The Greatest Threat to Free Speech

A lot of Christians are very upset about what they see as an assault on their faith by The Da Vinci Code. Some are threatening legal action, at least in Europe. It is ironic that the movie houses and filmmakers, both of which stand to make a boodle on this film, would never have dreamed of making or showing a film which debunked or embarrassed Islam. Muslims have managed to frighten Hollywood into a state of craven self-censorship.

As Joseph Bottum writes at First Things the lesson will not be lost on the fringe elements among Christians who will ask themselves why violence should not be used if it works so effectively.

An entertainment culture that regularly perpetrates the most disgusting insults on the Christian faith, knowing that Christians will not slit their throats over it, recoils in terror from printing a few bland cartoons of Mohammed.

The greatest threat to free speech in this country is the willingness of those who make their living off of it to exploit it to offend only those who will not punish them for it. What good is free speech, people are going to wonder, if it can be employed to satirize one group but not another? What good is it if those who threaten violence are exempted from its barbs?

The failure of the media and the entertainment industry to stand up to Islamic intimidation will only encourage others who have been offended by those institutions, which depend upon the protections of the first amendment, to threaten violence themselves.

Robert Wright Discusses the Anthropic Principle

Robert wright interviews a number of thinkers who grapple with the telic implications of the anthropic principle. A brief video clip of a particularly interesting session with physicist turned theologian John Polkinghorne is here, and links to interviews with Freeman Dyson, Owen Gingrich, and Brian Swimme can be found there as well. Swimme, by the way, does a pretty good job of convincing the listener that the universe must have been designed while trying vigorously to avoid that conclusion himself.

It seems to many that our universe is so astonishingly fine-tuned for life that either it is the product of purposeful design or there must exist a near infinite number of other universes in addition to our own. If there are enough worlds, the thinking goes, then every possible world, no matter how improbable, would have to exist among them. Since ours is a possible world it would have to exist, and therefore we shouldn't be too surprised that it does.

A lot of thinkers, including many who don't want to accept the conclusion that our world is intentionally designed, are very uncomfortable with the many-worlds hypothesis. They don't like the fact that there is no evidence for other worlds, and it's hard to imagine how there could be or how any test for another universe could be conducted. They're also uncomfortable with the obvious flouting of the principle that the most parsimonious explanations which fit all the facts are to be preferred in both science and philosophy. There's nothing parsimonious about an explanation which posits a near infinite number of entities that no one has, or could, observe. Moreover, the source of these other worlds seems problematic. How are they being produced? Is there some sort of universe generator that manufactures universes? If so, what sorts of laws would govern it? Where did it come from?

Finally, we might ask of the advocates of the many-worlds hypothesis why it is, given that we have evidence of minds producing order, complexity and fine-tuning but no evidence of other worlds existing, that they would embrace the speculation that they do. If this embrace is merely an act of desperation to enable them to escape the inference that there is a cosmic designer then why do they feel the need to do that? Why is the existence of a cosmic designer more philosophically repugnant to them than the existence of an infinite number of worlds?

Global Warming

Worried about global warming or do you think global warming is a bunch of hooey? Either way, Mark Steyn's column on the matter, like his columns on just about any matter, is a must read:

Do you worry? You look like you do. Worrying is the way the responsible citizen of an advanced society demonstrates his virtue: He feels good by feeling bad.

But what to worry about? Iranian nukes? Nah, that's just some racket cooked up by the Christian fundamentalist Bush and his Zionist buddies to give Halliburton a pretext to take over the Persian carpet industry. Worrying about nukes is so '80s. "They make me want to throw up. . . . They make me feel sick to my stomach," wrote the British novelist Martin Amis, who couldn't stop thinking about them 20 years ago. In the intro to a collection of short stories, he worried about the Big One and outlined his own plan for coping with a nuclear winter wonderland:

"Suppose I survive," he fretted. "Suppose my eyes aren't pouring down my face, suppose I am untouched by the hurricane of secondary missiles that all mortar, metal and glass has abruptly become: Suppose all this. I shall be obliged (and it's the last thing I feel like doing) to retrace that long mile home, through the firestorm, the remains of the thousands-miles-an-hour winds, the warped atoms, the groveling dead. Then -- God willing, if I still have the strength, and, of course, if they are still alive -- I must find my wife and children and I must kill them."

But the Big One never fell. And instead of killing his wife Martin Amis had to make do with divorcing her.

Read the rest at the link. It's funny.

For Puzzle-Solvers

Those readers who enjoy a challenging diversion now and then are invited to go here and see if you can figure out how the gap in the second triangle is created simply by rearranging the parts of the first.

The answer appears in the comments below the diagrams.

Taking Down the Bad Guys

Task Force 145, the special operations outfit assigned to hunt al-Zarqawi and other high value targets, struck over the weekend in Samarra. Bill Roggio has the report:

Over the past month, Task Force 145, the special operations unit designated to hunt Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and other high value al-Qaeda targets, has dismantled al-Qaeda cells in the cities of Yusifiyah and Balad. It appears Task Force 145 has struck at two more al-Qaeda cells and killed a senior member of Ansar al-Islam over the weekend. On Friday, two al-Qaeda cells were dismantled near the city of Samarra.

On Saturday, [the task force arrested or killed] Ali Wali (a.k.a. Abbas bin Farnas bin Qafqa) who is described as "Ansar al-Islam's military command responsible for training and military operations including the planning of suicide operations, ambushes and kidnappings... an expert in the implementation of explosives as well as in the use of artillery, tanks and anti-aircraft weapons... and allegedly was an expert in toxins and poisons."

Here is how CENTCOM describes the action in their press release:

As the troops moved to intercept a vehicle occupied by three suspected al-Qaida associates, the assault force simultaneously took small arms fire from a nearby house. While the troops positioned to stop the car, armed men exited the house, two carrying shoulder-fired rocket launchers and one firing a light machine gun. The forces quickly neutralized the threat emanating from the structure, located approximately 20 kilometers southwest of Samarra, with small arms and rockets fired from supporting aircraft. The troops then detained the three suspects located in the vehicle, finding two AK-47s, ammunition, two improvised grenades and one hand grenade. The forces were then provided another location of a second, related vehicle occupied by suspected al-Qaida associates; two more detainees were taken after the troops stopped the vehicle approximately 15 kilometers east of the first intercepted automobile. Troops later searched the safe house discovering mortar rounds and grenades. One of the five suspects detained is believed to be a senior al-Qaida associate. All are currently being questioned for their level and involvement in terrorist activity.

Roggio goes on to tell us that:

In related news, another "High-ranking leader of terrorist organization Al Qaeda" was arrested in the Shiite holy city of Karbala. Abdel Fatih Isa (a.k.a. Abu Aisha) is described as "the chief organizers of terrorist acts in capital Baghdad. According to military sources Abu Aisha was an officer from the Iraqi army during Saddam Hussein's rule..." The myth that secular Baathist and radical Islamists would never collaborate should be sufficiently shattered at this point.

Karbala and Baghdad have been targeted by suicide bombers over the past day, killing upwards of thirty Iraqis. The arrest of Abu Aisha may have spurred the attacks, as he can now compromise his network while under interrogation. His network is aware he is missing, and now are forced to "use it or lose it" as Task Force 145 is likely on the hunt.

The MSM always portrays a flurry of bombings as an indicator of the insurgency's continued vigor when in fact it may be a sign of waning capabilities due to the attrition of their leaders and material assets. To see what a difficult situation al-Qaeda has gotten itself into in Iraq read Ed Morrissey's analysis of a captured document penned by an al-Qaeda source and just released by CENTCOM.

The Democrats say we're losing in Iraq. By "losing" they evidently mean that we're winning more slowly than they think we should.

GOP Dithers at its Peril

John Fund at Opinion Journal lays out some of the reasons why Republicans are in trouble in 2006 and may lose their majority in the House of Representatives. If they do, they have nobody to blame but themselves:

Ken Mehlman is the unflappable efficiency expert who chairs the Republican National Committee. Because he's not known for histrionics, his warning last week to GOP congressional staffers about this November's elections caused many on Capitol Hill to bolt upright.

Mr. Mehlman traveled to Capitol Hill to warn the staffers that they risked a disaster at the polls if they didn't pass meaningful legislation the conservative base cares about. Other GOP strategists go even further. "If the election were held today, I'd say the odds are 90% that we'd lose the House," says GOP consultant Mike Murphy.

Other Republicans aren't as gloomy, but they warn the GOP Congress has to act on a range of issues soon. Some polls show public disapproval of the GOP among conservatives reaching dangerously high levels. A new Fox News/Opinion Dynamics poll found that only 66% of Republicans now approve of President Bush's performance. A new Associated Press/Public Affairs poll found 45% of self-identified conservatives disapprove of Mr. Bush's job as president, and 65% disapprove of the GOP Congress.

Republicans are notorious for going into a prevent defense as soon as they get the lead. Once they captured the majority they simply stopped governing and settled for not losing. They ceased trying to institute conservative reforms in spending and immigration, especially, grovelled whenever the Democrats threatened to resist what initiatives they did come up with, and waxed apologetic whenever the Democrats accused them of being meanies. If in November the voters spank them for their indolence and timidity they will have deserved it.

One bright spot is that the Democrats have offered absolutely nothing to the voters except the assurance that they're not Republicans and the tacit promise that if they regain the House Bush will be impeached. As bad as the Republicans are the Democrats are much worse.

While the world is spinning out of control, the country is running serious deficits, our borders are wide open to anyone who wants to cross, the Republicans sit on their hands, and the Democrats seek revenge for the Clinton embarrassments. Makes you wonder why we send these people our taxes every year.

A Natural Law Case Against Torture

A friend directs our attention to a piece by Dane Shelly at the Institute For Global Engagement in which he outlines an argument which concludes that torture is an absolute moral wrong. After using the piano to illustrate that there are both proper and improper uses to which anything can be put, he writes:

Humans, no less than pianos, are created for a purpose. Treating them in ways that do not conform to that purpose is simply wrong. For this reason, torture is always wrong because that is not what we were created for.

God created humans in a way that gives moral weight to how we treat others. Torture, then, offends the natural order (and its Creator) for two reasons: Humans were not created to torture others, and humans were not created to be tortured.

The problem with Shelly's argument is that one can agree with everything he says without being compelled to accept his conclusion that torture is absolutely wrong. A couple of counterexamples may serve to show why.

Humans were not created to live in prison, or to imprison others, and therefore it would be wrong to incarcerate someone, unless there is just cause for doing so. The fact that imprisonment is a state of affairs for which we were not designed does not make it absolutely wrong.

I don't know how Shelly feels about gay marriage, but his premises would demand that he find it absolutely wrong since we were not created for homoerotic sex. Indeed, humans were not designed for anal intercourse, so Shelly would have to say that it's absolutely immoral for couples, whether homo or heterosexual, to engage in it. Shelly may in fact hold to that position, but if he doesn't then he's acknowledging that just because a certain behavior is not one for which we were created or designed doesn't necessarily make it wrong.

There is a danger in seeking to absolutize particular behavioral acts, whether it be capital punishment, abortion, euthanasia, torture or whatever. There are certainly acts which are absolutely wrong (beating or burning a child, for example), but they are wrong because they always violate one or more of the absolute principles given to us in Scripture.

The Bible commands us absolutely to love God, do justice, and show compassion. Any act which is wrong is wrong because it violates one of these three imperatives. Torture, like killing, is almost always either unjust or uncompassionate, but there may be times, as there is with killing, when torture may be just and/or compassionate. In the same way that it may be both just and compassionate to kill a terrorist in order to save other peoples' lives, so, too, it may be both just and/or compassionate to torture him to save other peoples' lives. Of course, the terrorist himself might fail to see the compassion in it (Both justice and compassion constrain us to never inflict any more pain or suffering than what is necessary to elicit the life-saving information), but the would-be victims would certainly see it.

The existential burden of a thoughtful Christian life lies in trying to find the fulcrum around which justice and compassion balance. In the search for that pivot there are few easy answers.

Running Low on Resources

Jack Kelly of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports that George Bush recently got some encouraging news from one of his biggest critics, General Barry McCaffery:

Retired Gen. Barry McCaffrey, who served as President Clinton's drug czar and has been sharply critical of the Bush administration's conduct of the war, recently returned from a trip to Iraq.

He concluded: "The foreign jihadist fighters have been defeated as a strategic and operational threat to creation of an Iraqi government."

Kelly's article outlines the late misfortunes of al-Qaeda in Iraq and points out that their most effective weapon against the Iraqis, the suicide bomber, is a dwindling asset which, by its nature, is a non-renewable resource. In Kelly's view al-Qaeda is likely to have a diminishing role to play in the insurgency in Iraq. It's an interesting column.

Educating Characters

This news report contains an interesting nugget:

MT. LEBANON, Pa. -- The Mt. Lebanon School District is responding to a list of raunchy ratings about its students. The "Top 25" list of 2006 grades high school girls on their body parts, and it also describes in crude detail sexual information about the girls. In one case, a racial slur was used.

Channel 11 News learned a 17-year-old boy has been suspended in connection with the list. It's not clear how long that student will be suspended or if other students will be punished.

The superintendent, George Wilson, said he was appalled to hear about the list and assured parents the situation is being treated very seriously. In his statement Thursday, Wilson said, "No one can begin to understand the hurt, embarrassment and humiliation these young women have had to endure. Those proven to be responsible will receive consequences that include disciplinary action, a requirement for atonement and character education."

The nugget is those last two words. How, we wonder, is this student going to have his character educated in a public school setting? Exactly what will the education consist of? Will he simply be told that it's wrong to be disrespectful of others? What if he asks why it is wrong? I suspect that that question will call forth a lot of hemming and hawing and "everybody knows" type answers and such like, all of which will likely be very unpersuasive to the young miscreant.

When the courts required public schools to expel God from their classrooms and hallways they forced them to abandon the sole meaningful and effective basis for character education they had. The only approaches left to them now are either an appeal to force (e.g."Treat others with respect or else"), or an appeal to sentiment ("Don't you see how much you've hurt these girls?"). Of course, the problem may well be that the adolescent playboy doesn't much care that he's hurt these girls, and the appeal to force doesn't teach what's right, it only teaches what's prudent. Besides, there is something doubtful about a society which abhors the idea of people imposing their values on others letting Superintendent Wilson get away with doing exactly that at public expense.

Superintendent Wilson may think he can teach character, but if the young pervert asks any questions at all about why he should believe or accept anything he's being told, that'll be the end of the lesson. Good character, he will have learned, consists in doing what those who are in authority arbitrarily tell you to do.

Contempt For One's Betters

Richard Cohen is a journalist, a newspaper opinion writer. One might think that that fact would be the source for him of a certain humility, but one would be wrong. Despite the fact that Mr. Cohen has no formal training in the sciences or in the philosophy of science (if he does, he keeps it well-hidden), he nevertheless feels confident to hold forth on topics in which he has no expertise and to make bold, dogmatic pronouncements on matters concerning which he knows nothing.

In this column, for example, he declares Intelligent Design theory to be "idiocy." How, we wonder, did he arrive at this conclusion? What research has he done on the matter? What books has he published? The sheer pomposity and fatuous arrogance of a man who collectively calls hundreds of thinkers in philosophy and the sciences who've devoted their lives to thinking about these things idiots is beyond breathtaking.

Even so, it might be a teensy bit more credible if the rest of his piece were not so flimsy, but, alas, flimsy thinking is not alien to Mr. Cohen's style.

Enthusiastically recommending a book on sociobiology, the notion that all of evolution is driven by genes striving to perpetuate themselves into the next generation, he makes claims like this as if it was common knowledge among biologists:

For instance, they [our genes] have ensured that newborns in general are not only cute but look alike -- so the charmed but possibly cuckolded male will accept them as his own.

Perhaps he has interviewed a few genes to score this scoop, but otherwise it's appropriate to ask how he knows that this is why babies tend to look alike. Why couldn't they look alike because at early stages of development there are only so many possible variations of appearance so they pretty much have to look alike. Never mind, Professor Cohen just knows that babies look all the same so that cuckolded fathers won't suspect their wives' infidelity.

Of course, Professor Cohen, Ph.D seems uncurious as to why, as children continue to develop, they look more and more different. Why don't our genes ensure that we look alike all through childhood so that the father never gets suspicious? What good does it do for the father to accept the child as an infant only to reject it a year or so on when it begins to dawn on him that he's raising another man's child? There is, we are to suppose, a satisfactory sociobiological reason why children tend to gradually take on diverse appearances, but Dr. Cohen doesn't share it with us.

Another myth concerns those cute chimps, one of whom, J. Fred Muggs, once co-hosted the "Today" show. They have 99 percent of a human being's DNA sequence, which may explain why humans and chimps are the only creatures to make war.

Or it may not explain anything. Several species of ants also make war, and presumably they have very little DNA in common with either chimps or humans. Humans, chimps, and ants all make war. What follows? Nothing that I can see.

Evolution is making us less aggressive and smarter, since, clearly, brains are better than brawn in the modern world.

And just as clearly there's not much reason to think that this is any more true than the rest of what he has said in this piece. How the eminent scholar Prof. Cohen, Ph.D can make the assertion that "Evolution is making us less aggressive and smarter" in the wake of the bloodiest century in human history escapes me, but if he really believes it's true, it would be nice of him to at least tell us why he does, but he doesn't.

Having thusly impressed us with his erudition, Dr. Cohen concludes his essay with this:

It is an odd paradox of our times that as science relentlessly validates Darwin's genius, American social conservatives push back with such idiocies as "intelligent design." They should read this book -- it even explains the evolutionary basis of religion -- to appreciate what will happen to them.

The author of an essay so liberally sprinkled with error and misconception would do well not to call further attention to his own inadequacies by claiming his intellectual betters to be idiots.

Bad News, Good News

In Pennsylvania Governor Rendell is pulling ahead and Senator Santorum is pulling even.

HARRISBURG -- Aided by a $1-million-plus TV advertising blitz, Democratic Gov. Ed Rendell has opened a 14-point lead in his re-election campaign against Republican challenger Lynn Swann, according to the latest Pittsburgh Tribune-Review/WTAE-Channel 4 Keystone poll. The statewide poll of 578 registered voters released today also showed U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Penn Hills, has pulled within six points of his likely Democratic challenger, state Treasurer Robert P. Casey Jr., of Scranton.

Santorum has come from a long way back and he still has a difficult slog ahead, but the trend is encouraging. It's interesting that in a recent voter survey significant numbers of people who said that they would vote for pro-life Democrat Bob Casey over very pro-life Republican Rick Santorum changed their minds when told that the National Organization for Women, an abortion rights advocacy group, was going to endorse Casey's Democratic primary opponent. A substantial number of respondents, when told this, said essentially that, "Well, if Casey's pro-life, then I'm voting for the Republican. I don't want anymore of those pro-lifers in the Senate."

Perhaps these potential voters have been vacationing in Tora Bora, Afghanistan for the last twelve years.

Six Million!?

This is hard to believe, but it is evidently true. Each year in Africa six million Muslims convert to Christianity. Read this interview with a Muslim scholar who does not deny the figure, though he understandably sees it as a tragedy.

Economic Saber Rattling

From the link:

Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced here on Friday that within two months, his country will base its oil accounts on the EURO.

The Russian News Agency, Itar Tass, quoted Ahmadinejad as saying that Iran also intends to found a bourse at the Arabian Gulf's economic zone of Kish which will rely on the EURO currency in its accounts.

Nothing New Here

A must-read article for those interested in staying ahead of the game.

From the link:

And "as the decline in purchasing power of fiat currencies is magnified, gold will start attracting even more interest from individuals that are seeking an alternate 'currency'," said Emanuel Balarie, a senior market strategist at Wisdom Financial.

...

Now there are "trillions of dollars floating around and as people flee paper money (dollars), gold and silver money become attractive competitors," said Peter Spina, a chief investment strategist at GoldSeek.com.

One could say, "gold IS money," he said.

...

"As more and more investors start allocating more resources in gold, we could see $800 and as high as $1,000 by year's end," said John Person, president of National Futures Advisory Service.

"All the elements are in place for such a move, and it would not be unrealistic to achieve in a relatively short period of time," he said.

As I've said before, govern yourselves accordingly.

Stephen Colbert, Cheap Shot Artist

I recently found myself drawn into a genial discussion with a couple of much-more-liberal-than-I colleagues that started with Stephen Colbert's execrable performance at the White House Correspondents' dinner. My opinion was that it was pathetically unfunny; they, like much of the lefty blogosphere, thought it was hilarious because Colbert told off the president. This confirmed to me that liberals have a very peculiar sense of humor. Funny for them is being rude to people, especially Republicans. Their brain's humor module is stuck at the level of laughing hysterically when someone breaks wind.

Anyway, I allowed to my colleagues as how I thought that Colbert displayed exceedingly bad manners, whether the president was Bush, Clinton, or any other human being. They thought he gave a bravura performance, courageous in the manner of Nathan the prophet telling off king David in the Old Testament. I had trouble thinking of Colbert as Nathan. Nathan was risking his life, Colbert was taking advantage of the President's graciousness and inability to control the event to beat him up in public. This wasn't prophesying, it was an ugly bully punching a man who wouldn't, and couldn't, fight back.

The conversation evolved into a discussion of Iraq and the reasons for going to war. One of my interlocutors said that he could have perhaps been supportive of the invasion had Bush made the case on human rights grounds, but that since the President lied about WMD my colleague couldn't support the war, much less Mr. Bush. I thought this strange for two reasons.

I suggested that it just seems extraordinarily implausible that Bush lied about WMD. Everybody in the world thought Saddam had them, defectors were telling us he had them, we know he used them in the nineties. The only people who were giving countervailing evidence were the weapons inspection teams who merely said they couldn't find them. And besides, Saddam was acting just like he would be expected to act if he were indeed hiding the proscribed weapons. In light of all the testimony that this notorious killer did have them, which was opposed only by the testimony of the inspectors who might well have been duped, the only responsible thing for Bush to do was to assume that Saddam did indeed have WMD. It would have been folly to assume otherwise or to give Saddam Hussein, of all people, the benfit of the doubt. Besides, if Bush really knew there were no WMD he also had to know that the truth would come out eventually, and his presidency would be ruined. Why would he risk that? It just doesn't make sense to me, I said.

This line of reasoning was received as if it had never been heard before, which didn't surprise me much.

Moreover, I pointed out to my colleague, if you acknowledge that there in fact was a case out there that you would have found a compelling justification for war, then you can't be disappointed that we invaded just because that wasn't the argument stressed by the White House. After all, by your own lights there was good reason to invade. It's just that your reason wasn't the reason that the Bushies chose to present most forcefully to the public, so how can you now argue that Bush was wrong to go in?

There were shrugs and foot shuffling and coffee cups being refilled, and the subject was changed as others came into the room. Seeing that the conversation had run its course, I returned to grading papers, reaffirming silently to myself my conviction that Stephen Colbert was still an embarrassment and a cheap shot artist.

On Happy Cinco de Mayo

While some may take this lightly, I'd like to take this opportunity to relate a recent event that happened to me. I was traveling to the city where my daughter attends college to bring her home for the weekend and it was raining cats and dogs. I was on a six-lane highway in the middle lane when a car entered the highway from an entrance ramp. As the car came onto the highway, it lost control and started spinning. I didn't see it until it was next to me and it was too late to avoid it. It whacked the right rear side of my car sending me into a clockwise spin and as I tried to recover, I went into a counter clockwise spin...traveling down the highway at 65 miles per hour with other traffic eventually passing me in both the left and right lanes. This continued for several hundred yards. I felt like I was in a NASCAR race.

Finally, I came to rest and got my car off the highway and backed up to where the other vehicle was stopped along the side the road. I got out and checked on the people in the other vehicle to make sure no one was injured. That wasn't easy to do as no one spoke English. As it turns out, the driver had no drivers license, and no identification to speak of although while he was fumbling around in his wallet I couldn't help but notice several hundred dollar bills. He showed me a social security card that said "Good Only In New York". What's with that?

I called 911 and eventually a state trooper arrived to take information on the accident. After he was done collecting the information from the other driver he proceeded to get my account of what happened. In the process he casually mentioned that "this happens all the time" i.e. Mexicans flaunting the law and causing damage to Americans.

The other driver was sited for driving too fast for conditions and for driving without a license but it's unlikely he'll ever pay the fines as it will be next to impossible to find him.

The experience could have been much worse. My car could have rolled and been totaled and I might have been killed. After it was all over and I pulled away proceeding down the highway and despite the fact that I had to hold the steering wheel at a 45 degree angle to go straight I said a short prayer to God to thank him that I was alive.

Some Perspective Please

There are those who would have you believe the fact that the DOW is only 200 points from its all-time high!

The truth of the matter is that the old all-time-high of the market was at 11,723 but that was in January 2000...in January 2000 dollars. If you use an inflation calculator you will see that works out to 13,785 without taking into account another 2% for the inflation this year. In other words we'd have to hit approximately a Dow of14,000 to truly make an new high.

One has to ask themselves what the agenda is for the media to misrepresent the situation. As I mentioned here only last month.

The DOW at 11,700 still only equals 17 oz gold, whereas Dow 11,700 in Y2K was equal to 46 oz.

Now ask yourself which investment preserved one's wealth better over the last 5 years.

From The "R" Man

Richard Russell has been writing the Dow Theory Letters for 48 years. He is gifted with a combination of knowlege and wisdom in things concerning the markets. Here's some of his latest thoughts...

Looks like the Fed has the nation on steroids. And it's not only the Fed, it's the central banks of the world. You see, nobody wants an "over-priced" currency, because everybody wants to sell to the US. And it's a very competitive world (think China and India and Asia), so if you want to sell to the US you have to compete, and that means you have to have a competitive currency. How do you keep your currency cheap against the dollar? Easy, you churn out a load of your own currency and with it you buy dollars. This keeps the dollar up and in comparison, your currency remains competitive.

Of course, when you're manipulating like this, there are always problems. One problem, if you want to call it that, is that there is one hell of a lot of paper money swishing around the world. In fact, you can say that the world economy is floating on an ever-rising ocean of paper money.

Well golly gee, isn't that inflationary? You bet it is, and the inflation is starting to hit full force. First it hit world real estate and housing, then it hit raw materials and oil, and now it's hitting everything consumers use -- such as food, transportation, college tuition, medicine -- well you name it.

You think gold is going up because of Iran or Iraq or because of less production from the gold mines? Forget it, gold is going up because it's reflecting and discounting coming inflation. You can call gold "real money" or you can call it the "golden barometer of inflation." Either description is accurate and either one will do. When the world goes mad, men seek the protection of gold. It's as basic as that.

What we're seeing now in gold and silver is the biggest story of the year and probably the biggest story since the great bull market since stocks topped out in 1980. Only the public, the crowd, the masses, don't see the story yet. But the markets see it. And I see it, which is why I keep writing about it. I've been on this story for about five years -- pushing, urging, cajoling my subscribers to "get with the story," and, of course, the story is the coming inflation and the revival of gold.

The alchemists of old spent their lives looking for a way to turn lead and other base metals into gold. They never succeeded. But there are alchemists today -- these latter-day alchemists have found a way to turn junk paper into gold. Here's how you do it -- you take your junk paper dollar to a coin dealer, and you tell the dealer you want to swap your dollars for gold. And presto, you can change your junk paper dollars into gold. Try it, I guarantee that it works. But don't let all your friends in on this secret, because in time they'll all try it -- and in doing so they'll drive the price of gold higher. I don't want them to do that -- at least, not until I'm finished buying all the gold I want.

...

Subscribers probably remember my discussions of the 50% Principle as applied to gold. The 50% Principle should be used very carefully -- and only in situations where an average or an item such as gold has traveled a long way over and extended time period.

When gold declined from 850 (1980) to 250 (2000) I noted that it has lost a total of 600 points. Half of that loss would be 300. Adding 300 to 250 gave us 550, which was the halfway point of a protracted 20 year decline. When gold closed decisively above 550 and held there, I stated that under the 50% Principle, gold should approach and probably better the old high of 850. On that basis, I became even more bullish on gold, and I personally bought a lot more gold, while urging subscribers to do the same -- "buy gold and sit." So far, the upward ride on the back of the gold bull has been fairly easy. It may not always be this way.

When gold passed the 550 level and clearly held above the level (with a lot of backing and filling around 550), I turned even more bullish. And I continue to see gold heading for a test of the old 550 level. But this time, unlike 1980, gold will hopefully move to and above 550 with a lot less excitement. So far, incredibly, the bull market advance in gold from 250 to 684 has stirred up little excitement. This suits me fine. Let's hope it continues -- as the great "stealth bull market" in gold moves on.

What about the stock market? I not only follow the money, I try to go where the money is, and I try to direct my subscribers on the same path. Of course, there's money to be made in the stock market. The stock market advance has been very selective, and if you can locate the right sectors, you can make big money. But I continue to insist that the real story is in the undervalued area -- it always is.

The essence of Dow Theory is in its emphasis on values, in the purchase of undervalued items and the later sale of overvalued items. Right now, the great value is in gold, which is still well below its peak price recorded more than 20 years ago.

The best estimate I've seen for price inflation since 1980 is around a 400% increase. I bought my house in 1979, and that's about the increase I've seen in the value of my house. I've seen restaurant prices increase by 400% since 1980, I've seen ice cream cones increase 400% since 1980. So with gold at 800 in 1980 and gold at 684 today, I see gold as flagrantly undervalued. That will change. And it is changing. Markets aren't stupid. Sometimes they're ahead of reality, sometimes they're behind. But ultimately they always adjust to reality.

What's the stock market doing now? The stock market is obviously being "fired up" by surging liquidity and inflation (well, surging liquidity is inflation). But with the Dow selling at over 20 times trailing earnings and yielding less than 3%, I'd say the market is expensive. Most stocks are expensive, but that doesn't mean they can't go higher. I just don't feel that stocks are great values here, and I like to buy great values. Or let me put it this way -- I don't have the nerve to load up with stocks here. And to make real money, you've got to take a big position. Before I can take a big position, I've got to have faith that I'm buying bargains.

...

As I said earlier, I believe the biggest story in the markets today is the bull market in gold. The irony is that everybody seems to be looking somewhere else. Which is fine with me. The higher gold rises while everybody is looking the other way, the better. Let the great "gold stealth bull market" express itself. My subscribers and I hear the song.

Charlie Daniels on Illegal Mexicans

Charlie Daniels is obviously a patriot. Here's his take on The Mexican Standoff.

It's an "in your face" action and speaking just for me I don't like it one little bit and if there were a half dozen pairs of gonads in Washington bigger than English peas it wouldn't be happening. Where are you, you bunch of lily livered, pantywaist, forked tongued, sorry excuses for defenders of The Constitution?

Have you been drinking the water out of the Potomac again? And even if you pass a bill on immigration it will probably be so pork laden and watered down that it won't mean anything anyway. Besides, what good is any other law going to do when you won't enforce the ones on the books now?

This country needs more people like Charlie.

Stopping Illegals

Mickey Kaus at left of center Slate has evidently been reading Viewpoint on how to handle the illegal alien problem. Well, at least his solution is similar to ours:

Two consequences follow:

1) Any system of employer-based enforcment should probably be applied only to new hires, not existing employees. Existing illegal employees wouldn't be "legalized," but they wouldn't be subjected to non-charade, computerized checks of their social security cards, for example. They'd just continue working as before.

2) A border wall or fence, widely denounced as the crude favored scheme of the meanest, yahoo, Know-Nothing elements of the Republican House, is in fact the most compassionate enforcement solution. A wall intrinsically blocks only new entrants. It's a physical grandfather clause! It leaves current illegals where they are.

Would this "grandfathered" solution--leaving existing illegals working in their current jobs--amount to legalization or amnesty, and thus act as an incentive to would-be illegals still on the other side of the border? I don't think so, because the benefit of already being here--being left alone--would only be valuable to the extent border controls were effective. If the border remained porous, existing "grandfathered" illegal workers would only have obtained the ability to avoid border controls that were meaningless anyway. If the border controls weren't meaningless, would-be illegals now in Latin America and elsewhere would have an incentive to sneak into the country and work--in the hope of being grandfathered-in later--but by the same token they'd have less ability to do so. (They'd have to get over a wall and get around an effective system of employer-based document verification.)

Also, the existing, left-alone "grandfathered" illegal workers a) still wouldn't be legal and b) couldn't change jobs without subjecting themselves to the non-phony, computerized document check. Eventually, as they left those jobs, they'd be put to the same choice (self-deport, or work underground, etc.) as would have been put to them if they'd never been "grandfathered." But the process would be drawn out over years. And by then, there might be a guest worker program for which they could qualify (perhaps by returning home and waiting at the end of the line, perhaps more easily).

Let's hear it for a "mean, Yahoo, Know-Nothing" solution to a serious problem.

Of course, strict enforcement of the border would require that politicians be able to withstand allegations of racism and sundry other mean epithets. This reality drains away any hope we might have had that an effective border security system (i.e. a fence) would ever be implemented. Politicians, after all, are not distinguished by their willingness to risk public obloquy to defend a principle.