The Caretaker

WorldNetDaily: Chuck Norris Reports from Iraq

2007-09-17T09:54:00.000-04:00

And what he has to report, you won't read in the Mainstream Media. "Morale is up--way up!" He should know: he's on USO tour, and has personally met with 10,000 soldiers. He also has been to Iraq before the surge, so when he says that the surge is working, he knows what he's talking about.

Pay attention, the next time your Senator or Representative deliberately tries to make you war-weary, and then waves a bunch of push-poll results on the floor of his/her respective House saying that you're war-weary. And remember this along with the Democrats' incredible argumentum ad hominem against General David Petraeus.

Do We Have The Will To Win? -- Linda Chavez -- GOPUSA

2007-09-14T11:58:00.000-04:00

Linda Chavez wonders whether Americans have the stomach for a long war--a good question, considering the nitwits that our fellow citizens continue to elect. What would have happened if the Senate had treated "Ike" the way it treated General Petraeus this week? Maybe Ike wouldn't have kept Patton on such a short leash...!

Sadly, the Senate's behavior is not--entirely--without precedent. Consider General Curtis E. LeMay USAF, head of the Strategic Air Command and subsequently Chief of Staff of the Air Force. The world thinks he was a power-mad tyrant, and for no better reason than that he was the head of SAC for all those years, and made SAC what it was.

And I'm also reminded of the way Hollywood began to treat four-star generals, beginning in 1965 with Burt Lancaster's ultimately unflattering portrait of an Air Force Chief of Staff (and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs). In fact, that committee hearing, and especially Senator Hillary Clinton's behavior, reminded me of that scene in which Burt Lancaster, in his four-star Air Force glory, has to state the obvious to a gaggle of geese--excuse me, Senators--who can't stand to hear it.

The President speaks, and the Democrats whine

2007-09-13T21:23:00.000-04:00

The President made his speech tonight, and it was short and sweet. General Petraeus was able to recommend drawing down US forces in Iraq to where they were before the great "surge," and the President accepted that. The President also asked Congress--meaning the Democrats--to be reasonable, and as I might have predicted, the Democrats are having none of it.

Senator Jack Reed's (D-RI) statement that US policies only make our security worse remains, like virtually everything else the Democrats have said, more asserted than proved. And his accusation that we will "always" have 130,000 troops in-theater is a total straw man. The President never said that. He implied that we might establish a garrison in Iraq, but 130,000 troops are far more than a garrison, and the Democrats know it--or they should.

Creationism gains foothold in schools

2007-01-05T17:56:00.001-05:00

British schools, that is: this article is from the London Times.

Sadly, this article contains a number of factual errors:

Intelligent design, which is the actual subject that Her Majesty's government is thinking of introducing to their government schools, is not the same thing as creationism. Creationism explicitly speaks of God. Intelligent Design says only that the world has a "designed" quality to it, without regard to Who the Design-er might be.
The "religious right" understands the difference between Intelligent Design and creationism. I certainly will acknowledge promoting the latter--but not the former. Or at least, not what is understood by that term, which one might better label restricted intelligent design.
Evolution was never the basis of biology. At most, it was a sideline, relevant only to taxonomy. And taxonomy has never been an exact science. Read any taxonomic journal, and note the often uncivil tone that rival taxonomists often take with one another.

That said, any development that might eventually cause people to reject evolution as the logically fallacious (not to mention fraudulent) house of cards that it is, is welcome.

'Confronting the Death Arriving From the West' – Santa Claus in Algeria

2007-01-04T15:42:00.000-05:00

That's right: Santa Claus! An Algerian op-ed writer is all in a lather because someone dressed in a Santa Claus suit, driving a sleigh drawn by a team of goats, was handing out presents in the streets of the town of Tizi Ouzo--and prclaiming the Name of Jesus Christ, according to the writer as quoted in this article from MEMRI.

Considering that Santa Claus is a mythical figure--and mainly an American mythical figure--this is crybaby time.

Hey--if that opinionist wants something to cry about, I'd give him something, all right. How about the real Saint Nicholas--who was not jolly, was never an elf, and who wasn't namby-pamby, either. I mean, we're talking about a guy who destroyed pagan temples and personally intervened to stop an execution--even going so far as to wrestle the executioner's sword from him. Saint Nicholas, were he alive today, would be leading a movement to blow up mosques--not with worshipers in them, either, because his mission would be the destruction of an edifice to false religion, not the killing of its misguided proponents. He knew how to be militant when militancy was called for.

So how 'bout it, Mister Al-Crybaby? You want a militant Christian; I'd love to give you one. How would you like them dates? And by the way: I eat pork chops for dinner.

FOXNews.com - North Carolina State Bar Files Ethics Complaint Against Duke Lacrosse Rape Prosecutor Mike Nifong - Local News | News Articles | Nationa

2006-12-28T21:05:00.000-05:00

Well, it had to happen sooner or later. District Attorney Mike Nifong has done so many egregious things in his handling of the rape allegations against three Duke University lacrosse players, that he had to be breaking some rules somewhere. Those who follow a pattern of bad-faith behavior will, sooner or later, go over the line in a way that even the most complacent authorities can no longer ignore. And that's what's happened now: Mike Nifong is in trouble--serious trouble--with the North Carolina Bar Association, who may be the only ones who can proceed against him, thanks to "prosecutorial immunity."

Here is a complete time-line of events surrounding the March 13 wild party, its aftermath, and the investigation of same.Note these key dates:

March 24: Investigators take DNA samples from 46 of 47 lacrosse players
April 10: Defense lawyers say DNA test results failed to connect lacrosse players to alleged rape

And then--more than six months later--we learn that the DNA test results are worse than inconclusive: they are well-nigh exculpatory. Not only do they show that Mike Nifong has got the wrong dudes, but they also show that five other dudes did it, if "it" was in fact anything more serious than a few rolls in the hay.

Sportsfans, if that isn't a vindictive misuse of the prerogatives of governmental office, I don't know what is.

Understand this: that still doesn't excuse the incredibly bad judgment that the Duke lax team captain showed in having a stripper come to his rented house to entertain him and his teammates. And those boys are still blessed that she didn't sink a knife into one of their bellies, or their backs. Not that I have any reason to suspect that this particular accuser would do such a thing. It's just that you never know with perfect strangers whom you invite into your house to get very-very-personal with. Do that often enough, and sooner or later you're going to get yourself seriously hurt or killed. It's that simple. Compared to that sort of thing, even a malicious, bad-faith prosecution is something, frankly, to be thankful for, just for not being worse.

All the same, though I dislike the sort of guy who would hire a prostitute--or someone very much like a prostitute, such as an ecdysiast--I dislike abusive government authorities even more.

News 14 Carolina | Rape charges dropped in Duke case

2006-12-22T17:32:00.000-05:00

From a local television station.

So the Duke Three are no longer charged with rape--because now the accuser "can't remember" whether any of them penetrated her or not, and thus the State cannot prove rape beyond a reasonable doubt. And yet District Attorney Mike Nifong still wants to charge those boys with kidnap and sexual assault.

I have said before: Never, repeat never, get involved with strippers. Ecdysiasm is a form of prostitution, and you never know what a prostitute is going to do. I myself had some school chums get themselves killed in Boston's Red Light District after the Yale-Harvard Game of 1976. They made a deal with a prostitute, who then lifted one of their wallets, and when they tried to get the wallet back, her pimp knifed them to death. Sweet. Those Duke boys ought to hold themselves blessed that they still live after their gross error in judgment.

And what was that error in judgment? Where they got into trouble is in:

Hiring a stripper,
Who happened to be black, they being white,
In a year when the DA was up for re-election and had a Large Black Base,
To say nothing of the desire of criminal prosecutors everywhere to nab the Great White Defendant to burnish their liberal credentials.

Now since then we've heard that the DNA samples, which were supposed to have been inconclusive, actually not only exonerates those boys, but also suggests that the accuser had been with five other men--not one of whom was one of those three boys, nor indeed anyone else at that party.

But that doesn't matter to District Attorney Nifong. No, sir. Nor does it matter to the local community. You see, legal technicalities don't matter when sex and race are involved.

Something to think about, guys, the next time you think that hiring someone to take her clothes off in front of you is "good clean fun."

TIME.com: Person of the Year: You -- Dec. 25, 2006 -- Page 1

2006-12-18T10:44:00.000-05:00

Yeah, right. Everybody gets to be the Person of the Year. Andy Warhol is now vindicated.

Laying aside the obvious publicity gimmick--Time is printing its cover with a mirror on it to make its point--what I've seen of the article rather misses the point. Blogs, letters-to-the-editor (and commentary on on-line polls), and videos are all very well. But that's not all there is to user-contributed content! Did they even bother to talk about the Wikipedia, for example?

Actually--by way of an "acceptance post"--I'd like to thank those who made user contributions possible. Let's have a hand for the folks at digg.com, and, of course, the Wikipedia--even though I can tell you right now that they're biased (and don't want to admit it). And let's also thank the wonderful folks that made the Internet what it is: a place whose barriers-to-entry are paper-thin. You don't like the Wikipedia? Have no fear! They have no monopoly on the MediaWiki software that powers their project. Lots of other Wikis are out there, advertising for editors all the time. (My current favorite: CreationWiki, the encyclopedia of creation.)

So to everyone who made it possible even for me to rant and rave (if anyone's listening), I say again: Thank you, thank you, thank you.

WorldNetDaily: North American Union leader says merger just crisis away

2006-12-15T12:22:00.000-05:00

So says a professor at American University in Washington, DC--someone, in short, who wants this North American Union to happen. He's even been teaching a course on it. Now that doesn't make him a prime mover or shaker--just a talking head. But that's still a dangerous thing for a college professor to be talking about.

Mitt Romney: 'Wrong in the Past' on Abortion

2006-12-15T12:15:00.000-05:00

Specifically, he told National Review that he once had supported abortion rights, but had changed his mind when someone set him straight on the matter of embryonic stem-cell research. In this regard, he is a breath of fresh air--because how many politicians, finding that they need to change their minds about something, ever admit that they are changing their minds? I have to respect a man who can change his mind and be brave enough to explain why he changed his mind, without a lot of Orwellian double-talk.

WorldNetDaily: Death threat: Tancredo cancels Miami speech

2006-12-13T22:29:00.000-05:00

That's right: Tom Tancredo was coming to Miami to clarify and expand on his earlier remarks, and to show exactly why he said that Miami was like a third-world city-state. And what happens?

The manager of the restaurant where Tancredo was to speak, the Rusty Pelican on Key Biscayne, said Wednesday that the owners didn't want him to appear on Thursday in order to keep up the integrity and reputation of the business. The manager also said staff members objected to working the party where his immigration talk was supposed to be held, some customers threatened to boycott the restaurant, and the restaurant had received bomb threats.

And so, too, did the staff of Tom Tancredo's office.

"Integrity and reputation of the business"? Employees refusing to work the party? Well, see here: didn't Cassandra Peterson once say that her favorite way to scare people was to:

Go into the kitchens of trendy Los Angeles restaurants and shout, "Immigraciòn!" Gets them every time.

I guess it would "get" them in Miami, too. To the point that they want to assassinate the key man in front of this issue.

WorldNetDaily: Charlie Sheen taints carol into 'Joy to Fornication'

2006-12-13T12:57:00.000-05:00

WARNING! This article quotes Charlie Sheen's revised lyrics to Joy to the World, and they will likely offend people's sensibilities. Parental judgment and discretion are advised!

Having said the above: Of all the goof-ball things that our silly cultural mavens have even done, this is the worst. Excuse me? A man counts it as "joy" because he's going to have sexual intercourse? If that's all that any man has to look forward to, I pity such a man--not to mention the woman who allows herself to be the instrument of his (momentary) pleasure.

The head of Life Decisions International is protesting, of course. I can't blame him. Those lyrics speak directly to an issue he is raising--that we ought not encourage fornication. But--excuse me while I make another observation--why bother to watch that kind of tripe anyway? This is another reason to block CBS from your TV dial, lock the TV up with a key that only the parents are authorized to carry, or even throw the TV into the dumpster and have done with it.

WorldNetDaily: Duke joins Iran's chorus in condemning 'Zionists'

2006-12-12T18:10:00.000-05:00

That's David Duke, former Grand Kleagle of the Ku Klux Klan, former candidate for President (whose campaign was a fraud and a scheme for graft), and habitual Holocaust denier. Now he says that Jews control American foreign policy. Haven't we heard this before? Except that now he's lending credence to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's crazy theories.

Has Mr. Duke already decided to say

There is but one God named Allah, and Muhammad is his prophet!

Well? And if he hasn't, then does he understand that that's part of the package? I wouldn't expect that from him, because after all, he's a white supremacist, and Arabs are not "white" in the traditional sense, last time I checked.

The prophet Zechariah was right: Israel the nation-state, and Israel the people, will be the stumbling block on which the world will cut its collective foot.

WorldNetDaily: Duke joins Iran's chorus in condemning 'Zionists'

2006-12-12T18:09:00.000-05:00

Has Mr. Duke already decided to say

There is but one God named Allah, and Muhammad is his prophet!
Well? And if he hasn't, then does he understand that that's part of the package? I wouldn't expect that from him, because after all, he's a white supremacist, and Arabs are not "white" in the traditional sense, last time I checked.
The prophet Zechariah was right: Israel the nation-state, and Israel the people, will be the stumbling block on which the world will cut its collective foot.

WorldNetDaily: Judge copied ACLU in anti-design ruling

2006-12-12T12:50:00.000-05:00

And not only that; he copied their mistakes, word-for-word.

So the ACLU has now gone into the outsourced judicial clerk service business. Stunning legal opinions made to order!

Actor James Brolin Latest Celebrity To Publicly Doubt 9/11

2006-12-08T12:59:00.000-05:00

I never thought I'd be linking to anything from PrisonPlanet.com. They actually believe this silliness that James Brolin is now promulgating. But, hey! They're the only textual source on the Web right now--though Rush Limbaugh has just attested to Brolin's speech on ABC's The View on his radio program.

Now for those of you who are asking, "James who?": James Brolin is the second husband of Barbra Streisand, and is just as liberal as she is. Some have suggested that he wasn't always like that.

But you might want to read this article in the Wikipedia about a motion picture that Brolin (and, by either coincidence or design, Babs' first husband Elliott Gould) appeared in in the late 1970's: Capricorn One. In that film, NASA is setting up the first crewed mission to Mars (using equipment identical to that of Project Apollo), only to learn at the last minute that the life-support system aboard "Capricorn One" is inherently flawed and will only kill the crew within three weeks. NASA's solution: fake the shoot. James Brolin appears as the Capricorn One Mission Commander, and Elliott Gould appears as a Houston-based reporter covering the mission, who figures out that the mission is a hoax. Worse than that, NASA plans to kill the astronauts when their empty capsule burns up on re-entry (and whether that was intended or not, the film never explains). By movie's end, Brolin, the sole survivor of the fake mission (and rescued by Gould with help from a wisecracking Telly Savalas), shows up at Arlington National Cemetery to confront the Administrator of NASA in front of the President and also in front of millions of people.

Sportsfans, that sort of thing ought to have given you a clue about James Brolin way back then. But in case you needed a further clue, Brolin portrayed (or rather, mis-portrayed) President Reagan in the phony biopic about the Reagans, the one that CBS had to farm out to their sister network, Showtime.

So if James Brolin is out there saying that the US government blew up the World Trade Center in order to frame the Arabs, then this is all of a piece with his portrait of a US astronaut forced to participate in faking out a world about a crewed space mission and then dodging bullets to expose the hoax and redeem the honor of his men. Maybe he's hoping to land another movie role...

Pelosi rejects Hastings bid to head committee�|�Politics News�|�Reuters.com

2006-11-28T18:06:00.000-05:00

From Reuters.

That's right--Nancy Pelosi has, for reasons she has not so far disclosed, refused to advance Alcee Hastings to the chairmanship of the House Standing Committee on Intelligence.

Nancy Pelosi will never convince me that she has had a true change of heart (and I don't care what any moonbats over at Daily Kos might think about this). But perhaps she didn't think that Alcee Hastings, or any votes he might or might not represent, was worth picking a fight with the Republicans over. Or maybe "Judge" Hastings said one wrong word too many in Ms. Pelosi's face and thus landed on her excrement list. Or maybe she has something else in mind for him--so watch out.

She has not said whom she will name instead to that committee. Jane Harmon was supposed to be next in line--but she and Nancy evidently knew one another in grade school and still regard one another with mutual detestation from those days. So who knows?

FOXNews.com - News Corp. Cancels O.J. Simpson Book and TV Special - Celebrity Gossip | Entertainment News | Arts And Entertainment

2006-11-20T16:10:00.000-05:00

In the from-the-horse's mouth department, of course.

I don't know what Judith Regan at HarperCollins Publishers was thinking. They have published some truly excellent work lately, including a seven-volume reissue of The Chronicles of Narnia. Nevertheless, if they hadn't pulled the plug on this project, I was ready to vow never to buy a HarperCollins book again.

Christopher Hitchens points out that OJ can barely read or write; therefore he did not write that silly book. Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity, both at the Fox News Channel, rebelled against the planned publication and TV special. And now, both release and airing are cancelled.

I hope that Rupert Murdoch, head of News Corporation (which owns Fox News, Fox Broadcasting, and HarperCollins) will take a lesson from this fiasco.

WorldNetDaily: Democrat Rangel: Bring back the draft

2006-11-20T13:55:00.000-05:00

This is a totally bogus campaign, and represents not a thing in this world except Charlie Rangel's attempt to make sure that Americans will grow weary of any war from the very outbreak of hostilities. And it has zero chance of success.

WorldNetDaily: Stop attacking Fox News!

2006-11-20T13:53:00.000-05:00

Aaron Klein wants you to know: Fox News did not pay the $2 million ransom for the release of Steve Centanni and Olaf Wiig, nor have anyone else pay it. Somebody paid that ransom, but no one seems to know who, and Klein's information militates against Fox News' involvement in the payment.

Tunisian Philosopher Mezri Haddad: Islamists 'Have Reduced the Koran to a Nauseating Antisemitic Lampoon'

2006-11-20T12:05:00.000-05:00

Direct from MEMRI, of course.

Actually, Mr. Haddad has it wrong: the Koran is a nauseating anti-Semitic (and anti-everybody-else) lampoon. But he's right about the excuses that anti-Semitism provides for Arab self-pity. Furthermore, he opts for a complete rejection of Islamic theocracy--though I suspect that he's just being a dedicated secularist when he says that.

WorldNetDaily: Christ is making a comeback this Christmas

2006-11-18T11:59:00.000-05:00

Ted Baehr, of MovieGuide fame, offers his brief preview of an upcoming film, The Nativity Story. (Warning: requires Macromedia Flash Player version 8 or later.)

Back in the Golden Age of Movies, Hollywood made a number of movies that either focused on or included the stories of Christ's Birth, Passion, and Resurrection. Ben-Hur was one--and you might remember that it won eleven Academy Awards. The King of Kings is another. One thing you can't miss is that Hollywood has made two movies under each title over the years.

And now here is The Nativity Story. If Ted Baehr's preview is at all correct, this will be better even than Mel Gibson's Passion of the Christ.

That the Vatican will preview this film does give me a slight amount of pause. Like it or not, the Roman Catholic Church has added to the Bible in certain critical respects, something that John the Revelator [Revelation 22:18-9] specifically said not to do. Whether the producers of The Nativity Story are guilty of this, I can't tell until I see this film for myself. Ted Baehr seems to think that this movie plays it straight from the Bible. Let's hope so--because Mel Gibson demonstrably did not.

More to the point, one of two things is going to happen within our lifetimes: either we'll get the revival that Ted Baehr seems to think we're going to get, or we'll get the Tribulation.

Leading Embryonic Stem Cell Research Firm Threatens LifeNews.com

2006-11-16T14:54:00.000-05:00

At issue: a company named Advanced Cell Technologies (ACT) claimed, in an article published in the journal Nature and in a press release dated August 23, 2006, that they had developed a technique that allowed the harvesting of embryonic stem cells from embryos without killing those embryos. The trouble is that ACT has flat-out lied about it. Nature has had to issue corrections that note that all of the embryos used in ACT's experiments died. So what is ACT doing? They're threatening to "monitor" LifeNews' future statements about ACT and its research. Evidently ACT's people don't have the gonadal fortitude to breathe or type the words legal action.

In fact, not only has Nature had to correct the record twice, but also--and most telling--Senators Arlen Specter (R-PA) and Tom Harkin (D-IA) have each criticized the lead researcher (Robert Lanza, PhD) for the shoddiness and sloppiness of his claims. "You've made our job a lot tougher," Specter has said--said job being an attempt to legislate for taxpayer funding of embryonic stem cell research.

And let's not forget that never once has anyone developed a treatment for any disease from embryonic stem cells--only from adult and umbilical cord blood stem cells, which we can have without killing the patient from whom we take them.

WorldNetDaily: How Ted Haggard delivered control to the Democrats

2006-11-11T10:40:00.000-05:00

Hint: not by getting caught buying crystal meth from a homosexual hustler. He turns out to be the instigator of a movement in evangelical circles to accept the highly dubious theory of global warming.

If that's the kind of silliness he chose to promulgate, then he is definitely better gone.

WorldNetDaily: The God vacuum: America and the barbarian hordes

2006-11-10T19:51:00.000-05:00

David Kupelian lays it on the line: America as a kingdom (Greek basileia, which really means "nation-state") has turned away from God. If the Lord tarries, we have a choice of how to end this current cycle: either with Judge Gideon or with Jeremiah.

Of course, if the Lord does not tarry, then some of us will be here one moment and gone the next. The rest will get exactly the kind of leaders they've been clamoring for at the Daily Kos, the Democratic Undergound, and everywhere else. (Sorry, no links--I don't believe in posting signs leading to an unprotected landfill.)

Sen. Reid Backs Lieberman for Homeland Security Chairmanship

2006-11-09T23:39:00.000-05:00

From NewsMax.com.

If true, then it's the best move that Harry Reid could make for the country. If any Democrat or former Democrat deserves to sit in that chair, it's Lieberman.

OpinionJournal - The election was a referendum on GOP failure.

2006-11-09T07:12:00.000-05:00

This really sums it up. Conservatism did not lose, because conservatism did not run. Republicans ran. And they lost because they made the saddest mistake that anyone makes: trying to get rich playing another man's game. In this case, bringing home the pork is the Democrats' game.

As Anthony Quinn said to Irene Pappas in The Guns of Navarone, trying to explain to her why her brother got himself killed,

He forgot why we came here.

So now we have to start again. How long will it take? Hard to say. But this time we won't have any more RINO's to give us the illusion of power.

WorldNetDaily: 1st lady speaker to clean House

2006-11-08T08:46:00.000-05:00

RRRR-IPPP!

You heard that right; that's the sound of a shirt ripping.

S'matter? Haven't you ever witnessed an honest-to-God Old Testament-style clothes-rending?

The inmates have taken over the asylum. Worse than that, a Minnesota district has elected a Quisling.

Expect an Iraq withdrawal timetable within days. My advice to the soldiers on the ground over there: Just win, baby. Give no quarter. Time has just run out.

And unless Conrad Burns and George Allen can pull themselves out of their holes, expect a sitting Justice of the Supreme Court to hang up his robes and let a liberal get in. (I have received rumors, to which I have lost the link, saying that John Paul Stevens might be the Justice expected to retire. His Wikipedia entry, updated last night, indicates that he has hired clerks through 2008, thus showing that he has no desire to retire. But his medical condition might force the issue.

I pray for the now wretched state of my country. I'm sure Jeremiah might know how I feel about now.

WorldNetDaily: Rather: Bush Guard story 'absolutely true'

2006-11-07T14:34:00.000-05:00

In the some-people-don't-know-when-to-quit department...

OpinionJournal - Will today really be the dawn of a new day for the left?

2006-11-07T12:19:00.000-05:00

Professor Arthur C. Brooks of Syracuse University says, "No." He makes three arguments:

People of faith gravitate more toward the party that honors their faith than toward the party that disrespect it, often when that goes against their politics. I wouldn't know about that; I find the Republican Party more friendly to faith-informed policies, as well as people of faith, than the Democrats have been since McGovern and arguably since the 1968 primary season. But Prof. Brooks records anecdotes of otherwise liberal women actually joining conservative organizations, because the liberal organizations disrespect their faith.
New Latin citizens and lawful residents tend toward conservative politics and desires for public policy. Again, I wouldn't know about that, either, given the politics and sympathies of people still in Mexico, and the kinds of leaders they elect (although Felipe Calderon might prove a breath of fresh air yet).
Young people are more conservative today than were their counterparts one generation back. This is by far Prof. Brooks' most powerful argument. He notes that Republicans still have their volunteer grassroots organizations, while Democrats have to pay people, directly or indirectly, to canvass for votes. Strangely, Brooks ignores one possible reason for the spectacle of a more conservative youth: that most of the would-be liberal youth aren't present, because their mothers aborted them--the Roe effect.

All things considered, Brooks concludes that even if the Democrats capture the House (he does not believe that they'll take the Senate in any case), they won't be able to hold it long, nor be able to claim any mandate for liberalism.

WorldNetDaily: Mexico ambassador: We need N. American Union in 8 years

2006-11-06T09:20:00.000-05:00

Many who claim to be in-the-know, refuse to acknowledge any active project to create a North American Union, similar to the European Union.

But here is the Ambassador from Mexico advocating that very thing.

And am I the only one who missed the irony of where he said it--in San Antonio, home of Mision San Antonio de Valero, otherwise known as The Alamo?

UPDATE: Welcome WorldNetDaily readers, who followed the latest from WND in the News. I guess I'm not the only one who missed the irony of the Mexican Ambassador proposing--what's the Spanish word for Anschluss?--in the very city where stands The Alamo. Joseph L. Farah spotted it, too. Thanks, Joe, and keep digging.

OpinionJournal - The Press at War

2006-11-06T07:55:00.000-05:00

The press is at war with their own country, plain and simple. The situation today certainly is not the same as that during World War II.

I cannot help but think of the stage play Command Decision, which became a bang-up motion picture with Clark Gable as a general making unpopular but necessary "command decisions," and Charles Bickford as a war correspondent who, in the end, sees the wisdom of that general's decision-making. What either man would make of the disgusting spectacle that is the modern press, I can't imagine.

WorldNetDaily: Haggard scandal: Wake-up call for evangelicals?

2006-11-06T07:30:00.000-05:00

A much-needed perspective on the sad story of The Rev. Ted Haggard, who lately has confessed to sins that, while they might not be as dire as those of which someone has accused him, are bad enough to warrant his laying down his pastorate and all positions of church leadership. I Timothy chapter 3 tells us why: in a phrase, a church leader must be beyond reproach.

Frankly, the fall-from-grace of a pastor who grew a church to 14,000 members doesn't surprise me in the least. 14,000 could be the population of a small city. Furthermore, Ted Haggard has strayed from Bibilical precepts of church leadership and policy for years; that's how he grew his church to 14,000--probably nominal Christians, with no real root. (Cf. the Parable of the Sower, in Mark chapter 4, for a relevant illustration.)

More than forty years ago, Tennessee Williams charged, in a memorable play later adapted for film, that mainline churches were full of hypocritical leaders, each having a disqualifying sin in his life. So now the "Iguana Syndrome" has affected an "evangelical" church. So much for church-growth fads, and may this be a lesson for everyone.

WorldNetDaily: Bush cheers Saddam's conviction

2006-11-06T07:21:00.000-05:00

As do I, and all that remains is to execute him as swiftly as possible. I cannot help but think of Nicolae Ceaucescu, who died by firing squad within days of the Rumanian army's takeover of Bucharest from Ceaucescu's secret police. Someone made a decision on something that needed doing, and did it. We could use that sort of courage ourselves.

WorldNetDaily: Behind the call for Rumsfeld's head

2006-11-06T07:17:00.000-05:00

That's right: call, singular.

Yesterday, four editorials appeared in the four major intra-service newspapers, calling for Donald Rumsfeld to resign as Secretary of Defense. Those editorials were all alike, however. Now we know why: one and the same man wrote them all--because the Army Times, the Navy Times, the Marine Times, and the Air Force Times are not independently operated semi-official newspapers. The Gannett group, owners/publishers of USA Today, owns and publishes them all--and the editor who wrote those four editorials earned a nasty reputation for writings tantamount to treason thirty-seven years ago. This article has all the sickening details.

Tony Snow brushed it aside as insignificant. In this climate, wherein treasonous publications are still "free," that's perhaps the best he could have done. But at least the President has a Press Secretary who understands the media and how it really works.

WorldNetDaily: Democrats: 'No comment' on terrorists' endorsement

2006-11-03T17:50:00.000-05:00

S'matter? Chicken? BWOCCCKKK-bwock-bwock-bwock-bwock-bwock-bwock-bwock-bwock-bwock-bwock!

WorldNetDaily: Lawmaker: Terrorists right about Democrats

2006-11-03T16:56:00.000-05:00

Tom Tancredo reflects on Aaron Klein's interview with the exiled leader of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade. His assessment: The terrorists are right in their own assessment of Republicans and Democrats.

WorldNetDaily: Abortion records reveal cases of suspected child rape, incest

2006-11-02T15:31:00.000-05:00

These cases arise in Kansas, the same State where George Tiller has (or had) his practice, and the same State where another abortion clinic had to close up shop when an Operation Rescue operative bought their building out from under them and then served them with an eviction notice. Now the Kansas AG finally has access to ninety case records, after a district judge redacted out the names of the women involved. Those records reveal evidence of child rape, incest, and, more to the point, failure of abortion providers to report the same.

Interestingly, this investigation is an election issue. The AG's challenger has said that he would not pursue this investigation. Now the incumbent can ask an all-important question: "Are you sure about that?" I quote:

Kline said now with access to the records, there may be evidence of child rape, failure to report child rape, performing illegal late-term abortions, rape by force or fear, failure to report suspicion of child sexual abuse, incest, making false information and others.

I ask again: Are you sure you wouldn't investigate this sort of crime? Of course, some big federal tax monies are involved, and that explains the opposition to his investigation--and certain other people have some 'splainin' to do about the very involvement of federal tax money.

WorldNetDaily: Is Islam inherently violent?

2006-11-02T15:22:00.000-05:00

A review of a new book that says, "Yes."

WorldNetDaily: Mideast terror leaders to U.S.: Vote Democrat

2006-11-02T15:19:00.000-05:00

WorldNetDaily is second to none among Western media organs who have cultivated terrorist sources that will present their unvarnished vaunts. Today, Aaron Klein, Jerusalem bureau chief, quotes them as saying that they hope the Democrats win next Tuesday.

When your enemies tell you to vote a certain way, that ought to signal you to vote the opposite.

OpinionJournal - Climate Non-Conformity

2006-11-02T09:08:00.000-05:00

The WSJ takes on the Nicholas Stern report themselves, and similarly find it lacking in logic and objectivity.

OpinionJournal - Beating Around the Bush

2006-11-02T09:07:00.000-05:00

Brendan Miniter analyzes the Claire McCaskill challenge to Senator Jim Talent (R-MO), and points out its inherent weakness: that she has nothing on Talent himself and is trying to make her race a referendum on Bush. That, of course, explains why she prevailed upon Michael J. Fox to overdose on his levodopa to the point of tardive dyskinesia in order to make a totally specious point about research policy and the effectiveness of embryonic stem cells. Miniter clearly shows that Claire McCaskill cannot hope to make a winning campaign solely on that. Only time will tell...

OpinionJournal - A Selective Climate Review

2006-11-02T09:01:00.000-05:00

Bjorn Lomborg scores Nicholas Stern for selective, biased, and frankly sloppy report on climate change, and what such change, or any action to stop or slow this change, would actually cost.

OpinionJournal - Contemplating Catastrophe

2006-11-02T08:58:00.000-05:00

Walter Lacquer, formerly of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, thinks about true-life mad scientists placing their advanced knowledge in the hands of terrorists or rogue states. Actually, Mr. Lacquer suffers from a lack of imagination--and understanding of biblical prophecy. Daniel (chapter 12) warned of the Last Battle and said that it would take place when travel and knowledge would be vastly increased over what it was in his day. And John the Revelator (chapter 13, verses 16-18) tells of a pair of dictators passing a law to stamp everyone like cattle and permitting no one to buy nor sell who does not submit to such stamping.

Contemplating catastrophe? I'd ask him to contemplate cataclysm, a word the Greeks coined to mean something orders of magnitude worse.

OpinionJournal - These Are Not Ideologues

2006-11-02T08:51:00.000-05:00

L. Paul Bremer, former head of the Coalition Provisional Authority, addresses the canard that CPA administrators were just a bunch of ideologues. This says as much about Paul Bremer--a good officer who knows how to stand by his men--as about the CPA and the good work that the Fishwrap Axis deliberately sought to overlook.

WorldNetDaily: 'We R Stuck Hear N Irak'

2006-11-02T08:50:00.000-05:00

The photo in this article, one that I will vouch has been circulating widely over the Net, says it all--about our troops, about the utter falsity of John Kerry's insult to them, and about how they feel about it.

I didn't comment on this while it was happening, because I did not believe that any United States Senator could be that stupid. A man like that ought to be thrown out of the Senate--and the voters of Massachusetts now have a choice to make. Do they really want this kind of Senator? If so, then one can only conclude that they feel about the military exactly as he does. John and Sam Adams must be spinning in their graves.

WorldNetDaily: The rise of the procreative class

2006-10-26T08:09:00.000-04:00

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.)

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

2006-10-21T00:35:00.000-04:00

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.

Mujahideen Gather Information on Anchorage International Airport

2006-10-17T14:44:00.000-04:00

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.

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

2006-10-16T12:52:00.000-04:00

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

2006-10-16T11:05:00.000-04:00

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.

WorldNetDaily: Muslim stabs wife when daughter becomes Christian

2006-10-14T08:55:00.000-04:00

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?

WorldNetDaily: Israel on alert for Syrian attack

2006-10-09T17:47:00.000-04:00

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!

2006-10-09T09:13:00.000-04:00

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:

married,
with children,
and lots of them.

WorldNetDaily: North Korea goes nuclear

2006-10-09T08:44:00.000-04:00

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.

Mark Foley and Pots Calling Kettles Black

2006-10-06T14:42:00.000-04:00

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:

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.
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.

WorldNetDaily: North American Union threat gets attention of congressmen

2006-10-02T08:43:00.000-04:00

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.

Suicide bombers follow Quran, concludes Pentagon Briefing

2006-09-28T07:35:00.000-04:00

Pentagon intelligence analysts have concluded what Bush will not acknowledge publicly: that the clear text of the Quran and the Hadiths motivates suicide bombers and Muslim holy warriors. The analysts even say that their actions are eminently rational in a Muslim context. See Surat Baqura (Surah 2), Al Imran (3), Anfal (8), Tawba (9), Rahman (55) and Asr (103).

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AP runs to the Washington Post

2006-09-26T11:51:00.000-04:00

You can't make this stuff up. Michelle Malkin has the full, gory details on an AP photographer caught in the same apartment with an Al-Qa'ida operative. The shutterbug had explosives residues on his clothing--now how did those get there, if he's innocent? The AP said nothing--and now they've asked the Washington Post to spin a human-interest story about some poor slob held without charge by the US Army. Talk about false and misleading!

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'Zionist Companies' on Iranian TV - All Popular American Brands

2006-09-25T23:35:00.000-04:00

You simply cannot make this stuff up. In Iran, they say that Pepsi stands for 'Pay Every Penny, Save Israel.' That's but a small sample of the corporate conspiracism that riddles this report. Read it and weep for any prospect for a negotiated peace in the Middle East.

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Anne Applebaum on the Pope's Remarks and Free Speech

2006-09-19T14:49:00.000-04:00

Finally a Washington Post op-ed columnist gets it. An excerpt:

Instead of apologizing in the face of Muslim anger, the West should unite to support free speech and condemn unprovoked attacks on churches, embassies and elderly nuns.

The Path to Hysteria

2006-09-18T11:08:00.000-04:00

Cyrus Nowrasteh, author of the 'Path to 9/11' screenplay, reveals enough about his background to show that the criticisms about him, from liberal quarters, were as absurd as they were unfair. And by the way: his film stole the ratings for the Monday night that it aired. Just thought you'd like to know--you'll never hear about it from anyone else but him (and me).

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Al-Qa'ida Warns Muslims to Leave the US

2006-09-17T07:40:00.000-04:00

And why? This is no complaint of discrimination this time--it's a warning that Al-Qa'ida is going to attack, and Muslims need to be out of the hot zone before it happens.

This is the equivalent of the Japanese instructing their embassy to destroy their cipher machines, codes, and secret documents before Pearl Harbor. Is anyone listening, especially in the Senate? Or do we condemn ourselves to the same recriminations that resulted from Pearl Harbor? Whom are we going to sack this time, as the equivalent of General Short and Admiral Kimmel? (And where is the Admiral Nimitz who will take over?)

The Senate can, of course, do something to forestall this: immediately seat a Select Committee on Religious Ideals and their Consequences and hold hearings on whether Muslims need to be told to abandon their pan-Arab nationalist movement in religious dress, or leave.

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'Bioethicist' says it's OK to kill disabled babies

2006-09-14T08:23:00.000-04:00

Understand: that's after they're born. In fact, Peter Singer, PhD, of Princeton University, sees no essential difference between the born and the unborn. So if a society allows abortion, then it should allow the killing of disabled children. Ask yourselves if you'd like to live in the kind of world he would make, given the power.

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American Muslim cleric accuses US gov't of engineering 9/11

2006-09-12T13:11:00.000-04:00

To the rogues' gallery of fruitcakes and nutballs who insist that 9/11 was an inside job, now add the ex-head of an Islamic center in Washington, DC. He said--on Iranian TV, no less--that the American government knocked down its own buildings. This particular nut has done this before.

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WorldNetDaily: 'Path to 9/11' producer sees ABC 'victory'

2006-09-12T13:00:00.000-04:00

The producer comments on the high drama leading up to the airing of the production--why, he didn't even know that his movie would be on the air until Sunday morning! He also confirms Rush Limbaugh's assessment: seventy seconds of footage landed on the cutting-room floor.

Will he bring out a director's cut? Stay tuned.

ABC-TV Airs Path to 9/11 with very few cuts

2006-09-11T13:16:00.000-04:00

Rush Limbaugh has just said it on his broadcast. He has sources inside Disney/ABC, and he called them. The cuts from the first night of The Path to 9/11 add up to one minute!

So why did ABC-TV feature a special edition of Nightline? Simple: they originally had filmed two hours and forty minutes of footage for the first night, and had intended to plump it out with commercials. Then came the decision to air it straight through, without interruption.

I have seen edited and unedited versions of a key scene. In the original version, Sandy Berger, as NSA, hangs up on George Tenet, the DCI. In the version that aired last night, Berger simply dithers, and nobody gives the go to the CIA and Northern Allied forces on the ground. Sportsfans, that is a distinction without a difference--because both versions show the feckless political culture that prevailed in Washington. You can therefore understand why, in both version, the head of the Northern Alliance asks, "Are there any men left in Washington, or are they all cowards?"

The second night airs tonight. But from where I sit, ABC-TV made a few edits to tighten up the story--and that was all. My guess is that they were prepared to edit it more severely, until Senators Harry Reid, Barbara Boxer, et alti made a fatal mistake. They threatened Robert Iger, President and CEO of ABC, with suspension or revocation of broadcast licenses if he did not severely edit the film and cancel its showing.

Now I don't know Robert Iger at all. But when you threaten a man, his honor demands that he do the opposite of what you are trying to tell him to do. And so might be the case here. I had not thought that anyone in the broadcast media had any honor left. Robert Iger has--maybe--proved me wrong. And sometimes, finding out that you might be wrong about somebody feels good.

I'm preparing a video archive of the second night, and will await Rush Limbaugh's description of the before-and-after versions, since he is the most consequential commentator to possess a full-length preview copy.

Al Qaeda Officially Claims Responsibility for 9/11

2006-09-11T13:06:00.000-04:00

Excerpt:

By releasing the tape, analysts say al Qaeda was declaring "we did this", ending doubt among conspiracy theorists that anyone else had flown the airliners into New York's Twin Towers and the Pentagon in Washington, killing almost 3,000 people.

If only I could believe that. People will still insist that "9/11 was an inside job," so they won't have to admit that this country needs to get onto a war footing.

Christopher Hitchens calls for solidarity

2006-09-11T08:31:00.000-04:00

Christopher Hitchens reminds us who the enemy is, and calls on all civilized people to oppose the Islamic fundamentalists who seek to destroy civilization. This, he says, is a war we must all fight, unless we all want to die.

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Amazon suggests Brokeback Mountain for children's reading?

2006-09-08T10:44:00.000-04:00

A woman gets a recommendation for Brokeback Mountain, because she bought a Harry Potter movie, said she owned The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, and rated The Lady and the Tramp. Now what has Brokeback Mountain to do with any of the other three?

Someone at Amazon is gaming the system, and playing a stupid game at that. I mean, if you're going to push homosexuality on people, then at least you'd recommend it to someone who had bought buddy-romp films (like Thelma and Louise) or throw-together farces (like Planes, Trains, and Automobiles). But--children's programming? Come on!

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Adam Gadahn In His Own Words (MEMRI-TV)

2006-09-05T15:39:00.000-04:00

The Middle East Media Research Institute has the very words of Adam Gadahn, the American who basically tells America to convert or die. He reveals that Muslims detest America for what it is, not for anything it does--and furthermore, Muslims reject the UN, too. Read him for yourselves.

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Daily Kos: 'Muslims are the New Jews.'

2006-09-04T19:50:00.000-04:00

I am not making this up. Let the Kossacks deny something that is on their own page. 'Muslims are the new Jews'--this although Muslims routinely declare that Jews are the descendants of pigs and monkeys, and Grand Mufti Haj Amin Husseini (Yasser's uncle) was a direct ally of Adolf Hitler.

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Want to Solve the Abortion "Problem"? Clean Up the Culture!

2006-09-02T12:14:00.000-04:00

This is in answer to any of you who have commented in the past, or wanted to comment, on why I am adamant in my opposition to abortion, and what I would do instead of allowing abortions to continue. That's not the question. The question is how do we finally make abortion unnecessary.

Before I begin: how can we debate anything if we don't even agree on the
fundamentals? If any person has so little respect for human life that he or she would sacrifice any human life under any circumstances to the convenience of another person (except as punishment for a crime, of which the person to be so sacrificed shall have been duly convicted), then I say to that person: Debate is impossible. All we're arguing about is which of us will earn the most votes in the next election, or win the next Senate confirmation fight.

Do any of you remember this event that occurred this summer, wherein Operation Rescue bought the building out from under an abortion clinic, evicted the abortionist, moved in, and started to clean the place up to use it for their headquarters? Do you remember the really sick-making findings? Blood all over the carpet, blood that lit up the walls when you shined a Woods lamp on them, and a big garbage disposer in a janitor's closet that reeked from all the tissue-trap remains that the clinic staff had ground up in that thing? Even the makers of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre couldn't have done better, by their lights, than this.

And in case any of you think that these conditions are not typical of abortion clinics nationwide, let me remind you that Norma McCorvey, of Roe fame, confirmed that these conditions and practices absolutely were and are typical. Don't just take my word on that; read the original article for yourselves.

Now then: Some people seem to think that abortion is simply a wretched and desperate solution to a very pressing, even emergent, problem that a number of young women find themselves getting into. Let us lay aside, for the moment, the brazen heartlessness of abortion providers--and of women who know what sex can lead to, but do it anyway, and have their abortionist on-call. Let us, then, take these complainers at their word. So what solution do they offer for the spectacle of pregnancy out of wedlock, kids raising kids, and the like? More "sex education." In other words, more of the same-old, same-old, that leads so many young women down that garden trail.

Now I propose that we teach solid moral values. I also propose that we clean things up in this culture. The trouble is that when you're wallowing in mud, you forget what "clean" is. "Clean" is that until Hollywood repents of their sexed up (and anti-American) ways, we don't go to the movies anymore. "Clean" might be junking the TV and subscribing to ISP's that do DNS-level filtration of all domains. Above all, "clean" means teaching our young women to dress modestly and teaching our young men to train in their roving eyes.

Some of you will ask what this has to do with abortion. I'll tell you what. If women had enough respect for themselves to reserve sexual intercourse for marriage only, we wouldn't be fighting this verbal war in which we can't even agree on the simple meanings of words.

But how can we expect women to have such respect for themselves when we--and I speak directly to my fellow men--don't have such respect for them? When we define lack-of-modesty down to the point at which modern outerwear provides less coverage than did the underwear commonly worn just one generation ago? (For the record: the big crash of standards came with the departure of women's fashion away from the high standards of the Regency, Victorian, and Edwardian periods.) When we put actors and actresses into suggestive situations and call that a fit public spectacle? When we build private clubs and sell one another fifty- or hundred-dollar keys (they cost $25 US ca. 1965) to walk into places where women run around in their underwear and serve us intoxicating liquor? When we encourage our wives and daughters to swim in public in what might as well be their underwear, the only difference being that it's waterproof? When we continue to patronize certain wiseguys who brazenly bray out rapacious rhymes?

In answer, the pro-abortion crowd points to the "ostracism" of young women (and when was the last time any of you saw that happen?). They go on to say, "Well, we did it ourselves once, except that we didn't get pregnant, and they did. Maybe their condoms failed. Maybe their parents taught them that prophylactics were wrong. And nobody wants to solve the problem!" Et cetera ad nauseam

And neither do they want to "solve the problem," not really, because of all the money that the abortion providers would lose. What sort of solution is it, anyway, to go on doing these things? As usual, such verbiage that passes for analysis, misses the point.

The point is not that "we have ostracized anyone"--if we have. The real point is that we place a double bind on women when we suggest that they ought to have more respect for themselves, and then don't show such respect on our part. How long do any of you think that women would run around in outerwear that is more like underwear, if men would consistently avert their eyes from such sights? What if they showed a movie and nobody went?

But I don't see that kind of solution from the pro-abortion movement. No, sir (or ma'am, as the case may be). They want to be able to divorce sex from all its consequences. And some of them want a little action themselves. The educational establishment is full of Humbert Humberts and Sapphos--and fashion designers who act as though they took what passes for their inspiration from Vladimir Nabokov. If we could stop that cycle, then abortion wouldn't be such a lucrative practice.

Of course, I don't expect more than a tiny portion of those who complain about the "burden" of "unwanted pregnancy" to approve my solution. Well do I remember Faye Wattleton, one of the long line of past presidents of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America. She once said, and this was another lie, that "America [was] the most prudish country on earth." (Let no one bother denying that she ever said that; she said it to Morley Safer, or maybe it was Mike Wallace, on Fifty-nine-and-a-half Minutes Too Late.) We could use some of the prudery that Faye Wattleton claimed to see in our society.

In closing, many of my opponents will quote the Pericopa Adultura, the passage (of dubious authorship, but that's another story for another forum) purporting to describe an incident in which Jesus refused to judge a woman caught in flagrante delicto in adultery. "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her," this passage quotes Him as saying. But those who cite this passage--and again, I admit nothing as to its authenticity--fail to mention what "else" this passage quotes Jesus as saying to the woman: "Go and sin no more." I don't hear any of my opponents saying one word that anyone might legitimately construe as an admonition to "go and sin no more." Instead, I hear, "I'll make it to be of no consequence."

Jesus never once said that sin would have no consequence. He has promised to cancel the sin debt--but never to erase the consequences of sin for the rest of creation. Not, that is, until He literally burns everything up and makes everything new. [Revelation chh. 21-22]

And by the way: many of the same people who presume to quote Jesus in this context, are the very ones yelling about "separation of church and state" and suing in court to promulgate separation of faith and state. If they quote Jesus now, then they're just being hypocritical.

So: you want to solve the abortion problem? Let's name it then: obsession with, and compulsion in the name of, sex. Fight that, and a lot of those other problems will go away. But if you won't fight it, then don't come crying to me about a lack of compassion and decency. Anyone who sees anything decent about snuffing out another life just because that life is inconvenient, is guilty of hijacking the language, and I repeat: with such a person, debate is impossible.

VDH's Private Papers::The Waiting Game

2006-09-01T16:05:00.000-04:00

Victor Davis Hansen reminds us of the parallels between Islam and Nazism, which also include the way Hizballah, for example, behaves when they "pass in review." He asks, quite reasonably, how long we have to wait before they strike another Hitler-like lightning blow.

Arabs Divided on Who Won the Hizballah-Israeli War

2006-08-31T22:15:00.000-04:00

Sure, some Arabs boast that Hizballah won--if you count it as a win if you're still standing. But lots of Arab voices are crying out that Hizballah got their host country plastered for nothing, some blame Syria and Iran for egging them on, and some even call for an investigation. Not exactly a united and triumphal voice, is it?

read more | digg story

Hizballah Children's Militia: Kids Aged Ten and Up!

2006-08-31T15:55:00.000-04:00

That's right--kids. According to the Egyptian weekly Roz al-Yusuf, more than two thousand kids, aged 10 to 15, belong to Hizballah's children's auxiliary. What's worse, they are training them to be martyrs. Hmmm--the last country to field its kids in war was Germany--and no children's army has ever turned the tide of war.

read more | digg story

Hizballah Children's Militia: Kids Aged Ten and Up!

2006-08-31T15:38:00.000-04:00

Iran's Nuclear Chief Says Drinking Heavy Water Cures Cancer and AIDS!

2006-08-31T11:57:00.000-04:00

Get a load of this. The head of Iran's nuclear program says that Iran produces heavy water--for its medicinal value! That would be funny were the situation not so dire. I've heard of lame excuses before, but this is the limit.

read more | digg story

Coral Ridge responds to ADL re Darwin-Hitler link

2006-08-23T11:50:00.003-04:00

The Anti-Defamation League seems to think that D. James Kennedy is making light of the Holocaust by linking Charles Darwin's theories to Adolf Hitler's policies. Trouble was, Hitler believed in evolution and used it as his excuse. So says D. James Kennedy. Watch the show when it airs, and then decide.

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Fox News is a Zionist stooge, says kidnapper mouthpiece

2006-08-23T11:50:00.002-04:00

Specifically, Fox News is under Jewish and Zionist control, files false and misleading reports, and treats all Muslims as terrorists. And that, says someone claiming to speak for Al-Qa'ida, is why they put the bag on that reporter and his cameraman.

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No, Anthony Kennedy, we're not ruled by 'ideas'

2006-08-23T11:50:00.000-04:00

Judge Roy 'Ten Commandments' Moore responds to SCOTUS Justice Anthony Kennedy's polemic against conservatives.

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OpinionJournal - The Fertility Gap

2006-08-22T11:18:00.000-04:00

Prof. Arthur C. Brooks at Syracuse University reminds us that, for whatever reason, liberals don't have as many children in their homes as do conservatives. Prof. Brooks goes on to show that that's bound to cost the Democrats election after election in the future.

We've heard this before, of course--including a suggestion that the liberals' real problem is that they aborted their kids, while conservatives raised theirs.

And we also know that at least some liberals understand this. That's why they would like nothing better than to shut down all private schools and make homeschooling tantamount to truancy. They want to mess with our kids' heads, because they don't have enough of their own kids to ensure their continued electoral success. Things might be close now, but in ten years...!

But Prof. Brooks' analysis is incomplete. Conservative Americans aren't the only ones having lots of kids. So are illegal immigrant Latins--and Muslims. So I repeat what I said earlier: that in a generation, we're going to be in a shooting war against those seeking to revive the ancient Aztec Empire and the medieval Baghdad Caliphate.

Experts fear Muslims might use 'holy' date to create catastrophe

2006-08-22T11:05:00.000-04:00

August 22, 2006, corresponds to 27 Rajab 1427 AH. That's the anniversary of Muhammad's so-called Night Flight. Indeed, Ahmadinejad has said before that he will pull off something big on that date. And it is on top of us right now.

read more | digg story

Islamic Propaganda Targets Our Children

2006-08-20T07:15:00.000-04:00

And our fellow-traveling adults, too. Melanie Morgan lays it on the line, and continues her examination of the parallels between the pan-Arabism that Islam really is, and National Socialism, German-style.

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Expo-Islamia in the UK: Interesting Characters

2006-08-20T07:03:00.000-04:00

They include a committeewoman for a party called Respect that speaks very disrespectfully of Israel, and one speaker who once advocated suicide (homicide) bombing in Israel. This was supposed to be a multi-faith event--and yet Jews are not invited, and leaders of other faiths hadn't even heard of it at interview time.

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Show Links Darwinism to Nazism

2006-08-19T11:22:00.001-04:00

D. James Kennedy lays it on the line: Nazi ideology, as you can read in Hitler's own writings and official Nazi policy, drew heavily from Darwin and used Darwin as their excuse. I challenge Darwin's apologists to name any truly good things that have come from their theory. They'll never find any. The larger point, of course, is that evolution is a fraud, promulgated by fraudulent means, and violative of many of the basic principles of science and of many other widely accepted scientific laws.

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Olmert sent soldiers 'needlessly' to their deaths?

2006-08-19T11:14:00.000-04:00

IDF officials are asking that now, and demanding an investigation. At issue is whether Olmert knew that a cease-fire was coming and ordered an operation that would be a waste of time and good people. So begins a process that might bring down his government.

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Half-dozen abortion clinics shut down after breaking State rules, laws

2006-08-18T22:06:00.000-04:00

In Florida, the operator of three abortion clinics performed at least one late-term procedure in the clinic itself. The law requires that such procedures take place in a hospital. In Alabama, three clinics were shut down for not having an attending on staff who had hospital admitting privileges. Witnesses say such corner-cutting goes on all the time. Coming as it does right after Operation Rescue took over an abortion clinic building and demonstrated its appallingly dirty condition, this provides further proof that abortionists are in it for the money, not for the patients. Ask yourselves: what sad route leads a doctor to kill babies anyway?

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Olmert's gov't will fall, says Druze leader Jumblatt

2006-08-18T10:00:00.000-04:00

In an interview with WorldNetDaily, Jumblatt foresees investigations, recriminations, and ultimately new elections after Israel missed its opportunity in Lebanon. Jumblatt predicts that Bibi Netanyahu will become PM, and Israel will be back.

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Dems Pull Border-Hop Attack Ad From Their Site

2006-08-18T09:56:00.000-04:00

Now how stupid is this? Those Dems want to talk about border security, and they insult one of their core constituencies in the process. They have even less room to talk about our porous borders than some Republicans have.

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Israel's Terminal Illness

2006-08-18T09:53:00.000-04:00

That illness is a loss of all sense of national purpose. Yehud Olmert blew an opportunity. Joe Farah (a Lebanese Christian himself) says that Olmert's got to go, or you can kiss Israel good-bye (absent Divine intervention, of course).

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Controversial Muslim group gets VIP airport security tour

2006-08-18T09:49:00.000-04:00

Feds show CAIR latest screening steps, sensitive counter-terrorism procedures. Why? Don't they know that CAIR sympathizes with terrorists? How soon before al-Qa'ida or Hizballah has this information?

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Tortured logic

2006-08-18T00:11:00.000-04:00

Andrew Sullivan opens his mouth and jams both feet in. Karol Sheinin, guest-blogging for Michelle Malkin, posts the link and adds extensive commentary. One of Michelle's regular visitors submits it to digg.com. And a certain crowd of left-wing propagandists on Digg goes hog-wild. WARNING: many of the comments contain vulgar and obscene language. PJADAA.

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Arrest Made in Jon Benet Ramsey Case?

2006-08-17T11:42:00.000-04:00

That's right. The suspect, John Mark Karr, is a former lower-school teacher who was picked up in Thailand on another sex-offense charge. Where do school districts find these guys who want to get overly involved with their pupils?

Of course, if the Boulder police hadn't been so obsessed with their percentages--which told them that the parents did it--then they could have caught this guy long ago. Now that they've hounded Patsy Ramsey to death, where does the family go to get an apology?

UPDATE: Sean Hannity thinks that John Mark Karr's confession smells phony. Sadly (for the family), I do, too. His tale is simply incredible. If he didn't do this deed (as seems likely), then he is either typical of those who like to take credit for crimes they never committed and indeed could never have committed, or else he was just trying to get out of Thailand (where he's in enough trouble already) and set in motion an extradition proceeding in order to do it.

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Breaking: London-to-DC flight diverted due to "dangerous situation"

2006-08-16T11:39:00.000-04:00

The plane is on the tarmac at Logan Airport. A woman, age 43, started complaining of claustrophobia and then had an altercation with a flight attendant--prompting the pilot to declare an airborne emergency. Bomb-sniffing K-9's are sniffing all the bags. Earlier reports indicated that she had some contraband items on her person; that is in dispute at this hour.

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WorldNetDaily: Muslim gatherings raided – 40 arrests

2006-08-11T20:41:00.000-04:00

The raids took place in Italy--though whether the Carabinieri (the Italian gendarmerie--their equivalent of SWAT in some US cities) carried these raids out, the article never says. Forty arrests resulted--twenty-eight for violations of Italian residency permit laws, and twelve for actual property crimes of one sort or another. All this comes hot on the heels of the Great Airliner Plot and the arrests made in that case by Scotland Yard yesterday.

Teens Cope With Unwanted Pregnancies Better Than Abortions, Study Shows

2006-08-11T20:19:00.000-04:00

The study, in the Journal of Youth and Adolescence, looked at lots of ways that teen-agers cope with stress or a bad decision--such as having trouble sleeping or seeking solace in illicit drugs. The results: girls who have abortions are three times as likely to engage in such behavior than if they go ahead and have the child, all other things (like the state of their mental health) being equal.

I could have told them that, of course. Abortion means killing, and kids know it. And at that age, their consciences are not so seared. Not yet, anyway.

OpinionJournal - Lieberman

2006-08-07T10:28:00.000-04:00

Quite simply, if Lieberman goes down in favor of a rich man with no record of public service at all, then it will be George McGovern all over again, the American public will never take the Democrats seriously, and the Democrats will have none to blame but themselves.

The Case for Kids - Christianity Today Magazine

2006-08-04T15:44:00.000-04:00

And it's an excellent case, and a stark one. Consider this, all you Malthusians who think the planet can do without your children:

Even after considering the cost of education, a typical child in the U.S. consumes 28 percent less than the typical working-age adult, while elders consumer 27 percent more, mostly in health-related expenses...How do we order and feed such a top-heavy, resource-consuming society of elders—a demographic of which most who read this article are a part? Who will produce the goods needed to keep the nation's engines and industries running? When our self-reliance wears out, when our self-authenticated minds and our spiritually unfettered and independent souls grow dim with age, who will feed and sustain us? Who will wheel us into surgery, deliver our packages, grow our food, research and formulate the medications that enable us to live longer and better? In an overburdened medical system, who will decide whether or not our lives still have value when our medical costs outweigh our economic worth? In all of this, we will depend on the actions and judgments of other peoples' children.

Happily, according to this, those "other people's children" will be there. I see just one problem, though: if the Lord tarries, the children of those large families (that seem to be coming back) will find themselves fighting a shooting war with the children of all those wailing abbaya-clad women we see on Al-Jazeera TV.

WorldNetDaily: Senate gives Bush bill to save cross

2006-08-03T09:42:00.000-04:00

The cross involved is the Mount Soledad Veterans' Memorial, which has stood for half a century. The Senate passed, by unanimous consent, a bill that already had passed the House by an overwhelming margin. The bill now goes to the President--and when he signs it, the Mount Soledad Memorial will now be a national park and not a San Diego city park. This will of course render moot a case that an avowed atheist brought to have the cross demolished, and will vacate a judge's order to tear the cross down.