Climate Science Explained

The Pedant-General in Ordinary is back, and explains the full meaning of climate-gate (with flow charts!) for us, and why the defenses being offered don't hold up. Curtsy to ninme, who shows us the main diagram of the Copenhagen process.
But neglected to highlight the slide the "settled" scientists really use.
The slides are funny, but RTWT, you'll learn something.

"We Must Rise Up Against The Trial"

Debra Burlingame, whose brother was Captain of American Airlanes Flight 77, which crashed into the Pentagon, lays the Attorney General low. She's not happy about the attorney general's suggestion that those who oppose KSM's trial in a criminal court lack courage.

How dare this man, who didn't have the decency to notify victims' families of his decision to bring these monsters here, imply that we lack courage. Courage is carrying on after watching your loved ones die, in real time, knowing that they burned to death, were crushed to death, or jumped from 100 flights high. Courage is carrying on, even as we waited, in some cases years, for something of our loved ones to bury. More than 1,100 families still wait.

How dare the attorney general suggest that the firefighters who oppose this trial need to "man up" and let this avowed enemy of America mock their brother firefighters in the country's most magisterial setting, a federal court.

She has her own definition of courage, which you should read, and then she takes him to school on what he's doing.

The attorney general has glibly, and most insensitively, called the perverse spectacle he wants to invite on this city and this nation, the "trial of the century." Well, Mr. Attorney General, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed has put you on notice. He's going to give it to you. His trial will be lawyer-assisted jihad in the courtroom.

We understand that to the terrorists, jihad is more than spilling American blood, it is forcing us to change our lives, divert our limited resources. When we spend hundreds of millions of dollars on rooftop snipers, kevlar vests and armored vehicles, that's jihad. When we barricade our buildings, lock down our streets, and close our transportation systems, that's jihad. When we grant a confessed war criminal access to platinum due process, so that he can use it to rally his fellow terrorists to kill more of our citizens and target our military, that's jihad.

A Fit Home

A certain political cartoonist deployed in harm's way bequeathed the Weedlets his pet mice before he left --which seemed to their mother like a naked act of aggression, but she has come around. They are truly beautiful little creatures, and unlike their laboratory counterparts, not smelly.

They are always doing funny little things. Once the cartoonist had an unopened box of Chinese take-out rice and wanted to give the mice a little culinary treat, so he put the box in their cage. The next morning he found the mice, rather than feasting, had moved into the rice.

Not wishing to attract bugs, but now aware that his guests would be glad of a little privacy even in their aquarium, he evicted them from the rice box and substituted an empty Orbit gum tub, where the three of them dwelt contentedly until Grandma provided them with a gourd, at which point they moved on up to the big time, finally having gotten their piece of the pie.

Sometimes all three of them poke their wee heads out at once, but I haven't managed to be camera-ready for that shot.

Chocolatey Pecan Goodness

Here for posterity or until blogger gives out is my version of the Chocolate Pecan tart. Got the recipe from ninme 's twitter and am quite proud of myself on several counts. First: thanks to the need to convert weights to volumes, this required more Math than recipes usually do (well...okay, more guessing, but I am still quite pleased it didn't ooze all over the place). And I hadn't the right sort of tart pan, so this was shaped free-form. And I thought to add bourbon. So I was feeling very Ina Garten or Nigella Lawson or someone Thanksgiving come dessert time.

I think Girl Weed's cranberry pie turned out lovely as well.

As She Likes It

Playing semi-contemporaneously with The Alchemist (reviewed below), is Maria Aitken's take on As You Like It.

Her staging attempts to take the play's most famous line, "All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players," absolutely literally by envisioning the play as a movie in production, the forest of Arden as America, and setting each separate scene of the play in later and later periods of American history, echoing the Westward expansion.

The exiles are envisioned as Puritans coming to New Amsterdam, and the closing wedding scene is a scene from Hollywood's golden age. If you tossed As You Like It into Centennial, the miniseries, this is what you'd get.

This allows the actors to show amazing versatility --inhabiting not only different costumes, but different voices, postures and attitudes-- in each scene. It shows the universality of Shakespeare, in that the story "works," can be envisioned, in any time period and any place. And it allows Francesca Faridany as Rosalind to use a broad Western twang and Cowboy swagger to create one of the more believable girl fooling everyone into thinking she's a boy performances.

However, it also utterly destroys the flow of the story and prevents the various lovers from developing any chemistry: truly an unconscionable thing to do to actors. Just when a scene starts to flow, the on-stage director yells, "cut," and out rolls the new scenery for a new era and out come the actors with an entirely different look and attitude, such that we have to figure out who they are all over again.

The director wanted to make watching Shakespeare like making a movie? Have you ever watched an actual film being made? It's incredibly boring. Everyone mostly stands around while the scene and lighting are adjusted, then the actors play for a minute or two, then there's a "cut," possibly several re-takes, and then more sitting around for set-up.

That is precisely what watching this production is like.

I Just Can't Like Ben Jonson

Michael Kahn's staging of The Alchemist is artistically perfect, or close to it. The sets, costumes and performances are wonderful, particularly in the second act when the various separate intrigues set up by the three con men (or "venture tripartite" as Jonson would have it) threaten to collide --and everyone's timing is "on."

If I have a criticism, it's of the playwright. Every time I have opportunity to see a Jonson play, I think to myself, "This will be wonderful. Jonson was Shakespeare's rival and some critics see him as a close second or even Shakespeare's superior." The Alchemist is said in theater history to be the most perfect, most tightly constructed, plot.

Which may be so, but it didn't stop me from recalling, about 2o minutes into the production, that I just don't enjoy Ben Jonson plays. He may be observing the unities so important to the classical stage better than Shakespeare, but not a one of his characters has any inner life or redeeming quality, and 20 minutes is about how much slapstick and "business" I can take. Jonson (why do I never recall this before I sit through one of his plays?) strikes me as a malignant soul: swift to sniff out and mock hypocrisy and folly, but incapable of recognizing goodness. He is a merciless, joyless playwright, whose "wit" is directed against imbeciles, which a) hardly seems sporting and b) you can tell he thinks everyone is in comparison with himself. Maybe you laugh if you're similarly arrogant, I don't know.

I think Kahn chose The Alchemist for this season as a reflection on last year's financial melt-down, with the "message," such as it is, being basically, "we get what we deserve." Yes, there are wicked con men at work, but you're only gulled by such men because of your own corruption --your search for a get-rich-quick scheme, or for an elixir to solve all your problems.

Which may be a salutary meditation, and as I say, I have no criticism to make of the performance per se: but I still found it tedious.

Health Care Reform: Keep Talking

The more we look at Obamacare, the more we like what we have, according to Rasmussen.

(49%) of voters nationwide now rate the U.S. health care system as good or excellent. That marks a steady increase from 44% at the beginning of October, 35% in May and 29% a year-and-a-half ago.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that just 27% now say the U.S. health care system is poor.

My Weekend Is Made

My daughter, old enough to begin playing it cool, just jumped for joy at her birthday present.

You can't buy that.

Did You Hear? (Shamelessly Re-blogging)

A bit from CMR:

Did you hear?

Two people who looked real nice and pretended to be something they are not, fooled their way into the Whitehouse.

In other news, so did some party crashers.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Finished Product of An American Education

Eldest Weed asked us yesterday if we thought the President was deliberately trying to destroy the country. Is he wicked or foolish? he wanted to know.

I demurred, wanting to hear what Mr. W. would say, since I ask myself this same question all the time, with a different answer depending on whether I am calm and rational or ticked off at him at the time.

His answer was that as we can't look into a man's soul, it's impossible to know. "Whether God will forgive for what he's doing is not a question anyone can answer," he said. "You need to ask a different question."

This was deeply annoying to EW, who kept pressing: "But Da-aaaad, I know that, but just tell me if you think he is deliberately trying to bring the country down."

"Culpable ignorance is the same thing as wickedness," came the response. "Actions, not intentions, are how we judge public men."

EW was in no way satisfied with that answer, but the whole conversation reminded me that what I think Mr. Obama really is is the epitome of an American education. He is the precisely desired end product, with its qualities and deficiencies.

David Gelernter expounds on that idea here (scroll down):

He is a perfect walking, talking embodiment of today’s establishment just as surely as Robert McNamara was 40 years ago. Obama is a warning in plain language, and we are lucky he has come in time.

He speaks well, looks good, and is smart; he is even black and from Harvard — a royal flush! He hopes to be a citizen of the world, not a patriot. He is a connoisseur of all fine religions. He is Internet Man who puts his faith in global chatter, not in fighting for the things he loves. He believes in a world peopled by endless copies of himself.

He is the perfect thing for jarring us awake. We ignore our schools and colleges even as they graduate new classes of Obamoids year after year. Each year there is less Americanism and more globalism among our leading citizens, less knowledge and more sophistication. Among children, less interest in Thanksgiving and a small band of fierce Christians hanging onto a new world by their fingertips, more interest in Black Friday, the perfect post-Christian feast. Take Obama as the gift he is; look to your schools!

(Yes, speaking of being a connoisseur of all fine religions, did you get a load of his Thanksgiving Day proclamation?) When you value nothing, are "above it all," even your most innocuous acts become corrupting and irritating.

Why On Earth?

Iran seizes rights lawyer's Nobel Peace Prize.

Um. I'm pretty sure everyone will still know she won it.

If they want one that badly, the mullahs have only to give a speech in Berlin about stopping the ocean's rise to win it next time around.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee's permanent secretary, Geir Lundestad, said the move was "unheard of" and "unacceptable." He told The Associated Press that the committee was planning to send a letter of protest to Iranian authorities before the end of the week.

Ooo, letter of protest. Because what tyrant can possibly withstand the disapproval of 5 Norwegians?

Happy Thanksgiving!

Arnold Friberg, The Prayer at Valley Forge

Of all the Founding Fathers, it is said that George Washington was the man "most likely to be interrupted at prayer." Here is the famous Isaac Potts account of the prayer at Valley Forge, taken from the diary of Rev. Nathaniel Randolph Snowden. Potts was shaken in his Quaker pacifism and convinced that America could win against the British by Washington's piety.

"I was riding with him (Mr. Potts) in Montgomery County, Penn'a near to the Valley Forge, where the army lay during the war of ye Revolution. Mr. Potts was a Senator in our State & a Whig. I told him I was agreeably surprised to find him a friend to his country as the Quakers were mostly Tories.

He said, "It was so and I was a rank Tory once, for I never believed that America c'd proceed against Great Britain whose fleets and armies covered the land and ocean, but something very extraordinary converted me to the Good Faith!"

"What was that," I inquired?

Potts explained:

"Do you see that woods, & that plain?" It was about a quarter of a mile off from the place we were riding, as it happened. "There," said he, "laid the army of Washington. It was a most distressing time of ye war, and all were for giving up the Ship but that great and good man. In that woods pointing to a close in view, I heard a plaintive sound as, of a man at prayer. I tied my horse to a sapling & went quietly into the woods & to my astonishment I saw the great George Washington on his knees alone, with his sword on one side and his cocked hat on the other. He was at Prayer to the God of the Armies, beseeching to interpose with his Divine aid, as it was ye Crisis, & the cause of the country, of humanity & of the world.

Such a prayer I never heard from the lips of man. I left him alone praying. I went home & told my wife, I saw a sight and heard today what I never saw or heard before, and just related to her what I had seen & heard & observed. We never thought a man c'd be a soldier & a Christian, but if there is one in the world, it is Washington. She also was astonished. We thought it was the cause of God, & America could prevail."

I have published Washington's first Thanksgiving Day proclamation here previously. You probably couldn't legally teach it to school children today, nor do I think many of our national leaders could pray it honestly. But we can aspire to it. In addition to the great grace of Faith and the blessings of Hubby & Weedlets and friends and liberty, I am grateful for the life and enduring witness of George Washington, without whom so much we take for granted would not be.

Update: President Obama cites Washington's Thanksgiving Proclamation in his own first one. If you can bear it, you may wish, as Fr. Z. has already done, to compare President Obama's first Thanksgiving Proclamation this year with President Bush's last. In the interest of the feast, we'll leave it at that.

Royal Thanksgiving

Reuters/Hans Deryk

Her Majesty is in Bermuda for its Thanksgiving Day --celebrating the island's 400th anniversary. And doesn't the Royal Consort look dapper?

Would You Eat A Human Embryo?

What to ask the next time someone asserts a human embryo isn't a life.

These and many more impertinent questions from An Exercise in Futility, curtsy American Digest.

Skepticism Squared

Skeptics have called into question the legitimacy of the "awakening" of the man falsely diagnosed as comatose for 23 years, as I noted in an update to this post, though without reading the story too carefully.

However, when I saw the skeptic was Arthur Caplan, I became skeptical of the skepticsm, given that Caplan's a bioethicist who's never found a boundary he didn't feel it was ethical to transgress, nor a life he thought worthy of living.

Caplan's suspects it's the aide doing the communicating, not the patient:

Arthur Caplan, a bioethics professor at the University of Pennsylvania who has had no direct contact with Houben or personal knowledge of the case, said he is skeptical of Houben's ability to communicate after seeing video of his hand being moved along the keyboard.

"That's called 'facilitated communication,'" Caplan said. "That is Ouija board stuff. It's been discredited time and time again. When people look at it, it's usually the person doing the pointing who's doing the messages, not the person they claim they are helping."

Well, that does sound fishy. Except the man's doctors in fact thought of that and tested for it.

Laureys' team showed Houben an object while his aide was taken outside, and when she came back in he was able to write it down correctly, said Prof. Audren Vandaudenhuyse, a colleague of Laureys.
"So all that has been checked and confirmed, so we are sure it is him who is talking," Vanhaudenhuyse said.

Nor is the nurse the only method of communication. He has also used a speech computer.

Houben's mother, Fina, told the AP her son has been communicating for three years and she believes no one is guiding him.

"At first he had to push with his foot on a sort of computer mouse which only had a yes-no side," she said in a telephone interview. "Slowly he got better and developed through a language computer and now communicates with this speech therapist holding his hand."

And experts trust the doctor.

Dr. James Bernat of Dartmouth Medical School said he could not comment on the facts of Houben's case specifically. However, he called Laureys "a very rigorous scientist and physician ... one of the world's leaders" in the field of brain imaging in people with consciousness disorders.

So. I trust the doctors who've actually seen the patient a wee bit more than a highly partisan "ethicist" who has no firsthand knowledge.

And so does Wesley J. Smith, who's an expert.

And Now, A Word From John Adams

On why we have a bicameral legislature:

those who should think themselves most distinguished by blood and education, as well as fortune, would be most ambitious; and if they found an opposition among their constituents to their elections, would immediately have recourse to entertainments, secret intrigues, and every popular art, and even to bribes, to increase their parties. This would oblige their competitors, though they might be infinitely better men, either to give up their pretensions, or to imitate these dangerous practices. There is a natural and unchangeable inconvenience in all popular elections. There are always competitions, and the candidates have often merits nearly equal. The virtuous and independent electors are often divided; this naturally causes too much attention to the most profligate and unprincipled, who will sell or give away their votes for other considerations than wisdom and virtue. So that he who has the deepest purse, or the fewest scruples about using it, will generally prevail.

In other words, shudder, John Kerry & John Corzine would rule the world. Can't have that:

It is from the natural aristocracy in a single assembly that the first danger is to be apprehended in the present state of manners in America; and with a balance of landed property in the hands of the people, so decided in their favor, the progress to degeneracy, corruption, rage, and violence, might not be very rapid; nevertheless it would begin with the first elections, and grow faster or slower every year.

Rage and violence would soon appear in the assembly, and from thence be communicated among the people at large.

Sooooo:

The only remedy is to throw the rich and the proud into one group, in a separate assembly, and there tie their hands; if you give them scope with the people at large or their representatives, they will destroy all equality and liberty, with the consent and acclamations of the people themselves. They will have much more power, mixed with the representatives, than separated from them. In the first case, if they unite, they will give the law and govern all; if they differ, they will divide the state, and go to a decision by force. But placing them alone by themselves, the society avails itself of all their abilities and virtues; they become a solid check to the representatives themselves, as well as to the executive power, and you disarm them entirely of the power to do mischief.

Which is why I hold it's all been downhill for this nation since the ratification of the 17th amendment allowing Senators to be elected by popular vote instead of chosen by their state legislatures.

Repeal the 17th amendment and restore our national greatness!

Courage Survives

Photo credit

Some internet wag pointed out the President has no authority to pardon fowl, so this is blatantly unconstitutional. But the Obama girls are so cute (click the photo credit to see the slide show), who cares? (The bird's name is Courage, btw.)

Hide The Decline

Minnesotans for Climate Change offer a musical take on Climate Gate, w/ apologies to the Shondells.

You know what's odd? The opening SNL sketch last week made such an impact that no one has mentioned --or perhaps even noticed-- that Al Gore was a guest on that episode, appearing in a sketch and then having a wooden "spoof" editorial on Weekend Update. He's newly svelte for a book tour.

Matt Labash Is My Best Friend Today

I so look forward to his hilarious Weekly Standard features, and The Adventures of Low Impact Man doesn't disappoint. He took the HuffPo challenge to lower his carbon footprint to zero for a week. Amusing adventures ensue, including a 5 am bike ride to the commuter bus stop in which he pops his chain twice switching gears he can't see.

The Park'n'Ride is behind Safeway, so I go into the supermarket bathroom, wash the grease off my hands, and try to make myself presentable. Wearing a ski hat and thermal jacket, the brightest yellow one I have in the interest of not getting plowed into by commuters, I'm drenched with sweat even in the 39-degree early morning air. With my ineffectual Tom's of Maine honeysuckle-rose eco-deodorant--not my usual "Cool Wave" triple-protection Gillette--I smell like a whiff of Febreze spritzed over the crowd at a Phish concert.

Dieters Must Do Dishes

Wunderbar. Thanksgiving killjoys put in their place.

Thanksgiving seems to beckon those who seldom prepare food to issue health inspector warnings about the need to cook a Turkey for at least a solar year to avoid any chance of turkey borne illness. Somehow, the fact that fowl, possibly including turkey has graced the table during the calendar on some days other than Thanksgiving never mitigates the need to obsess about how long to cook the bird.

She's got it in for dieters, too. Eat or don't eat --but let's not discuss it, alright? Courteous people do not call attention to the fact they're only having salad.

Hoist By Their Own Petard

Remember a couple of weeks ago when I pointed out (see the final 'grafs) that abortion supporters' reaction to the Stupak amendment proves the truth of the objection that health care reform as currently constituted will destroy all private insurance? That they don't seem to notice they're giving their game away?

CMR notices the same, and with a humorous twist.

Abortion groups are worried that the government ban on taxpayer funding of abortion will affect private insurance. Stupak's answer to that is

There is no language in this amendment that in any way prohibits private health insurance companies from offering these services.

Heh! Just as Granma & the President assure us that abortion is never mentioned in the bill. (Neither are hernias.)

Dept. of Health Policy Chair Sara Rosenbaum says of the Stupak amendment:

The treatment exclusions required under the Stupak-Pitts Amendment will have an industry-wide effect, eliminating coverage of medically indicated abortions over time for all women, not only those whose coverage is derived through a health insurance exchange.

CMR notes:

What?! The public option will "eliminate coverage?" What?

Take it a way, boy:

Now, just a few months ago Sara Rosenbaum was quoted in an NBC story, as being a strong advocate of the public option exactly because it would lead to:

"much broader coverage, more benefits, more services, deeper coverage, thereby allowing people a choice of a product that actually is tailored to their needs."

So you see the public option encouraged more choices in everything until the Stupak amendment. That doesn't make much sense now does it?

Liberals are caught in their own talking points and Stupak knows it.

A Noble Actor

Actor Fahim Fazli, a native Afghan typically cast as a villain, has left Hollywood to embed w/ the Marines and serve as a translator.

Breeders

Christ is King!

Eucharistic procession, National Catholic Youth Conference, Kansas City, MO. Story and more pics at the photo credit link.

Alive Inside

I can't decide if this story is wonderful or horrific. A man spent 23 fully conscious, but unable to let doctors know, so he was considered to be in a coma, and later to have a "extinct" conscious.

Mr Houben said: 'All that time I just literally dreamed of a better life. Frustration is too small a word to describe what I felt.'

His case has only just been revealed in a scientific paper released by the man who 'saved' him, top neurological expert Dr Steven Laureys.

'Medical advances caught up with him,' said Dr Laureys, who believes there may be many similar cases of false comas around the world.

I would love to know the back story about how he hasn't been euthanized --and why he was re-tested.

Curtsy: CMR

Update: Uh-oh.

Nice Presidents Finish Last

Der Spiegel: Obama's Nice Guy Act Gets Him Nowhere On The World Stage.

Obama's currency isn't as strong as he had believed. Everyone wants respect, but hardly anyone is willing to pay for it. Interests, not emotions, dominate the world of realpolitik. The Asia trip revealed the limits of Washington's new foreign policy: Although Obama did not lose face in China and Japan, he did appear to have lost some of his initial stature.

In Tokyo, the new center-left government even pulled out of its participation in a mission which saw the Japanese navy refueling US warships in the Indian Ocean as part of the Afghanistan campaign. In Beijing, Obama failed to achieve any important concessions whatsoever. There will be no binding commitments from China to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. A revaluation of the Chinese currency, which is kept artificially weak, has been postponed. Sanctions against Iran? Not a chance. Nuclear disarmament? Not an issue for the Chinese.

The White House did not even stand up for itself when it came to the question of human rights in China. The president, who had said only a few days earlier that freedom of expression is a universal right, was coerced into attending a joint press conference with Chinese President Hu Jintao, at which questions were forbidden. Former US President George W. Bush had always managed to avoid such press conferences.

I think that Krauthammer interview must have had an impact.

Our Robed Masters

From the Anchoress comes this on KSM:

I am rendered very nervous when I hear our Attorney General and our President talk about trials with pre-determined outcomes. Aside from the showtrial that is meant to once-and-for-all defeat Bush and Cheney (and that will backfire on Obama and Holder) or the propaganda and security measures, this mindset -if it is allowed to proceed- will create a very unhealthy precedent in the minds of many who will be “just glad to see KSM” dealt with, and unconcerned about methods.

Money quote:

No one should be “glad” about a president and AG -an entire DOJ- willing to tell you what is going to happen in the case of a now presumed innocent defendant, regardless of verdict.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta Is My Best Friend Today

He interviews a member of the Preventive Services Task Force about those new mammogram non-recommendations. He gets right to the point:

SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: About 75 to 90 percent of breast cancers are found in women who have absolutely no family history and no identifiable risk factors. If you are a woman hearing that at age 40, right now watching, 75 to 90 percent of breast cancers found with people who have no risk factors, no family history, what should they do?

LUCY MARION, PREVENTIVE SERVICES TASK FORCE: I would not recommend it. I would not make a recommendation. We’re saying that the benefits are small.

And then keeps on rollin':

You’re a nurse, you’re in a profession of healing and compassion.

Are you comfortable with what you’re saying right now? Because what you’re saying, what I’m hearing you say is that you’re saying some lives just aren’t worth it. We — that’s why we’re changing these screening recommendations. And that is an incredibly frightening thing to hear from someone like yourself.

Is that what you’re saying?

MARION: No, I’m not saying that some lives are worth it. I do not say that. But as you know, as a physician, there are many screening tests that could save lives but could create many other issues that we made decisions about.

And rollin':

GUPTA: So, really, the harm that you’re saying to women, the harm that you cite is that it could cause unnecessary anxiety and worry in women who get these mammograms, for example, if they have a false positive? Do you think that it would cause anxiety in women if they are told that look, 90 percent — up to 90 percent of women who develop breast cancer never had a risk factor and now you’re not sure if you have that breast cancer because you didn’t get the test? Don’t you think that causes anxiety as well?

Someone should remind him it's only women.

Open Season Officially Declared

On the front page of this week's Human Events is a line from Jay Leno:

While in China, President Obama gave a speech. He said, "Open criticism makes democracy stronger and it makes me a better leader because it forces me to hear opinions I don't want to hear." Then he went back to trashing FOX News.

Got that? Obama is so over-the-top, he got a comedian to defend FOX news.

Blogger Ken Thomas points out the most disrespectful, inappropriate and hilarious treatment any President has ever received at the hands of comedians opened Saturday Night Live last night.



I laughed. But I wish I hadn't. As Thomas points out, this level of mockery has consequences, and in a time of war, they ain't good. Open season? Jiminy...where can SNL possibly go from there?

New Year's Eve

Christ the Tzar

It's the feast of Christ the King -though in a nod to our times I found a picture of Christ the Tzar, to note the only Tzar to whom I intend to bow, no matter how many there are.

That sentiment is utterly in phase with the origin of the feast, which Pius XI instituted in the 1920's as a countersign to the rise of socialism in its National and International forms. As nations threw out God and embraced despotism, the Pope did what any good Christian does in dark times: threw a feast. Of course it isn't fundamentally a political feast, but it is one designed to inflame love and strengthen resolve. Read more about that here or read the encyclical that started it all.

Speaking of Christians standing athwart rapidly spreading despotism, have you heard about the Manhattan Declaration? Lengthy explanation here.

At any rate, the feast is a welcome reminder that parties and movements rise and fall, but as Benedict XVI told cancer patients, when we fall, it is into the arms of the One who loved us: so all shall be well. It's also a celebration of the fact that, while freedom necessitates suffering (God won't prevent evil at the cost of free will), there is no evil out of which greater good is not being drawn. Fr. James T. O'Conner writes:

The meaning of the Lord's subjection of all reality in its present stage is, however, something upon which most of us do not often reflect. It means that, in some mysterious but real way, the risen Jesus influences, shapes, and directs all things so that out of all persons and things he is shaping the future visage of creation as that creation moves toward his glorious return. Even the sinner—whose very sin is at least implicitly an attempt to thwart the sovereignty and dominion of Christ—operates now within the overall plan of the Lord for the establishment of his Kingdom.

Which is why it's okay to have a party even with dark times on the horizon and the citizens of the West seemingly not able to throw freedom away fast enough.

Christ the King is also the last Sunday of the liturgical year (hence the post title). Can Advent really be upon us?

I Guess Now I Have To Read Up

Been keeping my powder dry on the climate change hack -- a story too good to be true, smells like. Steve Hayward says the info's been mostly authenticated, though some possibly altered. See more here.

A Bill Historic In Its Arrogance

From Lamar Alexander, as quoted in The Corner:

It’s arrogant to dump 15 million low-income Americans into a medical ghetto called Medicaid that none of us or any of our families would ever want to join. It’s arrogant to send to the states, which are going broke, a big chunk of the bill. It’s arrogant to tell the American people that the bill will only cost $849 billion and think they’re not smart enough to read it and figure out that it will actually cost $2.5 trillion when it’s fully implemented. It’s arrogant to say paying for the physicians’ reimbursement is not an important part of a health care bill — even as they run over here in the dead of night and run up the deficit with a separate quarter-trillion-dollar bill to fix that. It’s arrogant to cut and tax Grandma’s Medicare, which is going broke, and then spend it on somebody else. It’s arrogant to tell us that it’s going to reduce premiums for most Americans when, in fact, it increases premiums for most Americans.

Todd Beamer's Dad Wants To Know

Mr. Holder said that he and his boss had not spoken in person about this decision. This matter only involves upholding the constitutional rights of Americans, establishing a precedent with battlefield impact, and the safety and security of our citizens in a time of war. What are the criteria to make something a priority with President Barack Obama? How can it be that this matter didn't make the cut?

RTWT. But seriously: we all know that claim has to be a lie, but how could Obama & Holder think it would be a good defense?

Update: Mr. W. writes:

remember when Reagan was considered to be "disconnected" and "out of touch"?

Speaking of which, widely covered, but here just for the external hard drive's sake: Elizabeth Drew on Obama's insularity; David Gergen on his weakness; and David Broder catches on.

Women & Obamacare

Ann Althouse notices the disproportionate brunt that women will bear of Obamacare. I am going to cite it almost in full and then I have only one sentence to add.

First she notes a story suggesting looking at squeezing a man's hand or looking at his picture is effective pain relief for women and reads the handwriting on the wall: no more epidurals, Ladies!

Then she notes the "don't bother scanning for breast cancer" thing, which we're skipping because we've noted it already.

But hard on its heels came this:

those silly Pap tests that had us thinking we needed a pelvic exam every year?The official word has come that you don't need that testing so early or so often:

Young women are especially prone to develop abnormalities in the cervix that appear to be precancerous, but that will go away if left alone. But when Pap tests find the growths, doctors often remove them, with procedures that can injure the cervix and lead to problems later when a woman becomes pregnant, including premature birth and an increased risk of needing a Caesarean.

And talk about expensive! Premature births and Caesarean sections? Wouldn't it be so much nicer for everyone if women would man up and give the old vagina a go? And if the baby dies? Think of how many trips to the pediatrician will be avoided. Why spend so much on preemies anyway? Surely, the new guidelines on extra-tiny humans will yield nice savings.

And if it happens to be your wife or daughter who dies in all of this, don't worry:

the experts are here to tell you that you will feel quite a bit better — surprisingly so — when you look at an old photograph of your lost child.

Comes the devastating conclusion:

Come on, be honest. Don't you want the federal government to have a complete overview of health care? The potential rationality is stunning. And one thing in this emerging rationality is clear: Although women tend to love the notion of government control more than men do, it is women who will be told they'll have to cut back. On treatments. And years. You know we've been taking more than our share.

But who the hell cares? It's only women.

A Woman Ain't Worth The Price

So the blogosphere has been alight with mockery of the news that the US Preventive Services Task Force is now saying women needn't bother with mammography until age 50.

The argument being advanced isn't false --it's one I have noted here before as the problem with prevention-based medicine: screening everyone for everything routinely sounds like it would save money (because it avoids expensive cures for advanced disease), but it doesn't, because of the problem of false positives (which require more and more expensive tests to rule out the initial diagnosis. Not a problem in a small pool of people; exorbitant in a large pool).

The recommendation is highly revealing, however , and I'll just collect here some things others have noticed. As for example: no health care bill has even passed, and already the entire dynamic of the control panels is toward cost savings, not health.

“We’re not saying women shouldn’t get screened. Screening does saves lives,” said Diana B. Petitti, vice chairman of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, which released the recommendations Monday in a paper being published in Tuesday’s Annals of Internal Medicine.

We're just saying we won't pay for it with the insurance we make you buy.

The task force that made this decision --and will be deciding the standard of care for all diseases and conditions if the health care bill passes in anything like its current iterations-- includes no radiologists or oncologists. In fact they seem to all be nurses, family practitioners and hospital administrators.

I'm sure they're all wonderful people and great at their jobs, but I find that ominous. I have a family member who just experienced nothing short of a medical miracle thanks to specialists who recommended a course of treatment that other doctors either had never heard of or scoffed at. Not sure said member (now healthy) would still be with us had the treatment required the authorization of non-specialists.

Just six months ago, this same panel was "alarmed" at a decline in the number of women in their 40s receiving annual mammograms.

I am no medical expert and to be honest (though I will say the half dozen women I've known with breast cancer were all in their 40s), I am tired of the pink ribbons that now festoon every single product in the grocery store. I have long been ready for a little less breast cancer awareness and don't have reason to believe the original recommendation: screenings for everyone, beginning at 35! was any less politically motivated than the don't bother! now.

What I'm really tired of is the politicization of medicine at the precise moment we claim to be all "scientific" and "objective."

Then again, who the hell cares? It's only women.

Serfdom Returns To Europe

Europe returns to absolute monarchy in, oh, 72 hours.

We have lately witnessed the primaries, television debates and nation-wide electioneering to which candidates for the American presidency have to submit. This reveals the character of those standing for high office. In Europe, by contrast, the 27 heads of state form an exclusive electoral roll of their own. At this very moment, each one of them is wholly employed telephoning the other 26, trying to find out who is going to vote for whom, to canvass for their candidate, and to discover some means of influencing or discreetly buying votes. The people of Europe will never know the true ins and outs of this horse-dealing, but tomorrow or within a few days if more time is needed, they will be presented with the winner. The Bourbon-Parmas and the Hohenzollerns would thoroughly appreciate the closed-doors intimacy of the selection, especially the total elimination of any participation by their hapless subjects.

Update: not even 72 hours. The deed is done.

Mirandizing bin Laden

Lindsay Graham does have his redeeming moments.



Watch AG Holder flounder over whether Osama bin Laden should be mirandized. He doesn't seem to have thought through a rationale for his own policy.

Update: Mr. W. reminds me, upon watching this video, of something we were talking about last night. The argument for trying KSM in the civilian system is that we are somehow going to prove something to the world by following our constitutional forms even with a terrorist.

As if a military tribunal were not constitutional!

"That Guy Can Get Away With Anything"

Here's a silly little Conan O'Brien piece on the President, but note the last line.

2012: A Different View

Fr. Barron has a thoughtful piece on 2012 --although he completely disagrees with my absolution of the charge "anti-Catholic."



He notes that anyone who prays gets wiped out; that certain instances of symbolism seem to suggest that prayer gets you nowhere (notably the dome of St. Peter's falling and crushing all the people praying there --a scene he says will go down in the annals as one of the most shameless moments of cinematic anti-Catholicism); and that the day after the disaster is dated, a la the French Revolution, the day one. Plus, director Roland Emmerich is notably weird (he has a life-size statue of John Paul II laughing at his own obituary in a closet).

The facts do bear his interpretation, but I stand by my contention that this is over-reading.

Does St. Peter's fall to wipe out Catholics, or because it's an enormous recognizable landmark? Does Emmerich show the destruction of Los Angeles & Las Vegas because he means the world would be better off without the entertainment industry? Does an enormous volcano wipe out Yosemite National Park because in the perfect world there would be no park rangers? Do massive waves engulf the Himalayas because he's anti-sherpa? Or is he simply showing what would happen if the entire world were engulfed by disaster with only about 1000 people saved?

I won't rehearse the things I said here, but I am not certain it's true that no one who prays survives. The President's daughter, who defends her father's praying, survives. The big villain of the piece mocks prayer and is shown to be a jerk for it; the pray-ers are the ones who make the escape of anyone possible. And as there are just some shorthand scenes showing the salvation of the great works of culture, there's no reason to assume that sacred arts and priests of various religions aren't also saved. It's not like there's a scene where they're excluded.

Plus, as Fr. Barron notes, the only continent that survives is Africa. No one knows what Emmerich intended by that, if anything, but if Africa is untouched, Christianity survives the apocalypse. And a Buddhist priest survives. Fr. Barron takes that as a vote that Buddhism is the one acceptable religion. I don't know. We see the Buddhist monastery wiped out just as the Vatican was. I think the guy's a stand-in for all religion --a remnant survives, presumably to carry on.

(Don't forget the big honkin' waves.)

Curtsy: CMR

Betraying Geneva...And Us All

In case you missed it, Bill McGurn makes an elegant point in this morning's WSJ.

the perverse message that decision [to try Khalid Sheik Mohammed in a civilian court --ed] will send to terrorists all over this dangerous world is this: If you kill civilians on American soil you will have greater protections than if you attack our military overseas.

So it now becomes more attractive for our enemies to commit acts of terrorism against women and children than to fight like men.

"A fundamental purpose of rules such as the Geneva Conventions is to give those at war an incentive for more civilized behavior—and not targeting civilians is arguably the most sacred of these principles," says William Burck, a former federal prosecutor and Bush White House lawyer who dealt with national security issues. "It demolishes this principle to give Khalid Sheikh Mohammed even more legal protections than the Geneva Conventions provide a uniformed soldier fighting in a recognized war zone."

That's bitterly ironic given the accusation during the Bush years that Bush didn't respect the conventions.

I repeat: this is a wicked, wicked, wicked decision.

There Is Only One Reason: Reckoning

Andrew McCarthy prosecuted "the blind sheikh," author of the first WTC bombing. His thoughts on the 2nd prosecution.

As experienced defense lawyers well know, when there is no mystery about whether the defendants have committed the charged offenses, and when there is controversy attendant to the government’s investigative tactics, the standard defense strategy is to put the government on trial.

RTWT, but here's a little more.

candidate Obama and his adviser, Holder, rebuked the Bush counterterrorism policies and promised their base a “reckoning.” Since President Obama took office, Attorney General Holder has anxiously shoveled into the public domain classified information relating to those policies — with the administration always at pains to claim that its hand is being forced by court orders, even though the president has had legal grounds, which he has refrained from invoking, to decline to make those disclosures. Moreover, during a trip to Germany in April, Holder signaled his openness to turning over evidence that would assist European investigations — including one underway in Spain — that seek to charge Bush-administration officials with war crimes (which is the transnational Left’s label for actions taken in defense of the United States).

Never mind the fact that this will give intelligence info directly into the hands of al-Qaeda.

From indictment to trial, the civilian case against the 9/11 terrorists will be a years-long seminar, enabling al-Qaeda and its jihadist allies to learn much of what we know and, more important, the methods and sources by which we come to know it. But that is not the half of it. By moving the case to civilian court, the president and his attorney general have laid the groundwork for an unprecedented surrender of our national-defense secrets directly to our most committed enemies.

Congress, which controls court jurisdiction, should intervene to prevent this. Even if the Dems are unlikely to turn on Obama, the Republicans in Congress should be raising a huge hue and cry. There is no way a well-informed citizenry will stand for national suicide.

Here is my question assuming this feckless Congress does nothing: will this work?

Has it not the possibility --even probability--of ending in a complete repudiation of Obama and justification of Bush?

Isn't it probable that evidence against KSM will be ruled inadmissable and the trial thrown out on that ground? In fact, isn't that the best case scenario for the country at this point? And won't that be a PR disaster for the Dems?

Give It A Rest

Shamelessly pinched from Patrick Madrid

Hug Lady of Ft. Hood

Elizabeth Laird, aka "the Hug lady" hugs every soldier who deploys from Ft. Hood, standing in for mothers who aren't there, and giving each soldier a copy of the 91st Psalm. This photo snapped by The Ryskind Sketchbook before he got his own hug, but I found a little more about her on You Tube.

The New Catacombs

Who here reads Dutch? The Anchoress seems to have found 800,000 converts to Christianity from Islam --living in new catacombs in Muslim countries. Attracted by the kindness of Christianity versus the shariah they're living under.

Obama & The Apocalypse

Another reason 2012 appears fundamentally wholesome to me is because it's about the destruction of civilization which does appear to me to be imminent --and flowing from the fateful decision to try Khalid Sheik Mohammed as a civilian.

Here are some apocalyptic visions of the effect that will likely have on our rights as American citizens.

From the Powerline guys:

Judging Obama's treatment of KSM et al. by its predictable effects rather than its apparent intentions, one arrives at a harsh conclusion. If Obama sought to subvert fundamental American institutions or to confuse the understanding of the American people -- upon both of which America's future depends -- he would proceed as announced.

RTWT for amplification of the claim.

JOHN adds: On our radio show yesterday, Andy McCarthy proposed an explanation that amplifies on Scott's last paragraph. He suggested that the Obama administration views KSM et al. as its allies (my paraphrase) in its war against the Bush administration. Obama expects them to make their treatment by the Bush administration, real and imagined, the centerpiece of their defense, with the possible result that Bush, Cheney, and others may be indicted as war criminals by European countries or international courts, thereby satisfying the far left of the Democratic Party, which Obama represents.

Hmm. So it wasn't much of a ledge I was during the other night's update after all. I took the move initially as an effort to savage Bush.

But I think we are the ones who are being savaged. There is also this theory --that the end result will be the destruction of all our freedoms.

Nothing good will come of this trial.

If it is conducted outside the bounds of normal civil law, it will be nothing but a corrupt show trial whose outcome was preordained by politicians. Instead of showing the world that America is a land of laws in which even our enemies receive fair treatment, it will show the world the opposite.

If it is conducted within the bounds of normal civil law, then it will force the courts to choose between letting a mass murdering terrorist walk free and setting dangerous legal precedents that will undermine the basic civil rights of all Americans.

Obama has unleashed something in America far, far more dangerous than any excesses Bush might have committed. He has taken all the horrible compromises we must make in war and driven them into the heart of the civil legal system. If the courts do not set Khalid Sheikh Mohammed free, the cancer of marital law will metastasize into the entire justice system.

(Curtsy to Kaching! for the latter link)

The Constitution may be o'erthrown; the Bill of Rights? What's that? At least we know the right to abortion will always be intact.

Father, Forgive Me: I Enjoyed 2012

Let's just stipulate that it is plotless, preposterous, perpetually breaks the tension inappropriately with wildly improbable jokes and is the apotheosis of what Mr. W. calls "one damn thing after another."

It has, however, the single thing I require of a disaster movie: big honkin' waves.

Moreover, based on chatter around the Catholic blogosphere, the seeming loving destruction of the Vatican in the trailer, and the whole premise (apocalypse predicted by Mayan calendar), I was fearful the flick might be a big cheap anti-Catholic diatribe, or possibly the somewhat sick product of a decadent mind.

It's none of those things; it's just plain, stupid fun. An Independence Day redux, only now the danger is coming from the earth's core and not giant alien intelligent insects, and now Woody Harrelson has the Randy Quaid role.

In fact, to the extent there is any story line at all, it's fairly wholesome, as I shall now explain.

** SPOILER ALERT**

The premise is that the earth's core is going to superheat, causing its crust to become unstable, after which time there will be massive earthquakes, followed by tsunamis, followed by the shifting of all tectonic plates before re-stabilization.

The world governments know this and prepare to save Earth's culture and most prominent citizens: which process we find them in the middle of when they find out their calculations have been wrong and instead of years they have hours to evacuate.

Things to like:

• It's not "new agey." The Mayan calendar thing just barely figures, and we find out right away that every religious text --including the Bible-- has predicted this.
  
• Religion --and specifically Christianity-- is treated respectfully. The bad guy is deeply cynical about the value of prayer, but all the decent people either pray themselves or are respectful of prayer. Two men who give their lives to save others are explicitly Christian. The President of the United States elects to stay with his people rather than escape to the waiting arks --and we see him at prayer in his private chapel, and he leads his nation and the world in prayer as they prepare for the end. A pilot who saves our heroes has a Russian icon on the dashboard of his plane.
• It's not "green." The environmental apocalypse is caused by the sun, not human beings.
• The American President is an entirely admirable figure.
  
• It's anti-eugenics. The idea that only "the best" people are saved --qualified by genetics-- is repudiated.
  
• It is anti-divorce. In a certain sense the entire destruction of the world seems to be for the purpose of bumping off the second husband (who dies nobly) and bringing the true father back to his wife and children. Fathers in general fare very well in this flick.
• It is pro- dying well. Not only in the sense of heroically, if necessary, but in the sense of getting right with God and with estranged family members.
• There's a Russian bad guy. Treachery is always better with a Russian accent.
• Individuals of good character triumph over both hardship and bureaucracy.
  
• It's a celebration of the basic decency of people.
  
• It's a wholesome meditation on the transience of all things.
  

There's some "liberal" stuff if you want to see it.

• Someone says "I was wrong" in the Oval Office and the President says no one has ever said that in that room before. Could be a Bush dig (or one of those inappropriate jokes I mentioned) if you care to see it that way, but you don't have to.
• People have to buy their tickets onto the arks, so if you aren't part of the essential government, you have to be filthy rich: the unfairness of which system is a plot point. The villain is kind of a Wicked White Capitalist Dude, who alone among the surviving heads of state doesn't want to let the riff-raff on the arks. But the point is made that free enterprise built the arks and without it no one at all would be saved, so.... whatever. It's kind of a wash.
  
• James Watt could tell you who saves the world.
• There's a fair amount of taking the Lord's name in vain.
  
• The entire world drowns except Africa, and the arks land at Cape Hope and an aerial shot reveals that the world has literally come together --into one continent. Is that a prescription for "One World" government? Or is it just a "back to the beginning," Pandeia all over again sort of moment? Let's not overthink it.
  

The boys thought it was "awesome!" Girl Weed was not impressed, and pronounced herself more frightened by how loud the soundtrack was than anything she saw on the screen.

Interestingly, the most memorable moments for the boys did not come from any of the special effects, but from humorous remarks made by the Russian villain. Middle Weed, in particular, is still giggling now about some of his lines an hour later.

In sum: not a good movie (but you already knew that), but neither a blasphemous, evil movie. And big honkin' waves!

Update: I thought of something else I like, which I will proffer even though I have already WAY overthought a mindless movie. I've written before how offensive I always found the old "values clarification" exercise in which pre-teens are told that a mother, a priest, a teacher and a few others are on a lifeboat after their ship sinks. There is only enough food and water for 6 people, but there are 7 aboard. Who should be thrown overboard? The correct answer is, obviously, nobody --just pray for rain or rescue, but those answers are never allowed. You're supposed to figure out who you value more.

This flick utterly repudiates that stupid exercise. The world governments have chosen who will be thrown overboard because they can't feed everyone. The good guys let everyone on. And it all works out because the flood waters recede faster than anyone anticipated.

The Pro-Life Majority

This is a rather astonishing admission, coming from an uber-liberal Congressman:

."We have won the battle for women on right-to-choose in the courts," Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chair Chris Van Holland [sic --it's Hollen] told NEWSWEEK. "We've never won this in Congress. It's a mistake to say that now Democrats are in charge, it's different. If we ever had a vote up or down on Roe v. Wade, my best guess is that it might be defeated."

Same track, different train: Barney Frank is Right

Fire The Chief of Protocol

Update: Mark Steyn calls him the world's only Superbower.

Needn't Have Worried

David Gray/Reuters

Chinese officials banned this t-shirt, fearing it would offend Obama during his first visit to China.

Apparently they never heard about Anita Dunn or the manufacturing czar. Anyway, not to worry: Shamelessly pinched from American Digest.

I know, it's just a photo op and he's playing nice, but I still find it rather extraordinary he let himself be photographed in that. I used to think the funniest aspect of The Ryskind Sketchbook's lampoons of Hillary was that he always depicts her in a Mao uniform. I know it's been true since Malcolm Muggeridge was at Punch!, but truly, parody is, if not impossible, at least very difficult.

12 Angry Men Named Mohammed

So they're trying Khalid Sheik Mohammed in NYC in a civilian court.

I have always opposed this move because of:

• downgrading the War on Terror to a criminal prosecution.
  
• damage to our intelligence gathering that will come from sharing info with defense lawyers, who will themselves almost certainly have connections with extremists (as lawyers for the mob tend to have mob ties)
  
• danger to civilians of having such men on our soil
• danger to civilians from extremist intimidation (would you want to sit on the jury or be related to the judge that returns a guilty verdict?)
• expense to the government of multiple trials and re-trials
• gross injustice to our citizens of crowding our court system --thus delaying justice to our own
• disgusting notion of extending Miranda and other rights to enemy combatants.
  

It took NPR precisely 30 seconds from the announcement to give me another objection. Their instinctive reaction? NO questions whatever about the wisdom of the decision. Instead, immediately they ran an interview with an ACLU lawyer fretting about how the poor man will ever get a fair trial.

And indeed, how will he? The lawyer just pulled some questions for potential jurors off the top of his head.

1. Did 9/11 effect you?
2. Are you related to or friends with any emergency responders?

I'm thinking maybe only members of Islamist sleeper cells could pass voir dire.

Update: a nice round-up of responses. I had a moment of paranoia in which it occurred to me that since in a civil court evidence gathered under duress must be tossed out, perhaps Mohammed's confession would be tossed because he was waterboarded and the whole trial would be used as an excuse to flog Bush on that issue again. (This is, after all, the AG who wants to prosecute CIA interrogators). However, I asked Mr. W. to talk me down from the crazy ledge, and he assures me that if Mo. gets off for any reason, there will be a public revolt against judges' technicalities and against the Obama administration.

So I feel slightly better, but this is still a wicked move. Not least because, as in the case of Saddam Hussein's trial, it's a show trial; we know what the result must be. "Process" has overcome "purpose."

Update 2: in comments, Ken asks a question which intensifies my belief that the Administration made this decision without due concern for protecting American citizens:

Has anyone made the point that a public spectacle, in which the "defendants" put the US on trial, will encourage violence by extremists to get "their day in court"?

Unacknowledged Side Effect Of Population Decline

As ninme says, it's best we leave the latest educational machinations of a certain region of Spain unspecified except by link.

If your uncle taught your children this, you'd have him arrested, and if you taught your children this, the teacher would sic Child Protective Services on you in no time flat.

But leaving questions of liberty, morality, propriety and Eeeeew aside, who thinks this behavior must be taught? Perhaps there should be a grant to teach children how to enjoy dessert and soda instead of fruits and vegetables, too.

Clearly no one in the field of education has ever reared any actual children.

Peter Wehner Is My Best Friend Today

For writing Objectively, Ayn Rand Was A Nut. I understand her appeal right now. In the land of blind victims and victimology, the one-eyed pull-yourself-up-by-your-own-bootstraps man is king. But, c'mon, people: her views are inhumane & repellant. "Going John Galt" just means being a mean self-absorbed bastard instead of a "nice" one.

I have never been able to take her seriously thanks to a family story in which she sat en salon with my grandparents and a few others, holding forth at length (as was her wont) about why there was obviously no God. After which one of her interlocutors dared to be unpersuaded.

"But I still think...."

"What!?" she replied, sneering and incredulous, "You still believe in God? But I have just explained to you that he does not exist!"

An interesting, but utterly preposterous, figure.

Ahead Of Schedule

Last week I highlighted the Orwellian language by which the DC City Council was essentially shutting down the Catholic church within its borders in the name of religious liberty.

Today, with this extraordinary headline --Catholic Church gives DC ultimatum-- WaPo makes it seem as if the big, bad Church is threatening the poor city council by having the nerve to point out the obvious and intended effect of the legislation.

In the original post I wrote that once the city had successfully shut down all Church charities, it would attack the Church for not operating charities. Cue WaPo:

The Catholic Archdiocese of Washington said Wednesday that it will be unable to continue the social service programs it runs for the District if the city doesn't change a proposed same-sex marriage law, a threat that could affect tens of thousands of people the church helps with adoption, homelessness and health care.

Man, they're good! The law hasn't even passed yet!

"Sawdust Therapy"

If this doesn't make you smile, there is something wrong with you. Watch the whole thing.

Damned Lithuanians!

Lithuania passed a law

which prohibits promotion of “homosexual, bisexual, polygamous relations” among children under the age of 18.

So the EuroParliament condemned the law; submitted a complaint to the EU Agency For Fundamental Rights; and tried to have Lithuania suspended from the EU.

Lithuania, however, ain't taking that lying down:

The just-passed Lithuanian response seeks to have the European Court of Justice determine the “lawfulness” of the European Parliament resolution and to determine further that the resolution is void. The Siemas contends that if the European resolution is not formally voided it would “become a dangerous precedent.” The Lithuanian resolution also expressed "regret" and "deep concern" that the European Parliament attempted to “doubt the lawfulness of the law passed by the great majority of the democratically elected parliament of a member state, although this issue should not fall under the jurisdiction of the EP.”

A Lithuanian Labor Party member got it right:

Some years back we called this ‘Moscow’s Grip,’ the tendency to meddle in everybody’s business…”

Curtsy: Mere Comments

"We're Here For You." Not.

Last night I heard on NPR this clip from the President's remarks at Arlington Cemetery yesterday.

when your tour ends, when you see our flag, when you touch our soil, you will be home in an America that is forever here for you just as you've been there for us.

I thought to myself: "we're here for you?" The sophomores are at it again." Bill Clinton never said, "I feel your pain" in a formal speech.

The entire speech isn't so bad, so maybe it's more a reflection on NPR that its reporter thought that was the best line. The speech is highly self-referential --not about the President himself this time, but it's about our suffering: the nation's suffering, the soldiers' suffering, their families' suffering, how good it will be when everyone is at home and at peace. Nothing to disagree with in what was said, but there is not one line which is ennobling, either. It reads flat and condescending: "Oh, you poor lads," as if the vets are "them" and not "us."

People are noticing more and more that Mr. Obama comes off cold and uncaring, but I had resolved not to make a cheap snarky remark about the speech. We have to accept a man's limitations for what they are. It makes no more sense to hate a cold man for not appearing warm than it made sense to hate an inarticulate man for not being eloquent. "Down, Girl," I thought.

Until I saw this story. in Wednesday's pivotal war council meeting,

Obama wasn't satisfied with any of the Afghanistan war options presented by his national security team, one official said.

The president instead pushed for revisions to clarify how and when U.S. troops would turn over responsibility to the Afghan government. In turn, that could change the dynamic of both how many additional troops are sent to Afghanistan and what the timeline would be for their presence in the war zone, according to the official.

Military officials said Obama has asked for a rewrite before and resisted what one official called a one-way highway toward commander McChrystal's recommendations for more troops. The sense that he was being rushed and railroaded has stiffened Obama's resolve to seek information and options beyond military planning, officials said, though a substantial troop increase is still likely.

The man is dithering, and our troops in Afghanistan have just suffered their highest casualties since the war began. That is not "being there for them." Seems to me he knows what he wants to do: let him just do it and not talk about it endlessly.

Everyone mocked W for saying the President was "the decider." Yet even Bill Clinton knows that is pretty much right.

You know the second President Bush got made fun of for saying that the President was basically the Decider in Chief. Everybody thought that was funny. But it's not, it's true.

Update: a military man writes in to the Corner:

I have been in the military while a president dithered or failed to make a tough decision, it is eviscerating, and a rot settles in. “Commander in Chief” is not just a fancy title. The president is the ultimate officer and like any poor officer his failure to make tough decisions is seen as a weakness by his NCOs and men. Morale, that most fragile base of any good military unit suffers immediately. When our officers are fearful and indecisive, we become fearful and indecisive.

NCOs find reasons not to patrol or to avoid high-risk areas, Convoys are diverted to avoid possible confrontation, our allies desert us and the advantage is ceded to the enemy.And this happen quickly, weeks are all that’s left to keep the advantage in Afghanistan. After a certain point in time “mission weariness” begins to settle in and the edge is lost ... and almost impossible to regain.

Having someone's back does not primarily mean hugging him when it's over, Mr. President.

Update: Mr. W. takes a darker view in comments.

O's "dithering" is calculated, has nothing to do with being undecided. He INTENDS the situation to deteriorate...he has decided that he wants NOT to send troops and hopes his time-wasting will push the cost too high for most Americans to tolerate sending more of our forces "to die in vain for a corrupt government." This is deeply disgraceful, not to mention dangerous in the extreme. Let's not say he wants his country to lose this war...let's just ask IF he wanted to lose, how would he behave differently?

Over at American Digest, broad agreement.

There are two benefits to Obama’s decision not to decide in Afghanistan:

1) It increases the instability of Pakistan and makes the likelihood of a radical Muslim coup in that country greater. This would, in one day, bring the control of nuclear weapons into radical Muslim hands. No waiting for Iran to get its act together. It also means that a vast sector of the world, from India to England falls under the spectre of a nuclear holocaust on a hair trigger. If you believe that great creation arises from great destruction, this is to your benefit.

2) It lowers the morale and effectiveness of the US military from the Joint Chiefs of Staff down to Private Grunt on patrol in Kandahar. Since the ultimate check to a politician’s power is always found in the military, anything that decreases that element is always to the politician’s benefit. If you can reduce the budget for the military at the same time you increase its responsibilities, so much the better.

None of this makes much sense if your goal is the improvement of the nation you are sworn to protect and defend. If, however, your goal is to enter history at the level of an Alexander or a Caesar deciding not to decide is a decision you will implement for as long as possible.

In light of which thoughts, the Veterans' Day speech linked above seems positively ominous. No wonder the emphasis on Viet Nam.

If we're honest with ourselves, we'll admit that there have been times where we as a nation have betrayed that sacred trust. Our Vietnam veterans served with great honor. They often came home greeted not with gratitude or support, but with condemnation and neglect. That's something that will never happen again. To them and to all who have served, in every battle, in every war, we say that it's never too late to say thank you. We honor your service. We are forever grateful. And just as you have not forgotten your missing comrades, neither, ever, will we. Our servicemen and women have been doing right by America for generations. And as long as I am Commander-in-Chief, America's going to do right by them.

It's like an announcement: you're going to be our new Viet Nam vets, but we won't spit on you this time.