POLL: Redeploy U.S. Forces Now In Iraq? I

See article in three posts on this thread and Vote at Adult Christian Forum Thread 99048 (Choices also given after each of three article section posts).

U.S. can't 'redeploy' its way out of Iraq

The biggest kid on the block has responsibilities:

For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same: For he is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil. - Paul (Romans 13:3-4 KJV)

------------Beginning--Section I--of III--------------

From a Chicago Sun Times Mark Steyn column, U.S. can't 'redeploy' its way out of Iraq:

U.S. can't 'redeploy' its way out of Iraq [/] June 25, 2006 [/] BY MARK STEYN SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST

Last week John Kerry revealed his plan to "redeploy" U.S. forces from Iraq. This plan is different from fellow Defeaticrat Jack Murtha's plan to "redeploy" U.S. forces from Iraq to Okinawa, which Congressman Murtha seems to think is in the general neighborhood of Iraq. Iraq's in the Middle East, Okinawa's in the Far East: C'mon, how far can it be to get from the Far to the Middle? After all, the distance between the farthest fringe of the kook left and the center of the Democratic Party seems to be closing up every week.

Anyway, Sen. Kerry doesn't want to waste time "redeploying" to Okinawa. When America "redeploys," it's not going to take a connecting flight via Japan and risk its luggage getting "redeployed" to Bratislava. No, sir, in John Kerry's America, we "redeploy" nonstop, straight back to Main Street in time for the Redeployment Day parade.

You gotta hand it to these guys: "Redeployment" is ingenious. I'll bet the focus-group consultants were delirious: "surrender," "lose,","scram," "scuttle ignominiously," "head for the hills" all polled poorly, but "redeploy" surveyed well with all parts of the base, except the base in Okinawa, where they preferred "sayonara" -- that's "redeploy" in any language. The Defeaticrats have a clear message for the American people. Read da ploy: No new quagmires.

This is the most artful example of Leftspeak since they came up with "undocumented immigrant." In fact, if it catches on, I'll bet millions of fine upstanding members of the Undocumented-American community now start referring to themselves as Redeployed Mexicans.

The only teensy-weensy problem is this: If America ever adopts the Kerry plan, the Murtha plan or some variation thereof, does anyone think al-Jazeera, the BBC, Le Monde, Der Spiegel et al will be using the word "redeploy" in their headlines? Or will they use a word closer to what's actually going on?

In a sense, the Democrats have already psychologically redeployed. Last week they unveiled their "New Direction for America." It's a six-point plan, two of whose points are "Cut College Costs" and "Ensure Dignified Retirement." On the first point, it's true the education system remains a problem: Many hardworking Americans are trapped in low-paying dead-end jobs as U.S. congressmen because an inadequate education left them with the impression Okinawa's in the United Arab Emirates. On the second point, I'm all in favor of a "dignified retirement": Why not try it on Kerry as a pilot program? As for the other four points, none has anything to say about national security or foreign policy.

The Defeaticrats' "New Direction for America" foresees a future for this country as a kind of Lesser France. That would be problematic enough: The dependency culture favored by the Dems has mired much of Europe in permanent double-digit unemployment, a moribund economy and unsustainable social programs. Presumably, Nancy Pelosi and Co. would respond by saying that their pledge to "give America a raise" -- i.e., increase the minimum wage -- shows that their party is in tune with real people's real needs rather than a lot of foreign adventuring that's got nothing to do with how real people really lead their really real lives. Sorry, it doesn't work like that. Not even the Democrats can redeploy from the whole planet.

[…] [My ellipses and emphasis]

------------End--Section I--of III--------------

Poll Question: "Redeploy" U.S. Forces Now In Iraq? | Poll choices:

1. Yes. Only rabid right wing attack dogs think otherwise. [/] 2. Yes. Iraq for the Iraqis. [/] 3. Yes. Our soldiers have suffered enough. [/] 4. Yes. The Iraqis have suffered enough. [/] 5. Yes. Our international reputation has suffered enough. [/] 6. Yes. More oppression will only drive the victims to greater atrocities. [/] 7. Yes. Americans have the real needs for more government help. [/] 8. Yes, Let niceness reign in both foreign and domestic policies. [/] 9. Yes. [/] 10. Possibly. Should be investigated. [/] 11. Possibly. But bigger government more important. [/] 12. No. But stop attacking those made psychotic by oppression. [/] 13. No. [/] 14. No. Support Iraq's elected government. [/] 15. No. Keep our promises and commitments. [/] 16. No. Support law and order directed toward real freedom. [/] 17. No. The biggest kid on the block has responsibilities. [/] 18. No. Use big stick on world's thugs whenever needed. [/] 19. No comment. [/] 20. No opinion. [/] 21. This poll is worthless. [/] 22. This poll is of negative value. [/] 23. Other.

Vote at Adult Christian Forum Thread 99048

Plain Truth About Episcopal Convention

Plain Truth About Episcopal Convention

A Pakistani born Church of England bishop, calls them as he sees them.

And, to the best of my knowlege, calls them as they are.

From a Telegraph [U.K.] "op-ed" article, Truth should be more important than unity:

Truth should be more important than unity [/] By Michael Nazir-Ali, Bishop of Rochester [UK Church of England] [/] (Filed: 25/06/2006)

In many ways, the United States is a study in contrasts. It is full of clashing colours and jangling messages. Socially and politically, it is very divided. The "neocons" have clear views on everything from Iraq to abortion, and the "progressives" have the opposite - but also equally clear - opinions on such matters. We would expect, then, to find these divisions reflected in broadly-based organisations such as the Churches and we would not be wrong. All of the so-called "mainline" Churches have this fault-line running through them.

Why, then, should I have been shocked on entering the Greater Columbus Convention Centre in Ohio, where the General Convention of the Episcopal Church (the Anglican Church in the USA) was being held? Should I not have expected tension, difference and debate? There was, first of all, culture shock. It felt to me like a trendy exhibition put together by some ultra-politically-correct organisation, with all the favourite causes of the fashionable prominent. There was, however, a more profound reason for feeling uncomfortable: it became plain quite quickly that this was not a conflict merely of styles, attitudes or even opinions but of two quite different views of religion.

One tendency that was informing the culture of the convention, in a major way, was to do with the diffuse religiosity of the present-day West. Such religiosity, in my view, has much in common with New Age ideas, vague as these often are, such as nature mysticism, or a sense of oneness with the world around, and pantheism, the belief that everything is divine: God is identified with Mother Nature and also with our own souls. Jesus then becomes just a special example of a god-self. Such a world-view is likely to be optimistic, inclusive and non-judgmental. It regards the world and the people in it as more or less as God intended them to be. Such people should be accepted as they are and, if they wish to be, fully included in the life of the Church without further question.

My natural friends in ECUSA, however, are those who want to hold on to the historic, Biblical and catholic faith as it has been received through the ages and in every part of the world. Such a view sees the value of God's creation and regards human beings as made in God's image but it also takes seriously what is wrong with the world and ourselves. We need to be saved from the consequences of our own thoughts and deeds as well as from the "wrongness" of the world. People need not just acceptance and inclusion but conversion and transformation. The work of the Spirit is not formless, vague and without direction, as some "progressives" would have us believe. It is, rather, that of witnessing to Christ, making plain the words and works of Jesus to us and glorifying both Christ and the Father who sent him. The Spirit is continually forming us so that we attain to the fullness of life in Christ.

Such a view of the Christian faith and of the Church that holds it need not be backward-looking. It should be able to engage with the moral and spiritual issues of the day. It can, for instance, uphold fundamental human dignity in the debate about beginning and end of life issues. Because we are in God's image, from the earliest to the last moments, there is an inalienable dignity that cannot be taken away. The abortion debate, for example, is showing us that change as a result of increasing knowledge need not always be in the permissive direction. A properly Christian view of marriage is desperately needed for the sake of family stability and the bringing up of children. Single parents can be heroic in what they do but it is generally recognised that a two-parent family is best for children. The prophetic books in the Bible and the ministry of Jesus himself enable Christians to give sacrificially to charity, to be involved in caring for the poor, needy and ill and to struggle for justice, compassion and peace.

Because Anglicanism has been a broad Church, these two ways of understanding faith have somehow continued to co-exist under one umbrella. But now the issue is not just about opinion but practice. One school of thought is wanting to change Church teaching on marriage as being a lifelong union of a man and a woman for the sake of mutual affection, support and the bringing up of children in the best circumstances possible.

There is a serious breakdown of marriage discipline and, while I was there, the ECUSA bishops passed a resolution indicating their advocacy of same-sex marriage. This happened without any debate on the nature of marriage and how the Church contributed to a public understanding of such a vital social institution. Some in the Church are willing to abandon catholic order, which Anglicans have continued to maintain under pressure from other Churches, and also to revise requirements regarding life-style for those to be ordained deacon, priest or bishop. There are others who are compromising the Church's belief in the uniqueness of Christ's person and work in the cause of multi-faithism. Such views are affecting the integrity of Christian worship and sacramental discipline.

In a broad Church, comprehensiveness must be principled, otherwise there is the risk of disintegration. It is this risk which is becoming actual as more and more people argue that the Anglican Communion is just a loose federation with few, if any, firm doctrinal and moral moorings. In the past, Anglican comprehensiveness has been grounded in acknowledging the supremacy of the Bible, the authority of what Christians have always and everywhere believed, and of the Anglican formularies, such as the Book of Common Prayer, the Articles of Religion and the Ordinal, which bear witness to this faith. Such foundations are more and more dispensable these days, and it is this which has produced our present crisis.

What then is to be done? Unity for Christians is precious and not easily given up but we cannot have unity at the expense of truth. If the truth is seen so differently by the various groups, and there is little hope of convergence, let alone agreement, would it not be better to take different paths rather then pretending to be on the same one? I sincerely pray that it does not come to this and that, even in the face of such differences, there will be the determination to walk in the same way. But if not, separation may actually lead to less bitterness, a greater willingness to converse and, perhaps, even some scope for cooperation in areas where this is possible.

As Christians, it is our duty to pray for the unity of all those who call themselves followers of Jesus but unity does not come at any price and it as well to be prepared for the worst. [My ellipses and emphasis]

Major Democrat Backs Pre-Emptive Strike

1984 Democratic Presidential Nominee Supports Pre-Emptive Strike

Walter Mondale would have been, in my opinion, the best Democratic president since Andrew Jackson.

He is a man who would not tell a lie to further his presidential campaign.

Full disclosure: I once took his niece, Ellen, to lunch.

From a KARE 11 [Minneapolis] News article, Mondale: Force an option for stopping North Korea:

Mondale: Force an option for stopping North Korea

[1984 Democratic Presidential Nominee (and f]ormer Vice President[)] Walter Mondale says he supports a pre-emptive U.S. strike against a North Korean missile that is raising nuclear fears around the globe.

Earlier this week North Korea announced it was preparing to test a missile that could reach United States mainland. Tensions rose further when the North Koreans put fuel into the missile, and continued to insist that a test firing was imminent.

Mondale said on WCCO-AM Friday that the United States should tell North Korea "[D]efuel that missile. It has three boosters. Dismantle it and put it back in the sheds. Because if you’re getting ready to fire this, we’ll take it out."

Mondale, who's also a former U.S. ambassador to Japan, calls the North Korean missile "one of the most dangerous developments" in recent history.

"Nuclear weapons can destroy hundreds of millions of people in one strike — destroy major cities —it is the danger of our time," Mondale said. "Here’s this bizarre, hermit kingdom up there, with a paranoid leader getting ready to test a missile system that can hit us. We’ve got to stop it."

The tensions are over North Korea's apparent preparations to test-fire a Taepodong-2 missile, and the possibility that the missile could eventually carry a nuclear warhead.

Analysts do not agree on how far the missile can travel —Jane's Defense, for example, said last year that the Taepodong-2's maximum range was probably about 3,700 miles. A Russian report said it was about 5,600 miles, and an American report suggested 6,200 miles. Other reports have quoted U.S. officials as saying the 116-foot-long missile has a firing range of 9,300 miles.

Despite the confusion, Mondale and other former top Democrats are convinced apparently that action is the key to ending the standoff.

"This is such a legitimate thing for the United States to do," Mondale said. "The nature of the threat is so serious that I think we should knock it out right there if they won’t stop."

President Clinton's defense secretary, William Perry, advocated such a pre-emptive strike in The Washington Post. Current National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley brushed aside Perry's suggestion, saying he hoped that North Korea would see the unanimously negative reaction from the international community to the test and return to the negotiating table. [My ellipses, additions, substitutions, and emphasis]

N.Y. Times Illegally Helps Terrorists

But will the mainstream, elite media, tell the truth about their fearless leader?

And will American citizens and their elected representatives continue to allow illegal aid to terrorists who aim to kill us to go unpunished?

Stay tuned.

From a National Review Online article, The Media’s War Against the War Continues:

June 23, 2006, 1:58 a.m. [/] The Media’s War Against the War Continues [/] The New York Times and Los Angeles Times expose a classified anti-terrorism program. [/] By Andrew C. McCarthy

Yet again, the New York Times was presented with a simple choice: help protect American national security or help al Qaeda.

Yet again, it sided with al Qaeda.

Once again, members of the American intelligence community had a simple choice: remain faithful to their oath — the solemn promise the nation requires before entrusting them with the secrets on which our safety depends — or violate that oath and place themselves and their subjective notions of propriety above the law.

Once again, honor was cast aside.

For the second time in seven months, the Times has exposed classified information about a program aimed at protecting the American people against a repeat of the September 11 attacks. On this occasion, it has company in the effort: The Los Angeles Times runs a similar, sensational story. Together, the newspapers disclose the fact that the United States has covertly developed a capability to monitor the nerve center of the international financial network in order to track the movement of funds between terrorists and their facilitators.

The effort, which the government calls the “Terrorist Finance Tracking Program” (TFTP), is entirely legal. There are no conceivable constitutional violations involved. The Supreme Court held in United States v. Miller (1976) that there is no right to privacy in financial-transaction information maintained by third parties. Here, moreover, the focus is narrowed to suspected international terrorists, not Americans, and the financial transactions implicated are international, not domestic. This is not data mining, and it does not involve fishing expeditions into the financial affairs of American citizens. Indeed, few Americans even have information that is captured by the program — though there would be nothing legally offensive even if they did.

And unlike the last vital program the New York Times compromised — the National Security Agency’s Terrorist Surveillance Program, which the same reporters, James Risen and Eric Lichtblau, exposed last December — there is not even a facially plausible concern that the TFTP violates statutory law. The provisions germane here (mainly, the Right to Financial Privacy Act that Congress enacted in 1978 in reaction to Miller) do not even apply to the nerve center at issue, the Society of Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication.

That’s because SWIFT, as it is better known, is not a financial institution at all. It is a consortium, centered not in the U.S. but in Belgium, which simply — albeit importantly — oversees how funds are routed globally. It is a messenger, not a bank. Nevertheless, in an abundance of caution, the government uses administrative subpoenas — which were expressly provided for by Congress in the aforementioned Financial Privacy Act and the Patriot Act — when it seeks SWIFT information. That’s not just legal; it’s hyper-legal.

Nor is there any credible worry that the Bush administration is secretly and dictatorially running roughshod over privacy interests. Prominent members of Congress — including elected officials from both parties who serve on the House and Senate Intelligence Committees — have been briefed on the program since its inception after the 9/11 attacks.

The administration, moreover, has worked closely with SWIFT managers, who are led by the National Bank of Belgium and include such other independent financial powerhouses as the Bank of England, the European Central Bank, and the Bank of Japan, as well as the U.S. Federal Reserve. The resulting collaboration has both narrowed the information gathered and ensured that its use is limited to counterterrorism purposes — not the prosecution of ordinary crimes. As if that were not enough, the TFTP is regularly subjected to independent auditing as an additional safeguard ensuring that information is accessed only for terrorism-related purposes.

No, the most salient thing we learn from today’s compromise of the TFTP is that the program has been highly effective at keeping us safe. According to the government, it has helped identify and locate terrorists and their financial backers; it has been instrumental in charting terrorist networks; and it has been essential in starving these savage organizations of their lifeblood: funding.

The TFTP was evidently key to the capture of one of the world’s most formidable terrorists. Riduan bin Isamuddin, better known as “Hambali” — the critical link between al Qaeda and its Indonesian affiliate, Jemaah Islamiya, and thus at the center of the 2002 Bali bombing in which 202 people were slaughtered — is now in U.S. custody rather than wreaking more mayhem. He was apprehended in Thailand in 2003, thanks to the program, which identified a previously unknown financial link to him in Southeast Asia.

[…] It was in view of the TFTP’s palpable value in protecting American lives, its obvious legal propriety, and the plain fact that it was being responsibly conducted that the administration pleaded with the newspapers not to reveal it after government officials despicably leaked it. Exposing the program would tell the public nothing about official misconduct. It would accomplish only the educating of al Qaeda — the nation’s enemy in an ongoing war; an enemy well-known to be feverishly plotting new, massive attacks — about how better to evade our defenses. About how better to kill us.

Appealing to the patriotism of these newspapers proved about as promising as appealing to the humanity of the terrorists they so insouciantly edify — the same monsters who, as we saw again only a few days ago with the torture murder of two American soldiers, continue to define depravity down.

The newspapers, of course, said no. Why? What could outweigh the need to protect a valid effort to shield Americans from additional, barbarous attacks? Bill Keller, executive editor of the New York Times, smugly decreed that the Bush administration’s “access to this vast repository of international financial data” was, in his singularly impeccable judgment, “a matter of public interest.”

And you probably thought George Bush was the imperious one. And that the public’s principal interest was in remaining alive. Wrong again.

The blunt reality here is that there is a war against the war. It is the jihad of privacy fetishists whose self-absorption knows no bounds. Pleas rooted in the well-being of our community hold no sway.

The anti-warriors know only the language of self-interest. It is the language that tells them the revelation of the nation’s secrets will result, forthwith, in the demand for the revelation of their secrets — which is to say, their sources in the intelligence community — with incarceration the price of resistance. It is the language admonishing that even journalists themselves may be prosecuted when their publication of national secrets violates the law.

Bluntly, officials who leak the classified information with which they have been entrusted can be prosecuted for theft of government property. If the information is especially sensitive, they can be prosecuted for violating the Espionage Act. In either event, the press has no legal right to protect such lawlessness.

That is our simple choice: Strong medicine we will either take or persist in declining … while resigning ourselves to more of the same. [/] — Andrew C. McCarthy, a former federal prosecutor, is a senior fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. [My ellipses and emphasis]

Can a woman be a good priest?

Brown Bear's Interesting answer:

A woman can never be a good priest !

A woman never forgives anything !

From a Lucianne.com , Must Reads of the day thread (scroll down to Reply 20 by Brown Bear for quote above) commenting on [London] TimesOnline.co.uk article, Anglicans 'are close to anarchy' in dispute over female bishop:

The Times June 20, 2006 [/] Anglicans 'are close to anarchy' in dispute over female bishop [/] By Ruth Gledhill, Religion Correspondent and James Bone in Columbus, Ohio

THE Anglican Church descended into “ecclesiastical anarchy” last night as American traditionalists refused to accept the authority of a woman and asked the Archbishop of Canterbury to lead them instead.

Liberals celebrated the election of Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori as Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church while the traditionalist Fort Worth Diocese appealed to Dr Rowan Williams for “alternative primatial oversight”.

The appeal, being mulled over at Lambeth Palace, is expected to be the first of several. It represents the first formal step towards a schism that evangelicals say began with the consecration of the openly gay Gene Robinson as [the living with a partner in homosexual relationship] Bishop of New Hampshire in 2003.

The crisis was heightened as resolutions being debated over gays fell short of the “repentance” and “moratoria” demanded by the Windsor Report set up by [Archbishop of Canterbury and head of the Anglican Communion] Dr Williams. One well-placed conservative source said: “We are in uncharted waters. The Church is descending into anarchy.”

Last night representatives of the [American] Episcopal Church rejected suggestions that they broke with the worldwide Anglican Communion when they elected Bishop Robinson. In its first action, the 843-member House of Deputies rejected language expressing regret for “breaching the proper constraints of the bonds of affection” by his [(the homosexually co-habiting bishop's)] election. Instead, the deputies approved wording expressing regret merely for “straining” the bonds of affection with the Anglican Communion.

Dr Williams issued a guarded welcome to the new Presiding Bishop, referring to the difficulties the election represents for Anglicans. “I send my greetings to Bishop Katharine and she has my prayers and good wishes as she takes up a deeply demanding position at a critical time,” he said. Bishop Schori will be instituted in November.

Bishop Schori [(the American Episcopal Presiding Bishop elect)] told CNN yesterday that she did not believe homosexuality was a sin, adding: “I believe that God creates us with different gifts.”

Fort Worth is one of three US dioceses not to accept women priests. These and a further seven evangelical dioceses belong to a network of orthodox parishes and dioceses that represent 10 per cent of the US Episcopal Church.

If Dr Williams agreed to provide alternative oversight and the entire American Anglican Network followed, there would be two Anglican Churches within the US. Both would be in communion with the Archbishop of Canterbury, although not with each other. […] [My ellipses substitutions, additions, and emphasis]

Read the whole article, including the time line at the end.

Sore Losers: Sign of U.S. Moral Decay?

Back in the days of yesteryear, the Boy's Club of Trinity Episcopal Church in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, had a motto:

Lose with a winning smile.

But, today, for our cultural elites "winners and losers" have become "oppressors and victims".

So the (Anglican) Episcopal Church USA, having been "victimized" by criticism from the tradition-oriented worldwide Anglican majority, responds to their "oppressors" (mostly Africans and Asians, actually) by the "in your face" selection of a woman as their Presiding Bishop. (See Delphi Adult Christian Forum thread 98726: Episcopal Train Wreck Ahead .)

And in the sports-winners-oriented state (and onetime independent nation) of Texas, which in yesteryear had the motto:

A good little man can beat a good big man anytime, if he is in the right, and he keeps a' coming.

(Both mottoes are echoes of Gospel Truth: the God-given Faith of the Born Again in the ultimately beneficial provision of a Sovereign God to His children and their persistent God-given Faith in the Eternal Salvation of His chosen ones.

(Those are, by far, the best reasons to keep smiling and persisting. Full disclosure: it was a probably non-Christian friend who first gave me the nickname: "Smiling Jim". She could not understand, I believe, why an obviously defective person like myself should be always smiling.)

Now, in Texas, a new level of hysterical response to alleged National Basketball League "oppression" of an allegedly "victimized" Dallas, Texas, team has been attained.

From a MiamiHerald.com article, Official [cover-up]? Conspiracy theories no excuse for Dallas:

Posted on Tue, Jun. 20, 2006 [/] Official [cover-up]? Conspiracy theories no excuse for Dallas [/] gcote@MiamiHerald.com

[…] There was [the Dallas, Texas, Mavericks owner], whose billions can buy just about anything but a mortal slump by D-Wade, careening onto the court in a blue Jerry Stackhouse jersey after the final buzzer, screaming profanely at referee Joe DeRosa.

[The Dallas Mavericks owner] then turned to [National Basketball League Commissioner David] Stern and other NBA officials who were seated at the scorer's table and was overheard to shout venomously in the jubilant din, "[Bleep] you! [Bleep] you! Your league is rigged!''

MAVS COME UNHINGED [/] That was just after The Incredible Shrinking Dirk Nowitzki -- who began the series as a 7-foot [Dallas] superstar but has seen the series turn him into his own bobblehead doll -- punted the basketball up into the 300-level seats after the buzzer and marauded off the court, slamming a water cooler and kicking a stationary bicycle in the hallway en route to the visitors' dressing room.

A bit after that is when [Dallas] coach Avery Johnson conducted a news conference that, if it were any stranger, might have seen him restrained and fitted with a straitjacket by men in White Hot coats.

[…] [The Dallas coach's] performance seemed applicable to the phrase ''cracking under pressure'' to a degree that left you worried the coach was going to suddenly split in two, like a coconut that met a machete. […] [My ellipses, substitutions, and emphasis]

The Bible in Basic English

Thanks for using the Bible in Basic English and for providing a link to the chapter to provide easy access to context.

Both the Bible in Basic English and Basic English itself are too much neglected treasures that can provide information in what is correct English to those whose knowledge of the language is limited. Like many of those here and abroad with access to the web today.

What many do not realize is that the Bible in Basic English is direct translation from the Greek and Hebrew by highly qualified scholars. Basic English is the product of a linguistic genius. It is both a subset of English with a limited vocabulary and word senses. And a complete language in its own right, capable of transmitting quite precise meanings in a wordy and sometimes clumsy way.

For the skilled speaker of English, the Bible in Basic English provides a way to speed read while retaining most of the thought.

For children, I prefer the New Life Study Testament. Making the language simple as in Basic English does not bring concepts learned later in life to a child's understanding. And copious study helps are a significant advantage.

Episcopal Train Wreck Ahead

The "in your face" election of the Bishop of Nevada as Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, USA, brings the collision closer and makes it almost inevitable.

Separation from the worldwide Anglican Communion and massive loss of membership seems very likely.

From a Telegraph.co.uk [London] article, Anglican crisis as woman leads US Church:

Anglican crisis as woman leads US Church [/] By Jonathan Petre, Religion Correspondent, in Columbus, Ohio [/] (Filed: 19/06/2006)

A woman was last night elected as the first female leader of the American branch of Anglicanism in a historic but divisive development that could hasten the break-up of the worldwide Church.

The Bishop of Nevada, the Rt Rev Katharine Jefferts Schori, who is a leading liberal on homosexuality, is the first women primate in the history of Anglicanism.

Her role as Presiding Bishop is the equivalent of the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Her surprise election was greeted with whoops of joy by pro-women campaigners at the General Convention of the Episcopal Church, where she was chosen by her fellow bishops in four hours of voting.

But conservatives predicted that she would lead the Episcopal Church further along its liberal path on issues such as homosexuality, and her election will dismay traditionalists opposed to women priests.

One leading traditionalist, the Bishop of Fort Worth, the Rt Rev Jack Iker, said: "She will be the only woman among 38 primates [(primates are the national heads or chief bishops in episcoply organized denominations or communions)] and the majority of them do not even recognise women bishops. This is going to be very difficult for the Archbishop of Canterbury."

Her election followed a warning by one of the Church of England's senior bishops yesterday that efforts to prevent a schism in worldwide Anglicanism were now futile as it had become "two religions".

In an outspoken interview with The Daily Telegraph, the Bishop of Rochester, the Rt Rev Michael Nazir-Ali, said that divisions between liberals and conservatives were so profound that a compromise was no longer possible.

He increased the pressure on the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, to take firm action against the liberal American leadership.

"Anglicans are used to fudging things sometimes, but I think this is a matter of such seriousness that fudge won't do," said Bishop Nazir-Ali.

"Sometimes you have to recognise that there are two irreconcilable positions and you have to choose between them.

"The right choice is in line with the Bible and the Church's teaching down the ages, not some new-fangled religion we have invented to respond to the 21st century.

"My fear is that the Church of England has made a number of moves in the liberal, Protestant direction. That gives me concerns that the Bible will become less important and that the Church is moving away from its traditional Catholic order.

"If you move in that direction you become a kind of options Church, where you live by preferences."

The Pakistan-born evangelical bishop has the ear of powerful conservative leaders in Africa and Asia and his comments at the convention, in Columbus, Ohio, will be a blow to Dr Williams, who has expended much energy holding the warring factions together.

But they will be welcomed by those who fear that Dr Williams will do everything he can to avoid expelling the liberal Americans from the worldwide Communion. Bishop Nazir-Ali suggested that the US Church was already beyond the pale, irrespective of how it voted on resolutions designed to test whether it was prepared to dilute its liberal agenda.

He said an unconnected decision by its House of Bishops on Friday to back civil if not religious marriages for gay couples was so significant it made issues such as gay bishops "an interesting footnote".

The [US] Church has been given until the end of the convention on Wednesday to toe the conservative line on homosexuality or face expulsion.

It has been asked to express regret for defying the official policy of the 75-million strong Communion by consecrating Gene Robinson as the first openly gay bishop in 2003. It has also been asked to impose a moratorium on public blessings of same-sex "marriages".

But Bishop Nazir-Ali said that, whatever the outcome, the Americans had already become detached from the roots of Anglicanism.

"Nobody wants a split, but if you think you have virtually two religions in a single Church something has got to give sometime," he said.

He suggested the point of no return had been passed, and effectively challenged Dr Williams to recognise the fact. [My ellipses and emphasis]

AIDS the True Story I

{{___ The History of HIV/AIDS\From Mark Cichocki,\Your Guide to AIDS / HIV.}}

Thanks for reminding me of the forum boss of one of my favorite forums five years back.

Back then, there were great fights between the "true believers" in the official conjectures and recommendations versus the knowledgeable.

Those with discernment have won the fights in the forums.

I have gone back to Mark's forum occasionally and seen those with knowledge and discernment gradually erode the arguments of Mark's fellow "true believers" in the great medical hoax. Mark has little traffic today.

Experienced medical practitioners have learned from killing too many people through officially recommended (virtually coerced, actually, in our trial-lawyer-income-driven medical system) lethal treatments.

So obviously toxic medication is no longer killing great numbers of people, in first world countries at least.

Unfortunately these deaths have been blamed on something called HIV. Rather easy to do since the side effects of the drugs are virtually indistinguishable from the symptoms and signs of official "AIDS related" diseases.

That science which has not been corrupted through government control via an effective monopoly of research spending shows rather clearly that HIV is either a harmless retrovirus or a misidentification of cellular debris.

HIV is a fabulous monster, actually.

{{___ In July 1981, the New York Times reported an outbreak of a rare form of cancer among gay men in New York and California. This "gay cancer" as it was called at the time was later identified as Kaposi's Sarcoma, the face of AIDS. About the same time, emergency rooms in New York City began to see a rash of seemingly healthy young men presenting with fevers, flu-like symptoms, and a rare pneumonia called Pneumocystis. }}

Actually many of diseases were and are not so rare in those undergoing highly toxic chemotherapy. For various cancers in the past, and now, also, oddly enough, as mentioned above, for AIDS.

The promiscuous male homosexual bath-house life style of the seventies included massive exposure to various legal and illegal, medical and recreational, toxic drugs. Including "poppers", something little done elsewhere and not generally known. After a decade, more or less, of thus abusing their bodies "apparently healthy young men" developed various deadly diseases that had only been seen before in the elderly, in the severely malnourished, and in severe chemotherapy recipients.

Infection and sex had virtually nothing to do with it.

But the enjoyment of sex seems to be a more popular villain than the use of toxic drugs.

{{___ This was the beginning of what has become the biggest health care concern in modern history. Twenty-five years later the disease still plagues society. How did we get to this point? }}

As Samuel Johnson replied to the lady who asked him why his dictionary defined "fetlock" as the "knee" of a horse:

Ignorance, madam, ignorance.

POLL: Did Some Katrina Victims Commit Fraud?

See article below and Vote at Adult Christian Forum Thread 98716 (Choices also given after article below).

The editors of a big time far left liberal mainstream elite media rag seem to believe that: "It is all George Bush's fault!"; and "All hurricane victims are innocent of fraud since Bush made them do it!"

From a Los Angeles Times editorial, A hurricane of fraud?:

From the Los Angeles Times [/] COMMON CURRENCY [/] A hurricane of fraud? [/] FEMA did mismanage Katrina relief, but it's wrong to blame victims for spending irresponsibly. [/] June 17, 2006

MOVE OVER, RECKLESS CONSUMERS. The Federal Emergency Management Agency has outdone your irresponsible spending by racking up a debit card bill so outrageous it could have been created using Mad Libs. Sex-change operations, vacations to the Dominican Republic and wild nights at strip clubs were all bought on the government's dime by both con artists and legitimate victims of Hurricane Katrina. But try to keep that knee from jerking — although FEMA's oversight was lacking, wasted money is an inevitable byproduct of providing rapid emergency assistance.

The tawdry expenses are listed in a report released Wednesday by the Government Accountability Office. Though the headline makers were select items purchased with debit cards that FEMA gave out immediately after Katrina struck, the centerpiece of the survey was an estimate that about 16% of the agency's more than $6 billion in overall hurricane relief payments were improper and potentially fraudulent. And that figure is probably on the low side because it only accounts for certain categories of fraud, such as misrepresentation of identity and duplicate payments.

Some misuse of the FEMA-issued debit cards, however, is hardly shocking. The aim of the $2,000 cards was to give individuals immediate aid to be spent according to his or her judgment, rather than earmarking items that the government guessed would be of greatest assistance. For every "Girls Gone Wild" video purchased, thousands of families used their cards for clothing, food and temporary shelter without having to deal with federal red tape. Bad spending decisions are an unfortunate side effect of a clever and responsive policy.

This is strange. A "clever and responsive policy" from what they have been calling a failed agency in a failed administration. And they have been telling us that "government guess[ing] is generally to be preferred to "his or her judgment". But, of course, innocent victims are not morally responsible in their view, so a better sort of "government guess[ing]" is needed.

The 16% of improper expenditures is indeed high for a federal aid program — food stamps and unemployment insurance, by comparison, had respective rates of 5.9% and 10.1% last fiscal year. But these are established programs, not on-the-fly responses that had to process a sudden rush of 2.6 million claims. Unlike a permanent safety net, disaster relief's top priority is to help as many people as fast as possible, which comes at the price of reduced efficiency.

But just because FEMA faced a daunting task does not mean it should be given a pass for its sloppy oversight. The GAO cited several quick fixes that should be put into effect immediately, most notably simple tests for misrepresentation when citizens register for federal disaster assistance. FEMA's response thus far — cutting expedited payments to $500 — misses the point and will undercut relief efforts in future catastrophes.

The Los Angeles Times seems to believe that the taxpayer should spend more to appropriately support and mentor the innocent victims of diabolical oppressors such as George Bush and Hurricane Katrina. A much larger bureaucracy with much large funding and more intricate and detailed rules would seem to be their answer for anything. Marxism marches on.

It's easy, and necessary, to criticize FEMA's across-the-board incompetence in responding to the largest displacement of Americans since the Civil War. But obsessing about the spending habits of refugees comes perilously close to blaming the victim. [My ellipses and emphasis]

They seem to be saying:

Please remember, my dear child, that victims are always completely innocent. No matter what horrible things that they do. From spending relief funds on pornographic movies to killing three thousand people in the destruction of a great symbol of capitalist oppression. They have been driven to it by their oppressors, mostly capitalistic American oppressors and their lackey, George Bush.

Blaming a victim is the unforgivable sin, and will irrevocably doom one to perdition We are speaking figuratively, of course. Since "sin" and "perdition" are inventions of the oppressors and do not. in reality, exist.

Poll Question: Did Some Katrina Victims Commit Fraud? | Poll choices:

1. Yes. And government has a duty to punish wrongdoing. / 2. Yes. And an example should be made to deter others. / 3. Yes. And punishment may bring them to repentance. / 4. Yes. They stole the taxpayer's/my money. / 5. Yes. But compassion and mercy should be shown. / 6. Yes. / 7. Possibly. Should be investigated. / 8. Possibly. But bigger government more important. / 9. No. But should be officially lectured. / 10. No. / 11. No. Respect the L.A. Times opinion. / 12. No. Have compassion on their emotional distress. / 13. No. In all fairness, it is better to hang Bush and his minions. / 14. No. Only rabid right wing attack dogs would suggest it. / 15. No comment. / 16. No opinion. / 17. This poll is worthless. / 18. This poll is of negative value. / 19. Other.

Vote at Adult Christian Forum Thread 98716

Episcopalians: Bell, Book, and Candle? - Explained

{{___ I'm not sure I'm understanding your post here. Could you explain it a little more?}}

The virtueonline.org site linked in post .1 above has plenty of explanation from conservative oriented folks observing the Episcopal Church USA triennial convention.

The majority of the Episcopals seem bent on departing from the worldwide Anglican Communion This organization consists of the establish national Church of England and those denominations that were once colonial parts of the Church of England and which became independent when their countries did.

The doctrinal and moral peculiarities of the American Episcopal denomination constitute a marked departure from traditional Christian doctrine and moral standards.

The great majority of Anglicans are in Africa and India and find the support of homosexual marriage and practicing homosexual clergy (including the Bishop of New Hampshire) particularly abhorrent.

The Episcopal leadership and majority are not at all repentant.

In all probability they will slowly and painfully leave the Anglican Communion.

Those Episcopalians who wish to retain the central doctrine and moral practices of the Christian faith are slowly and painfully separating from the errant denomination.

The Roman Catholic service of excommunication which officially separates from the universal church and declares headed for perdition those who do not repent of heresy and scandalous behavior is judged appropriate for the Episcopal majority by one commentator (who says what many are thinking).

The physical parts of such ceremonies speak louder than words. The closing of the book, the ringing of the bell, the extinguishing and throwing down of the candle speak of final judgment and death, a preview of the Great White Throne, and the second death in the lake of fire.

Haditha: Truth Ignored

Slightly revised from post .8 on Delphi Adult Christian ForumThread 98392. The link is to post .1, which arguably contains the first reliable, reasonably complete, account of the Haditha event. It appears to me to give the answers on a silver platter.

I am a bit dismayed that other commentators would rather give opinions than note the very high probability of the complete truthfulness of this detailed and reasonably full account.

I am particularly dismayed also by the use of such pejoratives as chaotic and went awry. Our Marines operated methodically and according to training and doctrine. If there were lapses, they were apparently minor and will be uncovered and appropriate action taken. Their response did not "go awry", it was the best that could be hoped for in the circumstances.

The terrorists also operated methodically according to their barbarous suicider code. By leaving or putting innocent civilians in places where avoidance of their own and American fire was improbable, they attempted to spread chaos, confusion, and terror. And they thus provided both our foreign and domestic enemies with highly emotional but untruthful talking points.

The only people driven "awry" by the "chaos" were the "useful idiots" of our media and political establishments who would rather use obvious enemy propaganda to further their own aims than to use the truth to defend the freedom that they enjoy. The freedom that others are defending (and extending) with their blood.

I regret using an excellent post (.5) to make some points that seem to have been missed. And missed by all commentators that I have found on the account of Haditha linked above.

This war is different.

This defense lawyer statement is different.

The truth is usually more difficult to find than just giving an opinion on the evidence available.

But, in this case, I believe that we have been given the answers on a silver platter.

I can think of no reason for the defendant via his lawyer to lie about any of the details in a rather complete account of the episode.

All these details have been and are being investigated. Congress and the media are watching. Any lie will have serious repercussions.

Contrary accounts are from enemy sources via agenda driven media.

{{___ I think that this is a very difficult situation that goes along with war.}}

"Truth is the first casualty of war." But there are sufficient radical differences between the current war on terror and all prior wars that old theories and prejudices need to be discarded.

Our universities and university educated are of little help. As Adam Smith said of the great English universities of his day: "They are the last refuge of exploded theories and obsolete prejudices that have been hunted out of every other corner of the world."

Please note the following:

. Our military is the best by far that the world has ever seen. In equipment, training, education, and professionalism they excel. But above all there is a legacy of Christian culture and tradition: a substantial residue of individual civic virtue: courage, justice, moderation, and prudence.

. Our enemies are barbarians and the enablers of barbarians.

. Our educators and those educated solely by them have, in general, lost their collective minds. By elevating multi-cultural diversity, they have lost all moral authority, for themselves, for their nation, for the world.

{{___ I think that massacres do occur, and innocents are intentionally targeted by some,}}

But attention should be paid to the greater things of the law. Not to tithing of mint and cumin. To beams, not motes.

There are those who wish to kill us and destroy our culture. Massacres and targeting innocents are their normal method of operation.

There may be comfort in Monday morning quarterbacking the minutiae of military discipline -

But it is perhaps better to resolve to support the cause that our men and women have so far so nobly advanced.

{{___ and that the government should investigate those who have high civilian casualties. I also believe that those who do not like the U.S. }}

Marvelous euphemism: "those who do not like the U.S."

Our foreign enemies hate us, and would do away with us.

Our domestic adversaries hate our Christian traditions, and would do away with them.

{{___ will exagerate and twist what really happend. As well, at times, politicians will sacrafice good soldiers in a mock trial just to keep the peace. }}

Take note of the lynch mob in the present case.

{{___ It is ugly from all sides, difficult to manage, investigate, and find the truth of what happened. }}

But as I said in the first post and at the top of this post: there is absolutely no reason to doubt the public statement of the staff sergeant in any factual detail.

Bell, Book, and Candle for Episcopalians?

From comment on a VirtueOnline.org article, 'Bishop Duncan Testifies on [Episcopal Church] USA's response [at their official convention] to the Windsor Report [of an official investigation of American divergences on behalf of the worldwide Anglican Communion]':

frjude Posted: 2006/6/15 14:27 Updated: 2006/6/15 14:27 [/] Joined: 2005/1/9 [/] Posts: 56

Re: COLUMBUS, OH: Bishop Duncan Testifies on ECUSA's re [/] "Will [the Episcopal Church] USA comply with the specific and detailed recommendations of Windsor, or will it not?"

Of course, dear Bishop, the answer is 'no', it will not. And following the Roman liturgy, we must do the following:

The priest reads: "We exclude (them) from the bosom of our Holy Mother the Church, and we judge (them) condemned to eternal fire with Satan and his angels and all the reprobate, so long as (they) will not burst the fetters of the demon, do penance and satisfy the Church."

The priest will then close the book; ring a bell, which symbolizes a toll of death; and extinguish the candle and throw it down to symbolize the removal of the person's soul from the sight of God. [My ellipses and emphasis]

Al Qaeda or America?

"Quote of the Day: 'Many on the other side of the aisle lack the will to win. The American people need to know precisely who they are. It is time to stand up and vote. Is it Al Qaeda or America?' - Charlie Norwood, Republican of Georgia." - Lucianne.com

Link to context: New York Times article, "Partisan Fight Over Iraq War Erupts on Hill ".

Other related links also to big time far left mouthpiece, New York Times, articles also linked by Lucianne.com Must Reads of the day: 'Excerpts From the Debate in Congress About the War in Iraq [/] Dennis Hastert puts it all in perspective'; 'Senate Rejects Plan to Withdraw Troops From Iraq [/] So much for Cut 'n' Run Kerry'.

Islam: Actually "Religion of Peace"

Important terrorist leader now partly agrees with American president.

But he also said [Indonesia terrorists were] misguided and wrong to use bombs in a country at peace.

"Why use bombs in a non-conflict zone, preaching is enough," he said.

Perhaps other leaders may also partly agree with the Bush's vision.

Even without harsh experiences like two years in prison for conspiracy in a bombing costing two hundred innocent lives.

From a Breitbart.com article, Cleric Calls on Bush to Convert to Islam:

Cleric Calls on Bush to Convert to Islam [/] Jun 15 8:45 AM US/Eastern [/] By IRWAN FIRDAUS [/] Associated Press Writer [/] SOLO, Indonesia

A reputed leader of the al-Qaida-linked terror group blamed for deadly bombings across Indonesia on Thursday accused President Bush and Australian Prime Minister John Howard of waging wars against Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Militant cleric Abu Bakar Bashir also called on Bush and Howard to convert to Islam, saying it was "the only way to save their souls," adding that families still grieving after the 2002 Bali blasts that killed many foreigners should also become Muslim to find "salvation and peace."

One hopes that U. S. President Bush, Austrailian Prime Minister Howard, and most grieving families will show appropriate courtesy toward Abu Bakar Bashir's concern for their souls and respectfully suggest that he might consider the wisdom of converting to the Savior of the New Testament and receiving eternal life as a free gift.

Bashir, 68, was released from prison Wednesday after completing a 26- month sentence for conspiracy in the Bali bombings that killed 202 people, was at a hardline Islamic boarding school that has spawned some of Southeast Asia's deadliest terrorists.

The firebrand cleric also declined to directly condemn young men who carry out bombings in Indonesia in the name of Islam, saying they he still considered them "holy warriors," because they believed they were defending the oppressed.

But he also said they misguided and wrong to use bombs in a country at peace.

"Why use bombs in a non-conflict zone, preaching is enough," he said.

Jemaah Islamiyah is accused of carrying out church bombings across the world's most populous Muslim nation in 2000, the 2002 bombings on the resort island of Bali, attacks in the capital Jakarta in 2003 and and a triple suicide bombing on Bali last October.

The attacks together killed more than 260 people, many of them foreigners, and have thrust Indonesia onto the front line of the global war on terror. […] [My ellipses and emphasis]

Liberalism: Root Causes

Interesting article. Just what the Great Books of our culture have told us:

"If men will not believe the truth, they will believe anything." - C. S. Lewis, 20th Century.

"For them the truth is a cow that gives no milk. So they have all gone off to milk the bull." - Samuel Johnson, 18th Century.

"For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light." - Jesus of Nazareth, 1st Century.

From a National Review article, Liberalism, on the Couch:

June 14, 2006, 7:40 a.m. [/] Liberalism, on the Couch [/] In search of root causes. [/] By Mark Goldblatt

[…] To consider the question of what makes a liberal a liberal, I’ll need to slide on my special soul-searching goggles and peer deeply into the mental lives of people with whom I disagree, to indulge in amateur psychologizing, to treat wild supposition as fact, to disregard evidentiary standards and analytical decency—in other words, I’ll need to write a Frank Rich column. This is no easy task. Maybe if I were a film critic peter-principled into the realm of political discourse, I’d be more comfortable with foreshortening the argumentative process to a series of thumbs-up/thumbs-down rhetorical moments; instead, I’ve developed the inconvenient habit of substantiating what I say, of grounding inference in specific observation, of keeping broad generalizations to a minimum. For the next half-dozen paragraphs, however, goodbye to all that. [/] Rich Rules.

The first factor I’d suggest in the causal chain that leads liberals to their politics is abject failure. People who are frustrated by their lot in life are often drawn to liberal ideas because modern liberalism’s contempt for the free market jibes with their efforts to rationalize their disappointments. This thought was driven home for me last year at the Small Press Book Fair in Manhattan. As you climb the stairwell at the Small Press Center on West 44th Street, moving from small presses on the first floor, to even smaller presses on the balcony level, and then to presses-that-exist-only-to-publish-the-press-founder’s-screed upstairs, you move progressively leftwards. Talk to any author on the upper floors, and he’ll swear that he’s been driven to self-publish because he refused to sell out. He wouldn’t compromise his message for the sake of wealth and success, unlike fill-in-the-name-of-a-popular-writer. Corporate capitalism beats down the true visionary, he’ll tell you, and he’s no company hack. What greater proof of his bona fides than the fact that no mainstream publisher was interested in his work?

But of course the majority of liberals are not abject failures. On the contrary, many have attained a considerable measure of social status and financial clout, which calls to mind another reason liberals become liberals—guilt. Guilt-induced liberalism is most common among the more successful members of historically marginalized and currently struggling groups like blacks and Hispanics, or among members of historically marginalized and currently prospering groups like women and Jews. The trappings of achievement—prestigious job titles, comfortable homes, swollen bank accounts—are a kind of inverse torment for such people, an ongoing crisis of authenticity, a sign of the dissolution of their identity within the marginalized group. They feel compelled, therefore, to demonstrate that their sympathies still reside with the underclass. The cartoonish version of this response is found in hip hop—where ostentatiously thuggish rappers ride around in stretch limos, dripping jewelry and sipping champagne, all the while swearing their allegiance to “the street.” The more insidious version is found in humanities classrooms—where ostentatiously underdressed professors browbeat their students with the message that good fortune in America carries with it the perpetuation of injustice and the tacit acceptance of oppression.

After failure and guilt, a third obvious cause of the liberal worldview is sin. There is, of course, nothing inherently sinful about the politics of liberalism. But in its modern incarnation, liberalism not only takes to heart the Enlightenment values of tolerance and skepticism, it hoists them aloft as intellectual torches and bears them forward in search of the dreaded Frankenstein Monster of moral judgment. Modern liberals deplore moral judgment—except in their collective outrage at conservatives—because they’ve decided, in their own lives, to abandon the doctrinal elements of Judeo-Christian morality in favor of an ethic whose guiding principle is, in the words of noted Shakespearean dunderhead Polonius, “To thine own self be true.” Hence, the liberal mantra, I’m not religious, but I consider myself a spiritual person. Roughly, this translates into: I don’t want to give up on an afterlife, but I don’t want to be judged by the stuff I’m doing. Liberals, therefore, seethe with resentment towards public displays of traditional faith out of fear such faith carries with it an implicit condemnation of their personal choices.

If failure, guilt, and sin are three principal causes of modern liberalism, a closely related epiphenomenon is psychotherapy—i.e., the hiring of a dubiously qualified stranger to serve as a sympathetic sounding board for your anxieties. I’d estimate that among people undergoing psychotherapy, liberals outnumber conservatives by ten to one. (I’ve got no way to document this claim, but, again, Rich Rules.) Liberals, on the whole, don’t like themselves very much, which is why they think self-esteem is a cure all. They perceive, rightly or wrongly, the steady disapproval of other people—especially their parents—whom they reflexively associate with the status quo. It’s the status quo that’s the source of their unhappiness, they conclude. The more theoretically inclined liberals may even point to the inequities of the status quo as evidence that happiness cannot be had in this life. “How can I be content with my lot,” they ask, “when so many others have so much less than I do? If only I weren’t so [darn] sensitive!” The apparent happiness of many conservatives, therefore, becomes a sign of their callousness. When I recently speculated about the correlation between therapy and left-of-center politics to a therapy-going friend of mine, he thought for a moment and then nodded in agreement. But that wasn’t surprising, he added, since people in therapy tend to be more in touch with themselves and with reality.

Actually, of course, in such cases, the therapist is assisting in the examination and validation of the misguided imagination of the patient. Idiosyncratic inner reality, not the divergence of this misguided system of thoughts and feelings from objective reality, is, tragically, as far as analysis often gets. Great Book wisdom: "For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds; Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;" Saul of Tarsus, aka Paul, 1st Century.

Which leads to the final, and perhaps overriding, cause of modern liberalism—genuine compassion. It’s easy enough for conservatives to survey the grab bag of dumb ideas to which liberals attach themselves and conclude that liberalism is the result of a privation, a lack of those pesky I.Q. points I mentioned at the outset. But that’s too glib, even by Rich Rules. Intelligent people are often drawn to dumb ideas because the dumb ideas speak to their hearts rather than to their heads. The roster of world-class intellectuals who failed to recognize the evils of Communism in the last century is a testament to human frailty, not human imbecility. Tyranny, like charity, begins with compassion; this lesson is utterly lost on liberals, for whom compassion is an absolute good. So it’s important to remember that the prime justification of liberalism, at least in the minds of liberals, is almost always fairness. They feel unfairness in their bones. It upsets them. That’s how they know they’re compassionate.

It is the misguided pursuit of fairness that, in the final analysis, drives the majority of liberals to liberalism. It’s a pursuit at which they cannot fail, since it’s never-ending; it’s a pursuit that alleviates their guilt, since it re-connects them with their roots; it’s a pursuit that cleanses their individual sins, since its goal is the common weal. The pursuit of fairness is itself a kind of therapy.

Liberals are entitled to it, however ill conceived the enterprise. [/] —Mark Goldblatt is author of Africa Speaks, a satire of black urban culture. [My ellipses and emphasis]

Haditha: Answers On a Silver Platter

I regret using your excellent post to make some points that seem to have been missed. And missed by all commentators that I have found on the account of Haditha that heads this thread.

This war is different. This defense lawyer statement is different.

The truth is usually more difficult to find than just giving an opinion on the evidence available.

But, in this case, I believe that we have been given the answers on a silver platter.

I can think of no reason for the defendant via his lawyer to lie about any of the details in a rather complete account of the episode.

All these details have been and are being investigated. Congress and the media are watching. Any lie will have serious repercussions.

Contrary accounts are from enemy sources via an agenda driven media.
{{___ I think that this is a very difficult situation that goes along with war.}}

"Truth is the first casualty of war." But there are sufficient radical differences between the current war on terror and all prior wars that old theories and prejudices need to be discarded.

Our universities and university educated are of little help. As Adam Smith said of the great English universities of his day: "They are the last refuge of exploded theories and obsolete prejudices that have been hunted out of every other corner of the world."

Please note the following:

. Our military is the best by far that the world has ever seen. In equipment, training, education, and professionalism they excel. But above all there is a legacy of Christian culture and tradition: a substantial residue of individual civic virtue: courage, justice, moderation, and prudence.

. Our enemies are barbarians and the enablers of barbarians.

. Our educators and those educated solely by them have, in general, lost their collective minds. By elevating multi-cultural diversity, they have lost all moral authority, for themselves, for their nation, for the world.

{{___ I think that massacres do occur, and innocents are intentionally targeted by some,}}

But attention should be paid to the greater things of the law. Not to tithing of mint and cumin. To beams, not motes.

There are those who wish to kill us and destroy our culture. Massacres and targeting innocents are their normal method of operation.

There may be comfort in Monday morning quarterbacking the minutiae of military discipline -

But it is perhaps better to resolve to support the cause that they have so far so nobly advanced.

{{___ and that the government should investigate those who have high civilian casualties. I also believe that those who do not like the U.S. }}

Marvelous euphemism: "those who do not like the U.S."

Our foreign enemies hate us, and would do away with us.

Our domestic adversaries hate our Christian traditions, and would do away with them.

{{___ will exagerate and twist what really happend. As well, at times, politicians will sacrafice good soldiers in a mock trial just to keep the peace. }}

Take note of the lynch mob in the present case.

{{___ It is ugly from all sides, difficult to manage, investigate, and find the truth of what happened. }}

But as I said in the first post and at the top of this post: there is absolutely no reason to doubt the public statement of the staff sergeant in any factual detail.

Islamoschmoozing In Full Gear

From a MacLeans [Canada] article, You can't believe your lyin' eyes:

June 13, 2006 [...] You can't believe your lyin' eyes [...] The Islamoschmoozing has gone into full gear. What's the harm? This is how nations die [...] MARK STEYN

Within a few hours of those arrests from the -- what was the phrase? -- "broad strata" of Canadian society, I had a little flurry of emails from radio and TV producers inviting me to toss in my two bits. But my two bits on Toronto is pretty much the same as my two bits on London and Madrid and Bali, and that's quite a mound of quarters piled up over the past five years. What's to say? The best summation is a line I first quoted in 2002, when a French oil tanker was attacked off the coast of Yemen. Back then, you'll recall, the French foreign minister was deploring American "simplisme" on a daily basis, and M. Chirac was the principal obstructionist of the neo-con-Zionist-Halliburton plan to remake the Middle East. If you were to pick only one Western nation not to blow up the oil tankers of, France would surely be it.

But they got blown up anyway. And afterwards a spokesman for the Islamic Army of Aden said, "We would have preferred to hit a U.S. frigate, but no problem because they are all infidels."

No problem. They are all infidels. In the scheme of things, launching a plot to behead the Prime Minister of Canada would not seem to be an obvious priority. No doubt they would have preferred to behead the President of the United States. But no problem. We are all infidels.

The multicultural society posits that each of its citizens can hold a complementary portfolio of identities: one can simultaneously be Canadian and Jamaican and gay and Anglican and all these identities can exist within your corporeal form in perfect harmony. But, for most Western Muslims, Islam is their primary identity, and for a significant number thereof, it's a primary identity that exists in opposition to all others. That's merely stating the obvious. But, of course, to state the obvious is unacceptable these days, so our leaders prefer to state the absurd. I believe the old definition of a nanosecond was the gap between a New York traffic light changing to green and the first honk of a driver behind you. Today, the definition of a nanosecond is the gap between a Western terrorist incident and the press release of a Muslim lobby group warning of an impending outbreak of Islamophobia. After the London tube bombings, Angus Jung sent the Aussie pundit Tim Blair a note-perfect parody of the typical newspaper headline: [/] "British Muslims fear repercussions over tomorrow's train bombing."

An adjective here and there, and that would serve just as well for much of the coverage by the Toronto Star and the CBC, where a stone through a mosque window is a bigger threat to the social fabric than a bombing thrice the size of the Oklahoma City explosion. "Minority-rights doctrine," writes Melanie Phillips in her new book Londonistan, "has produced a moral inversion, in which those doing wrong are excused if they belong to a 'victim' group, while those at the receiving end of their behaviour are blamed simply because they belong to the 'oppressive' majority." If you want to appreciate the forces at play among Western Muslims in societies enervated by multiculturalism, Londonistan is an indispensable read. "It is impossible to overstate the importance -- not just to Britain but to the global struggle against Islamist extremism -- of properly understanding and publicly challenging this moral, intellectual and philosophical inversion, which translates aggressor into victim and vice versa."

That's true -- although I wonder for how long even our decayed establishments can keep up the act. After the London bombings, the first reaction of Brian Paddick, the deputy assistant commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, was to declare that "Islam and terrorism don't go together." After the Toronto arrests, the CSIS assistant director of operations, Luc Portelance, announced that "it is important to know that this operation in no way reflects negatively on any specific community, or ethnocultural group in Canada." Who ya gonna believe? The RCMP diversity outreach press officer or your lyin' eyes? In the old days, these chaps would have been looking for the modus operandi, patterns of behaviour. But now every little incident on the planet is apparently strictly specific unto itself: all jihad is local.

The other day, listening to an interview on America's National Public Radio with the mayor of Toronto, I was laughing so much I drove off the road. David Miller warmed up with a bit of boilerplate Islamoschmoozing: "You know, in Islam, if you kill one person, you kill everybody. It's a very peaceful religion. And they're as shocked as Torontonians are. And . . ."

[…] "Well, we don't expect these kinds of occurrences, exactly because of our public services, because of diversity," blah, blah. Insofar as there's any relation between jihadists and "good social services," the latter seem to attract the former -- at least in the sense that Ahmed Ressam, Zac Moussaoui, the shoe-bomber, the tube bombers, etc., were all products of the Euro-Canadian welfare system. But go ahead, pretend that these guys were upset about insufficient "social services," that they wanted to behead [Canadian Prime Minister] Stephen Harper to highlight the fact that wait times for the beheaded at the Toronto General are now up to 18 months, and they don't always reattach the right head. It's easy to scoff that a chap who can be bothered blowing up the Canadian Parliament must be insane, but, if you were a jihadist sitting in the cave back in the Hindu Kush listening to Renee Montagne and David Miller, wouldn't you conclude that they're the ones who are nuts? The Islamic Army of Aden PR guy seems by comparison to have a relatively clear-sighted grasp of reality.

Melanie Phillips makes a point that applies to Britain, Canada and beyond: "With few exceptions, politicians, Whitehall officials, senior police and intelligence officers and academic experts have failed to grasp that the problem to be confronted is not just the assembly of bombs and poison factories but what is going on inside people's heads that drives them to such acts." These are not Pushtun yak herders straight off the boat blowing up trains and buses. They're young men, most of whom were born and all of whom were bred in London, Toronto and other Western cities. And offered the nullity of a contemporary multicultural identity they looked elsewhere -- and found the jihad. If we try to fight it as isolated outbreaks -- a suicide attack here, a beheading there -- we will never win. You have to take on the ideology and the networks that sustain it and throttle them. Does David Miller sound like a man who's up to that challenge? A reader in Quebec, John Gross, emailed me to distill the mayor's approach as: "Don't get mad, get even . . . wimpier."

Well, if Hizzoner wants to make himself a laughingstock, what's the harm? Only this -- that the more rubbish spouted by officials in the wake of these events, the more the averagely well-informed person will resent the dissembling. In that sense, Mayor Miller, M. Portelance, commissioner Paddick et al. are colluding in the delegitimizing of the state's institutions. That doesn't seem like a smart move.

[…] That's how nations die -- not by war or conquest, but by a thousand trivial concessions, until one day you wake up and you don't need to sign a formal instrument of surrender because you did it piecemeal. How many Muslims in Toronto sympathize with the aims of those arrested last week? Maybe we could use a book on the subject. But which Canadian house would publish it? And would the faint-hearts at Indigo-Chapters carry it?

To comment, email letters@macleans.ca [My ellipses and emphasis]

Haditha, a Non-Anti-American Account

Please note that this is a detailed factual account by fully accountable and responsible individuals. Unlike the terrorist propaganda forwarded by Iraqis living in fear and American media types consumed by liberal myths of Viet-Nam and enmity toward the administration and the military.

From a Washington Post article, Marine Says Rules Were Followed:

Marine Says Rules Were Followed [/] Sergeant Describes Hunt for Insurgents in Haditha, Denies Coverup [/] By Josh White [/] Washington Post Staff Writer [/] Sunday, June 11, 2006; A01

A sergeant who led a squad of Marines during the incident in Haditha, Iraq, that left as many as 24 civilians dead said his unit did not intentionally target any civilians, followed military rules of engagement and never tried to cover up the shootings, his attorney said.

Staff Sgt. Frank D. Wuterich, 26, told his attorney that several civilians were killed Nov. 19 when his squad went after insurgents who were firing at them from inside a house. The Marine said there was no vengeful massacre, but he described a house-to-house hunt that went tragically awry in the middle of a chaotic battlefield.

"It will forever be his position that everything they did that day was following their rules of engagement and to protect the lives of Marines," said Neal A. Puckett, who represents Wuterich in the ongoing investigations into the incident. "He's really upset that people believe that he and his Marines are even capable of intentionally killing innocent civilians."

Wuterich's detailed version of what happened in the Haditha neighborhood is the first public account from a Marine who was on the ground when the shootings occurred. As the leader of 1st Squad, 3rd Platoon, Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, Wuterich was in the convoy of Humvees that was hit by a roadside bomb. He entered the house from which the Marines believed enemy fire was originating and made the initial radio reports to his company headquarters about what was going on, Puckett said.

The reports [from civilians terrorized by terrorists living among them and terrorist allies] that Marines wantonly shot unarmed civilians in Haditha, including women and children, allege one of the most shocking, and potentially damaging, incidents of the Iraq war. A criminal investigation looking into possible charges of murder against half a dozen Marines is underway. A separate probe is examining whether Marines tried to cover up the shootings, and whether commanders were negligent in failing to investigate the deaths.

Three Marine officers have been relieved of command. In the absence of a public response from Marine Corps officials -- who are declining to comment to preserve the integrity of the investigation -- reports of what happened [agreeable to the prejudices of media elites] in the western Iraqi town have been leaking out piecemeal from the Haditha neighborhood and in Washington.

Wuterich's version contradicts that of the Iraqis, [from civilians terrorized by terrorists living among them and terrorist allies] who described a massacre of men, women and children after a bomb killed a Marine. Haditha residents have [followed the terrorist lies and U.S. elite media bias and] said that innocent civilians were executed, that some begged for their lives before being shot and that children were killed indiscriminately.

Wuterich told his attorney in initial interviews over nearly 12 hours last week that the shootings were the unfortunate result of a methodical sweep for enemies in a firefight. Two attorneys for other Marines involved in the incident said Wuterich's account is consistent with those they had heard from their clients.

Kevin B. McDermott, who is representing Capt. Lucas M. McConnell, the Kilo Company commander, said Wuterich and other Marines informed [Capt.] McConnell on the day of the incident that at least 15 civilians were killed by "a mixture of small-arms fire and shrapnel as a result of grenades" after the Marines responded to an attack from a house.

McConnell was relieved of his command in April for "failure to investigate," according to McDermott. But the lawyer said McConnell told him that he reported the high number of civilian deaths to the 3rd Battalion executive officer that afternoon and that within a few days the battalion's intelligence chief gave a PowerPoint presentation to Marine commanders.

"It wasn't a situation that dawned on him as the captain of Kilo where it was like, 'Okay, guys, we need to conduct a more thorough investigation,' " McDermott said. "Everywhere up the chain, they had ample access to this thing."

Gary Myers, a civilian attorney for a Marine who was with Wuterich that day, said the Marines followed standard operating procedures when they "cleared" the houses, using fragmentation grenades and gunshots to respond to an immediate threat.

[…] "Once you go back over it, you have to determine if they applied the rules," the Marine official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because the Marine Corps does not discuss rules of engagement. "Did they feel threatened? Did they perceive hostile intent or hostile action?"

[…] Puckett said that while Wuterich was evaluating the scene, Marines noticed a white, unmarked car full of "military-aged men" lingering near the bomb site. When Marines ordered the men to stop, they ran; Puckett said it was standard procedure at the time for the Marines to shoot suspicious people fleeing a bombing, and the Marines opened fire, killing four or five men.

"The first thing he thought was it could be a vehicle-borne bomb or these guys could be ready to do a drive-by shooting," Puckett said, explaining that the Marines were on alert for such coordinated, multi-stage attacks.

Iraqis in the Haditha neighborhood interviewed in recent weeks said the vehicle was a taxi carrying a group of students to their homes and that the driver tried to back away from the site, fleeing in fear. One account said that the Marines shot the men while they were still in the car.

Wuterich officially reported to his headquarters that there had been a makeshift bomb and called for a Quick Reaction Force, Puckett said. The first group encountered an unexploded bomb on another route -- fueling concerns that insurgents were mounting an attack on the daily morning convoy -- and a second force headed out. That group, including Marines with the 3rd Squad and the platoon's leader, a young second lieutenant, arrived minutes later.

Wuterich told Puckett that no one was emotionally rattled by Terrazas's death because everyone had a job to do, and everyone was concerned about further casualties. As Wuterich began briefing the platoon leader, Puckett said, AK-47 shots rang out from residences on the south side of the road, and the Marines ducked.

A corporal with the unit leaned over to Wuterich and said he saw the shots coming from a specific house, and after a discussion with the platoon leader, they decided to clear the house, according to Wuterich's account.

"There's a threat, and they went to eliminate the threat," Puckett said.

A four-man team of Marines, including Wuterich, kicked in the door and found a series of empty rooms, noticing quickly that there was one room with a closed door and people rustling behind it, Puckett said. They then kicked in that door, tossed a fragmentation grenade into the room, and one Marine fired a series of "clearing rounds" through the dust and smoke, killing several people, Puckett said.

The Marine who fired the rounds -- Puckett said it was not Wuterich -- had experience clearing numerous houses on a deployment in Fallujah, where Marines had aggressive rules of engagement.

Although it was almost immediately apparent to the Marines that the people dead in the room were men, women and children -- most likely civilians -- they also noticed a back door ajar and believed that insurgents had slipped through to a house nearby, Puckett said. The Marines stealthily moved to the second house, kicking in the door, killing one man inside and then using a frag grenade and more gunfire to clear another room full of people, he said.

Wuterich, not having found the insurgents, told the team to stop and headed back to the platoon leader to reassess the situation, Puckett said, adding that his client knew a number of civilians had just been killed.

Neighborhood residents have offered a different account, saying that the Marines went into the houses shooting and ignored pleas from the civilians to spare them.

[…] A Marine who served near Haditha in November said it was not unusual for Marines to respond to attacks "running and gunning" and that it was standard practice to spray rooms with gunfire when threatened. "It may be a bad tactic, but it works," he said. "It keeps you alive."

After clearing the second house, Puckett said, Wuterich immediately got on the radio and reported the "collateral damage." When the company radio operator asked him to estimate how many civilians had been killed, he said he thought it was about 12 to 15.

McConnell, the company commander, "knew the number was high" and reported it to the battalion executive officer, a major, according to McDermott, his lawyer. McConnell also said that a Marine intelligence team investigated the civilian deaths and reported their findings to senior Marine commanders, the lawyer said.

Wuterich told his attorney that he never reported that the civilians in the houses were killed by the bomb blast and maintains that he never tried to obscure the fact that civilians had been killed in the raids. Whether Wuterich gave false information to his superiors is the focus of one of the military investigations. He said the platoon leader, who was on the scene, never expressed concern about the unit's actions and never tried to hide them.

Marine Corps public affairs officers reported that the civilians had been killed in the bomb blast, a report that Puckett believes was the result of a miscommunication.

After going through the houses, Wuterich moved a small group of Marines to the roof of a nearby building to watch the area, Puckett said. At one point, they saw a man in all-black clothing running from one of the houses they had searched. The Marines killed him, Puckett said.

They then noticed another man in all black scurrying between two houses across the street. When they went to investigate, the Marines found a courtyard filled with women and children and asked where the man was, Puckett said.

When the civilians pointed to a third house, the Marines attempted to enter and found a man with an AK-47 inside, flanked by three other men; the first Marine to enter tried to fire his weapon, but it jammed, [(He would have been better off with an AK-47. But that is another story.)] Puckett said. The Marines then killed those four men.

The unit stayed at the scene for hours, helping to collect bodies as photos were taken. Wuterich, who remains on duty in California, where he lives with his wife and two young daughters, told Puckett that for months no one questioned his actions.

Staff writers Steve Fainaru in San Diego and Thomas E. Ricks in Washington, and researcher Julie Tate contributed to this report. [My bracketed comments, ellipses and emphasis. Enemy propaganda swallowed whole by the "useful idiots" (as Lenin would say) among us is in my italics.]

The Essential President Bush

From The Anchoress Online a post entitled, The Essential President Bush (page down to post / hat tip to Lucianne):

[…] A much-esteemed, long-neglected friend sent an email this morning, which was delightful to recieve. At one point he mentioned this post from yesterday and wrote: "I think (President Bush) has lost his bearings. but then, so did Moses from time to time, it’s quite understandable."

That made me wonder a little - has President Bush lost his bearings, or have we? Is it President Bush who has broken faith with “his base” or have they?

When I read my friend’s line, I thought of a line from Pride and Prejudice, in which Elizabeth Bennett says in new appreciation of Mr. Darcy, “In essentials, I believe, he is very much what he ever was.”

Perhaps I am a dim bulb, but President Bush has never surprised me, and that is probably why I have never felt let down or “betrayed” by him. He is, in essentials, precisely whom he has ever been. He did not surprise me when he managed, in August of 2001, to find a morally workable solution in the matter of Embryonic Stem Cells. He did not surprise me when, a month later, he stood on a pile of rubble and lifted a broken city from its knees. When my NYFD friends told me of the enormous consolation and strength he brought to his meetings with grieving families, I was not surprised. When the World Series opened in New York City and the President was invited to throw the first pitch, there was no surprise in his throwing (while wearing body armor) a perfect strike.

[…] How you receive a good has a lot to do with whether any more “good” comes your way. The Conservatives got a “good” in 2000 and 2004; they’re receiving it very badly, indeed. I think the throwing-under-the-bus-of-George-W-Bush by “the base” is one of the most shameful things I have ever witnessed in all my years of watching politics, from both sides of the political spectrum. How do you receive a good?

President Bush has never surprised me. He is, in essentials, the man he ever was. It does not surprise me that he is a Christian man living a creed before he is a President, that he is a President before he is a Conservative. It seems to me precisely the right order of things. [My ellipses and emphasis]

Read the rest, including the comments.

And link to the Whitehall Speech.

Rough Language

{{___ Cussing and filthy talk disappeared at the instant of salvation for me to never return along with many other things actually. This is the normal experience of salvation.}}

I believe that you are correct about this.

The loss of the first love is rather universal though.

And in some this entails being conformed to the world in the matter of rough language.

Occupations and sports once thought of as exclusively masculine are particularly likely to have this effect.

The author of "The Caine Mutiny", deliberately censored the normal filthy language of his World War II Navy seamen. It would be distracting to most readers and would add little in the way of meaning.

In such settings the bad language is mostly a sign that one belongs to the club.

Those who abstain from such things (and who also abstain from criticizing others) generally gain in respect, however.

But many of us learn this rather late in life.

Common Sense from Canterbury

From a Telegraph [U.K.] article, Archbishop attacks Da Vinci Code 'obsession':

Archbishop attacks Da Vinci Code 'obsession' [/] By Elizabeth Day [/] (Filed: 16/04/2006)

The Archbishop of Canterbury today attacks society's obsession with books such as The Da Vinci Code which, he says, encourage people to believe that the Christian faith is a series of "conspiracies and cover ups".

In a strongly worded Easter sermon being delivered in Canterbury Cathedral this morning, Dr Rowan Williams says that there is a tendency to treat Biblical texts "as if they were unconvincing press releases from some official source, whose intention is to conceal the real story". Fascination with "bringing secrets to light", he said, evoked All the President's Men, the 1976 film about the investigative journalists Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, who exposed the Watergate scandal.

"We have become so suspicious of the power of words. . . the first assumption we make is that we're faced with spin of some kind, with an agenda being forced on us. So that the modern response to the proclamation, 'Christ is risen!' is likely to be, 'Ah, but you would say that, wouldn't you? Now, what's the real agenda?' "

The Gospel of Judas is also scorned by the Archbishop [/] The Archbishop also pours scorn on the recent discovery of a leather-bound papyrus written around 300AD believed to be "The Gospel of Judas", which claims that it was Christ himself who asked Judas to betray him.

"Anything that looks like the official version is automatically suspect," says Dr Williams. "Someone is trying to stop you finding out what 'really' happened, because what really happened could upset or challenge the power of officaldom."

In his first Easter sermon, on Friday, the Pope effectively dismissed the "Gospel" text by reasserting the orthodox thinking that Judas, the 13th apostle, "evaluated Jesus in terms of power and success". And Fr Raniero Cantalamessa, the Pope's personal priest, also used his Easter sermon to criticise The Da Vinci Code. [My ellipses and emphasis]