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.

Interesting insights

University of Chicago economist Steven D. Levitt notes in his bestseller Freakonomics, after the Roe v Wade decision in 1973,

“Conceptions rose by nearly 30 percent, but births actually fell by 6 percent …”

It would seem that the most significant impact that Roe v Wade had on the American populace is that unrestricted abortion encouraged sexual promiscuity -- and unprotected sexual promiscuity at that. Of course, the real winners in Roe v Wade were the kind men of who wanted permission to view women as sexual objects to whom men have no responsibility.

Charles Schummer cell phone warrior

The Senator from New York, the one who is not "married" to Bill Clinton, was reported to be plotting for "war" against President Bush's Supreme Court nominees. Now his plot is a general one. He just wants to make sure the President cannot shape the make-up of the Supreme Court. In other words, he does not want the PResident to do what the Constitution empowers him to do. For Charles Schummer, "advice and consent of the Senate" means gamemanship and obstruction by minority Senators.

Read the Drudge Report here.

Protesters at the G8 Summit in Scotland reveal their violent ways

So, the protesters at the G8 summit are in favor of ...................What exactly? They want things to be different inthe world...................but how? They want ...........what .............peace?, justice?, equality?

No, these protesters want to complain like children who don't have any solutions, just tantrums.

Read here about their attacks on the police who last time I checked, were not members of the G8 cabal of leaders. From the protesters point of view, they should be considered victims of the G8 powers as much as anyone. But these protesters are not really protesters, they are anarchists who despise everything except themselves.

Food for thought about the origins of the universe and the human race

Read this article by Paul Johnson. It is quite good and thought provoking.

Barbara Boxer reveals the "litmus test" for the Supreme Court

And surprise -- its abortion

Demands to close Gitmo detention center

HERE is the report of protesters calling for the detention centers for terrorists to be closed.

NEW YORK - Feminist author Gloria Steinem on Monday joined about 200 protesters to demand the closure of the U.S. detention camp at Guantanamo Bay, saying holding prisoners indefinitely without charging them violates the values upon which the United States was founded.

Now, a couple of questions. What are we to do with these persons? Do we put them into the general population of our current prisons, further taxing the resources there?

Do the protesters really understand that these persons are not criminals, but deadly enemies of our culture? Since prisoners at Gitmo have been released in the past, perhaps there is a different kind of due process that is at work.

Those who call for due process for terrorists are guilty of confusing the nature of the terror network. Terror is not a criminal act, simply. It is, instead, a political act of war declared by those who have no legal standing in the world.

Without being combatants of a legal country and without status as citizens or resident aliens, a terrorist has placed himself or herself into a murky category. They have human rights, but their legal status is quite suspect, because of the status they have placed themselves in.

A better approach is to keep insisting that the military continue to be accountable to the public for the treatment of the terrorists. But that does not mean recognizing them as having the same kind of legal status that we afford criminals.

New Report suggests "bi-sexuality" is not a real "orientation"

The New York Times reports that recent studies are raising doubts about the claims of many to be bixexual.

People who claim bisexuality, according to these critics, are usually homosexual, but are ambivalent about their homosexuality or simply closeted. "You're either gay, straight or lying," as some gay men have put it.

In the new study, a team of psychologists directly measured genital arousal patterns in response to images of men and women. The psychologists found that men who identified themselves as bisexual were in fact exclusively aroused by either one sex or the other, usually by other men.

The study is the largest of several small reports suggesting that the estimated 1.7 percent of men who identify themselves as bisexual show physical attraction patterns that differ substantially from their professed desires.

"Research on sexual orientation has been based almost entirely on self-reports, and this is one of the few good studies using physiological measures," said Dr. Lisa Diamond, an associate professor of psychology and gender identity at the University of Utah, who was not involved in the study.

The discrepancy between what is happening in people's minds and what is going on in their bodies, she said, presents a puzzle "that the field now has to crack, and it raises this question about what we mean when we talk about desire."

"We have assumed that everyone means the same thing," she added, "but here we have evidence that that is not the case."

Bisexual desires are sometimes transient and they are still poorly understood. Men and women also appear to differ in the frequency of bisexual attractions. "The last thing you want," said Dr. Randall Sell, an assistant professor of clinical socio-medical sciences at Columbia University, "is for some therapists to see this study and start telling bisexual people that they're wrong, that they're really on their way to homosexuality."

He added, "We don't know nearly enough about sexual orientation and identity" to jump to these conclusions.

In the experiment, psychologists at Northwestern University and the Center for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto used advertisements in gay and alternative newspapers to recruit 101 young adult men. Thirty-three of the men identified themselves as bisexual, 30 as straight and 38 as homosexual.

The researchers asked the men about their sexual desires and rated them on a scale from 0 to 6 on sexual orientation, with 0 to 1 indicating heterosexuality, and 5 to 6 indicating homosexuality. Bisexuality was measured by scores in the middle range.

Seated alone in a laboratory room, the men then watched a series of erotic movies, some involving only women, others involving only men.

Using a sensor to monitor sexual arousal, the researchers found what they expected: gay men showed arousal to images of men and little arousal to images of women, and heterosexual men showed arousal to women but not to men.

But the men in the study who described themselves as bisexual did not have patterns of arousal that were consistent with their stated attraction to men and to women. Instead, about three-quarters of the group had arousal patterns identical to those of gay men; the rest were indistinguishable from heterosexuals.

"Regardless of whether the men were gay, straight or bisexual, they showed about four times more arousal" to one sex or the other, said Gerulf Rieger, a graduate psychology student at Northwestern and the study's lead author.

Although about a third of the men in each group showed no significant arousal watching the movies, their lack of response did not change the overall findings

The thing about the study that one must be careful about is the attitude expressed in the statement above:

The discrepancy between what is happening in people's minds and what is going on in their bodies, she said, presents a puzzle "that the field now has to crack, and it raises this question about what we mean when we talk about desire."

"We have assumed that everyone means the same thing," she added, "but here we have evidence that that is not the case."

Desire is not simply a biological reaction nor a mental phenomenon. Rather, sexuality is a profoundly difficult thing to understand, because human beings are difficult to understand. So, the questions about sexuality are not merely scientific, but moral and spiritual, as well. But, maybe this study can clear the air a bit and we can return to a better dialogue about the nature of sexual affection and activity. The whole "bi-sexuality" thing is simply a way of saying -- WHAT I WANT IS WHAT I WANT, SO SHUT-UP AND DON'T BOTHER ME WITH QUESTIONS ABOUT WHAT IS RIGHT OR APPROPRIATE OR NATURAL. When people take that attitude about sexuality, they have already adopted a moral position on the question. IT's the position that dismisses all other considerations.

The plan might be working.....?

We hear so much about how their is NO PLAN win the Iraq conflict. GWB keeps insisting that the plan is to establish democratic institutions, engender pluralism, and train an Iraqi security force. THIS REPORT suggest that even the last of those aims might be beginning to take shape.

It tells us how the Iraqi forces have captured a top Zarqawi aid. Some people will no doubt be nay-sayers and suggest that this is no progress at all. Yet, even if Zarqawi was himself captured the nay-sayers would be nay-sayers, because any good news is bad news for those who are opposed to the war on principle.


UPDATE: More good news.

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) -- Security forces killed Al Qaeda's leader in Saudi Arabia, who topped the nation's list of most-wanted militants, during a fierce gunbattle Sunday, an Interior Ministry official said.

Younis Mohammed Ibrahim al-Hayari, a Moroccan, was killed during a dawn raid by security forces on an area in the capital where suspected militants were hiding, the official was quoted by the official Saudi Press Agency as saying.

Three other unidentified suspects were arrested, and weapons, ammunition, computers and documents were seized, he said.

The clashes took place in the Rawdah district, an upscale neighborhood in eastern Riyadh, Interior Ministry spokesman Lt. Gen. Mansour al-Turki said.

The unidentified official quoted by SPA said al-Hayari headed Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda network in the kingdom, which has been ravaged by terrorist attacks during more than two years of violence.

Live 8 --- RAising consciousness or moral preening?

I am very glad, personally, for the efforts by many of the Rock and Roll bands that performed in the Live 8 concerts. Anytime celebrities use their fame for a noble cause we ought to be glad. However, such "reviews" as these reveal that the end result may be less about the poor and more focus on the celebrites themselves.

Release the hounds.............. Let the games begin

Sandra O'Conner has announced her retirement.

Well, we shall see what PResident Bush is made of. Get ready for the blood to flow.