Wheat & Weeds

New Year's Eve

2009-11-22T09:31:00.004-05:00

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 to 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

2009-11-21T21:02:00.002-05:00

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

2009-11-21T20:54:00.001-05:00

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

2009-11-21T20:22:00.003-05:00

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

2009-11-21T20:05:00.004-05:00

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

2009-11-19T20:55:00.007-05:00

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

2009-11-19T15:34:00.003-05:00

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

2009-11-19T08:24:00.004-05:00

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"

2009-11-19T08:05:00.001-05:00

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

2012: A Different View

2009-11-19T00:16:00.003-05:00

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

2009-11-17T16:49:00.006-05:00

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

2009-11-17T08:01:00.003-05:00

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

2009-11-16T17:13:00.001-05:00

Shamelessly pinched from Patrick Madrid

Hug Lady of Ft. Hood

2009-11-16T10:53:00.003-05:00

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

2009-11-16T10:00:00.002-05:00

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

2009-11-15T22:23:00.004-05:00

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

2009-11-15T20:28:00.015-05:00

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

2009-11-14T20:52:00.003-05:00

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

2009-11-14T20:19:00.004-05:00

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

Needn't Have Worried

2009-11-14T17:48:00.004-05:00

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

2009-11-13T17:33:00.009-05:00

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

2009-11-13T13:56:00.006-05:00

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

2009-11-13T07:56:00.004-05:00

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

2009-11-12T20:27:00.004-05:00

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"

2009-11-12T20:03:00.002-05:00

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