Credit Card Craziness

Brother Bill passes along a link to this site which lists the following fascinating facts about the debt incurred by individual Americans:

It is estimated that, on average, 20% of Americans have "maxed out" their credit cards.

About 25% of adults in the United States have a history of credit problems.

Americans' average credit card debt is $8400 per household.

Roughly 24% of personal expenditures in the United States are made using bank credit cards, retail cards, and debit cards.

In the first quarter of 2002, total credit debt was $660 billion. Total credit card debt was approximately $60 billion.

Approximately 185 million American consumers have at least one credit card.

Of those 185 million consumers with credit cards, 1.3 million credit card holders declared bankruptcy in 2002.

Americans pay, on average, an 18.9% interest rate on credit cards.

The average household pays $83.33 in credit card interest per month.

On average, the typical credit card purchase is 112% higher than if using cash.

More than 40% of American families spend more than they earn. (Federal Reserve).

As of 1995, 92% of American family disposable income is spent on paying debts, up from 65% in 1975.

An $8,000 debt, at a rate of 18% interest, will take over 25 years to pay off and cost more than $24,000 in the long run.

The first step on the road to recovery from credit card addiction is to hold one's credit cards in one hand and a pair of scissors in the other....

Bull Market

The Christian Science Monitor reports on the recovering stock market and gives several reasons for being bullish on 2005 in this column:

After collapsing and floundering for about three years, the stock market is finishing 2004 with a solid 8 or 9 percent gain, following a gain of more than 25 percent last year. Some commentators are also optimistic that the elements are falling into place to make 2005 a positive year as well.

Since the market hit bottom on Oct. 9, 2002, it's added by some estimates about $3 trillion in value to investors' net worth. For example, an investment of $10,000 in the Standard & Poor's 500 Index on Oct. 10, 2002, would be worth $15,406 today.

1. There has been a new spurt of mergers and acquisitions, including a takeover battle for the wireless company Sprint. And software giant Oracle has swallowed People Soft for $10.3 billion. "The mergers are a favorable sign for stocks," says David Kotok, chief investment officer for Cumberland Advisors Inc. in Vineland, N.J. "It's also a sign that very low interest rates create terrific deals, and financing costs are low."

2. Investors seemed to be enthusiastic about President Bush's reelection. Since the end of October, when it became clearer Mr. Bush would win, the market has perked up. "I think it's because they view him as relatively light-handed as far as regulatory matters are concerned. He'll be retaining the tax cuts and pressing for tort reform and trying to privatize part of Social Security," says Robert Hormats, vice chairman of Goldman Sachs International. "All of that is considered pro-market."

3. There may be some changes in the economy that will benefit the market, including lower oil prices and a weaker US dollar, which permit US companies to compete better with foreign companies.

The article also cautions against excessive optimism, however, and gives several reasons why the rebound is still a little weaker than has historically been the case with recoveries. Nevertheless, the overall prognosis is good.

The Banality of Evil

The Fourth Rail offers an interesting picture of the defendants in the criminal trials of Saddam's henchmen taking place in Iraq:

The men were questioned in front of Iraqi judges, and the months in prison have not been kind to them. Aziz has been described as frail and thin; Chemical Ali "looked haggard and leaned on a cane." Even Saddam has not been immune to the rigors of prison. Saddam has become an ordinary man, with ordinary illnesses and pursuits....Saddam's henchmen, in a futile attempt to gain sympathy for their imprisonment, have gone on a faux hunger strike, and it was rumored that Saddam himself participated.

Prison does interesting things to those fallen from power, as Albert Speer, the Nazi Germany's Reich Minister of Armaments and War Production, expertly describes in his memoirs from Spandau prison. Men used to wielding power and influence in their nations are reduced to petty squabbles amongst themselves over latrine duty and other chores, status in the prison hierarchy, visitation rights, and other concerns. They also bear witness against each other in an attempt to gain the upper hand.

Tareq Aziz has turned on his former masters, and has given testimony on Saddam ordering murders, the payoffs to foreign governments, including France, to vote against Iraq war, and bribes to United Nations officials. Coupled with the audiotapes of Chemical Ali, this should make for an interesting and revealing trial, as former regime members scramble for their lives. Chemical Ali had much to say about his crimes.

"As soon as we complete the deportations we will start attacking them everywhere according to a systematic military plan," he says. "I will not attack them with chemicals just one day but I will continue to attack them with chemicals for 15 days."

Al-Majid even criticises his master for being too lenient when he orders that the families of Kurdish resistance leaders should not be harmed. "A message reaches me from that great man, the father [Saddam], saying 'Take good care of the families of the saboteurs...' Take good care of them? No, I will bury them with bulldozers."

Saddam's regime is compared to the Nazi Third Reich because it mirrored the Nazis in every aspect except for scale: Saddam's cult of personality; Sunni superiority; the Ba'athist party, whose members were above the law; a brutal police state; the mass murder of peoples via gassings, mass shootings and other means; ethnic cleansing; wars of conquests.

These are truly evil men, and their utter banality in their present condition, as Hannah Arendt reminded us about the Nazis, should not diminish our assessment of their evil. They deserve far worse than they are likely to get, a fact for which they should be exceedingly grateful.

More On the Christmas Wars

Here's a contrarian take on the cultural Christmas wars by Jeff Jarvis. He makes several interesting points, but he's stirred up a bit of reaction in the blogosphere. He writes, for instance, that:

Here in America, some people think a fight over a creche in the town square is a fight over religion. No, it's a fight for the sake of a fight. On the one hand, we do enforce separation of church and state -- to guarantee freedom of religion from government -- and so there is no divine right to put a creche in front of the city hall; I want to tell those folks, put it anywhere else. On the other hand, the bureaucrats who stop it as if they are standing between America and jihad are being just as ridiculous; a creche or a Christmas tree next to a menorah is harmless and is part of the diverse culture of America. Similarly, it's right for a school to prohibit proselytizing but it's silly to disallow an instrumental version of a Christmas ditty, as recently occurred in New Jersey. You want to slap both sides in these annual squabbles and just tell them to grow up and count their blessings.

Then there are those in the so-called Parents Television Council who argue that any joke that mentions God is an attack on religion. That's just crap. Freedom of speech goes hand-in-hand with freedom of religion -- that's why they are both protected in the First Amendment -- and there's nothing with a joke about God. It's not a sign of a war on God.

And then there are those who say that America has been taken over by a red-state religious jihad because the other side won the election and because a bogus made the insulting presumption that some of us don't have moral values and because the afore-dismissed PTC manufactured complaints about pop culture the way Tootsie makes Rolls. The truth, as I proved, it that it is a phantom army of the few on the fringe.

I want to slap them all back to their senses. But I also want to slap the media who act as if all these alleged religious wars are real news, worthwhile stories, true trends. No, the truth is that once a year, we get the fake stories about wars over Christmas carols; whenever the PTC puts out another press release or the FCC another fine, we get the fake stories about religious outrage at indecency; whenever the right wins an election, we get the fake stories about the revolt of the religious conservatives. All these stories act as if America -- you, me, and your neighbors -- changed overnight into suburban Sunnis vs. Shiites.

There is no religious war in America. That ended more than two centuries ago. And now we enjoy the benefits of that struggle. We should be grateful for that and stop squandering it with squabbles.

If Jarvis is correct we wonder why it is that in many schools students get in more trouble for wearing a shirt with the words Jesus Loves You emblazoned across it than they do for using Jesus Christ as a profane exclamation.

For a much different point of view from Jarvis' see this column by Ralph Hallow in the Washington Times. Hallow starts off talking about how a Republican candidate for governor of New Jersey is going to lead a hymn sing at a New Jersey public school which has scrubbed all sacred music from its "Holiday" concert.

Mr. Lonegan has asked local residents of all religions to join him at 5 p.m. tomorrow "to sing and listen to" songs such as George Frederick Handel's "Messiah" and "Silent Night," which have been banned from schools, even in instrumental form, by the South Orange/Maplewood School District.

In a Dec. 6 statement, school board President Brian O'Leary said the ban [against sacred music] is intended "to balance the important roles that religion and music can and do play in our curriculum with a desire to avoid celebrating or appearing to celebrate a religious holiday."

Indeed. So the religious content of the music isn't the problem. It is joining the music to the holiday that we must be vigilant against. We may assume, then, that it would be alright with Mr. O'Leary for the orchestra to perform Handel's Messiah or Silent Night for the student body as long as it was at, say, the Homecoming dance.

The rest of the article discusses some other attempts to bleach any genuine significance out of the season. It's very much worth reading in toto.

Here in our little corner of the world our district superintendent has decreed that there will be no Santa Claus at the Christmas (oops, holiday) assembly nor any music which celebrates anything other than winter (Jingle Bells, Let it Snow). Hanukah music, we're told, is permitted, but nothing even faintly redolent of Christianity will be allowed. If this is true it certainly smacks of religious bigotry, but that is only bad, we are left to suppose, when bigotry is directed by a majority against a minority. Otherwise it's perfectly acceptable.

Nuke 'em

Much has been written about the Democrats' use of the filibuster to block President Bush's judicial nominees and of Republican options for preventing similar tactics in 2005. Robert Novak lays it all out and puts it in perspective in a column in the Chicago Sun-Times:

A scenario for an unspecified day in 2005: One of President Bush's judicial nominations is brought to the Senate floor. Majority Leader Bill Frist makes a point of order that only a simple majority is needed for confirmation. The point is upheld by the presiding officer, Vice President Dick Cheney. Democratic Leader Harry Reid challenges the ruling. Frist moves to table Reid's motion, ending debate. The motion is tabled, and the Senate proceeds to confirm the judicial nominee -- all in about 10 minutes.

This is the "nuclear option" that creates fear and loathing among Democrats and weak knees for some Republicans, including conservative opinion leaders. Ever since Frist publicly embraced the nuclear option, he has been accused of abusing the Senate's cherished tradition of extended debate. In truth, during six years as majority leader, Democrat Robert C. Byrd four times detonated the nuclear option to rewrite Senate rules.

Thus, Frist would set no precedent, would not contradict past Republican behavior and would not strip the GOP of protection as a future Senate minority. The question is whether Republican senators will flinch from the only maneuver open to confirm Bush's judges.

The unprecedented Democratic plan to filibuster judicial nominations that do not meet liberal specifications has exceeded all expectations. None of 10 filibustered Bush appellate court nominees has been confirmed, and another six are all designated filibuster victims. This is intended to have a chilling effect on Bush in filling Supreme Court vacancies.

All 16 of these nominees are dead under present procedures. Even with the net gain of four Republican senators in this year's elections, Frist falls short of the 60 votes needed to cut off debate. After early skepticism, I have come to agree with Frist's conclusion that the old-fashioned filibuster-breaker of round-the-clock sessions is a non-starter. Today's Republican senators lack the will to undergo this ordeal. They would have to maintain a heavy presence on the floor while a single Democrat could hold forth.

Frist drew a line in the sand Nov. 11 in addressing the conservative Federalist Society: "One way or another, the filibuster of judicial nominees must end." The way he indicated was a rules change -- the nuclear option.

That generated speculation that, when the new Senate convenes Jan. 4, the Republican leadership will propose a rules change. Reid, the Senate's reigning master of parliamentary tactics, has promised to "screw things up" by bringing the chamber's activities to a standstill. Frist would only tell me he wants "a full set of options, ready and available." However, Senate sources believe Frist will bide his time on opening day and wait to make a point of order to change the rules.

This is precisely what Byrd did as majority leader, as explained in an article by Martin Gold and Dimple Gupta to be published in the January issue of the Harvard Journal on Law and Public Policy. They write that Byrd "developed four precedents that allowed a simple majority to change Senate procedures governing debate without altering the text of any standing rule." In each case, Byrd successfully overcame dilatory tactics by the Republican minority.

It remains an open question whether Frist can mobilize Republicans as effectively as Byrd commanded Democrats to get even 51 votes. The ''New England Three'' of liberal Republican senators from Maine and Rhode Island may vote no. John McCain and Chuck Hagel have misgivings, with Hagel recalling the dark Republican days of the '70s when only a handful of Republican senators stood up against the Democratic tide.

Most worrisome to Frist is criticism from respected conservative voices -- George F. Will and the National Review -- that the nuclear option undermines a bulwark of limited government. But Republicans never employed the filibuster to block liberal judges. The failure to confirm Lyndon Johnson's nomination of Abe Fortas as chief justice was caused not by a Republican filibuster, but by inability to get a majority of votes in a heavily Democratic Senate. Using the filibuster to block judges is something new, and the Frist scenario looks like the only way to end it.

Our view is that the President has the right to have his nominees voted up or down. It is a circumvention of the rights of the people to have the nominees stonewalled simply because they are not pro-choice - which is, when we get right down to it, the sole reason why any of these nominees have been filibustered. We hope that Senator Frist and the Republicans will do whatever has to be done to prevent the minority from exercising a persistent veto over the majority. Otherwise, what use is there in being the majority party.

The Dover ID Debate

The Intelligent Design controversy at Dover School District in central Pennsylvania has taken a turn against the proponents of ID. The Discovery Institute, the foremost organization in the country promoting Intelligent Design, has come out with an statement critical of Dover's approach:

"While the Dover board is to be commended for trying to teach Darwinian theory in a more open-minded manner, this is the wrong way to go about it," said Dr. John G. West, associate director of Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture (CSC). "Dover's current policy has a number of problems, not the least of which is its lack of clarity. At one point, it appears to prohibit Dover schools from teaching anything about 'the origins of life.' At another point, it appears to both mandate as well as prohibit the teaching of the scientific theory of intelligent design. The policy's incoherence raises serious problems from the standpoint of constitutional law. Thus, the policy should be withdrawn and rewritten."

Apart from questions about its constitutionality, West expressed reservations about the Dover School Board's directive on public policy grounds.

"When we first read about the Dover policy, we publicly criticized it because according to published reports the intent was to mandate the teaching of intelligent design," explained West. "Although we think discussion of intelligent design should not be prohibited, we don't think intelligent design should be required in public schools.

"What should be required is full disclosure of the scientific evidence for and against Darwin's theory," added West, "which is the approach supported by the overwhelming majority of the public." See here for more on the Discovery Institute's recommendations on how evolution should be taught.

If the Discovery Institute is not behind Dover's board in their attempt to insert ID into the high school science curriculum, indeed, if they're actually recommending that the policy be withdrawn, it's hard to imagine a court ruling sympathetically when the case comes to trial.

There have always been two issues at play in this controversy. One is the nature of ID and its suitability for public school classrooms and the other is the strategy and motives of the Dover school board. Viewpoint has argued that these should be considered separately, but unfortunately few observers and commentators have done this. We believe Dover's intentions are appropriate and commendable, but they would have done well to have secured advice from people who have some experience with the scientific and philosophical issues involved before formulating their policy statement. This document suffers from a regrettable lack of precision and coherence and shows all the signs of having been patched together from recommendations by several disparate groups.

Whether the board will continue to stick to their plans to implement the new policy despite the Discovery Institute's recommendations remains to be seen, but whatever course they follow they would help themselves by revising the policy statement before embarking upon it.

Thanks to Byron Borger for drawing our attention to a couple of the above-cited articles.

Victor David Hanson on the Left

Victor Davis Hanson has a must-read column at National Review Online for anyone interested in the moral decline and increasing irrelevancy of the left both at home and in Europe. The temptation is to post the whole piece but for the sake of brevity we'll offer only a part of it:

So both here and abroad, the Western public believes that there is a double standard in the moral judgment of our left-leaning media, universities, and politicians - that we are not supposed to ask how Christians are treated in Muslim societies, only how free Islamists in Western mosques are to damn their hosts; or that we are to think beheading, suicide murdering, and car bombing moral equivalents to the sexual humiliation and roguery of Abu Ghraib - apparently because the former involves post-colonial victims and the latter privileged, exploitive Americans. Most sane people, however, privately disagree, and distinguish between a civilian's head rolling on the ground and a snap shot of an American guard pointing at the genitalia of her terrorist ward.

What is preached in the madrassas on the West Bank, in Pakistan, and throughout the Gulf is no different from the Nazi doctrine of racial hatred. What has changed, of course, is that unlike our grandfathers, we have lost the courage to speak out against it. In one of the strangest political transformations of our age, the fascist Islamic Right has grafted its cause onto that of the Left's boutique "multiculturalism," hoping to earn a pass for its hate by posing as the "other" and reaping the benefits of liberal guilt due to purported victimization. By any empirical standard, what various Palestinian cliques have done on the West Bank - suicide murdering, lynching without trial of their own people, teaching small children to hate and kill Jews - should have earned them all Hitlerian sobriquets rather than U.N. praise.

"Imperialism" and "hegemony" explain nothing about recent American intervention abroad - not when dictators such as Noriega, Milosevic, the Taliban, and Saddam Hussein were taken out by the U.S. military. There are no shahs and Your Excellencies in their places, but rather consensual governments whose only sin was that they came on the heels of American arms rather than U.N. collective snoozing. There really was no secret Afghan pipeline behind toppling the Taliban, nor a French-like oil concession to be had for the United States from the new Iraqi interim government.

Many of Michael Moore's heroic "Minutemen" of the Sunni Triangle are hired killers - hooded fascists in the pay of ex-Baathists and Saddamites, along with Islamic terrorists and jihadists who hate the very idea of democracy in the heart of the Arab world. The collective cursus honorum of these Saddamite holdovers during the last two decades - gassing the Kurds, committing atrocities against the Iranians, looting and pillaging in Kuwait, launching missiles into Israel and Saudi Arabia, slaughtering Shiites and again Kurds, and assassinating Western and U.N. aid workers - rank right up there with the work of the SS and KGB.

It won't do any longer to attribute American outrage over the U.N. to a vast right-wing conspiracy led by red-state senators and Fox News. All the standing ovations for Kofi Annan cannot hide the truth that the Oil-for-Food scandal exceeds Enron. Indeed, Ken Lay's malfeasance never involved the deaths of thousands, while cronies siphoned off food and supplies from a starving populace. The U.S. military does not tolerate mass rape and plunder among its troops, as is true of the U.N. peacekeepers throughout Africa.

There can be no serious U.N. moral sense as long as illiberal regimes - a Syria, Iran, or Cuba - vote in the General Assembly and the Security Council stymies solutions out of concern for an autocratic China that swallowed Tibet. Millions were slaughtered in Cambodia, Rwanda, and Darfur while New York bureaucrats either condemned Israel or damned anyone who censured their own inaction and corruption. Rather than faulting those who fault the U.N., leftists should lament the betrayal of the spirit of the liberal U.N. Charter by regimes that are neither democratic nor liberal but who seek legitimacy solely on their ability to win concessions and sympathy from guilt-ridden Westerners.

So it is also time to take a hard look at the heroes and villains of Hollywood, liberal Democrats, and the Euro elites. Many are as obsessed with damning the senile dictator of Chile as they are with excusing the unelected President for Life Fidel Castro. But let us be frank. A murderous Pinochet probably killed fewer of his own than did a mass-murdering Castro, and left Chile in better shape than contemporary Cuba is in. And the former is long gone, while the latter is still long in power.

This is great stuff and there's much, much more of it at the link. The left has made itself irrelevant because of its moral inanity, its proclivity for seeing evil only in the U.S. and its allies, and its alacrity in blaming America for all the world's ills. It has discredited itself by sacrificing truth on the altar of political advantage and by following, supporting, or defending a burgeoning array of mountebanks, charlatans, thugs, tyrants, and thieves. The left believes themselves to be ascending the slope of a new and glorious future when in fact their climb is leading them to the crest of the ash heap of history.

First Class Dunderheads

Readers will doubtless suppose that the following account is a fiction, a fabrication. No one, the reader will think, can be as blockheaded as the administrators in this school district must be. Yet it is true. This is not a fabrication. It pains us to post it because we believe that too often teachers and administrators are unfairly criticized, but there are some in the employ of our communities who are not criticized enough, and apparently the supervisors in this district are among them.

On December 7th an announcement was made in a nearby elementary school (which, for reasons which will be explained later, will remain unnamed) to the effect that students will not be able to access books on hunting (!), Christmas, or Christianity from the school library. These books, some 35 to 40 titles, were going to be removed from the shelves.

One child at the school told her mother about the announcement, and the mother decided to check it out for herself. She called the elementary supervisor who explained to her that the books needed to be reviewed because they had religious content, and the district didn't want books in the library which were too evangelical. Besides, the supervisor went on, there was an imbalance between books partial to Christianity and those of other religions.

The mother asked which titles would be pulled and was refused an answer. She indicated that she would like to go to the school to find out, and was told not to do that. She went anyway, obtained a visitor's pass, and found the books piled on a table in the library. She began copying the titles, and was confronted by the building principal who asked her to desist and leave the building. The banned books included the "Touched By an Angel" books as well as Lisa Biemer's "Let's Roll", written in honor of her husband who died a hero on 9/11. No books involving mention of any religion other than Christianity were in the stack.

In the course of her discussion with the principal she was told that there can be no religious symbols in the school and that even the cross she wore on her necklace would not be permitted on a faculty member. Evidently, there was a fear that youngsters might be unduly influenced by a respected teacher's choice in jewelry to favor what that teacher implicitly favors, and that would be somehow unconstitutional. This suggests that these administrators would also object if teachers were overtly instructing their children not to hit or make fun of others, and not to cheat, lie, steal, exclude others from games, or be intolerant of their classmates because these behaviors are morally wrong. Surely the inculcation of moral values derived from a teacher's religious convictions is even more unacceptable to the district than wearing a piece of jewelry which may or may not express a teacher's endorsement of some vague religious belief. It would be interesting to discover how often teachers are admonished in this district for explicitly imposing their morality upon their students.

The mother was told by the principle that the hunting books were being pulled because a young boy might learn from them how to kill animals with a gun and then use that information to shoot people. This statement all by itself should be enough to promote this principle to dunderhead first class except that would seem too much like a Boy Scout award and Boy Scout literature is certainly next to be committed to the flames in this district.

A day or so later the superintendent called the mother's home and informed her husband that the books would be available to students but would not be displayed. Clever. Third through fifth graders would be able to read the books but only if they knew the secret procedure for accessing them. This reveals what the superintendent thinks of Christianity. He wishes to treat it like stores treat pornography.

The couple then called school board members to complain of the censorship and the religious discrimination in the district in which they pay taxes. The board members, being board members, were somewhat non-committal, reluctant to step on the administrative prerogatives of their staff. Even so, by Thursday evening the superintendent had called back to tell them that the books were going to be reshelved the next day and that he thought they should now halt their campaign. He was obviously concerned that the couple was on the verge of taking this story to the newspapers and local talk radio, and the thought of that kind of publicity evidently softened the district's stance.

Since the couple now had a promise from the superintendent that the books would not be removed, they decided it would be improper to go through with making their concerns public, and so Viewpoint is not divulging which district or district personnel were involved either. However, the only reason that the district relented was because they had been caught. If the announcement hadn't been made to the children last Tuesday, or if this mother/taxpayer had not decided that she was going to check the matter out for herself, the authorities would have removed the books and no one would have been the wiser. So, if the district is later found to have gone back on its word then such courtesies as the couple (and Viewpoint) are presently extending them will be set aside.

This whole episode raises the question of how many other schools in the district, or indeed in the state, have quietly purged their collections of any books which present any mention of Christianity (or hunting!). Is there a surreptitious effort among public school personnel in our local school districts to censor religious reading material? This is a question to which an answer would be easy to find simply by e-mailing or calling your school's librarian. If anyone does learn of other instances of this we invite you to let us know about it through our Feedback Forum.

The Mullahs' Dilemma, and Ours

Bill Roggio The Fourth Rail has a very perceptive piece of analysis of the increasingly likely conflict with Iran from the Iranians' point of view. It's based on an article written by a University of Tehran professor of political science who writes about how Iran would fight a military invader. Roggio replies by saying:

The Iranian military leadership is misguided if they believe they can out-maneuver, out-think, out-man or out-fight American forces in a conventional fight. One thing that should be clear is that America's military has no peer on the conventional battlefield. The American military's command, control, communications, information, weapons and technology are several levels of magnitude greater than Iranian capabilities. If the "certain weaknesses" the Iranians are referring to is the soft logistical chain, then they are not accounting for the U.S. military's adaptations to this problem. The Army has learned valuable lessons in Iraq, and is armoring supply vehicles and increasing the training of support personnel, many of whom also have combat experience in Iraq. And unlike Iran's military, American forces are seasoned combat veterans accustomed to the difficulties of war.

In reality, Iran's ability to strike back lies exclusively in guerrilla warfare, terrorist attacks and its missile technology. Iran's true threats lay in its unconventional assets: Hezbollah, ballistic missiles, and chemical and biological weapons arsenals. Iran's missiles would be able to strike American forces in the region, and tipped with chemical or biological agents, pose a great threat. Dr. Afrasiabi confirms that these unconventional forces are a key to Iran's strategy to counter an American military advance. Interestingly enough, Dr. Afrasiabi neglects to mention the potential of utilizing Hezbollah as an overseas proxy against American military and civilian installations, which should not be discounted. Nor does he mention unleashing al Qaeda personnel who have been sheltered in Iran. Perhaps this would be a tacit admission of Iran's complicity in global terrorism.

Roggio notes that the American military squeeze on Iran is having serious economic consequences and he concludes that the mullahs can't endure this situation indefinitely:

America's policy of containment is frightening the Iranian mullahs, and is forcing them to consider open confrontation with the United States military. Dr. Afrasiabi's analysis indicates that the Iranian military is planning to fight the last war (Lebanon, Iraq) but is not considering America's ability to adapt to weaknesses exposed in Iraq. Iran's advantages include the expected diplomatic pressure leveraged by the international community, Hezbollah operations overseas, a potential nuclear threat, and America's lack of forces at hand at the moment. Due to American military superiority, Iran would be reduced to fighting an unconventional war, much like the current insurgency in Iraq, but American forces have gained valuable combat experience in theater. Iran's ability to launch missiles undetected would not last forever, and the advent of armed unmanned aerial vehicles, which were not present in the First Gulf War, will reduce Iran's ability to launch at will. Any use of WMD will have serious consequences, and will be met in kind. No doubt an American campaign in Iran would be difficult and costly, but allowing Iran to become a nuclear power would have a chilling effect on reshaping the Middle East to reduce the threat of state sponsored terrorism.

Iran has an out - disavow support for Hezbollah, turn over al Qaeda sheltered in-country, and quit their nuclear program. The choice is up to the mullahs, but based on their past history of open defiance to America's presence in the Middle East, the likelihood of Iran backing down from a conflict is low.

The longer we are tied down in Iraq the more time Tehran has to put together a nuclear deterrent. This is one of the main reasons why Iran is working so hard to prevent Iraq from stabilizing. The mullahs prefer to see Iraq descend into chaos for several reasons but chief among them is that it will keep the United states occupied and deter them from getting involved in similar adventures in Iran.

Man of the Year

Time magazine has bestowed their Man of the Year award upon the only person they could have without making themselves risible: George W. Bush. Whether you love him or hate him, no one man has had more of an impact on the world in the past year than has President Bush. Indeed no one has had more impact on the world for the last three years than has George Bush. He has liberated from tyranny 50 million people in Afghanistan and Iraq, and brought hope for peace to a hopeless part of the world. He has ushered us out of a recession compounded by 9/11, restored dignity and professionalism to the White House, and has remained resolute in the face of tremendous difficulties and personal invective, never once responding to his critics in kind.

If the trends of the last three years continue for the next four, if Iraq becomes secure, social security and medicare are reformed, Iran and North Korea step back from the nuclear brink, and terrorism continues to be attrited, he will go down in history as a truly great president. He is the proper choice for Time magazine and the whining of dissenters just makes them look terribly small.

In Government We Trust

In February of 2001, Dallas Federal Reserve President Robert McTeer said:

There's nothing wrong with the economy that couldn't be fixed with a little more consumer spending. If we all join hands together and buy a new SUV, everything will be OK.

Back in February of this year, Alan Greenspan, Chairman of the Federal Reserve suggested that people consider adjustable rate mortgages (ARMs). At the time I thought this was peculiar for two reasons: (1.) It was inappropriate for the Fed Chairman to be advising people regarding interest rates which he has some degree of control over. And (2.) given that interest rates were at the lowest in 25 years the upside potential was far, far greater than any further decline.

Today, about 20% to 30% of all mortgages are ARMs. There's no telling what impact Greenspan's recommendation had on these figures but one thing is for sure - since February, the Federal Reserve has raised interest rates five times.

Given the increase in the cost of gasoline since February 2001 and the increase in interest rates over the last year, those that responded to the advice of Mr. McTeer and Mr. Greenspan are not only way "under water", they have been financially decimated. Who has benefited? The bankers. And who is the banker's banker? Alan Greenspan and his lackey McTeer.

I can't help but wonder if this has anything to do with the fact that for the last year, I have been seeing notices of foreclosure announcements in the classified section of my Sunday newspaper. Every week I see an entire page of these notices which means these people are losing their homes. And not only do they lose their homes, they lose all of the equity they have in them. All of the interest they have paid and all of the principle they have paid...gone. What are these families going to do? Where are they going to go?

So why would Greenspan and McTeer offer such bad advice? The answer is actually quite simple.

Thomas Jefferson, declared "If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their money, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them, will deprive the people of their property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered."

Of the two scenarios, deflation is feared much more so than inflation by our monetary masters. Inflation, at least, enables debt to be repaid albeit in inflated dollars but deflation means default and the lender (the banks) suffer the loss. Therefore, I believe we will see every effort by the powers that be to encourage an outcome of inflation.

From Richard Russell:

The danger of deflation is that consumers put off buying because they think goods will be cheaper tomorrow and the next day.

Deflation is a problem because in deflation debts become much more difficult to service.

In deflation, banks loan less and this is a pressure on the money supply. It can shrink during deflation.

In deflation, corporations cut back on their activities, because they are preparing for slowing business and lower prices.

Perhaps worst of all, during deflation the mind-set turns to saving, since money becomes worth more, and because pressure is on all prices. As far as manufacturers and stores are concerned, pricing power is nonexistent.

During extreme inflation, people spend there money as soon as they get it because they believe the cost of a product will be greater later. During a deflation, people hold on to their money because they believe the cost of a product will be less later.

The problem is that any system based on a fiat currency is, by definition, a system that is dependent on the inflation of that currency.

While you may have doubts about which way the economy is going, one thing is for certain, one can't trust the government to show you the way.

Govern yourself accordingly.

Krauthammer on Christmas

Charles Krauthammer has an excellent op/ed that captures precisely the feelings of a large majority of Americans about the left's attempt to debase Christmas and empty it of meaning. Bear in mind as you read his essay that he himself is Jewish. Here are a few nuggets from his column:

I'm struck by the fact that you almost never find Orthodox Jews complaining about a Christmas creche in the public square. That is because their children, steeped in the richness of their own religious tradition, know who they are and are not threatened by Christians celebrating their religion in public. They are enlarged by it.

It is the more deracinated members of religious minorities, brought up largely ignorant of their own traditions, whose religious identity is so tenuous that they feel the need to be constantly on guard against displays of other religions -- and who think the solution to their predicament is to prevent the other guy from displaying his religion, rather than learning a bit about their own.

To insist that the overwhelming majority of this country stifle its religious impulses in public so that minorities can feel "comfortable" not only understandably enrages the majority but commits two sins. The first is profound ungenerosity toward a majority of fellow citizens who have shown such generosity of spirit toward minority religions.

The second is the sin of incomprehension -- a failure to appreciate the uniqueness of the communal American religious experience. Unlike, for example, the famously tolerant Ottoman Empire or the generally tolerant Europe of today, the United States does not merely allow minority religions to exist at its sufferance. It celebrates and welcomes and honors them.

Krauthammer's essay is excellent, but we wonder if the dominant motive behind the relentless effort to reduce Christmas to a bland orgy of consumption and meaningless blather about "good will to all" is not religious insecurity but something a little different. We suspect that the primary impetus behind the move to reduce Christmas to a secular "holiday" is envy and its bitter offspring, contempt.

Envy arises from the fact that no other tradition in this country, religious or otherwise, has anything that compares with the beauty, magic, wonder, and mystery of Christmas. Contempt is the child of envy and impels those who despise Christianity to wish to see it extinguished root and branch. People whose hearts fester with envy and contempt wish to destroy for others that which they cannot have for themselves.

The irony is that those most determined to devitalize Christmas seem to be those most in need of it.

Iran and Iraq

Reuel Marc Gerecht of the American Enterprise Institute gives readers an excellent insight into the dynamics of the Iraqi/Iranian relationship:

Clerical Iran's primary objective is to ensure that Iraq remains destabilized, incapable of coalescing around a democratically elected government. Such a government supported by Iraq's Shiite establishment is a dagger aimed at Tehran's clerical dictatorship. Intra-Shiite squabbles do matter, and this one between Iraqi clerics who believe in one man, one vote and those who believe in theocracy is an enormous difference of opinion. We should not be fooled by the publicly cordial relations that usually exist between clerics of Najaf and Tehran. Najaf's position on democracy is an explicit negation of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's and his associates' right to rule Iran.

The clerical regime is currently handcuffed to Iraq's democratic process and timetable. All of the principal groups through which Iran hopes to exercise influence in Iraq--the Iranian-created Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), the Dawa (or "Islamic Call") party, and the Sadriyyin, followers of Muqtada al Sadr, the young clerical firebrand who has been engaged in a spiritual tug-of-war with the country's traditional clergy--are committed now to the election process.

Iran has probably been pouring money into Iraq, to all three of these Shiite groups, which don't share much affection for each other, and in the case of the Dawa and the Sadriyyin, have had distinctly mixed, often hostile, emotions about things Iranian. Both the Dawa and the Sadriyyin have regularly belittled Grand Ayatollah Sistani for his "Persianness" and snarled at clerical Iran's habit of talking down to the Iraqi Shia.

Tehran is trying to align itself with a variety of often contradictory parties because it cannot overtly oppose the democratic process in Iraq, in which an increasing number of Iraqi Shiites are passionately invested. Like Washington, Tehran really doesn't know what is going to happen on Jan. 30 and after, though it no doubt hopes that Sunni Arabs abstain from voting en masse, thereby supercharging sectarianism. If a civil war could be provoked, Iraq's democratic experiment and moderate Shiite religious establishment would probably both collapse.

If the neighboring one-man, one-vote clerics can be downed and America can be physically and spiritually drained in Iraq, then the two most feared, disruptive forces in Iranian politics--Western-oriented Iranian youth and pro-democracy dissident clerics--can be further weakened. The more the Americans bleed next door, and the clerical regime definitely believes America is on the run in Iraq, the less likely they'll have the will to take out Iran's nuclear program.

In Iraq, the U.S. ought to have two obvious goals. To crush the Sunni insurgency before it can provoke the birth of an exclusive, angry Shiite political identity willing to do to the Arab Sunnis what the Baath once did to the Shia. If such an identity is born, it is most unlikely democracy can prevail. Washington must thus ensure that the democratic process in Iraq, regardless of the violence, keeps on rolling. As long as it does, clerical Iran will not be able to gain much traction inside the country. SCIRI, the Dawa and the Sadriyyin are not puppets controlled by Tehran; the rising power of southern Iraq's Shiite tribes, which historically have looked askance at clerical direction from any quarter, will further frustrate Iranian influence.

It is hard to overestimate the importance for the world of American success in Iraq. Failure is unthinkable, which makes those on the left in both Europe and at home who lead the cheers for our enemies in Iraq all the more despicable.

Another Stem Cell Success

Another apparent success in the use of stem cells to produce medical marvels:

Surgeons have used stem cells from fat to help repair skull damage in a 7-year-old girl in Germany, in what's apparently the first time such fat-derived cells have been exploited to grow bone in a human. The girl had been injured two years before in a fall, which destroyed several areas of her skull totaling nearly 19 square inches, the German researchers reported.

Other surgeons had failed to correct the defects, and the girl wore a protective helmet. Her brain could sometimes be seen pulsating through the missing areas of her skull.

But several weeks after the stem-cell surgery, she was able to leave her helmet behind, the researchers report in the December issue of the Journal of Cranio-Maxillofacial Surgery. The skull is now smooth to the touch, the missing parts replaced by thin but solid bone, said Dr. Hans-Peter Howaldt of the Justus-Liebig-University Medical School in Giessen, Germany. The child was not identified.

Howaldt, who performed the surgery last year, said the damage was too extensive to be repaired with bone grafts from her body. He said the hope was that if bits of the child's bone were mixed with stem cells, the cells would turn into bone-building cells that would create additional bone.

That appears to have happened, Howaldt said in a telephone interview Thursday. "I cannot prove that our success comes from the stem cells alone," he said, "but the combination of the two things simply worked."

In August, other German doctors reported growing a jaw bone in a man's back muscle and transplanting it to his mouth to fill a gap left by cancer surgery. The researchers used bone marrow, which also contains stem cells, to help grow the bone. But it's not clear whether the stem cells were responsible for the bone growth.

So Roy C. Ogle of the University of Virginia, an expert in skull reconstructive surgery who has been studying bone regeneration from fat-derived cells, said he considered the new report to be the first indicating that any kind of stem cell had been used to grow bone in a human. "It is a very big deal," said Ogle, who called the study a landmark.

He agreed that the study didn't prove that stem cells provided the new bone. But it also indicates that the implanted cells did no harm, which has been a concern with using stem cells in people, he said. Ogle said many surgeons would have augmented the child's bone with a mineral paste or collagen instead of stem cells. Howaldt said he believes it's better to use the body's own tissue.

Howaldt and his colleagues treated the skull in the same operation that recovered bone from the girl's pelvis and about 1.5 ounces of fat tissue from her buttocks. The bone was milled into chips about one-tenth of an inch long and placed in the missing areas of the skull. Then surgeons added the stem cells to the bone chips. The cells had been extracted from the girl's fat in a laboratory while surgeons prepared the girl's skull.

Howaldt said the bone chips appeared to instruct the stem cells to make more bone. While the new bone should grow as the child grows, she's old enough that her skull won't grow much more anyway, he said.

Hmm. The stem cells were taken from fat removed from the girl's body? They weren't embryonic stem cells? There must be some mistake.

Falling On Deaf Ears

Peggy Noonan tells the Democrats how they can turn their political fortunes around overnight. It could bring millions of voters back to the party of their ancestors and wouldn't cost the Democrats a dime. It's a "can't lose" suggestion:

Always in politics it comes down not to words but to actions. It's not poetry but policy that claims support and wins. Allow me to prove this, for I think I can. I know something the Democratic Party can do right now that will improve its standing and increase its popularity. It can be done this week. Its impact will be quick and measurable.

It is this: Stop the war on religious expression in America. Have Terry McAuliffe come forward and announce that the Democratic Party knows that a small group of radicals continue to try to "scrub" such holidays as Christmas from the public square. They do this while citing the Constitution, but the Constitution does not say it is wrong or impolite to say "Merry Christmas" or illegal to have a cr�che in the public square.

The Constitution says we have freedom of religion, not from religion. Have Terry McAuliffe announce that from here on in the Democratic Party is on the side of those who want religion in the public square, and the Ten Commandments on the courthouse wall for that matter. Then he should put up a big sign that says "Merry Christmas" on the sidewalk in front of the Democratic National Committee Headquarters on South Capitol Street. The Democratic Party should put itself on the side of Christmas, and Hanukkah, and the fact of transcendent faith.

This would be taking a stand on an issue that roils a lot of people, and believe me those people don't think conservatives are scrubbing America of Christmas, they think it's liberals; and they don't think it's Republicans, they think it's Democrats. Confound them, Terry! Come forward with a stand. It is the stand that is the salvation, not mysterious words or codes or magic messages.

Do this, Democrats. Announce you will apply pressure to antireligious zealots throughout the country. You have nothing to lose but a silly and culturally unhelpful reputation as the party that is hostile to religious expression. What you could gain is respect and gratitude. Pick up that Christmas tree, Terry, take it outside and put a star on top, stand next to it, yell Merry Christmas and ring a bell. That's a manipulation of symbols that would actually make sense.

Like we said, it's a can't lose recommendation. Problem is, as Ms Noonan surely knows, it'll never happen.

Intelligent Design and the Public School

Nearby Dover Area School District in Pennsylvania has made the national news and is being discussed on all the talk shows because of a decision by it's school board to require biology teachers to mention the concept of Intelligent Design (ID) in their classrooms when they discuss evolution. They are currently being sued in Federal Court by the ACLU, representing eleven parents in the district, for allegedly trying to smuggle religion into the science classroom. This is the first time ID has been the subject of a Federal Court case so there is a lot of attention being paid to the proceedings.

There are two separate questions in this case, as we see it. The first has to do with the nature of ID, and the second has to do with the motives of its proponents. We hope that the Court considers these separately. The first question hinges on whether ID is essentially a religious construct or whether it is philosophy of science. This is the crucial question before the Court because the answer the jurists come up with will determine the legitimacy of ID as a topic for inclusion in science curricula all across the country.

This post addresses the question of whether ID, irrespective of the intentions of some of its supporters, should be taught in public schools. Is ID a religious hypothesis, and, if not, are the implications of ID any more religious than the implications of Darwinian materialism?

We have weighed in on this issue in the local papers and on this blog several times in recent months (See here, here, and here) and have chosen to pick up the cudgels once again by reworking a post from last week and submitting it for publication in the paper. Whether it will be printed or not we don't know yet, but we've decided to run it again on Viewpoint so that our readers can comment upon it if they wish. The letter follows:

Recent statements by people on both sides of the controversy over the teaching of intelligent design in public schools suggest a lot of misunderstanding about what exactly ID is.

Intelligent Design starts from the simple fact that human beings are able to recognize design. For the most part that recognition is intuitive. One important aspect of ID is the elucidation of the criteria we employ to distinguish purposely designed objects from those which may be the products of random, purposeless processes. ID theorists seek to codify how it is that we manage to distinguish intelligent agency from the work of mindless forces.

Once the criteria of design recognition are established, at least in broad outline, they may be turned toward living organisms and the structures found in those organisms. Everyone involved in the controversy agrees that biological structures are designed. The question at issue is whether the designer is mindless chance and physical law or whether it is some form of intelligent mind.

ID theorists conclude that complex, specified arrangements or patterns are the hallmark of intelligent provenience and that organisms possess these qualities in abundance down to the tiniest microscopic bio-machines which cram living cells. They claim that it is therefore at least as plausible that these structures are somehow the result of intelligence as that they are not.

ID advocates argue that public schools shouldn't implicitly foreclose the possibility of an intelligent agent being responsible for nature's architecture by refusing to acknowledge that possibility to their students while at the same time teaching them a view that explicitly denies that possibility. This certainly seems reasonable, but, nevertheless, there is opposition.

The resistance stems in some measure from the possibility that if ID is accepted it might lead to certain philosophical conclusions about the ultimate nature of reality which are unpalatable to philosophical materialists. There is thus a major effort to prohibit such instruction by those who fear that in any fair consideration of the evidence the hypothesis that natural processes are perfectly adequate to account for the myriad of molecular machines we observe in our microscopes will look pale in comparison to the alternative.

Consequently, in order to prevent such comparisons, strenuous efforts are made, whenever the spectre of Intelligent Design looms large, to characterize it as religion while simultaneously packaging the materialist hypothesis as science. The fact is, of course, that materialism is not science and ID is not religion. They are both philosophical or metaphysical hypotheses which rely upon empirical data for their conclusions.

Consider a few ways in which ID has been mischaracterized in the Dover school board controversy:

1) It's been argued that ID should not be taught in public schools because the Supreme Court has prohibited it. This, though, is not true. The relevant ruling, Edwards v. Aguillard, was not about ID, it was about creationism, and the Supreme Court explicitly said that teachers are free to teach creationism if they wish. The Court merely prohibited state legislatures from mandating it. Creationism has a strong religious component, depending as it does upon the Bible. ID has no such component, so if teachers are free to teach creationism they would certainly be free to teach ID. One of the issues that a court case will have to address is whether a school board can mandate ID, and that decision will probably pivot upon whether ID is seen as essentially religious.

2) ID is philosophical, and philosophical concepts have no place in the science classroom. This objection 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 what science is, the scientific method, the basic 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, the laws of logic, the trustworthiness of reason and rational inquiry, and so on. All of these, and much more that might come up in an intellectually vivacious science class, are philosophical topics. It's very strange that all manner of philosophical questions are admitted into our classrooms without raising alarm, yet the notion that there might be an intelligence responsible for the basic structure of life sends half the population into a panic.

3) ID lends support to the belief that there is a God. This is true, but it's irrelevant. We don't prohibit teaching Darwinian evolution on the grounds that it lends support to the belief that there is no God. Simply because a field of study has implications for religious belief it does not follow that the study is itself religious.

Moreover, though ID is compatible with belief in the God of traditional monotheism, it doesn't require it. It claims only that life possesses the stamp of purposive, intentional organization. The organizer may be the God of Judeo-Christian tradition or it may be the God of Jeffersonian deism, or it may be extra-galactic beings which somehow seeded life on this planet, as some non-theistic scientists have suggested. Anyone who takes the design inference beyond the conclusion that life exhibits the impress of intelligent manufacture is making a philosophical leap that ID neither sanctions nor opposes.

This is why the allegation that ID is just a form of creationism is misinformed. Creationism says explicitly that the God of the Bible created everything in the space-time universe. Some forms of creationism go even further and claim that God created the major forms of life pretty much as we see them today, and that He did this relatively recently and very quickly.

ID makes no such claims. Some of its local proponents and adversaries notwithstanding, ID does not affirm that the world is created by God, it asserts nothing about how the world or life were created nor how quickly or long ago. Some ID theorists are, in fact, evolutionists (though not Darwinian evolutionists). They believe that life has descended from primitive ancestors pretty much the way Darwinians claim, but they depart from Darwinism by rejecting the notion that natural processes alone are sufficient to explain it.

The basic claim of ID is that however life came to be as it is, intelligent input must have been a factor at some point or points in the process. Life did not originate nor diversify solely by the action of physical or material causes. If people wish to see support in this for a belief in God, that is their decision, just as it is their decision if they find support in Darwinism for their belief that there is no God.

4) ID is religious and religion has no place in a science classroom. The latter part of this is true, but the first part is not. What is a religion? How do we recognize one? Not one person in a hundred who voices this objection can give a compelling definition of what "religion" is. The Encyclopedia of Philosophy acknowledges that religion eludes definition. Some religions have a god, some don't. Some religions involve worship of their deity, some don't. Some religions have a moral code, some don't. Some religions have a clerical hierarchy, some don't. Given the inability to specify exactly what characteristics a religion possesses it seems a little absurd to say that ID possesses them.

ID neither entails the existence of a god nor does it prescribe worship of one. Doubtless many ID adherents are religious as individuals and would like to see ID used as a means to point others to the Judeo-Christian God, but then many Darwinians are atheistic and see Darwinism as a useful tool for turning people toward materialism or naturalism. No one who has read Richard Dawkins or Daniel Dennett, just to mention two prominent Darwinian writers, could miss the atheistic proselytism in their books. Should we keep texts and articles written by such authors from our students simply because they have a strong bias toward atheistic materialism?

5) ID is a Trojan horse for sneaking religion into schools. Even if it were true that ID is somehow religious, it should nevertheless be asked why Darwinism enjoys immunity against the same charge. Why should it not be seen as a Trojan horse for sneaking atheism into schools? Why are the alleged aims of one illicit while those of the other are deemed acceptable? Darwinism states that the universe, life, the diversity of life, and human consciousness were all fashioned by unguided, unintelligent, purposeless and purely natural forces. It asserts that no God is necessary to account for anything that exists, and it insists that the universe is closed to any non-natural intervention.

These are all essential philosophical assumptions of the Darwinian paradigm, and they have profound religious implications. They are in overt conflict with the basic tenets of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. They also implicitly entail atheism since they render God superfluous, and there is no rational justification for believing in a superfluous, unnecessary, metaphysical entity which serves no unique function. It is possible to teach evolution without discussing these assumptions and implications, but it's not possible to teach Darwinian evolution without discussing them.

Intelligent Design logically entails no deity, it enjoins no worship, it promotes no sacraments, it possesses no scriptures, it teaches no dogma, it maintains no clergy, and it is affiliated with no church. Contrary to the hopes of some and the fears of others, intelligent design is not a stalking horse for Christianity, and shouldn't be used as one. It is simply not a religious hypothesis. Its critics point to the fact that many of its proponents are theists or deists and claim that this demonstrates the religious underpinnings of ID, but the fact that there are many theists among the ID ranks no more disqualifies it as a legitimate topic of discussion in a science classroom than the fact that so many Darwinians are atheists disqualifies materialistic versions of evolution from being presented to our students.

Biology teachers should seek to instill in their students a sense of awe at the wonders of the natural world, from the thousands of tiny molecular machines that carry out the myriad tasks of life within every cell to the marvels of the human immune system or the human brain. They might then point out that there are two ways of thinking about how those wonders came to be. They are either the result of eons of random chance and purposeless physical forces or they are the product of a superintending intelligence acting in concert with the laws of nature. There is nothing objectionable about teaching our students the beauty and complexity of the biological world, presenting them with the competing metaphysical explanations of random chance or intelligent purpose, and letting them decide for themselves which they accept. To teach one alternative, however, while suppressing the other is the very definition of indoctrination.

Meacham's Folly

Hugh Hewitt credits the blogosphere with a sound debunking of Jon Meacham's attempted debunking of the story of the first Christmas in the December 13 issue of Newsweek. Actually Hewitt gets a lot of the credit for mobilizing bloggers to analyze Meacham's rather silly effort. His symposium on the article resulted in a condign thrashing of Meacham's limp attempt to undermine the credibility of both the gospels and Christian tradition.

In any event, here's part of what Hewitt says about it in his Weekly Standard Online column:

Newsweek put Christmas on the cover of its December 13th issue, and the reaction among orthodox Christians was widespread and emphatic. Once again a leading member of the legacy media had produced a hit piece on Christian belief, employing many deceits, including the use of false dilemmas, the employment of only scholars with radical views, and the omission of evidence in support of the Biblical account of the birth of Jesus.

The author, Newsweek managing editor Jon Meacham, didn't even try very hard to conceal his bias, becoming to religion reporting what Dan Rather has become to political reporting. My favorite line is this gem: "To many minds conditioned by the Enlightenment, shaped by science and all too aware of the Crusades and corruptions of the church, Christmas is a fairy tale." Meacham goes on to immediately declare that "faith and reason need not be constantly at war," but makes it clear that this is possible only when faith surrenders pretty much everything that defines it as orthodoxy. No explanation is ever given as to why the Crusades have any bearing on the legitimacy of Luke's and Matthew's accounts of the Nativity.

Within 10 days of Meacham's article's appearance, his credentials had been reviewed for all to see by Dr. Albert Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. The article itself had been painstakingly--and fairly--sliced and diced by accomplished theologian, pastor, scholar, and author, Dr. Mark D. Roberts, whose double Harvard degrees, including a Ph.D. from the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, make his careful and complete criticisms of Meacham's reporting hard to dismiss.

After interviewing both Mohler and Roberts for two hours on the air, I then posted links to the Newsweek piece and their criticisms, and invited bloggers from around the internet to weigh in via a virtual symposium I term a "Vox Blogoli." Dozens of bloggers accepted the invite, and an astonishing array of piercing reviews of Meacham followed. Among many favorites are the Evangelical Outpost and Tapscott's Copy Desk, but all of them are well worth the read. (The complete list of symposium posts can be read here.)

What the blogosphere allowed to happen is the organization of dissent which is focused, credentialed, complete, and--crucially--publicized. No fair reader of Meacham's piece and the commentaries on it can conclude that Meacham produced good journalism. It is simply too one-sided, too agenda-driven, and too ignorant of serious scholarship to qualify as anything other than a polemic.

The exposure of Meacham's folly doesn't guarantee that Newsweek won't stumble again, but it surely must give others in his position pause. The blogosphere has experts and megaphones. As Joe Carter of Evangelical Outpost concluded "the mainstream media is only able to retain their influence by convincing the populace they possess special skill and knowledge. But as the Internet continues to fill with . . . debunkers, the media continues to lose credibility, influence, and power."

We're a little miffed that Hugh didn't mention Viewpoint's humble contribution to the symposium as among his favorites, but, nevertheless, if any of our readers missed it they can check it out here.

Kyoto

President Bush has taken a lot of criticism for refusing to sign the Kyoto Protocol on global greenhouse gas emissions. Now, according to Nick Shulz at National Review Online, it appears that the president's decision is being validated by events:

President Bush rejected Kyoto for a few simple reasons. First, it would impose significant economic damage on the American economy (a Clinton administration report on the costs of Kyoto put the tab at $300 billion per year). Second, the reduction targets and timetables were impractical from a technological perspective. Third, the treaty exempted developing economies such as India and China from any restrictions even though their emissions are rising rapidly. Instead, the Bush team under Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham charted a different course, which involved investment in basic research, technology transfer to poor countries, and bilateral agreements.

Critics cried foul at President Bush's "unilateral" decision and questioned his motives, saying he was ignoring scientific evidence and rewarding fossil-fuel producers and users who supported him politically. It's too bad the critics focused on the administration's alleged motives and not its arguments. As it turns out, several key players in the climate-change debate are starting to come around to President Bush's view.

The rest of the article explains who the players are and how and why enthusiasm for the Kyoto treaty appears to be waning.

Republican Brutality

Michael Moore quotes from a woman who has it all figured out as to why the Democrats lost in November:

Watch Dan Rather apologize for not getting his facts straight, humiliated before the eyes of America, voluntarily undermining his credibility and career of over thirty years. Observe Donna Brazille squirm as she is ridiculed by Bay Buchanan, and pronounced irrelevant and nearly non-existent. Listen as Donna and Nancy Pelosi and Senator Charles Schumer take to the airwaves saying that they have to go back to the drawing board and learn from their mistakes and try to be better, more likable, more appealing, have a stronger message, speak to morality. Watch them awkwardly quote the bible, trying to speak the 'new' language of America. Surf the blogs, and read the comments of dismayed, discombobulated, confused individuals trying to figure out what they did wrong. Hear the cacophony of voices, crying out, "Why did they beat me?"

And then ask anyone who has ever worked in a domestic violence shelter if they have heard this before. They will tell you: Every single day.

The answer is quite simple. They beat us because they are abusers. We can call it hate. We can call it fear. We can say it is unfair. But we are looped into the cycle of violence, and we need to start calling the dominating side what they are: abusive. And we need to recognize that we are the victims of verbal, mental, and even, in the case of Iraq, physical violence.

As victims we can't stop asking ourselves what we did wrong. We can't seem to grasp that they will keep hitting us and beating us as long as we keep sticking around and asking ourselves what we are doing to deserve the beating.

Listen to George Bush say that the will of God excuses his behavior. Listen, as he refuses to take responsibility, or express remorse, or even once, admit a mistake. Watch him strut, and tell us that he will only work with those who agree with him, and that each of us is only allowed one question (soon, it will be none at all; abusers hit hard when questioned; the press corps can tell you that). See him surround himself with only those who pledge oaths of allegiance. Hear him tell us that if we will only listen and do as he says and agree with his every utterance, all will go well for us (it won't; we will never be worthy).

And watch the Democratic Party leadership walk on eggshells, try to meet him, please him, wash the windows better, get out that spot, distance themselves from gays and civil rights. See the Democrats cry for the attention and affection and approval of the President and his followers. Watch us squirm. Watch us descend into a world of crazy-making, where logic does not work and the other side tells us we are nuts when we rely on facts. A world where, worst of all, we begin to believe we are crazy.

This unfortunate lady goes on to offer advice on how to break this awful cycle of abuse visited upon the poor, defenseless Dems by those horrid, cruel Republicans. The politics of victimhood. That'll be a winner in 2008, we're sure.

Meanwhile, the Republican batterers must be in a beer-soaked rage in the south. The GOP now holds 22 of the 26 Senate seats in 13 Southern states. Before Bush took office in 2000 the GOP had 18. The GOP has now won the last 10 open-seat Senate races in the South. In the House, the GOP had 27 seats before Bush took office in 2000, now they have 40.

Gosh. Isn't there a hotline or something that terrorized victims of Republican violence can call? Isn't there a shelter or refuge somewhere for abused Democrats to which they can flee to escape the brutality of Karl Rove's minions stomping across the land in their mindless fury? Our hearts go out to these people.

Statins

This may be of interest to readers over 50. After a recent physical exam turned up cholesterol levels in President Bush's blood work that were well within acceptable limits he was nevertheless prescribed a statin. The article talks about why.