters move these pieces of the story in turn until they all reach home row at the end. The author is able to maintain suspense throughout the story so that it has momentum to the very last page, not letting the mystery completely dissolve until the end. It is not the nature of this book to probe deeply into the human character, the nature of reality or to generate beautiful prose. It reads like a movie script, al la Raiders of the Lost Ark.

The author uses two characters as experts on everything, especially Christianity and some of its historical struggles. Because the book is fiction it is able to build its own picture of Christianity and the church without regard to historical accuracy. It does convey a patronizing attitude toward the church and its faith, an attitude common place now and throughout the history of the church.

Theirs is an old scenario: Jesus was a great man whose movement got hijacked by powerful people in Roman society and transformed into a secular power. Their version adds the proposition that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene and the two produced children. This story line sets up a classic mystery novel struggle between an evil titan and a heroic minority replete with centuries of intrigue and violence, i.e. Luke Skywalker and the Federation. This is all great fun in a novel, but should not be confused with the truth.

Proposing that Jesus was married and had children is just another way of saying he wasn't the one proclaimed by the Christian faith, that he was a man in the flow of history not an intersect between God and history. Tying this idea in with the worship of a female goddess adds mystery and tension to the story and taps into the energy of the modern struggle between the sexes and society's effort to harness the sex drive.

Genuine historians that are anti-Christian don't claim that Rome hijacked the Christian movement, but rather that the Christian movement hijacked Rome. So even though the church was changed by its being adopted as the state religion, and even though its secular power led to terrible corruption, it's first three hundred years laid down the fundamental message. Constantine did not. What he did do was demand that the church settle its message so he could have a coherent religion to authorize.

The story line of this book elevates the divine female as if this were a breath of fresh air in an oppressive male-dominant Christian society. The divine female is nothing more than the ancient worship of sex. It is as commonplace as Hustler magazine. The worship of Venus three thousand years ago is the same impulse that drives the advertising and entertainment industry today. Just as commerce is dependent on sex today, production was linked to procreation then. If you could get the male and female gods to mate (so they reasoned), you could produce human, animal and vegetable crops on the earthly plane, i.e. wealth.

Christianity was born into a male-dominated culture. It didn't create it. The church has deviated from its earliest affirmation of the equality of male and female ("in Christ there is neither male nor female" -- the apostle Paul, 60 AD.) God's voice in the Bible never admits to being male or female. When Moses asks for God's identity, he gets "I am who I am."

The book's experts are fiction and so is their expertise. Solomon's temple, for instance, was destroyed long before Mary Magdalene came along. We know little about it and certainly don't know what its columns looked like. It was the second temple, the one build by Herod the Great that she would have seen. The holy of holies was not under ground but rather stood at the center of temple mount. She couldn't have gotten in it much less under it, dead or alive. The Crusades were a silly business that brought back nothing of historical value except the knowledge of a Muslim culture more advanced than the European culture. The Crusaders were completely ignorant of the land they conquered. The local people neither new nor cared where the bones of Mary Magdalene might be. They did know they could sell the Crusaders anything with the right story. So the knights credulously or greedily brought back relics purported to be fragments of the cross, the hair of John the Baptist and so on. The grail may have had a forged artifact initially or may have just been a story brought back without the souvenir.

My expertise doesn't extend to all the areas the "experts" in the book claim, but if their errors in fact are consistent with the ones I can pick out without research, I presume that it is all fiction and should be taken as such.

It is a fun book that is irrelevant to the serious subjects of Christian faith, sexuality and hope for a better world.

Goddess Craze Gone Goofy

My teenage son gave me a copy of Dan Brown's "The Da Vinci Code" for my birthday. This is a book that is apparently popular among the anti-Christian idiotarians.

It's not hard to see why the left wingers love Brown's book since it is simply bursting with the kind of silly conspiracy theories that get their motors running these days. Opus Dei, Priory of Sion, Knights of Templar, The Brotherhood, Holy Grail, you name it. Moreover, it's sneering attitude toward Christianity and especially toward the Catholic Church, would warm the heart of any Marxist.

As a mystery novel it's a pretty good read, and interesting and informative in its way. But, in addition, Brown's book is becoming the bible for Ya-Ya sisterhoods. This is because the book promotes the idea that modern western religion is part of a male conspiracy to keep women down by tossing out the Mother Goddess allegedly worshiped by early man and demonizing women.

This interpretation of history is, of course, a gross oversimplification, not to mention in many ways a distortion. But what else is new? Is any honest history being written anywhere anymore, let alone in a mystery novel? History must bow to the zeitgeist.

As Kathleen Parker writes:

Goddess book clubs, goddess hiking troops and goddess support groups already abound. Any time three or more women gather these days, the goddess word is likely to bubble up.

...If you type in "goddess" on Amazon, 1,302 entries pop up, including diet books and tarot card guides, as well as scholarly works on reclaiming the sacred feminine, invocations and rituals. Google "goddess" and you get 2,430,000 entries, a review of which might lead us to reasonably conclude the following:

Oogedy-boogedy.

It shouldn't surprise anyone that the culture that made the feminist gynecological encyclopedia "Our Bodies, Ourselves" a coffee table book - followed by the riveting scene of women discovering themselves by squatting over mirrors in "Fried Green Tomatoes" - inevitably would morph into the self-absorbed, self-worshiping goddess movement.

Fast forwarding from "I am woman, hear me roar" to "I am goddess, back off Bubba," the goddess movement is a logical extension of the narcissistic self-esteem movement.

The central secret of the plot of Brown's book is taken from a book Holy Blood Holy Grail which promotes the idea that Jesus and Mary Magdalene were "married" and that Mary was pregnant at the time of Jesus' cruxifician. Jesus' descendants, moreover, are still supposedly alive and protected as the Merovingians, an old French royal family.

However, this story is a hoax which was perpetrated by Pierre Plantard, a notorious French anti-semite and radical right winger, in the late 1950's. The purpose of this hoax was apparently self promotion since Plantard claimed to be the Merovingian pretender to the French throne.

Quote of the Month

"This time I think the Americans are serious. Bush is not like Clinton. I think this is the end." - Uday Hussein, Saddam's son, in early April, according to an associate.

Not In Their Name

In the Sunday book pages of the Strib was an article about the women of Afghanistan. It was discussing the new-found freedoms of women in the post-Taliban society, about girls queuing for school after years of oppression. Quote: “No matter what one's political misgivings about the war might be, the sight of those girls was a thrilling shock.”

That sentence stuck in my head, and made me think back to October 01, to all the discontent over the Afghan campaign. We've forgotten what that was like - the marches in Europe, the predictions of mass casualties, the accusations of empire-building, how it was all about (cue Twilight Zone theme) an oil pipeline, how it would become a quagmire, how it was a quagmire, how we should have used international law to bring OBL to justice. It was the dress rehearsal for Iraq. The same blind sputtering fury; the same protests with Bush = Hitler posters and giant mocking puppets; the same inability to accept that a byproduct of the campaign would be a freer society for the very people the protesters supposedly cared about.

Any mass executions at the Kabul soccer stadium recently? No?

Wonder why.

No thanks to the people who purport to care, that's for sure. Not in their name, no.

There Is No God? So What?

[An atheist, regarding the existance of God:] There ain't no such thing, any the amount of time you spend "worshipping" and praying and sending money to him is a complete waste of your time and effort.

On the contrary, even if there is no God then the effort, time and money spend in devotion to God or Gods is not wasted. It fulfills an important human need, and all people need to acknowledge and have some respect for that demonstrably universal and immutable aspect of human nature, including the need for spirituality in their own lives.

Why must this aspect of human nature be acknowledged? Because if one form of its expression is stamped out or suppressed then it will just surface in another way, perhaps in a way that is more irrational and counterproductive.

One example of this is that liberals who say that they are atheists usually have an irrational quasi-religious political idealism that makes dialogue and compromise impossible, rendering society and political life more unstable, more prone to extremes.

James Morrow Writes:

But this Vietnam analogy, recently taken up by the global media after months of bleating by the anti-war, anti-Bush Left, starts to fall apart very quickly under scrutiny. The news that Saddam Hussein's two sons, the much-loathed Uday and Qusay, were killed in a firefight yesterday with US forces only further shows the bankruptcy of this already shoddy argument. Indeed, with 34 of the 55 most-wanted Iraqis dead or in US custody, the US can be said to be slowly but surely winning the mop-up phase of the war in Iraq.

Those who continue to try to play the quagmire card should look at, and recall, the facts. US involvement in Vietnam lasted a decade and cost more than 50,000 US lives. So far, it has been barely four months since US troops first crossed into Iraq, and since the end of major combat on May 2, just 33 US soldiers have been killed by the so-called "Iraqi resistance".

While every soldier's death is tragic (and it is touching to see so many on the Left suddenly concerned about the welfare of American men and women in uniform), it doesn't take a Stephen Hawking to figure out that these losses are nothing like those inflicted by the Vietcong.

Indeed

Fifth Column?

Just a little sample of how some leftists think these days:

Doesn't a part of you wish that Queasy and Duh-day [Hussein] were alive? I'll admit they're scum and rightfully so, but anything that lands as even more humiliation on W's grotesque shrivelled face is that much the better.

It's sad, really, that as despicable as they are, Saddam's family seems to be the lesser of two evils when you compare them to the wretched little bastard occupying the White House and destroying America in the process...

Treasonous? Perhaps Ann Coulter was right all along. What is the Democratic candidate for the nomination going to have to say to appeal to scum like this?

You Mean Lying is Bad?

After years of defending Clinton, liberals love the piquant irony of calling Bush a liar. For 50 years liberals have called Republicans idiots, fascists, anti-Semites, racists, crooks, shredders of the Constitution and masterminds of Salvadoran death squads. Only recently have they added the epithet "liar." Even noted ethicist Al Franken has switched from calling conservatives "fat" to calling them "liars."

This is virgin territory for Democrats -- they never before viewed lying as a negative. Their last president was called "an unusually good liar" by a sitting Democratic senator. Their last vice president couldn't say "pass the salt" without claiming to have invented salt. Having only just discovered the intriguing new concept of being offended by lies, the Democrats are having a jolly old time calling Bush a liar. But they can't quite grasp the concept of a lie as connoting something that is -- at a minimum -- untrue.

No Chaos in Iraq

No, there is no chaos in Iraq. Things are going very well there, in fact. Here is a summary of the situation currently:

The entire south and north are impressively stable, and the center is getting better day-by-day. The public food distribution is up and running. There is no food crisis. I might point out we planned for a food crisis; fortunately, there isn't one. Hospitals nationwide are open. Doctors and nurses are at work. Medical supply convoys are escorted to and from the warehouses. We planned for a health crisis; there isn't one. Oil production has passed the 1 million barrels per day mark. We planned for the possibility of massive destruction of this resource of the Iraqi people; we didn't have to do it.

The school year has been salvaged. Schools nationwide have reopened and final exams are complete. There are local town councils in most major cities and major districts of Baghdad, and they are functioning free from Ba'athist influence.

Some quagmire.

Traditions of Knowledge

It seems to take a certain willingness to engage in double-think, and a desire to put one's faith before evidence. "Faith" is just an elaborate form of wishing. If it helps people handle their spiritual lives I don't have a problem with it, but when it's used as a starting point for knowledge, or as a filter on what knowledge is true, right, or appropriate, I don't respect it at all.

You can't avoid the problem. All traditions of human knowledge start with pre-rational concepts, including science.

And before you go off on the "science is just another form of faith" argument: first, scientists who simply accept what they are told by the scientific community aren't scientists. Second, all science is founded on the principle of verification and prediction. If you can't verify somebody else's results, or predict the same results from past behavior, your theory is inadequate. Creationism supplies neither of those things, so what good is it?

Creationism is rapidly becoming the straw man of the atheists.

Let's consider a more relevant and important point. If you accept the idea that human beings have certain inalienable rights, then where did you get that concept? You can't get it from science, which is indifferent to the values behind such ideals. You can only get it from human traditions of knowledge that are not completely rational and which include an important element of faith.

No one doubts the importance of such things as engineering or the efficacy of science in systematizing them.

Neither does anyone doubt the importance of such things as ethics and morality, and science is of no use where they are concerned.

Poetry Warning: IV

Pretty Bad

We stopped down by the bridge
and looked at the space where they used to be.

I remembered I saw a piece of trash fall, but not like trash.
Straight down, turning slowly, and then there was a leg
with a skirt flapping,
the skin of the back of my neck tightened,
and she disappeared behind something.

It was pretty bad, must have been bad
for people to decide better to leave than to stay.

MoDo and Clarence Thomas

Maureen Dowd produced an especially offensive column regarding Clarence Thomas' dissent in the Michigan Law case decision by the Supreme Court.

So why, despite his racial blessings, does he come across as an angry, bitter, self-pitying victim?

The essence of libs' quandary--how could those precious little diverse peoples come to RESENT their rich, white, liberal patrons? Just how COULD THEY???

If you've been told your whole life that you've only made it to wherever you are because the Man LET you achieve it, why, I just can't understand why someone might be bitter. Gee, could you understand it? If, when you try to get free from under the thumb of the Man's patronage, you get smacked down by those same people for being "uppity" and not knowing your place, who could understand the resentment? Not MoDo.

"It's impossible not to be disgusted at someone who could benefit so much from affirmative action and then pull up the ladder after himself."

Liberals....disgusted their little tokens might want to break free of feeling beholden..... Who'dathunk it? I mean, you'd almost think that libs were NEVER interested in eliminating welfare or really equalizing people....they just want they political patronage paid back in kind.

I'm shocked, really. shocked.

Democrats Fear Dean May Win Nomination

They only have themselves to blame for this. It will be a worse defeat even than McGovern's in 1972.

DEMOCRATS are starting to realize upstart antiwar candidate Howard Dean could actually wind up as their 2004 nominee - thanks to the power of the Internet. That scares some of them silly. The New York-born Dean hits a raw nerve among frustrated Dems with the message summed up by his in-your-face TV ads in the early test state of Iowa: "The only way to beat George Bush is to stand up to him."

Democrats Pushed to the Margin

This from Porphyrogenitus:

One also has to pity the Democrats who are out there, flailing away, claiming that "this Administration is gutting Social Spending", when it enacted the largest increase in Federal education spending in history and is set to sign into law the biggest increase in Federal social spending since LBJ. They are clearly living in a romantic fantasy, a necessary (for them) delusion, dogmatically clung to like a wino clutching his last bottle, because all they have to offer to their constituencies anymore is fear. From the standpoint of ideas, the Democratic party is now an obsolescent curiosity, while the Republican Party is now, essentially, the party of the JFK tradition (not really the LBJ tradition; the Republican Party has not gone that far in embracing the welfare state). Ted Kennedy is claiming credit for the version that is going to pass, while Tom Daschle and his minions are crying about it. I mean, here's the Washington Times editorializing in favor of a Bill that has been stripped of it's most Libertarianite-Conservative provisions (or had them watered down to the point of cosmetic irrelevance) What does this mean?

Well, one thing it means is that, to a large degree, we can see why Democratic politicians are in near hysteria and trying to whip up the fervor of their base in a frenzied, almost maniacal fashion. What you're seeing there is panic: they're getting pressured and forced to the margins. But the most significant thing is that now America needs a (new) party of limited government. George W. Bush is completing the transformation of the Republican Party into the party of JFK's political legacy (as much as that will cause Democrats to wail and gnash their teeth): tax cuts to incentivize economic growth and prosperity, strong foreign policy and defense, and support for moderate "safety net" social spending programs and some (but not pervasive) regulation, generally activist government (but not Social Democracy).

In my opinion, Libertarianism goes way too far in the other direction all too often. But now that this is the Republican Party, there is room on the political spectrum for a party of limited government. This is not to say that there is room in the American political system for three major parties. Not at all.

And thus the hysteria of the Democrats.

Gay Marriage? For What?

Since Canada seems to have legalized gay marriage, it seems that we will be under pressure in the US to do the same thing.

I have usually been pro-gay rights, but this intitiative has always puzzled me. Marriage has become so degraded as an institution that it hardly even seems worth the candle. The only things of any significance left of the institution of marriage are the division of property and the rights of children to support. The former right can be obtained in other ways, as can miscellaneous other rights associated with marriage, like better insurance rates, and the latter usually isn't an issue for gays and, in any case, is routinely enforced with or without marriage.

I think that gays will eventially get the right to marry in the US. But when they do it won't, as they seem to hope, signal increased acceptance of gays as much as it will signal the further decline of the institution of marriage.

Don't Cry Wolfowitz

Another piece of evidence to the effect that the doctrinaire left lost an important ally when Howell Raines stepped down as executive editor at the New York Times. You would never have seen this article in print if Raines were still around.

Even if you throw out all the tainted evidence, there was still what prosecutors call probable cause to believe that Saddam was harboring frightful weapons, and was bent on acquiring the most frightful weapons of all. The Clinton administration believed so. Two generations of U.N. inspectors believed so. It was not a Bush administration fabrication that Iraq had, and failed to account for, massive quantities of anthrax and VX nerve gas and other biological and chemical weapons. Saddam was under an international obligation to say where the poisons went, but did not.

The author has some critical things to say about the Bush administration and goes on to point out that American has a real problem concerning the reliablity of its intelligence services that needs to be addressed, a point that is buttressed by an editorial written earlier in the NY Times that was also balanced and insightful.

It's good to see criticism of the Administration that is not overtly anti-American, criticism that is written out of obvious concern for one's country and for one's fellow citizens, in the pages of the NY Times again. Now, if we can only get them to dump Krugman and MoDo.

Who the Heck is Greg Packer?

Ann Coulter pointed out that a fellow by the name of Greg Packer keeps turning up in articles published in the NY Times and other NY publications as a man on the street. He has been quoted over a hundred times in various publications on various topics. He was quoted for an article about Hillary Clinton's book signing: "I'm a big fan of Hillary and Bill's. I want to change her mind about running for president. I want to be part of her campaign.".

At first this conjured up images of reporters sitting around at home all day while dreaming up copy:

"Let's see what's in the old assignment bin." (Rumages through a stack of paper slips.) "Ah! A story on the Hillary book signing. Perfect."

(Starts typing on a laptop while leaning back on a couch.)

"Oh, and they had people going out the door and down the street...yeah, that's it...down the street." [tickatickaticka]

"Ok, I need some quotes." (Grabs the Rolodex) "Ok, no, no, no, ... oh yeah, here's one. Greg Packer, he'll be a good one."

(Grabs the phone and punches in a number) [ring ring ring]

"Greg! How's it hangin, man? Say, you weren't by any chance at the Hillary book signing today, were you? ... You were?... First in line? I need a quote from you on that.... No, needs to be something more enthusiastic..."

But then I realized this guy may very well have been at all these events, and he knew where the reporters were and tended to hang with them trying to get his utterances into print. Which tells me that the guy was probably telling the reporters what they wanted to hear, and that's why his quotes get published. It would be just another opportunity for reporters to launder their own views through a third party, which is what such quotes from unnamed and semi-anonymous or obscure sources are often about.

Poetry Warning III

I lay in bed and watched the ceiling fan turn
Hot with happiness. Smiling with my good fortune.
But you were angry
It was not what you wanted.

When I touched your hand
You longed to leave
When I touched your thigh
You did not feel tenderness

I was alive with love and good feeling and caring.
but your feelings were different.
And for a long time
I didn’t know that.

Poetry Warning II

Sphere of Competence

When I said I could fix things
I meant I'd fix the squeek in the door
the light in the refigerator
the car battery
the filter in the fish tank
the boy's bicycles.
and the leak in the bathroom sink faucet.

I didn't mean that I could fix that feeling you got
When I didn't smile at you
I didn't hold you
I didn't hear you
and didn't look up at you when you came in.

Poetry Warning: I

Poetry Warning I

A Bullet Works in This Way

The bullet, a slug of copper coated lead,
is affixed atop a cartidge containing powder,
and at the bottom is the primer
all fitting snugly in a chamber, locked by a bolt.

The firing pin strikes the primer
causing primer powder to flash into the cartridge
where powder is ignited
pushes the bullet down the barrel
that gives the bullet a spin
making it fly straight through the air
until it strikes
it tears through
expanding, tumbling, fragmenting
and momentum is expended
within the targeted object
whatever that may be.

Against Multiculturalism -- One Reason Why Western Culture is Superior to All Others

One of the more ridiculous tropes coming from mulitculturalist covens is the idea that slavery in the US was unique in all the world and in all of history, and that only Western culture, with it's emphasis on hatred and oppression of people of color, could have come up with it. By the same token, racism was practically invented by the West as a means of supporting the institution of slavery.

However, racism is nothing but tribalism with colors, and as such it has been a part of the human experience since time began. Slavery also has existed since pre-history. There is nothing especially different and unique about slavery in the West.

What is unique about the West is not slavery, which has been found everywhere throughout time, but the abolition of slavery.

In all of recorded history it was St. Patrick who, on the basis of Christian ideals, was the first person to speak out against slavery. (St. Patrick himself was captured and made a slave by the Irish. As such he was forced to tend sheep in the wilderness and was not even given food, clothes, or shelter by his masters. He escaped but later returned to minister to the Irish.) This was about 400 AD. It was centuries before anyone else took up the cause of abolition of slavery, and this was exclusively in the Western world.

Even today it is only in the West that slavery is strongly suppressed. Slavery still exists in various forms in all parts of the world, but especially in the Middle East and Africa where it is institutionalized and practiced openly. There are more people enslaved today, right now, all over the world than were ever enslaved in America. And we are not talking about "white" slavery, either, but slavery that is as cruel and degrading as any.

Slavery has been practiced by almost every race and ethnic class at one time or another against whomever was convenient. My own ancestors, the poor pitiful denizens of Central Europe, in Moravia (Czechoslovakia) were enslaved going back to the dawn of history. They were first known to be enslaved by the Romans and then later by the Germanic tribes, then, when my family fled to America in the 1800's, by the Austrian Empire.

It was the traditions of humanity, justice, and morality in the West the finally brought this tradition of slavery to an end there. No other culture has ever developed such a tradition of abolition of slavery, and if slavery is ever finally eradicated from the earth it will be because Western culture has triumphed over all others.

If not for the West and Western traditions of justice and morality the world would not even know that slavery and racism/tribalism are fundamentally wrong.

It is the very tradition of morality and ethics that brought about the abolition of slavery that the left is now working hard to subvert. It is the very tradition of tribalism that became manifest as racism that the left is now attempting to promote through identity and ethnic politics to achieve their own ends, ends that have nothing to do with justice and everything to do with gaining more power for themselves.

Rejecting Darwin?

Recently a progressive friend bemoaned the lack of acceptance of science in the country. "What hope do we have of solving our problems when over half of the people reject Darwin?"

By Darwin, of course, he meant science in general. However, I hesitate to accept the figure of greater than 50%. The proportion of believers who would maintain that Darwin's theories must be false because they don't agree with scripture is small, in my experience. But I suppose it depends on what one means by "rejecting Darwinism."

Some would argue that those who don't accept the idea that the theory of evolution has been proven beyond all doubt have rejected Darwinism. Darwin himself didn't go that far.

Many religious people accept the idea that Darwin's theory is a useful theory that provides a model on which to hang a wide variety of observations about the biological world, but they would balk at saying that the theory has been "proven." There are still some pretty big gaps in the fossel record, and it is not out of the question that some future discovery will mandate that the theory of evolution be modified or supplanted by some other theory. Some scientists with no religious inclinations would also balk at saying that Darwin's theories have been proven, and

But the people, particulary those not that well versed in science, who make a political issue out of the theory of evolution would not be happy with that degree of reservation, and might accuse such people of "rejecting Darwinism."

No doubt some of Newton's more fervent supporters held critics of his theories in contempt right up until Einstein's ideas concerning space and gravity were demonstrated to be a more accurate model of the universe. This is because they didn't really understand either Newton or Einstein. For example, Einstein always took it for granted that his theory was incomplete and might be supplanted by some other theory in the future. In fact, he was working on that theory himself right up till the end of his life.

The real rift is not between those who would reject Darwin and those who don't, but between those who have embraced leftist political principles and a secular humanist world view, which includes scientism, a quasi-religious belief in the ability of science to determine all truth, and those who are able to embrace other human spiritual traditions, such as organized religions, while recognising that there are limits to what we can know through science.