Unfit for Demand

KOF posts about Amazon's new policy exception.* Of course, I posted about this in Amazon's Double Standard but I wanted an excuse to post about it yet again.

The only conclusion I can draw from Amazon's recent policy exception is this:
If you are a right-wing blogger and you're linking to materials available from Amazon.com then, apparently, you're helping to support the left.

I've purchased my last book from Amazon. Join me.

*I would've posted about this before KOF, but daughter #2 was hogging the computer.

Amazon's Double Standard

Amazon.com has decided that it's okay for reviewers to engage in attacks against the book, Unfit For Command. The following appears on the amazon.com website when you click for product details on the book:

Important note from Amazon.com: We've decided to suspend our normal customer review policies and rules for this title. For example, we usually prohibit ad hominem attacks. That policy in particular seems to be incompatible with presidential election year politics. Therefore, short of obscenities, reviews on this book are now a free-for-all. We take no responsibility for the following discussion. Aren't presidential election years great? Have fun!

Of course, there have been numerous books attacking President Bush and there hasn't been any "change in policy" for those books - just this one. I'm not sure what is so dangerous about this book that the rules need to be changed in order to attack it.

I buy a lot of books, most of them from Amazon, but as a result of their decision to play partisan politics I will not spend another dime there and I would encourage others to make the same decision. Furthermore, if you're one of those bloggers who advertises books for Amazon through their affiliate program I would encourage you to seriously consider whether you want to support them.

I would also encourage you to complain to Amazon. One way to do this is to use the form found here. Another way is to write a "review" for this book expressing your disappointment in their actions. Many, many others have written reviews of this sort,

This is an admittedly bogus review. But along with many other Amazon customers the bias demonstrated by your site since the surprising success of this book turns my stomach. Christmas is near, and after 7-8 years of filling stockings from here, it is now ABA- "Anybody But Amazon." We will leave you to your new 527 partners, John Sperling and PoliPoint Press.
-Gloomy Gus

What I actually find to be DISGUSTING is Amazon's left-wing action of allowing any and everything to be said about this book and it's contributors, but not allowing readers to do the same to all of the left-wing garbage they peddle which attacks President Bush. For that reason I will never buy another item from Amazon.com. I have long been a regular customer and I've bought thousands of dollars worth of merchandise from the site, but never again. If you are a true American, boycott Amazon.com. Don't support left-wing agendas.
-Mr C.

And finally there was this "review" that is a little off-topic but amusing...

After reading this book, I have the utmost admiration for Kerry.
1 month in training, 3 months in combat: 1 Silver Star, 1 Bronze Star and 3 purple hearts... in 3 months! He must have been extraordinarily heroic. Not only that, he never required hospitalization for any of his purple hearts, conserving our precious military medical resources. He was super soldier: heroic and bullet proof. He should be our next Commander In Chief. With proposals of downsizing the military to a smaller, more capable force, John Kerry can be our new hero, flying around with his cape, racking up purple hearts, bronze stars, blowing up the bad guys...
-Traveler

Now is a chance to make your voice heard. There have been a lot of news stories about Bloggers vs. Old Media. Well, this is bloggers against the establishment and it's a chance to show Amazon that they can't take our business for granted.

By the way, Barnes and Noble seems to have a decent site for buying books. The book, Unfit for Command, can be purchased from Barnes and Noble by going here.

The Best of Cyber Alert

The Media Research Center documents cases of liberal bias. They have a great website (MRC) and it's possible to spend a lot of time there. They've just come out with their Best of Media Reality Checks for the Summer with some things you might not have heard in the MSM. For example,

Senator Clinton was booed when she walked on stage last October at a rock concert in Madison Square Garden to benefit 9/11 victims. It was shown live by VH1 but, as ABC's John Stossel illustrated in a July 20/20 special on media distortions, when the Viacom-owned cable channel replayed it sound technicians replaced the booing with cheering and applause. And that version is the permanent record VH1 put onto its DVD of the event.

Visit the site for more.

(I found out about this from another blog - but I can't remember which one. So, thanks for the tip - whoever you are.)

Top 10 Ways to Know You're a Loyal Republican

1. You only have Hunts ketchup in your refrigerator. (no more heinz)*
2. You receive junkmail from the RNC and/or "President Bush" almost every day.
3. You're tempted to go see "Meet The Fokkers", the sequel to "Meet The Parents" until you learn that Barbara Streisand is in it.
4. You don't watch CNN unless you're in a hotel that doesn't carry Fox News.
5. You have a Bush-Cheney 04 bumper sticker on your lawn tractor.
6. You still remember 9/11
7. You Blog for Bush
8. You aren't tempted by this site.
9. Every time you see the symbol for the Democratic Party you think it was an excellent choice for them.
10. You think it might be fun to visit Midland, TX (but not until Winter. No one's that much of a Republican.)

*Yes I know that neither John Kerry nor his wife, Te-ray-zah, benefit from the purchase of Heinz ketchup, but I still don't like seeing it in the refrigerator anyway.

The Denzel Fan Club

Have a mentioned that I've suddenly become a huge Denzel Washington fan?
It's not just because I loved, Remember the Titans or Glory.

It's also because he's the only one in this interview who isn't a card carrying member of the loony left.

Thanks to Keeping Apace for giving me a distorted version of this story so I could chase down the transcript.

Focus

Yes, we really do need to focus on the issues. I'd like to hear more about Kerry's voting record and examine how it contrasts with his stated positions. But it's hard to focus on all of that when this kind of information remains out there and awaits some type of response.

Creative Campaigning

Over at Jo's Attic I saw a reference to something called, F** The Vote. From their website there's this:

At F** The Vote we provide a Pledge Sheet that can be used conveniently before becoming physically intimate with a conservative. The Pledge Sheet asks the signee to make a promise to vote for anyone but George Bush in the November election. FTV has not endorsed a single candidate but recommends strategic voting. We also encourage FTV fans to take road trips this summer to swing(er) states to collect pledges. If you collect a pledge let us know about it on the Swinger States page! Have safe fun f**ing over Bush while f**ing for votes.

Apparently, this group offers to have sex with anyone willing not to vote for George Bush.

Then there's this dubious claim,

SEXY LIBERALS OF THE U.S. UNITE in taking back the government from the sexually repressed, right-wing, zealots in control! Everyone knows liberals are hotter than conservatives - we look hotter, we dress hotter, our ideas are hotter, and we are infinitely hotter in the sack.

I guess this is debateable but when I find out someone's a lib, that's almost an immediate turn-off. And aren't there studies that show that happily married people have more sex and better sex than those who bed hop?

I wouldn't even have to take advantage of the services offered at this site in order to feel ashamed of myself the next morning. All I would have to do is vote for John Kerry -- I'd feel like taking a shower almost immediately.

If you're so inclined, check out the website here.

In The Marketplace

In the marketplace of ideas, it's wise to be a smart consumer. In our open and free society there is no shortage of ideas and if you continuously evaluate all that's available, you might find yourself being a bit overwhelmed and even confused by all of them.

This is just as true for religious beliefs. For example, I struggle with the idea of evolution. Ultimately, whether evolution is true or not doesn't really challenge any basic Christian beliefs, but I still find myself questioning. It seems to me that the Bible tends to imply that God actively created everything rather than just starting certain mechanisms and watching them unfold. If not, then it seems that the biblical account would mention such a process. For that reason, it matters to me on a personal level as I continue to evaluate other things the bible claims.

The idea of macro-evolution seems pretty far fetched to me and to buy into it, I think, takes more faith than to believe that God just created everything. But there are some troubling aspects to this. If we didn't evolve then why do we have things like body-hair on our arms and legs? It doesn't seem to serve any useful purpose, yet there it is. Why is it that we have an appendix? Or how about those creatures that have both lungs and gills? These kinds of things can be troubling to a creationist. (You might want to check out Joe Carter's excellent posts on the topic of evolution, Hothouse Science... and My Remedial Education.... The comments are very thought-provoking too.)

Other arguments for evolution, like the fact that our DNA is very similar to that of other animals, aren't quite as compelling to me. I don't see why it would be odd for God to use the same types of building blocks for all living creatures, especially when they need similar mechanisms to survive in their environment. As someone with computer programming experience, making things modular and extensible makes good sense.

It's easy to get confused and misled by the marketplace of ideas if you don't keep the basic foundation of your beliefs in mind.

For me, these come from the gospel accounts of Jesus Christ. The accounts make it clear that Jesus disciples weren't naive followers. It took some convincing for them to follow him. They had to see with their own eyes that he was supernatural. Even then, they assumed that he was a political messiah sent to throw off the bonds of Roman oppression. It wasn't until the end that they realized he was a spiritual messiah. The bible doesn't gloss over these misunderstandings but lets them unfold naturally, as if the story really happened. (it did) It doesn't offer easy answers to problems and even many of the things Jesus did still mystify to this day.

The fact that the bible doesn't explain everything helps me to see it as credible. If I were to make up my own religion I know the tendency would be to try and hide the inconsistencies and difficulties, but the bible does none of that. It just lays everything out there and asks for you to believe at face value.

The disciples and early church fathers weren't following a "health and wealth" gospel. They were looked upon as being losers and knew they would most likely forfeit their lives for their beliefs yet they chose to continue. The most basic truth of Christianity is that a man existed who claimed to be the Son of God. He did various miracles as part of showing his disciples that he was indeed who he claimed. He came as a fulfillment of ancient prophecies, predicting he would die and be raised from the dead. After his death, he appeared to these disciples and encouraged them to share his teachings with everyone.

These disciples, knowing full well that what they said would most likely lead to their own deaths, continued to claim that Jesus was the Son of God who rose from the dead. They wrote about these events and distributed their writings to others who believe. From those early writings and the early believers, I have received the same information. It's my choice to choose to believe it or not. I choose to believe.

There are many things I don't understand, but this core belief is constant and fundamental to everything else. In the marketplace of ideas, it's wise to be a smart consumer.

Attention Comrades!

All loyal party members must visit here. And just so you don't forget who originated this schtick, go here for a refresher course.

Fact Check on Aisle 3

Factcheck.org seems to be a pretty good place to check out claims being made by the political campaigns, but they aren't perfect. QandO makes some good points in this post, Factchecking Factcheck.org...again. True Blue has also found some errors which she pointed out in, Fact checking the fact checkers, volume 2 .

Presidential Penmanship

I regularly receive emails from the Bush-Cheney campaign looking for my support. These are mass mailings and are the typical cheesy fare you'd expect from any campaign. Today's email purports to be from Barbara and Jenna Bush.

It says what you'd expect, but the interesting thing (to me at least) is the signatures at the bottom of the email.

I'm appalled. Barbara has horrible handwriting! I'm not even sure she spelled her own name correctly. I don't know what this signature says about her. My amateur analysis is that it says she's, "impulsive, disorganized, and creative". I'm sure she's probably nice and all that but if I were signing such a thing I would definitely use better handwriting.

They included a picture in the email too:

I wonder, what does Kerry's daughter's handwriting look like?

Best Place to Die

What's the best place to die? No, I don't mean, in the family room or the kitchen - what's the best state? An article in Forbes looks at various factors in order to determine the best state in which to die.

In America, the way we die is largely determined by where we live. Geography dictates what kind of care is provided to the dying and whether death following a long illness occurs at home, in a hospital or in a nursing home. [Source]

The article examines seven different criteria then ranks the states accordingly. They use things like quality of health care available, legal protection and even estate taxes. (Read the whole article here.)

I happen to live in Illinois, but it turns out that Illinois isn't a very good place to die. It ranks 49th out of 50. The only place worse is Washington, DC. The best places to die are Utah, Oregon, Delaware and Colorado.

I guess I'd better put the house up for sale.

Thanks to Sarah for pointing out this article.

Strengthen The Good

Strengthen The Good is a cool new effort designed to help bloggers make some worthy contributions. It highlights "micro" charities in order to really make a difference. The while effort is described in more detail here.

You'll be seeing more about this organization and future projects here!

Sleeping with The Enemy?

Would you marry someone who is a Democrat? Or, if you're a Democrat, would you marry a Republican?

I've heard of married couples from different political parties but I'm not sure if I've ever met any.

While there are certainly a lot of other important factors in a relationship, I have to admit that I can't imagine marrying someone who fervently supports the Democrats. It might've been more likely twenty or thirty years ago. In those days, Democrats and Republicans didn't necessarily share a different worldview - only a different emphasis on priorities. In the present, though, it seems there are much more fundamental differences.

Fortunately I'm happily married to someone with all the right ideas. In the unlikely event that I ever got married again, it would be highly unlikely that I would marry a Democrat. Okay...maybe if she was really good looking.

Swimming Through Spin

This article is an oldie but a goody.

Pandemonium in NYC?

In this blog I've stated my opinion that there will be massive disruptions of the Republican Convention in NYC. (I believe the press will focus more on these disruptions than the convention itself.) Joe over at EO does a much better job of making the case in his post, Will Protestors Violently Disrupt the GOP Convention?

Connections

The Bush Campaign has been accused of having connections with the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. However, a look at the Kerry campaign reveals some interesting connections to these so-called 527 groups.

Jay Caruso adds some additional detail.

...and for those who use John Kerry's website as your source of definitive information, as the post here seems to indicate, maybe there really was some good information there.

Touch and Go

Go ahead, I dare you. In fact, I double-dog dare you, "touch" the photo on this page. Not exactly what we've been lead to believe is it?

Entropy and John Kerry

There's a crack in the foundation of John Kerry's campaign for President. It's a very small crack but I believe it marks a critical turning point. The beginning of the end started at his nomination as the Democratic Candidate. You might recall in his speech how he took several backhanded swipes at the President and then pleaded for increased civility. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see the hypocrisy. Possibly as a result, Kerry didn't get the hoped for bounce from the convention.

Next, the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and the accompanying book, Unfit for Duty, sought to puncture still more holes in Mr. Kerry's contention that his duty qualifies him to be President. Mostly the mass media has ignored the Swift Boat Vets except for a few articles recently that don't even bother to look at any of the individual claims in it. Still, some doubt has been cast on Mr. Kerry's veracity. (Personally, I have no idea if any of the claims in the book are true since I haven't read the book but I think it has people asking some questions. See this article for one description of the elite media reaction. )

Then there are John Kerry's numerous flip-flops. The most recent was his criticism a few days ago of President Bush's proposal to reduce troop levels in Europe and Korea. Kerry labeled this as a foolish and dangerous move yet on August 1st he essentially proposed the same thing in an interview on ABC News.

Finally, the most telling reason I think the Kerry campaign has seen it's zenith comes from a much less scientific observation. Over the last week or so I've noticed an increasing number of people on-air doing John Kerry parodies. They'll wind up their best sonorous voices and begin, "This President..." It's not hard to do a John Kerry parody. I believe even I can do one. In fact, when I hear John Kerry speaking, I notice that he's starting to sound like a parody of himself. That's trouble for the Kerry campaign and it marks a turning point in his efforts.

Still, a lot of things could happen between now and the election. The Republican convention is coming but I'm not expecting a big bounce for the President from it. First of all, as I've said here in the past, I believe the media will spend a large amount of time focusing on the anarchists, communists, and assorted goofballs efforts at disrupting the convention. It gives them the perfect excuse to ignore the President and his party. Also, there's still the specter of a potential terrorist attack and no one can predict how that will play out.

Without any major developments, Kerry will continue to lose ground even with the sympathetic coverage he's gotten from the media elite. The fact is, the more the public learns of this man, his flip-flops and his pandering, the less they like him. All at once now put on your best important sounding senator voice and say it with me, "This President..." because after November 2nd it just won't seem as relevant.

More Questions About His Record

Jennifer points to some interesting observations about the military records John Kerry has posted on his website. Read about them here.

Military Commenter

It's tempting to think of the soldiers (and marines) on duty in Iraq as being saints. It's also tempting to think that all of them are full of altruistic motives and genuinely support their commander-in-chief and the effort to free a nation. Unfortunately, that isn't the case. ..

On a recent post about Corn (The post was literally about corn.) I received the following comment from a guy named Rick,

It's off topic, but I thought I'd message the most recent entry. I was wonder how you felt that our soldier's in Iraq are getting shot at while helping transport drilling equipment from Texas oil companies? Is that what we went to war for?

Of course, I've heard plenty of "no blood for oil" from the loony left so I went a little ballistic and replied,

Of course Rick, it's all about the oil. That's why we're paying almost 2 bucks a gallon. Oh yeah, and Bush knew about 9/11 ahead of time and Dick Cheney is secretly in charge and Bush and Bin Laden are in bed together... what a tool you are rick.
Imagine seeing oil drilling equipment in a country whose main export is...oil. You really have a hot news flash there. Take your paranoid rantings someplace else.

Apparently Rick is a soldier in Iraq. From that vantage point, Rick seems to have some pretty strong opinions,

People comment about John Kerry and how he opposed the war after being lauded as a true hero; I'm not a big John Kerry fan, but I'm a firm believer that in order to have the right to oppose the war, you should have participated in it.
Your reaction couldn't have been more perfect. Rabid, Neo-Conservatives kill me with their predictability. "Take your paranoid rantings someplace else." You say? Allow me to retort.
I'm an Infantry squad leader currently serving in Iraq. I'm a model leader, having been promoted at the fastest rate the Army allows. I've attended numerous school and am being awarded for bravery in combat. I only mentioned the above scenario because that's exactly what happened not too long ago. Even worse, I had three new soldiers, barely out of Basic Training on their second mission during that. What if they would have died? For what? So we could ensure the safety of, yes, a Texas oil company's equipment? This isn't paranoid ranting, sir. It's a true story, given by someone that IS in a position to comment on this war. I would never have commented here, but that your blind, rabid obdience (I'm sure you call it "patriotism"), sickens me. I am a patriot. I love my country and will fight to my last breath for it whenever and wherever.
Just thought I'd let you see another perspective in your World of Blinders.

So, it would appear, that I'm posting this from my World of Blinders (hey that might be a good name for a blog.) My problem with this whole interchange is that I pretty much idolize a lot of our soldiers, but this whole thing forces me to admit that they aren't all great guys I'd like to have over for a cup of coffee. Maybe Rick is an okay guy and maybe I'd like him if I met him in person, but I don't really like his self-righteous attitude or the fact that he's ready to cast judgements on me based purely on whatever he's read at this blog.
I'm willing to concede that he has a perspective that I could never have sitting here in my living room, but I don't think he has some kind of lock on the truth. I guess that's what I was trying to get across in my reply to his post,

Rick,
Who would've thought a post on corn would generate so much heat?
I'm happy that you have the opportunity to serve your country and would basically let you get away with saying just about any crazy thing based on the fact that you've literally risked your life for it.
I think you would probably agree though that your position doesn't give you any great revelation on absolute truth.
The fact is that there are a lot of seemingly meaningless things for which soldiers risk their lives. I happen to think that protecting equipment used in the rebuilding of a country isn't necessarily worthless. I wonder - if this drilling equipment was from Saudi if you or someone else would be complaining that the least we could do is get it from our own country.
As far as your comment about blind rabid obedience, I'm not sure what made you decide that so there really isn't much way to address that charge. I would say, on the contrary, that I tend to be a skeptical person and in this blog I've been critical of everyone including President Bush, Republicans, other Republican members of congress, etc.
Perhaps your position doesn't give you a broad enough perspective on the political climate here in the states or who knows really why you feel the way you do...
Either way, I can honestly make the same statement you made,
I am a patriot. I love my country and will fight to my last breath for it whenever and wherever.
If that's not good enough in your judgement I suppose there's nothing I can do about that.
By the way, you might be seeing your post show up on the front page of this blog since you raise some important points that I'd like others, especially other milbloggers to comment on.

So there it is. I really would like to hear from some of you milbloggers out there. Who's off-base here? And Rick, if you're reading this, there's no malice behind this. I appreciate your willingness to do your duty and wish both you and your men well. (but you're still wrong)

Blog Birthday

Much to the chagrin of people who know me, time and dates have always seemed to have a fuzzy meaning. Not that I'm late all the time it's just that my inner sense of time is rather fluid. For instance, I rarely can tell you the correct date on the first guess. Sometimes I can get it on the second or third try.

So it's not surprising that my 1 Year Blog Birthday came and went without me realizing it. Looking back through the archive I see that my first post was on August 8th of last year.

I haven't exactly achieved Fame and Fortune Through Blogging but that's not what I set out to do. Mainly this started as an opportunity for me to express some thoughts about current events and whatever else happened to come up.

Through the past year I've "met" some great people who continue to frequent this blog and weigh in from time to time with their comments. People like Douglas, Jen, John, Joe and others...

It's been fun not only to write but to see what others are saying. Now, let's see if I can make it to year two.

Olympic Yawn

I've watched a little bit of the Summer Olympics so far, but this event has long ago ceased to be of much interest to me. The olympics has become homogenized, with every last drop of anything interesting sucked out of it. For me, the olympics is a big yawn as a result of the following:

• Nationalism is verboten - National pride, especially American pride is under emphasized. Instead, "human achievement" is lauded without regard to the pride of one country defeating the other in sport. Occasionally, some national pride manages to leak through. The 1984 Olympic victory over the Russian Hockey Team is an example. A big part of the rationale behind the olympics is that if nations could meet each other on a playing field then they wouldn't feel such a need to meet each other on a battlefield. But in today's politically correct environment, national pride is downplayed. You won't hear any of the American commentators refer to the US team as "we" or "our" team either.
  
• Religion is swept under the carpet. Of course, religion doesn't have a lot to do with sports. It isn't a venue where religion of any kind needs to be promoted. However, when you consider the role religion plays in the lives of others in "elite" positions such as professional sports or military special forces, it isn't unreasonable to assume that at least some of the athletes would feel free to share how their faith has motivated them. You won't hear any of that though. If it exists, it's conveniently edited out. (Remember, Chariots of Fire?)
• The event is over-produced. It's getting to be all too predictable. Each Olympics, certain human interest stories are pushed. There's nothing inherently wrong about this, but it's gotten so formulaic that the whole thing begins to seem a bit contrived.
• The event is antiseptic in the extreme. - Back when the biggest foe at the olympics was the eastern bloc countries, it seemed there was more of a sense of drama. Nowdays you won't see athletes going out of their way to trumpet their wins. You won't likely hear them swearing when they miss something they should've gotten. Whatever happened to the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat?

I'm sure I'll tune in to part of the olympics, but for the most part it just seems pretty ho-hum.

Corn

The corn looks great this year. At least in this part of the country. I'm not a farmer, but a mere two or three blocks from my house is a huge swath of country consisting of nothing but corn fields. In fact, you could probably argue that this is the best place in the world to grow corn. I'm betting that 98% of those reading this blog could care less about corn, but for those lucky 2% here are some little known corn facts:

• Corn is in the bamboo family. That's pretty much a no-brainer if you've ever looked at a corn stalk.
• Most of the corn you see out in those fields is field corn. It tastes very bland and isn't the same stuff you buy at the store. That's known as sweet corn.
• Raccoons love to eat sweet corn too, but they stay away from field corn.
• The average ear of corn has 800 kernels and 16 rows.
• Corn is produced on every continent of the world except Antarctica.
• Most farmers alternate their fields with soybeans due to the fact that corn takes something out of the soil that the soybeans put back. (I don't know what that something is though.)
• The National Corn Growers Assoc website title is, "The World of Corn 2003". Yeah I know, it's a pretty corny title.
• During hot August nights in the Midwest you'll swear you can hear corn growing.
• It's pretty easy to get lost in a cornfield and if it's hot enough it can be fatal too.
• Detassling corn is a nasty hot job, but it provides legions of country kids with some decent spending money.
• Contrary to their name, Corn Snakes are not made out of corn.
• The Corn Palace in South Dakota isn't actually made out of corn. Corn is just used to decorate the walls and, if you ask me, it's a pretty boring place to visit.

Okay, that's it for the corn facts. It's a Saturday and I'm tired of politics...and remember, Corn is our friend.

(If you reached this article because you were searching for "Porn", go back and check your spelling.)

Hey Parableman!

After an extended hiatus, (the last interview was in June) this is the 10th in a series of interviews with bloggers who are part of The Blogdom of God. The Blogdom of God is a loose group of Blogs that identify themselves as 'God blogs'.

Today's interview is with Jeremy Pierce of Parableman. Besides being a part of The Blogdom of God, Jeremy is an adjuct instructor at Syracuse
University and Le Moyne College as well as a graduate student in Philosophy at Syracuse. Since he's into thinking heavy-duty thoughts, I gave him some "advanced" questions. Read the interview to see how he answers them.

Q: Who are the Brown Derbies and why
do you like them?

A: They're an a capella group at Brown University, where I did my undergraduate
degree. I had a very good friend in the group, and I got to know many of
them during my time there. I liked them because, at least at the time, they
were one of the best collegiate a capella groups in the country. They had
excellent arrangements, specializing in trying to sound as much like the
popular songs they were doing, including mouth drums and so on. It was about
as far from doo-wop as you can get. They were one of the first groups to do
that sort of thing well. Everyone's doing it now. They also had a unique
brand of humor at their live shows, and it even sometimes showed up on their
albums (like beginning one album with the DTS theme, done a capella).

Q: Have you experienced any liberal discrimination due to your conservative
beliefs at either Brown or Syracuse?

A: I don't know about any discrimination at either place. Brown is generally
open-minded in a truly liberal way. Unlike the inconsistent liberals who
tolerate everyone except those they don't consider tolerant, most people at
Brown tolerate everyone, including exclusivistic Christians. Often it's the
demeaning sort of "you can believe that if it's good for you" line, which
doesn't accept what the person is realing claiming, that the gospel has a
demand on everyone. Still, the tolerance displayed consistently is nice in
that no one is overtly hostile to the individual Christian.

As for conservative beliefs, I had lots of great discussions at Brown. There
were plenty of active conservatives and libertarians there. Jacob Levy, who
blogs at The Volokh Conspiracy, was at Brown during my time there and was a
prominent name on campus. I think he wrote for the daily paper or something.
Conservatives had a full voice there and weren't really marginalized. There
were ideas that I consider insidiously evil that the administration assumed.
These came out strongest in orientation and dorm events during the first
year. Still, open discussion was always encouraged, as long as no one
insulted anyone outright, and I was never inclined to do that sort of thing
anyway.

I think a number of my fellow graduate students consider me totally nuts for
being a Christian. Many of them disagree with my political beliefs very
strongly. Many of them may not know what I really think, though word is
probably getting out more because of the blog. Still, I don't see how it's
really affected how I get along with anyone. There are other, even more
vocal, conservatives in my department, and sometimes they're fully accepted
by pretty much everyone as equal members of the department, including
socially. I'm more separated from everyone socially because I have a family
than I am for anything I believe. I was much more involved with people in my
department my first year when I was single in every sense and my second year
when I wasn't married but engaged.

Q: Have you decided on a dissertation topic? Any ideas?

A: No. Yes.

I had been planning to do something that didn't work out, though something
in the same general area might be fine. It had to do with issues related to
personhood, persistence through time, composition of material objects, and
coming into and going out of existence. I decided to put that off and work
on something else for a while, since I do need to have two comprehensive
papers before I'm officially in the dissertation phase, though I finished
all my coursework a couple years ago. Since I have something to say about
racial classification issues, I'm working now on a paper related to that,
which will get into philosophy of language and how kind-terms refer, the
metaphysical nature of kind categories like species (and presumably race),
the genetic issues about how much variation needs to occur between groups
for it to count as a legitimate category, and more philosophy of language
about ambiguity (or more likely polysemy, which is like ambiguity with more
than two meanings). I think race terms might be like that, and I've never
heard anyone even considering such a view, never mind defending it.

Q: I would imagine you've read a lot of Philosophy papers. Have there been any
that were really memorable because they were so good or bad?

A: I guess this doesn't include books. My favorite paper of all time is David
Lewis' "The Paradoxes of Time Travel". It's the best discussion of time
travel ever written, and most of it is readable enough that I've discussed
it in an introductory course. It does a lot more work than defending the
possibility of time travel (though also showing what's wrong with most time
travel stories in scifi). His paper "Are We Free to Break the Laws?" is also
quite excellent. Both of these papers explain what I think is the right
approach to free will -- compatibilism without necessarily endorsing
determinism on a physical level. His "Holes" is also a model of the styles
of contemporary metaphysics. Lewis' "Survival and Identity" and Ted Sider's
"All the World's a Stage" and "Four-dimensionalism" had a big impact on me
in my thinking about persistence through time.

In philosophy of religion, John Hawthorne's "Arguments for Atheism" is an
excellent defense against no-evidence arguments for denying God's existence,
and most of what I've read by Daniel Howard-Snyder on the problem of evil is
first-rate. William Alston's "Advice to Divine Command Theorists" is the
best discussion of God and morality anywhere, and he has a great paper on
how prior value judgments affect the epistemology of religious belief.

I tend to forget really bad papers, so I don't have good examples of any.

Q: How common is plagiarism in the classes you teach?

A: Last semester I had five cases, two from one person, but this is the first
time I've done regular papers in a few years. When I do dialogue papers I
rarely see it. I caught eight cases in my first year of teaching, though, so
when they have assignments that they can do it they will.

Q: What do you think of homeschooling children?

A: I prefer homeschooling parents. They're generally better at the teaching
part of it than children would be.

I see nothing wrong with homeschooling. In many cases it may be the best
option, but it has huge downsides. Christian parents who homeschool are
robbing their children of both privileges and responsibilities if they don't
find some other way to get their children interacting in a regular and
time-intensive way with children who aren't from Christian homes. It would
also be very bad for Christian parents to abandon public schools to having
no salt and light, at least as a general practice. Still, it sometimes might
be the best option for some parents. To insist that it's the only biblical
view is, I think, to be an apostate Christian. There are three
qualifications for excommunication in scripture: gross, unrepentant sin
(once challenged and given an opportunity to repent), gross, unrepentant
doctrinal error on basic gospel issues (once challenged and given an
opportunity to repent), and serious divisiveness without repentance (once
challenged and given an opportunity to repent). Those who insist that
parents are sinning by sending their kids to a public, private, or private
Christian school, or for that matter those who insist that parents are
sinning by homeschooling, are in danger of falling into that third category
and therefore being considered nonbelievers.

I researched some of the assignments Jeremy gives to his students. This is one of the questions he poses to them. I wondered how he would answer it himself. If you happen to be one of Jeremy's students you would be wise to read his answer before first answering for yourself. -jdm

Q: You're an angel. Given this information, God will do one of the following:
A) Create a world and roll a ten-sided die. If 1, he'll create life. If 2-10
he won't.
B) Create ten worlds. For the first, he'll roll a ten-sided die. If it's 1,
he'll create life then stop. If 2-10, he'll go on to the next world to roll
again until he's created life or run out of worlds. Is A or B more likely if
you find life? Is A or B more likely if you discover you've fallen asleep
and woken up on a planet with life? Explain your answer.

A: Given that you find life, A is more likely. Given that you happen to wake up
on a planet with life, B is more likely. I'm not going to go through the
equations to calculate this, but the second includes factoring in the
chances that you also happen to be on the planet where the life is, which
isn't the case with the first.

I don't think this ends up giving the consequence I once thought it did,
unfortunately, though I don't think it has the opposite consequence either,
so I've stopped using it with the design argument in opposition to the many
universes hypothesis. Instead, I just use the analogy of a group of marksmen
firing on someone point blank. If they miss, you might conclude that there
were countless numbers of firing squads, and chances are one of them would
fail somewhere. This just happened to be the one. You might. But you
wouldn't. It's much more likely that something design-wise happened.
Similarly, assuming the probability calculations the scientists give about
how likely the cosmological constants necessary for life were, and it
really is that unlikely, then a designer is a much better conclusion than
postulating oodles and oodles of universes. That's not an explanation any
more than postulating lots of firing squads is in the other case.

Q: What is your favorite philosophical argument/approach for defending the
faith?

My piece on my blog about a biblical argument for Christianity is the best
thing I can come up with right now, though I'd want to supplement it with a
number of other arguments.
(http://mt.ektopos.com/parablemania/archives/000305.html) One is the good
work by contemporary philosophers arguing that we don't need evidence or
proof to have knowledge. We don't even need to know that we know to have
plain and simple knowledge. The biblical descriptions of faith show it to be
a kind of knowledge given by God. If God is giving knowledge, then it's
about as good a source as any. Even if we, from a subjective point of view,
can't know that it's knowledge, it in fact is. When you put all that
together with responses to objections against the faith, I think you've got
a responsible picture of why it's not even just ok to believe what
Christianity says. It's easy to see how it might be eminently reasonable.
That would take a lot more work than I can really put into it here, but
those are important components of it. I think the traditional arguments for
God's existence have much more merit than most contemporary philosophers do,
but I don't think they're proofs, and they just come in on top of the stuff
I already said.

Q: Do you think there are passages in the New Testament that reflect the
culture of the time they were written and aren't meant to be prescriptive?

A: Yes. Paul tells Timothy to bring his cloak with him when he comes to see
him. I don't take that to be prescriptive. I'd have to find what remains of
Paul's cloak and what remains of Paul's body and then take it to him. So
would you. That's an obligation Paul never intended to carry on to anyone
except Timothy, and it's not even clear that it was an obligation for
Timothy.

Some people might accuse me of doing this with I Cor 14's command for women
to be silent and not speak in the gatherings of believers, but I take that
to be referring to the evaluations of prophecies during gatherings of
believers. Once seen in that context, I think it is prescriptive as it
stands. It never was meant to apply to just any old talking in the
gathering, which we see when we see Paul discussing the women who were
themselves prophesying earlier in the very same book. I doubt they were
prophesying silently.

Greeting with a holy kiss is culture-bound. The point is to greet with an
acceptable greeting common within a family. For us that might involve a hug
and for some more reserved just a handshake. For some today it still does
involve a kiss. The principle Paul was communicating stands today. The
specific application need not. I place head coverings and hair length in I
Cor 11 in the same category. One rule of thumb I think is worth following is
that if a command appears only once we shouldn't rely on that for anything
we hold as doctrinally binding. Any really important doctrine is based on
multiple texts and usually on texts throughout scripture in many cultural
settings. Some of the ones that appear only once are less clear simply
because it's not absolutely sure how much of what's being said is
culture-bound. I think those who hold a wholly egalitarian view of gender
roles are misguided and often letting today's cultural views guide their
hermeneutics and then saying that the NT culture is the one that affects the
text. So I think this sort of thing does go wrong often enough, but it's
legitimate to figure out what the main purpose the author had in mind. Paul
does seem very concerned with distinctions between men and women and how
that reflects the eternal role differences within the Trinity and between
Christ and the church. He doesn't ever seem to be giving a theology of hair,
veils, or kisses in their own right.

Q: What in the Bible has been the most puzzling to you?

A: Genesis and science, not just evolution or time within Gen 1:1-2:3, which I
think is fairly easy to handle on an old-earth view except for the problem
that comes up on some views related to a fallen world before the fall, and
there are things to say there that I'm not fully settled on, though that
aspect belongs in this list) but genealogies and lengths of lives, which
brings up the greater problem of large numbers in the OT, which perhaps
puzzles me even more.
The ethical issue of divorce in Ezra 9-10 is something I keep changing my
mind on, so I guess that's a sign of puzzlement.
I wonder a little bit about the end of Mark and why the best manuscripts
seem incomplete or show a very strange, sudden ending.
I'm a little puzzled at Jude's use of clearly unorthodox Jewish literature,
not really in the fact that he uses it but in how he uses it. There are
things to say there, but it's a little puzzling.
One minor issue of interpretation bothers me a lot for some reason. The best
exegetes of our time on I Peter 3, II Peter 2, and Jude have those passages
talking about Jesus preaching a victory message to demons in hell. These
exegetes take those passages to be about an interpretation of Genesis 6 that
the best exegetes of Genesis of our day think is not the best interpretation
of Genesis 6 and that it's about something else. I don't know what I think
about this anymore, but it has big consequences on what you say about the
use of the Old Testament in the New.

Q: Do you consider yourself to be an evangelical? Why or Why Not?

A: Yes. The why is pretty simple. Just about every definition I've seen, except
those loaded with a negative evaluation from the start, is true of me.
People disagree on what an evangelical is, but all of them would agree that
I'm one. Some might not call me a fundamentalist. Others would very much see
me as one. I think the word has ceased to be useful enough to care.

Q: "As a Christian, I think it's really fun to wait around on campus until I
see a likely victim, then hide behind a tree until I can pounce out and
tackle the person, ready to do the old "shove the Bible down the throat"
maneuver. Of course, it's best when I can beat the person on the head with
my very large Bible before I do the oral surgery part of the procedure."
I thought the above quote was pretty funny. Probably because I've met
Christians who were really like that. What do you think is the most
effective way to lead people to Christ?

A: The most effective method is become good friends with nonbelievers, to spend
lots of time doing things that you have in common, to be intentional about
bringing other believers into those relationships so that your nonbelieving
friend can be living in some ways within the scope of the Christian
community, and to live lives reflecting God's character, including being
honest about the gospel when but not insisting on putting it into every
situation but rather letting its significance define one's life. Those who
say to evangelize with your life and only speaking the gospel when necessary
are probably too far, but I lean more on that side most of the time.

Q: As a left-handed person did you realize that you're the spawn of Satan?
Besides Ehud, the left-handed judge, lefties don't seem to be very well
represented in the Bible. Seriously though, how do you think being
left-handed has affected you?

A: Sometimes the Bible uses the categories of the day to make points
poetically. That happens in Ecclesiastes, Proverbs, probably Psalms, and I'm
sure some of the prophets with regard to left and right. Some people think
it's really giving a hidden message about the American political spectrum,
which I think is hilarious and a great party joke when only conservatives
are around, but it's a pretty horrendous heremeneutical strategy. Left and
right stood for something in the Hebrew mindset, and what they stood for are
what those statements are really about.

I'm not left-handed, really. I can't write well with my left hand (basic
kindergarten level of development and out of practice). I learned many
things with my right hand. When my kindergarten teacher decided to teach me
to write with my right hand, it's because she believed me to be
ambidextrous. I think a better description would simply be non-dextrous.
Either because of the switch or maybe just some natural anomaly, both hands
are like most people's left hand.

Q: Do you listen to the Diane Rehm show often?

A: No. I think she has an annoying voice, an annoying accent I can't place,
annoying views, and a seriously biased approach to most issues. When my wife
is in the car, NPR is often on, even if I'm driving. When the car starts,
even when I'm alone, no music has yet been inserted, so I often see if an
intersting topic is on NPR, even if it's Diane Rehm. Normally I don't listen
to it more than a few times a month, with the occasional periods of more
intense exposure, as has unfortunately been the case in the last few weeks
when I teach my class and then drive home while she's on.

Q: Why do you think FDR was the worst president ever? It seems like there are
so many other choices you could have made.

A: He created the era of big government. There's so much debate about whether
his solutions really helped us get out of the Great Depression to begin
with, never mind whether they should have been kept afterward. I think he
was a moral coward, unwilling to press his conviction that we should get
into WWII earlier. He was also unduly high on himself, thinking the country
couldn't survive without him. Until that time no president had chosen to
break with tradition and run for a third term (and he ran for a fourth!),
even though there wasn't a constitutional term limit yet. It still shows
something about his character. The effect of his policies and the trends
they've started have got to weigh into his evaluation as heavily as the
incredibly good effects of what I see as norally repugnant decisions made to
rebel against the proper, God-given authority in the American Revolution.

Q: What happened between September 2003 and December 2003? There seems to be a
big hole in your blog archives during that period of time.

A: Nothing special, I don't think. I started my blog and did a test post in the
middle of the night when I couldn't sleep. I came back to it a few months
later and then really picked up with it. Part of my motivation was my wife
starting a blog, and I couldn't let her hog all the fun. I did have mine
first, after all, even if I hadn't done anything with it. I didn't really
know what blogs were when I set it up, and I started looking at blogs in
December as I was trying to figure out how to join the fun.

Q: Have you ever read Island of the Blue Dolphins?

A: No. It sounds vaguely familiar, but it's possible that I've never even heard
of it. Jeremy's wife is from Barbados and the book is set in Barbados. I read it in grade school and it's always been a favorite of mine.

Q: You're from a large family. All of your siblings look to be pretty
accomplished and intelligent. What do you think it was about your
upbringing that caused all of you to be the way you are? (or is it that you
just got lucky genetically?)

A: This question sounded like some sort of test question at first. My dad
taught us to think, and my parents encouraged us to pursue our interests,
giving us lots of chances to land on different things, I assume realizing
that if we pursue what we love we'll be more excited to thrive at it but
forcing us to do important things that we didn't want to do as well. There
are probably some good genes in there somewhere too.

Q: How has having an inter-racial marriage affected you? What kind of
experiences have you had in this regard?

A: In most ways that you might expect it to affect me, it just doesn't. Race is
part of everyone, especially white people who don't realize it, but it's not
the most distinctive part of either of us. I've answered some aspects of
this in this post: http://mt.ektopos.com/parablemania/archives/000557.html

Still, there are ways that I'm different because of an interracial marriage,
and I can't really quantify all of them. There was never a time since I've
known my wife that I didn't think she was beautiful, but it took some
adjusting for me to realize that standards of beauty I was raised with would
seek to undermine that judgment simply because of what I grew up being
conditioned to find more beautiful, e.g. lighter skin. When I decided I
wanted to marry her, I basically knew I was making an agreement with God
that my kids might not look very much like me. It's turned out that they
look much more like me than her in terms of skin color, but that's not what
I expected. Other ways it's affected me include being a little more
concerned about race issues than I might not otherwise have been,
particularly black-white issues (though I've long been more concerned about
them than most people I know) and a little more understanding of what it's
like to be black than I could possibly know otherwise, not that I can ever
know some things. It's never affected us in the ways you might expect. No
one in our lives shows any sign of thinking anything of it except a couple
people who consider it noble. Our premarital counselor hadn't even thought
to raise the issue and was unprepared to say anything about it when asked
if he had any advice. I think I'd hate living in the South, but here in the
northeast interracial marriage has become a fairly normal thing nowadays,
and most serious racism is gone or buried out of fear of those who hate
racists, which is most people.

Q: Do you think the fact that your wife is from Barbados makes her culturally
different than if she were born in the United States?

A: Yes. If you compare immigrants from Barbados with most African Americans,
there are huge differences in values. Some things are similar, like this
annoyingly nonchalant attitude toward timeliness and precision, but Bajans
tend to be much less race-focused than African Americans, despite their
equally oppressed past. They seem more inclined to see achievement in the
mainstream as something good and not something "other" because it's "white".
The biggest difference is that Barbados is so heavily influenced by the
British. They drive on the left, bake macaroni and cheese (calling it
macaroni pie) as one of their main staples, and have a heavy Anglican
presence in addition to their many Pentecostal churches. Her own church
background involves both.

Q: What do you hope to achieve with your blog?

A: My original goal was simply to have an easier way to put material I write on
the internet than my old website. Opening up a special program to FTP
everything, having to type in a password every time I want to do so, and
having to deal with editing it in unusual software or have multiple windows
open to know what it will look like is just too much. So I decided to use
the blogging format for ease of entrering things and an already-determined
organizational system. Then I got to know what the blogging community was
like, and I saw people I know reading my blog, and I came to have more
purposes. I guess I want people, particularly philosophers, to see what a
Christian trained in the most careful thinking the world has to offer has to
say about various issues. I want those unfamiliar with Christianity to see
aspects of it that they wouldn't be exposed to in their everyday life. I
want those who are politically liberal to see that not all conservatives are
alike and some are actually aware of what liberals think and why and still
resist some of their arguments. I want conservatives to rethink some of
their positions, particularly Christians who are conservative and who take
views that I see as unbiblical. I want Christians to rethink some of their
assumptions inherited from the spirit of our age. I want white people to see
some of the residual racism in society that they may even unwittingly
contribute toward. I want black people who don't already realize it to see
how much of racial reconciliation also needs to come from the black side and
what that might involve. My purposes really are many at this point.

It's not merely wanting to be well-known or wanting people to think highly
of what I write, though I sometimes have those desires. I'm driven mostly by
the realization that I've been placed in a certain situation, with the
abilities and drive that I have to learn, to think carefully and precisely,
and to express that learning and thinking in easily-understood formulations
(most of the time, anyway). I'm very good at finding holes in an argument
and not as good at coming up with arguments but good enough at regurgitating
good ones I know of. I consider myself wasting what God has entrusted me
with if I don't use those abilities to enrich the community of believers in
my circle of influence, which I've come to see is a lot different when it
comes to blogging.

Q: Is there anything else you'd like to say?

A: To all those who would misinterpret what I've said and then will challenge
me on it: "That's not what I said."

Please stop by Parableman and see what else Jeremy has to say.

If you haven't read previous Blogdom of God interviews, check them out here:
Josh Claybourn
Adrian Warnock
Fr. Jim Tucker (Dappled Things)
SecretAgentMan
Totem to Temple
LaShawn Barber
Antioch Road
Ryan's Head
Belief Seeking Understanding

If you are a member of the Blogdom of God and would like to be interviewed, please contact me. -jdm

Mosul Firefight

Thanks to JB for pointing out a new blog from a soldier who is in Iraq. A recent post reads like this,

I looked over and my PLT Sgt who was sticking out the hatch next to me a couple seconds ago was now dropped down from the hatch and now on his back. He was yelling, "I'm Hit! I'm hit!" I looked at his helmet and a bullet went right through his helmet and exited through the other side. Holy shit! I didn't see any blood on him. He looked completely dazed though. He took his Helmet off and observed the holes in his helmet. No fucking shit, the bullet entered his helmet, and exited through the other side, missing his upper forehead by like 1-100th of an inch. A fuckin miracle.

Read the rest of it at: My War.

Back in A Flash

I've entered a "tunnel" of meetings and work punctuated only by going home to sleep and, perhaps, to spend a few minutes on the computer. In a few days I'll emerge from the other side of this tunnel to write a few paragraphs. In the meantime, I've found a couple of nifty articles that have no relation to each other except for the fact that I enjoyed them. I hope you do too.

Draginol points to an article by OSC in Opinion Journal called, High Bias.
DC has joined the God Squad and the evidence can be found in this article called, Seeking God.
Cryptomaniac enlightens us to the fact that Another One Bites The Dust. (My title not his, but I like mine better.)
Finally, not only has the Consigliere (sp?) written a screenplay, but he's also actually making it into a film. Check out My Hero, the Film-making lawyer.

What They Shouldn't Teach in Film School

In the old Soviet Union, the director of this film would be shot for "crimes against the people". His trial and subsequent execution would be due to his use of the "shaky camera" technique in The Bourne Supremacy.

Paul Greengrass used the aforementioned technique to increase the intensity of the film, but he overdid it. My wife was seasick through half the movie. I enjoyed it, but it would've been a much better movie if it had been filmed in the usual way. Mr. Greengrass better hope The Commissar doesn't see this movie or it'll be 20 years in the gulag for him.

Go see it... if you don't get seasick easily.

How To Lose An Election, Part II

I hate it each month when my issue of The Layman arrives in the mail. It's not that I hate the publication as much as how it makes me feel to be a member of a church affiliated with the The PC (USA) Denomination. The Layman provides excellent information about what is going on in the denomination. This month it highlighted the results of the 216th General Assembly of the PCUSA.

If you're even vaguely aware of the internal struggles that have riven the Episcopal Church these past few years then you have an idea of a similar event occuring within the PCUSA. Conservatives and those who hold to a more traditional view of scripture and doctrine are struggling to prevent the PCUSA from getting an "extreme makeover" from those with a decidedly liberal slant.

The denomination HQ in Louisville, KY is a big part of the problem especially with the stated clerk, Clifton Kirkpatrick. Kirkpatrick has an annoying tendency to ignore actions of those in the church that violate church doctrine while at the same time aggressively pursuing his own left-wing political agenda with the UN, the World Council of Churches and other organizations.

There was an opportunity to be done with Kirkpatrick. He was up for re-election this year. There was some hope of getting a leader who would stand for the things the denomination supposedly believes. However, conservatives made sure to shoot themselves in the foot.

Kirkpatrick ran against three others who were more or less conservative than him. So, you have one liberal against three conservatives. Any guess about what would happen? That's right. The conservative's vote was spread out over the three candidates while the more liberal side stood solidly behind their champion.

I'm not sure which of the three candidates was the first to throw his hat into the ring. The other two should've stayed out of the race. I can't imagine how they thought they'd win. Thanks to them, we'll have Kirkpatrick to deal with for another term.

I wonder if he'll be the last stated clerk of the PCUSA.

How To Lose An Election, Part I

It's not often that I agree with the editorial page of The Red Star, but this time I do. It concerns the Illinois Republican Party. It isn't enough that they reportedly refused to stand by their candidate when he was facing a scandal he could've easily weathered. Or that they've been dragging their feet for 6 weeks to come up with a replacement. (Meanwhile, the Democrat's candidate, Barrick Obama, was busy being lionized at the national level.)

They've finally managed to irredeemably screw up the election. Instead of choosing a Republican from one of the potentially electable ones who actually lives in the state, they've chosen one who currently lives in Maryland.

But wait, there's more...the candidate they've chosen, Alan Keyes, is on record as opposing a Hillary-style campaign where the candidate doesn't actually live in the state that they are hoping to represent.

The Registar Star even comes up with a conclusion that I find difficult to argue against,

Coming on the heels of the George Ryan and Jack Ryan scandals, the choice of an out-of-stater makes the Illinois GOP hierarchy a national laughingstock. It sends the message that this scandal-ridden state party organization is in such bad shape that it can't even find a decent candidate from its own ranks.

Perhaps this answers the question about why I never donate directly to the Republican Party.

John Kerry in Vietnam

With the recent emergence of the "Swift Boat Veterans for The Truth" it seems the question of John Kerry's service in Vietnam is being re-examined yet again. I heard some people complain about how this issue has very little to do with the more important issues of the day. I have to agree. Unfortunately, Kerry has made his time in Vietnam the centerpiece of his campaign. He frequently invokes his service there as proof that he would make a good Commander-In-Chief.

Since Kerry thinks it makes him worthy of being Commander-In-Chief, then the issue is worth examining.

Joe Carter does a great job of examining this whole issue, especially since he uses Kerry's own statements as his primary source.
Don't miss these posts:
The Swift Boat Veteran with The Truth
The Swift Boat Veteran with The Truth (Part 2)

I find it ironic that many of the same people crowing about Kerry's war service as an asset were also against the Vietnam War in the first place.

Hatemail!

I finally received my first piece of hatemail!
To wit:

On Wed, 4 Aug 2004 12:44:04 -0700, revillusion@snowboard.com wrote:
I stumbled onto your website, read it, and have concluded that you are exactly what is wrong with this world.
I always thought conservative republicans were simply folks of a lower intelligence, who had not thought thier views through to a significant extent. Now I realize that some of them are also just assholes.
I cannot imagine what would make anyone belive in the shit you do, and it depresses me. Maybe you should think about exiling yourself to a desert island for a few years to reconsider your political opinions.
Just thought you should know how much your website disturbed me,
-Marla

Of course, I couldn't just let her email go unanswered,

Marla,
I'm sorry my website disturbed you. Maybe someday I'll be as smart and enlightened as you. Until then, do you know of a good desert island? Because I could really use a vacation.
-JDM

I don't agree with a lot of other blogs out there, but I wouldn't take time out of my day to write about what complete idiots I think their authors are. The odd thing is that there are a lot more bloggers much more right wing than me. If Marla were to visit ACOT, LaShawn Barber or even Arrgghhh! I imagine her head would be spinning.

A Big Splash - Or Not

Unfit for Command, the book that supposedly reveals some major shortcomings in John Kerry's war service and character, is set to be released soon. I have no idea if it's credible or not but I'm wondering if the author will get a full hour's worth of softball questions on 60 Minutes. Perhaps he'll even be on the cover of Time.

I don't think so.

A Disturbance In The Force

Sensing some type of odd disturbance in the force, I checked my site hits. Something fishy going on here...hits are up slightly yet I haven't posted anything, much less anything that anyone would find interesting, upbeat or even slightly quirky. I check the referers, hmmm...seems to be some traffic from The Politburo Diktat.

What the hey! I actually received a mention from them. I'm listed in the Blogville 1965 High School Yearbook. I didn't even get this much recognition from my real high school. I can die now knowing my blogging life is complete. Thank-you, oh thank-you comrades!

Yellow Journalism

Besides having one of the coolest names for a newspaper, The Pantagraph takes issue with some of the "liberties" Michael Moore has taken with it. The Pantagraph has a message for Moore,

If he wants to "edit" The Pantagraph, he should apply for a copy-editing job and not simply show made-over and "falsely represented" pages from the newspaper in his movie -- or he should at least ask for permission first.

Read the rest at The Pantagraph

Thanks to Ben for saving me the trouble of looking this up for myself.

Anarchists, Communists, and Assorted Goofballs

In this election year, the gloves are off. From the cavalcade of books released, (at very strategic times)the media promotion of these same books on television, and the films portraying the President in a negative light, there has been an unprecedented barrage of anti-Bush propaganda. (An article in the current issue of Atlantic Monthly goes into great detail on Hollywood's antipathy toward GWB. See it here.)

Ordinarily you'd expect the Republican Convention to receive the same type of coverage as the Democrat's convention. This year the media realizes there's too much at stake for that sort of thing. That's why I feel confident (or at least fairly confident) in predicting that this year's Republican Convention will be noted for the fact that the media will spend more time covering the protestors and their handiwork outside Madison Square Garden than they will the candidate.

You heard it here first.