Sunday Scan

Who You Gonna Mourn To?

China, an atheist regime that forces "religion" into a state-run box and prosecutes practitioners of serious religion, has called for three days of mourning for the tens of thousands of victims of last week's devastating earthquake.

Who will the country mourn to? A vacuum? The spirit of Mao, who, decomposed as he is, does not offer much eternal hope?

The answer is in the heart of those that suffer, as this AP story reveals:

Dozens of students were buried in new graves dotting a green hillside overlooking the rubble, the small mounds of dirt failing to block the pungent smell of decay wafting from the ground. Most graves were unmarked, though several had wooden markers with names scribbled on them.

Zhou Bencen, 36, said he raced to the town's middle school after the earthquake, where relatives who arrived earlier had dug out the body of his 13-year-old daughter, Zhou Xiao, crushed on the first floor.

Zhou cradled his wife in his arms, holding her hand and stroking her back while she sobbed hysterically. "Oh God, oh God, why is life so bitter?"

Oh God, give them comfort. The state certainly can't.

Moral Relativism Alert!

Before straying too far from AP, let's turn our attention to a story filed by Terence Hunt earlier this morning about Prez Bush's address to assembled Arab leaders in Egypt. Hunt tells us:

Winding up a five-day trip to the region, Bush took a strikingly tougher tone with Arab nations than he did with Israel in a speech Thursday to the Knesset. Israel received effusive praise from the president while Arab nations heard a litany of U.S. criticisms mixed with some compliments.

Gosh. I wonder why the tone would be different.

One of the rules of thumb I teach my employees is that when your opposition is lying, distorting or just being ignorant, use their own words against them. That would apply with Hunt's story. Let's look at Hunt's reporting on what Bush said to the Arab leaders and see if there's a reason for the contrasting tones, shall we?

"Too often in the Middle East, politics has consisted of one leader in power and the opposition in jail," Bush said ...

Israeli Arabs have the right to vote and are represented in government. On the other side, there's Mubarik, Assad and a host of other power-barons who have jailed or suppressed their opposition, and not one functioning democracy save the nascent one in Iraq and the crumbling one in Lebanon. Point Bush.

"America is deeply concerned about the plight of political prisoners in this region, as well as democratic activists who are intimidated or repressed, newspapers and civil society organizations that are shut down and dissidents whose voices are stifled ..."

Israel's' "political prisoners" are people who have carried out or planned violent attacks with real weapons against Israel. In the rest of the region, jails are full of people whose only weapon is the pen or the tongue. Freedom of speech in Israel, repression in all the Arab lands leads to point Bush.

"I call on all nations in this region to release their prisoners of conscience, open up their political debate and trust their people to chart their future ..."

Israel has no prisoners of conscience, just prisoners of action. It has an open political debate, and it trusts its future to its people. Anyone want to speak from the Arab side? Anyone? Anyone?

Point, game and match Bush.

On The Wrong Foot

The EU asked Interpol to look into the state of Islamist terror in Europe. Interpol found that it's bad and getting worse ... and it blamed England.

Britain's controversial foreign and military policy has made UK the hub of Islamic terrorism across Europe, and turned the country into a fertile ground for jihadist recruiters, a report by the EU warned.

The EU Terrorism Situation and Trend Report revealed that British foreign policy presented critical dangers for all Europe: "The conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq have a large impact on the security environment of the EU." (Source)

So the problem isn't the EU's policy of appeasing radical Islamists who promote race hatred under the protection of the EU's tolerance laws? And it's not Islam itself and its long history of violent jihad, sharpened in recent years by the phenomena of international migration, the Internet and Saudi-funded radical education?

The EU study may be worlds off in its finger-pointing, but it's probably right about this: It predicts more terror attacks in Europe from a "rejuvenated" al-Qaeda.

Where are we fighting al-Qaeda? Well, we and the Brits are fighting them in Afghanistan and Iraq. Where aren't we fighting them? Europe.

Big News From The Nanosphere

Advances in nanotechnology appear poised to dramatically increase the efficiency of thin film solar cells. As in from a theoretical cap of 31% efficiency all the way up to 45% efficiency.

Put on your techie hat and read about it here.

Anthropomorphic Hucksterism

More indications that the global warming debate is anything but over:

The Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine (OISM) will announce [Monday] that more than 31,000 scientists have signed a petition rejecting claims of human-caused global warming. The purpose of OISM’s Petition Project is to demonstrate that the claim of “settled science” and an overwhelming “consensus” in favor of the hypothesis of human-caused global warming and consequent climate damage is wrong. No such consensus or settled science exists. As indicated by the petition text and signatory list, a very large number of American scientists reject this hypothesis. (source, via ICECAP)

The OISM list doesn't focus on climatologists, so the Warmies will discount the announcement. But all have university degrees in science and over 9,000 of them have PhD's so we can postulate that they know the difference between good and bad research methods, and the difference between evidence and proof.

Meanwhile, as we look at ten years of global cooling having no effect whatsoever on the prognostications and pontifications of our electeds, Richard Rahn writes in WashTimes that global warming constitutes the greatest intelligence failure of our era, concluding:

You may wonder — if the data from the last decade show the Earth is not getting warmer, and the climate models have been making incorrect predictions — why are so many in the political and media classes continuing to shout about the dangers of global warming and insisting the "science" is settled when the opposite is true. (You may recall that Copernicus and Galileo had certain problems going against the conventional wisdom of their time.)

The reason people like Al Gore and many others are in denial is explained by cognitive dissonance. This occurs when evidence increasingly contradicts a strongly held belief. Rather than accept the new evidence and change their minds, some people will become even more insistent on the "truth" of the discredited belief, and attack those who present the new evidence — again an "intelligence" failure.

Finally, many people directly benefit from government funding global warming programs and care more about their own pocketbooks than the plight of the world's poor who are paying more for food. This is not an "intelligence" but an "integrity" failure.

This One's A Stand-Alone


SF Readies For Big Gay Bucks

While the 60-plus percent of us in CA who voted that marriage in our state is between a man and a woman are unhappy with this week's CA supreme court decision overturning our will, tourism officials in San Francisco are decidedly ... uh, gayer.

San Francisco's tourist industry is betting that gay marriage will lead to a boon in same-sex wedding and honeymoon packages.

Nationally, gay tourism amounts to a $60 billion-a-year industry. Thanks to Thursday's ruling by the state Supreme Court striking down the ban on same-sex marriage, California stands to become a destination spot for gay and lesbian couples from around the world who want to get hitched.

And San Francisco is hoping for the biggest slice of the wedding cake.

No sooner did the court decision come down than the San Francisco Convention and Visitors Bureau fired off a release to the gay press, inviting couples to get married in the city where "lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender history continues to be made." (source)

If the ruling stands, gays from any state will be able to wed in California, unlike Massachusetts, which only lets its own gays marry.

Cue up quickly, my friends. A constitutional amendment is likely to cut your fun short soon enough. Had gays gone the legislative route, they very well might have secured the right to marry in California, but as long as they rely on courts stripping the majority of the sanctity of their vote, the majority will stand together against gay marriage -- because they support the sanctity of a democratic, free vote, not necessarily because they support the sanctity of marriage.

One Way Streets

One of my missionary friends, who is now serving in an Islamic country that shall go unnamed and previously worked in Uzbekistan before being thrown out, sent me a sad and hardly shocking email today.

Dear prayer partners

There is a young brother in Uzbekistan who needs God’s help. Would you pray for him.

Please pray for D***. He is a faithful young man (about 22 I think) who, because of his unique maturity, has been leading and pasturing a group of believers in ******, Uzbekistan. I’ve sat and prayed with this brother many times and have heard first hand his heart for the Lord.

He is facing probable arrest by authorities because he leads an ‘illegal’ Christian house church (who have tried to register and become legal and been rejected with no explanation). He has already faced rejection from his parents and other family. He feels that he may have to flee the country to avoid arrest. Another complication is that his wife is pregnant.

It is no exaggeration to say that Uzbek prisons are some of the worst in the world. Please cry out to God for this dear brother!!

I’ll let you know when / if I know more.

Blessings,
G*****

This sort of thing happens every day throughout the Islamic world, as a hard and vicious wall is thrown up against any belief other than Islam. Children are thrown out of the house, or worse. Customers leave a business. Pastors are thrown in prison. Bibles are burned.

And this sort of thing happens every day throughout the Christian world:

First, we heard about a large group of Somali Muslim airport cabbies in Minneapolis refusing to provide service to travelers carrying alcohol or using dogs. At first, the airport moved to accommodate, but then the Somalis lost the battle to impose coercive interpretations of sharia (Islamic law) upon airport travelers. We recently have also seen airports, schools and universities agreeing to install foot-washing stations for Muslim airport cabbies and students at a significant cost to taxpayers in the name of special accommodations for Muslims. In Lincoln Park, Michigan, a few Muslim women insisted that a co-ed health club to which they signed up provide them a women’s-only room for exercise. Fitness USA acquiesced under fears of litigation despite the fact that the Muslim women signed up for no such guarantee with their enrollment contract. (Islam Watch)

We allow this to happen in our land because we believe in freedom, of course. But that doesn't mean we should ignore the prosecution of minority religions to go on throughout most of the Muslim world? How about for each church the Saudis or the Uzbeks allow to remain open, we will install a foot-washing station?

New Euro-Crime: Perp Kills ... Plants!

A Swiss farmer walking back from killing a whole field full of wheat swings his scythe and cuts decapitates some wildflowers alongside the road. With those corrections, I have the verbs right, according to Swiss law.

Cutting wildflowers isn't just one of those things, anymore in Switzerland, not since the Swiss government added some language to their constitution requiring "account to be taken of the dignity of creation when handling animals, plants and other organisms."

Welcome to the New Age. Welcome to the secular state where humans are just more primordial ooze not to be considered any higher or better than anything else, be it another mammal, a plant or ... virus?

Note the last bit of the addition to the Swiss constitution: "other organisms." In this new way of thinking, who knows whether it would be appropriate for a mere human to kill a bunch of viruses or bacteria in order to overcome a sickness? Who are we to say we're better than any of our Ooze Brothers?

Indeed, who knows? Here's what the Weekly Standard has to say about how the Swiss dealt with the hypothetical farmer -- was he a murderer, or just some guy whacking some flowers?

No one knew exactly what [the new words in the Swiss constitution] meant, so they asked the Swiss Federal Ethics Committee on Non-Human Biotechnology to figure it out. The resulting report, "The Dignity of Living Beings with Regard to Plants," is enough to short circuit the brain.

A "clear majority" of the panel adopted what it called a "biocentric" moral view, meaning that "living organisms should be considered morally for their own sake because they are alive." Thus, the panel determined that we cannot claim "absolute ownership" over plants and, moreover, that "individual plants have an inherent worth." This means that "we may not use them just as we please, even if the plant community is not in danger, or if our actions do not endanger the species, or if we are not acting arbitrarily."

The committee offered this illustration: A farmer mows his field (apparently an acceptable action, perhaps because the hay is intended to feed the farmer's herd--the report doesn't say). But then, while walking home, he casually "decapitates" some wildflowers with his scythe. The panel
decries this act as immoral, though its members can't agree why. The report states, opaquely:

At this point it remains unclear whether this action is condemned because it expresses a particular moral stance of the farmer toward other organisms or because something bad is being done to the flowers themselves.

I say if the Federal Ethics Committee on Non-Human Biotechnology (and I pray to the high heavens we have no such federal committee here!) cannot decide why the act is morally condemnable, then it's not.

Under this interpretation of the rules, PETA will change its name to PETPA, and demonstrators will be splashing fake blood on customers at flower shops, for what right do we mere humans have to use plants for anything beyond mere survival? Trimming hedges? Forget it!

This is the expansion of secularism, from the shocking idea a few years ago that animals should have the same rights as people to today, when humans are advocating that they're no better than plants. No wonder they can't fight wars anymore!

It's particularly bad in Europe, where participation in Judeo-Christian religions has dropped off to the point where American Christian missionaries now see the continent as a priority area for missions. Without the anchor of God and a belief that there is divinity in our creation, anything goes, proving C.S. Lewis right. If a continent believes in nothing, it will believe anything.

hat-tip: Jim

Answering Yasmine

Some post I put up recently offended a young convert to Islam, Yasmine, who wrote me this:

I don't know if You ever get this but I hope that one day you educate yourself and I really mean to educate yourself because I haver read all of your posts and some are decent while your arrogance and ignorance is apparent in your opinon and writing style. I am a muslim convert and I invite you to my blog, come a check if I am oppressed and if my faith is so evil.

I ignored her unfounded judgment of me and responded that I would pray for her salvation and:

I'm sorry you made such a tragic mistake by converting to Islam. I read your blog and you seem to be a thoughtful, but emotional, young person and I'm afraid your emotions led you to a religion that is fine on one level but also has a very dark side (jihad, terror, suppression of women, and a God that doesn't care enough about you to give you a clear path to heaven -- outside of jihad).

My comments generated a torrential response from her, which I will fisk herewith:

I am emotional? On the contrary, I am strong and strive for human excellence. so to improve myself in every aspect is very important to me.

I based that statement on her own writings, a blog post about having children that was awash in emotions.

Wish you were a little more open minded and dared to think outside the box for once. I have not done a mistake, I have made the best thing I could ever do in my life and that was to convert to Islam...

I wonder why she thinks that. Christianity offers an excellent moral structure and a clear path to salvation. Islam clearly has some great rules for morality and social structure.

But it also has some terrible ones that the rest of the world's religions have done very well without. As for salvation, in Christianity it's simple; it is based on faith, not works. But in Islam, it's works:

"Then those whose scales are heavy, they are successful. And those whose scales are light are those who lose their souls…"

Further, Islam promises

"... a Paradise as vast as the heavens and the earth, which awaits the God-conscious, who spend for charity in time of plenty and in time of hardship, and restrain their anger, and pardon their fellow men, for God loves those who do good."

Whereas Jesus told us that faith alone will open the doors to heaven, Allah makes no such promise, and the Muslim must always wonder whether he's been God-conscious enough, giving enough, forgiving enough to achieve Paradise, living in doubt ... unless, of course, he takes the Jihad route. More on that in a bit.

I was not just a christian before but a practicing christian. who has read and studied the bible extensively. Who had moralities and respect for all humans beings. Do you?

I would hope I pass this test. I've read the Bible every day for over 12 years ... well, I missed a handful when the alarm didn't go off ... but I've read it front to back twice and most of its books three or four times. I've been to Bible studies, have been attending the same men's group for five or so years, have heard a ton of good preachers in church and on the radio. Not that any of that matters at all, because it's the Spirit that brings the experience alive -- something Yasmine should understand:

Say, the Holy Spirit has brought the Revelation from thy Lord in Truth, in order to strengthen those who believe, and as a Guide and Glad Tidings to Muslims. (Quran, 16:102)

Before I became a Christian I was in turns a "practicing" but not reborn Christian, a student of Buddhism, Tantric yoga and various mystical doo-dahs taught by a bunch of phony poobahs. For a time I even delved into the mystical Islamic Sufi sect, so I've been around the block a bit, even knocking on Allah's door.

The culmination is that I have "moralities" and respect for most human beings, but certainly not all. I do not, and never will, respect human beings who recruit terrorists, or human beings who blow themselves up on crowded streets, or human beings who fly airplanes full of innocents into buildings full of innocents.

Perhaps I should double my Bible-reading time .... Yasmine goes on,

I would not sit there and proclaim to be righteous person when you slander a faith you know nothing about. you are only a media slave. Even I a twently year old knows better to make judgments by media because apparently you are not Muslim. I dare you to learn about it and you'll see what I mean. Will you? I don't know. there are people that will be forever be blind no matter what you tell them.

Readers of C-SM should get a pretty good chuckle out of the "media slave" call-out. Yasmine has every right to ask me to study her religion, but until her religion drags itself out of its bloody past and reforms, I have the right to say, "Why waste the time, especially when I've got a perfectly great religion of my own?"

I would suggest to start fromt the bible because that is how I came without being aware I desired Islam. Alhamdulilah (Thank God). I did not even know about Islam then.

This is a very curious girl who has lived through an experience I cannot understand. I cannot understand how a book so full of love and sound teaching could lead someone to a religion that has comported itself so badly ever since Mohammed started spreading his revelations by both the sword and the book.

if you are such a good pious chrsitian (practicing) I suggest for you to refer to me where it explains the trinity and where Jesus proclaims to be God. He called himself a messenger and I will show you all the proofs you need to but not to convert you but to verify your bigoted mindset. inshallah (if God wills).

Bigoted mindset? Pot calling kettle black?

But I'm glad Yasmine asked. There are so many places in the Bible where the Trinity is addressed, and even more that proclaim Jesus to be God -- not a mere messenger like Mohammed. Yasmine must have missed these verses; I hope she will read and understand them because they are wonderful:

Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and whoever loves the Father loves the child born of Him.

By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and observe His commandments.

For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments; and His commandments are not burdensome.

For whatever is born of God overcomes the world; and this is the victory that has overcome the world -- our faith.

Who is the one who overcomes the world but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?

This is the One who came by water and blood, Jesus Christ; not with the water only, but with the water and with the blood. It is the Spirit who Testifies, because the Spirit is the truth.

For there are three that testify:

the Spirit and the water and the blood; and the three are in agreement. [Trinity]

If we receive the testimony of men, the testimony of God is greater, for the testimony of God is this, that He has testified concerning his Son.

The one who believes in the Son of God has the testimony in himself; the one who does not believe God has made Him a liar, because he has not believed in the testimony that God has given concerning His Son.

And the testimony is this, that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son.

He who has the Son has the life; he who does not have the Son of God does not walk in the life. (1 John 5: 1-12)

And these, some of the most beautiful words ever written:

In the beginning was the Word (Spirit), and the Word was with God, and the Word Was God.

He (Jesus) was in the beginning with God. (The Trinity)

All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.

In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men.

The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkeness did not comprehend it. ...

And the Word (spirit) became flesh (Jesus), and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John 1-5, 14)

I will freely admit that I don't understand the Trinity, but I am in awe of it and looking forward to the day when I will understand it -- a day not on this plane.

But I anticipate Yasmine would retort that I'm quoting John, not Jesus. Then let's see what Jesus himself has to say about it:

So the Jewish leaders began harassing Jesus for breaking the Sabbath rules.

But Jesus replied, "My Father never stops working, so why should I?"

So the Jewish leaders tried all the more to kill him. In addition to disobeying the Sabbath rules, he had spoken of God as his Father, thereby making himself equal with God.

Jesus replied, "I assure you, the Son can do nothing by himself. He does only what he sees the Father doing. Whatever the Father does, the Son also does. For the Father loves the Son and tells him everything he is doing, and the Son will do far greater things than healing this man. You will be astonished at what he does.

He will even raise from the dead anyone he wants to, just as the Father does. And the Father leaves all judgment to his Son, so that everyone will honor the Son, just as they honor the Father. But if you refuse to honor the Son, then you are certainly not honoring the Father who sent him. (John 5:16-23)

Unfortunately, we must break our reverie and return to a subject as awful as the Trinity is awesome: Jihad.

Jihad? Means struggle not holy war although it can also be reffered to that just like the crusades and missionariy tactics used by some chrsitians. that take advantage of poor countries to only benefit from there desparity to convert them.

The Crusades were a thousand years ago and were the response to Islam's overthrow of the Holy Land. And missionary tactics like those of Jihadists? Show me one. Missionaries convert by the Word and the Spirit, not the sword and C-4. My Christian missionary friends dedicate their lives not just to bring them to Christ; they also dedicate their lives to lifting up the poor, bringing better medical care, education and opportunity to the people they work to bring to Christ.

The phrase "take advantage of poor countries to only benefit from there [sic] desparity [sic] to convert them" makes me wonder if Yasmine is only "a media college prof slave." It sounds like the sort of twisted view of the world that a left-leaning Islamic studies prof might say to a young gal as open to new ideas as I was when I was in my 20s, my dabbling years. (But how do we explain her horrific spelling and punctuation?)

I've heard Yasmine's "jihad means struggle not holy war" thing so many times I suppose the Muslims think if they say it often enough, we'll believe it. The problem is the word "not." To be accurate, Yasmine needs to say "jihad means struggle and holy war." Maybe not to her, but to many, many Muslims including one you may have heard of, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi:

Zarqawi’s exposition of Islamic theology as he sees it is most revealing. “There is no doubt,” he says, “that Allah commanded us to strike the Kuffar (unbelievers), kill them, and fight them by all means necessary to achieve the goal. The servants of Allah who perform Jihad to elevate the word (laws) of Allah, are permitted to use any and all means necessary to strike the active unbeliever combatants for the purpose of killing them, snatch their souls from their body, cleanse the earth from their abomination, and lift their trial and persecution of the servants of Allah. The goal must be pursued even if the means to accomplish it affect both the intended active fighters and unintended passive ones such as women, children and any other passive category specified by our jurisprudence.” (source)

Paradise is guaranteed to those who “slay and are slain” for Allah: “Allah hath purchased of the believers their persons and their goods; for theirs (in return) is the garden (of Paradise): they fight in His cause, and slay and are slain: a promise binding on Him in truth” (Qur’an 9:111). Christianity offers no such route to heaven.

you can go ahead and assume I came to Islam due to my emotions but I don't care what an hateful prejudiced unpious not God fearing Man's evaluations.

Salam (peace), Yasmine

How do you get to peace if before you meet someone, before you know anything about them, you leap to a conclusion that they are "hateful prejudiced not God fearing?"

I don't believe I have ever said anything hateful in C-SM or elsewhere about run-of-the-mill Muslims who don't go around beheading journalists, blowing up buses filled with Israeli school children ... or for that matter, calling for the annihilation of all Jews. I have always been careful to differentiate between "Muslims" and "Islamists." Yet here I am hateful and prejudiced.

I have never said anything in C-SM that would indicate that I am not pious, but because I choose (thank God!) to be pious to God, the Holy Spirit and Jesus instead of Allah and Mohammed, I'm just an infidel to be loathed.

Peace, Yasmine.

Obscure Passages From Romans?

On Sunday, Barack Obama said he prayed to Jesus every night, believes in abortion rights, thinks gays should be able to marry and:

"If people find that controversial then I would just refer them to the Sermon on the Mount, which I think is, in my mind, for my faith, more central than an obscure passage in Romans."

The rumble you hear is the sound of Christians, Catholics and Mormons stampeding to other candidates. (And Jews and "people like [Bookworm], who believe that the Bible has important moral lessons throughout its pages" -- sorry for the omission on the first post!)

To us there is no such thing as "an obscure passage in Romans." Paul's letter to the Romans is the foundation of the application of our faith, and if you check a Bible-reading Christian's Bible, you will find those pages to be very well worn, with lots of underlining and highlighting.

They may not be red-letter passages, but they illuminate the teachings of Christ and make them applicable to our day to day faith.

I'm guessing Obama is thinking of Romans 1:27 as his "obscure verse:"

In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.

Does he also consider obscure these admonitions from Paul, just a few verses later?

They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God‑haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless.

Reject the one, and you reject the others, saying in effect that all matter of evil, wickedness, God-hating, slandering,disobedience, faithlessness, heartlessness and ruthlessness are OK because, after all, they are just mentioned in some obscure passage from Romans.

Such ignorance of the faith he purports to hold is astonishing ... until you look at the other half of his statement about the Sermon on the Mount; then it becomes flabergasting.

Where exactly does the Sermon on the Mount justify gay marriage?

Is it "Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy?" It can't be because in liberal speak that is tolerance, not justification.

Could it be "Love your enemies?" Maybe, but clearly that is a reference to real enemies, those who smite you (to put it biblically), not those you disagree with.

Maybe we'll find a hint from back in June 2006, when Obama referred to the Sermon on the Mount, saying,

"Which passages of Scripture should guide our public policy? Should we go with Leviticus, which suggests slavery is ok and that eating shellfish is abomination? How about Deuteronomy, which suggests stoning your child if he strays from the faith? Or should we just stick to the Sermon on the Mount - a passage that is so radical that it's doubtful that our own Defense Department would survive its application? So before we get carried away, let's read our bibles. Folks haven't been reading their bibles."

How then did he miss these passages from the Sermon when he was reading his Bible:

Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.

I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.

Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.

In one fell swoop, Obama has exhibited his ignorance of his faith, has offended all Christians who understand Paul's teachings to be central to our faith, and has been pretty much caught teaching others to break commandments.

Will this damage Obama? It's easy to think that his support is hard-left and not concerned about Christian issues, but you don't pile up the votes and dollars he's getting if you are McGovern-like in your appeal. His appeal, being much broader, has roped in many good Christians, and gross errors like this may well cause them to look beyond the slick rhetoric, and consider the values of the man behind the words.

Protestants Soon "A Statistical Minority?"

America is and always has been dominantly a nation of Protestants. It was our faith that filled the Mayflower, Protestants who wrote the Declaration of Independence and Constitution. Throughout our history, the "mainly" of America in peace and war, business and government, has been Protestant.

That's why so much is being made of the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life survey of 33,000 Americans that found those claiming to be Protestant now make up just 51% of the population.

There are only two other affiliations that make up a significant amount of America's religion (or lack of it): Catholics with 24% and "unaffiliated" with 16%. Add up mainline, evangelical, Black churches, and you get 51%.

Jews are 1.7%, equal to Mormons, and Muslims at 0.6%, on a par with Hindus and Jehovah's Witnesses.

The sensationalism of the survey is due in part to its breaking out of Protestants as separate from Christians. If you tally all the Christian faiths (yes, we're counting the Mormons in there), you find that America is very much a nation of Christians -- over two in three Americans, 78.4%, profess faith in Christ. Throw in the Jews, and you have 80.1% hewing to Judeo-Christian values.

Not surprising, given the aggressive promotion of secularism in schools, is the growth of the Church of Unaffiliated:

Overall, 7.3% of the adult population says they were unaffiliated with any particular religion as a child. Today, however, 16.1% of adults say they are unaffiliated, a net increase of 8.8 percentage points.

Stated another way, in a single generation, the amount of people who have no tie to church -- or, presumably to the Judeo-Christian values upon which are society is founded -- has more than doubled. If it doubles again in another generation, there will be as many unaffiliateds as Catholics.

(Catholics, by the way, are suffering large losses among those born in America, but are holding stead by a pretty good conversion rate and a huge influx of Latin American Catholics.)

All in all, the report is less sensational than the media coverage it's generating, like this from US News:

The first American colonists were Protestant, and for roughly four centuries their descendents, along with successive waves of Protestant immigrants, have been the country's dominant religious group.

But now Protestants are on the verge of becoming a statistical minority in the U.S., according a study released today.

We remain dramatically Christian, with many Christian churches enjoying healthy growth. It's just those Unaffiliateds that are giving my heartburn. Even without churches and preachers, they seem to be converting millions, depriving them of the joy of faith, and potentially altering the moral fiber of the country.

On The Mountaintop With Obama

The Captain has a powerful post this morning, The Coming Obama 'Theocracy,' which keys off a speech given earlier this month by Michelle Obama that includes this passage:

We have lost the understanding that in a democracy, we have a mutual obligation to one another -- that we cannot measure the greatness of our society by the strongest and richest of us, but we have to measure our greatness by the least of these. That we have to compromise and sacrifice for one another in order to get things done. That is why I am here, because Barack Obama is the only person in this who understands that. That before we can work on the problems, we have to fix our souls. Our souls are broken in this nation.

Imagine if Mike Huckabee had suggested it was his purpose to fix the souls of Americans! We wouldn't have had to wait until later in this month to hear about what he said earlier in the month.

Obama is generating a messianic stirring in the souls of Liberals, and the Libs are responding with religious fervor. They're political born-agains because they can't rationally explain why they like him so; it is a feeling; no, more than a feeling: a faith.

If you think I'm overstating, check out this Ezra Klein quote Mark Steyn found:

"Obama's finest speeches do not excite. They do not inform. They don't even really inspire. They elevate. They enmesh you in a grander moment, as if history has stopped flowing passively by, and, just for an instant, contracted around you, made you aware of its presence, and your role in it. He is not the Word made flesh, but the triumph of word over flesh, over color, over despair."

I know exactly what he's talking about. I've felt that way when a particularly gifted pastor has filled me with the Spirit.

But this is politics, not religion, presidential candidates, not saviors. And we religious folk know that after the "mountain top" experience, we fall back down into the valley; that religious experiences are the peaks that keep us motivated for the slog.

If Obama is elected, however, he will have four years of slogging before him, not a long, four-year mountaintop experience. Many of his followers don't realize this because this is the first time their spirit has been touched, and they don't realize that the awe-inspiring glow is only temporary.

If we turn to our souls over to government, what can we expect? Nirvana? The womb-like warmth of something larger than us taking care of our every need? I don't think so. I think government's soul is better told through this story from Australia's The Age:

POKER machines are creating a new criminal class — pushing law-abiding Victorians into a life of crime to feed gambling addictions that are tearing families apart while the State Government reaps a $1 billion-a-year tax jackpot.

People with no prior criminal records are being jailed for years after succumbing to pokie addictions and resorting to fraud, theft and embezzlement, often after gambling away their life savings.

In one case, a woman was murdered by a colleague for a shop's takings. The killer then went to the casino and within four hours of the May 2006 killing had lost a third of the money.

Lawyers say the Government must act urgently to address the gambling crisis which saw Victorians lose $2.5 billion last year.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd last week expressed concern that gambling tax contributed more than $5 billion to the states' and territories' annual revenue.

The State Government is set to announce new 20-year poker machine licences within weeks — a once-in-a-generation chance to reduce the number and accessibility of gaming machines, according to Opposition gaming spokesman Michael O'Brien.

He said the State Government was ignoring "the social cost and the economic cost through the criminal justice system, through the health system, through the social welfare system that gambling addiction creates".

His views are backed by senior lawyers. Bernie Balmer, who represented Kate Jamieson, a former Bendigo Bank loans officer and a mother of two who stole $3.5 million to feed her gambling addiction and is now in jail, says poker machines are white-anting ordinary families.

"Once upon a time you didn't have this offending in court — these are mums who have been dragged away from their kids for four years," he said. "The community have got to support them in jail — husbands become single parents, it's just bull****."

Could you ask for better evidence that government has no soul? It can only reflect the souls of those who run it, and if those who run it want massive social programs that deflate industry and self-motivation in the name of the warm blanket of Socialism, then schemes like state-sponsored poker will be needed to keep the necessary money rolling in.

Obama has them all at the mountaintop now, and his followers (especially the young ones) think it's a permanent condition. It's not. The only real question is whether he can keep them there through the convention and on to November, or whether the bummer slogging will chill the glow before we make the horrific mistake of electing a political mystic -- or worse yet, a political televangelist -- to be our president.

Sunday Scan

Birds (Vultures?) Of A Feather

Why are we not surprised by this bit of news from Fars, the Iranian news propaganda-wire?

TEHRAN (Fars News Agency)- Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad here Sunday voiced Tehran's support for Zimbabwe's independence and progress, and called for the utilization of all the ample potentials existing for the expansion of Tehran-Harare cooperation.

According to a report released by the Presidential Press Office, the president made the remarks in a meeting with Zimbabwe's new ambassador to Tehran, where he underscored that Tehran perceives no limit to the expansion of ties with Harare. ...

Ahmadinejad praised resistance of the Iranian and Zimbabwean nations against bullying powers, and reiterated, "Iran strongly supports the rights, independence and progress of the Zimbabwean nation."

For his part, the envoy appreciated Iran's support for the Zimbabwean nation against the bullying powers' aggressions, and underlined Harare's resolve to develop all-out ties with Iran and use Tehran's valuable experiences in the various grounds.

Proof here that you can tell a person's character by the company he keeps. The two nations may wish to pause to ask the all-important question: "Why are they bullying us?"

The Betty Windsor Channel

Queen Elizabeth has gone digital, with her own page on YouTube. Until they post her new Christmas message, you can view her first televised message, from 1957, in which she looks up from her written notes and says,

Happy Christmas.

She then looks down at her notes to refresh her memory, and adds,

Twenty-five years ago, my grandfather broadcast the first of these Christmas messages. Today is another landmark because television has made it possible for many of you to see me in your homes on Christmas day.

In 2007, thanks to The Royal Channel, the Official Channel of the British Monarchy, you'll be able to catch Queen Betty on your Iphone at "approximately 3 pm. GMT on Christmas day.'' In the meantime, you can stay pumped viewing such videos as The Prince of Wales Visits the Robert Clack School, Part 1, on the frivolous side and The Queen and Her Prime Minister on the really rather interesting side. It's not every day, after all, you get to hear John Majors talking about the ambiance in these private meetings, "with Corgies scattered about."

But don't expect to find clips of Betty in her bedroom like you'd expect elsewhere on YouTube. This is the Royal Channel, after all, and the real Queen Elizabeth, whomever she may be, is nowhere to be found.

God ... By The Numbers

You can tell a person's perspective on faith by whether they use the words "expressions of faith" or "religiosity" in a sentence like this one:

Our analysis of thousands of public communications across eight decades shows that American politics today is defined by a calculated, demonstrably public _______ unlike anything in modern history.

Kevin Coe and David Domke used "religiosity," so we can suspect how they feel about the rising tide of expressions of faith in campaigning today. But that doesn't take anything away from their article on History News Network, Think Religion Plays a Bigger Role in Politics Today? Y ou're Right. Statistics Prove it.

Coe and Domke point to Reagan's acceptance speech in 1980, when he requested a moment of silent prayer, as the starting point for an era they describe statistically as follows:

If one looks at nearly 360 major speeches that presidents from Franklin Roosevelt to George W. Bush have given, the increase in religiosity is astounding. The average president from FDR to Carter mentioned God in a minority of his speeches, doing so about 47% of the time. Reagan, in contrast, mentioned God in 96% of his speeches. George H. W. Bush did so 91% of the time, Clinton 93%, and the current Bush (through year six) was at 94%. Further, the total number of references to God in the average presidential speech since 1981 is 120% higher than the average speech from 1933-1980. References to broader religious terms, such as faith, pray, sacred, worship, crusade, and dozens of others increased by 60%.

Presidential requests for divine favor also show a profound shift. The phrase “God Bless America,” now the signature tagline of American politics, gained ubiquity in the 1980s. Prior to 1981, the phrase had only once passed a modern president’s lips in a major address: Richard Nixon’s, as he concluded an April 30, 1973, speech about the Watergate scandal. Since Reagan, presidents have rarely concluded a major address without “God Bless America” or a close variant.

What impresses me most in this statement is that those who would have us believe that America is not a Christian nation must deal with the fact that presidents from Roosevelt to Carter, who apparently did not espouse "religiosity," mentioned God in 47 percent of their speeches.

How do you account for that, other than by agreeing that America is, in fact, a Christian nation?

Another Floating Cross

clipped from www.youtube.com

In this clip (which really isn't worth your time viewing) from California's premier conservative political news blog, Flash Report, we see a surprised Cal. Senate Republican leader Dick Ackerman wishing us a Christmas greeting as Flash Report publisher Jon Fleishman drops by for an unexpected visit.

As Fleishman leaves, there is a cross by the inside of the front door, above Ackerman's right shoulder. It seems the "floating cross" introduced by Mike Huckabee is taking the nation by a storm ....

You Must Follow Proper Channels!

Over at the leftist blog Media Matters, we are supposed to be upset because Fox News sourced a story to a ... a ... a ... blog!

On December 21, the front page of FoxNews.com contained a headline under the "LATEST NEWS" tab that read "Report: Over 400 Scientists Dispute Man-Made Warming." However, the purported "LATEST NEWS" item did not link to a news report but, rather, to a post on "The Inhofe EPW Press Blog," the blog of Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK), ranking minority member on the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works.

The horror! Unable to say anything to defend the Doctrine of Warmism Infallibility from this nailing of the Thesis of 400 to the digital door of the Church of Warmism, Media Matters can only attack the media, not the message.

Which is why Media Matters doesn't.

hat-tip: Greenie Watch

The Unicyclists And The Feminists

Think a unicycle can teach you nothing about radical feminism? Think again.

A study by a unicycling British professor seeks to trace the causes of humor (to male aggressiveness, it turns out), but along the way trounces the feminist dogma that differences between men and women are environmental, not genetic.

Here's a bit of Science Daily's write-up of the research paper:

Professor Sam Shuster conducted a year long study observing how people reacted to him as he unicycled through the streets of Newcastle upon Tyne. What began as a hobby turned into an observational study after he realized that the huge number of stereotypical and predictable responses he received must be indicative of an underlying biological phenomenon.

The study was an observation of people's reactions to a sudden unexpected exposure to a new phenomenon - in this case unicycling, which at the time few had seen. He documented the responses of over 400 individuals, and observed the responses of many others.

Over 90% of people responded physically, for example with an exaggerated stare or a wave. Almost half responded verbally -- more men than women. Here, says Professor Shuster, the sex difference was striking. 95% of adult women were praising, encouraging or showed concern. There were very few comic or snide remarks. In contrast, only 25% of adult men responded as did the women, for example, by praise or encouragement; instead 75% attempted comedy, often snide or combative as an intended put-down.

Shuster concluded, correctly I think, that the intense aggressiveness of young males, many of whom would try to knock him off his unicycle, was masked with age by biting humor. Caustic, sarcastic, aggressive humor remains the domain of men ... and Rosie.

But why would women react nurturingly to a unicycle, something none of us are exposed to much as we grow? Could it be that women are ... nurturing? And that men are aggressive?

If you are a radical feminist, you can try to discount this via the old toy guns vs. toy dolls arguments, but really, unicycles? Unicycles don't carry a societal perception that is either aggressive or passive; they are merely different, and therefore draw out a purer reaction, a reaction that shows very clearly how different men and women are.

Ron Paul's Biggest Applause Line

Tucker Carlson must be on the outs at MSNBC (and that's the outs of the outs, if ever there was such a thing) because he was recently tasked not just to follow Ron Paul around for a couple days, but to follow him around in Nevada.

He reports that in Pahrump "the crowd went wild, or as wild as a group of sober Republicans can on a Monday night. They hooted and yelled and stomped their feet," when Paul stated that there is no constitutional authority for a federal bank. Later, a Paul staffer confirmed to Tucker that "It's our biggest applause line."

Wow. Carlson has an explanation:

There are two ways to interpret a fact like that: Either the Ron Paul movement is more sophisticated than most journalists understand, or a lot of Paul supporters are eccentric bordering on bonkers.

I'll go with the latter.

Cross About Huckabee's Cross Ad

clipped from youtube.com

Floating crosses, like daisies, can be pretty things, but when they are used politically, they can offend.

Mike Huckabee is hoping that Iowa voters, busy wrapping presents and roasting chestnuts by the open fire (apparently not caring a whit about global warming), will see his friendly face, hear the warm voice and peaceful message, note that he's got the spirit of the season and isn't attacking anyone ... and maybe that they'll connect with the cross drifting by ethereally in the background as he speaks.

It is not a mistake; it is a cross, not merely a bookshelf bereft of books. The positioning, the panning, the careful contrast of white against dark makes it very evident that the image was carefully thought out to serve two purposes: Connect with Christians, and leverage the ad buy by getting free air time as pundits discuss the meaning of it all.

For me, it accomplished the latter, but not the former, and I am one big fan of the cross and all it stands for: God, Christ, salvation, love, sacrifice. I'm glad that Mike Huckabee is a Christian and that America is a place where, unlike England, a man who stands up proudly for his faith can run for office. I'm glad that Huckabee is surging in the polls for little reason other than he's a nice-sounding Christian guy, because it shows that America is still, as it always has been, a Christian nation -- despite what the Secularists would have us believe, or force us to accept.

I even believe it's fine to use the cross as a subliminal messaging tool. I met a fellow recently who had invented a new kind of file folder clip that was quite ingenious. Incorporated subtly into its inside parts was a cross. I asked him about it and he smiled and said, "I believe in workplace evangelism." More power to him.

But what Huckabee has done, besides trying rather clumsily to subtly appeal to Christians, is to leverage his ad budget by the cross. He knew and his staff knew columns would be written, blogs would be posted (mea culpa) and airtime would be filled with discussions about his ad, so his investment of a few tens of thousands of dollars would reap him millions of dollars in additional exposure.

That is the stuff of money lenders in the Temple, and you know what Jesus did to them -- He turned over their tables and chased them out. You just don't use the cross that He gave his life to us on as a way to tick up a point or two in the poll swithout having to pay for it.

As Peggy Noonan put it today in the WSJ,

Ken Mehlman, the former Republican chairman, once bragged in my presence that in every ad he did he put in something wrong--something that went too far, something debatable. TV producers, ever hungry for new controversy, would play the commercial over and over as pundits on the panel deliberated over its meaning. This got the commercial played free all over the news.

The cross is the reason you saw the commercial. The cross made it break through.

I'm not sure if Peggy saw her secondary message: The cross is what makes it possible for any of us break through, and that purpose of the cross is so far superior to what Huckabee is using it for that his ad is, in a word, sinful.

Regular readers know I'm not a Huckabee supporter because I'm voting on foreign policy platforms this election, but if I were, I'd be re-thinking my vote based on this ad.

Update: Vote on your choice for the best and the worst of the candidates' Christmas ads at Stuck on Stupid.

Knucklheads And Goths

It being December, it is a time to celebrate. Yeah, Christmas fr sure, but also the annual 10 Best issue of Car & Driver -- now in its 26th year this year. To car lovers, it's a wonderful thing: Not just the 10 best cars, but also the 10 best photos, tall tales and true stories.

At the very tail end of this years issue, presented as one of the "10 best uses of duct tape" stories, I found this, which I share in its entirety.

Knuckleheads and Goths

As a member of the clergy, I refer to duct tape in its ecclesiastical designation, "God on a Roll," becaues it fixes everything.

A while back, I was a youth minister at the biggest church of all our congregations. I was doing my job so well, they fired me a year later. Seems the kids I was bringing into the youth group were not the kids they wanted -- skaters, Goths, knuckleheads who needed a connection to the Big Guy. So I was fired.

I found another church and prepared to move. Amongst my stuff was a built-from-scratch barbecue smoker that held sentimental attachment. As I was hammering down the freeway in my truck, pulling a loaded trailer, the smoker began to move and shift about and broke the ropes and tie-downs. I stopped three or four times to fix it, but to no avail. So I pulled over a last time and agonized over what to do. I was in the middle of nowhere and it was after midnight and I had no more rope.

I sat there on the end of the trailer knowing I was going to have to dump the coooker over the side. I took a big dip of Copenhagen and began to say my goodbyes. As I walked around to the passenger side of my truck to get a box knife to cut it loose, I spotted a Wal-Mart bag lying alongside the road. I went to pick it up, knowing it contained either soiled diapers or a human head, but lo and behold, it contained three brand-new rolls of duct tape. Which I used to secure my cooker to the trailer for the rest of the trip.

Coincidence? I don't think so.

The Reverend Dan Bubach
Palestine, Texas

Nor do I. Thanks, Rev. Dan, for a great story. Hope you're reaching all the Goths and knuckleheads in Palestine, Texas.

What Would Satan Do?

I don't think Satanists wear What Would Satan Do bracelets, because Satan wouldn't like the behavior of Peter Gilmore, a Church of Satan high priest, too much:

CORTLAND, Ohio (AP) - A teenager was arrested after a leader of the Church of Satan turned over to the FBI an e-mail the high school student had written to the sect in which he threatened to kill his grandparents, authorities said.

Andrew Culver, 18, told police the e-mail detailing his intention to kill his grandparents and steal their money and car was a joke, said Bazetta Township Police Chief Charles Sayers.

According to police, Culver wrote he had access to an arsenal of weapons and wanted to "kill in the name of our unholy lord Satan."

Culver sent the message Wednesday to Peter Gilmore, the high priest of the New York City-based Church of Satan, Sayers said. Gilmore alerted the FBI, which notified local police. Culver was taken out of class Thursday and questioned by police, Sayers said.

"To send an e-mail making specific threats, to sign your name, that to me is not a joke," Sayers said.

Gilmore said his church discards most of the hundreds of e-mails it receives daily. But Culver's message stood out, he said.

"I thought it could be a joke, but with recent events in Colorado and Nebraska, I thought it was better to play it safe," he said, referring to mass shootings in an Omaha mall, a missionary school near Denver and a Colorado Springs church that killed a total of 13 people, including the gunmen.

Gilmore's behavior was quite moral, wouldn't you say? Where does that morality come from if the Church of Satan professes this belief of man's morality:

Man’s true nature—that of a carnal beast, living in a cosmos which is permeated and motivated by the Dark Force which we call Satan.

Satan would not be at all happy with Gilmore. He would have let the email pass, let the grandparents be murdered, and get the boy's eternal soul (assuming no jail house conversion, of course), don't you think?

What's this world coming to? A moral Church of Satan while priests molest children and Episcopalians embrace homosexualitiy!

Separation Of Church And State, Secularist Style

"When you put on your Jesus glasses," Dr. James Corbett told the students in his Advanced Placement European history class at Capistrano Valley High School, "you can't see the truth."

The doc also shared with his class that he just doesn't think much of believers ... any believers:

... Conservatives don't want women to avoid pregnancies. That's interfering with God's work. You got to stay pregnant, barefoot and in the kitchen to have babies until your body collapses. All over the world, doesn't matter where you go, conservatives want control over women's reproductive capacity. Everywhere in the world, from conservative Christians in this country to, um, Muslim fundamentalists in Afghanistan. It's the same. It's stunning how vitally interested they are in controlling women.

In fact, he thinks religion draws a society down:

People ... in the industrialized world the people least likely to go to church are the Swedes. The people in the industrialized world most likely to go to church are the Americans. America has the highest crime rate of all the industrialized nations and Sweden has the lowest. The next time someone [like your parents] tells you religion is connected with morality, you might want to ask them about that.

The US does, in fact, have the highest crime rate -- a function of excellent and transparent record keeping as much as anything else. But if Corbett were to look at crime rater per capita -- the stat that matters, since he's talking about individuals' relationships with God here -- he'd' find that many much more secular industrialized nations, Finland, Denmark and the UK, all have higher crime rates.

Godless Sweden's rate is lower, but it has a higher per capita adult suicide rate than religious America. Corbett didn't share that with his students.

Moving on through this fascinating review of European history, we find the doc saying this:

I love Rush Limbaugh. A fat, pain in the ass liar. And boy is he a liar. Unbelievable.

And this important analysis of European history:

U.S. regulators -- U.S. regulators say they added new warnings about the potential risks of sudden hearing loss among men who are using Viagra, Cialis or Levitra. So what they've been telling you for all these years, that you'll go blind, isn't true. ... So you know, you know, so if you run into somebody who is, you know, deaf and whose pants felt stiff, he's probably using the drug. They're happy, but they're deaf.

In the same class, after denouncing the Boy Scouts for being "in their own mind a homophobic and racist organization," he said:

It's simple. It's called separation of church and state.

In his mind, there is no religion called "Secularism," but it's evident by his comments that there is, and he is a devout believer in that faith. One of the students in his class, Chad Farnan, has filed a lawsuit with the assistance of the Christian legal group Advocates for Faith and Freedom. Read the full complaint here.

Farnan liked Corbett's class at first, then, according to yesterday's OC Reg, he became more and more uncomfortable, and gave a recording of one of Corbett's classroom rants to his mother. All quotes in this story are from that one tape, from one class.

This isn't the first time Corbett's gotten in trouble for his views, according to the Reg:

Corbett has been involved in at least two prior court cases as a Capistrano Valley High teacher. In 1993, he was named in a lawsuit brought by colleague John Peloza, a biology teacher who challenged Capistrano Unified's mandate to teach evolutionary theory.

Corbett was listed in the suit as one of the defendants with a "class-based animus against practicing Christians" who attempted to "force" Peloza to teach evolution through "harassment and intimidation." A trial court and an appeals court ruled against Peloza, although the appeals court said the complaint was "not entirely frivolous" and awarded attorney fees to Peloza.

Despite this, Corbett is still teaching, and Capistrano Valley High principal Tom Ressler hasn't commented on his teacher's latest transgression yet, except to say that 33 percent of Corbett's students flunked the state's Advanced Placement exam. (Actually, he said 66 percent passed, but I thought I'd emphasize that Corbett is a lousy teacher, too, not just a bigot.)

Were a teacher to lead his students in prayer, you can bet that Corbett would be at the front of the crazed pack, calling for that teacher's "fat, pain in the ass" head. Were a teacher to attempt to teach the true history of Communist violence and abuse, or the terrorist acts of the Palestinians, you can bet that Corbett would be the loudest voice crying "Foul!" (or something more profane).

Yet he feel free to encourage kids to have premarital sex and to not trust their parents ...

So you know, some parents are objecting, saying [handing out birth control pills is] taking too much power away from the parents. Parents are pretty irresponsible. And so is the Bush administration with its abstinence policy. Spending billions of dollars [!!] on something they know doesn't work, wonderful. Wonderful. Idiotic.

... to not trust America, and above all, to not be a fool who believes in God.

And we pay him to do this, and if the school district -- the school district my taxes go to, as a matter of fact -- doesn't fire him, we will pay for his defense.

Update: Here's a follow-up article on the spirited debate the first article on Corbett generated.

Romney Speech: No Converts

Mitt Romney gave a beautifully crafted speech today called "Faith in America" that was really about "The Mormon Faith in American Politics."

It was pretty much the best speech on the subject he could have given. There were quibbles, of course:

By insisting on faith - any faith - as the proper criterion for public office, Romney draws the line, oh-so-conveniently, so as to include Mormonism but exclude atheism and agnosticism. -- Andrew Sullivan

And there were broadsides:

Romney, though, had a perfect distraction for his doubters, the religious group Americans distrust more than Mormons: Muslims. ... No matter how much Republican voters may distrust members of Romney's faith, they hate someone else [Muslims] more. -- Mother Jones

But mostly, there were lovely turns of phrase:

Freedom requires religion just as religion requires freedom. Freedom opens the windows of the soul so that man can discover his most profound beliefs and commune with God. Freedom and religion endure together, or perish alone. ...

No candidate should become the spokesman for his faith. For if he becomes President he will need the prayers of the people of all faiths.

But it really all gets down to this: Those who are more concerned about a president's morality and character than the church he goes to didn't need to be moved, and those who cannot stomach a Mormon president cannot be moved. This speech was about getting it over with, and only about getting it over with. It was not about overcoming the doubts of those who hold Romney's religion against him.

And as a "getting it over with" speech, it was effective, as Romney said:

There are some who would have a presidential candidate describe and explain his church's distinctive doctrines. To do so would enable the very religious test the founders prohibited in the Constitution.

Agreed ... with a bit of a groan, because if, as Romney suggested and I believe, secularism is a religion, then questions about the moral structure of a secularist candidate are out, too. Abortion? Public prayer? Faith-based initiatives? Can't answer; religious test.

Of course those are issues for the Democratic party, where they don't matter. There are, and will be, no meaningful Secularist GOP candidates any time soon.

Half a century ago, Kennedy made a similar speech that some credit with giving him the edge over Nixon. I disagree. His haircut, his wife, his personna -- they gave him the edge over Nixon, and none of those moved a single person unsettled about a Catholic in the White House.

God may smile on Romney and he may be our next president. But it will be his policies and his ability to communicate them effectively to those who don't have a Mormon hang-up that will get him votes.

Now that the speech has been given and the issue is done with, he can get along with that task.

Photo: NY Times

Sunday Scan

The Jerry Lewis Porkathon

The San Bernardino Sun reports on the hometown Congressman:

Rep. Jerry Lewis, R-Redlands, is tops among California's 54 congressional representatives when it comes to securing federal dollars in money-spending bills.

Lewis even bested House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, by 56 percent.

Numbers compiled by a non-partisan budget watchdog group, Taxpayers for Common Sense, show that Lewis - sometimes partnering with other lawmakers - scored more than $126 million worth of earmarks in a dozen appropriations bills for fiscal 2008.

Lewis does have some classic pork in his $126 million, including $8million in Army research funding for a local military contractor, but not all pork is created equal.

Lewis represents some of the fastest-growing cities in the nation, so his region needs a lot of help to cope with growth: New roads, new water and sewer systems, new hospitals. Developers pay a big chunk as do taxpayer-approved bonds, but it makes sense that Lewis' district should get more than slow-growing districts.

Then there's the fires that have swept the mountain communities above Redlands. Lewis represented those people well by getting money to help rebuild their towns.

While I'm no fan of pork, I'm even less a fan of lazy reporting.

Preposterous Prosperity Preachers

"Give and the Lord will give back" is a message heard from many pulpits, often with biblical purity. God loves a giving heart -- but if He loves televangelist prosperity preachers, who do a lot of preaching about giving, it would be one of God's greater mysteries.

Now a Republican Senator has launched an investigation of some of the biggest of these money-sucking televangelists:

The powerful top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee earlier this month sent detailed letters to six mega-ministries that are exempt from paying federal taxes, asking about their fundraising and use of donations.

For example, [Sen. Charles] Grassley wants to know for what tax-exempt purpose Joyce Meyer Ministries, based in Fenton, Mo., bought a $30,000 malachite round table, and spent $11,219 on a French clock and $19,162 on Dresden vases.

He's also interested in the total amount of "love offerings" received in lieu of salary by Bishop Eddie Long of the New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Lithonia, Ga., and how Long reports them on his W-2 forms to the Internal Revenue Service.

Kenneth Copeland Ministries, in Newark, Texas, also received a letter. Grassley is curious about reports that a gathering of ministers presented Kenneth Copeland with a "personal gift" in excess of $2 million, in celebration of the organization's 40th anniversary.

The other three targets are Randy and Paula White of Without Walls International Church in Tampa, Fla.; Benny Hinn of World Healing Center Church Inc. in Grapevine, Texas; and Creflo and Taffi Dollar of World Changers Church International in College Park, Ga. Des Moines Register via Right Views)

My only question is why it took so long. These thieves have been taking money from the widowed, feeble and naive for so long their place in Hell is well secured; their time in prison should have started long ago.

A pulpit is the worst place to hide behind ... with the possible exception of the television camera. If Sen. Grassley's investigation bears fruit, then the next step should be going after some television broadcast licenses.

The $30,000 malachite table caught my eye; here's Malachi 1:6:

“A son honors his father, and a servant his master. If I am a father, where is the honor due me? If I am a master, where is the respect due me?” says the Lord Almighty. “It is you, O priests, who show contempt for my name.

Amen.

Happy 60th Betty and Phil

Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip are celebrating their 60th, and BBC has provided us with 60 wedding tidbits including ones of wealth:

The Queen's bridal veil was made of tulle and held by a tiara of diamonds. This tiara was made for Queen Mary in 1919. It was made from re-used diamonds taken from a necklace/tiara purchased by Queen Victoria from Collingwood and Co and a wedding present for Queen Mary in 1893. In August 1936, Queen Mary gave the tiara to Queen Elizabeth from whom it was borrowed by Princess Elizabeth for her wedding in 1947.

... and ones of war-time austerity:

The two Royal kneelers, used during the service, were covered in rose pink silk. They were made from orange boxes, due to war time austerity, and date stamped 1946.

It's an interesting journey into another time, another place, and makes a nice Sunday read.

Paranoid Libertarians

Steve Greenhut, editorial writer at the OCRegister, is a years-long friend. We talk frequently about property rights, crazed greenies, global warming hysteria and other common interests.

We almost never talk about the war, because as a libertarian, Greenhut has been against it since day one, and his normally clear vision gets clouded, as in his column today:

One of the most disturbing lessons I've learned following the 9/11 attacks is that many people will go along with just about any government-imposed outrage if it's couched in the right terms and plays on their fears.

In the past few years, we've seen the federal government become increasingly aggressive in its efforts to spy on, detain, wiretap, monitor, imprison, search and harass not only suspected "enemy combatants" but pretty much anyone, at its discretion.

Pretty much anyone, Steve? Where are the cases in point? Who's been harassed? Who's been imprisoned? If you think the targets are "anyone," then our legal targets will shrink to pretty much no one, and the Islamists will have successfully exploited our freedoms in their efforts to take our freedoms away from us.

Greenhut's focus is Manzanar, the internment camp for Japanese-Americans in WWII:

One columnist, quoted in the book, "Reflections," about the Manzanar relocation center in California, made this argument: "I'm for the immediate removal of every Japanese on the West Coast to a point deep in the interior … let 'em be pinched, hurt, hungry … let us have no patience with the enemy or with anyone who carry his blood. Personally, I hate the Japanese."

Last year when I first researched this topic, I found such bile to be common in newspapers. At the time, The Orange County Register's longtime co-publisher R.C. Hoiles was one of the only West Coast newspaper publishers to come out against the internment.

Hindsight can be 20/20, but Greenhut should understand that among all those unjustly interned were some whose interment was good for us and for the war effort -- something Greenhut dismisses with:

The justification was to protect against espionage and sabotage, although there was scant evidence that Japanese-Americans and Japanese nationals living on the West Coast had engaged in any such activities.

But how could there be evidence unless there was the sort of spying on, wiretapping and monitoring that Greenhut abhors?

I have friends who lived in Manzanar, and I am well aware that the internment was ugly for all and unnecessary for nearly all. But the fact is this: There hasn't been any government call for internment of Muslims or any government effort that we know of that involves wholesale electronic spying on Muslims.

To fear such civil liberty breaches from within so much that you ignore the very real effort of some to undermine and destroy our freedoms, then that is the greater risk to freedom.

The Islamo-Socialist Front

Two terrible regimes are getting together today as the Venezuelan vampire drops by to visit the Tehraniacs. No good will come of this.

McGovern: The Dems' Vietnam

Look at the Dem Prez hopefuls and you see candidates who are running on a platform that speaks to activist core of the part, with planks on peace, economic justice and social equality.

If that sounds mistily familiar, think back to McGovern, says poli-sci prof and author Bruce Miroff. He looks at today's situation through a lens of an ongoing McGovern shock to the Dems:

Republican political ascendancy since the Reagan presidency has centered on a few core—and clear—principles: limited government, the free market, a strong military, traditional values. The Democrats’ alternative public philosophy is far less distinct. For decades, their party had had trouble articulating what it cares about and what it believes. Republicans have been proud to call themselves conservatives. Democrats have not really wanted to call themselves anything in particular.

I argue in my recently published book, The Liberals’ Moment: The McGovern Insurgency and the Identity Crisis of the Democratic Party, that the McGovern campaign was the last time that a presidential nominee of the Democratic Party voiced a full-fledged public philosophy: liberalism. ...

But McGovern lost by a huge margin, crushed by a landslide in which forty-nine states voted for the incumbent, none other than Richard Nixon. ...

A legacy of the McGovern campaign was that it made Democrats lose confidence in their longstanding public philosophy even as Republicans were gaining confidence in their new one. The McGovern defeat can thus be seen as a profound trauma for contemporary Democrats, a political and psychic wound that has been covered over with layers of denial and defensiveness. (History News Network)

Miroff is, of course, right. Today's candidates all remember the McGovern debacle well, just as they remember the Reagan juggernaut. What they're forgetting is that there is a place in Dem-dom somewhere between the unrealistic positions of McGovern or Markos Moulitsas and the hard right positions of the Conservative revolution.

It may take another generation for the Dems to leave McGovern behind and find a new voice for the party -- a bit of New Deal, a bit of populism, a bit of progressivism (as in embracing change, not running from it as the Dems are today). Hillary is the embodiment of McGovernitis, with her unwillingness to take a position on anything, her searching for something safe and electable to believe in.

Not that this augers well for the GOP in 2008. The people are free to elect people who can't say what they believe in -- especially if the people don't know what they believe in either.