Emperor of Ocean Park

At the recommendation of a former student I picked up The Emperor of Ocean Park by Stephen Carter and found it a delightful read. Carter is a very good prose writer and he's formulated an interesting mystery about a judge who seems to be a cross between Clarence Thomas (black, conservative) and Robert Bork (denied confirmation to the Supreme Court) written from the standpoint of his son. The judge dies mysteriously and his adult children, very well-to-do African-Americans, struggle to discover why so many underworld types are taking such an interest in his death.

Throughout the book the son, Talcott Garland, like Carter, a law school professor, wrestles with a collapsing marriage, racial insecurities, his own sense of inadequacy, which is at times humorous, and his apparent targetting by the shady characters that keep intruding into his life. Through it all Talcott's Christianity runs unapologetically in the background in a way that I found very refreshing in an otherwise secular novel.

Emperor has no vulgarity to speak of nor any real sex or undue violence, and it does a fine job of realistically exploring the pathos of a good man's life. It'd make an excellent read for someone looking for an entertaining and intelligent mystery.

The Dover Decision V: Final Thoughts

In this our last installment in our series on the opinion of Judge John Jones in Kitzmiller v. Dover we'll follow the Judge as he moves from his critique of the scientific standing of Intelligent Design to an examination of the motives of several prominent board members in trying to get ID formally mentioned in biology classes. If it can be shown that the primary movers on the board had a religious purpose in trying to accomplish their goal then, the Judge argues, their attempt would fail the Lemon test (from Lemon v. Kurtzman, 1971) which explicitly forbids such motivations in introducing curricular materials into schools.

Whether Lemon is good law or not, it is the law, and it does appear that the board members violated it's stipulation that there must be a secular purpose to all public school curricular materials. Highlights of the Judge's reasoning are excerpted in what follows:

We initially note that the Supreme Court has instructed that while courts are "normally deferential to a State's articulation of a secular purpose, it is required that the statement of such purpose be sincere and not a sham."

Although as noted Defendants have consistently asserted that the ID Policy was enacted for the secular purposes of improving science education and encouraging students to exercise critical thinking skills, the Board took none of the steps that school officials would take if these stated goals had truly been their objective. The Board consulted no scientific materials. The Board contacted no scientists or scientific organizations. The Board failed to consider the views of the District's science teachers. The Board relied solely on legal advice from two organizations with demonstrably religious, cultural, and legal missions, the Discovery Institute and the TMLC. Moreover, Defendants' asserted secular purpose of improving science education is belied by the fact that most if not all of the Board members who voted in favor of the biology curriculum change conceded that they still do not know, nor have they ever known, precisely what ID is. To assert a secular purpose against this backdrop is ludicrous.

Finally, although Defendants have unceasingly attempted in vain to distance themselves from their own actions and statements, which culminated in repetitious, untruthful testimony, such a strategy constitutes additional strong evidence of improper purpose under the first prong of the Lemon test. As exhaustively detailed herein, the thought leaders on the Board made it their considered purpose to inject some form of creationism into the science classrooms, and by the dint of their personalities and persistence they were able to pull the majority of the Board along in their collective wake.

Any asserted secular purposes by the Board are a sham and are merely secondary to a religious objective.... Defendants' previously referenced flagrant and insulting falsehoods to the Court provide sufficient and compelling evidence for us to deduce that any allegedly secular purposes that have been offered in support of the ID Policy are equally insincere.

Accordingly, we find that the secular purposes claimed by the Board amount to a pretext for the Board's real purpose, which was to promote religion in the public school classroom, in violation of the Establishment Clause.

The core notion animating the requirement that . . . [an official act's] 'principal or primary effect . . . be one that neither advances nor inhibits religion,' is not only that government may not be overtly hostile to religion but also that it may not place its prestige, coercive authority, or resources behind a single religious faith or behind religious belief in general, compelling nonadherents to support the practices or proselytizing of favored religious organizations and conveying the message that those who do not contribute gladly are less than full members of the community.

It's unfortunate that Judge Jones has never read Roy Clouser's The Myth of Religious Neutrality. Clouser demonstrates in the first part of his book that the only thing that all religions share in common, and which therefore distinguishes a religion as such, is a divinity belief. By this he means that every religion holds a belief that something is unconditionally, non-dependently real and is the ultimate source of everything else. Since everyone holds that something is the non-dependent source of everything else, everyone, even the naturalist who believes the ultimate, non-dependent source is nature, or the materialist who believes it is matter, holds a religious belief.

When the Darwinian therefore claims that all of life is the product purely of natural, blind, purposeless mechanisms he is advancing a religious belief. The effect of the Judge's ruling, though he is unaware of it, was not to ban religion from the science classroom because that's an impossible task, but rather to ban a certain kind of religious claim from the classroom - the claim that matter, or the cosmos, might not be the non-dependent source of everything else.

In an astonishing contortion of justice the judge has banned the claim that the cosmos is not divine and privileged the claim that it is divine against any and all official criticism.

Judge Jones goes on to write:

Both Defendants and many of the leading proponents of ID make a bedrock assumption which is utterly false. Their presupposition is that evolutionary theory is antithetical to a belief in the existence of a supreme being and to religion in general. Repeatedly in this trial, Plaintiffs' scientific experts testified that the theory of evolution represents good science, is overwhelmingly accepted by the scientific community, and that it in no way conflicts with, nor does it deny, the existence of a divine creator.

This is simply untrue. As we have pointed out in earlier posts on this decision, there are dozens, perhaps hundreds of biologists and other scientists who have testified in print that the theistic beliefs of their youth were extinguished precisely by their education in the theory of materialistic evolution.

It is true that evolution need not be seen as antagonistic to theism, but it is disingenuous of the plaintiffs' witnesses to say that "it in no way conflicts with, nor does it deny, the existence of a divine creator." Indeed, the Judge regarded the assertion made by ID proponents that ID doesn't entail the existence of the God of the bible as a sham. Yet he does not see that if it is indeed a sham then certainly the claim that there is no conflict between a materialistic, naturalistic theory and a theory that suggests that theism is true is a forteriori a sham as well.

In his conclusion, the Judge states the following:

The citizens of the Dover area were poorly served by the members of the Board who voted for the ID Policy. It is ironic that several of these individuals, who so staunchly and proudly touted their religious convictions in public, would time and again lie to cover their tracks and disguise the real purpose behind the ID Policy.

With this we are in agreement. It is exceedingly distressing that people who call themselves Christians would not act more honorably than a couple of the board members chose to act. We're all weak. We all fail in one way or another, but one wishes that Christians in such a high-profile position, Christians upon whom the eyes of a hostile secular press are focussed, would rise above the level of the rest of us and bring more credit and less disgrace to the Faith to which they claim to adhere.

With that said, we do not question that many of the leading advocates of ID have bona fide and deeply held beliefs which drive their scholarly endeavors. Nor do we controvert that ID should continue to be studied, debated, and discussed. As stated, our conclusion today is that it is unconstitutional to teach ID as an alternative to evolution in a public school science classroom. Those who disagree with our holding will likely mark it as the product of an activist judge. If so, they will have erred as this is manifestly not an activist Court. Rather, this case came to us as the result of the activism of an ill-informed faction on a school board, aided by a national public interest law firm eager to find a constitutional test case on ID, who in combination drove the Board to adopt an imprudent and ultimately unconstitutional policy.

The breathtaking inanity of the Board's decision is evident when considered against the factual backdrop which has now been fully revealed through this trial. The students, parents, and teachers of the Dover Area School District deserved better than to be dragged into this legal maelstrom, with its resulting utter waste of monetary and personal resources. To preserve the separation of church and state mandated by the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, and Art. I, � 3 of the Pennsylvania Constitution, we will enter an order permanently enjoining Defendants from maintaining the ID Policy in any school within the Dover Area School District, from requiring teachers to denigrate or disparage the scientific theory of evolution, and from requiring teachers to refer to a religious, alternative theory known as ID (italics mine).

It must be noted here what the Judge's decision entails. The italicized sentence above is clear that it does not prohibit ID from being mentioned or discussed by science teachers at their own discretion, nor does it prohibit those teachers from discussing problems within evolutionary theory. It merely prevents the Dover school board from requiring that any of this be done. Nor does his ruling prohibit ID from being taught in other classes besides science classes, but it is unclear whether his opinion would prevent a school board from mandating that a philosophy or social studies class, especially an elective, be set up to accomplish this.

Of one thing, though, we can be fairly confident, and that is that the shortcomings of the Judge's reasoning in support of his decision are going to leave plenty of openings for further challenges down the road. It's doubtful that we've seen the last of this issue.

Previous posts in this series can be read, in order, here, here, here, and here.

Death With Dignity

Even though most conservatives are deploring the Supreme Court's decision on the Oregon Death With Dignity Act, and even though three very bright justices dissented, I think the Court came to the right conclusion.

If the matter of choice in abortion should be thrown back to the states to decide what their laws will be, as I think it should, then it's hardly consistent to have the federal government stepping in to stop a person from choosing the time and manner of his own death. If the one is a matter for states to decide then so must the other be.

Attorney General Ashcroft was stretching his constitutional authority when he threatened to revoke prescription writing privileges of doctors who prescribe drugs for terminally ill patients who wish to end their suffering, the Court decided. Whether doctors, as a matter of professional ethics, should do this is a different question than whether the Constitution allows the Federal government to prohibit them from doing it.

Now it will be interesting to see how the six justices who voted to give states the right to decide what the law should be in such personal, private matters - matters in many respects analogous to the issue of whether a woman should have the right to kill her unborn child - will vote when the question of returning abortion law to the states comes before them.

Teddy the Ent

Remember the Ents in Lord of the Rings? They were sentient tree creatures which did everything so slowly that it seemed to take days for them to just utter a sentence. We were reminded of the Ents when we read that Teddy Kennedy - who ripped Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito for ties to a group that discriminates against women - said he's going to quit a club notorious for discriminating against women "as fast as I can."

He's been a member of the club for fifty two years, but now he's going to get out "as fast as he can." What's been keeping him from getting out for the last fifty two years? Did he just now become aware that the club doesn't admit women? Did he just now realize that it's pretty hypocritical to criticize others for doing what you yourself do? Did it just now dawn on him after all these years that membership in the Owl club, as it's known, is not worth the $100 a year he pays in dues because it's a lousy place to pick up chicks? Is Teddy an Ent?

Maverick Democrat

Reuters informs us that Ben Nelson of Nebraska, a moderate voice in the U.S. Congress, on Tuesday became the first Senate Democrat to announce his support for conservative Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito, who is expected to be confirmed later this month by the full Senate. "I have decided to vote in favor of Judge Samuel Alito," Nelson said in a statement issued by his office.

Michelle Malkin wonders whether the media will now be referring to Nelson as a "maverick" or whether that appellation is reserved only for Republicans like John McCain who endear themselves to the MSM by bucking their party.

Chocolate Racism

"New Orleans should be a chocolate New Orleans." "This city will be chocolate at the end of the day." "This city will be a majority African American city." "It's the way God wants it to be." So saith the honorable mayor of New Orleans, "school bus" Ray Nagin.

God has spoken to him, evidently, and revealed that this is His will for New Orleans. Well, we're hearing that God is also speaking to white taxpayers and telling them that since this is going to be a chocolate city, He wants African-Americans to foot the bill for its reconstruction. That's what we heard, anyway.

For video of his honor the racist, bigot mayor's speech go here.

The Liberal Mind

Julie Ponzi at No Left Turns writes a pair of posts in the wake of the Alito hearings that offer some interesting insight into the liberal mind. Her analysis, in my opinion, helps to explain why liberalism today is so much different from what it was in the forties and fifties:

Democrats do not have big thinkers....it appears that all they care about is abortion. That's part of the story. It's certainly their biggest issue. But what I think they are really afraid of is how powerful and persuasive and serious people like Alito, Scalia, Roberts and Thomas are. Of course they looked silly and juvenile--even purile [in the Alito hearings]. But that's really not the issue. Republicans have their hacks as well.

I think I have come around to the belief now that these guys no longer have faith in their own roots. They don't even take themselves seriously--on an intellectual level. They have so lost their capacity to respect reason that they are in a total malaise. Anything could be true. That's why they cower in the face of the radicals among them. When anything can be true the guys with the biggest stick or the thickest wallets win. They certainly don't put forward very many serious people who can argue from the old-line Democratic beliefs. They do not have the equivalent of the conservative movement, with thinkers and scholars who inspire people. The are beyond post-modern. They are inspired by nothing and they really don't believe in much beyond a lazy adolescent cry for "freedom" and "rights." They can't articulate what that means in any sensible way.

We are in the position now of arguing with people who have no argument. It's almost not even fun.

She continues her thoughts in this post:

I've heard liberals complaining alot about how Alito defined his role as a judge (i.e., to be an impartial interpreter of the law) and dismiss that as alot of baloney. Some have even gone so far as to imply that the hearings are a waste of time because we should know that conservatives will appoint conservatives and liberals will appoint liberals--that's just the way it is. If you want your guys in, win the election. Well, there's a certain amount of truth in that. And you've got to admire the libs who have the gumption to say that. It's factual, anyway. But there is more to the whole truth than a simple recitation of the facts.

Many liberals don't buy that Alito is serious about his job description, not because they think he is a liar (though some may think that as well), but because they have a distorted understanding about the nature of politics that breeds cynicism.... Politics, to them, is a power struggle only. It's not about an attempt at impartial application of justice. They do not really believe that impartiality is possible because they think that judicial philosophy is nothing more than your positions on the issues. A confirmation hearing to them should be about spouting your positions on the issues and garnering the votes you need for confirmation based on whether enough people agree with your positions.

They do not see that Alito really does believe that his personal positions on the issues do not matter. He can't argue them from the bench unless the law calls for it. If you tell them that Roe v. Wade is bad law, they look at you with a blank face. You must be "pro-life" then. That can be the only reason you have that opinion. These libs think politics is only a power struggle because they do not believe that people are capable of reasoning from a point that is not tied up in their own self-interest. They certainly do not respect the Constitution as that starting point--because they think it was meant to change as tastes in hairstyles change. To them, American politics is just interest combating interest until someone ends up on top.

That's why liberals think they're the better people all the time. They think they are "championing" the little guy in this tug-o-war of interests. We argue that we are only interested in "championing" justice--we don't wish to play the game. Because they assume that ignoring the game is impossible, they say we're engaged in nothing more than a covert operation to protect the interests of the wealthy and powerful. There is no such thing as true impartial "justice," they argue....

But I digress . . . the long and short of it is that I wonder if it is even possible sometimes to engage in conversation with these folks because we're not speaking the same language or coming at the conversation with anything like the same assumptions about politics. We say one thing and they hear another--and vice versa. Maybe the hearings are a waste of time on some level. We can only hope they were useful to those watching/listening to them (especially the young). One thing is certain, it will not be to the Democrats' benefit to keep this thing on the front page another week! That's what I mean about being beholden to interests--they have to try this in order to satisfy their way-left base of donors. It will fail and they will be exposed even more.

Liberals, it should be said, are much more likely than others to have succumbed to the contemporary fashion that there is no truth, that there are only varying "perspectives" on matters which concern us. If there is no truth, however, then there's no point in trying to persuade others to your point of view through the force of ideas. The only thing one can do is acquire and hold power so that he can compel others to abide by his point of view. Politics, for the Left, has become a struggle for power in which there are no rules. Low blows, head butts, kicking, gouging, and biting are all justified if they work, and that's why we see the sort of behavior we've witnessed from the Left in this country ever since the Robert Bork nomination. Conservatives are the enemy and if they must be lied about, smeared, slandered, and destroyed, then, well, the end of defeating the enemy justifies whatever means are necessary to bring it about.

I am reminded of words attributed to Lenin in 1920. In a speech to the Young Communist League he is alleged to have said that: "We repudiate all morality that proceeds from supernatural ideas...Morality is entirely subordinate to the interests of class war. Everything is moral that is necessary for the annihilation of the old...order and for uniting the proletariat."

If it works it's right. That was the view of the totalitarian Left in 1920 and it's the view of much of the liberal/Left today.

Al-Qaeda Membership Application

Ed Morrissey at Captain's Quarters has come into possession of an al Qaeda membership application which he has posted for our consideration:

Application For al-Qaeda Membership

Allahu akbar! So you've decided to join the fastest-growing organization of psychopathic murderers in the world today. Due to the exciting type of work we perform, we always have room for more volunteers, and so we welcome you to our ranks. We'd like to get to know you, while we can, so please answer a few questions for us:

Name: Abu ____________

Real name: __________________

Gender: ______ Male __________ Chattel (if so, stop here)

Marital Status: ____ Single _____ Married (# of wives: ______)

Reason For Interest In al-Qaeda (circle all that apply):

a. Hatred for everything Western, except those hot babes on Baywatch

b. Suicidal impulse but lacking the skills to carry it out

c. Inability to get women to date me

d. Want to travel and see the world before I realize my ambition to destroy it

e. Having 72 inexperienced young girls later sounds better than dealing with one nagging woman now

Would you be willing to relocate? Y/N

If Y, in pieces? Y/N

Do you have any of the following disqualifying conditions?

a. Conscience

b. Soul

c. Survival instinct

d. Half a brain or more

e. Fear of flying

Thank you again, mujaheddin, on behalf of al-Qaeda -- an Equal Opportunity Destroyer.

Who Said That?

Quick, who said this:

Hurricanes Katrina and Rita and other storms were a sign that "God is mad at America" and at black communities, too, for tearing themselves apart with violence and political infighting. "Surely God is mad at America. He sent us hurricane after hurricane after hurricane, and it's destroyed and put stress on this country."

Pat Robertson, you say? Well, it sounds like Pat, but if it had been Robertson there would've been wall to wall derision from the Left directed at the hapless evangelist on all the news shows. No, it wasn't Pat. The only person who could get away with saying something like this without being hooted down by the media and forced to apologize to every offended minority on this side of the Atlantic would have to be a black liberal Democrat. The media has bestowed upon BLDs a kind of immunity, an immunity that is really a form of reparations for all the sins of the past. It's an immunity that arises out out of the guilt that white liberals wallow in and that exempts BLDs from criticism when they say what anyone else would be crucified for saying.

The source of the quote? Ray Nagin, mayor of New Orleans.

The NYT Gets it Wrong Again

The New York Times ran a picture on their website Saturday purporting to be a photo of the remains of a missile fired by a predator drone at poor Pakistani peasants by the CIA in a futile attempt to kill the al Qaeda second in command, al Zawahiri.

Unfortunately for what remains of the Times' credibility, they were either duped or they were complicit in a hoax. The munition in the photo, as is evident to anyone who looks at it, except, evidently, Times staffers, is obviously not a missile. It's much too bulky and heavy.

The American Thinker provides some background.

Was al-Zawahiri There?

Bill Roggio has some good analysis of the attack on al-Zawahiri and al Qaeda's strategy at ThreatsWatch.Org:

The fate of Ayman al-Zawahiri is still unknown after an airstrike in the Pakistani town of Damadola, near the Afghan border in the province of Bajaur. An Al-Arabiya source close to al-Qaeda states Zawahiri is still alive, and Pakistani intelligence sources claim he escaped the attack. American intelligence officials are still eager to see the results of the DNA tests, and are unusually optimistic on the possibility Zawahiri was indeed killed in the strike. The fact that a team was able to gather remains indicates a certain level of sophistication and coordination in the strike, as Bajaur is a hostile and remote environment unfriendly to American forces and the central Pakistani government.

The Washington Post states the strike was "based on timely intelligence about Zawahiri's whereabouts early Friday. Zawahiri had been under surveillance by the CIA for two weeks." And Pakistan is reported to have been intimately involved in the intelligence gathering and operation. The Daily Times reports "the attack was planned and executed by a combination of Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officers in Pakistan and Pakistani officials. 'This would not have happened unless they had pretty precise information that the right target was at that location.'"

Riots have broken out in Bajaur, and two Non-Governmental Organization (NGOs) offices were attacked, and thirty riotors were detained. Pakistan's Information Minister condemned the attack and the U.S. ambassador has been summoned to explain the event. Based on Pakistan's permissiveness in the past to allows such strikes and its involvement in the Zawahiri attack, the summons is for domestic consumption only.

The strike against Zawahiri comes at a transitional stage of the war. There are reports al-Qaeda is reallocating resources from Iraq, which Zawahiri himself referred to as "the place for the greatest battle of Islam in this era." Their destination is reportedly Afghanistan. The Coalition is currently conducting operations during the winter months, and the Taliban has yet again vowed to step up attacks. Other evidence points to al-Qaeda expanding operations in Lebanon, with the end target being Israel.

Based on the importance that Zawahiri himself placed on Iraq, the shift of operation focus is curious. Zawahiri has described Afghanistan, along with Chechnya, Kashmir, and Bosnia and other theaters as the "far-flung regions of the Islamic world", and considers these areas as secondary in al Qaeda's plans for the formation of the Islamist Caliphate. Yet there is the distinct possibility a drawdown is occurring in Iraq.

The failure of al-Qaeda in Iraq to gain real traction with the Iraqi people may very well be the reason for this shift. There have been numerous cases of red-on-red fighting between al-Qaeda and the insurgency. Mohammed at Iraq the Model provides even further anecdotal evidence:

"Al-Qaeda is apparently being chased down and confronted by Iraqis in Anbar and Samarra according to a report from al-Sabah. Mohammed al-Ubaidi is a citizen of Anbar who took part in a battle against al-Qaeda fighters said that people were enraged by the attacks that kill civilians in Anbar and other provinces and therefore have decided to form squads from the residents to rid Anbar from the foreign terrorists. The reports mentions that several tribes' sheikhs had a meeting in the home of a sheikh of the Dulaim tribe where they pledged to fight al-Qaeda and throw them out of the province. There are also news that some 120 al-Qaeda members have already fled outside Iraq after a series of battles between their cells and the residents of Ramadi and other towns and suburbs of Anbar. According to the same report, similar measures are being taken by the residents in Samarra and have succeeded in forcing foreign terrorists out of their city."

al-Qaeda's operations have been impacted by the successful offensive this summer and fall in northern and western Iraq. Lt. Gen. John R. Vines states "al-Qaeda is increasingly in disarray and we have pursued, captured and killed a large number of them." And al-Qaeda recruiting cells continue to be rolled up in Europe. The latest round of arrests in Spain netted a senior operational leader and twenty of his cell members. These efforts, over time, place a strain on al-Qaeda in Iraq's ability to keep up a steady operational pace.

In his letter to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Zawahiri outlined al-Qaeda's plan for waging jihad in the heart of the Middle East:

The first stage: Expel the Americans from Iraq.

The second stage: Establish an Islamic authority or amirate, then develop it and support it until it achieves the level of a caliphate- over as much territory as you can to spread its power in Iraq, i.e., in Sunni areas, is in order to fill the void stemming from the departure of the Americans, immediately upon their exit and before un-Islamic forces attempt to fill this void, whether those whom the Americans will leave behind them, or those among the un-Islamic forces who will try to jump at taking power.

The third stage: Extend the jihad wave to the secular countries neighboring Iraq.

The fourth stage: It may coincide with what came before: the clash with Israel, because Israel was established only to challenge any new Islamic entity. This coincides with Saif al-Adel's strategy doucment. The timeframe laid out by al-Adel is specific, with "definitive victory" set for the year 2020.

Zawahiri's first and second stages have not been accomplished: the Americans have not been ejected from Iraq, and an Islamic Caliphate has not been set up within Iraq's border. There is no rump Islamic state in Iraq. The closest al-Qaeda came was during the summer of 2005, when they declared the Islamic Republics of Qaim and Haditha, but these regions were contested no-man's lands at best. Anbar province has been denied to al-Qaeda.

The obvious question is: why has al-Qaeda jumped their strategy planning, and bypassed the most crucial elements: U.S. defeat in Iraq and the establishment of Islamic states in Iraq? Does al-Qaeda actually believe they accomplished these goals? Or do they recognize the Iraq enterprise has failed and are cutting their losses.

Zawahiri is the pragmatist and strategic commander of al-Qaeda. His letter to Zarqawi, and Zarqawi's letter to Osama bin Laden provide a window into the way they view the state of current battles. You can see the need for urgency in their actions. If al-Qaeda withdrawal from Iraq is really in the works, Zawahiri's recent statements declaring U.S. defeat in Iraq and Afghanistan are likely cover for withdrawal.

al-Qaeda may believe it has a greater chance at achieving a victory against the West in Afghanistan. The United States is removing 4,000 troops from the Afghan theater, which are to be replaced by NATO forces. The Dutch are debating providing their alloted contingent of forces, which threatens the foreign policy of the European Union and NATO's commitment to Afghanistan. Al-Qaeda is likely trying to cleave the Afghanistan Coalition, and attacks such as the suicide strike against Canadian soldiers in Kandahar are designed to achieve such a split.

Perhaps al-Qaeda believes the buffer in the Tribal areas of Pakistan will provide it the protection needed to conduct a successful counteroffensive against Coalition forces. But many high-level al-Qaeda operatives and leaders have met their end in Pakistan. And the strike against Zawahiri, whether successful or not, demonstrates al-Qaeda is not free to operate without a response.

The British Guardian is making much of reports that we missed Zawahiri and killed only women and children. They are calling it a "botched attack." It is deeply tragic that innocent people were killed by our missiles, but there is a sentence buried in the Guardian's report that seems odd. The report stated that the dead were reported to include four children and at least two women. Yet most accounts of the attack said that there were believed to be about 18 people in the targeted houses. Who were the other twelve? The Guardian scarcely mentions them, but it would be interesting to find out.

The Worsening Crisis In Iran

Belmont Club posts an interesting discussion on the brewing crisis over Iran and what people who contemplate such matters are thinking about today. There are a number of interesting tidbits and anecdotes strewn among the analysis. Here are a few excerpts:

...the chances of an Israeli strike (over the near term) are slight, unless Tel Aviv receives clear, unambiguous evidence that Iran has--or is about to acquire--working nuclear weapons. The consequences of an Israeli attack would be monumental--for Israel, the U.S. and the entire region. An Israeli strike on Tehran's nuclear sites could well be followed by an Iranian strike on Israel's population centers, using a SHAHAB-3 missile carrying biological or chemical weapons. Assuming that an Iranian warhead gets through Israel's missile defenses (and inflicts heavy casualties), the Israelis would likely respond in kind, or up the ante and go nuclear. The pressure on an Israeli Prime Minister to respond to an Iranian missile attack would be overwhelming, and quite likely, irresistible.

Wretchard at Belmont Club cites an account from another blogger which, he avers, illustrates the "level of resolution" that results from our own forces being in contact on the ground.

We had captured a weapons cache in Afghani, a BIG one and as we piled the weapons up the next door neighbor tribal leader showed up and "told" me he was taking those weapons from the feuding tribe we just confiscated them from. Being surrounded by two infantry Platoons he had these two girlie men (no kidding, they were out of a very bad B movie) charge their AK's as an act to threaten us. I told my terp to translate to them "you just made a very bad mistake and you could have been killed " as my Marines drew in on them as they charged their weapons. So after detaining him and his two girlfriends we sat them a safe distance away from the pile of weapons on an adjacent hill but high enough for them to watch the fireworks show.

Ace of Spades reports on the deployment of the 122nd Fighter Wing to 'Southwest Asia'. Where could they mean? Southwest Asia? That's sorta between Iraq and Afghanistan, I guess:

Members of the Fort Wayne-based 122nd Fighter Wing are scheduled to leave for Southwest Asia about 2:30 a.m. Tuesday from the unit's headquarters on Ferguson Road. It represents the wing's largest single deployment since it was called to Chambley, France, in 1961 during the Berlin Crisis. This deployment is in support of ongoing operations in the U.S. Central Command Air Forces (CENTAF) area of responsibility, which includes Southwest Asia. The unit will deploy fighter pilots, as well as maintenance and support personnel.

My own guess is that the US -- and Israeli --policy towards Iran is constrained by the knowledge that the only lasting way to keep the Bomb from extremist Mullahs isn't an air strike, but regime change. If the objective is to keep Iran from obtaining weapons of mass destruction, air strikes, however effective, can only delay the process of acquisition....

And diplomacy will continue, not because it has any prospect of success, but from want of an alternative. Iran knows better than anyone that Israeli lacks the ability, and the US probably lacks the will, to mount a regime change. In this context diplomacy acquires a different significance. It's playing for time, hoping that the regime in Teheran will slip up somehow and provide an opportunity for effective action. That slip-up, if it occurs, can only be induced by taking Iran to the brink. The objective of diplomacy is probably to stress Iran to the max, such as by staging wargames on its margin, threatening to refer the matter to the UN Security Council (which means to the United States, which alone provides the teeth to the Security Council), etc, not in the expectation that Teheran will crack, but in the hope that exploitable fractures will occur.

Good stuff, although we're not sanguine about the chances of the tactic of pushing the mullahs over the brink actually working. It may, and we hope that it does, but there has to be a back-up plan. The world simply can't sit on its collective hands and let the madmen in Iran - men who have said that Israel would have a hard time destroying the Arab world with nuclear weapons but that one pre-emptive nuke will destroy Israel; men who have said that Israel should be wiped off the face of the earth; men who have promised that if they ever had nuclear weapons they'd use them against Israel; men who have turned Iran into the world's chief state sponsor of terrorism - the world cannot allow such men to have the weapons they lust after.

Tragically, though, most of the world, especially Europe, will be perfectly content to allow Iran to acquire weapons which they will almost surely use, either themselves or through terrorist proxies.

Maybe the Democrats have a plan as to what we should do.

Responding to a Friend's Challenge

A deistic friend recently sent me an essay by a religious skeptic by the name of Samuel Harris and asked me to respond to this paragraph from his piece:

Most people believe that the Creator of the universe wrote (or dictated) one of their books. Unfortunately, there are many books that pretend to divine authorship, and each makes incompatible claims about how we all must live. Despite the ecumenical efforts of many well-intentioned people, these irreconcilable religious commitments still inspire an appalling amount of human conflict.

My friend went on to ask:

...where is the proof that a "personal Creator" exists? Where is the proof that one or all of the various "holy books" is true? I believe in a Creator, but I see no evidence that He/She/It has communicated with man, other than through the creation itself.

The following is my response to his questions (slightly modified):

You asked if I would respond to Harris' opening statement, and I will, but I think it would be best if I tried to reply to your other questions first.

You ask for proof that there is a personal creator, but as you know, outside of mathematics and logic there really is very little, if anything, that we can actually prove. Everything we believe is based on factors other than proof - the force of induction, intuition, how well something fits with other well-established beliefs, and so on.

I don't know for sure what I base my belief in a personal creator upon, but one argument for that belief is this:

I exist. I have consciousness, intelligence, and am a complex arrangement of integrated systems that display astonishing engineering. I also am contingent (i.e. dependent upon something else for my existence), and possess the attributes of personality.

I ask myself how I can account for the existence of such an entity, and I find I have essentially two alternatives: Either I am the product of blind, unguided, unintelligent, impersonal forces that produced me purely by accident, a possibility which I find highly implausible, or I am the intentional product of an intelligent, purposeful being which is also conscious, self-aware and which is ultimately non-contingent. Moreover, since I possess the attributes of personality, it seems reasonable to impute some kind of personality to that which has produced that quality in me as well. In other words, whatever caused me, it's reasonable to assume, probably possesses the same qualities in Itself that It created.

But this is not a proof, of course. It may be that I really am just the product of time, chance and the impersonal, but I think it's intellectually justifiable to believe that I am not. I think it reasonable to believe that the ultimate cause of me and you and the universe as a whole is purposeful, extraordinarily intelligent and powerful, non-contingent, and conscious of, and concerned about, It's creation. It's reasonable to believe, in short, that the ultimate cause of human beings is personal.

I freely admit that I want there to be such a Being because, among other reasons, the existential consequences of such a Being not existing are severe: Indeed, our existence would have no real meaning, there would be no basis for morality, there'd be no hope for justice, and man would have no special worth, dignity or rights, to name a few of the consequences of there being no personal Creator. In other words, if I am wrong about the existence of the kind of Being I'm describing, then the logical endpoint is nihilism and despair.

Since I want very much for there to be such a Being (let's call It God for the sake of discussion), and since the existence of God seems to me to be highly probable for the reasons I discussed above, I find myself accepting, or believing, or hoping, that God does, in fact, exist. I find myself living my life more or less in accord with that hope. Someone else might come to a different conclusion, and I don't think I could argue him out of it. I would just ask him whether deep down he wants, or doesn't want, there to be a God. If he does want God to exist but finds himself unable to believe that He does, then I would suggest to him that there's really no reason not to believe and ample reason to believe. If his answer is that he doesn't really want there to be a God, which for skeptics, it often is, then there's nothing more that I can say except to ask him why he's not a nihilist.

Now, none of this gets at the question of special revelation and religious conflict that Harris poses in his essay. Let me keep my promise and respond to what he says in the passage you quote above. I agree with everything in it. What he asserts is true, but his implied conclusion that all religions are bogus doesn't follow from what he says any more than the fact that different political ideologies have caused horrible conflict in the world (much worse in the 20th century than religion ever caused) leads to the conclusion that they're all wrong. You and I both agree, I think, that a system that promotes freedom, democracy, property rights, and free markets is far superior to, say, communism, socialism, or fascism. The fact that these ideologies conflict with democratic capitalism doesn't mean we should not believe in freedom.

The question for me, then, is do I have sufficient warrant to believe that Christianity is essentially true? In order to answer that question I have to ask whether I have sufficient reason to think that the Bible is basically correct in what it says, and in order to answer that question, I have to come to grips with one of the two most fundamental stumbling blocks for many moderns when they read the Bible - miracles (the other being the deity of Christ). One miracle in particular is crucial - the resurrection of Jesus.

So, setting aside all the claims of skeptics about this or that error in the Bible, and the counterclaims that defenders throw into the breach, perhaps we can agree that the only thing that really matters is whether Jesus actually and literally rose from the dead. If he did then all the arguments raised against the historical facticity of the Old Testament and the objections to stories like the virgin birth, are irrelevant. If Jesus really rose from the dead then Christianity is, in almost every respect that matters, highly credible.

Of course, we can't know with certainty that Jesus rose from the dead or that he did not. Some skeptics counter that we can indeed know that he did not because miracles are impossible, but this is a weak argument. Miracles can only be impossible if there is no chance that the laws of nature could be superceded. But we can only have confidence that the laws of nature cannot be superceded if we know that there is no God. If the existence of the kind of Being I've talked about above is possible then so must miracles be possible, and, of course, the existence of God is certainly possible.

Thus we have to look at the evidence for the resurrection to determine whether it is a credible event or not. I do this here(scroll down to VI) and invite you to read what I've written there.

It seems to me that, as fantastic as the story sounds to the modern ear, if there is a personal God who cares about His creation and loves His creatures then what the gospels record is certainly possible and to me, at least, plausible. I understand that it won't seem so to others, but I can find no reason based upon human rationality for discounting it other than an a priori belief that miracles are impossible, which, as I've argued, is only the case if atheism is true. Even a deist such as yourself believes that God performed at least one miracle when He created the universe.

Anyway, I'm sorry if this is a little long-winded, but I thought your question deserved more than just a cursory answer.

Great Cloud of Witnesses

I just finished a challenging and inspirational book, Great Cloud of Witnesses by E.W. Bullinger. It is a compilation of expositional and devotional lessons based on the spiritual giants of faith from Hebrews chapter 11.

From the back cover: "Here you will come to understand faith's worship of God, faith's walk with God, faith's witness for God, faith's obedience, faith overcoming the will of the flesh and the will of man, faith waiting, faith overcoming fear, faith conquering through Christ, and faith suffering for God."

Here are a couple of passages from Great Cloud of Witnesses that contrast Abraham's "walk by faith" to the "walk by sight" of others.

"And Abram passed through the land unto the place of Sichem, unto the plain of Moreh. (And the Canaanite was then in the Land.)" (Gen. xii 6)

Here, then, we have the second exhibition of Abraham's faith. First, he obeyed and went forth. Next, he sojourned. This sojourning was "by faith." It certainly could not have been "by sight;" for there was nothing for sight but the Canaanite!

What an opportunity for faith! Faith took his eye off from the Canaanite to "the God of glory" who had appeared unto him in the land of Chaldea; and who appeared again to him as Jehovah in the land of the Canaanite.

The sphere of the stranger is the sphere of Divine communications. The statement that "The Canaanite was then in the land" (v. 6) is intended to connect that fact with the subject of God's revelation in v. 7. "Unto thee will I give this land." Here was scope for faith. It came "from hearing the word of God," and our attention is directed to this fact by the close connection of these two statements.

Abraham's faith rested on the Word of God; and his thoughts were occupied with the presence of Jehovah, instead of with the presence of the Canaanite. The eye of faith could see Him who is invisible; hence, it saw not the Canaanite who was "then in the land."

How opposite was the case of the spies, who, in a later day went up into this very land with the assurance of Jehovah that it was "a good land."

They "believed not." Hence, they saw only the Canaanites; and they said: "the people that WE SAW in it are men of great stature. And there WE SAW the giants and the sons of Anak which come of the giants; and we were in OUR OWN SIGHT as grasshoppers, as so we were in THEIR SIGHT." (Num xiii. 32, 33).

Truly they walked by sight, hence they believed not, And, because they believed not, they could neither enjoy the presence of the Lord, nor enter into His rest.

Numbers chapter 14 tells us the rest of the story and that upon hearing the people crying out to go back to Egypt, Moses and Aaron fell on their faces. Joshua and Caleb who had gone with the others to search out the land rent there own cloths and said "The land, which we passed through to search it, is an exceeding good land. If the Lord delight in us, then He will bring us into this land, and give it us; a land which floweth with milk and honey. Only rebel not ye against the Lord neither fear ye the people of the land; for they are bread for us*: defence is departed from them, and the Lord is with us: fear them not." But all the congregation bade stone them with stones.

As you probably know, by now the Lord had had enough of the peoples' antics and was going to "smite them with pestilence, and disinherit them" but Moses appealed to the Lord that He show mercy to the people, the result being that they wandered in the wilderness for forty years and that entire adult generation eventually died (or as it is rendered in the KJV, "your carcases, they shall fall in this wilderness") before the people finally entered into the land.

* manna, when out of the shade melted, though hard. Likewise the hearts of their enemies would melt away, not having Jehovah for their shadow, or defense.

The second passage contrasts Abraham's "walk by faith" with that of Lot...

Lot "walked by sight" and not "by faith." Hence, "Lot LIFTED UP HIS EYES and BEHELD all the plain of Jordan that it was well watered everywhere before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, even as the garden of the Lord" (Gen. xiii. 10).

It looked like "the garden of the Lord," even as Satan may look like "an angel of light" and his ministers may look like "ministers of righteousness" (2 Cor. xi. 14, 15). But it is not "righteousness," nor is it "light." Nor was it "the garden of the Lord," but it was the plain and "city" of Sodom, and the end of each will be destruction with fire and brimstone from heaven.

Notice the steps in a walk by sight when Lot "lifted up HIS OWN eyes" (Gen. xiii.)

1. He beheld (v. 10)
2. He chose the plain of Jordan (v. 11)
3. He took the eastward position and journeyed east (v. 11)
4. He dwelled in the cities of the plain (v. 12)
5. He pitched his tent toward Sodom (v. 12)
6. He dwelt in Sodom (ch. xiv. 12)
7. He sat in the gate (as a Ruler in, and citizen of Sodom) (ch. xix.1)
8. He shared in its calamities (ch. xiv. 12)
9. He was miraculously delivered from its destruction (Gen. xix. 16)

This is the end of a "Walk by Sight."

On the other hand, Abraham who sojourned by faith did not lift up his own eyes; but "Jehovah said unto Abram (after Lot was separated from him) LIFT UP NOW THINE EYES, and look from the place where thou art Northward, and Southward, and Eastward, and Westward: For all the land which thou seest, to thee will I GIVE it, and to they seed for ever" (Gen. xiii. 14-16)

Lot made his own choice. Jehovah made choice for Abraham; and Abraham enjoyed it as God's gift.

Lot's choice was only for a short time. It began in calamity and ended in destruction.

Abraham's gift was "for ever." It began in faith, and will end in glory.

You'll want to read this book...more than once.

The Hazards of Being Al-Qaeda

Der Spiegel has an interesting article on the growing conflict between Sunni insurgents and al Qaeda forces in Iraq. It appears that the head-cutters have worn out their welcome and they find themselves having to fight not only the Americans but also a substantial number of hostile Sunni Iraqis.

Too bad.

The article is filled with interesting anecdotes. Give it a look.

Kudos

Kudos to Senators Mikulski and DeMint for their letter to Secretary of State Rice on behalf of Robert Stethem:

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Senator Barbara A. Mikulski (D-Md.) and Senator Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) today urged Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice to take immediate action and formally request that the Government of Lebanon arrest and extradite convicted killer Mohammed Ali Hamadi to the United States. Hamadi was serving a life sentence in Germany for the 1985 hijacking of a TWA jetliner and killing of U.S. Navy diver Robert Dean Stethem, 23, of Waldorf, Md. He was paroled after 19 years in December 2005, and is known to be hiding in Lebanon.

TWA flight 847 from Athens, Greece, to Rome was hijacked to Beirut, Lebanon, where hijackers beat, shot and killed Petty Officer Stethem and dumped his body on the tarmac. He was the only casualty during the hijacking ordeal, in which 39 Americans were held hostage for 17 days.

To read the text of their letter go to Michael Yon's site linked above.

Is ID Really Not Science?

Philosopher of science professor Bradley Monton of the University of Kentucky has written an excellent analysis of Judge Jones' (the presiding judge in Kitzmiller v. Dover) argument that Intelligent Design is not science. Monton, it's important to note, is not an advocate of ID, but he thinks that the Judge was simply wrong to conclude the following:

...ID fails on three different levels, any one of which is sufficient to preclude a determination that ID is science. They are: (1) ID violates the centuries-old ground rules of science by invoking and permitting supernatural causation; (2) the argument of irreducible complexity, central to ID, employs the same flawed and illogical contrived dualism that doomed creation science in the 1980's; and (3) ID's negative attacks on evolution have been refuted by the scientific community.

Monton analyzes each of these criteria and shows that each is philosophically unsustainable. Anyone interested in the ID-isn't-science-and-therefore-shouldn't-be-taught-in-public-schools argument should read Monton's piece. One of the many interesting passages is this one where he quotes a scientist named Mark Perakh who opposes ID:

[P]hysicist Mark Perakh, in his anti-ID book Unintelligent Design, writes: a definition of science should not put any limits on legitimate subjects for the scientific exploration of the world. Indeed, although science has so far had no need to attribute any observed phenomena to a supernatural cause, and in doing so has achieved staggering successes, there still remain unanswered many fundamental questions about nature. Until such answers are found, nothing should be prohibited as a legitimate subject of science, and excluding the supernatural out of hand serves no useful purpose.

Those who exulted in Judge Jones' opinion on the unscientific status of ID are simply unaware of the depth of the controversy over this question among philosophers and scientists. Monton concludes his paper with these words:

I maintain that science is better off without being shackled by methodological naturalism. Our successful scientific theories are naturalistic simply because this is the way the evidence points; this leaves open the possibility that, on the basis of new evidence, there could be supernatural scientific theories. I conclude that ID should not be dismissed on the grounds that it is unscientific; ID should be dismissed on the grounds that the empirical evidence for its claims just isn't there.

Of course, this last assertion actually presents a problem for the anti-IDers. The reason they want ID ruled out of bounds is precisely because they know that if people are "permitted" to think that ID is science they will find the evidence for design in the cosmos and in life, pace Monton, extremely compelling, at least intuitively. Better to discredit ID a priori by declaring it non-science and short-circuit the desire on the part of interested lay-people to examine the sorts of systems ID proponents say constitute evidence for an intelligent architect of the universe. Philosophers like Monton who place a higher premium on truth than on any particular metaphysical dogma will make it increasing difficult for the anti-IDers to succeed with that strategy in the years ahead.

Another One Bites the Dust (Maybe)

ABC News has a report that Osama bin Laden's top lieutenant may be, even as you read this, cavorting with his 72 virgins in Allah's retirement home for blown-to-smithereens jihadis:

Jan. 13, 2006 - Today, according to Pakistani military sources, U.S. aircraft attacked a compound known to be frequented by high level al Qaeda operatives. Pakistani officials tell ABC News that al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden's top lieutenant, may have been among them.

U.S. intelligence for the last few days indicated that Zawahiri might be in the location or about to arrive, although there is still no confirmation from U.S. officials that he was among the victims.

The attack took place early this morning Pakistan time in a small village a few miles from the border with Afghanistan. Villagers described seeing an unmanned plane circling the area for the last few days and then bombs falling in the early morning darkness.

Eighteen people were killed, according to the villagers who said women and children were among the fatalities. But Pakistani officials tell ABC News that five of those killed were high-level al Qaeda figures, and their bodies are now undergoing forensic tests for positive identification.

Officials say Zawahiri was known to have used safe houses in this area last winter and was believed to be in the area again this winter. Zawahiri, who appeared just last week in a new videotaped message, had increasingly been taking the operational reins of al Qaeda, and is thought by U.S. officials to be the current true mastermind of the terrorist group.

Pakistani officials tell ABC News that the bodies of the five suspected al Qaeda figures will be recovered at first light in Pakistan, but it will still take a day or two for any kind of positive identification. U.S. officials in Washington did not comment.

It's getting harder and harder for Osama to retain good help, a fact we take some satisfaction in and encouragement from. We hope that al-Zawahiri does indeed turn out to be part of the debris that investigators have to sift through, and we hope that his last mortal act of conscious awareness was the sight of that missile speeding through his window straight toward his wide-eyed, astonished self.

Just Plain Dumb

One wonders what goes through the minds of some teachers. How could anyone who works with kids be so morally tone-deaf as to not realize the stupidity of an assignment like this?

A high school research assignment on Internet pornography was canceled after parents in this Cleveland suburb complained.

Superintendent Jeff Lampert said that although the teacher's apparent goal _ to discuss the harmful effects of pornography _ was well- intentioned, he agreed with parents that the assignment was inappropriate for 14- and 15-year-old freshmen at Brooklyn High.

The assignment asked students to research pornography on the Internet and list eight facts about pornography. Students also were asked to write their personal views of pornography and any experience they had with it.

Lampert said he doubted the teacher would face any punishment.

Perhaps the teacher should be made to sit in the corner wearing a dunce cap for a couple of hours.

Pandas

Throughout the Dover ID case the book Of Pandas and People: The Central Question of Biological Origins by Percival Davis and Dean Kenyon came in for a lot of criticism. Not having read it we're in no position to comment on the validity of the allegations made against it, but for those who are interested in whether Pandas is as bad as alleged this site offers a vigorous defense of the text and reveals Judge Jones' bias in his evaluation of it.