Will America's "Improved Dialogue with Islam" Include the Matter of Persecuted Christians?

Doug Bandow has an excellent article (Interfaith Dialogue: The Great Unmentionable) over at The American Spectator that is well-directed and full of facts. I print just a bit of it below.

President Barack Obama has called for an improved dialogue with Islam and is planning a major speech in Egypt. He is not alone in his efforts to reach out. Pope Benedict recently visited Jordan, where he acknowledged "the burden of our common history so often marked by misunderstanding."

Certainly all faiths would benefit from greater understanding. Yet no conversation will have any meaning if it does not address Islam's brutal reality: the consistent persecution of Christians, Jews, and members of other minority faiths...

Nevertheless, past Western dialogue with Islam has consistently missed the elephant in the room: Pervasive religious persecution.

Who persecutes religious minorities around the world? Communist and former communist states are big offenders: China, Cuba, Vietnam, and North Korea. There's a motley mixed group, including India, Sri Lanka, and Burma. Then there are Islamic states.

The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) recently released its latest report. Of 13 states named Countries of Particular Concern, seven have overwhelming Muslim majorities: Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. Two, Eritrea and Nigeria, have narrow Muslims majorities. Of 11 countries on the Commission's Watch List, six have majority Islamic populations: Afghanistan, Egypt, Indonesia, Somalia, Tajikistan, and Turkey. Of three countries being "closely monitored," two, Bangladesh and Kazakhstan, are majority Muslim. That is 17 of 27.

International Christian Concern publishes a "Hall of Shame" naming the ten worst persecutors. Six of them -- Egypt, Eritrea, Indonesia, Iraq, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia -- have Muslim majorities.

In fact, it is unusual to find an Islamic nation where religious minorities are not discriminated against, both legally and socially. One of the best predictors that a government persecutes, or fails to protect religious minorities from persecution, is that the majority faith is Islam.

Obviously, there is a range within the Islamic world. Some of persecutors, such as Eritrea and the Central Asian countries, for instance, seem driven more by ideology than theology. Moreover, not all Islamic states imprison or kill dissenters. But even the good isn't very good...

Obviously the president cannot center U.S. foreign policy on the issue of religious liberty. But the freedoms of conscience and of religious faith are basic human rights, the promotion of which is an important objective of American policy. Moreover, no genuine dialogue with the Islamic world can overlook the Muslim record on religious persecution. If Islamic governments expect the Western states "to take all possible measures to promote tolerance and respect for all religions and beliefs," then the former need to do so as well. And that means protecting the liberty of those who believe and worship differently in their own countries.

By all means, let's encourage dialogue with Muslim nations. But let's put all issues on the table, including religious persecution.

Two Not To Be Missed From Randy Alcorn

There's always plenty of educational and inspiring articles to read through over at Eternal Perspective Ministries and Randy Alcorn's Blog. I go there often and heartily encourage you to do the same.

Let me cite just a couple from recent days that really shouldn't be missed. The first is a brief but invaluable challenge, Speak the Truth in Love.

And the second is 50 Ways To Help Unborn Babies and Their Mothers, a terrific list that has been revised and expanded since its original appearance in Randy's superb book, ProLife Answers to ProChoice Arguments.

Paper, Plastic or Moldy Bacteria?

Yuck.

We've been using those eco-friendly, reusable, fabric grocery bags for quite a while now. Who knew that in doing so we have been taking some serious health risks?

Check this report from Canada's National Post.

A microbiological study — a first in North America — of the popular, eco-friendly bags has uncovered some unsettling facts. Swab-testing by two independent laboratories found unacceptably high levels of bacterial, yeast, mold and coliform counts in the reusable bags.

"The main risk is food poisoning," Dr. Richard Summerbell, research director at Toronto-based Sporometrics and former chief of medical mycology for the Ontario Ministry of Health, stated in a news release. Dr. Summerbell evaluated the study results.

"But other significant risks include skin infections such as bacterial boils, allergic reactions, triggering of asthma attacks, and ear infections," he stated.

The study found that 64% of the reusable bags tested were contaminated with some level of bacteria and close to 30% had elevated bacterial counts higher than what's considered safe for drinking water.

Further, 40% of the bags had yeast or mold, and some of the bags had an unacceptable presence of coliforms, faecal intestinal bacteria, when there should have been 0...

The study was funded by the Environment and Plastics Industry Council (EPIC), an industry initiative to promote responsible use and recovery of plastic resources. EPIC is a committee of the Canadian Plastics Industry Association.

Conclusions from the study? This may have you gladly handing over the coins for plastic bags at the supermarket:

• The moist, dark, warm interior of a folded used reusable bag that has acquired a small amount of water and trace food contamination is an ideal incubator for bacteria.

• The strong presence of yeasts in some bags indicates the presence of water and microbial growth substrate (food).

• There is a potential for cross-contamination of food if the same reusable bags are used on successive trips.

• Check-out staff in stores may be transferring these microbes from reusable bag to reusable bag as the contaminants get on their hands.

• In cases of food poisoning, experts will have to test reusable bags in addition to food products as the possible sources of contamination...

Thus, your questions now become 1) "Is opting for reusable grocery sacks worth the health risk?" and 2) "If I choose to clean the reusable bags, doesn't having to use water, soap, bleach and the electrical energy to run the washing machine offset any environmental advantages anyway?"

Why Won't Journalists Disclose Possible Conflict of Interests?

James Rainey is popping some of Thomas Friedman's balloons and suggesting that a lot more popping needs to happen in order to straighten out a dangerous conflict of interest among journalists. Friedman, of course, is one of the New York Times' star columnists but Rainey has dug out that Friedman may be making some $900,000 a year from making speeches.

It turns out that the NY Times does have a policy about outside income -- it just hasn't bothered to actually enforce it.

Now I have nothing against a reporter making money from "outside sources" and it doesn't seem to me that Rainey does either. His only point is that, in the interests of fairness and accountability, journalists and newscasters should openly disclose if (and from whom) they are taking money in those cases where there could be a conflict of interest.

Rainey gives an example. "Shouldn't readers be informed if, for example, a foundation that supports bullet trains paid a hefty speaking fee to a transportation reporter?"

Certainly they should.

Indeed, I would go even further, suggesting that other relevant connections be publicly revealed. For instance, wouldn't it be better, fairer journalism if the byline of a story included the newsman's affiliations, financial connections, family ties, etc, that might affect the way he "reports" his story? Op/ed articles usually carry such information in the bylines; why not in the general reporting and opinion columns?

It would certainly help the reader evaluate the presentation if such disclosures were made and, who knows, with that disclosure up front, it might well motivate the reporter to be more careful, more focused on facts, and more balanced in the first place.

And, if such disclosure became common, it just might persuade the TV networks from always taking their political reporters from previous Democrat administrations.

Way to Go, California! Citizens Just Say "No" to Yet More Taxes.

From the editors of the Wall Street Journal --

California voters sent a blunt but welcome message Tuesday about runaway government. By rejecting by nearly two-to-one the political establishment's $16 billion in higher taxes, spending gimmickry and more borrowing, the voters said it's time government faced the same spending limits that the recession is imposing on everyone else.

Teachers unions, business leaders and the politicians outspent initiative opponents by six-to-one, and they still lost. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger had warned that if these initiatives were voted down, government services would have to be slashed, criminals released early and public employees furloughed. But voters decided that as painful as these cuts may be, the alternative of letting the state's tax-and-spend machine continue was worse. How right they are.

The response so far from Sacramento is typically short-sighted. Mr. Schwarzenegger, legislators and public-worker unions are now conspiring to roll out plan B: a federal bailout. The Governor was in Washington on Tuesday and, sounding like a Detroit auto executive, declared: "We need assistance." As a starter he wants a federal guarantee on California's next $6 billion bond offering.

But a federal bailout is an injustice to the residents of other states, especially those that run their governments responsibly. Why should taxpayers in Colorado, Virginia or Ohio pay for California's incompetence? Worse, one price of a bailout could be an Obama Administration demand that California remove its requirement for a two-thirds legislative majority to pass a tax increase. Another possible political target is repeal of the Proposition 13 property tax limitation. Yet these are the only remaining restraints on the appetites of the political class.

Tuesday's vote was a voter cry that the state needs more such restraints, and now is the time to push them...

Despite the panic from Sacramento, Tuesday's vote was the best fiscal news out of California in 30 years. It showed that the voters are paying attention to the games their elected leaders have been playing, and they have finally blown the whistle. We hope the sound was heard as far away as another out-of-control government, the one in Washington, D.C.

Today's Posts

Is Ida the Long Sought-After Missing Link?

Gerald Warner on the Obama/Notre Dame Outrage

Bill Clinton's Chauvinism Shows Again...But Not in the MSM

Saving Lives Through Simple Technology

How To Fix America's Economy? It's Simple.

Economic Constraints Loosening in Cuba? For Who?

For Your Wednesday Tea Break

Is Ida the Long Sought-After Missing Link?

Darwinius masillae ("Darwin's creature from the Messel pit," now better known to the world simply as Ida) is getting absolutely enormous hype in recent days. This even though the fossil was discovered by amateurs way back in 1983. But the find was divided and sold to different buyers, only to be reassembled two years ago and presented to the world a couple of days ago.

And the world (well, the media anyhow) has gone crazy over it. It has been called the 8th wonder of the world; Google's home page today is emblazoned with an image of the fossil; some scientists and a whole bunch of journalists have gone completely over the top, mindlessly hailing the find as the missing link.

But Ida is not the missing link. As CBS News reported (in one of the more responsible reactions around), this discovery doesn't even "relate to the more heated debate over whether chimpanzees and humans share a common identity." Conclusion? "The fossil is not the so-called 'missing link' [though] the two factions will likely pounce on this new find with evolutionists claiming the skeleton adds to the limited fossil record."

"Limited fossil record" is right. Indeed, it is a very limited record -- certainly when compared to what should exist if evolutionists' theories were true. No wonder they are so giddy about finding this one. For, no doubt about it, it is a dramatic specimen, a wonderfully complete fossil of an ancient lemur, though a well-informed jury might dispute the claim that it is 47,000,000 years old.

Paleontologist Jorn Hurum, whose team analyzed the fossil, is also promoting the lucrative after-effects: an upcoming book, an Anthony Geffen film, a TV special entitled "The Link. This Changes Everything" and a promotional web site -- to be followed, of course, by T-shirts, caps, lunchboxes and action figures. You get the point. There's money and notoriety involved here...as well as selling a worldview which openly competes with Christianity.

"This is the first link to all humans," Hurum says. It represents "the closest thing we can get to a direct ancestor."

Wow. That's quite a statement, combining as it does both ignorance (The fossil record just doesn't give us anything else, nothing that will ever be really linked to man.) and yet arrogance too.

Let me suggest what Hurum really wanted to say: "This is the final word, folks. I know this lemur skeleton doesn't look much like a chimpanzee, let alone an ape, let alone Nancy Pelosi but, trust us Darwinians, this is the missing link. Yeah, I know; there was Tiktaalik in 2006 and before that Archaeopteryx in 1999 and before that Lucy in 1974 and a whole lot of others that we insisted then were the breakthrough, the proof, the vaunted missing link. I guess we do tend to forget what we've trumpeted before."

"But, no kidding. Ida really is it. You can bet on it. And won't this help keep our schools and museums free of those blasted creationists and intelligent design freaks? That'll be sweet."

"It should also give me and my team more than just 15 minutes of fame and a few coins besides. Speaking of which, wouldn't you like to buy an Ida sweatshirt or maybe a tote bag? We've got these nifty keychains too and, oh yes; have you tried our Nutty Ida cereal?"

Gerald Warner on the Obama/Notre Dame Outrage

Gerald Warner is described by the Telegraph which he writes for as "an author, broadcaster, columnist and polemical commentator who writes about politics, religion, history, culture and society in general. If it is an exaggeration to say that he believes the world has gone to the dogs, it is only a slight hyperbole."

In this article, Warner uses his keen sense of conservatism to evaluate Barack Obama's "performance" at Notre Dame.

Sometimes something so gruesome is perpetrated in public life that the sick bag is an inadequate repository for one's involuntary reaction. Under the Blair regime this was an almost daily problem. Now, however, there is a practitioner of gorge-rising hypocrisy on the world stage so shameless he makes the Great Charlatan look like an amateur. His name is Barack Hussein Obama.

Yesterday, at the formerly Catholic University of Notre Dame, this snake-oil salesman carried the gospel of abortion into what should have been the most hostile territory on the face of the earth but which, thanks to the great apostasy known as the Second Vatican Council and the self-interest of Democrat-supporting pseudo-Catholics, was a favourable environment. To the rapturous applause of those who put establishment endorsement before the most basic human decencies, Obama preached his message of consensual infanticide...

Read the rest of this column here.

Bill Clinton's Chauvinism Shows Again...But Not in the MSM

Bill Clinton's gracelessness and lechery knows no bounds.

But also outrageous is the mainstream media's enabling behavior towards the guy. The latest example of the latter point is that this photo hasn't been splashed across the world by newspapers and TV.

Saving Lives Through Simple Technology

If you live in Texas, write your State Senator and remind him or her of just how critical to the lives, safety and economic stability of Texans is passage of House Bill 4061.

If you live elsewhere, particularly in states that have yet to pass tough interlock laws to keep more drunk drivers off the road, then forward this post to your state's own representatives also and encourage them to get on the ball...ASAP.

Why? Read on.

Each week in Texas, 24 people are killed in alcohol-related driving offenses. Texas leads the nation in drunken driving fatalities with 1,292 recorded in 2007. Mothers Against Drunk Driving reports that repeat drunken drivers account for nearly one-third of those who drive drunk and that more than 142,000 drivers in Texas have three or more DWI offenses.

If legislation could help reduce the dangers from repeat drunken drivers in this state, shouldn't such legislation be passed? If ignition interlock devices can prevent intoxicated drivers from endangering themselves, their families and their fellow residents by separating drinking from driving, shouldn't they be mandatory?

In 2008 Dr. Richard Roth conducted research that found that only one out of 10 convicted drunken drivers each year currently has an interlock on his or her vehicle.

Mandatory interlock requirements took effect in Arkansas last month and in Utah in March. Eight other states -- Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Illinois, Louisiana, Nebraska, New Mexico and Washington -- already have similar provisions.

The installation of interlock devices prevents convicted drunken drivers from starting their cars without first breathing into a breathalyzer attached to a motor vehicle's ignition system to prove they are not under the influence of alcohol. Rolling retests are required six minutes later and again at intervals of 15 to 45 minutes. The devices have been shown to be effective with results ranging from 50 to 90 percent reductions in subsequent drunken driving offenses while the interlock is on the car.

Offenders themselves believe interlocks are a fair and effective sanction, according to a study conducted by Barbara Morse and D.S. Elliott, of the University of Colorado. Their study found that 82 percent of offenders believe interlocks were very effective in preventing them from driving after drinking, and 68 percent believed interlocks were very successful in changing their drunken driving habits...

Current state law in Texas requires the installation of the devices on the second DWI conviction. State Rep. Todd Smith, R-Bedford, is poised to pass House Bill 4061, which toughens state law to require mandatory ignition interlocks upon a first DWI conviction, rather than on a second. Such legislation is strongly supported by MADD, the nation's leading public safety advocacy group dedicated to preventing drunken driving fatalities. In 2006 pollster Bill McInturff found that 65 percent of the public favors mandatory interlocks for first-time convicted offenders.

Rep. Smith's bill was reported out of the Texas House Public Safety Committee with an 8-1 vote and is expected to pass in the House soon.

It is time for the Senate to follow the House's lead and pass this sensible legislation to protect innocent Texans from repeat drunken driving offenders.

(Matt Mackowiak, Abilene Reporter News, May 17)

How To Fix America's Economy? It's Simple.

In the wake of Team Obama's $1 trillion dollar budget, the St. Petersburg Times asked its readers for their ideas to fix America's economy. You may have already read David Otterson's response because it's been making the e-mail rounds. (Thanks, Ralph & Linda, for sending it over to me.) But in case you haven't, here it is below.

Patriotic retirement:

There are about 40 million people over 50 in the work force … pay them $1 million apiece severance with stipulations.

They leave their jobs. Forty million job openings — unemployment fixed. They buy new American cars. Forty million cars ordered — auto industry fixed. They either buy a house or pay off their mortgage — housing crisis fixed.

If you want to read the other responses the St. Pete Times printed (but be warned, none of 'em are nearly as clever as Otterson's), you can find them here.

Economic Constraints Loosening in Cuba? For Who?

Overseas private investors and homebuyers are to be given a rare chance to buy Cuban real estate in a move that marks a further loosening of the economic constraints imposed on the island since Fidel Castro seized power 50 years ago. ( Financial Times, May 9)

Alberto de la Cruz at Babalú comments:

I put emphasis on the term "overseas" because the reality here, which the Financial Times blatantly ignored, is that these so-called loosening of economic restraints benefits only those who are not Cuban, and of course, the ruling elite who will be collecting the cash from the sale of these leaseholds. Not one Cuban outside the ruling elite will benefit from this. Life will continue as it has for the last half decade for them with the only difference being there will be a new place for the regime to send them to work as slave laborers.

Yes, things are getting better in Cuba. What I would like to know is when are things going to start getting better for Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet [Use the search feature at top left to read numerous Vital Signs Blog posts about Dr. Biscet] and the rest of the Cubans on the island?

For Your Wednesday Tea Break

For your Wednesday tea break, I have three brief items from the respective arenas of sports, comedy and music. Enjoy.

First up, a little review of one of the best running backs in NFL history, Terrell Davis.



Next, a delightful comedy sketch in which Bob Newhart and Dean Martin laughingly ad lib their way through the 1965 "Toupee Sketch."



And finally, a performance I put in especially for Claire. She thinks Bing Crosby's rendition of "Moonlight Becomes You" (from The Road to Morocco) is not only one of Bing's best but one of the most romantic ballads to ever come out of the movies. I agree. And you just might too. (The gal receiving Bing's serenade, of course, is the lovely Dorothy Lamour.)

Today's Posts

Darwinism with a Religious Twist?

Our Dumbed Down Schools...And Airplanes?

The NY Times Gets Caught: Once Highly-Esteemed Newspaper Spiked ACORN Story That Would Have Hurt Obama's Election Hopes

A Strange, Sad Story

Judge Nixes Wal-Mart: Uses Bogus Global Warming Claims to Deny New Store

Obama's Shameful Lies at Notre Dame

Darwinism with a Religious Twist?

Here's a provocative dissent from author, journalist and Senior Fellow at the Discovery Institute, David Klinghoffer regarding one of the newest expressions of theistic evolution, BioLogos.

Astute readers will have noticed that Beliefnet runs two blogs that deal with evolution on a more or less frequent basis but in very different ways: this blog and Science and the Sacred, where former Human Genome Project head Francis Collins and other contributors from the BioLogos Foundation share their thoughts. An Evangelical Christian, Dr. Collins would like to find a reconciliation between Darwinian evolution including its randomly driven, unplanned, unguided mechanism of natural selection, with Biblical religion, which is premised on God's creative guidance of life's history.

I wish Dr. Collins all the luck in the world. He'll need it. An Orthodox Jew, I find his to be an impossible quest, though attractive to believers who find it expedient to dodge the radical challenge to theistic religion posed by Darwinism.

Part of the appeal of "theistic evolution" lies in the prospect it holds out to Christians and Jews of being respected and accepted by the prestige academic world. In that world, Darwinism and atheism have a way of melding. Alas, the fondly wished for respect is often cruelly withheld. Prominent Darwinists like P.Z. Myers and Jerry Coyne have been amusingly contemptuous of the BioLogos concept -- "full of fluffy bunnies and pious weasels to reconcile science and faith" -- which Dr. Collins also elaborates on a website of that name and in his book, The Language of God.

Of course, they are unfair to Dr. Collins and his collaborator Karl Giberson. I enjoyed Language of God, and reviewed it favorably in The Weekly Standard, though I did note that Dr. Collins, who disdains intelligent-design theory, gives no evidence of having kept up with the latest that is being argued and written on the subject. His critique suffers from superficiality.

For example, Dr. Collins lays great stress on the purported evidence for Darwinian evolution from so-called "junk DNA." But see the latest knock-down of the argument by my colleague Richard Sternberg at Evolution News & Views.

Fundamentally, when it comes to Darwinian evolution, the conflict isn't between faith and science. It's between faith and unfounded science. Bad science. Who would think Judaism or Christianity can be reconciled with any and every science-flavored theory of how the world works that happens to come along?

Without going into a lot of details about what separates our perspectives, I think readers deserve a sort of thumb-nail explanation of where Dr. Collins and I part, and why we do. Interestingly, the contrast between our two ways of thinking about faith goes way back. It was noted more than a century ago by the great psychologist and philosopher William James.

In the Postscript to his book The Varieties of Religious Experience, James wrote about two species of "supernaturalism" -- meaning, in general, an openness to recognizing a reality beyond our natural, material world. The opposite would be naturalism, which denies the existence of such an unseen and unseeable realm. James distinguished between a "refined" or "universal" supernaturalism, which views the supernatural as being unable or unwilling to exert a meaningful guiding influence over material reality, and a "crass" supernaturalism, which perceives the invisible world as intersecting with the visible.

James himself identified as a crass supernaturalist. Religious but not a Christian, he found that refined supernaturalism "surrenders...too easily to naturalism." BioLogos is tempted by the refinement and the prestige of universal supernaturalism.

James wrote: "In this universalistic way of taking the ideal world, the essence of practical religion seems to me to evaporate. Both instinctively and for logical reasons, I find it hard to believe that principles can exist which make no difference in facts." Under refined supernaturalism, the "universe become a gnosticism pure and simple."

I particularly like the part about "surrendering" to naturalism too easily. That's exactly what BioLogos, a/k/a "theistic evolution," does. With it, practical religion is put in danger of evaporating.

James also gives an insight into why refined supernaturalism appeals to so many otherwise faithful believers. It seems refined, sophisticated, worldly, whereas the crass version seems crass. The latter "finds no intellectual difficulty in mixing the ideal and the real worlds together by interpolating influences from the ideal region among the forces that causally determine the real world's details." How backward and old-fashioned! Why it almost sounds like intelligent design. That would never go down in the faculty club.

Like William James, I'm happy to be crass. It's not bad company to be in.

Our Dumbed Down Schools...And Airplanes?

It's been more than a decade since Charles J. Sykes wrote his book, Dumbing Down Our Kids: Why American Children Feel Good About Themselves But Can't Read, Write, or Add -- but the bad news, of course, is that the trend he so effectively described hasn't even slowed down.

America is getting dumber by the day.

A few examples from recent news stories:

* In Massachusetts, only 27% of those college graduates who were looking to become elementary school teachers passed the math section in the licensing exam.

* In Louisiana, officials are looking to stem the high school dropout rate with a new program called LEAP. But it looks like just another way to pass along education system failures. For instance, students looking to matriculate to the ninth grade need only score 42% on English and 39% on math entrance exams. Can kids with such lousy scores even hope to get passing grades as they go along through high school? Of course not. But not to worry -- education officials have created remedial programs that count as high school credit.

* In Maryland (and everywhere else in the country where the teachers’ guides of the University of Chicago School Mathematics Project are being used), the grading curve that is encouraged is very, very lenient. Try only 85% to get an A; only 72% to get a B; only 60% to get a C; and only 50% to pass.

* In Seattle, Washington, the school board decided to replace its math curriculum (Horrors! Some of their books were 17 years old!) with the Discovering Series by Key Curriculum Press. Officials insisted that the new program fits well with the state's new standards. Uh, make that the state's new, dumbed down standards. But even their own consultants disagreed with the move. "The consultants called Discovering the 'weakest option' in algebra, geometry and advanced geometry. They said the program is 'mathematically unsound,' and even 'unacceptable.'" (Over public opposition, the school board went ahead and voted for the dumbed down curriculum.)

* And the dumbing down epidemic isn't confined to the government schools. Check out Byron Harris' story for WFAA News (Dallas/Ft. Worth television station) to learn how politically-correct dumbing down can even get you killed.

News 8 has recently revealed serious flaws in the way the FAA licenses mechanics who fix planes. There is evidence of years of problems in testing these mechanics. There is also evidence that hundreds of mechanics with questionable licenses are working on aircraft in Texas.

Now there is evidence of repair facilities hiring low-wage mechanics who can't read English.

Twenty-one people were killed when U.S. Airways Express Flight 5481 crashed in Charlotte, North Carolina in 2003. The plane went wildly out of control on takeoff.

One reason for the crash, investigators found, was that mechanics incorrectly connected the cables to some of the plane's control surfaces in the repair shop. The FAA was cited for improper oversight of the repair process.

Repairing airplanes is a complicated business. Airplanes have many manuals. Typically, when mechanics repair a part, they open the manual, consult the book, and make the repair step-by-step, as if it were a recipe book.

They make a list of every action they take, so the next person to fix the plane (as well as the people who fly it) will know exactly what has been done. If mechanics don't speak English, the international language of aviation, they can't read the manual and they can't record their activities.

There are more than 236 FAA-certified aircraft repair stations in Texas, according to the FAA's Web site. News 8 has learned that hundreds of the mechanics working in those shops do not speak English and are unable to read repair manuals for today's sophisticated aircraft...

News 8 discovered that mechanics at one licensing center in San Antonio were being tested in Spanish as late as last fall. The FAA ultimately shut the facility down.

Supervisors in Texas repair stations say they are supposed to oversee the repairs of dozens of untrained mechanics who can't read the manuals and can't write down the work they've done.

But the FAA does not require every person working at a repair station to be a certified A&P. One certified A&P can sign off on the work of dozens of uncertified mechanics.

That creates a huge problem, another certified mechanic told News 8. "I need an interpreter to talk to these people," he said. "They can't read the manuals, they can't write, and I have so many working for me I can't be sure of the work they've done."...

"I've been wanting to leave this company since the day I got there," said one certified A&P. "But with the economy the way it is, I've got kids to feed and I have to stay there. I don't want to be anywhere near one of those planes when it kills somebody."

The FAA is supposed to police repair stations, but insiders say the agency is more focused on looking at paperwork than inspecting the facilities. Insiders also say inspectors warn repair stations when they're coming.

"In Dallas, most of them would map it out and tell them what day they were going to be there," said Gene Bland, a former FAA inspector.

Safety, mechanics say, is at risk. "In my opinion," said one, "company owners should all be locked up because someone's going to die eventually, if it hasn't already happened."

Texas' two biggest airlines, American and Southwest, both require mechanics and the technicians who work under them to speak, read and write English.

But mechanics who work elsewhere — whose repairs often end up on commercial airliners — say their shops are filled with non-English speakers.

The FAA declined to be interviewed for this report.

The NY Times Gets Caught: Once Highly-Esteemed Newspaper Spiked ACORN Story That Would Have Hurt Obama's Election Hopes

The New York Times confirmed yesterday that it killed a story in October that would have shown a close link between ACORN, Project Vote and the Obama campaign. The NY Times killed the investigation before the election that would have shown that Barack Obama’s campaign and the Far Left ACORN Organization were guilty of technical violations of campaign finance law.

New York Times Public Editor Clark Hoyt said this about the report and investigation: "The charge, amplified by Bill O’Reilly on Fox News in April and reverberating around the conservative blogosphere, is about the most damning allegation that can be made against a news organization. If true, it would mean that Times editors, whose job is to report the facts without fear or favor, were so lacking in integrity that they withheld an important story in order to influence the election."

True. "It would show a serious lack of integrity by the news organization if they were to withhold information from the public before the election."

And, it looks like that is exactly what they did.

(Papa Mike's Blog, May 18)

A Strange, Sad Story

...By the time Alex came before the Family Court at 12, she had a disgust for her female body, a rage at God for trapping her in it, and a terror of the coming breasts and menses that would prove even more forcibly that she was not the male she so passionately felt she should be.

She threatened to kill herself if she was not helped to become like a boy. In 2004, the Family Court made orders permitting Alex to go on hormone medication to suppress her development as a female from the age of 13. In late 2007, The Age can now reveal, the Family Court told the then-17-year-old Alex she could have surgery to remove her breasts...

"A rage at God."

Despite the wholeheartedly positive spin of this strange report, the above phrase leaps out to the reader. Indeed, it serves as an appropriate phrase to describe a great deal of those attitudes flagrantly displayed in our post-Christian era.

"A rage at God."

"For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse. For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures.

Therefore God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, so that their bodies would be dishonored among them. For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.

For this reason God gave them over to degrading passions; for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural, and in the same way also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another, men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error.

And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper, being filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice; they are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, without understanding, untrustworthy, unloving, unmerciful; and although they know the ordinance of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, they not only do the same, but also give hearty approval to those who practice them." (Romans 1: 20-32)

Judge Nixes Wal-Mart: Uses Bogus Global Warming Claims to Deny New Store

In a political move that didn't attract as much attention as it deserved, a California judge last week signaled that man-made global warming (mythical though it is) will be used by the courts to force social change -- change that is decidedly unfriendly to freedom, business and capitalism.

As you read the excerpt below from the L.A. Times Greenspace section, keep in mind that I'm no friend of Wal-Mart. Nevertheless, the prospect of judges using the lens of socialist politics to interpret scientific claims and then to order Americans around is really frightening.

A San Bernardino Superior Court judge on Thursday rebuffed Wal-Mart’s plan for a super center in the desert city of Yucca Valley, partly on the grounds that the giant retailer failed to take measures to reduce its contribution to global warming.

Environmentalists had been pressuring Wal-Mart to install solar panels to provide electricity for its proposed 184,000-square-foot store. But the retailer contended that the estimated 7,000 metric tons per year of planet-heating greenhouse gases that would result from the store’s operation was too insignificant to require such measures under the California Environmental Quality Act.

Judge Barry Plotkin, relying on contrary evidence from state air quality officials, ruled otherwise on Thursday, in a case that signals a growing legal consensus that climate change must be considered by businesses and governments promoting new developments...

Obama's Shameful Lies at Notre Dame

Barack Obama's speech at Notre Dame was a demonstration of arrogant lying, one which was oh-so-ripe for picking apart by any journalist with just some sense of professionalism.

After all, what Obama said was such an audacious contradiction to what he has done.

But, no; once again the MSM fawningly, mindlessly caved in.

Randy Pate over at NRO didn't. Read his take right here.

And don't miss David Limbaugh's column either. Oh...Cal Thomas' too.