Bits and Pieces From Iraq

Here are a few highlights from the last few days of postings at Strategy Page:

In the six weeks since the new Iraqi government was formed, nearly a thousand Iraqis have been killed by terrorist attacks. Interestingly, some of these deaths have been the result of Sunni Arab terrorists fighting foreign Arab (al Qaeda) terrorists. American Marines have actually witnessed some of these battles in western Iraq.

While many Iraqis still rail against American troops for "not protecting them" from these terrorist attacks, they also realize that it's Arabs carrying out these attacks. Many Iraqis also realize that the Americans are not magicians, and cannot protect Iraqis from their own unwillingness to cooperate in the fight against terrorists. While there are more tips coming in from Iraqis, too many are still willing to look the other way. This is a major difference between Iraq and, say, the United States, Israel and Egypt. These nations have populations that turned against the Islamic terrorists, and largely eliminated terrorism within their borders. The Iraqis are slowly becoming aware that this is how it works.

The terrorists continue their self-destructive ways, launching suicide attacks against the police and civilians. Day by day the strength and effectiveness of the police and army increases. American training experts believe that it will be two years before Iraq has enough police and troops to deal with terrorism. Iraqis believe the problem will be solved more quickly than that, but by being more brutal with those Sunni Arabs and foreigners who persist in their murderous ways. The United States wants to avoid this, as they will get blamed, in the world media, for the brutality of Iraqis trying to deal with their terrorist problem.

At least half of the terrorists encountered in western Iraq are foreigners. The Iraqi terrorists have been on the run as areas they set up housekeeping in are detected and raided. While the terrorists can scare Iraqis into not resisting with weapons, they cannot prevent them from tipping off police about where the bomb factories and weapons caches are. The terrorists torture and murder locals suspected of being informants, or who are kin to informants. The current American operations are meant to crush the terrorist groups that are too large for the locals to handle. Smaller groups of terrorists would be outnumbered by police, or groups of armed locals.

In Mosul, American troops captured Muhammad Khalaf Shakar, an al Qaeda leaders and close associate of Abu Musab al Zarqawi. Shakar was betrayed by an informer, and increasingly common problem terrorists are facing. The informants, and few captured terrorists, indicate that most of the car bombs and roadside bombs are coming out these western Iraqi locations.

Operation Lightning, which began on May 22nd, continues in and around Baghdad. The 40,000 Iraqi police and troops have rounded up over a thousand terrorists suspects, and brought peace to many neighborhoods. It only takes a dozen or so armed men to terrorize a neighborhood, and make it hospitable for anti-government forces. When the local bad guys are rounded up, or chased into the western desert, the police can patrol the neighborhood, and establish relationships with the locals. This makes it more difficult for the terrorists to come back, as the police will immediately find out, and go after the terrorists before they can establish any control.

The government is broadcasting the pictures and videos captured from the terrorists, showing how Iraqis are tortured or killed (often by beheading) for resisting. The fact that many of the terrorists are foreigners, especially Saudis, makes many Iraqis angry. These self-righteous foreigners preach how they are in Iraq to "liberate" Iraq from foreigners. Yet the terrorists are never seen doing any good works, like the Americans, only killing and torturing Iraqis. This is turning Iraq into the most anti-al Qaeda country in the Middle East. That, in turn, is resonating in other Moslem countries, where Islamic terrorism is becoming less popular, as more of it is directed against Iraqis.

These last few sentences are worth special attention. Isn't it the conventional wisdom that we are creating more sympathy for al Qaida by our presence in Iraq? Haven't we been repeatedly told by anti-war folk that the war has only increased support for the jihadis across the Arab world?

Of course, conventional wisdom is formed in conversations over coffee and donuts in the air conditioned newsrooms of the major media and over beer and brie in the salons of Georgetown. Out on the hot, dry frontiers of Iraq where few journalists have dared to venture the people that know what's going on are apparently seeing a rather different picture.

Proof Spoof

Burning Panda spoofs twenty eight arguments against Intelligent Design and in support of Darwinian evolution which he has gleaned from the media over the past several months. The material apparently is no longer on his site, which seems to have been dropped. This is too bad because some of the arguments are apparently persuasive enough to have convinced some journalists:

After surveying the literature over the past few months, I've compiled the best arguments against Intelligent Design and in favor of neo-Darwinism.

1) The Monty Python Proof: 1. Michael Behe is an intelligent design theorist who was seen at a church 2. But only creationist's go to church 3. Michael Behe's a creationist! Burn him! 4. Therefore Evolution is true.

2) The argument from really, really, really big bones: 1. Some scientists found a bone 2. It was a really big bone 3. Manatees are really big, but manatees don't have this bone 4. The bone must have belonged to an older form of manatee that has now evolved. 5. Therefore evolution is true.

3) The argument from icky things: 1. There's moles on some people. 2. No designer would ever design moles. 3. Therefore evolution is true.

4) The argument from age of the earth: 1. Earth is 4.5 billion years old 2. Therefore evolution is true.

5) The either/or argument: 1. If evolution is true then creationism is false. 2. creationism is false because evolution is true. 3. therefore evolution is true.

6) The argument from scientists: 1. Scientists are perfect and never, ever lie. 2. Scientists believe that evolution can explain everything. 3. Therefore evolution is true.

7) The argument from truth as determined by peer review: 1. There has never been anything published in peer-reviewed journals by ID theorists (Meyer, Dembski, Behe, Schaeffer, Thaxton, etc) 2. If it's never been published then ID is false 3. Therefore evolution is true.

8) The argument from falsifiability: 1. ID isn't real science because it isn't falsifiable. 2. Evolution is true and has falsified design. 3. Therefore evolution is true.

9) The Scotsman Fallacy of Antony Flew: 1. No scientist believes there is an Intelligent Designer. 2. Well, some do. 3. No REAL scientist believes in an intelligent designer. 4. Therefore evolution is true.

10) The argument from a hissing feminist: 1. Intelligent Design presupposes a patriarchal womanizer! 2. Well, as a feminist I can't tolerate that! 3. Feminist response- "Hiiiiiiiiissssssssssssssssssss!" 4. Therefore evolution is true.

11) The argument from computer programs: 1. A programmer wrote a program that he installed on a computer. 2. The code took written words and randomly placed them together, under certain programmed rules, to form complete sentences. 3. See? Random processes CAN create information. 4. Therefore evolution is true.

12) The Choo Choo Train proof: 1. A long time ago trains were fueled by wood. 2. Then they evolved and were fueled by steam 3. Now trains are powered by electricity 4. So trains have evolved by completely random processes! 5. Therefore evolution is true.

13) The 'It's our only Hope' proof: 1. If intelligent design is true then everything will return to a theocracy. 2. Seriously, there will be witch hunts. 3. Children will be raised to believe in purpose! (oh dear...) 4. We can never let that happen! Help me evolution you're my only hope. 5. Therefore evolution is true.

14) The Evolutionary Modal Ontological Argument: 1. There is a possible world where evolution can explain everything necessarily. 2. So evolution is necessary then? 3. Therefore evolution is true.

15) The Argument from Eyes: 1. If dolphins have eyes and birds have eyes then evolution is true. 2. Dolphins have eyes and birds have eyes. 3. Therefore evolution is true.

16) The argument from ignorance: 1. Intelligent Design theorists are ignorant. 2. I mean come on, how could anyone seriously believe that? 3. No really, how? 4. Therefore evolution is true.

17) The argument against fancy words: 1. Intelligent Design Theorists use really big words. 2. If they are using big words, then they are just trying to sound smart. 3. But if they are trying to sound smart, they really aren't smart. 4. Therefore evolution is true.

18) The argument from the Crusades: 1. Christians fought in the crusades and committed horrible atrocities. 2. Christians are creationists. 3. Intelligent Design is Creationism in a cheap tuxedo. 4. So Intelligent Design theorist's are responsible for the horrible atrocities of the crusades. 5. Therefore evolution is true.

19) The argument of mistaken vocational identity: 1. An Intelligent Design Theorist mistakenly called a biochemist a chemist once. 2. How can the ID theorist be so retarded? 3. Therefore evolution is true.

20) The argument from mystery: 1. Intelligent Design takes the mystery from science. 2. Therefore evolution is true.

21) The 'That's just the way it is' argument: 1. I wish there was purpose to life, but there isn't. 2. I'm really sorry. 3. Therefore evolution is true.

22) The argument from Children's Imagination: 1. Only children believe in Santa Claus 2. Belief in God is kind of like belief in Santa Claus 3. Therefore evolution is true.

23) The argument from lunacy: 1. A guy on a lot of drugs once claimed to feel God 2. But he was on drugs. 3. Therefore evolution is true.

24) The argument from David Silverman: 1. David Silverman debated Norman Geisler once. 2. David Silverman can talk louder, faster, and over Geisler. 3. Geisler could barely get a word in! 4. Boy, if Silverman can talk faster than Geisler, then he must have won the debate. 5. Therefore evolution is true.

25) The Gold Star argument: 1. An atheist quit going to Sunday school because he didn't get the gold star one week. 2. He's been an atheist ever since. 3. Therefore evolution is true.

26)The argument from shared molecular structures 1. Amoeba's have proteins 2. Humans have proteins. 3. Therefore evolution is true.

27) The flat earth association argument: 1. There were some creationists who used to believe the earth was flat a long, long time ago. 2. But the earth is a sphere 3. Therefore evolution is true.

28) The appeal to Richard Dawkins: 1. Richard Dawkins is an evolutionist 2. Richard Dawkins is also smart 3. Therefore evolution is true.

As if they wanted to deliberately ad their own contribution to the media's shameful record of ignorance of what Intelligent Design entails, both scientifically and philosophically, our local newspaper ran this editorial Friday night. It complains about debate in the state House of Representatives over a bill which would ensure that teaching ID was permitted in Pennsylvania's public schools and takes several risible swipes at ID along the way.

The editorial states, for instance that, ID is "a sideshow of creationism in which the fossil record and scientific evidence of millions of years gets tossed in favor of scripture," and refers to ID as "religious zealotry."

It's pretty clear from this column that whoever wrote it has either never read the ID literature or has chosen to willfully to misrepresent it. The writer is, in other words, either ignorant of what he writes about or he is dishonest.

Thanks for the Burning Pandas post to Telic Thoughts.

Odd Polling Data

This is interesting. The Pew Research Center for the People and the Press has come up with the following numbers:

Americans who consider the U.S. a Christian nation: 71% Americans who considered the U.S. a Christian nation in 1996: 60%

Americans who say both creationism and evolution should be taught in public schools: 57% Americans who say only creationism should be taught in public schools: 33%

Americans who have a favorable impression of the conservative Christian movement: 41% Americans who have a favorable impression of Muslims: 45%

Although we're heartened by the numbers in the first two categories we have to wonder how it could be that Muslims have a better image in what 71% of Americans say is a "Christian nation" than conservative Christians do. The incongruity of this datum makes us reluctant to be too encouraged by the rest of Pew's results.

We've Won?

Karl Zinsmeister, editor-in-chief of The American Enterprise, concludes that the war in Iraq is essentially over and we've won.

Wretchard at Belmont Club explains why Zinsmeister, although perhaps not very prudent in making what many might see as an irresponsibly hasty claim at this juncture, is nevertheless correct.

It's good reading for those who follow developments in that theater closely.

Democrat Dudgeon

In the wake of the firestorm over Dick Durbin's dunderheaded remarks comparing Club Gitmo to Auschwitz, Stalin's gulag, and Pol Pot's Killing Fields, the desperate Dems have tried to deflect the flak from Durbin by attacking Karl Rove's perfectly correct claim that in the wake of 9/11 conservatives prepared for war and liberals pleaded that we treat the attack as a police matter. His exact words were:

"Conservatives saw the savagery of 9/11 in the attacks and prepared for war; liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers."

Liberals are now in profound dudgeon at Rove's impertinent truth-telling. They're demanding apologies. They're deeply offended that Mr. Rove has called their patriotism into question (Imagine!). Well, Ken Mehlman, Chairman of the RNC, has now released a statement that thoroughly documents Rove's assertion. Hugh Hewitt has the Mehlman documentation here.

Presumably, the libs will now be beside themselves with outrage that Republicans would resort to the tawdriest tactic in the playbook of dirty politics -- the use of FACTS. This is exactly what people mean when they say that Republicans are divisive, mean-spirited, and don't play fair.

Doug Ireland's Flawed Thinking

Doug Ireland, author of the frantic call to arms against the coming "Christers" which we commented upon last week, responds to his critics:

Just so there can be no confusion, I have never made any secret of the fact that I'm a life-long atheist, and proudly so....

I came up with the word "Christer" to distinguish those Protestant fundamentalists and ultramontane Catholics whose politicized version of Christianity impels them to seek to impose their views on others through public policy and the State -- as opposed to ordinary believers who believe their faith is a private and personal matter, not a fulcrum for censorship of those who think or act differently.

Why on earth does an atheist object to someone imposing his values on others? There really seems to be no reason for someone who lacks a belief in God to join the oft-heard chorus of voices claiming that no one, particularly a Christian, has the right to impose his/her morality on another person. Indeed, the notion is patently silly, especially in the mouth of an atheist.

First, it's difficult to name legislation which does not impose somebody's morality upon the rest of society. Everything from desegregation to affirmative action to welfare regulations to environmental regulations to laws prohibiting gambling, prostitution, public lewdness, drug use, capital punishment, bribery, and so on all presuppose moral values that might not be shared by many of those who are subject to the pertinent laws. Should these laws never have been enacted? Should they be rescinded?

Beyond this objection, however, there are a couple of other difficulties with the concern about saddling others with one's moral values or one's religious views. It's a concern, oddly enough, that only theists can logically express. If an atheist like Mr. Ireland were to object to a theist that he should not impose his beliefs on others the appropriate reply would be to ask "Why not?"

If the atheist is correct in believing that we live in a world without God then a man has a "right" to try to do whatever he wishes to do. In a world without God, might makes right, so anything one is able to do, one has a "right" to do.

If the atheist objects to this, he might be asked what it is, exactly, upon which he bases his conviction that I have no right to impose my values. Is it the law? If I have the power to change or shape the law to conform to my desires then that objection fails. Is it that a right to impose one's will upon others robs the other of his worth and dignity as a human being? So what?

In a world without God human worth and dignity are arbitrary and chimerical. They're grounded in nothing except the subjective sentiments of a few human beings and have no real, objective existence. Even if worth and dignity did somehow actually attach to human beings, why would it be wrong, on the atheist's assumptions, to deprive someone of them?

The fact is that the only constraint upon anyone's "right" to do whatever he is able to do is God's proscription, but for the atheist that limit does not exist and for the secularist it is illicit to invoke it. In a Godless universe, or in the naked public square, we are all morally autonomous, free to do whatever we have the power to accomplish, including imposing our will upon others if we're able.

A second problem with the affirmation that it's improper to seek to impose our beliefs upon others is that the claim itself is a moral assertion. The person who makes it believes that it is wrong to engage in the particular behavior he is condemning. But the irony of this is that he is himself seeking to impose upon others his moral conviction that it is unjust to impose one's moral convictions upon others. In other words, he's violating his own principle in the very act of voicing it. He's attempting to inflict his morality on the rest of us.

The truth of the matter is that few people who argue that it transgresses some moral standard to impose one's beliefs upon others really believe it deep down. What they believe is that it's wrong to have others foist upon them convictions and values of which they disapprove. Their conscience is untroubled, however, by having others burdened with their own values, which is precisely what Mr. Ireland tacitly admits he wishes to see happen through the sexual subversion of American culture.

Thanks for the tip on Ireland's piece to No Left Turns.

Obituary of an Angry Man

Michelle Malkin directs us to this obituary of an unfortunate man who sounds a lot more troubled than even those of his family who wrote the obituary indicate:

Corwyn (Cory) William Zimbleman Tucson, AZ (formerly of Champaign, IL)

Age 53. Born April 18, 1952 to the late Willard and Gilda (Ebert) Zimbleman, died June 10, 2005. Throughout his life Cory was an extraordinary artist. His artistic talent and imagination would bring awe to all who viewed his work. His works grace an LP cover and numerous books; using Computer Aided Design (CAD) he designed home and business exteriors, interiors, and furniture for several architectural firms. His talent went beyond the fine arts as he added sculpturing, woodworking, metals, and other mediums to his repertoire.

Having never gained the recognition he deserved in his own lifetime his family hopes to publish a book of his works. Another of his passions was herpetology. As a child he was always bringing home reptiles. His friends nicknamed him "Snake." He even built a turtle pond in his backyard.

An avid atheist, he studied the bible and religion with more fervor than most Christians. He had strong political opinions and followed Amy Goodman's radio broadcast "Democracy Now."

Alas the stolen election of 2000 and living with right-winged Americans finally brought him to his early demise. Stress from living in this unjust country brought about several heart attacks rendering him disabled.

Cory, a great man, so very talented, compassionate and intelligent, dedicated to the arts and humanities and the environment, will be greatly missed by his wife, family, and friends. He is survived by his wife, Patricia Montiel; his step-daughter, Esperanza Hernandez both of Tucson; his brother, Mike (Dana) of St. Louis, MO; his sisters, Susan St. Claire of San Jose, CA and Laura Zimbleman of Ypsilanti, MI, and his turtles Heidie, Skinhead and Studley and many other pets. A memorial service will be held Tuesday, June 21, 2005 from 6:00 p.m.- 9:00 p.m., please call 883-2862 for information. Cremation has taken place.

Mr. Zimbleman could, of course, have moved a few miles south into Mexico to relieve his stress, but chose not to. Instead, at least according to those who wrote the obituary, he evidently allowed a pathological anger and hatred to ruin his health and ultimately claim his life.

When politics is what puts meaning into one's life, when ideology becomes an ersatz religion, then defeats in the political sphere become more than mere disappointments. They become life-crushing blows which bring out the very worst in people.

This is, indeed, a major difference between conservatives and liberals. Conservatives don't make ideology their religion because most of them already have a traditional faith in a God which transcends the world of politics. Liberals, on the other hand, often have no transcendent faith. They immanantize their religion and make their ideology their supreme value. An electoral defeat for them is a pill so bitter that their lives are devastated by it.

Mr. Zimbleman is perhaps an extreme example of the phenomenon, but judging by the venom that has poured forth onto the political stage since last November, his bitterness was by no means unique.

<i>Kelo v. New London</i>

If there were any lingering doubts in the minds of sensible people that the Supreme Court needs a major ideological makeover the Kelo v. New London case decided today should remove them. Throwing the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution in the trash can, five liberals decided that a municipal government can simply compel homeowners to relinquish their homes and property to authorities who may then award it to other private citizens, such as, for example, corporate businesses.

In other words, if a consortium wants to build a shopping mall on land you currently own, your land can be taken from you and given to the consortium. If a corporation wishes to build an office building where your church now stands they can simply convince the local government to seize the church and sell it to the corporate deep pockets.

Governments have always had the right to exercise eminent domain, of course, but under that principle the seizure of the property had to be for a public purpose. The Supreme Court has now said that wealthy corporations can take ownership of your property if they can persuade the local commissioners that it's in their economic interest to do so.

Voting in favor of this assault on personal property rights were all the usual suspects: John Paul Stevens, who wrote the majority opinion, such as it was, as well as Anthony Kennedy, David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer.

Sandra Day O'Connor wrote a rebuke of the intellectual and constitutional flimsiness of the majority's reasoning, and was joined in her opinion by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, as well as Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.

We need more Justices like the latter and fewer like the former.

First Supreme Court Nominee

Bill Kristol evidently has some inside word on the Bush administration's plans for the Supreme Court:

Warning: THIS IS SPECULATION. Obviously, I think it's somewhat well-informed speculation, or else I wouldn't be writing this. But it is speculation.

(1) There will be a Supreme Court resignation within the next week. But it will be Justice O'Connor, not Chief Justice Rehnquist. There are several tea-leaf-like suggestions that O'Connor may be stepping down, including the fact that she has apparently arranged to spend much more time in Arizona beginning this fall. There are also recent intimations that Chief Justice Rehnquist may not resign. This would be consistent with Justice O'Connor having confided her plan to step down to the chief a while ago. Rehnquist probably believes that it wouldn't be good for the Court to have two resignations at once, so he would presumably stay on for as long as his health permits, and/or until after Justice O'Connor's replacement is confirmed.

(2) President Bush will appoint Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to replace O'Connor. Bush certainly wants to put Gonzales on the Supreme Court. Presidents usually find a way to do what they want to do.

And his aides will have an argument to make to conservatives (like me) who would be unhappy with a Gonzales pick: Bush would not, after all, be replacing a conservative stalwart like Rehnquist with Gonzales. Gonzales would be taking O'Connor's seat, and Gonzales is likely to be as conservative as, or even more conservative than, O'Connor. Indeed, Karl Rove will continue, Gonzales is as conservative a nominee to replace O'Connor as one could find who could overcome a threatened Democratic filibuster. Bush aides will also assure us privately that when Rehnquist does step down, Bush will nominate a strong conservative as his replacement. They might not tell us that nominee would be as an associate justice, for Bush would plan to then promote Gonzales to chief justice--thus creating a "Gonzales Court," a truly distinctive Bush legacy.

A Gonzales nomination would, in my view, virtually forfeit any chance in the near term for a fundamental reversal in the downward drift of American constitutional jurisprudence. But I now think it is more likely than not to happen.

A Gonzales nomination would also, it seems to us, almost force a Democratic filibuster. After all of the accusations that have been made against him concerning human rights abuses it's hard to see how Democratic senators could allow him a free pass onto the Court in the face of such strong opposition among their supporters on the Left. We'll see how the Democrats will respond to this scenario soon enough, apparently, at least we will if Kristol's speculation is correct.

<i>Fatuous Statement</i> Watch

"Once 'the religious hypothesis' is disengaged from the opportunity to inflict humiliation and pain on people who do not profess the correct creed, it loses interest for many people." Richard Rorty

No doubt this explains why Americans remain the most religious people in the Western world while the Europeans have "lost interest." Americans remain embarrassingly religious because they, by and large, adhere to a faith, Christianity, that enjoins the infliction of humiliation and pain upon those who don't believe. Anyone who has read the Sermon on the Mount or the lives of the saints, Mother Teresa or St. Francis come to mind, can see this plainly. Moreover, anyone who has even a passing familiarity with the story of Jesus' life and death has been profoundly struck by the encouragement he offers to those who yearn to give expression to their sadistic predilections.

It is wisdom like this that has made Richard Rorty one of the most esteemed philosophers of our time.

How to Marry Well

This Washington Times story should be cut out and posted wherever young women gather:

Christian men -- to be more specific, devout evangelical Protestants -- make better fathers than the public perceives, says sociologist and author W. Bradford Wilcox. "Many think religion plays a baleful role, pushing men toward authoritarianism," Mr. Wilcox said during a discussion at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in the District. But he said men who attend church regularly are "more affectionate, involved and strict" than fathers who do not attend church regularly.

In his new book, "Soft Patriarchs, New Men: How Christianity Shapes Fathers and Husbands," Mr. Wilcox says religious men are more attentive to the needs of their families than nonreligious men. Active evangelicals, he said, spend more time with their children, have better relationships with their wives and are less likely to be abusive when compared with nonbelievers. Devout evangelical fathers also compare favorably with other Christians -- including Catholics and those of "mainline" Protestant denominations -- and with Christians who don't attend services regularly.

Mr. Wilcox said his research showed that dedicated evangelicals "tend to excel in discipline, playing and encouraging their children." Strong faith also promotes domestic tranquility, according to his research. "No one ain't happy if mama ain't happy," Mr. Wilcox joked. He said wives of churchgoing evangelicals report being happier than wives of men who don't attend church.

Mr. Wilcox said that men who have good relationships with their wives tend to be better fathers. In addition to spending more time with their children, fathers who have good relationships with the children's mothers become good examples of how men should treat women respectfully. "Children with involved, affectionate fathers are much better off," Mr. Wilcox said.

He said it is important to distinguish between regular churchgoers and men who identify themselves as religious but are not involved in church services or activities. Irregular members, he said, "use male headship to legitimize bad things" such as abuse and divorce.

Divorce rates among those who identify themselves as Christians are higher than for atheists and agnostics, according to the Barna Group, a California-based organization specializing in religious research. In September, the group released data showing that 39 percent of married Protestants had experienced divorce while 35 percent of married non-Christians had been through divorce. Such statistics, Mr. Wilcox said, fail to measure the influence of church attendance. "Regular churchgoers are more than 30 percent less likely to divorce" than people who do not attend church regularly, he said.

"The key issue is not whether one is affiliated with a church or claims to have had a 'born-again' experience," Mr. Wilcox said. "It is if they regularly attend church." He said separating active churchgoers from those who merely report an affiliation to Christianity breaks down the stereotype that traditional religions encourage emotional and physical abuse. "Assumptions make people skeptical of traditions," Mr. Wilcox said, adding that men who spend time in church and understand the teachings tend to make better fathers.

"Religion offers men opportunities to spend time with their families," Mr. Wilcox said. He said Sunday-morning services, church picnics, camping trips and conferences encourage good family structure. "Churches have been more intentional about targeting men with strong family messages," Mr. Wilcox said. He specifically mentioned the Promise Keepers organization, which conducts conferences across the nation and declares its aim to help men become "better husbands, stronger fathers. ... They want closer friendships, and to be a vital part of a community."

Mr. Wilcox said mainline Protestants have more difficulty encouraging male-only activities or services because they wish to avoid alienating women. More conservative churches, Mr. Wilcox said, are willing to take a stand on men's roles and responsibilities and do a better job preparing men for fatherhood.

Mr. Wilcox's book throws sand in the gears of the Left's anti-Christian propaganda machine. They will, however, remain undeterred by, and unimpressed with, Wilcox's research. For them it doesn't matter whether religiously serious Christians make better husbands and fathers than, well, than secular Leftists do. Since religiously serious Christians often oppose gay marriage and abortion and, worst of all, tend to vote Republican, they are ipso facto, in the eyes of the secular Left, malevolent or ignorant or both.

Two Critical Questions

The Fourth Rail offers an excellent analysis of two critical questions facing the United States in the GWOT. The questions are:

1) What does the escalation of violence in Iraq tell us about the strength or weakness of our foe?

2) How can we tell whether we're winning or losing in Iraq?

The answer given to the first question is that destructiveness always increases in a conflict as the combatants pour more of their resources into the battle in order to keep from losing it. It will continue to increase until one side has exhausted their ability to keep up the fight.

The answer to the second is that the "insurgents" have one hope for victory. They can hope that they manage to tear Iraqi society apart and throw it into civil war. Their current tactics seem to be geared to attempting just that.

The interested reader will want to check out the entire analysis, but here's a particularly interesting aspect of it:

We are not fighting in a battlespace that includes our own society. The enemy has failed to engage us there effectively since 9/11. The political sniping between Blue and Red, left and right, is not warfare. It is politics; and I think it is no nastier now than it was in the 1990s. As far as the GWOT goes, then, here is the important fact: we are fighting it entirely in the enemy's society. Our own society is not changed by the war; if anything, society is reverting to pre-9/11 mores. In the global war, then, I think we are winning -- and winning big.

Because we are fighting in the enemy's society, there are two possible outcomes: we lose the battle for that society, in which case we must try again at some other opportunity; or he loses, in which case he is destroyed. If we were fighting in our own society, the choices would be reversed. The campaign in Iraq must be seen as a battle in this wider war, and one that we have to fight and win for this reason: it keeps us fighting on the enemy's ground. The war can only be won when it is won at the level of a whole society. That means that, if we are to win, we must fight it in his society.

In other words, the worst, most foolish thing we could do would be to follow the advice of those who urge us to pull out of the Middle East in general and Iraq in particular. It would almost guarantee that the war between Western civilization and Islamic Wahhabism would shift to our homeland.

Phone Courtesy

Here's an oddity of modern life that perhaps someone might be able to explain. It seems that whenever people talk on their cell phones they speak much louder than they would to people who are physically with them.

I don't know why this is, but it's especially noticeable, and bothersome, in restaurants where a diner who gets a call will share the conversation with everyone in the establishment. As soon as he, or she, hangs up, however, you can't hear a word he says to the others at his table.

Why is it that people think their phone conversations interest the rest of us?

Pinkerton Gets it Wrong

Jim Pinkerton writes an essay on Intelligent Design and manages to get much of it wrong. For example, he states that:

Michael Behe, a professor of biochemistry at Lehigh University and author of Darwin's Black Box, argues that it just isn't possible that random evolution could have produced the flagellum -- the propeller/tail -- on a bacteria. Such an organ, he concludes, is "irreducibly complex," which is to say, only a Master of Complexity could have created it.

But it's a fallacy to argue that just because one person -- or even all the people of an era -- can't figure out how something works, therefore such mysterious workings are beyond any human comprehension, ever. To take one humble example, years ago I saw Siegfried and Roy perform their tiger-based magic in Las Vegas, and was frankly astonished at some of the illusions they generated at the aptly named Mirage casino. I had no idea how they did their tricks, but since I knew that they employed mechanics, not metaphysics, to do their show, I was content just to enjoy it, marveling all the while at human ingenuity. And of course, if one waits long enough, he will get a peek behind the conjuring curtain, learning how tricks are done and also that like the rest of us, Siegfried and Roy suffer from Murphy's Law, too. And so it is with science: eventually, some scientist will figure out how the "trick" of the bacteria's flagellum is done.

This is an odd argument even if we ignore the inapt comparison to a magic show. Consider four reasons why:

1) Behe isn't saying that the bacterial flagellum is designed simply because no one can figure out how it works or how it evolved. He's saying that it shows evidence of having been designed because it has the property of irreducible complexity which is a typical characteristic of intelligent, intentional manufacture.

2) The problem isn't just that no one can produce a reasonable account of how a flagellum could have evolved by purely natural processes. The problem is that Darwinian theory itself provides no plausible developmental pathway for the gradual accumulation of parts necessary to have a functional flagellum. To offer hope, as Pinkerton does, that the explanation will be forthcoming at some time in the future is an intellectual cop-out. If the mechanisms posited by a theory do not allow for a plausible schema for the evolution of certain systems and structures then that should be allowed to count as evidence against the theory. If at some later date the difficulty is resolved then the theory will be rescued, but to posit future contingencies as justification for ignoring present difficulties is lousy philosophy of science.

3) Pinkerton undercuts one of the chief arguments against ID with his suggestion that we should just be patient and that someday we'll find out how nature accomplished its wonders. The undermined argument is that no one has proposed how the designer could have accomplished its work. In lieu of such an explanation, we're told, ID is insufficient as an account of biological complexity, but if Pinkerton's assurance that an explanation for the evolution of structures like the flagellum is a legitimate response to the difficulty of accounting for irreducible complexity, then it should be equally legitimate for the ID theorist to invoke the same reply about the mechanisms employed by the designer of living things. If ID theorists ever replied to the complaint about the lack of a creative mechanism in their theory with the retort that someday we might find out how the designer did it, they'd be justly hooted out of town.

4) Pinkerton's dodge also undercuts those who wish to argue that Darwinism is science and ID is philosophy. If biological phenomena that cannot be explained in terms of the theory are nevertheless to be accepted essentially on faith, that is, if no evidence is allowed to count against the theory, then Darwinism is not falsifiable and is outside the realm of science.

Having urged us to abandon empirical science and just trust that an explanation for how the flagellum could have evolved through purely mechanistic forces will someday be found, Pinkerton then makes this astonishing pronouncement:

And that's the problem with ID: it's simplistic. To argue that complex biological phenomena are "irreducibly complex" is to abandon the scientific quest. As Richard Dawkins, who boasts the bold professional title of Charles Simonyi Professor of the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University, explains in The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe without Design,

To explain the origin of the DNA/protein machine by invoking a supernatural Designer is to explain precisely nothing, for it leaves unexplained the origin of the Designer. You have to say something like "God was always there," and if you allow yourself that kind of lazy way out, you might as well just say "DNA was always there," or "Life was always there," and be done with it.

So the better mission for the ID-ers, should they choose to undertake it, would be to identify the Intelligent Designer.

This is another dodge. Pinkerton and Dawkins seek to deflect attention away from the manifest design of biological systems and structures and focus our scrutiny instead on the identity of the designer. ID theorists, however, need not accept the bait. To be successful they merely have to demonstrate that at least some biological systems and structures show evidence of intelligent input, and that it's more plausible that intelligence was at work in their creation than that they resulted from merely mechanistic forces and chance. If they succeed in that enterprise they will have effected a revolution in the science of biology which, we suppose, would be a good day's work regardless of whether they can identify the source of the intelligent input or explain how this agent accomplished its task.

Dawkins and Pinkerton are simply wrong when they assert that unless we can "explain" the original designer we have accomplished nothing in demonstrating that biological structures are designed. We need not understand the cause of something in order to study the effect. We don't have to be able to explain what causes gravity in order to study the consequences of it. We need know nothing about the causes of the Big Bang in order to examine the effects of those causes.

If it turns out that we find irrefragable evidence that man has been intentionally designed that would be an enormous discovery in itself whether we were ever able to identify the designer or not. The task of the ID theorist is to determine whether certain structures in the biosphere resulted from intelligent agency or whether they can be adequately explained mechanistically. To declare ID null and void simply because it cannot identify the source of the intelligence or the means by which the intelligence did its work is absurd.

If opponents of ID should have learned any lesson over the last ten years it is that it's not very helpful to their cause to rely on the arguments of Richard Dawkins.

Set 'Em Loose

Mark Steyn has two great columns on Gitmo. Here's an excerpt from the first:

Just for the record, some 15 million to 30 million Soviets died in the gulag; some 6 million Jews died in the Nazi camps; some 2 million Cambodians -- one third of the population -- died in the killing fields. Nobody's died in Gitmo, not even from having Christina Aguilera played to them excessively loudly. The comparison is deranged, and deeply insulting not just to the U.S. military but to the millions of relatives of those dead Russians, Jews and Cambodians, who, unlike Durbin, know what real atrocities are. Had Durbin said, "Why, these atrocities are so terrible you would almost believe it was an account of the activities of my distinguished colleague Robert C. Byrd's fellow Klansmen," that would have been a little closer to the ballpark but still way out.

In the second he writes that:

[T]he more one hears the specifics of the "insensitivity" of the American regime at Guantanamo, the more many of us reckon we're being way too sensitive. For example, camp guards are under instructions to handle copies of the Koran only when wearing gloves. The reason for this is that the detainees regard infidels as "unclean". Fair enough, each to his own. But it's one thing for the Islamists to think infidels are unclean, quite another for the infidels to agree with them. Far from being tortured, the prisoners are being handled literally with kid gloves (or simulated kid-effect gloves). The US military hand each jihadi his complimentary copy of the Koran as delicately as white-gloved butlers bringing His Lordship The Times of London. When I bought a Koran to bone up on Islam a couple of days after 9/11, I didn't wear gloves to the bookstore. If that's "disrespectful" to Muslims, tough.

Steyn's point here is well-taken. Why are our troops required to debase themselves by acceding to the Muslims' belief that they are unclean? It's even more absurd that taxpayers must purchase the gloves to cover the "unclean" hands of their infidel sons and daughters. Our troops should not deliberately mistreat the Koran but neither should they be required to abase themselves in order to avoid giving offense to a bunch of semi-literate savages.

Nor should taxpayers be required to pay for the humiliation of their young men and women. Tax dollars buy the Korans, the prayer rugs, beads, Koranically-approved meals and all the rest. If American troops insisted that taxpayers cater to their religious preferences in such a fashion they'd be pounced upon by the ACLU and hectored about their need to develop a greater sensitivity to the doctrine of separation of church and state. Why does the same doctrine not apply to Muslim terrorists?

Recently, in Knoxville Tennessee, a Karns Elementary School principal named Cathy Summa prevented several ten year-old students from reading their Bibles at recess. They were told to put their Bibles away and not bring them back to school. Reading at recess is permitted in tax funded schools, of course, but evidently reading the Bible is not. Yet American taxpayers are required to subsidize five daily calls to prayer at Gitmo as well as all the other religious observances the killers are permitted. The terrorists have more religious rights than American school children do.

Steyn writes:

Where the anti-Gitmo crowd went wrong was in expanding its objections from the legal status of the prisoners to the treatment they're receiving. By any comparison - ie, not just with Hitler, Stalin and Pol Pot - they're getting better than they deserve. It's the first gulag in history where the torture victims put on weight. Each prisoner released from Guantanamo receives a new copy of the Koran plus a free pair of blue jeans in his new size: the average detainee puts on 13 pounds during his stay, thanks to the "mustard-baked dill fish", "baked Tandoori chicken breast" and other delicacies.

Viewpoint has come to agree with those who think Gitmo should be shut down and the detainees either charged or released. We suggest that these 520 killers, each of whom would praise Allah for the opportunity to slay an American politician, all be shipped to the Capitol building in Washington D.C., marched out onto the floor of the House and the Senate while these bodies are in session, and set loose. Perhaps this will assist some of our esteemed leaders to perceive the shortcomings of their recommendations.

Dying Cultures

Historian Paul Johnson cites three reasons for Europe's current malaise and apparent decline. First are the resentments it harbors to the United States, second is its refusal to jettison socialist economic policies and the onerous welfare systems it has evolved, and third is its rejection of its own historic past.

Europe, Johnson writes, was essentially a creation of the marriage between Greco-Roman culture and Christianity. Brussels has, in effect, repudiated both. There was no mention of Europe's Christian origins in the ill-fated Constitution, and Europe's Strasbourg Parliament has insisted that a practicing Catholic cannot hold office as the EU Justice Commissioner. He goes on to say that:

Equally, what strikes the observer about the actual workings of Brussels is the stifling, insufferable materialism of their outlook. The last Continental statesman who grasped the historical and cultural context of European unity was Charles de Gaulle. He wanted "the Europe of the Fatherlands (L'Europe des patries)" and at one of his press conferences I recall him referring to "L'Europe de Dante, de Goethe et de Chateaubriand." I interrupted: "Et de Shakespeare, mon General?" He agreed: "Oui! Shakespeare aussi!"

No leading member of the EU elite would use such language today. The EU has no intellectual content. Great writers have no role to play in it, even indirectly, nor have great thinkers or scientists. It is not the Europe of Aquinas, Luther or Calvin--or the Europe of Galileo, Newton and Einstein. Half a century ago, Robert Schumann, first of the founding fathers, often referred in his speeches to Kant and St. Thomas More, Dante and the poet Paul Valery. To him--he said explicitly--building Europe was a "great moral issue." He spoke of "the Soul of Europe." Such thoughts and expressions strike no chord in Brussels today.

In short, the EU is not a living body, with a mind and spirit and animating soul. And unless it finds such nonmaterial but essential dimensions, it will soon be a dead body, the symbolic corpse of a dying continent.

Well, of course. Secular socialism fails everywhere it's tried. It offers its citizens no lofty purpose. It possesses nothing with which to inspire. It offers people no meaning, no rationale for shared sacrifice, no justification for striving for greatness. Indeed, it cannot even define what national greatness would consist in. Most of all it ignores a fundamental truth about human nature captured in a statement of Jesus (Mat. 4:4):

"Man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceedeth from the mouth of God."

Secular socialism seeks to manage the masses of people like zookeepers manage animals in a zoo. Feed and shelter them and they'll remain docile, pliable, and live out their lives in relative passivity. But men are more than animals. Render achievement and individual greatness impossible, as socialism does, and you deaden the human spirit. Rip the spiritual out of a nation, as secularism does, and you may as well tear its heart out also. Bereft of an animating faith in transcendence, men have nothing left to make all their strivings worthwhile. They have nothing left to make their lives satisfying and purposeful. Nations filled with such men find their collective will to survive oozing out of them like blood from an open wound.

The Great Pretenders

Of liberal nuttiness there apparently is no end. A bunch of anti-Bush folks met Thursday in a basement in the Capitol building to make-believe that they were having a hearing to impeach the President. Not all went well at the "hearings," however:

The session took an awkward turn when witness Ray McGovern, a former intelligence analyst, declared that the United States went to war in Iraq for oil, Israel and military bases craved by administration "neocons" so "the United States and Israel could dominate that part of the world." He said that Israel should not be considered an ally and that Bush was doing the bidding of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

"Israel is not allowed to be brought up in polite conversation," McGovern said. "The last time I did this, the previous director of Central Intelligence called me anti-Semitic."

Rep. James P. Moran Jr. (D-Va.), who prompted the question by wondering whether the true war motive was Iraq's threat to Israel, thanked McGovern for his "candid answer."

The slide of the conspiracy theorists over the edge of sanity was evinced at Democratic headquarters, where an overflow crowd watched the "hearing" on television, activists handed out documents repeating two accusations -- that an Israeli company had warning of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and that there was an "insider trading scam" on 9/11 -- that previously has been used to suggest Israel was behind the attacks.

The event organizer, Democrats.com, distributed stickers saying "Bush lied/100,000 people died." One man's T-shirt proclaimed, "Whether you like Bush or not, he's still an incompetent liar," while a large poster of Uncle Sam announced: "Got kids? I want yours for cannon fodder."

Great fun, we're sure. Word has it that when they were done pretending to impeach the president they all repaired to the Capitol rotunda where they spent the afternoon playing cowboys and indians.

Mugabe's Reign of Terror

If this were happening in South Africa twenty years ago the international Left would be shrieking in outrage, but because it's being perpetrated by a black government neither the Left, nor too many others, for that matter, seem to care. It's as if blacks are not expected to be able to attain the same standards of civilized behavior as whites are held to.

Reduced expectations for blacks is an expression of racism of which both Left and Right are guilty. It's a way of saying that blacks just aren't capable of achieving the same understandings of human rights and free institutions that whites are. The odd thing about it is that blacks seem as prone to it as are whites.

Thanks to No Left Turns for the tip.

Good Intentions

An unfortunate sign of the times:

As a new journalism professor at American University, Alicia Shepard wasn't prepared for students demanding A's:

During the spring semester, they showed up at my office to insist I reread their papers and boost their grades. They asked to retake tests they hadn't done well on. They bombarded me with e-mails questioning grades. More harassed me to change their final grade.

. .. . My colleague Wendy Swallow told me about one student who had managed to sour her Christmas break one year. Despite gaining entry into AU's honors program, the student missed assignments in Swallow's newswriting class and slept through her midterm. Slept through her midterm! Then she begged for lenience."I let her take it again for a reduced grade," Swallow says, "but with the warning that if she skipped more classes or missed more deadlines, the midterm grade would revert to the F she earned by missing it. She then skipped the last three classes of the semester and turned in all her remaining assignments late. She even showed up late for her final."

Swallow gave the student a C-minus, which meant she was booted out of the honors program. The student was shocked. She called Swallow at home hysterical about being dropped from the program. To Swallow, the C-minus was a gift. To the student, an undeserved lump of Christmas coal.

. . . .John Watson, who teaches journalism ethics and communications law at American, has noticed another phenomenon: Many students, he says, believe that simply working hard -- though not necessarily doing excellent work -- entitles them to an A. "I can't tell you how many times I've heard a student dispute a grade, not on the basis of in-class performance," says Watson, "but on the basis of how hard they tried."

Sometimes, Mommy or Daddy complains. They're paying tuition, and they expect A's for their money.

On BrightMystery, the world's most patient math professor shares his exchange of e-mails with the mother of a student who didn't want to learn how to solve problems. That didn't fit his "learning style."

Anyone who has spent any time at the front of a classroom has had similar experiences. I have often wondered what background some of my college students had in high school that they could possibly entertain the expectations they do regarding what they are entitled to as students.

The Exalted Cyclops

Good thing this wasn't Trent Lott or else the sensitive, caring folks would've really been upset. Since it was a Democrat, well, then, that's different:

In the early 1940s, a politically ambitious butcher from West Virginia named Bob Byrd recruited 150 of his friends and associates to form a chapter of the Ku Klux Klan. After Byrd had collected the $10 joining fee and $3 charge for a robe and hood from every applicant, the "Grand Dragon" for the mid-Atlantic states came down to tiny Crab Orchard, W.Va., to officially organize the chapter.

As Byrd recalls now, the Klan official, Joel L. Baskin of Arlington, Va., was so impressed with the young Byrd's organizational skills that he urged him to go into politics. "The country needs young men like you in the leadership of the nation," Baskin said.

The young Klan leader went on to become one of the most powerful and enduring figures in modern Senate history. Throughout a half-century on Capitol Hill, Sen. Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.) has twice held the premier leadership post in the Senate, helped win ratification of the Panama Canal treaty, squeezed billions from federal coffers to aid his home state, and won praise from liberals for his opposition to the war in Iraq and his defense of minority party rights in the Senate.

Despite his many achievements, however, the venerated Byrd has never been able to fully erase the stain of his association with one of the most reviled hate groups in the nation's history.

"It has emerged throughout my life to haunt and embarrass me and has taught me in a very graphic way what one major mistake can do to one's life, career, and reputation," Byrd wrote in a new memoir -- "Robert C. Byrd: Child of the Appalachian Coalfields" -- that will be published tomorrow by West Virginia University Press.

While Byrd provides the most detailed description of his early involvement with the Klan, conceding that he reflected "the fears and prejudices I had heard throughout my boyhood," the account is not complete. He does not acknowledge the full length of time he spent as a Klan organizer and advocate. Nor does he make any mention of a particularly incendiary letter he wrote in 1945 complaining about efforts to integrate the military.

Byrd's book offers a truncated description of his days with the Klan that does not completely square with contemporaneous newspaper accounts and letters that show he was involved with the Klan throughout much of the 1940s, and not merely for two or three years.

According to his book, Byrd wrote to Samuel Green, an Atlanta doctor and "Imperial Wizard" of the Ku Klux Klan, in late 1941 or early 1942, expressing interest in joining. Some time later, he received the letter from Baskin, the "Grand Dragon" of mid-Atlantic states, saying he would come to Byrd's home in Crab Orchard whenever Byrd had rounded up 150 recruits for the Klan.

When Baskin finally arrived, the group gathered at the home of C.M. "Clyde" Goodwin, a former local law enforcement official. When it came time to choose the "Exalted Cyclops," the top officer in the local Klan unit, Byrd won unanimously.

Byrd asserts that his Klan chapter never engaged in or preached violence, "nor did we conduct any parades or marches or other public demonstrations" -- other than one time delivering a wreath of flowers in the shape of a cross to the home of a member who had been killed in a pistol duel.

Byrd said in the Dec. 11, 1945, letter -- which would not become public for 42 more years with the publication of a book on blacks in the military during World War II by author Graham Smith -- that he would never fight in the armed forces "with a Negro by my side." Byrd added that, "Rather I should die a thousand times, and see old Glory trampled in the dirt never to rise again, than to see this beloved land of ours become degraded by race mongrels."

Byrd won the primary, but during the general election campaign, Byrd's GOP opponent uncovered a letter Byrd had handwritten to Green, the KKK Imperial Wizard, recommending a friend as a Kleagle and urging promotion of the Klan throughout the country. The letter was dated 1946 -- long after the time Byrd claimed he had lost interest in the Klan. "The Klan is needed today as never before, and I am anxious to see its rebirth here in West Virginia," Byrd wrote, according to newspaper accounts of that period. Byrd makes no mention of the letter in his new book.

Four years later, Byrd's Klan past became an issue again when he joined with other southern Democrats to oppose the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Byrd filibustered the bill for more than 14 hours as he argued that it abrogated principles of federalism. He criticized most anti-poverty programs except for food stamps. And in 1967, he voted against the nomination of Thurgood Marshall, the first black appointed to the Supreme Court.

One irony in this is that Byrd's Democratic colleagues were declaiming a year ago about George Bush's unfitness for high office because of dubious allegations about missing some National Guard meetings as a young man, yet the Democratic party didn't see any reason not to elevate Byrd to Senate majority leader twice.

Why are blacks so loyal to this party?