WorldNetDaily: Settlement ends Limbaugh drug investigation

Roy Black, Rush's attorney, gave the details in a general press release. I don't begin to understand why the Florida prosecuting attorney didn't drop the case long ago, when he couldn't get any evidence, and his repeated fishing expeditions had come to nothing. Then again, I am not a lawyer. But as a practical matter, Rush will not have a felony record, and he will pay a thirty thousand dollar remittance--in the traditional sense of "money you pay somebody to get lost"--that will not even go down on his record as a fine. (Nor, in all fairness, will Rush miss the thirty thousand dollars, which to him is pocket change.)

WorldNetDaily: Poll: 3rd party scores with border backlash

This is from the Rasmussen organization. Their latest poll shows that a third-party candidate who emphasized border security and pledged to build a fence would tie a Democrat and trounce a Republican.

Some historical perspective is in order, and the Republicans ignore this at their extreme peril. The Republican Party began as a third party! Back in the days of Franklin Pierce and James Buchanan, the two major political parties were the Democrats (the same Democrats as today) and the Whigs. Then along came the wedge issue of slavery. Guess what: the Whigs ignored it, and the Democrats at the time were the party of slave-owning planters. Result: nothing got done, and the issue simmered.

Then came the US Supreme Court's God-awful decision in Scott v. Sandford--the "Dred Scott Case." Dred Scott tried to show that, since his master had taken him to travel in "free territory," he became a free man under the terms of the Missouri Compromise. The Supremes responded by throwing out the Missouri Compromise as unconstitutional. CJ Roger B. Taney had the execrably bad sense to declare that a man born a slave would always be a slave.

Well, that did it. A young lawyer named Abraham Lincoln declared, "A house divided against itself cannot stand!" He ran for President as a Republican and got elected. Republicans have been a major party ever since; the Whigs disappeared, not even waiting for legions in blue and gray to grind them into the dust.

Today, the spectacle of unlawful entrants into this country trying to re-fight a war and reconquer territory they consider lost to them is the Dred Scott/Missouri Compromise issue. Neither party wants to address illegal immigration. Democrats want extra voters; Republican-friendly businessmen want cheap workers. (I still say that you get what you pay for along that line--but that's another topic.) And while private landowners might possibly take border fencing matters into their own hands, Scott Rasmussen has asked the salient question: might a third party supplant the Republicans while campaigning on dealing with illegal immigration as it ought to be dealt with? The answer is yes.

Republicans, take heed. You were a creation of the spectacle of voters fed up with two major parties ignoring their issues. That force can destroy you just as readily.

Professor and Pro-Abortion Students Charged in Destroying Pro-Life Display

Remember Dr. Sally Jacobsen, who exhorted her students to trash the Cemetery of the Innocents that a pro-life student group had set up on the Fine Arts lawn at Northern Kentucky University? You will recall that, after the fact, she realized that she had gotten her students into legal trouble. You will also recall that a number of legal experts didn't expect the county attorney to charge the students with anything.

Well, now he has. Prof. Jacobsen, and those of her students who took part in the trashing (six identified so far, and maybe more to be identified later), are charged with criminal mischief and theft by unlawful taking, both misdemeanors. (That last charge needs an explanation. In short, you may not take down a political yard sign or similar sign just because you don't like the message, and you may not take anything from a public display without first asking permission. That is the misdemeanor offense of theft by unlawful taking.)

And to top it all, Prof. Jacobsen is charged with criminal solicitation, for putting the idea into her students' heads.

Her proposed defense will be that an act of vandalism against a political display with which she disagrees, and which, furthermore, she regards as harmful to the body politic, is not and should not be against the law. So now competing demands of free speech will get an airing in a court of law: whether, in essence, a person who says something that another person finds obnoxious is protected against arrest, trial, and indictment by the authorities, but is not protected against a punch in the nose by the one who found his saying obnoxious. Sorry, Professor, but the way I read the law (although IANAL), the law never excuses a punch in the nose, or the tearing up of an approved display, for no better reason than that you got angry with what the other person, or the display, said. Every person who ever wished that he could punch somebody in the nose and get away with it, and every person who ever said something obnoxious and then felt that he had to duck and run, ought to take an avid interest in this trial. For that matter, every student of the code duello should follow this trial. This issue goes far beyond the immediate political issue (whether abortion ought to be lawful or not) and now touches on certain bedrock principles of civilized behavior.

WorldNetDaily: Baptists: Plan exit from government schools

They're back. Moran and Shortt, whom the Southern Baptist Convention must now regard as two bad pennies, are reintroducing their resolution calling upon all Baptists to withdraw their children from the public schools.

They would do better to join the Independent Baptist Fellowship of North America and invite all like-minded folk to do the same. The reason: the SBC is not the committed conservative organization that it is now pretending to be. That's why the IBFNA exists--because we are the remnant willing to hold fast to the Bible and what it commands, no matter what anybody says.

That said, their position is not only sound, but is in fact the only sound position one can possibly take as regards government-run schools--at any level.

WorldNetDaily: 'Marketing of Evil' locked out of college libraries

This, according to the head librarian at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, which has The Marketing of Evil in its collection (and reports that it is currently checked out). What is obviously happening is that college libraries are largely ignoring the title and wishing that it would go into remainders and die on the bargain-books tables in the bookstores. Fat chance, of course, considering the title's bestseller status. But what does it say of a librarian--any librarian--who refuses to add a book to his collection just because it's controversial? Or one who plays favorites with the controversies about which people write a lot of books?

WorldNetDaily: What bin Laden's saying: It's all-out war on civilians

That, according to analysts who are good at parsing someone's remarks and translating them into their full implications. They state that you can take Osama bin Laden's tape only one way: that he has declared open and all-out war against any civilian who isn't a Muslim.

Once again, I renew my call for a Senate investigation of Islam in the USA.

WorldNetDaily: Citizen-built border fence gains steam

The method: owners of ranch land and other private property that has the US-Mexican border as one of its lines will grant permission to build those sections of the fence that run along those property lines. That's enough to cover 90 percent of the border. And Arizona's legislature is taking up a bill to permit ranchers who lease state common land for grazing, when such land abuts the border, to build sections of border fence along their leaseholds. (Too bad Senator McCain won't sponsor an act of Congress to allow leaseholders on federal grazing land to do the same thing--but Senator John Kyl might. Arizona residents, contact him!)

These links have more information:

• The Border Fence Project
• The Minutemen
• WeNeedAFence.com

Folks, this is something practical that we can all support, and all within the tradition of irregular militia that the Constitution itself says is "necessary to the existence of a free State."

WorldNetDaily: Confirmed: Tony Snow new Bush press secretary

I take my hat off to Tony Snow, for accepting such a drastic cut in salary.

And frankly, I can't think of a better man for the job. Scott McClellan, bless his heart, was starting to get on my nerves, sounding like a big spin machine. Tony Snow will at least be better able to handle himself before, say, Bill O'Reilly. (And yes, Helen Thomas, but who cares what she thinks, outside of Helen Thomas herself?)

WorldNetDaily: Freshmen required to undergo homosexual indoctrination

This article describes what passes for "orientation" of freshmen at Ohio State--which has been going on even before a librarian was almost fired for recommending two books calling university faculty attitudes and practices into question.

WARNING: the descriptions given here verge on the graphic and are definitely unsettling. PJADAA--and keep some bicarbonate of soda handy while you're at it.

OpinionJournal - Yale Out of One Crisis and Into Another

First, as a Yale alumnus myself, I'm glad to see that Yale is tightening the standards for its Eli Whitney program for "mature students." Consensus says that Sayed Rahmatullah Hashemi, also known as Taliban Man, will not measure up.

But now Yale is going to do something stupid that will wipe out any kudos that it might have earned. They're going to hire Juan Cole, Professor of History at UMich, as a professor of contemporary Middle East studies. This although he has done almost no scholarship on the Middle East past the nineteenth century. In fact, he's more blogger than professor--and his blog is one incoherent rant after another.

The Ivy League is in bad enough shape when it hires more polished propagandists to lay their propaganda on captive audiences. When they hire people who pass off rants as "informed comment," they've sunk to a new low.

WorldNetDaily: Duke scandal 'perfect storm' for 'race hustlers'

That leader is The Rev. Jesse L. Peterson of Brotherhood Organized for a New Destiny, or BOND. I quote:

If these young men were black they would be treated with kid gloves; if the victim was a male this case would be laughed out of court...DNA tests have failed to connect these boys to this alleged crime; yet their mug shots are plastered in the media as if they've already been found guilty. Where's the photo of the alleged victim?

I'll offer only one qualifier. I don't think those two boys who got arrested are guilty of anything more serious than earning a reputation for bad behavior (Collin Finnerty once slugged someone for no good reason in Washington, DC), and association (by virtue of their membership in the team) with the idiotic team captains who hired those ecdysiasts to begin with. Obviously The Rev. Mr. Peterson has at least as many doubts about this case as I have. But boys who hire exhibitionists--or prostitutes--aren't exactly innocent, even if they are not exactly guilty as charged.

MEMRI: Yemeni Reformist Writer Urges Muslim Women to Take Off the Veil

If that were all there was to this article, it wouldn't be worth commenting on. But Dr. Elham Mane'a, a columnist based in Yemen, actually charges that the veil did not become prominent in the last century until the ouster of the Shah of Iran. He concludes that the custom of hijab, or the full-body covering for women, is a political custom.

I take issue, however, with statements like these:

The second argument is based the premise that there is a connection between wearing the veil and the establishment of a good society. According to this logic, a good society is one in which no intimate relations take place out of wedlock. However, this premise is at best mistaken, since, as a matter of fact, the societies that mandate the wearing of the veil and insist on segregation of the sexes are not those in which sex out of wedlock is least common.

I find that statement slightly confused at best. And as a Christian, I also object to "intimate relations" out of wedlock, and to the public display of one's body in a fashion that would excite sexual tension in an onlooker. Indeed, Dr. Mane'a, in the end, still accepts the premise that any women's fashion statement other than the full-body covering constitutes immodest, and even deliberately sexual, display. Even Mennonite and other "plain Christian" sects do not practice the kind of extreme covering that Muslim hijab represents--and no one ever accused a Mennonite woman of trying to excite a man's lust while she was wearing traditional Mennonite garb.

WorldNetDaily: Islamist protest in N.Y. – 'Mushroom cloud on way'

It had to happen sooner or later--Muslims showing the true colors of their religion and carrying it all the way to its logical endpoint.

Boasts about mushroom clouds over Israel weren't all. They also boasted of flying a green crescent-moon-and-star flag over the White House.

So much for trying to dissociate Islam from terrorism.

WorldNetDaily: 'Fiddler' 9-11 spoof wins anti-Semitic cartoon contest

It seems that after an Iranian newspaper announced a cartoon contest for the best cartoon ridiculing the notion of a Holocaust (which the President of Iran denies ever occurred), a Jewish group sponsored its own contest for anti-Semitic drawings--by Jews themselves.

Ladies and gentlemen, no one--and I mean no one--is better at self-deprecating gallows humor than Jews. If you want proof, I could cite the play Jewtopia.

The story of a Gentile who wants to marry a Jewish girl...so that he will never have to make another decision.

And now we have this contest. Take a gander at the prize-winning entry and the honorable mentions. They are priceless!

And they illustrate another home truth: sometimes when someone wants to be insulting, you throw the insult right back in their faces. Kudos, guys, and mazel tov.

College Abortion Vandalism Continues, Princeton Pro-Life Display Trashed

You didn't think that Northern Kentucky University was the only place where leftist campus thought vigilantes exact their brand of summary justice, did you? They're doing it at Princeton, too.

A pro-life student group estimated that 347 fewer students were available to come to Princeton this year, because their mothers aborted them. Abortion-happy students took exception to that and pasted their own message over the original. And what a tasteless message:

Support smaller class sizes: support abortion.

And this:

347 rusty coat hangers were saved from mangling and mutilation.

Ah, ahem! I happen to know of a number of women who came out of abortion mills in the 1980's and landed in the pulmonary critical-care facility where I was serving as an extern at the time. So don't talk to me about the relative hazards of "legal" versus "illegal" abortion.

Besides that, this shows that speech on a typical university campus is "free for me but not for thee." But what do you expect from people who spit on Christianity? They also spit on the Golden Rule, and clearly they don't follow it.

WorldNetDaily: YMCA warned to vacate Hamas town

What irony. In fact, the YMCA is anything but a missionary society. (The YWCA, the equivalent for women, has strayed even further from its Christian roots, so that it's not even Christian anymore.) And yet Hamas finds an excuse to evict the YMCA because of the word "Christian" in its name.

Irony aside, this really does go to show how radical Hamas really is--and what Islam really means.

WorldNetDaily: Osama alive, well, armed with nukes

That, according to a Pakistani journalist who talked to WorldNetDaily's premium sister publication, G2 Bulletin.

The allegation is that Osama bought his nukes from Russia. Whether they would still detonate or not remains an open question--after all, warhead material is radioactive and subject to decay. But we can't take that chance. We have to find him now--and we also have to build those off-shore inspection stations that we heard about during the Dubai Ports World debate.

Professor Who Trashed Abortion Display Attacks Pro-Life Advocates in Email

The e-mail is from Sally Jacobsen to the students who followed her misguided advice and trashed the "Cemetery of the Innocents" at Northern Kentucky University. Now she's flailing around, no doubt realizing with a sinking feeling in her gut that she has gotten her students into a major-league legal mess.

Happily for those students, the county prosecutor is not likely to charge the students. He'll save his fire for the professor. Which is as it should be--but those students need a good shaking-up so that they would never do something as foolish as this ever again.

WorldNetDaily: University rebuffs 'gay' profs, warns librarian not to retaliate

This article describes the direct communication to Scott Savage, head librarian at the Ohio State University Mansfield regional campus--a communication that he finally received only yesterday, after the Dean sent a letter around to all faculty and staff promising another round of training in tolerance of other points of view.

In this letter, Mr. T. Glenn Hill of the Human Resources (read "Personnel") Office told Mr. Savage that:

1. Merely recommending a book does not constitute sexual harassment, even if the intentions of the complaining professors were good.
2. Everyone needs some anti-harassment and anti-discrimination training--and one of Savage's three accusers is named as a possible "liaison person," a role that Mr. Hill does not specify nor describe in anything close to sufficient detail.
3. Mr. Savage had better not retaliate in any way against any of the three original accusers.

Add to this rather strange communication its obvious back date: April 6, 2006. It's a back date because the letter carries an April 18 postmark, and Mr. Savage did not receive it until April 19.

This communication is highly suspect for several reasons. First, asking one of the three accusers to "liaise" for the development of anti-harassment training is like asking a fox to join a summit called to address henhouse security. It is also a bait-and-switch. Yesterday the campus dean told the faculty and staff that they all needed to learn how to tolerate other points of view. Now this personnel officer is hinting that Mr. Savage needs training in how to be more sensitive to homosexuals and other non-Christians.

And second, Ohio State cannot make Mr. Savage whole without firing those three professors. Simple justice requires that one who attempts to frame another suffer the very penalty that the other person would have suffered had the frame succeeded. Justice is not served when one of the would-be frame artists is then asked to "train" the very person that he framed.

This is the kind of sick joke that all too many educational and similar institutions play on people after they get into a dispute, not of their making, about fundamental matters of truth. My advice to Mr. Savage, therefore, is twofold:

1. Take whatever legal or administrative action is necessary to establish to all and sundry that you are not silent and therefore do not give assent to anyone's right to frame you for anything.
2. Leave Ohio State and apply for a job at any of a number of Christian Bible colleges, or perhaps Bob Jones University.

WorldNetDaily: Lie down with strippers, wake up with pleas

Make that "pleadings," the formal name for legal papers. Ann Coulter ought to know: she's a lawyer. And I ought to know: I've been involved in more than my share of lawsuits, and given more than my share of depositions and interrogatories.

In the wake, not only of the Duke lax scandal but also of the sad death of Natalee Holloway on Aruba, Ann Coulter has finally said what I've been saying all along: that none of this would have happened to those lax players at Duke if they hadn't hired two ecdysiasts. And interestingly enough, Ann also says that if something did happen to the ecdysiast who is now crying rape, it wouldn't have happened if she weren't...well, an ecdysiast.

She says, and I agree, that bad judgment on my part doesn't excuse a crime on someone else's part. But bad judgment is bad judgment. And lately, certain people in the news have shown some of the worst judgment outside of the Darwin Awards.

Best of all, Ann reminds us of the Christian answer to sin: that we can never pay back for it, but Christ made all the payback we need.

FOXNews.com - Duke Defense Lawyers Say Evidence May Give Arrested Lacrosse Players Alibis - Local News | News Articles | National News | US News

That evidence consists of time-stamped credit-card receipts showing that the two suspects were not even in the off-campus house where the wild party took place.

Now I have said before that the lacrosse team deserved to have their season canceled, and the coach rated a suspension from his post, after the team hired two women to take their clothes off in front of them. The coach got suspended after one of the players--not one of the two who got arrested--sent a lewd, vulgar, and obscene e-mail, the contents of which no one has released to the public, apparently discussing the accuser in terms that poured contempt upon all women.

But if that prosecutor arrested two men who were not even present--and who, furthermore, have an establishable alibi--then he has let his pandering go to the point of abject carelessness. Frankly, if that ecdysiast is telling the truth--which I doubt right now, but I still admit the possibility that something untoward did happen, beyond her being offered that disgusting gig to begin with--then I would be shocked on her behalf at the incompetence that the county prosecutor is now showing, by arresting two men who were not even on the scene.

In other news, police are searching the two suspects' dorm rooms, and the DA thinks that he can "nail" a third man. This while attorneys representing other lax players also say that the two arrestees were not even on the scene at the time that the attack, if attack it was, took place.

What a mess--and thanks a lot, whoever organized that stupid party! Now two of your buddies are in the slammer and facing years of lockup over something you started. Think about it, boys. Think about it...!

OpinionJournal - Facing Down Iran

Mark Steyn warns us: our lives depend on it.

WorldNetDaily: Book-banning 'gay' profs forced to drop allegations

Here's the latest on the Ohio State book-recommendation flap. Now, the dean of the Mansfield campus has published a notice saying that no "sexual harassment" occurred, and that the faculty and staff will receive additional training in tolerating someone else's political viewpoints.

Why she did not immediately (nor, apparently, at the time of the writing of this article) notify Mr. Savage or his attorneys begs explanation. You'd think that anyone involved in a lawsuit would notify the other party's attorneys, even if she didn't want to communicate directly with one who has legal representation. (By ironclad convention, no attorney communicates directly with another attorney's client.)

The game has not ended here. Mr. Savage is still considering legal action against OSU and the three professors who lodged that frivolous complaint. And can any of you blame him? The dean's pleas that everyone "handle...conflict responsibly and with collegiality" ring especially hollow. (I know, because I personally have been involved with similar conflict in which such high-minded words turned out to mean zero, zip, and zilch.)

And, of course, anyone can buy The Marketing of Evil at the OSU-Mansfield bookstore--they never did "ban" the book, though WorldNetDaily's headlines might have given that misimpression. Not only that, but many in the OSU-M community have awakened to the book who might not have otherwise.

Bottom line: three idiots (I use the word deliberately to mean "one in a world of one's own") thought they could shame someone into silence. As a result, they publicized the very thing they hated--and as any author knows, almost any publicity is good publicity, especially on a controversial subject.

UPDATE: Here's another article on this case, from AgapePress.

Kentucky Literature Prof Removed for Vandalizing Pro-life Display

The sequence of events is:

1. A group of professors at Northern Kentucky University (NKU) formed a group calling itself "Educators for Reproductive Freedom." They gave a group of lectures on campus, lectures that presented the view that abortion ought to remain legal on demand and without apology.
2. A number of dismayed students formed a group calling itself "Northern Right to Life." This group sought and obtained university approval as a student group.
3. Northern Right to Life then sought and got approval to create a "cemetary for the innocents," consisting of 400 small white crosses on a campus lawn.
4. Sally Jacobsen (presumably a PhD), Professor of Literature, saw the display from the window of a classroom where she was conducting a class. She called a break--I don't know whether this was a regularly scheduled break or not--and, during that break, encouraged her students to "express their freedom-of-speech rights to destroy the display." Indeed she did more than that. She joined them in the vandalism, to the extent of tearing down the sign describing the mock cemetary while her students were pulling up the crosses and throwing them into a nearby trash can. While they were doing this, a photographer from the campus newspaper, The Northerner, took a picture.
5. University police, arriving on the scene, notified a dean. Somewhere in the process, someone notified Northern RTL. They came back to campus to retrieve and replant as many crosses as they could. They now plan a vigil--that is to say, a stakeout--to protect the display against any renewed attempt to destroy it.
6. And now Sally Jacobsen has been placed on immediate administrative leave and been told to retire from the university.

The President of NKU has officially expressed his complete disapproval of Prof. Jacobsen's actions. Furthermore, Northern RTL is seeking to file charges against Prof. Jacobsen and those of her students who pulled up those crosses. This article in The Northerner gives further details.

Finally, when a conservative-themed display comes under attack, the campus cops, deans, and president react as they should. It's good to see.

ABC News: No Quick Fix to Solve Soaring Gas Prices

The hucksters are clearly out in force. A company calling itself Fuel Freedom International is peddling a gas-tank additive called MPG-Cap. It comes in pills that you drop into your tank with every fill-up. They claim that you can boost your fuel economy by ten to twenty percent.

An expert with the American Automobile Association says otherwise. At first the company said that he needed a larger dose--so he tried that. It didn't work. Then they said that he needed to drive with the pills for several fill-ups--and then they quit answering their phones.

Disaster and economic hardship always bring out the worst in people. Here is a classic example.

Durham Herald-Sun: 2 Duke Lacrosse Players Charged With Rape and Kidnapping

That's right: that's the case of the Duke lacrosse team having the bad sense to hire two ecdysiasts, one of whom accused members of the team of rape. Now two Duke lax players are formally charged--though with what, we won't know yet, because the indictments are sealed.

When I first commented on this case, no one but Rush Limbaugh had asked whether the complainant was lying. But now a number of witnesses are saying that her attitude and behavior at the time were simply not consistent with that of a rape victim. ABC News has a security guard on tape saying precisely that.

Well, now, you see what you get when you descend into sexual sin to this extent? Haled into court by a politically motivated prosecutor, that's where. And this is hardly the first time that members of the Duke lax team have been caught acting like jerks--in some cases, violating the alcohol policy. As I said before, several things about their behavior, on the night in question and before, give one serious pause. Theirs is a tale of bad judgment and a worse attitude--an attitude of contempt for authority, policy, and the law. And that, apparently, is why the coach was suspended from his duties--because the university had warned him repeatedly to discipline his boys and he wouldn't do it. If he had, they might not have hired the ecdysiasts--and if they hadn't done that, two of their teammates might not now be formally charged with rape.

But bad behavior, or even a history of same, doesn't add up to the crime of rape. Neither does the evidence that I have so far seen show that.

The trial of those boys is likely to be a raucous a circus as has any case in the annals of American jurisprudence. A politically motivated prosecutor flying in the face of the evidence--this is classic made-for-TV crime-drama material.

WorldNetDaily: Experts to fact check 'The Da Vinci Code'

The leader of these experts is D. James Kennedy. He is, of course, not a Catholic at all, but a Presbyterian, and the founder and head of Knox (as in James) Theological Seminary. If anyone of national fame is qualified to attack The DaVinci Code, he is.

WorldNetDaily: Kentucky goes P.C. on B.C., A.D.

Specifically, they are going to require that schools denote dates on each side of the year traditionally marked as the Birth of Christ as "in the Common Era" (CE) and "before the Common Era" (BCE).

What's next? I'll predict what's next: an adoption of the Lagrange Calendar, also known as the French Republican or "Revolutionary" Calendar, and the notations NWE (for New World Era) and BNWE for dating.

The American Family Association has already sent around an e-mail asking people to vote in a poll they have devised. That poll asks whether Congress ought to pass a law saying that AD and BC shall be the law of the land. Now Congress' authority in that regard is legitimately debatable, and some would say that if any State wants to make fools of its authorities and lawful residents, that is that State's business. But the Constitution already speaks of "years of Our Lord" and years of American independence. And that's as it should be.

WorldNetDaily: Se habla entitlement

The headline means, "Entitlement is spoken here" in Spanish. Columnist Star Parker assails the illegal-immigrant activists for demanding their "right" to enter the United States, and their further "rights" to participate in entitlement programs. Add to it that they couch their demands in Spanish.

Ms. Parker also blames Mexican officials--generations of them--for mismanaging the natural beauty and resources of their country. Mexico could be an economic powerhouse if it tried. (Especially with all that oil, but that's another topic.)

Finally, add this to it: Latinos in the American Southwest, especially in southern California, are engaging in the same lawless behavior for which blacks were once infamous. Blacks are improving their reputation now. (Star Parker herself is a case in point, as are Jesse L. Peterson, Thomas Sowell, Walter E. Williams, and the incomparable Mr. Justice Clarence Thomas). Latins are sullying theirs.

WorldNetDaily: More on the OSU/Marketing of Evil flap

The headline from WorldNetDaily is, surprisingly, misleading. Ohio State's faculty has not, as far as I can tell, voted to remove The Marketing of Evil from the university library system. But their investigation of librarian Scott Savage continues, even though the Alliance Defense Fund has already sent a cease-and-desist letter. So to court they will likely go, if I know the ADF.

To recap: A committee on reading requirements for freshmen entertained several recommendations. After many of his colleagues recommended multiple left-leaning books, including many written (or, I daresay, ghost-written) by former President James Earl Carter, Jr., Mr. Savage recommended The Marketing of Evil and three other conservative titles. One of these other three was a title that I would have thought would have rankled his colleagues worst of all: The Professors, by David Horowitz. That work names the names of those university professors whom Horowitz holds most responsible for destroying this country's culture and institutions.

Add to it that Mr. Savage is a Quaker, one who therefore has a conscientious objection to the use of force or violence even in self-protection. That anyone would take anything he says as a threat is beyond ludicrous, as ADF's legal team makes clear.

Also, check out this comment from Rebecca Hegelin, one of WND's regular columnists.

Muslim Brotherhood Kid's Site Says America Wants to Control the Muslim World

I could wish this was the case! Here in America, our politicians can't make up their minds about the need to fight a long war--and this is the kind of propaganda that gets out on the Web, presumably from Egypt. (Hat Tip: MEMRI.)

And--oh, yes!--this site also says that murdering children is part of the Jewish faith. Not only that, but they want Moorish Spain back.

WorldNetDaily: 'Marketing of Evil' returns to top spot

Remember when an Ohio State University librarian drew formal charges of sexual harassment for recommending The Marketing of Evil? Well, in the you-should-have-left-well-enough-alone department, The Marketing of Evil is now a top seller of books again. When it comes to publicity, an author would be hard-pressed to find any publicity that would be bad. This case is no exception.

CBS 'Wants' Bob Schieffer-Katie Couric Team

To be specific, rumors have it that CBS' brass want Bob Schieffer to deliver on-air commentaries on the news, in the tradition of Eric Sevareid and Bill Moyers. And that makes it sound as though CBS is having second thoughts about installing a bit of fluff in the anchor chair.

Of course, that will make no difference. Aside from Katie Couric's lack of qualifications to do the evening news, the most important thing that CBS needs to change is the content of what it offers as news. But they won't--because they actually believe their own swindle.

OpinionJournal - The Generals War

The Wall Street Journal asks whether certain retired generals, who are discontented with Secretary Rumsfeld, know what they are talking about or even have anything coherent to say.

WorldNetDaily: Illegal-alien activists target Lou Dobbs

Why Lou Dobbs? They say:

Lou Dobbs has become the champion zealot of bashing 'illegal immigration' each night at CNN promoting HR 4437 as the only way of dealing with "Broken Borders" to protect the USA. The only way to stop Lou Dobbs, the raving populist xenophobe, is to invoke 'The Achilles heel: AOL.

(That last is a reference to their direct target, which is America Online, since they know they can't target Lou Dobbs directly.)

I say: At first, all I thought that Lou Dobbs had ever done was to tell an illegal-immigrant activist on his show to shut-up the flow of profanity and obscenity he was spewing forth at the time. But this commentary on the Cancun Summit gives a proper perspective on where Mr. Dobbs really stands. Illegal immigration is only part of Mr. Dobbs' beef; the rest concerns a proposal for "economic integration" of the USA and Mexican economies, a prospect that Mr. Dobbs does not think could ever work to the benefit of American citizens. (Truly, I'm surprised that WorldNetDaily didn't link to this--for how can you understand why the illegal-immigrant activists hate Lou Dobbs so much if you don't even report on what the man has actually said?)

In fact, Lou Dobbs had been worrying about illegal immigration and about the "export of jobs" for years. The Wall $treet Journal heaps scorn on him. (Bear in mind that the W$J wants a policy of open borders. I expect them to be the first major media outlet to line up behind the Beast of Revelation when he appears as nothing more than a man willing to crack a few heads to unite the disparate peoples of the world under one government, and one flag. But I digress.) Indeed, four years ago Lou Dobbs made a comment against Islamic terrorism, according to Drudge.

And now he's got some fellow travelers of the Loony Left angry with him. It had to happen sooner or later.

OpinionJournal - Meet Masood Farivar

He's the other Afghani applicant who got away from Yale and went to Harvard instead. But any comparison between him and Sayed Rahmatullah Hashemi is totally invalid.

WorldNetDaily: Fed-up war widow confronts Sheehan

And it's about time.

This war widow has every right to talk. Her husband, who had sired his son before his last deployment and never got to see his son as a result, wrote her on his deathbed and asked her to "take care of the troops." And take care of them, she has done.

And how do you like Cindy Sheehan's response to her? Tell me this: do you tell a widow with a young son that her son will be "fatherless for a lie"? Well, Cindy Sheehan said that.

So now this widow is crashing Cindy Sheehan's pity parties--and a good thing, too.

WorldNetDaily: Librarian attacked by profs for promoting 'Marketing of Evil'

Picture this: a university librarian is accused of sexual harassment. Now what did he do? Did he proposition a fellow librarian, or secretary, or book borrower? Did he post a calendar full of girls in their underwear (or their swimsuits, which might as well be their underwear these days), or crack dirty jokes? When I see the phrase "sexual harassment," that's what I think of--because my affiliation with a major firm (which shall remain nameless) required that I accept training in what sexual harassment is, how to avoid it, and how and when and to whom to report it.

Imagine my surprise when I learn that by "sexual harassment" was meant nothing more serious than recommending a reference work to new students at the university.

The book is David Kupelian's The Marketing of Evil, which is all about sexually oriented messages, given the Madison Avenue treatment, and how these might be contributing to the disgusting spectacle of teachers having affairs with students (said affairs being overwhelmingly heterosexual, but with some homosexual affairs thrown in). And the three professors accusing him are all men! The twist: these men are homosexual, and they automatically assume that The Marketing of Evil speaks out against people like them.

First, have they even read the book? Or are they relying on an account that springs from someone's fevered imagination?

Second, since when is recommending a reference work an act that creates a hostile work environment? I should think that The Marketing of Evil would have the opposite effect--because what I saw represented to me as sexual harassment in the training I got (see above) is pretty disgusting, and the sort of thing I would not permit if I had anything to say about it.

Or are these three professors hoping to sexually harass the new male students, and thus see this work as a threat to their activities?

The article has multiple links, including one to a cease-and-desist letter sent to the university and another showing some of the threatening e-mails that this librarian got--threats he dismissed as inconsequential until those professors actually got the Faculty Senate involved. Here's a sample:

As a gay man I have long ago realized that the world is full of homophobic, hate-mongers who, of course, say that they are not. So I am not shocked, only deeply saddened – and THREATENED – that such mindless folks are on this great campus.

Sorry, pal, but a hostile work environment requires demonstrably lewd, obscene, and lascivious remarks, suggestions, or proposals manifestly intended to embarrass, threaten, or annoy a person or group of persons. I see no manifest intent for anything except a toning-down of the sexual tension that has gotten so much Madison Avenue.

The Alliance Defense Fund has taken up this librarian's case. Let's see whether those three have the intestinal, or gonadal, fortitude to risk a lawsuit naming them personally as defendants.

WorldNetDaily: Florida official told: No substitute oaths

Remember this news item? Well, the village attorney told this smart-aleck councilman that he may not substitute his own oath of office for the official one. And from the loud applause, almost everyone present agreed.

That means that the village council has one vacant spot on it, the sitting councillors might appoint a substitute, and Mr. Basil Dalack is threatening to go all the way to the Supreme Court. Stay tuned.

OpinionJournal - The Meaning of Moussaoui

Yesterday, Zacharias Moussaoui took the stand and boasted of the pain he had had a hand in. Aside from his apparently wish to talk himself into an execution, this penalty phase will have been worth it if even a staid old business paper will strongly support a war against men like him, no matter how long it takes to wage.

OpinionJournal - The Pope's Easter

Daniel Henninger discusses Pope Benedict XVI's Maundy Thursday homily--a hard-hitting speech against Muslim terrorism--and predicts that this Pope will also hit hard against the rise of secularism in Western Europe. He notes--as have others--that the former Eastern Europe hasn't bought into this kind of secularism, and the two parts of Europe are already drawing battle lines.

With regard to terrorism, Pope Benedict actually stated that the terrorists display "blindness and moral perversion." Evidently he still doesn't want to admit that Islam itself is a terrorists' religion. But he will not make the kinds of mealy-mouthed excuses for terrorism that so many in our mainstream (or, as Rush Limbaugh calls it, drive-by) media have been making.

WorldNetDaily: Elected official refuses oath

Of all the stupid stunts that various elected officials have pulled since the Manhattan Incident, this bids fair to be the worst. A town councilman won't take the oath of office because he says that "support[ing] and defend[ing] the Constitution of the United States...against all enemies, domestic and foreign" includes support for any wars in which the federal government might then be fighting.

That is not the case, and a federal judge has warned him that he might so find. Supporting the Constitution does not mean supporting any specific policy of any specific elected official--or at least, it does not mean agreeing with that policy.

It might, however, mean not interfering with it--and I wonder whether that's what that town councilman really has in mind.

WorldNetDaily: Protests backfire!

They never should have waved those signs saying, "This is our continent, not yours!" According to Zogby International, a large number of Americans are answering, "Oh, yeah? We'll see about that!"

FOXNews.com - Lawyer: No DNA Match in Duke Gang Rape Case

And yet the district attorney is still pushing the case forward. At first I thought he simply had more evidence that the public didn't fully appreciate. But when I learned that the DA made his announcement at the school where the alleged victim attended, and not at Duke nor at any neutral town setting (like the Durham Town Hall), that did it. The DA is keeping this case alive for political reasons only.

Let's review what we actually know:

• Duke's men's lacrosse team threw an after-the-game party.
• To liven up this party, they hired two ecdysiasts--a fancy Greek word meaning one who takes off her clothes.
• One of the ecdysiasts later said that three members of the lax team assaulted and raped her.
• She's black, and the lax team members are all white, except one, who does not stand accused or suspected.
• Since then, the coach has resigned, the lax season is cancelled, and one player has drawn a suspension--for what, Duke won't say.

That's all we knew at first. But now we know:

• The accuser claims that three members of the lax team beat her and injured her. But photographs showed that she already had suffered the injuries when she showed up to do the gig.
• As the article describes, DNA testing reveals no DNA from any of the players on her person--a rather remarkable result if the assault took place as she claimed.

We have two issues to deal with. The first is the conduct of the boys. I will comment on the rush-to-judgment issue below. But I must observe that if those boys had not thrown that wild party, and had not hired two amateur ecdysiasts, none of the ensuing police investigation and media circus would have happened. Were I a college athletic director, and found out that one of my coaches had so failed to teach character that his team went out and hired ecdysiasts to spice up an after-the-game party, I'd fire that coach. The very idea of hiring an ecdysiast, whether any criminal act took place later on or not, is unbecoming a gentleman and prejudicial to the athletic program's image. Cancelling the lax season is entirely appropriate, for the same reason. As to the suspension, I cannot comment more on that--I don't know the particulars. But whoever booked those ecdysiasts would rate a suspension in my book on that ground alone.

That said, nothing infuriates me more than does a mischarriage of justice. And that is what appears to be in the making. Bad judgment--even disgustingly bad judgment--on the part of those boys does not excuse a county prosecutor pressing a case for political reasons even though the case falls to the ground. And no one, outside of Rush Limbaugh (at the time of this posting), has asked whether that ecdysiast might be lying.

The lesson for all young men is one that they should have learned long ago: don't indulge such an appetite, and you won't get hurt. Right now, I don't think that any rape or assault occurred. But I do mind those boys making jackasses of themselves by hiring those ecdysiasts in the first place.

Bahraini Reformist: "In the Beginning There Was Man, Not Religion"

This comes from the Middle East Media Research Institute, which always jumps up to the top any article in Middle Eastern media having a pro-reform message.

Almost any reform in the Middle East would be welcome. But I have a problem with sentiments of this sort:

Personally, I am not against religion as such, as long as it is presented as one of the sources of truth and knowledge. But I strongly object to it if it is presented as the only source of truth and knowledge. In the former case, religion constitutes a natural partner in building a culture of tolerance and modernity – whereas in the latter case, it is the source of everything that is absolute [i.e. cannot be questioned]. In the former case, religion is a source of spiritual enrichment and of brotherhood among human beings – and in the latter, it is a source of rigidity and fanaticism, leading to wars and conflicts. In the former case, religion is one of the foundations for building human civilization, and plays a role in its prosperity – but in the latter it is the adversary and rival of civilization.

I can just see the Beast of Revelation propounding just that sort of message. Indeed, I hear that message now, in American media, from people who think that conservative evangelical Christians are a problem in American politics.

I have always maintained that the war that ushers in the Beast will be a three-cornered war, among Christians, Muslims, and secularists. This, unhappily, is a secularistic voice. Note carefully: "Personally, I am not against religion as such...but."

OpinionJournal - Climate of Fear

It's probably named for Michael Crichton's latest novel State of Fear. But this is no less true. Global warming is turning out to be a lot of hot air--but it's hot air with a lot of granting authority behind it. The Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Atmospheric Science at MIT now denounces the system of fraud and intimidation that keep the global warming controversy, zombie-like, still jerking.

WorldNetDaily: Public school teachers gone wild!

The issue this time isn't teachers going on love trysts with their students, though that in itself is bad, and rampant, enough. This time the issue is politics in the classroom--expressed this time with some very obscene language.

Now I can understand a teacher making an occasional political statement. But a teacher making such a statement shouldn't take up the whole class with it. And if a teacher is going to talk politics in class, then he needs to preface, or at least accompany, his remarks with a disclaimer. Here's my suggestion:

The views expressed by your teacher are my own and do not necessarily represent those of [such-a] State/Commonwealth, [such-a] City/County, [such-a] School District, or this School.

Unhappily, that's not the usual course. Instead, we see long, involved multimedia (in my day they called them "audiovisuals") presentations lampooning government officeholders (all on one side), lengthy rants and raves, and worse yet, the offering of class credit for political activity--again, all on one side, and often teacher-directed.

It's enough, as Ms. Malkin wraps up, to consider homeschooling.

WorldNetDaily: Iran 1 step from atomic bomb

The media is full of the announcements. Even The Wall Street Journal thinks that these are warlike pronouncements, and that America needs to plan for a war.

Could this be the beginning of Ezekiel's War (chh. 38-39)? Stay tuned.

WorldNetDaily: Homosexual hobbits?

According to Ted Turner, they might be. At issue: Ted Turner acquired the premiere broadcast rights for the Lord of the Rings films. He's going to present two of them (Fellowship and Two Towers) this weekend on TBS. He made a promotional video for the films, showing Frodo and Sam together. The trouble is that he accompanied this with a clip from a song titled "Secret Lovers."

Here again, Hollywood (and Television City) doesn't believe in buddies anymore. In the world of Annie Proulx, the producers of Brokeback Mountain, and now, apparently, Ted Turner, buddies do not exist. When two persons of the same sex care as deeply for another's welfare that each would sacrifice his life for the other (like Frodo and Sam), they must be lovers.

In fact, the Bible is full of buddy pairs. David and Jonathan probably make the most famous buddy pair. Paul and Barnabas were two buddies that had a falling-out. And no one ever suggested that their relationships were any more intimate than that.

Until today.

WorldNetDaily: Author: Shroud of Turin wrongly condemned

The reason: those who dated the Shroud for carbon-14 did it wrong--which is actually a common-enough mistake, and yet another reason to call carbon-14 dating into question. Not to say that the Shroud has to be authentic for Christ to have been Real--Christianity does not depend on relics. (The Second Commandment forbids that sort of thing.) But it is of a piece with multiple earlier re-examinations of dismissals of biblical stories--like the supposed non-existence of Nineveh.

Hollywood to Turn Michael's Book on Terri Schiavo Into Biased Movie

With Mike Farrell involved, how could it be otherwise? Because it's Michael Schiavo's book (when another book, that really tells the truth, is available), how could it be otherwise?

Needless to say, this is one movie you do want to miss. Indeed, it's another reason why some of my fellow conservatives have sworn off the movies for good.

Before the Next Sex Scandal - Christianity Today Magazine

The article almost came too late. Four years ago, we first heard about Catholic clergy seducing underage boys. This blog wasn't around then, but I mentioned to anyone who would listen even then that for every Father John Geoghan, there were ten T. Lawrence Shannons. Or maybe ten Lonnie Lathams, to name the case with which this article opens.

The article is all the more valuable because it talks about not only the "before," but also the "after." That is: what happens when someone, clergy or layman, already has fallen into sexual sin? (Hint: it doesn't involve ostracism, except as a last resort. Matthew 18:15-20 lays down that guideline. But it does involve tough corrective measures.)

The Judas We Never Knew - Christianity Today Magazine

We never knew this Judas, says Christianity Today, because he never existed. It's as sound a trouncing of this hoary old Gnostic chestnut as any I have seen.

My Way News - Senate Vote Shelves Immigration Bill

The proponents wanted to advance it under a no-amendments rule. But they needed sixty votes to do it--and they got only thirty-eight.

Democrats and Republicans are blaming one another. But what this article fails to mention is that the Capitol switchboard was totally jammed. (And the reason I know this is that another member of my household was trying to get through, and couldn't.)

Slant alert: you can tell the slant of the article from this quote alone:

leaving in doubt prospects for passing a bill offering the hope of citizenship to millions of men, women and children living in the United States illegally.

"Hope," you say? Oh, sure--like the "hope" of winning the Irish Sweepstakes! I could as easily have said, "offering the hope that right-thinking and right-acting statesmen will eventually avert a security and cultural disaster."

Ancient Text Shows a Different Judas - Yahoo! News

And not that ancient, either--it is one of the Gnostic writings, denounced as heretical (literally, dividing) throughout history, and deservedly so. That the Associated Press should be raking this up after all this time shows where they're coming from.

OpinionJournal - New Time, Same Katie

It's official: The CBS Evening News with Katie Couric.

I've talked about the troubles at CBS for years. First, they talked about signing Diane Sawyer--and I thought they'd blown their gaskets then. Then it was Katie Couric--and I thought their mental state had deteriorated even further. (I still do.) I also thought that she wouldn't last very long before Peter Jennings chewed her up and spat her out--but then Peter Jennings died, and with him passed the era of the avuncular anchorman.

People had doubts that the Katie Couric un-hook would succeed--but it did, mostly because Leslie Moonves was determined. I still remember how I greeted the official announcement. Then I didn't think about it any more for awhile--until...!

And as bad as that is, her replacement at Today is arguably worse. I didn't think it could possibly be. And even when I heard that Meredith Vieira was getting the nod, I thought nothing of it. That was before I heard that she, sent to cover an anti-war protest, actually participated in it.

Bring it on, CBS and NBC. Fox will blow you away.

Abortion Practitioner Who Killed Girl in Failed Abortion Hits Pro-Lifer With Car

Two issues in this piece.

The first is the background. This is George Tiller, MD, who has already earned more than his share of notoriety even among abortion providers. A grand jury might soon call him to testify in the death of Christin Gilbert, age 19, under his "care." As the article makes clear, her family is planning to petition for a grand-jury investigation on a charge, I assume, of manslaughter (a legal term meaning "gross negligence that causes the death of another person").

Separately, Dr. Tiller has earned the wrath of the pro-life movement because of his explicit advocacy and advertisement of late-term abortions. So: yesterday, Mr. Mark Geitzen was outside Dr. Tiller's practice, measuring the driveway to make sure that his pro-life prayer teammates would stay far enough away from it to comply with the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act. The sound of an automobile engine over-revving made him look up. Dr. Tiller, at the wheel of his car, had gunned his engine and was barrelling straight toward Mr. Greitzen. Caught by surprise, Mr. Greitzen couldn't even decide whether to jump to the left or the right. As it was, Dr. Tiller's car, a Jeep Grand Cherokee, clipped Mr. Greitzen in the leg. Dr. Tiller then sped away as far as he could push his car's engine, according to multiple eyewitnesses.

Now let me see: it would seem that Mr. Greitzen could easily sue Dr. Tiller for:

1. Operating an automobile in a careless and negligent manner.
2. Causing injury by this negligence.
3. Leaving the scene of an accident.

And that's assuming that the Wichita DA does not prosecute for felonious vehicular assault and battery! Mr. Greitzen has ample evidence of that, in that Dr. Tiller drove down the center of a driveway that is two car-widths wide.

Mister District Attorney, I call upon you to do your duty. If you do not, then the country will know that you apply a double standard to the law, and that certain people, who are then and there within their rights, are no longer deserving of the common protections that the law affords against the use of physical violence to settle political or philosophical disputes.

OpinionJournal - The Anti-Kelo

Municipalities have traditionally tackled redevelopment in one of two ways:

1. Hire one single developer, get a plan from him, and then kick everybody out who doesn't agree. That's what happened to the Kelos of New London, CT. It is the egregious practice that the Supreme Court in Kelo v. New London essentially ratified.
2. Do nothing.

The Mayor and city council of Anaheim, CA, had a different idea. Recognizing that city government often stood in the way of redevelopment, with inflexible zoning plans and a permitting process that hurt anyone who wanted to renovate, the city council decided that in a truly blighted area, they would waive permitting fees and liberally grant zoning variances to private individuals doing their own renovation and redevelopment. Moreover, instead of granting a franchise to one developer, the Mayor invited several to come in, each to redevelop a piece of downtown Anaheim. Result: those developers now had to compete on price for downtown properties, and local residents and business owners could now sell out for much more than any eminent-domain board would have dribbled out to them. No resentment--and no white elephants, either. And as the Mayor would surely agree, you can't argue with success.

OpinionJournal - Swing Justice

Justice Anthony Kennedy of SCOTUS doesn't appreciate the editorial attention he's gotten lately. Well, too bad, as The Wall Street Journal says. If you're going to be a swing vote, then it's one thing to do it because you don't buy into anyone's pre-packaged deal. It's quite another when you rule one way on one case and another way on another case, according to nothing but whim--or, as the Journal so aptly put it, make yourself "open for intellectual rent." Result: you don't please anybody.

On the other hand, the best attitude that any Justice can take is not to care what others think. But if you don't really know what to think yourself, you rely on others to think for you. That's Kennedy's problem.

WorldNetDaily: DeLay to file ethics charge against Cynthia McKinney

That might seem incongruous at first--after all, what Cynthia McKinney did was not so much unethical as obnoxious. But the real name of what the media have called "The House Ethics Committee" is actually the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct. And Cynthia McKinney's official conduct, or at least her conduct in her official setting, is indeed at issue.

Striking a law-enforcement officer who is then and there engaged in the lawful performance of his duties is a felony in whatever jurisdiction in which it occurs. That is what Cynthia McKinney frankly admits to doing, and for which she refuses to apologize. (She disputes whether the Capitol Policeman was "then and there in the lawful exercise of his duty"--but Tom DeLay is not the only Congressman who has stated that the Capitol Policeman certainly was.) Even The Atlanta Journal-Constitution decries her acts as arrogant and unproductive. Now you know you're in the wrong, or you should, when your own allies tell you that you are making a "trumped-up charge."

More than that, we now learn that a grand jury will investigate. Now that should prove interesting.

Prof. criticized for overpopulation view

Remember Eric Pianka? And Forrest Mims? Well, now that Dr. Pianka has received some poison e-mails (including one message I must condemn out-of-hand, that threatens him with death), he is beating a mealy-mouthed retreat. He now accuses unnamed others (and he must really mean Dr. Mims) of quoting him out-of-context. Dr. Mims is having none of that. The gist of his retort is: "I was there; I heard you; you want ninety percent of humanity to die; don't try to weasel your way out of this one."

And naturally, the University of Texas insists that "the views expressed by this particular faculty member are his own and do not represent", etc., etc., etc.

Most tellingly, however, Dr. Pianka never once said that he never expressed anything remotely similar to the speech that Dr. Mims quoted him as making. In other words, he never called Dr. Mims a liar. That's all the confirmation we need.

WorldNetDaily: Who's pulling strings of illegal alien activists?

Joseph L. Farah seems to have bought into the Conspiracy Theory of History--the notion that an eighty-years-running conspiracy has been making and breaking Presidents, suborning Senators and Representatives, and in general directing history where they think it should go. And that end is a one-world federation, primarily so that businessmen need not deal with international relations anymore--they'll just abolish them.

Joe, bless your heart, if that were true, then how do you explain John F. Kerry's execrable behavior in the Election of 2004? An arrogant, pompous ass like that does not run a race merely to lose. And after that performance, you can no longer say, as George C. Wallace did, that "there's not a dime's worth of difference between the two parties."

About the only way to explain why John Kerry ran such an insult-laden, mendacious campaign is that he offended his fellow members of the conspiracy, they determined that they wouldn't let him be President, and he sought to prove that he could be President and run the conspiracy no matter what anybody else thought. In other words, the Election of 2004 was an inter-office squabble on a grand scale.

Otherwise, the Conspiracy Theory of History cannot explain recent American political events--because those events make zero sense in a conspiratorial context.

Revelation tells us that a one-world dictator will, indeed, arise. But the man pulling his strings will be Satan, not some poor human imitator or group of imitators.

OpinionJournal - The Wrong Time to Lose Our Nerve

A senior White House staffer--speaking, for once, in his own name and not on background--rebuts William Buckley, George Will, Francis Fukuyama--and, by extension, Patrick J. Buchanan. He says, in short, that the war is not lost. But he also reminds us of a truism that Actor Ben Gazzara expressed so well in Fireball Forward:

Men who feel licked are gonna get licked!

OpinionJournal - Islam's Imperial Dreams

This actually comes from Norman Podhoretz' magazine Commentary, but is just as true: Muslims aren't just reactive; they're pro-active. They want their Baghdad Caliphate back, and they think Osama bin Laden (if he's still alive; where is he now?) is their New Baghdad Caliph.

WorldNetDaily: Study: Go to church, live 3.1 years longer

The study involved is a meta-analysis--literally something that takes apart the findings from other studies after they are done. Meta-analysis took years to gain widespread acceptance--as I know, because I once performed it.

In this case, Daniel Hall, MD, from Pittsburgh, PA, found that going to church extends your life to an extent comparable to regular exercise and the taking of anti-cholesterol "statins." (You've seen the ads for at least two of them, which go by the trade names Crestor and Lipitor.) Not only that, but going to church is cheaper than buying statins, and that's assuming that you pay the tithe.

Dr. Hall did not, however, figure out why going to church will extend your life. Well, as a former physician who now attends what might as well be a lay community seminary, I could tell Dr. Hall the reason. When you go to a church--especially a good one--you get regular advice on what you should and should not have on your brain, what should and should not matter to you, and how and how not to live. While that advice is usually short on specifics (except for not soliciting prostitutes and perhaps also, as at my church, not taking alcohol), it consists of general principles that condemn overindulgence and suggest that a person ought to find his happiness in his relationship to God and not in any material possession or pursuit. One who takes that advice to heart tends not to eat fatty foods, and in general to follow a "low-risk" lifestyle. (He probably doesn't go to the movies, either, because of their trashy content, and as a result avoids the fattening and artery-hardening movie popcorn.)

That Dr. Hall is an Episcopal priest makes the incompleteness of his research the more striking. What sort of advice does he give in his church? I am left to believe that at my church, where the advice is rock-solid and often hard-hitting, my fellow attendees are probably living five to seven years longer than they otherwise would.

WorldNetDaily: Jurors: Death for Moussaoui

To be specific, the jurors have made a preliminary determination that Zacharias Moussaoui participated in the Manhattan Plot, that his lies to authorities resulted in deaths that those same authorities might otherwise have been able to prevent, and that he conspired to destroy an aircraft and use weapons of mass destruction. He therefore is eligible for the penalty of death.

Now "eligible for the penalty of death" is not yet the same as "sentenced to death." The sentencing phase begins later. The next step: a victim-impact hearing. Considering the kind of testimony that the court will likely take at such a hearing, I am now 99% confident that he will receive a sentence of death.

Not only did Moussaoui convict himself out of his own mouth when he took the stand, but also Khalid Sheikh Muhammad (Al-Qa'ida's J-3, who got caught with his pants down and his passwords written down and accessible in Pakistan) identified as a Manhattan Incident plotter. Given that, his conviction and execution-eligibility finding were well-nigh inevitable.

Blessed Are the Courageous - Christianity Today Magazine

I don't often dispute a conclusion by the editors of Christianity Today. But I must do it this time.

The linked article is basically a plump for amnesty for 12 million illegal aliens, and paints a distorted picture of them. It gives us one anecdote suggesting that all "undocumented workers" are hard workers just trying to make a living. It ignores the spectacle of half a million of these aliens swarming the streets of Los Angeles and declaring war against the United States, with the clear military objective of repossession of the American Southwest by and for the United Mexican States--or rather for a revived Aztec Empire.

Christianity Today wants us to remember whom we're talking about. To which I agree--let's remember. Let's remember that a large portion of these twelve million flouters of our laws do not deserve our sympathy, and indeed deserve our greatest caution.

Forrest Mims speaks out about the wacky scientist

Here is the dope on Eric Pianka's rant to the Texas Academy of Sciences, in Forrest Mims' own words. We now learn that Dr. Pianka insisted that no one record the event in any medium, so that we have only Dr. Mims' account of what he said. (Ever notice that those who scream the loudest and ask how other people dare record their words are the very ones belting out the most whacked-out words in any public venue?)

Lexington Herald-Leader | 04/02/2006 | Evolution theory on last legs, says seminary teacher

In fact, it's William Dembski, PhD, who writes his own blog, provoked controversy at Baylor University (who invited him to establish a research center on their campus before they disinvited him), and is now a seminarian. He is confident that within ten years people will reject evolution as scientifically untenable.

I am not so hopeful--not because I doubt Prof. Dembski's theories, but rather because I expect "strong delusion" [II Thess. 2:9-10f.] and not common sense, to rule the day.

OpinionJournal - Ivory Tower Stonewall

John Fund finds a Yale alumni family who lost a loved on in the Manhattan Incident. Yale treats them with no more respect than it treats anyone else.

Full disclosure compels me to reveal that I, too, am a graduate of Yale. I have regarded Yale's current president as a disappointment since his accession to office. He's the one who turned down Sam Bass' grant for courses in Western civilization. And now this.

Thank you, Yale, for my education--and good-bye. That is the only attitude I can take now.

OpinionJournal - Can the Shiite Center Hold?

The Wall Street Journal suggests that it can. Firebrands like Muqtada al-Sadr do not have nearly the level of majority support that sensible men like Ayatollah al-Sistani enjoy. Of course, in a country with no democratic traditions, anything can happen. But hope remains.

Some Doctors Voice Worry Over Abortion Pills' Safety - New York Times

This article (from The New York Times, no less) puts the "M and M" from mifepristone (Mifeprex, once known as Roussel-UCLAF Lot 486) into perspective. Of 500,000 abortions performed with this drug, six have resulted from the death of the woman--a mortality of greater than 1 per 100,000 cases. The comparable mortality from traditional surgical abortion is 1 per 10,000,000 cases.

In any other treatment context, when a new treatment kills ten times as many patients as does the old one, doctors shun it. And many doctors are at least having second thoughts. Yet prescriptions of this drug continue--because the taking of this drug is a political act, not a true therapeutic (literally, healing) act.

WorldNetDaily: Afghan convert sheds Muslim name

It happens. I personally know at least one other person, whose country-of-origin I will not name, who shed his birth name and adopted a Christian name when he became a Christian.

And so that man once known as Abdul Rahman now will call himself Joel, after the Old Testament prophet of that name, whom St. Peter quoted on the occasion of Pentecost.

WorldNetDaily: Scientists cheer holocaust wish

A word of caution: this story comes second-hand, from one witness, one Forrest Mims III, who says that he was present at a meeting of the Texas Academy of Science when:

1. Another scientist by the name of Eric Pianka actually said that the human population needs to be reduced to ten percent of present levels, and his favorite method of accomplishing that aim was an airborne strain of Ebola.
2. The academy audience burst out in long, sustained applause.

Now if--big if--that story is true, then two questions spring to mind:

1. Why would anyone even think in such terms, much less speak them out loud?
2. Why would his fellow scientists applaud him?

Mims' account is interesting for mentioning that Dr. Pianka allegedly used the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse as his illustration. In fact, Revelation 6:1-8 tells us that twenty-five percent of the human population will die by the time the Fourth Horseman (on the pale-green horse) completes his ride, and that one-third of the remainder will die in the Sixth Trumpet Judgment. This will reduce the human population by half. Many of the rest will die in the Battle of the Second Coming of Christ.

But Dr. Pianka, apparently, isn't talking about the Second Coming. He's actually proposing the deliberate murder of nine out of every ten of his fellow human beings.

Mark that down in the be-careful-what-you-wish-for department--after TruthOrFiction.com gets through investigating Dr. Mims' story.

WorldNetDaily: Bloomberg: Illegals needed to take care of golf courses

Of all the mealy-mouthed excuses for failure to enforce the law that I have ever heard a law-enforcement official or government executive make, this is the worst--except for El Presidente Vicente Fox (as in Crazy As)' own excuses for failure to stop people from crossing into our country illegally. Even that is a debatable point--after all, when governments stop people from leaving, we call it totalitarianism. Hizzoner's complaint that you can't prosecute people because then you wouldn't have people to take care of the golf courses is not debatable--it is just plain stupid.

I grow tired of hearing that illegal aliens are a vital piece of our nation's economy. Nation-states who give up their economies to immigrants end up changing in ways that the natives will live to regret. This is especially true in this case, with all those Chicano activists renewing their separatist calls for returning the American Southwest to Mexico.

Mayor Bloomberg, sadly, isn't alone in this folly. Larry Kudlow, who evidently never recognizes a terrorist until said terrorist is holding a knife to his throat, doesn't want to see anyone deported, and totally dismisses the spectacle of illegal aliens asserting that we somehow stole Mexican land. The Wall $treet Journal has never distinguished citizens from non-lawful residents, and clearly wishes that ethnic politics would go away. It won't, until Jesus chases it away when He establishes His Millennial Kingdom. Until then, we fight to preserve our culture from those who know only a culture of corruption and cyclical civil war.

My Way News - Carroll Rejects Statements Made in Iraq

As I would fully expect.

A cardinal rule concerning public statements is that you never, never, lend credence to any statement made under duress. Duress makes all bargains illegitimate and non-binding.

This reminds me of the gradual release of US POW's from Vietnam (and we still don't know that we got them all back, though that's another story). The repatriated prisoners carefully waited until all their buddies who were going to get out, got out--and then they released a series of devastatingly incriminating drawings and statements testifying to their brutal treatment at the hands of the Communists.

And so it is with Jill Carroll. I never took seriously anything she said while she was in captivity. Today she disavows all those statements, so now we know what she really thinks.

And what she thinks--or rather what she experienced--is that fundamentalistic Muslims are a bunch of lying thugs. So much for religions of peace.