No f$*^@(%$! chance!

Jean-Francois "hey, the FCC says it's okay" Kerry announces that Howard Dean has no chance to get elected. Right, like he's one to talk. Dean is at least somewhat interesting. Kerry is the biggest dork in the history of American politics. Seriously, it cracks me up every time I see him in that ridiculous leather jacket. I hope he gets the Democratic nomination, so we can see if it's possible for a candidate to lose all 50 states.

It's true, Dean probably doesn't have chance, but wouldn't you love to see the look on Hillary Clinton's face if Dean somehow managed to beat George Bush? Considering that senators are almost never elected president, you have to wonder how divorced from reality they are to keep throwing their oversized hats in the ring. I think Orrin Hatch's candidacy was probably my favorite no-hope run.

Microsoft's first flat-quarter

The fact is, if you are negotiating with Microsoft, and you pull out a SuSE or Redhat box, prices drop 25 per cent from the best deal you could negotiate. Pull out a detailed ROI (return on investment) study, and another 25 per cent drops off, miraculously. Want more? Tell Microsoft the pilot phase of the trials went exceedingly well, and the Java Desktop from Sun is looking really spectacular on the Gnome desktop custom built for your enterprise, while training costs are almost nil.

We'll see. It could be prophetic, or perhaps just wishful thinking. I have no doubt that "pull out all the stops" means the infernal Trusted Computing. But it's a nice thought, anyhow.

Speaking of OpenOffice, I hope that reader who's working on the random slide show for OpenOffice Impress is able to get that going. Let me know when you do.

Red zone bug

Madden's 2004 has a pretty humorous bug in it. When the computer has the ball inside the five-yard line, a play-action call will result in the quarterback faking the handoff to the running back, then immediately throwing the ball while he is still facing backward. This, of course, is a fumble, and since the defense is usually rushing aggressively, will tend to result in the ball being scooped up and returned for a defensive touchdown.

I thought it was just an anomaly when it happened the first time a few weeks ago, but when it happened again today from a similar formation, I realized it was a bug. The quarterback is obviously programmed to throw the ball before he has time to turn around. A nice 14-point turnaround there.

Propaganda in education

K-girl writes: Here's a few tidbits for you, based on my (brief) experience in university education classes:
A) In a three-week course - where time was extremely limited already - my instructor spent 20 minutes convincing her students why vouchers were bad. She did not stop this lecture until virtually the entire class had verbally confirmed that vouchers were a bad idea. Furthermore, she announced that vouchers were a conservative, Republican idea, and wrote "Republican" on the board -- all to make a point about vouchers, a subject not contained within the lesson plan.
B) There was a great deal of emphasis based on politically correct language in the special ed class.
C) There was a guest speaker who flat-out told us that most of the time we would be more important to the student than the student's parents, because most parents were too consumed with their own problems to care much about their own kids.
D) There was one America-bashing instructor who loved to spin us these lovely leftist tales about how America was consumed by violence and unfair to the poor and how socialist countries avoided those problems because of their very nature. She was a nice woman who was more than willing to listen to the handful of conservatives in her class, so I am willing to cut her a little slack.

Sadly, (C) may very well be true, at least of parents who send their children to government schools when they need not do so. I'd be interested to hear how the lady in (D) would explain the 20+ democidal massacres that took place in socialist countries since 1917. I suppose there's not much room for the people to commit violence when the government is committing so much against them.

In any case, it's no wonder that the teaching community is such a disaster, when considered in the collective. Take the dregs of the university, then send them off for a year of being steeped in propaganda. Even if the educratic bureacracy actually wanted to help children develop the ability to use their minds, they wouldn't have much success working with that material.

Religion and War

The Star Tribune reports: Most Minnesotans say religion plays a role in causing war, and most also think that certain religions are more likely than others to encourage violence among their believers.

The latter is certainly true, the former is absurd. This sort of ignorance, bordering on complete idiocy, really annoys me. I am a bit of an armchair military historian - I've had a strong interest in wargames since I was young - and for some time, I have been contemplating an exhaustive compilation of all the recorded wars of history and determining if their root cause had much, if anything, to do with any religion in general and Christianity in particular. My historical instincts lead me to estimate that 15 percent of all wars have a partial or primary religious component - albeit only 5 percent if Islam is excluded.

An initial look at the Wikipedia list of wars seems to indicate that this estimate is a reasonable one. The list of 126 wars is by no means comprehensive, but includes all of the major wars of the post-Renaissance, including many that most people have never heard of. Everyone knows of the Crusades, but few realize that Russia fought seven distinct border wars with Turkey, not including the Crimean War, only one of which was nominally religious. This list is heavily oriented towards the modern era and Europe in particular, so it is quite likely that the percentage of wars involving religion is unusually high since wars of the ancients and in the Far East were usually fought between co-religionists or were simple wars of conquest.

In any event, of the 126 wars, only 14 can be reasonably laid at the feet of religion. That is 11 percent - meaning that 89 percent of history's wars have little or nothing to do with religion. This calculation includes counting all four Arab-Israeli wars separately and splitting the difference in the two wars of Chechen independence as well as the two wars of the ongoing War on Terror. There is a reason that the Thirty Years' War - a vicious, but fairly minor war in terms of historical significance - is often cited when religion is blamed for war, there simply aren't very many wars that centered around religion as a cause.

Note that the medieval period is sadly underrepresented - not a single war between the war-torn Italian city-states is listed - as are the Middle and Far Easts. This list would lead one to think that Japan was a peaceable land until the Sino-Japanese war of 1894, while anyone familiar with Japanese history and the culture of bushido knows that nothing could be further from the truth. Balancing this is the fact that the religion-based wars of Islamic expansion are also left out - but then, so are the irreligious wars of the Mongols, Huns, Assyrians, Babylonians and Egyptians.

Of course, some will probably argue that the fact that people harbor religious beliefs allows the various kings, emperors and governments whose hunger for fame, wealth and power to more easily manipulate their people into war. But this is semantical nonsense, one might as easily say that having a good harvest "plays a role in causing war" with equal accuracy. Furthermore, the scant history of irreligious states such as the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China is no more peaceful than the historical norm. Throughout most of history, people have had no choice about fighting the wars imposed upon them by their leaders. And, in any case, that's not what the Star Tribune article is implying, nor it what most people are saying when they blame religion for the human failing that is war.

Democrats is Socialists

Not all of them know they are, and even fewer are willing to admit it publicly, but it's true. Henry Lamb points this out in a typically solid article.

If there is a difference between the Socialist Party and the Democrat leadership, it is a difference without distinction. In fact, the Socialists' web site says: "We are not a separate party ... Many of us have been active in the Democratic Party ... to strengthen the party's left wing, represented by the Congressional Progressive Caucus."

And they said the era of Big Government was over. Right.

A little test

I probably won't keep this referral script on for long, but I am curious to know from where folks are hailing. I assume most come here originally from WND, but that's not necessarily so. If this gets annoying, I'll remove it. I spotted it at Desert Cat's site - apparently a fair amount of you are visiting there. Which is cool, as he has some interesting links there.

If you check out the link, you'll see again how always comes down to Plato, Rousseau and Marx. You can blame a surprisingly significant percentage of the world's problems on those three men.

Dick Simkanin Trial

If you live near Fort Worth, Texas, and are opposed to raw government tyranny, you should consider showing up at the Fort Worth Federal Courthouse at 9:00 AM on January 5th. Dick Simkanin, a man who refused to withhold income taxes for his employees, has languished in jail for seven months despite having no criminal record and NOT having been convicted of a single crime. After two grand juries failed to indict him, he finally faced a trial on November 26, which ended in a mistrial after Judge John McBryde refused the jury nine separate requests for information, including one for a copy of the Internal Revenue Code and one for the judge to provide a copy of the specific US statute that required Simkanin to withhold. Simkanin was then re-indicted by a grand jury that refused to either take Simkanin's testimony or see evidence that Simkanin wished to present in a process that violated numerous rules of court procedure.

The second trial will be on January 5th. The US government and the corrupt IRS-Federal Court cabal must not be permitted to run roughshod over the Constitution, Federal law and the rules of court procedure to imprison an innocent man who is guilty of nothing more than obeying the law.

Eventually, the truth will come out.

Why I like George Bush

I don't like him as a President, although as a Commander-in-Chief, I think he's pretty good. I despise what he's done in allowing Congress to sabotage both the future economy and future American liberties with Patriot I and II - you'd think Mr. Goldberg and the other conservative Patriot apologists would be sharp enough to discern the fact that something HAS NOT been used does not mean that it WILL NOT be used - and he did not take the opportunity to take the US out of the UN when it was sitting there like a fat pitch over home plate, just waiting to be driven out of the stadium, prior to the start of the Iraqi war.

What I like, though, is how President Bush is always visibly uncomfortable in a suit on a state occasion, especially when you contrast this with how happy and relaxed he appears when he's in a flight jacket surrounded by the soldiers under his command. For all his failings, I can't help but like seeing a president who manifestly doesn't get off on the trappings of his power.

Will I vote for him? No. But I think I 'd enjoy shooting the breeze with him for an evening. It's entirely possible that, like Churchill, the president is so focused on the ongoing war - he has a lot of information that we do not - that he sees everything else as completely irrelevant for the time being. It's even possible that he is correct.

Mailbox: Exemplary Indoctrination

SB writes: Now I know why I read this blog again. Wow, that's just about the oddest thing I have ever read. My son attends a public elementary school that is only slightly less conservative than Jerry Falwell. Of course, I live in a relatively conservative state (Texas), and grew up in one (Tennessee), so perhaps the experience differs depending on where you have children in school. I'm not sure a "rightist" education is any better than a "leftist" one. Granted, I'm not exactly sure what would constitute a "leftist" one (teaching egalitarianism, avoiding sexist language, leaving religious references out of the curriculum, perhaps?).... I have a feeling my version of politically neutral education is exactly what this person was referring to as "leftist indoctrination."

Never trust your feelings in matters of simple fact. This straightforward role-playing of Marxist distribution theory is what the public school teacher was writing about - hardly politically neutral - and this is only one example of many. I got my hands on a Profiles of Learning test five years ago, and the amount of raw propaganda in the reading comprehension section was unbelievable. I'm quite sure I would have completely failed the "comprehension" test, simply because I was in possession of facts that contradicted the "correct" answers - the test really struck me as being more something to weed out those with views deemed inappropriate than to test any ability to read. I recall that one Wisconsin homeschooled girl who scored over 1400 on her SATs failed it - fortunately, the public outcry in Minnesota over the PoL's brainwashing program caused the state Senate to repeal it, which has slowed down its implementation somewhat.

Like most parents whose children are in public school, SB is unlikely to have much information about precisely what is being taught in his child's school, what the education establishment is planning to teach there in the near future, and why. He cannot know, because he is not permitted to see the most important tests that his child is given. This determination to hear, see and think no evil of the government schools is interesting, in light of the fact that more and more public school teachers - even award-winning teachers like John Gatto - are damning them in no uncertain terms.

That explains it

The Star Tribune reports: An overwhelming percentage of Minnesota, 78 percent, have a definite belief in God. Another 13 percent lean toward believing there is a god, according to a Star Tribune Minnesota Poll.

No wonder Howard Dean is suddenly finding the words to talk about his faith, if one can call it that. Even if the belief of this 91 percent doesn't have an impact on their lives or their political views in the majority of cases, blowing off a huge portion of the electorate in order to win favor with the virulent secularists does not sound like a winning strategy, no matter how favorably the New York Times regards it.

I'm not questioning Howard Dean's faith, I just don't know what it is. I haven't heard him make any precise statements about where he stands; his recent comments , however positive, have been too general to make any firm conclusions. More on this Monday.

Mailbox: Irony in Education

A public school teacher writes: I am a Christian teaching in the public schools, [subject deleted] to be precise. I have been teaching for [a reasonable number of] years. Some days, I think I need to stay in the classroom. Who else is going to stay and fight to see that these kids get something better than a leftist indoctrination? On the other hand, my wife is expecting, and I want to be able to provide for my family. I'm looking at going into administration, where I can still impact kids in a positive way, yet make enough money to send my child to a private school (or have my wife stay at home and home school). Maybe I just needed a sounding board, but I would appreciate any thoughts you have.

P.S. On your recommendation, my cousin and I are reading Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson. I'm only 200 pages in, but I'm enjoying it so far.

Interesting, to say the least. It's easy to dismiss what I say about leftist indoctrination; one hopes it would be a little more difficult to ignore similar statements coming from a veteran public school teacher. Note that this man sees a need to keep his child out of the very schools with which he is intimately familiar. I advised him to pursue administration, since he has no real power to fight the noxious indoctrination as a teacher, and in any case, his first responsibility must be to his own children, not those whose parents unfortunately see fit to abandon them to the intellectual wolves. One leads best by example, I think.

By the way, please note that I cleared it with him before posting his email here.

And one more gift

However much it would bother the official Favorite Scottish Neo-pagan of Vox Popoli, I consider this to be a real Christmas present of sorts. Mr. Charles Stross announces that he has finished the first draft of the ninth and final novellette of Accelerando. The novel will be published by Ace in 2005. I will certainly be picking up a copy of that, along with Glasshouse, its already-written - albet not yet published - sequel.

I sent him an invitation today to be interviewed on the fascinating subject of singularity. The short length of a column cannot possibly do him justice, of course, but we can post the whole thing right here. Ah, yes, the joy of the blog....

UPDATE - Before we make it official, we should probably make sure that Nell McAndrew is not a neo-pagan herself first. As much as we admire Mr. Stross, there is simply no comparison. Shall we say, presumptive Favorite Scottish Neo-pagan, then?

Speaking truth to power and parents

Neal Boortz writes: The single most prevalent form of child abuse in this country is the act of sending a child to a government school. We worry incessantly about the separation of church and state. We would do well to devote half as much attention to the separation of government and education.

I spent the entire fifth grade reading novels in the library, because my teachers realized that there was absolutely no point in making me sit through class. And I laughed when the Indiana Law professor on Fox the other night inadvertantly let the cat out of the bag when he was explaining why a child giving out candy canes with Bible verses or something on them was violating the separation of Church and State.

What is okay in a public street, said the professor, is not okay in a public school, because the children are not there because of choice, they are forced to be there. With the government, it always comes down to force, doesn't it?

Decisions, decisions

Thanks to Santa, I'm looking forward to reading the following books:

Quicksilver by Neal Stephenson
Ilium by Dan Simmons
Singularity Sky by Charles Stross
Kant and the Platypus by Umberto Eco

I'm just finishing the first Aubrey-Maturin book now. Not the first I've read, but the first in the series. Like it, don't love it. I started with book seven, mostly because it was in the right place at the right time. I think I'll probably start with Stross. I've been looking forward to reading it for a while - love his Atrocity Archive - and besides, I need to savor the notion of having new Stephenson that I can start reading anytime I want for a while before I actually crack the cover.

Logitech spies

RM writes: I took special interest in your Logitech adventure and decided to write you. I recently had my own Logitech experience. After purchasing their $100 web cam, I installed the software and drivers on my Windows XP Pro system. Not only did I get a wonderful collection of software to "help me", I also received some spyware. I do not recall if it was Backweb Lite or another snoop.... In case this happens to you, I recommend using the following free spyware detection and removal tool: SpyBot: Search and Destroy at http://www.safer-networking.net. Be sure to type .net and not .com. I had the pleasure of typing in the wrong URL while working on my mother's computer after Christmas dinner today.

Tales of the White Buffalo

Julie writes: I can only imagine who the WB picked number 1 to earn his glorious award, but try these two daisies on for size: In a league where receptions are only worth 1/2 a point, the first overall pick this year was: Terrell Owens. Thusly, the male coach of team Furious Anger has ever since been refered to as Nancy. Ouch. Worse yet, the number 5 overall pick: Amos Zero... Zero... How the heck to you spell that anyway? Ah well.. you know who I'm talking about. This is far worse when you consider that Clinton Portis was still on the board.

I'll bet there are a lot of us out here who'd like to see more WB tales...

Ask and you shall receive... this is also a belated response to a request from CL regarding campus poetry slams. First, the WB's infamous pick was Randall Cunningham in 1999, echoing Dennis Green's third-worst coaching decision - that is to say: 1) taking the cursed knee; 2) Picking Dimitrius Underwood; 3) Going with Randall over Brad Johnson in 1999. Still, none of these are as bad as one guy in my brother's league, who last year picked Kordell "INT" Stewart #1. You can't even ride a guy who does something like that, you just have to replace him with someone who actually watches football now and then.

Anyhow, our senior year of college, I inadvertantly made an enemy of a squidgy little girl in one of my classes, who took great exception to not being able to make inane assertions about the assigned text without being verbally sliced and diced in public. She complained to my professor, who then requested that I refrain from criticizing anything this poor, intellectually-defenseless female might happen to say in the future. Since she was the 4.0 apple-of-her-professor's eye and I had shown up two week's late for the semester on the very last day that one could show up without being dropped, I could hardly fault the man for his partiality. So, I agreed to the condition and promptly stopped going to class. Got an A anyhow, since it mostly was on Plato and I already knew the material, so the whole thing was no big deal in my opinion.

The White Buffalo, however, disagreed and vowed that Squidgy must be destroyed. Such is the Way of the White Buffalo. He learned that Squidgy, being a good campus pseudo-intellectual, took active part in a monthly poetry slam, where everyone wore black mocknecks and inflected execrable verse on one another, invariably to polite applause. The WB proposed that the three of us - WB, Big Chilly and I - should each compose the worst poems we could possibly write, then read them aloud at the lunchtime poetry slam. The brilliant clincher, contributed by Big Chilly, was that we would not show each other the poems before reading them aloud to an unsuspecting public. And so it was agreed, and we drank a solemn toast to confusion upon the foe.

I composed an abomination that ran thusly:

I like you
You like me
I think that's neat,
Like a room that's just been vacuumed.
Vaccuum me.

And so on, in like manner. I should note that this was prior to any of the infamous trio of "sexist pornographers" becoming Christians, and that in this particular crowd, a white male talking about anything that could possibly be interpreted as female submission was tantamount to a chauvinist act of war. After sitting through a few howlers, including one by the university's Poet Laureate which began, unforgettably: "Where do the homeless people go when it rains?" Big Chilly was the first to step up to the podium, reading first a short poem about losing his keys, then wowing the crowd with The Eagle and the Lama. It was hard not to laugh, especially when he dropped the bomb about "swooping down upon the back of that belching beast."

I was up next, and I did not dare to meet anyone's eyes, reading my splendidly awful creation in a tightly compressed voice that the crowd mistook for deep emotion, although the metaphor could hardly be missed by a coma victim. Their intense interest only made it harder to keep a straight face, especially when the newspaper that Big Chilly was hiding behind began to shake. But I held it together, even through the applause, and then all eyes were on the White Buffalo, who unleashed the unspeakable act of artistic desecration that is The Heart: A Tautology. It struck the awed crowd into respectful silence, with lines like "won't you send up a Space Shuttle Columbia of love to colonize my windswept soul", "my hopping, sneezing pomegranite" and that unforgettable stanza:

"Agammemnon, slay my combatants
So that the mighty hand of Jocasta,
Like a very large lemon drop,
Will fall upon my brazen breast."

I seriously thought I was going to blow out my spleen or something, but even under this intense provocation, all three of us held it together, as our intent was to leave decorously without alerting the ridiculous would-be artistes that they'd been brutally mocked. Unfortunately, before we could make our escape, Squidgy took the podium and prefaced her poem with the statement: "Okay, this poem is from the point of view of me - dramatic pause - and a lizard." That was too much. She'd effortlessly managed to top our very worst. All three of us simultaneously exploded with laughter and fled outside, where we nearly expired from laughing so hard.

So, the moral of the story is: do not mess with the White Buffalo. I seem to recall hearing that Squidgy never showed her face in that class again, although I can't vouch for it because, as I said, I'd already bagged it myself. Believe it or not, this was not the only time that The Heart: A Tautology appeared in public - it was even published in a real newspaper once - nor was this our only act of artistic ridicule on campus. But those are stories for another day.

A not-so-merry Logitech Christmas

Okay, who is the conceptually-challenged programmer who failed to foresee that there might, possibly, somewhere, be someone with a dual-boot system that wanted to use a web cam? Especially considering that it's the Pro version. This is why I absolutely hate it when companies try to "make it easier" for their customers by taking over the installation process. At the very least, provide a way for those of us who know what we are doing to have access to the necessary files. After following the instructions - which consisted of two pages saying nothing more than "install the software from the CD and follow the on-screen instructions" - I was most displeased when no such instructions appeared following the automatic reboot.

Digging into the CD revealed a README file, which in the Windows 2000 section stated "due to a bug in the installation program, an installation on a dual-boot system will fail." That's it. No work-around, no information on where one can find .inf files to install the drivers manually, nothing. The installation dates back to 11/02, however, and there's a newer download dated 10/03 on the Logitech website, so I'll download that and give it a try. Maybe they've fixed the bug; unfortunately, there's no way of knowing ahead of time, since Logitech's support FAQ deals with nothing but the most basic information, uttering banalities such as "if the camera doesn't work, see if the USB cable is plugged in" and "if the install fails, turn the computer off and try installing again". Then what, repeat as desired? Thanks, that's a big help.

Anyhow, if this newer install doesn't work, we have two options. Convert her system back into a single-boot Windows system or take this one back and get a different web cam. Gee, such a difficult choice....

UPDATE - No harm, no foul. The install downloaded from the web site can handle dual-boot and Space Bunny is in, as they say, full E-F-F-E-C-T otherwise known as effect. I think it was easier when you only needed batteries for the new toys, instead of drivers.

Glory to God

Christ the Savior is born! Merry Christmas to all, and may God bless us, every one.

Mailbox: True

D-Lo writes: After reading your commentary on the JRR Tolkien fiction epic turned movie" Return of the King" I can now understand why you are also so intrigued by football in the NFL. The former was written as a work of fiction, the latter has become a work of fiction on par with WWF/WWE. Since the Minnesota Vikings were egregiously robbed by overt officiating on behalf of the Dallas Cowboys on December 28th, 1975 in the famous Hail Mary pass, it's all become a sham!

You mean, infamous Hail Mary pass. The game that stole the Super Bowl. The game that killed Fran Tarkenton's dad. The game that defined my Purple heart. I had cheered both the Vikings and the Cowboys as a small child, because my mother was a college friend of Roger Staubach and I'd been brought up to support the Naval Academy, Roger Staubach and the Dallas Cowboys. But that game....

Speaking of Mom, I probably get my taste for the martial arts from her. She was at that game with my Dad and when they got back, some hours later, she was still hopping mad. At some point, apparently her primary affection had been transferred to the Vikes. When I told her that a referee had been injured by a thrown bottle, her response was as immediate as it was unchristian. "Good - I threw everything I had except my purse!" Which explained why they hadn't brought me home a program.

Okay, maybe it wasn't right, but it still makes me laugh. You have to love Mom. She dresses up with a full headdress complete with tom-tom to watch the Redskins - alone. I don't quite understand it, but she likes the Vikes, the Redskins and the Cowboys, in that order... I think. Her only real football loyalty is to USC, as far as I can tell, unless they play the Naval Academy.

Maybe that's a BIT much

TPS writes: Brett Favre's stunning preformance against the Raiders brought me to tears over the loving-kindness that the Triune God bestows upon his creatures. "What is man that you are mindful of him?"

Then again, Dr. Z of SI said: "What I think is that we saw a once-in-a-lifetime performance Monday night, not only by Favre, but also by his receivers, who were catching everything deep, no matter what kind of adjustment they had to make. You seldom see a team come together like this and rally round one player in such dramatic fashion."

God cares about sparrows, so I suppose it's within the realm of possibility that he cares about football games. I have to say, I quite like the idea of an all-powerful deity who would take an interest in such things, especially one who might not be able to resist helping out a grieving quarterback. You don't think that would be right? Hey, come on, they were playing the Raiders.

We hates the Raidess.

On Monday the Rabbi Went Off the Deep End

I completely disagree with the notion that Brett Favre is somehow "dishonoring" his father by playing a football game. Indeed, his performance suggests precisely the opposite to me. Not only did he not dishonor his former high-school coach, he honored him before the nation. We all knew for whom he was playing, and he came through in spades. I couldn't help cheering for Brett, even if one of his vintage 4-INT games would have served my Vikings much better.

I'm with the WND emailers on this one. The more I read of Boteach, the less I like his writing He seems to be more interested in celebrities and telling other people what to do than writing anything of substance. I see a lot of Kobe columns in his future. How boring.

Secession and slavery

Walter Williams raises some excellent points about the Constitutionality of secession, and the unlikelihood that such exercising such a right would be permitted. I only wonder what the Federal excuse for an invasion would be. I expect that all of those who still believe that the Civil War was primarily about slavery - all the repeated declarations about preserving the Union to the contrary notwithstanding - would probably swallow whatever nonsense was given out as the official reason.

Why is it that the right to self-determination is something worth fighting for in foreign lands, and something that must be fought against in our own? If slavery trumps a right to self-determination, why are we not invading the Sudan right now, not to mention Eastern Europe? I often wonder if those who mindlessly repeat what little they remember of fifth-grade history ever stop to think about the logical implications of what they are saying.

Abraham Lincoln said the Civil War was not about slavery. Jefferson Davis said the Second (failed) American Revolution was not about slavery. Robert E. Lee didn't even own slaves - what on Earth was he fighting so brilliantly for? If the principles on both sides of the Civil War didn't believe it had anything to do with slavery, why do you? And if secession was treason, why was no Confederate ever tried for it, much less found guilty? Perhaps a second war of States Rights will one day convince the doubters.

I am, like most Americans, opposed to slavery. But I do not believe in throwing out the Constitution and using the evil of totalitarian oppression to end other evils. If there is an evil worth fighting a war to stop, it is the Holocaust of the Innocent. By the slavery theorist's logic, we should impose a Federal ban on abortion, then invade any states that refuse to honor the ban. If the slavery theory is correct and the Civil War was right, then there is no reason why we should not resort to the same extreme measures to end what is surely a far worse evil.

Mailbox: Fear of a Metaphorical Planet

JD writes: I can tell that you are a baptist because your ravings about "your" view of the world and its similarities to Tolkiens writings are waaay off to the religious right. To compare the United Nations to Sauron, and the nations of France, Germany, Russia and, China to the Nazgul, is just ridiculous. I somewhat agree to your comparison between orcs and islamic extremists because of their violent natures. But to label them as "monsters" or less than human, publicly no less, is un-christian. And what are baptists after all, but uber-christians. There are no christians but the baptists.

Why is "your" in quotes? Whose view do you expect me to have? Strange. Anyhow, this sort of historical ignorance is depressing, as people used to say the same sort of thing when they would insist that the European Economic Community was nothing more than a trade federation intended to boost the economies of Europe, and would NEVER prove to be the framework of a political entity, much less a totalitarian one. Of course, I don't hear that argument anymore now that the European Commission is giving orders to the once-sovereign English Parliament and entire nations are forced to vote and re-vote until they finally produce the acceptable response.

At what point will JD and others begin to understand that the UN is a great threat to humanity, perhaps even the greatest it will ever face? Once it usurps the laws of the USA? Once it has taxing power and an army? When it orders the confiscation of all private firearms? No, as usual, the threat will not be recognized by the Great Fat and Happy until it is too late and the enemy is at their throats. This is not theoretical; Kofi Annan has been stumping hard for the global UN tax as proposed by Paul Tobin, and the EU already has what could be used as the nucleus of the blue-helmeted horde. Furthermore, there is already precedent for American soldiers being forced against their will to serve under UN colors as in the Michael New court martial. I have no doubt at all that I will be proved correct on this matter, and I can tell you now that I will take absolutely no joy in being right.

As to orcs... it's called metaphor, JD. Deal with it. I never wrote anything about monsters or literal subhuman status.... Oh dear, it just occurred to me that perhaps he thinks the Sauron-UN comparison is ridiculous because there isn't a great flaming eye on top of the building in New York City. For the love of all that's good and holy, JD, get thee to a dictionary!

I am, as anyone who reads my column knows, a Southern Baptist. I have never once claimed, nor ever heard a fellow Baptist claim, that our understanding of Christianity is the only correct one. To believe with your heart and confess with your tongue that Jesus Christ is Lord is the only standard to which I subscribe, and while I can judge the latter, none but God can judge the former. Tonight, as is my custom, I will take great joy in attending midnight mass with my Christian brothers and sisters who happen to be Catholic, and together we will celebrate the birth of Our Lord.

The White Buffalo on Title IX football pools

While I appreciate your vigor and enthusiasm for the exceptional performance of the female members of this pool, especially Michelle my respected friend and co-worker, I find your e-mail demeaning and harassing, This is exactly the type of behavior that spawned the Salem Witch Trials, the Sacco and Vanzetti debacle, and the Wendy’s “Where’s the Beef” advertising campaign. Treating men as if they have no feelings or emotions relegates them to couch-sitting, beer guzzling, sports-watching, poor-fantasy-football-picking oafs. And while it may be completely and utterly applicable here, it doesn’t matter. This is America. The fact that the men in this pool are poorer at picking football game outcomes does not make the women better. It clearly makes the men victims. In this country, our utter lack of skill and applied talent does not make us less talented, it makes us worthy of special consideration and legal protection. I propose some sort of Fantasy Football Title IX treatment. I propose that if 50% of the top 5 winners (yeah, I know its 2.5 people, but some of the guys in the pool aren’t that tall) are not men than no-one gets to participate in this league. At the very least, we should eliminate some of the women who are in the league to make sure men have an equal chance. Anything else would be ridiculous, and to reject my idea would make one a sexist pig.

The WB is legendary in our fantasy football league for his insane approach to evaluating football talent - winner of the worst #1 pick ever award - and he's in third place in a 30+ man (and woman) NFL pool. No wonder the women are winning.

Fred on TV

The inimitable Fred Reed writes: The lobotomy box is all ads, with a sprinkle of stupid shows for people with the IQ of an avocado. Yes, I've heard the sheepish shuck-and-jive toe-dance about "But Fred, there are SOME good things - the History Channel and Discovery." Yeah: Sharks, Nazis, and pyramids. The absolute minimum necessary so that people who can't be alone with themselves will gawp at singing deodorant applicators.

I'm with Fred on this. I'd much rather read a book, play a game, surf or even write than watch TV - NFL excluded.

Nietzsche and the Marshwiggle

A nice irony is this: Whereas Christianity (and Judaism) can give atheists a dignified place within their own theory of religious liberty, it seems quite difficult for atheists such as Dawkins to assign religious people any place in their own theory other than the loony bin. For Jews and Christians, freedom is so dear to the Creator that He allows free human beings to turn away from him, to reject the granting even of His existence, and to scorn Him and His works. In their refusal of His friendship, He vindicates His love of liberty. Thus, atheists too give witness to His glory.

By contrast, Dawkins in his apoplexy can find no place for believing Jews and Christians except delusion. He thinks of atheism as a place of honor and of religion as a disease; teaching of the latter, a crime; teaching of the former, a way of light, knowledge, and truth.

There is a further irony. Time and again in history, reason has proved to be inadequate to its own defense. Most people most of the time live by passion, sentiment, custom, emotion — many such guides influence them — but few live purely by reason. Even famous philosophers of very high scientific standards have insisted that they did not choose their wives or guide their loves by scientific reason. Reason is but a thin sliver to build a civilization upon.

And the situation is far worse than that. The scientist qua scientist typically writes that the universe was formed by chance. At this starting point, then, there is a fundamental irrationality at the heart of science. There is a superstructure of towering reasonings, but based upon an absurdity — in the strict sense, an utter absence of discernible reason, a surd at the root of the matter. The thorough cultivation of science alone as a philosophy of life, therefore, normally ends as Nietzsche sadly announced, that, in our civilization, it already had: in nihilism.- Michael Novak, NRO

Novak pinpoints the base irrationality of atheism, the foundation upon which others are thereby constructed. To pretend that reason rules where it manifestly does not, to fly under a moral flag that is not - and in most cases cannot be - reached by reason, these are mere quotidian irrationalities. Perhaps some dim awareness of this self-delusion accounts for the rage of so many atheists when confronted by the ironic reality of their lives. They say they laugh, even as their foam-flecked lips spew curses.

It does not bother me in the least that many call me a fool or an idiot for my faith. But then, I believe in the biggest absurdity of all; that an all-powerful Creator God would deign to become Man, that He might save His creation from itself. Embrace the rational nihilism of the Void if you choose, as for me, like the Marshwiggle, I will hold to the fairy tale.

We'll have none of that around here

The plaintiff's bar wants to keep religious people off the jury, because they believe in personal responsibility. Won't they be in for a surprise, when those legions of highly ethical atheists pop up and throw their nefarious plans to win massive damage awards into disarray.

Somehow, this reminds me of how the courts go into panic mode whenever anyone within a five-mile radius of the courtroom utters the words "jury nullification".

Isn't it interesting how the most corrupt institutions in the USA - the courts and Wall Street - always rely on abstract theoretical arguments to justify their existence, while daily behaving in a manner that almost precisely contradicts their justifications.

On Ents and Elves

LV points out: "The Ents were really dissed, being presented as whiney sniveling cowardly appeasers, where in the book, they were mightily disturbed, but merely slow to anger and action. Not being hasty is not being French."

It's true, having them get "tricked" by Merry was rather lame, but I don't think Jackson had the time to show their slow rise to anger. I think LV is being too harsh, here. Jackson kept the essence of their nature intact, and furthermore, I submit that any clumsiness here must be forgiven by the awesome and overpowering attack on Isengard. He really surpassed my expectations there.

To be honest, I never much liked the Ents anyhow. I'm definitely a Rohan guy. Space Bunny is an Aragorn fan, and I understand the teenyboppers quite like Legolas, but I think that one starry-eyed female writer is correct in saying that Eomer is unfairly overlooked. After Faramir, he was my second favorite character in the books; unlike Faramir, the films did him justice.

As much as I like Cate Blanchett as an actress, I wasn't terribly fond of her as Galadrial. She was adequate, but she wasn't as ethereal and overpoweringly beautiful as my mind's eye pictured. I can't think of an actress I would have preferred, though. I also thought it was interesting how the elven armor was definitely influenced by the Ulthuan High Elves of Warhammer. The process goes full circle.

Where to start

RS asks: Would you consider Tolkien to have been a Christian?

I really dislike answering this sort of question. It does not fall to me, or any other man, to judge another man's soul. However, we can certainly say that JRR Tolkien was a devout Catholic, considered himself to be a Christian, was instrumental in leading CS Lewis to accept Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior, and wrote a literary masterpiece that is rife with Christian references, analogies and metaphor.

In other words, if he was not a Christian, I don't know who is. And if we judge Tolkien by his fruits, as we are instructed, there can be very little doubt as to the nature of the tree. In other words, yes.

By this same metric, I very much doubt that Adolf Hitler was a Christian, his sometime public protestations to the contrary notwithstanding. His blasphemous attempts to usurp the role of Jesus Christ would alone appear to rule him out as an antichrist, not to mention the small matter of his massive body count and notorious hatred for God's Chosen. But the truth is, we do not know the truth of what was in either man's heart at the end.

It is possible to imagine that Hitler repented of his sins in the Berlin bunker. In near-total ignorance of his life, it is possible to imagine that Tolkien secretly abjured Jesus Christ and embraced Belial. But both possibilities, especially the latter, are so uncharacteristic of what we know as to be monstrously absurd, in my opinion, and not worth the breath required to discuss them. For my part, I hope to one day leave as bold a Christian testimony behind as did Mr. Tolkien.

Sharpening the blades... with a smile

JM writes about a friend at a certain university who was assigned to write an essay on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. After writing one supporting the Israeli side, her professor refused to grade it and told her to rewrite it - either supporting the Palestinians or writing objectively - in order to receive a grade.

What do you say I give this professor a jingle? As my brother used to say, I FEEL a jacuzzi coming on!

We need more of these?

Now they've cloned white-tailed deer. Why? We don't have enough? While I don't have anything against hunting, I've never quite understood the allure of driving three hours north and freezing your rear end off sitting in a tree in the north woods in order to wait for a glimpse of the very same animal that is in your backyard, en masse, every single night. I remember one evening when my Dad and brothers had left to go hunt, and two hours later, I barely managed to avoid running over three deer less than fifty yards from the house with the truck. And no, we did not live in the country.

I have to say, as much as it still boggles my mind that Man has developed cloning technology in my lifetime, I'm a little disappointed with the results. I hope someone is building a secret army of clones somewhere or something, because the reality is really falling far short of all the science fiction I've read. Where's my laser pistol? Where's my lightsabre? The real globalist conspiracy has to be the most boring conspiracy ever - what lousy excuse for a conspiracy to take over the world has a web site announcing their intentions? A web site, by the way, they don't bother to update.

And if you're going to clone something, clone Morgan Fairchild. Can't have too many of those.

I'm not sure how I feel about cloning. I don't know enough to have an opinion on it, although from what little I understand, I can't support either the destruction of conceived but unused people or the use of clones for harvesting or study purposes. My technophilic instincts tend to war against my ethics here, to a certain extent.

That's what I'm talking about!

According to Len Pasquarelli: It hasn't yet been officially announced, but the starting quarterbacks for the Pro Bowl will be Steve McNair (of Tennessee) and Daunte Culpepper (Minnesota).

Good onya Daunte! This only goes to show why fans should not be voting for All-Star games - or at least that their votes should not be taken as a serious indicator of a player's skill. In keeping with this season's Black Quarterback Watch, here's yesterday's results:

Culpepper: 20/29 260 yds 69% 8.97 avg 3 TD 1 INT 117.0 rating
D. McNabb: 17/27 238 yds 63% 8.81 avg 1 TD 2 INT 72.8 rating

The ESPN fans, as I mentioned before, favored McNabb over Culpepper as the starter by 51 percentage points. Ludicrous. Week 16 actually wasn't a bad game statistically for McNabb. But as usual, the Eagles weren't in the game because of him, they were in it because of Brian Westbrook's punt return - although the defense was no help at all. McNabb even made a very nice play in the pocket to avoid what looked like a certain sack, then seemed to overthrow Chad Lewis but the TE managed to go up and get it for a vital 4th-quarter first down on third-and-long. But that last INT that gave the game away was pretty bad. Not exactly the crunch-time performance that is supposed to excuse his "misleadingly" average stats.

Okay, but overrated. That's my verdict. Still. And yes, I'll continue hammering this into the ground for the rest of the season. It's football. This is what we do. If anyone wants a long-winded rant on how Two-Minute Tommy Kramer was a better quarterback when he was drinking, I can deliver that too. My theory is that his balance was off without the beer in one hand.

And yet they argue

A spokesman for Mr Berlusconi said the prime minister had been telephoned recently by Col Gaddafi of Libya, who said: "I will do whatever the Americans want, because I saw what happened in Iraq, and I was afraid

Not that this will stop Jean-Francois Kerry or numerous other Democratic cretins from insisting that the two events are unrelated. Then again, most Democrats still believe in the tooth fairy, the labor theory of value and wealth through taxation, so I see no reason why they should start being bound by objective reality now.

Thanks for stopping by

Couldn't help but notice that there appear to be some newcomers to the blog today. I hope that you're enjoying it. There's a good bit of archives to plow through here if you're so inclined, a few ill-considered rants and some interesting, if random links here and there. Stop by again sometime.

I try to blog four times a day, but the mileage varies depending on mood, current events and numerous other vagaries. Feel free to let me know what you think.

Random observation of the day - I think my two favorite Christmas carols are Silver Bells and Good King Wencelas, with a slight edge to Silver Bells.

An even more comprehensive list

You can see why this gentleman was a little less sanguine about The Return of the King. The Physics Geek says it's been linked up the wazoo around the blogosphere, but since there may be a few of you new to this brave new world of the all-conquering blog, I figured it was worth posting. It made me laugh, anyhow.

Now, if everyone would just be satisfied with posting links on their blogs instead of sending me "Send This to 10 STRONG WOMEN You Know" or stupid videos of cartoon babies dancing to horrid pop songs, the world would be a better place. Not any less dangerous, perhaps, but indubitably better.

I'll take credit for this

I was most pleased to see an article by Fred Reed being posted on the WND Commentary page today. He's a great expatriate freedom writer, who regularly puts to shame the perverted modern American notion of what it is to live in a free society. I recommended him to WND's commentary editor a few months ago; he's a great writer and if you enjoy my stuff, you'll love his.

Here's his archives. They're well worth going through.

Return of the King: Nitpicks and Niceties

WHAT I DID NOT LIKE

1. Faramir was one of my favorite characters in the books. He is markedly less noble here, although most of the damage was already done in The Two Towers. His heroism, as well as his admiration for his older brother, does not come across well.
2. Denethor was an epic tragic figure in the books. Here, he comes off as petty and vindictive; a crazy man, not a great man crazed by the loss of his beloved son. The handling of the Denethor-Faramir relationship was probably the biggest disappointment to me, aside from Liv Tyler's unaccountably tepid Arwen. She's beautiful, but bland, bland, bland.
3. Horses don't charge for over a mile. They also don't charge walled positions. Silly. This happened several times.
4. The Great Sleepless Eye as spotlight. Sauron can see across Middle Earth, but not through a rock right in front of it? What was that? Minor, but very weird.
5. The tiny size of the Army of the West, and the way it gets surrounded. Ever heard of a defensive square, gentlemen? Or better yet, a fighting withdrawal using the seven hills of the book? It didn't make sense and it wasn't dramatic. Again, minor, but a strangely inept touch. The same sort of thing happened when Eomer's riders surrounded Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli. If you crowd too much, no one can do anything. What was the point? Yes, they're surrounded. We get it. Oh, they're really, really, really surrounded? Come on.
6. Elrond's reduction in stature. I'd prefer to have seen him remain aloof, even bitter.
7. The siege of Gondor seemed rushed. I thought the siege of Helms Deep came off more powerfully.
8. Aragorn seemed rather lacking in authority when he confronted the dead. He was such a stud taking on the Nazgul and the orcs; I found this a little surprising and disappointing.

THINGS I REALLY, REALLY LIKED

1. The Riders of Rohan were perfect. Theoden's transformation from deceived victim to triumphant victor was great. His line about being able to enter the Hall of his Fathers without sorrow or shame brought tears to my eyes. I loved Theoden in the books, loved him even more in the movies.
2. I had my doubts about Eowyn. While the actress didn't quite fit my mental picture of her, she gradually grew on me. In The Return of the King, she comes into her own. I hope we'll see more of her and Faramir in the extended DVD.
3. The charge of the Rohirrim. Yes, they didn't fight the Oliphaunts in the books. No, it made little tactical sense considering their superior speed. But holy cats, it was so freaking cool!
4. Legolas rules, again.
5. The devotion to the close relationships of the hobbits. Some may have felt that the ending(s) was too drawn out, but I say no. These four had been through Hell and back, been irreparably changed - even maimed - and a quick Hollywood wave-and-ride-into-the-sunset would have been wrong, wrong, wrong. I never found Frodo terribly interesting in the books, but Elijah Woods did an outstanding job of bringing him to life. By the end, I wanted to weep with Sam.
6. The last fight with Gollum was much better than I imagined it could be.
7. The horrors of war and its effects on the women and children was tremendously powerful in each movie. The grief of the women and children as their men rode out on Faramir's hopeless charge on Osgiliath was overpowering. Also great was the constant reminders that the men were fighting to protect those they loved. They rode willingly to die, that their loved ones might live.
8. The power of the Nazgul ripping apart the retreating cavalry of Gondor. And then, the aerial assault on the city walls.
9. Grond. It WAS Grond, nightmarish and terrifying.
10. The crotchety old hobbit glaring at the returning heroes, as he did at Gandalf before. There is the unconquerable strength of The Shire. He who refuses to be impressed by the glamour of the great will never lick the boots of a tyrant.
11. Loved the lighting of the watchtowers. Huge tension, plus it demonstrated some of the tactical realities involved. Very cool stuff.
12. The final scene. Sheer perfection. In a hole in the ground....

(My apologies to regular blog readers. There wasn't room for all of this in today's column, and I didn't want to force any newcomers to wade through the last few days of posts.)

Thus spake Jean-Francois

Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), a presidential aspirant, portrayed the success with Libya as an exception to the Bush Doctrine. "Ironically, this significant advance represents a complete U-turn in the Bush administration's overall foreign policy," he said in a statement Saturday. "An administration that scorns multilateralism and boasts about a rigid doctrine of military preemption has almost in spite of itself demonstrated the enormous potential for improving our national security through diplomacy."

Let's see. Two American enemies have been beaten down and smacked around. Immediately after this, an old American enemy decides to make nice. Can you spot the connection? Jean-Francois Kerry can't. Ironically, it is those who believe George Bush is too synaptically-challenged to be President who will consider this a persuasive argument. I am not a Bush fan, but neither do I recommend making the mistake of confusing a glib tongue with intelligence, much less wisdom.

The man's man

Congratulations to St. John's and its now-legendary coach, John Gagliardi. Not only did the man collect his 4th NCAA Division III national championship, but he and his team did it in style by knocking off Mount Union, the top-ranked defending champions who were on a 55-game winning streak and had outscored their opponents 249-6 this year.

24 - St John's
06 - Mount Union

John Gagliardi is one of my heroes. Not because he's a winner 414 times over, but because of the way he wins. You have to read about him to believe him. In the world of football, he is the ultimate maverick.

So the Chiefs are frauds

I was actually surprised by this. Sure, it's no secret that the Vikings offense can explode from time to time, but I expected the defense to wilt under the pressure of the hammer that is Priest Holmes. Skoal Vikings! This season has been a pleasant surprise, regardless of how it turns out, and I hope that our insane owner will not go off the deep end and fire Mike Tice. The guy may not be a rocket scientist, but considering how the geniuses of the league have fared of late, he increasingly appears to be a solid coach. Anything short of one more year would not be a fair shake.

It will be interesting to see if he can further strengthen the defense without the benefit of George Leary. Strange season this year, setting up for a playoffs that could be one of the most difficult to predict in years. Right now, Rams and Eagles look tops in the NFC - both look better than the other at home - and I like the way the Colts are playing, but I don't like them at New England in December.

I love THIS game.

Snowballs in Hell

I received an email from a Democrat who's running for the Arizona Senate. I can't believe I'm going to write this, but if I lived there, I honestly think I'd vote for her. AZ Republicans and Libertarians, check out this out:

"I am a stanch gun rights defender who scores 100% regularly with the GOA. I believe in the right of freedom of speech, even speech which is unpopular. I believe in withdrawing from NAFTA, GATT, and the WTO, and believe American sovereignty should remain sacrosanct against the flood of international bodies. And I pledge to uncover the truth about all POW's no matter how many military brass and politicians are embarrassed by the facts. I will be a legitimate maverick to the Washington establishment, instead of being bosom buddies with them. I believe the authority of Washington must be severely curtailed. Additionally, I support the elimination of both the wage tax and the IRS. You might find it difficult to believe that I am a Democrat. But I am. My name is Liz Michael."

Sure, she's probably lying, but considering that the alternative is John McCain, I'd sure take a flyer on her.

Random slides in Impress

AG writes: Hey, I'm trying to use OpenOffice to make the alphabet and phonics slides like you suggest. Actually, it's something that I have been wanting to do for a long time but have been spurred on by your article. Also, the fact that I was reading at age 3, and my daughter will soon be 4 and is not reading yet...well, this shames me into finally working with her more diligently and with more purpose. I also have a two year old son that I can start with, and another infant daughter that can be taught before too long. Anyway, are you aware of a way to randomize an OpenOffice presentation? Being such a proponent of open source, I would hope that you could provide a link to such a method.

I'm working on learning about this now, but unfortunately the list of OO macros did not include an Impress random slideshow. If anyone knows about one, let me know. In the meantime, I've been cheating - one of my old machines is booted to Windows specifically to use Powerpoint with the random macro added. But I'll get there with OO Impress, it just might take a little work first. To be honest, it hasn't been a real priority.

Federalism and the Right

Ramesh Ponnuru of NRO writes: In several recent debates, various conservatives have been accused of betraying their professed commitment to federalism. The accusations have sometimes come from liberals, but more often from libertarians and other conservatives. It's no use replying to the liberals that they are no respecters of federalism themselves; since federalism is not part of their political creed, violations of it are not betrayals of principle. But many libertarians say they believe in federalism too. So it has been possible for the conservatives in the dock to accuse the libertarians of hypocrisy right back. If the accusers were right in each of these instances, one would have to conclude that a true federalist would oppose each of the following:

All right, let's see just how big a hypocrite this Christian Libertarian happens to be....

federal tort reform

I don't know enough about this to have an opinion. Certainly, the current court system is a disaster. But I don't understand how it could be hypocritical to reform the federal courts. Those are the courts with which I'm primarily concerned.

federal legislation to restrict state taxes on the Internet

I'm for anything that restricts taxes of any kind. Also, a detailed perusal of Federal and state tax regulations shows that many states have signed over their income taxing authority to the Federal government, as well as a number of other taxes. This is why the amount of your state income tax is derived from your Federal income tax. It is also why you probably do not owe state income tax, if you are not liable for the Federal tax. I think Ramesh needs to do more homework on this one before listing it here.

a federal constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage

For it. But the Supreme Court has already federalized the question. I don't understand how, once the issue has been made federal by the Left, the Right is supposed to throw its hands up and surrender. Rolling it back to the states is preferable, to be sure.

federal laws against medical marijuana

against it

federal legislation to combat rape in state prisons

No opinion.

federal bans on partial-birth abortion and cloning

If there is a federal ban on murder, then it seems easy enough to justify the abortion ban by simple definition. I'd rather leave cloning up to the states.

Roe v. Wade

against it

a federal ban on some kinds of state broadband regulation

against it

a federal ban on state laws criminalizing sodomy

against it

No one said he was stupid

Interesting, to see how the Libyan colonel has been quick to ditch his WMDs subsequent to Hussein's capture, in a manner that ensures he'll find favor with the West. You'd think this would have some impact on a certain former student of dentistry in Syria, although I can't imagine it will make any difference at all to the mullahs in Iran. They are already tottering, and giving way on this sort of thing would almost certainly finish them off as the only thing they have going for them is that their people are still afraid.

People ruled by dictators are like sharks. Once they scent weakness, it isn't long before someone is strung up by their feet. Sic semper tyrannis.

What I don't understand is this dreadful urge to rule over other people. It seems that if you study the life of almost any dictator, you learn that it is only a matter of time before they begin retreating into seclusion, driven their by their fear of those to whom they know they are doing wrong. Castro appears to be an exception to this, but any man who wants to give speeches lasting nine hours is clearly already off his gourd.

NFL absurdity

I've been going on and on about McNabb being overrated ever since the initial ESPN blow-up. I have not changed my mind in the least, nor will I, even if the Eagles win the Super Bowl. Want to go there? Fine, now use that argument on behalf of Trent Dilfer. In light of these ludicrous surveys, I'd like to point out a salient fact. THERE ARE AT LEAST 23 OTHER PLAYERS INVOLVED IN THE RESULTS OF AN NFL GAME!

ESPN asks: Who should be the NFC Pro Bowl QB?

62.6% - Donovan McNabb
15.5% - Matt Hasselbeck
12.4% - Brett Favre
09.6% - Daunte Culpepper

Unbelievable. Obviously, the secret to being considered an NFL great is to a) play in the NFC East; b) play for a top playoff team; c) have a great defense. This isn't a race deal - the massively underrated Culpepper is black and Favre, a white media favorite, has been overrated for the last two years. At least Steve McNair is finally getting his due - although Manning will rightly win this year's MVP.

Culpepper: 257/397 64.7% 3022 yds 7.6 avg 21 TD 9 INT
D. McNabb 235/419 56.1% 2736 yds 6.5 avg 12 TD 9 INT

Daunte also has twice as many rushing TDs (4) as McNabb (2), and racked up his superior statistics while playing in two fewer games. So what could possibly account for the Eagles being three games up on the Vikings other than the greatness of McNabb? Perhaps the fact that the Eagles are sixth in scoring defense and give up 4.7 fewer points per game than the 24th-ranked Vikes might have a little something to do with it.

It was inevitable

You know that Monday's column is written on The Return of the King, right? Anyhow, it's done and turned in.

The truth is up there

A little Christmas humor from The Physics Geek.

Mulder: It's judging them, Scully. It's making a list.

Scully: Who? What are you talking about?

Mulder: Ancient mythology tells of an obese humanoid entity who could travel at great speed in a craft powered by antlered servants. Once each year, near the winter solstice, this creature is said to descend from the heavens to reward its followers and punish its disbelievers with jagged chunks of anthracite.

The X-Files. Gone, but not forgotten.

The allure of gold

BC wonders: Why do you and so many others claim that we need to tie currency to some metal for value? Your argument seems to be that fiat currency has no basis in fact and has its value assigned arbitrarily. How is the value of the dollar any more arbitrary than the value of gold? Gold has value because people desire it. What happens if some day nobody wants gold? Also, there is a finite amount of gold in and on the earth. By enforcing some kind of precious metal currency standard, you would then be setting an upper limit on value, which capitalism doesn't recognize. Basically, a gold standard system is no more contrived than fiat currency backed up by nothing more than the promise of a government to not go out of business.

I don't see any time where people will take a mass of gold in payment for anything, so we would still have some form of paper currency, with some massive pile of metal somewhere in a secured building, where it isn't doing anything terribly productive at all. And that paper currency would have a value based upon the amount of this metal that the government owns, and if the government goes belly up (one of the arguments that seems to be used against fiat currency) they have all the gold, and the guns to defend it, so you're technically in the same place anyhow.

Unless you use the other argument against fiat currency, which is that tied to a standard, a government can't just print more money for some purpose, nefarious or otherwise. Of course, since the value of everything will then be a fixed quantity, there would no longer be any such thing as an upwardly mobile middle class either. I just don't see or understand any benefit to tying currency (which in itself is not an indicator of value, so much as an indicator of desire) to some metal that some people cherish and others just don't give a damn about.

The reason that I and many others champion a gold-based currency is that we value human freedom and oppose government tyranny. BC's first point is irrelevant, because there is no such thing as objective value. Value is subjective, and is independently determined, which is why the first thing a government does in establishing a paper currency is to ban all competitors. An objective value is forced upon many who would otherwise value it at zero. Here, we must accept the the worthless paper debt instruments as valid - you cannot refuse to accept a Federal Reserve Note for any debt, public or private. As to the mass of gold argument, that is silly, as there are already numerous private technological solutions such as e-gold; a government's refusal to pay its gold debts would likely destroy it as well as its economy. That's one reason why governments hated the gold standard in the first place.

However, BC does glimpse the real issue. The amount of gold increases very slowly, as opposed to the massive inflationary increases in the money supply which are revealed in the national debt and the M3 money supply - not the fraudulent CPI - and are inevitable in any paper money system. Paper money always fails and becomes worthless in the end, the only question is when the end will arrive. The important thing about gold - or an alternative metal - is that it prevents the steady increase in central government power created by this inevitable inflation. The notion that there would be no middle class without inflation is bizarre - the value point is irrelevant, as above - and the middle class itself developed prior to the establishment of the current fiat regime. In fact, the position of the middle class has been greatly weakened, as only the addition of a second income has allowed most middle class households to remain where they were fifty years ago. (There's a good study on this somewhere, I'll try to find it. Basically, the increase in taxes which stem from inflation eat up the entire second income so the disposable income has remained approximately the same. Of course, easy debt has allowed many to live beyond their means, but at a price.)

In short, gold is the ultimate weapon of financial freedom and an important foundation of economic and political freedom as well. The USA has profited greatly by suckering billions of dollars daily out of the poor fools buying our debt, but eventually foreigners will wake up to the fact that they've been robbed by the unconscionable counterfeiting. Some factors indicate that this is already beginning to happen. I suspect that we'll all own million-dollar homes before this comes to pass, though.

Return of the King review - SPOILERS INCLUDED - DON'T READ

I would love to hear your official review of "Return of the King". I am headed to the theaters this evening and though I've heard some hype,... I would love to hear the opinion of an avid Tolkien reader. Insights? Favorite parts? True to the story?

First, it bears repeating again that no one but Peter Jackson could/would have made these films properly. It is tremendously difficult to successfully port a story from one medium to another, and even JRR Tolkien considered his books to be unfilmable. In the hands of a less-skilled or less-devoted director - such as the joker who infamously declared that he didn't need to bother reading Robert Heinlein's Starship Troopers before directing the lousy film version - these movies could have been terrible. But they weren't, instead they are without a doubt the greatest movie trilogy ever made.

SERIOUSLY, IF YOU WANT TO DISCOVER THESE THINGS FOR YOURSELF, SKIP THE REST OF THIS POST

The Return of the King is absolutely faithful to the spirit of the story. It is reasonably close to the letter, although even 3 hours and 20 minutes did not allow for many details, most small, some large. I found it interesting to learn that Peter Jackson disliked the anticlimactic Scouring of the Shire; I always hated that myself and believed that it should have been a separate, more detailed book. So, the fact that it is left out does not bother me in the least. Nor does the much-discussed omission of Saruman bother me, as subsequent to his defeat at Helms Deep and Isengard, he is largely extraneous to the story. But Jackson does not forget him; he's not ignored and it's quite clear why we're not seeing him in this edit.

There are fewer moments that jar one out of the movie in this third episode. The too-modern bits of dialogue are more restrained, Gimli is less laughable - although he has a mordant line that is quite amusing - and Aragorn rightly assumes his royal persona with believable angst and reluctance. He is strangely weaker in this third film, and yet it is somehow fitting that he is not so much the Man on the White Horse as the man who humbly, but with determination, does what his duty requires of him. Only a true king can comport himself as he does in one of the film's most beautiful scenes, when like an angel who knows his authority comes from God, he refuses the adulation of the hobbits and honors the Ringbearer and his companions by kneeling to them instead.

As a movie, the great triumph of The Return of the King is that it is a better action movie than most action movies, and yet has more emotional depth and power than any drama or chick flick. Even its horror, though less frightening than a good horror movie, is palpable. This list of likes and dislikes is trivial in comparison with the success of The Return of the King as a fully satisfying conclusion to the epic three-part movie.

WHAT I DID NOT LIKE

1. Faramir was one of my favorite characters in the books. He is markedly less noble here, although most of the damage was already done in The Two Towers. His heroism, as well as his admiration for his older brother, does not come across well.
2. Denethor was an epic tragic figure in the books. Here, he comes off as petty and vindictive; a crazy man, not a great man crazed by the loss of his beloved son. The handling of the Denethor-Faramir relationship was probably the biggest disappointment to me, aside from Liv Tyler's unaccountably tepid Arwen. She's beautiful, but bland, bland, bland.
3. Horses don't charge for over a mile. They also don't charge walled positions. Silly. This happened several times.
4. The Great Sleepless Eye as spotlight. Sauron can see across Middle Earth, but not through a rock right in front of it? What was that? Minor, but very weird.
5. The tiny size of the Army of the West, and the way it gets surrounded. Ever heard of a defensive square, gentlemen? Or better yet, a fighting withdrawal using the seven hills of the book? It didn't make sense and it wasn't dramatic. Again, minor, but a strangely inept touch. The same sort of thing happened when Eomer's riders surrounded Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli. If you crowd too much, no one can do anything. What was the point? Yes, they're surrounded. We get it. Oh, they're really, really, really surrounded? Come on.
6. Elrond's reduction in stature. I'd prefer to have seen him remain aloof, even bitter.
7. The siege of Gondor seemed rushed. I thought the siege of Helms Deep came off more powerfully.
8. Aragorn seemed rather lacking in authority when he confronted the dead. He was such a stud taking on the Nazgul and the orcs; I found this a little surprising and disappointing.

THINGS I REALLY, REALLY LIKED

1. The Riders of Rohan were perfect. Theoden's transformation from deceived victim to triumphant victor was great. His line about being able to enter the Hall of his Fathers without sorrow or shame brought tears to my eyes. I loved Theoden in the books, loved him even more in the movies.
2. I had my doubts about Eowyn. While the actress didn't quite fit my mental picture of her, she gradually grew on me. In The Return of the King, she comes into her own. I hope we'll see more of her and Faramir in the extended DVD.
3. The charge of the Rohirrim. Yes, they didn't fight the Oliphaunts in the books. No, it made little tactical sense considering their superior speed. But holy cats, it was so freaking cool!
4. Legolas rules, again.
5. The devotion to the close relationships of the hobbits. Some may have felt that the ending(s) was too drawn out, but I say no. These four had been through Hell and back, been irreparably changed - even maimed - and a quick Hollywood wave-and-ride-into-the-sunset would have been wrong, wrong, wrong. I never found Frodo terribly interesting in the books, but Elijah Woods did an outstanding job of bringing him to life. By the end, I wanted to weep with Sam.
6. The last fight with Gollum was much better than I imagined it could be.
7. The horrors of war and its effects on the women and children was tremendously powerful in each movie. The grief of the women and children as their men rode out on Faramir's hopeless charge on Osgiliath was overpowering. Also great was the constant reminders that the men were fighting to protect those they loved. They rode willingly to die, that their loved ones might live.
8. The power of the Nazgul ripping apart the retreating cavalry of Gondor.
9. Grond. It WAS Grond, nightmarish and terrifying.
10. The crotchety old hobbit glaring at the returning heroes, as he did at Gandalf before. There is the unconquerable strength of The Shire. He who refuses to be impressed by the glamour of the great will never lick the boots of a tyrant.
11. The final scene. Sheer perfection. In a hole in the ground....

I hope Peter Jackson does make the Hobbit. For that matter, I hope he tackles Silmarillion one day, that chaotic concoction of invented history. If my books were ever to be made into movies, I wouldn't want anyone else directing them. He has set the platinum standard for turning literature into cinema. What a tremendous accomplishment. More than anything, I feel a deep and personal gratitude for his tremendous, unprecedented commitment to the epic vision of JRR Tolkien.

I think John Rhys Davies said it best, a dwarf speaking with the wisdom of the Valar. "I think that Tolkien says that some generations will be challenged. And if they do not rise to meet that challenge, they will lose their civilization."

The Lord of the Rings is truly a saga for its time. 11 out of 10.

Yeah, that line worked real well for Clinton

Responding to an exclusive yearender DRUDGE dispatch, which presented NIELSEN's Top 20 BOOKSCAN list of 2003 sales, O'Reilly called the DRUDGE REPORT a "threat to democracy."

"I mean you can't believe a word Matt Drudge says," O'Reilly told the cameras. "Now you've got the Matt Drudges of the world and these other people, Michael Moore and all of these crazies, all right, no responsibility... that is a threat to democracy, I think." O'Reilly warned: "They'll just spin it and twist it and take it out of proportion every which way."

So Matt Drudge is now magically manipulating Bookscan numbers? O'Reilly has been seriously losing it for some time now, but he's going off the deep end here. People may call him a conservative, but if you've read what passes for his first book, you know he's nothing of the kind, except perhaps this new model "big government conservative" of which Fred Barnes writes. Or, as I see it, weak sister moderate bootlicker.

You want extreme? (I'll give you extreme. You can't handle extreme.) Ditch the dying dollar and adopt the gold standard. Do it now, before China or the EU does and steals world economic leadership. We rode the dollar hegemony pony as far as it would go, and it was a good run - even a record-setting run in historical terms. But it's ending.

There's this movie, you see

Also, my Internet service was down for 48 hours. And yes, CONCEPTION. It's been corrected.

Now, why are you still reading this? Go see Return of the King!

Great quotes of history

"If I drink water I will have to urinate, and how can I urinate when my people are in bondage?"
- Saddam Hussein

Truth is funnier than fiction.

Dialectic or dichotomy

TE writes: You're right about the classrooms. When my daughter was in kindergarten she could read, write, add, subtract and do some simple multiplication. I asked the school system about her level when she was going to enter the 1st grade. I was told not to worry, she would sit in the class until the rest of the kids caught up!

Space Bunny points out the telling dichotomy between what public school teachers and educrats say publicly and what they tell parents in private. When they are attempting to cadge more money from an unsuspecting state legislature, they lament that their burden is overwhelming because they lack support from parents. How can they possibly be expected to teach these children anything in eight hours a day when the children aren't being helped by parents at home? Parental support is vital for learning!

However, when a parent actually does help his child and teaches them reading, writing and arithmetic by daily spending one/eighth the time demanded by the educationists, they tell the parent to butt out and leave the kid to them. How very mysterious!

No, not really. You cannot possibly understand the public school system or the fundamental purpose of the classroom environment if you are still operating under the mistaken assumption that either are designed to teach children a basic foundation of knowledge or to maximize their potential. Both are conceived to hold them back and cripple them, and the latter has been that way since it was first conceived by an elite caste to suppress the more numerous children of the lower castes.

Free your children from intellectual maiming. Keep them out of the public schools.

American abomination

The annual death count has been released and it stands at 227,385. That's the number of abortions performed by Planned Parenthood during its 2002-2003 fiscal year, according to its newly released annual report

Do you believe in Progress? Do you believe that the world is headed in the right direction? Then compare the ongoing American holocaust with some of the other great tragedies of history. Once the consensus is reached that human life does indeed begin at conception, how do you think our society will be viewed by our descendants? As one of the most morally disgusting of all time.

American abortion: 227,385 murders per year (Planned Parenthood alone)
Spanish Inquisition: 17 executions per year
Global witch burnings: 260 burnings per year
French Reign of Terror: 53,200 executions per year

Who said it?

""We are at war with America. Yes, a permanent war, a vital war, a war without death. Yes, they are very hard, the Americans, they are voracious, they want undivided power over the world."

Osama? The soon-to-be-late Mr. Hussein? No, try Francois Mitterand, former President of France and an architect of the European Union. That's what the EU is about.

An appropos sentiment

Wilfox sends the following poem:

The dragon that hid the moon is gone,
The bloodsucker has vanished into the abyss.
Let me taste this day like the ripest of dates,
And come tomorrow to talk about the days to come.
- Jahiz

Saddam Hussein is by no means the last dragon. But it is a joy to see one bite the dust even so. Let us hope that the Iraqi people are more fortunate with their next government.

Glad to be of SER-vice

RK writes: What a wonderful gift, your article How to teach your child to read at WND. I am working with my soon-to-be three year old granddaughter to teach her to read using phonics. I was kind of winging it. Now I have something concrete to work with. Here’s wishing a Merry Christmas to you and yours from my granddaughters A, 2 years, S, 2 months and from their “Pappa”. Thanks again.

Actually, this is precisely why I wrote the article. It's not hard, truly! Even a grandparent probably has enough time to do it, and it's a nice excuse to spend time with your grandkids. And what a great gift, to give them such a useful head start in life.

By the way, the two sigmas mentioned in the column refers to how a different character is used when a Greek word ends in sigma. This second sigma looks rather like our letter s, as opposed to a circle with a horizontal stem. The proper way to read it is to say "sigma?" while expressing some disbelief, then shout "two sigmas!" and allow a certain amount of time for the ensuing hilarity. It's always a party at the Digital Ghetto.

Even when I'm wrong, I'm right

DC, who is my kanji superior, writes: Your experience with Japanese is interesting, but incomplete, and reading Japanese is not precisely analogous to reading English. Like you, I studied Japanese as an adult (beginning when I was 43). Also like you, I found that the kana were easy to learn, and that the kanji are difficult. I presently know 500-1000 kanji. This is not sufficient to read a Japanese newspaper, but it is sufficient to read a Japanese patent, and my intent in studying Japanese was to be able to read Japanese patents.

Initially, I thought that Japanese would be much easier to read if the kanji were replaced with kana (or even romaji). I now know, after reading hundreds of Japanese patents, that reading Japanese is infinitely easier using kanji than it would be using only a phonetic system. The reason for this unexpected conclusion is that Japanese is a phonetically poor language. There are only about 110 syllables in Japanese, depending on who is counting. This results in a large number of homophones which are difficult to understand outside of the context of a sentence. Use of kanji for reading eliminates the ambiguity associated with these homophones, and improves reading comprehension.

English is much different. A large number of syllables are used, and there are relatively few homophones or homonyms. Consequently, there is no need for ideographic characters to provide meaning to written text. Teaching phonetics for English is the best way to learn to read. My wife is a reading specialist, and the primary methodology she uses in teaching is phonetics and phonemic awareness.

I quit with kanji before reaching DC's conclusion, but I have little doubt that he's correct. I do remember thinking that it was just insane to cling to what wasn't even a Japanese system - it's Chinese - instead of switching to kana, but now that I don't have to learn 3,000 ideographs myself, I'm kind of glad they do. The world is already far too homogenized. Engrish is great, though. "The ribbon that becomes you, cookie girl... favorite ribbon time!" You tell 'em, coffee boy.

Sounds about right

SC writes: I just read your latest writing on WorldNetDaily. We are blessed to have two boys, ages 5-1/2 and 4. I am not a teacher by profession, but my Mother taught me to read by age four. I am a passionate reader and knew I wanted my children to share the love of reading. And I knew it was possible....

Anyway, I did nearly exactly what you described because I didn't find a reading program I was comfortable with. And it has gone just as you said. It was much easier than I ever expected. We don't spend more than 20 minutes a day on phonics and we frequently miss days. I am by no means spending much or most of my days teaching my kids to read. My oldest goes to kindergarten at an academic Christian school. But he is so far ahead of the other children in reading and mathematics that his teacher says, somewhat disdainfully and disapprovingly, that he is bored. She hasn't done a thing to challenge him more, even though we have requested it.

So we researched and picked the 'best' school district. After preschool at a Christian school, we figured we'd have to put him in pubic school. We went to register him at the public school and spoke with the principal, then the teachers. When we asked the principal about the reading programs, he told us phonics went out with the dinosaurs. I was surprised and told him of the progress we've made. He replied, "Parents need to stay out of their kids' educational lives and leave teaching to the professionals." He repeated this three times in ten minutes, admonishing us that working with them at home does a disservice to kids by giving them an unfair advantage that doesn't even last. He said that 'by third or fourth grade they are all in the same place anyway.' We were in shock and it lasted for a couple of weeks....

We are no longer interested in having our kids in public school.

The significant question is, why doesn't it last? The answer is, because public schooling is not designed to teach children to develop their abilities, it is designed to educate children to suppress them. The difference is crucial.

The next challenge

I didn't think it was possible, but John Kerry is already making himself look like more of a doorknob than before. Now this floppy-haired, foul-mouthed caricature of a candidate is complaining that "if [blah blah blah], we might have caught Saddam Hussein sooner." Sure, John, maybe we'd take you seriously if you'd been filling the airwaves with all your helpful ideas before the US Army caught the guy. And if you were a different person, you might have a chance to win the election next year.

The important thing is to make sure that the globalists don't get away with sneaking Hussein off to the Hague. Oh, they'd love another Nuremburg, and the excuse to set themselves up as the ultimate arbiter of global justice. The President better not let them get away with it. Just hand him over to the Iraqis; I'm sure they'll be able to think of something to do with him.

But don't make the mistake of thinking that the war is over. I'm very curious to see what happens next with regards to Syria, Iran and Saudi Arabia.

Reading Resources

Bob Books are some great first books for a kid learning to read. By the time he's done with set C1, he's ready for real books in small doses. They run $15 per set, $75 for all five.

OpenOffice Impress is part of the free OpenOffice software suite. You can download it for Windows, Linux or Macintosh, along with Writer (Word), and Calc (Excel). It will run and save normal Powerpoint .ppt files.

If you prefer to stick with Microsoft and either have PowerPoint at work or a friend on whose system you can create the slideshows, Powerpoint Viewer will allow you to run them. If you do have Powerpoint, it's a lot easier learning how to add this macro to randomize a slideshow instead of doing it by hand every time.

It's easier to teach phonics, of course, when you have a comprehensive list of English phonics.

Wildboyz

Any show that involves guys dressing up in zebra suits and wandering out into the veldt is definitely Space Bunny's idea of good humor. "Klipspringer - the cheesepuff of the African safari."

Lupine Brotherhood

Space Bunny and I happened upon The Brotherhood of the Wolf recently, and despite the French with English subtitles, we both very much enjoyed it. It's an interesting take on the dread Beast of Gevaudan. Complex without being confusing, and unpredictable even if you know a bit of the history involved. If there were more movies like this, I would go out to see more movies than Peter Jackson's annual spectacle.

Don't hold your breath, Karl

Christopher Manion writes: Ever since the invasion of Iraq, Karl Rove has been traveling the country mobilizing the evangelical vote for the 2004 elections. In city after city, he is meeting with evangelical leaders. He begs: "in 2000, only 16 million of you voted. We need the other four million." Rove has coupled these overtures to evangelicals with similar meetings with the Jewish community (in Cincinatti, he left the evangelical meeting to join the representatives of Jewish organizations one floor up in the same hotel). In both meetings, Rove stresses the importance of President Bush's invasion of Iraq andhis support of Israel. But only with the evangelicals does he stress the president's unwavering support for the moral issues that are their priorities abortion, pornography, judges, and (most important) the Marriage Amendment.

I can't vouch for the veracity of the numbers, but I can tell you two things. 1) I am one of the four million who didn't vote for either a Republican or a Democrat in 2000. 2) There will be more than four million who won't vote for either next time. I believe that President Bush is a Christian - it's not for me to judge, in any case - I simply don't believe that he is either a traditional conservative or a man whose principles of government are primarily driven by his faith.

A man of principle does what he believes is right regardless of the cost. I don't see that in President Bush, still less the Republican Party. I see no reason why evangelical Christians should spend any money or effort supporting it. I now style myself a Christian Libertarian, and I hope that one day, I'll be able to cast a vote for a principled member of that party.

Is this good for the economy?

They caught Saddam. Good on them. Now give him a fair trial and hang him, as my grandfather used to say. Since apparently he was the cause of all economic ills for the past eighteen months, I expect that we may now proceed into a new Golden Age of unthinkable wealth and prosperity for all.

Oh, it's worse than that

SC writes: I keep hoping that an intelligent atheist would write this message to you, but I'm daily confounded by the vacuous idiocy in the letters you post. I'm writing to offer you a potential explanation on why any likely rebuttal is both irrational and idiotic -- your article was correct. My close friends, among us atheists, agnostics and Christians, have long argued the position that to be truly atheist is as much faith as is Christianity, Judaism, or Islam. Perhaps surprisingly to you, this requisite position is agreed upon by all the atheists. Not a single one of the atheists in the group was offended or surprised by your article, as most of its topics had been expounded before.

Given that supposed rational, intelligent atheists objected to Bob Schieffer's 'no atheists in foxholes' statement, I suspect that a well-formulated response to your article is unlikely.

Actually, I not only posted the two most thoughtful and reasonable responses to the original article - as well as my takes on them - but refrained from posting any of the truly ludicrous ones until now. I even visited one of the atheist forums, and the responses were so childish and of such poor quality that the person who referred me to it was embarrassed and apologized. Since this thing has dragged on far longer than I'd ever imagined, I'll end the discussion for the time being with a fairly typical atheist response which happened to arrive this morning at the same time as SC's email.

Daniel yaps: You are sure a christian to laugh at!!!!! U stupid cok suker.... i would put a bullet in your head if i were beside you, moron.

That's the critique in its entirety, spellings and all. Yes, proud atheists of the world, Daniel, too, is one of you. Notice that like many of you, he claims to be laughing but is actually far more angry than amused. In any case, I'd be curious to hear a defense of how his ethical and moral system a) has been independently and rationally developed; b) is superior to that laid out in the Bible; or c) is supposed to impress anyone with its rationality or altruism. Just as I must claim all semi-literate Bible thumpers as my intellectual kin, you must claim him. Keep in mind as well that a significant minority of the atheist responses I received were in this vein, and heavily outnumbered the more reasonable critiques.