Veritas Forum

"Tobacco company-sponsored anti-smoking advertising aimed at youths not only has no negative effect on teen smoking, it may actually encourage youngsters to smoke, according to a study co-authored by an Oregon State University researcher."

Mmmmm...

Helped along by Dhimmitude in Britain.

"A man who was being hunted for the murder of a policewoman is understood to have escaped from Britain by disguising himself as a veiled Muslim woman.

Mustaf Jama, a prime suspect in the fatal shooting of PC Sharon Beshenivsky, assumed his sister’s identity — wearing the niqab and using her passport — to evade supposedly stringent checks at Heathrow, according to police sources."

My sympathies rest entirely with the young man who sought to destroy the inflatable Frosty. I'm thinking I just might be able to get a Liberty Mr. Cynical out of this...

Harold Meyerson, the vitiating troll of the Washington Post's editorial pages, has written a delightful column about his loathing for orthodox Christians. It's nice to be reminded of just how much toxin is in the liberal worldview. Remember, these people will put us up against the wall and shoot us if they get the chance. Though on second thought I doubt they'll use a method of execution so relatively painless.

Men and women process pain differently.

This essay by Carl Trueman offers an interesting perspective on the Ted Haggard debacle. He examines Augustine's commentary on problems with some early church leaders. A summary of his argument is as follows:

Leaders such as Ted Haggard are akin to the Holy Men of the early church. They are individuals of great charisma who symbolize the superiority of Christianity by outdoing the pagans in terms of the measures of success within the wider society; and such culturally acceptable success lifts them above criticism, giving them a quasi-godlike status. In addition, there is a certain parallel between the nature of human leadership in general as that which involves power and the nature of human sin as the transgression of God’s law. Throw into the mix crowds of adoring followers and a culture which judges success by numbers, wealth, access to the media and to the great and the good in Washington or elsewhere, and you have a situation where the capacity for human self-love and self-deception can potentially spiral out of control. That this so often finds expressing in sexual encounters of the most transgressive nature should be no surprise, for such activity is human self-love in its most unadulterated form.

A couple weeks ago I linked to a story about how Morocco (that haven of Muslim moderation) had jailed a German for "attempting to shake the faith of a Muslim." Well, here's a good piece on the plight of Morocco's Christians, who, while not being martyred yet, are certainly being oppressed.

This will remind all fans of many incidents in that brilliant British TV show.

Robert J. Samuelson has a good piece in the WaPo today that explains why declining American power is going to lead to a nastier world.

Given the rampant anti-Americanism abroad today, the fading of Pax Americana may inspire much glee. The United States is widely regarded as an arrogant source of instability, blamed for many global woes -- from greenhouse gases to Islamic militancy to unpopular globalization. No one can know what will replace Pax Americana, but with time, the people who now celebrate its decline may conclude that its failures were mainly those of good intentions and that its successes were unwisely taken for granted.

From America's finest news source:

RANGOON, MYANMAR—Than Shwe, the brutal dictator of the southeast Asian nation of Myanmar, dramatically increased his already horrific rate of murdering citizens this week in a late, desperate attempt to become Time magazine's 2006 Man Of The Year, who will be honored in the Dec. 25 issue.

Hilarious piece on the quirks of some of the world's leading despots.

SeaTac removed Christmas trees after a Rabbi asked for a menorah display. They didn't want to be exclusive.

Widow-burning is making a comeback in parts of India. Aren't we all so excited that they're repudiating the legacy of British imperialism and returning to the happy practice of sati?

Remember the Democrat with 90,000 of cash in his freezer? Well, he's coming back to congress. I bet Pelosi tries to make him a committee chair...

"It was brewed in the year that the Suez Canal opened, Charles Dickens embarked on one of his last literary tours and the Cutty Sark was launched in Scotland.

But the recently-discovered cache of 1869 ale should have been undrinkable, given the conventional brewing wisdom that even the best beers are supposed to last no more than a couple of decades. Beer experts, however, say the 137-year-old brew tastes "absolutely amazing"."

Did anyone else suddenly get the urge to stash a few brews away?

Little Green Footballs on the saga of determining just what it was that was motivating a freelance terrorist wannabe.

From a piece on the new Canadian TV series, Little Mosque on the Prairie, "six imams were hauled off a US Airways plane in Minnesota in November after apparently spooking at least one fellow passenger by murmuring prayers that included the word Allah." Of course, as readers of this humble weblog know, those imams were doing more than just murmuring.

From a writer for the Washington Post, who is arguing that same-sex divorce proves that there ought to be same-sex marriage.

Meanwhile, high-profile same-sex couples, including the named plaintiffs in Massachusetts' landmark case, are splitting up just like other couples do. In San Francisco, the "namesake" same-sex couple in that state's fight also split up last month and a similarly-situated couple in Vermont also appears to have done the same...Opponents of same-sex marriage point to these break-ups as proof that there can be no "sanctity" in a same-sex union. As a divorced man, I see the opposite. To me, these high-profile break-ups help prove that same-sex couples are just as capable of dreaming and failing as are so many of the rest of us.

The idea that both divorce and gay marriage are desecrations of marriage doesn't seem to have come into his mind at all.

But wait, I thought the Koran taught that there was no compulsion in religion...
"MOGADISHU, Somalia — Residents of a southern Somalia town who do not pray five times a day will be beheaded, an official said Wednesday, adding the edict will be implemented in three days...Those who do not follow the prayer edict after three days have elapsed, "will definitely be beheaded according to Islamic law,"

Note the apt name of the fellow quoted above: Rage.

There's a good piece on Islamic outrages over on Human Events. It includes this, "In Sudan, a slave assigned to watch his Muslim master's camels was crucified when he was caught sneaking out to attend a Christian church."

This is the best column I've yet seen on the 6 flying imams. The opening: "Allahu Akbar! Allahu Akbar! Allahu Akbar! Allahu Akbar! Those are the words that started it all. Six bearded imams are said to have shouted them out while offering evening prayers as they and 141 other passengers waited at the gate for their flight out of Minneapolis International Airport. It was three days before Thanksgiving. Allahu Akbar: God is great.

Initial media reports of the incident did not include the disturbing details about what happened after they boarded US Airways flight 300, but the story quickly went national with provocative headlines: "Six Muslims Ejected from US Air Flight for Praying." Yes, they were praying--but let's be clear about this. The very last human sound on the cockpit voice recorder of United flight 93 before it screamed into the ground at 580 miles per hour is the sound of male voices shouting "Allahu Akbar" in a moment of religious ecstasy."

Go read the whole piece.

How a piece this good got into the LA Times I don't know, but it's worth the reading. An excerpt: "Protests aimed at keeping the pope out of Hagia Sophia rocked Istanbul right up to the morning of his visit to the site. Contrast that intolerance with the tolerance granted Muslims in regard to the Al Aqsa mosque — this time, an Islamic site in Jerusalem annexed by Judaism. Unlike the permanent Muslim desecration of Hagia Sophia, after Israel's victory in the 1967 war, the Jews did not deface or convert the mosque into a Jewish synagogue or temple, even though the Al Aqsa mosque is deliberately built atop the remains of the Temple Mount, the holiest site of Judaism and, by extension, an important site for Christians. Moreover, since reclaiming the Temple Mount, Israel has granted Muslims control over the Al Aqsa mosque (except during times of crises)."

Free occupied Constantinople!

Happy Monday, to ya'll. Fun news from Saudi Arabia.

"-- RIYADH, Saudi Arabia _ Saudi women still can't drive cars, but they can sell them. Potential buyers can go to an all-women showroom where, for the first time, other women will help them choose a car and answer questions about horsepower, carburetors and other automotive features.

Neither the saleswomen nor the female buyers can take the car out for a test drive because women are banned from driving in Saudi Arabia _ even though they have been allowed to own cars for decades and hire male drivers. Almost half the autos belong to women."

It's a less bloody item than most Islamic outrages I post, but a telling one.

Another story of how those poor Palestinians are oppressed by the Israelis. Oops, looks like it's Islam and not Irael behind this.
"A hitherto unknown group calling itself the Just Swords of Islam issued a warning to Palestinian women in the Gaza Strip over the weekend that they must wear the hijab or face being targeted by the group's members...The group said its followers last week threw acid at the face of a young woman who was dressed "immodestly" in the center of Gaza City. They also destroyed a car belonging to a young man who was playing his radio tape too loudly...According to the group, its members used rocket-propelled grenades to attack 12 Internet cafes and a number of music shops in different parts of the Gaza Strip."

Also note that the Gaza strip has about the highest fertility rate on earth. Time to buy more weapons.

I am entirely in favor of this. Make the Muslim children take part too, and if they don't like it, they should get out of France and go to some desolate Islamic hellhole. Seriously, how can you be French without knowing about wine? "French schools should teach children the virtues of drinking wine, a report by France's governing party says."

Since it's been a while, here's a slew of them.

Muslim Mob Kills Six Christians In Ethiopia

A good piece on how Islam destroyed Orthodox Christianity in Turkey.

Here's news on the jolly rape-supporting Muslims in Pakistan.

A teacher is brutally murdered by the Taliban for instructing girls.

Morocco jails German for trying to convert Muslims

If you want to sexually use children and get away with it, work for the UN.

Some good info on out-of-wedlock births in this piece, and on the relation of politics and religion to charitable giving in this piece.

Still, a couple bits of good reading today.

Mark Steyn is, as usual, a delight to read.

Also, Ted Kennedy is a traitor. But you knew that already. And no, I'm not using that term lightly, as do the assorted moonbats (remember when Robert Novak was called such over the nothing that was Plamegate?). Senator Kennedy directly gave aid and comfort to the greatest enemy the United States ever faced, the USSR. He ought to be hung.

No really.

The liberal mind is a funny thing. On the cover of the mag is some actress covering her bare breasts with her hands; inside is a bunch of models trying to made the head to toe Islamofascist garb for women look sexy.

My piece for Celebrate Life makes what seems to me to be a very obvious point: Intellectual honesty demands that pro-choice Catholics either become pro-life or else they should leave the Catholic church.

Two pieces of note in the Washington Post today.

First, a piece on the polygamy movement. A key excerpt: "Valerie and others among the estimated 40,000 men, women and children in polygamous communities are part of a new movement to decriminalize bigamy. Consciously taking tactics from the gay-rights movement, polygamists have reframed their struggle, choosing in interviews to de-emphasize their religious beliefs and focus on their desire to live "in freedom," according to Anne Wilde, director of community relations for Principle Voices, a pro-polygamy group based in Salt Lake."

What? You mean that gay marriage might encourage the legaleization (or at least the normalization) or polygamy? I thought such notions were a "red herring."

There's also a piece about the decline of marriage in France. There's lots of nice spin on it (no mention, for instance, that couples who live together without benefit of clergy are much more likely to separate than married couples). I found this statistic depressing, "Last year, 59 percent of all first-born French children were born to unwed parents, most by choice, not chance. The numbers were not driven by single mothers, teenage mothers or poor mothers, but by couples from all social and economic backgrounds who chose parenthood without marriage vows."

Doomed. Western Civillization is doomed, I tell you.

First, Stanley Kurtz has some good comments about a long New York Times piece yesterday on nontraditional families.
Next, a fellow over at the WaPo's offbeat wonders if beastiality will be acceptable in the future. And for a section that's supposed to be devoted to weird hilarity, he's disturbingly serious. "If we share similar sexual interests with other species, is it possible that some day interspecies relationships may become acceptable behavior? To many, such a radical idea is unconscionable, but let's not forget, 50 years ago it was taboo for a white woman to marry a black man, and 5 years ago it was illegal for a white woman to marry a black woman. Is it possible that 50 years from now it will be okay for a white woman to marry a black bear? Some opponents of same sex marriage have argued that sanctioning certain "moral transgressions" will open the door to others, and given recent history they may be right. But if our evolving morality is a slippery slope, perhaps it's as inevitable as gravity that we will eventually slide down it."
Meanwhile, this belongs in The Onion.

Nicaragua has shown itself to be more civillized than the US, by banning all abortions. And Ortega at least claims to have become Catholic, so his impending presidency won't likely do anything about this.

And since I haven't posted an Islamic outrage for a few days (they've still been happening, I've just neglected to post) here's one for you. "In the showcase “moderate” Islamic state of Indonesia, a Jakarta mosque ended Friday prayers yesterday with a little dramatic skit, featuring Osama bin Laden humiliating George W. Bush"

Milton Friedman died today at the age of 94. Ben Bernanke, former Chair of Princeton’s Economics Department, once remarked, “The worst pitfall in reading Friedman today is to fail to appreciate the originality and even revolutionary character of his ideas in relation to the dominant views at the time.” Before Friedman, Lord John Maynard Keynes’ collectivist notions were considered not just a compelling economic argument, but the only economic argument; Friedman challenged the supremacy of Keynes’ ideas and shattered the collectivist consensus. Freidman’s ideas regarding political and economic freedom have become the dominant force, the ruling paradigm, in public policy. Friedman reframed the debate in terms of economic and political freedom, revamping the nation’s presuppositions regarding public policy and forming a new framework within which economic problems are discussed and solved prompting William F. Buckley, Jr. to call him simply "my hero."

Friedman’s many accomplishments include reviving the monetarist theory of money supply, predicting the “stagflation” of the 1970s, and creating the Chicago School of economics, based at the University of Chicago, where he taught. In 1976, on the 200th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence and the publication of Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations, Friedman was awarded the Nobel Prize in economics. Since then, twelve members of the economics school at the University of Chicago have followed in his footsteps and been awarded the same honor.

An intellectual of the highest order, he shunned the sometimes totalitarian mindset of the American academy, professing a loyalty to tolerance and freedom. In his seminal work Capitalism and Freedom, Friedman argued that economic freedom and political freedom were inseparable. A champion of limited government, Friedman was a staunch supporter of FIRE, remarking:

Over the course of a long lifetime, I have witnessed a serious decline in tolerance and respect for freedom of speech in the academy. FIRE is currently the most effective force countering that trend. It deserves the support of every believer in a free society.

Freedom of speech, freedom of the press, legal equality, due process, religious liberty, and sanctity of conscience—the essential qualities of individual liberty and dignity at the core of FIRE’s mission—are safer today because of the work of Milton Friedman. John Maynard Keynes famously said that we are unconsciously ruled by dead economists. If so, we can consider ourselves lucky as long as Milton Friedman’s ideas rule us.

(A similar tribute appears on FIRE's Torch about him.

The man that William F. Buckley Jr. simply referred to as "My Hero" has passed away at the age of ninety-four.

Can Stephen Harper save Canada? The Nation makes a strong case that he can.

From George Will's column today,

"There should be two Supreme Courts, one to reverse the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, the other to hear all other cases."

It's a few months old, but this piece by George Weigel is excellent.

"Culture War A"--is a sharper form of the
red state/blue state divide in America: a war between the postmodern
forces of moral relativism and the defenders of traditional moral
conviction. The second--"Culture War B"--is the struggle to define the
nature of civil society, the meaning of tolerance and pluralism, and
the limits of multiculturalism in an aging Europe whose
below-replacement-level fertility rates have opened the door to
rapidly growing and assertive Muslim populations.

The aggressors in Culture War A are radical secularists, motivated by
what the legal scholar Joseph Weiler has dubbed "Christophobia."^1
They aim to eliminate the vestiges of Europe's Judeo-Christian culture
from a post-Christian European Union by demanding same-sex marriage in
the name of equality, by restricting free speech in the name of
civility, and by abrogating core aspects of religious freedom in the
name of tolerance. The aggressors in Culture War B are radical and
jihadist Muslims who detest the West, who are determined to impose
Islamic taboos on Western societies by violent protest and other forms
of coercion if necessary, and who see such operations as the first
stage toward the Islamification of Europe--or, in the case of what
they often refer to as al-Andalus, the restoration of the right order
of things, temporarily reversed in 1492 by Ferdinand and Isabella."

Read it all.

"Parents could be forced to go to special classes to learn to sing their children nursery rhymes, a minister said.
Those who fail to read stories or sing to their youngsters threaten their children's future and the state must put them right, Children's Minister Beverley Hughes said.
Their children's well-being is at risk 'unless we act', she declared.
And Mrs Hughes said the state would train a new 'parenting workforce' to ensure parents who fail to do their duty with nursery rhymes are found and 'supported'."

Now, my children will grow up with plenty of music, and lots of books and bedtime stories, etc... But if a nursery rhyme enforcing social worker shows up at my door to check whether the quotas are being met, I'm going to start shooting. Forget banning the import of British beef, its the literal nanny state we should concentrate on containing.

Missouri State University has folded under a lawsuit by my former boss David French, director of the Alliance Defense Fund's Center for Academic Freedom. A professor had required his students in MSU's school of social work to sign a letter to the state legislature supporting homosexuals' right to be foster parents. A Christian student refused and was subjected to two and a half hours of beration because her religious beliefs were supposedly at odds with those of the National Association of Social Workers' code of ethics. Professors asked her invasive questions such as "Do you think homosexuals are sinners?" and "Do you think I'm a sinner?" In order to be allowed to graduate she was required to sign a contract stating that she would conform to the NASW's code of ethics. She refused.

MSU's president suspended the professor of all administrative duties (he was chair of the department) and has commissioned a committee to investigate the School of Social Work. Furthermore, he has agreed to wave the tuition for the plaintiff's graduate studies and agreed to pay legal fees and a lump sum to cover the student's living expenses until she finishes her graduate work. Owch.

It's good to see Christians pushing back. Sometimes we're prone to take abuse from such administrators in the spirit of "turning the other cheek." However, this isn't a matter of taking an insult graciously to be a witness for Christ, it is a matter of asserting one's privileges as an American citizen. Paul was not afraid to assert his Roman citizenship to avert punishment and the stifling of the Gospel (see Acts 28:24-25). This is a wise precedent for American Christians and an admonition to take full advantage of their right to freedom of conscience, to allow their beliefs to shape their opinions and practices.

This began life as a column, but I got too distracted by events (elections...) to finish in a timely manner, so I just patched the end together and have posted it here.

“Oh, we always give our testimony. We always manage to give that somehow, even if it is discredited by the witness....We are the miserable race of poets, of writers, of men who think they have something to say….Far away upon the terraces of Antiquity, the voice of our father Ovid cries aloud for all the poets, his children: Video meliora proboque; deteriora sequor—‘The better things I see and I approve them; but it is the baser that I follow.’”

G.K. Chesterton was a master of many a memorable phrases, and the above passage, from his delightful play, The Surprise, is particularly poignant for we of that “miserable race.” For Christians who preach, instruct, and opine for a living, the gap between the moral standard we proclaim and our behavior ought to be a constant spur to humility. In an inversion of the centurion’s encounter with Christ, it is we, the unworthy, who must speak the Word.

=> Read more!

JC has a good post on sex, marriage, and children (and why they should go together).

Some more information on a old Islamic outrage.

British foreign secretary Margaret Beckett:
"But let us deny the terrorists the historical importance they claim to themselves. They have no right to speak for the great and noble faith of Islam. This is a not a battle between civilisations but a stand-off between the whole of society on the one hand and a fairly small and particularly nasty bunch of murderers and criminals on the others.
In practical terms that means avoiding the temptation to artifically polarise debate.
I've seen it so often in the long-running debate on climate change: wheel out the resident sceptic, however unrepresentative or discredited, to generate tension and voice provocative views in the name of editorial balance.
It makes for more heated exchanges and louder headlines. But it is not the way to build a common consensus on the ground we share. And when it comes to counter-terrorism that is positively dangerous. It buys into the twisted rhetoric of division, so assiduously fostered by those who are the enemies of us all.
So when the next story about relations between Muslims and non-Muslims in this country hits the headlines lets look for other voices than those that represent a tiny minority viewpoint on one side or the other – and offer the microphone to measured, mainstream voices who have the credibility and influence to tackle extremist distortions and offer a genuinely more balanced interpretation of events.
In other words, we should let the extremists bark in the night while we, the vast moderate majority, find a common way to defeat them and the terrorism they espouse.
Ladies and Gentlemen
The extremists talk of a clash of civilisations, of an implacable war between Muslims and non-Muslims.
But there is no such clash, no such war.
There is only the determined struggle of the vast majority of civilised people in the world who want to live, work and prosper together against a few who would drag that world into chaos.
One of the most chilling statements I have ever heard was made by one of the British men responsible for last July’s bombing, Shezhad Tanweer. He was repeating a mantra used many times before by Al Qaeda. He said that those who sent him to his death would be victorious because 'We love death in the same way that you love life'.
No. And that is why the terrorists will lose. Whatever their religion or creed, whatever their colour, the peoples of every country in the world love life with a ferocity that the terrorists will never match."

Where to start, where to start? With her attempt to denigrate terrorists and their supporters by comparing them to people who don't toe the liberal line on global warming?
With the various polls that show a significant minority of British Muslims to be terrorist sympathizers?
Those would be good, but I think the most ridiculous statement has to be the last sentence I quoted. Western Europe clearly doesn't love life enough to pass it on by having children...

First, for a death in the family. Since my main contribution to his life was to annoy my sis-in-law by suggesting the making of hammie-ka-bobs out of him and his kin, I probably shouldn't say much more.

As for the elections: The Republicans deserved to lose; the Democrats didn't deserve to win. America loses.

Your Islamic outrages of the day are here and here.

"Separating anatomy from what it means to be a man or a woman, New York City is moving forward with a plan to let people alter the sex on their birth certificate even if they have not had sex-change surgery."

I have no comment, except to quote Nursey from Blackadder II.

"When you popped out of your mummy's tummykins, everybody shouted 'It's a boy, it's a boy!' But then someone said, 'But it hasn't got a winkle.' And I said, 'Heavens be praised, it's a miracle, a boy without a winkle.' And then Sir Thomas More pointed out that a boy without a winkle is a girl."

This evening I'm giving you two for the price of one, plus throwing in a free suicide of the West story. You can't beat this offer.

First, in Thailand, we're seeing the results of the non-violent coup play out, and they're, well, violent. Islamists are killing Buddhists and Muslims they don't think are Muslim enough. The rise of the new government, whose leader is a Muslim, has the radicals pushing hard.

In India, a mother of four has been driven out of her village because she was raped.

Finally, in Norway, groups are pushing for the use of quotas to increase the number of gay and lesbian clergy in the state church. The Brussels Journal is a little wobbly on understanding Christianity, but they appreciate just how damaging this sort of thing is, and close with a nice line: "Next time God tries to save the world, He had better send His lesbian daughter who does not believe in Him or in her brother."

So a radio host was fired for calling a nutty Green-Rainbow party candidate a "fat lesbian." Well, the lady in question is openly a lesbian, and objectively fat. I'll agree that calling her fat isn't very nice, but it's hardly worth firing someone over. And calling her a lesbian shouldn't even be an insult, right?

CNN is trying to clean this story up, but it can't hide the ugly truth. Hamas terrorists issued a call for women to serve as human shields for them, and they had plenty of ladies (though that term really can't be applied to these barbarians) show up. I feel no sorrow at the news that one of them was shot and killed; she was as much a terrorist as the Hamas thugs she died for.

Related news: here's my Liberty column.

Behold Planned Parenthood's "video game" about Plan B. This is probably the worst I've ever played. I could code something more interesting in Visual Basic using only my nose to type in the code and my tongue to move the mouse. In five minutes or less. This is like having a fat white 50-year-old in a golf outfit trying to make it in the rap scene.
Come on, couldn't they rip off Pac-man and have Mrs. Pac-man (or is that Ms.?) going around eating up birth control pills while Catholic bishops and evangelical pastors take the places of the ghosts trying to catch her? Sure it might be copyright infringement, but it would be marginally entertaining.

"A Saudi court has sentenced a gang rape victim to 90 lashes of the whip because she was alone in a car with a man to whom she was not married."
Also, "A male friend of the rape victim was also sentenced to 90 lashes for being alone with her in the car. The court heard that the victim and her friend were followed by the assailants to their car, kidnapped and taken to a remote farm, where the raping occurred."

This woman was lucky, though. At least she wasn't charged with adultery, which is the usual fate of women who are raped in Muslim nations.

I wrote this column on why pro-lifers in Oregon should vote third party about a month ago for the Liberty; but as the election nears it seems that it won't be published in time. As such, I'm just posting it wherever in case my efforts can do some good. :)

Voting for the Party's Soul:

=> Read more!

A message to John Kerry from our troops in Iraq.

First, Buckley makes all the right points about Webb's novels.

Next, Stanley Kurtz has a good two part series about how gay marriage activists mean to destroy marriage.

I believe he has just saved the Republicans. His remarks implying that our troops are dumb and unstudious were damaging, but his refusal to back down and apologize is what is turning this into a debacle. All he had to say was that he loves the troops, respects them, and is terrribly sorry that his comments appear to demean them, that's not what he meant at all...etc... Instead he lashes out at the Republicans, they pile on, and back and forth it is going as a top news story.
Kerry, of course, wants to show that he won't be "swift-boated" again and will fight back against the "Republican slime machine." And I'm sure he'll win lots of fans among the liberal nutroots. But in his rush to win their favor, he just trampled his party, which was trundling the other way and trying to reach middle America.

Where's my 72 red-headed virgins? Peanuts gets Islam.

"An Italian opposition MP and former showgirl has expressed outrage after meeting a transgender colleague in the parliament's ladies' toilets." For those of you keeping track at home, transgendered means a glorified cross-dresser. In this case, a man with full block and tackle who likes to wear women's clothing.

In other news, Italy's birthrate is around 1.2 children per women, which means it is officially committing demographic suicide (and guess who's waiting to take over. Yep, the Muslims). I'm reminded of a line from Mark Steyn's excellent America Alone (which if you haven't read, you have to read). "When the mullahs take over, I'll grow my beard a little fuller, get a couple extra wives, and keep my head down. It's the feminists and gays who'll have a tougher time." Now as regards me, I'm informed by the lovely Julie that the extra wives are not going to happen (the full beard is a go, however). I don't know if either Mr. Steyn or I will do a good job of keeping our heads down (and in America we should pull through), but the point is clear. Europe, having become post-Christian, is either going to fall to the Muslims, or will revert to fascism and paganism. Neither society will be nearly so kind to the transgendered as the Christianists the left is so worried about.

A piece I wrote for Human Events Online is now up. Enjoy.

Little Green Footballs (one of the best blogs around) has the details on an interesting twist on the story about the vile comments by Australia's leading Muslim cleric. "While the highest Islamic authority in Australia spews this kind of sick, deranged hatred, the Federal Police Commissioner says that reporting his statements is “fueling terrorism.” Yes, really."

If you missed the original story, Sheikh Taj Din Al Hilaly said that (in part) "When it comes to adultery, it’s 90 percent the woman’s responsibility. Why? Because a woman owns the weapon of seduction. It’s she who takes off her clothes, shortens them, flirts, puts on make-up and powder and takes to the streets, God protect us, dallying. It’s she who shortens, raises and lowers. Then, it’s a look, a smile, a conversation, a greeting, a talk, a date, a meeting, a crime, then Long Bay jail. Then you get a judge, who has no mercy, and he gives you 65 years. But when it comes to this disaster, who started it? In his literature, writer al-Rafee says, if I came across a rape crime, I would discipline the man and order that the woman be jailed for life. Why would you do this, Rafee? He said because if she had not left the meat uncovered, the cat wouldn’t have snatched it."

If the 65 years comment went over your head, it refers to the brutal gang-rape of an Australian woman by a group of Muslims. This serves as more than an example of how wicked Islam is, however. What's interesting is how it reduces the Muslim male to an animal. The Christian view is that the man is supposed to lead in virtue, and that means resisting temptation. For Muslims, men can't control themselves, so women have to be covered. Now, I'm a proponent of women dressing modestly, but even when they don't, I have a duty to avoid sin myself. For Muslims, men are beasts who can't help raping a woman who doesn't cover herself.

but this is a compelling reason to keep the Democrats out of power.

George Will's latest column is delectable. "How does the NCAA fulfill its proclaimed purpose of maintaining "the athlete as an integral part of the student body"? Only 55 percent of football players and 38 percent of basketball players at Division I-A schools graduate. The New York Times has reported that at Auburn, a perennial football power, many athletes have received "high grades from the same professor for sociology and criminology courses that required no attendance and little work." Eighteen members of the undefeated 2004 team took a combined 97 hours of those courses while at Auburn. Who believes such behavior is confined to Auburn?"

"TESCO is selling a raunchy pole dancing kit - in the TOY section of its internet site. Stunned mum Karen Gallimore stumbled on the sexy offer as she looked for Christmas gifts for daughters Laura, 11 and Sarah, 10.
She could hardly believe her eyes as she came across the £49.97 Peekaboo Pole Dancing set listed under toys and games.
The Tesco direct site urged: "Unleash the sex kitten inside... simply extend the Peekaboo pole inside the tube, slip on the sexy tunes and away you go! Soon you'll be flaunting it to the world and earning a fortune in Peekaboo Dance Dollars."
Karen, 33, from Ellesmere Port, Cheshire, said: "I'm no prude, but any children can go on there and see it. It's just not on."
Tesco denied the kit was sexually oriented and said it was clearly marked for "adult use"."

Right...if it wasn't "sexually oriented" why the "sexy tunes" suggestion, "flaunting it to the world" promo, and the defense that it's marked for "adult use"?

Gaze in awe upon the only decent... nay, coherant... staff editorial published in the pages of the Daily Barometer in over a year.

Ok, it's still not great. I think my minimum expectations for the Baro committed seppuku long ago.

"A US casino mogul has pulled out of a deal to sell his Picasso painting for a record $139m (£74m) after accidentally elbowing a hole in the middle."

Now that books are no longer fashionable to ban, Boston has moved on to childrens' games. Kids are no longer allowed to play tag. Oh what a wonderful world our litigious culture creates.

An interesting new poll from Indonesia. Terrorists and their supports might be a minority among Muslims, but they are a significant one, rather than the fringe movement Islamic apologists like to claim.

"Around one in 10 Indonesian Muslims support jihad and justify bomb attacks on Indonesia's tourist island of Bali as defending the faith, a survey released on Sunday showed. Indonesia is the world's fourth most populous country, with 220 million people, 85 percent of whom follow Islam, giving the Asian archipelago the largest Muslim population of any nation in the world. "Jihad that has been understood partially and practised with violence is justified by around one in 10 Indonesian Muslims," the Indonesian Survey Institute said in a statement."

JC has a very good post about children, planned and unplanned, over on his blog.

"This is a difference between us which runs deeper perhaps than even the division over the morality or immorality of abortion. It is perhaps even at the heart of this division. It may not seem like a big difference-- a mere subtlety, a nuance created by a slight change in our wordings. However, upon examination, a clear difference can be seen between these two philosophies. The first philosophy, that of a planned world, is one of a sterilized and sanitary world. The second philosophy allows for something much better—a world in which there may be surprises, but one in which there is also to be much joy."

A 14-year-old schoolgirl has been arrested for thoughtcrime ("racism") after she requested transfer from a study group where none of the other students spoke English. In a few years all the folks in think tanks will be sitting around asking "who lost Britain?" They'll all miss the obvious answer, which is, "The British."

on Columbia's Great Liberal Death Wish.

Clicky. (Be sure to watch the video.)

Mrs. Staley (yes, it's over four years past high school graduation and I still call her that) has a heartwarming post on motherhood (well, she has a lot of posts like that, but this one is especially interesting). Now, I hope she is always teaching at least a class or two, since she's a great teacher (and I suspect she's even better with college students than she was with high school kids) but it's been interesting to watch as she has come to enjoy being a mother more than following her academic ambitions.

Today, we celebrate the anniversary of a great victory of the Christian world over our Muslim enemies.

Michael Novak has a piece on the subject here, and Chesterton's poem is here.

Last night the College Republicans at Columbia University invited Jim Gilchrist, founder of the Minuteman Project, and other members of the immigration watchdog group to speak on campus. Chanting "racist" and "fascist" and carrying banners, the campus left rushed the stage, driving the representatives of the Minutemen Project off and high jacking the event. Over two decades ago Malcolm Muggeridge wrote,

Searching in my mind for an appropriate name for the seventies, I settle for the Decade of the Great Liberal Death Wish. It seems to me that this process of death-wishing, in the guise of liberalism, has been eroding the civilization of the West for a century and more, and is now about to reach its apogee. The liberal mind, effective everywhere, whether in power or in opposition, particularly so during the present period of American world domination, has provided the perfect instrument. Systematically, stage by stage, dismantling our Western way of life, depreciating and deprecating all its values so that the whole social structure is now tumbling down, dethroning its God, undermining all its certainties, and finally mobilizing a Praetorian Guard of ribald students, maintained at the public expense, and ready at the drop of a hat to go into action, not only against their own weak-kneed, bemused academic authorities, but also against any institution or organ of the maintenance of law and order still capable of functioning, especially the police. And all this, wonderfully enough, in the name of the health, wealth and happiness of all mankind.

Previous civilizations have been overthrown from without by the incursion of barbarian hordes; ours has dreamed up its own dissolution in the minds of its own intellectual elite. It has carefully nurtured its own barbarians -- all reared on the best Dr. Spock lines, sent to progressive schools and colleges, fitted with contraceptives or fed birth pills at puberty; mixing D.H. Lawrence with their Coca-Cola, and imbibing the headier stuff (Marcuse, Chairman Mao, Malcolm X) in evening libations of hot chocolate. Not Bolshevism, which Stalin liquidated along with all the old Bolsheviks; not Nazism, which perished with Hitler in his Berlin bunker; not Fascism, which was left hanging upside down, along with Mussolini and his mistress, from a lamp-post -- none of these, history will record, was responsible for bringing down the darkness on our civilization, but liberalism. A solvent rather than a precipitate, a sedative rather than a stimulant, a slough rather than a precipice; blurring the edges of truth, the definition of virtue, the shape of beauty; a cracked bell, a mist, a death wish.

Here is liberalism, with its army of students, in action. Read the article, watch the video, and mourn the end of our civilization.

I found #10 in this list to be the funniest, by far.

The GOP deserves, and probably needs, to lose this round. The Foley scandal demonstrates why. It's clear that it was common knowledge on the Hill that Foley was gay and had a penchant for young men. It was common knowledge among congressional pages that he had interest in underage young men (them). Thus, when the House leadership (which knew Foley liked 20-something year-old men) heard that he might be trying to seduce 16-year-old lads, they should have gone after it aggressively. Morally, there was no other right choice. As far as the politics...Not doing so prevented a short-term political problem, but made for a much greater long-term problem. The current leadership cannot be defended, either on moral or pragmatic grounds. The Republicans need to spend some time in the wilderness, if they're to regain their principles and their ability to act on them.

Update: Yes, I know that Democrats are slimy, but that's not going to cut it as a defense right now. Conservatives need to set the Republican house (pun not intended, I swear) in order, and I don't think that will happen without the shock of losing.

Of course, I don't mind keeping them alive... A follow-up on the kerfuffle over my Islam column in the Barometer.

So the left is going crazy over "torture" and David Corn of the Nation is pressing the case regarding waterboarding.

I just don't get it. In waterboarding a person is strapped down, has a wet cloth or something similar put over their face, and then has water poured on them. This produces a drowning sensation, which gets people to talk very quickly. No physical damage. Just acute psychological distress triggered by a sort of mental gag reflex. Is inflicting that to get information from high-ranking terrorists beyond the moral pale? I'm just not seeing it.

The leaders of the recent coup in Thailand have prohibited dancers who were entertaining the troops. I wonder if this is covered in Coup d'Etat: A Practical Handbook. If not, I demand a new edition.

Miss Anna is wondering why she was repulsed at a young lady who wants to get married, have kids, and homeschool them. Is she right to feel thus? I threw up a quick response, and would like to elaborate on it here.

The key point I made was this: Look, if she had told you she was going to school to become a teacher so she could make a difference in kid's lives, you would be gushing about what a wonderful idealistic person she is, and wouldn't have any objections to her also really wanting to get married. But because she wants to have those kids herself, you're repulsed.

This is the crux of the problem. Feminists have devalued all work in the home and community, and (ironically, given their socialist impulses) declared that unless a woman is earning a wage, she's not fulfilling her potential, and is probably oppressed. Never mind that much wage-earning is just as much (often more) drudgery than housework. It's perfectly wonderful for a woman to work in day-care and spend her days watching other people's children, but it's horrible for her to spend her days watching her children. It's great for a woman to teach other people's children, and wretched for her to teach her own. It's fine for her to work as a chef or a baker, provided she's doing this in a store or restaurant, not at home. She can be a seamstress, but heaven (er...Gaia, I mean) forbid that she do it for her family rather than for profit. If she gets a divinity degree and becomes a pastor that's excellent; if she quietly volunteers to lead a women's Bible study that's bad.

In short, feminists are determined to denigrate one of the few remaining areas of life resistant to capitalism, and force women into the marketplace. And yes, I mean force, because they aren't about choice, as evidenced by their attempts (all too successful) to make women who choose to stay home into objects of scorn, ridicule, and (maybe) pity.

ISI has released its first scientific study on the performance of today's universities to educate students on American history and institutions. You can access the study from ISI's homepage. It's nothing we didn't already know, which is incredibly depressing.

The study attempted to measure the knowledge of college freshman compared with that of college seniors to measure the amount of knowledge about American history and institutions gained during the course of a college career. The study found that the amount of knowledge gained on average is nearly zero. Seniors in some schools had less knowledge of American history than freshmen. As a former political science student, I can attest to the rampant ignorance of American history and institutions even within disciplines that exist to impart such knowledge.

From the files of the weird and creepy.

A school in Norway is forcing boys to sit down when they pee.

And well, this is just sick:
Animal bordellos draw Norwegians: Denmark's animal bordellos reportedly draw Norwegian clients.

So, one in ten British Muslims wouldn't report a fellow Muslim who was plotting a terrorist attack, and one in twenty think that the 7/7 attacks were justified. So what's the British government doing to protect its citizens from this? Here's what: "POLICE have agreed to consult a panel of Muslim leaders before mounting counter-terrorist raids or arrests. Members of the panel will offer their assessment of whether information police have on a suspect is too flimsy and will also consider the consequences on community relations of a raid."
Thus, I propose a speech for the British Dhimmi.
"We shall grovel to the end, we shall grovel in France, we shall grovel on the seas and oceans, we shall grovel with growing weakness and growing pathos in the air, we shall surrender our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall grovel on the beaches, we shall grovel on the landing grounds, we shall grovel in the fields and in the streets, we shall grovel in the hills; we shall quickly surrender."

There are a number of significant differences between men and women (regardless of whether feminists want to admit it). Here's one that we rarely see intelligent discussion about: clicky clicky.

James Lileks has either pinched a line of mine, or thought it up on his own, the rotter. "If you say Islam isn't always a religion of peace, the Islamicists will kill you. This doesn't make them hypocrites, of course. The grave is a very peaceful place." Still, it's a funny piece, despite his rip of my jibe. ^_^

And here's a nice piece that gives a good, quick run-down of the many Islamic aggressions against Christianity that sparked the Crusades.

The Washington Post has a great story on how the old Greenwich Village is becoming, in its own quirky way, conservative.

"Forget the image of the Village as gay haven; forget the gay liberation movement that rose from its cobblestone streets. The scene has moved north to Chelsea, and what's left in the Village is a gay neighborhood gone older, wealthier and stodgier. Some in the area of $4 million townhouses and lofts says it is under siege by gay kids of color who bring loud talk, drug dealing and prostitution."

"Jay Jefferies, 64, fears leaving his Village apartment at night. How many times has he awoken to find people engaged in sex acts on the street or relieving themselves in front of homes? 'It's not that they're gay, it's not that they're black or Hispanic, it's that they are antisocial,' said Jefferies, who is gay and a 40-year resident of Christopher Street. 'They have no parental control. They come from neighborhoods where that doesn't exist very much.'"

There are no lost causes, because there are no gained causes.

Derb has a good piece on the taking of Christian slaves by Muslims here.
Odd how this sort of thing isn't mentioned in the West anymore; our collective historical amnesia is one of our enemies' greatest weapons. Thus, we must constantly repeat that the war between Islam and the Christian west is over 13 centuries old, and will not likely end in our lives.

explains why, with a law degree from Harvard, a beautiful wife, and two children, he joined the United States Army.

This column goes on for a while to make what seems to me to be an obvious point: when both husband and wife have busy jobs, their domestic relationship, including sex, is going to suffer for it. But I suppose that our society become so used to the idea that women's "liberation" is good, that we have to be beaten over the head with the negative consequences.

On the general subject, what annoys me the most is the way feminists refuse to acknowledge that there are downsides to their program. I would have far more respect for them is they would admit that yes, it is bad for children, husbands, and the family as a whole when wives work full time, but oh well, that's the price for liberation. But no, they pretend that there is no conflict between family and a career, which shows how intellectually dishonest they are. There are trade-offs for men between family and career, and men don't get pregnant, don't nurse, and aren't best suited for primary caregiving. Given that, it is ridiculous for women to pretend that they don't have to make trade-offs.

First, CNN and Time are covering the return (if it ever really left) of the prosperity gospel. While this heresy has almost no serious theological support, it does have a fair bit of appeal to the masses, who like the idea that God wants to make them rich, and can be manipulated into doing so. Now, God does not command all Christians to be poor, but all Christians should be willing to be poor if God commands it. We are not all told, as the rich young ruler was, to give away all we have, but if we are not willing to do so if told to, then we have placed our wealth before Christ. And God does require sacrifices from people; He is far more concerned with our souls than with our ease, comfort, and pleasure here on earth.

Today's WaPo has a story on progressive evangelicals. There have been quite a few such stories in the last while, as liberals find "Christianists" they can embrace. Apparently Christian political activism that opposes abortion and gay marriage is bad theocracy, but Christian political activism that goes green and red is good theocracy. Now, as everyone who knows me can attest, I think there are serious problems in the evangelical camp, and I've written publicly on some of them, but the cure is not a dose of evangelicalized liberation theology.

The reason both of these heresies fail is that they have nothing real in them. God as a means to wealth, or God as a means to a better social order...these are empty. Christ will not be used as a means to an end of our own, for He should be our end.

Men may have developed a psychology that makes them particularly able to engage in wars, a scientist said on Friday.

No. Freaking. Duh.

Clicky.

I mean, do you remember it ever protecting any of those white-clad cannon fodder from a blaster, lightsaber, or explosion? Thus, it makes perfect sense that the female version of the suit would show off the belly. Anyway, this was funny enough that I think it deserves all the attention it can get. Plus, geeks drowning in their own drool is funny too.

In other news, the honest left (those who admit what they want to do) gives another example of their plan to destroy marriage.

Mark Steyn has a great column (I wish I had a nickel for ever time that phrase has been used) on the "conversion" of Fox's two kidnapped journalists.

Now, what I would do in such a situation I can't be sure of without it happening. I would hope that I would be a good Christian and not only hold to my faith, but bear witness to it. But even if I could not summon the virtue to do that, I think I would still refuse to bow before Allah, and would probably provide commentary on Allah's ancestry, probable composition, and sexual habits. If there was a gun to my head and a demand that I convert to Islam, I expect that I would at least get out a "f*ck Allah."

First, Jonah Goldberg's column today is quite entertaining. "Of course, I will get hippo-choking amounts of e-mail from Bush-haters telling me that all I ever do is cut Bush slack. But these folks grade on the curve. By their standards, anything short of demanding that a half-starved badger be sewn into his belly flunks."

Like everyone else on the right, I'm loving, loving, loving the death of Plamegate. I'm not waiting for apologies from the liberals who have driven this story for the last few years though.

"Gay rights" are being used to destroy Christian institutions. Next, the tax-exempt status of churches that refuse to knuckle to the homosexualists will be targeted.

If we do not win this fight, we will be back in the catacombs, except for the government approved denominations that roll over and die.

I haven’t seen much chatter on this yet outside of the activists on both sides, which is what our enemies want.

Once again, the destruction of the Aztec Empire was a very good thing. It wasn't always carried about by good methods, but it needed to fall, as nothing had fallen since Carthage.

The Wall Street Journal printed a column on the rise of Islamofascism (which can also be described as Islamic socialism) that's quite good.

"But then the Socialists began taking note of Belgium's Muslim community, some 500,000 strong. In Brussels, notes Joël Rubinfeld of the Atlantis Institute think tank, half of the Socialist Party's 26-member slate in the city's 75-seat parliament is Muslim. In the commune of Molenbeek, longstanding Socialist mayor Philippe Moureaux has made Halal meals standard in all schools; police officers are also barred from eating or drinking on the streets during Ramadan. The Socialist Party was also, improbably, the leading opponent of a bill that would have criminalized the denial of the Armenian genocide. This, too, is a product of burgeoning Muslim-Socialist alliance, as is the party's routine denunciations of Israel."

Does anyone else notice the disturbing similarities between the pro-polygamy rhetoric and the pro-pedophilia rhetoric? Yes, you in the back? You're quite correct, they're both using the reasoning and tactics of the homosexual lobby.

Roger Scruton had a good piece on Islamofascism here.

Mark Steyn and Thomas Sowell have both published great columns on American resolve, or the lack of it. The great irony is that it's we cruel, heartless savages advocating a much more vigorous response to Islamic agression who are the real humanitarians here. Consider what will happen if Iran gets the bomb. They will seek to use it, and will eventually provoke nuclear war with Israel, which will lay waste to the entire region. Heck, for all I know, there's still a thermonuclear-tipped Jericho II pointed at Moscow, just to make sure they take as many enemies as possible out.

The cartoon Mallard Fillmore features my employer.

I'm now going to be doing some blogging for Human Events Online's higher ed. blog. My first post is up here.

links to my JHU post on the Torch.

may be a little bit safer. A non-profit media watchdog organization has began to take notice of press freedom violations.

at Johns Hopkins University. I wrote this blog entry and the first draft of the follow up letter we sent.

Here's a great piece on the hysterical cries of "the theocrats are coming, the theocrats are coming" that have been sweeping the left.

on the Torch.

The New York Times on the Warsaw uprising...

A good piece was posted over on The Corner.
One of the better excerpts:
"the left senses that a regional war is coming, that Iran is hell-bent on starting it, and that there is no way to avoid it. But all of this runs directly counter to their whole world-view. Rather than questioning that world view, they simply assert that this can't be happening. They have to believe that something, anything—no matter how implausible—will stop it from happening. If we just get everyone together and talk, and we keep tinkering with diplomatic solutions until we find something that works, surely we can find a way to avoid a regional war in the Middle East. Can't we? Please?"

I've been thinking about this subject a lot, and am becoming increasingly grim about it. We are going to have to smash the Islamic world to survive, I think. And the lesson from Iraq is that playing nice and trying to liberate people and bring freedom and democracy won't work. The left has busied itself with the fantasy that somehow this is all America's fault (especially Bush's) and that somehow peace and love can break out between us and those determined to kill us. The right, meanwhile, is slowly coming around to the view that Mecca delanda est, though Tehran will probably come first.

The indispensable Club for Growth has won some primary victories.

I didn't get around to finishing (kinda, it's still rough) this until now, and since it's a bit past the news cycle, I'm going to post it here.

=> Read more!

As most of you know, I was hired by the venerable Foundation for Individual Rights in Education. They just posted my first blog post on The Torch, FIRE's blog.

Florence King takes down Ann Coulter.

A boy-band member comes out of the closet. The rest of the band is still in there, though.

In The Everlasting Man, Chesterton observes that part of the allure of cruel gods (those of the Aztecs, Moloch of Carthage) is the belief that because they demand horrid things from us (human sacrifice), they must be an effective means of gaining what we want. Sacrificing a bull is all well and good, but if you really want to get something, throw your baby into the fire.

The Faustian bargians that became a staple of literature, drama, and folk-lore are variations on this theme. In The Devil and Daniel Webster, the Devil delivered on his end of the bargain (and then the great orator got the fellow out).

The human mind seems to have deeply embedded the notion that bargians with darkness are effective. I'm starting to think that this is part of the motivation for embryonic stem cell research. The amount of hype it generates is far in excess of the scientific situation; people are convinced that if only we started killing human embryos more rapidly, then their afflictions would quickly be cured. People who are utterly ignorant of the prospects and the obstacles sound like faith healers as they blither about how federal funding for embryonic stem cell research will salve all ills. Read the editorials and op-eds, listen to the speakers and talking heads, and it's clear that they are not basing their views on a calm look at the science and metapphysics, but a quasi-religious impulse.

Good article.

"From time to time, we are all confronted with the disconnect between how we see ourselves and how others see us. I've always seen myself as a responsible, law-abiding citizen. I recycle, I vote, I don't drive a Hummer. But I've come to realize that many in the scientific and medical community view me as grossly irresponsible. Indeed, in the words of Bob Edwards, the scientist who facilitated the birth of England's first test-tube baby, I am a "sinner." A recent book even branded me a "genetic outlaw." My transgression? I am one of the dwindling number of women who receive a prenatal diagnosis of Down syndrome and choose not to terminate our pregnancies."

My final Townhall piece never was published (I'm currently looking into new places to write), but there's some parts in it (mostly quotes) that I'd like to put up for your consideration now.

Suffering is seen as the greatest of evils in the modern world, which proclaims, along with mercy-killing enthusiast Doctor Cors of Walter Miller’s A Canticle for Leibowitz, that “pain is the only evil I know about. It’s the only one I can fight.”
...
In Miller’s novel, Abbot Zerchi observed the natural end of this thinking:
“Really, Doctor Cors, the evil to which even you should have referred was not suffering, but the unreasoning fear of suffering. Metus doloris. Take it together with its positive equivalent, the craving for worldly security, for Eden, and you might have your ‘root of evil,’ Doctor Cors. To minimize suffering and maximize security were natural and proper ends for society and Caesar. But then they became the only ends, somehow, and the only basis of law – a perversion. Inevitably, then, in seeking only them, we found only their opposites: maximum suffering and minimal security.”

This dust-up illustrates all the qualities I never liked in groups like YAF and the College Republicans. Thankfully there's still ISI to inject some thought into the conservative movement on campuses.

Today, any discussion of sexual behavior focuses entirely on physical consequences. The extent of evaluating sexual decisions does not extend beyond STDs, prophylactics, and contraception. We all know the problems that come from flouting the biological design for sex, but what is missing is any talk of the emotional side of our design. If part of the purpose of sex is to create a strong unitive bond between lovers, then casual flouting of this fact will result in deep emotional wounds.

Nobody talks about getting drunk and hooking up. Nobody talks about the emotional toll of waking up to a stranger and unable to recall last night's events. Nobody talks about how a women feels after sleeping with a man who won't call her back. Why do women cry after being dumped by their friend with benefits? Isn't the point of hooking up to avoid the heart break of a real relationship? Nobody talks about it.

To the contemporary collegiate, the only concern is “protection” against herpes and pregnancy. As they tear themselves apart under the delusion of sexual liberty, it will be more than their bodies that pay the price.

Well, well, well. One of the gay couples behind the lawsuit that led a certain New England state supreme court to declare gay marriage by fiat has separated.

Mike Adams has a good piece up today on how the skin industry destroys women. What he leaves out is that the effects he describes aren't limited just to strippers and such. At OSU, one of the facinating things to observe was the rapid decline of a great many young women as they flitted from party to party and boyfriend to boyfriend. They'd come in as pretty young freshmen girls -- a bit too much make-up and revealing clothing, sure, but not bad looking at all. They would leave a few years later 25 pounds heavier, orange skin from tanning booths and spray on tanning crap, way too much make-up, poorly dyed hair (blond, always blond), tired, worn, and hollow.

I can hear Angie's groans over the title already, even from 3000 miles away.

So, as stated below, I'm not writing for Townhall anymore, and I'd like to clearly state what happened. When I sent in my last column (published 6/30), Townhall's editor-in-chief e-mailed me back, saying that my column was being cut: he'd liked it, but they were overhauling the site, weekly spots were at a premium... I wrote back saying that I was grateful I had been able to write for them, it was understandable that my column was cut (since I was brought in as a student columnist, and was now no longer a student) and that I was assuming that my column for the next week finishing (as promised in the last published column) the series I was on would be the last one. He didn't respond, and I took the silence to be assent. So, the next week I sent my column in, finishing the series, and including a little note at the end saying that this was the final regular weekly piece from me, and thanking Townhall and the readers. The column didn't go up and I got no response back, so I sent another e-mail. Again, no response. I think I sent one more e-mail and left a phone message over the next week. And that point, I was also wondering about whether the archives of my old columns would ever be put up on their website. And there was no response at all.

So now I've written Townhall off. I wasn't mad about having my column cut, but I do feel that the way I've been treated since has been shabby. They could, at the least, have sent an e-mail saying "we don't want your final piece, and won't post archives of old columnists on the upgraded site." But to just ignore an old columnist is rude, and I expected better of them. So I'm not really mad, but am somewhat irritated, and a little disappointed. But such is the nature of life.

And we are finally back. It's a small little blog, without many readers, but I'm happy with it.

So, as Angie noted before the site died, I'm working with the American Life League (and living in VA) for the time being. I'll avoid discussing the good or the bad on here. I've had one piece for them published so far, which was picked up, among other places, by Human Events Online.

Also, I'm no longer writing for Townhall, which is a story in itself, and I'll explain in another post soon enough.

For now, it's good to be back.

I don't know what happened, but a database table crashed. At anyrate, Wade fixed it, so we are back online. I'll be upgrading our blog engine this week and that should cut down drastically the amount of spam we've been getting.

For those of you who aren't "in the know," Nathanael got a job at ALL in Virginia. He's been driving across the country this past week, which is why he hasn't been posting or responding.

But apparently he still had time to write a new Townhall column.

From Slashdot:

"The Sheriff's Department in Douglas County, Colorado says it's going to start warning computer users that their networks may be vulnerable to hackers. It plans on equipping its patrol cars with devices that detect unprotected computer networks, and distributing brochures to computer users in vulnerable areas, instructing them on how to password protect their networks."

Having your ISP warn you of such things makes sense, but police wardriving seems a bit of an overkill.

Executive order regarding property rights. Clicky clicky.

My Townhall piece is up.
I'm driving across the country starting tomorrow, and need to get ready for that, so I'll address one common objection.
A point that's showing up in the comments and my inbox is that the embyo has only about a 50% chance of implanting into the uterine lining anyway, and therefore there is no reason to object to IUD's, Plan B, and sometimes the Pill, which all act to prevent implantation. I've always found this a slightly amusing response. So? How high does the natural death rate of human beings at a particular stage in development have to be before killing any human at that stage becomes morally acceptable? 10%? 25%? 45%? In many times and places in human history, there have been whacking great levels of infant mortality. If one lived in a culture where a newborn had only a 50% chance of surviving the first year, would it be acceptable to kill newborns?

Did you know we had a US Pirate Party?

Animal House meets Yes, Minister. Must be the fine local ale causing this.
"Civil servants who were supposed to be administering the government's much-criticised farm subsidies system have been taking part in 'depraved' office pranks such as leaping naked from filing cabinets.
The beleaguered Rural Payment Agency has begun an investigation into the behaviour of its staff at its Newcastle office, which allegedly included leaving cups of vomit in cupboards, taking drugs, having sex in toilets and holding breakdancing competitions during office hours."

The libertarian wackos...I mean, fine folk over at Reason noted this hilarious bit in a recent Atlantic piece on everyone's favorite recently departed terrorist leader.
"Despite their enthusiasm, al-Zarqawi, al-Maqdisi, and Abu Muntassir did not appear to be natural revolutionaries. Their first operation was in Zarqa, in 1993, a former Jordanian intelligence official told me, when al-Zarqawi dispatched one of their men to a local cinema with orders to blow it up because it was showing pornographic films. But the hapless would-be bomber apparently got so distracted by what was happening on the screen that he forgot about his bomb. It exploded and blew off his legs."
Much humor of a salty nature follows in the comments.

Meanwhile, someone at the NYT has noticed that gay marriage and religious liberty are going to clash.

Townhall is up.

DEAD

(so I am going to party tonight. WOOHOO!!!)

Sic semper tyrannus. Here's a symposium from NRO on the subject.

Defended my honors thesis today. Yes, I passed. Now to make the changes and get it printed and turned in before Friday.
Here's my last Barometer piece ever. It's hardly going out in a blaze of glory, but this just might be one of the most important pieces I've ever written for the Baro, if even a few people read some of these books.

Meanwhile, there's a spirited debate between NR folks over Ramesh Ponnuru's book Party of Death. Derb slams it, Ramesh responds,as does Jonah, and Derb offers something of an olive branch.

Obviously my sympathies are against Derb, however much I might like his writing on other subjects. What's facinating to me is that the "conservative" case for abortion, like the liberal case, is contemptuous of reason and moral reasoning, prefering to stick with feelings and intuition. It always seems to come down to, "It's small, young, and in the way, therefore we can kill it." There's dangers in being too much a creature of abstraction (see Burke on the hearts of metaphysicians), but this anti-intellectualism is going much to far the other way.

of his death.

Andy McCarthy has a great article on the media's disinclination to use "Islamic" or "Muslim" with regard to the Canadian terror suspects.

In the WaPo. "But I feel that this administration gave me practically no choice but to have an unwanted abortion because the way it has politicized religion made it well-nigh impossible for me to get emergency contraception that would have prevented the pregnancy in the first place."
Here's the story: career woman in her early 40's gets pregnant after failing to use birth control. She tries to get Plan B, her doctor won't give a prescription for it, and she decides not to keep trying to get it, and just trust to luck and old age. She gets pregnant and has an abortion, because having another kid just wouldn't fit into her plans for her life.

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And Butts.

My Townhall piece.

The idiots in the Baro office, who can't tell the difference between conservatism and the Republican Party, retitled my column slightly. The original title is the one above.

"The story circulating on the Internet was hard to believe at first: A North Truro, Mass., volunteer fireman lost his position because he signed a petition opposing gay marriage?"
It's true.

Heretical thoughts on higher education.

So very funny...an excerpt. "To be fair to these perplexed and terrified people, Christians are not easy to understand. To begin with, there are roughly 2,000 years of history to grasp, and certainly more denominations and subdivisions than that to take on board. For people who were raised secular, I imagine it's like trying to understand an opera after coming in halfway before the end: the stage is crowded with people, two of them seem to be dead, a woman is wearing a hat with horns, and everyone is making a terrible racket."
And another.
"Catholics are the New York Yankees of Christianity. They are the biggest and wealthiest team, and their owner is intensely controversial (this makes St. Francis of Assisi the Derek Jeter of Catholicism: discuss)."

Also, a Catholic University boos Catholic teaching during a commencement speech. Oh wait, that's a serious article...

I have already said my piece on this sort of abomination.

" Moloch! Moloch! Nightmare of Moloch! Moloch the loveless! Mental Moloch! Moloch the heavy judger of men!"

I know that Howl isn't really on our side, but it certainly describes the horror and despair of modernity.

Congratulations to Rockne, who just got the Liberty out, this being the first issue with him running the show.

My Townhall column is up.

The GOP elephant is slowly lumbering to extinction, or at least the endangered species list. Over at NRO, Derb, who is glum and irate in the best of times, is ready to burn it all down in response to the Senate imigration bill. And then Jim Geraghty is getting so disgusted he seems about to abandon his "lesser of two evils" line.

My next Baro piece is going to be on the subject of conservative tolerance for this sort of setback.

Rockne has a piece in the Baro today. Go read it.
Meanwhile, the Barometer's official gay columnist (sort of) apologizes for misquoting me last week. Memo to Mr. Sugie, you can only use those three little dots when what you're replacing them with wouldn't have changed the meaning of the phrase you're quoting.
There's some good letters to the editor today, and some moronic ones as well. Here's the best one "I walked through the quad on Monday and saw a giant sign saying, “HOMOSEXUALITY IS WRONG!” This blatant hate is not constructive or promoting anything. I don’t think the same message would be accepted if it were racial, ethnic, class or gender discrimination. Why is it acceptable to discriminate based on sexual orientation? Why did the University allow this group to publicly discriminate?
Margaret Freun
senior, psychology"
It's called the 1st ammendment, fool.

First, a hilarious ad for a professorial position: "The departments of Women's and Gender Studies and Pan-African Studies at the University of Louisville invite applications and nominations for the Audre Lorde Chair in Race, Class, Gender and Sexuality, to begin August 1, 2007. The Audre Lorde Chair is a tenure-track, assistant professor position jointly based in the Department of Women's and Gender Studies and the Department of Pan African Studies in the College of Arts and Sciences. We seek a candidate who can contribute to the intellectual life of both departments and whose teaching and research emphasis is the intersection of race, gender, class and sexualities across national boundaries. The Audre Lorde chair will teach courses in both Women's and Gender Studies and Pan African Studies, and will develop coursework in lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender/queer studies. A preferred area of focus is the study of social activism along and across these axes of difference, and the optimal candidate will serve the university's urban mission by enhancing both departments' connections with the local community."
I don't think there's need for further comment.

And here's some more humor from NRO: "A movie about a secret Catholic plot to kill anyone who reveals the secret that the Vatican has spent 2,000 years covering up—that Jesus Christ dated, got married, had kids, moved to the suburbs, ordered the complete cable package with over 200 channels, attended PTA meetings, coached Little League and joined the Knights of Columbus…well, that’s not exactly pro-Catholic, is it? The really offensive part of The DaVinci Code is that apparently, Jesus’ kids grew up to be French. Oy vey."

Meanwhile, this story will warm the cockles of conservative hearts everywhere. "The American Civil Liberties Union is weighing new standards that would discourage its board members from publicly criticizing the organization's policies and internal administration."

My column today.

Last night I had a chance to discuss the issue with a few people who disagree with me. They had a few good points, but I still stand by what I wrote. I'm by no means a single-issue voter... but I do think we do the party more harm than good by giving in on this point right now. C'mon people, we can handle Kulongoski for a few more years.

According to this article, Madonna recently put herself up on a cross during a show in Los Angeles. Apparantly she has decided that the only way to make up for the sins of 30 years of bad music (not to mention making out with Britney Spears on National TV) was a gory self-execution. I have only one question on the matter....

Why didn't someone call me? If Madonna is going to do away with herself, after polluting our planet for so many years, then I want to see it happen!

Expect many more articles like this in the coming weeks, as the MSM steps up its support of those who violate America's laws. Enforcing our immigration policies will cause some hardship and suffering...you don't say? I never would have guessed. What they're not going to do, ever, is tell the cost of our lax policing of the border. There won't be stories in the WaPo about the massive cost in social services illegals impose on us, or the increased crime (besides just the obvious crime of being here illegally) that results from them, etc...
The utter disdain so many of the elite feel for our nation's laws and sovereignty is borderline treasonous.

NEW YORK, NY, May 19 – The release of "The Da Vinci Code" in theaters today was met with violence as Christians, outraged over what they consider to be a blasphemous depiction of their religion’s founder, rioted in major cities across Europe and the United States. At least seven protesters died in New York as rioters took to the streets and attacked local theaters. Dozens of police officers and standers-by were wounded.

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This may be the only column the world will ever see that cites both Dune and Leszek Kolakowski.

And the Barometer's official gay columnist reponds. There was also a hilarious letter to the editor, but that doesn't seem to be online.

I bought an espresso machine yesterday. Operating that contraption turned out to be quite complicated.

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My bid to retain my title as the most hated man on campus.

This is the funniest Onion article in a long time.

I love satire...especially when it hits close to home. For all you homeschoolers out there who have ever come into contact with the Patriarchy and Courtship movements, this is for you :-)

John Derbyshire presents a defense of Lolita, a book I think utterly vile. I'm not swayed by his piece, but he did have one good observation in there, "Here you see one of the paradoxes of our strange times. Our women dress like sluts; our kids are taught about buggery in elementary school; “wardrobe malfunctions” expose to prime-time TV viewers body parts customarily covered in public since “the lamented end of the Ancient World B.C.” (Humbert); our colleges have coed bathrooms; songs about pimps rise to the top of the pop music charts; yet so far as anything to do with the actual reality of actual human nature is concerned, we are as prim and shockable as a bunch of Quaker schoolmarms."

"'We want to tell people that, just like ice hockey or fencing, you don't have sex naked,' says Roger Staub, head of Aids prevention. 'You should wear a condom.'"

The new anti-AIDS ad campaign the Swiss have cooked up features athletes playing dangerous sports in the buff. The message is that in sex, like other sports, protection is important.

And somewhere, a little voice is quietly wondering to no one in particular if the emphasis modernity places on sex as a performance sport might be destroying the pleasure of it.

"May 21, 1945—After the debacles of February and March at Iwo Jima, and now the ongoing quagmire on Okinawa, we are asked to accept recent losses that are reaching 20,000 dead brave American soldiers and yet another 50,000 wounded in these near criminally incompetent campaigns euphemistically dubbed “island hopping.”"

Victor Davis Hanson takes a stroll down what might have been...

My Townhall column is up. I should be getting some interesting mail over this one.

As soon as a controversially blasphemous movie breaks onto the scene, right on cue Christians start the eternal debate. To watch, or not to watch? That is the question.

There is really no need to wrestle with such deep questions, when there are far superior movies to be seen.

Funny funny funny.

of one day writing this well. George Will's latest is a masterpiece.

This is pretty cool. "Mr. Klemm, director of cocktail development for B. R. Guest, which owns Primehouse, is one of a handful of freethinking bartenders who have taken to the idea of employing the techniques of avant-garde cooking to their work behind the bar, a trend that's being called 'molecular mixology.'"

If you read the exchange below.

Mark Steyn on Moussaoui. "Agreeing to fight the jihad with subpoenas is, in effect, a declaration that you're willing to plea bargain. Instead of a Churchillian 'we will never surrender!', it's more of a 'Well, the judge has thrown out the mass murder charges, but the DA says we can still nail him on mail fraud.'"

And on Darfur. "If you think the case for intervention in Darfur depends on whether or not the Chinese guy raises his hand, sorry, you're not being serious. The good people of Darfur have been entrusted to the legitimacy of the UN for more than two years and it's killing them. In 2004, after months of expressing deep concern, grave concern, deep concern over the graves and deep grave concern over whether the graves were deep enough, Kofi Annan took decisive action and appointed a UN committee to look into what's going on. Eventually, they reported back that it's not genocide."

This e-mail exchange deserves to live on.

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"Although by nature a gentle and genial character, during his time in the High Court Simon became an outspoken, and at times controversial, opponent of changes to the law that made divorce easier. His views were underpinned by his firm belief in the merits of the traditional family."

A good man has died.

Maggie Gallagher has a piece in Tbe Weekly Standard that is a must-read.

Wondering about my weird google search? Enlightenment shall be yours here.

I have emoticons enabled again

The web searches I undertake for my articles: "denmark disabled prostitute welfare."

It'll make sense when my next Townhall piece is up.

Today's Barometer column was brought to you by doom and gloom.

I'd like to point to Larry's comment on it as another ideal example of the idiocy that defending abortion reduces seemingly intelligent people to. My point had nothing to do with the purity of the motives of men who oppose legal abortion; it was simply that logic is not judged by the genitals of those proclaiming it. Furthermore, even if the motives of male pro-lifers are less than entirely holy, that does nothing to disprove their insistence that abortion is wrong.

Classic pro-abortion tactics: obfuscate, evade, obstruct...

Heck, how about making it into a week, or a month, or a year?

Tom Tacrendo has a great piece on the illegal immigrant walkout...would that they would keep walking, all the way out of the country.

"But if illegal aliens all took the day off and were truly invisible for one day, there would be some plusses along with the mild inconveniences. Hospital emergency rooms across the southwest would have about 20-percent fewer patients, and there would be 183,000 fewer people in Colorado without health insurance...Youth gangs would see their membership drop by 50 percent in many states, and in Phoenix, child-molestation cases would drop by 34 percent and auto theft by 40 percent."

Trial lawyers are scum.

My record as a prophet is mixed, but I'm going to go out on a limb once again. The pro-illegal immigration strikes tomorrow are going to backfire and galvanize public opposition to illegal immigration to an extreme degree.

My column on Sex, the City, and the Classroom is finally up.

Mark Steyn is always worth reading, but this piece is incredibly good, ever by the high standards he sets for himself.
"Signora Fallaci then moves on to the livelier examples of contemporary Islam -- for example, Ayatollah Khomeini's "Blue Book" and its helpful advice on romantic matters: "If a man marries a minor who has reached the age of nine and if during the defloration he immediately breaks the hymen, he cannot enjoy her any longer." I'll say. I know it always ruins my evening. Also: "A man who has had sexual relations with an animal, such as a sheep, may not eat its meat. He would commit sin." Indeed. A quiet cigarette afterwards as you listen to your favourite Johnny Mathis LP and then a promise to call her next week and swing by the pasture is by far the best way. It may also be a sin to roast your nine-year-old wife, but the Ayatollah's not clear on that."

My column is up. This was fairly rushed and kind of short, since I had originally planned on not writing one this week. The GAP display inspired me to change my mind early Thursday morning. That, and sleep deprivation I think. :)

So my car just got hit this morning. I was driving on Western, and some guy on his way up for a campus visit went through a stop sign and T-boned me, caving in the driver's side of my car. That's two cars in six weeks...both Toyota Tercels.

Jay Nordlinger makes a damning point in today's Impromptu, "For many years, we have heard, "There was no excuse not to know what Hitler was about; he laid it all out, as early as Mein Kampf." Well, there's no excuse with regard to Ahmadinejad either: The man is not shy, and not cryptic. He's glad to tell you that Israel must be destroyed; that it must not be allowed "to continue to live." Are we not to take him at his word?"

There's also this:
"Got to tell you something hilarious, from last night. I attend the premiere of Lowell Liebermann's opera Miss Lonelyhearts, at the Juilliard School. And there's a sign at the entrance of the auditorium: "Please be advised, gunshots and herbal cigarettes will be used in this performance." Now, this opera — like the famed novella it's based on — features assault, fornication, perversion, madness, murder, and virtually every other kind of depravity or brutality. And what are we warned about? Gunshots and herbal cigarettes! You ask for commentary on modern America (don't you?) — you got it."

When my girlfriend flew back from Germany and promptly broke up with me, to say I was shocked would be an understatement. It just "wasn't the right time for a relationship,” she said. So, it wasn't exactly a completely clean break. She said some thing's to indicate that she didn't want me to give up on her, but at the same time she wanted to end the official status of the relationship.

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Or attempts to. One minor point I thought funny: I can't be sure without browsing all my archives, but I don't think I've ever used the phrase "traditional American values" in a column.

My Barometer column today.

You know its bad when every single song on an album suddenly has deep personal significance.

That's a question I struggle with at times. Currently, I'm reading Cold Friday by Chambers, and he raises it multiple times. The despair he imparts isn't helped by reading this.
I wonder how long it will be before the Barometer editors demand a student media porno mag here at OSU?

I can't agree with one point in Kathleen Parker's column here.

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Another exhibit in my series of evidences that we're doomed, doomed, doomed.

My column is up. I was warned that it would be chopped short, but the damage doesn't appear to be too severe.

Upon further reflection, I almost wish I'd held off on this. I think it would have been entertaining for the Baro readers to see a Versus between me and Nathanael. ;)

I picked up a copy of CS Lewis' Surprised by Joy last week at a used book store in town. I just happened across this delightful 1956 review Russell Kirk wrote in National Review about Lewis' work.

My Townhall column is up. I think I'm going to go hear Menchu speak tonight, and maybe ask a question or two...

Update: I went to her lecture, but sadly wasn't called on during the Q&A time.

Mike Adams covers what may be the closing chapter in the "conservative books = sexual harassment" saga at a different OSU.

Here's an interesting post on the Inkwell.

So does anyone know if there are actually starving people in the US? (besides Paris Hilton...)

Luke Sugie's New column reminds me of the concept of diversity at OSU and what it really means. It means hiring someone like Sugie who has no talent but two minority cards. And remember, being conservative isn't a minority thing, to Ed Ray it's a felony. This kid's emotionalism is insane. "..passing vague laws targeting 'illegal immigrants' shows nothing but the failure of our creative democratic process, ...." Sugie's research into the topic is non-existent and cites no sources. The bill is specifically not an enforcement bill anyway, it's a weak compromise that includes amnesty, which is a completely unacceptable option. Sugie needs to do his research, not to mention take a writing class. And maybe an economics or political science class to understand how illegal immigration affects our country.

That's still Theodore Dalrymple's take on England.

Also, ever wonder about the situation of illegal...I mean...undocumented workers in Mexico?

My Barometer column is up.

From the "Scientific study shows that bears go potty in the woods" files: Study shows that attractive women make men stupid.

And another article from the "duh" files: The Evil Empire makes most of its money selling cheap fast food fare.

It's not just for athletics anymore.

Mike Adams is hot on the trail.

More on PEACE.
They're going to overcome my views with...rap sessions.

From another OSU, "Officials at the Ohio State University are investigating an OSU Mansfield librarian for “sexual harassment” after he recommended four conservative books for a freshman reading program."

Mike Adams has more, including some e-mails that are absolutely astounding.

This is what happens when I decide to stick to subjects I know quite a bit about.

My Townhall piece for today is up.