Jerry Falwell

Jerry Falwell was found dead today in his office at the age of 73. Falwell had a habit of saying the most indefensible things that became skewers in the hands of those wishing to discredit Evangelical Christianity, but he was a man whose heart was in the right place even when his mind wasn't. He accomplished a lot of good for the Church and for our country not the least of which was his success in encouraging fundamentalist Christians to forsake their traditional aversion to politics and to get involved in public debates.

He was a man of great optimism, vision, and enthusiasm, and his death will be a great loss to both the church and the university which he founded.

RLC

Best Rèsumè, Best Ads

What does it say about our politics that two essential novices with no political accomplishments to their credit (Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama) are leading the polls among Democratic candidates for the presidency while this guy is an also-ran?

Well, he may not be a media favorite but he certainly has some good ads. Check them out at the link.

RLC

Sustainable Development at the U.N.

Many people think the U.N. is a joke, and that august body itself seems determined to confirm them in their opinion. Recently Zimbabwe was designated to head the U.N. Commission on Sustainable Development. That's the same Zimbabwe which was once a prosperous nation named Rhodesia but whose fortunes collapsed after the former government was replaced, following a costly civil war in the late 70's, by a collection of thugs, tyrants, thieves, and incompetents under thug-in-chief Robert Mugabe.

It's the same Zimbabwe which is the proud possessor of the world's highest inflation, at more than 2000%, and mass unemployment. Human and civil rights abuses are rife. Entire families of farmers have been evicted from their homes and their land confiscated to be given to people who don't know the difference between a sheep and a cow.

As if to celebrate their new status as the head of the U.N.'s Commission on Sustainable Development it was announced on Wednesday that households in the country will be limited to four hours' electricity a day so that wheat farmers will have enough power to irrigate their crops.

That's the same U.N., by the way, that appointed Libya to chair its Commission on Human Rights in 2003. In the halls of the U.N. building irony, like cosmic radiation, is completely unperceived by those through whom it passes.

RLC

Reality-Based

The Democrats, or at least many of those who frequent the blogosphere, fancy themselves the reality-based party. They have a grip on the real-world and the rest of us, we're told, are delusional.

It's going to be harder than ever to make that claim sound convincing if what Rush Limbaugh reported the other day is correct. He cites a Rassmussen poll that found that 35% of Democrats believe that President Bush knew about the 9/11 attack beforehand and 26% aren't sure whether he knew or not. That's 51% of the rank and file Democrats in the U.S. who think that Bush was, or might have been, complicit in the 9/11 atrocity against this nation.

If this is the reality-based party one wonders what reality they're tuned into. They sound more like the kind of people who go around wearing tin-foil hats in order to pick up messages from outer-space. And they vote. God help us.

RLC