Why ID Will Win

Douglas Kern has an article at Tech Central Station titled Why Intelligent Design is Going to Win. He writes:

It doesn't matter if you like it or not. It doesn't matter if you think it's true or not. Intelligent Design theory is destined to supplant Darwinism as the primary scientific explanation for the origin of human life. ID will be taught in public schools as a matter of course. It will happen in our lifetime. It's happening right now, actually.

He then goes on to posit five claims in support of his thesis:

1) ID will win because it's a religion-friendly, conservative-friendly, red-state kind of theory, and no one will lose money betting on the success of red-state theories in the next fifty to one hundred years.

2) ID will win because the pro-Darwin crowd is acting like a bunch of losers.

3) ID will win because it can be reconciled with any advance that takes place in biology, whereas Darwinism cannot yield even an inch of ground to ID.

4) ID will win because it can piggyback on the growth of information theory, which will attract the best minds in the world over the next fifty years.

5) ID will win because ID assumes that man will find design in life -- and, as the mind of man is hard-wired to detect design, man will likely find what he seeks.

The text of the article gives supporting arguments for each of the above five assertions. It's pretty interesting.

We'd like to suggest a sixth reason: ID will win because it's obvious to everyone who isn't blinded by a materialist bias that life is such an unlikely phenomenon in any universe even minutely different from our own that the sense that our world is quite probably the product of purposeful intent is overwhelming.

Once it seeps into the public consciousness and discourse that the universe is the result of intentional engineering rather than blind, purposeless forces the correlative idea that the obvious design in the biosphere is also a consequence of intelligent agency will become much more easily accepted.

Indeed, when the public becomes aware that Intelligent Design is a kind of philosophical Grand Unifying Theory, uniting the earth, space, and biological sciences under the teleological umbrella, it will gain a purchase on the public imagination that will could make it virtually irresistable.

The Worldwide Caliphate

The Washington Post describes a recently intercepted letter from Ayman Zawahiri, Bin Laden's deputy, to Abu Musab Zarqawi, the brutal leader of al Qaida in Iraq:

The letter of instructions and requests outlines a four-stage plan, according to officials: First, expel American forces from Iraq. Second, establish a caliphate over as much of Iraq as possible. Third, extend the jihad to neighboring countries, with specific reference to Egypt and the Levant -- a term that describes Syria and Lebanon. And finally, war against Israel.

U.S. officials say they were struck by the letter's emphasis on the centrality of Iraq to al Qaeda's long-term mission. One of the two excerpts provided by officials quotes Zawahiri, a former doctor from Egypt, telling his Jordanian-born ally, "I want to be the first to congratulate you for what God has blessed you with in terms of fighting in the heart of the Islamic world, which was formerly the field for major battles in Islam's history, and what is now the place for the greatest battle of Islam in this era."

But bin Laden's deputy also purportedly makes clear that the war would not end with an American withdrawal and that anything other than religious rule in Iraq would be dangerous.

"And it is that the Mujaheddin must not have their mission end with the expulsion of the Americans from Iraq, and then lay down their weapons, and silence the fighting zeal. We will return to having the secularists and traitors holding sway over us," the letter reportedly says.

Bin Laden's deputy has spoken before about the broad plans for the al Qaeda movement. In a book smuggled out of Afghanistan in December 2001, Zawahiri said the goal of jihad is to establish a religious state throughout the Islamic world and "reinstate its fallen caliphate and regain its lost glory."

The report elicits a couple of thoughts: First, it vindicates the war, if not the means by which the war has been fought. The Islamists see Iraq as central to their efforts to establish Islamic rule throughout the world.

Second, the Sheehanites who are calling for an immediate pullout are extremely irresponsible, or worse. All withdrawal would accomplish would be to widen the theater of operations for the Islamists and every government in the Middle East which did not bend to their will would quickly fall. Once the U.S. no longer forces the Islamists to concentrate their energies in Iraq, the scourge of Islamo-fascism will spread across the region and eventually across the world.

Their jihad is not about poverty or oppression, it's about religion and it's about hatred for every person or nation which resists the goal of a world-wide caliphate. They are fanatical and will not be appeased by U.N. resolutions or economic bribes. They will not rest until every Israeli is dead and Talibanic governments prevail throughout the ancient Islamic world from Indonesia to Spain and the rest of the globe lives in servile dhimmitude.

We have to win in Iraq. Unless we choose unilaterally to quit the fight, the GWOT is not going to have a quick, clean denouement. The conflict will probably endure throughout much of our children's lifetimes. This is unpleasant to contemplate, but the only realistic alternative is surrender and the knife sawing at our children's and grandchildren's throats.

Dysfunctional Police Force

Michelle Malkin has the necessary links to get up to speed on the travesty that is the New Orleans police force. First, many officers were AWOL in the runup and aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, then others were apparently involved in looting businesses and homes, then the police superintendent suddenly up and quit, and now there is a taped beating of a 64 year old inebriate which appears completely unwarranted.

If the mayor of this city were a white Republican the media would be screaming at the top of its lungs for his resignation. As it is, New Orleans' Mayor Nagin seems to own one of those courtesy cards that entitles the bearer to special privileges, including immunity from liberal media criticism.