Total Depravity

Michelle Malkin notes how the fine human beings at Democratic Underground are responding to the news of Margaret Thatcher's failing health. It's hard to believe that people could sink as deep into the sewer as some of the people at that site who consider themselves compassionate, humane, and sophisticated liberals. If this is what liberalism and liberals have become then it's time to start treating liberals like the moral basket-cases they keep showing themselves to be and ostracize them completely from our political discourse.

If you have the stomach to visit the link be sure to scroll down through the comments to get a real sense of the degeneracy that resides on the left. It'll make you a convert to the Calvinist doctrine of total depravity.

And then there's Pat Oliphant, perhaps the most untalented, unfunny, immature political cartoonist, after Ted Rall, to disgrace the pages of our national newspapers. It astonishes me that any paper carries this guy. Does anyone who has attained adulthood think he's anything but an insipid, juvenile sleaze merchant?

Terrorists' Dream, America's Nightmare

We have written on this subject before, but it bears repeating. The most horrifying threat we face today is a single blast from a nuclear weapon detonated at high altitude over the North American mainland. Here's why:

EMP (ElectroMagnetic Pulse) is produced by atmospheric detonation of a nuclear device. The nuclear explosion sends out a spike of electromagnetic pulse - a wave - that shocks electronics and creates electrical currents in the earth. Effects are direct and indirect. The electrical devices themselves are rendered inoperable. This begins what the Commission report calls "unprecedented cascading failures of major infrastructures." In other words, if a power grid is fried, then systems depending on that power grid: lighting, water purification and delivery, communications, banking, hospitals, emergency - all these and more are affected. If the initial explosion is large enough, the Commission concludes, "the degradation of infrastructure could have irreversible effects on the country's ability to support its population."

This means mass starvation because food deliveries cease, urban deaths by dehydration as water systems fail, collapse of medical systems, breakdown of police functions, ineffectiveness of firefighters, loss of bank records, inability to move physically other than by foot, and a return of America to a "pre-industrial age" state. Americans who live in rural environments might survive. The larger the cities and the more densely populated they are, the greater the probability of mass death. An EMP attack, in other words, could be many times worse than nuclear explosions at ground level that intend to use explosive force to kill. Such an attack is indeed a terrorist's dream - and an American nightmare.

It's not like we're just learning about EMP. Soviet and American nuclear scientists first discovered this effect during atmospheric testing in the early 1960s. An American detonation, Starfish, over Johnson Island, had the unpredicted side effect of knocking out street lights, alarms, and power generation facilities in Oahu almost 100 miles distant. As recently as 1995, a Russian general threatened EMP attack during raucous negotiations with US representatives, noting that it "would only take one" weapon to knock out America.

Technically, a large enough weapon detonated at 75-400 kilometers above the US would induce serious EMP damage. The larger the weapon and the higher the detonation, the greater the circle of damage emanating from it. Only a single large weapon detonating over mid-America could permanently cripple the country. The result would be direct and indirect deaths of millions of Americans and the transformation of the US in an eye-blink to a pre-19th century environment.

So why is this a terrorist threat? Isn't EMP attack something that would come from a more sophisticated country, one, like Russia or China, that stands to lose as much as we do by such actions? And should we more properly worry about suitcase nucs and such from terrorists? The alarming answer is that delivery of an EMP weapon requires less than state-of-the-art technology. A rocket simply has to carry a nuclear payload to altitude and detonate it. Aiming can be very general, unlike targeting an installation or even a city. Alarmingly, such missiles exist, engineered by North Korea and sold to countries like Iran, Syria, and - we fear - soon to Venezuela.

The missiles do not have to be launched from land. They could, with rather conventional engineering modifications, be launched from the deck of a freighter off-shore from the American coastline. Terrorist organizations such as al Qaeda already possess a modest fleet of merchant ships. Both Iran and North Korea are furiously working to develop deliverable nuclear weapons. In the opinion of many, it is not a matter of if we are attacked by EMP but when. America has a surfeit of capable enemies - communists, dictators, and terrorists - and they form a deadly connection committed to our demise.

How do we stop this threat? There is no simple answer. America does not possess anti-missile capability of significance. If a Navy Aegis-class ship was in the neighborhood it might be able to intercept the terrorist missile attack. But to rely on such serendipitous circumstances to protect this country is madness. We could harden our infrastructure and try to protect against EMP attack, but because of magnitude that would be a futile undertaking.

The only sure defense, as General George Patton said is a "good offense." And, he concluded, "the quality of that offense depends on the warlike souls of those conducting it." As a country we need to make certain that we have sufficient steel in our backbones to take on and to defeat the threat from Islamofascists and rogue states before they are able to launch a missile at this country. In short, we need to change our mentality from that of complacent peacetime and assume an aggressive War Footing. And we need to do so before our enemies can exploit our weakness.

For more info go here and click on "view video." While you're watching it bear in mind that Iran is currently building two nuclear reactors that will enable them to produce nuclear weapons.

The Iranians simply can't be permitted to develop the capability of destroying the United States with a single strike. If they have it they will surely use it. I think President Bush and his team understand this. I doubt very much if the Democrats do.

Paranoia Will Destroy Ya

Abraham Foxman suffers from clinical paranoia. How else can we explain his belief that the biggest threat to Jews in the United States is the "religious right"? A Washington Times article says this:

A group of Jewish leaders meets in New York this week to develop a response to the religious right, which they say is eroding civil liberties and planning to "christianize America." Led by Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), and Rabbi Eric Yoffie, president of the Union for Reform Judaism, the private meeting is set for today, said an assistant to Mr. Yoffie.

Both men were unavailable for comment Friday, and neither organization would divulge details of the meeting, including who else is attending and where it is being held. But the meeting is the culmination of a month of attacks by Mr. Foxman and Mr. Yoffie on conservative Christian groups, starting with Mr. Foxman's speech Nov. 3 at an ADL function in New York.

"We face a better-financed, more sophisticated, coordinated, unified, energized and organized coalition of groups in opposition to our policy positions on church-state separation than ever before," he said. "Their goal is to implement their Christian worldview. To Christianize America. To save us."

The chief villains, he said, were the Colorado Springs-based Focus on the Family; the Scottsdale, Ariz.-based Alliance Defense Fund; the Tupelo, Miss.-based American Family Association; and the Family Research Council, based in Washington. "This issue is serious enough for us to develop a strategy, and, clearly, our first task is to win the support of the American public," Mr. Foxman said. "We also need to come together with other Jewish organizations ... and to find allies beyond our community."

On Nov. 19, Mr. Yoffie compared the religious right to Nazis. "We understand those who believe that the Bible opposes gay marriage, even though we read that text in a very different way," the rabbi said. "We cannot forget that when Hitler came to power in 1933, one of the first things that he did was ban gay organizations."

So, Christians are essentially Nazis. If Christians acquire much more political power in this country look for extermination camps for Jews to sprout up next to the local Wal-Mart.

When, we have to ask, have Christians talked about banning gay organizations (as distinct from gay marriage)? How, exactly, are Christians a threat to Jews? Neither Foxman nor Yoffie explain. In our post-modern, PC world there is no distinction between leveling an allegation and substantiating it. The fact that these men eagerly embrace the narrative of Christian tyranny and feel oppressed by a Christian hegemony that exists entirely in their febrile imaginations is all that's necessary to validate their claims.

Don Feder, president of Jews Against Anti-Christian Defamation, succinctly highlights the silliness of the fears voiced by such as Foxman and Yoffie when he says this:

"Foxman loves to whine about the religious right and how they're destroying religious liberty in America. Is wanting to keep God in the Pledge of Allegiance Christianizing America? Is opposition to gay marriage Christianizing America? Are efforts to keep public displays of the Ten Commandments Christianizing America? If so, Moses was a Christianizer."

The Times' article continues:

Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein, founder of the Chicago-based International Fellowship of Christians and Jews (IFCJ), pointed out that evangelicals are Israel's best U.S. friends. His group raised $44.9 million in 2004, mostly from evangelicals, for pro-Israel causes. In 2002, the IFCJ commissioned a poll of 1,200 Americans that found that "conservative church-going Christians" had the highest rates of support for Israel (62 percent) among non-Jewish religious groups. In 2002, Mr. Foxman penned "Evangelical Support for Israel Is a Good Thing" for the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

Conservative Christians and Jewish groups have united over Israel, foreign policy and the threat of Islamic terrorism, said Kristi Hamrick, spokeswoman for American Values. "It's common knowledge that no other non-Jewish community in the country supports Israel as loyally and generously as do evangelicals," said Paul Hetrick, vice president of media relations for Focus on the Family.

But no matter. For the paranoid conspiracy theorist all this is just proof of the cleverness of the plot. Christians are lulling Jews into a false sense of trustworthiness before they treacherously spring the Final Solution upon them.

2004 Republican electoral successes and President Bush's faith-based initiatives have made some Jewish organizations nervous about evangelicals' ultimate aims. "It's absolutely an issue," said Rabbi Arthur Waskow, director of the Shalom Center in Philadelphia. They aren't using outright violence themselves," he said of the religious right. "But they are one step down from people who are ready to use the coercive powers of the state to impose their own religious outlook."

Don't ask for evidence for any of this. That would just be a sign that you've already been co-opted by the conspiracy and are probably even working for the evil Dr. Dobson and his holocaust-loving minions.

Here's what this sort of Jewish antipathy toward Christians is going to produce: Eventually, Christians are going to get weary of it and are going to ask themselves whether their support for Israel is really worth the constant threat of terrorism on our soil. Wouldn't it be easier to just abandon Israel to her enemies and take care of things at home, they'll wonder. When that day of decision comes, the attacks by Jewish leaders on American Christians are going to do absolutely nothing to incline those same Christians to hang tough with Israel. If this country ever walks away from its commitments to Israel the Israelis will be able to give a hefty thank you very much to the likes of Abraham Foxman.