Nonsense Density

The world record for "nonsense density", i.e. the number of nonsensical statements per line of print, is placed in serious jeopardy by this article at NewsMax.com. The nonsense is not generated by NewsMax, so much, but by the people they quote for the column:

Mexico lobbied for six years for a comprehensive immigration reform that would allow millions to cross into the United States legally. Instead, they're getting a fence. Mexicans - from leading politicians to migrants preparing to cross illegally - consider the U.S. plan to fence off much of the border shameful, offensive and ill-conceived.

People who want to break our laws and plunder our treasury think it's shameful that we resist? They think it's offensive that we insist that if they wish to come here they do so legally?

President Bush on Wednesday signed a bill that would allot $1.2 billion for hundreds of miles of fencing along the U.S.-Mexican border and for more vehicle barriers, lighting and infrared cameras. But migrants resting at a Tijuana shelter after being deported from the United States said more walls wouldn't deter them. Alfonso Martinez, a 32-year-old from southern Mexico, had been working as a farmhand for six months in Vista, Calif., when he was arrested and deported last week. "Wall or no wall, I will try at least three times," said Martinez, who said he would try to cross by himself through Tecate, a mountainous town about 35 miles east of Tijuana. "I have three girls that I have to support, and in Mexico there is no work."

This is truly sad, but it's a problem the Mexican government, which sits on vast reservoirs of oil, silver and other mineral assets, could do something about were they so inclined. Rather than create prosperity for all in Mexico, however, they prefer to keep the wealth in the hands of a corrupt few and send the discontented masses north while lecturing the gringoes on our obligation to receive them with open arms.

Mexican immigrants in the United States and the Mexican government had lobbied lawmakers for more ways to cross the border and work legally. While Bush had proposed a temporary worker program, it didn't garner enough support in Congress for passage. The idea has been dropped by Washington, at least until after the November congressional elections.

It didn't garner support because enough representatives had been instructed by their constituents that there was no sense in trying to mop up the water until someone managed to turn off the spigot.

Congress focused on security over immigration, arguing that the porous border could be used by terrorists who want to sneak into the U.S. undetected. There is no evidence that has happened, however.

Now there's a good argument. Terrorists could easily enter this country from Mexico, but, since we haven't caught any of them trying to do that, we might as well assume that they haven't done it. I take back what I said above about the nonsense not coming from the NewsMax writers.

The Mexican government this week sent a diplomatic note to Washington criticizing the plan for 700 miles of new fencing along the border. Foreign Secretary Luis Ernesto Derbez called it an "offense" and said Wednesday his office was considering taking the issue to the United Nations.

The United Nations?! Mexico is going to complain to the United Nations that the U.S. is building a fence along its border? What sort of herbs has Mr. Derbez been mixing with his pipe tobacco? What jurisdiction does the U.N. have in this matter? Mr. Derbez is like the neighbor who complains to the authorities because you're tired of having him coming into your house and using your bathroom whenever nature calls. Now you've locked your door and he's going to complain to the neighborhood association.

But Ruben Aguilar, the spokesman for President Vicente Fox, said Thursday that Mexico had ruled out that possibility. He added he was "confident" the additional fencing would never become a reality because an immigration accord would eventually replace it.

If an immigration plan will solve the problem of the massive illegal entry into this country why do Mr. Aguilar and Mr. Fox object to the fence? What do they care if the U.S. builds the fence if Mexicans will not be trying to sneak into the country illegally once an immigration accord is in place? Their only reason for caring is that they want Mexicans to be able to enter the U.S. illegally if they cannot get in legally.

President-elect Felipe Calderon Thursday criticized the U.S. plan, but said the case is a bilateral issue that should not be taken to any international organization. "I think it is a deplorable decision that has been made by the United States Congress for the construction of this wall, and it does not solve our common problem, which is emigration," Calderon told a news conference in Santiago, Chile.

This is exactly wrong. The problem is not a "common problem" at all nor is emigration a problem for the Mexicans. Emigration is rather a solution to the problem of poverty in Mexico. The Mexican solution is to export their poverty to the U.S. so that we will pay for it. The problem is ours in toto. The wall will be a problem for Mexico but emigration is not.

Guillermo Alonzo, a migration expert at the Tijuana-based Colegio de La Frontera Norte, said fences instead will force migrants to look for new ways to sneak into the United States and find new routes through deadlier terrain. "When migrants are determined to cross, they find a way to jump the fences," Alonzo said. "Walls don't stop anything." Alonzo cited the construction of a fence between Tijuana and San Diego, known in Mexico as "the tortilla wall." It was completed in the 1990s and forced migrants into the sparsely populated and dangerous Arizona desert.

If the fence will force migrants to cross where crossing is more hazardous and difficult then evidently the fence will indeed stop migrants from crossing where the fence is. The more difficult the crossing the fewer people who will try it and the fewer times they will try it. The solution to the problem of Mexican illegals risking death in the desert is for the Mexican government to stop them from attempting the crossing. This, however, is not a live option for the Fox administration.

While there are walls at various points along the border, the one in Tijuana is the longest stretch, running 14 miles west from the Otay border crossing and plunging into the Pacific Ocean. It has become a symbol of the divisive immigration issue, a blank slate for graffiti, crosses, photos and other remembrances of those who have lost their lives trying to sneak into the United States. Some families, divided by the border, even meet at the fence, talking through the metal wires.

The point being...?

While the wall downgraded Tijuana from the illegal migration mecca it was in the 1990s, hundreds of migrants still come here, Alonzo said. "Now smugglers hide migrants in trunks of cars or get false documents," he said.

Yes, but surely Alonzo doesn't think he's providing an argument against building the fence. He seems to be claiming that since smugglers will hide people in cars if we build the fence we may as well let them just walk across the border. Does that make sense to you? Me neither, but Alonzo sounds brilliant compared to Luis Kendzierski:

Luis Kendzierski, a priest who directs a Tijuana migrant shelter, said building a wall is an unfriendly gesture that will lead to a hike in smugglers' fees and more migrant deaths.

An unfriendly gesture? Is locking your door when you leave your house an unfriendly gesture? Is refusing to allow your neighbor to raid your refrigerator whenever he gets the urge an unfriendly gesture? If Mexicans are dying in the American desert then the Mexican government should stop them from trying to cross the desert. If they're unwilling to do that then why are we obligated to open our doors to them? This is just nutty.

Between 2001 and 2006, almost 2,000 migrants died while trying to sneak into the United States, according to El Colegio de la Frontera Norte. "We are supposed to be neighbors and friends, and instead of building bridges and doors, we're building obstacles," Kendzierski said.

And this is even nuttier. The good Father is saying that anyone at all who wishes to take what's yours, who wishes to move into your home uninvited, who wishes to commit crimes against you and your family, who wishes to strain your resources and degrade your standard of living, should not only not be prevented from doing this but should actually be encouraged and assisted.

If we follow Fr. Kendzierski's logic to its conclusion then we should abolish police forces and eliminate all laws. Whatever you own really belongs to anyone who wants it. Whatever others want that they can't afford you are obligated to pay for. There should be no laws preventing people from taking what's yours, and, indeed, you should help them to take it.

Yes, we have an obligation to help the poor, but we do not have an obligation to help the poor ruin us. Our kindness must be our choice or else it's not kindness. Charity should not be a vehicle for national suicide.

There may be people reading this who agree with Fr. Kendzierski. If so, just answer a simple question. Do you lock your house or your car when you leave them? If so, why do you?

The Conservative Soul

Mark Gavreau Judge reviews Andrew Sullivan's latest book, The Conservative Soul, at Christianity Today. To sum up: Judge doesn't like it. Little wonder. Sullivan calls himself a conservative but he is so only on fiscal issues. He's a libertarian on social matters, and, although he's a Roman Catholic, he's at odds with almost all of the Church's teaching on sex. He's also viscerally contemptuous of the current administration as well as conservative Christians whom he disdainfully refers to as "Christianists".

Judge writes this about the book:

[I]n The Conservative Soul...there is ...tautology, narcissism, and enough moral relativism to light Manhattan for ten years. Sullivan's premise is simple: We just can't know anything for sure. There's no real truth, and anyone who claims otherwise is not really a conservative but rather a fundamentalist. "The essential claim of the fundamentalist is that he knows the truth," Sullivan writes. "The fundamentalist doesn't guess or argue or wonder or question. He doesn't have to. He knows." In opposition stands the true conservative, whose "defining characteristic" is that "he knows he doesn't know."

It should be pointed out that Sullivan has an expansive definition of "fundamentalist". The term as he uses it refers pretty much to anyone who holds to a more conservative theology than he does.

If you're familiar with Sullivan, who is one of the most popular bloggers on the net, you might want to check out the rest of Judge's review at the link.

The Plot Thickens

Matt Drudge has the inside scoop which shows that Florida congressman Mark Foley was apparently played for a fool by a bunch of young guys who were out for laughs. Somehow, the prank went awry and the instant messages wound up in the hands of some people sympathetic to the Democrats.

Not worried, apparently, that a sexual predator might be preying on young men under his charge, whoever had the IMs decided to sit on them until they could be used for political gain.

It's hard to tell who in this sordid tale is sleaziest: The pederastic Mr. Foley, the young men who egged him on, or the people who held onto the instant message exchanges until they could be used to destroy not just Foley, who deserves it, but also any other Republicans they could tarnish.

We say it's a tie between #1 and #3.

Clarice Feldman at The American Thinker believes this is going to have painful ramifications for Democrats:

Present state of play-the Dems and CREW* are implicated; ABC's Brian Ross has his own Rathergate, the FBI and Ethics Committee are going to find out which Dems were involved and CREW will probably lose their tax exempt status. The Dems have shown themselves to be perfectly willing to use homophobia to win when they have no saleable platform or issues; the Republican base is charged up and once again Soros turned his gold into Dem dross.

Foley will become a living example of the Dems' willingness to smear a homosexual for gain and will write a book, go on Oprah and make a mint. He will be this year's wronged victim. Mark my words: A fit ending to a sordid smear.

Patrick Godfrey puts it all together in this fine summation titled The Worst October Surprise, Ever. That is, it's the worst surprise for the Democrats, ever.

*CREW is Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. The claim to be non-partisan which gives them tax-exemption, but if they're implicated in this fiasco their tax exempt status could be in jeopardy.

Senate Races

The Democrats need to gain six seats to take over the senate in November. Real Clear Politics has them picking up five. The averages of the major polls on the senate races can be viewed here.

Even if the Democrats don't gain control of the senate an increase of five seats would be very worrisome for the Bush agenda. Throw in the half dozen or so liberal Republicans and the Democrats could have enough votes to block a Supreme Court, or federal judgeship nomination, or almost any piece of legislation that Bush tries to get passed.

For those who are hoping that Bush gets to make another nomination to the Supreme Court the possibility of a 50-50 senate is not comforting.

Peace on Earth

Well, it's the holy month of Ramadan and Muslims are presumably greeting each other with wishes of peace on earth and good will toward men. Or not. It turns out that on the Muslim feast of Ramadan the celebrations turn, at least in some Muslim precincts, toward ratcheting up the pace at which the brethren in Allah blow each other to bits. Ethel Fenig has the cheerful details at The American Thinker.

For example:

....a gunbattle erupted at Gaza City's main hospital when relatives of one of Sunday's victims arrived to retrieve his body. Fatah gunmen accompanying them opened fire on Hamas militiamen patrolling the hospital. No one was hurt, hospital officials said.

In the northern West Bank city of Nablus, Fatah militants shot at Deputy Prime Minister Nasser Shaer's bodyguards as they rode in a government car, injuring two of them, said Shaer, who was not present during the attack. Hospital officials said a Fatah militant was also injured.

In Jericho, a Fatah gunman trying to enforce the general strike shot a shop owner in the head, seriously wounding him, Fatah officials said. The wounded man was also a Fatah member, the officials said.

The Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, a Fatah-linked militant group, also circulated a flier threatening to execute Interior Minister Said Siyam, Syria-based Hamas political leader Khaled Mashaal and Youssef Zahar, the head of the Hamas militia.

See how they love one another. Fenig wonders "If all this violence occurs during a holiday period what will happen when the festive month is over?"

Let's all join in singing a couple of verses of Silent Night.

Toronto ID Conference

Denyse O'Leary reports on her experience at an academic conference in Toronto on the ID/Darwinsm controversy. Her report comes in three brief but interesting parts at Uncommon Descent and should be read in this order: Part I, Part II, and, perhaps the most interesting for those who follow the debate, Part III.

Disturbing Fact

According to a NewsMax article:

It is not a widely disseminated, downloaded or discussed fact that the average life expectancy for all pro football players, including all positions and backgrounds, is 55 years. Several insurance carriers say it is 51 years.

The article talks about the injuries associated with football, and suggests that these play a role in the early demise of retired players, but I doubt it. The article never comes out and states flatly what the causes of these deaths are so here's my guess: Most of the early deaths are caused by accidents, homicide, or drug and/or alcohol-related problems. Among those who die from natural causes, however, I suspect the leading killer is heart disease brought on by steroid use and excessive weight.

Despite the tacit message of the article which was that retired players are dying from the cumulative effects of injuries they suffered while playing, I doubt that many of them actually do. It would be interesting, though, to see a study done on the cause of death of retired NFL players and to see a comparison of the causes of death by position. My guess is that offensive linemen and defensive tackles, the behemoths of pro football, have the shortest life expectancies among those who die from natural causes.

Miscellaneous Thoughts on the Foley Furor

A few further thoughts on the Mark Foley Follies:

1) Despite the MSM's asseverations to the contrary, Mark Foley is not a pedophile. Pedophilia is a sexual attraction to prepubescent children. Foley was attracted to sixteen and seventeen year old boys.* The correct label for his type of sexual perversion is pederasty - sexual relations between an adult male and a boy.

2) The mention of perversion reminds us that Foley has been called a pervert by observers on both the Left and the Right, but this is a dangerous tactic for those on the Left who are otherwise engaged in the project to morally legitimize homosexual conduct. An adult heterosexual would not necessarily be considered a pervert if the adult found a seventeen year old of the opposite sex physically attractive. To call Foley a pervert is to strongly suggest that his perversion is not his attraction to the much younger individual but rather his attraction to, and sexual explicit conversations with, another male. This is tantamount to calling homosexuality a perversion, and that's a judgment that the liberal-Left, at least, has been fighting against for four decades.

3) The exchanges between Foley and the pages were not merely sexually "suggestive" as one news reader on the radio put it this morning. They were as explicit and revolting as they could be without involving violence.

4) Foley, in an attempt to achieve the victimhood trifecta, has announced that he's gay, alcoholic, and was abused by a priest when he was a boy. I suppose this is intended to make us feel sorry for him, but it's an odd threesome given today's PC orthodoxies. Alcoholism is a disease and sexual abuse is a crime so how does being gay fit in with these? Is it a disease? Is it a crime? Why does Foley think his sexual orientation is relevant to this situation? Does being gay explain why he has had internet sex with an adolescent? Does Mr. Foley believe that being gay makes his being a sexual predator more understandable and forgiveable?

5) The Democrats are anxious to use this episode to impugn the Republican Congressional leadership which, they happily allege, was much too slow to take action against Foley. Yet William Jefferson, the Louisianna congressman who had $90,000 of bribe money stashed in his office refrigerator, is still in congress. The Democrats have done nothing to purge him. Gerry Studds, a Democratic congressman from Massachusetts, was sexually involved with a 17 year old male page in 1973. He was censured by the House in 1983 but was unrepentant, refused to resign, and was re-elected by his strongly liberal district five more times. His Democratic colleagues in the House gave him a standing ovation when he gave a speech saying that what he does in a mutually consensual relationship is nobody else's business even if his paramour was only seventeen.

Bill Clinton, despite his forceful denials, had sexual congress with Monica Lewinsky, who was a subordinate, of course, and the Democrats vigorously defended him. Clinton had "phone sex" with Monica Lewinsky at least fifteen times, and the pervert, the man whom Democrats called upon to resign, was special prosector Ken Starr for publishing the details. Clinton was also accused of rape (Juanita Broderick) and sexual harrassment (Paula Jones), but the Democrats rallied to his defense to beat back the allegations and tarnish the reputations of the women who made them.

At the end of his presidency, Clinton pardoned a number of ne'er do wells from prison, among whom was Mel Reynolds, a former Democratic congressman. In August of 1994, Reynolds was indicted for having sex with a sixteen year old campaign volunteer, yet his party allowed him to continue running for re-election. In November of 1994 he was reelected by Democratic voters. Reynolds initially denied what he claimed were racially motivated charges of sexual misconduct. On August 22, 1995 he was convicted on 12 counts of sexual assault, obstruction of justice and solicitation of child pornography. He resigned his seat on October 1, 1995.

Reynolds was sentenced to five years in prison, but in April of 1997 he was convicted on fifteen counts of bank fraud and lying to SEC investigators. As a result, he was sentenced to an additional six and a half years. After serving 42 months of his 78 month sentence President Clinton commuted his sentence, yet there were no loud protestations from Democrats upset about the message this commutation of a sexual predator sent about the seriousness of Reynold's offenses.

So, when liberals wax indignant over Mr. Foley's contemptible behavior, their fury seems totally inconsistent with their past record in similar situations. It sounds contrived and insincere.

Mr. Foley's only real transgression, in the eyes of a lot of people on the Left, is not the age of the boy, nor his gender, nor his subordinate status, nor that the boy and Mr. Foley were conducting a salacious and disgusting dialogue over the internet. They've been just fine with each of those sorts of things in the past. For many on the Left Foley's real crime, the offense for which he and the House leadership must be made to pay, is that he was a Republican.

* UPDATE: Drudge tells us that the page with whom Mark Foley carried out his infamous IM exchange was 18 or barely shy of it at the time.

Biological Measures and CounterMeasures

In an article titled Biological Design Research: The Bat's Intercept and the Moth's ECM, Cornelius Hunter tells us this:

Military aircraft under enemy missile attack may use a variety of strategies to escape. There is, of course, the strategy of executing an evasive maneuver to avoid or disrupt the incoming missile. The aircraft may also use a variety of electronic signals to jam or fool the missile's sensor and tracking computer. These electronic strategies fall under the general category known as electronic counter measures (ECMs). As usual biology has its own incredible, organic, version of such technology. In the case of the bat and moth encounter, it is being elucidated by some excellent research.

Many bat species have a phenomenal biosonar, or echolocation, capability used to track insects. As they fly they may emit hundreds of ultrasonic squeaks per second. The squeaks are frequency-modulated and at frequencies in the hundreds of kilo Hertz. During the pursuit the bat shortens its squeaks and increases the transmission rate as it closes on the prey. In the terminal stage the bat rapidly adjusts its trajectory and posture to capture the insect. The return echoes are passed through a range-compensated automatic gain control to reduce signal strength variations during closure. The result is a tracking capability that is several times more accurate than our best military equipment.

While executing these tracking and intercept functions the bat is performing a complex signal processing task. For instance, the bat can discriminate the prey from background clutter. It also has a sort of synthetic aperture technology with which to construct image information. And it also uses complicated geometrical calculations to solve an advanced guidance scheme, as it closes on the target.

And what about the prey? Often on the receiving end of this carbon-based interceptor is the lowly moth. Some moths, however, sport their own battery of impressive capabilities to counter the bat's onslaught. They are not only able to hear the bat's ultrasonic squeaks, they also can perform complex, aerobatic escape maneuvers, and some moths even counter the bat's squeaks with their own ultrasonic reply. These designs are not simple, and while years of excellent research have elucidated much of the details, many of the complexities have yet to be fully understood.

Sometimes it just makes me giddy to contemplate the miracles that blind, random processes like natural selection and genetic mutation can accomplish. I also stand in awe of the enormous credulity displayed by those who believe that such systems as Hunter describes could have evolved solely from such processes without any intelligent input. It's just astonishing what one can make oneself believe if only one tries hard enough. Would that we all had such faith.

Islam's Long War Against the West

Jonathan Last writes a column in The Philadelphia Inquirer about Islam's centuries-long war against the West. Last offers some good perspective on the nature of the conflict, and he begins with this:

Soon after 9/11, the Bush administration labeled the conflict into which it plunged this country the "war on terror." But this is no more descriptive than calling the fight in Iraq a "war on IEDs." The more pressing question is: Are we, or are we not, engaged in a larger clash of civilizations?

If the answer is "We are," the clash long predates 9/11, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and George W. Bush. It predates America itself. It is a clash between Western civilization and the Islamic world.

Harvard professor Samuel Huntington first made this case in 1993, in his famous article "The Clash of Civilizations" in the journal Foreign Affairs. "Conflict along the fault line between Western and Islamic civilizations has been going on for 1,300 years," he wrote. After the founding of Islam, Muslims spread their faith by the sword. Islam conquered North Africa and pushed into Europe, where it ruled in Sicily, Spain, Portugal, and parts of France. Twice, the forces of Islam laid siege to Vienna. For 1,000 years, Islam advanced and Christendom retreated.

As Pope Benedict XVI explains in his book Without Roots, the very concept of "Europe" emerged as a reaction to the surge of Islam. Not until the failure of the second Turkish siege of Vienna in 1683 did the Islamic tide recede definitively. For the next 300 years, Western civilization was ascendant and the Islamic world stagnated.

But the conflict between the two cultures never fully abated. Throughout the 20th century, Western countries tussled with Islamic states or their non-state proxies. And, as columnist Mark Steyn points out, when you gaze at conflicts around the globe today, the one constant is Islam. Muslims are fighting, or have recently fought, Jews in the Mideast, Hindus in Kashmir, Christians in Nigeria, atheists in Russia, Buddhists in Thailand and Burma, Catholics in the Philippines, and Orthodox Christians in the Balkans.

The rest of the essay is very much worth reading.

Liberals And the Foley Fiasco

Left-wing blog The Daily Kos and its readership are in a righteous stew over Mark Foley's "despicable" behavior. This has led me to wonder what it is, exactly, that they find despicable in Mr. Foley's pederast fantasies.

Are they outraged that Mr. Foley is a homosexual? That can't be it, of course, because they're deeply commited to the liberal doctrine of moral equivalence between homo- and hetero- sexuality.

Are they incensed that his lubricious attractions are directed at subordinates? That can't be it either since they weren't upset at all about Bill Clinton's similar attractions for his subordinates.

Perhaps they're furious because the boys Mr. Foley was instant messaging were only sixteen years old. Indeed, this is the high ground liberals on the talk shows are trying to occupy, but I don't think it works. Attraction to young boys is a common aspect of gay culture. If the Kos Kids are upset about that then they're essentially rebuking or renouncing the Left's entire history of facilitating and championing sexual deviancy and libertinism.

Not every liberal, of course, supports laws that would make it easier for adult men to have sexual liaisons with adolescent boys, such as lowering the age of sexual consent (which, by the way, is sixteen in Washington, D.C.). Even so, virtually everyone who does favor them is on the political Left and everyone who strenuously opposes them is on the political Right. Sexual freedom and the abolition of laws limiting sexual expression are Left-wing issues, so it's a little unusual to see Lefties condemning the very behavior they or their ideological allies think should be legal.

Maybe their moral "outrage" is simply a convenient ploy to try to make political hay against the Republicans whom they hate, in part because Republicans stand in the way of the emergence of the kind of society in which laws against sex with minors would be a thing of the past.

New ID Site For HS Students

There's a new site for high school students interested in Intelligent Design called Overwhelming Evidence. It's a site that enables high schoolers to network and communicate their views on Intelligent Design and evolution.

The site managers write that they believe that "today's students are smarter than they are given credit for, and that rather than being told what to believe, they have the ability to explore the range of possibilities and figure out what to believe on their own. The site is meant to encourage students to explore the facts, report the facts, and debate the facts."

If you're in high school, or just out, and interested in the controversy swirling around ID and Darwinism, give this site a look.

Fearing For His Life

Robert Redeker is a French philosopher who can no longer spend more than two nights in any one place. He must be constantly on the move to elude those who seek his life. What was his offense? In an article in Le Figaro titled "Faced with Islamic intimidation, what should the free world do?" he said this:

"Pitiless war leader, pillager, butcher of Jews and polygamous (people), this is how Mohammed is revealed by the Koran."

For this Redeker is in fear of his life, not in some dysfunctional Arab state, but in France. The Islamists know nothing of the freedoms we in the West take for granted and they're determined to wipe them out. Their weapon now is to intimidate those who speak against Islam by killing some and threatening others. Eventually their goal is to reduce the West to a state of abject servitude to Islamic overlords who will demand that it be written into our laws that no one be permitted to speak ill of Islam or the Prophet.

Read Redeker's story here.

Vindicated!

Ever since 1969 I have been silently convinced that the whole world was wrong about a certain historical event and that I was right. I could never prove it, of course, and besides it wasn't a big deal, but it was always an irritant for me whenever I heard the mistake repeated.

When Neil Armstrong stepped down onto the moon's surface and uttered his famous words, quickly engraved in stone by, I think, Walter Cronkite, as "One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind," I recall saying to my future wife, who was with me at the time, "That's not what he said. That doesn't even make sense. It's like saying 'One small step for mankind, one giant leap for mankind. What he said was one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind." Subsequently, every time I heard the apocryphal rendering repeated, I cringed, just as I cringe when someone says "I could care less" when what they mean to say is "I could not care less".

Anyway, now, after all these years, I have been vindicated, and I want to tell the world:

HOUSTON (Sept. 30) - That's one small word for astronaut Neil Armstrong, one giant revision for grammar sticklers everywhere.

An Australian computer programmer says he found the missing "a" from Armstrong's famous first words from the moon in 1969, when the world heard the phrase, "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." The story was reported in Saturday's editions of the Houston Chronicle.

Some historians and critics have dogged Armstrong for not saying the more dramatic and grammatically correct, "One small step for a man ..." in the version he transmitted to NASA's Mission Control. Without the missing "a," Armstrong essentially said, "One small step for mankind, one giant leap for mankind."

The famous astronaut has maintained he intended to say it properly and believes he did. Thanks to some high-tech sound-editing software, computer programmer Peter Shann Ford might have proved Armstrong right.

Ford said he downloaded the audio recording of Armstrong's words from a NASA Web site and analyzed the statement with software that allows disabled people to communicate through computers using their nerve impulses.

In a graphical representation of the famous phrase, Ford said he found evidence that the missing "a" was spoken and transmitted to NASA.

"I have reviewed the data and Peter Ford's analysis of it, and I find the technology interesting and useful," Armstrong said in a statement. "I also find his conclusion persuasive. Persuasive is the appropriate word."

See? I knew it.

Self-Destruction

Rep.Mark Foley (R-FL) resigned from congress when e-mails and instant messages he had been sending to congressional pages all under the age of 18 came to light last week.

The internet dialogue reveals a sick man who desperately needs help. Like former NJ governor Jim McGreevy who resigned when the sordid details of his double life were exposed last year, Foley's life and reputation are destroyed.

On one hand one can't help but be disgusted by the sleaziness to which these men have descended (the incriminating dialogue Foley engaged in with a minor can be accessed through the above link, but I don't recommend it unless you have a high tolerance for human degradation), on the other, one must feel very sorry for them. Their lives, even before they were found out, must have been filled with fear of being caught and self-loathing at what they had become.

It's easy to feel contempt for powerful people when, despite their transgressions, they are arrogant, defiant, and unrepentant, but surely when they're broken and devastated, contempt must give way to compassion. To the extent that Jim McGreevy and Mark Foley are humiliated and laden with self-reproach they need, and should have, our prayers. Unfortunately, it's not clear that either of them are yet at that stage.

In any event, as if the Mark Foley imbroglio hasn't done enough to harm Republicans going into the mid-term elections, it turns out that House speaker Dennis Hastert and House Majority leader John Boehner are both being accused of having known of Foley's illicit involvement with underage House pages and lied to cover it up.

If this is true, and I'm not persuaded yet that it is, it would be absolutely astonishing, especially in light of the ordeal the Catholic Church has been undergoing for the last decade over similar revelations about some of their clergy. It's hard to believe that in light of the Catholic Church's nightmarish experience the Republican party would make the same mistake.

Ed Morrissey at Captain's Quarters has details and is calling for the resignation of both Hastert and Boehner from their leadership positions. I think this is a little premature since it's not clear yet how much anyone knew about what Foley was doing. If it turns out, however, that anyone, including Democrats and media types, knew for months what was happening and didn't do anything to stop it, then those people should indeed be required to pay a price.

UPDATE: Dennis Hastert has just come out with a statement insisting that the Republican leadership knew nothing of the salacious instant messages, but, he notes, somebody did know about them and evidently did nothing to stop them. It's beginning to look as if these messages have been withheld in order to use them for political purposes close to the election. That's almost as immoral as the messages themselves.

Feedback

There are a couple of good replies on our Feedback Page to the posts this week on the Open Letter to the Religious Right and Mr. Cell Phone Guy.

Give them a look.

John Calvin's Theological Legacy

Christianity Today has an article which discusses the appeal Reformed (Calvinist) theology has lately been exerting, especially on young people. For those of our readers with a theological inclination we've duplicated the sidebar to the main article. It lays out in basic form the doctrinal heart of Reformed theology.

Calvinism as an identifiable theological school began with John Calvin (1509-1564). Also referred to as Reformed theology, Calvinism draws on pre-Reformation theologians like Augustine. It has taken a variety of forms over the centuries, but the acronym TULIP is still a handy summary of its distinguishing marks.

Total depravity: We cannot respond to God's offer of salvation, since our will-indeed, our whole being-has been rendered incapable by sin (Rom. 3:9-10; Rom. 8:7-8; 2 Cor. 4:4). Regeneration by the Holy Spirit must precede our response of faith. This contrasts with Christian traditions that say we have sufficient free will to respond to God's offer of salvation or that we can "cooperate" with grace.

Unconditional election: God chooses to save some people, not because of anything they have done, but according to his sovereign will (Acts 13:48; Rom. 9; Eph. 1:3-6). Some Calvinists have also taught that God elects certain people to damnation, but few advance this view aggressively. This contrasts with other Christian traditions that teach that God desires to save everyone, but only elects those whom he foreknows will respond to his grace.

Limited atonement: Christ died for the sins of the church, not for the whole world (John 10:15; Mark 10:45; Rev. 5:9). This contrasts with traditions that teach that Christ died for all, even though all may not appropriate the benefits of his sacrifice.

Irresistible grace: Those God elects cannot resist the Holy Spirit's draw to salvation (John 6:44; 1 Cor. 1:23-24; Acts 16:14). Again, this contrasts with Christian traditions that teach that we are able to reject God's forgiveness-thus, while God may choose to save everyone, not everyone chooses to believe.

Perseverance of the saints: By God's power, believers will endure in faith to the end (John 10:28; Rom. 8:30; Phil. 1:6). Other Christian traditions teach that people can forsake faith and lose salvation.

Each of these five petals of the TULIP raises interesting questions. Are we indeed "totally depraved"? Does God predestine some people to be saved for eternity and others to be lost? Was Christ's death an atonement only for those who had been predestined to be saved? Is God's calling irresistable or can someone reject God even though God is calling him/her to Himself? Can someone whom God has "saved" lose that salvation? Any comments from the theologians among you?

Quotes From the Darwinism/ID Debate

Following are a series of quotes that bear on the Darwinian/Intelligent Design controversy.

First is University of Delaware physicist Stephen Barr's literary allusion which illustrates why Divine creation and evolution are not necessarily incompatible:

Did this insect evolve or is it created by God? To ask that is as silly as to ask whether Polonious died because Hamlet stabbed him or because Shakespeare wrote the play that way.

Barr, who is a theistic evolutionist, believes that just as Shakespeare used the character of Hamlet to bring about Polonious' death, so to God could have used physical laws and an evolutionary process to bring about those forms of life He wished to create.

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Jonathan Wells is officially an IDer and personally a creationist. He's writing on the topic Why Darwinism is Doomed, and makes an important distinction which writers on this subject seem almost perversely unable to grasp:

The issue here is not "evolution" - a broad term that can mean simply change within existing species (which no one doubts). The issue is Darwinism - which claims that all living things are descended from a common ancestor, modified by natural selection acting on random genetic mutations.

The truth is Darwinism is not a scientific theory, but a materialistic creation myth masquerading as science. It is first and foremost a weapon against religion - especially traditional Christianity. Evidence is brought in afterwards, as window dressing.

This is becoming increasingly obvious to the American people, who are not the ignorant backwoods religious dogmatists that Darwinists make them out to be. Darwinists insult the intelligence of American taxpayers and at the same time depend on them for support. This is an inherently unstable situation, and it cannot last.

If I were a Darwinist, I would be afraid. Very afraid.

I would add to what Wells says about Darwinism that the trait which makes it anathema to many theists is not that it is a form of evolution but that it insists that only physical forces were involved in the emergence of life and all of life's diversity. In other words Darwinists hold that intelligence is irrelevant to the existence of the cosmos and the biosphere. This strikes many people as implausible to the point of incredulity.

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Jonathan Wells also notes that it is a myth, and a false one at that, that biologists have actually witnessed one species evolving into another:

So except for polyploidy in plants, which is not what Darwin's theory needs, there are no observed instances of the origin of species. As evolutionary biologists Lynn Margulis and Dorion Sagan wrote in 2002: "Speciation, whether in the remote Galapagos, in the laboratory cages of the drosophilosophers, or in the crowded sediments of the paleontologists, still has never been directly traced." Evolution's smoking gun is still missing.

From: Politically Incorrect Guide to Darwinism and Intelligent Design , p. 55, quoting Lynn Margulis and Dorion Sagan, Acquiring Genomes: A Theory of the Origin of Species (New York: Basic Books, p. 32).

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Richard Dawkins is a militantly atheistic Darwinian who makes a startling admission in an essay which first appeared here, but which subsequently disappeared. Speculation has it that Dawkins was pressured to take it down by fellow Darwinians because his admission makes it very difficult for them to maintain the twin fictions that Intelligent Design is religion and that it can't be science because it can't be tested:

You then realize that the presence of a creative deity in the universe is clearly a scientific hypothesis. Indeed, it is hard to imagine a more momentous hypothesis in all of science. A universe with a god would be a completely different kind of universe from one without, and it would be a scientific difference. God could clinch the matter in his favour at any moment by staging a spectacular demonstration of his powers, one that would satisfy the exacting standards of science.

I wonder if the Big Bang is spectacular enough to qualify.

Here In America

This song by Diamond Rio deserves a wider audience than what I'm told it's getting on most radio stations. Maybe if Brittany Spears sang it....

Thanks to Dick Francis for the link.

JDAMs

Strategy Page has a fascinating piece on the development and impact of the JDAM (Joint Direct Attack Munition), a bomb guided by GPS satellites. This weapon has revolutionized modern warfare in ways that should please advocates of just war theory.

The essay begins with these words:

Military commanders the world over are struggling to figure out how to deal with the massive changes created by the arrival of GPS guided bombs (like JDAM). The United States has them, most of them, and the ability to stop others from using them (because America control the GPS satellites). The impact of JDAM has been enormous. It has made air power much more effective, reduced casualties for the force using them, and speeded up combat operations. Few non-professionals have noticed this, but generals and admirals of the major military powers have. These changes are enormous, but the mass media has not really noticed what is going on here. So few people are aware of how much JDAM has changed the way wars are fought.

The rest of the column explains how the JDAM has come about, why we have a monopoly on their use, and why just war theorists should hail their development.

Only if We See it as a Gift

Stephen Barr writes a review of E.O. Wilson's new book (The Creation: A Meeting of Science and Religion) which pleads for a concerted effort to save the rich and vanishing diversity of living things in our world. The review appears in the current issue of First Things (subscription required).

Wilson, as Barr points out, is a naturalist in both the biological and philosophical senses of the term. That is, he's someone deeply in love with plants and animals, and he is also a man who believes that nature is all there is.

Wilson's hope, according to Barr, is that man will eventually adopt philosophical naturalism as his religion and come to revere the natural world so much that he will do whatever he must to save it.

This, I suggest, is a forlorn hope. Naturalism as a metaphysic can offer us no reason why we should save the world. It can give us no reason why we should care whether beautiful species of birds and flowers survive after each of us has died. Once we're dead what does it matter whether every beautiful bird and butterfly goes extinct? There's no naturalistic reason why we shouldn't exploit the earth to make our lives as comfortable as we can while we're alive. If this means that our descendents will not we enjoy the wonders and richness we have experienced, so be it. Naturalism affords no reason why we should care about that. Once we're dead nothing matters.

Ironically, it is only the theist, indeed, the Christian theist, who has a non-subjective, non-arbitrary reason for valuing the natural world. The Christian has at least three such reasons. First, the world and its ecosystems were created by God and are ours to use and enjoy, but they're not ours to destroy. We are merely renters, not owners. Second, the wonders of the natural world are a gift to us from God, a token of His love, and as such they're to be prized, cherished, and cared for just as we would any precious gift given to us by one we love. Third, we're commanded by God to be responsible caretakers or stewards of the world we inhabit.

The Christian, then, has a solid basis for an environmental ethic that prominently features preservation, conservation and responsible management. The philosophical naturalist who adopts these same values does so only as a result of an arbitrary subjective preference. Neither the decision to preserve nor the decision to exploit and destroy are right or wrong in a moral sense in a Godless universe any more than there is a moral right or wrong involved in one's decision to paint his house blue or to paint it green.

I share Wilson's hope that we can preserve most of our planet's natural beauty and biological diversity, but contrary to Wilson, I see naturalistic philosophical assumptions as doing nothing to aid that cause. Preservation and conservation, if they're to be more than just an aesthetic preference that some people have for nature rather than housing developments and shopping malls, have be founded on the belief that we are not mere consumers but rather grateful stewards of God's marvelous gift to us.

Some Things Never Change

Bill passes along a link to an exchange of letters that evidently took place c. 635 A.D. between an Arab Muslim Caliph named Omar Ibn-Kat'tab and an Iranian (Persian) ruler named Yazdgerd III. The first letter is an ultimatum from the Caliph demanding the surrender of the Iranians to Islam. The second is Yazdgerd's wonderful and heroic reply. Here's the ultimatum:

Bism-ellah Ar'rahman Ar'rhim
To the Shah of the Fars

I do not foresee a good future for you and your nation save your acceptance of my terms and your submission to me. There was a time when your country ruled half the world, but see how now your sun has set.

On all fronts your armies have been defeated and your nation is condemned to extinction. I point out to you the path whereby you might escape this fate. Namely, that you begin worshipping the one god, the unique deity, the only god who created all that is.

I bring you his message. Order your nation to cease the false worship of fire and to join us, that they may join the truth.

Worship Allah the creator of the world. Worship Allah and accept Islam as the path of salvation. End now your polytheistic ways and become Muslims that you may accept Allah-u-Akbar as your savior.

This is the only way of securing your own survival and the peace of your Persians. You will do this if you know what is good for you and for your Persians.

Submission is your only option
Allah u Akbar
The Calif of Muslims Omar Ibn-Khat'tab

Read Yazdgerd's response at the link. May the Yazdgerds of the world increase, and may all the Omars follow Yazdgerd's excellent advice.

Open Letter to the Religious Right

Joe Carter pens an Open Letter to the Religious Right. It's mostly good stuff and coming from a political and theological conservative, much of it would be surprising to both liberals and conservatives alike. I don't think he's correct in everything he says, but where I think he's wrong he's not off by much.

He begins his letter with these words:

During the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln was purportedly asked if God was on his side.

"Sir, my concern is not whether God is on our side," said the President, "my greatest concern is to be on God's side, for God is always right."

Ironically, though Lincoln is often praised for this remark, it contains three of the most controversial ideas in American politics: that God should be invoked in the political sphere; that God's existence matters, much less that he is always right; and that since He takes sides on certain issues, some people will be divinely justified while others will be in opposition not only to their political opponents but to the very Creator and Sustainer of the Universe.

If you find these ideas absurd and repugnant, you are most likely a secularist. If you find them to be embarrassing truths, then you may be on the religious left. If you find them so obvious that they hardly need stating, then you are probably a member of the so-called "religious right."

I embrace them whole-heartedly, which makes me a certified member of the religious right. Although I've often been uncomfortable with that term, I find it fits me more and more, as if I'm growing into it. So be it.

Read the rest of the letter at the link. It's worth it.

Al Qaeda's Estimate of the Iraq War

Al Jazeera has published a leaked copy of a classified al Qaeda Intelligence Estimate similar to the excerpts from the National Intelligence Estimate printed by the New York Times (Okay, not really. Al Jazeera understands something about loyalty).

The American Thinker has obtained part of the "document" here.

Here's part of it:

Our judgment that the war in Iraq is an unmitigated disaster rests on another logic entirely - one that, praise be to Allah, our allies on the American left fail utterly to grasp. By dragging on for so long, and thus generating so much political controversy, this war has created the opportunity for those among the infidels who truly understand us to find their voice. Today in the American media once-obscure scholars such as Bernard Lewis, James Arlandson, and Andrew Bostom are reaching large and growing audiences with their accurate and deeply insightful analyses of Islam.

And while it is one thing when the moron Bush stumbles onto the truth and calls us "Islamofascists"-it is quite another when the infidel leader Benedict visits a minor university in Germany, and there gives a scholarly speech about the nature of Islam that echoes across the globe and focuses worldwide attention on the central role of violence in our faith.

History teaches that when attacked, the infidel responds slowly - and at first, clumsily. (Consider how many centuries went by before Christianity responded to our conquests in the seventh and eighth centuries with what they are pleased to call the Crusades.) And of all the infidels, none responds more clumsily than the Americans. They are too corrupt - too distracted by their pornography and their shopping - to see clearly or even to think clearly about the threats they face.

But history also teaches that, given enough time, the Americans always come to understand the true nature of their enemy. And history teaches that once they do, they win.

We judge that a great shift is now under way within the Great Satan. While the "elites" in Washington continue to fight each other rather than us, the masses are becoming more resolute in their opposition to our jihad. Our agents report that throughout the Great Satan, in places like Birmingham, Alabama, and Raleigh, North Carolina, and Naperville, Illinois, and Fargo, North Dakota - and even in the outlying districts of New York itself - ordinary, working Americans are starting to wake up to who we truly are and what we mean to do. The people are moving ahead of their corrupt politicians.

For all the mistakes the Americans and their lackeys have made in Iraq - may Allah continue to mislead them - this war has been a disaster because it has triggered the one thing we were most determined to prevent: It has enabled the infidel to understand our true objective - which is, of course, the destruction of Western civilization.

Read the rest at the link.

Powder Scare

Paula Froelich at the New York Post wrote this piece on MSNBC's talk host and commentator Keith Olbermann:

September 27, 2006 -- MSNBC loudmouth Keith Olbermann flipped out when he opened his home mail yesterday. The acerbic host of "Countdown with Keith Olbermann" was terrified when he opened a suspicious-looking letter with a California postmark and a batch of white powder poured out. A note inside warned Olbermann, who's a frequent critic of President Bush's policies, that it was payback for some of his on-air shtick. The caustic commentator panicked and frantically called 911 at about 12:30 a.m., sources told The Post's Philip Messing. An NYPD HazMat unit rushed to Olbermann's pad on Central Park South, but preliminary tests indicated the substance was harmless soap powder. However, that wasn't enough to satisfy Olbermann, who insisted on a checkup. He asked to be taken to St. Luke's Hospital, where doctors looked him over and sent him home. Whether they gave him a lollipop on the way out isn't known. Olbermann had no comment.

Now I defer to no one in the matter of finding Mr. Olbermann hard to take. He is snide, pompous, arrogant, mean-spirited, and petty, but none of that, as bad as it is, justifies the prank that Froelich reports. In fact, I think Froelich is being unfair to Olberman in portraying him as something of a sissy in the way he reacted to the powder in the envelope. If I were a celebrity in the public eye, given the anthrax scares of a couple of years ago, I'd probably react the same way, and I suspect Froelich would too.

Worse, though, is the fact that someone ostensibly from the conservative side of Olbermann's meager viewing audience would engage in such a tactic, which is really a form of terrorism. It disgraces anyone to do something like this, and whoever did it should be ashamed.

No doubt Olbermann suspects the sender was Bill O'Reilly. O'Reilly certainly has motive, given Olbermann's relentless public assaults on him, but I prefer to think that O'Reilly, who is every bit as pompous and obnoxious as Olbermann, is nevertheless above this sort of hooliganism.

Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap

Coming on the heels of a reporter's stunningly maladroit question concerning Republican Senator George Allen's (VA) Jewish ancestry are allegations now by Salon.com which accuse him of past racist remarks. Salon's piece tries hard to make Allen look like a racist and a bigot, but, as usual, there's more to the story.

Ed Morrissey has a good summary of events here and here for those interested in seeing how political dirty tricks are played by those with no moral principle guiding them except "win at all costs".

Egg On Their Faces, Again

The New York Times made much of the secret NIE report which proved, the Times assured us, that Iraq and Bush were making the terrorism problem worse. As you probably guessed even without having seen the report (which Bush has now declassified), the Times' take on the NIE report was somewhat skewed. The relevant section can be read here (It's not very long).

The Times and others in the media quoted this sentence and concluded that we need to get out of there and stop the bleeding:

The Iraq conflict has become the "cause celebre" for jihadists, breeding a deep resentment of US involvement in the Muslim world and cultivating supporters for the global jihadist movement.

What they didn't tell us was the very next sentence:

Should jihadists leaving Iraq perceive themselves, and be perceived, to have failed, we judge fewer fighters will be inspired to carry on the fight."

In other words, success in Iraq is predicted to have a moderating influence on terrorist activity. The Times and its allies chose not to tell us that what the NIE report says is that what would really inspire the terrorists to redouble their barbarous efforts would be to do precisely what the Times and many Democrats have advised: Cut and Run.

Now that the relevant portions of the document have been released and reveal the Democrats' dissimulations they're calling for the entire document to be made available. They're implying that if only we saw everything in the NIE report we'd see that "Bush's War" is actually making us less safe.

This really is amusing. When the original exposè ran in the Times they only printed the single sentence above. Yet no Democrat complained that we weren't seeing the whole report. No Democrat complained that we couldn't judge the context. No Democrat demanded that the relevant portions be released so that the whole thing could be assessed. Now that they have been, and the Democrats have egg on their faces, they're insisting that we haven't seen the whole thing and that if we did we'd be convinced that they're right. Sure.

Mr. Cell Phone Guy

For all of you who have ever sat in a restaurant and been forced to listen to every word spoken by someone on the other side of the room who thought it necessary to shout into his/her cell phone - someone who was oblivious to the fact that a phone can carry normal amplitudes perfectly well and who obviously believed that other people enjoy having their own conversations drowned out by his/her phone conversation - this one's for you.

Disclaimer: Nothing in this post should be construed as an endorsement of the product advertised at the link!

Blessing and Curse

Daveed Gartenstein-Ross has a column on Counterterrorism Blog in which he argues that Pakistan's deal with the the tribes and Taliban in Waziristan to withdraw from that province as long as they don't cause mischief in the rest of Pakistan effectively grants terrorists a safe haven in Waziristan.

I wonder, though, if there's not a silver lining here. I know that Pakistan has said that just because they are essentially ceding sovereignty over this region that that doesn't mean that they will permit foreigners to move in with impunity. Even so, as Waziristan becomes more independent of Islamabad, Musharef will find it increasingly convenient to do nothing if coalition forces in Afghanistan strike Taliban bases in western Pakistan.

In other words, an autonomous Waziristan could be both a blessing and a curse to the Taliban who use that area as a safe-haven. They no longer have to contend with the Pakistani military but they may soon have to contend with coalition smart bombs.

Counterterrorism Blog thinks that Pakistan's withdrawal is a serious blow to the effort to nurture Afghanistan's nascent democracy. It may, on the contrary, be a stroke of strategic genius that actually winds up making Waziristan less of a safe-haven that it was before. We'll see in due course.

Creeping Theocracy

Joe Carter recycles a fine 2004 piece that's still relevant to the latest bit of liberal paranoia over religion. He notes that the fear of many lefties, and even some conservatives, of what they see as creeping theocracy is really quite risible. He writes:

After all, more than half of American evangelicals are either Baptists or non-denominational. We don't even want a centralized church government much less a central government controlled by the church. So where does this silly canard come from?

He goes on to quote Eugene Volokh:

I keep hearing evangelical Christian leaders criticized for "trying to impose their religious dogma on the legal system," for instance by trying to change the law to ban abortion, or by trying to keep the law from allowing gay marriage.

I like to ask these critics: What do you think about the abolitionist movement of the 1800s? As I understand it, many -- perhaps most or nearly all -- of its members were deeply religious people, who were trying to impose their religious dogma of liberty on the legal system that at the time legally protected slavery.

Or what do you think about the civil rights movement? The Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., after all, was one of its main leaders, and he supported and defended civil rights legislation as a matter of God's will, often in overtly religious terms. He too tried to impose his religious dogma on the legal system, which at the time allowed private discrimination, and in practice allowed governmental discrimination as well.

Or how about religious opponents of the draft, opponents of the death penalty, supporters of labor unions, supporters of welfare programs, who were motivated by their religious beliefs -- because deeply religious people's moral beliefs are generally motivated by their religious beliefs -- in trying to repeal the draft, abolish the death penalty, protect labor, or better the lot of the poor? Perhaps their actions were wrong on the merits....But would you condemn these people on the grounds that it was simply wrong for them to try to impose their religious beliefs on the legal system?

Volokh does a nice job of pointing out the absurdity of the complaint about people using religion as a motivation for public policy, and the rest of his piece is worth reading, but beyond his sensible reply there are other reasons why the idea that Christians have no right to impose their values on the rest of society is inane. For one thing, the person voicing the objection is trying to impose his value on others by intimidating the rest of us into accepting it. His value is that people who don't believe like him must not be allowed to legally burden the rest of society with their values. But by prohibiting Christians from having recourse to legislative action his value becomes a legal proscription on Christians and everyone else. So he's doing exactly what he condemns the Christian for doing.

Moreover, coming from anyone who does not believe in a personal God the claim that imposing one's values is wrong is simply incomprehensible. If there is no God then nothing is wrong, including imposing one's values on others. I have the right to do whatever I have the power and the desire to do in a godless universe, and it's simply empty rhetoric to insist that I don't.

An example, though, of someone who wants to say just this is in the comment section of Volokh's blog. The commenter writes:

Personally I hold the position that it's illegitimate (from an ethical, not a constitutional standpoint) to justify one's decisions about how society should be run based on assumptions one cannot defend reasonably. As I have yet to see any compelling defense made on evidence that ...1) there is a god and 2) that god does not want me to be a homosexual, I find it unethical to try to legislate my choice to be or not be homosexual based on those propositions.

My understanding is that a significant segment of the religious right makes their case exclusively on these grounds. I take this position not because of moral relativism, but because of the lack of a reasoned argument that can be presented for the case. To the extent that one desires to restrict another based on propositions one cannot defend reasonably, I believe that one is behaving unethically. I think that legislating me based on assumptions based on faith rather than reason disrespects me as a human being capable of thought.

Note that the writer is not saying that it should be illegal to impose one's values on others legislatively but rather that it's unethical. But an appeal to ethics works no better for him than an appeal to the law. The writer is evidently skeptical of the existence of God, but if there is no God then what he asserts in his last two sentences makes no sense. What does it mean to say "one is behaving unethically"? It can only mean that one is behaving in ways that the writer doesn't like, but, if so, so what? Why is that bad or wrong?

He suggests that it's unethical to treat him this way because it's a form of disrespect, but he gives us no reason why we should think that treating him with disrespect is wrong. What makes him think that he must be respected? Does he have a right to be respected? Certainly he does not if there's no transcendent moral authority that confers that right upon him. On the assumption that there is no such being he has no such right.

So, the irony of all this is that the only people who can say that nobody has the right to impose their values on others is a person who believes that there is a God who insists that we respect each other. Failing that all the talk of morality, ethics, and rights is just so much rhetorical blather signifying nothing.

Anger Management

For those who have been hearing about the infamous Clinton interview with Chris Wallace which was aired on FOX yesterday and wondering what all the talk is about, here's the video. Former President Clinton certainly does seem pretty angry at the suggestion that he didn't do all he could have to thwart terrorists during his presidency. I almost expected him to grab Wallace by the throat.

The MSM has been fairly silent today about Clinton's barely controlled rage, but I wonder how they'd be covering this were it, say, Dick Cheney or George Bush who reacted this way in an interview.

Dawkins' Bad Book, Brown's Bad Review

Andrew Brown, writing a review of Richard Dawkins' latest screed against religious belief titled The God Delusion, opines that Dawkins has written a terrible book:

It has been obvious for years that Richard Dawkins had a fat book on religion in him, but who would have thought him capable of writing one this bad? Incurious, dogmatic, rambling and self-contradictory, it has none of the style or verve of his earlier works.

Brown goes on to explain why the book written by the world's most famous atheistic Darwinian is so egregious, but before he does he feels the need to present his own atheistic credentials lest someone think he's just one of those religious yahoos out to blaspheme atheism's patron saint. He burnishes his skeptical bona fides by observing that there are some things about which Dawkins is correct:

In his broad thesis, Dawkins is right. Religions are potentially dangerous, and in their popular forms profoundly irrational. The agnostics must be right and the atheists very well may be. There is no purpose to the universe. Nothing inconsistent with the laws of physics has been reliably reported. To demand a designer to explain the complexity of the world begs the question, "Who designed the designer?" It has been clear since Darwin that we have no need to hypothesise a designer to explain the complexity of living things. The results of intercessory prayer are indistinguishable from those of chance.

Brown may think that Dawkins is right about these things, but I think Brown is wrong. Let's unpack the above paragraph and consider each of its sentences in turn:

Religions are potentially dangerous, and, in their popular forms, profoundly irrational. This is an observation, unfortunately, that tells us nothing. Every belief system, indeed every thing, is "potentially dangerous". The assertion that popular forms of religion are "profoundly irrational" is probably true of some and not true of others. What makes religious belief irrational? Is it irrational to believe in a personal God? If so, why? Brown does not give us any criteria for judging whether a belief is irrational or not. He simply asserts that religious belief is irrational and evidently expects his reader to nod in agreement without thinking about the matter. Perhaps Mr. Brown might spend an evening or two with Alvin Plantinga's Warranted Christian Belief. If he would he'd discover how and why the irrationality claim has been so thoroughly debunked that not even most atheistic philosophers accept it any more.

The agnostics must be right and the atheists very well may be. Why must agnostics be right? An agnostic is someone who refuses to commit himself to theism or atheism because he thinks the evidence in either case is insufficient. However evidence, both in terms of what constitutes it and how strong it must be, is person-relative. What is sufficient to support or warrant belief for one person may not be for another. When Brown says that agnosticism must be right he seems to be saying that everyone should be an agnostic regardless of whether they find the evidence sufficient to warrant belief or not. In other words, he's imposing his standard of warrant on others and this he has no business doing. Agnosticism may be the proper position for him, but he cannot say that it is the proper position for everyone. There's nothing wrong, certainly, with someone believing God exists if they are convinced that He does.

There is no purpose to the universe. This is partly true. On Brown's assumption that there is no creator then of course there's no purpose to anything, including your life, my life and Mr. Brown's life. Our existence is utterly meaningless and pointless. If, however, the cosmos is the product of an intelligent agent then we are justified in assuming that that agent had some purpose in creating it. We may not know what it is, but there may well be one and we may well have some purpose for being here as well. In order for Mr. Brown's claim to stand he has to show at the very least that it's likely that there is no creator. It would be interesting to see him attempt that.

Nothing inconsistent with the laws of physics has been reliably reported. This is a little disingenuous. What constitutes "reliably reported"? And what constitutes a physical inconsistency? Take the account of Jesus' resurrection. Why aren't the reports of this event reliable? When we cut away all the rhetorical brush we find that they are unreliable because they report a miracle. Why does that make them unreliable? Because genuine miracles never happen. How do we know they never happen? Because a miracle is inconsistent with the laws of physics and nothing inconsistent with the laws of physics has ever been reliably reported. Makes you dizzy, doesn't it?

As for inconsistency with the laws of physics, it's hard to say what such a thing would look like. The laws of physics merely codify probabilities. They don't say that something is impossible. The law of entropy, for example, simply tells us that it is highly unlikely that a system will go from a state of disorder to a state of order unless there is an input of energy from an outside source. The resurrection of Christ was an example of the reversal of entropy, but, if it occured because of an energy input from an outside source, i.e. God, there would have been no nomological inconsistency involved.

To demand a designer to explain the complexity of the world begs the question, "Who designed the designer?" Aside from the fact that this is a misuse of the term "begs the question" (the implied reasoning in the first paragraph of the previous section is a better example of begging the question) we might ask why Brown's question is at all important. It may be interesting as a matter of curious speculation to wonder about the cause, if any, of the designer, but it's really not relevant or important. Once we find an example of something in the natural world whose probability of being produced solely by physical forces is so low as to be practically implausible, then intelligence becomes a legitimate causal option whether we can assign a cause to that intelligence or not. If an astronaut found a perfectly cubical and highly polished piece of metal ten feet high on Mars he would be perfectly justified in concluding an intelligent cause to the cube even though he might have no idea who or what the cause was or what it was that made whatever crafted the cube.

Suppose, to take a different example, that we have good reason to believe that there is a "universe generator" somehow churning out universes as some voteries of the multiverse hypothesis believe. Must we be able to find the cause of the generator before we can posit its existence? Surely not. We only need to see that the existence of such a generator is the best explanation for the phenomena for which we are trying to account. The same is true for an intelligent cause of living things in particular and the cosmos in general.

It has been clear since Darwin that we have no need to hypothesise a designer to explain the complexity of living things. Here's another good example of question begging. Brown assumes as true the very matter that is in dispute. In point of fact there's widespread agreement that if irreducible complexity (IC) exists in the natural world then it must have arisen through some process, either in addition to or instead of, RMNS (random mutation and natural selection). The question that is at the center of the controversy, then, is whether there really are any genuine examples of IC out there. The answer to this question is by no means "clear" and many labs are busily at work, as you read this, trying to show that the examples of IC that have so far been adduced are really not examples of the phenomenon at all. This actually is pretty interesting because it shows that ID is a legitimate scientific theory since it presumably can be tested and, despite the cavils of the critics to the contrary, it does lead to research programs.

The results of intercessory prayer are indistinguishable from those of chance. What does this have to do with whether or not belief in God, or religion in general, is rational? Presumably Brown means to say that we can't point to answered prayer as a proof that God exists because a putative answer to prayer might just be a coincidence. True enough, but it doesn't follow from any of that that God doesn't exist, or that prayer is not answered, or that religion is irrational.

All in all, Brown would have done better to have stuck to just criticizing Dawkins' book.

From Lenin to Lennon

Joseph Pearce at First Things draws the inference from an article by Niall Ferguson that England is on the brink of a civil war between its Muslim and non-Muslim populations. The tensions between the two groups herald the failure of multiculturalism and are exacerbated by the Left's ennui:

The trouble, of course, is that the comrades, long since disillusioned with Lenin, have adopted Lennon instead. Whereas the old Marxists believed in something, albeit something absurd and dangerous, New Labour believes in nothing; "nothing" as defined by John Lennon in his sentimentally pernicious imagination: "No heaven ... no hell ... no countries ... nothing to kill or die for and no religion too." This is the new hedonism with which the secularists want to unite British society; the new uniculturalism to replace the old multiculturalism. It is perhaps not surprising that many Muslims are unconvinced by this self-centered hedonism in which, to return to Lennon, "all the people" are "living for today." If this is all we have to offer, to hell with it.

In other words, Muslims, disgusted by Western decadence, regard the West with contempt because they see that it on the verge of having nothing left to fight for. A culture this far gone in the direction of spiritual suicide, they believe, is like ripe fruit ready to fall into their hands. Thus we see Muslims emboldened to hasten the destruction of the social and political structures of the European countries in which they live. They're likely to be convinced, listening to the Left, that it would be an easy matter.

Read Pearce's whole piece at First Things.

The Pope's Speech

A friend passes along the link to this column by George Weigel on what Pope Benedict was saying in his now famous Regensburg speech. Weigel writes that:

In a brilliant lecture at the University of Regensburg last week, Pope Benedict XVI made three crucial points that are now in danger of being lost in the polemics about his supposedly offensive comments about Islam.

The three points, according to Weigel, were these:

1) All the great questions of life, including social and political questions, are ultimately theological.

2) Irrational violence aimed at innocent men, women and children "is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the [human] soul."

3) If the West's high culture keeps playing in the sandbox of postmodern irrationalism -- in which there is "your truth" and "my truth" but nothing such as "the truth" -- the West will be unable to defend itself. Why? Because the West won't be able to give reasons why its commitments to civility, tolerance, human rights and the rule of law are worth defending.

Benedict is right, of course, on all three counts. Read the full column at the link.

Rumors About Bin Laden's Death

Rumors coming out of the Saudi Intelligence services via French Intelligence claim that Osama bin Laden has died of typhoid. There's no confirmation of this, but apparently the story is being widely circulated since the French have had to say that they cannot confirm the story.

Go here for more on the rumor.

Don't Shoot Unless You're Sure

Mike Metzger who writes for the Clapham Institute does consistently outstanding columns. I can't find the link to his latest which was e-mailed to me by a friend, but it offers a simple common sense insight into one of the most important moral issues of our time:

A few of my friends are avid hunters and become quite animated this time of year. I don't share their zeal since I've never been a hunter, nor do I come from a family of hunters. My father - a brilliant engineer and academic - took me hunting once as a wee lad. I recall watching Dad firing his shotgun twice at fleeing pheasants. He missed both times. Our guide brought down a bird with a single blast. Dad never went hunting again.

All was not lost however. That brief experience introduced me to one of hunting's unbending rules: If something stirs in the woods - and we're not sure what it is - don't shoot. Taking human life is markedly different than shooting deer. This imperative might be a way to reframe our country's divisive debate over abortion.

The most significant abortion rulings by the Supreme Court have admitted to uncertainty. In Roe v. Wade (1973), the Court said: "We need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins. When those trained in the respective disciplines of medicine, philosophy, and theology are unable to arrive at any consensus, the judiciary, at this point in the development of man's knowledge, is not in a position to speculate as to the answer." Fair enough. But it sounds like they're admitting we're not sure if there's human life in the womb.

In Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992), Justices O'Connor, Kennedy, Souter, and Stevens admitted to more than uncertainty - they wafted into mystery: "At the heart of liberty is the right to define one's own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life." I am not a lawyer, but it seems the court is saying we're not sure when life begins. Since it's hazy, go ahead and shoot. You make the call.

But making that call is getting murkier - whether we're talking about the beginning or the end of life. In the September 8 issue of the journal Science, British neurologist Adrian M. Owen reports on a 23-year-old woman who suffered head trauma in a July 2005 traffic accident that left her in a coma.� She had no ability to communicate and repeated tests over more than five months found no signs of awareness or consciousness. Doctors diagnosed her as being in a vegetative state.

But through a series of tests using functional magnetic resonance imaging (which can detect different types of mental activity by measuring blood flow to various parts of the brain), Owen and his colleagues witnessed the woman's brain lighting up in ways that were "indistinguishable" from those in 12 healthy people. When asked to envision playing tennis and exploring her house, the regions of the brain used in language, movement and navigation came alive in the woman. "It was an absolutely stunning result," Owen exclaimed. "We had no idea whether she would understand our instructions. But this showed that she is aware."

That sounds like we're not so sure anymore when the lights go out. To be fair, the research does not indicate that many patients in vegetative states are necessarily aware or likely to recover. Nor does it necessarily apply to the case of Terry Schiavo, who suffered much more massive brain damage for far longer than the patient in Britain. But it is part of a pattern indicating gnawing uncertainty regarding life's bookends. In the case of the British woman, researchers are less certain than before about the end of human life. And in the Casey ruling, the justices admitted to uncertainty about life's beginnings when they wrote: "post- Roe neonatal care developments have advanced viability to a point somewhat earlier."

Maybe I'm missing something here. If we admit that we're not sure about what's moving in the womb... shouldn't we hold our fire until we know for certain?

In every area of our lives prudence invariably dictates that we should err, if we err at all, on the side of caution. We should always assume that it's a hunter in the bushes until we know for certain that it's not. Yet on the matters of abortion and euthanasia we reverse this eminently sensible rule and reason that unless we can prove that a human person's life is at stake, we're justified in assuming that it's not. Metzger's point is that this is as bizarre as arguing that if we don't know whether the rustle in the bushes is game or another hunter we're justified in assuming that it's game.

It's astonishing that otherwise intelligent people really think this way.

World's Most Reprehensible Man

This week the president of Iran was invited to speak at the U.N., an opportunity he used to insult and attack the President of the United States. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad presides over a nation in which women are regularly and horribly stoned to death for commiting acts of sexual impurity. That the U.N. would allow such a man in the door, much less let him speak, is an utter disgrace to that body. That this Neanderthal would insult any leader of a Western country, much less the President of the United States, should outrage every decent human being.

Here's part of a letter from an organization set up to save the lives of women sentenced to stoning. The letter describes a recent case:

Once again, another Iranian woman has been sentenced to death by the barbaric practice of public stoning. On June 28, 2006, a court in the northwestern Iranian city of Urmia sentenced Malak Ghorbany to death for committing "adultery." Under Iran's Penal Code, the term "adultery" is used to describe any intimate or sexual act between a man and a girl/woman who are not married. The crime of adultery is also used in cases where a girl is deemed to have committed "acts incompatible with chastity," which includes instances of rape. The punishment for "adultery" is death.

On the day of her punishment, the woman's hands are tied behind her back as she becomes covered from head to toe in winding sheets and is placed seated in a pit. The pit is then filled up to her chest with dirt and the dirt is tamped down. At that point, members of the community are invited to murder her by hurling rocks at her. However, to ensure that the condemned woman/girl receives the absolute maximum amount of pain and torture, the Iranian government has even mandated the size of the stones that are to be used in this barbaric act of public execution. By law, the stones must not be too small as to prevent ultimate death, nor must they be too large that they could cause the girl's death "too soon."

At the page linked to above is another link to a video which documents the case of Atefeh Sahaaleh, a 16 year-old girl, who was stoned to death for having sexual contact with a 22 year old man.

What I'd like to know is where the outraged voices are who were so quick a few decades ago to condemn South Africa, Chile, and Israel for real and imagined human rights abuses. Where are Left-wing feminists who vigorously protest the slightest violations of the dignity, honor, and equality of American women? Where are the writers for Sojourners and other organs of the religious Left who wrote copiously on human rights abuses in Central America during the 70s and 80s. Why are they not marching in the streets demanding sanctions against Iran as they did against South Africa? Why were they not outside the U.N. in the thousands protesting the appearance of the odious man who presides over such inhumanity and who could stop it if he wished? Why are the Left-wing blogs completely silent about this?

Might it be that just as they were largely silent about what Hussein did to the Iraqi people as long as Iraq was antagonistic to Washington, perhaps these champions of human rights are really not alarmed about what Iran does to it's people as long as Iran is hostile to America? Could it be that the Left only cares about human rights when those protections are under assault by allies of this country and that they are loath to protest when there is a possibility that their protest might encourage the use of military force against the offending nation? I'd like to hope not, but it would be good to have some evidence to support that hope.

Ahmadinejad has threatened to destroy Israel in a nuclear holocaust, yet he gets a hearty ovation from the assembled thugs in the U.N. General Assembly, and the American Left, by and large, merely yawns. That really is inexcusable.

Thanks to Michelle for the tip.

The Heartlessness of Withdrawal

Lawrence Kaplan of The New Republic, interestingly enough, delivers a few body shots and a couple of solid upper cuts to the chins of the Last Helicopter crowd. His column is so good and so important, especially given that TNR is a reliably liberal journal, that I've taken the liberty of reproducing most of it here:

..."If you think it's bad now," Bush said at a recent press conference, "imagine what Iraq would look like if the United States leaves before this government can defend itself." To which a headline in The Washington Post offered this typical response: "Bush's new argument: it could be worse."

Whatever its political uses, Bush's new argument happens to be true. Yet the moral cost of abandoning a country we have turned inside-out seems not to have made the slightest impression on opinion-makers. To the extent that ethical considerations factor into the debate at all, it's usually in favor of a rapid withdrawal from Iraq. Mostly, though, the debate over leaving has been conducted in the sterile language of geopolitics, credibility, and "misallocated" resources.

This heartlessness of the withdrawal argument responds to multiple needs that are largely unrelated to Iraq. It comforts the sensibilities of opinion-makers who have a distaste for this administration's foreign policy and so don't seem to feel much stake in its human consequences. It testifies to the consistency of those who, having opposed sending U.S. forces to Iraq in the first place, see nothing problematic about pulling them out today. And it offers assurance that, but for the bungled U.S. occupation, Iraq can only be better off. No one has espoused this last view more vigorously than Democratic Representative John Murtha. His summary of the situation in Iraq amounts to this: We are the problem.

Facts on the ground suggest Murtha has things exactly backward....The truth is that, as the war takes a sectarian turn, the Americans have become more buffer and lifeline than belligerent. Earlier this year at his home near the Syrian border, Abdullah Al Yawar, a Sunni sheik in Nineveh province, warned me that "if the Americans leave, there will be rivers of blood." Hundreds of miles to the east in Baghdad, Sheikh Humam Hamoudi, one of Iraq's most powerful Shia, echoed the fear of his Sunni counterpart: Without the Americans, he said, Baghdad will become another Beirut.

With militiamen loose in their streets, even the Sunni residents of insurgent strongholds now look to the Americans as their protectors. During a recent U.S. operation in Baghdad's Amiriyah neighborhood, terrified Iraqis emerged into alleys to beg for the Americans to stay. As one put it, "If you leave, every people here will kill each other." Fully 88 percent of its residents claim to feel safest in the presence of the Americans, and for good reason: Far from the reactionary enterprise imagined by so many Americans, the U.S. military is the most progressive force in Iraq.

None of this jibes with the clich� that "redeploying United States troops is necessary for success in Iraq," as Senator John Kerry has put it. But, for the likes of Kerry, what happens after the United leaves Iraq is beside the point; by then, the troops will be safely home. Withdrawal advocates who wear the position on their sleeves as if it were a badge of heightened moral awareness seem to forget that, as theologian Kenneth Himes wrote in Foreign Policy, "The moral imperative during the occupation is Iraqi well-being, not American interests." Having invoked just-war tradition to oppose the war's cause, they completely disregard its relevance to the war's conduct--namely, the obligation to repair what the United States has smashed.

Why is it, then, that so many of those who demanded action in the Balkans, and now demand it in Darfur, cannot accept that our role in having created Iraq's humanitarian crisis imposes a special obligation to do right there? If anything, advocates of an immediate withdrawal seem to believe the reverse is true. They speak of the Iraqi people as though the entire population has been tainted--marred by its involvement in what Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid mocks as "George Bush's war." Thus has it become permissible for political operatives to tar one Iraqi prime minister as an American "puppet" and for politicians to boycott the congressional address of another and--responding in kind to the juvenile arguments of Republican operatives--write off the whole enterprise as a partisan joke.

Where all this leads is clear. Having gone into Iraq under the banner of idealism, we will abandon it in the name of cold-blooded realism. Never mind the thousands of Iraqis who assisted the Americans and could well be doomed. Never mind that, in the enemy's imagination, entire peoples--Iraq's Christian population, among others--belong to this category. Iraq's liberals, too--like Mithal Al Allusi, a decent man who heeded our summons to build a new Iraq and saw his two sons murdered for his sins--will be erased. The secular, the nonsectarian, the pro-Western voices--these will be quieted as well. Nor should they look to the United States for refuge. Having enshrined in official policy the fiction that persecution went away with Saddam, the United States has all but sealed its borders to Iraqis in search of asylum.

If the whole rotten business seems familiar, that's because it is. At the height of the debate over withdrawing from Vietnam, the Post editorialized: "The threatened bloodbath is less ominous than a continuation of the current bloodletting." About the impending departure of the Americans from Southeast Asia, New York Times columnist Anthony Lewis had this to say: "Some will find the whole bloodbath debate unreal. What future possibility could be more terrible than the reality of what is happening to Cambodia now?" Then, as now, responsibility for the war's outcome lay squarely with its architects. But the war's aftermath also bloodied the hands of critics who insisted on walking away without condition and regardless of consequence.

[A]sk any American officer there and he will tell you that, absent U.S. forces, Iraq's ditches will fill rapidly as the death toll multiplies tenfold. The United States owes Iraq many things. Being an engine of murder isn't one of them.

Surely the Nancy Pelosis, John Murthas, Carl Levins and Harry Reids of the world are aware of the calamity that a withdrawal could unleash on the people of Iraq. Their insistence that we nonetheless get out suggests that they simply don't care.

The Forgotten War

Strategy Page gives us a quick update on the war in Afghanistan:

So far this month, NATO forces in the south have killed over a thousand Taliban gunmen, wounded more than that, overrun several Taliban camps, captured over a hundred Taliban and seized large quantities of documents and equipment. The Taliban have used large units in this area to scare off the police and enable terror teams to work on the civilians. In one case, a force of 400 Taliban crossed the Pakistan border and tried to take control of a district. But the swift appearance of NATO troops forced the Taliban to disperse and flee.

After two weeks of getting hammered like this, the Taliban have announced that they are dispersing their forces in the south, in the face of the NATO offensive.

Afghanistan has almost become a forgotten front in the war on terror, but the fighting rages there more ferociously, perhaps, than in Iraq. The brunt of the violence is being borne by NATO troops, particularly Canadians.

Petty Tyrant

Hugo Chavez, president of Venezuela, comes to the U.N. and, having been listening to Howard Dean, Al Gore and the Democratic congressional congress, calls George Bush the devil. This judgment was presumably based on the fact that Bush refuses to let Islamic terrorists kill Americans with impunity. It's hard to imagine what other complaint the Venezuelan petty tyrant could have against President Bush.

Chavez is a droll little man who stifles all dissent and opposition in a nation which, despite being flush with oil, has an 85% poverty rate. Evidently indifferent to this misery among his own people, he has offered to give free oil to people in the United States who are relatively rich beyond the dreams of most Venezuelan peasants. Yet if any of these poor wretches complain they'll wind up missing their taste buds.

Chavez got a standing ovation in the United Nations. It makes one wonder what on earth any decent nation is doing there.

Cutting Taxes Raises Revenue

Some people have a hard time getting their minds around the idea that a tax cut actually generates more revenue than had the cut not been enacted. This seems counterintuitive to many folks, and they fear that if congress cuts taxes government will have less money to do the things it needs to do and will have to go deeper into debt to pay its bills.

This is why some people are upset with President Bush's tax cuts. They see it as reducing the government's revenue and ability to meet the needs of people in want.

The principle behind tax cuts, however, is that the more money you can keep in your pocket the more you'll spend or invest. Either way you're pumping money into the economy which means businesses prosper and can hire more workers. The more people working the more taxpayers there are and therefore the more revenue that comes into the federal coffers.

Does it work? It always has and it is now, as this article suggests:

The U.S. government recorded record-high overall and corporate tax receipts on Sept. 15, which was a quarterly deadline for tax payments, the Treasury said Monday. Total tax receipts were $85.8 billion on Friday, compared with the previous one-day record of $71 billion on Sept. 15 of last year, the Treasury said.

When people complain about tax cuts they should be asked what it is they want taxes to do. Do they wish to keep taxes high simply to punish people who have wealth or do they want to increase the revenue flowing into the treasury. If it's the latter, and that's the only moral justification for high taxes based upon income, then it's getting pretty clear that they should favor reducing the tax burden on people so that they can generate more wealth and more revenue.

Agreeing With an Atheist

Sam Harris is a prominent antitheist with whom I find myself in fundamental disagreement most of the time (see here, for instance), but in this column he's right on his main point that in the age of jihad liberalism is no longer a viable political option.

He writes:

Perhaps I should establish my liberal bona fides at the outset. I'd like to see taxes raised on the wealthy, drugs decriminalized and homosexuals free to marry. I also think that the Bush administration deserves most of the criticism it has received in the last six years - especially with respect to its waging of the war in Iraq, its scuttling of science and its fiscal irresponsibility.

But my correspondence with liberals has convinced me that liberalism has grown dangerously out of touch with the realities of our world - specifically with what devout Muslims actually believe about the West, about paradise and about the ultimate ascendance of their faith.

On questions of national security, I am now as wary of my fellow liberals as I am of the religious demagogues on the Christian right.

This may seem like frank acquiescence to the charge that "liberals are soft on terrorism." It is, and they are.

Read the rest of it and then check out the Euston Manifesto. The Left is finally waking up to the fact that it has lost touch with reality and some of them are demanding that their comrades get their feet back on the ground. I think it's too late to put Humpty Dumpty back together, though.

The Democratic party, the center of political liberalism in this country, has sold its soul to the extremists at MoveOn.org and Hollywood. It'll take either a long sojourn in the political wilderness for them to recover their senses or it will take the national calamity that would ensue from allowing them to regain control of the levers of power in Washington for them to realize that the nostrums of the far Left, of which they're currently so fond, are prescriptions for national disaster.