The Darwinians' Learned Desperation

Eugene Koonin has written a paper on the origin of life in which he acknowledges that, given what we know, the odds of any system capable of replication of genetic material and translation (replication and translation: R&T) into proteins of that genetic material arising by chance are exceedingly close to zero.

That being so how can we account for the appearance and existence of life? We must certainly increase the odds somehow, but there are really only two ways of doing that - either introduce intentionality (Intelligent Design)or postulate a near infinite number of worlds in which chance operates.

Koonin explicitly wants to avoid the former so he embraces the latter and plunges himself into the very metaphysical speculation he wants to avoid:

I only discuss here what is often called "weak" anthropic principle and is the only acceptable scientific rendering of this concept. The so-called "strong" anthropic principle is the teleological notion that our (human) existence is, in some mysterious sense, the "goal" of the evolution of the universe; as such, this idea does not belong in the scientific domain.

Having discarded an explanation because he considers it metaphysical and unscientific he then adopts a second hypothesis that is itself metaphysical and unscientific.

He argues that the universe is really a multiverse, infinite in extent, containing every possible kind of universe consistent with the laws of physics (I'm not sure why he adds this qualifier since there could certainly be universes which are inconsistent with the laws of physics, at least as we know them). If that is so, and given that a universe in which R&T occurs by pure chance is a possible universe, no matter how unlikely, such a universe must exist and we're in it. In other words given enough trials anything that is possible to happen, no matter how improbable, will happen. Since our universe is a possible universe, given an infinite number of worlds and an infinite amount of diversity, our universe must exist.

This is a wonderful piece of metaphysical legerdemain. Simply postulate the existence of a near infinite number of worlds, never mind about adducing evidence for them, stir in the tacit but crucial assumption that those worlds would be infinitely diverse, and presto, a world with life in it just has to exist.

Koonin's goal in writing this paper is, as he makes clear, to allow his fellow materialists to avoid the despair which results from having no answer to those pesky Intelligent Design people. He writes:

A final comment on "irreducible complexity" and "intelligent design". By showing that highly complex systems, actually, can emerge by chance and, moreover, are inevitable, if extremely rare, in the universe, the present model sidesteps the issue of irreducibility and leaves no room whatsoever for any form of intelligent design.

Perhaps, but at what cost? After all, if we are to accept the assumption that in an infinite number of worlds all possibilities consistent with the laws of physics become actual (and they must do so an infinite number of times) then it follows that there must be an infinite number of worlds that are intentionally designed since that is certainly a possibility consistent with the laws of physics.

But set that aside and note the implicit admission in Koonin's words. Unless there are an infinite number of worlds representing all possible biological histories the idea of Intelligent Design becomes very difficult to avoid.

Note, too, that Koonin purports to be advancing a legitimate scientific hypothesis even though it's full of metaphysical speculation. Yet Intelligent Design is condemned by the scientific establishment because it has metaphysical implications.

Koonin's paper is very learned, but it's really an act of learned desperation.

RLC

BDS in Seattle

How deep is the hatred for George W. Bush among Democrats in this country? How completely irrational is it? Well, this story out of Seattle might offer us some insight:

Are you still fans of Matt Hasselbeck and Mack Strong after they visited President Bush last week in Bellevue? Or have their political leanings turned you against them?

The Seahawks quarterback and fullback gave the 43rd president a No. 43 jersey with his name on it at a $1,000-a-plate fundraiser for Rep. Dave Reichert at the Hyatt.

At the time, Hasselbeck called it a thrill and said it was a win-win, this opportunity to meet the president and get out of a team meeting.

But as soon as he saw the picture of the two players with Bush, Gary Wright, the team's vice president of administration, said he was concerned about negative reaction.

Maybe in really red Republican states, it would not have been a big deal. But Washington is a blue state, and deep, deep Democratic blue in King County. So objections were raised, and Hasselbeck heard them and read them. He got nasty voice mails, e-mails and text messages.

"I had no idea," Hasselbeck said.

One guy told him: "I hate you, I'll never wear your jersey, I'll never like the Seahawks again."

"Huh?" Hasselbeck thought. "Seriously?"

"Politics can be very mean and dirty," he said. "The things politicians say about each other, and what activists say, I had a brief glimpse of that for a couple of days.

"If I ever had any questions about whether I wanted to run for office, I now know the answer -- I don't."

As a quarterback, he's used to getting booed. "But this was a whole new level," he said. "I was very surprised how mean (they were)."

As evidence were these responses to Angelo Bruscas' blog posting on seattlepi.com:

"How dare Hasselbeck declare Bush an honorary Seahawk," wrote one. "Who is Matt speaking for? Bush is no Seahawk. He is the worst president of my lifetime, and I'm almost 60. Shame on you, Matt."

"To learn that two of the most popular Seahawks are strong (Bush) supporters ruins the season for me and my family," wrote another.

And Timothy P. wrote: "Just goes to show you that being a great athlete doesn't make you smart."

The rest of this sad story can be read at the link. Evidently, there are quite a few people in the northwest who need to get a life. It may be comforting to the left to hear that Bush Derangement Syndrome is flourishing in Seattle, but it's certainly disturbing to the mentally sane to read this stuff.

RLC

Terrorist Takedown

ABCNews has a few details on the German investigation that led to the arrests of three German Muslims who plotted to kill Americans in night spots near Ramstein Air Force base in Germany (Yes, our military is still in Germany sixty seven years after the end of WWII).

RLC

Testing Syria's Defenses

The Israeli foray, into Syrian airspace earlier this week has apparently mystified commentators, some of whom have speculated that it was a navigational mistake.

Probably the real reason was to test the capability of a newly-installed anti-aircraft system that the Russians have sold to both Syria and Iran. The system failed to down any of the Israeli jets which failure has no doubt embarrassed the Russians, frustrated the Syrians and caused deep concern among the Iranians who were surely hoping it would give some measure of protection against an American strike on their nuclear facilities.

DEBKAfile says:

The purported Israeli air force flights over the Pantsyr-S1E site established that the new Russian missiles, activated for the first time in the Middle East, are effective and dangerous but can be disarmed. Western military sources attribute to those Israeli or other air force planes superior electronics for jamming the Russian missile systems, but stress nonetheless that they were extremely lucky to get away unharmed, or at worst, with damage minor enough for a safe return to base.

The courage, daring and operational skills of the air crews must have been exceptional. They would have needed to spend enough time in hostile Syrian air space to execute several passes at varying altitudes under fire in order to test the Pantsyr-S1E responses. Their success demonstrated to Damascus and Tehran that their expensive new Russian anti-air system leaves them vulnerable.

There's more on this incursion at the DEBKAfile link.

RLC

Support the Mission

If you agree with the following four points you can go here to sign a petition that will be given to members of Congress this month to let them know how you feel.

• Recognize the importance of fighting and defeating al-Qaeda, wherever they can be found, not least in Iraq;
• Consider the testimony of General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker with an open mind and without regard for partisan politics;
• Recognize the significant threat to U.S. national security that a hasty retreat or a made-in-Washington timetable for withdrawal from Iraq would generate; and
• Listen to the U.S. service members who willingly sacrifice to protect our country and who do not want defeat legislated in Washington so long as American troops are on the battlefield.

It's important.

RLC

Dog Evolution

Denyse O'Leary has an interesting post at Uncommon Descent in which the diversity among dogs is explained. The variations among canines, it turns out, are not the result of an evolutionary process in which genetic information is increased, as Richard Dawkins suggested in his critique of Michael Behe's The Edge of Evolution. Rather what happens is that new varieties arise when genetic information is actually degraded.

O'Leary quotes David DeWitt:

Many of the traits for different dog breeds are examples of neoteny.

Neoteny refers to the maintaining of juvenile characteristics into adulthood. Mutations can prevent proper development and maturation. Even though particular traits might seem like they are novel, in such cases it is really a loss of information since the animal has stunted development in one trait.

This is why some breeds of dogs are so cute and look like puppies even though they are full grown (Jack Russel, Shitzu etc).

In other words the regulatory processes that shut off the juvenile characteristic and allow for maturation have been somehow disrupted, probably through some genetic mutation, so that the juvenile characteristic persists. This is not Darwinian evolution which posits an increase in genetic information. It is in fact, the opposite.

In other words, in at least one area where we have evidence of evolution, it seems to go from more complex genetic arrangements to less complex which is exactly what creationists have been claiming for decades that all evolution does.

I'll bet Dawkins wishes he hadn't brought up the subject of dog evolution.

RLC

Worldviews

Civis at Politics, Sex and Religion asks some important questions about worldviews and their philosophical implications. Check out his site and join the conversation.

RLC

From Iraq

Ralph Peters has been to Iraq several times and has given us some good insights into the situation there. His latest column is a must-read piece for anyone who wishes to be informed on both the difficulties and the successes that we are experiencing. He looks down the road at what the problems will be several months hence and also at the current state of the war against the insurgency. He tells us, for instance of one officer's rather startling assessment of the military conflict:

One blade-sharp officer, Lt. Col. Doug Ollivant, the 1st Cavalry Division's G-5 Plans officer, even proposes that "our counterinsurgency fight is largely won," with the fading of the Sunni insurgency and the gutting of al Qaeda in Iraq.

Peters goes on to say that:

I've listed the key problems that may lie ahead, but this visit to Iraq further convinced me that we're on a promising track, security-wise:

• Al Qaeda, America's enemy, has suffered a catastrophic strategic defeat and a humiliation - rejected by its own kind - that will resound in the Muslim world.
• That hotbed of insurgency, Anbar Province, has largely come over to our side.
• The surge strategy is bringing peaceful conditions to ever more Iraqi neighborhoods - and street-level Iraqis are grateful. They don't want us to leave.
• Despite Iran's growing involvement, we've limited Tehran's effectiveness - thus far.

Meanwhile, Fox News recently ran an article in which they mentioned a comment by a Lt. Col. Kenneth Adgie. Adgie said he received a report last Monday that Al Qaeda in Iraq beheaded a 12-year-old boy in the middle of the street because his father was cooperating with the Americans. "That's the level of evil we're dealing with here," he said.

Think of the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis who have cooperated with Americans. What would be their fate and that of their children if we were to pull out before Iraq was safe from these cretins?

Those who advocate withdrawal respond with something like, "Well, we don't really know that these people would be massacred when we get out." That response is as stupid as it is pusillanamous. The rational course is to assume that the future will resemble the past, that the people who behead 12 year-old children to get revenge on the parents and who booby trap children's bodies so as to also kill their grieving parents, aren't going to renounce their savagery just because the Americans leave.

What is far more likely is that the horror inflicted upon that 12-year-old boy and his family will be repeated tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of times. It is that expectation, that liklihood, which should inform our policy, not the wishful thinking embraced by those who rely on the desperate hope that our withdrawal will miraculously assuage the hatreds and change the hearts of these most evil of men.

RLC

Atheist Manifesto

TotheSource has an interview with Alister McGrath, author of The Dawkins Delusion, a book written in response to atheist Richard Dawkins' God Delusion. In the interview it's pointed out that Dawkins' arguments are so bad that even fellow atheists like Michael Ruse are saying that they cause him to be embarrassed to be an atheist.

This comment by Ruse is equally appropriate to another atheist book, a big seller in Europe but less well-known in the United States, by French philosopher Michael Onfray. Onfray has composed a work which he titles, Atheist Manifesto: The Case Against Christianity, Judaism, and Islam about which there are several things which might be said:

First, anyone expecting an argument for an atheistic view of the world should go elsewhere. Onfray nowhere in the book actually provides an argument for atheism or, for that matter, against theism. The entire book is instead a screed against the three major monotheistic religions.

Moreover, even if everything the author says about the failings and crimes of the adherents of these religions is true, none of it gives anyone any reason to abandon belief in God. The book can be distilled to a single sentence: Religious people in each of the three major traditions have done many awful things, terrible things, therefore these religions are all false. It's not much of an argument, of course, but there you have it.

So, if the book is not an argument for the truth of atheism and doesn't really demonstrate that the world's major religions are false, then what is Onfray's point? He seems to be intent on showing that Christians (and Jews and Muslims) are generally evil people. Of course, to make this case he has to be very selective in the evidence he cites, and he has to put the worst possible construction on much evidence that admits of more than one interpretation.

This passage, taken from among the many which could serve, will afford the reader a sense of Onfray's style: (p.67)

The religion of the one God .... seeks to promote self-hatred to the detriment of the body, to discredit the intelligence, to despise the flesh, and to despise everything that stands in the way of a gratified subjectivity. Launched against others, it foments contempt, wickedness, the forms of intolerance that produce racism, xenophobia, colonialism, wars, social injustice .... the three monotheisms share a series of identical forms of aversion: hatred of reason and intelligence; hatred of of freedom; hatred of all books [other than their scriptures]; hatred of sexuality, women, pleasure, hatred of the feminine; hatred of the body, of desires, of drives ....

This description sounds a great deal like the state atheisms of the twentieth century, and perhaps Islam, but Christians, at least, will have a hard time recognizing in the indictment anything resembling the faith to which they cling.

It might help Onfray if he would provide some support for at least some of his claims, but there's not a footnote nor a literature citation anywhere in the book (not even an index!). The reader is left to trust him on those matters upon which the reader feels incompetent to judge, but Mr. Onfray's accuracy in those matters upon which the reader does have a little knowledge fails to inspire confidence in his overall veracity.

To take but one example, the author claims that Adolph Hitler, so far from being an atheist, was a Christian sympathetic to the Catholic Church (p.187). This is simply false. Hitler was at most a deist or pantheist who in fact despised Christianity (See here). Onfray's book is rife with similar examples of historical distortions.

There is one thing about it, however, which redeems it from total uselessness. Onfray's catalogue of horrors perpetrated by religious people throughout history contains more than a few which actually happened. Reading these should open the eyes of theists everywhere to the evil latent within every human heart and should make Christians, especially, more resolved than ever to fulfill their obligation as representatives of the Christ whose own heart breaks when such crimes are committed in His name.

RLC

D. James Kennedy (1930-2007)

A generation of very well-known Evangelical preachers seems to be passing from the scene in this first decade of the 21st century. First it was James Montgomery Boice in 2000, then Henry Morris (who was not really a preacher but whose ministry was probably more influential than that of any preacher except for Billy Graham) last year, then Jerry Falwell last May and now James Kennedy, pastor of Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Florida. It's like an era in contemporary Christianity is coming to a close.

RLC

Qualia

One of the most fascinating areas of philosophical study is the study of human consciousness. What is it exactly and where does it come from? The physicalist view is that consciousness is just a product of brain chemistry, but many philosophers are not convinced that consciousness can be reduced to atoms spinning around in the brain.

Physicalism is essentially synonomous with materialism (the view that matter is all there is). It's the view that everything is explicable in terms of physical processes and forces. There's nothing about us, the physicalist maintains, which is non-physical. As such, it's possible that someday computers may possess all the attributes of human beings.

Human consciousness, however, is the fly in the physicalist soup. There is no physicalist explanation of consciousness that has really been successful in persuading philosophers not already inclined toward physicalism.

Consider one aspect of the problem posed to physicalism by consciousness - the problem of sensory experience, or what philosophers refer to as qualia. If human beings are purely physical, like machines, then everything about us should be quantifiable. A complete physical description of us should be a complete description of us. But it's not. The problem was illustrated by Frank Jackson in 1986. Jackson invites us to imagine a student named Mary:

Mary is confined to a black-and-white room, is educated through black-and-white books and through lectures relayed on black-and white television. In this way she learns everything there is to know about the physical nature of the world. She knows all the physical facts about us and our enviroment, in a wide sense of 'physical' which includes everything in completed physics, chemistry, and neurophysiology, and all there is to know about the causal and relational facts consequent upon all this, including, of course, functional roles. If physicalism is true, she knows all there is to know. For to suppose otherwise is to suppose that there is more to know than every physical fact, and that is what physicalism denies.

It seems, however, that Mary does not know all there is to know. For when she is let out of the black-and-white room or given a color television, she will learn what it is like to see something red, say. This is rightly described as learning--she will not say "ho, hum." Hence, physicalism is false.

In other words, Even if Mary knows everything there is to know about the physical world she doesn't know what it is like to see red (or hear noise, or smell fragrance). She can't know it until she has the experience, but this experience cannot be described in physical terms. A complete physical description of the world is not a complete description of the world.

Thus, there must be more to reality than just the physical, and it is doubtful that a computer, or any machine, could ever know what it is like to experience color or enjoy pleasure or suffer pain.

RLC

Idiot-Proof

Journalist Piers Morgan once mockingly derided George Bush for falling off a Segway scooter, a device Morgan claimed to be "idiot-proof," with these words:

"You'd have to be an idiot to fall off, wouldn't you Mr President. If anyone can make a pig's ear of riding a sophisticated, self-balancing machine like this, Dubya can."

Now, in yet another example of how those who hold Mr. Bush in derision so often wind up with a face dripping with egg, Mr. Morgan has himself fallen off a Segway...and broken three ribs. A broken rib is very painful, and we shouldn't laugh but ....

This article has details and video.

RLC

Racial Disparity

News out of San Diego informs us that recently released state test scores in California reveal a glaring disparity in student performance between blacks and Latinos and their white and Asian counterparts - regardless of income:

"These are just not economic achievement gaps. They are racial achievement gaps and we cannot afford to excuse them," state Superintendent of Instruction Jack O'Connell said at a media briefing. "They simply must be addressed."

The disparity in achievement is stark....Statewide in English/language arts, only 30 percent of black students and 29 percent of Latino students scored proficient or better. In contrast, 62 percent of white students and 66 percent of Asian students scored proficient or better.

In math, only 26 percent of black students and 31 percent of Latino students statewide scored proficient or better, while 54 percent of white students and 68 percent of Asian students scored proficient or better.

While discussing the achievement gap yesterday, O'Connell said the new state test scores clearly show that lower achievement by black and Latino students cannot be "explained away" as the result of poverty. "The results show this explanation simply is not true," O'Connell said.

Similar gaps are seen in San Diego County. "This has never been about race or income," said Randolph Ward, San Diego County superintendent of schools.

Okay, but Superintendent O'Connell just said that these were indeed racial achievement gaps. If neither race nor poverty is a relevant factor then exactly what is the cause for the disparity? The news article explains:

The achievement gap persists for several reasons. One is that the most experienced and talented teachers often work at more affluent schools, while younger and less experienced teachers fill slots at poorer schools, which typically enroll minority students.

A student's economic status surely plays a role, but so do low expectations that the student's teachers, principal, counselors, family and friends have for them, educators say.

Well, maybe, but I think that placing part of the blame on teachers is a cop-out. Whether these students had experienced teachers or not these same problems would persist. After all, white and Asian students in the same school with presumably the same teachers do better than their black and Hispanic counterparts. It may be that teachers have low expectations of minority students, but teachers know their students' capabilities better than anyone, so if they don't expect much perhaps it's because they know from bitter experience that minority students simply don't perform at the levels other students do.

Even if these teachers, many of whom are minorities themselves, it should be noted, harbor diminished expectations that doesn't mean that they try less hard with these students. Teachers don't dislike the children in their classrooms, minority or not. They want their youngsters to do well. They long for them to succeed, but experience has taught them that too many of them simply don't have the tools to do it.

The important question is, why don't they? If the reason isn't racism nor economics we're left with two alternatives. One is the possibility that Charles Murray was correct when he wrote in The Bell Curve that some groups are intellectually, on average, more capable than others. The second possibility is that the problem is social. Before we resign ourself to the first possibility, we really should make a concerted effort to do something about the second.

Many minority students come from communities where, for whatever reason, neither traditional family nor educational excellence is valued. Too many black and Hispanic kids are allowed to dress, speak, and act as if they are morons and proud to be so, and the culture in which they are immersed not only permits this perversity but encourages it.

Moreover, students who grow up with only a single parent invariably find school more of a struggle than do those who grow up with both biological parents. The job of keeping after children to do their homework or taking them to libraries or cultural sites of various sorts, is simply daunting to many moms who strain just to get food on the table. When children, especially sons, get to be twelve or thirteen they often become very difficult to control, and it's even harder then to demand that they focus on academic work. Instead, the young men gravitate to the streets to affirm their masculinity by identifying with thugs, siring another generation of fatherless children, and dressing, talking, and acting as if their IQ were somewhere around the freezing point of water.

The problem certainly exists in every racial group in the country, but it's most severe in the black and Hispanic communities. Until we begin to take the plight of fatherless children seriously all our talk about improving minority academic performance is just going to be so much wasted time and breath, and all our efforts to help minorities close the achievement gap will be like bailing floodwater out of New Orleans with a teaspoon.

We cannot allow another generation of kids to sink into socio-economic oblivion nor can we allow political correctness or what Shelby Steele calls "white guilt" to inhibit us from talking about the problem. The fundamental solution to the tragedy of our inner cities centers upon reinvigorating and restoring the biological family and discouraging behaviors which send the message that it's cool to be stupid. Everything else is just applying a band-aid to a broken arm.

RLC

First Libya, Now the Norks

Will George Bush get any credit from his domestic adversaries for this astonishing development?

GENEVA (AP) - North Korea agreed Sunday to account for and disable its atomic programs by the end of the year, offering its first timeline for a process long sought by nuclear negotiators, the chief U.S. envoy said.

Look for this story to sink with scarcely a trace into the abyssal deeps of political journalism. The media line is that Bush is the worst president in history, and anything which runs counter to that line is merely an anomaly to be ignored.

This worst president in history, however, has liberated more people from oppression and done more to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons to terrorist states than has any other president we've ever had.

You would think that with his spending and his position on illegal immigration, such a man would be a hero to the left. So why isn't he?

Here are the main reasons: He opposes abortion on demand and government funding of stem cell research. He has instituted tax cuts which allow the rich to keep more of their money and which have caused the economy to thrive, and he believes that America should occasionally be willing to use force as a last resort to free people from tyranny. Plus he's a devout Christian and a Republican. Therefore the left despises him. Their hatred would be comical if it weren't so sad.

RLC

Katrina's Cost

Having recently marked the second anniversary of Hurricane Katrina some in the media have been pointing to the mess that still remains and even blaming the Bush administration for not doing more to get people back into their homes in places like New Orleans.

Rep. Tom Tancredo (Colo.) has a different view. He recently noted that it's "time the taxpayer gravy train left the New Orleans station" and urged an end to the federal aid to the region. "The amount of money that has been wasted on these so-called 'recovery' efforts has been mind-boggling," said Tancredo, "Enough is enough."

There's more:

Citing administration figures, the lawmaker said that $114 billion has been spent on the effort to rebuild a large stretch of the Gulf Coast after the storm hit New Orleans in August 2005 and claimed more than 1,600 lives.

"At some point, state and local officials and individuals have got to step up to the plate and take some initiative," said Tancredo. "The mentality that people can wait around indefinitely for the federal taxpayer to solve all their worldly problems has got to come to an end."

The lawmaker criticized in particular the amount that has been wasted through fraud and abuse, estimated at $1 billion.

"This whole fiasco has been a perfect storm of corruption and incompetence at all levels," he added.

It's worth noting that Mississippi, which was just as hard hit as Louisianna, seems not to be nearly as far behind the recovery curve as is its neighbor. I wonder how much that has to do with the political leadership in the respective states and the level of corruption in Louisianna.

Larry Kudlow adds to the picture:

Here's a pop quiz: How much money has Uncle Sam spent on New Orleans and the Gulf region since Hurricane Katrina ripped the place apart? I'll give you the answer because you'll never guess it. The grand total is $127 billion (including tax relief, which Tancredo's numbers apparently omitted).

That's right: a monstrous $127 billion. Of course, not a single media story has highlighted this gargantuan government-spending figure. But that number came straight from the White House in a fact sheet subtitled, "The Federal Government Is Fulfilling Its Commitment to Help the People of the Gulf Coast Rebuild."

This is an outrage. The entire GDP of the state of Louisiana is only $141 billion, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce. So the cash spent there nearly matches the entire state gross GDP. That's simply unbelievable. And to make matters worse, by all accounts New Orleans ain't even fixed!

You might be asking, Where did all this money go? Well, the White House fact sheet says $24 billion has been used to build houses and schools, repair damaged infrastructure, and provide victims with a place to live. But isn't everyone complaining about the lack of housing?

Perhaps all this money should've been directly deposited in the bank accounts of the 300,000 people living in New Orleans. All divvied up, that $127 billion would come to $425,000 per person! After thanking Uncle Sam for their sudden windfall, residents could head to Southern California and buy homes that are now on sale thanks to the sub-prime mortgage crisis and bid up the sagging house prices in the state.

The fact sheet goes on to say that $7.1 billion went to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to rebuild the levees; that the U.S. Department of Education spent $2 billion on local schools; and that the Laura Bush Foundation for America's Libraries has awarded more than $2.5 million (the pikers). The administration also provided $16.7 billion as part of the largest housing-recovery program in U.S. history.

So the billion-dollar question becomes: Where did the rest of that money go?

Meanwhile, ... New Orleans has earned the distinct honor of becoming the murder capital of the world. The murder rate is 40 percent higher than before Katrina, and twice as high as other dangerous cities like Detroit, Newark, and Washington, D.C.

Think of this: The idea of using federal money to rebuild cities is the quintessential liberal vision. And given the dreadful results in New Orleans, we can say that the government's $127 billion check represents the quintessential failure of that liberal vision. Hillary Clinton calls this sort of reckless spending "government investment." And that's just what's in store for America if she wins the White House next year.

Right from the start, New Orleans should have been turned into a tax-free enterprise zone. No income taxes, no corporate taxes, no capital-gains taxes. The only tax would have been a sales tax paid on direct transactions. A tax-free New Orleans would have attracted tens of billions of dollars in business and real-estate investment. This in turn would have helped rebuild the cities, schools, and hospitals. Private-sector entrepreneurs would have succeeded where big-government bureaucrats and regulators have so abysmally failed.

For our part we're wondering why we're rebuilding New Orleans at all. If global warming projections are correct sea levels will continue to rise over the next hundred years and New Orleans will be harder to protect against flooding than ever before. How many times will that city be rebuilt before we decide to concede southern Louisianna to Mother Nature and stop throwing money at it.

RLC

Essay Contest

Any students out there interested in competing in an essay contest on Allan Bloom's Closing of the American Mind can find details here.

RLC

The Next AG

Rumors have it that the next Attorney General nominee will be Ted Olsen, former Solicitor General and former husband of writer Barbara Olsen who was on the plane that crashed into the Pentagon on 9/11.

Mr. Olsen was instrumental in the legal battle over the 2000 Florida presidential election mess and has been on the short list of possible nominees to fill the last two Supreme Court vacancies.

RLC

So You Like Your Cell-Phone

As if we didn't have enough to worry about word now comes that researchers have shown that cell-phones really do mess with your brain:

Mobile phones can take as little as ten minutes to trigger changes in the brain associated with cancer, scientists claimed yesterday.

They found even low levels of radiation from handsets interfere with the way brain cells divide. Cell division encourages the growth of tumours.

Israeli scientists exposed human and rat cells in a laboratory to low-level radiation at 875 megahertz - a similar frequency to the one used in many mobile phones.

Although the radiation was far weaker than emissions from a typical handset, it began to switch on a chemical signal inside the cells within ten minutes, the researchers report in the Biochemical Journal.

Next thing they'll be telling us that sitting in front of a television screen for more than ten minutes lowers one's IQ by 20 points. Hmmm.

RLC

Got Milk?

If you like creative commercials and don't mind if it actually has nothing to do with the product being advertised try this one.

HT: Hot Air

RLC

Re: Very Odd

One of our posts, Very Odd, was discussed at Telic Thoughts and their post on it turned out to be the third most visited post on their site for the month of August. Their top ten are listed here and their post is titled If ID Is Not Science...

The thought occurred to me that it was probably read more there than it was here.

RLC

The Lessons of History

Peter Wehner provides historical perspective for those despairing over our involvement in Iraq. It's an excellent essay and I highly recommend reading the whole thing. Here's the history lesson:

In the words of the Pulitzer Prize-winning author David Herbert Donald:

"Many Northerners were euphoric at the outbreak of war, confident that the Union with its vast natural resources, its enormous superiority in manufactures, its 300 percent advantage in railroad mileage was bound to prevail. Surely its 20,000,000 inhabitants could easily defeat the 5,000,000 in the Confederacy. Seward thought the war would be over in ninety days. The Chicago Tribune anticipated success 'within two or three months at the furthest,' because 'Illinois can whip the South by herself.' The New York Times predicted victory in thirty days, and the New York Tribune assured its readers 'that Jeff. Davis & Co. will be swinging from the battlements at Washington... by the 4th of July [1861].'"

Then came the First Battle of Bull Run, which shook the confidence of both Lincoln and the Union; and the Second Battle of Bull Run, which threw Lincoln and the Union into a state of near despair. "Alone in his office," the Lincoln biographer Stephen Oates has written, "Lincoln mulled over his oceans of trouble, mulled over the vast uncertainties of this war, and confessed that events had spun out of his control."

"The people are impatient," Lincoln wrote. "[Secretary of the Treasury Salmon] Chase has no money and he tells me he can raise no more; the General of the Army has typhoid fever. The bottom is out of the tub. What shall I do?" Lincoln asked in 1862.

After that came the carnage of Antietam; setbacks in the 1862 midterm elections; and the loss at Fredericksburg. "Disgust with the present government is certainly universal," one man observed. "Even Lincoln himself has gone down at last. Nobody believes in him anymore."

"We are now on the brink of destruction," Lincoln himself said. "It appears to me the Almighty is against us, and I can hardly see a ray of hope."

By early July 1864, Professor Donald writes, "a visitor found Lincoln deeply depressed. War weariness was spreading, and demands for negotiations to end the killing were becoming strident." Calls for General Grant's resignation (McClellan had long since been replaced) were common - and so were discussions of replacing Lincoln on the Republican presidential ticket. "From all corners of the Union came waves of indignation against Lincoln," according to Oates, "that he could sanction such senseless carnage, that he could put a butcher like Grant in command."

High casualties among Union soldiers, Grant's impasse at Petersburg, and weakening resolve in the North led Lincoln to issue a blind memorandum to his Cabinet members on August 23, 1864, saying that "it seems exceedingly probable that this administration will not be reelected." If that had happened, Lincoln would today rank among our least successful presidents.

But then General Sherman gave President Lincoln all that he needed. "Atlanta is ours, and fairly won," Sherman wired Lincoln in the aftermath of Sherman's occupation of Atlanta. Lincoln went on to win re-election on November 8, and a week later General Sherman began his march to the sea. After that came the capture of Petersburg and the occupation of Richmond. General Lee finally surrendered at Appomattox Courthouse on April 9, 1865. The Civil War was over, the slaves were freed, the union was preserved - and more than 620,000 lives had been lost in a nation of 31 million. A war of equal magnitude today would kill roughly six million Americans.

Was the Civil War worth the effort, worth the cost, worth the carnage? For most people today, the question is essentially rhetorical; after all, the president whose tenure was consumed by the war has his face chiseled in granite on Mt. Rushmore. But if you had asked Americans in the North (let alone in the South) the same question in 1862, or 1863, or 1864 - or even asked them that question in the aftermath of the surrender of the Confederacy, when reconstruction was going poorly and the wounds of the Civil War were still deep and fresh - many people would have said the war was senseless, the slaughter unbearable, and the conflict should be stopped, come what may.

Yet Lincoln, who made significant errors in the war, always understood the stakes of the struggle. He made adjustments along the way even as he refused to bend on the moral meaning of the Declaration and the need to preserve the Union. Eventually the war was redeemed and America was made whole.

"Here was the greatest and most moving chapter in American history," according to the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Bruce Catton, "a blending of meanness and greatness, an ending and a beginning. It came out of what men were, but it did not go as men had planned."

We do well to keep this history in mind and to meditate upon its lessons.

RLC

Should He Have Been Suspended?

Jason sent along this story, which touches a pet peeve of mine. Let's read the story first:

A high school student who tricked football fans from a crosstown rival into holding up signs that together spelled out, "We Suck," was suspended for the prank, students said.

Kyle Garchar, a senior at Hilliard Davidson High School in suburban Columbus, said he spent about 20 hours over three days plotting the trick, which was captured on video and posted on the video-sharing Web site YouTube. He said he was inspired by a similar prank pulled by Yale students in 2004, when Harvard fans were duped into holding up cards with the same message.

At the end of the video, Garchar wryly thanks the 800 Hilliard Darby High School supporters who raised the cards at the start of the third quarter during last Friday's football game. "It couldn't have been done without you," reads the closing frame of the video.

Garchar, 17, created a grid to plan how the message would be spelled out once fans in three sections held up either a black or white piece of construction paper. Directions left on stadium seats instructed fans to check that the number listed on their papers matched their seat numbers. Darby supporters were told the message would read "Go Darby."

"It was tedious," Garchar said. "I didn't really think it was going to work."

But it did, and everyone at Davidson has been talking it ever since, said Jordan Moore, a junior. "That was the ultimate in-your-face," he said. "I think it was ingenious."

Davidson Principal John Bandow had told students that he expected them to show sportsmanship at the game, which Darby won 21-10.

Bandow gave Garchar three days of in-school suspension and banned him from extracurricular activities for a semester, the students said. Two Darby students who helped Garchar received the same punishment after the principals from both schools spoke by phone.

What, if anything, did this kid do wrong that he got suspended? Suppose the sign had read "Darby Stinks" or "Go Davidson" would that have earned him a suspension? It shouldn't have, but nevertheless, I agree with his principal that the message Garcher chose to use crossed the line of propriety.

Despite the fact that the word "suck" has gained wide currency in our degraded and depauperate culture, and despite the fact that most people who use it are oblivious to its meaning, it really is a vulgarism etymologically derived from references to fellatio. As such it's as sleazy as the word with which it rhymes and should have no place in public discourse. Davidson's principal was right to send the message that that kind of language won't be tolerated under the auspices of his school.

Too few of our adminstrators are willing to fight against the debasement of society by our popular entertainment culture, and it's refreshing to find one that is.

Now, I wonder if Davidson's principal is doing anything about the growing eroticization of cheerleading at high school football games.

I know. I have to lighten up.

UPDATE: You can see video here.

RLC

Good Question

Granville Sewall poses a simple yet telling question to Darwinists:

In any debate on Intelligent Design, there is a question I have long wished to see posed to ID opponents: "If we DID discover some biological feature that was irreducibly complex, to your satisfication and to the satisfaction of all reasonable observers, would that justify the design inference?" (Of course, I believe we have found thousands of such features, but never mind that.)

If the answer is yes, we just haven't found any such thing yet, then all the constantly-repeated philosophical arguments that "ID is not science" immediately fall. If the answer is no, then at least the lay observer will be able to understand what is going on here, that Darwinism is not grounded on empirical evidence but a philosophy.

The "ID is not science" arguments would fall because if the answer is yes then there is a test to which ID can be put and have the theory confirmed. At the same time such a find would falsify the Darwinian view that only physical processes are at work in producing biological structures.

If the Darwinist answers no then he is acknowledging that no amount of evidence would ever count against his theory. If that's the case then the theory is simply not subject to being falsified and is a metaphysical, rather than a scientific, hypothesis.

I'm sure that were this question posed to the critics of ID they'd try to duck it somehow rather than answer it forthrightly. They'd pretty much have to.

RLC

Hypocrisy and Senator Craig

Like you, probably, I've heard a number of people criticize Sen. Larry Craig for his homosexual advances in an airport restroom, not on the basis of their homosexual nature or of the sleaziness of soliciting anonymous sex in a public restroom but because, they allege, Craig is a "hypocrite."

The charge of hypocrisy is levelled on the grounds that Craig, though presumably gay or bisexual, is politically opposed to both gay marriage and gays serving in the military.

I guess what I'm having trouble with is figuring out why his opposition to these policies is hypocritical just because he himself is gay. Lots of women oppose having women serve in the military. Does that make them hypocritical? Lots of blacks oppose affirmative action for blacks. Are they hypocrites? Indeed, there are open gays who oppose gay marriage, and no one calls them hypocrites.

Just because someone is gay how does it follow that he's being inconsistent if he opposes a policy that purportedly benefits gays? Lots of people who smoke or drink tell their children it's wrong to do it, and we say that it's good that they try to persuade their children not to follow their example.

Having said this I do think that Craig may qualify as a hypocrite but not for his opposition to either gay marriage or gay soldiers.

A hypocrite is someone who condemns or criticizes others for doing what he himself does. Craig took some public shots at President Clinton back in the 90's for his illicit dalliance with Monica Lewinsky while the Senator was allegedly unfaithful to his own wife with other men. If so, that's hypocritical, but let's have no more of this talk that just because someone is gay they must as a matter of logical necessity favor whatever rights other gays demand.

RLC

Of Pit Bulls and Gamecocks

A student of mine raises an interesting question. Is there a significant moral difference between dog-fighting, such as Michael Vick was involved in, and cockfighting which is still legal in some American states? I know dogs are mammals and gamecocks are birds, but is that a significant difference?

Would there have been the same outrage expressed over the Vick episode had he been fighting roosters instead of dogs?

And if cockfighting is just as reprehensible as dog-fighting doesn't it seem at least a little odd that Michael Vick will pay for the rest of his life for dog-fighting while the University of South Carolina glorifies cockfighting by adopting the gamecock as its mascot?

I'm not sure I know the answers to these questions. I'm just asking them.

RLC

Battle for the Belts

Bill Roggio provides a helpful update for us on the fighting in the belts around Baghdad in Iraq.

RLC

God's Warriors and Pink Elephants

Nathaniel Peters at First Things comments on CNN's recent three part series titled God's Warriors hosted by Christiane Amanpour. The hype for the series suggested that the three monotheistic religions, Islam, Judaism, and Christianity shared a common desire to impose a theocracy by whatever means necessary, but if that was their intent the producers must have been at a loss as to what to do with footage like this described by Peters:

Toward the end of the final segment of God's Warriors, Christiane Amanpour speaks to Mindy Peterson, a teenage organizer for Teen Mania, the evangelical organization that hosted the BattleCry rally against which the San Francisco protestors railed [see the opening paragraph of Peter's essay]. Peterson is, she says, the product of an affair between her mother and an abortionist who wanted to have her aborted. Arguments over abortion, therefore, are more than political theory for Mindy Peterson.

After the San Francisco protest, Peterson told Amanpour, "These people think that our war is against other people. They think that our war is against man. And our war isn't. Our war's against . . . the pain in teenagers' hearts, like depression, alcoholism. Those things that-that are, like, tearing our teenagers apart."

Mindy Peterson's words suggest that it means something very different to be God's warrior for Christians in the United States. In the Middle East, the war is against flesh and blood; in America, the war is against principalities and powers.

Indeed. Despite the stereotype promoted by the left of militant, violent Christians it's amazingly hard to actually find a specimen of one. Most Christians believe that the best way to change society is through changing people's hearts, not by lopping off their heads.

Someday, perhaps, the secular media will realize that they have been duped by their own propaganda and that the ubiquitous theocratic Christian boogeymen of their imaginations are in fact about as common as pink elephants.

RLC

Scandalous Deviancy

The New York Times is calling Republican Senator Larry Craig's foot-tapping and hand waving solicitations in an airport rest room a sex "scandal," and liberal talk host Chris Matthews, perhaps inadvertently letting his true feelings rise to the fore, labeled the Senator a "sexual deviant."

Now I agree with both of these assessments, Craig's behavior is both scandalous and deviant. What I can't figure out, though, is why liberal papers like the Times and liberal commentators like Matthews would use such descriptors. According to the liberal catechism the only sexual acts that are out of bounds or scandalous are those which are nonconsensual and Craig's clearly didn't meet that criterion.

Moreover, liberals like Matthews aren't supposed to be so narrow-minded, intolerant and judgmental as to think that gay sexual behavior is deviant. It's enough to make one think that perhaps the attitudes of at least some liberals concerning homosexual beahvior are really just a hypocritical pose.

Of course, Craig is a Republican so perhaps that makes his behavior "deviant" even though it wouldn't be deviant if it were engaged in by someone like, say, Massachusetts Democrat Barney Frank. One has to keep in mind that much depends upon whether there is an R or a D after a politician's name in deciding these matters.

At any rate, I wonder if Matthews will stand by his assessment that common homosexual practice is deviant after he gets the memo instructing him to reread the catechism and to recant his heresy.

RLC

Atheism's Top Five

John Wilson at Christianity Today offers up his top five books on atheism. Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris, and the rest aren't on it.

RLC

No-Risk Borrowing

A lot of Americans live in modest homes because that's all they can afford. They've chosen to live within their means and to be financially responsible, but a lot of other Americans have chosen instead to go into serious debt to buy homes they couldn't really afford. They signed on to variable rate mortgages, knowing full well that the rates they were paying were going to go up. As the New York Times put it:

Banks and mortgage lending companies developed an array of subprime mortgages for people with poor credit and exotic loans that allowed people to borrow without putting any money down, or to qualify for mortgages without documenting their incomes.

When the inevitable happened and the rates were raised the borrowers found themselves unable to meet their payments and the lending institutions that made the risky loans have been forced to foreclose and are take the houses.

Now Congressional Democrats and others are demanding that taxpayers bail these people out. Those who chose to live within their means all their lives are being told that they should essentially pay for the houses of those who live above their means, many of whom should never have been permitted to buy a house, or at least not one as expensive as they did buy, in the first place.

This may be the sort of thing Democrats do, but it's hard to see the justice in it. It's as if your neighbor overextended himself on his credit card and is now going house to house demanding that everyone else pay off his debt.

Michelle Malkin has details here.

RLC

Plan of Attack

A pair of Brits have written the most extensive analysis of American preparations for a war against Iran that I have seen. Here are some of the chief points:

Any attack is likely to be on a massive multi-front scale but avoiding a ground invasion. Attacks focused on WMD facilities would leave Iran too many retaliatory options, leave President Bush open to the charge of using too little force and leave the regime intact.

US bombers and long range missiles are ready today to destroy 10,000 targets in Iran in a few hours.

US ground, air and marine forces already in the Gulf, Iraq, and Afghanistan can devastate Iranian forces, the regime and the state at short notice.

Some form of low level US and possibly UK military action as well as armed popular resistance appear underway inside the Iranian provinces or ethnic areas of the Azeri, Balujistan, Kurdistan and Khuzestan. Iran was unable to prevent sabotage of its offshore-to-shore crude oil pipelines in 2005.

Nuclear weapons are ready, but most unlikely, to be used by the US, the UK and Israel. The human, political and environmental effects would be devastating, while their military value is limited.

Israel is determined to prevent Iran acquiring nuclear weapons yet has the conventional military capability only to wound Iran's WMD programmes.

The attitude of the UK is uncertain, with the Brown government and public opinion opposed psychologically to more war, yet, were Brown to support an attack he would probably carry a vote in Parliament. The UK is adamant that Iran must not acquire the bomb.

The US is not publicising the scale of these preparations to deter Iran, tending to make confrontation more likely. The US retains the option of avoiding war, but using its forces as part of an overall strategy of shaping Iran's actions.

There's much more to the article than this and those interested in our relations with Iran should read the whole thing.

Other sources have added another layer of intigue to the above scenario by suggesting that an American attack against Iran may be coupled with an Israeli attack against Syria.

There's an enormous risk of catastrophe in such plans. Yet the risk of allowing Iran to develop nuclear weapons is even worse. Yet, the world sits by refusing to do anything much to punish Iran for its nuclear weapons program. If diplomacy fails and Iran doesn't stand down, as Libya and perhaps North Korea have done, if the only alternative to allowing Iran to have nuclear weapons is to take out their weapons facilities along with their military and their government, the U.S. will surely be seen as the bad guy for doing attempting it. Even so, the fault will lie not with us but with the Iranians, and the Russians, Chinese, and Europeans who tried to profit from the Iranian quest for military power. These nations all put financial gain above doing what was necessary for stability and peace and they will have deserved the opprobrium of all civilized people.

RLC

Alberto Gonzalez

Paul Mirgenhoff at Power Line articulates my thoughts on the resignation of Alberto Gonzales:

I've never been a fan of Gonzales, but I can't help feeling sorry for him. The "scandal" that led to his demise -- the firing of the U.S. attorneys -- appears to involve no wrongdoing on his part. Moreover, the underlying decisions and process appear to have been the product of the White House, not Gonzales. His defense of the decisions was hardly stellar, but if I'm correct, he was handicapped by the fact that they were not really his decisions.

Gonzales's only real offense seems to have been mediocrity. But mediocrity in an Attorney General is nothing new (think Janet Reno), and any blame for this occurrence properly attaches to the White House.

Often the biggest favor a president can do for a friend is to not appoint him or her to very high office.

I didn't care for Gonzales because he really didn't seem enthusiastic about controlling our borders. His justice department was tougher on border patrol officers than it was on illegal aliens. Even so, the firing of the District Attorneys, the offense for which he was hounded by Democrats, struck us as a tempest in a teapot given that Pres. Clinton fired ninety three DAs and no one made much fuss. Clinton's Attorney General, Janet Reno, gave the go-ahead to assault the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas resulting in the immolation of dozens of women and children, and even then Democrats were relatively mute. She then ordered the seizure and deportation to Cuba of Elian Gonzalez a child immigrant who should have been allowed to stay in this country if anyone should, and again the Democrats were silent.

It took the firing of nine District Attorneys by a Republican AG to rouse their outrage.

Gonzales, a former real-estate attorney, never should have been appointed to the office he held, but the Democratic obsession with tarnishing the careers and reputations of everyone they can in the Bush administration really does make them look small.

RLC

Gender-Neutral Loos

Jason sends us word that the University of Vermont is providing gender neutral bathrooms for its students and staff:

[These are designed] to accommodate transgendered people, as well as those with some disabilities. The four single bathrooms in the new Dudley H. Davis Center - each with a toilet, sink, shower and lockable door - cost about $2,500 a piece to build. Their wall signs identify each as "gender neutral restroom."

"It's about inclusivity and accessibility and the importance of meeting all people's needs, not just a few," said Annie Stevens, assistant vice president for student and campus life.

"Not just a few"? I would think that 98% of the students on campus would be adequately accommodated by traditional rest rooms.

What's next, we wonder. Perhaps separate bathrooms for the obese who find the usual facilities a bit too confining would be a good idea, and maybe, if it's about "inclusivity," the University might also consider luxury accommodations for those who are accustomed to them and standard facilities for those who are not.

It's easy to poke fun at the things the politically correct deem important, but seriously - does the University really suppose that gay and lesbian students who are not "out" will want to be seen using the new facilities? If they're reluctant to use them, and they doubtless would be if they're keeping their orientation secret, how many transgendered students on Vermont's campus will ultimately benefit from these $2500 rest rooms?

RLC

Inside Job

Byron passes along this excellent piece of analysis by Peter Beinart at The New Republic of the left-wing blogosphere's relationship to the Democratic party. It's an important read for anyone interested in how the left has morphed from political "outsiders" back in the sixties to political "insiders" today and how it exerts its considerable influence on the Democratic party.

RLC

Amusing Irony

Who do you suppose wrote the following:

"I have a hankering after what is actually true.

"We are confronted by those who deny the evidence of the real world and instead bend reality around a dogmatic belief system handed down by tradition.

"Sceptical rational enquiry is always the best approach. We don't have to follow the herd, ... instead we can think independently and be truly open minded. That means asking questions, being open to real corroborated evidence."

Sounds like it was written by an Intelligent Design advocate calling upon people to 1) Value truth above blind adherence to a materialist methodology; 2) To consider evidence rather than reflexively bowing to Darwinian dogma handed down by teachers who often don't themselves really know the evidence against the theory; 3) Urging people to think for themselves and not allow themselves to be herded into the corral of naturalism by their materialist professors, and 4) Encouraging skepticism and criticism of the established order.

That's what it sounds like, but in fact, it was written by the one man who does more to stifle and suppress all of these worthy aspirations than perhaps anyone else in the Western world: Richard Dawkins.

HT:Uncommon Descent.

Pretty funny.

RLC

Assault on Academic Freedom

Here's more on the upcoming film Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. The film is a documentary that reveals the extent of the Darwinian inquisition against any and all heretics, no matter how slight their deviation from the materialist orthodoxy. It also reveals, apparently, how Darwinism, alone among all intellectual disciplines, is slowly gaining state sanction and protection from any and all challenges.

RLC

Moral Equivalence and Michael Vick

Forthwith some questions raised by the Michael Vick situation:

How does the abhorrent torture of dogs for pleasure differ in any significant moral way from a late-term abortion or from certain types of animal hunting? If Vick had set the dogs loose on his property, and he and his friends hunted them down and killed them, what would the moral distinction be between that and hunting, say, a bear? If there is no significant distinction then what's the distinction between killing dogs in a hunt and killing them in a dogfight?

Perhaps, someone might reply, the difference lies in the brutality to which the unfortunate dogs were subjected, but then what's the moral difference between what was done to these animals and ripping the limbs from an unborn baby and crushing its skull? Why do people who think abortion should be legal gasp in horror that Michael Vick and his friends would be so barbaric as to force dogs to fight each other and to brutally kill the ones which lose.

Is it because they think the unborn baby is not a person? Neither is the dog. Is it because the woman's body is her property and she has the right to do with her property as she pleases? Vick was on his property, doesn't he have the right to entertain himself as he sees fit as long as no one else is harmed?

I'm not defending Vick. I'm just wondering why people who condone violence against the unborn and big-game animals are so sickened by what Vick is charged with doing. If any of our readers can explain this to me, I'd be grateful.

RLC

P.Z. Myers and Academic Fascism

Atheistic biologist P.Z. Myers is evidently being sued for some unkind reviews of a book on evolutionary biology he posted on his web site. The suit seems frivolous, but in response to the news of it Myers said this:

I still stand by my review, and now I'm a bit disturbed that someone would think criticism of a scientific hypothesis must be defended by silencing its critics.

Hmm. Myers thinks it disturbing that someone would want to silence critics of a scientific hypothesis, yet Myers is the same guy who exclaimed that he wanted to fire any teacher who's critical of Darwinism in the classroom. Here are his words:

"Please don't try to tell me that you object to the tone of our complaints. Our only problem is that we aren't martial enough, or vigorous enough, or loud enough, or angry enough. The only appropriate responses should involve some form of righteous fury, much butt-kicking, and the public firing and humiliation of some teachers, many schoolboard members, and vast numbers of sleazy far-right politicians.

"I say, screw the polite words and careful rhetoric. It's time for scientists to break out the steel-toed boots and brass knuckles, and get out there and hammer on the lunatics and idiots. If you don't care enough for the truth to fight for it, then get out of the way."

We learn here what we might call the P.Z. Principle of scientific theory review. It can be stated thus: Criticism of scientific theories should never be prohibited or constrained unless it is one's own favorite theory which is being criticized. In that case the critic should be severely punished by the academic storm troopers.

Intellectual fascism is alive and well among the Darwinians and the sound of breaking glass fills the air.

RLC

Sunday Column

The fifth in a series of columns I've been invited to do for our local Sunday paper appeared yesterday. I wrote on why many Americans have grown suspicious of their Muslim neighbors and what Muslims might do to allay those suspicions. Here's the column:

Muslims are understandably annoyed and offended that since 9/11 they've been subjected to suspicion and scrutiny in airports and elsewhere, a treatment they perceive as unjust.

It goes without saying that in a nation founded on toleration of religious difference we must not impute to all members of Islam the guilt of a minority, even if it's a large minority, who commit acts of terrorism. No doubt there are in the United States and Europe many Muslims who feel their religion is compatible with the principles of freedom and equality upon which Western nations have been built and to which much of their success is owed. No doubt there are many Muslims who wish for nothing more than to live in peace with their non-Muslim neighbors.

That having been said, there are a lot of non-Muslims, people of good will, who would dearly love to hear more young Muslims unequivocally affirm those principles and distance themselves from those who wish to supplant them, by whatever means necessary, with Islamic law.

Mark Steyn, in his book America Alone, observes that it's only a relative few Muslims who blow up trains and airplanes but that guilt extends far beyond the relatively small circle of killers.

Around the murderers, he writes, are others who form a series of concentric rings:

"...the terrorist bent on devastation and destruction prowls the streets, while around him are a significant number of people urging him on, and around them is a larger group of young male co-religionists gleefully celebrating mass murder, and around them a much larger group of "moderates" who stand silent at the acts committed in their name, and around them a mesh of religious and community leaders openly inciting treason against the state, and around them another mesh of religious and community leaders who serve as apologists for the inciters, and around them a network of professional identity-group grievance-mongers adamant that they're the real victims, and around them a vast mass of elite opinion in the media ... too squeamish about ethno-cultural matters to confront reality, and around them a political establishment desperate to pretend this is just a managerial problem that can be finessed away with a few new laws and a bit of community outreach. It's these insulating circles ... that bulk up the loser death-cult and make it a potent force."

Beyond these circles, one hopes, there is another ring of Muslims who deplore the practice of killing apostates, beating women, executing homosexuals, calling Jews pigs and monkeys, and resorting to violence to spread Islam. But how large is that circle and who's in it?

Some months prior to 9/11 I attended a talk given by an imam in a neighboring county. He was an affable and impressive fellow, and I was taken with his enthusiasm for the work of his mosque. During the Q&A I asked him this: If it ever came to pass that Muslims were in the political majority in this country would our Constitution and Bill of Rights be in jeopardy? The eloquence he had displayed throughout his lecture suddenly fled him, and he seemed at a loss for a reply. Most of the members of my group got the distinct impression that with all his hemming, hawing, qualifications and obfuscations he was trying to find a way to say "no" without lying.

Theocracy, state control of both religion and the press, inequality based on religion and gender, cruel punishments, extreme intolerance, hatred of non-Muslims, religious war and so on, are all enjoined by the Koran, many of its devotees tell us, but they're all proscribed by the laws and values which have evolved in this nation since the 17th century.

It's because so many of us who would like to live harmoniously with Muslims in our communities are afraid that what those Muslims themselves want is to be altogether rid of us and our way of life that we can't help feel uneasy in their presence. It's because we wonder what went through their minds when they saw the World Trade Towers fall that we sometimes experience a twinge of concern about their democratic bona fides.

So, here's a question many Americans wish to ask of our Muslim neighbors: "Do you sympathize with efforts, whether peaceful or otherwise, to abrogate the Bill of Rights and establish in their stead Koranic law?"

To the extent American Muslims are silent or ambiguous on this question, they'll continue to attract the suspicions of other Americans.

No doubt many Muslims will think this unfair, and perhaps it is, but they shouldn't blame us. They should blame instead their co-religionists who claim to speak on behalf of the True Faith and who desire to see every infidel, and his children, dead.

That, too, is a little unfair.

RLC

Mother Teresa's Crisis of Faith

When I started reading David Van Biema's essay in Time on Mother Teresa titled "Crisis of Faith" I confess I expected the worst. Here, I feared, was a hit piece that would expose the sainted Teresa as a spiritual fraud and hypocrite. I was happy to discover about half way into it that it was really no such thing. It was, on the contrary, a portrait of a deeply committed, but deeply anguished, human being.

Here's a summary: Letters have come to light that Teresa wrote to spiritual mentors and confessors throughout her life which reveal that beginning shortly after she initiated her ministry to the poor in India she was beset by a sense of the absence of God. She longed to feel God's presence in her life and work, but almost never did. Instead she experienced for almost her entire adult life a persistent spiritual dryness, emptiness, and doubt.

Nevertheless, she persevered for over fifty years right to her death. She resolved to live her life for God whether she felt His presence or not. She learned from her experience and from her correspondents that faith isn't a feeling. It's not a matter of living moment by moment with God's presence manifest in our hearts. It's living with, and for, God regardless of how, or what, we feel. Faith is a commitment, it's not a feeling.

For Teresa that meant a lifetime of anguish and perplexity as she puzzled over why God seemed so remote and inaccessible. Like Christ on the cross she felt that God had forsaken her, yet she refused to let her feelings rule her will. She lived for Christ and hoped and trusted that all would someday become clear.

Every believer experiences what she experienced although perhaps not so acutely or for so long. It was, perhaps, her particular cross. That's part of what made her such a remarkable woman and what made her faith such a marvelous example for the rest of us. Faith based on a constant feeling of God's presence is not faith at all. It's not trust at all. It's a kind of infatuation. The true "knights of faith," as Kierkegaard called them, are people who live as God wants them to live regardless of how they feel.

Everyone who aspires to understand the idea of "faith" should read Van Biema's article to the end. It's worth the time.

RLC

Shut Up and Sing

Ted Nugent, the libertarian rocker, debases our politics with vile rants like this one. One of our biggest political problems is that people on opposite sides of the ideological divide don't just disagree, they don't just dislike each other, they don't respect each other either. If we're ever going to solve the problems we face as a nation we have to be able to work with those we don't like, and that means we have to treat each other with some respect.

People like Nugent, with their disgusting name-calling and thinly veiled threats simply inflame hatred and divide us even further. What he says on the video is much worse than what the Dixie Chicks said and that was bad enough. I know he's just a rocker, but Nugent's brand of political discourse has no place in a civil society.

RLC

Sojourners on Iran

Jessica Wilbanks of Sojourners offers her thoughts on U.S./Iranian relations. She is, like all of us, eager to avoid war with Iran, but her essay seems to ignore the real problem, which is that Iran is not particularly eager to avoid war with us. In fact, they're already engaged in it. Ms Wilbank's key passage is this:

Last February, 13 representatives of national religious groups and denominations, led by the Mennonite Central Committee and the American Friends Service Committee, journeyed to Iran in an effort to build bridges of understanding between our two nations. Rather than approaching Iran as the "axis of evil," they met with Muslim and Christian leaders, government officials, and Iranians from many walks of life. Through listening and sharing their own stories, they returned from Tehran with new hope for an easing of tensions between Iran and the U.S. Specifically, they call on the two countries to take the following steps:

• immediately engage in direct, face-to-face talks;
• cease using language that defines the other using "enemy" images;
and
• promote more people-to-people exchanges, including among religious leaders, members of Parliament/Congress, and civil society.

While in Iran with the ecumenical delegation, Sojourners/Call to Renewal representative Jeff Carr was struck by the dramatically different narratives Iranians and Americans told of the history between the two nations: the CIA's overthrow of Iran's democratically elected leader, the installation of the shah, the 1979 revolution, the ensuing hostage crisis, and the current nuclear standoff....The first step to reconciling the tension between the U.S. and Iran is to learn one another's stories.

Dramatically different stories, indeed, but I'm not sure why Ms Wilbanks leaves so much out of the Iranian "story." Perhaps it's because she suspects that were the American people to "learn the Iranian story" they'd be far less hopeful that anything short of military action will be of any avail. Ms Wilbanks makes no mention, for instance, of Iran's substantial support for and control of Hamas, Hezbollah and other terrorist groups around the world. She makes no mention of Iran's manifest commitment to building nuclear weapons, nor does she mention Iran's repeated threats to use those nukes against Israel. She makes no mention of Iran's hope that they will hasten the coming of the 13th imam by precipitating a military cataclysm in the Mideast, and she makes no mention of Iran's complicity in destabilizing Iraq and in the deaths of American soldiers.

The three recommendations of the ecumenical delegation amount to merely talking our differences to death while Iran continues to prepare for nuclear war or at least nuclear blackmail. If the ecumenical delegation wishes to expunge the language of enemy images from the discourse of international affairs then they should prevail upon Iran to stop training Iraqi insurgents and sending them back to Iraq to kill Americans and Iraqi civilians. They should prevail upon Iran to stop sending deadly IED's and other weapons into Iraq. They should prevail upon Iranian leaders to cease calling for the obliteration of Israel. In short, they should demand that Iran cease acting like an enemy and then maybe we can cease thinking of Iran as an enemy.

I have no problem with talks and cultural exchanges. They have their place, but they are no substitute for clearly and concisely identifying the evils we face in the world, nor are they a substitute for the use of force if force should become necessary.

I have just one question for Ms Wilbanks, and it is absolutely crucial for her credibility that she and others who hold her views answer it forthrightly: If sending religious leaders and scholars to Iran does nothing to dissuade them from their nuclear program, as it almost surely will not, should the world, nevertheless, stand by and allow Iran to develop nuclear weapons, or should they not?

This is really the only question that needs to be answered. Of course we should try diplomacy to resolve our difficulties. Of course we should turn to the U.N. to try in its characteristically feckless way to disarm Iran. To say this is simply to state the obvious, but, if all these fail, then what? What is the last resort? That's the question, Ms Wilbanks.

RLC

Simply Sick

If we gave out a "scum of the earth" prize this guy would certainly be eligible. He's an American Muslim who considers the beheadings of the young Korean missionaries by the Afghan Taliban a delightful prospect. They were, in his opinion, instrumental in the conversion of Muslim children to Christianity and thus deserve a grisly death.

Some Muslims have so little confidence in the ability of their religion to compete against Christianity on the field of ideas that their only recourse is to employ violence, threats and intimidation. That's bad enough, but to anticipate with glee the slaughter of these young Koreans, most of whom are young women who came to Afghanistan as angels of mercy to the suffering and deprived Afghan people, is simply sick.

I'm sure we'll soon be hearing loud denunciations of this creature from the moderate Muslim community. Or not.

Parenthetically, it's important, perhaps, to note the difference we see illustrated in this tragic episode between Christian martyrs and Muslim martyrs. Most, if not all, Christian martyrs are people who who did no harm to anyone else and who are killed by others because of their faith in Christ. Muslim martyrs are people who die in the act of savagely murdering others on behalf of Allah. The difference is as the difference between heaven and hell.

RLC

Re: Pressing His Luck

According to Strategy Page the cause of the explosion in the video we linked to a couple of days ago was a premature detonation of the mortar. We had speculated that it might have been return artillery fire, but not having any military experience whatsoever, we'd be better off not speculating about such things.

RLC

Lousy Leadership

John Gibson interviews Pastor Juan Gray of Jacksonville who "argues" that black witnesses to crime should refuse to cooperate with police because the police are racists.

Gray is still living in the 1950's, and he sounds almost completely detached from rationality in this interview. Almost nothing he says makes any sense. In Gray's world it's better to have thugs and murderers preying upon the innocent than to help the police put them in jail.

Unfortunately, with leaders like this man in their communities, African-Americans will continue to comprise a significant portion of the American underclass for a long time to come.

RLC

Ben Stein Is Bad to the Bone

A new movie is coming out in February that promises to toss the Darwinians into a tizzy. Go here to view the trailers for Expelled.

HT: Uncommon Descent

RLC

Standing Tall

Nicholas Sarkozy is in the process of leading France in an about-face on its relations with the U.S. The administration's critics have been telling us for four years or more how George Bush has been the cause of an erosion of respect for the U.S. in Europe, but both France and Germany have nevertheless elected leaders who want to be much closer to Bush than did their predecessors.

The fact is that most people respect strength, though they may not like it, and despise weakness. Bush has stood firm, most prominently on Iraq and Afghanistan, and even if the Euros don't like the war many of them respect Bush, if only grudgingly, for the strength of his resolve.

The cut-and-runners may be more to the Euros' liking because they affirm their own inclinations, but no one is going to respect them. People always respect firmness even when that firmness is put to evil purposes, as it was by Hitler and Stalin, and they always disdain weakness even when the weakness conforms to what people themselves would want to see done.

In the twentieth century people like Winston Churchill, Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, and Pope John II were all deeply respected for their resolve and courage even if they were deeply disdained for their politics. On the other hand, the Neville Chamberlains of the world live on in ignominy even though they were widely praised in their day for their appeasements and capitulations. Quitters are never admired, even by those who call upon them to quit.

George Bush is not right about everything, but he is steadfast and determined, and those who think that that discredits America in the eyes of the world either don't understand human psychology or they're simply indulging in wishful thinking.

RLC

Unspeakable Evil

Is this the sort of barbaric evil that awaits all the people of Iraq as soon as we pull out?

Five-year-old Youssif is scarred for life, his once beautiful smile turned into a grotesquely disfigured face -- the face of a horrifying act by masked men. They grabbed him on a January day outside his central Baghdad home, doused him with gas and set him ablaze. It's an act incomprehensibly savage, even by Iraq's standards today. No one has been arrested and the motive remains unknown.

In a war-ravaged city torn by sectarian violence and marked by acts of vengeance, this attack's apparent randomness stands out as an example of what life has become in a place where brutality -- even against young children -- is a constant.

"They dumped gasoline, burned me, and ran," Youssif told CNN, pointing down the street with his scarred hands where his attackers fled.

As he sucked his thumb, he repeated, "I was burning." He tried to put the flames out himself. It looks as though this boy's face melted and then froze into rivers cutting through swollen hard flesh. It's hard to see the energetic outgoing child his parents describe beneath the sullen demeanor that defines Youssif today.

"He's become spiteful, I am not sure why," said his mother, Zainab. "He is jealous of everyone. If I say the slightest thing to him, he cries. He's sensitive." Even things like eating have become a chore. His face contorts when he tries to shovel rice into his mouth, carefully angling the spoon and then using his fingers to push the little grains through lips he can no longer fully open.

He has also become jealous of the baby sister he used to dote on. "I sit sometimes at night and cry," Zainab said, her voice heavy with guilt. "If only I hadn't let him go outside, if only I hadn't let him play."

It was on January 15 that masked men attacked her boy, their identities still unknown. Zainab said she was upstairs at the time.

"I heard screaming. I thought someone was fighting or something," she said.

She ran downstairs, saw her son and fainted. When she came to, she barely recognized her child. "His head was so swollen, you couldn't see his eyes, and his nose was pushed in."

"There was blood," she added, shuddering slightly. "The skin was melted off."

He spent two months in the hospital recovering from the severe burns. These days Youssif spends most of his time indoors, in front of the computer. It's only then that traces of the 5-year-old in him emerge. "He can't play outside with the other kids," Zainab said. "The other day they were playing, and he came in crying. I asked him, 'What's wrong?' and he said, 'They won't play with me because I am burned.'"

She said he once wanted to be a doctor and he loved kindergarten. "He used to be the one who would wake me up every morning, saying let's go to school," Zainab recalled. She coaxed him to tell me the few words he knows in English. "Girl, boy, window, fan," he said, his voice barely audible, the words barely intelligible. Doctors told the family there is little more they can do to help Youssif. The family can't afford care outside Iraq.

So Zainab has taken a massive risk by telling her story to the world. Her husband works as a security guard, and it's too dangerous for him to talk to the media. "I'd prefer death than seeing my son like this," Zainab said.

All she wants is for someone to help her little boy smile again.

Update: A charity has offered to pay all the costs for reconstructive surgery for Youssif. You might have thought that the charity was an Islamic organization since little Youssif is a Muslim, but you would have been mistaken. The charity is the Children's Burn Foundation. See Hot Air for the details.

RLC

Positive Review of <i>The Edge</i>

The Philadelphia Inquirer has just insured that it will be henceforth the object of much calumny and opprobrium from the Darwinian establishment. It has published a review of Michael Behe's book The Edge of Evolution that actually takes the book seriously enough to explain what Behe's argument is and, what's more, praises it.

Here's the crux of science writer Cameron Wybrow's review:

Behe's new book, The Edge of Evolution, provides some hard numbers, coupled with an ingenious argument. The key to determining the exact powers of Darwinian evolution, says Behe, lies with fast-reproducing microbes. Some, such as malaria, HIV, and E. coli, reproduce so quickly that within a few decades, or at most a few millennia, they generate as many mutations as a larger, slower-breeding animal would in millions of years. By observing how far these creatures have evolved in recent times, we can estimate the creative limits of random mutation.

In the case of malaria, the creative limits appear quite low. Over the last few thousand years, several thousand billion billion malarial cells have been unable to develop an evolutionary response to the sickle-cell mutation, which protects its human bearers from malaria. On the other hand, malaria has proved able to develop Darwinian resistance to the antibiotic chloroquine. This resistance is based upon two simultaneous mutations affecting a malarial protein.

Yet this rare double mutation has occurred fewer than 10 times since chloroquine was introduced 50 years ago, during which time a hundred billion billion malarial cells have been born. If this indicates the typical rate of occurrence of double mutations, then the Darwinian transformation of our pre-chimp ancestor into homo sapiens, which would have required at least some double mutations, would have taken at least a thousand trillion years, a time span greater than the age of the universe....

The response to Behe has been predictable. The editors of the major print media have assigned known enemies of ID to trash the book - Richard Dawkins for the New York Times; Coyne for the New Republic; Miller for Nature; Ruse for Toronto's Globe & Mail. A large part of each review is ad hominem, concerned with Behe's alleged religious agenda, his minority status among biologists, and other irrelevant matters. In Dawkins' review, the science is barely touched, and it's not clear from Ruse's review that he has even opened the cover of the book. Behe deserves better. The Edge of Evolution makes a serious, quantitative argument about the limits of Darwinian evolution. Evolutionary biology cannot honestly ignore it.

Read the rest of Wybrow's review here.

RLC

An Atheist's Plea to Atheists

Well-known skeptic writer Michael Shermer has penned an open letter to the more militant of his atheist brethren imploring them to adopt a less strident, more tolerant tone. The letter is interesting although I'm not suure what it's doing in Scientific American.

RLC

Israeli Missile Defense

According to Strategy Page,

Israel is going ahead with installing the Iron Dome anti-rocket system. This is a defensive system with a unique twist. Iron Dome radars (there are two of them) quickly calculate the trajectory of the incoming rocket (Palestinian Kassams from Gaza, or Russian and Iranian designs favored by Hizbollah in Lebanon) and do nothing if the rocket trajectory indicates it is going to land in an uninhabited area. But if the computers predict a rocket coming down in an inhabited area, a $40,000 guided missile is fired to intercept the rocket. This makes the system cost-effective. That's because Hizbollah fired 4,000 rockets last year, and Palestinian terrorists in Gaza have fired over six thousand Kassam rockets in the past six years. But over 90 percent of these rockets landed in uninhabited areas.

Very clever, those Israelis.

RLC