I Am the Way ....

This very interesting article by Robert Wuthnow in Christianity Today seems to suggest that Christian exclusivity is a fading belief even among some conservative Christians. Exclusivity is the word used to describe the belief, widely held among Christian conservatives, that only those who accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Saviour will be granted eternal life. In other words, only Christians will go to heaven. Wuthnow writes:

Consider Jim and Nancy Parsons, co-pastors of a four hundred member Assemblies of God church in a large city on the East Coast.

Although they do not aggressively evangelize non Christians, the Parsons are quite clear that these people do not know God. Their interpretation of Jesus' saying about being the way, the truth, and the life is that this statement leaves open only two options: either Jesus was telling the truth or Jesus was a liar and, since the latter option strikes most people as unattractive, they argue that Jesus really meant it when he said that he was the only way to come to God. Thus, they have little interest in trying to understand the teachings of other religious traditions. They acknowledge that there are well meaning people who follow these traditions, but these people will not have eternal life unless they believe that Jesus died for their sins.

Wuthnow goes on to talk about the Reverend Jim Jimson and what he says about presenting the gospel to Jews or Muslims or Hindus. He is the pastor of a four hundred member Southern Baptist Church in a southern city.

...Mr. Jimson's exact words are worth considering ... carefully. After acknowledging that he would like his church to be doing more to reach out to people of other faiths, he says, "This is where we kind of get into the difficulties. There's a verse in the Bible where Jesus says, `I'm the way, the truth and the life, and no one comes to the Father, but by me,' which very much narrows things down, [especially] if you take it that he said those words and meant them just as straight as he said them. There's another one in Acts, and the reason I quote these verses is because like I said, I feel constrained if this really is the Word of God, then I'm constrained to take that perspective, if you will. Peter told some folks, `There's no other name given under heaven by which men might be saved.' Now if that's the case, if Jesus is the only way to God, then we need to reach out to people of other religious beliefs. I know this sounds ... " He trails off somewhat apologetically, saying to the interviewer, "I don't want to make you angry, I hope I'm not doing that."

When the interviewer reassures him that she really wants to know what he thinks, he continues, "I'm not apologizing, but at the same time I want to be ..." He searches for the right words: "Yes, then I'm constrained to say there's one way to God and, boy, this sounds ... " Again he breaks off. She reassures him again. "Okay," he says. "I just don't want to sound arrogant, because it's not me who's come up with this. If I'm going to be faithful, then I'm constrained to say, then other folks have missed it. I don't want to make it sound like I've come up with this, or I found the way or something."

Mr. Jimson, like an awful lot of other Christian leaders, sounds very much like he doesn't really believe this, but he's caught in a bind. Either he endorses it or he has to reject the authority of the Bible.

The Christian church seems to be experiencing a crisis of faith. Many, if not most, Christians find it very difficult to comprehend how a loving God could be an exclusionary God, and so they either don't think about it, or they say things like "no one knows how God will handle unbelievers," or they struggle to reconcile their inclusive yearnings with what the Bible teaches about salvation, particularly the verse quoted above (John 14:6).

It may indeed be that there is no salvation outside the Christian faith, but to use Jn.14:6 to support that view seems a weak strategy. On the face of it there's no compelling exegetical reason to assume that that verse can carry the weight that exclusivist Christians lay on its shoulders. It could be, in fact, that these folks are interpreting Jesus words in light of their a priori commitment to exclusivism. It could be that the verse has nothing at all to do with declaring Christianity the only way to God, but should rather be seen as a declaration by Jesus that it is only through what He is about to do on the cross that eternal life is possible for anyone who receives it.

Perhaps the verse doesn't mean that one must know and appropriate the significance of Jesus' sacrifice, but rather that it is that sacrifice that paid the debt incurred by our sin. If this is so, then there's no logical impediment, based on this verse alone, to believing that at least some of those who never heard the gospel or who heard it but didn't appreciate its truth might nevertheless be granted eternal life.

There may be other passages which preclude this interpretation, but John 14:6 is too ambiguous to be among them. The anguish apparent in the pastors' response to Wuthnow's interviewer seems unnecessary.

Avoiding Auto Abuse

For those of you who don't have AOL (which is probably most of you) the folks there ran an article last week which may be of some interest to those interested in the care and nurture of their automobiles. It's titled Five Things to Never Do to Your Car. In short the five no-nos are:

1. Never wash your car in the sun.

2. Never pressure wash the car's engine.

3. Never overload the charging system with heavy duty audio systems.

4. Never use "universal fit" tires.

5. Never tow a car w/automatic transmission with the drive wheels on the ground.

To find out why these are bad for your vehicle check out the link.

Payback For What?!

Mohammed Reza Taheriazar, the driver of an SUV that plowed into a group of pedestrians at UNC-Chapel Hill on Friday, told police it was retribution for the treatment of Muslims around the world, according to ABC News.

Well, let's see. Which Muslims might these be on whose behalf Mr. Taheriazar sought retribution? Were these the millions of Indonesian tsunami victims that are alive today because Americans, at great cost to themselves, came to their aid? Perhaps he had in mind the victims of the recent earthquake in Pakistan whose misery has been mitigated through American aid. Maybe he wished to avenge the treatment of the Kuwaitis rescued by Americans in Operation Desert Storm or Muslims in Bosnia and Kosovo who owe their lives to American intervention. Maybe Mr. Taheriazar is distraught over the 25 million Muslims liberated by Americans from Taliban oppression in Afghanistan or the 25 million more who were liberated from the most demonic killer since Stalin in Iraq, despite the steep price in American blood and treasure. Or it could be the millions of Muslims languishing in places like Syria and Iran who despise their leaders both secular and religious, and who look to America as their hope and ideal, whose plight has so touched Mr. Taheriazar's heart. Maybe it's the suffering of the Palestinians, whom the Israelis would have probably long ago exterminated were it not for the restraining hand of the United States upon their shoulder, that compelled him to attempt murder on the UNC campus. Maybe Mr. Taheriazar is angry at America because the millions of dollars we give to the Palestinian people each year keeps going to maintain the corrupt lifestyles of their leaders.

Who knows? It's really hard to say precisely what Mr. Taheriazar's grievance with America might be, of course, because he's both a lunatic and a Muslim and for neither do grievances need be grounded in any objective reality. Unfortunately, too many Muslims seem determined to do all they can to convince a world eager to believe that the majority of Muslims really are non-violent that, in fact, to be a Muslim is to be a lunatic.

UPDATE: The Muslim Students' Association at UNC has disavowed and condemned Taheriazar's act. We are glad to see Muslims in this country rejecting violence. It's reassuring.

A Primer on the Dollar

Brother Bill offers us an excellent tutorial in some basic facts about the American dollar:

Item: The U.S. dollar is the world reserve currency because it is essentially backed by oil as well as the U.S. military machine.

Item: Iran is currently scheduled to go on line with their oil exchange priced in Euros as of March 20. This means they will offer contracts to deliver oil paid for in Euros rather than U.S. dollars. As bad as this is for the U.S. dollar, it also cuts out the NYMEX exchange in New York which would lose enormous profits through lost opportunity.

Item: Other oil producing countries including Norway and Venezuela are on the verge of switching from payment for their oil in U.S. dollars to payment in Euros as well.

Item: The Federal Reserve has indicated that as of March 23, it will discontinue publishing the M3 which is the main statistic that represents the degree of inflation that is currently taking place in the U.S..

For a dry but informative explanation of the different measures of money in our economy go here.

For a must-read article on the implications of discontinuing the M3 report go here.

One can only wonder what all of this means and what the implications are. For background information go here.

Prior to 1971, U.S. dollars were redeemable in gold. Foreign countries could exchange dollars received by the U.S. through trade for gold. When they began to realize that the U.S. had begun a printing spree, rather than hold their dollars in reserve, they quickly realized that the U.S. dollar was worth little and began to cash them in for the gold.

From the Ron Paul link above...

It all ended on August 15, 1971, when Nixon closed the gold window and refused to pay out any of our remaining 280 million ounces of gold. In essence, we declared our insolvency and everyone recognized some other monetary system had to be devised in order to bring stability to the markets.

Amazingly, a new system was devised which allowed the U.S. to operate the printing presses for the world reserve currency with no restraints placed on it-- not even a pretense of gold convertibility, none whatsoever! Though the new policy was even more deeply flawed, it nevertheless opened the door for dollar hegemony to spread.

Realizing the world was embarking on something new and mind boggling, elite money managers, with especially strong support from U.S. authorities, struck an agreement with OPEC to price oil in U.S. dollars exclusively for all worldwide transactions. This gave the dollar a special place among world currencies and in essence "backed" the dollar with oil. In return, the U.S. promised to protect the various oil-rich kingdoms in the Persian Gulf against threat of invasion or domestic coup. This arrangement helped ignite the radical Islamic movement among those who resented our influence in the region. The arrangement gave the dollar artificial strength, with tremendous financial benefits for the United States. It allowed us to export our monetary inflation by buying oil and other goods at a great discount as dollar influence flourished.

To say that we "closed the gold window" is political-speak that translates into "the United States has declared bankruptcy to the world" and instead of getting anything of real value in repayment for our obligations we would issue paper dollars that we would print as needed. The Secretary of Treasury under Nixon, John Connally, told the rest of the world "It's our currency but it's your problem".

I, for one, am not proud of this history. It's obvious that these decisions weren't made by people who cared about America but rather people who controlled phenomenal wealth that wanted even more.

This brings us to today and our present situation. There are numerous countries that have an attitude because of the U.S. dollar hegemony and they're not happy about it. They are taking the words of John Connally at face value and appear determined to deal with "their problem".

In addition, the dollar is reaching the end of it's time line as all fiat currencies do. That means that a fiat currency is perpetuated by debt, i.e. dollars only enter into the economy as they are borrowed. The fact of the matter is that it is apparent to foreign countries that there is so much debt behind the U.S. dollar that it is never going to be paid back simply because there are trillions of dollars. The debt might be able to be paid back if the U.S. gross domestic product was proportional to the outstanding dollars, but the M3 has literally doubled in less that 9 years while the economy has grown at a much slower rate.

So it appears that the rest of the world would prefer an orderly transition to another currency that offers more "faith and credit" than the U.S. dollar, and understandably so. Enter the Euro.

I say "orderly" because if the dollar were to undergo a dramatic decline, all countries holding U.S. dollar reserves would suffer in terms of those reserves. After all, now that countries are holding billions of U.S. dollars as a reserve asset, they wouldn't want to see the value of those reserves plummet over night ... unless they realized that it would be an expedient solution to a greater problem.

All of the above was to provide the background for the situation in which we find ourselves today.

It seems that much of the world has grown weary of the U.S.'s ability to print dollars at our whim to pay for real assets like oil, as well as other products that we voraciously import. They also seem to be increasingly concerned about our perceived over-reaching military.

For the first time in over sixty years there is a new kid on the block to challenge the U.S. dollar for world domination ... the Euro. As I have stated here before, the U.S. dollar and the Euro are two road kills whose relative value is established by financial markets daily. Yes, the Euro is only another fiat currency, and as such it has a limited life expectancy, but it is young and is only getting started whereas the dollar is old and reaching the end of it's timeline. The amount of debt behind a currency determines where it is in its timeline and there is an enormous amount of debt behind the dollar (so much so that it could never be repaid) and that debt is growing exponentially. Historically, all fiat currencies revert to their intrinsic value ... zero.

Given all of this, is it any wonder that the Federal Reserve would declare that they will discontinue publishing the very measure of the growth of our currency?

Is it just a coincidence that this is going to happen in the same week that Iran is to introduce an oil exchange that accepts Euros for oil?

It seems that the writing is on the wall. The Federal Reserve realizes that it's going to have to run the printing presses around the clock because there will be much less flow of dollars from foreign countries to finance our current standard of living. Presently, we get close to $3 billion dollars every day from foreign countries that support our economy and our way of life. If and when that slows down, the gap will have to be filled somehow. Enter the Federal Reserve.

The last declaration of Saddam Hussein was to demand Euros for his country's oil. Look what happened to him. The powers that be in this country understand that such a threat to the U.S. dollar hegemony cannot and will not be tolerated. It is perceived as a declaration of war. For right or for wrong, the U.S. dollar must maintain its status as the world reserve currency at all costs.

Unfortunately, this is a losing battle. The U.S. dollar is in the death throws of its timeline and is going to diminish in status around the world. The only thing propping it up now is our military might. Conduct business in dollars or you will be bombed, invaded, and undergo a change of regime. But the war being waged is political and economic. Our military will not be able to ensure the viability of the U.S. dollar much longer.

To summarize:

• The U.S. dollar currently maintains world reserve status because all purchases of oil must be made in U.S. dollars.
• This means the rest of the world must purchase dollars with their currency to acquire oil.
• This creates a demand for U.S. dollars which increases the dollar's value while decreasing the value of the foreign currency.
• The rest of the world has concerns as to the viability and sustainability of the U.S. dollar, not to mention our over-reaching military involvement.
• Since the Euro has entered the scene, it offers a double play opportunity: transition out of dollars as well as protest against perceived and unwanted U.S. involvement around the world.
• The impact would be devastating to the U.S. economy as a switch to Euros would reduce demand for dollars globally causing them to devalue significantly.
• A devalued dollar would make goods and services purchased and imported into the U.S. much more expensive.
• The Federal Reserve would step in by raising interest rates to make the U.S. dollar more attractive to foreign investors who presently inject almost $3 billion into the U.S. daily.
• The Federal Reserve would make up the shortfall by running the printing presses around the clock in an effort to maintain the liquidity of dollars for our economy.
• All of this would result in high inflation and skyrocketing oil and gasoline prices which would devastate our economy.
• Our ability to extend our military power and influence beyond our borders would be greatly inhibited simply because we wouldn't be able to fund it.
• That would be exactly what the Euro proponents want to accomplish.

The bottom line:

America was once a self-sufficient country second to none but it has literally been sold out. Our manufacturing sector was the envy of the world and now it declines daily as jobs are exported overseas. Service jobs are being outsourced as well. Call Dell technical support and you will be connected to someone with a heavy Indian accent with a fictitious western name.

Today we are the greatest debtor nation in the world. We can't blame it all on the Bush administration because it has been administrations for the last sixty years that have each done their part to allow this to happen.

We are a nation reduced to debates over which foreign country should maintain our sea ports. As a result of our policies there are millions of unemployed people in this country who have no hope while we spend hundreds of billions overseas supposedly to make life better for others. If and when the global transition from the U.S. dollar to the Euro occurs, life will get much, much more difficult here at home.

Please take your seats folks, the curtain opens on March 20.

Maybe This Time?

This could very well be just another vain hope or it could be something more concrete. It's not clear yet, but since the word is out there we offer it for what it is worth. There is reason to believe that operations in Anbar province in Iraq may have resulted in the capture of Abu al-Zarqawi. Bill Roggio at The Fourth Rail urges caution, but he mentions the report nonetheless:

The death or capture of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, al-Qaeda's commander in Iraq who is affectionately called the "Sheikh of Slaughters" by his admirers, would be a tremendous psychological victory to the Iraqi people and the American public. The Kuwait News Agency is reporting that Multinational Forces - Iraq is investigating claims that Zarqawi may have been detained during the raid on the Jazerra region, which sits north of Ramadi and Fallujah. According to KUNA, "A MNF officer did not confirm or deny the arrest, noting that the US forces are still investigating the reports... Meanwhile, sources in the Iraqi Army said that Al-Zarqawi could be among those arrested in the operation on Monday."

Enthusiasm should be muted at this time as we have been down this path several times. It has been believed Zarqawi has been close to death or capture on several occasions, including February of 2005, when he was almost captured in Fallujah (his laptop was seized and driver captured during the raid); April of 2005, when he was thought to be cornered in Ramadi; May of 2005, when Zarqawi evaded capture and was wounded in the Qaim region, and later thought dead; November of 2005, when he was believed to be in Mosul during a raid on a al-Qaeda safe house; and February of 2006 when reports indicated Zarqawi may be in the Hamrin region of north-central Iraq [located between Tikrit and Kirkuk].

Zarqawi is being sought by the hunter-killer teams of Task Force 626. This is an elite team of professionals, likely made up of elements from the Navy SEALs, Delta Force, Defense Intelligence Agency, NSA, and CIA. Multinational Forces - Iraq is very sensitive about the operations and whereabouts of this group. During my time in Iraq, questions about Task Force 626, their mission and any cooperation with conventional forces went unanswered, or the answers were so vague as to be meaningless.

Don't pop the cork on the champagne yet, but it wouldn't hurt to make sure that it's chilled.

More From Congressman Paul

Independently of whether or not this unfolds, it looks like the Democrats will gain seats in the mid-term election as well as, perhaps, win the election in 2008.

If so, it may soon be time to start looking for real estate in Costa Rica.

From the link:

Republican Congressman Ron Paul has gone on record with his prediction that the impeachment of George W. Bush is right around the corner but warned that in the meantime the US was slipping perilously close to a dictatorship.

The Port Debacle

This is an interesting article in that it looks at the issue from a different perspective.

From the link:

There's nothing necessarily wrong with a company from the United Arab Emirates being involved in U.S. port operations. After all, Islamic terrorists have lived in many European countries, and nobody suggests that E.U. corporations should be similarly disqualified.

Business As Usual

From the link:

The Bush administration has informed Congress of a review of the UAE acquisition of a British manufacturer of engine components for U.S. military aircraft and main battle tanks. The British firm operates nine factories, including military production facilities in Connecticut and Georgia.

The Evil Empire

Confirming what everyone except the willfully blind already knew, an Italian parliamentary investigative commission has concluded that the Soviet Union was indeed behind the attempt to assassinate Pope John Paul II in 1981. At that time Leonid Brezhnev was the mafia capo running the Soviet Union, and he must have signed off on the hit. That's the same Leonid Brezhnev that Jimmy Carter warmly embraced.

It turns out that Ronald Reagan stroked the ball with the fat part of the bat when he called the old U.S.S.R. the evil empire:

"This commission believes, beyond any reasonable doubt, that the leadership of the Soviet Union took the initiative to eliminate Pope John Paul," the report said. "They relayed this decision to the military secret services for them to take on all necessary operations to commit a crime of unique gravity, without parallel in modern times."

The report also says "some elements" of the Bulgarian secret services were involved but that this was an attempt to divert attention away from the Soviet Union's alleged key role.

Any day now the liberal media will aggressively report this story. If not this year then surely next. Just as soon as they've gotten Bush impeached for lying about whatever they can bamboozle the public into believing he lied about.

From The Mighty Mogambo Guru

The latest great read of the Mogambo can be found here where he says

Now you want to know, "What upheaval?" Well, on the WorldNewsTrust.org site we read, "The Laboratoire europ�en d'Anticipation Politique Europe 2020 (LEAP/E2020) now estimates to over 80% the probability that the week of March 20-26, 2006, will be the beginning of the most significant political crisis the world has known since the Fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989, together with an economic and financial crisis of a scope comparable with that of 1929." I re-read, and re-read, and re-read that part about it being "comparable" to 1929, which is the year that the stock market crashed and ushered in the Great Depression. But there is, so these guys say, only an 80% chance of that, which is the exact odds my wife figured of our marriage lasting less than a week.

I need to make one correction on an otherwise great article from the Mogambo. He says:

I sort of remember a quote by Benjamin Franklin, who was asked, when they finished work on the Constitution, "And what kind of government do we have?" He replied, "A democracy, if you can keep it."

Actually, Benjamin Franklin replied "A Republic, if you can keep it."

It's a small detail but actually makes all the difference in the world. The framers of the Constitution knew a democracy would never work. A democracy is a failed concept that leads a nation into oblivion. A republic form of government was our only hope. Unfortunately, we are no longer a republic.

The Katrina Video Hype

I watched the video of the briefings given the president about the potential damage Katrina could cause to New Orleans, and I honestly couldn't figure out what all the fuss was about. To listen to the hyperventilated media reports you would have thought that they'd been handed proof that George Bush knew in advance where, when, and how the 9/11 attack would unfold. The Katrina briefing, as best I could tell, said very little that was relevant to what actually occurred in New Orleans.

Ed Morrissey at Captain's Quarters agrees:

For those who want to see the transcripts themselves of the video conferences, the New York Times has them for the August 28th and August 29th briefings Get the links at Morrissey's site). The transcript for the 29th makes one garbled mention of the levees around New Orleans (page 6). After making the point that the storm surge would cause the greatest devastation in the Gulfport area of Mississippi, going as high as 21 feet, Max Mayfield then turns to New Orleans:

MAX MAYFIELD: ... The rest of the track we have 10 to 15 feet, in a few areas up to 16 feet. At least glimpsed it out, and Louisiana can talk a little bit more about this than I can, but it looks like the Federal levies [sic] around the City of New Orleans will not have been (incomprehensible) any breaches to.

That certainly doesn't sound like a warning -- and this was on the day the levees broke. That transcript clearly shows that the conference considered the storm surge and precipitation runoff to be the major threats of flooding in New Orleans. The possibility of breaches, even on the 29th, had been discounted.

The transcript from the August 28th meeting talked more about levees, but in the same vein, and this time no one mentions the word "breach". Starting on page 5, Max Mayfield again talks about the dangers of Lake Pontchartrain, but only in the context of the winds created a surge that could overtop the levees:

"One of the valleys here in Lake Pontchartrain, we've got on our forecast track, if it maintains its intensity: about 12 1/2 feet of storm surge in the lake. The big question is going to be: will that top some of the levies? And the currrent track and the forecast we have now suggests there will be minimal flooding in the city of New Orleans itself, but we're -- we've always said that the storm surge model is only accurate within 20 percent."

"If that track were to deviate just a little bit to the west, it would -- it makes all the difference in the world. I do expect that there will be some of the levies over top even out here in the western portions where the airport is. We've got valleys that can't overtop some of the levies."

"The problem we're going to have here -- remember, the winds go counterclockwise around the center of the hurricane. So if the really strong winds clip Lake Pontchartrain, that's going to pile some of that water from Lake Pontchartrain over on the south side of the lake. I don't think any model can tell you with any confidence right now whether the levies will be topped or not, but that's obviously a very, very grave concern."

Again, the entire briefing that related to levees only focused on the effects of the wind on Lake Pontchartrain and its effect in pushing water over the top of the levees. Mayfield never even addressed the possibility of breaches in the levee walls. And in fact, the storm track shifted eastward in the final hours before Katrina hit, which eliminated much of the predicate for even the worries Mayfield expresses in this transcript.

The media got it wrong yet again on Katrina. The notion that the experts warned of levee breaches is nothing more than a hack job initiated by the AP and continued by the rest of the Exempt Media even after the source material has proven it false.

The media are so desperate to make something, anything, bad stick to George Bush that they're not hesitating to construct high mountains out of the merest molehills. This is journalistically dishonest, of course, but then honesty was never a very important virtue to the left. Meanwhile, their credibility sinks ever deeper into the muck and Bush continues to score one victory after another, even as his popularity sags because of the media attacks. It really is an amazing thing to watch.

You're Being Lied To

This brief dispatch from Baghdad by Ralph Peters is pure gold:

March 1, 2006 -- The reporting out of Baghdad continues to be hysterical and dishonest. There is no civil war in the streets. None. Period.

Terrorism, yes. Civil war, no. Clear enough?

Yesterday, I crisscrossed Baghdad, visiting communities on both banks of the Tigris and logging at least 25 miles on the streets. With the weekend curfew lifted, I saw traffic jams, booming business - and everyday life in abundance.

Yes, there were bombings yesterday. The terrorists won't give up on their dream of sectional strife, and know they can count on allies in the media as long as they keep the images of carnage coming. They'll keep on bombing. But Baghdad isn't London during the Blitz, and certainly not New York on 9/11.

It's more like a city suffering a minor, but deadly epidemic. As in an epidemic, no one knows who will be stricken. Rich or poor, soldier or civilian, Iraqi or foreigner. But life goes on. No one's fleeing the Black Death - or the plague of terror.

And the people here have been impressed that their government reacted effectively to last week's strife, that their soldiers and police brought order to the streets. The transition is working.

Most Iraqis want better government, better lives - and democracy. It is contagious, after all. Come on over. Talk to them. Watch them risk their lives every day to work with us or with their government to build their own future.

Oh, the attacks will continue. They're even predictable, if not always preventable. Driving through Baghdad's Kerada Peninsula District, my humvee passed long gas lines as people waited to fill their tanks in the wake of the curfew. I commented to the officer giving me a lift that the dense lines of cars and packed gas stations offered great targets to the terrorists. An hour later, one was hit with a car bomb.

The bombing made headlines (and a news photographer just happened to be on the scene). Here in Baghdad, it just made the average Iraqis hate the terrorists even more.

You are being lied to. By elements in the media determined that Iraq must fail. Just give 'em the Bronx cheer.

When people invest themselves in a particular position they will grasp at any evidence to justify that position and vindicate their credibility. This is true of both optimists and pessimists on Iraq, of course, but the liberal media is comprised mostly of pessimists who not only are temperamentally inclined to see the sky falling as soon as a few clouds roll in, but who also, for political reasons, wanted to see George Bush fail. Add the political incentive to the temperamental disposition, and it's little wonder that every pothole in the road to success is seen as an abyss.

Today's Lesson: America is Evil

Just because someone has a teaching degree doesn't necessarily mean that they should be in the front of a classroom. A case in point is a Colorado teacher by the name of Jay Bennish who uses his teaching position as a platform for an anti-American rant that sounds even more absurd on audio than it reads in print. Bennish was recorded by one of his students who was tired of Bennish's propagandizing in the classroom and the recording is being played all over talk radio and the blogosphere. Michelle Malkin has links to the audio as well as a partial transcript. You can listen to a podcast here. Keep in mind as you listen to this guy that he's teaching a geography class. Here's an excerpt:

Make sure you get these definitions down: Capitalism - If you don't understand the economic system of capitalism, you don't understand the world in which we live. Ok. Economic system in which all or most of the means of production, etc., are owned privately and operated in a somewhat competitive environment for the purpose of producing PROFIT! Of course, you can shorten these definitions down. Make sure you get the gist of it. Do you see how when, you know, when you're looking at this definition, where does it say anything about capitalism is an economic system that will provide everyone in the world with the basic needs that they need? Is that a part of this system? Do you see how this economic system is at odds with humanity? At odds with caring and compassion? It's at odds with human rights.

What drug is responsible for the most deaths in the world? Cigarettes! Who is the world's largest producer of cigarettes and tobacco? The United States!

What part of our country grows all our tobacco? Anyone know what states in particular? Mostly what's called North Carolina. Alright. That's where all the cigarette capitals are. That's where a lot of them are located from. Now if we have the right to fly to Bolivia or Peru and drop chemical weapons on top of farmers' fields because we're afraid they might be growing coca and that could be turned into cocaine and sold to us, well then don't the Peruvians and the Iranians and the Chinese have the right to invade America and drop chemical weapons over North Carolina to destroy the tobacco plants that are killing millions and millions of people in their countries every year and causing them billions of dollars in health care costs?

Who is probably the single most violent nation on planet Earth?!

(Unidentified student interjects)We are.

The United States of America! And we're a democracy. Quote-unquote.

...when you shoot a missile into Pakistan to quote-unquote kill a known terrorist, and we just killed 75 people that have nothing to do with al Qaeda, as far as they're concerned, we're the terrorists. We've attacked them on their soil with the intention of killing their innocent people.

Student Sean Allen: But we did not have the intention of killing innocent people. We had the intention of killing an al Qaeda terrorist.

Bennish: Do you know that?

Student: So, you're saying the United States has intentions to kill innocent people?

Bennish: I don't know the answer to that question.

Do we really want the Middle East to unite as one cohesive political and cultural body?

No! Because then they could what? Threaten our supremacy.

We want to keep the world divided. Do we really want to kill innocent people? I don't know. I don't know the answer to that.

I know there are some Americans who do. People who work in the CIA. People who have to think like that. Those kind of dirty minds, dirty tricks. That's how the intelligence world works. Sometimes you do want to kill people just for the sake of killing them. Right?

There's much more on the audio which you really should listen to in order to gain a sense of Bennish's stridency. For our part we were just wondering why some leftists think its okay to indoctrinate students with goofy political propaganda in a geography class, but it's not okay to simply mention Intelligent Design to students in a biology class. Very strange.

The U.S. Is Bankrupt

From the link:

"A substantial increase in the debt burden on American taxpayers is too important a matter to be rushed through the Senate without a complete debate on the current course of U.S. fiscal policy," the Democrats wrote.

They vowed to offer a longshot plan to reinstate so-called pay-as-you-go budget rules requiring tax cuts and new benefit programs to be financed by spending cuts or new revenues elsewhere in the budget.

Under an obscure House rule, that chamber gets to avoid having to vote on the debt limit if Congress successfully adopts a budget blueprint. So, after passing the budget last April, the House sent the Senate a $781 billion debt limit bill as if it had passed it separately.

That bill is the most likely vehicle for the Senate debate, but an alternative measure would be a filibuster-proof bill permitted under fast-track budget rules that limit debate and opportunities to offer amendments. But to go this route would require the House to vote on the bill before it is sent to Bush for his signature, a prospect House GOP leaders are eager to avoid.

"No decisions have been made," said Eric Ueland, chief of staff to Frist.

The last time Congress voted to increase the debt limit was in November 2004 when it was raised from $7.38 trillion to its current level of $8.18 trillion.

What a joke. If an individual was to operate like the Federal government, they would be out in the streets looking for a cardboard box for shelter. But the government simply raises the limit of the debt they will borrow...from the Federal Reserve. One has to wonder what the logical conclusion is as does the rest of the world who holds U.S. dollars.

What a bunch of buffoons. Make no mistake, the debt ceiling will be raised. And the next generation picks up the tab.

From The R-Man

Richard Russell is a legend in his own time. People of all generations should take heed to what he has to say...especially the younger generation.

Wait, there's one other item I want to talk about, and it's DEBT. I dislike debt, I dislike debits, I dislike being in a position where by I have to make money just to pay off what I owe. I grew up at a time when debt was feared and hated. Debt to me means that you've lost control of some area of your life. You're working to pay off something that's not yet yours. There's an old adage that I've repeated to my kids a thousand times. It runs like this-- "Those that understand interest earn it. Those who don't understand interest pay it."

Young people today get married and immediately buy a house and furniture and a TV set and kitchen supplies. They take on a mortgage and assorted debts, and they never get out of debt. Instead of building savings, they pay the monthly mortgage bill and the credit card bill with whatever money they have left over after food and doctor bills and entertainment. But the point is -- they're buried in debt before they start out in life. And today they accept that as normal. We old codgers from the Depression era see it differently. For instance, every house I ever bought I bought with cash on the line.

So instead of saving and compounding their money, today's kids become slaves to the banks and the mortgage companies and the credit card companies. It's a bum way to start out in life -- it's a stupid way. It's also the unhealthy way. It's the path to stress and anxiety.

So sad but so true.

The Gold Bull Market

Since gold is now back up to its high of $570 per ounce, clearly demonstrating its bull market, I thought it appropriate to address a couple of ways one can take advantage of this opportunity.

My personal preference is to acquire, first and foremost, a personal holding of gold bullion. This can be in the form of American Eagles, a coin minted by the U.S. government, Krugerrands, minted by South Afrrica, Helveticas, minted by Austria, Canadian Maple Leafs issued by Canada or a variety of pre-1933 gold coins issued by various European countries. All of these represent gold in hand and as such, is the safest form of savings.

After this is done, one can venture into the stock market where shares are available from companies who mine gold. Shares in gold stocks offer a leveraged opportunity because as the price of gold goes up the company's profitability increases exponentially.

I have included several links below for examples of solid companies that bear consideration for those interested in this play.

Bema Gold Corporation is an intermediate gold producer with mines and development projects in Russia, Chile and South Africa. Bema operates the Julietta Mine in Russia, the Petrex Mines in South Africa, and is 50% owner of the Refugio Mine in Chile, which recommenced commercial production during the fourth quarter of 2005. By developing its flag ship asset, Kupol in Russia, and continuing to advance the Cerro Casale Project in Chile, Bema is one of the world's fastest growing gold producers with potential production of one million ounces of gold annually by 2009.

Coeur d'Alene Mines Corporation is the world's largest primary silver producer and a growing, low-cost gold producer. In 2004, the Company produced 14.1 million ounces of silver and 129,000 ounces of gold.

Goldcorp is the world's lowest cost and fastest growing multimillion ounce gold producer with operations throughout the Americas and Australia. Goldcorp has agreed to acquire the Canadian assets of Placer Dome (TSX, NYSE: PDG) from Barrick Gold (TSX, NYSE: ABX) upon consummation of Barrick's friendly bid to take-over Placer. This transaction is expected to close April 1, 2006, making Goldcorp the third largest gold producer in North America. With the addition of the Placer assets, Goldcorp's gold production in 2006 is forecast to be approximately 2 million ounces, on an annualized basis, at a cash cost of approximately US$150 per ounce. 2007 gold production is expected to reach almost 2.4 million ounces at less than $175 per ounce

While the text for each of the companies was lifted from their websites and should probably be taken with a grain of salt, below I show their performance since the end of December 2005.

BGO	BEMA GOLD CORP	53.36%
CDE	COEUR D ALENE MINES CORP	30.04%
GG	GOLDCORP	28.26%

Not a bad return on investment for 3 months.

The Benefit of the Doubt

There are basically two arguments employed against selling the administration of terminals in American ports to Dubai. The first is that we will be less secure if we give Arabs easier access to our ports. This argument, when made by Democrats, causes us to double up in a giggle fit. The Dems, who had to look up the word "security" in the dictionary to see how it was spelled, have absolutely no credibility on this matter at all. They scoff at reports that Saddam did in fact have WMD, they've opposed the Patriot Act, they've opposed profiling airline travellers, and they have fought the administration on whether it has the right to listen in on phone calls made by foreign terrorists to this country. Now they expect us to believe that suddenly they've travelled the Damascus Road, had the scales fall from their eyes, and are all for treating Arabs like pariahs.

In any event, the argumentum ad security doesn't seem to be holding up to scrutiny since it appears that whatever security there is now, as minimal as it apparently is, will not be affected no matter who manages the terminals.

The second argument is a bit more compelling, and that is that we should not be entering into business agreements with nations which supported the Taliban and Hamas and boycott Israel. With this it is hard to disagree. We wonder, though, what, if anything, the quid pro quo is. Does the U.A.E. provide us with important military assets in the Straits of Hormuz that would be absolutely essential if war comes with Iran? If so, even the Israelis would probably prefer that we do the ports deal rather than be hamstrung in a conflict with the country that threatens to incinerate them in a nuclear fireball.

The problem is that we just don't know what's in the details. Thus it comes down to a question of whether we trust the President to do the right thing for the security of both the U.S. and Israel. His track record suggests that on this he deserves the benefit of the doubt. We're leery, given his fecklessness regarding immigration, about his willingness to be loosey goosey with who has access to our ports, but we're also encouraged by his almost preternatural resolve in the war on terrorists.

It's not an easy call, but, heck, anything that has so many lefties squealing like pigs in a barn fire can't be an altogether bad idea.

I Must Be Ignorant

I'm sorry. I guess don't have a clue how things work in international circles.

Take this link for instance where it states:

The sides have agreed to a fresh 45-day review but DP World has pledged to complete the deal, subject to a ruling in the High Court in London today. "It has certainly reinforced the perception here that Arab investors can be singled out," said Steve Brice, head of Middle East research at Standard Chartered bank in Dubai.

Ironically, the comments came as US commerce secretary Carlos Gutierrez traveled to Saudi Arabia to urge the country to be more welcoming to foreign investment. The High Court is expected to rule on whether to allow the scheme of arrangement that will seal the $6.8bn merger, after hearing arguments from Eller & Co, a Miami joint venture partner of P&O which claims the deal will adversely affect its business.

My utter confusion is about the "High Court" mentioned in the article. What in the world does this "High Court" have to do with the issue of a Dubai company taking control of our ports? Are we now subject to a "High Court" located in London? I sure don't know. If not, why is the "High Court" then wasting it's time hearing and ruling on the issue?

If any of our readers can enlighten me, I sure would appreciate it.

The whole issue fails to answer the question of why we need any foreign country managing anything in America. Why is it that we can't manage our ports ourselves? It seems that the concept of globalization means America gives America away to any and every other nation as though there were a force at work that is determined to reduce America to third world status. Could it be that this "force" is responsible for our manufacturing and services jobs being out-sourced which is essentially gutting America?

I believe the initial warning shot was fired over the bow of the USS America when China tried to buy one of our oil companies. That effort was thwarted by congress as a non-starter. But the rest of the world is holding hundreds of billions of our dollars and rather than hold them in reserve (while they continually lose value) they want to invest them in American assets. Now an Arab country is attempting to convert their dollar holdings into U.S. port ownership.

From the link above,

The US could lose a host of much-needed inward investment as foreign countries disturbed by the row over the control of US ports look elsewhere to invest money

Ah, it looks like the Bush administration realizes that it has to cave in to Dubai or there will be a price to be paid. After all, we can't expect foreign countries to accept our fiat dollars if they can't use them to conduct business with us now can we? Life was much better when the foreign countries simply invested their dollars in U.S. treasury bills to finance our debt but it seams that now they want hard assets for their dollars rather than U.S. debt.

There's no doubt in my mind that this deal will go through. It has to. For it to do otherwise would put into question the full faith and credit of the U.S. dollar and you can be sure Bush has been made aware of this.

Plato's Cave For Modern Man

Imagine that the year is 2030 and computer technology has advanced to the point where a sufficiently clever programmer (you, for example) can write software that would project beings on the monitor's screen that can potentially evolve from very simple forms to highly complex structures capable, mirabile dictu, of rational thought.

One evening you download the software that confers upon these creatures this marvelous potential and sit back to watch what they'll do with it. Eventually, after much morphing and mutating, the creatures attain a level of mental ability at which they are capable of reflection, cognition, and language. They begin to communicate among themselves, asking questions about their world and their existence. To them their world (we'll call it "screen world") is a three dimensional space since, although they are confined to a flat screen, they think themselves, like characters on a movie screen, to move in all directions. You're very pleased with your creation. You even find yourself growing fond and attached to these creatures, which you dub "screenies."

As the night lengthens, you watch in rapt fascination as one of your screenies begins to think deeply about what exactly it (let's assume it's a "he") is. At first he explains himself in terms of shifting phosphor dots, but this, he realizes, is only a superficial level of explanation, and the screenie isn't satisfied with it. There must be a deeper understanding, a deeper level of reality, a reality that lies beyond the abilities you've programmed into the screenies to apprehend.

He and his fellows do some mathematical calculations and come to a breathtaking conclusion. The "ultimate" explanation for the population of creatures in screen world is a level of reality that they can never observe or visit, but which must exist. The equations demand it. They realize that there must be a whole set of complicated phenomena working to produce emanations from a multi-dimensional tube (Cathode Ray Tube) that somehow generates the relatively "flat" world they inhabit.

They do more calculations and come to an even more astonishing discovery. The CRT must be controlled by an even deeper level of phenomena: electrons, circuits, and microchips and who knows what all else. Finally, awed by their findings, they realize that this whole theoretical edifice they've constructed must be run by an information source, a set of algorithms and codes, that exists somewhere but is inaccessible to them.

Your creatures are very excited. They have plumbed the basic laws, parameters, forces and material constituents of their world. They don't know where these ultimate elements come from or how they came to be organized in the fashion they are, and indeed they're convinced that they can never know this for certain. They have taken their investigation as deep as it is possible for them to go, they believe. The rest they simply accept as a brute fact. A given.

Then these marvelous beings, which have really sprung from your creative genius, draw a disappointing philosophical conclusion. Having explained their existence in terms of the ultimate physical constituents and laws they've deduced from the phenomena of their experience, they conclude that that is all there is to be explained. Those circuits, microchips, electrical energy and even the software are all that's involved in generating them and their world. It's an amazing thing, they agree, it's highly improbable they acknowledge, but there you have it. There's no need to explain it any further, nor any way to explain it even if there were a need.

Screen world is, in their considered opinion, totally explicable in terms of the machinery in front of which you sit shaking your incredulous head. You're delighted that your creatures were able to reason their way so far toward the truth but dismayed that they lacked the wit to see that anything as fantastically complex as the laws and processes that generate their world cries out for even deeper explanation. Why, you wonder, don't the screenies realize that something as amazing as they and their world don't just happen through blind luck? Why don't they recognize that screen world demands an intelligent cause as its truly ultimate explanation?

You decide to tweak the program. You write the code for another being, one that is, perhaps, somewhat of a cyber-replica of yourself. You will in a sense visit screen world yourself through this "agent." He contains much of your knowledge about the reality beyond screen world, and when you download him into the computer up he pops on the screen. You've programmed this agent to tell the rest of the screenies that their world, the world of the monitor and even the deeper world of the computer, is an infinitesimal fraction of the really real.

Your agent proceeds to explain to them as best he can that they, contrary to their belief, actually inhabit only two dimensions and that all around them lies a third dimension that they could never perceive or comprehend but which nevertheless exists, and that even now you, their creator, are observing them from outside the screen in another world that they cannot begin to conceptualize, much less observe, from their "prison" within the screen.

Your agent reveals to them, moreover, that you inhabit a reality infinitely richer than screen world, an idea they unfortunately find wholly preposterous. He tells them that as wonderful and impressive as their discoveries about their world are they've really just scratched the surface of understanding the really real and that, indeed, they aren't actually "real" themselves at all. They're simply epiphenomenal electronic manifestations of ideas in your mind, a congeries of shifting dots of color on a flat screen. They're in fact nothing more than virtual beings.

They scoff at all this. They grow angry. They tell your agent to get lost, his message is confusing and misleading to the young and impeding progress toward the goal of making screen world a better place. They wish to hear no more of the his insane, superstitious babblings. They are the "brights" in screen world and they will stick to science and leave his untestable metaphysical speculations to the priests and shamans among them.

When the agent persists in trying to persuade them that mere mechanical processes could never by themselves produce such complex creatures as screenies, that the algorithms and coordinated flows of energy and pattern in their world, as well as the material organization of the computer, must have been intelligently engineered, they sneer and refuse to allow him to speak such nonsense any further.

They reason among themselves that their existence may be improbable, but what of it? Had their world not been the way it is they would not be there to observe it, so it's not so extraordinary after all. Others say that there are probably a near infinite number of worlds like theirs, and that among so many it's not so astonishing that there'd be one possessing the properties that screen world has and boasting the creatures called screenies.

You're surprised, and a little hurt, that they react this way. You can't believe that having come so far they would refuse to entertain the idea that there must be more to the origin of the information that infuses their world than just blind matter, brute force and random chance. But they're obstinate. They have all the explanation for their existence they care to have.

To be dependent upon unthinking processes is one thing - they're still superior, after all, to the processes and forces upon which they are contingent because they can think and those processes can't. But to be dependent upon a being who is so thoroughly superior to them in every way is, well, degrading. So that they might appreciate you, you entertain briefly the idea of adjusting their software in such fashion as to make the conclusion that an intelligent programmer has created them ineluctable. You decide against it, however, when you realize that compelled appreciation is no appreciation at all.

And so, with a sad sigh of disappointment and resignation, you shut down the computer and go to bed.

Heading For the Dark Ages

Andrew Sullivan espies the "Christianist" barbarians at the gates and ominously offers this letter from Samuel Alito to James Dobson as proof of their nefarious perfidy. If, after all, Supreme Court justices are expressing gratitude to supporters for their prayers during a difficult time in their lives can theocracy be far behind?

Dear Dr. Dobson:

This is just a short note to express my heartfelt thanks to you and the entire staff of Focus on the Family for your help and support during the past few challenging months. I would also greatly appreciate it if you would convey my appreciation to the good people from all parts of the country who wrote to tell me that they were praying for me and for my family during this period.

As I said when I spoke at my formal investiture at the White House last week, the prayers of so many people from around the country were a palpable and powerful force. As long as I serve on the Supreme Court I will keep in mind the trust that has been placed in me.

I hope that we'll have the opportunity to meet personally at some point in the future.In the meantime my entire family and I hope that you and the Focus on the Family staff know how we appreciate all that you have done.

Sincerely yours,

Samuel Alito

And you thought Islamism was an imminent threat. Wait until those reactionary "Christianists" succeed in blocking progressive reforms in our marriage laws and begin rolling back a mother's right to kill her unborn baby. We're headed for the Dark Ages for sure.