Here's some good news to cheer you:

An odd thing about this is that when I've asked students whether a pill which would enable users to live forever would be a good thing, they almost invariably answer in the negative. Even Christian students who fully expect to live eternally often say they wouldn't wish to live in a world in which there was no death (until I ask them what on earth, then, the attraction of Christianity is for them. Then they realize the strangeness of their reply and change it.). Yet the news that life expectancy is increasing will be universally acclaimed as positive.

Why is that? Do people want to live longer and longer life spans but just not too long? Why not, as long as the extra years are robust and not stretched out debility?

Anyway, three cheers for longevity!

Rebecca Hagelin recounts her experience as a substitute teacher in her local middle school. It's pretty depressing stuff. Perhaps most disturbing are these words:

Kids often find themselves in an ironic situation. They may have everything they think they want but very little of what they really need. Too often their lives are barren, loveless, and meaningless. They're not aware of it, of course, youngsters not being capable of the degree of introspection and self-diagnosis necessary to perceive an existential vacancy, but they suffer from it nonetheless. These kids drift through school like they drift through life. Uncaring and unmotivated, their lives are burdened with a terrible loneliness and an awful sadness.

They cut their bodies because they see themselves as worthless and everything they do as pointless. They are the by-product of their parents' rejection of traditional views of marriage and of the purgation of all vestiges of an emotionally and intellectually rich religious heritage from our public culture. The one refuge where these tragic kids could find meaning and purpose for their lives, the one place where they could find true worth and dignity, is the one place they're not allowed to look and the last place they'd consider trying.

An obsessively secular culture has essentially removed from their reach the thing they most need and thinks it can compensate for the lack by imposing more rigorous academic standards and requiring them to take tougher courses in their schools. To paraphrase Mark Twain, there are thousands hacking at the branches of the problem for every one who is cutting at the root.

Society will not address the root of the malaise which afflicts so many youngsters because it would require that we recognize what the root of the problem is and there is little evidence that we do. Even if we did, to apply ourselves to the root would require a complete reversal of the secularizing trend of the last forty years, and an admission of its utter folly. Instead, oblivious to the harm we are doing, we continue to banish the only hope many of these kids have from our public places, intent on making our schools as sterile and barren as the hearts and minds of the young people most in need of that which is being put off-limits.

For a former KGB guy Vladimir Putin has a very attenuated understanding of how things work in the U.S. as this MSNBC/Newsweek report makes painfully clear:

If this is a measure of how well-informed the Russian president is about how things work in the U.S. one wonders how, with agents such as Mr. Putin in its employ, the old KGB scored any successes at all during the cold war.

An Australian news agency has this story predicting the imminent capture of Abu al Zarqawi:

No one should get their hopes up too high, of course, but we certainly may hope that Mr. Daoud knows something of the matter about which he speaks. If he does it'll be interesting to see if Zarqawi allows himself to be taken alive.

We took our yearly pass on the Oscars tonight. No doubt somebody cared about this annual celebration of Hollywood narcissism and tastelessness, but it wasn't us.

IMAO lists ten indictors that you may be left of liberal. There's a chuckle or two in the list. Thanks to Cheat Seeking Missiles for the tip.

American high schools are obsolete says Bill Gates, but this is really not news. That schools aren't doing the job we'd like has been common knowledge for decades. The question is why, and what can we do to fix them:

Unfortunately, if the question is why schools are broken and what can we do to fix them, then the governors' summit was like a meeting of the band on board the Titanic to discuss which songs to play as the ship sinks into the sea. The problems which beset high schools are not problems either high schools or state governments are equipped to solve. Student learning is a function of student attitude which in turn is shaped by the culture in which students live. We can redesign and restructure schools to our heart's content, just as an aquarium staff can create a beautiful coral reef for their tropical fish, but if the water the fish swim in is toxic, they will not thrive.

Collapsing family structures, a depauperate entertainment culture, both affluence and poverty, an inability on the part of schools to set and enforce high standards of discipline, a legal system eager to haul an administrator or teacher into court at the slightest provocation, and a society which views education as the least important task that schools perform, all poison the cultural water in which our children swim and make it exceedingly difficult for schools to do their job.

Until we change the water, all the expressions of concern, all the tough tests and challenging courses the schools can muster, all the changes Bill Gates and others envision, are just so many fingers in the dike. The problem is not with our schools, it is with our culture, and any reform efforts which fail to recognize this fact will simply be a waste of time and money.

Harvard professor Harvey Mansfield has written an eloquent indictment of contemporary feminism, especially as it is encountered at the university, and particularly as it has been manifest in the events surrounding the Larry Summers faux pas. We offer you a few excerpts with hopes that you will want to read the whole essay:

Mansfield's pellucid analysis of university feminism will resonate with many academics all across the land, we're sure.

Peter Schramm at No Left Turns, who tipped us to this essay, adds this interesting anecdote:

I might add that I have from time to time had students (in each instance they were female)comment that they felt somewhat intimidated by my insistence that they defend claims that they make in class or views that they hold. It always astonishes me that students in a philosophy class would assume that they should be able to say whatever strikes their fancy without being challenged to defend it and that if they are challenged, no matter how gently and politely, they should think this to be somehow intimidating and out of place.

It is not the tone or the demeanor that puts them off, mind you. It is the insistence that they be able to state the reasons behind their opinions, the premises supporting their conclusions, that makes them uncomfortable. In their view, all opinions should be respected and accepted, and to question their claims is to make them feel almost like they have been personally assaulted. It would be amusing were it not so sad.

Do you have children who will be selecting a college in a year or two? If so, Viewpoint recommends the following two reading assignments. The first is the new novel by Tom Wolfe titled I Am Charlotte Simmons. Wolfe's writing is always superb, and in this novel he is at his best, but that's not why the college parent-to-be should spend time with this particular story. It should be read because it details exactly what our precious sons or daughters are in for after waving goodbye on that first day when they're all moved into their new residence. I Am Charlotte Simmons may only be a novel, but it's not exactly fiction. It will send chills up the spine and knots into the stomach of any parent of a prospective college student.

The second reading is this essay in The American Enterprise written by Naomi Riley and titled God in the Quad. Riley offers hope for those parents who would prefer not to shell out twenty five to thirty grand a year to have their child exposed to the sorts of influences Wolfe describes. For many Americans, secular schools, no matter how highly rated, cannot be considered a viable option for their children, not if they care more for their hearts and minds than they do for the name of the school on their child's diploma.

Taken together the two works issue a caution and a hope. Wolfe lays bare the utter decadence that has befallen so many secular universities and how young people get ground up in them. Riley assures us that there is another, better, option for our children at the more than 700 religious colleges in North America.

Read them both if you can, but read Riley's essay regardless.

Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin said yesterday that if there are missiles aimed at the United States flying over Canadian airspace the United States must get permission from Canada before it attempts to intercept them.

This is not a serious man. If he honestly thinks that the United States will waste precious seconds trying to track down Prime Minister Martin while he dines at some fashionable restaurant or is indisposed in the men's room for several minutes while missiles are bearing down on American cities, then he's got some loose wiring somewhere.

It may make the Canadians feel all full of themselves to strut around saying that the Americans have to ask their permission in order to save American lives, but if that awful day ever comes no president is going to wait around until he receives, or is refused, permission from the Canadian Prime Minister to shoot down those missiles. If this reality offends Canadian pride, they'll just have to live with it.

The whole idea of insisting that permission be sought in the midst of some future crisis is silly anyway. Either permission would be granted or it would not. If there is any chance that the Canadians would refuse us permission to intercept an attack upon our territory, then not only should we regard them as a threat to our national security and treat them accordingly, but any refusal should, and would, be ignored.

If, on the other hand, the Canadians assure us that they would certainly grant permission, then why wait until the missiles are in the air to do it? Why not just agree with Washington now on the criteria for interception, etc. and be done with it?

By stating that permission must be obtained before the U.S. can save its nation and its people, Prime Minister Martin looks like either a fool or a grandstander. Maybe he's both.

Is there life on Mars? Many scientists hope so.

Scientists are anxious to find life elsewhere in the galaxy because they keenly sense the problem that the uniqueness of the earthly biosphere poses for their philosophical embrace of metaphysical naturalism. If life can be shown to have emerged on other planets then it would lend support to the view that as improbable as a naturalistic origin of life may seem it is not so unlikely as to be uncommon or rare.

The problem is that finding simple life-forms on Mars would prove nothing about the origin of those life forms. Many astronomers believe that a meteor impact of sufficient magnitude on the early earth could have blasted trillions of encysted bacterial or algal spores into space. Some of those may well have rained down upon and colonized Mars and even thrived there for a time so that any life we find there may, for all we know, have originated on earth.

In other words, finding single-celled life forms on Mars would solve none of the intractable difficulties faced by naturalistic theories of the origin of life on earth.

Tamar Jacoby has written an excellent piece in the Weekly Standard on the immigration problem and argues cogently, if not quite persuasively, for the acceptance of George Bush's plan to deal with the problems of our southern border. Jacoby writes:

Jacoby goes on to explain why Bush's plan is the best possible solution. I'm not convinced. Bush's plan essentially allows millions of illegals to continue to burden the rest of society in terms of the goods and services they need and demand. They place an incredible strain on the tax base in southern California and elsewhere, and to say that we just have to accept their presence sounds like a call to surrender to an intolerable situation.

Immigration reform is a natural issue for Democrats who are sensitive to the impact of illegal labor on competition for jobs, and the Democrat that can run to the right of Republicans on this issue in 2008 could take Arizona, New Mexico and maybe even Florida. If that had happened in the last election George Bush would be a rapidly fading footnote to history right now.

BBC News has yet another example of what passes for justice in the Islamic Republic of Iran:

That lashings were administered to the young girl in this case is horrifying enough, that she received two and a half to three times the number that the boys did is symptomatic of a mindset so depraved that we lack the words to describe it. If this is Islamic law one wonders what in the world the appeal of Islam is to anyone with a shred of human decency or compassion. One also wonders whether the world can afford to permit nuclear weapons to fall into the hands of men who think like these mullahs do.

A Muslim calls on his co-religionists to "wake up." Kamal Nawash may be a voice crying in the wilderness, but American Muslims would do well to heed his words especially the last few paragraphs:

It's not unrelated to Nawash's plea to note that the high school valedictorian who has been charged with plotting to assassinate the President was a Muslim citizen of the U.S. who studied in a Saudi madrassa in Virginia, a school which inculcates into its students a bitter hatred for the U.S. and Israel. Where are the moderate Muslims demanding that "schools" like this be shut down?

For those who share our concern here at Viewpoint that the secular Left is the second greatest threat to freedom in the world today (second to Islamo-fascism with which it is often in covert sympathy) here is a new site you may wish to bookmark. It's called Discover the Network.org and its mission is to identify and track the people, agenda, ideas, tactics, and institutions that comprise the contemporary Left.

See here for a more detailed explanation of the purpose of this new site which may well become one of the most frequently consulted political sites on the web.

This note is for those of our readers who may be Korn fans:

See here for details.

Those who are unpersuaded by the Darwinian creation myth that blind, purposeless forces could randomly produce a strand of DNA and the biochemical machinery that attend it in the trillions of cellular factories that make up a living organism are often derided for their lack of imagination and for their childish capitulation to the argument from personal incredulity.

The argument from personal incredulity is a syllogism which concludes from one's inability to imagine that impersonal nature could accomplish such astonishing wonders as the machinery which carries out protein synthesis, for example, that therefore these machines and processes must have been the work of an intelligent Creator. The argument occasions much merry-making among the sophisticates in the Darwinian establishment at the expense of the incredulous, simple-minded folk who hold to it.

Ironically enough, however, the sophisticates often resort to the same argument from personal incredulity themselves when it comes to belief in God. They argue that they can't imagine a Being possessing the capacities of omnipotence and omniscience, that they can't imagine a genuine miracle such as the revivification of a dead man actually happening, and therefore they don't believe such a Being or such phenomena exist.

Lest the reader think we exaggerate by suggesting that there are otherwise intelligent people who think this way consider this passage from Albert Einstein which recently crossed our desk:

Set aside the question of whether the characteristics which Einstein associated with God are accurate, there is something very peculiar about the mind which thought up the near- incomprehensible implications of the theory of general relativity admitting that it cannot imagine individuals surviving physical death or conceive of a deity which possesses certain traits similar to those which humans possess. These are conceptions, after all, which mere mortals of average intelligence have been conceptualizing for thousands of years with little difficulty.

What, exactly, was Einstein's problem? It's not as if a personal God endowing the creation with some of the characteristics of His own Being is somehow logically contradictory, like the idea of a square circle. Nor, for that matter, is it like being asked to believe something akin to the claim that given enough time and resources the laws of physics, unaided by any intelligent input, could produce a computer with a Windows operating system.

We admit that we have a lot easier time imagining what Einstein could not than imagining what modern Darwinists apparently find so easy to conceive and believe. But then we're just simple-minded guys who find incredible things to be, well, incredible.

Bob Schindler, the father of Terry Schiavo, has an open letter at Newsmax.com in which he pleads for help to save his daughter's life. Because there may be some who don't know the background of this case we reproduce the letter here. If you'd like to respond just click on the link to Newsmax.

It's hard to believe that the courts are prepared to grant Michael Schiavo his wish to remove his wife's feeding tube, especially since there's some reason to believe that her condition may have been brought on by an act of physical violence by Schiavo himself. Schiavo has refused to divorce Terri so that her parents could take over her care and instead, with the help of various right to die groups, has decided that she is better off dead. One can only wonder at his motives. The culture of death has found some useful allies in the Florida legal system.

I sometimes get the feeling that if Viewpoint were devoted purely to bringing Left-wing dopiness to our reader's attention we could work at it full time and still not exhaust the riches that are out there to be mined. The Honolulu Star-Bulletin, for example, reports on Ward Churchill's recent speech at the University of Hawaii. In the speech Churchill finally acknowledged that he's not an Indian after all:

Ah, yes. After years of passing himself off as an Indian, after having secured his chairmanship of Colorado University's ethnic studies department under the pretense that he was an Indian, now it doesn't actually matter whether he is or not. The objective facts are of concern only to those who still think in the categories of an obsolete worldview, one in which the word Truth meant something other than one's own personal preference.

What really matters to Churchill and his epigones is not whether he's an authentic Native-American, but that he's an authentic America-hater. The man has been lying all his life about who he is, and now he's telling people that all that matters is what he says about American tyranny and the condign deaths of the financial wizards in the WTT on 9/11.

There's an important lesson here, I think. Truth just isn't what it used to be. For the Left, especially, truth is purely pragmatic. Whatever works to achieve one's agenda, to gain power for one's group, to advance one's cause, is true. Anything which hinders these is false. For the Leftist a lie is truth if it promotes the destruction of imperialist Amerika. The lie becomes true, and virtuous, because it is useful. The objective facts surrounding the lie are irrelevant. All that matters is whether it promotes the agenda.

It's important to bear this in mind when reading or listening to anything those on the left side of the ideological divide write or say. Their concept of truth and the moral virtue associated with it are not what they are for most of us who suffer from never having attended a major university.

As if to illustrate the point, at the end of the article we read this disturbing passage:

Ms Chong agrees with Churchill not because what he says is "true" but because she's a native Hawaiian. We may wonder what her ethnic heritage has to do with the truth of Churchill's words, but the answer is it really doesn't matter. He was talking, presumably, about alleged American imperialism, and she's an ethnic Hawaiian so what he said had "purchase" with her. Don't look for a logical connection because none is needed or desirable. His words charmed her, resonated with her on some visceral level, and that's all that's necessary for them to become her "truth" as well as his.

If this is what colleges and universities all across the United States are churning out year after year, Lord help us.

For more on Churchill see here.

The folks at TruthOut.org are a real hoot. One of their favorite tactics for gulling the gullible is to run a headline guaranteed to disturb the unwary and to follow it up with a story that does nothing to warrant the headline. A recent example was a story titled Experts See Military Draft as Inevitable which they borrowed from Delawareonline.com.

The story at the site gives no support at all for the headline. There is much talk among politicos and others about how we need to grow the force, to be sure, but a draft is hardly the only way to accomplish that. The closest the article comes to living up to the headline is this passage:

Whether McNeil and Steen are experts on military matters we can't say, though we have our doubts, but quoting their opinion that they "think" a draft is "on the horizon" and that they "think there's a very good chance" is hardly the same as saying that reinstating the draft is inevitable.

Maybe TruthOut.org should consider changing its name to something a little more precise. Let us suggest TruthOuttheWindow.org.

The Daily Standard has yet another example of the Left's depraved idea of political discourse. Does this degree of coarseness, tastelessness, and sheer hatred exist anywhere among conservatives? If readers know of an example we'd appreciate being apprised of it. As far as we can tell, however, the Left has had a pretty solid monopoly on degenerate political discourse for at least the last two decades.

For another disgusting example of the same sort of thing see here.

An article in the U.K. Telegraph tells of heartening developments in Afghanistan:

The Taliban are giving up in Afghanistan and the Baathists appear to be looking for a way to give up in Iraq. One doesn't wish to get one's hopes too high, but surely this is cause for optimism. We can only wonder why the American MSM haven't seized upon this story. Well, maybe we don't have to wonder.

Thanks for the tip to Captain's Quarters

The French are opposed to having their military train Iraqi security forces. No doubt this is just as well. We probably don't want the Iraqis to be trained to fight like the French anyway. Come to think of it, maybe we could persuade the French to train the insurgents.

A recent issue of Discover magazine carried an article by science writer Carl Zimmer on the work of a research team at the University of Michigan which is doing computer simulations of evolution with a program called Avida. Zimmer was rather excited about the implications of the Avida team's work, suggesting that they were on the verge of proving Darwinian evolution. A careful reading of the article, however, fails to give much support to this hope.

Discover magazine seems to have over-hyped the results of the Avida research. Even so, attempts to show Darwinian evolution by using intelligently designed computers and software programs always struck us as something of an exercise in self-refutation, anyway. How, after all, does one prove that intelligence wasn't necessary for the development of biological diversity by showing that an intelligently designed software program can provide the instructions for the development of living things ?

Charles Johnson at Little Green Footballs has the transcript of yet another Democratic lemming plunging over the cliff of sanity. This time the poor deranged soul is a New York congressman named Maurice Hinchey who is as certain as he can be that Karl Rove somehow tricked Dan Rather and CBS into running the phony National Guard document story that has so discredited the liberal media.

When the congressman was asked if he had any evidence for his allegation he replied that he did not. Shouldn't that prevent him from making libelous charges and defaming a man's reputation, he was asked. No, it should not and would not, was the congressman's bold reply.

In other words, evidence doesn't matter. This man feels it in his gut that Rove planted the fraudulent documents, and that's all the evidence he needs to believe it and to level the accusation publicly. Fine folks, these Democrats:

The congressman sees it as his job to spread unsubstantiated allegations accusing people of fraud? We pay congressmen to be malicious gossips? It's depressing to realize that an elected representative of the people could be this obtuse and be cheered for it, no less.

Martin Peretz, editor-in-chief of The New Republic, perhaps the chief journalistic organ of American liberalism, has written a remarkable essay titled Not Much Left. The article is a lament for what he sees as a Left in its death throes and a call to return to some semblance of idealogical sanity. It is not too late to resuscitate the victim, he thinks, but time is rapidly running out. Here are some excerpts from a piece that should be read in its entirety:

Will liberals listen to Beinart and Peretz? Will they rebound from their infatuation with big government and class warfare at home and tyrannical regimes abroad? Nah. They just had an opportunity to recover their equilibrium in their recent election for chairman of the party, and they responded by demanding Barabbas. This act alone may well have sealed their fate and doomed liberalism to eternal irrelevance.

Howard Dean recently engaged foreign policy neo-con Richard Perle in a debate on America's conduct abroad. The exchange was marred by disruptive elements in the audience who booed loudly when Perle spoke and, in the case of one man, even threw his shoe at Perle (see here for a rather low quality video of the episode).

This is, of course, how brown-shirted lefties do politics. No one fears the free dissemination of ideas more than does the Left. No one will do more to prevent ideas from being heard than will the Left. Like totalitarians everywhere, whether Stalinists, Nazis, or the Taliban, they don't trust people with the freedom to make up their own minds because they know that majorities will not sympathize with their bankrupt ideas. Thus views which clash with their own must be suppressed, even if it means making a fool of oneself by throwing one's shoes.

This helps us, perhaps, to understand why leftists seek to impose their will on the public by way of the judiciary rather than through legislatures. In order to have laws and policy enacted through the legislative branch they need to persuade a majority to agree with them. In order to have it enacted by judicial fiat they need only persuade a single judge. It's much easier to find one congenial jurist than to persuade half of a legislature, especially when one is saddled with ideas as impoverished as most of those held by the political Left.

The shoe-tossing incident wasn't the only strange moment on the video linked to above. At one point Dean criticizes the Bush administration for attacking Iraq but leaving Iran and North Korea unscathed. He seems to be implying that we should have attacked Iran and North Korea instead of Iraq. If we had focused our military assets on these two legs of the axis of evil, he seems to be saying, he would have endorsed the effort.

Can this be? Can the hero of the anti-war crowd have only opposed Operation Iraqi Freedom because we had simply chosen the wrong target? Of course not. To conclude that he would have supported the administration if it had taken on Iran instead of Iraq would be to impute to Mr. Dean a level of consistency and integrity that would be misplaced in his case. He's simply trying to score rhetorical points by sounding tough and hoping that his audience is comprised mostly of unthinking lunkheads like the shoe-thrower.

Time magazine reports that secret back channel talks with Baathist insurgents have been going on for some time in Iraq. It may be that they will come to naught, but it may be that the Baathist faction of the Iraqi insurgency is ready to throw in the towel. Most Iraqi insurgents are former Baathists. Abu al Zarqawi's al Qaida insurgents are comprised of a lot of foreigners, and their situation is bound to grow much more precarious if the Baathists reach an accommodation with the Coalition:

Things are looking as bad for the credibility and prognostications of the doom and gloomers like Ted Kennedy and John Kerry as they are for the future of the insurgency.

PowerLine has been following the Jeff Gannon affair and is amazed at how ugly it has gotten. Remember that what Gannon did was infiltrate the White House press conference by misrepresenting himself as a reporter and lob a belt-high pitch toward the President's wheel house. This simple political prank has opened the spigots of Left-wing venom in the blogosphere.

The Left has dug up every ounce of dirt on the man that they could find and have worked themselves into a frenzy with it. It is as if these people have actually gone mad in their hatred for anyone who would try to make Bush look good and they're determined to tear to pieces anyone who is sympathetic to the president. Here's Power Line's account of recent developments:

To get a deeper sense of the foulness of the sewers these people inhabit check out Cheat Seeking Missiles for the Left's latest bizarre slander. Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad (Euripides).

A man who claims to have been a friend of President Bush secretly taped phone conversations with Mr. Bush before his election in 2000 and has now made the tapes public. His reasons seem painfully inadequate to the task of justifying the betrayal of the confidence of a friend.

The conversations revealed on the tapes show Bush to be pretty much the man that most observers deem him to be. He means what he says and isn't easily swayed by political considerations. Nor does he say much that we don't already know. Even so, we expect that the MSM will try to squeeze something out of this material that will discredit Bush either as a politician or as a man. It's hard to see from accounts like this one, however, what that would be, but they will surely try to manufacture something.

The individual who comes out looking tawdry in this business is the man who released the tapes, one Doug Wead, a "friend" and former aid to Bush 41. That he secretly taped private conversations with a friend is bad enough. That he made them public without seeking the President's permission is inexcusable, even if the tapes make the President look good, which in most respects they do. He will especially be admired, in my opinion, for his stand on gays, on the one hand, and gay marriage on the other:

When asked why he would make the recordings without the knowledge of Mr. Bush, Mr. Wead said he recorded his conversations with the president in part because:

Or maybe it was to achieve his own fifteen minutes of fame. It's doubtful that the President is much in need of friends such as Mr. Wead. Friends, after all, don't betray the trust of their friends.

Hillary Clinton seeks to align herself with the tide of history, a move which distinguishes her from most of her colleagues in the Democratic Party:

Senator Clinton has seen the future and knows that the success of our efforts in Iraq will destroy the political aspirations of those on the Left who adamantly opposed them and who have offered nothing but carping and cavil since OIF began. Her words are a thumb in the eye of the Kerry/Kennedy faction of her party which has been relentlessly negative and morose about our efforts in the Middle East.

Clinton realizes that the majority of Americans want a positive message, not Kerry-style gloom and doom, and that the way to an American's heart is by making him feel good about what his country is doing. She also sees something that most on the Left either can't see or are too churlish to admit: American policy in Iraq is, as a matter of fact, succeeding.

David Malpass, an economist with Bear, Stearns, is bullish on the American economy:

Read Malpass' analysis at National Review Online to discover the reasons for his optimism.

Here's some good news in the battle against pain:

The FDA's decision seems to us to be the right one. Inform consumers of the risks, and then let them decide whether they wish to place themselves at increased hazard or to live in pain.

Does it not strike you as odd that the navy is commissioning an attack submarine named for former president Jimmy Carter, known around the world as something of a pacifist? It does this cartoonist.

It's almost like naming a destroyer after an Amishman. We understand there are plans afoot, by the way, to name the next aircraft carrier the U.S.S. Mother Teresa.

Ask yourself one simple question. Why does our government insist on total control of our well being when it comes to the issue of Social Security? Where, in the Constitution of the United States, is it mandated that the Federal Government insure our retirement years? And if, by some stretch of imagination, one could make the claim that it does exist, then our government has failed miserably with regard to their charge.

President Bush speaks of an "ownership society" and at the same time is trying to control and direct that "ownership". It is a fact that conflicting messages from parents can make a child schizophrenic. The mixed message here is "I advocate an 'ownership society'. One where Americans take 'ownership' of their Social Security accounts by privatizing them, but we will control those private accounts." Ok. Just give me another shot of thorazine and I'll be fine...honest.

Presently, employees pay 6.5% of their wages into Social Security up to a cap of $90,000. The standard operating procedure of our government when faced with a failed system like Social Security is to raise the cap so they collect more dollars, raise the age at which individuals are able to collect their benefits so they pay out fewer dollars, and decrease the amount of benefits the individual eventually receives...if they live long enough. That's not my idea of a "fix".

The fact of the matter is that over the years our government has broken many promises to the American people and Social Security is just one of them. Raising the age at which one is eligible to collect what they have paid into all their lives, raising the cap and paying out a lesser amount in benefits are perhaps the most recent examples.

You can be sure you will be hearing more about these "solutions" as our government attempts to "fix" Social Security".

In addition, the Social Security reform plan anticipates the need to borrow $2 Trillion dollars to keep Social Security solvent. Ask yourself who is actually expected to pay off that "loan"? The interest alone could probably go a long way to keeping the plan solvent but the interest doesn't go into the Social Security system. So where does it go? And who pays it?

And given the government's proclivity to conservative estimates when it comes to spending, the cost is likely to go much higher. The "estimate" to fix Medicare was $400 billon dollars. Now, before prescription one has been written under the new, improved, "fixed" Medicare plan, the cost is now estimated at $700 billion to $1 trillion dollars.

I submit that the best way to fix Social Security is to discontinue payments into the system...immediately.

Those who are 65 get full benefits. Those who are 64 get 98% of the benefits, 63 get 96%, etc. Those who are 16 pay nothing into the system and get nothing from it. They have their entire working lives to provide for their own well being when they retire. Responsibility for one's own well being. Now there's a concept.

How can this work? Simple. Instead of individuals paying 6.5% of there wages into the plan each year they get to allocate their new found savings into their own retirement plans. That's "ownership".

In addition, presently, employee Social Security tax contributions must be matched by their employers. Eliminating those contributions would mean a 6.5% windfall to corporate America that goes right to the bottom line. Businesses will be better able to compete in the global economy, thus, more likely to create more jobs hiring more Americans who will be able to contribute to the economy in the form of increased purchasing power as well as increasing revenues of the government through income taxes. Businesses would also have a new-found ability to raise matching contributions to employee IRAs.

Currently, self employed individuals have to pay 13% into Social Security. That savings would also surely be used to fund their personal retirement plans and perhaps stimulate the economy as well.

Once again we see that when government butts out of private individuals lives, things have a much better chance of working just fine.

Lastly, my proposal for Social Security just might not be viable. If, as has been alleged, the Social Security fund has been looted by our government and replaced with I.O.U.s in the form of bonds (loans), then there is no money in the system at the present time to pay anyone. You be the judge.

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Bill Roggio at The Fourth Rail makes a case for cultivating India as an ally in the war on terror. The Russians have demonstrated themselves to be unreliable companions in the fight against Islamism, having foolishly decided to cooperate with Iran in its pursuit of nuclear weapons, and that leaves India as the most logical choice:

As terrorists find the room in which they can freely move about shrinking, Pakistan will look increasingly necessary to the Islamists, especially given the prize of access to nuclear weapons. If an American attack on Iran occurs, an Islamist uprising in Pakistan would seem likely as the jihadis seek both refuge and nukes. India would be indispensable in countering such a dangerous move.

I just don't get it...or... maybe I do.

President Bush wants to "fix" Social Security by privatizing it, i.e. allowing people to divert a portion of their Social Security contributions into stocks and bonds. If Social Security will be in trouble down the road, such a maneuver would have no impact on the solvency of Social Security whatsoever.

The problem, if it exists, is that the population of the future that will be contributing to Social Security will not be making sufficient contribution to cover the demand of payouts to a retiring baby-boomer generation.

It is a classic bait and switch scam. First, communicate that the plan is in trouble. Then claim that the "fix" is to change the program to guarantee solvency yet the recommended change has absolutely no impact on the problem.

Then we hear from Dr. Alan Greenspan in this article who "embraced President George W. Bush's vision of an "ownership society" on Thursday, saying private accounts could foster feelings of wealth among poor Americans."

Read those words carefully. It's classic Greenspan speak.

How and why does a privatized Social Security account make an "ownership society"? The individual has no more "ownership" of the account than they did of the Social Security account.

Such private plans have already been tried in Britain and Chile among other countries and have resulted in net losses for the participants.

While the plan to privatize Social Security might foster "feelings" of wealth among poor Americans, it won't do anything to actually increase the wealth of poor Americans. The only Americans who's wealth will increase are the fund managers who manage the private accounts and take a cool 1.5% of the total value of the account each year for providing the "service" to those poor Americans for "managing" their private accounts. 1.5% might not seem like much but consider that if the personal account gains 3% for the year, the account managers get 50% of the profit. If the account breaks even or loses money for the year, the account managers still get their percentage. In other words, President Bush's idea of an "ownership society" creates an opportunity for "poor Americans" and every other American (unless you're a congressman who has doesn't have to participate in Social Security because we fund a better retirement plan for them) to pay a previously non-existent load on their retirement account.

In fairness to Dr. Greenspan, the article says:

Yet he goes on about the silly wealth effect:

This is cacca doodle. Just ask any AARP member if they don't believe they have ownership of their Social Security benefits and are entitled to them because they've paid into the system all of their working lives.

Ownership is not a promise, it is tangible property in hand. It's about directing ones affairs as they see fit.

If their words of an "ownership society" are sincere, then we should be able to allocate our private accounts in a way we choose. The acid test for the rhetoric of President Bush and Dr. Greenspan is simple...can I allocate the contributions to my private Social Security account to the acquisition of gold?

The quick answer is No. Why? Read this link for an explanation from Dr. Greenspan himself.

So much for an "ownership society".

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Dennis Prager has been writing an excellent series of columns on the indispensibility of Judeo-Christian faith as the only realistic ground for a vigorous moral sense in our culture. This link will take you to his archive where you can open each essay starting with the first (There are five).

In Part I of the series Prager examines the current moral confusion in our culture and explains the need for grounding morality in the God of Judeo-Christian belief:

In Part II he argues that without God all morality is purely subjective:

Part III is a case against relying upon reason to yield moral guidance. Reason, Prager maintains, is a wholly inadequate ground for morality:

Part IV addresses the dehumanizing consequence of a thoroughly secular ethics. In a Godless cosmos man is nothing but a flesh and bone machine, a herd animal different from others of the kind only in being relatively more intelligent:

Part V looks at what Judaism and Christianity have in common and argues that together they are chiefly responsible for America's greatness:

One point that bears elaboration, perhaps, is that if there is no God then the categories of moral Good and Evil are empty. Unless there is a God to provide us with moral sanction then anything we do, as Nietzsche is at pains to convince us, is neither good nor evil. It just is. A wolf kills a young elk or our cat torments a mouse before thrashing it to death. Neither behavior is evil. There is no crime committed nor any offense against morality. Likewise, if we are just animals, when one man slays another there is no evil in the deed. There are only acts of which we approve and acts of which we disapprove, but our disapproval is no reason why someone should refrain from doing them. Nor does our disapproval make them wrong.

If there is no God then there is no reason why those who have the ability or the power should not impose their will upon the rest. A Godless world is a world of might makes right and there is no escaping it. That we haven't devolved into that hellish circle of the Inferno yet is due only to the fact that there is still a significant Judeo-Christian presence in this country and because those who have embraced secularism simply don't think the moral implications of their convictions through to their logical endpoints. If, as time goes by, secularism continues its advances then this state of affairs will inevitably and gradually deteriorate, and the weak will fall prey to the strong. We will see history reprise the Europe of the twentieth century.

Dennis Prager has given us an outstanding series of articles, and we urge all of our readers to take the time to read his columns with close attention. His message is as important as any message could be.

President Bush has renominated twenty judges whose confirmations the Democrats had blocked in his first term. Some Dems are all aflutter that the President would have the temerity to bring them back for reconsideration now that he has a stronger position in the senate, but he has, and he appears to have every intention of seeing them confirmed. Here are a couple of snips from the LA Times' story:

What the story doesn't tell us is exactly what it is about these judges that offends Senators Reid and Schumer. Why do they say the nominees are "extremists"? Is it because they believe judges should interpret the law, not make it? Is it because they are practicing Christians? Is it because they are pro-life? Is it that they are conservative? Any of these, of course, would place a candidate far out on the edge of the political solar system as far as Senator Schumer is concerned, but the article doesn't help us understand what their extremism consists in.

We suppose we'll have to wait till the hearings to find out and to see if the nominees have had the good sense in the meantime to have "drastically modified" their Christian beliefs and other distasteful radicalisms enough to veer them back into the "mainstream". It's important that these prospective judges conform to the high standards of such as Senator Schumer and make themselves acceptable to Lefty Democrats who, of course, have been hunkered down in the mainstream for forty years.

John Derbyshire at National Review Online lists thirteen candidates vying for consideration as the cause of homosexuality, discusses which he thinks to be the most likely, and explains what the implications of all this might be for our views of homosexuals and homosexuality. Several excerpts from Derbyshire's piece follow:

Its worth reading the whole article at NRO.

Here's an interesting article on a new bill before congress.

From the link:

This statement tends to support my statements in previous articles that there is nothing "fair" about the fair trade pact we have with China.

I'm not a gambling kind a guy but if I had to wager, I'd place my bet on the bill mentioned in the linked article never seeing the light of day, not because it might make sense, and not because it might even be the right thing to do but simply because the politicians of this country have demonstrated for way too long that they simply don't have the intestinal fortitude to make the tough choices.

And here are some snippets from the commentary on the article linked above:

Things are starting to heat up. Stay tuned for further developments.

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Joe Scarborough had Bill Maher on his Scarborough Country last night on MSNBC, and the discussion turned to religion. Scarborough's guest did not shrink from sharing his feelings.

Maher's views are probably representative of a lot of people in the "Democratic wing of the Democratic party", although most of them would never be so frank as is Maher in articulating those beliefs. Listening to Maher one can't help but hear in his words the fundamental difficulty facing the Democrats as they seek to entice red staters into the Democratic fold. On the one hand, they have to try to convince those voters that they are sympathetic with their deepest convictions while, on the other, they hold those same convictions in utter contempt.

Maher states that religious people are "unenlightened". Religion is "a neurological disorder" that "stops people from thinking". The only reason religious people believe what they do is because they were "frightened into believing it when they were children". Religion is "a crutch for the weak-minded". Maher claims that he is "embarrassed that America has been taken over by evangelicals", people who "don't believe in science and rationality". He claims that he is "disgusted by religion" and that "it is arrogance parading as humility". The future, he asserts, "does not belong" to the religious.

The dominant feeling I had watching and listening to this was a kind of sadness. Maher apparently has known very few Christians personally, and the ones he has known have evidently not been what one may have hoped they would be. Nor has he seemed to have read much from the extensive intellectual literature that has been produced by Christians throughout history, but especially in the last one hundred years. Maher comports himself as informed and enlightened, but he is, on this topic at least, a pathetically ignorant man in the most precise sense of the terms.

Listening to Maher state his opinion of Christianity should remind Christians and other devout theists that they have a profound responsibility to be all that he is convinced they are not. They cannot be content to be just like everyone else, either morally or intellectually. Just as Blacks and women often believe they have to be better than their competition in order to get a fair shake, so, too, must those who claim to be followers of Christ strive to reflect Him as accurately, clearly, and compellingly as they are able to a skeptical and disdainful world.

The segment of Scarborough Country featuring Maher can be viewed here. The video takes about a minute to load and the relevant portion begins about two minutes into it.

Wretchard at Belmont Club directs us to this snippet in Jane's International Security News in January:

Recalling our ambassador was a provocation and escalation. It sent a clear message to Damascus, in the wake of the car bomb murder of the former prime minister of Lebanon, Rafiq Hariri, in which crime the Syrians were no doubt complicit, that our patience with them is near the end. As the Iraqis reach the point where they are able to handle most of their security burden by themselves, American troops will be freed to liberate Lebanon from an unjust, oppressive occupation, and maybe also Syria itself.

Bashir Assad, the Syrian prime thug, has exploited our preoccupations in Iraq for the past year. He knew that as long as we were tied down there we would be ill-disposed toward adventures further abroad. Now circumstances are changing, and the Pentagon may have set its gaze westward of Iraq. Events of the next couple of months will tell.

The news from Iraq continues to be encouraging, at least for those who wish for success in that harsh land, and bitterly disappointing to terrorists, the American secular Left, and miscellaneous Bush haters everywhere. The Guardian reports that the Sunnis have recognized that their non-participation in the election was a serious mistake and are seeking now to get involved in the process of building a government in Iraq:

That grinding sound you hear is left-wing molars being gnashed to powder.

Matt Drudge has an interesting news flash concerning CBS executive Josh Howard who was one of the three execs to have been fired in the wake of the Dan Rather fiasco at 60 Minutes. Rather, you will recall, proffered documents to his television audience purporting to show that George Bush's National Guard service was tainted. The documents were obvious frauds and CBS chose to sever ties to Howard and several others whom they deemed responsible. The big suits, however, went unpunished, and three of the cashiered scapegoats have refused to leave. Now Howard is raising the ante.

According to Drudge:

The towering edifice that is the Main Stream Media is swaying like a drunk on the verge of abject collapse. Their credibility has been severely undermined as a result of their obvious Left-wing bias and their willingness to bend, distort, and suppress news according to the demands of their political agenda. The events Drudge describes above are not likely to help them regain credibility with the American people.

NewsMax.com (no link available) maintains that the intramural squabbling in the Democratic Party is being resolved in favor of the Kennedy/Kerry far left wing to the detriment of the somewhat more moderately liberal Clinton wing:

The Kennedy faction is quite likely correct that the Republicans won last year on the basis of the war on terror, but that doesn't mean that if the Democrats just stick to their position of negativism and obstructionism that it will carry them to victory in 2008. Many voters are beginning to suspect that they "misunderestimated" George Bush in a number of important ways, and the Republicans are beginning to convince many minorities that they don't belong in the Democratic party any more. If the economy continues to improve, and if democracy in Iraq continues to flourish, the Democrats are going to need more than the same threadbare liberal platitudes if they hope to keep the blue states from wandering out of the corral.

The desk jockeys in the United States Marine Corps are determined to see to it that re-enlistments in the Corps plummet. As counterintuitive as that sounds, it's the explanation which comes closest to making sense of the facts of the case of Marine 2nd Lt. Ilario Pantano. It is only the possibility that there is more to this case than Rowan Scarborough reports that prevents us from concluding that one of the qualifications for membership in the Marines' legal affairs office is an IQ that would freeze water.

Our local Sunday paper yesterday carried an open letter signed by sixteen biology instructors at Shippensburg University in Pennsylvania and directed to the school board of Dover Area School District. The letter urged the board to reconsider their plans to incorporate into the biology curriculum a statement recognizing Intelligent Design as an alternative to Darwinian evolution. The letter contained a number of assertions that should be clarified or corrected. The Shippensburg biologists write, for example, that:

That living things are designed is hardly a fringe belief in our culture. Indeed, it is the view that life is the product of undirected, mindless forces that is the "fringe" belief if anything is. Perhaps the professors meant to say that belief that organisms are purposefully designed is a fringe belief among scientists, but if so, even this claim is exaggerated. It may be true that it is a minority view among scientists, but that hardly makes it a "fringe" belief unless one defines "fringe" as any view held by less than 50% of a population.

The crux of the controversy between proponents of ID and proponents of Darwinian evolution is this question: How can we best explain the multifarious design that we find at every level of biological organization? Is it best explained as a product of nothing other than blind, unguided, purposeless forces or as the product of natural processes plus intentional agency? This is the central question, but it cannot be answered by peering into a microscope. It is not the sort of question that is amenable to empirical investigation. Thus neither answer to the question is scientific. They both fall into the category of metaphysics. Why then should the first be acceptable in a science classroom but the second regarded as illicit? Either they should both be admitted (my view) or they should both be prohibited.

Intelligent Design is based on evidence available to anyone who wishes to examine it. It's based on the same evidence that led a materialistic, atheistic biologist like Richard Dawkins to exclaim that nature gives "the appearance of having been designed for a purpose". It is not the evidence, however, that is relevant in this controversy. The relevant question concerns which interpretations or explanations of that evidence are to be permitted, and which are to be excluded, in public school classrooms.

This is a confusion based upon a misconception. Some ID proponents have indeed stated that ID leads to the conclusion that there is a God, but such a conclusion, even if true, no more constitutes teaching religion than does reciting the pledge of allegiance every school day. The conclusion that there is more to reality than mere nature is not in itself a religious claim and affirming the possibility of its truth is hardly an instance of teaching religion. It would only constitute "teaching religion" if the teacher were to advocate some sort of human obligation or responsibility to the intelligent designer, and if they did that they should be reprimanded.

That there is any such thing as a "scientific method" is very much in dispute among contemporary philosophers of science, but even if the above claim is accurate, and even if it is true that ID is not subject to falsification (which is also in dispute), the problem is that Darwinian versions of evolution fall victim to the same requirement. As suggested above, the central claim of Darwinism is that the design of life's structures and systems is the product solely of random, unguided, purposeless processes, or, alternatively, there is no purposive, intelligent force responsible in any way for the emergence of living things. This claim is no more easily falsified than is the central claim of ID. If ID is to be excluded from science classes because it is not falsifiable, then this fundamental postulate of Darwinisn should be accorded similar treatment.

Despite the hopes of some and the fears of others, this is simply not correct. ID implies only that one of the causes of life on earth is intelligence. The intelligence could be an alien life form that arose under completely different conditions than living things on earth experienced. To assume that the designer of life must be a "supreme being" or an "all mighty" deity is to stretch ID beyond its theoretical limits.

If scientists ever succeed in creating living organisms from scratch in a laboratory no one would suggest that it would follow from that accomplishment that those scientists are "supreme beings", regardless of what the scientists may think of themselves. The most we could say is that the creators of life were a species of intelligent being which itself developed in a different set of circumstances and in a different physico-chemical environment than did the nascent life forms in the lab.

The Shippensburg biologists close their letter with the exhortation to Let science be science, but this is not as easy as it sounds. It belies a fundamental misunderstanding of the role of philosophy in science. The two are very nearly inseparable. If science teachers cannot introduce philosophical concepts into their classrooms then they cannot talk about the nature of the scientific enterprise, the scientific method, the principle of cause and effect, the principle of sufficient cause, the principle of uniformity, the law of parsimony, the criteria of a good scientific theory, and the laws of logic. Indeed, if we are to banish all philosophical thinking from the science class then we must also exclude the falsifiability criterion itself since it is not falsifiable. All of these concepts, and much more that might come up in an intellectually vivacious science class, (some of the claims of string theory and speculations about other universes come to mind) are philosophical topics.

Eliminating philosophy from science classrooms is neither possible nor desirable. As soon as we start talking about interpreting data and explaining facts we find ourselves awash in philosophical assumptions and predilections. If it were possible to eliminate philosophy from the science classroom doing so would only create a sterile and stifling learning environment for students.

In light of this it's strange that all manner of philosophy is admitted into our classrooms without raising alarm, yet the simple philosophical hypothesis that there might be an intelligence responsible for the complex structures which comprise the biosphere sends half the population into a panic. Very strange.

Recent news on the status of Vioxx and other Cox-2 inhibitors is here. It is our hope that these drugs are put back on the market unless the risk of heart attack turns out to be very high. It is not clear at this point that it is.

There are a lot of people in terrible pain who would surely be willing to accept a moderately elevated risk of heart trouble in the future in order to live whatever days they have left in relative comfort. Perhaps it will be determined that there are ways to mitigate the risk.

In any event, it is unfortunate that these drugs are no longer available to those who find the possibility of a distant heart attack much more acceptable than the certain prospect of immediate chronic pain and who are prepared to live with the hazard.

For those of you who have been following the Eason Jordan imbroglio (not Jordan Eason as some dyslexic blogger who shall remain nameless had it on this site last week) and wondering perhaps whether his offense should really have caused him to resign at CNN, PowerLine lays out Jordan's options and shows succinctly that he didn't leave CNN much choice but to force the issue, if, in fact, that's what they did:

Of course, this assumes that Jordan's resignation was demanded by CNN. If it was purely voluntary, which we doubt, then the decision to resign was his and there is no question of injustice done him by CNN or anyone else.

Nelson Ascher has a good piece titled Why the Left Loves Osama at Front Page Mag.

Ascher argues that the ideological Left was orphaned by the collapse of the Soviet Union, and bereft of a powerful sponsor in its protracted quest to destroy the United States and its system of democratic capitalism, both of which they heartily despise. Some excerpts:

Ascher's point is well-taken. It doesn't matter how noble the cause the U.S. undertakes in the world or how odious the foe it confronts, the Left will invariably align itself in opposition to American policy. It will tenaciously resist anything America does that will strengthen its image around the globe and redound to its credit. The Left is engaged in a kind of cold war with the very idea of America. Nothing it stands for, does, or has ever done, short of self-immolation, could ever gain their approval. They have nothing but contempt for the mass of American people and for their values, a contempt, one suspects, spawned by their own self-loathing and miserable childhoods.

Leftist theorists have written much about the necessity of a long march through the institutions. It is only, they write, by means of a generational movement to take over and undermine the traditions and institutions upon which the social and economic health of the nation are based that the United States, as we have known it, can be toppled. Marriage, family, church, schools, language, the military, news media, the entertainment industry, government, the courts, and business are each glues that in different ways hold a disparate nation together. Dissolve these, or take control of them so that they may be used for their own purposes, and America will collapse like the World Trade Towers on 9/11. The longing to bring about this reckoning is what animates the Left. It is why they agitate so obsessively for and support so ardently any measure or movement which would cripple these institutions.

Their project is far advanced. They have pretty much gained a monopoly of influence in the news media (until recently), in the entertainment world, and in the universities. They have managed to severely undermine the bonds of marriage and family through radical feminist ideology, relaxed sexual mores, cohabitation, and easy divorce. Gay marriage would create even more cracks in the foundation of marriage itself and is therefore vigorously promoted by the Left. Religious belief and expression is being pushed into ever smaller corners of relevance in people's lives as they find fewer affirmations of its validity and importance in cultural and public spheres. For much of the last fifty five years government and courts of law have been largely in the hands of liberals and could be counted on to support and implement the Leftist agenda. Bilingualism and multiculturalism could be employed to drive wedges between people by celebrating what makes us different rather than focusing on what makes us alike and by eroding the unifying power a single language exerts on a culture. And, of course, any scandal at all involving the military, even if it must be fabricated, as Eason Jordan's was, will be milked for every drop of propaganda value to discredit this last outpost of character, values, and ideals in our culture.

They have suffered setbacks along the way, of course. The collapse of world communism, as Aschler describes, deprived the Left of a major resource and sponsor and left them severely shaken. Leftists were shaken and disillusioned not by the successes of the former Soviet Union nor by their crimes, but ultimately by their disappointing failure to squeeze their own people into the Procrustean bed of a materialist ideology.

They were also stymied by the presidencies of Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, and of the coming to political power of Republican conservatives in general. They could wait out these reactionary administrations if need be, but the long term threat they pose to the Left is in their appointments to the judiciary. A conservative federal bench and Supreme Court would be an unsustainable blow to Left-wing aspirations and must be resisted with every weapon that can be mustered for the fight. We will no doubt witness this fight in all its ugliness when President Bush announces his first Supreme Court nominee.

Military successes in Afghanistan and especially Iraq are also a setback to the Left who miss no opportunity to minimize those successes by finding the cloud in every silver lining. In their view the U.S. must be prevented from achieving any more such triumphs. The new champions of the Left are the Islamo-fascists, and they must not be thwarted in their struggle to paralyze the American Satan. They are a force which threatens the United States with great harm, and Leftists are hopeful that they'll succeed, at least in part. That's why people like Ward Churchill have justified their attacks on New York and the Pentagon, and people like Michael Moore pooh-pooh the extent of the terrorist threat. The Left believes America deserves to be punished, if not to die, and those who struggle to bring about this blessed outcome must be given every encouragement.

It might be comforting to think that if we do defeat the Wahhabis and other radical Islamists that that will bring peace and security, and that the Left will slink away in utter despair, but it won't and they won't. China and North Korea are looming on the horizon, and, if the Islamists fail, the Left will doubtless turn to them with hope that they will prove to be worthy rivals to the American colossus. In these tyrannical states the Left will invest their dreams and ambitions of an America brought low.

From the link:

Unfortunately, true American patriots like Ronald Reagan and Jesse Helms are no longer in a position to defend the sovereignty of the United States and it seems the inmates have taken over the asylum. Today, we find ourselves left with leaders of far lesser stature who are apparently totally lacking and clueless when it comes to the qualities of statesmanship and patriotism.

I can recall a speech Jesse Helms gave to the U.N. where he told them in no uncertain terms to keep there hands off of U.S. sovereignty. He left no doubt that the America would not stand for a U.N. power grab. The then Secretary of State, Madeline Albright followed up immediately with a communication to the U.N. that "Senator Helms doesn't necessarily speak for the American people".

Now it appears President Bush, Condoleezza Rice, and Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind have picked up the ball determined to score a touchdown for the U.N.

Isn't it odd that relinquishing American sovereignty is not considered a treasonable offense?

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Christianity Today is surveying readers of its web site to determine their favorite movie of last year. Being cultural recluses we saw too few movies to make an intelligent choice ourselves, but maybe some of our readers would like to cast a vote. If so, you can do it here.

An article in Bloomberg.com reveals that a new and extremely virulent strain of HIV has been found in a New York man. Following are excerpts from the article:

This is certainly chilling news, especially to the homosexual community. Whether it will place a chill on the incredibly promiscuous lifestyle that many of them maintain, however, remains to be seen.

While surfing the 'net, I came across this must read article:

These paragraphs hit me right between the eyes as they, and the rest of the article, articulate the point I was trying to make in my previous post very nicely...

I don't know if this is article is credible but if it is, it's not good.

From the link:

The article also mentions that China has signed a deal with Venezuela for most if not all of their oil. I wouldn't be surprised if we don't start hearing about the need for military action in Venezuela soon.

I find it extraordinarily odd that given the text of the link, the country we are most indebted to is China. Something very strange is going on here. It appears that the very plan of U.S. dollar hegemony to exploit and dominate the world is going to backfire on the U.S. because China is using it as a means to our undoing.

Today, the U.S. is the world's largest debtor nation. We must borrow $2.6 billion dollars each and every day to finance our society's addiction to consumption. The lion's share of this borrowing is done with China which is going through their own industrial revolution just as we did 100 years ago. They lend us billions of dollars so we can continue to purchase goods from them creating demand which in turn fuels their growth. We are consuming and they are producing. We are now in a dangerous downward spiral.

This is not a symbiotic relationship. We have everything to lose and China has everything to gain and they are in total control of the situation. The danger is that if they were to stop lending to the U.S., we would be economically devastated. China on the other hand, would only have to open new markets for their goods. This might not be particularly easy but it could be done.

Perhaps the bigger problem is that while we fuel their economy (to the detriment of our own) we are promoting their demand for oil and other natural resources. So the side effect of our policies are creating a serious competitor for the very life blood of our country. This demand can only lessen availability and pressure the cost of these resources upward, something we can ill afford.

I wonder if all of this has something to do with my rant from the other day about the latest wave of corporate insiders selling their shares.

It would be interesting to examine the stock portfolios of our congressmen. I suspect we would see large holdings in companies involved in defense, energy and natural resources. They are directly responsible for the predicament we are in today and one can count on them "getting theirs" on the way down. Kinda' like the crew of the Titanic raiding the ship's wine cellar after hitting the iceberg.

I'd like to write more on this if time permits.

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Viewpoint posted a report a couple of months ago on the case of a Swedish pastor who was convicted of hate speech and sentenced to a month in prison for preaching against homosexuality. Now that conviction has been overturned on appeal. Here are excerpts of the story from an English language Swedish newspaper called The Local:

Of course, it probably hasn't occurred to this spokeswoman that homosexual behavior is categorically different from race or ethnicity. Behavior is, or should be, legitimately subject to moral criticism. Race and ethnicity, being matters which are not chosen by individuals, are not.

Leaving aside the question of whether the pastor's judgments were correct, the idea that moral criticism constitutes hate speech and should therefore be illegal is self-refuting. After all, if it is hate speech to make public moral judgments then the public judgment that hate speech is wrong, being a moral judgment, is itself a form of hate speech and should be illegal. Thus, to condemn the pastor's behavior on the grounds that his moral objections to homosexuality constitute hate speech, is itself an expression of hate and should be prosecuted.

Closer to home the free expression of opinion about the moral standing of homosexuality and dissent from the current orthodoxy lead, perhaps, an even more precarious existence than in Sweden. Consider the case of four anti-gay protestors in the City of Brotherly Love.

In Philadelphia speech is free and unfettered as long as it conforms to politically correct norms and does not offend members of a legally privileged group. Marcavage and his friends could have stood on the corner shouting obscenities and they probably would've received a slap on the wrist from the Philadelphia police, no matter how offensive their behavior may have been to average citizens, but calling gays to repentance turns out to be beyond the pale of acceptable behavior in the City of Brotherly Love.

Frankly, we were surprised that anything was beyond the pale in Philadelphia.

By now anyone who gets their news from the new media has heard of the Eason Jordan disgrace. The problem is that if you get your news from the old media you probably have no idea what I'm talking about. To catch up see here. The short version is this:

Last week CNN executive Eason Jordan addressing an audience in Davos, Switzerland, accused American troops of deliberately targeting journalists for death. He offered no evidence, of course, because there is none. In the audience were Massachusetts representative Barney Frank, and Connecticut senator Christopher Dodd, both of whom are liberal Democrats not particularly friendly to the military. Both reported that Jordan did indeed say what he is alleged to have said. Also in attendance serving as moderator was David Gergen who confirmed that Jordan made these outrageous charges. Jordan claims he was misunderstood, but a videotape was made of the event, and Eason does not want it to be released.

The scandal here is not just that a CNN executive has played fast and loose with the truth. This is, after all, the same guy who stifled coverage of Saddam's atrocities in order to retain access to Iraq. Nor is the scandal merely that a lefty would libel American troops. That's a quotidian occurrence. The scandal is that few major news outlets, except the Washington Times and perhaps FOX, has carried the story. It's been spiked everywhere else, evidently to protect the reputation of CNN as a trustworthy news organization and perhaps also to protect the career of yet another dishonest leftist in the MSM.

The MSM gives the impression of being comprised largely of members of a liberal Liars Club with Pulitzers promised to whomever can get away with telling the biggest whopper. Journalistic ethics in this association require members to form a protective ring around any brother who has been wounded, to protect him from scrutiny by the hoi-polloi out here in red state territory who are still naive enough in this post-modern age to believe that truth is something more than whatever you feel most strongly about. A curtain of silence must fall down around the Jordan episode lest he be made to suffer for proclaiming his "truth".

The po-mo philosopher Richard Rorty once wrote that "truth is whatever my peer group will let me get away with saying." By that standard Jordan's asseverations of murderous American soldiers assassinating journalists is true beyond any doubt.

UPDATE: Drudge is reporting that Jordan has resigned today from CNN. Maybe now the story will get reported.

I noticed that Mark Roberts uses the 1978 Kansas song Dust in the Wind as a jumping off point for a post on Ash Wednesday. This was an interesting coincidence since just a few days before I had played that song for my philosophy class, as I do each semester, to illustrate how the death of God manifests itself in the culture in expressions of despair.

For those who may not recall the lyrics they go like this:

The forlornness of this song reflects an inevitable and melancholy consequence of the denial of a personal, transcendent deity. Modern man lives under an illusion that he can revolt against belief in God, declare Him to be a dead issue, and that the whole experience is bracing and liberating. He has led himself to believe that God is a burdensome, unnecessary, superstitious anachronism that we are much better off to put far behind us.

This is quite a distance, however, from the truth. Everything in life that really matters is ontologically dependent, directly or indirectly, upon the existence of God. To consider just one important example, if atheistic naturalism is correct and there really is no transcendent creator then there is no ultimate meaning to our existence. Our lives are purposeless and we are insignificant. As the biologist Theodosious Dobzhansky put it, the only meaning we can hope for "is to live, be alive, and to leave more life", but if this is what it's all about our life is no more purposeful than that of a bacterium. Famous trial lawyer Clarence Darrow saw life as nothing more than "an unpleasant interruption of nothingness." Historian Will Durant claimed that man's only significance lay in the fact that he can "look out upon the universe and it can't look back on him." These men recognized that the modernity they embraced ultimately strips us of the only thing that can put genuine meaning into a person's life, and that realization left them without hope of any but the most superficial meaning.

Jean Paul Sartre writes in Existentialism is a Humanism that man without God is forlorn, abandoned, alone in the cosmos (as Walker Percy puts it). Woody Allen claims in Hannah and Her Sisters that "the only absolute knowledge attainable by man is that life is meaningless." Albert Camus compares life to the crushing futility of Sisyphus condemned by the gods to eternally push a rock up a hill only to have it roll back down each time.

Notwithstanding the cries of existential despair from writers such as these, if there really is a God who made us then we can assume that He had some purpose in so doing, and we can assume that there is some underlying point to our lives. We may not know what that point is, but we can assume there is one. If, however, there is no God, then we in fact just are the product of eons of blind, purposeless forces, which somehow by chance accidentally spit us up out of the darkness. There's no reason why we're here, we just are, and after a relatively brief moment we'll return to the dust from which we sprang. For most of us, whatever we accomplish in that exquisitely brief span we call life will perish with us so that after we're gone we and all our deeds will be just as anonymous to our descendents as most of our great great grandparents are to us. It will be as if we never lived at all. What meaning can there be in this?

Even so, man can't live without purpose. Despite the fact that most people are only dimly aware of their predicament, they still often have a vague sense that something is wrong, that something is missing, something is out of whack, yet they have no idea what it is. They convince themselves that they can alleviate this sense of dis-ease with material things, or a new romance, a new job, drugs or alcohol, but nothing works for very long. Some turn to politics and ideology seeking in these a substitute religion to make their lives significant and to do for them what only trust in God can actually do. Others fill their lives with work, a ploy that occupies the mind so as to keep it from focusing on the futility of it all. None of this fills the emptiness, though, none of it satisfies the hunger, so most people continue to live out lives, as Thoreau puts it, of quiet desperation.

Augustine declares that "Thou hast made us for Thyself, O God, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in Thee." Nothing else can give our lives meaning and fulfillment except that for which we were made in the first place. Unless life is eternal it ultimately comes to naught, but it can only be eternal if God is truly there, and this is the one solution to his situation that the modern materialist refuses to consider.

The rock group Smashing Pumpkins articulated the bleak darkness of modern man's circumstance with more cynicism and despondency, perhaps, than even the thinkers cited above: "We're nowhere," the lyrics of Jellybelly go, "We're nowhere. Living makes me sick. So sick I want to die." The lives of the characters in the movie American Beauty vividly illustrate this "nowhere-ness" of modern, secular life. Their daily existence is so tawdry, empty, and inane that the viewer can almost feel the ache in their souls himself. The characters in that movie were untypical of men and women without God only, perhaps, in the astonishing and depressing depth of their shallowness.

The modern atheist revels in his Promethean rejection of God. He proclaims himself free. He's thrilled by the audacity of his deed and excited by the prospects and promises his new-found liberation hold out to him. Yet all he has accomplished by spurning the true ground of his being is to condemn himself to a life of utter meaninglessness, and, as he discovers if and when he truly reflects upon it, a life of nihilistic emptiness and existential hopelessness.

So much for the exhilarating joys of being an intellectually consistent atheist.

Strategy Page gives us this report in its daily briefing:

But then you probably knew all this from watching CNN and reading the NYT.

Absolutely. For once, the Democrats get something right. Foreign country corporations don't operate under the same conditions as those in the U.S. They don't have to deal with the taxation, environmental regulations, labor laws, or labor unions that raise the cost of doing business astronomically.

So while the Dem's have the right argument, it's for the wrong reason. They maintain:

The gist of this statement is correct except that there's nothing "unfair" about a country establishing a policy that maintains the value of its currency in direct proportion to that of the U.S.

The following may be absolutely the most inane statement uttered in recorded history...

Duh! Why doesn't America's fast growth rate spur demand for domestic goods?

Now, here's a question to ponder...why is it that the U.S. government ONLY allows foreign countries to return their dollar surplus to the U.S. by purchasing U.S. treasuries?

Answer: Because they would own this once great country lock, stock, and barrel. But since they can only use their U.S. dollars to by our debt (Treasury bonds), they continue to finance our current life style of manic consumption. Can you say "dollar hegemony"? It is truly a house of cards.

Lastly, there's good news and there's bad news. The good news is that the major Medicare reform isn't going to cost the estimated $400 billion to implement.

The bad news is the latest figures just released are estimated at $700 billion to $1 trillion and they haven't issued dollar one for a prescription yet.

Check out this link for an audio interview with Laurence J. Kotlikoff. Scroll down to the Real Player or MP3 links on the left side of the page to listen to a shocking discussion. Truly a voice in the wilderness.

Wake up America!

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Hmm. So if the company insiders don't have any confidence in their own companies to do well going into the future, why should I or anyone else be buying their shares? More importantly, why is President Bush pushing for a privatization of Social Security where the proceeds are placed in the stock market while the insiders are cashing out? It would seem that the insiders would be buying shares with both hands in their companies and others to position themselves to capitalize on the imminent influx of hundreds of billions of dollars.

One can only speculate on the answer to these questions and since neither the insiders nor the President confide in us all we can do is "follow the money". I suspect the insiders are persuaded that the chances that the stock markets and economy in general are headed for a firestorm are high and the chances of Bush getting his privatization plan through congress are low. Given these probabilities, they don't want to be among the bag holders when the expletive hits the fan...and either should any other thinking person.

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Jacob Laskin and Ann Coulter limn portraits of Ward Churchill on Front Page Mag, and they are not pretty pictures. Churchill's is the face of the contemporary secular left: mendacious, fraudulent, violent, and hate-filled, a superannuated hippie from the halcyon and hallucinogenic sixties who languishes in a permanent state of arrested development. It gives us a feeling akin to nausea to reflect that his pathetic existence is being subsidized by taxpayers.

Readers may recall the contretemps surrounding the Richard Sternberg affair and his alleged mistreatment at the Smithsonian Institute, which he attributes to his having published a paper written by Intelligent Design theorist Stephen Meyer. There are conflicting accounts of exactly what has happened to Dr. Sternberg, but Joe Carter at Evangelical Outpost offers the following as to why he thinks Sternberg is more credible than the gentleman from the Smithsonian who denies Sternberg's charges:

This is not dispositive, of course, but Carter's argument is persuasive. Why would Sternberg place himself in serious legal jeopardy if his charges were false, and why wouldn't Coddington, if he were going to deny Sternberg's allegations of mistreatment, use the same venue that Sternberg used? Why announce your denials in a blog? Stay tuned.

Power Line has some good news on the war against Iraqi terrorists:

This latest arrest raises some troubling questions, actually. Obviously these guys are ratting on each other and giving each other up to the Iraqi police, which causes us to wonder what sort of interrogation techniques are being employed there. Are the Iraqis resorting to torture to extract their information? Are they, for instance, saying mean things to these thugs about their mothers to get them to give up their secrets? Are they using stressful methods like raising their voices and making them sleep in single instead of queen-sized beds? Are they subjecting them to excruciating ordeals like forcing them to listen to AC/DC albums? Just wondering. Maybe TruthOut.org should look into this.

Ughh...I'm reeling from the recent price drop in gold...all the way to my favorite gold dealer to buy more! Why? Simply because gold serves as the ultimate barometer of the "perceived" value of a country's currency even though there can be short-term events that cause things to appear to be otherwise. In the '90s, when the NASDAQ went from 500 to 5000, the common expression was "buy the dips". People that did that made out handsomely...until the year 2000.

Briton's Chancellor Gordon Brown has come out from under his rock, once again, to suggest that the IMF sell some of its gold to alleviate the debt of third-world countries. The possibility of this event has made a huge contribution to the recent decline in the gold price (even though such sales would only be to central banks meaning the gold would not appear on the open market). While appearing to be a champion of people of low economic status, consider this article

So I interpret such news as efforts to distort economic reality. If you look at a long term graph of the price of gold, you can see that it's not uncommon for it to pull back anywhere from 50% to 100% of its previous rise. Then it turns around and goes to new highs. The important thing to keep in mind is that the fundamentals (trade and budget deficits) that have caused the price to be where it is from its low of $260 in the year 2000 are still firmly in place and as long as they are, the price over the longer term will continue to trend upward. Any short term moves are temporary anomalies.

Now let's look at another component of the economy that motivates me to "go for the gold"...

From Stephen Roach of Morgan Stanley:

And for you odds players out there, this link from his article in November where he says:

The U.S. has become the consumer of last resort for the world's goods brought to you by 40 year low rates of interest from the Federal Reserve and, as a result, the typical U.S. consumer has been refinancing their mortgages and financing their consumption by borrowing against the equity in their homes. Stephen Roach says:

This will end and it will end badly and this is why. Today, the engine of consumption is enabled by the lowest interest rates in 40 years. Interest rates are a tool that is used by the Fed to control the flow of dollars into the economy. When rates go up, it chokes the supply of new dollars into the economy, decreasing inflation. Remember that dollars are "borrowed" into existence. The Fed could print a billion dollars but that has no impact on the economy until someone borrows them. So if rates don't rise people and businesses are more inclined to borrow.

The bigger issue is that the Fed doesn't have total control of interest rates. There comes a time when they are forced to raise them because too many dollars are being pumped into the economy. That's what happened in the '70s when Paul Volker raised rates to 18%. He had to do this because inflation was showing up in the general economy in terms of higher prices of consumer goods. Today it's showing up in the stock market and housing.

On the other hand, with the dollar dropping in value against other currencies, the U.S. is forced to raise interest rates to make the Treasury bonds foreign countries buy more attractive so they continue to buy them. Those Treasuries are how the U.S. finances it's trade deficit. In other words, the Fed is in a no win situation. If they raise rates, they might continue the trade deficit but tank the economy.

Just the other day, the latest employment numbers were disappointing yet the stock market surged. Why? Because this was perceived as an indicator that interest rates would stay low to help a still-struggling economy. But if the Fed keep rates low, inflation will go out of control.

If anyone finds fault with my reasoning I sure would appreciate hearing from you for an alternative interpretation of what is going on. But in the mean time, it's "Katie, bar (as in gold bar) the door."

As always, thanks for reading.

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We're not big on public opinion polls unless they confirm our prejudices, of course, and this one by Gallup does just that so we'll share it with you:

We'd like to know what it is that has changed in Iraq in the last three weeks, or the last three months, that has caused people to give the president higher marks now than previously. The elections occured in Iraq, of course, but they weren't a surprise. They had been scheduled since last year. Nor should their success have been a surprise except perhaps to those whose only news source is the MSM or Left-wing journals and blogs.

The fact is that things are going about as well in Iraq now as they have been for the last year or so. The difference is that the MSM, having very few blown up cars and shredded bodies to report about on election day, focused instead on something which they had ignored ever since the fall of Saddam - the joy and hope of the Iraqi people. Evidently, when a lot of average Americans saw Iraqi jubilation on their television screens it jolted them into changing their minds about the quality of the job that Bush is doing there.

Unfortunately, if that's the reaction that positive news coverage is going to produce, then we fear we shouldn't look for too many more upbeat stories from Iraq for awhile. The last thing the MSM wants is to be responsible for continued improvement in Bush's approval numbers, and they're probably aghast that they've precipitated this recent spike.

Jeff Jacoby of the Boston Globe has a problem with some of the tactics employed by female interrogators at Guantanamo Bay on Muslim prisoners, and Debbie Schlussel thinks he's off his rocker.

We think that both of them are partly right, but read both articles and see what you think.

Adventures With Chester has a ton of background on the now famous LtGen Jim Mattis who shocked the delicate sensibilities of the fragile flowers in the MSM by stating that he enjoys killing people who beat up women for not wearing a veil (and presumably people who behead innocent captives and people who trick Down's Syndrome youngsters into conducting suicide missions to blow apart other children, etc).

We wouldn't put it quite the way LtGen Mattis did, and in fact we are prudish enough to think that killing should not be "fun" under any conditions. It should be undertaken only with deep regret that it's necessary. Having said that, however, we do not deny that there is something deeply satisfying about justice, and though it should not be regarded as fun, there is, no doubt, a large measure of satisfaction to be taken from knowing that one has removed from the planet someone who preys on innocent women and children and who kills wantonly. Taking the lives of such individuals is an act of justice, it is the right thing to do, and there is nothing reprehensible in LtGen Mattis finding satisfaction in the doing of it.

Anyone interested in this story should check out Chester's site.

Back in the early fifties William F. Buckley defined conservatism as standing athwart the juggernaut of history shouting "stop." We thought of this the other day and marveled at how things have changed.

Consider this little quiz: Of the two, conservatism or liberalism:

If you answered "conservatives" for any of these then you're still living back in the sixties with Ward Churchill:

It might be argued that liberals don't oppose the ends that conservatives seek, they merely disagree on the best means to get there. Yet they offer no alternative proposals for achieving those ends. Everywhere we look we find liberals doing nothing, offering nothing, except resistance to change. Their sole contribution to the issues of our time is to stand athwart history shouting "stop."

The other day we posted and commented upon a story which appeared in the WSJ by David Klinghoffer about the reaction at the Smithsonian Institute to an article on Intelligent Design which appeared in a journal edited by a research associate at the Smithsonian. There were some allegations made in that story which reflected poorly on the open-mindedness and ethics of Smithsonian employees.

Now one of those employees has come forward to present another side and to address some of Klinghoffer's allegations. His remarks can be found at The Panda's Thumb. Evidently, somebody in this dispute, intentionally or not, is misleading us. We'll let you know where the truth lies if, and when, we find out ourselves.

At that time I mentioned that the price of gold, having risen to new highs, might drop to $420. Well, that has happened and the way things are going now, the price might even drop to $400. Personally, I see it as a great buying opportunity, compliments of those who are wont to suppress the price of gold in an effort to distort economic reality.

As anyone who has read my Gold Page can surmise, my advice to acquire gold isn't about a "get rich" scheme, rather it's about protecting one's self from dishonest government. More to the point, it's not about Democrats or Republicans or any other party affiliation...it's about returning to a value system upon which our great country was founded. It's about being a Patriot.

Having said that, I offer the link below to An Analysis of Antal Fekete's Plan for a Parallel Gold-Coin Standard by Nelson Hultberg

From the link below:

Antal Fekete is a truly brilliant individual and I encourage you to read the article in its entirety.

www.afr.org/Hultberg/013105.html

Ernst Mayr, the very prominent Harvard evolutionary biologist, and author of numerous works on the subject is dead at age 100. Mayr was a key architect of the neo-Drawinian synthesis, the blending of Darwin's theory of natural selection with the science of genetics, and was instrumental in persuading biologists to accept the view that species evolved only when isolated from their parent populations. His influence among modern evolutionists is probably second only to that of Charles Darwin himself.

Omar at Iraq the Model posts an amusing parody of a Syrian news article praising elections in Syria. Omar writes:

Ninety percent turnout?! We Americans could certainly learn something from the Syrians about the importance of voting in a democracy. Maybe they'd be willing to send some advisors over here in 2008 to help us develop a deeper appreciation for the beauty of free elections. The Syrian government would probably insist, however, that no advisors be permitted to come unless there are guarantees that they won't be allowed to defect while they're here.

Joe Carter at Evangelical Outpost informs us that New York has pushed the toboggan over the brow of the slippery slope, and the wild ride to the bottom, monotonously predicted by Viewpoint on a number of occasions (see here, for example), has commenced:

Carter says he can't decide which is more ironic: "the fact that the judge uses the Bible as a reference source in making the case for same-sex marriage or that polygamists will use that wording to justify extending marital rights to their own relationships."

It won't stop with polygamy, nor can it. Once the breach is opened in the traditional definition of marriage, there is no non-arbitrary stopping point. Next up: Group marriage.

The Washington Times reveals the rich fantasy life, while noting the execrable behavior, of CNN chief news executive Eason Jordan at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. During a discussion on media and democracy, Mr. Jordan apparently told the audience that "he knew of 12 journalists who had not only been killed by U.S. troops in Iraq, but they had in fact been targeted..."

Jordan has made similar accusations on previous occasions. According to the Times:

The MSM has chosen to completely ignore Mr. Jordan's irresponsible allegation, realizing, no doubt, that any claim this bizarre should probably be supported with at least some evidence, a minimal requirement Mr. Jordan has completely disdained. An unsubstantiated charge of this magnitude sounds like another Dan Rather scandal in the making, and Big Media doesn't want to be the catalyst for destroying the credibility of yet another major news institution.

Since the MSM won't do their job one must turn to alternative media for the details. Luckily, Hugh Hewitt and Ed Morrissey are on the case. Between the two of them all the sordid details can be pieced together.

The director of CNN News evidently thought he could get away with slandering American troops without anyone noticing. The American public should demand that he come forward with evidence for his libels or else be fired (and sued) for lying about our troops.

This photo at Release the Hounds and the accompanying explanation are worth seeing and reading. Why doesn't the MSM run stuff like this?

This account from Omar at Iraq the Model shows how despicable are the savages our troops are working to extirpate in Iraq:

The story of A'adel Nasir (I've seen his name rendered differently in different reports) is especially significant. Everyone knows that Americans and Brits have acted with extraordinary courage in Iraq, but the MSM seems to be convinced that Iraqi troops and police have been less than audacious in risking their own lives in the fight for their own freedom. Not only does the behavior of millions of Iraqis who braved death threats in order to vote explode this myth but so does the heroism of A'adel Nasir whose courage will be a model for young Iraqis to emulate for generations.

The talented Tom Graffagnino posts this clever piece of verse at Without Excuse Creations:

Very witty, and it makes an important point: Darwinism is a indeed a religion. It offers its votaries a creation myth (Life arose by chance in a primordial sea), an answer to the question of life's meaning (to perpetuate the species or at least one's genes), a ground for morality ("Right" is whatever conduces to survival), and an answer to the question of where we are going (When we die we return to the earth so that our matter may continue on as part of the great cycle of life).

Darwinism, by offering us an opportunity to "liberate the human spirit" from superstition and clerical oppression, affords us a vehicle for "salvation". It moreover maintains a priestly class of scientists and philosophers who pontificate on matters of doctrine, faith, and practice, and it proudly boasts a pantheon of saints who have gone on before. It embodies a worldview that encompasses every aspect of life. It cherishes its dogmas and orthodoxies, defending them assiduously against challenge from heretics, and traces its beginnings to the holy scriptures recorded by its founder in the Origin of Species.

Nancy Pearcey, in her book Total Truth, quotes philosopher and Darwinian Michael Ruse, who says that "I must admit that....the [critics of evolution] are absolutely right. Evolution is a religion. This was true of evolution in the beginning and it is true of evolution still today."

She also quotes from historian Jacques Barzun who writes that the so-called warfare between science and religion should really be seen as the "warfare between two philosophies and perhaps two faiths." It's a dispute, he writes, "between believers in consciousness and believers in mechanical action; the believers in purpose and the believers in pure chance."

Precisely. The fundamental difference between Darwinism and Christianity is that Christianity traces the origin of the world and of life back to an intelligence whereas Darwinism traces it back to random, purposeless forces. Both Darwinism and Christianity are thus grounded in metaphysical faith commitments, and from those commitments flow all of their differences.

The Discovery Institute has a new blog that focuses on media reporting and misreporting of the Darwinism/Intelligent Design debate. The news media in the U.S. seem to have rediscovered the controversy, but unfortunately, much of their coverage has been sloppy, inaccurate, and in several cases, overtly biased. Evolution News and Views aims to offer a corrective, and anyone interested in the issue should check it out.

Andrew Sullivan, who, by the way, is largely shutting down his blog for a couple of months, relays to conservatives this question from a friend:

Good question. In fact, Viewpoint will go one better. Why should this be a matter of one or the other? Why shouldn't conservatives be arguing for both amendments? If the marriage amendment is necessary to protect marriage, and it may well be, surely an anti-abortion amendment is necessary to protect the lives of unborn children and is long overdue. It doubtless would not have been possible to get such an amendment through congress before now and may not be possible to get one passed even now, but shouldn't the arguments for it at least be raised?

That some conservatives have gone on record calling for the marriage amendment, but none appear to be interested in a constitutional corrective for Roe v. Wade, a decision many believe to be a clear case of judicial overreach that has resulted in the sacrifice of millions of lives, seems at best a little inconsistent.

The Democrats have vowed to fight President Bush's Social Security reform proposals with every weapon at their disposal. The President wishes to give people control over a portion of their retirement, and the Democrats are opposed. A number of commentators have noted the irony of liberals insisting that people have a constitutional right to choose whether their unborn children live or die while at the same time refusing them the right to choose how to invest for their retirement (or, for that matter, where to send their children to school if indeed they should choose to have them).

For the freedom-loving folks in the Democratic party freedom to choose extends little further than whether or not to terminate a pregnancy. For them, freedom's just another word for nothing left to choose.

After the Civil War there was a massive migration of blacks from the south to the cities of the north. They came looking for opportunities and a better life. There are signs that another African-American migration is taking place in our own day only this one is political, not geographical, and it is causing alarm in liberal precincts. Apparently, the Republican party is beginning to make serious inroads into a demographic group that Democrats have had locked up for sixty years, and if they are successful it would have serious consequences for the future of the party.

An article in the Los Angeles Times sounds the tocsin. Here are a few excerpts:

African-Americans are evidently tired of being snookered by Democratic leaders, both black and white. They are at last beginning to realize that liberal policies since the 1960s have often been counterproductive at best and dysgenic at worst.

Now comes a Republican president who may have done more for black racial esteem than all the liberal multicultural/diversity/ethnic/racial pride celebrations of the last three decades put together. He has actually elevated blacks to some of the most prominent positions of his administration, something no Democrat ever did. He also understands that what is good for America is good for African-Americans, and has steadily worked to improve the economy, create jobs, and set a positive moral tone for the country. Moreover, he has steadfastly refused to do what is standard practice for many Democrat politicians - he has refused to pander to blacks, or to treat them as if they just can't be expected to manage their own lives.

To many liberals blacks are the white man's burden, and African-Americans may finally be growing resentful of the implicit racism of this patronizing attitude. Perhaps they are tired of their indenture to the Democratic bosses and have become a field ripe for a conservative harvest. If so, a significant African-American defection would quite likely signal the demise of the Democratic party.

John Podhoretz asks an intriguing question:

This really is a kind of litmus test for the quality of our character, isn't it? Were we genuinely glad for the Iraqi people, or at least relieved, that things went well for them and their country on Sunday, or did we feel indifference or even somewhat of a letdown that there wasn't more chaos and carnage? If it was the latter then we need to have a serious conversation with ourselves about the state of our soul.

For an example of someone who stands in urgent need of just such self-examination read the piece at Good News From Iraq is up, and, as usual, it's packed.

Those who were surprised at the enthusiastic turn out at the polls last Sunday could not have been following Chrenkoff's fortnightly posts. If they had been, January 30th would have been no surprise at all.

In the wake of November 2nd our inbox was clogged with e-mails from TruthOut.org updating us every hour on the "crisis" in Ohio and the "evidence" that Republicans had been up to election day hanky-panky. About Washington state, however, where there are genuine indications of fraud in the gubernatorial balloting, TruthOut has had almost nothing to say. Doubtless that's because the tentative winner in that election was a Democrat and because the evidence of voter fraud points directly at Democrats as the culprits.

National Review Online notes that:

We're convinced that TruthOut and its friends in the MSM, like Keith Olberman at MSNBC, who were so sure that there was perfidy afoot in Ohio on November 2nd, will join with the editors of National Review in calling for a re-vote in Washington. It is the Left, after all, which was incensed in 2000 because they had incorrectly persuaded themselves that the winner in Florida had stolen that states' election, and it was the Left which was outraged in 2004 at what they had mistakenly assumed were voting irregularities in Ohio which favored the winner.

We're confident that their tardiness in joining the ranks of those demanding a re-vote in Washington has nothing to do with ideological hypocrisy, as some have alleged, and is, on the contrary, due merely to their getting their legal teams together to insure that justice will be done. Or something like that. At any rate, they'll be out there demanding a re-vote soon, you can count on it.

There is a remarkable article in the U.K. Times Online concerning the political and social disintegration currently underway in North Korea. Not every member of the axis of evil needs to be confronted militarily. Some of them, evidently, are rotting from within and will, with luck, topple at the first strong wind.

Thanks to Little Green Footballs for the tip.

The culture wars continue. We were reminded by this article in the Wall Street Journal of a quote from Darwinian biologist Richard Lewontin:

The WSJ article says this:

Materialists certainly take Lewontin's words seriously. Any scientist in the church of naturalism who gives succor to the opposition is henceforth anathema. Like a gaggle of middle-school girls shunning one of their number who has transgressed some social protocol, Sternberg's co-workers studiously avoid acknowledging him when they pass in the halls. Is there anything more childish? They probably giggle among themselves in the break-room at how cleverly they execute their indignant snubs.

The alleged complaint against Sternberg is that he used his position as editor of a journal that deals primarily with taxonomy to permit an article on a subject that was not related to taxonomy. This, however, is ludicrous. Science journals like Science and Scientific American, though their mission is to address matters of science, sometimes run articles on foreign, social, or economic policy and no editors are ostracized from the community and have their careers threatened for it.

Another charge against Dr. Sternberg was that Meyer's paper was not original and simply re-worked some of his earlier published material and that featuring it damaged the reputation of the journal. This is an odd reason to punish the editor, though. How can you damage the reputation of a publication that no one ever heard of prior to this incident? Indeed, if anything, Sternberg should be rewarded for garnering publicity for the journal that it never would have gotten otherwise no matter how many papers it published on wildly popular topics like the discovery of a new subspecies of midge in New Jersey marshlands.

Sternberg's real crime, of course, was that the article he ran was critical of Darwinism as an explanatory model for how novel morphological patterns arise in nature. If the paper had been favorable to Darwinism it would have passed completely unremarked by the inquisitors at the Smithsonian no matter how modest its scientific quality might have been. As it was, Sternberg allowed a paper into his journal that dared to question the adequacy of Darwinian theory, so he must be cast out like the academic leper he so obviously must be.

Darwinism is a religion which brooks no challenges, and heretics need be punished severely. Maybe their bodies are no longer burned at the stake, but their careers are. It's unfortunate that middle-schoolers in adult bodies have that kind of authority.