Mix of God and Science

NYT reported At a recent scientific conference at City College of New York, a student in the audience rose to ask the panelists an unexpected question: "Can you be a good scientist and believe in God?" Reaction from one of the panelists, all Nobel laureates, was quick and sharp. "No!" declared Herbert A. Hauptman, who shared the chemistry prize in 1985 for his work on the structure of crystals. Belief in the supernatural, especially belief in God, is not only incompatible with good science, Dr. Hauptman declared, "this kind of belief is damaging to the well-being of the human race."

I am not sure how knowledge of the structure of crystals qualifies one to know what will or will not damage the well-being of the human race, but it seems to me that there are enough real challenges to the well-being of the human race that we need more, and not fewer, people that believe in God

But disdain for religion is far from universal among scientists. And today, as religious groups challenge scientists in arenas as various as evolution in the classroom, AIDS prevention and stem cell research, scientists who embrace religion are beginning to speak out about their faith.

Good for them

"It should not be a taboo subject, but frankly it often is in scientific circles," said Francis S. Collins, who directs the National Human Genome Research Institute and who speaks freely about his Christian faith. Although they embrace religious faith, these scientists also embrace science as it has been defined for centuries. That is, they look to the natural world for explanations of what happens in the natural world and they recognize that scientific ideas must be provisional - capable of being overturned by evidence from experimentation and observation. This belief in science sets them apart from those who endorse creationism or its doctrinal cousin, intelligent design, both of which depend on the existence of a supernatural force.

Believe in Creationism, i.e. that the story in Genesis is literally true, may be inconsistent with the theory of Evolution, but a person can be a Creationist and still be a very good scientist studying just about any other subject, and one believing Intelligent Design can even accept much of the theory of Evolution, as one tool used by the Intelligend Designer.

Their belief in God challenges scientists who regard religious belief as little more than magical thinking, as some do. Their faith also challenges believers who denounce science as a godless enterprise and scientists as secular elitists contemptuous of God-fearing people. Some scientists say simply that science and religion are two separate realms, "nonoverlapping magisteria," as the late evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould put it in his book "Rocks of Ages" (Ballantine, 1999). In Dr. Gould's view, science speaks with authority in the realm of "what the universe is made of (fact) and why does it work this way (theory)" and religion holds sway over "questions of ultimate meaning and moral value."

Why should the two realms be separate?

When the American Association for the Advancement of Science devoted a session to this idea of separation at its annual meeting this year, scores of scientists crowded into a room to hear it. Some of them said they were unsatisfied with the idea, because they believe scientists' moral values must inevitably affect their work, others because so much of science has so many ethical implications in the real world. One panelist, Dr. Noah Efron of Bar-Ilan University in Israel, said scientists, like other people, were guided by their own human purposes, meaning and values. The idea that fact can be separated from values and meaning "jibes poorly with what we know of the history of science," Dr. Efron said.

I always thought scientific theories required proof, not the scientists own human purpose, meaning, and values

Dr. Collins, who is working on a book about his religious faith, also believes that people should not have to keep religious beliefs and scientific theories strictly separate. "I don't find it very satisfactory and I don't find it very necessary," he said in an interview. He noted that until relatively recently, most scientists were believers.

That was before the Secular Humanists took over the education system that turns out scientists.

"Isaac Newton wrote a lot more about the Bible than the laws of nature," he said. But he acknowledged that as head of the American government's efforts to decipher the human genetic code, he had a leading role in work that many say definitively demonstrates the strength of evolutionary theory to explain the complexity and abundance of life. As scientists compare human genes with those of other mammals, tiny worms, even bacteria, the similarities "are absolutely compelling," Dr. Collins said. "If Darwin had tried to imagine a way to prove his theory, he could not have come up with something better, except maybe a time machine. Asking somebody to reject all of that in order to prove that they really do love God - what a horrible choice."

But why should they have to reject all of the similarities. If God did in fact create everything, isn't it reasonable that there might have been similarities in each of His creations?

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Conservatives learn to fight like liberals

Brendan Miniter wrote in OpinionJournal .... It's hard to know when this began. But on a variety of fronts conservatives are using arguments and tactics heretofore under patent protection by the left, including pushing for activist judges (with four decades of liberal jurisprudence on the books, the left's best hope is judges who respect precedent above all), using federal dollars to build political constituencies, filing lawsuits, launching boycotts, and arguing for free speech and "diversity" in education.

Hoisted With Their Own Petard

The last has drawn a surprising amount of attention lately with a debate over evolution and "intelligent design"--the hypothesis that evolution isn't random but rather the mechanism an intelligent being uses to change the universe. President Bush pushed this debate well into the public spotlight by remarking that intelligent design should be taught in addition to random evolution. Whatever the merits of this debate, it's interesting that the "religious right" is co-opting the arguments of the left. With "diversity" a worthy goal in education, why not present students with "both sides"? That way no one is left out and everyone is included. The question alone has to be infuriating for the left.

ROF, LMAO

.... The National Rifle Association called recently for a boycott of ConocoPhillips Co. over the energy giant's attempts to stop its Oklahoma employees from keeping guns locked in the trunks of their cars while at work. A new state law specifically protects the right to keep and bear arms in a car while at work. Conoco is drawing fire because it is suing to stop that law from going into effect.

a Boycott. Boy oh boy

Meanwhile in Arizona a cattleman turned the tables on an environmental group to win a massive settlement.... The Bush administration is also using the government to beat the left at its own game. Democrats vigorously objected to President Bush's Faith Based Initiative not because they are antireligion per se, but because by opening up federal grants and federal institutions to faith-based groups, the president was putting religious organizations on equal footing with predominantly liberal secular groups that had come to think of federal charitable dollars as exclusively theirs. With federal money, the religious groups would suddenly be competitive.

It is similar to the Left feeling it was fine for tax dollars to support a liberal PBS and NPR, but they had a cow when Republicans said that if they were going to get tax dollars, then needed to be "Fair and Balanced" in their programming

The left fears that government bureaucracies will feel pressure from above by elected Republicans and from below by a growing political constituency that's leaning to the right. That fear is likely to be realized if Republicans ever succeed at creating private accounts for Social Security, Medicare or other large entitlements. The Ownership Society is scary to the left precisely because it is meant to change the face of the culture. Republicans are now starting to realize that like in war, winning often means adopting your opponent's best tactics.

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Grooming Politicians for Christ

LAT reported In the blue and gold elegance of the House speaker's private dining room, Jeremy Bouma bowed his head before eight young men and women who hope to one day lead the nation. He prayed that they might find wisdom in the Bible — and govern by its word. "Holy Father, we thank you for providing us with guidance," said Bouma, who works for an influential televangelist. "Thank you, Lord, for these students. Build them up as your warriors and your ambassadors on Capitol Hill." "Amen," the students murmured. Then they picked up their pens expectantly. Nearly every Monday for six months, as many as a dozen congressional aides — many of them aspiring politicians — have gathered over takeout dinners to mine the Bible for ancient wisdom on modern policy debates about tax rates, foreign aid, education, cloning and the Central American Free Trade Agreement.

I am sure that some of the Secular Humanists on the Far Left will scream Separation of Church and State and Theocracy, but I personally find it conforting that they are reading the Bible, and seeking to find answers in it.

Through seminars taught by conservative college professors and devout members of Congress, the students learn that serving country means first and always serving Christ. They learn to view every vote as a religious duty, and to consider compromise a sin.

I would not go so far as to say that compromise is a sin, but in reaching a compromise, one should always try to change something in a direction that is more moral. For example, right now we have abortion on demand, even into the third trimester. I dont like abortion at all, but there are many that support the status quo, and fear any effort to intrude on it at all. I could accept a compromise that permitted abortion on demand in the first trimester, and with severe limitations on it in the second trimester, if I could get an absolute prohibition on it in the third trimester, unless needed to protect the life of the mother. I am sure there are some on the right that would look agast at that compromise, but just look at the lives that it would save, that are now being terminated.

That puts them at the vanguard of a bold effort by evangelical conservatives to mold a new generation of leaders who will answer not to voters, but to God. "We help them understand God's purpose for society," said Bouma, who coordinates the program, known as the Statesmanship Institute, for the Rev. D. James Kennedy. At least 3.5 million Americans tune in to Kennedy's sermons, broadcast from Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. Since 1995, the unabashedly political televangelist has also reached out to the Beltway elite with his Center for Christian Statesmanship in Washington. The center sponsors Bible studies, prayer meetings and free "Politics and Principle" lunches for members of Congress and their staffs, often drawing crowds in the hundreds. The Statesmanship Institute, founded two years ago, offers more in-depth training for $345. It's one of half a dozen evangelical leadership programs making steady inroads into Washington. The most prominent is Patrick Henry College in Purcellville, Va., an hour's drive from the capital. The college was founded five years ago with the goal of turning out "Christian men and women who will lead our nation with timeless biblical values." Nearly every graduate works in government or with a conservative advocacy group. The Witherspoon Fellowship has had similar success, placing its graduates in the White House, Congress, the State Department and legislatures nationwide. The fellowship brings 42 college students to Washington each year to study theology and politics — and to work at the conservative Family Research Council, which lobbies on such social issues as abortion and same-sex marriage. Such programs share a commitment to developing leaders who read the Bible as a blueprint. As Kennedy put it: "If we leave it to man to decide what's good and evil, there will be chaos."

He is right

"I'm sure there are people who won't appreciate the fact that this class goes on here in the Capitol," Myal Greene said one recent evening. He glanced around the stately dining room, reserved for the institute by a member of Congress. (House regulations allow private groups to hold events in the Capitol as long as they are noncommercial, nonpolitical and do not discriminate based on race, creed, color or national origin.) To Greene, there could hardly be a more appropriate location. He considers his private faith and his public duty inseparable. Greene, the deputy press secretary for a Republican congressman from Florida, signed up for the Statesmanship Institute in part because he felt his Christian ethics were under constant assault — from lobbyists offering him free steak dinners, from friends urging him to network over beers. The seminars proved a revelation. In one, Greene learned that ministers ran many of America's earliest schools. He hadn't thought much about education policy before that class. Now he plans to fight for history lessons on the Founding Fathers' faith, science lessons drawn from the Book of Genesis and public school prayer.

I wish him luck, but I think we must first replace a number of people on the USSC first.

.... The philosophy animating Cameron's lecture — that federal law should be based on biblical precepts — troubles the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State. "This nation was founded specifically to avoid the government making religious and theological decisions," Lynn said. "We are not to turn the Holy Scriptures of any group into public policy." Kennedy counters that evangelicals have every right to put up candidates who vote what they believe to be God's will — and let voters judge them. To which Lynn responds, with exasperation: "He says that because he knows in a majority Christian country, the Christian view is going to be expressed by more voters. They have no problem imposing their biblical worldview on every American." Evangelical conservatives acknowledge that's their goal. And they now have a systematic plan for achieving it.

Rev. Barry W. Lynn needs to understand that the Constitution says nothing about "Separation of Church and State". That came from a letter by Thomas Jefferson wrote. On Independence Day, 1776, nine of the original thirteen colonies had official state churches. And, at the time of the adoption of the First Amendment in 1791, four of the fourteen states recognized an official state church, and in spite of the First Amendment these state churches remained existent for many years before being abolished by the voluntary action of the state legislatures, so clearly our Founding Fathers did not fear a STATE religion. What they feared was the Federal Government selecting the state religion of one of the other states and making it "THE Official Church of the United States", much like England had the Church of England which was created because King Henry VIII could not get the divorce he wanted from the Roman Catholic Church, and many English citizens wanted to be free to remain Catholic.

Early evangelical leaders were determined social activists, championing causes such as the abolition of slavery and the prohibition of alcohol. But in the 1920s, a theological dispute split the movement. The more liberal ministers pushed for continued engagement in politics — and went on to take leading roles in the civil rights movement and Vietnam War protests. The conservative faction called for withdrawing from politics and focusing instead on building up the church. "Getting into politics didn't fix anything. It just diverted them from saving souls," said Jim Guth, a political science professor at Furman University in Greenville, S.C. With the legalization of abortion in 1973, some fundamentalists began to argue that they had an obligation to try to arrest society's moral decay. "We realized we [were] having our little holy huddles but not having any influence in Washington," said George Roller, a former public school teacher who now directs Kennedy's Center for Christian Statesmanship. Ministers such as Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson jumped headlong into politics. They succeeded in helping to elect conservatives, starting with President Reagan. "But things haven't changed very much," said Robert D. Stacey, chairman of the government department at Patrick Henry College. "Our candidates tick off the right policy positions, but it turns out, once they're in office, they're willing to compromise an awful lot — not just to bend but to break," he said. "Now, religious conservatives are saying they want the real thing." To develop such steadfast politicians, evangelicals are building on decades of work by nonprofit groups such as the Leadership Institute and Young America's Foundation, which train conservatives in grass-roots activism, effective campaigning, even how to launch a right-wing magazine.

Sounds like a good idea, but they also need to find some people with enough money to either buy out or effectively compete with some of the major newspapers like the NYT and WaPo, and at least one of the broadcast networks.

.... "Too many programs start with the idea that if we [enact] right-wing, conservative policies, we'll change America and God will be pleased," said Ryan Messmore, who runs a leadership academy aimed at helping young Christians share their faith through the arts, the media and other professions. But to Rep. Walter B. Jones, a North Carolina Republican, it's clear the institute is "doing the Lord's work." The nation needs more politicians who take their cues from God, not Gallup, or "our morality will crumble," he warned. "We won't recognize America." Roller shares that fear. So he ended the recent class on bioethics with a plea: "Heavenly Father, we pray you will help us to know how we should respond to these issues." The students answered as one: "Amen."

Susie Madrak blogged Okay, there is that little, slightly un-Christian thing of lying and misrepresenting what you’re up to until after you’re elected, but what the hey, when you’re doing God’s work, it’s okay to cut a few corners. Jesus said so.

I did not see anything in the article which indicated anything about lying and misrepresenting what you're up to until after you are elected, nor do I recall Jesus endorsing such behaviour. Perhaps Ms Madrak is thinking about something she learned at a Democratic strategy conference.

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Tuesday, August 23

This Day In History

• 1754   France's King Louis XVI was born at Versailles.
  
• 1914   Japan declared war on Germany in World War I.
  
• 1926   Silent film star Rudolph Valentino died in New York at age 31.
  
• 1939   Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union signed a non-aggression treaty.
  
• 1960   Broadway librettist Oscar Hammerstein II died at age 65.
  
• 1972   The Republican National Convention, meeting in Miami Beach, Fla., nominated Vice President Spiro T. Agnew for a second term.
  
• 1979   Soviet dancer Alexander Godunov defected while the Bolshoi Ballet was on tour in New York.
  
• 1989   Yusuf Hawkins, a black teenager, was shot dead after he and his friends were confronted by white youths in a Brooklyn neighborhood.
  
• 2000   An estimated 51 million viewers tuned in for the finale of CBS' reality series ''Survivor,'' in which contestant Richard Hatch won the $1 million prize.
  
• 2002   New York publicist Lizzie Grubman pleaded guilty in a hit-and-run crash that injured 16 people outside a Hamptons nightclub.
  
• 2003   Former priest John Geoghan, the convicted child molester whose prosecution sparked the sex abuse scandal that shook the Roman Catholic Church nationwide, died after another inmate attacked him in a Massachusetts prison.
  

Happy Birthday To

• 1754   Louis XVI (last King of France [1774-1792]; executed Jan 21, 1793)
  
• 1785   Oliver Hazard Perry (American naval officer: Battle of Lake Erie: “We have met the enemy, and they are ours.”; died Aug 23, 1819)
  
• 1934   Barbara Eden (Barbara Jean Moorhead) (actress: I Dream of Jeannie, Harper Valley P.T.A., The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Seven Faces of Dr. Lao)
  
• 1949   Shelley Long (Emmy Award-winning actress: Cheers [1982-83]; Irreconcilable Differences, Outrageous Fortune, Troop Beverly Hills, Night Shift, Don’t Tell Her It’s Me, The Brady Bunch Movie, The Money Pit)
  

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Skin Cells Converted to Stem Cells

WaPo reported Scientists' Work Could Clear Moral Hurdle to Embryonic Research - Scientists for the first time have turned ordinary skin cells into what appear to be embryonic stem cells -- without having to use human eggs or make new human embryos in the process, as has always been required in the past, a Harvard research team announced yesterday. The technique uses laboratory-grown human embryonic stem cells -- such as the ones that President Bush has already approved for use by federally funded researchers -- to "reprogram" the genes in a person's skin cell, turning that skin cell into an embryonic stem cell itself. The approach -- details of which are to be published this week in the journal Science but were made public on the journal's Web site yesterday -- is still in an early stage of development. But if further studies confirm its usefulness, it could offer an end run around the heated social and religious debate that has for years overshadowed the field of human embryonic stem cell research. Since the new stem cells in this technique are essentially rejuvenated versions of a person's own skin cells, the DNA in those new stem cells matches the DNA of the person who provided the skin cells. In theory at least, that means that any tissues grown from those newly minted stem cells could be transplanted into the person to treat a disease without much risk that they would be rejected, because they would constitute an exact genetic match.

This is very good news, but I bet the Dems are ticked off, because it removes a good argument for using embryonic stem cells for research, further cheapening life, and helping their goal of unlimited abortion on demand.

Susie Madrak blogged Of course, the wingnuts will use this as a pretext to shut down embryonic stem cell research

Pejman Yousefzadeh blogged

Glenn Reynolds blogged It's still early, but I hope this pans out.

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Drumbeat grows louder for fuel efficiency

Washington Times reports The recently approved energy legislation excluded the biggest item that would have cut U.S. dependence on foreign oil as well as help lower record-high oil and gasoline prices: higher fuel efficiency standards for cars and sport utility vehicles.

Aren't there a number of high fuel efficiency cars for sale right now, but don't the gas guzzlers sell better? If people would start buying the high fuel efficiency cars I guarantee Detroid would start producing cars with even better gas mileage. It does not take legislation to get them to do it. The market place can do a very good job all by itself.

Meanwhile, the Bush administration has taken no steps to better manage the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to relieve pressure on oil prices, or use it occasionally to pop speculative bubbles and alleviate foreign supply cutoffs that have helped drive up prices, according to Lawrence Kudlow of Kudlow & Co. and other analysts.

That is NOT the purpose of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, and I would not want a President that would use an important strategic resource to try to manipulate prices

John Lichtblau, analyst with the Petroleum Industry Research Foundation, said Congress shied away for ideological and political reasons from the most powerful tools available to the government to counter high oil prices.

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Officials in Iraq Report on Past Week's Successes

DefenseLINK News report The rebuilding effort continues in Iraq, and coalition military officials here today provided a summary of the past week's progress. Children in a village of Tamim province received school supplies, clothing and toys from the Nahrain Foundation, a nongovernmental organization that focuses on providing proper nutrition, decent clothing and medical supplies to Iraqi women and children. The foundation received its supplies as part of a joint effort between American donations and a coalition forces-run program known as "Operation Provide School Supplies," which accepts donations from private citizens and corporations in the United States. More than 600 children will return to renovated or rebuilt schools in Maysan province when school starts this fall. This week, renovation on the Al-Eethnar Mud School was completed, and the Al Eethar Mud School was replaced at a cost of $87,000, benefiting 500 students who attend classes there. Eight newly built schools in Wassit and Babil provinces are receiving new furniture before the start of the school year. Each of the school projects will receive office desks and chairs, file cabinets and new student desks. Collectively, 400 three-student desks will be proportionally divided among the schools, based upon the number of students.

This report is not like Chrenkoff put out, but I am happy to see someone reporting the good news from Iraq.

Arthur Chrenkoff blogged Life imitates Chrenkoff - Pentagon starts putting out its weekly summaries of positive developments in Iraq. Do I claim credit? No, but it's good to see these things finally happening. Rest assured that fruitful talks are taking place at the moment regarding the continuation of the "Good news" enterprise after I retire from blogging, but in the meantime, here's the latest compilation from a href="http://allthingsconservative.typepad.com/all_things_conservative/2005/08/iraq_news_round.html">All Things Conservative - and remember that my second last "Good News from Iraq" is coming up next Monday. In related news, read this worthwhile and very long piece by Rosemary Goudreau, editorial page editor of "The Tampa Tribune", who a few weeks ago started some soul searching in the mainstream media about the coverage of Iraq. You might not agree with some of Goudreau's conclusions, but she comprehensively covers all sides' arguments in this very important debate. And yours truly gets a cameo appearance.

Marc @USSNeverdock blogged No it's not Chrenkoff this time but the US government is taking a page from his book. About time too. These are the kind of things MSM should be reporting but refuse to do so.

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More young blacks ready to embrace GOP

Boston Globe reported Adam Hunter, an ambitious law student with bright eyes, an easy smile, and plenty of charisma, seems practically destined for politics. A half century ago, his grandfather helped register blacks living in rural South Carolina to vote. Hunter's father, born on a tobacco farm and taught in segregated schools, was inspired by the civil rights movement to join the Democratic Party. His parents have both headed the local Democratic committee in their New Jersey town, and Hunter himself worked as a campaign volunteer before he was old enough to vote.

Hunter, 22, is a first-year law student at Howard University, a historically black campus with a long record of liberal activism. He has political ambitions of his own -- but not with the Democrats. Instead, Hunter, who as an undergraduate headed Howard's chapter of College Republicans, sees himself as part of a younger generation of African-Americans. He is ready to cast aside traditional loyalties to the Democratic Party and forge his own political identity. ''My father and I are not that different, ideologically, but if you look at the time period we grew up in, that's where we're different," Hunter said. ''My foundation doesn't make me beholden to the Democratic Party. To me there's nothing more undemocratic than the idea that you have to vote for a Democrat or don't vote at all come Election Day."

This is one smart lad. I have been amazed at the fact that most Blacks voted lockstep with the Democratic party, when it has been a long time since the Dems really did anything for Blacks, and since they really kept Blacks in poverty with their Welfare Programs that gave them an incentive to just stay on the dole and not try to improve themselves. Republicans offer the opportunity to improve yourself, if you just want to.

Hunter is one of a growing number of young African-Americans leaving the party of their parents and grandparents in favor of the GOP -- or choosing not to have a political affiliation at all. A July Gallup Poll of minorities' political opinions indicated that black voters overwhelmingly favor the Democratic Party, and the percentage of African-Americans who consider themselves Republicans lingers at about 9 percent. However, according to the poll, of those blacks who vote GOP, most are under age 50 -- a generational shift that could be an opportunity for Republicans and a headache for Democrats.

I hope so.

Democrats have had a decades-long hammerlock on the black vote, stemming largely from the civil rights battles of the 1960s. Senator John F. Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat, received an estimated 88 percent of the African-American vote in 2004, 2 percent less than Al Gore won in 2000, according to exit polls. Jeffrey M. Jones, who conducted the Gallup Poll, said it is too early to tell whether a slight increase in young black voters identifying with the Republican Party represents a long-term trend. But if those numbers rise another 5 or 10 percent next year, people should take note.

Another thing Blacks should take note of is how many black Secretaries of State have the Dems named? I believe the number is zero, while for Republicans it is two, and one is a Black Woman.

''There's a lot of hints out there that something is going on," he said. ''Nothing is totally conclusive, but the more hints there are out there, the more evidence you have that this could be real." However, Republicans, billing themselves as ''the party of Lincoln," have launched a high-profile campaign to chip away at what has been a reliable voting block for Democrats. While older black voters still have strong attachments to the Democratic party, political specialists say, younger African-Americans are less likely to be bound by tradition: They grew up in an integrated society, they don't have personal memories of the civil rights movement, and they are more focused on entrepreneurship and opportunity, two of the GOP's selling points. However, Republicans, billing themselves as ''the party of Lincoln," have launched a high-profile campaign to chip away at what has been a reliable voting block for Democrats. While older black voters still have strong attachments to the Democratic party, political specialists say, younger African-Americans are less likely to be bound by tradition: They grew up in an integrated society, they don't have personal memories of the civil rights movement, and they are more focused on entrepreneurship and opportunity, two of the GOP's selling points.

Hugh Hewitt blogged The Boston Globe reports on the increasingly likelihood that young African Americans will align with Republicans. So the Dems are split on both of the great issues of the day, and the GOP is widening its outreach. That's an excellent way to end the summer.

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Darwinists and Doubters Clash

NYT reported At the heart of the debate over intelligent design is this question: Can a scientific explanation of the history of life include the actions of an unseen higher being? The proponents of intelligent design, a school of thought that some have argued should be taught alongside evolution in the nation's schools, say that the complexity and diversity of life go beyond what evolution can explain.

Absolutely. It does not say that evolution was not one of the tools the Creator used, just that He was involved, and did not restrict His creation to those things that evolution could produce.

Biological marvels like the optical precision of an eye, the little spinning motors that propel bacteria and the cascade of proteins that cause blood to clot, they say, point to the hand of a higher being at work in the world. In one often-cited argument, Michael J. Behe, a professor of biochemistry at Lehigh University and a leading design theorist, compares complex biological phenomena like blood clotting to a mousetrap: Take away any one piece - the spring, the baseboard, the metal piece that snags the mouse - and the mousetrap stops being able to catch mice. Similarly, Dr. Behe argues, if any one of the more than 20 proteins involved in blood clotting is missing or deficient, as happens in hemophilia, for instance, clots will not form properly.

Such all-or-none systems, Dr. Behe and other design proponents say, could not have arisen through the incremental changes that evolution says allowed life to progress to the big brains and the sophisticated abilities of humans from primitive bacteria. These complex systems are "always associated with design," Dr. Behe, the author of the 1996 book "Darwin's Black Box," said in an interview. "We find such systems in biology, and since we know of no other way that these things can be produced, Darwinian claims notwithstanding, then we are rational to conclude they were indeed designed." It is an argument that appeals to many Americans of faith.

But hated by the Secular Humanists in charge of the school system.

But mainstream scientists say that the claims of intelligent design run counter to a century of research supporting the explanatory and predictive power of Darwinian evolution, and that the design approach suffers from fundamental problems that place it outside the realm of science. For one thing, these scientists say, invoking a higher being as an explanation is unscientific. "One of the rules of science is, no miracles allowed," said Douglas H. Erwin, a paleobiologist at the Smithsonian Institution. "That's a fundamental presumption of what we do."

But one of the rules of faith is that miracles are allowed, and in fact happen every day.

That does not mean that scientists do not believe in God. Many do. But they see science as an effort to find out how the material world works, with nothing to say about why we are here or how we should live.

So they believe in God, but don't believe He had any involvement whatsoever in Creation? Was he busy doing something else, and did he just look up and say, look what random chance has created? That is ridiculous.

And in that quest, they say, there is no need to resort to otherworldly explanations. So much evidence has been provided by evolutionary studies that biologists are able to explain even the most complex natural phenomena and to fill in whatever blanks remain with solid theories. This is possible, in large part, because evolution leaves tracks like the fossil remains of early animals

None of which prove that one species evolved into an entirely different species.

or the chemical footprints in DNA that have been revealed by genetic research.... Intelligent design proponents are careful to say that they cannot identify the designer at work in the world, although most readily concede that God is the most likely possibility. And they offer varied opinions on when and how often a designer intervened. Dr. Behe, for example, said he could imagine that, like an elaborate billiards shot, the design was set up when the Big Bang occurred 13.6 billion years ago. "It could have all been programmed into the universe as far as I'm concerned," he said. But it was also possible, Dr. Behe added, that a designer acted continually throughout the history of life.

Either is possible. But if the Secular Humanists block all possible discussions, we will never know.

Mainstream scientists say this fuzziness about when and how design supposedly occurred makes the claims impossible to disprove. It is unreasonable, they say, for design advocates to demand that every detail of evolution be filled in.

"Mainstream scientists" Is that the same as Mainstream Media, i.e. scientists who hide any news or results that proves something the Left does not want to see proven?

Dr. Behe, however, said he might find it compelling if scientists were to observe evolutionary leaps in the laboratory. He pointed to an experiment by Richard E. Lenski, a professor of microbial ecology at Michigan State University, who has been observing the evolution of E. coli bacteria for more than 15 years. "If anything cool came out of that," Dr. Behe said, "that would be one way to convince me." Dr. Behe said that if he was correct, then the E. coli in Dr. Lenski's lab would evolve in small ways but never change in such a way that the bacteria would develop entirely new abilities. In fact, such an ability seems to have developed. Dr. Lenski said his experiment was not intended to explore this aspect of evolution, but nonetheless, "We have recently discovered a pretty dramatic exception, one where a new and surprising function has evolved," he said.

What new ability? Did it turn into a plant, or an animal, or what?

Dr. Lenski declined to give any details until the research is published. But, he said, "If anyone is resting his or her faith in God on the outcome that our experiment will not produce some major biological innovation, then I humbly suggest they should rethink the distinction between science and religion." Dr. Behe said, "I'll wait and see."

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Monday, August 22

This Day In History

• 1485   England's King Richard III was killed in the Battle of Bosworth Field, ending the War of the Roses.
  
• 1762   Ann Franklin became the first woman to hold the title of newspaper editor. She assumed those duties at "The Newport Mercury" in Newport, RI.
  
• 1770   Captain James Cook, having landed at Australia, claimed it for the British Crown.
  
• 1775   England's King George III proclaimed the American colonies in a state of open rebellion.
  
• 1846   The United States annexed New Mexico.
  
• 1851   The schooner America outraced the Aurora off the English coast to win a trophy that became known as the America's Cup.
  
• 1893   Author, poet, critic and wit Dorothy Parker was born in West End, N.J.
  
• 1911   Leonardo da Vinci’s painting, "Mona Lisa", was stolen from the Louvre Museum in Paris this night. Those who visited the Louvre stared at the blank space on the wall where the world’s most famous painting had hung. Was it the work of a madman? A professional thief couldn’t sell the world’s most famous painting ... so it must have been someone who had lost their mental faculties ... or was it? On December 13, 1913, "Mona Lisa" was found, undamaged, in the city of its origin. It seems that another Florence artist, this one of the 20th century, Vincenzo Perugia, had been arrested for stealing the painting. Vincenzo allegedly tried to sell the painting to an antique dealer.
  
• 1956   President Dwight D. Eisenhower and Vice President Richard Nixon were nominated for second terms by the Republican National Convention in San Francisco.
  
• 1968   Pope Paul VI arrived in Bogota, Colombia, for the start of the first papal visit to Latin America.
  
• 1986   Kerr-McGee Corp. agreed to pay the estate of the late Karen Silkwood $1.38 million, settling a 10-year-old nuclear contamination lawsuit.
  
• 1989   Black Panther co-founder Huey P. Newton was shot to death in Oakland, Calif.
  
• 1996   President Bill Clinton signed welfare legislation ending guaranteed cash payments to the poor and demanding work from recipients.
  
• 2003   Alabama's chief justice, Roy Moore, was suspended for his refusal to obey a federal court order to remove his Ten Commandments monument from the rotunda of his courthouse.
  

Happy Birthday To

• 1834   Samuel Langley (pioneer in aviation: Langley Air Force Base [in Virginia] bears his name; died in 1906)
  
• 1920   Ray Bradbury (writer: Fahrenheit 451, The Toynbee Convector, Martian Chronicles)
  
• 1920   Dr. Denton Cooley (heart surgeon: pioneered many techniques used in cardiovascular surgery)
  
• 1934   Norman Schwarzkopf (U.S. Army General: Desert Storm [1990-91]; author: It Doesn’t Take a Hero)
  
• 1940   Valerie Harper (Emmy Award-winning actress: Rhoda [1974-75], The Mary Tyler Moore Show [1970-71, 1971-72, 1972-73]; City, Valerie)
  
• 1947   Cindy Williams (actress: Laverne & Shirley, Normal Life, Getting By, The Funny Side, American Graffiti, Rude Awakening)
  

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Israeli withdrawal is correct and necessary

Charles Krauthammer wrote in Townhall The Israeli abandonment of Gaza is a withdrawal of despair. Unlike the Oslo concessions of 1993, there is not even the pretense of getting anything in return from the Palestinians. Nonetheless, unilateralism is both correct and necessary. Israel has no peace partner -- Mahmoud Abbas has nothing to offer and has offered nothing -- and in the absence of a partner, there is only one logical policy: rationalize your defensive lines and prepare for a long wait. Gaza was simply a bridge too far: settlements too far-flung and small to justify the huge psychological and material cost of defending them.

I agree completely.

Pulling out of Gaza leaves behind the first truly independent Palestinian state -- uncontrolled and highly militant -- but one from which Israel is fenced off. If Israel can complete its West Bank fence, it will have established a stable equilibrium and essentially abolished terrorism as a regular and reliable means of attack -- i.e., as a usable strategic weapon. That will leave the Palestinians a stark choice: remain in their state of miserable militancy with no prospects of victory, or finally accept the Jewish state and make a deal. That is Israel's strategy.

There are two problems with it: What about the rockets? What about the world? The first problem is that while the fences do prevent terrorist infiltration, they do nothing about rockets. For months, Palestinians have been firing rockets from Gaza into towns within Israel proper. The attacks are momentarily in suspension, but with the enhanced ability to smuggle in weapons from Egypt and with no Israeli patrols looking for them, the attacks will resume and get far worse. What to do?

In my opinion they should mount towers at periodic places along the wall, and in at least some of them (and no one should know which ones), place fire tracking rada so they can immediately tell where a rocket was fired from, and immediately blast that location, and several others, off the map.

Something Israel should have done long ago: active and relentless deterrence. Israel should announce that henceforth, any rocket launched from Palestinian territory will immediately trigger a mechanically automatic response in which five Israeli rockets will be fired back. There will be no human intervention in the loop. Every Palestinian rocket landing in Israel will instantly trigger sensors and preset counter-launchers. Any Palestinian terrorist firing up a rocket will know that he is triggering six: one Palestinian and five Israeli. Israel would decide how these five would be preprogrammed to respond. Perhaps three aimed at the launch site and vicinity, and two at a list of predetermined military and strategic assets of the Palestinian militias.

If they could get some UAVs aloft they could also track the people who fired the rockets back to their homes, and targe them as well.

This new policy would echo, though in far more benign form, America's Cold War deterrence policy of "massive retaliation." That was all somewhat theoretical, but the Soviets apparently thought otherwise when they backed down during the Cuban missile crisis. In Gaza, the issue is not theoretical. Once Israel leaves, there is no way to dismantle the rockets. Deterrence is all there is. After but a few Israeli demonstrations of "non-massive retaliation,'' the Palestinians themselves will shut down their terrorist rocketeers.

A very good idea.

The second problem is world reaction to the Gaza withdrawal. Far from Israel getting any credit for this deeply wrenching action, the demand now is for yet more concessions -- from Israel. The New York Times called the Gaza withdrawal "only the beginning'' and declared sonorously that Ariel Sharon "must also be forewarned'' that giving up the West Bank must be next.

Maybe one of the retalitary strikes should be the NYT building. No I guess that is not a good idea, but Israel might tell the NYT they are thinking about it.

This is a counsel of folly. The idea that if only Israel made more concessions and more withdrawals, the Palestinians will be enticed into making peace is flatly contradicted by history. We are not talking ancient history here; we are talking the last 12 years. Under Oslo, Israel made massive, near-suicidal concessions: bringing the PLO back to life, installing Yasser Arafat in power in the West Bank and Gaza, permitting him to arm militia after militia, and ultimately offering him (at Camp David 2000) the first Palestinian state in history, with a shared Jerusalem and total Israeli withdrawal from 95 percent of the formerly occupied territories (with Israel giving up some of its own territory to make the Palestinians whole). How were these concessions met? With a savage terror war that killed 1,000 Israelis and maimed thousands more. The Gaza withdrawal is not the beginning but the end. Apart from perhaps some evacuations of outlying settlements on the West Bank, it is the end of the concession road for Israel. And it is the beginning of the new era of self-sufficiency and separation in which Israel ensures its security not by concessions, but by fortification, barrier creation, realism and patient waiting. Waiting for the first-ever genuine Palestinian concessions. Waiting for the Palestinians to honor the promises -- to recognize Israel and renounce terrorism -- they solemnly made at Oslo and brazenly betrayed. That's the next step. Without it, nothing happens.

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She Does Not Speak for Me

Ronald R. Griffin wrote in OpinionJournal My son died in Iraq--and it was not in vain - I lost a son in Iraq and Cindy Sheehan does not speak for me. I grieve with Mrs. Sheehan, for all too well I know the full measure of the agony she is forever going to endure. I honor her son for his service and sacrifice.

I also honor her son for his service and sacrifice, as I honor your son for his. And I know the grief that she has, but it has certainly led her down the wrong path.

However, I abhor all that she represents and those who would cast her as the symbol for parents of our fallen soldiers. The fallen heroes, until now, have enjoyed virtually no individuality. They have been treated as a monolith, a mere number. Now Mrs. Sheehan, with adept public relations tactics, has succeeded in elevating herself above the rest of us. Sen. Bill Nelson of Florida declared that Mrs. Sheehan is now the symbol for all parents who have lost children in Iraq. Sorry, senator. Not for me. Maureen Dowd of the New York Times portrays Mrs. Sheehan as a distraught mom standing heroically outside the guarded gates of the most powerful and inhumane man on earth, President Bush. Ms. Dowd is so moved by Mrs. Sheehan's plight that she bestowed upon her and all grieving parents the title of "absolute moral authority." That characterization epitomizes the arrogance and condescension of anyone who would presume to understand and speak for all of us. How can we all possess "absolute moral authority" when we hold so many different perspectives? I don't want that title. I haven't earned that title. Although we all walk the same sad road of sorrow and agony, we walk it as individuals with all the refreshing uniqueness of our own thoughts shaped in large measure by the life and death of our own fallen hero. Over the past few days I have reached out to other parents and loved ones of fallen heroes in an attempt to find out their reactions to all the attention Mrs. Sheehan has attracted. What emerges from those conversations is an empathy for Mrs. Sheehan's suffering but a fundamental disagreement with her politics.

A feeling I share.

Ann and Dale Hampton lost their only child, Capt. Kimberly Hampton, on Jan. 2, 2004, while she was flying her Kiowa helicopter. She was a member of the 82nd Airborne and the company commander. She had already served in Afghanistan before being deployed to Iraq. Ann Hampton wrote, "My grief sometimes seems unbearable, but I cannot add the additional baggage of anger. Mrs. Sheehan has every right to protest . . . but I cannot do that. I would be protesting the very thing that Kimberly believed in and died for."

Marine Capt. Benjamin Sammis was Stacey Sammis's husband. Ben died on April 4, 2003, while flying his Super Cobra helicopter. Listen to Stacey and she will tell you that she is just beginning to understand the enormousness of the character of soldiers who knowingly put their lives at risk to defend our country. She will tell you that one of her deepest regrets is that the world did not have the honor of experiencing for a much longer time this outstanding Marine she so deeply loved.

Speak to Joan Curtin, whose son, Cpl. Michael Curtin, was an infantryman with the 2-7th 3rd ID, and her words are passionately ambivalent. She says she has no room for bitterness. She has a life to lead and a family to nurture. She spoke of that part of her that never heals, for that is where Michael resides. She can go on, always knowing there will be that pain.

Karen Long is the mother of Spc. Zachariah Long, who died with my son Kyle on May 30, 2003. Zack and Kyle were inseparable friends as only soldiers can be, and Karen and I have become inseparable friends since their deaths. Karen's view is that what Mrs. Sheehan is doing she has every right to do, but she is dishonoring all soldiers, including Karen's son, Zack. Karen cannot comprehend why Mrs. Sheehan cannot seem to come to grips with the idea that her own son, Casey, was a soldier like Zack who had a mission to complete. Karen will tell you over and over again that Zack is not here and no one, but no one will dishonor her son.

My wife, Robin, has a different take on Mrs. Sheehan. She told me, "I don't care what she says or does. She is no more important than any other mother."

By all accounts Spc. Casey Sheehan, Mrs. Sheehan's son, was a soldier by choice and by the strength of his character. I did not have the honor of knowing him, but I have read that he attended community college for three years and then chose to join the Army. In August 2003, five months into Operation Iraqi Freedom and after three years of service, Casey Sheehan re-enlisted in the Army with the full knowledge there was a war going on, and with the high probability he would be assigned to a combat area. Mrs. Sheehan frequently speaks of her son in religious terms, even saying that she thought that some day Casey would be a priest. Like so many of the individuals who have given their lives in service to our country, Casey was a very special young man. How do you decry that which someone has chosen to do with his life? How does a mother dishonor the sacrifice of her own son?

Mrs. Sheehan has become the poster child for all the negativity surrounding the war in Iraq. In a way it heartens me to have all this attention paid to her, because that means others in her position now have the chance to be heard. Give equal time to other loved ones of fallen heroes. Feel the intensity of their love, their pride and the sorrow.

To many loved ones, there are few if any "what ifs." They, like their fallen heroes before them, live in the world as it is and not what it was or could have been. Think of the sacrifices that have brought us to this day. We as a country made a collective decision. We must now live up to our decision and not deviate until the mission is complete.

Thirty-five years ago, a president faced a similar dilemma in Vietnam. He gave in and we got "peace with honor." To this day, I am still searching for that honor. Today, those who defend our freedom every day do so as volunteers with a clear and certain purpose. Today, they have in their commander in chief someone who will not allow us to sink into self-pity. I will not allow him to. The amazing part about talking to the people left behind is that I did not want them to stop. After speaking to so many I have come away with the certainty of their conviction that in a large measure it's because of the deeds and sacrifices of their fallen heroes that this is a better and safer world we now live in. Those who lost their lives believed in the mission. To honor their memory, and because it's right, we must believe in the mission, too. We refuse to allow Cindy Sheehan to speak for all of us. Instead, we ask you to learn the individual stories. They are glorious. Honor their memories. Honor their service. Never dishonor them by giving in. They never did.

Mr. Griffin is the father of Spc. Kyle Andrew Griffin, a recipient of the Army Commendation Medal, Army Meritorious Service Medal and the Bronze Star, who was killed in a truck accident on a road between Mosul and Tikrit on May 30, 2003.

Mr Griffin, thank you for this article, and for the service of your son.

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The Secret of Gaza

David Frum wrote on National Review Online Why is Ariel Sharon evacuating Gaza? It is not because he believes that a decent Palestinian state will emerge after the Israelis withdraw. Nobody believes that. The almost universal consensus among experts on the region is that post-occupation Gaza will became a Mediterranean Somalia: an unstable failed state in which gangs compete for power and extremist Islam finds a sanctuary. Nor was Sharon responding to international pressure. His plan for unilateral evacuation surprised and displeased the United States and the European countries. They wanted Sharon to negotiate with Abbas. They wanted the deal to involve all the Palestinian territories, not just Gaza. And they wanted the whole thing to happen very, very slowly. Israel’s strategic situation did not force Sharon’s hand: Israel was more than capable of holding Gaza for years to come. Domestic public opinion is not the explanation: Sharon won Israel’s 2003 elections by ITAL opposing END ITAL a Gaza withdrawal.

It could have held it, but it was losing way too many soldiers to defend a handfull of settlers. It was better to withdraw, so he could tell the Europeans he tried, and then when Abbas can't control the terrorists, he has a bood reason to just wipe Gaza off the map.

So why, why, why? Let me try a theory. Israel is the victim of an organized international hypocrisy.

That is not a theory. It is a fact.

After the experience of the 1990s, few people retain an illusions about the likely character of any Palestinian state. The Palestinian leadership is corrupt through and through. The only effective opposition to that leadership is violent and extremist. Palestinian public opinion utterly rejects coexistence with Israel. A Palestinian state, whatever its borders, will wage terror war against Israel – and give sanctuary to Islamic extremists from around the world. It will murder Israelis and threaten the security of Europeans and Americans. European and American political leaders recognize this depressing fact. But they also recognize that Palestine issue has excited passions throughout the Muslim world – and among Muslim minorities in the West. These leaders believe that if they want to quell Muslim extremism, they must be seen to work toward the creation of a Palestinian state. In Charles Dickens’ novel David Copperfield there is a character who answers every request with a sigh: Ah, if it were up to him, he would of course say “yes” with pleasure – but his partner, Mr. Jorrocks,* is so very difficult ….. In just such a way, European and American political leaders favor a “peace process” that moves the Palestinians ever closer to statehood, without ever quite reaching it; a process that positions the Israelis as the Mr. Jorrocks of the world. Ariel Sharon has decided to put an end to this play. The world wants a Palestinian state? Very well – let them have it. And the result, as we are seeing, is something close to panic in the foreign ministries of the West. Not just the West: the Middle East too. The Egyptians do not want a Hamas state on their borders. They had expected Ariel Sharon to place a cordon between Egypt and Gaza. He has said he will not do so – that he is leaving the job up to the Egyptians. And indeed last month Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz announced that 750 Egyptian soldiers would soon arrive to replace the Israeli Defense Forces. Is this Egyptian role on the border a precursor to a larger Egyptian role within Gaza? Egypt after all remains far more vulnerable to Islamic extremist ideology than Israel.

And Gaza used to belong to Egypt. They did not want it back when they made peace with Israel, because they had populated it with all of the Palestinians in their borders. Now they need to figure out something else to do with them.

The Egyptian authorities have crushed the extremist movement within their borders. Do they wish to see a jihadist state emerge on their borders? It seems unlikely. Could it be that Sharon is calling the bluff of Western governments and the Arab states? By creating the very Palestinian state that those governments and those states pretend to want but actually dread – Sharon is forcing them to end their pretense and acknowledge the truth: The Palestinian leadership is incapable of creating a state that can live at peace with anyone, not Israel, not the other Arab states, not Europe, not the world. Somebody else must govern the restless and violent Arab-majority territories west of the Jordan River. Israel has suffered four decades of condemnation for doing the job. Sharon is now resigning the task to anybody else who would like to step in and take over the job. Nobody wants to. But Egypt and Jordan may soon realize that they have no choice. If there is a secret behind Sharon’s plan – that is it.

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Evolution on the Defensive

NYT reports When President Bush plunged into the debate over the teaching of evolution this month, saying, "both sides ought to be properly taught," he seemed to be reading from the playbook of the Discovery Institute, the conservative think tank here that is at the helm of this newly volatile frontier in the nation's culture wars. After toiling in obscurity for nearly a decade, the institute's Center for Science and Culture has emerged in recent months as the ideological and strategic backbone behind the eruption of skirmishes over science in school districts and state capitals across the country. Pushing a "teach the controversy" approach to evolution, the institute has in many ways transformed the debate into an issue of academic freedom rather than a confrontation between biology and religion.

Dems seem to realize they must at least pretend to be religious if they ever hope to regain power; why then are they so frightened to allow school children know that there is an theory that supports what they learn in Church, and at the same time embraces the scientific theory of evolution. But just they insist on maintaining abortion on demand, even in the third trimester, they insist on teaching children the Secular Humanist version of Evolution, instead of one that describes Evolution, but has an answer for the many gaps in the theory of evolution.

Mainstream scientists reject the notion that any controversy over evolution even exists. But Mr. Bush embraced the institute's talking points by suggesting that alternative theories and criticism should be included in biology curriculums "so people can understand what the debate is about."

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Sufis Under Attack as Sunni Rifts Widen

NYT reported As the twilight ritual of the Sufi Muslims reached its crescendo, the five drummers pounded harder and quicker, inspiring the men standing in a circle to spin their heads ever more rapidly, their shoulder-length hair twirling through the air. The sun dipped low beyond the shrine's inner courtyard, and the chanting rose in volume. "God, you are the only surviving one, the only everlasting," the dozen men said in unison, their eyes closed, more than a hundred spectators surrounding them at this shrine in western Baghdad. "The oneness, the oneness." Sufism, generally considered a branch of Sunni Islam, is divided into orders, the most famous being that of the Mevlevi, or whirling dervishes. Sufis seek, through dance, music, chanting and other intensely physical rituals, to transcend worldly existence and perceive the face of the divine. Their mysticism has contributed to their pacific reputation. But in Iraq, no one is ever far removed from war. In a sign of the widening and increasingly complex rifts in Iraqi society, Sufis have suddenly found themselves the targets of attacks. Many Iraqis believe those responsible are probably fundamentalist Sunnis who view the Sufis as apostates, just one step removed from the Shiites.

Another example of why Iraq needs a consitutional provision proteting the rights of all religions in the country, but they need to be careful that some rogue Supreme Court does not interpret it as a freedom from religion and require a Wall of Separation between Mosque and State.

Sheik Ali al-Faiz, a senior official at this Sufi shrine, or takia, rattled off a list of recent assaults - the leader of a takia in the insurgent stronghold of Ramadi was abducted and killed this month; a bomb exploded in a takia in Kirkuk earlier this year; gunmen beat Sufi worshipers at a mosque in Ramadi in January; a bomb exploded in the kitchen of a takia in Ramadi last September and a bomb in April 2004 destroyed an entire takia in the same city.

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Hamas Pushing for Lead Role in a New Gaza

NYT reports Aides to Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, invited reporters on Friday to record him at prayer. The imam outside his office in Gaza City celebrated Israel's withdrawal from Gaza and envisioned universities, schools, parks and mosques being built on settlement land. At the same time, a few miles away in the Jabaliya refugee camp, hundreds of men and boys, unable to crowd into the Caliph Mosque, sat on nearby sidewalks and in alleyways. In a humid stench of sewage and fried fish, with expressions alert and thoughtful, they listened as their imam called the Israeli withdrawal an "achievement of resistance," celebrated prominent "martyrs of Hamas" and declared, "Allah knows that when we offer up our children, it is much better than choosing the road of humiliation and negotiation."

The imam's interpretation of Allah's will is that rather than the people having jobs working for the Israelis in agriculture and small-factories, it is better that they be unemployed and live in squallor. If Islam really teaches that (I dont think it does - I think only imams that have hijacked the religion teach that), then I think they need to find a new religion. If they can't bring themselves to embrace Judiasm, they might want to look further into what Christ said (and Jesus is mentioned in the Koran)

Israel's evacuation of its Gaza settlements has touched off a fierce political campaign here, and its outcome may determine whether Mr. Abbas can succeed in governing and eventually making peace. Hamas and Mr. Abbas's more secular faction, Fatah, are jostling for position in municipal elections in coming months and legislative elections planned for Jan. 25, the first that Hamas has ever said it would enter. Mr. Abbas is trying to contain Hamas within the Palestinian political system and ultimately to take its weapons away. Hamas, a far more disciplined, methodical movement than Fatah, wants to strengthen its hold on Palestinian society. Hamas has "a mission," said Ziad Abu Amr, a political scientist and independent legislator who serves as a liaison between Mr. Abbas and Hamas. "They want to Islamicize the state and society. Yes, in the final analysis, they want control." From the mosque roof on Friday, the green Hamas flag fluttered as usual. But three black, white, green and red Palestinian national flags stood there as well, modified to suggest Hamas's fundamentalist message. Across the blank white field, someone had stitched the words, "There is no God but Allah and Muhammad is his prophet."

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After the Gaza withdrawal, will Mahmoud Abbas make concessions for peace?

OpinionJournal editorialized Even for those who believe--as we do--that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is right to withdraw Jewish settlements from the Gaza Strip, last week's events in Israel were heart-rending to watch. Settlers abandoned homes, and farmers fields, that had been theirs for years, sometimes decades. Young Israeli soldiers were asked to enforce the government's writ on their cousins, siblings and parents. Mr. Sharon has risked his job, and lost much of his political base, to move ahead with the withdrawal. The international community, including the U.S., which has long demanded sacrifices from "both sides" for the sake of peace, now has the satisfaction of seeing that sacrifice vividly offered, at least on the Israeli side.

Hopefully they will remember the sacrifices the Israelis have made, since I doubt seriously if we will see any sacrificies from the Palestenian side. Rather I predict there will just be more demands for further concessions from Israel, and increases in the attacks, and hopefully this time Israel will respond not with a few targeted killings, but massive bombings to clear much if not all of the Gaza strip.

The logic behind the withdrawal is clear. Prior to last weekend, there were only 8,500 Israeli settlers in an area that contained one million or more Palestinians. Contrary to received opinion, for most of Israel's occupation these settlers were an economic boon to Palestinians, providing them with agricultural and small-factory jobs that had never existed under the previous Egyptian military administration. But that was before Yasser Arafat returned to Gaza to radicalize the population, and before the outbreak of the intifada, in which the settlers became the targets of incessant Palestinian terrorism.

Now let us see if Abbas will be able to provide the agricultural and small-factory jobs that the attacks caused them to lose from the Israelis.

Protecting the settlers, some of them in isolated communities, turned out to be a huge drain on Israel's military and economic resources, resources that could be better deployed by putting the country behind clear defensible lines. The much-maligned Israeli security fence is part of the same strategy, and it has helped reduce Israel's terror fatalities by over 90% in two years.

And should be continued until it completely surrounds Israel. And then maybe they could come over here and build one on our southern border (and perhaps even the northern border)

These are real benefits for Israel, even if the Gaza withdrawal has not been met by reciprocal Palestinian concessions. At the same time, the risks of withdrawal are also clear, the main one being that the Palestinians will view it as a sign of weakness. There are indications this is happening, with Hamas declaring in a slogan that "resistance wins, so let's go on." Gaza may yet become a kind of "Hamastan"--a regional terrorist enclave threatening not just Israel but also neighboring Egypt and perhaps Europe.

But if the terrorists significantly increase in Gaza, including their leadership, a single massive attack would remove most of them, and those left would know not to try that again.

Israel's main security against this possibility lies in its overwhelming conventional military deterrent, just as it does against "Hezbollahstan" on its northern border with Lebanon. The man who could make the withdrawal work and stop Hamastan in its tracks is Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Mr. Abbas came to office democratically in January with a pledge to confiscate illegal weapons and "make the law the leader in this country." Less than a year later, however, the Palestinian territories are more lawless than ever. Mr. Abbas has been unable to rein in the al-Aksa Martyrs Brigades, the terrorist paramilitary wing of his ruling Fatah party. He has also failed, or perhaps refused, to enforce his will on Hamas, trying instead to coax them into the political process and getting them to agree to a cease-fire. Hamas has not abandoned its arms, but it has seen its political popularity soar in the face of Mr. Abbas's obvious weakness.

In the coming months, Mr. Abbas may seek to deflect attention from his government's shortcomings by demanding further Israeli withdrawals from the West Bank. (Israel already intends to remove four small settlements in the northern West Bank.) If history is any guide, his plea will find sympathetic ears in European capitals and probably some pockets of the U.S. foreign policy establishment. But Israel cannot be expected to make further wrenching withdrawals if the message from the international community is that they are never enough.

Instead Israel needs to make a massive attack in Gaza, wiping out many of the terrorists attacking Israel, and then withdrawing the settlers from the four small settlements in the northern West Bank, and ask "Now are you willing to negotiate peace, or do you need another lesson"

And Palestine will have no hope of becoming a functional and civilized state if no serious demands are made of it to reform its institutions and eliminate its culture of terrorism and hooliganism. The problem with Palestine today isn't the absence of land--Singapore isn't much larger than Gaza, and is four times as populous--but the poverty of expectations as to what it ought to be and might become. Israel has now done what it had to. It's time the Palestinians follow suit.

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US concedes ground to Islamists on Iraqi law

Reuters reports U.S. diplomats have conceded ground to Islamists on the role of religion in Iraq, negotiators said on Saturday as they raced to meet a 48-hour deadline to draft a constitution under intense U.S. pressure. U.S. diplomats, who have insisted the constitution must enshrine ideals of equal rights and democracy, declined comment. Shi'ite, Sunni and Kurdish negotiators all said there was accord on a bigger role for Islamic law than Iraq had before. But a secular Kurdish politician said Kurds opposed making Islam "the", not "a", main source of law -- changing current wording -- and subjecting all legislation to a religious test. "We understand the Americans have sided with the Shi'ites," he said. "It's shocking. It doesn't fit American values. They have spent so much blood and money here, only to back the creation of an Islamist state ... I can't believe that's what the Americans really want or what the American people want."

My main concern about Islam being mentioned in the Iraqi Constitution, is that since the majority is Shiite, it may become the Shiite version of Islam, and that the Kurds and the Sunnis may not like that. However I do understand their concern, since even though our Constitution was written in what was a definitely Christian nation, where on Independence Day, 1776, nine of the original thirteen colonies had official state churches, and where at the time of the adoption of the First Amendment in 1791, which only wanted to prevent Congress from naming a specific church to be the official church of the entire US, four of the fourteen states still recognized an official state church, yet subsequently our Supreme Court has decided that we had a Wall of Separation between Church and State which prevents any level of the government, even local schools, from celebrating Christmas.

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AP reported It's no yellow jersey, but President Bush on Saturday presented Lance Armstrong with another shirt to show off his biking experiences - a red, white and blue T-shirt emblazoned "Tour de Crawford."

The leader of the free world and the world's biking master rode for 17 miles on Bush's ranch for about two hours at midmorning. Bush showed Armstrong the sites of the ranch that he calls "a little slice of heaven," including a stop at a waterfall midway through the ride. They were accompanied by a small group of staff and Secret Service agents and a film crew from the Discovery Channel, Armstrong's Tour de France sponsor, which had exclusive media access for the ride. Footage was shot for a program on Armstrong to air this week. Neither Bush nor Armstrong spoke to reporters, although White House spokesman Trent Duffy said the president was impressed with the seven-time champ's skills.

It is nice having a president that gets his exercise by running or riding a bike, than riding an intern in the Oral Office

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Sunday, August 21

This Day In History

• 1680   Pueblo Indians took possession of Santa Fe, N.M., after driving out the Spanish.
  
• 1831   Former slave Nat Turner led a violent insurrection in Virginia.
  
• 1858   The first of seven debates between U.S. Senate candidates Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas was held in Ottawa, Ill.
  
• 1878   The American Bar Association was founded in Saratoga, N.Y.
  
• 1912   The first boy reached the rank of Eagle Scout, the highest rank in the Boy Scouts of America program. He was Arthur R. Eldred of Oceanside, NY.
  
• 1940   Exiled Communist revolutionary Leon Trotsky died in Mexico City from wounds inflicted by an assassin.
  
• 1945   President Harry S. Truman ended the Lend-Lease program that had shipped some $50 billion in aid to America's allies during World War II.
  
• 1950   The United Nations moved into its new permanent facilities in New York City -- on land donated by the Rockefeller family.
  
• 1959   The Hawaiian Islands became the State of Hawaii by a proclamation signed by U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower. In March of 1959, the statehood bill had been passed; but it contained a stipulation that the residents of the Hawaiian Islands would have to give their vote of approval. Three months later, they did so -- and by a huge margin. Hawaii, the Aloha State, finally became the 50th state of the United States of America. Although the Aloha State is made up of a chain of 122 volcanic islands spread out over 1,600 miles, only seven, at the southeastern end of the chain, are inhabited: Hawaii (the Big Island), Maui (the Valley Isle), Lanai (the Pineapple Isle), Molokai (the Friendly Isle), Kauai (the Garden Isle), Niihau (the Forbidden Island), and Oahu (the Gathering Place). Oahu is the home of the state capital, Honolulu, and about 75% of the state’s population ... a population that is truly a melting pot of all races and religions. The yellow hibiscus is the Hawaii state flower. The nene or Hawaiian goose is the state bird and the the humuhumunukunukuapua’a is the state fish. The state motto of Hawaii is: Ua mau ke ea o ka aina i ka pono. = The life of the land is perpetuated in righteousness.
  
• 1983   Philippine opposition leader Benigno S. Aquino Jr., ending a self-imposed exile in the United States, was shot dead moments after stepping off a plane at Manila International Airport.
  
• 1986   More than 1,700 people died when toxic gas erupted from a volcanic lake in the West African nation of Cameroon.
  
• 1987   Sgt. Clayton Lonetree, the first Marine ever court-martialed for spying, was convicted in Quantico, Va., of passing secrets to the KGB.
  
• 1991   A hard-line coup against Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev collapsed in the face of a popular uprising led by Russian federation President Boris N. Yeltsin.
  
• 1997   Hudson Foods Co. closed a plant in Nebraska, agreeing to destroy some 25 million pounds of hamburger after the largest meat recall in U.S. history.
  
• 1998   Samuel Bowers, a 73-year-old former Ku Klux Klan leader, was convicted in Hattiesburg, Miss., of ordering a 1966 firebombing that killed civil rights activist Vernon Dahmer.
  
• 2002   A jury in San Diego convicted David Westerfield of kidnapping 7-year-old Danielle van Dam from her home and killing her; he was later sentenced to death.
  

Happy Birthday To

• 1904   (William Allen) Count Basie (bandleader)
  
• 1936   Wilt (Wilton) Chamberlain (Basketball Hall of Famer)
  

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