Thursday, October 26, 2006

WorldNetDaily: The rise of the procreative class

The title of this article is misleading. Jack Cashill devotes only a small portion of his article to the suggestion that a new procreative class will inherit some of our nation's cities and make them work. He spends the rest of his time--and time well spent--attacking Robert Florida's recent Rise of the Creative Class as a flawed and incomplete analysis of the trends in major US cities.

The flaw in Robert Florida's thesis is his use of the proportion of homosexual people in a city as a measure of that city's creative potential. Cashill shows convincingly that that proportion is an indicator of something else: that the now-dominant "creative class" has ceased to be procreative and is now become rigid and authoritarian, with long lists of forbidden "hate words," a tendency to accept any "science" that supports their anti-procreative ideology, even if it is flawed (or fraudulent), and the deliberate shunning of any group that disagrees with them.

I'll vouch for something else: that in the end, the creative class ceases to create anything meaningful. You're not even likely to get the next Great Invention that will change society for the better, like the electric light, the radio, TV, the personal computer (the other PC), and now nanotechnology. How can you have innovation when you police thought?

And you're even less likely to get any truly great art, literature, or music. Behold the products of the "creative" Blue Parentheses today. No, don't behold them. They'll drive you right over the edge of madness, if they don't bore you to death.

Cashill perhaps didn't have space to mention one last point, but I'll mention it here: those that are having all the children are those that value them. Right now that includes conservative Christians (and really conservative Jews, too) on one side, and Muslims on the other. That will lead to a shooting war over the heartland, while the few remaining denizens of the Blue Parentheses gaze on in horror, waiting to see which side will hale them before their respective (or should I say prospective) post-war tribunals. (To those same Blue Paren denizens, I give you this advice: the Christians will treat you far more kindly than will the Muslims. You know that neither one of us will care to watch your disgusting movies anymore. But at least we won't chop your heads off.)

Saturday, October 21, 2006

WorldNetDaily: Baptist 'exit strategy' means get kids out of public schools

This time, the Southern Baptist Convention is doing more than talk about having parents take their children out of public schools. Now a prominent California pastor is leading a movement to persuade the SBC actually to build its own network of schools. So that now, in addition to government schools and Catholic schools, we will now have Southern Baptist schools. Or perhaps the SBC will set up a clearing house for home-schooling families.

This paragraph indicates the seriousness of their purpose:

...Christian parents are obligated to provide their children with a Christ-centered education. Anyone who thinks that a few hours of youth group and church will have more influence on a child's faith and worldview than 40 to 50 hours a week of public school classes, activities, and homework is simply not being honest with himself.
Especially if youth group is short on Christian education and a little too long on partying, like some youth groups that I personally have seen. The trick with youth ministry is not to "go native" with the youth, but rather to treat them as the adults that they once were expected to be.

Here's another paragraph:

Since the convention already owns buildings that could be used, has on staff many teachers who could contribute, and can take advantage of satellite and Internet technologies, there should be no major obstacles, officials said.
As I said, the time for idle chit-chat seems to be over. If this account is accurate, then the SBC is ready to answer with deeds, not words. This is likely to cause an explosion.

Tuesday, October 17, 2006

Mujahideen Gather Information on Anchorage International Airport

I don't know what's worse: that Islamists are gathering information on a US airport (though why Anchorage, AK, I can't quite figure), or that the airport's cameras are hooked to the Internet and subject to such an elementary hack. Senator Ted Stevens (R-AK), call your chief-of-staff. This can only embarrass you, and worse than your Bridge to Nowhere earmark.

read more | digg story

Monday, October 16, 2006

WorldNetDaily: Book: Bush aides called evangelicals 'nuts,' 'goofy'

This according to David Kuo, who wrote it all down in a book titled Tempting Faith: An Inside Story of Political Seduction, and also said as much to Lesley Stahl on CBS' Fifty-nine-and-a-half Minutes Too Late. Among other quotes:
You name the important Christian leader and I have heard them mocked by serious people in serious places.
But, significantly, never Bush himself.

I can tell you exactly what's happened. Bush named a bunch of "professionals" to his staff. Many of those people are nominal Christians at best, and agnostic if you really scratch under their skin. They simply can't fathom the Gospel Message, the Proverbs of Solomon (and especially not Solomon's lament of his excesses in Ecclesiastes), or the Letters of Paul. Much less do they grasp how important a guide the Bible really is to public policy. So of course they think we're nuts.

The challenge is to get Bush to appoint better people. But this is not a reason to throw him over for some Democrat.

WorldNetDaily: 2nd warning for Muslims to leave U.S. before attack

Remember this? Now another such warning has come through. from yet another senior Al-Qa'ida commander in Afghanistan. And once again, this is not a complaint about discrimination. This is a statement that an attack will come, and Muslims need to be out of the USA if they don't want to get hurt.

The time is rapidly approaching when people will have to choose up sides.

Saturday, October 14, 2006

WorldNetDaily: Muslim stabs wife when daughter becomes Christian

Another honor killing, this time in Australia. Do not think, therefore, that honor killings are unique to Arab or East Asian lands.

The details of the case seem to show that the irate husband was injured badly himself--how, the article does not say. The police have not even decided to charge him with anything--yet.

I do have one comment about the last sentence in the article:

The Quran does instruct the faithful to kill those who leave the faith but Muslim leaders have said that is not to be taken literally.
Oh, yeah? Is that why this honor killing didn't occur? Oh, excuse me--it did occur.

Sorry, I don't buy that excuse about not taking that passage literally. If a belief system has any self consistency at all, then its writings may interpret themselves. We say that about the Holy Scriptures all the time. And the Koran (or Quran, or however you spell it) repeatedly says, "Fight" and "Kill."

The Aussies have already told Muslims in their country: Observe the customs of a pluralistic society, or get out. We need to say the same. Once again, I ask: Where is our White House Conference, or Presidential Commission, or Senate Select Committee, on Religious Ideals and their Consequences?

Monday, October 09, 2006

WorldNetDaily: Israel on alert for Syrian attack

Specifically, Israel has upgraded the alert status of its forces on the Golan Heights. Their moves have been relatively quiet--they have not, for example, moved in heavy artillery or similar weapons. But when a neighboring dictator starts making public pronouncements about preparing for war, Israel would be foolish not to take it seriously.

WorldNetDaily: Thanks for cleaning house, Democrats!

Andrew Longman points out the obvious: the Foley scandal (if you grant that anyone is still talking about it when North Korea just conducted a nuclear test) will clean the Republican house in a way that the Republicans themselves would never have been able to do. Lack of courage is but one reason why practicing homosexuals still exist on Republican congressional staffs, and even among the elected officials themselves. A clubbish attitude always militates against discipline, even when discipline is necessary. But Longman points out that the traditional media organs--which I call the Fishwrap Axis--would never forgive the Republicans for purging their legislative staffs and inviting homosexual Sneators and Representatives out of the Party. But when Democrats do the job for the Republicans, the Fishwrappers don't seem to mind, or even to notice!

Bottom line: regardless of the outcome of these midterm elections, the outlook for the next Presidential election will be even brighter for family-friendly advocates than it otherwise would have been. To paraphrase Longman, family-minded voters will be better able to trust candidates--Republicans, anyway--who say that they share their values.

Add to it that Republicans still represent populations that have a higher proportion of folks that are:

  1. married,
  2. with children,
  3. and lots of them.

WorldNetDaily: North Korea goes nuclear

The latest and most reliable reports state that the test produced an artificial earthquake of Richter magnitude 4.2. The Fox News Channel quotes unnamed sources as estimating the equivalent TNT tonnage at anywhere from 5 to 15 kilotons. (The latter figure was also the TNT equivalent force of the Hiroshima bomb.)

This cancels all bargains. Joseph L. Farah says it best: stop fooling around and knock out North Korean launch sites. The UN has called an emergency Security Council meeting--fat chance of anything of substance coming from that quarter.

UPDATE: Michelle Malkin has this map from one of her readers. You read that right: we are in range. That's why this cancels all bargains.

Friday, October 06, 2006

Mark Foley and Pots Calling Kettles Black

That's right, sportsfans: I see a lot of pots calling one or two kettles black.

If anyone has any reason to condemn former Representative Mark Foley (R-Florida), it would be someone like myself. And yes, I think he is better out of the House simply by reason of what he has acknowledged doing, either directly or indirectly. And what is that? Striking up a friendship with a page when such a friendship would be inappropriate is not his sin. Suggesting that a page take off his clothes is. That is what the infamous AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) logs show--and if, as some have suggested in public (and to yours truly in private), they were forged, then Foley's resignation begs explanation.

Four issues present themselves at the time of this writing. First, the e-mails. They were all that Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL) knew about. The family of the page involved wanted the friendship to stop, and Hastert did all that a reasonable and prudent senior officer would or even could have done: told him to stop. The only thing he might have failed to do was to follow up on it--but such follow-up might have laid him open to criticism for trying to invite a homosexual person out of the Party merely for being a homosexual.

Second is the content of the AIM logs, and particularly words attributed to Foley. They are as disgusting as anyone has so far claimed. I will not link to them here; their content would have to carry the NC-17 (formerly X) rating from the MPAA. No matter what the circumstance or the provocation (of which more next), an adult does not talk that way even to another adult, particularly someone younger, more particularly not a subordinate in one's workplace. Now I say another adult because some doubt now exists as to whether the page involved was a Constitutional adult at the time of the AIM interaction, and not a minor as originally claimed.

Which brings me to the third issue: the circumstances under which the AIM logs came to be. We now learn that the page involved might have deliberately egged Foley on in order to tease or haze him, and that he and his buddies foolishly saved their AIM logs--which House Democratic campaign aide Rahm Emmanuel or someone close to him later stole. If so, then the page is guilty of his own particular sin. That does not excuse Foley. But it does support Hastert's contention that he knew nothing of the AIM logs or their salacious content until the story broke a week ago.

And finally we have the disgraceful spectacle of a bunch of Democrats calling for Hastert to resign, and then suggesting that if they were elected, the pages would be safe. That is a filthy lie. The history of Representative Gerry Studds (D-MA) belies that sentiment. (And to make matters worse, Representative Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, voted numerous times, during five terms of Congress, to make Gerry Studds a committee chairman once again even after he turned his back on the House on the occasion of his censure.) The further spectacles of Representative Barney Frank (D-MA) and, of course, President Clinton (D) render the Democrats utterly unqualified to judge either Mark Foley's case or Dennis Hastert's handling of it.

And now, my recommendations:

  1. Any Democrat who dares suggest that Dennis Hastert ought to lay down his speakership over this or any other issue should just shut up--unless said Democrat is ready to condemn Gerry Studds, Barney Frank, and Bill Clinton for their behavior, and the rest of their caucus for supporting these men.
  2. Any Republican who thinks Dennis Hastert ought to go must either (a) be able to replace him as Speaker, or (b) know someone who is. I can understand suggesting that someone else might serve the Party better as Speaker than Dennis Hastert has done, or can in future. But if one is going to carp against him, fine--tell me the name of his suggested replacement.
As to Mark Foley, he's out of Congress, and his conduct ought now to be a non-issue. The real issue is what a prospective Speaker Pelosi would do. That ought to scare any thinking and loyal American.

Monday, October 02, 2006

WorldNetDaily: North American Union threat gets attention of congressmen

For months, WorldNetDaily has been following a story with strange hints of attempts to form a North American Union, analogous to the European Union. In the process they have chased a lot of rumors, including one of a planned north-to-south highway that would not be part of the Interstate Highway System and along which international long-haul truckers could move all manner of goods without being subject to State safety inspections along the way.

Many people in and out of government have dismissed the North American Union allegation out of hand. Of course, some of those people dismiss WorldNetDaily as an Internet nut site--which it most certainly is not. Others have simply said that WND is misconstruing a far less-reaching plan for increased security cooperation among the three territorial giants of North America. (For the government's official denials, click here.)

But now four US Congressmen are on record as expressing their opposition to the concept. One of them has gone so far as to introduce a House Resolution condemning any such union as this. This will force some debate in Congress, and maybe now we'll learn the truth of the matter--or separate fact from fiction.

One thing that gives me pause about this story is that any such North American Union would have to involve the British Commonwealth. After all, Canada is a member of the Commonwealth, and was part of the British Empire before that. Then, too, the USA and Canada have a military history between them almost as contentious as that between the USA and Mexico. Still, a union between the USA and Canada has been a staple of popular fiction even before NAFTA. The details we've been getting from our government have been worse than sketchy, and President Bush has not been willing to support the security of our borders, northern or southern, until recent political events forced his hand. A Congressional investigation of the claims and counterclaims is long overdue.