Ominous Fleet Deployments

The India Daily has a report about naval movements that sound ominous:

The U.S. Navy aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt is on the move in Atlantic Ocean and is possibly headed towards the Mediterranean Sea. The convergence of three carrier groups in the corridor of the Middle East will send very strong message to the Syrians and Iranians. There are indications that soon US is moving two more aircraft carrier battle groups to the Eastern Mediterranean Sea and the Persian Gulf. This will spell a formidable strike force for Iran and Syria who are in defiance on issues of Lebanon and Nuclear weapons development.

Outbound from Singapore, the USS Carl Vinson is currently crossing the Indian Ocean headed towards Middle-East. This will be the first time since February 2004 that US will have three major carrier groups stationed on and around Middle East.

Each of these carrier groups carry nearly 85 aircraft and is capable of delivering precision-guided munitions. In addition there are anti-submarine aircraft, airborne-early-warning and rotary-wing aircraft. Because of in-air refueling capabilities these aircraft can operate from a long distance. The carrier groups are independent and can operate indefinitely.

U.S. military air bases in Turkey, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia and the three carrier groups will create a formidable force far superior to any military in the region. In addition more than 100,000 battle hardened force in Iraq will be another major force in case US has to use force against Iran and Syria.

It seems the Americans are preparing to deal with Syria and Iran in the next several months. The first priority right now is diplomacy in association with the Europeans and the rest of the world. But the leadership in Teheran and Damascus are taking notice of the power build up in the region. There are seeds of democracy in Lebanon, Iran and Syria. The whole region is getting a quick lesson on the benefits of democracy.

This last sentence is a masterful bit of dry sardonicism. Iran and Syria appear indeed to be about to get a very serious lesson in the benefits of democracy. One of those lessons is that if you are a functional democracy you spare yourself a visit from the American fleet. Let's hope that force is not needed to get Syria out of Lebanon and to turn over Saddam's weapons of mass destruction. Let's also hope that force is not needed to persuade Iran to give up it's nuclear ambitions. If suasion should fail, however, let's further hope that the administration is better prepared for the aftermath of a military strike in those two countries than they were for the aftermath of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Little Green Footballs links us to this site for a breakdown of which ships are being deployed.

The Cedar Revolution

Photos from today's massive anti-Syrian demonstration in Lebanon can be viewed here. Also, Hugh Hewitt has an interview with a journalist on the scene.

The message seems pretty clear to the former ophthalmologist in Damascus. Lebanon is on the verge, it appears, of rising up and throwing the Syrians out of their country. It will be interesting to see if Assad seeks to suppress this nascent revolution by force with the American navy sitting just offshore and 100,000 troops on his eastern border. In any case, it seems clear that Bush 43 is not going to make the same grievous error his father made when he allowed Saddam to massacre thousands of Iraqis who sought his overthrow after the first Gulf war.

Our guess, and our hope, is that Assad will choose retreat rather than confrontation. Either way, though, it appears he will be seriously weakened politically and may not survive in office, or in any other way for that matter.

Mid-East Tensions Mount Again

The Times OnLine has released a story that claims that Israel is planning a joint air/ground assault on Iran's nuclear facilities:

Israel has drawn up secret plans for a combined air and ground attack on targets in Iran if diplomacy fails to halt the Iranian nuclear programme. The inner cabinet of Ariel Sharon, the Israeli prime minister, gave "initial authorisation" for an attack at a private meeting last month on his ranch in the Negev desert.

Israeli forces have used a mock-up of Iran's Natanz uranium enrichment plant in the desert to practise destroying it. Their tactics include raids by Israel's elite Shaldag (Kingfisher) commando unit and airstrikes by F-15 jets from 69 Squadron, using bunker-busting bombs to penetrate underground facilities.

The plans have been discussed with American officials who are said to have indicated provisionally that they would not stand in Israel's way if all international efforts to halt Iranian nuclear projects failed.

Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state, said that America would support Britain, France and Germany in offering economic incentives for Tehran to abandon its [nuclear]programme....yesterday Iran rejected the initiative, which provides for entry to the World Trade Organisation and a supply of spare parts for airliners if it co-operates. "No pressure, bribe or threat can make Iran give up its legitimate right to use nuclear technology for peaceful purposes," said an Iranian spokesman.

This is not looking good. It appears that the Mid-east is moving ineluctably toward another conflict. If Iran refuses to stop producing nuclear weapons how else can things turn out? Iran has stated that if they ever acquire such weapons they will use them against Israel, so Israel clearly cannot allow them to have them.

We wonder how the paleo-cons and the anti-war Left will react to an Israeli attack. We're curious, too, as to how the Times got the story. Was it leaked? If so, by whom and why? It will also be interesting to see whether the publicity will cause Israel to abort their plans. We doubt it.

The Decline of Environmentalism

Nicholas Kristoff has a fine essay in the NYT on the decline of the environmental movement in the U.S. Much of what he says is on the mark. Kristoff is a lefty so his criticisms of the contemporary environmentalist movement, which is comprised largely of leftists, are the more telling. Here are some of them:

The fundamental problem, as I see it, is that environmental groups are too often alarmists. They have an awful track record, so they've lost credibility with the public. Some do great work, but others can be the left's equivalents of the neocons: brimming with moral clarity and ideological zeal, but empty of nuance....I was once an environmental groupie, and I still share the movement's broad aims, but I'm now skeptical of the movement's "I Have a Nightmare" speeches.

In the 1970's, the environmental movement was convinced that the Alaska oil pipeline would devastate the Central Arctic caribou herd. Since then, it has quintupled.

When I first began to worry about climate change, global cooling and nuclear winter seemed the main risks. As Newsweek said in 1975: "Meteorologists disagree about the cause and extent of the cooling trend ... but they are almost unanimous in the view that the trend will reduce agricultural productivity for the rest of the century."

This record should teach environmentalists some humility. The problems are real, but so is the uncertainty. Environmentalists were right about DDT's threat to bald eagles, for example, but blocking all spraying in the third world has led to hundreds of thousands of malaria deaths.

Likewise, environmentalists were right to warn about population pressures, but they overestimated wildly. Paul Ehrlich warned in "The Population Bomb" [1969] that "the battle to feed humanity is over.... Hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death." On my bookshelf is an even earlier book, "Too Many Asians," with a photo of a mass of Indians on the cover. The book warns that the threat from relentlessly multiplying Asians is "even more grave than that of nuclear warfare."

Kristoff hints, though he doesn't say it explicitly, that part of the problem with the environmental movement in the U.S. is that it has come to be seen as too ideological. It gives people every reason to think that the real agenda is not so much saving the environment but rather the destruction of corporate capitalism and private property. As a result they've alienated a lot of people who would otherwise share their environmental goals. Kristoff finishes with this:

The loss of credibility is tragic because reasonable environmentalists - without alarmism or exaggerations - are urgently needed....So it's critical to have a credible, nuanced, highly respected environmental movement. And right now, I'm afraid we don't have one.

No, but we do have some very laudable environmental organizations. Our money goes to The Nature Conservancy, an organization which works quietly to preserve the Last Great Places, as they put it, by buying them up. There's a lot more out there to buy and a lot of nature to protect, so perhaps some of our readers might be inclined to give them a hand.

Are the Insurgents Becoming a Spent Force?

The Strategy Page puts the recent carnage in Iraq into broader perspective.

March 10, 2005: While spectacular suicide car bombings continue, the overall level of attacks continues to decline, as it has since the January 30 elections. The terror attacks now are being done mostly for the benefit of the foreign media, for the killings are only making the population more hostile to the al Qaeda and Sunni Arab groups that are responsible for nearly all the violence. The terrorists are being hit as never before, with more police raids into neighborhoods known to be terrorist strongholds. Weapons and bomb making materials are seized and arrests made.

Sometimes, the resistance is heavier than expected. A raid today in Baghdad resulted in 14 policemen and at least four terrorists getting killed, as well as 65 policemen, and over a hundred terrorists and civilians wounded. The resistance was so fierce because the terrorists are running out of places to hide. Many have already had to flee "friendly neighborhoods" several times in the last few months. Terrorists are having a harder time recruiting because of this, and many terrorist cells are down to the hard core. These guys will stand and fight, and get killed.

Iraqi media is playing the battle between the terrorists and the security forces for what it is, gang-busters. Confessions of captured terrorists are televised, and camera crews increasingly accompany the Iraqi police on their raids, or to crime scenes where the bodies of terrorist victims have been discovered. The fact that the terrorists are now killing women and children is pointed out, as this is considered over-the-line behavior, and the mark of true outlaws.

It would be nice if the evening news would provide a little of this context along with their reports of car bombings and assassinations. By largely omitting the background they leave their viewers with the impression that all is chaos and carnage in Iraq, and that the situation is hopelessly out of hand. This is not fair to anyone involved and certainly not fair to the viewers. The fact that people have to go elsewhere for a fuller understanding of this conflict is one reason why the evening news in particular and the MSM in general is going the way of the dinosaurs.

Liberalism's Lunatic Fringe

For the truly troubled libs even a Bush/Cheney bumper sticker is like a strobe light to an epilectic:

TAMPA - Politics has always been divisive, splitting families and turning friend against friend. This week, though, a Tampa woman learned that simple Bush-Cheney bumper sticker can bring trouble, if not danger, from a total stranger. Police say Michelle Fernandez, 35, was chased for miles Tuesday by an irate 31-year-old Tampa man who cursed at her as he held up an anti-Bush sign and tried to run her off the road.

His sign, about the size of a business letter, read: Never Forget Bush's Illegal Oil War Murdered Thousands in Iraq.

"I guess this was a disgruntled Democrat," Tampa Police spokesman Joe Durkin said. "Maybe he has that sign with him so he's prepared any time he comes up against a Republican."

Police arrested Nathan Alan Winkler at his home on N Cleveland Street near Hyde Park within an hour of the incident. After finding the antiwar sign in his car, they booked him into the county jail on one count of aggravated stalking, a third-degree felony punishable by up to five years in prison, Durkin said.

Durkin said Winkler told police officers he got upset with Fernandez because she "gave him the finger." Fernandez told the Times Wednesday that "whatever gestures I made, I made them because I was trying to figure out why he was honking at me and pointing to his sign."

"At first I didn't know why he was screaming at me," she said. "Then it clicked." In her frantic nine-minute call Tuesday to a 911 dispatcher, Fernandez said it was the Bush Cheney '04 bumper sticker on her green Ford Expedition that set the other driver off.

"I was just almost run off the road by a man," she told the dispatcher at 5:14 p.m. She was taking her son, 10, and daughter, 3, to a ballfield. "He just ran me off because I have a Bush bumper sticker in my car. He had some type of - he drove up next to me with - he had a sign on it like hanging from his - from the passenger window, that said something about the war in Iraq....I'm shaking like a leaf."

Durkin said Winkler started following Fernandez at the intersection of Columbus Drive and Armenia Avenue shortly after 5 p.m. "He told our officers that he just got mad at her, so he went after her," Durkin said. As Fernandez drove south on Armenia, the other driver pulled alongside her in his black 1996 Nissan, beeping his horn and "flailing his arms," according to a police report.

He held the antiwar sign up to his passenger-side window, she said, following her along busy streets in south and west Tampa and veering into her path, forcing her to swerve to avoid a collision. She pleaded with the dispatcher for help and tried to get away by running through stop signs and changing directions.

"Oh, now he's following me! I'm gonna get back on Kennedy now. I don't know what to do!" she told the dispatcher, her voice rising. At one point the man pulled his car in front of Fernandez's, got out and started running toward her, Fernandez told police."He just pulled over next to me, he's stopping the car, it's ridiculous, this man!" she said. "He's running after my car. Oh my goodness, he's a fanatic, he's in the middle of the street!"

She drove along Arrawana Avenue and Habana Street, then back onto Kennedy Boulevard, but she couldn't shake him, Durkin said. "He's trying to hurt us. Look at this, what a moron," she said. "Look at him!... Idiot!"

The dispatcher told Fernandez to drive to the Tampa police office near Raymond James Stadium, but she drove instead to the ballfield where she had been headed with her children before the chase. She met with a police officer and carefully described the Nissan and its tag number, Durkin said.

Officers traced the tag to Winkler, went to his home within an hour and arrested him. "This could have been tragic, for her and her children and for other people on the road as this was going on," Durkin said. "But she did all the right things. She showed remarkable poise, she didn't engage him. She called us."

"I respect him for having his beliefs and feeling so strongly," Michelle Fernandez said Wednesday night, her nerves still frayed. "But here he is protesting the war and lost lives, and he is going to put me and my children in danger? This man has a serious problem."

Yes, he does, and he's not alone. Thanks to Little Green Footballs for the tip.

Disposable Society

Some time ago, I learned that my daughter's boyfriend had been "kicked" out of his home by his father. I don't know the reason why but the fact was he was "out of doors". He had nowhere to go and his prospects where dim. I lent him some money to make a down payment on an apartment and he paid the loan back monthly.

Today, while in church waiting for the service to begin my daughter related to me a particularly disturbing story of two friends of hers - one child who's father had married the mother of the other child and both children have recently been "kicked" out for no better reason than the parents wanted time alone with each other.

While my daughter and I were working on her application for room and board for the college she will be attending this August, there was a section where she could indicate a roommate if she had a preference. My daughter had planned to room with a friend of hers from high school but she informed me that she might not be attending college because she, too, had recently been "kicked" out of her home and would have to be responsible for her college expenses.

I'm just one person who has learned of this sick phenominon in which four children are "out of doors". What does that extrapolate to nation wide?

I have a degree in psychology yet I simply cannot understand what enables a parent to abandon their children. What possible rationale can someone construct that enables them to justify in their own minds such behavior?

I have wondered why America isn't referenced in the book of Revelations in the events that unfold at that time. I've come to the conclusion that we, as a nation, will simply be irrelevant by the time those events unfold. We will have been judged, long before then for our selfishness, greed, and avarice, and found woefully wanting.

Ward Churchill and Phil Mitchell

The good professor's troubles keep mounting at the University of Colorado:

University of Colorado officials investigating embattled professor Ward Churchill received documents this week purporting to show that he plagiarized another professor's work. Officials at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia sent CU an internal 1997 report detailing allegations about an article Churchill wrote.

"The article . . . is, in the opinion of our legal counsel, plagiarism," Dalhousie spokesman Charles Crosby said in summarizing the report's findings.

Dalhousie began an investigation after professor Fay G. Cohen complained that Churchill used her research and writing in an essay without her permission and without giving her credit. Although the investigation substantiated her allegations, Cohen didn't pursue the matter because she felt threatened by Churchill, Crosby said.

Crosby said Cohen told Dalhousie officials in 1997 that Churchill had called her in the middle of the night and said, "I'll get you for this."

Cohen still declines to talk publicly about her experience with Churchill, but she agreed the Dalhousie report could be shared with CU officials, Crosby said, because "whatever concerns she may have about her safety are outweighed by the importance she attaches to this information getting out there."

Meanwhile, university officials pull long faces and ponder gravely what they should do about the old Lefty warhorse - academic freedom and all those other cherished values of the academy must be respected, don't you know. Nevertheless, there are some teachers that even the most tolerant institution cannot abide, and one of those is Dr. Phil Mitchell who appeared last Wednesday night on MSNBC's Scarborough Country.

Dr. Mitchell who teaches in the history department at a major American university was informed by his chairman recently that his teaching contract will not be renewed in the Fall because his teaching is not up to university standards.

It's about time, you say. More universities should clear out the deadwood, you declaim. But Dr. Mitchell received an award in 1999 recognizing him as an outstanding teacher. He's also been acknowledged by his colleagues as an excellent instructor. So why is his teaching not up to university standards? It turns out that he is a racist and, worse, a theist.

In one of his classes, apparently, Dr. Mitchell, the father of two adopted black children, cited the opinion of Thomas Sowell, a black economist, who holds a dim view of affirmative action. This offended some students and, of course, the last thing that universities want on their faculty is a professor who offends people.

He also committed the unpardonable offense of quoting from a text on 19th century liberal protestantism, and, in the course of the discussion, made reference to G_d. Apparently, the reference was not part of a profanity, which would've been protected free speech, but was instead respectful, which evidently is not.

For these crimes against the spirit of political correctness and Left-wing orthodoxy his university decided he had to go. The announcement aroused no student demonstrations on behalf of academic freedom, as did the kerfuffle surrounding the martyr Ward Churchill, the ACLU found themselves otherwise occupied and unable to come to his aid, and faculty petitions castigating the administration for the "chilling effect" their dismissal of Dr. Mitchell would have on the spirit of open inquiry on campus were notable for their absence.

Even so, the administration later relented, but still prohibited him from teaching in the history department.

Which university is it that maintains such rigorous standards that anyone who gives offense or shows signs of having a favorable view of religion risks being cashiered? Which university is it that will not tolerate the likes of a Dr. Mitchell? The University of Colorado. The exact same institution which is currently wringing its hands over what to do about an academic fraud and bully who managed to offend just about the entire nation with his comments about 9/11. Evidently, Dr. Mitchell's mistake was being fond of his country, being religious, and not making up a story that he was part Indian.

The taxpayers of Colorado are presumably pleased at the vigilance displayed by university officials in the case of the unfortunate Dr. Mitchell and also with their diligence in making sure that only instructors of the finest character stand before the young minds in Colorado's history department.

For more on this travesty go here.

The Case For Judeo-Christian Values, cont'd

Dennis Prager's series of columns on The Case for Judeo-Christian Values continues with Part VI and Part VII.

Part VI addresses the contemporary emphasis on the appeal to feelings rather than to external moral authority in determining how one should act. He writes:

With the decline of the authority of Judeo-Christian values in the West, many people stopped looking to external sources of moral standards in order to decide what is right and wrong. Instead of being guided by God, the Bible and religion, great numbers - in Western Europe, the great majority - have looked elsewhere for moral and social guidelines.

For many millions in the twentieth century, those guidelines were provided by Marxism, Communism, Fascism or Nazism. For many millions today, those guidelines are ... feelings....feelings are the major unifying characteristic among contemporary liberal positions.

His examples are guaranteed to raise eyebrows... and perhaps blood pressure. For example:

Aside from reliance on feelings, how else can one explain a person who believes, let alone proudly announces on a bumper sticker, that "War is not the answer"? I know of no comparable conservative bumper sticker that is so demonstrably false and morally ignorant. Almost every great evil has been solved by war - from slavery in America to the Holocaust in Europe. Auschwitz was liberated by soldiers making war, not by pacifists who would have allowed the Nazis to murder every Jew in Europe.

He closes Part VI with this:

Reliance on feelings in determining one's political and social positions is the major reason young people tend to have liberal/left positions - they feel passionately but do not have the maturity to question those passions. It is also one reason women, especially single women, are more liberal than men - it is women's nature to rely on emotions when making decisions. (For those unused to anything but adulation directed at the female of the human species, let me make it clear that men, too, cannot rely on their nature, which leans toward settling differences through raw physical power. Both sexes have a lot of self-correcting to do.)

Feelings also play a major role in many conservatives' beliefs. Patriotism is largely a feeling; religious faith is filled with emotion, and religion has too often been dictated by emotion. But far more conservative positions are based on "What is right?" rather than on "How do I feel?" That is why a religious woman who is pregnant but does not wish to be is far less likely to have an abortion than a secular woman in the same circumstances. Her values are higher than her feelings. And that, in a nutshell, is what our culture war is about - Judeo-Christian values versus liberal/leftist feelings.

In Part VII he considers the concept of evil and how this concept creates a great divide between the Judeo-Christian view of morality and other, competing, conceptions:

In much of the Arab and Muslim world, "face," "shame" and "honor" define moral norms, not standards of good and evil. That is the reason for "honor killings" - the murder of a daughter or sister who has brought "shame" to the family (through alleged sexual sin) - and the widespread view of these murders as heroic, not evil. That is why Saddam Hussein, no matter how many innocent people he had murdered, tortured and raped, was a hero to much of the Arab world. As much evil as he committed, what most mattered was his strength, and therefore his honor.

In the contemporary Western world, most people who identify with the Left - meaning the majority of people - hate war, corporations, pollution, Christian fundamentalists, economic inequality, tobacco and conservatives. But they rarely hate the greatest evils of their day, if by evil we are talking about the deliberate infliction of cruelty - mass murder, rape, torture, genocide and totalitarianism.

That is why communism, a way of life built on cruelty, attracted vast numbers of people on the Left and why, from the 1960s, it was unopposed by most others on the Left. Even most people calling themselves liberal, not leftist, hated anti-communism much more than they hated communism.

[T]he Left throughout the world generally has contempt for people who speak of good and evil. They are called Manichaeans, moral simpletons who see the world in black and white, never in shades of grey. Western Europeans and their American counterparts loathe the language of good and evil and correctly attribute it to religious - i.e., Judeo-Christian - values. Among those values is fighting evil and "burning evil out from your midst." And to do that, you have to first hate it. Because if you don't hate evil, you won't fight it, and good will lose.

This is an excellent series of columns. If you missed any of the first five installments you can link to them by going to Prager's archive which you will find here.

Note to Guiliana: Please Shut Up

Guiliana Sgrena's story, like a species in thrall to the pressures of Darwinian natural selection, undergoes slow gradual modifications until finally something completely new appears to emerge. Whereas she originally said that hundreds of rounds were fired at the car, photos show only two bullet holes in the vehicle. It also develops that the firing was from the side and rear of the car, consonant with the claim that the vehicle did not stop and instead tried to pass through the checkpoint. Not only did the U.S. military not know anything about Sgrena's release, neither, apparently did the Italian military.

The woman is turning this tragedy into a national embarrassment....for the Italians. No wonder they want her to just shut up.

Captain Ed has the details.

More Wake Up America

Well, the trade deficit figures have been announced for January and they're the second highest in history at $58 billion dollars.

The largest contribution to the trade gap was trade with China (no surprise there) and we're told it was mostly because of an increase in the import of textiles. Gee, since we gutted the textile industry in North Carolina, I guess we have to buy our textiles from somewhere else so it might as well be China, right?

I'd like to direct your attention to the article at this link.

The US has apparently lost the ability to create high productivity, high value-added jobs in tradable goods and services. The ladders of upward mobility are being dismantled by offshore production for home markets and outsourcing of knowledge jobs.

The BLS reports that the number of employed US technical workers has fallen by 221,000 in six major computer and engineering job classifications during 2000-2004. The largest drops were suffered by computer programmers, followed by electrical and electronics engineers, computer scientists and systems analysts.

So much for the new economy that economists promised would take the place of the lost manufacturing economy. America's remaining job market is domestic nontradable services. While India and China develop first world job markets, the US labor market takes on the characteristics of a third world work force. Only jobs that cannot be outsourced are growing.

The Bush economy has seen a loss of 2.8 million manufacturing jobs, a rise in the unemployment rate of 1.2 percentage points, and a stagnation in real weekly earnings. How bad will things have to get before economists realize that outsourced jobs are not being replaced? Indeed, many American companies are ceasing to have any presence in the US except for a sales force.

Cisco's CEO, John Chambers, declared recently: "What we're trying to do is outline an entire strategy of becoming a Chinese company." Cisco is establishing a new R&D center in Shanghai. The US corporation manufactures $5 billion of products in China where it employs 10,000 people.

That is just one company, and there are many doing the same thing. The result is abandonment of the American work force by American corporations. Little wonder the Bush administration is the first administration in 70 years to have a net loss of private sector jobs.

If one US company or a few move offshore, their profits improve and consumer prices are lower. However, when work in general moves offshore, Americans lose the incomes associated with the production of the goods they consume. Domestic production is turned into imports, with the result that America draws down its accumulated wealth in order to pay for the imports on which it is dependent.

Perhaps this is why, in part, Warren Buffet suggests that instead of the "ownership society" proffered by the Bush administrations we're more likely to be a "sharecropper" society.

From Warren Buffet's Annual Report to the Berkshire Hathaway Stockholders (the good stuff starts on page 19 under the heading of "Foreign Currencies").

Should we continue to run current account deficits comparable to those now prevailing, the net ownership of the U.S. by other countries and their citizens a decade from now will amount to roughly $11 trillion. And, if foreign investors were to earn only 5% on that net holding, we would need to send a net of $.55 trillion of goods and services abroad every year merely to service the U.S. investments then held by foreigners. At that date, a decade out, our GDP would probably total about $18 trillion (assuming low inflation, which is far from a sure thing). Therefore, our U.S. "family" would then be delivering 3% of its annual output to the rest of the world simply as tribute for the overindulgences of the past. In this case, unlike that involving budget deficits, the sons would truly pay for the sins of their fathers. This annual royalty paid the world - which would not disappear unless the U.S. massively under-consumed and began to run consistent and large trade surpluses - would undoubtedly produce significant political unrest in the U.S. Americans would still be living very well, indeed better than now because of the growth in our economy. But they would chafe at the idea of perpetually paying tribute to their creditors and owners abroad. A country that is now aspiring to an "Ownership Society" will not find happiness in - and I'll use hyperbole here for emphasis - a "Sharecropper's Society." But that's precisely where our trade policies, supported by Republicans and Democrats alike, are taking us.

So, why would Buffet invest about $20 billion in foreign exchange contracts spread among 12 currencies? Simply because he has little confidence in the US dollar yet he can't put all of that money anywhere else. Also, he faces the same dilemma many countries are confronted with. They have more U.S. dollars than they want, they know they're diminishing in value, but there is no market that is liquid enough to absorb them (other than the U.S. treasury bond market which is happy to sell bonds at the expense of Americans).

Consider that the US Treasury has perhaps $11 billion in gold reserves. If Buffet were to attempt to purchase $21 billion dollars worth of gold, the price of gold would rise so quickly he wouldn't be able to take delivery. In addition, his actions would probably collapse the financial markets around the world.

Note that several years ago, he did acquire several million ounces of silver when it was selling for around $3.50 an ounce.

Interestingly, Buffet laments

"I didn't do that job very well last year. My hope was to make several multi-billion dollar acquisitions that would add new and significant streams of earnings to the many we already have. But I struck out. Additionally, I found very few attractive securities to buy. Berkshire therefore ended the year with $43 billion of cash equivalents, not a happy position. Charlie and I will work to translate some of this hoard into more interesting assets during 2005, though we can't promise success."

Ok readers, here it is from one of the richest people on the planet, and he says he can't find anything to invest in. So why is the real estate market in a buying frenzy? Why have the stock markets boomed in the last three years? Why do so many people apparently disagree with him? The simple answer is that Buffet is a value investor. He only makes investments in propositions that represent value i.e. a reasonable chance for a return on one's investment. And, presently, he doesn't see any market to invest in that represents an opportunity for value. I wonder what that makes all those people who are currently jumping into real estate and the stock markets (like they did in late 1990s) with both feet ?

By the way, if any of our readers are interested in purchasing shares of Berkshire Hathaway, the class A stock - BRK is currently selling for slightly over $90,000 per share.

So, you might ask, what does all of this have to do with me? I don't have billions to invest so it's irrelevant. Well, the simple fact of the matter is that you, and I, are faced with the same problem as Mr. Buffet, the holding of a currency that's at extreme risk of loosing value, but unlike Buffet, we can protect our wealth in it's entirety. While the gold market is too illiquid for Buffet to invest in, we are able to purchase gold as a safe haven against the possibility of a debacle that may unfold.

In the final analysis, it all comes down to this simple message from Dr. Alan Greenspan written in 1968 that is more relevant today than ever.

At my Gold Page, I list a variety of ways one may protect their savings and future through investments in gold and gold-related investments. Personally, I prefer physical gold in hand. It's the equivalent of true wealth. Note that this page is purely a public service. I receive nothing whatsoever from any entity listed on this page.

Clever

"So: make a smash hit film about a guy who allows himself to be killed to redeem the world, don't get nominated. Make a modestly successful film about a gal who asks to be killed because she can't bear to live as an invalid, win Best Picture." Noah Millman.

Thanks to Evangelical Outpost for the tip.

George Soros' Bad Idea

George Soros, the sugar daddy of the Democratic Left, wants the U.S. to fight the war on terror after the manner of Spain, presumably by withdrawing within its own borders and letting others carry the burden of the conflict elsewhere. Here are a few excerpts from his recent remarks:

US billionaire financier George Soros slammed as dangerous Washington's strategy to fight terrorism, saying it was creating anger and resentment around the world.

Speaking on Spanish radio station Cadena Ser the day an international conference on terrorism opened in Madrid, Soros said Spain had "a very different response to terrorism - a healthier response".

The Hungarian-born businessman, who spent millions last year opposing US President George W Bush's re-election, said US policies had had negative consequences.

"Producing innocent victims creates anger and resentment. And this anger and resentment feeds terrorism," he said.

Exactly why or how Spain's is a "healthier response" Mr. Soros doesn't say, nor does he tell his listeners who he would nominate to take the United States' place in carrying the burden of the GWOT abroad should the U.S. follow Spain's example. Perhaps he believes that no one should take our place, that the Middle-East hell-holes that breed Islamic fanatics should just be allowed to fester and suppurate and ooze their deranged spawn across the globe. Such a policy would almost certainly make it necessary to fight the orcs in New York and Los Angeles rather than in Baghdad and Ramadi, just as Spain is having to fight them in Madrid, but if that thought disturbs Mr. Soros he gives no indication of it.

Perhaps Mr. Soros should stick to making vast sums of money and squandering it, if he wishes, on the political campaigns of such as John Kerry. He should definitely leave the war on terror to more qualified individuals.

Why Churches Decline

This report on the state of the Church in the UK and the reasons people give for leaving it contains a number of lessons for the Church in the U.S. would do well to heed (Emphasis is ours thoughout):

With Christian moral values and legal protections under assault on all sides, it is commonly said that the reason pews are emptying is that traditional religion is not relevant. A new survey of thousands of churchgoers in the United Kingdom says the opposite however, and indicates that the emptying of the churches has been caused mainly by preaching and pastoral care that has been emptied of moral or doctrinal Christian content. The survey addressed questions about why church attendance was falling so dramatically in the UK but growing elsewhere, even though two-thirds of the British population believes in God.

The results of the year-long survey of 14,000 UK residents by the interdenominational Ecumenical Research Committee has been called 'surprising' by mainstream secular and Christian media. The overwhelming response is to call on churches "to robustly defend moral values with conviction and courage and cease being 'silent' and 'lukewarm' in the face of moral and social collapse."

In an introduction, Lord Bromley Betchworth said "Those who spoke, did so with one voice...an alarming indication that there are multitudes of people across Britain and Ireland who feel that their views are not being heard or represented." The vast majority of the people in Britain and Ireland, he says, are still morally conservative. "They are appalled that moral values and treasured beliefs are being stood on their head and want churches to play a leading role in standing up for these things."

The survey itself asked four simple questions and avoided 'tick-box' responses in favor of written letters. The huge response was a surprise in itself and reflected a growing frustration and anger felt by many ordinary people about the direction of churches and society in general....Many gave variations on the response, "Why hasn't a survey like this been done before, so we can speak?" "At last, someone is listening, thank you so much." "Thank you for the chance to express our beliefs without fear."

Several 'traditionalist' Anglican clerics said that they had "to keep their own views to themselves in case their bishop, who held opposing beliefs, would remove them from their diocese." Many Catholics in North America have written that a similar situation exists there in which the churches are controlled exclusively by bishops and lay administrators who receive no Christian opposition to their officially sanctioned left-liberal dissent from the faith.

Over 90 percent of responses followed a uniform theme that the decline in traditional Christian moral and doctrinal teaching has caused the outflux of congregations. They listed the lack of apologetics, the reasoned defence and explanation of Christian doctrine, as one of the main reasons for the collapse. "It's a myth today that the people of this country have rejected Christianity; they simply haven't been told enough about it to either accept or reject it," wrote one respondent.

Thousands of letters also cited the lack of emphasis on the holiness of God and the need for personal moral conversion. The desire for teaching on holiness, was prevalent and has been influenced, said the authors, by Mel Gibson's film, the Passion of the Christ. Many responded that the churches now teach easy forgiveness; an attitude that 'God loves me anyway,' and that there is no need to attend church or live a morally demanding Christian life.

The overwhelming majority of respondents were vehemently opposed to ordaining homosexuals and blamed the churches for the rise in pedophilia scandals because of the prevalence of homosexuals in the clergy. Some celibate homosexuals wrote saying that the prevalence of support for homosexuality in the churches is undermining their efforts to live chastely. One young man wrote, "For sections of the Church to suddenly say that my struggle (to remain chaste)... was for nothing and that it would have been OK to have given in, would be to deny my personal cross for Christ and mock the faithfulness I have shown Him."

Two thousand letters asked for a return to traditional liturgy and pointed out that attempts to attract younger people with jazzed-up offerings had failed and had alienated older parishioners. Over 450 said they drove vast distances to attend a traditional liturgical celebration. 1,500 letters complained that the modern liturgies "bordered on entertainment rather than worship."

The survey supports what many Christians have been saying for decades: there is little point in attending a church whose message is no different from that of the materialistic secular world.

It is a mystery to us why it is a mystery to the mainline churches that their memberships are plummeting. Services in which the ministers and priests seem bored with what they do and give every appearance of not really believing what they say, do not incline people to return to the pew on the following Sunday. Services in which sermons seem dry, lifeless, uninspired, disorganized, superficial, and pointless, where there is no enthusiasm for the Gospel or for bringing truth to the larger culture, are simply not going to compete with those of churches which offer the opposites of these things.

Churches which have abandoned hundreds, or even thousands, of years of traditional moral and theological teaching in order to embrace the fashion of the times will hold on, perhaps, to their elderly but will find their middle-aged and younger parishioners looking elsewhere for spiritual nourishment. Why bother attending a church, after all, that's just floating along on the current of political, social, and cultural popular opinion and remains tethered to traditional Christianity by only the most nominal and tenuous attachments?

Many mainline churches in the U.S. have forgotten what they are and why they exist. Having long ago abandoned the Bible as the final authority in matters of faith and practice, they've convinced themselves that they're fulfilling their calling by undermining every moral and theological conviction in the Christian tradition. They suffer from a kind of institutional Alzheimer's disease and can look forward in their dementia to nothing more hopeful than continued decline until they eventually surrender up their last ecclesiastic breath.

If they wish to see the future they need only look at the Church in Europe.

Fatwa Against Bin Laden

More Muslim leaders are apparently beginning to do what we wish they all had been doing since September of 2001:

MADRID (AFX) - Spain's Islamic Commission, which groups the nation's Muslim community, said it was issuing a fatwa against Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. "We are going to issue a fatwa (religious decree) against Bin Laden this afternoon," Mansour Escudero, who leads the Federation of Islamic religious entities (Feeri) and co-secretary general of the Spanish government-created Commission told AFP.

The Commission invited Spanish-based imams to condemn terrorism at Friday prayers, when the whole country will be remembering the 191 people who were killed in the train blasts and the 1,900 injured a year ago. The attacks have been blamed on mainly Moroccan Islamic extremists loyal to Bin Laden. 'We have called on imams to make a formal declaration condemning terrorism and for a special prayer for all the victims of terrorism,' Escudero said.

The Commission has also drawn up a document designed to "thank the Spanish people and the government for their attitude towards Muslims" since last March 11, in particular for not taking "disproportionate" measures similar to those which the Sept 11 attacks sparked in the US.

The Commission called on Muslims to take part in Friday's commemorative programme being organised by Spanish authorities and community groups and to work with them to ensure terrorism was defeated.

The gratuitous and ludicrous swipe against the United States' response to the deaths of three thousand citizens at the hands of Muslim fanatics notwithstanding, one hopes to see more such indications that European and American Muslim leaders wish to join the civilized world.

Heteronormativity and Other Crimes

FoxNews.Com has a regular feature called Tongue-Tied that chronicles the looniness of the politically-correct Left. Here are some excerpts from today's installment:

Actress Jada Pinkett Smith is under fire for a speech she made at Harvard University that was overly "heteronormative" and made gay students feel uncomfortable by not sufficiently addressing their status, reports The Crimson.

Organizers of the Cultural Rhythms show are apologizing for the offense caused by the wife of actor Will Smith. In the speech, she was said to be giving the story of her life "and her perspective was a heterosexual perspective. "She wasn't trying to be offensive. But some felt she was taking a narrow view, and some people felt left out," the apology reads.

Members of the Bisexual, Gay, Lesbian, Transgender, and Supporters Alliance (BGLTSA) said Pinkett Smith's comments implied that standard sexual relationships are only between males and females. "Some of the content was extremely heteronormative, and made BGLTSA members feel uncomfortable," said BGLTSA Co-Chair Jordan B. Woods.

No Easy Way Out

A Florida company is being sued because employees put a noose near a wastebasket at the back of one of its warehouses, reports the News-Press. A black former employee of Wayne Wiles Floor Coverings in Ft. Myers is suing the company, claiming the noose stunned and humiliated him because it is a symbol of the decades of lynchings that plagued the South after the Civil War.

The company says the noose was hung months or maybe a year before the employee went to work there and was part of a joke they shared about committing suicide and "taking the easy way out" when their jobs got too rough.

Ya' Just Can't Make This Stuff Up

Students at Middle Tennessee State University had a teach-in recently and came to the conclusion that use of the word "lady" to refer to female athletic teams was sexist and derogatory, reports the student paper there. A panel of students and faculty suggested that the school no longer use the term "Lady Raiders" to refer to the women's basketball team. (The men's team is named the "Blue Raiders.")

"When we use the word 'lady,' today at least, we recognize it as sort of a sexist remark," said Ryan Husak, a member of Solidarity. "It is used to sort of suggest secondary status." Because of the connotations of the word "lady," it is demeaning to athletes to refer to them in this manner, according to Husak.

The J-Word

A school board in Florida is considering dropping its pre-meeting invocations altogether after an invited clergywoman dared to utter the J-word during one of them, reports the Naples News. The Lee County School Board is concerned about being sued over the prayers with which it routinely kicks off its meetings. Its members are worried about endorsing a particular faith.

The board is acting following the prayer offered by Sara Vellekamp, a pastor at First Assembly of God and Cornerstone Ministries in Fort Myers. She concluded her July 27 invocation by saying, "In Jesus' name, we pray."

Horrible History

A strip mall owner in Wisconsin is catching hell for daring to fly a Confederate flag on his private property as part of a display of his collection of some 18 historically significant flags, reports the Green Bay Gazette. Norm Watermelon is flying the flag outside his history-themed Heritage Village Shoppes in Allouez. But it keeps getting stolen, and a couple locals say that the flag is racist and has no place on public display.

The flag flies alongside an oversized Old Glory; the flag for the battle of the Alamo; a St. George Cross; the Continental flag used at the Battle of Bunker Hill in 1775; and a replica of a Betsy Ross original, among others.

Not Black Enough

Students at Bowdoin College in Maine are shredding the College Republicans there for inviting a black conservative to speak on campus during Black History Month, according to the student paper there. The critics say North Carolinian Vernon Robinson is not really a black guy; he is, they say, an "Uncle Tom" who has no right to speak on campus. One writer said (with a straight face, presumably) that the Republican student group "displayed its lack of openness by inviting" him.

"To have Robinson speak at this school as a representative of Black History Month destroys the racial peace movement that has been formulating on this campus," one wrote.

For more examples of utterly astonishing boneheadedness go here, but don't do it unless you have a high tolerance for stupidity. Otherwise, the visit might drive you to despair.

"Heteronormative"?! Are they kidding?

"Yes, Buts" and "Neverthelesses"

Democrats find themselves in an unenviable position in the current political climate. They can't advocate the things they are for - higher taxes, weaker military, more deference to the U.N., gay marriage (whatever happened to that?), etc. - because they know that pluralities of voters will never buy what they're trying to sell. So they're reduced to talking only about what they are against, which is pretty much anything George Bush supports. Their gloomy rhetoric, however, is equally unhelpful, and just pushes them further toward the political margins. People, as Reagan knew, don't like negativity, but that's, unfortunately, all the Left has to offer.

Listen to political spokespersons like Kennedy, Boxer, Biden, Reid, and Pelosi. Visit web sites like Democratic Underground, Truth Out, and Move On. Listen to the MSM news outlets. All one hears from any of these pols or venues is just relentless, teeth grinding, mind-numbing negativism. It's all about "yes, buts", "remains to be seens", "on the other hands" and "neverthelesses". Reason after reason is adamantly put forward as to why we shouldn't do this or can't do that, accompanied by sophistical discourses on why this demarche or that program will never work and why everyone in the Bush administration has nefarious motives and intentions.

Meanwhile the world is changing under the nay-sayers feet, and they find themselves in the insufferable position of being irrelevant to that change. The blow to their egos produces resentment and the resentment spawns an inveterate pessimism and cynicism. The Bush administration's detractors are left pathetically scrambling to salvage their sense of self-importance by insisting that since they themselves had no hand in what is happening, since they opposed it from the start, it therefore is doomed to failure.

They're like sportswriters who never strapped on a helmet but who constantly criticize everything the coaches and players do even though their team keeps winning. They wholly unwittingly offer themselves up to the public and to future historians as objects of amusement and curiosity. For that role, sadly, they are well-suited.

Jon Leo makes a similar point with humor and style beyond the abilities we have at our command, and we commend to you his column titled Time for a Dose of Dr. No.

GWOT Scorecard

Strategy Page provides us with a scorecard for marking progress in the global war on terror (GWOT).

Al-Qaeda was originally built like a large corporation. It has a board of directors of 24, with Osama bin Laden as the CEO (official title is Emir-General). Bin Laden also has 15 people in what could be described as his "inner circle" of aides. Al-Qaeda also had training camps in six countries in September, 2001 (Afghanistan, Indonesia, Chechnya, Albania, Sudan, and the Philippines), with eight commanders. Al-Qaeda also maintained cells in numerous Arabian and European countries.

Since the September 11, 2001 attacks, the United States and allies have been hunting down the leadership of al-Qaeda. Among the big fish (the "Board of Directors"), seven are dead and ten are in custody. Four members of the "inner circle" are also in custody. This is 53 percent of the senior leadership for al-Qaeda. Osama bin Laden is still at large, along with Ayman al-Zawahiri (the deputy commander of al-Qaeda) and Abu Mohammed al-Masri (the planner of the attacks on the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania). However, five out of the eight training camp commanders are dead or in custody.

Other statistics of note: Eighteen al-Qaeda financiers are dead or in custody. Among those still at large, though, are two of bin Laden's sisters, two of his brothers-in-law, and a Swiss banker by the name of Ahmed Huber. Huber also has extensive connections with neo-Nazis in Europe. The real financial resource for al-Qaeda remains untouched - the dozen or so Saudis who are called the "Golden Chain." All are at large, and all can still provide enough resources for bin Laden to regroup and strike again.

Al-Qaeda's military committee has also been decimated. One is dead (killed by a CIA Predator firing Hellfire missiles), fourteen, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Ramzi Yousef, have been captured. These include the commanders in Singapore, Java, Southern Europe, and Japan. Several are at large, including the operations chiefs in Kosovo, Tunisia, and Somalia.

Subordinate networks in several countries have been rounded up or decimated. In Jordan, five out of the six major al-Qaeda figures are in custody; in Syria, only five major terrorist figures are still at large - dozens of al-Qaeda members are currently incarcerated, but three major Hezbollah figures are still on the loose. Syria, however, remains a sponsor of Hezbollah. Egypt has rounded up all of the major al-Qaeda figures, as have Italy, Belgium, Germany. The United Kingdom, Spain, and France have rounded up many al-Qaeda figures as well.

Many of the major al-Qaeda figures in Saudi Arabia are dead or apprehended, but a number of figures involved in the Khobar Towers bombing are still at large - some with connections to Hizbollah. In Turkey, 75 percent of the big fish connected with al-Qaeda are dead or in custody. Most of the support structure for the 9/11attack, including Mukhabarat agent Ahmad Khalil Ibraham al-Ani (who the Czechs insist met hijacker Mohammed Atta in Prague), are in custody.

But in some places, the network is pretty intact. Many major Taliban figures are still on the loose. So are all three members of al-Qaeda's WMD Committee, and all of those involved in a Bolivian hijacking plot.

Short version, al-Qaeda is on the run throughout most of the globe. Even Abu Musab Zarqawi, in charge of all al-Qaeda elements in Iraq, is on the run - as elements of his infrastructure are taken apart. Eight of Zarqawi's top aides are dead. Twenty others have been captured. Zarqawi was unable to disrupt the elections on January 30, a serious loss for the terrorists. Al-Qaeda is still potent, as the attacks in Madrid proved, but they are clearly reacting to the multi-pronged offensive in the United States.

The Cold War against the Soviet bloc lasted seventy years. The GWOT, despite the successes noted above, will probably last as long, unless the West decides it lacks the will to fight it. If this happens, though, the West will cease to exist as a cultural entity, and Islam will stand on the cusp of achieving its dream of a worldwide caliphate.

Hunting the Big Rat

Australian Broadcasting Company's News OnLine reports that an intense search for Abu al-Zarqawi is underway in Samarra north of Baghdad:

Iraqi commandos and United States soldiers have stepped up operations in Samarra, north of Baghdad, in search for top wanted militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a senior Iraqi security official said.

"We have information that Zarqawi may be hiding in Samarra or this region and this operation is aimed at checking that out," the officer said on condition of anonymity.

The official said 66 suspects have been arrested in the operation, which is expected to last a week with the goal of rounding up 250 wanted suspects working for seven armed groups in the area.

On the ground all entrances leading to Samarra were sealed as Iraqi and US forces conducted their searches. No vehicles were allowed to circulate inside the city where most businesses, schools and government institutions were closed for a second day.

The US military confirmed the operation. "Elements of the Iraqi Ministry of Interiors 1st Commando Brigade began operations to kill or capture insurgent elements in the city of Samarra this weekend," said Major Richard Goldenberg of the 42nd Infantry Division, adding that US soldiers are providing a supporting role. He said the operation was based on Iraqi intelligence.

Sounds like even if they don't get the big rat lots of lesser vermin are being taken out of service which can only further erode Zarqawi's ability to project terror. Let's hope, though, that they find the big rat as well.

Two Tales of Suffering

A friend of mine, reflecting on his father-in-law's cancer as well as a couple of our posts on the Culture of Death, was moved to write a beautiful meditation that deserves to be placed before all of our readers:

Pope John Paul II and Hunter S. Thompson have been in the news a great deal lately, reminding me of how much these two dynamic men had in common - as authors, as keen observers of contemporary mores, as charismatic countercultural figures who have inspired loyal followings.

They also shared something else: advancing age and declining health. But their responses to that condition have demonstrated just how little they have in common on the most important matters of all - that is, the meaning of suffering and, by extension, the meaning of life. On one hand, we have the frail Pope, assailed by Parkinson's disease and the flu, straining mightily to carry on his duties at the Vatican; and then we have Thompson, hounded by degenerating joints and constant pain, sitting down in his kitchen chair and shooting himself through the mouth.

Some commentators have called Thompson a coward for what he did. I won't say that. I've seen enough suffering among friends and family to know that people who attempt suicide or even contemplate it are most likely in a terribly dark place physically or mentally or both. They deserve our comfort and prayers, not our judgment. But in Thompson's case it appears that his death was entirely consistent with his philosophy of life.

"It was just like Hunter wanted. He was in control here," his wife, Anita, told a Colorado newspaper shortly after his suicide. "This is a triumph of his, not a desperate, tragic failure." Historian and author Douglas Brinkley, who edited some of Thompson's work, said in an Associated Press story, "I think he made a conscious decision that he had an incredible run of 67 years, lived the way he wanted to and wasn't going to suffer the indignities of old age. He was not going to let anybody dictate how he was going to die."

At that very time, Pope John Paul II was setting an example of his own, exhibiting a lesson handed down through centuries of Christianity - that suffering has tremendous spiritual value, that it can be more of a blessing than a curse, that it is, in fact, the bedrock of salvation. As he shuttled back and forth from the hospital, the Pope lived out the meaning of a recent Lenten message he delivered on euthanasia: "What would happen if the people of God yielded to a certain current mentality that considers these people, our brothers and sisters, as almost useless when they are reduced in their capacities due to the difficulties of age or sickness?.... Thou shalt not kill applies even in the presence of illness and when physical weakness reduces the person's ability to be self-reliant."

And that's really what it comes down to - it's about who is really in control and on whose terms we're really living. Simply put, Thompson lived on selfish terms and the Pope has lived on God's. Thompson took the easier path, the one defined by his will, not by God's - and most, if not all of us, are guilty of that to some extent. Trying to live any other way is a monumental battle, particularly in a consumer society that places premium value on getting what we want, when we want it. I don't like suffering any more than anyone else, and I certainly don't wish for it. But it's clear that the Pope has chosen the harder way, and the fruits of putting God first, rather than himself, show it to be the better way as well.

He is a man, after all, who engaged in dangerous underground work against the Nazis, forgave his would-be assassin and played a leading role in ridding his native Poland - and the world - of the Soviet regime. His unilateral leadership style and stances on hot-button issues in the Roman Catholic Church have infuriated some, but his personal example is sterling. Thompson, though clearly a gifted writer and a discerning journalist, reveled in drug and alcohol use, built a cult of self around those experiences and ultimately shot himself with his wife apparently on the phone and other family members in the house.

In his best-selling novel The Thanatos Syndrome, Walker Percy, a great cultural diagnostician of our times, examined a world that is consumed with a death-wish manifested through the unending pursuit of self-indulgence and self-gratification. We all live in that world today, and I think it's fair to say that Hunter Thompson helped create it by glamorizing excess and celebrating reckless individualism before showing us how it all ends - with a bang and a whimper.

Meanwhile, the Pope, who was once a magnificent athlete, is now so weak that strong winds literally threaten to knock him down during his travels. The man fluent in several languages often has trouble speaking at all. The many gifts God has given him are being taken away a little bit at a time, stripping him bare as death nears. In Hunter Thompson's world, that's an indignity. I can't shake the feeling and the hope that it's really a sign of grace.

Steve M.