"Benedict's Wager"

John Allen's Word From Rome is a retrospective on B16's first year. It's well worth R-ing TWT, but here are two points I especially like. Why, some "conservatives" want to know, has Benedict not cracked the whip more? It's because Benedict knows the secularized world fears the Church's dictates are an effort to assert power and control them.

Benedict understands that one can't break through such perceptions with finger-wagging and condemnation, which reinforce the prejudice rather than challenging it. The church must first seem a credible witness to love.
The effort of this first year has to some extent been to put the church's teaching in a new context. That was the thrust of Deus Caritas Est, his first encyclical,which surprised many people with its endorsement of eros, or human erotic love, and its overall positive tone. Writing without anathema or interdict, Benedict argued that no one is more committed to human love than the Christian, but that the church wants people to love so deeply and so eternally that it pushes them to a deeper kind of love, a lasting love, expressed in caritas.

To put Benedict's point in street language, it boils down to this: You may not like what we have to say, but at least give us credit for our motives. We're not talking about truth because we want to chain you down, but because we want to set you free. It's not a matter of love and joy versus a fussy, legalistic church. It's a question of two different visions of what real love is all about -- Baywatch, so to speak,versus the gospel. We too want happy, healthy, liberated people, we just have a different idea of how to get there.

Allen calls this "Benedict's Wager" --that the Church can re-cast itself and people of good will will be convinced. I especially like Allen's little aside at the end of this discussion:

As a footnote, for all the talk about Benedict as an Augustinian pessimist, he actually seems to believe there are still people out there who can be persuaded by unadorned argument -- if you think about it, a rather optimistic stance.

Jumping to the second point of interest, B16's view of Islam, the only point on which he represents a break with JPG rather than continuity (arguably). Allen's view is that B16 is much more of a hawk, and that the murder of Fr. Santoro in Turkey deeply affected most Vatican personnel, who see it as a sign of rising persecution of Christians in Muslim countries:

In his March 23 session with cardinals, much conversation turned on Islam, and there was general agreement with Benedict's policy of a more muscular challenge on what Catholics call "reciprocity." In essence, it means that if Muslim immigrants can claim the benefit of religious liberty in the West, then Christian minorities ought to get the same treatment in majority Muslim nations.

Jumping a bit. . .

John Paul, who met with Muslims more than 60 times over the course of his papacy, and who during a 2001 trip to Damascus became the first pope to enter a mosque, believed in reaching out to Islamic moderates and avoiding confrontational talk. Benedict XVI clearly wants good relations with Islam, and chose to meet with a group of Muslim leaders during his August trip to Cologne, Germany. Yet he will not purse that relationship at the expense of what he considers to be the truth. No doubt, Benedict intends this tougher line as a stimulus to Islamic leaders to take seriously the challenge of expressing their faith in a multi-cultural, pluralistic world.

The Funniest Sad Picture I've Ever Seen

The story will make you wistful and nostalgic, but you must see the photo.

It's Better In The Bahamas

Can't show Brokeback Mountain in the Bahamas:

"The board chose to ban it because it shows extreme homosexuality, nudity and profanity, and we feel that it has no value for the Bahamian public," Chavasse Turnquest-Liriano, liaison officer for the control board, said.

Pope Calls EU Leaders Girly Men

Of course, he didn't quite put it that way in his address to members of the European Popular Party.

The Holy Father said that from the perspective of the Catholic Church, certain fundamental principles of European civilization are not negotiable, involving "the protection and promotion of the dignity of the person." The Church, he said, cannot compromise in the defense of human life and of the natural family founded on marriage. The moral principles at stake in those matters, the Pope continued, "are not truths of faith, even though they receive further light and confirmation from faith; they are inscribed in human nature itself and therefore they are common to all humanity." The principles of natural law, he said, apply "to all people, irrespective of any religious affiliation they may have." The European Union must uphold the natural law, and defend its Christian heritage, the Pope said. Failing to do so, he said, "would be a sign of immaturity, if not weakness."

Update: Well, actually he pretty much did call them girly men. The actual transcript is even more strongly worded:

Your support for the Christian heritage, moreover, can contribute significantly to the defeat of a culture that is now fairly widespread in Europe, which relegates to the private and subjective sphere the manifestation of one’s own religious convictions. Policies built on this foundation not only entail the repudiation of Christianity’s public role; more generally, they exclude engagement with Europe’s religious tradition, which is so clear, despite its denominational variations, thereby threatening democracy itself, whose strength depends on the values that itpromotes (cf. Evangelium Vitae, 70). Given that this tradition, precisely in what might be called its polyphonic unity, conveys values that are fundamental for the good of society, the European Union can only be enriched by engaging with it. It would be a sign of immaturity, if not indeed weakness, to choose to oppose or ignore it, rather than to dialogue with it. In this context one has to recognize that a certain secular intransigence shows itself to be the enemy of tolerance and of a sound secular vision of state and society.

Rahman Noodles His Way Into Italy, Hearts

Sorry. Here's the story.

Asked why he had decided to convert to Christianity, Rahman, who was speaking in broken English, said: "Because I read the Bible and I became convinced of the goodness of this religion."
"I thank the Pope, the Italian government and all those who have been involved in my case. I am happy to be here."

Annals Of Overreach

Oh what tangled webs we spin when trying to marry men to men. The Supreme Court of Massachussetts, in an effort to dial back the Constitutional crisis it provoked by permitting gay marriage, has ruled that out-of-state couples may not marry in MA unless their home state constitutions also permit them to marry (thus upholding a 1913 statute). So now the SCOM has put MA courts in the position of interpreting every other state's constitution. Love it. And what's going to happen when the MA court says same-sex marriage is legal in New York and then New York says it isn't? As may actually happen, please note:

The original lawsuit was filed by eight out-of-state couples and 12 cities and towns, claiming the 1913 statute was discriminatory and had been invalidated by the legalization of gay marriage in the state.
In its decision, the court denied the claims of all but the couples from New York and Rhode Island, because laws in those states have not specifically outlawed said gay marriage.
The high court sent those cases back to the superior court judge who had originally denied them, asking the judge to determine whether same-sex marriage is allowed in those states.

Or what if a state such as LA passes an amendment to its constitution forbidding same-sex marriage, and then a court says the amendment is unconstitutional a few years later? Oy.

I'll Give You Bold

In stunning contrast to the "bold" Dem Security Initiative, read the President's Address to Freedom House earlier this week. It's long, but read the whole thing. You'll be tempted to skim because at the start it seems like he's going to give the same Defense speech he's been giving more or less for three years. But stick with it, especially when he gets to:

these are fair questions, and today I'll do my best to answer them.

This is by far the most detailed account I have seen of the situation in Iraq and what we hope to achieve. And then there is an absolutely masterful Q& A session that's so wide-ranging I don't know what to quote. Then, while you're at it, read Tony Blair's speech before the Australian Parliament Monday.

If we want to secure our way of life, there is no alternative but to fight for it.

He also, not incidentally, stuck up for us.

I do not always agree with the US. Sometimes they can be difficult friends to have. But the strain of, frankly, anti-American feeling in parts of European and in world politics is madness when set against the long-term interests of the world we believe in.
The danger with America today is not that they are too much involved. The danger is that they decide to pull up the drawbridge and disengage. We need them involved. We want them engaged. The reality is that none of the problems that press in on us can be resolved or even contemplated without them.

I don't always agree with Blair. I don't even always agree with Bush. But read them and then think about the "bold" Democratic agenda. It's as if Bush & Blair are a different order of man altogether from the people who crafted the latter.

Pie In The Sky

My home state is the latest to allocate big bucks on embryonic snake oil research. I forgot to mention that on St. Patrick's day Hubby & I attended a party at which we ran into an old friend who happens to head the most important anti-embryonic stem cell coalition. He's a thoughtful person --not merely an ideologue on the subject. He has an interesting job, because almost weekly he has some of the most important researchers in the field contacting him sub rosa to leak things that are happening in America's labs. Some of it is horrifying. But some of it is amazing, too. For example, he wasn't at liberty to tell me where, but there's a lab in the country that has cured Type I diabetes in mice using adult stem cells. Not diminished it; cured it. Researchers have FDA approval to proceed with human trials, but are having a hard time getting funding. Why, you ask? Because there's no way to patent adult stem cells.

And there's a guy in Michigan who is doing amazing things with spinal cord injuries, but can't get funding. Meanwhile, state after state chases after the fools gold of embryonic stem cells which have never yet cured anything, and in fact, because of their rapid growth, tend to make matters worse. Sigh.

The Long-Awaited Dem Security Agenda

In the pdf file available here , the Dems finally put out a 10-page "security agenda." I know it's bold because their website says so.

• It's only 5 pages; half of them are Spanish translation.
• The first two pages are cover pages.
• Page 3 is the Bush-bashing introduction.
• The last half-page is energy policy.
• So it's really a 1 1/2 page plan that says (steady yourselves, this is really bold):

Git Osama & tell them Iraqis to unify themselves. Oh, And hold Bush accountable for all his bad, bad lies.

I'm not kidding, that's really what it says:

Insist that Iraqis make the political compromises necessary to unite their country and defeat the insurgency; promote regional diplomacy; and strongly encourage our allies and other nations to play a constructive role.

Ah, so that's what Bush has been doing wrong. He's not insisting. If I were Ken Mehlman, I'd link to it on the Republican site and make my '06 campaign slogan be: 'Nuff said.

UPDATE: A little later they released a 120pp. document that's a little more detailed. (PDF) So far, the details are not making it better, but I'll keep you posted.

"No Respect"

From The Ryskind Sketchbook

Bowl Me Over

A few days ago the San Francisco board of supervisors "welcomed" a group of evangelical teens to their fair city. While the teens held their rally, Assemblyman Mark Leno said they were

loud, they're obnoxious, they're disgusting and they should get out of San Francisco.

I didn't bother to cover it because you can't keep up with every nutty thing that happens in SF. But here's a surprising editiorial from one of the local papers.

The gathering was not an "act of provocation," as the supervisors claimed. It was a get-together of young evangelicals whose lifestyles and religious views just happen to be in the minority here -- apparently making them open season for politicians to chastise.
The young people who came to San Francisco to affirm their faith and enjoy a day of rock music deserved better. They deserved to be welcomed by a city that was as tolerant and progressive as its sanctimonious supervisors like to profess.

I'll be. Curtsy: Amy Welborn.

Bush Tapped, Leftists Flapped

However, according to WaTi

A panel of former Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court judges yesterday told members of the Senate Judiciary Committee that President Bush did not act illegally when he created by executive order a wiretapping program conducted by the National Security Agency (NSA).

In fact, said Judge Allan Kornblum, one of the authors of the 1978 FISA Act, not only may the president act unilaterally via executive order, but

I think that the president would be remiss exercising his constitutional authority by giving all of that power over to a statute.

Naturally, this has been widely reported. I'm sure you all saw it in your local papers and heard it on the radio. Right after the number of deaths in Iraq/Afghanistan, right?

Society's Appendix

A new branch of economics known as neuroeconomics claims to be able to prove scientifically that Adam Smith (who considered himself a moral philosopher, recall) was right:

Smith saw sympathy (compassion and commiseration for another person, even if you don’t share his troubles), or empathy (if you do), as an innate characteristic of man. It served, Smith suggested, as man’s moral compass, was difficult to overcome, and from it flourished an unwritten code of ethics that held society together.

Here's the proof (click the link to read about monkey experiments):

Professor Paul Zak, from Claremont Graduate University in California, cites a fascinating study in which two daycare centres adopted different approaches with late parents. One centre merely reminded parents that turning up late inconvenienced the teacher, who had to stay behind. The other centre imposed a $3 fine. After several weeks, the “penalty” centre was reporting more latecomers. The theory is that the fine somehow replaced the social undesirability of inconveniencing the teacher. Zak suggests that penalties and regulations “may crowd out the good behaviour that most people, most of the time, follow.”

Over at her place, ninme gives some other examples:

I’ve run into a lot of grownups that feel that way, and bugger the consequences. They’ll just pay the fine. Whether it’s watering a huge lawn during a drought, getting parking tickets rather than buying a parking pass, etc…

And so on down to the conclusion that for a good time, call off the regulation:

So we need a compromise — a skeleton of formal regulation to stop the sociopaths taking advantage, fleshed out with plenty of self-regulation. Thus, we have a neat scientific explanation of why moderately regulated economies are the most creative and thus the wealthiest.

But I'm mostly posting this because this comment from one of her regular visitors amused me:

I wish people would stop saying 'regulation' as if the only type is government regulation. In fact the whole of a market economy is highly regulated - self -regulated. That's the point Adam Smith is trying to make.
It is this self-regulation which is the skeleton, the muscles, the skin - the whole freaking thing. Goverment regulation is the appendix. No one is exactly sure what it does, but it can get dangerously inflamed and threaten the whole body at times.

Cap the Saber

From the WaTi editorial on Caspar Weinberger's passing:

Known as "Cap the Knife" during his budget-cutting days in the Nixon administration, Mr. Weinberger became "Cap the Saber" in 1981, indispensably helping the president rattle the nation to the cause of its defense. When the Soviet Union imploded in 1991, it did so with a very able assist from Caspar Weinberger.

The "Steel in Reagan's Spine"

Lyn Nofziger, who died yesterday of cancer, always made politics fun. Here's the WaTi editorial on his passing. I like this profile of him from late last year better than the obits I've seen so far, though. Here's Peter Schramm's tribute, with links to some Nofziger speeches. And here's the WaPo appreciation, which is amazingly gracious --mostly because it skirts any political questions.

Waiting Bush Out -Updated

Amir Taheri has a blockbuster in Opinion Journal today. Go read "The Last Helicopter." The President of Iran believes it's only Bush who stands in the way of the rise of Islam, and he is doing his utmost to persuade his fellow islamofascists to wait Bush out.

In that clash Iran will lead the Muslim world against the "Crusader-Zionist camp" led by America. Mr. Bush might have led the U.S. into "a brief moment of triumph." But the U.S. is a "sunset" (ofuli) power while Iran is a sunrise (tolu'ee) one and, once Mr. Bush is gone, a future president would admit defeat and order a retreat as all of Mr. Bush's predecessors have done since Jimmy Carter.

The President of Syria, for example,

had pondered the option of "doing a Gadhafi" by toning down his regime's anti-American posture. Since last February, however, he has revived Syria's militant rhetoric and dismissed those who advocated a rapprochement with Washington. Iran has rewarded him with a set of cut-price oil, soft loans and grants totaling $1.2 billion. In response Syria has increased its support for terrorists going to fight in Iraq and revived its network of agents in Lebanon, in a bid to frustrate that country's democratic ambitions.

And on and on with examples:

There are more signs that the initial excitement created by Mr. Bush's democratization project may be on the wane. Saudi Arabia has put its national dialogue program on hold and has decided to focus on economic rather than political reform. In Bahrain, too, the political reform machine has been put into rear-gear, while in Qatar all talk of a new democratic constitution to set up a constitutional monarchy has subsided. In Jordan the security services are making a spectacular comeback, putting an end to a brief moment of hopes for reform. As for Egypt, Hosni Mubarak has decided to indefinitely postpone local elections, a clear sign that the Bush-inspired scenario is in trouble. Tunisia and Morocco, too, have joined the game by stopping much-advertised reform projects while Islamist radicals are regrouping and testing the waters at all levels.

So, pick your future: The Bush Doctrine works, because we stick to it. Or: we blow our only shot at a just and lasting peace in the Middle East because of the likes of David Gregory. Once again I say: love what you're doing with your journalistic freedom, guys.

For some reason this brings to mind the famous motivational speech in Patton, in which the General tells his men that when their grandchildren ask, "What did you do in the great World War II?"

You won't have to say, "Well, I shovelled sh-- in Louisiana.

How would you like to have this be your legacy: More than 100 million people could have been set free from the slavery of the world's most brutal and corrupt regimes, and my own children could have lived without the threat of Islamofascist terror. And this could have been achieved relatively peacefully via the domino effect, as it evidently was had I but opened my eyes to see it. But I stayed in my hotel room in the Green Zone issuing ignorant dispatches that made the project seem hopeless, giving hope to the tyrants and terrorists and keeping everyone enslaved. Speaking of shovelling it. . . .

UPDATE: Piling it higher and deeper is Michael Ware of Time, who doesn't even have the excuse of being stuck in a hotel room, he's been an embed. He just gave the most incredible interview to Hugh Hewitt, embodying everything that is wrong with Iraq reporting. Go here for a link to the entire transcript, plus links to everyone writing about the brouhaha stirred up by his remarks.

Fukuyama Smackdowns

For your amusement, here are a few reactions to Francis Fukuyama's recent declaration that he's no longer a neocon. Was he ever? was the question I found myself asking, but then, I remember when Michael Huffington was running for Senate and Arianna Huffington was the darling of the DC Republican/Conservative circuit & a girlfriend of mine and I shook our heads as we asked ourselves how people could think this woman was Conservative or in any way a serious person. But no one listened to us, and now look. But I digress.

Here's Joseph Knippenberg's take-down. In essence, Fukuyama has coverted to the Kerry position: foreign policy has to pass a "global test." Which isn't completely wrong --the Declaration pays "a decent respect to the opinions of mankind." But it isn't an adequate answer either, as Knippenberg explains:

Nations pursue their own interests and presumably only consent to things that they regard as in their own interest. So long as there are conflicting national interests, legitimacy will be contested. Nations will disagree about what’s right and just. Legitimacy, then, would seem to be in the eye of the beholder. What we have are coalitions of the willing and of the unwilling. Why a particular institutional arrangement, or a particular international institution, would remedy this problem is not at all clear. Stated another way, it is likely always to be possible to find both a group of nations willing to support an action we take and a group to oppose it. Is our action then legitimate or illegitimate?

Is it merely opinion that makes a foreign policy action right? Or are there principles of justice to which we are properly bound?

The only way around the way in which this empty institutionalism or proceduralism confuses the issue of legitimacy is to appeal to some substantive principle of international justice, either the law of nations or the law of nature. To the extent that the former purports to limit the actions of sovereign states, it does so by either securing their consent or by appealing to a principle of justice (a law of nature) that ultimately doesn’t require their consent. But if there are principles of justice that don’t require consent to be valid and obligatory, then a nation is entitled to uphold and enforce them whether or not others agree.

Whatever one's opinion of the Iraq War, there's the matter of Oil-for-spoil & the post-tsunami Peace-keeper rapists. It's hard to understand how anyone could look back at the past three years and have an enhanced respect for international institutions.

Here's Gary Rosen's review of Fukuyama's book, in which he argues that Fukuyama's not at war with the neocons, but with himself.

Illegal Immigration: A Simpler Solution

How about we just repeal the minimum wage? Then employers will have no incentive to hire illegal aliens, opening jobs for America's unskilled workers --the group most harmed by illegal workers, as Maggie Gallagher's column earlier this week points out:

For me, personally, illegal Mexican immigration means that when a foot of snow falls, two nice guys show up and offer to shovel the driveway for $25. But for my friend "Mary," the whole issue looks different. She cleans houses and baby-sits for a living. Her son paints houses. In both cases, they are competing directly with a new flood of immigrants who don't mind living doubled or quadrupled up (changing the character of neighborhoods) and for whom $10 bucks an hour is a premium wage.

It's not racist, writes Gallagher, for people who are threatened by illegals to object:

Economic studies suggest that overall, immigration is a net wash, or a slight plus, for the American economy. But the pluses and minuses are not evenly distributed over the whole population: Lesser-skilled Americans who compete for jobs that don't require Ivy League credentials take the hit, while people like me enjoy a lot of the benefits. A 2003 Hamilton College poll found that only 12 percent of Americans worry that immigrants might take their job. I suspect these are the folks for whom the fear is quite realistic.

As the debate swirls, you must read Thomas Sowell's "Guests or Gate-crashers" parts 1 & 2. No solution is going to be found if we can't tell the truth about the subject. He takes on several immigration shibboleths, especially the idea that we "need" illegals to do jobs Americans won't do ( a phrase which ticks me off anyway, as I've mentioned).

Many of the illegals are working in agriculture, producing crops that have been in chronic surplus for decades. These surplus crops are costing the American taxpayers billions of dollars in government storage costs and in the inflated prices created by deliberately keeping much of this agricultural output off the market. Do we "need" illegal workers to produce bigger surpluses?
In California, surplus crops grown and harvested by illegal immigrants are often also subsidized by federal water projects which charge the farmers in dry California valleys far less than the cost to the government of providing that water -- and a fraction of what people in Los Angeles or San Francisco pay for the same amount of water.
Surplus crops grown with water supplied at the taxpayers' expense and raised by illegal workers can be grown elsewhere with water provided free of charge from the clouds and raised by American workers paid American wages. Naturally, when the real costs of those crops have to be paid by the farmers who raise them, less will be grown -- that is, there will not be as much of a surplus going to waste in government-rented storage bins.

Got that? The American taxpayer is buying water for crops we pay farmers not to sell, which we need people willing to break our laws to raise and harvest.

Here's Thomas Sowell on minimum wage and other topics, in "Something for Nothing," in case you missed this series when it first ran.

"Teamwork"

From The Ryskind Sketchbook

Sorry, Can't Talk

Visit ninme instead, who has more posts than I have time even to read tonight. And read this post (link fixed now) on the youth riots in France from The Remedy. (In the comments in one of ninme's posts a few days ago, some of us were reminiscing about how in the Reagan era, most of the groups with "Peace" in their names were Communist front organizations. Maybe the same's now true for "youth" movements?)

Pray for the souls of Lyn Nofziger & Cap "the Knife." More on them when time permits.

Your Chocolate Ration Has Been Increased From 2.5g To 1.0g

It's always puzzled me, when "undocumented workers" rally, that no one thinks to wrap himself in a big ol' American flag. That's what I'd do if I were trying to ingratiate myself with Americans. Apparently many people think the same thing (see the title of this post, eg). And apparently that gave the editors at the L.A. Times an idea: why just downplay the Mexican flags (see original story) when we could eliminate them altogether?Sheesh.

And in further MSM malfeasance news, the AP, when confronted with outright plagiarism, offers a plausible defense:

We do not credit blogs.

Excellent. It's the journalistic code of the MSM: We don't fact-check our stories (NYT); any actual news we have to report is likely to be cribbed from bloggers (AP); and if we don't like the way you respond to our stories, we'll go back and change the story (LA Times). Love what you've done with your journalistic freedom, guys. Curtsy: ninme.

"Quick, You Christians! Best Behavior"

Thats the advice from ninme , to whom a curtsy low to the ground for this cool story. I was trying to recall where I read one of the Afghan mullahs complaining that if Abdul Rahman was granted asylum in the West, then everyone would claim to be Christian to go there. But in some ways this is even better.

the publicity surrounding the Abdul Rahman case had resulted in a surge of interest in Christianity among Afghans, strong concern for the plight of Afghanistan's underground Christians -- and an antagonistic response from Muslims

The source is an Afghan Christian who runs several Christian websites in Afghanistan. Normally they garner about 300 visitors a month, but since Abdul Rahman's been in the news, he's getting hundreds of thousands of hits. Admittedly, many of them are from irate Muslims.

But there also are many messages of support, he said.And then there are emails coming from Afghans wanting to know more about Christianity, asking where they can get a Bible in the Dari or Pashto language, or sharing the news that they had become believers in Jesus Christ.Among the most stirring messages are those from Afghan Muslims marveling about a faith for which a man was willing to die and wanting to study the Bible further.

As ninme points out, for many people, this may be the first time they've seen anyone behave virtuously in the name of religion.

Just A Perfect Blend-ship

Richard Reeb has a lovely post on the nature of friendship over at The Remedy.

There are three kinds of friendship, according to Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, based on different ends. These are virtue, utility and pleasure. Merely setting forth these objects serves to remind us how shallow many friendships are in that most of them are based on the last two objects, and far fewer on the first.

Starting from that summary, he manages to pack interesting comments on political parties, marriage and business into a few shot paragraphs. RTWT.

My Kind Of Multiculturalism

A few emails indicate I didn't quite make myself clear here & here when I raised questions about Islam & its compatibility with democracy. "Aren't you contradicting your support for the war?" they ask in so many words. Well, no. My point was not to say that Muslims can't be democrats, but that the "democracy" we promote has to have a certain content. In a debate about Crunchy-conism's love of Edmund Burke & Russell Kirk I was having via email last week, one of my "opponents" objected that many South American dictatorships virtually copied the U.S. Constitution, but weren't able to copy its free society. He holds it's because South Americans weren't ready to be free. I hold it's because the Constitution is nothing but a form of government. A good one, but nevertheless simply a form. The content of the American character is to be found in the Declaration's commitment to the natural rights of man.

Mark Steyn addresses this question in his WaTi column this morning:

At some point, we have to face down a culture in which not only the mob in the street but the highest judges and academics talk like crazies. Abdul Rahman embodies the question at the heart of this struggle: if Islam is a religion one can only convert to not from, then in the long run it is a threat to every free person on the planet.

Then he pulled from history this wonderful anecdote from a time when the West had more self-confidence. Here's what Gen. Sir Charles Napier had to say to Indian practitioners of suttee:

You say it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours.

An Honor Just To Be Nominated

Remember this post about the finalists for the W presidential library? No announcement's been made, but shortly after I posted, I learned that both the First Lady and Karen Hughes graduated from SMU. . . .

M*A*S*H 2006

New ways of healing are as much a product of war as are new ways of killing. To save lives on the battlefield, medical innovations are born in days rather than in years, military and civilian doctors say. And as with wars past, the new ways of treating the injured and sick in Iraq and Afghanistan. . . could have benefits beyond the battlefield.

Read this terrific story about our military's hospital corps. Curtsy: Hugh Hewitt.

Scalia's Son Served In Iraq

Much is being made of Scalia's recent comments at the U. of Freiburg about detainees at Guantanamo. The most interesting thing to me was that he had a son in the military. Don't tell Richard Belzer.

"War is war, and it has never been the case that when you captured a combatant you have to give them a jury trial in your civil courts," Justice Scalia said in the talk at the University of Freiburg. "Give me a break."
Justice Scalia, when asked whether detainees at Guantanamo have protections under international conventions, said: "If he was captured by my army on a battlefield, that is where he belongs. I had a son on that battlefield and they were shooting at my son, and I'm not about to give this man who was captured in a war a full jury trial. I mean, it's crazy."

Colored People

Art historians have known for a long time that Roman statues were painted, but since only traces of pigment have ever been found, no one has ever known what they looked like. Archaeologists just found a painted bust in the ruins of Herculaneum, which was coated in lava when nearby Pompeii was engulfed in ashes. Curtsy: Zadok.

. . .[O]nly faint traces of pigment had been found before now. It had also been assumed that classical statues were painted brightly. In fact, the colouring on the head is a delicate shade of orange-red, which, although faded, indicates that classical colouring was subtle and sophisticated, Jane Thompson, the project manager, said.

All About The Girls

From the moment he arrived in Arlington, people "in the know" have whispered that he was going to allow female altar servers (Arlington being one of only two dioceses in the U.S. that forbade them). Last week he finally did; at the same time, he also permitted the Latin-rite ("Tridentine") mass at two parishes. But no one seems to be noticing this latter fact, even though surely it's of as much interest. Don Jim at Dappled Things has the most reasonable response I've seen --including a good explanation of why the altar girls don't trouble him much, even though he's something of a Traditionalist.

Like Higher Education

"Marriage Is For White People," according to inner city kids. What's interesting about the article to me, however, is how little the attitudes the author describes seem confined to urban blacks.

My observation is that black women in their twenties and early thirties want to marry and commit at a time when black men their age are more likely to enjoy playing the field. As the woman realizes that a good marriage may not be as possible or sustainable as she would like, her focus turns to having a baby, or possibly improving her job status, perhaps by returning to school or investing more energy in her career.
As men mature, and begin to recognize the benefits of having a roost and roots (and to feel the consequences of their risky bachelor behavior), they are more willing to marry and settle down. By this time, however, many of their female peers are satisfied with the lives they have constructed and are less likely to settle for marriage to a man who doesn't bring much to the table. Indeed, he may bring too much to the table: children and their mothers from previous relationships, limited earning power, and the fallout from years of drug use, poor health care, sexual promiscuity. In other words, for the circumspect black woman, marriage may not be a business deal that offers sufficient return on investment.

That strikes me as a pretty good description of what's happening in every community, no? Not to suggest that practical considerations regarding economic stability have no place in the bargain, but utterly missing from either sex's considerations in this article is the desire to love and to give. It's all about "me," and spouses and children just get in the way. Or as Sartre put it, "Hell is other people."

Knit into the very fabric of our nature is the need to give what JPG called "the sincere gift of self." Marriage becomes possible and desirable only when the focus is on the other more than the self.

Flushing Out The Truth

WaPo: Sewage Tested for Signs of Cocaine.
Apparently the Washington 'burbs are cesspools of illicit drug use. Literally.

All Together Now: Eeeeew!

There's a growing internet breast milk trade?

As long as we're on the topic of infant-rearing anomalies, may as well mention the typical U.S. pregnancy is now 39 weeks rather than 40. For awhile the story labors (sorry) to make us think this is because premature births are on the rise and gives tips for healthy pregnancies; but then it admits it's probably more a matter of scheduled inductions as women try to control their delivery dates.

Laetare Sunday: Abdul Rahman To Be Released

The case against him has been dismissed for lack of evidence after the intervention of Karzai, the Pope, John Howard, Condi, et.al. Crisis averted for now; the larger question of whether Sharia is compatible with human rights has yet to be resolved. Updates & a round-up here.

The Vision Thing

My brother, who's a Gulf War vet (82nd Airborne) and therefore takes disrespect for the military personally, said tonight he'd like to know where else the CPT teams work. Are they in Darfur, he'd like to know? Or do they only work for peace where there's a military presence to protect them? Interesting question, thought I, so I went to their website to find out what they do and where. Their mission is to "get in the way" of conflict, inspired by the motto, "What would happen if Christians devoted the same discipline and self-sacrifice to nonviolent peacemaking that armies devote to war?"

I don't think non-violent protest is an adequate moral response to Islamofascism, but it certainly takes guts to go to Iraq or other hots spots and put yourself in harm's way --and, for the record, CPT's official position is they do not wish to be rescued if any of them are kidnapped or held hostage. I'm not willing to simply mock a person who puts his beliefs on the line.But wouldn't you think that a serious commitment to what they call "third-party nonviolent intervention" would be a little more even-handed than this? I just went at random to one of the CPT projects. I chose CPT:UK and went to their "prayer points" --that is, their list of things to pray for:

We pray for our missing friends in Iraq –
for Jim;
for Norman;
for Tom;
for Harmeet.
We pray too for their kidnappers caught up in the trap of violence, and for the thousands of un-named Iraqi detainees whose stories are not known to us, whose faces are less vivid than the four men of Christian Peacemaker Teams.

That's it? That's all you're praying for? How about for the safety of the Iraqi & coalition troops? For the triumph of civilization over chaos? That the Iraqi people's wish to leave peacefully --but free-- might come to fruition? For the conversion of the men of Al-Qaeda? For the comfort of families who have lost family members during the war? For the wisdom of the coalition and Iraqi leaders? For men & women of good will to rise up to lead in Muslim countries? For the souls of the dead? That a culture of life with respect for the equal dignity of each human being would take hold in the Middle East? For a just and lasting peace? I mean: just for starters!

But to return to my brother's question: as of late last year, an "exploratory" CPT team has been sent to Burundi and the Eastern Congo. Other projects are in Palestine, Colombia, Canada & the USA (From the website, I get the impression most CPT teams are working with the homeless in North America; which is laudable, only I'm not aware any militia are out to get the homeless, and theoretically the CPT people "get in the way" of imminent acts of violence). In the U.S. one of their biggest projects is an annual rally outside Ft. Benning calling for the closing of the Army's School of the Americas. Plus they lobby against violent toys.

I'm Guessing A Donation To CPT Isn't Forthcoming?

"Christian Peacemakers"

From The Ryskind Sketchbook

In Which I Bandage My Wrists & Find The Will To Go On

Photo: David Ryan, Boston Globe

Sorry if the previous post was too much of a bummer. And it's the feast of the Annunciation --a celebration of innocence. Sometimes I think WaPo runs these things on feast days just to bring me down. Anyway, here's a face to wipe out the memory of tarted up little girls. I filched it from Whispers in the Loggia, where you must visit to see wonderful photos of the consistory yesterday. Just go there, scroll to the bottum and work your way up. Or if you're too lazy (sorry: time-constrained) at least look at this and this.

Here's the Pope's homily for today's "mass of the rings" --concelebrated with the new Cardinals. He addresses the Annunciation mostly:

Saint Augustine imagines a dialogue between himself and the Angel of the Annunciation, in which he asks: "Tell me, O Angel, why did this happen in Mary?" The answer, says the Messenger, is contained in the very words of the greeting: "Hail, full of grace" (cf. Sermo 291:6). In fact, the Angel, "appearing to her", does not call her by her earthly name, Mary, but by her divine name, as she has always been seen and characterized by God: "Full of grace - gratia plena", which in the original Greek is [ . . .] "beloved" (cf. Lk 1:28). Origen observes that no such title had ever been given to a human being, and that it is unparalleled in all of Sacred Scripture (cf. In Lucam 6:7). It is a title expressed in passive form, but this "passivity" of Mary, who has always been and is for ever "loved" by the Lord, implies her free consent, her personal and original response: in being loved, Mary is fully active, because she accepts with personal generosity the wave of God’s love poured out upon her. In this too, she is the perfect disciple of her Son, who realizes the fullness of his freedom through obedience to the Father.

Here's the homily for the consistory mass yesterday.

And while I'm at it, I've been remiss in posting B-16s audiences. Having completed JPG's catechesis, he's embarked on his own set of lessons on the relationship between Christ and his Church. Here are installments one and two.

And here are the last two papal audiences, too. There, I feel better.

Some Things Make You Wanna Slit Your Wrists

Ever get that sinking feeling that maybe the Mullahs are right about us after all? Lord, have mercy, the lead article in WaPo's Style section today is about an abomination known as "Club Libby Lu," wherein mothers bring their tiny little girls to have glamour makeovers for their birthdays. And this "glamorizing" means dressing girls as young as three or four like Britney Spears and teaching them to "shake it." The accompanying photos literally make me sick at heart. A burqa for my daugter before I teach her the height of glamour is to behave like fodder for pedophiles:

Sometimes people walking through the mall gather by the windows at Club Libby Lu to watch the spectacle of little girls: all that pink and glitter. All that flesh, too.
A woman passing by says to three blondes in tight outfits, the youngest of whom is 4: "If you're wearing those kind of clothes, you gotta shake your booty."

So maybe now's the moment to mention the Naomi Wolf piece in the NYT awhile back on what the most popular "Young Adult" books are about now? It's way beyond Judy Blume. My server won't even let me link to the orginal article --"weighted phrase limit exceeded"-- (what does that tell you?), but here's a blog-post where you can find it for yourself. I marvel not that such books are written and marketed; I recall what it was like to be 13 & curious and sneak Judy Blume novels or Teen magazine into the house --not that I recall them being banned, but I'd have been ashamed to look at them in front of my parents!. So what can these mothers be thinking who stuff their kids' heads with this stuff on the ground, "at least they're reading"?

Light blogging this weekend. I have the vapors. Plus, I'm going to go hug my little girl and read her something worthwhile.

First Class

From the uber-cynic, Scott Adams, comes one of the least cynical anecdotes I've read in a long time. Don't miss it. Curtsy: ninme

Where Have You Gone, Arthur Chrenkoff?

Remember when we used to get regular dispatches of good news from Iraq? This guy does.

And in case you missed it, here's Hugh Hewitt's interview Wednesday w/Hitch, who closed with this, regarding a senior person at a well-known network he was not at liberty to name in either case:
He called me the other day. This is not a guy who's in any way a conservative, and said you know, we've known each other for a bit. He said you know, I'm beginning to think you must be right, because it really worries me what we're doing, when we are giving the other side the impression that all they need to do is hang on until the end of this administration. Do people know what they're doing when they're doing this? One doesn't have to make any allegation of disloyalty, but just...if it worries him, as it really does, I think it should worry other people, too, and it certainly worries me.

Here's the transcript of the President's appearcance in WV a few days ago. All the talk shows and right-wing bloggers talked about the thunderous applause one woman gets when she asks the question about getting the positive stories from Iraq told. Which is great, but the woman's husband's just back from Tikrit, he's himself a broadcaster and he's got DVDs full of footage of the reconstruction projects, etc., and which of the Righties tracked that guy down and has started showing the footage, I'd like to know? If it doesn't start showing up, I'm going to accuse all "my" guys of being all talk, no action.

I Laughed, I Cried, It Became A Part of Me

Mark Steyn recalls how much everyone hated the U.S. for imposing sanctions on Iraq:

in place of congratulations for their brilliant "containment" of Saddam, Washington was blamed for UN sanctions and systematically starving to death a million Iraqi kids - or two million, according to which "humanitarian" agency you believe. The few Iraqi moppets who weren't deceased suffered, according to the Nobel-winning playwright and thinker Harold Pinter, from missing genitals and/or rectums that leaked blood contaminated by depleted uranium from Anglo-American ordnance.

Steyn went to Iraq shortly after the war began, and you'll be happy to know he followed up on Pinter's reporting:

I made a point of stopping in every hospital and enquiring about this pandemic of genital-less Iraqis: not a single doctor or nurse had heard about it. Whether or not BUSH LIED!! PEOPLE DIED!!!, it seems that THE ANTI-WAR CROWDS SQUEAK!!! BUT NO RECTUMS LEAK!!!!

Anyway, although everyone was demanding the end to sanctions until such time as they were began to demand that sanctions be "allowed to work," it seems AEI has run some numbers and it would have cost roughly the same in hundreds of billions of bucks to "contain" Saddam as to fight him. However, in terms of human cost, we've come out way ahead.

the alleged death toll of Iraqi infants [would] no doubt [be]up around six million. It
would also have cost more real lives of real Iraqis: Despite the mosque bombings, there's a net gain of more than 100,000 civilians alive today who would have been shoveled into unmarked graves had Ba'athist rule continued. Meanwhile, the dictator would have continued gaming the international system through the Oil-for-Food program, subverting Jordan, and supporting terrorism as far afield as the Philippines.

And how much do I love Steyn for bringing this little-discussed subject up?

The long term strategic goal was to begin the difficult but necessary transformation of the region that the British funked when they cobbled together the modern Middle East in 1922. The jury will be out on that for a decade or three yet.

By comparison, three years on, the Iraq war is looking pretty good, all things being equal.

in Iraq today the glass is seven-ninths full. That's to say, in 14 out of 18 provinces life is better than it's been in living memory. In December, 70% of Iraqis said that "life is good" and 69% were optimistic it would get even better in the next year. (Comparable figures in a similar poll of French and Germans: 29% and 15%.)

And of course the slacker Iraqis have finally answered the hippie question, "What if they gave a war and no one came?" Answer: the MSM will say there's one anyway. Not that everything's copacetic, but if Iraq doesn't work, there's still a net gain for us worked right into the Iraqi Constitution:

True, there's a political stalemate in Baghdad at the moment, but that's not a catastrophe: if you read the very federal Iraqi constitution carefully, the ingenious thing about it is that it's not just a constitution but also a pre-nup. If the Sunni hold-outs are determined to wreck the deal, 85% of the Iraqi population will go their respective ways creating a northern Kurdistan that would be free and pro-western and a southern Shiastan that would still be the most democratic state in the Arab world. That outcome would also be in America's long-term interest.

Well if I keep up like this, I'll have given you the whole column, so I'll stop here, with the point that "stability" in the world of Ba'athism, fascism and Islamicism is not desireable.

In 2002, Amr Moussa, Secretary-General of the Arab League, warned that a US invasion of Iraq would "threaten the whole stability of the Middle East." Of course. Otherwise, why do it?

Russia Gave Saddam Our Plans

Perhaps when Mr. Bush looked into Mr. Putin's soul, the latter was really doing a Vulcan mind-meld on him.

The Russian government provided Saddam Hussein with intelligence on U.S. military movements and plans during the opening days of the war in 2003, according to a Pentagon report released Friday.

It happens the info. they passed along was false, so it's not clear if the Russkies were helping or selling us out. As usual.

Missing Honor

On the heels of Morton Kondracke's remark that if the MSM had any interest in balanced reporting, we'd be seeing lists of Silver Star winners and tales of valor along with the dead rolls, this caught my eye.

Vietnam Deserter Admits Mistake:

"When I was 18, I wasn't aware that duty and honor would mean as much to me as they do now," said Allen Abney, 56, this week in this southeast British Columbia town. "Knowing what I know now, I wouldn't have done what I did 38 years ago," he said. "It wasn't worth it, all the pain I caused my family."

Christians & Muslims

• Past. Coverage of a recent Vatican conference about the Crusades. Some folks are saying maybe we shouldn't have apologized.
• Present. An enlightening interview with a Spanish theologian about Muslim thought. For example, asked if Muslims believe man is made in the image and likeness of God, he responds:

  Such language is quite incomprehensible for a Muslim. In Islam the relationship between God and man is purely extrinsic. What man can and must do is submit to God. No other relationship is believed to be possible, except in a few mystical and esoteric sects which tend towards pantheism. But this has nothing to do with Islamic orthodoxy.

And I thought this was interesting, although I'd like to ask a few follow-up questions. He doesn't think Islam can win Western converts:

The notion of converting to Islam has little to do with what Christians mean by converting. Europeans who become Muslims do so, broadly speaking, out of a
desire for experimentation and a hankering after exotic experiences. The fact that Islam can attract people in Europe is due basically to the crisis in Christian churches, especially amongst Protestants and Anglicans. There have been two or three thousand Spanish converts and most of them come from the radical left or from greens who have embraced ecologism as a kind of ideology. It is not really a religious phenomenon.

No wonder it's so anti-Western!

• Future. Cardinals in town for tomorrow's Consistory met with B-16 to advise him on various matters, including especially discussions on Islam.

Allah The Merciful

Washington Times: Clerics Insist On Execution of Convert

Senior Muslim clerics demanded yesterday that an Afghan man on trial for converting from Islam to Christianity be executed, warning that if the government caves in to Western pressure and frees him, they will incite people to "pull him into pieces."

I'm fairly certain Ninme would say, "Way to play to your stereotypes, guys." But wait, let's hear from the moderates:

"Rejecting Islam is insulting God. We will not allow God to be humiliated. This man must die," said cleric Abdul Raoulf, who is considered a moderate and was jailed three times for opposing the Taliban before the hard-line regime was ousted in 2001.

And a little later:

"Cut off his head," he exclaimed, sitting in a courtyard outside Herati Mosque.

In this context, my next question is going to seem snide, but I mean it sincerely. If it's in the power of any random person to humiliate your god, are you sure he's God? I wouldn't think anyone had the power to add or subtract from God.

NYT: Like, Whatever

The powerline guys have a great post up concluding

A lot of mainstream reporters seem to believe that if a story fits with their preconceived opinions, there is no need to check the facts.

Not only was the Times taken in, as reported previously, by a hoaxer who claimed to be the guy in "the" Abu Graib picture (they just took his word for it), but get a load of this correction they had to run:

An article in The Metro Section on March 8 profiled Donna Fenton, identifying her as a 37-year-old victim of Hurricane Katrina who had fled Biloxi, Miss., and who was frustrated in efforts to get federal aid as she and her children remained as emergency residents of a hotel in Queens.
Yesterday, the New York police arrested Ms. Fenton, charging her with several counts of welfare fraud and grand larceny. Prosecutors in Brooklyn say she was not a Katrina victim, never lived in Biloxi and had improperly received thousands of dollars in government aid. Ms. Fenton has pleaded not guilty.
For its profile, The Times did not conduct adequate interviews or public record checks to verify Ms. Fenton's account, including her claim that she had lived in Biloxi. Such checks would have uncovered a fraud conviction and raised serious questions about the truthfulness of her account.

Today's MSM: caveat emptor. Will any reporter be fired for this?

Abdul Rahman Update

Richard Reeb fleshes out the argument my crony made by raising the question of whether the trial of Abdul Rahman (for converting to Christianity) is a "clash of values" as the MSM would have it. He points out that in order to "save" Rahman at the theoretical level, you have to give up your multiculturalism.

We know the drill: Who are we to judge what other nations do in their courts? Who are we to impose our values on them? Several years ago I took a course in World Civilization in a master's program at the University of Southern Mississippi in which the professor defended Japanese emperors who put Christians to death on what seemed to him to be the defensible ground that their doctrine was subversive in a kingdom in which the emperor was himself a god.

If cultures are equally valid (or, I might add, for benefit of the Crunchy-Cons, if cultures are fixed but for gradual changes that occur with the slow unfolding of history), then there's nothing we can or ought to do for Rahman:

Now if nations or "cultures" live in sealed containers, or if not, ought to be insulated from the effects of universal doctrines like Christianity or liberal democracy, then we are in no position to complain no matter what the Afghan government does to the unfortunate (from our point of view) Abdul Rahman.

Or you could take the view --both Christian & classical liberal-- that all men are created equal and have equal natural rights. Reeb concludes:

Democracy without equal rights is just another unjust regime, even if it is less dangerous in the world.

A Insult To Us All

Here's a member of the SF Board of Supervisors who's drafted a resolution demanding that Archbishop Niederauer and Catholic Charities obey him as opposed to the Vatican. His argument seems contradictory, however. First, he accuses soon-to-be-Cardinal Levada of being gay, and says gay Catholics are what's wrong with the Church today.

You know, as a gay Catholic, Cardinal Levada is everything that is wrong with the Catholic Church," Ammiano told Board colleagues.

But then he says the Church should fill its ranks with gays, lesbians and persons of transgender:

It seems to me that if the Catholic Church is losing members, they should welcome, they should embrace gay and lesbian and transgender people who embrace that faith.

What now? Oh, I get it. He's the gay Catholic, not Levada. And because he's homosexual:

No one is going to tell me that I am not Catholic.

Deal, Dude! No one did tell you you weren't a Catholic. Levada said Catholic Charities shouldn't place children for adoption with same-sex couples; which, according to the opening proposition of the Ammiano Resolution

is a insult to all San Franciscans

(WHEREAS, It is a insult to all San Franciscans when a foreign country, like the Vatican, meddles with and attempts to negatively influence this great City's existing and established customs and traditions such as the right of same-sex couples to adopt and care for children in need;)

The resolution is non-binding. As are the rules of the English language.

Pray For Abdul Rahman

He's the Afghani about to be tried (and executed) for converting to Christianity. My crony writes with two questions:

How do you formulate a proper US response to this issue? We fought to "establish democracy" in Afghanistan in which "Afghan values" could be reflected in their constitution, not US "values." So isn't this a question of "values" we don't share but which they would have a democratic right to enforce internally (i.e., Sharia)?

If this is not correct, then aren't we compelled to grant that Islam is intrinsically anti-democratic?

Gratitude Is A Christian Virtue

U.S. & British troops rescued the three remaining CPT hostages. Where I come from, a simple "thank-you" would have been in order. Read the CPT press release.



UPDATE: Since I first posted, they've posted an addendum. Which in my view is so snide as to make things worse.



UPDATE 2: Ouch! Hugh Hewitt's site contrasts CPT with St. Paul, who wrote:

Greet Priscilla and Aquila, my fellow workers in Christ Jesus. They risked their lives for me. Not only I but all the churches of the Gentiles are grateful to them. --Romans 16:3-4

I'd No Idea The Grenada Invasion Was So Bloody

Ninme linked to some interesting stats a few days ago, which she got from lgf:

Take a look at the actual US Military Casualty figures since 1980. If you do the math, you will find quite a few surprises. First of all, let’s compare numbers of US Military personnel that died during the first term of the last four presidents.
George W. Bush … . . 5187 (2001-2004)

Bill Clinton … … … 4302 (1993-1996)

George H.W. Bush … . 6223 (1989-1992)

Ronald Reagan … … 9163 (1981-1984)
Even during the (per MSM) utopic peacetime of Bill Clinton’s term, we lost 4302 service personnel. H.W. Bush and Reagan actually lost significantly more personnel while never fighting an extensive war, much less a simultaneous war in two theaters (Iraq and Afghanistan). Even the dovish Carter lost more people during his last year in office, in 1980 lost 2392, than W. has lost in any single year of his presidency. (2005 figures are not available but I would wager the numbers would be slightly higher than 2004.)

That certainly puts the MSM's daily gloom reports in perspective. Ninmee wondered how 4000 men could have been lost under Clinton, but I wonder how Reagan lost 9000? Grenada? I know we always have training accidents. And the total force was larger then. But what am I forgetting?

UPDATE: Dudes, lay off the insulting emails! I was only kidding about Grenada. According to this (pdf), the 9000 fatalities reflect the normal rate of casualties --but a much larger force.

"Rocky"

From The Ryskind Sketchbook

Smooth, Not Crunchy

The Remedy has a series of posts on Crunchy-Cons that more or less makes the points I'd make against Dreherism. Namely, that the Crunchies blame America's problems on America herself, and misunderstand both politics and culture and their relationship. See here, here (in which he shows how one of the Crunchiest commentators utterly misunderstands what natural law is --which is odd, because the Crunchies for the most part think to defend Christianity), and here.

Brokeback II

Richard Samuelson has a great idea for the next gay-themed movie.

Robert de Niro and Nathan Lane play dons of rival mob families. With the feds pressuring them to testify against each other they move to Vermont and marry, thinking that the feds will not be able to force a man to testify against his spouse. Then the trouble begins. Shortly after their marriage, they learn that since gay marriage is only recognized in states where it is legal, the dons cannot leave Vermont without losing their immunity. Meanwhile, a gaggle of feds follows them constantly, trying to prove that the marriage is a sham. The result is a screwball comedy, think of it as “Some Like it Hot,” meets “The Bird Cage.” Can two macho mafia dons act like a happily married gay couple in small town Vermont? Find out in, Are You Not Talking to Me?

He's not just being silly; his point is that same-sex marriage might not be used in good faith, and he teases out some implications thereof. For example:

Viewed from this, practical perspective, when we think about gay marriage we cannot simply ask whether giving homosexual couples the same rights as heterosexual couples might be a good idea in the abstract. In practice, it is about allowing any two adults who are not close relations or otherwise married to enjoy the legal benefits and privileges that come with marriage. Unless we want the government and our employers to decide who is and who is not a legitimate couple (a terrible thing from the perspective of privacy), that is what gay marriage entails.
The University of Florida recently asked that couples applying for domestic partner benefits certify that they are indeed in a sexual relationship [Yikes! I recently warned a pro-same-sex-marriage reader that this would happen, but didn't know it was happening already --Ed]. This is no surprise. Given the monetary benefits of marriage, the potential for fraud is real.

RTWT. Good title, too: Gay Mirage.

No Connection, The Continuing Saga

As people --primarily Stephen Hayes-- go through the cache of documents we recovered in Iraq, the discussion about WMD in Iraq and whether there was an Iraq-al Qaeda connection has gotten much more interesting of a sudden. Even ABC news has noticed that bin-Laden & Iraqi intelligence had continuing ties from 1995-2001. Their summary of one set of documents notes:

The attached translated report included very detailed information about all the regulations regarding financing of election campaigns in France.

Oho! And why would Saddam have been interested in making contributions to French politicians do we suppose? Before a reader sent me the ABC story, I was going to call your attention to the Hayes' piece, based on the same documents, about Saddam's connections to the Philippine Islamist group Abu Sayyaf --remember the ones who kidnapped a bunch of Americans in June, 2001?. Iraq seems to have broken off ties in the wake of the kidnapping, but personally I think the Philippine connection is interesting. Didn't the idea to use commercial jets as bombs to fly into buildings come from this group?

The Hayes piece has too much to snip effectively; read it. But it closes with this from a Foreign Affairs report on hundreds of Iraqi Intelligence documents they analyzed:

The Saddam Fedayeen also took part in the regime's domestic terrorism operations and planned for attacks throughout Europe and the Middle East. In a document dated May 1999, Saddam's older son, Uday, ordered preparations for "special operations, assassinations, and bombings, for the centers and traitor symbols in London, Iran and the self-ruled areas [Kurdistan]." Preparations for "Blessed July," a regime-directed wave of "martyrdom" operations against targets in the West, were well under way at the time of the coalition invasion.

Here's the website the Office of National Defense has set up for anyone to read these documents. And in case you need further evidence of Saddam's depravity, here's a story about what the new docs reveal about his use of chemical weapons. ..er, excuse me, "special equipment" against his own citizens.

Thank Heaven For Little Girls

Happiness is reaching the end of a long day with a splitting headache, having a last-minute talk you need to prepare on your mind, finally getting the little kids in bed (after much filibustering) and dreading to face the 6-7 loads of laundry waiting to be sorted & folded , and opening the door to your room to find. . . it's all been done. And there's a 7-year-old giggling in the closet: "Are you surprised, Mom?"

The Laundry Fairy is WAY better than The Tooth Fairy.

And We're Back

. . .after a server problem at Blogger, which had the salutary effect of allowing me to finish the second volume of Kristin Lavransdatter, so I can face my fellow book-clubbers without shame. Not that you care, but it allows me to introduce this wonderful design story from today's WaPo. I am a boor where home decor is concerned; I enjoy spending precisely none of my time worrying about anything more than that the house is clean. But this is a decor a girl can love (well, minus the stuffed animals).
WaPo photo.

Let's Make It A Ryskind 2-Fer

An Honest Politician

Better Late

Here's a post I was working on Friday when computer problems intervened. Sorry for the radio silence, but it's been busy here, plus I've been sick and in a bad mood. I figured following every link with, ". . .and to hell with 'em" wasn't very sporting, so I just caught up with my book club reading (Kristin Lavransdatter) instead. Anyway, from Friday:

I wasn't listening long enough to catch what Rush's point was going to be, but this afternoon I caught him playing a clip of Wolf Blitzer getting Madeleine Albright to back away from her implication that this week's Operation Swarmer was a wag-the-dog operation aimed at boosting the President's poll numbers. He had another clip of someone suggesting that the timing of the raid was suspicious --it just happened to be the 3 -year-anniversary.

Do these people even read the papers? There's a reason for the timing of the raid, and it's that we just broke up an incredibly dangerous Al-Qaeda plot --the first one that could have done real harm to the mission at the political level. I don't see why this hasn't gotten more coverage.

A senior Defense Ministry official confirmed the plot and said 421 al Qaeda men had been recruited to storm the U.S. and British embassies and take hostages. Several ranking Defense Ministry officials have been jailed in the plot, the official said on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the information. . . .Interior Minister Bayan Jabr said in an interview that the al Qaeda recruits were one bureaucrat's signature away from being accepted into an Iraqi army battalion whose job is to control the gates and main squares in the Green Zone. The plot was discovered three weeks ago.
"You can imagine what could happen to a minister or an ambassador while passing through these gates when those terrorists are there," Mr. Jabr said . . . .

Criminy! James Robbins --surely rightly-- notes that had this succeeded, it would have been Tet all over again. And he reminds us what that means:

Then, 19 VC sappers blew a hole in the wall surrounding the embassy grounds and shot down the guards inside the gate. A sharp firefight ensued, and enemy forces failed to occupy the embassy proper; but early erroneous reports, relayed by Asoociated Press reporter Peter Arnett, credited the VC with taking the first floor of the building. Moreover, while the attackers had been either killed or captured within hours of the assault, film of the attack ran and reran on network news programs, giving the impression of a much more significant action. Furthermore, the press quickly credited the enemy with a “psychological victory,” even though they had failed even to come close to meeting their military objectives.

Well, aren't we all glad ol' Pete ain't around to lose another war for us? But to return to my point, it seems obvious to me that in the course of uncovering this plot, we also got some good intelligence about where to find the plotters. WaPo helpfully reported that some people were killed in the battle. You had to read the British press to learn the strategic result.

Bomb-making equipment and military uniforms have been seized in a major air and ground assault on insurgent bases across Iraq's notorious Sunni triangle, US
military sources reported this evening.Hidden caches of artillery shells and explosives were also uncovered as Iraqi and American troops descended on isolated hideouts in the hilly Salahuddin province, between Tikrit and Samarra about 80 miles north of Baghdad

In other words, if Ms. Albright and her colleagues had any regard whatsoever for our country, our soldiers, or the Iraqi people trying so valiantly to be free, they'd have been congratulating the Iraqis & our soldiers for great work instead of taking small-minded potshots at Bush. Curtsies to Powerline & Ninme for a link each. (And P.S., since Friday it's been revealed we took out a number of "foreign fighters" too).

"Well Prepared"

From The Ryskind Sketchbook

All The Reason You Need To Oppose National Health Care

I was reading interesting comments in this post fisking economists and discovered a link to a blog run by a Londoner working as a physician in the National Health Service. Everything he writes is fascinating, but scroll down to see the most horrifying sight you've seen --and read a good doctor's description of what he has to go through to address the situation.

Teamwork

I jog her memory; she writes my post! See RC2 & Ninme collaborate to bring you Saddam WMD news. With heavy lifting from Tim Blair & Cmdr. S., too. Go on, now, click and read.

NOW Lied, Women Died

Two more women died after taking RU-486. Seems not to be the drug itself that kills, but the fact that women are having induced abortions at home, without medical supervision, so no one notices when they go into sepsis. Way back in the 90s when we were lobbying to keep the FDA from approving RU-486, I recall one of the most vociferous opponents of the drug was the radical (and pro-abort) feminist Janice Raymond --who predicted exactly this would happen in her book on the topic. The abortion lobbyists always say they want to keep abortion safe --to keep women from having dangerous "back alley" (meaning secret & private) abortions. I don't know what else you'd call using RU-486.

Did St. Patrick Have Red Hair?

Looking for something to post besides green beer and shamrocks, I discovered that Patrick was born in Scotland. He was kidnapped by pirates at 14, spent 6 years in slavery, then escaped to France, where he studied to be a monk before discerning he was called to be a missionary instead. What would motivate a man to devote his adult life to serving the people who'd stolen his youth?

I came to the Irish people to preach the Gospel and endure the taunts of unbelievers, putting up with reproaches about my earthly pilgrimage, suffering many persecutions, even bondage, and losing my birthright of freedom for the benefit of others. If I am worthy, I am ready also to give up my life, without hesitation and most willingly, for Christ's name. I want to spend myself for that country, even in death, if the Lord should grant me this favor. It is among that people that I want to wait for the promise made by him, who assuredly never tells a lie. He makes this promise in the Gospel: "They shall come from the east and west and sit down with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob." This is our faith: believers are to come from the whole world.

--from the Confession of Saint Patrick
In 33 years he converted Ireland from a bastion of paganism to the "Land of Saints" and a repository of learning during the Middle Ages, and it's not an exaggeration to say that those of us in the New World who are Catholic owe our faith also to the Irish missionaries, his spiritual children. Seems like he ought to get better than green beer as an offering; maybe what ninme's having.

Attention, UD Fans

Guess who's in the final three to house the "W" presidential library?

March 16 -- In a statement today, the Honorable Donald L. Evans announced, “The George W. Bush Presidential Library Site Selection Committee today announced thatthe West Texas Coalition, a partnership between Texas Tech University and Midland College, will no longer be considered as a potential site for the George W. Bush Presidential Library. The Selection Committee is continuing to review the proposals from Baylor University, Southern Methodist University, and the University of Dallas.

Onward, Christian Soldiers

The more frequently you attend Church, the more likely you support the Iraq war, according to Gallup.

Overall, 45 percent of Protestants and 47 percent of "other Christians" thought the war was a mistake. The figure was 52 percent among Catholics, 58 percent among other religions and 62 percent among those who had no religion.
Frequency of church attendance also held sway. Overall, among those who never went to church, 62 percent said the war was a mistake. Among those who attended services once a week, the figure was 44 percent.

In describing the official positions of churches, though, they get the story wrong.

The World Council of Churches, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the Vatican and the Church of England were among those that characterized the conflict as unjust, and urged diplomatic alternatives.

The Vatican & USCCB certainly opposed the war and urged diplomatic alternatives, but at no time did either say the war was "unjust" (though certain individual prelates certainly did). You may not care, but in Catholic social teaching it makes a difference. If you say a thing is unjust, you have an obligation in justice and charity to undo the injustice and to the extent possible restore the status quo ante.

Not That There's Anything Wrong With That

Is it just me, or does this headline make it seem like it's a good thing? From WaTi:

Homosexual men boost increase in syphilis rate

"Boost?" Like an ego boost, or a boost of your iron levels?

New Proof The Bang! Was Big

How cool is this?

''We have new evidence that the universe suddenly grew from submicroscopic to astronomical size in less than the blink of an eye," Bennett said in a telephone news conference.
''This tremendous inflation of the universe happened in much less than a trillionth of a second."The probe detected light created in the early universe that has been traveling for more than 13 billion years, Bennett said.

RTWT to see what the universe seems to be made of (hint: "dark energy"). Now, Class, who remembers when scientists said the Big Bang was just Vatican creationists trying to teach the Bible and discredit Darwin (the Belgian astronomer Lemaitre was also a Catholic priest)? And that the term "Big Bang" was coined sarcastically by Hoyle, the leading opponent of the theory, in a 1949 BBC Broadcast? Truth will out.

That -----, The Tooth Fairy

The morning began with the sounds of a little girl struggling against her disappointment at finding not money but her own tooth still under her pillow. May I just say the Tooth Fairy who serves our house is utterly incompetent? Not once has she ever shown up on time for any child or any tooth. There must be a fairy union, because in a free market this lady would be fired.

Even Don Stanislaw Disses The French

They're starting an official investigation into the sudden, presumably miraculous, healing of a French nun who was delivered from Parkinson's disease through the intercession of the late John Paul the Great. Even while he was alive there were always rumors swirling around about JPG's healing powers, and after his death such stories have flooded into the Vatican. The Vatican's pretty cautious about such things. I had to laugh at soon-to-be-Cardinal Dziwisz's explanation of how the Vatican chose to investigate this alleged miracle first:

He speculated, in an interview with the Roman news agency I Media, that the French case had been selected for a thorough investigation in part because France is "a country from which this was not expected."

Ha!

Adventures In Ecumenism

Patriarch Alexis II & Benedict XVI find common ground in preaching the Gospel. On the occasion of Alexis' birthday and name day, the Pope sent a message invoking:

abundant blessings from the Lord upon your person and your ministry, so generously dedicated to the great cause of the Gospel."The gestures and words of renewed fraternity between pastors of the Lord's flock show how ever more intense collaboration in truth and charity contribute to increasing the spirit of communion, which must guide the steps of all the baptized."The modern world, Benedict XVI continues, "needs to hear voices indicating the way of peace, of respect for everyone, of condemnation for all forms of violence, of the higher dignity of all individuals and of their intrinsic rights."

And Alexis said some nice things in return, echoing Benedict's prioritizing the unity of Christian witness:

"In our own times, with the rapid growth of secularism, Christianity finds itself facing important challenges that require a shared testimony."I am convinced," the patriarch continues, "that one of today's priorities for our Churches, which have a shared vision of the many problems currently facing the modern world, must be the defense and affirmation in society of the Christian values by which humanity has lived for more than a millennium. I hope that the rapid resolution of outstanding problems between our two Churches will also contribute to this end."

But then, every party has a pooper, and SSPX Bishop Richard Williamson openly declared to his supporters that Traditionalists are of a different religion than Catholics.

"Whether they realize it or not, they are replacing the religion of God’s truth with the religion of man’s liberty, because religious liberty is the underpinning of their beliefs." The commitment to religious liberty, Bishop Williamson continued, "undermines all objective truth in order to set up the religion of man." True Catholicism, he said, does not exalt religious freedom but "condemns the errors of the world."

With respect, I'm not sure this man understands what faith is. Practice can be imposed by force, but not belief. Is there a way to believe that is not free?