Marvin Olasky: Why Kerry is doing so poorly: "That experience and emphasis makes sense to lots of voters around the country, since so many of us have had similar experiences. If those with immaculate lives vote for Kerry and those who messed up but are now doing better vote for Bush, it will be a GOP landslide. "
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I wish I had said that.

Bruce Bartlett: A news revolution: "I confess that I am fascinated by the CBS documents scandal. It reminds me of the last gasp of the 'scientists' who were certain that the sun revolved around the earth, rather than the other way around, before finally being forced to accept the truth. Historians call this a 'paradigm shift,' when the intellectual support for a long-held but incorrect idea finally collapses under the weight of contrary data. "
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Hey! That's what I said a few days ago. Well, sort of. I used the invention of printing, but the idea is the same. Liberal big media journalism is Rather dead.

Ann Coulter: C-BS: "I'll admit, there's a certain sadistic quality to such overwrought decency toward Dan Rather. But how does Bill O'Reilly know what Dan Rather was thinking when he put forged documents on the air? I know liberals have the paranormal ability to detect racism and sexism, but who knew O'Reilly could read an anchorman's mind just by watching him read the news?

"What are the odds that Dan Rather would have accepted such patently phony documents from, say, the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth? "
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FYI

Mark Alexander: Pollaganda: The Fourth Estate and Public Opinion: "To explain better the process of polling as propaganda, consider three definitions from The Patriot's editorial-shop dictionary:

Pollaganda -- Outcome-based polling; instruments designed to generate a preferential outcome, which can be used to manipulate public opinion by advancing the perception that a particular issue or candidate has majority support.

Pollagandize -- To utilize instruments of pollaganda, or selective poll reporting (reporting mostly favorable polls), to advance a particular bias.

Pollaganda Cycle -- The intentional propagation of a particular bias by Leftmedia mainstream television and print outlets to manipulate public opinion by first saturating viewers with 'reporting' that reflects a particular bias; second, conducting public opinion polls in concert with like-minded organizations or campaigns, which will reflect that bias; third, further proselytizing viewers by treating these poll results as 'news'; and fourth, using pollaganda to induce 'bandwagon psychology' (the human tendency of those who do not have a strong ideological foundation to aspire to the side perceived to be in the majority), thus driving public opinion toward the original media bias."
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This will help you understand the polls, a chief intrument of liberal propaganda.

Dealing With Putin's Putsch (washingtonpost.com): "Like his Russian forebears, Putin can now claim the title 'Czar of all Czars.' And like past Russian leaders, he is probably smiling inwardly at criticism from the West. He knows his power grab is wildly popular at home with a Russian public that is sick of terrorism, looting and disorder -- and wants the strong leadership Putin so obviously offers."
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True representative government, securing liberty to the people, is only possible in a land where most of the people are freedom-loving, responsible, and moral. If people will not be ruled by God, working through their consciences, then dictatorship becomes inevitable. As Madison wrote, "If men were angels, no government would be necessary." The more men become devils, the less they can be entrusted with liberty. Because God will not have His world destroyed by chaos and lawlessness, He gives men taskmasters. The more wicked they become, the crueler are the taskmasters. "Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty," wrote the Apostle Paul. Where the Spirit is not, there is tyranny and oppression. A people cannot be truly enslaved until first they is enslaved by sin.

heraldsun.com: CBS' bizarre idea of 'authenticity': "This bizarre episode in the midst of a venomous presidential campaign almost defies comprehension. CBS News says it remains convinced that the content of the memos on the quality of then-Lieutenant George W. Bush's service is correct, even if the authenticity of the memos themselves is open to question.

"Say what? Is this the new standard for CBS News, a standard so low that it could be used as a limbo bar? Suddenly the content of the memos trumps their authenticity -- or lack of it. If CBS News and Dan Rather really believe pettifoggery is compatible with responsible journalism, they ought to just go ahead and turn off the lights. "
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fyi

Dennis Prager: What American Jews need to think about this Rosh Hashanah: "Fifth, we must face the fact that American Jewry is declining in numbers because Jews are not taught Judaism, not because Jews are becoming Christian. Jews for nothing, not Jews for Jesus, are the greatest threat to Jewish survival. Jewish concern with Christian missionizing is therefore both un-American (in a free society, everyone is entitled to spread his message) and lazy (it is the Jews' obligation to keep Jews Jewish, not the Christians')."
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A very good article from my favorite Jew, and good friend of Christianity. Oh, that he knew Christ!

OpinionEditorials.com � It's the Forgery, Terry - Daly
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It's also the patriotism thing. Nothing matters except to get a liberal elected. All the hate groups--hate America, hate Christianity, hate conservatism, hate Reagan, hate freedom--have all coelesced in this election to defeat G.W.B.

Instapundit.com -
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Check this out, if you are wavering on the war on terror.

The Union Leader and New Hampshire Sunday News - 17-Sep-04 - In Rather's world:
Reality is what Dan says it is: "Responding to a hurricane of stories challenging the documents' authenticity, Rather said, 'If the documents are not what we were led to believe, I'd like to break that story.'

"Hello, Dan. That story was broken last week. That is why every national news organization in America is investigating you right now. "
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This is the arrogance of the major liberal media: it isn't news until I say it is news. But blogs are news now, Dan. Just as the invention of the printing press made freedom possible by putting God's word in the hands of the people, so the internet and blogs are fueling another information revolution that make Dan Rather, Peter Jennings, Katie Kouric, etc., relics of the past. They just can't stand it.

But as Luther said when a friend told him that the Pope would not bear the information coming out in the Reformation writings, "What if he has to?"

FOXNews.com - U.S. & World - Possible Saddam-Al Qaeda Link Seen in U.N. Oil-for-Food Program: "As the oil-for-food program actually worked, however, the United Nations let Saddam choose his own business partners. The world body also kept secret the details of those contracts and the identities of the contractors, and it let Saddam graft at least $4.4 billion out of the program through manipulated contract prices, by estimates of the U.S. General Accountability Office.

"Saddam's standard scam was to underprice oil sales and overpay for relief supplies, thus generating fat profits for his business partners. Many of those contractors would kick back part of the take to Saddam's regime � or divert it to whatever uses Saddam might fancy. By various accounts, those uses ranged from building palaces to buying arms to supplying Saddam's sadistic son Uday with equipment for torturing Iraqi athletes.

"One of the big questions is whether any of the money skimmed from oil-for-food also slopped into terrorist-financing ventures such as MIGA"
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Read this article. The reality is that the United States exists in a world filled with enemies who would like nothing better than to destroy us. We must keep our defenses strong. Wishful thinking and planting flowers will not change their minds. Even if we surrendered to every one of their desires, it would not keep them from murdering our citizens and destroying Christian churches and society.

OpinionJournal - Featured Article: "However the flap over CBS and those National Guard 'memos' turns out, the past few weeks mark a milestone in U.S. media and politics. Along with the Swift Boat Veterans' ads, the widespread challenge to Dan Rather's reporting--to his credibility--means that the liberal media establishment has ceased to set the U.S. political agenda.

"This is potentially a big cultural moment. For decades liberal media elites were able to define current debates by all kicking in the same direction, like the Rockettes. Now and then they can still pull this off, as when they all repeated the same Pentagon-promoted-torture line during the Abu Ghraib uproar. But the last month has widened cracks in that media monopoly that have been developing for some time."
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A communications revolution has been in the making since 1987, when Reagon abolished the so-called "Fairness Doctrine" that was used to keep conservative Christian and conservative political talk off the air, as was admitted by Fred Friendly.

The result is a demolishing of the liberal major media monopoly. The Rather incident brings the blogosphere to adulthood, for it was the blogs that brought down CBS and Rather.

The king is dead. Long live the king.

William F. Buckley: Dead ahead: "Events in Iraq bring home, with near-daily frequency, the mess we are in. To acknowledge this isn't to say that we were wrong in going to war. But the daily news reports do instruct us in the need for hard strategic thought of a kind that we are unlikely to get from the president or from John Kerry, whose perspectives are circumscribed by immediate concerns. "
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fyi

Jay Bryant: The CBS Zombie: "Writing in Newsday, James Pinkerton says, 'Sept. 9, 2004, will be remembered as a paradigm-shifting day in media history. That was the day the 'blogosphere' took down CBS News.' "
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FYI. Read this article

A Democratic World Is No Neocon Folly: "Yet, because of the difficulties we are encountering in Iraq, the democratization imperative is under attack today from both left and right. From Pat Buchanan to Paul Krugman, the cry has gone up that the stress on exporting American ideals is a plot by nefarious 'neoconservatives.' Even John Kerry -- the nominee of Wilson's own party -- sounds disdainful of attempts to spread freedom to places like Cuba and Iran. "
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The moral and social revolution of the sixties tried manfully to discredit the idea that America had something to offer to the world. Our motives were suspect, we were controlled by the evil industrial/political complex, and were the world's bad boys. That generation has now passed through the bowels of America without being digested and completely dominates Hollywood, the major news media, the Democratic party, and public education, many private institutions of higher learning, and churches of all stripes. They imagined that there was not enough love in the world [not that they could recognize love if it hit them on the head], and that the world would be saved through love, not war. They would show us how. They begin by making monsters out of Nixon and LBJ. [An important part of this new love was to make monsters out of those who got in your way, to riot and burn and destroy at every opportunity, manufacture and sell and use mind-changing drugs, practice absolute indiscriminate sexuality with whomever, defecate publicly, and curse and utter obscenities at those in authority. This is the way to change the world.] Nixon and LBJ certainly were not choir boys, but they were not Satan, either. John Kerry and Jane Fonda were some of the brightest heroes of that rebellion.

A man may have a choice as to which path he takes in life, one of submission to Scripture, or one of rebellion to the plain truth, but he does not have a choice to the way the path goes. If he finds he is on the wrong road, he cannot get on the right road by pretending he is on the right road. No, he must retrace his steps [this is called repentance], and find where he went astray.

That generation became intoxicated with what they deemed their success in the failure of America in Viet Nam, and look back fondly to such times of American intoxication with their peculiar form of philosophic witch's brew. They are like men who look back with nostalgia at their college days with fond memories of their drunken orgies, never having repented, and wishing it could happen again. "Such good times," they sigh. The wickedness escapes them.

9/11 did serve as something of a laxative to the American system, and some of that generation begin to see things differently--George Bush in particular. He and Bill Clinton are very much of that generation, but Bush has rejected the 60's generation view of foreign affairs, which Bill Clinton never did. The next physic the public body receives might work to purge a great deal more of the awful stuff from our body. May it be so.

Pr 30:11 There is a generation that curseth their father, and doth not bless their mother.
Pr 30:12 There is a generation that are pure in their own eyes, and yet is not washed from their filthiness.
Pr 30:13 There is a generation, O how lofty are their eyes! and their eyelids are lifted up.

There is a lot of anger being generated by this political campaign. Some people get angry when lies are told about their candidate, and others get angry when the truth is told about their candidate.

I am not one who thinks that anger is always sinful, but I have learned something in my seventy years on this earth. Anger must be short-lived. Old dynamite is dangerous to everyone for it is unstable. Old anger--or what the Bible calls malice--is also dangerous to everyone, a corrosive that destroys the souls of those who hold it. I suppose this is the reason that the Bible tells us not to let the sun go down on our wrath.

Some people want power and wealth so badly that they will say anything, do anything, and hide anything in order to get it. Rarely has murder been tried in this country, but character assassination, false witness, and other ugliness clog the national arteries. Resentments may last a lifetime.

God is angry with the wicked every day, so it is not improper for the godly to reflect that aspect of God's character, but with a difference. God's character is infinite and absolutly pure and His anger is pure and holy, though eternal. Your's and mine aren't.

David prayed a good prayer once on this subject:

19 Surely thou wilt slay the wicked, O God: depart from me therefore, ye bloody men.
20 For they speak against thee wickedly, and thine enemies take thy name in vain.
21 Do not I hate them, O LORD, that hate thee? and am not I grieved with those that rise up against thee?
22 I hate them with perfect hatred: I count them mine enemies.
23 Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts:
24 And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.
--Psalm 139.

David recognized that is is a good thing to hate wickedness and evil, and it certainly is an evil thing to help the enemies of God and love those who hate the Lord [2Chron. 19:2]. He also knew that he was an imperfect judge of such things, and therefore called upon the Lord to search his heart and know his thoughts. Righteousness in anger grows out of godliness and maturity, not childishness pettiness.

Jesus teaches us to turn a gentle face to the world and to pray for our enemies and for those who mistreat us. This is not contradictory to the truth that the rulers of the world are to use the sword against evildoers [Romans 13:1-3].

I expect to write more on this some other them.

lgf: CBS News Goes to the Mattresses: "The seriousness of what happened here cannot be overstressed. Someone deliberately forged documents, in an attempt to interfere with a presidential election in a time of war, and CBS News rushed these forged documents into release--apparently with almost no serious attempt to verify their provenance. Compare this with the way the entire mainstream media utterly ignored the Swift Boat Veterans stories, for almost a month. The only conclusion one can reach is that CBS rushed the Killian documents out because they saw a chance to hurt George W. Bush, and this blinded them to the possible consequences of tying their reputation to such obvious forgeries."
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What we have is treason, and CBS should be made to pay for it by an outraged public opinion. The question that is operative: After Bill Clinton, is if possible for America to be outraged?

Suzanne Fields: Aligning Mars and Venus: "Kerry is an accomplished sportsman and a hunter, but exploiting those qualities seems to have given him an unexpected bump in the chin, like the kick from a Remington Model 870 pump-action shotgun. Late night comics ridiculed his windsurfing as merely trying to see which way the wind is blowing. When he appreciatively waved a hunting gun in the air for photo-ops, manly men observed that the gun was banned by legislation that he had sponsored in the Senate. Poor John. He simply doesn't look comfortable in his macho skin.

The Kerry handlers, desperately searching for signs of a rainbow, have begun to treat him as though he were all three of Dorothy's companions in 'The Wizard of Oz' - Tin Man, who needs a heart, Cowardly Lion searching for courage and Scarecrow in pursuit of a brain. Dorothy, alas, is nowhere to be seen, and neither is the Yellow Brick Road."

==============

fyi

CBS falls for Kerry campaign's fake memo: "Last week, we got a good idea of what Thomas Oliphant's ''basic standards'' are. Dan Rather and the elderly gentlemen at ''60 Minutes'' were all atwitter because they'd come into possession of some hitherto undiscovered memos relating to whether George W. Bush failed to show up for his physical in the War of 1812. The media had been flogging this dead horse all spring, but these newly ''discovered'' memos had jump-started the old nag just enough to get him on his knees long enough for the media to flog him all over again.

"Unfortunately for CBS, Dan Rather's hairdresser sucks up so much of the budget that there was nothing left for any fact-checking, so the ''60 Minutes'' crew rushed on air with a damning National Guard memo conveniently called ''CYA'' that Bush's commanding officer had written to himself 32 years ago. ''This was too hot not to push,'' one producer told the American Spectator. Hundreds of living Swiftvets who've signed affidavits and are prepared to testify on camera -- that's way too cold to push; we'd want to fact-check that one thoroughly, till, say, midway through John Kerry's second term. But a handful of memos by one dead guy slipped to us by a Kerry campaign operative -- that meets ''basic standards'' and we gotta get it out there right away."
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FYI

News: "Burning incense and sounding a conch shell horn, residents of an ancient Mexican city protested on Saturday at the construction of a Wal-Mart store on the edge of the ruins. "
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For crying out loud. I thought they wanted jobs in Mexico. Thank God we haven't let a bunch of dead cities and ruins keep us from providing goods and services to the living, so they want to come over the border in worn out trucks and swim the river because they can't get work. Go figure. Can they live on incense and conch shell horns? Get a life. Mexicans need a lesson in Economics 101. Write on the blackboard 100 times: "Walmart is good for Mexico." "Walmart is good for Mexico." "Walmart is good for Mexico." "Walmart is good for Mexico." "Walmart is good for Mexico." "Walmart is good for Mexico." "Walmart is good for Mexico." "Walmart is good for Mexico." "Walmart is good for Mexico." "Walmart is good for Mexico." "Walmart is good for Mexico." "Walmart is good for Mexico." "Walmart is good for Mexico." "Walmart is good for Mexico." "Walmart is good for Mexico." "Walmart is good for Mexico." etc.