Atheists can't read, either

I've been very disappointed in most of my critics, for the most part. Re-read the column more closely, especially if you find yourself getting upset. A few points:

1) The piece has nothing to do with Christianity per se. The same points hold true with regards to Hinduism or Zen Buddhism. The fact that I stated my argument is one with that of the pre-Christian Socrates, not to mention the self-professed antichrist Nietzsche, should have been your first clue. Yes, I'm a Christian. No, the argument does not depend on that. Hell in this case refers to both the Christian concept as well as the hell on earth regularly created by atheist-run societies.

2) I made no statements about the rationality of Christians or any other group of faithful. In any case, there is no irony with regards to them, as they do not hold themselves up as devotees of Reason. Quite the opposite, in many cases.

3) I do not hold myself up as a moral examplar at any point. Nor would I. Trying to bring Rush Limbaugh into it only shows that you're not equipped to even begin understanding the piece.

4) Get your facts straight. I will not waste any time responding to anyone who is so ignorant as to equate the Spanish Inquisition (6,000 deaths in 356 years) with the National Socialist's Holocaust (12 million in 11 years). This does not make me a coward, it makes you an ignoramus unworthy of debate. Most wars are not caused by religion. Did the significance of the Seneca quote escape you? Read the Chronicles of the Assyrian Kings or Chinese history if you think war and religion are synonymous. War is about power, plain and simple. Religion, most of the time, is only the excuse. If it does not suffice, another excuse is always found.

5) If you seriously want to argue that the Soviet Communists were not atheists, please go talk to a Russian emigre. The State as God is a metaphor. Metaphors are not to be confused with reality.

6) There is an important distinction between the acceptance of established and proven scientific method and the unquestioning acceptance of untest, untestable scientific theory. Riding on an airplane is not an act of faith. Arguing that the Earth is X years old - 6,000 or 6 billion, is. Remember, scientists used to say that the Hittites and Assyrians didn't exist either. Scientific theory is a moving target, and faith in it as a constant is not only blind faith, but blind faith sure to be shattered soon.

7) Remember, you're not only arguing with me, but with Socrates, Voltaire, Plato and Nietszche. Do you like your odds? I don't.

God in X dimensions

I'm Agnostic, and for a good reason: I can't visualize a space with more than three dimensions. What the hell has it to do with the concept of God, would you say. Well, for me it matters, and matters a lot. Our brain, where our mind is created, is a result of evolution which is tied to the development of our senses, so, something really concrete, objective, down to earth and more, unable to perform spatially abstract thingking, I mean, a thinking independent, free, from our environment, from our frame of reference. That is why physics, as a science, is reaching a dead end. Our mind can't "see" more than three spatial dimensions, time is another one but not spatial. The Universe is so overwhelmingly vast, infinitelly mighty, inbelievably complex that an entity able to create it would be out of our experience. We, could, by no means, grasp it, reach it. The only way has been to create a God with anthropomorfic features, some sort of super man, but we are short of stuff, we used to create a God with our characteristics, only that at a higher scale. I don't buy such a God anymore.

Some reasonable points - except the faith-based acceptance of the untested, never-replicated evolution theory - but I disagree with the conclusion. The God of the Bible tells us flat out that we cannot understand Him or His wisdom, and the reasons listed above are only part of why. There are also numerous hints about God's existence outside of space and time. You don't buy such a God, but I do. That's fine - we can certainly agree to disagree on this.

Plumbing the moronic depths

Opponents of conceal and carry, such as Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Madison, are just as passionate -- and just as mindful of Minnesota's precedent. [in passing a pro-gun law that has caused zero problems in the last year] "Usually I think of Wisconsin and Minnesota as very responsible states," Pocan said. "We're hoping not to duplicate [Minnesota's] mistake. From looking at Minnesota and other states, we believe this will put 36,000 new guns on the streets of Wisconsin. There will be that many people walking around with guns in their coats and purses, after applying for this permit. If people are packing guns like cell phones, those guns will go off at the most inopportune times, like cell phones."

Sure they would - if other people could trigger them remotely at will, like cell phones.

Mailbox - they never learn

TW writes: As an atheist, I found your column to be simplistic and illogical, rendering your title just a tad ironic. I'd label it, and therefore you, hypocritical as well, but for the fact that one cannot be hypocritical if he has no understanding of what he's done. Your comments are wholly unbecoming of one who employs Mensa status as a credential. If you need a one-liner description on the column, it's: My God, that was profoundly ignorant.

Of course, TW doesn't provide a single example of how the column is simplistic, illogical, hypocritical or ignorant. Mostly because he can't. Nevertheless, we're just expected to take his word for it, never mind that my argument is in synchronicity with the intellectual positions of two of history's leading atheists. I thought this bit was particularly amusing: "As an atheist.... My God...." So TW, by just what god do you swear? And why? This is genuine irony, in contrast to TW's understanding of the concept, which rivals that of Miss Alanis Morrissette.

I've pointed this out before to my would-be critics, apparently to little avail: Don't bring it unless you can back it up. TW sounds exactly like many a clueless feminist - substitute woman for atheist and sexist for hypocritical and it would be identical to emails I've received in the past. And profoundly ignorant? Yes, because the op/ed bar has been set so high that people are bored with Maureen Dowd's constant expositions on Plato, the Encyclopedists and quantum mechanics. This is nothing but defensive name-calling without substance. Color me underwhelmed.

The Left is right... for once

I don't often agree with the leftist writers at WND, though I have enjoyed an occasional exchange of email with both Bill Press and Marilyn Lois Polak. But Ellen Ratner has the Bush administration dead to rights in this column, in which she points out only a few of the administration' inconsistencies. I mean, she doesn't even point out that last week, the president predictably began backing away from his previous commitment to allowing democracy in Iraq - something that only surprises those who don't remember the last democratic vote in Algeria, which was cancelled by the military at the last minute.

You see, radical Islamic populations have this disturbing, but predictable tendency to elect radical Islamic politicians. This is likely what will happen in Iraq the moment that a popular vote is permitted, which is why it makes no difference what the administration says, they simply can't allow a vote without first putting into place a convoluted system designed to prevent the will of the people from prevailing. This is, of course, only one of the reasons our Founding Fathers weren't dumb enough to design this nation as a democracy, and why our sanctification of the idea is so astoundingly stupid.

Ellen also doesn't point out that we're not even at war, from a legal point of view. Which renders all the administration's arguments about "enemy combatants" completely moot. I thought ignorance of the law is no excuse, Mr. Attorney General.

Poisoning the soul

Do you ever get the impression that a young baby is more aware of what is going on than you think it should be? One of the pastors I respect most theorizes that the spirit is mature at birth, and is capable of being influenced by things that can't possibly be grasped by its developing mind. That makes this report of a baby toy that says "I hate you" even more chilling. There's no way of knowing, of course, but I suspect that the evil logic behind whoever hid this message behind the soothing melodies is more spiritual than political.

My column today notwithstanding, there is much evil that is done by those who are not atheists. The worst evildoers are those who have a glimmering of understanding of how the spiritual world operates, and attempt to use that knowledge against others. To use it against defenseless infants is truly despicable.

To understand infinity, one need only contemplate the limits of human perversity.

Black quarterback watch

From the noise emanating from the sportsjabbersphere, McNabb really was injured earlier in the season, as I had speculated. But the Eagles' recent success notwithstanding, it's not as if he's been lighting it up for the last three weeks, though they have been an order of magnitude better than before. A 61 percent completion rate can't be considered exceptional when it results in only 217 yards and 1 TD per game. Not when your three opponents have been Green Bay, Atlanta and the Jets, with a total of 9 wins between them.

Meanwhile, unheralded black quarterback Daunte Culpepper has lost the last three games, while exceeding McNabb's performance by 4 percent completions, 54 yards and 1.66 TD's per game. Guess which quarterback is paired with a defense that served up 42 points on a platter last week, and which one only had to rack up more than 14?

Which pretty much gets us back to Rush Limbaugh's original point, if you think about it.

WEEK 11 POSTSCRIPT - McNabb looked pretty good today, though. Got to give credit where credit is due. And, I fear, the Vikings collapse is complete. I knew they were doing it with smoke and mirrors, but I thought Michael Bennet's return would make it easier to keep up the act, not harder. No one deserves to win the NFC North at this point.

You've never heard of teleconferencing?

Charles Stross lists a few of the president's requests to Her Majesty's Government for his upcoming trip.

1. The entire London underground railway system to be shut down for the duration of the visit (apparently in response to fears that suicide bombers might hijack a tube train and blow it up under the President's feet)
2. That US military aircraft, including helicopters and ground attack aircraft, be allowed to patrol London's airspace
3. That 250 Secret Service agents, including snipers, who will be travelling with the President be granted diplomatic immunity from prosecution in the event they shoot and kill civilians (whether deliberately or by accident)
4. That the Presidential security detachment should include units armed with miniguns (read: high cyclic rate machine guns)
5. Closure of a large chunk of central London (to the point where Cabinet staff are being advised to "work from home" for the duration of the visit, if possible)

I wouldn't blame the Brits if they took one look at this list and decided, you know, maybe we can get this done by phone.

Cryptocrazies

In Cryptonomicon, Neal Stephenson submits that a knowledgeable government eavesdropper - hi guys! (wave to the camera) - noting the use of a 4096-bit key, will conclude one of the following:

1) The encryptor doesn't know what he's talking about.
2) The encryptor is clinically paranoid.
3) The encryptor is extremely
a) ...optimistic about the future development of computer technology
b) ...pessimistic about the political climate
c) ...both
4) The encryptor has a planning horizon that extends over a period of at least a century.

File me as 3c, gentlemen.

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The sacred and the profane

I'd like to make fun of Britney Spears. She can't sing, and while she's cute, she's nowhere nearly as pretty as the media seem to think her. But some people are so gifted with self-parody that there's nothing you can do but quote them. From NRO's Corner, an excerpt from the Diane Sawyer interview. She's apparently talking about what she considers to be the sacrosanct nature of self-gratification.

Diane: "Sacred?"
Britney: "No, the song, 'Touch of My Hand' talking about indulging in yourself."
Diane: "And that's sacred?"
Britney: "It is sacred to me, but in a way, explaining, um, okay, I'm confusing myself right now."

My guess is that using an esoteric word such as "indulging" must have put her brain into synaptic overload. If nothing is required for pop stars but looks these days, can't somebody hook Adriana Lima up with a producer and some forgettable electro-pop?

So much for democracy

The president threw overboard the course that he and his aides had insisted for months was the only way to a stable Iraq: writing a new Iraqi constitution first, followed by nationwide elections. Instead, political power will be transferred to an interim Iraqi government of some type.

The change was prompted in part by the failure of the current 24-member Iraqi Governing Council to act effectively and by eroding Iraqi approval of the U.S. presence. A leaked CIA report concluded that Iraqis increasingly support resistance to the U.S. occupation.

I've written before that I don't believe in universal democracy. Nor, I submit, do most people who claim to believe in democracy. We already know that the EU doesn't, since it's fighting tooth and nail against allowing the people of Europe to vote on their new so-called constitution. Now, it's become clear that the president and his aides don't have much faith in it either. After all, what good is democracy when people don't vote the way you want them to?

Forget Bremer. Send Dean to run Iraq. This attitude sounds right up his alley.

Yes, the EU is antisemitic

Of course, the short-sighted lunatics at the Anti-Defamation League are more concerned about a Mel Gibson movie which is NOT antisemitic than the judenhassen of the second richest and third most powerful government in the world. Ealier today, I happened to glance at a friend's copy of the latest Panorama, one of the leading Italian cultural magazines, which featured an editorial titled "Si, l'Europa e' antisemita".

These are the children of the original Jew-haters, and they are building a new fascist empire on the ashes of the old. And yet, even America's Jews don't seem to think its worth worrying about. I used to wonder how on Earth it was possible that so many Jews didn't leave Germany when the writing was quite clearly on the wall long before 1941 marked the inauguration of the Final Solution. Now, I begin to understand.

For those who think that it can't happen here - or in this particular case, there again - remember that it is always happening somewhere!

This isn't news

A high-ranking intelligence official recently told me something startling. Our "enemy" in Iraq doesn't consist of just a few Baathist/Saddam remnants that can be easily rooted out, as Bush and our defense establishment have been constantly telling us. Rather, we are facing an actual guerrilla warfare effort being almost openly orchestrated against us by Syria, and in part by other Arab countries, including Iran. This official explained that almost half the guerrillas and terrorists entering Iraq come from Syria, where they are equipped with weapons and provided with the latest intelligence information, which is shared with them by Iran. Other militants are sent from Kuwait, Iran and even Saudi Arabia. There is little evidence that recent attacks against our troops are being orchestrated by remaining Saddam loyalists hiding in surrounding areas, he stated.

This is pretty substantial information. It changes everything about what lies ahead for our soldiers, and highlights a consistent mistake by the Bush administration of holding important things back from the American people. The picture being painted by the White House of a final resistance effort on the part of Saddam's regime may be inaccurate and misleading. And this will likely haunt President Bush in the very near future.

It's not only high-ranking intelligence officers who are saying this. The Coalition officer I spoke with this week told me the same thing; it's not Iraqis that are attacking them, but the imported jihadists from other Arab countries. And as I already wrote, they're not being aggressively pursued, for the most part, for fear of destabilizing the situation. This strategy is doomed to failure, as the entire goal of the foreign jihadists is to keep the situation unstable in order to keep US troops pinned down in Iraq and unable to open a new front in Syria, Iraq or Saudi Arabia. It appears that the strategists of the jihad learned something from Afghanistan, as their previous strategy of melting away into Pakistan and the mountains only freed up US forces to move onto Iraq.

I believe that the war must be fought, since it will be waged against us regardless of what we do. However, I am increasingly of the opinion that George Bush is the wrong man to lead the war effort. He has not publicly identified the enemy, followed the Constitution or told the American people the truth about the difficulties now facing the occupation. Kneejerk Republicans should note that President Bush has actually been worse in this regard than FDR, the worst President that America has ever known.

Thus spake Ralph Wiley

The man knoweth of what he speaketh " (and to think, this used to be Page 2, where people like yours truly and the scurrilous, scandalous Hunter Thompson came for political and prosaic asylum)"

Now it's whiny chicks, Hot or Not lists and gossip about Paris Hilton. As TMQ - formerly of ESPN Page 2 - would say, ye gods!

The godless party

Since we've been on the topic of God, it's a good time to mention this piece by Rod Dreher. Mr. Dreher, formerly of National Review and now an editor with the official favorite newspaper of VD - sounds a lot better when TMQ says that, doesn't it - the Dallas Morning News, wrote this excellent article on why the Democratic party is becoming increasingly marginalized. It also explains why the Republican party is getting so many new members whose commitment to smaller government and traditional values is slim to nonexistent, as they're basically Democrats at heart who simply can no longer stomach the militant atheism of the new and improved and purified Democrats.

On this war

I am very sympathetic to those fellow libertarians and lovers of freedom who suspect that we have been led by the nose into this war, primarily for the purposes of destroying more American liberties and weakening our national sovereignty. However, I am also aware that while it takes two to tango, it does not take two to fight.

The jihad was not declared by America or the West, it was declared on America and the West. This is not a propagandistic fiction any more than were the Islamic invasions of Spain, France, Italy and Austria imagined. The war will be fought, whether we engage or not. Since it will be fought, I would much prefer to see the West - even the globalist, socialist godless West - win instead of the Islamic jihad. Those who have not spent time in Europe probably cannot imagine how it could ever be possible that Islam could become a serious force in the USA, but no one who has lived in France, the Netherlands or the UK has any problem doing so.

One-world government or sharia. Not much of a choice, is it? And yet, we will persist in upholding freedom and liberty to the best of our ability.

God of the machine

Reader DS writes: In your friends game if one of the characters committed an evil act how could your friend judge them as he is the one who created them to commit the evil act?

First, it's not like our game had any sort of moral structure to it. That's really taking the analogy too far. But if we insist on exploring this nontheless, then we should keep in mind that he didn't program them to commit the evil act, he programmed them in such away that they were allowed to choose to commit evil, or to commit good. It is the quality of the decision that is being judged, which then determines the nature of the deciding character.

If you'll excuse me going off on a judgment tangent, I'm not so sure that Hell should be seen primarily as some kind of punishment. The parable of the wheat and the chaff seems to suggest that those cast away are simply not useful or somehow worthless for God's purposes. Again, I'm not saying that this is the case - obviously, I don't know - only that this is the way it appears to me. And, of course, I have no idea what God's purpose for us might be beyond this world, though I suspect it has little to do with sitting around playing harps.

The paradox of knowing everything

Reader TD writes: I am incredibly curious as to how you resolve the paradox of free will and absolute omniscience. If the Judeo-Christian God construct is absolutely omniscient and has temporal insight into said omniscience, how does free will actually function? This is, of course, the paradox of Calvinism.

I see two obvious flaws with this apparent paradox. First, omniscience does not imply omniactience. (probably incorrect - I want the word for all-acting). A being who is all-knowing and all-powerful still has the ability to choose not to act, or even, so to speak, not to look. Let me give an example. I designed a computer game with a friend which was never released, but possessed a sophisticated AI-system which is still more advanced than any game available today. As the programmer, my friend had complete control over, and complete knowledge of, each of the AI-controlled characters. His powers in that computer world were god-like, as at any moment, he could see precisely what was going through the character's head and know not only what it was doing, but why it was doing what it was doing.

Nevertheless, most of the time, my friend chose not to look or to control. Instead, he sat back and watched what resulted from the interactions of his characters. He was certainly capable of working out all the probabilities beforehand, but he seldom did. I am not saying that I am sure God really opts to act in this manner, only that it is dangerous and borderline blasphemous to say that He cannot. Given the evil state of the fallen world, I would submit that this point of view is consistent with both the Scriptures and what we perceive as the world's reality. To know is not to dictate, and by the same token, to be able to know is not to make the decision to know.

Second, I increasingly suspect that God is trans-temporal. I theorize he stands outside of time as well as our physical space, seeing both as a sort of small, self-contained structure. This may account for the strange "I am" terminology used by both the burning bush of Moses as well as by Jesus Christ himself. This would necessarily require some implications which are generally not taken into account by either side of the Calvinist question.

I am no theologian, and I don't know the great theological thinkers anywhere nearly as well as I know the economists, philosophers and historians of yore. My lack of interest in this regard is mostly because Jesus and Paul both tell us that not only do we not understand God, but that we are not even capable of understanding God. I am content to put my trust in Jesus Christ, with the hope that one day, he will not only shield me from the righteous judgment of God with his grace, but also explain it all to me.

We lost the initiative

That's how one Coalition officer, in the US after a recent tour in Iraq, described the situation after the deadly attack on the Italian compound in Nassirya. He believes that everything will have to change, since the Coalition forces had previously attempted to avoid offensive actions that risk destabilizing the situation. Instead of actively targeting the many foreign jihadists from countries such as Bahrain and Yemen, the forces have primarily been tracking and monitoring them. Now that the situation has been destabilized despite this restraint, this officer expects that it is now necessary to hit the Sunni triangle hard, while at the same time going after known guerilla fighters in various local hot spots.

He could not talk about the upcoming response, either from the US troops or the Coalition contingents, but he left me with little doubt that it is not only the US troops who are now ready to "kick ass". My conclusion is that the talk about speeding up the process of turning Iraq over to the Iraqis is not to bring our troops home, but to free them up to move on to the next stage of the war, which is more likely to be in the direction of Iran instead of Syria.

Is this desirable? I am of two minds on the subject, which is why I have written very little about it. But in any case, I believe it is inevitable, as I have ever since the morning of September 11th, 2001.

In ogni caso, gli occhi del mondo piangono per il sacrificio dai giovanotti italiani.

Yes, I love a black man

Daunte Culpepper is the best QB the Vikings have had since Fran Tarkenton. By the time he is done, he may well have done what our much-loved Georgia Peach couldn't do, which is lead the Mighty Purple to a Super Bowl victory. How anyone can blame a quarterback with a 107.1 rating, 15 TDs, 3 INTs for three straight losses in which the defense leaked like an upwardly mobile Pentagon staffer is completely beyond me.

By the way, Howard Dean and the rest of the Southern-hating crew running for president might want to note that these idiot racists hail from one of the most liberal states in the country - and about as far North as it gets.

It's insane. Donavan McNabb throws for 1 TD and barely more than a hundred yards while the Philly D stones the opposition, and he gets the credit. Daunte throws for 370 yards and 4 TDs while the defense gives up 42 points to a lousy Chargers team, and he gets the blame. Do these guys actually watch football?

You can call me, Al

Can't find the link, but Mr. Franken was running off at the mouth the other day, as usual, crying out about the need for the American left to fight this and fight that. And yet he still hasn't said a word about fighting ME, unfortunately.

If anyone has Mr. Franken's email, do let me know and we'll see if we can get a direct answer from him with regards to my little challenge.

God is a libertarian

Reader TT asks: Do you ever find your libertarian views of personal freedom conflicting with the idea of the Kingdom of God, or the Kingship of Christ in our lives as Christians?

No, I really don't. The way I see it, God has the ability to force us to behave however He might like. And yet, He doesn't. He says, look, here's My Son. He's the only way to Me and My Kingdom, but I'm not going to have him pick you up by the scruff of the neck and drag your butt over here, even though I'd really like to do that. Your freedom is so important to me that I'm going to leave the decision completely up to you, even though it breaks My heart to know that a lot of you are going to blow Me off.

Is that characterization in accordance with Scripture? I think so. And if so, does it sound more like the view of a Democrat, a Republican or a Libertarian deity.

I am free to do whatever I want. But if I want to please God, then I must choose what He says is right. No one ever said that freedom was without consequences, in fact, Jesus Christ said quite the opposite. The wages of sin are death. To argue that this is not a real choice is simply stupid, as all you have to do is look around you to see men and women making terrible, self-destructive choices every single day. The fact that the choice should be glaringly obvious to anyone with a brain doesn't mean that it isn't real.

Can't recommend Fedora

In addition to the bizarre problems I've been having with my wireless card - it works when the loader says FAIL and doesn't work when it says PASS - a friend of mine has now had grub eat his new Linux partitions and the boot loader can't find anything but his old Windows XP partitions. I'm sticking with RH9 for my work machines for the nonce, and I'm going to give both SUSE and Mandrake 9.2 a whirl on Guinea Pig, she of the broken USB interface.

OS News expresses the opinion that Fedora Core 1 was released sooner than it should have been. From what I've seen as a new Linux user, I would tend to agree.

It started long before that

Marine DH writes: "Being a former Marine from the "Old Corps" (before kevlar, humvees, and "sensitivity training"), I concur with your contentions completely. It is sad that we are allowing hollywood to cultivate society in believing that any woman can beat any man. The "Women in Combat" issue has always been one of my pet peeves, and will continue to be until this nation wakes up and recognizes the error of its ways. I'm sure you have witnessed the plethora of info on the issue (both pro and con). There may be one absolutely stellar piece on this subject that you may or may not be aware of. I came across... this essay titled Women in Combat: Exploring the Issues by Rev. Leroy Vogel, Chaplain, US Navy (Retired). Being a marine, I felt an immediate affinity because marine chaplains are US Navy. This piece is an absolute gem. Probably the best essay on the current issue that I have come across so far.

What I find even more fascinating with Fr. Keefe's dialogs, is his introduction of John Stuart Mill. Probably one of the original earlier feminists of the mid 19th century. (a man no less) What you begin to realize here is the direct connection of the issue of "women in combat" to pure (neo)liberalism. "Women in combat" is simply the epitome of the entire egalitarian movement. This really illustrates the entire elitists mind-set, and their convoluted understanding of liberty. That is, for them, liberty is for the "elite"; and slavery is for the common man to be so grateful to them to be led to the "way". Now you begin to understand why elitists in power when they pass laws for "the governed", but exempt themselves from these same laws."

Good points throughout, to be sure, with only one minor omission The concepts of women in combat and an elite beyond the laws guiding society were developed long before John Stuart Mill was pushing the idea. You'll find both notions articulated explicitely in Plato's Republic, and I'll even be touching briefly on the latter point in next week's column on atheism.

Email from my Marine readers is always in-depth, thoughtful and articulate. Doesn't surprise me in the least.

Calling a feminist a feminazi is an insult to National Socialism

AT writes again: Why is it when its about sex, men seem to only reap the benefits and none of the consequences - the burden of the female sex, apparently. What nazis perceived to be a deadly enemy was pure, unadulterated brainwashing - kind of like men that think that women have abortions to get promotions and orgasms..... Are your parents like this to, or did you join a cult? I am just curious.

Let's just count the flaws:

1. Yes, pregnancy is the burden of the female sex. This is news to you? Did you miss health class?
2. By AT's absurd fairness-based logic, unless a man has the equal right to rip a baby out of his impregnated lover's womb and kill it, he should not be held responsible for the child.
3. Yes, the National Socialists brainwashed the German population into believing that Jews were not humans, in much the same way that the murderous feminist movement has brainwashed a portion of the American population into believing that an unborn child is not a human.
4. Most women get abortions simply because they don't wish to deal with the hassle of a pregnancy. And while a pregnancy is inarguably a physical and emotional strain, the abortionettes can't even argue that the decision to kill the baby has anything to do with the burden of raising the child, since adoption is a perfectly reasonable alternative. Bringing side issues such as rape and health of the mother is irrelevant, since only a tiny percentage of abortions have anything to do with either. In any event, we don't kill the children of criminals, so the fact that a child is the product of a rape is no justification for taking an innocent human life.
5. There are millions of people across the country who believe that killing babies, born or unborn, is murder. The fact that AT thinks it is necessary to be a member of a cult to believe this just shows how far removed from reality or any sense of morality she is.

I wonder how long the abortionettes would hold to their position that an unborn baby is simply an inhuman mass of tissue if someone started taking a baseball bat to the bellies of pregnant women who have supported abortion rights. Because, by abortionette logic, that's nothing more than a simple case of battery, after all. Not even a felony. No wonder the Connor and Laci Peterson case empties their intestines.

We think we're better than Nazi Germany, because we haven't killed 6 million Jews. We've only murdered 40 million babies. Future civilizations will not only judge us, it will despise us more than we loathe Nazi Germany.

The triumphant return of TMQ

Hurray! ESPN delenda est!

Mailbox: the golden rule

Reader HR writes: As a Christian who remains staunchly in favor of our involvement in Iraq, I do want to say that I think you missed the point when you said:"My opinion on the optimal way to wage war on Iraq should no more be considered a Christian position than is my opinion on the likelihood of the Minnesota Vikings finishing 8-8 this season." Many think that Jesus told us to be pacifistic, whereas most will agree that he did not instruct us to shun athletic prognostication, however worldly that might be. So your two examples aren't equal, and a stronger case can be made that Jesus would have us oppose war.My own view is that Jesus told us unequivocally to love our neighbors, and I can think of nothing I'd want more, if I were an Iraqi living under Sadam, than for someone to come and free me and my family. I'm glad we could do unto others what I'd want them to do for me.

Of course, Jesus also said that there would be wars without mentioning anything about trying to stop them. But the basic point remains, since nations are not individuals and so Christian principles cannot always be applied to them. Still, I agree that there is a very strong case to be made for the war on Iraq from the "do unto others as you would have them do unto you" perspective. I know if I was living under totalitarian rule, I too would desperately pray for an army of liberation, however flawed its motives. An excellent point.

Mailbox: Zero

AT writes: GIVE ME A BREAK... why do you think the statement "runs/throws/hits like a girl" IS an insult. How many women athletes out there could kick YOUR ass? Many, I am sure. Men create these hackneyed phrases to keep women down in every sense. To run, throw or hit like a girl is not in and of itself an insult. It is our society - and specifically men - who make it such. If not - why don't you put your money where your mouth is and pitch yourself up against some solid female athletes? I am sure you would be the one who 'throws/runs/hits' like a girl. Perhaps we should change that last part to throws/hits/runs like a close-minded right wing mania instead?

How many? Zero. I'm a former full-contact fighter and NCAA D1 sprinter. My bench max is 325 pounds. Only Marion Jones or the late Flo-Jo would stand the slightest chance of lasting more than 30 seconds in the ring or the back alley. Unless you have plenty of rounds under your belt, you can't possibly understand the fullness of how being weaker and slower always equals being toast.

Put my money where my mouth is? Okay, I'll be happy to meet any woman who's interested in a full-contact match and willing to put up $1,000. It wouldn't be the first time I'd beaten down a woman.

How to make a difference

See, principles do matter. If you know the truth, then STAND YOUR GROUND.

VDH is worth reading

VDH is always thought-provoking. Now that Dreher's at the DMN, he and Nordlinger are my favorite NRO writers. I'm definitely picking up Rippes of Battle this winter.

Christians and war

Various people have emailed me to state that Jesus would not use violence to crush the Arabs waging war on Israel, or against the Islamic terrorists who have declared war on the USA. In response, I think it's important to consider three things:

1) God has crushed invaders of Israel in the past.
2) He has promised to do it again in the Book of Revelations.
3) Ariel Sharon and George Bush are not Jesus Christ, nor is Sharon to the best of my knowledge, even a Christian. Why would either the Israeli or the American governments, both of which are avowedly secular, take a Christian perspective into account even for a second? Not being individuals, they can't. It's a nonsensical point.

A broader point is that anyone, even a Christian, can join in a reasonable discussion of which military tactics and strategies are likely to work or not. War is inherently worldly - Jesus said as much. We can either ignore it - which regular readers of my column will note that I generally do - or when we speak about it, speak about it from a worldly perspective. My opinion on the optimal way to wage war on Iraq should no more be considered a Christian position than is my opinion on the likelihood of the Minnesota Vikings finishing 8-8 this season. No one confuses things in the latter case, and it mystifies me that some people do in the case of the former.

Data for the 'religion of peace' file

From a previous column:

I do not want to hear any more about Islam being a "religion of peace." It is not, nor has it ever been. In addition to engaging in aggressive wars that conquered reasonable chunks of the Middle East, Africa, India and Europe, Islam has a long history of internal violence dating back almost to its inception.

The second Caliph to succeed Muhammad, Umar ibn al-Khattab, was assassinated, as was the third Caliph, Uthman ibn Affan, as was the fourth Caliph, Ali ibn Abi Talib.

This history of violence was not inconsequential. The fifth Caliph and founder of the Ummayad dynasty, Muawiyyah, managed to survive long enough to pass the holy mantle of leadership to his son Yazid, who, when faced with a challenge to his rule by Muhammed's grandson, Husain, did not hesitate to massacre Husain and all his followers, including Husain's infant son.

The murders of Ali and Husain were the first great grievances of the Shiah i-Ali, better known to us in the West as the Shiite Muslims. And many centuries of similar "pacifism" followed, hence the Abbasid, Fatimid, Seljuk, Safavid, Moghul and Ottoman Empires.


I think it's also worth pointing out that the first two Abbasid Caliphs, Abul-'Abbaas 'Abdullah bin Muhammad al-Saffaah (750 AD) and Abu Ja'far 'Abdullah bin Muhammad al-Mansoor (754) bore surnames "the bloodshedder" and "the victorious". Strange titles for the leaders of such a famously peaceful religion.

Targeting civilians

Apparently some Muslims are still in a tizzy about my strategic solution to ending the latest flare-up in the Israeli-Palestinian war. Let's put this into perspective here. In World War II, the United States inflicted an estimated 672,000 civilian fatalities on the Japanese as payback for 2,403 casualties at Pearl Harbor.

That's a rate of 280 to 1, far higher than the 100 to 1 ratio for responding to civilian deaths that I feel would suffice to quickly dissuade the Palestinian leadership from continuing its terrorist campaign. Remember, at the time I wrote that controversial column, the PLO leadership was publicly proclaiming the success of its murderous strategy since it had lowered the Israeli-Palestinian kill ratio from 10-1 to 3-1. If that's their measure of success, then it's pretty obvious that any efforts to convince them of the failure of their strategy must be directed at their chosen metrics. As for the 1000 to 1 suggestion, well, there's a deeper point there. LEAVE THE KIDS OUT OF IT!

No children, Jewish, Palestinian, Christian or Muslim, should be involved in this, or any war. If you believe that murdering children is necessary for your cause, whatever it might be, then I have no problem with the Mossad, the IDF or the US Marines taking you out. The sooner, the better.

I think one reason that the column was controversial, and one of the reasons that the United States has had a difficult time winning wars since the Korean "police action", is that both the American people and its leadership are unwilling to face up to the reality of what war is.

"Our bravery is too negative. We talk too much of sacrifice, of the glory of dying that freedom may live. Of course we are willing to die but that is not enough. We must be eager to kill, to inflict on the enemy -- the hated enemy -- wounds, death and destruction. If we die killing, well and good, but if we fight hard enough, viciously enough, we will kill and live." - George S. Patton

I submit that men like General Patton and the legendary Marines' Marine, Chesty Puller, know a lot more about wars and how to win them than the politician-generals who have bungled every military action since Korea, including Iraq: Part I and the misnamed War on Terror. If we do not have the will to fight this war, so be it. In that case, we must bring the troops home and hope for the best. I am not entirely opposed to this option as I have my own doubts about the war, mostly due to its deleterious effect on human liberty. But if the people's decision is to fight a war that has been repeatedly declared against us by our Islamic enemies, (and this is why a Congressionally-approved Declaration of War is an absolute necessity), then unleash the damned hounds and don't look back.

Enslaved by Islam

A leading Saudi government cleric and author of the country's religious curriculum believes Islam advocates slavery. "Slavery is a part of Islam," says Sheik Saleh Al-Fawzan, according to the independent Saudi Information Agency, or SIA. In a lecture recorded on tape by SIA, the sheik said, "Slavery is part of jihad, and jihad will remain as long there is Islam." His religious books are used to teach 5 million Saudi students, both within the country and abroad, including the United States.

I wonder what Louis Farrakhan and the black Muslim crowd will make of this? Not much, probably, since the black community is far more interested in whining about Confederate flags and a slavery that none of them, or their grandfathers, for that matter, have ever known, than about blacks being enslaved by Muslims in the Sudan today.

Of course, I'm sure George Bush will set the sheik straight, seeing as he's such an expert on sharia. The president believes that Islam means peace. If that's truly the case - and I'm sure it isn't - then he's every bit the idiot that his Democratic haters believe him to be.

That's not good

No matter what your position on the Iraqi war is, this can't possibly be interpreted as a good sign by anyone. I'm not accusing the soldier responsible of doing anything wrong - if you're not there, you can't possibly know - but the mere description is so ironic that it would make you laugh were it not for the fact that a man lost his life.

Tensions between U.S. forces and Iraqis in the Shiite Muslim enclave, Sadr City, rose Monday after the head of the U.S.-appointed municipal council, Muhanad al-Kaadi, was shot and killed by an American soldier guarding municipal headquarters.

Is you is or is you ain't my Nazi? - II

CD writes: "If you would pause just long enough to pull your head out of Israel's ass you'll see that Israel, by way of it's policy of grabbing land the belongs to the Palestinian people, is responsible for the state of the world today."

So THAT'S why Rwanda is such a murderous mess. Not to mention the Sudan, North Korea, Indonesia, Tibet, Chechnya, Bosnia and Zimbabwe etc. It's all because of a little sliver of land to which a thrice-conquered people have not given up claim. By this cretinous reckoning, German suicide bombers should be blowing themselves up in Danzig - that is to say, Gdansk.

Idiots. Of course, his first question was: are you Jewish? No, I'm not. You don't have to be Jewish to see that there is far more evil in the world than one tiny ethnic minority can possibly be responsible for. And the fruits of judenhassen aren't exactly in line with the fruits of the Spirit.

Is you is or is you ain't my Nazi?

Abortion is not only widely deployed against children with Down Syndrome. It is expected, and praised. Jocelyn Elders, just prior to being named Bill Clinton's surgeon general, famously proclaimed that abortion "has had an important and positive public-health effect" because it reduced "the number of children afflicted with severe defects." She pointed out that "the number of Down Syndrome infants in Washington state in 1976 was 64 percent lower than it would have been without legal abortion."

Dave Shiflett may not have a clue about the political spectrum - no one on the political right supports eugenics - but he can see the winds of so-called progress blowing towards increased state-sanctioned murder in this country too. Do you? Perhaps we should just kill the lame and the crippled people too, not to mention the fat and ugly - they're such a blight on society.

Cicero is missing the point

Reader SJ writes: I have seen you use the "Nazi Party /Communism liked that policy so it must be bad." argument before more than once. It is faulty logic. It does not follow from "a political movement is evil" that "every single idea recommended from that party is evil" There is no idea so flawless that some wrong minded organization hasn't used it, to restate Cicero.

I agree with the broader point, but take total exception to the conclusion. It is of course absurd to argue that since Hitler loved dogs, everyone who loves dogs is a crypto-Nazi. But we're not talking about minor idiosyncracies of correlation here, we're talking about direct ideological kinship wherein both political strains hail from the same intellectual seed - Platonic elitism - and have many, many policies and goals in common. My question to those of SJ's mindset is: "what percentage of policies and positions must be in perfect accordance before you will admit the ideological kinship between X and Y? Thirty percent? Fifty percent? Eighty percent? If you eliminate those policies which are no longer applicable due to the 70 years that have passed - is there a single political party anywhere in the world that has a position on the particulars of the treaty of Versailles? - the concordance between the current Democratic party and the historical Nazi party is so high that it should be extremely worrisome to any thinking, historically cognizant individual.

Would SJ or anyone else agree with the statement that: a political movement is evil, so any political movement which shares a large percentage of policies and goals in common with that evil movement is also evil? Because that's what I'm saying. It's not just a random notion cherry-picked here and there, it is the majority of specific ideas as well as the overall attitude towards society that are identical.

Take public education, just to cite one supposedly innocuous correlation. The Nazis viewed it as an integral tool in preparing future generations for a new world order. Is there any serious doubt that this is precisely what the public school system in America is being used for now? If you don't believe so, I recommend reading the latest educrat literature from the NEA, which will soon set you straight on the purpose of the modern educational system.

Fading fast

The Sports Guy says that every year, two teams come out of nowhere and look like potential champions at the midseason point. One of them is the real deal, and one of them is a pretender who's had the benefit of an easy schedule, some lucky breaks, or sometimes, an unusual coaching scheme that the other coordinators haven't figured out yet. The team that is the real deal often ends up making it to the Super Bowl - even winning it, like the 1999 Ravens and the 2000 Rams - the other fades to 8-8 or thereabouts and is forgotten.

There were three surprise contenders as of last week. The 6-2 Carolina Panthers, the 6-2 Dallas Cowboys and the 6-2 Minnesota Vikings. And, as much as it pains me to say it, the Vikings are looking like the pretenders. Real playoff teams don't get hammered by a lousy Chargers team, even if the permanently-underrated Doug Flutie is behind center, and the Falcons have made what looked like a suspect loss to the Giants even worse.

I wouldn't be surprised if Carolina made it to the Super Bowl. Tough defense, a power running game and a workaday quarterback who keeps it simple and doesn't make mistakes. Sounds a lot like the Trent Dilfer Ravens, doesn't it? Or like a Bill Parcell's Giants team. Speaking of the Big Tuna, he doesn't have enough talent in Dallas to make it far in the playoffs, but he has clearly nailed down his place as an all-time great football coach with the Cowboys' overperformance this year. Their 10-6 victory over the Bills was the most fascinating one-touchdown game I've seen in years.

In summary:

Carolina Panthers = the real deal
Minnesota Vikings = pretenders
Dallas Cowboys = anomaly with great coach

Nazi revival

Some readers are wondering about my continual hammering on the kinship between the historical National Socialists and their modern descendants - in America, the current Democratic party, in Europe, the European Union. The truth is that Democrats and Eurocrats, while in general ideological agreement with the Nazis, are actually almost identical to the Italian Fascist party, which was the original Third Way.

It's interesting to see that those who are obsessed with the non-existent threat posed by a few whacked-out losers waving swastikas should be so blind to the development of the EU's Fourth Reich, which represents the most recent attempt to reunite the Frankish empire of Charlegmagne. Or, if you prefer, Karl der Grosse, which is how his German-speaking heirs refer to him. Lest anyone take seriously the eurofascists' attitude towards democracy, note that the political whores who are attempting to usher in the New European Order are doing their best to ensure that the people of France and Britain will not be permitted to protest their subjugation to their new masters.

"France narrowly won the referendum on the Maastricht Treaty and there are suggestions that it could lose a plebiscite on the European constitution. Ministers are also concerned that pressure for a referendum in Britain would escalate sharply if such a close neighbour as France opted for one."

What good is a constitution, after all, if the people are allowed a voice? And why should they be permitted to be heard anyhow, since as the world has been repeatedly assured for years, the EU isn't a political entity, it's just an organization to facilitate trade and economic development - oh, wait, they lied about that too, didn't they.

Fedora, finally

All right! I finally got Fedora accessing the Internet properly through my wireless card, and it did so without using the RPM packages that were required for Redhat 8 and Redhat 9. It's got all of the necessary drivers built in, and it turned out that it was detecting the card all along. That's the good news. The bad news is that I'm not entirely sure what I did, other than to avoid going through a firewall on the installation. The thing is, I wasn't using it before and I still get a message during the boot process that orinco.cs device is not present - that's the wireless card, even though it clearly is there since everything is working fine. That is troublesome.

I'm good to go, for the most part, but I'm still not sure I want to upgrade my work machine since my grokking is incomplete. I suppose I'll probably back up all my important files and have a go at it sometime next week. I can always drop back to RH9 if it doesn't work out since I understand how that setup works. Well, actually, I don't understand it, but I can make it perform dependably. That's the difference between the Power User and the Hacker. The former can make things work, they just don't know why. Or, as the above example shows, sometimes how.

I like what I've seen of Fedora. It's a little snappier, and it seems as if the programs run a bit more quickly than RH8. In particular, Evolution doesn't spin its wheels while shutting down. I also just DL'd the latest version of WINE and was able to run my Windows Palm Reader, which was pretty cool. If I can do the same with the hotsync software - not an option on that machine thanks to its broken USB - I'll be very psyched.

Here we go again....

I touched on this in my column for next week. But the raw breakdown is even more astounding than the overall numbers. You'd think that only 62 years after the Final Solution was put into action, Germans and Austrians might be a little more circumspect about their judenhassen.

A European Union poll of 7500 found that 59 percent deemed Israel "a threat to peace in the world" with figures rising to 60 percent in Britain, 65 in Germany, 69 in Austria and 74 in Holland.

I'm telling you, this War on Terror is no such thing. It is rather the beginning of World War III, which is in the process of spreading to Europe - most likely in France or Holland - long before it comes to an end in the Middle East. The sooner that our opinion elites begin to understand this, the sooner the West can go about winning it. This is a continuation of the long Western struggle against the Saracen, and its difficulty is compounded by the fact that Europe no longer consists of fractious states with the common bond of Christian culture, but is divided into three. The West now has the huge benefit of America, but America is divided into three as well. At this point, only Christian America can be counted on to support the war once its true nature becomes apparent to everyone, while Neutral and Godless America will likely still hope to avoid taking sides.

Of course, they can't. If the jihadis are willing to kill Saudi Muslims they consider insufficiently enthusiastic about the cause, why would anyone think that an atheist American isn't fair game for them, no matter how keen he is on understanding why they hate him?

So that's how they do it

I was wondering how on Earth Walmart could be offering Linux computers for $200. Then I saw the retail prices on what passes for standard software these days and it began to make sense. Not that you're going to pay full retail for a new computer bundle, but still... I'm not even sure I like MS Word better than OpenOffice Writer. While the one feature that I miss since my migration is the ability to do a Word Count on a selected portion of text, I quite like the ability to save directly as a PDF.

Microsoft Windows XP Professional 2002 - retail: $270.99
Microsoft Office XP Professional 2002 - retail: $579.99
Norton Antivirus Corporate Edition 2003 - retail: $69.99

OpenOffice 1.1.0 - download time for ~ 200 megs

So maybe the MS solution makes sense if you're still on a 28.8 modem or something, paying by the minute for your download time.

Fedora doesn't fit well

Well, the upgrade from Redhat 9 killed my Internet access. From doing some searching on the Internet, it looks like I'm not alone in this. While I'm sure there's a workaround, this does prove that Linux remains firmly in power user territory. In the meantime, since it's only a test machine, I'm doing a full install that will wipe out everything and let me put the Internet access together from scratch. This may not work, since the key RPM is for an older kernel - I think - but we'll have a whack at it and see what happens. There's certainly some research to do before I'll dare to put it on my current work machine, which is staying with Redhat for now.

Disappointing, to say the least, but not entirely unexpected.

Seriously infected with stupidity

Abraham Foxman, the national director of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) said of Gibson, "I think he's infected -- seriously infected -- with some very, very serious anti-Semitic views."

Mr. Foxman is a stunningly myopic man. Since he can't seem to get it through his thick skull, let me point out that the Crucifixion of Jesus Christ IS NOT ABOUT JEWS! Except in that Jesus, a Jew, died for Jews just like he did for everyone else. It is inexcusable and incredibly short-sighted to attempt to accuse a good man of anti-Semitism who is guilty of doing nothing more than articulating the Gospels in a visual medium. Forget the very valid argument about artistic freedom - where is Mr. Foxman when Christians are defamed in what passes for art these days - if believing in the truth of the New Testament makes me an anti-Semite, well, then I'm an irredeemable anti-Semite, all my defenses of Jews and Israel notwithstanding. Do the Jews have so many friends in the world today that it makes sense to alienate their only consistent defenders? Without evangelical American Christians, who do they expect to come to their defense, French existentialists? Lesbian neo-pagan Wiccans from San Francisco?

Guess what, Mr. Foxman. Only Christian fundamentalists who take the Bible literally give a damn about Israel. Because if you don't believe that there is a God who made a binding promise to Abraham, a God whose only son died to save the souls of men, a God who gave John a prophecy in which the Jews' return to Israel is an integral part, then Israel is nothing but another "s----- little country". European guilt over the Holocaust is dying with the WWII generation and in another fifty years, a Muslim-dominated Old World will be about as friendly to Israel as Syria is now. Atheist America doesn't care about Jews anymore than it cares about Rwandans, Tibetans or Sudanese - and why should it?

Furthermore, if it is acceptable to blame Christians today for the actions of Christians 500 years ago, guess what? It's perfectly reasonable to blame Jews for the actions of Jews 2000 years ago. Michael Medved, who is himself Jewish, understands this. "My concern is that the campaign against The Passion is provoking far more anti-Semitism than the movie itself ever could."

43 minutes

Holy cats! 43 MORE minutes in the extended play version of The Two Towers. Definitely going on the Christmas list.

Because Democrats ARE Socialists

Tim Graham of NRO writes: This caught my ear last night on C-SPAN radio during the commute. In the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Janice Rogers Brown, the Democrats took turns denouncing Brown for her shocking statement that the New Deal marked a "socialist revolution"! This is where you show them what Milton Friedman put in "Free to Choose," that the 1928 Socialist Party platform under candidate Norman Thomas is pretty much all government reality now (and was 20 years ago).

Of course they're denouncing her. She's onto them and is willing to call them out on it. There's nothing shocking about what she is saying - although if she points out that Herbert Hoover, far from being a champion of business and the free market, was also more than a bit of a socialist, I would be surprised.

VDH Wisdom

Another great column by Victor Davis Hanson, urging our leaders to tell the truth about the war that is being waged against America. I think he hits it almost perfectly, except that the form of violent expansionist Islam that has declared war on the West is not only in the Middle East. It is also present in America, and is very strong and vocal in Europe, especially in the UK.

My biggest concern is that our leadership cannot tell the truth that will set us free, because doing so would reveal the depths to which our government is also involved in its own war against the American people. I hope this is not the case, but there are some troubling signs that indicate it is possible.

Ladies, men lie too

It's somewhat intriguing to follow Ruby's ongoing dating disaster. Needless to say, it's not hard to see why she's still single. But speaking as a guy who knows what he's talking about when it comes to the world of the young, upwardly mobile male and his pretentious imitators, let me point out a few things:

1) If a guy initiates talk about his flashy car, but isn't driving it that night for whatever reason, he's probably full of it. If, however, you ask him what kind of car he drives out of the blue and he simply answers Porsche 911 or whatever, he's probably telling the truth. Caveat - up North, no one drives their sports car in the winter. If he uses the phrase "winter car", then he may well have cool summer car.
2) No one who actually wears Armani tells you about it. And if you can't tell, what do you care anyhow? Besides, there's six or seven different types of Armani. Emporio ain't Alta Moda.
3) People who actually work for secret government agencies don't ever tell you that, especially not in a bar. They're more likely to tell you that they're computer salesmen. Or accountants.
4) Guys who talk about money but don't actually have much tend to carry a lot of cash around. The wealthiest guy I ever knew never had a dime on him.
5) There's nothing inherently wrong with being a gold-digger, anymore than preferring to date handsome or intelligent men. But don't be shocked when you get worked yourself by someone you were trying to work. Rich guys can spot your kind a mile away, and so can their imitators. Remember, if Daddy was smart enough to earn millions, Junior probably isn't as dumb as he likes to act.

Not there yet

Reader FZ agrees that Linux is not yet ready for the casual computer user and writes:
"OK, I decided that I needed a way to easily copy files between Windows XP and Red Hat 9 for the occasions when I couldn't do something on Linux. My WinXP was partitioned as FAT32. Should be easy, right? Solution was simple, given 2.5 hours of head scratching. However, it was not documented in any of the books. None of the books documents the User-accessable System Tools-->Disk Management tool that would allow me to mount/unmount the Windows C: disk partition from my non-admin (in other words, not the root) account. None of the books documented the syntax of the command that I would have to add to the /etc/fstab file.

OK, since I have a little experience, I could puzzle this all out. Now, as a non-admin (non-root) user, I can go to the Disk Management GUI, select the "/dev/hda1 /mnt/c_disk" choice, click the mount button, and have a new clickable "c_disk" icon show on my desktop. Double-click on it and the Nautilus file manager lets me read/write to my WinXP C: disk. Something that you really need when you are migrating, right? Should be simple, right?

Sigh...Here's the change I had to make --Following stanza was added to etc/fstab to allow user mounting/umounting of the Windows C: Disk to permit interchange of files from Win to Lin and vice-versa:

/dev/hda1 /mnt/c_disk vfat noauto,user 0 0

Right - the Disk Management program that shows up on the Start (Red Hat)/System Tools menu is useless. What you have to do is edit the text file fstab, which is found in the /etc directory. To do this:

1. Run System Tools/Terminal. Type "su". Then type in your password.
2. Type "gedit /etc/fstab"
3. Add the line beginning /dev/hda.... Use one of the examples below, depending on whether your Windows file system is NTFS or VFAT. You should know which you've got from having run the Disk Druid partitioning program during your installation.
4. Restart. There may be a better way to run fstab, but I don't know how.
5. /mnt/windows (assuming you went with the /dev/hda2 approach below) will be where your old drive C is found.

I have three partitions, since my Windows disk was originally formatted as NTFS - unlike VFAT, you can only read the files there, you can't write/save onto it from Linux - which looks as follows:

/dev/hda1 /mnt/winntfs ntfs ro,users,exec,uid=500,iocharset=iso8859-1 0 0
/dev/hda2 /mnt/windows vfat auto,umask=0 0 0

Really bloody intuitive, isn't it! Notice that I've got my hard drives mounting automatically, whereas FZ does not. Mounting means that they're available for Linux to read from and write to, unlike Windows, Linux doesn't mount all possible hard drives, CD-Rom drives and floppy drives unless you tell it to do so. It's not hard, but you do have to know two things. First that you have to do it, and second, how to go about doing it.

Another thing that people may find useful, in case you're upgrading your Linux kernel, is learning how to get rid of the old one. Or, in my case, the new one, since I'm switching over to Fedora this weekend.

Run "rpm --erase kernel-2.[kernel # here]" while logged in as the "root" user. This will remove the unwanted kernel as well as eliminating it from the boot options.

Over There Again

I've been predicting for some time now that the USA will eventually find it necessary to go to war with the European Union one day. The remarkable Mark Steyn now says that we are already in a Cold War of sorts with them. I assumed that the war would be on the basis of the Eurocrats neofascism, but it's possible that it will have more to do with the fact that Europe is transforming quickly into Europastan.

Of course, the two factors may well be combined. One reason for the Eurocrats increasingly urgent move towards non-participatory government could be the fact that they expect to have a Muslim majority in countries such as Holland, Denmark and France in the next fifty years.

Just the facts, ma'am

Devvy Kidd writes a devastating column pointing out how the fraudulent "Notices of Levy" quote Title 26 section 6331, but conveniently leave out 6331(a) - beginning instead with 6331(b). What they are leaving out:

(a) Authority of Secretary. If any person liable to pay any tax neglects or refuses to pay the same within 10 days after notice and demand, it shall be lawful for the Secretary to collect such tax (and such further sum as shall be sufficient to cover the expenses of the levy) by levy upon all property and rights to property (except such property as is exempt under section 6334) belonging to such person or on which there is a lien provided in this chapter for the payment of such tax.

Levy may be made upon the accrued salary or wages of any officer, employee, or elected official, of the United States, the District of Columbia, or any agency or instrumentality of the United States or the District of Columbia, by serving a notice of levy on the employer (as defined in section 3401(d)) of such officer, employee, or elected official). If the Secretary makes a finding that the collection of such tax is in jeopardy, notice and demand for immediate payment of such tax may be made by the Secretary and, upon failure or refusal to pay such tax, collection thereof by levy shall be lawful without regard to the 10-day period provided in this section.

This is why they always send a Notice of Levy, but can't ever point to the actual Levy itself. It doesn't exist. They do exactly the same thing with the Notice of Lien, which is why if you do a search with your local Secretary of State, you'll almost always find that the lien to which the Notice of Lien is supposedly being provided does not exist.

The IRS is a law-breaking fraud.

Irony

Considering that CNN views itself as a champion of free speech and the first amendment, and no doubt has a few reporters and anchors who have worked very hard to get where they are today, it seems strange that they should object to a parody of CNN's health coverage.

Better she left it to the cats

Joan Kroc--the widow of the founder of McDonald's--has bequeathed $200 million to National Public Radio. It's being called "the largest monetary gift ever received by an American cultural institution."

Attention conservative elderly billionaires. Do NOT leave all your money to a) a foundation; or b) your liberal wife. This is why they invented trust funds. I hope, for the sake of the peace of the late Mr. Kroc's neighbors in the cemetery, that he was a left-liberal himself. Oherwise, you know the poor guy is spinning in his grave.

An American cultural institution. When did government-funded propaganda become cultural?

Deanocracy

"Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean told a Tallahassee audience today that southerners have to quit basing their votes on 'race, guns, God and gays.'"

Of course, isn't that what democracy is all about? Obviously, everyone should determine their vote based on what Howard Dean tells you to determine it on. If you didn't think he was unelectable before, this should suffice to change your mind.

Don't talk to me

I'm busy downloading. http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/fedora/linux/core/1/i386/iso/

The worm in the Apple

I would have linked to this post directly, except I couldn't, so I made do with pasting a fair bit of it here. I came across it while doing some research for an upcoming column, and it highlights a) Neal Stephenson's description of Apple: "so frail, yet so vicious" as well as b) why I don't consider them a viable philosophical alternative to Microsoft. It's from As the Apple Turns and contains some acidic thoughts with regards to how Apple's new iTunes nukes the MusicMatch software that previously was used to interface with their iPod. Apparently, Apple feels that if you're willing to let Microsoft control your computer, there's no reason for you to object to them doing a bit of the same.

To re-enable iPod syncing in MusicMatch, just follow the following eleventy-seventy simple steps! (This is verbatim from the email, mind you.)
Disconnect the iPod from your computer if it is still connected.
Double click on 'My Computer'
Double click on 'Control Panel'
Open "Add or Remove Programs'
Select and uninstall 'iTunes'
Select and uninstall the 'iPod for Windows' item
Select and uninstall the 'Musicmatch iPod Plugin' item
Select and uninstall the 'iPod System Software Update' or any other iPod related items that might be listed
Select and uninstall 'Musicmatch Jukebox'
Close the "Add or Remove Programs" control panel
Restart your computer
Navigate to the '\Program Files\iPod' directory
Delete the contents of the iPod directory by dragging the files to the Recycle Bin and then emptying the Recycle Bin
Navigate to the '\program files\Musicmatch\ Musicmatch Jukebox\' folder
Delete the files, but not the folder, in the Musicmatch Jukebox folder
Reinstall Musicmatch Jukebox from the installation CD that came with your iPod or download the iPod software from the following URL: http://newsletter.musicmatch.com/rdr/ ?Rn187230301,1872303,38861847,287230301
When finished, reboot your computer
When the computer finishes rebooting, connect the iPod to your system
Open Musicmatch Jukebox

Could it possibly be any easier? Where's the challenge? Indeed, we're a little disappointed there are only two restarts involved-- surely it could have been at least four, with a little more effort thrown in. Which is, of course, why we love Windows so much in the first place.

So, yeah, it does seem a little slimy that installing iTunes de-iPodifies MusicMatch, doesn't it? Especially if Apple's installer doesn't warn you about it beforehand, and we've seen no indication that it does. Granted, you'd have to be one seriously twisted iPod owner to try iTunes and then decide that MusicMatch is a better companion for your little white-'n'-silver buddy, but who knows what goes through the minds of Wintellians? Maybe they're always walking around in Bad Fish Shock. It would explain a lot.

And before you start lambasting Apple for pulling a stunt like this, c'mon... the people affected by this are Windows users-- they're used to this kind of treatment. Obviously they thrive on it, or they'd have ditched Microsoft years ago. Heck, crippling a competing product was probably the only way Apple could have gotten an ounce of respect from these folks in the first place. In fact, we think Apple probably missed a golden opportunity to win some serious admiration from the Windows community; instead of simply removing MusicMatch's ability to sync with the iPod, iTunes should also have deleted MusicMatch entirely, installed spyware, inexplicably disabled a random piece of system hardware, reformatted any writable volumes not containing iTunes itself, and then emailed itself to everyone in the user's Outlook address book. Oh, and it should have cost thirty bucks. More, with technical support.

Those last three sentences nearly caused me to wet my pants. Now that's technical commentary!

The martyred fraud

I always suspected Yitzhak Rabin was more show than substance - after all, what kind of master strategist would have conceived, much less championed, the Oslo Accords, as they were a suicidal loser's gamble from the very start. Ben Shapiro does an excellent job of exploding the myth, which, as he points out, must be done if Israel is ever going to face up to the need to defend herself.

And yet the Israli peace camp is still calling for Oslo II. The self-destructive naivete that appears to be the curse of the Jewish people can be summed up in just one example. Whereas Americans put up fences to secure backyard swimming pools, Israelis are still debating over whether to put one up in order to keep out snipers and suicide bombers.

And you want to let them vote?

QUESTION
Currently, the Federal Government includes executive level departments that advise the President. The heads of these departments are collectively known as the Cabinet. Could you please name as many departments as you can that are part of the current United States Cabinet? (Note: This question was open-ended and multiple responses were accepted, meaning, all respondents were invited to name as few or as many departments as they could. If a respondent provided the specific name of a cabinet secretary or administrator, e.g., “Colin Powell,� they were credited with a correct response.)

Most Americans are unable to identify even a single department in the United States Cabinet, according to a recent national poll of 800 adults. Specifically, the survey found that a majority (58%) could not provide any department names whatsoever.... Hispanics (79%), African Americans (75%), 18-34 year olds (70%), women (68%), and Pacific coast residents are among the groups most likely to say “I don’t know� when asked to name at least one department within the current United States Cabinet.

While I believe that every individual has unalienable rights, I don't think that voting is, or should be, one of them. The collective wisdom of a group of ignorant people is no wiser than the sum total of their ignorance, which is why the Founding Fathers limited the right to vote to around 20 percent of the populace. Once you prove that you are capable of being a responsible, self-sufficient member of society, then you can vote. Until then, forget it. Democracy is not compatible with human liberty.

It's at times like these that I have a certain amount of sympathy for the Platonist elitists who believe they have not only a right but a responsibility to rule over the masses. As Chris Rock once said of OJ: "I'm not saying he was right - but I understand."

Bring back the tearaways

I haven't been heavily into college sports since I was a kid - I used to love watching the old Southwestern Conference games with the all-out running attacks and the tearaway jerseys and one of my most prized possessions was a white mesh Texas Longhorns practice jersey - but I'm intrigued by all this conference hopping. It started out being all about the football and the ACC, and I like how adding Miami, Virginia Tech and BC will prevent Florida State from walking away with the title every year.

But with the Big East replacing the loss of those three teams with Cinncinati, Louisville and Marquette, holy smokes! There's a conference to own basketball season tickets. As for Conference USA and the WAC, who really cares? They're regional conferences of no more national interest than the Mountain West or the Atlantic 10.

Now, we just have to get Notre Dame to join the Big Ten, get the Big Ten to change its increasingly inaccurate name to the Big 12, have the Big 12 change its name to the SouthWestern Conference - and bring back the tearaways while we're at it - and have Army join the Patriot League. That's my platform if I ever run for NCAA president. Oh, and let's pay the doggone players, while we're at it. Don't bind the mouths of the cows that drag the ploughs, or however that goes.

The passing of the Hat

I really don't understand a lot of the vituperation that is being directed towards Red Hat. First, their CEO didn't say anything that others, including me, haven't said before. Linux is not ready for the casual home user who has no clue how to make any modifications to their system, although it is now a very reasonable choice - in my opinion, the optimal choice - for a power user who isn't afraid to go to the command line every now and then.

I've installed several systems over the last week, so I think I have a pretty up-to-date perspective on the question. Red Hat is considered one of the better distros in terms of ease of install, and yet there are numerous issues that Space Bunny, who is a bright girl, simply does not have the technical experience to tackle alone. She couldn't fix many of her inevitable Windows problems either, heck, half the time I can't since the problems aren't fixable, but the plug-and-play drivers and software installation programs are simple enough that she could handle those. But get her printer working with SAMBA, CUPS and whatnot? No way, not yet. Still, with her personal tech support staff, she's running Redhat 9 with her most serious issue to date being that her favorite crossword wasn't working in her browser - and after firing up the JRE in Opera, she's crosswording away again.

As for the much-lamented end of the Red Hat retail line, I think this is potentially great. The Fedora project will allow this line of Linux to return to its roots of community development without requiring things to be held back for the stodgy corporate market. I predict that Fedora will speed up the production of device drivers - I find apt-get and Synaptic to be far more useful than RHN already, so guess which was developed by the community and which was developed by the corporation? Red Hat will use Fedora as a testbed, and incorporate those elements which prove to be most useful and stable into its Enterprise products. Where is the problem in that? It's obviously going to be in Red Hat's best interest to see that Fedora remains as healthy, free and open as possible.

In summary, I'm looking forward to this weekend - it's download time again!

It sells, they say

Reader ME writes: "I just wanted to let you know that I thoroughly enjoy your columns, and your blogs. I clicked on your Shadows, Sex and Sorrow column cause it had the word "sex" in it, and I was thoroughly impressed. I don't come across too many columns on Christian philosophy. I checked out all your other stuff and was almost as impressed. I will definitely be following your stuff from now on."

I'm a little unsure of what to make of this. I mean, I'm delighted he enjoys the column et al and plans to follow it, of course, but there's just something disarmingly humorous about how he explains his discovery of the column. So, in the interest of pursuing maximum readership, I've decided that henceforth, the titles of all columns will contain either a double-entendre, a direct sexual reference, or spell out something titillating in Bible Code patterns.

I think I just heard my UPS editor's heart skip a beat. You know I'm kidding, right?

Grace and wit

My views have changed somewhat since I was a card-carrying member of the Reagan Youth. But I still have a great deal of respect for the man and what he wanted to accomplish, as well as how he conducted himself personally. I'm also pleased to see that the attempt of CBS to slur his legacy has been shut down, in part due to the inspiration and effort of this man.

The best part, though, is his approach to the fifteen minutes of fame. So many who experience it once are far too willing to whore themselves after it once their time is up This guy, however, handles it with grace, wit and aplomb. I hope I can do the same if mine should ever arrive.

Forget the LCD

Reader ML writes: "I really like what you have to say. But... your columns can be hard to read and follow. Very hard. I doubt that much more than 2% of U.S. are capable of and are willing to follow some of your deeper articles. I've quit in the middle of your column before. Please allow me to make the recommendation that was made to me in high school: consider who your audience is and write for them. It's still good advice, even after all these years. btw, Who are your audience? Maybe I'm just trying to read someone else's mail."

ML is probably correct in saying that my columns can be a little dense at times, though I would imagine that percentage to be somewhat higher. But I have no intention of altering the column in order to [choose your description - a) make it more accessible; b) chase readership; c) dumb it down], since there is already a plethora of columnists writing for the mainstream conservative audience. For example, Rich Lowry's recent column entitled Black Hawk Down, Again and its stay-the-course theme was predictable within minutes of the Chinook being shot down. In fact, I even predicted it to my UPS editor. Does that make Rich a bad columnist? Of course not - he's one of my favorites among the younger set - only different than the sort of columnist I want to be. I'd much rather have a career following the likes of George Will or Thomas Sowell instead of Rush Limbaugh or Ann Coulter. That's just my preference.

My belief is that most readers enjoy being stretched intellectually from time to time. I know I do, though certainly not always. Sometimes I feel like slogging through Calvino in the original, and other times I prefer to take it easy with a trashy Dragonlance novel. Speaking of which, The Dragons of Krynn is pretty good, but avoid Darkness and Light at all costs. Bad, bad, bad, bad, bad! Anyhow, I'd rather know that people skip past my column from time to time when they don't feel like dealing with it than attempt to chase some phantom sweet spot or pursue the lowest common denominator.

Who is my audience? I would say everyone who loves freedom, liberty and Constitutional America. One does not have to grok the fullness or be my Ideal Reader in order to take a useful bit of information away from a column. But don't worry. I like to keep things simple and light-hearted from time to time too. Just wait for next week's WND column. It's as accessible and slashingly contemptuous of the Left as Miss Coulter's most perjorative missives.

It's called freedom

"We tell everybody what our vision is. I don't think [Linux developers] tell the community what theirs is," said Craig Mundie, chief technology officer at Microsoft, in Redmond, Wash. "There's also a difference between a community model that's sort of an evolutionary process and one that's actually designed and managed for effect in some specific way, which is what Microsoft is doing."

That's exactly right, Craig. Just like there's a difference between a community model where people not only have the right to input in how their society is conducted, but are the ultimate arbiters of authority, and a managed model where a single elite makes all the decisions for everyone and attempts to control their behavior through increasingly despotic means. Ever hear of Trusted Computing? Well, you will.

So, any more questions about the inherently fascist nature of modern corporatism? I am a free market capitalist. These corporate control freaks absolutely are not.

The SCO war

In case you did not believe that the philosophical battle for the allegiance of corporate America about which I wrote today is a real one, have a look at Groklaw's latest. IBM is striking back at SCO by looking into the nature of its recent financing, which was likely made in order to seek the destruction of the GPL.

I can't see how SCO could possibly win, but as I have written before, the state and federal courts are almost entirely corrupt. If the case is put before the right [wrong] judge, SCO will win. Regardless of the nonsensical nature of its case, and its total lack of merit.

Dying Dells

It's not a good sign when your laptop screen suddenly draws a thin white line down the middle, segmenting the screen into a two-thirds/one-third vertical division. It's especially bad when it shows up in the initial BIOS setup. I'm curious to know, however, if this could possibly have been caused by my selecting the wrong display type in Redhat 9, or if it was just a unfortunate coincidence of timing. My other, identical laptop has the same Dell 1280x Laptop type selected, and I would prefer to avoid ruining both machines if that is possible.

My instincts tell me that it had nothing to do with this, though, since this is only the latest in a long string of hardware failures for this pair of Latitude CPx machines. Considering that I never take them anywhere, I can't imagine that they would have lasted more than five weeks if they'd ever left the house. But if anyone knows more about this sort of thing, do let me know.

Of course you don't

"In a 2002 Washington Post article by Clive Thompson, Chip McGrath, editor of the New York Times Book Review said, 'I don't think we're missing the boat on popular books. We're missing the boat, calculatedly so, on things like religious books. I don't think we have to apologize for that.'"
- The Bulletin of the SFWA, Fall 2003, p. 13

Just so we're clear. The New York Times Book Review intentionally ignores best-selling books in constructing its bestseller lists. Why? My guess is that they wish to establish Christian and other non-secular points of view as being outside the mainstream, which, as defined by the New York Times, bears only superficial resemblance to the actual mainstream of American public opinion.

Ixnay on the voxday

If you're wondering what on earth the literary reference for today's column could possibly be, don't think you're going crazy. I titled it Capitalism, Socialism and Technology as a homage to Joseph Schumpeter's excellent work. However, my WND editor apparently either didn't like it or didn't recognize it, as he renamed the piece Bypassing Government.

Of course, if he really wanted to drive readership, he should have used one of the magic words. Sex. Clinton. Hillary. [Insert name of celebrity making political gaffe here]. For some reason, anything mentioning one of those four things is irresistible to people. And speaking of Hillary, I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if Joseph Farah is right about her running. Sure, she says she isn't. Like she's never lied before.

Boycott Norton Anti-Virus

cluge writes: A recent American Rifleman contained small column that said that Symantec's new Internet Security 2004 would block pro gun rights sites (i.e. NRA sites), while not blocking similar anti-gun rights web sites. Being the eternal skeptic, this claim was tested by downloading the trial version and running some tests against it. To my surprise I found the every NRA site was blocked and was in the category 'weapons.' This even included the NRA's Institute for Legislative Action. Some sites that were not blocked were notable anti-gun rights sites such as The Brady Campaign, and Good Bye Guns. The only anti-gun rights site that was blocked that I could find was Hand Gun Control's web site. My rather informal test still raises the spectre that a large corporate entity may be clandestinely trying to sway you or your child's political views by censoring content from one side of a political debate. This is indeed chilling, especially considering that such software is required to be used in libraries to protect children. Is this political slant common in censorware? Have slashdotters found similar glitches in other 'parental control' software?"

I was going to buy a copy of NAV from Symantec after a virus took down my intranet as well as my ISP, but I migrated to Linux instead. Now, I'm even more glad that I didn't by from these censorware haters of Constitutional rights. Send Symantec a message by nuking NAV from your hard drive and replacing it with McAfee, AVG or Dr. Solomon. Better yet, have done with the Third Way neofascists all together and go Penguin.

The end of the world as we know it

Talking to one of my friends who is on the verge of making the Great Migration, we began to discuss the quick tech support which is available for Red Hat and other Linux distros on the newsgroups in places like alt.os.linux.redhat and so forth. He was concerned, though, about posting his email and generating even more spam, and mentioned that he might set up an account at Hotmail or Yahoo in order to avoid that problem.

Of course, Pan and Pine and pretty much every other newsreader lets you use fake emails anyhow, so if you're content to wait for your answer to get posted, there's no reason to use real address. As proof, I cited one recent post I'd seen was made by one Nyarlatothep, giving an email of cthulhu@yog-sothoth.com. My friend conceded the point, with the caveat "if it's not fake, we're all in a lot of trouble!"

The Elder Gods have awoken at last from their long sleep of centuries. And they've got email!

Call me sentimental

..but there's something about seeing "Griese" on the back of a Miami Dolphins jersey that makes me smile. I'm not a Dolphin's fan, but I hope that Brien Griese finds a little more success down south than he did up in Denver. I remember watching his last game as a Wolverine, the 1998 Rose Bowl for which his father was half of the CBS broadcast team. Bob Griese was professional throughout, but when his co-announcer - all-time announcing great Keith Jackson - complimented Griese on Brian's success and the pride Jackson knew the father took in his son, Griese came perilously close to breaking down.

A good moment in college football. Of course, I've got Peyton Manning going today, so here's hoping for a 42-35 shootout.

Madden 2005 needs a Coach Mode

Front Page Sports Football Pro used to have one, and it was a blast. You call the plays and let the AI-controlled players implement them. The chess aspect of football is the most interesting one, in my opinion, and this is the only way to be able to make the experience a purely strategic one. It's a little ironic that the only role you can't play properly is the one that the guy for whom the game is named made his name playing.

Love the new logos, though, especially the ability to use your own colors with them. I'm approaching the playoffs in my fourth sixteen-game season with 2004 - the addiction is under control.

Linux Bunny

And then I realized I loved her more than I ever had before.... Yes, she's hot, she's blonde and now she's down with the Penguin. I'm even a little envious of her setup, as her Windows partition is VFAT, not NTFS, so she has full write access to her old Windows files. Come on, hackers, let's get cracking on that NTFS format! The mountain is not yet climbed!

Anyhow, installing Linux on her machine - more to the point, downloading 1.7 Gigs of CDs - has taken a bit of time and caused the relative dearth of bloggage lately. And since everyone has different operating idiosyncracies, her use of web mail has necessitated my learning a bit about the so-called poppers, which allow POP and STMP access to the more popular web programs such as Hotmail and Yahoo! Mail. There are a bunch of them, but Hotwayd is proven to work with Evolution, so that's the one I went with. Report to follow soon.

For some reason, I just had a very strange flashback to that weird Apple commercial with Jeff Goldblum. That was a humiliating experience for me, as I was absolutely sure the IMAC was going to bomb. Who would want a computer that was crippled to the point of being little more than an email machine, but cost as much as a real computer? Well, a lot of people who hadn't used the Internet before, it turns out.

Since Linux now has no trouble handling all the email, surfing and word processing that consists of the vast majority of casual computer usage, it can only be a matter of time before someone creates a cheap Linux blackbox and sells a bunch of them. They probably won't come in tangerine, though. So, Apple still has that going for it.