Dr. Strangelove Visits Iran

From American Spectator, more than one way to skin a cat...
...MUCH DISCUSSED RECENTLY in unclassified journals, the non-nuclear electro-magnetic pulse weapon has been under development for over twenty-five years by the United States. An EMP weapon has the ability to create a massive energy surge that can disable electrical/electronic systems in a target area. Integrated circuits are the most vulnerable, and they would be key to any nuclear development or weapon system. Some protection can be provided against EMP by the construction of "Faraday cages" around each separate circuit system and electrical lead, though new military-use EMP's can circumvent these. Combined with advanced versions of high power microwave (HPM) devices, disabling damage is said to be capable of being inflicted on any e-system.In addition to the EMP both the United States and Israel have the advanced software ability to invade the Iranian military computer system in such a way as to negate Tehran's ability to make operational any nuclear weapon it may have in development. Iran must know this already.The evidence of the existence of this particular computer hacking capability exists in the already publicly known fear that Washington itself has of an increasing danger of the Chinese ability to do just this very thing. And if the Chinese have such electronic invasion software, the U.S. has it already and the Russians certainly can't be far behind. One of the more interesting weapons known to be under current development is the Advanced Tactical Laser (ATL) system. This weapon is being tested for air-to-ground use. This version reportedly has a target radius down to a matter of inches from a range of five miles at 10,000 feet. The weapon is adjudged to have the power to penetrate and destroy targets such as missile batteries, commo centers, and other more hardened C3 facilities.There are numerous other exotic weapon systems under development, some quite target specific. The proliferation and dispersion of Iranian nuclear development installations, many underground, is their primary method of defense. Nonetheless, each of these facilities is under high priority surveillance. The Iranians would have to be extraordinarily naive not to have realized this. IN THEORY, all these exotic weapons have an ability to contribute to destroying an enemy's war-making potential without massive body counts or destruction of civilian population centers. It is perhaps not "surgical", but certainly far less life threatening. It is a type of offensive capability of overwhelming strategic value. Even the promised Iranian counterstrike against traffic through the Gulf would be substantially degraded. Most important, aside from several covert special operations teams, no U.S. ground forces would participate. ...(more)

Hard Summer

I read an interesting quote over at "And sometimes tea" it's from from Mason Cooley, and goes like this "Writing about an idea frees me of it. Thinking about it is a circle of repetitions."
And so I beg your patience while I try it out.
It's been a hard summer. Death is everywhere. A friend at church who died in a car accident on the way to choir practice. My youngest son's den leader dying from cancer. My oldest son's assistant scoutmaster on the last leg of his earthly journey, also from cancer. I am not new to this. My dad died when I was 20. I've had a grandmother die and the lady who was like a second mother to me, who kept me while my parents worked from the time I was 6 weeks old till I was in 5th grade died last summer. Her husband and two boys, again like a second family, having preceded her. Less than a month after returning from Iraq, a friend of mine was shot down and killed. It was at that point that this death thing got really hard. Don't get me wrong, when a boy loses his dad, he never gets over that, but lately it just seems to be piling up. My dad had a bad heart and had a heart attack and a stroke before his second heart attack finally took him as he walked/jogged his dailey 2 miles (I think this proves exercise is bad for you but I could be wrong). He was 55.
As young as that is, and it's younger every year, I could kind of explain that, I guess I saw it coming. And maybe that's why this summer has been so hard, and why my friend getting shot down was so hard- I didn't see it coming and it doesn't make sense. To quote my 13 year old after a visit to his assistant scoutmaster in the hospital. It sucks. He is leaving behind an 18 year old boy and a wife. Our den leader leaves behind a wife and 3 boys under 8, one born just this last December. My pilot friend a 3 year old and a wife. My son is right. It sucks. and I hurt all over sometimes and the hurt stretches, like an ugly un-healed scar, all the way back 24 years. My comfort in this, is that God thinks death sucks too. I once read a translation of Jesus' reaction to Lazarus' death as something akin to "the snort of war horse," God hates death. It's not the way He intended and some day, the pain will be gone and the tears will be dried. In the mean time, God weeps with us.

Moral Relativism Is Killing Our Country

Same thing is happening with our inability to keep porn off our kids computers...
From TownHall
The failure to readily identify the battle between good and evil is a nagging, ongoing, dangerous pattern that shows no sign of easing up any time soon.
This week on Fox News Channel, I appeared on a show and “debated” Ibrahim Hooper, a vocal and forceful representative of CAIR, the Council on American Islamic Relations. The topic? Whether or not it’s a good idea for a group of Islamic folks, represented by a man once linked by the federal government of plotting to blow up buildings and kill innocent Americans, to be allowed to plaster over a thousand subway cars in New York City with advertisements promoting Islam.
I’m not kidding you.
This man, a Brooklyn imam named Siraj Wahhaj, is all over a promotional video hyping the ad campaign for the trains. According to the New York Post, he has said things like, “In time, democracy will crumble, and there will be nothing, and the only thing that will remain will be Islam.”
He was named by U.S. Attorney Mary Jo White as one of 170 unindicted co-conspirators in the first bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993.
The Post reports that he has called the FBI and CIA “the real terrorists.”
And he served as a character witness for “the blink sheik”, Omar Abdel-Rahman, currently rotting in jail for his role as one of the masterminds of the 1993 WTC bombing.
Now, he’s a spokesman for this wacky ad campaign that would attempt to teach people stuck on subway trains in New York City all about the wonders of Islam.(more)

The Messiah Channel

Required reading from Touchstone
Bypassing Jesus
Wright, after all, is not making this stuff up. He is preaching a form of liberation theology. The liberation theologians see the gospel of Christ crucified and resurrected, the message of deliverance from the reign of sin and death through repentance and faith, as “pie in the sky.” Liberation theology offers economic and political salvation in the here-and-now, making the Scripture illustrative of how to navigate out of oppression.
This is not the gospel as proclaimed by the prophets and apostles, a gospel that centers on Jesus Christ and him alone. The clips of the Wright sermons should outrage us. But we should be outraged first as Christians. The most egregious aspect of his statements is not what he is saying about America, but what he is not saying about the gospel.
But one does not have to be a political radical to bypass Jesus at church. White, upwardly mobile, pro-America preachers preach liberation theology all the time, with all the fervor of Jeremiah Wright, if not the anger.
Just take a look at the best-selling authors in Christian bookstores. Listen for a minute or two to the parade of preachers on Christian television and radio. What are they promising? Your best life now. What are they preaching about? How to be authentic. How to make good career choices. How Hillary Clinton fits into Bible prophecy.
How many times have we heard conservative preachers use the Bible in exactly the same way that Jeremiah Wright uses it? Wright uses the Scripture as a background to get to what he thinks is the real issue, psychological or economic or political liberation from American oppression. Others use the Scripture as a background to get to what they think is the real issue, psychological or economic or political liberation through the American Dream. (more)

Too PC? Words 'Terrorist' & 'Jihad' Spark Debate In Congress

You gotta be kidding me! Don't these guys have better things to do?
A new policy warns that using terms like Jihadi or Islamic terrorist, might alienate moderate Muslims and inadvertently build support for terrorists.
From WHNZ
(UPI) – The intelligence bill passed by the U.S. House of Representatives includes a ban on a new policy about which words officials should use to describe terrorists.
The new policy, contained in guidelines issued by the National Counter-Terrorism Center and the departments of State and Homeland Security, warns that using terms like Jihadi or Islamic terrorist, might alienate moderate Muslims and inadvertently build support for terrorists.

Gore forecasts ice cap meltdown within years

From WND:
Arrives at meeting in motorcade, suggests attendees ride bicycles
A complete meltdown of the North Pole ice cap resulting in environmental catastrophes for Greenland and other northern nations, generating a flood of "climate refugees." The latest horror flick storyline? No. Al Gore's latest forecast.
Gore has declared that because of the potentially horrifying consequences, he wants the U.S. to move to entirely renewable sources of electricity within 10 years.
"[It's] fantastic that he set the goal he did," said Alan Cohen of the Baltimore Climate Action Network, an offshoot of Chesapeake Climate Action Network. "I also wish Gore were running for president, but that's another issue. (more)
yeah, vote for him for president 'cause he makes a lousy scientist. Check those polar icecaps here
or in the following posts..

Gore Spews Out More Hot Air: Predicts Polare Ice Caps Will Melt Within a Few Years

From doctorbulldog:
Uhm… I hate to be the one to burst Al Gore’s “ManBearPig” (MBP - aka Mass Balance Potential) glacial recession bubble, but I just checked the polar ice cap data from yesterday and it seems to me that the ice cap has actually increased from just a year ago: (more here)
Tsk, tsk, Mr. Gore. Don't you just hate those pesky facts..

Weather In Austin

A blog only a weather geek can enjoy.
I just got 1.37 inches of rain in 28 minutes. My lawn is choking and sputtering since it hasn't had the "real" stuff in so long..

No Bump Here

PRINCETON, NJ -- Gallup Poll Daily tracking of national registered voters' presidential election preferences finds Barack Obama with a slight advantage over John McCain, 45% to 43%

This is less of a lead than before the "Obama World Tour" started. Hmmm

The Vindication of Humanae Vitae

A long but worthwhile read on the vision and wisdom of the papap encyclical Humanae Vitae. Not being a Catholic the teachings of this document against contraception are difficult but thought provoking and shoudl at least give Christians of any "flavor" a moments pause in prayerful meditation. The warnings of the document give added weight to it's teachings. It is my understanding that the Eastern Orthodox are a bit more flexible in their teachings. Either position is preferable to the cavlier and (pardon) "devil may care" attitude of most Protestants.

An excerpt from First Things:
...Let’s begin by meditating upon what might be called the first of the secular ironies now evident: Humanae Vitae’s specific predictions about what the world would look like if artificial contraception became widespread. The encyclical warned of four resulting trends: a general lowering of moral standards throughout society; a rise in infidelity; a lessening of respect for women by men; and the coercive use of reproductive technologies by governments.
In the years since Humanae Vitae’s appearance, numerous distinguished Catholic thinkers have argued, using a variety of evidence, that each of these predictions has been borne out by the social facts. One thinks, for example, of Monsignor George A. Kelly in his 1978 “Bitter Pill the Catholic Community Swallowed” and of the many contributions of Janet E. Smith, including Humanae Vitae: A Generation Later and the edited volume Why Humanae Vitae Was Right: A Reader.
And therein lies an irony within an irony. Although it is largely Catholic thinkers who have connected the latest empirical evidence to the defense of Humanae Vitae’s predictions, during those same forty years most of the experts actually producing the empirical evidence have been social scientists operating in the secular realm. As sociologist W. Bradford Wilcox emphasized in a 2005 essay: “The leading scholars who have tackled these topics are not Christians, and most of them are not political or social conservatives. They are, rather, honest social scientists willing to follow the data wherever it may lead.”
Consider, as Wilcox does, the Nobel Prize-winning economist George Akerlof. In a well-known 1996 article in the Quarterly Journal of Economics, Akerlof explained in the language of modern economics why the sexual revolution—contrary to common prediction, especially prediction by those in and out of the Church who wanted the teaching on birth control changed—had led to an increase in both illegitimacy and abortion. In another work published in the Economic Journal ten years ago, he traced the empirical connections between the decrease in marriage and married fatherhood for men—both clear consequences of the contraceptive revolution—and the simultaneous increase in behaviors to which single men appear more prone: substance abuse, incarceration, and arrests, to name just three.
Along the way, Akerlof found a strong connection between the diminishment of marriage on the one hand and the rise in poverty and social pathology on the other. He explained his findings in nontechnical terms in Slate magazine: “Although doubt will always remain about what causes a change in social custom, the technology-shock theory does fit the facts. The new reproductive technology was adopted quickly, and on a massive scale. Marital and fertility patterns changed with similar drama, at about the same time.” ...(more)

Iran May End Cooperation With Nuclear Investigation

As they say over at doctorbulldog, "Getting a little closer to completing that nuke, are we Mr. Ahmadinejad?"
From the New York Sun: VIENNA, Austria — Iran signaled today that it will no longer cooperate with U.N. experts probing for signs of clandestine nuclear weapons work, confirming the investigation is at a dead end a year after it began.
The announcement from the Iranian Vice President, Gholam Reza Aghazadeh, compounded skepticism about denting Tehran's nuclear defiance, just five days after Tehran stonewalled demands from six world powers that it halt activities capable of producing the fissile core of warheads.
Besides demanding a suspension of uranium enrichment — a process that can create both fuel for nuclear reactors and payloads for atomic bombs — the six powers have been pressing Tehran to cooperate with the International Atomic Energy Agency's probe.
Iran, which is obligated as a signer of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty not to develop nuclear arms, raised suspicions about its intentions when it admitted in 2002 that it had run a secret atomic weapons program for nearly two decades in violation of its commitment. (more)
I'm 2 years away from retiring fron the AF- If this guy (Ahmadinejad) messes it up I'm gonna be really pissed.

From Townhall:
"Explain the minaret ban," I asked.
I was sitting in the side room of a house, overlooking a flat plot somewhat larger than the trampoline outside. Beyond that trampoline, still visible in the evening light, rose the Swiss Alps. Across the table, Oskar Freysinger sat poised to address my query over some cups of espresso, speaking as a local leader of the Swiss People's Party.
Or perhaps I should say -- a local leader of the "extremist," "bigoted" and "xenophobic" Swiss People's Party. That's how this largest political party in tiny Switzerland is routinely discussed, or, rather, dismissed by elites, glitterati and other social deadweights.
Why? Because the Swiss People's Party is, with noticeable success, fighting to bring massive immigration, including Islamic immigration, under control in Switzerland before this rigidly neutral, quite independent, non-European Union country loses its uniquely Swiss character. (Hardly unimaginable given that 21.1 percent of Swiss residents are foreign.) This makes men like Freysinger a dire threat to the multicultural world order. Hence the very nasty, but meaningless names. (more)

Chavez calls for Russia alliance

Shades of the Cuban Missle Crisis. From the BBC:
Hugo Chavez has called for a strategic alliance with Russia to protect Venezuela from the US.
The Venezuelan president's call came as Moscow and Caracas agreed to extend bilateral co-operation on energy.
Speaking during a two-day visit to Russia, Mr Chavez said oil and military cooperation were vital to guarantee Venezuela's sovereignty.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said three Russian energy companies are to be allowed to operate in Venezuela.
He gave no details of an anticipated arms deal between the two countries. But Mr Chavez seemed upbeat about the prospect of military co-operation.
"If Russia's armed forces want to be present in Venezuela, they will be given a warm welcome," he told a news conference after the meeting. (more)
One wonders how the "new JFK" would handle a "new" missle crisis...Yikes.

Women's brains are different from men's – and here's scientific proof

From the UK Independent:
Men and women show differences in behaviour because their brains are physically distinct organs, new research suggests. Male and female brains appear to be constructed from markedly different genetic blueprints.
The differences in the circuitry that wires them up and the chemicals that transmit messages inside them are so great as to point to the conclusion that there is not just one kind of human brain, but two, according to recent neurological studies. ...(more)

Psychiatrists Now Report First Case of "Climate Change Delusion" in Oceania

Guilt-stricken and terrified of quenching thirst and contributing to the doom of man-made global warming
By Peter J. SmithSYDNEY, July 11, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Psychiatrists in Australia and New Zealand have diagnosed what they call their first case of "climate change delusion" in a 17-year-old boy, who was too guilt-stricken over his part in man-made global warming to drink water. Herald Sun journalist Andrew Bolt first reported the find from the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, Volume 42, Issue 4, April 2008, which Joshua Wolf and Robert Salo of Royal Children's Hospital describe as a "previously unreported phenomenon." (more)

Sofia Goes Flat

A lesson from Bulgaria in the WSJ:
I recently interviewed the instigator of the world's lowest flat tax, Svetla Kostidinova, director of the Institute for Market Economics located in Sofia, Bulgaria. Ms. Kostidinova insists that the most amazing part of her story is that the Bulgarian government is still overtly socialist. Nonetheless, she and her colleagues managed to persuade politicians that replacing the existing tax system with a 10% flat tax would increase revenues and give the government extra money to finance social programs and unfunded pensions. If only Nancy Pelosi were as amenable to economic logic and the lessons of the real world.....
...Result: A country that ten years ago had a 12% unemployment rate now has a 6% jobless rate. Instead of people leaving Bulgaria to find jobs, "now it is the reverse. Western Europeans now come to Bulgaria for jobs. We're gaining population now," she says.... (more)

A Great Evil Afoot

At First Things from the closing address of Richard John Neuhaus at the annual convention of the National Right to Life Committee:
...The culture of death is an idea before it is a deed. I expect many of us here, perhaps most of us here, can remember when we were first encountered by the idea. For me, it was in the 1960s when I was pastor of a very poor, very black, inner city parish in Brooklyn, New York. I had read that week an article by Ashley Montagu of Princeton University on what he called “A Life Worth Living.” He listed the qualifications for a life worth living: good health, a stable family, economic security, educational opportunity, the prospect of a satisfying career to realize the fullness of one’s potential. These were among the measures of what was called “a life worth living.”
And I remember vividly, as though it were yesterday, looking out the next Sunday morning at the congregation of St. John the Evangelist and seeing all those older faces creased by hardship endured and injustice afflicted, and yet radiating hope undimmed and love unconquered. And I saw that day the younger faces of children deprived of most, if not all, of those qualifications on Prof. Montagu’s list. And it struck me then, like a bolt of lightning, a bolt of lightning that illuminated our moral and cultural moment, that Prof. Montagu and those of like mind believed that the people of St. John the Evangelist—people whom I knew and had come to love as people of faith and kindness and endurance and, by the grace of God, hope unvanquished—it struck me then that, by the criteria of the privileged and enlightened, none of these my people had a life worth living. In that moment, I knew that a great evil was afoot. The culture of death is an idea before it is a deed. (more)

Jindal- Republican VP?

From the Washington Post Blog:
John McCain will huddle with vice presidential aspirant Bobby Jindal during a trip to New Orleans later this week, sources close to the campaign confirm to The Fix.

McCain's trip to Louisiana on Wednesday was the cause of much head scratching in the political world as it was not in keeping with a week of planned stops in battleground states.
But, the meeting with Jindal, who has been the state's governor since 2007, suggests that McCain himself is deeply engaged in the process of picking his second-in-command and that the youthful Jindal is under serious consideration. (more)

San Jose Professor Fired for Answering Question about Genetics and Homosexuality

SAN JOSE, Calif., July 18, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A former San Jose City College biology professor is suing the college after she was fired for answering a student's question on the relationship between homosexuality and heredity.
On June 21, 2007, June Sheldon, an adjunct professor teaching a human heredity course, answered a question about how heredity affects homosexual behavior by citing the class textbook and a well-known German scientist. She noted that the scientist found a correlation between maternal stress and homosexual behavior in males but that the scientist's views are only one set of theories in the nature-versus-nurture debate mentioned by the textbook. Sheldon then explained that the class would learn in a later chapter of the textbook that homosexual behavior may be influenced by both genes and the environment.
The school launched an investigation after a different student in the class lodged an informal complaint that deemed Sheldon's comments "offensive and unscientific." Sheldon was later recommended for removal from the adjunct seniority rehire preference list and terminated by the district's board of trustees on Feb. 13, 2008 (more)

Najaf tribes to compete against religious parties in provincial elections

From the Iraq the Model blog:
A large coalition of tribes in Najaf conferred and made a decision similar to that by the Anbar tribes last week.In televised interviews, tribal chiefs said they will join forces with technocrats and enter the upcoming provincial elections in slates independent from existing religious parties.The sheiks voiced their frustration with the outcome of previous elections in which religious parties prevailed. They also criticized the current political class for “ripping apart” the fabric of Iraq’s society, pushing the country to the brink of civil war and failure to provide services to the people. (more)

A child killer's homecoming

From the JewishWorldReview
What can you say about a people who welcome a child murderer as a hero?
Most Americans are familiar with the brutal murder of wheelchair-bound Leon Klinghoffer on the cruise ship Achille Laura in 1985. Terrorists led by Abu Abbas (who was later given safe haven in Baghdad by Saddam Hussein) took the ship captive and threw Klinghoffer overboard. But few recall that the ship was seized to bargain for the release of, among others, Samir Kuntar from an Israeli prison.
Kuntar had taken part in an earlier terror attack. In 1979, as a 16-year-old, he and four others had traveled to northern Israel by boat from Lebanon and come ashore in the seaside town of Nahariya. At midnight, Smadar Haran recalled, they burst into her apartment building. Peering out to see what the noise was, Smadar, mother of two, slammed shut her apartment door when she saw the terrorists — but too late. Kuntar had glimpsed her. Her husband, Danny, helped Smadar and their younger daughter, 2-year-old Yael, to squeeze into a crawl space above the bedroom.
Smadar wrote later, "I will never forget the joy and the hatred in their voices as they swaggered about hunting for us, firing their guns and throwing grenades." As police began to arrive, Kuntar and the others dragged Danny and 4-year-old Einat down to the beach. With Einat watching, Kuntar shot Danny in the head and then threw his body into the surf. Kuntar then repeatedly smashed Einat's head against a rock with his rifle butt, killing her, too. Yael did not survive the attack either. In an effort to keep the baby from crying and betraying their hiding place, Smadar had accidentally suffocated her.
This week, Kuntar, dressed in fatigues and sporting a Hitlerian mustache and haircut, walked down a red carpet arrayed for him in Beirut. The government closed all offices and declared a national day of celebration.(more)

The Lawnmower Men

The carbon police are coming, from the WSJ:
Al Gore blew into Washington on Thursday, warning that "our very way of life" is imperiled if the U.S. doesn't end "the carbon age" within 10 years. No one seriously believes such a goal is even remotely plausible. But if you want to know what he and his acolytes think this means in practice, the Environmental Protection Agency has just published the instruction manual. Get ready for the lawnmower inspector near you.(more)

Belief Growing That Reporters are Trying to Help Obama Win

From Rasmussen Reports:
The New York Times’ refusal today (Monday) to run an op-ed piece by John McCain challenging an article in the paper less than a week ago by Barack Obama is sure to further fuel the belief that much of the major media is biased in favor of the Democratic candidate.
At issue is McCain’s response to an article by Obama entitled, “My Plan for Iraq.” Obama was in Afghanistan over the weekend and in Iraq today attempting to build his foreign policy portfolio for the fall campaign.
The idea that reporters are trying to help Obama win in November has grown by five percentage points over the past month. The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey, taken just before the new controversy involving the Times erupted, found that 49% of voters believe most reporters will try to help the Democrat with their coverage, up from 44% a month ago.
Just 14% believe most reporters will try to help McCain win, little changed from 13% a month ago. Just one voter in four (24%) believes that most reporters will try to offer unbiased coverage. ... (more)

Prominent Christian Theologian Dr. James Packer Speaks Out on Homosexuality

From Lifesite:
The Anglican Church has come to a cross-roads because of the issue of same-sex "marriage," with a massive split in the Global Communion looking increasingly inevitable.
Dr. Packer opened his remarks with a statement explaining why this issue is of such great importance in the Anglican Church today. "In brief," he said, "because it involves the denial of something that's integral to the Christian Gospel.
"That is, whereas the Bible says that same-sex unions are off limits as far as God is concerned, and that the Gospel requires any who have been involved in them to repent of that involvement and to abandon it, this point of view against which we are standing, treats gay unions...as a form of holiness, and encourages, affirms and blesses them, rather than saying, as we believe the Gospel requires us to say, that this is the wrong track."
"You are required to abandon it and we, in the Christian fellowship, will help you to…walk chaste, not yield to your besetting temptations," he continued. "And that is God's way for you. We are obliged by the Gospel to say that because the apostle Paul, proclaiming the Gospel to the Corinthians, says explicitly that they mustn't be deceived…and those living in homosexual relationships will not inherit the Kingdom of God." ...(more)

Californian gets 12 years for prison terror plot

LOS ANGELES (AFP) — A member of a radical Islamic group accused of plotting to bomb Israeli and US military facilities in California was on Monday jailed for 12 years and seven months, justice officials said.
Gregory Patterson, 24, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to wage war on the United States and possession of a firearm for his role in the plot, which involved three co-conspirators who have also been caught.
Last month another plotter, Levar Washington, was sentenced to 22 years in prison after pleading guilty. Another member of the group, Kevin James, faces sentencing in early 2009, while a fourth man -- Hammad Samana -- was declared unfit to stand trial and is in psychiatric care.
According to prosecutors, the men were part of Jam'iyyat Ul-Islam Is-Saheeh (JIS), which was founded by James in 1997 while he was in prison. (more)

Sources say McCain Veep Pick to Come This Week

From Human Events/ENPR
Sources close to Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign are suggesting he will reveal the name of his vice presidential selection this week while Sen. Barack Obama is getting the headlines on his foreign trip. The name of McCain's running mate has not been disclosed, but Mitt Romney has led the speculation recently.

Deep in the Heart of Wind

From the Environmental blog at the NR:
...A major obstacle to renewable energy development in greener states like California is that environmentalists, who have more political power there than they do in Texas, are often opposed to the construction of new energy infrastructure and transmission lines, since it can interfere with efforts at land conservation and species protection. They've succeeded in delaying such projects, frustrating advocates of renewable energy like Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has remarked, "If you can't put solar panels in the Mojave Desert, where the hell can you put them?" .... (more)
A lot of enviromentalists also don't like the idea that the turbines scar the skyline and the people around the turbines don't like the noise.....

Not Your Ordinary Wafer

A very disturbing link to a very disturbed associate professor at the University of Minnesota-Morris:
Our Salvo editor sent me this link today, and I confess that I was both horrified and amused by PZ Myers' comments.
Because what's sadder? The anger or the stupidity behind his arguments and indignation? While reading his rant, I sat dumbfounded at his ignorance and also burst out laughing a few times because his outrage seemed...utterly ridiculous.
As a Roman Catholic, I understand exactly why Catholics were appalled and upset by the young man who ran off with a consecrated host. Catholics believe in Transubstantiation, Mr. Myers. That boy wasn't just waltzing off with a cracker - to Catholics, that is Jesus. We believe in Jesus' real, actual, divine presence in the Eucharist as strongly as some people believe we evolved from apes, the earth was created by aliens or we are all one with nature through the mother goddess.
Are we to be denied our first amendment rights to hold such a belief? Must we be mocked and ridiculed for our traditions? How would anyone like it if his or her house was broken into and something precious was stolen? (more)

Just one of the many problems facing higher education described over at Salvo..:
...Last night I had the misfortune to sit through a 90 minute lecture on "Church" History that covered the time frame from 100 A.D.-500 A.D. I was induced to attend because my sister's friend helped organize the talk and there was also free pizza and beer. Yet no amount of Home Run Inn Pizza or Coors Light beer could make the digestion of that talk go down in a pleasant manner. The professor stated at the beginning of the talk that she was going to "dismantle" what the audience thought they knew about history so that she could "build you up again" with the truth. The point of the lecture, as in, "what WAS the professor trying to teach us" is uncertain. But one "fact" that the good Ph.D. Doctor imparted was that Christians weren't REALLY persecuted by the Romans, they didn't really get killed all that often by the state, that only every 40 or 50 years or so would a Roman Emperor go on a killing spree, and that "no matter what the history books say" Christians weren't really living in fear that they might get killed.
Now, the point of why I'm writing all this is NOT to get into a debate about the treatment of Christians in the Roman Empire. What struck me then, as it strikes me now, is that this woman, who has a Ph.D. and probably spent tens of thousands of dollars and countless hours of study to obtain her degree, managed to learn what exactly? What was the point of all that studying to come away from university with falsehoods filling her brain---falsehoods that are being imparted on her students. ... (more)

Israel's Growing Consensus: Bomb Iran

From the NR blog The Spine
...There is a now a very broad consensus in Israel that, like with Iraq at Osirak, it will be Jerusalem that will have to ensure its own survival by taking out Iran's nuclear facilities. Yes, it might take other steps like bombing Iran's oil fields. But that would be only a temporary matter, and--lest Saudi Arabia cooperated in lifting production for its own good and sufficient purposes, which it actually might--the oil markets would go haywire.Bombing the atomic facilities, dispersed and underground, would not be easy. But my information tells me that it is eminently doable....(more)
Let's hope so...

Dear Barack Obama

A letter from an anxious Israeli to the presidential candidate on the eve of his visit to Jerusalem. From NR:
...Still, as much as Israelis want to embrace you, there is anxiety here about your candidacy. Not that we doubt your friendship: Your description of Israeli security as "sacrosanct," and your passionate endorsement of Israel's cause at the annual AIPAC conference in Washington, were greeted with banner headlines in the Israeli press. Instead, Israelis worry that, as president, you might act too hastily in trying to solve the Palestinian problem, and not hastily enough in trying to solve the Iranian problem. ...(more)

The Coming Battle In Denver

The AmSpec blog shows us the coming battle in Denver...
The latest to attempt taming the PUMAs is former Democratic National Committee chairman Don Fowler. In an e-mail to Clintonistas published by TPM, Fowler said:
I must confess a bit of fatigue and irritation with people who continue to carp, complain, and criticize the results of the primary and lay down conditions for their support. . . .It is time to act in a mature and resourceful fashion. It's time to put the primaries behind us. It's time to support Barack Obama without conditions or demands.This produced a backlash, with one PUMA replying:
How can you possibly say that Barack Obama won and Hillary Clinton lost when neither achieved the required amount of pledged delegates to receive the nomination. It’s still undecided and won’t be until the vote is taken in Denver.. . . [T]he DNC pushed the superdelegates to endorse him. He hasn’t won anything....(more)
Gonna be interesting...