Does it hurt.................?

In the past few days, the MSM has been reporting on a new "study" that has been put out on whether or not a "fetus" before 29 months of growing within his or her mother can feel pain. The new report says -- probably not. Here's part of a report on this from "The Australian":

A HUMAN fetus is unlikely to feel pain before the third trimester, when consciousness begins to form, researchers said in a report that could fuel debate over proposed US abortion legislation.

Even if a fetus feels pain, doctors may not be able to anesthetise it without endangering the mother's health, including during an abortion, the researchers wrote in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Legislation under consideration by the US Congress and some US states would require doctors to inform women seeking abortions after the 22nd week of gestation that their fetus feels pain and offer to anesthetise the fetus.

Supporters of the legislation say that when a fetus displays a withdrawal reflex or hormonal stress response, that is evidence of fetal pain. But the researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, questioned that view, saying the responses may be automatic and not signs of discomfort.

Drawing on findings from thousands of medical-journal articles on the subject of fetal pain and related topics, the report's author, Susan Lee, wrote that "pain is a subjective sensory and emotional experience that requires the presence of consciousness."

Consciousness is created by brain connections between the thalamus and the cerebral cortex, and those do not begin to develop before the 23rd week and possibly not before the 30th week of gestation. The human gestation period is 38 weeks from conception.

"Conscious perception of pain does not begin before the third trimester," Ms Lee wrote. In the US, only 1.4 percent of abortions are performed at or after 21 weeks gestational age, the report said.

Anesthesia is used in some surgeries where the fetus is operated on inside the womb, but it is not done to address fetal pain, Lee wrote. It is designed to relax the uterus, immobilize the fetus, or ease stress if surgical complications occur.

In addition, the dose needed to anesthetize a fetus might endanger the mother by slowing her breathing excessively, the report said, adding new anesthetizing techniques would have to be developed to address fetal pain, if it exists.

Wendy Chavkin of Physicians for Reproductive Choice, and Health, commenting on the report, said its conclusions affirmed what other experts have found, and denounced the proposed legislation concerning fetal pain.

"These laws have nothing to do with pain or pain reduction, but are clearly intended to stigmatize abortion, the women who have abortions and the doctors who provide them," Dr Chavkin said.

Here's the way this debate is being played out. With new legislation in place, based on the concerns and research of other persons in the scientific/medical community, that would require women to be counseled about the possibility of the "fetus" they are aborting feeling pain after 20 months of gestation, some other medical researchers have looked at documents from past research to assure us that abortion doesn't hurt. (Remember, gestation is the first part of everyone's life when living and growing in complete dependence upon one's mother's body in her womb. I say that because such scientific sounding terms often make abstract a very concrete human reality.) GLOBE AND MAIL.COM report the following about the timing of the report.

The report, in this week's Journal of the American Medical Association, is being published just as anti-abortion groups are pushing for fetal pain laws. The U.S. Congress and several states are considering legislation that would require doctors to tell women seeking abortions 20 or more weeks after conception that a fetus feels pain and to offer anesthesia for the fetus.

The politics of abortion are, of course, very precise and coordinated. So, it is not any surprise that this article in the Journal of American Medicine has come out now. But even if it is motivated by abortion politics (which I cannot prove), the debate about when a child in the womb is capable of feeling pain is a legitimate one to have.

However, this debate is really just a further development of the already existing debate about abortion. The pro-lifers such as me, of course, will be very glad if it can be proven that pain-awareness is much earlier than science once thought. Pro-choice advocates will rejoice if the pain-threshold age is later. The reason I call it a further developmen of the already existing debate is that the debate in America has always been cast (for the most part) in terms of:

1. Is a fetus a human person?
2. Which "right" if most fundamental -- the right to life or the right to self-determination.

If a fetus feels pain early during its life in the womb, then it will seem to the moral imagination of most people to be much more like a person. If the pain awareness is later, then persons can still contend that a fetus is just a highly organized organism, but not a person. And since a non-person highly organized organism is not a person, then the second of the two considerations vanishes (for many). The self-determination of the mother will be thought as most fundamental, since no other truly human consideration is under view.

But the whole question of pain and the fetus really misses the bigger picture; the picture that we ought to be asking. The question is not whether the fetus feels pain or has developed enough to be conscious or is a "person." The question is -- is a pre-born human being one of us or not? The answer to that question is a resounding YES! Philosophers and scientists and theologians and grandparents alike can tell you that a human fetus is, first and foremost, human. It is not somce species called "fetus." It is a human being at a particular stage of human life. Given time, care, and luck most of them will be born and join us in this traumatic, yet wondrous world that we share as the human species.

Every fetus, conscious or not, is the promise of a fully human life and the future of our race. Every unborn, growing human being is the promise of another one of us human creatures. Every gestating organism is the promise of a pain-feeling, joy-feeling, pain-giving, joy-giving human person. So, the real question if, then, what do we owe our fetal brethren, even if they don't feel pain.

The question of what we owe one another is one that is quite sublimated in American abortion politics and American politics in general. The radicalized individualism of the late 20th century left us with a hole in our collective soul as a culture. The predominant question for many, many of us is simply, what's in it for me. From Fortune 500 CEO's with their ridiculous salaries, while companies lose money and workers lose jobs, to drug dealers who sell drugs on elementary school and middle school campuses to father's who abandon their children and a culture that tells pregnant women to take care of themselves first of all: all our culture has forgotten to ask the question what do we owe one another.

If one considers that we do owe something to others who share our humanity, even if we do not ever see them -- and even if they do not feel pain -- the question of abortion takes on a different significance. But, if we keep pushing away the possibility that in this life we owe something as human beings to other human beings, then we will keep wondering about when it hurts to be aborted, rather than when do we begin to welcome the stranger into the fold.

George W. Bush. . . . a man with a mission?

After 9-11, President Bush was of singular resolve it seemed. We must declare war on the terrorist forces that promote or facilitate terror. The America people were with him.

Now, however, the President's resolve to fight terror seems to have been replaced with a new agenda -- begin to dismantle the source of terror by establishing democracy in the middle east, i.e. Iraq. That is a defensible strategy, most likely, and one that the American people have been willing to support. It seems, on the face, to be closely related to the idea of getting rid of terrorists ultimately.

The problem with the whole agenda is that all of the President's tough talk counts for nothing in the face of IRaq's attempts to write a constitution. Just consider the "support" that the U.S. administration is giving to the idea that "Islamic" law will have a sizeable influence in the new Iraqi constitution.

From the Washington Times Insider

BAGHDAD -- U.S. diplomats have conceded ground to Islamists on the role of religion in Iraq, negotiators said yesterday as they raced to meet a 48-hour deadline to draft a constitution under intense American pressure.

Shi'ite, Sunni and Kurdish negotiators all said there was accord on a bigger role for Islamic law than Iraq had before.
But a secular Kurdish politician said Kurds opposed making Islam "the" -- not "a" -- main source of law and subjecting all legislation to a religious test.

"We understand the Americans have sided with the Shi'ites," he said. "It's shocking. It doesn't fit American values. They have spent so much blood and money here, only to back the creation of an Islamist state. ... I can't believe that's what the Americans really want or what the American people want."

U.S. diplomats, who have insisted the constitution must enshrine ideals of equal rights and democracy, declined comment.

The Bush administration, with 140,000 troops still in Iraq, has insisted Iraqis are free to govern themselves. But Washington also has made clear it will not approve the kind of clerical rule seen in Shi'ite Iran.

U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad has guided intensive meetings since the Iraqi parliament averted its own dissolution a week ago by giving constitution drafters another week to resolve crucial differences over regional autonomy and division of oil revenues.

Failing to finish by midnight tomorrow could provoke new elections and, effectively, a return to the drawing board for the entire constitutional process.

Another extension may be more likely, as Washington insists the charter is key to its strategy to undermine the Sunni revolt and leave a new Iraqi government largely to fend for itself after U.S. troops go home.

Why does the administration lack the resolve to stand against such an idea? Could it be that the impulse that guided the President after 9-11 has been weakened and now he is afraid of seeming a failure in Iraq. Is the administration that desperate for some sign of "success."

Andy McCarthy of National Review Online hits it on the head.

There is grave reason to doubt that Islam and democracy (at least the Western version based on liberty and equality) are compatible. But that is an argument for another day. The argument for today is: the American people were never asked whether they would commit their forces to overseas hostilities for the purpose of turning Iraq into a democracy (we committed them (a) to topple a terror-abetting tyrant who was credibly thought both to have and to covet weapons of mass destruction, and (b) to kill or capture jihadists who posed a danger to American national security). I doubt they would have agreed to wage war for the purpose of establishing democracy.

But even if I suspended disbelief for a moment and agreed that the democracy project is a worthy casus belli, I am as certain as I am that I am breathing that the American people would not put their brave young men and women in harm’s way for the purpose of establishing an Islamic government. Anyplace.

It is not our place to fix what ails Islam. But it is utter recklessness to avert our eyes from the fact that militant Islam thrives wherever Islam reigns. That is a fact. When and where militant Islam thrives, America and the West are endangered. That is also a fact. How can we possibly be urging people who wisely don’t want it to accept the government-institutionalized supremacy of Islam?

If this democracy establishment stuff is about our national security, as we have been told, then it is unconscionable for the President, his advisers, and the ambassadors who represent us to sit by and let this happen. George W. Bush is off his mission. We must call him back to it.

We did not invade Iraq for humanitarian purposes, that was a happy by-product (a tyrrant was over thrown and people freed.) We invaded to make the U.S. and the world safer. Unless a real Western style constitution is established in Iraq, soon the Iraqi's will have been traded an Islamic "constitutional" dictatorship for a secular one. Not a real bargain. And the U.S. -- as McCArthy points out -- will be less safe.

John Roberts and the Supreme Court

To hear folks on the Left talk, one would think that the fate of America's way of life hangs in the balance with the specter of a John Roberts appointment to SCOTUS. This is patently silly, of course. What might hang in the balance in a way of being governed that has allowed the Supreme Court to become the final word on legal matters -- a state of affairs it decidedly not what our constitution calls for, although most Americans don't know this. For instance, Article One of the constitution says:

Section 1. All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.

Article Three tells us that the Congress sets the parameters of the Supreme Court's jurisdiction, at least that is what a straight-forward reading seems to say.

From Section 2. . . the supreme Court shall have original Jurisdiction. In all the other Cases before mentioned, the supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make.

If John Roberts is a so-called "strict constructionist" then we might be able to return to a time when we are more true to the concept envisioned in our constitution, i.e., that America is a Constitutional Republic.

The Left, however, is no alone in its rhetorical hyperactivity. Many on the Right are worried that Roberts is not clearly and staunchly enough committed to a anti-abortion agenda or that he is not clear enough on a resistance to expanding gay-rights.

The problem with the Right's thinking, however, is that they seem to buy into the very notion that the Left does. The idea of which I speak is that some how the Supreme Court of the United States should seek to make "moral" or political decisions in its rulings. This bias is precisely revealed in the Left's call for "balance" on the court, as though the role of the court is to take into account competing interests or perspectives, rather than apply the constitution.

But that is certainly not the role of the SCOTUS. (That is the task of the Congress.) Its task should be to apply legal and constitutional standards for any and all cases that come before it. (It is perfectly possible for a law to be constitutional and not moral. Consider slavery, for instance. Or not granting women the right to vote.)

The best we as Christians should hope for in Roberts as a judge or any other nominee is not a pro-life agenda (although I favor one) nor any other conservative agenda, but a commitment to carefully and disciplinedly read, understand, and apply the constitution to cases. Where the constitution does not speak, all Justices should say so, and throw back into the political and legislative dialogue the issue.

That kind of situation does not sit well with those who want particular outcomes, right now. It is, however, what our way of life calls for and it is the only way to come to moral consensus politically for the sake of passing legislation that can then be embraced by a clear and sizeable majority of the populace.

Such a public debate is sorely missing today, but it has not always been missing. The late Neil Postman reminded us in his book Amusing Ourselves to Death, that in the eighteenth century and nineteenth century informed political discourse was common among all classes of people.

By 1772, Jacob Duche could write: "The poorest labourer upon the shore of the Delaware thinks himself [because so well-informed] entitled to deliver his sentiment in matters of religion or politics with as much freedom as the gentleman of scholar. . . . Such is the prevailing taste for books of every kind that almost every man is a reader."

The point is that America's greatness was built upon political discourse among its populace, not among the political elite only, and certainly not among Justices. It is this kind of ongoing civil, informed, and reflective debate that our constitution calls for.

What we should want is Justices that allow that to happen.

The Atomic Immorality

The past week has seen the anniversaries of two of the most regrettable acts ever carried out by the government and military of the United States of America: the detonation of the atomic bomb on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan.

Since then much debate has ensued over the actions of then President Truman. Given the circumsances he had to face, I not only cannot condemn him, I feel a tremendous sense of pity for this man, who was charged with defending America from all enemies foreign and domestic. However, the sorrow I feel for those Japanese who were killed far outweighs the sympathy I ocould ever feel for President Truman.

Most informed people know how the dabate is framed. A land war in Japan would have cost exponentially more lives than dropping the bomb. So, in the utilitarian moral calculus that accompanies war deciding to incinerate 100's of thousands of civilians was the better of the possible options.

It is an open question, however, whether or not that was true. For the options were not BOMB or land war. Were those the options, then maybe the decision was the best option among bad ones. Recently, documents have surfaced showing that the Japanese warlords of the time were far more determined to fight on to a bloody finish in the home islands than previously known.
Yet, there was a further option that ought to have been employed.

A protracted seige (blockade) of Japan would have probably been a better option. Pat Buchanan (someone I regularly disagree with) has noted.

But with Japan naked to our B-29s, her surface navy at the bottom of the Pacific, the home islands blockaded, what was the need to invade at all? On his island-hopping campaign back to the Philippines, MacArthur routinely bypassed Japanese strongholds like Rabaul, cut them off and left them to "rot on the vine."

What Japanese air power that existed could have been targeted and destroyed. On this senario only legitimate combatants would have been subjected intentionally to attack and death. the time of surrender would have been much later, but the legacy of shame, finger-pointing by the US and the legacy of sorrow and effects of radiation poisoning upon the Japanese would have been avoided.

Would more American soldiers' lives have been lost in a blockade stategy? Most assuredly, but that is the role of the soldier in every nation.

Perhaps the calculations by Truman were as political as they were military. Maybe his advisors suggested to him that a protracted blockade would not play well at home. Maybe they suggested that bombing Japan would be a lesson to other nations.

Whatever the case, Buchanan reports to us some haunting facts about the mindset of the administration.

in the Cabinet meeting of Aug. 10, as historian Ralph Raico relates, did [Truman] explained his reluctance to drop a third bomb thus: "The thought of wiping out another 100,000 people was too horrible," he said. He didn't like the idea of killing "all those kids."

Of Truman's decision, his own chief of staff, Adm. William Leahy, wrote: "This use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. My own feeling was that in being the first to use it, we had adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages. I was not taught to make wars in that fashion ..."

It is not enough for a nation to win a war, it must be won rightly. I would argue that America did not win the war with Japan rightly. Even if some good came from the bombing (the war ended), we cannot avoid the very probable conclusion that the decision to drop the atomic bomb does not stand up to the moral scrutiny of history.

This is especially true of the Christian tradition of Just War. In that view of war, efficiency is not the final part of the equation. Rather, the questions that must drive the deliberations are -- what will cause less unnecessary death, how will civilians be protected, and how does one stay the hand of the victor from indefensible action in the face of victory. Those considerations suggest that a failure of moral reflection led to a immoral decision. Civilians were intentionally targeted in order to break the power of the leaders of a nation, and without necessity.

Now a California liberal fears Bush because he exercises

This inane post is just too stupid to pass up. Jonathat Chait thinks the President is "a little creepy" because he is a major proponent of rigorous physical exercise.

Bush has an obsession with exercise that borders on the creepy.

Given the importance of his job, it is astonishing how much time Bush has to exercise. His full schedule is not publicly available. The few peeks we get at Bush's daily routine usually come when some sort of disaster prods the White House Press Office to reveal what the president was doing "at the time." Earlier this year, an airplane wandered into restricted Washington air space. Bush, we learned, was bicycling in Maryland. In 2001, a gunman fired shots at the White House. Bush was inside exercising. When planes struck the World Trade Center in 2001, Bush was reading to schoolchildren, but that morning he had gone for a long run with a reporter. Either this is a series of coincidences or Bush spends an enormous amount of time working out.

This sort of stupidity is published in the LA Times, the paper of record that probably has more readers per capita who are obsessed with exercise than any paper in the country. (THINK Hollywood)

Chait, as far as I recall, never seemed too worried that Bill Clinton seemed to spend an inordinate amount of time over-eating. Or that he had plenty of spare time on his hands to spend with Monica Lewinsky -- in the Oval Office!

It is a sad thing to see political commentary in a major newspaper devolve to this level of adolescent tripe. Maybe it would be better if President Bush were out of shape?

New Yorkers Want to be safe, but.>>>>>>

some of them don't want to have random searches of people going into the subway.

in a few outraged moments, local immigrant rights activist Tony Lu designed t-shirts bearing the text, "i do not consent to being searched."

Now, its easy to say from the backwater confines of Jackson, Mississippi but...............

1. it seems a small price to pay for bringing some sense of greater security to the subway system

2. if you don't have any thing embarassing or something to hide, why would it cause great concern.

3. if a police officer is rude, he can be reported and the media can cover abuses

4. the only option is to do nothing or inconvenience everyone or develop and fund some elaborate and enormously expensive system

5. at least its not like Arnold's movie "Total Recall" where people go through a machine that would ultrasound or xray their entire body (ha).

But, like I said its easy to arm chair quarterback, but it seems to me that new Yorkers would rather be embarassed or inconvenienced a bit than have their rail system blow up. I think that is the way I would feel.

Rick Santorum -- a must read article on the First Amendment

Posted here

T]he peculiar excellence of the Anglo-American common-law tradition over centuries, that which distinguished it from continental “legal science,” was its rejection of simplifying abstractions, its close attention to facts and patterns of facts. . . . It was this unique combination of common sense and modest . . . theory that enabled England and the United States to develop and maintain a legal order possessing the toughness to weather political and social upheavals. . . . When legal scholars distance themselves from those ways of thinking, they repudiate much of what is best in their professional tradition.

The Supreme Court of the United States in the past half-century has been a bad steward of its own jurisprudential traditions, preferring instead the neat abstractions of the latest “theories.”

Privacy. Neutrality. Free Expression. These three abstractions together make for a perfect storm, a jurisprudential hurricane for wreaking havoc on a moral ecosystem. Together they make of our Constitution not a document for democratic self-governance, but instead describe a pure liberal society of isolated individuals each doing their own thing within the politically correct boundaries carefully crafted and enforced by the village elders.

TAKE A MINUTE AND READ IT ALL.

Yippeeeeeeeee!

Just reached 100 visits to the site. Step one of our master plan.

In the immortal words of "Brain" from "Pinky and the Brain:"

"We're going to take over the world!!!!!!!" (NOT)

Should the USA have an official language

Well, according to polls about 4 out of 5 Americans say yes. And there is currently legislation in Congress to officially declare English as the official language of the United States.

Townhall.com links to this article on the issue.

Official English measures have long been popular with the public and those elected to serve in Congress. For nearly a generation, polls have found support for making English the official language among four-fifths of the population, including a 2005 Zogby poll which pegged the rate at 79 percent. Since 1981, more than 550 Members of Congress representing all 50 states have sponsored, co-sponsored or voted for official English measures a total of more than 2,500 times.

“It is through the backing of a common language that we will expand employment and educational opportunity, and continue successful immigrant integration,” continued Mujica. “Without a unifying language, we can never be truly one nation. I urge the House leadership to bring H.R. 997 up for a committee hearing without further delay.”

On the one hand, this seems like a no brainer to me. The only way to have a semi-unified culture is through common language and common values. And a common culture -- broadly construed -- is necessary for political health.

I think, however, I could be a little more enthusiastic about this kind of legislation if there were a way to make sure that -- through our schools -- the majority of Americans were taught Spanish. Go to other countries and find the number of people who speak more than one language is quite impressively high. If we are indeed becoming increasingly global economically and in other ways, the haveing the ability to communicate with persons from other countries will be increasingly important, even for the average citizen. Also, it makes one a more educated person.

Dick MOrris on the Ascension of.............India as an economic power

A very good article here

NOt from this planet.....

That's how someone described Lance Armstrong, who is positioned to win his 7th consecutive Tour de France.

Here are the top ten standings:

Overall standings
1. Lance Armstrong (USA/DIS) 72hr 55min 50sec
2. Ivan Basso (ITA/CSC) at 2:46
3. Michael Rasmussen (DEN/RAB) 3:09
4. Jan Ullrich (GER/MOB) 5:58
5. Francisco Mancebo (SPA/BAL) 6:31
6. Levi Leipheimer (USA/GRL) 7:35
7. Alexander Vinokourov (KAZ/MOB) 9:38
8. Cadel Evans (AUS/DAV) 9:49
9. Floyd Landis (USA/PHO) 9:53
10. Christophe Moreau (FRA/C.A) 12:07

There are 3 Americans in the top 10, but nobody is paying any attention to poor Levi (6) and Floyd (9).

Random Thoughts: What makes Lance Armstrong, well, Lance Armstrong? Some say its genetics. some say training? Some say steroids.

Maybe Lance like all of us owes a debt of gratitude to people the masses will never hear about much less cheer. I wonder who bought him his first bike, for instance. I wonder... did he ever have a paper route with mean dogs that chased him on his bike (pretty good speed training). I wonder, did his dad or mom teach him how to ride? I wonder how many races he lost early in his racing career and who encouraged him not to quit?

Greatness comes when you take what is given to you and then make of it all you can.

"Success is going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm." (Sir Winston Churchill)

An New Supreme Court Justice. . .

Well, President Bush proved his bona fides, from what I hear, with his nomination of Judge John Roberts. People all over the conservative spectrum are hailing him as a true conservative.

Shannen Coffin writes in National Review Online:

He understands that Courts cannot — and should not — seek to solve every social problem our country faces. As a judge, he has demonstrated a healthy respect for the rule of law, deferring often to the will of the people as reflected in the laws enacted by Congress and signed by the president. In an age when the courts have injected themselves into some of the most hot-button of social issues — gay marriage, abortion, and the latest controversy du jour on the Left’s agenda — judges like Roberts are needed to ensure that we are a nation governed by laws, and not the arbitrary whims of five unelected judges.

I am as glad as I can be, given my utter dependence upon the insights of others who know something about Roberts, that President Bush has nominated him. Anything that can be done to bring the SCOTUS back in line with sane constitutional limits and to remind the American people that our government is not one of judicial decree by of limited government that is directed for and by the people is a good thing.

But, with the appointment of Judge Roberts, we awake today and there are still the same issues facing us that faced us yesterday. And we must still govern ourselves, if we have the will and grace and courage.

A bigger problem than the make up of the Supreme Court is the weakness and ineptitude of the Congress. Perhaps this confirmation process might prove just how inane much that goes on in the Senate and House really is. The hope for American, ultimately, is to elect serious minded Senators and Representatives who take the duty of leadership more seriously than they take themselves.

For those who want a good article on Worship and Music

I would recommend this one -- a report on the Pope's thoughts back when he was a mere Cardinal.

Don't read it unless you are willing to give a few minutes to it and a few more minutes to thinking about the question. Here is a sample.

In light of the foregoing discussion, both “pop” music and the music of elitist aesthetes are unsuitable for divine worship. The latter, proclaiming art to be “for art’s sake” and for no other purpose, elevates the composer to the level of a “pure creator.” “According to Christian faith, however, it belongs to the essence of human beings that they come from God’s ‘art’. . . and as perceivers can think and view God’s creative ideas with him and translate them into the visible and the audible” (106).

On the other hand, hasn’t the Church’s liturgical music always drawn on popular music to renew itself? Isn’t “pop” music just what the Church needs in order to “relate” with contemporary culture? Cardinal Ratzinger recommends “treading carefully” in this area (107-108). In the past folk music was the expression of a clearly defined community held together by language, history and a way of life. Springing from fundamental human experience, it conveyed a truth, however naive the form may have been. Pop music, in contrast, is a standardized product of mass society, a function of supply and demand. The 20 th-century composer Paul Hindemith called the constant presence of such noise “brainwashing,” and C. M. Johansson claims that hearing it gradually makes us incapable of listening attentively: “we become musically comatose. . . . This medium kills the message” (p. 108 cf. footnote 19).

There are many questions that surround the issue of music in worship, not the least of which is the question "What does it mean to worship?" Careful reflection about the relaltionship between medium and message is crucial. Simplistic answers based merely on "tastes" one way or the other -- traditionalist or contemporary -- do not serve the Church of the Lord Jesus very well.

Bush to announce nominee to SCOTUS

And we shall see what the President is made of really. He has insisted that he would appoint "strict constructionist" judges to the Supeme Court -- the likes of Scalia and Thomas. To do so would mean that he would have to appoint someone who has a proven track record as a Strinct constructionist.

The leading candidates seem to be Edith Jones and Joy Clement. Those in the know say that Jones is the most clearly defined "conservative" candidate. Not that Clement is not conservative; she is, rather, underdefined. Kind of like David Souter was. YIKES!

Hadley Arkes has a very good article HERE. on this very issue, which I thinks really cuts to the heart of the political matter. He suggests that the choice might tell us something about the nature of the President and the Republican Party in its outlook on the importance of the SCOTUS and at least one of the tenets that it says it holds dear.

the willingness to go with the candidate without a crisp, philosophic definition may mark the willingness to act, once again, within the framework defined by the other side: It begins with the reluctance to admit that we have ever discussed the matter of abortion with this candidate, or that she has any settled views on the subject. In other words, it begins with the premise that the right to abortion is firmly anchored as an orthodoxy; that those who would question it are unwilling to admit in public that they bear any such threatening doubts. The willingness to accept premises of that kind, as the framework for confirmation, may account for a Republican party that has brought forth as jurists the team of Stevens, O’Connor, Kennedy, and Souter.

The Practical Problem with Bureaucratic Charity

.............can be seen in this New York Times report.

It was created 40 years ago to provide health care for the poorest New Yorkers, offering a lifeline to those who could not afford to have a baby or a heart attack. But in the decades since, New York State's Medicaid program has also become a $44.5 billion target for the unscrupulous and the opportunistic.

New York's Medicaid program, once a beacon of the Great Society era, has become so huge, so complex and so lightly policed that it is easily exploited. Though the program is a vital resource for 4.2 million poor people who rely on it for their health care, a yearlong investigation by The Times found that the program has been misspending billions of dollars annually because of fraud, waste and profiteering. A computer analysis of several million records obtained under the state Freedom of Information Law revealed numerous indications of fraud and abuse that the state had never looked into.

ME: Whenever anyone is spending someone else's money, there is no reason to be prudent or cautious. This is the case in Medicaid fraud and other government waste. As well, when a person is essentially doling out funds, with no hands-on interest in the welfare of the poor person (supposedly) being helped, there is not motivation to insure the proper use of funds. Government programs ultimately do not help the people they are designed to help, not only because of fraud, but because bureaucracies are notoriously inefficient. Compassion for the poor might mean we need to return the responsibility for being our brother's keeper to people and take it out of the hands of bureaucrats.

REthinking the Received Wisdom about Suicide bombers

Michael Ledeen of National Review gives us good reason to suspect that the attacks in London were NOT the work of suicide bombers.

HERE>

This article make great sense to me and reveals that there may be much less "devotion" to the cause of jihad than we think. It seems that many of the "suicide" bombers may have been tricked by those who recruited them and then blown-up to make it seem like a religious suicide bomber. It's hard, however, to feel sorry for those guys in London who were killed, since they were willing, at least, to carry bombs into the subway and onto a bus to kill other people ruthlessly.

You might want to check out this interview in The American Conservative for an analysis of the "logic of suicide bombing" for another insight.

Ah! The Dutch:

They gave us windmills, wooden shoes, Dutch Calvinism, and now Euthanasia of new born babies. Of course, it all sounds reasonable and beneficent. But one must wonder why the Dutch are a people whose deepest moral impulses often involves killing people as the most kind thing to do.

Check out this post by Kathrine Lopez on infant killing

Possibly some very good news & about time

Muslims begin to weaken in their support for al Queda, Bin Ladin and their fears of "Islamic extremism" grow.

In Morocco, 26 percent of the public now say they have a lot or some confidence in bin Laden, down from 49 percent in a similar poll two years ago.

In Lebanon, where both Muslims and Christians took part in the survey, only 2 percent expressed some confidence in the Saudi-born al Qaeda leader, down from 14 percent in 2003.

In Turkey, bin Laden's support has fallen to 7 percent from 15 percent in the past two years. In Indonesia, it has dropped to 35 percent from 58 percent.

Except for Jordan & Pakistan

However, in Jordan, confidence in bin Laden, who took responsibility for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States and many other attacks, rose to 60 percent from 55 percent. In Pakistan, it went to 51 percent from 45 percent. ---


AND ARABS OF ALL RELIGIONS DETEST THE JEWS

Anti-Jewish sentiment was overwhelming in the Muslim countries. In Lebanon, 100 percent of Muslims and 99 percent of Christians said they had a very unfavorable view of Jews, while 99 percent of Jordanians also viewed Jews very unfavorably.

YOU CAN READ THE REPORT HERE


UPDATE: John Tabin analyzes the polling data in The American Spectator. HERE

"Fighting terrorism in Afghanistan and Iraq does not seem to have massively radicalized the Muslim world; if anything the opposite is happening. Another defeat for defeatism."

Great Googley-moogley

A Chinese official actually uses the N word (nuclear) regarding a confrontation with the USA.

HERE

How long will you live

This site will "tell" you. Me -- 89! (Hat Tip: John Derbyshire at The Corner)

When Technology runs ahead of moral reflection

.... what to do?

This article reports on the bioethics discussions regarding whether or not scientists should inject human stem cells into chimp brains as a way to research for a cure for human diseases of the brain.

Here's a sample -- but read it all.

The insertion of human stem cells into monkey brains runs a "real risk" of altering the animals' abilities in ways that might make them morally more like us, scientists said today.

A panel of 22 experts -- including primatologists, stem cell researchers, lawyers and philosophers -- debated the possible consequences of the technique for more than a year.

While the group agrees it is "unlikely that grafting human stem cells into the brains of non-human primates would alter the animals' abilities in morally relevant ways," the members "also felt strongly that the risk of doing so is real and too ethically important to ignore."

Some good thoughts on taxes from the Heritage Foundation

Lawmakers should also enact a federal Taxpayers’ Bill of Rights statute that limits annual spending increases to the inflation rate plus population growth. Such a law would force lawmakers to do what families already do: set priorities and make trade-offs. A federal Taxpayers’ Bill of Rights would create a framework to save as much as $4 trillion over the next decade, which is enough to make the recent tax cuts permanent, fix the Alternative Minimum Tax, transition Social Security to personal accounts, and reduce the budget deficit.[6]

Increased tax revenues show once again that the 2003 tax relief is working. Yet long-term spending projections remain dire. Lawmakers should not abandon efforts to rein in spending.

READ THE WHOLE ARTICLE HERE!!!

Oh My! NO more troubles?

To my small readership I pose the following question. What do you think of this idea

Can't remember phone numbers, worried about an upcoming exam or desperately want to give up smoking? In future, the answer will be simple: just pop a pill.

a new report by leading scientists in the fields of psychology and neuroscience argues that, very soon, there really will be a pill for every ill.

"It is possible that [advances] could usher in a new era of drug use without addiction," said the report by Foresight, the government's science-based thinktank.

"In a world that is increasingly non-stop and competitive, the individual's use of such substances may move from the fringe to the norm."

However, the report said the widespread adoption of new brain-enhancing drugs was not without risks and would raise "significant ethical, social and practical issues."

READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE AND POST SOME COMMENTS

Consider what kind of BARBARIANS we face

The Muslim American Society reports.

In Iraq a bomber has killed 24 children who surounded a US military Humvee where soldiers were passing out candy to the kids.

Some 20 more children were wounded in the blast, while a U.S. soldier died and three were injured, hospital and U.S. sources said.

"Children gathered round the Americans who were handing out sweets. Suddenly a suicide car bomber drove round from a side street and blew himself up," Sergeant David Abrams told Agence France-Presse (AFP).

"The vehicle, laden with explosives, drove up to a [U.S. military] Humvee before detonating. Many Iraqi civilians, mostly children, were around the Humvee at the time of the blast," Abrams said.

Abu Hamed whose 12-year-old son Mohammed was killed, said: "I was at home. I heard the explosion. I rushed outside to find my son. I only found his bicycle."

He found his son in the hospital morgue.

"I recognized him from his head. The rest of the body was completely burnt."

Among the young bodies at the morgue, some headless or missing limbs, two children still clutched blue chocolate wrappers.

The attack stunned the impoverished east Baghdad neighborhood of mostly Shiite Muslims and Christians, reports the AP.

Hassan Mohammed, whose 13-year-old son Alaa also died, swore at insurgents for attacking civilians.

"Why do they attack our children? They just destroyed one U.S. Humvee, but they killed dozens of our children," he said as women screamed, slapped their faces and beat themselves over the head.

"What sort of a resistance is this? It's a crime," he added.

At Kindi hospital, one distraught woman swathed in black sat cross-legged outside the operating room. "May God curse the mujahedeen and their leader," she cried as she pounded her own head in grief, reports the AP.

The entire article can be accessed HERE.

The next time some one tells you that Christians are uptight prudes....

.... just remember this outstanding book review HERE.

Jay Wood reviews the book Lust by renowned philosopher Simon Blackburn, who thinks that Christian faith has repressed people.

Wood challenges Blackburn:

Christianity and natural reason have long taught that our appetites for food, drink, sleep, sex, and the other natural pleasure associated with the body can be out of whack, ill-tuned, excessive, or deficient. The unprecedented abundance of food, leisure, drink, and sexual stimulation that contemporary Americans enjoy has neither increased our fulfillment nor decreased the number and degree of dysfunctions associated with these goods, as any talk show or bestseller list will attest. Moreover, Christianity has never regarded lust, or the other sins of appetite, as the worst of sins—though they may be among the most common, arising as they often do in the "heat of the moment" and without the full consent of the will (see Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, II-II, Q. 154, art. 3). Lust can't compare in seriousness with envy, anger, and the many species of pride, culminating in the satanic desire to supplant God. Rather, Christianity has always taught that our appetite for sexual pleasure, just like those for food, drink, and sleep, needs to be tutored, trained with bit and bridle, sensitive to the slightest touch of command, lest it rampage out of control, dragging us helter-skelter after it.

Blackburn thinks that the highest state of sexual desire and activity occurs amidst what he calls "Hobbesian unity," after Thomas Hobbes, the philosopher famous for describing life in the state of nature as "poor, solitary, nasty, brutish and short." Hobbes wrote of sexual intimacy, which Blackburn elaborates on as a state in which sexual partners are in a communion of body and mind, reciprocally sensitive to each other, "responding and adjusting to each other delicately for the entire performance," much like musicians who more or less unconsciously adjust to each other's playing. Blackburn seems not to grasp that the attentive reciprocity lovers achieve in Hobbesian unity not only does not qualify as lust, it is a most happy aspect of conjugal bliss, as those "repressed" Puritans pointed out using the same musical metaphors long before Blackburn. One Puritan writer wrote that married couples "may joyfully give due benevolence one to the other; as two musical instruments rightly fitted do make a most pleasant and sweet harmony in a well tuned consort"

TAKE TIME TO READ THE WHOLE REVIEW

Deficit Reduction

The New York Times reports that the projected federal deficit has shrunk by nearly 100 BILLION dollars.

It would be interesting to see how the deficit would be doing if it weren't for the war on terror spending that was forced on the country after 9/11. AND IF PRESIDENT BUSH HAD NOT INCREASED DOMESTIC, NON DEFENSE SPENDING DRAMATICALLY.

But, the least one can say is. . . . cutting taxes does not seem to have ruined us yet. The Times, however, can't really get enthusiastic about it.

For one thing, analysts note, federal spending has continued to climb rapidly, about 7 percent this year. Despite cutbacks in many domestic programs, spending has surged for the war in Iraq as well as in certain benefit programs providing health coverage.

In addition, while a lot of the increase in tax revenue flows from the improving economy and higher incomes, part of the jump stemmed from a special factor: the expiration of a temporary tax break that allowed companies to write off their investment in new equipment much more rapidly than normal.

That tax break reduced revenue by about $61 billion in 2004, but it merely postponed taxes that companies would have to pay once their equipment was fully depreciated.

Other financial hurdles may be down the road. Mr. Bush's intention to extend his tax cuts indefinitely, and to add new ones, would drain more than $1.4 trillion from government coffers over the next 10 years.

As the Medicare expansion into prescription drugs begins to take effect, the cost is estimated at about $33 billion in 2006, with increases every year after that. In 2015, the annual cost of the program is expected to be about $137 billion.

A senior White House official cautioned that it was too early to make definitive judgments about whether the tax cuts had fulfilled the promises of "supply side" economics, a Reagan era concept that posits a direct relationship between lower tax rates and faster economic growth.

"We need to wait for more data," said Ben S. Bernanke, who took over this month as chairman of President Bush's Council of Economic Advisers, at a conference on Tuesday at the American Enterprise Institute.

But Mr. Bernanke said the tax cuts had undoubtedly contributed to economic growth, which in turn bolstered tax receipts.

"One consequence of strong income growth is that we are enjoying higher-than-expected levels of tax collections," he said.

The Times suggests that the President's future tax cuts would take 1.4 trillion out of the budget over the next 10 years. But in the sentence right above that they note that the first tax cut "reduced revenue by about $61 billion in 2004, but it merely postponed taxes that companies would have to pay once their equipment was fully depreciated."

Given that the deficit has shrunk by nearly 100 billion, doesn't that mean that there has been a positive cash flow for the government by lessening taxes? So, maybe 1.4 trillion in tax cuts will produce well over 2 trillion in tax revenues.

JUST A THOUGHT

Iraq and al Queda -- the Connections

In the Weekly Standard, Stephen Hayes and Thomas Joscelyn reveal the willful ignorance of the media's and the anti-war movement's insistence that "THERE WAS NO CONNECTION BETWEEN IRAQ AND AL QUEDA'S AGGRESSION TOWARD THE US."

. . .more than two years after the Iraqi regime of Saddamm Hussein was ousted, there is much we do not know about the relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda. We do know, however, that there was one. We know about this relationship not from Bush administration assertions but from internal Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS) documents recovered in Iraq after the war--documents that have been authenticated by a U.S. intelligence community long hostile to the very idea that any such relationship exists.

We know from these IIS documents that beginning in 1992 the former Iraqi regime regarded bin Laden as an Iraqi Intelligence asset. We know from IIS documents that the former Iraqi regime provided safe haven and financial support to an Iraqi who has admitted to mixing the chemicals for the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center. We know from IIS documents that Saddam Hussein agreed to Osama bin Laden's request to broadcast anti-Saudi propaganda on Iraqi state-run television. We know from IIS documents that a "trusted confidante" of bin Laden stayed for more than two weeks at a posh Baghdad hotel as the guest of the Iraqi Intelligence Service.

READ THE WHOLE ARTICLE HERE

Pope Benedict XI Opposes Harry Potter Novels

The following is an online report about a letter from then Cardinal Ratzinger, now Benedict XI, expressing concern about J. K. Rowling's enormously popular novel series about Harry Potter.

LifeSiteNews.com

Wednesday July 13, 2005

Pope Opposes Harry Potter Novels - Signed Letters from Cardinal Ratzinger Now Online

RIMSTING, Germany, July 13, 2005 (LifeSiteNews.com) - LifeSiteNews.com has obtained and made available online copies of two letters sent by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who was recently elected Pope, to a German critic of the Harry Potter novels. In March 2003, a month after the English press throughout the world falsely proclaimed that Pope John Paul II approved of Harry Potter, the man who was to become his successor sent a letter to a Gabriele Kuby outlining his agreement with her opposition to J.K. Rowling's offerings. (See below for links to scanned copies of the letters signed by Cardinal Ratzinger.)

As the sixth issue of Rowling's Harry Potter series - Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince - is about to be released, the news that Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger expressed serious reservations about the novels is now finally being revealed to the English-speaking world still under the impression the Vatican approves the Potter novels.

In a letter dated March 7, 2003 Cardinal Ratzinger thanked Kuby for her "instructive" book Harry Potter - gut oder böse (Harry Potter- good or evil?), in which Kuby says the Potter books corrupt the hearts of the young, preventing them from developing a properly ordered sense of good and evil, thus harming their relationship with God while that relationship is still in its infancy.

"It is good, that you enlighten people about Harry Potter, because those are subtle seductions, which act unnoticed and by this deeply distort Christianity in the soul, before it can grow properly," wrote Cardinal Ratzinger.

The letter also encouraged Kuby to send her book on Potter to the Vatican prelate who quipped about Potter during a press briefing which led to the false press about the Vatican support of Potter. At a Vatican press conference to present a study document on the New Age in April 2003, one of the presenters - Fr. Peter Fleedwood - made a positive comment on the Harry Potter books in response to a question from a reporter. Headlines such as "Pope Approves Potter" (Toronto Star), "Pope Sticks Up for Potter Books" (BBC), "Harry Potter Is Ok With The Pontiff" (Chicago Sun Times) and "Vatican: Harry Potter's OK with us" (CNN Asia) littered the mainstream media.

In a second letter sent to Kuby on May 27, 2003, Cardinal Ratzinger "gladly" gave his permission to Kuby to make public "my judgement about Harry Potter."

The most prominent Potter critic in North America, Catholic novelist and painter Michael O'Brien commented to LifeSiteNews.com on the "judgement" of now-Pope Benedict saying, "This discernment on the part of Benedict XVI reveals the Holy Father's depth and wide ranging gifts of spiritual discernment." O'Brien, author of a book dealing with fantasy literature for children added, "it is consistent with many of the statements he's been making since his election to the Chair of Peter, indeed for the past 20 years - a probing accurate read of the massing spiritual warfare that is moving to a new level of struggle in western civilization. He is a man in whom a prodigious intellect is integrated with great spiritual gifts. He is the father of the universal church and we would do well to listen to him."

MY THOUGHTS:

What is troublesome about Harry Potter? The issue that trouble's most is the magic and references to manipulating events through magic. But what is it that is problematic about magic in a Christian worldview? The most basic problem is that magic is a worldview that keeps the practicioner of the "arts" in control of things. So far as I can interpret, the Old Testament's rejection of magic is based on this concern. Magic manipulates forces and ultimately magic is seen, in pagan cultures, as a way of manipulating even the divine. The God of Israel, of course, would have none of that. Worship and trust, not control, is the attitude of the heart that the reality of the God of the scriptures requires of us.

In the place of manipulation and control, the scriptures invite people to a relationship with God based on faith, trust, obedience, love, and peace. In the place of spells that can change the nature of things (magic), the God revealed in scripture calls us to prayer. Of course, many Christians approach prayer in a more magical than scriptural way, as though our praying in and of itself changes things. (God changes things by allowing us the honor of making our petitions known, but that does not insure any results.) And we are called to worship God in the midst of life's challenges, all the while seeking to accomplish His will. But ultimately, the Christian knows the final result is not in our hands, but in the Triune God's control.

Now, having considered some things that Christians ultimately ought to reject about HP, let's consider the following aspects of these novels. First, the Potter series accentuates the importance of courage and friendship and honor. These are traditional virtues of Greek and Roman culture that the early Christians affirmed as the highest expressions that non-Christian culture could produce. Surely Christians can rejoice that Rowling has written novels that celebrate these virtues. Secondly, Harry Potter's adventures always reference the cruciality and the power of Love and self-giving in the world. These things are what Karl Barth, the great German theologian of the 20th century, would call "echoes" of the Gospel -- not adequate witnesses, but things that Christians can affirm and be glad for. Thirdly, for a kid from a Christian family to read the Potter series is an opportunity for the parents (assuming that the parents know enough about their own faith) to help the child think through the differences between the Christian worldview and that of Hogwarts. Finally, the Church needs to engage our children with the Gospel in a way that expands their imaginations, so that what Cardinal Ratzinger called "subtle seductions, which act unnoticed and by this deeply distort Christianity in the soul, before it can grow properly," need not be so tempting.

The Christian reaction to Harry Potter ought not be simply rejection, but seriousness about the wonder, the beauty, the glory, the power, the truth, and the life of the Good News of Jesus Christ.

Stem Cell debate, despite the best scientific findings

The President and his allies in the Congress are attempting to let science set the political agenda for Stem Cell research and avoid the problematic moral questions that Embroynic stem cell research raises.

Here is the Fox News report

go here for a good article on Adult Stem cell research and why it gets so little notice

86% of Americans expect democrats to unreasonably oppose President Bush's nominee(s) to the Supreme Court

At least that is what a CNN poll says. Upordownvote.com has the details

Mark Levin on the President's failure to be loyal to his base

He lays out the situation well, here

A well-reasoned Catholic Response to Neo-Darwinian Naturalism

Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, the archbishop of Vienna has written a very good article discussing how Darwinian Naturalism is incompatible with Catholic (and I would say all Christian) doctrinal teaching.

Here's a taste:

The Catholic Church, while leaving to science many details about the history of life on earth, proclaims that by the light of reason the human intellect can readily and clearly discern purpose and design in the natural world, including the world of living things. Evolution in the sense of common ancestry might be true, but evolution in the neo-Darwinian sense - an unguided, unplanned process of random variation and natural selection - is not. Any system of thought that denies or seeks to explain away the overwhelming evidence for design in biology is ideology, not science.

Throughout history the church has defended the truths of faith given by Jesus Christ. But in the modern era, the Catholic Church is in the odd position of standing in firm defense of reason as well. In the 19th century, the First Vatican Council taught a world newly enthralled by the "death of God" that by the use of reason alone mankind could come to know the reality of the Uncaused Cause, the First Mover, the God of the philosophers.

Now at the beginning of the 21st century, faced with scientific claims like neo-Darwinism and the multiverse hypothesis in cosmology invented to avoid the overwhelming evidence for purpose and design found in modern science, the Catholic Church will again defend human reason by proclaiming that the immanent design evident in nature is real. Scientific theories that try to explain away the appearance of design as the result of "chance and necessity" are not scientific at all, but, as John Paul put it, an abdication of human intelligence.

Read it here

London suicide bombers

Well, its official...........

The terrorist attack in London was carried out by four suicide/homocide bombers. Read about it in the Hindustan Times

Here's the really troubling part. This kind of murder and attack on our nations is one that we cannot reasonably expect to be able to defend ourselves against in any comprehensive way.

The only option for people in the Western democracies is to live courageously and watchfully and be ready to die.

Thomas Sowell on the Supreme Court and the Future

Read Thomas Sowell's excellent analysis of the current breaux-ha-ha over the courts.

Here!

Meanwhile, many of the signs of social degeneration can be traced to the courts that are supposed to be upholding law and order but which have too often become places for judges to indulge their egos and impose fashionable theories as the law of the land.

Some judges and Supreme Court justices may flatter themselves that they are helping the poor and the disadvantaged but their arbitrary notions often hurt the less fortunate most of all.

Whose homes are going to be bulldozed to make way for a new shopping mall or hotel complex under the Supreme Court's expanded notion of eminent domain? Mansions in Beverly Hills? Condos on Park Avenue? Or working class homes and apartment buildings?

And here!

Many people are too young to realize that there was never a federal ban against abortions before Roe v. Wade created a "Constitutional right" to abortion out of thin air. Before that, the federal government had nothing to say about the subject and the various states had a variety of laws regulating abortions.

What is even more dangerous than this political fixation on abortion is the underlying notion that judicial nominees are to be confirmed or voted down on the basis of how they might rule on particular policy issues.

The separation of powers means not only that judges should stay out of policy issues that belong to legislative bodies but also that the Senate should respect the judicial branch and not try to predetermine how judges will rule on legal issues.

Then here!

A Justice confirmed to the Supreme Court by a narrow vote in the Senate will have just as much authority as a Justice confirmed unanimously.

Regardless of who is nominated to fill the Supreme Court vacancy created by the retirement of Justice Sandra Day O'Connor or what the outcome of the confirmation vote may be, something urgently needs to be done to stop Senate confirmation hearings from being scenes of public humiliations that can deprive the American people of the services of highly qualified individuals.

We certainly need better quality people than most of those now serving on the Supreme Court. Putting nominees through a cheap hazing circus on TV is not the way to get such people.

A Muddle headed Earth worshipper?

James Wolcott writes here.

I root for hurricanes. When, courtesy of the Weather Channel, I see one forming in the ocean off the coast of Africa, I find myself longing for it to become big and strong--Mother Nature's fist of fury, Gaia's stern rebuke. Considering the havoc mankind has wreaked upon nature with deforesting, stripmining, and the destruction of animal habitat, it only seems fair that nature get some of its own back and teach us that there are forces greater than our own.

It would seem that for some people such as Wolcott the death of humans and the destruction of people's lives is something to revel in. Someday Wolcott will discover that there is indeed a "force greater than our own." To stand before God with a cold-heart toward the suffering of helpless and innocent human beings ............ YIKES! (Remember people can only live in the world they have and the people of Alabama and West Florida did not create the technology that they must use that contributes to global warming or enviornmental toxins.)

I guess Wolcott was estatic when the tsunami his south Asia.

Robert Bork's latest article online --- The Supreme Court

Here he lays out an incredibly incisive analysis of the current state of the Court.

What do the nomination of a replacement for Sandra Day O'Connor, constitutional law, and moral chaos have to do with one another? A good deal more than you may think.

In Federalist No. 2, John Jay wrote of America that "providence has been pleased to give this one connected country to one united people--a people descended from the same ancestors, speaking the same language, professing the same religion, attached to the same principles of government, very similar in their manners and customs." Such a people enjoy the same moral assumptions, the cement that forms a society rather than a cluster of groups. Though Jay's conditions have long been obsolete, until recently Americans did possess a large body of common moral assumptions rooted in our original Anglo-Protestant culture, and expressed in law. Now, however, a variety of disintegrating influences are undermining that unanimity, not least among them is the capture of constitutional law by an extreme liberationist philosophy. America is becoming a cacophony of voices proclaiming different, or no, truths.

Once the justices depart, as most of them have, from the original understanding of the principles of the Constitution, they lack any guidance other than their own attempts at moral philosophy, a task for which they have not even minimal skills. Yet when it rules in the name of the Constitution, whether it rules truly or not, the court is the most powerful branch of government in domestic policy. The combination of absolute power, disdain for the historic Constitution, and philosophical incompetence is lethal.

Consider just a few of the court's accomplishments: The justices have weakened the authority of other institutions, public and private, such as schools, businesses and churches; assisted in sapping the vitality of religion through a transparently false interpretation of the establishment clause; denigrated marriage and family; destroyed taboos about vile language in public; protected as free speech the basest pornography, including computer-simulated child pornography; weakened political parties and permitted prior restraints on political speech, violating the core of the First Amendment's guarantee of freedom of speech; created a right to abortion virtually on demand, invalidating the laws of all 50 states; whittled down capital punishment, on the path, apparently, to abolishing it entirely; mounted a campaign to normalize homosexuality, culminating soon, it seems obvious, in a right to homosexual marriage; permitted discrimination on the basis of race and sex at the expense of white males; and made the criminal justice system needlessly slow and complex, tipping the balance in favor of criminals.

Read the entire thing. He is right to the bone.

Supreme Court and Liberal fear

E. J. Dionne, a not too very original pundit, thinks George Bush should not expect to be able to nominate Supreme Court justices.

Many Republicans are already saying that since Bush won the last election and since Republicans control the Senate, the president's choice should be confirmed with dispatch. But as former judge Robert Bork wrote recently in the Wall Street Journal, the Supreme Court "is the most powerful branch of government in domestic policy." Today's Republican majority, based on Bush's 50.7 percent of the vote in 2004, has no inherent right to exercise near-total control over that "most powerful branch."

What Dionne does not recognize is that the Republicans also increased their hold on the Senate by four seats to 55.

But, more importantly, Dionne does not think that democratic principles and a republican form of government are adequate for governance. Note his fear that the Supreme Court is the "most powerful branch" of government. That tells you how Dionne sees politics. The Court has too much power, because the Legislative Branch is so disfunctional and so unwilling to exercise its constitutional power to limit the jurisdiction of the Court (Article 2).

If I know Robert Bork (who Dionne quotes as an authority -- what an irony), Bork was not suggesting that the Court should be the most powerful. He was simply describing the way our politics have be working for the last 30 years. A self-govening peopl, govern themselves through deliberation by elected officials and reach compromise or, where compromises is not possible, live with the consequences of the process -- AND THEN SEEK REDRESS THROUGH THE DEMOCRATIC PROCESS.

READ DIONNE'S ARTICLE

Journalistic Integrity

On the one hand one might admire Judith Miller's unwillingness to reveal her source and instead go to jail for civil contempt of court. On the other, however, this can do nothing but help her career. Four months in jail will make for a great book and unencumbered research time. No doubt it will be hard for any family she might have, but in the long view of things......... she will benefit.

Read this report about the prison where she is incarcerated. It ain't Alcatraz!

The London Attack and the needs of the poor

The G8 summit was supposed to focus on the needs of Africa and global warming. Thanks to Al queda (if Al Q was the perpetrator) the poorest of the poor in Africa might get short-changed because of the blood-thirsty grandstanding of radical Islam. Now the attention is on terrorism.

The mighty cowards (or pretenders?) speak

This post was on the Al Qayda Fortress Internet site, purportedly by a group calling themselves Secret Organisation Group of Al-Qa'ida of Jihad Organisation in Europe.

"In the name of God, the merciful, the compassionate, may peace be upon the cheerful one and the dauntless fighter, Prophet Muhammad, God's peace be upon him.

"O nation of Islam and nation of Arabism: Rejoice for it is time to take revenge from the British Zionist Crusader Government in retaliation for the massacres Britain is committing in Iraq and Afghanistan."

Here are the comments of London's Mayor, Ken Livingstone. (Hat Tip: The Corner)

"I want to say one thing, specifically to the world today - this was not a terrorist attack against the mighty and the powerful, it was not aimed at presidents or prime ministers, it was aimed at ordinary, working-class Londoners, black and white, Muslim and Christian ... young and old ... that isn't an ideology, it isn't even a perverted fate, it is an indiscriminate attempt at mass murder."

"They seek to divide London, they seek Londoners to turn against each other ... this city of London is the greatest in the world because everybody lives side by side in harmony. Londoners will not be divided by this cowardly attack."

(SPEAKING DIRECTLY TO THE COWARDS OF AL QUEDA)
"I know that you personally do not fear to give your own life in exchange to taking others [that is why you are so dangerous] ... but I know you do fear you may fail in your long-term objective to destroy our free society ... in the days that follow, look at our airports, look at our seaports and look at our railway stations ... you will see that people from the rest of Britain, people from around the world, will arrive in London to become Londoners, to fulfill their dream and achieve their potential ... whatever you do, however many you kill, you will fail."

Bully for Ken and for the English who follow his call.

Terrorism in London

Read these eyewitness reports

The big question is: What will the ultimate reaction of the English people be. One can only hope that it will be the reaction of those stalwart Anglo-Saxon, Gaelic, Scottish, Welsh types that was manifest during the Nazi bombing of London.

Perhaps Tony Blair might become less infatuated with pleasing the European nay-sayers and focused on the dangers inherent in a world where terrorism and terrorists are tolerated and catered to, even passively.