Denis Boyles on EuroPress on National Review Online: "Hertoghe, 44, is the former deputy editor of the online version of La Croix. His book, La guerre a outrances: Comment la presse nous a desinformes sur l'Irak (roughly, and more pointedly, 'All-out war: How the press lied to us about Iraq'), was published by Calmann Levy, France's oldest publishing house, with impeccable timing last October, just as several other introspective books critical of France were flourishing on the best-seller lists and stimulating debate among the yakking-classes. But there was one little thing different about Hertoghe's book. It wasn't critical of France. It was critical of the French press. "

Read this article. It is about how to get fired by telling the truth. The truth can get you fired in a great many places. Even in--or should we say especially--in an American pulpit. Many a preacher has lost his job because he dared to speak the truth. There are a great many paid liars, who conceal the truth in order to keep their jobs. Hertoghe is to be greatly admired, which shows that there are honorable men, even among the French.

Boston.com / News / World / Evidence cited of Russian arms in Iraq: " US officials have found evidence corroborating White House allegations that Russian companies sold Saddam Hussein high-tech military equipment that threatened US forces during the invasion of Iraq last March, a senior State Department official said yesterday.
The official said the United States has found proof that Russian companies exported night-vision goggles and radar-jamming equipment to Iraq, the official said. The evidence includes the equipment itself and proof that it was used during the war, according to the official. Such exports would violate the terms of United Nations sanctions against Iraq."

But the United Nations is a wonderful organizations for us to trust with our national security. Isn't it? As Mark Antony put it, "So are they all, all honorable men."

DRUDGE REPORT FLASH 2002�: "According to newsroom sources, the POST's Howard Kurtz will report: 'In an effort to prove that he had spoken with a human rights activist in Yugoslavia, Kelley said in an interview, he encouraged a translator who was not present during the 1999 sit-down to impersonate another translator who was there. The woman who agreed to help Kelley called the USA Today journalist assigned to investigate the matter last fall and verified Kelley's account as if she had been there. '"

So what's the big deal? Everyone knows that the major media lies all the time, especially about Christians and conservatives. So all of a sudden the news media is getting concerned about the truth?

FOXNews.com - Politics - Dean Backer Calls GOP Candidate 'House Mexican': "Steven Ybarra, a Democratic National Committee (search) official and regional coordinator of Latinos for Dean (search), called Rosario Marin (search), the former U.S. treasurer under President Bush who is now seeking the GOP nomination to compete against California Sen. Barbara Boxer, a 'house Mexican for the Republicans.' The attack was sent out in a mass e-mail to political activists, community leaders and a number of journalists this week. "

To avoid the charge of racism you have to be a liberal, but liberals literally get away with murder when it comes to racists statement, just a Hil did a few days ago. Some of us have always known that, even though it seems to us that smaller government, pro-life, and lower taxes benefit all nationalities. But why think, when you can cast racial slurs?

I suppose that Dubya's grandchildren are "House Mexicans."

The real reason for Ybarra's slur lies in the following quotation:

" 'Apparently, according to Mr. Ybarra and many of his fellow Democrats, if you are not a liberal Democrat, then you shouldn't be considered a legitimate minority. It doesn't matter that I'm an immigrant, the daughter of a janitor and a seamstress, or that I had to teach myself English because my first language was Spanish,' she [Marin] said in a statement. "

There is 'way too much self-help in that statement. How can you truly be a member of a worthy minority if you do not live on the liberal plantation, getting everything you need from Massa, popping out illigitmate children to provide more voters for the liberal plantation owners, who will reward you will welfare checks, minimum health care, but do nothing about drug dealers and hooligans in your neighbors, and certainly will not vote you vouchers to free you from the lawless public schools. Freeing you from public schools would be counter productive, for that is where you are taught that you cannot help yourself, that you need the government to do it for you.

Do not count on the black vote and the Hispanic vote continuing to go to liberals year after year. A great many of both groups are beginning to understand that they have to get off the plantation to enjoy the American dream.

OpinionJournal - Extra: "You wouldn't think that a Democratic presidential contender who has consistently championed a woman's right to choose--including partial-birth abortion--could suddenly find his bona fides questioned. But that's just what happened to Joe Lieberman when he foolishly wandered into the no-man's-land of modern American politics: a rational discussion of Roe v. Wade.
Leave aside that in his interview with New Hampshire's Union Leader the Connecticut Democrat never questioned Roe itself. Or that his point was the eminently reasonable one that if viability (the time after which a fetus can survive outside the womb) is the measure for when the state can regulate abortion, the 'extraordinary advances in medical science' we have witnessed in the past three decades will have implications for where that line is drawn.
In short order, Mr. Lieberman found himself under fire for his apostasy, with front-runner Howard Dean accusing him in remarks to the Associated Press of sounding like a . . . Republican."

Truth is the daugher of time, you know.

Aikman, David: Jesus in Beijing: How Christianity is Transforming China and Changing the Global Balance of Power: "'I would make Christianity the official religion of China' -- China's former President, Jiang Zemin
A veteran China watcher explains the UNREPORTED story of how Christianity is transforming China today "

Sometimes the greatest stories of the world are missed by the wise and great. You might want to buy this book.

The church is not dependent upon this or that nation or upon this or that race. It may very well be that in the 21st century the strongest churches in the world will be in Africa and China, and the great missionary efforts of the American people in the 19th and 20th centuries will have born abundant fruit for the glory of God.

Excite News: "'If I'm president of the United States, I'm going to take care of the American people,' Clark told the Concord Monitor for a story published Friday. 'We are not going to have one of these incidents.'"

Oh, well. I guess we will never know whether or not this is true. Question for your liberal friends, Wesley: What did Clinton do?

Mona Charen: Gaffing all the way: "Need I say it? If a Republican had made the sort of joke Sen. Hillary Clinton made at a Missouri fund-raiser, it would have been front page news for days. Introducing a quote from Mahatma Gandhi, Sen. Clinton said, 'He ran a gas station down in St. Louis.' After the laughter subsided, she added, 'No, Mahatma Gandhi was a great leader of the 20th century.' "

Of course, people from India do not form an important voting bloc. There is no major political fallout from offending them. So what about moral consistency?

Pioneer Press | 01/08/2004 | When it comes to personal responsibility, it's better to share than to shed extra weight: "We are, after all, in this together. For the new year, we just have to take some personal responsibility -- for each other."

Ellen Goodman, like all liberals, just can't quite get it--can't quite understand why the rest of us are getting so fed up. I think it goes back to Cain and Abel. "Am I my brother's keeper?" Cain said, when God asked him where his brother was. [His brother was dead, lying in his own blood, which cried out to God].

Liberals and misinformed other sorts have been answering Cain's question with a resounding and guilt-ridden "Yes!!" ever since. Of course I am my brother's keeper, they say. And away they go, piously thinking that they need to "do something" for their brother, who is probably too stupid, or inept, or wicked, to do anything for himself. Requires taxes and regulations and transfers of power, however, to those who know what is best for their brother.

They have misunderstood Cain's question, of course. The answer to Cain's question goes something like this. "No of course not, you idiot. Your brother does not need a keeper and you are just using a stupid argument to change the subject and get the heat off yourself, because you are a murderer. God never required you to be your brother's keeper and your argument is stupid and degrading to your brother. Abel was getting along fine, blessed in his farming and happy in his God. It is your hand that laid him in the dust. You can't get off the hook by pretending that God laid some unreasonable demand upon you. Abel didn't need a keeper. Keepers are for animals and children. Abel was neither of those. You remind me of the child who, when asked to take out the trash, complains "Do I have to do everything around here?"

But away they go, little mothers wanting to take care of everybody, when really all they need to do is get out of the way and let Abel worship and work for the living God he serves and love. But of course, Cain never will. He has another agenda.

"But these speak evil of those things which they know not: but what they know naturally, as brute beasts, in those things they corrupt themselves. 11 Woe unto them! for they have gone in the way of Cain, and ran greedily after the error of Balaam for reward, and perished in the gainsaying of Core." (Jude 10-11).

Boston.com / News / Boston Globe / Opinion / Op-ed / Congress helps itself to another pay raise: "Congress is notorious for procrastination, and the tally of unfinished business on Capitol Hill is a long one. But no one can accuse the legislative branch of dragging its heels when it comes to congressional pay. Appropriations bills may gather dust, judicial nominations may languish, but members of Congress are johnny-on-the-spot when it comes to their own salaries. The most recet raise is only the latest in an ongoing series:"

"[S]ix raises totaling $24,500 since January 1998. And why does Congress feel it deserves them? That's hard to answer. Congress isn't talking."

No vote, no responsibility. Just an automatic pay raise every year, whether they have done anything or not. It is immoral and dishonorable.

Today It's the War on Terror, Stupid: "Whatever one thinks of Bush's counterterrorism strategy, it does have the advantage of being grounded in reality."

One in a while, even the LA Times gets it right.

Geoffrey Norman on Pete Rose on National Review Online: "So Rose is on the television and in the bookstores this week, confessing that he did what everyone who looked at the evidence knew he'd done; the same way we all knew that the Monica stuff was true the minute Clinton denied it and hired a lawyer. In his mea sorta culpa (available at bookstores everywhere) Rose makes some surly comparisons between himself and a hypothetical player who is an alcoholic or junkie, implying that he got an unfair shake. It is an argument that will doubtless fly on Oprah."

I had the wonderful privilege of voting against Clinton twice and once against his surrogate, Gore. I won't have the privilege of voting against Rose, but the man's a bum also. Betting on games involving his own team? Come on!!

Clinton believes Iraq had weapons of mass destruction: Portugal PM: "Former US president Bill Clinton said in October during a visit to Portugal that he was convinced Iraq had weapons of mass destruction up until the fall of Saddam Hussein, Portuguese Prime Minister Jose Manuel Durao Barroso said."

But then again. Is the source--I mean Clinton--credible?

Reuters News Article: "Former U.S. Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill likened President Bush at Cabinet meetings to 'a blind man in a room full of deaf people,' according to excerpts on Friday from a CBS interview."

Hmmm. This fella was fired by the President in Dec., 2002, wasn't he? Probably a personality conflict, but now he will make some money selling books to the President's enemies.

Pakistan's Nuclear Metastasis: How Widespread is the Cancer?: "But the much-anticipated meeting took place at an awkward moment for Pakistan, one that could define its future as a nation in moral, diplomatic, and economic terms more starkly than any other issue. The conduct of the Pakistani state, ruled for over half its existence by military governments, is under a microscope as nuclear watchdogs try to unravel the extent of damage done by Pakistani nuclear scientists assisting rogue regimes from Tripoli to Tehran to Pyongyang in building sophisticated uranium enrichment facilities."

But, you know. According to Jimmy Carter, peace depends upon us not making moral judgments about nations. All are to be treated the same. What IS the fuss?

It took the world years to get into this mess of moral relativity, and it will take us a few more years to get out of it.

local6.com - News - Fla. Woman Charged With Sexual Relationship With 11-Year-Old: "Carol Flannigan, a teacher at Rolling Green Elementary in Boynton Beach, was arrested Wednesday on six charges, including two counts of capital sexual battery on a child under 12. Authorities said the relationship lasted for 19 months. "

So what's the big deal? We have been telling people for years that there is no natural moral law, that the Ten Commandments do not apply, that you don't have to obey law if you don't like it, that certainly we shouldn't impose our religious values on each other, and then we have a fit over allegations that a basketball star has raped a hotel worker, that Michael Jackson has abused boys, and now that a 49 years old teacher has seduced a 11 year old boy. What's the big deal. Dif'runt strokes for dif'runt folks.

The Washington Times: Nation/Politics: "The nation's largest Messianic Jewish organization is criticizing leading evangelical Christians — including the Rev. Billy Graham — of caving into Jewish pressure to downplay the Gospel. "

But then, well, we don't want to get people angry, because that causes wars. We should just listen to Jimmy Carter and and try to get along. Who cares about truth? It's being comfortable that counts.

Dennis Prager: Jimmy Carter: 'Compassion for Mordor': "'We who love peace,' the Nobel Peace Prize laureate continued, 'have to initiate a campaign to jolt people back to our view of the world. Let's be clear about the dangers. What if young people start identifying George W. Bush with Aragorn or Gandalf, and Saddam Hussein or Osama bin Laden with Saruman? Even worse, impressionable moviegoers might identify the American war against Iraq and so-called 'Islamic terror' with the war against the Orcs and Mordor.'"

Hey, Jimmy, wake up. I know this is a difficult concept, but there is real evil in the world. Do you think that you and your family will escape if Osama had his way? Do you think the Taliban would have hesitated to shoot your family on the soccer field? In the sixties and seventies the devotees of the Lord of the Rings identified Nixon and America with the Black Lord and Mordor. You didn't object then, did you? 9/11 woke America up and revealed that you and your buddies are emperors with no clothes.

Yes. Louisiana State University is the national football champion. They are the George Bush of football. They won according to the rules agreed on and in effect for a number of years and agreed to by all the leagues and teams of the NCAA.

But there are crybabies. USC and their supporters are the Al Gore of football. They did not win according to the rule, and so they want to change the rule. Liberals do not want to live by law or by rule; they want to change the rule and attack the rule when the rule of law does not work to their preference and misapply the plain meaning of the law. But USC did not have a Johnny Cochran or a Florida Supreme Court to fudge the results in terms of emotion. So USC is not the national champion, just as Al Gore is not president of the United States.

If USC had won all their games, then there would be no doubt. But they lost one, and therefore they are not the national champions. They won two polls, but football agreed a number of years ago that the polls would not determine the national champions. USC is a good team, with probably the best West Coast quarterback since John Elway. But they are not the national champions, only self-proclaimed ones. USC had a great win over Michigan in the Rose Bowl, but that is not the rule by which national champions are crowned. LSU is. Could USC whip LSU. Don't know, won't ever know. We didn't get a chance to find out because of the rules. Long live the rules. The games are played by the rules. The penalties, the successful plays, and a dozen other important things are decided by the rules. So is the champion. USC did not win according to the rule. They are not the champion. Don't cry about it. Change the rule, if you can.

There is no split national championship, because the polls are relevant only as they provide the poll factor in the computer formula, as was agreed, and the rule underwhich the season was played. There are always self-proclaimed champions, but they soon pass from memory. There is controversy only of the kind of a small boy who cries when he loses the race. USC holds no part of the national championship.

LSU is not the computer champion--that is Al Gore talk. They are the legal and lawful champion, just like George Bush is the president by reason of law.

BTW, it was a great football game tonight.

Long live the law! Long live the rule of law. It is the only thing that separates us from the beasts and delivers us from the rule of men and tyranny.

Education follies: "The Cato Institute looked at prices of private schools in a number of cities around the country and compared their tuitions with what the government spends on education. In the District of Columbia, for example, the government spends $11,009 per pupil. Forty-five of the District's private schools charged less than that per year, and 39 charged $5,000 or less. "

The facts [what on earth are "facts"?] refute the idea that private schools are for "privileged rich kids." If that is true, then why doesn't the government shut down public schools and send all the kids to private school, where they would all be "privileged"? It would be much cheaper. Isn't it the truth [what on earth is "truth"?] that the real privileged class in public schools are the teachers and administrators? Rich politicians in Washington who oppose vouchers in payment for campaign support from the education lobby, who wants to hang on to this privilege, can afford to send their kids to the few very expensive private schools for rich liberals.

Jay Bryant: Hey Diddle Diddle: "You've almost got to feel sorry for poor Osama bin Laden. There he is, day after day, holed up in some disgusting cave in Pakistan trying to come up with some way to strike terror in the hearts of the American people…
…and some cow in Yakima beats him to it."