End of the Spear

Christianity Today has a review of End of the Spear. We haven't yet seen the movie, but it's based on a truly amazing story. For those not familiar with it, in 1956 four young missionaries were murdered by Ecuadoran indians. After their deaths, two of the widows and a sister of another of the slain men went to live with the tribe from which the killers came. Because of the beauty of their witness, eventually much of the tribe, including the killers, was converted to Christianity.

It is very difficult to imagine the selflessness of bereaved women who might have been understandably embittered toward the murderers of their loved ones, instead going to live among the killers to win them to the Truth. It is an amazing story of love, forgiveness, redemption, and human nobility, and from all that we've heard and read the movie tells it faithfully and powerfully.

Another Humanist For ID

Another non-Christian, non-theist endorses the basic idea of Intelligent Design. In a recent interview on National Public Radio, novelist Kurt Vonnegut, who describes himself as a secular humanist, said this:

Mr. VONNEGUT: Where you can see tribal behavior now is in this business about teaching evolution in a science class and intelligent design. It's the scientists themselves are behaving tribally.

NPR: How are the scientists behaving tribally?

Mr. VONNEGUT: They say, you know, about evolution, it surely happened because their fossil record shows that. But look, my body and your body are miracles of design. Scientists are pretending they have the answer as how we got this way when natural selection couldn't possibly have produced such machines.

NPR: Does that mean you would favor teaching intelligent design in the classroom?

Mr. VONNEGUT: Look, if it's what we're thinking about all the time; if I were a physics teacher or a science teacher, it'd be on my mind all the time as to how the hell we really got this way. It's a perfectly natural human thought and, okay, if you go into the science class you can't think this? Well, alright, as soon as you leave you can start thinking about it again without giving aid and comfort to the lunatic fringe of the Christian religion. Also, I think that, you know, it's tribal behavior. I don't think that Pat Robertson, for instance, doubts that we evolved. He is simply representing a tribe.

NPR: There are tribes on both sides here in your view?

Mr. VONNEGUT: Yes.

NPR: May I ask what tribes, if any, you have belonged to over the years?

Mr. VONNEGUT: Well, it's an ancestral tribe. These were immigrants from north of Germany who came here about the time of the Civil War, but anyway, these people called themselves free thinkers. They were impressed, incidentally, by Darwin. They're called Humanists now: people who aren't so sure that the Bible is the Word of God.

NPR: Who are denounced by some religious people as secular humanists?

Mr. VONNEGUT: Well, that's exactly what I am. The trouble with being a secular humanist is that we don't have a congregation. We don't meet, so it's a very flimsy tribe, but there's a wonderful quotation from Nietzsche. Nietzsche said, Only a person of deep faith can afford the luxury of skepticism. Something perfectly wonderful is going on. I do not doubt it, but the explanations I hear do not satisfy me.

So much for the canard that ID is a Christian meme and that the designer has to be the God of the Bible. David Berlinski, Michael Denton, Antony Flew, and now Kurt Vonnegut are none of them Christians nor theists. Yet they're all impressed by the evidence that life displays purpose and intention.

Is Judge Jones paying attention?

Swann vs. Rendell in PA

We'd like to point out that a recent poll in Pennsylvania showed Lyn Swann leading the incumbent Democratic governor Ed Rendell 46% to 44%. There are so many odd results on this poll, however, that we can't put too much confidence in Swann's lead. For just one example, Republican respondents said that they'd like to see Condaleeza Rice run for president by 46% to 32% margin, but on the previous question, when asked who their choice for president would be, Rice wasn't even mentioned in a list of nine candidates.

It's hard to say what significance a poll has at this point in the election campaign, but it does seem that Rendell is vulnerable, especially to a black opponent with the name recognition of someone like Lyn Swann.

Humble <i>Brights</i>

From the website of the Brights, an organization of people who hold to a naturalistic worldview:

Although some individual Brights may have negative views of persons who hold supernatural beliefs, the Brights movement does not proclaim superiority or a disdain for others.

This may be, but if they don't feel that they're intellectually superior to the rest of us why do they call themselves "Brights"?

Good Publicity

The Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture has graciously put up two posts on our series on Judge Jones' decision in the Dover trial. The first announces the series, and the second is a very positive sampling from it. Check them out, especially the second.

Palestinians Vote For War

Ed Morrissey at Captain's Quarters believes that the Palestinians, in bringing Hamas to power, have, for all intents and purposes, voted for war with Israel:

Unless someone can show widespread voter fraud on behalf of Hamas, the Palestinians should be judged by the choices they have made this week. They have chosen war and the annihilation of Israel over the two-state solution favored publicly (if not fervently) by Fatah. Europe and the United States need to wake up from their delusional dreamland of a situation where both sides in this conflict want a peaceful conclusion and a world without hatred for their children and grandchildren. Clearly, the Palestinians want war, and they have made no secret of using their children and grandchildren as bomb fuses in order to perpetuate it.

The first item on our list should be an absolute end to all aid to the Palestinian territories and government. The US should not subsidize Hamas, nor should it give money to a people whose only aim appears to be genocide.

Second, the US should allow Israel to respond militarily to any and all provocations -- no more pressure from Washington on Tel Aviv to moderate their responses to suicide bombings and missile attacks. And if Hamas and the Palestinians still want to wage war after that, then let the IDF roll across the West Bank and Gaza Strip and push the whole lot of them right into the Jordan River and Mediterranean Sea. That's what total war means, and as soon as the world stops preventing the Palestinians from the risks of their own choices, the sooner they will conclude that war is the worst possible choice for them.

It's hard to find cause for optimism in the results of this election. The Palestinian people know what Hamas stands for, and, in what will probably have been an act of ethnic suicide, they pulled the lever for them. There is no people in the history of the world who have so deliberately thrown in their lot with terrorism. Any hope for peace in the Middle East has gone by the boards. Short of a miracle, war is as inevitable in Palestine as anything in human affairs can be.

The Palestinians had a chance to establish a state in Gaza and the West Bank if they would be willing to live in peace with the Israelis, but in yet another manifestation of the Islamic death wish, they loudly proclaimed in the election Wednesday that they are not so willing. They have chosen their fate, and the U.S. should, as Morrissey insists, stop subsidizing them immediately. We can not, and must not, have anything to do with a terrorist state, much less send them taxpayer money to finance their crimes. May God help the innocent Palestinians who didn't want Hamas and who will surely get caught in the middle of the coming conflict. Their government certainly won't.

UPDATE: Emanuele Ottolenghi writes that Hamas' electoral victory was not what they wanted and will be its undoing. It's a very interesting column. You can read it here.

The Alito Vote

It appears that the vote to confirm Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court will take place Tuesday at 11:30 a.m. So far about 86 senators have declared their intentions, 55 saying they will vote for Alito and 31 declaring that they'll oppose him. It looks like the vote tally will come out around 58 to 42. Of the remaining fourteen votes, Lincoln Chafee and Olympia Snowe are the two likeliest Republicans to vote nay. Among Democrats there are four who are possible yes votes: Conrad, Dorgan, Landrieu, and Pryor.

There's been talk of a filibuster, John Kerry has called for one, but it's going nowhere. To end a filibuster requires 60 votes and even some of the Democrats who intend to vote against Alito have said they will vote to stop one. With 58 senators already on record as supporting Alito and several others opposed to a filibuster it doesn't look like the Democrats will be able to pull it off. Even Harry Reid has said it won't happen.

The upshot of all this is that on Tuesday George Bush will have his second Supreme Court nominee confirmed. With three years left in his presidency he's quite likely to get yet a third opportunity. The Left, already guzzling Maalox like it was water, will be apoplectic.

E.O. Wilson on ID

In a recent column in USA Today biologist E.O. Wilson writes that evolution is a fact and there's no point in denying it. Intelligent Design, on the other hand, is untestable and it's pointless to try to make it into a science:

Modern biology has arrived at two major principles that are supported by so much interlocking evidence as to rank as virtual laws of nature. The first is that all biological elements and processes are ultimately obedient to the laws of physics and chemistry. The second principle is that all life has evolved by random mutation and natural selection.

Although as many as half of Americans choose not to believe it, evolution, including the origin of species, is an undeniable fact. Furthermore, the evidence supporting the principle of natural selection has improved year by year, and it is accepted with virtual unanimity by the biologists who have put it to the test.

Scientists are not opposed to the search for intelligent design, only to the claim that it is supported by scientific evidence. To think otherwise is to misunderstand the culture of science. Discoveries and the testing of discoveries are the currency of science; they are our silver and gold.

If positive and repeatable evidence were adduced for an intelligent force that created and guided the evolution of life, it would deservedly rank as one of the greatest scientific achievements of all time. I doubt that there is a researcher alive who would not race to make such a breakthrough if the minimum criteria of science could be met.

Wilson here commits a common mistake in this debate. He assumes that ID is something which requires its own evidence, as though the evidence for design is somehow qualitatively other than the facts that can be found in any cosmology or biochemistry text. The evidence for ID is the evidence that is discovered by the scientist every day in his laboratory. That evidence belongs to everyone, not just the researchers who glean it, and the evidence is mountainous.

To suggest that the current dispute is about evidence is to misunderstand things entirely. The dispute is over how best to interpret evidence that scientists have been accumulating now for centuries. The crucial question is not which side has the most evidence but whether what we have discovered about life and the cosmos should be seen as the product of chance accident and serendipidity or whether it should be seen as the product of intention and purpose. Complaints about the lack of evidence for a designer are red herrings in this controversy.

He goes on to write that:

Biology is biology, conservative Christianity is conservative Christianity. The two world views - science-based explanations and faith-based religions - cannot be reconciled.

What then are we to do? Put the differences aside, I say. Meet on common ground where we can find it. An excellent example taking form is the cooperation between science and religion, the two most powerful forces in the world, to protect Earth's vanishing natural habitats and species - in other words, the Creation, however we believe it came into existence.

Oops. Where does this come from? If religion, the realm of values, should stay out of science, and vice versa, how does a scientist make a value judgment such as that we ought to save the earth's natural habitats? A Christian can certainly conclude this from the mandate we have to be stewards of the earth, but how does a scientist who, qua scientist, can say nothing of values and morals and scriptural mandates, arrive at this conclusion, much less take it for granted.

Wilson finds that he can't live consistently by the principles he espouses, and so from time to time he, and other scientists, slip off their lab coats, enter the metaphysician's study, and think no one will notice. That's fine in their personal lives but it is disingenuous of them to use their authority as scientists to pontificate on values while at the same time they try to hold up a wall of separation between the realm of facts (science) and the realm of values (religion, philosophy).

Wilson wrote a wonderful book on ants. Anything he tells me about ant behavior I will certainly accept on his authority. But as a philosopher ... well, he's a great entomologist.

Great Game Plan

So a major terrorist organization swept to victory in Palestine. Iran is on the verge of getting nuclear weapons. Bin Laden is threatening us with more death and destruction. And what are the Democrats trying to do? Get George Bush impeached for surveilling telephone calls in which one of the parties is a foreign terrorist suspect. Yesindeedee, that'll be a winner with the American people in November.

Combat Zones: Foreign and Domestic

A friend passes along this observation:

If you consider that there have been an average of 160,000 troops in the Iraq theater of operations during the last 22 months, and a total of 2112 deaths, that gives a combat death rate of 60 per 100,000.

The firearm death rate in Washington D.C. is 80.6 per 100,000. That means that you are about 25% more likely to be shot and killed in our Nation's Capitol, which has some of the strictest gun control laws in the nation, than you are in Iraq.

Conclusion: We should immediately pull out of Washington D.C.

We don't vouch for the accuracy of the figures, but if they're correct perhaps Nancy Pelosi, John Murtha, and Ted Kennedy will organize the exodus.

Alternate Universe at the NYT

The New York Times treats its readers to one of the most implausible analyses of the GWOT, perhaps, that has appeared to date in any major newspaper. The editorial, titled al-Qaeda is Winning, is written by Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon:

Had Americans ....listened [to Osama's tape] with the ears of those for whom the message was intended - Muslims around the world - they would have heard something very different. Instead of a weak Osama bin Laden, they would have heard a magnanimous one who could offer a truce because "the war in Iraq is raging, and the operations in Afghanistan are on the rise in our favor." Mr. bin Laden staked his claim to leadership of the Muslim world on 9/11, striking us as others only dreamed of doing. On the tape, he shows strength by taking credit for America's humiliation in Iraq and continues to do what we are not: fighting for the hearts and minds of the Muslim world.

Yes, but even Islamist true-believers must know that truces are not offered, especially by Islamists, when the correlation of forces is in their favor. They are not signs of strength. They're offered when one side feels the need to regroup, reorganize, catch their breath and slow down a superior force. If Osama is using words like "truce" it's only because he sees the jittery leadership of his movement casting sidelong glances toward the skies in a worried search for predator drones, and he sees his forces in Iraq being cut to pieces, not just by Americans, but by Iraqi militias. He's losing in Iraq, he has lost in Afghanistan, and if any more of his lieutenants are visited in the middle of the night by hellfire missiles his organizational structure will begin to crumble. That's why he's calling for a truce.

It is too early to say how this tape will affect Muslim opinion, but there is no doubt that Mr. bin Laden's strategy has been paying off. According to a poll released last month by Shibley Telhami of the University of Maryland and Zogby International, when Muslims in several countries were asked what aspect of Al Qaeda they "sympathize" with most, 39 percent said it was because the group confronted the United States. Nearly 20 percent more sympathized because it "stands up for Muslim causes," which is really just a polite way of saying the same thing.

How is this poll result any different than those obtained in polls after 9/11 or prior to the invasion of Iraq? Indeed, in the wake of 9/11 one could buy Osama t-shirts in the markets of almost every Muslim city, but they're considerably more scarce today than they were then. Al-Qaeda has alienated large swatches of Muslims through their attempted WMD attack in Jordan, their murderous attacks in Saudi Arabia, the attempts on the life of Pakistan's Prime minister Musharraf, and the savagery of their war on Iraqi civilians. To say that bin Laden's strategy is working seems needlessly pessimistic.

Two other phenomena also show the movement to be strengthening. The first is the emerging breed of self-starter terrorists with few or no ties to Osama bin Laden, like the Madrid and London bombers, and others who have been arrested before they were able to carry out attacks in Pakistan, Australia and elsewhere. The second is the emergence of an indigenous jihad in Iraq. Much is said about the foreign fighters in Iraq, but the truly dramatic development is the radicalization of Iraqis who will continue the insurgency or travel abroad to kill, like those who bombed three Western hotels in Jordan in November.

Perhaps Benjamin and Simon are a pair of twenty-somethings with short historical horizons, but the "self-starters" are not a novel development. They've been around since the 1970s. The indigenous jihad in Iraq is, even as you read this, largely occupied fighting al-Qaeda foreigners and running for political office. Those who are still engaged in trying to run the infidels out of their country find themselves more and more often confronted by competent Iraqi military units rather than Americans.

Despite so much evidence that the jihadists are winning sympathy, America has provided no counter-story to their narrative.

The evidence to which the authors refer exists only in their own minds. Unless they are aware of facts that have not yet been made public there's very little reason to think that the jihadists have more sympathy among their co-religionists today than they did six months or a year ago and lots of reasons, as we've outlined above, to think that they have less.

The American counter-story, for those who have been paying attention, has been the progress made by the people of Afghanistan and the purple fingers of the people in Iraq.

What's the Big Deal?

There's lots of outrage in the conservative blogosphere over this column by Joel Stein, and we're not really sure why. Here are some of his more provocative passages:

I don't support our troops.... I've got no problem with other people - the ones who were for the Iraq war - supporting the troops. If you think invading Iraq was a good idea, then by all means, support away.

But I'm not for the war. And being against the war and saying you support the troops is one of the wussiest positions the pacifists have ever taken - and they're wussy by definition. It's as if the one lesson they took away from Vietnam wasn't to avoid foreign conflicts with no pressing national interest but to remember to throw a parade afterward.

Blindly lending support to our soldiers, I fear, will keep them overseas longer by giving soft acquiescence to the hawks who sent them there - and who might one day want to send them somewhere else.

The truth is that people who pull triggers are ultimately responsible, whether they're following orders or not. An army of people making individual moral choices may be inefficient, but an army of people ignoring their morality is horrifying.

I'm not advocating that we spit on returning veterans like they did after the Vietnam War, but we shouldn't be celebrating people for doing something we don't think was a good idea. All I'm asking is that we give our returning soldiers what they need: hospitals, pensions, mental health and a safe, immediate return. But, please, no parades.

Frankly, we don't know what all the fuss is about. Stein is simply saying honestly and without rancor what almost every liberal Democrat thinks but doesn't have the courage to admit because it would be political and social suicide to do so. Stein's right. It makes no sense to say the war is an immoral unsupportable undertaking but that you nevertheless "support" the troops. Exactly how does one support the troops if they're perpetuating what one believes to be a great wrong?

Fault Stein for being wrong about the war. Fault him for thinking Kosovo was worth fighting for but Afghanistan and Iraq are not, but don't fault him on the one point about which he's correct. Rather fault his fellow liberals for lacking the integrity to admit that they agree with him.

Damadola

Clarice Feldman of The American Thinker has a pair of posts here and here on the Damadola airstrike that sheds some light on exactly how well-planned the attack was and who was killed in it. Feldman thinks Zawahiri was among the casualties but that no one wants to say so definitively since his corpse has not been recovered.

Not counting Zawahiri, it looks like six senior al-Qaeda leaders were in the houses that were struck. Feldman quotes milblogger Dan Darling:

I have a Weekly Standard piece on the death of Abu Khabab coming out pretty soon, but for those who are interested here are all of the al-Qaeda leaders who have been listed as being killed in Damadola at present according to media reports:

Abu Khabab al-Masri (WMD committee head); Abd Rahman al-Masri al-Maghribi (al-Zawahiri's son-in-law, al-Qaeda commander); Abu Ubeidah al-Masri (Kunar operations chief); Marwan al-Suri (Waziristan operations chief); Khalid Habib (southeastern Afghanistan commander); Abdul Hadi al-Iraqi (southwestern Afghanistan commander);

Add to that Maulana Faqir Mohammed and Maulana Liaqat (local leaders of the Tehrik Nifaz-e-Sha'riah Mohammed, apparently) and it looks like that was quite a dinner they had planned. I would have settled for nailing Khabab alone, but this looks like the biggest single decapitation strike on the al-Qaeda leadership since Tora Bora.

If the terrorists are now realizing that they can't hide forever even in a desolate place like Waziristan, if they're realizing that they're nowhere safe, it will have the effect of considerably ratcheting up the stress and weariness that must already afflict them. This in turn, one hopes, will lead to careless decisions, producing more casualties, which will lead to yet more stress, and so on in a runaway feedback loop.

The problem for the senior leadership is there's no way out. They can't surrender nor can they just quit their war and go home. To do either would be the psychological nail in the coffin of global jihad. The only path left to them is to fight and sooner or later be suddenly killed by an unseen predator drone and a hellfire missile. That realization must be extremely hard on those men and their families, but they asked for this hell in which they live and which they've created for others. They have made it clear that they are at war with the West, a fight to the death.

There's no easy way out for us either. We must either fight or, eventually, capitulate to Islamic will. Either we relentlessly pursue the al-Qaeda leadership and thoroughly demoralize those who follow them or we can look forward to a world where our granddaughters wear burkhas and our grandsons memorize the Koran. Either we defeat them or watch darkness descend over the world. There's no other alternative.

Orlando ID Debate

Barry Carey at withallyourmind attended a debate in Orlando between anti-IDer and philosopher of science Michael Ruse and pro-IDer theology and history of science professor Thomas Woodward. Carey is posting a series summarizing the debate. Here are his initial impressions:

On Thursday, 1/19/06, I attended a debate between Thomas Woodward, Professor of Theology and History of Science, and Michael Ruse, Florida State University Philosopher of Biology. The debate was called, "Intelligent Design versus Darwinian Evolution". The question posed was this: "Does nature demonstrate a design planned by a superior intelligence, say God, or can it be sufficiently explained by purely naturalistic processes such as evolution through natural selection?"

I have a number of thoughts that I might share in my next few blogs. First, let me comment on the general tone of the debate. The two gentleman were civil enough, but it was obvious that each employed a different strategy. Professor Woodward attempted to present Darwinism as a theory with serious problems and Intelligent Design as a scientific theory which is preferable to Darwinism. Professor Ruse on the other hand assured the audience that every respectable scientist embraces Darwinism and that ID is "creation light" and the result of a few "idiosyncratic evangelicals in America". I must say that I was once again surprised that the Darwinian argument was much less focused on the science and much more directed on presenting a caricature of Intelligent Design. Ruse was a very funny and personable speaker, however, I was very disappointed in the substance of his presentation.

His second and third posts on the debate can be found here and here.

Daniel Dennett at the NYT

In an otherwise unremarkable Q&A with Tufts atheistic philosopher Daniel Dennett in the New York Times Magazine interviewer Deborah Solomon says this:

Solomon: If we knew for sure that God existed, it would not require a leap of faith to believe in him.

Dennett: Isn't it interesting that you want to take that leap? Why do you want to take that leap? Why does our craving for God persist? It may be that we need it for something. It may be that we don't need it, and it is left over from something that we used to be. There are lots of biological possibilities.

Viewpoint: Yes, and among those possibilities is that evolution shapes us to conform our beliefs to reality. It would be odd if natural selection molded the human species to embrace with our whole beings beliefs which were radically at odds with the way the world is. It's not impossible, of course, but it's strange that Dennett doesn't seem willing to consider the possibility.

As to his question as to why anyone should want to "take that leap" - actually more of a step than a leap - the simplest answer is that unless one does take it one must admit that there's no meaning to life, no basis for moral judgment, no hope for ultimate justice, no basis for human worth, dignity, or rights, no reason to think there is an enduring self, no hope that those we love who have died are not gone forever, and indeed, no reason for thinking that love itself is anything more than body chemistry, no reason why we should trust our reason to lead us to truth, nor any reason why we should value true beliefs over false ones.

In other words, apart from taking that "leap" human existence is nothing but a depressing tale told by an idiot, signifying nothing. The rational response to a universe in which there is no God is hopelessness, despair, and nihilism. That Dennett himself doesn't wind up there suggests only that he doesn't follow his beliefs to their logical conclusions, no doubt because he couldn't live with those conclusions.

Someone may wish to "take that leap," furthermore, because they find the materialist explanation for the breathtaking fine-tuning of the physical universe and the astonishing organization and complexity of living things to be little better than a fairy tale. It may be that one takes the leap because believing that accident and coincidence, purposeless chance and unguided force, are responsible for creating structures and phenomena which even materialists describe as brilliant and ingenious, is quite literally incredible.

Solomon: I take it you do not subscribe to the idea of an everlasting soul, which is part of almost every religion.

Dennett: Ugh. I certainly don't believe in the soul as an enduring entity. Our brains are made of neurons, and nothing else. Nerve cells are very complicated mechanical systems. You take enough of those, and you put them together, and you get a soul.

Viewpoint: This is one way of looking at things, I suppose - the soul, life, emotions, and consciousness are nothing but atoms which have reached a certain critical mass and give rise to certain astounding emergent phenomena - but it's not the only way. We need not accept Dennett's dehumanizing reductionistic materialism, a view which, by the way, is thoroughly unscientific because there's no way to test it in order to grant that he might be right that there's no soul, in the classic sense, residing in persons.

It could be that the soul is not some gossamer, wraith-like entity that inhabits our body like a ghost-in-a-machine, to use Gilbert Ryle's famous metaphor. Perhaps instead we can think of it as the sum total of information which describes us as a person. It is, on this view, the totality of our history, our personality, hopes, dreams, loves, and fears. It encompasses a complete description of our physical, emotional, and moral selves. It is a comprehensive account of every aspect of our being all stored like a computer file folder in the data base that is the mind of God. As such it is eternal and indestructible unless God chooses to delete it. Even at the death of the body we have the potential to exist as long as God holds us (the information which describes us) in being in His mind. God may, if He chooses, reinstantiate us when our body gives out by downloading selected files from our folder into another suitable structure in some other reality.

Thus Dennett could be correct that we (our bodies) are comprised solely of material substance (I don't think he is, though, because I have my doubts that matter alone can fully explain consciousness) but he could still be wrong in asserting that there is no soul.

In any event, materialism of the sort that Dennett espouses is an existentially sterile view of life which people hold, not because they're compelled by science to accept it, but because it enables them to avoid having to believe in God, the concept of which they find repugnant.

SNL

The Political Teen has a video clip of a recent SNL spoof of some of our favorite Democrats. It'll make you chuckle, especially the guy who does Jesse Jackson. He sounds more like Jackson than Jackson does. Go to the link and scroll down to Download.

Hoodwinked!

Looking for a good movie to see with the kids? Christianity Today recommends Hoodwinked!:

Kids were laughing, and even more surprising, their parents were laughing all the way through this inventive, fast-paced caper. Hoodwinked! dismantles the traditional tale of Little Red Riding Hood, uncovering the various untold stories behind each major player-Red (voiced by Anne Hathaway), the Wolf (Patrick Warburton), the Woodsman (Jim Belushi), and Granny (Glenn Close). A host of new characters play memorable supporting roles, including the funniest mountain goat you've ever seen (Benjy Gaither, son of the gospel music legends Bill and Gloria Gaither), a grizzly policeman (Xzibit), a hyperactive squirrel (Cory Edwards), and a frog who should get his own series on PBS' "Mystery!" (David Ogden Stiers).

Box office analysts had predicted a showdown between the basketball movie Glory Road and the Queen Latifah comedy Last Holiday. But now you can call Edwards' film "The Little Red Riding Hood that Could." Edwards, already working on a sequel, is something of a pioneer, as a Christian working in the world of big screen animation-as Peter T. Chattaway notes in his review at Christianity Today Movies, Edwards is also known for his stand-up comedy and for hosting Reasons to Believe with Hugh Ross.

Edwards recently told me that Looney Tunes cartoons were a big influence on him and his co-writers, Todd Edwards and Tony Leech. "People keep asking how you write for adults and for kids, and I still haven't figured out a good answer. All we did was write what we thought was funny." He points out that Chuck Jones and Pixar's John Lasseter have claimed the same thing. "We just write for us. I don't know if that means we're a little bit childish, but we wrote what was funny for us. And I think kids are faster and more quick-witted than we sometimes think. I've written kids' 'product,' but I never write down to children. Even when there's a few jokes they can't quite grasp, they're glad to be a part of it. They're glad to be laughing with the adults."

Edwards, who said he "never thought that my first film would be animated," had also served as producer on Chillicothe, a 1999 independent, live-action film directed by his brother Todd which won favorable reviews at festivals. He also created Wobots, a computer-animated sci-fi adventure for kids released on DVD. Hoodwinked! has made him think about more animated projects, and he describes the experience as "a control freak's dream. 'Can we move the sun over there? Can we delete these trees?'" But he confesses, "I can't wait to get actors in front of cameras again, after being in a room with computers for three years."

Christian film critics are especially impressed at how the film entertains without stooping to crass humor.

Chattaway begins his review by asking readers, "Looking for something a little like VeggieTales, only a little more grown-up and a little more mainstream? Looking for something a little like Shrek, but without the innuendo and other kinds of adolescent humor? Either way, Hoodwinked! may be the movie for you."

He calls the film "a wacky, computer-animated riff on classic stories, with a few decidedly modern twists and a handful of pop-culture references. It's also safe for most kids." He points out that some of the jokes are "out of date" and that the animation is less sophisticated than what super-studios like Pixar and Dreamworks turn out. But he concludes that "there's something to be said for keeping the special effects out of the way and letting audiences enjoy the humor for what it is. Hoodwinked! isn't a classic for the ages, but it's suitable entertainment for audiences of any age."

"It is a rare movie that is truly funny for both kids and their parents," says Stephen McGarvey (Crosswalk). "Yet the comical Hoodwinked! is a surprisingly hysterical offering after a year of underwhelming computer animated films. [The movie] ... provides a clever bit of comic storytelling while steering clear of the innuendo or crudity common in even children's movies these days."

Bob Smithouser (Plugged In) says, "Hoodwinked! is clean, clever and fast-paced. ... [U]nlike Shrek's shotgun tweaking of all tales fairy, this witty CG feature deconstructs a single fable and does it without resorting to crude language, double entendres or bathroom humor. Furthermore, I didn't feel like I was doing penance sitting through it a second time with my kids. Older, more sophisticated viewers will appreciate the story for its intricate architecture, snappy dialogue, outstanding voice work ... and subtle cultural references."

Mainstream critics aren't quite as enthusiastic. Some are discrediting it for not living up to the animation standards of a Pixar or Dreamworks picture, but this was a hurriedly made, lower-budget feature from an fledgling animation studio. The fact that the film is consistently funny, clever, and entertaining in spite of its B-grade CGI makes it a worthwhile time at the movies.

It's no surprise that a children's movie that doesn't feature violence, sexual innuendo, bathroom jokes, or hint at gay romance would not be well received by mainstream critics. All the more reason, we suppose, to make it a point to go see it.

Osama is Just Alright With Him

In case there was any doubt as to where the allegiance of many on the American left lies one might note the reaction of author/historian William Blum to having his book receive a favorable endorsement from none other than Osama bin Laden himself. Blum responded with these words:

"This is almost as good as being an Oprah book....I was not turned off by such an endorsement....I'm not repulsed, and I'm not going to pretend I am."

Of course not. It's a great privilege for such as William Blum to have his book praised by a dread enemy of the United States. The man who would gleefully and deliberately incinerate every American child, if only he could, honors Mr. Blum with his endorsement, and Mr Blum is star-struck by the praise.

In fact, we hear that Mr. Blum was reported by neighbors to have been overheard singing in his shower the words to the old Byrds/Doobie Brothers song:

Osama is just alright with me, Osama is just alright, oh yeah

Osama is just alright with me, Osama is just alright

I don't care what they may say

I don't care what they may do

I don't care what they may say

Osama is just alright, oh yeah

Osama is just alright

I don't care what they may know

I don't care where they may go

I don't care what they may know

Osama is just alright, oh yeah

Sorry. We got a little carried away.

<i>Insense</i>

A trio of young men of my acquaintance have started up a new blog called Insense that addresses matters of religion, music, science and whatever else strikes their fancy. They're doing a nice job with it, and it deserves a look.

Bork's Last Laugh

Cass Sunstein laments that Robert Bork is having the last laugh. Samuel Alito, he claims, holds to a view of the Constitution indistinguishable from that of Judge Bork who was refused confirmation to the Supreme Court in 1987 because he believed that the document should be interpreted according to the original intention of its framers. This appalled scholarly luminaries like Ted Kennedy and Arlen Specter who saw the right to an abortion going up in smoke if it had to actually have Constitutional warrant. Bork was slimed and subsequent nominees, who were loath to endorse the judicial propriety of Roe v. Wade, nevertheless were skittish about abjuring it. Thus, we got Anthony Kennedy and David Souter.

As Sunstein observes, however, John Roberts began a reversal of this trend:

Significantly, however, John Roberts did not follow the script set by his Republican predecessors. His overall message was much simpler: He would follow the law. At the same time, he announced, "I do not have an overarching judicial philosophy that I bring to every case." He explained, "I tend to look at the cases from the bottom up rather than the top down."

Samuel Alito largely followed Roberts's script, but at key points he was much more specific. Asked about his general approach, he said, "I think we should look to the text of the Constitution, and we should look to the meaning that someone would have taken from the text of the Constitution at the time of its adoption." He also said that "it is the job of a judge, the job of a Supreme Court justice, to interpret the Constitution, not distort the Constitution, not add to the Constitution or subtract from the Constitution."

Although Alito offered various qualifications, this is Bork's view in a nutshell. Remarkably, Alito's statements to this effect have received essentially no public attention....One reason may be that unlike Bork, Alito did not argue for disturbing results, such as the abolition of the privacy right. But the most important point is the development of a new script for confirmation -- one that emphasizes fidelity to law, an idea that might well include favorable references to Bork's approach to the Constitution.

This is a fundamental change, one that signals a huge victory by Republican politicians.

Imagine. Expecting judges to have fidelity to law represents a fundamental change in the way we confirm people for judgeships. No wonder the liberals are upset. Bush is filling the Court with people who will be faithful to the law instead of people who will be making it up. This must be why Hillary thinks this is the most incompetent administration in history.