The Mike's Noise Virtual Victrola has a new home. Hop over and check it out. Traffic so far has been very good. If you know someone who is a record collector or who likes vintage music and movies, spread the word!
Due to time constraints, my "linking" blog, They Turned Me Into A Newt, has been suspended. You can still visit the blog archive though. There's lots of good stuff linked there.
Please continue to pray for those who have been kidnapped in Israel and Palestine, Iraq, and Afghanistan.
President Bush told the truth yesterday when he bluntly stated that trying to negotiate with terrorists is akin to the appeasement policies of the 1930's. Barack Obama and the Democrat leadership got their panties in a knot over Bush's remarks, but Bush never used the words "Democrat" or "Obama" in his speech. Sister Toldjah has the best blogger response; she lists a multitude of examples where Democrats have, in fact, denounced the United States or attempted to interfere with US policy while on foreign soil. She also has a good follow-up to the story.
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A Kuwaiti freed from Guantanamo in 2005 has carried out a suicide attack in Iraq. This is the first confirmed incident of a former Guantanamo prisoner actually carrying out an attack, but God only knows how many former prisoners have rejoined the terrorist ranks.
You should read this too: A Day In The Life of a Guantanamo Guard. Should the Guantanamo prisoners be held liable for attacking their guards with physical assaults (including beatings and attacks with vomit, feces, and urine) and violent verbal threats?
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(Image from No Looking Backwards )
House Democrats have again defeated a measure that would open up a small area of ANWR for oil exploration. But they did decide to stop adding oil to the nation's Strategic Petroleum Reserve.
Jim Hoft at Gateway Pundit says that the Democrats' uniform position against oil and gas exploration, nuclear power plant construction, and oil refinery construction could be the number one issue in the 2008 presidential campaign. He may be right; currently, the economy is holding its own.
This California editorial page chides the global warming alarmists who would have industrialized nations so drastically reduce carbon emissions that an economic disaster would result. They argue that nations with strong economies are in a better position to spend money on environmental research and energy-saving technologies. I think they are right.
Here is another article from the Canada Free Press that discusses much of the discredited science that is still being used to hype man-made global warming theories.
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Barack Obama is starting a press campaign to appeal directly to Evangelical Christians. Obama markets himself as a "committed Christian." Um ... does this mean "theocracy" if he is elected?
Charismatic/Pentecostal mega-church pastor and End Times prophet John Hagee has apologized for various remarks made over the years that have angered Catholics. Hagee has endorsed John McCain for president, but McCain has never attended Hagee's church or regularly consulted Hagee on spiritual matters.
John McCain might be thinking about using a Mike Huckabee endorsement to woo Evangelical voters. But I think a McCain-Huckabee ticket would be a disaster. It seems that some of Huckabee's supporters think that an Obama presidency would be punishment from God for not electing an Evangelical president. (shudder)
Last week, a Philadelphia bank robbery perpetrated by three men resulted in the death of a police officer and one of the robbers. The robber who died, Howard Cain, was a Muslim. He and his cohorts disguised themselves as Muslim women in order to commit the robbery. But -- his mosque has refused to bury him. One of the directors of the mosque said, "We don't want one slight scintilla hinting that we condone his behavior." I only wish more Muslims were brave enough to stand up to those who commit crimes in the name of Islam.
... say, $50,000 or so, this full scale mock-up of Airwolf (built on a Bell 222A airframe) can be yours, courtesy of Ebay.
The auction ends May 17, so bid today!
If you like to laugh at the funny things cats do, then you'll enjoy these videos. I believe they are all compilations that originally aired on "America's Funniest Home Videos":
And here is Russian animal trainer Mayya Panfilova and her troupe of trained house cats. We saw her and her cats perform last month at the Shriner Circus here in Oklahoma City:
Barack Obama won the Democratic primary in North Carolina last night by a 14 point margin. Hillary Clinton won Indiana, but only by 2 percentage points. 91 out of 100 blacks in North Carolina voted for Obama. And Hillary's slim win in predominantly white, socially conservative (and a former Klan stronghold) Indiana means that Obama also appealed strongly to whites. But Obama's appeal is strongest among white voters under the age of 25, a group that has been notoriously unreliable in general elections.
Last night's primaries illustrate two things. First, America is ready for an African-American president, and consistently high voter turnout among blacks has shown that they are a powerful force in American politics. Their efforts in support of Obama probably cost Hillary Clinton the Democratic nomination. And second, any way you count it, Hillary Clinton does not have enough delegates to secure the party nomination unless she poaches superdelegates from Obama. Her supporters undoubtedly know this, which will translate into a huge momentum drain on her campaign. Even if she wants to fight on, if her supporters have given up then she will have no choice but to quit. If she does try to stay in and pull a fast one at the convention, she will destroy the Democratic party.
You might also enjoy this humorous 7 minute encapsulation of the 2008 Democratic presidential race.
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Anti-war protesters are struggling to overcome public apathy about the war in Iraq. Let's just be honest about this, shall we? The "anti-war" movement (in general) has done virtually nothing substantive during the last five years. Most major war protests are nothing more than a rag-tag collection of burned-out hippies, Communists, socialists, conspiracy kooks, publicity-seekers and other assorted losers and America-haters who delight in vulgarity, profanity, and general rudeness. The only thing they have in common is a visceral hatred for America, the Republican party, the military, and President Bush. While a majority of Americans want the war to end as soon as possible, and believes that President Bush has not done a good job executing the proper strategies in Iraq, they do not identify with the kind of hatred and ugliness displayed at war protests. Most of us want victory, not surrender and defeat. And most of us want nothing to do with Communism.
This should be a wake-up call for Christian peace makers, who actually have something worthwhile to offer -- the hope of reconciliation and non-violence through the Gospel. A movement that emphasized solidarity between citizens in the West and Middle East, and that worked for non-violent removal of malevolent regimes (like the toppling of the Communist Party in Poland by Solidarity) would garner far more support that a bunch of profanity-spewing radicals burning American flags. If there is one thing that Christians should be working to "take back," it should be peace initiatives.
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Looking to sell you gas-guzzling SUV or mega-size diesel-drinking pickup truck? Good luck. 35 years ago, the Arab oil embargo doubled the price of gasoline, which effectively put an end to the legendary "muscle cars" of the late 1960's - early 1970's. The same thing will happen very soon with over-sized family vehicles.
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Democrats, led by Hillary Clinton, are ready to sock it to energy companies, in the form of a "windfall profits tax." The last time this idea was tried, the tax created an enormous accounting burden for energy companies that resulted in a net decrease in domestic oil production (which is more profitable than importing oil). As a result, the tax collected only a fraction of its projected revenue and gasoline supplies decreased, driving gasoline prices higher. But hey, Democrats care. Meanwhile back in reality, IBD notes that American consumer demand for gasoline has already fallen 1.4% from a year ago.
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On the heels of rocker Sting's confession that he is an eco-hypocrite, here is a list of more celebrities notorious for their "do as I say, not as I do" approach to living an eco-friendly lifestyle. Think Barbra Streisand actually air-dries her laundry outside? Don't bet on it.
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The government of Zimbabwe released the results from its March 29 presidential election last week and -- hold on to your seats -- incumbent Communist dictator Robert Mugabe, who has ruled the nation for 28 years, lost. However, his defeat was not significant enough to avoid a runoff election. This is dangerous, since Communist dictators generally do not peacefully give up power. Opposition leaders are concerned that Mugabe's henchmen would intimidate voters if a runoff election is held; they are demanding that Mugabe step aside but allow his party officials to form a coalition government with the opposition. Right now the opposition is keeping its leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, out of Zimbabwe, fearing that he would be arrested or simply "disappear" if he were to return before a solution is reached.
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Many policy-makers have suggested that Americans would be happier and financially better-off if we had the same benevolent socialism found in most European nations. But inflation, high unemployment, heavy taxation, and other economic woes are beginning to drag down the European middle class, with some Europeans actually fearing that their standard of living will be less than that of their parents.
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If you have been following the story of Austrian madman Josef Fritzl, you have no doubt sickened by the horror and depravity of his actions -- imprisoning his teenage daughter Elizabeth in his basement for 24 years, regularly raping her, impregnating her at least seven times, and forcing her and two of her children to live like animals, while tricking his beleaguered wife into caring for Elizabeth's other four children, convincing her that Elizabeth had run away and had repeatedly "abandoned" her bastard children on the Fritzl's doorstep.
But for all the evil that Fritzl committed, under European law he can only receive a maximum prison sentence of 15 years for imprisoning and raping his daughter, or 20 years if he is found guilty of murder due to his complicity in the death of one of Elizabeth's infant children. Americans and Europeans frequently criticize the American penal system for its use of the death penalty and its high per capita incarceration rate. But Europeans are now concerned that their overly lenient penal system may actually be encouraging crime, since its short prison sentences (usually made even shorter by judges and parole boards) seem to make some crimes "worth" committing.
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Finally, you should check out this story about Megan, a college-age girl in Salt Lake City who is a professional panhandler, standing at busy intersections with a cardboard sign, pretending to be homeless and in desperate need of money to buy a bus ticket back home. In reality, she lives comfortably in a middle-class neighborhood and prefers to beg for pocket money, rather than earning it honestly.
This fellow, Greg Pattillo, has been getting quite a bit of exposure lately. He recently appeared on an episode of the popular Nick kids show "iCarly." He "beatboxes" while playing the flute. What he does is effective and entertaining. Check it out:
If you liked Greg Pattillo's playing, you should check out the futuristic multi-instrumentalist Rahsaan Roland Kirk, who was a true visionary and decades ahead of his time. This clip of Kirk is from a 1966 short film entitled "Sound??" which featured Kirk and composer John Cage:
Check out Peace Thugs Exposed, a blog tracking violent acts committed by "peace" protesters.
Rock star Sting and his activist wife confess to being environmental hypocrites who own seven mansions and travel around the world in private jets.
The Supreme Court upheld an Indiana law that required photo ID's to be presented when citizens vote. Liberals, as can be expected, are in an uproar, since this likely will mean that more states will enact photo ID requirements for voting.
The state of Florida is considering a ban on fake testicles that are hung from trailer hitches behind vehicles. Only in America. But it could be worse. In Congo, police have arrested 13 suspects after a wave of panic in which citizens claimed that practitioners of black magic were making the victim's penises disappear.
Coalition forces have captured more newly-manufactured Iranian weapons in Iraq.
A prominent foreign policy analyst believes that the war in Iraq has strengthened America's international strategic position, particularly in terms of key alliances. The only way that this position would be weakened is if America withdrew from Iraq without keeping its promises to build and defend the nascent Iraqi state.
Moldy, dilapidated barracks at Fort Bragg, NC are causing concern for the DOD. Unless they have been renovated some time during the last twenty years, these barracks, built during the 1950's, probably also contain lead paint and asbestos.
Condoleezza Rice has acknowledged that the use of food for biofuels production may be contributing to the sudden price increases in basic food commodities such as rice and wheat.
Thousands of children in southwest China have been sold "like cabbages" to work in more prosperous industrial provinces. Authorities are investigating.
A BBC investigation into corruption among UN Peacekeepers in the Congo has embarrassed the UN. Gold smuggling, unlawful detentions, and gun running are among the allegations investigated by the BBC.
Want to know why Al Gore is so gung-ho about global warming? Probably because it will make him very, very rich.
While Rush Limbaugh has sarcastically predicted riots at the Democratic Convention in Denver this summer, leftists including MoveOn.org, Recreate 68, and now Roseanne Barr are actually calling for people to stir up trouble. And angry Florida delegates, whose votes will not be counted at the convention, are now making threats.
Well, well, well. Barack Obama has finally, finally once-and-for-all disowned Rev. Jeremiah "The Greek" Schott:
I have spent my entire adult life trying to bridge the gap between different kinds of people. That’s in my DNA. Trying to promote mutual understanding, to insist that we all share common hopes, and common dreams, as Americans and as human beings. That’s who I am, that’s what I believe, that’s what this campaign has been about.
Yesterday we saw a very different vision of America. I am outraged by the comments that were made and saddened over the spectacle that we saw yesterday. I have been a member of Trinity United Church of Christ since 1992. I’ve known Reverend Wright for almost 20 years. The person that I saw yesterday was not the person that I met 20 years ago. His comments were not only divisive and destructive, but I believe that they end up giving comfort to those who prey on hate, and I believe that they do not portray accurately the perspective of the black church.
They certainly don’t portray accurately my values and beliefs. And if Reverend Wright thinks that that’s political posturing, as he put it, then he doesn’t know me very well. And based on his remarks yesterday, well, I may not know him as well as I thought either.
Now, I’ve already denounced the comments that had appeared in these previous sermons. As I said, I had not heard them before. And I gave him the benefit of the doubt in my speech in Philadelphia, explaining that he has done enormous good in the church. He has built a wonderful congregation. The people of Trinity are wonderful people, and what attracted me has always been their ministries reach beyond the church walls.
But when he states and then amplifies such ridiculous propositions as the U.S. government somehow being involved in AIDS, when he suggests that Minister Farrakhan somehow represents one of the greatest voices of the 20th and 21st centuries, when he equates the United States wartime efforts with terrorism, then there are no excuses.
They offend me. The rightly offend all Americans. And they should be denounced. And that’s what I’m doing very clearly and unequivocally here today.
Many people have opined that Obama is a hypocrite and a political opportunist for waiting until now to formally sever ties with Wright. Actually I think Obama did the right thing by giving Rev. Wright the benefit of the doubt earlier. Targeting someone for a harsh rebuke is never an easy thing to do, and I'm sure that Obama was very uncomfortable doing it even today.
The National Press Club invited Rev. Wright to speak on Monday, and address the issues of black liberation theology and his controversial remarks that made headlines several weeks ago. The complete transcript is here. The first five pages consist of Rev. Wright's remarks on liberation theology and its application to the black experience in America. This portion of the talk actually is pretty good. Wright discusses liberation theology sensibly, and he ends his talk thusly:
Now, the implications from the outside are obvious. If I see God as male, if I see God as white male, if I see God as superior, as God over us and not Immanuel, which means "God with us," if I see God as mean, vengeful, authoritarian, sexist, or misogynist, then I see humans through that lens.
My theological lens shapes my anthropological lens. And as a result, white males are superior; all others are inferior.
And I order my society where I can worship God on Sunday morning wearing a black clergy robe and kill others on Sunday evening wearing a white Klan robe. I can have laws which favor whites over blacks in America or South Africa. I can construct a theology of apartheid in the Africana church (ph) and a theology of white supremacy in the North American or Germanic church.
The implications from the outset are obvious, but then the complicated work is left to be done, as you dig deeper into the constructs, which tradition, habit, and hermeneutics put on your plate.
To say "I am a Christian" is not enough. Why? Because the Christianity of the slaveholder is not the Christianity of the slave. The God to whom the slaveholders pray as they ride on the decks of the slave ship is not the God to whom the enslaved are praying as they ride beneath the decks on that slave ship.
How we are seeing God, our theology, is not the same. And what we both mean when we say "I am a Christian" is not the same thing. The prophetic theology of the black church has always seen and still sees all of God's children as sisters and brothers, equals who need reconciliation, who need to be reconciled as equals in order for us to walk together into the future which God has prepared for us.
Reconciliation does not mean that blacks become whites or whites become blacks and Hispanics become Asian or that Asians become Europeans.
Reconciliation means we embrace our individual rich histories, all of them. We retain who we are as persons of different cultures, while acknowledging that those of other cultures are not superior or inferior to us. They are just different from us.
We root out any teaching of superiority, inferiority, hatred, or prejudice.
And we recognize for the first time in modern history in the West that the other who stands before us with a different color of skin, a different texture of hair, different music, different preaching styles, and different dance moves, that other is one of God's children just as we are, no better, no worse, prone to error and in need of forgiveness, just as we are.
Only then will liberation, transformation, and reconciliation become realities and cease being ever elusive ideals.
Wright makes some good points here and comes to the right conclusion. But already there are some problems, for we -- especially whites -- are roundly criticized by the gatekeepers of political correctness when we dare to point out "differences." The Anchoress scarcastically explained it like this:
We are supposed to - apparently - somehow split our brains, into never even noticing that there are racial differences between us, unless we’re working in praise of those differences. So, there are no differences between us…but we celebrate the differences…but their are none, and if you think there are, you’re a racist. Now celebrate!
Rev. Wright also has trouble talking about anything without invoking the imagery of slavery. When he really cut loose during the Q&A part of the program, theology gave way to entertainment, and Wright titillated the crowd with a continual series of embarrassing one-liners:
Louis Farrakhan is not my enemy. He did not put me in chains. He did not put me in slavery. And he didn't make me this color.
I am not running for office. I am hoping to be vice president.
[Obama] goes to church about as much as you do. What did your pastor preach on last week? You don't know? OK.
(In response to a question about the US government inventing HIV as a means of genocide against people of color): As I said to my members, if you haven't read things, then you can't -- based on this Tuskegee experiment and based on what has happened to Africans in this country, I believe our government is capable of doing anything.
In fact, in fact, in fact, one of the -- one of the responses to what Saddam Hussein had in terms of biological warfare was a non- question, because all we had to do was check the sales records. We sold him those biological weapons that he was using against his own people.
So any time a government can put together biological warfare to kill people, and then get angry when those people use what we sold them, yes, I believe we are capable.(In response to a question about Wright's comparison of the Roman soldiers who crucified Jesus Christ to the US Marines): That, yes, I can compare that. We have troops stationed all over the world, just like Rome had troops stationed all over the world, because we run the world. That notion of imperialism is not the message of the gospel of the prince of peace, nor of God, who loves the world.
The media was making a fool out of itself, because it knew nothing about our tradition. And so I decided to let them make a fool as long as they wanted to and then take the advice of Paul Laurence Dunbar, "Lies, lies, bless the lord. Don't you know the days are broad?"
... Once again, let me say it again. This is an attack on the black church. And I cannot as a minister of the gospel allow the significant part of our history -- most African-Americans and most European-Americans, most Hispanic-Americans, half the names I called in my presentation they've never heard of, because they don't know anything at all about our tradition.
... This is about Barbara Jordan. This is about Fanny Lou Hamer. This is about my grandmamma.My mother's advice was being seen all over the corporate media channels, and it's a paraphrase of the Book of Proverbs, where it is better to be quiet and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.
This came on the heels of Wright's performance before the NAACP in Detroit this weekend, where he imitated white and black marching bands and white and black accents, all to demonstrate that whites are left-brained (analytical) and blacks are right-brained (creative). Remember the The Bell Curve? Remember Jimmy "The Greek" Snyder? That's what happens when white people dare to point out such "differences." But Rev. Wright received loud, thunderous applause from both the National Press Club and the NAACP.
Many people, including Newt Gingrich, are speculating that Rev. Wright has taken to the offensive on his own, because he realizes that if Barack Obama wins the Presidency, or even the Democratic party nomination, the fundamental narratives about white power and white oppression that he has espoused form his pulpit for the last thirty years, his "anthropological lens," will be dealt a fatal blow. Thus Obama is now his enemy. Others have suggested that Hillary Clinton's operatives have seized upon this, and have bought Rev. Wright's services as a juggernaut to be used against the Obama campaign.
Regardless of his motivation, Rev. Wright is practicing a politics of divisiveness, distrust, and "keeping whitey on the hook," not a politics or theology of reconciliation and restoration. As such, he has no business being an influential player in American politics.
In Chapter 11 of his book Faith Works, social activist and evangelical leader Jim Wallis writes,
The U.S. government is telling us that we have entered a new "war against terrorism," one that may last for years or even decades ... The United States has decided upon a unilateral military strategy to counter terrorism and, indeed, to go on the offensive.
When did Wallis write this? In 1999; his book was published in 2000. There's more:
More strikes against U.S. citizens will cause public clamor for counterstrikes, and with more U.S. counterstrikes, the hunger for retaliation from the aggrieved parties will increase. When casualties on both sides grow, the perpetrators of the violence will both be accused of terrorism. And the prospect of the introduction of weapons of mass destruction is too terrible to contemplate. But we must.
All of this reminded me of this January 1998 speech by President Bill Clinton:
Together, we must confront the new hazards of chemical and biological weapons and the outlaw states, terrorists, and organized criminals seeking to acquire them. Saddam Hussein has spent the better part of this decade and much of his nation's wealth not on providing for the Iraqi people but on developing nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons and the missiles to deliver them. The United Nations weapons inspectors have done a truly remarkable job finding and destroying more of Iraq's arsenal than was destroyed during the entire Gulf war. Now Saddam Hussein wants to stop them from completing their mission.
The perceived threats from radical Islamic terrorism and Saddam Hussein's rogue behavior were a well-established part of U.S. government policy-making well before 9/11. The "War on Terror" had been discussed for years before President Bush officially coined the term. And connections between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda were well-known long before he uttered the infamous "sixteen words" in the 2003 State of the Union speech.
I repeatedly point this stuff out because the "reality-based community" seems to be in continual need of reality checks.
It would be tempting, if time permitted, to go through Wallis' Chapter Eleven in its entirety. Instead, only a few brief comments about the chapter will have to suffice. It is an interesting collection of philosophies, prophecies, and opinions about the role of Christianity in international peacemaking. Wallis devotes quite a bit of the chapter specifically to the subject of terrorism, correctly observing that:
Because much of todays terrorism is more "theological" than ideological, it poses the real danger of the perceived confrontation between the "Christian West" and "Islamic Fundamentalism." There is profound misunderstanding between Christians and Muslims, which underlines the potential for conflict, even though the mainstream of each religion does not want it.
But Wallis also makes this rather strange observation:
It used to be that, in war, civilians were protected and soldiers died. Now that has been reversed. Today, nations protect their military forces and sacrifice the enemy's civilian populations ... when planes fly high enough to avoid being shot down, there is less accuracy in bombing and more civilian loss of life.
Now here's where Wallis' writing gets interesting. He is writing this long before 9/11 and even longer before Iraq. But look at the points he makes:
How many times have we heard these same themes from the political left as they sought to damage President Bush over the issue of the Iraq war? Americans are the new terrorists. The torture chambers of Abu Graib are open again, only under new management. Unilateral. Unilateral. Unilateral. We have wrongfully declared a war on Islam. 200,000 civilians are killed every year in Iraq. "War on Terror' is a phony bumper-sticker slogan. We must be tolerant. We must not profile. We need to open a dialog. And isn't Wallis' statement about bombing eerily reminiscent of remarks that Sen. Jay Rockefeller made earlier this month about Sen. John McCain:
“McCain was a fighter pilot, who dropped laser-guided missiles from 35,000 feet. He was long gone when they hit. What happened when they [the missiles] get to the ground? He doesn’t know. You have to care about the lives of people. McCain never gets into those issues.”
Is Jim Wallis some kind of amazing clairvoyant? Hardly. He is simply a man who clearly articulates the concerns held by most of the political left in America. And this worldview shapes the narrative by which the political left interprets historical events. It is more of a self-fulfilling prophecy than an uncanny ability to foresee the future. The left knows that there will be massive civilian deaths, so they find a way to "prove" it, even though the proof is highly questionable at best. The left knows that U.S. troops will commit atrocities on a regular basis and with stunning indifference, so they exploit every tale of woe told by prisoners and disgruntled military personnel, often without checking basic facts first. Moral equivalence between al-Qaeda and U.S. military personnel has become an article of faith -- the military takes innocent young men and turns them into psychopathic killers; military personnel on active combat duty shoot and maim animals and civilians just for fun; the military is the biggest contributer to mental illness and homelessness. You know the drill.
I believe these things need to be questioned because it is not honest for the left to continually insist that they are universally true, because -- even though there are scattered examples of these things occurring -- most of these claims are not universally supported by hard evidence. Regardless of whether you believe that U.S. military intervention in Iraq was warranted, the vast majority of battle reports indicated that the U.S. military takes the cost of civilian life very seriously. And even though civilians are lost in battle, this is primarily the responsibility of terrorists who use civilians as human shields, deliberately drawing fire on them during combat. Incident report after incident report shows that U.S. commanders will call off aerial attacks, ambushes, patrols, and other strike and support missions if civilians are known to be in proximity. U.S. Marines have battled terrorists door to door in places like Fallujah, where a large aerial strike could have wiped out square blocks of the city with no loss of life for U.S. personnel. And so on.
I don't want to come down too hard on Jim Wallis, because he is a good man and he makes some good suggestions in this chapter of his book. Wallis eagerly encouraged American citizens to begin interacting with citizens in Muslim nations. He also encouraged American Christian clergymen to reach out to Muslim leaders and attempt to create solidarity based on common goals and beliefs. Wallis hoped that these actions would prevent a large-scale terror attack from occurring. Unfortunately he was wrong, and many of his dire predictions have come true. In today's post-9/11 world, we are past the point of circumventing such a defining terror attack and its resulting counterstrikes, but we still desperately need to forge alliances between citizens of the United States and Muslim nations, especially in at-risk areas such as Iran and northern Africa. Already citizens of Iran are protesting the policies of their nation en masse. They do not want a repeat of the costly and demoralizing Iraq-Iran war two decades ago. And the U.S. is sending billions of dollars in food and other aid to Africa, where it is needed most. President Bush wants to build stable, democratic nations in Africa, thereby avoiding the kinds of problems plaguing the Middle East and spurring interest in radical Islam. It's good to see that we are doing something right in Africa, even though it gets scant attention from our blood and scandal-obsessed press.
Don't get me wrong here. I abhor warfare and I regret that the U.S. made the decision to get involved militarily in Iraq. But the tired cliches and boilerplate predictions of the left, and their dogged attempts at fulfilling their own prophecies of doom, do not help to end the violence. No, really, they don't. They make proponents of the war entrench themselves and defend their positions even more fervently (witness President George W. Bush), and they give ammunition to opposing forces, who excitedly propagate tales of Americans calling their own troops savages and terrorists. And they make it more difficult to objectively study trends that may be pointing to real problems, such as the sobering truth that a disproportionately high percentage of America's homeless population are veterans.
I'm not going to let the Religious Right off the hook either, because their pedal-to-the-metal rush to declare the War on Terror as "God's war" and their unwavering support for George W. Bush as "God's President" were both stupid and un-Biblical. A pox on both their houses.
I suppose what this boils down to is that I really don't like being told -- either by the Left or the Right -- that certain people are inherently evil, or that a certain kind of evil will unavoidably occur. It's not prophecy or social action. It is simply blowing one's horn. And I really wish that religious leaders would stop doing it.
With global prices for basic food commodities -- rice, wheat, and corn -- rising rapidly during the last few months, the hammer has finally dropped on the biofuels industry. People are starting to (rightly) question why we are growing crops and then burning them in internal combustion engines. Also, the confiscation of farmland from peasants, and then the conversion of that land to large-scale corporate farming of biofuels and other cash crops, is one of the leading causes of poverty in third world nations.
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In Jimmy Carter's world: "When I go to a dictatorship, I only have to talk to one person and that's the dictator, because he speaks for all the people."
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This rocks -- Last week, House Republicans sent a letter to Nancy Pelosi and House Democratic Leadership. The letter read in part, “Two years ago this week, you stated that House Democrats had a
‘commonsense plan’ to ‘lower gas prices.’ In light
of the skyrocketing gasoline prices affecting working families and
every sector of our struggling economy, we are writing today to
respectfully request that you reveal this ‘commonsense plan’ so we can
begin work on responsible solutions to help ease this strain.”
In a typically Democrat response, Pelosi passed the buck to President Bush:
In a letter today, the California Democrat asks Bush to direct the Justice Department to investigate oil cartel price-fixing, authorize the Federal Trade Commission to pursue and punish “price gougers,” end tax breaks for oil companies and invest the savings in renewable energy.
Then she made a complete ass out of herself on Larry King Live while trying to defend the Democrats' non-existent response to the current gas price crisis. It seems our Grandmother Superior has no idea what the price of gas is these days. Michelle Malkin suggests, "Ask your government driver to let you know the next [time] he/she makes a stop at that thing called a gas station."
One can only hope that the Democrats' secret plan to lower gas prices is not as idiotic as candidate John Kerry's 2004 "secret plan" to end the Iraq War. One should hope, but not get their hopes up too high.
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The chummy relationship between Barack Obama and Weather Underground founding member William Ayres has received a lot of attention from conservatives. Indeed Ayres is an interesting figure. He was a leading 60's anarchist and radical, and was involved with the Weather Underground during the time that its members planted a number of bombs as part of a series of deliberate domestic terror attacks. Ayres was never criminally charged in any of these bombings, and today he is a Distinguished Professor of Education at the University of Illinois in Chicago. He is still a very powerful member of the political left in Chicago, which is why Obama sought his endorsement and participated in various endeavors with him, including giving a $75,000 grant to a Palestinian activist with known ties to terrorism.
Democrats want the probing of Ayres' past and his association with Barack Obama to end. It's irrelevant, they say, and besides, Ayres committed no crimes. But there is an inconvenient double standard at work in such a request. Captain Ed Morrisey writes, "What would the Left say if [John] McCain had sat on nonprofit foundation boards with David Duke and sent money to Holocaust deniers? ... If he had, Democrats would have a field day with it — and rightly so ... The difference apparently is in the target of one’s hatreds; as long as the hatred was directed at the American government, the Left believes it to be irrelevant."
Right now I am at an interesting crossroad with respect to politics. I am sick of tit-for-tat and example/counter-example arguments. I am sick of reading lists of incidents compiled for the sole purpose of "proving" that one side or the other is right. I am even more sick of "arguments" consisting of "facts" plucked totally out of context with regard to relevant timelines or events. But on the other hand, I believe that everyone should be held to the same standards. And it is impossible to highlight blatant examples of hypocrisy without showing that different standards have been applied to different people. And you can't do that without a solid list of examples. *Sigh* What to do?
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Poor Jimmy Carter. He thought he had brokered a "peace" agreement with Hamas. It was simple: Israel would have to completely give up all claims to the West Bank, Golan Heights, and Jerusalem (thus returning to its 1967 borders) and at such a time, Hamas would conduct a referendum of all "Palestinians" (even those who have been living elsewhere for decades) and if the referendum came out in favor of ending terrorism against Israel, then Hamas would think about it. Or maybe not. After Carter announced his brilliant plan, Hamas officially responded, "We agree on the [Palestinian] state with the borders of June 4, 1967, Jerusalem as its capital, fully sovereign without settlements, the right of return, but without the recognition of Israel." And just to drive the point home, they launched seven rockets into Negev, wounding a 4 year old boy. So Carter got bupkis for all his valiant efforts. But he did get to meet with some awfully nice terrorists and dictators.
And speaking of the Middle East, the CIA has officially confirmed that Israel's raid on Syria last fall destroyed a plutonium-based nuclear reactor being built by the North Koreans. The reactor was destroyed because 1) it was being built in secret, and 2) it could have produced weapons-grade enriched plutonium. Poor Bashar Assad. All the Dorktator had to do was show the world he was building a nuclear reactor, then claim that the purpose for building it was entirely 100% peaceful, and then invite the UN to inspect it. But nooooo .. he had to do it all in secret. Don't these guys ever learn? Now all he has is a smoking hole in the ground.
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According to the Daily Mail, 6 million Britons live in a home where no one works. The paper profiles one family, the McFaddens, that has ten people sharing a 3 bedroom council house. Three generations live there, and no one works.
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Danica Patrick has become the first female driver to win a pro Indy-series auto race. She won the Indy Japan 300 Sunday, finishing nearly six seconds ahead of second-place driver, Helio Castroneves. Patrick has been a celebrity of sorts for some time now, as she is remarkably attractive and a serious competitor on the racetrack. Now she is a champion -- something that Anna Kournikova never quite managed to achieve.
PS - If you think I am blogging about Danica Patrick primarily as an excuse to post a picture of a really hot babe on my blog ... well, you're probably right.
Some time ago, The Anchoress, who is a devout Catholic and one of my favorite Christian bloggers, tackled a silly question that Protestants often ask about the Roman Catholic Church - Why is every sperm sacred?
The Anchoress explained that, of course, this is not the exact teaching of the Church. Rather, what the Church teaches is that physical expressions of sexuality involve the essences of human life, which are sacred things. The Church also teaches that when individuals are not seeking to create new life, they should be disciplined enough to be able to divert their sexual energy into other things that can be used to further the work of God.
She continues,
... [this] simply means that every sex act, if it is truly to be respectful of God’s design and creation, must be opened to the possibility of new life, to God and to His will as to whether or not new life will be created. If the couple is NOT open to that possibility, if they take steps to suppress that possibility, then they have - essentially - excluded God from the act.
It is, really, kind of an ultimate surrender, an ultimate trust. For Christians who routinely say, “Thy Will Be Done,” it is where the rubber meets the road. No pun intended.
... Surrender - “not my will but thine be done” - is the ultimate goal. It comes with an open door, not a barricade, or it is not surrender, at all.
Yes, it’s a difficult thing to communicate to people. Some accept it…some don’t. I don’t judge anyone, because I’ve walked the whole walk, myself.
This is probably the single-most difficult aspect of Christian salvation.
In Philippians 2, the Apostle Paul describes the standard to which Christians are held:
Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
"Emptied" (kenosis in the Greek) is indeed a powerful word. The storehouse of the ego is bare; there is nothing left inside. We usually use words like "surrender" to describe this process. But even surrender is problematic because it means, literally, giving up without a fight. And oh, how we fight to keep control over the things we are most frightened of.
Sure, we think, I'll give up my Sundays. I'll stop swearing. I'll stop drinking. I'll cancel my subscription to Cosmo. I'll start tithing. But no birth control? No way! That could wreck my life! What if we had a kid we didn't want? That would change everything! That would be IRRESPONSIBLE! NO WAY!!
Of course this isn't just about "the pill" or trivial questions about whether or not "the pill" is a sin. It is a much larger issue, specifically that we are generally unwilling to surrender to Christ the things that contain the most unknowns. These are the things that we believe could change our lives most significantly if we "lost control" of them. Family planning is just one of those things. Financial security is another big area.
But why is it that the things that are the most significant are the things that we are least likely to immediately turn over to God? That seems outright backwards, doesn't it? If we believe that God's will for us really contains the essence of divine perfection, then shouldn't we be willing to quickly and permanently give Him final control over our entire lives? Really -- as if we can "guarantee" our own financial security, or the prosperity of our own family, or even our own personal satisfaction and happiness! As if we can create situations that result in contentment for us and happiness for all those around us! As if we have been so successful at doing these things ourselves!
Paul also contrasts the word emptied with the word grasped. Christ emptied himself, rather than grasping at the greatness of God. I believe the difference is one of activity on our part, which then requires God's acquiescence ("grasping" at godliness) versus activity on God's part, which then requires our surrender ("emptying" ourselves). Indeed Paul also tells us in Ephesians 2 that we are only saved by God's action, manifested through His grace, and not through our own works.
The Anchoress uses the metaphor of the open door to illustrate our surrender and voluntary submission to God's will. In contrast, if we continually fight to achieve our own equality with God, we would be forced to barricade our souls from the inside, because the risk of losing what we had fought for would be too great. She continues thusly:
That’s a tall order, and one that we cannot possibly meet without Grace. But the church does understand that we, in our imperfect humanity and willfulness, will very likely not meet that ideal - it tells us that there is no way we can even begin to meet the ideal if we are not at least trying to, if we’re not asking God’s help and grace in doing so.
... One of the jobs of the church is to help us find our openness to God - to help us to maintain that openness to His will, so that we might reach our own best and highest spiritual potential, because we are not called to dwell in darkness but to live in the light, and in holiness. We are called to holiness: “Be holy as my Father in heaven is Holy.” Holiness is not something that we can compartmentalize. If we are holy, it is a permeation of our entire being, and our holiness will be reflected in all that we do, in our every action and choice, and the path to holiness begins with an openness to God, in whom we live and move and have our being. If holiness is our quest, there can then be no limits to our openness.
This is not a difficult thing to understand, at all. It is difficult in practice, but the church is not here to baby us along and make the roads wide and smooth. Christ told us the way is narrow, and not easy. What was it Chesterton said, “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried.” Quite right.
One more time:
If we are holy, it is a permeation of our entire being, and our holiness will be reflected in all that we do, in our every action and choice, and the path to holiness begins with an openness to God, in whom we live and move and have our being. If holiness is our quest, there can then be no limits to our openness.
I continually pray that I will remain open to God's will, but I confess that I, like the rest of humanity, often struggle to surrender the things that I fear will most deeply affect my identity among other men.
Added: Anchoress - thanks for the link! Love ya, babe!
In August 2006 I wrote a short story about a Florida woman who was ordered by Volusia County officials to get rid of nearly 170 cats that had been living in her home.
It turns out that the 'crazy cat lady,' Kristy Grant, never got rid of those cats. She still has 134 of them living with her in her home, all spayed and neutered and with county tags. She is in the process of building a large fence around her 5 acre property so that her cats cannot escape.
In her defense, her home is neat, the cats are well cared for, and she does not really look or act 'crazy.' She considers her property to be a "cat sanctuary." She wants the county officials to declare it as such and leave her alone. So far, she had been fined thousands of dollars for violating existing county laws regarding pets. Grant says she knows all her cats by name. And she says that if they are taken away, they will probably be euthanized.
I love cats. Really, I do. But one hundred thirty four of them? We have three, and sometimes that seems like too many.
Fifteen years ago:
Thirteen years ago:
God have mercy on us.
Readers may remember the infamous "penis pump" judge from Creek County, OK, Donald Thompson, who was disbarred and found guilty on numerous counts of indecent exposure.
Well, it looks like Judge Thompson might be getting a new cell mate: Custer Co. Sheriff Mike Burgess, who has resigned amid allegations of forcing female prisoners to commit lewd acts.
According to Scripps News, some of the allegations against Burgess include:
- When he picked up women on a drug court violation, Burgess offered to cause the court to impose far less severe punishment if she would perform a sex act on him.
- In May 2006, Burgess' employees staged wet T-shirt contests among female inmates and offered cigarettes to those who would flash their breasts.
- One female inmate this year was required by a jail employee to bare her breasts to receive food and aspirin.
- One woman resisted a jailer's sexual advances in May 2006. The retaliation included being placed in lockdown and having medication withheld. She also was served food that caused rectal bleeding, causing her and others to subsist only on bread and water.
- One woman became a jail trustee with much more freedom after she agreed to perform sodomy on Burgess. When she finally refused, she lost her trustee status.
While this story has been mentioned by a number of news blogs and conservative bloggers, it is getting scant (actually practically non-existent) mention on Democrat-oriented blogs. The reason? Well, like virtually everyone else in Eastern Oklahoma, Mike Burgess is a registered Democrat.
Burgess' political party affiliation is irrelevant to the case, of course, but it is interesting that if you run "Sheriff Mike Burgess" through Yahoo! News and then read the stories from major news outlets (NY Times, SF Chronicle, USA Today, etc.), you will note that none of them mention his party affiliation. Would that have happened if Burgess was a Republican?
The title of this post comes from an edited audio recording of a private speech given by Oklahoma State Rep. Sally Kern (R) to a group of fellow Republicans, probably some time in February or March 2008. Rep. Kern had the misfortune of being recorded and edited, and the resulting audio of her speech went viral on the web a little over a month ago.
What was she talking about that stirred the pot so much? Nothing new, really. Just the same tired old boilerplate about "gays taking over America" that has been repeated for the last thirty years by the Moral Majority and its acolytes.
Studies show, no society that has totally embraced homosexuality has lasted for more than, you know, a few decades ...
I honestly think it’s the biggest threat our nation has, even more so than terrorism or Islam ...
You know, Gays are infiltrating city councils ... Did you know that the city council of Eureka Springs is now controlled by gays? ... They are winning elections.
We have the gay-straight alliance coming into our schools ...
One of my colleagues said We don’t have a gay problem in our community… well you know what, that is so dumb. If you have cancer in your little toe, do you just say that I’m going to forget about it since the rest of you is fine? It spreads! This stuff is deadly and it is spreading. It will destroy our young people and it will destroy this nation.
Like me, Sally Kern is a nobody. No one had ever heard of her outside of Oklahoma (where she raised a small ruckus a couple of years ago). And really, there isn't anything in this speech that is profound, original, or really worthy of comment.
Or is there?
I find it interesting that Rep Kern's remarks sound remarkably similar in tone and urgency to these:
"The government gives [African-Amercians] the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing 'God Bless America.' No, no, no, God damn America, that's in the Bible for killing innocent people. God damn America for treating our citizens as less than human. God damn America for as long as she acts like she is God and she is supreme."
"... We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans, and now we are indignant because the stuff we have done overseas is now brought right back to our own front yards. America's chickens are coming home to roost."
or this:
"I am now the chairman of a national campaign to pass a constitutional amendment to take the right to vote away from born-again Christians. [enthusiastic audience applause] Just a little project of mine. My feeling is that born-again people are citizens of heaven, that is where there citizenship is, [laughter] is in heaven, it's not here among us in America. If you feel that war in the Middle East is simply prophecy fulfilled, if you believe that tribulation and suffering are just the natural conditions of life, if you believe that higher education is vanity, unnecessary, there is only one book that one needs to read ... then you don't really share our same interests, do you? No, you do not."
or this:
Ignorance and bloodlust have a long tradition in the United States, especially in the red states. There used to be a kind of hand-to-hand fight on the frontier called a "knock-down-drag-out," where any kind of gouging, biting, or maiming was considered fair. The ancestors of today's red-state voters used to stand around cheering and betting on these fights.
or Michael Weisskopf's infamous 1993 Washington Post article about devotees to Religious Right icons like Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell, that described Evangelical Christians as "poor, undereducated, and easy to command."
Or Rosie O'Donnell's Sept. 2006 comment on The View: "Radical Christianity is just as threatening as radical Islam in a country like America." (added 4-25-08 after some Googling)
But Mike, pants the hyperventilating leftist, those things are all true! What Sally Kern said is all lies! It's hate speech!
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Several years ago, Richard Dawkins and a number of other secular humanists decided to rechristen themselves as "brights," formally defined as anyone who holds a naturalist, as opposed to a supernaturalist (that is, centered around a belief in God) worldview. As Chris Mooney explains, the choice of such a smug moniker was perhaps cunning, but ultimately insulting:
In his original New York Times op-ed announcing the "brights" label, [Daniel] Dennett wrote, "Don't confuse the noun with the adjective: 'I'm a bright' is not a boast but a proud avowal of an inquisitive world view." That's certainly nice in principle. But who did Dennett think he was kidding? How could anyone hear the label "bright" and think anything but that atheists were claiming to be smarter than everyone else? As ABC News.com commentator John Allen Paulos remarked of the "brights" campaign, "I don't think a degree in public relations is needed to expect that many people will construe the term as smug, ridiculous, and arrogant."
And so, it seems, the lines have been drawn. On one side there are the "brights," those who are possessed of a keenly refined intellect that has been trained to excel in the formulation of public policy centered around matters of justice, fairness, happiness, and the common good, without being bogged down by such trivialities as religion and ethics. On the other side there are the Keepers of the Right, those who have charged themselves with defending their traditional way of life and restoring a Biblically-centered value system (or at least, one that they believe to be Biblically-centered) to the American culture at large.
To each side, the other is the ultimate, perfect incarnation of evil -- Godless liberals who will turn your children in to drug and porn-addicted homosexuals, or jackbooted fascists who will lock everyone away in fundamentalist re-education camps.
The keepers of popular culture (and those who document it for the boredom of future generations) would unhesitatingly suggest that the secularists, or "brights" if you prefer, are the transformers who have emerged victorious; those who, in the span of only five years in the latter part of the 1960's, managed to utterly eclipse generations-old conventions regarding recreational drug use, promiscuous sex, patriotism, respect for elders, marriage, homosexuality, abortion, vandalism, profanity, obscenity, and responsibility. And in their wake they left an older generation of Americans confused, angered, and frightened by such a sudden cultural paradigm shift. They also left behind most religious Americans and "small town folk," those who had, up to that point, experienced little cultural change in their lives.
These sometimes disparate groups of people were left wondering why -- suddenly! -- no one cared anymore about what they thought, why suddenly no one was interested in standing up and saying that certain behaviors were wrong, why suddenly no one felt any inclination to stem the tide of anti-American and anti-religious sentiments that filled pop music, movies, television, and print media. This turned out to be a significant commonality.
Thus "religious conservatives," "The Moral Majority," "The Reagan Revolution," etc. came into being. It was a reactionary movement born out of the perceived idea that the wagons had better be circled and the camp had better be defended, or else what little traditional belief that remained would soon be erased. In Ronald Reagan they finally saw a leader who believed in faith, family, and restoring America's honor. And in the Religious Right, the Republican party saw the votes necessary to win the White House. It was a simple marriage based on common interests. It's really no more complicated than that.
And so, for the last thirty years, the Sally Kerns of the world have felt that it was their sacred duty, even if it put them "in jeopardy," to resist the secularists, and to inform unsuspecting average Americans of the evil plans of dominion quietly creeping under the radar. Plans to force their agendas on your children. Plans to turn our great nation over to the forces of evil. And the "brights" have felt compelled to continually remind us, through films, songs, television, newspapers, etc. just why their revolution was so important -- namely, middle America is a collection of sincere but ignorant people who bitterly "cling" to guns, God, and bigotry because they haven't "figured it out" yet and just don't know any better; thus they are pawns for the likes of the truly eeeeevil minions of the Republican party and fundamentalist Christian leadership -- people like Sally Kern.
Why such a bitter fight over "middle America?" Because it has always been where the majority of Americans live. Up until the late 1960's, most of our great struggles for social change were designed to benefit them. They were (and still are) the great pool from which the ranks of our fighting men were drawn. They grew our food. They made our stuff. Most struggling writers, artists, and actors came from humble means, and those who eventually reached the top in those professions rarely showed contempt for their upbringing. Perhaps the great robber-baron leisure class of the 19th and early 20th centuries privately expressed disdain for the great unwashed masses among themselves, but politicians knew that the great sea of voters was mostly filled with them.
But just as the small-town Americans, Christian fundamentalists, and Greatest Generation Americans who had been crushed by the juggernaut of liberalism in the 1960's came together to build the Reagan Revolution, a similar alliance was forged between the wealthy leisure class and the brights. Perhaps each had what the other wanted -- money and power appealed to the brights, who were highly educated but still only dreamed of living in mansions; the erasure of moral boundaries appealed to the wealthy, who were somewhat able to buy their way out of scandals, but who still longed for the ability to say and do whatever they pleased without the nagging expectation of being "standard bearers." Nowhere is this alliance more visible than in Hollywood, where cash and leftism continually swirl together at a cyclonic level.
As a result of these alliances, politicians have had a difficult time. On one side, conservative politicians and religious leaders have wholly denounced Hollywood as the epitome of evil and have proudly disassociated themselves from it. Hollywood delights in this kind of demagoguery, and has had a field day mocking conservatives on television shows and in movies. On the other side, liberal politicians want to court the brights and the big Hollywood stars, but they can't afford to be seen as elitists or haters of Middle America. Peggy Noonan writes,
Sen. Obama seems honestly surprised by the furor his the-poor-cling-to-God-and-guns remarks elicited, and if one considers his background—intense marginalization followed by the establishment's embrace—this is understandable. He was only caught speaking the secret language of America's elite, and what he said was not meant as a putdown. It was an explanation aimed at ameliorating the elites' anger toward and impatience with normal people. It's a way of explaining them, of saying, "You have to remember they're not comfortable and educated like us, they're vulnerable and so we must try to understand them and feel sympathy for and solidarity with them." You could say this at any high-class dinner party in America and not cause a ruffle. But America is not a high-class dinner party.
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The reaction of liberals, particularly gay activists, to Rep. Kern's remarks was as predictable and boilerplate as her remarks - a mocking phone call from Ellen DeGeneres, a series of angry "open letters," rumors that her son was gay, etc. Of course all Republicans believe this. Of course all Christians believe this. Of course all Republicans are homophobes. Of course all Christians are bigots. Rep. Kern just got caught saying what all Republicans and all Christians secretly believe. Just like Barack Obama was caught saying what "all liberals and elitists" secretly believe*. Give me a break.
At the heart of this is a simple problem -- the over-reliance on stereotypes and self-fulfilling prophecies. Both the political Left and Right in this country have wholly succumbed to the temptation to reduce all of our problems to simplistic "us" vs "them" battles. We see this in gay rights issues. We see it in immigration issues. And frankly I am sick and tired of it and I refuse to participate.
You see, I've discovered that when you are sitting at the dinner table with someone and listening to them tell their life story, it's difficult to point your finger at them and accuse them of an endless list of evil plots. I've learned much more about people by simply listening to them, rather than listening to the stereotypes and conspiracy theories of others.
I would humbly suggest that everyone, particularly those in any kind of leadership position, put aside their own prejudices and self-aggrandizing postures and try this approach as well. I think we would be amazed at how much easier it would be for us to work together if we listened to each other first -- that is, if working together for the mutual benefit of everyone is really our ultimate goal. Sometimes, I have to wonder ...
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* Astute readers of my blog will note that I wrote earlier about Barack Obama's "God, guns, an bigotry" remark. I questioned what Obama himself believes, and this includes beliefs that I feel represent widely-held beliefs among elites, and are thus shared by many others besides Obama, but not ALL who would identify themselves as liberal. So noted. (comment updated)
Monty Python's song "Camelot," visually portrayed by characters from Star Trek -- ABSOLUTELY HILARIOUS!!!
Don Rickles piles on Ronald Reagan during a Dean Martin celebrity roast. They don't make anything (comedians, audiences, candidates, etc.) like this any more.
Kevin Pollak from the late 1980's doing a hilarious spoof of Star Trek V: "The Search For Ca$h." Another side-splitter.
World's Scariest Model Train Wrecks - don't try this at home!
Members of Congress -- both parties -- are heavily invested in defense-related companies. The biggest investor? Sen. Jawn Francios Kerry, (D-MA), with $38.2 million. He also received the largest derivative income from defense-related investments.
"Family Hour" on NBC as we once knew it -- "Cheers," "Little House On The Prairie," "Highway To Heaven," "Diff'rent Strokes," "Alf," etc. -- is pretty much over. Instead, NBC plans a new tradition of "adult, edgy, sophisticated comedies" like "30 Rock," which recently featured an episode spoofing castaway reality shows:
The contestants on the island-based reality-show-within-a-show on “30 Rock” are described as 20 “holy hot mamas,” who are accompanied by 50 eighth-grade boys as they compete at tasks like “eating bugs to earn tampons.” They square off in “Erection Cove,” with the loser having to remove her bikini top and burn it in the fire.
As we in the West confront, face to face, the threat of radical Islam, we should be grateful for folks like Robert Spencer, who runs the excellent Dhimmi Watch blog, which chronicles news items related to the gradual creep of radical Islamic sharia law into Western culture. He is currently providing in-depth coverage of Jimmy Carter's visit to the Middle East and his meetings with Islamic terror groups.
During his current trip abroad, Jimmy Carter visited the besieged Israeli town of Sderot, which lies on the southern border of Israel near the Gaza Strip. Since Israel turned over control of Gaza to the Palestinians, Sderot has been bombarded daily by shrapnel-laden rockets. Carter's reaction:" "I think it's a despicable crime for any deliberate effort to be made to kill innocent civilians, and my hope is there will be a cease-fire soon."
Unfortunately, two years ago Carter seemed to condone the violence against Israeli civilians, blaming Israel and stating, "... it is imperative, that the general Arab community and all significant Palestinian groups mak
