Jeff Blogworthy.com

Actually it has already started.

I am going to be out of town for the next three days. I had to spend the weekend getting ready to go. So no blogging for a few days.

Iain Dunan Smith and Rick Santorum have on op-ed today on the conservative idea of social justice.

"The most important of all revolutions," Burke wrote, is "a revolution in sentiments, manners and moral opinions."

via Washington Times

The groups gathering in Washington this weekend to protest President Bush and the war in Iraq have ties to radical left-wing groups and communist organizations and have enjoyed the support of the left's biggest financial supporter, George Soros.
United for Peace and Justice (UPJ) and International Act Now to Stop War and End Racism (ANSWER) are the two main organizers of the weekend of events -- the first major public protest allowed to surround the White House in more than 10 years -- and expect 100,000 people from dozens of smaller left-wing and liberal organizations.
A highlight of Saturday, the first day of protests, is an appearance and speech by anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan, whose son was killed in Iraq. More...

We Need American Troops

BY JALAL TALABANI
Wednesday, September 21, 2005 12:01 a.m. EDT

BAGHDAD--There is no more important international issue today than the need to defeat the curse of terrorism. And as the first democratically elected president of Iraq, I have a responsibility to ensure that the world's youngest democracy survives the inherently difficult transition from totalitarianism to pluralism. A transformation of the Iraqi state and Iraqi society is impossible without a sustained commitment of soldiers from the United States and other democracies.

To understand why, let us recall how we reached this juncture in history. How is it that Iraq today has a democratically elected head of state, government and Parliament? How it is that members of the most repressed ethnic groups now hold the highest offices of state? All these welcome developments are a result of the courage and vision of President Bush and his allies, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Australian Prime Minister John Howard, leaders whose commitment of troops to enforce U.N. Security Council resolutions liberated Iraq. More...

The Statist’s Psalm

The State is my shepherd; It shall not want.

It maketh like a substitute father: It leadeth me beside the shrill daughters.

It destroyeth my soul: It leadeth me in the paths of dependence for its names sake.

Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou wilt euthanize me; thy starvation and thy dehydration they comfort me.

Thou preparest a label before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with foil; my trope runneth over.

Surely rankness and lunacy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will quell any voice of discord forever.

Via the American Thinker:

"Darwinism is no more than a theory, as yet unconfirmed by evidence, in its explanation for the origins of life. The conduct of many of its defenders, demonizing and distorting those who raise legitimate questions about the scientific evidence, is highly disturbing. It is this reaction, at heart an anti-intellectual exercise supposedly in defense of science and reason, that concerns us most. The controversy provides the opportunity to examine the entire process of theory-generation and testing."

Since Charles Darwin wrote The Origin of Species in 1859, there has been a continuous ongoing debate on the validity of Darwin`s theory. Through much of the Twentieth Century the mainstream scientific community considered Evolution to be a settled matter. Yet there were always weaknesses in Darwinism which brought into question the entire theory. Serious criticisms of their particular view are slowly eating away at their intellectual monopoly. More...

Darwinian natural selection can produce an uncanny illusion of design. An engineer would be hard put to decide whether a bird or a plane was the more aerodynamically elegant.

So powerful is the illusion of design, it took humanity until the mid-19th century to realise that it is an illusion. - Richard Dawkins in the September 17th issue of the New Scientist.

So "powerful" - so "uncanny" - that the illusion is difficult to supress.

For God's wrath is revealed from heaven against all godlessness and unrighteousness of people who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth, since what can be known about God is evident among them, because God has shown it to them. From the creation of the world His invisible attributes, that is, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what He has made. As a result, people are without excuse. For though they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God or show gratitude. Instead, their thinking became nonsense, and their senseless minds were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man, birds, four-footed animals, and reptiles. Romans 1:18-23

H/T Bill Dembski

Update: Joe Carter has an in-depth reaction to Dawkin's article.

BY JIM PUZZANGHERA

Knight Ridder Newspapers

WASHINGTON - (KRT) - Sandra Banning, the Sacramento, Calif.-area mother of the girl who helped trigger the legal battle over the Pledge of Allegiance that flared anew this week, came to the nation's capital Thursday with a pledge of her own:

To do everything she can to keep the pledge in schools and the phrase "under God" in the pledge.

The day after a Sacramento federal judge revived the controversy by ruling that reciting the pledge in public schools is an unconstitutional violation of the separation of church and state, Banning's efforts became intertwined with the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings for Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts Jr. More...

Related posts:

Judge Rules Pledge of Allegiance in Public Schools Unconstitutional

How "under God" came to be in the Pledge

Some say that the words "under God" in our pledge of allegiance is due to the imposition of religious zealots. They are wrong. The words "under God" reflect reality. They are not an imposition but an affirmation of how our nation came to be and of our unique national perspective. We have always been one nation under God. God is the unifying agency in our society. It is because of Him that we cling to the enduring truth that "all men are created equal." It is because of Him that we yearn for justice and equality under the law. "We are a nation of laws, not men." Unfortunately, this is often not the case in practice but it is still the ideal for which we strive. To the extent that Lex, Rex is not true, we see it as an injustice to be remedied - and rightly so. The entire idea in our culture that no man is above the law proceeds directly from scripture.

Why does virtually the entire United States rest and/or worship on Sundays, while Israel observes the sabbath on Saturdays? Why do we observe Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays? The answers are obvious. We regularly observe our Christian heritage subconsciously, if not overtly.

Leftists are keenly aware that our entire national identity, independence and freedom are derived from our Christian religion and heritage. This is the reason that Christianity is under attack today. It has gotten to the extent that public employees are forbidden to wish others "Merry Christmas."

President George Washington's words in his farewell address, 1796 still ring as true today as they ever have:

Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens. The mere politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish them. A volume could not trace all their connections with private and public felicity. Let it simply be asked: Where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths which are the instruments of investigation in courts of justice ? And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.

I leave it to the reader to determine the converse truth of Washington's words.

The pledge is not imposed on our nation; our nation embraces it. The change came as the result of a widespread, grassroots movement where 15 resolutions were proposed in Congress. The phrase, "one nation under God," was added to the Pledge of Allegiance on Flag Day, June 14, 1954. The reverend George Docherty had delivered a powerful oratory to the ears of President Dwight D. Eisenhower, convincing him that adding the famous phrase to the Pledge was a good idea.

According to Docherty, it was God Who made the United States distinguishable in its character from Russia - which, by contrast, embraced "godless communism." It was "godless communism" which made the atrocities killing at least 80 million people a reality. The President, our congressmen, and the American people agreed with Docherty's assessment.

Docherty was a civil rights advocate whom marched with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in Selma, Ala. He opposed the Vietnam War. We have his sermon to thank for the Pledge as it stands today.

"We did fine without God in the pledge up to 1954," goes the common refrain, "We would do fine without it today." This is a rather weak argument. We "did fine" with no Pledge at all up until 1892 when the original Pledge of Allegiance was written by the Baptist pastor and avowed socialist Edward Bellamy. The words to the Pledge were first changed in 1924 from "my flag" to the less generic "Flag of the United States of America.' Bellamy did not like the change but his protestations were overridden. The change made perfect sense.

We "did fine" before many Amendments were added to the Constitution.

We "did fine" before the first Thanksgiving Day Proclamation by Abraham Lincoln.

The bottom line is that we have the Pledge as it now stands because it has been embraced by a large majority of America, and enacted that way by her representatives. Now, via activist courts, we find ourselves subject to the rather unconvincing "uncomfortable minority" argument. This is supposed to suffice as compelling grounds for change, we are told. A few individuals are "uncomfortable" therefore the remaining Americans should accommodate them by living just the way they do. Forgive my reticence - I remain unconvinced.

Below the fold is the entire transcribed text of the speech by Reverend Docherty that was so influential in changing the Pledge. I invite you to read it. If any mistakes are found, please alert me and I'll correct them.

Note: Lex, Rex link updated to a more reader-friendly summary. For a fuller exposition of the principles of Lex Rex, I highly recommend reading "A Christian Manifesto."

"The Americans combine the notions of Christianity and liberty so intimately in their minds that it is impossible to make them conceive one without the other." -- Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America

Unless one happens to be a federal judge, that is.

A federal judge ruled Wednesday that reciting the Pledge of Allegiance – which contains the phrase, "under God" – in public schools was unconstitutional, stating that it violates children’s rights to be "free from a coercive requirement to affirm God." Source

The judge's decision is couched in a lie from the start. Everyone knows that any child who wishes to refrain from reciting the pledge due to religious objections if free to do so. Newdow is a liar who is using his child to advance his own political agenda against the child's will. Michael Newdow's daughter says the pledge voluntarily, along with her classmates. His daughter has no objection to saying the pledge. In fact, both Newdow's daughter and her mother identify themselves as Christians.

Newdow said on Hannity and Colmes that the act of his daughter reciting the pledge makes her feel that her father is un-American: "First of all, there's the issue of do I have a right to send my child to school without her being inculcated with beliefs that make her think that her father is less than a full American."

Newdow supposedly wants the pledge banned based on his perception of how he thinks it makes his daughter "feel." That's rich. I wonder how his daughter "feels" about being forced by her bellicose atheist father to become a lightning rod for anti-God sentiment? A God which she happens to believe in and worship. How traumatic it must be. Oops - We are not supposed to consider that.

Newdow certainly has no problem "inculcating" every child in America with his own religion. How typical.

The judge said his hands were tied by Ninth Circuit court precedent: "The court concludes that it is bound by the Ninth Circuit's previous determination that the school district's policy with regard to the pledge is an unconstitutional violation of the children's right to be free from a coercive requirement to affirm God."

Yeah. That's the thing. No one was coercing the child to do anything. The heretical Ninth Circuit is the most overturned court in the land. Every Leftist in America knows to take their case to the Ninth Circuit if they want the best chance of winning. How fitting that we are now watching the Left's open hostility to President Bush's nominees to every court. The Ninth Circuit's vision reflects the Leftist plan for America. God is a disease, the Left is the cure. Enjoy.

Tom Tancredo reports this morning on the Mike Gallagher show that the controversial red crescent design for the Flight 93 memorial is going to be canned. A new design will be chosen.

Darn. Michelle Malkin is already on it.

This is great news.

Update:

Congressman Tancredo was instrumental in calling for a change of the crescent design. Many Americans are thrilled that a red crescent - the symbol of Islam - will not be the featured design for the Flight 93 memorial. Then there are those other Americans. Yep, I'm talking about the Left:

Tom Tancredo needs a new expression. In the grinning photo on his website, his lips curve in a crescent shape that might be mistaken for a symbol of radical Islam.

No one must confuse Tancredo for a terrorist. So he should get a new mug shot. Preferably one with his foot stuffed in his mouth.

Colorado's world-famous race-baiting congressman hit a new low Tuesday. Fresh from suggesting the U.S. bomb Mecca, Saudi Arabia, if terrorists mount a nuclear attack on America, Tancredo asked the federal government to change the design of a 9/11 memorial in Pennsylvania because its crescent shape suggested an Islamic symbol. The memorial will be built where United Flight 93 crashed. The plane went down after passengers overpowered terrorists trying to fly the hijacked jet supposedly into the White House. More...

"Katrina exposed serious problems in our response capability at all levels of government," Bush said at a joint White House news conference with Iraqi President Jalal Talabani.

"And to the extent that the federal government didn't fully do its job right, I take responsibility. I want to know what went right and what went wrong," Bush said. More...

Pretty impressive for the president "who never admits mistakes." This will win him many brownie points with the Left, right?

What the president did not say:

"I take responsibility for everything that happened in New Orleans."

"I absolve the state and local governments for their role in New Orleans."

(PRWEB) - Los Angeles, CA (PRWEB) September 13, 2005 - – The tragedy of Hurricane Katrina has exposed an ugly truth about liberals, and parents need to teach this to their kids, according to the author of a controversial upcoming children"s book.

Katharine DeBrecht — the author of the soon-to-be-released "Help! Mom! There Are Liberals Under My Bed" (Kids Ahead; hardcover: $15.95; ISBN 0976726904) — dismisses the notion that parents should not talk to their young kids about politics. If anything, she claims, the behavior of liberals following the flooding of New Orleans shows that parents with traditional values need to take a hands-on approach to making sure their kids aren"t bombarded by left-wing messages.

"Liberals don"t hesitate in pushing their extremist ideology," says DeBrecht, the mother of three and a co-captain of her state"s Security Moms for Bush. "Their actions in the wake of the tragedy in New Orleans shows this only too well." More...

In stores on September 20.

Liberals are so shocked. It is as though this kind of thing has never occurred before. The fact is, Ms. DeBrecht is finally employing a tool that the Left has been using for years. Examples include Heather has Two Mommies, Daddy's Roommate, Kofi Annan on Sesame Street (Let's do it the U.N. way! Yay!), the We are Family cartoon video, and the book Who's in a Family. Turnabout is fair play, as they say.

There are, however, a couple of significant differences. You will not be seeing Help! Mom! There Are Liberals Under My Bed as part of the school curriculum anytime soon and you will not be seeing parents arrested for refusing to make their child read the book.

More info: LiberalsUnderMyBed.com

A local teacher who I am well acquainted with has been flatly told by her high school administrator that "95% of her students should be doing well." How is this directive to be interpreted? Who takes the ultimate responsibility for learning - the teacher or the student? The answer of course, is both. However, I submit that the primary onus is on the student. If the student honestly feels they are not being challenged or presented with satisfactory opportunities for learning, there are avenues for redress. However, this is hardly the case.

The 95% decree could be construed as pressure from above to see that a certain number of students pass, regardless of performance or effort. I know for a fact that my teacher friend is a highly qualified (a masters degree in her field) and motivated individual. She has a certain percentage of students who see her class as a waste of time and refuse to do assigned homework or adequately prepare for exams. The teacher is in frequent contact with parents concerning their child's performance via email, phone calls, and letters. Moreover, she frequently tells students that she is willing to meet with them one on one.

There is only so much a teacher can do. Students must bear responsibility for their own learning or face the consequences of failure. As a taxpayer and a parent, I am offended that an administrator would pressure teachers to pass students who fail to meet minimum standards. The 'lead a horse to water' adage applies. I say, let the chips fall where they may. Perhaps the 95% edict is being delivered to the wrong person. It sounds like a message the students themselves need to hear.

Regarding Sen. Kennedy's remarks regarding John Roberts' confirmation yesterday:

"What the American people have seen is this incredible disparity in which those people who had cars and money got out [of New Orleans] and those people who were impoverished died,” Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) said in an interview . The question for Roberts, he said, is whether he stands for “a fairer, more just nation” or for “narrow, STINGY interpretations of the law to frustrate progress." - WaPo

The 'incredible disparity' is due to the slums and welfare addicts created by the Democratic Socialist Party. The line about "those people who had cars" is a lie. Take a look around the city of New Orleans and one will see many cars which have been destroyed or are under water. There were plenty of people who had cars, but did not heed the warnings to flee. Indeed, authorities are still trying to pry many from their property today. For whatever reason, human beings are notoriously reluctant to leave their home and possessions behind, even upon threat of life.

As for those who did not have cars, it was the city of New Orleans - run by Democrats for decades - which had the responsibility to provide transportation and implement a disaster plan. The complete failure of the incompetent leadership of New Orleans and Louisiana is hardly the fault of a "narrow, stingy interpretation of the law." The infrastructure was there, the money was there, and the plan was there. All the resources in the world do not help if they are unused.

As an aside, the constant race-baiting bleat from the Left is also false. As Paul from Wizbang reports, hurricane Katrina affected white people as well - though one would not know it from the Left-media coverage.

The question for Roberts, Kennedy said yesterday, is whether he stands for "a fairer, more just nation" [read socialist state] or for "narrow, STINGY interpretations of the law to frustrate progress." Kennedy reveals here that he has no confidence in or respect for the Constitution of the United States. Kennedy says adherence to the Constitution is "narrow, stingy" and "frustrates progress" - or is that "frustrates progressives?" Code-speak all for the overthrow of the United States government as we know it. The Kennedy method of interpretation renders the Constitution and its protections utterly void. The very fact that a United States senator can say such things with impunity shows just how far we have sunk. The seditious America-hating Left has completely co-opted the Democratic Party.

Where is the outrage from Republicans for remarks such as these from the likes of Ted Kennedy? They stand by and watch as our constitution is attacked and torn to shreds. We the people put Republicans in office for a reason. We expect our form of government to be defended. We expect advocates for smaller government. Instead we get a spineless, rudderless majority of wimps.

The woman's own stupidity is the only reason she was caught. Hurricane aid fraud is no-doubt rampant.

MEMPHIS (AP) — A Memphis woman has been charged with forgery and attempted theft after trying to collect more than $1,500 in Hurricane Katrina relief money, police say.

Emma Hill, 31, told a worker at an American Red Cross hurricane relief center in Memphis Friday that she lived in Gulfport, Miss., and had lost everything in the hurricane, according to the charges.

However, when she returned Saturday to pick up a $1,565 check, Hill gave an address in Mississippi that was different from the first one she gave workers. Suspicious workers then called over a Memphis police officer stationed at the center. More...

By Daniel Pipes

What some observers are calling a pogrom took place near Ramallah, West Bank, on the night of Sep. 3-4. That's when fifteen Muslim youths from one village, Dair Jarir, rampaged against Taybeh, a neighboring all-Christian village of 1,500 people.

The reason for the assault? A Muslim woman from Dair Jarir, Hiyam Ajaj, 23, fell in love with her Christian boss, Mehdi Khouriyye, owner of a tailor shop in Taybeh. The couple maintained a clandestine two-year affair and she became pregnant in about March 2005. When her family learned of her condition, it murdered her. That was on about Sep. 1; unsatisfied even with this "honor killing" — for Islamic law strictly forbids non-Muslim males to have sexual relations with Muslim females — the Ajaj men sought vengeance against Khouriyye and his family. More...

Here is one of the most interesting answers to an oft-repeated question:

Stewartstown, Pa.: It seems to be that a central point has been left out of discussions about Iraq. The U.S. doesn't have a right to attack other nations and remove their leaders just because it thinks that doing so will make the world "better off." Other nations have a right to their governments — even if those governments are nondemocratic. The U.S. — and any other country — only has a right to attack a nation that poses a clear and direct threat. Iraq was not endangering the United States. Even if Saddam had WMDs, why would he use them against the U.S.? The Soviet Union was an enemy of the U.S., and had WMDs, but didn't use them.

Why do the rights of other nations never seem to be considered in U.S. foreign policy? If America can invade whatever nation it likes, why can't Germany, Japan, and others do the same?

Victor Davis Hanson: You too did not read carefully my other posts. Read the casus belli that the Senate passed. It included violations of the 1991 armistice accords, genocide, assassination attempts on a former U.S. president, links with terrorism (their writ not mine), etc. And read too the critique at the time: in October 2002 it was [not] that Saddam did not have WMD (even the Left believed that), but that the Bush administration was using a "shot gun" approach and trying to throw too many reasons on the wall to see which would stick. The worry over WMD was not that he would attack the U.S. with Iraqi forces but twofold: 1) he had used them in the modern age, so had no moral qualms, 2) he was a host to terrorists, among them one who had tried to blow up the World Trade Center in 1993. Read more...

Original article: "Why we must stay in Iraq"

"Yesterday, London and Madrid. Tomorrow, Los Angeles and Melbourne, Allah willing," a masked operative said.

"We are Muslims. We love peace, but peace on our terms, peace as laid down by Islam, not the so-called peace of occupiers and dictators." More...

"Peace on our terms" is not just hyperbole. This language precisely fits the doctrines of Islam. Peace as "laid down by Islam" is no peace at all. This is the true meaning of "peace" in Islam-speak. Peace will be achieved only when the infidel bows the knee to Islam - elsewise peace is not possible.

The 1900 Hurricane Isaac stands as the deadliest storm in U.S. History. Simliarities to Katrina are striking.

Isaac's Storm: A Man, a Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History
By Erik Larson

"An absurd delusion," is how Isaac Cline, a dedicated and highly trained first-generation employee of the new U.S. Weather Bureau, characterized the fear that any hurricane posed a serious danger to the burgeoning city of Galveston, Texas.

Based partly on Cline's expert opinion, Galveston dismissed a proposal to erect a seawall, claiming it a needless, wasteful expense. In 1900, Cline's words reflected not only his own opinion but also the spirit -- what would one day be seen as the hubris -- of his time. 1900storm.com

There were many memorable events in the United States throughout the 20th century. The Galveston, Texas, hurricane of 1900 remains the worst disaster in American history. More than 8,000 people perished September 8, 1900 when the category 4 hurricane barreled into Galveston, where many people were on vacation.

In 1900 there were no weather satellites and no Doppler radar. However, warnings were issue by the U.S. Weather Bureau, the predecessor of NOAA's National Weather Service. People were advised to seek higher ground. Many didn't heed the warnings preferring instead to watch the huge waves.

On September 8, the hurricane slammed into Galveston almost head on. Waves were higher than 15 feet and winds howled at 130 miles per hour. By the time the storm passed, more than 8,000 people were dead, countless were injured and half of the island's homes had been swept away. NOAA.gov

Deadliest hurricane began century

By Deborah Sharp, USA TODAY

GALVESTON, Texas - Late at night, Georgeanna Holmes used to gather her great-grandchildren around to tell stories about surviving "The Storm," which is what islanders here still say 99 years after Galveston was struck by the deadliest hurricane in U.S. history.

Up to 10,000 people died, so many that for months bodies were burned by Galveston's "dead gangs," their members plied with whiskey and threatened at gunpoint to keep them at their horrifying task. More...