Letter to Cindy Sheehan

I generally love scrappleface for the humor, but this isn't particularly funny. Still a good read, though:

The running story on the news networks should be the valiant efforts of our troops -- the merchants of mercy who export freedom and import honor. They trade their own lives for the sake of others.

As a result, we live in a nation where a woman can camp outside of the president's house and verbally attack the president for weeks on end without fear of prison, torture or death. And the number of nations where such protest is possible has multiplied thanks to the work of our military.

(Via Instapundit)

Opposite of Chivalry

Pastorius sends this via email:

Reports abound that pop super diva Mariah Carey is furious with Eminem for playing intimate phone messages she left him to massive audiences during his Anger Management tour.

Carey left the messages for the rapper during his work on her 2001 album Charmbracelet.

PageSix.com reports the messages featured Carey begging, "I heard you're getting back with your ex-wife. Why don't you see me? You're not calling me."

As the tape plays, Eminem pretends to throw up into a prop toilet on stage, after which he segues into his track "Puke," which features the line, "you make me sick."

One is tempted to be somewhat unsympathetic to anyone who would call Eminem in the first place, but this does strike me as a new low, even for him.

Incidentally, Pastorius has an even more extreme example of the opposite of chivalry here.

Paving Mecca

Kathy Shaidle comments that we may not have to nuke Muslim holy sites after all:

Historic Mecca, the cradle of Islam, is being buried in an unprecedented onslaught by religious zealots.

Almost all of the rich and multi-layered history of the holy city is gone. The Washington-based Gulf Institute estimates that 95 per cent of millennium-old buildings have been demolished in the past two decades.

[...]

The driving force behind the demolition campaign that has transformed these cities is Wahhabism. This, the austere state faith of Saudi Arabia, was imported by the al-Saud tribal chieftains when they conquered the region in the 1920s.

The motive behind the destruction is the Wahhabists' fanatical fear that places of historical and religious interest could give rise to idolatry or polytheism, the worship of multiple and potentially equal gods.

I had actually been wondering recently if these fanatics wouldn't eventually turn on their own holy sites, since they don't seem to have much compunction about blowing up their own people if the latter are judged to be impure. This pretty much answers the question.

Talkin' Trash

Looks like keeping things out of landfills is not as big a crisis as previously predicted:

Workers at a landfill in Orange County, Calif. - as if tamping down the contents of a wastebasket - regularly pile one million cubic yards of dirt atop a football field-size section of the giant dump. Six months later, the workers scrape the dirt aside and the dump's surface has fallen 30 to 40 feet, making space for yet more trash.

[...]

Simply put, operators of garbage dumps are stuffing more waste than anyone expected into the giant plastic-lined holes, keeping disposal prices down and making the construction of new landfills largely unnecessary.

(Via: Instapundit)

Roberts and the Right

I haven't had much to say about the Roberts confirmation process for two reasons: 1) I don't think past performance in lower courts is an accurate predictor of what a justice will do when he/she gets onto the Supreme Court; 2) Even if we manage to get a conservative on the bench, or even a bench-full of conservatives, many of the decisions that we want overturned will not be, precisely because the court is conservative (and therefore will respect precedent and exercise restraint -- see this exellent post by Todd Zywicki for a discussion of this factor). In short, I look at aiming for a conservative SCOTUS as a delaying action at best, counter productive at worst, and in either case a crap-shoot.

But this article in the Washington Times is intriguing:

As special assistant to the attorney general in the Reagan administration, John G. Roberts Jr. urged the Justice Department to keep its distance from an eager and demanding "new right," even characterizing one of the giants of the conservative movement as "no friend of ours."

Judge Roberts, then a special assistant to Attorney General William French Smith, wrote several memos in 1981 and 1982 giving advice to his boss on handling pressure from conservative groups elated by ideological soul mate Ronald Reagan's winning the White House.

If they are not careful, some conservatives may take this as a signal that Roberts is on the other side. But this is not necessarily the case. Note the following comments:

Judge Roberts suggested that the department "keep as low a profile as possible" concerning a book titled "A Blueprint for Judicial Reform" put out by the conservative Free Congress Foundation, an organization founded in 1974 by Paul Weyrich, who remains one of the leading conservative intellectuals.

The liberal-leaning American Bar Association (ABA) had inquired about Mr. Smith's opinions on some of the ideas in Mr. Weyrich's book.

Judge Roberts did not paint a flattering portrait of Mr. Weyrich or his ideas, even misspelling the man's name.

"I suggest we keep as low a profile on this as possible," Judge Roberts wrote. "Weyerich is of course no friend of ours, but it won't help to stir up the influential contributors to his volume, and any comment by the AG will simply highlight the fact that we have yet to take a position" on some hot-button issues.

This sounds to me like typical political bunker-building and is nothing to worry about, execept in the general sense that it is always something to worry about. All politicians are conservative in the sense that their primary aim is to conserve their own hold on power. We shouldn't be surprised that such considerations were present during the administration of Ronald Reagan, whom many see as an idealistic conservative, any more than we would be if they surfaced during the administration of his more realpolitik successor. And it is undoubtedly a consideration in the current administration, as well. People who love freedom (meaning "conservatives" in the more popular sense) ought not to forget this.

That said, I do think Roberts shows a fair amount of adherence to the principle of judicial restraint, which is really the best we can hope for. His final comments in the post linked above are worth noting:

The "new right" was attacking Justice on personnel matters, with Human Events sharply criticizing "Carter holdovers [that] are thwarting implementation of conservative policy by presenting only established liberal legal dogma to their superiors, who are ill-equipped to refute the analyses presented to them," he wrote.

Judge Roberts wrote that some of the attacks were "completely unfounded," and advised Mr. Smith to aggressively rebut the criticism.

"Invariably when the new right disagrees with Department policy, the attack is quickly converted into an ad hominem assault on the ideological credentials of the responsible appointee," Judge Roberts wrote. "Since this is the central critique of the management of the Department, it merits a substantial and considered refutation."

I don't know if his claim that the attacks were completely unfounded is accurate, but I think we are all too familiar with the kind of ad hominem attacks he is talking about. I've said this before, but it bears repeating: we shouldn't need to resort to personal attacks on liberals since their ideas are so easy to refute on the merits. Resorting to such tactics weakens our case, it doesn't help it.

Sexualizing Chivalry

This is the kind of thing that bugs me. CNN Money starts off with a reasonable sounding question: "Does it Pay to Flirt at Work"

Women who cross their legs provocatively, wear short skirts or massage a man's shoulders at work get fewer pay raises and promotions, according to Friday's USA Today.

The newspaper, citing a Tulane University study, said 49 percent of MBA graduates polled admitted that they have tried to advance in their careers by sometimes engaging in certain sexual behaviors, including sending flirty e-mails and wearing revealing clothing.

The respondents who said they never engaged in such activity earned an average of three promotions, versus two for the group that had employed sexuality. Those who said they never used sexuality were, on average, in the $75,000-$100,000 income range; the other group fell, on average, into the next range, $50,000 to $75,000.

Fine. This is a perfectly legitimate concern and even shows signs of validating the conservative position that women don't have to lower their moral standards to succeed in the world of business. But then comes the twist:

Tulane professor Arthur Brief said the study suggests that women should be careful about letting men open doors or lift boxes that aren't particularly heavy, because chivalry is "benevolent sexism."

"We argue that there are negative consequences for women who use sexuality in the workplace," Brief told the newspaper.

This is a complete non-sequitur. Did the study include such behavior as allowing men to open doors? It isn't in the original list. Only someone who starts witht the premise that treating women with respect is necessarily motivated by sexual attraction could jump from flirting to chivalry in this way.

What is worse, such a reductionistic, which can conceive of only base motives, view tends to make women suspicious of the kindness of men. Is it any wonder that the prevalence of such views tends to produce a coarsening of culture?

This kind of tripe was popular in the 70s. Really, I had thought we were getting beyond all of this, but evidently it still pervades academia. You've come a long way, baby.

China Conversion?

According to the Washington Times, millions of Chinese are converting to Christianity:

Chinese are embracing Christianity in a social revolution that is spreading through town and countryside to the point where Christians already may outnumber members of the Communist Party of China.

Visits to villages in backward rural provinces or to urban churches in Beijing, where even on weekdays the young and middle-aged gather to proclaim their faith, confirm the ease with which conversions can be won.

No doubt the Zionists are behind this, too.

The Complexity of the Mauritanian Coup

We were thrilled at the democratic revolutions in Lebanon and the Ukraine. We look upon the civil unrest in Iran with hope for regime change. But what to make of the coup in Mauritania?

Mauritania's armed forces have set up a military council to rule the country and put an end to the "totalitarian regime" of President Maaouya Ould Sid'Ahmed Taya, a statement on the state news agency said on Wednesday.

The statement, signed by a so-called Military Council for Justice and Democracy, said the council would rule the Islamic republic for two years:

"The armed forces and security forces have unanimously decided to put a definitive end to the totalitarian activities of the defunct regime under which our people have suffered so much over recent years," the statement said.

"This council pledges before the Mauritanian people to create favorable conditions for an open and transparent democracy" it said.

On the one hand, Taya's administration was an "ally" of the US in the War on Terror.


More here.

Snuppy Love

Woo Suk Hwang of Seoul National University (SNU) has succeeded in cloning a dog:

In the new study, a team led by Woo Suk Hwang of Seoul National University fused cells from an adult hound's ear to eggs obtained from fertile female dogs. Within hours after a blood test confirmed that ripe eggs had been released from a dog's ovaries, Korean veterinarians anesthetized the dog, surgically exposed her reproductive tract, and flushed the barely visible eggs into laboratory dishes.

Of about 1,400 embryos created by fusing those eggs to skin cells with an electrical shock, 1,095 were deemed healthy enough to be transferred to the reproductive tracts of surrogate mother dogs -- each of which also had to be in heat, to support the growth of those embryos into fetuses. That required more surgeries, with five to 12 embryos transferred to each of 123 surrogates.

Follow-up sonograms indicated that three of the 123 surrogate mothers were pregnant. One miscarried, and the other two gave birth. One newborn died from pneumonia after 22 days. The survivor is Snuppy, for ''Seoul National University puppy."

Tintangel

A great group if you like Celtic music. (Actually, if you don't like Celtic music that's basically your problem; they're still a great group.) Just heard them play at the Diedrich's coffee house in Orange, where they have a gig every 3rd Saturday. This is the third or fourth time we've heard them play there, and we're getting to know the ladies in the band. Really nice people, not to mention beautiful and talented.

Here is their web site, which has sample MP3s from their albums.

(I assume the name Tintangel is from the castle in Cornwall where King Arthur was born, although I have usually seen it spelled Tintagel.)

No Torture at Gitmo

See my first post over at Love America First. And thanks to Rosemary for graciously inviting me to join the team.

"God Curse the Mujahedeen"

From the Washington Times (registration required):

BAGHDAD -- Tiny plastic sandals, some tattered and stained with blood, lay in a pile near a child's crushed bicycle. Mothers wailed and beat themselves after a suicide bomber killed 18 children and teenagers getting candy and toys from American soldiers.

One of the soldiers was among the up to 27 people killed in the blast yesterday in an impoverished Shi'ite Muslim neighborhood. At least 70 persons, including a newborn and three U.S. soldiers, were wounded.

[...]

Twelve of the dead were 13 or younger, and six were 14 to 17, said police Lt. Mohammed Jassim Jabr. Among the wounded was 4-day-old Miriam Jabber, cut slightly by flying glass and debris.

"There were some American troops blocking the highway when a U.S. Humvee came near a gathering of children," said Karim Shukir, 42. The troops began handing out candy and smiley-face key chains.

"Suddenly, a speeding car bomb ... struck both the Humvee and the children," Mr. Shukir said.

[...]

At Kindi hospital, where many victims were taken, a distraught mother swathed in black sat cross-legged outside the operating room. "May God curse the mujahedeen and their leader," she cried, referring to the insurgents as she pounded her head with her fists in grief.

"The car bomber made a deliberate decision to attack one of our vehicles as the soldiers were engaged in a peaceful operation with Iraqi citizens," said Maj. Russ Goemaere, a spokesman for Task Force Baghdad.

"The terrorist undoubtedly saw the children," Maj. Goemaere said, calling the attack "absolutely abhorrent."

Brutality beyond description. I can understand how people could justify an "insurgency" in the abstract, but how do they reconcile such tactics with whatever vestiges of conscience they may have left?

The Volokh Conspiracy has been debating recently the propriety of using the phrase "homicide bomber" as opposed to the clearer and more descriptive "suicide bomber". I prefer the latter construction, but for those who want something a little more visceral, may I suggest "merciless bastard"? Or perhaps, "cursed by Allah". What would that be in Arabic...?

Promoting Botswana

I have long been an admirer of the nation of Botswana. Almost alone among African countries it stands as an example of liberty, prosperity and stability. I thought I had said something about this several months ago on this blog, but I could not find it in the archives. It had also occured to mention Botswana in connection with the hoopla over the Live-8 concert, but I didn't get around to it. Fortunately, Will Franklin has picked up the slack in his entry for the Carnival of the Revolutions:

Botswana is the model for reforming Africa. It has a generally free and open market economy; it is freer, politically (.pdf -- Freedom House), than Brazil, India, and even Jamaica.

Corruption is low, the free enterprise system is allowed to work, and, what do you know, the country is one of the more successful countries in Africa. Botswana's per capita GDP ($9,200) is above that of China, Ukraine, Bulgaria, Turkey, Brazil, and Thailand; Botswana's per capita GDP even bests the world average.

Contrast Botswana with Zambia (or any number of sub-Saharan nations), and you can really see how much institutions matter.

In short, Africa could learn a lot, from one of its own.

One thing Will does not point out is that Botswana is largely a Christian nation. According to the CIA World Factbook, 71.6% of Batswana are Christians. (I have seen other estimates that place the number closer to 50%, but these numbers are only good for comaparison anyway.) Additionally about 80% of the country is literate, which is low by Western standards but remarkably high for African nations. Curiously, the female literacy rate is higher at 82.4% than the male rate at 76.9%. I would suggest that the prosperity Will cites is largely due to these two facts, both of which can be traced to the legacy of the British Empire.

Annoy a Dictator

An undisclosed source alerts me, via email, to the fact that the Yemeni government is continuing to silence oposition newspapers. Specifically, al-Shura, the newspaper of the Popular Forces Unionist Party (PFUP), has been taken over by a group of gunmen (led evidently by a former security guard of PFUP who was not a member of the party) and are publishing bogus editions of the paper. The editor, Abdulkarim al-Khaiwanii, had been imprisoned from September to March and is now under threat of death.

In order to lend support to a free press in Yemen, and possibly to save the life of one of its courageous advocates click here to send an email. Write "In Support of al-Khaiwanii and al-Shoura" or "In Support of a Free Press in Yemen" in the subject line. The details of the current crisis are not available on line but here is some background:
Yemeni Election Fraud (07/2005)
PFU Party Headquarters Stormed (05/2005)
PFUP Members Kidnapped (05/2005)

Zionists Converting Muslims to ... Christianity!

The JPost has all the lurid details of this heinous conspiracy:

THE RECENT visit of the American televangelist Josh McDowell, invited by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and received by King Mohammed VI, has sparked lots of conspiracy theories. In fact, Le Journal Hebdomadaire reported on January 8 that this evangelization campaign was part of US President George W. Bush's campaign in the current war. Unsurprisingly, the article pointed out that this was also the goal of the neocons and the Zionists.

OK, that was a lame attempt at humor taking my cue from the irony already noted by CUANAS and Dhimmi Watch. But the article actually highlights some good news:

In the past few years, increasing numbers of Westerners have been converting to Islam. Agence France Presse recently reported annual figures in France alone of 30,000 to 50,000. But a new phenomenon – largely unreported in the Western media – is occurring: Muslims, especially in the Maghreb (north-west Africa) are becoming Christians.

[...]

According to most reports, the culprits are American evangelical missionaries operating in major cities such as Casablanca, Rabat, Marrakech and Fez to remote areas in the mountains or the countryside.

The statistics differ wildly: Missionaries are reported to number anywhere from 150, according to French weekly newsmagazine Le Nouvel Observateur, to the 800-plus figure most often used. Converts are said to number anywhere from 7,000 to 58,000. These discrepancies are easily explained by the fact that both missionaries and converts have to stay constantly below the radar.

[...]

CLEARLY, THE evangelists are focusing their energies on the young and the poor, but that's not the whole picture. Another target, according to Pastor Jean-Luc Blanc are the intellectuals and the privileged. However, there is no typical profile of a convert. On March 5, the French daily Le Monde published numerous interviews with converts in Morocco and Algeria.

A large part of the good news here is that this is actually being reported. (And in Le Monde of all places!) But the high point of the article for me is the concluding paragraphs:

Another convert in his 30s, Abu Ghali, pointed out that most conversions are initiated by Moroccans themselves and added: "If Moroccans are given the opportunity to compare and choose, then you'll see lots of them going towards Christianity."

[...]

The Arab press has been quick to accuse the US evangelists for the massive conversion numbers, therefore playing into the hands of the Islamists who advocate an end to the semi-freedom of religion in Morocco. But this assumption is wrong because as many observers emphasized, some Muslims are disillusioned by the crimes committed in the name of Islam, especially in Algeria by the Islamists and al-Qaida's terrorist acts and are looking for something else.

This is the sort of angle we should be going for: the superiority of Christian truth over false religions. Compared side to side Christianity cannot help but beat out the competition (and this is true even in countries where martyrdom is the likely result of conversion). This style of thinking is in line with Augustine's approach in The City of God (especially books 6-10) where he exposes the shamefulness of most pagan religions and their inability to offer hope even at their best (i.e. Pythagoras and Plato). We would do well to emphasize the distinction between Christianity and the world in our own churches rather than accomodating to the existing culture through "seeker sensitive" programs.

Blaming Heterosexuals

Russell Moore of Touchstone's Mere Comments blog links to an op-ed by Stephanie Coontz who points out that at least part of the blame for the current movement to redefine marriage to include gays belongs to ... religious conservatives:

Coontz, director of public education for the Council on Contemporary Families, argues that homosexuals didn't start the revolution. Heterosexuals did, a long time ago. Writes Coontz:

Heterosexuals were the upstarts who turned marriage into a voluntary love relationship rather than a mandatory economic and political institution. Heterosexuals were the ones who made procreation voluntary, so that some couples could choose childlessness, and who adopted assisted reproduction so that even couples who could not conceive could become parents. And heterosexuals subverted the long-standing rule that every marriage had to have a husband who played one role in the family and a wife who played a completely different one. Gays and lesbians simply looked and the revolution heterosexuals had wrought and noticed that with its new norms, marriage could work for them, too.

[...] Coontz is precisely right that the redefinition of marriage didn't begin with social revolutionaries in Massachusetts and San Francisco. This is why it will never work for Christian churches to stand against same-sex "marriage," while remaining silent about working mothers, daycare, the contraceptive culture, and egalitarian marriage roles.

[...]

Coontz diagnosis is on target, while her antidote, surrender to a malleable definition of marriage, is deadly. The answer is for counter-cultural churches and families to model something alien to both Ozzie and Harriet and Will and Grace: marriage that points to the mystery of Christ and his church.

Forgive me for feeling somewhat vindicated by this acknowledgement of a point I have made previously (see here and here) from such a bastion of orthodoxy and conservatism as Touchstone. It has been rather lonely trying to point out that the "defense of marriage" theme is a two-edged sword that really points out the shame of our own sorry performance. In fact, in one off-line debate I remember an oponent specifically citing Touchstone as an authority that I ought to respect in considering a change in my position. I am glad to see Touchstone and I are now making the same point.

In the interest of full-disclosure, I must admit that the debate was about the Federal Marriage Ammendment and as far as I know Touchstone has not rescinded its support of that proposal (moribund though it may be). Also, I would not like to be understood as supporting either gay marriage or civil unions. But if we are to defeat either of those ideas, we must have a more robust rallying cry than "defending traditional marriage" when we really have no intention of doing anything of the sort.

Blogiversary Alert

Rosemary at My Newz 'n Ideas has been in operation for a year as of today. She also contributes to three other blogs, among which is the new Love America First, which I have just added to the blogroll.

Telltale Signs

Found this in a Fark photoshop thread.

TRUE! nervous, very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why WILL you say that I am mad?

With apologies to Edgar Alan Poe.

OK, What The Hell Is Up With Blogger?

The posts are appearing down at the bottom of the blogroll. I can't see anything wrong with the HTML.

UPDATE: OK, I have even tried changing the template and the problem persists. Evidently this is not something I did. Grr.

Undemagoguing Guantanamo

According to the Washington Times (Registration Required):

Two Democratic senators just back from reviewing U.S. detention facilities and interrogations at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, said they saw no signs of abuse and said it would actually be worse to close the facility and transfer the detainees elsewhere.

"I strongly prefer the improved practices and conditions at Camp Delta to the outsourcing of interrogation to countries with a far less significant commitment to human rights," said Sen. Ron Wyden, Oregon Democrat, who toured the U.S. facility along with Sen. Ben Nelson, Nebraska Democrat.

The two Democrats were joined on the trip by two Republicans, Sen. Jim Bunning of Kentucky and Sen. Michael D. Crapo of Idaho.

This is good news on a number of levels. First, I am glad to see that there are members of the Democratic party that are willing to go against party talking points to get at the truth. I am especially impressed with the senator from Oregon, who must be under a considerable amount of pressure to toe the liberal line.

More important, though, is the assertion that there is no evidence of abuse. I have effectively stopped reading Andrew Sullivan because of his increasing hostility to the Religious Right, but I consider his warnings against failing to address the allegations of widespread abuse to be absolutely correct and to date largely unanswered. (Greg Djerejian of Belgravia Dispatch has similar criticisms but without the hostility.) This bipartisan report goes a long way toward reassuring me of the generally moral character of US conduct.

But what of the supposedly credible evidence that such abuse did occur? Well, I have been unsuccessful in finding primary sources on the subject, and the reportage seems to be somewhat contradictory when it isn't based on hearsay. But, supposing for the sake of argument that the reports are valid and the abuse did actually occur. Is it possible that the public pressure and investigation has caused those responsible to clean up their act? If so, I suggest that this is the best result we can reasonably hope for. A democratic and open society does not produce perfect men, but it does restrain their ability to do wrong.

Still, none of this should detract from the necessity to fully investigate such charges. We can't become complacent when dealing with charges of such gravity. But I fully recognize the difficulty of getting the facts straight when dealing with a hostile group that is religiously committed to the idea that infidels are not owed the truth.

Update: In looking over Sullivan's and Djerejian's blogs to see if they had reacted to this news, I noticed that they are both discussing something called a Conscience Caucus:

Greg's sin is to be pro-war and anti-torture, making him a member of the fledgling "conscience caucus" of pro-war, right-of-center writers who oppose the Bush administration policy of allowing abuse of prisoners if "military necessity" demands it.

I guess you can count me in that group, although I am not clear that this abuse is an actual policy. But I am certainly uncomfortable with some of the rhetoric that conservatives have been using to justify these practices. Greg posts that he will be giving more details on the subject when he gets back from vacation. I will be very interested in what he has to say.