Friday, November 20, 2009
It's Dickens, Decisions and Delightful Fellowship This Weekend
We're on the run today (what's new) with several errands and tasks to perform before heading down to a bed and breakfast (Whispering Pines) in Nebraska City for the annual retreat of our literary society, the Notting Hill Napoleons.
We go there every November and take over the place from Friday afternoon to Sunday morning, enjoying each others' company and conducting our discussion of the year's Charles Dickens novel. This year it's Great Expectations.
Actually, this is our second time with this novel because our group has been going so long, we've read all of Dickens and are now into our third re-read of the great author. But since you can never read too much of Dickens, we're all looking forward to sharing the joys (old and new) we had this time around.
Also during our weekend, we decide on the book rota for the coming year. We've got it down to a science by now but, like a lot of science, it's hard to explain to the uninitiated. Suffice it to say, it involves competing lists, discussion, some pitiful pleading by some members and a series of three (sometimes four) votes before we knock it out.
For Claire's and my part, we prepare a detailed list of recommendations every year, complete with appropriate description, number of pages, cost and availability information. Then we hand it out. No reading the list aloud that we've just handed out. (Didn't you always hate teachers who did that?) And no begging, guilt-trips, bribes or trade-offs. We want the votes to be about the books...not about the personalities or emotions of the members themselves.
It actually doesn't take that long, though sometimes it sure seems like it. But we've done pretty well over the years. A few clunkers have slipped in but otherwise, a whole lot of terrific literature. If you'd like to see the entirety of the Notting Hill Napoleon reading list, you can over at The Book Den: 1992-2007, 2008 and 2009.
And you can also read through Claire's and my recommendation list for this year over there. You might find it of interest as you have your own "debates" about what to read this year.
And wherever you are and whatever you're doing this weekend, have a great time with it!
If Cable TV Was Handled Like ObamaCare
Here's another clever (and illuminating) video clip from CMPI.
Chickens Make "Chickens" of White Tigers
I'll let you decide on the moral of the following story.
The Chongqing Wild Animal Park (China) has five rare adult white tigers which were originally trained to perform tricks for visitors...Keepers have been trying to encourage them to follow their natural instincts by throwing them live chickens - but without success.
Feeder Shi Ruqiang said: They're supposed to be wild and scary, but due to their soft lifestyles and human care they have gradually lost their wild nature. "I have been trying to interest them with live chickens but it was quite a funny scene. The tigers were so scared that they wouldn't go near them. One chicken passed out and the tigers did eventually approach it - but then it woke up again and squawked and they ran for their lives!"
Shi says the keepers are now forcing the tigers to stay outside their cages for at least 12 hours a day to toughen them up.And they are planning to introduce a wild tiger to show the domesticated big cats the ropes. "If all else fails, we will simply cut down their rations until they are so hungry that they are forced to hunt for themselves," he added.
"The Importance of a Divine Perspective"
Harold Berry sent over a message he had presented to the Board of Trustees at Back to the Bible. It was a captivating commentary on the necessity of aligning our lives to a "divine perspective" and he used King David's example (particularly chapters 16 and 17 of First Samuel) to illustrate his points.
It's good stuff - inspirational, practical.
And I sure hope this link will take you to it. Not knowing how Facebook works, I'm not sure if non-FB folks can get there. But try it.
The Most Successful Woman We Will Ever Know In This Country?
It's one of those statements that jolts you, revealing yet another decline of the once-noble American culture into the marshes of insipidity.
For in the mind of Chicago Mayor Richard Daley (and probably many other celebrity worshipers), Oprah Winfrey, a New Age egotist who talks about mostly inane, irrelevant topics on a TV program, soars above all mothers, scientists, political leaders, doctors, educators, policewomen, missionaries, First Ladies, soldiers, philanthropists, writers, social activists, adventurers, athletes, nurses, artists and caregivers.
"I think she was the most successful woman that we will ever know in the history of this country."
Wow.
Not Pocahontas, Martha Washington, Abigail Adams, Molly Pitcher.
Not Dolley Madison, Sacajawea, Sojourner Truth, or Harriet Beecher Stowe.
Not Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, or Florence Nightingale.
Not Harriet Tubman, Jane Addams, Clara Barton, or Emily Dickinson.
Not Louisa May Alcott, Annie Oakley, Nellie Bly, or Beatrix Potter.
Not Marie Curie, Laura Ingalls Wilder, or Juliette Gordon Low.
Not Ida B. Wells, Mary Cassatt, Grandma Moses, or Willa Cather.
Not Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell, Clara Maass, or Claire Boothe Luce.
Not Mary K. Goddard, Mother Bernardina Matthews, or Elizabeth Ann Seton.
Not Victoria Woodhull, Maria Montessori, or Elanor Roosevelt.
Not Helen Keller, Anne Sullivan, Georgia O'Keefe, or Mother Jones.
Not Amelia Earhart, Edith Wharton, Edna St. Vincent Millay or Dorothea Dix.
Not Margaret Chase Smith, "Babe" Didrikson Zaharias, or Lucille Ball.
Not Ella Fitzgerald, Clara Bow, Shirley Temple, or Bess Truman.
Not Jackie Kennedy, Sandra Day O’Connor, or Margaret Mead.
Not Marian Anderson, Dorothy Day, Wilma Rudolph, or Zora Neale Hurston.
Not Margaret Bourke-White, Marian Anderson, or Joni Eareckson-Tada.
But Oprah Winfrey.
Daley's choice shows a remarkable lack of moral perspective and a woeful ignorance of (if not sheer disdain for) American history. But then it's not just about history. For Daley has concluded that Oprah Winfrey is not only the most successful woman we've ever had, she's the most successful we will ever have! Done deal. Close the books. Raise the statue.
And then close the curtain.
"This Is Politics at its Very Worst."
Last Saturday night Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) forced through a vote on her 2,032 page health care bill only a few days after releasing it to the public. Now Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) is poised for another Saturday night cram down, forcing a Senate cloture vote mere days before his 2,074 page bill was given to Senators. Yet again, Congress will be forced to vote on a bill that none of them have actually read. More importantly, as we pour through the details, it becomes obvious that none of them even believe the plan will do what the bill says...
Conn Carroll's brief but potent analysis continues over at The Foundry, showing how this proposed legislation will kill jobs, hurt small business, hurt families, hurt the individual states, finance abortion, and hide the real costs (which are beyond imagination).
This is politics at its very worst, not only in the horrid consequences this legislation would produce but also in the downright wicked ways in which the Democrats are running roughshod over the Constitution, democracy and common sense.
Call your Senators.
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Today's Posts
Did You Have Any Doubts? Harry Reid Health Care Plan Requires Monthly Abortion Fee.
Obama's Ego vs Real World Politics
Vital Signs' Book It! Discussions -- You Oughta' Get In On This.
Is That Helen?
Nothing "Religious" Is Allowed in Public Schools
U.K. Government Official: “Lesbians Make Better Parents Than a Man and a Woman.”
The Reprobate Rush for "Inclusion"
"Health Care Hoops"
Did You Have Any Doubts? Harry Reid Health Care Plan Requires Monthly Abortion Fee.
Straight from the web blog of House Republican Leader John Boehner comes these details he found in the Democrat's Senate-version of the health care bill.
Just like the original 2,032-page, government-run health care plan from Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA), Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-NV) massive, 2,074-page bill would levy a new “abortion premium” fee on Americans in the government-run plan.
Beginning on line 7, p. 118, section 1303 under “Voluntary Choice of Coverage of Abortion Services” the Health and Human Services Secretary is given the authority to determine when abortion is allowed under the government-run health plan. Leader Reid’s plan also requires that at least one insurance plan offered in the Exchange covers abortions (line 13, p. 120).
What is even more alarming is that a monthly abortion premium will be charged of all enrollees in the government-run health plan. It’s right there beginning on line 11, page 122, section 1303, under “Actuarial Value of Optional Service Coverage.” The premium will be paid into a U.S. Treasury account – and these federal funds will be used to pay for the abortion services...
A majority of Americans believe that health care plans should not be mandated to provide elective abortion coverage, and a majority of Americans do not believe government health care plans should include abortion coverage. Currently, federal appropriations bills include language known as the Hyde Amendment that prohibits the use of federal funds to pay for elective abortions under the Medicare and Medicaid programs, while another provision, known as the Smith Amendment, prohibits federal funding of abortion under the federal employees’ health benefits plan.
Leader Reid’s 2,074-page health care monstrosity is an affront to the American people and drastically moves away from current policy...
Let's see what Senator Ben Nelson does with the cloture vote now.
Obama's Ego vs Real World Politics
...Obama evidently expected that his election would change not only America's image in the world but the policies of nations both friendly and unfriendly. In saluting the fall of the Berlin Wall, on videotape, he made no mention of Ronald Reagan or Margaret Thatcher, Lech Walesa or John Paul II, Mikhail Gorbachev or Vaclav Havel, but cited as a world-changing event his own election in the United States 19 years later.
Obama has often said that all the world's nations have shared interests, and during his campaign he made clear his willingness to meet with leaders of enemy countries in order to reach agreements. His idea seemed to be that his own eloquence and his own example would make the scales fall from their eyes and enable them to see that it was in their interest to do what he would like.
So far, not so good. The mullahs of Iran have consented to something in the nature of negotiations, but their agreement in principle to allow the enrichment of nuclear fuel in France has, like many agreements in principle, turned out to be no agreement. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the mullahs have proved no more moveable by Obama's emollient and respectful tones than by George W. Bush's Texas twang.
Nor have we made any discernible progress on settling issues between Israel and the Palestinians, the first priority of Obama's national security adviser. Obama's insistence on a stop to natural growth of Israeli settlements -- no new spare rooms for Grandma or the new baby -- seems now to have been abandoned. Israelis are distrustful of the U.S., and the West Bank Palestinian leader is threatening to quit.
Obama's unilateral concession to the Russians -- abandonment of missile defense plans in Poland and the Czech Republic -- has evoked statements from Russian President Dmitri Medvedev that sanctions against Iran may someday be necessary. But it's beginning to look as if Medvedev is Lucy, sanctions are the football and Obama is Charlie Brown.
The leaders of China, despite Obama's refusal to meet the Dalai Lama, are sticking to their peg to the dollar and, like the leaders of India, have shown zero willingness to damage their growing economy by raising energy prices to avert the global warming that will supposedly bring catastrophe 50 years from now. So Obama at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit was forced to concede that there would be no agreement on a global climate treaty next month in Copenhagen, Denmark.
Obama's election was indeed a major event, as the election of every American president is, and the election of our first African-American president was a landmark in our history, as John McCain noted on election night. But it didn't change the world. All nations may have the same interests in some platonic sense. But all nations' leaders don't. Bush didn't cause all our foreign policy problems, and Obama's ascension and appeasement don't seem to be solving them.
("Obama Bows, But the World Refuses to Bow Back" by Michael Barone, Washington Examiner, November 18)
Vital Signs' Book It! Discussions -- You Oughta' Get In On This.
Earlier this week we had a terrific Book It! discussion over here (with the carpet finally in, we had moved our living room furniture back where it belonged) as we discussed C.S. Lewis' The Screwtape Letters, his classic investigation of spiritual warfare, virtue, perseverance, prayer and so much more.
One of my all-time favorites, I have probably read The Screwtape Letters a dozen times in the last 39 years and referred to it in bits and pieces a whole lot more. But among the treasures of discussing books with trusted friends are, if not completely new discoveries, at least deepened understanding of the lessons and fresh challenges to apply them more consistently.
We had a great time: Allen and Cindy, John, Quint, Chet, Linda, Matt, Claire and I. And we'd sure love for you to join us for the next discussion. The next meeting won't be until after Christmas but you might want to get started on the book pretty soon. It was first suggested by Cindy but confirmed by several others now who have heard or read glowing reports about it. The book is The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression. Written by Amity Shlaes, it's now available in a fairly inexpensive paperback copy.
To tease your interest, let me link you here to a review of the book by Jonah Goldberg and then over here at NRO's Uncommon Knowledge is the first of Peter Robinson's 5-part interview of Amity Shlaes. (The rest are there too.)
If you're interested on joining us for a Book It! evening, please zip us a line and let us know.
Nothing "Religious" Is Allowed in Public Schools
That's the determination of a New Jersey high school principal and, despite the clarity of the U.S. Constitution on the issue, it has become the determined belief on the part of school officials across the country.
Therefore, when a student wants to speak of Jesus in a report or in a speech, when a student wants to pray or join in a Bible study or, as in this case, when a student desires to participate in a peaceful pro-life action, secularists in the system become tyrannical opponents of religion.
Thankfully, lawyers associated with the Alliance Defense Fund are working to protect this young girl's Constitutional rights (and ours too). Check it out. And, if possible, send them a check to help out with their critically important service.
U.K. Government Official: “Lesbians Make Better Parents Than a Man and a Woman.”
Guess what? They have loopy czars in the British government too.
The Times reports here on Stephen Scott, director of research at the National Academy for Parenting Practitioners (the U.K. government’s parenting academy) claiming that "the latest research" shows that children of lesbian couples did better in life than kids who came from...well, you know...those old-fashioned, squares-ville marriage arrangements.
His exact words? “Lesbians make better parents than a man and a woman.”
The Times reporter (Maurice Chittenden) buys into it completely. Without citing any specific studies, the reporter writes, "[Scott's] arguments are supported by experts who have found, over years of research, that children brought up by female couples are more aspirational and more confident in championing social justice."
You believe that? Typical journalist games are in play here: referring to unnamed "experts," using the authoritative phrase "over years of research," and all without a single citation that would qualify as actual proof.
But then Chittenden may be a bit limited in really grasping the matters involved here. For instance, he informs his readers later in the story that "lesbian couples cannot have children by accident" because of the...uh, "nature of their relationship." Yes that, I guess. But there is that minor business of biology too, isn't there, Mr. Chittenden?
Nevertheless, silliness sufficiently spoken by the government and media will change the minds of the ignorant.
As the story notes, "more than a third of people now believe a lesbian couple can be at least as good parents as a man and a woman, according to the annual British Social Attitudes report." Sigh.
The Reprobate Rush for "Inclusion"
"Corpus Christi," Terrence McNally's infamous play which portrays Jesus as a homosexual was performed in Santa Ana, California last weekend -- in a church.
"That's why we're doing this," Pastor Michael Holland said, "for all those families out there who don't feel accepted. The Bible does not condemn homosexuality as an orientation, it condemns certain homoerotic acts which had nothing to do with people being in love, like we're doing today....Jesus was about love and inclusion and affirming people as children of God, and that's what we're doing tonight."
Among those attending was Claire Richardson, a graduate of the Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, who said she wants to be an ordained minister in Disciples of Christ faith community. "I support art and I support interpreting the Bible for oneself," said Richardson, who attended with her parents.
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Today's Posts
Lies, Damned Lies and White House Statistics
The Epidemic of STDs Is Getting Worse
From Whence the Health Care Bill?
Another Muslim "Honor Killing?" The Media Dares Not Report the Facts.
A Closer Look at Animal Rights Organizations
Why Does the Media So Spitefully, Irrationally Hate Sarah Palin?
Your Wednesday Tea Break (Crystal Gayle)
Local Bureaucrats Hassle Pro-Life CPCs, Leave Abortion Clinics Free
On Monday night, the Baltimore City Council, by a vote of 12 to 3, approved an ordinance requiring pregnancy care centers (PCCs) to posts signs indicating that they do not do abortions or provide contraception. Failure to comply with the ordinance will incur a $150 per day fine. A proposed amendment to require abortion clinics to post relevant disclaimers was defeated...
Read the rest of Denise Burke's report on Americans United for Life web site here.
Lies, Damned Lies and White House Statistics
Jonathan Karl from ABC News reports, "Here's a stimulus success story: In Arizona's 15th congressional district, 30 jobs have been saved or created with just $761,420 in federal stimulus spending. At least that's what the Web site set up by the Obama administration to track the $787 billion stimulus says.
There's one problem, though: There is no 15th congressional district in Arizona; the state has only eight districts."
Rick Klein from ABC News adds this one: "More than $36 million in stimulus funds spent between the 69th and 99th districts of the Northern Mariana Islands -- a self-governing US territory that gets only one (non-voting) representative in the House. (Did Jack Abramoff do a better lobbying job than anyone could have imagined?)"
And that ain't all. The following comes from Matthe Jaffe, also from, you got it...ABC News.
One recipient – Talladega County of Alabama – claimed that 5,000 jobs had been saved or created from only $42,000 in stimulus funds...
Some of the other recipients whose data was omitted included Belmont Metropolitan Housing Authority in Ohio that reported 16,120 jobs saved or created after receiving $1.3 million in stimulus funds from the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Shelton State Community College in Alabama reported 14,500 jobs saved or created after receiving $27,000 from the General Accounting Office. And Alkan Builders of Alaska reported 3,000 jobs saved or created after receiving $11 million from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers...
"The more we learn about the administration's 'jobs created or saved' methodology, the more questions we have regarding its accuracy and validity," Rep. Darrell Issa told ABC News Sunday night. "Now we learn that OMB is playing an active role in trying to filter information. Given this hands-on role that the administration is playing, it would be appropriate to have OMB represented at Thursday's hearing."...
Since the latest stimulus report, there have been numerous media reports that the jobs numbers were inflated.
The Associated Press said the report "significantly overstates the number of jobs spared with money from programs serving families and children, mostly the Head Start preschool program."
The Denver Post also cited overstated federal figures with the Colorado Head Start program, noting that the government reported 269 jobs saved or created by the program, but only three were actually saved or created.
The Chicago Tribune noted that the administration said $4.7 million in stimulus money for schools in north Chicago had saved the jobs of 473 teachers, but the school district only employed 290 teachers. The statistics – claiming that stimulus money had helped save or create 14,330 school jobs in Illinois – were "riddled with anomalies that raise questions about their validity."
The Boston Globe also reported that Massachusetts recipients of stimulus funds claimed that 12,000 jobs had been saved or created, "that number has been inflated by miscounts, erroneous figures, or claiming jobs for work not yet started."
This whole mess prompted Andrew Malcom over at the L.A. Times' "Top of the Ticket" to quip, "But then the trouble is that just months after grandly unveiling the recovery.gov website to showcase its economic prowess and tech-savvy, the Obama administration just spent 18 million additional taxpayer dollars to redesign the still new website.
And that site proudly also reported nonexistent new stimulus spending not just in Arizona but other states across the country. So that looks to have worked pretty well, at least if you're counting computer designer jobs created."
But beyond the laughable mistakes, the muddle-headed defenses and the appropriate sarcasm delivered at the White House by a handful of media sources, there is a quite serious purpose at work with the President's lies, damned lies and falsified statistics.
Note these points made by Republican Congressman Darrell Issa from California, the ranking member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.
Since President Obama took office, the American people have been subjected to an aggressive propaganda campaign designed to convince them that the $787 billion stimulus bill is working. Month after month, as unemployment continues to rise, the administration has sent its spinmeisters out to trumpet an altogether dubious number of jobs "created or saved."
Vice President Biden -- the man appointed by the president to oversee the recovery effort -- has shamelessly continued to claim credit for as many as one million jobs that the administration argues the stimulus has "created or saved."
Meanwhile, unemployment hit the highest point in a quarter century, and 3.8 million more Americans are out of work since the White House promised to "get the economy moving again." There's good reason to doubt thepresident's policies are working...
The manifest inaccuracies in the data the Obama administration uses to justify its economic policies constitutes the promulgation of inaccurate and misleading information by the federal government. The American people deserve a straightforward accounting of the way the president spends their tax dollars, and they have the right to expect a return on their "investment."
So far, all they are getting is deceitful propaganda and a backbreaking trillion-dollar tax bill from the officials they elected to bring about change.
The Epidemic of STDs Is Getting Worse
Politics isn't the only disease rampant in Washington, D.C.
It also has the dishonor of having higher rates of chlamydia, gonorrhea and syphilis than any of the 50 states!
The District's chlamydia rate of 1,177 cases per 100,000 people was almost three times the rate of its neighbors, Virginia and Maryland. For gonorrhea, D.C.’s rate was 451.5 cases per 100,000, almost twice that of second-ranking Mississippi and more than three times the rate of neighbors Virginia and Maryland. (And more than 13 times the rate of Oregon, more than 25 times the rate of Utah.)
With syphilis too, Washington, D.C. led the nation: a rate of 24.8 cases per 100,000 overwhelmed second-place Louisiana's 16.5 per 100,000 rate and third-place Alabama’s rate of 9.7 per 100,000.
What is the answer? Chasity, of course.
But you'd never know it from this outrageously biased Reuters news story for it claims (directly contrary to well-established fact) that abstinence-only sex education doesn't work as well as value-free, no-limits, "safe sex" programs. Indeed, this nitwit reporter (Maggie Fox by name) manages in her story 1) to praise Barack Obama, 2) to use only the CDC party line (no contrary voices) for expertise, 3) to attribute increased rates of promiscuity among blacks to the increased rates of incarceration among blacks, and 4) to introduce her argument that the soaring rates of STDs are primarily because we're not talking about sex enough in America!
Where has this dolt been? As if sex wasn't the constant in American entertainment, a standard feature in education, the most common topic of conversation (and text messaging) among youth, and -- given the ever decreasing number of chaste citizens in the country -- a well-practiced, hands-on pastime.
But, as liberals are wont to do, they'll keep throwing good money and hard effort at miserably failed solutions. And the numbers of people affected by STDs will continue to climb.
From Whence the Health Care Bill?
Rich Terrell's cartoons can be found at AfterMath.
Describes Terrell about his new career, "Now retired from teaching high school economics and math (thus “AfterMath”) I turned my hand to Photoshop cartooning. My cartoons are unabashedly conservative. This conservatism comes from experience as much as from studying conservative philosophers and economists like Hayek, Smith, Sowell, Milton Friedman. Living in Berkeley , California for seventeen years cured me of any lingering illusions about liberalism. People’s Park alone stands as squalid witness to liberalism’s failure. I do, however, borrow from the radical Saul Alinsky one useful concept -- the importance of mocking the opposition."
Another Muslim "Honor Killing?" The Media Dares Not Report the Facts.
It sure looks like it. A 28-year old British Punjabi woman, mother of two children, died after being found in a London street, bleeding from extensive head injuries and from having her right hand chopped off. 6 men have been arrested -- including the woman's estranged husband.
The dismemberment appears to be a symbolic horror related to the practice of Sikhs wearing the kara, a metal bangle which adorns the right wrist. The kara is, as a friend of the young mother said, "a permanent reminder to live a moral and good life and once it's on you can't get it off. So her murderer was both dishonouring her and perhaps trying to show she had been dishonourable - which is just barbaric."
One more note -- in almost none of the newspapers covering the story will you read the word "Muslim" or "Islam." Indeed, in the first stories which appeared, the woman was simply described as "Asian."
Political-correctness is killing us.
A Closer Look at Animal Rights Organizations
Today’s animal rights movement has never wavered from its ultimate aim: the complete abolition of a long list of consumer choices that most Americans enjoy. These include meat, dairy foods, hunting, fishing, zoos, aquariums, circuses, rodeos, fur, leather, wool, and silk.
Activists even want to do away with vital medical research that uses animals. PETA co-founder and president Ingrid Newkirk once proclaimed: “Even if animal research resulted in a cure for AIDS, we’d be against it.” And PCRM recently filed a complaint against a hospital whose doctors were using pigs to hone their surgical skills—the most realistic option available for medical training.
Inch by inch, groups like PETA, PCRM, and HSUS continue to advance toward a society that views human beings as no different from (and no more important than) barnyard livestock and lab rats. Giving legal “rights” to Babe and Rover is an integral part of an animal rights future...
The Center for Consumer Freedom exposes the ugly underbelly of America's animal rights movement in many ways. But if we hope to protect ourselves from the pantheistic paganism of the animal rights organizations, we must do what we can to inform others about what these groups are really into.
So, to season your conversations and letters to editors and politicians, check out this page on the website of The Center for Consumer Freedom and pay special attention there to the easy-to-read (but fascinating and infuriating) Pdf files they've created concerning People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM), and the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS).
Each is entitled “7 Things You Didn’t Know” and they will quickly introduce you to the deception, manipulation and hunger for tyrannical power behind these groups.
Why Does the Media So Spitefully, Irrationally Hate Sarah Palin?
Newsweek devoted its latest cover story to attacking Palin -- a refreshing change of pace from Newsweek's weekly cover stories praising Barack Obama. According to Newsweek, she's a "problem" in need of a solution, perhaps because she looks good in shorts.
There seems to be a media competition at work, a sort of championship tournament. Every reporter, anchor, and pundit in America is engaged in a frantic effort to be the hero who fires the silver bullet that slays the Republican werewolf from Wasilla.
Whether or not Sarah Palin is the last, best hope of the GOP, she is inarguably the worst nightmare of crusading liberal journalists. Not since Oliver North showed up for a key congressional hearing in his Marine Corps uniform has the Washington press corps been so spectacularly vexed at its inability to destroy an intended victim. Her mere survival makes her Evil with a capital "E." The only way Republicans can save Palin from this incessant maelstrom of media hatred is to nominate a Limbaugh-Coulter ticket in 2012...
Robert Stacy McCain's article in American Spectator is a hoot -- and though humorous, is a very insightful piece. Read it here.
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Today's Posts
Will Iran Stop the Persecution of Christians?
Barack Obama and Harry Reid Want This Radical Leftist on the Court of Appeals
Prenatal Development, Pregnancy Education and More at EHD
Shrugging Off Ayn Rand
An Encouraging AWANA Response
Attention Facebook Users: Beware the Hackers Posing as Friends
How Low Will Our President Go? Putting Obama's Bow to Akihito "In Context"
Why Does the Democrat Party Fear These Women So?
Liberals are angry and unhappy people, and they hate and fear the new breed of female politician represented by Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachmann. These women are cut from the same bold cloth as Margaret Thatcher. They love liberty, and that puts them at the top of the hit list for every leftist in America. Nancy Pelosi has targeted Michelle Bachmann for defeat in next year's congressional election because Bachmann threatens Pelosi's extremist agenda.
As for Palin, she is a tough-as-nails mother of five who took on the corruption of her own state party officials, tamed the Alaskan oil industry and rose from city council to governor to vice presidential candidate. Her very existence incenses the left. Not since Phyllis Schlafly infuriated them with her organized opposition to the ERA in the early 1970s has anyone so unnerved the liberal forces of "hope and change."
When you hear elitists across the political spectrum vilify conservative women like Palin and Bachmann, know that it is because they fear them. Left wing politicians of either gender represent the politics of the past. Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachmann represent the future. That makes them dangerous.
(Read the entirety of Doug Patton's fine column right here.)
Will Iran Stop the Persecution of Christians?
There may be freedom in the futures of Marzieh Esmaeilabad and Maryam Rustampoor, two Iranian Christians who I mentioned to you earlier this month. But prayers are still very much needed for their release from an Iranian prison and for safety from future persecution because of their Christian faith.
Here's the latest.
Two young Christian women who faced execution or at least life imprisonment in Iran for converting from Islam to Christianity were to be released as early as Tuesday, November 17, after international pressure and prayers, their representatives told BosNewsLife.
Elam Ministries, a group founded by senior Iranian church leaders, said Marzieh Amirizadeh Esmaeilabad, 30, and Maryam Rustampoor, 27, were told over the weekend they would be freed following some 257 days imprisonment in one of Tehran's most notorious prisons.
There release was already expected Monday November 16, but other Christians cautioned it may take a little bit longer due to bureaucratic procedures. "We understand after their release they might have to attend court hearings," cautioned Elam Ministries in a statement. However, "We are rejoicing at the prospect of their release but would ask you to pray for their full and unconditional release, and for their safety and quick recovery."
Barack Obama and Harry Reid Want This Radical Leftist on the Court of Appeals
1) Revisit this Vital Signs post from last April.
2) Re-read this Power Line post from last March.
3) Then jot down a couple of the biggest scandals associated with this fellow and let your Senator know you definitely don't want this guy on the 7th Circuit!
Prenatal Development, Pregnancy Education and More at EHD
Arizona lawyer and pro-life activist extraordinaire John J. Jakubczyk recently recommended to his Facebook friends the web site of The Endowment for Human Development. John said that not only is it an "amazing" site, it provides "the perfect answer to anyone who falsely charges you with using religion to prove the humanity of the unborn child."
He was right.
Check it out right here.
Shrugging Off Ayn Rand
Peter Wehner has some refreshingly honest and perceptive comments (plus tossing in a few from others you'll want to hear like Whittaker Chambers and William F. Buckley) about Ayn Rand, that third-rate novelist and audaciously self-centered "philosopher" who has received way too much applause from members of the conservative movement.
Very good stuff, Peter.
Objectively, Ayn Rand Was a Nut
According to Politico.com, Ayn Rand — the subject of two new biographies, one of which is titled Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right — is “having a mainstream moment,” including among conservatives. (Gov. Mark Sanford of South Carolina wrote a piece in Newsweek on Rand, saying, “This is a very good time for a Rand resurgence. She’s more relevant than ever.”).
I hope the moment passes. Ms. Rand may have been a popular novelist, but her philosophy is deeply problematic and morally indefensible.
Ayn Rand was, of course, the founder of Objectivism – whose ethic, she said in a 1964 interview, holds that “man exists for his own sake, that the pursuit of his own happiness is his highest moral purpose, that he must not sacrifice himself to others, nor sacrifice others to himself.” She has argued that “friendship, family life and human relationships are not primary in a man’s life. A man who places others first, above his own creative work, is an emotional parasite; whereas, if he places his work first, there is no conflict between his work and his enjoyment of human relationships.”
And about Jesus she said: "I do regard the cross as the symbol of the sacrifice of the ideal to the nonideal. Isn’t that what it does mean? Christ, in terms of the Christian philosophy, is the human ideal. He personifies that which men should strive to emulate. Yet, according to the Christian mythology, he died on the cross not for his own sins but for the sins of the nonideal people. In other words, a man of perfect virtue was sacrificed for men who are vicious and who are expected or supposed to accept that sacrifice. If I were a Christian, nothing could make me more indignant than that: the notion of sacrificing the ideal to the nonideal, or virtue to vice. And it is in the name of that symbol that men are asked to sacrifice themselves for their inferiors. That is precisely how the symbolism is used. That is torture."
Many conservatives aren’t aware that it was Whittaker Chambers who, in 1957, reviewed Atlas Shrugged in National Review and read her out of the conservative movement. The most striking feature of the book, Chambers said, was its “dictatorial tone . . . Its shrillness is without reprieve. Its dogmatism is without appeal . . . From almost any page of Atlas Shrugged, a voice can be heard, from painful necessity, commanding: ‘To a gas chamber — go!’”
William F. Buckley Jr. himself wrote about her “desiccated philosophy’s conclusive incompatibility with the conservative’s emphasis on transcendence, intellectual and moral; but also there is the incongruity of tone, that hard, schematic, implacable, unyielding dogmatism that is in itself intrinsically objectionable.”
Yet there are some strands within conservatism that still veer toward Rand and her views of government (“The government should be concerned only with those issues which involve the use of force,” she argued. “This means: the police, the armed services, and the law courts to settle disputes among men. Nothing else.”), and many conservatives identify with her novelistic hero John Galt, who declared, “I swear — by my life and my love of it — that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.”
But this attitude has very little to do with authentic conservatism, at least the kind embodied by Edmund Burke, Adam Smith (chair of moral philosophy at the University of Glasgow), and James Madison, to name just a few. What Rand was peddling is a brittle, arid, mean, and ultimately hollow philosophy. No society could thrive if its tenets were taken seriously and widely accepted. Ayn Rand may have been an interesting figure and a good (if extremely long-winded) novelist; but her views were pernicious, the antithesis of a humane and proper worldview. And conservatives should say so.
An Encouraging AWANA Response
I received in my e-mail this morning a very encouraging note regarding my speaking last week to three groups of AWANA kids up at Country Bible Church in Blair, Nebraska. I have maintained for several years that this is my favorite speaking engagement of the year. And it remains so. After all, I have connections to Blair that go back as far as when I first hitchhiked into Nebraska back in...oh my...1970. And I really love these kids and deeply respect the AWANA leaders there.
And maybe, like anything else that is a yearly part of my schedule, it serves as a milestone. That quiet nighttime drive to Blair and back provides a nice hour for me to reflect on the year gone by since I last did the gig.
Among the topics I've talked to these kids about over the years have been Christmas, Balaam's talking donkey, an encounter with a giant spider in Nigeria, my childhood adventure featuring The Black Paw, a dramatic night when I learned what a hero my Dad was, my experiences at orphanages in Burkina Faso, India and Belarus, and more. Like I said, I've had a blast.
Anyhow, the note actually was forwarded to me by the person who had initially received it. She sent it over as an encouragement (this dear lady has been a cheerleader for our ministry for many years) and Claire suggested I print it here as a reminder to those of you with church, Sunday School, home school group, private school and AWANA club connections that, in addition to speaking to university students, preaching to adults, talking to pro-life groups and debating the anti-life crowd, I do speak to kids.
Here's the note: "Last Wednesday at Awana, Denny spoke. He did a beautiful job at storytelling. He basically told us of his experiences as a young Boy Scout in Colorado and how he “didn’t read the book” or “study” how to be prepared. As a result he and his friends had a miserable camping trip complete with sliding down the hillside in the pouring rain and waking up in a stream. He emphasized that we as Christians need to “read the book” and apply what we learn or we are going to end up in the crick.
He did a beautiful job with the “be prepared” and “apply what you study” message he presented. Because of what he said last week, the Sparks and Cubbies will be learning what to do with a personal quiet time; what it is; how to focus purposeful attention on God..."
So, if you have any of the connections I mentioned above, please consider asking me along to speak. As has been our custom ever since we started this work back in 1982, there is no charge for my speaking. And if we can fit it into the schedule, I would sure love to.
And, after all, don't you yourself want to hear the rest of the details about that disastrous camping trip?
Attention Facebook Users: Beware the Hackers Posing as Friends
Julie Schmit-Albin sent along a very important HACKER WARNING last night geared to Facebook users. And it proved timely for me -- this morning the very attack Julie described was attempted on me. Yipes!
Here's the deal as Julie described it, "There is a new way to hack your Facebook. A notification will be sent to you that one of your friends has commented on your status, it will open a new page and tell you to re-enter your Facebook user name and password. The page looks just like the FB login page, so be on the look out!"
In my case, there appeared on my Wall (supposedly from a person I know and trust -- but there's the rub, the hacker program hijacks names from your Facebook data base in order to fool you) the following, "lol, you gotta see this!"
Hitting the link got me to the page Julie described and, being forewarned, I recognized it and avoided the trap by NOT DOING ANYTHING except, of course, hitting "Remove" next to the item on my Wall.
Like Julie advised, do your friends a big favor by posting this warning on your Facebook page.
And while I'm at it, let me reiterate my grave disappointment with Facebook's recent changes (this inexplicably dumb division of News Feed and Live Feed) AND with the appalling lack of consideration shown by Facebook bosses to the thousands of complaints about the move.
For if one uses the News Feed format on his Home page, he misses a huge amount of the postings he was receiving before the change. And there seems to be no rhyme or reason about which posts are chosen. Plus they can change on you too. Very weird.
But if one uses the Live Feed format, you get so many posts (including all of the "X Is Now Friends with Y" stuff) that you can't keep up and end up missing another huge amount of the postings you used to receive.
Both from a personal angle (Facebook isn't half the fun, stimulating and helpful experience it was) and the professional angle (the visits to Vital Signs Blog which soared after I started mentioning them on Facebook have dropped considerably), the Facebook changes have proved very counter-productive.
And yet Facebook continues to stick its head in the cyber-sand. Bummer move.
How Low Will Our President Go? Putting Obama's Bow to Akihito "In Context"
Democrats who are trying to defend Barack Obama's most recent bow to a foreign figure (in this case, the Emperor of Japan) are using the line, "You've got to put it in context."
Well, that's just what Hot Air Pundit has done by posting photographs showing the moment of greeting between the Emperor and, respectively, 8 other heads of state and high-level dignitaries.
None of them bowed to the Emperor.
It is interesting to note that the goofball move of President Obama is being noted this time around by more than the alternative media. Could the halo finally be slipping? For instance, here's a take by Andrew Malcolm which showed up in the LA Times.
Among the thousands of comments left on the Ticket in recent days, most dealt with our item: "How low will he go?" about the awkward bow that President Obama gave Japan's Emperor Akihito over the weekend.
Apparently improperly briefed about accepted procedure in Japan or perhaps having a time zone mind melt, Obama stuck out his hand for a shake. Which was fine. And friendly.
He then proceeded to simultaneously bow. Which was not.
And take his eyes off the person he's greeting. Which was not.
And, worst in the eyes of many, the over-enthusiastic president of the United States bowed way down at a 45-degree angle, indicating in that culture, and apparently in the eyes of many others, subservience to the emperor, son of the man who authorized the 1941 Pearl Harbor attack.
This came only a few months after White House aides denied that Obama bowed to the Saudi king, when it sure looked like a bow to non-aides.
And it all seemed to fit in with what critics mockingly call Obama's world apology tours.
It also adds to previous Obama diplomatic gaffes. There was that promise to talk with the president of Canada. A reference to not speaking Austrian. Giving Britain's prime minister a chintzy collection of American movie DVDs, which weren't formatted for video players in the U.K. And Michelle Obama's friendly or patronizing pat to the back of Queen Elizabeth II, who received as her presidential gift an iPod with Broadway show tunes...
Malcolm then goes on to link to this video clip produced by the Republican student group at the University of Connecticut which contrasts Obama's bizarre obeisance to (if I counted correctly) 46 dignitaries! None of whom bowed. Check it out.
Monday, November 16, 2009
May Fr. Tony Have a Word?
Having received this morning a letter obviously intended for me but nevertheless addressed to "Fr. Anthony Hartford," I have had to deal all morning with Claire calling me "Fr. Tony" and teasing me in all sorts of other ways -- "Do your vows allow you salsa on your egg burrito?", "What is the Latin for dust mop?", "What's Pope Benedict really like?", and so on.
What fun we have over here.
But this post really has another purpose besides eliciting your sympathy at what I'm enduring today. What I actually had to say was -- Sorry, but I won't be blogging today. The morning's sidewalk counseling shift, a few errands, getting the house ready for one of Vital Signs Ministries Book It! discussions tonight over C.S. Lewis' Screwtape Letters and, uh, finishing reading the book myself -- they have all conspired to keep me from my normal routine.
So, until tomorrow, Benedictio Dei. (Oh no; now she's got me doing it.)
Friday, November 13, 2009
A Technology Stretch
Okay, explain this to me one more time.
The Russian Antonov 225, nicknamed by NATO as "Cossack," is the largest fixed-wing aircraft ever built. You tell me it weighs 650 tons and can carry another 275 tons in its cargo hold or 220 tons on top of its fuselage.
Okay, I've got that.
But I still don't understand --
How does the doggone thing get up in the air, let alone stay there!
The Overlooked Victim in the Ft. Hood Terrorist Murders
Mary Rose Rybak writes in First Thoughts (one of the blogs run by First Things magazine) about the 14th murder victim of Islamic terrorist, Nidal Hassan:
The suspect for the Fort Hood shootings, Nidal Malik Hasan, has been charged with thirteen counts of murder, the AP reports. "The officials said it is not yet decided whether to charge Hasan with a fourteenth count of murder related to the death of the unborn child of a pregnant shooting victim."
Well of course they’re not yet decided. That the unborn child really counts as a life–legally, that wouldn’t be for them to decide, right?
Despite our nation’s unprotection of unborn babies, you’d think this one should be easy: There’s good evidence that Francheska Velez, the mother, wanted to keep this child: She returned from her tour when she learned she was pregnant, and was filling out paperwork regarding her pregnancy at the very time of the shooting. According to news reports, “Francheska Velez was expecting a baby boy in May.”
But perhaps there’s more to it than this. In all likelihood, officials are waiting for more information to see if the Unborn Victims of Violence Act of 2004 applies in this case. According to this very complex and restrictive act, Hasan could be charged with the death of the unborn baby if, say, his actions are classified as an act of terrorism; but if not, I’m told, the legal questions are a bit murkier.
And that’s a shame–that even laws like these, meant to protect the unborn, are so restrictive that such clear-cut matters as this face indecision.
A Man Who Despises America Is, Uh...In the White House
Barack Obama despises America.
When people who voted for Obama in 2008 -- including registered Democrats -- start speaking in normal conversational voices at dinner parties, neighborhood gatherings and PTA meetings that the over-inflated ego from Chicago has it "in for America," then it's clear most reasonable people have reached the same conclusion.
The central conviction of Obama's ideology is that America is guilty of limitless moral failures and is the chief architect of the world's ills. Obama has boundless enmity for America, its key institutions, and its longtime allies. Consider these facts...
Mark Hyman then continues his American Spectator article by listing a very uncomfortable number of facts relevant to his charge. It's an alarming read. Yet I urge you to read it. Our country's future is at stake.
And then, to provide added punch to Hyman's contentions, please make sure you watch the remarkable video clip I link to in the next post.
Obama's Embrace of Islam: Let's Go to the Videotapes
Seeing and hearing is believing -- that's why the old guard media (who so dishonorably sold out their profession for the chance to put an ultra-liberal in the White House) has refused to let you see and hear what Barack Obama himself has had to say (in numerous venues) about Islam, Muslim culture, the denial of America's Christian heritage, and more.
I urge you to watch this 10-minute clip -- and then forward this post to everyone you know. For, after all, this isn't punditry; this is Barack Obama in his own words.
If the American people get a clear look at what our Chief Executive is saying, his approval ratings will drop even faster and farther than what they have thus far. And with dropping approval ratings, the number he wants to play on America has less chance of succeeding.
Pass it on.
NYC High School Students: "What's an Algebra?"
During their first math class at one of the City of New York's four-year colleges, 90% of students tested couldn't solve a simple algebra problem. Two thirds of those tested couldn't convert a fraction into a decimal.
After Giving Away the Farm, Obama Wants to Recover a Couple of Chickens
Ya' think?
"It will be tough for many Democrats to sell themselves as deeply concerned about spending after voting for the stimulus, the bailouts, the health care legislation and a plan to address global warming, four enormous government programs. 'Democrats have to reassure voters we are not being reckless,” said a Democratic official involved in the planning. 'The White House knows this and that's why we'll be hearing a lot about reducing the deficit early next year.'"
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Today's Posts
Jihadist Motives Ignored: "Victimology Gives Major Hassan a Pass"
Do Your Kids Really Know What Thanksgiving Is All About?
ObamaCare From an Insider's View: Yikes! It's Worse Than What You Thought
A Russian Cop On A Mission
"White Privilege" Conversation Goes Violent: Columbia Prof Arrested After Punching a Woman
Public School Sells Test Points for Cash
Pssst...Did You Hear?
Your Wednesday Tea Break (A Day Late) -- McCartney & the Frogs
The Nebraska Coalition for Ethical Research Needs Your Help in Keeping UNMC from Going Deeper Into the ESCR Mess
A recent statement from the Nebraska Coalition for Ethical Research (an organization I'm very honored to be associated with) reviews the situation regarding the University of Nebraska Medical Center's policy on experimenting with human embryos and the insistent push from some of the NU Regents to expand that immoral research yet further. I encourage you to read this brief statement and then follow through with the actions NCER advises.
"As you know, the University of Nebraska Board of Regents is currently debating ethical research practices and NU's policy that allows the expansion of human embryonic stem cell research (hESCR). The Regents are set to meet November 20th to vote on the issue, and we need you to ACT NOW to help pass a resolution to prevent the expansion of human embryonic stem cell research in Nebraska.
Earlier this year the Obama administration made a policy change to allow federal funds to be used for research with new human embryonic stem cell lines - creating an increased demand for the destruction of human embryos for research purposes. University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC) policy currently mirrors the federal policy - meaning UNMC policy allows an expansion of embryonic stem cell research. [But] University officials have repeatedly stated their intention to expand hESCR.
The Nebraska Coalition for Ethical Research, along with other pro-life groups [including Vital Signs], have been working diligently to pass a resolution to uphold the "Bush policy" on human embryonic stem cell lines, which is to limit hESC research to what existed before 2001 and not create further demand for the destruction of embryos.
Five of the eight Regents have said publicly that they oppose expansion of hESCR giving us hope that they would adopt a policy change that would formally prohibit the expansion. However, Jim McClurg, from Lincoln, was quoted in the Lincoln Journal Star saying he's unsure how he will vote."
What can you do?
If you haven't already, please consider signing this NCER electronic petition. Consider also forwarding this Vital Signs post to others who can follow your example.
Also, you can contact Regent Jim McClurg at (402) 477-2030 or jmcclurg@nebraska.edu and politely, respectfully urge him to vote like he promised he would; namely to vote FOR the resolution to limit human embryonic stem cell research.
And finally, NCER would deeply appreciate any financial contributions which would help support their superb work.
Jihadist Motives Ignored: "Victimology Gives Major Hassan a Pass"
The Washington Times editorial "When the Shooter Becomes the Victim: Victimology Gives Major Hassan a Pass" is one of the best responses I've read so far. It's certainly one to pass along to friends.
A disturbing story line is taking shape in the wake of the Fort Hood massacre. Some are trying to explain suspect Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan's motives for reportedly gunning down 13 people in cold blood by ignoring the ideology of hate that sanctified the killings. Instead, we're supposed to seek out the "real reasons."
It's the typical victimology: Bemoan the perpetrator's troubles and then sprinkle liberally with pop psychology. Maj. Hasan supposedly felt alienated and oppressed because people did not understand his faith. They discriminated against and taunted him, then they keyed his car. Hearing the horrors of war from the wounded at Walter Reed Army Medical Center disturbed him. Orders to deploy overseas added to the psychological pressure - we might call it pre-traumatic stress disorder. These and other factors reportedly drove Maj. Hasan to do what he is accused of doing. Yes, he is guilty, the argument goes, but doesn't society also share part of the blame? Aren't we all a little guilty?
President Obama summed up this approach when he said "there are going to be instances in which an individual cracks." But the suspected killer, Maj. Hasan, did not crack. He was not a regular person who woke up one morning and went on a rampage. He was a true believer who purportedly methodically planned and executed an attack against a country he had come to view as his enemy. For Maj. Hasan, the killings of which he is suspected were a choice.
The president said Maj. Hasan's reported explosive acts of violence were "inexplicable," but that is not true. The massacre was the logical culmination of a belief system that advocates and sanctifies murderous violence. Maj. Hasan apparently saw himself as a jihadist warrior, and in 2007, when he briefed his co-workers that "[w]e love death more then [sic] you love life," they should have taken him literally.
Maj. Hasan was not someone silently suffering oppression who one day just lost control. He was a suspected practitioner of an ideology of hate who reportedly completed the logical journey he embarked on. Maj. Hasan was not insane when he purportedly pulled the trigger, he was in rapture. When he reportedly started shooting, he did not cry out in anger, but testified to his god. He was not a victim pushed over the edge but apparently a "martyr" taking a leap of faith.
Attacks like this are rare in the United States but happen frequently abroad. There is no reason the United States should be immune from it. The ideology of death reaches into every country. While some Americans won't recognize him as a terrorist, other jihadists hail Maj. Hasan, recognizing him as one of their own. "He is a hero, a hero, a hero," one advocate of jihad commented on a Middle Eastern Web site. A poster named "Al-Mahrum min al-Jihad" referred to the white traditional garb Maj. Hasan wore in video footage from earlier that morning, saying, "Brothers, notice his attire. It screams, 'I am going to kill.' " Another named "malik" said that "the attack carries the same characteristics as those of Al-Qa'ida of Jihad, my brothers."
To call this an example of "workplace violence" is absurd and dangerous. Maj. Hasan's suspected jihadist belief system inspired, directed and justified his actions. It is a mobilizing ideology focused on action. Its entire purpose is to create more people like the suspect, Maj. Hasan, and more victims...
Do Your Kids Really Know What Thanksgiving Is All About?
Charles Colson doesn't think so. At least, not if your kids are dependent on what they've learned about Thanksgiving from the government schools or on TV.
But here is a reprise Breakpoint program transcript ("Putting the Thanks Back into Thanksgiving") that is a great corrective to get us started back in the right direction -- for our kids and for us too!
ObamaCare From an Insider's View: Yikes! It's Worse Than What You Thought
The typical argument for ObamaCare is that it will offer better medical care for everyone and cost less to do it, but occasionally a supporter lets the mask slip and reveals the real political motivation. So let's give credit to John Cassidy, part of the left-wing stable at the New Yorker, who wrote last week on its Web site that "it's important to be clear about what the reform amounts to."
Mr. Cassidy is more honest than the politicians whose dishonesty he supports. "The U.S. government is making a costly and open-ended commitment," he writes. "Let's not pretend that it isn't a big deal, or that it will be self-financing, or that it will work out exactly as planned. It won't. What is really unfolding, I suspect, is the scenario that many conservatives feared. The Obama Administration . . . is creating a new entitlement program, which, once established, will be virtually impossible to rescind."
Why are they doing it? Because, according to Mr. Cassidy, ObamaCare serves the twin goals of "making the United States a more equitable country" and furthering the Democrats' "political calculus." In other words, the purpose is to further redistribute income by putting health care further under government control, and in the process making the middle class more dependent on government. As the party of government, Democrats will benefit over the long run.
This explains why Nancy Pelosi is willing to risk the seats of so many Blue Dog Democrats by forcing such an unpopular bill through Congress on a narrow, partisan vote: You have to break a few eggs to make a permanent welfare state. As Mr. Cassidy concludes, "Putting on my amateur historian's cap, I might even claim that some subterfuge is historically necessary to get great reforms enacted."
No wonder many Americans are upset. They know they are being lied to about ObamaCare, and they know they are going to be stuck with the bill.
(Wall Street Journal editorial, November 10)
A Russian Cop On A Mission
Is the Russian police brutal and corrupt?
If you need to think about the answer, you haven't traveled in the country nor have you been paying much attention to the endless news reports.
It is.
So guess what's going to happen to a Russian cop who makes a couple of You Tube videos telling just how corrupt, directed and otherwise messed up it is. That's right. Now let's pray that being fired is all that happens to him.
For remember, whistle blowers in Russia do not get spots on The Today Show. They get spots in the cemetery.
Pray for Alexei Dymovsky. And pray that what he's started will result in a saner, more just Russia.
"White Privilege" Conversation Goes Violent: Columbia Prof Arrested After Punching a Woman
This New York Post story about a prominent Columbia University professor punching out a female colleague in a discussion over "white privilege" has several lessons:
1) Never discuss sensitive or controversial issues in a place where alcohol is consumed in large quantities.
2) Whatever the disagreement, a man hitting a woman in the face with a punch so hard that it knocks off her glasses and is heard in the next door kitchen...well, that's bad form.
3) It is particularly wicked when the woman did nothing to provoke such an attack. Except, that is, to disagree with the professor's sense of political-correctness regarding affirmative action.
4) When you've committed such a bonehead move, take responsibility for it, apologize and make suitable restitution. Don't come up with a mealy-mouthed response like this guy did, "It was a very unfortunate event. I didn't mean for it to explode the way it did." Misfortune had nothing to do with it. She didn't trip. She wasn't caught with an elbow on the dance floor. You punched her -- and quite hard -- in the face. Of course, you meant it to explode the way it did. So, man up and make it right.
And Lesson Number 5) Those racial divides that were supposed to end once we elected a bi-racial, post-racial President? They are, alas, with us still. And they're our personal business to attend to. Understanding, tolerance, learning how to argue on the merits of a case rather than leaning on stereotypes, emotions and prejudices -- that's on us, not the White House.
So let the discussions begin on race, affirmative action, "white privilege," cultural dominance, slavery and Jim Crow, segregation, language and customs, ethnicity and "tribal culture," white guilt, and so on. But let's keep those conversations calm, intelligent, informed...and out of the taverns.
Public School Sells Test Points for Cash
From the "You Gotta Be Kidding" Department comes this remarkable item.
A Goldsboro, North Carolina middle school has been forced by the school district to stop selling grades for cash. The decision, however, only occurred after the local newspaper outed them.
A $20 donation to Rosewood Middle School would have gotten a student 20 test points - 10 extra points on two tests of the student's choosing. That could raise a B to an A, or a failing grade to a D. Susie Shepherd, the principal, said a parent advisory council came up with the idea, and she endorsed it. She said the council was looking for a new way to raise money. "Last year they did chocolates, and it didn't generate anything," Shepherd said...
Pssst...Did You Hear?
* From Karl Rove (Wall Street Journal) "Republican victories in New Jersey and Virginia governors' races last week—despite eight campaign appearances in the two states by President Barack Obama—have unnerved Democrats.
Instead, the narrative Obama White House officials are writing about themselves is that they are uncompromising, ungracious, and ready to run roughshod over popular opinion. They have mastered the Chicago way of politics: reward friends, punish enemies, and jam the opposition. Voters have a tendency to quickly grow tired of pugnacious governance...
Maybe the Obama inner sanctum realizes that its agenda is unpopular and will cost many Democrats their seats next year but calculates that enough will survive to keep the party in control of Congress. Perhaps they have decided that Mr. Obama's goal of turning America into a European-style social democracy is worth risking a voter revolt.
Many Democrats who will be on the ballot next year may come to a different conclusion."
* On Wednesday’s CBS Early Show, the increasingly ludicrous co-host Harry Smith cited the Iraq war and post traumatic stress disorder as causes of the mass murder at Ft. Hood. Not the deliberate, premeditated act of a terrorist. Not radical Islam. Not the jihadist spirit that Nidal Hassan had embraced. Talk about missing the forest because of seeing (invented) trees. And, by the way, Hassan had never served in combat thus making Smith's reference to post traumatic stress disorder particularly irrelevant. Added Smith, "The more people go back to these fields, these theaters of war, either in Iraq or Afghanistan, it multiplies the incidence of these kinds of things occurring.”
* Christian activist Rick Pearcey has a sure-fire way to know if you're ethically dead; namely, if, like a lifeless body, you tolerate anything. (Alas, Rick's formula reminds reminds me of more than a few organizations, politicians...and preachers.)
* In an interview with ABC News' Jake Tapper, President Obama conceded that, if the Obama/Pelosi health care bill becomes law, Americans who do not buy insurance will be subject to fines and even jail time. This very serious threat, the administration assures us, is aimed only at so-called deadbeats. However, if abortion coverage is mandated in the final bill (as Democrat leaders all insist it will be), the penalties end up being aimed at Christians who will conscientiously avoid "aiding and abetting" abortion in any way.
* Jonah Goldberg -- "President Obama was right when he said, in the early hours after the [Ft. Hood] shooting, that people shouldn't 'jump to conclusions' (a lesson he might have learned when he jumped to the wrong conclusion about a white cop who arrested Henry Louis Gates, a black Harvard professor). But just as we should not jump to conclusions, we shouldn't jump away from them.
Despite reports that Hasan had shouted 'Allahu Akbar' as he opened fire, MSNBC's Chris Matthews insisted that 'we may never know if religion was a factor at Ft. Hood.' Thursday night, NBC and CBS refrained from even reporting the man's name. Meanwhile, ABC's Martha Raddatz's reporting on the subject reflected a yearning for denial: 'As for the suspect, Nadal Hasan, as one officer's wife told me, "I wish his name was Smith."'
We have a real problem when much of the political and journalistic establishment is eager to jump to the conclusion that peaceful political opponents are in league with violent extremists, but is terrified to consider the possibility that violent extremists really are violent extremists if doing so means calling attention to the fact that they are Muslims..."
* Tarek Fatah in the Ottawa Citizen -- "As dozens of talking heads descended on CNN and FOX TV to give their opinions on the Fort Hood massacre last week, no one seemed to notice the significance of the attire that suspect Maj. Nidal Hasan was wearing the morning of the killings. It was captured on a store surveillance video as Maj. Hasan bought a coffee.
CNN's Arab commentator incorrectly reported that the major was wearing 'Muslim garb' commonly worn in Jordan, and that it reflected his devoutness as a Muslim. However, to Pakistanis and Afghans watching the clip around the world, his clothing reflected something far more significant and sinister.
Maj. Hasan was wearing the 'shalwar-kameez,' the traditional attire worn by Pashtuns on both sides of the Pakistan-Afghan border. Had Maj. Hasan been of Pakistani or Afghan ancestry, it would have meant very little, but for an Arab-American to wear this attire was significant.
In the Middle East, over five million Pakistanis and Afghans work and live among the local Arab population. The shalwar-kameez is common on the streets of Dubai and Jeddah, but no Arab male would ever want to be seen wearing this garb. I have lived a decade in the Arab world and not once did I see an Arab wearing the shalwar-kameez.
Having said that there is one particular group of Arabs who did embrace the garb of the Pashtuns. They were the "Afghan Arabs" who went to Afghanistan to wage jihad alongside al-Qaeda and the Taliban...
Your Wednesday Tea Break (A Day Late) -- McCartney & the Frogs
On this date back in 1984, Paul McCartney re-released for the Christmas season "We All Stand Together," sometimes referred to as "The Frog Song." It had originally been a part of the animated film made the year before, Rupert and the Frog Chorus, which is shown in this clip. The choral voices, by the way, were provided by the King's Singers and the choir of St. Paul's Cathedral.
The song, playful, fun and melodic as so many of McCartney's songs have been over the years, reached Number 3 on the British charts. In fact, it was such a favorite that it hit the charts again in 1985.
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