Prepare for Computer Omniscience!?!

I am reminded of what is purported to be the shortest of all science fiction short stories. Synopsis:

A great televised ceremony attends the linking together, by the global government, of all the computers on earth. The first question from a list assembled by a blue ribbon panel of scientists and scholars is typed in: "Is there a God?" Immediately all the switches that connect the mega artificial intelligence are locked closed. And a Great Voice reaches the ears of every inhabitant of earth: "There is now!"

I report and link. You decide. - J :)

From a Guardian [U.K.] article, Google 'will be able to keep tabs on us all':

Google 'will be able to keep tabs on us all' [/] Alexi Mostrous and Rob Evans [/] Friday November 3, 2006

The internet will hold so much digital data in five years that it will be possible to find out what an individual was doing at a specific time and place, an expert said yesterday.

Nigel Gilbert, a professor heading a Royal Academy of Engineering study into surveillance, said people would be able to sit down and type into Google "what was a particular individual doing at 2.30 yesterday and would get an answer". [/] The answer would come from a range of data, for instance video recordings or databanks which store readings from electronic chips. Such chips embedded in people's clothes could track their movements. He told a privacy conference the internet would be capable of holding huge amounts of data very cheaply and patterns of information could be extracted very quickly. "Everything can be recorded for ever," he said. [/] He was speaking at a conference at which a report commissioned by Richard Thomas, the privacy watchdog, was launched. Mr Thomas has said Britain is "waking up to a surveillance society that is all around us" and that such "pervasive" surveillance is likely to spread.

Sir Stephen Lander, the head of the Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca) and former head of MI5, defended surveillance by the government. [/] "Significant intrusion into the privacy of a small minority is justified to protect the safety and wellbeing of the majority," he said. [My ellipses and emphasis]

Fight Global Warming Or Not

To fight climate change, or not to fight. That is the question.

Luke 14:28-29 KJV For which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it? (29) Lest haply, after he hath laid the foundation, and is not able to finish it, all that behold it begin to mock him,

I report and link. You decide. - J :)

From a WSJ Opinion Journal article, Climate Non-Conformity:

Climate Non-Conformity [/] Saving lives versus saving planet Earth. [/] [[All Souls' Day,]] Thursday, November 2, 2006 12:01 a.m.

Two scientific events of note occurred this week, but only one got any media coverage. Therein lies a story about modern politics and scientific priorities.

The report that received the headlines was Monday's 700-page jeremiad out of London on fighting climate change. Commissioned by the British government and overseen by former World Bank chief economist Nicholas Stern, the report made the intentionally shocking prediction that global warming could eliminate from 5% to 20% of world economic output "forever." Meanwhile, doing the supposedly virtuous thing and trying to forestall this catastrophe would cost merely an estimated 1% of world GDP. Thus we must act urgently and with new taxes and policies that go well beyond anything in the failed Kyoto Protocol.

The other event was a meeting at the United Nations organized by economist Bjørn Lomborg's Copenhagen Consensus Center. Ambassadors from 24 countries--including Australia, China, India and the U.S.--mulled which problems to address if the world suddenly found an extra $50 billion lying around. Mr. Lomborg's point is that, in a world with scarce resources, you need priorities. The consensus was that communicable diseases, sanitation and water, malnutrition and hunger, and education were all higher priorities than climate change.

We invited Mr. Lomborg to address the Stern report, and he takes apart its analysis brick-by-brick here. To our reading, there isn't much left of this politicized edifice. But we'd stress a couple of points ourselves.

The first is that the Stern review almost surely understates the real costs of combating climate change. The International Energy Agency has estimated that the world must spend $16 trillion on infrastructure from 2001 to 2030 just to meet growing energy demand. That by itself would be 1% of GDP over that period. And that doesn't include the cost of moving to carbon-free power from fossil fuels, or the financial "incentives"--i.e., global subsidies from Western taxpayers--that China and India would need if the Stern report's policies were to have any chance of being implemented. The Stern review also calls for substantially increasing taxes, which we know from experience would also reduce global GDP and thus leave fewer resources to fight the consequences of any warming.

The second point is that the Stern report barely mentions the potential benefits from warming in the world's cold-weather regions. Al Gore and others warn about the damage from coastal flooding and changing weather patterns, among other horror scenarios. But the world is large and its climate diverse, and a longer growing season in Siberia or Canada is at least one possible benefit of warming. The Stern report also dismisses any chance of moderate warming (meaning temperatures in 2100 only two to three degrees Celsius higher than in 1900), even though many climate models say this is in fact the most likely outcome.

Unlike the Stern report and its patrons, those of us who take a skeptical approach to these doomsday climate scenarios aren't trying to end the discussion. The Earth is warmer now than it was in the recent past, and this may be partly attributable to human behavior. But everything else--from how much warmer, to the extent of mankind's contribution, to the cost of doing something about it--remains very much in dispute.

Some of the Stern review's recommendations, such as carbon trading rights, are also worth debating. But most of its proposals are merely openings for government to expand its role in allocating investment, raising taxes and otherwise controlling economic decisions. Socialism was supposed to have died with the Soviet Union, but it is making a comeback under the guise of coping with global warming.

Meanwhile, there are far more urgent, and far less speculative, problems that we know how to solve with the right policies. That message may not get scary headlines, but it would improve the lives of more human beings around the world. [My ellipses and emphasis]

Will Modern Electronic Communications Clean Up the Middle East?!?

Blogs and TV document an extremely ugly incident that the police and major media ignored. Read all about it.

I report and link. You decide. - J :)

From a Sandmonkey blog article, The Eid sexual harassment incident:

The Eid sexual harassment incident [/] Monday, 30 Oct 2006

I didn't want to write about this. [/] ####, I didn't even want to know about it. [/] I remember the first time I heard of it while I was in Amman. Eblis sent me an e-mail titled "Behold the revolution in Egypt" with a link to malek's post on it and I stupidly clicked on it and was presented with a reality that I didn't want or desire to confront.

The story is as follows for the those of you who didn't hear about it: It was the first day of Eid, and a new film was opening downtown. Mobs of males gatherd trying to get in, but when the show was sold out, they decided they will destroy the box office. After accomplishing that, they went on what can only be described as a sexual frenzy: They ran around grabbing any and every girl in sight, whether a niqabi, a Hijabi or uncoverd. Whether egyptian or foreigner. Even pregnant ones. They grabbed them, molested them, tried to rip their cloths off and rape them, all in front of the police, who didn't do ####. The good people of downtown tried their best to protect the girls. Shop owners would let the girls in and lock the doors, while the mobs tried to break in. Taxi drivers put the girls in the cars while the mobs were trying to break the glass and grab the girls out. It was a disgusting pandamonium of sexual assaults that lasted for 5 hours from 7:30 PM to 12:30 am, and it turns my stomach just to think about it.

I called my father when I heard of that happening, and he informed me that he didn't hear of it at all. They watched Al Jazeerah, CNN, flipped through opposition newspapers, and nothing. Nada. Nobody mentioned it. As if it didn't happen. [/] But it did.

The bloggers available downtown documented the whole thing, and provided pictures of it as well. Reading their accounts I can't help but feel my heart being torn on what the people of the country has turned to. The one that broke my heart the most was Sharqawi's account (remember, he is the guy who got sexually assaulted by the police during interrogation ) and how it suddenly danwed at him that what happend to him wasn;t an isolated incident. That the Police forces didn;t come from another planet, that they were born and raised egyptians, amongst the egyptian people, the same egyptian people who have produced those mobs who found it in their right to attack girls in middle of crowded downtown for 5 houres under the police's watchdul eyes. The ones who approached the police asking them to do something were told : "what do you want us to do? It's Eid. Happy Eid to you too!" The same response was given to women who went to the police stations to report the incidents. The police refused to do their jobs and take a report, because it would probably reflect badly on their downtown peers. Some people were surprised at the Police's reaction, but the majoirty of us weren't. Those are the same police officers who facilitated the assaults on women last year during the referendum. This is business as usual for them.

What was unusual was the silence of the press. Nobody was mentioning it. Nobody was bringing it up. It seemed like there was some consensus of just not reporting it and maybe it will just go away. What at first seemed like a conspiracy got later on confirmed by my sources in the news media. Al Jazeera had taped the incidents but were forbidden to air it at the request of the egyptian authorities. The editor at a leading newspaper refused to touch it with a 6 foot pole. This was going to be one of those incidents that only the blogsphere would talk about, while the mainstream media ignored.

Until Nawarah Negm blew the whole thing wide open on live television on the Dream Channel. [/] She was brought in as a writer to be part of a fluffy segment on Mona Al Shazly show talking about the Ramadan TV shows, and the girl's first response to the question was: "What Television shows do you want to discuss, when Egyptian girls are assaulted on the streets of Cairo while the police watched and did nothing?" When Mona counterd that she never heard of it before, Nawarah told her all about it, in details and how it's all over the internet.

All of Egypt saw that. The cat was out of the bag. A cover-up was no longer feasible. [/] When I spoke to the brilliant Nawarah yesterday, she told me that she was debating talking about it or not on television, that was until she was faced with the camera and found herself on the air, and just couldn't hold herself back. She went for it, and god bless her for having the guts to do that.

The next day, Mona Al Shazly went and did a segment on the incident and interviewed the people on the street. The video of the segment is here (arabic, sorry). She even contacted the Ministery of Interior for a statement. You know what their response was? [/] "We didn't hear of anything. This didn't happen. Things were just crowded in downtown that day, but no girls were assaulted, because no police reports were filed in that regard!" [/] ####ERS! [/] I am not one of those people who claims to be above hate. I do hate, and I hate quite passionately, the same way when I love I love passionately. But I have to say that I have never hated anyone or group as much as I hate the egyptian police at this moment. It's a hate of unequaled proportions. I really wouldn't mind them all dying horrible deaths right now. A police force that doesn't protect its citizens, especially its women, has no business being on the streets. They become nothing more than an organized armed gang now in my opinion, even lower, because they are shaming everyone who wore that uniform before and did his job. THEY DESERVE TO DIE!

Anyway, the TV show brought it up, and now Egypt's leading newspaper, Al Masry Al youm, featured two columns on the incident. More is bound to come and this national shame will be exposed and confronted. [/] Now, the egyptian blogsphere has been abuzz in debate over the incident. Some are writing posts on why it happend, possible causes, what it means, the social and political factors that could possibly lead to this behavior, and quite honestly, I can't be botherd. I don't care why it happend. Rape is not up for debate. I just care that it happend. What we should discuss right now isn't what caused it, but what kind of horrible punishment that should be enacted on any egyptian male who thinks that it is well into his right to sexually harass a female on the street. That's it. Pure and simple.

I am often told that I am too westernized or too liberal by people I know, and they are not wrong or inaccurate. My values are for the most part western values. However, there are two middle-eastern traits in me that I can never give up: The first is my stupid insistence on always paying for the bill when I am with a girl I am dating, and the second is my protectiveness of women. I have no tolerance for those who assault women sexually in any way, and that almost got me kicked out of my school in Boston when I broke the leg of one of my roommates who raped a friend of mine. The incident only resulted in him getting a broken leg because people stopped me before I killed him. And I had the full intention of killing him. Rapists do not deserve to live. And that's how I feel towards every single one of those pieces of #### that attacked women on the streets of cairo the other day.

People can debate solutions based on dialogue, education, or whatever and that's their right. My solution is far simpler: Any egyptian man whose mother raised him right should beat the living #### of any man he sees on the street that assaults or harasses a female. Think of them as your sisters, and act accordingly. The Police isn't interested in protecting the women, and that's fine, but that means that we should take this job as our own. Those who insist on acting like animals will be treated as such, and deserve no sympathy or mercy from us. I assure you, if we did this, if we undertook this as part of our national duty, there will no longer be a problem on our streets. [/] That is all! [My ellipses and emphasis]

A Halloween Gift From Hillary!?!

Reminds me of the overly hubristic boast of yesteryear:

Witch hunt? You bet! And we'll get her husband, too!

I report and link. You decide. - J :)

From a Breitbart.com AFP article, Hillary Clinton calls for 'internationalist' foreign policy:

Hillary Clinton calls for 'internationalist' foreign policy [/] Oct 31 7:09 PM US/Eastern

New York Senator Hillary Clinton called for a broad reform of US foreign policy that would include better cooperation with other nations and bilateral talks with enemy nations. [/] Criticizing President George W. Bush's foreign policy from Iraq to Afghanistan and North Korea to Iran, the wife of former president Bill Clinton called for a more internationalist approach to foreign policy in a speech at the Council on Foreign Relations, a New York-based foreign policy think tank.

"First, and most obviously, we must by word and deed renew internationalism for a new century," said Clinton, a likely Democratic Party presidential candidate for the 2008 election. [/] "We did not face World War II alone,

N.B. And it was not "our finest hour". It was Britain's finest hour. Our finest hour was refusing to join the rest of the world in paying tribute to the Barbary Coast pirates (Islamic types, as I recall.) and sending the Marines to "the shores of Tripoli."

we did not face the Cold War alone, and we cannot face the global terrorist threat or other profound challenges alone either," she said.

N.B. But unless we are willing to stand alone when necessary, we will lack the moral authority to ask others to stand with us.

Clinton also defended the idea of bilateral talks with nations that Washington has been avoiding, such as Iran and Cuba.

N.B. Has she been channeling Neville Chamberlain as well as Eleanor Roosevelt?

"We must value diplomacy as well as a strong military," Clinton continued. "We should not hesitate to engage in the world's most difficult conflicts on a diplomatic front."

N.B. "Speak softly, but carry a big stick" - #26. "Talk tough. Cave in. Declare victory. When forced by personal scandal bomb empty tents and aspirin factory" - actions of #42. Whither goeth would be #44?

[...] Clinton blasted what she said was the Bush administration's "simplistic division of the world into good and evil. They refuse to talk to anyone on the evil side, as some have called that idealistic. I call it dangerously unrealistic."

N.B. Some sorts of governments and cultures generate much more misery, oppression, injury, death, aggressive terroristic war, and general moral evil than others. But the view from inside the bubble of our educational and media elites seems to obscure this. The optical properties of bubbles appear to be quite weird.

[...] "In an increasingly interdependent world," Clinton said, "it is in our interest to stand for human rights, to promote religious freedom, democracy, women's rights, social justice and economic empowerment."

N.B. This is marvelously in line with the hero person authors of the great proclamations of 1848, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Karl Marx.

"But reality is, we cannot force others, nations and people, to accept those values. We have to support those who embrace them and lead by example,"

N.B. Translation: "Let the riffraff of the world remain riffraff as they terrorize and develop WMD. We must behave like the morally superior people that we are."

she said. [My ellipses and emphasis]

Iran: Suicide Superpower?!?

I report and link. You decide. - J :)

From a Pajamas Media's Politics Central article, SUICIDE SUPERPOWER:

October 30, 2006 5:36 AM [/] SUICIDE SUPERPOWER: Martyrdom as a Weapon of Mass Destruction [/] By Craig S. Karpel

abombelt_featuredimage.jpg - Last summer, Lebanon, wearing Hezbollah as a bomb belt, became the world’s first suicide state. [[Use link above to see image and to read full article with interesting comments.]]

In an op-ed after the war in the Beirut daily An-Nahar (The Day), Dr. Mona Fayad, a Shi’ite who chairs the psychology department at Lebanese University, the country’s largest institution of higher learning, said that to be a Shi’ite in Lebanon is to let Iranian Supreme Leader Khamenei “command you, drive you, decide for you what he wants from the weapons of Hezbollah, and force on you a victory that is no different from suicide.”

Mshari al-Zaydi, opinion editor of the Saudi-owned daily A-Sharq al-Awsat (The Middle East), wrote: “Has Israel won the war or have the forces of development and enlightenment been defeated? Is a victory achieved when the media proclaims so? … What will be made of the 1,000 dead, the one million displaced and the widespread destruction? Are they considered victories as well?” [/] The answer to al-Zaydi’s last question is-from the standpoint of Hezbollah’s sponsor, Iran: Yes.

Iran considers death, displacement and destruction in Lebanon victories because Israel’s deterrent posture was impaired by the war, an outcome Tehran regards as being well worth any damage to Lebanon and the Lebanese. It would be appropriate for the Iranian funds that have been disbursed through Hezbollah to Shi’ite residents of Beirut’s leveled Dahiya al-Janubiya (Southern Suburb) and the country’s south to come from the same budget line as the Iranian funds that have been disbursed through Hamas to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers.

Life imitates the art of martyrdom [/] [...] Not open to question, however, is the extent to which the discourse of the Iranian regime is suffused with the traditional Shi’ite emphasis on martyrdom, the fate suffered-or, depending on one’s theological viewpoint, relished-by the fourth Islamic caliph, Ali ibn Abi Talib, cousin and son-in-law of Muhammad, assassinated in 661 A.D, whose posthumous adherents were known as Shi’at Ali (Partisans of Ali).

* Ayatollah Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini, the Islamic regime’s founder and first Rahba-e Moazzam (Supreme Leader), wrote, “Either we all become free, or we will go to the greater freedom which is martyrdom. Either we shake one another’s hands in joy at the victory of Islam in the world, or all of us will turn to eternal life and martyrdom.” “The martyrs,” said Khomeini, “are the quintessence of our strength.”

* Khomeini’s successor and current supreme leader, former president Ayatollah Sayyid Ali Husaini Khamenei, who is incomparably more powerful than Ahmadinejad, has said, “Martyrdom operations are the pinnacle of a people’s strength and the pinnacle of an epic.”

* Ahmadinejad on the subject of art: “Art reaches perfection when it portrays the best life and best death. After all, art tells you how to live. That is the essence of art. Is there art that is more beautiful, more divine, and more eternal than the art of martyrdom? A nation with martyrdom knows no captivity.”

* When a decrepit Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corp (IRGC) transport plane crashed in Iran on January 9, 2006, killing 108, after it was ordered to fly despite warnings by its pilot, Ahmadinejad said, “The government will hold a serious investigation… . But what is important is that they have shown the way to martyrdom which we must follow.”

Khamenei eulogized at the funeral of IRGC ground force commander Maj. Gen. Ahmad Kazemi, who died in the crash,

“Two weeks ago martyr Kazemi came to see me. He told me, ‘I would like to ask you to do me two favors. First, pray to almighty Allah that I will end up as an honorable person. Second, pray that I will attain martyrdom.’ I told him, ‘It will really be a pity if you and others like you die an ordinary death. You and others who have passed through all those crucial stages should not die. You should all end up as martyrs. However, it is not yet time for this, since our country and our Islamic system still need you.’ I further said, ‘The day when I was informed about the martyrdom of Gen. Sayad Shirazi, [deputy chief of Joint Staff Command, assassinated in 1999 by the Marxist/Islamic Mujahedin-e Khalq (People’s Holy Warriors)] I said that he was worthy of martyrdom, that he deserved to be martyred. It would have been a pity if he had died an ordinary death.’ When I said this, the eyes of martyr Kazemi became filled with tears, and he told me, ‘God willing, you will receive the news of my martyrdom too!’”

Iranian nuclear strategy: Heads we win, tails you lose [/] The U.S. has about 10,000 nuclear warheads. Tehran cannot hope to deter retaliation by attaining numerical parity. In the grim game of nuclear strategy, will trumps numbers. The Iranians can leverage possession of a relatively small arsenal of weapons into geopolitical power by providing clearly discernible evidence that they are prepared to use them even though doing so means being themselves atomized. The mullahs read the West as being unwilling to sacrifice anything to secure its power, and as being dependent on others feeling the same way. Iran’s unstated purpose in turning Lebanon into an unstate is to display to the world’s nuclear strategists Shi’ite-and, by extension, Iranian-willingness to commit national suicide.

Since its inception, the Islamic Republic of Iran has used Lebanon as its proving ground for the weaponization of suicide. The first modern suicide attack was Tehran’s November 11, 1982 truck bombing of the Israeli military headquarters in Tyre, Lebanon, in which 141 died. The second was its suicide bombing of the U.S. embassy in Beirut on April 18, 1983, which resulted in 63 deaths. The third was Iran’s suicide truck bombing of the Beirut U.S. Marine barracks on October 23, 1983, which killed 241 and caused the United States to withdraw its troops from Lebanon. Iran’s present defense minister, Mustafa Muhammad Najjar, is believed to have commanded Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps expeditionary force in Lebanon at the time of those bombings.

Iranian willingness to accept nuclear retaliation against itself as a form of martyrdom -or, if that willingness is not actually present, other countries’ belief that it is-will allow Tehran to use the implicit threat of a suicidal first strike to get its way:

We are prepared to nuke you first even though you are certain to respond by nuking us. You, in contrast, are not prepared to nuke us first because we are certain to respond by nuking you. Therefore we need only to possess the ability to nuke you in order to induce you to bend to our will.

The prospect of an Iran that can wield nuclear strategic power without having to launch a single missile, though not as spectacular as the Ahmadinejad-as-All-Four-Horsemen-of-the-Apocalypse scenario, is daunting. The distance from Iran to Saudi Arabia, between which lies Shi’a-populated, oil-endowed southern Iraq, is less than 200 miles. Saudi Arabia’s oilfields are in its Eastern Province, much of whose populace are Shi’ites, who are suppressed by, and hostile to, the House of Saud. The goal of Tehran’s nuclear weapons program is to enable Iran to attain hegemony over the entire littoral of the very aptly named Persian Gulf and, by exercising control of virtually all of the Mideast’s oil reserves, become a global power.

Or die trying. [My ellipses and emphasis]

AIDS and Leprosy: A Tangled Web?!?

O what a tangled web we weave,

When first we practice to deceive. - Walter Scott

N.B. HIV is a fabulous monster, actually. Read all about it in Inventing the AIDS Virus and at Virus Myth (Delphi) Forum and at Alive and Well.

I report and link. You decide. - J :)

From a New York Times article, Worrisome New Link: AIDS Drugs and Leprosy:

Worrisome New Link: AIDS Drugs and Leprosy [/] By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr. [/] October 24, 2006

With affordable AIDS drugs arriving in many poor countries, experts say a startling and worrisome side effect has emerged: in some patients, the treatment uncovers a hidden leprosy infection.

No one knows how widespread the problem is. Only about a dozen cases have been described in medical literature since the first one was found, in London in 2003. But AIDS specialists in Brazil, India, Africa, the Caribbean and elsewhere are reporting that some patients on life-saving antiretroviral drugs are developing painful facial ulcers or losing feeling in their fingers and toes.

N.B. These "life-saving" drugs are highly toxic. The observed "good" effects are ephemeral and may be mostly due to other well-known health providing factors such as hospital care. See links in N.B. at top.

And in the third world, where 300,000 new cases of leprosy were discovered last year and where 38 million are infected with the AIDS virus, the problem will inevitably get worse, experts say.

N.B. The evidence indicates that AIDS is a lifestyle disorder and is not infectious. "HIV" is either harmless or cellular debris. Official AIDS statistics are 90% world and national health establishment hype. See links in N.B. at top.

“This is just the peak of the iceberg,” said Dr. William Levis, who treats leprosy patients at Bellevue Hospital in New York City. “It’s early in the game. Most physicians don’t even think about leprosy, so there’s probably much more around than we know.” [/] Dr. Gilla Kaplan, a professor at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey and one of the first to study connections between AIDS and leprosy, agreed.

Antiretroviral treatment, she said, “is going to flush out the silent leprosy by making it symptomatic.”

Because leprosy, a bacterial disease, can be treated with specialized antibiotics that are supplied free by the Novartis pharmaceutical company, there is little prospect of a worldwide epidemic or large numbers of deaths. “It’s a matter of concern for the individual patients,” said Dr. Denis Daumerie, who leads the efforts by the World Health Organization to eliminate leprosy. “It’s not a matter of concern for public health.”

Still, the disease requires taking multiple pills for six months to two years — an added burden for people who typically already take three AIDS drugs. And because the problem is little known, it often takes doctors weeks to figure out what new ill is besetting their AIDS patients. [/] Experts say the problem arises when the AIDS drugs cause the immune system to recover. It then generates new white blood cells that carry the bacteria from old, silent leprosy infections to the skin of the face, hands and feet.

N.B. This last statement is most probably conjecture based on the "tangled web". See links in N.B. at top.

That is a new twist on a medical paradox that has confounded tropical-disease specialists for 20 years. [/] In the mid-1980’s, as it became clear that AIDS was not primarily a disease of gay American men but was killing millions of people — men, women and children — in poor countries, many public health doctors prophesied that it would be a double disaster for those with leprosy. [/]

It seemed a logical assumption since leprosy is caused by a germ from the same family of waxy-walled bacteria as those that cause tuberculosis and mycobacter avium, two major killers of AIDS patients. But it proved a false alarm.

“People expected a big surge in leprosy, but it didn’t happen,” said Dr. Diana N. Lockwood, a leprosy expert at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

When the predictions did not come true, she said, “we assumed that co-infected people just died before their leprosy became manifest.” The incubation period for the most easily diagnosed form of leprosy is 8 to 13 years, while the incubation period for AIDS is 8 to 10. [/] But leprosy in people known to have been already infected did not seem to worsen when those patients developed AIDS, too, showing that the two diseases can apparently coexist without reinforcing each other. [/] So it came as a shock to doctors when AIDS treatment caused hidden cases of leprosy to appear.

N.B. A shock to those who rely on the official "tangled web". Not to those who realize that much of the AIDS suffering and death is a result of the official medication. In the developed world, heavy drug users, including promiscuous male homosexuals, particularly the anal receptive who are prone to all sorts of ill health, remain most at risk. See links in N.B. at top.

The first such patient described in a medical journal was Dr. Lockwood’s, a Ugandan exile in London who was being treated for both tuberculosis and AIDS, and suddenly developed a swollen lesion on his face. [/]

“It took us a while to realize it was leprosy,” Dr. Lockwood said. “Since then, we’ve seen more cases in people from Brazil and India.” [/] Depending on symptoms, leprosy is often initially misdiagnosed as arthritis or lupus. Painful facial lesions, which are less common, can have many causes; in the Uganda man’s case, doctors said, his immune system probably formed nodules around bacteria next to a facial nerve.

[…] [My ellipses and emphasis]

America: A Dangerous Nation From the Beginning?!?

I report and link. You decide. - J :)

From a WSJ Opinion Journal article, Outward Bound:

BOOKSHELF [/] Outward Bound [/] The U.S. has always been a "dangerous nation" on the world stage. [/] BY BRENDAN SIMMS [/] Tuesday, October 17, 2006 12:01 a.m. EDT

[...] Yet as Robert Kagan shows in his brilliant and absorbing "Dangerous Nation," the U.S. has always been an empire and a "menace," not only to its ill-governed neighbors but also to tyrants and hegemons across the world. Americans broke with Britain not because it was an empire but because it was not imperialist enough. As Mr. Kagan notes, London gave mortal offense to the colonists through the Proclamation Line of 1763, which banned any further expansion that might come at the expense of the Indian tribes. It imposed this restriction some time before it seriously attempted to put British hands in American pockets.

After independence, there was a fundamental divide between Thomas Jefferson's ambition for an expanding--but agrarian--territorial empire and Alexander Hamilton's vision of a commercial state with a European-style apparatus of government, including a standing army and a central bank. America compromised: It would be both. From then on, as Mr. Kagan shows, "big government" was to be as American as empire and apple pie.

In the early 19th century, Americans became enthusiastic supporters of national independence movements in Poland, Greece and especially Latin America. U.S. governments lagged somewhat behind, but presidents such as James Monroe in the 1820s saw the world very much in terms of international republican solidarity.

This penchant caused considerable unease among conservative powers such as Austria, Prussia and Russia, who did not welcome the emergence of an ideological and strategic competitor in the West. John Quincy Adams remarked approvingly that "the universal feeling of Europe in witnessing the gigantic growth of our population is that we shall, if united, become a very dangerous member of the society of nations." Hence Mr. Kagan's ironically approving title.

Mr. Kagan is much too subtle a writer to make direct comparisons with our own times, but they are ubiquitous in "Dangerous Nation"--hiding, as it were, in plain sight. Thus he speaks of Benjamin Franklin's plans for a "pre-emptive strike" against the French in the 1750s, by expelling them from Quebec before they could overrun the 13 colonies. There are clear echoes of Mr. Bush's Second Inaugural when Mr. Kagan writes that the Founding Fathers "believed their own fate was in some way tied to the cause of liberalism and republicanism both within and beyond their borders."

The question of whether Latin America was "ready" for representative government, which so vexed 19th-century Americans, is surely intended to remind us of the debates today over whether the Middle East is suited to democracy. And Mr. Kagan's handling of the Spanish-American War of 1898 reads like an extended analogy to the NATO intervention in Kosovo a century later--great powers must sometimes intervene in nonvital zones, to lessen suffering and contain oppressive regimes.

The purpose of Mr. Kagan's project--this is the first volume of two on the history of American foreign policy--is never made explicit, but its outlines are clear: to craft an intellectual and historical lineage for what is today loosely described as neoconservatism. Without saying so, he demonstrates that the principles that led to the removal of Saddam Hussein, and that underlay the plan for a democratic transformation of the Middle East, were not just cooked up in some Washington coven but sprang from the mainstream of American history.

[...] But the book is also intended for Democrats, who may at first hate it. They will bristle at the breezy triumphalism with which Mr. Kagan chronicles the annexations that completed the union. They will think it no coincidence that Mr. Kagan's 19th-century heroes are mostly Republicans, and they will sharpen their knives for the second volume.

But they may want to think before they strike. As it happens, Democrats have special reason to look forward to the 20th-century sequel, for Mr. Kagan's narrative of American power is, in many ways, the story of their own party. Soon enough, the torch will pass to Woodrow Wilson, FDR, Truman, Kennedy and, if we think of NATO's belated Balkan intervention, even Bill Clinton. There should be something in this project for almost everyone.

Mr. Simms teaches modern European history at the Centre of International Studies, Cambridge University. Purchase a copy of Mr. Kagan's book "Dangerous Nation" at the OpinionJournal bookstore here. [My ellipses and emphasis]

Was Hillary Named For Hillary?

The problem with political jokes is that too many of them get elected. - Will Rogers

* - Did Hillary lie about a lie?

* - Is "lying about lying" the earmark of the Clintons?

* - Was Hillary's mother prescient?

* - Was Hillary's mother dishonest?

* - Was Hillary's mother overly good hearted?

* - Will Hillary run in 2008?

* - Will Hillary become the next president of the United States?

Inquiring minds want to know!

I report and link. You decide. - J :)

From an American Spectator article, Lie, Lady, Lie:

Lie, Lady, Lie [/] By Jay D. Homnick [/] Published 10/20/2006 12:07:29 AM

Well, I have news, not necessarily of the good variety. The Second Coming will happen in 2008. Yes, Hillary is running for President. How do I know for sure? Simple. The lying about lying has begun, and that is a surefire sign that the Clintons are back in business. Everyone in politics lies, but only the Clintons have perfected the art of lying about their lies.

The proof is in the putting out of an old fire and a new story. Hillary, it turns out, was not really named for Sir Edmund Hillary. But, her office assures us, she thought she was. It was her mother that lied to her about it. Yes, folks, she threw her mother under the bus. Except that she adds a word of understanding, a sense that her mother had good intentions. Why, that wonderful Hillary! She forgives her lying sack of an old lady. Ya gotta love it! The carnival is back in town: it's Clinton Time!

Here is the synopsis, to bring our latecomers up to snuff. Back in 1995, the then-First Lady was visiting New Zealand and met the great adventurer, Sir Edmund Hillary, then 75 years old. Naturally, her true excitement expressed itself in a lie: she told him that her mother had named her after Sir Edmund, in admiration for his scaling Mount Everest. It did not take long for researchers to discover that Hillary Rodham was born in 1947 while Sir Edmund did not make it up the hill until 1953. This quickly became a synecdoche for all her other fabrications, obfuscations and tergiversations. How big a liar do you have to be to lie about your own name?

Later, she prudently left this gem out of her autobio. Then Bill imprudently included it in his. So this week we get the lie about the lie. Her office announces that her Mom told her this little white lie, but she did it in the hopes of encouraging her to scale great heights in her own life. The New York Times duly passes on the word, although the reporter is struggling desperately to keep his tongue from lodging in his cheek. Done. Hillary is now a) an innocent, b) a victim, c) honest enough to set the record straight, d) big enough to forgive her Mom.

You have to stand back and admire the beauty. To lie is easy enough. You say something about a past event guided by convenience rather than accuracy. What then happens if you get caught? Some hardy blogger looked it up, wrote it up and the jig seems to be... well, up. Here is where the men are told from the boys. A Republican wuss will own up, fess up and pack up. Not a Clinton, no way. A Clinton will keep it up; more than that, dress it up. This is the fun part, where you tell a lie about why you lied that garners more sympathy than had the original lie stood. The second lie makes us feel bad that they had to lie the first time.

Bill did this constantly and skillfully. One classic example: he lied to say he had desperately tried to make a middle-class tax cut to cover the earlier lying promise that he would deliver such a cut. Most famously, he lied about why he lied about his relationship with Monica Lewinsky. He did it to be a gentleman, he explained, and any decent man in his position would have done the same; this, despite the fact that he told the lie in a courtroom in an effort to undo a suit against him for ungentlemanly conduct.

Remember this lesson, my friends. The art of being a good liar is in the second response. Who said not to dig a deeper hole for yourself? On the contrary, the deeper it is the more wiggle room you have. Who said not to compound a crime? Oh, no, you will collect compound interest. As Bill Clinton himself has often demonstrated on the golf course, with a little creativity you can always improve your lie. If at first you don't succeed, lie, lie again. ("Hey, wait a second, Smith is not your real name!" "Yes, my real name is Jones, but since Jonestown my family is embarrassed.")

If we believe Hillary's latest, her mother not only told a false story about her naming, she obviously withheld the real story. Perhaps now when she scales the heights of the presidency, she will be rewarded with that bit of knowledge. You know the old Mount Everest joke. The teacher asks the kid where's Mount Everest and the kid says he doesn't know. "Then stand in the corner," the teacher reprimands. After a few minutes there, the kid calls out: "Teacher, I still can't see it."

Hillary Rodham Clinton can see it [[(Mount Everest and / or the presidency)]] lying there in all its splendor. Her quest answers the age-old question: Why lie about Mount Everest? Because it's there.

Jay D. Homnick, commentator and humorist, is a frequent contributor to The American Spectator. He also writes for Human Events. [My ellipses and emphasis]

Must We Ask For Forgiveness After Each Sin?

Matthew 15:6 KJV [...] Thus have ye made the commandment of God of none effect by your tradition.

From another thread:

{{___ but in your statement below do you believe that all future sins are forgiven without asking forgiveness for commiting them?

{{___ [||] >All sins, past, present, and future, are forgiven for those who are born again.> [|| - my .10 ] }}

Yes, I believe that all the future evil in the walk of the born again has been unconditionally forgiven through the blood sacrifice of the Savior on the Cross.

A requirement to ask for forgiveness after having a bad conscience about a specific thought, word, or act, is works righteousness. It is a form of the universal error, the error of the Galatians.

The requirement for asking forgiveness is based on misinterpretation and mistranslation of a single verse. Nothing is found elsewhere to support it. The whole of the Gospel, properly understood, is against it.

1 John 1:9 KJV If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

John Nelson Darby, known to some as "the greatest expositor of Church truth since Paul", has written in his Synopsis of the Books of the Bible that the "sins" in view may reasonably be taken as sins committed before conversion. Darby is marvelous in avoiding giving offense to those who hold different views. He suggests that we take John as one who writes abstractly. In this later statement, I believe that he is speaking as a responsible Christian leader, avoiding giving unnecessary offense. The first statement may well represent his opinion as a scholar. The usual interpretation is at odds with the rest of the epistle, and, indeed, the rest of scripture.

1 John 3:6 KJV Whosoever abideth in him sinneth not: whosoever sinneth hath not seen him, neither known him.

1 John 3:9 KJV Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for his seed remaineth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God.

1 John 5:18 KJV We know that whosoever is born of God sinneth not; but he that is begotten of God keepeth himself, and that wicked one toucheth him not.

The almost universal explanation is that continuous or intermittent sinning is in view in these three verses. In my opinion, this is errant pedantry bordering on the logically ludicrous.

The biblical definition of "sin" is much narrower than the dictionary or even the Bible dictionary definition. The Hebrew and Greek words mean "missing the mark". In biblical context, coming short spiritually. It is impossible that the new and new kind of human spirit that is the result of being born again should come short of that spiritual glory which God (who "is a spirit") intended for a creature made in His image.

Romans 2:9 KJV Tribulation and anguish, upon every soul of man that doeth evil, of the Jew first, and also of the Gentile;

In situations where any man, including the born again, is bothered by conscience, this verse is applicable.

The Greek is precise. The evil works its way out of the man. The soul suffers. The case of the born again is detailed later in Romans 7 and 8, highlights:

Romans 7:20 KJV Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.

Romans 7:25 KJV I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.

Romans 8:2 KJV For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.

This freedom certainly frees those possessing the spirit of that life which is in Christ Jesus from any traditional rule that requires any work of confession after noticing an activity of the sin that still dwells in their already crucified flesh.

Only the traditions of men say otherwise.

The full form of this particular error is known as the sacrament of confession. It is still at least partially in effect among almost all Christians. The sacrament and confessor parts have been removed by the Reformation. More flexibility has been allowed by others, including most of baptized humanity.

1 John 1:9 Geneva If we acknowledge our sinnes, he is faithfull and iust, to forgiue vs our sinnes, & to clense vs from all vnrighteousnes.

The Geneva translators, men driven from England for their beliefs, seem to stay partly clear of the common error in this verse. The inner apprehension of evil thought, word, or deed, as indeed evil, and as already forgiven through the blood sacrifice of the Cross, is the work of the mind of Christ in the believer.

The too much neglected Love Is Now by Peter E. Gillquist expands on this interpretation. I am indebted to this book and to a noted Christian counselor in Houston for starting me in the right direction on this verse. My present understanding has been a great blessing. May it be a blessing to others.

Violence By a Lady Clergy-Person Anti-Violence Activist?!?

Say it ain't so, Reverend Joy Powell!!!

With apologies to "Shoeless Joe" Jackson, the Chicago White Sox, and Major League Baseball, for the implied comparison.

Historical note: Rochester, New York was the site of the second women's rights conference in history and the home town of Susan B. Anthony, the great women's rights leader, honored on a U.S. dollar coin.

As always, I report and link. You decide. - J :)

From a Democrat and Chronicle .com [Rochester, New York] article, Rev. Joy Powell charged: Burglary, assault:

Rev. Joy Powell charged: Burglary, assault [/] Victoria E. Freile [/] Staff writer [/] October 10, 2006

Local community activist Joy Powell this morning turned herself in to Rochester Police, after being accused of breaking into a relative's home and attacking her cousin, about 30 hours earlier. [/] The Rev. Joyce E. Powell, 44, of 127 First St. was charged with first-degree burglary and second-degree assault, both felonies, said Rochester Police Officer Deidre Taccone. Powell was also charged with fourth-degree criminal mischief, a misdemeanor, Taccone said.

According to court records, Powell, an anti-violence activist, and several other people broke a window at 61 Copeland St. Sunday evening and entered the house. Once inside, Powell and the others allegedly repeatedly beat her 44-year-old female cousin with a small baseball bat and allegedly sprayed mace in the woman's face.

The assault left the woman with multiple injuries, including numerous cuts and bruises, a fractured vertebra and a bruised liver, officers said. [/] The victim was taken to Strong Memorial Hospital on Sunday for treatment. She was listed today in satisfactory condition.

The incident stemmed from a family dispute, Taccone said. [/] Powell, who turned herself in to police about 2 a.m., pleaded not guilty in City Court today. [/] She was remanded to the Monroe County Jail in lieu of $3,000 cash bail, according to court documents. [/] VFREILE@DemocratandChronicle.com [My ellipses and emphasis]

Limbo in Limbo??

I report and link. You decide. - J :)

From a [London] Times Online article, Pope tries to win hearts and minds:

Pope tries to win hearts and minds by saving souls of unbaptised babies [/] By Ruth Gledhill and Richard Owen [/] The Times October 04, 2006

THE Pope will cast aside centuries of Catholic belief later this week by abolishing formally the concept of limbo, in a gesture calculated to help to win the souls of millions of babies in the developing world for Christ.

All the evidence suggests that Benedict XVI never believed in the idea anyway. But in the fertile evangelisation zones of Africa and Asia, the Pope — an acknowledged authority on all things Islamic — is only too aware that Muslims believe the souls of stillborn babies go straight to Heaven. For the Church, looking to spread the faith in countries with a high infant mortality rate, now is a good time to make it absolutely clear that stillborn babies of Christian mothers go direct to Heaven, too.

Anyone who deludes themselves that Muslims do not know about limbo would be wrong. Dante put Jerusalem’s conqueror Saladin in limbo in his Inferno, along with Ovid and Homer and other pre-Christian villains and heroes.

Even though it has never been part of the Church’s doctrine formally, the existence of limbo was taught until recently to Catholics around the world. In Britain it was in the Penny Catechism, approved by the Catholic bishops of England and Wales, that declared limbo “a place of rest where the souls of the just who died before Christ were detained”. [/] But its lack of doctrinal authority has long failed to impress the Pope. who was recorded as saying before his election: “Personally, I would let it drop, since it has always been only a theological hypothesis.”

This week a 30-strong Vatican international commission of theologians, which has been examining limbo, began its final deliberations. Vatican sources said it had concluded that all children who die do so in the expectation of “the universal salvation of God” and the “mediation of Christ”, whether baptised or not.

The theologians’ finding is that God wishes all souls to be saved, and that the souls of unbaptised children are entrusted to a “merciful God” whose ways of ensuring salvation cannot be known. “In effect, this means that all children who die go to Heaven,” one source said.

The commission’s conclusions will be approved formally by the Pope on Friday. [/] Christians hold that Heaven is a state of union with God, while Hell is separation from God. They have long wrestled, however, not only with the fate of unbaptised children, but also with the conundrum of what happened to those who lived a “good life” but died before the time of Jesus.

The answer since the 13th century has been limbo. What remains in an uncertain state, though, is the status of all the pre-Christian and unbaptised adult souls held by some still to be in this halfway house between Heaven and Hell.

The Pope is expected to abolish only “limbus infantium”, where the souls of unbaptised infants go. The precise status of “limbus patrum”, where the good people went who lived before Christ remains . . . well, in limbo.

Although it is the latter that has been subject to such dramatic representation in art and literature, no Christian mother today who miscarries, has a stillborn child or otherwise loses a baby before baptism can bear to view without a purgatorial shudder the traditional images, such as those by Giotto, of Christ freeing Old Testament figures from limbo. [/] In propelling limbo out of its own uncertain state, the Pope is merely acknowledging the distress its half-existence causes to millions and is bringing his characteristic Teutonic sense of righteous clarity to the matter.

One of the reasons Baptists and some other Protestant denominations resist infant baptism is because they believe the souls of babies are innocent and that it is for adults to choose a life in Christ or otherwise. The Early Church father Tertullian opposed infant baptism on these grounds. But the teachings that took hold of the imagination and the faith of the early Christians were those of the Greek fathers such as Gregory of Nazianzus who wrote: “It will happen, I believe . . . that those last mentioned [infants dying without baptism] will neither be admitted by the just judge to the glory of Heaven nor condemned to suffer punishment, since, they are not wicked.”

This seems lenient compared with St Augustine, who in 418 persuaded the Council of Carthage to condemn the British Pelagian heresy that there was an “in between” place for unbaptised babies. He persuaded the council that unbaptised babies share the general misery of the damned. The most he would concede was that their misery was not quite as bad as that of wicked dead adults.

VISIONS OF AN ETERNAL HALFWAY HOUSE

# Dante’s The Divine Comedy describes limbo as the first circle of hell, inhabited by unbaptised children and virtuous pagans born before Christianity. Among them are Homer, Ovid, Socrates and Plato

# In his novel The First Circle, Alexander Solzhenitsyn compares life in a Stalinist prison camp to limbo. The prisoners are unlikely to reach “heaven”, but still enjoy relative freedom within the Gulag system, avoiding the worst of this “hell”

# Shakespeare uses “Limbo Patrum” (Limbo of the fathers) as a metaphor for prison in Henry VIII

# To Samuel Taylor Coleridge, limbo is not a place, but a frightening state, “where Time & weary Space Fettered from flight, with night-mair sense of fleeing Strive for their last crepuscular half-being”

# In The Rape of the Lock Alexander Pope locates the stage between heaven and hell in the lunar sphere, where all things lost on earth find their place. There, “smiles of harlots” are preserved with “the tears of heirs”, broken vows and prayers [My ellipses and emphasis]

Say It Ain't So, Bill!

With apologies to "Shoeless Joe" Jackson, the Chicago White Sox, and Major League Baseball, for the implied comparison. As always, I report and link. You decide. - J :)

From a ninemsn [Australia] article, Clinton had eyes for Demi:

Clinton had eyes for Demi, says Kutcher [/] Monday Oct 2 10:00 AEST

Former US president Bill Clinton tried to 'hit on' actress Demi Moore, her husband Ashton Kutcher has said.

Kutcher, the star of the hit MTV show Punk'd, told chat host Jay Leno that Clinton made eyes at his superstar wife during a recent function. [/] Kutcher said although the three were all sat at a table next to each other he felt like "the invisible man". [/] Kutcher says Clinton didn't say one word to him the whole evening as he was so engrossed with Ghost actress Moore.

"I met Bill Clinton once but he didn't really talk — he was hitting on my wife," Kutcher told Leno. [/] The 28-year-old Butterfly Effect actor — who celebrated his first wedding anniversary with Moore, 43, on Sunday — said Clinton completely ignored him as he chatted to Demi. [/] "I don't think he looked at me the whole time," Kutcher said. [/] "I was like the guy that wasn't there." [My ellipses and emphasis]

Child Molesters: Special Moral Duties Regarding "Disorders"

Even when the report is a post on another thread, and even when I am the author, as always, I report and link. You decide. - J :)

From Delphi Adult Christian Forum Thread 102716 - "Molesting Children", Post 125:

{{___ Is there help for child molesters? Do we understand them at all? […] [\] [...] I don't know of any groups that help, [\] [...] How can we minister to these? Many are killed in prison when they are found out. [\] [...] I would like to help these folks but don't know where to start.}}

Thanks for your expression of concern for a group that has had the iniquity of ancestors, including Adam, visited on them in an egregious way.

As one with a great number of mental and emotional shortcomings, leading to membership in several groups that fall short, in special behavioral ways, of the spiritual glory that God requires of those made in His image, I am thankful for your concern.

I have not had time to read the many entries on this thread, nor do I have the special knowledge that you require.

There has been much potentially helpful knowledge developed by authentic science about these specialized clusters of sins, known to the specialists as "disorders".

I believe that those who suffer from "disorders" of whatever kind, have a duty to become experts on their "disorders" by diligent study. The depth and length of study depending upon personal capacity and the extent of future danger.

Family, friends, and fellow adherents of a local assembly have a similar duty to become knowledgeable. It is part of loving one's neighbor.

Parents have a special similar obligation for themselves and for informing their children of the nature of their defects and of the duty of the children to continue the study, particularly while danger exists.

Groups and professional specialists have five shortcomings.

One. They do not have a continuing and complete relation with the complete individual.

Two. Their knowledge is limited by lack of full knowledge of the individual.

Three. Their knowledge is limited in comparison with what is available in the now extraordinarily massive extraordinarily specialized information available to all from the scientific literature and individual posted and written experiences.

Four. Their knowledge is limited to the soul. The science of interest to the born again is spiritual, not soulish knowledge, "pneumatology" not psychology.

Five. The "spiritual" ones, the born again, are "by no one discerned".

The born again behold the glory of the Man on the right side of the throne of God. And are changed thereby into His image, "from glory unto glory".

1 Corinthians 2:15-16 YLT (15) and he who is spiritual, doth discern indeed all things, and he himself is by no one discerned; (16) for who did know the mind of the Lord that he shall instruct Him? and we--we have the mind of Christ.

2 Corinthians 3:18 KJV But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.

Should House Speaker Hastert Resign?

I suspect that the Washington Times has ulterior motives in this suggestion. No resignation is expected. But the Times would like to have the moral superiority of the Republicans demonstrated. And the Times has been generally disappointed in the performance of the Republican House leadership. And the Times would like to remind everybody of Democrat and Clinton moral rottenness by the elevation of the chairman of the committee that investigated and impeached a known sexual predator and probable rapist. But, as always, I report and link. You decide. - J :)

From a Washington Times article, Resign, Mr. Speaker:

Resign, Mr. Speaker [/] TODAY'S EDITORIAL [/] October 3, 2006

The facts of the disgrace of Mark Foley, who was a Republican member of the House from a Florida district until he resigned last week, constitute a disgrace for every Republican member of Congress. Red flags emerged in late 2005, perhaps even earlier, in suggestive and wholly inappropriate e-mail messages to underage congressional pages. His aberrant, predatory -- and possibly criminal -- behavior was an open secret among the pages who were his prey. The evidence was strong enough long enough ago that the speaker should have relieved Mr. Foley of his committee responsibilities contingent on a full investigation to learn what had taken place, whether any laws had been violated and what action, up to and including prosecution, were warranted by the facts. This never happened.

Rep. John Shimkus of Illinois, the Republican chairman of the House Page Board, said he learned about the Foley e-mail messages "in late 2005." Rep. John Boehner of Ohio, the leader of the Republican majority, said he was informed of the e-mail messages earlier this year. On Friday, Mr. Hastert dissembled, to put it charitably, before conceding that he, too, learned about the e-mail messages sometime earlier this year. Late yesterday afternoon, Mr. Hastert insisted that he learned of the most flagrant instant-message exchange from 2003 only last Friday, when it was reported by ABC News. This is irrelevant. The original e-mail messages were warning enough that a predator -- and, incredibly, the co-chairman of the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children -- could be prowling the halls of Congress. The matter wasn't pursued aggressively. It was barely pursued at all. Moreover, all available evidence suggests that the Republican leadership did not share anything related to this matter with any Democrat.

Now the scandal must unfold on the front pages of the newspapers and on the television screens, as transcripts of lewd messages emerge and doubts are rightly raised about the forthrightness of the Republican stewards of the 109th Congress. Some Democrats are attempting to make this "a Republican scandal," and they shouldn't; Democrats have contributed more than their share of characters in the tawdry history of congressional sexual scandals. Sexual predators come in all shapes, sizes and partisan hues, in institutions within and without government. When predators are found they must be dealt with, forcefully and swiftly. This time the offender is a Republican, and Republicans can't simply "get ahead" of the scandal by competing to make the most noise in calls for a full investigation. The time for that is long past.

House Speaker Dennis Hastert must do the only right thing, and resign his speakership at once. Either he was grossly negligent for not taking the red flags fully into account and ordering a swift investigation, for not even remembering the order of events leading up to last week's revelations -- or he deliberately looked the other way in hopes that a brewing scandal would simply blow away. He gave phony answers Friday to the old and ever-relevant questions of what did he know and when did he know it? Mr. Hastert has forfeited the confidence of the public and his party, and he cannot preside over the necessary coming investigation, an investigation that must examine his own inept performance.

A special, one-day congressional session should elect a successor. We nominate Rep. Henry Hyde, also of Illinois, the chairman of the House International Relations Committee whose approaching retirement ensures that he has no dog in this fight. He has a long and principled career, and is respected on both sides of the aisle. Mr. Hyde would preside over the remaining three months of the 109th Congress in a manner best suited for a full and exhaustive investigation until a new speaker for the 110th Congress is elected in January, who can assume responsibility for the investigation. [My ellipses and emphasis]

Drudge Sets News Media Tone

Book Compares Online Newsman to Walter Cronkite

I felt that it was my duty to contradict the obvious and egregious errors of this article with double bracketed inserted comments. Otherwise, as usual, I report and link. You decide. - J :)

From an ABC News article, Drudge Report Sets Tone for National Political Coverage:

ABC News [/] Drudge Report Sets Tone for National Political Coverage [/] Book Compares Online Newsman to Walter Cronkite

Oct. 1, 2006— - In the crucial congressional elections, now about five weeks away, one of the strongest weapons in the Republican arsenal is a man running a Web site out of his apartment in Miami. His name is Matt Drudge. [/] Drudge broke the Monica Lewinsky story and has had a tremendous influence on what you know about politics ever since. [/] From the comfort of his apartment, Drudge can send shock waves through newsrooms and campaign headquarters nationwide with breaking news often heralded by his trademark siren.

"If Drudge has a siren up, people know it's something they have to look at," said Mark Halperin, ABC News Political Director. [/] Democratic strategist Chris Lehane agreed. [/] "Literally, it goes up on Drudge and the phones start ringing," he said.

Mark McKinnon, one of President Bush's top campaign consultants, said he checks the site 30 to 40 times per day. [/] "When there's a siren, that's a three-alarm news deal," he said. [/] Republican operatives keep an open line to Drudge, often using him to attack their opponents. [/] "I know that we'd have meetings and that information would find its way to Drudge," McKinnon said. [/] And then the mainstream media often picks it up.

One classic example: the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. In the heat of the 2004 presidential campaign, the group made often unfounded [[(actually well founded and well motivated and never substantially contradicted)]] claims about John Kerry's war record, which were pushed hard by Drudge and then investigated by major newspapers and TV networks [[(with obvious bias and ignorance or distortion of the evidence and reasonable analysis, which continues to this day as evidenced by this article)]].

A new book, The Way to Win, co-authored by Halperin, compares Drudge to Walter Cronkite. [/] "Today Matt Drudge can influence the news like Walter Cronkite did," Halperin told ABC News. "If Drudge says something, it may not lead everybody instantly in the same direction, but it gets people thinking about what Matt Drudge wants them to think about." [/] Though Cronkite was described as the "most trusted man in America" Drudge has estimated that 20 percent of his reporting [[("reporting" is a misleading word, Drudge very rarely "reports", Drudge links to or copies reports, a rather new internet activity that we all practice)]] is wrong. He was sued for falsely accusing a Clinton aide of beating his wife. [/] Drudge is also accused of favoring the Republicans.

"I'm a sucker for a good story," Drudge said. "I go where the stink is. I'm a partisan for news."Drudge's coverage affects the media's political coverage, Halperin said. [/] "Matt Drudge is not doing stories on policy, on welfare, on healthcare. He's doing stories on the most salacious aspects of American politics," he said. "When that drives the dialogue, that's where the country heads, that's where our political coverage heads." [[ The notion that the concentration of the media on the "most salacious aspects of American politics" is the fault of Matt Drudge is preposterous. The media has had this concentration before Drudge and it has not increased. Drudge is probably below the average in the salatious focus except in the case of mainstream media cover ups. In these cases he merely forces them to come clean about the dirt.]] [My ellipses and emphasis]

Philippians 2:5-8 - 1, The Mind of Christ

Philippians 2:5-8 ASV Have this mind in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: (6) who, existing in the form of God, counted not the being on an equality with God a thing to be grasped, (7) but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men; (8) and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, becoming obedient even unto death, yea, the death of the cross.

"Have this mind in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:". The American Standard Version of 1901 chooses to render the active voice of the verb as found in the oldest available manuscripts. Rather than the familiar passive, "Let this mind be in you …", of the long available manuscripts of later origin.

Providence appears to desire that we consider both the active and passive aspects of the use by the born again Christian of that great supernatural gift and blessing, the Mind of Christ.

1 Corinthians 2:14-16 LITV [of Jay P. Greene] (14) But a natural man [literally, "a soulish man", as opposed to "the spiritual one" in verse 15, "a natural" or "soulish man"] does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he is not able to know them, because they are spiritually discerned. (15) But the spiritual one discerns all things, but he is discerned by no one. (16) For "who has known the mind of the Lord [(meaing"Jehovah")]?" "Who will teach Him?" But we have the mind of Christ.

Isaiah 40:13 is noted by the translator as the source of the two questions in verse 16:

Isaiah 40:13 DRB Who hath forwarded the spirit of the Lord [(literally Jehovah)]? or who hath been his counsellor, and hath taught him?

The context in Isaiah speaks of the absolute spiritual poverty of the Gentiles. How different it is for those Gentiles who, from the first century on, have been freely given the Mind of Christ.

Like Faith, Hope, and Love, the Mind of Christ is one of the great supernatural gifts and blessings that are the heavenly treasure of the born again. These gifts and blessings are fully accessible through the fleshly veil that was torn asunder at Golgotha. The Mind of Christ has been freely given, in order to be freely used.

Philippians 4:8 LITV For the rest, brothers, whatever is true, whatever honorable, whatever is right, whatever pure, whatever lovely, whatever of good report, if of any virtue, and if of any praise, think on these things.

Those who possess the Mind of Christ are able to judge what is true, honorable, right, pure, lovely, reputable, virtuous, and praiseworthy.

And the spirit of that life which is in Christ Jesus provides the freedom to think on these things.

Woman Heads Largest North American Muslim Group

Her opinions on the "mystery" of the Trinity, proper attire, and public worship arrangements, are worth considering. (May start threads on these later.)

I report and link. You decide. - J :)

From a Toronto Star article, Soccer mom picked to head Islamic group:

Soccer mom picked to head Islamic group [/] Convert | How a Kitchener teen stopped saying her rosary, tuned in to the Qur'an and became president
of N. America's largest Muslim group [/] Sep. 24, 2006. 01:00 AM [/] STEPHANIE SIMON [/] SPECIAL TO THE STAR

Canadian philosophy student Ingrid Mattson had given up God. She had stopped saying her rosaries, stopped taking communion. She was an atheist, abroad in Paris the summer before her senior year at the University of Waterloo.

But she could not stop listening to the Qur'an. [/] "Forget it," she told herself. "This can't be happening to me." [/] But day after day, she popped the cassette into her Walkman, mesmerized by the chanting and oddly moved by lines such as: "Of him seeks every creature in the heavens and on earth; every day in splendour."

When she returned home to Canada after that summer of 1986, Mattson signed up for the only Arabic class she could find. It was full of 8-year-old immigrants, who soon came to resent her for winning so many of the chocolates the teacher awarded top students. [/] Mattson wanted to hang out in bars with her brothers, the way she always had. [/] Instead, she found herself at her sewing machine, stitching headscarves. That spring, during the holy month of Ramadan, she gathered several Muslim friends as witnesses and pledged herself to Allah.

[…] Last month, about 60,000 Muslims in the United States and Canada elected the 43-year-old Kitchener native president of the largest Muslim organization on the continent, an educational and professional group called the Islamic Society of North America. [/] She is ISNA's first woman president, the first non-immigrant and the first convert to Islam.

[…] Outside the organization, Muslims have greeted Mattson's election more warily. [/] She has received angry letters from conservatives who resent having a woman in charge. Such critics often cite an ancient hadith, or narrative about the life of the Prophet Muhammad, stating that no goodwill comes from entrusting leadership to a woman. [/] The Islamic left has questioned Mattson's credentials as well. A traditionalist who dresses modestly in ankle-length skirts and loose blouses — and who avoids shaking men's hands whenever possible — she pushes women's rights only so far. [/] She has called for mosques to dismantle barriers that block women from seeing or clearly hearing the imam during prayer. But she does not support the more radical, feminist notion that women should pray alongside men — or even lead men in prayer.

[…] Mattson's journey to Islam began when she was a teenager in Kitchener. As a girl, she had been the most pious in her family of seven children, but when she entered high school, she began to find bedrock concepts such as the Holy Trinity illogical. [/] The nuns and priests at her Catholic school were unable to answer her questions. "Accept the mystery," they told her. She couldn't. [/] As president of the ISNA — an unpaid post — Mattson will lead a diverse organization that trains Muslim leaders, sets standards for hundreds of mosques, helps immigrants adjust to North American life and serves as an umbrella uniting associations of Muslim engineers, doctors and other professionals. She will also be a very visible spokeswoman for the faith, a role she relishes.

[…] At the convention's opening seminar, she urged her fellow Muslims to step proudly into mainstream society and engage their neighbours until they stop associating Islam with terrorism. [/] "Islamic medical clinics ... Islamic ethics ... Islamic charity. These are the terms that should come off the tips of tongues," she told a cheering crowd. [/] "Islamic intellectuals ... Islamic peace movements ... Islamic human rights. This is who we are." [/] Los Angeles Times [My ellipses and emphasis]

Global Warming: Media Lies?

I report and link. You decide. - J :)

From a U.S. Senate Committee on Environment & Public Works article, Hot & Cold Media Spin:

Speeches & Statements [/] Hot & Cold Media Spin: A Challenge To Journalists Who Cover Global Warming [/] SENATOR JAMES INHOFE CHAIRMAN, SENATE ENVIRONMENT AND PUBLIC WORKS COMMITTEE [/] SENATE FLOOR SPEECH DELIVERED MONDAY SEPTEMBER 25, 2006

I am going to speak today about the most media-hyped environmental issue of all time, global warming. I have spoken more about global warming than any other politician in Washington today. My speech will be a bit different from the previous seven floor speeches, as I focus not only on the science, but on the media’s coverage of climate change.

Global Warming -- just that term evokes many members in this chamber, the media, Hollywood elites and our pop culture to nod their heads and fret about an impending climate disaster. As the senator who has spent more time educating about the actual facts about global warming, I want to address some of the recent media coverage of global warming and Hollywood’s involvement in the issue. And of course I will also discuss former Vice President Al Gore’s movie “An Inconvenient Truth.”

Since 1895, the media has alternated between global cooling and warming scares during four separate and sometimes overlapping time periods. From 1895 until the 1930’s the media pedaled a coming ice age.

From the late 1920’s until the 1960’s they warned of global warming. From the 1950’s until the 1970’s they warned us again of a coming ice age. This makes modern global warming the fourth estate’s fourth attempt to promote opposing climate change fears during the last 100 years. Recently, advocates of alarmism have grown increasingly desperate to try to convince the public that global warming is the greatest moral issue of our generation. Just last week, the vice president of London’s Royal Society sent a chilling letter to the media encouraging them to stifle the voices of scientists skeptical of climate alarmism.

During the past year, the American people have been served up an unprecedented parade of environmental alarmism by the media and entertainment industry, which link every possible weather event to global warming. The year 2006 saw many major organs of the media dismiss any pretense of balance and objectivity on climate change coverage and instead crossed squarely into global warming advocacy.

[…] My skeptical views on man-made catastrophic global warming have only strengthened as new science comes in. There have been recent findings in peer-reviewed literature over the last few years showing that the Antarctic is getting colder and the ice is growing and a new study in Geophysical Research Letters found that the sun was responsible for 50% of 20th century warming. Recently, many scientists, including a leading member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, predicted long-term global cooling may be on the horizon due to a projected decrease in the sun’s output.

A letter sent to the Canadian Prime Minister on April 6 of this year by 60 prominent scientists who question the basis for climate alarmism, clearly explains the current state of scientific knowledge on global warming.

'Climate change is real' is a meaningless phrase used repeatedly by activists to convince the public that a climate catastrophe is looming and humanity is the cause. Neither of these fears is justified. Global climate changes occur all the time due to natural causes and the human impact still remains impossible to distinguish from this natural 'noise.'

[…] The more the eco-doomsayers’ predictions fail, the more the eco-doomsayers predict. These failed predictions are just one reason I respect the serious scientists out there today debunking the latest scaremongering on climate change. Scientists like MIT’s Richard Lindzen, former Colorado State climatologist Roger Pielke, Sr., the University of Alabama’s Roy Spencer and John Christy, Virginia State Climatologist Patrick Michaels, Colorado State University’s William Gray, atmospheric physicist S. Fred Singer, Willie Soon of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Oregon State climatologist George Taylor and astrophysicist Sallie Baliunas, to name a few.

But more importantly, it is the global warming alarmists who should be asked the question -- “What if they are correct about man-made catastrophic global warming?” -- because they have come up with no meaningful solution to their supposed climate crisis in the two decades that they have been hyping this issue.

If the alarmists truly believe that man-made greenhouse gas emissions are dooming the planet, then they must face up to the fact that symbolism does not solve a supposed climate crisis. The alarmists freely concede that the Kyoto Protocol, even if fully ratified and complied with, would not have any meaningful impact on global temperatures. And keep in mind that Kyoto is not even close to being complied with by many of the nations that ratified it, including 13 of the EU-15 nations that are not going to meet their emission reduction promises.

[…] Many of the nations that ratified Kyoto are now realizing what I have been saying all along: The Kyoto Protocol is a lot of economic pain for no climate gain.

[…] If we allow scientifically unfounded fears of global warming to influence policy makers to restrict future energy production and the creation of basic infrastructure in the developing world -- billions of people will continue to suffer. Last week my committee heard testimony from Danish statistician Bjorn Lomborg, who was once a committed left-wing environmentalist until he realized that so much of what that movement preached was based on bad science. Lomborg wrote a book called “The Skeptical Environmentalist” and has organized some of the world’s top Nobel Laureates to form the 2004 “Copenhagen Consensus” which ranked the world’s most pressing problems. http://www.copenhagenconsensus.com/Default.aspx?ID=158 And guess what?

They placed global warming at the bottom of the list in terms of our planet’s priorities. The “Copenhagen Consensus” found that the most important priorities of our planet included: combating disease, stopping malaria, securing clean water, and building infrastructure to help lift the developing nations out of poverty. I have made many trips to Africa, and once you see the devastating poverty that has a grip on that continent, you quickly realize that fears about global warming are severely misguided.

[…] Many in the media, as I noted earlier, have taken it upon themselves to drop all pretense of balance on global warming and instead become committed advocates for the issue.

Here is a quote from Newsweek magazine:

“There are ominous signs that the Earth’s weather patterns have begun to change dramatically and that these changes may portend a drastic decline in food production– with serious political implications for just about every nation on Earth.”

A headline in the New York Times reads: “Climate Changes Endanger World’s Food Output.” Here is a quote from Time Magazine:

“As they review the bizarre and unpredictable weather pattern of the past several years, a growing number of scientists are beginning to suspect that many seemingly contradictory meteorological fluctuations are actually part of a global climatic upheaval.”

All of this sounds very ominous. That is, until you realize that the three quotes I just read were from articles in 1975 editions of Newsweek Magazine and The New York Times, and Time Magazine in 1974. http://time-proxy.yaga.com/time/archive/printout/0,23657,944914,00.html

They weren’t referring to global warming; they were warning of a coming ice age.

Let me repeat, all three of those quotes were published in the 1970’s and warned of a coming ice age.
[…]The media endlessly hypes studies that purportedly show that global warming could increase mosquito populations, malaria, West Nile Virus, heat waves and hurricanes, threaten the oceans, damage coral reefs, boost poison ivy growth, damage vineyards, and global food crops, to name just a few of the global warming linked calamities. Oddly, according to the media reports, warmer temperatures almost never seem to have any positive effects on plant or animal life or food production. Fortunately, the media’s addiction to so-called ‘climate porn’ has failed to seduce many Americans.

According to a July Pew Research Center Poll, the American public is split about evenly between those who say global warming is due to human activity versus those who believe it’s from natural factors or not happening at all.

In addition, an August Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll found that most Americans do not attribute the cause of recent severe weather events to global warming, and the portion of Americans who believe global warming is naturally occurring is on the rise.

Yes -- it appears that alarmism has led to skepticism.

The American people know when their intelligence is being insulted. They know when they are being used and when they are being duped by the hysterical left.

The American people deserve better -- much better -- from our fourth estate. We have a right to expect accuracy and objectivity on climate change coverage. We have a right to expect balance in sourcing and fair analysis from reporters who cover the issue.

Above all, the media must roll back this mantra that there is scientific “consensus” of impending climatic doom as an excuse to ignore recent science. After all, there was a so-called scientific “consensus” that there were nine planets in our solar system until Pluto was recently demoted.

Breaking the cycles of media hysteria will not be easy since hysteria sells -- it’s very profitable. But I want to challenge the news media to reverse course and report on the objective science of climate change, to stop ignoring legitimate voices [in] this scientific debate and to stop acting as a vehicle for unsubstantiated hype.

Click here for highlights [and audio and video] of the speech [/] Contact: Marc Morano (marc_morano@epw.senate.gov) Matt Dempsey (matthew_dempsey@epw.senate.gov) [My ellipses and emphasis]

An Important Event?

An address of John Paul II on June 10, 1979 at the Blonie Field marked the beginning of the end for Soviet Communism. Will the address of his successor on September 12, 2006 at the University of Regensburg be a similar milestone in world history?

I report and link. You decide. - J :)

From an American Thinker article, The Pope, Jihad, and “Dialogue”:

The Pope, Jihad, and “Dialogue” [/] September 17th, 2006

The most important address commemorating 9/11/01 was delivered on 9/12/06, a day after the fifth anniversary of this cataclysmic act of jihad terrorism. It was not delivered by President Bush, and was not even pronounced in the United States. On September 12, 2006 at the University of Regensburg, Pope Benedict XVI delivered a lecture (“adding some allusions of the moment”) entitled, “Faith, Reason and the University”.

[…] Christianity, the Pope maintained, was indelibly linked to reason and he contrasted this view with those who believe in spreading their faith by the sword. Benedict developed this argument by recounting the late 14th century “Dialogue Held With A Certain Persian, the Worthy Mouterizes, in Anakara of Galatia” between the Byzantine ruler Manuel II Paleologus, and a well-educated Muslim interlocutor. The crux of this part of his presentation, was the following:

Violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul. ‘God’, he [the Byzantine ruler] says, ‘is not pleased by blood – and not acting reasonably is contrary to God’s nature. Faith is born of the soul, not the body. Whoever would lead someone to faith needs the ability to speak well and to reason properly, without violence and threats… To convince a reasonable soul, one does not need a strong arm, or weapons of any kind, or any other means of threatening a person with death’

However, it is Benedict’s discussion of the Byzantine ruler’s allusions to “…the theme of the jihad (holy war)”—Koran 2:256, “There is no compulsion in religion”, notwithstanding—that has unleashed a firestorm of condemnation and violence from Muslims across the world. Here are the words deemed so incendiary by both Muslim leaders, and the masses:

Without descending to details, such as the difference in treatment accorded to those who have the ‘Book’ and the ‘infidels’, he [Manuel II Paleologus] turns to his interlocutor somewhat brusquely with the central question on the relationship between religion and violence in general, in these words: ‘Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.’

The historical context for these words—which were likely written by Manuel II Paleologus between 1391 and 1394—turns out be much more banal, albeit unknown to fulminating Muslims (here; here),and Islamic apologists of all ilks, especially the disingenuous Muslim (here; here) and hand-wringing non-Muslim promoters of empty “civilizational dialogue”.

When Manuel II composed the Dialogue (which Pope Benedict excerpted), the Byzantine ruler was little more than a glorified dhimmi vassal of the Ottoman Sultan Bayezid, forced to accompany the latter on a campaign through Anatolia. Earlier, Bayezid had compelled the Byzantines under Manuel II to submit to additional humiliations and impositions—heavier tribute, which was already onerous—as well as the establishment of a special quarter in Constantinople devoted to Turkish merchants, and the admission of an Ottoman kadi to arbitrate the affairs of these Muslims.

During the campaign he was conscripted to join, Manuel II witnessed with understandable melancholy the great metamorphosis—ethnic and toponymic—of formerly Byzantine Asia Minor. The devastation, and depopulation of these once flourishing regions was so extensive that often, Manuel could no longer tell where he was. The still recognizable Greek cities whose very names had been changed into something foreign became a source of particular grief. It was during this unhappy sojourn that Manuel II’s putative encounter with a Muslim theologian occurred, ostensibly in Ankara.

[…] Returning to Pope Benedict’s now controversial lecture, even if one accepts an apologetic interpretation of Koran 2:256 as prohibiting forced conversion to Islam (see below), this verse was abrogated by the verses of jihad, for example 9:5, and many others in sura 9, as well as sura 8. Indeed Koran 9:5 alone is held to have abrogated (here, pp. 67-75 ) as many as 100 pacific (or seemingly pacific verses).

Koranic sources, in particular the timeless war proclamation (the Koran being the “uncreated word of Allah” for Muslims) on generic pagans (not simply Arabian pagans), Koran 9:5, offers pagans the stark “choice” of conversion or death:

Then, when the sacred months have passed, slay the idolaters wherever ye find them, and take them (captive), and besiege them, and prepare for them each ambush. But if they repent and establish worship and pay the poor-due, then leave their way free. Lo! Allah is Forgiving, Merciful.

[…] Such coercion applies not only to “pagans”. Princeton scholar Patricia Crone makes the cogent argument that those of any faith may be forcibly converted during acts of jihad resulting in captivity (including, for example, the jihad kidnapping of the two Fox reporters, Centanni and Wiig). In her recent analysis of the origins and development of Islamic political thought, Dr. Crone makes an important nexus between the mass captivity and enslavement of non-Muslims during jihad campaigns, and the prominent role of coercion in these major modalities of Islamization. Following a successful jihad, she notes:

Male captives might be killed or enslaved, whatever their religious affiliation. People of the Book were not protected by Islamic law until they had accepted dhimma (Koran 9:29). Captives might also be given the choice between Islam and death, or they might pronounce the confession of faith of their own accord to avoid execution: jurists ruled that their change of status was to be accepted even though they had only converted out of fear.

An unapologetic view of Islamic history reveals that forced conversions to Islam are not exceptional—they have been the norm, across three continents—Asia, Africa, and Europe—for over 13 centuries.

Moreover, during jihad—even the jihad campaigns of the 20th century [i.e., the jihad genocide of the Armenians during World War I, the Moplah jihad in Southern India [1921], the jihad against the Assyrians of Iraq [early 1930s], the jihads against the Chinese of Indonesia and the Christian Ibo of southern Nigeria in the 1960s, and the jihad against the Christians and Animists of the southern Sudan from 1983 to 2001], the dubious concept (see Paret, above) of “no compulsion” (Koran 2:256; which was cited with tragic irony during the Fox reporters “confessional”! ) , has always been meaningless.

A consistent practice was to enslave populations taken from outside the boundaries of the “Dar al Islam”, where Islamic rule (and Law) prevailed. Inevitably fresh non-Muslim slaves, including children (for example, the infamous devshirme system in Ottoman Turkey, which spanned three centuries and enslaved 500,000 to one million Balkan Christian adolescent males, forcibly converting them to Islam), were Islamized within a generation, their ethnic and linguistic origins erased.

Two enduring and important mechanisms for this conversion were concubinage and the slave militias—practices still evident in the contemporary jihad waged by the Arab Muslim Khartoum government against the southern Sudanese Christians and Animists . And Julia Duin reported in early 2002 that murderous jihad terror campaigns—including, prominently, forced conversions to Islam —continued to be waged against the Christians of Indonesia’s Moluccan Islands.

[…] Eschewing the comforting banalities of his predecessor, Benedict XVI has acknowledged that real dialogue, as opposed to bavardage, begins not by kissing the Koran, but reading it. Most importantly, he is impatient with an interfaith dialogue between Muslims and Christians limited to platitudes about “Abrahamic faiths”, which scrupulously avoids serious discussions of the living, sacralized Islamic institution of jihad war.

Until Muslims evidence a willingness to engage in such forthright discussions, Benedict appears to share Dr. Malik’s sobering conclusions from his February 2003 speech: “One certainly needs to be open at all times to learn from the Other, including to learn at times that the Other right now has nothing to teach me on a particular issue.” [/] Andrew G. Bostom is the author of The Legacy of Jihad. [My bracketed ellipses and emphasis]