The Pontiff & The Supermodel

According to The Telegraph, First Lady of France Carla Bruni has taken the Pope to task over his stubborn, rigid, ultra-conservative stand on contraception. How dare he not sway with the winds of popular opinion!

The Italian-born former supermodel risked angering believers in France and beyond by declaring that the Pontiff's proclamations showed that the Church needed to "evolve".

In March, the Pope sparked controversy while on an Africa tour by saying that the AIDs pandemic which has crippled the continent "can't be resolved with the distribution of condoms; on the contrary, there is the risk of increasing the problem".

Mrs Bruni-Sarkozy said: "I was born Catholic, I was baptised, but in my life I feel profoundly secular.

"I find that the controversy coming from the Pope's message – albeit distorted by the media – is very damaging.

"In Africa it's often Church people who look after sick people. It's astonishing to see the difference between the theory and the reality.

"I think the Church should evolve on this issue. It presents the condom as a contraceptive which, incidentally, it forbids, although it is the only existing protection," she told Femme Actuelle, the women's magazine.

A French Catholic (is that an oxymoron?) currently pulling duty as Sarko's third wife is standing on a very rickety podium from which to criticize the leader of the Catholic Church. How can a human being "evolve" the law of God, anyway?

I will agree with her on the point concerning AIDS and condoms. If people are already engaging in immoral behavior, it's futile to proscribe condom use. That's like telling a bank robber to not light up during the crime because state law prohibits smoking in public buildings.

Society is increasingly hostile to religious messages. We don't like being told what to do. I admire Pope Benedict, Rev Billy Graham, Rabbi Boteach, and any other religious leader who speaks God's truth regardless of its popularity. When's the last time you heard anyone criticize Eminem's morality?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/5345389/Carla-Bruni-criticises-Pope-Benedict-XVI.html

The Messiah's Useful Idiots

A Barack Obama doesn't just happen. It takes a lot of useful idiots, and there was an auditorium full at Notre Dame last week.

To clarify, I do not put liberals in the useful idiot category, not even that woman waiting for Barack to pay her light bill. Liberals voting for a fellow traveler makes complete sense. It is logical for those who pay no taxes to vote themselves more freebees from the government. Just as rednecks and cowboys like me had a natural affinity with W, I can see how highly-educated, latte-sipping metrosexuals feel as one with the professorial Obama.

No, the useful idiots are those self-identified anti-abortion Christians, Catholics in particular, who either ignored their faith or performed ridiculous doctrinal gymnastics to justify voting for the most pro-abortion president in history.

The useful idiot cohort is also full of otherwise-responsible middle and upper class Americans who fall for what the president says ("we're spending too much money") instead of watching what he does (spending trillions and doubling the national debt).

Add to this a press that went from attack dog to lap dog in 100 days, and self-censoring comedians who suddenly find presidential humor off limits, and you have the perfect Obamessiah storm.

Hope you got some hip waders...

Robert George - Obama's Pro-Life Apologists

Two Chus to Chose

Two politicians named Chu,
What are the voters to do?
Pick the one with a D
to get goodies free
as your state
goes down the tubes

From the LA Times:

State Board of Equalization Vice Chairwoman Judy Chu won the most votes Tuesday for the open 32nd Congressional District seat...

Judy Chu, a Chinese American, campaigned on her experience and deep roots in the district and worked to build coalitions across ethnic lines. She will face Betty Tom Chu ... in the runoff on July 14.

I don't even want to know what the State Board of Equalization is, but it probably helped push the Golden State into the toilet.

LA Times

Freedom and Failure

New Hampshire really does live free. Texas and Colorado still retain the wide-open freedoms of the old west.

Steve Malanga reports in City Journal on the results of a freedom survey conducted by the Mercatus Center of George Mason University. New York came in dead last, and Malanga's piece is an interesting study of this failure.

A new study by the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, Freedom in the 50 States, is the most comprehensive effort to date to rank the states on how their public policies influence “individual freedom in the economic, social and personal spheres.” It includes dozens of variables, from social and personal freedoms (such as parents’ right to educate their own children) to regulatory freedom (such as the degree of occupational licensing requirements) to fiscal liberty (as measured, for instance, by states’ debt burdens, which represent a constraint on future generations).

Top 10 (Most Free) States - #1 to #10:
New Hampshire, Colorado, South Dakota, Idaho, Texas, Missouri, Tennessee, Arizona, Virginia, North Dakota

Bottom 10 (Least Free) States #41 to #50:
Connecticut, Illinois, Massachusetts, Washington, Hawaii, Maryland, California, Rhode Island, New Jersey, New York

Data like this is good for poking a finger in the eye of liberalism, but that's not the main point. Studies like this show that conservatism works when it abandons its paternalism, and rampant liberalism is never the path to success.

Merctus.org - Freedom Study
CJ - Malanga
CJ - Gelinas

Future Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor should consider herself lucky President Obama couldn't find a Hispanic woman who was also a one-legged, black lesbian.

Government Bubble

The end of the Clinton era saw the bursting of the dot com bubble. Rampant speculation had driven tech stock prices to unsustainable levels, and what went up came crashing back down.

We just witnessed the housing bubble's big bang, with resulting downsizing of irresponsible lifestyles. There is talk of bulldozing entire vacant neighborhoods in some failed cities like Detroit.

Unfortunately, government gamblers who are incapable of learning anything continue to pump hot air into the increasingly unstable big government bubble. California voters repudiated their politicians, and now no one knows what to do, since slashing spending doesn't come naturally to a political candy man.

President Obama, fresh from blowing $4,000,000,000,000, brazenly says we are borrowing too much money from China, we're broke, and the irresponsible spending must stop. Oh, and he also wants to fund windmills and free health care for everybody.

Paul Krugman can always be relied upon for liberal doses of economic advice.

Like practically all liberals, he stubbornly pins California's fiscal disaster to proposition 13, the conservative ballot measure that capped property taxes. Krugman goes a step further, predicting the same disaster for the US for the same reason: Those angry, stingy conservatives are blocking "responsible" tax increases that would pay for all this spending.

It's always too little taxation; never too much spending.

We all want something for nothing and the politicians are too cowardly to tell us no, so we end up with more government than we can afford.

China and the US are in a Mexican standoff: We can't stop irresponsible borrowing, they can't stop irresponsible lending, and the negative synergy has us on a mutual downward spiral.

Why doesn't it occur to anyone to downsize our overleveraged government?

NYT - Krugman

Stop! Or We'll Say Stop Again!

The pot-bellied pig of Pyongyang has the bomb now, and he's also got the missile technology to deliver it. The Hermit Kingdom has been helping the Iranian mullahs arm up for years. A Persian nuke is just a matter of time.

This is what happens when we rely on European diplomacy and the UN. While the diplomats express consternation and outrage, threatening to talk him to death, Kim ill is laughing his ass off because he knows this is worth tons of free food and heating oil to keep his slave camp operating.

I'm afraid nothing short of him incinerating a half a million people will spur responsible people to serious action.

It's all good until somebody loses an eye...


* - "Stop! or I'll say stop again!" comes from a 1980's Robin Williams stand-up routine about Britain's unarmed cops.

Reuters - North Korea
Google Search - North Korea Europe Diplomacy

Memorial Day Tribute: Operation Enduring Freedom

Mural at the Bagram Pax Terminal: This is a tribute to all who have fallen during Operation Enduring Freedom. Live a Life Worthy of Their Sacrifice.

KANDAHAR

I saw it for the first time from the window of the plane
We touched down I looked around, history called my name
There’s a prison made of mud and wire, the roof is caving in
It’s where they put the ones who wouldn’t listen
But they’re listening now, and looking down,
on Kandahar

We attacked them in October, we paid them back in spades
We swung the hammer from the north, a people fierce and brave
And the Taliban, made their last stand
We broke down their walls and chased them out
We spilled our blood and guts upon the ground,
at Kandahar

The Greeks were there before us, Alexander led the way
The Persians brought their fire and their gods
The Mongols swarmed out of the north and brought their cities down
Then the Arabs came, and gave their God a name,
in Kandahar

The Russians, Persians, Mongols, and the Greeks
Our soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines
Their blood is crying out from the ground
Their souls echo off the mountains way out loud
in Kandahar

All That Glitters is not Gold

The woes of New York, Michigan and California are familiar to us now. New York has regulated and taxed itself into oblivion, Michigan's workers have priced themselves out of the global market, and California's progressive wizards have turned its gold into lead.

Only California liberalism could produce a situation where there is a surplus of empty houses while people live in tent cities. But there's trouble in the sun belt as well. Nicole Gelinas writes in the City Journal:

But during the boom times, elected officials in Arizona, Florida, and Nevada took a page out of the old states’ playbook, driving up spending at an unsustainable pace. Now that the growth of the low-tax states has hit a wall, shattering revenues, they face a tough choice: they can raise taxes to fund permanently higher costs, or they can aggressively cut spending.

This is happening in other sunbelt states as well. They are not in as deep as Michigan and California, so these states still control their own destiny, but the author is not optimistic.

But the low-tax, low-services culture is up against a potent force: the inexorable mathematics of budgets that take on a life of their own once they’ve passed the point of no return. If the way that Arizona, Florida, and Nevada are confronting the current crisis is any guide, these states will continue to grow—but they will also grow a little bit more like us.

Can we learn from the failed liberal experiments of Michigan, California and New York? Or are we doomed to replicate them in Arizona, Colorado, and Nevada?

Merctus.org - Freedom Study
CJ - Malanga
CJ - Gelinas

Kimmel Demolishes ABC's Upfronts

I saw that NYT headline and thought maybe Jimmy had vandalized ABC property, drove his car into the front of their building or something. I imagined panicked employees running around: "Look, he's smashed our upfronts!"

Instead, it was just a boring piece on how he publicly trashed all their new fall shows, sassed off at the advertisers, and took pot shots at other networks. I guess I'm not savvy to TV insider lingo.

It's boorish behavior from the comedian, but I liked this line:

Returning to ABC’s advertisers, Mr. Kimmel said, “Next year on ‘Grey’s Anatomy,’ your product could kill Dr. Izzie. It just depends on how much you want to pay.”

He's right. In post-reality America, it just doesn't matter. Nothing matters. The advertisers who fund your on-screen antics don't matter, the ignorant boobs who watch you don't matter, so why not dump all over everything? Life is all a bad dream and only Hollywood is real.

If a pointless comment falls flat in Hollywood, and everyone is in too much of a stupor to care, should I still go out a buy more chips and a Lexus because the TV told me so?

What is the sound of no hands clapping?

NYT - Arts Beat

Home Grown Terrorists

Four pinheads from the Bronx decide they want to be terrorists

The FBI said the Muslim suspects were angry and full of hate for America.

"Hatred of the West. The leader of the group, James Cromitie was concerned about deaths at the hands of the U.S. military in Afghanistan," and also expressed anti-Jewish sentiment, Joseph Demarest the head of the New York FBI said.

But these guys were stupider than your average terrorists. You could even call them the Three Stooges of terrorism, with all due respect to Larry, Curly and Moe:

Agents and police watched Wednesday night as the suspects allegedly planted what they thought were bombs outside two Jewish community centers in Riverdale, a Bronx, New York neighborhood. In one case the suspected terrorists planted a bomb inside a parked car. However, officials said the suspects were actually using fake explosives given to them in an earlier sting operation to make sure they didn't get their hands on real bombs.

Authorities said they had the plotters under surveillance since June of 2008 and there was "no chance" the alleged scheme could succeed. They credited the work of a long time informant with keeping tabs on the group.

The four suspects were identified as James Cromitie, David Williams, Onta Williams and Laguerre Payen, of Newburgh in upstate New York, where authorities were conducting raids at their homes, sources said.

You can see the pictures of the men here.

I've been to Afghanistan, I've met Afghanis, and I can say with complete confidence that these men are not from Afghanistan.

These men are societal ass-warts, raised to adulthood in this great country, mooching and robbing all the way, only to turn and bite the hand that has fed them. And all for a far-off country that never did a damn thing for them.

They love Afghanistan? I say turn them over to that country so they can be imprisoned there. That should clear their minds and erase any romanticism they may have for Central Asia.

NBC New York

Dying for A Bargain

If you or a loved one is flying anywhere soon, this should give you pause:

Airline Mechanics don't speak, read English

News 8 has recently revealed serious flaws in the way the FAA licenses mechanics who fix planes.

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

The root of the problem is money, mechanics say. A certified mechanic can earn upwards of $25 an hour in Texas. Technicians who can't speak English are often hired for less than $10, according to mechanics interviewed by News 8.

"I've been wanting to leave this company since the day I got there," said one certified A&P. "But with the economy the way it is, I've got kids to feed and I have to stay there. I don't want to be anywhere near one of those planes when it kills somebody."
Source: News8 - wfaa.com

And if you think this is only happening in Texas you are more incurious than the DC news media.

Meanwhile, the Chinese are poisoning us and our pets with everything from food to drywall, but at least we're getting it all at bargain prices!

A few points to ponder: Free trade does not mean accepting sub-standard crap from your trading partners. Illegal immigration drives down wages. Finally, there is no free lunch. You get what you pay for. Think about that next time you fly.

News8 - wfaa.com

Obama is All They Got

What explains the continued Democratic dominance?

Their headliners are grotesque freaks: (Pelosi, Frank, Kucinich), angry jackasses (James Webb, Al Franzen), criminals (Rangel, Balgojevich, Jefferson) or grumpy anonymi (Harry Reid, Carl Levin)

The states and cities they control are putrid sinkholes of corruption and economic collapse: California, Detroit, New York , DC

So what explains the Democrats' success?

President Barack Obama. He's all they got. If the bloom falls off that handsome, teleprompter-articulate rose, they're done, which explains why the press is straining so hard for him against the forces of reality.

Jay Cost at RCP, commenting about the Democratic-Republican self-identification polls (GOP fortunes are improving), explains that the disinterested non-voter skews the numbers towards the Dems:

So, the little information non-voters acquire about politics has thus been quite partial to the Democratic party in recent months. Combine this with their their lack of strong feelings about many political subjects - then toss in the GOP's inability to control the agenda in Washington - and this could take us a long way to explaining the drop-off for the GOP among non-voters in some previous surveys.

Meanwhile, as the new car smell of Obama's presidency has faded, perhaps those otherwise inclined to the GOP have returned to calling themselves Republican (although I'd note that the recent Fox poll, of registered voters, shows no change from the previous one).

The Dems control the agenda, which bad for America, but will eventually be good politically for the GOP. There is still a wellspring of goodwill for the new president, but it won't last forever.

Bush's spending spree is pocket change compared to the money Obama and the Pelosicrats have blown. At least President Bush spent our money on worthy pursuits like rounding up bad guys. The Dems are chasing windmills. And when voters realize they are in joint ownership of the auto industry with the UAW, while bailing out gilt-edged union pension funds to the tune of hundreds of billions, they may begin to view our president and his political syndicate in a whole new light.

The Democrats will go too far; they always do. When the President's poll numbers fall to mere mortal levels, they're done. Because Barack Obama is all they got.

RCP -Jay Cost

William F. Buckley's Impure Conservatism

William F. Buckley's success in building modern conservatism had nothing to do with ideological purity

Ramesh Ponnuru writes an article that looks to the past to give conservatives hope for the future. He talks about the modern conservative movement Buckley fathered. He shows us that

... the coalition Buckley assembled ... seemed to be a ramshackle affair. It included anti-Communists (who were frequently ex-Communists), libertarians, traditionalists, and even the odd — very odd — monarchist. They disagreed with each other on everything from the existence of God to the necessity of government-run lighthouses. Conservatives and liberals said this coalition made no intellectual sense and could not possibly hang together politically, let alone succeed. But common interests, chiefly in resisting liberalism, kept Buckley’s movement in one piece.

The free-market Catholic Buckley collaborated with Sidney Hook, an atheist and socialist, on anti-Communist projects. The conservatives of today have smaller bridges to build. If Buckley could work with Hook, surely we can make the effort to reach out to environmentally conscious suburbanites and new Hispanic citizens.

A similar conservative collection of disagreeing odd-balls can work today. President Obama and his radical confreres in Congress have provided a cause evangelicals, irreligious moderates, libertarian constitutionalists, agnostic free marketeers, and cultural conservatives can all rally around:

Defeat Liberalism

Cultural and religious conservatives do not need to drop their beliefs, they just need to stop card checking others at the door. Non-believers need not bow before God to enter, they must merely acknowledge the constitutional right of believers to openly practice their faith.

Troy Senik, writing at RCP sums it up:

...effective political coalitions are built by addition, not subtraction. The notion that social conservatives, libertarian free-market types, or hawkish neoconservatives can be profitably removed from the party is usually an exercise in wishful thinking on behalf of their ideological adversaries.

William F. Buckley worked with atheists and others who did not share his cultural views. Can you?

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MzgzZThlOGJiZTRkZmQxODcxNWIyYzIwMWRlMjM4YzU=
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/016/450mnzei.asp?pg=2

... And in the No Sh*t Category...

Obama Calls Deficit Spending Unsustainable!

President Obama was in Redneck Ron territory last week (I'm sure Ron was there to enthusiastically cheer him on!). The O'President made an amazing pronouncement, according to Bloomberg:

May 14 (Bloomberg) — President Barack Obama, calling current deficit spending “unsustainable,” warned of skyrocketing interest rates for consumers if the U.S. continues to finance government by borrowing from other countries.

“We can’t keep on just borrowing from China,” Obama said at a town-hall meeting in Rio Rancho, New Mexico, outside Albuquerque. “We have to pay interest on that debt, and that means we are mortgaging our children’s future with more and more debt.”

And in other news…

Eating too much causes obesity
Drug use causes irresponsible behavior and may lead to life on the street
Wars result in death and destruction

Does anyone else find it galling how this man can spout such statements as if he were a casual bystander making an observation on the passing scene? It chaps my hide even more that the press reports this with a straight face, never once even hinting that some of this debt just may be his fault.

US News Media: From attack dogs to lap dogs in 100 days

Funny Web Site of the Week

Awkward family photos. We've all seen them, maybe participated in one or two. Now there's a site dedicated to just this subject. Isn't the internet marvelous?

The site is constantly updating, so there's new stuff every day. Here are a few of my favorites:

Closeness of You
The Wonder Years
Out of Towners

You can see them all for yourself and search the site at:
http://awkwardfamilyphotos.com/

Have fun!

God Is Not Dead

Christianity Strikes Back
John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge have written a book entitled God is Back: How the Global Revival of Faith is Changing the World. If you don't have time to read the book you can read an article in The Times that summarizes this good news story about Christianity's success in the new millennium.

Micklethwait and Wooldridge bring glad tidings. Despite the predictions of crabby existentialists and snooty modernists, Christianity has not withered away.

From Russia and Communist China (more Christians than Communist Party members), to the continent of Africa, Christianity is on the march. Although atheism has increased in the US, the vast majority is still Christian, and more dedicated than ever due to outside forces shaking believers out of their sense of complacency.

Practicing Christians are happier than the "free-thinkers"

One of the most striking results of the Pew Forum's regular survey of happiness is that Americans who attend religious services once or more a week are happier (43 per cent very happy) than those who attend monthly or less (31 per cent) or seldom or never (26 per cent).

The correlation between happiness and church attendance has been fairly steady since Pew started the survey in the 1970s; it is also more robust than the link between happiness and wealth. Attending church weekly, rather than not at all, has the same effect on people's reported happiness as moving from the bottom quartile to the top quartile of income distribution - and is a lot easier to do.

More Christianity, less crime, less social deviance

James Q.Wilson, perhaps America's pre-eminent criminologist, summarises a mountain of evidence from the social sciences succinctly: “Religion, independent of social class, reduces deviance.”

The authors' use of Ned Flanders and The Simpsons to press their case makes this an interesting and entertaining read.

Times Online
God is Back

Got this in an e-mail from Jim W. Anybody know who did it? I think it's an awesome picture.

Update: Chicago Ray, an artiste extraordinaire himself, solves the mystery:

"It's called the "Grand Old Gang" my friend painted by Andy Thomas and it is an awesome picture and he also has a dem version of it that are for sale there. I bought one a while back after seeing it and posting it as well."

Thanks Ray!

Beware Politicians Bearing Gifts

I stumbled over this Reagan quote at Liberty Tree:

"You and I are told we must choose between a left or right,
but I suggest there is no such thing as a left or right.

There is only an up or down. Up to man's age-old dream --
the maximum of individual freedom consistent with order --
or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism.

Regardless of their sincerity, their humanitarian motives, those who would sacrifice freedom for security have embarked on this downward path.

Plutarch warned, 'The real destroyer of the liberties of the people is he who spreads among them bounties, donations and benefits.'"

Liberty Tree

RINO Stampede is Not Reaganesque

Politics is about addition, not subtraction, and it has nothing to do with ideological purity.

Multifarious GOP factions calling names and declaring jihad on one another is the sure road to failure. Politics is about gaining power so you can influence and control the course of government. You do that by winning elections, not picking fights with teammates who don't think exactly like you do. Ronald Reagan knew it, and savvy conservatives should read his words and emulate them.

Jim DeMint, Republican Senator from South Carolina, wrote an article in the Wall Street Journal giving us his vision of the GOP's big tent. He wants to build the party on principles, not issues. The #1 principle? Freedom

To paraphrase C.S. Lewis, if you aim for principled reform, you win elections in the bargain; if you just aim for elections, you get neither.

Freedom will mean different things to different Republicans, but it can tether a diverse coalition to inalienable principles. Republicans can welcome a vigorous debate about legalized abortion or same-sex marriage; but we should be able to agree that social policies should be set through a democratic process, not by unelected judges.

A Political Party is not an ideological movement

Noemie Emory at the Weekly Standard points out the difference between an ideological movement (Conservatives, free-market capitalists, 2nd Amendment gun owners, gay log cabin republicans) and a political party (Democrat, Republican).

...a party and movement are not the same thing. A movement exists to express and promote a coherent set of principles in the world of ideas and of values. A party--especially in a two-party system--is something quite different: a gathering of diverse political forces around a large and loosely held set of interests and values, that exists to give all of its factions access to power in the practical world of events.

Yes! The GOP is the bus conservatives must ride to power. The catch is, you have to share it with some who don't think exactly like you. Fine. The temptation is to beat them into submission, but life doesn't work that way. Share the ride and maybe you can debate and convince them along the way to electoral victory.

"Conservatism is not a narrow ideology, nor is it the exclusive property of conservative activists."
-- Ronald Reagan, 1977

Many want to simply throw the ideological nonconformists off the bus, but Noemi reminds us that Reagan would not approve. Consider these comments from Ronald Reagan's 1977 address to conservative activists.

"The biggest single grouping of conservatives is to be found in that party. It makes more sense to build on that grouping than to break it up and start over," he said to those who suggested that option.

"Let me say this about our friends who are now Republicans but do not identify themselves as conservatives. I want the record to show that I do not view the new revitalized Republican party as one based on a principle of exclusion. After all, you do not get to be a majority party by searching for groups you won't associate or work with. If we truly believe in our principles, we should sit down and talk.

Those itching to purge the party of all impurity need to stop blabbering on about Reagan and actually pause to read what he has said.

WSJ - Jim DeMint
Weekly Standard - Noemie Emory

"Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on or by imbeciles who really mean it."
-- Mark Twain

Meanwhile, with nothing better to do

Germans assuage their guilt by persecuting an 89 year old retired autoworker.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for prosecution if the Germans can produce some shred of incontrovertible evidence... fingerprints, DNA perhaps, but no one can convince me "beyond a reasonable doubt", that a 67 year old photograph and a parade of 90 year old witnesses who haven't seen the suspect in 66 years are evidence (Sobibor was closed in 1943).

Having first been identified as Ivan the Terrible, he was tried and sentenced to death in Israel, that is until the Israeli Supreme Court overturned the conviction after incontrovertible evidence emerged that he was not Ivan the Terrible, Ivan the Mean perhaps, or Ivan the Grumpy, but certainly not Ivan the Terrible.

The way I figure it, they had their shot, they failed, what are they going to do? Keep accusing him of being a different person until they get a conviction? One is left wondering why our government and court system continues to allow this travesty to go on. What? There are no Germans left to try and convict?

That is another case to be made too, Germany seems more than willing to go after foreigners accused of being Nazi collaborators, yet their own record at convicting Nazis is dismally absurd, only 7,000 convictions in 90,000 trials held since the end of World War II. Gee.... outside of those killed by the Allies, tried and convicted by the allies... I am supposed to believe that only 7,000 Nazis managed to survive the war? Look to your grandparents and great-grandparents if you want to atone.

Thousands of Nazi scientists in the fields of biological warfare, chemical warfare, submarine technology, rockets, aviation, etc. were divided up among the allied powers with some 1600 alone coming to America. What? An autoworker isn't good enough?

Funny, how after the war, there were very few Nazis. The Germans are left like a small child with chocolate smeared on their hands and face muttering "it wasn't me". Sorry, I don't buy it with my kids, I don't buy it from you.

I am disappointed in my government and the Justice Department for allowing not only allowing this farcical travesty to continue, but in enabling it. The war has been over for 64 years, any incontrovertible evidence is most likely long gone yet the witch trials continue.

Peace!

~Finntann~

Cracks in the European Facade

Bruce Bawer has written a thoughtful City Journal piece on politics in Europe. Unbridled immigration championed by the left is changing the face of the continent: overburdened social services, gangs of angry young men contemptuous of everything Western, rampant crime and domestic abuse, demands for Sharia law...

It's scary, leading some to look to the right at the ballot box. But there are scary things over there too, so voters are stuck.

...over the last three decades, social-democratic Europe’s political, cultural, academic, and media elites have presided over, and vigorously defended, a vast wave of immigration from the Muslim world—the largest such influx in human history.

According to the London Times, the number of Muslims in the U.K. climbed by half a million between 2004 and 2008 alone—a rate of growth ten times that of the rest of that country’s population.

Yet instead of encouraging these immigrants to integrate and become part of their new societies, Western Europe’s governments have allowed them to form self-segregating parallel societies run more or less according to sharia.

Many of the residents of these patriarchal enclaves subsist on government benefits, speak the language of their adopted country poorly or not at all, despise pluralistic democracy, look forward to Europe’s incorporation into the House of Islam, and support—at least in spirit—terrorism against the West.

Europe's strength has become its weakness: It's passive tolerance makes it ripe for social conquest by aggressive bearers of intolerant dogma.

City Journal
http://www.brucebawer.com/

Worry-Driven Life

Stones

The US, along with a few like-minded allies, is the only country left with the balls to confront bad people, but that is changing. For the worst.

Do the Russians and the Chinese have balls? Sure, but when they find bad guys, they turn them to their own use (Think Iran's Mullas, North Korea).

The US simply wipes the bad guys out or politically rehabilitates them.

Look at who we've rehabilitated in just the very recent past: Anbar Sunnis, Salvadorian leftist rebels, Nicaraguan Sandinistas, Noriega's political party. These were all US "enemies" who have been restored within their own political systems. How often does that happen in the Russian, Chinese or Middle Eastern sphere?

Pirates and International Terrorists can't be Rehabilitated, Only Eliminated

Just ask the first Democratic president, Thomas Jefferson. He knew how to eliminate international threats to the US: Dispatch the US Navy to kill the bad guys. C'mon Democrats! More Jefferson, less Carter! We risk looking so weak that our enemies will become emboldened .

Why Do International Gangsters Run Free?

I don't just blame President Obama's scraping and bowing before tyrants and the international weak sisters who enable them; I blame European governments who are ashamed to fight over anything bigger than a soccer match.

If we had a strong coalition of Western powers, along with Japan and India, that unapologetically killed bad guys and broke their stuff everywhere we found them, crap like piracy and international terrorism would cease.

As it is now, bad guys pit Mommy (Europe and their UN weak sisters) against Daddy (US). Dad's got the belt, but mommy begs him not to use it, and little Johnny Jihad skips off to his next marketplace bombing.

I blame Obama, I blame snotty Europeans who criticize us while lounging under our security umbrella, I blame any nation that is ashamed to stand up for what's right. To their credit, France and India are are not putting up with this crap. The US military could squash these Somali rats if only we weren't afraid of offending the International House of Corruption and Scandal known as the UN.

The only people left who have any balls are the bad guys. Guess where this leads?

Links:
Lowry - SL Trib

Reports of Christianity's Demise Greatly (and gleefully) Exaggerated

Is Christianity Dying in America? Only, perhaps, at the hands of political entanglement.

Jon Meacham, following Newsweek's tabloid trash journalistic standards, has completely botched an article on Christianity in America. He slants his report on the latest American Religious Indentification Survey to make is seem as if Christianity is dead in America. He was obviously in over his head, so I won't spend too much time on his pathetic effort. I'll only point out the grossest stupidities.

Atheism isn't Overtaking Christianity
The survey report concludes that self-identification confusion among deists, atheists, and agnostics clouds the true numbers, but that perhaps one percent of the population is atheist. That's hardly a groundswell of God-rejection, but it doesn't stop Meacham's gleeful dance upon Christianity's grave.

Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics
Christianity declined 10% in the 1990's, but has declined less than one percent in the past eight years. To make the case more alarming, he focuses on the steep decline of the 90's and ignores the leveling off of the new millennium

God Does Not Hate Worship of Him
Most egregious is his ripping an Old Testament passage completely out of context in order to slam organized religious ceremonies:

As an archbishop of Canterbury once said, though, it is a mistake to think that God is chiefly or even largely concerned with religion. "I hate the sound of your solemn assemblies," the Lord says in Amos.

The Lord said that because he was greatly unhappy with the Israelites' actions at that point in history. Even a cursory reading of Amos makes that clear. Further reading would instruct this ignorant man that God requires us to assemble and worship him. How lazy.

"Give to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's"
E.J. Dionne has a much firmer grasp on the situation. He eschews the hysterics and takes the longer view, which is more appropriate when evaluating a 2000 year old religion's place is a society that is less that 500 years old:

In fact, the United States has gone through many periods in which religious enthusiasm and affiliation waned, only to be renewed in a subsequent revival. Christianity is a rather durable faith. Many believers would ascribe this to the power of its truth claims, but its resilience also speaks to the adaptability of its core message.

EJ, a devout Christian, throws some jabs at the religious right, but they are thoughtful and not mean-spirited, which is why he is one of my favorite liberals:

But, yes, something is changing, and that change will strengthen rather than weaken the Christian church over the long run. For nearly a quarter-century, Christianity in the United States has been defined to a large degree by the voices and the ideas of a very conservative strain of evangelical Christianity that, over time, became highly politicized and closely allied with a single political party.

These conservative Christians had as much right as any other group to bring their core concerns to politics. But in doing so, they narrowed the Christian message. They sometimes became apologists for politicians whose behavior and attitudes could not easily be called Christian and forgot that Christ himself became a victim of injustice at the hands of a mighty empire.

Christianity got too cozy with the GOP
I agree with E.J., but to be fair to Christians and the GOP, the Democratic party's agenda of pro-abortion, pro-gay marriage, anti-prayer, and state usurpation of parental roles ran off the socially conservative Christians. Despite liberal hostility to Christian morality, any good church should avoid entanglements with government and politic parties.

Such entanglements are responsible for Christianity's demise in Europe. The Catholic Church became joined at the hip with the crowned heads, and when royalty became discredited, so did the church. Government sponsorship of certain approved Protestant religions in Western Europe has destroyed those churches.

Christianity is thriving in America like it is in few other western countries. Assiduously preventing political parties from slapping their bumper stickers on it will go a long way towards maintaining that progress.

Mark 12, NIV, Bible Gateway.com
http://www.newsweek.com/id/192583
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/04/rediscovering_the_true_calling.html
http://74.125.95.132/search?q=cache:L8BktLCQJ7gJ:livinginliminality.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/aris_report_2008.pdf+American+Religious+Identification+Survey&cd=3&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us
ARIS

E-Mail Detritus, aka Funny Picures People Sent Me

From the recent Somali Pirate encounters:



I can really identify with this one:



And finally, in the dumb illegal immigrant category...


Picture taken from a real traffic stop. Remember, when making a fake ID, use a picture of only yourself, no matter how much you love your girl.

DC Schools: A Conservative Solution

An Opportunity for Conservatism to Prove Itself

Our politicians have condemned the kids of DC to the same shabby schools they refuse to send their own kids to.

The Federal Government's defunding of the DC voucher program provides a chance to demonstrate how effective conservatism can be in everyday life: Conservatives can step in and help parents raise money from private sources to restore the DC scholarships that the Democrats, at the behest of the teachers unions, are snatching away.

Juan Williams over at FOX News Provides some background on just how effective the program was:

The students, almost all of them black and Hispanic, patched together the voucher money with scholarships, other grants and parents willing to make sacrifices to pay their tuition.

What happened, according to a Department of Education study, is that after three years the voucher students scored 3.7 months higher on reading than students who remained in the D.C. schools. In addition, students who came into the D.C. voucher program when it first started had a 19 month advantage in reading after three years in private schools.

Here's my admittedly simplistic conservative plan of action:

1) Raise money. $12.85 million per year will replace what the government snatched away. How can generous conservatives make that up? Start a tax-free tuition fund that people can contribute to. We should be able to raise enough money by Fall 2009 to pay or offset the tuition for all the kids abandoned by our government.

2) Get the DC kids' parents and family involved in this enterprise. Community organizing should not be the exclusive domain of liberals.

3) Turn the entire project over to the DC kids and their families. These good people have shown they care about their kids. Give them the seeds of a powerful organization and watch them grow it!

4) Enjoy the sight of people taking control of their own lives even as government abandons them. What an example this would set for others all over the country who are in similar circumstances.

Links:
Juan Williams Article
Washington Post

KATIE'S LAW

http://www.kdvr.com/news/kdvr-katies-law-031109,0,3926110.story

Katie Sepich was a 22 year old student at NMSU when she was attacked, raped, strangled, her body set on fire and dumped outside of Las Cruces, New Mexico.

While my heart goes out to Katie’s parents, I find myself conflicted over the law that they sponsor.

http://www.katieslaw.org/

Katie’s Law would allow the state to collect DNA from anyone arrested on a felony charge, theoretically (at least in Colorado) anyone who was arrested but not subsequently convicted, would be expunged from the database.

13 states have enacted such laws.

The problem that I have with this law is that it seems to ignore the old adage of “innocent until proven guilty”, and an arrest does not prove guilt. One of the problems I foresee is what are you going to do with the arrestee… whose DNA is matched to a crime, but who is subsequently found not guilty? Is he allowed to walk on the crime that the DNA did match? After all, if he was wrongly arrested on the crime that provided the DNA sample, under what premise is the government allowed to use that DNA evidence?

Most states already collect DNA samples from convicted felons, it is a dangerous step to allow states to collect DNA from those who have yet to be convicted, for from there it is only a short walk to just collecting everyone’s DNA. For technically, there is no difference between you and someone who has been arrested yet not convicted.

Sponsors have proposed amending the law to allow the samples to be taken upon arrest yet not processed until charged, yet what is the difference there except perhaps the oversight of the district attorney? Do we forget also that charged does not mean convicted either? Like fingerprinting, DNA evidence processed will be used to fish for matches. We could certainly clear a vast backlog of cases that have DNA evidence simply by taking samples from everyone… where do you draw the line?

The restrictions on unreasonable search and seizure are not in place to protect criminals, they are in effect a barrier to abuse. Implemented to ensure that the state, which is implicitly not trusted, does not abuse it’s powers. Sure, the country would be a whole lot safer if everyone’s DNA was on file from birth, if police could stop and search anyone they wanted, but would you want to live in such a society? Even if 99.9% of law enforcement and prosecutors were 100% honest, do you want to give the .1% left over the power to stop and search you whenever they like? Given that the process is colored in infinite shades of grey, with many who believe that the end justifies the means, the decision becomes even more complicated.

In Colorado the issue seems to criss-cross party lines, State Senator John Morse (D) of Colorado Springs, one of the sponsors and a former Fountain, CO Police Chief said his Bill would "ensure that criminals don't get a second bite from the apple." While State Senator Kevin Lundberg (R) of Berthoud said "To put the bad guys on the database is fine, but to put the innocent there is another issue entirely." I find myself in a rare occasion of agreeing with the state ACLU that "
"This bill flies in the face of the very fundamental right of people to be presumed innocent until proven guilty."

One could argue from a purely statistical basis that obtaining DNA samples from those going onto public assistance would greatly benefit law enforcement and the conviction rate of crimes. Yet all of you liberals, currently silent, would be screaming bloody murder... why aren't you now? Is it because the underprivileged happen to be a secure voting bloc and those arrested on felony charges (some 60,000 a year in Colorado) are not? Honestly, support and opposition to this measure seems to criss-cross party lines, my question is why?

It is a difficult thing to balance the rights of free men against the right of society to protect itself, somewhere one must draw a line between the individual and society, the question is where? Personally I believe that line needs to be drawn at conviction, for until then, are we not all presumed innocent?

~Finntann~

Let Freedom (and Gunshots) Ring!

State governments are asserting their constitutional rights

Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer (a Democrat!) signed into law a pro-gun, anti-Fed bill.

(The bill) exempts Montana-made firearms from federal regulations.

Schweitzer also signed into law a bill clarifying gun rights, which says people don’t have an obligation to run away before using a gun in self defense, landlords can’t control whether tenants have guns and people who use self defense should not be presumed guilty by police.
Source: Flathead Beacon

That's right. Guns made in Montana and used within that state cannot be regulated by the Federal Government. That means assault rifles, machine guns, Thompson sub-machine guns, Gatling guns, chain guns, howitzers, guns with silencers, guns with loudeners... All untouchable by the Feds.

Utah and Texas are hankerin' to do the same!

Meanwhile, in Oklahoma, home of the fine conservative US Senators James Inhofe and Dr. Tom Coburn, state legislators have passed a bill asserting Oklahoma's sovereignty. Rep Charles Key says the bill...

would tell Congress to "get back into their proper constitutional role.” The resolution states the federal government should "cease and desist” mandates that are beyond the scope of its powers.

Key said many federal laws violate the 10th Amendment, which says powers not delegated to the U.S. government "are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.” The Constitution lists about 20 duties required of the U.S. government, he said. (Source: NewsOK.Com)

Key Points to Remember Regarding States Rights and The Constitution

1) The Constitution is a set of instructions from We The People to the Federal Government.

2) The Constitution was established by the thirteen original states as a delegation of certain specific powers to the federal government so that the rights of the people might be protected.

3) Our inalienable rights come from God, not the government or the Constitution. The Federal Government and the Constitution don't bestow rights, they safeguard them.

Peoples' Rights and States' Rights: Two Amendments

9th Amendment:
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

10th Amendment:
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

Let the cowering metrosexual liberals surrender their freedoms in their high-tax, crime infested, shriveled blue states. Out west and down south...
Let Freedom (and gunshots) Ring, Baby!

The Professor and the Cowboy

President Bush explained himself better that President Obama has so far...

Despite his erudite, professorial mien, President Obama sure doesn't explain things well. The inarticulate Cowboy from Texas was much more thoughtful when discussing the economy, foreign policy, and stem cells than The Great Orator from Chicago. Has anyone noticed this besides me?

Obama's "Nothing should stand in the way of science, but I prohibit human cloning" is logically incoherent, but nobody cares because he looks good and sounds good spouting such inanities

The press is so enamored of this tall, handsome man, that if he came out on the front lawn of the White House and howled at the moon they would gush about how no other president in history had done it quite so well. Among the legions of scribblers and babblers, Johah Goldberg at NRO is one of the few who has dared throw the BS flag on Obama's latest verbal embroidery.

Asked about his decision to release the “torture memos” and ban waterboarding, Obama said: “I was struck by an article that I was reading the other day talking about the fact that the British during World War II, when London was being bombed to smithereens, had 200 or so detainees. And Churchill said, ‘We don’t torture,’ when . . . all of the British people were being subjected to unimaginable risk and threat. . . . Churchill understood, you start taking shortcuts, over time, that corrodes what’s best in a people. It corrodes the character of a country.”

It’s a nice, honorable statement. But there’s not much evidence it’s true.

Goldberg eviscerates Obama's misuse of history by pointing to harsh WW II British interrogation techniques, not to mention the incineration of tens of thousands of Germans upon Churchill's order to firebomb Dresden when the war was already practically won. Churchill author Arthur Herman chimes in as well in a NY Post article.

So, is the president genuinely ignorant? Is he not thinking through what he's doing? Or does he hold us in such low esteem that we just don't merit a detailed explanation or an honest accounting? So far, he has proven much less articulate that President Bush. Who'd a thunk it?

“Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please.”
-- Mark Twain

NY Post - Arthur Herman
NRO - Jonah Goldberg

Smelting Pot

America used to be a melting pot, where cultures from all over blended together, producing a vibrant, successful nation. No longer.

America is now a smelting pot, where mixed up cultures separate under extreme heat, producing sulfurous odors, slag and other useless byproducts.

David Paulin at American Thinker concludes that America no longer remakes its immigrants, the immigrants now remake America.

The elites tell us we should be ashamed of our white, Anglo-Saxon protestant culture, and defending is is tantamount to racism and cultural chauvinism.

Is a noisy, polyglot patchwork of mutually exclusive and antagonistic cultures really better than what our founding fathers established? We'll find out soon enough.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/04/somali_immigrants_remake_minne.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smelting

The Superstition of Progress

Carrie Prejean

Here's what Carrie Prejean said when a bull dyke with a butch haircut asked her opinion on gay marriage:

"I think it's great that Americans are able to choose one or the other. We live in a land that you can choose same-sex marriage or opposite marriage and, you know what, in my country and my family I think that I believe that a marriage should be between a man and a woman. No offense to anyone out there but that's how I was raised and that's how I think it should be between a man and a woman."

No malice, no prejudice, just a simple explanation of her moral beliefs, unswayed by popular opinion. What's more American than that?

The cranky judge that asked her the question exercised his freedom of speech by hissing like a cat and engaging in middle school name-calling as he excoriated Ms. Prejean for giving a sincere answer to a stupid question. It's a bikini contest, for crying out loud. What next, asking a panel of Brazilian beach volleyball players about global energy policy?

By the way, what was a gay man doing judging a beauty contest? What's next, a panel of Jews, Muslims and vegetarians judging a pork BBQ cook off on the food channel? Only in America...

Condi Bats Down the BS

This is the recent confrontation Condoleezza Rice had with a student at Stanford.

Dr. Rice gives the best defense of the Bush Administration's interrogation policy I have seen to date. Most impressive is that she did it impromptu (no teleprompter!) and with such grace. Her towering intellect was no match for the little lib who tried to take her on. Ever the diplomat, Condi knew she was in a battle of wits with an unarmed man, so she eviscerated his nonsense in a charitable, professorial manner.


Notice how the legitimate questioner at the end, in a Freudian slip, calls waterboarding torture by accident? That is the power of words, and the power of definitional abuse practiced so effectively by the left. James Delingpole provides excellent commentary on this at his Telegraph Blog.

Condoleezza Rice For President 2012!

Modern Day Joan of Arc

First Carrie Prejean, and now Mary Ann Glendon. Brave women are standing up for their religious principles in a very American way. According to the Boston Globe...

Harvard Law professor Mary Ann Glendon, one of the most prominent Catholic conservative intellectuals in the United States, announced yesterday that she would refuse a prestigious award from the University of Notre Dame rather than appear on the same platform on which President Obama is being awarded an honorary degree.

She cited the nominally-Catholic University's decision to bestow an honorary degree on the pro-abortion president. Amid the hubbub she has displayed admirable grace:

She said she was also unhappy that "talking points issued by Notre Dame in response to widespread criticism of its decision included two statements implying that my acceptance speech would somehow balance the event."

"A commencement, however, is supposed to be a joyous day for the graduates and their families," she said in the letter, addressed to Notre Dame's president, the Rev. John I. Jenkins. "It is not the right place, nor is a brief acceptance speech the right vehicle, for engagement with the very serious problems raised by Notre Dame's decision, in disregard of the settled position of the US bishops, to honor a prominent and uncompromising opponent of the church's position on issues involving fundamental principles of justice."

Others, like the Reverend Kenneth Himes of Boston College, view this as merely political gamesmanship.

"But one also has to say that there is a political game going on here, and part of that is that you demonize the people who disagree with you, you question their integrity, you challenge their character, and you brand these people as moral poison. Some people have simply reduced Catholicism to the abortion issue, and, consequently, they have simply launched a crusade to bar anything from Catholic institutions that smacks of any sort of open conversation."

With all due respect to Friar Himes, Professor Glendon has not demonized our president, nor has she branded him as moral poison. Abortion is viewed as an inherent evil by Catholic dogma, so it is no longer open to debate in a Catholic setting. Funny that a layperson would grasp what a cleric does not.

It should be noted that Rev. Himes opposed Boston College bestowing an honorary law degree upon Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

Boston Globe
Vocal Minority

Damn, look at this! Nietzsche is Dead translated into Czech!


I guess I'm easily impressed. I still can't believe the capabilities the ordinary person has at his fingertips...

...And in the News

Barack Obama, President and CEO of The Chrysler Corporation, announced that company's bankruptcy yesterday. With Mr. Obama's involvement, it's not your normal business failure. Let's call it an O'Bankruptcy... Read more here...

And in other news, while government underlings were telling us not to panic, Vice President Joe Biden was keepin' it real:

In an interview on NBC's Today Show early Thursday Mr. Biden said he'd advise family members to avoid airplanes, subways and other "confined" places to avoid catching the H1N1, or swine flu.

White House officials are scrambling to clarify the Vice President's comments...

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics/AP/story/1026428.html
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124112820335474671.html

Can We Get Real?

Reality is a construct. Dealing with your fellow man is not like dealing with natural phenomena that follow logical rules of nature. The square root of 64 is not 8 to the mathematically ignorant. Those who know 8 is the square root of 64 must start from that point of error and work towards the truth when dealing with the ignorant.

Randall Hoven has written a cool think piece on nature, man and ignorance.

When dealing with other men, if you can't just kill them, you need to deal with what is inside their heads, which has almost nothing to do with "reality" in the sense of man against nature. If the other man thinks you are a devil who must be vanquished at all costs, it does you absolutely no good to know that you are, in fact, not a devil. And the things that might convince the other man that you are not a devil have nothing to do with, say, evidence, the scientific method, or looking up "devil" in the dictionary.

But when the adversary is not nature, but fellow men, rationality as normally considered is out the window. We live in a world where Nancy Pelosi and Barney Frank are taken seriously. Where Libya is given the chair on the Human Rights commission at the UN. Where heads of state genuinely believe sheep farts are dangerously heating up the planet.

From US politics to world events, it's a battle of competing realities. Read the whole article here...

http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/04/stop_making_sense.html