Enlisting Congress Against ID

The Edge runs a letter signed by a number of Darwinian worthies which, along with a book hostile toward Intelligent Design, they sent to every member of Congress. Here are some excerpts from the letter with my remarks:

June 16, 2006

To Members of Congress:

We, the authors and editor of Intelligent Thought, are sending you a copy of the book in hopes that you will consider its message. The book is largely about Intelligent Design (ID), the latest incarnation of creationism. ID is a movement that threatens American science education and with it American economic predominance and credibility.

This is a common scare tactic frequently employed to "poison the well" against ID. It's noteworthy that rarely does anyone ever say precisely how ID threatens science education. Suppose a biology teacher took time to point out to her class, after teaching the lessons on evolution, that some scientists and philosophers believe that this process is purely mechanistic while others, a smaller number, believe it required intelligent input, and explained some of the reasons why. Suppose, too, that a physics or earth-space science teacher discussed with his classes the astonishing fine-tuning of the cosmos and the remarkable fitness of the universe, our galaxy, our solar system and our earth for intelligent life. Suppose further that he concludes that some scholars see in this a fortuitous accident whereas others see in it intention and purpose. How, exactly, would any of this endanger science education?

The recent federal court decision in Dover, Pennsylvania found that ID was not a scientific theory, but a form of religion in disguise. Judge John Jones III, a churchgoing Republican appointed by President Bush, concluded that teaching this doctrine in the public schools represents both bad education and an unconstitutional violation of the First Amendment. President Bush's science advisor, John H. Marburger, has affirmed that 'evolution is the cornerstone of modern biology' and 'intelligent design is not a scientific concept.' And Newt Gingrich has stated that ID has nothing to do with science and shouldn't be taught in science courses.'

One of the three authorities cited above is a scientist. One is a judge and the other is a politician. This is a good example of a logical fallacy called an appeal to irrelevant authority. What Judge Jones or Newt Gingrich say about the nature of ID is totally beside the point. What is germane is what philosophers of science are saying about it and in that field there are a lot of top people who would argue that there is simply no good reason for banishing design arguments from science. See for example, Del Ratszch's outstanding work on this subject Nature, Design, and Science.

Reason and law triumphed in Dover. But ID and its spinoffs continue to threaten American education by ignoring the massive evidence for evolution-the central principle that unites all the biological sciences- and by substituting adherence to religious dogma for the scientific method.

It is simply false to state that ID ignores the evidence for evolution. What it opposes is the claim that evolution is a purely mechanistic process. It is also false to claim that it substitutes religious dogma for the scientific method. There's no "religious dogma" in any of the major ID sources and I challenge any of the signatories of the letter to provide an example to support their allegation.

Our country cannot afford substandard science teaching. Indeed, a national science test just administered by the Department of Education showed a decade-long erosion of scientific proficiency among American high school seniors. We won't cure this problem by questioning scientifically established facts (evolution) and theories (natural selection) and replacing them with unsupported conjectures based on faith.

Nor do we cure substandard teaching by ignoring the difficulties with exclusively physicalist explanations or by encouraging sudents to accept on faith that those difficulties will be somehow, someday resolved.

The controversy over ID vs. evolution is not a scientific controversy. Every scientific body in the US has opposed ID and affirmed the reality of evolution. The "controversy" is about whether sectarian religious views should be taught in the science classroom.

The controversy is not about whether sectarian religious views will be taught in the public school classroonm because clearly no one is pushing for that. The controversy is about whether one metaphysical view - materialism - should be immunized in our public schools against any challenge from competing metaphysical hypotheses.

A list of the signers of the letter can be found at the link. These people know that as long as they can misrepresent and distort the nature of ID they will be able to hold on to their philosophical monopoly in the public schools. They also know that if they were to portray ID accurately they would quickly lose their influence and thus their dominance. Consequently, we will continue to see ID misrepresented as a religious doctrine, a variety of creationism, a scientific fraud, and so on. It's the only way the metaphysical naturalists who dominate the scientific establishment can hold on. They know that the day the door is open to honest debate will be the day that Darwinian materialism begins its decline into scientific and philosophical obsolescence.

Tanks

Here are some interesting facts about the military's M-1 tank courtesy of Strategy Page:

Of the 1,100 American M-1 tanks that have served in Iraq, about seven percent have been badly damaged, at least badly enough to get them shipped back to the factory for rebuilding. Some 70 percent of the Iraqi based M-1s have been in combat. As infantry have known since World War I, tanks draw fire. But they are well protected, and fewer than twenty of the 4,400 tank crewmen involved have been killed, two thirds of those while standing up in a turret hatch, with at least head and shoulders exposed. The main cause of lost tanks is, as it has been since World War II, is mines and bombs. A few tanks have rolled over particularly large bombs, which in some cases flipped the tank. But other times, mines blow off one of the tracks, immobilizing the tank and making it the center of a fierce fight. But the terrorists and anti-government forces have come to avoid American tanks. Yes, these 69 ton behemoths can be hurt, but only at great risk and cost to the attacker. In addition to the M-1s three machine-guns, the 120mm gun has special shells for urban warfare, shells that are particularly deadly against gunmen trying to hide in buildings.

One reason the Iraqi military is not yet ready to fight on its own is that it lacks this kind of weaponry and the training it takes to use it. There's little doubt that eventually some of these needs will be met, but it will take time. To expect the Iraqis to fight their own fight without the armor, air power, UAV's, etc. that American forces have at their disposal is unrealistic. The need for this kind of combat support will keep at least some American troops in Iraq for a long time to come, or at least until the Last Helicopter party wins the presidency.

Russian Diplomats Murdered

How will the Russian government react to this:

A group linked to al Qaeda said it has killed four Russian diplomats it had held hostage, according to a statement and video on a Web site Sunday.

The group -- the Mujahedeen Shura Council -- said it had beheaded three of the men and shot one to death. A video also posted on the Web site appeared to show one of the men being beheaded, another man already beheaded and a third man being shot in the head. The fourth man did not appear in the video.

The same group posted a statement last Monday demanding Moscow withdraw its troops from Chechnya and "release all our brothers and sisters" from prison within 48 hours. In the statement last week, the group added, "God enabled the lions of unification to capture four Russian diplomats in Iraq and kill a fifth," alluding to an attack June 3, when a car belonging to the Russian Embassy in Iraq came under fire.

Embassy official Vitaly Titov was killed in the attack, and diplomats Fyodor Zaitsev, Rinat Agliuglin, Anatoly Smirnov and Oleg Fedoseyev were kidnapped.

We could not bring ourselves to watch it, but if you care to there's a video here.

Counterterrorism Blog reminds us that:

Russia has been known for dealing with terrorists with sometimes excessive force. And not only with Chechen rebels. For example, in September 1985 when four Russian diplomats were kidnapped in Beirut by Hezbollah, the then USSR responded in kind by first abducting a family member of an Hezbollah leader and then killing him very, very gruesomely. The hostages were given back right away and Russia was never targeted in Lebanon again.

Russia has no friends among the Islamic jihadis. They are hated by the Islamists for their war against the Chechens today and for what they did in Afghanistan in the 1970s. It's hard to imagine that the Russians will do nothing, but it's also hard to imagine what might be within their power to do.

Culture of Corruption

The Washington Times wonders why it is that a corruption-conscious media has, with very few exceptions, ignored the record of Rep. Jack Murtha. Of course the fact that he's an antiwar Democrat may not be irrelevant to the question.

Read the Times' editorial and for exercise ask yourself whether you would only be finding this stuff out for the first time now if Murtha were a pro-administration Republican. Here's the core of it:

Last June, the Los Angeles Times reported how the ranking member on the defense appropriations subcommittee has a brother, Robert Murtha, whose lobbying firm represents 10 companies that received more than $20 million from last year's defense spending bill. "Clients of the lobbying firm KSA Consulting -- whose top officials also include former congressional aide Carmen V. Scialabba, who worked for Rep. Murtha as a congressional aide for 27 years -- received a total of $20.8 million from the bill," the L.A. Times reported.

In early 2004, according to Roll Call, Mr. Murtha "reportedly leaned on U.S. Navy officials to sign a contract to transfer the Hunters Point Shipyard to the city of San Francisco." Laurence Pelosi, nephew of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, at the time was an executive of the company which owned the rights to the land. The same article also reported how Mr. Murtha has been behind millions of dollars worth of earmarks in defense appropriations bills that went to companies owned by the children of fellow Pennsylvania Democrat, Rep. Paul Kanjorski. Meanwhile, the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan campaign-finance watchdog group, lists Mr. Murtha as the top recipient of defense industry dollars in the current 2006 election cycle.

As Rep. Joe Wilson, South Carolina Republican, has said, "If there is a potential pattern where Congressman Murtha has helped other Democrats secure appropriations that also benefited relatives of those members, I believe this would be something that merits further review by the ethics committee."

It's odd that the media, which has been fairly unbiased in going after corrupt politicians recently, has gone silent on Mr. Murtha's questionable actions. Or maybe it isn't. Since December, Mr. Murtha has become the darling of the antiwar crowd, and, as we've seen with other such darlings, scrutinizing their behavior is considered disrespectful. But as we're on the subject, few might recall that after the massive 1980 Abscam scandal, Mr. Murtha was named by the FBI as an "unindicted co-conspirator."

The LA Times broke this story a year ago, but because Murtha has become useful to the anti-war crowd in the interim neither they nor anyone else in the liberal media have shown much interest in pressing the issue.

Treacherous <i>Times</i>

Andrew McCarthy over at NRO has an excellent column on the "Media's War Against the War." He writes specifically about the boneheaded outing by the New York Times and the LA Times of the government's tracking of financial transactions made by terror suspects. The process appears to have been completely legal but may have been rendered ineffective by the Times' stories:

For the second time in seven months, the Times has exposed classified information about a program aimed at protecting the American people against a repeat of the September 11 attacks. On this occasion, it has company in the effort: The Los Angeles Times runs a similar, sensational story. Together, the newspapers disclose the fact that the United States has covertly developed a capability to monitor the nerve center of the international financial network in order to track the movement of funds between terrorists and their facilitators.

The effort, which the government calls the "Terrorist Finance Tracking Program" (TFTP), is entirely legal. There are no conceivable constitutional violations involved. The Supreme Court held in United States v. Miller (1976) that there is no right to privacy in financial-transaction information maintained by third parties. Here, moreover, the focus is narrowed to suspected international terrorists, not Americans, and the financial transactions implicated are international, not domestic. This is not data mining, and it does not involve fishing expeditions into the financial affairs of American citizens. Indeed, few Americans even have information that is captured by the program - though there would be nothing legally offensive even if they did.

There is much more in McCarthy's piece which merits a careful read. Here are two more graphs from the column:

...the most salient thing we learn from today's compromise ... is that the program has been highly effective at keeping us safe. According to the government, it has helped identify and locate terrorists and their financial backers; it has been instrumental in charting terrorist networks; and it has been essential in starving these savage organizations of their lifeblood: funding.

It was in view of the [program's] palpable value in protecting American lives, its obvious legal propriety, and the plain fact that it was being responsibly conducted that the administration pleaded with the newspapers not to reveal it after government officials despicably leaked it. Exposing the program would tell the public nothing about official misconduct. It would accomplish only the educating of al Qaeda - the nation's enemy in an ongoing war; an enemy well-known to be feverishly plotting new, massive attacks - about how better to evade our defenses. About how better to kill us.

PowerLine notes that:

In its editorial on the subject today, the New York Times offers no shred of an argument concerning the possible illegality or overbreadth of the program. It cites no instance of abuse. Rather, the Times argues "these efforts need to be done under a clear and coherent set of rules, with the oversight of Congress and the courts." The Times purports to invoke the rule of law where no law has been broken, and where the Times itself has both broken the law and damaged American national security.

And, we might add, they've compromised our safety for a single reason: They espied an opportunity to make life more difficult for George Bush. Had Bill Clinton been president and asked them not to run the story as the Bush people did, it is hard to imagine either paper refusing the request.

Michelle Malkin is receiving photoshop entries from around the country in response to the papers' despicable decision to publicize one of the tools we use to protect ourselves from the savages. Here's a sample:

Distancing Oneself From ID

Intelligent Design theorists believe that the designer's activity in the universe can be detected. Many Christian scholars, although they believe God to be the creator, reject ID because they hold that there is no way to detect God's activity, at least not in nature. This poses for them a very serious problem which Denyse O'Leary highlights here.

Here is what I think drives that sort of behavior: Some Christians in science are into emotional meltdown re ID because they have suddenly realized what is at stake:

The only way to rule out ID is to deny that God acts in the universe, period. If he acts at all, his action may in fact be detected.

If one insists as an article of faith that God's actions cannot be detected in principle or that it is wrong to attempt to detect them, that is a new article of faith, and one that is at odds with traditional Christian religion and conventional interpretations of the Bible.

but more generally,

For a long time, many fine Christian scholars got along well with materialists, more or less, because no one put the issue squarely, as the ID guys have done. So Christianity in the intellectual world has been dying the death of deniability: What can you deny and still be a Christian? But now the issue is so basic that it can't just be sophistically manipulated out of existence. Gradually realizing their dilemma, in an intuitive way, some sincere Christians retreat into meaningless abuse of ID hypotheses.

It gets better. Read the whole thing.

The main problem, though, for Christians who hold that God's work is undetectable in nature is that they have to deny the possibility of ever recognizing a genuine miracle. If miracles are indeed unrecognizable then no one could have known the miracles that Jesus performed to really be miracles, and thus the Biblical testimony about miracles must be unreliable. This conclusion seems a high price to pay in order to try to seem reasonable to one's secularist colleagues.

Follow-Up

I may have been remiss by not providing sufficient background about my latest post on Democracy (Screwtape Proposes a Toast) that might have facilitated the readers understanding of the article by C. S. Lewis.

Prior to his writing of Screwtape Proposes a Toast, Lewis wrote a book titled The Screwtape Letters, a work of fiction. But only fiction in the sense that the characters and the dialogue sprang from the imagination of one of the greatest modern Christian writers. Yet in our terrestrial reality the issues confronted in this book play out in our lives every day.

The book contains thirty-one letters from Screwtape to his nephew, Wormwood, who is Screwtape's underling in fiendishness. Screwtape is an upper-level functionary in the complex bureaucracy of the underworld. The "Screwtape Letters" are friendly advice from this elder statesman to a front-line tempter on how to procure the soul of his "patient", a young Christian man just trying to live out his everyday life.

Screwtape Proposes a Toast is a short story that Lewis wrote after the "letters" as kind of a finale. In both works, Lewis placed himself inside the head of Screwtape and communicates things as they would be seen by the Screwtape character. As a result, that which is morally bad is good and what is morally good is bad.

Sorry for any confusion.

God's Omnipotence

Author and professor Tony Campolo speaks on the topic of God's omnipotence:

All the sin and suffering that have marked human history since Eden are the result of God relinquishing control over what we do. People like you and me abuse our God-given freedom and thus increase the hurt and destruction that is in the world.

To all of this, most readers will say, "We agree!" Yet, when I dare to say that God is no longer in total control over this world, so many of my fellow Christians go ballistic. They refuse to stop and think. If they did, they would realize that God must be self-limited if we are to come of age and become fully human. Without God choosing to be limited, we could not love God, because love is something that must be freely chosen-nor could we freely choose to love each other. And love is what is ultimately important.

I'm not sure what Campolo means by "no longer in total control." If he means that God has granted man a measure of autonomy to run things as he will then I think he's right. God doesn't directly cause every event or every decision that is made on earth.

If, however, he means that God could not change things even if He wanted to then I think he's wrong. In any case, there's more at the link.

On Democracy

I have been against the concept of a Democratic form of government ever since I realized that a democracy is simply two wolves and a sheep deciding what they will have for dinner. Remember that this country was founded as a Constitutional Republic because our founding fathers realized that a democracy was inherently destined to fail and only lately has our government morphed into a democratic form of government.

Recently I read Screwtape Proposes a Toast by C. S. Lewis and realized that I found an ally for my position from an altogether different perspective. It's fascinating to realize that C. S. Lewis wrote this almost 50 years ago and, to me, it's prophetic.

The entire story makes for an interesting read but you can scroll down to the following paragraph:

But by the latter part of the century the situation was much simpler, and also much more ominous. In the English sector (where I saw most of my front-line service) a horrible thing had happened. The Enemy, with His usual sleight of hand, had largely appropriated this progressive or liberalizing movement and perverted it to His own ends. Very little of its old anti-Christianity remained. The dangerous phenomenon called Christian Socialism was rampant. Factory owners of the good old type who grew rich on sweated labor, instead of being assassinated by their workpeople -- we could have used that -- were being frowned upon by their own class. The rich were increasingly giving up their powers, not in the face of revolution and compulsion, but in obedience to their own consciences. As for the poor who benefited by this, they were behaving in a most disappointing fashion. Instead of using their new liberties -- as we reasonably hoped and expected -- for massacre, rape, and looting, or even for perpetual intoxication, they were perversely engaged in becoming cleaner, more orderly, more thrifty, better educated, and even more virtuous. Believe me, gentledevils, the threat of something like a really healthy state of society seemed then perfectly serious.

Advice For Students

Calvin Seerveld offers some good advice for Christian students attending a secular university. Actually, I think it's good advice for any kind of student in any kind of university. Here are three of his six suggestions:

Major in the best profs, who make you think self-critically and who give solid course content in a field-area that you have gifts for or can be busy with, without noticing the passage of time.

Take a double major, if possible, to promote the ability to do interdisciplinary thinking, a kind of informal philosophy major (if the philosophy available is sophistic, skeptical or "undeep").

Get in-depth knowledge of a certain period: 5th to 4th century B.C. Athens, Renaissance England, Europe around the time of the French Revolution, or America during the 1920s. That is, rather than staying with survey knowledge, get close to a slice of cultural life somewhere, once upon a time, in many of its facets-a form of encyclopedia-historical study. Maybe work for a couple summers or part of a year in an African village, do volunteer work in Central America, or take a job on the south side of Chicago or in Toronto's Regent Park.

Check out the link for the rest of his recommendations.

Should We Pre-empt?

Ashton B. Carter and William J. Perry, former Clinton assistant secretary of defense and secretary of defense, respectively, call for the United States to blow up on the launch pad the North Korean missile that has recently been fueled and made ready for launch:

[I]f North Korea persists in its launch preparations, the United States should immediately make clear its intention to strike and destroy the North Korean Taepodong missile before it can be launched. This could be accomplished, for example, by a cruise missile launched from a submarine carrying a high-explosive warhead. The blast would be similar to the one that killed terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in Iraq. But the effect on the Taepodong would be devastating. The multi-story, thin-skinned missile filled with high-energy fuel is itself explosive -- the U.S. airstrike would puncture the missile and probably cause it to explode. The carefully engineered test bed for North Korea's nascent nuclear missile force would be destroyed, and its attempt to retrogress to Cold War threats thwarted. There would be no damage to North Korea outside the immediate vicinity of the missile gantry.

Read their whole argument here.

Former Vice-President Walter Mondale has endorsed similar action. Charles Pritchard in the WaPo argues against a pre-emptive strike.

Shameless

PowerLine has come across this quote from a 2003 transcript of a meeting of the Council of Foreign Relations:

I fear that in the run-up to the 2004 election, the administration is considering what is tantamount to a cut-and-run strategy. Their sudden embrace of accelerated Iraqification and American troop withdrawal dates, without adequate stability, is an invitation to failure. The hard work of rebuilding Iraq must not be dictated by the schedule of the next American election.

I have called for the administration to transfer sovereignty, and they must transfer it to the Iraqi people as quickly as circumstances permit. But it would be a disaster and a disgraceful betrayal of principle to speed up the process simply to lay the groundwork for a politically expedient withdrawal of American troops. That could risk the hijacking of Iraq by terrorist groups and former Ba'athists.

The speaker was presidential candidate John Kerry. PowerLine observes that the shameless Senator Flipper was apparently against cutting and running before he was for it.

Do They Care?

The descriptions of the horrors to which our two young soldiers were subjected in Iraq - the two who were captured, tortured, beheaded, and so brutalized that they were unrecognizable - would seem to put Abu Ghraib and other such episodes in a somewhat different light.

How anyone can think that putting underwear on somebody's head and having a dog bark at prisoners is in the same moral universe as what was done to these men escapes me. Yet, the word "torture" is used to describe both as if they are in some bizarre sense morally equivalent.

We were subjected to Abu Ghraib horror stories and photos for months and years after it came to light. We were urged to reflect on what kind of a nation we are that we would spawn people who could do such awful things as put detainees in humiliating and embarrassing poses. Calls went forth demanding that we leave Iraq because we'd lost the moral high ground. Then came revelations of allegations that Korans had been flushed down toilets in Guantanamo and prisoners having been forced to endure loud music. We flagellated ourselves for our barbarity. We condemned ourselves because we were "torturers."

Now we see what genuine evil looks like. We see Americans subjected to unimaginable agony at the hands of sub-human savages. And the MSM can scarcely bring themselves to acknowledge what has happened. A day or two in the news and the story's gone. No photos, no descriptions, no nightly reminders of the evil against which we fight, nothing that would give the American people insight into what real evil is. The left-wing bloggers yawn and return to their fantasies of indicting Karl Rove. The media returns quickly to its fascinations with Tom Cruise and Angelina Jolie. It has no time to be drawing the important distinctions between what our interrogators do and why they do it and what the Islamists do and why. The media spent almost as much time fretting over whether our troops treated Zarqawi roughly before he died than they have on the fate of Kristain Manchaca and Thomas Tucker.

It almost seems as if they just don't care.

Highway to Hell

Blackfive has gun camera footage of the takedown of al-Qaeda in Iraq heavyweight Sheik Mansur and several of his colleagues. Scroll down, read the explanation, and then watch the video.

Sic semper tyrannus.

A Modest Proposal

Rebecca Smithers at The Guardian reports on a statement by British scientists calling for better teaching of evolution. Here are a few excerpts:

The world's leading scientists yesterday urged schools to stop denying the facts of evolution amid controversy over the teaching of creationism.

The national science academies of 67 countries - including the UK's Royal Society - issued a joint statement warning that scientific evidence about the origins of life was being "concealed, denied, or confused". It urged parents as well as teachers to provide children with the facts about the origins and evolution of life on Earth.

It points out that "within science courses taught in certain public systems of education, scientific evidence, data, and testable theories about the origins and evolution of life on Earth are being concealed, denied, or confused with theories not testable by science".

Martin Rees, said: "There is controversy in some parts of the world about the teaching of evolution to pupils and students, so this is a timely statement that makes clear the views of the scientific community. I hope this statement will help those who are attempting to uphold the rights of young people to have access to accurate scientific knowledge about the origins and evolution of life on Earth."

The IAP statement highlighted that "evidence-based facts about the origins and evolution of the Earth and of life on this planet have been established by numerous observations and independently derived experimental results from a multitude of scientific disciplines..."

I fully agree. Students should be taught the facts about the origin of the earth and of life, among the most salient of which is that scientists have no idea how the cosmos or life on earth came about. Let's present our students with all the facts about how incredibly fine-tuned the cosmos is, how necessary it is that the universe be just the way it is within tolerances so fine that they defy comprehension, or else there would be no earth. Let's teach our students the manifold scientific difficulties of any theory of abiogenesis and how extraordinarily difficult it is to imagine a naturalistic origin to life.

Unfortunately, I don't think this is what the august members of the various academies of science have in mind when they call for teaching the facts. They know that if students are taught the facts about the origin and structure of the universe and the difficulties of any purely physicalistic theory of the origin of life, only the most rabid materialist students would be able to avoid the conclusion that there is an intelligence behind it all.

In fact, I propose a test. Let's do what these scientists urge us to do. Let's teach thousands of students the facts of cosmological fine-tuning and the intractable difficulties with all purely material theories of the origin of life and, at the conclusion, poll them on what they now believe the philosophical implications are. I'm willing to bet that significantly more students in the test group than in a control group will be persuaded that any explanation that omits intelligence is inadequate.

Censored Valedictorian

There's been a lot of discussion about the young lady whose valedictory address was stopped short by her high school administration. The usual story line is that the administrators didn't like her overtly Christian references and cut off her microphone when she started to voice them.

This may surprise some Viewpoint readers, but, if what I've read about the case is correct, I don't blame the administrators.

Brittany McComb submitted her speech for approval and agreed to the changes the school authorities made to it. When she got up to deliver her address, however, she disregarded her agreement and re-inserted those passages she had agreed to delete. Consequently, the administrators cut off her microphone.

Ms McComb calls her act an instance of rebelling against authority, but I'd call it an instance of dishonesty. If she felt strongly about the content of her speech then she should not have agreed to the administrators' editing. Having agreed to it she was obligated to keep her word. To do otherwise was deceitful and does not reflect well on the faith she was so anxious to publically acknowledge.

We can debate whether the administration should have insisted she delete the explicitly Christian references. They may have been wrong to deny her the freedom to say what she wanted about her faith, but whether they were wrong or not, she was wrong to go back on her word, and the authorities were justified in preventing her from continuing.

Smart Dust

This is interesting: U.S. Forces may be using "smart dust" in Iraq and Afghanistan according to Strategy Page:

"Smart Dust" is basically very miniaturized electronic devices. This is similar to stuff like RFID, smart cards, EZ Pass and those rice grain size tracking devices you can have injected into your pets. But Smart Dust takes this all to a new level by being small enough to be disguised as dirt, the kind you can pick up in your shoes or clothing. Each bit of Smart Dust can be given a unique serial number that, when hit with an "interrogation signal" from troops on the ground, or aircraft overhead, is broadcast back. Some forms of Smart Dust are believed to be in use in Iraq and Afghanistan. It's also believed that Smart Dust played a role in the recent death of al Qaeda leader Abu Musab al Zarqawi.

In this case, if someone were able to sprinkle some Smart Dust on Zarqawi's clothing, it would have been a simple matter to track him with great precision. Iraqis have already heard of this stuff, but regard it more as "magic dust." Iraqis have a tendency to exaggerate American capabilities, especially when it comes to technology. But U.S. troops have learned to use this exaggerated reputation to their advantage, threatening Iraqis with magical capabilities that don't exist. That often works, just like smart dust.

It doesn't strike me as likely that this stuff was sprinkled on Zarqawi. If we were close enough to him to do that, if we knew where he was when the smart dust was sprinkled, it seems we would have taken him out then. But maybe not.

Pennsylvania's Embarrassment

Were it not for the fact that he keeps popping up on television talk shows and pushed to the fore by his Democratic colleagues, the kind thing to do with John Murtha would be to drop one's eyes and politely tune him out, like one does a senile grandfather. Unfortunately, Murtha does not allow us to ignore him. Like Cindy Sheehan he seems to be everywhere we turn, and, since his statements are not disavowed by his fellow Democrats, we are justified in assuming that he speaks for a significant segment of that party.

His recent appearance on Meet the Press reflects the utter thoughtlessness and disingenuousness of the modern Democrats with regard to the war in Iraq. In calling for a "redeployment" of our troops from Iraq Murtha suggested that they be removed to "the periphery" and gave Okinawa as a possible site. Okinawa is certainly peripheral, about like Pluto is peripheral.

As Jack Kelly at Real Clear Politics observes, Murtha's recommendation is just crazy:

Let us be clear about the Murtha "strategy." It is insane. It would be easier to defend Germany from Chicago; Alaska from Miami, or Hawaii from Pittsburgh than to defend Iraq from Okinawa. It would take 10-12 hours -- and six refuelings -- for F-16s to fly from Kadena AFB on Okinawa to Baghdad (assuming China and India would grant overflight rights, a dubious assumption). Mr. Murtha may regard this as "very quickly," but the Air Force does not.

As Bugs Bunny would say: "What a maroon!"

Another howler is Mr. Murtha's assertion that U.S. troops currently serving in Iraq would be "welcomed" in Okinawa. For decades Okinawans have been seeking a reduction in the U.S. military presence, both because they covet the land on which U.S. military bases sit, and because of a long history of pacifism. The U.S. recently agreed to withdraw 7,000 Marines from Okinawa.

Mr. Murtha's absurdities were not limited to just these. His claim that our killing of Abu Zarqawi shows we don't need ground troops in Iraq is risible. Just because an Air Force jet delivered the munition that ended Zarqawi's reign of terror doesn't mean that all the tracking and intelligence work and so on would have happened if we hadn't had troops on the ground. If we had heeded Murtha's demands to flee Iraq, Zarqawi would be ensconced today in one of Saddam's palaces leisurely slicing off the heads of everyone who has cooperated with the coalition for the past four years. Murtha doesn't care about this. Betraying those who placed their trust in us doesn't seem to bother him. We can commiserate with them, he says, from Okinawa.

Of course Rep. Murtha doesn't really intend that our troops defend Iraq. If he did he wouldn't be calling for a pullout in the first place. What would be the sense in pulling out only to have to rush back in again? He knows that once we're out there's nothing that would ever get us back in. John Murtha, Kelly's column suggests, is either dishonest, stupid, or senile. In any case he's an embarrassment. Read the rest of his piece to see how Kelly comes to that assessment.

Thirteen For Surrender

A total of thirteen senators, all Democrats, voted for the Kerry/Feingold amendment which would have compelled President Bush to withdraw all American troops from Iraq by July 31st, 2007 regardless of what the consequences of that withdrawal would be for the region or the Iraqi people. Listed here are the thirteen:

Akaka(D-HI), Boxer(D-CA), Durbin(D-IL), Feingold(D-WI), Harkin(D-IA), Inouye(D-HI), Jeffords(I-VT), Kennedy(D-MA), Kerry(D-MA), Lautenberg(D-NJ), Leahy(D-VT), Menendez(D-NJ), Wyden(D-OR)

Shortly after that ballot thirty nine senators voted for a meaningless resolution which would have essentially conveyed to the president the Senate's wish that we get out of Iraq as soon as conditions are right for a withdrawal. Six Democrats joined fifty four Republicans to vote against the resolution. The six Democrats were Mark Dayton, Mary Landrieu, Mark Pryor, Joe Lieberman, Bill Nelson and Ben Nelson. Lincoln Chaffee was the sole Republican to vote for the resolution.

During the debate Senator Russ Feingold made the statement that "It is time to tell the Iraqis that we have done what we can do militarily." What on earth makes the senator say this? The presence of our troops defends the Iraqis from predatory neighbors and is the best immediate protection from the ravages of insurgents and terrorists. If the senator thinks that withdrawing before Iraq is prepared to stand on its own is in our, or anyone's (besides the thugs') best interests, then, however smart he may be, he is exceptionally foolish.

Hope For Paralysis Victims

This is a hopeful development:

Scientists have used stem cells and a soup of nerve-friendly chemicals to not just bridge a damaged spinal cord but actually regrow the circuitry needed to move a muscle, helping partially paralyzed rats walk.

Years of additional research is needed before such an experiment could be attempted in people. But the work marks a tantalizing new step in stem cell research that promises to one day help repair damage from nerve-destroying illnesses such as Lou Gehrig's disease, or from spinal cord injuries.

According to the report the stem cells used were mouse embryonic stem cells. Read the whole account here.

The Darwinians constantly remind us that unless science is based on the assumption of evolution it will never progress. I wonder what role evolutionary thinking played in this research.

"Cut and Run" Dems

The Senate is voting today on a proposal by Senators John Kerry and Russ Feingold which would order the president to fly the last helicopter out of Iraq by this time next year regardless of conditions on the ground.

Michelle Malkin has lots of information on the debate and an alternative proposal, none of which will be helpful to those who wish to bamboozle the public into thinking that the Democrats are responsible adults capable of leading this nation in the war on terror.

Malkin captures the essence of the Democrats' strategy for the war in this photo of Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid:

The Democrats disingenuously bristle at the suggestion that they are demanding that the U.S. "cut and run." They're doing no such thing, they insist, they're only calling for a "change in direction," but the change, of course, is in the direction in which we are running.

Perplexities of Atheism

Carson Holloway has a strange piece on atheist biologist Richard Dawkins at National Review Online. I say that it's strange because part of it is a criticism of Dawkins for insisting on propagating what he believes to be the truth despite the harmful effects it has apparently had on the psychological health of some of his readers. Holloway thinks this is irresponsible:

Dawkins, however, appears to be utterly indifferent to the spiritual and emotional difficulties that his writings cause for many of his readers. He mentions one reader for whom The Selfish Gene initiated a "personal crisis." Its apparent debunking of any higher purpose in nature caused this person "a series of bouts of depression" lasting over a decade. In another case, a teacher wrote to reprimand Dawkins for his book's effect on a young student who was driven to tears after concluding that The Selfish Gene teaches that life is "empty and purposeless."

What is Dawkins's response to those for whom his popularization of evolution causes so much pain? Essentially it is this: "Keep a stiff upper lip." If "something is true," he responds, "no amount of wishful thinking can undo it." No doubt this is correct. But we might with as much propriety ask Dawkins: "If something is painful, does its truth justify inflicting it on people who find it disturbing?" Let us grant - only, to be sure, for the sake of argument - that Dawkins's Darwinian explanation of Life, the Universe, and Everything is true. Does this in itself justify his strident shoving of it into our public discourse, knowing full well the emotional distress it will cause the spiritually sensitive?

Dawkins can be faulted for many things, and Holloway is on target in his other criticisms in the essay, but this one is weird. Even if some people (e.g. students) are forced by their instructors to read Dawkins, the fault is not with Dawkins for writing his books, but rather with those who compel them to be read. Moreover, we should not avert our eyes from the truth just because it has unfortunate effects. If life is indeed utterly meaningless in a godless cosmos then students should be helped to see that. Such truths should be proclaimed throughout society. If God is dead then the human condition is absurd. Let people see clearly the consequences and implications of their metaphysical commitments.

Furthermore, Holloway is faulting Dawkins on moral grounds for being insensitive to the effect that his theories have on his readers, but why should Dawkins be moved by a moral argument? If there is no God then why is it wrong to cause people to suffer psycho-emotional distress? If people get hurt by what he says, Dawkins might well reply, what is wrong with that? Why should he care? Moral right and wrong only exist if there is a transcendent ground for them. If there is no such ground then the whole concept of morality reduces to notions of personal taste and preference.

There is an irony here, though, for people like Dawkins. In the words of Holloway, as a scientist Dawkins "is concerned above all with the truth, with simply seeing things as they are, regardless of any other interests or concerns."

But it is only the theist who has any basis for placing such a high value on truth. An evolutionary atheist like Dawkins has no grounds for it all. To see this one might ask why ought we subordinate all else to truth? Why should truth be so important to us? Why does it matter?

Darwinians might reply that knowing truth enhances survival and thus prizing the truth is a trait that nature has selected for in humans. But even if this is correct it's not clear that believing what's true has any more survival value than believing what's false. If some primitive tribe believes that the more children one has the greater their reward will be in an afterlife, that tribe may eventually come to crowd out competitors who correctly believe (the atheist would acknowledge) that there is no afterlife. If religious belief, despite being false, nevertheless enhances human life, gives us solace in our grief, hope in times of despair, and joy throughout then why should people not engage in it even so? The Dawkinsian can give no answer. Is it not better that a person be made happy in this brief life by believing a falsehood than be depressed by seeing the truth that his life is void of meaning.

Truth is a value, in a world without God, only to the extent that it's possession makes our lives better in some way and improves the probability our genes will survive, but it often doesn't do this. The truth is often depressing, discouraging, and debilitating whereas myths and superstition are often uplifting and enriching.

On the other hand, if God does exist, truth takes on a much deeper importance. A God which is the locus and source of all that is Good, all that is Beautiful, and all that is True is intrinsically valuable and to value God is to value truth. To love God is to love truth. If God exists truth matters. Indeed, our eternal destiny may well pivot upon it.

For Dawkins, however, the exaltation of truth is a value plucked out of thin air. He may have as easily plucked out personal comfort or power. His decision to live by the credo that truth matters is no more grounded in anything than if he had chosen instead to live by the credo that ignorance is bliss. Thus his belief that we should embrace the truth regardless of its consequences is obligatory only upon him. He has chosen it as an obligation for himself, but it's binding on no one else. Others may validly absolutize different values and Dawkins has no business saying that they shouldn't.

Dawkins finds himself in the odd position of treasuring truth while simultaneously deriding the only thing - belief in God - that could afford him a non-subjective, non-arbitrary, basis for his choice.

Why They Hope We'll Lose

We and others have often made the claim that the left actually is hoping for an American defeat in Iraq. This seems preposterous to some and obvious to others, and it raises the question why they should feel this way. There are at least three reasons, I think, that lead people on the left to cheer every American setback and essentially to call for our surrender:

First, a defeat in Iraq would be a crushing defeat for Republicans. The left hates Republicans in general and Bush in particular and would rather see this country stymied in its greatest international undertaking since WWII than see either Bush or the Republicans get credit for having pulled it off.

Parenthetically, why they hate Bush is another interesting question which deserves an answer. Some of it is due to their bitterness over the 2000 election, but in large part it's because of their embrace of the sexual revolution. The perpetuation of the radical shift in sexual mores of the last forty years, a religious obligation for leftists, requires unfettered access to abortion on demand. Bush has made it clear that he will appoint judges and justices who do not share that enthusiasm. His greatest crime in their eyes, therefore, is the threat he poses to abortion rights and thus to the ability of individuals to treat sex as a form of recreation.

Indeed, we can take this analysis one step further and point out that it has always been part of the leftist agenda, going back at least as far as Marx's Communist Manifesto, to destroy bourgeois marriage and thus traditional notions of the family. Sexual license, gay marriage, and easy divorce are three vehicles the left seeks to employ to this end, and Bush not only opposes them, but is perhaps the only real political obstacle standing in the way of the public accepting the first two as it has the third.

Second, a defeat in Iraq would make us more reluctant to use force in the future. It would, like Vietnam, chasten us for a generation and make the use of military power much more difficult for future presidents. This prospect has a great deal of appeal for pacifists who are already deeply resentful that we used the military in Iraq in the first place.

Third, the secular left, simply put, hates America. They hate America because America is religious and they despise religion. They hate America because America promotes capitalism and they despise capitalism. They hate America because we have a checkered history and they see evil as a stain inherent in the fabric of our nation and its people. Mostly, though, they hate America because they themselves are Americans and they hate themselves.

They are burdened with guilt and self-loathing, and they project onto their nation the sins and impulses, real or imagined, that they find in their own souls. Hatred for America becomes a form of expiation for the guilt they feel for being American.

There may be other reasons why the left yearns to see the United States brought low by the sixth-century savages against whom we struggle, but in any such list these three surely rank near the top.

Racist Assumptions

La Shawn Barber calls our attention to this cartoon in the Indianapolis Star intended as commentary on a case in Indianapolis' Marion County Juvenile Detention Center where nine guards are accused of raping six teenage female inmates:

Here's a photo of the guards, or at least those whose photos were published:

So why did the cartoonist and the Star assume that if someone was a rapist he must be white? Imagine if the cartoon showed a black guard when all the accused were in fact white. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton would be picketing the Star's offices and demanding reparations.

Sounds like the racists at the Indianapolis Star need a little consciousness-raising.

Speaking of racists, now that mayor Ray Nagin has his wish that New Orleans be a "chocolate city" isn't it just a little ironic that he's had to call in a mostly white National Guard to keep the city from spiralling into chaos?

Andrew's Growing Wearisome

Andrew Sullivan looks more foolish with every passing day. In a recent post he quotes from lefty writer Ron Suskind's book a passage that purports to relate a discussion that George Bush had with CIA Director George Tenet concerning the harsh interrogation of a captured terrorist. Sullivan has no idea how accurate the passage is, he has no idea what the nuances were, or what the full context was, yet on the basis of it he proclaims that:

This shallow, monstrous, weak, and petty man is still the president. God help us.

Andrew's name-calling is as childish as it is distasteful. Why does Sullivan think Bush shallow? Because he hasn't read the books Sullivan has? Why is he monstrous? Because he's determined not to let his critics deter him from using harsh measures on terrorists who may have information that could save the lives of our sons and daughters?

Why Sullivan thinks Bush weak or petty is impossible to imagine except perhaps that these were the most unkind adjectives which came to his mind. One thing that Bush has not been throughout his presidency is weak, and even many of his enemies have been impressed with how gracious and unpetty he has been to them.

Andrew Sullivan, who has never had to bear anywhere near the weight that George Bush has had to shoulder, is certainly in no position to call Bush weak. Indeed, a man whose greatest accomplishment is constructing arguments in support of a state blessing of the desire of some men to have oral and anal sex with other men looks rather buffoonish calling a president who has in four years liberated 50 million people from tyranny "shallow," "weak" and "petty."

So what was it, exactly, that elicited this puerile outburst from Andrew? Sullivan quotes from a review of Suskind's book:

Bush "was fixated on how to get Zubaydah to tell us the truth," Suskind writes, and he asked one briefer, "Do some of these harsh methods really work?" Interrogators did their best to find out, Suskind reports. They strapped Abu Zubaydah to a water-board, which reproduces the agony of drowning. They threatened him with certain death. They withheld medication. They bombarded him with deafening noise and harsh lights, depriving him of sleep. Under that duress, he began to speak of plots of every variety - against shopping malls, banks, supermarkets, water systems, nuclear plants, apartment buildings, the Brooklyn Bridge, the Statue of Liberty. With each new tale, "thousands of uniformed men and women raced in a panic to each . . . target." And so, Suskind writes, "the United States would torture a mentally disturbed man and then leap, screaming, at every word he uttered."

Mind you that this is from a review of a book whose claims are based on second and third hand information written by a man who is not eager to pen a positive portrayal of the administration. Throwing caution to the wind, however, and accepting it all at face value, Sullivan vents his outrage that a mentally disturbed man would be subject to the illusion he was drowning, loud noise, bright lights, and sleep deprivation.

Sullivan assumes that because the terrorist, like probably most terrorists, is mentally unstable that he therefore cannot be expected to know of any plots against American lives, but this is asinine. Simple-mindedness is not equivalent to ignorance.

Moreover, it's not clear to me why these measures, as unpleasant as they are, should be considered torture. Is it torture to frighten someone into thinking they will be harmed? Is it torture to make them uncomfortable? If so, if that is to be our standard of torture, then we have put ourselves in the position of having to say that it is absolutely wrong to fight against terrorists in the first place or to take them prisoner because neither of these is possible without causing them either fear or discomfort or both.

Sullivan may (if he has run out of vile epithets to hurl our way) reply by saying that we are free to do what we must until the terrorist is no longer a threat to us, but once in custody he is no longer a threat and should therefore be treated as gently as possible consistent with preventing him from becoming a threat again.

Generally speaking, I would agree with this, but a terrorist is not just a threat when he is able to harm us by what he does. He's also a threat if he's able to harm us by what he doesn't do. In other words, threats can be active or passive. Consider a scientist who has discovered a cure for some terrible disease, say avian flu or a childhood cancer, but refuses to divulge his knowledge so that much terrible suffering could be ended. Instead, he states that there are too many people in the world, and therefore he is going to keep quiet about his cure until millions die off. I would argue that that scientist is directly responsible for the suffering and deaths of everyone who perishes from the plague because he had knowledge that could have, and would have, saved their lives but refused to share it. He is in a position similar to the terrorist in custody who refuses to disclose information that would save lives. Both the scientist and the terrorist are passive threats to the lives of others, and the terrorist in custody is therefore not significantly different from the terrorist in the field.

At any rate, Andrew Sullivan's simplistic approach to these problems and his willingness to verbally stomp upon and smear those who disagree with him is growing increasingly wearisome and odious.

Photoshopping

Hot Air has a little photoshop fun with Congressman Murtha and others. You might need to download the recommended software to view the images.

Here's our favorite. It subtly catches the essence of both Reps. Murtha and Kennedy in a single artful composition:

Inspiration and Influence

For what it's worth the American Film Institute lists the 100 most inspirational films of all time. I say "for what it's worth" because any list that ranks Chariots of Fire dead last in terms of inspiration is deeply flawed.

You'll have to go to the link to see the ranking but, no, there are no Jackie Chan or Steven Seagal movies on the list.

Meanwhile, Forbes has a list of the 100 most influential celebrities. If these are the people exerting the greatest influence over our culture, well, a lot of questions have just been answered. Here's the top ten:

1. Tom Cruise

2. Rolling Stones

3. Oprah Winfrey

4. U2

5. Tiger Woods

6. Steven Spielberg

7. Howard Stern

8. 50 Cent

9. Cast of The Sopranos

10. Dan Brown

Lord help us all.

Thanks to First Things for the tip.

Supreme Common Sense

Common sense appears to have afflicted the new Supreme Court, at least if the majority's reasoning in the recently decided Hudson v. Michigan is any indicator.

Cases wherein missteps by police have caused courts to let obviously dangerous people go free have always seemed to be exceedingly foolish. If the police overstep their bounds then the police should be disciplined, but to set a criminal free or to throw out incriminating evidence because the police may have violated procedural rules essentially punishes the public for the fault of the enforcement officers.

A majority on the Court now agrees:

The Constitution does not require the government to forfeit evidence gathered through illegal "no knock" searches, the Supreme Court ruled yesterday, in a far-reaching ruling that could encourage police with search warrants to conduct more aggressive raids.

At issue in yesterday's case, Hudson v. Michigan , No. 04-1360, was the "knock and announce" rule, which has deep roots in Anglo American law. In 1995, the court made it part of what defines a "reasonable search" under the Fourth Amendment, without saying how it should be enforced. Before yesterday's decision, police executing a search warrant in most jurisdictions had to worry that they might lose a case if they did not first knock on the door, announce themselves and wait a reasonable time for a response before forcing their way in.

Now, unless state law says otherwise, the most they would face is administrative discipline or a lawsuit for damages.

Scalia's opinion focused on the guilty defendants who go free when otherwise valid evidence is thrown out of court. He concluded that that "social cost" is too high in relation to whatever additional privacy protection residents get from the "knock and announce" rule.

Today's police are more professional than those of 45 years ago, he observed, and there is "increasing evidence that police forces across the United States take the constitutional rights of citizens seriously."

In this environment, Scalia argued, lawsuits and administrative proceedings are enough to ensure that police comply with the "knock and announce" rule.

The decision suggests that reasonable people now hold sway on the Court and augurs well for the future. Scalia was joined by Roberts, Kennedy, Alito, and Thomas.

Fossil Birds

I know this is just a news story and news stories are notorious for being misleading, but I have to ask why these newly-discovered fossils are called "missing links" in bird evolution.

The article says this fossilized species is similar to loons, grebes, and diving ducks which are all modern birds. The fossil is classified in the family Ornithurae which are modern birds. In other words, this happens to be the oldest known specimen of modern birds. That only makes it an evolutionary link if one assumes that all modern birds descended from the oldest known specimen, an assumption which is little more than a speculation based upon a hope.

Moreover, Gansus yumenensis is said to be an evolutionary link not with some other kind of creature but with other birds, ancient birds. It may well be, of course, but to call it a missing link suggests that it has some sort of dinosaur-to-bird evolutionary significance which it clearly does not have.

In other words, the discovery of these fossils doesn't seem to be at all what the news reports imply, but that's not news either.

Reconquista

The photo below was taken on a hill in Arizona shortly after the Senate immigration bill passed a couple of weeks ago:

45 Days

This Time magazine excerpt from a soon to be released book by Ron Suskind might sour you on any plans you may have had to visit New York or it may give you a stronger appreciation for the work our intelligence agencies are doing to protect us and our families:

Al-Qaeda terrorists came within 45 days of attacking the New York subway system with a lethal gas similar to that used in Nazi death camps. They were stopped not by any intelligence breakthrough, but by an order from Osama bin Laden's deputy, Ayman Zawahiri. And the U.S. learned of the plot from a CIA mole inside al-Qaeda. These are some of the more startling revelations by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Ron Suskind, whose new book The One Percent Doctrine is excerpted in the forthcoming issue of TIME. It will appear on Time.com early Sunday morning.

U.S. intelligence got its first inkling of the plot from the contents of a laptop computer belonging to a Bahraini jihadist captured in Saudi Arabia early in 2003. It contained plans for a gas-dispersal system dubbed "the mubtakkar" (Arabic for inventive). Fearing that al-Qaeda's engineers had achieved the holy grail of terror R&D - a device to effectively distribute hydrogen-cyanide gas, which is deadly when inhaled - the CIA immediately set about building a prototype based on the captured design, which comprised two separate chambers for sodium cyanide and a stable source of hydrogen, such as hydrochloric acid. A seal between the two could be broken by a remote trigger, producing the gas for dispersal. The prototype confirmed their worst fears: "In the world of terrorist weaponry," writes Suskind, "this was the equivalent of splitting the atom. Obtain a few widely available chemicals, and you could construct it with a trip to Home Depot - and then kill everyone in the store."

The device was shown to President Bush and Vice President Cheney the following morning, prompting the President to order that alerts be sent through all levels of the U.S. government. Easily constructed and concealed, mass casualties were inevitable if it could be triggered in any enclosed public space.

Having discovered the device, exposing the plot in which it might be used became a matter of extreme urgency. Although the Saudis were cooperating more than ever before in efforts to track down al-Qaeda operatives in the kingdom, the interrogations of suspects connected with the Bahraini on whose computer the Mubtakkar was discovered were going nowhere. The U.S. would have to look elsewhere.

Conventional wisdom has long held that the U.S. has no human intelligence assets inside al Qaeda. "That is not true," writes Suskind. Over the previous six months, U.S. agents had been receiving accurate tips from a man the writer identifies simply as "Ali," a management-level al-Qaeda operative who believed his leaders had erred in attacking the U.S. directly. "The group was now dispersed," writes Suskind. "A few of its leaders and many foot soldiers were captured or dead. As with any organization, time passed and second-guessing began."

And when asked about the Mubtakkar and the names of the men arrested in Saudi Arabia, Ali was aware of the plot. He identified the key man as Bin Laden's top operative on the Arabian Peninsula, Yusuf al Ayeri, a.k.a. "Swift Sword," who had been released days earlier by Saudi authorities, unaware that al-Ayeri was bin Laden's point man in the kingdom.

Ali revealed that Ayeri had visited Ayman Zawahiri in January 2003, to inform him of a plot to attack the New York City subway system using cyanide gas. Several mubtakkars were to be placed in subway cars and other strategic locations. This was not simply a proposal; the plot was well under way. In fact, zero-hour was only 45 days away. But then, for reasons still debated by U.S. intelligence officials, Zawahiri called off the attack. "Ali did not know the precise explanation why. He just knew that Zawahiri had called them off."

The news left administration officials gathered in the White House with more questions than answers. Why was Ali cooperating? Why had Zawahiri called off the strike? Were the operatives planning to carry out the attack still in New York? "The CIA analysts attempted answers. Many of the questions were simply unanswerable."

One man who could answer them was al-Ayeri - but he was killed in a gun battle between Saudi security forces and al Qaeda militants, who had launched a mini insurrection to coincide with the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Suskind quotes a CIA operative as questioning whether it was an accident that the Saudis had killed the kingpin who could expose a cell planning a chemical weapons attack inside the U.S. "The Saudis just shrugged," the source tells Suskind. "They said their people got a little overzealous."

You might want to read Ed Morrissey's analysis of this revelation at Captain's Quarters. We wonder how much of a role, if any, the NSA eavesdropping program that the left was so outraged by a few months ago played in defusing this threat.

Great Expectations

Despite my reluctance to question a genuine genius, I'm skeptical that we're anywhere close to doing what Stephen Hawking claims we're on the verge of doing:

Acclaimed British physicist Stephen Hawking has said that humanity is finally getting close to understanding the origin of the universe. Speaking at a lecture in Hong Kong, Hawking said that despite some theoretical advances in the past years, there are still mysteries as to how the universe began.

"Despite having had some great successes, not everything is solved. We do not yet have good theoretical understanding of the observation of the expansion of the universe," he told an audience of 2,500 at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology Thursday. "Without such understanding, we cannot be sure of the future of the universe.

"New observational results and theoretical advances are coming in rapidly; cosmology is a very exciting subject. We are getting close to answering these old questions: why are we here, where did we come from?"

My skepticism arises from the fact that even if we do elucidate the Big Bang and figure out how it occurred, we still will not know why it did. "Why" questions are metaphysical and beyond the purview of scientific discovery.

There really are only two candidates vying for the honor of answering the "why" and "where from" questions: Either we are a flukish by-product of the cosmic birth pangs having no reason for being here and having come from nothing but primordial star dust, or we are here because a loving, powerful being intentionally caused it to be inevitable that we would emerge. Perhaps this being - perhaps it is the God of the Bible - desired significant, conscious beings upon which to lavish, and with which to share, the gift of existence, and so created us.

We are here, in other words, because God has willed it. If that is not the case then there is no reason at all why we are here. Life is totally void of purpose and meaning. We are like insects which live, reproduce and die. Nothing we do, no matter how impressive, means a thing.

Science, at least as so many of its practioners insist, is not equipped to endorse either alternative and is not competent to answer the "why" question.

More Liberal Theology

It seems that liberal theology is an unrelenting pandemic that attempts to persuade people to see the Bible in terms altogether different than those its Author intended. Perhaps someone should be working on an anti-liberal vaccine.

The church I attend offers a series of Bible-study programs designed to further one's understanding each of which runs for 34 weeks. We get a work book that contains reading assignments and then we meet once a week to discuss the assignment. We also watch a video presentation during class by a speaker who talks about the topic.

Unfortunately, the materials sometimes reflect the thinking of liberal theologians that take a different point of view. This causes me to place less emphasis on the materials and more on the opportunity to meet and grow with fellow participants of the Church.

In the course I attended last year, Ms Janet Howe Gaines was a speaker in the video that was shown during one of the classes and she made the comment that the Biblical book of Jonah was most likely a myth. This prompted me to do a little bit of research on Ms Gaines and subsequently post a response on Viewpoint which can be found here.

I have recently registered to participate in another course entitled Jesus in the Gospels which starts in the fall. I purchased the study materials well in advance so I might be better able to add as much value as possible to the group discussions. The material for the course was written by Leander E. Keck who served as New Testament consultant on the four-phase Disciple Bible study and covener of he consultation on the development of Christian Believer. Dr. Keck, Winkley Professor of Biblical Theology Emeritus and for Dean of Yale University Divinity School,, was the covener of the Editorial Board of the New Interpreter's Bible. Impressive, huh?

After delving into the study material, it wasn't long before I read the following:

Furthermore, the Gospels themselves sometimes disagree when reporting the same event. A famous instance concerns the day Jesus died. According to John, Jesus died the day the lambs were being slaughtered to be eaten at the Passover meal that night; but according to the other three Gospels, he died the day after the Passover meal. Each date suggests something important about Jesus, but both cannot be right historically.

While Dr. Keck may have difficulty understanding exactly when Jesus died, all four Gospels are consistent in their telling of when he was risen (Matthew xxviii. 1-10, Mark xvi. 1-18, Luke xxiv. 1-49 and John xx. 1-23). Therefore, it seems to me that all four Gospels must be consistent regarding the time of death of Jesus.

Then again, Dr. Keck states:

In Luke the angels announce "good news" for all the people: "To you is born this day [Christ], the Lord, " as well as "peace on earth" - adding up to a different good news about a different peace from the savior.

Right as Luke is in what he portrayed theologically, he apparently did not get the date exactly right historically. Nowhere else do we read of an empire-wide census that required all people to be registered in their ancestral home. Beside, Quirinius was governor of Syria in A.D. 6-7. Here Matthew's dating is to be preferred: Jesus was born in the last years of Herod's reign, which ended in 4 B.C. In any case, Luke's mistaken date should not keep us from seeing the point: Jesus the Savior was born in the heyday of Augustus the savior. The contrast is deliberate, and it calls for faith's perception of its significance.

Dr. Keck is referring to the second chapter of the book of Luke where it states:

1. And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed.
2. And this taxing (enrollment or registration) was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria.

And he seems to feel a need to point out that Cyrenius wasn't the governor at that time but, rather "Quirinius". I find it odd that someone would offer a work intended to inspire people to discipleship of the Lord and yet take every apparent opportunity to inject their perception of discrepancies.

Turning to the notes in my Companion Bible I find that

A Papyrus (in British Museum), being a rescript of the Prefect Gaius Vibius Maximus (A..D. 103-104) shows that Herod must have been acting under Roman orders. Vib. Max. was Prefect of Egypt, and wrote: "the enrollment by households being at hand, it is necessary to notify all who for any cause soever are outside their homes to return to their domestic hearths, that they may accomplish the customary dispensation of enrolment, and continue steadfastly in the husbandry that belongeth to them." There is a large number of Papyri relating to these enrolments. A second registration is recorded in Acts v. 37.

The notes also indicate that Cyrenius is Greek for the Latin Quirinus. His full name being Publius Sulpicius Quirinus.

Having discovered this reasonable explanation and numerous references to evidence that confirms the taxing as well as a solution to the confusion regarding Cyrenius / Quirinus I didn't bother to address the problem Dr. Keck has with the "date" he referred to earlier. I'm content to believe the problem is simply one he has created for himself by failing to "rightly divide the word of truth" 2 Timothy ii. 15.

I am convinced that difficulties arise for people like Dr. Keck simply because they're thinking only of the human agent as the writers of the Bible, instead of having regard to the fact that the Word of God is the record of the words which He Himself employed when He spoke "at sundry times and in diverse manners" Hebrews i. 1. and from not remembering (or believing) that "holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Ghost". 2 Peter i. 21, Mark xii. 36, Acts i. 16; iii.18; xxviii. 25; Hebrews iii. 7; ix. 8; x. 15; and 2 Timothy iii. 16 where we read "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.

There are many "apparent contradictions" in the Bible. When the reader assumes it to be authored by man, they readily conclude the contradictions to be matters of fact and the quest for the treasure of blessings comes to an end. If the reader assumes it to be authored by God, apparent contradictions are an indicator that the reader has failed to "rightly divide the word of truth" and the quest has only just begun.

How such learned people can miss such an obvious and crucial truth is beyond my understanding.

Voting For Defeat

If more evidence were needed that the Democrats are the party of defeat and retreat Friday's House of Representatives vote on the non-binding resolution provides it. The bill praises U.S. troops, labels the Iraq war part of the larger global fight against terrorism and states that an "arbitrary date for the withdrawal or redeployment" of troops is not in the national interest. It passed 256-153:

voted against it. Only 42 voted in favor.

Why He Left the Left

Seth Swirsky explains why he, a standard sixties liberal, finally resigned from the Democratic party. It's an excellent piece that recounts a pilgrimage that will resonate with many. The Democratic party has shifted so far to the left over the last thirty years that many whose political views haven't much changed during that time find themselves coming to the realization that they presently have more in common with conservatives than they do with MoveOn.org, Michael Moore, and the Democratic party leadership.

Swirsky's essay reminds us how very far the Democrats have moved to the left since the days of Harry Truman and John Kennedy. No doubt there are others who feel, like Ronald Reagan, another former Democrat, that they haven't left the party so much as the party has left them.

GW: Crunchy Con

I've argued on previous occasions that true conservatism conserves. It conserves the best of our cultural heritage and the best of our natural heritage. Thus, those who look at our natural places as potential targets of economic exploitation and development are, whatever else they may be, not fully conservative. It seems to me that to take seriously our Biblical mandate for stewardship over the land we inhabit entails in part that we preserve as much of its natural richness as possible consistent with human welfare (as opposed to human greed). It's with that responsibility to nature in mind that the news that President Bush is creating a vast new preserve near Hawaii is most welcome:

The world's largest protected marine area is being created around the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, an archipelago 1,400 miles long and 100 miles wide that is home to rare marine mammals, fishes and birds. President Bush announced on Thursday his decision to create the nation's newest national monument from the vast chain of largely uninhabited islands, atolls, coral reef colonies and seamounts.

Conrad C. Lautenbacher, head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said the new protected area in Hawaiian waters would dwarf all others. "It's the single-largest act of ocean conservation in history. It's a large milestone," Lautenbacher said. "It is a place to maintain biodiversity and to maintain basically the nurseries of the Pacific. It spawns a lot of the life that permeates the middle of the Pacific Ocean."

The region hosts more than 7,000 species, at least a fourth of them found only there and including some on the government's endangered list, such as the Hawaiian monk seal and the nesting green sea turtle. Bush decided to invoke the 1906 National Antiquities Act and create a national monument for the first time during his presidency, a senior administration official said Wednesday.

Earlier Wednesday, the president had planned to use instead the National Marine Sanctuary Act, a law that would allow challenges from Congress and others to the decision, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity so as not to upstage Bush. "This means the area will get immediate protection rather than having to wait another year," the official said.

With the national monument designation, the federal government can immediately begin a five-year phaseout of the eight commercial fishing permits in the area and impose strict prohibitions on any other extractive uses.

President Clinton used the act to create 19 national monuments and expand three others to set aside 5.9 million acres of land, mainly in the West, and he drew widespread criticism from conservatives.

About 132,000 square miles of the area already is designated either a coral reef ecosystem reserve or a national wildlife refuge. By making it a national monument, the government will have greater power to protect it. Expanding the existing reserve and refuge to a monument of 140,000 square miles will make it the largest no-take marine conservation area in the world, just ahead of the Great Barrier Reef in Australia.

Does this make George Bush a "Crunchy Con"? No matter. He's doing a good thing and Viewpoint applauds him for it.

Putting Statistics in Perspective

The media keeps a running tab on the number of American servicemen and women killed in Iraq, the purpose of which, evidently is to hasten the day when the public decides it has had enough. Never is it mentioned, when this tally is updated, how remarkably low a number it really is. After four years of fighting the number of American military deaths has just topped 2500, roughly the same number of troops who died on a single day, D-Day at Normandy, during WWII.

In the Pacific during WWII we lost 6900 Marines taking Iwo Jima and 13,000 troops securing Okinawa.

Twenty eight thousand Confederates and 23,000 Union troops died at Gettysburg in three days.

Shifting perspective away from combat casualties, in the four years from 2001 through 2004 traffic fatalities in the U.S. exceeded 153,000, homicides in 2005 alone surpassed 16,900, and approximately 1200 people nationwide have died from heat exposure since 2003.

Indeed, an American is almost safer in the military in Iraq than in some American cities where the number of murders exceeds 300 per year.

Twenty five hundred deaths over four years is a terrible statistic, and the families of the dead find no consolation in comparisons such as this one. Nevertheless, politicians have to look at the cost through the lens of historical and actuarial realities, and in that perspective the number of military deaths is remarkably low, especially considering the extraordinarily high stakes involved in the Iraqi undertaking.

Don't Quit!

The text of the document found in the building where al-Zarqawi was killed is revealing, and it explicitly affirms Bush's policy of resolute refusal to cut and run and absolutely demolishes the Democrat rationale for a premature withdrawal. The text can be read here.

The short version is that the insurgents acknowledge that they're being worn down and degraded, the American strategy is working, and the best thing we could do, from their point of view, is to follow the advice of the "Last Helicopter" wing of the Democratic party and begin to withdraw. Since Bush is not likely to do that the next best thing is for al-Qaeda in Iraq to instigate a war between the U.S. and Iran to divert our resources out of Iraq and relieve the pressure on the insurgents.

The terrorists are on the ropes, and the Murtha, Pelosi, Kerry crowd, desperately fearful that Bush will succeed and be hailed by the public for his achievement, are riding to the terrorists' rescue with demands that we get out before they're absolutely defeated.

Read the insurgents' reasoning and the strategy laid out in the document at the link.

Class Act

The president's detractors have much to apologize for but rarely do. Contrast that with the president himself:

President Bush, who often teases members of the White House press corps, apologized Wednesday after he poked fun at a reporter for wearing sunglasses without realizing they were needed for vision loss. The exchange occurred at a news conference in the Rose Garden.

Bush called on Los Angeles Times reporter Peter Wallsten and asked if he was going to ask his question with his "shades" on. "For the viewers, there's no sun," Bush said to the television cameras.

But even though the sun was behind the clouds, Wallsten still needs the sunglasses because he has Stargardt's disease, a form of macular degeneration that causes progressive vision loss. The condition causes Wallsten to be sensitive to glare and even on a cloudy day, can cause pain and increase the loss of sight.

Wallsten said Bush called his cell phone later in the day to apologize and tell him that he didn't know he had the disease. Wallsten said he interrupted and told the president that no apology was necessary and that he didn't feel offended since he hadn't told anyone at the White House about his condition.

"He said, `I needle you guys out of affection,"' Wallsten said. "I said, 'I understand that, but I don't want you to treat me any differently because of this."' Wallsten said the president said he would not treat him differently, so Wallsten encouraged him to "needle away."

"He said, `I will. Next time I'll just use a different needle,"' Wallsten said.

If only those of his opponents in the media and in Congress who have vitriolically accused President Bush of lying to the American people in order to cajole us into war, as well as numerous other impeachable offenses, could display just half as much class and grace as he does.

Another Dubious Atrocity

Another apparently fabricated atrocity unravels in Gaza. News reports which claimed that Israeli artillary had killed Palestinian beachgoers, including an entire family, turn out to be highly dubious:

An Israel Defense Forces intelligence officer has confirmed that the explosion that killed eight Palestinians on Friday, was caused by a stockpile of Hamas explosives.

"Shortly after we stopped defensive firing at Hamas rocket launch pads which were deployed behind Palestinian human shields, members of Hamas scrambled to fire more rockets at our positions," said Col. M. "We have eyes on every meter of Gaza, from the sky, from the ground and from the sea. One of their rocket tripods collapsed inadvertently setting off an explosion of a stockpile of Qassam rockets. The Palestinians killed their own children. And this was not the first time."

Hamas terrorists fired rockets and mortar bombs from a crowded Gaza beach at southern Israel. Some of the rockets fell near the Israel city of Ashkelon. Some 17 rockets were fired between Saturday and Sunday morning. A man at a school in the Israel town of Sderot was wounded, Israel officials said.

Israel Maj.-Gen. Yoav Galant said today that the Israel Defense Forces has additional evidence that it wasn't Israel artillery that hit the beach in Gaza. Galant, who commands Israel's southern command, said Israel stopped firing 15 minutes before the explosion. It's all on secure videotape from both sides of the conflict. Israel Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said he was sorry about the deaths, which included three children.

There's more information at the link. It is a tactic of terrorists everywhere in the Middle East, it seems, to use civilians as shields and then when something goes wrong to report an atrocity perpetrated by the Israelis or the Americans against the dead innocents. Few people in the region ever find out about the truth and in the West many of the critics of American and Israeli policy don't care what the facts are.

All that matters to many is the first impression made by the allegation. When the truth trickles out a few days later it scarcely makes a ripple in the public perception and is often overwhelmed by yet another false allegation of another atrocity being amplified in a complient press.

Hadji Girl

Michelle Malkin nails the rank double standard and hypocrisy of the attempt to crucify a Marine for singing a song that conveys insufficient sensitivity to the horrors of war.

Read Malkin's comparison to a truly execrable rap song that came out last year to effusive praise from the MSM, and then compare the lyrics of Hadji Girl for which Cpl. Joshua Belile is being put to the rack.

Better yet, listen to the song for yourself here (scroll down to pic of Belile). The song has a callousness and coarseness to it that I find unpleasant, even disturbing, and which the Marines might be justified in discouraging. Nevertheless, the outrage being expressed over the ballad strikes me as hysterical, absurd and based on claims about the song that are simply not true.

Leiberman to Jump Ship?

Senator Joe Lieberman, all but abandoned by the Democratic party in his primary race with businessman Ned Lamont, may be holding the decisive card. The Democrats have been frosty toward him because of his support for the Iraq war and his unwillingness to criticize the Bush administration for the manifold crimes of which the Democrats believe it guilty.

The word is, though, that if it looks like Leiberman will lose the primary to Lamont he may jump ship and run as an Independent, in which case he'd probably win re-election. Such a move would make it almost impossible for the Democrats to regain majority status in the Senate. Leiberman's defection would be an interesting payback to the party for its failure to support a long-term senator and former vice-presidential candidate.

Read the full account here.

UnTruth at TruthOut

Now that Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has decided that there's no case against Karl Rove, Jason Leopold at TruthOut (the window).com looks pretty ridiculous with all that egg dripping down his face. A month ago he wrote:

Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald spent more than half a day Friday at the offices of Patton Boggs, the law firm representing Karl Rove. During the course of that meeting, Fitzgerald served attorneys for former Deputy White House Chief of Staff Karl Rove with an indictment charging the embattled White House official with perjury and lying to investigators related to his role in the CIA leak case, and instructed one of the attorneys to tell Rove that he has 24 business hours to get his affairs in order, high level sources with direct knowledge of the meeting said Saturday morning.

We waited for the news to break in the MSM but it never did. Apparently it didn't because either Leopold's sources are unreliable or he just projected his own fantasy onto reality. Either way TruthOut looks bad. Again.

Security Crackdown in Baghdad

Mohammed at Iraq the Model gives us an inside look at the new security push in Baghdad:

Baghdad looked tense today as the city witnessed the launch of the new massive security operation "Forward Together". The feeling here ranges from anxiety to hope which I saw clear in the voice and looks of the people I met; in addition to the understandable anxiety that accompanies every new military operation I saw a lot about hope that this new operation may be able to stop or even reverse the deterioration of security in the capital.

Well maybe this is our best chance to achieve some progress security-wise and there's a growing feeling (I won't say dominant but it's here and it's visible) that the new government has the real and serious desire to end this tragic chapter of Baghdad's history.

It seems that President Bush's visit to Baghdad has given more credibility for the operation; that at least was what I heard from people around me or read in Baghdad's papers today; the visit definitely left a positive impression that America is dead serious this time about finding solutions for Iraq especially when it comes to security and critical parts of reconstruction like electricity.

No one can predict how much time this new operation will take but time in this case is of little importance compared to accomplishing the objectives of the operation.

The streets weren't so much different this morning except for increased security presence in the form of checkpoints and traffic jams that were associated with a few incidents and this is what I experienced this morning on my way to work, most likely that was because I live in one of the hot spots that was among those listed as targets for the operation.

I heard a number of explosions that weren't so far away with sporadic light and medium gunfire but news reports indicate that only one incident left casualties.

Some Baghdadis have shopped for extra amounts of water, food and fuel expecting the operation and curfews to take more than a few days and there's a minor internal immigration within Baghdad from the more dangerous districts to the relatively safer ones. This isn't happening in large numbers and I knew about it only from some families that I know that have temporarily left their homes in some districts.

In Baghdad you can't find the same feeling you would find in Ramadi, that is the fear that the operation will include collective punishment and this is because Baghdadis are used to living standards of a big city (in Middle Eastern standards though) but in the past few years they have suffered enough from militants of all types and want their city life back, they want to see militias and insurgents defanged and they want schools and markets and services to function properly again.

So for this operation to work out, we will need to focus on disarmament and collecting every piece of weapons that can be collected because each weapon represents a chance for more violence. In fact I believe this will be the main objective of this operation; to maintain strong security presence, make it harder for the militants to move around and do as much disarmament as possible.

The media here is reporting that the plans include collecting all unnecessary weapons from homes; that's if a family possesses two weapons fro example they will be allowed to keep only one small weapon with a limited amount of ammunition even if both weapons were licensed. There are also rumors that the campaign will include questioning those who have recently moved from other provinces and settled in Baghdad or those who relocated themselves within Baghdad to verify the reasons behind that movement.

There's more from Mohammed at the link. For three years we have been training the Iraqis to take over the task of providing security for their country. More and more they're doing exactly that. If the Iraqi government can suppress the insurgency in Baghdad and make it a safer place it will represent a quantum leap forward toward the goal of a stable Iraq.