Junk in the trunk

Among American 15-year-olds, 15 percent of girls and nearly 14 percent of boys were obese, and 31 percent of girls and 28 percent of boys were more modestly overweight, according to a study led by Inge Lissau, a researcher at the National Institute of Public Health in Copenhagen.

How is this possible? I thought the development of low-fat foods was supposed to mean that we could scarf tons of Doritos and Snack-wells and never gain an ounce! It's really strange to me, as the one or two token fat kids in every high school class would barely qualify as overweight these days. I remember being bewildered when my little brother was admiring a few hefty little heifers walking past our soccer practice - they were probably sophmores and juniors in high school - and I asked him if they weren't perhaps a little supersized to generate such interest on his part.

"Dude, they've all got junk in the trunk these days," was his cheerful response. How can this be good for either the individuals involved or the society at large?

Of course, smokers should be shot on sight. For the good of everyone. Because smoking is bad for your health.

Beating their heads against a wall

I don't know how long it will be before CNN offers me a television show - I'm not interested in one - but it's only a matter of time. I said for years that the left-liberal media would get slaughtered if anyone ever put together an even moderately conservative channel; sure enough, it's happening. Fox isn't even particularly conservative and most of its hosts aren't very bright, but they are at least likable and in sync with the American mainstream, unlike the talking heads of the ABCNNBCBS cartel. You can't simultanously be a vanguard and a part of the mainstream, after all.

Instead of pulling their moussed heads out of their posteriors, though, the media executives seem to think that finger-pointing and calling their potential audiences stupid is the way to bring in more viewers. Right, that'll probably work. CNN needs to go overboard to the right if it wants to seriously take on Fox, dabbling in Fox Light will never do. They probably won't start to do this until Fox has three times their viewers and they're desperate enough, though.

As for MSNBC, a distant third among cable news networks, slipped in most categories.... MSNBC is expected this week to announce a new prime-time show featuring Georgia native Deborah Norville as the host. More of what already isn't working seldom turns things around. But she is cuter than either Pat Buchanan or Bill Press, so they have that going for them. I give MSNBC three more years before they go technology channel. One must give them credit for trying Alan Keyes and Michael Savage, but Keyes was never comfortable on camera and Howard Stern had already proved that radio shock jocks don't make for decent television. And Jesse... please. The man can barely talk. It doesn't really matter, as three minutes of cursory discussion and a quick move on to the next subject just doesn't work for me. I'd rather watch ESPN or MTV anyhow.

So, the ratings massacre continues. Fox not only has a bigger viewership already, it's growing faster too. At current rates of growth, Fox will double CNN in 2005 and triple them in 2006.

If I had to guess, I figure that 2006 is when CNN gives me a call. I really don't like the medium, though. Never have, never will.

Sunyata... I'm moving on

I got an email from a former member of my old band this weekend. He saw that there was a bit of a revival happening under a different name and wondered if I was involved. I wasn't, (or so I thought), but I went to check out the web site for Basic Pleasure Model. I was surprised to see that the first single had the same name as one of the last songs I wrote for Psykosonik before dropping out of the group - only the lyrics, that's all I ever wrote - but that's cool, it's a good name.

Holy cats! It's exactly the same song, updated for the new millenium with a garage beat underneath the melody. It sounds great, and it looks like you can buy the CD single already, so definitely check it out. I'm quite pleased that they recorded it, as I've always considered it the prettiest song that Paul Sebastien and I ever wrote together. Here's hoping for a future release of "Cosmic Trigger", a technodance ode to Robert Anton Wilson that didn't quite make the first CD.

Anyhow, there's previews of five different mixes of the Sunyata single at the BPM web site in the music page. Love the new bass in the chorus of the Album Version. Good to see that Paul's kept up the old tradition of having at least 50 completely different remixes for every single. I mean, you wouldn't want leave any blank space on the CD now, would you? Man, I'd forgotten how much I love his voice. I'd also forgotten how the verses went:

Feast your eyes on beauty surrounding, step outside it and see
The central shining void, for that's where you will be
You'll never find the meaning hidden under it all
In every drop of rain, in every tear that'll fall

The centuries they will fly, kingdoms they will fall
You're just a link in a chain, just a crack in the wall
In a hundred years it will all be the same
Your life is little more than ephemeral flame

The words are a little melancholy, but there's a spirit of timelessness to the music that I find quite beautiful.

UPDATE - Just talked via email with Paul. He's very up for some lyrical collaboration like we used to do in the old days, which will be a lot of fun. Paul is too humble, though. I looked at his bio, and he forgot both our Minnesota Music Award for Best Dance Record - a small, but not insignificant award since Prince is from Minneapolis and releases something like twelve singles every year - as well as his four Billboard Top 40 Dance chartings.

Tax trial update

Surprise surprise... the prosecutor in Dick Simkanin's tax case went ahead and raised the usual objection, arguing that the tax code is not relevant to the case. I'm curious to know how those of you who believe that the federal income tax is not a fraud would explain how Mr. Simkanin could possibly be violating the law if the prosecutor is correct and the tax code is not relevant to his case, which revolves around his refusal to withhold from his employees' paychecks. I expect that the jury, as is increasingly often the case, will smell a rat and exonerate him.

And yet, we'll probably have blowhards like Sean Hannity and Alan Colmes arguing that "the law must be followed". Guys, that's kind of the whole freaking point! Cretins.

A sobering caution

What Has Government Done To Our Families by Allan Carlson at the Mises Institute is well worth checking out.

The fate of families and children in Sweden shows the truth of Ludwig von Mises's observation that "no compromise" is possible between capitalism and socialism. Here I show how the welfare state's growth can be viewed as the transfer of the "dependency" function from families to state employees. The process began in 19th-century Sweden, through the socialization of children's economic time via school attendance, child labor, and state old-age pension laws. These changes, in turn, created incentives to have only a few, or no children. In the 1930s, social democrats Gunnar and Alva Myrdal used the resulting "depopulation crisis" to argue for the full socialization of child rearing. Their "family policy," implemented over the next forty years, virtually destroyed the autonomous family in Sweden, substituting a "client society" where citizens are clients of public employees. While Sweden is now trying to break out of the welfare state trap, the old arguments for the socialization of children have come to the United States.

I've noticed that while only a few people are bold enough to argue for outright socialism, you can always find a lot of support for just one "reasonable" step, usually justified on the basis of helping one specific group of individuals. Then, when it fails horribly, more of the same medicine that caused the illness is prescribed. Never mind that the path has been trod before and the eventual outcome is certain.

Neocons and Christianity

SB asks: I do not understand how you, as aChristian, can oppose the philosophy of the neocons.The basic belief of the neocons is that Western values are not relative, but are absolute and true. There is a difference between right and wrong, and people can make value judgments and evaluate good and bad behavior.

I don't have any problem with that aspect of neoconservativism, either as a Christian or as a libertarian. Of course, there's more to neoconservativism than that; so far, you might be describing conservatives.

I would think a Christian would enthusiastically agree with this thesis. It's true, the thesis leads to a possible corollary, that the government is able to take positive steps to ensure that the society is just and moral. It can outlaw abortion, slavery, drug abuse. Taken to its extreme, this philosophy would actually justify returning to having an established church and forced attendance at all services, as we had, for example, in Virginia right up to the revolutionary war. So I can well understand how, as a Libertarian you cannot agree with neoconservatism. But what about as a Christian? Don't you believe that your religion is true? Don't you believe that the state has a minimal role in creating a just society, based on your religious beliefs?

Of course I believe my religion is true. I do not, however, believe that government can or should play any role in attempting to formulate the religious beliefs of a people. Government has a corrupting effect on everything it touches - the Church of England and the history of the Papal States being two fine examples - and faith imposed by fiat is worthless. Furthermore, a government with the power to enforce what I, as a Christian, see as desirable, also has the power to enforce exactly the opposite. Temporal power corrupts Christians as surely as it corrupts non-Christians. Christianity needs no government help to thrive; indeed, history suggests that the opposite tends to be true.

In fact, neoconservativism even directly opposes a Christian worldview, as it seeks to build a worldly paradise. The notion that humans can even hope to bring about "An End to Evil", as the new book by neoconservatives David Frum and Richard Perle is titled, is both absurd and profoundly non-Christian. I also see the desire of the neocons to construct a new global world order based on universal democracy helping to pave the way for what I, as a Christian, believe to be an inevitable and prophesied evil. (Responsibility for the NWO does not solely fall to the neocons, of course.) God, as I understand Him, is a lover of free will.

So, no, I don't agree that the State has any role to play in creating a just society. This pursuit of Cosmic Justice, as Dr. Sowell calls it, leads inevitably to injustice of all kinds. Neoconservativism is far from the worst political philosophy alive today, but it holds little appeal for me either as a Christian or as a libertarian.

Why, Joel, why?

I'm still kind of at a loss as to why Mowbray went after General Zinni like that. (see CURRENT COLUMN on the left for details) He wasn't that vicious about the State Department, even though they actually had it coming to them. I don't think he seriously believes Zinni is a Jew-hater, so I suspect that he's simply trying to defend the term "neocon", which is coming into increasingly bad odor among leftists, conservatives and libertarians alike.

The neocons in the press seem to be getting pretty jumpy. Michael Ledeen just about had an aneurysm going off on Ron Paul, who is the only member of Congress for whom I have any respect regardless of how poorly read he happens to be on Ledeen's ouvre. And speaking poor reading comprehension, Ledeen himself ignored the very substantive points that Paul correctly made with regards to the failure of Republicanism.

If Ledeen's strange overreaction is typical, the neocons are also kind of girly. "His attack... incitements to personal violence." Eeek! It's a slow week that I don't get at least one direct threat of something unpleasant. BFD. Maybe if Ledeen and the other neocons hit the gym once in a while they wouldn't wet themselves every time someone said something less than flattering about them. And perhapsJoel Mowbray wouldn't feel the need to stand up for them either.

I mean, I'm from Minnesota. We have something like eight Jews in the state. Growing up there, I thought I was ethnic because I'm of English descent with dark brown hair. Since I have little interest in the media circles, I have no idea who is and who isn't a Jew except for Jonah Goldberg and Rabbi Boteach. What I do know, however, is that I like very little of what I hear from the neocons, who seem to use conservative language to defend left-liberal actions and policies.

Just for the record, I like much of what Joel Mowbray and Michael Ledeen have to say. They're not the bad guys.

That's the media for you

I've argued for years that the average journalist is not only far less intelligent than he thinks, he is usually poorly educated as well. I'm acquainted with more than a few, and I've yet to meet one who could acquit himself well on anything but politics and current events. Their knowledge tends to extend primarily to subjects they've covered, and they have a strong inclination to assume that having heard of something is equivalent to knowing about it. Thus, I found this tidbit from Suzanne Fields' column to be vastly amusing.

"...the Chutzpah Award for the year that just died must go to Polly Toynbee of London's daily Guardian for an enlightened rationalization and demonization that boiled over like volcanic lava. Toynbee fell for the infamous Nigerian scam and had to find somebody to be mad at, and it couldn't be herself. She received a letter purporting to be from a 14-year-old Nigerian girl who needed money to pay to complete her education. Toynbee was touched. She sent the child a check for 200 pounds ($356) and immediately felt warm and fuzzy for her act of charity.

Warm and fuzzy soon evaporated. A perfect copy of her signature was soon attached to a form asking her bank to transfer a thousand pounds ($1,783) to an account in a bank in Japan. A suspicious clerk at her bank stopped the transfer just in time. The Nigerian bank scam is familiar to millions, and many of the greedy and gullible have been taken in by the familiar gross e-mails that clog computer terminals with offers of breast enhancement, penis enlargement and videos promising pornographic pleasure.

Toynbee's brush with financial disaster taught her a lesson that has eluded everyone else. She learned that the villain in the fraud is not a Nigerian scammer, but ... George W. Bush. "We reap from the Third World what we sow," she told her readers. "If some Nigerians learned lessons in capitalism from global oil companies that helped corrupt and despoil that land, it is hardly surprising they absorbed some of the Texan oil values that now rule the White House."

Damon Runyon nailed the likes of Polly Toynbee: "Life is tough, and it's really tough when you're stupid.""

At least this answers Space Bunny's question: what kind of idiot responds to this junk? Elite journalists, for one. For my favorite response to the scammers, check out this epic tale of scammers, Mighty Cthulhu and one evil-minded Lovecraft devotee, complete with color commentary.

Good games

Good first round, promising a more interesting second round than usual. Carolina's defense has the ability to slow down the Rams offense, while Green Bay's running game will hammer Philadelphia. I can't see Indy staying with KC or Tennessee beating New England at home, though. It still looks like a St. Louis vs. New England Super Bowl, but if Carolina upsets St. Louis, I could see Green Bay getting there too.

I cannot stand ABC's B-team, though. "You don't think the Ravens want to win this game?" "You don't think Steve McNair is tough?" "You don't think [fill in the blank]?" Nobody thinks that and you know it. Someone buy the man a new expression, please. You don't think we're sick of it?

Stupidify the citizenry

From the Washington Times: Students in Maryland again scored dismally on high school competency examinations last year, according to results posted recently by the state Education Department.... About half of 65,000 students failed the algebra and biology tests in 2003 - about the same rate as in 2002. Four in 10 failed government, and six in 10 failed English.

That would be why one reason I don't want government schools teaching religion, or anything else for that matter.

The Axis of Naughty howls with dismay

IM writes: A dark day! As a new supporter of the Axis of Naughty, and one of your loyal fans, I must say that I am disappointed in your support of a centrallized, organized Alliance... I joined the Axis precisely because it is a decentrallized, truly free movement of individuals seeking to support a man who has been viciously demonized by his detractors.....

Viciously demonized? What other form of demonization is appropriate for a man who is known to have invested large portions of his ill-gotten puppy-blending gains in the Mark of the Beast?

How peculiar

The results of a poll taken by Kevin McCullough after the radio show I did with him on Tolkein. Who is the hero of The Lord of the Rings?

Sam: 511
Frodo: 126
The Entire Fellowship: 63
Gandalf: 49
Aragorn: 28
Eowyn: 21
Gollum: 2

I'd be curious to know if there's any difference between those who have read the book and those who have only seen the movie. Space Bunny points out that although Sam did resist the lure of the Ring, so did Frodo before he'd spent all that time carrying it. Samwise is heroic, to be sure, but the hero of the trilogy? I'd put Frodo first, followed closely by Aragorn, with everyone and anyone else a distant third.

Speaking of the show, Kevin writes: Several of you have been writing asking if you can re-hear that segment with VOX, we may re-run it on the air today or sometime this week... Cool. Or heck, let's just do another one discussing why 511 people are off their rockers, or better yet, this.

Don't drink and fly

GH has a few beers and writes: Every time there's an accident the non-aviation media print more misconceptions then the truth. I do not consider myself an aviation expert, for the subject areas of aviation are too vast for any one individual to claim themselves an expert. I have 36 years of experience in aviation. I have license and certificates that say I have the knowledge and skill to perform the task required by the law. I define my knowledge of aviation to my students by this comparison. I am only a case of beer in the vastness of all the beer and you are the empty cup waiting to be filled. Some have called me a keg. I'll drink to that.

The press is a half empty shot glass, the other half is 99.999% misconception. My experience is that it takes a minimum of eight months with a big emphases on minimum to find out the truth. The press is too impatient to wait that long. They need closure. They will find individuals with a six pack of more or less knowledge than me. They give them their fifteen minutes of fame and the title of expert. The conclusion is based on opinion, not fact. When the truth does come out a year later it is a non-story.

I was on the light side when I said a million hits. It's election year, I have no doubt that you will. Blast your political foes. People are going to say did you read Vox Day blog today.

Being a libertarian is never having to fear dearth of political targets.

Mailbox: Learning Disabilities

PZ demonstrates his failure to learn that touching a hot stove is a bad idea: People like you want the Ten Commandments in public buildings but you don't erect massive granite stones in your churches our your backyards.

Right, as if no church has the Ten Commandments displayed somewhere. Those little monuments and friezes hardly stand comparison with the grandeur of many a cathedral, or the overpowering sci-fi aesthetics of one church that a Jewish friend describes as "the church with the direct link to God". (Seriously, the massive spire looks like an antenna designed to reach the Horsehead Nebula.) I don't see any real need for such monuments, but there's nothing wrong with them if the people of a community want one.

For those who are too simple to understand why there's nothing wrong with them, I'll elucidate:

1. A public building is not Congress. Nor is a judge or a community board.
2. A monument is not a law.
3. Erecting a religious monument in a public place is not the establishment of a state religion. Have a look at the Church of England or the Sharia for details if you are confused as to what comprises a state religion.

People like you want prayer in school because you're too lazy to pray with your own children. It's not the place of government to teach your children religion. That's why we have Churches.

Right, two million children are being homeschooled by parents who are too lazy to even pray with them. What a blitheringly stupid assertion! We're not only teaching our children the Lord's Prayer, we're teaching them to read the New Testament in Greek and the Vulgate in Latin, while the government schools are teaching those poor kids with indifferent or ignorant parents how to put a condom on a banana. It's not the place of government to teach children anything.

PZ, that big thing sticking out of your back is a fork. You're done.

No, no, a thousand times no!

The 2004 Stadium Debate: Why it will be different
Happy New Year, and welcome to the 10th annual Great Minnesota Sports and Public Policy Scrum, otherwise known as The Stadium Debate. Rep. Phil Krinkie, a longtime opponent of sports plans, describes another stadium battle as "same [stuff], different day," adding that it's similar to a rider saying, "Hey, cab driver, one more time around the block!" But Roy Terwilliger, chairman of the Metropolitan Sports Facilities Commission, said he feels "a real sense of urgency" this go-round....There's a sense among stadium proponents that opposition seen in earlier episodes might be subsiding.

We've heard that one before. In fact, we've heard all of them before, including the bit about interest rates never being lower. This time, however, the interest rate point is probably true. Nevertheless, no government should fund sports stadiums. Ever. Period. The very notion is ridiculous and every argument for it has been repeatedly exploded.

But greed and the desire to spend other people's money knows no bounds.

Color me suspicious

All 148 passengers and crew perished when chartered Egyptian Air Flash airliner crashed in Red Sea Saturday minutes after takeoff from Sharm el-Sheikh. Plane carrying mostly French tourists and 13-man crew was bound for Paris via Cairo. No signal from pilot before plane disappeared from radar screens 11 km south of Sharm airport.

Although Egyptians say cause was mechanical fault, French justice minister Perben asked for preliminary inquiry into manslaughter. DEBKAfile raises 8 points below to explain why it is too soon to eliminate terror as cause of Egyptian air crash

The Egyptians claimed that the crash of a Boeing 737, operated by the Egyptian company Flash Airlines, was “absolutely not the result of a terrorist act but is linked to a technical failure of the plane. DEBKAfile’s aviation experts say the investigators will be called upon to consider a host of anomalies and enigmas before they reach any such definite conclusion.

I should hope so. Interesting that they can say "absolutely not" before they've even begun to look into it. Sure, it's possible, but this appears to be a case of the Egyptian lady protesting too much, too fast. You certainly won't catch me flying Air Egypt.

The Alliance it is

After a perusal of a number of blogs, I have elected to join The Alliance of Free Blogs, for as one reader wrote, "What are you if not a free blogger?" Nor was he the only one to support The Alliance; the vote was unanimous. Also, I like the Physics Geek and he's an Alliance member. It is done.

INSTAPUNDO DELENDA EST!

What is a dollar?

The Spanish milled dollar was made the unit or standard for all foreign silver coins in the American colonies in 1704 by Queen Anne (there was a Parliamentary statute in 1707). It was made the standard for the United States by the Continental Congress under the Articles of Confederation, before the Constitution was even written. So in fact the dollar preceded the writing of the Constitution. It preceded the ratification of the Constitution. It preceded the first Congress, the first President, the first Supreme Court, the Federal Reserve Board, and everything else. Do you think it might be independent of all those things, having preceded them?

As a historical fact, the dollar is independent of the Constitution. The father of the dollar, in our system, was Thomas Jefferson. He was the one who proposed it to the Continental Congress. In the first government under the Constitution, Jefferson was Secretary of State, and Alexander Hamilton was Secretary of the Treasury. They didn't agree on very much, if anything, except this: They both agreed on the monetary system. The Federalists and the Anti-federalists were in complete agreement. And what did Congress and the Treasury do in 1792 with the first coinage act? They went out to determine what the value of this "dollar" was.

How did they do that? They went to the marketplace. In what we would call statistical analysis, they collected a large sampling of Spanish milled dollars that were circulating, and they did a chemical analysis of them to determine on average how much silver they contained. This appears in the Coinage Act of 1792 where they wrote: "The Dollar or Unit shall be of the value of a Spanish milled dollar as the same is now current, that is, running in the market, to wit, three hundred and seventy-one and one-quarter grains of silver."

Now you know something that 99.999% of Americans do not know, and probably a higher percentage of lawyers. The "dollar" is a silver coin containing three hundred and seventy-one and one-quarter grains of silver and it cannot be changed by constitutional amendment, definitionally, any more than the term "year" can.

How much is a dollar worth today? 371.25 grains is .7796 troy ounces*. Silver closed at 5.95 per troy ounce yesterday, so that means one dollar equals 4.64 Federal Reserve Notes. That's only 364 percent inflation in 202 years, or 1.8 percent a year. However, the US silver dollar coin consisted of 416 grains (.8736 troy ounces) until 1878, then was debased to 412.5 grains (.8663 troy ounces) until production was stopped in 1964. This suggests that the bulk of the inflation happened after 1964, since what was a silver dollar coin worth FRN 1 (and 1.11 dollars) is now worth FRN 5.15. That's 415 percent inflation in 40 years, or 10.38 percent per year. What happened? The answer is simple. Bretton Woods and the imperial global reserve dollar.

This inflation looks a lot worse when measured in gold terms, however. The same dollar was also defined as 24.75 grains of gold, or .052 troy ounces. Yesterday's gold closed at 416.10, which indicates that that same 1792 dollar also equals FRN 21.63. This gives us 2063 percent inflation over 202 years, or 10.21 percent a year. This suggests that silver is probably undervalued and repeats the ancient lesson that one is foolish to put much hope in any economy based upon the long term health of paper money.

*Thanks to GD, for catching my conversion into the wrong measure, which led to an absurd conclusion.

Ask the Razor

The Internal Revenue Service has identified 800 employees whose tax returns will face closer scrutiny, part of an effort to make sure IRS employees are filing truthful returns and complying with tax laws. The agency said Friday that these employees "face an examination on Schedule C issues, most of which are already under way." A Schedule C deals with reporting profits or losses from a business and is filed if the taxpayer or his or her spouse runs a business.

An IRS spokesman declined to say precisely what prompted the IRS to flag the employees for review, but said that the agency had some questions about their returns. The 800 employees are just a fraction of the 115,000 full- and part-time employed by the IRS. IRS Commissioner Mark Everson said the agency is taking extra steps to make sure IRS employees are following the law. "The multistep initiative will include a new review of tax behavior of IRS employees, a deeper IRS compliance and auditing effort for employees and an expanded education and outreach effort inside the agency," the IRS said. Earlier this year, a review found that "about half of the 25 employees identified had tax compliance issues following an investigation of their Schedule C filings," the IRS said. "Several employees in the inquiry have already lost their jobs."

So, are people who run their own businesses generally more or less intelligent than the norm? And would a full-time IRS employee be likely to know the tax law better or worse than the average American? There are two possibilities. One is that two-thirds of one percent of the IRS staff are both smart enough to be entrepeneurial and stupid enough to blatantly cheat. The other is that these IRS employees know perfectly well that the very foundation of the IRS is a charade and behave accordingly. Both are possible, but Occam's Razor favors the latter, even if one ignores the evidence provided by other IRS agents who are openly condemning their lawless former employer.

I never thought much about the IRS one way or the other until they accidentally took money out of my bank account for a return I'd already paid. It wasn't much, but I called them and told them that they'd made a mistake and asked for the money back. The IRS agent admitted the mistake after looking things up, then told me to take that amount off next year's return without accounting for it. Incredulous, I asked him why they didn't just put the money back. "Oh, we don't do that," he said. Thus began my journey into the bowels of the federal income tax charade.

This should be interesting

Robert Novak reports: The Bush administration is bracing for the first hostile book written by a former official in January when Paul O'Neill publishes an account of his two years as secretary of the treasury. Pittsburgh industrialist O'Neill left Washington angrily after being fired Dec. 6, 2002, and began work on a book. The White House fears the worst from his insider's account.

They have something to fear. This economic boomlet of the last six months has the same cause as most modern booms - expansion of the money supply, which is also known as inflation. According to the Fed, M1 is up 7.2 percent in 2003 and M3 is up 4.6 percent, while the economy grew 2.9 percent in the last year. There's all of your GDP "growth" right there, and then some, the literally unbelievable Q3 jump notwithstanding. Cliff Droke writes: The dominant theme in 2003, especially the last nine months of the year, was inflation. Not inflation in the economic sense but inflation in the sense of rising prices across-the-board for equities, commodities, and real estate due to massive injections of liquidity into the U.S. financial system.

It's strange, considering the championing of this so-called "inflation free" boom, that cattle prices have risen 36% in the last 12 months, scrap steel is up 42 percent and gold is up from $278 to $416 in only two years.

I'll be checking out O'Neill's book. I suspect he knows what the inevitable consequences of this insane monetary policy is, even if Larry Kudlow doesn't. Consider this: after two years of bear action followed by an almost unprecedented bull run, the NASDAQ is up 1.3 percent. But the dollar is down 40 percent in that same period. It may not matter to the US investor, but I don't think a lot of foreign investors are excited with that performance. Richard Russell suggests that the US economy will be continued to be propped up as China buys time by continuing to purchase dollars until its infrastructure is in place to replace the USA as the global economic center.

This is a credible scenario - it mirrors one that I'd separately developed for a novel I'm currently writing - far more so than those who worry about competition from a moribund and dying Europe or believe that the current financial regime can be sustained indefinitely. What is ominous is that China is starting to permit and encourage both individual gold accumulation and entrepeneurialism - someone's been reading the Austrians, I suspect. Once you begin to hear noises about an official abjuring of the Communist creed, be prepared for fireworks of several kinds. Empires, financial and otherwise, don't tend to go peacefully into the gentle night of history.

The Grip Tightens

NRO's Andrew Stuttaford points out: The new European arrest warrant came into force yesterday, allowing British citizens to be extradited under a fast-track process even if their actions do not constitute an offence in Britain.

I find it interesting that all those who mock my insistence that the UN poses a grave threat to humanity and US national sovereignty are now strangely silent about the example set by the European Union. They always used to insist that the Common Market was nothing but a trade federation too. It's now very clear to everyone that they were completely wrong about the nature of the budding European state, and I guarantee that they'll be proven to have been hopelessly naive about the nature of the United Nations as well.

It's not revisionism

TZ writes: The two myths I detest most by revisionist historians are 1. Our founding fathers were all deists or unitarians, and 2. The "civil war" (or whatever you want to call it) wasn't about slavery.

I agree with TZ on the deist thing, which is obviously not true given even a small amount of research. But is it reasonable to suggest that the Union would have permitted states to leave peacefully if the Southern states had wished to secede over tariffs, or anything else? I think the notion is absurd.

Slavery was why the Southern states wished to secede. The war was fought, however, over whether states had the right to secede or not. In other words, whether national sovereignty lay with the states or with the Federal government. War is usually about power, not the justifications given.

Does anyone seriously suggest that the North would have invaded the South had the Southern states chosen to keep slaves and stay within the Union? It had not done so for 87 years, after all. Is the war in Chechnya fought over slavery? Was the Eritrean war fought over slavery? Despite the omnipresence of slavery throughout history, there has not been a single war fought over it anywhere in the world that I recall, but many, many wars fought by people who wish to secede and a government that does not wish to permit them to do so.

TZ's position, however mainstream, appears almost bizarre when seen from the perspective of military history. The Civil War was by no means unique.

The Sports Guy knows

When the NFL Channel counts down "The Top 500 Toughest Regular-Season Losses" this summer, the Vikes probably clinched the No. 1 spot with that Arizona loss. Seriously, what was worse? Minutes away from a playoff berth, they gave up a touchdown, onside kick, wacky pass interference penalty, then a pseudo-Hail Mary on the final play ... and they lost to a team with a rookie QB and a lame-duck coach, a team that was one more incompletion away from drafting first in April. And it was a bogus call to boot -- really, does anyone think Poole would have gotten that second foot in?

Throw in their tragic history -- Nate Wright, Gary Anderson, Darrin Nelson, four Super Bowl losses and everything else, and, yes, I'm well aware of this stuff since the best friend is a die-hard Vikes fan -- and this was a Second-Degree Stomach Punch Game for the poor Minnesota fans

The Sports Guy is right. It wasn't a Third-Degree deal. Our expectations were way too low this season Like Big Chilly said, there was no way we were going to do anything in the playoffs anyhow. It's technically worthy of a Stomach Punch because of how it all came about but it felt more like the 2001 NFC championship game when we were destroyed by the Giants 41-0; we were just surprised the team was in the hunt at all. I would argue that the Dallas game was a That Game, however. I'm still upset about it. I'm more upset about that then I am about the stupid Arizona game. I'm upset right now. The Darrin Nelson drop against the Redskins was up there too. I don't know. Go away. I can't talk about it right now.

More importantly, that was the fourth Stomach Punch game for the Vikes in less than 30 years. Even the Sox didn't have that many over that same span. And yet you would never see a documentary about Vikings fans, a passionate group who have to rank among the most tortured fans in sports. Apparently media-related curses and sweeping self-importance is much more interesting on a national level.

Vikings fans are great fans, if not in the same league as Green Bay fans, who we love to hate, except we really don't. Of course, we actually have other options besides ice fishing and counting up all the different kinds of cheese we've eaten. (Relax - Space Bunny's mom is a Packers owner.) The gang knows all the words to two of the Vikings three fight songs - the one Denny wrote is hopelessly cheesy, so no point. We sing it after every touchdown, in bars, at football parties, on trans-Atlantic phone calls together. The White Buffalo once taught an entire bar in Denver to sing "Vikings... the men of football fame" during a Monday Night football game against the 49ers, then called us so we hear it. The sports media suck. TV may revolve around New York City and Los Angeles, but the world of sports most emphatically does not.

Trying it again, take 2

I'm having a third whack at that little referrer script. This time I've posted it at the very bottom of the main section. We'll see if that works.

By the way, you do realize that Global Citizen is a joke, right? I'm not chipping anything, not even my dog.

The Great Blog War

I'm considering taking sides. The question is, do I join The Alliance of Free Blogs, The Axis of Naughty or The Blogdom of God? I'd consider The League of Liberals but I rather doubt they'd have me.

Not much is at stake. ONLY THE FATE OF THE INTERNET AS WE KNOW IT!

If you hear a noise, that would be the sound of the gravitas-meter dropping. Va bene. I'd be bored out of my skull if I had to take myself seriously all the time.

That would be nice

GH wants to bet: I bet you a case of beer your blog gets over a million hits this year

I'm hardly going to bet against myself now, am I? According to Sitemeter - which is totally inaccurate, but it serves - I'm on pace for about 295,000 right now. So, it is possible, I guess.

The Blogger King, Instapundit, does around 26 million per year. Surpassing him is my ultimate goal for Vox Popoli, despite my great admiration for a man who joins the conspiracy against himself.

GH also mentions the Simkanin injustice as one that perhaps should have made WND's most spiked list. I don't think so, because the media seldom covers this sort of case before the trial. At this point, it's nothing but dog-bites-man to say that the IRS-Federal Court cabal is wrongly persecuting someone who has violated no law. If he wins - as he should - and the story is still ignored, that will make it a spiked story for 2004.

The Librodium

As you may know, I do not mind being criticized. I believe that constant criticism sharpens your mind, and has the long-term effect of strengthening your arguments. Big Chilly, who has been my best friend since our days on Big Wheels together, has always taken a perverse pleasure in playing devil's advocate, and one of the reasons I don't intellectually fear anyone is that thanks to him I have had a genius-level IQ slashing away at my every assertion for more than two decades. Being stripped down to the bone on occasion is a good thing for any would-be intellectual.

I also believe that one of the great weaknesses of the Left is its total ignorance of the philosophy of the Right due to its ironically anti-intellectual tendencies as well as its fear of being exposed. So, as I have become aware of a site or two that appear to show some degree of interest in following my columns and attempting - rather unsuccessfully from what I've seen thus far - to lampoon them, I was wondering if regular readers might have an interest in my adding a special blogroll for such sites as they spring into existence during my slow, but inevitable march towards universal acknowledgment as the One True Heir of William F. Buckley and George Will?

There's one in particular that amused me, not so much for what it had written about me, but about the delightful Miss Coulter. Anyhow, let me know what you think, as I'm still undecided. It seems strange to contemplate what will probably amount to tripling the traffic of one's self-appointed enemies, but on the other hand, it might make for interesting and amusing reading at times. As for me, well, no one who competes in an all-male fantasy football league can possibly be afraid of being called a few names.

"Oh, I almost forgot about revenge upon my enemies! May they die like pigs in Hell!" - Steve Martin, A Christmas Wish

The Simkanin Charade

So, you're really confident that you owe those federal income taxes? That the law requires your employer to withhold them from your paycheck? Then it might trouble you to know that Texas businessman Dick Simkanin has been indicted four separate times by grand juries that have not heard ANY testimony from him, he's had one jury vote 11-1 not guilty, and he's STILL in jail after seven months of being convicted of nothing. You can rape a woman and get less time. Somebody is worried....

In that trial, an IRS legal expert had to recant his prior testimony regarding the definition of the critical legal term “employee” and the judge refused, after a specific request by the jurors, to provide them with a copy of the law that required Simkanin to withhold.

This week, Judge McBryde granted a DOJ motion to deny Dick the ability to present any of the evidentiary exhibits upon which he relied to form his beliefs about the tax code. This ruling by Judge McBryde effectively denies Dick the ability to defend against one of the separate, foundational elements of the alleged crimes, i.e., “willfulness.”

McBryde also granted a DOJ motion regarding “Jury Security” in effect, keeping the jury in complete isolation from the public during (and before) jury selection and during Simkanin's trial. The order included provisions to conduct the jury selection process in private, with no public witnesses. Potential jurors are being directed to meet at a "secret location" and will then be bussed to the federal courthouse in downtown Fort Worth, and ushered inside for the proceedings. According to the order, jurors will not even be able to use the same hallways or bathrooms used by the general public during the trial.

Here's a pretty simple question. If the government's case is so strong, so obvious, why are they forced to resort to such monstrous and unjust shenanigans? Apply Occam's Razor and the answer is clear. The law is not what you think it is, nor what the government pretends it to be. Our forefathers didn't stand for such injustice, and certainly neither can we.

Considering the deception, violations of the Constitution and federal rules of court procedure, a railroaded guilty verdict won't change my opinion in the least. But the vindication of a not guilty verdict in the face of a stacked deck should make a real difference to the average American.

More on war

From the Mises Institute: With regard to war, Hobbes asserted three principal causes, "First, competition; secondly, diffidence; thirdly, glory. The first maketh men invade for gain; the second, for safety; the third, for reputation."

Hmmm, I don't see much related to religion there. Obviously that Hobbes guy had no idea what he was talking about. If only he'd heard of the Crusades, the Thirty Years War and the Spanish Inquisition, I'm sure he would have had a much different list of principal causes.

I do think the Mises Institute has it wrong with regards to the current war. They see it as a war for reputation, I think it is primarily number two, a war for safety. It may be as much in protection of the imperial dollar as it is of the American people - their physical safety if not their liberty - but it doesn't strike me as a glorious enterprise.

Like rain on your wedding day

Mensa sends the following: Hello, American Mensa has a technical inconstancy with their bylaws and need your help. We are collecting proxies for this vote at the Annual Business Meeting in July 2004. Your proxy will be used for this matter and this manner only. Either call 1-877-MYPROXY (1-877-697-7690) or use your computer and go to: http://proxy.us.mensa.org - you'll need your membership number and password issued at the last dues renewal for this process.

Intelligence, it seems, is not to be considered synonymous with mastery of grammar. One would be disappointed if one's wife was inconstant, even if she were only technical or inconsistent about it. Also, being singular, American Mensa would conventionally be expected to use the third person singular conjugation of the verb "to need", which is to say he/she/it needs.

There are many reasons why the intellectual elite should not be permitted to run society as in The Republic. This isn't one of them, but it does strike me as amusing. Thank goodness I'm only "claiming" to be a member of Mensa, so I can safely ignore this nonsense. In any case, a small, but vital component of my philosophy is to ignore any sentence that contains the words "proxy" or "bylaw".

UPDATE: PM corrects MY grammar: Yep, you've got it. The subjunctive...the forgotten tense. I actually smiled when I read your posting in question and thought it wouldhave warmed the very soul of Reinhold Niebuhr (perhaps my very favorite American theologian - but then I'm an agnostic gnostic so I probably shouldn't be trusted) - a man long obsessed with the overarching irony of American history and religion.

There were so many levels of irony in that post of yours that I very nearly had a transcendent spiritual experience myself! But then, seeing as I'm a self-proclaimed agnostic gnostic, I probably would have discounted said experience (had it actually occurred) as the unknowable forced heresy of unseen and malicious powers, chalked the whole experience up to the effects of day-old asparagus, and written a secretive and rambling discourse on the TRUE meaning of the 4-3 defensive set. Anyway, other than an occasional 'the' or 'it' (and on rarer occasions,'his') I seldom agree with a word you say. But you keep me reading...I'll give you that. I never miss a column!

Now, you see, THAT'S an ideal critique! I don't know about the true meaning of the 4-3, but I did nearly burst something laughing this week when one of the Sports Illustrated writers retroactively defended, on the grounds of a shoddy Buffalo offense, Buddy Ryan's punching of Kevin Gilbride. Anyhow, the sentence should have been written: "One would be disappointed if one's wife were to be inconstant...." Guilty as charged - in pleading for clemency, however, I suggest that such an offense is minor in comparison with a) not knowing the difference between inconsistent and inconstant; and b) improperly conjugating "to need". Clearly this blog need an editor.

Damning the State in 3 easy lessons

Mr. Rockwell writes an excellent explanation of the State and its inherent characteristics, using the new anti-spam law to demonstrate the foundational principles. The entire article, entitled Why the State is Different is at the Mises Institute.

"Lesson One in the uniqueness of the state: the state has one tool, and one tool only, at its disposal: force. Now, imagine if a private enterprise tried that same approach. Let's say that Acme Anti-Spam puts out a product that would tag spammers, loot their bank accounts, and hold them in captivity for a period of time, and shoot spammers dead should they attempt to evade or escape. What's more, the company doesn't propose to test this approach on the market and seek subscribers, but rather force every last email user to subscribe. How will Acme Anti-Spam make money at its operation? It won't. It will fund its activities by taking money from your bank account whether you like it or not. They say that they can do this simply because they can, and if you try to stop it, you too will be fined, imprisoned, or shot. The company further claims that it is serving society.Such a company would be immediately decried as heartless, antisocial, and essentially deranged. At the very least it would be considered uncreative and dangerous, if not outright criminal. Its very existence would be a scandal, and the people who dreamed up such a company and tried to manage it would be seen as psychopaths or just evil. Everyone would see through the motivation: they are using a real problem that exists in society as a means to get money without our permission, and to exercise authority that should belong to no one.

Lesson Two presents itself: the state is the only institution in society that can impose itself on all of society without asking the permission of anyone in particular. You can't opt out. A seemingly peculiar aspect of the anti-spam law is that the government exempts itself from having to adhere to its own law. Politicians routinely buy up email addresses from commercial companies and send out unsolicited email. They defend this practice on grounds that they are not pushing a commercial service and that doing so is cheaper than sending regular mail, and hence saves taxpayer money. It is not spam, they say, but constituent service. We all laugh at the political class for its hypocrisy in this, and yet the exemption draws attention to:

Lesson Three: the state is exempt from the laws it claims to enforce, and manages this exemption by redefining its criminality as public service. What is considered theft in the private sector is "taxation" when done by the state. What is kidnapping in the private sector is "selective service" in the public sector. What is counterfeiting when done it he private sector is "monetary policy" when done by the public sector. What is mass murder in the private sector is "foreign policy" in the public sector. This tendency to break laws and redefine that infraction is a universal feature of the state. When cops zoom by we don't think of them as speeding but merely being on the chase. Killing innocents is dismissed as inevitable civilian casualties. So it should hardly surprise us that the state rarely or even never catches itself in the webs it weaves. Of course it exempts itself from its anti-spam law. The state is above the law."

Fifty thousand

50,000 visits since this blog began on October 8th. Not exactly Instapundit territory, but it's been quite a success in my opinion. Thanks to all the regulars stopping by, and I hope you'll all continue to do so in 2004. I've very much enjoyed the experience, and I have no intention of stopping anytime soon.

Have a happy and joyful new year.

Mowbray gang agley

Joel Mowbray writes: Technically, the former head of the Central Command in the Middle East didn’t say “Jews.” He instead used a term that has become a new favorite for anti-Semites: “neoconservatives.” As the name implies, “neoconservative” was originally meant to denote someone who is a newcomer to the right. In the 90’s, many people self-identified themselves as “neocons,” but today that term has become synonymous with “Jews.”

Joel Mowbray has done some yeoman's work on Saudi Arabia in the last year, but he's seriously smoking crack if he thinks that neoconservative is synonymous with Jew. A neoconservative is someone who pretends to be a conservative, but supports a Wilsonian foreign policy. Alternatively, a big government conservative. In either case, a left-moderate in conservative clothes.

There may be many Jewish neoconservatives these days, as their formerly beloved Marxists and left-liberals have turned on them with a vengeance over Israel. Unfortunately, they haven't abandoned many of their anti-conservative positions. If they had, there would be no need for the adjective "neo" now, would there. I am opposed to neoconservatives. I also defend the Jewish people and Israel at every opportunity. Am I, too, an anti-semite? The fraudulent manufacture of verbal offense via code word is much better left to the anti-intellectual vocabulary perverters of the Left.

Zinni hasn't tarnished his reputation. Mowbray, sadly, has.

Shut up, TMQ, we know

In fact, by Monday that page [at NFL.com] opened with, "The football gods must have something against the Vikings."

Clearly, it's time for Ragnar to execute the blood eagle on representatives from the Dallas Cowboys, the Washington Redskins, the Atlanta Falcons and now the Arizona Cardinals. Why do I have the feeling that there's a lot of Redskins' fans who'd like to nominate Steve Spurrier?

Mailbox: the vanity of virtue

JX writes: Yeah, Vox. Slice and dice those morally self-righteous liberals. Sometimes it's like picturing a primetime fight between Lennox Lewis and Rosie O'Donnell. I have an important question:How do you deal with those people around you who accuse you of being 'better' than they for your choices? I've come across that lately, some people I used to hang with back in my secular days referred to me as Mr. X in the street instead of my first name in order to diss me, and their sly assaults on my character are making me madder than I should be. How would you go about attacking this?

Well, first, I don't get a lot of this, if any. I've made some impressively bad choices in my day, so the notion of portraying myself as some sort of behavioral exemplary would strike a lot of those who know me well as being more than a little humorous. Your problem is that you are still too concerned with what the world thinks of you. Who cares? And what is important to keep in mind is that even as they are mocking you, they are watching your behavior. It's good that they have noticed a difference - a very minor, but totally uncharacteristic change in the White Buffalo's behavior was integral to my reassessment of Christianity - so you should not be angered by their taunts, you should be pleased. If you are greeted as Mr. X, then smile, give them a little mock bow, greet them with a friendly "Mr. Y" and let it slide. Don't attack it, ever. Eventually, one of them will probably approach you quietly and want to talk in depth about the changes in your life.

What is this, an advice column today? Where's the hate?

Mailbox: On learning language

JB commiserates about the Vikes and asks: Question...did you learn those foreign languages at an early age? I have recently tried to learn a bit of Italian. Although I can speak and understand some basics, I can't imagine the amount of work it would take to get fluent at reading the language. If you learned to read either of these languages as an adult, were there any particular strategies you used to help you in your quest?

No, I did not. I had five years of German in junior high and high school with an excellent German teacher. I studiedJapanese in college and learned Italian as an adult while living in Europe. My Italian is usually described as "bellissimo... per un americano", which is to say that it's functionally conversational as long as the other person doesn't speak troppo veloce or use a lot of idioms. I still remember trying to figure out how the heck a wolf had come into the picture during a conversation about school when my friend saw my confusion, laughed, and explained that "in the mouth of the wolf" is an idiom used to say that you're facing a difficult situation. One responds by saying "hit the wolf", if I recall correctly. Of course, Italians are so shocked that you speak any Italian that they tend to give you far too much credit. My German used to be quite good, but it's been so long since I've used it that it's a real struggle. More often than not, it tends to come out Italian. The Japanese is totally shot.

I find that reading a language is much easier than speaking it. The tough part about reading Italian is the placement of pronouns, as they tend to scatter si and ci around pretty haphazardly - the fact that both words are part of the reflexive verb structure as well as serving as a pronoun and at least one other unrelated word doesn't make it any easier - and the use of the gender-specific "the" as a pronoun is also confusing. La what? Which la? Le? Who? Speaking also doesn't help as much with reading as you'd hope. I was reading "Il visconte dimezzato" and fortunately, references to starvation, putrifecation and corpses hadn't tended to come up in my everyday conversation with people, so I was forced to resort to the dictionary distressingly often.

I would recommend starting with a book like 501 Italian Verbs, published by Barron's, which has the seven simple tenses and seven complex tenses for the most common verbs. Verbs are the key to any language, as once you have that, its usually relatively easy to figure out the subject and the object. Make up a flash card system or use something like WinFlash on your computer. Don't go on from the present indicative until you know 85 percent of them down cold, then start mixing in the imperfect, future and present perfect conjugations. Unfortunately, there's a lot of irregulars, but having the basics down really helps. Just do 15 minutes every day, and you'll make progress.

I warned you, Penelope

I find it tremendously amusing when someone complains that I have embarrassed them by utilizing the cruel device of quoting them at length in public. It is particularly ironic when they are clearly unaware that I respond every week to critical email, while at the same time asserting detailed knowledge of me, my philosophy and my membership, or lack thereof, in various organizations.

I do not post private correspondence. When you send me an insult-filled diatribe about a column I have published somewhere, we are not corresponding. I freely admit that I rather enjoy vivisecting nonsensical lunacies for the benefit of my readers, but such missives are wholly unsolicited nevertheless.

I have zero sympathy for those who believe they should be able to freely rail at public figures without consequence. Perhaps most columnists suffer such blather in Olympian silence; I do not. I stand by what I write, and I expect everyone else to do likewise. Polite and reasonable criticism will always receive polite and respectful treatment, both in this blog and via email. Baseless assertions and petty insults will be mercilessly mocked. The choice, dear hate mailer, is always yours.

I have said it before. I will say it again. Don't bring it if you can't take it.

So not surprised

California's parks department, staggered by the state's budget problems and trying to avoid closing dozens of parks, announced Tuesday it will raise entrance and camping fees to their highest levels in history. Some fees will more than double at California's 277 state parks, which range from redwood forests to ``Baywatch'' beaches, desert ghost towns to mountain ranges, and battlefields to Lake Tahoe shoreline sites. Getting into Hearst Castle, for example, will jump from $12 to $25.

I warned about this. When you vote for a pragmatic Republican, you not only get tax increases, you usually get tax increases that are worse than anything the Democrats can put together. This is the first step - Arnold will soon go back on his pledge not to raise taxes, because "the situation is worse than he realized it was before he took office." Isn't it always.

The spending half of the equation won't be significantly addressed because that's harder. So, Schwarzenegger will be saluted in the press for his "courage" and California Republicans will finally begin to realize that they screwed themselves badly in electing a pragmatic man without any commitment to small government principles.

In truth, he's already violated his pledge. Fees are taxes, they're just slightly more optional.

Mailbox: Howard Dean, compassionate conservative

Seriously, the header on an email from one SP is "Howard Dean Lives Compassionately and is Conservative", who goes on to write: How sad that your religious convictions preach exclusion rather than inclusion. Jesus was anything but exclusive is thoughts and deeds. Jesus did not use invective as you do, he loved rather than hated. Where are you sitting to judge others who differ in opinion on issues of separation of church and state. Do you support those who call themselves Christians but practice exclusion and spew invective.

Looks like Gov. Dean has nailed down the LSD vote. Yes, I fully support those who practice exclusion and "spew invective". I think a few quotes from the man whose words are clearly unknown to SP will suffice by way of response:

"None shall come to the Father but by me." (Sounds pretty exclusionary to me.)

"The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and those who practice lawlessness, and will cast them into the furnace of fire. There will be a wailing and gnashing of teeth." (For those who don't know, Jesus is the Son of Man. More exclusion, and at his command.)

"Thus you have made the commandment of God of no effect by your tradition. Hypocrites!"

"It is not good to take the children's bread and throw it to the little dogs." (Samaritans being equated with little dogs.)

"O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I bear with you?"

"Serpents, brood of vipers! How can you escape the condemnation of hell?"

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like white-washed tombs which indeed appear beautiful outwardly, but inside are full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness."

The only significant flaw that I can see with my invective is that it falls far short of the slashing example set by Jesus Christ. There was more from SP, but it didn't merit response, being wholly delusional. His argument boils down to the notion that since Howard Dean wants to take your money away from you and give it to other people, he is being loving like Jesus.

Never mind that Jesus also said: "But if he refuses to even hear the church, let him be to you like a heathen and a tax collector."

Poorly educated, easily led

PhD Mom writes: I had to laugh when I read the email from someone who couldn't imagine what a "leftist" education would be. Although I have since recovered, in my elementary, secondary, and most of my college educations, I was the victim of just such a scheme.

For example, in my junior high years, I was taught that the Palestinians were right and Zionism was racism. I was taught that abortion is a right, and "anti-choice" extremists were not only disagreeable, but both stupid and cruel. I was taught that animals are more important than people. In my math class, we once figured the cost of raising a child as opposed to the cost of having an abortion. Every year, when we had debates and individual presentations, the issues of gun control, abortion, prayer in schools, and Palestine were always among the most popular. There was no question which side of the argument would garner the better grade.

In college, I was trained in Marxism, Maoism, and feminism. I was taught a class on sexism, racism, classism and heterosexism in American life by an avowed Wiccan who wore a pentagram around her neck in class. I was taught political economy by a professor who carried a copy of Das Kapital everywhere he went and called it his "Bible." (Of course, none of my instructors would ever have carried a REAL Bible.)

At long last, God chased me down and changed my mind. I became a Christian just before beginning my PhD dissertation, after many years as a teacher's pet feminist secularist. Things...changed. My professors were terribly disappointed and lost all respect for me (though eventually they did pass my dissertation which was promptly academically published, despite treating pro-life activists as a legitimate political faction instead of a disease in the body politic).

On the way, however, there was no end to the insults to which I was subjected. For example, I asked my major professor for a letter of reference to apply to teach at a Christian college. He agreed, but told me I shouldn't need it. "A place like that," he said, "isn't looking for excellence." Really? Suppose I had received the same reply when asking for a reference for a historically black university? Would I have had grounds to sue? You betcha--and this professor would have been the first to say so. But in the rareified air of the academy, only one kind of prejudice doesn't have an odor to it.

At any rate, I hope now your correspondent understands what a "leftist" education is. It is not a "fair and balanced" (you'll excuse the expression) view, egalitarianism, or a grounding in justice and equality. It is a form of elitist brianwashing that beats down those who are subject to it, presses its case at every opportunity, and demands adherence to communist catechism in even the smallest of things. And, in the absence of radical internal change, the victim nearly always emerges in the form required for the Democratic party to succeed.

Another poorly-educated, easily-led Christian. And a mother, no less! I wonder how she manages to survive the sexist oppression of her home life. The poor thing.

Mailbox: the Secular Inquisition

JH writes: In your latest column, you refer to secularist American politicians as a "secular inquisition." In using this phrase, you trivialize the sufferings of hundreds of thousands of Christians (and non-Christians). If you were a reader of European history, you would know that Protestants and proto-Protestants suffered appallingly at the hands of the Roman and Spanish Inquisitions. You insult the memory of these martyrs when you compare non-violent advocates of secularism to the fiends of centuries past.

I am, as many of you know, a reader of European history. Which I have read in italiano and Deutsch, as well as English. The purpose of the Spanish Inquisition - which was a government affair instigated at the command of Queen Isabella - was not to persecute non-Christians, it was to ferret out non-Christians - mostly Jews - who were falsely pretending to be Christians in order to violate the King's proclamation which banned Jews from the kingdom, as well as heretics pretending to be orthodox. It was not a haphazard persecution of imaginary enemies, although like all government programs, it had a tendency to run amok at times.

I once thought much as JH, until I began reading some of the historical documents relating to the Spanish Inquisition. The first thing that struck me was how the rules and procedures were tightly written to protect those being "asked the question". They could only be tortured twice, by law, and no blood was allowed to be shed. Contrast with this the procedures which are used by modern secular torturers, which are far more savage and used with far less discrimination. Much of what was assumed of the Inquisitions was largely after-the-fact Protestant propaganda - and please keep in mind that I am a Protestant myself, I am no Catholic apologist.

Furthermore, the most recent analyses of the Inquisition estimate around 6,000 executions in 356 years. This pales in comparison to nearly every human tragedy of the past, and is again testimony to the relatively civilized nature of the Inquisition. One can hardly call it a great tragedy when more than twice as many American children are killed on bicycles ever year than perished in the dread flames of the auto-da-fe. I am not defending the Inquisition itself, I do, however, insist on defending the historical record and I stand by my condemnation of the secular inquisition, which poses a far greater threat than the Spanish Inquisition ever did.

I think it is fair to lay at least partial blame for the Molochian holocaust of American abortion at the feet of this secular inquisition; a tragedy which in a single year far exceeds the 356-year toll of the Inquisition. In any case, the secular inquisition - which consists of more than America's politicians - has only been with us for about thirty years; it has another 326 to go before one can absolve it of innocence in comparison with one of its historical predecessors. As to the Roman, I have not done my due diligence, but I will be glad to address that question once I have.

Mailbox: Failing reading comprehension 101

PZ writes: As a flaming liberal I don't understand why your side thinks we need government running our religious lives. Is it he place of government to decide if a gay couple can get married? If so, show me where it's at in the Constitution. Is it the place of government to say gays should go to jail for having consensual sex? I don't think so. Religion is an excuse to hate, or better put, your version of religion justifies your hate on anyone who doesn't pander to your religious beliefs. I have a suggestion, grow up.

PZ leaps in by demonstrating that he's unfamiliar with both my column and the blog, as well as his failure to comprehend what he reads. It seems that in his mind, defending Howard Dean's suspiciously timed quasi-profession of faith is tantamount to advocating government running the religious lives of the people. As all my regular readers know, I am a libertarian and do not want the government doing anything except defending national borders and property rights. While I have supported the Defense of Marriage Amendment in the past - not that PZ would know - this is only because the state is already integrated into the process. I will withdraw my support of DoMA the moment marriage is returned to the sole purview of the churches. As for religion being an excuse to hate, I have a plethora of hate-filled emails from atheists that disprove this, as do the writings of many a secularist hatemonger such as Lenin. Furthermore, PZ contradicts himself. Howard Dean is pandering to Christians, so therefore I hate him because he isn't pandering to my religious beliefs? This makes no sense.

I'm thinking you're one of those religious nuts who has to have YOUR religion stroked or you're not satisfied. If Dean wasn't a Christian you'd have another reason to hate him wouldn't you. I like how so-called Christians use their religions to justify bigotry and hate.

Here PZ equates a failure to support politically with hate. An interesting insight into the unstable mind of the Left. He may like how so-called Christians justify bigotry and hate, but I don't know what that has to do with my column on Howard Dean, except for PZ's very broad expansion of the concept of hate. And, of course, Howard Dean IS stroking my religion, so again, PZ reveals his inability to understand either what Howard Dean is doing, why Christians are taking exception to it or what I wrote in defense of his actions.

This statement is a blatant lie; "And having wrapped up the loyalties of the small, but vicious anti-Christian left, Dean knows he now must tack hard to the religious right to have any hope of winning in November. He cannot hope to win the evangelical vote.: I dont have a problem with religions but clearly you think anyone who disagrees with YOU is a "vicious anti-Christian." Once again, grow up...and stop listening to those whove taught you to hate.

Another howler. Is there an anti-Christian left? Yes, there certainly is. Is it numerically large? Not according to any poll I've ever seen. Is it vicious? Yes, one need merely peruse its writings. Who do these people most strongly support in the Democratic primary? Howard Dean. Is Howard Dean tacking to the religious right? He has announced his intention to do so in the Boston Globe. Can he win the evangelical vote? No, not a single political expert believes he can. Not a single untruth, much less a blatant lie, in my statement. There are many, many people who disagree with me, Republicans and Democrats alike, for I am neither. Considering that I stated the number of vicious anti-Christians is small, how is it remotely conceivable to state that I think anyone who disagrees with me belongs to that group?

As to the repeated instruction to "grow up", these, combined with the baseless and irrational assertions made, demonstrate that PZ is engaging in some powerful emotional projection. He would do well to heed his own advice.

An adult knows people have opposing points of views and doesn't label everyone in a group as being anti-anything. When you attack, expect to be attacked back. If you can't take it, stop attacking or stop writing.

Again, PZ engages in projection, while making me wonder how he would choose to label a group that consists solely of those who virulently oppose something in every way. Would no adult label Greenpeace anti-pollution? Just a silly, silly assertion. I never said all Dean supporters fell into the anti-Christian category, only that those individuals who do fall into that group are strong Dean supporters. And once more, PZ reveals his total lack of familiarity with me, my column and my blog, as I can state with reasonable assurance that there is no nationally syndicated columnist who responds publicly to a higher percentage of his critical mail than I do.

Of course, as PZ has now learned, there's a reason why my hate mail has dropped 90 percent since I instituted the Mailbox. Write whatever you want - attack me however you like - there's a reasonable chance I'll publish it. And it's possible that you might even come off well.

But your odds, well, they're not so good.

He shore is smart, that'un

I spotted this on Julian Sanchez's blog, via an Instapundit link:

I think you're giving too much credit to religious folks. For one, this whole religious-tactic is only being discussed within the blogsphere - it hasn't made it's way into the mainstream yet. Hell, I doubt most Southern churchgoers evey know who Dean is... Consider the demographic Dean's trying to target: White, conservative, religious Southerners... it's not exactly a group that's known for it's smarts.

On the lower end of this group's income spectrum you've actually got people who vote Republican when it runs counter to everything they actually need (welfare, aid, education) from an elected official. This was Dean's whole point with the confederate flag comment - that he wants to reach out and grab a group who vote with their bibles and not their brains... based upon just a few issues. If he can sway them it will be a windfall.

Yes, as the Washington Post famously reported, we evangelicals are poorly educated and easily led. I look forward to hearing how this joker - Will, by name - plans to explain it after these poor ignorant folk too stupid to see that they're being used see through Mr. Dean's transparent ruse and fail to deliver him a single Southern state in the general election. Assuming, of course, that this doesn't blow up so badly in his face that he doesn't make it that far. Don't get me wrong, Dean has the right idea if he wants to have any chance of winning, it's just that his execution is appallingly clumsy.

The first irony is that there are quite possibly more evangelical bloggers than there are arrogant left-wing cretins like Will. Which is why it is being discussed in the blogosphere. One of my favorite studies a few years back showed that members of the Christian Coalition were significantly more likely to own computers and modems than the average American. Let them keep underestimating us; they've been doing it since the days of Nero.

On the radio

Kevin McCullough invited me to talk with him about Tolkien on his radio show this afternoon. It was fun, although radio is an annoyingly short-term medium that prevents one from going into any reasonable detail. He did ask me one tough question, though: who is the hero of The Lord of the Rings. I went with Frodo, although I think you can make a reasonable case for Aragorn. I tend to agree with those who think Peter Jackson went just a little overboard with the noble Sam.

One aspect that I find interesting is that Tolkien creates three, not one, Christ-figures. Frodo is the Lamb, who must shoulder the burden. Gandalf is the Savior Risen. And Aragorn, of course, is the King Returning back to claim his throne. The trilogy may have been accidental, but I don't think this three-in-one is, do you?

I would have mentioned that, but we ran out of time. Sorry, Kevin. Maybe we can talk about CS Lewis next time?

Not off the top of my head

CW writes: I enjoyed your article this morning on WND. I had one question, though. You quoted from the Bible a statement that Paul made. Can you tell me where that statement can be found?

Lest anyone get the wrong impression, I should point out that the reason this column took longer to write than normal was that I couldn't find the verse - I had to skim everything from Acts onward to find it. But sure enough, it was there. Philippians 1:15-18.

"The Secular Party Emerges"

Rod Dreher of the Dallas Morning News writes in Touchstone magazine:

"The bias of the news media against religious conservatives is by this point a dog-bites-man story of the first degree. Everybody knows that pro-life marchers and churches who resist gay "marriage" aren’t going to get a fair shake from the newspaper, and we’ve gotten used to that. But the importance of this phenomenon is both broader and deeper than individual stories. In a media-driven society, the press sets the terms of public debate, and in so doing establishes the narrative that will inescapably influence the way society thinks about and acts on issues and challenges.

Anti-religious media bias has profound implications for the future of American politics, or so say social scientists Louis Bolce and Gerald De Maio in "Our Secularist Democratic Party," an important article published in a recent issue of The Public Interest. The Baruch College researchers say that the parochialism of journalists is blinding them to one of the biggest stories in American politics: how the Democratic Party has become a stronghold of fervent secularists, and how secularism "is just as powerful a determinant of social attitudes and voting behavior as is a religiously traditional outlook."

Among political journalists, the dominant paradigm—what you might call the "official story"—holds that religious conservatives bullied their way onto the American political scene with the election of Ronald Reagan, and rudely brought into the political arena the culture war that had been raging since the 1960s. That’s exactly wrong, say the authors, who attribute the "true origins of this conflict" to "the increased prominence of secularists within the Democratic Party, and the party’s resulting antagonism toward traditional values."

Until relatively recently, both major parties were of similar mind on issues of personal morality. Then came the 1972 Democratic Convention, at which secularists—defined as agnostics, atheists, and those who seldom or never attend religious services—seized control of the party and nominated George McGovern. Prior to that year, neither party had many secularists among its delegates. According to a comprehensive study of survey data from the Democratic delegates, the party was badly split between religious and moral traditionalists on one side, and secularists on the other. They fought over moral issues: abortion, women’s rights, homosexuality, the traditional family. What the authors call a "secularist putsch" triumphed, giving us what Richard Nixon mocked as the party of "acid, amnesty, and abortion," and instigating—with help from the Supreme Court on January 22, 1973—the long march of religious and moral conservatives to the GOP, which became the party of traditionalists by default. "What was first an intra-party culture war among Democratic elites became by the 1980s an inter-party culture war."

Survey data from the 1992 national conventions show how thoroughly polarized the parties had by that time become around religious orientation. Only 20 percent of white Democratic delegates (N.B., this secular-religious antagonism is a white voter phenomenon, the authors say) went to religious services at least once a month, while over three times that number of white Republican delegates did. A fascinating set of statistics emerged when questioners polled each party’s delegates on their views of various subgroups among the other party’s activists. Both Democrats and Republicans were "significantly more negative toward groups associated with the newer religious and cultural division in the electorate than toward groups associated with older political cleavages based on class, race, ethnicity, party or ideology." That is, Republican delegates felt much warmer toward union leaders, mainline liberals, blacks, Hispanics, and Democrats than toward feminists, environmentalists, and pro-abortion activists. For their part, the Democrats were more favorably disposed to big-business types, the rich, political conservatives and Republicans than toward pro-lifers and conservative Christians. Of the 18 groups covered by the survey, Christian fundamentalists came in as the most despised, with over half the Democratic delegates giving them the absolute minimum score possible. Put another way, Republican delegates thought more highly of those who favor the legalized killing of unborn children than their Democratic counterparts thought of people who believe in a literal interpretation of Scripture."

For the entire article, read The Godless Party.

Mailbox: Why write?

BG writes: I read your articles from time to time. I feel they are above the average individual. Do you feel that your articles are directed to a certain person, or just for whoever stumbles upon them? I myself have read only a few, and think you are one of the best writers I have ever heard of.... Surely you must have a plan, or have been given a call. I truly hope you don't waste your talents picking apart the evil of the left while trying to show off your obviously elevated writing intellect. I'm not slamming you at all. I wish there were more people like you, a long time ago there were.

What makes this a difficult question to answer is that the truth is rather prosaic. I write because that's what I do. I was writing almost every day back when no one ever read anything I'd written, and were I ever to lose my various publication outlets, I would continue to write in much the same manner that I do now.

It is possible that my writing is at times too elevated. Certainly, UPS has been told this by editors at some of America's largest newspapers and I have been encouraged by numerous people, including members of my own family, to make it more accessible. I even made an attempt at this - rewriting my WND column for the syndicate using less complex sentences - but it was too much work to be worth the effort. This isn't an artistic arrogance thing or anything like that, it's just that one writes how one happens to write - which is usually not the way one speaks, by the way. One thing I have noticed is that there is a rhythmic component to my prose that only becomes noticeable when an editor modifies a word or two and throws the pattern off - often the changes are quite gramatically correct, but I find them very jarring.

For whom am I writing? Those who love truth and freedom. Those who are open to new ideas. Those who are willing to read and weigh the evidence before dismissing what is written. I'm not particularly interested in preaching to the choir nor in earnestly trying to convince those who think differently than I do - I'm well aware that most people think very differently, and that's been the case for as long as I can remember. It doesn't bother me in the least.

On a daily and weekly basis, I simply write about what interests me and is at least vaguely related to the topics of the day. I don't have a plan, and I don't write to show off. My friends are often amused by the assumptions made by people who believe they know much about me, much less understand me. Writing is my amusement, not my work, and I consider myself truly fortunate to have achieved a small measure of success at something I very much enjoy. This is why you will probably never see me running from news show to news show, trying to build my career and literary fame by becoming a talking head. It's not of zero interest to me, but my interest level in it is just slightly ahead of the notion of acquiring a coaching license and becoming a professional soccer coach. I probably won't do either.

Is that crazy? Perhaps, by modern standards. But I am happy and I am content, which in this age of envy, dissatisfaction and rage, is more than many can honestly say.

We don't deserve the playoffs

13:06 ARI - TD, STEVE BUSH 2 YD PASS FROM JOSH MCCOWN (TWO-POINT PASS CONVERSION FAILED)
Drive:15 plays, 60 yards in 4:54
Key Plays: McCown 6-yard pass to Boldin on 4th-and-6 to midfield; McCown 15-yard pass to B Johnson to Minnesota 35; McCown 37-yard pass to Poole on 3rd-and-13 to Minnesota 11; MINNESOTA 17-12

15:00 ARI - TD, NATHAN POOLE 28 YD PASS FROM JOSH MCCOWN (TWO-POINT CONVERSION FAILED)
Drive:6 plays, 61 yards in 1:54
Key Plays: D Anderson recovery of onside kick at Arizona 39; 30-yard pass interference penalty on Vikings' Walker to Minnesota 31; McCown 13-yard pass to Poole to Minnesota 13; ARIZONA 18-17

How do you let this happen? How? And how do you lose to Arizona, San Diego, Oakland AND New York this year? That's four of Dr Z's bottom five in his power rankings for the last week of the season! My mother could throw for 200 and 2 against Arizona's secondary. Who are Steve Bush and Nathan Poole?

I hate our defense. And I'm not too fond of the offense or the special teams right now.

Skol Vikings.

UPDATE: "Fifty-one teams have started 6-0 or better, and only three failed to make the playoffs: 1963 Browns, 1978 Redskins and the 2003 Vikings." - Sports Illustrated

Because he's a coward

Tim Graham writes in NRO's Corner: Al Franken's boast in his book that he challenged Rich Lowry to a fistfight gains a little bit of perspective in today's Washington Post magazine. Humor columnist Gene Weingarten wanted to parody a moment of right-left civility, but guess who was too "busy" to even get in an e-mail sandbox with one of his hate objects, the Ann Coulter doll:

"I decided to invite an arch-liberal and an arch-conservative to meet in this column and constructively discuss their differences, with me as moderator. I wanted the liberal to be Al Franken, the author of the best-selling Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them, and the conservative to be Ann Coulter, author of the best-selling Traitor: Liberal Treachery From the Cold War to the War on Terrorism. Ann agreed right away. But Al begged off, saying he was too 'busy,' even for a worthy cause like helping combat the plague of name-calling. What a milksoppy, pantywaist, jellyfish, weasel-out wuss he turned out to be." Weingarten reports that Michael Kinsley and Molly Ivins also rejected the challenge. So Gene and Ann have a typically Weingartenesque exchange on toilet paper and the merits of dogs vs. cats.

I still haven't heard back from Al about my challenge. So, obviously he's just as much of a coward as he claims Rich Lowry to be. I have to admit, I'd never considered making the same offer to Mr. Kinsley or Ms Ivins - I imagine Molly probably packs an okay punch, but she's surely about as quick as molasses. I am, of course, far too much of a elite university-neutered, gender bias-free, sensitive New Age 90's male to harbor any compunction about beating down a woman, even one who is old, fat and slow. We're all equal, right?

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.