Bad Advice

Professor of Anthropology Chris Toumey has some advice for his colleagues:

Our discipline of anthropology ought to take the intelligent design agenda seriously, and should actively oppose it, for two reasons: First, it is wrong for our public schools to mislead students. Secondly, intelligent design is a prominent feature of the so-called culture wars. Each victory for intelligent design in the classroom or the courtroom makes it easier to discredit the accounts of human origins that we generate in anthropology, along with the methods and concepts that guide our work.

I thought scientists opposed hypotheses because they believed them to be false, or because they lack the explanatory power of the favored hypothesis, not because they discredit their own position.

In any event, Mr. Toumey goes on to list four themes that anthropologists should stress in debating ID proponents. All four of them are irrelevant to Intelligent Design. For anti-IDers to employ any of them would be as smart as picking up a rattlesnake by the tail:

Gaps Argument: The core of intelligent design theory is the belief that, because we do not know the entire natural history of a complex phenomenon, it must be a miracle. This is too goofy to be either science or science education.

This is precisely wrong. ID is not predicated on what we don't know, it's based on what we do know. What we do know is that specified complexity (information), such as we find in living things, is not generated by blind, purposeless processes or random chance. It's generated by intelligent minds.

Are All Creators Equal? Intelligent design advocates pretend not to identify the Intelligent Designer, but use a wink and a nod to point to the conservative Christian portrait of the Judeo-Christian creator. Let there be a price to pay for being too cute. Just as the creationist effort to authenticate Noah's Flood makes the Babylonian hero Utnapishtem and the Sumerian Ziusudra just as real as the Biblical Noah, so the intelligent design effort to steer people to a creator god makes Kali, Allah and other non-Christian gods just as valid as the Christian god.

This is as dumb as saying that evolution advocates pretend not to be driven by atheistic materialism, but we know they are, so evolution is false. The designer may be the God of the Bible, many ID advocates believe that it is, but ID itself doesn't lead to that conclusion. For all we know the designer could well be an inhabitant of some other universe in the multiverse that physicists speculate about. If there can be other worlds why is it so difficult to accept that one of those worlds could contain beings capable of creating this world?

Evidence of Incompetent Design: The supposed proof of intelligent design consists of biological structures or behavior that work perfectly, or nearly perfectly. In other words, a simplistic biological functionalism. The counterproof includes vestigial structures that don't work anymore, or that put a creature at a disadvantage, plus anything else in anatomy or behavior which is not perfect.

This is an argument, such as it is, against belief that the designer is the omnipotent, omniscient God of the Bible. It has nothing at all to do with ID. After all, even an incompetent designer is still a designer. Parenthetically, even if the designer of this world didn't get everything right, it still turned in a pretty impressive performance.

Question the Single Alternative Science: Advocates of intelligent design say they want to broaden the public school science curriculum by adding "alternatives to evolution." Challenge them also to take the next logical step and add alternatives to astronomy and chemistry, and see whether conservative Christian parents are willing to include astrology and alchemy in their children's science courses.

This tactic is an indicator of the paucity of good arguments available to ID's opponents. Neither astrology nor alchemy are live options in the physical sciences. In the biological sciences, however, there are two alternatives: Either the information which fills the biosphere is the product solely of material forces or it is, at least in part, the product of intelligent agency. There are no other options, and both of these are live.

In the physical sciences there are also two options: Either the parameters, constants, forces and other properties of the physico-chemical universe are the product of purely naturalistic coincidence or they are the product of intentional engineering. There are no other options besides these, both of which are live. Throwing other creation myths, alchemy, or astrology into the mix is simply an attempt to blow smoke in peoples' eyes so that they won't see the real alternatives with which we are confronted in this debate.

Teach students the facts about the fine-tuned structure of the universe and then ask them which they think it is, chance or intelligence, that is responsible for the phenomena. Show them the computer generated videos of protein synthesis such as are found in the video The Mystery of Life's Origin and ask students whether they think this process is solely the result of chance and natural forces or whether they think it required some intelligent agency.

The vast majority of young people will agree that to believe that it's just a matter of chance and physics takes more faith than what they can muster. That's why secularists don't want students to know that there actually are alternatives to the materialist orthodoxy. They know that their metaphysics requires a superhuman exertion of will on the part of young people to believe it.

Here's a prediction I might have made before, but I'll reiterate: Because the evidence of intentional design is so strong in both the physical and biological world, as time goes on, materialists will increasingly encourage science teachers to down-play in their classes the wonders with which they seek to dazzle their students. The more teachers fill their students' minds with the fantastic truths of nature, the materialists will implicitly argue, the harder it will be to keep the young ones from wandering off the materialist plantation.

Of course, if they are ever successful in "sanitizing" science, it will mark the beginning of the end of scientific investigation and discovery because fewer students will be inspired to study it.

Twenty One Great Reads

A friend recently asked me to list my five favorite novels. I couldn't do it because, although I'm not much of a novel reader, I've read too many that have either moved me, instructed me, challenged me, or just entertained me to limit myself to only five. Instead, I gave him a list of twenty one, and I still had to leave some out that I should have included.

Herewith is the list, in no particular order, with a sentence or two of explanation:

The Gulag Archipelago (Aleksander Solzhenitsyn): a powerful indictment of the Soviet state and, by implication, it's leftist apologists in the West.

The Stranger (Albert Camus): Camus' mesmerizing vision of the post-modern nihilistic man for whom nothing really matters.

The Brothers Karamazov (Fyodor Dostoyevsky): A powerful tale of innocence and faith, evil and skepticism. The chapter titled The Grand Inquisitor is a stand-alone classic.

1984 (George Orwell): Orwell's j'accuse of the totalitarian state.

Bonfire of the Vanities (Tom Wolfe): Wolfe is an excellent writer and deft social satirist. His image of the "social x-ray," the anorexic dowagers of the Manhatten social elite, has been imprinted indelibly on my mind.

Uncle Tom's Cabin (Harriet Beecher Stowe): A wonderful narrative of the misery and horrors of slavery. Every high school student should read it, but sadly few do.

Roots (Alex Haley): This book inspired me to begin a study of my own family's history, a pursuit which has led me overseas and which has been sometimes exciting and always satisfying.

To Kill a Mockingbird (Harper Lee): A warm tale of family and moral heroism in the face of the banality of evil.

Angela's Ashes (Frank McCourt): A delightful account, full of humor and pathos, of one man's struggle to rise out of the grinding poverty of his childhood in 1950's Ireland and make something of his life here in America.

Complete Short Stories of Flannery O'Connor (Flannery O'Connor): Not a single work, of course, but I have to include this ouvre because O'Connor is just wizard with words, and her ability to skewer liberal pieties appeals to anyone cynical about the doctrine of the inherent goodness of human beings.

Moby Dick (Herman Melville): Melville captures the self-destructive nature of human vengeance, pride and obsessiveness and along the way offers a fairly complete course in whaling and cetology.

Billy Budd (Herman Melville): A marvelous work of human psychology. A good and innocent man is put to death and Melville almost has you thinking that it was the right thing to do.

Lord of the Rings (J.R.R. Tolkein): A tour de force of the imagination. It is astounding that one man could have conjured up this fabulous tale. Tolkein is in a class with Homer.

In the Heart of the Sea (Nathaniel Philbrick): This is not a novel, but it reads like one. It's actually a true story of amazing human endurance and survival at sea in the 19th century.

Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck): Classic tale of the dislocations and misery of Oklahomans during the depression-era "dust-bowl."

Les Miserables (Victor Hugo): Perhaps my very favorite novel. Hugo weaves so many threads through this story that you're tempted to focus on just a few, but then, in a stroke of literary brilliance, he ties them all together at the end. Read the unabridged version.

Tale of Two Cities (Charles Dickens): Another great writer tells an epic narrative of altruism and love. The image of Madame DeFarge knitting while victims of the terror are losing their heads is unforgettable.

I Am Charlotte Simmons (Tom Wolfe): A sleazy, lubricious story of big time university basketball and campus life served up in masterful prose. I haven't read all of Wolfe's works but of what I've read, this is, in my opinion, his best. It's not for children, but it is must reading for every parent sending his/her child off to college.

A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry) : A tragic and compelling tale of growing up poor in India in the fifties. Powerful.

The DaVinci Code (Dan Brown): A page turner of a novel full, unfortunately, of theological axe-grinding and historical flummery. Despite Brown's anti-Catholic, anti-Christian agenda, his book was an exciting read.

The Great Divorce (C.S. Lewis): Lewis packs more deep theological insight and wisdom about human nature into this little volume than one might think possible. Your view of hell, and heaven, will never be the same after you've read it.

Self-Destructive Paranoia

The New York Times has a fascinating article by Michael Gordon and Bernard Trainor, based on their new book titled Cobra II, which highlights the strategic thinking in Baghdad prior to the war, and how Saddam's fear of internal coup made defending his country virtually impossible. It also raises the very important point that even Saddam's military leaders thought Iraq had WMD until just a few months before the war started, and that they were stunned to learn that "the cupboard was bare." Some of them even said that after Saddam told them that there were no weapons they still found Colin Powell's case at the U.N. persuasive and thought that maybe the U.S. knew more than they themselves did.

It is a terrible irony that Saddam's attempts to remove all traces of earlier WMD programs, so as not to give weapons inspectors reason to believe that the programs were still ongoing, actually caused the U.S. to think that he was trying to hide those very programs. Saddam tried to deny having the weapons without actually allowing inspectors to prove he didn't have them because he didn't want to appear weak. His ambiguity left the U.S. with no choice but to assume that he did indeed have them.

Those who were so quick to accuse George Bush of lying to get us into war in those days should be chastened by this revelation, but, of course, they won't be.

Another Mass Murderer is Dead

The Serbian Saddam has died. There's a brief sketch of Slobodan Milosevic and what made him infamous here. A more detailed picture can be found by going here and following the links.

Milosevic, Saddam, and their ilk in Rwanda were the last of the twentieth century's mass murderers. As long as the civilized world has the power to stop such men it is a moral disgrace to refuse to do so. This is why "Bush's war" in Iraq was the right thing to do even were there no reason to believe that Saddam had WMD. It was as right for the U.S. to unseat Saddam as it was to stop Milosevic, as it was right for the U.S. to enter the war in Europe against the Nazis.

To stand by and let mass murder take place when one has the power to stop it is to be either complicit in the crime of genocide or to be craven in the face of it. In either case, it is a shameful stain on a nation's honor.

Yet much of the left is outraged that the United States employs military might against tyrants around the world when other measures fail. It's not that they object to force itself, mind, because throughout the twentieth century they never uttered a peep when the Soviets used it to keep their satellites in line. Rather they recoil from American use of force because they loathe this country and its values and do not wish to see either its power or its honor increase vis a vis the rest of the world.

A strong, dynamic and just U.S. is a reproach on all they believe and all they have given their life to convince others of. It's a reproach that they cannot bear, and it's one reason why they are not dismayed by American setbacks or when Americans betray their own principles, as at Abu Ghraib. Rather many on the left revel in these meager confirmations of their basest suspicions. It's really quite pathetic.

Look at Life From Both Sides Now

Academics and media types often give the impression that those who would like some mention of alternatives to evolution taught in their high schools are backwater rubes so far out of the cultural mainstream as to be flopping like beached fish on the riverbank.

A recent Zogby poll, however, gives us some insight into the question of who it is, exactly, who's floundering on the fringes of the "mainstream":

In response to a question as to whether biology teachers should teach Darwin's theory of evolution, but also the scientific evidence against it, 69% of respondents said yes.

If asked whether biology teachers should teach only Darwin's theory of evolution and the scientific evidence that supports it, only 21% said yes.

By more than three to one, according to Zogby, voters say that biology teachers should teach Darwin's theory of evolution, but also the scientific evidence against it. Approximately seven in ten (69%) side with this view. In contrast, one in five (21%) feels that Biology teachers should teach only Darwin's theory of evolution and the scientific evidence that supports it. One in ten is not sure.

When asked whether they strongly agree, somewhat agree, somewhat disagree, or strongly disagree with the following statement: "When Darwin's theory of evolution is taught in school, students should also be able to learn about scientific evidence that points to an intelligent design of life" the pollsters got this result:

Strongly agree 51%

Somewhat agree 26%

Somewhat disagree 6%

Strongly disagree 13%

Not sure 4%

In other words, three-fourths of respondents (77%) agree that when Darwin's theory of evolution is taught in school, students should also be able to learn about scientific evidence that points to an intelligent design of life. Furthermore, a majority (51%) agrees strongly. In comparison, one in five (19%) disagrees with the statement.

Four generations of indoctrination have not persuaded the vast majority of Americans that only one side of this issue should be presented in the classroom. This is one reason why this issue is not going to go away.

The elites who know what's best for us are alternately bemused, frustrated, and outraged that the masses seem unwilling to accept their word for it that materialist explanations for life are perfectly adequate and true. In their simple-minded way the common, unenlightened folk appear to think that if something looks designed that, heck, it just might be.

Wonder Why

The Chicago Tribune informs us that enrollment in Christian Colleges is on the rise:

Evangelical Christian colleges are attracting record numbers of applications this year in a trend that bodes well for an educational niche that was struggling to survive just a generation ago.

Applications have jumped between 8 percent and 10 percent at the 238 colleges that belong to the North American Association of Christian Admissions Professionals," Religion News Service reports. "More applications mean more students on campuses next fall ... and that's good news since 25 percent of those schools are barely breaking even financially. ... Enrollment has increased 70 percent since 1990, from 135,000 to 230,000, at the 102 evangelical schools belonging to the Council of Christian Colleges and Universities.

Parents are evidently awakening to the fact that one of the best moves they can make for the spiritual, moral, intellectual and political health of their child is to enroll him or her in a school that offers an overtly Christian environment. Many students are themselves arriving at the same conclusion.

Secular universities have, in many cases, become joyless, sterile places where the only relief from the stifling bleakness of the materialistic, anomic, politically correct atmosphere is the weekend party binge. That's scarcely the sort of ambience one is eager to fork over $30,000 a year to have his child immersed in.

The Mathematical Genius

Charles Edward White explains why three special numbers give powerful testimony to the existence of a mathematical genius behind the structure of the universe. The article will be of special interest to those with an interest in mathematics, but anyone who has had high school academic math courses and/or physics should be able to comprehend White's discussion.

By the way, it may be that White omitted from his essay the most impressive mathematical indicator of design, the Fibonacci sequence. You can read here why this particular series of numbers is so astounding.

David Berlinski, Part II

The second part of the interview with David Berlinski is up at Intelligent Design The Future. If you missed the first part you really should read it first. There's a link to it at IDF.

Let's Play...

Connect The Dots!

For one to understand what is taking place economically in America today one must attempt to connect the dots. They must follow different events and associate them in a way that leads to an explanation of what is happening. Here is an example of such an exercise.

The starting point is the realization that a minimum of 65,000 H-1B visas are granted annually for foreigners plus an indeterminate number of L-1 visas enabling foreigners to enter the U.S. to work. So it seems we have a policy of importing skilled labor and no policy regarding illegal immigrants (they can come as they please).

I've worked with people in the tech industry who are "visiting" the U.S. under such visas. These people are highly skilled and typically from India or China. Often their families still live overseas and they send most of the money they earn home for the family to live on and the rest gets put into various investments in their home country's markets. The same mechanism occurs within the Latino community.

It seems that the U.S. is importing labor at every level of the spectrum at the expense of citizens of the U.S.. Skilled and unskilled labor alike are welcome.

Why, one might ask would this be so? Let's connect the dots. First dot. All of these people put pressure on the prevailing wage rate to lower it or keep it from rising. An American software engineer will find it difficult to command a $50 per hour salary when someone from overseas will do the same job for $35 or less.

Second dot. Many illegal immigrants have found their way into less skilled jobs like construction. The American construction worker will find he can't compete for a job when the immigrant will do it for 40% or more less.

Third dot. Let's look at the cycle of events that causes inflation to be such a problem and for this example we will use oil. Let's say the cost of oil goes up due to a variety of reasons. First and foremost is that the value of the dollar is going down simply because we print so many of them. This price increase ripples through the economy because the cost of anything that is made from oil (which is almost everything) increases as does the cost to ship it from point of manufacture to point of delivery. These increased costs are passed on to the consumer and eventually impacts the cost of one's living expenses so they ask their employer for a raise to cover the costs.

Fourth dot. Historically, the employer had no choice but to comply with the employee demand because the expense of hiring a replacement would typically end up costing more.

Now that this event and others like it have just increased the costs of the employer, he reasonably concludes that he must raise the price of the goods or services that his company provides. And the cycle begins all over again. This is what causes inflation to "spiral" out of control.

So if I was a government bureaucrat charged with establishing policy that would enable my government to inflate it's currency and, at the same time, hide the evidence of doing so, or at least minimize the damage, what policy might I initiate to mitigate it?

Well, after much study, I would conclude I must break a link in the cycle of inflation that causes the nefarious beastie to manifest itself to the public in terms of ever increasing prices of goods and services. Since my employer is printing dollars at an ever increasing rate there isn't much I can do there. As I mentioned above, the increase of dollars is causing the cost of real assets like oil and services to increase in price. After all, can you blame OPEC for wanting more fiat dollars that we print with abandon for their real asset in the ground - oil? Of course not. To put things into perspective, a gallon of spring water cost $1. Fifty five gallons of spring water would be a barrel of spring water at $55. Given the investment costs to produce a barrel of oil compared to a barrel of spring water, oil is still a bargain.

Lastly, I can't do much about the increased cost of those assets trickling down throughout the economy causing prices in general to rise. Sheesh! If I don't find some way soon, I'll be fired and have to get a job where I contribute to the economy by being a productive individual! But wait...I've got it. I will let any and everyone into the U.S. and they will be willing to work for less than all those greedy American workers. So even though prices are rising, employers won't have to increase salaries as they did in the past which continues the virtuous cycle (spiral) of inflation. I've stopped it dead in its tracks! Surely I'll be promoted to a higher bureaucratic position of even more importance and influence...and higher pay rate. There is a God!

And here's the kicker. These people that I let into the U.S. will, for the most part, send their excess dollars, that would otherwise contribute to inflation by driving prices up, back home i.e. out of the U.S. so many of those dollars they earn won't be in the U.S. to cause prices to rise. What a genius!

But wait. There's only one problem. Such a plan will cause millions of Americans to find themselves unemployed, ruined, relegated to poverty with no hope. After a short deliberation I conclude...that's not my problem...that's their problem. I'm getting mine and after all, that's all I care about. Hah!

Here's an interesting article by Paul Craig Roberts. He was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration.

The United States is the first country in history to destroy the prospects and living standards of its labor force. It is amazing to watch freedom-loving libertarians and free-market economists serve as full time apologists for the dismantling of the ladders of upward mobility that made the America of old an opportunity society.

America has begun a polarization into rich and poor. The resulting political instability and social strife will be terrible.

It's really quite simple. I've maintained for a long time that one shouldn't listen to what they are told by our government and the news media but rather observe what they see going on around them and think for themselves. Only then will the truth be found.

Plantinga on ID

Philosopher Alvin Plantinga dispenses with Judge John Jones' reasoning in the Kitzmiller case as the pretensions of a lightweight (my assessment, not Plantinga's). Along the way he also argues that any attempt to disparage Intelligent Design as "not science" is doomed.

It's good stuff and, unlike a lot of Professor Plantinga's technical work, very accessible to the layman.

The Coming Collapse of China

Gordon Chang, author of The Coming Collapse of China, predicts a Chinese crackup. The only question seems to be whether it will occur before its clients, North Korea and Iran, lead us into a destructive war.

As China gets more prosperous, it is becoming less stable. Senior Beijing officials now face the dilemma of all reforming authoritarians: economic success endangers their continued control. As Harvard's Samuel Huntington has noted, sustained modernization is the enemy of one-party systems. Revolutions occur under many conditions, but especially when political institutions do not keep up with the social forces unleashed by economic change. And as history shows us, nothing irritates a rising social class like inflexible political institutions. The most interesting trend about protests in recent years is not that they are becoming more frequent, getting much larger, or growing more violent. The most interesting trend is that we are now seeing middle-class Chinese, the beneficiaries of the last quarter century of progress, taking to the streets.

Beijing's policies seem designed to widen the gap between the people and their government, thereby ensuring greater instability for the foreseeable future. Today there's unimaginable societal change at unheard of speed thanks in large part to government-sponsored economic growth and social engineering. Yet at the same time the Communist Party stands in the way of meaningful political change.

Because senior officials don't allow political change of substance, the authorities must resort to force to stop the spread of unrest. But the use of the coercive power of the state is only a short-term solution-force just makes protests even harder to control next time. The leadership will not, or cannot, come to terms with the causes of unrest.

Ultimately, the one-party system will be replaced by democratic institutions. The transition won't be easy, however. China will probably experience years of uncertainty, instability, and turbulence.

Swell. And the Democtrats will be doing all they can to insure that they are in charge during such a dangerous time. Let us pray.

Air-Head

The Daily Mail has this story:

A woman who was fined �200 after she was caught on camera applying make-up while driving at 32mph has defended her actions, saying she was preparing for a date. Donna Maddock, 22, from Mold in north Wales, was pictured on police video cameras with both hands off the steering wheel putting on her eye make-up.

She had wanted to look her best for a date with a man who has a girlfriend and child. She added that she couldn't see what all the fuss was about.

Oh. She was going on a date with a guy. Well, then, that's different. Ms Maddock is justifiably indignant that the British motor vehicle code does not exempt drivers from penalty who place other motorists at hazard when the offender has a sufficiently good reason - like putting on one's makeup in preparation for a date with a Lothario.

What's wrong with those Brits, anyway?

Your Lying Eyes

"Upon returning home from a year-long research trip to the Galapagos Islands, the esteemed English zoologist Dr. D. Richard finds his wife undergoing a process that looks remarkably similar to childbirth. Calling upon his maid for an explanation, the woman tells him that "Yer wife, sir, is hav'en a baby." Dr. Richard pauses to contemplate the possibility before deciding that the notion is preposterous. Examining the evidence inductively -- he is impotent, infertile, and has been away for over nine months -- the professor determines that while his wife may have the appearance of being pregnant it is impossible that she could be with child."

The naive Dr. Richard shares a lot in common with many contemporary critics of Intelligent Design. To understand why read the rest of the story at Evangelical Outpost.

Designer Finally Detected

This just in: Mike Gene at Telic Thoughts has detected the elusive Intelligent Designer, the identity of which ID critics have long demanded be revealed. Read all about it here.

Hollywood Anti-Americanism

Charles Krauthammer blasts both the movie Syriana and the ideological anti-Americanism of its Hollywood producers and writers. He opens his essay with this indictment:

Nothing tells you more about Hollywood than what it chooses to honor. Nominated for best foreign-language film is "Paradise Now," a sympathetic portrayal of two suicide bombers. Nominated for best picture is "Munich," a sympathetic portrayal of yesterday's fashion in barbarism: homicide terrorism.

But until you see "Syriana," nominated for best screenplay (and George Clooney, for best supporting actor) you have no idea how self-flagellation and self-loathing pass for complexity and moral seriousness in Hollywood.

He closes with this summation:

In my naivete, I used to think that Hollywood had achieved its nadir with Oliver Stone's "JFK," a film that taught a generation of Americans that President John F. Kennedy was assassinated by the CIA and the FBI in collaboration with Lyndon Johnson. But at least it was for domestic consumption, an internal affair of only marginal interest to other countries. "Syriana," however, is meant for export, carrying the most vicious and pernicious mendacities about America to a receptive world.

Most liberalism is angst- and guilt-ridden, seeing moral equivalence everywhere. "Syriana" is of a different species entirely -- a pathological variety that burns with the certainty of its malign anti-Americanism. Osama bin Laden could not have scripted this film with more conviction.

In between his opening and his conclusion is perhaps some of Krauthammer's best writing. I'm reluctant to comment on a movie that I haven't seen, but to the extent that it portrays Americans in the manner Krauthammer alleges, Hollywood bears at least partial responsibilty for inciting Muslim anger against Americans. For this alone they deserve a complete boycott of their product.

Denotative Definition of <i>Moron</i>

I know it's not nice to say unkind things about people, but the individuals in this story go out of their way to invite it:

GOLD HILL, Ore. - A teen who pinched and twisted another boy's nipple while standing in line at a deli has been sentenced to four days in juvenile detention because he refused to write a letter that explained his actions. The 16-year-old, was convicted of offensive physical touching in July 2005, after the victim's parents complained to Gold Hill police. The Crater High School student paid a $67 fine and served three days of community service.

"I emptied trash cans, mowed lawns and shoveled gravel," the teen said.

But the teen's refusal to comply with the final piece of his sentence will cost him four days in detention. He was required to write the letter during four classes put on by Mediation Works, which operates the victim-offender program for Jackson County Community Justice.

Mary Miller, executive director of Mediation Works, said the purpose of the letter is to prepare teens to be accountable for their offenses.

"They don't have to apologize," she said. "But they are required to be accountable."

The offender is required to describe the act in detail, explain "thinking errors," "express empathy" and describe any resultant life changes.

Miller said the program is "often a very, very healing experience between the victim and youth offender."

The teen said he presented a rough draft of his letter in the third session. He said he balked when told he must also describe his "criminal thought processes."

He said that would imply malicious or criminal intent, and "none of that applied to my feelings or actions."

The teen said he had no criminal intent because he considered the victim to be a friend at the time of the incident - which he deemed horseplay. Including the language sought by Mediation Works, he said, would turn his prior court statements into lies.

"It was a matter of conscience," the teen said. "I figure the worst is already over."

Ken Chapman, a Community Justice juvenile probation supervisor, verified the teen's sentence.

"The judge found a willful violation of the court order," Chapman said.

The only person mentioned in this piece that sounds like he has an IQ above the retirement age is the twister. His "friend" and, by implication, his friend's parents sound more than a little weird, but the people involved in adjudicating this asinine saga, particularly Mary Miller and the unnamed judge, sound worse than weird, they sound like absolute imbeciles. How do such individuals rise to positions of responsibility in our society?

It's a good thing Curly, Moe and Larry are all deceased because otherwise the Oregon justice system would have them serving life sentences for their countless "thinking errors."

Another Step Closer

This report in the British Telegraph is illuminating. The Iranians have played the Europeans for fools and are so sure that the world will do nothing about their nuclear program that they're laughing out loud about it. They seem so absolutely confident that Allah is blessing their ambitions, and that he will defeat any measures the infidels take to derail them, that they have no fear of Western reprisal. Of course, they have good reason not to fear Europe which could not stop Iran even had they the spunk to try it:

The man who for two years led Iran's nuclear negotiations has laid out in unprecedented detail how the regime took advantage of talks with Britain, France and Germany to forge ahead with its secret atomic programme. In a speech to a closed meeting of leading Islamic clerics and academics, Hassan Rowhani, who headed talks with the so-called EU3 until last year, revealed how Teheran played for time and tried to dupe the West after its secret nuclear programme was uncovered by the Iranian opposition in 2002.

He boasted that while talks were taking place in Teheran, Iran was able to complete the installation of equipment for conversion of yellowcake - a key stage in the nuclear fuel process - at its Isfahan plant but at the same time convince European diplomats that nothing was afoot. "From the outset, the Americans kept telling the Europeans, 'The Iranians are lying and deceiving you and they have not told you everything.' The Europeans used to respond, 'We trust them'," he said.

Revelation of Mr Rowhani's remarks comes at an awkward moment for the Iranian government, ahead of a meeting tomorrow of the United Nations' atomic watchdog, which must make a fresh assessment of Iran's banned nuclear operations. The judgment of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is the final step before Iran's case is passed to the UN Security Council, where sanctions may be considered.

In his address to the Supreme Council of Cultural Revolution, Mr Rowhani appears to have been seeking to rebut criticism from hardliners that he gave too much ground in talks with the European troika. The contents of the speech were published in a regime journal that circulates among the ruling elite.

He told his audience: "When we were negotiating with the Europeans in Teheran we were still installing some of the equipment at the Isfahan site. There was plenty of work to be done to complete the site and finish the work there. In reality, by creating a tame situation, we could finish Isfahan."

Mr Rowhani described the regime's quandary in September 2003 when the IAEA had demanded a "complete picture" of its nuclear activities. "The dilemma was if we offered a complete picture, the picture itself could lead us to the UN Security Council," he said. "And not providing a complete picture would also be a violation of the resolution and we could have been referred to the Security Council for not implementing the resolution."

In a separate development, the opposition National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) has obtained a copy of a confidential parliamentary report making clear that Iranian MPs were also kept in the dark on the nuclear programme, which was funded secretly, outside the normal budgetary process.

Mohammad Mohaddessin, the NCRI's foreign affairs chief, told the Sunday Telegraph: "Rowhani's remarks show that the mullahs wanted to deceive the international community from the onset of negotiations with EU3 - and that the mullahs were fully aware that if they were transparent, the regime's nuclear file would be referred to the UN immediately."

War is not the next step in this Kubuki dance, and we hope it's ultimately not needed, but we've just moved a another step closer to that awful prospect. As we've said before, the only thing worse than war with Iran would be allowing Iran to build nuclear weapons.

Out Into the Cold

Reading this story in last Saturday's Washington Post reminded me of the 1963 Ingmar Bergman film Winter Light, the cold, grey, depressing tale of a Swedish pastor whose faith had slipped away from him. It was sad to watch this clergyman, self-centered oaf that he was, going through the motions of worship when he no longer believed that what he was doing meant anything. Bergman's film is a fascinating account of a man who cannot cope with the silence of God in the face of the existential absurdity of life.

The WaPo article is also a poignant tale of one man's loss of faith. It's a bit slanted toward affirming his decision to leave Christianity behind him, and it would have been better had the writer, Neely Tucker, remained a little more neutral on the question of whether the man, author and professor of religious studies Bart Ehrman, was deceived when he was a Christian, or whether he is deceived now that he no longer is. Nevertheless, Tucker gives us an interesting glimpse into Mr. Ehrman's thinking. The essay begins with these words:

Bart Ehrman is a sermon, a parable, but of what? He's a best-selling author, a New Testament expert and perhaps a cautionary tale: the fundamentalist scholar who peered so hard into the origins of Christianity that he lost his faith altogether.

Once he was a seminarian and graduate of the Moody Bible Institute, a pillar of conservative Christianity. Its doctrine states that the Bible "is a divine revelation, the original autographs of which were verbally inspired by the Holy Spirit."

But after three decades of research into that divine revelation, Ehrman became an agnostic. What he found in the ancient papyri of the scriptorium was not the greatest story ever told, but the crumbling dust of his own faith.

The reader expects that what follows will be an argument so compelling that Ehrman's loss of faith is almost a matter of course. What emerges in the following excerpts, however, is more like DaVinci Code stuff.

"Sometimes Christian apologists say there are only three options to who Jesus was: a liar, a lunatic or the Lord," he tells a packed auditorium here at the University of North Carolina, where he chairs the department of religious studies. "But there could be a fourth option -- legend."

Ehrman's latest book, "Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why," has become one of the unlikeliest bestsellers of the year. A slender book of textual criticism, currently at No. 16 on the New York Times bestseller list, it casts doubt on any number of New Testament episodes that most Christians take as, well, gospel.

...as he paces back and forth across the stage [in front of his class], Ehrman ruthlessly pounces on the anomalies -- in this Gospel [John's], Jesus isn't born in Bethlehem, he doesn't tell any parables, he never casts out a demon, there's no last supper. "None of that is found in John!" The crucifixion stories are different -- in Mark, Jesus is terrified on the cross; in John, he's perfectly composed. Key dates are different. The resurrection stories are different. Ehrman reels them off, rapid-fire, shell bursts against the bulwark of tradition.

Why any of this should cast doubt on the reliability of the gospels is beyond me. It is perfectly conceivable that different authors chose to emphasize different aspects of the same events and the same history. It's almost as if Professor Ehrman is eager to find reasons for abandoning his faith and any hint that the gospels might have internal inconsistencies is seized upon as justification for pitching it aside.

"In Matthew, Mark and Luke, you find no trace of Jesus being divine," he says, his voice urgent. "In John, you do." He points out that in the other three books, it takes the disciples nearly half of Christ's ministry to learn who he is. John says no, no, everyone knew it from the beginning. "You shouldn't think something [is true] just because you believe it. You need reasons."

Nor should you base a belief on an argument from ignorance. Just because three gospel writers make no mention of Jesus' divinity proves nothing as to whether he was in fact divine. It was certainly a belief from the earliest days of the church that Jesus was divine, The gospel of John and the epistles of Paul and other New Testament writers are shot through with references to his divinity, and, contrary to what Ehrman says, there are indeed some indications of this belief in the synoptic writers.

For instance, Jesus was condemned to death because he arrogated to himself divine prerogatives (Mk. 14: 61-64) like accepting worship (Mat. 28:17) and the authority to forgive sins (Lk.7:48). These examples may not be conclusive, but they certainly rise to the level of "traces" of belief in Jesus' divinity.

The Bible simply wasn't error-free. The mistakes grew exponentially as he traced translations through the centuries. There are some 5,700 ancient Greek manuscripts that are the basis of the modern versions of the New Testament, and scholars have uncovered more than 200,000 differences in those texts.

Most of these are inconsequential errors in grammar or metaphor. But others are profound. The last 12 verses of the Gospel of Mark appear to have been added to the text years later -- and these are the only verses in that book that show Christ reappearing after his death.

Of course, most translations of the Bible note this later addition in Mark, and in any event it means nothing since all the other gospels discuss Christ's post-resurrection appearances. It's not clear what significance Professor Ehrman attaches to the fact that the oldest Marcan manuscripts omit it, but the overwhelming claim of the New Testament is that Jesus literally came back to life after being completely dead. If the New Testament is wrong about this Professor Ehrman needs to explain why. Perhaps he does in his books, but, if so, we hope his explanation goes beyond the standard question-begging argument that the miracle of the resurrection didn't happen because miracles are impossible.

Another critical passage is in 1 John, which explicitly sets out the Holy Trinity (the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit). It is a cornerstone of Christian theology, and this is the only place where it is spelled out in the entire Bible -- but it appears to have been added to the text centuries later, by an unknown scribe.

The claim that this is the only place where the doctrine of the trinity is spelled out is misleading. It sounds as if Professor Ehrman is telling us that this is the only place in the Bible where a reference to Father, Son, and Holy Spirit can be found. Yet Jesus' words in the Great Commission (Mat. 28:19) clearly refer to them. Even so, doubts about whether God is an absolute unity or a tri-unity hardly seem to warrant a complete loss of faith in the reliability of the scriptures and of the existence of God.

[In] John Updike's novel of the fictional Rev. Clarence Arthur Wilmot, a Presbyterian minister, ...., [is] beset by doubt one afternoon in the rectory, [and] "felt the last particles of his faith leave him. The sensation was distinct -- a visceral surrender, a set of dark sparkling bubbles escaping upward . . . there was no God, nor should there be."

For Ehrman, the dark sparkling bubbles cascaded out of him while teaching a class at Rutgers University on "The Problem of Suffering in Biblical Traditions." It was the mid-1980s, the Ethiopian famine was in full swing. Starving infants, mass death. Ehrman came to believe that not only was there no evidence of Jesus being divine, but neither was there a God paying attention.

"I just began to lose it," Ehrman says now, in a conversation that stretches from late afternoon into the evening. "It wasn't for lack of trying. But I just couldn't believe there was a God in charge of this mess . . . It was so emotionally charged. This whole business of 'the Bible is your life, and anyone who doesn't believe it is going to roast in hell.'"

There is probably much more to Ehrman's slide from faith than what this newspaper article can plumb. Indeed, there has to be because otherwise we must conclude that Ehrman possesses a remarkable dearth of theological and philosophical sophistication for a university religion professor. Surely a scholar in religious studies understands that there are many views of salvation besides the one he adverts to above. Surely someone of his stature is aware that the existence of evil is, at very best, inconclusive as an argument against the existence of God.

Professor Ehrman seems to think that if he can no longer hold to a fundamentalist theology there must be no other options available to him and that he must consequently jettison even his belief in God. He sounds very much like a man who simply no longer wanted to believe and grasped whatever reasons lay readily to hand to justify his apostasy.

Bergman's movie about a pastor who embraces the cold, gloomy world of unbelief because, apparently, he can no longer feel God's presence and doesn't really want to believe in God anyway describes a man who seems very much like Bart Ehrman.

Speaking Truth to the Deaf and Blind

You must read this remarkable pair of exchanges that occured on al-Jazeera between Arab-American psychologist Wafa Sultan and a couple of Islamist sympathizers. Dr. Sultan is more than a match for her adversaries whom she reduces to mental pudding by the end of the programs. She is an amazingly brave and eloquent woman. If you have the time, you might also watch the video, the links to which are in the text of the transcript.

No doubt the Islamists are even now confirming the truth of her words by issuing fatwas demanding she be beheaded as a heretic and infidel. She may be a "secularist," but I suspect that she would appreciate our prayers.

<i>Causus Belli</i>

If the assessment of these new IEDs is correct Iran has given the United States yet another reason to launch an assault against it.

March 6, 2006 - U.S. military and intelligence officials tell ABC News that they have caught shipments of deadly new bombs at the Iran-Iraq border. They are a very nasty piece of business, capable of penetrating U.S. troops' strongest armor.

What the United States says links them to Iran are tell-tale manufacturing signatures - certain types of machine-shop welds and material indicating they are built by the same bomb factory.

"The signature is the same because they are exactly the same in production," says explosives expert Kevin Barry. "So it's the same make and model."

U.S. officials say roadside bomb attacks against American forces in Iraq have become much more deadly as more and more of the Iran-designed and Iran-produced bombs have been smuggled in from the country since last October.

"I think the evidence is strong that the Iranian government is making these IEDs, and the Iranian government is sending them across the border and they are killing U.S. troops once they get there," says Richard Clarke, former White House counterterrorism chief and an ABC News consultant. "I think it's very hard to escape the conclusion that, in all probability, the Iranian government is knowingly killing U.S. troops."

This would seem to offer the United States a causus belli. If it continues it's hard to imagine how we could avoid responding to the provocation. The Iranians are betting that Bush is too politically weak to initiate hostilities against them, and that he would, in any case, be reluctant to undertake military action without European allies giving us political cover.

This could be a case of holding correct premises but drawing from them an incorrect conclusion. Tehran may be doing precisely what Saddam did and the Democrats have consistently done with George Bush, i.e. "misunderestimate" him. Our guess is that when Bush thinks the military is ready he will not hesitate to bring the whole sky down around the Iranians' heads whether the Europeans and the Democrats are on board or not. Whether this would be wise or not is a completely different question.

David Berlinski

Intelligent Design the Future has part one of an interview with David Berlinski that is, for a reader of a certain humor, laugh-out-loud funny. Berlinski is a mathematician, agnostic, sympathetic to Intelligent Design, and disdainful of the Neo-Darwinian orthodoxy. It's his scorn for the Darwinian paradigm and its high priests that makes this interview literally hilarious (Well, at least for me). If Berlinski ever decides he no longer wants to be a mathematician he can have a very lucrative career as a stand-up comic.

Part one is here. I can hardly wait for part two.

Where Always is Heard a Discouraging Word

A friend points us to a column in the Boston Globe wherein Michael Kalin puts his finger on something worth noting: People like Jon Stewart are not the harmless chuckle-meisters they seem to be. Rather, by striking a pose of supercilious superiority to the hapless politicians who fall prey to their wit, they actually contribute to an unwillingness on the part of bright, sophisticated young people to enter the realm of politics. Stewart and others like him send the message that politics is for buffoons whose chief purpose is to provide sport for clever, intelligent people like himself. Kalin thinks the problem is most acute for Democrats since liberals dominate Stewart's audience and are most likely to absorb the message that politics is for chumps.

Kalin observes:

Stewart's daily dose of political parody characterized by asinine alliteration leads to a ''holier than art thou" attitude toward our national leaders. People who possess the wit, intelligence, and self-awareness of viewers of ''The Daily Show" would never choose to enter the political fray full of ''buffoons and idiots." Content to remain perched atop their Olympian ivory towers, these bright leaders head straight for the private sector.

Observers since the days of de Tocqueville have often remarked about America's unique dissociation between politicians and citizens of "outstanding character." Unfortunately, the rise of mass media and the domination of television news give Stewart's Menckenesque voice a much more powerful influence than critics in previous generations. As a result, a bright leader who may have become the Theodore Roosevelt or Woodrow Wilson of today instead perceives politics as a supply of sophisticated entertainment, rather than a powerful source of social change.

Most important, this disturbing cultural phenomenon overwhelmingly affects potential leaders of the Democratic Party.

The type of folksy solemnity brandished by President Bush does not resonate with "The Daily Show" demographic. According to a survey by the Pew Research Center, only 2 percent of the show's audience identify themselves as conservatives. At a time when the Democrats desperately need inspired leadership, the show's self-conscious aloofness pervades the liberal punditry.

There's another aspect of this that Kalin doesn't touch upon but which might also be worth noting. People wonder why it is that pundits seem so quick to tear down those in public life. Why is it, folks wonder, that so much vitriolic criticism is heaped upon those in public office.

Perhaps part of the reason, at least, is psychological. The desire to tear others down is rooted in personal narcissism and pride. Pundits, or at least some of them, are supremely egotistical, they want people to think of them as intelligent, sophisticated and highly competent observers of the public scene. One way to subliminally communicate one's superiority to an audience is to persistently give the impression that the people they are reporting upon are blundering fools and that the reporter, were only he or she in the position of power currently occupied by the dolt being skewered, would do far better. They massage their own egos by cutting other people to pieces.

To find fault with another person is to tacitly assert one's own pre-eminence. It gratifies the same psychological need that causes people to make racist remarks or, for that matter, any sort of humiliating comment about another human being. By heaping reproach upon the other one elevates oneself to a loftier position vis a vis the one who is denigrated. There is a place for legitimate criticism, of course, but when the criticism is consistently unkind, unfounded, unfair or trivial we can't help but think that at least part of what motivates it is the satisfaction of one's own ego.

Soren Kierkegaard, the 19th century Danish philosopher, had a slightly different take. He imputed this phenomenon to envy. He wrote:

Every outstanding individual is always an object of envy. Human envy cannot endure the thought that a mere individual should amount to anything, let alone that he should be pre-eminent, and exercise genuine leadreship.

Among journalists and others in the communications culture are many, it seems, who cannot abide the fact that George Bush will go down in history, while they themselves will be historical ciphers. They think this affront to their ego a cosmic injustice, and thus, if they can't gain the recognition they are convinced they deserve, they'll seize every opportunity to destroy those, like the President, of more substantial achievement. That way society will esteem these insignificant scribes as worthy of note even as public contempt for the truly accomplished waxes and deepens.

Envy and egotism are very toxic and corrosive human traits but very common ones, alas, among those who report upon our public servants. They are also, as Dan Rather has discovered to his grief, quite self-destructive.

Rock On

What do Layne Staley, Keith Moon, Darrell Abbott, and Sid Vicious all have in common? They, and a host of others, are all rockers who died prematurely either by gunshot or drug overdose. Something called "Blender" lists them, in a feature on AOL, with 46 other performers from the music world who died before their time, occasionally by tragic accident but usually because of unfortunate lifestyle choices.

The Blender feature offers interesting, if sometimes vaguely tasteless, background on each of the fifty.

Of Pots and Kettles

Barbra Streisand takes President Bush to task on her blog for his various offenses against Hollywood liberalism. In the course of her excoriation of the President she implicitly derides him for being dumb, referring mockingly to the "arrogance of this 'C' student."

Her post, unfortunately, contains eleven misspelled words, including four in a single sentence, a rather distinctive intellectual achievement, we think. It makes us wonder what Babs' own college GPA was.

Drudge has the details.

Striving For the Silver

The satirical blog The Onion has the scoop. You read it there first:

WASHINGTON, DC-In a press conference on the steps of the Capitol Monday, Congressional Democrats announced that, despite the scandals plaguing the Republican Party and widespread calls for change in Washington, their party will remain true to its hopeless direction.

"We are entirely capable of bungling this opportunity to regain control of the House and Senate and the trust of the American people," Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) said to scattered applause. "It will take some doing, but we're in this for the long and pointless haul."

"We can lose this," Reid added. "All it takes is a little lack of backbone."

Despite plummeting poll numbers for the G.O.P nationwide and an upcoming election in which all House seats and 33 Senate seats are up for contention, Democrats pledged to maintain their party's sheepish resignation.

"In times like these, when the American public is palpably dismayed with the political status quo, it is crucial that Democrats remain unfocused and defer to the larger, smarter, and better-equipped Republican machine," House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said. "If we play our cards right, we will be intimidated to the point of total paralysis."

Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-CT) cited the Bush Administration's bungled response to Hurricane Katrina as a model for Democrats. "Grandmothers drowning in nursing homes, families losing everything, communities torn apart-and the ruling party just sat and watched," Lieberman said. "I'm here to promise that we Democrats will find a way to let you down just like that."

According to Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA), Democrats are not willing to sacrifice their core values-indecision, incoherence, and disorganization-for the sake of short-term electoral gain. "Don't lose faithlessness, Democrats," Kennedy said. "The next election is ours to lose. To those who say we can't, I say: Remember Michael Dukakis. Remember Al Gore. Remember John Kerry."

Kennedy said that, even if the Democrats were to regain the upper hand in the midterm elections, they would still need to agree on a platform and chart a legislative agenda-an obstacle he called "insurmountable."

"Universal health care, the war in Iraq, civil liberties, a living wage, gun control-we're not even close to a consensus within our own ranks," Kennedy said. "And even if we were, we wouldn't know how to implement that consensus."

"Some rising stars with leadership potential like [Sen. Barack] Obama (D-IL) and [New York State Attorney General Eliot] Spitzer have emerged, but don't worry: We've still got some infight left in us," Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean said. "Over the last decade, we've found a reliably losing formula, and we're sticking with it."

Dean reminded Democratic candidates to "stay on our unclear message, maintain a defensive, reactive posture, and keep an elitist distance from voters."

Political consultant and Democratic operative James Carville said that, if properly disseminated, the message of hopelessness could be the Democrats' most effective in more than a decade.

"For the first time in a long time, we're really connecting with the American people, who are also feeling hopeless," Carville said. "If we can harness that and run on it in '06, I believe we can finish a strong second."

Unfortunately for the Dems, when all you have to offer people is negativism and mendacity the best you can hope for is the silver. But, hey, second place isn't bad, or at least it wouldn't be if the elections were the Olympics.

The India Deal

Matt Cooper has a good backgrounder on the nuclear ("nucular," if you're president Bush) deal just closed with India. It still has to be approved by Congress, but it's hard to imagine the Democrats mustering the strength to stop it.

Cooper quotes Bush: "Our Congress has got to understand that it's in our economic interests that India have a civilian nuclear power industry to help take the pressure off the global demand for energy....And so I'm trying to think differently, not to stay stuck in the past," says Bush.

India currently uses a lot of the world's oil and burns a particularly dirty species of coal. Helping them to use nuclear power as an alternative will eventually reduce world demand for oil and clean the air. It will also increase the Indian standard of living and open up markets for American goods, if we're still producing anything twenty years from now. The deal will also help cement relations with the world's largest Democracy and a looming power in that part of the world. If China starts flexing its muscles and casting a covetous eye beyond its borders it'll be good to have friends in the region.

All in all, it sounds like yet another success for an administration that Senator Harry Reid recently declared will be remembered only for its incompetency and not for any achievements.

That Senator Reid. He's such a caution.

Where'd They Go?

Those readers who may be interested in understanding the mysterious case of the missing WMD will want to read this interview with Ryan Mauro, who, at the age of 19, is something of a prodigy on this subject. Don't be deceived by his youth. The fellow has an amazing grasp of the relevant intelligence on the question of what happened to the Iraqi weapons and weapons program.

The one sentence summary: The Bush administration was absolutely correct to claim that Iraq had a working WMD program prior to our invasion in 2003. Anyone who seeks to tar Bush with the claim that he lied about WMD is, if Mr. Mauro is to be believed, either ignorant of the evidence or doesn't care what the evidence shows.

Why the Mainline Church is Shrivelling

If ever an interlocutor ventures to wonder why the mainline churches of European provenience are in demographic free fall point him or her to this article by Mark Tooley in the Weekly Standard.

It is one thing to bow before others as we wash their feet in self abnegating humility. It is something else to bow behind others to plant a smooch on their caboose in abject self-contempt.

The following are the apologies and self-flagellations of American churchmen and women at a recent World Council of Churches conclave:

"Our leaders turned a deaf ear to the voices of church leaders throughout our nation and the world, entering into imperial projects that seek to dominate and control for the sake of our own national interests," lamented the apologetic Americans. "Nations have been demonized and God has been enlisted in national agendas that are nothing short of idolatrous."

After thanking the WCC for its "compassion" after 9/11 and Katrina, the U.S. delegates acknowledged ruefully that they are "citizens of a nation that has done much in these years to endanger the human family and to abuse the creation." In response to post-9/11 sympathy, they said, the United States "responded by seeking to reclaim a privileged and secure place in the world, raining down terror on the truly vulnerable among our global neighbors."

"We lament with special anguish the war in Iraq, launched in deception and violating global norms of justice and human rights," the letter implored. "We acknowledge with shame abuses carried out in our name . . . Lord have mercy."

The U.S. ecclesiastics are also distraught that America has "violated" the "rivers, oceans, lakes, rainforests and wetlands that sustain us" and allowed global warming to go "unchecked" while the earth "veers towards destruction." Indeed, the United States has denied "its complicity and rejects multilateral agreements aimed at reversing disastrous trends."

In the face of global poverty, the United States "clings to . . . possessions rather than shares." And at the same time, Hurricane Katrina "revealed to the world those left behind in our own nation by the rupture of our social contract." Naturally, America refuses to recognize its racism at home and the "racism that infects our policies around the world."

The U.S. delegation thanked the WCC for the "hospitality we don't deserve, for companionship we haven't earned, for an embrace we don't merit." Seeking God's forgiveness, they pleaded, "From a place seduced by the lure of empire we come to you in penitence, eager for grace, grace sufficient to transform spirits grown weary from the violence, degradation, and poverty our nation has sown . . ."

There is so much nonsense and self-loathing in the mea culpas of our church leaders that it would take a book to unravel it all. Suffice it to say that the only thing more ridiculous than a pompous, self-righteous Christian is a pompous, self-righteous Christian who attempts to present himself as the very opposite.

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.