The Great Divorce: The ECUSA

The split is coming quickly:

Twenty Episcopal bishops at odds over homosexual clergy will attempt to reconcile their differences next month, but church conservatives say the meeting's real business is to start discussions on how to divide their assets in the event of a split.
If differences between Episcopal liberals and conservatives are quickly determined to be "irreconcilable," says retired Diocese of Florida Bishop Stephen Jecko, the discussion will switch to engineering a breakup without running up millions of dollars in lawsuits.

Further:

The Los Angeles gathering would be the first admission of schism by the 2.2-million-member denomination.
"It'll be who gets the money and who gets the kids," Bishop Jecko said. "I hope it will be an amicable divorce. ... Those of us on the [theologically] orthodox side have no interest in going to court."

Speaking as one of those kids, the divorce can't come quickly enough. The fear for the left is that they will be the ones left out of the wider Anglican Communion in the end. They may also lose some of the prime real estate, and therefore funding, to a new conservative Anglican communion. We'll see.

Koran Abuse at Gitmo Confirmed!

Before you folks on the left sigh in relief that you were right, that American soldiers really are evil, sadistic murderers, working for the "fascist" Bush Administration, you might want to read Max Boot's column. What the heck this is doing in the LA Times is beyond me. Must've got past the censors...or else the LA Times has finally decided they would like to make some money instead of just printing propaganda sheets.

Embryonic Stem Cells: A Way Out of the Darkness?

This has the potential of ending the stem cell debate. Funding should be made available to support this effort.

Howard and Hillary: From Peggy Noonan

Some columns are simply so important that nothing else needs to be said. This column from Peggy Noonan is one of those:

Close your eyes and imagine this.

President Bush is introduced at a great gathering in Topeka, Kan. It is the evening of June 9, 2005. Ruffles and flourishes, "Hail to the Chief," hearty applause from a packed ballroom. Mr. Bush walks to the podium and delivers the following address.

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. I want to speak this evening about how I see the political landscape. Let me jump right in. The struggle between the Republican Party and the Democratic Party is a struggle between good and evil--and we're the good. I hate Democrats. Let's face it, they have never made an honest living in their lives. Who are they, really, but people who are intent on abusing power, destroying the United States Senate and undermining our Constitution? They have no shame.

But why would they? They have never been acquainted with the truth. You ever been to a Democratic fundraiser? They all look the same. They all behave the same. They have a dictatorship, and suffer from zeal so extreme they think they have a direct line to heaven. But what would you expect when you have a far left extremist base? We cannot afford more of their leadership. I call on you to help me defeat them!"

Imagine Mr. Bush saying those things, and the crowd roaring with lusty delight. Imagine John McCain saying them for that matter, or any other likely Republican candidate for president, or Ken Mehlman, the head of the Republican National Committee.

Can you imagine them talking this way? Me neither. Because they wouldn't.

Read the whole thing. It's an important commentary on Democrat politics.

Liberty Just in Case Avatar

Patriotic Avatar, originally uploaded by Longinus62.

Thanks to Zaph, this will be the avatar for Liberty Just in Case over at Balance of Power. It really does represent what Liberty Just in Case is about.

The Autorantic Moonbat

I resisted as long as I could. I really did! But the more I played with the moonbat on other sites, the more I realized "Ah jest had ta git me won 'a thim thangs." If you find yourself agreeing with the moonbat on most issues, seek help...now...before its too late here.

Raceology.com

I am a NASCAR fan, though certainly not as obsessed as my son. I'm certainly no mechanic, but if I were, I'd have a blog like Don Terrill's over at Raceology. com. If you're into cars, Don's site is the place to be.

So, Who's Gonna Tell JC Watts ?

Howard Dean is the best thing to happen to the Republican Party since Bill Clinton redefined sex. Now, he's saying Republicans are the "White Christian Party." I suppose that's better than being the White Christmas Party, as the membership is larger, and precinct meetings happen more than once a year. But, since none of us have done an honest day's work, as Dr. Dean says, we have lots of time for meetings, get-togethers, even BBQ's.

A question though. What does that make the Democrat Party. The Black Satanist Party? The Mauve Pagan party? How about the Chartreuse I-Don't-Want-To -Believe-Anything-Cuz-I-Might-Have-To-Have-An-Original-Idea Party?

Balance of Power is Up: The United Nations

Pending the confirmation of Mr. Bolton, the United Nations still retains all nine useless stories. This may change after Balance of Power gets through with this corrupt institution...: -)

By the by, I'll be filling in for Jay for the next few weeks over at BoP. As the man said after getting ridden out of town on a rail, "If it wasn't for the honor of the thing, I'd just as soon have walked." (hat tip to Abe Lincoln, a real straight man, despite rumors to the contrary.)

Moral Freefall: The Gun-Toting Liberal

So, here I am, posting all these intellectual guys making money off their writing, and GT's post was just waiting to have the last word. Oh, are some of you gonna hate this....:-)

Moral Freefall: Just One More From OpinionJournal

One of those poor innocents about which Amnesty International shows concern:

But before leaving this episode, we'd like to remind readers of the case of Ahmed Hikmat Shakir. On November 19, 2001, Amnesty issued one of its "URGENT ACTION" reports on his behalf: "Amnesty International is concerned for the safety of Iraqi citizen Ahmad Hikmat Shakir, who is being held by the Jordanian General Intelligence Department. . . . He is held incommunicado detention and is at risk of torture or ill-treatment." Pressure from Amnesty and Saddam Hussein's Iraq worked; Mr. Shakir was released and hasn't been seen since.

Mr. Shakir is believed to be an al Qaeda operative who abetted the USS Cole bombing and 9/11 plots, among others. Along with 9/11 hijackers Khalid al Midhar and Nawaf al Hazmi, he was present at the January 2000 al Qaeda summit in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. He was working there as an airport "greeter"--a job obtained for him by the Iraqi embassy. When he was arrested in Qatar not long after 9/11, he had telephone numbers for the safe houses of the 1993 World Trade Center bombers. He was inexplicably released by the Qataris and promptly arrested again in Jordan as he attempted to return to Iraq.

There remains a dispute about whether this is the same Ahmed Hikmat Shakir that records discovered after the Iraq w

ar list as a Lieutenant Colonel in the Saddam Fedayeen--the 9/11 Commission believes these are two different people--and whether Mr. Shakir thus represents an Iraqi government connection to 9/11. But there is no doubt that the Hussein regime, whatever its reasons, was eager to have the al Qaeda Shakir return to Iraq. It was aided and abetted to this end by Amnesty International.

We don't recount this story to suggest Amnesty was actively in league with Saddam. But it shows that, even after 9/11, Amnesty still didn't think terrorism was a big deal. In its eagerness to suggest that every detainee with a Muslim name is some kind of political prisoner, and by extension to smear America and its allies, Amnesty has given the concept of "aid and comfort" to the enemy an all-too-literal meaning.

Election 2006: Katherine Harris For Senate

2006 looks to be almost as much fun as 2004 for political junkies. Not that I would know...Gotta go... C-Span II is showing the Senate Debate on which wallpaper would look best in the Senate Dining Room. Can't miss that!

The Nine Planets

Few sites better for an overall look at our Solar System. Great photographs, and updated regularly.

Hellooooo!!!!! Is ANYONE in Hollywood Listening?!?!?

This is great news!

The new, expanded study examines the revenue and production costs for 3,000 Motion Picture Assn. of America-rated theatrical films released between Jan. 1, 1989, and Dec. 31, 2003, using the 200 most widely distributed films each year based on the number of theaters.

"While the movie industry produced nearly 12 times more R-rated films than G-rated films from 1989-2003, the average G-rated film produced 11 times greater profit than its R-rated counterpart," said Dick Rolfe, the group's founder and chairman.

So why did Reuters feel compelled to include this at the beginning?:

The survey was commissioned by the Dove Foundation, a Grand Rapids, Mich.-based group that advocates wholesome family entertainment. According to its Web site, its advisory board includes radio talk show host Laura Schlessinger and "Touched By an Angel" executive producer Martha Williamson.

At least they didn't use the word "conservative" in the paragraph.

Moral Freefall: Amnesty International

Three must read editorials on Amnesty International. Below are small excerpts. Please read them completely before commenting:

Kenneth Anderson:

We also know that it is suicidally irresponsible for groups that depend on the moral force of their pronouncements to habitually say things they don't actually mean. Rhetorical inflation is a dangerous indulgence for the human rights movement. And it is a bad thing for the cause of human rights.

Dennis Prager:

That devolution was most apparent years ago when Amnesty International listed the United States as a major violator of human rights because it executed murderers. The organization's inability to morally distinguish between executing murderers and executing innocent people means that Amnesty International is worse than ineffectual; the good it has done notwithstanding, it is becoming harmful to the cause of human rights.

His statistical comparison between Gitmo and the Gulags is worth a read all its own.

And speaking of comparisons,
David Limbaugh:

If the Left could bring itself to take a hiatus from its hyperbole in redefining "torture" so as conveniently to encompass the detention practices of the U.S. military in Guantanamo and elsewhere, perhaps it could rediscover the true meaning of torture by perusing the pages of Solzhenitsyn's gripping account.

If they want to understand what real torture-minded interrogators have been known to do, they could begin with the chapter on "The Interrogation." The chapter begins, "If the intellectuals in the plays of Chekhov who spent all their time guessing what would happen in 20, 30, or 40 years had been told that in 40 years interrogation by torture would be practiced in Russia; that prisoners would have their skulls squeezed within iron rings; that a human being would be lowered into an acid bath; that they would be trussed up naked to be bitten by ants and bedbugs; that a ramrod heated over a primus stove would be thrust up their anal canal (the 'secret brand'); that a man's genitals would be slowly crushed beneath the toe of a jackboot; and that, in the luckiest possible circumstances, prisoners would be tortured by being kept from sleeping for a week, by thirst, and by being beaten to a bloody pulp, not one of Chekhov's plays would have gotten to its end because all the heroes would have gone off to insane asylums."

Nor were these isolated, extreme, or extraordinary events being practiced "by one scoundrel alone in one secret place only, but by tens of thousands of specially trained human beasts standing over millions of defenseless victims."

Oh, yes, and lest we forget, the interrogators of the Soviet camps were not trying to extract information from their subjects for such laudatory purposes as preventing the further slaughter of innocent human beings such as the victims of the Sept. 11 massacres. "Throughout the years and decades, interrogations under Article 58 were almost never undertaken to elicit the truth, but were simply an exercise in an inevitably filthy procedure: Someone who had been free only a little while before, who was sometimes proud and always unprepared, was to be bent and pushed through a narrow pipe where his sides would be torn by iron hooks and where he could not breathe, so that he would finally pray to get to the other end. And at the other end, he would be shoved out, an already processed native of the Archipelago, already in the promised land. (The fool would keep on resisting! He even thought there was a way back out of the pipe.)"

The left's hysteria trivializes the true evil of places like the Gulag. It reveals an ignorance of the history of the Evil Empire, and evil in general. It also accuses both the current administration, and individual soldiers of horrendous evil without evidence in order to fulfill their own agenda.

So, What Was The First Thing You Saw This Morning?

For many men this morning 61 years ago, this was the last thing they saw. May we never forget their sacrifice, may we always remember the cost.

Well, We Don't Know for SURE It's A Gulag...

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Revenge of the Sith: An Emotion I Didn't Expect to Feel

I stood in line for 2 hours for Star Wars, 4 hours for Empire Strikes Back, and played poker and spades for 6 hours before getting in for Return of the Jedi. Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones were out on video by the time I got around to seeing them (marriage, children, and graduate school interfered), and I have rented them numerous times for my children's edification. Yes, I'm a fan.

So, while my wife took the kids to see Madagascar, I took the opportunity to preview Episode III. It's PG-13, and except for extraordinary circumstances, our kids don't see PG-13 movies. Besides, I wanted to spend some quality alone time with the conclusion of my favorite movie series.

The familiar words Star Wars rolled across the screen, with the familiar fanfare, then the synopsis of events slowly scrolling across the starfield in yellow. Then off we go! For a full 10 minutes I was back in my Junior High years at the old Hornbeck in Shawnee Oklahoma....and then things sloooowwweeedddd waaaayyy dooowwwnnn.

I expected alot of emotions from Sith, but boredom was not one of them. I knew I was in trouble when I started looking at my watch as one of the interminable light saber duels began to drag on. Now, don't get me wrong. I LIKE light sabers. My son has one, I had one, and I suspect my grandchild will have one. But after what seemed like 20 minutes of thrust and parry, I found myself desperately wishing for Errol Flynn in his green Robin Hood tights to step in and show them how it's done. And if Padme and Anakin discussed their angst ridden relationship one more time, I swear I was gonna go get my free refill of popcorn!

Okay, the special effects were really (yawn) fantastic. But when you've seen your first ten ships blown up, you've seen 'em all. And, speaking of special effects, I found General Grievous, well, a little, well, grievous in his lack of of believability.

So, I'll dutifully get Episodes I, II and III when they come out on DVD as a set, and will probably take my kids to see the darn thing when it hits the dollar theater here in town. But I'm really disappointed. I expected so much more, and got so much less. It makes me really glad the series has finally come to an end.

No Posts Today or Tomorrow

The kids will finish school tomorrow. I'll be taking some time to hang out with them, in preparation of a fun summer. I may be back on Monday, sooner if events warrant.

Another Rejection of the EU Constitution

My hope for Europe has just gone up another notch.