Man in the Middle

Microphone check time. Is anyone reading this blog? It's been in existence for five years now, has 219 entries on topics that are mostly still under regular public discussion, amounting to enough material to write a book, but the last comment was in June of 2008, and the one before that in April of 2008.

Our host, Shades, is getting too busy to spend as much time as he used to managing the site, so we may need to either move Man in the Middle to a new hosting service, if folks are getting enough benefit from it to be worth its cost, or take it down if this is just an echo chamber.

If you've tried commenting and had trouble doing so, those of you who don't already know another working Email address for me can also email me at manin_themiddle@yahoo.com to let me know whether you'd like this blog to continue.

And if no one does, well, that too is an answer.

Update: One response after a week (thanks Greg!) Yep, that's an answer. Guess I've just been doing this to amuse myself, even though I find it a great way to file ideas and links.

There will be no further entries at this site,. But please do visit my new site here.

I just finished the book "An Act of State", detailing William F. Pepper's claim that the death of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was a government-arranged assassination, rather than the act of a single racist. Beyond that, Pepper suggests President Lyndon Johnson had a mistress (and mother of his only son) who worked in Jack Ruby's Vegas club - suggesting the possibility of a link to the assassination of President Kennedy. Specifically, President Johnson is quoted by the alleged mistress (Madeleine Brown) as saying, at a party reportedly also attended by then-FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover and future President Richard Nixon the night before the Kennedy assassination "After tomorrow, those [deleted] Kennedys will never embarrass me again - that's no threat, that's a promise."

It was also interesting to read Pepper's description of the U.S. Army having a secret unit on hand as a backup plan in his claimed assassination plot against Dr. King.

Later in the book, the author goes off on a rant about the evils of the post-9/11 administration, in terms that are very familiar to me from working at a University, but inadvertently makes an important point many (including Pepper) appear to have missed, namely that election of a Democrat as President may actually make such matters worse, rather than better. Specifically, the New York Times, which has been such an eager watchdog against Republican misdeeds in recent years, is described in the book as helping the government hide the truth of what really happened to Dr. King. And though I lived through all those events myself, this is the first I've ever heard about President Johnson having a mistress, let alone one with a possible connection to the man who killed Lee Harvey Oswald.

I feel sure the author and I would disagree about a great many subjects, but I was particularly impressed by his understanding of what Dr. King was attempting to do for poor people in 1968 - which Pepper considers the reason for Dr. King's death.

Here is his analysis of Dr. King's thought (see pages 163-168):
"The Copernican revolution, which postulated the thesis that the earth was only one of the planets revolving around the sun and that the sun itself was one of countless living stars in the universe led to a confrontation with the prevailing perception that divine revelation, not science, was the most valid source of knowledge about life and how it should be lived. The intellectual and moral authority of the church was weakened and gradually eclipsed by the elevation of materialism. Matter emerged as primary with physical measurement and only things suitable for scientific study deemed capable of providing explanations to issues, problems, or events. Scientific inquiry and reason were the fonts of all knowledge.

After reading this chapter, I finally began to understand the anti-globalization movement. I don't agree with it, but do at least now understand its concerns.

But what really got my attention was Pepper's 2003 prediction of the current market meltdown: "It is interesting to note that the growth of margin debt - debt incurred by stock investors - had risen on February 29, 2000 to the level it was on October 1, 1929..."

Pepper foresaw a silver lining in such a cloud: "Should an economic disaster similar to that of 1929 engulf this nation and the wold, there may emerge an opportunity to rebuild this great Republic with a vastly different set of values and priorities...

Should the unthinkable occur it would certainly be a challenge. Whether we as a people would be up to meeting it without the likes of Martin Luther King in the vanguard is another question, but I have always been amazed at the resilience of human beings of whatever race, culture, station or stripe."

Finally, Pepper reminded me of Dr. King's challenge for such a time as this: "Through our scientific genius, we have made of this world a neighborhood; now, through our moral and spiritual development, we must make of it a brotherhood. In a real sense, we must all learn to live together as brothers, or we will all perish together as fools."

You know things are running amuck when the only difference between the response of San Fransisco Democratic Senator Pelosi and Texas Republican President Bush to Detroit automakers lining up for a bailout too is in deciding which particular taxpayer-provided funds should be used to do the bailing.

A pox on all their houses! The farther we get into this fiscal mess, the worse our government decision-making is getting regarding it!

Frankly, Detroit is beyond being able to be bailed out. And I'm highly offended at the very idea of helping the big 3 U.S. carmakers continue to pay their workers more per hour than I or most other taxpayers funding any such bailout make ourselves, particularly since it would only help them build more cars I'd never be willing to buy at any price.

Update:
This article explains precisely WHY bailing out Detroit automakers costs jobs rather than saving them.
" Making bad, uneconomic investments in failing industries does not, on balance, preserve jobs; it tends to destroy more jobs - and more good jobs - than it saves.

Anyone who thinks that giving money to a company losing 2-3 billion dollars a month -- with overpaid workers and overpaid executives - would usually save jobs in the long run, rather than lose them, doesn't understand economics."

This sure sounds about right "It is ironic that in 2008 we probably have two of the most honest and decent men running for president that we have had in a long time, and yet this has easily been the most corrupt election in my lifetime."

We won't know for a couple more hours who won the election, but in my opinion, the long-term loser is printed and broadcast media, neither of whom I consider worth another second of my time, so horrendously have they failed in their primary job throughout the entire campaign season.

Case in point: "Sheen, of Lincoln, Nebraska, says his vote is coming down to one issue: abortion. Sheen says he's "definitely pro-life" and he's trying to decide whether Democrat Barack Obama or Republican John McCain is more in line with his views." You gotta ask yourself how it is possible any voter whose only election issue is abortion could fail throughout two entire years to learn which of two candidates whose positions regarding abortion are widely known more closely matches that voter's views. On the other hand, perhaps even a properly-performing media wouldn't have helped educate this particular person. As the old joke says, "There's no cure for stupid."

On the bright side, as already noted, we had honest and decent candidates this time, which hasn't always been the case. May God bless the winner with wisdom and courage to lead us well, the humility to realize they need help, and all of us the grace to give the victor a fair chance, rather than immediately resuming the whining that made the last decade so miserable politically..

Update: Thankfully, the election is over, and mostly decided by a margin beyond fraud. I'm thrilled America has progressed to the point of being able to elect a non-caucasian president with even less drama than I remember being focused on the fact that J.F.K. was a Catholic back in 1960.

One of the things I'll never do again is donate to a political candidate. The resulting solicitations for more donations were bad enough, but what really got my attention was folks at the University suggesting everyone hunt down those who donated for non-left-wing candidates, via public records of donations, and make their lives miserable.

Turns out others have also noticed this kind of intolerance:

Here's an Instapundit poll on how folks feel about a Seattle Web site called "The Stranger" posting the addresses of people displaying Republican yard signs.

This comment, by Tell Sackett explains the results:
"My property abuts a busy highway. It is a great place for signs, but I don't put any up. I know from experience that a sign for a conservative cause or candidate will cause my property to be trashed for 24-48 hours and then the sign will be torn down. Democrat candidates routinely place signs on my property without permission. I take those down. No republican candidate has ever done that. Likewise, no stickers are displayed on my car. I don't like the obscene gestures and reckless driving displays they engender among the moonbat drivers and I am tired of returning to my car in a parking lot to find it nicked, scratched and bashed by the enthusiastic opponents of my chosen candidates. I also don't wear buttons or anything else on my person identifying my political persuasion. I've noted the faces of friendly pierced baristas down at the coffee sharp darken with rage at the sight of a McCain-Palin button. I don't trust these people to handle my food and, frankly, I don't need the stress from the constant negative vibe. In fact, I don't even express my opinion verbally, so long has it been since I had an intelligent, civil conversation with a democrat. I don't take calls from pollsters. I really don't have the time and I think the polls are deliberately skewed and used to mislead anyway. Besides, I want my candidates to make up their own minds on policy and not shift with the wind. But I do vote.

I am an invisible conservative voter. I have no 1st Amendment rights. My demographic goes unmeasured until election day. I know there are a lot of people like me , but of course I don't have any idea how many exactly. We'll find out on Tuesday. It may come as a surprise."

What's funny about this is that my sister-in-law moved to Seattle because it is such a tolerant area. But she's a fervent Democrat, so perhaps for her it really is....

As I've said before, of all the freedoms we enjoy, the single most important may be the right to a secret ballot. (So naturally that too is under attack by union advocates of "card check" union elections, that would make it all too easy for thugs to threaten those who haven't yet made what the thugs consider the correct choice.)

Regular readers know that Rev. Donald Sensing is one of my favorite bloggers. Today he struck gold twice in my opinion with these thoughts:

1) What has NATO done for us?

[A commenter explains the basics: "The purpose of NATO is and was to 'keep the Americans in, the Russians out and the Germans down.']

...question for NATO's countries: if you will not have enough children to preserve your country, why should the US make up your deficit?"

2) And then in the side bar, I read this timely Halloween thought from Vanderleun:
"It seems strange that a day for the contemplation of mortality has been turned into a carnival of corruption in this country..."

Is anyone else sick of the constant media attacks on Sarah Palin? Personally, I'm offended by both the attacks on Sarah Palin for being a woman, and by those on John McCain for being old. Clearly someone has forgotten that both women and old folks vote! On the bright side, I've been very pleased by the lack of racial animus in this election. As others have noted, about the only time the race card has been played this year has been when the Obama campaign itself has chosen to do so.

But getting back to the attacks we have been seeing, against Sarah Palin, I'm afraid we've entered a "Pravda" era - one in which the broadcast and printed media publish only propaganda. In such an era, truth can be found in such publications and broadcasts only indirectly.

For instance, I'm now sure Sarah Palin is proving to be an effective candidate. If she weren't, she'd simply be ignored by the mainstream media. But she's not being ignored. Rather, she's been attacked constantly and in every possible way ever since her nomination, in a way that is rarely tolerated against Democrats. (Unfortunately, the same folks did the same hatchet job on Hillary last Spring.) That tells me Sarah (like Hillary) is doing a wonderful job of getting out her message.

One other manifestation of the "Pravda" era in our media now is that I really can't tell who's ahead in this election. The media proclaimed Barack Obama the winner back in January, and haven't slacked off in that opinion since. Likewise, polls the media chooses to discuss agree on Obama being ahead. But those polls were amazingly wrong during some of the primaries this year, particularly when they proclaimed Obama ahead of Hillary Clinton in various states Hillary ended up winning.

The great unknown in this election cycle is how many Democratics who supported Hillary will vote for Sarah.

It ain't over til it's over. And either way, hopefully for Sarah it's just the beginning.

Update: Helen McCaffrey (director of Women's Watch, Inc.) is also offended by the attacks on both Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton.
"I cannot predict who will win the presidential campaign, but I already know who will lose big: all women.

Agreement on issues is not required, but Palin merits respect."

Update2: The election is over, and Palin lost, but the attacks still haven't ended. Allegedly-Republican sources are even now attacking Sarah via the all-too-happy-to-repeat-such-venom-from-anonymous-sources mainstream media. My guess is that this is intended as a pre-emptive strike, to prevent her having a chance to run again, by folks from both parties who consider themselves better than "hillbillies from Wasilla." Given that Obama too is from "flyover country", our self-ordained "betters" in DC, NYC & LA may want to curb their retoric while there's still anyone left who cares what they have to say about anything.

There are already many theories as to why Republicans failed this time, but to me it's been obvious for a couple of years that big government, pork barrel spending and intolerance are not winning issues for Republicans, and not good for our country either long-term. Sarah Palin is part of the answer to that.

Tom Coburn, one of the few remaining Republicans in Congress for whom I retain respect offers a similar explanation here, along with a reminder to reach across the aisle.:
"conservatives should be the first to accept the olive branch President-elect Obama has extended to the opposition and help him achieve results in the areas where we agree, such as the need to review the budget line by line and eliminate programs that don't work.

Conservatives need not despair because our ideas never go out of fashion. America was founded on a healthy distrust of activist government. Today, conservatives stand ready to remind the public why it's better to err on the side of too little government rather than too much."

Update3: The New York Times now admits the infamous attack on Sarah Palin's not knowing Africa is a continent was a hoax, a hoax in which they and other liberal media were all too eager to believe, just as when an obviously-faked memo was used in the previous election to try and claim President Bush avoided military service. Here's the interesting story from the NYT blog on how the Palin hoax was created. Interesting how the mainstream media seems to be belatedly discovering their conscience, now that their anointed candidate is safely headed for the White House.

Update4: A lingering mystery from the recent election is why John McCain is still defending Barack Obama against provably-true charges regarding Obama's choice of friends and pastor, yet not defending his own running mate Sarah Palin against even proven-false charges.

Update5: This seems exactly right to me.
"From the beginning of '08, the accepted wisdom was that no matter whom the Democrats nominated, they would deliver to the Republicans an ignominious defeat. But this year's defeat was anything but the complete rout it was supposed to be.

When asked to choose among some of the GOP's top names for their choice for the party's 2012 presidential nominee, 64% say Palin."

One of the great mysteries of our time is how professional journalism degenerated from being a major defender of truth, justice and the American way to just another auxiliary of the Democratic Party.

I'm glad to report this loss of one of the pillar of Democracy also bothers honest Democrats such as author and columnist Orson Scott Card.

Card offers a wonderful way for partisan Democratic journalists to reclaim their journalistic heritage -- when deciding whether to avoid writing a story unfavorable to the candidate or party they favor, ask whether they'd do the same if it were about another party, and if they would write about such a scandal regarding Republicans, then be honest enough to also write when Democrats are involved.

Card offers a prime example of such a story:
"This housing crisis didn't come out of nowhere. It was not a vague emanation of the evil Bush administration.

If you who produce our local daily paper had any personal honor, you would find it unbearable to let the American people believe that somehow Republicans were to blame for this crisis."

Journalism is paying the price of their shame in declining circulation and viewership. If their product is just propaganda anyway, who needs to even read it? I no longer subscribe to any such publications, and no longer watch TV.

The other mystery here for me is why Republicans don't fund more competing news organizations to redress this. At minimum, those of us who decry this decline can help by funding those individual journalists honest enough to tell the truth about unpopular topics. As the P.J. O'Rourke saying goes "You get more of what you pay for."

Update: Here are similar sentiments from Michael S. Malone, a 4th. generation journalist, lamenting the death of his profession:
"The absolute nadir (though I hate to commit to that, as we still have two weeks before the election) came with Joe the Plumber. Middle America, even when they didn't agree with Joe, looked on in horror as the press took apart the private life of an average person who had the temerity to ask a tough question of a Presidential candidate. So much for the Standing Up for the Little Man, so much for Speaking Truth to Power, so much for Comforting the Afflicted and Afflicting the Comfortable, and all of those other catchphrases we journalists used to believe we lived by."

This (Why I'm Concerned About an Obama Victory) seems about right.
"The combination of united government and a major economic crisis is likely to lead to a great expansion of government, just as it did on several previous occasions such as the 1930s.
...
I understand, of course, that none of this is a problem for those who want a major expansion of government power or are at least indifferent to it. But I do think it should be of concern to those libertarians or small government conservatives who welcome an Obama victory. It should also matter to moderates and liberals who recognize that massive expansions of government power in a time of crisis provide major opportunities for abuses of power and interest group power grabs at the expense of the general public - both of which happened on a large scale during the Great Depression."

Voting this time around as one who doesn't care about left (conservative) versus right (progessive), but who does care about wanting less (Libertarian) rather than more (can't think of a non-perjorative name for this one) government, what I can't be happy with is having all the power in one party that believes in increasing the scope of government.

Though correlation is not causation, one possible partial explanation for what happened to the stock market this week is that investors have just figured out the implications of putting people who think like FDR in complete filibuster-proof control of our Federal government.

I don't fear the word "depression" as it applies to Economics. It's just a technical term for three or more consecutive quarters of economic downturn. Our nation had lots of them throughout the 1800s, and we're way past due for another.

What I do fear is the consequences of putting the same bunch that got us into our current mess in filibuster-proof charge of finding a solution, when most of them have never taken even an introductory course in Economics.

What made the Great Depression a decade-long disaster, rather than just another speed bump on the way to prosperity, was all the counter-productive things done by political leaders in the name of solving the problem.

John F. Kennedy was the first American president to have taken a course in Economics, and we all benefited from that as he led skillfully during the recession of 1962. Sadly, neither of this year's candidates has taken such a class, and that may have unfortunate and lasting consequences for us all, no matter which is elected in November.

Here's a short article by Roger Kimball about my home area of Chicago that suggests serious trouble both now and in the near future:
"* In the last six months, 292 people were murdered in Chicago.
* In the same period, there were 183 Americans casualties in Iraq.

* The Illinois State pension fund is $44 billion in debt. That's the worst in the country. Thanks, folks!
* Cook County, wherein Chicago sits, not only put JFK in the White House back in 1960 by encouraging everyone, dead or alive, to vote early and vote often, but it also has the highest sales tax in the United STates: 10.25 percent.
* Meanwhile, the Chicago school system is one of the worst in the country."

I've been joking that Illinois will go for Obama even if every dead person in Chicago has to vote five times. Behind that is a conversation I had as an election judge a few years ago with a fellow election judge about how he had personally been sent out to graveyards on election day in 1960 to find hundreds of votes for JFK. He could tell me that freely because the statute of limitations had run out. So far as I can tell, nothing in our area has changed since to prevent a recurrence.

I'm definitely finding other places to shop, now that my county has the highest sales tax in the country, and I'm sure I'm not alone.

I wonder where those missing pension dollars will be found, given that they are guaranteed by the Illinois constitution? There's no point blaming most of the state employees; they put up their share of pension contributions. It's our state government that never actually got around to funding pensions properly, even back when Republicans were in charge in Springfield.

There's also been some obvious abuse by entities goosing up the last year of pay of favored state employees, since the pension is somewhat based on the final salary. There was an effort this year to require such entities to personally kick in any added pension costs for such goosing, but I don't recall that reform effort succeeding.

One recent ray of hope in IL was State Senator James Meeks' effort this fall to bus poor kids from the south side to rich northern suburbs to call attention to the educational plight of city kids. I haven't seen any actual results from the campaign yet, but it's great to see even some Democrats now see school choice as good for kids otherwise forced into the worst schools.

We fostered one of those kids last fall, and it was amazing how much better he did in a suburban school When he arrived in October, he was a second grader who couldn't count to ten. Two months later, he'd advanced a year educationally - doing first grade level work, but the most telling fact for me was that when he went back into Chicago schools they put him in an honors class in his original grade! If that's typical, no wonder Meeks wants those kids educated anywhere else.

Last night the Middlewife and I went to see An American Carol. We did so in response to a suggestion from Brian Noggle via Instapundit that doing so might help "refocus Hollywood money men on making films that people want to see that portray Christianity favorably or lampoon the taboo subjects of Liberalism"

I'm writing now because a Palin-size effort appears underway by mainstream media movie critics to say this movie is not worth seeing. In my opinion, those critics are wrong.

Yes, it's a sophomoric effort, with limitations in the skills of the actors, but it's also a hilarious sendup of important topics most movies lack the courage to touch with a ten foot pole. According to the first review I'd read (from the Boston Herald, which I thought used to be a somewhat conservative paper, but you'd never know it from the review) the movie is "mirthless." We, on the other hand, were laughing right from the first scene, and through most of the others all the way to the end.

An American Carol earns its PG-13 rating with profanity and sexual references, and the humor is often Three Stooges-crude, but it was such a joy to see someone finally making fun of things that need to be made fun of, by that rarity - someone with the courage to do so.

One of my favorite Economic rules is that "you get more of what you pay for" (probably from P.J. O'Rourke, but I can't find the reference), so if you'd like to see more movies that are not just anti-all-things-American propaganda, reward yourself by seeing this one. Even if it's your side being made fun of on some issue, seeing the humor in it will do you good.

While discussing proposals for the Federal government to act immediately to resolve the current financial crisis at lunch today, a light went on in my head. We're told we must approve a rescue plan immediately, or disaster will result. Yet, in any other financial situation where I'm told the same, I've learned that's precisely when I must sit on my wallet and not act. Anytime a salesman tells you a special is "today only", experienced consumers realize it isn't really, and in all likelihood isn't something you'll be happy later to have bought.

Yes, there are real emergencies in life, and sometimes you have to act quickly. But in general, when people you have no reason to trust insist loudly that you must trust them immediately, that's a deal breaker, whether it's regarding a used car, a time-share in Florida, or the current credit crunch.

I will be very surprised if Congress is able to pass anything to resolve this matter before the November election, and no matter the risks if they don't, I'd prefer they take however much time they need to fully understand what they are voting on and improve the solution enough that it actually solves some problem rather than just setting fire to even more money and rewarding those who rightfully should instead be punished.

In my opinion, it's still way too early for any of us to be either for or against the current bailout plan. We simply don't know enough yet to make an informed decision, and I expect the same is true of our representatives. So, no need to stick our heads in the sand and avoid a probably-serious issue, but also no reason for us to be immediately writing blank checks to some of the same people who wasted previous funds.

Update 2 days later: No change in my opposition to quick intervention yet. Interestingly, opposition is extremely bi-partisan. Both fervent lefties and fervent righties agree in having NO interest in asking Main Street to bail out Wall Street. I have yet to hear ANYONE here speak in favor of the bailout.

Frankly, what can be done quickly is already being done. That's monetary policy, which isn't exactly the free market we remember and love, but mostly works most of the time. Its main virtue is speed, and its main weakness is that it can only do so much to steer the economy.

The other potential control mechanism is fiscal policy, which is what Congress is arguing about now. Fiscal policy takes time - never less than the couple of months earlier this year to get taxpayers sent a stimulus check. The problem there is that fiscal policy is determined by politicians, very few of whom have ever taken even one college class in Economics. Sadly, that includes both McCain and Obama.

I think the real game here on the part of those seeking a deal most urgently is to protect incumbents, because they are at least as unpopular as President Bush.

Several economists from U of Chicago & Northwestern weighed in to oppose the bailout this morning. As a college Econ major myself forty years ago, that impressed me, though whenever I'm tempted to take economists too seriously I remind myself that "Economists predicted three out of the last one recessions -- They don't call it the dismal science for nothing." (source unknown.)

IF there's any truth to the urgency claims, we could be in for a recession soon. But recessions come and go. To get and sustain a depression takes government interference.

Another excellent discussion is here (especially the comments.)

By the way, for anyone wondering about the title of this post, its source is unknown, but possible sources from Jesus to Ronald Reagan are discussed here.

Update2: Over the weekend, Congressional majority party leaders and the President came up with a "deal", then failed to sell it to enough members of the House of Representatives among either conservative Republicans or liberal Democrats. Personally, the deal that failed seemed better than either the original proposal or the initial suggested revision from Congress. It doesn't, however, seem worthy of support yet. (It's kind of a first when both Rush Limbaugh and International A.N.S.W.E.R. agree on opposing the same thing.)

Thus, we need new ideas for a solution. And here's an interesting one, from the F.D.I.C. chair during the last such crisis in the 1980s. (Who knew the solution might be as simple as undoing recent changes in accounting rules?)
"we must take three immediate steps to prevent a further rash of financial failures and taxpayer bailouts. First, the SEC must suspend Fair Value Accounting and require that assets be marked to their true economic value. Second, the SEC needs to immediately clamp down on abusive practices by short sellers. It has taken a first step in reinstituting the prohibition against "naked selling." Finally, the bank regulators need to acknowledge that the Basel II capital rules represent a serious policy mistake and repeal the rules before they do real damage."

Update3: I like Instapundit's take on this: "WITH SWEETENERS: The bailout bill has passed the Senate. Before it's all over, we'll probably wish that Monday's bill had passed instead -- giving Congress more time to add their gimmes probably hasn't produced a better bill."

Here's an example, found by a prof here:
"From page 300/301 of the Senate's version of the bailout bill:
SEC. 503. EXEMPTION FROM EXCISE TAX FOR CERTAIN WOODEN ARROWS
DESIGNED FOR USE BY CHILDREN.
(a) IN GENERAL.Paragraph (2) of section 4161(b) is amended by
redesignating subparagraph (B) as sub- paragraph (C) and by inserting
after subparagraph (A) the following new subparagraph:

(b) EFFECTIVE DATE.The amendments made by this section shall apply to
shafts first sold after the date of enactment of this Act."

Personally, I still have to wonder why standing by while our entire economy collapses and giving Congressional porkers who were a major cause of the problem even more pork to play with have to be our only choices. Not buying that yet myself, and thinking increasingly that we need a 1994-size clean sweep of incumbents from Congress, though I
don't expect to see that this year.

Update4: Fabius Maximus (a blog previously unknown to me), on the other hand (hat tip Instapundit), thinks we have to accept the bailout, and more - that a BIG recession is coming soon, no matter what Congress passes this week.
"All too small, too late. Incremental and reactive, responding to critical problems of last month -- irrelevant to the current situation. This is a recipe for disaster. Like in the US 1929-1933 and Japan 1989-1996 -- delaying the necessary large-scale response until the problem was no longer manageable.

This is just first aid. The recession is coming. None of these measure will speed its end or lay a foundation for an economic expansion afterwards."

Update5: Well, who cares what we think? Congress passed and President Bush signed the fully-larded Senate version of the bailout, even though the Constitution requires financial bills to start in the House.

What can we do? As suggested earlier, throw the bums out! According to this Rasmussen poll, 59% of American voters would like to do precisely that.
"If they could vote to keep or replace the entire Congress, 59% of voters would like to throw them all out and start over again. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that just 17% would vote to keep the current legislators in office."

Here's the thing. The only way that can happen is if those who feel that way vote down their own current member of Congress, even if they are of your preferred party. I know that's a tough one, as my member of Congress has been pretty moderate and relatively honest fiscally. But he did vote for the bailout, both times. Guess I'll have to look into how his opponent feels about fiscal integrity...

One other pearl of wisdom from the Rasmussen article is that the our founders designed our system to have high turnover in the House of Representatives, and some stability in the Senate.
"When the Constitution was written, the nation's founders expected that there would be a 50% turnover in the House of Representatives every election cycle. That was the experience they witnessed in state legislatures at the time (and most of the state legislatures offered just one-year terms). For well over 100 years after the Constitution was adopted, the turnover averaged in the 50% range as expected.

In the twentieth century, turnover began to decline. As power and prestige flowed to Washington during the New Deal era, fewer and fewer Members of Congress wanted to leave. In 1968, Congressional turnover fell to single digits for the first time ever and it has remained very low ever since."

In my opinion, many of our current financial troubles started when members of Congress stopped being Citizen legislators for a season and started being career politicians (and recently almost a hereditary aristocracy.) Incumbency is the problem, and voting out incumbents after eight years, as proposed by the 1994 reformers is the solution.

One of the folks at the University asks "at what point did the Washington Crowd - which I have to assume means the Republican Party, since last I checked they held the Office of President for the past 8 years, and the Congress for 14 or the last 16 years (recall Newt Gingrich and Republican "take-over" of Congress back in 1994?) - at what point did they quit being the party of Main Street, and become the party of Wall Street?"

My answers would be:
1) starting in about 2004. Many of us who consider ourselves "Porkbusters" figure the "outside reformer" Republicans elected to Congress in 1994 became indistinguishable from the corrupt porkers they were elected to replace after about a decade in DC. Though many DC Republicans still pretend not to believe it, that corruption had a lot to do with their being routed in the 2006 elections (not that Democrats proved any less fond of pork.) John McCain's continuing reputation as a small government fiscal conservative is a big reason traditional Republicans support him (despite differences with him on other issues) over anyone else from the DC establishment this year.

2) My impression is that Wall Streeters are at least as likely to be throwing money at Democrats as Republicans. One of the interesting things about the current crisis on Wall Street is how hard it is proving for the usual suspects to howl about evil Capitalists due to their own involvement via campaign contributions, advisors, etc.

It may be that Republicans are no longer the party of Main street. It's certainly also true that they are no longer the party of the rich.

3) Personally, I think the problem may be with DC itself - full of unelected bureaucrats and lobbyists whose behavior changes remarkably little as which party is in power changes. A book I once read by Hugh Hewitt "In but not of" suggests most of the power in this country is concentrated in three cities: New York for money, Washington DC for law, and Los Angeles for culture. I remember thinking as I read those words, that we might be better off without all three.

4) In short, I'm not interested in trying to blame this on one party. Rather, I merely want to ensure there is a market solution to this market problem. I don't mind if the Federal Reserve facilitates things, as happened last week, but will very much mind if our government ends up using my money to bail out everyone who placed bad bets on the economy, just as I will mind if all the corrupt politicians whose greed led them to fail in their role of fiscal oversight survive the current crisis.

I've just finished Barack Obama's book "The Audacity of Hope", and have to admit that for a political book it's not bad. Clearly Senator Obama has thought deeply and carefully about many of the same issues I value, and clearly he understands and appreciates the legitimate points made by folks on multiple sides of each issue. In the end, only one thing about the book truly disappointed me, and that's the Senator's actual votes after all the careful listening and thought. I frequently found myself wondering why he bothered to do all this thinking and understanding, when in the end he votes with his party on almost every issue.

To give just one example, Senator Obama explains the importance of original intention in Constitutional law, and then adds that he voted against confirming all the nominees to the Supreme Court who might hold such views. It's pretty hard to reach across the aisle and compromise with someone who, though they fully understand and respect what is important to you, never actually support you at voting time.

A fellow-moderate friend suggested at lunch today that Obama may simply lack the courage of his convictions. If true, that would be unfortunate, as we live in a tough world certain to test the mettle of our next President. In my opinion, it would be further unfortunate, in that Senator Obama inspires enough loyalty in his supporters to lead in useful new directions, rather than only along already-failing paths.

Florida friend Larry recently wrote me as follows "One of the odder things I heard this summer is that the reason it is getting cooler this summer is because of global warming. Only someone who believe that Al Gore has their best interests at heart would believe global cooling is caused by global warming" to which I replied as follows:

"One constant throughout my life has been that no matter what happens, with the weather, or really with anything at all, a large group of would-be nannies is right there to claim it was caused by some bad behavior by folks like me, that can only be fixed by handing all the levers of power to them and their friends so they can take better care of us than we are obviously capable of on our own.

Having already lived in a condo, the one thing I know for sure is that I do not want to give such people any power at all."

With Hurricane Gustav headed for the U.S. coast tonight, one of the best suggestions I've heard for how the Republican party should respond at their convention is by showing America what individual Americans themselves can do to help out in a disaster, rather than sitting around talking about how someone else (in the government) should do something.

One of the worst comments is Michael Moore's "I was just thinking, this Gustav is proof that there is a God in heaven..." Another was the similar earlier suggestion by Stuart Shephard that viewers of a weekly video pray for rain during Barack Obama's acceptance speech for the Democratic party presidential nomination.

I learned long ago not to pray about weather. In my first day on the job after seminary, the congregation had just endured a huge flood, and asked me to pray for rain to stop. I did, and it did - for so long that folks feared for their crops and asked me to pray for rain. I did, and floods immediately returned. At that point, I was sure of only one thing - I was done praying about weather!

It isn't that God can't rain on Republican convention plans. It's rather that even asking for such a thing is as Barack Obama might say "way above my pay grade." Only God knows the full implications of weather, and His comment on the topic was that He "sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. (MT 5:45)"

Through all the wars over copy protection in the past decade, one bright spot has until today always been Christian CDs. Sony and other music publishers may have been attacking my PC with rootkits or other tricks to prevent copying when I bought rock albums, but until today I'd never encountered copy-protection in a CD of Christian music.

Imagine my surprise, then, when I brought home the latest "Third Day" CD today, and discovered it too now appears to have been altered to make it difficult to rip into iTunes. Tracks 3-13 are normal, but Track 1 is a copy of all tracks in sequence, and Track 2, in addition to appearing to last 15 days, locked up iTunes when I simply tried to play that track from the original CD. I then checked, and sure enough, their publisher is Sony.

I guess that's fairly mild, as copy-protection tricks go, and fortunately I had another program available to isolate the missing tracks 1 and 2 from the rest of the all-in-one current track 1.But I remain offended that Sony once again apparently feels free to tamper with music I've purchased at full retail price without even feeling the need to put any warning whatsoever on the CD of their intentions to deny me the ability to listen to my purchase on an iPod. Fixing that cost an hour of my time, which I consider more valuable than a CD.

Sadly, from now on, I can no longer trust buying physical CDs of even Christian artists (at least no more from Third Day or anyone else published by Sony.) Instead, I'll likely have to limit my purchases to known-DRM-free MP3s from the iTunes Store and Amazon's MP3 Store. Gresham's Law strikes again, or more colloquially, "one rotten apple spoils the barrel."

Mark Satin has just written an extremely interesting and insightful article for his Radical Middle Newsletter on this non-obvious premise: The Bible is our one essential political book - and we need it now more than ever.

In his article, Mark describes his own recent first and second reading of the Bible, and what he sees of value in it for all of us.

Right away, Mark lists five reasons for the importance of the Bible today:
-- It asks all the important questions that need to be asked (and answered) before we can move wisely into the 21st century. . .
-- It provides a place where left and right can meet, dialogue, learn.
-- It tells difficult truths about human nature.
-- It reminds us of our positive human potential.
-- It calls us to new and better political perspectives.

Further, Mark is sure he's not alone:
"According to Princeton sociologist Robert Wuthnow, traditional forms of community may be disappearing - but support groups are arising to take their place. About 40% of American adults are involved in support groups at this time . . . and about 44% of those are involved in groups that are described by participants partly or entirely as 'Bible study groups.'
In other words, 17.6% of all American adults - about 40 million people - are engaged in Bible study at this time.
Support groups 'seldom make the headines,' Wuthnow says. 'They are not the stuff that reporters care much about.' But that doesn't mean they're not out there, deeply influencing the culture - including the political culture"

Mark continues with many profound specific insights. Here's one I found particularly interesting, having just read an entire book about the Exodus that neglected to make this simple and (once you think about it) obvious point:
"John Buehrens, former head of the Unitarian Universalist Association, summarizes one take on Exodus as follows:
1. Wherever you live, it is probably Egypt [i.e., Bad - ed.]
2. There is a better place, a world more fair, full of promise and hope
3. The way to it is through the wilderness. There is no other way to get from here to there except by the hard way, being tested as we go "

As always, read the whole thing. And while you're at Mark's site, be sure to also look around for other gems, such as this one from four months ago.

As regular readers of this blog already know, I'm fond of gadgets. Recently, I've spent way too much time pondering a few new ones, and this entry is just to let you know how it all sorted out:
1) Palm Centro - Now that I've had one a couple weeks, I realize that what I really wanted was an updated Palm PIM (Personal Information Manager.) That it can also act as a cell phone is great, but turning out to be a rarely-used feature. It's nice that a Centro or Treo 755P with suitable data plan can do lots of cool things via Internet access, but now that I've gone without a while, and thought seriously about how much extra I paid for that data access, I may never bother with it again. Skipping it is saving us at least half our monthly cost of service. Further, unlocked and pay-as-you-go is absolutely the only way for me to go - not only is it the only way you can buy a Centro without being forced to also get a data plan, it also simplifies and clarifies the per minute cost of each call. One side effect is that I no longer use my cell# for work, which surprisingly has not been a problem at all.

Kudos to Sprint, which just re-instated the right of its customers to change plans without extending their contract period. That's how they've kept me as a customer for the Middlewife's Centro. Turns out I could put my drowned Treo 755P on a vacation plan for the remaining year of its contract, and switch our Sprint Centro (which is not on contract) to their basic plan with no data plan and cut our bill to a third of what it was before. That eliminated any desire on my part to buy another unlocked Centro and terminate the Sprint contract early. Having service from both Sprint and T-Mobile also improves our odds of having at least one working phone wherever we are.

2) iPhone 3G - As a result of the above realizations, I no longer have any interest at all in the forthcoming new iPhone 3G. Maybe some day if I can get an unlocked one for a fair price and use its data features via pay-as-you-go it will be of more interest, but for now, the Centro meets my needs. Realizing AT&T's pay-as-you-go plan costs twice as much as T-Mobile's, for no obvious reason is another reason not to switch.

3) OLPC XO - We've just gotten back our One Laptop Per Child computer, and have now updated it over the Web. That turned out to be both easier and harder than expected. Several things I tried failed (particularly updating from a memory stick loaded by my desk PC), but in the end updating turned out to be a simple matter of entering a few weird lines of Linux commands on the XO itself. Next week we take the XO out to Shades to be our grandson's first computer. The XO is really designed for kids a lot older than 9 months, but hey, Shades was precocious too.

Sadly, OLPC seems to be selling out now to Microsoft, which is really sad news for the children of the third world who might otherwise have more easily escaped the Microsoft monopoly. But the original XO will always be a keepsake, right alongside our Tandy 100, the first actual laptop computer. (Ours is the "premium" version, with 32K of RAM, and an 8 line 40 character LCD screen, all running on AA batteries. We actually wrote a book on that puppy one summer many years ago.)

4) EEE PC 901 - Got one of these on pre-order from Amazon, in the Linux flavor. It's even smaller than the XO, and can run both Linux and Windows XP (after I also install the latter.) My hope is that it will be good enough to be my only computer when traveling, and cheap enough that I won't have to fret about it like I do the office laptop when I carry that along. Initially, I plan to try going without XP on it, but it's nice to know the option exists, if it proves to be necessary.

Update:
Changed my mind on the EEE PC 901. Instead, I ended up getting the slightly-larger EEE PC 1000 model instead. So far it's working extremely well.

I see my Catalog Choice request to Pier 1 Imports to get off their catalog list has been "refused" by Pier 1 imports. Oh well. Guess that means I'll similarly "refuse" to shop there any more. Not that I did often anyway. Apparently, they grabbed the one time in recent years I bought something there via credit card and have been spamming me with catalogs ever since. I wonder how long it will take them to lose in mailing costs whatever profit they made from the $12 I paid for that basket?

Well, not quite, but being dropped in a urinal comes pretty close, I guess. That was the fate of my Treo 755P yesterday, and probably also the fate of my Sprint service today when they refused to do anything about it other than sell me another phone, and didn't seem to mind that I'd be switching to another provider in response after over ten years with them..

A few seconds with Google found several cures for a wet phone, and they appear to have almost entirely worked. My Treo is now back in operation after:
1) turning it off and removing the battery and battery cover and added memory card and stylus
2) drying off everything I could reach
3) putting it on a fan and later a heat vent and finally a few inches in front of a hair dryer set on low
4) a hard reset (triggered by holding down the power button when reinstalling the battery, and then pressing the up arrow key when asked.)
5) restoring all data from the most recent daily backup via backupman on the added memory card
6) Using a T5 Torx screwdriver from Home Depot to open the case and letting the hair dryer have at it again got a few more keys to work. All that remains non-functional now is two keys: "r" and "u". That will have to do for now. Note: opening the case presumably voided the warranty, but at this point my reply is "what warranty?" as Sprint is already unwilling to fix it.

The timing of all this is both awful and great. It's awful, because I'm out of state at a business meeting next week and really need a working cell phone if anything comes up that needs my attention at work. It's also great, though, because the new iPhone is expected to be announced Monday, and that may very well be my next phone.

AT&T has warts too, of course, but I was pleased to drop in their store this morning and have all my questions answered immediately and correctly without waiting. To have anyone even talk to me at the Sprint store took over half an hour, not including the 45 more minutes they needed to determine they wouldn't even try to fix the phone.

Also, both of my colleagues with AT&T phones are able to receive calls in our basement office, whereas I can't with Sprint, even though there's a new Sprint tower within a mile of us.

The other thing I've concluded from all this is that instead of paying for repair insurance, which turns out not to cover what actually goes wrong, I'm better off getting a phone service that uses a SIM card (as does the iPhone), so I can just pop the SIM out of a dead phone and into a substitute and I'm back in business. I can buy a simple unlocked GMS phone for as litle as $30, which is less than a year of repair insurance.

The other debate I'll be having with myself in the coming week is whether or not I really even still need a $600 smart phone rather than a $30 dumb phone.

Now that Asus has announced their Eee 901 and 1000 model 2-3# computers for about the same price as a smart phone, I'm likely to get an Eee PC for all my non-telephone computing needs on the road, so might be perfectly happy with a rudimentary cell phone, so long as it does well at making and receiving calls.

I'll have a month or two to think about that as well, as we await their arrival in the U.S., along with several competitors that may turn out to be an even better choice, which I define as the cheapest PC that can meet my needs when traveling.

I guess the key thing is that the day of the expensive gadget one can't afford to lose (or flush) is passing.

Update: The middlewife really likes the Palm Centro Sprint gave her (via the equipment maintenance fee we pay) back when her Treo 650 keyboard died earlier this year. As it turns out, AT&T has the Centro too, so if she prefers that to the new iPhone, we can keep her happily using a Centro even if we switch to AT&T. In fact, that might be a good choice for me too, as the Centro with a 2 year contract is one cent, less a $50 rebate on Amazon now. Its only disadvantage compared to the 755P is a slower data rate. But I wonder if we should even have a data plan any more. It's nice that a Centro or iPhone can check the weather, and the blogs and the mail, but those are wants, not needs.

I'm getting an increased sense of why Sprint's business seems to be going down the tubes, and may be talking myself out of an iPhone.

Update2: Switching is proving harder to do than expected. I can't quite complete the nice AT&T Web pages that would sign me up with them at my company's discounted rate (it eventually, using either FireFox or Internet Explorer 6 asks me for a login name and password it hasn't assigned to me yet, which it unhelpfully explains may be due to cookies, even though I've specifically permitted its cookies. Fortunately, there's also a phone# I can call to do this instead, except that no one is there over the weekend.

Guess I'll definitely now have to wait and see what Apple announces on Monday before doing anything more about this. As I wait, I'm finding myself increasingly attracted to the idea of getting a cheap pocket organizer and the cheapest cell phone that works. I really don't want to carry anything expensive that can die so quickly and easily any more. Too bad there isn't a phone-less Centro, along the lines of the iPod Touch.

Update3: Looks like the new iPhone is pretty neat. I like the added speed and GPS and battery life. Not sure I need it, but I like it. More problematic is that it's not available until July 11, and my current cell phone is next to useless right now. (Although the keyboard mostly works, it sometimes doesn't when first powered up, which is of course right when you most need to use it.) May be a good thing for me to do without a cellphone for a while though, just to remember what it was like. Plus, the low price of the new iPhone may lower the cost of other phones too, such as the Centro.

Another option would be to bite the bullet and re-up with Sprint to get another Centro, but I can't do that either until July 1 at the earliest, and I think I'm at the point that an ISP change is going to be made now regardless of cost.

Sadly, that means I have to prove credit-worthiness to a new ISP, just after putting a credit freeze on all our records. Since I already have AT&T service at home, that may not be an issue, but I won't be surprised if it turns out to be a problem. Who knows, I may need from now til July 11, just to figure out how to buy either a Centro or iPhone from AT&T.

Update 4: I visited both an AT&T store and an Apple store this afternoon. Both assured me there's no way to pre-order or even be pre-approved to order the new iPhone. I just have to take my chances on July 11. The good news is that after that date I should be able to order on-line, even if the local stores are out of stock at the moment.

The AT&T store also reported I can't get their discounted price on a Centro unless I sign up for a data plan for it. If we want the data features, that's fine. Otherwise, it adds enough to the 2 year cost of ownership to make it cheaper to have bought without the discount.

If I'm going to be required to pay for a data plan regardless, I may as well enjoy the cool additional features of the iPhone (such as WiFi & GPS.) The middlewife, on the other hand, may choose to stay with the Centro. I'm starting to be glad I have time to decide.

Update5: If I lived in Europe, I could get an unlocked Centro now, though if it ever needed repair under warranty I'd have to send it back to Europe, and have a European address to which they could return it afterwards.

If I bought an AT&T phone without a discount, it would still be locked when I got it, but AT&T tells me they'd unlock it for free a few days later on request by calling them. Various other Web sites offer to unlock the Centro and pretty much anything else for a small fee. Presumably AT&T wouldn't like that as much.

Having a credit freeze isn't a big deal to AT&T. They just have to call my home# and have me answer it before they can complete the setup process.

Pay as you go is not available for the Centro yet from AT&T, and the Centro is not yet available from T-Mobile. However, an unlocked one could presumably be used on either. Both appear to also offer a SIM card with 1,000 minutes that are good for a year for $100 (pay as you go.) That would be usable in any unlocked GSM phone. I kind of like the idea of getting a 3rd phone set up that way, to just keep around in case of emergency or as a loaner. A matching unlocked phone costs as little as $100 locally.

As I chase down all these options, I'm increasinly seeing the benefit of a helpful local dealer. There's an official AT&T store 2 miles from my home, and a multi-brand dealer 4 miles away. The AT&T store rep says she can arrange the discount offered folks who work where I do, and also combine my existing AT&T account with the new service. The only thing that seems hard for her to do is get me something that works now, plus an iPhone in a month, plus a Centro eventually. So, no decision yet.

Update 6: Getting back to the original cause of all this discussion, I went looking last night for a water-resistant cell phone. Sadly, they no longer exist, except one mil-spec model available only from Verizon. Cell phones are considered cheap enough now to no longer need water protection, though I for one do not consider being offered a chance to pay $450 to replace a dunked phone "cheap." Apparently the market has spoken though, because 5 years ago you could get phones able to survive being dunking 3' deep for 30 minutes. Since you CAN get waterproof cameras, I'm not sure why the same folks who buy those wouldn't want the same protection in their cell phones, especially since Sprint's optional monthly fee for equipment repair explicitly excludes water damage - presumably because they see that a lot.

I did also read that if someone were to give me an old iPhone, I could still get (the current slower) service for that at the current $10 a month lower cost.

Update7: OK, I have a solution, at least for now. It turns out I can buy an unlocked Centro after all, from Expansys USA, apparently located here in Illinois. That will give me the first thing I was looking for - a current Palm data device, whether or not I ever activate it as a cell phone. I suspect I will do so, using a T-Mobile SIM and $100 pay as you go card that provides 1,000 minutes good for a year. Consumer Reports recommends T-Mobile over AT&T for cell service, so it's worth a shot. If that works, our immediate problem is resolved, and we can either order another and cancel with Sprint, or just leave the Middlewife using her Sprint Centro until our contract runs out in another year. There are even rumors of T-Mobile buying Sprint (which I consider at least as dumb an idea as Sprint buying Nextel.) In the "keep trying" category, Sprint just announced new "lower" rates higher than we're now paying!

The main thing this solution does not give us is wireless Internet. But unless my company wants to pay for that, I no longer see that as worth its added cost. It seems mainly aimed at selling us stuff: ring tones, music, videos, sending photos and videos to others, along with more useful SMS, Email and Web access. But we really should be able to do without all of that other than the occasional SMS message, and we can still get those without a data plan.

The other thing it probably doesn't accomplish is giving me a way to keep my current cell#. Oh well, I'm about out of business cards anyway.

Update8: The new phone arrived, just 36 hours after I ordered it, and an hour after that a local independent phone store had it up and running with T-Mobile. I've synced it with most of the data I care about from the previous Treo, so all is well. One disappointment is that I still have only 1 bar of service at most in my basement office at work, just like on Sprint. That may be more due to the phone than the provider; one AT&T dealer told me Nokia phones get 1 more bar than other brands, and my co-worker whose phone has an extra bar here in the basement has a Nokia.

I'm not giving up the Centro for a Nokia though. It has everything my Treo 755P had (except for the fast Internet access I don't expect to use anyway), and is significantly smaller and cheaper than the 755P. Now all I need for it is a waterproof case for the next time I get fumble-fingered.

Having simple service with no contract, no monthly or daily fee, and a per-minute fee of only ten cents, with no taxes feels amazingly better. Highly recommended solution.

Update9: Palm has just announced availability of an unlocked Centro for $300 in the U.S. too. Details here.

A recent opinion column by David Ranson in the Wall Street Journal explains something I've long suspected: You can't soak the rich. You can try, mind you, but you can't succeed, at least not often and not for long.

Ranson explains this as "[Ken] Hauser's Law", namely "No matter what the tax rates have been, in postwar America tax revenues have remained at about 19.5% of GDP."

The explanation continues: "The federal tax 'yield' (revenues divided by GDP) has remained close to 19.5%, even as the top tax bracket was brought down from 91% to the present 35%. This is what scientists call an 'independence theorem,' and it cuts the Gordian Knot of tax policy debate.

What happens if we instead raise tax rates? Economists of all persuasions accept that a tax rate hike will reduce GDP, in which case Hauser's Law says it will also lower tax revenue. That's a highly inconvenient truth for redistributive tax policy, and it flies in the face of deeply felt beliefs about social justice."

Ranson explains: "What makes Hauser's Law work? For supply-siders there is no mystery. As Mr. Hauser said: 'Raising taxes encourages taxpayers to shift, hide and underreport income. . . . Higher taxes reduce the incentives to work, produce, invest and save, thereby dampening overall economic activity and job creation.'

Putting it a different way, capital migrates away from regimes in which it is treated harshly, and toward regimes in which it is free to be invested profitably and safely. In this regard, the capital controlled by our richest citizens is especially tax-intolerant."

In other words, we now have somewhat scientific evidence for readily-observable facts, such as that for all their talk about being unfairly under-taxed, both ultra-rich Bill Gates and ultra-rich Warren Buffet actually act so as to minimize their tax obligation. And so long as our laws are enacted by politicians who are both affluent themselves and dependent on other affluent citizens for their continuance in office, it is beyond silly to expect any legislation to become and remain law that seriously inconveniences the affluent. Robin Hood is a good story, but here in the real world, the only way the poor end up getting more is if the non-poor do too.

The only exception I can think of is voluntary charity. Again using Bill Gates and Warren Buffet as an example, they give more away voluntarily to help the truly poor peoples of the World than our government could ever manage to take from them involuntarily, let alone channel so effectively to areas of real need.

So, the next time a politician promises to take from the rich and give to you, just remember Hauser's Law guarantees it'll never happen, not in this fallen world.

Despite numerous warnings from the blogosphere and former donors over the past three years, Republicans in Congress seem utterly determined not to learn the obvious lesson from any of the many elections they have recently lost, as recently as the Mississippi special election yesterday. It's the pork, stupid! People vote for Republicans, above all else to get limited, honest, economical government. Unfortunately, there are only a few such Republicans left in Congress, with most of the rest indistinguishable from Democrats in their fondness for corrupt and ever-growing government spending.

Congress critters are fond of pointing out that earmarks don't really matter because they total such a small part of the overall Federal budget. But that only a tiny fraction of Republicans are willing to give even that tiny part of the total up, despite all the lost elections in recent years speaks volumes about why voters no longer see a reason to believe Republican claims to be more conservative fiscally than Democrats.

Ironically, John McCain, who fervent Republicans love to paint as not a real Republican, is one of the true fiscal conservatives left in Congress. He and Barack Obama co-sponsored a moratorium on earmarks this year that unfortunately went nowhere, even among Republicans. Too bad, as that could and should have been a great campaign issue for them this year. Instead, we now see fiscally-conservative Democrats being elected to replace Republican porkers, and former Republican campaign contributors refusing to pony up even one more dime to their party until it returns to its small government fiscally-conservative roots.

The disaster looming for Republicans this fall can yet be turned around. It wasn't all that long ago that folks were predicting the demise of the Democratic Party after the '94 election rout. But though Democratic votors may tolerate corrupt and wasteful spending by their candidates, by and large Republican voters do not. If Republicans in Congress continue to refuse to learn that lesson, they too may face a rout this Fall, and deservedly so. Unfortunately, if that happens, they may have many decades in which to regret their greed and folly as Democrats happily establish new bureaucracies that can never be eliminated, and nominate judges to make up in creative interpretations for whatever laws Congress cannot quite manage to pass.

Sadly, it reminds me of all the times I've seen morbidly-obese folks at all-you-can-eat buffets, literally killing themselves, yet unwilling to show even the tiniest restraint. Having started down that road myself, I know how hard it is to turn such habits around. But the potential rewards are also great, both for actual and fiscal dieters.

Update: Politico offers six ways the GOP can save itself:
1. Get a clue: "...Mitt Romney says it should be a modern edition of Newt Gingrich's "Contract With America." ... Voters no longer think lean government, smart and strong defense, and good old-fashioned family values when they think Republican. They think reckless spenders, misguided war and hypocrisy."
2. Cut the ****: "You can't run on family values when you don't practice them. "
3. Beg for help: (I consider this idea hopeless until the party steps away from the pork. Who's still stupid enough to give more money to this moneyholic?)
4. Burn the Bush: (Um, he's not running, so why mention him at all? Everyone already knows McCain isn't a Bush clone.)
5. Change the pitch -- and your face: "The image of the white men's club needs to go, too, says Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty."
6. Fan the fear: "Republican officials privately urge lawmakers to whack their opponents whenever they can for worrying more about coddling terrorist suspects than condemning them, failing to support U.S. troops, exhibiting weakness in dealing with dictators, and rushing to a quick Iraq exit that could put U.S. servicemen and women at risk. Polls still show GOP strength on national security and fighting terrorism -- at least when compared with their lousy numbers on domestic issues."

Update2: Republicans in Congress continue trying to lose our votes this Fall by helping Democrats pass a horribly bloated "farm" bill this week despite it having been vetoed by President Bush as wasteful.

Update3: John McCain, on the other hand, clearly "gets it." His nomination of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as Veep is, as many have said, a "game changer." She shares his interest in clean frugal government, and admirably addresses points 1, 2 & 5 above. The Republican base is thrilled to support her, and isn't it interesting just how quickly and easily anti-woman statements flow out of Democratic commenters this campaign season, regardless of whether the woman involved is Sarah Palin or Hillary Clinton?

Update4: Similar thoughts from Victor David Hanson today: "...conservatives committed two suicidal acts. One, they discredited tax cuts, which under George Bush clearly brought in more aggregate revenue and primed the economy. Had we balanced budgets by spending restraint, no politicians would now dare to suggest the answers for our present budget woes were to be found in higher taxes.

Second, conservatives grew the size of the government. Perhaps No Child Left Behind or the Medicare Prescription Drug supplement was felt to be necessary to ensure bipartisan congressional support for the unpopular Iraq War, perhaps not. But when a conservative grows the size of government, he not only suffers the wage of hypocrisy, but he wins the additional charge of encouraging all others to do the same."

It just hit me again today how many of our currently-serious national problems could be easily and cheaply resolved by the same simple solution: eating less and exercising more.

Pollution, Global Warming, High gasoline prices, Gridlock? All easily helped by riding a bike. We each need about 45 minutes a day of aerobic exercise, and biking quickly enough to be aerobic covers at least 7 miles in that time.

High food prices? Eat less. The middle wife and I were amazed to discover our grocery bill dropping in half after we started eating appropriately. We virtually eliminated our dining out costs too, as it's hard to find appropriate meals outside the home.

Aches, pains, high medical bills? Many diseases of middle age are optional, and can easily be avoided or ameliorated by eating only what we should and working out the way we should.

Nothing good on TV? Turn it off and get moving. There's better fare, and all for free, at the public library only 3 miles away.

Our bikes can carry two bags of groceries, and we have five grocery stores within two miles of our home. So why on Earth would we need to power up a one ton vehicle for the same purpose? When I can walk to the dry cleaners in 15 minutes, tell me again why I should drive there instead.

I can understand why folks don't want to be outside when the weather is lousy (though enjoying the outdoors even then is simply a matter of dressing for the occasion), but for the next half year, the weather will usually be very pleasant at least part of most days, so why not do our health, our budget, folks elsewhere (who need food and fuel a whole lot more than we do), and the planet itself some good today?

Our church challenged us to eat like the rest of the world this week. That is, not much in terms of quantity, and not much in terms of variety. One goal is for us to know what it feels like to be hungry most of the time.

It began today, and so far I've had one new realization - no leftovers! When my lunch consisted of a single serving of rice and beans, I found myself digging out every last grain of rice and eating it. Likewise the single serving of rice, chicken and veggies tonight.

The feeling of hunger I already know, since the True Hunger weight management system I follow ensures I feel hunger before eating at most if not all meals anyway. (This is a simple secret of the already-thin, who only eat when hungry. Duh!)

One other big change for me personally is drinking mostly plain water for the week - with no diet soda, and no fruit juices.

We are advised to be sensible about health, so I'm making sure I get enough calcium, and hopefully enough calories to maintain the muscle I've worked so hard to develop in place of visceral fat in the past four years. But I'm still making sure it all totals far under my usual 2,200C/day, so I get the full effect. I can't remember ever doing such a thing before when I wasn't overweight.

Tomorrow we have guests arriving from Ecuador for the week. It will be interesting to see what they make of our efforts to eat as they eat. It will also be interesting to see what effect this has on my exercise this week.

Whatever we save on groceries by eating this way (about $100 in our case) we are asked to donate to help feed hungry children in Zimbabwe. The next phase will be for us to help pack literally tens of millions of meals for them. That too will be a good experience, though I'm very concerned about how we'll ensure our food doesn't become yet another weapon used by that sad nation's dictator (Robert Mugabe) to reward supporters and punish opponents. I know we'll try to channel aid through churches, and hope that is a sufficient protection.

One other important point was made in this past weekend's message: there are several levels of poverty. That's an important distinction, because folks we think of as poor in this country are generally still rich by world standards. As one citizen in Soviet era Russia said after viewing a propaganda film about the evil U.S., "I want to live where the poor people are fat."

The truly poor in our world live on two bucks a day, tops, without safe water or health care. Short of becoming the World's policeman (and probably not even then), we can't do much about the many nations with vile despotic governments whose policies ensure hardship. But that leaves many other countries where we can help. And part of that help is for the ecologically-minded among us to stop harming folks further by discouraging the use of DDT to stop malaria, and trying to prevent gifts of genetically-modified food to the starving.

Long-time readers may recall I used to have an entry supporting Condoleeza Rice for President in 2008. I deleted the entry once it became clear she had no interest in running for President. However, according to this article, she is interested in running for Vice-President. So, Condi for Veep!

For those who care about competence and character, she has both in abundance. For those who like inspiring stories of achievement despite obstacles, she's been there and done that. For those who want to support someone other than another old white man, she's none of those three.

Thanks to Instapundit for the link. His comment is priceless: "And it's probably good for McCain if a potential running mate has more actual experience than both of his potential opponents put together."

Update: Looks like John McCain gets it! His choice of Sarah Palin for Veep was masterful in solving many of both his own and his party's problems. And from the continuous venom directed at Palin by Democrats and their pet media ever since, it's clear they realize just how thoroughly she threatens their smooth easy path back to presidential power.

Even the onset of a deep recession may not be enough to overcome the brilliance of McCain's choice, especially if voters are smart enough to realize that with Congress controlled by Democrats in recent years, it's just silly to blame only President Bush for the current downturn.

And don't even get me started on the absolute stupidity of nominating Joe Biden as veep for the Democrats...

I just got an email alerting me to an upcoming "Wellness Jam" on campus.
It sounded good, since I'm getting old enough to really prefer "wellness" to "sickness."
One thing really caught my attention though: exhibitors include Planned Parenthood.
Guess it depends on whose wellness matters to you...

Defenses of recently-released You Tube snippets of sermons by Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Jr. tend to emphasize such words are just part of the prophetic tradition.

Speaking as one who has also at times engaged in prophetic preaching, I have one huge problem with this characterization of Wright's words. To be prophetic, preaching must, above all else, be true.

My first reaction on seeing the clips was that Wright was not speaking Biblical truth, but merely repeating the worst available slanders about those he opposes.

Did some verse of Scripture or a visiting angel reveal to him that the CIA invented AIDS to kill black people? Or did that bit of nasty gossip just fit in so well with his low opinion of white folks that he had to include it?

If the latter, he is in deep spiritual weeds. Anyone claiming to be a prophet of God had best speak only God's actual words. Anyone who "helps" God by filling in the gaps with extra material risks a seriously-strong reaction from One who needs no such help.

And why should God be angry about such "help?" Because it undercuts the legitimate prophetic message. Once you know a "prophet" is faking part of a message, why believe any of the rest?

If Obama ends up losing this year's election, the cause may not be white racism, but rather a false prophet. Why? Because even those who love Obama's message of transcending racism and other social divisions have to ask how far his words of love and healing can be trusted when his chosen church of twenty years preaches an exactly opposite message of hatred and division.

As I've said before, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., for all his human faults, and some political views with which I disagree, was a true prophet. Jeremiah Wright, on the other hand, is more like the 400 prophets of Baal in the time of King Ahab (1 Ki. 18), preaching what their audience wants to hear.

The Augean Stables (hat tip to Instapundit for the link) makes an excellent related point:
"The prophets are ferocious in their criticism of their own people; they have relatively little to say about the real oppressive forces in the world of their day in the 8-7th centuries BCE. When the people of Israel get smashed by the Assyrians and the Babylonians, the prophets don’t go into a rant about how evil these vicious imperialists are; they invoke them as God’s agents in punishing Israel for their sins. When, under more normative conditions, when they chastise rulers and aristocracy for their treatment of the poor, they do so again with vigorous, even violent rhetoric, but they do so in the hopes of changing their people. The prophets, however rough they may be, love the people they chastise, and rebuke them for the sake of their transformation.

But the core reason for their success comes from the profound attachment that the prophets felt for their people. There is no trace of hatred in their clean anger, no desire to see failure and punishment, no joy in the downfall of the sinners. Indeed, their commitment to the very people they rebuked, in some cases, so savagely, meant that, often enough, those rebuked took them seriously. The very fact that these prophetic denunciations became canonized as sacred scripture — that we hear the shepherd Amos’ version of the tale, not that of the royal priest Amatzia — tells us that not only the prophets, but the leaders of the people shared these values and accepted the prophetic rebukes."

Prophecy is simultaneously the least popular and among the most important of the spiritual gifts. Job opportunities in my church often list the spiritual gifts desired in applicants, yet I often joke it will be a cold day down under before such an ad asks for the gift of prophecy. Valuable though accountability can be, it is rarely welcomed by recipients. King David, for instance, accepted the message of the prophet Nathan about Bathsheba (II Sa. 12.) But Nathan's only reward from David was being allowed to return home alive. Many true prophets (including MLK) weren't so lucky.

The reason a true prophet speaks truth to power is because God wills it. As a shepherd from Tekoa put it "The Lord GOD has spoken. Who can but prophesy?" (Amos 3:8b, RSV) Fame and fortune are usually for the false prophets of this world, not the true prophets of the next.

It is indeed time for a prophetic word about race in America, but I don't expect to hear it from the likes of Pastor Wright. Perhaps MLK is the only true voice in our generation. If so, thank God his words remain readily available here.

I recently learned competitive cyclists and swimmers are prone to osteoporosis. Why that is so is still unproven, but one theory that makes sense is that both of those activities are low-impact. That's good for saving knees, but may not be good for building and conserving bone strength. The cure? Do something high-impact too. Turns out a triathlon is ideal. The swimming and biking are easy on the knees, and the run helps bones stay strong. So my running two 5Ks a week isn't only good for my heart now, but also my bones.

Another theory that makes sense is that cyclists and swimmers exercise more hours at a time than many other kinds of athletes. And as a result, they may sweat out more calcium and other vital nutrients. A normal athlete's diet supplies enough calcium for an hour a day of exercise. But for a cyclist to complete a century may take seven hours. And most sport drinks don't include calcium.

A third explanation also rings true: phosphoric acid, found in many carbonated colas and some other carbonated soft drinks, is known to leach calcium from bones.

Other things believed to help bone strength include strength training and a daily multi-vitamin, both of which I enjoy.

I'm a bit between a rock and a hard place on calcium consumption, given that a couple of years ago I had two kidney stones whose composition included calcium. My calcium intake has been restricted somewhat since at the request of my urologist. I'm not aware of having any bone density problem, but also don't want one, so expect I'll ask about that at this Thursday's physical.

Much though I love it, I see I now have to say goodbye to soft drinks that contain phosphoric acid. I'm also adding a daily glass of milk back into my diet.

Update: Saw the doctor today, and got a mini version of a bone density scan. The good news: I don't have osteoporosis yet. The bad news is that my bone density is enough below normal that the doctor advised me to resume normal calcium intake, despite the possibility of another kidney stone resulting.

Seems like I've reached the point in life where there are trade-offs for everything. Since the consequence of osteoporosis would be worse than the consequence of another kidney stone, the focus for now is on protecting bone strength.

Gateway Pundit has a nice summary of recent comments by Geraldine Ferraro about Barack Obama. For anyone who missed them first time around, "A Hillary Clinton adviser has resigned over her comment that Barack Obama would not be ahead in the race for the White House if he were not black."

Ferraro, Fritz Mondale's choice for Vice President during his doomed 1984 Presidential campaign, then violated the first rule of holes (when you're in one, stop digging) by adding "Racism works in two different directions. I really think they're attacking me because I'm white. How's that?" Actually, that was a day or two ago, and she hasn't stopped digging yet, but that's enough to give us the general picture.

One thing I like about the Italian women I've known is that they are spunky and opinionated. However, they are not always correct in their opinions. This is one of those times. And I include Gateway Pundit in that criticism, along with some other more right-of-center blogs, because their coverage of this issue indicates they agree with Ferraro's comments.

I don't.

Whether this is just Ferraro's opinion, or one quietly solicited by Clintonian need to keep the race issue alive in the weeks leading up to the PA primary, I find it extremely offensive for both Ferraro and other whites to continue suggesting Obama's skin color is somehow a huge and undeserved advantage. I suspect they will eventually discover most everyone other than some persons of pallor is also offended.

Many white folks have this persistent delusion that the playing field is now level, or even tilted in favor of non-whites. I'll confirm my rebuttal of that to just this: how fair is it for a poor non-white kid to be forced to attend an awful inner city school and then compete for admission to a good college with a rich white kid who attended New Trier? Even if the other kid gets in due to an unfair-in-their-favor racial set-aside, they still aren't even unless and until they manage to make up for all they didn't learn before that they will need to graduate with a meaningful degree.

What I like most about Obama is that his candidacy offers a chance for our nation to move beyond its centuries-long nightmare of failed race relations. What I absolutely despise about Clintonian politics in this matter is that they appear to be intentionally keeping the monster of racism on life support in hopes it will pave their path back to power.

That may or may not be behind Ferraro's comments. But I am not encouraged to read Hillary Clinton has only "distanced" herself from Ferraro's comments, rather than denouncing them forcefully as her husband wisely once did similarly-offensive comments by Sister Souljah.

If I were black, I'd be hopping mad about a serious contender for the leadership of the party favored by most who look like me selling a generation of our votes down the river for short term advantage in one election.

If I were a Democratic party leader, I'd be seriously concerned about permanently losing the safest 10% of my party's supporters.

For Republicans, this would be a wonderful time to either support Obama against such slurs or at least shut up, so that if blacks are offended enough to leave Hillary's party, at least no one has barred the door to their choosing your alternative.

Update: Hillary Clinton came close to a useful apology on this issue today, according to this article:
"I certainly do repudiate it and I regret deeply that it was said. Obviously she doesn't speak for the campaign, she doesn't speak for any of my positions, and she has resigned from being a member of my very large finance committee."

That's in contrast to the non-apology apology she also offered for Bill Clinton's similarly-divisive earlier comments in SC: "You know I am sorry if anyone was offended."

Update2: Has anyone else noticed the convenient timing of this past week's revelations about the views of Obama's pastor? I've heard enough black pastors and anti-American college profs that I'm not shocked about Wright's views. I do disagree with them, which actually got me in trouble back in seminary when I was assigned to read a book by James Cone and failed to properly genuflect before the altar of liberation theology.

More recently, I've had to simply agree to disagree with black speakers at our church who forgive every racist comment by a non-white by claiming only whites have power, and therefore only whites can be racists --arguing about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, if you ask me. Whether the juicier comments of a James Cone or a Jeremiah Wright are racist, or merely bigoted seems a useless distinction.

What I want to know now is, who saved up those You Tube clips of Wright until needed to focus our attention away from Ferraro's comments? I'm guessing it wasn't the "vast right wing conspiracy", but might have been the person who coined that phrase. "Swiftboating" doesn't just originate on the right any more. (Note: unlike many progressives, I consider the Swiftboat charges against Kerry to be true, and appropriate discussion points in a campaign. I also consider the current You Tube sermon snippets to be true and appropriate discussion points in the current campaign. They may very well tell us something we need to know about Obama's true views, just as the Swiftboat vets reminded those who hadn't heard them the first time around about Kerry's anti-military activism during the Viet Nam era.)

I'm pretty sure I'll end up voting for McCain in the fall, but equally sure that he won't carry my state. And forced to choose among those either of whom probably would carry my state this fall, I still support Obama over Hillary.

For all the dirt we already know about Hillary's character and actions, it's clear we haven't reached bottom yet. For instance, she asks Obama to disclose more about his financial dealings while continuing not to disclose her own. She asks about Obama's shady associate now on trial as though she didn't have one of her own also now on trial. It finally dawned on me this week, that just as Obama had to share some of Pastor Wright's views to be part of his church for twenty years, Hillary has to share some of the less-admirable character traits of her husband to have put up with Bill all these years.

Folks in Oak Park, IL are upset that Fannie Mae has reinstated a policy requiring home buyers to put down a 5% larger down payment in a "declining market" than would otherwise be required. As far as I can tell via Google, this will only affect folks trying to buy a home with a down payment of less than 5%, and it seems to me that these days all real estate markets are declining. According to Zillow, my own home lost $2K of value last month, and is now worth less than when I bought it 4 years ago.

Because this new policy has been deemed to apply to their ZIP code, folks in Oak Park feel unfairly targeted, and are calling the new policy redlining, a term from the racial integration battles of the 1960s. They feel the new policy will have a disparate effect on "communities of color" (their term) and "low-income communities" (which Oak Park certainly is not, so far as I can tell.)

I applaud Oak Park for long-term success in remaining racially-mixed since the '60s. A memory from back then was hearing Saul Alinsky in the nearby Austin neighborhood of Chicago happy because two neighborhood groups, one for and one against integration were both meeting in the same building at the same time. Alinsky didn't care that the groups had conflicting goals; he was just happy to see folks getting organized. Up to that point, "white flight" had been converting all-white neighborhoods on that side of Chicago into non-white neighborhoods at a rapid clip, but that stopped in Austin as Oak Park integrated successfully.

Why would anyone in today's market be approved for a home loan with less than a 5% down payment? In a market declining nation-wide, there's simply too much risk a buyer with a lower down payment and their lender would quickly find themselves with a home no longer worth what it cost. There's no way I would make such a loan, either now or in the recent glory days of appreciating home prices.

If I wouldn't make such a loan myself, on what basis can I expect Fannie Mae (the Federal National Mortgage Association) to do so? Although government-sponsored, Fannie Mae is not government-funded and not a charity, so ultimately its financial decisions have to at least break-even or it goes out of business.

It's painful when you're buying a home and prices go South instead of North. But that happens in real estate, about once every twenty years. We've experienced it twice before ourselves, and had to sell our home in the midst of the downturn both times. The first time, we were happy to break even. The second time we sold for a loss but also bought a home sold at a loss at the same time, so we figure we again came out even.

i remember how hard it was to round up the funds for a down payment. But in declining markets, if you can't round up even a 5% down payment, perhaps this year it would be better to continue renting and saving toward a larger down paymen, ideally 20%, though we only managed to save up 10% when we first bought a home ourselves.

Similarly, adjustable rate mortgages are just too risky to recommend for anyone planning to keep a home more than 2 or 3 years. And anyone NOT planning to keep a home that long is probably better off just renting. Once you factor in the costs of selling, it's extremely difficult to make money on a home you keep for under 3 years, even in a rising market.

Unfortunately, that advice affects more "low income communities" than rich ones, but my preference would still be to help folks learn good financial habits, rather than take on risky loans. What good is it to help folks "buy" a home they end up not being able to keep?

As much as I've spent on Netgear stuff in the past couple of months, you'd think it might bother them just a bit to stiff me on a $40 rebate. But nope, buying almost $2K of their gear since Christmas wasn't sufficient reason for them to honor their recent rebate on Gigabit switches.

What really got my attention was the reason for disallowing the rebate: "Invalid Purchase Location", given that one switch was bought at Best Buy, and the other at Amazon.com, from whose Web site I printed the rebate form in the first place!

Netgear hereby joins my growing list of firms that won't get future business

Repeat business is much more important to company survival than whatever can be saved by cheating customers out of rebates. People are very good at remembering who has cheated them. And over the decades almost all such firms have eventually gone under.

Update: I just got an update Email from Netgear, saying they have approved my $20 rebate. I suspect that means they have reconsidered and now agree one of the two places I bought from is an authorized dealer. Nice of them to figure that out, since I had no way to contact them and ask them to do so other than by updating an Amazon review, which I did do. So thanks may also be due to whoever at Amazon read that review before posting it.

Either way, it's really good news, as I was NOT looking forward to having to find an alternative supplier for the products I've been getting from Netgear over the years.

I recently learned of two books for men who want to bicycle in later years:
Cycling Past 50 (which already applies to me), by Joel Friel (the same author as the book I read last year getting ready for my first triathlon.)
Even more impressive to me as a concept is this one: Bike for Life: How to Ride to 100. From it, I now have a new goal: ride a century on my century (do a hundred mile bike ride on my hundreth birthday. Mind you, not many men make that age period, let alone fit enough to ride a bike, but if I should still be around then, I'd prefer enough of me still be around to pull off a stunt like that.

Now today I read that getting to at least age 90 may be easier than expected, and with better than even odds (54% chance of success), if I manage to do five simple things:
Exercise regularly
Avoid obesity
Not smoke
Avoid diabetes
Avoid high blood pressure

The details are in this article from Med Page Today:
More than half of men in their early 70s who exercised regularly, were not obese, didn't smoke, and didn't have diabetes or high blood pressure survived to 90, reported Laurel B. Yates, M.D., M.P.H., of Brigham and Women's Hospital, and colleagues in the Feb. 11 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine.

In an interview, Dr. Yates said the implication is that the benefits of these factors extend into old age. Earlier research has established beyond doubt that they prevent early mortality.
Interested? There's more. Read the whole thing.

If I don't make it, here's what I want on my tombstone :)
Lost the weight
Got fit
Died anyway

But if I do make it, how about
Rode a Century
on His Century

Update:
Friend Greg suggests an intermediate goal for each intervening year:
Ride my birthday on my birthday
that is, ride as many miles as my current number of years of age as a birthday celebration.
Since it's not usually biking weather on my birthday, he suggests I do this on my half birthday instead, but I may also go with the original idea and use it as a reason to take both me and my bike someplace where the weather is nice on my birthday. Thanks for the idea, Greg!:

The Illinois primary for the 2008 Presidential election is only three weeks away, and for once may actually matter in who gets elected, but I haven't even decided which party's ballot I want to take this year. It's unusual for me to be so indecisive, but frankly there isn't a candidate in the bunch other than perhaps Obama that I'm sure I'd want to have over to my house for dinner. That makes me less interested than usual in even forming an opinion about them.

On the Democratic side, I like Obama, but disagree completely with his views on Iraq. I dislike Hillary, and don't believe a word she says about Iraq even though her words are closer to my position than any of the other Democrats, I also dislike John Edwards, who seems by far the biggest hypocrite of the three. Note: I also disagree with all three of them on many issues. The biggest benefit for me from taking a Democratic ballot would be if it finally got my name off all the Republican mail lists I've tried to opt out of for years.

On the Republican side, I like Thompson's words, but know little else about him and won't bother learning more until he wins a primary somewhere. McCain is a moderate and great for the war on terror, but differs with me on several important issues, including immigration and campaign finance. Giuliani is also a moderate, and I admire his "broken window" theory of cleaning up New York and his views on the war on terror, but know little else about him and again won't learn more unless he wins a primary somewhere. Huckabee and I share the virtue of having lost a lot of weight and managing to keep it off afterwards, and he's a fellow Evangelical, though a whole lot too public about that for either my own taste or his own chances in November. Apart from that he seems as much a "big government" guy as any of the Democrats (or our current president for that matter), and I don't want either the Democratic or the Republican version of big government anywhere near me. I also still have a really bad taste in my mouth from having voted for the Evangelical who turned out to be our worst president ever (Jimmy Carter in 1976.) Romney is another moderate; I remember liking his dad some when he was running. He's apparently a wonk, along the lines of BIll Clinton, but without the moral baggage. I wonder about the street-smarts of anyone who can believe in what seems to me to be a made-up religion.

One interesting thing about the above list is that once the mud-slinging begins in earnest, there will be no shortage of large targets. Rarely has America fielded an array of contenders with such obvious moral failings. As a character-first voter, that makes my job of deciding all the harder.

My prayer is for God to guide the process, and give us the wisdom to select as He would, ending up not with the poor leadership we likely deserve, but the good leadership we so obviously need. If in the process we can also begin to heal some of the wounds of the past generation of political civil war, that would be a bonus.

Update as of 1/19/08:
Looks like Edwards is no longer in the running, except for veep on the Democratic side. Interesting that the media is calling Hillary the winner of today's caucus in Nevada even though Obama got more delegates.

An article reporting McCain's win in South Carolina today reminded me McCain is one of the good guys when it comes to trying to rein in Federal spending. Romney won today in Nevada. Both of them are generally considered to be of good moral character. McCain is also (alone of this bunch) an actual wartime hero.

Update2: We had a really good Martin Luther King, Jr. weekend service today in which our pastor reminded us of all the ways the playing field still isn't level, and several ways whites still make it hard for non-whites to compete fairly. And as he talked I got increasingly upset at things that have been happening to Obama during the current campaign -- things that are, shall we say, Clintonesque... So, I could change my mind before election day, but as of now, I plan to take a Democratic ballot and vote for Obama in the primary.

Update3: Friend Greg reminded me last night that McCain was part of the "Gang of 14" that killed Republican plans to make Democratic obstruction of confirmation votes for judicial nominees an electoral issue in 2006, which may have been even more damaging to Republican prospects in that year's election than Republican Congress-critter's continuing love for earmarks and pork (hidden wasteful government spending) so evident that year and to this day.

Greg also sadly informed me that by taking a Democratic ballot this time, I won't get off Republican mail and phone lists, but may get more Democratic mailings and phone calls.

Having just fended off yet another telemarketing call from a "charity", I figure what this country needs is for the National Do Not Call Registry to include options not to be bothered by either charities or politicians. Likewise for mailings - we need a Catalog Choice option to opt out of mailings from charities and politicians we wouldn't even consider supporting. Saves them pointless mailing costs and helps the environment.

Update4: Wow, early voting is great! Last time we voted the regular way, we waited in line for an hour to get a ballot. With early voting, the wait was under 5 minutes. The Chicago Tribune also assisted with this Web site that shows you in advance all the candidates that will be on your local ballot, along with links to their recommendations for voting. It allows you to print out in advance a full ballot, with your preferred choices already marked. What's in it for them? Well, now they know too, including your address... polling taken to the next level. So be sure not to give them your exact address - just something close enough to pull up the correct ballot.

Another benefit of early voting is that it may cut off calls still hoping to influence our vote, not to mention cutting the potential benefit of an "October surprise" last minute attack on an opponent.

I liked the electronic touchscreen voting, primarily because it included an adding-machine paper-printed record of all my votes for me to easily review as I cast them, and for election judges to review later if any question arises about the electronic totals.

One final thought: on the Republican side, centrists seem to be doing well, for the first time since the '60s.

After the Chicago Transit Authority more or less set fire to all its funds in recent years and then had the gall to ask the State to bail it out, our state legislators have faced the unenviable task of finding some way to keep public transit operating now and in years to come.

Having just done so, their reward was to have our state governor amend their bill to make it also provide free mass transit to senior citizens, no matter how wealthy they may be, and with no provision for paying the added cost of his "generosity."

If the governor gets his way, in a few years I too will qualify for an entirely-free ride, rather than the reduced fare I'd previously have already qualified for. Meantime, I'll have lots of new taxes to pay to partly make up the difference.

What really bugs me about this is:
1) This idea could and should have been debated by the legislature this Fall, rather than being sprung as a last-minute surprise by the governor.
2) There are a lot of wealthy Senior citizens. Why do they need help, rather than for instance, DCFS kids and the handicapped?
3) Once Metra is entirely free for any group, homeless members of that group will use it as a daycare center, much as they already use the CTA - riding around the system all day long for a single fare.
4) Somebody eventually has to pay for giveaways. Since the presenting problem is that the CTA is out of money, proposing to make it give away even more seems DOA. Fortunately, one thing both parties in our legislature seem to agree on lately is halting the governor's latest follies.

Update: I was too optimistic - the Governor won.

One of this year's hottest Christmas gifts is one you give to the poorest of the poor. The new XO laptop computer, originally intended to help poor children in the third world learn to use a computer, was for a limited time also available to donors via a buy one, get one free offer. Beginning November 14 and ending December 31, 2007, charitable donors were offered a chance to both donate an XO to a poor child via laptopgiving, plus get another XO for personal use or direct donation. Sweetening the pot even more, T-Mobile also threw in a free year of WiFi hot spot access (and I will definitely remember their generosity the next time I need a mobile phone.)

Without knowing this would become a trendy thing to do, I signed up immediately, and became one of the first to actually receive an XO.

The shocking thing to me is that the XO is actually a very cool laptop. It weighs just 3# 9oz (including the battery & power supply), is a tiny 10" x 10" x 1", and uses only 8 watts. yet includes a custom version of Linux, WiFi, 3 USB ports, an SD port, a mic and audio port, a 7" color screen visible even in full daylight that can be flipped over to cover the rubber-protected keyboard and used as a tablet for such tasks as reading an ebook,

Without much fuss I was able to connect to the Internet via my home WiFi system and browse my favorite blog. Even so, it may be months or even years before I figure out all the other options included in this critter. (By then my newborn grandson may be big enough to explain it all to me as we enjoy it together.)

Update: Here's a bit more technical info on the XO: It has a 433MHz AMD CPU, 256MB of RAM, 1GB of SSD storage, and can accept one SDHD card up to at least 8GB in capacity. It also has a 640 x 480 Web cam, so theoretically might even be capable of running the new Linux version 1.4 of Skype for video calls. Its browser is based on Gecko, the same as FireFox, and I've already managed to use the XO to run (albeit very slowly) the database I support at work. Here's my prediction: both kids and hackers (in the good sense) are going to have a ton of fun with this thing.

Update2: After seeing it, Shades agrees. Small example: It turns out the XO is an excellent eBook reader, with many of the features of the hot new Amazon "Kindle" reader. I've already downloaded and read one very good recent novel on it, and found it every bit as good an experience as reading a book on paper, and better than reading one on my Treo. I expect a LOT of good content to be made available for free on the XO, in support of its educational mission to the poorest of the poor. I'm happy to help with that, and also happy to be among those who benefit.

One more new learning: the target age for kids is 6-12, though kids as young as 3 are already enjoying the XO, as are adults.

Update3: The Give One Get One promotion has ended, and was a great success, with 150,000 computers donated. For those who got one, the first update is expected to be available sometime during January of 2008. Some expected features weren't ready yet on Day One, such as a spreadsheet, but will be eventually, so be sure to check the OLPC Wiki occasionally for updates.

Update4: Wow, look Shades, there's already an OLPC group at IMSA (Illinois Math & Science Academy, a wonderful public high school.) Here's their Wiki. Here's how OLPC News described their first presentation to a new Chicago OLPC group.:
"The evening opened with some presentations by the IMSA students. The thing you need to know about them is that they are scary smart. In a good way. Whatever you do, don't underestimate them. Students at IMSA are proud to hold the distinction of the only OLPC High School Interest Group.

Their work with the acoustic tape measure activity led them to believe that the OLPC is a good tool for conducting experiments. From here, they decided to work on a module to present the scientific method. This led them to do research on the societies where OLPC laptops are targeted for, so as to understand social constraints around manner of dress and gestures for video-based content."

Update5: Sadly, Nick Neg, head of OLPC may have just jumped the shark (gutting the OLPC movement of pretty much its entire purpose) by abandoning its open software design in hopes of making the XO into just one more cheap computer that is barely able to run Windows XP.

To American ears, being able to get XP for only $3 may sound pretty good, but to folks who only make a dollar a day in poor third world countries that's a whole lot of unnecessary money given up to make one of the richest men in the world even richer. Learning this made me want to barf, and I'm not alone. It sounds like pretty much everyone whose work I admired on the project has now left, either voluntarily or by being fired.

I've just finished reading a very good new book Ethical Realism. What I liked about it is that it shows a sensible way forward for both Republicans and Democrats in dealing together with the challenge raised to our way of life by folks like Osama Bin Laden.

The key insight of the book is that the challenge before us now is very much like the challenge that faced a previous generation of our leaders in dealing with the challenge of Communism. The authors of this book (one liberal and one conservative) suggest that a similar approach is what we need today in dealing with our current philosophical opponents. (I'm trying very hard not to use any code words here to describe them, so as not to drive either liberal or conservative readers into tuning out the book's message before understanding it.) On reflection, I think they are correct, and the post-World War II approach is our best way forward now.

To those who think the solution is to go it alone, us against the World, standing up for a pure American vision, the authors suggest that would have been like Churchill refusing to work with Russia against Hitler in 1939, which they assert would have resulted in England losing World War II in 1940. Much though we'd prefer not to ally with imperfect countries and leaders, the truth is, we are all imperfect, and must choose among various shades of grey rather than only between black and white ethically. This theme of humility is important. No matter how wonderful and generous we consider our nation, it is imperfect, just as each of us individually is imperfect. Our founders knew that, which is why they were so careful to set up checks and balances to limit the actions of our government, knowing it too would be imperfect.

A second great insight from the past was WHY we had a containment strategy against Russia beginning in the late 1940s - because it was already apparent that our relatively free system would eventually do better than the centralized Russian system, as indeed it eventually did. The only logical alternative would have been to follow fighting Germany and Japan by fighting Russia, and even if we'd won, how would we have then ruled such a large part of the world? More likely (especially once both sides had nuclear weapons) such a war would have ended with only losers. This insight has current application as we consider our current challenges in Iraq and Afghanistan - can any sensible person today advocate also picking a fight with Iran?

And to those fond of saying the U.S. is the worst nation in history, these authors would suggest "Get a grip!" Anyone who truly thinks that knows little or nothing of world history. The mere fact that one can have such an opinion yet still live and work here should be proof enough that ours is not the worst of all possible nations. Fashionable though it may be to pretend all cultures are equal in value, in the end some ideas and some behaviors are better than others, and ethics consists of making difficult choices between better and worse, not in some ideal world that never was, but in this clearly-imperfect world.

One of the great insights of the late 1940s, recently re-realized in our own day, is that it is not in our national iinterest to just let failed nations rot. Such swamps serve as breeding grounds for all sorts of dangers. Rather, it is in our interest to help citizens of all nations find a way forward toward a better life. Americans are a generous people, quick to help others in need. That is one of our best traits, and may in the end be more important in helping us survive this new century in peace than all our armed forces and advanced technology.

Finally, the authors usefully remind us that like it or not, and no matter who is elected President next year, we will be at this effort for a generation or more, making it foolish to proceed in a way acceptable to only a minority among us. Rather, we need an approach most Americans can support for such a long effort.

Update: I'm also just finishing the book World War IV, by Norman Podhoretz. It is mostly a history of how the war has gone thus far, starting back in the 70's when no one yet considered it a real war. Its most helpful feature is clear proof of mistakes by all of our Presidents and leading politicians of all parties ever since, except that He's a bit too kind to our current President. I find myself thinking two things:
1) Speaking clearly about this war is similar to when a therapist realizes what's wrong with a mental patient, but has to help the patient figure it out on his or her own rather than just handing them the answer, or else the patient will reject the truth and replace their current problem with an even less-well-adapted one. For that reason, titles like World War IV may be too direct to win majority support within our country today, even if factually accurate as the term is defined by the author.
2) Unlike Ethical Realism, this author doesn't seem to have a workable solution in mind, at least not one likely to gain bi-partisan support within my lifetime.

Update2: I received another interesting post this morning, of a grandfatherly talk on this issue just given by Newt Gingrich, of all people. Well worth a read here, no matter what you used to think of Gingrich. (Newt is a good historian too, but also seems to have this bi-partisan thing somewhat figured out -- he spent a lot of the past year dialogging about current issues with a friendly Democrat.)

Recently, our church partnered with Lydia Homes' Safe Families program, to help them meet their goal of finding 10,000 safe families in Illinois with which children can be informally placed to help parents out with short-term needs (typically a month or two.) This is different from the usual foster care arrangement, in that the children are mostly not wards of the State. This is important because even the state lacks resources to care for all the children who might need its help. In a typical year, I understand the state assists about 4,000 kids, out of 100,000 or more who may need help. That forces state staffers to triage - aiding mostly already-abused kids, rather than parents who just need a little time away from kids due to medical treatment, being in prison, etc.

Lydia Homes hopes is filling that gap with volunteer families willing to take in one or more extra children by mutual consent between the parents and the volunteer family for an agreed-on period of time. Unlike traditional foster parents, the volunteers are not paid.

Having been foster parents ourselves thirty years ago, and having recently freed up a bit of spare time, we signed up to help. This involved getting fingerprinted for a background check and completing lots of forms, but really didn't take long.

Literally within days we got a call, asking if we could take in a 7 year old boy. We said sure, and almost immediately had a new addition to our family for two months.

It was a really good placement - we all got along great and hope to see him again on our return from meeting our new grandson. It was also great in terms of his progress, as the Middlewife is a really good teacher, and the teachers in our local elementary school were just awesome.

Were there problems? Of course, but nothing we hadn't dealt with before as parents. I now have a rule of thumb - assume every child has twice as many problems as you are told about in advance, and you'll be about right.

In a short-time placement, fixes are also short-term. As a trained counselor, I found it interesting to be focusing on short-term behavior modification strategies rather than uncovering underlying causes of topics of interest. For instance, our new son loved violent movies, but had trouble sleeping after seeing them. Our solution was to watch only G-rated fare while he was with us. That may not have helped resolve underlying traumas, but I'm a big believer in the computer science principle of "garbage in = garbage out", so don't like filling my own head with ideas that would be problematic for a preteen boy.

Another learning for us about short-term placements is that it's essential to ensure from the start that either no bureaucratic issues exist, or that all necessary paperwork has already been completed. That's because there simply isn't time in a two month placement to fully deal with all of that.

The hardest issue in our case was tracking down enough info about our new son's prior education to get him admitted to our local school. The school very badly wanted to get one particular form from a prior school, but even finding out what school might have it was sufficiently difficult that we eventually convinced our school to redo the paperwork. Eventually everything was figured out, and that turned out to be the correct solution, but briefly I had visions of not being able to get our kid in school for lack of a piece of paper.

Similarly, presumably for privacy reasons and because lots of different helping agencies were involved, we weren't told enough of our new son's medical history initially, but had to track down lots of such info for our local school, to refill prescriptions etc.

As our church continues down this road, I expect it may need to find a doctor willing to accept Safe Families children for treatment. The Illinois "All Kids" program is intended to eliminate having to be concerned about such things, but for us its existence just made it harder to find a nearby doctor willing to see our son in time of need, presumably because "All Kids" doesn't pay as much or as quickly as our own PPO-type health insurance policy. When our new son developed an earache on his second day with us, this all quickly became real for us. Thankfully, under a new program at an area Walgreens, a nurse-practitioner happily saw him right away.

One other step we are taking before our next placement is lining up friends to help. Kids in foster care typically can't be taken out of state, so our recent trip would have been a problem if our placement hadn't ended just before. Next time, we hope to have other good folks with whom such a child can stay during an out-of-state trip.

Will we do this again? Definitely! We may not ever know this side of Heaven how much staying with us for a couple of months helped our new son, but I'm guessing a lot. He loves and missed his mom a lot while with us, but also really thrived under grandparent-like extra attention.

If this seems like something your family could do too, the need is great, and forms to sign up are here.

We are currently enjoying getting to know our delightful first grandson, age 9 weeks. As many have suggested, being grandparents is much more fun than being parents. Although the work can be much the same, the ultimate responsibility is different. However long we are here to help, we know deep inside that in a week we go home and resume normal lives. For Shades, that doesn't happen for another twenty years.

On the other hand, having good experienced help in the first few months of parenting is a wonderful Godsend, and we are happy to be able to pay forward the assistance we ourselves received when Shades was born.

Thanks to the Middlewife reacting to a flu shot with flu symptoms just as we flew out to meet our grandson, I got the early duties, and turned out to really enjoy them all. I even changed a diaper (yes, I know, changing only one is about the same as none at all.) Our most useful service thus far seems to be providing the new parents with a chance to be adults from time to time, with no worries about their new son. For instance, we now handle the 2AM bottle, and disappear with him for a daily walk in a front carrier that he seems to love.

An extra treat this trip was reading the book "Secrets of the Baby Whisperer", and trying to apply its suggestions. Having an actual baby at hand while reading about baby care is of obvious practical value.

As vacations go, this is unusual, but very enjoyable and stress-free, while also helping reduce the stress of the happy new parents, and give our new grandson new loved ones to dote on him. A true win-win-win.

Update:
We're just finishing our second visit. N. has just turned 3 months old, which means he can now go to "school" (day care), and yesterday was his first day there. All went well. Ah, so young and already growing up! N. is still a huge delight to us, and we'll miss both him and his parents as soon as we depart for home tomorrow.

Think you understand global warming? Here's a quick ten question quiz on the underlying science, complete with detailed explanations of what it considers the correct answers. I learned from the quiz, and expect you will too, regardless of your politics on the issue. Hat tip to Rev. Donald Sensing, who got 9 correct. (I only got 8.)

Wow. This was an interesting civics quiz. Think you're smart? Think you're well educated? Give it a try. 60 questions. Multiple guess. I missed 5.

I learned about it from Wizbang, which learned about it from AZaMatteroFact, which learned about it from Brad Warthen's Blog.

Mark Satin's Radical Middle on-line newsletter has just published an excellent analysis of how to apply insights from all parts of the political spectrum regarding terrorism.
"Terrorism speaks to some of the deepest-rooted impulses in the human psyche. How can it possibly be understood, let alone controlled, without making use of the insights and experiences of all of us, whatever our politics?

Perhaps we should see the terrorist threat as a God-given invitation to restructure our institutions so that we spend our days absorbing each other's insights and perspectives, rather than ignoring or attacking them."

His excellent article continues with 12 causes & 22 suggested solutions. I was surprised to find myself agreeing with all of the causes and all the solutions, with only one small exception.

Although I agree with the goal of solution 8: Build international law. I suspect that doing so is beyond our capability at present. Sadly, our best efforts at the United Nations have failed to prevent it from becoming a mockery of all we hold dear. A typical example is that murderous dictators continue to dominate U.N. human rights committees despite a strenuous U.S. effort in recent years to return those committees to at least a smidgen of concern for the people they claim to serve.

In particular, I agree with Satin that it's time for partisans such as MoveOn to move on from their 8 year long tantrum and stop acting like every issue on Earth can be decided correctly by finding out what GW wants to do and opposing that as mindlessly as an angry 2 year old. We still need there to be a nation for the winner in 2008 to be President of, OK? And news flash: GW isn't even on the ballot in 2008!

The Wall Street Journal has an interesting article on diversity today:
"Robert Putnam, the Harvard don who in the controversial bestseller "Bowling Alone" announced the decline of communal-mindedness amid the rise of home-alone couch potatoes, has completed a mammoth study of the effects of ethnic diversity on communities. His researchers did 30,000 interviews in 41 U.S. communities. Short version: People in ethnically diverse settings don't want to have much of anything to do with each other. "Social capital" erodes. Diversity has a downside.
...
'Inhabitants of diverse communities tend to withdraw from collective life, to distrust their neighbors, regardless of the color of their skin, to withdraw even from close friends, to expect the worst from their community and its leaders, to volunteer less, give less to charity and work on community projects less often, to register to vote less, to agitate for social reform more, but have less faith that they can actually make a difference, and to huddle unhappily in front of the television.' The diversity nightmare gets worse: They have little confidence in the 'local news media.' This after all we've done for them.

Colleagues and diversity advocates, disturbed at what was emerging from the study, suggested alternative explanations. Prof. Putnam and his team re-ran the data every which way from Sunday and the result was always the same: Diverse communities may be yeasty and even creative, but trust, altruism and community cooperation fall. He calls it 'hunkering down.' "

Turns out there is one exception:
"Robert Putnam has a possible assimilation model. Hold onto your hat. It's Christian evangelical megachurches. 'In many large evangelical congregations,' he writes, 'the participants constituted the largest thoroughly integrated gatherings we have ever witnessed.'"

Neither Putnam, nor the WSJ author (Daniel Henninger) seems to know why that exception exists, but to me it's duh-obvious: whatever their skin color etc., participants in such churches have important shared values in following Jesus, who commands us to love one another regardless of race, gender, age. health, wealth, or any other Earthly differences.

I don't mean to suggest such churches have it all together when it comes to race relations. But I'm glad to see they are finally at least on the solution side of the equation. As our pastor likes to say, the local church, when it's working right, is the hope of the World.

Mark, leader of The Fitness Race just sent me a great quote from Bush the Elder (George Herbert Walker Bush, President #41): “Use power to help people. For we are given power not to advance our own purposes…There is but one just use of power, and it is to serve people.”

Our senior pastor, Bill Hybels has a very similar one, regarding money, that I also endorse. It goes something like this:
"The reason God allows some people to have greater riches than others is so they can do greater good."

The idea was that some good works require major resources. That ties in nicely with Jesus' teaching in Luke 12:48: "... Every one to whom much is given, of him will much be required..."

I was shocked to learn last week at the Willow Creek Association's Leadership Summit that among Willow Creekers who are participating members and consider themselves fully-devoted followers of Jesus Christ, only 50% tithe.

In my opinion, even atheists in America should tithe to whatever causes they consider good, because no people in history has ever had the resources we now enjoy. Giving back a tenth to help others seems the absolutely minimum required, even if our only goal were to keep others not so blessed from rising up against the injustice of our having so many more resources.

This is posted to reassure all our relatives who asked us to let them know we survived our first triathlon this morning. We did! And we both got our special wish - not to finish last!

the day began at 3:45AM, when we had to get up in order to arrive in Waukegan, IL by 5AM for a meeting of our The Fitness Race team. Good thing we brought along long pants and a light jacket, as it was still pretty chilly as we prepared.

A sprint distance triathlon is 3 events in 1, starting with a half mile swim, continuing with a 13.2 mile bike ride, and ending with a 5K (or in this case a 4 mile) run. Each section begins and ends near a central transition area where entrants stow gear and clothing.

This was the sixth year of this triathlon, celebrated by offering six portapotties per area for the 890 entrants to share. The line quickly grew to over ten minutes. We'd have gladly paid another buck at registration to shorten the line. There's always the lake, but we were about to swim in that water, whose bacterial count was already high yesterday.

The swim start was a shock to our whole team. Everyone was so pumped up that we all started ineffectively, each having to forcibly calm down and swim smoothly.

I discovered it was a bad idea to have started at the back of my wave, as I turned out to be one of the faster swimmers in our wave - sort of a father-daughter mashup of age 50+ men and women up to age 22. Accepting that I now swim well was hard, as I never beat anyone during two years on my high school swim team forty years ago,

I also need to practice porpoising in and out of the water the next time I do a beach start, rather than just running when the water is too high to lift my leg over but still shallow enough not to require swimming.

Like most newbies, I overdid in the swim portion, and ended up having to walk across the sand beach afterwards, just to keep my heart rate down to a level that would permit me to complete two more events.

I was shocked how far it was from the water to where my bike was waiting for the next leg of the race, and how far I then had to run beside my bike before being allowed to climb on and ride.

The best thing about the swim portion was having a "Farmer John"-style (sleeveless) Orca Sonar wetsuit. It kept me afloat and warm in the 69 degree Lake Michigan water, thereby dramatically improving my swimming time. The Middlewife also had a wetsuit, and agrees my next couple of days would have been miserable otherwise, as she really dislikes cold water.

I bike a lot, so enjoyed that portion of the event except that the four-lane road was badly maintained. I counted over a dozen expensive racing bikes down and out, and twice had to stop to remount the chain on my own bike (as did four others on our team), even though the course was flat enough I never had to shift out of the bike's top gear.

Today's most searing memory was being passed by a guy who looked back to comment "Sweet" about my folding bike (one of only two in the race), and immediately hit a crack and blew out his rear tire. The guy was tough as nails though. He rode at least another very fast mile on that flat tire. By then he needed not only a new tube, but an entire new wheel. Ouch!

The next transition was dragged out by my managing to tear the mounting hole on the "bib" number I was to wear on my chest. I had to dump my 5 gallon gear bucket to find a safety pin.

The run is the part of the race I endure rather than enjoy. I've only recently become able to run 4 miles, and still do so at roughly a 12 minute per mile pace, rather than the 8 or 9 minute pace of the good runners who kept passing me today. For now, that's as fast as I can go while keeping my heart rate down enough to finish even a 5K, let alone 4 miles.

As expected, the first quarter mile was worst. That's when I'd barely begun, but was already about as tired as I would get. What kept me going was simply knowing I'd already done the same distance twice last week.

The best part was approaching the mid-point, and realizing that (since we'd run uphill the whole way) the entire rest of the race would be downhill. Bonus!

Another high point was seeing Mindy from our team running uphill and looking miserable, and being able to give her the good news she was just behind our team lead. As expected, that gave her an approachable goal.

As I crossed the finish line, I was shocked to hear the announcer call out my name, home town and time. We wore an R.F.I.D. tag that some computer instantly matched with my entry info. Between that and the heart rate monitor that guided my effort and the GPS that guided our car this morning, I was struck anew by the technology we now take for granted that hadn't even been imagined yet fifty years ago!

My next joy was waiting with the Middlewife and my new brother as the third member of their relay team finished. They were a very special group. None of the three could have finished alone today, but together, with each doing their best event, not only did they finish, but they weren't even last, despite having a runner who is 3 months pregnant and a cyclist who'd never ridden over two miles at a time until a month ago!

I was thrilled with my under two hour finish time, faster than I'd dared to dream of. But this is not a sport at which I'll over prevail, due to its self-selecting nature. Of all the 50+ year old men near Chicago, only 19 entered today. Needless to say, those for whom this is a regular sport are fast. Despite setting a new personal best time today, I finished ahead of only two other guys my age, a couple minutes behind two others on our team, and almost 25 minutes behind the average finisher overall..

I am so proud of our group, founded on the idea that folks who need to lose at least 40 pounds can do so by preparing for an athletic challenge. As our leader Mark pointed out, it's a lot easier to motivate folks toward a positive goal like completing a triathlon than a negative goal like losing weight.

We are now one month away from doing this again in the largest triathlon in the world, but now we're veterans, looking forward to even better times (not least because the run is shorter.)

A week ago today, I lost my only brother. I was never as close to him as I wanted to be, and never knew him as well as I wanted to, but we did both try to improve that, especially in recent years.

We were of different generations, me about four when I hid his army hat in hopes of keeping him from having to leave so soon after a visit. Ironically, I (the 60's kid) was the conservative and my brother the liberal on most political/cultural issues. But over the past decade or so we made a point of talking regularly about issues, and always found middle ground that wasn't just dividing the baby but a real win-win for all, in a way our real political leaders seldom do. (We both also moved toward the middle politically over the years.)

He was generous to a fault, literally. Mom used to worry about him giving away too much. And he really wanted to change the world for the better. He gave his life to bringing justice and opportunity to poor folks all over the World. Somehow the justice and opportunities rarely lasted more than a few years, until the next coup in whatever land he was helping ended his efforts there. But he was friend to some pretty famous people in the process.

He was once asked to be the undersecretary of Treasury by the Nixon administration, despite being a life-long Democrat. He turned down the opportunity, perhaps because it came after Watergate. He also turned down a chance to aid economic reform in Iraq after the current war there, saying he was allergic to mines.

As a young college grad, he worked for a big corporation that makes detergent. That much is in his obituary. What isn't mentioned is the night that something went wrong and covered every car in the parking lot with soap suds, both funny and useful in convincing him another career was in order.

I was jealous of him once. Ours was a very hierarchical family, so when Dad died, the only thing I actually wanted to remember him by, a transistor radio, went to my brother instead. But I knew that was our mother's wish, so I didn't blame him. And those who know me as a life-long gadget lover know it didn't keep me from buying my own radio later.

The way in which he inspired me most, though, was in the area of health and fitness. I was always overweight, at least in my own mind. Even when I weighed 130# in seventh grade, I was sure I was fat, and perhaps I was, compared to other kids. But my brother never was, and as such was the only one of us six kids never to be at least occasionally and somewhat so.

He was also active, walking regularly to work. Despite all that, he needed quad-bypass surgery 22 years ago. That motivated me a bit at the time. I'd walk briskly with him on his 3 mile walks afterwards, but he'd have to slow down for me, making it a shock later when he was no longer able to walk as fast as me due to complications from that surgery.

It wasn't until I reached that age myself, the age at which our Dad died, that I got serious about losing my extra weight and getting fit, not for another year or two but hopefully for the rest of my life. I was just barely smart enough to realize I didn't want to need the same surgery, and that if I'm still here, it's because God still has work for me to do - work I couldn't do while obese.

So it's perhaps fitting that this weekend will be focused around saying goodbye to my brother on Saturday, and then participating in my first triathlon on Sunday. I know my brother would approve, and know that as a life-long Christian he'll be watching from a better place, one where he can again walk as far and fast as he wants.

I owe one other debt of gratitude to you, brother. Thanks for taking point in settling the issue of selling the family farm that so divided the six of us and our cousins for years. I can only imagine the pain that would still await us if that were still now to be done without your help. And if that were the case, I would not be writing these words from the home we love so much.

We never know what a day will bring. A week ago, I thought you were fine, ill but in no danger of quick death, until suddenly you'd died - quickly, ahead of the sister who expected to die first, still in good health, and ahead of the sister who hasn't really been happy since her husband's death.

I know a bit of that last pain, having grown up with my mom after Dad died. Though she never considered herself happy without him, she figured there was a reason she was still here, and set out to make the best of each day she was given.

That's good advice to us all in time of loss: use what you still have, because you still have it for a reason. In her eighties, Mom penned the line "November too has its beauties." As I age, I take that as a promise.

I give thanks for one other thing: I also have a new brother, a friend closer than a brother, who plans to be with me for the funeral. Although we are of very different backgrounds, we are alike in so many ways it's scary. We'll do that triathlon together Sunday, and for both of us it will be an important step in a long journey toward fitness. It will also be the second time we've stood together this year in the face of death. On the coldest day of last winter, we buried Mike's wife. Life is short, and if it were the only one, we Christians would be of all people most miserable. But thanks be to God, it is not only for this life we have lived.

In the new world to come, both my brothers' thirst for justice is fulfilled, and there are none treated unfairly. Plenty of time for answers too, for all the tough questions that bother us now.

And no, it's not just a fairy tale. I know that because I've been there, long ago in a near-death experience. I trust, that having been accepted as I was then, despite my many sins, that I have nothing to fear either in what remains of this life or in what lies beyond. I serve a risen Lord, and look forward to the day when my brother by birth. my brother by friendship and I will all serve Him together in a land where there are no more divisions, and justice runs down like a river and righteousness like a mighty stream.

Much as I'd like to punish Republicans for abandoning freedom for all and fiscal economy as core values, Democrats continue to prove themselves an even greater threat to my values.

I thought it idiotic when the perpetrators of a possible trial run for aircraft terrorism reacted to being caught by suing those who reported suspicious behavior to authorities.

However, I consider it even more idiotic for anyone in Congress to now resist the idea of giving immunity to those making such reports.

In the mid-'60s, Phil Ochs wrote his "Outside of a Small Circle of Friends" protest song about all the people who stood by and didn't get involved in the Kitty Genovese murder.

Horrible though it sounds, such lawsuits would ensure we get more such behavior in future by not protecting those who get involved from being sued.

Just as citizens are protected by Good Samaritan laws that allow them to offer medical aid without risk of resulting lawsuits, those who alert officials to possible preparations for a terror attack also need protection from suits.

Here's the story per the Washington Times:
Democrats are trying to pull a provision from a homeland security bill that will protect the public from being sued for reporting suspicious behavior that may lead to a terrorist attack, according to House Republican leadership aides.
...
Rep. Pete King, New York Republican and ranking member of the House Homeland Security Committee, and Rep. Steve Pearce, New Mexico Republican, sponsored the bill after a group of Muslim imams filed a lawsuit against U.S. Airways and unknown or “John Doe” passengers after they were removed for suspicious behavior aboard Flight 300 from Minneapolis to Phoenix on Nov. 20 before their removal.

“Democrats are trying to find any technical excuse to keep immunity out of the language of the bill to protect citizens, who in good faith, report suspicious activity to police or law enforcement,” Mr. King said in an interview last night.
...
“I don't see how you can have a homeland security bill without protecting people who come forward to report suspicious activity,” Mr. King said.
...
Rep. Bennie G. Thompson, Mississippi Democrat and chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, initially opposed the legislation for fear it would lead to racial profiling.

The easiest way to save real money under a nationalized health care system would be by making it as hard to sue that government agency as it already is to sue all other government agencies. Doing so would eliminate most if not all the money doctors now have to put aside annually to pay for malpractice insurance. Unfortunately, it would also minimize patient recourse after incompetent of malevolent treatment.

To put this into focus, here is how a recent malpractice case looked to the local doctor involved, as reported to the Chicago Flame:.
"After 29 years of practice, I just had the experience of sitting in the defendant's seat in a medical malpractice trial. Emergency physicians are sued frequently. We often have to act with a paucity of information. Plus no one minds suing a doctor that they have met for only a brief time. It isn't like suing good ol' Doc Jones, the family doctor with whom you have shared some history. After all, if things don't turn out fine, it must be someone's fault. The corollary to that argument: if it is someone's fault, then someone has to pay.

My wife and I, exhausted, are changed people, motivated to get out of clinical medicine ASAP.. With time it might change. If we stay, we'll be less enthusiastic about caring for patients, wondering which one is going to come back and play the lottery with our lives. If we leave, we become a growing statistic-two more who have retired early, left the field or moved out of state-due to a system wildly out of control"

One more thing: when good doctors leave, doctors still seeking work may be from Al Queda, as Great Britain's National Health Service learned last week.

Looks like today's my day for linking. This post from Powerline quotes a speech by President Bush today that just plain makes a whole ton of sense:
"I was very optimistic at the end of '05 when 12 million Iraqis went to the polls. I know it seems like a decade ago. It wasn't all that long ago that, when given a chance, 12 million people voted. I wasn't surprised, but I was pleased -- let me put it to you that way. I wasn't surprised because one of the principles on which I make decisions is that I believe in the universality of freedom. I believe that freedom belongs to every man, woman and child on the face of the Earth. As a matter of fact, to take it a step further, I believe it is a gift from an Almighty to every man, woman and child on the face of the Earth. And therefore, I wasn't surprised when people, when given the chance, said, I want to be free. I was pleased that 12 million defied the car bombers and killers to vote.

And so I made the decision, rather than pulling out of the capital, to send more troops in the capital, all aimed at providing security, so that an alternative system could grow. I listened to the commanders that would be running the operation -- in this case, the main man is a man named General David Petraeus -- a smart, capable man, who gives me his candid advice. His advice, Mr. President, is we must change the mission to provide security for the people in the capital city of Iraq, as well as in Anbar Province, in order for the progress that the 12 million people who voted can be made. That's why we've done what we've done."

From everything I've been able to read by folks actually on the scene (as opposed to the pervasive lies of mass media), our Surge in Iraq is working amazingly well. And that is causing panic among Democrats desperate to lose this war in time for the 2008 elections. It's also causing panic among still-suicidal Republicans who foolishly think voters would reward them for bailing without even waiting 60 more days as previously agreed before assessing the Surge.

The surest way for any politician to lose my vote in 2008 is by trying to cut and run from terrorists. Much as I respect Barack Obama, for example, he needs to grow a pair if he wants my vote next year against anyone other than another Clinton, Bush or Kennedy.

The above title on Instapundit today definitely captured my attention as a centrist with interest in Libertarian ideas. That in turn links to this article by Brink Lindsey.

Here's the basic idea:
...American society today is considerably more libertarian than it was a generation or two ago. Compare conditions now to how they were at the outset of the 1960s. Official governmental discrimination against blacks no longer exists. Censorship has beaten a wholesale retreat. The rights of the accused enjoy much better protection. Abortion, birth control, interracial marriage, and gay sex are legal. Divorce laws have been liberalized and rape laws strengthened. Pervasive price and entry controls in the transportation, energy, communications, and financial sectors are gone. Top income tax rates have been slashed. The pretensions of macroeconomic fine-tuning have been abandoned. Barriers to international trade are much lower. Unionization of the private sector work force has collapsed. Of course there are obvious counterexamples, but on the whole it seems clear that cultural expression, personal lifestyle choices, entrepreneurship, and the play of market forces all now enjoy much wider freedom of maneuver.

Most Americans, it turns out, have moved on since the ’60s toward a common ground whose coloration is not recognizably red or blue – call it a purplish, libertarianish centrism. On the one hand, they embrace the traditional, Middle American values of patriotism, law and order, the work ethic, and commitment to family life. At the same time, though, they hold attitudes on race and sex that are dramatically more liberal than those that held sway a generation or two ago. Likewise, they are deeply skeptical of authority, and are strongly committed to open-mindedness and tolerance.

What does this mean for liberals? Perhaps this:
"...the trust in government that made possible the New Deal political order is gone and highly unlikely to return."

And the message for conservatives? Perhaps this:
"52 percent of people 18 to 25 years old believe immigration strengthens the country, as compared to 39 percent among those 26 and older. Consequently, any political movement that has trouble distinguishing between immigration and invasion is spitting in the demographic wind."

More like this, please!

I have written before on the idea of a secure National ID here, here and here, and my opinion can be summed thusly: "I am strongly in favor of creating a secure national ID card, despite potential for misuse. My reason is that the current insecure SSN is already being misused - constantly."

In this discussion about how requiring a secure national ID may have doomed this week's attempt to revive a "comprehensive" (and if a 1,000 page bill with a 300 page amendment isn't comprehensive, what is?) immigration bill in the U.S. Senate, reference was made to this article against a national ID card written by Glenn Harlan Reynolds (the Instapundit) two months after 9/11.

I found the article interesting from a security and computer science perspective, because it tries to argue the impossibility of creating a secure ID for all Americans within a reasonable amount of time at a reasonable cost:
"There will be a lot of long lines, a lot of paper shuffled, a lot of computer files created and - no doubt - gotten wrong (credit reports are full of errors, and they have a financial incentive to get things right). But at the end of the day, the national identification card will be exactly as secure as a driver's license and birth certificate, which is to say, no better than what we have now."
...
"The transition to a National ID would be painfully difficult for those on the other side of the window, too. If 280 million people need National ID cards, who will process them? In this quantity, it won't be the folks who do security checks for the military and intelligence agencies.

They may not be perfect (can you say Aldrich Ames? Robert Hansson?), but they take weeks or months to clear people."
...
"Add to this the certainty that some people involved in processing the documents will be corrupt or corruptible (or even terrorist sympathizers) and even a successful transition to a National ID system would leave fake documents readily available."

Reynold's argument has a lot going for it. However, the same could be said about locks on houses. If anyone leaves their home unlocked and is robbed as a result, we now assign them some of the resulting blame for not taking basic precautions, even though a pre-teen can now defeat almost any home door lock with a simple technique I won't describe further.

So why is it good to deprive ourselves of even minimal security of identification when all agree at least minimal security is reasonable to expect in our homes?

I also think Reynolds may not be giving sufficient credit to the help computers offer this process by making it quick and easy to cross-check information.

For instance, our church child care program now uses a computer to sign kids in each Sunday. It includes a way to look folks up via a fingerprint scanner. Is it perfect? Definitely not! But without a doubt it is better than our previous system of just looking up names on a printed list and assuming whoever gave that name was in fact that person.

Could a fingerprint be faked? I expect so, although many of the known ways of doing so wouldn't work with our volunteer watching each attempt to log in.

Could the database be hacked? Definitely, although again, perhaps not easily. You'd have to know where do go and what to alter and how, all the while hoping nothing in the security of the system would notice.

So, if a child care program can build a reasonably-secure biometric database of families attending a church run by volunteers over the course of a few months, why must it be impossible for government to apply any of the same techniques to improve the currently-nonexistent "security" of the Social Security card?

What's the appropriate punishment for "TB Guy", the personal injury lawyer with extremely-drug-resistant tuberculosis, who along with his family intentionally flouted medical advice regarding his illness and travel plans for a wedding and honeymoon abroad with complete disregard for the well-being of the rest of humanity?

Seems to me the answer is obvious: everyone exposed to him as a result can sue the socks off TB Guy et al, especially anyone unfortunate enough to actually catch the illness.

I'm not surprised a personal injury lawyer could lack a working conscience. But even a sociopath can learn to fear consequences.

I read today that the original Typhoid Mary, once caught, was quarantined for the rest of her life. That may have to be the fate of TB Guy as well. With a proven lack of ethics, he certainly ought not again be allowed near folks he might infect.

Nice for TB Guy that he currently lacks active symptoms of TB, but reportedly his odds of dying from TB remain 30%, so it doesn't seem sensible to let him share that risk with others.

So far as I'm concerned, TB Guy and his co-conspirators can repay all costs of locating, quarantining and treating him.

I also find myself wondering what planet his father and new wife were from to cooperate in all this?

I'm just back from a two week study trip in Israel, where the topic of "Whose land?" was much in discussion. We read and discussed this recent article about a "One State" solution, and agreed it would be best for both Israelis and Palestinians if they could come to some such agreement, perhaps along the lines of Belgium or Switzerland.

Unfortunately, the news the day after that idea was mentioned included a story about how tensions continue even within Belgium.

Sadly, it seemed clear to us that most folks on both sides in Israeli and Palestinian areas would rather die than share one country. If those views continue, they may eventually get their wish.

Here's my one-sentence summation of visiting Jerusalem, the City of Peace that knows no peace: Never have so many fought so long over so little.

Our group now suspects we know why Jesus wept over Jerusalem. After four days there, that's how we felt too. We all heaved a huge sigh of relief on leaving the city.

(I was expecting a land of milk and honey, but now suspect I have more grass in my back yard than in all of Israel -- even some slums in Chicago look better!)

One major theme throughout the country was power and glory. Pretty much anywhere Jesus ever so much as spat is now a big fancy church, with an even taller mosque nearby. Even though many in Israel still live much as Jesus did, we had to avoid all the main tourist sites to find such places. How odd that the One whose primary teaching was about love and humility is now remembered in ways so opposed to His own teaching.

And much as I'd like to say Jews and Muslims could learn from His teaching, I'm embarrassed to admit Christians could also benefit. How many Christians does it take to change a light bulb? In Jerusalem's Church of the Holy Sepulchre (site of Jesus' crucifixion and burial), the answer is four. That's how many competing denominations have to agree before work can be done in the building. (From the looks of the place, the last time everyone agreed was about 1890.) Even within the Church, the emphasis seems to be on power and glory rather than love and humility.

Of those around in Jesus' day, the Pharisees (now called Hassidic or Ultra-orthodox Jews) and the Zealots (now called Zionists) were clearly still present today, and not agreeing with each other or anyone else any more than they did 2,000 years ago.

While lost in Jerusalem one evening with an Israeli Jewish friend, he stopped and asked (in Hebrew) directions from a group of Hassidic Jews who refused even to speak to him. When I later asked why, he surmised that although he was Jewish, he wasn't Jewish enough. (With so many external enemies, how can Israelis possibly benefit from such divisions among themselves?)

Another unexpected realization was that the wall of separation now being constructed isn't a sensible and defensible long-term border. Rather, it meanders like a drunken sailor in ways that make it militarily useless. One Israeli suggested even finding work for relatives played a factor in its routing. I'm particularly offended that it may be being built with American aid dollars, i.e. my taxes!

While there, we heard a lot about the folly of the first Crusaders in the Middle Ages, who massacred Jews and Christians who had gathered to greet them as liberators. Unfortunately, it appears Israelis make the same mistake today by treating Arab Christians as though they were Muslim extremists. If Israel were sensible, they would be devoting every effort to make friends of Arab Christians, rather than walling them off among Muslims while continuing to steal their lands for even more illegal settlements..

Although folks often claim God promised Israel to the Jews, that promise was always conditional on their following His ways. Modern Israel, by making itself explicitly secular, and behaving unjustly toward the widow, the orphan and the alien that God commands His people to particularly welcome and defend makes it impossible for God to bless continued Israeli stewardship of land that is above all else His.

I sometimes caution folks who don't want to follow God that He has a Plan B to get their attention, but we don't want to find out what it is. In the same way, I'm sure God has a Plan B for Israel/Palestine, but suspect it won't please many if any in that not-visbly-holy land.

I once felt strongly about the importance of a particular election and made a donation to the Republican party.

Ever since, I've regretted the decision, not because of the candidate, but because making a donation put me on a "spam constantly" list.

Over the years since, we've received endless fund raising letters and phone calls from every conceivable permutation of the Republican party, enough that they have now invested far more in seeking money than I originally donated before I knew the long-term consequences.

For years now, I've returned every piece of mail, at their expense, stamped "Please Take Me Off Your Mailing List", to no avail.

But tonight was a new low. A woman called from the National Republican Party. When I asked to be taken off her list, she insisted on a reason. On being told it was because they'd now ignored over 200 such requests via mail, she insisted I would have to individually request to be taken off every individual campaign. When I reminded her it only costs them money to deny my request, she immediately hung up. I then checked the calling number, to block it from calling me in future, and discovered she used an "out of area" number to call me, just like the worst illegal telemarketers.

The Republican party has recently been sinking like a rock, thanks to making sure everyone knows they no longer stand for honest government. Experiences like this convince me they want to lose big in 2008. I guess they don't call it the "stupid" party for nothing...

I will never again make a personally-identifiable political contribution.

Simlarly,. I used to donate to any charity with enough gumption to send a volunteer to my door. I now insist on making such donations anonymously. The only charities now privileged to know my name and address are those I support regularly. Even those sometimes ask again often enough to get dropped from my list.

I tithe, but never donate again to those whose thanks for a gift is to spam me for another.

The U.S. Supreme Court today decided in a close 5:4 vote that the U.S. Congress actually did have the power to outlaw a particularly-heinous method of performing a late-term abortion.

What upsets me about that particular method of killing a baby is that it is a grotesque parody of actual birth, done on a child far enough along in its development that if the doctor stopped then, the baby might live. Instead, what I, the U.S. Congress, and now the U.S. Supreme Court consider murder is then committed by poking an instrument into the infant's head and sucking out its brain.

This strikes me as being much the same sin as cooking a baby animal in its mother's milk, in that what is intended to nourish and protect is instead used to destroy.

If anyone advocated doing the same to unborn animals, P.E.T.A. would do almost anything to avoid such a horrid violation of animal rights.

And how could an almost fully developed human baby not feel pain during such a process?

Here's my previous comment on this particular method of late-term abortion: "I can't imagine how any moral person can support a form of abortion that intentionally murders an almost-fully-developed infant, merely to ensure the child doesn't enter the world alive."

More of my previous thinking on abortion issues is here.

The usual suspects are busy tonight drawing exactly the wrong conclusions from the recent school shooting in Virginia. Rather than pointing out how obviously ineffective declaring the Virginia Tech campus a gun-free zone was in preventing mass murder, they insanely ask for future victims to be required to be even more defenseless against the next criminal assailant.

What's really sad is that the State of Virginia, except for that campus, allows law-abiding citizens to be armed. Had that campus not insisted on being gun-free, it seems likely yesterday's mass murderer might have been stopped much sooner and with much less loss of innocent life.

What lunacy convinces folks to favor new laws that only inhibit the law-abiding from defending themselves and others, with no restraining effect at all on those willing to break the law?

Theoretically, police are an alternative defense, but in practice, by the time police can be called and arrive, the damage has often already been done.

Here in Chicago, it is already often illegal to have a gun, a taser, a knife of useful size, or even pepper spray for self defense, yet somehow rapes, robberies and murders continue.

By way of contrast, in places where citizens are allowed to be armed, everyone is somehow more polite in public settings, and such tragedies somehow occur less frequently.

According to several articles I noticed on Google News today, the world faces a grim future, much worse and much sooner than previously thought. If the articles were warning about resurgent militant islamists, I'd likely agree. But the actual dangers we face this year are nowhere on the radar of those articles, despite the recent kidnapping of 15 British soldiers from Iraqi waters by Iran. Rather, the dire warnings are about global warming, which may become a serious problem someday, but absolutely not before Iran could become a serious problem. What a bunch of ostriches!

Thank God our future is not ultimately in human hands! (Happy Easter!)

I was thinking again this week about Jesus' story of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11-32), and wonder what would have happened if that son had remained unrepentant and distant until after the father died? What if the real and imagined grievances that convinced them to leave home and wish their father dead decades earlier were still as fresh in their mind as if nothing had ever happened since?

Imagine, in this version, you are now the elder brother. You've eventually recognized and apologized for at least some of your own sins, but no apology has ever been considered sufficient, and the prodigal's anger remains as fresh as the day they left home.

Will the prodigal return for the funeral, and if so, how much trouble will he make? (Given the possibility of a further inheritance, you rather expect him to appear.)

If only your own honor might be trampled, that could be tolerated, but there is also a widow involved, who has done nothing to deserve less than full support in this hour of loss, rather than having one more family event ruined by the prodigal's complaints about everyone but himself.

You know your father would have welcomed the prodigal back with open arms, even before they begged forgiveness, but you still don't find it easy to be that loving. You have lots of experience being used as a verbal punching bag, and permitting that doesn't seem to have helped either the prodigal or anyone else.

The question now is, how welcoming should you be?

Isaac and Ismael were last together at their father Abraham's funeral in the Old Testament (Genesis 25:9), and thousands of years later, their heirs are still fighting, so you want to get this right.

This week I finally finished reading Uncle Tom's Cabin, by Harriet Beecher Stowe, to whom Abraham Lincoln referred upon meeting her as "the little woman who wrote the book that started this great war." Given that it was the best-selling novel of the 19th century, I'm inclined to agree with Lincoln's assessment. At the very least, it would be very difficult for any Christion to read this book and still advocate slavery.

What impressed me most about the book is that the primary character named Uncle Tom in the book is not an "Uncle Tom" in the perjorative sense often used in discussions of race.

Rather, he is something even worse (in the views of some moderns) - an authentic Christian. Moreover, he isn't the only one described in the book. And that's the second thing that impressed me about the book - that it makes a very full defense of the practicality of Christian faith, even in the hardest of situations, and for all kinds of people.

Finally, I was impressed by the author's clear understanding of the danger of unlimited power in the hands of most people. I've heard it said that the best form of government is a benevolent monarchy, but how, pray tell, do you ensure the monarch remains benevolent?

In our day, I would ask the same questions of those who think our problems can best be addressed by giving more power to government. I refer to people who (for instance) claim with a straight face that the solution to the terrible care provided recently at government-funded-and-run Walter Reed Army Medical Center would be more government-funded-and-run medical care, run by the same unaccountable bureaucrats who ruined Walter Reed.

Here's how Stowe explained the problem in Chapter XXIX: "The number of those men who know how to use wholly irresponsible power humanely and generously is small."

Any book that still sells well 150 years after it was written is likely worth reading, Better, such books can usually be read for free here on a PC or Mac, or here on a Treo, PDA or iPod..

Some relatives had a kerfuffle this week over the question of family versus host obligations.

We have a relative who lives in a retirement home and has health issues. Another relative issued an invitation to attend an opera downtown. The question then became, whose moral obligation is it to make the plan work?

The one issuing the invitation feels it's up to the relative's children, pointing out that if the invitee had been my mom, one of her children would have made sure she got to go.

On the other hand, my mom would rather have died than have any of her children "guilted" into helping her attend an opera. She was determined never to impose on her children as she herself felt imposed on, caring for an invalid mother.

I consider it the obligation of a host issuing an invitation to a shut-in to make all necessary arrangements, rather than expecting someone else to do so without first getting enthusiastic agreement.

This is particularly true where trust between the one issuing the invitation and those nominated to do the work is in short supply.

When I was in sixth grade and taking square dance lessons, my parents offered a ride to a girl in the neighborhood who was also attending the class. Arriving at her house, I was sent to her door to ring the bell and escort her to the car, even though I would have been happy just to honk from the drive.

To me, that illustrates two aspects of the current issue:
1) the invitation included all steps necessary, and
2) the one expected to get out of the car, walk to the door and ring the bell would have appreciated being consulted.

With this incident as prelude, the family reunion may truly be a blast this year, and unfortunately I don't mean that in a good way. Such an outcome truly would have saddened my mom, who wanted her children to remain close, and knew that takes work when we are so diverse.

Gosh does this comment by General David Petraeus make sense!
"...the proven domination of the US on the battlefield will mean that almost all future threats will be asymmetrical. If the US expects to maintain its military superiority and therefore protect its national security, it will have to learn to defeat insurgencies. We will not learn that by running away, and a retreat in the face of such terrorists will only encourage more of them -- as the only way to defeat the United States, and by extension, the West."

Mickey Kaus had this to say about Prius drivers:
"It used to be that Toyota Prius drivers were polite and methodical, almost Gandhiesque, as if they were trying to demonstrate the better world they sought. No more. As Priuses have proliferated from the do-gooder niche into the mainstream, their drivers have gotten as rude and aggressive as anyone else. Ruder, in my experience. I think they feel entitled because of their small carbon footprint. P.S.: And you can't hear them coming."

Speaking as a Prius driver, I don't feel ruder in that car than in our other car, and try not to be rude in either. As I was once taught, "Don't be dead right."

I wonder if part of what Mickey might have in mind is zippy starts by Prius owners when the light turns green? Thanks to the hybrid engine, there is no loss in gas mileage from flooring it. Extra juice from the battery adds the power of the electric motor to that of the gas engine, making a Prius one of the fastest cars off the line when a stoplight turns green, particularly because the added electric power is ready now, rather than a few seconds later as in a turbocharged conventional car.

On the other hand, the regenerative braking of the Prius works best when braking gently rather than by standing on the pedal, resulting in lots of offended drivers cutting in front of Prii as we slow down gradually approaching a red light. (My personal ideal in such situations is to time things so I don't have to stop at all, with the light turning green again just as I arrive at the corner, but that often involves other cars passing me who then fail to resume speed as promptly on the green as I do, so the "offense" goes both ways.) Prius mileage also drops off rapidly above about 65MPH, and with the continuous readout of MPG the driver knows that, so Prii are rarely among the fastest cars on the Interstate.

I've also never seen one driving in the bike lane, or on the shoulder, or any of the other "death-defying feats" so often seen here in the Windy City. I can't speak for other Prius owners on that, but I figure that even if I could get away with such behavior 99 out of 100 times, the fact that I had done so would make it more likely I also tried it the 100th time and thereby became a statistic. I learned long ago that driving like a maniac gets you there only seconds earlier, and only at the risk of not arriving at all.

Five years in, I still consider our 2002 Toyota Prius the best car we've ever owned. (Previous comments here.)

There are lots of candidates for our most important freedom:

President Roosevelt in 1941 offered the Four Freedoms::
Freedom of speech and expression
Freedom of every person to worship in his [or her] own way
Freedom from want
Freedom from fear

Glenn Reynolds makes a good case for the right to keep and bear arms being the most important freedom not just here but worldwide.
"not one of the principal genocides of the twentieth century, and there have been dozens, has been inflicted on a population that was armed."

But the freedom I personally am most thankful for is the secret ballot. In my opinion, without that one, all the others can gradually be taken away. Democracy itself loses any useful meaning when votes of the people (the "demos") can be coerced, as they always can be when those with power can personally identify those who don't vote "correctly."

This, by the way, is the problem with doing public opinion surveys in unfree countries - most interviewees will offer to a stranger only the officially-sanctioned opinion on every issue. If, for example, you lived in the Palestinian Territories, and a stranger came to your door asking whether you favor peace with Israel, would you dare to say so?

Surprisingly, Congress is today considering taking away the right of the secret ballot in union elections (H.R. 800.) If that somehow passes in both the House and Senate, I sincerely hope President Bush will find and use his veto pen. It's ironic that a party named for democracy, and usually very concerned about human rights, would want to take away the one I consider most important of all.

AT&T (aka SBC and Ameritech) has been the landline phone provider at our home for several years, but perhaps not for much longer. In mid-December, our home phone suddenly stopped working. After determining the outage wasn't caused by anything inside our home, the Middlewife asked their repair service to look into the matter, and was assured there would be no charge unless the problem was inside our home. A day or two later, the phone began working again. So far, so good.

But the new phone bill that recently arrived lists a $71 charge for a repair on 12/15, even though no one ever communicated that we'd done anything to justify such a charge, let alone how to avoid doing so again if the repair were somehow our own fault.

Then began a round of phone calls by the Middlewife. Different people had different messages, of which our favorite was the lady who insisted that if we didn't want to be charged for service work outside our home, we need to add AT&T's inside wire maintenance program for $4.95 a month (up from $3 a month the last time they tried to foist that on us, back when Consumer Reports was strongly advising against adding that "service") and that otherwise we'd always be charged for all repairs, whether or not they were in any way our own fault. Other reps assured the Middlewife that wasn't the case, but she was left having to file a protest of the charge, with no assurance anyone would ever do anything about the protest, let alone remove what we consider a spurious charge, or at least explain to us what AT&T thinks we did wrong to deserve the charge.

As the old Saturday Night Live joke goes "We don't care. We don't have to. We're the phone company." Except now, thank God, they are no longer the only phone company. We also have cell service through Sprint that has recently improved in quality here at home, and our excellent cable supplier (Wide Open West) would also love to be our local phone service provider.

Given that most of the action on our AT&T phone is unwanted political and fund-raising calls, why exactly is it we are still paying them at all, let alone whatever they feel like charging for whatever excuse occurs to them?

If the charge remains without an adequate explanation, the home phone will either be switched to a new supplier or disconnected.

The funny thing about this is that we were just thinking of switching our cell service from Sprint to AT&T (aka Cingular.) No longer!

In short, AT&T may succeed in confiscating an extra $71 repair bill from us one time, but only at the cost of permanent loss of all present and future business from us, not to mention the possibility readers of this message may take warning from our experience.

I don't expect them to care; MCI didn't, a decade ago when one of their reps decided to up our monthly bill with them without authorization, and the company refused to rectify the matter. I'd been with MCI for over a decade, but Sprint got our business the next day and has kept it for the decade since. I must have received a hundred mailings from MCI wanting me back afterwards, but none of them ever offered to do even the tiniest thing to make things right again.

Is Sprint better? Maybe not. I'll never believe a Sprint cell phone rebate promise again after they unilaterally decided to reduce the promised rebate on our Treo 650s in half for no reason. Their 2 year service agreement just ended, so there's a good chance I'll eventually switch from Sprint for cell service too, but not to AT&T if that repair charge remains.

I'm not surprised when Goliath companies behave badly. I'm just determined not to reward them for such behavior. Thank God I still have options. Thirty years ago, there were none.

Our South Barrington campus pastor made this Biblical note of today's NFL playoff game between the Chicago Bears and the New Orleans Saints: "Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of his saints." Psalm 116:15 (NIV).

It was a funny example of isogesis (reading scripture in light of what you want it to say), and in that sense prophetic - the Bears won: 39 to 14, and are headed for the Super Bowl, for the first time since our senior pastor was chaplain for the Bears back in the '80s. There was also lots of sympathy for the Saints, given the troubles of their city in the past two years, just getting here was a big deal for them.

Here's a suggestion to boycot companies who donated to the other side in the last election.

Shopping Your Politics
By Alan Abramowitz

[WITH Republicans]:
WalMart, $467K, 97% to republicans;
K-Mart, $524K, 86% to republicans;
Home Depot, $298K, 89% to republicans;
Target, $226K, 70% to republicans;
Circuit City Stores, $261K, 95% to republicans;
3M Co., $281K, 87% to republicans;
Hallmark Cards, $319K, 92% to republicans;
Amway, $391K, 100% republican;
Kohler Co. (plumbing fixtures), $283K, 100% republicans;
B.F. Goodrich (tires), $215K, 97% to republicans;
Proctor & Gamble, $243K, 79% to republicans;
Coors, $174K, 92% to republicans; (also Budweiser - sd)
Brown-Forman Corp. (Southern Comfort, Jack Daniels, Bushmills, Korbel wines - as well as Lennox China, Dansk, Gorham Silver), $644, 80% to republicans;
Pilgrim's Pride Corp. (chicken), $366K, 100% republican;
Outback Steakhouse, $641K, 95% republican;
Tricon Global Restaurants (KFC, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell), $133K, 87% republican;
Brinker International (Maggiano's, Brinker Cafe, Chili's, On the
Border, Macaroni Grill, Crazymel's, Corner Baker, EatZis), $242K, 83%
republican;
Waffle House, $279K, 100% republican;
McDonald's Corp., $197K, 86% republican;
Darden Restaurants (Red Lobster, Olive Garden, Smokey Bones, Bahama
Breeze), $121K, 89% republican;
Mariott International, $323K, 81% to republicans;
Holiday Inns, $38K, 71% to republicans

To this, I would only add that the above guide works for both parties. Remember P.J. O'Rourke's economic advice "You get what you pay for", meaning whatever we reward by buying tends to become more prevalent than what we fail to reward by ignoring. For instance, I never donate anything to folks soliciting in the middle of busy highways, as I certainly don't want anyone else to have to stand in such a dangerous location, as they most certainly will if doing so raises more money than other strategies. So by all means, let your purchases be guided by your principles this and every season.

Update: The above was originally posted after the 2004 election, but as of today, for those who still have a serious wish to boycott companies on the basis of political contributions after the 2006 elections, there is now also a choice of tailored mutual funds, described here.

Over a year ago, Shades told me about a pastor whose blog he and his friends enjoy:
real live preacher
I've read the book, and also read the blog from time to time, but am usually less impressed by it than I hoped to be. Maybe I'm just spoiled by the quality of the messages I hear weekly at Willowcreek. Nah, I think it's more that real live preacher reminds me too much of a lot of guys I knew in my previous work as a United Methodist pastor. Willow is, in my opinion, what the United Methodist church could be, and what it would be if John and Charles Wesley were alive in our day. The church served by real live preacher, on the other hand, might not be a place I'd want to visit twice. There's only so far you can push that "faithful remnant" stuff; Jesus was always surrounded by crowds for a reason.

Today I discovered a new blog by a very different pastor, one I've actually seen and heard: Perry Noble of NewSpring Church in Anderson SC. Perry is just as outspoken as real live preacher, but frankly, about stuff I care about a lot more. The week I was in Anderson, Perry was talking about Deer hunting! Now that's a topic we don't hear much about at Willow, but we would if we were about 30 miles further North into Wisconsin.

Ever heard a preacher talk about farting? Perry does here.
How about masturbation? Perry talks about that here.
The November election? Gotcha covered here.
Hooters? Right here.
He even talks about blogging

The one other thing you might want to know about Perry is that his is currently one of the fastest-growing churches in America, with things to teach even churches like Willowcreek.

One of my pet peeves is folks who proudly continue to show up for work and ride public transportation even though they are contagiously ill. Twice in the last week I've had to move to another car on the Metra because someone with a cold insisted on sharing it with everyone in the area. In one case, the perp even bragged about it on her cellphone. I pack a face mask for use in such situations, and actually had to use it once last week.

If you are sick with a contagious disease, please don't share it with others! Best: stay home. That's what sick days are for. If that's truly not an option, avoid others. If you have to cough, cover your mouth with a handkerchief or Kleenex. Use waterless hand cleaner before touching surfaces others will also have to touch.

The Middlewife's employer has a strange policy on this. If anyone is ill more than 5 workdays in a row, they have to go on disability. Hello, the average cold lasts a full 7 days! You'd think a firm that makes its money on health care would know this, rather than forcing their workers to come in regardless after 5 days.

If I'm ill with something contagious, I'm out of the office. I'm still willing to work, and a lot of my work can still be done, but I try not to give to others what I wouldn't want to receive.

This year saw the completion of my weight loss quest. It was also the year I became athletic again, for the first time since high school, and even then it was more of a "have to" than a "want to" thing for me.

As the year progressed I have been amazed to see myself switch from walking fast, to alternately running and walking, and finally to mostly running, and jogging as much as 3 miles at a time. I also took up roller blading this summer, and can now go a dozen miles on these. I even did this 25 mile bike ride in mid summer. And most recently, I realized I can save the $1.75 bus fare from the train station to my office by walking 2 miles, and have happily been doing so even in rain and snow. In better weather I often ride this folding bike to and from the train at both ends of my commute, and will soon begin using this even smaller kick scooter instead (assuming I can learn to use it more safely than one day this week. My first Christmas present was a call from my dentist, telling me he can fix the two front teeth I just chipped falling off the scooter on Saturday.)

Much of this change has been motivated by the teachings of Jack Groppel, who I've now heard speak at our church three times. Recently, Jack's teaching has been further reinforced by the book "Younger Next Year", which the Middlewife and I both enjoyed reading over Thanksgiving week.

Newly-elected U.S. Representative Keith Ellison plans to be sworn in with his hand on a Koran rather than on a Bible. Arguments about that appear to be either:
1) Duh, he's Muslim. Of course he wants to use the book he considers holy, and decent tolerant Americans will have no objection, (advocated here) or
2) Whatever his preference, he's joining a club, and must therefore play by the same rules as everyone else, one of which is being sworn in on a Bible. If exceptions haven't been made for Jews, Mormons, or Atheists, why make one now? (Advocated here.)

Why is it we swear in public officials using a Bible anyway? The answer is that having one's hand on a Bible while swearing is intended to encourage the one doing the swearing to take the words seriously and keep them rather than lying. (That many politicians sometimes lie is not new information.)

The problem with even being a Muslim taking such an oath, regardless of what book is beneath one's hand while doing so, is that Islam officially allows its followers to lie to those outside that faith. Presumably other non-Christian politicians over the years have also felt less than compelled to speak truth merely because their hand is on a particular book.

Even Christians have a problem with swearing on a Bible. In his best-known message Jesus taught "Do not swear at all, either by heaven, for it is God's throne; or by the earth, for it is his footstool; or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the Great King. And do not swear by your head, for you cannot make even one hair white or black. Simply let your 'Yes' be 'Yes,' and your 'No,' 'No'; anything beyond this comes from the evil one." (Mt 5:34-37 NIV)

Perhaps our public officials need to be sworn in with the help of a lie detector, rather than any book. In fact, I'd personally be in favor of having all speech monitored with lie detectors, if trustworthy ones can ever be developed. I'm all about freedom of speech, but also favor truth in advertising.

To that, I would add just one more bit of advice, from my mother (often heard just before Christmas in our house) "Ask me no questions, and I'll tell you no lies." Although telling the truth was very important to Mom, she wasn't one to just blurt out whatever she was thinking. After all, not everyone who asks "Do I look fat in this?" actually wants a truthful answer.

Update: According to this article, one member of Congress also intends to be sworn in with a copy of Torah. If so, that somewhat undercuts argument #2.

The Middlewife is sure I'm nuts this time. Despite already owning 3 folding bikes and 2 pairs of skates, I recently became convinced I also need a scooter for my daily commute. Part of why she's sure I'm off my meds is because she and Shades already gave me a scooter for Christmas once, several years ago. It was just what I wanted too, until I actually tried to ride it farther than a block.

What's changed? Me, mostly. When I last had a scooter, I was 40 pounds heavier, and thought a mile daily walk home from the subway station was lots of exercise. Scooters have changed too. That one had bigger wheels than a Razor, but still far smaller than the wheels on my Landroller skates. Its platform was also fairly high off the ground, which makes for more work pushing off to propel the scooter anywhere. Finally, it was a royal pain to assemble and disassemble, which killed my idea of taking it with me on the subway.

Now I expect to exercise an hour a day most days, and can walk 4.7 miles in that time on "gentle" days. Scooters are better too. The one I chose this time is called a Xootr Mg, with the Mg standing for its platform made of Magnesium. It has essentially the same 7 inch hard wheels as are used in the rear of my Landroller skates, and its platform sits very close to the ground.

Moment of truth: it arrived today in late afternoon, leaving just enough daylight to see if I could ride it the 4 miles I'll need to when I commute with it. And the answer is -- Yes! Four miles of mostly-flat terrain took 37 minutes, at an average speed of 6.4 MPH. As for effort, yep, it's more of a workout than either riding a bike or using my skates. My average heart rate was 152, rather than 128 - 137 on the same route via bike or skates. On the other hand, my average when running or jogging is 159 - 165, and I covered 1 more mile than I could have by jogging the same number of minutes.

The acid test will be when I take the Xootr to work. I'm looking forward to it fitting under the seat in the train, unlike even the smallest folding bikes. That will make it a lot easier for me to find a seat. I'm also looking forward to it being a whole lot safer than skates when crossing busy intersections. Simplicity is also a virtue - I broke a pedal on my bike this week. As my dad would say, the fewer parts there are, the fewer there are to break.

If anyone buys one, be sure to get the optional fender for $10 more. Riding in the rain isn't recommended, but with a fender it's at least feasible, plus the fender serves as an extra brake if needed. And if you'll be taking your Xootr on the train and don't already have a bag in which to pack it, the cheapest way to buy the official one is at the same time as the Xootr.

Update: CAUTION! I just did a face plant on my new Xootr and chipped both front teeth. I was going up into a driveway from the street, and the lip on the driveway curb was too much for the scooter. It just stopped, and down I went. No other damage to me beyond a cut on the nose, a slight abrasion above the upper lip, and a bit of discomfort in my hands. It's a good thing I was wearing thick gloves and ski goggles or I expect there'd have been more damage to report. The goggles show definite scrape marks. It was a lousy way to end a very pleasant 3 mile scooter ride!

Update2: I found a great 30" X 13" Alpine Designs nylon stuff sack at Sports Authority that holds the Xootr well for $8, and easily fits in a pocket or backpack while riding.

As for the fall, other Xootr owners advise keeping weight well back on the scooter, and not pushing the arms too close to the handlebar. I'm not the only one to have falls while first learning to ride a scooter, and extra slowness and caution is recommended on all but smooth flat dry surfaces with good traction.

If falling, tucking a shoulder and rolling is recommended. Shades similarly suggested the dead man fall, in which you land flat on the forearms and outstretched palms with the head turned to the side. Either would presumably have been far better than what I actually did.

Update3: That face plant I did in December is proving to be a gift that keeps on giving. I ended up needing two root canals as a result, and may also be getting a crown on one of the two affected teeth. I guess I know where my tax refund is going this year!

On the other hand, it could have been worse - a good friend fell on his bike about the same time, and ended up with a new hip! I suspect we'll both be more cautious as a result of our injuries.

This 5 year later interview in TCS Daily with Bjorn Lomborg, author of The Skeptical Environmentalist, points out the importance of putting concerns in proper perspective:
"Global warming is an important issue and one which we should address. But there is no sense of proportion either in environmental terms, or indeed in terms of the other issues facing the world.

There is a total lack of a sense of proportion about where we are in terms of the environment but also on non-environmental issues, which is of course what I am looking at now with the Copenhagen Consensus, where we try to look at what are the big issues of the world, and where can we do a lot of good, and where can we do a little good. And the bottom line is there are many problems in the world where we can do much more at much lower cost. So presumably, if our goal is to help people, then there are many other things we should do first. If our goal is to help the environment, then there are also many other things we can do first."

A slogan from the '60s went "Don't just do something. Stand there!" Its point, as I understand it, is that running around like a chicken with its head cut off may be much less useful than doing nothing at all. When we have no actual wisdom to contribute to a situation, our best course of action may be inaction. Lomborg explains:
"The use of DDT is probably the best example of this and its use in the third world was badly mismanaged. DDT is not dangerous to humans, but it is dangerous to some animals. So if you're in a rich country where you have malaria under control, clearly you should ban DDT or severely restrict its use.

So if we stand back, as Al Gore asks us to do, and look at it from the coming generation's point of view, they are going to ask 'what were they thinking?' They tried to do a tiny little bit about climate change at a fairly high cost, but have done very little good, whereas there are many other problems that they could have tackled that would have left a much better world behind."

Five years later, Lomborg sees the hysteria-mongers descending deeper into unreality:
"I think for a while it really was moving in the right direction and people were understanding the issues and the arguments better. But I think what is happening now is that we are increasingly seeing a tailspin into hysteria over the global warming discussion, where it is almost commonplace to say things are worse than we thought.

Perhaps this is most clear when you look at the movie from Al Gore. Everything he says is technically true. He says for instance that if Greenland melts, sea levels will rise about 20 feet. This is technically true. But of course the very evocative imagery of seeing Holland disappear under the waves - or New York, or Shanghai - leaves the impression that this is all going to happen very soon. Where in fact the UN climate panel says that the sea level rise over the next 100 years is going to be 30 cm - about 20 times less than he talks about. So there is a dramatic difference between what we're being told and what we're actually seeing."

Lomborg ends by saying there's really nothing in the Skeptical Environmentalist that he would change after five years. I've touched on these issues before, here, here, and here.

The Draft - another form of slavery.
You'd think Charlie Rangel would understand.

Democrats drafted my generation to Viet Nam.
And now they want our children...

I usually say I have no regrets in life, by which I mean this:

Had otherwise-unfortunate decisions not been made,
other very-fortunate events might not have followed.

Even so, here are a few past decisions I now consider suboptimal:
1) Voting for Jimmy Carter.
2) Not trying for more kids
3) Not trying for a D. Min.
4) Donating to Planned Parenthood
5) Not moving to Chicago sooner

(Your mileage may vary.)

In 1992, Bill Clinton had a sign to remind him of what was important then "It's the Economy, Stupid!" This year, it is not the economy. If it were the economy this time, Republicans would win every election this Fall, because our economy is doing wonderfully, even though most of the mainstream media would rather eat a rivet than admit such a thing.

This time, "It's the War, Stupid!", a war likely to last as long as the Cold War, every bit as threatening to the freedom and prosperity we so often take for granted, and failure is not an option.

I really wanted to bash the Republicans this time, for betraying fiscal conservatives and those of us who fear big government. But fortunately for them, they are running against Democrats who are no longer the party of John F. Kennedy, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman or even of Joseph I. Lieberman.

Pretending we can abandon the War on Terror and just go home is unbelievably stupid, yet apparently that is the only plan acceptable to today's Democrats.

I wanted to explain the problems with such a "plan", but instead let's allow a Democrat to so do -- Orson Scott Card, whose books I've enjoyed for twenty years. Card explains it ever so much better than I could have, here
"There is only one issue in this election that will matter five or ten years from now, and that's the War on Terror.

To all intents and purposes, when the Democratic Party jettisoned Joseph Lieberman over the issue of his support of this war, they kicked me out as well. The party of Harry Truman and Daniel Patrick Moynihan -- the party I joined back in the 1970s -- is dead. Of suicide.".

and

"Here's the story the Islamic puritans are telling: The West is full of terrible evils -- atheism, sexual filth of all kinds -- in defiance of God's will. So seductive are the wiles of Shaitan that many Muslims aspire to dress, act, and live like westerners. Only by turning to full enforcement of ancient Muslim law can Islam purify itself and resist the blandishments of the west. It's evil on one side, God on the other.

Instead, President Bush has offered something quite different. We don't want to turn you into mini-Americas, he says. We offer you, instead, democracy, in which you can choose for yourselves what parts of western culture to adopt. You will govern yourselves. It isn't a choice between wickedness and righteousness, it's a choice between freedom and oppression."

and

"How do the Islamicist tyrants answer the obvious success and growing appeal of Bush's democracy program?

Because even more than they fear terrorist bombs, the pro-democracy forces within Iraq and Afghanistan fear American withdrawal."

and

"There is no withdrawal to our shores. American prosperity requires free trade throughout most of the world. Free trade has depended for decades on American might. If we withdraw now, we announce to the world that if you just kill enough Americans, the big boys will go home and let you do whatever you want.

We cannot win by going home. In a short time, "home" would become a very different place, as our own prosperity and safety steadily diminished. Isolationism is a dead end. If we lose our will to protect the things that support our own prosperity, then what can we expect but the end of that prosperity -- and of any vestige of safety, as well?

The frustrating thing is that if people would just look, honestly, at the readily available data from the Muslim world, they would realize that we are winning and that the course President Bush is pursuing is, in fact, the wisest one."

and

"Meanwhile, we have this election. You have your vote. For the sake of our children's future -- and for the sake of all good people in the world who don't get to vote in the only election that matters to their future, too -- vote for no Congressional candidate who even hints at withdrawing from Iraq or opposing Bush's leadership in the war. And vote for no candidate who will hand control of the House of Representatives to those who are sworn to undo Bush's restrained but steadfast foreign policy in this time of war."

Really, read the whole thing. And then vote.

Another Megachurch pastor has proven to have clay feet (Biblical image from Daniel 2:31-43.)

Interestingly, failings of which he has been accused touch on two sins that are seen by some as not just "a" sin, but rather as "the" sin, meaning they are considered so much worse than our own sins that if God grades on the curve we're sure ins for Heaven by comparison.

For some conservatives, homosexual sex is not just one sin among many, but rather "the" sin. This is an un-Biblical, but common view, one that I've heard even from folks I know in our current church, even though our pastors preach against the idea of ranking sins as to seriousness, and remind us we are all sinners, and all loved by God.

Similarly, for some who affirm multicultural moral relativism, hypocrisy is "the" sin. For such folks, there are no other sins, only differences of opinions among cultures as to right and wrong. What makes hypocrisy so bad in their eyes is that the hypocrite proclaims particular values as true for all, yet does not live accordingly.

What the relativists overlook is that setting a high moral goal is no guarantee of attaining it consistently. And failing does not disprove the value of the goal. Personally, I far prefer people who set lofty goals and sometimes fail to reach them than those who set only trivial goals, even if they are always achieved.

(Instapundit offers thoughts on hypocrisy here.)

Our pastor was already planning to preach about homosexuality this weekend. Now that the senior pastor of a member church in our association has been accused of homosexual acts, something is likely to be said in the weekend message about that. However, I will be extremely surprised if the focus of the message is on how wrong either homosexuality or hypocrisy is. I'm almost certain the focus will instead be on God's equal love for all of us, and the importance of recognizing and not excusing our own sin. The associate pastor of the affected Megachurch has already said much the same here.

Side note: Last week's message was on abortion, another decision some conservatives view not as "a" sin, but "the" sin. For multiculturalists, another candidate for "the" sin is intolerance, though that value seems violated by its defenders even more frequently than defenders of moral absolutes fall into hypocrisy.

Global warming is in the news again, with a British report suggesting "failure to act swiftly on global warming will have a cataclysmic effect on the global enconomy ... during the current generation if changes are not made soon."

Meanwhile, a book I'm reading now (America Alone, by Mark Steyn) points out that while global warming may or may not be a big problem in our lifetime, declining birthrates around the world among everyone except Muslims is already a huge problem.
"Much of what we call the Western world will not survive the twenty-first century, and much of it will effectively disappear within our lifetimes, including many if not most European countries."

Steyn explains: "...if one part of your population believes in liberal pluralist democracy and the other doesn't, then it becomes a matter of great importance whether the part that does is 90 percent of the population or only 60 percent, or 50, or 45 percent."

He adds "...it ought to be the Left's issue. ... When the mullahs take over, ...It's the feminists and gays who'll have a tougher time."

According to Steyn, among Western nations, only the United States is reproducing itself, and even in the U.S., that's happening only in "Red" states.

One of my few regrets in life is that we didn't have more kids. It would have been better to have had more, if only so more in the next generation might be aware of our values.

Steyn makes one other excellent point: "All dominant powers are hated--Britain was, and Rome--but they're usually hated for the right reasons. America is hated for every reason. The fanatical Muslims despise America because it's all lap-dancing and gay porn; the secular Europeans despise America because it's all born-again Christians hung up on abortion; the anti-Semites despise America because it's controlled by Jews. Too Jewish, too Christian, too godless, America is George Orwell's Room 101: whatever your bugbear you will find it therein; whatever you're against, America is the prime example of it."

"That's one reason why its disparagers have embraced environmentalism. If Washington were a conventional great power, the intellectual class would be arguing that the United States is a threat to France or India or Gabon or some such. But because it's so obviously not that kind of power the world has had to concoct a thesis that the hyperpower is a threat not merely to this or that rinky-dink nation state but to the entire planet, if not the entire galaxy."

A lot of the debate about Iraq in this country has been between folks who feel we have to finish well there, versus those determined to make it into another Viet Nam, lately complete with references to the Tet offensive, and wanting us to leave immediately or at least soon.

It does seem to be human nature to continue refighting the last war. Thus, it is not surprising for my generation, raised during the Viet Nam war, to see everything through those lenses, just as it describes every political crisis by adding "Gate" to the end of its name.

However, we were lied to by the media about Viet Nam at the time, and some have not learned anything useful about that war since. Contrary to what we were told by Walter Cronkite, we won the Tet Offensive, according to no less an authority than the opposing general, Giap. Only the media war was lost, and that sadly seems similar to today when CNN knowingly airs propaganda films produced by our enemies.

However satisfying it is to chant "Out of Iraq Now", it might first be well to remember the millions in Southeast Asia who died shortly after our departure. If you dislike the current level of violence in Iraq, imagine the consequences of a full-blown civil war there.

We are now ourselves "The Man", and can no longer just moan and groan about public policy, as though it were being made by others. Like it or not, Boomers are now adults.

So I don't want to hear how you didn't want us to go to Iraq and how you want us out now unless you are also willing to say it's OK if millions of our supporters there die as a result, and also OK if our enemies there follow and attack us here instead. It's obvious both those results would follow any immediate departure by U.S. forces from Iraq.

That out of the way, there is another problem with our current efforts in Iraq that needs to be squarely faced - scope creep. A common problem in IT projects is that a project started to do one thing somehow morphs mid-stream into a much larger project to do something else, becoming late and over-budget in the process. That is also happening in Iraq.

We went there to get rid of Saddam Hussein, and we have done so. We did not go there to turn Iraq into a modern democracy, but some now consider that the goal, impossible though it is.

We need to be in Iraq, to keep a close eye on its troublesome neighborhood. But we do not need to micromanage anything there. So long as Iraq's new government doesn't shelter terrorists or attack Americans, why is it any business of ours how they run their country?

Similarly, we need to deter violence against our forces by people who hide among civilians. That isn't hard to do; it's only hard to do so without also harming civilians. But as previously mentioned here, the easiest way to keep our opponents from hiding among civilians is to not let that affect our response to attacks. If, for example, a sniper shoots from a building, the hard and dangerous way to respond is by searching the building room by room. The easy and safe way to respond is by leveling the building. If that were to happen, the media would still moan about civilian casualties, but no longer about dead American soldiers. And afterwards, civilians in other buildings would take very personal offense to future snipers.

Similarly, if Iraqis want to split their country into three internal federal zones (one each for Kurds, Shias, and Sunnis), why is that any concern of ours, even if the result doesn't leave Sunnis with any oil? I find it very difficult to oppose fair consequences for the group responsible for all the suffering of the Saddam years, and the Kurds have already proven themselves quite capable of self-rule in their region.

In summary, there are two ways to fail in Iraq: one by cutting and running, and the other via scope creep. To achieve our objectives in going there we must avoid both.

Sheik Taj Din al-Hilali, the new Islamic Mufti of Australia stirred up a hornet's nest today by claiming women who go out in public unveiled are asking to be raped. As usual, most Muslims either kept quiet or supported his statements, and although he's been relieved of preaching duties for two or three months, he was confirmed as Mufti despite his statements.

If progressive women are capable of being awakened to danger by anything, such statements should be sufficient. The desires of our enemies are far less tolerable than whatever objections one may have to the current administration. Any woman who thinks otherwise might well ponder how it would feel to be homebound unless dressed in a burkha and accompanied by a male relative.

I'm less troubled by the outrageous statements of one evil man, than by the difficulty of finding Muslims willing to condemn his statements. I'm pleased to note that in this instance, one prominent Muslim was willing to publicly call for him to resign. Perhaps there is a bit of hope for Islam yet.

The full story, as reported by the Bangkok Post is here.
Key bits:
"The board [of Sydney's largest mosque] is satisfied with the notion that certain statements made by the mufti was [sic] misinterpreted," Tom Zreika, head of the Lebanese Muslim Association, told local radio.

"If you take out uncovered meat and place it outside on the street, or in the garden, or in the park, or in the backyard without a cover, and the cats come and eat it ... whose fault is it, the cats' or the uncovered meat? The uncovered meat is the problem," al- Hilali said.

The 66-year-old apologized for offence caused by the comments, saying he had "only intended to protect women's honour," but he refused to withdraw them or resign.

Al-Hilali has stirred controversy before. He has denied the Holocaust, defended suicide bombers, described the 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States as "God's work," and blamed Jews for "all the wars and problems that threaten the peace and stability of all the world."

"When it comes to adultery, it's 90 per cent the woman's responsibility," he said.

Waleed Aly, a spokesman for the Islamic Council of Victoria, condemned al-Hilali and called for his resignation, saying his views sought to normalize immoral sexual behaviour. "We would have liked to have seen some form of fairly strong censure just given the magnitude and the gravity of the comments," Aly said.

Imam Abdul Jalil Sajid, the chairman of the Muslim Council of Great Britain, who is visiting Australia, sprang to his defence. "I know he is one of the greatest Muslim scholars on earth and Australia is blessed with him," Sajid said.

Powerline notes Muslim taxi drivers at the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport are refusing to transport passengers who visibly carry alcohol.

To me, the solution seems obvious. If a taxi reaches the head of the cab line and refuses to accept the next willing customer, for any reason, the dispatcher should require that cab to start over at the back of the line, rather than allowing them another choice of passenger.

One of the other cabbies similarly suggested here "We're talking about the choice to run a business. If you choose not to transport alcohol, that's your choice. It's the same choice if you decide not to take someone with a cane or a limp, a toupee or a bad hat. Go to the back of the line."

Daniel Pipes adds (in the original article to which Powerline refers) "Why stop with alcohol? Muslim taxi drivers in several countries already balk at allowing seeing-eye dogs in their cars. Future demands could include not transporting women with exposed arms or hair, homosexuals, and unmarried couples."

Here in Chicago we've already had a battle last year over cabbies refusing to pick up Black customers wanting to go to the South Side. In that instance, even Black cabbies were refusing some fares during some hours after a rash of robberies and murders of cabbies on the South Side late at night.

As Chicago made clear to its cabbies then, refusing fares might even cost the cabbie the medallion that allows them to operate a Chicago cab.

Personally, I doubt I'll ever be in a situation of hailing a cab while carrying alcohol. But I can easily imagine the opposite problem - refusing to reward with my fare any cabbie for whom that would be a problem.

Two Democratic politicians have recently earned my praise:
1) One of our Illinois U.S. Senators, Barak Obama, for co-sponsoring (with Republican Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma) S2590, the recently-passed Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006. This bill, also passed by the House, and on its way to the President (who expects to sign it), does not directly cut any waste from government spending. However, it does require those sponsoring such waste to do so openly rather than in secret as has become increasingly common of late.

This is one of those rare issues on which both those who think government should do more, and those who think government should do less can agree -- that whatever government does should be done openly and above board rather than in secret. Sunlight is, as they say, the best disinfectant.

(Our Congressman, Republican Mark Kirk also gets honorary mention on this one, for daring to put the final nail in the coffin of "the Bridge to Nowhere" so vigorously defended by porkmeister Republican U.S. Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska. But for Kirk's action, Stevens might despite everything done this year to stop him have nonetheless succeeded in getting the Bridge to Nowhere built with federal funds.)

2) Mayor Richard J. Daley of Chicago, for successfully vetoing a proposed "big box" city ordinance that would have driven more businesses such as Wal-Mart just outside the city limits, thereby harming mostly the poor in Chicago. Although I'm not a city resident, it's always a joy for me when a politician, and particularly a Democratic politician displays at least a rudimentary knowledge of economics.

However laudable the stated aims of the "big box" ordinance, its actual effect would have been to harm the city and its poorest residents.

I've been eying the Garmin Nűvi 350 GPS for a year now, but hadn't been willing to pay its $800 asking price. But recently the 350 became a former model, replaced by a new version whose added features (Bluetooth and a wider screen) are of no interest. What was of interest to me was that Amazon was now offering it for $600.

What I particularly like about the Nűvi is that it fits easily in a shirt pocket, can run for 4 hours on rechargeable batteries or plugged into a car, has a full street-level map of North America, and uses the top-rated SiRFstarIII chipset that locks on quickly and keeps its signal even under tree cover.

Now that we have it, we also very much like "Jill" the synthesized voice that talks us through routes without even needing to look at the Nűvi itself. It also has given us quite a comfort level about going to destinations we've not been to before, knowning that if we make a wrong turn, "Jill" will quickly notice and offer a solution.

One other unexpected blessing is that Garmin has already upgraded the software on our Nűvi twice this summer with new features, such as showing our current Latitude and Longitude.

To safeguard the touch screen, I covered it with two Palm screen protectors.

I'd considered other Garmin models, ranging from a wristwatch version for runners to ones for hikers, bikers and cars, but the Nuvi pretty much does it all. The only feature it still lacks that I might appreciate is "breadcrumbs" (dots showing on a map where you've actually been, so you can retrace your steps.) Highly recommended.

We went to the bike show to get the Middlewife a new helmet today, as the one she's been using is over twenty years old and starting to flake. While there, I looked around at the new bikes. But it was the Middlewife who found one. After trying lots of alternatives, she decided she wanted the Sun EZ-3 USX recumbent trike. Her key requirements were that it had to be easy to get a leg over, and mustn't fall. The Sun met both requirements easily, and includes a shock absorber that make bumps kind of fun.

Sadly, fitting in our car was not one of its virtues, so I rode it the two miles home, after which the Middlewife and I went for a good ride, her on the Sun, and me on a Dahon folder (Jetstream P8.) Once she was done for the day, I put another 12 miles on the Sun. I really enjoyed its relative immunity to headwinds, and how utterly stable it felt even at speed. I also liked being able to easily steer with one hand.

Someday when we are too old to drive a car safely, we may still be using this "adult trike" for grocery runs. Meanwhile, it's great for daily exercise.

We recently decided to buy a real dining table. Our church is encouraging its members to get together for a meal with neighbors at least monthly, and we had no way for such a group to all sit around a table together.

After surfing the Web and cruising most of the local furniture stores, we found lots of great choices, nearly all of which cost over a thousand dollars, and in some cases up to four thousand dollars. And then there was IKEA, where the most expensive table available cost $349.

I honestly tried, but just couldn't convince myself that any of the other tables were actually worth triple the price, or even an order of magnitude extra. Then too, there was the simple fact that an IKEA table fits in the car today, and ordering elsewhere can take several months for delivery.

I had to assemble the IKEA table myself, which took a half hour. All needed tools were included in the box. Result: a very good-looking dining table that normally seats six, and expands easily to seat ten. The added leaves store right inside the table, another plus.

I've previously been fond of calling Trader Joe's grocery stores "Aldi for yuppies", because they sell Whole Foods-quality foods at Aldi prices. (By the way, Consumer Reports just praised Trader Joe's, Whole Foods and even Aldi.)

Now I realize that IKEA is similarly "Wal-Mart for yuppies." The same quality offerings we love from Scandanavian furniture stores, but at Wal-Mart prices.

Which raises an interesting question: Why is it that cultural elites find it so easy to sniff at Wal-Mart, yet flock to IKEA? I expect that whatever complaint can be made about Wal-Mart could be made with equal validity about IKEA. The only difference I see is that the "better than you" types don't want to be seen shopping at Wal-Mart, but can't do without IKEA. Result: once again, the "better people" try to shield poor folks from options for a better life.

One of my favorite memories from childhood is that my mom, from an aristocratic but poor family, had to find ways to look good for less. If two of her fancy friends wore the same dress to a party, it was a major emergency. My mom's solution? She shopped at Sears, a fine store at which none of her fancy friends would have been caught dead. Worked like a charm.

Four of my favorite shirts came from Wal-Mart last year. And I intend to keep shopping at both Wal-Mart and IKEA, along with Trader Joe's and even Aldi, no matter who sniffs their nose in response.

The middlewife and I have been scheduled for almost a year now to go to Israel and Jordon on a study tour in September with our church. Sadly, the trip has just been cancelled. Doing so required a decision of the church elders, which is as high up as decision-making goes in our church. In other words, it was a tough decision.

Our own decision was easier - I've said all along that I'll still go "if Israel is still there" and if our leader still wants to go. At the moment, Israel is still there, but our leader will no longer be going, and therefore, we won't be either.

One of our beliefs is that our elders are given the spiritual gift of discernment, and all their decisions are unanimous, so I feel I'd have to be an idiot to think I know better than them on such a subject.

From discussions about why one might still make such a trip in time of war, we realized that there is still a good reason to make such a trip, but we lack the needed time before departure to make the needed changes in the purpose of the trip from study to service.

If we went anyway now, we would be a burden on Israel, which hardly needs another burden at the moment. Perhaps another day we can be there to help.

It's hard not to see this as another victory for the haters of this world. The non-refundable fees for this cancelled trip will add up to about $30K for our group, and that's all money that, had we known, could have been spent in other ways to help people more.

Worse, because we are not going, the people in Israel and Jordan who would have provided us services along the way won't see any of the money they expected, not only from our one tour, but from most tours that would be there if war were not. For just our group, that loss is at least $165K.

Still worse, all involved who know much about the area and its troubles agree that conditions for travel there are very unlikely to be better in a few months or another year.

This feels to me much more like Spain or Czechoslovakia in the mid 1930s than it does to another local "intifada." Speaking plainly, we seem to be at the start of something bigger than our current war on terror, rather than nearing its end. Sadly, now, as in 1938, there are many fools eager to cut and run, as though doing so wouldn't just make matters worse later, as became obvious last time in 1939.

Although I was anti-war in the Viet Nam years, I am very aware that over a million people died in Southeast Asia after we abandoned that war, and vowed not to again let such a decision of mine ignore its victims.

That has immediate relevance now, as sectarian violence threatens all we have accomplished to date in Iraq. If I were either a "cut and run" dove or a "to h*** with them" hawk, before abandoning Iraq, I'd have to be willing to allow another million or more persons God loves to die because I left.

Today's isolationists really ought to ponder on how many more people died in the 1940s, than might have died if World War II had started in 1938 rather than 1939. Being opposed to warfare as a solution to problems is fine with me, but please be intelligent about it and think through the consequences of getting your way.

A moral dilemna of resisting terrorists is that they do their very best to surround themselves with "innocent" civilians. That amounts to a win-win situation for the terrorists. If their attacks succeed, great for them. If our counter-attacks succeed, their fighting among civilians ensures there will be lots of dead "innocents" for their remaining supporters to show as "proof" we are no better than them, even when we make every effort to avoid injuring civilians while terrorists often prefer to attack civilians due to their being less defended than armed forces.

In this, our media are willing propagandists, happy to show dramatic photos and videos, and weirdly comfortable with the idea of expecting ethical behavior from the civilized while forgiving even the most heinous attrocities committed by terrorists who claim to be the underdog and/or non-Western.

Even so, choosing not to resist terrorists does no favors to civilians. Where terrorists gain power, civilian freedom disappears, especially for groups even civilized societies have only recently chosen to defend, such as women, ethnic and religious (or irreligious) minorities, and gays.

I've seen no credible evidence that terrorists can be permanently appeased even by surrender. Our current enemies have made it clear they cannot be appeased by anything less than complete world domination. If they win, millions, and perhaps even billions of innocents will die.

In the short run, it might be possible to save a few civilian lives by not attacking terrorists who hide among civilians. But long term, doing so only ensures terrorists surround themselves with even more civilians. For that reason, we may paradoxically save the most civilian lives on all sides by making it clear to terrorists that they will be targeted utterly without regard to civilians among whom they hide.

Similarly, in the short run, it may be possible to save a few lives by ransoming kidnap victims, but in the long run doing so only ensures more persons will be kidnapped.

I agree with Billy Graham, who long ago made it clear his family was never to pay a ransom for him if kidnapped. Like Billy, I am not worried about my fate beyond this life, and would not want to continue it at the expense of other future victims.

An excellent Wizbang article The Fate of Hostages covers similar ground today:
"The belief that seems to be at the core of Israel's decisions is this: one does not make concessions to hostage-takers. The principles that law enforcement apply do not hold when expanded beyond an individual or small group; when the hostage-takers are part of a very large organization numbering possibly in the tens of thousands, with several other groups in ideological agreement, concessions become precedents.

The way Israel seems to see it is that if they demonstrate that they will not be deterred by Hezbollah hiding behind the innocent, and in fact it is a losing tactic (it ties Hezbollah to a fixed position, and limits their ability to hide or flee), they will stop doing it. In the long run, they think, it will save more lives than it will cost."

Update:
Black Five writes similarly on the virtues of killing children:
"It is our love of these innocents that endangers them. If we did not care if children died, they would be in little danger."

"If we did not care if their children died," I add, "there would be no reason to clutter military emplacements with their presence. If it were not that we are horrified by the deaths of children, the enemy's children would be clear of all places of battle -- because they are, except for the fact that we love them, a hindrance."

I've recently enjoyed an Email dialog with friend and commenter "Paul" about this study:
"An analysis by the Illinois Department of Transportation found that minorities made up 28.5 percent of the driving population but accounted for 31.8 percent of traffic stops in 2005.

Stats are found here."

My initial comment:
"This shows both the benefits and perils of such studies.

Further, since we haven't yet reached that goal of fair competition (especially among skin colors), our other goal remains to level the playing field - but not by requiring equal outcomes from every individual competition."

To that, Paul replied:
"So long as black drivers are 333% more likely to be searched than white drivers (statewide), you have to wonder if we're ready for colorblindness yet."

Much though I like the idea of the estate tax, as a way to take my money only from my cold, dead hands, I intenseley dislike the idea that the estate tax as currently implemented in the United States falls mostly on middle-class people who lack tax shelters, rather than also on the obscenely-rich.

It seems to me that we need an alternative minimum estate tax at least as much as an alternative minimum income tax, in order to ensure that so long as middle class people have to pay income and estate taxes at hefty rates, so too must the obscenely rich.

It particularly galls me when the truly wealthy, such as Warren Buffet, oppose getting rid of the estate tax, yet act in ways intended to ensure it will not be paid on their own estate.

That to me is as offensive as when Senator Ted Kennedy touts the benefit of higher taxes, while having paid a lower tax rate on his income than I have every year of my adult life.

If you believe in the benefits of government funding, then put your own money where your mouth is.

Here's a small example: I'm a big supporter of mass transit. Part of that support is that I buy a monthly Metra pass each month. As it happens, I will get almost no use from my Metra pass next month, and could save about a hundred dollars by not buying it for that month. However, because I believe in supporting mass transit, I am paying for that pass anyway.

I wish there were more examples of the truly rich doing the same, rather than talking big about government solutions while pinching every one of their own pennies.
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One of the perks of the hotel at which I stayed last week was the daily New York Times. For me, however, it was also a moral dilemna. I have long refused to do anything to help that paper financially, ever since I became convinced they were anti-American. Recently, my distaste for the Times has grown exponentially, as they increasingly appear to be knowingly committing treason.

From now on, I will refuse to read the Times, even when available without charge. It isn't that I disagree with them politically (though I often do); rather it is that they appear to be intentionally publishing information likely to cost innocent lives.

A full page ad in yesterday's New York Times warns that Congress may soon consider getting rid of the penny. The advertiser, Virgin Mobile, sees this as a bad thing, and is organizing protests.

I, on the other hand, have hated pennies for years, avoiding them whenever possible. Now that each penny costs our government more than a penny to make, it seems obvious the penny's time has come and gone. A dime today is worth about what a penny was when I was a boy, and inflation will only make it worth less in future.

Time to retire the penny.

While in Boston today, I decided to visit Church of All Nations, which I served as youth pastor over thirty years ago. The new building, completed the year after I graduated and left town is still there, but no longer looks new. More to the point, the congregation itself is no longer there. It's still a church, and still slightly multi-ethnic, but no longer United Methodist. That's sad, because the United Methodists had been there for over a century, doing really good work with several generations of folks in need in the heart of the city.

I enjoyed the service of the new congregation, called City on a Hill Center but found it stronger on fervor than theology. Everyone involved talked really fast, but with reasonable clarity. There was some speaking in tongues, or at least in one or more languages I don't know, but with frequent breaks for comments in English that may have been interpretation thereof. It seemed natural and routine for that congregation, and the place was fairly full. I wish them well, but missed seeing anyone I knew from the old days. The service was still going strong at the 3 hour mark when those with me asked to leave. Had we stayed, a good meal was hot and ready downstairs.

What killed Church of All Nations? I don't really know, but suspect it was part of the continuing decline of United Methodism nation-wide over the past thirty years. To me, it often seemed the only issues of importance to denomination leaders were ordaining Gay pastors, and defending abortion on demand. Neither of those goals would have been popular with folks at Church of All Nations, for whom many other issues would have been more pressing -- such as figuring out why the denomination was losing 2% of its members each year, as other churches grew.

The United Methodist Church (among other denominations) has been called "the Democratic Party at Prayer", and the last 30 years haven't been good for the Democratic Party either, possibly for similar reasons.

I wish both the United Methodist denomination and the Democratic party a return to health, but don't expect either of them to do so until their priorities revert to ones acceptable to more Americans.

One downside to riding to work via bicycle and public transportation is unexpected rain or snow. Another is unexpectedly needing to do something a bicycle can't do. In such situations a taxi is one option, and a rental car is another. But now there's a third option -- I-Go Chicago, a car cooperative for folks who need a car briefly and rarely, usually at predictable times.

The idea is simple: join the cooperative, and thereafter, whenever you need a car just reserve one already parked nearby whenever you need it. Once reserved, just authenticate at the car and use it. Afterwards, pay the hourly rate automatically via credit card.

It remains to be seen yet whether this actually works better than calling a taxi. The $75 signup fee is enough that I'll let someone else be the pioneer to try it first, but the standard fee of $6 an hour plus 50 cents a mile seems entirely reasonable. There are already plans to preposition an I-Go car a block nearer my office than the closest cab stand, so once that happens I'll likely join up the next time I'm downtown with only a bike but need a car.

Learn more about I-Go here.

One of the religious controversies in Dan Brown's popular historical fiction book "The Da Vinci Code" is the claim that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene during his 3 year ministry. I'm no expert on the subject, but suspect not.

On the other hand, I have no objection to the idea that Jesus might have been married at some point previous to beginning his public ministry. We know absolutely nothing about his life between age 12 and 30 from the Bible itself, so it is entirely possible that he was married during part of that time.

He certainly wasn't opposed to sex within marriage, or he wouldn't have attended the wedding at Cana in Galilee near the start of his ministry (John chapter 2, verses 1 through 10), let alone provide wine for the occasion!

I do agree though, that he was not still married or the father of a living child by the time he began his ministry, or someone would almost certainly have recorded that information in the Bible. It was already unusual for Jesus to leave his "eldest son" responsibilities for ministry, let alone the question of leaving the additional responsibilities of a husband or father.

I also find it difficult to believe Jesus would have divorced anyone, given his own later teachings about divorce (in Matthew chapter 5, verses 31 and 32.)

Anyone interested in learning more about this topic can find plenty of relevant information provided by Mark Roberts here, including the (to both Roberts and me humorous) theological dilemna posed by a surviving child: "Would that child inherit a sinful nature? Would that child be three-fourths human and one-fourth God?"

Here's the Atrios/Drum "Are You a Liberal" test, as interpreted by Instapundit, including my answers. As usual, I'm way off-center on specific issues, but on average and overall, I'm somewhere in the middle.

1) Repeal the estate tax repeal:
Yes, and also block all the clever trusts and such rich folks from both sides of the political aisle use to avoid paying any estate tax, even on vast fortunes. If taxes have to be collected, taking them after death seems the least-painful way to do so. Estate taxes, if they actually worked, would also have the useful effect of helping each new generation start its economic competition on a more level playing field, which is essential if you want the losers to continue to respect the rules of the game.

2) Increase the minimum wage and index it to the CPI.
No, never for any reason. Setting a minimum wage merely forces those unworthy of that salary out of paid employment entirely. Further, the persons hurt thereby are disproportionately the needy folks we should care about helping most.

3) Universal health care.
No. Only an idiot would even consider putting the civil servants who already can't cope with FEMA or homeland security in charge of anything more. On the other hand, if it happens, let's force Congress onto the exact same plan as everyone else, rather than their current better than all others' plan.

4) Increase CAFE standards.
Absolutely, and only one standard for both cars and trucks, with no exceptions for those who choose to drive ten ton tanks. After all, we are at war with people funded by gas purchases.

5) Pro-reproductive rights, getting rid of abstinence-only education, improving education about and access to contraception including the morning after pill, and supporting choice.
Absolutely not on "choice". If it turns out God considers fetuses fully human, our society is offing them at a rate ranking with Stalin and Hitler. On the other hand, those who oppose abortion, ought not also to oppose contraception. Personally, I'd allow anyone one abortion, but tie the tubes of anyone seeking a second.

6) Simplify and increase the progressivity of the tax code.
Simplify, absolutely. Increase progressivity? Yes, so long as there are no loopholes at all to permit Ted Kennedy to continue to pay a lower income tax rate than me, as he has throughout most of his life. However, I am opposed to increased total taxation. Our government already sets fire to entirely enough money via waste and corruption now.

7) Kill faith-based funding.
Absolutely not. Such groups routinely do a vastly better job meeting every category of need than most other groups, particularly compared to government employees.

8) Reduce corporate giveaways.
Absolutely. In particular, convert all special tax breaks, import tariffs to benefit domestic suppliers, etc. into explicit subsidies visible in the budget. Don't whine about abuse by welfare mothers while simultaneously expecting government to chip in $700 million on a railroad to nowhere just to benefit casinos.

9) Have Medicare run the Medicare drug plan.
No, kill it instead.

10) Force companies to stop underfunding their pensions. Change corporate bankruptcy law to put workers and retirees at the head of the line with respect to their pensions.
Worth discussing, but government itself is a big offender here, at least in our state, where my pension is guaranteed by the state constitution, but chronically underfunded by the legislature.

11) Leave the states alone on issues like medical marijuana.
Yes. Inf fact, let's leave the states alone on most everything added to the plate of our national government in the last century.

12) Paper ballots.
Yes, but let's go further. I'm very much in favor of making it impossible to cheat in or even argue about the outcome of elections. If we can't trust the outcome of our elections to be honest, we won't stay one country long.

13) Improve access to daycare and other pro-family policies.
No. I'm all for families, but don't trust goverment efforts to help them as actually having that effect.

14) Raise the cap on wages covered by FICA taxes.
Remove the cap entirely, with no resulting increase in benefits for those not in need. It's just welfare for old folks under another name anyway, so we may as well admit it.

15) Marriage rights for all, which includes "gay marriage" and quicker transition to citizenship for the foreign spouses of citizens.
I have no objection to domestic partnerships, and would be willing to use that term for heterosexuals as well. Marriage, is a term I would reserve to the religious rather than legal ceremony. I am strongly in favor of quickly approving the immigration applications of foreign spouses of citizens and most everyone else on the application list long before we even consider doing anything to legalize illegal immigrants.

16) Undo the bankruptcy bill enacted by this administration.
No, I may not be entirely up to speed on this one, but it seems OK to me.

Rev. Donald Sensing, in his second-to-last Tennessee One Hand Clapping blog post, provides his typically-excellent explaination of what did and didn't make the cut as part of the Christian Bible's New Testament, and why.

Given current news about a so-called "Gospel of Judas" and the success of "faction" novel and soon-to-be movie "The DaVinci Code", Sensing's insights deserve wide reading.

Here are a few highlights:
What happened is that by the middle of the second century Christians increasingly made a distinction between the apostolic time and their own. Also, there were so many writings claiming Christian authenticity that documents of genuine apostolic origin were being squeezed out. Through a complex series of episcopal meetings, by the fourth century the Church decided that only Gospels of actual apostolic origin should be considered canonical. That meant that writings well known to the Church, such as the Didache (Teaching of the Twelve Apostles), Gospel of Peter, First Letter of Clement, Letter of Barnabas, Apocalypse of Peter and Shepherd of Hermas, and now the so-called Judas gospel were excluded. They simply dated far too late to have apostolic authority.
...
The single most decisive factor in the process of New Testamenty canonization was the influence of Marcion, who flourished about 140. Marcion was a wealthy, influential shipbuilder who thought of himself as Christian. However, his religion was basically Gnostic. He set up his own canon that totally repudiated anything Jewish, including the Jewish Scriptures. The “Father” Jesus spoke of was an altogether different deity than the God of the Jews, according to Marcion. Marcion and his many followers viewed the God of the Old Testament as a cruel God of retribution. (Even today, we hear some Christians say that the God of Old Testament was a God of judgment but the God of the New Testament is a God of grace. Such a view has been held by the Church for 1800 years to be heretical, which perhaps shows how strong Marcion’s influence was.)

There was dispute over some issues between the western church and the eastern church but these were resolved in the fourth century. The twenty-seven books of the New Testament, and no other books, were agreed by both east and west to be canonical at the Council of Nicea in 325, the same council that gave us the Nicene Creed. By the end of the 300s, the New Testament books other than the present 27 became definitively excluded.

MITM will miss your blog, Rev. Sensing!

Note: Sensing's blog is ending because he thinks the era of the one-author blog is passing. He feels it takes too much work to keep up for one person to do it well enough to garner large readership.

Speaking as such an author, I think of it as more of a journal, for those who care what I think about various issues to consider, the book my siblings wanted me to write that I never did.

Looking back on my three years of entries, I'm struck by how often an old entry still fully covers my feelings about a "new" issue. There have been times when for one or two months nothing at all has come up that hasn't already been discussed in the blog previously. And surprisingly few of the entries have been dated enough to delete as no-longer-relevant.

Naturally, I'd like lots of folks to read MITM. But even if few other than me ever do, it will at least be a useful-to-me repository of my best thoughts and reference information from others on issues I consider important, in case the same issues ever need further thought. So readers or not, I expect to post here occasionally so long as God gives me breath. Thanks for reading!

Popular Mechanics responds to "Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day" by instead recommending "instead of taking our kids to work, how about putting them to work?" Author Jim Meigs goes on to explain "Obviously, learning to pull their own weight helps kids develop independence and a sense of responsibility. But there’s something else. Modern life involves a whole host of skills that are best learned young."

This to me has absolutely the ring of truth. Sadly, my parents didn't succeed in getting me to do many chores around the house as a kid. Caring for the dog, mowing the yard, and taking out the trash was about it, unless I wanted extra money, in which case I was paid minimum wage to pull weeds.

Somehow, I later learned how to do most of the other key home chores, but not as a kid. I reflected on this as I pulled weeds today, realizing I now do for fun what as a child I would only occasionally do even for money.

Embarrassingly, I did no better as a father than I had as a son. My own son too has learned to pull his weight in home chores, but for the most part, he didn't learn it at home as a child. His chore too was taking out the trash, and he never liked the task. Miraculously, he has developed real skills in cooking and cleaning up, tasks I expect to master only in retirement, if even then.

But the key lesson to be learned at home, that we both had to learn later, is that family work is part of family life, and part of preparation for life, as opposed to something unfair that big people impose on little people with the help of either carrots or sticks.

I now fully agree with Meigs when he says "It seems to me that basic competence in life ought to include knowing things like how to change a tire, paint a room, cook a meal, mix concrete, and build simple items out of wood. And the best way to learn these things is working side-by-side with a parent. Those are some of my best memories of childhood (even if I complained at the time.) "

Instapundit links to an excellent article about a phenomenon called "mobbing" by John Gravois in the Chronicle of Higher Education.
"When songbirds perceive some sign of danger — a roosting owl, a hawk, a neighborhood cat — a group of them will often do something bizarre: fly toward the threat. When they reach the enemy, they will swoop down on it again and again, jeering and making a racket, which draws still more birds to the assault. The birds seldom actually touch their target (though reports from the field have it that some species can defecate or vomit on the predator with "amazing accuracy"). The barrage simply continues until the intruder sulks away. Scientists call this behavior 'mobbing.'"

Unsurprisingly, there are human equivalents:
"Inspired by Lorenz's writings on animal mobbing, Leymann coined the term "workplace mobbing" to name the phenomenon. He defined it as "an impassioned, collective campaign by co-workers to exclude, punish, and humiliate a targeted worker."

To flesh out the concept, Leymann drew up a list of 45 mobbing indicators. It amounted to an impressive catalog of bureaucratic nastiness: 'You are interrupted constantly'; 'you are isolated in a room far from others'; 'management gives you no possibility to communicate'; 'you are given meaningless work tasks'; 'you are given dangerous work tasks'; 'you are treated as if you are mentally ill.'"

As it turns out, higher education is fertile ground for mobbing:
"Though no two mobbings are alike, Mr. Westhues often describes a kind of stereotypical pattern for the escalation from storm to full-bore twister.

And then, Mr. Westhues says, chances are, you leave. Whether you win or lose the proceeding, whether you are dismissed or fully reinstated, whether it is due to exhaustion, disgust, illness, or (God forbid) suicide, you cut your losses and get out."

Who gets mobbed?
"Essentially, Mr. Westhues says, anything that can be a basis for bickering can be a basis for mobbing: race, sex, political difference, cultural difference, intellectual style. Professors with foreign accents, he says, often get mobbed, as do professors who frequently file grievances and 'make noise.' But perhaps the most common single trait of mobbing targets, he says, is that they excel.

'To calculate the odds of your being mobbed,' Mr. Westhues writes in his most comprehensive book on mobbing, The Envy of Excellence: Administrative Mobbing of High-Achieving Professors, 'count the ways you show your workmates up: fame, publications, teaching scores, connections, eloquence, wit, writing skills, athletic ability, computer skills, salary, family money, age, class, pedigree, looks, house, clothes, spouse, children, sex appeal. Any one of these will do.'"

Administrators who encourage mobs, however, may do to at their own peril:
"Professors seeking to eliminate one of their colleagues cannot get very far without the backing of the administration, he said. And in cases where many professors are pitted against one, administrators' first instinct will often be to side with the majority.

But because mobbers tend to be so impassioned and sloppy in their reasoning, Mr. Westhues argued, administrators who side with them may suffer for it later. Mr. Westhues's research provides numerous examples of mobbing victims who have walked away with fat court settlements, and of administrators who have walked away without their jobs."

Also, as Instapundit points out, "Fortunately, the Internet seems to serve as an effective antidote."
"But then something strange happened: People outside the department turned against the letter signers. FrontPage Magazine published a long, vitriolic article on the incident under the headline 'Academic Witch-Hunt.' The campus newspaper also published a story that was largely sympathetic to Mr. Bean. 'I had two direct ancestors hung as witches at Salem,' Mr. Bean was prominently quoted as saying. 'I don't plan to be the third.' In the same article, another professor was quoted describing Mr. Bean's troubles as 'a classic case of mobbing.'

Before long, the e-mail in boxes of the letter signers were crammed with hate mail."

My reason for posting this is that as I read the article, I realized I myself was mobbed a few years ago. Fortunately, as it began, I already knew my sister had successfully survived a similar experience, so was prepared to endure and overcome with God's help whatever came my way. Also fortunately, both faith and previous careers had prepared me well for the experience.

To anyone else experiencing mobbing, I offer the encouraging news that I am better for the experience, and the key mobbers have moved on.

A friend just sent me an Email advocating a boycott of only Exxon and Mobil gas stations, to force them to cut gasoline prices back to $1.30 a gallon. This was my reply:

Better yet, drive a Toyota Prius, and get 40-50 miles per gallon. We've had one for 4 years now, and still love it. I also ride the Metra to work daily, and ride my bicycle several miles a day to and from the Metra station when weather permits. That both helps me lose weight and saves oil.

To the extent that high gas prices reflect collusion among oil companies, consumer action might bring results. If we use less gas, its price will drop. But switching companies without cutting usage wouldn't work because it's too easy to swap gas between companies. If Mobil oil refineries supplied Shell stations, as they easily could and perhaps already do, a boycott of only Mobil stations would thereby be defeated, having no effect on oil companies but perhaps harming individual Mobil service station managers.

The cheapest gas I've found in our area has for years been the Mobil station on Algonquin Road near Willowcreek. The "boycott only Mobil and Exxon" plan would punish that station for its good prices.

Also, to the extent that high gas prices reflect high costs paid by the oil companies, any company that didn't charge the higher costs it was paying would go bankrupt. China, for instance, is using a lot more oil than ever before. So is India. That part isn't Exxon's fault.

Another problem is that a lot of the oil in the world is in countries that don't like us, usually because we advocate freedom and they are run by dictators. Sudan, for instance, which still practices genocide and slavery, is unlikely to become our friend any time soon (and who would want such a friend?)

The good news is that if prices stay at current high levels, producing gas from oil shale becomes economically feasible, and there is enough oil shale in the U.S. and Canada to meet all our needs for centuries.

Another good option is nuclear power plants, which have the added benefit of not contributing to global warming. If we ever get hydrogen-powered cars, the most feasible way to make the hydrogen fuel would likely be with electricity from a nuclear power plant. Nuclear power plant designs have improved greatly since the last one was built in the U.S. - much safer now.

But there's still the problem of where to store the waste, so in my opinion using less gas is still part of the solution.

I had high hopes for this term of congress. With a united government for the first time since the 1960s, I expected to see major legislation passed to deal with some of the intractable problems that could only be talked about during years of divided government.

Was I ever wrong! About the only thing our government did well in the current session of Congress was writing checks to support the troops..

Pretty much everything else we got out of Congress this session amounted to setting fire to money -- a virtual orgy of pointless spending on bridges to nowhere, rebuilding railroads that have already been rebuilt, and in general acting as if no one alive remembers 1994's Republican "Contract With America".

I've returned dozens of fund-raising letters this year with refusals to contribute even a penny while the spending orgy continues. But so far as I can tell, no one cares. I have yet to receive even the tiniest indication anyone anywhere has even read a word I've written on the subject.

This Fall could be disastrous for Republicans if the current congressional arrogance continues.

Hugh Hewett said it best:
"Bottom line: It is hard to see how the GOP is not like the Titanic, except it is aiming for the iceberg."
(Not a cheerful thought from a guy who just wrote a book on how to create a permanent Republican majority.)

The "good guys" regarding all this may be found at Porkbusters. Lots of good reading - if only anyone in either party's leadership cared.

Update: Add the Wall Street Journal to those upset:
"The chief culprits are the House Appropriators, led by Committee Chairman Jerry Lewis of California and his 13 subcommittee chairmen known as "cardinals." If Republicans lose the House--and they are well on their way--Mr. Lewis deserves the moniker of the minority maker.

For weeks, the Republican Study Committee, a group of fiscally conservative Members, had been negotiating a spending outline with the House leadership. But when they finally struck a deal last week, Mr. Lewis refused to go along and threatened to defeat the budget on the House floor if Speaker Denny Hastert brought it up."
...
"At the current pace, a Democratic majority in Congress would be preferable, if only for reasons of truth in advertising."

Programs funded by governments to help those in real need somehow almost always end up not achieving stated goals, no matter how long they continue and no matter how much is spent in the attempt.

According to William Easterly, this is the result of too many worthy groups pursuing too many worthy goals in ways that leave no one in particular accountably responsible for achieving any single measureable result.
"UK Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown recently gave a compassionate speech about the tragedy of extreme poverty afflicting billions of people, with millions of children dying from easily preventable diseases. He called for a doubling of foreign aid, a Marshall Plan for the world’s poor. He offered hope by pointing out how easy it is to do good. Medicine that would prevent half of malaria deaths costs only 12 cents a dose. A bed net to prevent a child from getting malaria costs only $4. Preventing 5 million child deaths over the next 10 years would cost just $3 for each new mother. ...

However, Gordon Brown was silent about the other tragedy of the world’s poor. This is the tragedy in which the West already spent $2.3 trillion on foreign aid over the last 5 decades and still had not managed to get 12-cent medicines to children to prevent half of all malaria deaths. The West spent $2.3 trillion and still had not managed to get $4 bed nets to poor families. The West spent $2.3 trillion and still had not managed to get $3 to each new mother to prevent 5 million child deaths."

As for a solution, Easterly suggests feedback and accountability:
"The two key elements necessary to make aid work, and the absence of which has been fatal to aid’s effectiveness in the past, are FEEDBACK and ACCOUNTABILITY. The needs of the rich get met through feedback and accountability. Consumers tell the firm “this product is worth the price” by buying the product, or decide the product is worthless and return it to the store. Voters tell their elected representatives that “these public services are bad” and the politician tries to fix the problem."

This makes sense. At the office we are currently having problems with our primary vendor being unable to do two simple yet important tasks well. The problem isn't that they don't mean well and try hard. Rather, it seems to be that they attempt too much, attempting to implement so many cool new ideas that none of them end up quite working the first time out, let alone arriving with proper documentation.

What's the cure? In my opinion, each of those two tasks needs to become the primary responsibility of a particular person, who knows they will be held personally accountable for the success or failure of that task. Nothing concentrates the mind on a task like knowing its failure or success will result in significant personal consequences.

I experienced that personally about 15 years ago. I'd just been hired to manage a new computer lab. Just one problem -- two weeks before its scheduled opening, the lab didn't exist. Seeing our cool new jobs just about to evaporate, my new assistant and I personally found and positioned all the furniture for the new lab that very day. The rest, as they say, was just paperwork.

Being married to a former librarian, I've been long trained in the extreme importance of freedom of speech. Nothing riles up a librarian like someone trying to ban a book. For example, see this Borders Books ad from this week in defense of banned books and authors. Hence my huge surprise at how quickly and easily enemies in the war on terrorism have convinced so many here and abroad, aparently now also including Borders Books, that freedom of speech cannot be defended if it offends current or potential enemies in that war.

The latest collapsing battlefront in that war is Borders Books, which is choosing not to carry Free Inquiry (one of their usual April-May magazines) for fear of what might happen when it becomes known that the issue contains 4 Danish cartoons.
"Borders and Waldenbooks stores will not stock the April-May issue of Free Inquiry magazine because it contains cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad that provoked deadly protests among Muslims in several countries.
“For us, the safety and security of our customers and employees is a top priority, and we believe that carrying this issue could challenge that priority,” Borders Group Inc. spokeswoman Beth Bingham said Wednesday."

Cox & Forkum respond with another cartoon.

But it gets worse. LittleGreenFootballs reports tonight that a Borders employee has been told it is official corporate policy that the Quran must be displayed only on the top shelf of book racks, rather than wherever it happens to fall in alphabetical listings.
"I was shifting rows of books in our religion section and it happened to be that all of our Koran books (a section on its own) ended up on the bottom shelf. The next day I was informed by my General Manager that it is Borders policy as a whole (not my particular store) that due to complaints in the past from Muslim customers, we are not allowed to put our copies of the Koran on any shelf other than the top."

One useful suggestion is that whatever money we might otherwise have spent at Borders during April might now be better spent elsewhere. And one excellent choice for where else might be as a donation to those who have defended freedom of speech and are now facing unfair consequences as a result. The Alberta Human Rights Commission, for example, has inexplicably filed suit against the Western Standard for publishing the Danish cartoons. (Details on contributing to the Western Standard defense fund are here.)

I particularly loved PowerLine reader David Bosserman's plan:
"I’ve sent the following to our friends at the Western Standard, with a copy to Borders, and I encourage your readers to do the same: "Sirs: I am sending you the money I might otherwise have spent at Borders Books, because they are cowards and you are not.""

Update: Instapundit reports the Hartford Courant is on this too:
"If you care about freedom of expression, don't buy books from Borders or Waldenbooks," writes conservative pundit Andrew Sullivan on his blog. "And if you want to draw a lesson from the entire episode, it's obvious: violence against free writers and artists gets results. We have all but invited more."
(It's nice to be able to agree with Andrew Sullivan about something again.)

Donald Sensing provides a very clear illustration of just war theory in daily life, Gang rape and Christian duty

Sensing's illustration, based on the famous New Bedford rape case hits home for me because I was in New Bedford, not long before that event. I was there to attend a charismatic Catholic worship service with friend (now Father) Frank Lavich, and remember seeing what looked like real tongues of fire atop the worshippers heads as they prayed, just like on the first Day of Pentecost described in Acts Chapter 2. That such a vile crime could take place in the same town as and soon after such a sacred moment shocked me.

Sensing asks, what if "I, a man of the cloth, had also been coincidentally in that pool hall when the rape began. What could my Christian response have been?" He continues "the question for this case is not really WWJD, but what [would] he have me do?"

Sensing also asks an excellent follow-up question: "when the actions of the men made their intentions clear, would intervention have been called for before the rape had technically been accomplished?"

He also wonders whether it would be necessary for me to convince other bystanders to support me before getting involved, and what I'd do if they refused?

Since I literally could have been in that room at that time (if for example we'd stopped by for a Coke before driving back to Boston), Sensing's questions are not at all hypothetical for me.

Sensing published this just before the current war in Iraq began, adding "The rape is going on now...What would Jesus have you do?"

Update:
A useful distinction to make, with regards to the use of force in defence by Christians, is this: Who is being defended?

It's relatively difficult for a Christian to make a moral case for hurting or kiling merely to protect oneself. I mean, what's the worst that could happen? Going to Heaven now instead of later isn't much of a downside to anyone who believes in such a place (as I do) and expects to be there after death.

On the other hand, it's much easier to make a moral case for hurting or killing to protect others, because although an attacker is a person of infinite worth, for whom Christ died, so are their victims. And although Jesus was rarely violent (a smited barren fruit tree and whipped money changers being his only victims), his sympathies were very obviously always with "the last, the least, and the lost" over "the strong, the rich, and the respectable."

A problem Christians have had ever since Emperor Constantine became a Christian around AD 300, is what is appropriate military duty for a Christian soldier? Or, put another way, how does a faith that enabled slaves and nobodies to peacefully overcome a mighty empire guide the continuing activities of that empire afterwards? The answer may lie in defending physically the same sorts of people Jesus and the prophets had defended verbally, like them supporting justice and righteousness for those who would otherwise rarely experience either. The "Pax Romana" really did have some good points, and would have had more such points if it had been as devoted to defending the inalienable rights of the weak as it was to maintaining the perks of the powerful.

Glenn Reynolds and other bloggers have recently suggested that the next international human right to be defended might be the right to keep and bear arms (the often-attacked but perhaps extremely important second amendment of our Constitution.)

It is becoming obvious that weapons are equalizers, and more so as what one person can do with available weaponry increases over time. It is also increasingly obvious that our nation has not been accepted by the World as its policeman, and equally obvious that there are limits to what even our armed forces can do to establish justice and righteousness alone and unaided by others of like mind.

Perhaps the solution, then, in places like Darfur, is not to send in the Marines to fight on behalf of those suffering genocide, but rather to help toughen and arm the current victims sufficiently that their oppressors will abandon their attacks.

Although it's easy to make a case that I don't need a gun, while in good health and a good neighborhood, it's less easy to argue that a single mom in a bad neighborhood wouldn't be safer if she had a pistol and knew how to use it.

Even so, if God is in control, and I firmly believe God is, then Christians must still be careful not to get ahead of God in doing His work. We absolutely need to do whatever good God calls us to do, but absolutely do not need to do so because God can't get the task done anyway, with or without us.

One of the quotes this week regarding Abdul Rahman makes me wonder just how weak Muslims think Allah is, if they have to protect him from humiliation? Abdul Raoulf said: "We will not allow God to be humiliated." Dude, if you believe your own propaganda, Allah is well able to defend himself. It's not your job, and attempting it communicates you are worried your god is weak.

Christians must be careful to have no similar misconceptions. God allows us to share in His work, but definitely is not otherwise unable to get it done. So we do what we can to help the widow, the orphan and the alien, but not because we think God would otherwise leave them without help. Rather, we do so as co-workers with God in establishing a new and better future for all, a foretaste of Glory to come.

Abdul Rahman, of Afghanistan, is on trial for the "crime" of converting from Islam to Christianity, as described here. This raises at least two important points:

1) For Islan's defenders to resort to force either to win converts or avoid losses to other faiths is a public admission they don't believe their own propaganda. In my opinion, only faiths that renounce the use of force in winning and retaining followers deserve any place among the great World religions.

2) If this is the thanks American Christian soldiers can expect for freeing Afghanistan and Iraq, then perhaps efforts there need not continue.

Jesus put it strongly in his most famous message "Do not give dogs what is holy; and do not throw your pearls before swine, lest they trample them underfoot and turn to attack you." (Matthew 7:6 RSV)

The day Rahman (or any other Christian convert) is executed might be the day Afghanistan becomes no longer worthy of support.

Powerline explains it this way:
"This is, I think, a watershed moment. The American people will bear a great deal of sacrifice, but only on behalf of principle. If, after our liberation of Afghanistan, a man may still be executed for being a Christian--or a Jew, although to my knowledge that case hasn't arisen--there is no logical basis on which our government can continue to request the ultimate sacrifice from its most devoted supporters."

Sadly, there's a similar case in Mississippi: Happy though I was to spend a week last Fall helping folks in Mississippi recover from Hurricane Katrina (details here), my sense of injustice at that state's ongoing attempt to execute Cory Maye for the "crime" of defending himself and his infant daughter from what he thought were criminals breaking in his door (details here) keeps me from volunteering to return to Mississippi, even though needs there remain extreme.

Update: Fortunately, this case has already drawn the personal attention of both President Bush, and Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, who today called President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan on Abdul Rahman's behalf. Details here.

Clinton Taylor thoughfully provides a photo of Yale freshman and former Taliban spokesman Rehmatullah Hashmi holding a book about the Bible used as evidence in a similar Afghan trial of Christians just before the Taliban lost power.

It's becoming increasingly clear that anyone who sends their child to Harvard or Yale in hopes of an excellent education could hardly be more mistaken.

(Harvard is currently notorious for an incredibly stupid and flagrantly anti-Semitic new publication from their Kennedy School of Government, ironically co-authored by a professor whose endowed chair was recently funded by a now-extremely-unhappy Jewish donor. Details here.)

An important way to avoid throwing pearls before swine is by not rewarding (with either our money or the time of our children) media and universities opposed to everything we value.

Update2: According to this report, even so-called "moderate" Muslims in Afghanistan insist Abdul Rahman be executed.
"The cleric who was jailed three times for opposing the hard-line Taliban said: 'Rejecting Islam is insulting God. We will not allow God to be humiliated. This man must die.'"
A Mr Raoulf, who is a member of the country's main Islamic organisation, the Afghan Ulama Council, added: "Cut off his head!" and "We will call on the people to pull him into pieces so there's nothing left."

It would be difficult for such people to reject more completely the teachings of Jesus, who they claim to revere, but understand not at all.

Wizbang makes three excellent points about illegal immigration:
1) The U.S. is one of the easiest places in the world to which to immigrate legally. Those who can't be bothered to immigrate legally are line cutters, who should not be rewarded.
"These people, for whatever reason, hold themselves as above those rules. They consider their own circumstances as more important than others, and they don't need to bother with following the procedures that everyone else has to.

They're line-cutters. They're cheats. I don't like people who do that in daily life; those that do that are spitting in the faces of all those who are following the laws and coming here legally and properly, and on their behalf I am angered."

2) The argument that we need illegal immigrants to do the tasks others won't is the same bogus argument that used to be made in favor of slavery.
"...indentured servitude might be a better comparison to illegal alien labor than actual slavery. But the essence remains the same -- the notion is that a cheap source of labor is being exploited and used through fear of the power of law."

3) It's a bad idea to keep laws on the books that are not intended to be enforced, as it both teaches disrespect for the Law, and allows authorities to treat disfavored groups differently than favored groups.
"Laws that are unenforced merely cheapen respect for all other laws, and that's a nice start towards anarchy."

I'm in favor of permissive immigration laws regarding anyone who truly wants to become a real American, including learning about and adopting such American values as speaking our language and respecting the freedom of all our citizens.

Any newbie who cannot abide others also being free should not let the door hit them on the way out.

Earlier thoughts on this issue are here.

Update: Albion's Seedlings offers an excellent one-line summary of the issue:
"Democracy, immigration, multiculturalism. Pick any two."

Update2: The was a huge march by illegal immigrants yesterday in Chicago. The crowd was estimated at 100,000, and I can well believe it, as they filled the street where I work two miles from the march site for four straight hours. They marched to oppose an immigation bill recently passed by the U.S. House of Representatives.

Reflacting on the march and my earlier comments above, I now have 3 immigration goals:
1) Make it easy and cheap to enter legally for all who want to become real Americans (learn and practice American values, such as freedom for all.) Since we citizens have chosen not to have enough children to maintain our economy, we will need the assistance of immigrants, just as America so often has in the past.

2) Give everyone who is here legally, citizen or immigrant, a secure national ID card, rather than insecure substitutes like Social Security cards. Without the card, you wouldn't be able to work or obtain benefits, and employers and bureaucrats who violated that would be punished as severely as the still-illegals they hire or assist .

3) Put up fences to deter anyone from trying to bypass the process of legal immigration. Now that we have folks desirous of entering our country with weapons to do us harm, it is imperative that our borders become more secure. If this is not done, and another 9-11 results, the consequences for illegals may be extreme. Better to avoid that by bringing those who aspire to become like us legitimately into the family now, while barring all others at the gate.

I don't ever recall the Dogbert character in Dilbert sounding stupid before, but in this strip he does. Here's the dialogue:
Dilbert: I'm thinking about buying a more fuel efficient car
Dogbert: Why?
Dilbert: It's my patriotic duty to reduce this country's dependence on foreign sources of oil
Dogbert: Why?
Dilbert: Because then the countries that hate us will have less money to fund terrorists
Dogbert: Actually, developing countries would buy the oil you saved, thus adequately funding those same terrorists.

OK, let's pause here, because Dogbert has just made a major error. When one customer stops buying a product, the supplier is not guaranteed another customer at the same price. The reason we are able to buy oil now that developing countries would buy if we didn't, is because we outbid developing countries for that oil, or it would already be going to them. If we no longer bid for that oil, sellers either accept the (lower) bids of their other potential customers, or sell less oil. Normally, both would happen - the price would drop, and the quantity offered at the lower price would also drop.

While the remaining income flow might still be diverted to terrorists, less income to the seller leaves less to divert to terrorists too.

In the rest of the strip Dogbert goes off on an irrelevant tangent about oil being fungible, as if that were somehow relevant to the discussion. (If Dilbert had been trying to avoid buying oil from only Iran, for example, Dogbert might have had a point.)

The intended point of the strip seems to be that we can't do anything useful about our energy dependence, so why even try? Fortunately, the strip is completely wrong in that conclusion. If each of us does a few simple things to limit our usage of oil, the combined impact will be much better for us all than if we don't try.

Personally, I think breaking this nation's dependence on imported oil should be a top priority, similar to the World War II era effort to break our dependence on natural rubber (achieved by the invention of Nylon.)

If we are truly serious about such an effort, we must take another look at nuclear power. My generation loves to hate all things nuclear, while at the same time also disparaging all potential alternatives for causing other potential ills such as global warming.

Yes, nuclear energy has its perils and costs, such as what to do with the resulting waste. But it is becoming abundantly clear that all other forms of energy also have their perils and costs, whether that be diversion of oil profits to terrorists and dictators or birds killed by wind turbines.

I'd love to see hydrogen cars with exhaust containing nothing but water. However, separating the necessary hydrogen requires lots of energy, so at best it moves the source of pollution, unless the source is a new ultra-safe pebble bed nuclear power plant, such as will soon be built in South Africa. Such plants are physically incapable of a core meltdown so can never become a Chernobyl or Three Mile Island.

If such thoughts still leave you uncomfortable, energy conservation also helps. It is now easily possible to double the gas mileage of a typical American car, either by choosing not to drive a behemoth any more, or by at least making sure the behemoth is a hybrid. Similarly, it is easy to double the efficiency of a typical older home's furnace and air conditioner.

Just don't stupidly assume, like Dogbert, that there is nothing we can usefully do about our current national addiction to imported oil.

Tigerhawk discussed tolerance today, calling it the ultimate Western virtue.
"Since the end of the Cold War, "tolerance" has become the ultimate Western virtue. This has been easy for us, because it has, until very recently, been possible -- even recommended -- to ignore intolerant people. We could not tolerate the intolerance of Nazis or Commies, but the Nazis are long gone, and the Commies that remain outside of Cuba and North Korea are CINOs1 and in any case not eager to extend a worldwide revolution. The Christian Right and the anti-religion Left are each fairly intolerant of the other, but neither are violent and both groups prefer their own company, anyway.

Resurgent Islam is changing this dynamic. The cartoon intifada has taught us that Muslims all over the world believe that they have the religious obligation to reach in to Western countries and nullify our most cherished rights. Not only does the "Muslim street" think this, but we have endured the absurd spectacle of Arab kings lecturing the Danes and other Europeans about respect."

Tigerhawk goes on to suggest 4 responses:
"First, we can ignore the outrage, at least insofar as it is happening inside non-Western countries. The price for this may be that there are large parts of the world that are off-limits to most Westerners, and/or that the cost of oil may go up considerably. In short, we might suffer a geopolitical defeat in the defense of free speech.

Second, we can knuckle under, and agree to regulate core political speech inside Western democracies. This may well happen in many parts of Europe, where free speech is a recent right and where many consider it more a bug than a feature.

Third, we can forcefully defend the right of speakers in the West to say what they will about Islam or any other subject, but agree that governments in the Islamic world are entitled to suppress speech within their borders and limit the access of their people to speech eminating from free countries. The result may not be any different than the first option, but at least we will be able to look at ourselves in the mirror.

Fourth, we can believe that freedom of speech is important for people everywhere, and oppose oppressive regimes everywhere, including on the Arabian peninsula, for their intolerance of people who believe and speak inconsistently with the powers that be."

The one weakness I see in Tigerhawk's argument is that the only persons we actually need to tolerate are the intolerant. There's no moral virtue in allowing folks to agree with us. It's when we "agree to disagree" that tolerance is involved.

That said, I don't personally consider tolerance a supreme virtue. A favorite verse goes "if it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone." (Romans 12:18 NIV) When I was younger, I wondered why the qualifiers were needed. Now I know.

Being a peacemaker is a wonderful virtue, but it is not always possible, both because it doesn't always depend only on us, and because it doesn't always only require what we can do.

Even Jesus once used a whip.

We need to remain in the United Nations, but only to retain our veto power over its actions. I no longer see any valid reason for us to fund, or try to reform, or care about the U.N. in any way. It is now officially as useless as the League of Nations that preceded it, and by continuing to exist helps primarily those the World would be better off without, while abandoning and actively harming those it was created to help.

Worse, by continuing to be treated respectfully even by those who know how far it has fallen from its originally lofty ideals, it allows those in the non-reality-based community to continue pretending the U.N. is better than, and a useful counterweight to, the worst of all possible countries (us), even as the falsity of such assertions is proven anew each day.

Journalist Mark Steyn does an excellent job of summing up the United Nations in the current issue of Imprimis.

Here are my favorite quotes from the article:
"If you think—as the media and the left do in this country—that Iraq is a God-awful mess (which it’s not), then try being the Balkans or Sudan or even Cyprus or anywhere where the problem’s been left to the United Nations. If you don’t want to bulk up your pension by skimming the Oil-for-Food program, no need to worry. Whatever your bag, the UN can find somewhere that suits—in West Africa, it’s Sex-for-Food, with aid workers demanding sexual services from locals as young as four; in Cambodia, it’s drug dealing; in Kenya, it’s the refugee extortion racket; in the Balkans, sex slaves. "

"The actual head of the Oil-for-Food racket, Kofi sidekick Benon Sevan, has resigned, having hitherto insisted that a mysterious six-figure sum in his bank account was a gift from his elderly aunt, a lady of modest means who lived in a two-room flat in Cyprus. Paul Volcker’s investigators had planned to confirm with auntie her nephew’s version of events, but unfortunately she fell down an elevator shaft and died."

"Western proponents of Kyoto and some of the other loopy NGO-beloved eco-doom-mongering concepts up for debate in Montreal at the moment have at least this much in common with psychotic Third World thugocracies: they find it hard to win free elections, they regard transnational bodies as useful for conferring a respect unearned at the ballot box, and they are unduly troubled by the lack of accountability in global institutions.

Those of us who believe that big government is by definition remote government—and that therefore the UN’s pretensions to world government make it potentially the worst of all—should, in theory, argue for withdrawal from the organization." [MITM Note: We need to stay involved just enough to retain our veto over what would be done in the name of the U.N. in our absence.]

"the logic of the post-Cold War UN is to be institutionally anti-American. The U.S. could seize on Kofi Annan’s present embarrassment and lean hard on him to reform this and reorganize that and reinvent the other and, if it employs its full diplomatic muscle, it might get those anti-U.S. votes down to…a tad over 80%. And along the way it would find that it had “reformed” a corrupt, dysfunctional, sclerotic anti-American club into a lean, mean, functioning, effective anti-American club."

"When the tsunami hit last year, hundreds of thousands of people died within minutes. The Australians and Americans arrived within hours. The UN was unable to get to Banda Aceh for weeks."

"It’s a good basic axiom that if you take a quart of ice cream and a quart of dog mess and mix ’em together, the result will taste more like dog mess than ice cream. That’s the problem with the UN. If you make the free nations and the thug states members of the same club, the danger isn’t that they’ll meet each other half-way but that the free world winds up going three-quarters or seven-eighths of the way. Indeed, the UN has met the thug states so much more than half way that they now largely share the dictators’ view of their peoples—as either helpless children who need every decision made for them, or a bunch of dupes whose national wealth can be rerouted to a Swiss bank account. "

Update: One way to be mentally ill is to worry too much about why particular people don't like you, in the vain hope that if you just changed this or that you could achieve universal popularity. Some folks seem to want our country to do the same, assuming that if anyone anywhere bears us ill will, we and we alone must be at fault.

I'm a big fan of self-improvement, and not having too high an opinion of oneself. However, I am ultimately concerned about pleasing only our "audience of one" (God.)

You don't need to be a rocket scientist to figure out why the U.S. is unpopular. We are the "King of the Hill", and the one thing all other players agree on in that game is opposing the current king, merely because that player is where all the others would rather be.

Personally, I think the World should offer daily thanks that it is us in that role, rather than any other nation or group with designs on that position. Those who think otherwise might profitably reflect on how their favorite rights would fare under, for example, Chinese hegemony. And if our world were ruled by Sharia law, what are the odds abortion would still be legal, or gay pride parades permitted?

Update2: I'm reading an assigned book on the "plight" of the Palestinians, and find myself arguing with nearly every page. Here is an excellent story indicating once again why the Palestinians are not only innocent victims of evil Zionists, and why the United Nations has been worse than useless in helping Palestinians in finding successful and peaceful solutions to their many difficulties.

Money quote: "While the United Nations deals with the rest of the world's refugees with a single agency - the UN High Commission for Refugees - the Palestinian refugees have their very own agency, UNRWA, with a particular mission.

MANY OF UNRWA's employees are members not only of mainstream Palestinian terror factions such as Fatah, but of the Islamist Hamas group as well. UNRWA suffered a major embarrassment when its former director, the Norwegian bureaucrat Peter Hansen, admitted as much two years ago, saying it was no big deal. Indeed, in the recent Palestinian election, a number of UNRWA workers were Hamas parliamentary candidates. "

Note: I wrote, but forgot to publish this a year ago. Sadly, it remains timely, so I've posted it today.

How do you negotiate with someone who only wants you dead, especially when they are willing to die too?

Suicide bombings in recent years prove some Islamist terrorists are willing to die along with their victims, although Islamist leaders seem as fond of life as the rest of us.

As for negotiations, in the Islamist view our only choice is surrender or death.

Islamists have ben successfully appeased, but not for long.

Fortunately, there is a third alternative -- victory.

For all the fear and trouble unleashed by a terrorist attack such as that of 3/11 in Spain, terrorists have not enjoyed long-term success. It is a style of fighting chosen by the weak. And in the end, it usually fails.

Appeasement, on the other hand, always fails eventually.

So in the famous words of Iron Lady Margaret Thatcher, "This isn't the time to go all wobbly."

It isn't that there are no moderate Muslims in the U.S. Rather, it is that they pay a terrible price for speaking up.

Stephen Schwartz explains here why, if we want moderate Muslims to survive speaking out against extremists, we must support them against retaliatory attacks.

Sample paragraph: "Dr. Jasser’s case illustrates why American Muslims stay silent: because the price of speaking out is immediate, coordinated attack. Sometimes the Wahhabi offensive on American soil is accompanied by physical threats; violence is not excluded. Born Muslims, living “in the community,” seldom came to America expecting to find Islam in this country run by Wahhabis -- to the immigrant, it was inconceivable that such a situation would be permitted in the US. And yet, thanks to the Saudis, it came to pass, and just as President Bush should push the Saudis to quit financing radicalism, ordinary Americans should write groups like CAIR out of the roster of respectability. These are militants with an incurable penchant for intimidation. Their psychological reign of terror in America must end no less quickly than the literal bloodshed brought by their mentors in Iraq."

Just because a fox is in the henhouse doesn't make it a chicken. In the same way, just because a group like CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations) has a moderate-sounding name is not in and of itself evidence of moderation. (For more about CAIR, both it and its opponents have Web sites, here and here.

A further complication is that many Muslim extremists in America are amazingly well funded, primarily by the Saudis, and historically very successful at using that wealth to win over or destroy potential opposition within or beyond the Muslim community. A recent example is described here.

If we want to live in peace as equals with Muslims, it is imperative that we support those Muslims willing to live with us on that basis over Muslim extremists who refuse to allow the rest of us, including (among other groups) Christians, Jews, Hindus, Shiite and Sufi Muslims, Women and Gays the same rights intolerant Muslims claim only for themselves.

Another great resource for sorting all of this out fairly is Daniel Pipes.

Update: Abdurrahman Wahid, former president of Indonesia, concurs in this WSJ article, and offers many useful suggestions for both Muslims and non-Muslims in how to effectively counter Wahhabi extremism before another 9-11 or worse.

Update2: It gets worse, a lot worse. Last October, the Danish newspaper "Jyllands-Posten", in an intentional demonstration of the meaning of "freedom of speech" published 12 cartoons depicting Islam's prophet Mohammed. Yes, they knew Muslims oppose any such depiction as idolatry, but they are not Muslim, and wanted to show they are as free to depict Mohammed as, for example, Andre Serrano was to take the photo "Piss Christ" depicting Jesus on the Cross suspended in a jar of urine that offended Christians some years ago, or as free as cartoonists in Muslim countries who often depict Jews as pigs and monkeys.

To their great credit, the Danish government has continuously since supported the newspaper's rights to freedom of speech, and refused to punish the paper in any way. Muslims in multiple countries, on the other hand, have gone increasingly ballistic over the incident, issuing sufficiently-credible death threats against at least two of the cartoonists involved that they have gone into hiding. There has also been at least one bomb threat against the newspaper, leading to its offices being emptied, and suicide bomb threats against Denmark. All Danish products are now being boycotted in Saudi Arabia, and Danish citizens providing relief efforts in Muslim areas have been beaten and advised to leave.

Michelle Malkin has been covering this very well, here and here.

Yesterday, a French newspaper, in further defense of freedom of speech, republished the cartoons of Muhammad. As a result, the manager of that paper has been fired, making entirely the opposite point from that intended.

Who cares, you may ask? Frankly, you should. Martin Niemoller's famous World War II era poem makes the point well:
"First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left
to speak out for me."

We constantly hear how important freedom of speech is, yet if we do not defend it in cases such as this, we will very soon have no such right. Sadly, ex-President Bill Clinton once again chose another path.

What can you do? Well, for one thing, how about buying Danish products? In addition, have a look at the cartoons yourself, here.

Update3: Donald Sensing comments "This is not a demand for respect or fair treatment. It is a demand that non-Muslims live by Muslim religious rules. Let there be no doubt (as I have said before): this is definitely a religious war, if only on one side. Islamists consider democracy an infidel religion."

From England, sisu reports on an anonymous comment "Even my most left-wing friends have very suddenly become deeply anti-Muslim. ... It seems to be the end of tolerance for Muslims"

It is essential for tolerant persons of all faiths or lack thereof to speak up for mutual respect and toleration as equals now, before another 9-11 or worse results in some third undersecretary of the Post Office suddenly finding herself next in line of succession to the Presidency and wanting only the red button. Orson Scott Card's book "Shadow Puppets", which I recently read, speaks of an ascendant moderate Islam, but describes it as a result of portions of the Middle East being uninhabitable for centuries, with all that implies.

Sadly, the Vatican and U.S. State Department now seem to have joined ex-President Clinton on the path of attempting to appease militant Muslims rather than supporting European friends of freedom.

Update4: Dr. Sanity discusses the differences between guilt-based and shame-based cultures, and thereby sheds a lot of light on both the current controversy and underlying differences between Western and Muslim cultures. Sadly, he sees no way out, short of a "final confrontation", and adds "The last such culture the West dealt with was Japan during WWII. Interestingly, they also had their suicide bombers (kamikaze) and their ritual killings for honor and vengeance related to shame avoidance." In a way, that's hopeful, in that Japan became an admirable World citizen following their own "final confrontation."

Update5: Moderate Muslims just hosted an International Conference on Islam. Sadly, most of the media managed to avoid covering it, which turned out to be one of the points made by its organizers. It isn't that moderate Muslims don't speak up; it's that America's mainstream media ignore them when they do speak up.
"Well this conference went off with very little coverage from the MSM, something Mr. Gokcek noted during our talk."
I knew there was some reason I no longer subscribe to a newspaper, even though I'm a voracious reader. I suspect others feel the same. On a recent Sunday morning, only 4 of the 46 homes on our street had a newspaper in the driveway. When I was a paperboy, many years ago, nearly all of them would have been subscribers.

This blog is based on my centrist results on a political quiz. I'm also interested in similar quizzes on other topics. One such, just pointed out by Tennessee One Hand Clapping measures religious views. Since both Rev. Sensing and I have United Methodist roots, it's no huge surprise that we both scored highest on "Evangelical Holiness/Wesleyan." How about you? Take the free 5 minute Theological Worldview quiz here.

As I write this, there is a lot of agitation by Hollywood celebrities to save the life of California gang leader "Tookie." There was also recently a great furor of Singapore's execution of drug dealer "Mumia." As usual, in both those cases, liberals tended to view the matter differently than conservatives.

On the other hand, via the blogosphere I've just learned about the case of Cory Maye, another man sitting on death row, who both liberals and conservatives thus far agree is innocent. Despite that, there are not yet any Hollywood celebrities or prominent politicians pleading his case, and that's just wrong.

Briefly, a policeman helping execute a search warrant on a duplex broke in late at night, and may not have immediately identified himself as "police". The occupant, a black man with no criminal record, was home alone with his 18 month old daughter in a bad neighborhood. Awakened by an unknown person invading his home, he woke up, grabbed a gun and killed the intruder.

The dead policeman turned out to be Ron Jones, the son of the police chief in Prentice, MS. As a result, instead of apologizing for disturbing Maye's sleep and fixing his door, his jury found Maye guilty of capital murder and sentenced him to die.

I learned of this here , here and here

If you agree charging Maye, let alone executing him, appears unjust, you may want to join blog Silent Running in sending a letter to Governor Barbour on Cory Maye's behalf. Further, if you know a famous politician or rich celebrity in need of a deserving cause, or a really good lawyer in need of pro bono work, Cory Maye needs all our help.

Update: Entry above corrected to indicate the search warrant did cover both sides of the duplex. Updated info here.

Update2: Corrected again, to indicate the jury wasn't all white. Updated info in the first comment here, which, by the way, is the first sign I've seen of the regular media noticing this case.

Update3: Another correction, to indicate this wasn't a "No Knock" warrant, and the police report they did knock, though Maye disagrees. (All corrections are of info from the original source, and all updates are from that source.) Here's the latest.

Update4: Lots of transcripts from the trial are now posted by the original blogger on this issue (Radley Balko) here.

Update5: A whole lot of new info from the original blogger, who has just returned from a trip to investigate all this personally. Compelling reading!

As always, Christmas is controversial. This year's items include:

1) Conservatives are complaining that this year's Presidential greeting card doesn't include the word "Christmas." I received the Presidential greeting card, along with over a million others, so off to the refrigerator door to check. Sure enough, the card from George and Laura Bush reads "With best wishes for a holiday season of hope and happiness, 2005."

However, just one inch above that text, it also reads: "The Lord is my strength and shield; in Him my heart trusts; so I am helped, and my heart exults, and with my song I give thanks to Him." Psalm 28:7 (RSV.) Give it a rest folks. The Psalms are a long way from a generic "Happy Holidays."

2) This morning I was asked for my signature on a nominating petition for the state legislature by Rob Sherman, a locally-prominant atheist. He was surprisingly ordinary looking. No horns or pitchfork, just a tan wool overcoat. Even so, around here he's one of the best-known atheists since Madeline Muray O'hare, often mentioned in stories about opposition to nativity scenes on public property and crosses on city seals. His Web site is here. Though Rob would likely disagree, he's still a beloved child of the most-high God, for whom Christ died.

3) Evangelicals are also complaining, that some megachurches won't be having worship services on Christmas Day. One such church is ours, but the reason is simple -- the church is hosting Christmas services pretty much every other day that week to fit in everyone expected to attend.

I'm not hung up on the date myself. As one of our elders pointed out recently, we don't know for sure on what day of the year Jesus was born. But we do know for sure it was not December 25th. That is merely the day selected by Roman Emperor Constantine after he became a Christian, essentially repurposing two popular pagan winter festivals. (More info here.)

For anyone interested, our elder thinks Jesus was actually conceived during Hanukkah in December, and born during the Feast of Tabernacles in late September/early October. I've heard others suggest the birth was around the Feast of the Assumption of the Virgin August 15. Evidence for this includes that "there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night (Luke 2:8 NIV), which they would not have been doing in December.

4) My own pet peeve this Christmas, is that no one seems to be making an actual case for peace on Earth. What calls itself the peace movement in our day has nothing whatsoever to do with actual peace, so far as I can tell. In fact, it seems very much in favor of war, so long as it is waged by anyone else against us.

What is sadly lacking in our time is a real peace movement of people opposed to all wars everywhere, no matter which party is currently in the White House, no matter what armies are fighting, and no matter where and over what.

There is a strong case to be made for real peace, and no one ever made that case better than Jesus himself, along with Mahatma Ghandhi and Martin Luther King, both of whom openly followed Jesus' teaching regarding peace. Where are such people to be found today?

Even so, as Jesus said "In this world you will have trouble. But be of good cheer! I have overcome the world." (John 16:33)

Update: Although our church won't be having services on Christmas Day, our Senior Pastor will be sharing the pulpit at the House of Hope, the black church with which the Middlewife and 24 others from our church shared a bus for a week-long "Justice Journey" through civil rights history sites in the South.

The Daily Southtown also attributed a great response to Salem's pastor, State Senator James Meeks, when asked how he felt about Willowcreek not having services on Christmas. After noting Willowcreek expects 50,000 people to attend Christmas services earlier in the week, Meeks added "Unless a person has figured out a way to get that many people to one church on Christmas Sunday, they don't have a right to comment."

Instead, Meeks called the situation a "divine opportunity to bring together the two largest mega-churches (in the area), one white and one black."

So, anyone upset that Willowcreek cancelled Christmas, can now officially climb down off their cross, because building a relationship with Salem is easily more important for our church than anything else we could have done that day.

I've been buying software and music and videos for well over 25 years now, and for nearly all of those years, copy-protection has been hotly debated.

As a published author of both books and software, I definitely don't want folks using intellectual property without paying for it.

Even so, I have always considered copy-protection an evil to be avoided at all costs.

I'm OK with registration of software - the idea that you have to register with the vendor for a secret code that lets you use a program. That doesn't limit how often I can copy the program, or even how many computers I personally can use it on, so long as it is always me doing the using.

That's the old Borland "treat it like a book" idea, and I've never heard a good argument against it.

What I am utterly opposed to is the idea of limiting the number of installs allowed of a software program, or the number of times or ways a video or song can be copied or played. I've had too many hard drive failures and complete system rebuilds over the years to ever accept any such limitatons.

For that reason, I refuse to buy anything whatsoever that is copy-protected. All of my music files are MP3s, and I will not even consider purchasing music in any format protected in even the tiniest regard against my duplicating it as often as I need to, and onto any device I please. Hence, even though I use iTunes, I don't buy music that way.

But I do respect the right of the vendor to refuse to sell me an unprotected product, so long as they are open about the copy protection before purchase. Any vendor that hides copy protection from purchasers until after the sale deserves whatever evil befalls them.

I would even favor a law requiring all products that are copy-protected to be so labeled prominently on the package, so there can be no doubt prior to purchase.

Enter Sony/BMG. They have chosen to copy-protect many of their audio CDs, and did not have the common decency to alert consumers of this on the package.

For that reason, I favor all the lawsuits now engulfing Sony over the truly despicable method via which they chose to copy-protect some of their audio CDs. Even though they have finally (after intense pressure) agreed to replace audio CDs copy-protected via one particularly-evil rootkit technique. But they have not yet agreed to properly clean up the mess left behind, leaving consumers in danger until the entire PC hard drive is reformatted and all software re-installed!

I therefore now boycot all Sony products, even though I have lots of Sony gear, and have previously praised much of it, because I no longer trust Sony to do the right thing in any situation.

Gaining a reputation as a trustworthy partner took Sony years, but was lost in a moment, perhaps never to be regained.

C|net has a summary of the Sony issue here.

Update: Here's more info, from another article here:
Sony and EMI copy-protect CDs. Rival labels Warner Music and Universal don't. [Hence, I buy from Warner and Universal, and avoid Sony and EMI.]

Sony uses DRM tools from two companies, SunnComm and First 4 Internet.

The CD titles that use First 4's XCP software are the ones that recently got Sony into legal hot water.

To tell which kind of copy protection is on a CD, check the fine print on the back cover (a First 4 Internet CD will read ?cp.sonybmg.com/xcp).

Finally, if you ever insert a music CD in a computer and have it pop up a EULA (End User License Agreement) rather than starting to play music, you may be about to become a victim unless you immediately exit without accepting the EULA.

When you feel you must accept a EULA, at least read it all the way to the end, because some EULAs deny pretty much every right you ever had.

Update 2: Gartner Group points out Sony's efforts were pointless in any case.
"...what makes the Sony BMG incident even more unfortunate, is that the DRM technology can be defeated easily. The user can simply apply a fingernail-sized piece of opaque tape to the outer edge of the disc, rendering session 2 - which contains the self-loading DRM software, unreadable. The PC then treats the CD as an ordinary single-session music CD, and the commonly used CD "rip" programs continue to work as usual. (Gartner emphasizes that it does not recommend or endorse this technique.)

Gartner believes the industry would be better-served by efforts to develop solutions that use DRM as an accounting/tracking tool, rather than as a lock. This approach would enable them to move to play-based business models not tied to hardware, and to track their digital assets without complicating users' ability to move legitimately acquired content to whatever devices they choose."

Update3: Ed Foster has more:
"OK, so let's see what we've got here. A company that seems bent on sneaking files onto unsuspecting users' computers, pretending they've gotten permission to do so from a vaguely-worded EULA, transmitting a constant stream of usage information back to their servers, and using that information for who-knows-what revenue generating opportunities. Does this sound like a familiar profile to you? Of course, it's the profile of all the spyware/adware scum that have come very close to destroying the Internet just to make a few bucks peddling their trash.

But we shouldn't miss the fact that Sony's behavior with both its XCP and MediaMax implementations matches another pattern we've seen many times before. It's the serial DRM offender profile that Microsoft, Symantec, Intuit, and lesser lights in the software industry have exhibited. Their product activation and other forms of copy protection also aren't really about stopping piracy - they admit their DRM won't stop the software counterfeiters. It's about giving the vendors control over your usage of the products you buy, so they can decide if you're using it in ways they don't like, or that they ought to force you to upgrade, or that it's time to start selling the information they've collected about you to the highest bidder."

The article also reminds us Suncomm's copy protection is defeated by holding down the Shift key while starting its CDs. You may indeed want to do that. Here's why:
"While Halderman found no evidence of SunnComm's MediaMax using a rootkit, some of the things he did discover provide considerable grist for our behavioral profile of Sony. For one thing, before users can even say yes or no to accepting the Sony EULA, MediaMax has already installed a dozen files on their hard drive and started running the copy protection code. The files remain even if the user rejects the EULA, and the Sony CDs provide no option for uninstalling the files at a later date."

I'm just back from most of a week in Waveland, Mississippee, as part of a church team helping Katrina survivors.

We've all heard horror stories of government aid in the wake of Katrina. What hasn't been as clear is just how much better charity worked than government in helping survivors.

Beyond that, it is now clear how much more effective the aid of one well-trained and prepared man was than the aid of our entire huge church in the crucial first days after the disaster.

Here's the story, as I understand it: Last year Hurricane Ivan struck the coast of Alabama, and churches throughout the South provided assistance. In response, the people of Christian Life Church in Orange Beach, Alabama decided to become a church that helps others in future hurricanes.

Their pastor (Rick Long) is involved in homeland security preparedness, so one day after Katrina, he and a team in 2 trucks arrived in Waveland, MS, "Ground Zero" of the worst damage from Katrina, though you'd never know it from all the media coverage of New Orleans. How bad was it? A 30' wave destroyed everything (and I do mean everything) up to ten miles from the shore.

He found people camped out in a Kmart parking lot, having lost everything and fearing for their lives, sure no one would ever care about their small (pop. 7.500) town.

In response, the church team set up grills and started cooking. On realizing the need was greater than their ability to handle alone, they also placed two phone calls, one to a pastor friend at Heartland Church in Rockford, IL, and the other to our senior pastor at Willowcreek.

In the long run, our church was a great help. It raised $860K, paying for a huge tent now used to house volunteers coming to help, and also for other tents to hold food and clothing and serve 3 hot meals a day to thousands of people. It has also sent at least 7 semi loads of new clothing and supplies, and two teams of volunteers per week.

But it took a couple of weeks for us to get moving. Meanwhile, our smaller partner churches were already there in force, doing what needed doing, including using all of Christian Life Church's $1.2M building fund to help, and turning the abandoned J.C. Penny store at Heartland's planned new building site into a sorting center for donations of used clothing. Folks in Waveland are sure the death toll there would have been much higher otherwise.

Eventually the government showed up, both state and federal, and is doing some good, such as supplying FEMA trailers to the few residents lucky enough to live on the only 3 streets in town that have electricity, potable water, and working sewers 2 months after the hurricane.

FEMA also sends trucks around to pick up the debris from the hurricane, but only after residents place it by the side of the road. For many folks that's reasonable. But part of our team had to assist an 80 year old couple, who would otherwise never have been able to clean out what's left of their home.

Many people today (including politicians of both major parties) assume that no matter the need, the Federal government needs to be involved. Yet, the founders of our nation intentionally rejected that idea, knowing that wherever the Feds step in to "help", they eventually also step in to control.

The failure of the Russian economy under Communism was partly due to attempts by bureaucrats in Moscow trying to micromanage economic details throughout the nation. Communism was also plagued by all the usual flaws of spending "other peoples' money". (To paraphrase P.J. O'Rourke, if I'm spending other peoples' money on myself, I need the gold-plated version, but if I'm spending on other people, any old thing will do.)

I think it's great that government is helping in Waveland, doing those things it is best at doing. I also think it is great that churches and charities and their volunteers are involved, because frankly, they do many things better and faster than they can be done by even the best government.

One final note: Katrina will be with Waveland for 4-5 years. That's how long the coast may take to rebuild. We too need to be there, not only for a few days, but as long as we are needed.

Right now, prayers are needed, to help discern what that aid needs to look like, as the owner of the shopping center parking lot on which the aid tents are set up asks for the church tents to be moved somewhere else so reconstruction of the shopping center can begin.

Update: Blog entries by volunteers who have served at Kamp Katrina can be found here. As bloggers always say, read the whole thing! Our pastor often says the local church, when it's working right, is the hope of the World, but rarely has that been more literally true and visible than at Kamp Katrina. As I wrote a friend today: "The Church was a Huge force for good there, and by that I mean the big Capital C Church, not just Willow. For instance, while I was there, a caravan of 9 cars of Mennonites arrived from the Pacific Northwest loaded with handmade quilts for the victims. There were over a hundred volunteers from at least a dozen churches on site, all functioning as one harmonious body. You had to be there to believe it possible this side of Heaven."

OK, two more stories to close:
1) One item in high demand and short supply in the Camp Katrina clothing store was sleeping bags. Many folks in Waveland are still sleeping in tents, and will likely do so all this winter.

Our last sleeping bag in stock one day went to an African-American woman. On seeing her receive it, a Caucasian man came up and asked if he could get one too. Our volunteer apologized that no, this was the last one we had. At that, the woman with the sleeping bag looked at him and asked, "Where you sleepin'?" Then, after his reply, she handed him the bag, saying "Here, you need this more'n me."

2) One thing I love about such trips is the way God shows up, with exactly what's needed, at just the right time. We desperately needed large mens' shoes, in sizes up to and beyond 13. We prayed for it our first day, and found some a few minutes later. Then, just as we left on our last day, 3 huge boxes of mens' shoes showed up, including lots of big ones. It's a real faith-builder to see God move in such ways.

Update2: It turns out there are two blogs with entries labeled "Waveland Report." Here's a link to the other Waveland Report. (Scroll to the bottom to see Kylene Fritz's report - her blog doesn't appear to support permalinks.) Though we are from different parts of the country, and were in Waveland a week apart, we slept in the same tent, and the folks on our team were VERY appreciative of the efforts of her team, because they were the toilet cleaners. She also mentions us as "a church in Chicago that has crews coming down every week..." (Actually, it's two Chicago area churches, but close enough.) Her report adds a lot of useful detail about events in Waveland, so be sure to read the whole thing.

The Middlewife has for over a year been receiving bunches of Republican surveys that are actually thinly-disguised fundraising letters. Since they demand a minimum contribution to be tabulated, and no such gift will ever come from her, we've been round-filing them. Now, with Republicans spending, as one blogger put it, "like drunken Democrats", I too am committed to giving "Not one more dime" to such a party.

Therefore, in case anyone from the GOP gives a rip what someone who donated the max to their last Presidential campaign thinks, here are my answers to the current survey.

War on Terrorism:
1. Do you support President Bush in his efforts to wipe out terrorism worldwide even if this war goes on for many years? [Yes]
2. Do you think American troops should pursue terrorists and their leaders even if it means going into countries where we are not invited? [Yes]

Homeland Security:
3. How concerned are you that we potentially face more terrorism within the United States and that it will directly impact your family? [Somewhat Concerned]
4. How confident are you that the Department of Homeland Security will be able to keep America safe from future terrorist attacks? [Not Very Confident is the most negative response listed. My actual response is Zero Confidence!]
5. Some critics say that in tracking down potential foreign terrorists, the FBI and other investigative agencies are infringing on individuals' Constitutional rights. Do you think this is reasonable if it leads to exposing more terrorists in our country? [Yes. Foreigners have Constitutional rights?]
6. Should resident aliens and all non-citizens be required to carry an I.D. card issued by the Immigration and Naturalization Service while they are in the U.S.? [Yes. Everyone else legally in this country should also carry a secure ID.]
7. Do you think our government is doing enough to secure America's borders against foreign terrorists? [No]
8. Do you believe that all foreigners within the United States whose visas have expired should be found and deported? [Yes]
9. What is of greatest concern to you and your family right now? [Other - Big Government Conservatism.]

Economy:
10. How confident do you feel that America's economy will continue to grow stronger in the next six months? [Somewhat confident]
11. Which of the the following factors (Burdensome taxes, Gas prices, Stock market, Questionable corporate governance, Severe government regulations, Threat of terrorism, Growth of government spending, or Other) is most adversely affecting our economy? [Growth of government spending.]
12. President Bush and the Republicans in Congress have passed historic tax cuts. Do you agree that additional tax cuts are needed to spur the economy and relieve the tax pressure on America's citizens? [No. Until spending is brought under control, it's pointless to talk about further tax cuts.]
13. Do you agree that a top prioity should be making President Bush's $1.3 trillion tax cut permanent? [No. Not while deficit spending continues.]
14. Do you support eliminating the Death Tax? [No - I'm a strong supporter of the Estate Tax, as a way of helping each new generation start on a more level playing field. If government has to get my money, let them take it from my cold dead hands.]
15. Do you believe the nation's tax code should be completely overhauled and streamlined? [Yes. I favor an income tax return that fits on a postcard, but doesn't favor the rich over the poor.]
16. Do you agree that Congress must provide more incentives for work and entrepreneurship to promote job creation? [No - Just cut oppressive regulations.]

Social Security/Medicare:
17. Do you agree with President Bush that it is imperative to modernize and restore fiscal soundness to Social Security? [Yes]
18. Do you support President Bush's proposal to allow individuals to choose to invest a certain portion of their Social Security money in order to build a stronger retirement fund? [Yes]
19. Do you feel it is imperative that Congress act today to ensure the financial stability of the Medicare program? [Yes, along with every other item in the budget.]
20. Do you think that all costs for prescription drugs should be covered under Medicare? [No]

Health Care:
21. Are you pleased with the quality of health care you currently receive? [Yes]
22. Do you agree that there should be reasonable limits on punitive damages on the amount of money patients and trial lawyers can collect when suing their doctors or HMO's? [Agree]
23. How much of a role should the federal government have in an individual's health care [Limited role - only as an umpire ensuring fair competition.]

Education:
24. Do you agree with President Bush's reform proposal of flexibility and local control that will reduce red tape and give states and local schools unprecedented flexibility in using federal funds to produce results? [Yes]
25. Should states be encouraged to develop methods to test teachers regularly to ensure they are proficient in the subject they teach? [Yes]
26. Should a federally-funded voucher system be established to allow inner city parents to move their children from failing public schools to better performing schools? [Yes]
27. What do you see as the major cause of the decline in America's education (Complacent parents, Not enough discipline, Not enough money, Too much bureaucracy, Poor teachers, Crowded classrooms, Other)? [Other - lack of competition.]

National Defense:
28. Do you back President Bush's efforts to build a "missile defense shield" to protect America from nuclear attack from rogue states such as North Korea and Iran? [Yes]
29. Is America doing enough to revamp, restore and strengthen our armed forces to meet the needs and challenges of the 21st Century [Yes]
30. President Bush has announced the most comprehensive restructuring of U.S. military forces overseas since the end of the Korean War by redeploying troops to better face the threats of a post-Cold War world. Do you agree? [Yes]

Foreign Affairs:
31. In the recent election, President Bush made it clear that "the United Nations will never dictate U.S. foreign policy." Do you agree with that statement? [Yes]
32. Which of the following do you think will have the most impact on America in the next 5 years (The situation in Iraq, Unstable economic markets in key areas of the world, The threat of terrorism, North Korea's possession of nuclear weapons, The instability in the Middle East, The growing military and economic clout of China, Other)? [Other - failure to reduce dependence on Mideast oil]
33. Do you agree with President Bush's policy that the establishment of a free Iraq in the heart of the Middle East will be a watershed event in the global democratic revolution? [Yes]
34. Do you support President Bush's Emergency Plan for AIDS relief, a five-year, $15 billion initiative to turn the tide in combatting the global HIV/AIDS pandemic? [No - better done by private contributions through churches and charities.]

Immigration:
35. Do you think that America should be doing more to secure our borders and keep illegal immigration to a minimum? [Yes]
36. President Bush has proposed a temporary guestworker program to match willing foreign workers with willing U.S. employers when no Americans can be found to fill the jobs. Are you in favor of this proposal? [Yes - only because it's better controlled than intentionally letting in illegals]
37. Do you believe Congress should place stricter limits on legal immigration? [Yes - prospective immigrants should be required to support such American values as freedom]
38. Are you concerned about the current unprecedented levels of illegal immigration? [Yes]
39. Do you support increased funding for border control operations? [Yes]

Supreme Court/Federal Courts
40. How do you feel the current U.S. Supreme Court is positioned? [Too liberal]
41. Do you believe it is acceptable to apply "litmus tests" on key issues to potential Supreme Court nominees? [No, we can't predict what issues they will face.]
42. Do you think that confirmation of federal and Supreme Court judges should simply require a majority vote of 51 U.S. Senators or should 60 votes be needed to break a Senate filibuster? [51 votes]

Federal Government:
43. In recent years, has the federal government grown more or less intrusive in your personal and business affairs? [More intrusive]
44. Is President Bush right in trying to rein-in the size and scope of the federal government against the wishes of the big government Democrats? [Yes. If only either he or Republicans WERE trying!]
45. Are you in support of President Bush's Faith Based and Community initiatives that will allow federal funding to be allocated to qualifying religious organizations to further social and community works? [Yes]

General Issues:
46. Congress recently passed a "class-action reform" bill to bring an end to frivolous and costly lawsuits that are getting out of control. Do you approve of this legislation? [Yes]
47. Does the national new media accurately report the news without liberal bias? [No]
48. Do you support the President's plan to unify our nation around a comprehensive energy plan that protects consumers while producing more reliable, affordable and environmentally clean energy? [Yes]
49. Should Congress authorized additional oil exploration in Alaska to help alleviate America's over reliance on Middle East oil in the future? [Yes]
50. Considering the massive amount of money spent in the 2004 elections by so called "527 independent groups" which were allowed to take millions of dollars from single individuals, do you feel that additional reforms are needed to our campaign finance laws? [Yes - GET RID OF ALL OF THEM BEYOND REQUIRING FULL DISCLOSURE.]
51. Do you believe all abortions should be banned? [No - Some are requred to save the life of the mother.]
52. Do you think there should be a Constitutional Amendment banning gay marriage? [No]

The President and Congress:
53. Generally, are you satisfied with the accomplishments of the Republicans in Congress? [No - but Democrats have managed to behave even worse.]
54. How do you rate President Bush's job performance thus far? [Good - his shepherding of the War on Terror still barely outweighs his many other missteps.]
55. Do you agree that the obstructionist Democrats should not be allowed to gain control of the U.S. Congress in the 2006 elections? [Yes, but having today's RINOs controlling it isn't much better.]
56. In your opinion, how does the federal government best function (When one party controls both the White House and Congress, When one party controls the White House and another party controls Congress, When control of Congress is split between both parties, No Opinion)? [No Opinion - I'm seeing a serious need for a third party for fiscal responsibility again lately.]
57. What do you consider the most important steps the Republican Party can take in the coming months to ensure continued control of Congress? [Cut government spending and regulation, simplify tax forms, enforce borders, help the poor, reform the judiciary, and wage war effectively against Islamic Terrorists.]

Update: In the wake of the Miers withdrawal, Republicans must also nominate and do whatever it takes to confirm, an excellent jurist to the Supreme Court, someone with real respect for the unique chemistry that makes our Constitution work as is, rather than a foolish lust to "improve" it. I won't mind if the next nominee is from somewhere other than Harvard or Yale, but I will care what they believe. Please, no more "stealth" candidates who turn out to be closet judicial activists like Souter. Please also no more limiting the pool to only women, or only persons of color, or other Hispanics, etc.

At least some liberals will attempt nuclear war over the next nominee, no matter who it is, so let's make the nominee worth the resulting fight, including using, if necessary, the "nuclear option", rather than solely trying to make the Court "look like America", or limiting the choice to judges suggested by Democrats.

It's likely also time for a serious discussion with the RINOs, to see who if anyone good they are willing to back to the hilt. (And if the answer is "no one", let's make sure that answer is heard loud and clear by conservatives, so blame ends up rightly assigned.

Personally, if he still wanted the job, I'd nominate Robert Bork again. He's already been "borked" once. What more could anyone do to him now? To me, his competence for the job seems as far beyond honorable dispute now in retrospect as it did to me at the time.

Update2:
Just when I thought it couldn't get any worse, I understand our two top Republican leaders in Congress spent the day today whining about excess oil industry profits, while simultaneously suggesting oil companies build more refineries, apparently without a clue there might be a link between increased profits and increased supply. Somebody get them each a copy of Thomas Sowell's Basic Economics!

On the bright side, at least one of the two now has his own blog here.

Update3: Bob Krumm offers sure-fire advice to Democrats on how to win the next Presidential election. Sadly, most Democrats I know would rather die than take Krumm's advice, thereby leaving intact the one issue Republicans can still rely upon to energize their base.

"I offer Democrats a sure-fire, absolutely guaranteed way to win the Presidency in 2008: Let Bush win the war in Iraq.

Instead of looking backward to question why we're at war, Democrats should focus on winning by increasing the size of the military, portraying a positive message, supporting not just the troops, but also their mission, and showing the world a united homefront in the midst of war."

Update4: Lately I've taken to returning all the Republican fundraising materials I receive with this notation: "Not one dime more until you get serious about porkbusting and defending the border." In the case of Republican Senate fundraising letters, I also add they need to get serious about judicial reform. A well-qualified conservative has now been nominated to the Supreme Court. Now we need to see if Republicans in the Senate have the courage to get him confirmed. Those who lack that courage will also lack my support.

Update5: Democratic blogger Kos sensibly points out "If Democrats can nationalize this election, and really work the culture of corruption in as a big theme for the election, I think it could be devastating to the Republican Party. That is what happened to the Democrats in 1994. We were the corrupt party then. It was not pretty being a Democrat. But it took Democrats 30 years to become a totally corrupted party and it took the GOP only 10 years."

Instapundit similarly comments "Republicans need to be worried about this. The temptation will be to try to shore up their position by buying votes, but the GOP base is offended by this stuff and may be motivated to stay home. As always, the GOP's best hope lies in the Democrats doing something stupid. But that's a hope, not a strategy, notwithstanding how well it's worked in the past.

Limiting pork -- which will require structural changes in the House and Senate -- is not only a good political move. It's the right thing to do. The question is whether the GOP will be smart enough, and principled enough, to do something that's both smart, and right. I'm not overly optimistic about that."

Neither am I. If any Republican other than President Bush has taken a principled stand on any issue and backed it to the wall no matter the consequences, I missed it.

Update6: There's an election for a house Republican leader to replace Tom DeLay today. If early frontrunner Roy Blount (considered a DeLay clone) wins, we'll know the Republicans still haven't gotten the message about the need for reform from their base or the blogosphere. If John Shadegg wins, we'll know the reach of the blogosphere is indeed long, as he has been heavily supported by prominent bloggers as the best pro-reform candidate. For details, see this analysis.

Update7: And the winner is John Boehner, indicating at least some sensitivity to the need for reform by Republicans in the House, but definitely not merely doing whatever the blogosphere wants.

Every time I read a newly-arrived privacy notice, with one exception it essentially ends up saying you have no privacy. We'll do whatever we want with your personal information, and you can't do a thing about it.

The exception is Vanguard, an admirable provider of low-cost mutual funds. I hereby offer Vanguard thanks and praise for protecting my personal information, and encourage everyone to invest with Vanguard.

Not an exception is Yahoo, which recently helped the Chinese government prosecute Chinese journalist Shi Tao by providing IP address information about the computer used to post a message to a Yahoo email account, which in turn posted an anonymous message to a New York-based Chinese-language Web site. Since that IP address was shared by many users, the Yahoo-provided information may have been essential in identifying the sender. Full details here.

Yahoo presumably feels it has to obey the laws of the countries in which it has chosen to operate, even those of a totalitarian dictatorship known to imprison and torture folks who speak too freely. Yahoo's first mistake may have been in agreeing to operate according to such laws.

I strongly advise anyone using a Yahoo account anonymously to seek a different Email service provider - someone with more fiber in their backbone. (Geek pun intended.)

Although the U.S. Supreme Court sometimes sees a privacy right in the "penumbra and emanations" of the U.S. Constitution (Justice Douglass in Griswold v. Connecticut), such rights do not yet appear to protect individuals from commercial (as opposed to governmental) violations.

Update: The usual suspects, yearning for another impeachment, are newly indignant that NSA programs descended from the Clinton era ECHELON project continue to data mine telecommunications, and are further offended that Post-911 radiation monitors drive past mosques. The rest of us thank God and government for vigorous national defense in time of war.

Given that what is being rumored to be monitored in both cases is accessible to anyone, it is futile to claim any associated right of privacy. Data gathered thereby may not be admissible in court, but scanner fans, hackers and amateur radio (ham) operators worldwide access such information constantly.

The U. Penn college coed who The Fire reports recently engaged in sexual relations 3 days in a row while standing in front of a picture window, yet filed a sexual harassment claim against a photographer who eventually noticed needs to get a clue and shut the drapes.

The rest of us need to remember cell phone conversations and Emails are no more private than postcards. Speak and write as though there are no secrets, because in the end, there aren't. As Shakespeare once said, "The truth will out."

Update2: Web site "cookies" have been re-discovered, by those who wish to complain about their privacy implications when used by government Web sites. I agree the site settings for the use of cookies are horrid in many such sites, but frankly they are no better at the sites of some of the complainers.

This is even a debate I've had with my church, which for a time wouldn't allow a visitor to visit even the home page of its Web site without requesting permission to download and install Macromedia's Flash video viewer. I pointed out that such a request might drive off precisely the untrusting newcomers the church most wanted to attract, but at the time that comment fell on deaf ears.

Personally, I've found a cookie solution that works well. I use the Zone Alarm firewall, and set its privacy defaults to allow unlisted Web sites only temporary session cookies, automatically expiring and deleting them as soon as the browser is closed.

I then manually add additional cookie rights for specific sites that I do want to be able to save cookies longer and use private headers. If necessary, I also permit sites I trust to run mobile code. Only very rarely do I permit a sites to use third-party cookies, and I never permit Web bugs.

Sadly, many useful sites fail to operate at all unless the site is allowed to set cookies. It would be better, in my opinion, if users stayed away from all such sites, as that would eventually force such sites to repent and change their ways, much as updated browser default settings recently forced most Web sites to give up the use of pop-up and pop-under ads.

According to this story, a Hampton Inn in Brookhaven, MS recently asked some Hurricane Katrina evacuees to check out so it could honor other reservations.

At first I didn't understand this at all - either way the room is rented, so why kick out an already-paying and potentially long-term customer in favor of another potential customer?

The possible explanation described by the story seems vastly worse: "Hurricane evacuees — often several family members packed into a single hotel room — can be a burden on hotel staff. They also use more water and electricity, and do not spend much on food and incidentals.

They "could be occupying a room that could otherwise be occupied by a higher-paying guest who's spending lots of money on telephone, food and beverage," said Bjorn Hanson, a hotel industry analyst with PriceWaterhouseCoopers in New York"

I hated that logic when the U.S. Supreme Court used it in Kelo v. New London to justify using eminent domain to take a taxpayer's land and give it to another taxpayer expected to owe more taxes, and it doesn't sound a bit better now. I can just hear the innkeeper of Bethlehem explaining why the stable out back is sufficient for pregnant Mary because other guests out-spend Joseph.

A vastly-better response came from a nearby competitor:
"At a Comfort Inn across the street from the Hampton Inn in Brookhaven, assistant manager Amanda Smith said no one was being asked to leave.

'What would you do? They're homeless. You can't turn them away. It's morally wrong. I'd rather inconvenience our people with reservations,' Smith said."

La Shawn Barber recently asked for comments about reparations for slavery. This was my comment:

In my opinion, the big issue in the reparations discussion isn't pigment but poverty. Almost everyone now alive is descended from some slave somewhere, as slavery was practiced almost everywhere for thousands of years (and even considered humane compared to offing defeated opponents.) Figuring out who deserves reparations for slavery based only on heritage would be difficult.

On the other hand, we need to get serious about helping life-long Americans with significant African heritage among our citizenry who are not making it in America through no obvious fault of their own to join their more-successful peers in the ownership society, for the good of us all.

My suggestion for this would be to gradually transfer ownership of public housing to its tenants. Naturally, lots of education about what it means to own a condo as part of an association of owners rather than rent an apartment as an individual would be needed. There would also need to be strong protections against recipients being conned out of the new property for years to come.

The benefit to the government of such a plan is that it would transfer assets to the poor immediately, but the bill for doing so would be paid very gradually over thirty years, as bonds that financed affected buildings are paid off.

Author Steven Den Beste just posted this memorable comment on the Miserable Donuts blog:
"A 'racist' is anyone who is winning an argument with a lefty."

Den Beste also commented:
"A 'sexist' is anyone who is winning an argument with a woman."

In response to the expected high costs of coping with Hurricane Katrina, leading lights in the blogosphere are asking bloggers to each identify at least one local pork project that might well be foregone in order to cope with Katrina damage. (Details here.)

That seems an extremely sensible goal. After all, when disaster befalls any of us in our personal lives (such as my suddenly having to replace a furnace last December), we limit other purchases until the debt is repaid. The Federal government can do the same.

Even very sensible investments in infrastructure that will be important someday may not be feasible to pay for this year along with Katrina's costs. They'll still be needed in another year, and can be done then, or after the end of the War on Terror.

One of my pet peeves about Viet Nam is that President Johnson refused either to raise taxes to cover the costs of that war, or to reduce social spending on his "Great Society", leading to the horrendous inflation of the 70s. Johnson's slogan was "Guns and Butter", which anyone who has taken Economics 101 knows is simply impossible.

Much though I appreciate President Bush's leadership in the War on Terror, I wish he weren't so fond of big Federal budgets. Who would have thought that the first president never to veto a spending bill would be Republican?

I hope that devotion to more and more Federal spending doesn't return to bite us in a few years with "stagflation" as in the 1970s. But speaking as one with a degree in Economics, Guns versus Butter remains an either/or choice.

In the spirit of porkbusting, here's a project I support, but am very willing to see delayed for a few years in order to meet emergency needs without busting the Federal budget:

Citizens Against the Sprawlway suggests taking $207 Million currently budgeted to start a 35 mile link from I-88 to I-80 known to its supporters as the Prarie Parkway, and using those funds to repair the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway.

Until now, I've been quite offended by the Sprawlway folks, as stereotypical short-sighted NIMBYs (Not In My Back Yard.)

One of the smartest things the State of Massachusetts did, decades ago, was to build I-495 in the middle of "God-foresaken nowhere" as bypass around Boston. At the time, Route 128 was the edge of town, but by building I-495 another hour further out when land was cheap, needed infrastructure was already there when further growth happened decades later.

Much as I support the Prairie Parkway, for the same reasons as I-495, it really won't matter if it is delayed a few years until Katrina and the War on Terror have been fully resolved.

So the Prarie Parkway is my suggestion of a project I support in my area that I nonetheless offer to delay in order to balance the Federal budget.

I also support three other already-offered suggestions:
1) Senator McCain (R-AZ) suggests scrapping the new Medicare prescription drug benefit. (It is already expected to cost double its original estimate, and has won no thanks from beneficiaries.)
2) a moratorium on all new pork (projects not approved via usual budgetary processes.)
3) Cutting all non-defense and non-emergency response discretionary Federal spending by a few percent.

Update: We must also be extremely wary of waste and corruption in the use of government funds sent to help victims of Katrina. Some of their misery is due to misuse of previously-provided funds. Let's not just throw money at the same folks who wasted it before.

For instance, the moment I heard evacuees were to be given $2K debit cards, without any hint of helping folks use the funds wisely, I knew there would be trouble. And there was. At least one person reportedly used one to buy an $800 purse in Atlanta, and others used them in liquor stores.

But bad though such stories are, I'm much more concerned about other reported instances of waste, such as taking money granted to strengthen levees, and using it to buy riverboats for gambling.

I oppose all assistance and reconstruction aid, no matter the resulting harm to victims, unless such obvious fraud and corruption can be avoided, not because I don't care, but because such stories lead donors to close wallets, as misplaced funds fail to reach and help intended recipients.

Update2: Peggy Noonan, as always, has excellent thoughts on this subject.

Update3: Cox and Forkum demonstrate anew the power of a picture.

Update4: One response to Republican spendthrifts is a "Not One Dime More" campaign, refusing to donate any more money to the political campaigns of those who aren't facing the necessary hard decisions about allocating resources among competing needs with our government's existing revenue streams from all our pockets.

Seems right to me. Unfortunately, it now all makes sense that President Bush has never vetoed a spending bill. I'm all for compassionate conservatism, just as I'm all for fiscally conservative liberals. We in the richest country in history do need to care about the poor and downtrodden. But even the richest country in history cannot do everything simultaneously, and via the Federal government is often not the best way to do even things that very badly need to be done.

All that's left to repeat his father's most obvious failings as President is for "W" to support higher taxes to pay for all this pork.

Ross, where are you now that we need you again?

Update5: We got another Republican fundraising letter today. Needless to say, our reply was "Not one dime more!"

An excellent point made in the book "Bulletproof: The Making of an Invincible Mind" by Chuck Holton, is that both television screens and computer screens can be very detrimental to health.

Why?
1) engaging in passive behavior for hours a day
2) content so trivial and shallow it diminishes the mind
3) constant messages of fear, both real and imaginary
4) constant invitations to sin

Holton makes these points regarding children. In my opinion the points apply equally to adults.

A famous principle in computer science is "garbage in, garbase out". Following that principle, I avoid entertainment inappropriate for young children. If I wouldn't let anyone peddle filth or fear to kids, what good can it possible do me?

I've gradually given up television entirely, but the point also applies to computer users. After a week like the one just past, I'm beginning to consider so-called "news" obtained via the Web to be just as poisonous as watching it on TV, even when the angry views being offered are coming from folks with whom I otherwise agree.

Shades can confirm we didn't allow violent computer games in our home. (Pac Man was OK; Doom was not.)

I find I'm even comfortable now without music in the background all day. There's a lot to be said for being comfortable in my own skin, and not needing to be distracted from my own thoughts.

The main point of Holton's excellent book is that we need fear nothing other than being outside God's will for our lives.
"Fear God. Nothing else."
"Perfect obedience equals perfect safety"
"The world defines safe as 'secure from danger, harm, injury, or evil.' The Bible's definition is much simpler: being on God's side."

Should we still be prepared? Definitely. Ready, but not afraid.
Perhaps a worthy stance for us all on this fourth anniversary of 9-11.

I recently read Orson Scott Card's book Sarah, in which one of the events was the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah (from which comes the modern word "sodomy".

One of the Biblical themes regarding Sodom and Gomorrah is that their destruction came after a long moral decline. The end may have come in a moment, but the rot came long before.

Such things are also now beginning to be said about New Orleans, with greater or lesser credibility. On the greater side is a comment that while the South in general has renewed and bloomed over the past generation, New Orleans has been a glaring exception: the most corrupt city in the most corrupt state in the Union. (That is said not to overly blame the current mayor, elected only 3 years ago, even though his own failures in disaster preparedness are now obvious.)

On the lesser side is this comment:
"The image of the hurricane . . . with its eye already ashore at 12:32 p.m. Monday, August 29, looks like a fetus (unborn human baby) facing to the left (west) in the womb, in the early weeks of gestation (approx. 6 weeks)...

"Louisiana has 10 child-murder-by-abortion centers," the groups says, and "five are in New Orleans."

In response, blogger Chrenkoff opines "I prefer to believe in a God that doesn't need to cause $100 billion worth of damage and kill possibly thousands of people just to close down five abortion clinics and stop a few homosexuals from prancing around."

I'm with Chrenkoff in that, and yet, as both the Bible and Card's book on Sarah make clear, sometimes the only way to avoid going down with a sinking ship is to get out before it's too late, as did most of Lot's family.

Another book I'm currently reading Bulletproof: The Making of an Invincible Mind by Chuck Holton points out that there is only one thing for a Christian to fear in life - being outside God's will in any situation. He points out how being outside that will can have consequences, not only for ourselves, but also for bystanders and descendents, as God inevitably and eventually deals with corruption.

Does this mean Christians should stay away from sinful places? Not at all. Holton reminds us that if the worst happens, and we die along with the corrupt in such a situation, we end up immediately in Heaven - no downside there! Just as Jesus spent his days among the last, the least and the lost, despite their many and obvious sins, so must His followers today care deeply about and be fully engaged with those far from God, even if doing so results in going home sooner.

Makes sense to me. As the Bible says, who among us can increase his span of life by even an instant, by going against what we know to be God's will for our life? Even if we could do so, would it be worth the eternal risk?

If New Orleans was politically corrupt for decades, its eventual destruction should not have come as a surprise to anyone.

And yet, if that's where the least and the last and the lost were to be found, we can be sure God and God's people were among them. Those saints are now, like Sarah, safe in the bosom of Abraham.

Update: Eugene Volokh points out, sensibly, that if God sent Hurricane Katrina as a way to punish evil, a reasonable followup question would be "Does God dislike poor people?" As Volokh puts it:
"After all, poor people generally bear the brunt of most natural disasters: It's harder for them to evacuate; they are less likely to have insurance; their assets are less likely to be diversified, so the economic damage is more likely to be severe for them; they are closer to the poverty line, so even small losses may harm them more than larger losses harm rich people; and so on. If you live in a poor country, you're much more likely to suffer from disasters than if you live in a rich country. If you're poor in any country, you're much more likely to suffer from disasters than if you're rich.

So, which is it: Does God dislike poor people? Or might it be that disasters, wars, and diseases are actually not God's punishment for sin?"

In preparation for Y2K, I prepared a disaster plan for my office at the time. It considered pretty much everything that could go wrong in Chicago in January if all the computers stopped working.

One thing now clear after Hurricane Katrina is that New Orleans had a plan for dealing with a Category 4 or 5 hurricane, updated just last year after the scare from Hurricane Ivan. Another thing now clear is that New Orleans pretty much ignored the plan and didn't do much of anything useful before the hurricane, nor afterwards before the levees failed, and not much useful ever since.

What they and many others did do a whole lot of, was cast blame, trying to pin all the fault for a major natural disaster on one of the very few people who actually did anything about the danger in advance.

Yep, in their minds, it was all the fault of President Bush, either because some National Guard soldiers and their gear are in Iraq, or because he didn't support the Kyoto treaty on global warming, or because they think he doesn't care about poor blacks.

Never mind that only one school bus in all of New Orleans was actually used to evacuate poor people to Houston (a "crime" for which its driver may yet be arrested), with all the other buses unnecessarily rusting and polluting back in New Orleans right next to a superhighway a mile from the Superdome, even though the hurricane plan called for their use.

Never mind that the only reason there was a mandatory evacuation order given was because President Bush personally requested it.

Now we have a world class mess on our hands, and many of the victims could easily have been spared much of their misery, had the city and state government done more than run their mouths while sitting on their hands waiting for magic to happen.

As is often the case in our fallen world, those who whine the most about how everything bad is someone else's fault may themselves be the incompetents responsible for the mess.

The only good thing about this disaster thus far is that it is the first time in my life I can recall such an event not being blamed on God. Sadly, that seems to be because the complainers are worshipping either Mother Nature or the purported power of the Presidency, rather than the Almighty.

Our church has started a fund off with $100,000 to help New Orleans, through churches in that area. Over $500,000 was raised for AIDS orphans in Africa last Christmas, and for Tsunami victims before that, so I expect this fund to increase rapidly too. Even better, the Middlewife's employer will match our gift to that fund, so we expect to make it a big one.

Thirty years ago, the church we were in then sponsored a family of refugees. I'm beginning to expect we may need to sponsor another such family from New Orleans this year.

I'm all for emergency assistance. I'm also all for real help in starting over for those willing to make something of themselves (as President Clinton said, "a hand up, not a handout")

Fifteen years after sponsoring that refugee family, their youngest daughter enrolled at the university, and reported her dad was still in the custodian position our church helped him find, all those years ago, but nonetheless had managed to save enough to raise a family of nine, and buy an apartment building. That's the kind of family I hope I'm always glad to help.

One thing I'm not willing to do, is spend a penny to rebuild New Orleans at its current height, 30 feet below sea level. After the Great Chicago Fire, our city was rebuilt, but not just rebuilt as it was. Rather it was built better -- the streets were raised 30 feet above the swamps, and the new buidings made of fireproof brick. New Orleans needs to return also, but not until it can return better than before.

Until then, my only reply to those casting blame will be "What have you personally done to help?"

Update: Amid allegations of racism related to New Orleans, this long Eject! Eject! Eject! blog entry clearly explains the concept of tribes, and how the differences between the pink and grey tribe, and between the tribes of sheep, wolves and sheepdogs have nothing to do with skin color. (Caution: the entry also does a fair amount of swearing.)

Update2: How much to give, and where? On his last visit, Shades taught me two clever new names for amounts we often give:
1) a yuppie food stamp, also known as $20 US. This is what we give pretty much any charity we don't actively disapprove of, whose representative actually comes to our door and knocks.

2) a Franklin, another name for $100 US. This is what we give charities we actively care about and choose to support.

Occasionally, when we really care about a cause, we take our giving up another notch, to $500. For us, Hurricane Katrina is such a cause, and our church will be the place, as it will funnel our gift through like-minded churches in the affected area.

Point of clarification: All of us in this the richest nation in all of history would do well to tithe, both time and money. Even atheists would do well to tithe in support of all they want to endure and prosper.

Update3: Implied in all the criticism of government response to this crisis is an unquestioned but highly-debatable assumption that such events are best handled by government.

That has never been the view of any church I've been part of, either liberal or conservative. Both United Methodist churches and Willowcreek Church emphasize in their fundraising in response to disasters that the aid will be channeled through churches in the affected area.

Churches trust other churches to care about people in need, and to be ethical and efficient in distributing aid. There's a sense among church donors that charitable funds given via some governments may not reach intended recipients in a useful and timely manner.

Here's President Reagan's famous quote on the topic: "government is not a solution to our problem, Government is the problem."

Update4: Peggy Noonan expands and explains here.
"Last week I quoted Gerald Ford: 'The government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take away everything you have.' I was talking about money. But it applies also to personal freedom, to the rights of the individual, including his right to do something stupid as long as it's legal, like swimming [the day before a hurricane arrives.]

It is the government's job to warn and inform. That's what we have the National Weather Service for. It is not government's job to command and control and make microdecisions about the lives of people who want to do it their own way."

It has bothered me for years that a man named Fred Phelps who claims to be the pastor of the so-called "Westborough Baptist Church" of Kansas has apparently gone out of his way for decades to convince the world all Christians are vile hypocrits.

He and his tiny band of co-religionists are best know for trash-talking Gays, but have apparently recently upped the ante by appearing at funerals of soldiers killed in Iraq to "Thank God for IEDs" and "Thank God for 9-11". The "logic" is that God is punishing our nation for tolerating homosexuals.

Until today, I've always assumed Phelps and his followers were just hate-filled attention seekers. But a comment by "Shadow Merchant" on another blog may have just shed light on what's really going on.

"Folks, Fred Phelps WANTS you to kick his teeth down his throat. Even more, he wants your local police forces to lose their cool and give him what he is asking for.

For more information, see his entry on Wikipedia."

All I can say in response is that if "Shadow Merchant" is correct, Phelps had best be VERY sure there is no God.

As our own pastor reminded us a year or two ago, "Time heals all wounds, and wounds all heels."

Power Line published an excellent essay on casualties in times of war and peace. Its key point: American soldiers are safer at war in Iraq than they were in previous peacetime years.

"...between 1983 and 1996, 18,006 American military personnel died accidentally in the service of their country. That death rate of 1,286 per year exceeds the rate of combat deaths in Iraq by a ratio of nearly two to one."

You'd never know that from reading, watching or listening to mainstream media in the U.S. For that matter, I didn't know it until now even from blogs.

"For Americans who do not seek out alternative news sources like this one, the war in Iraq is little but a succession of American casualties. The wonder is that so many Americans do, nevertheless, support it.

The sins of the news media in reporting on Iraq are mainly sins of omission. Not only do news outlets generally fail to report the progress that is being made, and often fail to put military operations into any kind of tactical or strategic perspective, they assiduously avoid talking about the overarching strategic reason for our involvement there: the Bush administration's conviction that the only way to solve the problem of Islamic terrorism, long term, is to help liberate the Arab countries so that their peoples' energies will be channelled into the peaceful pursuits of free enterprise and democracy, rather than into bizarre ideologies and terrorism."

I've just added a new link to the top of my links list. It's called Power Line News, and has been compared in its potential impact on mainstream media to the impact the Protestant Reformation had on the Roman Catholic Church.

RSS readers provide an extra layer of abstraction, allowing folks to more easily keep up with all the changes in Web sites of interes. Portal Web sites like Power Line News allow folks to do the same by simply going to the portal site. In that sense, it's much like Drudge Report, World Net Daily, Jewish World Review (three of my other links), and some other portals I occasionally check: Google News, My Yahoo, My Way, and Topix.net.

However, Power Line News takes this one step further, by intentionally getting news directly from blogs, rather than from mainstream media sources.

Thus, instead of hearing about a soldier's death in Afghanistan from a reporter in a Kabul hotel, you might hear about it directly from a soldier who was there at the time.

Prior to the Protestant Reformation, ordinary folks could not read the Bible in their own language, and had to take the word of a priest as to what it said, whereas after the Reformation, many could do their own reading and deciding.

Similarly, prior to the appearance of this portal, ordinary folks could not easily hear about news of the day unfiltered by the biases of journalists.

Like the regular Power Line blog, and like my own choice of portals to which to link, Power Line News is unapolagetically at least a bit right of center in viewpoint. Frankly, if it weren't, it wouldn't be needed, as pretty much any news source's own portal Web site provides at least a slightly left of center viewpoint.

Case in point: The Chicago Sun Times has on two recent occasions been one of very few news sources to cover stories unfavorable to liberal viewpoints, (such as allegations of liberal talk radio network Air America ending up with money meant to help poor kids and seniors), yet in my youth the Sun Times was the liberal paper in Chicago.

Note: In the paragraph above, I use the word "liberal" in its recent "left-of-center" meaning, rather than the traditional "advocate of individual freedom" meaning I prefer. Don't you hate it when good words get hijacked to mean almost the opposite of their original meaning?

Update: Here's a link to similar and earlier sentiments by Hugh Hewitt.

One of those folks who happily write whenever anything happens anywhere that can be somehow spun so as to make America, its efforts, and particularly our current administration look bad proudly offered these turds today:

Decorated Marine Accused Of Opening Fire On Noisy Crowd

and

Iraq veteran arrested in killing

In my opinion, both are stories of sorrow, illustrating the troubles even the best soldiers have re-integrating into ordinary society after a war, rather than an occasion for gloating as though the sender were Tokyo Rose.

How stupid do you have to be to root for the other side in a war whose other side hopes to kill all who share your views?

Traditionally, Islam has taught that we are all essentially good, and that getting to Paradise after death involves doing more good deeds than bad deeds in life, as opposed to the Christian view that we are all essentially sinners, and get to Heaven by accepting the sacrifice of Jesus on all our behalf.

Traditionally, Islam (like Christianity) has also opposed suicide, even in battle.

Recently, however, some Muslims have begun teaching that committing suicide as a part of attempting to kill others in battle is not only permitted, but a certain way getting not only oneself to Paradise, but also seventy others of one's choice.

I consider it an interesting idea, but unsupported by scriptural proof of any kind, much like C.S. Lewis's suggestion in The Great Divorce that a bus runs from hell to Heaven every afternoon at 3 o'clock, and all who will may ride.

Much as I like the idea of such a bus, I would not bet my Eternity on its existence, and find it astounding any Muslim would bet Eternity on Allah's now favoring rather than opposing suicide, so long as it is in battle.

This Muslim atonement idea is novel, and solves the philosophical problem of a Muslim never being entirely sure in this life that they are saved and going to Paradise. And if believed, designating one Muslim in 70 to blow him or herself up among folks they don't expect to see in Paradise may be considered an acceptable cost.

But again, who would be so stupid as to blow himself or a loved one up for such an obviously-unproven idea?

Also, for everyone other than the actual suicide/homicide bomber, how sure can you actually be that you are actually one of the seventy a bomber would choose to "save"?

I've been advocating the need for new ideas in Islam, along the lines of the Protestant Reformation, but this is hardly what I had in mind.

Of all people, Salman Rushdie agrees on the need for an Islamic Reformation, and for once, I find myself agreeing with him.

One of my favorite authors is Dr. Mike Adams, who writes well and humorously here about his life as a token conservative in American higher education.

Recently, however, Adams has outdone himself, and written a truly great essay on the importance of speaking truth to power.
"One of my favorite verses of the Bible is James 4:17. It states that 'Therefore, to him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin.' That verse reminds us that we don’t have to actually do something to be morally culpable. In other words, there is such a thing as a sin of omission.

When, in the past, I have contemplated the prospect of cowering away from these situations, I have sometimes found strength by thinking about some old war veterans – some in my family, some friends – who risked or even gave their lives to preserve our nation and our freedom.
...
Jesus didn’t die on the cross for you to run from what is right. And war heroes didn’t die on the battlefield for you to cower away while this country is destroyed."

Read the whole thing.

Update: FIRE's The Torch relevantly comments here, in the context of defending a Muslim student attacked for asking to unsubscribe from spam promoting homosexuality, that "Dissent is our most essential right..."

One of the more interesting topics in the recently-popular book Freakanomics is on the impact of various factors in how kids turn out. To sum up its teaching for parents, it doesn't matter what you do, but does matter who you are.

Here's a typical quote:
"Parents who are well educated, successful, and healthy tend to have children who test well in school; but it doesn't seem to much matter whether a child is trotted off to museums or spanked or sent to Head Start or freuently read to or plopped in front of the television."

Similarly, names parents give kids don't correlate with success, despite all the time spent choosing perfect monikers.

Another interesting tidbit is that school choice matters, but not quite the way advocates and opponents might expect. The mere effort of parents to send their child to a different school predicts success for that child compared to children of parents who make no such attempt, even if the first family fails to actually get their child into a different school. The motivation to try appears to be the deciding factor.

Update: As the book itself points out, correlation is not causation, so some of their conclusions are debatable. For instance, they don't think it matters for a child's success whether a family has one parent or two. But if I recall correctly, there is quite a lot of hard research proving the importance of having two parents in the home for child success. To be convinced, I would need to see a lot more evidence than was included in this thin book.

For such purposes, yes, they do have a blog.

IL State Rep. Paul Froehlich has just written an excellent PDF-format review of a new DVD called "American History in Black and White" (available here.) Both the DVD and Froelich's review point out some important but little-known facts regarding the civil rights records of the two major political parties:
"* The Republican Party was founded in 1854 on the principle of preventing the spread of slavery, while the Democrat-controlled Supreme Court handed down the Dred Scott decision (1857) declaring blacks non-persons.

* Senator Dirksen (R, IL) provided the crucial votes to pass the 1964 Civil Rights Act over a Democrat filibuster."

Rep. Froehlich adds these comments:
"Cook County Republicans belatedly understand something that hasn’t dawned on most of their counterparts elsewhere. The GOP cannot hope to ever win countywide elections until it figures out how to attract a healthy share of minority voters."

"...if the GOP is to make significant inroads in winning back black and other minority voters, Republicans have to make some changes. We will have to restore the pursuit of justice as a top priority. Republicans should take the lead, for example, in reforming the criminal justice system that convicts too many innocent minorities. Republicans should also recognize the injustice in gross school funding disparities and propose ways to reduce it other than giant tax hikes."

Paul also points out the problem of the "Nixon Southern Strategy, however, that [Republican National Chairperson] Ken Melman recently apologized for in a speech to the NAACP."

To this, I would add:
One difficult part of the problem is that if getting votes from this (or any other) constituency becomes a contest of which party can promise to do the most, then almost by definition the party that favors more government has to win.

The down side of benign big government is that money it spends on your behalf isn’t spent as effectively as you would yourself have spent the dollars it takes from you. But that only matters to those who actually pay those dollars to the government. Voters who receive more from the government in benefits than they pay in taxes will be a tough sell for the benefits of small government.

However, such folks may still appreciate a less-intrusive government. Another tough balancing act for Republicans is how to be properly concerned about defense in time of war while still protecting civil liberty for loyal citizens?

I’d suggest Republicans consider a principled stand against the existence of all laws that are not intended to be enforced, especially those that can be misused against minorities.

For instance, if the real speed limit on I-90 is 70, why is it listed as being 55? I understand from a friend who lives on the South Side that speed traps are now being used there in construction zones. That is fair if the same speed traps are also used as often in other parts of town, but otherwise could have an unfairly disparate racial impact.

Regarding that response, Rep. Froehlich adds: "We'd be repealing most laws if we kept only those we enforce consistently. I think we should be concerned about racial profiling."

WizBang has a great new idea on how to fight terrorism. Up to now, the main options discussed have been a judicial approach that addresses root causes, and a military approach. Of those two, it's fairly obvious (at least to me) that the military approach of the Bush years worked better than the judicial approach of the Clinton years.

Now WizBang suggests a third way -- a medical approach:
"In medicine, when one has a crisis, one deals with the symptoms first, then you go looking for the "root cause." For example, when a patient is not breathing, you get them breathing again, THEN you start worrying about why they stopped. The first priority is always on short-term survival, THEN long-term concerns. That's why most medical professionals consider "the operation was a success, but the patient died" a truly obscene joke.

Once we've stopped the bleeding, then we can look for the ulcer. But diagnosing and treating the ulcer won't do any good for a corpse."

According to this article, al-Qaeda is prepared to nuke 2 of 9 American cities with large Jewish populations on either August 6 (anniversary of the original Hiroshima) or September 11. I've written about this possibility (and possible citizen responses) before here.

It seems to me that although many in al-Qaeda are willing to see Allah today if necessary as a result of attacking America, not all of their top leaders are, and definitely not all of the "Axis of Evil" leaders who quietly support and protect them. Therefore, the doctrine of deterrence still applies, so long as we make it clear to those among our declared and undeclared opponents that the moment such an event happens will also be their own last moment.

Personally, I have a problem with threatening to respond to a small nuclear weapon with several large ones. Since such threats remain an essential part of our national defense, it's good that I am not the President.

Taking it a step farther, the Middlewife and I have plans to be near downtown Chicago for a church event important to us that morning, and intend to keep that appointment even if it kills us. After all, no one lives forever, and neither of us considers this life all there is, nor fears what awaits beyond.

Even so, for whoever is the President on such a day, immediate retaliation against "those who are not for us" is likely to be demanded by nearly all surviving Americans, even if that might result in even more deadly attacks against us. Multiculturalism will most likely officially die that day, possibly accompanied by millions or even billions of humans, unless God feels otherwise.

Even preparing a target list for retaliatory missiles is complicated by the presence of terrorists and their supporters in countries officially on our side in the War on Terror, and the presence of millions of innocent victims who bear us no ill will even in nations officially on the other side in this war.

If peace-loving Muslims would like to avoid being deported or herded into camps or possibly even nuked directly or in retaliation on such a day, now would be a really good time to begin vocally opposing those they know to be planning such disasters, and turning such folks in to the police. They (non-violent Muslims) are, after all, al-Qaeda's primary target, ahead of both us and Israel.

What else can be done? One idea is to start a Manhattan Project to eliminate our dependence on imported oil. So-called "anti-war" protestors, despite their utter lack of peacefulness, are correct that but for oil we might not have had some of our recent troubles. If oil were no longer needed, most of the Middle East could return to a simpler existence, neither bothering nor being bothered by anyone. Be sure to pause before buying that next Hummer folks. (And see this related post.)

The US had problems with suicide bombers once before (Kamikazes in WWII), and Wretched reminds us of the value of defence in depth, then and now.

"(Speculation alert) When faced with the suicide attack problem (Kamikazes) during the Second World War, US fleets adopted the concept of the layered defense around battlegroups, consisting of attacking enemy airfields, providing a radar picket on enemy lines of approach, creating a combat air patrol to intercept incoming Kamikazes and then presenting a succession of long, medium and short-range antiaircraft fire, before finally falling back on warship evasion, armor and damage control. Each component in the defense contributed its statistical share of the defense. The debate surrounding the prosecution of the war on terror can be conceptually split, though not very neatly, between those who advocate a layered defense with a forward-deployed component (coordination with 'friendly' Muslim countries, involvement in Iraq, Afghanistan, the Horn of Africa, etc), plus everything in between, and those who would rely primarily on terminal or close-in defenses (national IDs, CCTV cameras, border control, etc) in the homeland. A small percentage of policy advocates believe that a complete reliance on nearly passive close-in defenses ("support the troops, bring the boys home", build bridges to Muslim communities, etc) would be adequate to protect the public against terrorism. Over the coming years, the value of every aspect of the defense will be highlighted by different incidents. Some attacks will be stopped by an alert security guard, others will be pre-empted in a land so distant the public will never even know that the attacks were mounted. But they are all needed. If any lives were saved in London today, it probably means that a deep defense makes a difference."

Personally, I'll also continue praying for a hedge of protection for our nation, and discernment for our leaders.

One other thought: The only sermon I remember from my childhood was our pastor saying he wouldn't build a fallout shelter because he wasn't willing to kill his neighbors to keep them out. He was right; to the best of my ability, we'll survive such a day together. As President Lincoln once put it, "With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us finish the work we are in."

Update: Donald Sensing also links to an article related to defense in depth by Dr. Mohammed T. Al-Rasheed.
”And if you want to catch a terrorist you do not man tube stations. Once you are in the station trying to catch the perpetrator, you have already lost the game. The most effective way to combat vermin is to strike at their breeding grounds and not under your sink.”

Update2: Here is another article from the same source.

Update3: It has been suggested that if anything big happens in the way of an attack here, one consequence might be to immediately solve the problem of Iran's pending nuclear capability, if not the entire problem represented by their current government. Here's an article from NBC offering current evidence that Iran's current leadership may indeed be, as some have suggested for years, heading the war on terror for the other side.

" Iran is shipping more powerful and sophisticated military-caliber bombs to Iraqi guerrillas for use against U.S.-led coalition forces, NBC News reported yesterday.
Citing U.S. military and intelligence officials, the network said U.S. soldiers intercepted a large shipment of high explosives last week, smuggled into northeastern Iraq from Iran.
"The officials say the shipment contained dozens of 'shaped charges' manufactured recently. Shaped charges are especially lethal because they're designed to concentrate and direct a more powerful blast into a small area," NBC reported.
"They'll go right through a very heavily armored vehicle like an M1-A1 tank from one side right out the other side," retired Gen. Barry McCaffrey told the network.
Military officials said insurgents in Iraq began using shaped charges to kill U.S. forces three months ago. Recent weeks have brought a spate of deadlier roadside-bomb attacks on U.S. forces.
In one attack earlier this week, 14 U.S. Marines were killed inside a 28-ton armored vehicle that would be immune from most improvised explosive devices, but vulnerable to shaped charges, which were developed by militaries worldwide specifically to pierce armor.
Intelligence officials believe the explosives were shipped into Iraq by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard or the terrorist group Hezbollah, most likely with the consent of the Iranian government, NBC reported."

By comparison, the other two members of the "Axis of Evil" (Syria and North Korea) seem downright pleasant lately...

As the entire blogosphere already knows, this has been a lousy month for individual liberty, the kind that caused our American ancestors to rise up in revolution against big, bad government from afar.

In both cases, the culprit was the U.S. Supreme Court, making decisions that are not necessarily either left or right politically, but are definitely in the direction of ever-bigger government, and in a manner likely to frighten as many liberals as conservatives.

First, the Interstate Commerce clause of the U.S. Constitution has now been stretched to include matters that are neither Interstate nor commerce, in ruling that the U.S. government has the right to over-rule the State of California's law allowing medical use of marijuana.

I'm on record here favoring the legalization of all illegal drugs, even though I've never used them and likely never will.

But that's just the tip of the iceberg damage-wise in this decision. If the Interstate Commerce can be stretched this far, then in effect it's now a "do whatever you want" card for Congress, and States Rights (despite all non-enumerated powers in the Constitution being reserved to the States) are no more.

As if that wasn't enough damage, the U.S. Supreme court has now also ruled that states and localities don't even need a good reason to take away private property from one owner and give it to another. The mere hope that the new owner might yield more tax revenue is sufficient motivation for the court to allow such takings via eminent domain.

As Rev. Donald Sensing has pointed out here, the most obvious target of this new power of states and localities is places of worship and charitable organizations, which pay no taxes at all, and often occupy prime locations.

One might think this would only be of concern to conservatives, but liberals have also realized poor folks in the path of a proposed Wal Mart are less likely to keep their homes as a result of this ruling.

Republicans are fond of pointing out how much worse such decisions would be if made by Democrats, but frankly, in both these cases, it's hard to see how.

I sure wish some sensible political party in this country were still for individual freedom...

Update: The Supremes' month of disaster continues apace. Now they've also ruled against the display of the Ten Commandments in a courthouse, and restricted consumer rights to buy products that might be used for unauthorized uses in addition to authorized uses.

By restricting display of the Ten Commandments, they hide from future generations much of the underpinnings of our law, and thereby make its eventual decline and fall more likely. It's just silly to think that the ideas underlying a nation as unique as America came from nothing and nowhere, and we do no favors to future generations by pretending they did.

The problem with adding a test of intent on the part of manufacturers of devices that can be used for both good and evil, is that only a court case can decide in each instance, which can't help but have a chilling effect on the willingness of companies to make anything that anyone anywhere might misuse. Guns, for instance, though honest studies indicate appear to save more lives than they cost, can obviously be misused. So now there's another excuse to drag their manufacturers into court in hopes of a tobacco settlement-type bonanza. The potential effects here go far beyond just preventing folks from buying a program capable of sharing MP3s.

Since the Instapundit has already mentioned this, I hardly need to, but will anyway, if only to remind myself of it later:

WORSTALL'S LAW: "Any organization will, in the end, be run by those who stay awake in committee."

Worstall elaborates as follows:
"A brief survey of the world around us will show that this is a simple and obvious truth.

...one of the lessons I take from the history of the 20th century is that we don't actually want to be ruled by those who stay awake in committee meetings."

See also O'Sullivan's Law.

Update: Powerline's Thanksgiving 2005 post comments on both these effects, closing with this:

"For reasons I don't fully understand, there is something about "leaders," especially self-appointed leaders, and most especially those who are drawn to intensive participation in organizations, that tends toward liberalism. We see this in politics all the time, of course: it is one thing to vote for conservatism, something else entirely to get it from our elected leaders.

All of which makes me especially thankful, this year, for democracy, limited government and free enterprise: the best measures yet devised to protect us from our leaders."

U.S. Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois guaranteed he lost my vote in his next re-election campaign, by comparing actions of our armed forces guarding captured terrorists at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba to those of Nazis, Soviets, and Pol Pot.

Here's the key quote: after reading an Email from an FBI agent critical of things seen at Guantanamo Bay, Durbin said "If I read this to you and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags or some mad regime - Pol Pot or others - that had no concern for human beings."

This was too much even for the Daily Kos, the most popular left-wing blog: "I came unhinged and called Sen. Durbin an "idiot" for his violation of the Hitler Rule, which holds that a politician must never, ever, compare anything or anyone to Hitler or the Nazis, no matter how apt the comparison. Durbin's comparison was not apt, however."

What Kos knows, but many recent angry left-wing commenters appear not to know, is that in an Internet "flame war" (argument), whoever first mentions Hitler automatically loses.

Here's a collection of related links, from Michell Malkin, a well-known conservative blogger. Sample link (original source Power Line):
"What's unusual about Durbin's lie is that it slanders his own country. Normally that kind of slander is uttered only by revolutionaries seeking the violent overthrow of the government."

Update: Finally, after a week of stonewalling, the Sun Times is reporting on something approaching an actual apology from Senator Durbin:

"'Some may believe that my remarks crossed the line,' the Illinois Democrat said. 'To them I extend my heartfelt apologies.'

Durbin said in his apology: 'I made reference to Nazis, to Soviets, and other repressive regimes. Mr. President, I've come to understand that's a very poor choice of words.'"

Senator Durbin appears to be, despite his #2 rank within his party, a slow learner.

Update2: The Instapundit explains, using Salon as a source, the difference between real apologies that make things better, and conditional semi-apologies that make things worse. Guess which type best fits Durbin's "apology"?

Update3: By suggesting we cut and run from Iraq this week (Thanksgiving 2005), Barak Obama also made me unlikely to vote for him while the world remains dangerous. On the other hand, at least there was some nuance in Obama's statement, suggesting the Obama statement was opportunistic rather than stupid.

Via Instapundit, Mickey Kos put it this way: "Someone who works for Ralph Nader once described to me a brilliant technique of his: When he heard a rumor that the government was about to do something, he immediately called a press conference and demanded that it be done."

One Hand Clapping further explains What the Dems are really up to, closing with this comment from Winds of Change: "On November 7th the Defense Department announced for all of the world to read the troop rotation plan for Iraq for mid-2006. This plan reduces the number of U.S. combat brigades in Iraq by half.

We discussed this announcement on our blog back then, well before Mr. Murtha’s speech"

The Daily Herald has an excellent account of two Chicago churches using this week to bridge racial divides, by (among other things) literally crossing the Edmund Pettus bridge in Selma, Alabama together. Work responsibilities did not permit me to attend, but the Middlewife is there and thoroughly enjoying it all.

"In the 40 years since, a lot has changed, but a lot has not, says Meeks, the passionate preacher and state senator, and Hybels, religious mentor to Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.

And what hasn’t changed won’t, they say, unless their powerful, 20,000-member congregations join together to bridge the racial divide and work toward social justice."
...
"Hybels said the march and the tour are just the surface of a reform in his church and a shift in direction toward concentrating on social justice issues and working in the inner city.

It was there the first nightsticks were swung on Bloody Sunday."

The above story is a followup to this one and this one from earlier in the week.

The Chicago Tribune also offered advance coverage of the trip.

Update: Here's another excellent story about the trip from the Daily Herald. It was the headline story on the front page two days after the earlier story above.

"'There are a lot of white folks who believe the church has no business talking about public policy issues,' he [Pastor James Meeks of Salem Baptist] bellowed, receiving a wave of nods and calls of 'That’s right.'

"Meeks and Hybels say the trip is just the beginning, but solid plans for the partnership will take time. For now, the touring church leaders are charged with convincing members it is a good idea."

Update2: Rev. Donald Sensing makes a good relevant point today in his new SOAPY (Scripture, Observation, Application, Prayer & Yielding) blog.
"It is not unanimity Christians should seek, but unity. John Wesley quoted 2 Kings 10:15, which says in part, 'If your heart is as my heart, give me your hand.' Wesley said that Christians 'will allow others the same liberty of thinking' which they desire should be allowed themselves. 'He bears with those who differ from him' ..."

Today was installation day for 3 new skylights in our home, except they weren't traditional skylights, but rather something new, called a Solatube.

Think of a periscope, and you're close to the concept. Like a skylight, there's a hole in the roof covered with clear material. Unlike a skylight, there is a highly-polished round tube leading from that hole in the roof down to the ceiling in an interior room, ending in a Fresnel lens diffuser.

They are available in different sizes, 10" diameter for small rooms, and 14" for larger rooms. (An even larger 21" size is offered, but won't fit between our 16" rafters, plus might be a security problem as some folks can fit within such an opening.)

The amount of light passed through a Solatube is amazing -- far brighter than a conventional skylight, of which we have two. Twice today I caught myself trying to turn off the light in the bathroom with the 10" Solatube, only to remember the light was coming only from the Solatube, and today was cloudy. I can't wait to see what it does on a sunny day!

These will never pay for themselves in reduced energy bills for lighting, but due to being sealed, also won't add to our energy bill for heating and air conditioning.

Our reason for getting them was so every room in our home will have some natural light. And believe it or not, we aren't pioneers here - on our street we are the third home to have these, and the other two have had them for years and still love them.

Update: Yesterday, when it was cloudy, we wondered if we should have installed two Solatubes in our living room, because that end of the room was still a bit dim. Today, with the sun out and no clouds, we're glad we only bought one, as it was quite bright enough.

Also, a neighbor who had considered getting Solatubes a year ago noticed we had this done, and is now very eager to do the same.

Here is another good Web site about these, hosted by the Midwest distributer. It includes pricing info, both installed and do-it-yourself, plus a good set of FAQs (Frequently-asked questions.)

Pepsi's president appears to have recently delivered a huge "up yours" to America in a graduation speech at Columbia University.

Power Line has the details from Wes Martin:
"After talking of her childhood back in India, Ms. Nooyi began to compare the world and its five major continents (excl. Antarctica and Australia) to the human hand. First was Africa - the pinky finger - small and somewhat insignificant but when hurt, the entire hand hurt with it. Next was Asia - the thumb - strong and powerful, yearning to become a bigger player on the world stage. Third was Europe - the index finger - pointing the way. Fourth was South America - the ring finger - the finger which symbolizes love and sensualness. Finally, the US (not Canada mind you) - yes, you guessed it - the middle finger.

She then launched into a diatribe about how the US is seen as the middle finger to the rest of the world. The rest of the world sees us as an overbearing, insensitive and disrespectful nation that gives the middle finger to the rest of the world.
...
No talk of what the US has done for the world throughout its history. No discussion about the ills that have been cured and the rights that have been wronged by the US. Just how wrong we are for the way we are perceived and how right they are in their own perceptions of the United States."

It's hard to decide which offends me most: writing off Africa as insignicant apart from pain it can cause, stereotyping South America as hot-blooded, or giving the middle finger to America and finding nothing at all good to say about her adopted country.

Tennessee One Hand Clapping concludes, and I fully agree "...I don’t think Pepsi gets another dime of mine."

Now what will we do with all these "GOP: Choice of a New Generation" tee shirts?

Update: Here's a link to the full text of the speech, as published by Pepsi. It isn't worded as badly as first reports indicated, but I'm still offended, as are many others in the blogosphere. Typical of the criticisms is this from Rev. Donald Sensing:
"...let me take the pledge against Pepsi’s products not because of what Ms. Nooyi said but because she said it so badly...

And the message is - don’t be like those guys. Yee-hah."

Anyone wishing to may contact Pepsi at:
PepsiCo, Inc.
700 Anderson Hill Road
Purchase, NY 10577
(914) 253-2000
boardofdirectors@pepsi.com

Update: It appears President Bush didn't get the memo on this, as the blogosphere was recently upset to see Ms Nooyi's name on the guest list for a White House dinner.

Update2: The Pepsi board also apparently failed to get the memo, or perhaps agrees with Ms. Nooyi as to which finger is ours, as they have just promoted her to become Pepsi's CEO.

A year later, the boycott continues.

For more, see this comment from PowerLine reader James Siegler:
"Just a comment regarding the WSJ article on Ms. Nooyi. The first "scene" in the story is her introducing Harry Belafonte at a Pepsi diversity function. THAT tells one a whole ... lot about her and Pepsi. Belafonte is one of the worst race baiters and lovers of despots around. Based on his public statements about our president and the US, his world view fits in rather nicely with Ms. Nooyi's "middle finger" beliefs. Her Columbia address was not some aberration, but it reflected exactly who and what she is."

This week, for the second time, my life was saved by what our day considers routine, even minor surgery, but would have been impossible at any price even a century ago.

This time it was called minor surgery, though I am firmly of the opinion that minor surgery only happens to other people.

Turns out I had a large kidney stone blocking the outlet of one kidney. The stone being too big to pass, the resulting pressure would likely have eventually killed the kidney. This was discovered by a now-simple CAT scan that would have been science fiction even 50 years ago.

The next afternoon, a doctor went in after the stone, saying quote "when I looked in, there it was, facing me." He then scooped it up in a basket and pulled it out. What made this a modern miracle is that he did so without cutting me open, using only a tiny natural opening. (Yeah, that one.)

The drama isn't entirely over. Turns out a stent (another modern medical miracle) was installed to enlarge the path enough to accommodate the stone, and that will need to be removed. In addition, it turns out the stone has a smaller friend that also needs to pass, very definitely while the stent is still there to provide it easy exit.

If the second stone fails to find its own way within a few days, another modern medical miracle, called lithotripsy will use ultrasonic waves to shatter the stone into fragments small enough to pass easily.

Not entirely coincidentally, I was given a postcard to send my legislator asking for legislative relief to reduce doctors' legal liability for non-economic losses such as pain and suffering in the interest of keeping doctors from leaving our state. Having just experienced both the miracle of continued life thanks to care by my doctors, and a tiny bit of the pain and suffering that makes some folks think they deserve to be instant millionaires courtesy of the legal system, I was happy to immediately complete and mail the card. (For more on the issue of liability as it affects medical costs and care, see this related entry.)

Why? It's simple. If it had been harder to get in to see my doctor that day, I might not have bothered, with tragic results.

Update: The lithotripsy was done today. No pain so far afterwards, thankfully! Within a couple of weeks, the fragments will hopefully pass, the stent will then hopefully be removed, and we can all call this medical miracle complete.

In related news, the IL legislature has reportedly agreed to cap awards for pain and suffering.

Update2; The stent was removed today. That required only a local anesthetic, not even delivered via a shot, and was briefly uncomfortable but nothing like some horror stories I'd heard.

One way to judge increasing health is by how many tubes are still in you. On that scale, I am now down to zero tubes and full health. I feel pretty good too. Thanks for all the prayers along the way. They helped.

I recently finished reading Thomas Sowell's excellent book "Basic Economics". One of his key points is that what matters in the long run is not good intentions, but actual long-term results. Many ideas that seem good in theory, especially to politicians who only have to get through the next election, are not good for the whole nation over the longer term.

Cheap drugs from Canada is a good example. Who can be opposed to cheap drugs for Granny in the short run? But in the long run, what drug company will ever again develop a new drug for Granny, and jump through all the hoops of getting it approved for sale by the FDA if they can't then charge enough for the drug to recover their costs of development plus enough profit to remain in business? And if there were a company so altruistic as to proceed without such assurance, would you personally want to own their stock?

Selling drugs more cheaply to Canada makes sense to drug companies now only because those drugs by and large do not return to the U.S. to undercut prices here. Once that is no longer true, prices paid by Canadians will either rise to cover the full cost of the drug, rather than only the incremental cost of making one more bottle of it, or the drug will no longer be available in Canada, or the company involved will eventually lack the necessary resources to develop new medicines.

Capping costs always seems like such a fine way to help the poor, except that in the long run such efforts usually end up harming precisely the poor. An example pointed out by Sowell, and recently seen by us, was San Francisco rent control. Enacted to keep rents low for the poor, its long term effect has been to drive the poor, and particularly the immigrant poor out of the city.

See also this earlier related post.

According to this story, "Netflix Inc. (NFLX) and Orbitz LLC have acknowledged using adware." It's great that NY Attorney General Eliot Spitzer (AKA "Sheriff of Wall Street") plans to do something about spyware and adware. But for me, he already has, by identifying Netflix and Orbitz as vendors who support what I consider malware. It will now be a cold day down under before I deal with either of those firms, both of which would otherwise have been likely to capture business from me soon.

Remember the BSR X-10 home remote control devices that used to appear constantly in pop-up ads? Same deal: much as I would have enjoyed buying their product, the sales method ensured I never shall.

Same thing now with University of Phoenix and its pop-under ads. What kind of fool registers at a college whose sales method is to annoy potential customers? And who would hire the grads of such a place?

Same thing with advertisers who run the same ad multiple times in the same hour of entertainment. Their goal is to get my attention. My goal, once they use such methods, is to never buy their product.

The general principle applies to all voluntary purchases -- if the only reason I know the name of a company is because they annoy me, that's sufficient reason to avoid their products.

Update: There's also the possibility of liability for damage to PCs to consider for big companies thinking of letting their products be promoted by adware, according to this article, which ironically was both written by Yahoo, and names Yahoo as one of the companies whose wares are used by spyware.

Other firms named in the article as potential boycott or lawsuit targets include: J. C. Penny, Capital One Financial Corp., Vonage Holdings Corp., Monster Worldwide Inc., Priceline.com Inc, Expedia Inc. and Orbitz.LLC (both owned by Microsoft IIRC), Sprint, Sony, Circuit City.

On the bright side, both Dell and Mercedes Benz have fired folks who arranged for their products to be promoted by adware. Verizon also reportedly abandoned adware last July, perhaps somewhat regretfully. Spokesman John Bonomo: "it was effective." The article also suggests Netflix may have reformed.

The article quotes Dave Methvin regarding a solution: "If a big company advertising on the Internet makes all of its suppliers down the chain sign a statement (and agree to penalties for breaking the rules), quickly the problem would go away."

Thanks to The Unrepentant Individual, who considers himself agnostic, for clearly explaining Jesus' views on issues dear to the hearts of progressive liberals.

"Yes, Jesus was a champion of the poor and downtrodden. Yes, Jesus would have fully supported individuals giving great sacrifices of themselves to support the less fortunate. Yes, Jesus understood that in many circumstances, giving the government its tribute and accepting ones place in the world might be a better option than aiming for the glory of armed revolution.

But I see no reason to believe that Jesus supported coercive institutions to achieve such a world. In fact, I would think that Jesus would see that coerced virtue is no virtue at all. And one of Jesus' overlying message to the poor and downtrodden was to accept their place, and that belief in the Lord would ensure their eternal bounty, even if such bounty wasn't available here on earth. Jesus saw that some people in our world would be trampled and bruised. His answer was to turn the other cheek, and that those doing the trampling and bruising would reap what they had sown in the afterlife."

Don't just read the whole thing. Also read the equally-impressive comments.

My own two cents on this is that if Jesus had favored a "big government" political solution to human problems, he'd have lived in Rome and preached to the Emperor and Senate, rather than to downtrodden common folks in a faraway corner of the empire.

In my opinion, Jesus' way of changing the world is, as my church often says, "one life at a time."

Update: The Middlewife adds that Jesus was not fond of the methods of big government types (Pharisees and Sadducees) around him. Though he came to fulfill not abolish laws, his interpretations of laws tended to reduce them to essentials rather than add new layers.

In short, Jesus was radical in reinterpreting conventional wisdom, and almost libertarian in His focus on individuals, but not liberal (or conservative) in the usual political sense.

A Powerpoint from a friend today advocates "Living wage" as a matter of justice. According to Thomas Sowell's book Basic Economics, which I am currently reading, this is a code phrase for a minimum wage high enough to support a family of four.

On the surface, this certainly sounds nice, and Sowell agrees that it is nice, in the short run, for those who already have jobs and whose companies don't go under as a result of the increase.

But there's the rub -- artificially raising the minimum wage above what a worker would otherwise earn does not magically make that worker's work worth more than before. Rather, it ensures workers whose efforts are not worth the higher wage will not continue to be employed, either by losing their jobs directly or through the eventual failure of employers who pay workers more than their labor is actually worth.

Worse, raising the minimum wage removes much of the penalty for racial and other improper discrimination by employers. At the original wage level, even disliked groups were hired, because at that wage no one else was available as an alternative. But once the wage rises, more applicants are available for every job, making it easy for an employer to discriminate against some groups and in favor of others, yet still be able to hire as many employees as they wish.

In the long run, mechanization of work tasks helps to bring the value of minimum wage workers up to what they cost. But here too there is a price. The mechanizaton allows the work to be done by fewer persons, thereby preventing some who would previously have been hired at the lower wage from being hired at all.

Sowell provides a very graphic illustration of how minimum wage laws, despite the best of intentions, have harmed black teens:
"Even though 1949--the year before the series of minimum wage escalations began--was a recession year, black male teenage unemployment that year was lower than it was to be at any time during the later boom years of the 1960s. The usual explanations of high unemployment among black teenagers--inexperience, lack of skills, racism--cannot explain their rising unemployment, since all these things were worse during the earlier period when black teenage unemployment was much lower.

Taking the more normal year of 1948 as a basis for comparison, black male teenage unemployment then was less than half of what it would be at any time during the decade of the 1960s and less than one-third of what it would be in the 1970s. Moreover, unemployment among 16 and 17-year-old black males was no higher than among white males of the same age in 1948. It was only after a series of minimum wage escalations began that black male teenage unemployment not only skyrocketed itself but became more than double the unemployment rates among white male teenagers. In the early twenty-first century, the unemployment rate for black teenagers exceeded 30 percent."

I too was a teen in the 1960s, and well remember how difficult it was to find anyone willing to hire me to work for minimum wage. And frankly, with no one to support but myself, I didn't need a wage sufficient for a family at all, let alone a family of four. How sad that something done for the best of reasons has so harmed those it most hoped to help.

Update: This is to join a Friday linkfest at Outside the Beltway.

Some pharmacists, typically (but not exclusively) observant Roman Catholic ones, are as a matter of conscience unwilling to dispense birth control pills. Until now, this has been quite acceptable, since plenty of other pharmacists are available to fill such prescriptions.

Friday, however, Democratic Governor Rod Blagojevich of Illinois filed an "emergency" rule with the Illinois Secretary of State's office, requiring birth control prescriptions be filled without delay at pharmacies selling contraceptives. And, no, despite the date, this was not an April Fools joke.

Although I personally think opponents of abortion might do best to fully support alternatives to abortion, including birth control pills and even RU-486, I understand and respect that some Pro Lifers see those too as means of murder.

I am aghast at what seems to be implied by the Governor's action -- that IL pharmacies need to either pay a second pharmacist to work alongside pharmacists unwilling to dispense birth control pills, or fire and replace such pharmacists. If so, it would still OK to be an observant Catholic in Illinois, just not OK to be an employed pharmacist of that faith.

To me, that sounds way too close to pre-World War II laws against employment of Jews for my comfort, and also suggests Catholic votes may no longer be important to the Democratic Party of Illinois. Further, the timing reeked, coming the day before the Pope died.

Update: According to this story, four IL pharmacists have just been put on unpaid leave "until they either decide to abide by Illinois law or relocate to another state" without such a rule.

Update2: The four pharmacists have now been fired by Walgreens, and are suing. My response? It will be a cold day in hell before I vote for Blagojevich.

In December our 18 year old furnace started cycling way too often. A temporary cure was to replace the 3M Ultra Allergan filter we'd used for the past year (replacing the media quarterly, of course) with the cheapest spun glass filter we could find. Unfortunately, with allergies in the family, that wasn't a good long-term solution. Further investigation determined our furnace had been installed incorrectly when the house was built, and what was truly amazing was that it had ever worked properly with over 2/3rd of its airflow blocked by improper installation.

That led to replacing the whole thing, and since I'm kind of an Eco-freak, our only real option was whatever was most energy-efficient with continuous air flow for an electronic air cleaner. Being a gadget-lover, its having a computerized thermostat was also a plus. And of course it had to have a computerized humidifier. However, having had lots of maintenance problems with one of the first 90+ furnaces a decade ago, we made sure this one had a ten year factory warranty.

The real question was whether it would ever repay its high purchase cost in energy savings. We now have an early indication that it just might. Three months after installation, our level pay gas bill just dropped 60%, enough to pay for the furnace in 7 years.

Our new air conditioner hasn't been installed yet, but will be soon, and is similarly efficient. We'll see how its economics work out this summer, but one advantage is almost certain. It is promised to be far quieter than the former air conditioner, which matters as it is located right next to our deck. It also has a new non-Freon refrigerant, which should cut maintenance costs in years ahead as Freon is progressively banned.

In related news, we've just replaced both showerheads at home with water-conserving new ones. Where we used to live, water was not metered, but here it is. Further, long showers by more than two persons within a one hour period were using up our new last year 40 gallon water heater, and its installer said we lacked room for a larger one. We haven't had guests since, so we'll have to see how this works, but I expect it will meet our goals for the change.

I've not bothered with brand names or models here, as I suspect several alternatives would have worked equally well. If you're interested in that, let me know and I'll fill you in on the details.

Update: OK, it's a Carrier - their top of the line model, bought because with a rebate at the time it was a bit cheaper than the next model down. I'm still thrilled with everything about it except the hefty price, and an annoying constant reminder from the computerized thermostat that I need to replace my non-existent air cleaner media (we have an electronic air cleaner instead, and I clean it regularly, with no effect on the thermostat message.)

Our dealer has tried to make the message go away without success. He claims other customers are not having this problem, but hasn't yet acted to replace the thermostat under warranty as I have twice now requested. Needless to say, the two recommendations I've given to others to buy from that dealer will be the last until this is resolved.

It was 105 degrees here today, but the AC had no trouble keeping the house cool, and did so without objectionable noise. Our latest electric bill also shows improvement over last year. Despite significantly warmer (+6 degrees) average temperatures this year, usage is down 15%.

Update2: The thermostat was eventually replaced under warranty, and all has been well since. Our furnace may a a tiny bit undersized for the coldest and windiest days, but not enough to bother us. And with natural gas prices higher again this year, getting that new furnace sure is looking like the right decision.

Twice in the past year, I've been asked for recommendations to DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana by folks who know I studied there. Both times, I recommended another university. Similarly, I've never donated to DePauw.

The reason is well illustrated by news that DePauw has prevailed thus far in a lawsuit brought by employee Janis Price, who feels punished for conventional Christian religious views.

Here is the story as told by the United Methodist News Service.
A typical quote is: "'This decision represents total vindication of DePauw,' said John T. Neighbours, the attorney who defended the university."

Here is the story as told by Boundless, a source more sympathetic to Ms. Price.
A typical quote is: "“Tell me,” the lawsuit says she asked Abraham, “how is it that I am to be tolerant of others’ beliefs, but they don’t need to be tolerant of mine?”

“We cannot tolerate the intolerable,” Abraham told her, indicating the magazine article [an issue of Focus on the Family]."

A further wrinkle, according to blogger Jack Lewis is that the judge who wrote the Indiana Court of Appeals ruling overturning a jury decision in favor of Price may be a DePauw grad, and may have improperly communicated his decision to the university before it was made public.

I don't know the truth of this story. But I do know enough to direct my education donations elsewhere -- to places where a liberal arts education still means teaching critical thinking regarding multiple points of view, rather than merely indoctrination into currently-fashionable liberal views.

Update: DePauw, located in Greencastle, Indiana is often confused with DePaul, located in Chicago. Based on this Powerline story, looks like I won't be donating to DePaul any time soon either.
"DePaul University in Chicago has invited Ward Churchill to its campus to speak on--of all things--human rights. The college's Republicans have tried to mobilize opposition to Churchill's visit, but have been blocked by the college's administration. Amazingly, the Republicans were denied the right to post flyers criticizing Churchill's visit on the ground that the flyers were "propaganda"!"

Update2: Here's the Young America's Foundation's list of the ten most conservative and ten most liberal colleges:

Conservative:
* Hillsdale College in Hillsdale, Mich.
* Grove City College in Grove City, Pa.
* Franciscan University in Steubenville, Ohio
* Indiana Wesleyan University in Marion, Ind.
* Thomas Aquinas College in Santa Paula, Calif.
* Harding University in Searcy, Ark.
* College of the Ozarks in Point Lookout, Mo.
* Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va.
* Patrick Henry College in Purcellville, Va.
* Christendom College in Front Royal, Va.

Liberal:
* Mills College in Oakland, Calif.
* Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, N.Y.
* New College of Florida in Sarasota, Fla.
* Hampshire College in Amherst, Mass.
* Warren Wilson College in Asheville, North Carolina
* Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, N.Y.
* Pitzer College in Claremont, Calif.
* Reed College in Portland, Ore.
* Marlboro College in Marlboro, Vt.
* Earlham College in Richmond, Ind.

What I would consider ideal would be a college with proven ideological diversity across the political spectrum, in the faculty, among students, and in the ranks of guest speakers invited to campus.

What amazes me most about the Terri Schiavo case is that no one on the pro-death side seems concerned that starving to death is painful, and that it would never be permitted if she were a pet animal rather than a human. Why haven't those who want her dead sought court permission to put her to sleep humanely, as they would a dog or cat, rather than via what amounts to torture?

I'm also amazed that anyone gives a rip what her "husband" thinks on the subject due to an obvious conflict of interest. Today's Opinion Journal covers that aspect of the case well, leaving out only that he may also have financial reasons for wanting Terri dead:
"According to news reports, Mr. Schiavo lives with a woman named Jodi Centonze, and they have two children together. Surely any court would consider this prima facie evidence of adultery. And this is no mere fling; a sympathetic 2003 profile in the Orlando Sentinel described Centonze as Mr. Schiavo's "fiancée." Mr. Schiavo, in other words, has virtually remarried. Short of outright bigamy, his relationship with Centonze is as thoroughgoing a violation of his marriage vows as it is possible to imagine.

But it is equally unreasonable to let Mr. Schiavo have it both ways. If he wishes to assert his marital authority to do his wife in, the least society can expect in return is that he refrain from making a mockery of his marital obligations. The grimmest irony in this tragic case is that those who want Terri Schiavo dead are resting their argument on the fiction that her marriage is still alive."

I'm further amazed that the party which constantly trumpets its concern for the disabled hasn't taken the lead in caring about this particular disabled person. According to a blind friend, she and other disabled persons have definitely noticed.

Update: It's beginning to look like this is all about (at least in their own minds) courts asserting dominance over the executive and legislative branches of government. If so, I'm disgusted! A human being is dying in unnecessary pain, and for what? So turf can be defended? If so, those involved need to remember there is another Day of Judgment yet to come, when all wrongs will be made right.

Too bad Terri wasn't a mass murderer or a snail darter. Then she'd get the sympathy she deserves now, rather than only in the Hereafter.

Update 2: OK, Peggy Noonan just said it a whole lot better here.
Sample quote: "It cannot be good for our children, and the world they will make, that they are given this new lesson that human life is not precious, not touched by the divine, not of infinite value.

Once you "know" that--that human life is not so special after all--then everything is possible, and none of it is good. When a society comes to believe that human life is not inherently worth living, it is a slippery slope to the gas chamber. You wind up on a low road that twists past Columbine and leads toward Auschwitz."

That seems relevant somehow to this old joke:
Be careful how you treat your chidren. They choose your nursing home.

Sooner or later we need to harmonize our views on life and death:
If you are against executions, why is abortion OK?
If you are against abortion, why are executions OK?
If you want to save animals, why not save people (also animals)?
If you want to save nature, why not save people (part of nature)?

Update #3: Finally, a sensible post from the other side of this issue. Neal Boortz correctly reminds us "Death will not be an end for Terri Schiavo, it will be a beginning."

I don't know whether Terri Schiavo is?/was? a person of faith. But Boortz is correct to remind us that death is not the end, and that what lies beyond for those who love God (Romans 8:28) is infinitely better.

Update#4: OK, now I do know enough about the faith of Terri Schiavo to trust that her future is secure.

This story from (BP) news 7/24/04 reports: "Affidavits filed with the motion include testimony by both of Terri's parents and a family friend, Frances L. Casler, describing Terri as a 'practicing Catholic' who attended Catholic school from elementary through high school, went to mass nearly every week and was taught to 'respect the Pope and the teachings of the church.'
...
'Terri was a gentle spirit, but firm in her Catholic faith,' Mary Schindler said. 'There is no question in my mind that Terri had not fallen away from her faith at the time of her collapse.'
...
In their affidavits, the Schindlers said their daughter attended mass with them in St. Petersburg on Saturday afternoons before her collapse...

'I cannot imagine that Terri would go against the pope on this issue,' Mary Schindler said. 'Removing her feeding tube without any consideration for her religious beliefs is, in my opinion, grossly improper and is a denial of her religious liberty and her right to freely practice her religious beliefs.'"

From other comments in that story, it appears their marriage may have been "unequally yoked", adding a bit to the consequences one might want to consider before planning such a union. It would also appear Michael Schiavo is in rather more need of our prayers than Terri.

"Bob Schindler said in his affidavit that although Terri attended church regularly and even made a special gesture of dedication during the celebration of their nuptial mass, Michael Schiavo made 'derogatory or condescending comments' about Terri's devotion.

Update #5:
I understand her hospice is now giving Terry Schiavo morphine for pain, which finally addresses my original concern on her behalf.

Update #6:
Chicago Tribune columnist John Kass has found a doctor in Holland who openly advocates killing folks suffering from terminal illness.
"Dr. Eduard Verhagen puts children down. Actually, he doesn't really put them down. You put animals down, not human children. He doesn't put children to sleep, either.

'I mean, it's difficult to give the right emotion there, but it's beautiful in a way,' he said. 'They are children who are severely ill and in great pain. It is after they die that you see them relaxed for the first time. You see their faces in the way they should be for the first time.'"

Kass also points out the key resulting problem.
"Once the understanding that human life is sacred is ground down by faith in scientific reason alone, almost anything is possible.

Yet if we deal only in scientific reason, then only the powerful will define the terms. And there are always some folks who will consider some lives--not theirs, naturally, but lives belonging to others--as not worth living."

Update #7: It must be snowing in Hades today, because The Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr. and I agree on this issue.
Jackson told reporters today "She is being starved to death, she is being dehydrated to death. That's immoral and unnecessary,"

Update #8: Various courts never allowed her removed feeding tube to be restored, and Karen Schiavo eventually died. Various Democrats and "progressive" bloggers have since proclaimed their virtue in defending courts against legislative interference in this matter, relying on what they consider to be polls supporting their view.

Personally, I am more impressed that in the months since, three other persons whose lives appeared equally hopeless have returned unexpectedly: a woman whose grandaughter decided unilaterally that her grandmother wouldn't want to live with a failing aorta, a long-ago injured firefighter, and most recently a woman critically injured in a car accident.

If such incidents prove anything, it is that "such decisions are better left to a higher power", as then-Governor Bush is reported to have said in refusing to halt the execution of Carla Faye Tucker, despite her having become a Christian since committing her crimes.

Perhaps Gov. Bush should have followed his own advice and kept Tucker alive, but the rest of us also need to follow it and not prematurely assume anyone is beyond help.

In recently signing a surgical consent, I was reminded anything can happen, and my family might someday have to make a similar decision, as I myself once did as my mother lay dying.

In such a case, I'd like all possible measures taken to save my life, so long as there is still a potential real life to save. However, if I already had a soon-to-be-fatal illness, I don't see the benefit of fighting for a couple of extra months, especially if I've already had time to say prayers and goodbyes, and would spend the remaining months doped out of my mind or in terrible pain.

Having already had one near-death experience, I already know beyond all possibility of arguing me out of it that my death here will be immediately followed by life beyond life much as described by Dr. Elizabeth Kubler Ross in her book "On Death and Dying", written some years later. That event gave me what John Wesley called assurance of salvation. God's grace truly is amazing! May we have similar grace on future Karen Schiavos.

The recent failure of the hard drive in my home PC motivated me to again seek a true solution to the computer backup problem. My solution is the 300GB Maxtor One Touch II backup hard disk, which I bought from a friend at PC Connection.
This is not merely an excellent backup drive. It is such an excellent overall drive that I bought an internal version to replace the dead hard disk, storing the similar warranty replacement drive for use only if and when needed. The key specs are 300GB, SATA, 7200 RPM spindle speed and 16 MB cache. (The warranty drive is close, at 250GB & 8MB cache, but didn't arrive til a week after needed.)

Theoretically, a trojan or virus could destroy both my primary and backup hard disk simultaneously. But that can be easily avoided by merely turning off the backup drive except when you want to make a backup. The tradeoff is that then you won't have an every night backup. In the long run, I will likely do both, with the help of the warranty replacement drive as the normally-unplugged and powered off and even stored off-site backup.

Naturally, I also copy key files daily to other computers via a 1GB USB flash drive. (By the way, the iPod Shuffle and iPod Photo can both be used for this, though I don't use mine that way.) Shares between trusted computers are another good way to back up key files between them, though with the added risk of malware taking down more than one computer at a time.

Another longterm solution will be the Maxtor 300GB Shared Storage Drive. It's the same drive I bought, in the same case, but with different electronics, allowing it to act as network-attached storage for an extra $100.

Or there is a Linksys version with an extra drive useable for mirrored (RAID 1) storage - the best way to ensure a single drive failure can't ruin your day. Unfortunately, I couldn't see spending triple the cost for 1/3rd the storage.

One option I didn't consider was tape - 300GB tape drives do exist, but aren't any more reliable than a second hard disk, and cost ten times as much. Similarly, I rejected writeable DVDs as simply not high enough capacity for the need.

Long ago, the maker of our dishwasher explained that the way they made their fill valve vastly more reliable was by putting two in series, so that water couldn't overflow unless both failed at once. If the odds of one failing were once in a hundred years, the odds of both failing at once would be once in ten thousand years.

The principle of having all key data backed up on a second hard drive is much the same, with the further refinement that one of the two can be off-line and off-site.

Update: I'm now backing up monthly, with a full backup, plus an every 5 times I change it backup of financial data. The nightly backup required too many badly-written memory-resident programs.

However, we also now have two further backup devices in use, for even more protection: 1) a 100GB Seagate 2.5" USB 2.0 HD that doesn't need external power and (barely) fits in a pocket; and 2) a 4GB version of the Sandisk Cruzer Mini flash drive. We've also added "His and Her" 4GB Nanos.

John Scalzi's "Whatever" blog is hosting a good discussion about Covenant Marriage. After reading the whole thing, I realized I might have something to say myself on that subject after 35 years of marriage, and commented as follows:

"My wife and I were among the last virgins of the 60's generation at our wedding 35 years ago. We'd dated two and a half years, were deeply in love, though not as deeply as now, horny as all get out but wanting to do the right thing, and both quite serious about seeing our marriage ceremony as vows before God, and therefore not to be either made or violated lightly. We genuinely believed then, and still do today, that we were made to be together.

The most surprising aspect of all this is the sex -- far better now than when we were first married. I would never have believed that when I was 21."

If a state "Covenant Marriage" had been available when we wed, I expect we'd have chosen it. But only because its goals matched ones we already shared.

Update: It's not just me. According to this study, other men also have more satisfying sex lives in their 50s than in their 30s.

A good friend asks "I am going to be co-leading a Sunday school class (adults) next Sunday. The scripture passage is John 3:1-17. Can you give me any input about the text and its interpretation that you have learned from any source, especially as it relates to our lives. In other words, what does it mean to you?"

Naturally, I was happy to reply. Sermon mode on:
"Lots to talk about in that passage! It includes the best-known single verse in the entire Bible (John 3:16.)

OK, hope that helps!
May God be with you and bless your leadership of the study, and may those who need to hear this, truly hear and benefit from the hearing, as Nicodemus did."
Sermon mode off.

Mark Minasi's 1999 book "The Software Conspiracy" (legally available for free here) points out the vulnerability of our software industry to competition from nations whose software vendors are legally required to sell reliable software. So long as consumers are not offered reliable software, vendors can get away with buggy products, protecting themselves with so-called licenses that are actually more like anti-warranties.

The problem is that laws allowing software vendors to get away with this in the U.S. do not exist everywhere. Some places actually expect programs to work, and hold vendors legally responsible for resulting problems when known software defects are not promptly fixed.

Once consumers realize reliable software exists and can be purchased, American software firms may be in as much trouble as American auto makers.

Minasi says it better: "American software firms currently make most of the world's software and as a result the software business contributes more to our international trade balance than any other industry. But once that was true of the American automotive industry as well, and the U.S. lost that lead to other countries by shipping low-quality goods. This could happen to software as well, and sooner than we expect."

American software vendors, for your own sake, please step away from the Jonestown (sweet but poisoned) Kool-Aid of using legalese to protect yourselves from the consequences of buggy software.

One obvious implication of North Korea's claim to have nuclear weapons is that it changes nothing for the U.S. If any nation does have weapons, and ever tries to use them on us, oh well, we have more, and better. Even most crazy folks I've met aren't crazy enough to ensure their own immediate destruction.

Further, for all their talk of having missiles able to reach the U.S., thanks to "Star Wars", a potential attacker can't be sure such a launch would succeed. They can, however, be sure our retaliatory launches would arrive promptly and effectively, so again would have to be more than usually crazy to try it.

There is an obvious resulting problem for Japan and South Korea. Their choice now is to either get their own nukes, which both could do quickly if they had a mind to, or to so behave that they can continue to trust our promises to protect them.

South Korean students who wanted the U.S. soldiers out of their country and Japanese protestors who didn't want their troops in Iraq now need to decide how far away from the U.S. they truly want to stand.

In my opinion, our real problem with North Korea having nukes is that they might try to create an export market for such technology, either the actual weapons or the knowledge of how to make them.

I don't have a real solution, other than an old idea that the 5 original nuclear powers (U.S., Russia, G.B., France & China) could deter actual use of nuclear weapons by all quietly promising to immediately nuke any other country attempting to use such weapons. That might work as a deterrent, because it is unlikely any one country can buy off or deter all five of those countries simultaneously.

A further quiet threat may deter non-state actors, folks with weapons who are not themselves national governments -- if such a weapon is used, retaliation will be immediate against all the "usual suspect" nations, thereby giving those nations an incentive to keep a lid on "insurgents" within their sphere of influence.

A variant on such a threat has already been rumoured -- to nuke Mecca should there ever be another 9-11. Opinions vary on the effectiveness of such a threat. On the one hand, humans are endlessly creative. I'm sure Muslims could decide some other place is their new spiritual home after losing Mecca. They have, for instance, dramatically increased their opinion of the importance of Jerusalem to their faith in recent decades, since losing control of it in 1948.

On the other hand, Islam is all about submitting to the strength and power of their version of the "one true God." If Mecca were destroyed, would anyone still follow such a vision?

As a Christian, I would have a hard time making any of the above threats, and an even harder time making good on one if push came to shove. My trust is that the one true God who got us somehow safely through at least two very close calls in the '60s and '70s will continue to protect His creation until He decides "time's up."

It does, however, remind us all, to live each day as though it might be our last.

We in the Blogosphere like to talk a lot about how Mainstream Media must adapt to a new reality or die.

A typical example was my recent discussion at a home show with a vendor of subscriptions for a suburban newspaper I sometimes read. He was eager to tell me about their great low-cost introductory subscription offer, and I had to burst his bubble by telling him I now get my news for free via the Internet, and typically a full day before the same stories are in his paper.

Hugh Hewitt today points out that this means publishers of daily and weekly publications must move to providing information that is still worth reading that day or more later.

"The [Weekly] Standard has figured out that weeklies have to move towards simply great writing on an every-issue basis to assure survival in the era of blogs that can and do produce facts and analysis all day every day. Almost every piece in this issue can be kept and read as time permit and still deliver value. It is a model that every weekly will have to develop or watch circulation decline quickly."

Hewitt then proceeds to apply the same logic to churches:
"And speaking of change, I attended my old church and a new church today. I went to Washington D.C.'s National Presbyterian Church to see an old friend in ministry there, and then took the Red Line to Union Station to attend the 11:00 service at National Community Church, which meets in the multiplex there. While the mainline denominations are striving to keep and build their congregations, the energy of the new churches, as represented by the two-location NCC, is phenomenal. As with every other institution out there, Christian churches have to adapt quickly to a new culture or decline just as quickly as audience share has for old newspapers and the big networks."

Having just returned to a former church for the memorial service of a friend, I have to agree. Though the church was as pretty as ever, the people very welcoming, and the organ a joy to hear, somehow it all seemed vastly smaller than I remembered from almost a decade ago, and a reminder that during a year spent visiting all the churches in that area, I never did find one that compared to Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, IL, which I was already attending occasionally despite its location 4 hours from our home.

National Community Church, I'm happy to report, is a member of the Willow Creek Association, a World-wide network of growing seeker-oriented churches hosted by Willow Creek.

If you are ever looking for a "with it" church, the WCA "Find a Church" link is a wonderful help.

Our church recently did a Christmas on Location message from South Africa. You can view the video in hi-res here, or med-res here, or lo-res here.

It makes the point that AIDS is killing incredible numbers of people in Africa. Yes, some due to poor choices of their own regarding sex or drugs. But many others are innocent victims, raped, recipients of tainted transfusions, infected at birth, or even uninfected orphans of those killed by AIDS.

As a church, we needn't pretend we don't know what causes AIDS, but we also shouldn't condemn and refuse to help even "guilty" victims, let alone provably-innocent ones.

Despite all the deaths from the recent tsumami, I suspect far more people will die of AIDS in Africa this year than will die in Asia from the tsumami.

Until the day this video appeared, I didn't know any AIDS victims personally, or at least didn't know I knew any. But now I do know one, and they are still beloved children of the most-high God, persons of infinite worth, for whom Christ died.

Update:
When I checked Ask Jeeves "How many die from AIDS in South Africa each year?", the third unsponsored link it offered listed 360,000 infected per year, as of 2002, according to this article in Le Monde. Two other links report AIDS activists claim 600 die of AIDS in South Africa every day - 219,000 each year in just one of many severely-affected countries.

Nicholas D. Kristoe (hat tip Instapundit) also reminds us that more poor folk in the Third World die of malaria each year from the lack of DDT to use against mosquitos, thanks to environmentalists who either prefer mosquitos to humans or can't recognize the full consequences of their opposition to any use anywhere of DDT for any purpose.

After reading an Email lament about water pollution this afternoon, I really appreciated Instapundit's link to Radley Balko's wonderfully hopeful article on the Good News of 2004.

Here are a few good bits, but be sure to read the whole thing.
1) "Juvenile violent crime has fallen every year – and nearly halved – since 1995."
2) "Life expectancy in the U.S. is at an all-time high among men and women, black and white."
3) "Concentration levels of every major air pollutant have dropped dramatically since 1970, even as we drive more, consume more, and produce more."
4) "U.S. water has been getting steadily cleaner for the last 20 years."
5) "The average citizen of the world has grown less likely to die a violent death caused by government, war or his fellow man."
6) "As of 2002, 70 percent of the world’s nations were holding multi-party elections. Fifty-eight percent of the world’s population lived under a fully democratic system of governance. Both of these figures are at their highest points in human history."
7) "Real per capita incomes in the developing world have more than doubled since 1975"
8) "Between 1960 and 2000, life expectancy in developing countries increased from 46 to 63 years. Mortality rates of children under five are half of what they were forty years ago."

Also see this related link.

One of my favorite authors is Theodore Dalrymple, especially his book "Life at the Bottom," describing his work as a physician among the poor of London.

According to this article, he is retiring. He will be greatly missed, for his clear-eyed understanding of the daily evils of that life, and for doing what he could to truly help.

Here's an example of his views, to which I can only add that I too unfortunately know several such women:

My patient was not just a victim of her mother, however: she had knowingly borne children of men of whom no good could be expected. She knew perfectly well the consequences and the meaning of what she was doing, as her reaction to something that I said to her—and say to hundreds of women patients in a similar situation—proved: next time you are thinking of going out with a man, bring him to me for my inspection, and I'll tell you if you can go out with him.

Moreover, they are aware that I believe that it is both foolish and wicked to have children by men without having considered even for a second or a fraction of a second whether the men have any qualities that might make them good fathers. Mistakes are possible, of course: a man may turn out not to be as expected. But not even to consider the question is to act as irresponsibly as it is possible for a human being to act. It is knowingly to increase the sum of evil in the world, and sooner or later the summation of small evils leads to the triumph of evil itself.

Here's another wonderful quote from the above article:
There has been an unholy alliance between those on the Left, who believe that man is endowed with rights but no duties, and libertarians on the Right, who believe that consumer choice is the answer to all social questions, an idea eagerly adopted by the Left in precisely those areas where it does not apply.

Read the whole thing.

Friend Paul forwarded an excellent article from Frontpage Magazine about the morality of defended borders.

Here are a few choice quotes:
Western nations face a challenge unique in history: to save ourselves from open-borders chaos and cultural destruction without becoming, in our own eyes, "racist," "mean," "exclusivist," and "un‑Christian."

...a world state can only exist by depriving individual nations of their right of self‑government, indeed of their existence, and by subjecting all mankind to the rule of a distant and unaccountable regime. Therefore, based on all our experience of politics and human nature, a world state could not be just...

If a democratic country has a large and culturally different immigrant minority, the native majority cannot readily announce that they are against the continuation of more immigration, because if they did so, the immigrant group, who are now the majority's fellow citizens, would feel that the natives regard them as undesirable.

"Would you turn away Jesus if he was at the border?"

In opening America's borders to the world, our political leaders are not following any divine scheme, but are indulging an all‑too‑human conceit: "We can create a totally just society," they tell themselves. "We can stamp out cultural particularities and commonalities that have taken centuries or millennia to develop. We can erect a new form of society based on nothing but an idea. We can ignore racial and cultural differences and the propensity to inter‑group conflict that has ruled all of human history. We can create an earthly utopia, a universal nation."

...the Tower of Babel is not, as neoconservatives have often said, a multicultural society which breaks down because it lacks a common culture based on universalist ideals. On the contrary, the Tower of Babel represents the neoconservatives' own political ideal—the Universal Nation. And the moral of the story is that God does not want men to have a single Universal Nation, he wants them to have distinct nations.

In the New Jerusalem, the heavenly city, there are still distinct nations, and kings of nations, and these are the glories of humanity which are brought before the throne of God, and there transfigured in the light of Christ.

Instapundit also touched nicely on this issue today:
My own sense is that immigration is a good thing, so long as immigrants want to buy into the American Dream. Assimilation is good.

I'd also like to keep out the terrorists, while not treating decent people like trash.

I too have a few thoughts on the matter:
America, unlike most countries, is held together by a shared idea, rather than shared physiology. The social contract here is that all who desire freedom are welcome, so long as they also respect freedom for others.

I have no qualms about removing from America, and preventing re-entry thereunto, anyone unwilling to respect the freedom of others. There's no shortage of other places one can be free of freedom. But there absolutely is a shortage of places with freedom for all, so those must be defended.

It is also easier to destroy than to build, so those who build must defend against those who seek only to destroy.

A practical result is that America can accept immigrants only at the rate at which they can be assimilated, and only those immigrants who value our culture. It isn't that we would turn a multicultural stew back into a melting pot. Rather, that some added ingredients ruin any stew, and must therefore not be added.

Chief among these, at the moment, are those willing to unfairly deny others the freedom they seek for themselves. I can no more easily tolerate the immigration of one who sees women as property than one who sees a particular race as property. They may come from places where such things are believed, but only if they are fleeing the horror of such awful ideas.

As Israel is newly discovering, good fences make good neighbors. It would be sad to have to fence all of America's borders, but war is sad, and we are at war. We didn't choose that war, but we must win it or watch freedom again disappear from Earth.

Much as I would love to welcome every immigrant who comes to America, if there is to be an America to which they may come, those who seek only to destroy must be forced elsewhere.

I've always had a hard time understanding Ezra's command to the ancient Israelites returning from Babylon to divorce their foreign wives. That seemed cruel, as did the commands earlier in the conquest of the Promised Land to kill all the "wicked" previous occupants of that land.

But I've also seen the consequences of ignoring that advice. Both then and now, there was a precious idea to be preserved rather than diluted and lost by allowing those who disrespect the idea to remain within the community devoted to that idea.

At the same time, I'm troubled by the similarity of my argument here to one made by a former co-worker, who though she valued tolerance above all other values, saw no need to be tolerant to the intolerant. In actuality, she was merely permitting folks to agree with her, as any who thought differently were labeled intolerant.

Much as I want to defend the idea of freedom, it can't only be my idea of freedom, or it isn't very free.

OK, enough from me. Your thoughts?

Even the left-most of the leftists among our faculty are starting to admit that there just might be a bit of a liberal bias on campus. Recent discussions have centered on this article from The Economist.

Academia is simultaneously both the part of America that is most obsessed with diversity, and the least diverse part of the country. On the one hand, colleges bend over backwards to hire minority professors and recruit minority students, aided by an ever-burgeoning bureaucracy of “diversity officers”. Yet, when it comes to politics, they are not just indifferent to diversity, but downright allergic to it.

This is profoundly unhealthy per se. Debating chambers are becoming echo chambers. Students hear only one side of the story on everything from abortion (good) to the rise of the West (bad). It is notable that the surveys show far more conservatives in the more rigorous disciplines such as economics than in the vaguer 1960s “ologies”. Yet, as George Will pointed out in the Washington Post this week, this monotheism is also limiting universities' ability to influence the wider intellectual culture. In John Kennedy's day, there were so many profs in Washington that it was said the waters of the Charles flowed into the Potomac. These days, academia is marginalised in the capital—unless, of course, you count all the Straussian conservative intellectuals in think-tanks who left academia because they thought it was rigged against them.

To me, a liberal arts university is a place where all viewpoints are welcome and openly debated, with the truth far more likely to emerge from the resulting discussions.

How to find such schools? Just ask what prominent conservative and liberal speakers spoke on campus in the past year. Students for Academic Freedom will also be happy to help.

Update: Instapundit weighed in today with two good comments and links on this topic: one about Harvard managing to hire a renowned conservative despite opposition from liberals, and another about a professor at Foothill College attempting to intimidate an Arab student into therapy for praising the U.S. Constitution.

Update2: Powerline offers a practical example of a mighty institution brought low by lack of idealogical diversity:
" the fundamental problem that led to the downfall of 60 Minutes and, perhaps, CBS News, was the fact that no one involved in the reportorial or editorial process was a Republican or a conservative. If there had been anyone in the organization who did not share Mary Mapes's politics, who was not desperate to counteract the Swift Boat Vets and deliver the election to the Democrats, then certain obvious questions would have been asked: Where, exactly, did these documents come from? What reason is there to think that they really originated in the "personal files" of a long-dead National Guard officer, if his family has no knowledge of them? How did such modern-looking memos come to be produced in the early 1970s? How can these critical memos, allegedly by Jerry Killian, be reconciled with the glowing evaluations of Lt. Bush that Killian signed? Why haven't you interviewed General "Buck" Staudt, who is casually slandered in one of the alleged memos? Why didn't you show the memos to General Bobby Hodges, rather than reading phrases from them to him over the telephone? Isn't it a funny coincidence that these "newly discovered" memos are attributed to the one person in this story who is conveniently dead?

For some years now, the party line of the mainstream media has been: of course we're pretty much all Democrats, but that doesn't influence our news coverage. If nothing else, Rathergate should put that defense to rest once and for all."

Update3: The Opinion Journal offers an interesting perspective on how students are reacting to all this. Suddenly, being conservative is cool...

"The number of College Republicans has almost tripled, from 400 or so campus chapters six years ago, to 1,148 today, with 120,000-plus members (compared with the College Democrats' 900 or so chapters and 100,000 members). College Republicans are thriving even on elite campuses. "We've doubled in size over the last few years, to more than 400 students," reports Evan Baehr, the square-jawed future pol heading the Princeton chapter. The number of College Republicans at Penn has also rocketed upward, says chapter president Stephanie Steward, from 25 or so members a couple of years ago to 700 today. Same story at Harvard. These young Republican activists, trudging into battleground states this fall in get-out-the-vote efforts, helped George W. Bush win.

The bustle reflects a general rightward shift in college students' views."

Why is this happening? Perhaps the Roe Effect.

I've been jaundiced about the Federal tax system ever since President Reagan's 1980s attempt to simplify income taxes made them more complex instead. At the same time, I've also been very intrigued by one idea from Steve Forbes' Presidential campaign a few years ago -- that the Federal income tax could again become so simple it could be completed on a postcard.

Another intriguing idea is to stop taxing production and only tax consumption. I suppose that's the idea behind the VAT (Value Added Tax) in Europe. It is a national sales tax, imposed incrementally at every level of production. I don't know how well it would have worked alone, but it seems the Europeans merely added it on top of most if not all of their already-high taxes, and their economies have done poorly compared to ours ever since.

Such ideas are normally pipe dreams, with no chance of passing and becoming law, because someone's ox is always gored whenever the current system is changed, and those who feel they are losing something make a lot more noise than those who merely have something to gain from a change.

With Republicans in charge of both houses of Congress and the Presidency, such hard problems can perhaps now be tackled with hope of success, just as President Johnson was able to tackle the tough problems of civil rights in the mid-60s when the Democrats similarly controlled all branches of government.

Unfortunately, even the best ideas don't always work out as intended. Johnson's "Great Society" wasn't so great for all the poor folks then warehoused in high-rise public housing.

Thus, any attempt now to make Federal taxes simpler and more fair:

1 has a better chance of success than any other time in my lifetime

2 must be done clearly and transparently in order to convince those of us who suspect it will really just be a way to raise taxes. This means no closed door sessions a la "Hillarycare" (Clinton's proposed nationalization of health care.)

3 absulutely must improve things for the poor rather than mostly for the already rich. As I've written before, it really bothers me that I paid a higher tax rate last year than Teresa Heinz Kerry.

4 should be so simple to understand that no two accountants will disagree about the amount due, as nearly all of them do about test cases now

5 should have no exceptions offering room for lobbyists to turn into new loopholes and unfairness

6 ideally, should also solve such looming problems as social security, health care and growing deficits, preferably in such a way as to discourage future Congresses from ever again promising too much to too many

If you find this topic of interest, read more here.

Update: Tom Maguire asks, sensibly, in my opinion:
...is there a Dem out there who can tell me (with a straight, non-botox enhanced visage) that if Social Security did not exist today, Dems would propose it with the current structure? Of course not - the benefit side may be fine (or not, but we can come back to means-testing later), but would any Dem anywhere propose a flat, regressive tax on wages as the financing method? Never.

His solution (for Social Security)?
Get rid of the tax on work, switch it to a tax on consumption - this should reduce dis-incentives to both work and savings. I understand that if the barriers to consumption are made too high, eventually both work and savings are also discouraged, except in Japan. However, the US seems to be a long way from having a problem of too little consumption, so I think we can take a chance here.

Update2: Democrat Mickey Kaus takes Tom Maquire up on the above offer here:
Suppose centrist Democrats did what was necessary to fix regular ol' Social Security, and then did what was necessary to create add-on private accounts. Would the result look all that different from what the Bush plan will actually look like?

Dems would insist on today's Social Security benefits as a minimum guarantee. And so they should! But couldn't that floor could be provided by a stringently means-tested old-style Social Security system--one that gave full guaranteed benefits only to seniors who really needed them? The idea would be to prevent future seniors who misinvested theirprivate accounts from living in poverty.

I've thought for over a year that the reason we invaded Iraq was much more involved than either that Saddam might be hiding weapons of mass destruction he might pass to terrorists or to rescue his long-suffering citizens.

To me the deeper reason was fairly obvious: after Afghanistan, to maintain the momentum of that victory, we needed to take a next step in our war on terror, rather than just respond to whatever Osama Bin Laden et al chose to do next. Given that need, what better step could we have taken than to solve our Iraqi problem?

By invading, we:
1 removed Saddam as a threat
2 established military presence in a strategic (for reasons of both geography and resources) location near potential adversaries.
3 forced our adversaries to fight us there now rather than in a time and place of their choosing.
4 planted a seed of democracy that, who knows, might someday amount to something.
5 inspired other nations in the area to better behavior (Libya and Pakistan, to mention two new friends)

Point 3 may not be clear: our opponents absolutely could not allow our attempt to plant democracy in Iraq to succeed, thereby forcing them to put all other plans on hold and fight us there now.

This has been dubbed the "flypaper strategy", and is working exceptionally well, as recently seen in Fallujah. The bad guys gather and take over an area to prevent democracy there, and once enough have gathered, they suddenly find themselves trapped and defeated.

OK, that's my opinion. But it's no longer only my opinion. You can read much the same here.

Update: Victor Davis Hanson's Postmodern War, includes this very relevant insight:
"Not finishing off a defeated Republican Guard in 1991 or sparing looters in April 2003 or breaking off the siege of Fallujah in April 2004 only ensures that more corpses will pile up later. President Bush’s so-called Axis of Evil in 2002—Iraq, Iran, and North Korea—all had in common unfinished business with the U.S. military that had led to a bellum interruptum of sorts. In contrast, the Grenada communists, Noriega, Milošević , and the Taliban were all defeated, and only after that were their societies rebuilt—and thus Grenada, Panama, Serbia, and Afghanistan now do not belong to the axis of anything. Perhaps for all the debate over how to fight irregular wars in an age of global terrorism, we would do best to recall the realistic, if inelegant, words of the owner of the Oakland Raiders, the infamous Al Davis: 'Just win, baby.'"

Update2: Now that the election in Iraq has succeeded, it's time for real Democrats, defined as those who agree the party name implies advocacy of democracy, to get on board. Thomas Friedman puts it very well here:
"I think there is much to criticize about how the war in Iraq has been conducted, and the outcome is still uncertain. But those who suggest that the Iraqi election is just beanbag, and that all we are doing is making the war on terrorism worse as a result of Iraq, are speaking nonsense.

We have paid a huge price in Iraq. I want to get out as soon as we can. But trying to finish the job there, as long as we have real partners, is really important - and any party that says otherwise will become unimportant."

Sprint has just begun shipping the new Treo 650 cell phone/PDA combo. Much though I've loved my Treo 600, it's been a problem using a different PDA than the Middlewife, who prefers just to have a PDA cloned from mine than have to keep data up to date herself.

We could have gotten another Treo 600, but instead chose to get a pair of Treo 650s. The main reason for that is that the 650 has the 320 x 320 resolution I so loved about the Palm Tungsten C PDA I used before the Treo.

The cool thing is that I was able to immediately upgrade the Treo 600's data into the 650, make a backup with BackupMan, and then restore to the other Treo 650. Presto, both completely set up.

It turns out I was lucky to do that before adding some of my data from the 600 to the 650. A newly-discovered memory problem with the 650 limits BackupMan from working properly with over 10M of data.

This is due to the 650 using a new kind of non-volatile RAM that allocates memory less efficiently than on the 600. Palm suggests programs from the 600 will grow in memory use by about a third on the 650, and suggests moving any programs that may not fit as a result onto an SD card. That solution has worked fine so far for me. CompUSA had a $60 sale on a SanDisk 1G SD RAM card last weekend, so running out of that memory likely won't happen any time soon. Palm is promising an update to improve the memory problem ASAP.

Sprint too is promising an update, to enable the Bluetooth dial-up networking feature that is missing from the 650 thus far. A clever 650 owner has figured out how to enable the feature, but reports it appears still buggy, which is likely why Palm and Sprint left it hidden for now.

The camera on the 650 is the same resolution as on the 600, but works vastly better. The screen and keys are also much better lit than on the 600, especially when using it in total darkness.

As you might expect, some of the utility software for the 600 doesn't work on the 650. That's to be expected, as the developers haven't had one to work on yet either. Fortunately, everything I really care about works fine, and most of the rest is being updated for the 650.

If you already have a Treo 600, you may want to hang on to it while these gamma test (first consumer sale) bugs are resolved. Similarly, if you are buying a Treo, and don't care about higher screen resolution or swappable batteries, you can save some money by going with the 600. (I, for instance, will soon have one available used...) But for those who want maximum screen resolution, there is now a new king of the PDA and cell phone hill.

Ever since last summer I've been saying they'll pry my Treo 600 from my cold dead hands. But now it sits in a drawer, unmourned, as both of the Middles happily investigate their new 650s.

One caution for Sprint customers: if you've had your current phone 18 months, Sprint offers a $150 credit on a Treo 650, but ours arrived without the expected rebate form in the box. Supposedly, we can also just extend our current contract for another 2 years to get the discount, rather than having to start over with a different contract. So now I have to call Sprint Telesales back and ask what's up with the missing rebate form. On the other hand, a new contract could easily be $150 worse over a 2 year period than the one I have now, so perhaps I'll look over the currently-offered new contracts first, just to make sure I won't regret accepting the discount.

Update: I neglected to mention the 650 does a fine job of playing MP3s, and can hold lots of them in a 1GB SD card.

Also, don't forget about accessories. Those I consider useful enough to order included: a dock, a car adapter, a stereo headphone adapter (for the MP3s), a laptop charging/sync cable, spare stylus+pen combinations, screen protector, and a spare battery. These are cheaper from TreoCentral.com than from PalmOne.com, though only the latter had the laptop cable.

Update#2: The $150 rebate form is available at Sprint stores. I picked up a form today.

One important difference between the laptop cable for the Treo 650, compared to the one for the Treo 600 is that the one for the 650 does not charge the PDA. That means carrying a separate charger. On the other hand, if your laptop PC has Bluetooth, a new version of PdaNet reportedly makes the laptop cable unnecessary.

Update#3: GadgetX has now published a very detailed comparison review, pitting the new Treo 650 against last year's star smartphone, the Treo 600.

Update#4: Treonauts offers a Top Ten list of reasons to buy a Treo 650, whether or not you already have a Treo 600. I also neglected to mention that I got the Bluetooth feature working via PdaNet. And I'm all submitted, confirmed, and waiting for the offered Sprint $150 rebates on both of our 650s.

Update#5: There is now an update to fix the Treo 650 memory problem, so BackupMan is working properly again. Connection of outgoing phone calls is a lot faster now too.

Sadly, I'm still waiting for my Sprint rebates from purchasing the 650s. I suspect that from now on I will do my consumer math as though rebates are not real, so as not to be disappointed when they fail to be paid as promised. As a result, I now avoid firms that rely on promised rebates of high prices rather than offering low everyday prices.

Update 6: I finally called Sprint to see what had become of my rebate. That department is at www.sprintrebates.com and their phone# is (800)477-4127. From the Web I learned that they at least intended to send me a never-received postcard denying the rebate.

With that informaton and all my proofs of purchase in hand, I then eventually figured out how to discuss the matter with a human. It took a while, but she eventually agreed I've earned $225 of the promised $300 rebate.

I could have kept trying for the rest, since I am absolutely certain I met all conditions for the full amount, but I realize her job is to refuse rebates, so I decided it wasn't worth a further fight for only $75.

On the other hand, I'll never again accept anything Sprint offers via rebate, I'm done recommending Sprint to others, and when the curent agreement expires I'll switch to an unlocked GSM Treo.

Update7: Just as I was getting ready to call again and ask whatever became of my shrunken rebate, it arrived, six months and several phone calls after the associated purchase. Better late than never, but for retaining a good customer's repeat business better never late.

Update8: Treonauts has just posted an excellent entry on travel gear when packing a Treo 650 for a trip.

That's timely, as I'm currently packing for a trip myself. And I agree with a lot of their recommended items to pack, specifically:
spare battery
travel charger
laptop sync cable
headphone adapter
sideways belt holster

One thing I'm still seeking though, is the mother of all headsets.
To be ideal, it should:
1) go behind my head like my Nike stereo headset for listening to my iPod.
2) include a microphone, so I can also use it for phone calls
3) plug directly into the Treo 650, without needing an adapter, such as via Bluetooth
4) if cabled, be passively powered, without any added circuits embedded in the cord to weigh it down
5) if Bluetooth, be charged by the Treo travel charger, so I don't have to carry 2 chargers
6) automatically mute MP3 play when a call comes in
7) probably impossible with the Nike stype headphones, but why not have it be noise-cancelling too?

Apple has finally increased the maximum storage of an iPod above 40GB. That's important to me because my collection of MP3s (all legal thank you) is 41GB. To the rescue comes Apple's new iPod Photo, with its 60GB capacity, and a new color screen.

It is exactly the same size as the original iPod, but has the controls of the iPod Mini, and comes with a dock, external charger, a belt clip case that also fits a Treo perfectly, and cables to show photos on a TV. (Yeah, that's the ticket for an 8 Megapixel digital photo: show it on either a 2" 16-bit color screen, or on a 320 x 200 pixel television screen...)

On the other hand, with almost 20GB of spare storage, why not let it also carry a safety copy of all my favorite photos? It acts like an external USB drive, allowing the photo files to be manually moved to a device able to display them properly.

Battery life is supposedly better than on the original iPod, and has been ample for a full day of listening thus far.

I've settled on two other sets of headphones than the ones included in the box. For high noise environments, Sony has a fine set of ear buds for about $50 that actually go inside your ear. They are fine for a few hours of listening on the subway, for instance. But for all day listening I prefer a $22 Nike behind the head wire pair of earphones. Both came from Best Buy.

If you don't need the 60GB capacity, the original iPods have been thinned down now, and cost less than before. If all goes well, perhaps Shades will report on that one after Christmas.

After a week of use, I can see why Apple has 85% of this market. The software is intuituve to use, and very powerful. I'm having to manually copy my preferences for each song from MusicMatch to iTunes, but having playlists smart enough to skip songs I only rated One Star is enough reason to do the coding. I also modified that playlist to omit anything marked as a speech, or as Christmas music (and have a separate playlist for the latter.)

I really used to enjoy my Intel Pocket Concert MP3 player, but iPod is a huge step beyond its 256M of flash ROM storage.

The only weakness I've found thus far is in syncing the iPod with Windows XP. Once iTunes thinks it has finished syncing with the iPod, I usually have to manually order first iTunes and sometimes also the safe eject icon in Windows' system tray before the iPod itself stops displaying "Do not disconnect." Otherwise it will still say that after syncing overnight, even though a sync actually only takes a few minutes.

Update: I've now added an iPod Shuffle (1GB version) to the family. This allows me to leave the iPod Photo at the office, and carry something far less susceptible to damage that still holds almost all my very favorite songs (about 200 of the 300 I've rated with 4 or 5 stars in iTunes.) Apple was hoping the Shuffle would sell even to folks who already have iPods; if I'm typical, they guessed correctly.

One other recommendation: Anapod Explorer software. It only did one thing for me, but that one thing was crucial. When my PC hard drive recently failed under warranty, it was easy to get replaced, but created a need to restore all the files from my iPod Photo back onto the new PC hard drive. iTunes won't do this, but Anapod Explorer is happy to. (One hint: there is an obscure option, explained in section 5.2.2 of the manual to have it restore files to directories by artist and then album. Trust me: you want that option.)

About a year ago now, Hale DeMar, a Wilmette IL restaurant owner had his home burgled twice in two days. If I recall correctly, the first time a car was stolen from the garage. The second time, the burgler entered the house by crawling through a dog door. That wasn't a wise move, as the homeowner was present and armed. The burgler was shot, but amazingly, the homeowner was the one in trouble afterwards.

Wilmette has a local ordinance against handguns. The usual response to such incidents is to confiscate the handgun from the homeowner. But for some reason Wilmette attempted to prosecute.

That lit a fire under the Illinois legislature, which just passed a new law (720 ILCS 5/24-10) over the veto of the Governor to allow use of a firearm to defend one's property, even in localities where owning firearms is illegal. That this happened under a Democratic majority in both houses of the legislature indicates Senator Kerry isn't the only Democrat who sees some value in gun ownership.

Here's a link for more info about the bill.

Personally, I'd rather use a non-lethal Taser than a gun for home defense, but for some reason that's still illegal in Illinois. One alternative is a home defense shotgun. Folks seem to think a 12 gauge model with open choke and an 18.5" barrel is best. Although debate continues about shells, it appears that inside the home even rock salt acts like a slug, but with the benefit of not also penetrating neighbors' homes after passing your own walls.

Lots of comments on the faculty discussion list yesterday about this link, which purports to show that folks in blue states generally have higher IQs than those in red states.

What astounded me about the discussion is that no one mentioned how racist and intolerant the same folks consider it in other contexts to rate folks via an IQ test.

Somehow, they also neglected to mention that according to military records released by both, the red state candidate had a higher IQ than the blue state candidate.

There's a long history of Democrats calling Republican candidates stupid, but saying the words doesn't make it so, and also doesn't promote either the healing of the nation or the self-reflection necessary for Democrats to ever win elections again.

A much better response was posted here.
"During the 1930s, union organizers were taught never to blame the workers if an organizing campaign failed. 'It's not their fault for not understanding,' the organizers were instructed. 'It's your fault for not explaining it clearly enough.' It is a motto today's liberals and progressives would do well to hang on the walls of the political campaign war rooms in the elections of the coming years."

Update: I remind myself of Jeff Wall's epitaph from time to time: "No one cares how much you know, until they know how much you care." Being smart, or even an expert, gains no points with folks who suspect you may not value them and their views as highly as your own.

David Lebedoff, via Powerline, suggests this may be the reason for Democratic party defeats in November.
"They are voting against the Democrat in election after election, because they think that the Democrat thinks that they're stupid.

The silence about values turns off even more voters than does the habit of calling "stupid" anyone who disagrees with you."

It seems to me that Democrats drew exactly the wrong conclusion from the 2000 election: rather than moving toward the center, as President Clinton had, they became newly devoted to the purity of their principles. The Republicans, on the other hand, did move toward the center after their loss in 1996, and continued to highlight their Centrists at the New York convention this year.

Job one for the Democratic party after this election is to make it impossible for extreme partisans to dominate the next Presidential Primary season.

Based on constitutional amendments in defence of traditional one man and one woman marriage passing in all eleven states considering the matter, it looks like supporting Gay marriage may now be even more dangerous for candidates than tinkering with Social Security or the right to keep and bear arms.

A bright spot for Democrats is new Senator Barack Obama of Illinois. Given the number of suburban yards here sporting both Bush and Obama signs, Both Democrats and Republicans will do well to listen to Obama.

On the Republican side, job one is to replace aging Supreme Court justices. I hope nominees will favor "original intent" over "living document", and that neither party will focus on a single issue such as abortion. For supreme court justices, as for Presidents, the defining issues of their tenure are unlikely to be predictable at time of nomination.

There is also a clear message for President Bush in yesterday's election: we now have a mandate to finish strong in Iraq through the January elections, but not to invade additional countries--even in the name of a good cause like ending genocide and slavery in Sudan.

I call on those who opposed the President this time to support him and our soldiers. Whether Al Queda was in Iraq before no longer matters. It's there now, and must be dealt with, better there than here, not only for our own sake but for the sake of all in Afghanistan and Iraq who have trusted promises of freedom.

That done, I next hope to see a period of sober reflection. With Iran's mullahs hoping to become a nuclear power soon and North Korea twitchy and unpredictable as ever, let's let a day's problems be sufficient unto the day, rather than seeking out new adventures.

Fiscally, it's time to end deficit spending. Deficits make sense in time of recession, but we haven't been in one for quite some time now. In good times, we run surpluses, to prepare for future bad times. The mantra I want to hear is "Fiscally conservative. Socially liberal" in the sense of helping the downtrodden while preserving seed corn we'll need to plant next year's crop. That may require a veto or two.

Finally, this is a time for all of us to be both humble and teachable. As soon as I got home today, I took down my Bush yard sign and removed my Bush car sticker, not because I'm embarrassed, but because this is no time to pour salt in fresh wounds. Yesterday we were partisans. Today we are Americans.

Update: Some Democrats are suggesting the reason they lost is that they weren't sufficiently angry and mean. Quite the opposite, in my opinion -- I've heard entirely too much about what you're against--for years. Please recall how ineffective that approach was for Republicans against President Clinton, and give it a rest until you can be for something.

Update 2: John Tabin has some good advice for Republicans, to go along with all the advice everyone has been offering Democrats:
"First and foremost, don't buy the 'moral values' hype" and "If the president has a mandate for anything, it's the continuation of his forward strategy in the war on terror." He agrees that "a shift toward originalism in the judiciary is a good place to start" and beyond that "Federalism lights the way... The recognition of gay unions should be entirely a matter for the states, and state parties should be free to differ as to the proper political approach; if a constitutional amendment is necessary, it is to restrain the courts rather than to define marriage for the nation. (Senator Orrin Hatch was toying earlier this year with introducing an amendment that would be ideal.) Likewise, the overturning of Roe vs. Wade ought to be the end-point of the pro-life movement on the federal level; abortion after Roe should become -- as it was before Roe -- a state matter."

Many of us are familiar with derogatory terms used to describe folks of various opinions about war, but I learned a new one today. The term "Bird of Paradise" describes those who support war only under impossibly-ideal conditions.

Here are some of the good bits:
"If the United States chooses to cut and run in Iraq, then we are all but finished as a military power in the world. We have the best trained, best equipped, and highest-spirited troops in the entire world. But the soft underbelly of the military has always been the public's willingness to actually fight and prevail in a difficult struggle."

"Those who would urge the nation into a war, or vote the nation into war, without contemplating the possible difficulties and pain of the struggle are cowards-- and worse than cowards. A man who would send another man to his death for a cause he does not think is important is a villain. What else can one call it?"

Read the whole thing here.

Ben at my office forwarded me a simple solution for fixing all that is wrong with Social Security: make it the retirement plan for members of Congress--with the same features for them as for everyone else, rather than them continuing to have a separate plan.

Here's a fun quote from blogger Will Wilkinson:

"Republican vigilance about keeping illegal voters from voting is democratically equivalent to Democratic vigilance against Republican attempts to suppress the legal vote. Republican vigilance has the semi-intended side-effect of suppressing likely Democratic votes. And huge Democratic registration and GOTV drives have the semi-intended side-effect of canceling out a large number of Republican votes with illegal ballots. I bet I can tell from your party affiliation which you think is worse."

The rest is here

I've just noticed a wonderfully-titled essay "What Would Jesus Spend?" by UIC prof Deirdre McCloskey in the Wall Street Journal.

Briefly, contrary to popular opinion, we do not have to buy things we don't need just to keep the wheels of industry turning. In the short run it would be bad for workers at the Hummer plant if all consumers suddenly decided to buy only sensible cars. But in the long run those workers would work instead on sensible products, most of which would still be needed in a greed-free world.

"In the new, luxury-less economy it would still be a fine thing to have light bulbs and paved roads and other fruits of enterprise, and more of these would be better than less. "In equilibrium"--a phrase with resonance in economics similar to "by God's grace" in Abrahamic religions--the economy would encourage specialization to satisfy human desires in much the same way it does now. People would purchase Bibles in koine Greek and spirit-enhancing trips to Yosemite instead of paperback Harlequin romances and package tours to Disney World, but they would still value high-speed presses for the books and airplanes for the trips.

The desires of people who followed Jesus--or Mohammad or Amos, or for that matter Buddha--might well become different from those they typically now indulge. But that doesn't change how the system would work best. It would get the high-speed presses for printing Bibles by fostering a system of private property in which people's ideas and their labor seek their best employment in printing--what the blessed Adam Smith called the "simple and obvious system of natural liberty." And it would get the airplanes to Yosemite by allowing alert consumers to seek reasonable deals in travel, what Smith called the propensity to truck and barter."

The sharp-eyed among you may have noticed I deleted one entry from this blog -- my New Year's entry about losing weight, in which I promised updates later.

I actually did update it at least once, to report "no progress." Actually, it was worse than no progress after a new pill my doctor prescribed.

After hearing a great sermon on self control in June, which mentioned a new weight loss group at our church that would be starting in September, I resolved that if I didn't start losing weight by then I would make myself join that group, no matter what.

And so I did. It's only been three weeks, so I have a very long way to go, but for the first time in over a year, the scale is trending down instead of up.

I'm posting this for two reasons: because I promised to, and because what I've learned may help others.

The name of the program is "True Hunger", and that's also its only requirement. You can eat whenever and whatever you want, but only when you are truly hungry (stomach rumbling). And you are to stop eating as soon as you are satisfied (not when you are full or stuffed.)

I'm learning other interesting things along the way, such as that my stomach, in its natural state, is only the size of my fist. That gives me an easy way to judge how much food it will likely take to satisfy me (roughly half what I ate before.)

Though it has taken me until today to get back to my weight of January 1, I'm thrilled to be there, and very hopeful.

Want to know more about True Hunger? Here's the link.

Update: 6 weeks in, I'm losing 2 pounds a week, and retired my first pair of too-large pants.

Last week I also discovered a really quick ways to lose 3 pounds -- bad chicken. Be sure to check those expiration dates kids...

Preparing for a colonoscopy this week had a similar, but more lasting effect, due to the required clear liquid-only diet for the day before the test. The test turned out great, so won't be repeated for ten years. For those of you over 50, just do it. Colon cancer is one of the most curable of all cancers, yet also one of the most deadly.

Update 2: The first 10-week session is now done. I ended up losing 16 pounds in all, plus 1 more since, as of today, Thanksgiving morning 2004. Finally the first person outside our group noticed yesterday that I'm losing weight. Yay! Visible progress!

Update 3: The new year finds me 1.5 more pounds down than at the last update, despite the holidays. I was also reminded today of another of our key learnings from the group: If you know you will, no matter what, eat a particular snack as part of a meal, eat it first so as not to overfill. Our True Hunger group relaunches in two weeks, and I'm already signed up, as I've still got a long way to go in this and various other aspects of life.

Update 4: Another pound down yesterday, making 19.5 in all as I look forward to our group resuming tomorrow. My goal for Spring is three-fold: first, to get below the weight limit of my bicycle, (1/2 pound to go), fit the next size down of slacks, and get below the stated weight limit of the fold-down ladder into my attic (5.5 pounds to go.) I saw the doctor yesterday; he was very pleased, and cut my meds.

Update 5: Weight loss is going slower this session, about 1/2 pound per week, but continuing at that rate every week, for a total of 22 off thus far. The belt has tightened one notch too, a most welcome change.

One of the other guys in our group lost as much in 3 weeks as I have since September '04, but started from 350, so still has a ways to go.

Update 6: Session two ends tomorrow. I'm down 25# overall now, & 2 sizes down in pants size. Most folks wouldn't be pleased by a 38" waist, but for me it's progress!

The most memorable moment in this session was when I decided to carry two 10# weights on a 2 mile walk, to symbolize the weight lost to that point. I like to died! If anyone ever tells you 10# isn't much, hand them a 10# weight and ask them to just hold it for 1/2 hour! On the other hand, I just repeated the stunt today, on a slower walk with the Middlewife, and it was a lot easier today after working out more over the past week. I even did a walk/run version of my usual path yesterday when my arms ached too much to carry weights. That kept my pulse up in the cardio range without actually forcing me to "jog" (an excercise I have always hated.) To avoid stress on my knees, I did the 100 step "run" portions up on the balls of my feet, which was easy enough for that short a distance, even though I did it at least a half dozen times in the course of the effort.

I'm also now forcing myself to do situps on occasion again. Ugh, only 25 so far, but better than none.

I'm also reading a good book on the topic: The Total Temple Makeover, by Gregory Jantz. It is full of good info, and none that seems misguided thus far. Highly recommended, even if your body mass index isn't still 32 when it should be under 25.

Update #7: Another 2# down. Carrying two 10# weights around the lake is no longer a big deal, and now allows me to do all the exercises I can think of with them along the way.

I have to be cautious with run/walks though. Even with new top-quality running shoes and careful warmup, I am prone to a pain in my right calf if I'm not careful, and then can't run even a moment until that goes away after about a week. I knew there was a reason I've always hated running!

Saw the doctor again - again pleased (5# off since last visit), and cut my meds again.

Found a Web site that calculates Body Mass Index here and ideal weight here.

One of the best concepts in the book above is glycemic load. This takes the glycemic index of food one step further, factoring in typical portion size. Here's a link to a useful list for common foods.

Update#8: New info on the Body Mass Index suggests a BMI under 30 is sufficient to avoid early death due to obesity. Last time I checked, my # was 33, so now I've an extra incentive to improve that by at least 3, which for me is another 20# off. That should be very doable by my next birthday at the current rate of progress.

At a retreat of the leaders of our group this week, I learned that some of our leaders are themselves "stuck" at a weight well above their goal. The danger is that this could simply become a fellowship for fat people, rather than actually helping them lose the fat.

One goal of the leaders now is to focus more on evidence-based suggestions, i.e. things that have been proven helpful. That makes sense. In all of life, there is a big difference between knowing the right thing to do, and actually doing it, with far more fans in the bleachers watching than players on the field playing. As for me, I'm a player now, and intend to stay on the field until game over.

One other related event of note this week was the government's release of a new food pyramid, in 12 flavors, based on age and gender. One observer suggested it be called a food dodecahedron, but one of its authors would prefer it to be shown as a food octagon, preferably large, red, and labeled "stop". That author also plans to investigate reports that the new pyramid labels brown rice as a dark green vegetable.

Update#9: Progress continues. To my surprise, I have a waist again, only 2" narrower than my chest and hips, but it's a start. A new pair of pants I bought a couple of weeks ago that was an inch too tight in the waist at the time fits fine today.

My goal this session is to lose a pound a week, less than in the first session but more than in the second session. So far, so good.

Our leader is now facing knee replacement surgery, giving him an incentive to lose another 25# himself. Toward that end, I'll be sharing this blog entry with him:
"From an orthopedic standpoint I will tell you that there is no doubt about increased morbidity from being overweight. That increased morbidity shows up in my office all the time. Foot pain, knee pain, back pain, neck and shoulder pain - all are more common in individuals who are overweight with poor fitness.

In addition, if you are obese, with a BMI of greater than 30, you have 3 times the usual risk of complications when undergoing elective knee replacement surgery. Problems such as blood clots, infection, increased blood loss and neurovascular injuries are all more common in the obese, and the result of the surgery less predictable. These studies have been done, including one excellent one published just last September from Johns Hopkins."

Update 10: I've hit a plateau. Since the end of the last session, I've not again reached my lowest weight of that week. The good news is that at my last doctor visit I was another 5# down, and my blood sugar almost where it should be, but I still have far too many pounds to go to be slacking effort now. I'm noticing a subtle creep upwards in the quantity of food I choose to eat, so will be seeking to remedy that.

Another blessing that may help is that our primary office challenge is moving on to a better opportunity, which I hope will reduce work-related stress.

Part of who our team is is that we want to please others. For years now that hassn't been an option, reminding us we serve an audience of one, and must find better solutions than overeating in response to stress.

Update 11: It took all summer, but the plateau is finally over and weight loss has resumed. Some thanks for this go to my urologist, who found my recent kidney stones were calcium oxalate and cut both of those from my diet. Sadly, that means no more milk, chocolate and nuts. On the bright side, chocolate and nuts were both temptations to me. Associating them with the kidney stone helped in giving them up.

I also learned this summer to avoid situations of food temptation. Events with lots of good food close to hand result in a week or two of later effort re-losing pounds I'd already lost. If I offend anyone by avoiding such events, I'm sorry. My will power is not yet sufficient.

Case in point: I enjoy a monthly mens' breakfast sponsored by our church. Even so, I'm giving that up while I'm obese.

Another help in losing is that I've settled on another small folding bicycle that fits in a bag for carrying on the train. Much as I love the Dahon Jetstream P8 folding bicycle for comfortable riding, the Dahon Presto Lite seems more compatible with mass transit weight and size limitations. Both are excellent ways to get exercise, when ridden 11-14 miles per working day. But I'm still a wimp compared to the co-worker who rides his Dahon Helios XL every working day of the year, even in downpours and blizzards.

Another joy is that a good friend has just joined our True Hunger group. May God bless us both in reaching weighty goals this Fall!

Update 12: Another pound down this week. Yay! Thanks to Adam Jacot de Boinod, via the Beeb, here's a lovely German word that applies to our need: "Kummerspeck is a German word which literally means grief bacon: it is the word that describes the excess weight gained from emotion-related overeating."

Update 13: Today was a big milestone in this long quest. I hit 210#, 40# down from my initial weight 13 months ago. I am exactly halfway to my goal weight of 170# ("normal range"), and only 6# from being only "overweight" rather than "obese".

There are medical benefits already apparent: my blood sugar is now normal, so my med for that has been cut in half, my blood pressure was low normal for the first time I recall ever, so that med has also been cut in half, and my cholesterol is low enough I've been taken off that med entirely!

Update 14: Another red letter day. I've had a brand new pair of slacks in a drawer for years that were a size smaller than expected when purchased, and have never come close to fitting since. Today I wore them to work, and they've fit fine all day! We also packed nearly all my remaining XL tops and size 40 slacks for Katrina victims in Waveland, MS (large sizes are reportedly very much in need there.)

Update 15: More happy news -- as of today I am officially "overweight" rather than "obese".

Shades' delighted comment was "Congratulations! You've gone from a medical condition to a lifestyle choice."

Better, this happy result is in spite of my eating out with a friend at Leona's all-you-can-eat buffet for lunch yesterday. Although I still felt a bit out of control and as though I'd overeaten, I only filled one plate, making it the least amount of food I ever recall eating at such a buffet.

Update 16: The Fall True Hunger session ends this week, and I am down 14 pounds and 5 combined inches for the 10 week session. That's 2 fewer than in the Fall session last year, but then there are fewer pounds left to lose now than there were then, so I'm very pleased. I'm also now fitting size 36 jeans and size "Medium" wind pants.

Update 17: This morning, for the first time in about a decade, I weighed under 200 pounds. That was my next goal so I'm happy to have reached it. I also had a co-worker ask "Where'd you go?" today, and another co-worker wasn't even sure at first who I was. On the other hand, one of the 4 year olds at church looked at and pushed my stomache before sitting on my lap for the second week in a row this weekend, so I suspect they know further improvement remains needed.

For inspiration to continue progress, I'm reading another excellent book "The Power of Full Engagement", by Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz.

Update 18: Another banner day today! For the first time in over a decade, I put on the size Medium shirt I got for the only time in my life I ever jogged 5K, and took off around the lake. Based on the teachings of the above book, I don't jog at a steady pace. Rather, I run hard for a while, then walk fast until I recover, and then repeat the cycle.

One day this week the weather outside was awful, so I did the trek on an elliptical trainer in the association exercise room. It reported that my cycle was walking 2 minutes at 4.3 MPH or above, then running 1 minute at up to 7 MPH, averaging 6 MPH for the entire 30 minute session.

To retain arm strength as I lose weigh, I'm also doing pushups again, and finally managed to do 20 at once. Similarly, to remind my stomach it is also expected to relinquish its fat, I'm doing situps too, and can now do 50 per session.

The principle is that you only gain strength when you both exercise beyond your comfort zone and then allow time for recovery. Thus, the idea is to do something tough, and then allow time for recovery. And this is not only for physical training; the same is recommended for developing mental and emotional strength.

For instance, when my cell phone died yesterday, I had to wait about 10 minutes at the phone store for service, then return an hour and a half later to pick up a replacement phone. Normally, I'd have seen the entire process as a pointless frustration. But following the book's advice, this time I viewed it as an opportunity to practice the virtue of patience.

My weight goal for Christmas was to get below 200# on MY scale, which weighs 2# heavy. Today was the day. By doing my run/walk around the lake before weighing, I got that scale to read 198.5#

Size-wise there has also been progress. As noted above, I'm now able to comfortably wear some size Medium shirts (Walmart has some great microfiber ones for $17 each) and just barely get into a size 34 belt. That's a net 3 inches down in chest/waist/hips/thigh/arm measurements since our last True Hunger session ended a month ago.

Update 19: Another day for celebration! When I visited the doctor today, he took me off both Avandia and Cardizem, meaning 1) I no longer have Diabetes, and 2) my blood pressure is back to normal. I'd also lost 13 pounds since he last saw me in October.

Update 20: I weighed 195# on my scale this afternoon (which is really 193#.) That's 55# off since I started, and 25 yet to go! Recently I'm only losing at the rate of 1/2# per week, at which rate finishing this will take me all year. On the other hand, I'm also gaining strength and speed as I exercise. I can now lift 35# dumbbells for a dozen reps, which is 11 more than when I bought them a few weeks ago. I'm definitely size Medium for shirts now, 34 for pants, and find it interesting that some of the stores I like don't offer any sizes smaller than that. I still have some gut to lose, but may also now be able to fit a tapered dress shirt.

Interestingly, the Journal of the American Medical Association has just reported that having a Body Mass Index below 25 increases your odds of dying within 4 years, so 170# may now be as low as would be safe for me to go.

Update 21: OK, I found another non-recommended way to lose weight - catch a cold. I'm down 2.5 more pounds in 2 days, even though I think I'm eating enough. My guess is that my body is working harder than usual to overcome the cold.

Update22: Progress is back to its usual slower pace, but continuing. Keeping a log helps remind me of that progress when I forget. I hit a new low of 190.5# on my scale today, and hope to lose at least 1 more by April 1, when I see my doctor again. I also set my best time ever for a 2 mile run/walk last night, at 23.75 minutes. I'm now running more of it than I walk, but still need both.

Our True Hunger leadership team just finished a two month study, the key take-away of which for me was learning that it is normal for us to hit plateaus on the way to weight loss goals, and that at each such pause, God will show us what else we must surrender to continue our progress.

Now we are seeking to neighborhood-ize that ministry, which may be a good step forward. One remaining issue is whether our goal is to be 1) a way to help people to lose weight, or 2) a support group for people who have always struggled with weight issues, and are likely to continue struggling all their lives. The difference is in whether we can realistically expect participants to eventually reach a goal weight, and then maintain it thereafter. One of our leaders considers that impossible, but this week I learned a leader in another ministry took True Hunger just once, learned the principles during that ten week session, eventually lost all her excess weight, and has kept it off ever since without too much trouble.

Personally, if such people didn't exist, I'd have trouble maintaining hope and progress myself. I respect that for some people this battle can't be truly "won", any more than a former alcoholic can ever expect to safely go back to drink. But I refuse to believe that permanent weight loss is impossible for anyone willing to sufficiently restrict their caloric intake and sufficiently increase their activity level. It seems scientifically provable to me, that if I eat and exercise like a 170# man, in the long run I will be a 170# man. Further, if along the way, I gain sufficient insight into the problems I have previously medicated with excess food, there is no requirement for me to ever do so again. It isn't that I couldn't fall off the wagon and gain weight again, as so many do after ending a diet. Rather, it is that I can, with the help of God and skilled mentors, learn better physical, mental, emotional and spiritual habits and thereby permanently improve this aspect of my life, as similar insights in other aspects of my live has permanently improved those.

As that last paragraph indicates, my "mercy" gift is insufficient for me to be a fully-helpful leader for those in need of the lifelong support group version of True Hunger. but I do hope to "give back" as a mentor to others starting this path, just as I was myself originally inspired by a leader who as of this week is down a total of 70#. In fact, that still inspires me, as I expect to have lost 80# by the time I'm done.

Update23: God has such a sense of humor! I've been wanting to weigh less than 190# on my own scale (which weighs 2# heavy) by the time I saw the doctor again, and yesterday was the day. However, it was achieved via a mysterious diarrhea the night before that I could have happily done without. On the other hand, I still weighed 189.5# on that scale this morning, so it wasn't a one-time fluke.

The doctor was very pleased with my9.5# weight loss since I last saw him, and figures my weight is now just fine as far as he is concerned. My BMI is now 27.5, and I'm precisely average in weight for guys my age. So, I'll be happy if progress continues, but not frustrated when I don't lose a pound a week.

This time it was my anti-kidney-stone meds that got cut, more progress I can measure! My blood pressure is now ideal, but I still take one small pill a day to keep it that way. That for me is a continuing reason to lose a bit more weight. Every pill I no longer need is that much less stress on my liver and kidneys.

Total weight off thus far, 62.5#, since 9/13/04. On that day, I met my True Hunger leader, who had already lost over 60#, and wondered if I could ever hope to do so myself. The answer is now clear: in my own strength, no, but in God's strength, for sure!

While at our church, John Ortberg was a great teaching pastor. He went back to California last year, but I just realized his sermons are still available via the Web here.

Here's a sample I found helpful and hilarious from his latest message:
Someone sits in front of a nutritional disaster—a plate full of salt, fat, sugar and grease, fried in oil and covered in butter, and what do they pray?

Is that some kind of a joke? That would take a miracle! At that moment, God’s will would be for you to push back from the table and give the food to the dog, but dogs matter to God too! So, His will is probably for you to give it to the cat.

While on the subject, Rev. Donald Sensing, one of my favorite bloggers also posts his sermons weekly here.

I know, some of you, like me until a few years ago, would rather have a cavity filled than read an extra sermon. I remember my nephew sending me tapes of his pastor's best sermons, and me not listening to them because I could not imagine them not being a waste of my time. I was wrong. Now I am like that nephew, offering CDs of particular messages that I think would help particular people.

So give it a shot. See if either Ortberg or Sensing recently said something that might help you today, as the quote above did me. What's the worst that could happen?

Update: John Ortberg was back in church last night, with a great talk, and the Middlewife and Shades visited Ortberg's new church to hear him last weekend. So this has been Ortberg-festival week at the Middle house.

We often hear, from many directions, how awful things are for us and our world, and how doomed we all are unless we change. And yet, despite all our problems, has there really ever been a better time in which to live than now, or a better place to live than here?

A page from the closing summary of Bjorn Lomborg's excellent book "the Skeptical environmentalist: Measuring the Real State of the World" puts it all in perspective:

"This civilization has over the last 400 years brought us fantastic and continued progress. Through most of the couple of million years we have been on the planet we had a life expectancy of about 20-30 years. During the course of the past century we have more than doubled our life expectancy to 67 years.

We have more leisure time, greater security and fewer accidents, more education, more amenities, higher incomes, fewer starving, more food and a healthier and longer life. This is the fantastic story of mankind, and to call such a civilization "dysfunctional" is quite simply immoral."

Lomborg wrote the above lines in response to Al Gore's book "Earth in the Balance", of which he says "Gore's Litany about 'a dysfunctional civilization' and the loss of a 'direct experience with real life' reveals both a scary idealization of our past and an abysmal arrogance towards the developing countries of the world."

Though Lomborg's views are often attacked by other environmentalists, he began his efforts as a member of Greenpeace. Lomborg merely wants the limited funds available for solving the various remaining environmental problems of our world to be spent in the most effective way. He doesn't deny, for example, that the Earth is warming. He merely prefers to deal with resulting problems in a way that maximizes well-being for future generations, especially in the Developing World.

Highly recommended!

I've just received a popular free publication that makes an excellent point. To ensure that point registers, please read first. Then I'll reveal the source.

"What we're seeing in the marketplace of ideas today is a disturbing growth of incivility that follows and confirms the broken windows theory. Alas, this breakdown of civil norms is not a failing of either the political left or right exclusively. It spreads across the political spectrum from one end to the other.

If we are to prevail as a free, self-governing people, we must first govern our tongues and our pens. Restoring civility to public discourse is not an option. It is a necessity."

I agree completely. And now, the source: Edwin Feulner, in the July issue of Imprimis For a free subscription, click here.

Update: In this regard I was very proud of my family this weekend. At our annual reunion, everyone was appropriately restrained and polite in discussing our many real differences regarding this Fall's election.

There has been a fair amount of discussion at the University today about this link.

Here's the short version: "A new book written by a former FBI consultant claims that al-Qaeda not only has obtained nuclear devices, but also likely has them in the U.S. and will detonate them in the near future. These chilling allegations appear in "Osama's Revenge: The Next 9/11: What the Media and the Government Haven't Told You," by Paul L. Williams (Prometheus Books).

Williams claims that al-Qaeda has been planning a spectacular nuclear attack using six or seven suitcase nuclear bombs that would be detonated simultaneously in U.S. cities."

The prof who initially posted it considers the book credible because a personal contact he trusts confirmed a few years ago that "44 suitcase nuclear devices from the Soviets were missing."

If so, it is possible some found their way to enemies.

It is also uncomfortably possible such a device could take down a nearby landmark.

Discussion at the University has been at a higher level than usual, focusing on such things as:
1 such an attack could leave Manhattan uninhabitable for a thousand years. Imagine the effect of several such blasts on our economy!

2 The goal of a simultaneous attack in multiple cities would be to destroy American power beyond ability to retaliate. As one prof commented "their first blow, as Machiavelli advised, has to kill the prince." That American forces would afterwards retain unimaginable retaliatory abilities might not be adequately considered by attackers.

3 Although civil defense is hopeless against nuclear Armageddon, it could help one survive a suitcase nuke. Immediately ducking under a desk the moment one noticed the explosion's flash might be sufficient to survive such a blast a mile or two off. Promptly leaving the area after the blast might avoid lethal fallout.

An obvious question is, if al-Queda has the weapons, why haven't they already used them? Perhaps because certain terrorist-friendly governments believe they too would suffer unendurable losses on such a day, ordered by whatever third undersecretary of the post office survived the events to become President.

But perhaps it's just a matter of waiting for a preset day and time, such as a third attack on Manhattan during this year's GOP convention.

Assuming this does NOT happen (and I dearly pray it does not!), a good question to ask of vice presidential candidates this year might be: "If you suddenly were President after nuclear blasts in several cities, what would you do?"

Perhaps the best thing about the current campus discussion is that no one has been foolish enough to suggest such an event would somehow still be all Bush's fault, or that electing Kerry would prevent it. Those who believe such foolishness have been mercifully and uncharacteristically silent in this discussion.

Update:
Time Magazine has a related story here. It suggests Al Queda is interested in Mexico as a route to deliver weapons of mass destruction to the U.S. It also reports "U.S. officials have begun to keep a closer eye on heavy-truck traffic across the border. The Mexicans will also focus on flight schools and aviation facilities on their side of the frontier. And another episode has some senior U.S. officials worried: the theft of a crop-duster aircraft south of San Diego, apparently by three men from southern Mexico who assaulted a watchman and then flew off in a southerly direction. Though the theft's connection to terrorism remains unclear, a senior U.S. law-enforcement official notes that crop dusters can be used to disperse toxic substances. The plane, stolen at night two weeks ago, has not been recovered."

Update2: Winds of Change lists 5 kits that might help one survive such an event. The "Get Home Kit" seems particularly appropriate.

Update3: Belmont Club looks thoroughly into the eventual results of such an event, and conludes "... a catastrophic outcome for Islam is guaranteed whether America retaliates or not. Even if the President decided to let all Americans die to expiate their historical guilt, why would Islamic terrorists stop after that? They would move on to Europe and Asia until finally China, Russia, Japan, India or Israel, none of them squeamish, wrote -1 x 10^9 in the final right hand column."

In case that wasn't clear, here's the underlying detail:
"Consider a case where Islamic terrorists obliterate a city, causing five times the deaths at Hiroshima and an American limited response.
Iteration Non-Islamic Losses Islamic Losses
1 - 5 x 10^5 -2 x 10^6
Total - 5 x 10^5 -2 x 10^6

The so-called strengths of Islamic terrorism: fanatical intent; lack of a centralized leadership; absence of a final authority and cellular structure guarantee uncontrollable escalation once the nuclear threshold is crossed. Therefore the 'rational' American response to the initiation of terrorist WMD attack would be all out retaliation from the outset."

Update4:
A new article here reports August 6 is a preferred day for an "American Hiroshima" in one of the nine cities with the most jews, among them Chicago. According to the article, the weapons are already in the U.S.

Update5:
If the worst happens, and you've survived it and gotten home, here are instructions on how to survive fallout from a small blast and the resulting social disruption.

It is written to be read "just in time", but also points out ways to improve matters by thinking ahead, such as ordering a keychain geiger counter rated for continuous use for 10 years without changing the battery. (Much as I love gadgets, this is one I sincerely hope none of us will ever need.)

Update6: On the bright side, this authoritative article by Richard Miniter assures us rumors of suitcase nukes are thankfully no more than urban legend thus far.
"For now, suitcase-sized nuclear bombs remain in the realm of James Bond movies. Given the limitations of physics and engineering, no nation seems to have invested the time and money to make them. Both U.S. and the USSR built nuclear mines (as well as artillery shells), which were small but hardly portable--and all were dismantled by treaty by 2000. Alexander Lebed's claims and those of defector Stanislev Lunev were not based on direct observation. The one U.S. official who saw a small nuclear device said it was the size of three footlockers--hardly a suitcase. The desire to obliterate cities is portable--inside the heads of believers--while, thankfully, the nuclear devices to bring that about are not."

Update7: Donald Sensing, who has personal experience, concurs with this being an urban legend, and fills in a couple of details.

"The point that the piece’s writer, Richard Miniter, was probably trying to make is that even with eons-long half lives, when the warhead contains only a small amount of fissionable material, the design yield of the bomb will not be achieved after a suprisingly short time, not the “few months” Mr. Miniter speaks of by any means, but only a number of years. I know personally of US Army atomic artillery projectiles that were removed from war-reserve inventory for that very reason. Somewhat larger that presumed suitcase nukes, their nuclear material had decayed enough that they couldn’t be trusted to fiss as designed."

"ADMs didn’t come is “backpacks” but in hard cases similar to footlockers in shape, but somewhat larger. These weapons were originally designed, decades ago, to be employed by US Special Forces teams in eastern Europe if war against the Soviets ever came. The smallest SF team has 12 men. It didn’t take 12 men to carry and ADM, but one man sure couldn’t do it by a long shot. ADMs were heavy, not really man portable at all in the sense that a suitcase nuke would be presumed to be."

I was planning to blog today that our individual freedoms are the key thing about America that upsets Islamists, but Donald Sensing has already done so, far better than I would have. Here are a couple of his main points:

"Our present conflict with radicalized Islam is a war of ultimates... Al Qaeda certainly thinks so. An historical, basic tenet of Islam, not just radicalized Islam, is that all human affairs of any kind must be under religious control, mediated through Islamic law. The separation of religion and politics that the West took centuries to develop is mostly absent from Islam, the radical variety or not. Fortunately, most Islamic societies have honored this total integration only in the breach. But al Qaeda and company say that the rule of strict Islamic law is a non-negotiable goal.

This concept of submission is the matter of ultimate concern to Islam generally and is enormously amplified by radicalized Islamists such as Osama bin Laden and his allies. In their view, no sacrifice is too great to achieve that end, and no violence is unjustified."

and

"...our conflict with radicalized Islam is over whether Western Civilization shall prevail against the last vestige of medievalism; whether the rule of men who behead their prisoners, enslave their women and deny the rights of self-determination to their own people, shall kill us and displace us, to whom the individual and individual rights are sacred and whose laws require respect for freedom of conscience, freedom of religion and whose traditions preserve freedom from fear and cruelty."

What I still find amazing is that so many who daily seek greater freedom for various groups seem unable to object to a group opposed to all freedom.

How can any Gay person, for example, possibly support those whose solution for their condition would be to hurl them off buildings? How can any liberated woman support those whose goal is for women to again be controlled by men? How can those of any other (or no) faith support those who compell submission to one faith?

Would any American really give up over two hundred years of freedom just to win the next election?

Praying for our nation...

This was a great weekend for the Piquant family, as P. & S. were married, with Man and Woman in the Middle happily in attendance.

Here's Man in the Middle's part in the ceremony:
"One of the great mysteries of creation is that man and woman are both physically and psychologically different, yet in need of each other. In the Bible, this is expressed in the words, �From the beginning, He made them male and female.� If you are so inclined, it is possible to believe this a mere accident of nature, signifying nothing, but I am not so inclined. In this and other perfections of nature, I see the hand of a skilled and caring designer, one to whom it matters whether we truly live our lives together, or merely co-exist on an insignificant planet of an unknown star. The Biblical account goes on to say, �And the two shall become one.� This is a great mystery, and one of the strongest proofs I have personally found for the existence and love of God.

A biologist can tell you that joy is not necessary for the preservation of the species. If there were no purpose in our existence, no goal in life, then there would also be no need for two to become one in a joyful act of physical union. We could just as well have replied on pollen, like the flowers, or a joyless instinct, like many other species. In fact, the odds favor that, but life is different. Life has given us an excess of joy and fulfillment entirely unnecessary in mere biological terms. Hidden in the act of marriage, as in all the other great turning points of life, from birth to death, is unmistakable evidence of a loving creator�delighted to give us more than we require. Whatever else may be said of it, the joy possible in what we call sexual union is a gift, and its temporary fulfillment a promise of other, deeper, and more lasting joy planned for us by the same creator."

Live long and prosper--together!

According to MSNBC News here, in a new "Eighth Annual World Wealth Report" published by investment bank Merrill Lynch & Co and consulting firm Capgemini, the word "millionaire" reportedly only appears twice--in the footnotes.

Instead, those who used to be referred to as "rich", are called HNWIs (High Net Worth Individuals.)

There were reportedly 7.7 million millionaires in 2003, up half a million from 2002.

Seventy Thousand individuals worth over $30 million are called "Ultra-HNWIs". And those worth half a million also got a new name: "mass affluent."

One implication of such a story is that the economy is improving, at least for NNWIs.

But in a more important sense, every one of us has always been an Ultra High Net Worth Individual, whether we have a penny in the bank or not. We are each of infinite value to the one who created us and continues to love us without limit.

Ultra HNWIs, as measured in dollars, are strictly temporary. As our pastor often says, the rate of mortality is still just about 100%.

But Ultra HNWIs, as measured by God are eternal. Again, as our pastor often says "You are a beloved child of the most high God."

Bankers coined the term HNWI as a way to gain the business of folks with lots of money. Jesus, on the other hand, suggested "Don't store up treasures here on earth, where they can be eaten by moths and get rusty, and where thieves break in and steal." Instead, "Store your treasures in heaven, where they will never become moth-eaten or rusty and where they will be safe from thieves." (MT 6:19-20 NLT)

Mark Satin's book "Radical Middle" makes a great point about education: "Some school districts boast more than three and a half times more spending per pupil than others... It may be the most pressing civil rights issue of our time."

Historically, the Democratic Party has been the one in Illinois wanting to change how elementary and secondary schools are funded, to reduce or eliminate funding differences between rich and poor school districts. This year they have the power to act -- a Democratic governor, Democratic majorities in both houses of the legislature, and of course a Democratic mayor and city council in Chicago.

Unfortunately, silence on this issue remains deafening.

That suggests one more ingredient is still needed -- preferably one that also ensures Republican votes. And the magic ingredient is --- choice. Jeff Jacoby has an excellent column here (read the whole thing), suggesting our current local education system is essentially a monopoly, at least for those without much money, and functions as badly as any other monopoly. The obvious cure he suggests is to let families vote with their feet, choosing better schools over worse ones. As he puts it "Putting power in the hands of parents is the real key to equality -- and the key to excellence, too."

If it were proposed to fund the education of each child in our state equally, from state, rather than local taxes, many Republicans might initially oppose the idea. But if the proposal included vouchers, allowing poor families to select among a variety of schools, the same Republicans might suddenly support the funding change.

I expect teachers' unions are predisposed against changes that allow choice, but deep down I'm sure even they agree the present system is incredibly unfair to the poor, and unfortunately, according to Jacoby their preferred solution of only throwing money at the problem has already been tried and failed.

One more nuance: the new education funding plan could not simply be a redivision of the present resource pie. Rather, it needs to offer the chance for every school to compete fairly with New Trier. Thus it will necessarily cost more overall at first. But if the new system includes school choice, there is every reason to expect long-term economies, as competition among schools inspires each to improve its efficiency and effectiveness.

Lately it seems no amount of contrary evidence is sufficient to shake the faith of mainstream media in certain "facts". Among these:

1. There never were any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, even now that we've found some.

2. The United Nations is the only way to solve international problems, even when it is proven corrupt and responsible for genocide in places like Rwanda.

3. Whenever bad things happen, blame America first.

4. America may morally only involve itself in places of no possible national interest.

5. All Republican Presidents are stupid and dangerous. Since Clinton, they also lie.

6. Nothing matters but Democrats winning the next election.

7. Every war is Viet Nam.

8. Every crisis is Watergate.

9. We must be tolerant of everything and everyone except White males, Christians, Jews, gun owners, scientists who experiment on animals, conservatives, and anyone who disagrees with us.

As I've suggested before regarding other topics, this sounds more like religion than science.

Robert Alt has noticed too, and offers "The Liberals' Creed."

What I don't understand about all this, is why centrists and conservatives with money put up with it? P.J. O'Rourke's famous law of economics is that "you get what you pay for", so why do folks who don't agree pay for such papers and magazines, continue to view such TV programs & movies, or tolerate such behavior by employees in media companies they own? Why do such parents still donate to or pay for their children to attend colleges where "liberal arts" means "only liberal views allowed"? Why do such investors invest in companies putting out such garbage?

Charles Krauthammer has an excellent solution to our current high oil prices.

By the mid-1980s, the World overcame the oil crisis of the 1970s, through more efficient cars, appliances, passenger jets, better insulated homes, and various other entirely rational responses to high energy costs.

Unfortunately, most Americans forgot all about that in the booming 90's, again choosing vehicles with horrible mileage, while simultaneously opposing all attempts to either drill for more oil in the U.S. or even build new refineries to process oil from elsewhere.

Now those among us who drove Hummers to anti-drilling rallies are reaping the equally rational consequences of our decisions. My last fill-up of our Prius cost me $14.55, good for over a week of driving. But whoever filled up just before me paid $40.

Krauthammer's cure? Raise the tax on gasoline to a total cost of $3 a gallon, but make it variable, so that when prices drop, the tax increases, to keep the price at $3 a gallon. That way we can't forget today's lessons when oil is cheap again. Note: our UK house guest this week reports gas there is $5 a gallon.

Like Krauthammer, I don't want that tax money kept by the government. He suggests returning it to taxpayers in Income tax cuts. I, on the other hand, would let some of it pay off the deficits incurred thus far in the War on Terror, and use any remainder to reduce the cost of public transit.

I would also make tollway tolls variable, higher as the roads get crowded, again using the added tolls collected to reduce the cost of public transit. That would have a dual benefit: the arrogant jerk who wants to drive his Beemer to work at 70 MPH rather than poke along at 5 MPH could do so, for say $10 a trip rather than the current $1. And all the folks priced off the tollway at rush hour to make that possible could instead ride to work for free on Metra.

Everybody wins except OPEC, and who wants to reward them?

Here's the rest of Krauthammer's column.

Update: A year later, it's a lot easier to believe gas prices might occasionally reach $3 a gallon even without added taxes. The underlying reason seems to be growing demand for oil in China and India as their recently-freed economies grow. For those of us who believe God loves all people, rather than just Americans, this is a good thing, and to be encouraged, even if it costs us more weekly at the pump.

A recent Yahoo News headline caught my attention. It reads as follows: "Bush's Backing of Rumsfeld Shocks and Angers Arabs."

Seeming to remember a lot of such stories lately, I did a Google search on the phrase "pleases Arabs" and found 2 hits, both pointing to the same story, which turned out to be a comment in an Armenian listserv about our displeasing Europe rather than about pleasing Arabs.

To confim my suspicions, I then searched Google for the phrase "angers Arabs", and found 1,160 hits.

So the next time you hear that something we've done has angered Arabs, just remember that according to my unscientific Google searches, the odds of angering Arabs may be 500 times the odds of pleasing them.

Rick Heller of Centerfield thinks we need a new approach in the war on terrorism, and suggests "Perhaps a version of the serenity prayer is in order

God give us the serenity to tolerate bad guys who do not threaten us;
Give us courage to defeat the terrorists who intend us harm;
And wisdom to know the difference."

(The original Serenity Prayer, possibly written by Reinhold Neibuhr during World War II is:
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
courage to change the things I can,
and wisdom to know the difference.")

A recent Thomas Sowell column points out correctly that most proposals to cut the cost of medical care or make it universally available do not even attempt to reduce the true underlying costs of medical care. They merely attempt to reduce the money paid toward those costs, by such means as trying to import drugs from Canada.

What's wrong with this picture is a simple matter of supply and demand. If the underlying costs of our current level of medical care are not somehow paid, then in the long run less medical care will be offered. If doctors don't make a good living and repay their school loans, fewer will choose to become doctors. If drug companies don't recover their costs in developing new drugs, new drugs will no longer be developed.

There are ways to reduce underlying costs of medical care, such as reducing the effort needed to get a drug approved for sale, or easing the barriers to entry into the profession of physician, but no one seems to be proposing such solutions yet.

Read the whole thing.

Update: This was the main topic of a chat with my brother and his wife today after a doctor visit. We agreed on three changes to our system that would actually make more medical care available, as opposed to merely arguing about who should be stuck with the bill.
1) lower the barriers of entry to the career of physician. As an illustration that this can work, J. pointed out that doctors now make house calls again in New York City. Many immigrant physicians want to live in New York, but can't afford an office and all its equipment. So instead, they make house calls with a black bag, as in the old days.

2) reduce the cost of malpractice lawsuits. A. has a background in law, so commented that only about 10% of lawyers bring most such suits, and end up keeping a lot of the proceeds. Somehow the idea has become accepted that if anything bad happens to anyone, then it must be someone else's fault, and the victim should become an instant millionaire at the expense of that someone else. Anything that reduces the incentives of ambulance-chasers to file frivolous lawsuits would help, including limits to awards for non-economic losses such as pain and suffering, and such principles as "loser pays" to make it more dangerous to file and then lose a frivolous lawsuit. (Under "loser pays", common in English law, the loser of a lawsuit must pay the legal costs of the winner.)

3) Along with ending the war on drugs (see this related post), which we appear to have no realistic hope of ever winning, change the role of the Food and Drug Administration, from deciding what drugs may be sold at all to merely certifying, like Good Housekeeping or Consumer Reports, which drugs are known to be safe and effective. This immediately reduces the cost of bringing new drugs to market by removing most of the hoops through which a company must now jump before being allowed to sell new drugs.

The benefit of all three of these proposals is that they reduce the actual cost of medical care, no matter who pays for it, and thereby increase the total supply of medical care possible.

Update2: Jeff Jacoby has another good idea for reducing health costs -- restore consumer awareness of actual costs of their medical expenses.

"Hospitals and physicians rarely advertise their rates because patients rarely care to learn them. For the majority of Americans under age 65, medical bills are something insurance companies take care of. Few patients have any incentive to focus on price, so few health care providers have any incentive to compete on price. Result: ever-higher health care costs, leading to ever-higher insurance costs.

For more than 60 years, federal law has excluded the value of employer-provided health insurance from the employee's taxable income. Buy your own health insurance, and you pay for it with after-tax dollars. Get health insurance through your employer, and it's tax-free."

Update3: Arnold Kling points out that all our discussions regarding the potential economies of single-payer government health insurance ignore that they can only affect the 10% of health care costs attributable to insurance paperwork and corporate greed. He points out that that would be like saying all the calories in a cake on its icing.
"The cost of health insurance has been rising, leading to well-publicized problems in the employer-provided health insurance system and increasing numbers of uninsured. But blaming insurance companies for that is like saying that the calories in a double-fudge chocolate cake are all in the icing.

The reality is that re-doing the icing will not have much effect on the cake, as the icing is not the reason that the cake has so many calories."

A recent Jeff Jacoby column reports "There were two must-read stories on Page 1 of the April 26 New York Times. One, headlined "Abortion-rights marchers vow to fight another Bush term," reported on the massive pro-choice rally that had flooded the nation's capital one day earlier. The other, "Militants in Europe openly call for jihad and the rule of Islam," described the rise of Muslim supremacists who make no secret of their goal: the conversion of Europe to Islam, by force if necessary."

Jacoby's point? "there is a vastly greater danger � especially to women � than the president of the United States: the global jihad being waged by militant Islamists, like those described in the other New York Times story."

And who has done something about that danger? "Today the Taliban dictatorship is gone and Afghanistan's 12 million women are free of its cruel fanaticism. For that they can thank the US military and its commander-in-chief � the same commander-in-chief so stridently denounced on the Mall last week as an enemy of women."

Read the whole thing here.

Charles Krauthammer makes a similar point in this recent column, suggesting "For the jihadists, at stake in the war against the infidels is the control of women. ... The case the jihadists make against freedom is that wherever it goes, especially the United States and Europe, it brings sexual license and corruption, decadence and depravity. ... Which is why the torture pictures coming out of Abu Ghraib prison could not have hit a more neuralgic point. We think of torture as the kind that Saddam practiced: pain, mutilation, maiming and ultimately death. We think of it as having a political purpose: intimidation, political control, confession and subjugation. What happened at Abu Ghraib was entirely different. It was gratuitous sexual abuse, perversion for its own sake. That is what made it, ironically and disastrously, a pictorial representation of precisely the lunatic fantasies that the jihadists believe � and that cynical secular regimes such as Egypt and the Palestinian Authority peddle to pacify their populations and deflect their anger and frustrations."

One of the two schools I consider worthy of regular contributions is Hillsdale College. Although I don't like quite everything about it, I love its independence from government-imposed political correctness, devotion to the ideals that made this nation unique, and its monthly free newsletter "Imprimis", available here.

The April 2004 issue of Imprimis contains a wonderful article by Maurice P. McTigue, on how New Zealand recently succeeded in completely rethinking its government. Although the article focuses on how government was reduced, much of the article is still valuable even if you think government needs to be bigger. Liberal or Conservative, I have yet to meet anyone who thinks we need a more inefficient or more corrupt government.

Imprimis allows anyone to freely reprint all or part of the article, so long as I add that it is reprinted by permission from IMPRIMIS, the monthly journal of Hillsdale College.

So here's an abbreviated version, with the best bits marked by me in bold-face. The whole thing is here.

Rolling Back Government: Lessons from New Zealand

What about regulations? The regulatory power is customarily delegated to non-elected officials who then constrain the people's liberties with little or no accountability. These regulations are extremely difficult to eliminate once they are in place. But we found a way: We simply rewrote the statutes on which they were based. For instance, we rewrote the environmental laws, transforming them into the Resource Management Act, reducing a law that was 25 inches thick to 348 pages. We rewrote the tax code, all of the farm acts, and the occupational safety and health acts. To do this, we brought our brightest brains together and told them to pretend that there was no pre-existing law and that they should create for us the best possible environment for industry to thrive. We then marketed it in terms of what it would save in taxes. These new laws, in effect, repealed the old, which meant that all existing regulations died - the whole lot, every single one.

This is a follow-up to my ealier post about the Radical Middle.

The idea of a renewed draft has recently been suggested by Republican Senator Chuck Hagel, and previously by Democratic Representative Charles Rangel. Hagel thinks we lack enough volunteers to win in Iraq, and Rangel thinks a draft would help get us out of Iraq.

The military draft, back in the Viet Nam era was a lottery. Each birthday drew a number, and men turning age 18 got drafted into the military starting with those whose birthday drew #1, and continuing until enough had been drafted.

There were lots of exceptions. For a while I was deferred as a college student, then as a seminarian, but eventually I was 1A, meaning draftable, except that my number didn't get called that year.

Had I been drafted, as a contientious objector to that war but not necessarily all wars, I would have served as a medic -- still in battle, just not armed.

That whole system seemed unfair to me, primarily in that only some had to serve, and those who did tended not to be the children of the rich and powerful. In other words, the lottery was rigged, not directly, but in who was actually subject to it in a particular year.

What I considered a much better idea at the time, and still do, is Universal Service, the idea of having every 18 year old take time off between high school and career or college to do something useful to help others, hopefully returning with a better idea of what they want to do in life. In Universal Service, the armed forces are only one of several options, but all seek to focus teens on service to others. There's a lot that needs doing that never seems to get done, but just might if a year or more of national service ever became a normal part of becoming an adult, as it already is in some countries.

Although I still tend to be in favor of the idea of universal service, regardless of what war we are or aren't in at the moment, there's no way around compulsory service being involuntary servitude that increases the overall size of government, no way I could support a plan that lacked a civilian service option for those opposed to war, and I'll be uncomfortable with plans that let anyone escape serving, or that lack options for folks of other ages who have not already served to serve later, perhaps in retirement.

A powerful argument against the idea of a draft, written by a politically-centrist United Methodist minister who served in the military is posted here.

Interestingly, though there has been a lot of heated discussion about the draft at the university, even those who almost always and those who almost never agree with me had no comment at all about this proposal. I'm guessing that's either because it doesn't advance the argument they want to have now, or it's too centrist, and therefore too far off their radar even to see as worthy of discussion.

Update: Last night I received an Email claiming "The administration is quietly trying to get these bills passed..." referring to Rangel's bill to revive the draft.

As I responded to the presumably-innocent-but-misinformed current sender, "The legislation mentioned was sponsored by a prominent Democrat, Charles Rangel, who would never willingly carry water for the Bush administration. Yes, it's a real bill, but no, it is not supported, quietly or otherwise, by the Bush administration. For the Email message to claim otherwise seems intentionally dishonest, in hopes of scaring votes away from the President this Fall."

At the suggestion of Paul (a friend in the legislature), I've just finished reading the new book Radical Middle:The Politics We Need Now, by Mark Satin. It's an excellent book that discusses new ideas which creatively and pragmatically use the best from both sides of the usual political divide. (In other words, this is not just a try at getting extremists to meet halfway.)

Satin starts with 4 guiding questions:
1. How can we give ourselves more choices in life?
2. How can we give everyone a fair start in life?
3. How can we maximize our potential as human beings?
4. How can we be of use to the developing world?

He then fills these out with proposals to provide:
1. More choices:
A. Universal preventive health care (implemented like auto insurance)
B. Law reform as if people mattered
C. Energy independence (work on 7 alternatives; develop whatever works)
2. Fair start
A. Great teachers
B. Affirmative action based on need, not skin tone
C. Jobs and startup-savings for all
3. Maximize potential
A. Corporations we can be proud of
B. Biotech - with adult supervision
C. Universal service
4. Help the developing world
A. Globalization - with savvy & feeling
B. Humanitarian military intervention
C. Tough on both terrorists & the root causes of terrorism

I really like the values, and a lot of the proposals. There's a potential here for "the next Ross Perot," who may not have won his election, but did define the terms of debate on his key issue -- the Federal Deficit -- for a decade. If I were running either of the two major political parties, I'd be all over this book, considering how to make the big tent of my party extend enough to include these issues and the people who care about them.

I'll have more to say about several of the individual subject areas eventually.

Islam is often touted as the world's fastest-growing religion. Theodore Dalrymple (author of one of my favorite books Life at the Bottom), on the contrary sees Islam as doomed to rapid decline, for its:

1 medieval treatment of women. "Here, for once, are instances of unadulterated female victimhood, yet the silence of the feminists is deafening. Where two pieties�feminism and multiculturalism�come into conflict, the only way of preserving both is an indecent silence."

2 inability to distinguish between church and state. "Muhammad unfortunately bequeathed no institutional arrangements by which his successors in the role of omnicompetent ruler could be chosen " and "With political power constantly liable to challenge from the pious, or the allegedly pious, tyranny becomes the only guarantor of stability, and assassination the only means of reform."

3 inability to tolerate dissent. "He sees in the West�s freedom nothing but promiscuity and license, which is certainly there; but he does not see in freedom, especially freedom of inquiry, a spiritual virtue as well as an ultimate source of strength." and "If they were content to exist in a seventh-century backwater, secure in a quietist philosophy, there would be no problem for them or us; their problem, and ours, is that they want the power that free inquiry confers, without either the free inquiry or the philosophy and institutions that guarantee that free inquiry."

Dalrymple is particularly impressed by the utter lack of piety among young Muslim men he sees in prison: "The young Muslim men in prison do not pray; they do not demand halal meat. They do not read the Qu�ran. They do not ask to see the visiting imam. They wear no visible signs of piety" and "What I think these young Muslim prisoners demonstrate is that the rigidity of the traditional code by which their parents live, with its universalist pretensions and emphasis on outward conformity to them, is all or nothing; when it dissolves, it dissolves completely and leaves nothing in its place."

Please, read the whole thing.

Update: A less-sanguine view is offered by Shmuel Bar in "The Religious Sources of Islamic Terrorism" in the June '04 issue of Policy Review. It discusses:
The Weltanschauung [worldview] of radical Islam,
The legality of jihad,
The dilemma of the moderate Muslim,
The Western dilemma, and
Fighting hellfire with hellfire.

After reading Bar's analysis of the theology involved, it is clear President Bush is correct in saying the War on Terrorism may continue for decades. Islamists have challenged the Muslim world as thoroughly as the 60's radicals did Western civilization, and the resulting ripples are likely to persist for decades, if not centuries.

However pleasant it might be to think of just pulling out of Iraq and Afghanistan as we earlier did from Viet Nam, doing so would be interpreted by Islamists as justification for new attacks on the West:
"The Soviet defeat in Afghanistan and the subsequent fall of the Soviet Union were perceived as an eschatological sign [portent of the end of the world], adumbrating the renewal of the jihad against the infidel world at large and the apocalyptical war between Islam and heresy which will result in the rule of Islam in the world. Along with the renewal of the jihad, the Islamist Weltanschauung, which emerged from the Afghani crucible, developed a Thanatophile [death-loving] ideology in which death is idealized as a desired goal and not a necessary evil in war. ... In these circles, the American occupation of Iraq is likened to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan; a sense of American failure would feed the apocalyptical ideology of jihad."

During the 1990s, I remember wondering whether we would later look back upon them as another "Gay '90s" like the 1890s. It is now clear that we shall.

For a description of Apocalyptic views within Christianity, see my Y2K Primer.

Update2: Strategy Page has a very comprehensive (i.e. long) discussion of the dim prospects for Islamist terrorists, along with an amazingly detailed history of Islamic terrorist attacks since 1968.

This short excerpt sums up a great deal:
"Most Saudis are willing to tolerate Islamic terrorism as long as it is not practiced in Saudi Arabia. For decades, this has been the attitude in Europe as well, and American operations in Iraq are criticized for "stirring things up." Both Saudis and Europeans preferred doing business with Saddam Hussein, or someone like him, because tyrants are more dependable.

So the world is divided into those who want to treat Islamic terrorism as a police issue, and those that want to root out the support for the terrorists, and reduce the possibility of spectacular attacks using chemical, biological or nuclear weapons. Each camp considers the other out of touch, and there is little possibility of a meeting of the minds. Sort of like religion; you take a lot of it on faith.
"

When I was in high school, I believed in the War on Poverty. I wanted to end world hunger. Now, almost 40 years later, Charles Krauthammer reports we finally truly know how to do it. Except it turns out there's a cost, to us, and suddenly those historically associated with the war on poverty are no longer willing to pay the cost of achieving their goal.

When I was a young child, I'm told I once was so impressed by a church lesson about feeding the starving children of Hong Kong that I went door to door to collect donations from our neighbors to save those children.

India and China were also badly in need of aid at that time. But no more. All of those places have since figured out how to dramatically reduce hunger and poverty among their people -- through free enterprise.

The cost to us? Outsourcing. And it turns out that a lot of good liberal advocates for helping the poor are unwilling to support the one method proven to truly help -- letting the World's poor compete freely with us in the open market.

The worst single example I can think of at the moment is our high tariffs on imported sugar, most of which comes from impoverished Caribbean islands, and mostly protect rich corporate farmers in America, not American consumers.

Another example is when folks complain about wanting foreign workers to enjoy the same labor and environmental standards as American workers, even though no one else in those countries enjoys such standards, and even though imposing such standards would eliminate the only way those workers can compete effectively with ours--through lower costs.

Did Mexico benefit more from NAFTA than the U.S.? I certainly hope so. Most folks there still lack things nearly all U.S. citizens take for granted. As E. pointed out in on our drive home tonight, most homeless people in our area have cars! Poor people in the U.S. would be considered rich in most other countries. So why shouldn't we be willing to benefit less from trade agreements than poor countries?

As Krauthammer points out, 40 years ago leading Democrats like Hubert Humphrey were in the vanguard of anti-poverty efforts. And even as recently as President Clinton, some Democrats still understood the importance of free trade in helping the poor.

So how come now only Republicans still care about helping poor people in third world nations in the only way proven to actually work?

Krauthammer said it better, here.

Update: In the wake of the recent Asian tsunami, Rev. Donald Sensing illustrates how Europeans donate to the poor while simultaneously extorting money back.
"While millions of Europeans are sending aid to Thailand to help its recovery, trade authorities in Brussels are demanding that Thai Airlines, its national carrier, pays £1.3 billion to buy its double-decker aircraft."

Update2: We are now an important important step closer to resolving this problem, with the passage of CAFTA (Central American Free Trade Agreement) in the U.S. House of Representatives today. Sadly, even though the primary purpose of this act is to help several of the poorest nations in the World, and no one is hurt other than the U.S. sugar industry, almost no Democrats voted for it. When did the Democrats become the party of the reactionary rich and the Republicans the party of ideas that help the little guy?

John O'Sullivan, columnist and former editor of National Review offers this proposed Sullivan's First Law: "All organizations that are not actually right wing will over time become left wing." John Leo, whose article here explains O'Sullivan's Law, offers "Leo's amendment to O'Sullivan's First Law: Any organization with 'women' or 'girls' in its title will tend to become part of the cultural left in general and the abortion lobby in particular."

I'm inclined to agree. As a child I was an avid reader of Consumer Reports magazine, and even as a young adult considered getting a lifetime subscription. Now I no longer subscribe because I don't want even a penny of my money to support the political side of their efforts. Yes, my own views have changed some over time. But I'm convinced theirs have changed more.

Similarly, I once looked forward to the day I could benefit from the discounts available to members of AARP (American Association of Retired People). But now that I'm old enough to join, I'd rather eat a rivet.

I was even once a contributing member of the NAACP, until I realized that it has effictively become joined at the hip to one political party, even though its doing so guarantees neither major political party will pay its goals more than lip service -- on the one hand because it already has NAACP's support, no matter how little it does, and on the other hand because it can't get that support, no matter how much it does.

More recently I stopped supporting my formerly-favorite charity, the Heifer Project, when they got involved in Arkansas politics regarding former President Clinton's presidential library.

To my list, Leo and O'Sullivan add UNICEF, the Girl Scouts, the Anti-Defamation League, the Southern Poverty Law Center, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Ford Foundation, the Episcopal Church, and the League of Women Voters, as groups that now support causes far from their original mission.

From O'Sullivan's Law follows this caution -- don't support a charitable cause just because it has a good name, or even because it previously had a good reputation.

By the way, if anyone knows of a greener alternative to being a member of AAA, that still provides a bail bond feature, that's a group that has veered so far in opposition to sensible solutions for transpertation problems over the years that I can hardly bear still being a member.

Update:
As an example of this, WorldNetDaily reports a recent issue of Consumer Reports on condoms, in discussing abortion, referred to a young life about to be snuffed as "uterine contents". They add that the CEO of Consumer Reports used to head the Maryland chapter of Planned Parenthood.

Update2:
The mechanism of how groups become one-sided politically may be explained by George Will:
"This gives rise to what [Mark] Bauerlein calls the 'false consensus effect,' which occurs when, because of institutional provincialism, 'people think that the collective opinion of their own group matches that of the larger population.' There also is what Cass Sunstein, professor of political science and jurisprudence at the University of Chicago, calls 'the law of group polarization.' Bauerlein explains: 'When like-minded people deliberate as an organized group, the general opinion shifts toward extreme versions of their common beliefs.' They become tone-deaf to the way they sound to others outside their closed circle of belief."

Update3: I got another membership invite from AARP today. Funny that they now want to hear from me, when they could not be bothered to respond to me earlier this year when I asked about their own solution to making sure Social Security is still there for the next generation since they so dislike President Bush's proposals.

It's always easier to complain about the ideas of others than to come up with better alternative ideas. But if all AARP wants to do is whine, they will have to do so without my money.

Bhikhu Parekh has written a series of four excellent letters expressing the respective views of Osama Bin Laden and Mahatma Ghandi, with each commenting on the views of the other. As they say, read the whole thing.

One of the great failures of our nation was Prohibition. Eliminating the sad consequences of alcoholism was a worthy goal, but never shared by enough Americans to make it actually possible.

Another great failure was our war efforts in Viet Nam. In my opinion at the time, we weren't doing the things necessary to win, and were therefore doomed eventually to lose.

Both of the above problems seem to apply now to our decades-long "war on drugs."

Despite decades of education against use of illegal drugs, some folks in pretty much every community still choose to use them, enough to make complete elimination of the drug trade almost impossible.

If we really wanted to win the War on Drugs, we'd prosecute customers as harshly as sellers, and not worry, for example if pesticides sprayed on Marijuana plants still ended up in Marijuana sold here, even if it killed those who used it.

The only country I'm aware of that "won" its war on drugs was Communist China, which reportedly did so by immediately executing anyone caught in the trade.

We can't do such things and still be America, any more than we could in the '60s have simply paved over Viet Nam (my preferred solution at the time.)

As a result, it's not a question of whether we will eventually legalize most illegal drugs, but only of when we will finally do so. That being the case, sooner is better, with one exception:

I don't want legalization to turn into implied approval. If someone just has to smoke a joint in the privacy of their own home where no one else is harmed, that would likely be OK with me. But I don't want to see billboards suggesting I "Smoke Mary Jane", nor would I want to see vials of Crack next to the condoms at the local Safeway.

Canada, in my opinion, had a better idea. When it legalized alcohol, it restricted sales of hard liquor to government stores, which were intentionally not made attractive and did not advertise. That removed the incentive for marketers to increase the use of hard liquor, and ensured profits from such sales went where they could help deal with the unfortunate consequences of legalization.

Some Americans sense a constitutional right to advertise any legal product on every flat surface, but I do not. In my opinion, many bad products that must nonetheless be legal for use by adults should not be advertised, lest they artificially increase demand for an unhealthy product.

I've been advocating legalization publicly for a few years now, and have yet to meet anyone willing to actively disagree with the idea. This may be an idea whose time has come, if only we can remember legalization is not equivalent to approval.

Update:
M. Simon reports "there are two iron rules of prohibition. The harder the enforcement the harder the drugs. The harder the enforcement the harder the criminals." The rest of his article here is also well worth reading.

Update2: Instapundit adds "Legalize the stuff, tax it like tobacco, and let the trial lawyers sue sellers for any product defects or dangers."

That would be a corrective for problems resulting from legalizing any and all drugs to thereby also cut medical costs, as suggested in this related post.

Our 2002 model Prius arrived on March 26, 2002, after a 2 month wait. Three years later, it's still the best car we've ever owned.

Looks like other Prius owners share that opinion too. The 2004 annual auto issue of Consumer Reports lists small car owner satisfaction as highest among Prius owners (graphed here.)

As gas prices head up again, and Earth Day approaches, anyone considering a vehicle purchase might want to consider a Prius.

I still love how the engine stops and the car goes utterly silent at every stop once the car is warmed up. The gauges in the middle of the dash (just under the windshield to eliminate glare in front of the driver at night) are another continuing joy. In winter we get 38 mpg overall -- 47 in summer. At over 25k miles I still haven't spent the first dime on maintenance, and won't until the car reaches 45K miles. Better, the warranty on the weird hybrid stuff continues to 100k miles.

If you haven't yet, "just drive it." It's much easier to understand the Prius concept once you've been in one.

Here's a link to the factory site.

Here's a link to the Prius owners group on Yahoo; toyota-prius

Update: Buying a Prius might also be the most effective peaceful way of helping resolve troubles in the Middle East. Cutting our dependence on Middle Eastern oil has to be a good thing.

Update2: Our local dealer recently offered me a free new Prius in a year if I'd trade in my almost 3 year old Prius now. That's how long the wait is now for a new one, and how much some folks want one now. Unfortunately, the new model has a bit less headroom, and that's important to us, so we're staying with the one we have for now.

Update3: Our Prius is now 3 years old, and just about to receive its last free service at 37,500 miles. Here's what I had to say about it on another blog today:

Our 2002 Toyota Prius routinely gets high 30s mileage in winter and high 40s mileage Spring through Fall. I suspect the difference is mostly in gasoline formulation, as the change in mileage occurs rather suddenly after a fillup.

Cutting pollution was the primary design goal for the Prius, which is fine with me, as I share that goal. However, in addition, it gets over twice the gas mileage of our VW Passat V6, and has done so for 3 years, burning any cheap gas happily rather than requiring only premium fuel like the Passat.

The Prius is a true hybrid, able to drive up to a mile without use of the internal combustion engine at all, whereas the Honda partial hybrids only use their electric motor as an assist. That difference is particularly noticeable in bumper to bumper rush hour traffic, where our Prius always gets in excess of 50MPG, due to the gas engine being mostly off in such situations.

Opinions may vary, but this has been the best thing we've ever done to cut pollution and cut our dependence on Mideast oil in time of war. By my calculations, it cost me only $2K more than an equivalent Toyota Echo, of which part was immediately rebated in a tax break that year, and the rest long since recovered in lower gas bills. Plus, I have still never spent a penny maintaining the Prius, as all that is covered up to 45K miles.

I understand CR just reported Prius owners remain the most satisfied of all car owners, and that is certainly true of me.

But don't take my word for it, find one and "Just Drive It". Everyone who has ever driven ours has loved it.

Update4: Our Prius is now 4 and a half years old, and remains the best car we've ever bought. With gas prices having about doubled in the past 18 months, we are ever more grateful to have an efficient car.

It's now old enough and has enough miles to be out of its free service period, but still doesn't cost much to service, and only needs service about half as often as other cars. Those savings also add up.

I don't fit the new Prius as well (too little headroom) so expect to keep my 2002 model for at least a few more years. The middlewife still wishes it had leather seats, and a moonroof, but it that mattered enough there is now a hybrid Toyota Camry available too.

My brother now also owns a Prius, and a sister now has the Honda Civic Hybrid. Both are very happy with their purchases.

An interesting issue was raised at work today. One of our token moderate and/or conservative professors wrote as follows:

I'm confused. Just what constitutes "human rights"? I have been seeing this term thrown around very loosely [in the staff Email discussion list], and in many other venues lately. It appears to me that if someone does not like a law, or a situation, or the color of the sky, it violates their human rights. People who are for gay marriage are yelling that its prohibition violates their human rights. I, similarly, can say that legalizing gay marriage violates my human rights.

We do indeed now have a problem defining human rights. To the founders of this country such rights were inherent in the Created order. But many in our day attribute creation to pure chance, as opposed to intelligent design.

The best responders at the university could do today in responding to the question was to quote from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the United Nations in 1948.

No offense, but the moral authority of saying "a bunch of politicians and bureaucrats agreed on this list of rights" is much less compelling than our Declaration of Independence beginning with the words "We consider these truths to be self-evident..."

It's all very well for Post-Modernists to value tolerance and diversity above other values. But with no recourse to God as the source of such ideas, all who feel differently are welcome to reply "That's just your opinion. What gives you the right to dictate my values?"

Call me a throwback if you like, but I still consider human rights to be inherent in humanity by virtue of our intelligent design, and limited to those rights whose "rightness" is obvious to anyone capable of common sense.

Just as evolution has favored physical characteristics that work over those that fail, so also thousands of years of civilization world-wide have established some values as more fundamental than others.

Although I have no personal problem with Gay marriage, I'm troubled by the idea of claiming it is a "human right" when so far as we know it has never been considered so in the laws of any nation throughout recorded history.

Our recent trip to the Galapagos Islands provided the perfect opportunity to read Phillip E. Johnson's excellent book "Darwin on Trial". Each day I would listen to our lead naturalist talk about how what we were seeing proved evolution, while being reminded by Johnson how much of Darwin's theory is still unproven in scientific terms and must be taken on faith, like any other religion.

What has been proven, is that varied circumstances (such as selective breeding) can achieve variation within a single species. The term species, to Johnson, refers to critters capable of procreating together. Thus a Great Dane and a Chihuahua are both the same species (dog), even though they differ greatly in size. That dogs vary in size and other ways is quite obvious.

What has not been proven, is that you can get a dog from any other species. Darwin assumed that there is a common ancestor of all species. If true, there should be lots of evidence of intermediate forms in the process of changing from one species to another in the fossil record. Since scientists prefer fully naturalistic explanations, the failure to find convincing evidence of such changes in 150 years of looking has not led to the obvious conclusion that Darwin may have been mistaken about the common ancestor.

Personally, I don't care whether life on Earth sprang from a single ancestor or from many ancestors. It's not even important to me whether or not it resulted from an alien Captain Kirk employing a Genesis device (as in Star Trek II- The Wrath of Khan), because that only extends the question to where the alien species originated. In the end, something started the whole process rolling. I know Steven Hawkings postulates it's all just an accident, and ours just happened to be the only one out of all possible Universes that happens to work, but I find that vastly harder to believe than that some force indistinguishable to us from God created our Universe intentionally.

What bothers me about teaching Darwin's view of Evolution as though all of it were proven is that such a view is unscientific, and likely delays rather than assists our understanding of what really happened.

So long as our scientists refuse to even postulate that life on Earth may not have evolved from a single ancestor, and that a creative force may have been involved, they appear to be repeating the blindness of ancient scientists who refused to consider that the Earth might not be the center of the Universe.

I have no problem with Darwinian evolution being treated as one theory among others. But the blind insistence by scientists that it be believed in despite contrary evidence sounds more like religion than science to me.

Update: A 2-part article by Edward Feser in Tech Central Station does a wonderfully-thorough job of explaining exactly why scientists have behaved so unscientifically regarding evolution, here and here. Here's the money quote: "The real target is the idea of a metaphysically implacable natural order to which one must submit, with all that that implies about human nature and moral law. Its rejection is the deep source of the perversity that so dominates modern intellectual life." (Thanks to Donald Sensing for the alert.)

Update2: Edward Feser reports on and responds to the critics of the above articles here.

Update3: The Ohio State Board of Education gets it. A new 10th-grade biology lesson plan requires students to "Describe how scientist continue to investigate and critically analyze aspects of evolutionary theory." Here's more.

Update4: Rev. Donald Sensing, has a great new post on this topic here. Sample quotes:

"There cannot be a science of randomness, for science depends on repeatability. The conclusion that randomness explains the beginning and history of life is not really a scientific conclusion. It is one thing, and a properly scientific thing, to say that here are processes that seem to explain the evolution of species. But it is not science to say with finality that no intentionality was involved. The exclusion of intentionality is not a scientific conclusion, but an ideological one."

"The Big Bang theory, for example, is not falsifiable, yet astrophysicists worldwide accept its validity."

(Sensing quoting David Mobley, a postdoc researcher in biophysics)
"Let's consider the idea that we've evolved over time as the result of gradual changes which can eventually take something like a fish to become something like a human. How is that falsifiable? Particularly, what experiment could one do that would indicate that this is NOT true? ... Certainly, microevolution is much more falsifiable -- and has indeed been confirmed in some cases -- but that's not what Intelligent Design is dealing with."

Update5: A new book A Jealous God: Science's Crusade Against Religion covers related subjects. I was glad to see its author, a "self-proclaimed non-religious Jew", sees the same problem I do. See also this related post about Michael Crighton similarly describing environmentalism as "a 21st Century religion for urban atheists."

Donald Sensing just dove into the current controversy about Gay marriage with two great articles. In the first, "Separating the legal and the spiritual in the wedding business" he recommends we revert to the practice 500 years ago of separating the legal shorthand a wedding represents to the State from the religious concept of marriage.

In this view, any couple interested in the legal relationship would obtain it via the State, and only those couples interested in a religious marriage would involve a faith community. Sensing reminds us that nothing the State does can force a faith community to accept an unwanted form of marriage in the spiritual sense, but in a free country there will always be "churches" willing to provide a desired ceremony.

In the second article, "The 'gay marriage' controversy" Sensing responds to his many critics, suggesting this battle was lost 40 years ago with the widespread availability of the birth control pill. That destroyed a long-term social contract which traded a woman having sex only with one man (so he could know the resulting children were his) with the man supporting her and their children to adulthood (since pregnancy and child care are not otherwise condusive to economic well-being.) Once only an economic partnership agreement remains, with children no longer a factor, apart from faith issues why can't Gays also be allowed such partnerships?

My only complaint about the current situation in San Francisco and Massachusetts is that our freedom and civilization may not long continue if State laws may safely be flouted by localities, or overturned at any time for any reason by any judge so inclined.

When caring for youngsters, I occasionally have to ask them to use "the other left hand."

Donald Sensing today pointed out an article illustrating several surprising and needed reminders of how to be a true leftist. For those of you on the left who suspect it's a left-bashing article, au contraire, the author writes as a proud leftist.

Here's the link to A Friendly Drink in a Time of War, by Paul Berman in Dissent Magazine.

No matter where you fall on left to right political scales, if you think about politics at all, this is a wonderful short article. Highly recommended!

Two of our pastors both made the same point about Dr. Martin Luther King's famous "I Have a Dream" speech today -- that it was one of the best speeches ever given by a human.

To that, I would add that I consider Dr. King an authentic Biblical prophet for our generation. Sadly, our world is still more prone to kill than heed its prophets, at least while they are alive.

Here are exerpts, from the King Center web site (the full text is available here):
�I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed; �We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.� I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave-owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood. I have a dream that one day, even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.�

�...And so let freedom ring, from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania. Let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado. Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California. But not only that. Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia. Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee. Let freedom ring from every hill and mole hill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring�And when we allow freedom to ring � when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God�s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual: Free at last, free at last. Thank God almighty, we are free at last.�

The genius of King's message, in my opinion, is that resolving racial problems can only finally be accomplished by reconciling, not by overpowering, and futher, that this is both required by God and possible only with God's help. We go through that gate together, or not at all.

As a next step, Christ followers please also read this King message.

The primary concern about Mel Gibson's new movie "The Passion of the Christ" (due to open Ash Wednesday, February 25, 2004) appears to be that it describes those who opposed Jesus as Jewish. This is news? Who else could it have been than folks in the area at the time? The Gospels are rather specific about both the support and the opposition Jesus encountered from the locals as he taught.

This doesn't single one culture out as worse than others. Nor does it let anyone think their own culture better. Had Jesus beeen born somewhere or somewhen else, the rest of the Bible foretold his reception among humans and the end of his teaching would have been the same.

If Jesus and the Bible were wrong, nothing about Jesus matters much. If they were right, everything about him matters eternally.

If anything about the Gibson movie bothers you, by all means read the book instead. The Gospel of Mark is the executive summary, and can be read easily in two hours. Then you'll have all the information you need to make up your own mind about this most famous of all humans.

Update: Haven't seen the movie yet myself, but do have one small quibble with it -- although we don't know what Jesus actually looked like, he almost certainly had darker skin than the Jesus in this movie.

Update #2: My fondest hope for the movie was that it would be shown in Muslim countries. Their purpose in doing so might be to stoke anger against Jews, but the actual result is likely to be a much fuller understanding of Jesus' sacrifice and "love your enemies" message than is included in the Quoran. Initial reports from Christians in Middle East countries where the movie has opened bear this out.

Update #3: E. and I finally saw "The Passion of the Christ" Thursday evening -- watching Jesus in the garden at the same moment it was actually happening 2,000 years ago added to the impact of the moment.

I came away thinking more than ever that either Jesus was exactly who he said he was (Savior of the World), or else he was a fool. It no longer makes sense to me to think of Jesus as teacher and example, but not redeemer. If Jesus' death did not redeem us, then voluntarily seeking out such a death seems lunacy. My vote, for what it's worth, is that Jesus is indeed our redeemer, and risen Lord.

Genn Harlan Reynolds, the Instapundit has posted a great paragraph on whether the rich get richer and the poor get poorer in the U.S.:

"There is no question that statistics show a rise in inequality. The main reason: America welcomes more immigrants - legal and illegal - than all the other countries of the world combined. These newcomers typically start on the bottom rung of the economic ladder. Exclude them from the statistics, calculates Easterbrook, and the increase in inequality disappears. Indeed, for the nine out of ten Americans that are native born, inequality is declining. And here is the reason that will surprise America's critics: the decline in inequality is due in good part to the rising affluence of African Americans."

(Reynolds attributes the quote to Gregg Easterbrook, as summarized by Irwin Stelzer.)

"America" is largely based on shared ideas, rather than similar background or appearance. One such idea is that those who work hard get ahead. So if class inequality increases in America, it is important to know whether that's only due to immigration. Otherwise, such statistics would suggest working hard doesn't bring progress. And if that were true, why would poor Americans continue to support America, rather than revolt against it?

I'm relieved to read that inequality among lifelong Americans is decreasing, and thrilled that rising affluence among African-Americans is why.

For those "really" into digital photography, the new king of the hill is Sony's DSC-F828. It is the first "prosumer" camera with 8 Meg resolution and 7x optical zoom. It is also the first Sony to use CompactFlash memory.

I've only taken one serious photo with it yet, but it turned out well.

There's a full review at Steve's Digicams. Here's his summary:
"While the $999 price tag may seem a bit steep, the Sony DSC-F828 is a lot of camera. With its excellent build quality, manually-operated Carl Zeiss 7x zoom lens, robust shooting performance, excellent image quality, superior low-light performance and rich feature set, the F828 is sure to please. And with its high resolution 8-megapixel imager, there's no need to be concerned about obsolescence any time soon. If you are in the market for a high-end digicam, the Sony DSC-F828 is worthy of your consideration; I liked it very much and I think you will, too."

One more thing. Although I bought the camera from a friend for less, I also added a Sandisk Ultra II 1 Gigabyte CompactFlash card (9MB/sec--fastest I found), along with a spare battery, a travel charger, multi-coated UV and polarizing filters, a mini-tripod, and a soft "lunchbox" type camera case to carry it all.

Update #1: OK, I've now taken over 50 serious pictures with it, and this is one fine camera! The long zoom lens lets me focus in on such subjects as a pair of geese without disturbing them. It is also adjustable in a zillion ways, or fully automatic. So you can either point and click, or make such changes as ensuring the shutter speed stays fast enough. The movie mode just made the best screensaver I've ever seen by recording 5 minutes of our fireplace in operation at 640 x 480 resolution, 15 frames per second.

For 30 FPS I would need Memory Stick Pro memory, of which Sandisk just announced a 2 Megabyte version. If interested, get at least that size, as my 5 minute movie used 105 Megabytes of memory.

Other reviewers have noted noise and color problems can occur with this camera, especially when used at ISO ratings above 64 and full aperture in glare-prone settings such as back-lighting. I haven't noticed that yet, even when trying to induce it. Perhaps that was improved in the production version.

Apparently there will be several 8 Megapixel cameras out in 2004.

Update #2: Now you can judge for yourself. Several pictures taken on this camera are posted here. The ones with names were taken on the Sony DSP-F828. Those without names were taken on a Pentax Optio 430 by Shades.

Both are great cameras: The Optio because it is small enough to always be with you, and the Sony because it flat out has it all when only the best will do for a particular picture. "Flamingos (at Punta Cormorant on Floreana Island)", for instance, could not have been taken from that spot by the Optio, simply because its telephoto wasn't long enough, and its resolution wasn't high enough to allow the needed cropping.

One other item to consider adding to the Sony camera is a travel tripod. Here's the one I highly recommend for travel:
Velbon Maxi 343E (Search for VNM343E.)

It weighs under 2 pounds, and at only 17.5" folded straps easily to my fanny pack. Since I prefer a pan head to a ball head, I swapped its ball head with the pan head from an 8" high mini tripod I'd bought for under $20 at Ritz Camera.

Update #3: As of 4/2/04, Sony is still on top of the digital camera market. Here's a link to the story, which includes a photo of this camera.

Update #4: Sony has posted updated firmware for the camera here PC Magazine considers "sharpness and resolution dramatically improved" by the firmware upgrade, and adds that " the DSC-F828 is the easiest 8MP camera to operate." (Their updated review is here.)

Update #5: Almost a year later, this is still the best camera available, in my biased opinion, and potentially also a fine digital movie camera. To explore that aspect of the camera, I've just temporarily replaced the 1GB Compact Flash memory with a 4GB Hitachi Compact Flash hard disk that was on sale at good price locally one weekend.

As I'd hoped, the 4GB disk allows me to record 640 x 480 (VGA) resolution movies at 30 FPS for 50 minutes. To put that in perspective, a typical TV only displays 320 x 240 resolution. So HDTV it ain't, but it's also a lot cheaper than even the cheapest HDTV camera.

Update #6: I'm now contemplating a second, much smaller and less intimidating to subjects camera to share with the Middlewife. Key features will be: small and thin but with a large LCD, zoom lens that does not protrude from the camera, automatic dust cover, powered by a standard battery and using SD-RAM. No existing camera has quite all of this. Sony and Nikon both have 5MP candidates that come close, except that they use proprietary batteries, and the Sony uses Memory stick Pro Duo RAM. Canon has a 7MP candidate that also comes close, except that its lens protrudes, and its battery is proprietary. Fortunately, there's no rush to decide.

Update #7: OK, I decided. I settled on the new Sony DSC-T7. It is by far the thinnest camera I could find that is any good. It is 5MP, only 1/3rd of an inch thick, has a solid lens cover and huge 2.5" LCD , and its lens does not protrude from the camera to scare the subjects. Amazingly, it not only fits in a shirt pocket, but fits along with an iPod or Treo.

If you get one, also get a spare battery, as one is only good for about an hour of use when set up for the Middlewife to use it most easily. Also get a bigger Memory Stick (Pro Duo). The largest I could find in stock was a 512M Sandisk that works fine, but if a 1GB one had been available, I'd have chosen that instead, and in the 5x higher-speed Sony version. Be sure to cover the LCD with a sheet of the screen protectors sold for Palm PDAs. Also, since it isn't water resistant, you may want to carry it in a small ZIP-lock baggie when there's any chance it will get wet.

Compared to the DSC-F828, the DSC-T7 lacks an optical viewfinder, has only a 3x zoom, and a maximum aperture of F4 rather than F2 (so can't take pictures in dark areas as easily.) In short, it isn't quite as good a camera, but is small enough to always be with you.

Donald Sensing found a wonderful Michael Crichton speech on Environmentalism as a fundamentalist religion.

In that same spirit, during our forthcoming trip to the Galapagos Islands (the place Darwin first developed ideas about evolution), I plan to read Darwin on Trial and The Skeptical Environmentalist: Measuring the Real State of the World, in honor of all the unproven theories we've seen treated as proven scientific law in the tourist literature we've read while preparing for the trip.

Update: One of the saddest aspects of environmentalism as religion is its neglect of the poor. Though I am somewhat of an "Eco-freak" myself (Prius driver, public transit rider, favor organic food, minimize waste rather than only recycling it), I find myself often opposing organized movements of environmentalists.

Two recent examples are when third world nations were urged by environmentalists to ban DDT and genetically-modified crops. In third world malaria areas, banning DDT costs human lives, in large numbers. Similarly, banning genetically-modified crops in poor countries in the third world costs human lives.

I'm happy to report that the Congress of Racial Equality is hosting a conference this week to make that point with the help of Greenpeace co-founder Patrick Moore.

Update 2: Alson see this related entry.

Update3: Michael Crichton's excellent new book State of Fear does a wonderful job of showing just how far wrong environmentalism as religion can go. It also, correctly in my opinion, points out how politicians, lawyers, media and academia all now peddle one fear after another in endless profusion to keep citizens in line, make money, and guard their status in society. He also makes the point already stated above, that arrogantly foolish behavior on our part, even in the name of doing good things such as saving the environment, has very real and often fatal consequences for the poor around the world. It isn't that the environment doesn't matter; rather, it is that we need to recover a sense of humility about our real state of knowledge and ability to act for good in such matters, and refocus on actual science rather than politically-correct pseudo-science. In addition, he points out how little accountability there is among non-governmental organizations, such as environmental charities for the actual use of the funds they raise, suggesting, for example, that some reported "gifts" to other environmental causes are really just hidden fund-raising costs.

Update4: Thomas Sowell describes a more general problem of science, in which only those whose research is likely to reach politically-popular conclusions are allowed access to research data or given grants to do the research.

"This is not peculiar to the United States. In Britain, the claim has been repeated endlessly that putting criminals in prison "doesn't work" and that various rehabilitation programs "in the community" are more successful in reducing criminals' repetition of their crimes.

... Advocates of "global warming" have access to all sorts of government research money but skeptics and critics can depend on no such largess and may even be risking their careers by angering bureaucrats who have staked a lot on this crusade and who control the purse strings."

Experts Ignore Roe Effect

Why are more young adults conservative now than in the '60's? The Wall Street Journal's Opinion Journal suggests it may be by "choice."

"The Supreme Court legalized abortion nationwide in 1973, and it's almost a truism that sexually liberal women are more likely to abort their children than more traditional-minded moms. Result: Since the late 1980s, a higher proportion of teens have been raised in conservative households than would have been the case if abortion were legalized gradually or not at all."

The Banners: Why are rich people afraid of the Virgin Mary?

"The answer is not banning religious symbols. This brings resentment and engenders a quiet seething that does not encourage peace and understanding.

The answer is not to banish belief but to bring it in and explain it in loving terms to our hungry-minded children. This will truly teach them appreciation and diversity and respect and regard for others."
-- Peggy Noonan 12/29/03 in the Wall Street Journal

There's been a long free-wheeling debate over the past couple of days between Rob Lawson, concerned about the War on Christmas and Christians and Robert Schoble concerned about avoiding the Christian equivalent of Iran.

Both seem to have some legitimate concerns.

I'm with Rob, in that there truly does seem to be a culture war going on in America against traditional Christianity. Thus while bending over backwards not to object to, for instance, a brother allegedly attempting to kidnap his sister today because she married a Christian, folks object strenuously if anyone suggests adding a nativity scene alongside the Menorah, Crescent and assorted winter solstice season decorations.

Singling out only Christian symbols for exclusion is entirely unfair. I'm also against removing all religious symbols from public life; the First Amendment of our Constitution guarantees Freedom of religion, not freedom from religion. In my opinion, Atheism is just as scientifically unproven as any other religious view.

If our ancestors had managed to remove religion from public life, there might have been no end to slavery in America, and no civil rights victories in the 1960s. Stephen Carter's book God's Name in Vain argues powerfully that the wall of separation between church and state spoken of by the Founders was largely intended to protect the prophetic right to speak truth to power, rather than to protect the State from meddling by the religious.

I'm also with Robert, in that compulsory religion is a horrible idea. America was and still is partly populated by folks fleeing from people willing to compel them to live a certain way in the name of religion. The First Amendment of our Constitution was precisely intended to protect individuals against governmentally-enforced religion.

In my opinion, any religion willing to force submission to its views thereby admits it does not believe its own propaganda. One of the core tenets of the Christian faith (but few others) is that a decision of faith must be voluntary. What I cannot accept about some flavors of Islam is their apparent unwillingness to respect the fundamental right of every human to make a free choice about which if any religion to follow.

Many object to Christianity's claim to be the one (or at least the best) way to God. But at their core, most religions (including Atheism) believe themselves to be the best. Buddhism, for instance, considers itself a greater path, and Hinduism a lesser path.

A key accomplishment of the Hundred Years War in Europe was teaching religious tolerance to Christians. It may also be a key long-term result of the current civil war among Muslims. (For an excellent introduction to that struggle, from someone who's "Been there. Done that", see the Web site of Nonie Darwish, and also this hopeful article from Granta. Donald Sensing has an excellent related article comparing the God of Jesus, god of Mohammed.)

My dad died many years ago, but some of his favorite sayings live on, still repeated regularly by his children and grandchildren:

Another good story spoiled by an eyewitness.

Never let the facts interfere with a good story.

Often wrong, but never in doubt.

It's no harder to arrive on time than to arrive late.

It costs no more to keep the gas tank full than it does to keep it empty.

Never borrow except for your first car and first home.

Graft, inefficiency and corruption run rife.

Never a borrower or a lender be.

If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.

...and if I had wings, I could fly.

Experience keeps a dear school, where only fools need learn.

Never lend any more money to friends or relatives than you would be willing to give them as a gift.

Well ain't that a fine kettle of fish?

That's a lazy man's load.

Fish and guests spoil after three days.

Just one more thing to go wrong.

If it had been a snake, it would have bit you.

A recent Email from my brother-in-law asked a series of questions related to gays, church and marriage:

1a. "Do you believe that your church is correct in denying membership to openly gay and lesbian congregants?"

It does not deny membership to openly gay or lesbian congregants, so far as I know. It does deny membership to anyone having unconfessed and unrepented sin of any kind, not just sex outside of marriage, but that's the focus, and definitely not the gender of a sex partner.

Personally, I have nothing against Gay marriage. It hardly seems fair to condemn sex outside of marriage among consenting adults who are not allowed to marry, and God is nothing if not fair. That Jesus appears never to have spoken about homosexuality seems quite relevant. As an Evangelical I'm not ready to declare any verse in the Bible is simply wrong, but we do find ways to value some verses more than others, for instance when we allow women to be teaching pastors despite 1 Corinthians 14:34-35.

1b. "If you disagree, are you doing anything to change it? If you agree, are you doing anything to assist with ex-gay ministries?"

I haven't felt called to that particular area of ministry, but if the Lord wants me there, I'm sure I'll get the message and try to comply.

At present I have two areas of passion in ministry: Single moms and their kids, and bridging racial divides. I consider both very close to the heart of the prophetic ministry, helping the "last, the least, and the lost" in society, as folks in our church sometimes say. Exodus 22.21-23 uses the terms, widow, orphan and alien in much the same way. The idea is that God judges us by how we try those at the bottom of society, those whom most folks either fail to see at all or treat as outcasts.

Admittedly, some of those folks in our society are Gay, but the ones God seems interested in my helping right now are from broken homes and from non-Caucasian backgrounds. I'm still somewhat amazed by the change. Three years ago I had only one African-American friend, who I'd not seen in over a year. And now I have more Black friends than White ones. We still have baggage, and issues to work through, but we are all convinced God commands us to unity.

2. "Do you believe that my acceptance and persistent expression of gay sexuality is on its face sinful, or in any way condemns me or deprives me of grace, or in any way makes my acceptance of grace any different than anyone else's?"

I am unaware of any active sexual relationship you may ever have had with anyone, male or female, so don't know of any reason to call your sexuality or lack thereof sinful. If I can put up peacefully with living together, and various other outside of wedlock relationships on both sides of my family, I expect I can put up with whatever you've been up to also. And I don't feel a bit superior to anyone, no matter what folks may or may not have done. We're all sinners, and so far below God's perfection that comparing our levels of sinfulness rather misses the point of Christ dying once for the sins of all.

That said, a common error I see made by attendees of our church (but not in the leadership) is to think Gay sex is somehow worse than other sins to which we are all prone. I understand that a substantial minority of singles who attend our church engage in sex outside of marriage. Our church teaches against that, but no more so for Gay attenders than for Straight attenders.

3. "Do you believe there is a tenable position that says that being gay is not "wrong" per se, but it's not as good as being straight?"

I don't recall ever hearing anyone suggest that, though I certainly have seen people act as though they believe it. It's usually similar to the way good liberal folks wax eloquent about how Blacks should be treated just like anyone else, until one tries to date their daughter. The word for that is hypocrite, and Jesus didn't approve such behavior.

A Methodist minister in Tennessee has a Weblog (blog) that touched nicely on the Massachusetts court case regarding Gay marriage: onehandclapping

Personally, I hope that this time, unlike with abortion, our nation will leave the issue up to the states, allowing them to act differently from one another. I'm firmly convinced that if we had done that regarding abortion in the early 1970s, we'd have reached national consensus on the matter years ago, and expect the same would be true regarding Gay marriage.

Here is an interesting political quiz
politicalcompass
It can be completed in under 5 minutes, and places you on a two-axis scale that makes more sense to me than the usual left to right line. For what it's worth, I score near the middle on both axes.

Hence, "Man in the Middle".

Update: A state rep who sometimes reads this blog just suggested another quiz, called "Useful Voter Guide: Are You A Democrat Or A Republican?" That quiz says I'm a "Middle of the Road Independent", but try it for yourself here.

Update2: Two years later, just after reading F. A. Hayek's brilliant 1946 classic "The Road to Serfdom", I retook this test, and find I'm now still smack in the middle between conservatives and progressives (Hayek reminded me that neither is entitled to the term "liberal"), and measurably more Libertarian and less Authoritarian than before. If you read only one book in the next decade, Hayek's would be a great choice.

Also, the Middledaughter (in law), with whom I regularly enjoy disagreeing politically, just took the same test, and scored exactly the same as me on both axes. We were both surprised, and feel sure that although on average we agree completely, that we couldn't have answered all the questions the same way.

My somewhat more liberal than me brother once sent me a quote of "Things you have to believe to be a Republican today." A typical one of 20 entries was:
Trade with Cuba is wrong because the country is communist,
but trade with China and Vietnam is vital to a spirit of international harmony.

I replied as follows, illustrating my middle of the road political views:

I was sent one very similar in tone attacking Democrats. It didn't seem fair either, but see for yourself. I've now posted both offerings, here and here.

Here's one I _do_ consider fair:
"A Republican is a Democrat who's been mugged.
A Democrat is a Republican who's been arrested."

Later note: David Souter, one of the most liberal U.S. Supreme Court justices was mugged 5/1/04. I wonder if that will affect any of his future votes?

Here's another:
"Democrats want the Government out of your bedroom but in your wallet.
Republicans want the Government out of your wallet but in your bedroom.
Libertarians want the Government out of both."

Update #1:
Since, I've thought of one more, from a Mallard Fillmore comic once published by jewishworldreview:
"You should probably vote Democratic if:
You think trees have feelings, and unborn babies don't."

Update #2:
The Chicago Sun Times recently contained a quote with which I agree completely: "I'd rather spend my weekends exterminating rats in the tunnels below Penn Station than read a book by either Bill O'Reilly or Michael Moore." -- Daniel Okrent, outlining his political affiliation in his inaugural column Dec. 7 as the new ombudsman for the New York Times.

Update #3:
In a letter to World Net Daily, Frank Brady writes as follows: Wyoming Sen. Alan Simpson, a loyal Republican, used to say: "We have two political parties in this country, the Stupid Party and the Evil Party. I belong to the Stupid Party."

Update #4:
The Ann Coulter Talking Action Figure disagrees. One of its quotes from Ann is:
"Swing voters are more appropriately known as the 'idiot voters' because they have no set of philosophical principles. By the age of fourteen, you're either a Conservative or a Liberal if you have an IQ above a toaster."

Update #5:
�If you�re under 20 and you�re already a Republican,
you have no heart.
But if you�re over 30 and you�re still a Democrat,
you have no brain.�
�
�Maybe they should change their mascots
to the Tin Man and Scarecrow�
James Halpern, in The Truth Machine

Update6: Thanks to linkspam, comments on this blog have been disabled. You can, however, still email me at manin_themiddle at yahoo dot com. Note: again, due to the spammers, I've spelled out "at" for "@" and "dot" for "." in the Email address, and be sure to leave out all spaces, as those aren't allowed in Email addresses.

Update7: "What do you call people who vote for Bush but shop at Whole Foods? Crunchy cons. ... Yet crunchy cons stand apart from both the Republican 'Party of Greed' and the Democratic 'Party of Lust'". Hmm. the quote is from the lead Amazon review of Crunchy Cons, and begs the question "If you were forming a national potitical party, which of the seven deadly sins (sloth, pride, wrath, lust, gluttony, envy or greed) would yours favor?", although a better question might be "How could a national political party keep itself relatively free of all seven?"
.
Update8: Chris Matthews reports (PDF file) "There's the Mommy Party and the Daddy Party. The Daddy Party is good for guns and foreign policy and tough on crime. They're the ones who lock the doors at night. Bush is a classic Daddy Party guy. The Democrats believe in Social Security, health, education--all the things that nurture a country into becoming a great country--the mommy party. As James Carville says, sometimes you need your mommy, and sometimes you need your daddy."

Peter Signorelli comments "It is when these two opposing forces are in balance that there is harmony in the family. When one party overpowers the other, there is discord and ultimately failure. (Wanniski has written that in the extremes, the "daddy state" becomes Hitler-like, fascistic while the "mommy state" becomes Maoist, communist.) In not seeing these distinctions, Brooks bristles that Colin Powell in his address to the GOP convention sounded similar to Mario Cuomo in a Democratic Party convention speech, in which Cuomo said America should be a family. While coming from different directions, though, both hit upon the central truth of our two-party system, that it works best when the forces are in bipartisan balance and complementary. The concept was best summarized by Ronald Reagan in his 1980 acceptance speech at the Republican national convention in Detroit, when he said we had to get America moving again, but would not leave anyone behind. It is no coincidence that Wanniski wrote that line and that it is now being used by both Democrats and Republicans as they attempt to find balance in the national political family."