Divided on the War? Not Really (washingtonpost.com): "You could see the public mood reflected in the statements of Sen. Hillary Clinton (N.Y.) a couple of weeks ago. One of the most popular Democrats in the country, and also one of the shrewdest, Clinton dismissed the antiwar argument: 'I think that Saddam Hussein was certainly a potential threat' who 'was seeking weapons of mass destruction, whether or not he actually had them.' Her husband, another popular Democrat, said the same last July. "

Two weeks ago I downloaded a new driver for my monitor--I don't know why, but probably because the computer never performs to our satisfaction. At the end of the download, when I was instructed to restart the computer, it went into a loop and never would boot. After wasting about a day trying to make something work--it wouldn't even recognize the rescue disk I had made a few days before.

I finally took the whole thing to a bunch of kids at a computer repair place and they fixed me up. I had acquired a variant of the blaster worm. I had a good fire wall and a good virus system, but something happened, no one seems to know why.

Anyway, my computer had to be rebuilt and reloaded, and so that is where I have been for the past two weeks. I managed to read a little news, make a few comments, but mostly I was loading, unloading, uploading, and reloading. Seems as if it is working pretting good now. I appreciate all of you who have continued to browse in this fig orchard, even though it has been rather barren lately. Keep coming back, tell your friends, put a link on your website, and God bless you very much.

I have also been able to update the Trinity Church website, and recent sermons on Christmas are posted there. Try the link on "recent sermons' at the right.

FOXNews.com - Top Stories - Sunnis Don't Believe Saddam Was Captured: "In this restive city and across Iraq's Sunni heartland, many Saddam loyalists refuse to believe that a disheveled and bearded man in U.S. captivity is their ousted leader, whose 23-year rule boosted their position as the country's political elite."

Hey, these guys are acting like American conspiratorial theorists! You know, FDR knew about the attack on Pearl Harbor before the attack occurred; that Ike was a communist who aided and abetted communism; that the American moon landing was staged in Hollywood; that the "eye" in the pyramid on American money is the proof that Zionist Illuminati control the U.S., and the Jews dominate higher education and the media, and that the Red Chinese are massing troops in Mexico, that Dubya and his Attorney General are subverting the Constitution to remove Habeas Corpus, etc. etc.

It is true, that when people depart from the true history of the world as is set forth in the Holy Scriptures, they have to devise some other story to explain what is going on--if the Living God doesn't rule in the affair of men, then some dark force must. Of course, if you accept God as the Ruler, then you have to reconcile that with the problem of evil, which the Bible does. The evil is because man is under the curse of Adam's sin. But if you accept the truth that it is God, and He is not a dark force, then there must be something wrong with mankind. That is the simple truth. Man lies under the curse of God because of Adam's sin, but under the promise of blessing through faith in the Gospel, that Jesus Christ is the Last Adam who came to gain an eternal inheritance for those who believe and thus escape the curse of Adam's sin.

You don't have to believe the Gospel if you don't want to, but you cannot escape the consequences to your thought and world view if you reject it. Either way, you must deal with Jesus Christ.

The Congress of the United States betrayed the consitution. George W. Bush betrayed the constitution. The rabid, liberty-hating newsmedia [who want a monopoly for themselves in the two months before any election] betrayed the constitution. And the Supreme Court has betrayed the Constitution [what's so unusual about that?]

The people are going to have to fix it, but they are too busy chasing sex and self-indulgence to even know what is going on.

Mark Tapscott: Wake Up Conservatives! Supreme Court just did what could never happen here: "President Bush reportedly had reservations but signed the 2002 campaign finance reform law anyway because he believed like most Americans the Supreme Court would never approve a law letting Congress silence political speech."

See the next article. Yep, why should the NYT care about lying reporters. It's a way of life.

New York Daily News - Ideas & Opinions - Bill O'Reilly: The assault on morality never lets up: "The New York Times described the situation using the same tactic it did during the Ronald Reagan movie drama. The controversy was generated by 'conservatives,' those kill-joys who want to ruin all the fun. Here's how The Times put it: 'After loud and sustained protests from socially conservative groups and feminist groups, the company announced ... it was withdrawing the [catalogue].'"

Why is the NYT sensitive about lying? The news media has been lying all my life: about Christianity, about the Bible, about Americna History, about morality, about Islam, about education, about evolution, about abortion, about homosexuality, about ??? So what's the big deal?

Michelle Malkin on Charlie LeDuff & New York Times on National Review Online: "The hotshot LeDuff is now in hot water over his cribbing of anecdotes from someone else's book about kayaking down the Los Angeles River for his own Page One fluff story about � you guessed it! � kayaking down the Los Angeles River. An embarrassing correction published in the New York Times on Dec. 8 explained:
An article last Monday about the Los Angeles River recounted its history and described the reporter's trip downriver in a kayak. In research for the article, the reporter consulted a 1999 book by Blake Gumprecht, 'The Los Angeles River: Its Life, Death, and Possible Rebirth.' Several passages relating facts and lore about the river distilled passages from the book. Although the facts in those passages were confirmed independently-through other sources or the reporter's first hand observation-the article should have acknowledged the significant contribution of Mr. Gumprecht's research."

So, you see. Even in Iraq there are people with sense.

Jay Nordlinger's Impromptus on National Review Online: "Zebari said -- you can just see it -- 'The United Nations as an organization failed to help rescue the Iraqi people from a murderous tyranny that lasted over 35 years. Today we are unearthing thousands of victims in horrifying testament to that failure.' And 'the U.N. must not fail the Iraqi people again. So we ask you today, please put aside your differences, pull together, and work with us and all those who have contributed and sacrificed so much to realize our shared objective of a sovereign, united, and democratic Iraq.'"

Hmmmmm. I wonder if Saddam's fate had anything to do with this.

The Associated Press: "Iran signed an accord Thursday that gives U.N. experts full access to its nuclear facilities, yielding to international pressure to end two decades of secrecy and prove it has not tried to build atomic weapons."

My Way News: "A federal appeals court ruled Thursday for the first time that prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba should have access to lawyers and the American court system."

So these people have paid taxes and exercised their responsibility to the American legal, social, and economic system? To what end will humanistic socialism go?

Then, if a man has the right to take money out of one man's pocket because the first man is hungry, in need of medical care or a good education, or lacking in self esteem, why should we complain when aliens "have a right" to American justice. Of course it is irrelevant, I suppose, that these people were in a war to overthrow that American system of justice, society, and economics. Only an American judge could see any sense in this decision.

See my article on Covenants of Feeling.

'Tis the crazy season indeed. When people are convinced that the Bible is a made-up conspiracy, they cannot help but find conspiracy everywhere. If the Bible is the mother of all conspiracies, then we are certainly living in a stinking world, and before long we will be finding conspiracies under every rock and behind every tree. This is the paranoia of madness.

Newsday.com: Wash. Congressman Questions Saddam Timing: "Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Wash., told a Seattle radio station Monday the U.S. military could have found Saddam 'a long time ago if they wanted.' Asked if he thought the weekend capture was timed to help Bush, McDermott chuckled and said: 'Yeah. Oh, yeah.' "

Truth has a way of breaking in and demolishing the lies. The liar thinks he can establish for himself and others a world different from reality. This world exists only in his imagination, but he thinks that he can etch it on other people's imaginations also.

But this can only be successful for a time. Truth is the daughter of time, someone once wrote. Truth will out, is the way our grandfathers put it. The man who paid the families of suicide children in Palestine has been shown to be a coward, not believing enough in his own cause to die fighting for it. There is something fitting about thinking that Saddam's last hours of freedom were spent in a "spider" hide a few hundred yards from one of the great, luxurious palaces that he built with money stolen from the Iraqi people.

One day in my childhood, I was complained to my grandfather about a bully at my school. He told not to fret, that bullies are cowards. The bully terrorizes others because he is really afraid of people and thinks that they will respect him only if he beats them up. Saddam has finally demonstrated to the world that this is true. He would send children on suicide missions to blow up Jews, but he himself will cower in a rat hole, seeking to hang on to his worthless life.

One again, we have it demonstrated to us that not all human beings are of equal value. The value of a human being is established by the moral and ethical choices that he makes. When will the world learn?

MySA.com: Jonathan Gurwitz: "Britain's Sunday Telegraph reported that the new Iraqi government has uncovered documentary proof that Mohamed Atta, mastermind of the 9-11 attacks, was trained in Baghdad by the Palestinian terrorist Abu Nidal. That Abu Nidal was for two decades an honored guest of the Baathist regime ought to be enough to demonstrate the ineluctable connection of Saddam with international terrorism. "

Sorry, I have been off line for a few days. My computer was infected with a worm, and it has taken me days to get it right--I hope I have it all better now, so I can continue to entertain you on these pages. Son Matthew said I ought to document the story on the last post. I try to post only things that I believe are from reliable sources, and not just stuff that is sent to me by email. I think I got it from Nexmax mail service, but who knows now? All my docs are down the cyberhole, unless I happen to have them at the seminary. I will look when I go in today.

But this has been a good week, in spite of my worm. Hurray for our special forces, who captures the Ace of Spades--living like the rat he was in a hole. Who says America doesn't have heroes now? We have a bunch of them in Iraq, in spite of the American Chickens living in Hollywood, who try to excuse their wicked life-styles by trying to save the whales or some such thing.

Speak of whales. I think we should save the whales. Collect the whole set. [Not original with me; my neice sent it to me.]

Why aren't these stories told by the talking heads on TV?

"Otwell and Lindner tour the building, which is cold and dusty. But inside several of the rooms are old products they can sell - hundreds of Iraqi flags they've sewn, dresses and pillowcases. Already the team has arranged for the factory to produce all the uniforms for Iraq's civil defense forces, and piles of cut brown pant legs line the floor.
Now the workers are getting $60 a month, part of which is spent on housing them at the factory. Otwell and Lindner promise to come back soon, and ask the workers to make a list of things that they really need, so maybe next year the factory can get some upgrades. On the way out, the workers jump and clap, as Lindner and Otwell escort the old boss - who had come back to the factory despite a previous arrest by Iraqi police for beating the workers - away from the building.
Across town, another mission is under way.
'Welcome, welcome to our school,' chants a line of 7-year-old girls in Arabic at the Abu Ghuraib Primary School, which the 490th Civil Affairs Battalion took under its wing to restore after it was badly looted postwar.
The now-bright-blue school has new equipment and new electrical wiring that feeds bright bulbs by the teachers' blackboards.
As each soldier walks through the entrance to the official ribbon-cutting, the girls chant louder in Arabic, 'Thank you, thank you, thank you.'
Inside, headmistress Ibistam Mahdi cuts a yellow ribbon, and thanks the men through a translator.
'For the 350 girls here, it is a lot better,' Mahdi says."

My computer has been in the shop since last Thursday, so what I do on these sites is done at New Geneva Seminary in my office. The computer just quit on me and wouldn't boot. It is very frustrating, but the nerds at the computer repair [they look 'way too young to be professionals and holding my very life in their hands] assure me that they will save all my data and get it up to running by late this afternoon. Until then, I have had time to talk to my wife, so the days have not been completely wasted.

It will come to America eventually--the suicide bomber, I mean. Ralph Peters has some perceptive remarks in the NY Post.

New York Post Online Edition: postopinion: "But the terrorists will not and cannot win. They'll only renew our determination. We'll hit back even harder. They'll shed our blood, but we'll do even more to frustrate their dreams of a global dictatorship of merciless dogma.
The only winners will be the media, who will magnify each suicide bombing until it seems to have happened a hundred times and to have done a thousand times more damage than it did.
In the age of global communications, the television image, too, is a weapon of genius. And our enemies know it. Ultimately, the suicide bomber's real target isn't the casualties. It's the cameras. "

If those who have the name "Christian" the answer should not be confusing. The Bible is clear on homosexuality, and all who live in that life are under the wrath of God, for it is an abomination in the eyes of God. [These are not my ideas, but the ideas of the Holy
Spirit who speaks in Scripture]. Christians ought not to equivocate, but make the case: homosexuality is sinful.

The case against same sex 'marriage' - The Washington Times: Editorials/OP-ED: " How much difference can one person pressing an argument make? In the case of Andrew Sullivan and marriage rights for gays, the answer is a huge and perhaps decisive difference. In the eight years since he published 'Virtually Normal,' which concluded with a call for gay marriage rights, he has refined his argumenttoforcethose confronting it tomakea choice among three options: 1) accepting gaymarriage; 2) stating a moral objection to homosexuality and homosexual life itself; and 3) incoherence. "

I said it back there then, and have been saying it since. It took 9/11 for it to make the public media. Jeremiah said centuries ago that the reality of Scripture would trump dreams every time [Jeremiah 23].

PREVIEW: Imagining "Imagine": "Imagine there's no heaven . . . No hell below us . . . Imagine all the people living for today. Okay, let's imagine that; let's imagine six billion people who believe that flesh and blood is all there is; that once you shuffle off this mortal coil, poof, you're history; that Hitler and Mother Teresa, for example, both met the same ultimate fate. Common sense suggests that such a world would produce a lot more Hitlers and a lot fewer Teresas, for the same reason that you get a lot more speeders / murderers / rapists / embezzlers when you eliminate laws, police, and punishment. Skeptics and atheists can say what they like about religion, but it's hard to deny that the fear of an afterlife where one will be judged has likely kept hundreds of millions from committing acts of aggression, if not outright horror. Nothing clears the conscience quite like a belief in eternal nothingness."

The really sad thing is the bias against Christianity in the Christian churches, manifested by hatred of the creeds, traditional liturgy, the doctrines of the person and work of Christ, hatred of precision in the doctrine of the Triune God, hatred of the doctrine of the inerrancy of Scripture, animosity toward the Law of God, the ordination of women and sodomites, and hatred of other defining doctrines of Scripture. The enemies are within the gates, and persecution of Christians often comes from the church itself. Maybe it will take persecution to save us.

David Limbaugh: The 'offensiveness' of Christianity: "Of course, it's not the case. There is an intrinsic bias in our popular culture against Christianity, and it's getting worse. The only thing that isn't clear to me is whether the liberal secularists who deny it are oblivious to the discrimination or are being deceitful. I actually think there is some of both."

Scripture says that governments are ordained by God to repress evil and reward the good. That doesn't mean just domestic evil and domestic good. Hitler was evil and WWI was a good war. Saddam was evil and this, too, is a good war.

New York Daily News - Ideas & Opinions - A.M. Rosenthal: We're still learning how evil Saddam was: "But I and my close friends have heard from enough experts in the field to conclude that the Saddam loyalists who are attacking U.S. troops in Iraq now still dream of acquiring nuclear, biological and chemical weapons, and of one day setting them off. "

Hey, Science is going to save us, isn't it? The scandal of the modern age concerns the faking of science, from Margaret Mead, Sigmund Freud, to global warming and aids research. But fake science gets money from the government.

The Washington Times -- America's Newspaper: "Three Maryland researchers have admitted fabricating interviews with teenagers for a study on AIDS prevention that received more than $1 million in federal funds."