Sudden Death

Proving once again that terrorism is a tough way to make a living, the CIA has just sent al Qaeda's number three head-chopper off to enjoy his seventy two virgins:

Al-Qaeda's third-ranking leader has been killed by a missile fired by an American drone in Pakistan, near the Afghan border, NBC television news reported yesterday.

Egyptian-born Abu Hamza Rabia, who is said to head al-Qaeda's international operations, was among five people killed in a blast at a house where they were hiding in North Waziristan on Thursday. President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan confirmed Rabia's death yesterday.

Quoting unnamed officials, NBC said Rabia was killed by a missile launched from an unmanned Predator drone controlled by the US Central Intelligence Agency. The CIA would not comment. Tribal witnesses in Pakistan said a "hail of missiles" struck the mud house in the village of Haisori. Other witnesses told NBC that missile remnants bearing US markings remain in the area. They also said they had heard six explosions, but it is uncertain how many of these were the result of missile attacks and how many may have been explosives detonating inside the house.

Rabia, in his 30s, took over al-Qaeda's number three spot, behind Osama bin Laden and his Egyptian deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, after the capture of Abu Faraj Farj al-Liby in Pakistan in May, said US and Pakistani security officials.

"Rabia's international portfolio included planning attacks against the United States," said a US official, adding that his death would be a serious blow for al-Qaeda. Rabia was involved in two attempts on President Musharraf's life two years ago and security forces had been hunting him for some time.

The life expectancy of middle and upper management in the terrorist ranks has dropped in the last six months to about four weeks. This is not a very reassuring statistic for those aspiring to move up the organizational ladder. Try to imagine what it must be like for these ambitious young jihadis who, after retiring for the evening, every evening, must lay in bed wondering whether there is even now a missile headed straight for their bedroom window. It must make for a fitful night's sleep no matter where in the world they try to take their rest. Every unexpected noise, every rustle of the wind, must rouse them awake with a start. And you thought sleep apnea would be an insufferable affliction. What these guys have to endure must be pure psychological hell.

It just occured to us: Would the threat of sudden death count as cruel and inhuman treatment under the McCain amendment?

Adopting the French Strategy

The editors at National Review Online have treated us to this clarifying portrait of the Democrats' strategy and good advice as to how President Bush should respond:

One of the most stirring lines from Bush's Iraq speech the other day was his vow, "America will not run in the face of car bombers and assassins so long as I am your commander-in-chief." In his response to the speech, John Kerry denounced the line as an attack on a straw man: "No one has ever suggested or believes that we should run in the face of car bombers or assassins." Oh, really? Almost simultaneously on Capitol Hill, House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi was endorsing Rep. John Murtha's call for an immediate pullout and vouchsafing that most of his fellow House Democrats support it too. And so the balance of the Democratic party is swinging behind the very position that John Kerry says no one supports.

The battle lines are being drawn with increasing clarity on Iraq. More and more Democrats will give up on their former posture of denouncing Bush's handling of the war without offering any real alternative of their own, and instead forthrightly enunciate their own favored policy: quitting. There is a kind of honor in this - at least it is the position many of them have always believed in. But it is their shame that it has taken a dip in support for the war in the polls for them finally to be frank about it.

This is a debate that Bush can win. He will have to remain fully engaged in it, not letting his attention lapse as it has at various times over the last year. Yesterday's speech was an impressive entry into the debate, the sort of explanation and argument Bush will have to repeat again and again. It was specific. It admitted errors, which it would be pointless to try to deny. It emphasized that Bush's resolve doesn't mean a lack of flexibility in tactics. And it made clear his continued determination to achieve victory.

Cogent speeches, however, can only go so far. There is no substitute for progress on the ground in Iraq. That requires a coordinated political-military strategy, and the administration has one. It is a sign of how badly the rhetorical fight has been going that the "no strategy" meme has gotten the traction it has. The administration is working to keep the political process on track to create a legitimate, permanent Iraqi government; forge a national reconciliation that limits Sunni disaffection; train Iraqi forces so that they can take over security functions from us. Not only is this a strategy, in its broad outlines it is the only strategy that makes any sense. Even a persistent critic like Newsweek's Fareed Zakaria says this strategy is making headway in Iraq.

All that said, the American public probably won't be convinced that we are making progress until we begin to draw down American troops. This creates a temptation for the administration to engage in a wishful evaluation of the state of Iraq to justify troop withdrawals. It should be resisted. The strategic gains we have made in Iraq have been bought with too much blood and treasure to give them back in the hopes of winning a bump in the polls here at home. But there is a confluence of both American and Iraqi domestic politics on the question of American troop levels - it will help the political situation in both countries to have fewer U.S. troops in Iraq, so long as the reductions are justified by conditions and not made according to an artificial timetable that will only encourage our enemy.

America now has two choices before it: attempting to see the war through, or running from car bombers and assassins. Bush has staked his claim, and so have the Pelosi Democrats. The battle is joined.

The Dems are gravitating toward their natural place, having put into motion what might be called the French/Dem Strategy: When the going gets tough, the Dems, like the French, quit and get out. Murtha and Pelosi are the vanguard. Most of the rest will join them as soon as they think it is politically safe to do so. This is the same party, ironically, that once claimed the allegiance of John F. Kennedy, author of a book titled Profiles in Courage.

A Time For Compassion, Not Ridicule

Although mean-speak is almost exclusively a province of way-far lefties who call for soldiers to train their guns on their officers and who say the vilest things about their political opponents (whom they see as "enemies"), sometimes even fine people succumb to the temptation to cross the line with their rhetoric. We hope the good folks at Le Sabot Post-Moderne would reconsider the wording of this post on the Christian Protest Team members who have been kidnapped in Iraq and who are threatened with death by their captors. They write:

In an ideal world, active treason would have consequences. For example, take Americans and Brits who go to a war zone and "work against" the American and British troops fighting and dying there. In a perfect world, really bad things would happen to such people. Well, sometimes the world can be downright ideal.

This is the truly amazing part about these chuckleheads. . . They went there to collaborate with the bad guys. The Islamists in turn kidnapped them and are threatening to kill them.

Whatever CPT's motives for being in Iraq, the kidnap victims should receive our compassion rather than our scorn. These are people who are doubtless quite frightened and who have families which must be beside themselves with worry for their loved ones. We should be praying for their rescue rather than gloating over their foolishness and naivet�.

We agree with Le Sabot Post-Moderne that CPT's presence in Iraq is unhelpful and perhaps even a hindrance, but this moment calls for Christians to express our love, not our judgment.

Even harsher is the language used at this site. It's not so much the sentiments or even the words chosen to express them that are offensive, but rather the circumstances under which the sentiments are voiced. When the lives of people hang in the balance Christians, it would seem, have an obligation to show that we care more about the people themselves than we do about their ideology.

Recognizing Willful Stupidity

Joe Carter at Evangelical Outpost has begun a series of posts on how not to argue. His first recommendation is to avoid hyperbole because it just makes you sound stupid. He says this about the use of gross exaggerations in an argument:

An example of a rule of thumb that I find to be particularly useful in helping to avoid problems is to avoid, whenever possible, willfully stupid people. Intelligence is, of course, a relative concept and everyone (except for the World's Smartest Person) is just a little less bright than someone else. Willful stupidity, however, is distinct from IQ because it consists of a moral failing: Choosing to be dumber than you have to be.

One way to recognize a willfully stupid person is to examine the role hyperbole plays in their rhetoric. Take, for example, those who, like Pulitzer-nominated author Stephen Pizzo, say that "George Bush is the worst president of the United States of America, ever. Hands down." Whenever I encounter such people I walk the other way for fear that such stupidity might be contagious. For anyone to make such a claim would require a basic understanding of Presidential history, an objective standard for comparing other Presidents to George W, and an ability to make nuanced judgments. In other words, it requires the very skill set that would generally prevent a person from making such an inane claim in the first place.

(I should note that this is not just a failing of left-leaning progressives. Willful stupidity is certainly not a partisan issue; we heard the same sort of claims about Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton. The only difference is that Bush became President during the Age of the Blogosphere when the effects of echo-chamber ranting became more pronounced.)

The problem with making such a hyperbolic claim is that such exaggerations are not meant to be taking seriously. When the person who makes them treats them as if it were a rational claim then it shows that they themselves are not worthy of being taken seriously.

[If you're] inclined to disagree with this particular rule of thumb....I recommend you consider how you apply it in your own life. Think of the people whose analysis and judgment you most trust, the ones you consider to be sober and scrupulous thinkers. Now think of the people who are most prone to exaggeration and to making comments that amplify certain aspects out of proportion to reality. I suspect that, like me, you won't find much overlap between the two groups.

Good advice. We always thought that people who use wild and crazy exaggerations in their arguments were the dumbest people ever. Hands down.

Why Tookie Should Die

Here's why Stanley "Tookie" Williams should die. Read particularly pages two through six. His case has become a cause célèbre among the Hollywood crowd, and the Left-wing in general, who insist that his sentence should be commuted to life in prison because he's written childrens' books while in jail over the last twenty-five years.

Their rationale is a slap in the face to Williams' victims. If Williams has actually morphed into a human being during the last two decades and deserves clemency from his sentence of death, why punish him at all? Why not set him free to run Head Start programs or something? It doesn't matter what sort of person he's become in prison (In the event, Mr. Williams' prison experience is rather mixed, see pp.40-42), he killed four people and laughed and bragged about it. It's nice that he writes books for kids nowadays, but that's not such a rare talent that we need to preserve the life of Tookie Williams to insure that it gets done.

The point of putting someone as savage as Mr. Williams to death is to make a statement affirming the value of innocent life. Someone who capriciously and hatefully (he claimed to want to kill white people) takes the life of another has perpetrated one of the worst crimes that can be committed and should be made to suffer the severest punishment. To let him live is to announce to the world that no matter what he did to his victims, the life of Tookie Williams is more precious to us than are the lives of the people he murdered. To refuse to execute a man as bestial as Williams is not unlike refusing to assess a rapist anything more than a fine. By failing to make the punishment commensurate to the crime we tacitly admit that the crime of rape is not important enough to apply any really serious sanction against the assailant. Likewise, to shrink from executing Williams is to acknowledge that the crime of murder is not serious enough to require that the killer forfeit his own life in retribution.

No matter what his other virtues might be, and we doubt there are many, citizens, including the families of his victims, should not have to see their tax dollars spent to maintain the life of a man who has willfully and cruelly wrecked their lives. To let Mr. Williams live out a normal span of days just because he now writes anti-gang books would be a complete miscarriage of justice.

Update On Gold

If you care at all about your financial security, you migh be interested in this article. I urge you to read it in its entirety.

Now, gold is revisiting ... lofty levels and, in the process, catching a lot of interest from a number of sources, not the least those who are surprised that bullion is rising at the same time as the U.S. dollar is appreciating.

According to hitherto conventional thinking, that shouldn't happen.

Myles Zyblock, chief institutional strategist at RBC Dominion Securities Inc., recently authored an extensive report on gold that suggested, among other things, that "there has been a significant portfolio shift out of financial assets and into tangible assets" and the shift began in 2000, just as the tech bubble was set to explode.

In the intervening period, gold has climbed about 74 per cent while the Dow Jones industrial average has fallen about 1 per cent, a development that he attributes to a rise in investors' risk aversion.

"Gold is now in its fifth year of a secular bull market, and if history acts as a useful guide, we could quite easily see another three to five years of solid performance from gold and gold shares," he said.

I disagree with this last statement that a secular bull market will only last three to five years. Typically, they can go 10 to 15 years. Just look at the NASDAQ from 1990 to 2000. We're already 5 years into the bull market in gold which started in 2000 and the price of gold has doubled.

Cl�ment Gignac, chief economist and strategist at National Bank Financial, believes that bullion will climb to $600 in the next 12 to 15 months. And he cautions that is only an "intermediate target," which he will reassess when the time comes. If, as he thinks may happen, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries eventually starts worrying about a weakening U.S. dollar and opts to protect its purchasing power by quoting the price of oil in a basket of currencies rather than just the greenback, then bullion could climb even further.

But the bulk of his bullish case for gold stems from a feeling that the peak in real estate south of the border is behind us -- which, along with rising interest rates, is bad news for the U.S. economy, and by extension the U.S. dollar, but good for gold.

Gold..if you don't have it, get it.

A Proper Spanking

Tom Bethell takes George Will and Charles Krauthammer to the woodshed to administer a proper spanking for their recent columns deriding Intelligent Design and those who advocate it.

We recommend Bethell's entire article which closes with this:

The underlying problem, rarely discussed, is that the conclusions of evolutionism are based not on science, but on a philosophy: the philosophy of materialism, or naturalism. Living creatures, including human beings, are here on Earth, and we got here somehow. If atoms and molecules in motion are all that exist, then their random interactions must account for everything that exists, including us. That is the true underpinning of Darwinism. What needs to be examined in detail is not so much the religion behind intelligent design as the philosophy behind evolution.

It is indeed rarely discussed (though discussed perhaps ad nauseum here on Viewpoint) that ID and modern evolutionary theory are philosophical mirror images of each other. The task confronting the current generation of ID advocates is to repeat this fact sufficiently often that it eventually begins to take hold in the mind of even the most obdurate of newspaper editors and columnists. Perhaps then we will begin to make some progress toward having a serious public debate in this country over the relative merits of these two explanations for biological complexity.

Have They No Shame?

The Republicans' obsequious fawning over Rep. John Murtha has moved Ann Coulter to muse over why Republicans feel such a pathetic need to ingratiate themselves to Democrats:

When Democratic Rep. John Murtha called for the withdrawal of American troops in the middle of the war, Republicans immediately leapt to action by calling Murtha a war hero, a patriot and a great American.

I haven't heard Republicans issue this many encomiums to one man since Ronald Reagan died. By now, Murtha has been transformed into the greatest warrior since Alexander the Great and is probably dating Jennifer Aniston.

In response to Murtha's demand for the "immediate withdrawal of American troops" -- as The New York Times put it -- President Bush called Murtha a "fine man, a good man" who served with "honor and distinction," who "is a strong supporter of the United States military." He said he knew Murtha's "decision to call for an immediate withdrawal of our troops ... was done in a careful and thoughtful way."

Vice President Dick Cheney called Murtha "a good man, a Marine, a patriot."

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Murtha is "a fine man, I know him personally ... and it's perfectly proper to have a debate over these things, and have a public debate."

National Security Adviser Steve Hadley called in his praise for Murtha from South Korea, saying Murtha was "a veteran, a veteran congressman and a great leader in the Congress."

During the House debate on Murtha's insane proposal to withdraw troops in the middle of the war, Rep. Henry Hyde, R-Ill., said Murtha deserved an "A-plus as a truly great American," and Rep. Curt Weldon, R-Pa., said "none of us should think of questioning his motives or desires for American troops."

On the House floor, both Republicans and Democrats repeatedly gave Murtha rousing standing ovations. There was so much praise for Murtha that one of his Democratic colleagues asked him if he still had to attend Murtha's funeral.

What is this? Special Olympics for the Democrats? Can't Republicans disagree with a Democrat who demands that the U.S. surrender in the middle of a war without erecting monuments to him first? What would happen if a Democrat were to propose restoring Saddam Hussein to power? Is that Medal of Freedom territory?

I don't know what Republicans imagine they're getting out of all this love they keep throwing at Democrats. I've never heard a single liberal preface attacks on Oliver North with a recitation of North's magnificent service as a Marine. And unlike Murtha, who refuses to release his medical records showing he was entitled to his two Purple Hearts, we know what North did. (These Democrat military veterans are hardly shrinking violets when it comes to citing their medals, but they get awfully squeamish when pressed for details.)

We also know what Rep. Randy Cunningham, R-Calif., did to earn his medals. One of only two American Navy aces that the Vietnam War produced, Cunningham shot down five MiGs, three in one day, including a North Vietnamese pilot with 13 American kills. Cunningham never did something as insane as proposing that we withdraw troops in the middle of a war, but this week he did admit to taking bribes.

And yet, no Democrat breathed a word of Cunningham's unquestioned heroism before rushing to denounce him as "the latest example of the culture of corruption" -- in the words of Rep. Nancy Pelosi.

Sen. Teddy Kennedy didn't issue a 20-minute soliloquy on what a wonderful man Judge Robert Bork was as a human being before attacking his judicial philosophy. Kennedy just laid into Bork like he was George Lincoln Rockwell.

Speaking of which, George Lincoln Rockwell, former head of the American Nazi Party, served in the military during World War II. Are we obligated to praise his war service before disputing his views?

CNN's Bill Schneider summarized the Republican love-fest for Murtha by saying that House Republicans "started calling him some very ugly names -- cowardly, shameful, he wanted to cut and run, he wanted to surrender to the terrorists, emboldening the enemy." Are we all looking at the same "intelligence"?

The only Republican congressman who did not offer to have sex with John Murtha on the House floor was Jean Schmidt, R-Ohio. While debating Murtha's own proposal to withdraw American troops from Iraq in the middle of a war waged to depose a monstrous dictator who posed a threat to American national security, Schmidt made the indisputably true remark that Marines don't cut and run. (She was right! Murtha voted against his own proposal.)

Schmidt's precise words were: "I received a call from Col. Danny Bubp. He also asked me to send Congressman Murtha a message, that cowards cut and run, Marines never do." Bubp later said -- pointlessly -- that he was not calling Murtha a coward. Neither was Jean Schmidt. (These guys are very brave facing down the VC, but cower before the MSM.)

Now Schmidt is Emmanuel Goldstein, subjected to the liberals' Orwellian two-minutes hate, and not one Republican will defend her. If Republicans were one-tenth as rough with the congressman who wants to withdraw troops in the middle of a war as they are on a congresswoman who calls it cowardly to withdraw troops in the middle of a war, we might have a functioning Republican Party.

Coulter is correct. Republicans are shameless about sacrificing their dignity and even their own members in their persistent and futile attempts to appease the Democrats. They did essentially the same thing to Trent Lott when he made the simple remark at a birthday party for Strom Thurmond that he would have made a good president. The Democrats and their allies in the MSM went ballistic that the Senate majority leader would have said such a thing about the old racist warhorse and the Republicans, instead of telling the Dems to get a life, stripped Lott of his post. This, mind you, to mollify the party of former klansman Senator Robert Byrd who has enjoyed numerous positions of power and influence in the Democratic party over the years, including the post of majority leader.

Some people call Republicans the stupid party for the inept way in which they wield the political power of their majority status, but perhaps a better appellation would be the gutless party.

How to Destroy America

We recently came across this speech by former Colorado governor Richard D. Lamm which we cut and paste from the site (which is why it's in caps). It packs quite a punch:

I HAVE A SECRET PLAN TO DESTROY AMERICA. IF YOU BELIEVE, AS MANY DO, THAT AMERICA IS TOO SMUG, TOO WHITE BREAD, TOO SELF-SATISFIED, TOO RICH, LETS DESTROY AMERICA. IT IS NOT THAT HARD TO DO. HISTORY SHOWS THAT NATIONS ARE MORE FRAGILE THAN THEIR CITIZENS THINK. NO NATION IN HISTORY HAS SURVIVED THE RAVAGES OF TIME. ARNOLD TOYNBEE OBSERVED THAT ALL GREAT CIVILIZATIONS RISE AND THEY ALL FALL, AND THAT "AN AUTOPSY OF HISTORY WOULD SHOW THAT ALL GREAT NATIONS COMMIT SUICIDE." HERE IS MY PLAN:

I. WE MUST FIRST MAKE AMERICA A BILINGUAL-BICULTURAL COUNTRY. HISTORY SHOWS, IN MY OPINION, THAT NO NATION CAN SURVIVE THE TENSION, CONFLICT, AND ANTAGONISM OF TWO COMPETING LANGUAGES AND CULTURES. IT IS A BLESSING FOR AN INDIVIDUAL TO BE BILINGUAL; IT IS A CURSE FOR A SOCIETY TO BE BILINGUAL. ONE SCHOLAR, SEYMOUR MARTIN LIPSET, PUT IT THIS WAY:

"THE HISTORIES OF BILINGUAL AND BICULTURAL SOCIETIES THAT DO NOT ASSIMILATE ARE HISTORIES OF TURMOIL, TENSION, AND TRAGEDY. CANADA, BELGIUM, MALAYSIA, LEBANON-ALL FACE CRISES OF NATIONAL EXISTENCE IN WHICH MINORITIES PRESS FOR AUTONOMY, IF NOT INDEPENDENCE. PAKISTAN AND CYPRUS HAVE DIVIDED. NIGERIA SUPPRESSED AN ETHNIC REBELLION. FRANCE FACES DIFFICULTIES WITH ITS BASQUES, BRETONS, AND CORSICANS."

II. I WOULD THEN INVENT "MULTICULTURALISM" AND ENCOURAGE IMMIGRANTS TO MAINTAIN THEIR OWN CULTURE. I WOULD MAKE IT AN ARTICLE OF BELIEF THAT ALL CULTURES ARE EQUAL: THAT THERE ARE NO CULTURAL DIFFERENCES THAT ARE IMPORTANT. I WOULD DECLARE IT AN ARTICLE OF FAITH THAT THE BLACK AND HISPANIC DROPOUT RATE IS ONLY DUE TO PREJUDICE AND DISCRIMINATION BY THE MAJORITY. EVERY OTHER EXPLANATION IS OUT-OF-BOUNDS.

III. WE CAN MAKE THE UNITED STATES A "HISPANIC QUEBEC" WITHOUT MUCH EFFORT. THE KEY IS TO CELEBRATE DIVERSITY RATHER THAN UNITY. AS BENJAMIN SCHWARZ SAID IN THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY RECENTLY:

"...THE APPARENT SUCCESS OF OUR OWN MULTIETHNIC AND MULTICULTURAL EXPERIMENT MIGHT HAVE BEEN ACHIEVED NOT BY TOLERANCE BUT BY HEGEMONY. WITHOUT THE DOMINANCE THAT ONCE DICTATED ETHNOCENTRICALLY, AND WHAT IT MEANT TO BE AN AMERICAN, WE ARE LEFT WITH ONLY TOLERANCE AND PLURALISM TO HOLD US TOGETHER."

I WOULD ENCOURAGE ALL IMMIGRANTS TO KEEP THEIR OWN LANGUAGE AND CULTURE. I WOULD REPLACE THE MELTING POT METAPHOR WITH A SALAD BOWL METAPHOR. IT IS IMPORTANT TO INSURE THAT WE HAVE VARIOUS CULTURAL SUB-GROUPS LIVING IN AMERICA REINFORCING THEIR DIFFERENCES RATHER THAN AMERICANS, EMPHASIZING THEIR SIMILARITIES.

IV. HAVING DONE ALL THIS, I WOULD MAKE OUR FASTEST GROWING DEMOGRAPHIC GROUP THE LEAST EDUCATED - I WOULD ADD A SECOND UNDERCLASS, UNASSIMILATED, UNDEREDUCATED, AND ANTAGONISTIC TO OUR POPULATION. I WOULD HAVE THIS SECOND UNDERCLASS HAVE A 50% DROP OUT RATE FROM SCHOOL.

V. I WOULD THEN GET THE BIG FOUNDATIONS AND BIG BUSINESS TO GIVE THESE EFFORTS LOTS OF MONEY. I WOULD INVEST IN ETHNIC IDENTITY, AND I WOULD ESTABLISH THE CULT OF VICTIMOLOGY. I WOULD GET ALL MINORITIES TO THINK THEIR LACK OF SUCCESS WAS ALL THE FAULT OF THE MAJORITY - I WOULD START A GRIEVANCE INDUSTRY BLAMING ALL MINORITY FAILURE ON THE MAJORITY POPULATION.

VI. I WOULD ESTABLISH DUAL CITIZENSHIP AND PROMOTE DIVIDED LOYALTIES. I WOULD "CELEBRATE DIVERSITY." "DIVERSITY" IS A WONDERFULLY SEDUCTIVE WORD. IT STRESSES DIFFERENCES RATHER THAN COMMONALITIES. DIVERSE PEOPLE WORLDWIDE ARE MOSTLY ENGAGED IN HATING EACH OTHER-THAT IS, WHEN THEY ARE NOT KILLING EACH OTHER. A DIVERSE," PEACEFUL, OR STABLE SOCIETY IS AGAINST MOST HISTORICAL PRECEDENT. PEOPLE UNDERVALUE THE UNITY IT TAKES TO KEEP A NATION TOGETHER, AND WE CAN TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THIS MYOPIA. LOOK AT THE ANCIENT GREEKS. DORF'S WORLD HISTORY TELLS US:

"THE GREEKS BELIEVED THAT THEY BELONGED TO THE SAME RACE; THEY POSSESSED A COMMON LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE; AND THEY WORSHIPED THE SAME GODS. ALL GREECE TOOK PART IN THE OLYMPIC GAMES IN HONOR OF ZEUS AND ALL GREEKS VENERATED THE SHRINE OF APOLLO AT DELPHI. A COMMON ENEMY PERSIA THREATENED THEIR LIBERTY. YET, ALL OF THESE BONDS TOGETHER WERE NOT STRONG ENOUGH TO OVERCOME TWO FACTORS . . . (LOCAL PATRIOTISM AND GEOGRAPHICAL CONDITIONS THAT NURTURED POLITICAL DIVISIONS . . .)"

IF WE CAN PUT THE EMPHASIS ON THE "PLURIBUS," INSTEAD OF THE "UNUM," WE CAN BALKANIZE AMERICA AS SURELY AS KOSOVO.

VII. THEN I WOULD PLACE ALL THESE SUBJECTS OFF LIMITS - MAKE IT TABOO TO TALK ABOUT. I WOULD FIND A WORD SIMILAR TO "HERETIC" IN THE 16TH CENTURY - THAT STOPPED DISCUSSION AND PARALYZED THINKING. WORDS LIKE "RACIST", "XENOPHOBE" THAT HALT ARGUMENT AND CONVERSATION.

HAVING MADE AMERICA A BILINGUAL-BICULTURAL COUNTRY, HAVING ESTABLISHED MULTICULTURALISM, HAVING THE LARGE FOUNDATIONS FUND THE DOCTRINE OF "VICTIMOLOGY", I WOULD NEXT MAKE IT IMPOSSIBLE TO ENFORCE OUR IMMIGRATION LAWS. I WOULD DEVELOP A MANTRA - "THAT BECAUSE IMMIGRATION HAS BEEN GOOD FOR AMERICA, IT MUST ALWAYS BE GOOD." I WOULD MAKE EVERY INDIVIDUAL IMMIGRANT SYMPATRIC AND IGNORE THE CUMULATIVE IMPACT.

VIII. LASTLY, I WOULD CENSOR VICTOR DAVIS HANSON'S BOOK MEXIFORNIA - THIS BOOK IS DANGEROUS - IT EXPOSES MY PLAN TO DESTROY AMERICA. SO PLEASE, PLEASE - IF YOU FEEL THAT AMERICA DESERVES TO BE DESTROYED - PLEASE, PLEASE - DON'T BUY THIS BOOK! THIS GUY IS ON TO MY PLAN.

This speech deserves to be widely read. Lamm has certainly distilled much that is troubling about our nation into a potent critique.

Fear No Art, Unless You're Liberal

It's time to tune into our favorite website devoted to monitoring the zany world of political correctness and other forms of nuttiness. Here are a couple of stories illustrating that when it comes to being silly, petty, and intolerant the left takes a back seat to no one. Notice, for example, how censorious these "liberals" are of speech and art which fails to express the proper images:

Human rights activists and NGOs in France are threatening to sue a French commentator who pointed out that most of the rioters in that country in recent weeks have been Muslim, according to Islamonline. Alain Finkielkraut is accused of inciting racial hatred in an interview with the Israeli newspaper Haaretz published last week. "In France there are also other immigrants whose situation is difficult - Chinese, Vietnamese, Portuguese - and they're not taking part in the riots. Therefore, it is clear that this is a revolt with an ethno-religious character," he was quoted as saying.

France's Audio-Visual Council urged authorities at France Culture radio to fire Finkielkraut for such comments, and the The Jewish Union for Peace issued what was described as a "strongly-worded statement" blasting Finkielkraut's blatant racism.

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Officials at the University of Michigan will be moving two 50-year-old sculptures from a new arts building because they are sexist, according to the Michigan Daily. The two sculptures by Michigan sculptor Marshall Fredericks are among 39 placed on the Literature, Science and Arts building when it was built in 1948. Entitled Dream of the Young Man and Dream of the Young Girl, they depict, respectively, a boy dreaming about a ship with wind-filled sails and a muscular man flanked by oxen taking the hand of a woman.

When construction of a new building is completed next year, only 37 of the 39 sculptures will be making the move. Critics have longed bitched about the last two, calling them sexist because they portray finding a suitable husband as a woman's central preoccupation.

"The visual representation doesn't seem to hold the same respect for women as it does men," said Fran Blouin, director of the Bentley Historical Library on North Campus.

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A Swedish paster jailed for "agitating against minority groups" by preaching against homosexuality in a sermon has been cleared of the charges by that country's highest court, reports The Local. �ke Green, a pentecostal minister from the Baltic Sea island of �land, spent a month in jail after condemning homosexuality in a sermon to his congregation. Critics said his words amounted to hate speech. The court disagreed.

Gay rights groups immediately condemned the decision. "It is extremely serious when the church is turned into a free zone for agitation," said S�ren Andersson, chairman of gay rights group RFSL. "We are now going to face increased religious agitation from extreme right-wing Christian groups that use the church as a forum to spread their message of hatred."

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A selectman, er ... woman, in the town of Provincetown, Mass. wants to remove an oil painting of the Pilgrims voting on the Mayflower Compact in the 1600s from city hall because it doesn't have any women or American Indians participating in the process.

Columnist Brian McGrory of the Boston Globe says Selectwoman Sarah Peake described herself as "disturbed" by the image and called for a vote to have it removed. Three of the four town selectmen supported removing the oversized painting by local artist Max Bohm.

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Civil rights and anti-war marchers are calling the Boston school district's decision not to close today so students can attend a rally in honor of Rosa Parks a racist one that will "create a level of anger, confusion, and sadness that will cast a shadow over a celebration that should be a high point of the year," according to the Boston Globe.

Organizers of the protest to honor Parks' decision 50 years ago to sit at the front of a Montgomery city bus have demanded that all city offices, including schools, be closed tomorrow so that employees can participate in the march. School Superintendent Thomas W. Payzant, however, rejected the request.

Councilor Chuck Turner of Roxbury blasted the decision, which he said would be "characterized as racist, based on the definition of institutional racism -- disparate treatment of people of color."

These people deserve our sympathy. They probably can't help being the way they are.

Unfit For Command

The timorous Democrats insist on demonstrating daily why they are not fit to be handed the reigns of national defense nor foreign policy. Yesterday House minority leader Nancy Pelosi followed President Bush's Churchillian call for resolve in Iraq by urging the abandonment and betrayal of the people of that tragic land with all deliberate speed:

"We should follow the lead of Congressman John Murtha, who has put forth a plan to make America safer, to make our military stronger, and to make Iraq more stable. That is what the American people and our troops deserve."

What Congressman Murtha has called for is to just up and leave Iraq. Ms Pelosi thinks that's a good idea. And to think that if the Democrats recapture the House of Representatives in 2006 she'll be Speaker of the House. Heaven help us.

Is It Too Late?

This is for you, brother Dick, and anyone else that may think gold is getting a little too expensive to purchase. With the price of gold hitting $503 today, I believe it's important to put things into perspective and before anyone starts thinking that the gold train has left the station and it's too late to get on board, here's a piece that presents the bigger picture. From the link:

"The $500 level was a psychological point and we broke through that," said Emanuel Balarie, senior market strategist at Wisdom Financial Inc. "With gold still rising today, I think we are going to crack $600 sometime in 2006."

Balarie felt that one reason gold had room to rise further was that bullion's high of $850, touched in 1980, after being adjusted for inflation today, would be now worth around $2,150 in current dollars.

"Gold is still very cheap when you look at it in that perspective," he said.

Oh, wait a minute, the dollar in real terms has lost it's purchasing power since 1980 such that $850 then represents $2,150 today? You only have the Federal Reserve that prints the money and the Congress who spends it to thank for that.

While all of this demonstrates the erosion effect of inflation in terms of your wealth, it also communicates the need to defend against it.

Get gold while it's still a bargain.

The President's Speech

The full text of the President's speech on Iraq that he gave today at the Naval Academy can be found here. Commentary on it can be found here and here. Here are just a few of the many highlights:

These terrorists have nothing to offer the Iraqi people. All they have is the capacity and the willingness to kill the innocent and create chaos for the cameras. They are trying to shake our will to achieve their stated objectives. They will fail. America's will is strong. And they will fail because the will to power is no match for the universal desire to live in liberty. (Applause.)

The terrorists in Iraq share the same ideology as the terrorists who struck the United States on September the 11th. Those terrorists share the same ideology with those who blew up commuters in London and Madrid, murdered tourists in Bali, workers in Riyadh, and guests at a wedding in Amman, Jordan. Just last week, they massacred Iraqi children and their parents at a toy give-away outside an Iraqi hospital.

This is an enemy without conscience -- and they cannot be appeased. If we were not fighting and destroying this enemy in Iraq, they would not be idle. They would be plotting and killing Americans across the world and within our own borders. By fighting these terrorists in Iraq, Americans in uniform are defeating a direct threat to the American people. Against this adversary, there is only one effective response: We will never back down. We will never give in. And we will never accept anything less than complete victory. (Applause.)

Some are calling for a deadline for withdrawal. Many advocating an artificial timetable for withdrawing our troops are sincere -- but I believe they're sincerely wrong. Pulling our troops out before they've achieved their purpose is not a plan for victory. As Democratic Senator Joe Lieberman said recently, setting an artificial timetable would "discourage our troops because it seems to be heading for the door. It will encourage the terrorists, it will confuse the Iraqi people."

Senator Lieberman is right. Setting an artificial deadline to withdraw would send a message across the world that America is a weak and an unreliable ally. Setting an artificial deadline to withdraw would send a signal to our enemies -- that if they wait long enough, America will cut and run and abandon its friends. And setting an artificial deadline to withdraw would vindicate the terrorists' tactics of beheadings and suicide bombings and mass murder -- and invite new attacks on America. To all who wear the uniform, I make you this pledge: America will not run in the face of car bombers and assassins so long as I am your Commander-in-Chief. (Applause.)

Our strategy in Iraq has three elements. On the political side, we know that free societies are peaceful societies, so we're helping the Iraqis build a free society with inclusive democratic institutions that will protect the interests of all Iraqis. We're working with the Iraqis to help them engage those who can be persuaded to join the new Iraq -- and to marginalize those who never will.

On the security side, coalition and Iraqi security forces are on the offensive against the enemy, cleaning out areas controlled by the terrorists and Saddam loyalists, leaving Iraqi forces to hold territory taken from the enemy, and following up with targeted reconstruction to help Iraqis rebuild their lives.

As we fight the terrorists, we're working to build capable and effective Iraqi security forces, so they can take the lead in the fight -- and eventually take responsibility for the safety and security of their citizens without major foreign assistance.

And on the economic side, we're helping the Iraqis rebuild their infrastructure, reform their economy, and build the prosperity that will give all Iraqis a stake in a free and peaceful Iraq. In doing all this we have involved the United Nations, other international organizations, our coalition partners, and supportive regional states in helping Iraqis build their future.

There is much, much else that President Bush said in this speech about the particulars of his strategy and the training of Iraqi military and police units as well as other matters of crucial interest to those concerned with our progress in that country. It was perhaps the best speech of his presidency (of interest to those who say he never admits mistakes will be several lines where he does precisely that).

He promised, moreover, that he will elaborate on themes only lightly touched upon today in speeches to come in the days ahead. The nation needs to hear it, and we need to hear it over and over again. The President needs to take control of the discussion and to explain to the American people why the negative analysis being reported by the MSM is only a small part of the whole picture. We wish him well.

The Unknown Designer

Often we hear mentioned the criticism that unless Intelligent Design proponents can specify who the designer of their alleged irreducibly complex biological structures and processes is, their theory is mere speculation and not science. Not only do the critics demand to know who the designer is but also how the designer actually accomplished such wondrous feats of engineering.

This demand to identify the designer is misguided, however. It is certainly possible to conclude that we are observing an intelligently designed phenomenon without knowing anything about who designed it or the process the designer employed.

Bill Dembski makes this point in chapter 32 of his book The Design Revolution. The salient passage is quoted below:

Consider the case of SETI, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence. If we were to receive a radio signal from outer space representing a long sequence of prime numbers (as in the movie Contact), we would know we were dealing with an intelligence-indeed, SETI researchers would be dancing in the streets, the New York Times would be trumpeting the discovery, and Nobel Prizes would duly be awarded.

But what exactly would we know about the intelligence responsible for that signal? Suppose all we had was this signal representing a sequence of primes. Would we know anything about the intelligence's purposes and motives for sending the primes? Would we know anything about the technology it employed? Would we know anything about its physical makeup? Would we even know that it was physical? Our evidence for design in this case would be entirely circumstantial. We would be confronted with an effect but be unable to trace back its cause.

Consider a more extreme example still. Imagine a device that outputs 0s and 1s for which our best science tells us that the bits are independent and identically distributed with uniform probability. (The device is therefore an idealized coin tossing machine; note that quantum mechanics offers such a device in the form of photons shot at a polaroid filter whose angle of polarization is 45 degrees in relation to the polarization of the photons-half the photons will go through the filter, counting as a "1"; the others will not, counting as a "0.")

Now, what happens if we control for all possible physical interference with this device, and nevertheless the bit string that this device outputs yields an English text-file in ASCII code that resolves outstanding mathematical problems, explains the cure for cancer, and delineates undreamt of technologies?

The output of this device is therefore not only designed (and obviously so) but also exceeds all current human design. Yet our best science has no way of prescribing a causal account for how this design was imparted. By Hume's logic, we would have to shrug our shoulders and say, "Golly, isn't nature amazing!"

If it were demonstrated beyond any reasonable doubt that the bacterial flagellum is a mechanism which must have been somehow designed by an intelligent architect of some sort, it would be foolish to refuse to acknowledge the fact in science journals simply because we don't know how it was done or who the designer is.

Indeed, Brian Greene points out in his book The Fabric of the Cosmos that theoretical physicists often posit the existence of entities and phenomena which defy observation and any kind of physical description. Nevertheless, their existence is inferred from the need to satisfy our theories about why the world is the way it is. Some examples of such entities or phenomena are entangled particles, the Higgs field, the inflaton field, other dimensions, branes, and strings.

The demand that ID theorists identify their designer is a red herring which is itself designed to deflect attention from the persistent and uncomfortable fact that biological structures give the appearance of having been exquisitely designed for a purpose. Critics insist on being told who the designer is so as to divert scrutiny from the additional fact that mindless mechanisms are disappointingly inadequate to account for the degree of intricacy that abounds in every cell in our bodies.

A Voice in the Democratic Wilderness

Finally, a voice of reason and sense from the Democratic side of the aisle. Unfortunately, since he is supportive of the Bush policy Senator Joe Lieberman's column won't get nearly as much play in the media as did John Murtha's call for an immediate pullout:

I have just returned from my fourth trip to Iraq in the past 17 months and can report real progress there. More work needs to be done, of course, but the Iraqi people are in reach of a watershed transformation from the primitive, killing tyranny of Saddam to modern, self-governing, self-securing nationhood--unless the great American military that has given them and us this unexpected opportunity is prematurely withdrawn.

Progress is visible and practical. In the Kurdish North, there is continuing security and growing prosperity. The primarily Shiite South remains largely free of terrorism, receives much more electric power and other public services than it did under Saddam, and is experiencing greater economic activity. The Sunni triangle, geographically defined by Baghdad to the east, Tikrit to the north and Ramadi to the west, is where most of the terrorist enemy attacks occur. And yet here, too, there is progress.

There are many more cars on the streets, satellite television dishes on the roofs, and literally millions more cell phones in Iraqi hands than before. All of that says the Iraqi economy is growing. And Sunni candidates are actively campaigning for seats in the National Assembly. People are working their way toward a functioning society and economy in the midst of a very brutal, inhumane, sustained terrorist war against the civilian population and the Iraqi and American military there to protect it.

It is a war between 27 million and 10,000; 27 million Iraqis who want to live lives of freedom, opportunity and prosperity and roughly 10,000 terrorists who are either Saddam revanchists, Iraqi Islamic extremists or al Qaeda foreign fighters who know their wretched causes will be set back if Iraq becomes free and modern. The terrorists are intent on stopping this by instigating a civil war to produce the chaos that will allow Iraq to replace Afghanistan as the base for their fanatical war-making.

We are fighting on the side of the 27 million because the outcome of this war is critically important to the security and freedom of America. If the terrorists win, they will be emboldened to strike us directly again and to further undermine the growing stability and progress in the Middle East, which has long been a major American national and economic security priority.

Follow the link to read the rest of Lieberman's outstanding article which includes this graph:

Here is an ironic finding I brought back from Iraq. While U.S. public opinion polls show serious declines in support for the war and increasing pessimism about how it will end, polls conducted by Iraqis for Iraqi universities show increasing optimism. Two-thirds say they are better off than they were under Saddam, and a resounding 82% are confident their lives in Iraq will be better a year from now than they are today. What a colossal mistake it would be for America's bipartisan political leadership to choose this moment in history to lose its will and, in the famous phrase, to seize defeat from the jaws of the coming victory.

Good stuff.

The High and the Mighty

Wretchard at Belmont Club relates the story of Randy "Duke" Cunningham's heroics in the skies over Vietnam 33 years ago. In 1972 he was a marvelous hero, having shot down three MIGs in a single engagement.

Today he stands disgraced for tax evasion and accepting millions of dollars in bribes as a Congressman. He has resigned his office and will probably go to jail.

The level of his corruption is staggering, and he should go to jail for it, but, even so, it's a terribly sad story of human fallenness.

Circumscribing Harsh Measures

Charles Krauthammer writes with much more clarity on the subject of torture than he does on Intelligent Design. Indeed his recent piece in the Weekly Standard provides excellent insight into the debate over the McCain Amendment.

At the outset he draws some important distinctions between three kinds of prisoners. He distinguishes between the ordinary soldier caught on the field of battle, the captured terrorist, and the terrorist with information. Krauthammer discusses what each is entitled to and how each should be treated.

He also dispenses with the "torture doesn't work" canard and puts McCain's own inconsistencies in his defense of his amendment in bold relief.

Krauthammer is careful to stringently circumscribe both the conditions under which harsh measures should be employed and the people who should be allowed to use them, and his recommendations make a lot of sense. All in all it's quite a good article for someone interested in the moral and practical aspects of the question.

We naturally and rightfully recoil from the thought of employing pain in our interrogations of our enemies. We want to banish the idea from our minds, but Krauthammer argues cogently that in a world in which we are confronted by a mortal enemy bound by none of the rules that have at least partly constrained "civilized" nations, we cannot ban it absolutely. There must, he insists, be exceptions. The real argument should be over what constitutes a legitimate exception.

Strings Good, ID Bad

Slate has a piece on Lawrence Krauss, a physicist who has been critical of the scientific bona fides of Intelligent Design and modern string theory. Here's an excerpt:

Krauss' book is subtitled The Mysterious Allure of Extra Dimensions as a polite way of saying String Theory Is for Suckers. String theory, he explains, has a catch: Unlike relativity and quantum mechanics, it can't be tested. That is, no one has been able to devise a feasible experiment for which string theory predicts measurable results any different from what the current wisdom already says would happen. Scientific Method 101 says that if you can't run a test that might disprove your theory, you can't claim it as fact.

When I asked physicists like Nobel Prize-winner Frank Wilczek and string theory superstar Edward Witten for ideas about how to prove string theory, they typically began with scenarios like, "Let's say we had a particle accelerator the size of the Milky Way..." Wilczek said strings aren't a theory, but rather a search for a theory. Witten bluntly added, "We don't yet understand the core idea."

If stringers admit that they're only theorizing about a theory, why is Krauss going after them? He dances around the topic until the final page of his book, when he finally admits, "Perhaps I am oversensitive on this subject ... " Then he slips into passive-voice scientist-speak. But here's what he's trying to say: No matter how elegant a theory is, it's a baloney sandwich until it survives real-world testing.

Krauss should know. He spent the 1980s proposing formulas that worked on a chalkboard but not in the lab. He finally made his name in the '90s when astronomers' observations confirmed his seemingly outlandish theory that most of the energy in the universe resides in empty space. Now Krauss' field of theoretical physics is overrun with theorists freed from the shackles of experimental proof. The string theorists blithely create mathematical models positing that the universe we observe is just one of an infinite number of possible universes that coexist in dimensions we can't perceive. And there's no way to prove them wrong in our lifetime. That's not a Theory of Everything, it's a Theory of Anything, sold with whizzy PBS special effects.

It's not just scientists like Krauss who stand to lose from this; it's all of us. Einstein's theories paved the way for nuclear power. Quantum mechanics spawned the transistor and the computer chip. What if 21st-century physicists refuse to deliver anything solid without a galaxy-sized accelerator? "String theory is textbook post-modernism fueled by irresponsible expenditures of money," Nobel Prize-winner Robert Laughlin griped to the San Francisco Chronicle earlier this year.

Quick question: According to Krauss and many other physicists string theory is not science, it's metaphysics, so what's the difference between string theory and Intelligent Design?

Answer: You can teach string theory in public school science classes without precipitating a national outcry over the damage being done to science education in this country. It may not be science, it may be pure metaphysics, but it doesn't imply that there might be a G-O-D. Thus all the objections that are raised against the teaching of ID are set aside with a great gaping yawn when string theory is mentioned in physics classes, even though those objections all pretty much apply as much to string theory as they do to ID.

The Iraqis Are Stepping Up

ThreatsWatch has a good summary of the fighting in western Anbar province in Iraq, particularly Operation Steel Curtain.

Of particular interest amidst all the talk of the need for the Iraqis to "step up" and shoulder the load is this:

The western branch of the Euphrates River, what is known as the Al Qa'im region, which spans from Husaybah on the Syrian border to the town of Ubaydi, at a heart-shaped bend in the river, has long been a haven for al-Qaeda and the insurgency. While the problem was well known, for some time the right mix of forces was not available to address the problem.

Until these forces were on hand, the Coalition conducted a series of raids to keep the insurgents off balance and from gaining too strong a foothold in the region. Operations Matador, Spear, Quick Strike and a host of others are examples of such targeted strikes. Many insurgent and al-Qaeda commanders and foot soldiers were killed in these attacks, but until the Coalition could muster the forces to stay in the towns, their impact was limited.

The inclusion of Iraqi forces has been seen as vital to the efforts. These forces would have the knowledge of the local customs and language, as well as the ability to discern between domestic and foreign fighters.

The development and deployment of the Iraqi forces in the peaceful provinces of Iraq has also freed up U.S. Forces to conduct combat operations in Anbar province. As Iraqi units took responsibility for security in the Shiite and Kurdish regions, as well as in Baghdad, excess U.S. Forces became available to clean out the rat's nests along the Euphrates River. What was a limited Coalition presence in the Al Qa'im region in March of 2005 has now transformed into a major presence of Coalition forces, and allowed for the successful execution of Operation Steel Curtain.

There's an interesting phenomena unfolding on the domestic political front. For months the Democrats have been calling for timetables for withdrawal and the administration has been countering that when the Iraqis are ready to take over the task of providing security we'll step back. Now the Iraqis are assuming more of the burden and thus there will be a reduction of troop levels in Iraq following the election just as the administration has planned.

Look, however, for the Democrats to portray any future troop draw-downs as Bush caving in to their demands that the administration start bringing the troops home. The Democrats will seek to score political points from the fact that Bush will do exactly what he has said he will do all along.

Talk's Cheap

President Bush is finally starting to talk about the need to do something to stop the flood of illegal aliens pouring across our southern border.

Michelle Malkin, however, is unimpressed. We're with Malkin. We'll believe the President is serious about illegal immigration when he stops talking about it and starts proposing serious legislation to get it stopped.

We like the idea of a wall stretching from Brownsville, Texas to the California Pacific coast. We also suggest making Vicente Fox pay for it somehow since his countrymen are the reason we need the thing.