Here are Iraqi freedom fighters hard at work fighting against American oppression and occupation, fighting for Iraqi freedom in that bold and noble vision which Michael Moore articulated not long ago...  the Minute Men of Iraq... 

yep, sure makes me think of Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, bold men with great vision and high standards, imagining and then crafting the future for generations to come... 

But seriously.  Try to imagine Washington, Jefferson and Franklin grabbing a redcoat, holding him by the arms and legs and cutting off his head with a big knife, all the while shouting that God approves of what they are doing.

OH, and if this story isn't enough to make you retch and remind you just how evil the evil we fight actually IS...? 

Then this story oughtta do it.  Follow all the links you can, even though some are mostly Arabic-writing sites.  Learn all you can, and read the blog comments of young Egyptians, men and women, about what happened here and why.  Because when mobs of thousands of young men can swarm about a major city and grope and violently undress and gangrape every woman they can catch, and the local police look on and do nothing, then you are actually learning about what Islamic society and culture is coming to.  And when the world's western media (including ours) know about it and say nothing, you learn what the media is coming to. 

Some think this sort of riot happens because of Mubarak's secularization of Egypt, because religion has been reduced to ritual and no longer has meaning to Muslims.  Some, on the other hand, see it as a genuinely Islamic problem, a warped view of women, sex and relationships, and note that it doesn't happen in other cultures.

Regardless of why it happens, it's happening, not just in Egypt but in other middle eastern areas as well.  Women are not safe.  Period.  They are, in the words of a famous Australian imam, "meat".

This is not your grandmother's Islam.  But it's the one we have to deal with.

HT LGF.

UPDATE below, within text, to clarify--
 
Bill Bennett, on his national radio show, said this morning that this will cost Kerry what's left of his political career. 

Kerry said in a speech at a university last night that if you work hard, get a good education and try to be smart, you'll do alright, and if you don't, you'll get stuck in Iraq.

Listen for yourself.  The audience response was gasps, a bit of laughter, and a bit of applause.  Not the roof-raiser Kerry figured it would be, speaking to college students.  Thank God it's not 1972 anymore.

Jean-Francois has not only put his foot in his mouth, he's swallowed it up to buttock level.  There is no talking your way out of what he means to say; anybody who joins the military and goes to Iraq is dumb.  Fighting for America is a waste of your time and energy and a foolish risk.  Anyone who believes they're being patriotic by defending their country is a brain-dead redneck.

******************************************

UPDATE-- I've left out an aspect of Kerry's assertion that was probably the greater part of what he meant to say in this speech, and I'll paraphrase it here--

'if your kid fails to get sufficient education to make his way in the world, and his only choice for making a living is joining the Army, then the evil Bush administration will send him to die in Iraq.  So get an education and stay away from the Army.'

Kerry clearly believes, and thinks his audiences believe, that the all-volunteer U.S. Army contains mostly people who have no other way to make a living, disadvantaged people, poor people.  But a Michelle Malkin reader sent in the following to her--

--" 49.2 percent of officers have advanced or professional degrees; 39.4 percent have master's degrees, 8.5 percent have professional degrees and 1.3 percent have doctorate degrees.

-- 22.8 percent of company grade officers have advanced degrees; 16.5 percent have master's degrees, 5.9 percent have professional degrees and 0.3 percent have doctorate degrees.

-- 85.4 percent of field grade officers have advanced degrees; 70.7 percent have master's degrees, 12.1 percent have professional degrees and 2.5 percent have doctorate degrees.

-- 99.9 percent of the enlisted force have at least a high school education; 73.3 percent have some semester hours toward a college degree; 16.2 percent have an associate's degree or equivalent semester hours; 4.7 percent have a bachelor's degree; 0.7 percent have a master's degree and .01 percent have a professional or doctorate degree."

Looks to me like the U. S. Military, through its ranks in comparable terms, has at least as high a level of education as a typical American small business, and almost as high as a major corporation. 

/end update
************************************************


Later on the same Bennett show, after numerous calls about brilliant soldiers and officers with Ivy League educations and Doctorates, a woman called to describe her high-schooler son--  works hard, studies hard, prepares himself physically and mentally, all to try to make it into West Point or Annapolis, where standards are very high and few can manage admission.  And when she pressed the boy on whether he truly wanted a military career in this age of what seems like growing liberal anti-militarism, his response floored her and silenced the entire morning show team--  "Mom, they're Americans too."

If one could hear tears being squeezed out of eyeballs, one would have heard a lot of it in those moments.  the counterpoint to Kerry was complete.  The teenage boy was more of a man than Jean-Francois Kerry will ever be, and more of an American.

Et, pour enregistrement, monsieur Kerry, je suis un francophone aussi, et avec l'accent Francais mieux que vous.

(And for the record, Mr. Kerry, I am also a French speaker, and with a better French accent than you.)

And in one swell foop, Kerry casually discarded what little chance he had left of winning his party's nomination.  And maybe his Senate career has ended as well.  With over 100,000 soldiers in the theatre, and more on the way perhaps, he has told over 200,000 parents that their children are stupid.  Not to mention brothers, sisters, cousins and uncles and aunts and friends. 

Folks, that boy is just dumb, else he would not have gotten "stuck in Iraq".

Yeah, good luck with that, Senator.

For an ideology which constantly condemns bombing, leftists are sure dropping their fair share.

Gore's meteorological epic was a dud, and now the new movie "Death of a President" is officially a bomb.  143 theatres in the US and Canada combined to pull in $282,000 on its opening weekend.  That's an average of less than $2,000 per screen.

Compare this with just about any blockbuster, films that do that much business in almost any one single theatre on an opening weekend, and it's clear that the vast majority of Americans are disinterested in if not repulsed by the idea of President Bush being assassinated.  Angry lefties are definitely a small minority, albeit with a loud and annoying voice.  

And Newmarket Films paid a cool million for distribution rights.  Gonna be awhile before they get that back, if they ever do.

The far left is given repeated opportunities to learn that their vile and contemptible anti-Bush noise is thoroughly unpopular, but they don't seem able to take it all in.  I say let them continue to invest in, and lose money on, high-profile stuff like this, so that we regular folks will not forget who they are and what they believe.  

Because we know already that when they really want to win, they pretend to be other than what they are.   (As Jerry Reed sang so well, "Lord, Mr. Ford, what have you done?")

:-)

Democrats are definitely spiking the ball on the 10 yard line, celebrating a big score that hasn't quite happened just yet.

And Jean-Francois Kerry has revealed his arrogance and superior attitude once more, this time at the expense of a popular music and movie star.  In a campaign appearance with, and on behalf of, Pennsylvania congressional candidate Patrick Murphy, The article in the Boston Globe quotes Kerry thusly--

"Attacking Patrick Murphy for his service is a little bit like Jessica Simpson attacking Albert Einstein's IQ," the Massachusetts Democrat proclaimed Thursday at a chilly outdoor rally at Bucks County Community College.

A witless joke, heavily delivered, to little or no laughter.  He might as well have just said "that Jessica Simpson is really stupid, isn't she?  heh heh.. "

It wasn't too long ago that Jessica Simpson said "no" to a request by the White House that she meet the president.  She established her creds as a Hollywood liberal that day, to no one's surprise.  So why would Kerry trash her like this and risk some level of backlash among the 20-something left coast lefties?

He's a big clod, that's why.  A dull, humorless, clunky aristocrat, still baffled that America doesn't love him.  Still sure that they should.  And still campaigning for president.

As the Globe says, '... with Kerry poised to make a decision on seeking the presidency in the weeks after the Nov. 7 congressional elections, the 2008 overtones of his efforts are unmistakable.'

 

... then somebody needs to be charged with treason.

Regarding a post below, about CNN's Wolf Blitzer getting his butt kicked by Mrs. Cheney--

According to Rush Limbaugh (who, in spite of media claims to the contrary, is not likely to launch on a bit without the facts having been thoroughly researched) today, CNN didn't just say yes and accept that terrorist sniper video with handshakes and smiles all around..   in fact CNN sent emails to terrorist contacts in Iraq, ASKING FOR SUCH VIDEOS and PROMISING TO GIVE THE TERRORISTS A "FAIR SHAKE" ON THE AIR IN RETURN.

Yes, CNN is now actively soliciting terrorist propaganda videos, FROM TERRORISTS, in return for "fair" treatment of their side on the air. 

As Rush says, there is no journalism here.  Nobody went out and shot this video, nobody risked their lives on the battlefield to get it, nobody even took a chance by going to interview some al Qaeda bigwig in some cave...  they just asked our enemies for a propaganda video and our enemies gave it to them and switched on CNN to see it on TV.  This isn't "broadcasting the news", as Wolf tried to tell Lynne Cheney.  This isn't "thinking deeply and carefully" about whether they should air it.  This is something that was decided from the beginning.

And while it's not quite the same as Americans taking to the battlefield to shoot American soldiers, it's philosophically inseparable; CNN made a firm choice to find, receive and broadcast propaganda material which was conceived and produced by terrorists to sap the will of America to continue in this war.  They are actively aiding our enemies.

And remember, Californian Adam Gadahn (al Qaeda's "Assam the American", host of many terrorist propaganda videos) is now to be tried for treason, the first such trial in decades.  We have no evidence that Gadahn has actually fired at Americans on a battlefield; we DO have evidence that he is actively participating in enemy propaganda.

What's the difference between Wolf Blitzer and Adam Gadahn?  Blitzer is marginally better dressed. 

But for grooming, it's a dead heat.

When a Dutch gay humanist makes this admission, the debate is over.

From the Brussels Journal blogsite, in a post titled "The Rape of Europe":

In a recent op-ed piece in the Brussels newspaper De Standaard (23 October) the Dutch (gay and self-declared “humanist”) author Oscar Van den Boogaard refers to Broder’s interview (in which the German Henryk Broder suggested that Europeans who love freedom had best emigrate to another part of the world).  Van den Boogaard says that to him coping with the islamization of Europe is like “a process of mourning.” He is overwhelmed by a “feeling of sadness.” “I am not a warrior,” he says, “but who is? I have never learned to fight for my freedom. I was only good at enjoying it.”

In another post on that same blog, the author notes that Brussels is building slowly up to the same kind of violence that Paris now suffers.  For the first time, a fire was set in a Brussels neighbourhood (one I never visited while I was there, for these same reasons) for the purpose of ambushing the firemen when they responded. 

Nobody has been killed.  Yet.  But Brussels can smell the smoke.

The security at NATO is pretty good.  I drove past the gates regularly while I lived there and I definitely noticed an increase in security measures post-9/11.  But I wonder if they're ready for a mob of thousands of "youths".

I was a pseudo-European for no more than three and a half years, speaking stilted French and searching restlessly for a shop or restaurant that would put ice in my Diet Coke (Coke Light, over there), and yet even I have a heavy heart over this. 

You see, I was wide-eyed and thrilled at temporarily escaping the American envelope and being a part of a culture that added so much to the history of humanity.  I made a point of visiting all the relics and castles and cathedrals I could, of riding fast trains to other countries as often as possible....  I climbed the Eiffel Tower and the Leaning Tower of Pisa and the 376 stairsteps of the bell tower in the 700 year old "New" Church in Delft, Holland-- home of that fine Dutch ceramic.  I saw Roman and Greek temples, the ceiling of the Cistine Chapel, the enigmatic Stonehenge monument.  I walked the Auld Course at St. Andrews, saw the summer-home bedroom of Mary Queen of Scots, and smiled back at the Mona Lisa.  I had lunch in Oxford, in the room where C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien read their latest works to each other before publishing them-- Lord of the Rings and The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.  I even toured the Kremlin and the colorful cathedral on Red Square in Moscow, built on order of Ivan the Terrible.

I wanted to experience Europe, and I did.

And now I fear I am never going to do it again.  I walked the streets and rode the trains and buses and subways of Brussels like a native, but even then I was aware of the places I should not go.  It is much worse now, only two years after I came home to Texas. 

Van den Boogaard's lament is all the more sad in that so many Europeans have yet to understand what he finally does; it is nearly too late, the people are not prepared to fight for their culture, and political correctness (white guilt) has all but done them in.

And I pray to Almighty God that we do not let this happen here.

This is destined for "Great Moments in Media" archives...  if such a thing exists.

CNN's Wolf Blitzer invited Second Lady Lynn Cheney on the air to talk about her new children's book, and (unsurprisingly) ambushed her with questions and accusations.

For example--

When Virginia democrat Senate candidate Jim Webb was asked recently about his novels, in which (I'm told) graphic sex scenes are written, Webb defended his writing by claiming that Lynn Cheney had written lesbian love scenes in a novel in 1981.  Blitzer ran with this and surprised her with it, never acknowledging the careful dropping of the idea of graphic or explicit scenes when the subject shifted from Webb's books to hers.  Cheney, of course, pointed out the difference between a description of a love affair and a graphic sex scene.  Webb's were explicit; Cheney's were not.  The point is a big one, and Blitzer pretended not to notice it. 

Cheney's book had a paragraph in which an observer sees two women embracing, from a distance, and has thoughts about their love and intimacy.  There is nothing at all sexual apart from the note that it is two women and the contextual point that they are lesbians.  Many bloggers have posted this paragraph, and it takes a couple of minutes to find it on the web.

If, of course, the Wolfman had bothered to READ her book or Webb's before trying to ambush her on-air, he would have known that his ambush assertion was inaccurate.  This is called "research" in the journalism biz, and it's something they no longer do.  Nowadays they're too concerned with representing things as they believe they are or wish they were, and aren't even TRYING to just tell us how things really are. 

But the greatest moment, the dead giveaway moment, was when Cheney was asked if her husband (in recent speeches) had as much as endorsed waterboarding.  After hearing the clip Blitzer was talking about, Cheney said he was building a mighty big mountain on that little molehill, but she expected this sort of thing from a network that would run terrorist propaganda videos on the air.

Wolf-- "with all due respect, this (terrorist sniper shoots American soldier on video) is not terrorist propaganda".

Wolf, moments later-- "we said it was propaganda.  We didn't distort where we got it." 

But when Cheney asked him point blank where they got the film, Blitzer said "we got the film-- (double clutch hesitation) look, this is an issue that's been widely discussed blah blah blah"... 

Blitzer visibly came right to the brink of admitting the truth-- a terrorist handed them the video and said "would you mind terribly much playing this propaganda video on the air for us?  We'd really like to sap the will of your people." 

But at the brink, he hesitated and changed tracks.  It couldn't have been more awkward and revealing.  Or disgusting, when you get right down to it.  He simply couldn't be caught telling the clear truth about that video, because it would make the network look like Al Jazeera West in the eyes of Americans.  But the truth was obvious, and his ducking twisting dodge of it was equally obvious.

Somebody tell CNN that we're not impressed with how "long and carefully" they think these things out, only with what the end decision is.  If I thought long and carefully about helping a little old lady across the street, then decided not to do it, I'd be as blameworthy as the other guy who didn't even consider it.  The idea that they considered this carefully doesn't improve but rather harms their reputation.

The New York Times thought long and carefully about revealing secret anti-terrorist bank-scanning programs too...  but they've now admitted they got that one wrong.  And I'll guarantee you it's dropping circulation and dropping revenue and dropping share prices that are to blame for the new admission of guilt.

I can only hope the MSM causes their own demise before they get around to causing it for the rest of us.

Hat Tips to Hugh Hewitt and Instapundit, who can be found by clicking on the two links in this post.

Predictably, the MSM is hyping a CBS interview with Michael J. Fox as "Fox is up for the fight" and "Fox has harsh words for Rush Limbaugh"...
 
But nowhere in this Yahoo News article does a reader see any actual rebuttal by Fox of Limbaugh's main points.

Charge 1-- he exaggerated his twitching to get sympathy.

Fox says "The notion that you could calculate for effect (what) People out there with Parkinson's are going (through), would that we could."

But this isn't a definitive statement at all.  Fox has not said here, "I did not exaggerate my symptoms on purpose to get sympathy".  It's just another play for sympathy from someone who has admitted he makes plays for sympathy.  I'm not saying it's sympathy for HIMSELF that Fox plays for, but neither did Rush. 

If Fox desired to exaggerate symptoms, he could just take too much L-dopa medication.  It causes what he called "diskinesia" in the CBS interview.  He explained it to another interviewer on the Canadian Encyclopedia website like this:

  If anything, he (Fox) says, he responds too well to the drug (L-dopa), which can cause dyskinesia - unlocking the rigidity and spasmodic tremors of Parkinson's to the point that the body starts to writhe with excess fluidity (my emph.-ed.). "Sometimes," says Fox, "people with Parkinson's will come up to me and say, 'You're taking too much medication.' And I say, 'Listen, if I've got to keep up with Larry King, I've got to take too much.' I don't have the luxury of having any kind of halting thing. I'm used to it, my family's used to it, but in a high-stress situation I can't afford it."

From this exchange you may confidently assume that, when he appears on television programs like Larry King's, he takes too much medication.  So he can "keep up".  This exaggerates his physical manifestations, and he knows it. 

And he has admitted to going off his meds for Senate appearances, so people will see how he really is.  He is clearly aware of the importance of how people perceive him and is not afraid to use this to achieve his admittedly noble and honorable ends.  But do ends justify means....?  You make the call.  I'm reminded of the amputees and handicapped men who haunt the intersection near my office, hopping around and displaying their injuries for sympathy's sake and for spare change from the redlighted drivers.  The difference is that Fox isn't trying to get personal sympathy for himself...  and yet the queasy feeling of being played is still there for me. 

Charge 2-- that Fox misstated and conflated the issue, on purpose, avoiding the mention of embryonic stem cells and claiming that Senator Talent of Missouri "opposes expansion of stem cell research" when all he opposes is embryonic cell research.  Cord blood stem cells, adult stem cells, Talent is in favor of expansion of research on them.  As am I.  But Fox's ad script studiously avoids the mention of the actual nature of the controversy, and misstates Talent's position.

And Fox had nothing, apparently, to say about that in the CBS interview.  Most likely because they didn't ask him.  They were angling for scenes of Fox becoming righteously indignant at Limbaugh's "attack", and they got them.

But as in so many MSM scenarios, the actual issue was not addressed, only the conflict.  Which makes Rush right again, in his accusation that the left uses as spokesmen those who are above criticism-- because people are afraid to be seen criticizing a victim of something.  The Jersey Girls of the '04 election (9/11 widows who became leftist agitators) come to mind, as does Cindy Sheehan. 

And look what happens to Rush when he criticizes Fox for his position and his actions in a political cause.  I even heard Diane Sawyer's voice from a TV in the next room, aghast, horrified, asking her guest "how can Rush Limbaugh say these things???!?!?"  Oh, the horror.

She likely did not hear what Limbaugh said, only the snippets of it that supported the left's position.  

They never actually listen to Limbaugh's program.

Michael J. Fox has not debunked Rush's actual criticisms, only what the left has erroneously concluded were his criticisms.  And it might do him some good to confront the actual criticisms, because it might teach him something about himself. 

But don't hold your breath.

Sheik Hilaly, the Australian Imam of the highest rank (and I do mean rank), gave a sermon recently that may break all records of hatred and misogyny in any Muslim public speech so far.  The behind closed doors speeches, of course, cannot be spoken for, and are probably all much worse than this.

Nonetheless, Hilaly was speaking about a recent gang rape and the punishment of the rapists, and said he would have imprisoned the woman and merely disciplined the man. 

""When it comes to adultery, it’s 90 percent the woman’s responsibility. Why? Because a woman owns the weapon of seduction. It’s she who takes off her clothes, shortens them, flirts, puts on make-up and powder and takes to the streets, God protect us, dallying. It’s she who shortens, raises and lowers. Then, it’s a look, a smile, a conversation, a greeting, a talk, a date, a meeting, a crime, then Long Bay jail. Then you get a judge, who has no mercy, and he gives you 65 years."

He said a scantily clad woman is like uncovered meat.  You can't blame the cat for snatching it and running off.  Cover your meat.

Now other Muslims in Australia are begging him to take it back and tone it down, but here is the big picture--

In a world of Sharia law, this top-ranked Imam WOULD BE THE JUDGE.  His verdict would be the legal and enforceable one.  And he and his colleagues are certain that young men are not capable of making the moral decision to restrain themselves.  And he will not hold them responsible for what they do.

This view of women can only come from hatred.  Perhaps as a young man Hilaly was rejected by women.  Certainly his Muslim upbringing prevented him from having normal young relationships and learning how to deal with women as human beings. 

Consequently, in middle age, he believes women are less than men, and wholly more evil than men, and are morally and legally responsible for everything that goes wrong in male-female relationships.  It's what all Islamic fundamentalists believe, and who knows how many millions of "moderate" Muslims believe it as well? 

Remember the book on how to properly beat your wife?  Remember arranged marriages? 

Remember the honor killings, still occurring today even in Western countries, where the daughter is murdered by her brothers and her father because she had a crush on the wrong boy?  She is murdered to restore honor to her family!

Remember the hijab, the burka, the boys-only schools, the ban on driving cars and having jobs and..  well, having a life?  Remember old men reaching out to women walking on the street and WHIPPING them, just because a flash of ankle was seen.. or only imagined?  Remember the Afghan football field, the scene of public executions of "adulterous" women, events that were well attended and cheered?

I'm STILL baffled that, in light of all this manifest anti-woman hatred in Islam, in spite of the future women can expect under sharia law, women's groups in this country aren't up in arms about it.  Why do feminists still say Bush is evil for opposing abortion, but never mention that Islam would MURDER them if they had an abortion?  Islam would STONE Rosie O'Donnell just for being gay.  Islam would murder Paris Hilton and Beyonce for being icons of cultural degradation, after the obligatory gang rapes "to teach them a lesson".  (aside-- do you think those guys ever teach that same "lesson" to elderly or morbidly obese or ugly women?  Me neither.)

If liberals succeed in castrating the conservative movement in this country, the Jean-Francois Kerry types would (as in Europe) welcome Islam-friendly societal changes in the name of multi-culturalism and open-mindedness (not to mention anti-semitism and anti-Christianity).  And life for women here will gradually become harder. 

By the time they find it in themselves to rise up and fight, it may well be too late.

Although I must admit to some morbid interest in the possibility of a battle of the politically corrects--   feminism vs. religious tolerance.  Will the feminists realize that the people we are tolerating in the name of tolerance cannot tolerate feminists?  And if they do realize it, will they fight? 

This could make the UFC look like a chess match.  :-)  heh heh... Patricia Ireland vs. Sheik Hilaly, three rounds in the Octagon...   

My friend the Six String King has sent me this story, and I am as slackjawed as he is.

Matt Lauer gave a rational defense of Rush Limbaugh's "attack" on Michael J. Fox.

I recall, back when Lauer was first given the go for his current job, he gave interviews in which he tried to show that he was not just another leftward-biased media guy.  I was tempted to believe him, but since then he has done some live stand-up shots and adlibbed so badly and so awkwardly that I now doubt he is sufficiently intelligent to "get" the right.

Remember "the British would have seen our Continental irregulars as terrorists"?  Not just dumb, but morally untethered.

Of course, it doesn't take much intelligence to see that Rush was right about Fox.  And even though he's apologized for speculating that Fox was "either acting or off his meds" when he did that campaign commercial for McCaskill in Missouri, I wish he hadn't.  Because Fox has now admitted he took TOO MUCH medication, which also makes his symptoms become exaggerated.  Wrong on the detail, dead right on the point of the accusation; Fox deliberately chose to exaggerate his symptoms in that ad in order to stir up sympathy.  And he deliberately misstated and conflated the issue as well. 

But Matt Lauer did have enough intelligence to see that Rush was right.  And in the linked story above, he actually gave a rational defense of Limbaugh's position in the controversy.  And his guest agreed. 

And the guest was Susan Estrich.

A big day for the MSM.  The light bulb is dimly flickering, instead of dull and dark.

I was just driving to work this morning, with the radio on in the background...  I wasn't doing any research or looking for anything to blog about, honestly I wasn't.

But then I heard a national network newsguy (don't know which network, but it sure wasn't Fox) at the top of the hour saying:

"The stock market continues to go up, in spite of the news (emph. mine.. ed.)...  housing prices are plummeting, and the most recent quarter showed that the economy is barely moving upward at all... "

Of course we know that the economy is DRIVEN by news, and the fact that the market goes up means that there are news stories which would give reason for people to invest...

Unemployment at 4.7%, the lowest in decades, meaning more people are being more productive and paying more taxes and so forth.  Inflation almost nonexistent, keeping rates low and money flowing freely for capital investments.  Record profits posted by companies big and small.  Yada yada yada.

The housing market is in the midst of "irrational exuberance", as Greenspan would put it.  Too many people are buying houses as investments, and too many are going back on the market too soon at too high a price.  There are TV shows all over cable that show us how to do these things, and seminars being given from coast to coast on real estate investments.  (These are given, of course, by people who've already made their money in the game and are now making their money teaching us how to play, thus ruining the game itself by adding too many players.)

And as for the economy "barely creeping up", as I think the national radio news guy put it, this number almost always gets revised later and in the past few years has almost always been revised UPWARD.

So he cites two items, both worth discussing but neither fully indicative of ANYTHING, and then assumes the markets should be going DOWN and expresses a sort of haughty indignation that anyone is stupid enough to be buying stocks now.

And don't think that just slipped out, a subconscious result of one newsman's bias.  We are, after all, just a couple of weeks out of an election.

This used to be called an editorial comment.  Today it's just "news" copy.

Have I said "thank God for talkradio and the internet" lately? 

NOTE:  the following is written from my personal viewpoint as a Christian-- not a radical or extreme Christian, not a "stop you in the street" evangelical type, just your garden variety Christian.  If religion bores or annoys you, feel free to stop now.

I don't have to write the column because Peggy Noonan has written it for me.  It's very good.

And even though my version wouldn't have been half as evocative and compelling, I'm very glad to learn that I'm not the only one thinking about these things.  This life we lead here in America is mighty easy, folks, and there's little reason to believe it will last forever. 

Christian folks like me can find ourselves tempted to believe that God is "sparing the rod", so to speak, in our case.  Unlike Sodom (where God bargained with Lot as to how many good people made a bad society worth saving, but in the end destroyed it because there were none to be found), there are still some small number of people in this country who try hard to do God's will and live humbly and give sacrificially and so forth.  I like to think that from time to time one of them is me (although I anticipate that I will be  enlightened on that subject in due time and to my own regret).

But one thing is certain; human history is a never-ending story of misery and oppression and chains and slavery and violence and war and greed, sometimes beneath a veneer of civility and sometimes not.  And America is the great and magnificent exception to that rule.  

Two hundred and thirty years from our founding, we still transfer power peacefully and regularly, and we've shown the world it can be done.  We still hold all our people responsible to the law, no matter the class or the wealth.  We convicted Leona Helmsley and Michael Milliken and Martha Stewart, wealthy people who would have escaped such a fate in a hundred other countries.  We would have jailed Marc Rich (billionaire beneficiary of Saddam's "coupons" in the oil for food scandal) but for the parting smooch Bill Clinton gave him.

While corruption is everywhere (as in every country), the system itself has resisted change for corruption's sake, and good people still have a chance to influence events.  

But, predictably, the world has grown increasingly restless with our place in it.  There are two ways to respond to visible goodness; to raise yourself up and try to match it, or to tear it down to your level from spite.  A few eastern European countries are energetically engaged in the first, and the entire rest of the planet is grimly determined to accomplish the second.  And in the case of the Muslim fundamentalists, their level isn't good enough; they want us below them, beneath them, humbled and subjugated by them, and destroyed if we will not accept it.

And as Peggy says, six very bad men and a few hundred pounds of equipment is all it takes for millions to die-- quickly and slowly.

Bush has said of Iraq that our patience is not infinite.  What's far more ominous, the Bible says that God's isn't either.

And yet... the other night I saw a black and white film made by the BBC back in 1956, about a visit to England from Billy Graham in which over 200,000 Brits came to hear him preach at Wembley Stadium.  I went to bed with a sense of nostalgia and loss, but woke to read of evangelist Luis Palau's appearance right here in Houston this month drawing over 250,000. 

And the Christian in me is comforted...  because we're not running out of good men just yet.

Good luck to Europe, though.  Empty churches, Christianity banished from view and ignored by the text of the attempted new constitution, religion mocked (unless it's Islam, which gets phony bowing and scraping from a frightened populace), politicians expressing deep concern about Bush's Christianity influencing his decision-making... 

If God defines "good men" as those who care what He thinks and try to do what He wants, then Europe is getting kind of thin on the ground....

There's something about this story that makes me absolutely certain Bush is to blame.

After all, it's a story about the middle east and he's really fouled that whole place up...

And it's about air pollution that blocks the sun, so if Bush had just signed Kyoto this would NEVER have happened...

Oh, and it's toxic and could kill people, Egyptian people, INNOCENT Egyptian people just trying to live their lives and, um, plan their deaths... and Bush kills innocent arabs all the time, right? 

Yep, toxic pollution threatening Egyptian lives is definitely Bush's fault.  We should withdraw from Iraq yesterday.  And impeach him.  Insh'Allah. 

... and now it's here.

Lawyers are filing suits against companies for causing global warming.

Read this from Yahoo Businessweek about a lawyer from New Orleans who is positing that Katrina was somehow caused by Exxon Mobil and other companies, and so those companies are liable for damages to N.O. residents.

Sounds monumentally stupid, I know.  But if anything, it should demonstrate why Republicans cannot stay home this election.  We cannot allow Democrats to take power in Congress.  Because if they do, they'll confirm judges to federal benches who actively and energetically support this kind of cause and will find in favor of litigants who have no case, only a sympathetic client... a poor pitiful client shivering in the cold, cold street.

Who can prove that Exxon Mobil caused a hurricane?  And how does one explain the hurricane of 1900 on Galveston Island, which killed eight times as many people?  Even Rockefeller was only a nouveau riche back then.... 

Besides, I thought Bush was the one who brewed up a hurricane and sent it to N.O. to kill black people. 

Check out this article in Yahoo News about the Mills-Macca meltdown.

Best part?  When Heather's lawyer notes that a major Brit newsrag sent a letter to Heather's sister Fiona, promising a "substantial sum" plus secrecy in return for tattletale inside info. 

The lawyer said, "It requires no imagination to conclude what kind of information was being sought from our client's closest confidante, nor why the assurance of confidentiality was believed to be necessary," the statement said. "We ask on behalf of our client for the media, as a matter of common decency, please now to show some restraint"...

So we have a celebrity lawyer demanding restraint from a major newspaper on the basis of common decency.

HAHAHAHahahahHAAHHEHEEheheh heh heh...  oh, my... heh heh heheHHEHAAHAHAHAAHehehe... hee hee...  ahem... cough cough.  oh, my stomach..  heh heh...